Classical mechanics + Theory of relativity
Laws of thermodynamics + ? We wait new scientific revolution.

I implied nothing of mechanics, GR or any "new scientific revolution"
but of the 1st law and the conservation of energy.

The technology to use a new (and better) resource is always invented because the last resource became expensive, not because we decided that it would be a good idea.
I completely agree that burning oil is a mess, not the least because of the pollution. We should find an alternative, such as nuclear fission or fusion. (Wind and solar are a joke.)
But technological progress does not happen because we decide that it would be a good idea and get to it.
We are so used to progress that we think it's something that just happens because time goes by. But technological progress happens because of necessity, not because we want it enough. We will free ourselves from the burden that is oil for the same reason we did with firewood and coal and every other resource. Because getting a hold of the old resource becomes more of a pain in the ass than inventing the new one; we always take the easy way out.
It is alluring to think that progress is a result of our wanting it enough, and that we can "do something" to make it happen quicker, to "take a proactive step". And that not "doing something" is merely kicking the can down the road, or just "waiting". But that's not how it works.
Government action or voluntary austerity will only delay progress; by reducing oil consumption we lower the price of oil and make it less profitable to find an alternative to oil, which results in it being used longer.



It is not even that clear to me whether there is actual warming. I hear different numbers all the time. The studies that were hyped a few years ago are mostly discredited now. Climate scientists only stay employed if they report a problem. And we find out that more and more of their work was seriously fraudulent. Not to mention that politicians are suspiciously united about global warming. And practically everyone who advocates global warming seems to have close ties to the oil companies. You know, the guys who would make billions on the carbon trading schemes.
And - oh what coincidence - it just so happens that we can still do something about global warming, but we have to act really hastily, there is no time to think about it.

But even if there is warming, how do we know it's a man-made phenomenon? Climate always changed.

Even if it is human greenhouse gas emissions that causes global warming, we could only reduce emissions by negligible amounts. And the effects of global warming are said to be accumulative. Reducing emissions can't do a damn bit of difference about the climate. But sacrificing our industrial strength would significantly reduce our capabilities to deal with the effects, man-made or natural. Does anyone advocate that? No, the alarmists only want carbon trading and greater government control over personal lives, very suspicious.

---------- Post added 05-20-2010 at 05:41 PM ----------



Yes, you are right that the definition of a renewable energy source includes that it has to be naturally replenished, not replenished by man. But that is somewhat of a misleading definition, as it confuses us into thinking that oil is limited to currently known and technologically and economically extractable reserves.
A new technology that allows us to find more oil or extract oil from sources that were not worth the cost of extraction before would literally replenish oil reserves. That's why oil reserves seem to magically grow in step with consumption.

Solar energy is renewed by being added from outside earth, but even solar energy is ultimately finite in the sense that the sun is finite. Known exploitable oil reserves are renewed by advancements in extraction technology, that make more of the existing physical stuff exploitable. All the oil in the world is ultimately finite, like the sun, but the resource oil is renewable. Therefore oil and solar energy are equally renewable, just the method by which they are renewed is different.

---------- Post added 05-20-2010 at 06:13 PM ----------



Actually, the oil companies made possible some the greatest advances in the standard of living of the poor in history. The rich always had material abundance, but industrialization and fossil fuels made abundance available everyone. In that sense they are the greatest liberators in history. Those who work to make the poor poorer and the rich richer are the phony environmentalists and the wealthy elites, who use fear to revert us to a pre-industrial stage, where only the elites have material abundance.



Everybody who leases out their work for money is a capitalist. If they save and produce something that others want they can become wealthy themselves. There is no such thing as "the worker class" and "the capitalist class".

Only five percent of families in the bottom income quintile (the lowest 20 percent) in 1975 were still there in 1991. Three-quarters of these families had moved into the three highest income quintiles. During the same period, 70 percent of those in the second lowest income quintile moved to a higher quintile, with 25 percent of them moving to the top income quintile.
The U.S. Treasury found that 85.8 percent of tax filers in the bottom income quintile in 1979 had moved on to a higher quintile by 1988 - 66 percent to second and third quintiles and 15 percent to the top quintile.
Walter E. Williams : The poverty hype - Townhall.com



Yes, in physics we learn that energy can not be destroyed. But it can change form and therefore is "used up" for our purposes.



Physical stuff is harvested by humans, but resources are created by humans.
Read this: http://www.philosophyforum.com/philosophy-forums/secondary-branches-philosophy/philosophy-science/8079-resources-infinite.html