Skip to content

Should enrage environmentalists

A 5 minute edited version of a one hour chat. A simple and straightforward explanation of why the we’re going to run out of minerals crowd are simply wrong.

18 thoughts on “Should enrage environmentalists”

  1. The beard suits you. Not the complete tPratchett but…
    (Even I’ve got one now. Although, since I gave up on rearranging the remaining whisps of coiffure & a transplant/syrup’s inconceivable, I do occasionally get accused of having my head on upside down. Lot of hats, though.)

  2. In passing, I note they’re marketing a treatment here where they tattoo little dots all over your head to give the impression you’re not actually follicly challenged but have chosen to shave it off. It’s difficult to estimate a tosser quotient for that one.

  3. It is like agriculture. The only reason that we are going to run out of food is through governmental cock up, we are so much more efficient. This also occurs in using AND recycling materials ( metals, plastic really isn’t worth recycling ).

    Where does that ladder go ?

  4. BiS

    Business opportunity there. Instead of a tattoo, use a magic marker, it’ll wear off eventually so it means repeat business and the punter also has the option of not continuing with the “treatment”.

  5. If my memory is right there was a brief spell in the early Middle Eastern Bronze Age when they couldn’t make bronze – they’d exhausted tin reserves. Then new mines were developed and all was well. And eventually bronze didn’t matter so much because Iron Age.

    You’d think there might be lessons there for our current alarmists. But lessons ain’t what they want: they want power and especially the power to be killjoys.

    I shall now return to TimTV to see whether he mentions that era.

  6. Bloke in North Dorset

    Just point to the glee of the left in the ‘70s and ‘80s when they predicted Peak Oil anytime soon as an example.

  7. Not on TimTV but – essentially, they discovered Cornwall. We have evidence back to 800, perhaps 900BC, of Cornish tin ingots in Phoenecian wrecks in Eastern Med.

  8. Indeed Ottokring. Spraying through a piece of net curtain to speed the process did pass the mind. The floral patterned for the gay market?
    It certainly has some crimping precedent. My amiga changes her hair regularly. She’s wearing it long this week. It’s detachable for a very small value of the word. Fucking expensive & time consuming process that is.

  9. As for “running out”, there are a few dutch farmers who can give a top level overview of why ideologically inspired “mangement” is somewhat less than optimal.

  10. Yes Mark. I am thinking of Sri Lanka.

    As for minerals, I’m convinced that any difficulties are caused by the shrieks of the environmentalists. But as Tim implies, if we’ve plenty of nice cheap energy, we can produce as much as we want.

  11. Very good, Tim. (You’ve lost a lot of weight! Time to update your profile pictures?)

    Ottokring
    “metals, plastic really isn’t worth recycling”
    Even though reserve and resource depletion aren’t going to happen, ‘shortage at a price’ can make recycling worthwhile. Scrap copper is very roughly £3000/tonne. The LME copper price is very roughly £6500/tonne. Horses for courses, of course;but recycling some metals makes sense.

  12. Indeed, recyclng. Chapter of a book of mine (No Breakfast Fallacy). Recycle where it makes a profit because profit is the signal the definition indeed, that you;re adding value by doing so. Don’t where you make a loss. There’s an intermediate set, where we recycle for other reasons (say, clean up radioactivity) but that we’re going to run out of minerals isn’t one of those intermediate justifications.

  13. @Bloke in North Dorset – “Just point to the glee of the left in the ‘70s and ‘80s when they predicted Peak Oil anytime soon as an example.”

    But Peak Oil had happened over a hundred years before that and we survived it easily.

  14. ‘shortage at a price’ can make recycling worthwhile – true
    ‘shortage at a price’ can also make turning to the black market worthwhile. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if small tech allowed you to capture CH4 from your compost heap, or frack under your cabbage patch, then compress it into metal bottles to sell on tor. At a high enough price you would

  15. Theo

    Sorry,
    bad punctuation on my part. (Typing on tablet)

    Metals ARE worth recycling.
    Plastics less so.

  16. On US TV A guy Ron Popeil made a small fortune selling spray on hair back in the 80s and 90s. One version was said to spray “hair-like” filaments that stuck to the scalp.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *