Six steps to “getting” the global ecological crisis
Posted by Prof. Goose on November 4, 2007 - 10:05am
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: albert bartlett, carrying capacity, Ecology, extinction, global warming, overpopulation, overshoot, peak energy, peak oil, population, Population growth, sustainability, William Catton [list all tags]
This is a guest post by John Feeney, Ph.D. Trained as a psychologist, John is today an environmental writer and activist in Boulder, Colorado. He began investigating environmental issues while fighting destructive residential development in a small Iowa town where he and his family lived for two years. His research pointed inevitably to the interacting roles played by population growth, the drive for economic growth, and our reliance on fossil energy in fueling the ecological crisis we now face. His website is called Growth Is Madness.
Some of us who examine and discuss environmental matters are constantly puzzled and frustrated by the seeming inability of elected officials, environmental organizations, and environmental and political writers to “get” the nature of our ecological plight. Could it be they’re simply unaware of the ecological principles which enable one to understand it?
Since some undoubtedly are getting it, and in light of the warnings in the UN’s latest report on the state of the global environment, below is a brief list of axioms and observations from population ecology with which everyone should be familiar. Most are taught in introductory level ecology and environmental science classes. They appear sequentially, so the reader can step logically through a progression which should make clear the nub of the global ecological challenge before us...
- A finite earth can support only a limited number of humans. There is therefore a global “carrying capacity” for humans. A basic definition of carrying capacity is “The maximum number of people, or individuals of a particular species, that a given part of the environment can maintain indefinitely.”
- It is an axiom of ecological science that a population which has grown larger than the carrying capacity of its environment (e.g., the global ecosystem) degrades its environment. It uses resources faster than they are regenerated by that environment, and produces waste faster than the environment can absorb it without being degraded. Some definitions of carrying capacity include this element of environmental degradation. Such a population is said to be in “overshoot.”
- Al Bartlett sometimes writes, “A SELF-EVIDENT TRUTH: If any fraction of the observed global warming can be attributed to the activities of humans, then this constitutes positive proof that the human population, living as we do, has exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth.” The same can be said of much of the rest of the extensive and growing human-caused ecological degradation we see today, including the breakdown of the web of life indicated by the ongoing Sixth Extinction. It is symptomatic of having exceeded the earth’s capacity to sustain our current numbers for the long term. It is, in fact, proof that under current conditions we have done so. [1] [2]
- It’s axiomatic, as well, that a population can only temporarily overshoot carrying capacity. It will subsequently decline in number, to return to a level at or below carrying capacity. That is, though a population may grow in size until it is too large for existing resources to sustain it, it must subsequently decline.
- Because it degrades it’s environment, a population in overshoot erodes existing carrying capacity so that fewer members of that species will be supported by that habitat in the future.
- Our extraction of nonrenewable resources such as oil and coal has allowed us temporarily to exceed the earth’s carrying capacity for our species. As these supplies are drawn down, our numbers continue to increase, and ecological degradation progresses, the number of humans will, of necessity, come down. Whether we have a hand in voluntarily and humanely bringing them down, or simply let nature manage the whole thing for us, is up to us.
It seems unlikely anyone could fully comprehend the six steps above, and still deny we face a grave, worldwide ecological crisis. But for some, self gain or political ideology tied closely to self-image might be enough to fuel such denial. For others, I hope this little essay is informative.
For an in-depth analysis of the same and related issues try William Catton’s Overshoot.
_______
[1] Obviously, not all environmental degradation is proof of overshoot. An individual example of ecological damage may have nothing to do with a species having exceeded carrying capacity. Those examples, however, which reflect our society-wide ways of living, such as CO2 emissions, overfishing, and habitat destruction, do offer such proof.
[2] For humans, carrying capacity varies somewhat as a function of how we live. Yet no matter how we live, we cannot eliminate carrying capacity constraints. It seems unlikely, for instance, that even a hypothetical complete switch to renewable energy, as essential as it ultimately is, would, in itself, drop humanity back to within the limits of carrying capacity. In a time when groundwater depletion, habitat destruction, and the depletion of other non-energy resources constitute a large portion of our ecological challenge, we would likely remain in overshoot due to our sheer numbers.
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thanks for your support...
PG,
Money always seeks the highest return. Oil is the densest form of energy. It is thus more profitable to invest in new killing technologies to fight over the oil than anything else.
Those with the most money control the newspapers, the university endowments, who gets elected, etc.
It's pretty simple why people don't get it. If your university, for instance, starting telling the truth, the money from the drug lords and weapons makers would dry up.
But Matt,
WE get it.
The information is out there (or in here, as it were.)
So why don't intelligent, otherwise informed, well-meaning people do a modicom research and figure it out?
It contually puzzles/frutrates me.
Confederate,
One needs to be aware of the term "peak oil" before one can look it up. The same applies to other problems.
Tim Morrison
You can't choose what's not on the menu.
True Tim,
But everyone on this site has figured this out.
Somehow we made the leap.
However in my personal life I know not one soul aware/interested in any of this.
I find the complacency incredulous.
I greatly appreciate these articles/discussions.
I have mentioned PO to some very intelligent people, but they instantly have reservations about its importance. I think people need to either be very curious about the subject and spend time studying it, or else have a reasonable amount of foundational knowledge to "get it" - to make the leap that you mention. I also think people are afraid of being duped or caught up in unfounded concerns, conspiracy theories, doom-and-gloom cults or whatever. Others perhaps just can't be arsed looking into it deeply.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Exactly.
