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76 comments on A Conversation with Richard Heinberg

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ChrisPhoenix on September 30, 2005 - 1:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
If we need to reduce population without tragedy, the only way that's worked so far is... a Western standard of living.

If we have the kind of economic drawback where people have to choose between heating and food, how much are they going to be spending on birth control?

If we have a back-to-the-land scenario where everyone has to spend hours growing veggies, what will that do to education?

If our entertainment-based culture breaks down, if even electricity is scarce, what will people do after dark?

I pretty much agree that economics can't provide new capacity with existing technology--and existing technology doesn't look environmentally sustainable anyway. I don't know if technology can advance fast enough to keep our civilization going; there are some very hopeful possibilities, but they may take more time than we have.

But the idea that collapse of civilization will reduce population seems very questionable. It will surely increase the birth rate. The only way to reduce population with increased birthrate is to kill lots and lots of young people.

Think about that for a minute. Remember in the Old Testament, where God told people to bash babies' brains against a rock? Or, more recently, when babies weren't even named until they'd survived for a year?

If we actually need to reduce population, we have only two choices. 1) Better technology--fast. 2) Unimaginable horror.

Chris

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Yosemite Sam on September 30, 2005 - 1:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
CP: I think your options are too extreme.  There are ways to have a "soft landing."  (Although if you can't imagine life without shopping in a mall, that might feel like  "unimaginable horror.")  A soft landing, however, will require some careful planning.  The longer we go without facing reality, the worse it will be.
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Davidh on September 30, 2005 - 1:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
And we are choosing not to face reality right now. I would say teh potential for a "soft" landing flew out the window sometime in the 1970s/80s for everyone on the earth. I think its falling away very fast (if not lost already) for those of us in America. (see ecological damage, overpopulation, drawdown of valuable metals (like iron ore near the surface))
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ChrisPhoenix on September 30, 2005 - 3:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I said, "IF we actually need to reduce population." There are scenarios in which we don't. Those are soft-landing scenarios.

What I'm objecting to is the assumption that lower population will somehow only mean killing off the existing surplus population. If we get into a dieoff or collapse scenario in Western nations, birth rates will go way up.

It's not that soft landing scenarios don't exist. It's just that they are incompatible with steep population declines.

The only known ways to get population declines are:

  1. Massive oppression (and even that doesn't really work; see China)
  2. Western standard of living (slow, and requires significant energy)
  3. Massive tragedy

Note that Western living doesn't mean U.S.  Europe uses half our energy, and has sub-replacement birthrate. And as computers get more efficient, we'll be able to have at least some aspects of Western culture (entertainment, data-processing, communications) even in extreme oil-scarcity scenarios. Already, iPods and cell phones cost about the same as a tank of gas for a Hummer.

As to depletion of valuable metals: Non-metallic materials can fill that gap to some extent. I was just at a robot trade show, and some of the biggest industrial robots now have major structural parts made out of carbon fiber.

Chris

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Yosemite Sam on September 30, 2005 - 4:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I guess what I mean by "soft landing" is one in which population declines by means other than starvation, etc.  Mostly it means poeple choosing to have fewer children.
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CEOJr1963 on October 1, 2005 - 2:07am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Pardon me for saying this but,  where are you going to get carbon fiber if you don't have high tech tools to make it?

Post Oil, think stone ground corn meal, or wheat, think "Today I have to make my tools with wood, instead of Oil Based materials!"

If we have a soft landing, it only means that "some" of our skills will be intact, not all of them.  How many of you in five years after the collapse of the world around you, can make a loaf of bread.  What plants in the wild can you eat, if its not in the grocery section at Wally World?  

You folks seem to think that this is a problem that can be solved.  Take away 10% of the world oil production and sure its easy,  Take away 30% or 50% and your next meal might depend on what you know to eat out of your front lawn.

If you have a front lawn.

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ChrisPhoenix on October 1, 2005 - 9:25am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If we had to maintain 1950's industry with 1990's transportation, we'd indeed be in deep doo-doo with scarcer oil.

But instead, we have to maintain some of 1990's industry (the less luxurious parts) with far less transportation than we use today.

People are saying we'll have to give up our iPods. Well, why? They cost very little to make; much of their cost is intellectual property and "luxury tax" from Apple. At the rate computer technology is developing, they'll be "old tech" in just a few years, and you will be able to buy today's iPods for less than a few gallons of gas.

Our entire industrial base takes far less oil than our transportation does. If we had halfway sensible re-allocation, I think we could keep necessities and even some luxuries going with half the oil.

The risk is that the re-allocation won't be sensible. If it's communistic, it'll be destructive and inefficient. If it's capitalistic, it may leave enough people starving to cause social collapse.

Chris

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ChrisPhoenix on October 1, 2005 - 9:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
After reading this article,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0418/p06s02-woeu.html

I think I was likely wrong about my original claim: that any civilization collapse large enough to reduce population would also increase birth rate.

Perhaps there will be a delayed effect, if education fades over time. But there doesn't seem to have been an immediate effect.

Chris

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Beach Boy on October 1, 2005 - 6:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"Remember in the Old Testament, where God told people to bash babies' brains against a rock?"

Would you be so kind as to provide the specific quotation?  I have a bit of biblical knowledge and have never found anything like that.  Thanks.

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ChrisPhoenix on October 5, 2005 - 1:08am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Way off-topic, but it's an old thread.

Psalms 137 "8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who pays you back what you have done to us. 9 Happy is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks."

OK, so it was David, not God, speaking that time.

I also found Ezekiel 23: "46 "This is what the Lord God says: Summon an assembly against them and consign them to terror and plunder. 47 The assembly will stone them and cut them down with their swords. They will kill their sons and daughters and burn their houses with fire.  48 So I will put an end to indecency in the land, and all the women will be admonished not to imitate your indecent behavior. 49 They will repay you for your indecency, and you will bear the consequences for your sins of idolatry. Then you will know that I am the Lord God."

This one is ironic because one of God's complaints against "them" is that "they" killed children: "37 For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands; they have committed adultery with their idols. They have even made the children they bore to Me pass through [the fire] as food for the idols."

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76 comments on A Conversation with Richard Heinberg

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