There are those who either greatly minimize or, dismiss with utter contempt, the idea of resource depletion. Some people even scoff at the idea the earth is already too full with 7 billion people. They say the earth can easily support 20 billion … as they watch the last acre of rainforest burn to the ground. They paved Paradise, put up a parking lot.
For example, they’ll admit we’re running out of oil …. BUT, as sure as the rising sun, scientists WILL come up with alternative solutions! Some people’s faith in science to solve humanity’s problems stretches credulity to its maximum. Sure, science has accomplished truly magnificent things, such as sliced bread. But how many stop to think that science – or, the results of scientific invention — produces just as many problems as it solves? Maybe you believe science will eventually come up with a Star Trek Food Replicator? Press 1 for a steak, 2 for a burrito. Will science invent a new sardine before the last one winds up in a tin? Good luck with your pie-in-the-sky dreams.
The fact of the matter (as I see it) is that your grandchildren – perhaps even your children, if they are under ten years old – will NOT enjoy several things you have today. Some of the items in this list will be gone altogether. And some will be so altered and different from the original that the resemblance will be in name only.
Print the picture below, frame it, and hang it in your grandchild’s bedroom. This will help them prepare for their depleted futures.
It will be interesting to see the breakdown between The Deniers (“You’re full of crap! Everything will be OK!!”) vs. The Reasonable Ones With A Brain. Let’s get started.
———————————————
Ms. Freud wants to go to The Great Beyond this way: Death By Chocolate
SSS, he WILL go to The Great Beyond this way: Chocolate Covered Bacon!! As far as I am concerned, chocolate is one of the best proofs that God exists.
CHOCOLATE: — The world’s largest chocolate producers warned that last year the world ate roughly 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than it produced. Stockpiles are depleting. By 2020, the number is expected to reach one million metric tons. 70% of the world’s cocoa is produced in the Ivory Coast and Ghana. It takes about two years for a cacao seedling to produce fruit and about 10 years for its flavor to mature. In addition to depletion via disease and drought, farmers in large numbers are opting to grow more productive crops such as corn and rubber.
Ghana’s Nature Conservation Research Council stated that “in 20 years, chocolate will be like caviar It will become so rare and expensive that the average Joe just won’t be able to afford it.” Kennedy’s Confection magazine warns that chocolate of the future will replace cocoa and cocoa butter with cheaper ingredients like nougat, raisins, and vegetable fat, saying –“Chocolate snaps because of the level of cocoa butter. In the future the product will be more bendy and sludgy in texture, and it won’t taste nearly as good.” Lastly, do you feel guilty when you gorge your face with Lady Godiva’s? You should! Cocoa beans aren’t ‘fair-trade’ so a lot of what you stuff in your mouth actually came from child slave labor.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/21/cocoa-crisis-world-chocolate-stash-melting-away
———————————————
In 1868 French astronomer Pierre Janssen studied light from the Sun during a solar eclipse. He found proof that a new element existed in the Sun. He called the element helium … derived from the Greek, ‘helios’ meaning sun. Helium also pays homage to Helios, a Greco-Roman sun god.
HELIUM: — “Stucky, you’ve lost your damned mind!! Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, ya douchenozzle!!!” Patience, grasshopper. The world’s supply of helium is a byproduct of natural gas production. BUT, Dr. Chan, Evan Pugh Professor of Physics at Penn State says — “Very few natural gas well in the world have enough helium in the well to make it economical to separate helium from natural gas. The gas wells with the most helium have only about 0.3 percent, so it is in short supply.”
SO-O-O, the USA!USA!USA! has been stockpiling helium since the 1960s in a National Helium Reserve called the Bush Dome, a deep underground reservoir outside of Amarillo, Texas. By the mid 1970s 1.2 billion cubic meters of the gas was stored there. The current reserve is approximately 0.6 billion cubic meters, or roughly only 4 times the current world market. BUT, the 1996 the Helium Privatization Act mandated that the Department of the Interior sell off all the stockpiled helium. More wonderful strategic planning from the Baboons that run this government.
Nevertheless, if cost is not an issue, the amount of helium gas trapped in current and future gas wells worldwide could last between 200 or 300 years (aka, kicking the can down the road). BUT, cost IS an issue, and the price of Helium will shorty become astronomical. Helium is an absolutely essential resource in technologies such as rocket engines, surveillance devices, and medical imaging ….. so look for future MRIs to cost one million Quatloos per visit.
http://priceonomics.com/the-increasing-scarcity-of-helium/
———————————————
SARDINES: — Read this slowly. A fishing fleet returned from months at sea in the Canadian waters ….. and returned with ZERO sardines. Yup, not even one stinky little fishy. And, ya wanna know why? But, first .. QUICK!! … get all your Globull Warming friends! The reason sardines are becoming rarer than a flattering picture of Hillary Clinton is because the water is getting cooler! Hardy har har!!
Also, study after study after study confirms that at the present rate of consumption and pollution, the world’s oceans will be empty of fish by 2050. (McDonalds McShits will still be serving McFish nuggets in 2051, but what it will take scientists another ten years to determine what it actually is.)
http://www.trueactivist.com/sardine-disappearance-was-foreseen-but-ignored/
———————————————
Actual photo of a colony of Staphylococcus being attacked by antibiotics
ANTIBIOTICS: — In 1945, while accepting a Nobel Prize for discovering penicillin, Alexander Fleming warned of a future in which antibiotics had been used with abandon and bacteria had grown resistant to them. That future has arrived. The evil little bastards are just smarter than us, evolving and changing faster than we can fight them. Some of you horny men here need to cage the snake, because there is currently only ONE drug left which effectively treats gonorrhea. Spank that monkey!
