DrumBeat: March 30, 2007
Posted by Leanan on March 30, 2007 - 9:03am
Topic: Miscellaneous
But as Americans enter the sixth year of rising oil and gasoline prices, their shift in driving habits this time has been much less extensive. What’s more, in recent weeks, gas consumption has gone up, not down, and drivers are changing their daily driving habits only slightly.
End of oil heralds climate pain
It is mathematically impossible that peak oil will solve climate change.Although oil is the biggest single source of energy-related greenhouse gases, coal and gas combined are bigger still, and the expected growth in their emissions would overwhelm any reduction from oil.
China to produce liquid fuel from coal
China's first coal liquefaction project, which will go into operation in 2008, will be able to produce more than one million tons of oil a year, significantly reducing the country's dependence on oil imports.
World oil production close to peak
A Swedish scientist estimates that global oil production may reach its peak sooner than expected.
Big Oil spends more, only some see 2007 output up
The world's five largest fully publicly traded oil firms are planning to invest billions of dollars more this year but extra spending may not translate into higher production.
Petrobras: Volumes at Santos Basin Sub-Salt Find Still Unknown
Production tests showed the existence of a "significant volume" of 30 degrees API crude in the 1-RJS-628 exploration well in the BM-S-11 exploration block, Petrobras had said in October.
The stock is dead, long live commodities, says Rogers
The growth in demand for commodities, particularly oil, was due to the demand from mainly China followed by India. "This is just the beginning. The demand by Asia hasn’t even started yet," he said noting that China’s per capita consumption of oil was a fourteenth of that of the US and one tenth that of South Korea and Japan.
Minister defends ethanol policy
Brazil has become a haven for developed and developing countries seeking technology for the use of ethanol as a fuel alternative to oil derivatives, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said yesterday.His remarks came in response to comments made by Cuban President Fidel Castro in an article published by Cuban state daily Granma yesterday
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: Our Biofuels Partnership
HP aims to cut its energy consumption by 20%
The Palo California-based computer and printer maker said today that it plans to reduce its global energy consumption 20 per cent over the next three years, based on 2005 energy use levels.HP plans to cut energy use by as much as 30 per cent for some printers and 50 per cent for some computer servers. It pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from facilities.
"People who are being subsidised to produce renewable fuels in the US are now planning to export that fuel to Europe, where they hope to get a second subsidy when it is sold in Europe," [UK transport minister Stephen] Ladyman told a conference organised by the Environmental Industries Commission, a biofuels industry lobby group.
U.S.: Iran vulnerable on oil product imports
“There are no free moves for Iran. Everything has a consequence,” US Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell told Reuters in an interview. “Their dependence on imported products is a vulnerability.”
Addressing Europe’s energy problems
Europe’s increasing dependence on gas and oil imports, especially from Russia, is as dangerous as war. That was the conclusion of a number of experts during the second day of a European Parliament public hearing on 28 February, organised by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which further analysed the need for a common European foreign policy on energy.
Bill McKibben: Less carbon, more community building
Earlier this month, a draft White House report was leaked to news outlets. The report, a year overdue to the United Nations, said that the United States would be producing almost 20 percent more greenhouse gases in 2020 than it had in 2000 and that the US contribution to global warming would be going up steadily, not sharply and steadily down, as scientists have made clear it must.
Government should keep hands off oil prices
In response to recent rises in gas prices, we are once again hearing calls for the government to "do something" to force prices lower. But no matter what the price of gasoline is, such calls are wrong.All market fluctuations in the price of gasoline, up or down, are a good thing -- and none of the government's business.
Solar boat makes Atlantic history
A five-strong Swiss crew have sailed into history by completing the first solar-powered transatlantic crossing.
It's round, lives underwater and resembles a Cheeto -- and the orange puffball sponge has a thing or two to teach us about making photovoltaic solar cells inexpensively.
Huge jump in corn planting expected As always, the comments are interesting.
The limits of a Green Revolution?
