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Page added on July 26, 2018
We Are Exceeding Earth’s Carrying Capacity
IN HIS ARTICLE, “The Earth’s Carrying Capacity for Human Life is Not Fixed,” Ted Nordhaus, co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based energy and environment think tank, seeks to enlist readers in his optimistic vision of the future. It’s a future in which there are many more people on the planet and each enjoys a high standard of living, while environmental impacts are reduced. It’s a cheery vision.
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If only it were plausible.
Nordhaus’s argument hinges on dismissing the longstanding biological concept of “carrying capacity” — the number of organisms an environment can support without becoming degraded. “Applied to ecology, the concept [of carrying capacity] is problematic,” Nordhaus writes, arguing in a nutshell that the planet’s ability to support human civilization can be, one presumes, infinitely tweaked through a combination of social and physical engineering.
Few actual ecologists, however, would agree. Indeed, the concept of carrying capacity is useful in instance after instance — including modeling the population dynamics of nonhuman species, and in gauging the health of virtually any ecosystem, be it ocean, river, prairie, desert, or forest. While exact population numbers are sometimes difficult to predict on the basis of the carrying capacity concept, it is nevertheless clear that, wherever habitat is degraded, creatures suffer and their numbers decline.
The controversy deepens in applying the carrying capacity concept to humans. Nordhaus seems to think we are exceptions to the rules. Still, as archaeologists have affirmed, many past human societies consumed resources or polluted environments to the point of collapse. Granted, societies have failed for other reasons as well, including invasion, over-extension of empire, or natural climate change. Yet in cases where societies depleted forests, fisheries, freshwater, or topsoil, the consequences were dire.
But that was then. The core of Nordhaus’ case is that we are now living in a magical society that is immune to the ecological law of gravity. Yes, it is beyond dispute that the modern industrial world has been able to temporarily expand Earth’s carrying capacity for our species. As Nordhaus points out, population has grown dramatically (from less than a billion in 1800 to 7.6 billion today), and so has per capita consumption. No previous society was able to support so many people at such a high level of amenity. If we’ve managed to stretch carrying capacity this much already, why can’t we do so ad infinitum?
To answer the question, it’s first important to understand the basis of our success so far. Science and technology usually glean most of the credit, and they deserve their share. But sheer energy — the bulk of it from fossil fuels — has been at least as important a factor.
With lots of cheap energy, we were able to extract raw materials faster and in greater quantities, transport them further, and transform them through industrial processes into a breathtaking array of goods — including fertilizers, pesticides, and antibiotics, all of which tended to reduce human death rates.
But there was still another essential factor in our success: nature itself. Using science, technology, and cheap energy, we expanded farmlands, chain-sawed forests, exploited fisheries, mined minerals, pumped oil, and flattened mountains for their buried coal. And we did these things in a way that was not remotely sustainable. By harvesting renewable resources faster than they could regrow, by using non-renewable resources that could not be recycled, and by choking environments with industrial wastes, we were borrowing from future generations and from other species.
Nordhaus writes: “For decades, each increment of economic growth in developed economies has brought lower resource and energy use than the last.” This trend of severing the tie between GDP and energy/materials throughput is called “decoupling.” Many economists make big claims for past decoupling and promise much more of it in the future. But careful analysis of decoupling to date shows that most is attributable to accounting error. And to get the developing world up to the level of an average American’s energy usage would require nearly quadrupling global energy consumption, even assuming advances in efficiency. So, unless we find ways to make decoupling actually happen in the future more reliably and at higher rates, growing the global economy will require us to use more of the Earth’s depleted resources.
