This is a follow-on from the “how to cook a planet post” but before launching into territory not covered there in a new post about economic connections, I want to re-state a few things, because they might not have been sufficiently clear in the original. As a physics major myself, I knew immediately that the author was playing “what if” games for dramatic effect, to hammer home a single but mightily important point, but that may not have been so clear to everyone. Well, two points actually. Here’s what they are;
- The point was not to predict the future, or even to try. It was simply to show that there are hard physical limits to physical growth. The method used was to focus solely on the thermodynamic implications of energy-usage growth. The conclusions were absurd as predictions, obviously we’re not going to have boiling-water temperatures as the global average, or if we do we won’t be here to fret about it.
The point was simply to explain that continuing energy growth along the lines of what we have become accustomed to would give that result if it were possible. The absurd (though thermodynamically valid) end-points were for dramatic effect, to cut to the chase, as it were.
- Keep in mind please, the dramatic temperature rises referred to were from thermodynamic evaluation only. Just the continued use of energy at about a 2.3% annual rate of growth produces them, and we start climbing above (the much smaller) biospheric tolerances quite soon. And that’s just considering the simple thermodynamic heat loading: nothing about greenhouse gases from anywhere – industry, melting tundra, wherever; nothing about weather pattern changes induced in the hydro-cycles; nothing about effects of even small temperature changes on agriculture. Just the heat from energy usage itself. Obviously all those other things are real too, albeit difficult to quantify, and will only accelerate the problem.
- Also please keep in mind the other enormously important take-away from the preceding post; we cannot continue energy usage growth regardless of how that energy is generated. In the world of politics and economics, the fantasy world, we hear all the time about how the problem is emissions, and how “clean” energy is the “solution”. Politicians especially like to talk about this promise, as if it were an actual solution. Not so. Even reducing emissions to zero does no more than extend the time window. This is not an argument against reducing emissions, there are many compelling reasons to pursue exactly that, but it does not now, nor will it ever, mean that we can continue to use progressively more energy here on Earth.
We simply cannot.
OK, so that’s where we are. It’s worth saying those two things one more time, just for grins.
1. Energy usage growth must stop, and it will stop. The only question is whether it stops as a result of our choices or by force of circumstances. The former will undoubtedly be supremely difficult; the latter completely and unmanageably chaotic. There are no other pathways.
2. Changing energy sources from the present predominantly fossil fuels to some other source does nothing to alter the basic fact in #1. Some options might buy more time by reason of producing less pollution, but that’s it. Even generating power off-planet doesn’t alter the situation much, if the power is consumed on-planet.
The actual, non-negotiable reality is that if we are to survive as a species we have to figure out how to live on a fixed energy diet here on Earth.
Yes, we can debate about how much time we have to convert modernity to that reality, and how perhaps to buy ourselves more time to operate in. We can argue about how that conversion might be undertaken, too, but we cannot argue about the reality itself.
This is something that should be stated and re-stated in every science class in every school in the country. It is something that should be on the lips of every politician.
It’s a game-changing reality, which undoubtedly is one of the big reasons that it’s not in every school and on all political lips. We don’t want to have to change the game, that’s a lot of work and will create the most bewildering problems of technological application and economic incentives – something our present political/economic institutions are simply incapable of dealing with.
The day must come, as a starting point if nothing else, when any politician, or anyone at all, gets on their hind legs to say that “cleanly” generated power (nuclear fission/fusion, magic wand, whatever) will allow us to “grow” for 1000 years, or any variation of that twaddle, they are laughed out of the room.
We have a long way to go just to get to that simple place. This is our home planet, and it’s time for us to understand what that means. We did not arrive here from elsewhere, we are one of Earth’s fruits, one of it’s many unique modes of expression. That’s an amazing situation ripe with unimaginable promise, but that promise comes with some simple rules, and we’ve just been visiting one of them.
There are those who will regard even this modest kind of rule as an intolerable and adversarial restriction on the magnificence of the human imagination, spirit and future. I don’t buy that at all, it’s no such thing. That attitude is in itself no more than childish spoonbanging, a tantrum over the fact that the potatoes are touching the beans, and not one bit more important or limiting. We can go to Mars and beyond if that’s what we want to do, but let’s be sure it’s because we want to, not because we have to as a result of trashing our home planet for the lack of some simple arithmetic.
There are also those who shun this kind of thinking as “doom and gloom”, and it’s even been suggested to me here that it’s a wonder I can get out of bed in the morning. This is childish too, the equivalent of not wanting to hang your legs over the edge of the bed because the monsters underneath will bite you in the ankle. These realities are not depressing because they are not limitations on the human spirit at all. They may prove to be limitations on some established economic habits and bean counting tricks, but that too is no more of a problem than the touching vegetables. Just move ‘em.
Time to grow up.
