Cameron Leckie is on the right track about the profound impact on our lives of future constraints on fossil fuels. But he is brave in making such detailed forecasts about employment. I would tell my newly graduating daughter to ignore his career advice.

In similar vein, some five years ago I wrote the following for a chemistry journal. Nothing since then has changed my mind:

"Primarily we need to accept that we have been exploiting a rich bonanza of fossil fuels that simply cannot be replaced. Representing a concentrated, chemically rich store of solar energy accumulated over hundreds of millions of years, it is the basis of our present material wealth.

In the long term, geosequestration of carbon dioxide might make viable the continued use of plentiful fossil fuels, like coal and tar sands, in favourable locations. There will be an increasing contribution from nuclear power. Nuclear electricity will favour the use of electrified transport as conversion to hydrogen is much less efficient. Biofuels will be used for transport, but competing land uses will soon set a limit. Other renewable energies like solar and wind will have only a small impact; their dilute and intermittent nature is immutable and, despite recurring public calls for more investment, no amount of research can overcome those impediments.

The greenhouse response will inevitably make energy more precious. In the developed countries we will gradually adapt. Our expectations of things like car performance, house size and comfort, leisure travel abroad, year-round availability of seasonal foods, and all the other trappings of modern living that depend on energy will progressively move downwards. The production of goods and services will decline, which will be a huge political problem. In the mean time, the developing nations, aspiring quite reasonably to our living standards, will continue to increase their use of the available fossil fuels. Globally, populations, living standards and energy consumption will grow. There will be no slowdown in total greenhouse gas emissions and no magic technology fix allowing life to continue as normal. We will have to find ways to put up with the consequences.

So Cameron, we'll all have to start raising chickens and veggies in our back gardens.

Bbbbwwwwwhahahahahahah!

These doom and gloom laden forcasts are a staple of civilised life. The end is nigh! Repent of ye sins of consumption!

To work through just one of the issues in the article, let us take peak oil. Cameron, you realise that this has all been overturned in the past year or so? Google "fracking" and follow the links. Vast deposits of shale oil and gas, particularly gas, have been unlocked by recent changes in technology. There may well be some short term distruption due to the switch from easy lift oil to unconventional sources, but that's all the original peak oil forecasts were about anyway.

No one in their right mind who knew anything about the oil industry has forecast the end of oil as such, at least not since the 1970s.

As for the end of economic life as we know it, there were a lot of hopeful pronouncements during the financial crisis that capitalism was finally going to die. Nope! Its still there. No sign of it going away. Try again in 2020s..

curmudgeon .. isn't someone making a fuel from CO2, I know there was one years ago using sunlight and CO2, but I thought recently there had been another breakthrough.

That would be anathema to the green/eco types, who want all of the users energy to be punished. It's like Nuclear Power, the biggest problem to the green/eco types, is that it is a solution.

We'll always find another fuel .. even if we have to grow it, and no that's not perfect, but it is available.

Civilization is not going to stop when the fossil fuels run out, that's a fantasy of the green/eco activists, they want so much for that to happen. So we can all go back to simpler lives, yeah right.

Amicus - I haven't heard of the fuel out of CO2 idea - although it would be poetic justice as you say - but I've very recently been told of companies that have been formed to make oil out of coal, and out of plastics.

Making oil out of coal is an old concept (the Germans did it in WWII), and plastics are (I think) made from petroleum feedstocks - but with prices where they are anything is possible. I'll keep an eye out.

It has been proposed that Martian astronauts make rocket fuel for their return journey using exhaled CO2 and hydrogen from distilled urine split by solar energy; refer 'Sabatier process'. Whether things get that bad here on Earth the fact remains that energy must get more expensive. Liquid fuels because they are running out, wind and solar because they are intermittent and nuclear because the safety standards have to be raised so much higher.

It does seem likely that the world of the future will have less scope for stockbrokers and real estate agents and more scope for small scale farmers. There will be more surplus labour, less tractor diesel and less artificial fertiliser while food processing and distribution will have to be kept simple. Oh yes and more floods and heatwaves. I'd say the good times peaked around 1985. If you think this can't be so just wait til China cuts back on commodity imports and qualified people can't get the jobs they used to. Every year will inch in this direction so we don't have to wait long.

There you go, Taswegion knew of the CO2 out of fuel proposal.