Even experts do not of necessity have "foundational" knowledge.
You have to be an obsessive compulsive type to sweat the details. Not everyone does.
I'm not OCD by a long shot, but I do sweat details where they matter to me. And one of those details is that carrying capacity is not a fixed quantity. It can go down, and it can also go up.
This has been established already. Consider the Amazon societies which created terra preta. This amendment turned easily-leached tropical soils which rapidly become sterile after a few cycles of annual cropping into nutrient-holding soils which remain fertile year after year. These greatly increased the carrying capacity of those lands.
Could we do the same, in that way and others? It seems likely. We have the benefit of broad historical knowledge, depth of scientific analysis and technological expertise to do many things. We can already build zero-energy homes which slash the non-food footprint of a family to a fraction of an acre. The question is less "can we?" than "will we?"
I don't think there is a clear line of separation between "can we" and "will we".
If we did not have the evolution-limited brains we do have, then "we can" do many great things: end hunger, end injustice, end wars, bring on utopia and the singularity, etc., etc.
But the fact is, as Donald Rumsfeld might say in one of his snowflakes:
You come into this world with the brain you do have rather than the brain you would prefer to have.
It is that brain and its many severe limitations that blur the line between "can we?" and "will we?".
The Rapture as it is known by 10,512 different names will not happen to save your butt.
We are going to have the die off, enough said.
Prepare for the living. That is what I do, if you are willing to be helped then I am willing to help you.
Seek, Knock, Ask, are all proactive actions.
Read my works, I have them published.
The Bible is a mirror site.
Laughs My Ass Off.
Charles.
God Grant you peace.
God Grant you Love of your fellow man.
God Grant you Faith and Trust.
Write in Candidate for President 2008.
Free Right Now party. No donations.
Term limits for congress, Min wage for them too
Charles Edward Owens Jr.
“In a way, the world-view of the party imposed itself most successfully on the people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just like a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."
~George Orwell, 1984
"In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.
One clear illustration of this is the fact that war hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in the social scale. Those whose attitude towards the war is most nearly rational are the subject peoples of the disputed territories. To these people the war is simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and fro over their bodies like a tidal wave. Which side is winning is a matter of complete indifference to them. They are aware that a change of overlordship means simply that they will be doing the same work as before for new masters who treat them in the same manner as the old ones. The slightly more favoured workers whom we call 'the proles' are only intermittently conscious of the war. When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening. It is in the ranks of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, that the true war enthusiasm is found. World-conquest is believed in most firmly by those who know it to be impossible. This peculiar linking-together of opposites -- knowledge with ignorance, cynicism with fanaticism -- is one of the chief distinguishing marks of society.
If human equality is to be for ever averted -- if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently -- then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity."
~George Orwell
In the book Bury Me Standing, about the Gypsies, it's observed that the Gypsies didn't seem to notice that WWII was anything remarkable, maybe they were treated a little worse than usually, but not so much worse that it made a great impression on their memory.
Nineteen Eighty Four is one of my favourite books. However, I seem to need to read it less and less nowadays. I can just observe society. Interesting that your prudent observation comes from a book within a book, so to speak. Nevertheless, Winston Smith managed to get a copy, so should we all.
Perhaps the author could draw another Orwellian analogy between energy depletion, economic adversity and environmental degradation - supporting the idea of collapse like "three sheaves of corn".
My theory is that "1984" happened in 1974 and after that, none of it horrified us anymore.
confederate,
is any of "us" among the people who run the show? Among those who enjoy privileges, have lots of money, appear on TV? Among those who admire such people and would like to have similar lives? Or even among those whose creature comforts do not exceed a McMansion, a large SUV and a job as a Regional Sales Director for a blow-dryer company? For these people, "informed" and "well-meaning" as they otherwise might be, "the information" means their whole living arrangements are pretty much worthless. Why should they even want to listen to it? It probably scares the sh** out of them somewhere on the lower floors of their mind, but we've all heard of Freudian repression.
People revise their world-views in a dramatic way when they have a religious conversion or the like, but where is the church that teaches the Gospel of Overshoot?
Berend Ohm,
..."church that teaches gospel of overshoot?" Ha! very good.
Well T. Boone Pickens is wealthy and influential, and Matt Simmons, Richard Rainwater, Roscoe Bartlett, Simon Rich... I've been known to host a Senator or two at my coastal home.
So I'm not so certain its cuz the wealthy and influential aren't talking.
But I apreciate your response and will think on it.
"The information is out there (or in here, as it were.)
So why don't intelligent, otherwise informed, well-meaning people do a modicom research and figure it out?"
Confederate, if I may...
I work with a lot of fairly well educated folks (many with advanced degrees in the sciences, PhD's, MD's) and I am struck by something one of my colleagues once said to me. This woman, a physician whom I had known for a number of years, who is articulate and intelligent and a good doctor, was surprisingly ignorant of these very profound, serious issues such as have been discussed here on the board. In her mind, she worked hard taking care of patients in the local medical-industrial complex (ie academic teaching hospital/university medical center) and at the end of the day, she didn't really want to think about "all those things" but rather just go home and watch TV or go on skiing trips or engage in other similar diversions. They just don't want to hear about it.
SubKommander Dred
Sub D
"They just don't want to hear about it"
Amen to that
(&, I should have written "modicom OF research")
There is a reasonable hypothesis from evolutionary psychology - that the group will believe the myth espoused by the leadership in the face of evidence, because group solidarity was of survival value to the tribe.
