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Guest Post: Returning to Simplicity (Whether We Want to or Not)
Submitted by ChrisMartenson.com contributor Gregor Macdonald
Returning to Simplicity (Whether We Want to or Not)
Eventually the point is reached when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain its existing level of complexity.
- Joseph Tainter
The modern world depends on economic growth to function properly. And throughout the living memory of every human on earth today, technology has continually developed to extract more and more raw material from the environment to power that growth.
This has produced a faithful belief among the public that has helped to blur the lines between human innovation and limited natural resources. Technology does not create resources, though it does embody our ability to access resources. When the two are operating smoothly in tandem, society mistakes one for the other. This has created a new and very modern problem -- a misplaced trust in technology to consistently fulfill our economic needs.
What happens once key resources become so dilute that technology, by itself, can no longer meet our growth needs?
We may be about to find out.
Recent History
The twin disasters, Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico and Fukushima in Japan, took place only nine months apart in 2010-2011, but together they have provided the world’s economy with a lesson in 21st Century un-priced risk. Our various energy systems, vastly arrayed across regions and hemispheres, have now reached a late phase of complexity. And societies, particularly in the West, have enjoyed technological progress for such a long, uninterrupted period of time that the delicate nature of this modern infrastructure has evolved to escape notice.
The BP disaster arose within the oil and gas sphere more than a century after the start of widespread oil extraction. The collective knowledge of the industry was, in one sense, a support to the operation that allowed the recovery of oil several miles below ocean and earth, using ultra deepwater drilling techniques. But a century of global oil production was also a constraint, as Deepwater Horizon illustrated the outer reaches to which a mature industry had been driven to obtain its next tranche of resources. The capital BP has set aside for cleanup stands at $40 billion. Additionally, government resources, from equipment to personnel, that were diverted to the Gulf and Gulf Coast that summer (see photo above) were reminiscent of a small military operation.
Deepwater Horizon also showed that modern energy extraction now occurs with the greatest-ever separation between human operators and their resource target(s). This physical distance is so great that, in the case of very deep offshore oil drilling, it’s no longer possible to reliably stop a blowout. Why? Because no equipment exists to easily take men and material to such depth to conduct repairs. Indeed, it was at least as much due to luck as skill that BP was able to halt the well flow several miles down. And the almost comical trial-and-error efforts (junk shots) proved what many have long asserted: In the past decade, the cost of the marginal barrel of oil has crossed a threshold to a completely new era. It now becomes possible to ask the question, Is it worth it? Is it even economic to obtain this new tranche of oil?
The Fukushima disaster, triggered by the an offshore earthquake, ripped the lid off Japan’s power grid and illustrated how the country has historically balanced its lack of domestic fossil fuel supply against its enormous manufacturing base. On a small level, the actual sequence of events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant revealed an amazing vulnerability. For it was not the passing of the tsunami that performed critical damage to the installation’s structure; rather, it was the auxiliary power that was knocked out, depriving the plant of its cooling functions. Hence the meltdown, and the subsequent issues with recriticality (resumption of fission).
Meanwhile, on a larger level, the world came to understand how dependent Japan had become on nuclear power, which provides 30% of the country’s electricity needs. Japan is also one of the largest importers of LNG (liquefied natural gas) and still has to import 80% of its overall energy mix, which includes oil and a very great quantity of coal. (Indeed, Japan is the fourth largest world consumer of coal, behind only China, the US, and India). Unsurprisingly, the country had to significantly boost imports of LNG and coal in the wake of the disaster.
What has been the cultural response to the Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima disasters? In the US, the oil spill in the Gulf, which exacted a great economic toll, echoes the aftermath of other post oil-spill environments: The moratorium on offshore drilling was quickly lifted, but in its place lies a new set of regulations and restrictions. Most of these have a single aim -- that similar blowouts in deepwater be preventable or fixable. The evidence seems to suggest that deepwater drilling in the Gulf has peaked. The rig count has recovered but is still down below the highs, with many of the largest and most expensive operators having left for other parts of the world.