Given the shortage of land suitable for growing more food, the obvious answer would be a new Green Revolution, or another hike in yields. But this may not be possible."The difficulty is that we are now pressing against the photosynthetic limits of plants," says the influential environmentalist Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in the United States.
Jim Puplava: Eyes Wide Shut - The Politics of Energy
In the 21st century, “the Great Game” has returned; once again great empires are repositioning themselves in an effort to control the Eurasian landmass. At stake are the vast energy reserves of the Middle East and the Caspian Sea, which contain nearly 75% of the world’s oil reserves.
CNOOC Chief Mum on Gas Field in Disputed Water
The head of China's largest offshore oil producer China National Offshore Oil Corp. on Thursday declined to comment on production at the Chunxiao gas field in the East China Sea where China and Japan are in dispute over resource exploration rights.Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Fu Chengyu refused to confirm or deny that production at the Chunxiao gas field has started.
China has 2 billion tons of oil in reserves
The Ministry of Land and Resources recently gathered primary statistics on oil and gas reserves from PetroChina Company Limited, China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, China National Offshore Oil Corporation Limited and some local companies. The data revealed that, as of the end of 2006, China had 2.043 billion tons of petroleum in remaining commercial recoverable reserves, and 2,449 billion cubic meters of natural gas in remaining commercial recoverable reserves.
Shell VP Confirms Gas Development Talks with Iraq
Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) confirmed Thursday that it has been in talks with oil officials from the Iraqi government over the development of the country's gas industry.
For the past two weeks, I've bombarded you with the gloom of oil's future. I apologize for the doomsday antics, but its hard not to be gloomy about Middle Eastern oil.The good news is that you can still find safe oil investments.
Midwest utilities seek to 'store' wind power in aquifer
Wind power is clean and renewable. Now a group of utilities in Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas has a plan to make it reliable.
Quarter of UK Gas Reserves to Be Stored on Island
A quarter of Britain’s gas reserves could be stored more than a mile below the surface of an offshore island to stave off an energy crisis.Plans have been drawn up to create salt caverns 2,400 metres underground as storage tanks to increase vital reserves to more than 20 days’ supply.
With North Sea gas running out, we will become more reliant on supplies from Russia and Middle Eastern countries. The UK only has 17 days of gas stored in the event of supplies being cut.
Cold fusion is back at the American Chemical Society
After an 18-year hiatus, the American Chemical Society (ACS) seems to be warming to cold fusion. Today that society is holding a symposium at their national meeting in Chicago, Illinois, on 'low-energy nuclear reactions', the official name for cold fusion.Some say the move shows that researchers are re-opening their eyes to work in this field. Others maintain that there is still no evidence for cold fusion and see the session only as a curiosity.
Crude Awakening: Shrewd filmmaking
Oil is the most important resource in the world today, with all of our conveniences propped up by rich, dark crude. Oil is in the insecticide used to kill cockroaches, and food has petroleum-based fertilizers to help it grow. A Crude Awakening: the Oil Crash shows simply and grippingly that the convenience of modern North American life is tied inexorably to the supply of oil. And that supply is already drying up.
Gov. Patrick announces $2 million energy efficiency
Gov. Deval Patrick announced a new state-funded energy efficiency program designed to help Massachusetts cities duplicate a model unveiled Thursday by Cambridge officials....The goal of the Cambridge Energy Alliance is to reduce electrical demand by 15 percent at peak times, reduce annual electricity and water consumption citywide by 10 percent and reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions from the city by 10 percent by 2011.
Russian nuclear plant proposal for Namibia generates controversy
Russian PM offers uranium producer Namibia help in solving a looming power crisis with a small floating nuclear power plant – untried technology - which has created dissension within the country.
ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco and Sinopec announce petrochemical venture
ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco and China's No. 2 oil company announced two joint ventures worth a total of $5 billion on Friday to expand a Chinese petrochemical refinery and operate a chain of 750 filling stations.
Ghana mining companies buy their own power plant
The plant, valued at $45 million and expected to generate 80 megawatts of power for the mining companies, was transported into the country from Portland in the United States of America on Wednesday night.
