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Jeremy Grantham On The Fall Of Civilizations (And Our Last Best Hope)
In a slight digression from the usual pure market-based discussions of Jeremy Grantham's perspectives, the fund manager addresses what is potentially and even more critical factor for the markets. As he writes, we are in a race for our lives, as our global economy, reckless in its use of all resources and natural systems, shows many of the indicators of potential failure that brought down so many civilizations before ours. By sheer luck, though, ours has two features that might just save our bacon: declining fertility rates and progress in alternative energy. Our survival might well depend on doing everything we can to encourage their progress. Vested interests, though, defend the status quo effectively and the majority much prefers optimistic propaganda to uncomfortable truth and wishful thinking rather than tough action. It is likely to be a close race.
Via GMO,
The Fall of Civilizations
The collapse of civilizations is a gripping and resonant topic for many of us and one that has attracted many scholars over the years. They see many possible contributing factors to the collapse of previous civilizations, the evidence pieced together shard by shard from civilizations that often left few records. But some themes reoccur in the scholars’ work: geographic locations that had misfortune in the availability of useful animal and vegetable life, soil, water, and a source of energy; mismanagement in the overuse and depletion of resources, especially forests, soil, and water; the lack of a safety margin or storage against inevitable droughts and famines; overexpansion and costly unnecessary wars; sometimes a failure of moral spirit as the pioneering toughness and willingness to sacrifice gave way to softer and more cynical ways; increasing complexity of a growing empire that became by degree too expensive in human costs and in the use of limited resources to justify the effort, until the taxes and other demands on ordinary citizens became unbearable, so that an empire, pushed beyond sustainable limits, became vulnerable to even modest shocks that could in earlier days have been easily withstood. Probably the greatest agreement among scholars, though, is that the failing civilizations suffered from growing hubris and overconfidence: the belief that their capabilities after many earlier tests would always rise to the occasion and that growing signs of weakness could be ignored as pessimistic. After all, after 200 or even 500 years, many other dangers had been warned of yet always they had persevered. Until finally they did not.
The bad news is that as I read about these varied scenarios – and I have missed listing several – they all appear plausible and each seems to be relevant to several earlier collapses of empires and civilizations both large and small. Very recently, one of these scholars, William Ophuls, wrote a new book, Immoderate Greatness (a quote from Gibbons’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), with the subtitle Why Civilizations Fail. It is a straightforward summary and synthesis of all of the ways to fail in 70 small pages, yet with extensive notes and references. It is written in remarkably accessible, simple language and divides the causes of failure into six categories. Unfortunately, all six seem to apply to us today in varying degrees, and where one factor might be manageable – although often has not been – he makes the chances of our managing all six seem slight. It is persuasive and needs to be read. It takes about two hours.
William Ophuls’s conclusion is that we will not resist the impressive list of erosive factors and that, in fact, we are in the fairly late stages of our current civilization’s race for the cliff edge with nothing much to head us off. His study of history leads him to believe that civilizations are actually hard wired to self-destruct: programmed to be overconfident, to keep on pushing for growth until limits are overstepped and risks accumulated to the breaking point. His offer of good news is that after the New Dark Ages, when civilization again rears its head, presumably with a much smaller population, we will have acquired the good sense to be less overreaching, less hubristic, a lot humbler about growth and our use of resources, and more determined to live in balance with the natural energy we receive from the sun and the heat, food, and water with which we can sustainably be provided.
I have just two comments about our current problems. First, that there is one particular pressure this time that seems particularly serious: aversion to bad news. The investment business has taught me – increasingly as the years have passed – that people, especially investors (and, I believe, Americans), prefer good news and wishful thinking to bad news; and that there are always vested interests to offer facile, optimistic alternatives to the bad news. The good news is obviously an easier sell. Good news in investing in particular is better for business; good news on resource limitation is better for the suppliers of resources; and good news on climate change – that it basically does not exist and is even a hoax – is better for energy companies, among the biggest and most profitable of all companies. Historians have pointed out the bias against the need for change: there are always clear beneficiaries of the current state of affairs but the benefits of a changed world in contrast will look vague and uncertain to the likely beneficiaries. That is always the case. What is less common, although not unique in history, is what we have today: the near complete control of government by the powerful beneficiaries of the current system.
The second point is that although I find Ophuls’s argument well-reasoned and although I must acknowledge the strong possibility of a very negative outcome, I feel it is too pessimistic (which, sadly, is a rare occurrence for me on this topic). Yes, we are taking extreme risks with resource depletion and with the environment, especially concerning climate damage and ocean acidification. Yet I believe the case for the near certainty of our running off the cliff misses the existence of two extraordinarily lucky (and, one could argue, undeserved) gifts that were not available to any prior stressed civilization. They may arrive like the U.S. Cavalry, just in time to turn us away from the cliff edge. But at best, as Wellington is famously paraphrased as saying about the Battle of Waterloo, it will be a “damn closely run thing.” It will be the race of our lives.
Our Last Best Hopes: Declining Fertility and Improving Technology for Renewable Energy
Declining Fertility
The first of the two incredibly fortunate factors that might enable our current world to avoid at least partial collapse is declining fertility. Malthus correctly analyzed the main problem of our then history (in 1800): population had always kept up with food supply, leaving even successful societies only a few bad growing seasons away from starvation. He predicted that this would always be the case and he was wrong on two counts. The first is a short-term factor – only existing for 200 or 300 years and therefore irrelevant for the longer term of our species – and that is the increased ability to extract previously stored energy in the form of coal and oil. This hydrocarbon interlude will end either when that share of hydrocarbons that can be extracted economically is used up, or more likely when the tyranny of the second law of thermodynamics imposes its will: enough of the higher forms of convenient compact energy like coal and oil will have been converted into heat, waste, and especially carbon dioxide to ruin our climate in particular and our environment in general.
Malthus, however, completely missed declining fertility, a potentially very long-term and hence much more critical factor to the survival of our species. Neither he nor anyone else before 1960 even dreamed that we would voluntarily decide to have fewer children even as we became richer. In his day and until the early twentieth century, rich families routinely had eight or more children. Ironically, it has turned out that the same instincts that bring us the problems of excessive consumption and unnecessarily rapid resource depletion have also brought us the attitude that children are inconvenient and desperately expensive. Improved medical services that further allowed populations to explode now allow the confidence to have smaller families. Increased farm technology lowers the significance of the labor from many children. The most obvious drivers of lower birth rates, though, are the improved education of women and advances in birth control methods. The net effect of these factors is a change so profound that just a hundred years ago it was not even guessed at, and indeed population growth and fertility continued to rise until about 1960 – just the other day.
The following exhibits show the remarkable and promising data. The dashed horizontal line at 2.1 in Exhibits 1 through 4 is the fertility level required to have a stable population in the modern world under normal conditions. Exhibit 1 shows the remarkable drop in fertility in the richer East Asian countries, including China, with almost a fifth of the world’s population.
Exhibit 2 shows the drop in the larger and wealthier countries to an average level just below replacement, with the very latest update for U.S. fertility in 2012 dropping below replacement.
Exhibit 3 shows selected important and sometimes spectacularly unexpected examples. At the top of the unexpected list is Iran, which has dropped from a fertility rate of 7 – children per woman! – in 1960 to an almost unbelievable 1.6 today. Another remarkable example of a large Islamic country is Bangladesh, which has also fallen from 7 in 1960 to 2.2. This is extraordinary given their extreme poverty. The particularly important India, with its 1.2 billion people, has fallen from 6 to 2.6. This is quite remarkable in absolute terms, but given the previous two examples and given India’s pressure from overpopulation, it’s almost a disappointment.
Exhibit 4 shows the more serious disappointments. Yes, the rates have dropped in these countries, but their populations are still growing rapidly and most of them have intermittent food problems already. They are almost all in Africa.
Unless they and the world are lucky and they improve (perhaps with appropriate help from rich countries), we are likely to end up looking to the students of long-term civilizations as if we have had two separate systems: one in Africa, with failed states, poverty and malnutrition, and rapid population growth, probably having been left increasingly to cope on their own; the second in the rest of the world, with substantial and still growing affluence and with fertility below the replacement rate, forming a single market for resources and global trade in general, and trading as if they comprised one gigantic old fashioned imperial economy.
This remarkable decline in fertility is our last best hope, both from our civilization’s point of view as well as for the well-being of all of the life on our planet. Exhibit 5 summarizes the past data and projects the more optimistic end of the U.N. data for future global population. The world’s population is shown peaking around 2050 at just over 8 billion and then declining to near 6 billion by 2100. Ex-Africa, it reaches just under 6.5 billion in 2040 and declines to below 4 billion in 2100, back to where it was in about 1978. Africa is shown growing from about 250 million in 1950 to well over a billion today and, even under this relatively favorable outlook, continuing to expand to over 2.3 billion by 2100. The U.N.’s more pessimistic end of the range (not shown) has a continuing rise in population, but at a slowing rate, to 11 billion and beyond. At that level the stresses on global food and on global law and order, especially in Africa, will almost certainly be too great and Ophuls’s prediction will likely be correct. The lower population track, in contrast, holds out a strong hope of survival – that is, of maintaining a reasonably stable global civilization and continuing to improve the quality of the average life.
