Originally Posted by
halfro
This Mad Max scenario will not happen for a lot time. Nobody has any idea when the oil will dry up, including me. I do not own a car and don't plan on buying one anytime soon. I think if the oil dried up I'd have no problem with it, but when it does dry up, it will effect everybody. It'll be chaos. Our country, if nothing is done, will go back 200 years.
It will be an interesting time. Scary, but interesting...
As scary as this statements sounds, there is a lot of truth in it. Presently our food supply is so closely tied to fossil fuels, it's not even funny. And I don't just mean the transportation of it. Presently it takes around 35 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef, and about 65 calories to produce 1 calorie of pork. But that is a whole other topic.
Accountability and environmental responsibility seem to elude big corporations, and I don't mean just big oil. It's a real shame that there isn't a bigger push towards more environmentally friendly energy, as well as more incentive put specifically into that area of R&D.
I agree that a car is a tool, as well as the internal combustion engine (I.C.E.), but sometimes tools become outdated, and possible cast aside. Unless of course some aspect of there design is improved to make them desirable or effecient once again.
A perfect example is the flat blade or the Phillips screwdriver. Useful yes, but far from the best design. In the automotive field, it eventually evovled into the Torq. I'm not suggesting the Torq is the pinnacle, but it is much more effecient than its predecessors.
Now I'm not saying the car has outlived it's usefullness, but the I.C.E. is getting very close. The thermal effeciency is still well below 50%. Is that acceptable considering we are within, arguably 10-20 years (either side) of peal oil? And the demand has never been stronger. I think its design could well exceed its present performance, but design improvments has been thwarted over the decades.
It's time we to start changing our habits and paradigms with respect to anything connected to fossil fuels, not because we have to (yet), but because it is the most practical and responsible thing to do. Staying on board to milk it for all it's worth, till every last cent is made, is reprehensible.