Oh LaVarr, if only you understood...

I meant to write a post about this a long time ago, but I never got around to it.

Back on May 24 of this year, LaVarr Webb wrote something in a short piece on Utah Policy Daily about global warming:

"We've seen plenty of hysterical hand-wringing by environmentalists in the past (remember "“Silent Spring”?") Scaremongers have tried to frighten everyone about the population time bomb and depletion of natural resources, issues that have turned out to be just plain silly."

No LaVarr, those issues have not turned out to be "just plain silly." We're just extremely lucky that they haven't really been a problem for us...yet.

Whenever I try to explain peak oil to other people, one of the most common responses is for people to say "Well, we've always had enough energy in the past, so we'll be fine in the future." Or likewise, "Overpopulation and resource depletion haven't happened in the past like some people predicted, so things will be okay."

Of course they're committing a logical fallacy. Just because a certain condition has existed in the past, it doesn't guarantee that it will exist in the future. Another illustration of this logical fallacy would be for me to say "I've never had a serious illness before, so it's just plain silly to believe that I'll ever have one."

LaVarr, step back for a minute. Remember that the earth is endowed with a finite amount of metals which have important functions in our world. After being mined and refined and used for the first time, some metal ends up being recycled, and some metal ends up in pieces so small, in landfills, or rusted at the bottom of the sea that it can never be used again. They are essentially removed from the world's finite supply. If we continue the pattern of discarding metals, then the world's supply gradually shrinks (unless we start harvesting old metal from landfills, if that's even feasible). Eventually there comes a point when our supply of recoverable metals (whether it be from mining or from recycling) isn't sufficient to cover our needs, and then we have problems. We haven't had any problems yet, but we could in a couple of decades. Evidently some people are already talking about "peak copper."

Same thing goes with population. Sure, the world can support 6.5 billion people right now, but how will we support that same amount as our industrial agricultural capacity shrinks? Even if agricultural output could keep expanding, the earth still has only a finite amount of land and water. Population expansion has to stop sooner or later.

LaVarr, don't you remember learning about carrying capacity in biology class?

Preparing

I've just found a new site, www.peakoilblues.com. From a psychological perspective, it gives good tips for coping with the anxiety, depression, fear, panic, etc. that can come with learning about peak oil.

There's one part of the website that discusses the importance of being close to other people in your community. I'll admit, I still have a lot to do when it comes to proactively networking and getting to know everybody.

For me it's hard not to get depressed about peak oil. So I try to think that maybe some good will come out of it. Maybe most of us will become better people as we get to know and rely on our neighbors more. Maybe we'll become more grateful for what we do have. Maybe we'll have a deeper understanding of the world.

Only time will tell.

Oh so nice

Instead of going on another one of my cynical rants, I thought I'd write a post about something positive for a change.

I love lower 25th Street in Ogden. Out of the entire Wasatch Front north of SLC, 25th Street best fits Jane Jacobs' description of a successful urban neighborhood. It's built on a human scale and has a pretty good mix of uses. And at the bottom of the street Union Station serves as a nice focal point (Kunstler talks more about the importance of street-terminating focal points in The Geography of Nowhere).

Of course historically, 25th Street has a bad reputation of being an unsafe place with many bars and bordellos. But today that's not the case. As a matter of fact, compared to other streets nearby, I would dare say that lower 25th Street is the safest place in downtown Ogden. Why? Because the mix of uses creates a pretty constant flow of foot traffic that keeps eyes on the sidewalks. This is what Jane Jacobs describes as a self-policing street. People are on the sidewalk from seven in the morning when employees are going into the municipal building until 1 in the morning when people are leaving the clubs. I would rather be on 25th Street and Grant at night then on Adams and 21st. I dare guess that anyone familiar with Ogden would agree with me on that one.

If only the rest of our communities were set up as nicely as 25th Street.

Another way to look at gas prices

Ah yes, Doug Wright is still blathering on about how high Utah's gas prices are.

Here Doug, think of it this way:

You own a company that sells widgets. If you charge two dollars a widget, you sell a total of 500 widgets each month. But if you raise the price to three dollars a widget, you still sell 500 widgets each month. That being the case, wouldn't you raise the price from two dollars a widget to three dollars a widget if you knew that just as many people were still going to buy widgets from you?

It's the same thing with gas prices. Sure, retailers could sell a gallon of fuel for less, but they know that you'll still buy as much at a higher cost. The know you'll sit there and whine about it, but not actually change your personal habits, such as (gasp!) driving less.

Don't you believe in a free market economy Doug? In a free market economy, gas stations can charge however much they want, and consumers are free to decide how much gas they want to purchase. So if you really don't like high gas prices, then walk to church, carpool or take mass transit to work, and make sure that all of your local officials know just how harmful poorly planned, sprawled "development" is.