Demographic Winter: Decline of the Human Family

[StAnastasia]

As down in Arizona it is the air conditioning that costs, both in the homes and in the cars. I can think of only one place that has ‘livable’ temperatures year-round and that is Hawaii. If we all went there, the islands would sink.
… And there is still oil to burn…
We have it, we just have to get the politics out of the way and be the country we were up till somewhere in the '60 when it all started to go downhill.

I’ll let you figure it out, it’s giving me a headache…

Michael David, I’m sorry for your headache! Some points:

(1) There are vast swathes of the Southwest that will become increasingly costly to inhabit as the age of petroleum comes to an end. I think the only way to continue to inhabit the Southwest in the summer and the Northern Midwest in the winter will be if we embark upon a fast campaign to build numerous nuclear power plants for electric power generation.

(2) The age of oil has been great, and is coming to an end. Drilling offshore and in Alaska may be necessary, but will only briefly forestall the inevitable end of affordable oil. By 2100 this age will be over. If humanity is to continue for another ten thousand years, we will need another energy source.

(3) There is a finite number of individuals of any species that the earth can support (squirrels, elephants, salmon, humans). Before the age of oil began in 1859, the earth supported about one billion people. We have bumped that number up six times since then, and we’re engaged in a great, interesting, and risky experiment to see whether that population can be sustained after the oil and natural gas are gone.

StAnastasia

 

[Michael_David]

Michael David, I’m sorry for your headache! Some points:

(1) There are vast swathes of the Southwest that will become increasingly costly to inhabit as the age of petroleum comes to an end. I think the only way to continue to inhabit the Southwest in the summer and the Northern Midwest in the winter will be if we embark upon a fast campaign to build numerous nuclear power plants for electric power generation.

(2) The age of oil has been great, and is coming to an end. Drilling offshore and in Alaska may be necessary, but will only briefly forestall the inevitable end of affordable oil. By 2100 this age will be over. If humanity is to continue for another ten thousand years, we will need another energy source.

(3) There is a finite number of individuals of any species that the earth can support (squirrels, elephants, salmon, humans). Before the age of oil began in 1859, the earth supported about one billion people. We have bumped that number up six times since then, and we’re engaged in a great, interesting, and risky experiment to see whether that population can be sustained after the oil and natural gas are gone.

StAnastasia

1. Ah yes, we have a nuclear power plant up here now; plus a natural gas (used to use coal); plus a waste burning plant. More nuclear is the way it will maybe go for the future.
2. 2100 means we are going to have to raise some smart kids and grandkids… and not hold them back with their ‘inventfulness’. Perhaps by then, fission or fussion will be tried and tested.

3)Yes, it has always been a risk for us. If it’s not one thing it’s another… always something to roll-up the sleeves and get to work on. Instead of living off the land and not putting nothing back, we have learned to ‘cultivate’ crops, cattle, fish, and most foods. We have learned to live in close confines with less then an acre, rather then 40-80-160 acres… or in cities with 2000 sq-ft.

We are a fragile race, us humans. Not only with our own survival but from others in the same race not very morally developed. I see the biggest problem with the human being and where the heart is (or isn’t), not so much with the goods that the world can produce and move around, or energy developments.

Countries starving their populations while the leaders put all their funds to war efforts and none for the peoples needs. Countries using political persuasions to market their goods for a hefty gain, that no one can afford. Countries where the only good paying job is in the military… if you want to risk it. The world of humans may not get to 2100 or need to worry about it if we as a race do not improve our morals and good will… instead of greed and envy. If we make it till then, I do not see a world like it is today… I do not know what I see then, my imagination likes to look at good things and can’t find any sparks to light.

The earth will survive… the dinosaurs didn’t… we may not either, not in the form we are today. The earth has had glaciers (global cooling), and melt-downs (global warming), just like our annual seasons, only they have been between 10K-15K year cycles. Just a few hundred years ago, where I live was under a glacier. And if you go with the global (natural) cycles, we are in the Fall of the global season. Man has not made much of a dent on it whether creating it or slowing it… the earth will do it with or without us. We were not here for the last 3-5 global cycles and they happened like clock-work. Just think, in another give-or-take 3K years our GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGkids will be celebrating the BIG Global New Year! Where they will live, how they will live, in peace or still fighting, what they will be eating, what they will be doing… is a guess I can not fathom.