Uganda: Fuel prices up as reserves run dry
UGANDA’s fuel reserves are empty, the Government has announced, as several filling stations in Kampala and the rest of the country have dried up.
Oil aims for $67 on Iran, French strike
Oil climbed toward $67 a barrel Friday on global supply worries caused by tension centered on OPEC member Iran and a strike in France that threatens to crimp summer fuel supplies in the United States.Crude was up 60 cents at $66.63 a barrel in electronic trade, having jumped 3 percent to a six-month closing high the previous day. London Brent rose 73 cents to $68.61, its eighth day of gains.
Australia faces extreme weather rise, says leaked UN report
Australia will suffer more droughts, fires, floods and storms due to global warming and its famous Great Barrier Reef will be devastated by 2030, according to leaked extracts Friday of a UN report.
Gore wins praise from head of Nobel committee
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore won praise on Thursday from a man with the power to change lives -- the head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee -- after a speech urging more action to fight global warming.
Could private equity re-energise the US power sector?
What prompts me to write about PE is its current relation to investments in the energy arena. According to one authoritative estimate by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA - which has been so opposed to Peak Oil theory, but which also does quite good work in other areas), the U.S. electric power sector will require about $800 billion of new investment by 2020. By way of comparison, the current net book value of the U.S. power sector is about $700 billion. So right away, the discerning mind can figure out that it will require significant outside investment to keep the lights on in the U.S. over the next 15 years. Much of that new investment will probably come from PE.
U.S. can cut oil imports to zero by 2040, use to zero by 2050
The United States could dramatically cut oil usage over the next 20-30 years at low to no net cost, said Amory B. Lovins, cofounder and CEO of the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute, speaking at Stanford University Wednesday night for a week-long evening series of lectures sponsored by Mineral Acquisition Partners, Inc.
As the United States consumers cry out about high energy prices, including the gasoline to power their Chevy Silverados, they don't think anything in regards to their level of consumption or that we've been there before and will be there again. They assume it's a temporary situation, and it will "pass" after our "elected" representatives nip this thing in the bud.
It's been on my mind a lot lately as people at work gripe how they can't afford the gas prices to drie 50 miles in to work in their Suburban or Expedition. Every time I tell them to switch to a smaller vehicle, and they look at me like I'm asking them to give up sex, chocolate, alcohol, soda, and eating out for Lent.
Don't bother with the small car argument, it's the same thing as calling them stupid (which they are).
Instead... commiserate. Pretend to understand their pain. Show sadness as you tell them that according to Car and Driver ethanol gets 1/3 LESS MILEAGE and costs MORE MONEY. Let 'em chew on that for a while. Rant about the subsidies.
The next time the subject comes up. And it will. Confess your anger at your rising grocery bill. Be sure to blame ethanol.
Whenever possible turn the issue to ethanol. Eventually they will figure the small car angle.
Back in the 80's, people did abandon the large cars. It will happen if the price is high enough, and probably more importantly if people come to believe that higher prices are permanent.
My own little story is that I buy 15 gallons of diesel roughly once every 2-3 weeks or so. I am about to try joining the ranks of bicycle commuters, and I can telecommute from home - by the summer I might be able to cut driving to work to once a or twice a week or so. My own version of biofuels will be things like powerbar, hammergel, apples, bananas and nuts :-).
My girlfriend looked at me like I had two heads when I told her about the idea of bicycle commuting though. She asked me what route I was planning to take - I jokingly suggested that I would take Interstate-66, but she hadn't had her morning coffee yet, and she didn't realize that I was joking until a few seconds later. In reality there are pretty good bicycle trails that I can take to get to the office - a bit on the long side (18 miles one way), but nothing I cannot handle. And for that matter I can really use the exercise to work off the gut that I built up over the winter.
It happened in the '70s, but that was a sudden, sharp spike.
I wonder if the relatively slow rise we've experienced is letting people get used to higher prices. People complain, but they aren't cutting back any more. They're back to buying SUVs, not Priuses.
