Speaker: Dr. Jack Alpert
Topic: Civilization’s “Running Out of Gas” Story
Time: Apr 26, 2023 13:30 Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Summary:
8 billion people live today because energy and materials can produce their food and services. If in 80 years fossil fuels cannot be produced, and without them, solar and wind machines cannot be built and maintained, and new energy delivery systems cannot be brought on online, the remaining energy deliveries to earth’s civilization circa 2100 will be limited to the forests, which will support only 600 million people living like 17th century serfs. The population decline will be caused by 10 billion people starving to death or dying in conflict fighting over food. I have a plan for preventing these deaths, however, it is too painful to implement without believing civilization’s “running out of gas” story.
Biography:
Jack Alpert is director of Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab, a Lab which he started in 1978 at Stanford University. In 1992 the Lab left Stanford and became a non profit research foundation. The research focused on how people gather and process information to understand dynamic systems. Over the years the Lab has transitioned its focus to the relationship between human cognition and civilization viability. The current work is on discovering and implementing a viable civilization.
Thank you for Jack Alpert’s presentation. His emphasis, analysis and conclusions are indeed prescient. They brought to mind a YouTube video of Mark Mills of the Manhattan Research Institute the realities and the delays inherent in our energy transition from an engineering and structural perspective with an emphasis on our resource requirements. I would highly recommend it. You can see him at Mark Mills: The energy transition delusion: inescapable mineral realities – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgOEGKDVvsg&list=TLPQMjQwMzIwMjMQQxlvRH-JlQ&index=7