{"id":6916,"date":"2013-12-05T14:32:11","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T19:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=6916"},"modified":"2013-12-05T19:29:52","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T00:29:52","slug":"buried-under-nine-feet-of-manure-19th-century-horse-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/buried-under-nine-feet-of-manure-19th-century-horse-predictions.html","title":{"rendered":"Buried under nine feet of manure: 19th century horse predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThere is a big difference between the 19th century horse excrement \r\ncrisis and the current 21st century energy crisis,\r\nsimilar as they may sound.\r\nOne was real.\r\nThe other is manufactured by the modern equivalent of stagecoach vendors.\r\n

\r\nStephen Davies wrote for The Freeman 1 September 2004,\r\n\r\nThe Great Horse-Manure Crisis of 1894<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nIn 1898 the first international urban-planning conference convened\r\nin New York. It was abandoned after three days, instead of the\r\nscheduled ten, because none of the delegates could see any solution\r\nto the growing crisis posed by urban horses and their output.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe problem did indeed seem intractable. The larger and richer that\r\ncities became, the more horses they needed to function. The more\r\nhorses, the more manure. Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one\r\nwriter estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be\r\nburied under nine feet of manure. Moreover, all these horses had to\r\nbe stabled, which used up ever-larger areas of increasingly valuable\r\nland. And as the number of horses grew, ever-more land had to be\r\ndevoted to producing hay to feed them (rather than producing food\r\nfor people), and this had to be brought into cities and\r\ndistributed—by horse-drawn vehicles. It seemed that urban\r\ncivilization was doomed.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nKimit Muston wrote for\r\nThe Public I, 16 May 2013,\r\n\r\nHorse Sense<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nIn 1894 the “Times of London” predicted that midway\r\nthrough the 20th century the English capital would be buried under 9\r\nfeet of horse manure. In New York the pessimists were even more\r\npessimistic, predicting that come 1930 road roses would be blocking\r\nthird story windows, and one critic argued that 20,000 residents\r\ndied every year indirectly because of horse manure.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe big difference is we already invented the solution:\r\nsolar and wind power.\r\n

\r\nSure, something like this was predicted back in \r\n\r\nthe Ladies Home Journal of December 1900<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nPrediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today.\r\nFarmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons,\r\nplows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these\r\nvehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will\r\nride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been\r\nsubstituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as\r\nalready exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols,\r\nautomobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in\r\nharness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the\r\nyoked ox is today.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThis may sound similar to the kind of manure\r\nBjorn Lomborg flung the other day in the New York Times,\r\n\r\nThe Poor Need Cheap Fossil Fuels<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nTHERE’S a lot of hand-wringing about our warming planet, but\r\nbillions of people face a more immediate problem: They are\r\ndesperately poor, and many cook and heat their homes using open\r\nfires or leaky stoves that burn dirty fuels like wood, dung, crop\r\nwaste and coal.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAbout 3.5 million of them die prematurely each year as a result of\r\nbreathing the polluted air inside their homes — about 200,000\r\nmore than the number who die prematurely each year from breathing\r\npolluted air outside, according to a study by the World Health\r\nOrganization.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThere’s no question that burning fossil fuels is leading to a warmer\r\nclimate and that addressing this problem is important. But doing so\r\nis a question of timing and priority. For many parts of the world,\r\nfossil fuels are still vital and will be for the next few decades,\r\nbecause they are the only means to lift people out of the smoke and\r\ndarkness of energy poverty.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nNevermind\r\n\r\na million solar home systems in Bangladesh<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nUpdate 19:30 5 Dec 2013:<\/strong> Fixed Ballmer date below and added the following paragraph here.\r\n

\r\nNevermind\r\n\r\ndistributed solar power already brings jobs, reduced electrical bills, and energy independence<\/a> right to rural areas in the U.S., too, where all those things are most needed.\r\n