Meanwhile, the global response to the Japanese catastrophe rippled through several economies, especially those, such as Germany, that rely heavily on nuclear power. German chancellor Angela Merkel announced that her country had to accelerate its transition to renewables, becoming less reliant on nuclear. Other countries have increased their inspection procedures, and for the first time in many years, it seemed possible that many aging plants in the US would not see their licenses renewed. In Japan, there have been protests. And given the long lifespan of the nuclear event, which will ripple outwards for decades upon the affected portions of the northeast Japanese coast, it is not surprising:
TOKYO (AP) -- Chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, tens of thousands of people marched in central Tokyo on Monday to call on Japan's government to abandon atomic energy in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident. (Source)
Western Faith in Progress
Education in the West has, as a core feature of its curriculum, a narrative of progress. This is especially true of US history offerings and of any discipline that addresses the post-Industrial Revolution (roughly the two centuries after 1800). The examples of technological progress most available to Western cultures, as we moved from the Age of Wood to the Age of Coal and finally the Oil Age, are highly confirming of the view that humanity always finds a way. And in particular, it finds a way to grow, and even thrive.
It is particularly worth noting the symbiotic relationship between the machines that were developed to extract resources (like the steam engine that pumped water from coal mines) and the life cycle of those machines as utilizers of those resources. Coal mining triggered development of machines that would run on coal, just as oil would eventually power the latest machines that would be used to extract oil. It is this awesome ratchet effect that’s so persuasive to Western culture, and it is the story it repeatedly tells itself.
One can hardly fault the highly educated person, with an advanced position in business, communications, technology, or academia, for generally believing that innovation (and the power of prices) will obtain all of the resources we require. I believe this bias is what Daniel Kahneman would call an availability heuristic. The risk to this bias is that at some point in human development innovation and technology may very well carry forward and confirm society’s faith, but at the same time start to offer increasingly diminishing returns to progress. In my opinion, that is the lesson of Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima. And I expect it also to be the lesson of the Alberta Tar Sands.
There is a lens through which we can view events like Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima. Charles Perrow, in his important work on Normal Accident Theory (NAT) examines these accidents by type and plots them according to their complexity. See, for example, where nuclear power is located on the following grid: (Source: Accidents, Normal -- opens to PDF).
What has begun to take place in global energy extraction is that the current tranche of resources obtained by more complex methods -- deepwater drilling, underground fracturing, in-situ mining, and other strip mining -- have begun to move towards the quadrant of Perrow’s chart that is occupied by nuclear power and chemical plants. Here, systems are both technically advanced and tightly coupled, which is to say that failures anywhere in their operations can spread easily and cause systemic failure.
Additionally, the boundaries of those failures can also be rather broad. That nuclear contamination spreads over large geographical areas has been known for some time. But Deepwater Horizon warned that contemporary oil extraction has also crossed the threshold into very wide boundaries. Despite the current euphoria over North American shale natural gas and the continuing confidence that production can be lifted in the Alberta Tar Sands, there are already indications that groundwater supply is going to become a much, much bigger issue as we try to increase access to these resources.
As Joseph Tainter explains (see the quote in the header to this essay), resources in civilization are eventually marshaled not for further growth but simply to maintain current systems, usually in their most advanced iteration. This is the terminal phase of expansion that the large, OECD regions (Japan, Europe, US) have likely reached. This is a vexing and frustrating limit that just about everyone, no matter their political orientation or economic view, will struggle to digest. For example, in an analysis of Fukushima’s impact on future energy policy, I thought this reaction from the team at the BTI Institute, was somewhat correct but perhaps a bit hasty:
Yet lost in the hyperbolic claims of nuclear opponents, the defensive reactions of the nuclear industry, and the carefully calibrated repositioning of politicians and policymakers is the reality that Fukushima is unlikely to much change the basic political economy of nuclear power. Wealthy, developed economies, with relatively flat energy growth and mature energy infrastructure haven't built a lot of nuclear in decades and were unlikely to build much more anytime soon, even before the Fukushima accident. The nuclear renaissance, such as it is, has been occurring in the developing world, where fast growing, modernizing economies need as much new energy generation as possible and where China and India alone have constructed dozens of new plants, with many more on the drawing board.