I regret that I agree with him about nothing else except, possibly, China. Yes, when the China boom does finally break that is going to cause problems, and those problems may last perhaps three to four years.

As for the rest, workforce numbers in both agriculture and manufacturing, both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the employment total, have been heading down for many years. A catalysm would be required for any number to shift back - but what cataclysm, where? We have just been through the biggest financial emergency since the depression and, in the end, all it really did in Australia was stir up a few doomsayers.

So some April fools wants to go fracking?

Why for fracks sake?

Guess who's hiding

8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia?

18 times as much oil as Iraq?

21 times as much oil as Kuwait?

22 times as much oil as Iran?

500 times as much oil as Yemen?

Anyone?

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Arjay, we need your conspiratorial skills, here ... now!

I would like to see many of the author’s ideas become a reality.

Not necessarily because of a possibility of peak oil, but because such a lifestyle is likely to be more satisfying.

I can remember the satisfaction I had when eating food I had grown, and living in a house I mostly built myself.

I have significant doubts that much satisfaction can be achieved when living in a secular, feminist society, where family is becoming non-existent, where everything is now imported, where all food is bought (and about 50% of that is imported), where the education system is now devoted to producing students that become workforce fodder for multinationals, where mortgage costs can eat up most of take home pay, where government agencies exist to run government agencies, and the most satisfaction that many people seem to get is when they are stoned or drunk.

Vanna - that's your view of society. Very few would agree, particularly the bit about being stoned or drunk to be satisfied. If you count up the number of people employed by multinationals, you would find that a disappointingly small part of the workforce. The government sector is the biggest employer.

As for living in a house made by myself. It would fall down. I'm no good at that sort of thing.

Curmudgeon
It would be interesting to know what creates satisfaction in a secular and feminist society that imports almost everything. I would think “not much”.

The rate of drinking alcohol in Australia is actually increasing, particularly binge drinking.

If you look closely at many companies in Australia, almost all the equipment used by the company is imported and produced by multinational companies or foreign companies. So Australia is fast becoming a consumer or puppet for multinational companies. Australia is now very dependant on mining, but if you go onto a coal mine site you will find almost all equipment being used at the site is produced by multinational or foreign companies, and Australians are simply being employed to operate or service that equipment.The education system is no exception to this, and almost everything in a school or university is now imported.

As for oil sands or oil shale, they normally contain oil with high level of impurities, which means the refining costs are higher, which means the eventual price of petrol, diesel or petroleum products is higher.

Refining high impurity oil also produces higher quantities of pollutants.

Of course it is likely that mining companies will first begin mining oil shale or oil sand deposits that have low levels of impurities, but they will quickly run out, and then they will have to mine the material that contains higher levels of impurities.

"technically recoverable oil"

What an endearing term.

Here's a link to Canada's version of a technically recoverable oil industry - the Alberta Tar Sands. Probably the worst single polluter on the planet. It's been called a "toxic moonscape" the size of England.

http://one-blue-marble.com/alberta-tar-sands2.html

poirot, so we've gone from the article proclaiming peak oil to be the great trigger for civilization's (as we in the west know it) collapse.

To snide remarks and activist sites about another source of fuel.

No one said replacement for energy would be clean and pristine, just be happy there are substitutes, and we'll mine it use it and over time the site will become whatever it becomes .. so what.

Anytime now I see a report like that, linked to other activist sites, I completely disregard it, they are so well known for spin and BS that there is no point even bothering to read them. It's probably stacked with references to every type of "bad" thing they don't like.

The point is there are and will be more replacements for fossil fuels, and of course the activists don't like it because for some insane reason, they appear to want everyone to suffer.

We'd have clean nuc power now if it wasn't for hysterical activists, that's who I blame if CO2 is really a problem.

vanna, I agree not much is made here, and you'd be stupid to do it, since our labor laws are disgraceful. Evidently that's what the people want, fine. You can't have that and an industry. The only industry here is industry that is so essential it can't move, everything else will go.

My company moved our manufacturing to the USA where we get government help for god's sake on how to deal with environmental issues, not hindrance or snotty articles in the media. This country is hostile to anyone making a buck or a profit.

I'm still waiting to see all these green jobs from "new technologies" we constantly get told by our eco activist buddies .. still waiting (I assume they will come when the government can tax me more and subsidize them completely)

Yeah, rpg...."so what"....