The return, therefore, to helping encourage a lower population everywhere is incredibly high. Yet little is done at an international level and indeed the issue is treated like a hot potato even by usually well-meaning NGOs. But we can do it, and my guess is that we will indeed succeed on this front. In the meantime it would be encouraging if economists, The Economist (not to pick on them but I tend to hold them to higher standards than others), and economic discussions in general would look out a few more years and stop discussing lower population growth as if it were a dire economic threat rather than our last best hope. Of course, as growth rates drop rapidly and populations quickly age, there is an added burden to workers of carrying more non-workers for one generation as the changes flow through the system. Then things stabilize again. This cycle can be ameliorated enormously by having older people extend their contributions and by facilitating the full participation of women in all countries. The ruinous alternative is to have an ever-growing population run off the cliff collectively. The economics industry has indeed done a particularly inadequate job on long-term sustainability in a world of finite resources. It is a good time for them to wake up to the problems we face on this front. Fortunately, individual decisions on fertility might well get the job done anyway, without any help from a potentially less blinkered and longer-term economic theory.
Renewable Energy
This brings us to the second remarkable gift, which involves a branch of the “cornucopian” optimism that I usually deplore: that the infinite human brain combined with technology will solve all problems. Yes, this is the same brain that brought us World War II, several thousand years of soil erosion, and the collapse of endless empires. An obvious generic weakness in this cornucopian argument is that it ignores our massive dependence on cheap energy. Trains and coal, cars and gas, and electricity and air conditioners and refrigerators in turn drove forward economic activity and the feeling of well-being (try being in Sydney on January 18, at 114.4°F, the hottest day in that seaside city’s history, without air conditioning!), but each came with a cost – an increased wave of energy use, almost all of it from our irreplaceable stores of oil and coal. Yet now, finally, there is an example of a great technological leap that for the first time is accompanied by less energy use – the technologies of solar, wind power, and other alternatives as well as electric grid efficiencies and improved energy storage.
For once, all of the innovations, corporate start-ups, and risk taking – the best part of the capitalist system – work to decrease our use of depleting hydrocarbons and therefore to increase our chance of stabilizing our civilization before the cliff edge is reached. Exhibit 6 shows in orange the truly remarkable decline in the cost of electricity from photo- voltaic cells. The only thing to compare it to is the Moore’s Law decline in the price of semiconductors.
That would indeed be a happy comparison, for perceived physical limits to semiconductor progress have been overcome time and time again. If the physical limits on photovoltaic efficiency, and hence its price, are similarly maneuvered in future decades, then the price of photovoltaic energy would guarantee us cheap and plentiful energy forever. Wind power may also be vital in less sunny zones, but there the cost reductions are, probably, mainly behind us. Exhibit 6 shows in green the early rapid declines in the costs of wind power mainly as improved technology allowed for increases in size and therefore efficiency. However, during the great leap in resource costs between 2002 and 2008, which I have been obsessing about for the last two years, the price of steel, cement, and aluminum from which wind towers are built (and all of which are incredibly energy-intensive), all rose from two to three times! Only the flat cost of human labor and improved turbines allowed for wind costs to rise by only 40% during this period. Our exhibit allows for only modest reductions in future wind costs, so that even by 2025 wind costs are estimated to be still higher than 2000, before the great surge in material prices. The remaining component of Exhibit 6 is the cost of coal-fired electricity.
For future estimates we have made a range. The lower end represents a modest 1% a year increase in coal prices and the upper end 4% a year, which is still a little less than the 5% annual average price rise for coal of the last 10 years. As can be seen, by 2025 to 2030 both solar and wind power are likely to be cheaper than coal. All of these comparisons, of course, are made without charging coal for “externalities” – those ills that the coal industry inflicts that we the people have to pay for: mountain tops ripped off and mountain streams polluted, acid rain, and particulate matter damaging health. Even more serious in the long run, the CO2 that is released by burning coal imposes the increasing costs of rising global temperatures: unstable weather for crops and rising costs of more extreme weather-related events. Coal is likely to be a hopeless choice for electricity generation in 20 years, as its price rises and those for alternatives fall, but fully costed for externalities it is an uneconomic choice today. Any potential investors today in a new coal-fired utility should ask some tough questions about “stranded assets” – cost-ineffective assets that will not have had the time to make a positive return on their investment before they will have become uncompetitive or illegal, caught between the falling costs of alternative energy and the rising costs of controlling for “externalities” – pollution and climate damage – that were once passed on as public costs but that will become steadily the responsibility of the emitter.
We have the time, technology, and money to completely replace nonrenewable energy in 30 to 50 years and, on average, in that time period such replacement will be economic (less so in the earlier years but by a wide margin later). As we do it, we will increasingly have much lower marginal costs, for what is often forgotten in these comparisons is that the high cost component in our two main alternatives, solar and wind, are up-front capital costs. Once constructed, the marginal costs of merely operating the wind and solar farms is far, far lower than the marginal costs of digging and shipping coal, even without those other health and environmental costs borne by the general public. You should be aware that when we calculate the costs of alternative energy projects, a high corporate discount rate is used to reflect the idea that to a corporation a dollar spent today to build a wind power project needs to be offset by a dollar and 10 or even 14 cents next year, or $8 or so in 18 years, to pay for the current loss of the use of money and to jump over the corporation’s hurdle rate for attractive investments. The required investment return (hurdle rates) for alternative energy investments is often higher than for traditional corporate investments partly because of unnecessary uncertainties still surrounding these projects: erratic government policies, rapidly changing technologies resulting in most projects having new features, and general unfamiliarity to providers of capital.
But what of the social benefits of these alternative energy projects? Personal average wealth and income has been rising by only 1% to 3% a year for the last 30 years, not 10% or 14%! Solving our long-term energy problems may not only be the most critical economic problem, it may also, as I argue here, be one of two most critical inputs into our future viability as a civilization. A discount rate that would reflect this significance should obviously, in a reasonable world, be far less than the 10% or 14% return needed by a corporation for such projects. I could make a case for a zero social return hurdle in this extreme case, but let us merely settle for a lower-than-average corporate hurdle rate – say, 5%. At a 5% real return (which, by the way, compares to an average delivered 7% real return on all corporate capital in the past), these wind and solar projects would have a much lower levelized cost of energy (the cost that reflects both operating and capital costs) than they would have at higher corporate rates – up to 40% lower. At those lower capital costs typical wind power projects would have a lower “levelized cost” than a typical coal-fired plant and be far ahead in 10 years. Solar farms would still need 10 years at the current rate of progress in cost reductions to catch up with wind power (although roof-top solar is getting to retail rates as we speak). The point to remember is that once the capital is found and the project is built, a wind or solar farm delivers far cheaper energy than a coal-fired utility plant, at around one-third of the marginal cost of coal (about 1¢ per kilowatt hour at a minimum of 3¢ for coal).
The impressions the average businessman carries in his head tend to be a moving average of the last five years’ information. Life is too busy to keep up with everything and usually five years is recent enough. But when there is a sudden shift in a year or two, average opinion is left sometimes far behind and that is exactly what has happened to solar energy and to a lesser extent to wind power. The current issue of Prospect magazine in England carries a story of an energy expert who invested three years ago in heavily subsidized home solar panels in the U.K. because doing so more or less guaranteed a 7.5% return (tax-free because the benefit comes in the form of lower bills), which for a low-risk investment was and is far better than anything else these days. You might suspect, the author argued, that the recent two-thirds drop in subsidies would end that game, but he points out that the installation costs of panels (adjusted for increased efficiency) have also dropped from £6,000 to £2,000 for a typical home in just over two years so that homeowners still receive a handsome return. You can just imagine how much easier it is to get a handsome return, without subsidy, at these new lower prices in areas where the sun actually shines – say, California, which receives almost twice the sun of London. (I’m stinging from a totally grey month in London.) At the other end of the spectrum, Duke Power was reported in Bloomberg as stating that the cost of solar panels to them had dropped by 75% in two years. These are truly remarkable shifts and now even modest steady progress from here will get the job done. Meanwhile in wind, the very latest large-scale wind farm in Australia was announced as having levelized costs lower than recent coal plants. All in a world where the cost of coal has doubled and oil quadrupled since 2000. This is not the same game that it was just three years ago.
Energy Storage
Energy storage is now the Holy Grail of environmental progress. The bad news is that progress in the past has been slow. The good news is that there are now scores, if not hundreds, of research teams working on this. Before wind and solar reach a large percentage of total electricity production, it is extremely likely in my opinion that some real cost progress will be made in storage (halving or so), especially at the retail level where a storage device, unlike a car battery, can be heavy, bulky, and relatively inefficient as long as it is cheap. Cheapness would deliver to the household electric market the potential for grid independence. However, let it be admitted that lack of expected progress in energy storage could materially slow down the rate at which alternative energy is adopted. It is therefore an area that particularly needs encouragement and good fortune.
Smart Grid
Over several decades, modernizing the grid to allow much wider and more efficient transfer would dramatically reduce storage needs. Reaching into homes and using temporary electric car battery and refrigerator adjustments, etc., (all by agreement and for a discount) would also reduce the problem. As back-up, natural gas electric generation is the ideal technology with perhaps some use of bio mass and urban waste. Coal for electricity generation is just not necessary today in the U.S., and the last coal plants anywhere may be built in the next 20 years.