While it’s true that the long-forecasted nuclear renaissance in the West never took place, with little prospect now that it ever will, it’s not exactly true that the developing world is choosing nuclear power in any meaningful way. Coal remains the dominant energy source in the developing world, for obvious reasons: it’s portable, it stores well, it remains cheap, and (most of all) it is not complex.
Given that the externalities of coal use are rather brutal, it also the case that human beings place steep discount rates on the future. Society is much more fearful of accidents which take place suddenly and with little warning, than of the long term negative effects of a different set of policies on their health. It may not be logical, but that is our preference.
Tilting Away from Complexity
An emerging theme out of Silicon Valley over the past few years has been the epiphany that venture capital experienced regarding the extraordinary difficulty of greentech. “No mas” has been the conclusion. Why build expensive prototype energy boxes or invest in large vats of algae, when little apps can populate quickly across Internet devices, with no heavy lifting or messy cleanup? The difference between the two worlds has been summed up like this: In Atoms vs. Bits, it’s undeniable that “atoms are simply too difficult.” Yes, and this, too, is the lesson of Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima. If investment in complex resource extraction has either tail risk that could overwhelm returns, or externalities that overwhelm the well being of society, why do it?
Recently I spotted an insightful remark that addresses the issue, from Alan Nogee on Twitter.
In Part II: Why We Must Embrace Simplicity Now, we explore how diminishing returns have now triggered in our various complex systems. Eventually it will become clear that the cost to repair damages from their destructiveness is simply too great. Technology is practically telling us (begging us?) to place less faith in its ability to solve all problems.
It's obvious that our elected leadership has no concept of a growth limit that could render the economy’s obligations insoluble. The Fed transcripts are yet one more piece of evidence that unless we get a better handle on the enormous, complex systems we are already operating, we will continue to suffer more frequent and painful "unexpected" economic accidents. Given our track record in this regard, the alternate route would be to step back from these complex systems and regain our footing in simplicity. Or else maintain the status quo approach until market forces pressure us to.
Click here to access Part II of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access).
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Frame your discussion in terms of net free energy and get back to me....
Otherwise, you come across as a whiney child who wants his toys....
Technology is a process, it doesn't CREATE any new matter, it only, via (precious) ENERGY, transforms it.
Your logic would have us all believe that because you haven't yet died that since it hasn't happened it WON'T happen.
Yeah, even longer than Malthus has been the hordes of stupid fuckers on this planet who can't quite make the distinction from the virtual and the physical. Darwin is calling your name...
mankind builds on his technological achievements and his rate of build is one that also accelerates. That is fact and it flies in the face of 200+ years of Malthusian fallacy.
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No. There are US citizens and the rest of humanity.
US citizens have achieved nothing on their own. Nothing is intrinsic to them in their propagated achievements.
They have been enabled in those achievements through extorting the weak and farming the poor.
But what? The world is finite and such is the number of weak and poor. Now that US citizens are reached the potential given by this number, they are backpedalling on a number of those achievements.
Quite normal.
Yet US citizenism leads US citizens to consider the issues linked to consumption with the number of people, no matter their consumption and even better to indict the non consumers for any crisis coming up.
Something that Malthus never did by the way because during his time, consumption per capita on the Earth was roughly equal.
Which is nolonger the case in this US world order.
I believe that it is already taking all available energy and resources to maintain the current level of complexity. The past 150 years of persistent economic growth is an anomoly in contrast to the rest of human civilization. There is not anything close to a 150 year run of persistent economic growth at any other time in history. Paul Krugmanites will say the past 150 years of persistent economic growth is entirely attributable to our greater understanding of economics. They will also say that more "money" (that can be printed out of thin air) will always produce more resources.
