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356 comments on Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room
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Paul, congratulations on writing a fantastic article. However I have very serious problems with one line of the text:
What is overshoot? There are several definitions to be found on the web, but one very good one is found here:
In other words, we are getting very strong signals from the environment that we are into overshoot but they are not yet strong enough to force and end to growth.
And this great article from The Energy Bulletin:
Can our numbers still be growing though we are in overshoot? Of course! Overshoot occurs when a population exceeds the long term carrying capacity of its environment. Like the reindeer of St. Matthew Island. They were probably in overshoot when their numbers reached 1000 but they continued to multiply until their numbers reached 6000 before there was a total collapse.
While they were in overshoot, the reindeer completely destroyed their support system, the lichens they were living on, so their numbers plunged to under 30. We are currently deep into overshoot. Were it not so we would not be destroying the environment. We would not be drawing down the water tables, drying up rivers and lakes, destroying the rain forest, destroying our topsoil, over fishing the oceans, causing deserts to expand, driving thousands of species into extinction, polluting our water and atmosphere, and a thousand other things.
But things are far worse than that. I am saying, even with our current consumption of fossil fuel, we are still deep into overshoot; else the above things would not be happening. But look close at The Energy Bulletin article. “Overshoot happens when a species encounters a rich and previously unexplored stock of resources that promote reproduction.” We are in overshoot because we found a rich store of detritus, or fossil fuel. This enabled us to produce massive amounts of food which enabled our population to explode.
The long term carrying capacity of Homo sapiens, if fossil fuels never ran out, would probably be somewhere between two and three billion people or four at the most. But the long term carrying capacity of Homo sapiens without fossil fuel, including coal, is probably less than one billion.
So according to my estimation we are either three billion into overshoot, if our fossil fuel lasts forever, or about six billion into overshoot if it does not.
Ron Patterson
Ron,
Carrying capacity and overshoot are slightly tricky concepts to define both formally and accessibly. If we accept the first definition you gave, humanity may be in overshoot, and this is what all the hoo-hah on the Internets is based on: some people (we'll call them "idiots") disagree that the signals indicate an imminent end to growth because we are not (quite) yet being forced to end our growth due to resource limitations. I used that construction to avoid getting into a bunfight over interpretations of the significance of the signals. Many people intuitively but incorrectly understand carrying capacity to mean the level of population that can be supported by the current level of resource usage, with no other caveats. I admit I pandered to that definition.
I agree that we are in overshoot relative to the long-term carrying capacity, and this is reflected in my comment, "While humanity has apparently not yet reached the carrying capacity of a world with oil, we are already in drastic overshoot when you consider a world without oil."
I attempted to clarify my usage in the note under Carrying Capacity:
I agree with your final numbers more or less - we would be in very serious but perhaps not species-ending overshoot with an infinite supply of fossil fuels, due to Liebig's Law applying to other resources; and we are in enormous overshoot when you consider that Liebig's Law applies to to petroleum as our scarcest essential resource.
We are in drastic overshoot of carrying capacity of a world with oil. Look at one of the key side effects - climate change. Nevermind all the other side effects. Just consider that one.
We are in overshoot, period, end of sentence.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Yes, we are indeed in overshoot. I'll have to figure out how to communicate that so a layman will get it, and will also understand how serious that is and that there is no technofix that can possibly alter that situation.
There is nothing to communicate to the layman. He's dead or his children are dead (prematurely, of course). The odds are very high that every one of us reading this will be dead either naturally before that or directly as a cause of that. What do you want to tell him? That he and 95%-99% of the rest of humanity are toast? Does that help you get anyone through the bottleneck? Your comment below is a most insightful statement - that we need to increase the inequalities between regions in the hopes of creating islands of survivability - but what does that do to every traditional measure of humane behavior? More than anything else, we need to consider how to maximize the number of people through the bottleneck. Bob Shaw has some fanciful ideas but I don't think Bob really grasps what is about to happen. In fact, I doubt that any of us can really grasp the magnitude of what is going to occur. It's beyond our emotional understanding even if we understand the facts behind it.
