Transcript The Idiotic Things We Do - Peak Oil and the Fate of Humanity

Things humans do that
monkeys don’t do
Use your arrow keys to navigate.
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This presentation will lead you to appreciate
some of the behavioural differences between us
and our closest cousins on the evolutionary
scale, monkeys.
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We will deal mainly with what humans do - that
monkeys don’t do and finish with one striking
similarity.
What qualifies as something that humans
do that monkeys don’t do?
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THE ADOPTION OF A PROCESS OR THE
BUILDING OF INFRASTRUCTURE THAT:
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Requires petroleum or a large amount of inputs
Will be irreversible once energy becomes rare
Will be inoperable without petroleum
Will cause irreparable future harm to the environment
and perhaps to society
Our descendents will curse us for
If you have prior understanding of:
Peak oil
Carrying capacity
Exponential growth
The I=TAP formula
Overshoot and dieoff
you will better appreciate the irony of what
humans do that monkeys don’t do.
In recent years, the modern human has
acquired a fondness for bottled water:
Bottled water:
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Not guaranteed to be any healthier than tap water
Can cost up to 10,000 times more than tap water
Transporting bottled water long distances involves burning
massive quantities of fossil fuels
Nearly a quarter of all bottled water
crosses international borders to reach consumers
Making bottles to meet Americans' demand
for bottled water requires enough energy to fuel 100,000 U.S.
cars for a year
In a number of places there is better regulation governing the
quality of tap water than bottled water
Adds more garbage to landfill
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update51.htm
Yet, it is so easy to avoid:
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Have we become so lazy that we can’t fill
a jug or a reusable bottle?
Would a monkey build a Ski Hill in the
desert, knowing that oil will run out???
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The United Arab Emirates have more money
than they know what to do with. So what do
they do? Have a look at the following pictures.
Ski hill under construction
Eureka! It’s completed! Ain’t it modern looking?
Actually, it’s really funny! Snow in the scorching heat of the desert!
Complete with chairlift and lights
Right down to the snow-covered pine trees!
But that wasn’t enough!!!
Now they’re building the
largest artificial island in
the world to turn into
waterfront lots.
Enormous vacuum pipes transfer gravel
from the sea bottom onto newly made
mounds to form the islands.
How about the world’s largest
swimming pool?
San Alfonso del Mar, Santiago de Chile:
1 kilometre long, 2,5 million litres of water, covering 20 acres
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Sur la côte Pacifique, à 130 kilomètres de Santiago du Chili, se
dresse San Alfonso del Mar. Plage de sable, restaurant, salles de
cinéma et boîtes de nuit : ce complexe touristique créé en 2007
pourrait ressembler à n'importe quelle station balnéaire. A ceci près
qu'il entoure la plus grande piscine du monde. Découvrez-le.
Chile can’t be accused of thinking small!
Another nail in the coffin of biodiversity
and sustainability, huh?
« Mother Nature doesn’t know how to do
things right », seems to think Fernando
Fischmann, the creator of this monstrosity
Monkeys don’t sail, so they might not even think of this one…
The Biggest Private Yacht!!!
In 2003, the launch of Paul Allen's 127m (416ft) "Octopus" secured its number
one position as the world's largest yacht.
Microsoft's "accidental billionaire" Paul Allen - worth US$20 billion according to
Forbes, the third richest man in America and 7th in the world - owns two other
monster yachts such as Tatoosh ranked 3rd in the World in 2003.
Octopus cost Allen over US$200 million and has Permanent crew of 60,
including several former Navy Seals. It has two helicopters, seven boats, a 10man submarine and a remote controlled vehicle for crawling on the ocean
floor. The submarine has the capacity to sleep eight for up to two weeks
underwater.
On average, owners must spend a minimum of 10 percent of the purchase
price every year to keep these yachts in good working condition and cover
crew salaries. Therefore “Octopus” which cost Allen US$200 million requires a
US$20 million annual budget.
Have a look at the following photos.
The paradox is that it is perfectly rational for
Paul Allen to indulge in this kind of luxury.
Before passing judgement on Mr. Allen, lets consider
this. If he deprived himself of his toys it would make
not an iota of difference in the onset of the oil peak.
And when the ramifications of peak oil send the price
of the barrel of petroleum through the roof, Mr. Allen
will still have plenty of money to secure the supply he
will need.
So why should he make a sacrifice when everybody
else is living it up?
Monkeys like
heights, but not to
the extent that
humans do.
Here’s the
world’s
tallest
building
The Taipei Tower
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The Taipei 101 tower, Taipei, Taiwan, achieved its full 508-meter
(1,674 feet) height with the addition of a huge metal spike capping
the 101-floor structure.