I don't agree with the Krugmanites that the past 150 years of persistent economic growth is attributable to our greater understanding of economics. I believe the past 150 years of persistent economic growth is entirely attributable to the persistent growth in the production, refining and distribution of crude oil, coal and natural gas. I also believe that technology generally consumes energy rather than produces it.
The only thing that makes a fiat currency "money" is confidence and that confidence is entirely predicated on extrapolating the past 150 years of persistent economic growth indefinitely into the future. If the possibility that resource and energy production were taken seriously by enough market participants then fiat currencies could not exist. Krugmanites will never, ever, believe or admit that energy resources and the technology that consumes them can reach a point of maximum production.
EXACTLY RIGHT. Were you a consultant on the latest Zeitgeist movie? Skip forward to 2:23:43 and you'll understand... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
I don't understand why the thinkers only limit themselves to the resources on this planet. There are plenty of raw materials and energy sources beyond what this planet can provide. The key is to develope the means to capitalize upon them. I believe that mankind can and will adapt. We just need to demand better from our leadership.
Sarcasm?
Sounds just like a quote that Dr. Albert Bartlett used in his presentation Arithmetic, Population and Energy. In some conversation with some "leader" he stated that even the sun was limited, and the so-called "leader" quipped that if it ever became necessary humans would capture another sun and drag it back into our solar system.
Sure, just about anything is possible, but the real issue is whether it's PROBABLE. The notion of obtaining resources from other planets, when we struggle to get them from our own "backyard," is pushing things well into the improbable.
Well I have a hard time refuting that argument. The probability sure looks bleak when our leadership is more concerned with political power than they are in advancing civilization. But take a look at what we achieved in a decade when our political leaders provided a vision of putting a man on the moon. I believe with a visionary as a leader that we can achieve great things. It sure would be nice if we diverted the money for the war machine to exploring those other possibilities.
Eventually through the unencumbered power of the Internet collective we may not need that visionary.
"...In some conversation with some "leader" he stated that even the sun was limited, and the so-called "leader" quipped that if it ever became necessary humans would capture another sun and drag it back into our solar system."
Would love to see the EROEI calcs on that endeavor.
Are you high? It's TOO LATE to adapt and no amount of "leadership" will make a difference. Skip forward to 2:23:43 of Zeitgeist and maybe you'll understand... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
I disagree. It's never to late. Mankind is capable if great things. Maybe it won't be our generation , or even our country. But I believe this will pass and people will adapt and change.
NO.
There are US citizens and the rest of humanity.
US citizens nature is eternal and they will stay course.
Your mindless, monotonous, meaningless droning on and on about some nonsensical "US Citizenism" is growing increasingly annoying and tiresome. Please shut the fuck up already.
O.O
Wow. Something must have gone wrong.... this degree of systematic, economic and transactional thinking posted on ZH? I mean, this site so far was an awesome ressource for finacial analysis (and a lot of welcome sarcasm)... but when it came to philosophy, highlevel economics and interaction-mechanics... it never really did deliver.
Well, okay, i'll bite. The issue is less one of tech versus intetion..... because well.... tech == tools, and tools =/= purpose.... that is to say, tech explicitely is NOT mindset, intention, purpose, culture.... but instead what a mindset, intention, purpose, and culture... uses tools for.
So far, tech, as well as technological research has mainly been used for.... well, to keep it short: greedy exploitation. Extract as much as you can NOW, and worry about the consequences of the tomorow ..... umm, when it becomes unavoidable.... or more probably never...
However, that does not make tech (as well as reserach) useless for anything other intention - precisely because tech =/= intention.... after all, if one has different intentions, there is nothing stopping oneself to develop tech for that different intention.