Next up, soon I hope, will be a look at the relationship between energy growth and economic growth. If the former must cease, what happens to the latter?
“1. Energy usage growth must stop, and it will stop. The only question is whether it stops as a result of our choices or by force of circumstances. The former will undoubtedly be supremely difficult; the latter completely and unmanageably chaotic. There are no other
pathways.”
“The actual, non-negotiable reality is that if we are to survive as a species we have to figure out how to live on a fixed energy diet here on Earth.”
Gunny.
I would bet that nearly every person on this thread, and a lot of our friends and acquaintences, are willing and happy to somewhat radically cut back on our energy consumption. We matter too, a bit. But overall our cutbacks are a fart in the wind.
A few weeks ago, on that 7th billionth person thread, the author of the piece basically said that the 7 billionth, and more babies should be welcomed to the planet and we all just needed to cut back on resource usage more. To which one UK tory said essentially “i’m not giving up my car so someone in africa can have their 10th kid”. And i can actually see his point.
I don’t drive. I’m not terribly willing to give up hot showers though. I’d give one up every now and again so a poor old lady could take one, or make a pot of soup, sure. But my own consumption, and probably most of ours on here, is pretty small beer.
Remember the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, when all of our world leaders flew in on private jets and drove around in gas guzzling tank cars? (I’m not sure anyone even got a straight answer out of Monbiot as to how he got there.) We are not the biggest problem. And good luck getting those who are to change.
Amy.
Yeah, but don’t panic.
Kevin mentioned that we lose one-half of our electric power just overcoming resistance in the transmission lines, and that’s true, we do and have since forever. That’s a lot of hot showers just pissed away.
There’s a lot we can do to avoid dragging modernity back to the Stone Age without increasing energy generations requirements, and for a good while yet we get more payoff with reducing emissions and other things.
We’re a ways off from having to ration hot soup.
For now, the big task is to get everyone to grasp where we need to be going, which means the denial industry has to be sent packing.
Time enough to fuss about the variables after we quit arguing about the non-negotiable. First we have to get the “clean energy” people to understand exponential functions, then to understand that emissions-free energy is not a solution. It’s a help, but not a solution.
Ad our politicians need to get this shit, and start talking about it.
Rule #1. Don’t panic.
Rule #2. See Rule #1.
Despair is a waste of energy too, right?
Of course you are completely correct. The real difficulty with the conversation that has to happen is, though ,that the root of the problem always ends up being the Hell that is other people’s children.
I myself have three daughters. Which doesn’t feel at all like too many, to me. But we are already, as a species, billions & billions too many.
I don’t find it difficult at all, however, to hold two conflicting thoughts in my mind:
1. I want the human species to continue, and to flourish.
2. The current numbers of us are utterly unsustainable, and without doubt going to lead, inevitably, and probably in the fairly near future, to a sudden & terrible ‘correction’. Maybe in my children’s lifetimes, but more likely by the time their grandchildren, if they have any, will be about the age I am now.
It’s sort of like really enjoying life, which I do, but also accepting that it won’t last forever, or, indeed, for very much longer. If I’m lucky I might have 25 good years left in me, but maybe not all of them will be entirely good, and, odds are, the number of really good years will be many fewer. Or I could pack up in a matter of months, we all could.
Meanwhile we live, or I try to, as if I have a couple of centuries at least before the grim reaper catches us up.
I think a hard rain is going to fall, a few hundred million humans will survive it, and… the world will still be host to a fascinating and thriving human culture after that. And maybe even a less incontinent one.
Even if we, as Americans, returned to the levels of energy used per capita in the years before the 1776… we won’t have come near to sustainable levels. We’d have to go back to living like the Native Americans, which would mean their sort of population densities, too. And even they were not living in ‘harmony’ with their environment anywhere near the way we would like, now, to fantasize that they were.
Humans are big, messy, destructive animals. They just are. You keep a few of them on your estate, keep the numbers down, and their a lot of fun to have around. Let them breed willy nilly and…. they burn the place to the ground. It’s in their nature. It IS nature.
But, as you say, it’s no reason to despair.
they are a lot of fun to have around. Jesus!
“But, as you say, it’s no reason to despair.”
But do you not see that the rationing is already in effect? It’s in the prices. The area i live in is a big summer tourist area. About 3 years ago, when the price of gas hit $4 / gallon, the summer business took a major nosedive, and has stayed down ever since. People just can’t afford to travel like they used to. The winters are very cold here. People are having to take on second jobs, extra shifts, or extra housemates just to pay for a tank or two of oil for the winter. Apply for emergency subsidies. (I’m very lucky, my heat is included.)
This of course doesn’t affect the folks who have profited over the past few years, who don’t have to worry about the cost of filling the tanks of their hummers or private jets. So many of us on the lower rungs are already on an energy diet, like it or not. But good luck getting those at the top to cut down.
