<DrumBeat: October 30, 2007The Oil Drum

44 comments on Geopolitical Feedback Loops in Resource and Oil Depletion

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memmel on October 30, 2007 - 1:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Black Swan events probably should be classified as unexpected positive feedback loops that grow rapidly.

In stressed/strained systems the probability of couplings and forces forming to create conditions for a black swan event increase.

Think about adding more and more weight to a sheet of glass or ice as the system becomes more strained its obvious the chance of cracking gets higher and higher even though the actual way the ice cracks cannot be predicted.

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ChrisN on October 30, 2007 - 2:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Good metaphor!

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Boomy on October 30, 2007 - 3:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It is a good metaphor and made me think of the lakes in the BC Coastal Mountains compared to Eastern Canada where lakes tend to freeze over and then it snows on top of the ice. One steps on the snow and bottoms out when ones feet hit the ice. Higher up in the BC Coastal Mts, the snow amounts on average are about 5 times higher. So when it snows on the these lakes, 1-3feet at a time, the weight of the snow pushes the ice down below the water level. Walking on fresh snow on these lakes can be very disconcerting, when your foot prints start filling with water. Depending on the amount of new snow and its weight sometimes you can sink up to your waste in slush and then bottom out on the ice below. No I have never heard of anyone drowning or dieing from hypothermia in this situation. But one could easily panic and die of a fear induced heart attack.

It just goes to show that when you are experiencing something new, one can only speculate based on past experience and of course, don't panic. Again, a great metaphor!

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memmel on October 30, 2007 - 7:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Nice extension it shows how the situation can appear quite complex. And in your example its not even clear where the ice level is.
But at the end of the day the issue is when is the ice going to break.

Since we are talking about ice you can see that the same concept applies to the melting in the arctic. The models assumed a gradual strain/stress relationship with steady melting. The system in reality had fracture points.

It seems to make more sense to instead assume that the system has stress/strain fracture points then figure out when they would be triggered. For melting ice it makes sense given the currents etc that ice less than a meter thick would fragment so the models should have gone non-linear at that point.

Another example is the melting of the Greenland ice cap. It makes sense to assume once say enough meltwater is available to lift 10% of the cap the system is susceptible to collapse although to my knowledge no model include this mechanical collapse situation even though we have seen it in action.

Looking at oil supply the system its obvious that now that supplies are tight the system is strained and breakdown events become increasingly probable.

And of course any "event" will lead to a lot of other feedback loops getting triggered.

I used to work on something called schocastic resonance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_resonance

Cracking under strain is probably a stochastic resonance condition.
What this means is that strained systems are really undergoing vibrations which drive any resonators in the system. This driven coupling leads to feedback then highly non-linear ( explosive) behavior.

Thus stressed complex systems are full of both vibration modes and oscillators that are driven by the vibrations and subject to feedback.

DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN BALL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Fun_Ball

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totoneila on October 30, 2007 - 6:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hello ChrisN,

IMO, it is easily feasible to have 'induced-black swan events', or what I prefer to call them is 'Societal Liebig Minimums', that will generally not be perceived as such by the general global public, or ignored/denied by most.

Recall my postings on Asimov's Foundation concepts of predictive collapse and directed decline judiciously applied under the doctrine of the porridge principle of metered decline.

Again, IMO, this provides the optimal paradigm shift as we winnow out billions through the Dieoff Bottleneck. Can you think of a better method to jumpstart Peak Outreach and the conversion to the sequential building of biosolar habitats?
Can you think of a better way to roll back the planetary petri dish clock from 11:59.99 to approx. 11:30 or even earlier?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20071029bcmideastgaza1stledewritethru_...
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Conditions worsen in Gaza as Israel tightens grip
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My hope is that the TopTODers can really investigate & expand upon my crude text writings. Just imagine what we could do with a very large supercomputer cluster, plus bleeding edge science & logistics modeling software.

Matt's LATOC has had numerous past articles on military, government, think-tank, and scientific institutional simulation runs on various scenarios. My guess is that this is just the 10% unclassified tip of the iceberg vs. the 90% of the hidden or submerged classified modeling runs. Who knows?

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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ChrisN on October 30, 2007 - 9:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Bob, you're clearly deep into the theory of collapse, and sometimes I struggle just to wade through the concepts. I get your ambition, but somehow I doubt that we're going to get through it by any preconceived methodology or theory or managed process.

Liebig's observation was descriptive, not proscriptive, right? Our planetary petri dish is going to do its thing and there's not a whole lot that can be done about it consciously, IMHO. Substitute "planet Earth" for your "very large supercomputer cluster, plus bleeding edge science & logistics modeling software" and I'm with ya.

Perhaps Douglas Adams was right: We are that supercomputer, all trying to calculate the greatest answer to the greatest question (which turns out to be 42, if memory serves).

--C
Energy consultant, writer, blogger www.getreallist.com

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totoneila on October 31, 2007 - 2:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hello ChrisN,

Thxs for responding. The basic operating mode of Foundation is to let Mother Nature and human nature take its pounds of flesh, but attempt to steer this mode in desired directions by constantly tweaking or ignoring developing trends for optimum effect and control.

For example:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a0WAzQxwAbNg&refer=u...
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Atlanta Urinals, Fountain Run Dry as UPS, Coke Fight Drought
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All these water conservation measures should be expected, and I hope the SE drastically raises potable water prices to promote further water savings combined with Humanure done on a huge municipal scale.

But if things continue to get worse: what is the next step?

Recall my speculative FEMA plan to start relocating SouthEasterners to a rehabilitated Detroit and other areas along the Great Lakes [a tweaking mitigation to reduce possible building blowbacks]. Now I have no idea [need a supercomputer to analyze, or an inside source] if FEMA prefers this possible tweaking, or prefers to 'purposely ignore' the situation, thus accelerating the natural growth of cascading blowbacks. I can't imagine FEMA not being aware of possible SE drought consequences; they have no excuse, no credibility to say the drought 'caught' them unprepared, if the worst comes to pass. Their mission statement clearly requires them to be prepared for such eventualities.

Consider the widely recognized, elevated risk profile of Nawlins and other outlying areas before Katrina: was the situation 'purposely ignored' by the Corps of Eng., and other govt and insurance entities that could have easily forced early abandonment, or the building of heavily reinforced levees, and/or low-level land infill much earlier?

Consider the long, global history of civilizational and ecological Overshoot & Decline, clearly understood by leaders since Malthusian effects were clearly delineated over two hundred years ago: the topdogs, if desired, could have mitigated this long ago by universal outreach [hell, they still could get started today!], but I believe they have other plans. They too have no excuse for plausible deni-ability--thus, that is why I see so much Foundation implementation when I examine the news. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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