# One of the most depressing videos I've ever watched (peak energy production related)



## Ravellian

This is a presentation by a guy called Richard Heinberg in 2007, before the recession. He uses a huge wealth of charts and statistical data to confirm that, no matter what way you look at it, our quality of life will be rapidly diminishing in the 21st century:

- Peak oil and gas production have already occurred
- Peak coal production will occur in the next 15-20 years
- Peak uranium production (the source for nuclear energy) will occur in the next 20-25 years
- Materials like platinum, copper, iridium, zinc, etc. (necessary for production of semiconductors and solar panels) are rapidly depleting
- Virtually every country faces water shortages by the mid-21st century
- Innovations per capita peaked in the mid-19th century and has significantly declined in the 20th century

In short: we're all screwed. Cars and airplanes and all internal-combustion engines will be phased out shortly, globalization will cease because of lack of cheap fuel for transportation, there will be mass ruralization.

He didn't even address overpopulation.

I do like how he ended the presentation by noting the things that would not be lost: artistry, music, and family bonds. how sweet of him.


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## Ravellian

Here's another very cheerful summary of our situation:

http://www.populationmedia.org/wp-c...ugston-on-american-sustainability-summary.pdf


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## Couchie

It seems old people are always so pessimistic and exclaiming that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I imagine it makes anticipating your death easier.

But we'll eventually contain nuclear fusion AND THE WORLD WILL BE SAVED.


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## elgar's ghost

One of my mates has similar fears and he isn't even 50 yet. Perhaps supporting Leeds United Football Club for many years can do that to a man.


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## Huilunsoittaja

Ravellian said:


> I do like how he ended the presentation by noting the things that would not be lost: artistry, music, and family bonds. how sweet of him.


More like he _wishes _those things won't go away. If we seriously run out of metal (and wood for that matter) that we can't create any more instruments, that is going to be very serious. Instruments don't last forever, although we can try to preserve them. But there's always the human voice.


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## Ralfy

You will find more information and new videos from Heinberg through search engines, as well as similar points from others, from Dmitri Orlov to Derrick Jensen to Jay Hanson, to the latest information about peak oil, climate change, and the global economic meltdown, not to mention localization, permaculture, and transition communities.


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## regressivetransphobe

Let's just all agree to stop breeding.

No? Ok, your kids are on your own. I'm gonna go turn on the sink all day and not recycle.


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## Ralfy

"Total Production by the Top Five Oil Majors Has Fallen by a Quarter Since 2004"

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9946


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Couchie said:


> It seems old people are always so pessimistic and exclaiming that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I imagine it makes anticipating your death easier.
> 
> But we'll eventually contain nuclear fusion AND THE WORLD WILL BE SAVED.


And I thought you said Wagner was going to save the world - silly me.............


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## Vaneyes

Another "happy' film that's essential viewing.

View attachment 17511


And how about the Jamestown cannibals. What goes 'round, comes 'round?

http://www.heavy.com/news/2013/05/jamestown-pilgrims-cannabalism-cannibals/


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## brianvds

I have a cap on my internet data, so I can't really watch much in the way of online video. Thus I didn't see the OP's video and my comment is generic rather than aimed at this particular video.

It seems to me that a lot of the doom and gloom is exaggerated, and based on the assumption that humans will not be able to adapt to new conditions. We may well have reached the end of the era of cheap oil. But there's plenty of coal and gas left. And after that we'll likely simply switch to nuclear (uranium supplies are limited, but there is enough fissionable material on Earth to last thousands of years) and renewables. 

At present not much research has been done into alternatives simply because fossil fuels are still cheap. They will get more expensive as they get scarcer; I don't think we need to worry though that we are suddenly one day going to run out. All the technology to make the necessary switches already exists or is reasonably foreseeable. 

Population growth may well be a far more dangerous thing, but the only way to bring it under control is to urbanize as many people as possible and give them all a reasonably decent standard of living. The only way to do that, at the moment, is to burn coal and oil. Thus we are in something of a race against time here: if we can level off population growth with this century without running out of relatively cheap energy to do so, then in another century or two, our species may well voluntarily reduce its population to sustainable levels. 

If there are no more than a billion people on Earth, all of them can enjoy a western standard of living in a sustainable manner. I think this can be done. Whether it will be done is another question, but it is isn't going to be the problem of anyone here.


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## WavesOfParadox

Necessity is the mother of invention.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

WavesOfParadox said:


> Necessity is the mother of invention.


Not the Mothers of Invention then ?


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## SixFootScowl

Been diminished for some time in some areas, such as my home town:


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## Guest

Wait, somebody predicting massive decline due to scarcity? We've never heard that one before (see Malthus, Hardin, Ehrlich, etc.). Every generation of so we get these false Cassandras, secular Nostradamus' claiming they have seen the end, and it is imminent. The secular version of the apocalyptic cult. Rather than calculating the date of the return of the Messiah through numerical clues in the Bible, they think they have divined exactly how much time the planet has left. Same broken record, even if the technology to broadcast it has been updated.


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## Guest

The peak energy myth is due to the fact that reported reserves are "recoverable." New technology has made previously unrecoverable reserves recoverable.

Climate change may be a bigger problem. A recent report indicates that the last time CO2 was this high there was no polar ice at all. CO2 has risen so fast that the ice hasn't had time to melt. (High temperature is not sufficient to melt ice, there is the heat of fusion to consider. Ice has to absorb a significant amount of heat energy to melt, which takes time). If this is accurate we can expect sea level to rise 20 meters (70 feet) in the next few hunderd years. Any land which is less than 20 meters above current sea level becomes ocean bed.


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## Bwv 1080

And the prediction was wrong, global oil production is about 14% higher today compared to 2007


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## KenOC

Here's a graph of M. King Hubbert's 1956 projected oil production in the lower 48 states of the US, in red, and the actual production, in green. His projections were pretty accurate until recently. The later differences can be laid to the development of new extraction technology. The long term consequences of that, including the environmental consequences, have yet to play out.


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> Here's a graph of M. King Hubbert's 1956 projected oil production in the lower 48 states of the US, in red, and the actual production, in green. His projections were pretty accurate until recently. The later differences can be laid to the development of new extraction technology. The long term consequences of that, including the environmental consequences, have yet to play out.


The problem with all these projections is that you can only model what you know. Based on the knowledge available at the time, this prediction was good, provided the future stayed exactly the same as the present. But when has that ever held? Certainly in the pre-industrialized world, technological change was much slower. But since? When has there been, since then, more than a decade of technological treading water? In less than a century, we have gone from primitive flight technology, to jet propulsion, to supersonic flight, to unmanned and then manned space flight. Now we have placed vehicles on Mars. The thing is, we don't know what we don't know, and it is really hard to make predictions when you don't even know all the things you have to consider. And yet so many people exhibit such extreme hubris, claiming they have finally been able to do the impossible - predict with extreme accuracy the future.