Chinese Cavalry to the Rescue
On this topic, I have high hopes of China setting a brilliant example. They are embarrassingly long capital, accused of wasting much of their 50% of GDP capital investments on subway stops in the middle of farm fields, empty cities, and redundant regional airports. We, in contrast, are embarrassingly short capital, with capital spending having fallen to 16% of GDP and federal debt owed to the public having accumulated to over 70% of GDP and currently increasing at 6% of GDP per year. China could smooth out their potentially dangerous transition from 50% capital spending to a more reasonable 35% over the next 20 years or so by managing a giant program of alternative energy, including the smartest-yet national grid and broad-based research into storage, and all sources of renewable energy, including fusion. (As with the U.S., natural gas from fracking would help in the transition.) Such a massive broad- based program would potentially give them global dominance in the most important industries of the future and would relieve them of their greatest single worry: energy security. It would also relieve them of what will surely become their greatest societal irritant: the incredible air pollution of their major cities, which must already be reducing life expectancy in those cities by several years, as well as substantially increasing health costs. Best of all for them, it would leave them as the low-cost energy player in global trade, and if that, added to their lower labor costs, rising educational standards, rapidly improving infrastructure, and capital deepening, does not put the fear of God into U.S. capitalists, then it should.
It would be a blessing in disguise for the developed world and the U.S. in particular if China announced a 25-year program of alternative energy (enough of these paltry five-year plans!) that embodied a Manhattan project level of commitment. Within just a handful of years of watching them execute this program, we would calculate the competitive consequences and would be forced defensively to emulate them. We would surely discover that we are in fact still wealthy and can afford worthy projects with long-term payoffs and that our perceived poverty is more about leadership and perceptions than it is about reality. The U.S. is, after all, richer than it has ever been and is still the richest large country in the world. I have made a part of this point before. I am repeating it because: a) it’s very important; and b) the Chinese government has inexplicably failed to snatch up my idea. It would be a lay-up for them if they did. (Dear Chinese translator, a “lay-up” means “an easily achievable goal.”) In a world lacking U.S. leadership in energy sustainability, a truly major Chinese effort might be the difference between collective global success and failure. In this case it would be the Chinese cavalry heading us off at the cliff edge, but I’ll take any cavalry we can get.
(Postscript: recent, several leading Chinese cities recorded disastrous levels of pollution. On a scale where 30 is the barely safe limit, they hit over 300 several times. The Chinese government responded almost immediately, which was not a bad idea, because yearly reoccurrences of dangerous pollution will pretty soon guarantee that some smart but critical people will move out of these worst cities. Wouldn’t you? They upped their current target [already very aggressive by U.S. standards] for installed solar generation capability in just three years by 65%! Astonishing by any standard and currently politically impossible outside China. This new target means that they will have the equivalent in solar power of seven or so giant coal-fired plants, a very large absolute number anywhere except in China, where it is still dwarfed by coal plants. But, it is a down payment.)
Epilogue
The two favorable factors described, with luck and some improved effort and leadership, may buy us enough time to completely retune our agricultural system, for it will take many decades to change attitudes and build the infrastructure, training, and research to move to complete agricultural sustainability. That in turn would allow us time in a stable environment to address the problem that will no doubt take the longest time of all: addressing our failing supplies of metals. Yes, we are blessed with large supplies of aluminum and iron ore, although, like agriculture and civilization itself, their usefulness to us is completely dependent on the availability of cheap energy. More to the present point, affordable supplies of most other metals, some very useful, will run low this century and must be replaced by organic alternatives, which process will need all the time and research that success with the other factors might be able to deliver.
Suspended over this close horserace between destructive and regenerative forces are the wild cards of rising temperatures, slowly rising sea levels, ocean acidifi cation, and, above all, destabilized weather for farming. Even if the cavalry arrives in time to prevent the main disaster – a rolling collapse of much of civilization – much damage is being done and will definitely continue to be done to the environment and biodiversity as global temperatures continue to rise. But with improved behavior, we may well buy enough time to save our own species and most of what we really value. In my opinion, all of the other factors in this mix are reasonably susceptible to data and analysis. The scary part of the climate issue is that by its nature there can be no precision on extent or timing and, consequently (as I have mentioned before), scientists, in their desire to avoid being seen to exaggerate, end up systematically underestimating the case.
The January 23 New York Times science section, for example, had an article on rising sea levels that said that the authors – scientists all – “share an emerging consensus that the increase in ocean level in this century will probably be on the order of three feet, perhaps as much as six feet,” requiring many millions to evacuate. “But many scientists,” they add “are plagued by a nagging fear… that their calculations will turn out to have been too conservative, and social stability will eventually be threatened.” “At every point as our knowledge increases,” Dr. Raymo, the leader of the project, is quoted as saying, “we’ve always discovered that the climate system is more sensitive than we thought it could be, not less.” [Emphasis added.] To be perhaps a little cruel, a statistician might suggest that after serial underestimations, expectations might be adjusted.
The bottom line is that if we put our minds to it we can overcome normal inertia and abnormally powerful vested interests that oppose necessary change. Our population is likely to start declining in a few decades, slowly but surely, and the fertility rate of 1.8% or less would allow global population to fall back more or less gracefully by 2200 to a probably sustainable level of 4 billion, particularly if we sensibly encourage its decline. Important progress in alternatives is certain. Other scientific progress, especially in computing power will also help. Whether we can move fast enough on these fronts and at the same time reduce the output of greenhouse gases to avoid going off the cliff is simply not knowable for certain, but every minute saved and improvement made, betters our odds. Let the race begin.
Correction: Natural Gas Forecast
I am bullish about the longer-term price of natural gas and in my personal account I am long the futures several years out. At five years out, the implied price is $4.50 mcf. However, in the Q&A section of a talk I gave recently I was quoted as saying that in five years the price “would have tripled.” This implies a price, then, of $12. This is either a misquote or a misspeak. What I intended to say and have said before was that from the low last year the price would be likely to triple in 5 years: that is to about $6 or $7 mcf, far above the assumed $4.50 then, but far below the number in the quote.
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AnAnonymous, preparing to run away, said:
Nice game of offuscation by words salad. Good backpedaling form. This AnAnonymous guy must be the Lance Armstrong of backpedaling.
Too bad his words are non sense and cannot hide his biggoty hypocritizenism. Will he now try constructing strawsman or, following his eternal nature, just run away.
Zero backpedalling on that.
Always stated the same.
But 'americans' are in urge of seeing racism as a human thing. So it is their game to claim that everyone not only is racist but that racism is as old as humanity as well.
The way 'americans' work.
AnAnonymous, backpedaling, said:
rorwut?
Made me laugh. Reads like Tim Geithner mouthed those wordings.
AnAnonymous, Chinese citizenism version of Lance Armstrong, backpedaling championated winner many times of Tour de Farce having extremistic benefitial advantage the doping with panda spleen extract, concentrated kitten liver, and shark finned soup from umbilical cord broth. This strongly easened the backpedaling on hilly county terrain definitively, allowing distanciation on nextby competitors much the dangdang.
Funny how this guy tells racism as invention of 'americans'.
What people want to believe...
Don't we ignorant Americans get credit for electing a sub human negro to the office of the presidency? Just saying...if we're so racial, and have such a tattered past, how the f-k did TOTUS get elected, the most radically progressive soul since Woodrow Wilson, not to mention that he's a Muslim, left handed and black. The only thing that could top that is if he were gay.
I don't know. Your pretty darn good it.
Nah. It is useless to compete with an 'american'.
When wanting for a bigot, a racist etc, call for an 'american'. You'll get the best humanity has to offer in this department.
Aim for the stars, be ambitious, learn from the best...
So you aspire to be an American?
No, no.
Once again, for certain things, they are 'americans' and the others. It is useless to try to emulate them.
Everyone is not equal.
As Chinese citizenism citizens can not cope with what they are, they are very prone to developp kinds of reverse thesis.
Runs contrary to your words. Trying to have it both ways.
Runs contrary to what words?
Reporting about the 'american' perception of negroes is not sharing it.
Another thing parting from 'americans' actually.
and there's no bigotry between chinese and japanese, riiiiiiiiight !
The Chinese are some of the most bigoted in the world. Most Chinese would be "an anonymous" tattle tale to their fellow citizen if it meant an extra bag of rice.
What material for 'americans' they would be, those chinese.
Seeing things as they are may be perceived by 'AnAnonymists' as a mental illness.
That Chinese are the most bigoted people in the world?
Alas, 'americans' in China are not numerous enough to achieve that performance.
And without them, the other chinese are crushed by 'americans' all around the world.
No one can beat an 'american' when it comes to bigotry, racism...
Ah yes, the insanitation of AnAnonymous on display once again.
Let's look at some facts, you know, those inconvenient things that stand in the way of AnAnnoyingUs' stale propaganda bits:
The USA, welcoming home to immigrants since before its own founding, and into which immigrants continue to pour today. Almost ubiquitously described as "The Melting Pot of Nations".
Vs. China, the historically xenophobic and closed society, in which all foreigners are routinely described as "foreign devils".
You make the call.
Again with that crap of USA welcoming home to immigrants?
Almost ubiquitously described as the melting pot of nations?
The melting pot is a reference of the social engineering as triggered by the Founding Fathers.
They feared that the soon to be taxed citizens'loyalty to their former nation might hinder the development of the US of A.
That is why they wanted that melting pot thing that performed along the racial lines, using negroes as a negative.
That is why in the US, negroes will never be part of the so called melting pot.
The US of A, the temple of 'americanism' on Earth, is the first nation in human history to have socially engineered along racial lines.
Nobody had before.
Certainly not China.
@ Anoymous. I was going to groan, "Why my thread?". But decided to post a reply instead.
Mate. Whatever your cause may be, you are not helping it or yourself. Perhaps that's your intent, to play the mask everyone despises. I don't know and I don't care. If you don't have anything more to contribute than repetition of the same theme, you cannot blame others for getting annoyed.
