[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '2')016 we retired and moved onto the boat.

[theluckycountry]

After 50 years, there is still an ongoing debate about the Limits to Growth (LtG) study. This paper recalibrates the 2005 World3‐03 model. The input parameters are changed to better match empirical data on world development. An iterative method is used to compute and optimize different parameter sets. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Rec ... _375610074



They are still on the money! The population curve is very accurate, they did understate the industrial production curve (red) back in the day, probably assumed a little sanity would prevail there, but oh no, full on consumption right up till the crunch.

I can't believe how hard it is to get simple manufactured parts these days, even parts made in Oz! Weeks and weeks of delays. I don't know what's going on down there in the spring factory but the order better arrive soon or I'll go hunting some old stock at various motorcycle shops. Perhaps I should stock up on oil filters too?

This is all part of the rational response to the limits to growth I believe. Getting enough quality stuff squirreled away to see you out. Let the Millennials go through the deprivation, they are always bitching that we Gen-Xers are greedy pigs, so be it, let them be right for once. Anyway it's what I do, and my home is large enough to sequester what I need. I don't want to be mowing my yard in twenty years with a push-mower or be hunting for a quality MP3 player.

I wonder how the LTG model came up with the food production curve? It's the shocker really. Did they factor in depleting fossil fuel fertilizers, degradation of topsoil? Probably. Obviously. But what about the Earth's rising temperatures, that is effecting a lot of output, as are the more recurrent droughts. They are just a natural cycle even so. It's well established now that the 20th century was an anomaly, a rather wet part of the Earth's cycle. It came along just in time for Hoover dam too, lucky that, but unlucky if it runs dry in the decades to come.

Anyway that's enough for this morning, time to get my collection of Ecodrive watches off the windowsill and put back in the safe. Then a bike ride up to the waterfall to photograph some wildlife. Or perhaps I'll just laze off and read a book? Yes, a much better idea, I'll take the ride tomorrow, one shouldn't do anything too strenuous on a Thursday, or a Sunday, or a Monday


The Falls are like going back in time, to some prehistoric land. Awe inspiring!

[mousepad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '
')The Falls are like going back in time, to some prehistoric land. Awe inspiring!

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mousepad', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '
')The Falls are like going back in time, to some prehistoric land. Awe inspiring!

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mousepad', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '
')The Falls are like going back in time, to some prehistoric land. Awe inspiring!

[theluckycountry]

A good article on peaking and decline by The Honest Sorcerer

Downslope
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')One does not need to be an oracle to see: if you have a finite resource, and you can no longer find it in quantities sufficient to meet demand, you will sooner or later run out of it. Before that happens, though, the rate of extraction will reach a peak, and as oil fields give up the ghost one by one, a ‘long descent’ will begin. Not that any of this should be big news: there were plenty of warnings from M. King Hubbert to Charles A.S. Hall and Jean Laherrère, or from the Limits to Growth study to the countless updates published to it, all saying that sooner or later the party will end.

Our corporate overlords (hand-in-hand with the many autocrats of the world) however, spared no effort to deny that we could ever run low on oil — and we believed them, because we wanted to. The fireworks must never end, so we could keep driving our (ever bigger and heavier) cars to (ever larger) supermarkets and buy just about any product we wished to have.

Physics and geology rarely gives a hoot what we wish to have, though. Energy is everything, and now we have to face the prospect of a net decline in what’s available (that is: left to be used for purposes other than drilling more wells to replace depleted ones, or mining minerals to build power plants, dams or “renewables”). And while oil production is still growing in terms of the amount of crude oil and condensate brought to the surface, it still hasn’t reached its all time high in 2018. This production growth after the pandemic slump is even more staggering if you add in all sorts of other “liquids” like LNG, ethane, biofuels and what not — resulting in a number beyond a hundred million barrels per day — but what about net energy?

When it comes to expanding drilling and pumping ever further the gains does not come from opening the taps a little wider. Each and every barrel added to the mix comes from ever deeper wells, from ever deeper seas, ever further away from the shore. As more and more CO2 and water must be pumped underground to force just a little more juice onto the surface, or ever more wells need to be fracked open (then re-fracked), the energy cost per barrel increases exponentially.

To illustrate this process, compare a “simple” pumpjack consuming a modest amount of fuel to lift oil out of the ground, with a floating platform 24 stories high, weighing over 17000 tons, and with a deck the size of 15 basketball courts. Or how about Chevron’s latest invention of a new high-pressure extraction technology (announced last week) deployed at a deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico? I wonder what the energy demand of these beasts are…

“Solving” this net energy dilemma is not a question of ingenuity, mind you. Adding more complexity and more technology always comes with an increased energy demand. As low cost drilling techniques fail to keep up with the depletion of easy to get oil, and will have to be replaced by ever more energy intensive methods, the situation can be expected to worsen even if we just try to maintain a steady supply of fuel. The question, whether we surpass the peak of November 2018 or not, will thus become moot. The aggregate net energy from oil (available for other uses) will most likely start to shrink after 2025 — no matter what we do.