The 60-meter spire pushed the tower's height well above the 452meter high twin towers in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
The designers of the Taipei 101 tower say it has been built to
withstand typhoons and earthquakes, both of which have struck the
Taiwan capital in recent years.
Taiwan, which straddles an active fault line of the western Pacific
regularly experiences earthquakes.
In September 1999 a powerful quake of magnitude hit the capital,
killing more than 2,400 people and destroying or damaging over
50,000 buildings.
The architects behind the new Taipei 101 tower say it will easily ride
out a quake of similar strength, or an even more powerful one.
The Taipei Tower
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Lets assume the engineers are right and that the tower will never
fall.
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The problem is that after Peak Oil this building will become useless,
unless we can harness a few tens of thousand monkeys to ride an
exercise wheel connected to a generator to provide it with power.
World’s largest cruise ship
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The largest cruise ship in the world is under
construction just a few years before global oil
production peaks!
Project Genesis
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Not ugly as cruise ships go, this future white elephant
will displace 222,000 tons and will carry 5,400
passengers.
It will measure 360 metres and have a freeboard of no
less than 65 metres in height!
She will generate 1,800,000 litres of fresh water and 35
tonnes of ice every day.
For the amusement of its passengers, it will provide an
ice skating rink, rock climbing walls, a water park and an
on-board surfing system.
It is being built in the Turku ship yards of Finland at a
cost of $1.1 billion U.S.
One wonders what the
investors think this monster
will run on when oil runs out.
Of course, what they are thinking is “I can recoup my investment and make a killing in ten years”
The world’s largest passenger
aircraft
The A380 may seem like a good idea
now.
But what will we do with the carcases
when the tourism industry goes to the
dogs after peak oil?
Terminal five - Heathrow
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Spanking new! Inaugurated by the Queen
in March 2008
Grow grow grow as usual in spite
of the peak oil alarm bells!!!
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60 million passengers per year in 2008 – how
many will there be twenty years from now?
Big Box Shopping Centres
Without gasoline, how will we drive to the big box
stores?
After peak oil, what will we do with these empty stores?
Will we have enough resources to disassemble them
and return the land to agriculture?
Dismantling of railways
Putatively for saving money
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The Canadian government
decided to trash the future of
transportation by dismantling
thousands of kilometres of
railway tracks throughout
Canada.
Scrapping streetcars
In the 1950s
the majority of
Canadian
municipal
councillors,
thinking of
themselves as
“progressive”,
dismantled their
streetcar
systems.
Why?
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This environmentally
sound method of public
transit was trashed in
favour of noisy, smelly
busses that depended on
petroleum.
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One factor that influenced
the decision was the
notion that streetcars
were old fashioned and
busses modern.
Curtain
walls
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Built
because
they were
pretty…
Curtain
walls
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Curtain walls are windows that form an entire wall.
They don’t open and therefore don’t allow the
tenant to control air quality naturally.
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Once energy becomes expensive, how will we
heat, cool and ventilate buildings made this way?
Irrigation
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On the surface, using irrigation for growing food
or useful products such as cotton might sound
like a good idea. But look at what it’s done to
the Aral Sea…
The Aral
Sea:
an inland
body of fresh
water turned
into a salty
desert.
The Aral Sea
Irrigation with
fossil water
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We are using
groundwater faster
than it’s replenishing
itself.
Ogallala aquifer in central-southern USA
Irrigation with fossil water
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We have artificially increased food production through an
unsustainable reliance on underground water that was
sequestered in aquifers millions of years ago.
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But when those sources run dry, the global society will
have to grow less food with what falls from the heavens.
Draining wetlands
Draining wetlands
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The idea is to replace
the cropland usurped by
urbanization and to
create new building lots.
Drawbacks:
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Loss of ecosystems and biodiversity
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Destruction of replenishment of groundwater sources
Antibiotics in feed and water
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Factory farming is
enhanced by the
addition of antibiotics
to animal feed and
water
The downside?
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The few bacteria that survive inside the gut of a pig
on antibiotics do so because they have natural
resistance to the antibiotic. Then the surviving
bacteria reproduce and have a built-in resistance to
the particular antibiotic that was used.
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Overuse of antibiotics therefore is responsible for
the creation of resistant strains of bacteria
The downside?
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We are shooting ourselves in the collective foot by this
misuse of these former wonder drugs.
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Every year current antibiotics become less effective at
dealing with bacterial infections.
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We are now talking about flesh eating disease and super
bugs, the result of human greed (for cheaper meat).
Do scientists think of all the
consequences of their research?
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I certainly didn’t when I
spent most of my
career helping to
develop the science of
embryo transfer, known
as ET.
This was me when I was much
younger and had more hair
It was only ten years later that I began to understand that the way we were
using this technology was going to lead dairy farming to disaster one day.