One thing I've learned which you might consider is the fact that some Americans, especially intelligent ones to be found at ZH, are far far better at criticizing their own than you will ever be. There are plenty of msm places where moronic fat Americans post their views- you might ply your trade there with better success.
There is no cause.
'Americans' on here are far better at criticizing their own than I will ever be?
That is some 'american' claim.
It implies that you know my own...
Funnily enough, in their extravanga in fantasy, some 'americans' would like to drag me into the 'american' group.
Basically, that would lead me to have 'americans' as my own and as an 'american' posting on this site...
Reality is a tough storm for 'americans'...
AnAnlogousAnus : NOT being able to make a cogent point is a tough reality for you
Check this out. One giant leap for mankind: £13bn Iter project makes breakthrough in quest for nuclear fusion, a solution to climate change and an age of clean, unlimited energy - Science - News - The Independent
The best/cleanest way to sterilize(render infertile) a population, is through INFLATION. Our masters and overlords are batting 1000% in that category.
Nice link. One of the big contributors to ITER, the S.Koreans, are quietly working with the superconducting Tokamak research and building their own demonstration fusion reactor which should contribute to the grid by 2022 earliest.
Yep. I agree. Thanks to the pricing of almost all commodities on the planet and trade in the reserve currency. Vast parts of the world are already being priced out of staple foods.
As a planet, we need to do the following things (among others) IMO:
1. Bring pop. growth under control -- especially in the 3rd world (Holdout/Failed) states.
2. We need to simultanesouly (a) Increase our energy efficiency (less waste + more tech, and thus more tech jobs), and (b) Diversify our energy sources
3. Improved land use; move to farming practices that retain/improve soil depth and quality. Force Big Agro to adapt.
4. Deny the MIC (Military-Industrial Comples) + Bankers, i.e. the MODDAD (Merchants of Death, Destruction and Debt) from their game of increasing misery, waste and unproductive debt.
5. Bring politician to "heel". The best way, is to force them to (a) use real/sound money and (b) force them to live within their means, i.e. a hard budget. That would force them to prioritize policies and resource allocation very quickly. Especially if qualification for re-election was based on their performance-relative-to-goals.
p.s. Regarding #2... If you watch (or paid attention to) the TV ads from Big Oil, you'd notice a shift in their thinking... to Diversify energy sources. They don't mind having a diverse energy future (next 10-30 years) -- as long as they control it. They are playing for time, as will not tolerate any 'upstarts' (Solyndra, Fiskar, etc) from stealing shares of "their market".
'American' priority:
1-diminish the number of low to no consumers when dealing with an overconsumption problem.
'Americans' are molded the same way. The same blatantly obvious way of thinking.
No surprise the world is in such shape. This is an 'american' world.
Chinese citizenism priority:
1 - crap on the roadside.
2 - blame all problems, past, present, future, on 'americans'.
3 - blob up.
Signed: AnAnonymous
This is an 'american' world, shaped by 'americans' and 'americanism'.
That was a Chinese Citizenism turd, shaped by a Chinese Citizenism citizen and by Chinese Citizenism.
Only the roadside depositional site was lacking.
Very crusty, very much something.
A far more sanguine approach to the death of civilizations comes from Joseph Tainter. According to Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies, societies become more and more complex until they are incapable of adaptation. When they become complex enough they cannot move, react, produce, or alter their own course. One only has to look at the US tax code or the Federal Register to see this in action. When societies become too complex to produce for themselves they have to import labor and goods. Soon enough the society can only function through black markets and illegal activities. Everyone becomes a criminal in the eyes of the law. Sound familiar?
Another interesting study in civilizations and their demise are the polynesian cultures and the depletion of resources, easter island in particular.
Interesting study indeed.
you're the ZH special needs kid who just hangs around with his finger up his nose
Something about special kids?
'Americanism' at work... The well known 'american' love for humanity once again shines through...
'Americans' acted by their eternal 'american' nature.
'American' once...
actually I was trying to be polite and not call you a R'tard but if you insist
'American' deep love for humanity.
Could you imagine something better?
.
More interesting is the insanitation which leads AnAnonymous to blame 'americans' for sinking Easter Island, even though this happened before 1776,July,4th.
The population on the Eastern Island was wiped out before 1776, July, 4th?
'Americans' and their fantasy. Their fear of facing the reality of 'americanism' they shy before no fantasy...
You are the only one spinning fantasies here. Particularly virulent, bigoted, and insane fantasies.
The Easter Island societal collapse happened, to the best of all archeological determination, within one or two decades of the year 1600.
The USA was founded in 1776 (as you remind us so often).
The first European settlers in what later became the USA arrived in 1609.
The first outside contact with Easter Island came in 1773 (a Dutch ship), after the inhabitants had been completely cut off from the outside world for at least a millenium, but no significant contact was established between Easter Island and outsiders until the latter half of the 19th century (and that by Chileans).
Now spin for us once again your insane fantasy of how 'Americans' had anything to do with the collapse of Easter Island.
There was population on the Easter Island after 1776, July, 4th?
Or was there not?
The Eastern Island population was terminated by their contact with 'americans'.
Their self inflicted pain did not wipe them out.
Contact with 'americans' did.
But, hey, 'americans' can see non consumers as an issue in an overconsumption problem so well... It gives an idea of the urge they feel to escape the reality of 'americanism'
LOL
You don't even TRY to make sense anymore, do you?
Do you even know the slightest thing about Easter Island?
Apparently not.
Americans had no contact, nor ANYTHING to do with Easter Island, whether before their societal collapse or afterward. Their society collapsed into cannibalism LONG before the founding of the USA, and LONG before they had even had any contact with the outside world. Get it through your thick head, you fucking piece of ridiculous lying shit.
But don't let that get in the way of your campaign of bigotry and insanitation.
Ah, again the cannibalism story. That is when you see the 'american' tough love for humanity.
Since when cannibalism means termination of a population?
Of course, they had contact with 'americans'. After 1776,July,4th and before their population was terminated.
Which is expected since their population was terminated by the contact with 'americans'.
Easter Island still has a die hard population which cater to tourists and scientists with Archeological background. If Chile didn't export food there they'd starve again.
Yes, akak, that's correct. If you have a chance and haven't already, pick up a copy of Jared Diamonds book "Collapse". I read his "Guns, Germs and Steel" which got me started on the one I suggest. Fairly scientific rounded approach with combined social and religious notes from historical record where available. Makes sense to me and an easy read. Related to what you say, they competed with bigger and bigger statues until there was nothing left to use or eat. The chiefdoms basically screwed everyone by trying to embrace "who's got the bigger dick contest" with the statues. And thier trade amongst the other islands was almost non existant. Back during the Cold War we and the Russians were doing the same thing with nukes.
Old Man, yes, that was a very good book by Diamond, which managed to treat environmental issues in an objective, non-biased manner, and highlight the environmental problems both our high-technology society faces today, and primitive societies have faced in the past, without being preachy or advocating draconian statist policies as a result.
For those who have become too lazy to read books anymore, like me, here is a link to the video based on that book:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c63qKwHhPQQ
I wonder whether the way that the diseases in Africa prevented enough European immigration to take root was a contributing factor to the way most of Africa now looks? Africa was primarily regarded as a "colony of exploitation," rather than a "colony of settlement." The European invasions there were to get in, rob everything worth robbing as fast as possible, and then get out.
The original African civilizations were utterly wiped out, with European grafts stuck on their decapitated bodies, which mostly failed to take. The potential in Africa is still fantastic, in so many ways. They still have the greatest genetic diversity of any human population, and, I believe, IF there were totally different social conditions, they would probably be able to produce mathematical geniuses, and so forth ...
HOWEVER, Africa is currently the result of what happened after being raped by the European invasion, so that its political culture is one based on that kind of political rape. That is what the African countries actually learned, because that was their actual history. Hence, Africa currently demonstrates the supreme importance of politics over human affairs. Despite Africa being bigger than North America, and having abundant natural resources, the political climate of Africa is a runaway disaster avalanche.
AnAnonymous, seething and frothing:
Typical 'AnAnonymist' pococurantism toward historical accuracy. Typical Chinese citizenism eternal nature.
No 'americans' on dodging the answer to a question?
Ah, no, for 'americans', the group is all.
Dont spill on me, I dont spill on you.
.
Nothing judgemental in my observation. Simply the accurate assessment that your rewriting history and then condemning the rewritten version makes a position weak.
So ridiculous. Because this guy laments on something he worked to make it come true, discarding quite easily the time reference.
Prima facia evidence that the past is past. Tautology indeed but more and more required when it comes to Chinese citizenism citizens.
AnAnonymist Chinese citizenism citizens love that idea: it is possible to reverse the past. It somehow helps them to dilute their responsibility in the present. Whatever they do, they can reverse.
Where does this line of thinking come from?
No longer propaganda. But fantasy.
"societies become more and more complex" Don't you mean CORRUPT?
the fund manager
This is an unreadable article by a "fund manager" that we are supposed to take oh so seriously. I just cannot get over how much smarter these money guys think they are than everyone else. Where have they been anyway? Now the cracks are showing and all of a sudden they have all insight and we are to take this as truth and brilliance.
Just like that Duckenmiller (sp) interview a month or so ago all I can say is: you got your free money, now just go away, you really are not that much smarter than everyone else. Really. You are the problem, not the solution. Despite what you think, the world will mull along (or not).
sschu
ITER is coming.........only decades away..........nuclear solution in the South of France. :)
Depletion of resources is global. Depletion of oil is just a dimension of the problem.
