Graceware

 Energy Resource Depletion 

Be concerned but not alarmed 

The West is now in October 2025 in a panic about feeding its now huge appetite for energy. It is clear that the animal cannot keep doing this . Can the animal be tamed ? How should we respond to the threats?

Before we start , let me make one thing clear, because, when people panic,  they ignore reason. I am here trying to deal with two things; I am saying with my definition of worry, that it's ok to worry, if it means you care; worry can be care. What is not good for you, or our societies,  to do, is panic.    

Some other time let's talk about other worries people have about other resources because too many of the public are in a panic about so many things and conflate risks and threats that are not the same and need specific study.   We can recycle most things. Please help here if you can.  

 

My point is always to study the matter properly and you will not fear or be easily made to feared, like many are . Let's face it,  the rich dependencies of our culture living in huge houses and driving big trucks to pull them around is not helping. 

We are in this dilemma together and all us rich ones must accept some pain and grief from the coming pressures.  

I am writing this pieces today because,  while my personal post graduate response to this issue is to drive a  small car and live in small places, THAT  is still not enough to stop the deep crisis the Rich West needs to still face . 

My answer does mediate the problem significantly because while there is a risk of collapse in ecosystems ( and our are often pushed too hard ), mediating resilience actions can prevent that. 

The problem with the West remains its technological fixation, when a mediating fixation is needed. 

Your and my actions are still not enough to stop the deep crisis the Rich West needs to still face. 

ECO and ECONOMIC   matters -- later 

There is no need for panic there as there will always be alkanes available (  see my articles elsewhere).
By sharing them more equitably future generations can live very well in energy rich world we have found here on earth.  We still need to tap into them to stay rich and have a quality life. There is no need to go backwards. 

The answer to the future is not to force less demand by having less people as people will pay more for energy as its supply rate diminishes. the real threat is rich peoples unwillingness to share the present  and the future . Man,  as Jung said,  is the only problem left.

   

The deep point is that, on the surface, the greed of man is a most serious matter, and his ability to waste the good and not conserve  and reuse and build resilience is an obscene offence to any observer. Like our Creator ,  we can't stop it all. Another time and place let's talk about that. 

Getting back to the subject 

My point was not to dwell on that somewhat depressing reality in our world this day, but to stand back and look at all those who still want to shift the blame for our problems onto our Creator. Tell us more because this arrogance obfuscation and distraction needs addressing and the government cannot do all this on there own . 

Does God know what He is doing ? 

Tim said to me yesterday that he heard someone suggest God would be a bit thick to only create man for one planet in the universe.

We both couldn't work out how anyone could assume all that God has done , let alone tell us something we already believed (that there was good and evil in the universe), Are men mad not to want to know more of the good?  Remember Atheism is not a threat, because its largely reactionary in nature . 

Update

Well,  it just so happens that this view, while common for our ancestors, who didn't know much ( but still didn't admit that ) is daily being exploded by our current rapid increasing knowledge of the universe .

We have known of Stars and planets since prehistory. In the lifetime of the late West,  we have tested the substance of those places to find the families of created compounds all behave in the same way even if we can't still name all the members of the family . That's very exciting for the future  because in  my lifetime we have discovered that not only are we related we can more and more  predict some of the pressures to change that exist within those families.

Only in the last ten years has NASA found evidence of many universes out there who have planets;  

so Our Creators resources ( and energy resources ) are truly endless.  News mate! 

We have, just in recent generations  tested the substance of the universe's space  to find it is all made of the same stuff.( that doesn't mean we know how that stuff works )  

What we have learned in both lifetimes and in the last years is  extremely both exciting and  comforting because all the elements and compounds have therefore  consistent behaviours which mean we can still risk adventures with them both here on earth and elsewhere . There is not as much to worry about as some who never trusted that our Creator made the  place basically  good .Genesis 1   

Where then does Evil come in ?

The idea that the basic structure is good doesn't mean that there isn't a place for evil . Those of us  who believe that evil is hidden under and beyond man and a hidden spiritual world don't expect ever to fully understand  that . Why do some human minds  presume they can?

The last few years of discovery have not eliminated God from the picture,  but made the created order even more certain than  we could have known earlier, This means that for many of us there a deeper and stronger foundation about where to "worry"  and where not to worry ;

 We believers can continue to hold the possibility of the known and the unknown working together ( or even fighting or living in tension) because there are at least two forces at work in the world;   Monists are making hell for themselves by only living on one plain. 

So back to energy supply . 

While its most likely our Creator will not give us any more cheap sources of alkanes ( look at the staggering amounts he gave us to play with in the first place ) we might be inspired , looking at all the huge resources our there on planets and universes to thin that The Creator is indeed able to supply much more than we know ask or think.
How I do not know, but then I can be expected, if i am a realist, to understate the power of our Creator in cooperative mode especially.. 

