{"id":211530,"date":"2017-08-13T02:35:45","date_gmt":"2017-08-13T06:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/life-in-fossil-fuel-free-utopia-townhall\/"},"modified":"2017-08-13T02:35:45","modified_gmt":"2017-08-13T06:35:45","slug":"life-in-fossil-fuel-free-utopia-townhall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/new-utopia\/life-in-fossil-fuel-free-utopia-townhall\/","title":{"rendered":"Life in fossil-fuel-free utopia &#8211; Townhall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><p>        |      <\/p>\n<p>        Posted: Aug 12, 2017 12:01 AM      <\/p>\n<p>    Al Gores new movie, a New York Times    article on the final Obama Era manmade    climate disaster report, and a piece saying wrathful people    twelve years from now will hang hundreds of climate deniers are a tiny    sample of Climate Hysteria and Anti-Trump Resistance rising to    a crescendo. If we dont end our evil fossil-fuel-burning    lifestyles and go 100% renewable Right Now, we are doomed, they    rail.  <\/p>\n<p>    Maybe its our educational system, our cargo cults easy access to food and    technology far from farms, mines and factories, or the    end-of-days propaganda constantly pounded into our heads.    Whatever the reason, far too many people have a pitiful grasp    of reality: natural climate fluctuations throughout Earth    history; the intricate, often fragile sources of things we take    for granted; and what life would really be like in the utopian    fossil-fuel-free future they dream of. Lets take a short    journey into that idyllic realm.  <\/p>\n<p>    Suppose we generate just the25 billion megawatt-hours of    todays total global electricity consumption using wind    turbines. (Thats not total    energyconsumption, and it doesnt    include what wed need to charge a billion electric vehicles.)    Wed need more than 830 million gigantic 3-megawatt    turbines!  <\/p>\n<p>    Spacing them at just 15 acres per turbine would    require12.5 billion    acres! Thats twice the land area of North America! All    those whirling blades would virtually exterminate raptors,    other birds and bats. Rodent and insect populations would soar.    Add in transmission lines, solar panels and biofuel plantations    to meet the rest of the worlds energy demands  and the mostly    illegal tree cutting for firewood to heat poor families homes     and huge swaths of our remaining forest and grassland    habitats would disappear.  <\/p>\n<p>    The renewable future assumes these eco-friendly alternatives    would provide reliable, affordable energy 24\/7\/365, even during    windless, sunless weeks and cold, dry growing seasons. They    never will, of course. That means we will have electricity and    fuels when nature cooperates, instead of when we need it.  <\/p>\n<p>    With backup power plants gone, constantly on-and-off    electricity will make it impossible to operate assembly lines,    use the internet, do an MRI or surgery, enjoy favorite TV shows    or even cook dinner.Refrigerators and    freezerswouldconk out for hours or days at a time.    Medicines and foodswouldspoil.  <\/p>\n<p>    Petrochemical feed stocks would be gone  so we wouldnt have    paints, plastics, synthetic fibers or pharmaceuticals, except    what can be obtained at great expense from weather-dependent    biodiesel. Kiss yourcotton-polyester-lycra leggings and    yoga pants good-bye.  <\/p>\n<p>    But of course all that is really not likely to happen. It would    actually be far worse.  <\/p>\n<p>    First of all, there wouldnt even be any wind turbines or solar    panels. Without fossil fuels  or far more nuclear and    hydroelectric plants, which rabid environmentalists also    despise  we couldnt mine the needed ores, process and smelt    them, build and operate foundries, factories, refineries or    cement kilns, manufacture and assemble turbines and panels. We    couldnt even make machinery to put in factories.  <\/p>\n<p>    Wind turbines, solar panels and solar thermal installations    cannot produce consistently high enough heat to smelt ores and    forge metals. They cannot generate power on a reliable enough    basis to operate facilities that make modern technologies    possible. They cannot provide the power required    tomanufacture turbines, panels, batteries or transmission    lines  much less power civilization.  <\/p>\n<p>    My grandmother used to tell me, The only good thing about the    good old days is that theyre gone. Well, theyd be back, as    the USA is de-carbonized, de-industrialized and de-developed.  <\/p>\n<p>    Ponder America and Europe before coal fueled the modern    industrial age. Recall what we were able to do back then, what    lives were like, how long people lived. Visit    Colonial Williamsburg and Claude Moore    Colonial Farm in Virginia, or similar places in your state.    Explore rural Africa and India.  <\/p>\n<p>    Imagine living that way, every day: pulling water from wells,    working the fields with your hoe and ox-pulled plow, spinning    cotton thread and weaving on looms, relying on whatever metal    tools your local blacksmith shop can produce. When the sun goes    down, your lives will largely shut down.  <\/p>\n<p>    Think back to amazing construction projects of ancient Egypt,    Greece or Rome  or even 18th century London, Paris, New York.    