Peak Oil is You
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Page added on September 1, 2011
Let’s view the present crisis from a historical point of view.
Humanity took 200,000 years to reach one billion inhabitants in 1804. It then took 127 years to reach the second billion in 1927. The next billion increases were reached, respectively, in 1960, 1975, 1986 and 1999. Never before did world population increase that way. Why? Humanity lacked the knowledge that would be gained in Western Europe’s Scientific Revolution, The Enlightenment, The Industrial Revolutions, etc.
Humankind’s ignorance allowed population control by death. Disease was a death sentence (appendicitis, measles, malaria, flu, an infected scraped knee, polio, smallpox, etc.). Hunger could be a death sentence (no industrialized agriculture, no fertilizers, no freezers for transportation of food, no chemicals to conserve it). War was a death sentence when armies went about pillaging for food, loot, women and slaves to sell (no UN, no democracy, no human rights before they were invented in England and USA).
We are living the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 30’s and 40’s. But in spite of the economic crisis we are the pampered ones living in the period of greatest abundance, knowledge, prosperity and peace since our species walks the planet. We have a tendency to forget that.
Now let’s try not to forget it for a few minutes. Can we tighten our belts and live the “old fashioned” principles of hard work and responsibility for ourselves? Can we spend, as a country, no more than we earn? It is a simple lesson the Founding Fathers could give us. “Don’t live above your means by borrowing more every year. You will live a fictitious state of well being”.
5 Comments on "Let’s view the present crisis from a historical point of view."
Simon on Thu, 1st Sep 2011 4:59 pm
Any article that describes human population growth like this e.g. how many years it takes to add the next billion, cannot be taken seriously. Any system that is increasing at a constant rate will show the same apparent alarming decrease in the time it takes to grow a set amount. Here are the real facts: At its peak in about 1970, human population was doubling every 35 years. There has been such a drastic drop in the rate of increase that we are now predicting that human population will “only” increase from 7 billion to 9 billion in the next 40 years and then stabalize at 9 billion. In effect we have put on the brakes are reversed course in less than 100 years.
On the other hand with peak oil and peak everything else the predictions aren’t likely to hold. With increased poverty we will start having more and more children as we have at the same time more and more drought, famine, war and disease so who knows where it will go but it doesn’t look pretty.
Simon on Thu, 1st Sep 2011 5:03 pm
Another point: The very foundations of our economy are endless growth fueld by endless debt. We are going to have to drastically re-invent ourselves to achieve a stable, sustaninable and modest economy.
Kenz300 on Fri, 2nd Sep 2011 5:35 pm
The world added a billion people in the last 12 years and will add another billion in the next 12 years. Where will all the food, water, oil and jobs come from to support this massive population?
Dopey on Fri, 2nd Sep 2011 11:30 pm
“Where will all the food, water, oil and jobs come from to support this massive population?”
That there is the millor dollar question. My answer is that it won’t, historically the population of regions have undergone population overshoot (probably because its easier to carry and give birth to a baby compared to nuturing it to adulthood thus leading to unsustainable growth) and then the resulting shortages create a decline, back to a sustainable level.
Humanity is going straight off a cliff, just like it has done on far smaller scales in the future.
Austintechnorati on Tue, 6th Sep 2011 2:17 pm
Fertility rates have been cut in half since 1960. Since that time the population of the world has gone from being rural to urban.
On the farm a child is a laborer, in the city a child is a liability.
While life spans are increasing, fertility is going down. There’s little reason to suspect any sort of wild population increases.