This is why homo sapiens stands at the precipice of extinction. The environment in front of us is extremely dangerous and will consist of situations we have never encountered before. This is why Stephen Hawking harps about humanity establishing colonies in space. He's not concerned with the well being of the bulk of those living right now or even getting a significant fraction off planet. He's worried that we'll make ourselves extinct. And space colonies would impose on their inhabitants from moment zero forward an awareness of sustainability and limits.
Can we actually build them? Technically we could but can we politically? I doubt it. And thus my gloom about humanity's future remains.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
On this issue, many of those with the power to direct actions like refuge creation are indeed laymen. Educating them just might help get a few more through the bottleneck, even if ripping the scales from the eyes of Joe and Jane Sixpack won't. Call this forlorn hope the dying gasp of my humanism.
I saw SF author Spider Robinson at a conference in Toronto last year. He seems to understand that we're facing a global crisis, but he still spoke wistfully of space elevators and L5 colonies. I was appalled at his naivete. If it was indeed ever in the harbour, that ship has long since sailed. We are here for the duration.
It's solely a political problem (space colonization). The energy involved is not that large compared to the global consumption. The resources involved are minuscule. The problem is purely political because how do you tell everyone else that you are going to save a few million people tops in colonies of 25,000 to 50,000 so that the species can live while they die?
That ship hasn't sailed yet. It is still in the dock because we lack the courage to face what needs to be faced. We are collectively cowards.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Why would we even contemplate creating refuges in space?
For someone who is so hard-nosed about the coming situation here on Earth, you seem casually confident about our ability to create very large closed space colonies that would have the ability not only to survive over the long term but to secure and spread our species (presumably without terrestrial support). Given our proven inability to use technology without falling afoul of either our own insufficient understanding or the law of unintended consequences, what makes you think such an enterprise has a sufficient chance of success to be worth spending precious and dwindling resources on?
The Earth itself isn't going to go poof. If we want to create species refuges with those resources, we're much more likely to succeed here on Earth. To think of doing it in space strikes me as magical thinking at its most extreme.
You miss my point, it seems. Very often the discussion here at TOD and other places focuses on the technical aspects of a problem. The technical parts are not the problem. I am firmly convinced that we could technically create a sustainable society that could do a 1 or 2 century controlled descent to a sustainable level and stay there. I am firmly convinced that we could technically build space refuges and succeed.
But the core problems are not even technical problems. The core problems are political, psychological, and sociological. They are governments lying about oil reserves, governments believing oil production will rise despite years of decline (Texas and Great Britain as examples), about people believing that if they solve the technical problem then everything must be ok. The technological side of the equation is actually very well understood. We have the technology. What we do not have is a collective realistic understanding of who and what we really are, how we behave, why we do the things we do, etc.
So it boils down to politics, psychology, and sociology. We could have built the PV cells to change the world but we haven't. We might even still have time if all we had was a technical problem. Why don't we? Because the problem is not technical. The problem is who and what we are, not peak oil. Not resource depletion. Not climate change. Those are all side effects of the core problem, overpopulation, which is driven by who and what we are.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
On edit:
Ah, now I get your point. I agree that the barriers to action are all human factors. I also agree that around here we focus on the technical aspects of our problem set. I disagree with any suggestion, though, that the solution set is or even could be likewise technical. All the evidence before us indicates that the box we're in is of technical construction, and simply applying more technical tinkering to it will merely redecorate it, not tear it open.
The focus on technical solutions is yet another inevitable manifestation of our dualism - a clever-monkey response illustrated in this article:
So, if the solution can not be technical and a variety of hard-wired psychological factors keep us from even assessing the problem domain rationally, we're back to square one. Any solutions can only apply to very small subsets of the population: those that can recognize the danger, have the resources to respond as well as the will and freedom to respond in time, and can cope psychologically with the implications of their own personal survival in the midst of a general collapse.
There you go.
There you go.
You completely hit the nail on the head. That`s exactly whats going on. Nobody I talk to seems to understand it and those few who do just say "Technology will save us".
Best regards,
Joerg
Hello Grey,
Thanks and
re: "I am firmly convinced that we could technically create a sustainable society that could do a 1 or 2 century controlled descent to a sustainable level and stay there."