Ponder how they were built, how many people it took, how they    obtained and moved the raw materials. Imagine being part of    those wondrous enterprises, from sunup to sundown.  <\/p>\n<p>    The good news is that there will be millions of new jobs. The    bad news is that theyd involve mostly backbreaking labor with    picks and shovels, for a buck an hour. Low-skill,    low-productivity jobs just dont pay all that well. Maybe to    create even more jobs, the government will issue spoons,    instead of shovels.  <\/p>\n<p>    That will be your life, not reading, watching TV and    YouTube or playing video games. Heck, there wont even    be any televisions or cell phones. Drugs and alcohol    will be much harder to come by, too. (No more opioid crisis.)    Water wheels and wind mills will be back in fashion.    All-natural power, not all the time.  <\/p>\n<p>    More good news: Polluting, gas-guzzling, climate-changing cars    and light trucks will be a thing of the past. Instead, youll    have horses, oxen, donkeys, buggies and wagons again  grow    millions of acres of hay to feed them  and have to dispose of    millions or billions of tons of manure and urine every year.  <\/p>\n<p>    Therell be no paved streets  unless armies of low-skill    workers pound rocks into gravel, mine and grind limestone,    shale, bauxite and sand for cement, and make charcoal for lime    kilns. Homes will revert to what can be built with    pre-industrial technologies, with no central heat and    definitely no AC.  <\/p>\n<p>    Ah, but you folks promoting the idyllic renewable energy future    will still be the ruling elites. Youll get to live better than    the rest of us, enjoy lives of reading and leisure, telling us    commoners how we must live. Dont bet on it. Dont even bet on    having the stamina to read after a long day with your shovel or    spoon.  <\/p>\n<p>    As society and especially big urban areas collapse into chaos,    it will be survival of the fittest. And that group likely wont    include too many Handgun Control and Gun Free Zone devotees.  <\/p>\n<p>    But at least your climate will be stable and serene  or so you    suppose. You wont have any more extreme weather events. Sea    levels will stay right where they are today: 400 feet higher    than when a warming planet melted the last mile-thick glaciers    that covered half the Northern Hemisphere 12,000 years ago.  <\/p>\n<p>    At least it will be stable and serene until those solar, cosmic    ray, ocean currents and other pesky, powerful natural forces    decide to mess around with Planet Earth again.  <\/p>\n<p>    Of course, many countries wont be as stupid as the    self-righteous utopian nations. They will still use fossil    fuels, plus nuclear and hydroelectric, and watch while you roll    backward toward the good old days. Those that dont swoop in    to conquer and plunder may even send us food, clothing and    monetary aid (most of which will end up with ruling elites and    their families, friends, cronies and private armies).  <\/p>\n<p>    So how about this as a better option?  <\/p>\n<p>    Stop obsessing over dangerous manmade climate change. Focus    on what really threatens our planet and its people: North    Korea, Iran, Islamist terrorism  and rampant poverty, disease,    malnutrition and early death among the billions who still do    not have access to electricity and the living standards it    brings.  <\/p>\n<p>    Worry less about manmade climate cataclysms  and more about    cataclysms caused by policies promoted in the name of    controlling Earths climate, when they really end up    controlling our lives.  <\/p>\n<p>    Dont force-feed us with todays substandard, subsidized,    pseudo-sustainable, pseudo-renewable energy systems. When    better, more efficient, more practical energy technologies are    developed, they will replace fossil fuels. Until then, we would    be crazy to go down the primrose path to renewable energy    utopia.  <\/p>\n<p><!-- Auto Generated --><\/p>\n<p>Link:<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/townhall.com\/columnists\/pauldriessen\/2017\/08\/12\/life-in-fossilfuelfree-utopia-n2367137\" title=\"Life in fossil-fuel-free utopia - Townhall\">Life in fossil-fuel-free utopia - Townhall<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> | Posted: Aug 12, 2017 12:01 AM Al Gores new movie, a New York Times article on the final Obama Era manmade climate disaster report, and a piece saying wrathful people twelve years from now will hang hundreds of climate deniers are a tiny sample of Climate Hysteria and Anti-Trump Resistance rising to a crescendo. If we dont end our evil fossil-fuel-burning lifestyles and go 100% renewable Right Now, we are doomed, they rail. Maybe its our educational system, our cargo cults easy access to food and technology far from farms, mines and factories, or the end-of-days propaganda constantly pounded into our heads <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/new-utopia\/life-in-fossil-fuel-free-utopia-townhall\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187819],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-utopia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}