Like...... efficiency. In theory we could use tech and tech-research.... to reduce ressource consumption, increase output per bought product, increase reliability and thus REDUCE consumption (and thus... YES, GDP. GFY GDP-maxime and rot in a fucking corner). We could also use tech to empower a different kind of "governance" that has less to do with "to govern" and more to do with "to coordinate and provide a plain simple framework" instead of the current bloat. And a lot more things....
...is any of those goals achievable by tech alone? NO. No amount of tech alone by itself will make that happen, simply because if people do not want it, it will not happen, no matter the tech. People simply use tech to achieve what they want to achieve. However, given the "right" intentions, tech can make it easier to "get there".
Want to change the overall course? Then change culture, mindsets, worldviews, intentions and people........ want to strenghten that new direction? Well, THAT's what tech is for..... tech is a force-multiplier.... NOT an direction.
"However, that does not make tech (as well as reserach) useless for anything other intention - precisely because tech =/= intention.... after all, if one has different intentions, there is nothing stopping oneself to develop tech for that different intention."
Well, yes, funding/energy pushes "tech." But, for these exact reasons I'd have to state that there is in fact PLENTY stopping technology from "different intentions."
"Like...... efficiency. In theory we could use tech and tech-research.... to reduce resource consumption, increase output per bought product, increase reliability and thus REDUCE consumption"
Technology isn't needed to reduce consumption. Further, "efficiency" will never beat out total available resources without there being an explicit physical check on the consumption of physical resources: maybe we one day find that alien predators will keep our numbers down? (sounds more challenging/exciting than bacteria killing off vast numbers).
"more to do with "to coordinate and provide a plain simple framework" instead of the current bloat.'
The word "bloat" plays well to the anti-tax folks, that's for sure. A plain and simple framework already exists in nature- dieoff. Humans will not, because of diverse "thought" (or lack of) take on any semblance of self-population control: some heathen cultures knew how to do this, but the "sophisticated" ones don't (because they were instructed to go forth and multiply without end).
"However, given the "right" intentions, tech can make it easier to "get there"."
Let's all hope, right? Never mind what we're hoping for, we just let some other hazy groups of folks define that FOR us? Really, just what does "get there" mean?
It's all about survival, survival of our genetics. All that needs to happen is to pass along these, to create a "next generation." Can it be sustained? Well, because the sun will eventually fade the answer would be "NO." I would then guess that both the religious folks and the techno folks would have it right that we have to "escape" the earth... sadly, the attempts to "escape" result in making the earth less inhabitable. One-shot solutions can have dire consequences...
Nice to see you're working to earn your username :-) Thanks.
Completely agree. The immediate "bottleneck" currently IMO isn't technological. I was simply subtly playing the counter-argument, because in the longterm.... tech could be a limiting factor to a different cultural mindset. This does not neccessarily need to involve entirely new techs (fundamental breakthroughs), but simply developing new tech from existing fundamental knowledge - like, developing new ideas how to use already existing tech.... even though people popularily do not associate this with "tech-research", it still is tech-research. Tech-research isn't just inventing completely new things, but also polishing and adapting existing knowledge. And this could be useful if a different cultural mindset were to develop. Actually, what are the odds, that if culture were to make an 180 degree U-turn, that existing tools turn out to be designed for opposite intentions, and thus be completely counterproductive? Most current tools are designed to perform best for the current parasitary mindset.... an inverse mindset may not need technological breakthroughs, but it will need tools to perform well for different goals.
Again, completely agree. As i wrote above, tech currently isn't the main issue - goals/purpose are. If you're facing the wrong direction, there is no point in increasing the speed. Though, if one were to face the right direction, a speedup may be useful :)
I think i'll opt for "no judgement" towards the above stuff. Darwinism has some useful and UNREPLACABLE aspects. But when i see people relying on nothing else than it.... and actually, a kind of darwinism, that in fact does not even exist in nature, and is instead just an idealistic fantasy (i.e. applies to most anarchists and extremist individualists... whenever they call on "nature" to justify their obessions, their base actually has little resemblance with nature)... when i see that style of argumentation, well..... it's about as interesting to me, as leftwingers and rightwingers.... just another bunch of fanboys, of one side of a dichotomy. HOWEVER, so far you've written nothing that would clearly resemble that kind of thinking.... which is why i'd rather not judge your above quote.