As an extension from this, the group will go into denial for as long as it can in the face of extreme threat. This is because maintaining group solidarity is usually of survival value for more everyday threats but extreme threats that are likely to wipe out the tribe are rare and behavioural patterns to cope with them have not evolved and are not instinctual - as distinct from fear of strangers, foreigners and plagues, for which group dynamics are easily mobilised.
Hence to declare a "War" on terrorists and run off to steal other people's oil is easier than saying - the world as we know it is about to change drastically.
Group solidarity is also of extreme survival value to the individual.
You basically have to be a sociopath to begin a discussion about rocking the boat.
Ah, evolutionary psychology. Always full of reasonable hypotheses - but also notoriously poor in evidence.
Strictly anecdotally, my cousin on my fathers side, who is a psychologist, was rather anti-evolutionary-psychology, until she met me at age 30, at which point she re-evaluated her position pretty rapidly - which I think was a bit embarrassing for her with her colleague-friends.
I hadn't had anything to do with anyone on my fathers side, including my father, since I was 2 yrs old see, and yet in my approach, my debate, the things I moaned about, she saw my father.
Strictly anecdotally of course. If you want method based evidence, there's plenty of twin studies etc to be found now, I gather the evidence base has changed somewhat in recent years.
--
Jaymax (cornucomer-doomopian)
The hypothesis you brought up, that "The group will believe the myth espoused by the leadership in the face of evidence, because group solidarity was of survival value to the tribe", is a typical just-so story with very little (if any) testability. EP can probably be useful if done properly, but this is closer to crank etymology.
In my understanding of the evolution of the human species, the "leadership" you talk about is a prominent feature only of large civilizations. Smaller tribal cultures, where humans have spent the majority of their evolutionary existence, did not have the same kind of "leaders" that we do today.
Mythology on the tribal level could not be handed down from up on high, because there was no one in a small group that could maintain the position of being up on high against the will of the entire group. The beliefs and understandings would be arrived at by the group as a whole, in order to maintain group cohesion and survivability.
Dissidents would have been a threat to that leadership, but those dissidents were also necessary to the survival of the group in other ways in terms of skills and knowedge, so dissidents must be dealt with in such a way that maintains the cohesion of the group. Which would mean that even dissidents played a part in shaping group mythology.
I think people go into denial when facing a threat because the threat is a challenge not just to one idea or belief, but a threat to a whole system of ideas and beliefs upon which a way of life is founded, and a threat to emotional experiences attached to those beliefs.
The first "leaders" you experience in your life are called your "parents".
You have no free will. You are born to whom you are born to.
They pass down their mythologies to you.
They train you in what information you should be receptive to and what you should filter out.
"Denial" is kind of a broad carpet for sweeping under it all sorts of fine details about how people's brains operate, what they are "receptive" to, what they are not.
The tyranny of parenting, if any tyranny actually existed, in tribal society was temporary.
If the mythologies passed down to you didn't work in your world, you could challenge them.
How many mythologies can we count in our world that do not work from our own experience that we have no ability to challenge? Under the umbrellas of infinite growth and salvationist religions, there are plenty of ideas regarding our world that are just plain wrong, that most of us were raised with, that we here have abandoned ... but we haven't challenged the system to change the mythology, we have left the system and are beginning to adopt new ideas and complex understandings.
I know I don't have free will, and neither do you. But I do have complex self-awareness and self-organization. As do we all.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2637635365191428174
A good video for those who think they exist in this society on their own terms...
==AC
Thanks. I have seen all these ideas, piecemeal. This provided a nice historical perspective. It is difficult to grasp that so much has passed so quickly and violently.
I believe Cap & Trade is the solution to the big problem.
Using the Gangsta' defination of Cap.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cap
Hey Matt, did you see that LATOC made the Blackwater Newsletter? Disaster capitalism on the march!!
I cannot believe how often seemingly highly knowledgeable people make statements like this.
Energy Density from Wikipedia in Mega Joules / Liter
U235: 1,500,000,000
Gasoline: 34.6
You do not like nuclear so you pretend it does not exist?
I believe in Peak Oil. I also believe that nuclear energy is an answer. One of the reasons why public opinion dismisses Peak Oil as nonsense is because so many of Peak Oil's advocates reject obvious solutions like nuclear energy.
Why believe in the message if the messenger is an idiot or a fanatic?
I sometimes think that myself. We may only lack the will to overcome this adversity.
"We may only lack the will to overcome this adversity."
It's tough. The basic facts supporting Peak Oil speak for themselves. However once you buy into the facts, you find yourself grouped with some remarkably idiotic people.
There is this issue of "guilt by association".
If most of the people around me are idiots then this implies that I am also an idiot. Assuming I am an idiot, is my initial judgment about Peak Oil correct?
I do not think it is most of the people. Whenever you say anything positive about nuclear, there are several people who try to shout you down with insults (not having the facts with them). But I think most of the people here have already gained great insights into the problem. It's just harder when we turn to solutions. Many people just sink into this hopeless doomerism. And there are a lot of these environmental and growth orthodoxies that people have trouble subjecting to critical analysis.
Which goes a long way to explain my drift from cornucopian towards a more doomer outlook. It's not that there arn't a bunch of technical solutions that collectively would offset a 4% annual decline in oil, it's not that humans arn't sufficiently ingenious to come up with solutions.
We, collectively, can't save our collective souls, not because we can't but because we won't - so therefore we can't. Is there any real difference, between "can't do" and a "won't do" that can't be changed?