It is true that some past warnings about the consequences of overpopulation and overconsumption, framed as forecasts, proved wrong. Thomas Malthus famously thoughtfamine would engulf humanity within decades; it didn’t. He failed to foresee industrial agriculture. Paul Ehrlich thought rapid population growth would lead to catastrophe in the 1980s, but he failed to anticipate the impacts of globalization and debt — which enables us to consume now and pay later. Peak oil analysts didn’t foresee the fracking frenzy. Yet cornucopian economists who perceive no problem in the expectation of endless growth on a finite planet likewise failed to foresee climate change, the exponential increase in extinction rates primarily as a result of human-caused habitat degradation, the collapse of fisheries from overfishing, and much, much more.
How can we judge whether cornucopians, or so-called Malthusians, will be right in the long run? One way would be to keep a running account of key biophysical factors on which the prospering of our species depends. If an alarm bell sounds for any of those key factors, we should sit up and pay attention. After all, Liebig’s Law (another foundation of ecology) tells us that growth limits are set not by total resources available, but by the single scarcest necessary resource.
Fortunately, somebody is keeping those accounts. Indeed, a cottage industry of environmental scientists, led by Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Center and Will Steffen of the Australian National University, has identified nine planetary boundaries that we transgress at our peril: climate change, ocean acidification, biosphere integrity, biochemical flows, land-system change, freshwater use, stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, and the introduction of novel entities into environments.
We are currently exceeding the “safe” marks for four of these boundaries:
Another way of keeping track is the ecological footprint, which measures human demand on nature in terms of the quantity of land and water it takes to support an economy sustainably. The Global Footprint Network calculates that humanity is currently exceeding Earth’s sustainable productivity by 60 percent. We do this, again, by drawing down resources that future generations and other species would otherwise use. So, as a result of our actions, Earth’s long-term carrying capacity for humans is actually declining. Nordhaus is right that it’s not a fixed quantity; the problem is that we’re reducing it rather than adding to it in a way that can be maintained.
DEVISE YOUR own scorecard. What warning signs would you expect to see if we humans were pressing at the limits of global carrying capacity? Resource depletion? Check. Pollution? Check. Dying oceans? Check. Human populations subjected to increasing stress? Double check.
Here’s one more that we probably should be paying more attention to: Wild terrestrial mammals now represent just 4.2 percent of terrestrial mammalian biomass, the balance — 95.8 percent — being livestock and humans. Maybe we could make some inroads on that remaining 4.2 percent, but it’s pretty clear from this single statistic that we humans have already commandeered most of the biosphere.
Optimism is essential; it draws us toward the best possible futures. But when it turns into wishful thinking, it can blind us to the consequences of our present actions. In the worst potential case, the results could be collectively suicidal.
Richard Heinberg is the author of 13 books and a Senior Fellow with the Post Carbon Institute. His essays and articles have appeared in print or online at Nature, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, The American Prospect, Public Policy Research, the Quarterly Review, Resilience, The Oil Drum, and Pacific Standard, among other publications.
103 Comments on "We Are Exceeding Earth’s Carrying Capacity"
Duncan Idaho on Thu, 26th Jul 2018 8:15 pm
Really?
Just because most of our history we had 1-10 million (with a close extinction event 70,000 years ago).
7.6 billion in a collapsing ecosystem, and using 10 grams of hydrocarbons to produce 1 of food?
This isn’t a problem– its a predicament.
tahoe1780 on Thu, 26th Jul 2018 10:05 pm
Are cities truly habitat for humans? Aren’t they much like artificial arrangements such as submarines and space stations whereby necessities like food and water are periodically brought in from outside? How to grow that “outside” as we grow our cities?
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-20-largest-megacities-2100/
DerHundistLos on Thu, 26th Jul 2018 10:14 pm
Dr. Jeremy Jackson Presenting to US Naval Academy:
“Ocean Apocalypse”,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zMN3dTvrwY&t=22s
COMPELLING PRESENTATION
GetAVasectomyAndLetTheHumanSpecieDieGracefully on Thu, 26th Jul 2018 10:27 pm
I like at how humans think that they are a achievement of God or evolution (which ever you believe into).