There are plenty of sites discussing the implications of tar sands mining in Alberta - just google and see. The "good ol' Canadian oil industry is a'boomin'....why, you could even get a job scraping bird carcasses from the surface of their tailing ponds.....

Here's an in-depth article from that dastardly activist mag National Geographic.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/canadian-oil-sands/kunzig-text

Rpg,
Well that’s the other factor of course.

In the process of producing fuel to survive, we stuff up our environment, and this make it even less satisfying to survive, (or we get less satisfaction from living).

So we attempt to get satisfaction by living in a secular, feminist society where consumption is encouraged, but everything is imported, and then we stuff up our environment to get fuel so that we can continue to live in a secular, feminist society where consumption is encouraged, but everything is imported.

It is interesting that carbon + hydrogen gives a hydrocarbon.

And there are plenty of carbon and hydrogen atoms on the planet.

so I take it some of you are very pleased about peak oil .. and the human race running out of fuel?

all kinds of fuel?

So you'd like to see the human race basically eradicated is that what you want?

it won't happen, someone somewhere will find a way, as long as people want to pay someone will produce

That's the problem isn't it, that life will continue regardless of running out of fossil fuel, and we won't get our comeuppance, which seems to be the activist's fantasy.

no poirot, I'd take your money when you line up for the privilege of scraping carcasses .. some lead, some follow, some are entrepreneurs and some are just angry that they aren't as capable as others, that's life - but don't ask me to share your dream of poverty and living in caves, I'm not interested, (unless I was selling the caves of course .. you could have a very special deal on a nice hole, hardly used at all.)

Some parts of the earth have to be sacrificed for fuel development, I have no problem with that, just like some parts of the city or country have to be sacrificed for rubbish dumps .. so what?

I'm not going to get all teary about it, life goes on.

progress will continue, regardless of the luddites, carsons and caldicots of this world

rpg,

It's a shame that no-one's come up with a way to fuel the world on short-sighted arrogance - people like you could keep us going till the end of time : )

You're right - life will go on, but not in places that been transformed into lifeless hellpits.

I believe it's paramount to limit the sort of calamitous life-repellent outcomes such as those we are witnessing in Alberta.

Poirot

Tut,tut

So how do you suggest that we get our fuels?

Remembering that atoms do not generally disintergrate, or take a long time to do so.

And what type of lifestyle or living arrangements would be most satisfying, in the short, medium or long term?

Cameron's opinion piece I expect arises from a deep knowledge and wide reading in the area of peak oil and general human sustainability, in a world where economic growth and population growth must continue indefinitely until we get the beginnings of collapse. (Having attended the 6th international ASPO conference in Cork, Ireland in September 2007, I began to understand where Cameron is coming from). I can also understand where reactionary people like 'rpg' are coming from, as I meet these kind of people people every day. It is interesting that for a scientist or an engineer, the future poses an interesting philosphical problem. It is not verifiable in principle. Therefore it is really pointless to debate what will happen. Fear about the future I think is linked to fear of death. Once you understand that death is a part of life, then the death of civilisations is a part of human evolution. It is not a bad thing, but something that is natural. Therefore, why worry? The 18c poet Thomas Grey summed it up well, in one of his poems, wherein he said
"where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise" So from that perspective, "rpg" is no fool. .

vanna,

I suggest we discover ways to wind back our reliance on petrol/diesel driven transport - which, of course, would necessitate a shift of paradigm.

We should loosen the global ties and encourage localities to move toward a more self-sufficient productivity. We, in the West, should stop our obscene waste.

I believe we should move away from denoting economic advancement as the sole criterion for human success.

I'm sure that all sounds suitably cliché.
The rpg's of this world have only two modes of judging progress - either we're ravaging the planet at an unsustainable level - or we're living in caves.

We either confront our predicament and act upon it or we experience collapse...that's the way it goes.

Smokehaze, Poriot

Well this is interesting:

"Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour into natural gas at unprecedented rates."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16621-sunpowered-device-converts-cosub2sub-into-fuel.html

But supposing such technology is proven to be successful at producing fuels, there is still the question of how society becomes sustainable and satisfying enough so that people will want to live in that society.

Personally I don’t think life in Australia is sustainable, or is satisfying enough in the medium or longer term.

No society can last for very long if it is based on secularism, feminism, consumerism and importation, which is fast becoming the basis of our society.