However, I think it's utterly unfair to talk about sink into hopeless doomerism. Because, while I used to share exactly that perspective, with an element of doomerism has come a really strong sense of empowerment, a realisation that there ARE things *I* can do, changes *I* can effect - and I find I am actually much more hopeful now than I was before - just expecting society to choose a different path. I also believe I'm being more realistic, but then everyone says that of themselves, so I'm not sure it means much.
--
Jaymax (cornucomer-doomopian)
Well then I guess then that yours is not hopeless. But then I am also not sure why you call yourself a doomer. Where is the doom in that?
Because I believe that things are about to get very very nasty. A lot of things about our lifestyle, and probably a lot of people are doomed. That doesn't give me joy, and my hope is very much of the end-of-tunnel variety.
Society is incapable of solving what we face - much is doomed ==> I'm a doomer.
Human technological progress will ultimately come up with solutions ==> I'm a cornucopian.
Just don't ask me to punt at how bad things will get, how many people will die, or how long the turn-around will take... A decade? A century? Longer?
That might not sound 'hopeful' - I can't really explain why it is so - except that if it wasn't for the insights and preparations of hopeful doomers, we'd be solely dependent on the high-stakes and probably unrealizable dreams of the cornucopians.
--
Jaymax (cornucomer-doomopian)
Interesting. I sort of agree with you. It could really get nasty but I am not sure that is necessarily has to if we can mobilize society the way I imagine we can. I have posted a number of times of a Word War II level process that devotes some large portion of national income to mitigating the problem over 20 years or so. In 1944 the US spent 38% of national income on the war effort. So 10% for 20 years would be about $30 trillion for the US alone.
Will that happen and will that happen in time? Who knows? A lot depends on how long we stay in denial and whether we have the will to survive.
On the other hand, it is good to know that there are energy options in abundant supply so that if we do summon the will there is a way out. That's not to say I think it could be easy or painless.
Sterling said:
I agree with Sterling's comment. It's difficult to get people to not simply bark back pre-canned orthodox responses. Particularly if people are pursuing hidden agendas. Peak Oil demands a meaningful response. Laying on the floor with a paper bag over one's head, moaning about impending doom is not a meaningful response.
I think nuclear energy coupled with coal based synthetic petroleum is a meaningful short term response to Peak Oil. Eventually biotech will have to replace anything that is coal based since coal is close to peaking. What concerns me is this approach probably requires 10-20 years to ramp up to full production. We should have been converting over to nuclear energy and synthetic petroleum when President Carter first proposed it. Now the economic pain will be much greater and we'll have to fight some unnecessary wars in the Middle East that we could have avoided.
I also believe that nuclear energy is an answer.
How do you think all that oil got there? Via the power of fusion and a few years of putting it under the dirt.
I'll remind you again: U235 does not exist in nature, except as 1% of Uranium, which itself occurs in nature chemically bound in oxides which are a tiny percentage of the source rock.
Excavating the ore, breaking the chemical bonds, concentrating the U-235 to ~3% so it's "fuel," converting the radiation to steam heat, driving turbines with the steam heat, and distributing the electricity on a grid, all lose enormous amounts of energy.
Natural petroleum contains 10-30% pure gasoline. All you gotta do is heat it up, and the gasoline distills out.
Yes but since U-235 has 43,000,000 times the energy density of gasoline by volume, it is still possible to build nuclear power plants that operate with EROEI of 93 considering their entire lifecycle. See Energy Lifecycle of Nuclear Power (about half way down).
It also appears that the world has an essentially unlimited supply of fission fuel. So nuclear should be central in our consideration of how to replace oil.
Uranium is also peaking.
The idea that creating power plants with 93 EROEI is specious at best, dangerous at worst.
We will not see a "solution" in nuclear fission or fusion, unless you want to call it the "final" solution.
Why can't some people come to grips with the idea of an interconnected world. All the fusion and fission in the world cannot replace soil, fresh water, or the fish in the sea.
More cheap energy means more people fighting over dwindling resources that cannot be replaced by cheap energy.
The techno-fantasy means death, planetary degradation, a dwindling standard of living, and ultimately the end of humanity.
Give up your childish desires and dreams. Give up your toys. Be an adult. Be a part of the planet, not apart from the planet.
http://www.populistamerica.com/stop_calling_me_a_doomer
Wrong.
http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/uranium.html
Current estimates of “economically recoverable” reserves apply an upper price/cost limit of $135/kg for uranium ore. This price cutoff does not sufficiently appreciate the lack of effect that ore cost has on power cost. It corresponds to a power price increase of only ~0.25 cents/kW-hr, versus today’s $40/kg ore price. Uranium sources that cost up to $500, and perhaps even ~$1000/kg (which would increase nuclear power’s cost by 1-2 cents/kW-hr) can still be economic, especially in a CO2-emission-constrained world, and/or a world where gas and oil have started to run out. Even at $1000/kg, advanced nuclear plants should be able to produce power at ~6 cents/kW-hr or less. The cost of power from post-production-peak gas or oil plants, or from coal plants with full CO2 sequestration, is likely to be higher than this. Finally, it should be noted that (as discussed later), at a uranium price of $500-1000/kg, breeder reactors become economical, and the uranium supply effectively becomes infinite.
