Planning for the Post-Carbon Future
Decatur Metro | April 4, 2011UPDATE: In the comments, Eric suggested this video, which provides another take on the past 200 years. Really great!
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Though I’m not entirely sure I believe things are quite as bad as this video implies, I think that the short history lesson and the proposed response are right on point. (But maybe I’m trying to have my cake and eat it too, thinking that any large number of people will make any sort of radical change without hypothetical perils laid before them.)
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Great video but too alarmist, IMHO. I challenge a few points when they start talking recent history:
2:26 “…but world oil production stalls out.” Not quite accurate. He means growth in world oil production slows. We’ve been steadily using / producing ~ 90M bbls / day.
3:00 “But a deepwater oil platform explodes and fouls the Gulf of Mexico.” Yes, That was an awful mess, but fortunately it did not ruin the Gulf of Mexico.
3:11 The U.S. becomes a “Casino”. An economy 40% based on financial services makes it a “casino?” (If that number is even accurate…)
Here is another take on that same 200 years…
“…too alarmist…”. That the descriptor I was looking for!
Oh wow. And that “Joy of Stats video is amazing. Going to add it to the original post!
Thanks DM!
In contrast to the carbon based energy solutions, thought you might be interested in this article by Business Insider…
“Citing unnamed sources, China Securities Journal today reported that the country’s solar target might be raised to 10 gigawatts (GW) of PV by 2015, up from the current target of 5 GW. For comparison, global solar PV capacity was about 40 GW in 2010.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-may-double-solar-goal-us-still-asleep-at-the-wheel-2011-3?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed28Business+Insider%29
-1, not new
(TED has other engaging Rosling videos.)
Links?
http://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling.html
Think you are missing the “flow” of the post. The Rosling vid is a response to the original posting. No points for “newness.”
The point is how much progress has been made during the same time that the we’ve created all these woes from our use of Fossil Fuels.
Yeah, the juxtaposition is really interesting to me. Longer lives in exchange for all of the “woes”. If you rarely hear anyone talk about the “population problem” you REALLY never hear anyone argue that people should sacrifice lifespan in exchange for less environmental impact.
I guess one of the things not taken into account in the income/lifespan chart is the “happiness quotient”. But what do they say? That money helps up to $60,000 per household, per year? Then it doesn’t get appreciably higher above that? So then I guess we can assume that the people in the upper right corner are also the “happiest”.
No, I got that.
Then what’s the point of commenting on the newness? This isn’t a contest about finding the latest viral video. Just because a creative work that generated some internet buzz has run its course doesn’t mean it can’t be or shouldn’t be revisited, especially if it has some relevance to a topic.
“-1, not new” might apply if I tried to send a link to Antoine Dodson and the Bed Intruder on a FFAF.
So what is your take? fossil fuels – bad? wind power and ethanol – good?
First off, it’s an opinion not an air strike; you may safely stand down. Secondly, it wasn’t even a response to you; the parenthetical is not connected.
It is my personal opinion that the post was little more than “hey, look at this.” The [post-carbon] video could be supplemental to several discussions, but I didn’t find a proposition in DM’s remarks (though I was somewhat tempted by his parenthetical).
+1 for “it’s an opinion, not an airstrike” – well said!
OK. Glad it’s safe to stand down.
Forgive me for challenging that initial critical comment/opinion.
Asking for a richer explanation might have been the easier course, before launching that challenge.
You not being the buzzkill on the exchange that DM & Eric B were enjoying would’ve worked too.
Perhaps I saw sarcasm where there was none; I thought my reply was constructive (my only thoughts were for Eric’s blood pressure).
I, now thoroughly shamed by you, will try much harder to avoid the unintentional criticism of those I am not addressing.
On an unrelated note, did you like the Rosling videos from TED….
Ha! I’ll definitely check them out! :0)
I wonder about a video that is about statistics that doesn’t define its data any more than this. It’s mostly a gee-whiz video about visualization.
Are the income numbers adjusted for inflation? Are they means or medians? Are they adjusted for extreme income inequality?
What are the numbers in absolute population? In other words, in 1810 the population was about 1 billion. Now it is close to 7 billion. How many people are still down in that lower left corner today? Half a billion?