Some interesting comments. It is quite funny how some people (curmudgeon) take relative statements and turn them into absolutes. Catabolic collapse does not imply industrial civilisation ends today and Mad Max takes over tomorrow. It is a long and slow decline, probably over a couple of centuries interspersed with periods of rapid decline (which I personally think we are witnessing the first decade or so of now) and other periods of relatively stability.

I don't consider myself a doomer curmudgeon, more a pragmatist - if something is unsustainable (such as our current method of organising our economy and society) that simply means that it cannot continue indefinitely. If this is the case this implies big changes coming our way. I would argue that it is better to acknowledge this than bury our heads in the sand and basing our response on 'hope.'

This leads to the comments on energy sources mentioned in the comments, many of which seem based on hope.
Take tar sands, at best they will only be producing 4 million barrels a day (or thereabouts - this is from memory) by 2030 according to the Canadian government. This is less than the production lost each year to oil field depletion. Clearly tar sands are not going to save our current way of life. The situation is similiar for Coal to Liquids, biofuels (including algal based biofuels), and unconventional gas (read behind the headlines I suggest). I am sure they will all play a part in our energy future - but we won't be consuming nearly 90 mb/d of oil in 20 or 30 years. Probably not even in 10 years.

>> This leads to the comments on energy sources mentioned in the comments, many of which seem based on hope. <<

leckos (and others) - did you actually read/understand the link?

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Or did you really think it was an April Fool's joke? Curmudgeon, rpg, Amicus, et al?

The Bakken oil field is the largest US oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil.

The EIA estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable, at current prices, that's a resource base worth more than $6 trillion.

New technology has opened up Bakken's massive reserves, giving access of up to 500 billion barrels.

It's a 'light, sweet oil'. If anyone here on this thread so far new anything about oil reserves/exploration (obviously not by them drumming up tar sands and shale oil for fracking sake) then they would know the Americans are on a winner ... in their own back yard no less.

It's enough crude to fuel the American economy for a very very long time.

What is conspiratorial (where the frack is Arjay?) - George dubya knew about this and still funded South American 'buddies' to cut down Amazon rain forests and plant corn crops instead - not to feed people, but to fracking supply the US transport fleet with ethanol!

smokehaze - yes, there are fools here ... on 365 days of the year :(

bonmot, the USGS press release states 3 to 4.3 billion barrels with daily production of 75,000 barrels a day. The reserves are only 10% of annual global production and daily production is less than 0.1% of global daily production. It is hardly a game changer.

Here is a link to a more realistic assessment of Bakken's potential:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868

You have not provided a link to the EIAs claim of 503 billion barrels so I cannot comment on that.

leckos: Yeah, you're probably right. No wonder everybody is having knuckle dusters over a summer ice free Arctic within a few decades.

Hope? That is the domain of people with their heads stuck in the sands (pun intended).

Btw Cameron (leckos?), do you go by the tag 'oil_investor' on the Bakkenoil blog?

No bonmot, I am not oil_investor. I have no investments in any energy companies (other than what my super fund might invest in). My preferred investment option is to pay down debt as quickly as possible as in my view we are about to enter a deflationary spiral that will see major falls in stocks, bonds and real estate.

Lekos,
I would agree with the estimates that the Brakken oil fields will not last long for the US.

Its consumption of oil is too high for their lifestyle to be sustainable.

US consumption of oil is 20,680,000 bbl/day, and the next closest country is China at 7,578,000 bbl/day.

Noted also that the average life expectancy in the US is 78.3 years, while the average life expectancy in China is 73 years, or only 6.7 % difference.

I would disagree with you that catabolic collapse will occur over a number of centuries. I think it will occur much more quickly.

Or, too avoid a sudden collapse, there will have to be very careful planning, and big thoughts about how society should be living.

That is something our country is not very good at, or we may have lost the skills at thinking about how we want to live.

Interesting that there are still some societies that have basically remained the same for many 1000’s of years, and in one instance, a society of people have lived the same lifestyle on an island for an estimated 50,000 years.

http://www.survivalinternational.org/

Having read a little about these societies, they appear to be religious, non-feminist, consume very little, and import almost nothing (or are self sufficient).

Or, basicaly the extact opposite to how we currently live in Australia.

vanna, when are you moving?

What's the life expectancy in these wonderful places?

Do they do without western medicines or handouts?

I doubt it.

Why do you say folks here are not happy? Is it the guilt thing again? We're using too much, we're going to be punished for enjoying ourselves and using the bounty of the earth?

