"2) Sustainability is not, "an attempt at creating a perpetual motion machine." That's some dimwit jackass' characterization of the effort. "

No, you're right; it is an attempt to enslave people under a false religion.

HOW MANY HUSBANDS DO YOU HAVE??
This one's a physicist, another one's an engineer, another one's a lawyer...

Just teasing...

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Heinlein

"Are you unable to comprehend that if we use LESS of something we may not be forced to innovate at a higher rate than possible?"

What is the greatest possible rate of human innovation?
Why would we ever want a situation where we're not driven to innovate?

"Are you incapable of imagining a case where a resource is limited, and there IS NO ALTERNATIVE? "

Yes.

You are a fool.

Here's proof:

1) I posited 6.4E16 kg of pure phosphorous.
2) You came back with "What if we discover an asteroid with a billion times the phosphorous?"
3) That would be 6.4E25 kg.
4) The mass of the EARTH is 5.97E24 kg.

Only a fool would offer, "What if we discover an asteroid with [MORE THAN TEN TIMES THE MASS OF THE EARTH of pure] phosphorous?", as a solution to the problem of scarcity of a resource.

Note, this is characteristic of ALL of your arguments.

What if pigs had wings?
What if you had a brain?

Never mind. They don't. You don't. Apparently your husband doesn't.

Having definitely established that you ARE a fool, I will no longer engage your foolishness - lest (heeding the old adage) people not recognize the difference.

Wow. Where to begin?
1) True. Of course, that's why I mentioned, "Creating a boundary about the solar system…" because the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is only known to apply in a bounded space. But you apparently missed that, because:
a) You don't know what you're talking about, and,
b) You don't read carefully.

2) Sustainability is not, "an attempt at creating a perpetual motion machine." That's some dimwit jackass' characterization of the effort.

Let me give you an example you might be able to understand. You have a two-years supply of corn and a fallow field. You have to eat. Do you,
1) Eat a portion of the corn and plant a portion (sustainability), or,
2) Eat all the corn and plant nothing trusting that you will "invent" food when you need it? (your approach)

From a business perspective, which is smarter?
1) Mining bauxite for aluminum at a cost of $1750/ton of Al++, or,
2) Recycling used aluminum at a cost of $1600/ton?
Of course, in YOUR world, we not only throw away aluminum cans and the like, we then pay people to pick them up and put them in waste dumps.

The "Morin" who states that inventing is "the only way" to "increase" our standard of living is, at best, narrow-minded. (It is also perhaps a bit self-serving for a patent attorney to declare "inventing is the only way".) If he earned his degrees and actually understood what he was studying, he should know his argument is self-defeating.

Allow me to demonstrate.

When the "Morin" says, "inventing is the only way to increase our standard of living", he asserts that no existing method can be used to accomplish that goal.

But if that were true, innovation would not help either. Why?

Because as soon as something is discovered/invented, it becomes an "existing" method and, under "Morin" logic, it can't help us. What the "Morin" overlooks is the fact that there is a vast wealth of known technology that has not been implemented, and that conservation is about using those existing technologies to make more efficient use of resources.

To illustrate: Gasoline is a resource that has had, in this Country, periods of shortages (whether man-made or natural does not matter). In 1975, the average efficiency for a car was about 17mpg. In March of 1981, gas prices hit a local maxima of $3.61/gallon. Demand for fuel efficacy increased, and by the early 1980s, average efficacy was up to about 25mpg - an improvement of ~ 47% in a period of less than 5 years. This wasn't due to any new discoveries. It didn't rely upon previously unknown information. It was primarily a result of people WANTING to apply current technology to achieve a better result. Conservation. Did it improve people's "standard of living"? To the extent that they could now travel 47% farther for FREE, I'd argue it did. Efficeincy increased by a further 3mpg between 1983 and 1987.

Fuel prices declined until about 2000 with their greatest rate of sustained decrease between about 1984 and 1987. Note that this is the expected result. A reduction in demand presages a decline in price. But eventually, the number of vehicles on the road overtakes the increase in efficiency and the price begins to rise again.

