"Backstop technologies" Re: Re[3]: [at-l] fleece/cheap gear

[sloetoe@yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

--- Jim and/or Ginny Owen <spiriteagle99@hotmail.com> wrote:
(Weary wrote...)
> >Once oil is gone, it's gone  -- <and> We could even produce 
> >capilene with coal if we put our minds to it.
> 
### And then Jim wrote...
> I wouldn't entirely disagree - but it ain't gonna happen.  Cars and
> trucks can also be powered by other means.  And until we start doing so
on a large scale basis, oil will remain a driving force on this planet (no
pun intended).  At least until it runs out.

### Hey guys, when those "other means" (known in economics as "backstop
technologies") come to the fore, and some prices rise (petrochemical, for
example) and other prices fall (supposing a return to large scale wool
production, and associated economies of production), there'll be a big
sigh of relief, and perhaps a question as to why we didn't think of this
sooner. (This ain't just M. Bucky Fuller, but James Tobin (Nobel Prize
winner in Economics, but no hiker, to my knowledge), and a bunch of others
lots smarter than me.)

### As humans, I've observed before that we've managed to do some horrible
things to this earth in the last 10,000 years, and moreso in the last 100.
But we've also done some AMAZING things, too, by our use of tools and
shared knowledge. UMaryland economist (well, he *used* to be) Julian Simon
answered the Club Of Rome's doomsday report of the late 70's with the
observation that as the number of humans on the planet has grown, so has
the overall quality of life -- we've *thought* our way out of resource
constraints. (This became a book with the *excellent* title of The
Ultimate Resource.) Now, I don't pretend Simon's observation is ironclad
for future generations at *all* -- that would strike me as an abrogation
of my responsibility to them as a thinking adult *now* -- but, with effort
to insure growth in knowledge, lab-to-field technological adaptation, and
to forestall depletion of as-yet irreplaceable resources, I think the
future continues to have promise.

### Especially if we can terraform Mars. OOOOOoooooowwwwww, kewl. Just a
small timing thing, is all.

Sloetoe

=====
Spatior, Nitor, Nitor, In Nitor!

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