That's not my outlook or experience, we live in a golden age of technology and resources, it is just a joy to be alive and to be a kid in today's world!

Awesome .. or as they really say, osom.

Vanna, the end state of catabolic collapse will likely be a few centuries in the future. There will however be many intervening periods where the decline will be rapid, followed by periods of relative stability. I happen to think the first part
of decline, that is for the next decade or so will be the deepest and most traumatic. Mainly due to the extreme levels of inter dependencies of our current situation.

bonmot,

"...yes, there are fools here..."

I take it you don't suffer them gladly.

Several of us "fools" questioned the chance of Fukushima turning dire. You put up a link informing us that we were overreacting (pun intended) - that all would be well as long as the fuel was contained....

Seems to be a few "cracks" in that attitude, as has been borne out by events in Japan.

Perhaps the "fools" are the ones that built and operated a nuclear facility on a major fault line near the ocean in a country prone to tsunamis.

Amicus,

Check out the decline of the Roman Empire - gradual societal disintegration over a period of centuries.....avarus and perniciosus.

Amicus
If a society has stayed the same for 50,000 years, the people in that society would be happy enough.

Granted that individuals in such societies would not have a very long life expectancy, and they would not have morphine to ease the pain of the inevitable.

But on the other side, we currently live in a society that is non-sustainable, and our children are expected to die younger than their parents, due to diseases such as diabetes and obesity.

Would below be the pinnacle of life in the US (remembering that the Australian way of life normally follows the US way of life)?

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Snooki-Gets-32K-to-Dish-on-Jersey-Shore-Lifestyle-at-Rutgers-119052504.html

One has to think “Are people such as Snooki Polizzi actually human, or the end result of a rather tragic aberration in the history of the human species?”

Leckos,
I would agree that there will be a major collapse within a decade or so, but unless there are substantial changes made to the way we live, there will be no recovery.

I cannot see any technology that will be able to maintain our current lifestyle, except perhaps some form of nanotechnology that enables recycling on a molecular or atomic scale.

But then, I would definitely question if our current lifestyle is worth maintaining anyway.

I read a paper a few years back about agricultural production with
unobtainable or unaffordable fossil fuel.
It went something like this;

A farmer on a tractor can plough 100 acres in a day.
A farmer with a single furrow plough and a horse can plough just five
acres in a day.
Therefore we will need 20 times the number of farmers that we have now.
I don't remember the absolute values but you get the idea.

For those that think coal will be the answer, peak coal is around 2025.
One study said peak coal would be 2011. Hmmm.
In any case we are really up against Peak Everything !

Hello Poirot,

If you really think that people were not over reacting to a situation that wasn't then proven, so be it. MSM did not help, really. Barry Brook's web site was defintely more rational and informative in response to a situation that was changing daily, do you disagree?

Yes, it is foolish to use words that 'colour' the situation - as you yourself acknowledged. This is what MSM do all the time, to get the biggest hits no doubt.

If you recall, I said:

"this is a most tragic event and will put nuclear power on the back-burner (pun intended) for years to come.

However, new generation reactors really are required, to replace the old ones still in place (there are still 100's arround the world).

Unfortunately, profligate growth and consumerism is placing enormous strains on our energy resources, placing huge stresses on international/national security, food, water and agricultural resources, transportation, and of course the environment.

This is not sustainable in a future world ... despite the shill to the contrary."

Poirot, do you disagree?

Poirot: >> Perhaps the "fools" are the ones that built and operated a nuclear facility on a major fault line near the ocean in a country prone to tsunamis. <<

Yes, perhaps they were ... 40 years ago.

Question:
How should Japan source its energy 'needs' now given this latest turn of events and given this most tragic event will put nuclear power on the back-burner (pun intended) for years to come ?

Fools need not answer.

And Poirot, you certainly are no fool :)

Hi bonmot,

There is no alternative to the West lessening its dependence on manufactured energy.

Japan is a technically advanced country which has, like many countries in the West, grown overly dependent on technology for many of its comforts and, indeed, for the smooth operation of daily life.

But I wonder how much energy is simply wasted. How much of the electricity generated by those reactors was used to power electronic advertising in Tokyo for example? This is the sort of wastage and excess that humans will have to despense with - for a start. If we tackle these areas of excess, we may be able to stop the inevitable slide.