Like boiling a frog... do it slowly and they won't jump out of the pot.
Actually, a frog *will* jump.
Which is simply proof that frogs are smarter than humans.
A spike would certainly help. But folks in the '70s and early '80s had much more than that. There were recessions and inflation and unemployment and really expensive war and an impeached president -- a thick fog of economic gloom many years even when things were perking up. (GDP rose over the decade as a whole). It all built a mood for change.
Geez all we got are higher gas prices and some shakey mortgages. Foreigners seem willing to finance the war.
But give it time ....
ADDENDUM: Stronger counterculture back then, too.
Yeah and no. We are getting these seasonal spikes in gasoline costs, so every summer people talk about getting a hybrid or some such. It does bring to mind the story about boiling a frog though.
The thing that is different this summer is that the sub-prime mortgage thing has gone sour in an awful hurry. People will no longer be able to take out the home equity loan on their houses to buy a car. I suppose for a lot of people the type of car you drive is a sort of status symbol (that's what the automakers want). How else could one justify spending 50K$ on a vehicle of any sort, really.
I remember years ago I was listening to Click-N-Clack, and they had a story about someone they knew who was very wealthy with old money. They looked in the garage to see what they drove, and they had something ordinary - like a Dodge Dart or some such. The explanation was that any mechanic in the country could work on such a car.
Which means they'll be stuck with their gas-guzzlers, no matter how expensive gas is.
But at least it will be more comfortable if they have to live in their cars.
It did occur to me, when I was reading Deffeyes' book, that the volatility he predicted might lead to people becoming less responsive to price. People start assuming that prices will go back down, if only they wait. Few seem to notice that the lows keep getting higher.
Thinking about the possibilty of for instance a doubling of gas prices, and the potential effects that would have on their lives, is probably simply too much for many.
For millions, the financial squeeze of gas prices will make it ever harder to even get to work in the first place, and then they have to worry about their rising mortgage payments as well.
And then, as mentioned in this thread, there's sharp increases in food prices. Assuming that all these prices wil at some point start going down again may well be mostly a subconscious reaction.
Prayer and denial often feel much better than reality.
"...the financial squeeze of gas prices>>>"
I saw someone buying a $3.50 cup of coffee at a coffee shack while I filled up on $2.99 gallon midgrade. It's still too cheap. Unless you are lower income and payment straped.
I think we could have riots here in the US. I want to look as poor as possible, an old beater car that smells bad and some crappy looking clothes!
I don't see your logic.
Did you only buy one gallon. Did the coffee drinker buy 10 to twenty cups of coffee each day.
Cheap is relative to other options and long term pricing.
Do you need it to make money and function in society is another question.
I like ice cream. A local grocery has it for 5dollars a 1/2 gallon. Two miles roundtrip. I also need several other items. Sams sells the same ice cream for 3dollars a half gallon. I am buying two so thats a 4 dollar savings. The trip will require one gallon of gas for a 24 mile round trip for my vehicle. This savings more than allows for me to pay for the gas to drive my car. I will save more buy making he longer trip, because other items will also offer savings.
I have used more gasoline, but I have saved money.
thats a problem
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
"Cheap is relative to other options and long term pricing."
Cheap is relative to income, period. If I make $10,000 per year, then gas at X price is ten times more painful to me than if I made $100,000 per year.
For most people in the U.S., given their incomes, gas is still givaway cheap.
RC
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
Actually, it's more than ten times as painful, because in both cases your necessary, fixed costs (food, heating, etc.) are the same - so you have to subtract that first before comparing. If you need, say, 5000$, your disposable income is 95000 vs 5000 - 19 times as much.
if you make 10k or 100k you just have to find a way to live within your means. shoe leather(er.... i mean shoe vinyl) is waaaaaay cheaper than gasoline.
of course our federal government doesnt have a clue about living within it's means and maybe that is the source of the problem.
The point is that as the price of fuel rises then so rises the cost of everything else.