Would you be willing to list out exactly what you see as the "technically sustainable society" - i.e., something about what it looks like?
And/or what to do, in a realistic sense, today. Who needs to do what. I'd be very interested.
Example: Immediate stop of all new highway construction. Immediate placing of X dollars to the construction of solar projects, with the following priorities:
Or however, you see it. (If you don't see it, I'm asking if you might please try as an exercise for backing up the sentence above.)
Hi Aniya,
I don't know about GreyZone's view of this sustainable society, and I find it extremely unlikely that we will convince even a fraction of the people required to make the necessary changes, but here is a quick overview of how I think this society might look:
If we could get everyone to do all of these, we might be able to achieve a controlled descent. If we did that the world economy would probably collapse overnight - who knows what would happen if that were the case...
Even if we could get everyone to agree, get through the transition out of capitalism and avoid global war - it's still pretty unlikely we could avoid some loss of life.
Wow, that's a big one. Where to start... Well, everyone needs to reduce their energy usage; at home, at work, travelling around...
There's a start for everyone. As for politicians, anything that would encourage the above. Educate the masses, stop any construction, heavy taxes on fuel, redistribute the land to the people, anything else to reduce our impact. This would take an entire post to go into detail.
We could reduce the impact - but I doubt it is ever going to happen on a large scale.
First want to say I agree with the overall premise of this thread - the human population explosion is the root cause of all the disasters converging upon us.
However I think your hubris is showing here if you feel there are no technical problems to building 'space arks'. In addition to the obvious lack of any political vision and desire to do this, there are MANY unresolved technical problems to doing this! For example you may recall the 'Biosphere 2' project which failed miserably at creating an isolated environment here on Earth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
And you think we could somehow do better in space at this point?! Fact is there remain many technical problems with any permanent space stations. It would have to be an evolutionary process - one that we have not embarked upon.
When you factor the cost and the fact we are on the cusp of implosion I think we can agree no human outposts in space are going to save the species from extinction at this point. To bring up this issue just clouds the issue - at this point is we can't somehow get our ducks in a row here on Earth it's not gonna happen in space.
GliderGuider:
When you say: "there is no technofix that can possibly alter that situation"
Are you forgetting this one?
Nope. That's figured into my "declining net births" assumption.
"It is important to recognize that humanity is not, overall, in a position of overshoot at the moment. Our numbers are still growing (though the rate of growth is declining). However, we are getting obvious signals from our environment that all is not well. These signals seem to be telling us we are approaching the maximum carrying capacity."
This was taken from the main text document ( I apologise as I do not know how you neatly put it in a box) and above you agree we are in over shoot, this may be in a no oil scenario you discuss, however in the WWF Living Planet Report 2006 it clearly shows that we have exceded earth's carrying capacity even with oil.
Not being an expert and there are obviously numerous definitions of "Carrying Capacity" in the report they are seriously worried as we have dipped into Earth's Capital by 25%.
This may downloaded from their website and following the links.
I produced a graphic comparing "short term" versus "long term" carrying capacity here:
http://coexploration.org/biodiversity/html/EarthDay2004_files/v3_documen...
Look about half way through the presentation to the slide titled Long-term/Short-term K
I'd be interested to see more stuff like this. Of course, around here and elsewhere all the models are about population growth....need more homes, more roads, bigger water systems, more stores, bigger sewer plants...all to handle the inevitable increase in population...blah, blah, blah...county general plan....ad infinitum absurditum.
Jason,
An excellent and compelling presentation. I've tried to argue your point of view before, but I generally get blank stares or "climate trumps all" responses.
Have you spoken with anyone connected to the IPCC? Would love to know their responses.
The question I'm struggling with is whether or not sustainability is possible given our biology or are we doomed to overshoot?
I think one of the main points of "Limits to Growth" is that overshoot is almost impossible to avoid if the resource base erodes while it is being used to boost population. Oil is a perfect example of a worst case resource base.
What has to happen is that population must be restricted by policy *before* there is any clear danger of there being too many people. Since anyone who cheat gains an advantage, it turns into a tragedy of the commons scenario very quickly.