That's before there were any automobiles. I calculated in a post a few weeks ago that potential Uranium bearing volumes of the Earth's crust have received about 1/120,000 the intensity of exploration that have potential oil bearing volumes of the crust. What does this suggest about how much of the resource we should have identified by this point? Those phoney analyses that the anti nukes use all the time suggest that only about 65% of all the Uranium in the accessible crust has not been identified. Is that plausible? Of course not. With the amount of exploration that has been done, it is impossible the we have identifed even a small fraction of 1% of the Uranium the exists in the top three kilometers of the entire land surface of the world. We have to use the general distribution of different rocks and their average Uranium content as cited in my link down thread to get any idea how much resource is out there.
Geology of Uranium Deposits
http://www.uic.com.au/nip34.htm
Richard Wakefield
London, Ont.
No one is ahead of their time, just the rest of humanity is slow to catch on.
Can you do better than quoting an obviously biased source? Pretending that the URL didn't make the website's bias obvious, their header picture is a collage of the American flag, a bald eagle, and the statue of liberty. That kind of intended appeal to patriots (in the worst sense of the word) has to make one's spider-senses tingle.
Not that I'm saying you are wrong, but that website won't help your case. At least, not here.
What kind of bias is on display there that suggests that we cannot believe the argument? If a site was obviously an environmental site, would you say the same thing? That site seems right wing and in favor of resource development. So what? The question is does he make a credible argument. Are we going to have political tests for who can post here?
The anti nukes use obviously biased sources, like the notorious Storm and Smith report, all the time.
Rich. From one of the most consistently foolish people to post on this site.
It's also carefully documented and peer reviewed. It must be horrifying to read ideas that suggest we might escape the demise that you so eagerly await.
There are one trillion tons of recoverable Uranium, enough for 5,000,000,000 reactor years, plus three times as much Thorium, plus another factor of 50 times as we move to other fuel cycles. Uranium Distribution
It is certainly false to say that an intentionally misleading website has been peer reviewed.
Chris
Well, they claim it has. I cannot find evidence on the site that they do not believe everything that they put out there or that any of it is not true. I am sure there are some mistakes because there is a great deal of material there.
You can lead a man to knowledge, but you can't make him think.
Linear thinking got us into this mess, and linear thinking will lead us straight off the cliff into oblivion. Linear thinking like "Market forces and technology will create a bridge, get us jet-packs, build a huge pillow at the bottom of the chasm, provide us with new bodies immune to damage and pain, or rearrange the laws of gravity."
Because of receding horizons the price point for breeder reactors, and the price point for mining lower percentage uranium deposits, will never be economical. This is not doom, this is reality.
" ... effectively become infinite ... " The only way out of our energy problems is powering the world on human ignorance and stupidity, the only truly infinite sources of energy.
You're assuming that steel mills and uranium mines can't run on electricity. This is almost certainly wrong; "mini-mills" have been using arc furnaces for years, and a great deal of mining equipment used in the coal industry (both below and above ground) is electric, including bucket wheel excavators and draglines. If the system can supply all the energy required for its supply chain, the cost-escalation collapse model isn't valid.
I agree, E-P, but the problem is not one of "can we" but one of "will we". And in that I don't have much faith yet.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone
No, the problem is one of "can we:
* given the petroleum-dependent global infrastructure we have in place
* in the time frame available
* with the current prevailing public level of understanding and awareness of energy and resource issues
* considering all the other things that humans need for survival that come from the energy we want to use to accomplish (insert plan requiring Manhattan Project effort here)"
Will the pesticide required be available to grow the food that the electrical engineers require to design and build more electric smelters?
Will the asphalt be available to pave the roads to truck the mining byproducts away?
Will the plastic anything-and-everythings be available to research and manufacture petrochemical antibiotics to combat escalating worldwide infectious disease, prevention of which is necessary to ensure a stable society capable of solving technical problems?
Will the increased resource and effort allocation take away from more critical systems, human, production, or ecological, elsewhere on an already strained planet?
Can we ensure all of this by 2010 at the latest, assuming oil didn't already peak two years ago?
Will there be broad acceptance of massive social and industrial dislocations necessary to accomplish any short timeframe initiatives?
So ... can we? No.
Prepare for the alternative.
Can't make him think, or can't make him think for himself?
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Or can't make him see things your way if you do not have a strong case.
Profit of doom!!!! my God the name change.
Animals have insect sex, incest sex and bee sex all the time.
Humans forbid, incest, insect and bee sex all the time.
I am christ like.
Give it up you loose.
er louse, live lice, mice, rice in the lice.
Lose, the second rapture is the bigger ones.
I am the devil in my lies.
Thighs lies, delta trailed in the back seat the lies of the ront front. the guys and the boys do not procreate. gays inthe military should we allow.
not my problem.
I have slept, I hame came, I am.
The Great I AM. Aim, to please. Not MIA.
God Grant you peace.
God Grant you Love of your fellow man.
God Grant you Faith and Trust.
Write in Candidate for President 2008.
Free Right Now party. No donations.
Term limits for congress, Min wage for them too
Charles Edward Owens Jr.
Great post!
Facing the realities of Peak Oil will move people, government, and organizations, toward conservation, risk management planning, and agricultural solutions etc.
I really doubt that anyone (perhaps, with the exception of the doomers) or any organization is going to be moved to do anything until peak oil comes up and bites them on the ass. Further, and I agree with Chimp here, nothing noteworthy is going to happen until those with the bucks decide it's time to do something. My guess it will parallel the Shock Doctrine rather than all the warm-fuzzy stuff. And, I'm going with the SD in lieu of an out and out fascist state.