Efficiency went flat between 1987 and 2005, and the rate of decease in gas prices flattened substantially and then began turning upwards.

By July, 2008, gas prices had climbed to another local maxima of $4.36.gallon. It should not be surprising that between 2005 and 2010, once again driven by public demand, fuel efficiency again increased, this time by about 4mpg. In 2009, gas prices briefly plunged - a direct result of our government's stupidity with regard to money policy (the 2008 crash) rebounding over time, but not yet returning to the July, 2008 levels.

Now you may think that some magic technology was invented in 1981 that radically changed the amount of gaoline required by the average car. You would be wrong. The fueleconomy.gov site lists 5 technologies associated with improved gas mileage. They are:

Variable Valve Timing - dates to the age of steam engines
Cylinder Deactivation - late 19th century
Turbochargers & Superchargers - 1860
Automatically turn engine off while idling - 1980s
Direct Fuel Injection - 1902

Only one of these technologies was derived in the 1980s, and it has not been widely implemented. The other four predated the rise in efficiecy by decades. What was missing was implementation of existing technology.

Now I put this question to you: Given that the technology to do most of this improvement in efficiency was available at the turn of the century, why in the early 1970s did we have 17mpg automobiles?

The answer is, "Morins" saw no need to conserve.

The interesting thing about the government's programs to force the populace to use more-efficient lighting technology is that it's TOO far ahead of the curve. No, I don't like government force either. In fact, I don't much care for government. It's like the government announcing that cars have to get 25mpg... in 1975. The IDEA is correct. We'd be better off if we did it. Don't waste resources. The IMPLEMENTATION is... "morinic".

Actually, fuel efficiecny is a very good illustration of the extremes of ignorance and stupdity in the conservation debate. On the one hand, there are policians who won't be happy until the government is demanding 100 mpg internal combustion engines. They seem to think that the laws they pass trump the laws of physics. They are blissfully unaware of thermodynamics and the limitations imposed by the Carnot cycle. These imbeciles often regard the "laws of phyics" as "the suggestions of physics".

On the other end of the spectrum are "Morins" who should know better, who declare that when resources run short, we'll just have to invent an internal combustion engine that's more efficient than the Carnot engine. What the former don't understand is that a Carnot engine is not practical and what the "Morins" apparently don't understand is that physics doesn't just suggest new solitons - it also places limits on what's attainable.

Then he ought to know better. Had he offered up that level of reasoning on his thesis, he would never have been accorded a MS Physics.

At least we know how you were able to find the resource.

1) You clearly did not read carefully. Try again.
2) Conservation was NOT the cause of rolling brownouts. How could it have been? If everyone used LESS power, there would not have been MORE demand on resources.
3) I don't know what the "sustainability" crowd wants. I don't care. Are you unable to comprehend that if we use LESS of something we may not be forced to innovate at a higher rate than possible? Are you incapable of imagining a case where a resource is limited, and there IS NO ALTERNATIVE?

4) Again, you need to read and at least TRY to comprehend. You'll note I started out assuming 1000 times the sum of all known phosphorous deposits. **poof** There goes your whole "limited resource" thinking. But what tells me you have no idea what you're talking about is that you accepted the possibility of more than 92 quadrillion people living on earth. That's THIRTEEN MILLION TIMES as many as are here now. Seriously? 13 million Los Angeles? 13 Million Mexico Cities? 13 million New York Cities? If you don't understand that you have no clue of the scope of the mathematics - quit now.
5) B.S.

Or kill them.

Try http://www.examiner.com/article/absolved...

I am familiar with the Battle of Athens and believe that among the seething masses of mediocrity and stupidity there are still some willing to take up arms and fight an unjust government. In the past, that was only 3%. Today, 3% would still be enough - but the problem is, with sufficient surveillance, the government may believe it has identified, and can excise, the 3%.

And they may be right.

Yeah, the power was from a solar power satellite, but it was controlled by the habitats. That's all I meant.

I think it's a combination of things.
But mostly I think it's a failure of will. We didn't want it badly enough.

Yes, religious nuts crushing stem cell research set things back a lot just on that front.

Nope. It was an LED factory.