stumo

Assuming that the complexity of our global civilization is based on fossil fuels, and further assuming that there's insufficient net energy left to implement a global alternative energy infrastructure, could civilization be re-built without easy-to-access fossil fuels?

All the more reason to take care of things now...

I'm also afraid that we have all the more reason to take care of things starting fifty years ago. We may have insufficient energy remaining to implement the necessary changes, and we sure don't have the political will and the infrastructure to effect the global co-ordination needed.

If only smart people were in charge...

Yeah, we've done biomass before, and it simply doesn't provide the massive net energy that industrialization requires. I'm haunted by the idea that if we fall apart because of our dependence on that cheap energy, there will never be another industrialized human society.

Thanks for the reference, I haven't read that one. Yours too looks very interesting. I was just musing this morning that probably no-one in my family or community knows anything about animal husbandry, and wondering where that knowledge would have to come from some day :)