Hopefully you and I will be in that other Kingdom Christ talked about by then. It’s time for me to shed the ‘body’ and let God worry about all this… I have enough to do to get to that other Kingdom to be worried about this earth of ours too, and how it controls us, instead of the other way around. Remember, Christ did say the earth was His… Thank you, You are welcome to it Lord. I am resigned to letting Him do His thing with it… there is even mention of a New Earth in Revelations… perhaps God will have a hand in that process. And also, with the change of hearts, the turning the swords to plow-shears. It is this the human race as a whole needs before anything else worth while will work.

Ah, relief, my headache went away…

 

[StAnastasia]

1)Hopefully you and I will be in that other Kingdom Christ talked about by then. It’s time for me to shed the ‘body’ and let God worry about all this… I have enough to do to get to that other Kingdom to be worried about this earth of ours too, and how it controls us, instead of the other way around. Remember, Christ did say the earth was His… Thank you, You are welcome to it Lord. I am resigned to letting Him do His thing with it… there is even mention of a New Earth in Revelations… perhaps God will have a hand in that process. And also, with the change of hearts, the turning the swords to plow-shears. It is this the human race as a whole needs before anything else worth while will work.

Michael David, I fundamentally agree with you about orienting our hope eschatologically, but I am concerned for future generations. I am concerned for my children and grandchildren who will not have fuel to drive thirty-mile commutes from suburbia to their work. I am concerned about hundreds of millions of Africans as Asia and the West scramble to sew up remaining oil contracts in Africa, leaving Africans without access to fuel.

So I must have faith eschatologically, but act temporally.

StAnastasia

 

[Michael_David]

StAnastasia, I too worry about the grandkids and others after them, but there may not be a suburb to drive to work from. Things change, and maybe one will live a few blocks from where they work; or take the bus or rail in and out; or rent a car for vacation rather then own one; or we may have a dome over the whole city (like the MegaMall does now, and the outside temps are forgotten); or we will all work from home and not have to go anywhere; and our relatives and friends all live in the same complex, so there is no need to go out to get to the bridge game; or they will have jet packs and fly singly to and fro, each on there altitude; or, or, or… who knows.

My dad born in early 1900 got around by horse, buggy or walking; saw the car come in; talked long distance by phone; heard the radio; watched tv; saw the landing on the moon; wrote me e-mails; then to IM chat and later to visual conferencing where we were face to face but not on a phone… all in his lifetime. What can happen in the next 80+ years??? Could dad have prepared me for the computer age in the '50’s? Not even a twinkle in the eye yet, but in the '80’s, yes.

What I’m trying to say is that whatever happens there (may) be people there doing it and adapting to the new age upon them. We have done it, as did our ancestors, as will our future generations. Either they will or they won’t have to, depends on His timetable for planet earth. We have survived since Adam and Eve with all that has happened to this earth, the countries have come and went, resources have come and went, through floods, earthquakes and volcano’s, working the land, creating make-work in production, building and re-building, moving around, through wars of all types, taming the elements by warmer coats, better boats, air-travel, space travel (hope for relocation), and we are still here like a leach that will not let go of this earth. It is the human ingenuity that has made it this way, and it will continue to do so as long as that ingenuity and adaptability (survival) is part of our make up. So, pass it on to you kids, so they can pass it on the their kids, so they can pass it on… infinity! Or how ever long it lasts.

If I try to look at the future, I cannot even figure what will happen tomorrow, my imagination tries to look at the nice happy peaceful serene everything moving along like watching an ant hill and all the ants. I am more optimistic with the faith I have. Sure, it may not be fun, it may not be what I planned, but it’s what He planned and so it will go. My life hasn’t always been a piece of cake, but it sure has been interesting and challenging… what a journey. And I hope I pass that ‘outlook’ on to my next of kin. It makes life worth living in the first place.

It is not all doom and gloom because you cannot see how the future will ‘mesh’ by looking at only one thing missing. It is here that faith will take us beyond the gloom and fill in the blanks as the future comes into view. Africa and Asia are too far away for my reach… heck, Wisc is out of my reach as is Iowa. I can only take care of my little ‘dot’ on the map and hope everyone else is doing the same with their little ‘dot’. I can be charitable even at a distance when others are in trouble. But, if I do not tend my own house, who will? The load is not that great to carry as long as it is only your share of it… leave the others carry their fair load too. Let the kids have-at-it, mistakes and all… didn’t we make some mistakes too? Ahhh, I’m talking about living life again, funny how it happens.

