Brian,

I suppose I will need to take "Mandarin" lessons.

I hope you are right about the "slow die off". There is still a major
problem with the up and comming recession/inflationary sprial. That is
where life can get very "ugly".

David A. Douthit
Manager
LoCan LLC

Brian Ellis wrote:

> Brian doesn't! Although the basic premisses are possibly correct, I
> don't believe in the pessimistic conclusions drawn. Homo sapiens is too
> tenacious a species to permit a die-off, although I do forecast a slow
> population decline. We have the knowledge, means and technology to
> change from a carbon economy to an essentially non-carbon one but it
> needs commitment. If the money that the USA, the UK and others have
> pumped into Iraq (for what purpose?) over the last few years had been
> directed to this problem, so that we did not need Iraqi oil, we would
> already be half-way to making the transition. The problem is not one of
> technology, but of so-called democracy, because politicians are not good
> enough salesemen to buy enough votes in the next election, if they
> promote unpopular moves. This is where China has a big advantage over
> us. For example, they can build nuke power stations ad inf. and the
> population acclaims the government for foreseeing the need to provide
> abundant, low cost, electric power. Other than a few forward-looking
> countries, such as France and Finland, the West quakes in its boots
> because politicians fear the onslaught of the eco-politicians with their
> misinformation, disinformation and downright lies regarding carbon-free
> power generation. And when I see that some Western countries use less
> than 35% of the energy they import/produce, it is easy to see where to
> tackle the problem: start by eliminating half the wasted energy and you
> will cut GHG emissions by half and double the time interval to Peak Oil
> or other fossil fuels. Combine that with an aggressive
> renewables/nuclear/transport policy as I suggested in my post of 17 Feb,
>  and we shall not suffer from the effects of Peak Oil.
>
> Brian
>
> MA/NY DDave wrote:
>
>> Hi David, EnViroN,
>>
>> OK I found Olduvai, in the link you gave, yet you can elaborate if
>> you wish
>> to the EnViroN audience.
>>
>> YiEngr, MA/NY DDave
>>
>> P.S. Again I hope Brian approves of most of this web site's data
>>
>
>