Re: oil and socialism

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Gar Lipow wrote:

>
>
> Every bit of it? Super-insulation will not save energy in Canadian
> houses? Waste heat from electricity generation cannot heat Canadian
> buildings and water? Longer lasting goods would not save the energy need
> for more frequent manufacture in Canada? More efficent autos will not
> burn less fuel in Canada? Agriculturural (and forestry) waste could not
> produce fuel or feedstocks in Canada? Canada has no city dwellers who
> could benefit from more mass transit?

Gar, Most of these proposals in the short run, and some perhaps even
in the long run, are energy sinks -- that is their implementation would consume
more energy than they would save after being implemented. Nuclear power
is definitely an energy sink (and will continue to be so for thousands of years
after its utilization ceases).

Let me post one of my recurrent warnings against the invocation of fragments
of scientific learning by non-biologists, non-chemists, non-climatologists,
non-engineers. I myself don't have a clue as to whether in fact Gar's utopian
suggestions are energy sinks or energy savers -- and neither does he.

Amateur 'knowledge' of climatology and energy physics is probably not quite
so destructive as amateur 'knowledge' of evolutionary science (which can
generate fantasies, for example, about the evolutionary justification of "trophy
wives") but can nevertheless lead to false fears and, more importantly, naive
conceptions of what can be done.

Carrol