As you get older you realize that life no matter what form(plant, human, animal) is a failed project.
Woody Allen and nihilist get that life is a sad joke. Life laughs at all of you losers that have procreated and have kids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MsuqvLIttk&list=PLvLgAyYV3BmVnmKQ7CbttB0WKzz-6JtPm&index=4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1MYqi3dyr0&list=PLvLgAyYV3BmVnmKQ7CbttB0WKzz-6JtPm&index=6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ajv-RrQs4o&list=PLvLgAyYV3BmVnmKQ7CbttB0WKzz-6JtPm&index=5
I have to finish with these gem about human :
DerHundistLos on Thu, 26th Jul 2018 10:27 pm
‘I’d like to share a revelation. It came to me when I tried to classify the human species. I realized that you’re not mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops an equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, you rapidly multiply beyond the carrying capacity of the ecosystem and consume until every natural resource is exhausted. The only way you can survive is to metastasize the human contagion to new, unspoiled environs. There is another organism on this planet that follows a similar destructive pattern. It’s a retrovirus. The human race is a destroyer of worlds. You are a plague, and we are the cure.’
Paraphrased from The Matrix
GetAVasectomyAndLetTheHumanSpecieDie on Thu, 26th Jul 2018 10:35 pm
There is a porn filter of this web site. So if you want to see human in all its beauty go to porn hub and put this in the search bar
MISTRESS FISTS SLAVE WITH ELBOW LENGTH LATEX GLOVES THEN FUCKS WITH STRAPON
There is nothing beautiful or special about human. There is nothing in the human specie that is worst saving. Nothing
duh on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 12:00 am
You might be nothing special, but I AM. So hurry up and die. I need my space.
Cloggie on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 12:35 am
Today again a record 38 Celsius in my city of Eindhoven:
https://www.ed.nl/dossier-de-hitte/code-oranje-vrijdag-mogelijk-nog-warmer-in-brabant-dan-donderdag~ac5fdbe7/
The drought in notorious water and rain country Holland has caused the harvest to likely to be largely nullified:
http://www.dvhn.nl/economie/Drentse-en-Groningse-boeren-vrezen-mislukte-oogst-23396742.html
Water shortages could cause farmers to be forbidden to water their fields. Fruit from trees is OK though.
Kat C on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 3:47 am
I agree, get a vasectomy, get a tubal. As things get worse birth control will be harder to come by. And hard times are coming.
peakyeast on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 3:49 am
@Cloggie: We have the same situation here in Denmark. Endless summer – hardly a drop of rain this year.
It is a very special feeling: For the FIRST time in my life I have hoped for a few rainy days.
The meterologists says it is beyond a 1 in a 400 year event. We overstepped that boundary like 1½ months ago. I wonder where we are now? 1 in 1000 years?
Davy on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 6:07 am
Current behavior of overconsumption based on the satisfaction of individual discretionary wants along with naturally expanding populations is the overshoot culprit. What is more insidious is now this overconsumption is part of the economic fabric. We need consumption to support the system. It is clear without economic modernism population would drop suddenly to half or more and likely much more. We need the poor behavior along with the good to keep this system we created going. The bad behavior is killing us. Try eliminating the leisure industry and see the economic fallout. We don’t need the current leisure industry in the sense of the good behavior of survival but we need it because our global economic system has built it into the economic fabric.
Population is another issue. It is still growing albeit at a rate that appears set to level off naturally and even fall but not quick enough. It will take multiple decades of a scenario of more deaths than births to bring populations down. A lot more death than now. If you do the numbers it is on average around 100-200MIL a year more deaths than births to get to a 1 or 2BIL that is a theoretically safe carrying capacity. Currently it is the other way by 80Mil or so which makes getting on track even more dramatic. The trend is what breaks you. The timing of all this along with all the feedbacks already part of the planetary ecosystem mean a storm is brewing. It is even unclear if our modern civilization can drop population and still function. Economically this is very problematic. How do you lower populations and their corresponding economic growth without ruining the economic base? It is the behavior of consumption and population but also their trend that is the problem.
