There you go Cheryl, you've just opened the door between Web 1.0 (mindless abuse) and Web 2.0 (tapping into a vast intellectual resource).

Let's probe some of the facetious, facile and infantile ideas that have been propagated on Web 1.0.

Given your expertise in engineering, and specifically open cut mines in marine environments, I'm interested in how we might go about extracting phosphate rocks from the sea bed. Would you care to expand on how we might go about such an operation? I'm sure there is some commercial interest in your developments in this area.

Also, just out of interest, what proportion of the phosphate used in agriculture could be recovered from human sewage systems?

You're big on high dudgeon and imperious condescension Cheryl, I just think we need to scrutinise your bona fides on these matters.

And you may be right about humanity's fate not hinging on phosphate but if you don't know diddly squat about this, why should we trust you on anything else?

"The anti-pops have poo-poohed electric vehicles, solar power, nuclear power - in fact almost every form of alternative power source available. Why? Because they're not environmentalists. They're instrumentalists. Remember that."

No, I'm a realist. I go with what works, rejecting what doesnt. Alternatives to oil have a ERoEI that is too low. That is, the NET energy is just too low to run civilization on. In the 1960's oil returned 100 joules for every 1 we put into getting that 100. Today it's 25:1. Alternatives are less than 2:1. Hydrogen is 0.2:1 (that is negative).

Oil built this civilization, there is no other substance that would have done that. We can no more take ourselves off oil than you can take your body off blood. It's a REQUIREMENT to keep this civilization running, and hence people fed.

Oil going into terminal decline means this version of civilization will end, just like a loss of too much blood from your body will end your life.

As for electric, I'll give you an example. Ontario, where I live, consumes 15 billion ltrs of gasoline a year. If we were to replace every car today with an electric one it would require the construction of 35 nuke reactors. Ontario has 12 at the moment.

Oh, but there is wind you say. For our province to get 15% of it's power from wind would require 77,000 of them to be built and take 200 years to build them.

People generally do not understand the scale of our society, and hence throw out these suggestions to get us off oil, but unaware of the sheer size of such change over. Besides, to do the change over will consume more oil that we have available.

"Look Maaaaaaate, neither you or the Unsustainables give a fat rats about international development. You know nothing of how markets operates. You know nothing about demographics, trade, microcredit, energy renewal, synthetics, new manufacturing processes, etc, etc"

Actually, I support capitalism. I think it is the best method to do commerce and in the next version of civilization, raw capitialism will be the ONLY method of commerce. Governments will largely be extinct or impotent.

There is no such thing as "energy renewal". Energy cannot be created or distroyed, only turned into a less useful (to us) form. The problem we face is not of loss of energy per se, but outstripping the NET FLOW of energy available to us. The essence of carrying capacity. No technology can sidestep the Second Law of Thermodyanmics.

"Cheryl, with your mastery of the stock market, what can you tell me about the world's phosphate reserves?"

It is likely that Cheryl is unaware that China outbid the US for a phosphate deposit near the Caspian Sea. She is likely also unaware that China paid 3 times the market price to potash from central Canada.

You don't do that unless you know something about the ultimate fate of potash.

Thanks Rick W and Maaate,

re in answer to the latter, what does in matter what my profession is. The simple fact is that all of your arguments come from an instrumentalist position and are easy to poke holes in.

Good on you Rick W re your support for capitalism. Ultimately saving resources will come down to a price mechanism and synthetics. The other alternative is fertility reduction and government control of pop. Maate is quite right though that one day, no matter what, we'll run out of minerals. I'm always amazed when people bring this up as its so patently obvious.

What will happen then? The SPA will take over. Actually population is getting a good run in the news today and yesterday re the 22M Oz pop mark. They need all the help they can get.

I think I'm getting a bead on you now Cheryl. You seem to be some sort of Lib/Lab bot slavishly parroting the dogma.

You've basically admitted that the planet is finite but you are so psychologically and ideologically addicted to the growth cancer that you can't recant.

Earth's systems are constantly and systematically compromised, exploited and destroyed but still you chant your faith based mantra.

It's sad really but illustrates the psychopathy that must be confronted if we want to maintain &/or restore ecological systems, experience quality of life in human dimensions and pass this inheritance on to our children.

The only good to come out of the 500,000 population growth in the last 12 months is that a huge proportion of the populace has suddenly realised who Lib/Lab really serve and what the consequences are.

I'm glad you've been able to demonstrate the vacuous waffle that passes for a defence of exponential human population growth.