Reply to post: If you gave enough cameras to enough monkeys

If you gave enough cameras to enough monkeys

all around the world, given enough time, it's accepted that they would recreate the entire works of David Bailey.

I might have got my metaphors mixed up on that one. Or I might just be all mixed up in general.

Whatever.

The saudis really threw the toys out of the pram with this one.

Did you know they have some of the biggest dairy farms on earth with thousands of cows in the middle of the desert, producing subsidised milk from the subsidised oil? Of course water is needed as well, and these cows as well as the oil fields are bleeding the natural aquifers dry. It's cheaper just to suck it out of the ground, than to transport it vast distances in extreme heat. Like Peter Tosh says, 'You never miss your water, till your aquifer runs dry'. It might be hard replacing the oil that comes out of the ground, but it really isn't very much easier replacing the water, either.

Also, something like a third of its entire energy production is put back into cheap/free domestic usage. Or it will be soon, if the projected usage is correct. The more oil they produce, the richer they get, the more people buy air conditioners, the more power that is needed to keep the people happy, reductio ad absurdum or recursiveo ad absurdum, see page 269 of K&R for more info on this. And you really need to keep the people happy. SA is a big country. With lots of pipes. Lots of potential for hilarity to ensue, if you know what I mean.

It's going to be a different game in a hundred years time. Saudi Arabia will still have the empty quarter (but probably without the cows) and Sweden will still be inhabited by the descendants of Vikings, with the odd fjord or glacier thereabouts too.

Never mind the bloody monkeys, they got off lightly. It's the cows I'm worried about -

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/10238

See:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dairy+farms+in+saudi&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=zzwoVaq5K8KrUYaSgYgH

Not sure about the glaciers in Sweden. You might have to do your own research on that one.