Law Students

Science Does It Again

By Pete

All of the fear-mongering about Peak Oil and Global Warming are really funny when you stop to think about them. People have such a tremendous lack of perspective about things. You see, these problems are, in the end, market problems. Peak Oil to a much greater degree than global warming, of course, but they both fit in there.

The thing about market problems is that they don’t always get solved quickly, but they do get solved. And most of the work done to solve them is completely invisible to the average person. Only someone with a solid understanding of economics, who lacks irrational fear of the free market, understands that where there’s money to be made solving a problem, there are plenty of people trying to solve it as quickly as possible.

See, for example, crude-oil-producing bacteria. They eat agricultural waste and shit crude oil. Before you hippies start screaming about gas-guzzling SUVs or something silly, take a look at another great feature of those little guys:

What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy ? as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel ? they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this “Oil 2.0″ will not only be renewable but also carbon negative ? meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.

Predicted reactions for people who actually care about destroying capitalism more than they care about saving the environment:

1. “But, but, but… GENETIC ENGINEERING IS DANGEROUS!”
2. “But it’s still producing CO2! EVIL CO2!”

Full post as published by PeteHoliday.com on June 15, 2008 (boomark / email).