We are struggling to come to terms with behavior. Many could give a shit. It is difficult to change because it is embedded in all aspects of life. It is a self-organizing trend that would require draconian central control to break. We have seen this control in some places at certain historical times but never globally and in today’s interconnectedness. We are talking a Pol Pot type scenario. The degree of change needed in the time frame needed is the issue. The duration of change needed is another. Systematic stasis is another. Degree and duration dictate species survival to systematic perturbations. We could maybe manage short term sacrifices but this is a rest of the life thing. Everyone wants the other guy to sacrifice. Sure we may sacrifice for family but not people in another foreign country we don’t know if we are already suffering.
So let’s accept it can’t be done. Sometime it is only admitting failure that saves you instead todays moto of failure is not an option. Maybe some efforts will help. There is much we can do but not enough so in this case we admit to a trajectory that is already in place. It is a natural environmental reaction to a species that has forced the status quo of a complex ecosystem that developed from the last glacial period and beyond. This forcing occurred in a relatively short time and is dramatic. You can’t reverse this kind of forcing with forcing. What you do is learn to live with it. A crisis is ahead and that crisis will be nonnegotiable. There will be some room for tweaking and lots of room for adaptation and mitigation. We as a civilization can make this less bad or worse and that is a choice. Both will occur and currently the net effect is worse but maybe with time it can be less bad.
It appears it should be up to the individual and small community to make the needed changes that matter. Localism, permaculture, and conservation are import steps. There are limits to the individual effort because all the world has been delocalized. You can’t survive today without globalism. Nowhere is safe but you can create a buffer. You can buy some time. The more I have studied this over the many years the more I see that this global civilization has the ability to adapt until it stops. Our economy will hum into the ground. We have the wherewithal to keep this ship afloat some more years. I can see a decade of two. It can end tomorrow. I am not saying we are safe for another decade or two. What I am saying is we can keep this up until it just breaks. What this means is we should be acknowledging the end and planning accordingly. Our kids should be the worry because it appears they don’t have much of a future. They may not have tomorrow but the definitely don’t have 3 or 4 decades at least not a normal. So one can look at this as acknowledging a terminal illness and adapting accordingly. This will be as an individual and small groups. These small groups can be dispersed also. Currently the net connects us and that is a vehicle of change. The top of this civilization will not change it is locked in competitive cooperation of a multitude of different diverse subcultures. This situation is also locked in the embrace of techno optimism and this is the very thing killing us. Techno optimism can be part of the solution but not the solution. It must include behavior and humans in their current configuration do not have the proper wisdom for that. At the bottom we can have the needed wisdom and that is where your focus should be if you are looking for meaning.
onlooker on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:33 am
Good comments by everybody including you, Davy.
It is the central reality of our existence now on Earth. We either ameliorate the situation or Nature will restore balance with the 4 Horsemen. As it is it may be too late
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 10:22 am
“We either ameliorate the situation or Nature will restore balance with the 4 Horsemen.”
It should be clear by now, that humanity is not going to stop burning fossil fuels, and the longer that the unsustainable can be propped up, the more destructive the 4 horsemen will be.
“As it is it may be too late.”
Unfortunately, yes, it probably is already too late. I would guess that widespread crop failures will be one of the first clear signs of how troubling humanity’s future is going to be.
Slimed on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 12:03 pm
@ DerHundistLos: Wow, that Jeremy Jackson presentation is fantastic, although like Dr. Jackson I now feel compelled to start drinking…
Cull Humanity on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 12:19 pm
@ Davy: I agree with much of your post. I’d argue that human population numbers are not just another problem, they are the main driver. Perhaps that is the way to “sell” the need for more responsible use of our remaining resource bases, do people really want their lives playing out in a rigidly defined way with their autonomy highly curtailed? Most probably don’t but that is how it’s going to be if we continue down this road.