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## Guest

DrMike said:


> The problem with all these projections is that you can only model what you know. Based on the knowledge available at the time, this prediction was good, provided the future stayed exactly the same as the present. But when has that ever held? Certainly in the pre-industrialized world, technological change was much slower. But since? When has there been, since then, more than a decade of technological treading water? In less than a century, we have gone from primitive flight technology, to jet propulsion, to supersonic flight, to unmanned and then manned space flight. Now we have placed vehicles on Mars. The thing is, we don't know what we don't know, and it is really hard to make predictions when you don't even know all the things you have to consider. And yet so many people exhibit such extreme hubris, claiming they have finally been able to do the impossible - predict with extreme accuracy the future.


Predicting the future it not the problem. The problem is not taking full account of the fact that a prediction 1 second, 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 year, 1 decade, ..., into the future is progressively more uncertain. Assuming that technology will make all things possible and solve all problems is also foolish.


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## mmsbls

DrMike said:


> The problem with all these projections is that you can only model what you know. Based on the knowledge available at the time, this prediction was good, provided the future stayed exactly the same as the present. But when has that ever held? ...


Certainly people should be careful to understand uncertainties in their models. I have worked with many large scale models in my life, and my biggest concern are models based on parameterizations rather than ground up physics (or other basic science). Parameterizations are based on past data, and past data does not always agree with future data. The Great Recession is an excellent example of that problem. Models based on basic science are suspect where basic science may change; however, in many areas we are unlikely to see major changes in basic science that would affect earth based, macroscopic phenomena.

Models that predict the orbit of the planets or moons do an excellent job, and we have good reasons to expect those predictions to be very accurate well into the future. Models that predict death due to lack of a given vitamin likely will continue to be valid for some time. Hubbert's models for peak oil were parameterizations based on data from a large number of wells but did not have any basic science to guide them. His model had no way to predict the rise of a new technology (i.e. fracking).


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## Bwv 1080

physics models simple phenomena, but even then complex interactions can make predicting the future state of a system impossible - for example Saturn's moon Hyperion

Predicting recessions, interest rates, stock prices etc will always be impossible because if a sufficient number of people believe the prediction they will alter their behavior and change the outcome


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## KenOC

When Hubbert made his 1956 forecast, oil shale and oil sands were already known as _potential _sources of crude oil. I believe Hubbert qualified his forecast as excluding any developments that might make such oil economically available.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Certainly people should be careful to understand uncertainties in their models. I have worked with many large scale models in my life, and my biggest concern are models based on parameterizations rather than ground up physics (or other basic science). Parameterizations are based on past data, and past data does not always agree with future data. The Great Recession is an excellent example of that problem. Models based on basic science are suspect where basic science may change; however, in many areas we are unlikely to see major changes in basic science that would affect earth based, macroscopic phenomena.
> 
> Models that predict the orbit of the planets or moons do an excellent job, and we have good reasons to expect those predictions to be very accurate well into the future. Models that predict death due to lack of a given vitamin likely will continue to be valid for some time. Hubbert's models for peak oil were parameterizations based on data from a large number of wells but did not have any basic science to guide them. His model had no way to predict the rise of a new technology (i.e. fracking).


I thought it was implied I was talking about these specific doomsday predictions, not all scientific extrapolations. The examples you give - planetary orbits, nutritional needs - are based on relatively closed systems and long observed patterns. Human evolution is relatively slow, and our ability to evolve beyond a particular requirement for sustaining life isn't going to change very quickly. With the exception of asteroids, meteors, and other relatively small things, there isn't much with the mass necessary to disrupt planetary orbits. Hubert's model, and Ehrlich's before him, is based on things much more changeable, much more variable, and much more alterable with technology.


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## Guest

I'm going to make a prediction right now. If we remain technologically stagnant for the next century, and all production and consumption and population growth continues exactly as it is right now indefinitely, then in 100 years, a great calamity will befall us all.


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## Strange Magic

There are people, mostly economists, who are even more wonderful (literally) than the Malthuses, the Harrison Browns, the Albert Einsteins, the Paul Ehrlichs, the Garrett Hardins, and the host of scientists and their specialty, national, and trans-national associations warning of a perilous future of AGW and adding billions more to Earth's population. These economists are labeled Cornucopian Economists. They are distinguished by three things: A) a total lack of any training in the real sciences; B) a gift for extrapolation from a few relatively recent data points to portend a future of wonder, abundance, and universal joy as the forests are cut down, the wildlife disappears, and billions more are added to the planet to share the goodies; and C) an unbounded optimism that allows--nay, compels--them to maintain that cheerfulness no matter what the news is. Their chief, Julian Simon, wrote that Earth can support, given the information we now have in our libraries, an infinite population, endlessly growing. I am so excited!! Reality can be such a downer.


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## Guest

Ravellian said:


> This is a presentation by a guy called Richard Heinberg in 2007, before the recession. He uses a huge wealth of charts and statistical data to confirm that, no matter what way you look at it, our quality of life will be rapidly diminishing in the 21st century:
> 
> - Peak oil and gas production have already occurred
> - Peak coal production will occur in the next 15-20 years
> - Peak uranium production (the source for nuclear energy) will occur in the next 20-25 years
> - Materials like platinum, copper, iridium, zinc, etc. (necessary for production of semiconductors and solar panels) are rapidly depleting
> - Virtually every country faces water shortages by the mid-21st century
> - Innovations per capita peaked in the mid-19th century and has significantly declined in the 20th century
> 
> In short: we're all screwed. Cars and airplanes and all internal-combustion engines will be phased out shortly, globalization will cease because of lack of cheap fuel for transportation, there will be mass ruralization.
> 
> He didn't even address overpopulation.
> 
> I do like how he ended the presentation by noting the things that would not be lost: artistry, music, and family bonds. how sweet of him.