All the easy antibiotic drugs have been made, drug companies are running out of ideas, and the pipeline is dry. Maybe that’s why they’re spending so many billions of dollars on fake brain “diseases”. Drug-resistant tuberculosis is mushrooming, killing almost 200,000 people last year. And just wait until animals can no longer be treated effectively. Antibiotics are the lifeblood of the meat and poultry industries … around 80% of all antibiotics used in the U.S. each year are given to animals.
http://www.news.utoronto.ca/why-world-running-out-antibiotics
———————————————
PHOSPHOROUS: — Every living thing on Earth— from plants to humans— depends on phosphorous to produce healthy cells. Until the mid-20th century, farmers maintained phosphorus levels in soil by composting plant waste or spreading phosphorus-rich manure. But, you can’t feed billions of people that way so, new mining and refining techniques gave rise to the modern phosphorus fertilizer industry.
But, phosphate mining is an environmentally devastating project—it requires stripping large swaths of land and generates massive amounts of a waste product called phosphogypsum, which contains low levels of radiation as well as a range of toxic heavy metals. Phosphate that ends up in our rivers and lakes cause algal blooms—which, as they decompose and suck up oxygen, create dead zones. Despite the prevalence of phosphorus on earth, — the 11th most abundant mineral on earth — only a small percentage of it can be mined because of physical, economic, energy or legal constraints.
Phosphorus used in fertilizer comes from phosphate rock, a finite resource. So, “peak phosphorous” is about how much longer phosphate rock reserves can economically be extracted. Ninety percent of the phosphate rock reserves are located in just five countries: Morocco, China, South Africa, Jordan and the United States. The U.S., has 25 years of phosphate rock reserves left, most of it in Florida. The rest of the world’s known reserves are about 80 years. Sure, it is possible huge new deposits might be discovered. But, if not, humanity will face a massive die off before your grandkids reach old age.
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/solutions/phosphorus.html
———————————————
TEQUILA: — Tequila comes from the SOB blue agave cactus. The SOB takes twelve freaking years before the fructose at the core of the plant can be removed. It’s prone to various diseases. And, the SOB grows only in a very very specific climate, at high altitudes, and in red volcanic soil. In other words, the SOB is pretty much limited to the Mexican state of Jalisco and surrounding areas.
The USA!USA!USA! began substituting gasoline with biofuels made from corn-based ethanol. One side effect was that ethanol prices skyrocketed to the point that farmers in Mexico started abandoning the SOB agave in favor of corn to ship off to the USA! Next on their “to grow” list will be Sweet Mary Jane and cocaine plants. OK … we might not really run out of Tequila. But, it’s on this list because of one basic precept; never trust a Mexico Mexican … especially if he has shit you need and want.
———————————————
GOOD DIRT: — Dirt is wonderful, magnificent, a blessing, and amazingly complicated stuff. Made from sand or silt, then years of plants adding nutrition, bugs and worms adding their excrement, dying and rotting. The resulting organic matter feeds a whole underground ecology that aerates the soil, fixes nutrients, and makes it hospitable for plant life, and over time the process feeds back on itself.
If the soil does not wash away or get parched by drought, it very gradually thickens. HOW gradually? It takes about 500 YEARS to make ONE INCH of topsoil. The minimal soil depth for agricultural production is 6 inches …. 3,000 years of effort by Mother Earth.
In the past 50 years about 33% of the world’s cropland has been abandoned because of soil erosion pollution, degradation, and human construction activity. The United States is losing soil 10 times FASTER than the natural REPLENISHMENT rate! China and India are losing soil 30 to 40 times faster. Do the math. Well, I’ll help you. Most of the world’s countries have less than 75 years of topsoil left.
http://www.fewresources.org/soil-science-and-society-were-running-out-of-dirt.html
Following is a trailer for a great movie about dirt.
Here is the link for the full movie, totally free: http://www.hulu.com/watch/191666
———————————————
ANIMALS: — Minimum viable population (MVP) is the lowest population of a species, such that it can survive in the wild. The general “25/250” rule of thumb rule prescribes a short-term effective population size of 25 mating pairs to prevent an unacceptable rate of inbreeding, and a long-term population of 250 to maintain overall genetic variability. MVP does not take human intervention into account … either positive, such as conservation attempts, or negative such as poaching, deforestation, and construction.
The Javan Rhinoceros (Indonesia and Vietnam) is toast. There are fewer than 60 left .. and they are STILL being poached.
There are only about 3,200 tigers remaining in the wild (a century ago there were over 100,000). Tiger habitats are being destroyed by forest cutting, construction, and poaching. Most experts say wild tigers will be extinct in the next 15-25 years.
