[vox_mollis]

I'm sympathetic to Tom Murphy's analyses, as I used to be fairly doomer-minded as a result of reading them.

But I think it's safe to say that he's been proven wrong. Alternative energy technologies, mainly PV solar, really are tracking along Kurzweil's exponential growth curve, such that energy supply will not be appreciably impacted by the restriction of fossil fuels. (Not to mention he was also wrong about those constraints as well, given fracking of source rocks).

Being in the doomer echo chamber is fun, for a while. But at some point, we all have to leave, as Ran Prieur did, and recognize that the cornucopians are right.

[danbruc]

I am not arguing that we are doomed, I am having as hard a time imagining that the party is over by the end of the century as predicted by the Club of Rome as most other people. It is just incredible hard to imagine how things could turn sour so quickly. On the other hand I try not to fool myself, complex systems are not intuitive and maybe we are really doomed.

But that is really besides my point in the comments here, I am just arguing that it is probably a bad idea to throw more fossil fuels at the problem then absolutely necessary. Especially I am doubtful that using more fossil fuels to overcome fossil fuel usage as quick as possible would yield a net positive outcome. I mean it could work if the boost in development would overcompensate a longer period of fossil fuel usage at lower levels and if that boost would not push us over some bad phase transition or what ever else might go wrong. But are there facts that would support such a decision, I am currently not aware of such.

With regard to Kurzweil's exponential growth curve and Ran Prieur, I will have to have look at that, I am not familiar with what they have to say about the topic.