Amy, I think the Gunny is trying to make is that even a highly restricted American energy diet would be riches beyond dreams of avarice for most of the world’s billions. When it comes to pure numbers, even if you erased the entire 1% the rest of the world would still be on a trajectory that is nowhere near sustainable.
When I said ‘no reason to despair’ what I mean is we might as well arrange the deck chairs on the titanic in the way that is fair for everyone and still try to live decent lives while the ship remains afloat, rather than scramble around every man and woman for himself and devil take the hindmost. We are going down, there isn’t really much doubt about it, and yes there will be a certain number of survivors, the only thing we don’t really know is how long we have left before this unsustainable luxury liner turns turtle.
We don’t HAVE to let it sink, either. But neither do we have the political will (we being human beings as a species) to do the drastic and unpopular things we would have to do to prevent it. It’s sad, but it just ain’t gonna happen.
Excellent article. Unlimited growth is impossible, but nature has a way of self correcting. Often not in a good way, but there you go.
We can make as many individual initiatives as possible to reduce energy consumption but without collective will it will not amount to much.
But there is a fundamental problem – most of us do not plan for the long term. Do you know most people are woefully unprepared for retirement? I include myself in that category.
I am not sure most people would accept long term planning from their political leadership, who they don’t trust enough.
In this day of wanting less government who is going to accept a politician saying “don’t drive, its for your own good”.
But if we all drove electric cars, wouldn’t that help? Surely that day can’t be too far off?
“It’s sad, but it just ain’t gonna happen.”
No, it’s not. It’s not the humans i’m sad for though. It’s all of the other species of flora and fauna and the wonderful biological diversity of a magnificent planet. They did just fine before we got here, and i wish that they could continue on just fine after we’re gone.
Elena -
Do you know most people are woefully unprepared for retirement? I include myself in that category.
I just saw an article about that yesterday. something like over 50% of retirees have less than $25,000 to retire on, and SS covers only 40% of living expenses. Most of this is not their fault either, but a lot of it due to forced early retirement, or forced job shuffling in their last years of their working life that wipes out savings.
We are going down, there isn’t really much doubt about it, and yes there will be a certain number of survivors,
I think I cottoned on to that a long time ago, which was one of the prompts for my setting up camp back here, ‘down in the valley’.
Whenever a conversation meanders toward this topic, I can’t help but be reminded of T. Jefferson’s ideal society, with its “yeoman” farmers and the “cesspools” of bankers, etc.
Yesterday NPR reported on white supremacists moving into the Flathead valley, and taking the locals by surprise. Now, if those same assholes were smart enough to attend the local meetings being held a couple of hours’ drive away in which alternatives were being discussed about what to do with the numerous ICBM silos being abandoned, we might actually have trouble ferreting the boogers out.
Now, if I only had my own abandoned ICBM silo, I wouldn’t fear the hordes of starving city dwellers moving in like locusts and stealing my food reserves, etc. . . . . . . . and the mentality of a survivalist begins to sprout.
Here’s my mentality about retirement (what retirement??) in all it’s forms.
As a physics major myself…
or its forms. I give up.
Gunnison”
Sorry I came to this late.
Several thoughts. Then I have to work today (teaching science to nurses!).
1. Yes, I know the guy from UCSD was engaging in that fun form of hyperbole to make a point.
2. Yes, there are limits to the growth of energy usage on this planet. Any energy used will eventually become waste heat, entropy is always greater than zero, yes I teach my students that all the time.
3. The point of expanding outside of this biosphere is that we can also move a lot of the USAGE of energy out there too. A large proportion of the total per-capita usage in developed nations goes to resource extraction and processing and manufacturing. Only a little goes to heat our water for showers, for example.
So the bottom line is: expanding out into space in a major way is not just an option. If we are going to sustain a developed civilization onwards for much longer, it is becoming a necessity. The people who are pointing this out, to anyone who will listen, come from the entire gamut of the political spectrum.
A final point: if our 7 billion die back to about 200 million, civilization would collapse for a while, and the survivors will most likely be living in isolated pockets of dictatorships. But the scenario that is even worse is the gradual-austerity path, the path that seems to follow the Higher Moral Path, of enforced poverty with a large population. There is no way to enforce that upon the striving billions if we have governments that operate on the consent of the governed.
Very few “progressives” who advocate that sort of path have really thought this through.
Kevin
I’m going to come back to that in another post down the road, after the next one, if that’s OK.
This is going to be a long conversation, which I think is good, and the early stages are likely to be just what we’re seeing here – a mixture of resignation, irritation, and the proposing of ideas of all kinds. I don’t mean to sound as if I have the answers, I don’t, but I do think it’s too early in the conversation to make a definitive statement like that until we look at it more closely.
