Daggett “other scientfic advances which have made modern human civilisation appear to be more advanced than past failed civilisations have only been possible because of fossil fuels.”

I thought a lot was due to democratic values and human individuality, rather than the feudal structures of the past.

“I see no possible way that microprocessors would have ever been built without abundant supplies of fossil fuels in the first place.”

The production process for the manufacture of microchips does not rely on massive amounts of electrical energy for manufacture and the operation of same does not rely on AC power, as produced in power stations, to run them. It started with an individuals idea and search for navigation system for cruise missiles!

“Electronics” is all about DC current. The first thing which happens in a modern computer is the AC power is converted to DC, which could be supplied by battery, which can produce electrical energy through chemical reaction.

“Can you envision micro-processors being manufactured on the scale that they are today, if at all, with only the relatively diffuse trickle of solar radiation as the primary source of energy,”

As stated above, vast amount of energy are not required for their manufacture, (most is probably used to run the air filtering / cleaning fans)

One of the greatest developments of modern electronics is that with increased application of micro electronics, processing speed increases but energy needed to “run” the processors has reduced.

“Those who are consuming the most whilst contributing the least to society, such as property speculators and financial advisers should be amongst the first to be made to do so.”

Property speculators and financial advisers exist only to meet a market need (unlike public servants who seem to exist despite themselves). They do not receive public funds to support their income producing activities.

Do you claim to know better than the market that the worth of what “property speculators” or “financial advisers” contribute is less than clog makers, pig breeders, lawyers, politicians, trade union presidents, traffic wardens, police officers, social workers, drug dealers or prostitutes?

"According to one scientist, who has worked on nuclear fusion"
Well everyone put down your tools! One unnamed scientist speaks!

"the nail in the coffin of nuclear fusion will prove to be the lack of sufficient supplies of the necessary hydrogen isotope tritium."
Tritium is manufactured inside nuclear reactors or particle accelerators, so more can be made. The deuterium-tritium fusion process is just one of a number of possibilities. The great hope is the deuterium-deuterium fusion process ie. seawater.

"and it is expected that the world's production of copper will begin to decline next year"
Really? The article you cite says:
"over the course of the 20th century North America alone mined 164 million metric tons of the reddish-brown metal."
"based on current discovery rates and existing geologic surveys, the researchers estimated that 1.6 billion metric tons of copper exist that could potentially be brought into use."
I think we'll be right for a while yet...

"It would be far more prudent to assume that our current practices are unsustainable, and to begin now to reduce those levels of consumption."
Agreed. What have you personally done so far?

"Those who are consuming the most whilst contributing the least to society, such as property speculators and financial advisers should be amongst the first to be made to do so."
It would have to be one in, all in I'm afraid. The property speculators and financial advisers have just found a niche in today's society like I am sure you have as a government handout taker.

It's easy to see why the Democrats are nearing extinction as a political party: all talk and no action. Bartlett failed to tell us how Australia should reduce its GHG emissions. Instead, he tried to make us feel guilty about what are, in reality, our small levels of emissions. He also failed to mention that, if Australia stopped producing aluminium metal (for example), that it would instead be produced in places like India or China using much dirtier electricity that ours, thereby adding even more GHG to the atmosphere.
To date, all political parties including the Greens are playing politics on the GHG/climate change issue. Pity there's no genuine solutions contained in any of their policies.

Bernie,

Your post reads like a rationale for doing nothing.

Of course, half measures like cutting back Australian aluminum production will achieve little if it is to be done in China instead, but even such half measures are at least a start.

However, rather than doing nothing or only doing half the job we need to approach the problem from as many directions as possible.

The Chinese people, as well as ourselves, must come to understand that maintaining the current rate of non-renewable resource extraction is threatening their future as well as our own.

<Alzo, I suggest you read read the articles on the impending decline in the production of the world's preciouls metals more closely. For a start, of the 1.6 million figure you cite, the abovementioned Scientific American article states:

"In contrast, the U.S. Geological Survey predicts there is only 950 million metric tons of the metal that could be recovered."

Note the use of the words "could be recovered" and recovering that total amount of copper, even if those somewhat more realistic estimates are wholly accepted, will still incur a massive cost in non-renewable energy, other natural resources including water and the overall degradation that mining causes to the envirnment as I explained above.

The production of Copper in Chile (perhaps not the world, sorry) will peak next year. (see http://www.321energy.com/editorials/watson/watson121605.html) As Chile is the world's largest copper producer, informed experts expect that the overal decline in world Copper production will follow that of Chile's.

It is upon copper and other precious metals that many of the high--tech 'renewable' alternatives to fossil fuels as well as nuclear power will depend. Without them we may face no alternative but to go back to pre-fossil fuel forms of energy, i.e. human labour, horses, bullocks, etc

BTW, alzo, I would be fascinated to learn how you discovered that I was a 'government handout taker'. However, even though you have now revealed my secret to the world, I somehow think if those now struggling to pay for the unearned windfall profits of property speculators, by working late into the nights with their mortgage repayment terms now extended to 30, 40 or more years, instead of 20 years as was the maximum a generation ago, were to consider the issue objectively, they would be less unsympathetic to the likes of 'outed' dole bludgers like myself than they would be to the property speculators.

Anyone who believes that the world is not in grave trouble and that Australia's exports of coal, iron ore and steel are not contributig to the problem, should read the article in the Guradian "Dust, waste and dirty water: the deadly price of China's miracle" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2128826,00.html

"Hundreds of millions of people are being made ill every year or dying prematurely from pollution caused by China's breakneck economic growth, a leading economic thinktank has concluded following an 18-month investigation.

"The OECD study, prepared at China's request, draws on work by the government, World Bank and Chinese Academy of Sciences to spell out the scale of the ecological crisis now engulfing the country, poisoning its people and holding it back economically.

"It says up to 300 million people are drinking contaminated water every day, and 190 million are suffering from water related illnesses each year. If air pollution is not controlled, it says, there will be 600,000 premature deaths in urban areas and 20m cases of respiratory illness a year within 15 years. ..."

Yes, if Australia's coal is helping to contribute to that environmental holocaust, then of course our exports must be cut back for the sake of the planet. We will simply have to find other less environmentally harmful ways to earn our livng.