It just means achieving an intention. I/someone/somepeople want to achive state X.... HOW do we get there? That "how" is called "technology" :-) And this is all i argued - nothing more, nothing less.
..... oh god. Okay, until you wrote the above, i was treating your words without prejudice..... but THIS...... holy shit.... i don't even know where to begin with pointing out the ideologically-motivated falacies.... have a nice day... not going to spend more energy on another "believer".
>>>this site so far was an awesome ressource for finacial analysis (and a lot of welcome sarcasm)... but when it came to philosophy, highlevel economics and interaction-mechanics... it never really did deliver.<<<
You are so right. But you can only do so much with the likes of trav and the other legions of semi-employed geniuses trying to fill the void in their empty lives through ZH,
>>>Want to change the overall course? Then change culture, mindsets, worldviews, intentions and people........ want to strenghten that new direction? Well, THAT's what tech is for..... tech is a force-multiplier.... NOT an direction.<<<
I think the site (or rather, you) just did deliver in a small way. Of course, your insight will be drowned out immediately with someone posting "Bitchez" this or that.
Keep posting anyway. Occasionally, something useful leaks through.
Yes, at one time it was a font of knowledge on financial matters....
It has degraded into auto-erotic Libertarian worship of Ron Paul and precious metal bugs... The very definition of an echo-chamber...
Try and have a discussion about anything else and see what comes of it....
At least the abiotic oil types have shut up....
ZeroHedge has been from the first explicitly anti-Establishment.
Support for Ron Paul and gold are both clear expressions of that same anti-Establishment mentality, in the political sphere and financial sphere, respectively. Yet you think there is no connection, and feign surprise at such developments here?
Yes....I was there, as an anonymous poster at first and not much later as a registered one. I have very clearly seen what has gone on at this sight... You have been a registered member for all of 5 weeks longer than me....
I own gold and have told many people that they should own physical...
There is more to being anti-establishment than just supporting RP and pimping gold...
Just try and have discussion about the prospects for Nitrogen fertilizer MLPs....
Or about the long term viability of some of shale NG plays...
Or about the concept of EROEI....
I agree, too often serious or pertinent discussions of such subjects are shot down by fly-by one-liners, simplistic anti-scientific Dominionist dogma, and general drivel. Such is the nature of almost any online forum, sad to say --- the shit usually tends to float to the top.
Check out the Zeitgeist Movement and the Venus Project for a viable solution.
The future is now. Be Prepared.
A lot of people don't like Zeitgeist for exposing the 9-11 fraud or for exposing Christianity for what it is, a copy of a copy of a copy of older pagan religions.
All you can hope for is that some people educate themselves about the real peak oil situation by watching "Beyond The Peak" at 2:23:43 of Zeitgeist Moving Forward... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
It's not just Christianity. Islam and Judaism also fall into that boat. I'd like to think we've moved past the bronze age.
Humanity is currently stuck in a rut, never before has so much been expended with so little to show for and yes that includes iPad2s.
How bad science becomes common knowledge
http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-bad-science-becomes-common.html
The same goes for the content of this article.
The problem is that we all have been there once before.
In the Seventies we were all doomed and flooded with dire predictions.
Peak oil, food shortages, a pending ice age, mass starvation, industrial pollution... nuclear war, nuclear winter....
Instead we managed to boost agricultural output and lift a record number of people out of poverty.
Today the fears of an ice age have made place for the fears of thermageddon.
Peak oil is back on the map and the green propaganda machine tells us we need three planets to maintain our civilization. Total nonsense of course.
There is no such thing as peak oil for a long time to come. We have just scratched the surface of the available energy resources at our disposal and the predicted population boom will wind down and stabilize around 9 billion as more countries develop.
