Petroleum and the future of civilization

[drpmjhess]

So, these Malthusian approaches … to reduce the birth rate … are in direct contradiction to Catholic doctrine. The intervention of the Holy Spirit is not an option according to the discussion. So, there we are.
No alternatives to petroleum.

(1) No doubt the Holy Spirit is a better student of mathematics than you are, and realizes you can’t have an infinitely expanding human population on a finite planet.

(2) Which approaches to reducing the birth rate are you saying are in direct contradiction to Catholic doctrine? I don’t recall that either Doug or I ever said anything in this regard.

(3) Why do you say there are no alternatives to petroleum? Of course there are!

 

[Al_Masetti]

The Holy Spirit is Infinite, as is Jesus, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. As is the Father, the First Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Catholicism … all Christianity … is based on following the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth … God, the Son of God. He set up the Church and gave the Church its doctrines. And, from time to time, He, the INFINITE, has condescended to provide some additional “insights” … not official ones, but little glimpses to keep us “motivated” … He has inspired some amazing writers, for example. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas … to name two really important writers. We are reminded that toward the end of his life, St. Thomas Aquinas was given a vision of Heaven and then tried to burn his writings because he said they were mere straw. Worthless and so much less than than the reality of Heaven and his writings were so … inadequate … so finite … in comparison with Heaven.

In any event, the Planet Earth is not and will never be Heaven. The Planet Earth is, in fact, finite … in size, in scope, and in time.

To say that the Planet Earth is finite … well, even our Sun is finite … in a mathematical sense. Even the Universe is finite … mathematically.

And yet, the finite life of the Universe might be “merely” another four billion years. Finite, but not very.

So arguments regarding finite-ness are not very helpful.

We do not know … or do not fully appreciate … the fullness of the resources available to us on the Planet Earth. It has not been anywhere near fully explored. It would be like being cast on to a remote island of large size and never getting off the beach … and saying that the island is “finite” and therefore will not be suitable.

The Planet Earth has not been fully explored. The Planet Earth is 7000 miles in diameter … and we have only explored small parts of the surface … and only to depths of a few miles in a few places. We do know that the earth is a fireball with a rich core of elements heated to several thousand degrees. It is an amazing device … an amazing creation. And we really have no idea what the extent of the riches of the Planet Earth are. In addition, the Earth is bombarded by energy from the sun and from the cosmos (cosmic rays, etc) and the Earth actually increases in mass from the bombardment. And we are protected from radiation by the amazing magnetosphere. And we have studied very little of the Earth.

In fact, even up to just a few years ago, some folks were adamant that there were no natural sources of organohalogens, until a fellow named Gordon Gribble proved them wrong. So we really know very little.

Someday, at some point, the world will end. It is not our “job” or our “place” to determine when that will occur. Many very smart people have calculated very precisely when the world will end or when we will run out of resources … or when Jesus will come again … and in every case they have been wrong.

Jesus is quoted as having said: “you know not the hour or the day.”

The title of this thread is “Petroleum and the future of civilization” and the focus of this thread is that petroleum will run out shortly and that civilization will collapse. That presupposes perfect knowledge of petroleum reserves, that there are no deliberate political machinations on the part of the political regimes that control sources such as Saudi Arabia and that there are no manipulations on the pumping rate or the known reserves.

It also presupposes that there are no substitutes available. But we know full well that there ARE substitutes … we have discussed them. AND, we have already discussed that many of the alternatives to petroleum have been placed off limits (in the United States) by people with political motives.

Robert Zubrin has an OUTSTANDING table that shows the known substitutes page 210 … and also in Chapter 5 …

Visit www.energyvictory.net

(1) No doubt the Holy Spirit is a better student of mathematics than you are, and realizes you can’t have an infinitely expanding human population on a finite planet.

(2) Which approaches to reducing the birth rate are you saying are in direct contradiction to Catholic doctrine? I don’t recall that either Doug or I ever said anything in this regard.

(3) Why do you say there are no alternatives to petroleum? Of course there are!

 

[drpmjhess]

But we know full well that there ARE substitutes … we have discussed them. AND, we have already discussed that many of the alternatives to petroleum have been placed off limits (in the United States) by people with political motives. l]

Yes, there are substitutes, but not sufficient to feed seven billion + people. At some point we will have to reach zero population growth, or see the excess human population trimmed by natural causes. The Catholic Church cannot morally acquiesce to permitting such a cull.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Yes, there are substitutes, but not sufficient to feed seven billion + people. At some point we will have to reach zero population growth, or see the excess human population trimmed by natural causes. The Catholic Church cannot morally acquiesce to permitting such a cull.