Pretty soon that CUBIC MILE doesn't mean much for we will all be digging groundhogs out of the banks for food and making shoeleather soup.
In case it's not known there are huge number of folks on FIXED INCOMES!!!!
As fuel(oil.energy.whatever)goes..so goes our economy. Its far far more than something to drive to work. Its life. Its "death on a stick". Your lifestyle means more than driving. Its electricity,food,medicine,fertilizer and ...........
Airdale-screw bicycles..I'm getting back to horses. Yeeehaaawwww
(or mules maybe....giddap Sal)they make such nice road apples..so handy you can even cook with em. Mules is where its at.
We are one cubic mile of muleflesh from freedom.
(sorry,couldn't help myself RC)
Perhaps. The other thing about those 50K$ cars is that people tend to lease them instead of purchasing them, so they can dump them back on the manufacturer.
Folks can get a Honda Civic for about 16K$. Not a hybrid, but it would get 30-40 mpg. Spend about 4-5K more, and you get a hybrid that in theory will get nearly 50mpg.
The hard part is going to be getting people to abandon the status symbol thing.
Dunno about you, but $16,000-$20,000 is not exactly chump change to me.
And it would be less so if I had a mortgage that was bleeding me dry, or a loan on a $50,000 SUV to pay off.
Buy a used Honda, then.
Everyone else will be doing the same. Remember the used Priuses going for more than new?
Those gas-guzzling SUVs won't be taken off the road. The price will drop until they sell.
Tstreet,
Listen up: when gas is high enough that people would want to do as you advise, probably in the $4.00 or $5.00 plus range here in the States, the economy will be tanking and people are simply not going to be able to afford new cars even used new cars.
I love this line of thinking which boils down to "the solution to the collapse of the car economy is for people to buy more cars. . . "
Come on Tstreet. If you're on a forum like this one you should be able to see the problem with such thinking. "I can't afford to drive to work. What shall I do? . . . ahh. . . I know . . . I'll buy a new car!!!" and/or "I just lost my job because the economy is tanking as gas goes to $5.00 a gallon . . . What shall I do? . . . Sweet Jesus I'll just buy a new car!!!"
The Prius is a status symbol. They just haven't passed out the book yet that shows people what the latest status symbols are. It's also a chick magnet. :) Actually, I just made that last part up but am trying to start a rumor for all those men trying to attract women with their Chevy Silverados.
We will never abandon the status symbol thing; we just need to change the symbols.
One realises that things in the US are in a serious FUBAR when fuel economies of 30-40mpg are considered good. We have a car that does some 35mpg. It's an old vehicle, reaching the end of its life, and that's the only reason we tolerate such high consumption. If we do buy a new one, never in our minds would we even consider getting a car that wouldn't do at least 45mpg!
I hope I didn't get my figures awfully wrong, though in a way I almost wish I did, since it would mean the US is not that seriously messed up. In Europe the most common metric for fuel economy is "liters per 100 km". Google tells me that 5l/100km (the target number) is about 47mpg. Am I missing something?
Yeah, gas is twice as expensive in Europe. Adjust for that and you've got 23.5 miles to the gallon. In other words, about the same level of financial pain per mile per gallon.
Yeah! When I got my Honda Insight, I started ribbing my wife about her 'gas hog' Subaru Justy (45mpg).
Here in France fuel is expensive, currently at €1.24/litre ($3.50/US gallon). But our cars seem to achieve far better mileage than those in the US, no doubt due to their smaller size. I get circa 45mpg in winter and 55mpg in summer in my Fiat Punto (the Citroen C1 diesel gets 80mpg). A friend gets 55mpg from his secondhand VW Golf diesel.
A car is just another machine and its utility is in going from A to B with its passengers. The Punto costs about US$11,000 new. I wouldn't buy an overly complex and expensive vehicle like a Prius, why would anyone (especially with their limited life and expensive to replace batteries)? The technology already exists to get better MPG from cars and its already mass produced, the only problem seems to be in the mind of people worrying about what's an acceptable vehicle to be seen driving (fashion victims).