I’ll stop there, even though just this section could be a 50,000 word post. If you really want to become depressed over what humans are doing to the animal kingdom, then subscribe to National Geographic. Or, you could just read this article below … about 25% of the world’s mammals facing extinction.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/one-quarter-of-worlds-mammals-face-extinction/
———————————————
GOLD: — The picture above represents ALL THE GOLD THAT HAS BEEN MINED IN HUMAN HISTORY. That’s about 75% of all known reserves. Amazing, is it not, how relatively small that pile is? Let’s call that “Easy Gold”. It’s all been mined. What’s left now is “Hard Gold”. And there’s only about 20 years of it left. Really, you should buy and least one gold coin, and keep it, to show your grandkids what nations killed and died for in order to obtain it.
http://www.sbcgold.com/blog/the-earths-gold-supply-is-vanishing-fast/
OTHER METALS: Diamonds and zinc will be enough for 20 years of extraction. The explored reserves of platinum, copper and nickel will last for 40 years. Teach your grandkids how to till a field with a wooden plow and a horse.
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/forecast-when-well-run-out-of-each-metal/
———————————————
I would like to end this somewhat depressing article on a Positive Note …. about something we will NEVER run out of.
Star- My point is that I think we need hellium for this technology, why would we go there if it is running out.
Rise- West coast gets them first. They are getting fueling stations first.
IndenturedServant says: Whoever believes in the bullshit foisted upon the ignorant masses over at Red Ice Creations is beyond help. That whole article said absolutely nothing…….offered no evidence……quoted no scientists…….cited no scholarly papers…….total……waste…..of…….fucking……time……..!
—————————————
IS, how the fuck would I know if scientists are wrong or right about this? I just posted a link to the idea.
Here’s another one. Where is your scholarly publication and research on this question?
I’d love to read it.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html
The sun speaks
On Dec 13, 2006, the sun itself provided a crucial clue, when a solar flare sent a stream of particles and radiation toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins, while measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, a short-lived isotope used in medical diagnostics, noticed that the rate dropped slightly during the flare, a decrease that started about a day and a half before the flare.
If this apparent relationship between flares and decay rates proves true, it could lead to a method of predicting solar flares prior to their occurrence, which could help prevent damage to satellites and electric grids, as well as save the lives of astronauts in space.
The decay-rate aberrations that Jenkins noticed occurred during the middle of the night in Indiana – meaning that something produced by the sun had traveled all the way through the Earth to reach Jenkins’ detectors. What could the flare send forth that could have such an effect?
Jenkins and Fischbach guessed that the culprits in this bit of decay-rate mischief were probably solar neutrinos, the almost weightless particles famous for flying at almost the speed of light through the physical world – humans, rocks, oceans or planets – with virtually no interaction with anything.
Then, in a series of papers published in Astroparticle Physics, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research and Space Science Reviews, Jenkins, Fischbach and their colleagues showed that the observed variations in decay rates were highly unlikely to have come from environmental influences on the detection systems.
Reason for suspicion
Their findings strengthened the argument that the strange swings in decay rates were caused by neutrinos from the sun. The swings seemed to be in synch with the Earth’s elliptical orbit, with the decay rates oscillating as the Earth came closer to the sun (where it would be exposed to more neutrinos) and then moving away.
So there was good reason to suspect the sun, but could it be proved?
Enter Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics and an expert on the inner workings of the sun. While on a visit to the National Solar Observatory in Arizona, Sturrock was handed copies of the scientific journal articles written by the Purdue researchers.
Sturrock knew from long experience that the intensity of the barrage of neutrinos the sun continuously sends racing toward Earth varies on a regular basis as the sun itself revolves and shows a different face, like a slower version of the revolving light on a police car. His advice to Purdue: Look for evidence that the changes in radioactive decay on Earth vary with the rotation of the sun. “That’s what I suggested. And that’s what we have done.”
http://news.discovery.com/space/do-solar-flares-change-the-nature-of-constant-radioactive-elements.htm
Is the Sun Emitting a Mystery Particle?
When probing the deepest reaches of the Cosmos or magnifying our understanding of the quantum world, a whole host of mysteries present themselves. This is to be expected when pushing our knowledge of the Universe to the limit.
But what if a well-known — and apparently constant — characteristic of matter starts behaving mysteriously?
This is exactly what has been noticed in recent years; the decay rates of radioactive elements are changing. This is especially mysterious as we are talking about elements with “constant” decay rates — these values aren’t supposed to change. School textbooks teach us this from an early age.
This is the conclusion that researchers from Stanford and Purdue University have arrived at, but the only explanation they have is even weirder than the phenomenon itself: The sun might be emitting a previously unknown particle that is meddling with the decay rates of matter. Or, at the very least, we are seeing some new physics.
Stucky, take my word on the rhino thing, I got my hands full with bea right now, I can only fight so many nimrods at one time.
Except as a monetary instrument most of the gold ever mined on Earth sits totally unused.
New gold deposits are being formed as we speak. Stop mining it for a few million years and large, mineable deposits will be available again but why? We don’t use the gold we have now. Silver is much more useful but is used in ways that make recovering it too expensive.
Diamonds are massively more common than you think. Gem grade, cuttable diamonds are not rare at all. What is rare is the number of gem grade, cuttable diamonds that DeBeers “allows” into the marketplace each year.
Every Earth based resource is finite. Fresh (non-salt) water will always be plentiful on Earth. It may not always be in the places you want or need it but it will always be here. However, if that fresh water has to fall through radioactive or severely polluted skies, all the fresh water on Earth is of no use.
Star- Nimrod? Blow me.
