Are We Re-Entering the Dark Ages?

[chlamor]

Published on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 by Scotsman.com
Are we re-entering the dark ages?

By John Browker
Scotland - ENERGY is one talking point Labour is hoping will not rear its head during the next couple of weeks. A full-blown power failure would be a disaster for the government’s credibility - and with it the chances of an historic third term.

Like the MG Rover debacle, blackouts similar to those in the United States, Italy and the UK two years ago would be yet another example of complacency by this government. It might be why we are heading for the ballots in May; having negotiated the winter months, a spring election should make it easy to keep the lights on.

However, a report just out from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says we are about to be plunged into darkness again - and not just in the UK. Worldwide, populations are suffering from poor levels of energy investment and ageing power plants. The research calculates that about $12.7 trillion (£6.7tn) of investment, greater than the entire US annual economic output, is understood to be needed globally to meet an expected doubling in electricity consumption through 2030. That total raises the bar above the estimated $10tn electricity spend agreed by the International Energy Agency (IEA) for the same period.

http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=413752005

[autorank]

1. Necessity is the mother of invention. This is fine on a macro scale

although a disaster if your in an affected region. The doom and gloom scenarios presume increasing consumption absent any new technology. This is biased because there are compelling reasons to anticipate new approaches to power if the incentive is high enough. Look what some students did at UNH.http://www.tnhonline.com/news/2004/04/27/News/Students.Combine.Skills.To.Create.Co2.Sucking.Product-672133.shtml

We are perfectly capable of returning to the Dark Ages, however, if the anti-science movement gains hold.

Right now, I'd be optimistic that fame and greed will deliver us from the evils of fossil fuel.

[chlamor]

2. Relying on fame and greed

for salvation? Ayn Rand and Dinesh D'Souza would love to hear that. Greed is good-Pretty sad.

The delusions of techno-euphoria are to be looked upon warily.
Don't drink the water in Silicon Valley

[autorank]

3. I won't drink their Cool Aid either. I agree it's dreadful but...

I'm confident that many want to make a great 'discovery' and that motivation isn't bad. I can't stand Rand (worst writer ever to publish more than one book) and D'Souza. I sat next to D'Souza at a Borders once (the cafe) while he tried to secude a girl. Oh my God, the guy is totally pathetic...Have a little faith in science and the exponential advance in knowledge. The luddites have not killed it yet.

:hi:

[chlamor]

4. Beware of using labels

especially those laden with cultural accretions and hammered into the mindmass. The term "Luddites" is loaded and what the people of that era were responding to was the theft of the commons and destruction of their livelihood.

The way we define and determine knowledge is rather skewed and unhealthy and what passes for science is mostly corporate funded gadgetry.

Highly Highly recommend reading "Rebels Against the Future" by Kirkpatrick Sale.

We sure have alot of gadgets but what to do with them and the consequences. You must look at the totality before an honest assessment of a technology can be done. NEVER is the entire picture examined in our culture. Technology Good-Luddite Bad bam bam.

Let's look at the cell phone e.g.

The demand for cell phones and computer chips is helping fuel a bloody civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"There is a direct link between human rights abuses and the exploitation of resources in areas in the DRC occupied by Rwanda and Uganda," says Suliman Baldo, a senior researcher in the Africa division at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based nongovernmental organization that tracks human-rights abuses worldwide.

The slaughter and misery in the Congo has not abated since the country's president, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in January. (Kabila's son, Joseph, was quickly appointed the new head of state.) Human Rights Watch researchers, working with monitors in the Congo, estimate that at least 10,000 civilians have been killed and 200,000 people have been displaced in northeastern Congo since June 1999. Rebels have driven farmers off their coltan-rich land and attacked villages in a civil war raging, in part, over control of strategic mining areas. The Ugandan and Rwandan rebels "are just helping themselves," Baldo says. The mining by the rebels is also causing environmental destruction. In particular, endangered gorilla populations are being massacred or driven out of their natural habitat as the miners illegally plunder the ore-rich lands of the Congo's protected national parks.

http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/Articles/TheStandardColtan.asp

Not too many people want to face the music. When heading towards the cliffs edge a step backward is a step in the right direction.

[autorank]

5. Interesting points. Apologies all around to Luddites.

The brutality of colonial enterprises has been going on for over a century. As I read your response, I recalled the enterprise of Belgium in the Congo. Seems like the more things change the more they stay the same.

From Wikipedia on King Leopold of Belgium in the later part of the 19th Century: Reports of outrageous exploitation and widespread human rights abuses (including enslavement and mutilation) of the native population, especially in the rubber industry, led to an international protest movement in the early 1900s. Finally, in 1908, the Belgian parliament compelled the King to cede the Congo Free State to Belgium.

Leopold created a charitable humanitarian foundation to help the people of the Congo as a front and used it to essentially exploit the natural resources. Sounds like the World Bank.

I would like to see us take "a step backward" but that can only happen if the momentum of human creativity (for whatever purpose) is recognized. There is nothing wrong with nonviolent technology per se. It's the policy justifications that cause great harm, whether this century or in the 19th. In fact, even without technology there is no reason to think that people would be less violent, just less efficient.

We have so many people on earth right now that our only hope is for a) a rapid revolution in consciousness recognizing the right of a decent life and b) the constructive use of science to provide food and health for the billions. The alternatives are frightening.

[Jack_DeLeon]

6. The meek shall inherit the Earth.

When the cheap oil runs out its going to be the end of the world as we know it.

It will definately be a new dark age, it probably wont be as bad as the actual dark age after the fall of the Roman Empire but most of the people in this world who survive the changes will definately take a step back technologically.

Obviously the people who are going to be deal with the changes are those who already do without.

[caffeinefwee]

7. The dark ages have already begun

We entered them in November 2000 when Bush "won" the election.