You seem to want to equate facts with a forecast … a projection. They are not equal.

Close your eyes and think of all of the apocalyptic forecasts of the past and how wrong they all were.

And, sorry, but the Catholic Church does not subscribe to your forecasts of doom.

The Church is rooted in worship of God … and the Catholic Church believes that Jesus is God. And that Jesus gave us His Divine Teachings. And that there are aspects to Divine Revelation that we cannot understand. Because the Divine is Infinite and our human intellects are woefully pathetic.

Furthermore, all the great minds have already spoken out about the limitations of this Earth … you know … man will never fly … atomic energy is impossible …

And what has happened? … although absurd, man [or airplanes] fly … we do have atomic energy and are working on fusion … and only about 2% of the population works in agriculture in the United States [down from a much larger percentage] and we feed a larger percentage of the world’s population.

Man uses inspiration to invent new things and new improvements.

Why, did you know, that they have started pumping oil in western Pennsylvania again? [Only a couple of barrels a day per well … but every little bit helps!] And the headline says “Exxon Has Off Year Discovering New Oil”… except that the actual details of the article point out that if you discount the expropriation of Exxon assets by Venezuela, Exxon actually said its reserve-replacement ratio in 2007 was 132%.

So, the data on running out … no new discoveries … is bogus.

The article even said that “Reserves accounting by oil companies traditionally has been a matter of interpretation.” [Do you believe that???] AND that there has been a somewhat different method of reserve-replacement calculation required by the SEC … blah, blah, blah … it’s a mess.]

Anyway, Exxon said that “Last year was Exxon’s 14th consecutive year of more than replacing what we produced”.

Sorreee. Better luck next time.

 

[drpmjhess]

And, sorry, but the Catholic Church does not subscribe to your forecasts of doom.

I said yesterday that at some point we will reach zero population growth. That is a mathematical certainty, regardless of anything evangelists, popes, councils, and patristic theologians might have written or said. For every species on earth – including Homo sapiens – there is a maximum possible population. You cannot have an infinite growth in the populations of squirrels, or elephants, or porpoises. And even my second grader understands why you cannot have an infinite number of humans on the earth; why at some point the human species will reach zero population growth – that’s not rocket science, at least not for a second grader.

Petrus

 

[Al_Masetti]

I said yesterday that at some point we will reach zero population growth. That is a mathematical certainty, regardless of anything evangelists, popes, councils, and patristic theologians might have written or said. For every species on earth – including Homo sapiens – there is a maximum possible population. You cannot have an infinite growth in the populations of squirrels, or elephants, or porpoises. And even my second grader understands why you cannot have an infinite number of humans on the earth; why at some point the human species will reach zero population growth – that’s not rocket science, at least not for a second grader.

Petrus

Let me try this a different way:

Take a look at the infinite growth of population and track it back. And the trend was established thousands [five thousands] of years ago.

So, back in Egypt 3000 BC, there was already a trend … that at some time in the future the planet would run out of resources.

And if that is true, then the population should have been capped off at zero population growth in 3000BC.

The point is that even with all of the good-doin’ projections, we are using the technology and knowledge of the year 2007 to try to fix a perceived problem of 2107.

But … ya know … I wish there was a graph of “human knowledge” that we could add to the graph of population growth. We could show how index of technology and/or the index of knowledge has “increased”.

Because then, we could … from a purely secular and materialistic perspective … see that there is hope … and not despair … that “culling” [to use your word] … is not a reality.

Technology and knowledge does “keep up”. The problem is that we humans can see misery as a projection to the future, but we cannot see hope as a projection to the future.

Think of all the technological developments of the past 100 years. The bulldozer. The microchip.

I wish there was a “Moore’s Law” that we could apply to this discussion.

Moore's law - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Doug50]

Well, Petrus, you now know what Al worships, the limitless miracles technology

 

[drpmjhess]

Take a look at the infinite growth of population and track it back. And the trend was established thousands [five thousands] of years ago.

You cannot have infinite growth of any animal population on a finite planet. I’m sure you would agree that you could not have an infinite number of people standing on Maui. Likewise, long before there is a human being standing on every square foot of earth’s land surface, we will have reached zero population growth. Why is such a simple concept so hard for you to grasp? I suspect Dee Dee and Doug50 and others are capable of grasping that point.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Well, Petrus, you now know what Al worships, the limitless miracles technology

No, I worship the Infinite God … Who provides Inspiration to His creations … us humans ]… that allows us to subdue the Earth … to be good stewards … to preach Christianity to all … to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit … Who will be with us until the end of time.