Unlike Dr Jackson in that Ocean Apocalypse presentation linked to in another comment, I don’t see falling human fertility as a problem at all. In fact it may just be the most humane way to address overshoot. The SyFy series Helix[1] actually concludes with such a scenario where a fast-spreading virus results in humans being infertile by default and only the most determined are able to procreate via an expensive, lengthy, unpleasant procedure. No doubt this approach is being secretly explored by the global elites.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_(TV_series)
Davy on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 12:34 pm
Cull, I agree and firmly believe anything society tries to do to make the human predicament less bad is doomed until population issues are dealt with. Not just a little but draconian efforts. I have also wondered if secret efforts are being made by elites or lone wolves to infect the global population with pathogens. With so many people and many of them highly mobile people it seems the possibilities are there to cause mass death. Why it has not happened yet is a big mystery. Many people feel strongly about overpopulation and some of these people could give a shit about humanity. Some feel a spiritual draw to nature and want to rid nature of a plague species that we are.
Cloggie on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 12:53 pm
Drought NW-Europe. ESA-pictures comparing normal situation with the present:
https://twitter.com/NOS/status/1022848570414776320
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 2:32 pm
I think there are way too many people on the planet living off $1 a day or less. If we got rid of those people, we could keep consuming incredible amounts of resources for much longer..
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 2:34 pm
Clogg
The US will become ‘minority white’ in 2045, Census projects
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/
Goodbye white devil!
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 2:44 pm
“I think there are way too many people on the planet living off $1 a day or less. If we got rid of those people, we could keep consuming incredible amounts of resources for much longer..”
Which would ultimately lead to the exact same place.
The only sustainable solution, is to stop relying on finite resources, and to stop consuming renewable resources at a rate faster than they can be naturally replenished.
In other words, much lower standards of living, not unlike those already living on $1 a day or less.
Cloggie on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 2:46 pm
Goodbye white devil!
Yep.
Consequence: goodbye USA in its present form. Blacks all want to live in white society, whites do not want to live in black society.
Consequence: secession attempts.
Goodbye ZOG devil!
Look! Richard Spencer couldn’t be bothered with the star-spangled banner, instead he identifies with England and Germany, probably his ethnic roots:
https://twitter.com/RichardBSpencer
The smartest Americans are leaving the Titanic, they have given up on America and are prepared to take their losses and aim for a white ethno-state on former US soil.
USSR, Yugoslavia and almost Iraq and Syria. All former secular-leftist dictatorships, heading for the exits of history.
Won’t be different with good ol’ US of A. Pity. I could have become one XXL Holland. Instead it became a mixture of Nigeria and Sweden, thanks to The Lobby:
http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/immigration.pdf
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 3:26 pm
Clogg
USSR collapsed due to peak oil..And Iraq and Syria were not leftist countries at all..
You are just a scum fuck nationalist because you are a loser who wants to be a part of a group..because no woman or people like you..
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 3:28 pm
Clogg
Europe is going to collapse way before the US does..You are the worlds second largest oil importer and we are headed for a global shortage..And your economy is already in a depression..Just a few more years and you will be eating boiled rat for dinner..
LMFAO!
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 3:29 pm
BRAWL ON TRUMP’S HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME STAR
http://www.tmz.com/2018/07/27/donald-trump-walk-of-fame-star-brawl-fight/
Republicans only make up 27% of the US population and the vast majority are old fat and crusty boomers..The youth is all on the lefts side..And its the youth who fight wars..
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 3:31 pm
“Just a few more years and you will be eating boiled rat for dinner..”