I don't think ad hominem attacks are necessarily effective, but when a person makes these types of predictions, I at least want to know where they are coming from, what their training is, and what would give them more insights in these matters. To put it bluntly, Heinberg's credentials leave a lot to be desired. Go look him up on Wikipedia. I find no particular training to take him more seriously than the average armchair observer. And given his previous experience with Immanuel Velikovsky, I'm even less inclined to take him seriously. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> There are people, mostly economists, who are even more wonderful (literally) than the Malthuses, the Harrison Browns, the Albert Einsteins, the Paul Ehrlichs, the Garrett Hardins, and the host of scientists and their specialty, national, and trans-national associations warning of a perilous future of AGW and adding billions more to Earth's population. These economists are labeled Cornucopian Economists. They are distinguished by three things: A) a total lack of any training in the real sciences; B) a gift for extrapolation from a few relatively recent data points to portend a future of wonder, abundance, and universal joy as the forests are cut down, the wildlife disappears, and billions more are added to the planet to share the goodies; and C) an unbounded optimism that allows--nay, compels--them to maintain that cheerfulness no matter what the news is. Their chief, Julian Simon, wrote that Earth can support, given the information we now have in our libraries, an infinite population, endlessly growing. I am so excited!! Reality can be such a downer.


Who here has even touted economists in this discussion? I assume you put the same faith in all economists, including Paul Krugman and Keynes? Or is it just economists with which you disagree that you label charlatans? By the way, who won the bet between Simon and Ehrlich?


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## Strange Magic

KenOC said:


> Here's a graph of M. King Hubbert's 1956 projected oil production in the lower 48 states of the US, in red, and the actual production, in green. His projections were pretty accurate until recently. The later differences can be laid to the development of new extraction technology. The long term consequences of that, including the environmental consequences, have yet to play out.


Very true. All that the technological advances such as fracking have accomplished is to move the peak oil or peak fossil-fuel energy curves to the right, adding X number of years for humankind to add even more millions of years and megatons of fossil carbon into the atmosphere. Hubbert, besides being unaware of the new technology, was also, like most of his peers (with the curious exception of Edward Teller) unaware of the dangers of adding all that CO2, methane, and other GHGs to the atmosphere and the resultant AGW.


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## Strange Magic

DrMike said:


> Who here has even touted economists in this discussion? I assume you put the same faith in all economists, including Paul Krugman and Keynes? Or is it just economists with which you disagree that you label charlatans? By the way, who won the bet between Simon and Ehrlich?


Surely you have been following and contributing to this subject on other threads. Is it your contention that since charlatan Julian Simon won the bet with Ehrlich, that is the end of the issue? The fact remains that over all the many threads here on TC, the overwhelming Cornucopians, Panglossians, Pollyannas preaching literally a future of endless abundance for the teeming billions have been "economists" at the very margins of their profession, Julian Simon being the most notorious.


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## KenOC

I think the “Panglossians” have an edge in the popular debate because it’s quite true that, even with huge population growth, people on average are living better than ever before in a host of ways.

What this ignores is that the process and its continuation seem to depend on ever-increasing consumption of non-renewable resources that do, in fact, have finite limits. We can start with groundwater and go from there. And in parallel, the accompanying (and necessary) growth in volume and toxicity of our waste products progressively fouls the environment.

In short, continued human growth and prosperity depend on eating the planet.


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## Strange Magic

KenOC said:


> I think the "Panglossians" have an edge in the popular debate because it's quite true that, even with huge population growth, people on average are living better than ever before in a host of ways.
> 
> What this ignores is that the process and its continuation seem to depend on ever-increasing consumption of non-renewable resources that do, in fact, have finite limits. We can start with groundwater and go from there. And in parallel, the accompanying (and necessary) growth in volume and toxicity of our waste products progressively fouls the environment.
> 
> In short, continued human growth and prosperity depend on eating the planet.


Well and succinctly put.


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## Bwv 1080

Groundwater is a renewable resource if managed properly, but like fisheries, it is subject to a tragedy of the commons effect


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> Surely you have been following and contributing to this subject on other threads. Is it your contention that since charlatan Julian Simon won the bet with Ehrlich, that is the end of the issue? The fact remains that over all the many threads here on TC, the overwhelming Cornucopians, Panglossians, Pollyannas preaching literally a future of endless abundance for the teeming billions have been "economists" at the very margins of their profession, Julian Simon being the most notorious.


I am not a follower of Simon. Whether he is right or wrong has no bearing on any of my arguments - as is plain from the fact that I never cite him in support, unlike you with Hardin and Ehrlich. But what does it say that your expert was beat by a charlatan in a wager where your expert was able to set the parameters of the wager - any elements he wanted. At best, it says that Ehrlich's predictive capacity was no better than a charlatan.


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## Guest

Ehrlich, the Jeremiah of scarcity, could not correctly predict scarcity of 11 commodities - the 10 that were part of his wager with Simon, and the big one, upon which his book the Population Bomb was centered, that being food. You attack Simon as a charlatan, but fail to justify that criticism. You claim his arguments are ridiculous, but of the two of them, he has thus far been more right than Ehrlich. Why is Simon a charlatan, while Ehrlich isn't? Because you want Ehrlich to be right? How many more decades have to go by with Ehrlich not yet proven right before you will concede he was wrong? When I write a grant proposal, in the Potential Pitfalls and Limitations sections, I can't simply say, "there will be no Pitfalls, because there is no chance my hypothesis will be wrong, you just need to keep finding me until I finally get the predicted result." So come on - Ehrlich said the population bomb would go off in the 70s. We are now nearly 4 decades past the end of that decade. How many more decades before you will concede Ehrlich was wrong? 5? 10 - an even century? Surely 140 years past due would be long enough to concede he was wrong? Or is his prediction unfalsifiable in your mind?


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## Strange Magic

DrMike said:


> I am not a follower of Simon. Whether he is right or wrong has no bearing on any of my arguments - as is plain from the fact that I never cite him in support, unlike you with Hardin and Ehrlich. But what does it say that your expert was beat by a charlatan in a wager where your expert was able to set the parameters of the wager - any elements he wanted. At best, it says that Ehrlich's predictive capacity was no better than a charlatan.


I take it from the importance that you place on the wager between Ehrlich and Simon, and that Simon won, that it is for you a definitive, relevant, consequential data point in the discussion of global environmental issues. Hence, it is right up there with, say, Brazilian president Bolsonaro's renewed war on the Amazon rainforest, and his determination to vastly expand beef production on the deforested acreage. Studies show that such pasturage is exhausted quickly in tropical conditions, the soil then dries catastrophically, and results in deep, devastating fires that burn whatever soil combustibles remain thus rendering the land useless for any purpose for humankind or wildlife. The original carbon locked up in the rainforest trees has, of course. long since been packed off to, among other things, be lathed into broom handles.

Edit: I again urge interested readers to examine the Wikipedia entries on Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon, and compare and contrast their respective CVs, the honors and awards each has won. and the respect they hold from their peers.