You declared hydro fuel cell technology to be impossible, I showed you it is in production RIGHT NOW.
If it is impossible how are the car companies producing these vehicles? Who is a fucking nimrod? Can you read?
Bea, fuel cells are 30 years old. How do you produce the fuel? Nimrod isn’t even harsh. Just in a good mood. See my boy donny chump kill it?
You and Donny Chump can blow me , and the horse you both rode in on.
Love this Stuck.
There are thousands of knives dangling above our/mankinds’ heads right now. I look back over history and wonder if there has ever been a time where more have been there at one time, and barring some ancient civilizations that we have no knowledge/proof existed, I doubt it.
Here’s my personal favorites: the shifting magnetic pole and a supervolcano located under Yellowstone.
Both are due/past due in their confirmed (as well as our “infallible” science can confirm) time tables.
Because the last time the pole shifted there were no humans with long-term communication available to tell us what the hell happened.
We in the Northern Hemisphere could wake up on the equator, or on a pole, or it might even set off enough cataclysmic activity it wipes us off the face of the planet. Wonder how the Elites plan to package that nightmare and blame it on us privileged morons in the West?
A few years back one of the then regulars, from Australia, seems like his username was Novar… something. Dammit, can’t remember. Anyway, he wrote a book about the dozens and dozens of potential end-of-all-human life events. It was entertaining.
I’ve noticed the most judgmental Christians are usually the biggest believers in man being smarter than nature/God and some of the most vocal science/statist supporters. Talk about missing the entire point.
Anyway, we can worry about all that shit or we can figure out we are being actively culled and then keep our heads up to avoid the carnage.
ps- there ARE alternatives/fixes to the damned petro-chemical based, elite-controlled, “health” that is KILLING us. These alternatives are actively discredited and discarded, and only those that can look beyond the projected memes and distortions will find them. I have to say out of everything on these “the end is nigh” lists, the antibiotics/illness ones are the only ones I do not have to spend one minute, one second, worrying about. I know I’ve got that shit covered.
Party on folks, with today’s latest job reports lies, and the responses over at Yahoo to the feel good article, we don’t have much longer before the fireworks start.
Right on, TE!
After reading that I think I need a shot of Tequila.
Rise up, re-read that Red Ice Creations link you provided and then tell us exactly who, what, why, where, when? The article mentions none of that. Supposedly, never before seen shit or unknown forces are doing bad things to other shit on Earth. Well blow me down! That’s some staggering shit to read. My mind immediately starts asking what detectors were used to “detect” these forces? Where were they located? Were multiple detectors/sites reporting similar things? Are they operated by reputable people. What are their reputable peers saying? When were the observations made? Are they repeatable? Since these things are unknown/never before seen, how are they quantified? With what? Compared to what? Does the data support or disprove other theories? Red Ice offers nothing. It uses the word “evidence” five times in the short article but offers none.
Now re-read that Discovery News article. It answers all kinds of those questions. It gives me some actionable info. (links/names/facilities) It even implies the scientists aren’t sure what they’re seeing.
I’m running dangerously low on whale oil. It’s needed for my lamps and it’s a finite resource. The biggest thing to worry about – IMO – isn’t that we’ll run out of cocoa beans or rhinoceroses, it’s that the computers will take over everything. Computers + robots = danger. In about 70 years (1910-1980 +/-) we went from horse-drawn carriages to moon landings and geo-synchronous satellites. The internet went from an arcane military technology to transforming the world in about ten years (1989-1999, roughly). Then smart phones and the “internet of things”. We probably can’t even imagine where technology will take us in the next 100 years (to say nothing of 500 or 1,000), but it won’t be all good. There may be no such thing as a private conversation – even in person in the middle of a forest. Social media already has convinced the majority of young people that a guy wearing a dress is a woman (Milton Berle would need a new shtick today). Even if a few people retain the ability to think independently, expressing those non-PC thoughts could elicit the thought police (whether human or cyber) to stamp out independent thought. It’s at least as likely that the human population will crater as that it will explode. There are ever more Pirate Jo’s busily non-reproducing. Total fertility rate in countries like Iran and Mexico is barely at replacement level, while the Japanese, Italians and Spaniards are human lemmings plunging off the demographic cliff. Between people getting gay-married and the “Caitlins” promoting castration even among adolescents, the surviving few may look back at fears of overpopulation and laugh – or cry. If the human population gets higher than the computers want (which may be zero), SkyNet might simply have the 22nd century version of Miley Cyrus (or holographic Miley) send out a not-so-subtle reminder that i’s really uncool to be a “breeder”. They say Elon Musk is worried about artificial intelligence – and that he’s a smart guy.
IndenturedServant says: …Now re-read that Discovery News article. It answers all kinds of those questions. It gives me some actionable info. (links/names/facilities) It even implies the scientists aren’t sure what they’re seeing.
————————–
Well, DUH, that’s why I sent those additional links! Because you wanted some facts to chew on.
Starfcker,
On the hydrogen vehicles, yes, it’s a net energy loss, but that doesn’t matter, because hydrogen is portable enough to power a vehicle, batteries won’t do it, and nuclear reactors are still too large.