Cheer up, the sun will come up at it’s appointed time tomorrow. We will survive as long as we do. The whole world is in God’s Hands… are you second guessing Him?
Keep looking ahead as you go, but live today as it comes… keep the past as a learning experience. SMILE!

 

[StAnastasia]

Cheer up, the sun will come up at it’s appointed time tomorrow. We will survive as long as we do. The whole world is in God’s Hands… are you second guessing Him?
Keep looking ahead as you go, but live today as it comes… keep the past as a learning experience. SMILE!

I am quite cheerful. The end of affordable oil will force humanity to slow down, live more locally and develop stronger community ties.

StAnastasia

 

[Michael_David]

I am quite cheerful. The end of affordable oil will force humanity to slow down, live more locally and develop stronger community ties.

StAnastasia

I like it… back to the 50’s we go.

Just like the show Back to the Future.

And here I was worried things would be getting worse without oil, and your super-optimistic view tells me it will actually be better. (More like humans were meant to live).

Thank You

 

[StAnastasia]

I like it… back to the 50’s we go. Just like the show Back to the Future. And here I was worried things would be getting worse without oil, and your super-optimistic view tells me it will actually be better. (More like humans were meant to live).Thank You

Michael David,

I’m hopeful but not superoptimistic. As a professor and parent I have to be optimistic with my children and students, whatever my private intuitions about our future.

Look at it this way: the oil we are burning through in 150+ years took tens of millions of years to cook from microorganisms laid down over hundreds of millions of years. From a theistic perspective, petroleum is a gift from God that we are burning through with our SUVs and plastic bags and exotic air flight vacations, in less time than the USA has been a nation. We need this oil for agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and plastics of all kinds, and yet people buy SUVs as if there is no moral problem with this.

The future will be one with relatively little and astronomically expensive oil. Can we survive without it? Yes, but not in our current numbers of 6.7 billion+ people. The world before oil held about a billion humans, who had given birth to musics, art, literature, philosophy, theology and science. I believe that with our technological advances since 1859 earth could probably support two-three billion indefinitely. So yes – I am hopeful!

StAnastasia

 

[Michael_David]

StAnastasia,

Hopeful and optimistic, the future will be.

Now, if that future is what both of us are looking at, that will lead to the ‘Incline of the Human Family’. Just what is needed to get back to for the sake of humankind. The way it was back in the '50’s, and earlier, but has went south (for the most part) since then, urban areas sooner and rural areas later. Of course there are many ‘hold-out’s’ of the old traditional ways of family life, even today, but many have succumbed to the “new age” mentality on these matters, and it has not proven itself in the long run. Even with the traditional, there were problem kids, BUT, things were handled different then, the parent could discipline their kids (showing them the way to go), as it was their responsibility to handle it (and the parents then did not shy away from that responsibility). That attitude has been turned over to the government with the new age mind-set, discipline is the officers, the courts, the rehab’s and the psychologists job now days… and medication is normal. Not to go against the ‘prevailing thought’ , but I believe that what is normal kid and adolescent behavior is being treated as maladies. Normal energy is being sedated; normal stress is being medicated; normal transition is being institutionalized; normal problem solving is being out-sourced; and normal living one’s life has been injected with ‘uppers’ when down, and ‘downers’ when up.

The scale in one’s life should go from +10 to -10, with 0 in the middle. And in upbringing is where these different levels are learned and dealt with, coped with if you will. With the new age thinking, the 0 point has been moved to +5 and drugs get to +15. So, coping skills not learned during youth (growing up), are not there as adults either.

I believe the emotions can feel any feeling, good/bad, happy/sad, success/failure to any degree that these come. So, if one can only go to -5 on the sad scale, they will only be able go to +5 on the happy scale. These being normal feelings, not drug induced. So, if all this new age is preventing the ‘lows’ from going to the -10 level, they are also preventing that person from feeling the ‘highs’ in the +10 level… emotion is not bias, it will feel feelings of any sort to the max that it can. And if +5 is it because of prevention of anything lower then -5 by medication, that person is robed of both sadness and joy… to the ‘normal’ human intensities. In essence, the emotions are being stymied.