Like most on here I believe we're at peak, but I also believe we have to face the future with what we've currently got in the way of useful technology (which excludes about 90% of available technology). I'm also alarmed, as a European, that people in the US seem to think we're going to go from our current situation to a "mad max" scenario overnight or we're going to fix the problem with new technological/political breakthroughs. The threats we will face more than likely will be more mundane, but just as dangerous if not more so.
For example, today people are less hardy than their forefathers, this is a constant complaint by the military, but it also indicates we are also too unfit to live as our forefathers did. The biggest medical complaint around here, amongst people moving to the countryside, is back problems (including me). A serious back injury can mean the end of self-sufficiency, how mundane is that?.
If civilisation as we know it is under threat from its own complexity (ie. dependence on oil, economy, etc), then presumably we have to remove the threat by simplifying and making it less complex (eg. less technology). Probably impossible at the nation state level and probably only achievable at the individual, family or community level acting in their own self-interest.
I look forward to Westexas's article on ELP.
The desire to revert society back to a 'simpler' or less interdependent social structure, while emotionally attractive, can only happen as a result of a catastrophe that destroys the existing social order.
Just like in biology, the inexorable direction of social order is increasing organization and interdependence. This is governed by the 2nd law of thermodynamics (yes, I do have a degree in Physics, and no, that statement is not backwards, despite the common understanding of entropy as "maximum disorder"...)
Note that in biology, evolution always results in a more complex, more organized creature than the ancestor species - never the reverse. Single-celled creatures -> multi-celled creatures -> worms & such -> fish & reptiles -> birds & mammals... The same is true for societies. A more highly organized society, where the individuals have fewer and fewer degrees of freedom, and are more and more interdependent, has higher entropy than a less organized, less interdependent society. (This is my extension of the work of Prigogine, and Brooks and Wiley in modelling entropy for hierarchical information structures). But you can't reduce entropy - so whatever form of "simpler" society we want to achieve must have an even higher entropy than our current society. That implies that there will be vastly fewer choices, and a commensurate loss in security, for individuals in the simpler society
The only way to reduce interdependence is to reduce our standard of living dramatically. Since the only way to do that is to make a lot of people and companies poor who are currently wealthy (by shrinking their markets), and to make each of dramatically less safe than we currently are, it can't happen 'voluntarily'.
Note that it is entirely possible for individuals to live less interdependent lives within the context of the larger interdependent society without losing most of the benefits of the larger social organization. This argument is discussing the transformation of society as a whole, rather than individuals and small communities, which would destroy our ability to sustain most of our modern health care, food production, IT, manufacturing, etc...
I haven't figured out exactly what this means for our world today. Obviously, a catastrophic, or cataleptic decline in society would increase the entropy of society as a whole - so they are certainly very real paths to a 'simpler' social organization. But I can't conceive of any way for society to voluntarily move to a simpler form without a catastrophe (or catalepsis)...
There seems to be some irony that if you truly desire a simpler and less interdependent world, you are asking for a war, or famine, or massive decline in the available energy supply... pain and suffering for billions, and a return to lives that are 'nasty, brutish, and short' within a few generations, at most.
Personally, I do hope that we can sustain our modern, global civilization, and that we can transition, however painfully, to alternative sources of energy. While I am contantly outraged by the behavior of our governments and military and monied elites, and I see clearly the pain and suffering and injustice in the world; I also see that we feed, clothe, educate, nurture, and gainfully employ more people today than ever in history. More people live free from repression, disease, and violence than have ever done so in all of history. This is an extraordinary achievement!!! And we are learning, or re-learning wisdom throughout the world, slowly, painfully accruing lessons on the impact of our now massive presence on the now fragile globe. We are polluting less, we are conserving more, and I believe we will reach equilibrium, if we survive long enough...
So I will fight to preserve what we have; I work to educate friends and family (and soon my town council) to start thinking about lives without petroleum & natural gas. I will support HEV, PHEV, and EV with my consumer dollars; I will install solar HW and electricity and brag about them insufferably to my friends & co-workers. Above all, I will keep a sense of perspective about life, balancing the good and the bad, seeing past fear, toward hope.
