Entropy Wins

I rode the bicycle only 22 miles this week, to work on Thursday, and back home on Friday. I am suffering from acute plantar fasciitis that isn't so much bothered by riding, but I'm not doing a whole lot of exercising either. My riding is slow.

I suppose if I 'invested' more time and energy into my conditioning, I would be able to increase my speed, but as I age, I will only get slower and slower. At some point, further investment will fail to deliver improvements. I cannot defeat entropy.

I parallel this with aging oilfields, where further investment might just be able to eek out a few more barrels, but entropy always wins; no amount of additional investment can compensate against advanced age. Today there are 23 oil producing nations who have all passed their maximum oil extraction rate, and who knows, perhaps there's another one added every two years. Yet to peak but are on the cusp are Vietnam, Thailand, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan and Brazil.

We have taken a great deal of concentrated fossilized energy and converted it into diffuse carbon dioxide. Oh!, mighty brontosaurus!, you did not die by asteroidial impact in vain...you died to gas up the Pacer for a round trip to Walleyworld.