Once upon a time...

As I come to understand the future path of the world ahead – the one which we shall all have to face, whether we want to, or not, I have to measure what I should tell my children and what I should omit. Generally, I like to keep them informed about the issues they will face.

A few days ago, I remarked to Fintan, eight, in a soft voice, bearing hard news:

“The oil will run out in your lifetime.”

“But not in yours!”, he countered, very quickly. “That’s not fair!”, he said most passionately.

“It will.”, I said, sad but sure, “but I will probably be an old man by then.”

He seemed to stare off into the distance – a distance in time – and what he saw there displeased him. It was clear that, at that moment, he had no further comment to make: he needed time to absorb the message and think about it.

Most of us think of ourselves as at the beginning of a new world. We look ahead to the greater things to come. Few of us, however, reflect upon the unavoidable truths that Mankind now faces: the end of the Age of Oil, for a start. It is quite possible, that my children’s children, will be born in a time when the oil has finally gone. It is certain that my children’s, children’s children – that is my great grandchildren, will definitely be born in a time in which oil has become a fairy story – a “once upon a time...” to be told at bedtime, of a fabled era when there was such a thing as cheap energy and people did crazy things, like drive their own two ton people carrier, called a “car” – often to move just one person. Young children, in those times, might lump “oil” along with “elves” and “dragons” – as something that either was far, far away and of no relevance to the modern world (which might be a lot less “modern” than now), or consider them of equivalent status: not real at all.

We live in a time of great challenge, greater than most people seem to appreciate. All that we have become accustomed to, in our way of life, is threatened. Unless Man builds an alternative energy infrastructure, with no dependence on oil or other fossil fuels, soon, the future will not seem to be the “future” at all – but the past. Without a great deal of energy, the modern way of life is not possible, at all.

When I am old, the Age of Oil, will be at an end. My children will, then, be in the middle of their lives. They will see oil pass away and they will live in what is to come. For them, it shall be harder, therefore, than for me – for they will see the contrast between the Age of Oil and the age of whatever is to come. Should Man be foolish enough not to have replaced the energy source, in full, by then, my children will know a sense of loss, in the second half of their lives, as they compare the lives they have to live then, and the lives they knew, growing up in the early 21^st century.

Looking again, at Fintan’s words: “That’s not fair!”, he asserted. He is right. It is not fair that my generation and the couple of generations before me, should have been so profligate with our oil and other fossil fuels, such that it shall shortly be at an end. It is not fair, that the generations that are and have been, did not husband this precious resource more carefully. Even an eight year old can see that – can feel the wrongness of it. It is not fair that people living now, should deprive all the people, who shall come, in the entire future history of Man, of that precious resource. We all should be more careful with it, than we have been. It is foolish to burn such a precious, once in a planetary lifetime, material, for reasons which, actually, don’t seem good enough, if you analyze them.

It is an odd thought, but my remaining life expectancy, if I live a typical life, for one of my background, is much the same, as the life expectancy of oil. Should I pass from the world as expected, I shall be leaving the world, just as oil does, too. I shall not, therefore, see what happens when all of it has gone – but I shall see the effects of its depletion as it nears that time.

I hope my children see a good world, in the time beyond the Age of Oil. I hope that there is enough wisdom in the world’s leaders (or at least all the major leaders between now and then...for there is little enough wisdom in the present ones), to ensure a secure ENERGETIC future for Man to come. Yet, I worry at what that world will be. Will enough be done, to ensure a good future for Mankind? Will my children have a good world to live in, in the second half of their lives? Any parent who truly understands what Mankind faces, can only be concerned about what the future will hold. I would suggest that, wherever you are, you choose to elect leaders who have an eye on replacing our present fossil fuel based energy infrastructure, with a renewable alternative, well in time, whilst there is still fossil energy to allow it to happen.

I wonder what Fintan will tell his children, about the Age of Oil and about his early life? I hope there is a workable alternative, then, for them, I really do.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.).

A vision of tomorrow.

Today, not for the first time, I paused to admire an open plan “stall”, in Bangsar Village One Shopping Centre, in Kuala Lumpur. This is a rather odd shop and every time I see it, I think it strange. It is a shop that sells models of old sailing ships. The sign above them calls them “wealth ships”.

As I contemplated the diverse range of multi-sailed ships, of various designs, in their lacquered wood, I suddenly had an epiphany: I wasn’t looking at the past, at all, but the future. One day, Mankind might have to return to using sailing ships, for global transport, in the wake of Peak Oil, Peak Coal, indeed, Peak Everything. To my grandchildren, sailing ships such as the ones before me, at that stall, might not be history at all, but the living present. It was a most sobering realization.

As I write, I am aware that few people seem to be truly conscious of the plight the modern world faces with declining fossil fuel supplies. Viable alternatives are unready and undeveloped. The “renewable energy” of which everyone speaks contributes a minute amount of present needs, and needs to be dramatically scaled up, to replace the declining fossil fuels – and I just don’t know if the urgency, resolve, investment, planning and foresight are there to get that done, in time.

The time I have lived and the life I have known, in this modern era, might one day come to be seen as fantastical to our descendants – more of an Atlantis like legend - than anything that was ever real or tangible.

Should not enough be done, in time, to secure new energy sources and salvage the decline in civilization that would result, if they are not replaced, then, my words might not reach the future, to be read. They might be lost, along with the Internet, when we are no longer able to power it. It is a gloomy prospect.