Iska Waran says: The biggest thing to worry about – IMO – isn’t that we’ll run out of cocoa beans or rhinoceroses, it’s that the computers will take over everything. Computers + robots = danger. In about 70 years (1910-1980 +/-) we went from horse-drawn carriages to moon landings and geo-synchronous satellites. The internet went from an arcane military technology to transforming the world in about ten years (1989-1999, roughly).
——————————————
Scarier is the scientific trend towards transhumanism. The National Science Foundation sees a pathway there via nanotechnology.
From page 40 of the presentation in the link below:
Twelve trends to 2020
http://www.wtec.org/nano2/
•Theory, modeling & simulation: x1000 faster, essential design
•“Direct” measurements–x6000 brighter, accelerate R&D & use
•A shift from “passive” to “active” nanostructures/nanosystems
•Nanosystems, some self powered, self repairing, dynamic
•Penetration of nanotechnology in industry -toward mass use; catalysts, electronics; innovation–platforms, consortia
•Nano-EHS –more predictive, integrated with nanobio & env.
•Personalized nanomedicine -from monitoring to treatment
•Photonics, electronics, magnetics –new capabilities, integrated
•Energy photosynthesis, storage use–solar economic by 2015
•Enabling and integrating with new areas –bio, info, cognition
•Earlier preparing nanotechnology workers –system integration
•Governance of nano for societal benefit -institutionalization
https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/nano/reports/NNI_11-0606_Roco_NSF_and_Future_Nano_Research@TAPPI_inWashDC.pdf
H – hydrogen is the H in H20
He – helium is the gas that makes baloons rise
We can make all the hydrogen we want from water and hydrocarbons, as long as we are willing to pay for the process. Helium, on the other hand, is a noble gas that is increasingly rare and difficult to obtain.
I don’t know about you rat bastards but ‘I am Cait’ made me bawl mah gawd dammed eyes out. I’m gonna be trying to git Billy Jr ter submit to wackin off his gonads and turn inter one uh them beautiful gender fluid doodaws. Billy will be super pissed but Odin is gonna love it.
“A few years back one of the then regulars, from Australia, seems like his username was Novar …” ——TE
I believe you might be referring to Novista?
As always, your posts are informative and interesting. Thanks for being you.
Hey, you coming to the NYC party?
Three Scenarios of Doom before the supply of Chocolate runs out……………..
1) TPTB will have implemented plans to wipe out 90% of humanity. The useless eaters will be terminated. Only the necessary productive workers and a few who are mostly self sufficient will remain to be in their service. Utopia for the elite and slavery for the rest. There will be chocolate for everyone still alive.
2) Disease, Famine, Shortages, Radiation, War, Murder, Starvation and all forms of violence wipe out 90% of everyone including 90% of TPTB resulting in a more balanced, disease resistant, stronger human beings that must live much closer to the earth with an elite so decimated they aren’t elite anymore. Or we might all die off as radio active mutants and genetically afflicted zombies. Either way no chocolate.
3. Mother Nature through a combination of her many tools of destruction culls 90% to 100% of us like an over populated herd of deer in a hard long winter. The human race might come out better and stronger or not come out at all. The cocoa plants will be there but with no way to cultivate it, process it and ship it there will be no chocolate.
Or we could hit a trifecta and get a mix of all three. One thing for sure is most everyone bites the big one, the few that are left will live through hell and we return to the earliest ways of civilization or worse. No chocolate for anyone.
With or without Chocolate we are doomed or at the very least the way we are is doomed. It’s just a matter of time.
“New gold deposits are being formed as we speak.” ———- I_S
“No one is completely sure where gold comes from. …. if you own some gold it is possible that you have a souvenir from one of the most powerful explosions in the universe.” —— from “gold fun facts” above
If gold is the result of exploding stars, then what is the process whereby gold is being formed today?
Fascinating video (imho). I did not know that once iron forms in a star’s core, that it only has seconds left before exploding.
Bruce
You bastard!! I was only half-kidding about there being no chocolate in the future. You proclamation of “no chocolate” is really pissing me off!! Back to hell … you Demon of Doom!!!
Moar fascinating stuff I just learned about gold.
“During the formation of Earth, molten iron sank to its centre to make the core. This took with it the vast majority of the planet’s precious metals — such as gold and platinum. In fact, there are enough precious metals in the core to cover the ENTIRE SURFACE of Earth with a FOUR METER THICK layer.”
———– http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110907132044.htm
Jeremy, AP, yes we can produce as much hydrogen as we want. But it would be like burning two gallons of gas to refine one gallon. Or spending ten dollars to build a five dollar gas can. What’s the point?
“There are those who either greatly minimize or, dismiss with utter contempt, the idea of resource depletion.”
Here’s a clue:
Go study the history/story of Easter Island. Then get back with me.
Funny thing, I recently had a conversation with this young guy that had just graduated with a PHD in anthropology. So I present to him my opinion that Easter Island is a Prelude to the future of mankind, and this kid has no clue as to what I’m talking about. I’m shocked. What the fuck did he learn with that fancy degree?
Starfcker,
I didn’t say it was a good idea, I think it will be forced on us because of globull warming, doncha know… Hydrogen vehicles will be like electric vehicles, not zero-emission but elsewhere-emission, because much of the electricity to split the water to make the H2 will come from burning coal. If we were rational, we’d keep burning hydrocarbons ’till we run out, emissions from a modern car are close enough to CO2 and water vapor as to make no difference.