This is going to be one major event, a true turning point not only for western nations, but to the human enterprise as a whole. Combined with a looming peak in aggregate crude oil and condensate production (scheduled to arrive by 2030) it will be no longer possible to pretend that we have enough fuel to do everything we want. Actually, we would have to contend with less and less fuel production year after year...

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'A') good article on peaking and decline by The Honest Sorcerer

Downslope
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Not that any of this should be big news: there were plenty of warnings from M. King Hubbert to Charles A.S. Hall and Jean Laherrère, or from the Limits to Growth study to the countless updates published to it, all saying that sooner or later the party will end.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'G')o ahead, try to refute any of my points.

[theluckycountry]

The Falls were beautiful, like always, and the hayabusa handled well after I'd adjusted the rebound damping a little more. There is nothing like going up a snaking mountain road on a powerful motorcycle where through each corner you feel the rear tire marching across the road to keep you on a tight track. It's something the non-rider wouldn't know, and many riders (Harley Riders) don't either, that sport bikes leaned over and under power are actually steered as much by the rear wheel as the front. It has to do with the curve of the tires and the geometry of the bike. Also is the fact that because you're leaned over in the curve you don't feel "pushed across the seat" like in a car, you're actually pushed 'down' onto the seat with a force similar to that of gravity. It's the centrifugal force.

Anyway it's a beautiful ride but in 2017 it had a large section washed out in a mountain flood and the road remained closed for about two years. Not a problem if you didn't live up there, and if you did, a big inconvenience because while there is another road down, it's on the backside of the mountain which means a detour of an hour just to get to work or the kids to school. That was a nasty season and many roads were damaged, the repairs to the Springbrook-Mudgeeraba road were low priority due the second road access and because only about seven hundred people live up there.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-04/ ... ld/8670800

Then it happened again in 2022.
https://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/projects/gol ... tion-works

Limits to Growth? Absolutely. Two roads up and one a disaster every time it rains too heavily. Eventually the Government will just abandon it because ...budget constraints and all that. Give it another 50 years and the remaining road will probably revert to a dirt track like it was 100 years ago too. Because while you can make Solar Panels out of Oil, you can't make Oil based roads out of Solar Panels. Which should be self-evident, but isn't to most...

"The Limits to Growth" was a book title, specifically crafted no doubt to focus attention on a problem that was 50 years in the future. Now that we are beginning to live in that era it would be helpful to think of it in terms of the unwind of growth, or as an analogy, of how we are going to get all the unsightly old peeling paint off our house and what are we going to do with the timber when it's bare? It's a quandary, no doubt about it, but the "solutions" that many joined this site to thrash out have never materialized. Why? Basically because there never were any, not for the nation as a whole, the World as a whole.

But of course there are solutions for some, and what that boils down to is the rationing of fossil fuels and their products to a minority. Sort of like in Venezuela where Maduro and his friends live in relative opulence on one side of that Freeway moat and all the poor eek out an existence on the other side. Like Rio de Janeiro with it's beautiful tourist strip by the beach and the massed favelas up in the hills behind. Find it hard to believe such a thing could happen? I'm sure the inhabitants of Caracas felt the same 20 years ago too. They were all going to move up the social ladder, that's what the IMF etc had promised. As we pass the limits to growth we stop growing and contract and while this is doom and gloom for many it not need be for anyone who sees it coming and positions themself correctly.

Working as a cleaner or a hairdresser on the left side of this city (Caracas) would be infinitely better than anything on the Right. You'd probably get to live there too if you played your cards right.


Full Size Image https://www.es.kayak.com/rimg/dimg/a5/c ... e0550b.jpg


You snooze though and this may be your future.

[theluckycountry]

Like Mushrooms after rain

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'T')he Falls were beautiful, like always, and the hayabusa handled well after I'd adjusted the rebound damping a little more. There is nothing like going up a snaking mountain road on a powerful motorcycle where through each corner you feel the rear tire marching across the road to keep you on a tight track.

[theluckycountry]

Speaking of mushrooms, there's old Adam_B again. What is it this time Adam? Kangaroos and sugar cane? Or did you find out that one of the original writers of the Limits to Growth had German heritage and decided to troll that Perhaps you're in the doghouse with the wife this time, she's not happy driving a secondhand old EV and want's an upgrade you can't afford...

Well every forum has to have it's Troll, so feel free to put spacers between my postings, it breaks them up. Thing is though you're an American, an a-typical example for those reading these threads?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Germany, all the ones we have looked at lately are classic examples of the Limits to Growth. In all cases they have lost a substantial portion of the Energy they formerly imported. That is typically the case with their oil and Gas imports but it's often the case with Nitrogen fertilizers made from Nat Gas too. Even before the ukraine special operation began the Russians stopped export of these fertilizers and the stuff that does make it market is very expensive.

That's why Sri Lanka's farming industry collapsed and no doubt it has played a big factor in the recent food inflation in Western nations. US crop yields have now been exceeded by Russian yields and as far as food inflation goes, Russia has none. The US and many other nations strip-mined their lands in the 20th century and have fulfilled the projections of the Club of Rome, but the Russians still have bountiful supplies of every resource, no wonder the West wants to invade and steal it all. The West is like a mouse plague.