I’m not sure why anybody would boil rat MM, it’s much better slow roasted over hot coals.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 3:58 pm
Greg
If i was clogg i would have an exit plan ready..I doubt he has ever gone even a day and half without food..Now imagine going two weeks and slowly starving to death until you die..that would be very painful..I am pretty sure when the oil starts to run out he will just kill himself and blame it on something abstract..He will print out that dailymail article that says the UK has trillions of tons of underground coal..and he will stuff it into a suicide note saying..We have plenty of resources left..it was those damn globalist jews who did this to us…
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 4:11 pm
U.S. “most dangerous” place to give birth in developed world
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-most-dangerous-place-to-give-birth-in-developed-world-usa-today-investigation-finds/
onlooker on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 4:13 pm
Why are all the smart people on this board dwelling on who will collapse first, last etc.? We are all going to die, today, tomorrow what does it really matter? I thought we are all here because we have gotten over this fear.
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 4:23 pm
“l am pretty sure when the oil starts to run out he will just kill himself and blame it on something abstract.”
MM,
You are the only one here who has ever talked about killing himself.
Cloggie on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 4:36 pm
“USSR collapsed due to peak oil..”
You are a complete idiot. The USSR collapsed because central planning doesn’t work. The population was demoralized. The adage was: “the government pretends to pay us, we pretend to work”.
”And Iraq and Syria were not leftist countries at all..”
They both were secular-socialist of the Baath variaty. God, are you uneducated.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 4:42 pm
Clogg
No it didn’t..Here is a scholarly paper that proves it.
Peak Oil And The Fall Of The Soviet Union: Lessons On The 20th Anniversary Of The Collapse
http://www.businessinsider.com/peak-oil-and-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-lessons-on-the-20th-anniversary-of-the-collapse-2011-5
And when the global oil shortage hits it will collapse the global economy the same way.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 4:47 pm
Clog
Hating people for things they cant control like the color of their skin, is the surest sign of a fool..You just want to make up reasons to justify your hatred..Dont worry your shitty loser life will be over in a few years…
https://imgur.com/a/pYxKa
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 5:09 pm
MM,
There were numerous factors that lead to the breakup of the Soviet Union, and one man’s opinion does not constitute ‘proof’.
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 5:14 pm
“Hating people for things they cant control like the color of their skin, is the surest sign of a fool..”
When did Cloggie ever say that he hated anybody? He does have a point, history shows that when times get tough, humanity has a nasty habit of violent division along ethnic, racial, religious, political, and societal lines.
Kind of like what you are already seeing the beginnings of in the U.S. of A.
DerHundistLos on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 5:28 pm
@ Cull Humanity
“Unlike Dr Jackson in that Ocean Apocalypse presentation linked to in another comment, I don’t see falling human fertility as a problem at all.”
Dr. Jackson’s comment on falling human fertility rates was to provide an example of the consequences of pollution and environmental contamination. At what point in the presentation did Jackson make the statement that you attribute to him?
Makati1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 6:37 pm
MM, Businessinsider is NOT a “scholarly paper”. It is a propaganda outlet for your masters. It is usually bullshit to prop up the stock market.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 6:54 pm
Greg and madkat
That was a scholarly paper written by a Professor of oil and energy economics..The references were included in the paper and at the bottom of it..business insider just reprinted it..That professor also wrote a book about it as well..All you have to do is look at their oil production data..Which is included in that paper and the CIA released documents back from 1985 that they knew their oil production was going to peak as well..
You two are just afraid because you know it means our collapse is coming..
Makati1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 6:59 pm
The amount of pollution in everything we consume (food, water, air, soaps, shampoos, etc.) is reaching the point where fewer and fewer humans will be born without defects or will die prematurely. A truly healthy baby will be a rarity. Then too, sperm count is declining in numerous cultures. Nature culls the herd in many ways, not all are obvious.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:01 pm
Greg
that is not what clogg is saying..Stop sticking up for him you closet nazi..he is saying all the problems stem from multiculturalism..
I am going to laugh when the US government or Canadian government sneak up on your compound and kill you and your other cult members and steal your location and supplies for themselves..Just like you found the best spots so will they..