ASIG, yeah that can happen when you live on a 10-square mile island and have only stone age technology, hard to apply that lesson to the modern world as a whole though…
I wish I could Stuck but barring lottery winnings I don’t have the funds to go.
And my hub would FREAK if I even suggested going without him. If I went with him, I would be miserable and spend that weekend like I’ve vowed I won’t spend another (me fuming and watching cable on hotel tvs while he sits drunk/drinking and ready to argue if I dare say a word about anything). Not to mention the insults from him about you all would be epic, I don’t have the constitution to deal with that.
So, sorry, unless big, big, changes happen between then and now I won’t be able to come. BUT, drop me a line and we can exchange phone numbers and if anyone there has Skype or some other nonsense I’ll try and figure out how to make a virtual appearance.
I’m very jealous that you all get to meet before TSHTF, I hope you have a blast!
Excellent article Stucky – really thought provoking (hence the abundant comments).
If you’re looking for diamonds – try here – http://www.guide-to-the-universe.com/a-diamond-the-size-of-earth.html (presumably the Solar System’s largest!), or for something more accessible, try here – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_on_Jupiter_and_Saturn!!
T4C – the Sun has ALWAYS been white – otherwise “white” paper would appear yellow, if sunlight was yellow-ish. Certainly the APPEARANCE of a yellow Sun can be caused by atmospheric pollution (mainly sulphur dioxide haze), so your “white” sun is a consequence of the loss of Manufacturing – less pollution, less SO2 smog / haze.
“Overabundance” of Gold (and all the other, much heavier elements) – the colliding Neutron star theory is OK but the evidence is scarce. The majority of gamma ray bursts are probably NOT the result of neutron star collision, or black hole / Neutron star collisions; rather, they may be a consequence of hypernova events ( this might be your reference – http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question47.html), and it is certain that hypernova events would outnumber neutron star / black hole interactions by a large margin. GRBs may still be rare events, since if they were “common” we’d expect a statistically higher distribution when looking towards the centre of our galaxy (more stars = more events), but so far observational data does not support this.
Potential future local GRB / Hypernova candidates include the supergiant / hypergiant stars, such as VY Canis Majoris, NML Cygni, and UY Scuti. Borderline hypernova candidates include Betelgeuse, and Antares, per our current (and therefore very incomplete) knowledge.
So, there’s still lots more gold / Uranium / lead / “everything heavier than Iron” to be made. Unfortunately we’ll not be around then.
So, I post a comment, early-on, acknowledging we are screwed, which is a common theme around here and most people seem to agree with. I say most people don’t seem to consider We Are Screwed when they start poppin out chilluns, because they have baby-rabies.
Then I get a host of thumbs-down, yet all the subsequent posts agree We Are Screwed.
Anyone want to ‘splain that?
What is it you folks are thinking? That someday, a Greater Force in the Universe will step in and intervene to protect all the gold buyers and debt-free people, kill off the Free Shit Army with a single bolt of lightning, and leave the world a paradise for the Righteous? Because frankly, you can join the Jehovah’s Witnesses, that’s what they think.
Or are you just pissed because you love your cute widdle children and grandchildren and think I’m a BIG OLE MEANIE for suggesting that inflicting the future (as it’s going to be, whether you like it or not) on poor unsuspecting people who don’t even exist yet is a bad idea? I mean, from a practical standpoint, if nothing else!
Fuck, if I had a dime for every time some dimwitted yenta at work asked me who was going to take care of me when I’m old, I wouldn’t even HAVE to work. It’s all I can do not to bang my head against the nearest wall (or the nearest head) and ask how these offspring would take care of me when they are going to have A. LOWER. STANDARD. OF. LIVING. THAN. I DO. I mean what the fuck is wrong with people? You are supposed to love your kids so much – don’t you love them enough not to HAVE them? It’s totally going to suck around here in another 50 years!!
I wouldn’t call myself a misanthrope. I mean yes, there are certain neighbors of mine who I wish would just fall down the nearest well and give us all a rest. But I don’t think humans are inherently evil or anything. I think there could be a place for us on this planet, and it would be an enjoyable place, and we could even do it without turning the entire planet into our own feedlot and destroying most of what else that lives. But not in the numbers we have now.
I think there are a few pro-breeder people here who can take their self-righteous delusions about how superior their own genes are, and shove it up your own asses! When the human population stops representing itself as purveyors of music and literature and instead begins to resemble a plague of locusts, the morality of having more children comes into question! If you don’t like it, tough noogies. Grow a backbone for goddsake.
So give THAT a thumbs-down, motherfuckers!
In totally unrelated news, I’d go to NYC and meet up with y’all. When and where? Can that be posted at the top of the page or something?
I’m only going if Stucky goes. Or bb, just so I can buy him a giant t-shirt with a cat on the front of it. I’ll be handing out condoms.
Fuckers.
AP, it can be done, plants do it. We just can’t figure out how. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/biology/watsplit.html
Stucky, there is tons of gold deep inside the Earth. Deeper than humans can dig. Through tectonic and volcanic activity, gold held in solution (like the oceans) percolates up through rock strata and is deposited in cracks and fissures. These are referred to as seams. Hard rock miners go after seams and gold miners who use sluices go after gold that has already weathered out of rock via erosion.
I did not mean to imply that more gold is arriving on Earth. It’s already here but out of reach. Given enough time, gold rich water will continue to percolate up from within the deep Earth and be deposited where we can get at it.
