[davidyson]

I have a difficult question for you peak oilers:

What is a good ethical behaviour in our time:

1. Try to use as little energy as possible
2. Use as much energy as possible

The choice seems obvious, but I think it's not:

Let's assume that humankind will not manage to manufacture a "soft landing" that leads to a sustainable scenario - which is what most people here believe. Then every Watt of energy that doesn't get consumed by the existing population just allows more people to be born before the crash happens. People will relentlessly use up all available energy, because too few people accept personal limits to their energy use if their neighbours don't do it, too. The more people we have on the planet at the time of the crash, the harder and "deeper" the crash will be. Conclusion: Use as much energy as possible, so that the crash will happen earlier, so that less people get born, so that less people die, so that the crash will be "softer"?

On the other hand, let's assume, that there is a good chance that humankind will make the turnaround and restrict the overall fossil energy use and population growth to sustainable levels. Then we should save as much energy as possible, so that our children and grandchildren will have some energy to fuel the transistion and make good use of the resource.

It seems that the optimal ethical behaviour depends on whether you believe in the inevitability of a drastic crash or in the possibility (or even probability) of a soft landing.

If the effects of peak oil get wider public attention, the population will split along some line between doomsdayers and soft landers. If they think logically, they will also adapt to different patterns of behaviour according to the above logic.

The existence of this mentality and behaviour pattern split will make it harder to come to a common pattern of behaviour. As a soft landing probably requires a big majority of people to all do "the right thing", the split will make a soft landing less likely. So a crash gets more likely... so the effort of the soft landers will eventually cause a bigger number of people to die, as their efforts are futile if there is a significant share of doomsdayers in the population.

What do you think would be the best ethical behaviour? Am I missing something?

Davidyson

[Xelat]

For me any soft landing scenarion has the US landing hardest and coming out on the other side with power more appropiate to it's population. I guess when the crisis accelerates here the US will need plenty of people who are informed and have been learning how to reduce their consumption so we can quickly inform the rest of the populace, accelerate mass transit construction etc. So to me the responsible strategy for Americans is to reduce their own consumption as an example and also an oppurtunity to learn HOW. USA is landing hard enough that we each individually need to prepared for hardships.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davidyson', ' ')Conclusion: Use as much energy as possible, so that the crash will happen earlier, so that less people get born, so that less people die, so that the crash will be "softer"? What do you think would be the best ethical behaviour? Am I missing something?

[Jack]

[quote="MonteQuest If you read my thread on Liebig's Law, Why there will be a die-off [/quote]

I just read the item - most interesting. I'm curious if you'd venture a guess what the post die-off population might be?

[davidyson]

Monte, I can't see how Liebig's law really affects my argument - assuming that as soon as we have a crash with lots of people starving,

a) there will be less people who can actually reproduce, so fewer human beings will be subsequently born,

b) humankind will learn a lesson and finally try to achieve an equilibrium with the (remaining) environment

...or am I still missing something?

Davidyson

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '[')quote="MonteQuest If you read my thread on Liebig's Law, Why there will be a die-off

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davidyson', 'M')onte, I can't see how Liebig's law really affects my argument - assuming that as soon as we have a crash with lots of people starving,

a) there will be less people who can actually reproduce, so fewer human beings will be subsequently born,

b) humankind will learn a lesson and finally try to achieve an equilibrium with the (remaining) environment

...or am I still missing something?

Davidyson

[smallpoxgirl]

I tend to agree with you that the thing kindest for everyone is if the system keeps going full speed till it hits a brick wall. My nightmare is that people will get it together in time to build huge algea vats in new mexico and transition everything over to biodiesel and keep things going. And the sprawl and the deforestation and the pollution and the extinctions will continue for a couple more decades until the next catastrophe hits. (Probably running out of water for the algae.)

The flip side is that I'm selfish. I want to survive. The more I'm acustomed to living with little energy, the more likely I will survive. My strategy is basically to learn to grow my own food, and learn to can and dry them for the winter, and learn to brain tan hides, and try to break my dependence on central heat and electric lights, and not sweat the fact that my 30 year old pickup truck gets 15 mpg. When the SHTF, I'll park it, and that will be that. I am most certainly not telling everyone I meet about peak oil.

[0mar]

Ethics is what you do when you care what others think about you.

Personally, I have several firearms ready to be used as soon as the SHTF. There's no use in ethics and morality when all social order has broken down.

Unfortunately, one person can not make a difference (unless that person finds a 500 billion barrel field !). Finding, securing and ensuring your own survival, even at the expense of others, is the best course you can make for yourself.

