Argument against high gas prices

On Jun 10, 5:31 am, Cubdriver usenet AT danford DOT net wrote:

The Danish/Greenland government in the 1950s successfully
re-introduced sheep to the southwest, and within the past ten years
they've been able to re-introduce cattle. So if there is indeed global
warming, what it has created so far--at least in the semi-Arctic
north--is a climate very like that of Europe in the year 1000.
(Apparently the records aren't good enough to say "the world".)


I've yet to finish the book completely--I loaned it to someone else
while I read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by the same guy.
In general, Diamond writes about various reasons for societal
collapse, and resource depletion is a common cause. Climate change,
such as drought (and cooling) also figure in to human history.
But I don't recall that "global warming" in today's sense was what he
was writing about. In any case it wasn't what "I" was intending to
introduce. The thread started--and seems to be--about gas prices and
running out of fossil fuels. (Global warming is an intelligent topic
that has been politicized to the lowest common denominator. I go
there only with fear.)

Regardless of whether or not fossil fuel use contributes to global
warming, the use also has a number of other downsides, including
pollution. The likely remedy for ANY of the supposed problems is
about the same: conserve and increase efficiency.

The biggest problem I am addressing is the depletion of the resource,
and the idea that this depletion could occur relatively suddenly. We
can delay/soften this through efficiency and conservation, and this
would give time for alternatives to be brought up to speed.

The added problem today is that, if there is a serious fossil fuel
catastrophe, it will be world-wide instead of local. Climate changes
benefit some humans even as it harms others. Fossil fuel depletion
with have global impact, because of the dependence on it for food/
water creation and distribution. The humans who would be least harmed
are those who are currently more on a subsistence level, and fairly
independent of world trade. (I'm not an alarmist, and I'm not
predicting this. It is a worst-case, and possible, scenario.)

To keep this in the newsgroup, if gas gets really expensive, soaring
will be the way to go. Hitch up the horses and have them run really
fast! (Soaring is great NOW, too!)

BTW, (since you brought it up), I just yesterday saw an article about
Greenland. Seems that the few degrees of warming is allowing the cod
to come back to Greenland fairly strongly. But the shrimp will
probably go away. It has to do with changing ocean temps in that
area.