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I have given the "great collaps" thing many thoughts, and swung this way and that. I recently start to believe that many of the disputes betewen the collapsionists and the optimists are nothing but mere semantics. Let's take a look at one of the most defining periods of European history: the second worldwar. Can this be called a "great collaps" or not? Was it a die off or not?
Optimists may use this example as well as collapsionist: It
almost wiped the Jews from Europe, it did cost enormous human suffering, the old ethnic make up of the continent was entirely destroyed. Yet within 10 years after it ended half the continent experienced economic growth that was unprecedented. Side by side it was the culmination of old European feuds, a real die off, a total destruction of everything that was, and yet within 20 years the continent was voluntarily united.
The twentieth century was boom, total collaps and die off almost at the same time. Doesn't history largely escapes our narrow models!
But Cheap Energy was available from the US and from abundant domestic supplies of coal. Also massive help from an undamaged superpower was available: Grain , Meat, other foodstuffs and machinary - all these required cheap and abundant energy to get to the right places.
Because the US was rich in all these things and undamaged by war, she was able to put Western Europe on a life - support machine until rebuilt. And, unlike the Warsaw Pact, Western Europe was able to devote less energy to defence and more on rebuilding. The WP had to try and do both with no external help.
The Second World War is not a good guide to this coming event. The only guidance the Second World War can offer is how the people of the UK managed through the Battle of the Atlantic with respect to domestic food production and rationing.
This time, each geographic region in turn will be dealing with its own internal problems of energy loss and critical shortages. Each region will look to its own resources to get through.
There will be no external help as energy abundance and available foodstuffs contract globally.
Do not look for help as none will be forthcoming.
We have not seen anything like this since the decline of the Western Roman Empire.
The only guidance the Second World War can offer is how the people of the UK managed through the Battle of the Atlantic with respect to domestic food production and rationing
And how Switzerland got through a 6 year 100% oil embargo while maintaining a Western industrialized democracy with a decent quality of life. Some lessons from Sweden too,
Best Hopes for non-oil transportation,
Alan
Switzerland was a nice little piggy bank for the Nazis, and never much in need of Oil and with a low population. And a lot of small-holding farms with farmers at home.
Sweden kept a lot of trade going, had a low population and a lot of small-holding farms with farmers at home.
UK was 40 million and fighting for its life. Coal for industry, oil for ships tanks and planes. With a lot of workers in khaki, substituted with land army girls. Markets for finished goods were lost (not that we continued making much as factories converted to war materials)
And of course, the Nazis were not trying to strangle the Swedes or the Swiss.
Not the best comparison I think, but still something to learn from.
Even on a war footing, with victory gardens and massive attempts to feed itself, the UK did not survive without help. Of course, not every ship was loaded with Grain and meat, many were prioritsed for munitions and armaments of all types and fuel.
We are now 60+ million and climbing and have paved stubstanial areas of prime agricultural land especially in the South East and the midlands.
Example 1: Earlier this week the High Court overturned a small group of allotment farmers. They found in favour of the council who wanted to sell the allotments to developers.
Example 2: The flooding in the UK as seen this week is as much due to paving farmland, meadows and wood land as any unusual weather. Actually the weather is not unusual. Its just the 'june monsoon'. Just a bit heavier because of the dry April.
A slow squeeze might allow some mitigation with effort and national leadership and a unity government. A rapid interruption of food and oil flows would be an immediate disaster. We have traded national resilience for just in time efficiencies at every component level of society, from gas storage, to imports of milk, butter and cheese (on an island made of lush grass and rain every other day - we import cheap milk! While UK Dairy farmers go bankrupt on a weekly basis). Most of our clothes and shoes come from Chindia.
So, in summary, Were we to build any kind of resilience in the UK for the times ahead, we would have to turn modern capitalism and economics completely on its head.
As you may well say yourself:
Best hopes for a voluntary return to the resilience of a less efficient, vertically integrated, management - capitalism economy.
O, but that wasn't the point I'd tried to get across. It's more that even in retrospective one can still differ about defining a historical period.
But now that I think about it: The dutch famine of 1944, the socalled "hongerwinter" probably gives some guidance. The German occupier more or less forbade transportation of food.
My perents were kids back then. My father was sent to spend the winter at a farmer my grandfather knew and my mother remembered seeing people die. My mother always thought of throwing leftovers away as a sin. I inherited that somehow, I always reuse leftovers.
I'd like to add to that that the dutch famine mainly occured in cities. This was not a food production problem, it was a transportation problem, even if initiated by the occupying forces. With that regard I find it odd that peakoilers have so little attention for something which I think has even more impact with regard to coming events then mere population growth: Next year more than half of the worldpopulation will live in cities.
To give yo an idea why that fact might have more impact then population growth as such let us take a look at Sofia, capital of Bulgaria. While the overall population of Bulgaria is declining the number og inhabitants of Sofia is actually increasing.
O dear, me and my big mouth..
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2720#comment-206542
The 20th century was never dieoff at all on a global scale which is what matters. Even during WWII, population increased, not decreased. Even during Mao's cultural revolution that supposedly saw tens of millions die, the global population increased.
The last time global population decreased was during the plagues of the medieval era.
You might consider WWII a collapse of sorts for some states in Europe but it was never a dieoff.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
I do not disagree with you, yet I still like to add some comments.
The jews might feel like it was.
The huge famines that Mao caused are called the "Great Leap Forward" and actually did cause a dent in population growth. Not for long though, and with small impact.
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/pop/pop_10.htm
Oddly enough that dieoff did not lead to a collaps of society.
Society was in a very low state of organization anyway during the plagues. Remember the feudal system? And even within the feudal system there were breakdowns of individual fiefdoms so you don't see any monolithic collapse because society was not monolithic, even though there was a nominal "king" of a region. In those fiefdoms was a high degree of independence of other fiefdoms. So the collapse of one did not affect the others around it too greatly other than to present an opportunity to expand their own fiefdoms.
The modern situation is far different with extreme specialization of labor, huge interdependences, etc. A massive fire in one memory chip factory in Asia back in the early 1990s caused global repercussions. At one point in time, a Wisconsin company made 80% of all hard disk read-write heads in the world. The global economy is far more fragile than you realize. There are not hundreds of memory chip manufacturers. There are not hundreds of aircraft builders. There are not hundreds of electrical transformer manufacturers. These manufacturing areas that I mention are so small yet so key to industrial civilization that they each represent near single points of failure and these areas are not alone.
One great danger to society is these very narrow areas of specialization coming up against economic collapse in the geographic region where these things are made. How do you restart the modern economy? Economists last year met and discussed this issue at a US government sponsored conference and concluded they had no idea how to restart it. This may be why Ben Bernanke, when faced with the choice between inflation and deflationary collapse has vowed to choose inflation?
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett