Many thanks for giving this interesting and plausible perspective, however I find it very Anglo/American-centric. Also, please don't bring up Israel's ethnic cleansing operation against the Palestinian people, it's just too painful a topic!
Brilliant. Difficult to argue on the perspectives for Europe, just the speed - driven by energy deprivation policies. Your good description of the struggles for scarce resources, self-inflicted by the way, reminded me of a Mad Max scene.
Energy policy a serious thing, unfortunately being driven by hope at present.
I have often used a (very) simplified matrix to show the2x variables (clean-polluting) vs (cheap-expensive energy) - top left is the utopia of clean and cheap, bottom right is literally where I place Mad Max (II) - still using polluting fuels and cost has led to economic collapse. (where we start is polluting but cheap... what we are heading towards is clean(er) and much more expensive).
"To understand who he was we have to go back to the other time, when the world was powered by the black fuel and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel — gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded — a whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men."
Many thanks for giving this interesting and plausible perspective, however I find it very Anglo/American-centric. Also, please don't bring up Israel's ethnic cleansing operation against the Palestinian people, it's just too painful a topic!
Brilliant. Difficult to argue on the perspectives for Europe, just the speed - driven by energy deprivation policies. Your good description of the struggles for scarce resources, self-inflicted by the way, reminded me of a Mad Max scene.
Energy policy a serious thing, unfortunately being driven by hope at present.
I have often used a (very) simplified matrix to show the2x variables (clean-polluting) vs (cheap-expensive energy) - top left is the utopia of clean and cheap, bottom right is literally where I place Mad Max (II) - still using polluting fuels and cost has led to economic collapse. (where we start is polluting but cheap... what we are heading towards is clean(er) and much more expensive).
from Mad Max II
"To understand who he was we have to go back to the other time, when the world was powered by the black fuel and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel — gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded — a whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men."