Cows of excellent genetic potential
(good milkers) are used as donors.
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ET cows are treated with
hormones to make them produce a
large number of ova which are
fertilized by artificial insemination
with semen from genetically
superior bulls.
The cow’s reproductive tract is
subsequently flushed to recover
the embryos.
The microscopic embryos are
transferred individually into healthy
cows of inferior pedigree. The
recipient cows carry the calves to
term.
The resulting ET calves possess
all the great genes of the donor
cow and her sire.
7-day old cow embryos
ready for implanting
The making of the super cow
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A city slicker could be
forgiven for thinking that
tweaking genetics to
make cows give more
milk is a good idea.
The making of the super cow
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This is what scientists
have been very
successful at doing for
the past 70 years. And
ET technology helped
speed up the process.
Whereas cows used to
give 20 kg a day of milk,
the average cow now
gives 50 kg a day and
some up to 100 kg a day!
The problem is…
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The concept of GIGO, “Garbage In – Garbage
Out” applies to cows as well as databases.
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In order to squeeze massive amounts of milk out
of cows you need to cram massive amounts of
inputs into them…
…feed that is high in protein
and energy
as well as the best quality hay
and silage
fed in a controlled way,
according to the individual’s
milk output
…and these inputs can’t be produced
without…you’ve guessed it…
Oil, of course !!!
ET technology is not inherently bad
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Embryo transfer technology itself
is actually fairly low tech, as it
requires little in the way of
equipment and resources. A
veterinarian can carry it out with
the standard equipment in his
clinic.
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What’s wrong is the purpose it is
being used for.
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We could be using this
procedure for creating a cow that
can produce milk on a lower
grade diet, such as grass.
Grass grows without the high inputs
required for grain and in the summer
the cow can harvest the crop herself
without the use of diesel engines.
What about reproductive services for
humans?
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With a world that already
has four times more
humans than it can
support, why in heaven’s
name would a society
encourage in vitro
fertilization?
The answer
may be that:
Men and women are genetically programmed to
do everything in their power to spread their genes.
Are we consumers or are we
consumers?
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Here’s a typical neighbourhood in the city of
Gatineau, the neighbour of Ottawa, Canada’s capital
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One house out of two has its own swimming pool
that is used an average of perhaps ten times in the
year (the summer season in Gatineau is short!)
Are we consumers or are we
consumers?
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What’s odd about this picture? – Notice the blue spots in
the back yards? They are swimming pools.
Why not share?
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Instead of everybody having their own small
swimming pool that needs maintenance, why not
have one large neighbourhood pool that
everybody can share?
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Are we consumers or are we consumers?
CRYOGENIC PRESERVATION
OF THE DEAD
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The new wave is for people who
die prematurely of an incurable
disease to have their bodies
frozen with the purpose of
reviving them in the future when a
cure is found for the disease that
did them in.
CRYOGENIC PRESERVATION
OF THE DEAD
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Aside from the practical and
ethical questions this raises,
we must consider the question
of energy. A cryogenic
container loses about 1% of its
liquid nitrogen per day.
Therefore it takes a constant
input of energy to keep a
corpse in a frozen state.
CRYOGENIC PRESERVATION
OF THE DEAD
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A rich person could put money
into a trust to maintain his body
frozen in perpetuity after his
death. The trust would use the
interest revenue for buying the
energy needed to produce the
necessary liquid nitrogen.
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Il other words, a stiff could
legally steal energy from future
generations forever.
Kill your baby's life support
systems for a little convenience?
For hundreds of thousands of years babies have been
defecating and mothers have found a variety of ways of
dealing with the “curdled milk”, from licking it up to
sequestering it with natural absorbents.
Suddenly, a mere 40 years ago,
somebody got the bright idea
that making disposable diapers
made from paper and selling
them would be a way to become
very rich.
Kill your baby's life support
systems?
The idea caught on like wildfire. Mothers and fathers alike started
buying these very convenient devices. Within a few years the
large makers of the old-fashioned reusable diapers discontinued
making them.
It was much more lucrative to cut down trees, debark the trunks,
mash up the wood fibres and separate them with strong
chemicals, dump the resulting wastes into the waterways and into
the atmosphere, roll the paste into paper, line the paper with
petroleum-derived plastic, attach little pieces of Velcro and elastic,
package the finished product in yet another plastic wrapper and
transport the product to distributors and then to stores so they
get bought by the parents who get there in their SUVs.
Kill your baby's life support
systems?
So from the moment of his birth the modern baby
unwittingly joins the ranks of the world’s worst
polluters.
Kill your baby's life support
systems?
The fact that parents are destroying the very foundation of all life on
Earth for a little convenience seems to go right over their heads and
furthermore, seems to be the acceptable social norm.
