Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They said that during the "energy crisis" during the '70's too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Slick.

Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No... anything but that... please...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OK, now that statement scares me.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree Mac, fascism is on the rise again, and I think it is a serious threat to humanity. Bush seems determined to push the entire world into irrational fear, hysterical hatred and uncontrollable conflict, and then to dominate the survivors and strip away any kind of freedom from them. IMHO he is a major threat to the future of civilisation.

Re: oil. We will run out eventually, no-one can deny that there is only a finite supply of it (unless you want to wait a few million years for some more to be naturally formed). When it will run out I don't know, but most estimates I've seen seem range from around 5 to 100 years, depending on the agenda being pushed.
however much is out there, it all depends on how quickly we burn it up, and in particularly, how quickly the 3rd World catches up with the 1st in terms of consumption. If everyone in Africa, India and China went out tomorrow and bought a Ford each (and magically had sufficient roads/ fuel stations/ money to run them) we'd all be living in 3rd World conditions by the end of the decade. We will proabably have sufficient alternative energy sources by the time oil runs out, so that doesn't really worry me, but what are we going to do about pLastics and other oil derivatives? Imagine having to build everything out of wood, metal and other materials again. Many (most?) manufactured goods we take for granted would be impossible to build out of anything else without making major sacrifices in terms of weight and/or cost and/or strength. Look around the room you are sitting in, and try to imagine the contents without pLastic. Just think about how much pLastic you throw away every day...
Maybe pLastics could be manufactured without oil somehow, but that is bound to cost a lot of money and energy.

Re: environment. Global warming/ climate change are going to cause a lot of devastation, suffering and extinctions, but humanity and the the environment will adapt and survive. That's not to say we shouldn't work against it, it's still a very very bad thing, just not *quite* as bad as some other problems we face. Pollution is a problem and a potential planet-killer, but I believe we have what it takes to beat it and we have been on the right track for quite a few years now. Big companies and their pocket politicians are determined to change/bend/break the rules in order to continue polluting, but the world's public is against pollution, and I think eventually the will of the ppl will win.

Re: Asteroids. I'm not worried about asteroid threats- we probably (statistically speaking :-p )have a long while until we are forced to deal with that one, but we ought to be watching the skies more carefully, just to be sure, and we also ought to colonise the moon and mars, just in case.

Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

Regarding Oil: I think the actual fear is running out of CHEAP oil. I think Atrocities had a link to a scary site about that. When it starts costing alot of money to pump out, process and protect the oil, people are gonna freak. Society will crash, and more wars will break out as countries try to protect or posess more oil to offset the costs.
I'm not worried, I'm counting on it. I hate this oil based society and being forced to change is a good motivator.

Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

When we run out of 'oil' or the price at least runs up to stratospheric levels, the tar sands in Canada will become economically viable to extract. It's not likely to take long for US industries to make some sort of deal and start 'refining' (messy as it might be) when the price is finally high enough to support the business. The reserves in Canada's 'tar sands' (or 'oil sands') are estimated to be larger than Saudi Arabia's crude oil reserves.

http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/com/Sands/default.htm

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/102sprin...ects/M.Sexton/

And even if this gets used up, there have been all sorts of clever processes tried over the years to make 'syntheitc' fuel oil, including some remarkably successful processes developed in Germany during the WW II shortages. Like the tar sands, price compared to the easily available form is all that keeps these processes from being used. So it seems much more likely that we'll have to give up oil burning due to pollution before we actually run out.

Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

Maybe we should buy stocks in Alberta oil sand companies like Syncrude or Suncor. We'll be rich when the oil prices go up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

Buy stocks in farmland; there the only thing that'll hold.

Sorry. Well, not really. I'm laughing while i'm writing. PUNS!

Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

No more new "Good and Original" PC games.

Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

I also read a few years ago about how the Cubans were working on turning sugar cane into a substitute for oil-based fuels. ANyone know about that?

They were also using it to make super glue and about a zillion other things they couldn't import due to sanctions, IIRC.

Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

Thought this might be interesting to a few:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/0...eut/index.html

Slick.

Re: OT: What is the biggest
 

Atrocities hit the nail on the head right off: Overpopulation!

If we had only 1 billion on the planet instead of 7 billion, 95% of the problems mentioned would disappear. There's a trade off of course. Fewer geniuses, fewer inovations and discoveries; you can't have it all!

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's not a threat it's a symptom. Of both overpopulation and erosion of freedom.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, but you go through more intersections that way. It balances out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I won't listen!! La la la la la... I'm not listening! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Unfortunately I have no faith in the human race to do the right thing. We will dig our own grave then whine when we struggle to clamber out again. But when we rise again, we will have fewer resources to work with so we will be forced to do it better next time. This may be the only way the human race can continue evolving.