The world is asleep, in many ways, before the difficulties that lie ahead. Many of the world’s politicians, still seem to be thinking in a very short term way, not preparing properly, for what is to come. I hope, as I write, that if the future should know ships like the ones I saw today, that it is by choice – and not because Mankind was left with no other option. I would not like to think that I had lived at the Peak of Human Civilization, too. I had always rather hoped that a long ascent would stretch ahead of me, into long ages, after I had gone. However, that might never be. We might, unknowingly, be living in a time of legends. We might be living the stuff of fables, for our distant descendants. I hope not. I dearly hope not – but those ships, today, did leave me to wonder, at what tomorrow might really be like.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.).

The hidden cost of the Iraq War.

Everyone knows that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven costly. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize Winner, puts that cost at over 3 trillion dollars, in a Washington Post article, The true cost of the Iraq War, here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html

What people don’t know – including Joseph Stiglitz – is that the true cost is the opportunity cost of what might have been done with that 3 trillion dollars, instead. I would like you to consider an undeniable fact and an uncomfortable one: it is undeniable, that the Iraq War, was largely over the control of oil. Had Iraq no oil, it would also have had no war. It is uncomfortable, for many of us, to also note that the world’s oil is running out. There are arguments over how long the oil will last – but it cannot be denied, except by the insane, or oil company propagandists (the same thing), that oil is finite and running out fast. Typical estimates are that we have no more than 40 years left at present rates of consumption before the end of oil. Without replacement energy sources, advanced human civilization will, thereafter, be impossible. Sadly, not enough is being done to prepare for this eventuality. The world’s politicians, as usual, lack foresight – or perhaps just don’t care about such seemingly distant events.

Now, at present, the world consumes about one cubic mile of oil per year, and another two cubic miles of oil energy equivalent, per year, for a grand total of three cubic miles of oil per year. See this Wikipedia article for these facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil

Thus, one third of the world’s total energy comes from oil. Without it, modern civilization would look a lot like the 18^th century or so – with no energy for the machines of the Industrial Revolution and beyond. One would have thought that this future inevitability (if nothing is done about it) would occupy the minds of our leaders. Unfortunately, that assumes that our leaders have functioning minds – but close observation puts this in question.

I was struck, on reading the Wikipedia article, by an interesting coincidence. The estimated cost of creating a cubic mile of oil energy equivalence, from wind power, is 3.3 trillion dollars. That is about the money spent on the Iraq War. Now, the Iraq War was about securing energy, as oil, for the USA (whatever else they might say it was about, that was, of course, the true motivation). The USA was so concerned about its energy future, that it decided to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to secure more oil supplies. It also thought it worth spending 3 trillion dollars to do so. Curiously, that 3 trillion dollars was about the cost of one cubic mile of oil, at 2008 prices (120 dollars per barrel). So, the Iraq war has cost, so far, enough to buy the world’s entire annual oil production for one year. It has also cost enough to create an independent alternative energy source, from wind, equal to one cubic mile of oil per year, for the lifetime of the turbines (20 to 30 years).

Thus, it can be seen that, had the American leadership been intelligent and wise, they could have foregone the Iraq war and spent the funds they would have spent on it – 3 trillion dollars – on creating energy independence for the United States, such that the United States would have no need for an external energy source, ever again.

The decision to go to war in Iraq was not a rational one. It was one derived from very narrow thinking, that did not see the broad context in which the decision was embedded. Nor did it see the alternative means of achieving the ultimate goal – energy security – that existed. It is clear that little intelligence was applied to the decision – no-one paused to reflect on whether there was an alternative way to achieve the unstated goal: energy supply for the USA.

I wish to propose a general principle: The principle of irrational resource wars:

Wars over oil or any other energy source are irrational, since the cost of the war, is always going to be greater than the cost of creating an alternative energy source by investing some of the funds that would have been spent on the war.

America could have secured the energy equivalence of 20 to 30 cubic miles of oil (the lifespan productive capacity of the wind turbines they could have built), for the cost of the Iraq war. I do not think that Iraq’s total oil reserves are likely to amount to as much as this, since the total world reserves are not going to be much greater than that. (Proven oil reserves are at 43 cubic miles of oil…after that runs out, we are in a post-oil world). Indeed, this article in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves suggests that Iraq has just 8.26% of the world’s oil reserves. That would be equivalent to just 3.55 cubic miles of oil. America could have secured 8 and a half times as much energy, for the same investment, as it did in Iraq – and at the cost of no human lives at all.

From this analysis, it can be seen that the Iraq war was irrational – it had great cost in financial and human life terms – yet, there existed an alternative that would have secured permanent energy independence for the United States, had it been implemented.

Never forget this: War is dumb. There are always more intelligent alternatives, to achieve the same ends – unless the end is death itself.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.htmland here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Why: "Perhaps too many gifts."?

It has been pointed out to me that my own self-description in the left hand bar, might be read as giftist. Why is this?

Well, I say of my own childhood that I had "perhaps too many gifts". This is not meant to attack the idea of having many gifts, it is meant to highlight the problems that arise when one does. Below I post a copy of my comment in regards to the poster who raised this issue:

"I describe myself as having "perhaps too many gifts" because the more gifts you have the more tendency there is to dilute effort across them all, which can, in fact, hamper the gifted child. I was not rueing my gifts: each one was and is precious to me and in some way helps define who I was and am - but I am also aware that fewer gifts may have led to quicker results through greater focus. That was my point."

So, I hope you can see that is not being giftist - this is just being realistic about the effects on one's allocation of time and energy that having many gifts has. Those of fewer gifts have a natural advantage when it comes to making effective use of them because more time can be focussed on each one. That is all.