Well I thought a topic for serious discusion should be tried.
Royal Dutch Shell reported in 2002 that fossil fuels will run out in less than twenty years. Is there any truth in this.
Fuel consumption is soaring with massive increased usage in Asia ans Africa. No major new fields are being found. That the situation gets more desperate is indicated by new methods of extracting the last dregs being introduced.
The comments of global warming seem to me to be a smokescreen for all the wind farms and nuclear power stations being called for. Not a need to cut emmision but a need to introduce alternatives for when the pumps are switched off.
Am I right?

smokie-did you get my PM?

Yeah, can't be asked.

Not unless it's latex and fishnets again.

I think this post should be in the 'Green' section...
never mind - I hope it gets viewed here! Ciao!

No I was intending to follow up on a different track.

If as indicated fossil fuel are going to come to an end its fair to assume government would try to keep it us. There would be a major change to the way we live, transportation of food and supply of energy would be affected. Civilian unrest would be likely.

Our military have been undergoing cutbacks for a couple of decades. All the time an international army has grown under the banner of the UN and now numbers over 60,000. In the event of civilian unrest the home nations army might be squeamish when it comes to firing on their own countrymen and families. A foriegn army will have no such qualms.

I'm interested in the long-term direction Britain's armed forces seem to be adopting. The rhetoric suggests our future armies will be intelligence-based, small but specially-trained units. When you look at what's actually happening (on the rare occasion the forces aren't paralysed by overstretch and a lack of funding), we're investing HUGE amounts in capital projects - e.g. Type 45 destroyers, Triton-class frigates, Eurofighters, Trident, etc. All very impressive, but not immediately obvious how useful they are...

Bits of text keep disapearing :(
Bear with me nearly got to my point.

OK, is this long term fear of future civil unrest the reason for wanting to disarm sportsmen?

Oh,excuse me didn't Canvas, Tizzy and Kosmicstu mention, apparently I am "the gun lobby".

You didn't really think I had some serious green comment to make did you.

No, SmokelessCoal, I knew it would come back to your pistol shooting.

The Second Amendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Being a later corruption of our own Bill of Rights the first part may not be relevent today but it was designed to be future proof. Security of a free State, not neccesarily external threat but the possibility of a despot getting into power and trying to remove rights and freedoms. Think it can't happen, in the late 1960's Harold Wilson government was under threat of being ousted by a military coup. What sort of government do you think would have filled the void?

I was serving in the early 70's when the dock strikes were on, a serious part of our instruction was combating civilian unrest or sabotage. Instructions were we should be expected to shoot to kill our fellow Brits, luckily the strike broke but the country has been on the brink before and it can happen again.

The second amendment was intended to make it so that the Americans would be able to quickly call up a militia, which was felt necessary after the civil war etc. It's not in keeping with the spirit of the act that people should be allowed to horde weapons or use them against Americans...

But that's just history speaking - the best laid plans and all that

And the Bill of Right granted:

That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;

Allowing self defence with arms and this cannot be repealled without removal of the Monarch.

I dont seek right to keep and bear arms for self defence just the right to keep arms in the form of a pistol to practice a sport.

Another interesting part of the BoR

That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void;

So speeding and parking fines are illegal without going before a court first.

Incidentally...





Did I really ever call you that? I didn't mean to, if I did...

Canvas - you seem to have an emoticon for every occasion! My sides are aching now...

Experts have been warning for several years that the oil will run out by around 2035 but no-one's listening. It won't actually run out but will become increasingly hazardous and expensive to extract. By that time the population of this country will be so huge (thanks to brainlessly lax immigration) that few will be able to afford to warm themselves or move around... unless there's a miraculous breakthrough in technology and di-lithium crystals come to the rescue.

Oh, someone moved the thread. It was not meant to be under green issues. Oh well might as well go up that path now my deviance has been diverted.

Yorker,"thanks to brainlessly lax immigration". Nice logic mate.

Henry Kissinger said in 1973 that the world population needed reducing by 60%.
Work it for yourself how this will come about. I think energy for domestic power will not be too much problem in the future. The lack of fuel for transport would make food delivery hard, perhaps its time to invest in horses.
Can't remember the proper wording but it was similar to "civilisation is three meals away from rebellion". We can live without industry or commerce but we can't live without food.
Give me a gun and I'll give you a rabbit, ban all firearms and we all starve.

And in the meantime someone has to manufacture the ammo for the gun that kills the rabbit. Are you any good at archery? To achieve Kissinger's target we probably need a huge nuclear war.

on the topic, ie natural resorces, refer to recent news and reserch in the finacial markets regarding the JPM natural resorces fund. Its relavence is that there are fears that this fund, which has been doing very well for a number of years relys on the idea that natural resorces will at some point in time run out and this in turn causes the prices to go up. the worrie is that the increadable growth "bubble" will brake.

Some argue that this will not happen as resorces will run out ergo, investing in these things will bring growth.

However many very clever people (scientist that sort of thing) suggest that it is wrong to argue it will run out. i have heard of a particular theory based on the fridge.

At the begining of the week the fridge is full as you have been shopping the day before, as you run through the week gradually the fridge gets empty, on friday you open the fridge "oh no" its empty: what happens now does the person starve, no they go to the shop and finds more. This same set of principals can be applied to natural resorces.

However is a well documented argument and not mine.

Just one extra through as we move forward it does mean that more reserch is done on extraction etc but also more efficent use of the resorces, and new resorces that can produce what is needed.

Yorker, no not a nuclear war but mass genocide. Or some factory produced virus would do the job.

Urbanpig, that assumes there is a store to fill the fridge from. Think of a time before petroleum, that is what we would have to revert to, perhaps with some refinements of nuclear or sustainable energy but a population that is much much bigger than before. This country cannot grow enough food for its population, so it still comes back to transport as to our survival.

Scary prospect, smokey, but I agree with you. Civil society will of course collapse into chaos.

Given that Oil and Natural gas takes thousands of years to develop to an adequate quality there is no way that decreasing oil reserves are good. However...the coal mines were shut down a few decades ago, how much coal is left under our feet that we didn't use? Will the closing down of the mines prove to have been an extremely prudent move by the government of the day?

ADDENDUM
Social collapse comes about after periods of social decadence (or at least that is what I observe from history and archaeology) therefore of course our own society is on the road to collapse. For example did you know that if a significant number of Internet servers were to be destroyed or made inactive for even a short time it would cause tens of thousands of deaths due to that fact that we rely on it for so much?
Add a lack of communication to the lack of fuel, transport etc then we'd be in trouble.

No smoke without fire

http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00249/p1-140607_249115a.jpg

Talking of Di Lithium crystals has anyone else noticed the picture of David Cameron looks just like Data?
As an aside think positive it solves CO2 emissions.

Who needs a gun? A bit of string is all I'd need.

Further evidence?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/07/10/cnoil110.xml

It says increased demand will push prices high, but is it a smoke screen?

Crude now over $80 a barrel. It went over $60 a barrel at the time of the petrol revolt.

I think as world reserves dwindle we could expect the price to sky rocket. Still no reply, are fossil fuels running out?

I saw a news report the other day about coal mines reopening. Could this be an indication of scavenging for the last dregs of energy from decreasing resources?

I remember the three day weeks of the seventies, power being switched off for days. In Germany when driving was restricted to three days a week. Perhaps this will be imposed in the future, it would certainly reduce our carbon footprint. Maybe a case of adapt or fail?

And a 50mph speed limit. That wipes the smile off the faces of fully-expensed BMW and Audi drivers.