The IPCC is a giant operation. It includes scientists, economists, and political appointees. I have spoken to folks only a little bit in each of those above categories who have contributed to parts of the IPCC reports.
The scientist tend to stick closely to their own zone of comfort, so they have been afraid to confront the economists. The economists seem to assume growth is necessary, inevitable, and must be dealt with technically. The politicians are nearly unfathomably ignorant, and tend to lean towards making sure growth can continue and the message has as much optimism as possible.
Privately I have had government insiders tell me they are very worried, get what my point is, but are not sure how to talk honestly within the system. Some scientists have also said I understand you but we have to deal with the politicians who fund all of this, and by the way I don't know much about economics.
Hi Jason,
Thanks.
re: "...get what my point is, but are not sure how to talk honestly within the system."
Well, do you mean, they are afraid to lose their jobs?
Or, that they are afraid to bring up issues at all? Don't feel they can say "Hey, this is a huge problem! We have to do something!"
Or, do you think it's that they don't have a "solution" or (perhaps even a direction for a solution) to propose?
It seems that just saying "something" can't be that difficult. I mean, unusual, yes. But what are the risks? Do they feel they are at personal risk?
Do they want to be able to have group discussion?
So, perhaps put "intersection of 'peak oil' and GCC" as a meeting topic?
Humans evolved as social animals. We like to be part of "ingroups" and dread being labeled as "outsiders." To bring up a topic that contradicts the basic assumptions/belief systems/plans/expectations of your ingroup can result in an individual being thought of as not part of the tribe, shunned, expelled, considered odd, etc.
Even though there may not be the immediate threat of job loss and denial of the shared resource base the group provides, the social tension that results and the potential isolation of the individual produces a great deal of emotional stress on the person.
So all your points are valid, but they operate at an emotional level the reduces an individuals perceived fitness in their social context. This has physiological effects that can be severe. Males shunned socially may have lower levels of testosterone, lower self esteem, lack of confidence, loss of motivation, etc.
Much more fun to say what everyone wants to hear and get positive social feedback and feel your hormone system swell! That's why and how alpha males strut around like big roosters. Everyone is rubbing their egos and they feel so darn powerful! Why let reality get in the way of something so good?
I really do not see this thing as a problem. Problems are things that have solutions. This has no solutions. It must be endured. For example if Eta Cari nae went pop tomorrow and inevitably sterilised one hemisphere. What could be done about it? Nothing.
Rots of ruck reroy.
St Matthews island in the Pribs and its relativley recent deer introduction are often cited in discussions of overshoot. For a more lengthy observation, I suggest the Soay sheep in the St Kilda islands, an island group off of the Outer Hebrides of Great Britain.
Soay sheep were first introduced to the island group (St Kilda, Soay) in neolithic times, and have been predator-free and evolving naturally ever since. Beginning in the 1950's, scientific studies began on the populations of Hirta island. From an original introduction of 107 animals , the herbivore's population cycle builds to a high of about 1700, and then crashes to about 750 animals. This cycle repeats itself every 3-4 years.
http://www.kilda.org.uk/soay-sheep.htm
http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/larg/pages/SoaySheepSurvivalSite2.html
http://www.amazon.com/Soay-Sheep-Dynamics-Selection-Population/dp/052152...
Actually, according to "The Limits To Growth: The 30 Year Update" we entered overshoot in the eighties.
Oh goodie. When do we get to point fingers at how wrong they were?
10 years? 30?
The point is they weren't wrong. But their work can be taken out of context, mere extrapolating exercises talked like failed predictions, etc... Their work is qualitative not quantitative.
Right... So they predicted nothing then?
When do we start bumping into these limits? Are there any circumstances where you would declare the club of rome clearly in error?
Have you even read the thing?
In "Limits to Growth" non-renewable resources are modeled as decreasing EROI. (or decreasing resource extracted per unit of energy).
Thus the limits are subtle, much like the real world. We have already seen EROI of fossil fuels drop from 100+ down towards 5-10 and trending lower via Tar sands etc. That first 100 to 5 is not so bad, but as you drop below that value, the energy surplus crashes.