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Page added on November 3, 2017
Resource Limitations
Chris Nelder, William E. Rees, originally published by Energy Transition Show
How do we know at what level our consumption is sustainable, and when we’re in planetary overshoot? How do we quantify what the planet’s capacity is to meet human demands, and how much of that capacity is renewable, and how much of it is just being permanently depleted? And once we had a way to quantify that, what would we do with that information? Would we use it to inform our actions and avert overpopulation and disaster? Would we ignore it at our peril? Or would reality just unfold in some messy fashion along a default path somewhere in between? Is a deliberate transition to a sustainable energy system even possible?
Our guest in this episode created a scientific methodology called “ecological footprint analysis,” a kind of ecological accounting, to inform policymakers about our resource demands on the world as compared with Earth’s ability to meet those demands. Earth Overshoot Day, which the Global Footprint Network calculates every year, arrived on August 2, meaning “that in seven months, we emitted more carbon than the oceans and forest can absorb in a year, we caught more fish, felled more trees, harvested more, and consumed more water than the Earth was able to produce in the same period.” After listening to this discussion, you’ll never quite think of energy transition the same way again.
Geek rating: 2
Guest: Dr. William Rees is an ecological economist Professor Emeritus and former director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. The originator of eco-footprint analysis, he has an extensive opus of peer-reviewed articles on the biophysical prerequisites for sustainability in an era of accelerating ecological change. Dr. Rees was a founding director and past-president of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics, a founding director of the One Earth Initiative and is a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute.
On the Web: https://scarp.ubc.ca/people/william-rees
Recording date: September 22, 2017
Air date: October 18, 2017
20 Comments on "Resource Limitations"
onlooker on Fri, 3rd Nov 2017 4:24 pm
The Ultimate limiation is Resources. We live in a finite world and should not expect to grow anything endlessly.
makati1 on Fri, 3rd Nov 2017 7:11 pm
The race is on to the extinction tape at the finish line.
The runners are:
Famine
Disease
War
Disaster
Intelligence
War and Disaster are neck and neck as they round the last turn. Famine and Disease are catching up, while Intelligence has fallen back and is walking.
And the “winner” is…?
Davy on Fri, 3rd Nov 2017 7:16 pm
We know the winner in Asia and that is Famine.
makati1 on Fri, 3rd Nov 2017 8:31 pm
Apparently there is no resource problem with opium poppies and the CIA’s 2017 bumper crop.
“Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of opium just logged a record crop harvest this year doubling last year’s production. Some how – some way, Afghanistan’s opium will find its way into a neighborhood near you.” Stats are from the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-03/chart-shows-americas-opioid-crisis-about-get-worse
“In 2016, more than two million Americans had an addiction to prescription or illicit opioids.
Since 2000, over 300,000 Americans have died from overdoses involving opioids.
Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of injury death in the United States, outnumbering both traffic crashes and gun-related deaths.
In 2015, there were 52,404 drug overdose deaths — 33,091 of those deaths, almost two-thirds, involved the use of opioids.
The situation has only gotten worse, with drug overdose deaths in 2016 expected to exceed 64,000.
This represents a rate of 175 deaths a day.” From Trumps Speech.
Slip sliding down the slope…
MASTERMIND on Fri, 3rd Nov 2017 8:48 pm
I have talked many times with Dr Rees.. Nice guy…Sorry Madkat I didn’t join the war machine like you in America…when they said jump you said “HOW HIGH”…You just swing from nutsack to nutsack…First you loved uncle sam. Now you love your new dictator with 100 percent of your heart…He is going to crush you like a bug. I bet when that oil starts to run out the USA invades your shitty country and turns you people into our slaves…l
makati1 on Fri, 3rd Nov 2017 9:17 pm
MM, I had no choice other than jail. What would YOU have done in my place. Hidden behind some education loophole? It was possible in the days of the draft. ‘Exemptions” they were called. “Coward” is more the true label.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 3rd Nov 2017 11:12 pm
Madkat: This is how it will happen. I assure you nobody has studied this closer then me…My list of sources linked to on my name proves that claim…
Oil Shortage 2020 > Societal Collapse 2025 > Anarchy 2030
MASTERMIND on Fri, 3rd Nov 2017 11:15 pm
Madkat1
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do…
-B.F. Skinner
makati1 on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 12:43 am
MM: For the US, maybe. For the rest of the world, I doubt it. You can ask God himself (or herself lol) and it would still just be a guess, not the future.
