Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0705311134420.6053@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>,
Cyberculture <cyberculture@zacha.org>
Subject: [stuff-it] [Fwd: [Futurework] FW: SAPIENTIA 461 -- A long-haul to
a sustainable world economy] (fwd)
Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 11:35:07 -0400 (EDT)
======================================================================= Work on YouTube, blog at http://nikuko.blogspot.com . Tel 718-813-3285. Webpage directory http://www.asondheim.org . Email: sondheim@panix.com. http://clc.as.wvu.edu:8080/clc/Members/sondheim for theory; also check WVU Zwiki, Google for recent. Write for info on books, cds, performance, dvds, etc. ============================================================= ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 07:07:43 -0700 (PDT) From: mgurst@vcn.bc.ca Reply-To: stuff-it@vancouvercommunity.net To: stuff-it@vcn.bc.ca Subject: [stuff-it] [Fwd: [Futurework] FW: SAPIENTIA 461 -- A long-haul to a sustainable world economy] ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: [Futurework] FW: SAPIENTIA 461 -- A long-haul to a sustainable world economy From: "Cordell, Arthur: ECOM" <Cordell.Arthur@ic.gc.ca> Date: Thu, May 31, 2007 6:46 am To: Ottawadissenters@yahoogroups.com Cc: futurework@fesmail.uwaterloo.ca -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________ From: Keith Hudson [mailto:keithhudson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 1:16 AM To: khudson@handlo.com Subject: SAPIENTIA 461 -- A long-haul to a sustainable world economy DAILY QUOTE 461 -- A long-haul to a sustainable world economy "We are using up minerals at an alarming rate. How long before they run out? David Cohen, New Scientist, 26 May 2007 Despite being laughed at by economic growthists, the environmental doomsayers of the 1960s -- of whom I was one -- were largely right. We under-estimated the oil resources of the world. And we did not realise just how natural gas there was also. However, the present oil and gas prices show just how critical fossil fuels are in the present industrial world. Cheap fossil fuels will largely disappear in the next 100 years if present industrial growth continues. There will be plenty more, such as coal and tar sands, but energy will become very expensive indeed and will stop our present wasteful way of life. Economic growthists shrug this off by saying that new energy technologies will take over from our present era of burning fossil fuels. They point to nuclear power, solar technologies and big schemes such as wind farms and tidal barriers to generate electricity. But all these technologies also rely on cheap energy with which to make, and maintain, their engineering equipment and also other critical resources which have even shorter lifetimes than fossil fuels. The newer energy technologies will almost certainly have shorter lifetimes than the fossil fuel burning of the last 130 years. Careful studies by several academic teams around the world suggest that several critical materials needed by the modern electronic age are already in short supply. Key resources that are almost at vanishing point already are Gallium, Germanium and Rhodium. Other crucial materials and their anticipated lifetimes are as follows: Antimony (15 - 20 years) Hafnium (about 10 years), Indium (5 - 10 years), Platinum (about 15 years), Silver (15 - 2-0 years), Tantalum (20 - 30 years), Uranium (30 - 40 years), Zinc (20 - 30 years). Thus the irony is that the new, "post-industrial" electronic age is even more vulnerable to key resource shortages than the more old-fashioned, industrial, "metal-bashing" technologies ever were. For example, there seems to be no way that computerisation can grow as intensively in the future as it has in the past because of shortages of critical materials such as germanium. Nuclear power seems stymied by shortages of uranium. As to widespread solar technology by means of solar cells and electronic circuitry changing sunlight into electricity this will be stillborn. Whether one is considering countries which are trying to industrialise, or those developed countries which are fast changing to an electronic-based service economy, any sensible person reading the full article in the current New Scientist ("Earth Audit") cannot fail to be convinced that not only our present way of life (for the fortunate one-third) nor the contemplated future life (for all) is at all possible without a fantastic reduction in world population and a new, and totally different, way of life. There remains just one more possibility. This will comprise the bacterial production of hydrogen (for direct propulsion and also electricity generation) and also organic variants of consumer products which presently rely on metals and other energy-intensive materials. This will be done by technologies supervised by DNA -- the most sophisticated control technology ever discovered. We only need to cite spider silk which is stronger than steel or the still-remaining versatility of wood or the still-superior uses of natural fibres for clothes to prove our case. There is almost nothing presently made that cannot also be made by organic methods -- and could perform just as well -- as is now made by "modern" energy-intensive technologies. A start has been made on all these new technologies. But they require the most sophisticated understanding of chemical procedures than has ever yet been investigated by science. The new technologies will require a vastly expanded role for the biological sciences and to engage a much higher proportion of developed countries populations. While populations collapse around the world -- in both developed and undeveloped countries -- and the most momentous economic changes take place the realisation of a DNA-based future is going to be a long haul. Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org <http://www.evolutionary-economics.org/> > !DSPAM:2676,465ed29715221605213136! _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework !DSPAM:2676,465ed29715221605213136!