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:01 pm
MM,
I have read numerous articles on the breakup of the former Soviet Union. As I said above:
“There were numerous factors that lead to the breakup of the Soviet Union, and one man’s opinion does not constitute ‘proof’.”
I do not deny that oil production was a contributing factor.
Makati1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:06 pm
“That was a scholarly paper written by a Professor of oil and energy economics..”
MM, BOTH topics (oil/economics) are mostly guesswork, not facts. Being a ‘professor’ does NOT make his opinion into facts. How many centuries did “professors” claim that the earth was flat? Professors are usually people who could not do, so they teach.
You were brainwashed at that college you claim to have attended, and you paid them to do it. LMAO
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:28 pm
Greg and madkat
Believe whatever makes you feel good..You’ll see when the shit hits the fan in a few years with the oil shortage hits..And the lights go out forever..
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:38 pm
“And the lights go out forever..”
I have three separate solar systems here MM, and a ton of candles. Our electric is from hydro, it was completely upgraded a decade and a half ago, and it is local.
The lights will not be going out here anytime soon. That would be the least of my concerns.
DMyers on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:43 pm
The apparent population problem will have to run its course. Human males want to fuck human females, and they dwell on that potential accomplishment during a good duration of waking consciousness.
Human fecundity is a natural accommodation to small litters and long gestation. Humans play a natural and necessary part in life evolution. Even as we may abhor what we do to the planet, it is part of a larger scheme which serves an outcome that we may not necessarily agree with or desire.
I’m not an advocate of human population enhancement. I dutifully restricted myself to two offspring. When I hear the words, ((((SEVEN AND A HALF BILLION)))) my butt puckers, and my balls vibrate at the frequency of an operatic soprano breaking glass. In fact, I’m better described as a misanthrope than an advocate of more babies.
But looking at the situation honestly and objectively, we would seem to defy the will of the Nature we love by hampering the drive it has so richly bestowed upon us.
Sissyfuss on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:46 pm
Why didn’t I think of that. We can mitigate the effects of the 6th Mass Extinction by tweaking a combination social and physical geoengineering. The homos are sapien indeed.
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:46 pm
“I am going to laugh when the US government or Canadian government sneak up on your compound and kill you and your other cult members and steal your location and supplies for themselves..Just like you found the best spots so will they..”
I do not live in a compound MM, the government is not going to sneak up on me, there is no cult here, and there is nothing worth stealing except for hand tools.
And MM, I doubt very much that you will be laughing about anything, after you have committed suicide.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:56 pm
Greg
If your location is as good of a bug out spot as you claim..then it reasonable to assume that the elites and powers that be know about it as well..And they will come to call when the time is right..They could use it to protect the elites or others VIP’s..Just saying..
Makati1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 7:56 pm
MM, Your picture of the future is warped by your watching too many porn and zombie movies.
I live where electric is optional. The days vary from 12 to 14 hours long. We are near the equator, if that means anything to your uneducated mind. Here they live by the sun, not the clock, which most people in the countryside do not own.
The farmhouse will have solar panels, but candles are also in the preps. Sex and sleeping are nighttime activities, not TV or Internet. As I keep saying, I live in a totally different culture than you do.
Makati1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:06 pm
MM, if you think the “elites” will be out looking for food, you are even more delusional than I thought. Think, if you can.
‘Elites’ will have no idea how to find anything without GPS telling them where to go. They will be among the first to go after the SHTF. THEY are the ones locked up in some well known bunker with no security to protect them. They will be targets for the ‘outsiders’.
Greg will be better off than most as he is in a location that will require skill and endurance to find and approach. I am in a similar situation, but not as good as he is. You, on the other hand are in the bullseye.
DMyers on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:11 pm
“MM, Your picture of the future is warped by your watching too many porn and zombie movies.”
MM, do you admit or deny?