Developed countries show lower birth rates, create a developed middle class, spend more attention and money on their environment and high quality of life.
Poverty, dumbing down and a roll back of progress is the real threat.
Unless you still believe the fairy tales of the energy revolution embodied by Green hokus pokus like useless wind parks and solar panels that are all but green if you know how much oil is burned to produce them and their debunked theory telling us that our 3% contribution to the natural CO2 budget is causing unprecedented warming, sea level rise and melting ice caps.
I think most readers and posters at this blog have too much luggage between their ears to be caught by such a propagandistic spin of science and facts.
That's why I think this article doesn't belong on this blog.
That's why I think this article doesn't belong on this blog.
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Made me laugh. Another one framed by US citizenism.
The total number of human population has little to do with.
What matters is the rate they consume the Earth.
Impossibility to self indict, once again. The overpopulation issue lies within the US citizen world, not outside. The outside has only been there to enable the US citizen dream through extortion of the weak and farming of the poor.
There is a relationship between the two but yet, the population reduction means nothing. China might be on the path of reducing their population but will consume much, much more.
US citizens have been the engine of consumption, the ones consuming most of things.
But yet clearly, it is US citizenish to seek to solve an overconsumption issue by blaming the non consumers.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah .....
Copy and paste from Washington think tanks like the Hudson institute? There is a reason that there is so much propaganda put out from government think tanks to refute limits to growth. Governments want to grow infinitely.
"In the Seventies we were all doomed and flooded with dire predictions.
Peak oil, food shortages, a pending ice age, mass starvation, industrial pollution... nuclear war, nuclear winter....
Instead we managed to boost agricultural output and lift a record number of people out of poverty."
The implication of your statement is that since we were able to increase daily sustainable production of crude oil, coal and natural gas since the seventies then we will be able to do it forever? If not then what is the number at which daily sustainable production of crude oil becomes constrained, 100 million barrels per day, 200 million barrels per day? infinite?
it's one thing to read blogs as your sole source of information, it's another thing to ignore the world around you. Calling peak oil and food shortages a myth and descrbing desperately needed alternative energy production and delivery systems "green hokus pokus" makes you eligible for a very special blog of your own. Just don't expect the same amount of traffic.
Very well said....
Speaking of bad science, how did Rush Limbaugh become the chief scientific advisor to the Republican party??
Easy, flatulence and hot air are the next alternative energy source
An astute observation on your part....
Henry Ford offered one car in as he said "any color you want as long as it's black"
The Great Unwind will involve the destruction of diversity and a reversion to simplicity. If this reversion happens over time, it will probably be more welcome than people think since the reality is that modern American life is too complex for most to handle (thus all the anti-x prescription drugs, high levels of workplace dissatisfaction, etc..) If the reversion happens rapidly in a high speed economic unwind then it will be very painful. I welcome the former, but fear and expect the later.
Woooo.Another serious one.
My, my, my.
US citizenism has been a story of reduction of diversity and singularity and convergence toward uniformity and conformity, with the pipedream of identity in sight.
It is full irony that a US citizen refers to standardized industrial production as a token of diversity.
US citizen denial capacity is boundless.
AnonymousAsshole stated:
And my reply: Broken records of bad music deserve to be smashed.
No wonder Trav doesn't drive Fords
damn it, where are my candles ???
Maybe Fuk nukes should have been better located, as in along the west coast of Japan...out of reach of a tsunami.
Sorry. I don't buy into any of this. The entire premise of this treatise is wrong:
Give me a break. There is no "resource" until technology puts it to some use. Uranium was a useless yellow dirt until technology enabled fission. Petroleum was icky crap that stuck to the bottom of your shoe until technology developed engines. Iron ore was just heavy red dirt until technology turned it into steel. Silicon was just quartz until technology turned it into microchips. Technology is the creator of resources and will continue to do so. Desalniation of water, photovoltaic panels, thorium reactors, geothermal energy, wonder drugs, gene therapy, artifical intelligence and so on are all on the horizon.
