So much commentary today is based upon a false premise. If one asserts that the future sustainability of humanity depends upon the extraction of non-renewables, then it can be easily demonstrated that there is limited sustainability.

If on the other hand we insert the word “currently” (depends on the extraction of non-renewables), then this is also true however, it does allow us consider the possibility that our technology will need to develop in area’s that might mitigate the loss of non-renewables.

The human imagination, creativity, ingenuity and sciences should be directed to real issues and not ideological false assumptions.

Leckos, your assessment of our current dependency on non-renewables is probably valid. What I have difficulty with is your dismissal of possible technological solutions as merely “hope”. That indeed reduces your commentary to defeatism and hopelessness.

Why not address the technologies that offer the prospect of avoiding our “hopelessness”, this might encourage debate, feed through to our politicians and drive funding? It’s not about modifying our economies and our societies because they are “products” of our technologies and not the sources

Cameron Leckie wrote 5 July 2010

>... CSIRO’s recent Our Future World ... increasing efficiency is subject to declining marginal returns ...

One of CSIRO's megatrends where the technology is improving rapidly is the "i World". It takes less material and energy to build computers and provide communications. At the same time these can be used to replace dwindling energy and materials supplies.

So here are my five megatrends:

1. Something for nothing: Virtual goods and services replace real ones reducing energy and material needs, while increasing economic activity.
2. Global workforce: As jobs move online well educated workers everywhere compete for the same jobs.
3. Glocalisation: Factoring the real cost of transport and environmental effects into goods produces a global-local strategy.
4. Right Tech: A donkey equipped with GPS will not be unusual.
5. Debate 2.0: A continual debate about what direction the community should take uses all of the communications technologies available.

CSIRO's is a relatively short readable report, written in the sensationalist style of popular science books, rather than a scientific report. As the authors admit there is nothing really new or surprising in the document, it being a summary of thinking on the topic.

While providing a useful summary, it was not clear to me what the point of the report was: It presents the trends and the problems, but does not provide any unifying theme or present any solutions. Perhaps the implicit message is that CSIRO can help solve the problems by harnessing the trends. If so, the authors needed to say that explicitly and provide some evidence to support the claim.

Despite its limitations, this is a useful report. I am a visitor at the CSIRO's ICT Centre in Canberra and one of those working on what is described here as the "i World", accelerating "On The Move" and "More from less". It is useful to have the work put in a global context, not just some little thing you do each day.

My book "Green Technology Strategies" is one attempt to address some of these issues: http://tomw.net.au/green/

Tomw
"A continual debate about what direction the community should take uses all of the communications technologies available."

I'm affraid Australia has missed the boat regards IT as a possible industry, as nearly all software is now being imported. The latest being $240 million handed over to a German company to install administrative software in NSW schools, on top of the imported software now running most government departments.

That software is basically permanently installed, and an IT industry in Australia is now pie in the sky.

To reduce consumption of resources, industry and the public have to reduce waste (and there are many ways to reduce waste), but I don't think Australia has much of a future if we continue to import nearly everything we use.

Very interesting article and one that gets to the nub of the problem.
I have never been able to find much research on the survivability of
telecommunications or indeed electronics in an energy depleted world.

Those that speak of all work being on line and service industries are
really away with the fairies.
As the cost of energy escalates priorities will shift to ensuring
food production.

Think about this from one article I read;
A farmer with a tractor and a multifurrow plough can plough a 100
hectare paddock in a day.
A farmer with a horse and plough might get 5 hectares done in a day.
It has been calculated that to feed us all will require that we will
need about 100 times the number of farmers that we now have.

So all those service industry employees and system analysts will find
plenty of work as farmers.

Now you can rave on against those thoughts, but geology is not
listening to you.
What is going on in the Gulf of Mexico is no more than an early swallow.
At present many are concerned as to the future of deep oil well
drilling because it is thought that government regulation and
decisions by the ultimate law makers, the insurance companies, will
make further ocean drilling uneconomic.
However, why are they drilling there ?
It is because that is where the oil is !

Welcome to the post peak oil world !

vanna wrote 6 July 2010 10:55:51 AM:

>Tomw ... I'm affraid Australia has missed the boat regards IT as a possible industry ...

It is not all bad news. Australia is a world leader in e-learning software due to the development of Moodle. This was developed in Perth and is now used around the world by leading universities. I use Moodle to teach students from around the world, generating export income for Australia.

On the hardware front there are fewer positive examples, but one is WiFi, where some of the fundamental technology was patented by CSIRO and they are now collecting fees.

>To reduce consumption of resources, industry and the public have to reduce waste ...

Another way to look at this is to use resources more effectively. As an example, a mobile phone accessible bus timetable can make the transport system more efficient. This does not require much extra hardware: we just use the phones and buses we already have, but better.

Tomw,
Moodle is open source.

It is estimated that over $11 billion of taxpayer’s money will be spent on computers in schools (both hardware and software). Nearly all of this money went to 3 US companies.

And then $240 million has been recently given to a German company to install administration systems in NSW schools.

So there is a long way to go to repay these costs through Moodle.

There is a need to get away from fuel intensive industries such as mining, but due to the almost complete use of imported software, an IT industry in this country has become a hopeless proposition.