\r\nI smell more excrement from Lomborg:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe developed world needs a smarter approach toward cleaner fuels.\r\nThe United States has been showing the way. Hydraulic fracturing has\r\nproduced an abundance of inexpensive natural gas, leading to a shift\r\naway from coal in electricity production. Because burning natural\r\ngas emits half the carbon dioxide of coal, this technology has\r\nhelped the United States reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the\r\nlowest level since the mid-1990s, even as emissions rise globally.\r\nWe need to export this technology and help other nations exploit it.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe only people who “need” to export methane are fat cats like\r\n\r\nT. Boone Pickens and the Koch Brothers<\/a> who want to add to their\r\nbillions by gashing pipelines and fracking wells through other people’s land\r\nwhile methane leaks and speeds up climate change.\r\n

\r\nMore smell from Lomborg:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nAt the same time, wealthy Western nations must step up investments\r\ninto research and development in green energy technologies to ensure\r\nthat cleaner energy eventually becomes so cheap that everyone will\r\nwant it.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe difference is that\r\n\r\nsolar is already<\/em> cheaper than every other\r\nsource of energy<\/a>,\r\nand\r\n\r\nwill keep getting even less expensive<\/a>.\r\nThere are already more solar than coal jobs,\r\nand\r\n\r\nmore solar jobs than non-managerial jobs in oil and gas extraction<\/a>.\r\nSolar will \r\nwin like the Internet did<\/a>.\r\nThose who don’t get that yet are like\r\n\r\nSteve Ballmer ridiculing the iPhone in 2007<\/a>.\r\nThat’s Steve Ballmer former<\/em> CEO of Microsoft, who said in\r\nSeptember 2003<\/strike> 2013:\r\n

\r\nMobile devices. We have almost no share.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nLike horses have almost no share of 21st century transportation.\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nWe already know how to power\r\n\r\nentire states on sun, wind, water, and less natural gas than is in use now<\/a>.\r\nWe know how\r\n\r\nto power the whole U.S. the same way<\/a>.\r\nAnd yes, we know how to power cars on sunshine.\r\nTesla\r\n\r\nis selling so many electric cars<\/a> it’s having to stall some customers\r\nwhile it ramps up production.\r\nTesla,\r\nfound to have no defects by\r\n\r\nGerman Federal Motor Transport Authority<\/a>.\r\nTesla, with\r\n\r\n‘The Highest Owner-Satisfaction Score Consumer Reports Has Seen In Years’<\/a>.\r\nMeanwhile, Cherolet, Ford, and of course Toyota already sell hybrid\r\nvehicles which can be adapted to plug in.\r\nAnd with solar panels on your roof, you’ve got a sun-powered car.\r\n

\r\n\r\nWe just need to stop paying attention to manure thrown at us\r\nby fossil fuel and nuclear companies still wanting to sell us\r\nstagecoaches and buggy whips.\r\nOh, and\r\n\r\nmethane pipeline companies wanting to take our land<\/a>\r\nto make a buck for executives in Houston and Juno Beach, Florida.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nLet’s not go back into that dirty night.\r\nThe sun is already rising on Georgia, the southeast, and the rest\r\nof the world.\r\nLook up!\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a big difference between the 19th century horse excrement crisis and the current 21st century energy crisis, similar as they may sound. One was real. The other is manufactured by the modern equivalent of stagecoach vendors. Stephen Davies wrote for The Freeman 1 September 2004, The Great Horse-Manure Crisis of 1894, In 1898 […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[216,14,19,6124,104,559,23,24,478,479,36],"tags":[8753,8704,308,8701,8709,2435,8702,12,7,7280,1884,562,8737,8782,6076,7283,8713,8714,8772,7253,7281,8773,6,7282,8716],"class_list":["post-6916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-economy","category-history","category-natural-gas-2","category-nuclear","category-oil","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-solid-waste","category-trash","category-wind","tag-coal","tag-economy","tag-fracking","tag-georgia","tag-history","tag-horse","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-manure","tag-methane","tag-natural-gas","tag-nuclear","tag-oil","tag-pipeline","tag-prius","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-solid-waste","tag-t-boone-pickens","tag-tesla","tag-trash","tag-valdosta","tag-volt","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1Ny","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6916"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6925,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6916\/revisions\/6925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}