Reading down the preview a ways, there was a quote from James Watt's business partner about "a commodity which is the desire of kings..."
He meant power.
Most of the methods we use to produce power are non-renewable, burning - as the book points out - the legacy of an earth that is no more, when the oxygen content was far higher, etc. That earth is gone forever, so it's not like we can just plant more trees and wait a while.
So we're trying to develop renewable sources, which I'm totally in favor of.
But! Is it even possible to generate vast amounts of energy without warming the planet? Obviously the way we do it now has that effect, as well as many other problems. But it seems that even a dream energy source would have a warming effect, as we generate heat, friction, just general bustling movement.
I guess a future powered by a semi-limitless renewable energy source could deal with those consequences in some way, though.
Not that we necessarily would until well into that crisis... humans, sigh.
- shikantaza 2012-04-06 10:45:02 (74 views)
- underdog 2012-04-07 15:28:12 (84 views)
- underdog 2012-04-09 19:04:48 (37 views)