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> I take it from the importance that you place on the wager between Ehrlich and Simon, and that Simon won, that it is for you a definitive, relevant, consequential data point in the discussion of global environmental issues. Hence, it is right up there with, say, Brazilian president Bolsonaro's renewed war on the Amazon rainforest, and his determination to vastly expand beef production on the deforested acreage. Studies show that such pasturage is exhausted quickly in tropical conditions, the soil then dries catastrophically, and results in deep, devastating fires that burn whatever soil combustibles remain thus rendering the land useless for any purpose for humankind or wildlife. The original carbon locked up in the rainforest trees has, of course. long since been packed off to, among other things, be lathed into broom handles.
> 
> Edit: I again urge interested readers to examine the Wikipedia entries on Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon, and compare and contrast their respective CVs, the honors and awards each has won. and the respect they hold from their peers.


Wow, I said nothing of the kind. I said that the loss of the wager is yet more proof that Ehrlich really didn't know what he was talking about regarding scarcity, given his loss of the wager AND his spectacularly wrong Population Bomb prediction. Even his revision back a decade was still wrong. So, I repeat - how much longer do we have to go with no Population Bomb for you to concede Ehrlich was wrong? Science is not dependent on individuals - it is dependent on facts. If your beliefs here are centered more on personalities than actual data, you are on shaky ground, indeed. Why are you so invested in Ehrlich having to be right, rather than just taking the facts as they come?

Note: I have seen a Nobel laureate in my field publish a spectacularly horrible study in one of the absolute top scientific journals (Nature) that people will ridicule you as unserious if you try to cite it (this I know from personal experience) and still receive awards and high regard from his peers.


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## Guest

Well, several doomsday predictions have failed to materialize. That doesn't imply that every doomsday prediction will always fail to materialize as technology solves every problem. Yes, modern agriculture has vastly improved the efficiency of farming, but that has led to depletion of other resources. In California a water well used to be made by a drill bolted to the back of a pickup truck. Now they are using oil drilling rigs to reach ground water thousands of feet below the surface. Those underground aquifers may well take centuries to be replenished. Yes, water is being used more efficiently now and water markets have been set up. But there are limits to that as well. And yes, water can be obtained by desalination of the oceans, CO2 can be scrubbed from the atmosphere. But the efficiency of those processes is limited by physical laws, which may or may not be favorable or practically scalable.


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## Strange Magic

DrMike, I think your obsession with that wager speaks for itself; you clearly find it very meaningful. Meanwhile, let's postulate contrasting statements from Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon on the accelerating destruction of the Amazon rainforest, referenced as a major topic in my preceding post and in today's news cycle:

Paul Ehrlich: "As an ecologist/biologist, I am dismayed by the continuing loss of irreplaceable tropical rainforest, and the escape of its sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. The resulting drying of the fragile soil and its baking into a sterile bricklike substrate after its utility as cattle pasture has been exhausted will be even more catastrophic. Sooner or later, I can't tell you exactly when, since I lost that terrible wager with Julian Simon, but sooner or later, things will be much worse than they are now."

Julian Simon: "This is wonderful news! I applaud President Bolsonaro's plans to vastly increase the deforestation of the useless Amazon rainforest and its conversion into productive pasturage. Brazil's current beef production capacity will increase dramatically, thus lowering beef prices worldwide and making Whoppers and Big Macs available to the increasing billions worldwide. Everyone"s life will be measurably better, and, yet, the best is yet to come! Exciting news! The grandkids will love it."


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## KenOC

Bwv 1080 said:


> Groundwater is a renewable resource if managed properly, but like fisheries, it is subject to a tragedy of the commons effect


"Managed properly" is easy to say but may pose some difficulties. In Central California, the land has subsided 30 feet in places due to overdrafting, and wells must now be drilled hundreds or even thousands of feet deep. But if California were to cease its overdrafting, its agriculture would be ruined and prices of fruits and vegetables would skyrocket throughout the country (and, to some extent, the world).

India faces even worse problems, having areas with hundreds of millions of people totally dependent on groundwater. "In the Punjab region of India, for example, groundwater levels have dropped 10 meters since 1979, and the rate of depletion is accelerating." (Wiki) An epidemic of farmer suicides driven by the resulting well failures has recently been in the news. And yet, if the overdraft were to stop, crops would fail and mass starvation would result.

In both cases, the groundwater is largely gone forever* since the water-bearing strata, once collapsed, typically don't rebound very much.

Too many people, already.

*Or at least for a period far longer than the likely lifetime of our species.​


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> "Managed properly" is easy to say but may pose some difficulties. In Central California, the land has subsided 30 feet in places due to overdrafting, and wells must now be drilled hundreds or even thousands of feet deep. But if California were to cease its overdrafting, its agriculture would be ruined and prices of fruits and vegetables would skyrocket throughout the country (and, to some extent, the world).
> 
> India faces even worse problems, having areas with hundreds of millions of people totally dependent on groundwater. "In the Punjab region of India, for example, groundwater levels have dropped 10 meters since 1979, and the rate of depletion is accelerating." (Wiki) An epidemic of farmer suicides driven by the resulting well failures has recently been in the news. And yet, if the overdraft were to stop, crops would fail and mass starvation would result.
> 
> In both cases, the groundwater is largely gone forever since the water-bearing strata, once collapsed, typically don't rebound very much.
> 
> Too many people, already.


Proof that no one reads my posts. :lol:


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## KenOC

Baron Scarpia said:


> ...And yes, water can be obtained by desalination of the oceans, CO2 can be scrubbed from the atmosphere. But the efficiency of those processes is limited by physical laws, which may or may not be favorable or practically scalable.


Desalination is an attractive idea but currently makes sense only in specific environments.

First, desalinated water is expensive to produce. It typically costs thousands of dollars per acre-foot at point of production.

Second, it is an energy hog. It requires very large amounts of energy, usually electric. SoCal's big water wholesaler once had plans for a large desal facility on the same piece of land with a dedicated nuclear plant, although that didn't proceed. Obviously there are carbon issues to consider.

Third, desal plants are almost always on the coast. If the water is to be used other than locally, new water conveyances, probably pipes or aqueducts, will be required. That's a major consideration.

Fourth, anywhere desal water goes, it has to go uphill. Gravity is not its friend! So, major capital and energy expenses for pumping will result, and more carbon issues. Already, my state's biggest single user of electricity is the State Water Project, which conveys water north to south.

In short, for other than demonstration projects, or projects that are politically-driven, the numbers for desalinated water can be kind of discouraging.


