[andyt]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

andyt andyt:

Better odds than what? And will this be a carbon neutral source or things like methyl hydrates?

A world war would probably be a good thing for global warming - reduce the population so the rest can re-build and be little piggies for a bit.

I do not see us getting a handle on this. We have huge numbers of Asians joining the middle class, wanting all the things we have.

I was being cynical andy. I was suggesting that the odds of us finding a suitable replacement for oil are much greater than ending war.

Yep. .0000000000000000000001 is indeed much greater than 0.

There is something we could do immediately: Use nuclear to charge electric vehicles.

[BartSimpson]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Yeah, in that respect I'd say our cahnces of finding a suitable replacement for oil has better odds.

Some of us are simply not so sure that we need to. The notion of oil being of an exclusively organic origin is starting to fade as abiotic oil theories are, so far, showing promise.

Given that hydrocarbons exist on Titan and they're almost certainly abiotic it stands to reason that abiotic hydrocarbons exist on earth, too. If this notion is proven then we may well have enough oil deep in the earth's crust to last us into the next millenium.

[bootlegga]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

mentalfloss mentalfloss:

Yea, Al Gore, Greenpeace, Suzuki.. Stay away from that mainstream nonsense. Stick to the peer-reviewed studies.

You mean like these?

http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/1 ... rting.html

Wow! 800 peer-reviewed papers! I guess we can forget about the issue and just let nature take its course...

Given that you there are thousands of papers on the topic (with more being published daily), those papers listed only represent a small percentage of all the papers on the issue - so citing some dude's blog (written by electrical engineers and computer scientists - hardly experts themselves) - doesn't really prove anything, one way or another.

Given the rigorous screening of peer-reviewed papers, I'd believe them over anything David Suzuki or Rush Limbaugh has to say on the subject, which I believe was Mentalfloss' point.

NOTE: I'm not saying I agree that man is responsible for 100% of the problem, but given that temperatures started climbing shortly after we began burning huge amounts of fossil fuels, I'd say we have some impact - the only question in my mind is how much. 1%? 5%? 10% 25%? Or more?

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Bart: Yeah but the problem isn't so much about running out as it is the emissions of hydrocarbons and their atmospheric/environmental effects. And to what extent we are responsible for climatic changes as result of burning hydrocarbons.