You do not know what tomorrow will bring. Years from now is just reading tea leaves or chicken guts. “Sources” are just other’s ideas, not fact. Sorry.
makati1 on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 12:46 am
MM: most (wo)men don’t think and those that do are in a self-built box and have little outside reality to base their thoughts on. Narrow minds (boxes) restrict most ‘thinkers’ today. So do over educated minds. lol
MASTERMIND on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 1:01 am
Madkat
Studies are based off of facts and evidence..If I presented the smoking gun to you as evidence. Would you just say it doesn’t matter? NO… You live in a fantasy land that just hopes (wishes) that everything will be fine for Asia. It wont be China is going to peak with all three of their fossil fuels in the next five years..They are history…Don’t you see without the big bad USA and others around…Your dicator will most likely shove his big black boot up your ass..You will be crying wish you the USA would come help…But NO…It will be crickets… Without the USA around there will be no force to police the world…No law and order so to speak….You are not going to like downsizing…
makati1 on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 3:03 am
I would want the gun examined and tested and then, if I didn’t see it fired. I would be skeptical. Anything can be faked today. Anything.
Studies have a sponsor. All of them. Someone signing a paycheck and providing the spin that will be in the study. No one does a thorough study for free. No one.
The US is NOT indispensable. That very idea proves you are brainwashed to the bone. The US is the cause of 90+% of the problems in the world today. Not the policeman. The disease, not the cure. The sinner, not the saint.
You are so brainwashed by the USMSM that you do not see the rest of the world clearly. Including Asia. You live in a dictatorship already. You just refuse to see it. 600,000 laws on the US books*. More added daily. Taxes for everything. Your home can be taken by the government if you do not pay them and/or you can go to jail. You can be shot by the government without trial or even a cause. An on and on… I am safer here than you will ever be.
BTW: I am already downsizing. I am almost to the rung that most Filipinos are on and will be on that rung next year when we move to the farm permanently. I am so far down from the US nose bleed level that I can enjoy real freedom. I pay no taxes. I own no property, vehicle, or debt. I have no need for a job. My resources are secure. I have friends here with ‘connections’. You should be so lucky.
* http://kowal.com/?q=How-Many-Federal-Laws-Are-There%3F
Cloggie on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 3:30 am
Peak oil fossil “mastermind” has grest trouble making sense of it all:
“Oil Shortage 2020 > Societal Collapse 2025 > Anarchy 2030”
should read:
“Increased political/ethnic tensions 2020 > Societal Collapse 2025 > Balkanized USA 2030”
The dates could vary significantly.
Davy on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 4:40 am
Plus this:
“Increased political/ethnic tensions 2020 > Societal Collapse 2025 > Balkanized Europe 2030”
Dredd on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 6:24 am
“Resource Limitations”
The brain resource is the missing link (Government Climate Change Report – 11).
Cloggie on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 7:21 am
Massive losses for Tesla in Q3: $619M
Reason: production problems, both with cars and battery assembly.
It turns out that newcomer Tesla is unsurprisingly not very experienced in production automation, in contrast to established car manufacturers like BMW and VW.
Cloggie on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 7:21 am
Link:
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/tesla-wird-im-rennen-um-das-massentaugliche-e-mobil-zum-gejagten-a-1176384.html
Cloggie on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 7:33 am
Largest wind turbine in the world nears completion:
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/bilder-der-woche-beste-fotos-auf-spiegel-online-fotostrecke-154621-2.html
Location Gaildorf, Baden-Württembergischen
Height tower 178 Meter
Total height 246,5 Meter
Total investment: $81M
Yearly return: $7.6M
…which results in a payback time of 10.6 years.
And after that you can enjoy at least 20 years of free electricity (why not 400 years? The Eiffel tower still stands after 130 years and probably will for another 3 centuries).
And after that you will have the disposal of steel that can be transformed into a new wind tower for a fraction of the energy cost it takes to construct the tower from iron ore from say fare-away Australia. In principle the wind tower can be recycled for little energy cost (from other winturbines) “till Kingdom comes”, making a mockery of the local “we’re f* society”.
Davy on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 8:32 am
Dumb, review the VW losses for cheating and bad behavior. I think you mr goofy German hero’s are just as bad if it were not for huge government support. FRAUD
Sissyfuss on Sat, 4th Nov 2017 9:48 am
Rees calls it “an era of accelerating ecological change.” Well if that don’t apply a nice sugar coating to our predicament. I feel more sanguine already.