But, as you point out, it's all tied to consumerism and that is the crux of our dilemma...it's imperative that Western society find an alternative paradigm.

Our folly appears evident - and yet we carry on in the same vein - business as usual.

It makes you wonder just how "intelligent" is our species after all.

I agree with Poirot about our response to what is a new paradigm already. It amazes me that amid all the discussion of responses to the energy crisis no one talks about conservation, about cutting back on the rate of consumption. This is because our economies depend upon rampant consumerism, and because current generations have adapted to that means of production. The old spirit of capitalism, the protestant ethic Weber wrote about, would serve us well now. But the new spirit of profligate consumption is the only thing that keeps economies limping along. The ramping up of "lifestyle" has been so dramatic that only a generation or two separates the minimal and the maximal consumers, indeed there's a mixture of the two I think in my generation and presumably Poirot's (50s). The product looks like moral outrage, and to an extent it is, but it's just as much the lived awareness of glaring contradictions.
It's true that exaggerated or hasty predictions have damaged the campaign for action on the raft of issues that "catabolic collapse" captures so well, but then the campaign is only half-hearted anyway: consumption as usual with just another tax. It's not merely a matter of getting the minimifidianists on board, after all, it's a matter of getting democratic consensus without putting the money cows off their exotic diet. Insanely, conspicuous consumption is supposed to be the means by which we address problems associated with conspicuous consumption.
In any case the projections are every bit as dire as some hysterics salivate about. If a general collapse does take place the current generation of hyper-consumption-hybrids are doomed--even those who do have the nous to grow their own produce and hive their resources; in our tightly packed yet atomistic suburbs they'll be looted and murdered for it.
Even should we avoid that fate, the consequences are dire for future generations, which ought to concern us just as much. But we're safely isolated in our own little hothouse of time.

The dilemma for Japan is exquisite; with their dreary economic performance they could lead the world, but too much debt!

Squeers,
Generally speaking, people are paid for their labour, (or paid by the hour), so they have to produce something, which means that others have to consume what they produce.

So we have production and consumption.

I would agree that much of what is for sale in current times is actually junk or unnecessary, and many careers and industries are also unnecessary.

The danger is that peoples lives eventually become unnecessary, and I can think of a few already like that.

It seems we may be headed for a reversal of fortune and practice.

As Cameron wrote, it was the population shift away from agriculture to urban communities and "jobs" that marked the industrial age. So it goes that Western humans may be forced to revert to agriculture.

Perhaps when all is said and done, the industrial age will be seen as a blip on the history of our species - one that we couldn't sustain through our irresponsibility and our lack of vision and concern for future generations.

After all, pre-industrial societies endured. They possessed systems and communities and rites and comforts (material and psychological).
It's difficult for us to imagine a life without switches and buttons and instant gratification, yet most of the world's population live like that still.

We in the West live an exalted existence - all taken for granted.
The great shame is that we never learned to tread the "middle-way" - to bridle our excess - to make a good thing last.

"We in the West live an exalted existence - all taken for granted."

You might take it for granted, I rejoice living in an age of plenty and galloping technology, sure there are some things still wrong with the world - but why should we wear hair shirts because not everyone is as well off as we are in Australia? We are at a point in our existence where so much is provided for the sheer joy of life, yet we have our misery bags who fear doom is our just desserts for such an existence, who think retribution of the earth is only just around the corner of every street.

A middle way, oh jeez grasshopper, enjoy what you have instead of agonizing over what others do not have. Life is short, there will always be those without, do what you can for them, but don't become bitter or resentful of people who may do their charity in ways you do not see or understand (or approve of).

Your understanding of "excess", may be my distribution of wealth. Would you prefer I stuck it all in some fund somewhere never to see light of day and only to travel from bank to bank to share portfolio to capitol portfolio, or to spend it on local industries, resorts, car companies and thus keep it in circulation.

Clearly some of us see life as something to be enjoyed, and others see those enjoying it and say they are wasteful and need to be taxed more so they can enjoy less until they are as miserable and resentful as some others, like eco activists in fact who are some of the meanest, miserable people I ever see.

Amicus,

Well yes, you're entitled to rejoice in your good fortune....yet, if that excess begets a society in ruin with little recourse to the wisdom and skills required to sustain an alternative paradigm, then one has a right to question it.

