"The stone age did not end because the world ran out of stones."  -Royal Dutch/Shell employee Don Huberts, 1999

 

I was arguing with a man today who told me that maybe we'd run out of oil if we don't defy the environmentalists and build nuclear.  To be honest, I'm skeptical.  I don't think you CAN run out.  I don't think that's how raw materials work.

 

He said, "But it doesn't hurt to have a plan B"

 

1. Could it take a million years?
2. How many tons of, say, oil and gas are created within the Earth each year?

 

But let's think about his "doesn't hurt to have a plan B"

 

What if some Earl back in 1100 had said, "What if the sun burns out?  What if next year all the fish go extinct?"  Whatever.  "Never hurts to have a plan B."  He should have been thinking about the black death or syphilis or crop rotation or the likeliest of the next hundred intra-European wars. 

 

There are problems to be solved in their own time.

 

"Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."  -Matthew 6:34