This is the way the world ends... - by Thirith
Phatose on 3/12/2015 at 21:26
If it's enough to shut down chemical batteries, I'd expect we'd all die simply because that would pretty much require preventing all chemical processes At the very least that would kill everything. More likely it would require an abject change of physics that would send everything polyatomic exploding into their component atoms, and then send the electrons shooting off into space turning everything into an ionic goo.
Tony_Tarantula on 3/12/2015 at 21:51
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I could see that happening, I mean the world's already very imbalanced and we do consume resources faster than they can be renewed. Though in my opinion it won't be the lack of resources per-se, like food, but rather terrible mis-distribution and waste. People are starving in the world who absolutely don't need to be, we do have enough food for everyone but capitalism and logistics hamper that.
Not just capitalism and logistics. Keep in mind that there have been any number of incidents(and still are) where governments deliberately starve their own citizens to keep them under control. The Irish Potato Famine and the Ukrainian Famine come to mind, as do a number of contemporary famines in Africa.
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Interestingly, I'm reading Space Merchant right now, where in not-too-distant dystyopian future corporations managed to outpace resource fatigue by inventing replacement along the way (i.e. no meat = soy burgers, cultivated chlorella, synthetic materials, etc.)
You'd be surprised how much of that there is. One major problem being faced is low consumer confidence in processed foods. Since "natural" is the trendy thing (partly due to a fad, partly due to justified concerns over industry ethics) it makes it difficult to effectively market replacements to carbon-intensive commodities.