The mind and intellect is being over-developed at the loss of the emotions, and schools are doing a lot of this for various reasons. One is to learn in school, not disrupt; not get bored; not make faces at classmates; not… not. Learn! We are way behind in math and science… Learn! You will never get a good job with your grades… Learn! And you want to graduate??? And to think, my dad only went to 6th grade and he was very learned in life skills. It is these life skills that school does not teach, at least not as they ‘really’ happen in living. Yes, school does teach social skills, and livelihood skills, but it is the family life that teaches living skills. Without that, what good are the others?

Yes, let’s go back to the '50,s where community and family meant just that, and neighbors were friends. And the close knit social life helped anyone that needed it, not by money or isolation, but by love and understanding. Understanding because others have been there too and know what it feels like. Let’s call it the Return of the Human Family.

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnastasia, Hopeful and optimistic, the future will be.The mind and intellect is being over-developed at the loss of the emotions, and schools are doing a lot of this for various reasons. One is to learn in school, not disrupt; not get bored; not make faces at classmates; not… not. Learn! We are way behind in math and science… Learn! You will never get a good job with your grades… Learn! And you want to graduate??? And to think, my dad only went to 6th grade and he was very learned in life skills. It is these life skills that school does not teach, at least not as they ‘really’ happen in living. Yes, school does teach social skills, and livelihood skills, but it is the family life that teaches living skills. Without that, what good are the others? .

Fortunately, schools can teach both academics and life lessons. My children go to a wonderful Catholic school, in an urban area, and I recently taught at an equally wonderful Catholic K-8 academy in an inner city environment. Both were models of schools that educate the whole person.

StAnastasia

 

[Michael_David]

Fortunately, schools can teach both academics and life lessons. My children go to a wonderful Catholic school, in an urban area, and I recently taught at an equally wonderful Catholic K-8 academy in an inner city environment. Both were models of schools that educate the whole person.

StAnastasia

Yes, I too went to a good Catholic school through 8th grade, and public after (no parochial school in the area went higher.) The coping with religion instead of meds helped develop the emotional side along with the mental as the body grew, and a spiritual element or side also develops with these settings. All this helps with the “balance” of the individual in developing all that one is together so all the human aspects are covered. Guess we are what I would call some of those ‘hold-outs’ holding on to the traditional, when all around us many are not. There are morals and ethics learned in this type of environment, and upheld on the inside before the need for the courts come into play.

It seems that when you look at it, there is more hope for the world then one thinks, it is just going on ‘quietly’ without much fan-fare in the midst of everything else that is there. Yes, in the '50,s the tv was full of tradition, now it’s full of craziness, who can be more outlandish then the next. Then there were card games, board games, tag, jump rope and the like… now what is there? There were sports then too, but it was about playing… now it seems it’s about winning (by hook or by crook). A lot has changed ‘focus’ with what one sees and hears about, or is that only what is loud and glamorous enough to be referred to? By the mind-set of today?

Every so often one hears about someone that does a good thing just because it was the right thing to do. And it is this that should be being done all along. It is this that will reshape the world more then running low on oil… and for the better of humankind. In this life… and the next.

Hang in there… when it comes down to it, life is short… eternity is long.

 

[StAnastasia]

It seems that when you look at it, there is more hope for the world then one thinks, it is just going on ‘quietly’ without much fan-fare in the midst of everything else that is there. Yes, in the '50,s the tv was full of tradition, now it’s full of craziness, who can be more outlandish then the next. Then there were card games, board games, tag, jump rope and the like… now what is there? There were sports then too, but it was about playing… now it seems it’s about winning (by hook or by crook). A lot has changed ‘focus’ with what one sees and hears about, or is that only what is loud and glamorous enough to be referred to? By the mind-set of today?

Hang in there… when it comes down to it, life is short… eternity is long.

Michael David, I see in my own offspring the seductive lure of computers.

StA

 

[Michael_David]

StAnastasia, Ah yes, the computer… using one right now. You call it the ‘seductive lure’. That’s interesting. To me it is a tool that I toy with. Have to, things keep being updated, new versions, modifications with existing programs, you know what I mean… just learn how one program works and they change it. In business and work it is essential to know these things. Even in your profession, bet a lot is done with the computer. Even in the parochial school I worked at, 1st grade is when the kids get to ‘get the feel’ of the computer; teachers use it for almost all the elements of running the school year; e-mail is used for mass communication, and personal too; work requests, schedule needs, set-ups and time-tables are all done vie the computer. “The tool” use of the computer.