The other issue that topics like this drive to the surface is the matter of “oh, it’s human nature to be this way”, as if we were somehow welded to some kind of “lizard brain” incapable of adaptation and immune to evolutionary development. To my eye that seems to have become, in some form or other, a kind of “article of faith” in the secular world. I want to talk about that also, again, down the road a little further.
For now, I’ve just been trying to lay the groundwork for the context we’re in. First our energy usage growth, and next the connections to our economic belief structures.
More to talk about there too, at least for me. Reducing our present situation to the inevitability of an uncomplicated choice between colonizing Outer Space (rather like the aliens in the movie “The 4th of July”), and a debilitating decline into abject poverty, with no opportunities in between, seems premature to me also.
Bluthner;
Ah yes, the attack of the wayward apostr’ophies. Happens to me, too.
Great threads Gunny – thank you.
In How to Cook a Planet you presented a tongue in cheek reductio ad absurdum argument against never ending and exponential growth in energy consumption on planet earth.
No kidding – but it’s a Straw Man. Moderation in energy consumption will occur long before secular armageddon. Eventually it will hit natural barriers for sure but long before then economic limitations will kick in. The benefits won’t be worth the effort, the juice won’t be worth the squeeze as an old boss used to say.
People will divert their efforts towards more beneficial endeavors and/or they will forego certain benefits all together and find satisfaction in others – or not.
That last point is significant. Will continued growth lead to self correction, a soft landing and a new appetite for the next advance wherever it may lead? Or will it result in unmitigated disaster and generations of misery? And if it does will that misery be felt more by some than others? Which I believe is the nub of your argument.
I don’t know the answer. Do you?
Bursting bubbles create victims for sure.
However I fear that enforced stasis will lead to corrosion, corruption and decay. It always does.
In other words misery – perhaps with a happy face.
And – stretching a metaphor – we’ll force people to sit comfortably shy of the ridge – ignorant of the next mysterious and potentially dangerous valley that leads to even higher ground on the other side.
“ignorant of the next mysterious and potentially dangerous valley that leads to even higher ground on the other side.”
Where we find out if Dawkins is right or wrong.
Stretching the metaphor even further Amy that might actually be the next valley over
True dat. Probably is, actually. I’m just figuring that i’m going to roast irregardless..
For now, I’ve just been trying to lay the groundwork for the context we’re in. First our energy usage growth, and next the connections to our economic belief structures.
Cause and effect…which is which…very interesting.
Wish I could figure the new blockquote thing out.
To follow on that ‘economic belief structures’ thing . . . .
We have been operating on a belief system since 1981 that is based upon several fantasies. The notion that unfettered “free markets” are the solution to any problem or can be used for any function in society. The notion that “free markets” will function even if privileged insiders have access to plenty of special information, plus access to Other People’s Money.
And the notion that bubbles can be tolerated, so long as the costs of the (inevitable!) busts are socialized, and the profits from the bubbles remain in private hands.
And there is also this delusion that a prosperous corporate-dominated economy can function with a middle class that is increasingly desperate and cornered and facing declining incomes.
The final delusion of the people who run on this beliefs, is that the vast majority of us will tolerate the massive concentrations of both wealth, and income, that have resulted from these policies over the past three decades. They think this tiger can be ridden for as long as they wish to, to use another analogy. I think this final delusion is about to explode in their faces.
Kevin
Not sure who holds these beliefs Kevin.
They can’t do everything effectively – but they can do a lot – which leaves government more resources to effectively engage in shared endeavors.
That may in fact be a corrupt reality of our current business/political cabal – Friends of Angelo and others – but who would ever have the “front” to promote it as policy and a belief system?
Again that may well be a shameful reality but who dares promote it?
Expat:
we see operatives like ‘ngavc’ promote these notions every day. We see elected pols tout these ideas every day on the Hill.
Any effort to bring some decent balance to our system is labeled a ‘jobs-killer’, and it is a reflex these days. That line is used constantly.
And my beef about the insider information goes to the heart of the Fed’s policy determinations. Their economic analyses are based on these faulty assumptions, despite the continuing “deregulation” of the conduct of insiders in key areas. For example, it is still against the law for any regulation to even be attempted for derivatives, including financial derivatives.
I am merely stating, openly, the governing assumptions of the New Conservative Consensus as it is expressed into policy, every day. I do not think that I am exaggerating here, one bit.
Kevin
I doubt if our friend ngavc (always makes me think of hvac) has any influence on policy – other than to annoy and reinforce the prejudices of the denizens of CiF. But hey – you never know.
My point is that no one is going to get elected by saying:
“I believe in and want to encourage insider dealing.”
In fact they should be arrested.
or
“I want to encourage irresponsible heads you win tails we lose risk taking.”
The political system encourages it though. Both side do it.
It’s usually dressed up in terms of greater good or protecting freedom. Regardless they should be called on it.