Sorry, it's far too late for technology to turn things around. The decreasing supply of cheap, easy to extract, easy to refine oil is the BE ALL END ALL of the infinite growth paradigm we are currently living in. Skip forward to 2:23:43 of Zeitgeist and maybe you'll understand... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
I'm having some problems with these grandious pronouncements. We all know there is risk in industrial activity, yet industrial accidents are used as proof that things are too 'complex'. Are we to forget that there are industrial accidents when systems were 'simple'. How much more rhetorical prestidigitation is buried in this?
Well, Gregor stated the problem reasonably well - I'll restate it as:
"Is a continuously expanding economy possible?"
It seems the majority of us on this present thread believe the answer is 'No' - including me.
What I would like to see show up on ZH one of these days soon is an equally well written opinion piece on the question:
"Is a true steady-state economy possible to reach from where we are today, without a humungous crash between here and there?"
It is easy to design a utopian steady-state economy (and many have), but is it possible to achieve a workable one in today's world?
I think we have to learn how, but I sure don't see a workable path that does not involve a huge crash and many revolutions, most being violent...
I need a drink....
nfp
read tainter: "the collapse of complex civilizations;" lays it out pretty well...declining marginal returns for ever-more complex technologies and institutions has doomed many cultures throughout history...and ours is no exception
Go Amish now --- avoid the post-apocalypse rush.
No, modern ponzi depends on it.
I can live on Red Bull.
Funny US citizenism article.
Observations made in the article are less and less deniable and not matter what, are the key points sold to the customer. So they have to be made under the form of facts.
Yet, once again, US citizens can not self indict.
Where are the gang of broadbrushing? Supposedly, I broadbrush when depicting US citizens.
So where are they when this article is full of broabrushes?
The public has been led to think that environment can always be overcome... Whoooo. Such a denial.
There has been no public. Only US citizens who want to cling to that belief. Other people did not have that belief.
US citizens dismiss their struggle to impose their point of view on the rest of the world, on how they have shamed, coerced and destroyed societies who did not share the belief?
There has been no public. Only US citizens who have been extremelly successful at forcing that inept belief on the world.
As the article has to deal with facts, it also has to point at one another fallacy maintained by US citizens: intelligence, education and the sort.
But once again, self indiction can not be performed. All that mighty intellect, deeply trained, and saddled by US citizenism, fall victim (victimhood is high among US citizens) of a bias declared and fabricated by one of their own peer, that is another US citizen scientist...
This kind of articles points at something: the quasi certainty achieved by US world order.
You can be sure that anytime that be US citizens will use their power to avoid self indiction.
As US citizens are the root of the current state of the world, this behaviour screens out a large set of solutions, making quite obvious the solutions that are going to be adopted by US citizens.
"love doesn't turn the lights on."
Actually, it did.
The people like Edison, Westinghouse, Watts, Morse, etc, for all their big egos, cared more about what they were building than they cared about themselves. They all believed that they were making the world into a better, more comfortable place.
Love turns the lights on but it does not keep them on.
The people who come after, whose job it is to MAINTAIN the system, those people tend to care only about themselves and what they can get out of it. Gradually, the attitude changes to one of doing the least possible for other people while taking the most out of it for ones self.
Same thing with governments. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Jay, even Hamilton ... they were building something new, something better, and they wanted to improve life for all the citizens ... they cared about what they were building and they did it with "love" ... but the politicians now only care about themselves, about what they can get out of it, and so they are destroying what those men built ...
That's just humanity, that's just the way we are ... we build up and then we tear down ... its Pearl S. Bucks' "The Good Earth" over and over and over again ....
Sad thing is ,,,,,, the world has unlimited natural resources. For way more people than we have now. With proper managment everyone would have plenty forever. Tht's how God made things.
Oh well I grew up amish,,,it's not so bad. I didn't forget a thing. Ich hap nix faguessa.
Maybe, if we all lived like the San tribe... otherwise not, God or no God...