Todd
Penetrating denial will require persistent education integrating new data with prior knowledge. As the data piles up, more will understand. The more we are able to show the data in graphic forms, along with visual images (photos and videos of change in habitat, migration patterns of animals, species extinctions), the more change we will see. On, PBS, I saw a piece in which scientists accompanied evangelical Christians on a tour of Alaska, so that all could see the drastic changes that were affecting peoples who hunt and fish for food. Dramatic changes in attitudes accompany full-face exposure to climate change. Those individuals have become advocates for change within their religious communities. In addition, the documentary itself is very powerful. I'm not sure how we do this with peak oil issues, but as data accumulates (IE inability of peoples who used to buy petroleum to do so, documentation of drastic changes in their lives). My point is that very few people will lose their denial by data presentations alone. Along with the data, deniers need to see the impacts on real people.
"It's a Recession if your neighbor loses his job; it's a Depression if you lose yours". - some genius
Ad agencies have long known that people relate best by far to "personal" examples. This has given us the Maytag repairman, all those personal stories selling things, etc.
This is also why Orwell chose to explain the kind of society we're in by having us live alongside Winston Smith in "1984" or as an animal among animals in "Animal Farm" rather than just writing up dry tomes.
Peak Oil and the utter bogusness of the constant-growth system are obvious to us. It's up to us to make them obvious to the masses by giving them personal examples and stories about the new reality.
Untill the number of 'worry worts' becomes > the number of 'lazy sosers' nothing will be done to prevent a contituation of overshoot.
In addition, it is not the sheeple that need to be convinced that action should be taken, but the shearers.
People mouth a lot of platitudes about 'the future of our children', but in general, I dont think most people really care about what sort of future their children face...Based on my general observations of the actions taken by people during my lifetime and by reading quite a lot of history.
People are basically followers because that is the path of least resistance and does not cause them to stand out from the group...from which they do not want to run the risk of being excluded.
The majority of people are lazy and would rather do something that gives them pleasure than do something that does not...So they will continue to enjoy themselves, as best they can, untill tshtf.
Once the shearers are convinced that impending disaster looms in their near term futurers they will take mediating courses of action to cover their posteriors, probably disguised in lies, to insure their well being...The sheep will be on their own except those that are needed to tend to the needs of the shearers.
All talk of 'educating the masses' in order to make them see the impending overshoot disaster is just a lot of hot air. The masses do not want to hear it...So, they will not.
Imho the global carrying capacity for humans on earth is impossible to fix. So the theory around that issue is good (Catton, "overshoot" is a best book) but the devil is in the details..
Does it allow for humans driving a Suv, living in a mansion, with pool and mex maid, and bringing Junior to Karate lessons?
Or living in a hut without heat or hot water and just 1.5k calories a day pp, scraped off a small holding?
Or being a slave worker in factory making bras, position embedded into a complex mesh of global trade, with 3 sparse meals pday, and a bed in a dorm?
Or living in a society where *some* survive after 5 years go on to 20, 25, and then die?
Or being groomed and fed to grow up to fight, kill enemies?
Or living in a society (that is pp day use of energy) that maintains a huge guzzling army, tremendous war like structures and matériel?
Overshoot - sure. But measured how?
A better approach is suggested in the article.
Rather than worry about what population at what living standard, worry about population x living standard.
This makes it much simpler to measure and act.
It is easier to measure because you need only consider ecological consequences. Specifically, instances of global environmental degradation (rising CO2 in air, oceans; depleting global fish stocks; anomalous rates of extinction) constitute evidence of overshoot.
It is easier to act because you are not tied in to reducing either living standards or population. Rather, a balance can be struck depending upon the ethical considerations you would like to apply.
The requirement is clear, however. Population multiplied by consumption must be reduced until increases in global environmental degradation reverse. In the end, this is what will happen.
It's clear that we're in a major ecological crisis, with wholesale extinctions, and climate change, and facing some serious resource issues.
But...we'll continue to get resistance as long as we frame it in this unrealistic "overshoot" framework.
Our population won't change quickly, without deeply unethical measures. The most effective and ethical measures, such as women's liberation, we should pursue in any case.
It's possible (if very difficult) to reduce our impact on the earth to something sustainable, and that's where our efforts should go.
Yes, the overshoot framework is a limiting case that requires too many variables in the case of humans to evaluate. It far more complex than Peak Oil itself. Too much certainty...
I think it is a mistake to see the "overshoot framework" as a narrow effort to argue for population reduction.
Rather, it is an effort to bring in to focus the interplay between population and consumption.
People generally find the idea of human population control abhorent, and that's great. That's exactly the point when it needs to be said that it's either that or lower consumption.
It is very hard to inspire the majority to lower consumption voluntarily, but if it is to be achieved, then maybe something so powerful as this idea, that it really is an either/or proposition regarding population and consumption, that may provide the motivation.
Dot,
I agree with this and another of your comments above. But I do want to note that I think it's more "both" than "either/or." As I hinted in the essay, I have strong doubts that we can reduce consumption of such things as land, water, minerals, etc. enough in the context of 7 billion people and growing, to get us back to within the limits of carrying capacity.
The problem of species extinction is one of the key items which keeps bringing me back to this concern. It's hard to imaging that the growth of our numbers, from the millions during almost all of human history, shooting into the billions in just the last tiny fraction of a percent of that history, can go on without being at the expense of other species. And we depend on them in the web of life.
But if we focus intently on both consumption and population for an extended time, then barring collapse taking care of it for us first (which I certainly don't rule out), we might get there.
John
http://growthmadness.org/
"But...we'll continue to get resistance as long as we frame it in this unrealistic "overshoot" framework."