And of course, I'll keep reading TOD :-)
CW
Global peak: 2007 - 2010
Global decline rate, Post peak: 2%
Economic response: Severe global recession, ~5 years, then slow recovery
CW,
Awesome post.
I'm sypmathetic to many of the normative political agendas that are now advertising their agenda as a solution to this problem but at the same time I've grown a bit tired of their bullshit, as you explain:
What I find really ironic is there is now a subculture of people flying all around the country going to Peak Oil conferences telling us we need to live a simpler life?! Puh-lease.
sorry but hunter gather lifestyle was not 'nasty, brutish, and short'
it at the same time was not a paradise.
i do not know why people swing from those two extremes, but from what i can see from what all i have read.
it was a hard life, but you were better fed and suffered from less diseases then one can now. though at the same time you did not have people living into their infirm 80's. you had hard years but only when everything else is suffering.
you could get bad injury's but thats the same with farming.
quality vs quantity basically.
Security was orders of magnitude lower for hunter gatherers than it was for successive social organizations: Injury, famine from climate variability, predation (from other tribes and animals competing for the food/land/water resources) led to extremely short live expectancies. Education was non-existant other than for food production knowledge - literacy was not developed until societies were far more copmlex than the hunter-gatherer lifestyle could support.
Although it is a simple treatment, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is an excellent description of the 'physics' of civilization, and the reasons why we can confidently say that we have progressed immensely since the days of hunter-gatherer societies.
CW
Global peak: 2007 - 2010
Global decline rate, Post peak: 2%
Economic response: Severe global recession, ~5 years, then slow recovery
The sources before civilization are very sparse. The sources of early civilization are not much more numerous, worse, they are biased as they were conceived by the top beneficiaries of civilization.
Injury:
People don't fall from stairs if they're civilized?
Famine:
That is a vulnerability of farmers, not hunter-gatherers. Nomads move when it becomes harder than they like to procure food. Farmers starve if their crop fails/granary burns/land floods/etc..
Predation:
At least wolves stop being hungry now and then. Cars are always ready to bite. Besides, it's not like the tribal wars have stopped, or have they?
Life expectancy:
Use their cultural bias (i.e. exclude everyone before 3 years - call it a late abortion) and you get a whole different picture.
Education:
Come on, every tribe had elaborate customs and a large oral culture.
Literacy:
Finally, a good point. They did lack a broader vision of time and space, and the ability to accumulate knowledge. Still - what's the difference with a large part of today's population?
To conclude, it's not so simple to make an unbiased comparison; let alone a judgement about what kind of life is preferable for a homo sapiens sapiens.
I can't believe you are seriously arguing for a return to cave-man levels of civilisation. Tell you what. How about you practice what you preach ... log off, sell your house and go move to the African bush. Just don't get killed by wild animals, other people or ebola.
It also makes me laugh that you consider passing down creation stories from parent to child as "education". If I were to pass down ancient knowledge to my children they'd probably be taken away by the CPS ... talking crap about the moon and the stars doesn't equal an education in anybodies books.
I am not arguing for a return to caveman levels of civilization. Just providing another viewpoint, namely that history is not a single trend leading from misery, vice and squalor to bliss, virtue and paradise (of which our society would than, coincidentally, happen to be the pinnacle).
The knowledge and culture passed down was adequate for their needs. They wouldn't need a driver's licence, or a degree in Law. As for walking the talk: civilization is taking up all real estate right now, so I don't have the choice at the moment. Neither does my viewpoint require it. Besides, if I were to do that, I would end up cold and starving. Just like a hunter-gatherer in a city today. Civilized skills are not useful as a hunter-gatherer, and vice versa. The concept of "progress" is defined by civilization - of course they are better at it than a tribe.
"I also see that we feed, clothe, educate, nurture, and gainfully employ more people today than ever in history. More people live free from repression, disease, and violen