Diamonds running out?
Bullshit.
DeBeers mines so many of the damn things, to keep the market from cratering, they run shiploads of them out into the ocean and dump them. Nobody knows where.
Plus, we can make them now, so meh…
If phosphorus causes algae blooms, then why not harvest the phosphorus-rich algae and extract it from them?
And sooner or later, someone will figure out how to mine an asteroid. There’s more precious and rare earth metals in one asteroid than everything we’ve mined so far… Pick the right one, drag it back, get it into a stable orbit around the Earth and start mining… Trillions (with an “S”) of dollars in gold, silver, platinum, etc..
Then why the hell ain’t I got uh diamond on my finger you no good lying sack uh donkey dicks.
Pirate jo, you need some love in yer life. I know yer ovaries have been stripped out, but maybe you should look into adopting a little homeless negro child.
@Billah’s wife:
“maybe you should look into adopting a little homeless negro child”
You first.
And please be correct. It’s my fallopian tubes that have been stripped out, not my ovaries.
Billy is at least right, about the diamonds. What a load of twaddle THAT has been.
Billah’s wife, ask him to buy you a nice 4X4 instead.
Hell no, if I tried to adopt one uh them Billy would have it chained to a wagon of cotton balls on the first day, and gawd knows what depredations Billy Jr would try on it.
Thank you fer replying Pirate Jo. You seem like a heartless kind of witch that is trapped in a boring ass cubicle most of the time, but I’ll never ferget yer kindness. Sticky aint even giving me thumbs down no more.
PJ, you know your interacting with a troll, don’t you? The real Billy’s Missus was doing poorly recently and this ‘BW’ has the unmitigated gall to post in the meanwhile.
I do agree that you’ve been very nice lately, is this a new side of you?
Pirate Jo ,little bb is a Himalaya hush so get the picture right … please .
If the world runs out water the means it will run out of Mountain Dew.Oh god no.Got to have my 55 grams of caffeine in the morning.
Pirate Jo,
If I really thought that world population were going to continue to grow inexorably, I might agree that the best thing one could do for their kids would be to not have them. The decline in total fertility rates in most countries seems to be the only truly inexorable thing, though. People used to have kids so that the kids would take care of the parents. Now people expect government to do the care-taking. The fact that it won’t doesn’t change their basic calculus. In terms of one’s material comfort, ease, etc. the logical thing to do is – as you say – “don’t have kids”. I don’t disagree at all. In fact, so few people disagree with you that it’s impelling the demographic trend I’m talking about. I may have sounded moralistic about that in the past, but that’s beside the point. The facts are what the facts are. Even countries where the fertility rate is still above replacement level are seeing that rate drop steadily. Kenya went from 4.6 to 4.4 in three years, for example. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN Extrapolate that 50 year trend out another 20-25 years and even a Kenya will be at replacement level fertility. The countries with the highest fertility rates (like Mali) will – to be blunt – see their populations stunted by starvation. So there’s that. China, Brazil, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Thailand – all places with fertility rates already well below replacement level (~2.1). Canada’s population would be falling if not for immigration (and their 1.6 TFR includes recent immigrants). Obviously world population will grow for another 30 years or so, but at current trendas, it will then plateau and start to decline. Current social trends portend a long, continual decline after 2050.
That’s right Stucky
NO FUCKING CHOCOLATE !!!!!! …………….for anyone.
But there will be an abundance of doom for everyone.
Damn now I want some chocolate. I’m going to go make an early evening raid on the M&M jar in the living room.
Interesting numbers and they are never factored into the econometric models our Central Banker rules use though Gail Tverberg has taken a stab at it with her writings on oil. Politically, Huey Long, expressed the thought with his slogan ‘Everyman a King” and that was fine as long as it was the United States that thought human happiness could be achieved with a Ford Model A, an RCA radio and electric lighting in a 2000 square foot suburban home where dad could BBQ 2-4lbs of beef in the backyard for the family dinner. That was 1929 when the US and Canada had 90% of all the privately owned automobiles in the world and that middle class lifestyle seemed possible for all of our 140 million or so people. The rest of the world didn’t live like us back then. They didn’t even really know how we lived but they found out.
Since then it has been a dash for resources. Japan and Germany didn’t have oil so they set out to get some and that brought on WW2. Some prodigious discoveries in the middle east, Alaska, North Sea and a few other spots kept the black gold flowing and Caterpillar factories humming for the next 50 years and a billion more people joined that American lifestyle. Now a Guatemalan peon can be magically transformed into a vintage F-150 pickup truck owner with a 1000 watt electrical appetite if he can just travel a few hundred miles north and get into the United States. We won’t throw him out. Africa is discovering the same magical journey can be made by crossing the Mediterranean.
China is pulling itself up by its own bootstraps, as we used to say and hoped others would do but Huey Long was wrong. Everyman cannot be a King. What North America had in 1929 was a moment in time where it was possible for a relatively small proportion of the earth’s population to consume an extraordinary amount of its resources because the know how to do so wasn’t widely shared or even imagined by the rest of mankind.
Billy
I stated that diamonds are not rare and got downed. There are books available that expose the diamond trade and the cartel that keeps the supply low. Truth is colored diamonds are rare, really large diamonds are rare but most folks are buying the average common as dirt diamond that is not rare.