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## KenOC

Baron Scarpia said:


> Proof that no one reads my posts. :lol:


Hey, I thought your post was so excellent that I copied it! :tiphat:


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> DrMike, I think your obsession with that wager speaks for itself; you clearly find it very meaningful. Meanwhile, let's postulate contrasting statements from Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon on the accelerating destruction of the Amazon rainforest, referenced as a major topic in my preceding post and in today's news cycle:
> 
> Paul Ehrlich: "As an ecologist/biologist, I am dismayed by the continuing loss of irreplaceable tropical rainforest, and the escape of its sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. The resulting drying of the fragile soil and its baking into a sterile bricklike substrate after its utility as cattle pasture has been exhausted will be even more catastrophic. Sooner or later, I can't tell you exactly when, since I lost that terrible wager with Julian Simon, but sooner or later, things will be much worse than they are now."
> 
> Julian Simon: "This is wonderful news! I applaud President Bolsonaro's plans to vastly increase the deforestation of the useless Amazon rainforest and its conversion into productive pasturage. Brazil's current beef production capacity will increase dramatically, thus lowering beef prices worldwide and making Whoppers and Big Macs available to the increasing billions worldwide. Everyone"s life will be measurably better, and, yet, the best is yet to come! Exciting news! The grandkids will love it."


Cherry picking statements that make him look better. Ehrlich is most known for the Population Bomb. He still stands by it. But you ignore it like the plague. You treat him like a prophet. I'm glad he can state obvious things about rainforest clearing. I, on the other hand, have no ideological attachment to Simon. I just find it funny he made your prophet look a fool.


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> Desalination is an attractive idea but currently makes sense only in specific environments.
> 
> First, desalinated water is expensive to produce. It typically costs thousands of dollars per acre-foot at point of production.
> 
> Second, it is an energy hog. It requires very large amounts of energy, usually electric. SoCal's big water wholesaler once had plans for a large desal facility on the same piece of land with a dedicated nuclear plant, although that didn't proceed. Obviously there are carbon issues to consider.
> 
> Third, desal plants are almost always on the coast. If the water is to be used other than locally, new water conveyances, probably pipes or aqueducts, will be required. That's a major consideration.
> 
> Fourth, anywhere desal water goes, it has to go uphill. Gravity is not its friend! So, major capital and energy expenses for pumping will result, and more carbon issues. Already, my state's biggest single user of electricity is the State Water Project, which conveys water north to south.
> 
> In short, for other than demonstration projects, or projects that are politically-driven, the numbers for desalinated water can be kind of discouraging.


Those of us in the North are happy to save energy and cut off your water, and let SoCal return to a pristine desert!!!


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## KenOC

DrMike said:


> Those of us in the North are happy to save energy and cut off your water, and let SoCal return to a pristine desert!!!


Wasn't it Mark Twain who said, "Whiskey's for fightin' over. Water's for killin' over." Or something like that...


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> Wasn't it Mark Twain who said, "Whiskey's for fightin' over. Water's for killin' over." Or something like that...


Have you ever read Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress?" 'cause I'm thinking we could attack you through the aqueduct! Maybe drop piranhas in just before it reaches you. Maybe drop some saltpeter in to make you all impotent, and watch your birth rates fall so we will eventually have the numeric superiority.


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## KenOC

DrMike said:


> Have you ever read Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress?" 'cause I'm thinking we could attack you through the aqueduct! Maybe drop piranhas in just before it reaches you. Maybe drop some saltpeter in to make you all impotent, and watch your birth rates fall so we will eventually have the numeric superiority.


We'll all stroll up north and stamp our feet synchronously to trigger the San Andreas fault and destroy your coastal cities.






Well yeah, that's LA, but it _could _be SF!


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## Strange Magic

DrMike said:


> Cherry picking statements that make him look better. Ehrlich is most known for the Population Bomb. He still stands by it. But you ignore it like the plague. You treat him like a prophet. I'm glad he can state obvious things about rainforest clearing. I, on the other hand, have no ideological attachment to Simon. I just find it funny he made your prophet look a fool.


Paul Ehrlich's only "error" in _The Population Bomb_ was in his timing. You know that; I know that. But you have chosen repeatedly to advance the curious proposition that, if something dire predicted to happen has not yet happened, then that is "proof" that it will never happen. The boy did cry wolf, repeatedly, and was ridiculed and ignored. Yet the wolf did come. And he finally ate the Cornucopian Economists.


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> Paul Ehrlich's only "error" in _The Population Bomb_ was in his timing. You know that; I know that. But you have chosen repeatedly to advance the curious proposition that, if something dire predicted to happen has not yet happened, then that is "proof" that it will never happen. The boy did cry wolf, repeatedly, and was ridiculed and ignored. Yet the wolf did come. And he finally ate the Cornucopian Economists.


When I was a kid, I predicted I would be a trillionaire by 30. I didn't hit that. But I'm not wrong, just off in my timing.

I'm just asking you how much time has to go by before you would concede he was wrong? A century? I have never said absence of proof is proof of absence. But any scientific hypothesis has to be measurable. And I'm not the one imposing an artificial timeline on his prediction. He did that, loudly and proudly. Just because the wolf did eventually come does not change the fact that the boy did lie, and Ehrlich, just like the boy, is the one to blame for nobody believing him, not the people he duped.


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## Strange Magic

As you can guess, Ehrlich was wrong only in his timing. Here's a hypothesis without measurement: a large, damaging asteroid will hit Earth: when? I can't tell you. Here's another: The Big Quake will hit the Pacific Coast: when? I can't tell you. There are many others just like those.

Also, please try to divert your focus from the Sins of Paul Ehrlich and give us the benefit of your insight into the other issues being actively discussed in the thread: deforestation of the Amazon, water supply issues, AGW.........


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> We'll all stroll up north and stamp our feet synchronously to trigger the San Andreas fault and destroy your coastal cities.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well yeah, that's LA, but it _could _be SF!


Yeah, I'm willing to lose San Francisco as well. It really isn't representative of NorCal. Besides, losing the coast means my mom will then be sitting on oceanfront property!


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> As you can guess, Ehrlich was wrong only in his timing. Here's a hypothesis without measurement: a large, damaging asteroid will hit Earth: when? I can't tell you. Here's another: The Big Quake will hit the Pacific Coast: when? I can't tell you. There are many others just like those.
> 
> Also, please try to divert your focus from the Sins of Paul Ehrlich and give us the benefit of your insight into the other issues being actively discussed in the thread: deforestation of the Amazon, water supply issues, AGW.........


Those aren't hypotheses. Those are simply predictions, and nothing like what Ehrlich did. He made very specific claims.

The point of this thread was pointing out yet more claims of impending scarcity and the calamities that will follow. I don't believe that this less than expert individual will be any more successful than your prophet, Ehrlich.


