Thread: Time Travel

Another thread got me thinking about our present energy paradigm and how things will change since non-renewable energy sources, by definition, deplete, get more expensive and we're forced to develop new sources.

I'd love to be able to time-travel about 300 years into the future to see how transportation is handled! The pipelines will likely be dry and we will have moved on to a renewable energy source. No more gas stations or fluctuating fuel costs, no more refinery or pipeline explosions/fires/spills, no Gulf contamination or tarballs and no loss of life or spoiling of ecosystems due to dependence on a volatile energy source. I doubt if 300 years in the future will look like "The Jetsons", but who knows? Three hundred years from now, will we be like people three hundred years ago, to the people in the future?

Similarly, I wonder if simple pleasures will still exist, like fishing and other outdoor pursuits. When people indicate what they enjoy, will they no longer say that they enjoy "long walks on the beach"? Will climate change and other factors put underwater, the area we now call, "the beach"? Will wildlife management areas no longer exist because there's no more wildlife and they need the area to build places for people to live?

These are just musings, I'm sure based on my getting older and coming to the realization that I'm not going to be around to see the world cope with all the challenges that people are going to have to deal with. I need a quick peek, only, because this is something that I have trouble imagining. Oh, and I need one of those time-machine thingees if anybody has an extra one.

Vast amounts of resources are spent treating wastewater that should be used to grow algae for fuel. Mass production of cellulose derived alcohol is within reach if we would commit to making it happen. Switchgrass from low fertility soils are a high producing source of cellulose. The ultimate energy source is the earth's liquid iron core. Harnessing the immense heat from active volcanos (safely ) could power every electric device and light bulb on the planet.

I wonder if TV and radio will have even more commercials?!

Originally Posted by Pier#r

I wonder if TV and radio will have even more commercials?!

I think that we're already moving toward a situation where shows/events no longer exist and commercials become the entertainment. In 300 years, who knows what that would look like?

I wish that I could put something in a time capsule that would help people 300 years from now! I just have a difficult time imagining what that could be!

Originally Posted by chillinfish

Vast amounts of resources are spent treating wastewater that should be used to grow algae for fuel. Mass production of cellulose derived alcohol is within reach if we would commit to making it happen. Switchgrass from low fertility soils are a high producing source of cellulose. The ultimate energy source is the earth's liquid iron core. Harnessing the immense heat from active volcanos (safely ) could power every electric device and light bulb on the planet.

I've always thought that AN answer to a perpetual natural energy source is tidal movement. It's constant and predictable and all-natural. A challenge in harnessing that power is dealing with the corrosive nature of salt water, especially over a long period of time. I agree about the energy available from the earth's core, or possibly the core of another planet. And then the challenge becomes transportation of that energy to where it's needed. In 300 years, they'll probably be able to figure that out. Look at all of the discoveries that have been made in only the last 300 years!

Will people know the joy of grilled pompano then? Or be able to experience the thrill of a sizzling king run when he takes your cigar minnow and heads straight south? Will there be music or other creative entertainment? When almost nothing else is the same in life -- will there still be Alabama football? I'd love to know!

Good question, none of us will live to see it.
Population growth is the kicker: will energy production and our ability to produce enough food and potable water keep up with population growth?
If not, sooner or later we will reach a tipping point and it will be all be rapidly downhill from there until the population crashes back to some sustainable level or technology produces an energy breakthrough.

Surely, in 300 years, we will have clear-cut this planet and moved on to the rest of the universe.

I bet in 300 years the FBI will stil be investigating deleted emails...

Originally Posted by scbasser

I bet in 300 years the FBI will stil be investigating deleted emails...

Even though the majority of the populous will have no ides what emails are...

Originally Posted by ChickenChaser

Even though the majority of the populous will have no ides what emails are...

It would be interesting to know how people will communicate 300 years from now. I can't see cell phones in their current form making the cut. And texting -- I don't see people doing that either. Still -- people will need to communicate utilizing some device.... Or will we morph into a hunched over people with nimble thumbs and huge eyes, an evolutionary adaptation to a few hundred years of texting? I think that our vocabulary would shrink to characters commonly used and the art of good old conversation would fade away from lack of use. Where's that time machine?