But Nick, it's realistic in the sense, at least, that people need to understand it. (I realize TOD readers mostly already do.) That was the main thrust of the essay -- to push for more understanding of what's going on ecologically. Admittedly, this particular essay does emphasize the population side a bit (versus consumption).
"Our population won't change quickly, without deeply unethical measures. The most effective and ethical measures, such as women's liberation, we should pursue in any case."
Probably population won't change quickly without draconian measures. I'm not positive of that; there are some who think it could be done:
http://www.skil.org/position_papers_folder/aintlikeitusetobe4.html
(Not sure that's the best representation of his ideas. I haven't yet thoroughly explored his site.)
And there are instances such as Iran, where surprisingly fast drops in fertility rates were achieve, apparently through humane measures.
But assuming you're right on that, I still see no reason not to focus on both population and consumption.
Yes, we should be focusing on things like empowering women anyway. But we're not. Not nearly enough anyway. People need to know there's another hugely important reason to focus on such things. The more we can slow population growth, ultimately reversing it, if possible, the better. It will help in the short term, and even more in the long term. It works hand in hand with technological and other approaches to reducing consumption
Programs aimed at reducing fertility rates are also very cheap in the scheme of things.
John
http://growthmadness.org/
"Probably population won't change quickly without draconian measures....I still see no reason not to focus on both population and consumption."
In theory, I agree. Everything would be easier with fewer people. And, as long as you present population issues positively as preventing unwanted children, and improving women's education, etc, it will help.
"Somewhere in the country, every 30 seconds, a woman gives birth to an unwanted child, and we have to find her and stop her!"
But, the majority of the world is already at or near replacement fertility. This battle is already mostly over, and to reduce fertility dramatically would indeed require draconian measures, which would be an enormously unproductive use of time and energy, and probably counter-productive.
If we were to reduce fertility by even a dramatic 50%, would that reduce population more than 10% in 20 years? We need to reduce CO2, for instance, by 80% by then. That's doable (just barely, with an enormous effort), and would have much more impact (well, 8x as much).
I also find that the analogy with animal populations misleads a lot of people. The dramatic reduction in fertility due to the Demographic Transition has absolutely nothing in common with the kind of thing animal populations suffer when they run out of food in a population overshoot.
I would concentrate on educating people on the various converging sustainability problems, and their solutions.
"This battle is already mostly over"
I don't think so. Adding a projected 40% more to the global population is pretty huge. If we could make it even just 30% more by mid century, then enable a reduction thereafter, it would eventually pay off tremendously.
"If we were to reduce fertility by even a dramatic 50%, would that reduce population more than 10% in 20 years? We need to reduce CO2, for instance, by 80% by then. That's doable (just barely, with an enormous effort), and would have much more impact (well, 8x as much)."
Again, though, there's no reason to think of it as either/or, especially when influencing population is, by most expert accounts, much cheaper. And if we don't do so (humanely) beginning now, then we've just lost that much time down the road. To have a very large impact on later population size we need to begin as soon as possible. Most likely, we'll later be sorry if we don't.
We might think of it this way: If it cost absolutely nothing to bring down fertility rates, even just modestly, wouldn't it be worth pursuing? Well, compared to new technological development, I think it's safe to say it costs next to nothing.
It would seem highly risky not to shoot ultimately for something much smaller than 9 billion. Yet people resist the idea as though it would hurt something to do so. I don't see that.
"The dramatic reduction in fertility due to the Demographic Transition has absolutely nothing in common with the kind of thing animal populations suffer when they run out of food in a population overshoot."
Yet it's misleading to give the impression that we are exempt from the principles which govern other species. I mean, I'm not sure we can prove it either way, but it seems mighty dangerous to assume we're exempt. Which way would you bet on it?
It's worth noting, too, that the areas of the world experiencing the greatest population growth (India, Africa, part of the Middle East) are among those most vulnerable to its impacts. One could make a case for helping them (and many such countries are concerned about their population growth rates) lower fertility rates purely as a humanitarian action.
John
http://growthmadness.org/
"Again, though, there's no reason to think of it as either/or, especially when influencing population is, by most expert accounts, much cheaper."
Absolutely - let me be clear, I agree. My point, though, is that your presentation suggests that population and per-capita foot print are equally important. Clearly, if we're talking about a 10% reduction in roughly 50 years, population is much, much less important than per-capita impact.
Again, I agree that population planning is very valuable, especially for poor countries and poor families. China, for instance, has helped itself enormously. For poor families, access to family planning can make the difference between grinding poverty, and a much better life.
But, in the context of 1st world discussions about sustainability, I think a population over-shoot model can be very misleading: there seem to be a substantial group of posters in The Oil Drum who think that population growth is the key lever for improving our future, or that the world is in relentless exponential population growth, which will lead to Inevitable Doom (for instance, another poster asked if humans have the ability to change their fate, unlike animals, as if that hasn't already been proven by the Demographic Transition).
It seems clear to me that humans have the ability to reduce their per-capita ecological impact to a sustainable level, though I'm not optimistic that we will actually do so in a way that will prevent enormous 3rd world suffering.
Further, given just a little time such a transition can be very painless and cheap. For one important example, plug-in hybrids can reduce oil consumption by 75-100% at no additional cost, given an extended switch-over (15 years, or so). For another, wind is now cheaper than natural gas for electrical generation, and both wind & solar are dropping in cost quite quickly: it doesn't take much effort to include external costs (pollution, war, etc) to see that they are the cheapest alternatives already.