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## Strange Magic

The entire point you make, repeatedly, is to hypothesize that because Paul Ehrlich's timing was off (too pessimistic) on when we would see catastrophe over the horizon, then anybody else's warning cries (the National Academy of Sciences, The Royal Society, NASA, NOAA, and literally scores of other respected scientific institutions) are to be equally ignored, mocked, ridiculed. It is clear why you cling so desparately to Ehrlich's "mistake" and his lost wager--it is your only source of support in maintaining an argument of denial that anything could possibly be amiss. Unless all can be fixed by nuclear power.


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> The entire point you make, repeatedly, is to hypothesize that because Paul Ehrlich's timing was off (too pessimistic) on when we would see catastrophe over the horizon, then anybody else's warning cries (the National Academy of Sciences, The Royal Society, NASA, NOAA, and literally scores of other respected scientific institutions) are to be equally ignored, mocked, ridiculed. It is clear why you cling so desparately to Ehrlich's "mistake" and his lost wager--it is your only source of support in maintaining an argument of denial that anything could possibly be amiss. Unless all can be fixed by nuclear power.


Nope, you don't get to do that. Malthusianism is anything but settled science, and you don't get to link Ehrlich's Population Bomb with AGW to lend it credibility it doesn't have. This is why people don't believe you. Like I said, I don't believe absence of proof is proof of absence. But a failed prediction should at the very least call into question the analysis that drove the initial prediction. It suggests that Ehrlich doesn't quite understand the interplay of all the factors as well as he thought. Right now you are like the conspiracy theorist or the apocalypse cult member who is not dismayed that his dommsday scenario didn't play out as predicted. You are the only one here still defending Ehrlich. Mmsbls - who seems to have a better grasp of the specifics of AGW than either of us, certainly isn't wasting his time defending him.

And this issue is completely separate from AGW. We are talking about scarcity and neo-Malthusianism and scare tactics that lose their effectiveness as the decades roll by and we aren't seeing evidence of their truthfulness. The problem with your prophets is they see every problem or obstacle as a global calamity that will destroy us all, while calmer heads see a problem, and work out a solution and move on.

Part of me thinks you want to see Ehrlich proven right, so your faith in him will be vindicated. But if you are right, we all lose. By Me being right, it maybe hurts your ego, but it is actually better for all of us. I'm personally happy the Population Bomb failed to detonate. But your unscientific arguments here don't hold up. You can't keep arguing you are on the fact-based side and I am denying science when your predictions never become reality. If they eventually happen, then you will be correct. But until then, you are merely speculating, not stating fact, and I am not denying any truth. I don't care how many scientists trust Ehrlich. He has had a long career and published on other things beyond this. You haven't established that their trust in him specifically ties to his Population Bomb predictions, as opposed to other peer-reviewed work that has stood up better.


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## Strange Magic

Your obsession with Ehrlich; it goes on and on.....

AGW is a direct and powerful consequence of the metastatic growth in global population and leveraged by the concomitant vast release of CO2 and other GHGs into the environment. When Brown, Ehrlich, and Hardin wrote their jeremiads on resource exhaustion and population growth, AGW was essentially unknown as a direct consequence of all that population growth and carbon burning; it seems Edward Teller was a lonely outlier. But the passing years have seen almost the entire scientific community now united in consensus that population- and industrialization-driven AGW presents a real and existential threat to our planet. These are facts. It is you who are the outlier here. You acknowledge none of the warnings of your scientific peers, offer no rebuttals of their data or even of their extrapolations, and continue to assert that, since the world hasn't yet experienced full calamity, it never will. Yet the signs and misadventures are all around us now: wildlife extinction, ocean warming and acidification, weather extremes, water shortages, forest devastation, all discussed _ad nauseum_ in innumerable posts right here on TC. Your response? Denial, based solely (it seems) on the predictive error of Paul Ehrlich. Let him go! Rehash other old arguments.


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## Guest

Wildlife extinction, weather extremes, ocean warming - all these things have happened before. Tell me - of all life that has ever existed on this planet, what percentage is still present on the planet? More or less than 10%? Weather extremes? Anytime you have a data set of more than a few, the ends of the spectrum will always look like extremes. Extreme in comparison to what?

Like I said - I'm not saying we don't have problems. I just don't look at every problem as an insurmountable cataclysmic event that will spell our certain doom in the way that Ehrlich and Hardin did. 

I come back to Ehrlich because that is what this thread started out as - discussion of scarcity and impending doom, of which Ehrlich is one of the most prominent proponents, with slightly less racist and horrific solutions than Hardin. "Predictive error." What a joke. Do you understand science at all? Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds? It isn't predictive error. It is simply wrong. He was able to see how certain things were becoming scarce. He was not able to correctly predict what the long-term effects would be. Sure - you and he go back and retroactively tweak things to claim he was right all along. Anybody can predict the future once it has happened. You are simply being obtuse about this, and won't face the reality, that the common thread among ALL of these people - be it Ehrlich, or Hardin, or Malthus - is that their predictions never come to pass. Was Malthus also just off in his timing? A little predictive error? He died in 1834. We are a little over a decade away from 2 centuries of his prediction not coming to pass. Do we have to give Ehrlich the same amount of time? We'll see his predicted effects sometime in the 23rd century, and then he will be viewed as Nostradamus?

It doesn't have to be Ehrlich - pick any of these neo-Malthusians you like - the story is the same. The fact that they have hitched their wagons to AGW to lend their crackpot ideas some credence doesn't make it so. The fact that there is more evidence for AGW does not validate Malthusianism.


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## Guest

DrMike said:


> Wildlife extinction, weather extremes, ocean warming - all these things have happened before. Tell me - of all life that has ever existed on this planet, what percentage is still present on the planet? More or less than 10%? Weather extremes? Anytime you have a data set of more than a few, the ends of the spectrum will always look like extremes. Extreme in comparison to what?
> 
> Like I said - I'm not saying we don't have problems. I just don't look at every problem as an insurmountable cataclysmic event that will spell our certain doom in the way that Ehrlich and Hardin did.
> 
> I come back to Ehrlich because that is what this thread started out as - discussion of scarcity and impending doom, of which Ehrlich is one of the most prominent proponents, with slightly less racist and horrific solutions than Hardin. "Predictive error." What a joke. Do you understand science at all? Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds? It isn't predictive error. It is simply wrong. He was able to see how certain things were becoming scarce. He was not able to correctly predict what the long-term effects would be. Sure - you and he go back and retroactively tweak things to claim he was right all along. Anybody can predict the future once it has happened. You are simply being obtuse about this, and won't face the reality, that the common thread among ALL of these people - be it Ehrlich, or Hardin, or Malthus - is that their predictions never come to pass. Was Malthus also just off in his timing? A little predictive error? He died in 1834. We are a little over a decade away from 2 centuries of his prediction not coming to pass. Do we have to give Ehrlich the same amount of time? We'll see his predicted effects sometime in the 23rd century, and then he will be viewed as Nostradamus?
> 
> It doesn't have to be Ehrlich - pick any of these neo-Malthusians you like - the story is the same. The fact that they have hitched their wagons to AGW to lend their crackpot ideas some credence doesn't make it so. The fact that there is more evidence for AGW does not validate Malthusianism.


