"these process are driven by finite limits and the laws of physics."
Now I am (or you are?) confused. The original reference was to human responses to gw, iirc.
GW may be a (mostly)physical process, but human responses are social and psychological, not in any direct sense driven by 'the laws of physics' as those terms are usually used. But maybe the whole discussion has gotten too convoluted and elaborated for either of us to follow exactly what the other is saying at this point?
Let me just make clear that I do not pretend to know how thing will unfold (except for the real physics behind global warming and physical feedbacks, that say the globe will now continue to heat and ghg's will build up no matter what we do at this point).
It seems quite likely to me that there will be a major collapse in the next ten to twenty years (or sooner) if the Hadley cells do go through the major rearrangement that they in fact seem to be going through right now--thereby fundamentally disrupting ag and much else.
But I certainly don't pretend to know what future conflicts will or will not look like. Just that it is likely they will involve use of power, and that the most available power source is still ff (and nukes). So I assume that these will continue to be used, short of some kind of universal awakening and moratorium (for which I devoutly pray, but which I see scant sign of happening any time soon--very glad of you do see such signs from your perspective, though).
"I believe that most wars in the future will be of the genocidal nature as various entities decide that they cannot accommodate the needs of large numbers of desperate people on or within their borders."
I'm afraid that much future conflict will indeed involve these factors, but many of these desperate people will also be smart enough and have enough resources to create damage that will expend lots of ff, one way or the other (9/11 anyone?). But let's neither of us pretend that we know exactly what future participants in future conflicts will precisely come up with as ways to cause various forms of havoc.
We may, indeed, be able to "wipe out" one Egypt (though please note that we have been arming them for many years, so they would likely pose more of a problem than Iraq, Syria, or certainly Afghanistan, none of which have been areas we have been able to deal with easily so far.) But how many times could we do this? How many enemies would we create every time we did this?
I honestly can see no good outcome at this point for most of MENA nor for South Asia; that whole area (and beyond) has had enormous increases of population fed by the oil boom and the green revolution; the 'benefits' and profits from both of which are diminishing fast.
But I don't pretend I know how it will play out. And I doubt the US will bother to 'wipe' any of them 'out'--they will just try to contain them and let them wipe themselves out in civil and regional wars, probably; but who knows.
The US is extracting as much fossil fuel as ever (an increasing portion of which, esp for coal, it is exporting), so I'm not sure when or how we will start emitting "less, a lot less" CO2, fairly accounted.
One interesting and somewhat bizarre idea that occurred to me during this interesting conversation is that perhaps at some point wars will be fought using solar, wind and other renewable power. This will surely make many of the 'peace-nik, hippy...' early promoters of these technologies (like me
) roll over in their (our) graves!
Anyway, I would like to point out that if you were taking my position in this debate, I would likely be arguing something like yours (as I have on other forums, though not as articulately as you have here.) As with most things, I tend to be of two minds; so it helps to have other minds to argue with, so that I'm not always schizophrenically arguing just with myself.
Thanks for keeping good humor about the whole thing and being such a worthy adversary. I am becoming rather swamped with work, so don't take offense (or assume I have conceded defeat!!
if I can't carry on much from here.
Best to all in an increasingly uncertain future.