It is not stopping the Chinese Communaughtys from trying to blob-up the Senkaku Islands, though, so as to claim the petroleum-rich territorial waters around them.
Depletion of Chinese Citizenism ability to self-indict is justa dimension of the problem.
Chinese at the moment are stopped.
Contrary to 'americans' who claim oil wherever it is...
Again, the impossibility to face the reality of 'americanism'.
For 'americans',it has to be someone else.
Most folks here realize that the US's wars have been about resources, oil. And if you pay attention, most don't buy the official propaganda.
Those that do swallow the official propaganda do so because they know that if they oppose it, if that oil doesn't flow to them, then they're going to be like the Chinese- energy poor and with lots of oppression.
The TREND is that "Americans" (I'm sure that you realize there are "Americans' in South America, right? China extracts a fair amount of resources down there, and it's good to understand a bit about your business partners) are increasingly becoming aware that the illusion is running short. For the Chinese (China) it's all looking up... the illusion is becoming stronger. The Big Global Crash is coming and I think that "Americans" (on the whole) are bracing, even though it might not be of their own accord; for those in China, however, they're stepping on the accelerator...
Best looking horse at the glue factory. Rah rah...
Now that's funny. "decades away", "nuclear solution" "France"
-1
The French said something like that about vitrification.
Now the French are fixing Fukushima and Hanford.
Lucky us!
Sooo, if we slit our own throats now, someone else won't have to do it later?
For those concerned about the price of commodities, you might consider checking out one of the most basic that there is...sugar...making a new low practically every week...just a thought...and a word about Americans...I'm 66 years young...and a world traveler...really just a nomad for the last 35 years...I'm currently in Kuala Lumpur, Maylasia...in a dorm full of Europeans 30-40 years my junior...we debate daily such topics as socialism, politics, economics, etc...they are well educated by the state, but most lack skills in critical thinking...they are the box, and yet tell me that they think outside the box...I find it funny and still enjoy twisting their minds into fried pretzels with their own words...lol...ain't life funny!
you should hook up your euro roomates with AnAnlogousAnus for a debate, hilarity sure to ensue
Life in an 'american' world is funny when you are an 'american' middle classer. For an 'american' world is a world of the 'american' middle class, by the 'american' middle class for the 'american' middle class.
MOAR COWBELL !
Finally, some critical thinking.
It's not apparent to you that Americans have been here for a while and that the first to arrive were who paid the price for how we live today. Yes you dumb fuck...my grandparents lived a life of great sacrifice for what I have. They had nothing. They started from the ground up. Broke the ground. Got it you fucking creepy asshole? The price was ALREADY PAID and we get to reap the benefits of their suffering and shortened miserable lives because they said "I want my children to have a better life."
Grandpa was first engineer on first rail road. Uncle Pete put up power lines and traveled across the coutnry alone without his wife to find work. Dirt poor, hungry, many died at birth.
Other nations have had the chance but corruption interfered with progress. We knew how to develop an infrastructure and how to kick out the frauds. once...
"The price was ALREADY PAID"
The "price" can never be paid as long as it's a continuing event.
"Other nations have had the chance but corruption interfered with progress. We knew how to develop an infrastructure and how to kick out the frauds. once..."
No, we once had an abundance of natural capital (just had to nudge out some pesky Injuns and hitch up some Negroes). Once that started to tip corruption, which is ALWAYS there, ramped up.
" Grandpa was first engineer on first rail road. "
Ever see the rails on the West Coast? LOL... more cheap Chinese labor...
This article reminds me of fairy dust and unicorns...typical liberal uber trash, sorry! Utopia does not exists, especially in renewables, it is just not there yet. The effective storage and transfer of energy is problem. No harm in pursuing it, but this article pans the energy status quo so much that it makes me want to puke, and then talks about the CO2 killing the planet, hogwash! As to the population decline, just go look at the Georgia Guidestones for your answer, it won't be by falling replacement values, it will be about culling the herd. With all that is going on around the world, that has a far greater chance of thinning the population than anything else!
Indeed, Abi Normal!
To oversimplify and overgeneralize:
Women who have less than 2 children are committing suicide ...
Women that have more than 2 are declaring war on neighbours.
The rich are tending to commit suicide, while the poor are declaring war on the rich. The richest are preparing for that by working towards developing conditions where they will have excuses to start more genocidal wars, along with imposing democidal martial law.
Since it is far easier to be destructive, and cause collapse into chaos, than to avoid doing that, we are very probably on the paths towards mass murders of billions of people, beyond our ability to imagine.
Radical,,you are a thinker!
"CO2 killing the planet, hogwash!"
Did he really say that?
I don't think that humans can kill the planet. They can, however, mess up their nests so bad that they no longer have nests.
The planet does trigger off of CO2. It's a natural cycle (and humans CAN impact it, though whether it's by a few years or by several years is the only question). Glacial cycles is how top soil gets regenerated- it's the Big Till.
About population declines, I took him to be saying that Malthus failed to consider voluntary lower birth rates. No, there is no SINGLE thing that will be responsible for anything, it'll be a mix, and lower birth rates ARE a fact.
for the most part civilizations do not fail but fade away. There are few exceptions, like Easter Island ,but generally things simply change over time. In the case of our civilization, the greatest danger it faces is nuclear war. There is no resource problem if you can keep ~80% of current population in poverty, that is deny it scarce resources. This can lead to social instability and war. Since a major war today would probably go nuclear, this is the real danger.
Perhaps the second greatest danger is the covert geoengineering projects that are underway?
"for the most part civilizations do not fail but fade away."
If they don't "fail" then why do they "fade away?"
You're either successful at remaining a civilization or you're not.
Was it the Aztecs (some civilization in South America) in which the people just kind of picked up and walked away? This would be the thing that I could think of where a civilization "faded away."
Centrally planned nonsense. Taxfarm owners are there to milk tax cows to use force to solve problems, to start wars that kill the crap out of everyone and to destroy the environment with their enormously wastfull war machine energy consumption and depleted uranium polution.
They are not there to guide society to a better future. If they were, they would act on a voluntary basis and not on force coercion and theft. And they would not cause an enormous waste by regulation that causes goods to be shipped over from 8000 miles away to be still cheaper.
"Taxfarm owners" - excellent!
NOTE: We ought to recognize that this also is applicable to China.
declining fertility rate (in small areas you should get out more) is offset by invasion. as a result of invasion our water systems are very close to the breaking point. so we can throw that one out. as far as alternative energy goes i am ready to buy my NG car with my Obama NG car loan and my Obama NG car tax credits. Ready to fill "it" up at the nearest sanctuary city green energy salon. Sure would be nice to get rid of the Deflationists Lounge micro van - it is costing over 50 bucks to fill that thing now!
I blame access to porn for low birthrates.
Then perhaps we should drop porn from helicopters all over Africa to help them with their population "problem".
The problem in Russia, china, and Europe is low birthrates twenty, thirty, and forty years ago. Porn access was pretty thin on the ground back there.
All of this is irrelevant if we do not deal with the number one threat to human survival: statism. As long as parasitical political elites are able to use violence and coercion to impose their will on the general population the decline will continue, and it will end in a massive war in which atomic weapons will be used. This is the real threat to human survival, not population growth or energy consumption, both of which can be easily dealt with through voluntary co-operation on the free market.
The nation-state, Hobbes' "artificial man", AKA Leviathan, is the ultimate enemy of all mankind. If humans are able to abandon this system and embrace voluntary co-operation, we have a bright future regardless of population levels. If not it will be war, death, and collapse all around.
This is an 'american' world and 'americanism' is a success story of the State...
Well, if you REALLY want to whack at the roots you'll have to aim at the faulty premise of "perpetual growth on a finite planet," as that's the number one driver of statism (GROWTH! GROWTH!).
The greatest danger civilization faces now is fundamentalist religion both here and abroad.
Not in my life have i seen such a movement both here and abroad.
Chief amongst the threats are radical islam and the spread of Catholicism in the third world.
Islam is the fastest growing religion on the planet and their doctrine is quite clear.
They would have no hesitation to light off a few nukes or more screaming Allah akbar
The Catholic delusion spreading in Africa will see to it that the population triples and 3 times as many that now dwell in poverty will be the result.
You cannot discount the irrational dysfunctional influence of religion as its influence extends far beyond the church or mosque
I say we make all Catholic and Muslims into slaves and force them to mine gold while standing waist-deep in mercury.
It's a win-win-win.
Could they mine bitcoins instead.
"The greatest danger civilization faces now is fundamentalist religion"
No. Their handlers. Rank and file are just the useful idiots.
And, you didn't include the Tea Party, Stackers, the Constitutionalists and arguably the NRA (full disclosure - card carrying member).
It hasn't been that long ago since Catholics were disparaged in the US.
So would you rather the Africans adopt Islam than Catholicism? Because that's the two options and the battle over the Sahel for influence between these two groups will eventually reach all out war. We have already seen skirmishes, though usually from non-state actors so far.
My biggest fear is Africans breeding though....and coming here, or coming to a mellow, pacified Europe!!! We've already seen the effects of Somalians on Minnesota and Lewiston, ME; and we've seen the effects of Ethiopians in D.C. and Massachusetts. Florida has huge problems with Haitians (I know, not geographically IN Africa, but still).