BTW, don't think that the peak is 10-20 years away. It could happen in as little as 6 months. After two years of rock solid high oil prices we will definately be in a depression. And when food production starts dropping (due to lack of pesticides, fertilizers, and the means to transport them; i'd say this happens in 3-5 years after the peak), electrical generation declines (as we fall off the natural gas cliff, we which are currently riding) and international strife hits a peak, then we will really be in trouble. My only advice is to aim high.

I don't doubt the fact that we will have a die-off in our generation (next 30 years). There is simply too much stress on Earth for there not to be. We have definately exceeded the carrying capacity and we are seeing the first signs of the system groaning under pressure.

[fastbike]

George Mobiot wrote an interesting article published in the UK Guradian 22 November. Titled Feeding Cars, Not People he lays out the case as to why biofuels will be a humanitarian and environmental disaster.
Great analysis and recommended reading.

[davidyson]

To Monte: do you think that neither behaviour will save any people's lives and that the only option is to look after your "pocket of reason"?

I do understand the lilypond riddle such as it means that even if some flowers die underway, the overall trend of exponential growth is so overwhelming that it doesn't make a difference.

I think it depends on how much "some" are.

Another question: So you do not think that a late collapse is worse than an early collapse?

To Omar: I think that ethic behaviour has an intrisic value insofar that it is the only behaviour that allows real cooperation between human beings. If everyone would think like you, everyone would either be dead or enslaved. All religious motives for ethical behaviour aside (I am a radical atheist).

Davidyson

[0mar]

In normal, enforced society, ethics are a good thing. In a post-collapse society, ethics will get you killed.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davidyson', '[')b]To Monte: do you think that neither behaviour will save any people's lives and that the only option is to look after your "pocket of reason"?

Another question: So you do not think that a late collapse is worse than an early collapse?

[oowolf]

Hello. Ethics is what civilized people do in their spare time, what the Greeks pondered while their slaves worked their asses off. Dieoff will be essentially a social phenomenon induced by the sudden realization that the Titanic is lost. sic transit ethics. Who is going to line up peacefully to starve? The maximum sustainable population under ideal conditions is probably <2 billion, maximum realistic population <1.2 billion, current sustainable population sans cheap oil <.4 billion due to severe global arable land depletion. Actual current carrying capacity of our ravaged soil sans cheap oil <.15 billion. leon. plan to live, plan to die.

[davidyson]

Oowolf,

I cannot really follow your numbers for sustainable population.

Sustainable population is mainly dependend on availability of arable land and its productivity.

See Population and Sustainable Food Production for a full discussion of current and future developments.

Arable land worldwide is at about 1.4 billion hectares (10000 square meters). You need about a tenth of a hectare to feed one person sustainably. So in theory you should be able to sustain about 14 billion people, even without fossil fuel input.

I know, there are many factors that lower this number (mismatch in the distribution of arable land and population, differences in soil quality, irrigation availability, possible farming intensity etc.), but not to a tenth or even a hundredth of this number, as you suggest.

On ethics:
Ethics are what keeps societies running and cohesive, so ethical behaviour is not a luxury for good times but a prerequisite for anything like civilized human life. Giving up ethics means that you fall back to jungle law. If the crunch is just bad enough even despite ethical behaviour by most people, it might come to the point of everybody against everybody else, but let's not rush things. I never understood how US Americans can think that owning a gun can make their lives safer - all statistics prove that the opposite is the case. I am for sure happy to live in a country where weapons are almost non-existent in the civil society.

Cheers,

Davidyson

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ello. Ethics is what civilized people do in their spare time, what the Greeks pondered while their slaves worked their asses off.

[TheTurtle]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')Blah blah blah, there goes Ludi off on her tribal society riff again....

[davidyson]

So again, what is your (the current contributors to this forum) position concerning the original question?

Use up all remeaining oil as quickly as possible in order to speed collapse and therefore to limit the amount of human casualties or try to save the world from us walking ape's stupidity and greed into a soft landing with the risk of just causing an even harder collapse if we don't make the curve?

I found that Monte actually tries to avoid to have an opinion, he seems to say stay with the McGuyver types - which does not actually answers the question, because you could stay with McGuyver types and still make sure the cliff comes as soon as possible... (sorry, Monte... )

Cheers,

Daniel

[Doly]

The way I see it, as an individual, if you really tried, you probably couldn't manage to consume double the energy you do now. In other words, your contribution would be a drop in the ocean.

If you become a conservationist, your contribution would be even smaller, but will one difference: you are much more likely to inspire other people to do the same, which is unlikely in the first case. The saving option makes sense to the vast majority of people, the wasteful option does not.

The opinion of people isn't static. It begins by the majority not being conservationist, but as thing gets worse, more and more people will favour conservation. One person insisting on being more wasteful than usual is unlikely to change much the trend. One person insisting on being conservationist may make a small difference.

Besides, if you really think that it will take long enough until the crash for a significant number of new people being born, you should be a believer in a soft landing, anyway.