Future looks crowded, impoverished

Thomas Malthus (1766 – 1834), an English Clergyman, predicted that increasing population would be limited by famine and disease. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University professor, predicted mass starvation in the 1970s and ’80s because of increasing population.

Both prophecies failed because of improvements in agricultural productivity.

I’ve just read five interesting books: “Limits to Growth” (1972), “Beyond the Limits” (1992) and “Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update” (2004), all by Donnella Meadows et al.; “The Race for What’s Left” (2012) by Michael Klare; and “Enough is Enough” (2013) by Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill. These discuss the interaction between population, food supply, water supply, material resources (e.g., iron, aluminum, oil, coal), available energy, industrial capacity, the standard of living, shortages, and what to do about it.

The standard of living in the developed world requires more of everything, while African villagers require very little. Overall, the use of these resources depends on two things: the world population and the average standard of living. The question raised by these books is “How many people can the Earth support and at what standard of living?”

“Donnella Meadows et al.” were scientists at MIT who created a computer model to study these problems. They concluded that, by 2200, the world might begin running short of material resources (coal, oil, gas, metals, water, arable land, etc.) and that the standard of living of the world population will decrease, as well as the population itself.

Michael Klare is a writer specializing in resource and environmental issues. He be-lieves shortages are happening now.

World population is near 7 billion and the doubling time is 70 years. The world population in 2082 could be 14 billion people. The UN projects three scenarios, with population estimates of 4, 8 and 19 billion in 2082, depending on “How many people can the Earth support, and at what standard of living?”

Meadows et al. discuss the interactions between the parameters that allow our existence at the present level of population and standards of living. Klare points to observable proof that resources are becoming harder to get and that there are increasing struggles for what is left. We are doing deep-water drilling for oil because the easy places are gone. Deep-water drilling is expensive. A recent order for building two deep-water drill ships will cost 1.3 billion dollars. And dangerous, as British Petroleum demonstrated in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil companies want to drill in the Arctic. Expensive and dangerous. Drill ships must be armored against icebergs with even higher costs. Rig workers who are thrown into the Arctic Ocean will be dead within minutes.

Mining of iron, aluminum, copper, gold and silver ores is becoming more difficult. Mines are played out and new ones must be found. The likely places are the unexplored ones, Africa and South America. Transportation costs will go up and parts of Africa are filled with armed and unfriendly people. Walled compounds and armed security is ex-pensive.

China is not arguing with Japan over tiny, uninhabited islands because they care about the islands. The law of the sea grants the mineral rights on the sea bottom for two hundred miles around to the owner.

Arable land is disappearing because of overuse and pesticides. Countries are leasing land in Africa and South America to grow food for themselves despite the transportation costs. China is the sole source of the rare earth metals that are used in every cell phone, computer, ipod, etc. If there are other sources, we have to find them. A Russian submarine dropped a Russian flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole to reinforce Russia’s claims for Arctic Oil.

Finally, global warming, a rise in ocean levels, farming moving to where the water is, diplomatic and armed struggles over resources, and unpredictable major storms place emphasis on the possibility that mankind is in trouble.

Sam Brunstein is an electrical engineer, retired to Arizona from Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California for the dry climate and to escape the San Andreas Fault and the inevitable Big One.

Prescott Daily Courier