I'm all for population decline, but not if countries with rapidly increasing populations flood those with declining or stagnant populations. Close the borders and THEN we can have decline while those who breed like rabbits will experience what Malthus was talking about.
For 'americans', the group is all.
For AnAnonymous, repeations of drivel is all.
Indeed, W74, the demographics in both North America and Europe indicate that those places have already reached the point of no return, where it now seems politically impossible to stop the populations of European origins there from being overwhelmed by immigrants, and the children of immigrants!
Given the current trends, the USA is going to be overrun by Hispanics, while Europe will be overrun by Islamics ... (Of course, that presumes that there will not be more genocidal wars, along with democidal martial law first, instead, and even more presumes that nature going even more nuts, as civilization gets crazier, will not preempt and trumph all current trends?)
As another comment here already pointed out, (with some exaggeration) Ethopians had 40 million starving, who were kept alive with foreign aid, and now they have 80 million on the edge of returning to famine ... It is almost impossible to comprehend the magnitude of the social insanities that we are surrounded by.
Of course, it is THEORETICALLY possible to repair various systems:
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/04/24/can-large-scale-environmental-deva...
HOWEVER, our real human ecology is primarily driven by triumphant deceits, backed up with destruction, wherein those who benefit from doing that have every possible short-term advantage to keep on forcing those trends to happen, as the primary events, while the alternative good ideas continue being relegated to the margins, due to the maximized short-term benefit accruing to those who are the best at deceits and destruction. Thus, although we might have a better agricultural ecology, in the context of a better human and industrial ecology, what is actually happening is the runaway triumph of corporations like Monsanto, being able to be backed up by the force of governments, to drive all the worst trends into overdrive. Although there are plenty of theoretically saner alternatives, with respect to basic human ecology, as well as everything else, the ACTUAL trends are overwhelmingly towards the continued destruction of everything, with an insane human ecology leading the way, while making other better alternatives practically impossible, since the established systems are ALREADY based on triumphant frauds, benefiting those engaged in those frauds, in every perverse possible way!
Not surprisingly, those track back to the same social reasons and driving forces why our economic systems ended up being dominated by a fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system, which makes it political impossible to have any saner Alternative Energies & Society Adapted to Them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muw22wTePqQ
Immigration by the Numbers -- Off the Charts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxcEIpbNBjU
Who opened America's borders?
It appears TOO LATE to stop that social experiment?
BOTH of the theoretically possible "good" solutions discussed in this article are much nicer to imagine than the alternatives. However, both are drowning in the already established ways that civilization is controlled by legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, to the degree than any saner public debates about any of those deeper issues is already practically impossible!
On every level, the ways that we think about things is BACKWARDS! Therefore, what we call "birth control" and "family planning" is actually death control. Voluntary birth control is turning out to primarily become collective suicide of those who are able to understand why we should limit our overall population, while those who do not understand, or are not able to do that, are still reproducing at exponential rates.
ONLY THE AVERAGES ARE GOING DOWN, while the detailed demographics are becoming more UNBALANCED!
"Birth control" and "family planning" ought to be conducted within the overall context of militarism, because they ARE primarily forms of death control. However, because we think about everything about as backwards as it is possible to think, we are watching those who are intelligent and educated enough to control their birth rates collectively commit suicide, while those who are not are out breeding them.
The biggest problem with any and all alternative energy production systems is that we deliberately do NOT understand human civilizations as energy systems, because we deliberately ignore how those systems are actually controlled through dishonesty, backed by coercions. Thus, we can not develop any alternative energy systems unless we go even deeper in debt, to the people who are allowed to make money out of nothing, as debts, to fund those developments. Furthermore, they will not allow that to happen unless those rich get richer, as the primary result. Thus, around and around we go with "alternative energy" privatizing the profits, while socializing the losses, like we do with everything else.
The evolution of a better human ecology and political economy has the central problem that our current civilization is controlled by force backed frauds, through a social pyramid system where the majority of people are kept ignorant and afraid. Therefore, only always more insane amplifications of our suicidal and omnicidal behaviors are the ones that actually are happening the most!
Fundamentally, from the basic philosophy of science onwards, through everything else, our human ecology is not understood as an energy system, because our most basic presumed concepts regarding energy systems are BACKWARDS! Civilization has ended up being controlled by the people who were the best at being deceitful, and backing that up with destruction. Therefore, EVERYTHING we are doing is insanely backwards, throughout every aspect of our ecology and economy. Therefore, while I thought this article was generally quite good, and way better than average, it was still grossly superficial in presuming things, due to using language that is utterly superficial and backwards, whenever discussing these basic issues.
It was NOT an accident that our society is controlled by legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, and that everything, from the money system, to immigration policies, on throughout the potential to develop alternative energy sources, shares those same basic SOCIAL INSANITIES on every level, right down through the most basic conceptions of entropy regarding all energy systems in general!
Henry, Henry Kissinger, is that you?
"I'm all for population decline, but not if countries with rapidly increasing populations flood those with declining or stagnant populations. Close the borders and THEN we can have decline while those who breed like rabbits will experience what Malthus was talking about."
To borrow a recent popular phrase: JUMP YOU FUCKER!
How are YOU going to be able to afford to man the forts and fend off all those teeming masses that are trying to flood the US borders from Africa?
Australian govt once had a xenophobic law to encourage breeding of their non-indigenous (whites) so they wouldn't be overrun by the Yellow people. And their continent was already pretty much over carrying capacity and they're looking to heap on more because of xenophobia.
We still do, though not in the way you put it.
Pump out a kid today and get a several grand cheque in the mail for having done so (actually it's deposited automatically into the bank account but ya get the drift).
Furthermore our once treasurer actually stated "have one for youselves and one for the country" or words to that effect. Sigh!
Africa had a population issue long before the church carried out missionary work there. Your arrogance is perhaps surpassed by your ignorance towards the Catholic Church.
BS!
Africa NEVER had a "population problem" until the whites proclaimed they did.
Further, the REAL issue is total consumption, and to-date the western world had FAR exceeded consumption by those on the African continent.
Why Africa has a population problem is because the "west" is worried about losing access to exportable resources (can you say oil? [not to mention gold and diamonds - Pat Robertson, are you there?]).
you are paranoid sir.
this line of thinking should be fodder for a thousand economics phds. i doubt it though, because the winner is measured in money with efficiency of productivity only a convenient means, i.e., ford and firestone buying out electric trolley companies and dismantling them so more cars and tires could be sold.
the easter island model is long and strong. people will be expected to work until 75 years old soon with indentured service extended to 16 year olds(the free intern). financial incentives to have babies, plane fare and welfare,ahem, education grants and scholarships, for immigration from the baby maker countries, and a resurgence of anti choice advocates not to mention free(tax payer funded) fertility clinics and subsidized day care centers, etc., etc., etc..........
there may be a few enlightened countries like japan and china but the west is on a dash to self destruction that may be eventually faced in it's most dire straits with a full eugenics program in a post apocalyptic society.
in any case, i have argued this point fruitlessly for years becaue it goes directly against mainstream theory and practice of economics. the immediate discussion of these ideas is the economic fate of japan given it's demographic reality as the first nation facing a steep population decline. will they lead the way in a new economic sustainability model or import chinese, indonesian and phillipino immigrants to perpetuate the easter island model at all (social and cultural)costs to the nation?
"people will be expected to work until 75 years old soon"
How do people reconcile being against govt programs such as Social Security (knowing that has been stretched far beyond its original intent) and complaining about retirement age?
People are free to retire at any time!
But understand this, what we here in the West have come to know as "retirement" is nothing but an anomaly in human history. I'm married to someone who comes from a place where people do not retire (and no, it's not China or some other communist country).
My personal conviction is that I do NOT want to "retire." I wish to continue to be productive.
"will they [Japan] lead the way in a new economic sustainability model or import chinese, indonesian and phillipino immigrants to perpetuate the easter island model at all (social and cultural)costs to the nation?"
Another closet xenophobe!
Japan is FUCKED because it's totally unsustainable. It's an island nation that has set itself up to be dependent upon things that it has little control over- export market (techno shit), and imports of energy.
Easter Island was fucked because it operated in the same way as Japan. It's population was closed. It obsessed with things that fucked up their environment (Easter Islanders wiped out their forests in order to show off their statues; Japan is wiping out its environment because of its techno-culture [yes, nuclear reactors are high tech]).
Anyone engaging in perpetual growth IS fucked. Islands, being generally smaller, tend to reach the fucked point earlier due to obvious geographical limitations.
Good god, at least learn how to spell the countries of those that you're xenophobic about. And, stay the fuck away from my property or my Filipino wife will cap your ass: my wife is likely older than you (and she can spell correctly in multiple languages) and could outwork you any day of the week. BTW - if my wife were to miss I would not.
you are right. there is no way japan would resort to replacing their population with a bunch of flips.
Empires in the past subjugated weaker, less productive populations and took what resources they had, limiting their growth. The modern empire works in reverse. The weaker less productive people demand resources from the productive populations to fund their growth.
A life without children is a joyless life. To know you're going to die alone in a hospital bed surrounded by healthbots and paramedicos, rather than surrounded by people who know you and love you; children, grandchildren, family.
What a shitty direction we're heading.
You can have a dozen kids and you may end up dying alone in a hospital bed etc... Robert Mondavi, the California wine tycoon, had an inscription over his fireplace in Latin. Translated it said " The nice thing about having money is it keeps the children in touch"
Boy are you ever gonna learn the hard way!
if you face the prospect of your death while you are young and living then those petty concerns just get in the way.human life has no more meaning than any other living thing. the only difference is humans have been given a brain that creates life and living as one grand illusion/delusion. if one is careful enough that illusion/delusion can be of one's own choosing.