What does Malthus and this Ehrlich (whoever he is) have to do with climate change? Sure there have been changes in the climate before, they have never been remotely this fast. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has doubled (from ~200ppm to ~400ppm) in just over a hundred years. Half of the CO2 in the atmosphere was put there by fossil fuel burned in the industrial era. The average global temperature has risen rapidly, sea levels have risen, coastal cities have seen much more frequent flooding, glaciers that have been stable for hundreds of thousands of years have melted, markers of spring that have been recorded for hundreds of years are coming weeks earlier than ever before. Forests that have burned in the western U.S. have failed to regrow. And the event has just started. Up until now CO2 released has been mitigated by absorption by oceans and other sinks. Scientists see evidence that at a certain point this will reverse and negative feedback will become positive feedback.

Sure, CO2 has been higher. It was 1,000 at the end of the Cretaceous era, 35 million years ago. At the current rate of increase we could be there in another 300 years. There was no polar ice at the end of the Cretaceous era, ocean surface temperature was up to 15 degrees C higher than now, sea level was at least 20 meters higher than now and large fractions of the continents were under water. It took 35 million years ago for CO2 to come down from 1000 ppm to 200 ppm, and we can go up to 1000 ppm in 300 years and things will be fine? Sure, there have been mass extinction events before (five of them) so why not trigger another one?

And yes, modern farming technology has increased yield dramatically, but the depletion of the aquifers it depends on can't be sustained. Sure, it is likely the human race will find a way to survive even if the climate changes faster than it ever has due to natural processes and most life goes extinct. Is that the world we want to live in, eating soylent green?


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## Guest

Baron Scarpia said:


> What does Malthus and this Ehrlich (whoever he is) have to do with climate change? Sure there have been changes in the climate before, they have never been remotely this fast. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has doubled (from ~200ppm to ~400ppm) in just over a hundred years. Half of the CO2 in the atmosphere was put there by fossil fuel burned in the industrial era. The average global temperature has risen rapidly, sea levels have risen, coastal cities have seen much more frequent flooding, glaciers that have been stable for hundreds of thousands of years have melted, markers of spring that have been recorded for hundreds of years are coming weeks earlier than ever before. Forests that have burned in the western U.S. have failed to regrow. And the event has just started. Up until now CO2 released has been mitigated by absorption by oceans and other sinks. Scientists see evidence that at a certain point this will reverse and negative feedback will become positive feedback.
> 
> Sure, CO2 has been higher. It was 1,000 at the end of the Cretaceous era, 35 million years ago. At the current rate of increase we could be there in another 300 years. There was no polar ice at the end of the Cretaceous era, ocean surface temperature was up to 15 degrees C higher than now, sea level was at least 20 meters higher than now and large fractions of the continents were under water. It took 35 million years ago for CO2 to come down from 1000 ppm to 200 ppm, and we can go up to 1000 ppm in 300 years and things will be fine? Sure, there have been mass extinction events before (five of them) so why not trigger another one?
> 
> And yes, modern farming technology has increased yield dramatically, but the depletion of the aquifers it depends on can't be sustained. Sure, it is likely the human race will find a way to survive even if the climate changes faster than it ever has due to natural processes and most life goes extinct. Is that the world we want to live in, eating soylent green?


The original post that started this thread was in reference to a video made by a peak-oil person, talking about scarcity and the calamities that will ensue from those calamities. That is a Malthusian worldview, and I don't accept that the Malthusian worldview is synonymous with AGW. That is why I am discussing Ehrlich, one of the most recognized and prominent of the neo-Malthusians, at least for the general public.


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## Guest

DrMike said:


> The original post that started this thread was in reference to a video made by a peak-oil person, talking about scarcity and the calamities that will ensue from those calamities. That is a Malthusian worldview, and I don't accept that the Malthusian worldview is synonymous with AGW. That is why I am discussing Ehrlich, one of the most recognized and prominent of the neo-Malthusians, at least for the general public.


Malthus was like Darwin, someone with a visionary idea that was way beyond the data available at the time. The mechanism will be different from what Malthus envisioned in a very basic way but the result may be similar. Populations stop growing when countries reach developed status, but consumption and resource utilization grows. When easily obtained resources are depleted less accessible resources are sought, and recovery of these resources can become more and more destructive. Oil used to be obtained from places where it pooled on the ground, now we are drilling tens of thousands of feet, or digging up virgin Boreal forest to get it. To get oil we are contaminating aquifers. We are "making the desert bloom," which is great until water runs out and it doesn't bloom anymore. It is not clear what resource will come back to bite us.


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## Strange Magic

DrMike said:


> The original post that started this thread was in reference to a video made by a peak-oil person, talking about scarcity and the calamities that will ensue from those calamities. That is a Malthusian worldview, and I don't accept that the Malthusian worldview is synonymous with AGW. That is why I am discussing Ehrlich, one of the most recognized and prominent of the neo-Malthusians, at least for the general public.


Here we get to the core of why DrMike and the handful of others with scientific training but little respect for their scientific peers in other disciplines cannot comprehend either the magnitude of the problems facing the biosphere today, or cannot understand why the overwhelming consensus of knowledgeable scientists--ecologists, climatologists, experts (geochemists) in oceans and atmospheres--and their associations, regard the threat as dire. He cannot grasp the connection between the metastatic growth of human populations in the past few hundred years, the leveraging effects of those teeming populations upon increased carbon, methane, and other GHGs released into the atmosphere and oceans, and the resultant AGW that acts as an active drag on our ability to feed and maintain the increasing billions. The Malthusian worldview is now sophisticated enough to recognize not only the eventual failure of the food supply to continue to feed those billions, but now also recognizes that the atmosphere and oceans themselves are losing their ability to harmlessly absorb our wastes, including GHGs, toxins, novel molecules, and heavy or volatile metals. And though dire conditions have existed at many times in our planet's history, the changes happening by human excess now are at geologically instantaneous warp speed, far faster than evolution can cope with them.