"My point, though, is that your presentation suggests that population and per-capita foot print are equally important. Clearly, if we're talking about a 10% reduction in roughly 50 years, population is much, much less important than per-capita impact."
I'm not sure we really disagree. I'm mainly thinking long term. Ultimately, it seems we'll need to go well beyond what we can do in the next 50 years. Seems we should get started now for those living a couple of centuries from now. So long term I think population does seem roughly as important as per capita consumption. In the meantime, we might save quite a few lives with even modest reductions in the near term. Plus, we really don't know how much we can do re population. We've so far invested so little in it.
John
http://growthmadness.org/
We have nothing to say about population long term. In a few centuries, serious demographic projections suggest population decline. This is owing to development which appears to reduce fertility. What people think about population then will be entirely up to them. What we can do for them is to figure out ways to live sustainably now with the projections as they are, anticipating 9 or 11 billion people. If we can manage that, then they will have pleasant options.
There are many development efforts going on now. Often they are countered by corruption such as the way Shell has behaved in Nigeria. We have amazing opportunities to help people jump past fossil fuels. I recall a company conference call where a Nigerian came on asking about opportunities to bring solar power to his country. Those will be there, first through partnerships with development NGOs and later as we remove systems from roofs here. But, we really need to get our own transition rolling to have the capacity to help in this way. There are many peices to this puzzle. You might want to read up a little on what the UN has been doing on sustainable development.
Chris
"We have nothing to say about population long term."
By your logic we have nothing to say about sustainability long term.
You mention the UN. I would counter that you might want to read up on what they're saying about population. These folks too:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/315/5818/1501?maxtoshow
http://www.appg-popdevrh.org.uk/Publications/Population%20Hearings/Heari...
John
http://growthmadness.org/
You are correct that we cannot bind future generations to living sustainably. We can only do so ourselves to allow them the choice. And, by choosing to do so, we also provide a record of how we have done it which may also make future choices easier.
I found a fairly glaring error in the Science Perspective:
Prevented pregnancies are not prevented transmissions, they are just prevented pregnancies. To have a prevented transmision, you would have to have a person born without AIDS. A bit of sloppy thinking there.
Otherwise, focus on women's empowerment seems to be the key thing.
Chris
"You are correct that we cannot bind future generations to living sustainably."
Using the word "bind" is deceptive. We can take actions now which improve their chances of living sustainably.
"Otherwise, focus on women's empowerment seems to be the key thing."
Yes. it's definitely thought to be one key to bringing down fertility rates.
John
http://growthmadness.org/
I thought we were in agreement that we are powerless to control the decisions of those living several hundred years from now.
We are surely in agreement that we may, by our actions, provide them with atractive choices.
Feminism is one of the Green Party's key values. You might be interested in some of the positions in the party's platform. This press release that we worked on this weekend may also interest you.
Now, lets back up say 15 years when the effects of warming first became a little noticable, not just a temperature trend, but impacts. Let's say that everywhere in the world, at that point, births were the same as deaths and on to the present. Would things be much different? I would say that the market forces at play would have led to about the same increase in emissions over the same time period. In other words, we cannot attribute warming to the places where population is growing the most quickly. Warming is owing to those who use the most fossil fuels, not those with the highest birth rates. So, warming is a consumption problem not a numbers problem. It has the potential to become much worse if consumption patterns shift into the large numbers, as is happening, but this really represents a failure to go back and negotiate further in Kyoto when the Senate indicated it would not ratify. The changing consumption patterns over the last 15 years might have been different.
So, it is very very difficult to blame warming on numbers.
Chris
Chris, I'm not saying anything complicated - only that our decisions today, including taking action to lower fertility rates, can improve the chances of sustainability for those in the future.
FWIW, I think the Green party platform should include more discussion of the link between women's issues and population, and more frank discussion of the need to address population growth as resulting partially from women's oppression and other factors, and as a cause of ecological degradation.
Issues such as child survival, economic issues, and others are also related to population. The Quinn/Hopfenberg/Pimentel food linkage has not been adequately explored. But there's no reason no to - and good reason to - explicitly acknowledge the links between these things in making the case for better addressing them.
"So, warming is a consumption problem not a numbers problem."
No. That consumption is itself the product of population times per capita consumption. True, the US, for instance, consumes much more per capita. And the US population grew about 19% in the last 15 years. So that growth multiplied by an exceptionally large per capita consumption added quite a lot to emissions. Add to that the growth of populations in places with booming economies (~fast growing per capita consumption) such as China and India, and population looms even larger.
If we go back farther in time, it looms especially large, owing to all the (pop x consumption) growth of the US, Europe, etc.
John Holdren, last years president of the AAAS, published a paper in the early '90s in which he compared the contributions of per capita consumption and population growth to total energy consumption in the US and worldwide. He found them to be fairly comparable. I don't think the paper's available online, but here's a look at it from me which gets into data not available in the abstract:
http://growthmadness.org/2007/02/16/population-and-consumption-both-majo...
I can't read your mind, Chris, but from your blog post which I read yesterday, it seems there's something very distasteful to you about applying population numbers to environmental issues, or about simply saying there are too many people. I've certainly had discussions with some who feel that way. Even the word "overpopulation" has become distasteful to some. I think it involves compassionate people who take the "over" or the "too many" to mean finger pointing at some particular surplus people. To me, nothing could be further from the truth. I'd elaborate, but I may be off base in my guess to begin with, so I'll stop there.
I don't disagree at all with the things you point to as important. I