There is a concentrated effort to change hospital approaches to care. New lab data allows high numbers. With this in mind, I think we will see the old folks leaving sooner than otherwise. I'd be glad to check out at 80 and give the kids a chance at life. Two children per family is reasonable. Three ... in event on dies along the way. Family life is important. I know because I do not have a close family and it has cost me dearly - for reasons you suggest...you need a witness who is on your side at times when most vulnerable.
'Americans' showing their self.
The urge their nature pushes on them, so they illustrate points made on them...
They way an 'american' world works. It explains.
Why do you cast the hypothesis that people fall for the plot? People in the Chinese Citizenism Communautist Party support the scheme. They know how advantageous it is to smear freedom, justice and truth in order to advance their personal interests.
Chinese citizenism citizens are not gullible, they are not manipulated by a so called elite. They are plentifully and willingfully active actors of the whole drama.
That is why real politik is a nasty thing: it reveals a country as it is, the set of principles it is used to working on.
This person must be paid to spend such an inordinate amount of time trashing Americans on ZH. I wish he would be banned because he is very upsetting and I am tired of reading his crap. Tylers! Ban this fool
I see that AnAnus has fallen behind in his quota, being that it's the end of the month and a weekend. His other job, woking peoples dogs and roadside poop inspector/finger sniffer, is just not enough to make ends meet.
So much citizenism and insanitation to blob-up, so little time .....
I am not sure what Jeremy Grantham has ever contributed to society. If he has any influence then he should do all he can to convince his con-patriots to eschew greed and money created power and do what is right. I am not talking about false communist rhetoric and promises. I am talking about reestablishing or maybe establishing some things for the first time. Those things are equal personal rights and freedoms, actual personal property rights that cannot be cast aside by any gang that uses force or fiat money creation power to steal property, equal protection under common laws that are accessable by any person, productivity that generates a common good irrespective of the fiat/debt based costs. (Again, I am not talking about communism because communism is a lie ... as is charity... both steal from people.)
Money is actually irrelevant because money is not wealth. It is a tool of slavery. Physical (usable) assets and labor are the only real sources of wealth.... no matter what the bankers want you to believe (because the ability to create and distribute money is absolute power, if one believes money is wealth). By having monopoly control over the creation and distribution of money the banks force people to work (slavery) so that they can eat, have shoes on their feet and have a roof over their head. Don't get me wrong. Work is good. It is more healthy for the human soul than being a banking parasite.
As for falling fertility rates which will lead to falling population... chemicals (including vaccines), propaganda, money created stress, greed and self centeredness (again propagandized as good by the media and banks) and the destruction of the family unit through the media, human created disease and famine, human created immoral war ... are successfully destroying population.
I blame statism and secularism. Two societies in the developed world have maintained almost healthy birthrates. Israel and the USA. France has done ok but only on paper. The composition of their stats spells civilisational suicide well within the century.
Jeremy:
These 'solutions' have been bouncing off the walls for decades.
You fail to explain the feasibility, or costs/Reality, of accomplishing any of these wonderful ideas.
Just give us some profitable shorts, or stop doing your newest recreational 'vitamin'!
btw, we must be on the cusp of something bad, has anyone seen Grantham be this obtuse before?
I'm thinking he's all worked up because he's been on the wrong side of the trade for a while, hell...who hasn't? Look at their global tactical models at GMO, not exactly setting the world on fire. I like Jeremy, I really do but these green peace rants are killing me. They're beyond idealistic and accomplish nothing. Remember, global warming is nothing but a theory but if you're <30 years or so of age, you've been convinced it's real and man made. Such a joke. A valcano goes off and does the equivalent of 5 years of damage to the environment (carbond from humans etc) and yet we're trying convince people that a Prius is the way to go. Wake me when these people grow a brain.
For some folks driving a Prius is simply a rational response to excessively regulated (read expensive) gasoline prices, with an added bonus of solo driving in the car pool lanes.
Don't forget the posing value.
No question our problems will be lessened by a greatly reduced population, which is coming one way or another. Malthus said that population size could be controlled by decreasing the birthrate or increasing the death rate. This article euphemistically ignores the latter. Surely diminished environmental suitability for life (less food availabilty, more industrial poisons, more radioactivity, less potable water, more uncontrollable infectious agents, significantly altered atmospheric gas composition), use of our massive stockpiles of deadly weapons, and state-imposed age limits to life, restrictions on family size and further experiments in eugenics could be highly significant in reducing the human population on Earth. It remains to be seen if the human species will have enough time to generate the generic diversity required to yield a viable population in the hostile, toxic environment that our sloth and shorsightedness eventually creates.
Though he might not have mentioned it directly, he did state that there would be a corrective cycle. LOTS of deaths will be racking up due to plain old OLD AGE. It'll be the current group of younger folks who will have to bear the highest burden, though after this round it'll start to drop.
Grantham has officially lost his mind. Another green peace freak. Jeremy, please go back to asset management sir, you have no business getting all "mother earth" on us, we have an ass full of that useless drivel here in the states in Oregon, Washington State and California et. al.
We're simply an administration change away from a secular bull market and the largest economic expansion in the history of the world, let's start by taking out the trash in DC, then we can figure how to run cars on pig dung.
"We would surely discover that we are in fact still wealthy and can afford worthy projects with long-term payoffs and that our perceived poverty is more about leadership and perceptions than it is about reality. The U.S. is, after all, richer than it has ever been and is still the richest large country in the world. I have made a part of this point before."
I've always argued that we wouldn't be able to maintain the existing system AND create a new one because of our debt loads. Is he saying that we really do have plenty of money to do this?
Sadly, the "alternative energy" (techno solutions) stuff will only ever affect a handful of humans, just as it's always done (consider how the majority of the world's population lives- most closer to sustainability).
Never in human history has a shrinking, aging population and falling energy usage been a good omen for civilization. More like a standing invitation for some barbarian horde to come sack the place. Go ahead and tell yourself that sort of thing doesn't happen any more. It's normal for societies to think they're progressing toward a higher moral plane (social justice! clean energy! sustainability! ZPG!) when they're actually just dying.
Yeah, a pretty grim looking combo...
And here we thought it was going to be younger folks packing rifles, when it'll likely turn out to be old people wielding canes*... Or, maybe aliens from outer space might figure it's their best opportunity...
* I've got this covered. My dog is fully trained to chew anything that looks like a stick.
Uh, no, barbarism is a young man's game. You don't see 80-year-old white Frenchmen torching cars and then hobbling away in their walkers before the heat of the flames can melt their artificial hips.
Yes, we are taking extreme risks with resource depletion and with the environment, especially concerning climate damage and ocean acidification.
This stetment has 0 credibility given the entire global warming hoax!
I like how this author cites the second law of thermodynamics and then claims it is governing climate change. The second law simply states that the rate of generation of entropy of some system not at equilibrium is positive. Thermodynamics is a very beautiful and general subject, however it is also full of abstractions, which frankly, few people understand. I'm not claiming to be Willard Gibbs, but if you must cite basic axioms of science please demonstrate how you get from point A to point B
Dude read his kids Human Geography 1 book.
This is the stuff that globalists hope for along with central planning. They fail to recognize that the power and control of such plans, to come to the rescue, lies in the hands of entities which lack morality and further do not have the ability to possess morality because they are collective institutions within a pyramidal form of governance.
Unless individual freedoms are a central component of human society this civilization like the ones before are doomed F'ker.
And right now, seeing the increase in page views of infowars.com and ZeroHedge.com, I'd say the cliff is well within sight.
Just got back from a fast food restaurant, nothing better to eat otherwise.
The place was surreal. Packed with obese middle aged looking people. Lots of kids too. There was a clearly ghetto mexican couple with two teenage daughters and two more babies in tow.
Look I have nothing against humanity AS LONG AS PEOPLE STOP BREEDING LIKE RABBITS AND DO NOT EXPECT ME TO SAVE EVERYONE. Support yourself, or do what every last human in the history of the planet has done and allow nature to deal with you.
It's official policy of the United States of Amerika to allow infinite immigration from Latin America, and to grow the population forever.
We're fucked.
Immigration in the U.S. Remember, your president depends on it! It's how he got reelected...
The failure of a societies does not come from concentrated wealth, or too few resources, but the virtue of its people.
Robert Heinlein:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances
which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then
— are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised,
often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking
people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as
sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip
back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
The problem is that declining fertility rates may be driven by increased resource consumption thanks to prosperity, which means alternative energy with lower energy returns won't be enough.
On the fall of theocracy meme and its sham facade; see the irony behind this information :
Iran Arrests Thousands Of Men For Claiming To Be A Fake MessiahRead more: http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21576700-authorities-think-too-many-people-are-claiming-be-mahdi-youre#ixzz2Rkj5OLhT
This is as bad as that other meme : In free markets and capitalism we believe, and the greenback is its prophet.
As a "relativist" I don't see any hope in the "absolutist" vision of human destiny; not from God's messenger on earth extolling eternal bliss after rigor mortis nor from capitalist messiah selling free libertarian markets and John Galt like he were John the Baptist.
Salome's dance and John's sacrificial head are just legends to propagate his place in heaven along with Peter and Paul; like the seven sacrements invented to control and confuse the people herebelow by a papal multinational organisation over the ages; or the chosen race creed or the chosen islamic phrase decree.