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## Ralfy

Reminds me of that limits to growth follow-up, where they discovered that four decades of real data were tracking projections:

Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse


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## Guest

Ralfy said:


> Reminds me of that limits to growth follow-up, where they discovered that four decades of real data were tracking projections:
> 
> Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse


All the new "new research" shows is that the extrapolation of trends was roughly born out. But those extrapolations mainly consist of "things going along as they were." No hint of the impending collapse in the data.

I have no doubt that environmental degradation is going to come back to bite us in a big way. It will be climate instability, not raw material shortages. I doubt whatever happens will unfold in a predictable way. Economies adapt and that will alter the trajectories, even if very bad outcomes can't be avoided.


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## Jacck

Is Fusion Power Within Our Grasp?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/01/14/is-fusion-power-within-our-grasp/

some researchers in the field believe that they solved most of the technical problems, and experiments at ITER are scheduled for 2025 to test it. 
a technical lecture
Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion? - Prof. Dennis Whyte


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## KenOC

Jacck said:


> Is Fusion Power Within Our Grasp?
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/01/14/is-fusion-power-within-our-grasp/


"The second is a report by a panel of distinguished scientists from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to the DOE which concluded that a $200 million annual investment in the technology for the next several decades could lead to a commercially viable reactor before 2050." I'm sure that their report included a return envelope so that readers could mail them the money. 

Seriously, I've been reading this sort of thing starting in Popular Mechanics 60 years ago. You remember, the one with the soon-to-be-available flying car on the cover...


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## Jacck

KenOC said:


> "The second is a report by a panel of distinguished scientists from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to the DOE which concluded that a $200 million annual investment in the technology for the next several decades could lead to a commercially viable reactor before 2050." I'm sure that their report included a return envelope so that readers could mail them the money.
> 
> Seriously, I've been reading this sort of thing starting in Popular Mechanics 60 years ago. You remember, the one with the soon-to-be-available flying car on the cover...


it seems more realistic than the scifi dreams that Elon Musk seems to be selling to investors


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## Guest

Fusion is the power source of the future. Always has been, always will be.

Every time they solve a problem in fusion they find another more stubborn problem hiding behind it.

The Forbes article has the red flag of lots of glossing over inconvenient facts. Fusion power is described "clean" and only requires water. Fusion generates huge levels of radiation and the metal constituting the reactor absorbs this radiation and itself becomes radioactive.


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> it seems more realistic than the scifi dreams that Elon Musk seems to be selling to investors


That's a very low bar.


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## Strange Magic

Baron Scarpia said:


> Fusion is the power source of the future. Always has been, always will be.
> 
> Every time they solve a problem in fusion they find another more stubborn problem hiding behind it.
> 
> The Forbes article has the red flag of lots of glossing over inconvenient facts. Fusion power is described "clean" and only requires water. Fusion generates huge levels of radiation and the metal constituting the reactor absorbs this radiation and itself becomes radioactive.


Here's a confirmatory article from _The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists_. The author worked for years at our nearby Princeton University Plasma Physics Lab. It's a good thing that fusion power is always 30 years in the future. But, as they say, the future isn't what it used to be.

https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> Here's a confirmatory article from _The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists_. The author worked for years at our nearby Princeton University Plasma Physics Lab. It's a good thing that fusion power is always 30 years in the future. But, as they say, the future isn't what it used to be.
> 
> https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/


I came across this a few years ago. Lockheed Martin claims they will have a table-top fusion reactor within some very short time frame, maybe 5 years. Apparently they think no one ever thought of making it small before. Won't the ITER people have egg on their faces when they find out their 35 year, 50 billion dollar project with dozens of physicists and legions of engineers on staff has been outstripped by a couple of engineers with a vacuum pump and an RF generator at Lockheed Martin.

Really, doesn't this sort of material belong in "The Onion?"

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html

The ITER people are so dim. They still trying to work out how to make a containment vessel which won't be immediately destroyed by the radiation in the unlikely event that their reactor actually works.


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## Strange Magic

Do you remember, decades ago, "fusion (cold fusion) in a mayonnaise jar"? Maybe Lockheed Martin's jar is a little bigger.

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/28/...nnouncement-by-2-chemists-ignites-uproar.html


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> Do you remember, decades ago, "fusion (cold fusion) in a mayonnaise jar"? Maybe Lockheed Martin's jar is a little bigger.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/28/...nnouncement-by-2-chemists-ignites-uproar.html


I still have the Fleischmann and Pons pre-print somewhere. There was a table in back with the different geometries they tried. I seem to recall there was an asterisk next to a 1cm x 1cm x 1cm cube, with the note "caution, may cause ignition." Apparently they thought you could accidentally make a hydrogen bomb by dropping a paladium cube into a glass of heavy water. 

I also recall theorists were racing to figure out how it works, and some even published the solution.

It's a wonderful world.


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## KenOC

Cold fusion works! But big oil bought up all the patents and paid everybody to hush up. They keep the paperwork in the same closet with the plans for that car motor that runs on water...

Now excuse me, I've gotta go to the cleaners and pick up my tinfoil hat.


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## Ralfy

Baron Scarpia said:


> All the new "new research" shows is that the extrapolation of trends was roughly born out. But those extrapolations mainly consist of "things going along as they were." No hint of the impending collapse in the data.
> 
> I have no doubt that environmental degradation is going to come back to bite us in a big way. It will be climate instability, not raw material shortages. I doubt whatever happens will unfold in a predictable way. Economies adapt and that will alter the trajectories, even if very bad outcomes can't be avoided.


The impending collapse is seen in the projections. There are actually several scenarios; this one is "business as usual," where governments do not act on problems like peak oil and global warming. Hence, the need to adapt.

Also, the resources chart is based on actual data, which makes claims that there will be no shortages in material resources highly questionable.

Given that, if economies adapt, they will do so by adjusting to both a resource crunch and the effects of environmental damage. The first point is painfully obvious, as seen in oil (the lifeblood of the global economy). Oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s and has been going down since, oil production per capita peaked in 1979, and the IEA acknowledged in 2010 that conventional production peaked in 2005. If the U.S. military, Lloyds of London, HSBC, the EIA, the IEA, and other organizations are right, then non-conventional production should peak next. The question is whether it will peak prematurely, as the oil industry is in financial distress: it has to make payments on what the BIS estimates is around $2 trillion in debts (which it can only do if oil prices go up to $100 a barrel), and will need to take on more debt to increase production further (which means oil prices have to go up even more), which the world needs as more from most countries join the global middle class.

Given global ecological footprint per capita vs. biocapacity, we will need at least one more earth to meet basic needs (e.g., a footprint of two global hectares). To maintain middle class conveniences, more than that.


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