The “seductive lure” use is another side effect of it through what it is and can do. It would seem this is with all things, not just computers.

Regressing here: on the 6th day, God looked at His creation and said it was good. Setting Adam and Eve in the (good) Garden of Eden, they found satan (or he found them). Spears were made to gather food (also they where used on humans). Swords the same way. It seems that anything can be used ‘wrongly’… as well as correctly. Einstein theory of relativity he saw as a form of energy, yet it was used to end WWII. Nuclear powers submarines and electric power plants, but it is also in bombs. Has satan turned the ‘focus’ of anything good to bad uses? Or is it back to what I said about the person developing in a full balanced nature? With power comes responsibility; with freedom comes morals and ethics; there is the ‘use’ but not ‘abuse’ notion that comes with the spiritual development. Without the moral side, one only wants the frosting and not the cake… the power, freedom and abuse without the responsibility, moral/ethics and use.

If God will bestow His gifts on humankind (when they are ready for it), and humankind was more religious/spiritual, ready for receiving those gifts (with the proper focus), imagine why you do not see many gifts in humankind as a whole. A coin has two-sides, not just one… with the gift comes the responsibility… the frosting and the cake; with the passing grade comes the study and work.

The computer should not ‘lure’ one any more then a hammer and nail when putting wood together; any more then making dinner, enjoying the meal, then doing the dishes; any more then getting to work in the car, filling the tank, having insurance, keeping it tuned up, tires inflated and washed; any more then writing this post. If ones focus is on the tool (proper use of) the focus of the toy (abuse of) vanishes. Seems most things can be good when used as intended, and bad when not… just like this earth and the things that are in and on it. And it is the morals/ethics (conscience) that keeps things in proper check. Without these developed (early on) satan has solid footing to run the show.

One thing to help with your offspring is ‘example’. What you do with this ‘seductive’ thing. Letting them know and satisfy that curiosity should help with the proper focus, the probable abuse and punishment, the being careful if online, really to know all the elements of this thing that is the computer… the frosting and the cake, both sides of the coin. Good luck with this, it has succeeded with my offspring, and now with theirs.

 

[StAnastasia]

The computer should not ‘lure’ one any more then a hammer and nail when putting wood together

Except that a computer opens one to far more possibilities for wasting time than do a hammer and nail.

I want my kids to learn more self-reliance for the time when we are forced to live more simply. I want them to learn sewing, carpentry, bicycle maintenance, gardening, food preservation, and other skills that are lost arts for many people.

StAnastasia

 

[Michael_David]

Except that a computer opens one to far more possibilities for wasting time than do a hammer and nail.

I want my kids to learn more self-reliance for the time when we are forced to live more simply. I want them to learn sewing, carpentry, bicycle maintenance, gardening, food preservation, and other skills that are lost arts for many people.

StAnastasia

Have you tried camping? No computer, no iPod, no electric, no warm fire (it’s brisk up here, need to gather some wood…), you get the picture: ruffing it!
A backyard garden would be a start for the green thumb.
Let them help you do these things. They gain interest by watching you. Can those tomato’s you grew. Weed the garden regularly (I try to do that on a personal basis, and those weeds keep coming up).
Set up multi-event evenings… an hour for this, an hour for that. Harvest may make projects; Christmas may make time-tables for that sweater being knit; not wanting to walk the bike home from a mile or more out, should make maintaining it a worthy effort; watch the new baby birds fly out of that house you built for them; play cards with them (no tv, radio or anything else)…You get the idea…

Involvement and example are what a lot of kids want, especially from their “”“busy”"" parents. If this is lacking, they will find it elsewhere…and you may not like where from.

Be happy together; be sad together; pray together; sing together; eat together; live together; grow together; be together. Life is lived apart as well as together… give them at least equal time. They have to be kids as you have to be a parent… that is why it’s so much fun.

Look at it this way: Christ came down to our level to set an example of the Way to His level for us Children of God. Do we hear what He says; do we see what He did (does); do we see how they match (a good insight for what is real and what is false).