Labels: alkanes, depletion, shortages, spinning wheels

 I will not say much about this wonderful lecture by George Steiner except , having heard him speak before, I love the way he establishes the case for silence ( and need for humility ) in our understanding of the universe in which we find ourselves. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH0MXdeGwSE

Strangely his adoration of the horizons of science ( 3) aren't as incredible as the far far distant  horizons of music mathematics and beauty .  

Labels: beauty, george steiner, literacy origins, music origins, numeracy origins, oxford

to be continued soon  


A lot of modern Westerners think that the only reason people still believe in God is because there are gaps in our knowledge 

 A growing an ongoing sense of wonder for me is how the universe contains both order and apparent chaos.

( esp in biological systems where nature can seem to be quite cruel); my work area.







One can, just by accepting grace as a given, go a long way in life . We are called to be like children . 

While I hate to make all the basis for wonder and humility sound too simple to my cynical friends . life as we know it is in one way at least, simple. If our forefathers didn't believe in the unity and good order of the Universe ( Genesis 1) we might never be here having travelled a long way in one direction. - eg through the forces , the periodic table, and now beyond.   

 Should we ever eliminate possibilities, causes and structures  ?  We  can't resolve IMO  where the boundaries are between  particles, forces  and radiation - we just use approximate terms because the physical relations are mostly predictable .
Einstein seems to say Mass and Energy are certain and are interrelated
I won't say any more lest I expose how little I know 

 Maybe a better way of describing what we now do know about the earth , our own universe and the universe that is running away from us , is that it  its amazingly complex , wonderful and highly structured  BUT we may not know very much still . For our understanding it has ,at least ,a 3D structure  but why not 4 or 5 dimensions or something still quite invisible to us? ,

The full truth about structural things is simply not known or fully told , maybe even because as some recents have realized , humans want to ignore reality and put themselves at the centre of it . ( I would  agree with Mal there ) 

 The expanding universe doesn't yet seem to impact on our basically steady state approach to life on earth,but maybe one day it will ?.Who knows ?   Who cares?
 Should  we not all continue to use the solid things to build into knowledge of the not so solid - like waves . And for all the armchair speculators - get a degree before you disagree?  

Hoyle's  reasonable assertion from the physical facts in the early 1900's that " there is not sufficient time for natural selection to produce the life that we see on earth , is similar to the actual process of finding the truth  about the expanding universe . Some predicted it from the maths ,  but proof only came when Hubble had a telescope  strong enough to observe it ( 1929)

I agree with the idea  that we shouldn't limit the truth because what we do know is still limited and some analogy or framework  that some smart arse invented , and most took as gospel, may come back to bite us .- a full stop when there is none . 

Similarly , if we had allowed for the fact that life was planted on earth  we would not have allowed adaption by natural selection to give everyone an excuse to ignore their Creator and talk all sorts of rubbish about how everything " naturally progresses".  IT may make many feel better but it gives a unsustainable and  unworkable  lead to our children because there are some destructive consequences for poor choices and they can find productive positivity in choosing better than their genes and feelings may seem to dictate.

 If we listen to our minds and our own logic , let alone those of us we meet ,we can be expected to be confused .We are after all, only children . 
The thing I like about growing older is that any honor glory and power we seek to attach to ourselves diminishes as the God who came at Bethlehem by his humility, gentle kindness, widom and love  inclines us to seek to honor and glorify the majesty of God. 

 

This of course is a very big question because like all humans ever , it can seem to be that way --- and we don't like it.
. God does not appear in our everyday ( at least in ways we think we would like him to----that's an essay in itself , the genie, the doting mother, the frowning or condemning father, the person who locks all the doors or would  .you add some below )   

THEN those of us who do CARE want an analogy to help us get ourselves and others motivated to CARE MORE................
We may not all  believe in Evil ......but perhaps we should ? 

Nature modelling

 A new perspective is needed , but it needs to be more powerful than the confused messages from nature , the most powerful of which is actually dog eat dog and survival of the fittest .Nature can be very cruel -- something we as humans reject as evil for ourselves. 

Nature modelling /worship, has in the last century alone, justified the greatest of evil . previous to that it kept people in the dark and we know it frm studying who used the idea and how it worked ut in their lives   

That's not logic teaching us , that's experience teaching us .  Are we good learners or desperate and easily deceived  ones ? Evil again ? 

GK Chesterton , provides a closer analogy for consideration  .ie  Nature is our Sister.She is not as some say ..... our Mother . 

Dostoyevsky said that if there is no God,  then everything is permitted and his  testimony circumscribes history and all the history of good will and our attempts to make it  work in the West.   http://graceware.blogspot.com  

We can't rid the world of man's evil , but we can fight it down deep where it originates.

 In some ways  we are agreed that dealing with evil is the issue .

And you  the reader , are not alone mate .  Famous believers like JOb and Tevye ( fiddler on roof ) and we could go on --are tempted to blame God