Civilizations fall because the power equation as exercised by a centralised elite does not serve the knowledge equation of general good anymore, becoming the face of regression and decadence to protect its own prerogatives; time and time again.
Top down logic goes cancerous on bottom up aspirations it is supposed to serve as beacon of.
"The good news is that there are now scores, if not hundreds, of research teams working on this"
"it is extremely likely in my opinion that some real cost progress will be made in storage"
Its that easy?? - a thousand monkeys with typewriters?
I hate to say it, but the Apocalypse happens in slow time. Humans are very bad at delayed temporal thinking, and this is intensified if the gap is generational. The dark side of being adaptable is that you can never quite believe the past / future was / will be that different to the present. It's the Grandfather bay-of-fish problem, or why the passenger pigeon went extinct in the USA. Modern Americans simply cannot imagine a flock of birds miles long because they no longer exist.
And it's already happened.
For the first time in human history, concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) could rise above 400 parts per million (ppm) for sustained lengths of time throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere as soon as May 2013.[source]
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Barrow, Alaska, reached 400 parts per million (ppm) this spring, according to NOAA measurements, the first time a monthly average measurement for the greenhouse gas attained the 400 ppm mark in a remote location[source hint: this is a USA gov Commerce department]
N ow, I'm fully aware of what most people here think of Environmental Science (and I'm sorry, but your personal beliefs mean fuck all to science), but here's the issue: all the models you've seen so far present 350ppm of CO2 as the threshold event, in terms of their effect in x years. i.e. If you stop at 350ppm then your warming is ~2oC in x years [roughly 50, depending on model]. Now, what you have to grasp is that a current state will effect a future event; and we're at 400ppm in certain parts of the Arctic right now, which means we've not even hit the crest of the curve.
400ppm cresting at 450ppm might mean a warming of 4oC which is disastrous in ecological impact. This is fairly major. Now, I know you'all want to ignore this, and many of you will be dead by the time it hits, but there's a massive event cycle incoming. Look up to the moon and tell me what shines brightly next to it at the moment.
Bonus round! Global spring-time anthropogenic aerosol depth showing China's input. [source Warning PDF - via Early Warning blog, excellent info source]. Points if you can identify what's happening in Guinea / Sierra Leone. This amount of particulates is actually slowing heating, as are all those contrails the Infowars hebe-jeebees are so worried about ~ but given the amount of bad PR China is getting in Beijing, I happen to agree with it soon being a moment they'll enact clean air statutes. At which point, albedo goes down.
Oh, and for the ignorant wondering about snow / droughts: localized weather =! climate; warmer climate = more water vapor = more snow in colder climes, and less water in hotter climes because it's gone elsewhere. Nonlinear systems, yo!
tl;dr
Failing to react against current events is deeply troublesome; being ignorant of what's coming is going to spank you.
CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere’s life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.
The decline of atmospheric CO2 over the last 65 million years (Ma) resulted in the 'CO2-starvation' of terrestrial ecosystems and led to the widespread distribution of C4 plants, which are less sensitive to CO2 levels than are C3 plants. Global expansion of C4 biomass is recorded in the diets of mammals from Asia, Africa, North America, and South America during the interval from about 8 to 5 Ma. This was accompanied by the most significant Cenozoic faunal turnover on each of these continents, indicating that ecological changes at this time were an important factor in mammalian extinction. Further expansion of tropical C4 biomass in Africa also occurred during the last glacial interval confirming the link between atmospheric CO2 levels and C4 biomass response. Changes in fauna and flora at the end of the Miocene, and between the last glacial and interglacial, have previously been attributed to changes in aridity; however, an alternative explanation for a global expansion of C4 biomass is CO2 starvation of C3 plants when atmospheric CO2 levels dropped below a threshold significant to C3 plants. Aridity may also have been a factor in the expansion of C4 ecosystems but one that was secondary to, and perhaps because of, gradually decreasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Mammalian evolution in the late Neogene, then, may be related to the CO2 starvation of C3 ecosystems.[source - 1998 paper, ancient from Utah WARNING, PDF]
We now know, for example, that early Cenozoic Earth was a far more humid hothouse than it is today and that during a relatively short interval of several million years in the Eocene, this dominant climatic regime transformed into an “icehouse,” that is, with significant global cooling that apparently affected the rate of extinctions (Prothero 1994)
...
Fossil horses (Family Equidae) from North America are chosen here as a model, or case example, because (1) this group was very abundantly represented in North America from the Eocene, approx 57 million years ago, until the last surviving genus Equus became extinct on this continent during the late Pleistocene, approx 10,000 years ago [source -warning large PDF]
Here's the problem, skippy: CO2 levels dropped in a time frame of several million years and led to widespread changes in both flora and fauna, and mass extinctions in the original species. We're adding large amounts of CO2 in less than 200 years. Nature simply doesn't move fast enough to adapt in this time-frame. But please, tell me more about what CO2 does in the atmosphere, please. Or, in other words, you're completely clueless about the function of Time in evolution. Or is the world 6,000 years old?
Oh, and p.s. The levels were certainly not x10 as high.
We estimate CO2 concentrations of more than 2,000 p.p.m. for the late Palaeocene and earliest Eocene periods (from about 60 to 52 Myr ago), and find an erratic decline between 55 and 40 Myr ago that may have been caused by reduced CO2 outgassing from ocean ridges, volcanoes and metamorphic belts and increased carbon burial. Since the early Miocene (about 24 Myr ago), atmospheric CO2 concentrations appear to have remained below 500 p.p.m. and were more stable than before, although transient intervals of CO2 reduction may have occurred during periods of rapid cooling approximately 15 and 3 Myr ago. [source]
Tl;dr
CO2 levels have been under 500ppm for roughly 24,000,000 years. We've added ~100 or so ppm in 200 years, and have also done massive amounts of de-forestation in that time. Do the fucking math, extinction ahoy.
The scientists then address the key issue of why there is so much intolerance and corruption among global-warming proponents, and the answer they give is sadly, “Follow the money.”
In economics, a pollutant is a form of negative externality—that is, a byproduct of economic activity that causes damages to innocent bystanders. The question here is whether emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases will cause net damages, now and in the future. This question has been studied extensively. The most recent thorough survey by the leading scholar in this field, Richard Tol, finds a wide range of damages, particularly if warming is greater than 2 degrees Centigrade.7 Major areas of concern are sea-level rise, more intense hurricanes, losses of species and ecosystems, acidification of the oceans, as well as threats to the natural and cultural heritage of the planet.
In short, the contention that CO2 is not a pollutant is a rhetorical device and is not supported by US law or by economic theory or studies.
[source William Nordhaus "Why the Global Warming skeptics are wrong" March 22, 2012]
Seriously. Even your own sources (an economist, not a scientist, we note) state it's a huge issue. You've just conclusively proven you don't even understand the science, slow clap. The next question is whether or not you'll accept your own source as valid, and admit that it's an issue. My money is on you junking and running, but hey.
Muppet.
p.s. If you're attempting to link Soviet era politics to this, you must be working for the Koch brothers. It's the most vapid and silly attempt at "smearing by profession" I've ever seen. Let's see - Jon Corzine was a futures broker and bond dealer, and embezzled client's money, so all futures brokers and bond dealers are crooks, right?
Wait. That actually might be the exception that proves the rule.
If you think that all races are exactlt equal, then I will leave you with some facts. These numbers were compiled by the black city administrators running the city of New Orleans.
The last year that I lived in New Orleans, about 20 years ago, these were the murder stats. for a full year: total murders 376; black killing blacks 368....get the picture....not even close
Also, about this same time period, a study was done comparing violent crime in America vs. Europe....when black crime was subtracted from the US stats., the US was less violent than Europe. Yes, I have heard all the P.C. arguments ever presented by every bleeding heart commie red doper diaper baby...don't bother wasting my time with your clap trap....in the near future, all these same whiney ass liberals will be begging for protection from the hordes that will be devestating the cities....don't look my way...you made your beds, now you will have to lie in them...lol
Well said! And today ShitCago is another great example of a race on the verge of extinction, they're wiping themselves out faster than they can reproduce but nowhere does the Libtarded media cover this. No, they're brainwashing a nation that if an AR-15 is within a mile of your home it will kill you... such a joke!
Spoken loke a true eugenicist...global warming progressive horseshit
Naw. We're fucked.
This topic is already covered in much greater detail in Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies
The issue is DIMINISHING RETURNS in all aspects of the society: as a civilization solves its problems, the cost of solving those problems is ever higher, leaving less and less margin for error. Consequent problems deplete the reserves slowly and then tha last straw comes (which would have been trivial at other times).
Declining population comes way too late to matter in this, as the main act will surely play out before 2050.
Current known alternative energy sources have two huge problems:
1. They are not portable and storable energy like oil. (You could say electricity is portable, but it is much less portable than oil as there is no solution to operate ships and trucks with it).
2. The solution to depleting fossil sources is to replace them with energy that has inferior EROEI (energy return on energy invested). Thus, this is a classic example of diminishing returns, it costs way more to replace oil than the cost of oil was a 100 years ago.
Societies need a net energy surplus to operate and this surplus is slowly but surely eroding with alternative energy, with fracking, with deepwater oil, etc. The current culture of consumption cannot survive. The civilization may, but it will be a totally different world. And the transformation will be (IS) a very dangerous time. It is already happening in peripheral countries and at the edges of wealthy societies too.