Do we follow those principals, morals, ethics… even when it hurts our ego? Do we pursue self-satisfaction rather then self-denial? Are we still learning? Are we still growing? Then we have that in common with our kids! And they will see this and know that it is a way of life… this journey we are on. And that joy and happiness are found on the journey, as well as other things, so it is essential to be alert and aware, not everything is friendly for us.

Remember, it’s kids with nothing else to do that find ways to kill time (by whatever means). Help them be productive with this loose time. Chores, studies, doing things, learning things… even, let them teach you some things, as they surely can and will. This is the joy of parenting… you will not regret it. And when you see them doing to their kids what you did with them, your heart will overflow… (oops, got to get a mop).

 

[Michael_David]

PS: note: wholesale gasoline is 90 cents a gallon this evening.
See if the pump price drops likewise???

 

[StAnastasia]

PS: note: wholesale gasoline is 90 cents a gallon this evening.
See if the pump price drops likewise???

We’ll see. It’s the long term that is worrisome, not the short term.

 

[Michael_David]

We’ll see. It’s the long term that is worrisome, not the short term.

Yes, long term what is certain? Even short term… looking at all the jobs going down the tubes; stock market going underground… it didn’t take long to happen once it started.

But super-long term, we should have something “fairly” certain… if we behave.

I’d like GM to start making the Metro again… really liked that lil high-milage maker of a chaser. Only had a 3 cylinder engine for the 1800 lbs, but it had guts enough for me. Smaller tires, less oil, less gas, less insurance… really sized down. I called it my ‘four-season’ motor-cycle. In fact, I made better milage then my brothers Honda mid-size motor-cycle, he made 42 mpg.

Long term we may have nuclear power in the cars, like in the ionizing smoke detectors. The detectors have only a pin head size bit, a car may only need a marble size chunk. And now with the fuel-cell developing, we will be running on all the water the glaciers are melting off… and no pollution out the exhaust pipe. Just thinking, we may have a London Fog here in the states if fuel-cells became really popular. There are options being developed… soon you best sell off that oil stock you have going against all the other stocks today. I wasn’t smart enough to get into the oil markets, even when a President from Texas and from an oil family got to be President, should of known. Like when Carter was in, the price of peanuts went from a dime to 50 cents for the same size bag. What is Obama into?

Our ingenuity will come up with some alternative when the time is right. If politics doesn’t get in the way. More then likely politics will, until the masses are fed up and are looking to revolt… not only for a change.

It is for us as individuals to take a good hard look in the mirror and see what we have been doing and what we could do, and what we should be doing and start doing it. No matter the laughs or the snide remarks or put downs for doing it… here I think of Noah. Why can people drive smaller cars and drive less now since the gas was at $4 a gal, will they go back to the SUV’s and more miles when it’s down to $1.25 a gal.? (Thereby re-creating the next $5 a gal gas) “Look in the mirror!!!”
If it’s not a truck needed for the work one does, why do I see so many 12 mpg monsters with one person in during rush hour? “Look in the mirror!!!”

Well, StAnastasia, I guess there are toooo few of us with this state of mind… again, I think of Noah. Sooner or later it will become ‘obvious’… how long can you thread water? Let’s get to higher ground… or better yet, go for a ride in the Ark.

I still see it as a human condition that needs/wants to be altered. Take what you need, leave the rest. Just like the ‘mana’ in the desert, it came every day, and they were told to take only what they needed for that day, more would come the next day… and it did. Can we have faith like that? Sure! Depends on what condition ones inner life is in. “Look in the mirror!!!”

There may be lessons to be learned, if one forgets history, and the Bible is the best history lesson one can learn. Does it apply today… sure does! As sheep, which Shepherds voice are we listening to and following? Or are we too busy living our external life, that we cannot hear the Shepherd calling us over?

I’m not too worried about the economy, more so about the Church and what is happening with her. Perhaps it will be more ‘quality’ and less ‘quantity’ in the future… as it was in the early Church. Maybe the weeds are being pulled from the garden… sure seems like it. And with that quality, perhaps God will bestow His gifts more freely then before… that thing about casting pearls to swine.

Again, keep smiling…

 

[StAnastasia]

I’d like GM to start making the Metro again… really liked that lil high-milage maker of a chaser. Only had a 3 cylinder engine for the 1800 lbs, but it had guts enough for me. Smaller tires, less oil, less gas, less insurance… really sized down. I called it my ‘four-season’ motor-cycle. In fact, I made better milage then my brothers Honda mid-size motor-cycle, he made 42 mpg.