Just as we are about to reach peak oil…
The space shuttle is ferrying
construction materials to
complete building the
international space station.
International space station under construction
The space age has been a lot of fun and
a great learning experience…
But without oil and natural
gas we won’t be able to
create the fuels and
necessary infrastructure to
carry on space travel.
Just as hopeless as government-backed
space travel…
… is private space
travel. Sir Richard
Branson’s dream will
will be a monumental
flop when energy
becomes rare.
Just when natural gas has
peaked in North America…
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You find with your gas bill
a very strange sort of
solicitation…
When we’re running out of
natural gas, why is your
natural gas supplier
encouraging you to find new
uses for the resource?
And then you scratch your head when you find out
they’ve just moved their headquarters into a brand
new building!!!
Supersizing education…
We had plenty of petroleum, so why not?
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By centralizing schools we were able to provide more
services to our children: cafeterias, gymnasiums,
swimming pools, libraries - all amenities that didn’t even
exist when I was a child (but then, that was prehistorical -almost six decades ago!)
It was just a matter of boarding up the small, local schools
and building mega sized ones.
It didn’t matter that our kids needed to travel in petroleumcombusting, polluting busses, without seat belts,
crammed three to a seat, for two hours a day, while their
parents each drove their SUVs in opposite directions
across town to work.
It was the expedient thing to do.
How will we transport the kids
to their mega-schools in an
oil-challenged world?
And on the following page, you will find
something else monkeys don’t do…
Smartass humans have invented a weapon
capable of killing of all six+ billion of us!
Since we are a
warring species, it
is only a matter of
time before some
wiseguy decides
to launch one of
these suckers
onto a neighbour
he doesn’t like.
And then we
might all fry.
Nuclear explosion
Come to think of it…
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We’re not much
smarter than our
distant cousins
dangling from
branches, aren’t we?
Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging that the
bomb be built and later admitted it had been a mistake..
One of the stupidest inventions
ever
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Mr. Crapper’s
flush toilet
A modern version of Crapper’s toilet
A stupid invention
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Monkeys don’t flush their crap into rivers –
at least, not intentionally
An absurd invention that took on
like wildfire
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Since the implementation
of Crapper’s idea trillions
of pounds of precious
organic material from our
daily bowel movements
has been flushed into our
waterways, silting up our
rivers and polluting the
oceans…
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…and furthermore,
depriving our cropland of
rich compost.
A stupid invention universally
accepted
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In other words, we take organic material off our fields,
rendering the soil less productive, and we put this
material down the drain in the form of feces, polluting
the very water people downstream have to use as
their drinking water supply and we lose this resource
forever.
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Is this intelligent????
Another superlative: F-A-S-T-E-S-T…
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The current (October, 2008) land speed record (LSR) for an earth-bound motor
vehicle is 763 mph, which was set by Andy Green behind the wheel of the Thrust
SSC back in 1997. That car was designed by Richard Noble, among others, and he
and his driver are teaming up again to build a new supersonic car (SSC) to shatter
the old record on its way to a new LSR of 1,000 mph. The new car is called the
Bloodhound Project, a curious name since "speed" doesn't readily come to mind
when thinking about that particular breed of canine, but whatever. The new
Bloodhound SSC will be powered by three engines: a hybrid rocket, Eurojet EJ200 jet
engine and 800bhp V12 engine, the latter of which will pull the vehicle around at low
speeds and act as a starter motor - the world's most powerful starter motor - for the
jet engine. The car's design is also completely different from that of the Thrust SSC,
which Green and Noble used to set the current LSR. That car had two outboard jet
engines, but in order to reach speeds of Mach 1.4 on the ground, the Bloodhound
SSC will use a narrower fuselage that's been aerodynamically optimized to safely
travel at speeds approaching 1,000 mph. Since this is an engineering exercise, the
Brit-based Bloodhound team will gear up to their ultimate goal by scheduling
successive runs to reach 800 mph in 2009, 900 mph in 2010 and finally 1,000 mph in
2011. You can read more about the car from Noble himself at the project's website, or
check out the current design mockup in our gallery below. See the following pictures.
The Bloohound SSC
When is fastest fast enough?
And now, before terminating, I will
tell you about the similarity
between monkeys and humans I
mentioned at the beginning of this
presentation:
Just as a
monkey
hanging from a
tree lets his
poop drop
wherever it
may…
Humans do likewise…
…they let
their crap
fall
wherever it
may!!!
Are we really smarter than monkeys?
In conclusion:
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The intent of this spoof on human-monkey differences is
to underline humanity’s lack of foresight and planning.
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We live day-to-day or election-to-election with no regard
for future generations.
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I find this paradoxical, since the most precious thing in
our lives is the happiness and welfare of our children.
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End