I don't take anything for granted - all the more for looking beyond an "age of plenty and galloping technology".

poirot "yet, if that excess begets a society in ruin with little recourse to the wisdom and skills required to sustain an alternative paradigm, then one has a right to question it"

no you don't have a right to question it .. you have no rights at all to question or pass jugdment on anything anyone does in our modern society.

I find it offensive that eco types like yourself sit around shaking their heads at other people's "excess", as do many people who are getting fed up with the people who think they are on this planet to pass comment on other's lifestyles.

For some reason then think it appropriate to limit other people's ability to have fun or enjoy themselves, because you find it excessive.

You can live in a cave and have a miserable life, and I won't comment or stop you, you are so welcome to it.

A society in ruin .. you wish!

Wow this sounds more like a religion every day, the eco religion eh.

Amicus,
your comments amply demonstrate that you have no concept of life outside this system which feeds off conspicuous consumption, consumption which is actually rationalised a virtue in this bizarre dispensation as it keeps the money in circulation. That might actually be paradise for you and many others, an utterly catered existence, but here's the problem, it's a fools' paradise because it's unsustainable, not to mention inequitable, in fact it's madness in a closed system with finite resources. You can be as precious as you like about it and puff yourself up with indignation that "eco types" have the nerve to "question" unconscionable glut, but I for one do question it, indeed I condemn it!
And I can assure it has nothing to do with religion. It's your type that needs absolution!

sqeers "it's a fools' paradise because it's unsustainable, not to mention inequitable, in fact it's madness in a closed system with finite resources

Why is it not sustainable, because you say so? That's your opinion, there are many others.

Why is it inequitable, because you say say and you're precious values measure it that way.

"It's madness" .. jeez you're busy with your little judgments aren't you?

"finite resources", what's your measure of that? We can keep going till we use up this world, and by then move on to the next - so what?

Some people have your outlook on life, some don't, and I don't care if in your guilt over resource use, you "condemn it!"

I can't stand you precious religious (and it is a religion) view of the world any more than you can stand mine, at least I'm not trying to bother you about what you do. Eco whackos do try to bother me and others about what we do - we have every right to use whatever we want and you have every right to do bugger all, but don't get in our way, you don't have that right at all.

So go back to quietly smoldering in the corner, there's a good chap.

Let the people who want to have a good time, do just that.

You can do double time on guilt if you like, another hair shirt.

You're like bloody evangelists who think they have to convert everyone to "save them".

Amicus,

Sorry about that - I hadn't realised that it was your call to inform the rest of us what we have a right to question.

But excuse me is I enquire just where you get off appointing yourself chief designator of who discusses what?

Suffice to say, that I'll contemplate whatever I please - and I'll trumpet my contemplations wherever I deem fit. I'll pass judgment and I'll debate if it pleases me to do so.

You run off and polish your blinkers....you don't want anything peripheral to distort the image of your nice shiny world.

poirot

Sorry about that - I hadn't realised that it was your call to inform the rest of us what state we are in.

But excuse me is I enquire just where you get off appointing yourself chief designator of what our great shame is?

"We in the West live an exalted existence - all taken for granted.
The great shame is that we never learned to tread the "middle-way" - to bridle our excess - to make a good thing last."

take off your own blinkers first mate, you're so busy being outraged that you seem to forget your own little tirades and rants .. you don't like it when you find someone might not like the way you self righteously survey the world and hand out pithy little sermons.

put the little princess act aside, other people are just as entitled to their views as you and I as do others, get tired of the lectures on how we should all go back to a time before the industrial revolution

get over yourself .. some of enjoy life as it is, not as you want it

Amicus,

I'd love to continue our little tit-for tat- discussion here, however, I think it's a tad disrespectful to the writer of the article to continue with our indulgence.

My dear...if I may be so bold : )
I am merely putting my thoughts across....someone once told me that this was an opinion site - and lo and behold! - I believe that's what it is.

You really shouldn't allow yourself to become quite so enraged by opinions that are in opposition to your own - after all, it's all part of the wonderful free society that you so enthusiastically defend.

Signed Princess Poirot.

Tut, tut Amicus,

If you were to look closely at a number of factors, we are not actually gaining, but going further into debt.

We are in debt economically, because we have imported so much.

We are in debt environmentally, because we have not practiced enough sustainability.

We are also in debt socially, because in a secularly and feminist society, there is minimal spirituality or family life.

So if you like our current society, it won’t last long, because we are living beyond our means and going further into debt.

BTW. How do you think we should get our fuels?