Long term we may have nuclear power in the cars, like in the ionizing smoke detectors. The detectors have only a pin head size bit, a car may only need a marble size chunk.

Michael, I suspect the big three will be required to start making reasonable cars. More importantly, we need to restructure our lives so that long commutes are not necessary. I’m glad you’re hopeful!

StAnastasia

 

[Michael_David]

Michael, I suspect the big three will be required to start making reasonable cars. More importantly, we need to restructure our lives so that long commutes are not necessary. I’m glad you’re hopeful!

StAnastasia

Yes I am hopeful (optimistic)… until it proves otherwise.
No matter what problem(s) come down the pike, there are solutions also available. Would they make our living life a ‘seamless transition’, perhaps not, but they would be doable. In any of the ‘marvels’ that have come in our lifetime, there were ‘learning curves’. Changes in how we do things. And change sometimes means something totally new rather then a progression or improvement of the old… just as cars did for the horse, but not in the way fuel went from wood, to coal, to oil, to gas.

Yes, I’m all for saving resources, even in my our living style. And I know some that are not of the same mind. Does this mean that as a whole the masses will need politics to help them decide to conserve? Perhaps! And as such, we are in the same boat with them as this ‘process’ is being accomplished… even though we already are doing it, it has to be everyone or it will not have merit. So, the fast learners are still in the same classroom as the slow learners… still being thought the same things that they already know and have applied… while the slow ones haven’t caught on yet. Does a teacher teach according to how the A-B students catch on while leaving the C-D students in the dust? Or do they teach at the C speed and the A-B students are ahead while the D students are behind? The Gov’t (politics) teaches on the D level, so the A-B-C people already know it and do it (asking the gov’t what’s going on?), the F people are left for the courts to handle. Seems the transition happens when the D class has passed the grade.

Is the Church doing this too? Not wanting to leave anyone behind… perhaps.

Are families doing this too? Wanting to be trendy and in with the times… however they view it, and from what sources. Rather then going with the tried and true. I believe so. Except for the few hold-outs that do not want to become an ‘experiment’ that will only prove it’s worth with their own kids. As such, once looking in the mirror and seeing the errors, I believe things will go back to the tried and true even for the C-D parents. The writing is on the wall already… but will take some time to apply.

You see, there is always the temptation to do anything that is hard the easier way. Look at our life and what we used to do as compared to what we do now… things have gotten easier, less human power to do things. More electric, more gasoline, more microwaves, more automatic dishwashers, more fast-food… etc. But this same easy way out should of never gotten into our raising our kids or our personal relationships of any sort. Yet, once the temptation for the easy way got into our mentality, it wasn’t difficult for it to get across the boundaries of external to internal and be implemented in all of ones life. Once it got ‘personal’ the decline was not far behind.

A number of things are not easy and will never be, like love or raising kids. But the rewards are great! If one goes the easy way out, the rewards are not there either. Christ could of took the easy way out, but He loved us and that is what it took. Pain and suffering are normal fares where love and kids are concerned… but so is happiness and joy. Without the one, the other is not there either. If we want the coin, we have to take both sides.

I have somehow connected the Church and the Family in the same character, as when the Church started it’s decline so did the Family… or was it the Family declining that started the Church decline??? They seem to affect each other on a deep level.

 

[StAnastasia]

No matter what problem(s) come down the pike, there are solutions also available. Would they make our living life a ‘seamless transition’, perhaps not, but they would be doable. In any of the ‘marvels’ that have come in our lifetime, there were ‘learning curves’. Changes in how we do things. And change sometimes means something totally new rather then a progression or improvement of the old… just as cars did for the horse, but not in the way fuel went from wood, to coal, to oil, to gas.

Nice relcetions, but I have time only to comment on the first praragprh.

Yes, there are alternatives to petroleum and natural gas. The question is, will we take advantage of the window of opportunity to put the infrastructure for these alternatives into place? We may have little time before petroleum becomes so costly that only a smaller population can be supported. Doing nothing now to prepare for that will virtually ensure the eventual death of billions of humans through spasms of famine, resource wars, epidemic diseases, etc.

Hopefully yours,
StAnastasia