 

[Al_Masetti]

You cannot have infinite growth of any animal population on a finite planet. I’m sure you would agree that you could not have an infinite number of people standing on Maui. Likewise, long before there is a human being standing on every square foot of earth’s land surface, we will have reached zero population growth. Why is such a simple concept so hard for you to grasp? I suspect Dee Dee and Doug50 and others are capable of grasping that point.

Because we are not on Maui.

We are on the Planet Earth, which we have not even begun to explore.

And the Planet Earth is bombarded with light, with energy, with warmth, and with additional mass by the Sun (which will last several billion years) and by the Cosmos (which will last even longer) …

We have only begun to understand … just barely … what is here on this Planet that the Infinite God has placed here for us.

Our knowledge and understanding will not have reached its pinnacle in February of 2008.

If someone is going to be Catholic and/or Christian, they gotta have faith.

Faith in God.

Not belief in some secular math. God has defeated secular math time and time again.

 

[drpmjhess]

Well, Petrus, you now know what Al worships, the limitless miracles technology

I know, Doug, but I wonder why population mathematics is such terra incognita to Al. I agreed with him last week that there are certainly alternatives the human community needs to explore. I also agree that the terminal population of humans is not known and will depend on a variety of factors, including the kind of food we demand, the living patterns we are willing to adopt, and so forth. But I was trying to get his baseline agreement on the point that whether we do so voluntarily or are forced by nature, the human spices will reach its absolute numerical maximum at some point. Perhaps Al would say that there is no logical reason we couldn’t support an infinite population of humans on Maui by having them sit 100 deep on each others’ shoulders, but then reality would have left the building.

Petrus

 

[Doug50]

Al wrote:

But … ya know … I wish there was a graph of “human knowledge” that we could add to the graph of population growth. We could show how index of technology and/or the index of knowledge has “increased”.

Because then, we could … from a purely secular and materialistic perspective … see that there is hope … and not despair … that “culling” [to use your word] … is not a reality.

Seems to me he doesn’t see any limits to technology. But by extension wouldn’t that also mean no limits to the human mind, that the human mind is potentially infinit?

 

[drpmjhess]

Seems to me he doesn’t see any limits to technology. But by extension wouldn’t that also mean no limits to the human mind, that the human mind is potentially infinit?

Possibly, but even an infinite mind cannot accomplish the logically impossible, like putting an infinite population on Maui or the Earth. I suppose God could miraculously create a bunch of neighboring pristine earths to which we could miraculously export sections of the Earth’s population, but then we’re talking miracle, and logic has left the building.

Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

If someone is going to be Catholic and/or Christian, they gotta have faith. .

By this logic, I could play Russian roulette with a loaded .45, having faith the God will not allow the one bullet in five to be in the chamber when I pull the trigger.

 

[Doug50]

Anyone wana bet Al will not open a pdf report by Citi Group?

peakoil.solarhorizons.com/reports/Citi-Oil-Report.pdf

 

[drpmjhess]

Anyone wana bet Al will not open a pdf report by Citi Group
peakoil.solarhorizons.com/reports/Citi-Oil-Report.pdf

I wouldn’t risk money on the actions of an innumerate.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Not sure, but I’d bet you all aren’t Catholic.

So, here’s what I would propose.

Somewhere near you there is a Catholic church that has 24/7 Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration.

Go there and spend an hour. I would suggest a late evening hour, when there isn’t much foot traffic. And just sit and ask God for some direction and guidance.

Maybe bring a 3x5 card and a pen along in case of an inspiration or two.

Ya never know … you might get some ideas along the lines of New Math.

Keep in mind that the Planet Earth is bigger than Maui and much much richer in resources.

Keep in mind also, that Jesus, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity had no difficulty feeding 5000 people (counting only the men) with five barley loaves and two fishes.

Imagine what He could do with a planet 7000 miles in diameter and with fusion power.

 

[Al_Masetti]

This is about oil not running out: I’ll print it so you don’t have to click.

1 Kings 17:8-16

The word of the LORD came to Elijah, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the LORD the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.

 

[drpmjhess]

This is about oil not running out: I’ll print it so you don’t have to click. 1 Kings 17:8-16.

Oh boy – the cheese has slid off the cracker now! You’re not even in touch with reality as most people know it. You might recommend 1 Kings 17 to Exxon or BP as a long-term solution…

 

[Al_Masetti]

Oh boy – the cheese has slid off the cracker now! You’re not even in touch with reality as most people know it. You might recommend 1 Kings 17 to Exxon or BP as a long-term solution…

Exxon has done well for the past 14 years, in terms of oil exploration, according to Exxon.