Who would pay the price to mine a asteroid with these depressed gold, silver and platinum prices?
Bea,
The price of gold stood at 20 bucks an ounce for… well, ever, I think… hang on…
US gold prices 1786 to present has gold sitting at about 19 bucks an ounce till 1833, when it went up to 20 bucks an ounce. Where it sat for a hundred years, until FDR got ahold of it… then it sat at 35 bucks an ounce till 1971….
So… more or less 20 bucks an ounce from 1786 to 1933…. then a whopping 35 bucks till 1971….
Depressed prices? Heh… if you say so…
Billy- A medium sized chuck roast is $20. That roast used to be $6 not to terribly long ago before everything went south. The cost to mine that gold on the asteroid…mind boggling. The cost of mining gold on Earth is almost at break even right now. Cost runs around 1100 dollars per oz to mine gold last I looked. Spot price tonight is $1,096.60 per oz.
I am with Pirate Jo all the way on the matter of procreating when you know that those born now will most likely fall to a much lower standard of living than that we have enjoyed, and still do enjoy. I am all too aware that, while my lifestyle seems lean and frugal to upper-middle-income Americans living in 4000 sq ft houses with 3 expensive cars and a boat, my lifestyle is still high luxury compared to that of wealthy folk in pre-industrial times. I fully appreciate the relative luxury of my life, and I thank the fates every day for everything I have, and for the time and place into which I was born.
I would want my children to have it at least as good as I have… which is darn good.
And, while I am a climate-change skeptic, I have been totally convinced of reality of resource depletion since I was a young woman in the early 70s. I am very much a Club of Rome girl, and in my view, Malthus and Paul Erlich have not only not been proven wrong, but ARE being proved correct right now, and in this country, as the quality of our food started going steeply downhill in the 80s, and more and more of us are experiencing increasing shortages of essential resources, water being the chief among them. As for food, bad food is better than no food, and it’s the stone truth that there is no way in hell our swollen population of 310 million could eat at all were it not for the fossil-fuel fertilizers, hybradized crops, and other modern agricultural technology that has degraded our food, but produced many times as much food as could be produced with more traditional farming methods. Meanwhile, every other quality-of-life measurement reveals increasing degradation, notably in our overall health and well-being. I believe that this degradation is evidence that the resources that are the fount of all real wealth, are depleting faster than they can be replenished by nature. And I strongly believe that when the numbers are all in and we have the benefit of the rear-view mirror, that the G.I. generation will turn out to be the longest-lived ever, and every generation since will have shorter lifespans and worse health and well-being overall. As it is, the Silent Gen people, that of my parents, seems to be dying off at earlier ages than their G.I. gen parents, and I have a feeling we Baby Boomers will ride into the sunset at still earlier ages.
This planet has seen many civilizations go, and the more dazzling they were at their zeniths, the more rapidly they disappear after peaking. While you can’t say for sure exactly what it is that collapsed each of them with any certainty, a common thread seems to be the depletion or failure of the resource on which a particular society was most reliant. With the Incas, it seems to have been the failure of their corn crop, on which they were overly reliant. With many others, water and irrigation- and failure of the latter- seem to be the issue; nearly every civilization reliant upon irrigation fails.
I recommend reading Jarad Diamond’s COLLAPSE, and re-reading it 20 times, to get an idea what it means when a population continues to expand geometrically while its resources, finite or not, dwindle. The Rule of 72 applies to every thing you use or accumulate, not just the interest you are paying on your credit card.
Nice rant PJ!
Bea,
Back in the Late Great 19th Century, some Yankee sumbitch figured out that there was a trove of coal in the Appalachian mountains. Literally a king’s ransom of it… but there was no way to get it out.
Not to congratulate the guy, but credit where it’s due – he thought up and built that railroad through the mountains. Everyone told him it would be obscenely expensive. That it couldn’t be done. He did it. It’s an engineering masterpiece. In one epic 6 mile stretch, there are 19 tunnels through the mountains.
Yes, it cost lives building it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a masterpiece. And anything really worth undertaking requires a blood sacrifice.
Some half crazy cowboy sumbitch just needs to think up a way to do it, and then do it. You don’t understand the scale I’m talking about here… one asteriod has more PM’s than everything we’ve mined in the history of mankind – and not just PM’s, rare earth metals. The guy who owns and controls that will end up being the richest man in the history of the world…
You get one asteroid into orbit and start mining it? Might have to change the name of “rare earth metals” to something else…. You’re thinking rockets, I bet… I’m thinking a tower built of carbon nanotubes up to an asteroid in geosynchronous orbit… literally a gigantic elevator. And those are grown, not “built”… you need to learn how to think sideways, my friend…
Billy, given the resources we burn through to even do things like send a probe to Mars, anyone who figures out a way to mine the resources of asteroids and nearby planets so that it is positive EREOI, is going to have to be a magician. Sure, burn enough fuel and you can do almost anything, but making it economical is the ticket.
Oh mah gawd Billy it drives me absolutely crazy when you have brilliant ideas like mining uh asteroid fer gold. Shitballs uh mercy you have such talent and ingenuity I have no idea why you let yer life slip by with you sitting on a couch sniffing yer own farts. I would be terribly frightened ter step onto an asteroid in case the aliens would be pissed I was there ter take there shit