Margret Thatcher knew the truth of this but alas she was delusional when it came to the value of it. Her words in this vid are quite laughable when you consider what a broken down 2nd world nation the UK has become.

But to cut her some slack, what she said at the end could be interpreted as the colonial spirit. "We don't need resources, not when we can go and steal them from someone else"
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7xSXg4ea0Tc

Russian 2024 wheat harvest down but it's still the world's leading wheat exporter under President Vladimir Putin. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodi ... 024-07-16/
Amazing what you can achieve with cheap Natural Gas

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'S')peaking of mushrooms, there's old Adam_B again.

[theluckycountry]

We can tend to think of the limits to growth in terms of Industrial output, minerals and oil left in the ground, mechanistic things, which is understandable since we are a creatures of the machine, creatures of the Wheel so to speak. It's interesting to pause though and think of the limits to growth from the perspective of what has already collapsed.

Populations of migratory freshwater fish species have plummeted by 76% on average since 1970.
Oceanic shark and ray populations have collapsed by 70 percent over 50 years
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '(')article from 2006) In 1994, seafood may have peaked. According to an analysis of 64 large marine ecosystems, which provide 83 percent of the world's seafood catch, global fishing yields have declined by 10.6 million metric tons since that year. And if that trend is not reversed, total collapse of all world fisheries should hit around 2048.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', ' ')You can starve to death quietly in your old Nissan Leaf, happy in the knowledge that your solar panels have it at full charge. (which may be only 3% of it's original capacity mind)

[theluckycountry]

Collapse Will Look Nothing Like the Movies

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')odern, overdeveloped societies in the West are already in a severe crisis, which will eventually turn into a long global emergency in the decades ahead. A five-century-long era of economic growth, ushered in by colonization and leading to the plundering of natural, mineral and most of all fossil fuel resources, is about to come to its logical endpoint. While it’s nearly impossible to tell precisely how or when the decline of modern civilization will unfold, one thing is for sure: it will look nothing like Hollywood movies.

The recent bumper crop of post-apocalyptic films are riddled with the same cliches. These themes do have a useful purpose such as making our story-telling brain feel comfortable, or evoking empathy for the protagonists, but they also mislead the audience. As any serious collapsologist would testify, these stereotypes not only make these movies extremely predictable, but also far removed from reality.

We need to set a few things straight about collapse. Let’s start with my personal favorite: namely, that collapse is a nearly instantaneous event, and that it happens everywhere, precisely at the same time. The day before, everything looks and works fine; the day after, the entire world is in ruins. Buildings look dilapidated in a matter of days, streets get clogged with crashed and abandoned vehicles, and there are barely any survivors left to be seen. Everything looks, well, visibly collapsed.

According to the plot, all this is a direct consequence of a mysterious event, resulting in an absurdly large number of people dying in a week. As the story unfolds, we are informed that civilizational collapse is a result of the wrongdoings of a small group of humans, or a virus or natural disaster, and not the consequence of billions of us living unsustainably for hundreds of years. If the latter is accidentally uttered, it is hush-hushed away immediately by an unlikable person, steering the conversation back to how we must fight the evil conspirators, aliens, zombies, virus, you name it. ‘Hey, we’ve got a mission to accomplish! We must save the world!’

At this point it is revealed that only one very special individual (the protagonist) has the key to humanity’s survival, and that there is a promised land far-far away to which this key must be delivered, usually at a great cost. According to the story, experts have managed to preserve science and civilization in this safe haven, and all they need is that special knowledge, ingredient, person, item [fill in the blank] to eliminate the cause of the collapse and reboot society. Needless to say, the role of this mythical place is to perpetuate the belief that ‘experts’ have everything under control, and no matter what happens, our current way of life can continue indefinitely...

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '[')b]Collapse Will Look Nothing Like the Movies

[theluckycountry]

Population growth -- climate crisis

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')reface. In the 70s and first half of the 80s population and immigration were on the platforms of ALL environmental groups. Today in mainstream media and most environmental groups, only nasty, racist people who hate black and brown people are mentioned. Never an interview with an ecologist, or discussion of limits to growth. Certainly the IPCC has no models of how less population would affect climate change, though it obviously would, since the reason for deforestation, wetland and biodiversity loss and all the other existential crises occur is to feed ever more people driving ever more cars burning ever more fossils to growth food, refrigeration, cooking, heating, cooling, and manufacture ever more goods for ever more people.

The Sierra Club was instrumental in making the topic of population and immigration taboo and politically incorrect because David Gelbaum gave them over $100 million dollars in exchange for not taking a position on these issues anymore (Weiss KR (2004) The Man Behind the Land. Los Angeles Times). And $100 million more since then according to Wikipedia.

I did a google search on population growth and climate change and looked at hundreds of results. I found three, only one of them mainstream. You have to go back to 2009 to start seeing articles on their connection. The dozen or so mainstream articles that do mention these two topics deny there is a connection, how dare anyone suggest such a racist thing...

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', ' ') https://energyskeptic.com/2024/populati ... scientist/

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', ' ')