Le 15/04/2011 11:21, Invisible a écrit :
> This is the thing. I've heard a lot of environmental activists say "we
> should stop doing X" or "we should stop doing Y". I haven't heard much
> about "we should do Z instead".
> 
> Burning fossil fuels is obviously stupid for a number of reasons. And
> the alternative is...? What exactly?
> 
> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever. (Or at least, for
> several centuries.) And there's nothing you can do to fix it.
> 
> Wind power is great. But... do you really want the whole country to go
> black every time the wind stops blowing? Similarly, solar power. You
> realise that the sun is below the horizon for hours at a time, right?
> And some days, it's just not very sunny. For either of these things to
> work, you seriously need high-efficiency power storage, so you can
> collect power when it's there, and store it for when it's not.

All these should raise a question: why would you need a perfect and
continuous source of energy ?
Because you were raised in such environment where performance is
expected and requested all the time... time to change that way of thinking!

It's like email: they are not an INSTANT delivery system.

Back to middle-age, working from dawn to dusk but never past dusk.
Working enough to survive the year, yet the year after is still unknown,
not expecting interest-rate to provide wealth. Working about every day,
in theory, but having great collective break to prepare and celebrate
many holidays. one penny a day, 240 pences a year, such were the
unqualified wages. It also means that there was about 60 days of work
per season, not 90! (ratio of day off was not 1/7, rather 1/3. So you
think that todays week-end is a progress... well 2/7 < 1/3 !).

Also, local production should be sufficient to sustain all. You might
spent ten years without going further than 10 km from your home.


-- 
Software is like dirt - it costs time and money to change it and move it
around.

Just because you can't see it, it doesn't weigh anything,
and you can't drill a hole in it and stick a rivet into it doesn't mean
it's free.

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