[Ludi]

Don'tknow if you guys have read this article:

http://energybulletin.net/524.html

[WisJim]

Higher technology doesn't always mean using more resources. As an example, look at solid state electronics versus older tube and electro-magnetic devices that used large amounts of copper instead of small bits of silicone.

[RdSnt]

Sorry, have to burst this idealistic bubble.

You cannot take a "supposed" breakthough in any area and regard it as an isolated incident.
In the example you've given, you must take into account the energy expended to get to your "revolutionary" moment.
More critically, you must account for the level of civilization and modern infrastructure that must be maintained in order to support your fusion reactors.

You can't plunk a fusion reactor down in the middle of say, the Brazilian rainforest or some African plain. There needs to be a vast, up-to-date, stable, infrastructure and population to sustain it.

Besides, there will be no revolutionary breakthrough in fusion. It is all engineering now, the processes are all well understood.

It's all friction.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'I') think the idea that increased technology is inversely proportional to Earth's carrying capacity is sound, except when there are revolutionary breakthroughs like fusion. All bets are off, IMHO, in cases like that. One thing is certain: the incremental advances in technology are certainly reducing the carrying capacity of the earth.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WisJim', 'H')igher technology doesn't always mean using more resources. As an example, look at solid state electronics versus older tube and electro-magnetic devices that used large amounts of copper instead of small bits of silicone.

[Revi]

I'm sorry, but I'm a big believer in efficiency. Look at an LED bulb. It uses a fraction of an incandescent bulb and lasts a lot longer. Hence it takes less energy to make it and less used over the life of the product.

There are a lot of things like that. We had huge efficiency gains in the late 70's and 80's. We squandered them on SUV's and bigger houses. In a world with increasing energy prices we won't be able to do that.

It's a fact that humans like to supersize things if they get the chance. It's over now, so that sustainability becomes something we do in order to stay alive. We are able to keep our household afloat with the changes we've made. We save about $2550 per year with these:

http://www.msad54.org/sahs/appliedarts/ ... /index.htm

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I')'m sorry, but I'm a big believer in efficiency. Look at an LED bulb. It uses a fraction of an incandescent bulb and lasts a lot longer. Hence it takes less energy to make it and less used over the life of the product.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'L')ook at an LED bulb.

[Ingenuity_Gap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'I') think the idea that increased technology is inversely proportional to Earth's carrying capacity is sound, except when there are revolutionary breakthroughs like fusion. All bets are off, IMHO, in cases like that. One thing is certain: the incremental advances in technology are certainly reducing the carrying capacity of the earth.

[Revi]

Thanks! This article is about the best summation of the whole predicament I have ever read! I do feel that there is some small grain of hope growing out there. Every green thing we've done has helped us out financially and has been really fun too. It helps me out of the dark hole that the die-off idea gets me into. I love the idea of permaculture, and we're practicing it. Maybe there is hope.

http://energybulletin.net/524.html

[Revi]

Thanks! This article is about the best summation of the whole predicament I have ever read! I do feel that there is some small grain of hope growing out there. Every green thing we've done has helped us out financially and has been really fun too. It helps me out of the dark hole that the die-off idea gets me into. I love the idea of permaculture, and we're practicing it. Maybe there is hope.

http://energybulletin.net/524.html

[Ludi]

I'm glad, Revi, it gives me hope too.

[RdSnt]

You are looking at this in isolation and that is a significant flaw in your reasoning. Sure an LED consumes less energy on a per unit basis.
However, the manufacturing of LED's requires a much high energy density to sustain that market. The tolerances in the manufacturing process are much finer, the purity of materials is higher, the types of materials are more energy intensive to extract and refine.
Lightbulbs where being manufactured when our primary mechanical motivators where steam engines and tolerances where were measured in inches rather than fractions of millimeters.

Increases in precision increases energy density.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I')'m sorry, but I'm a big believer in efficiency. Look at an LED bulb. It uses a fraction of an incandescent bulb and lasts a lot longer. Hence it takes less energy to make it and less used over the life of the product.

There are a lot of things like that. We had huge efficiency gains in the late 70's and 80's. We squandered them on SUV's and bigger houses. In a world with increasing energy prices we won't be able to do that.

It's a fact that humans like to supersize things if they get the chance. It's over now, so that sustainability becomes something we do in order to stay alive. We are able to keep our household afloat with the changes we've made. We save about $2550 per year with these:

http://www.msad54.org/sahs/appliedarts/ ... /index.htm

[gg3]

Re. Ibon, paraphrase: Will humans voluntarily powerdown, manage population decline humanely, and behave altruistically, or will they go for the grab-and-stab approach?

The no-growth world of this century will require addressing the issue of distributional equity. Since the pie does not grow, any increase in any person's share comes at the expense of a decrease in everyone else's share. Also any increase in the number of people causes a decrease in each person's share.

(One necessary and inevitable conclusion of that line of reasoning, requires me to somehow reconcile my strong libertarian streak with the need for a measure of social democracy. I'm still wrestling with that one.)

===

The key to Ibon's Paradox is the tradeoff between people and resources. And here I will state a position first and then explain it:

I am willing to powerdown as needed, in the context of an overall reduction of population. I am not willing to powerdown in order to accommodate increases in population.

Regardless of electric lights, automobiles, and so on, every human requires X calories of food to eat, Y litres of water to drink, and Z square feet of space in which to sleep, every single day. This is the irreducible minimum. The fact that people are starving to death and fighting tribal wars over water holes is the prima-facie proof of overshoot and the beginning of collapse.

It does not matter that the world grows theoretically enough food to feed everyone and the issue is primarily one of distribution. The fact that we cannot get it from the fields to the mouths proves that we are past the limit of a resource, in this case distribution, as real a shortage as a dearth of grain itself. And even if the present bottleneck was solved, as long as population continues to grow, another bottleneck will show up and the cycle of slow deaths will recur but more brutally by virtue of larger numbers.

So by extension, no amount of powerdown will make a difference in the long run if population continues to explode. Today we give up this, tomorrow that, until the world is in a state of entropic leveling to the lowest common denominator of poverty, and even still, continuing increase in numbers will reduce us by degrees to a uniformity of hunger.

The relationship between breeders and consumers is by analogy like that of a heroin addict living with a speed freak. If both of them keep shooting dope they will bankrupt themselves in short order. If one gets detoxed while the other keeps toxing up, the latter will bankrupt both of them. It does not matter if the junkie cleans up or the speed freak cleans up: if the other remains hooked, the result is the same.

And so we have to reduce consumption and population simultaneously. Ours in the west is to reduce consumption. In other parts of the world, the task is to reduce population.

If the junkie kicks the habit while the speed freak keeps shooting up, the only hope for the now ex-junkie to not get dragged into bankruptcy, is to disconnect him or herself from the speed freak.

If either the breeders or the consumers fix their bad habit, but the other does not fix their own, the only hope for the newly-cured is to isolate themselves from the others' bad habits.

For the most part the consumers are the wealthier and thus more powerful party to the dance. We in the West can simply erect walls and enforce them with military strength. We can keep out the multiplying morons and let them starve until they die, and we can wash our hands of the moral issue because we kicked our bad habit whilst they kept shooting up on babies.

However, if the breeders kick their bad habit whilst the consumers keep shooting up on material goods and energy, the dynamic is slightly different. The consumers after all have the greater military power. But this power has its limits, as we have seen in Iraq.

Iraq after all is a nightmare of multiplication, exponential population growth to the tune of 4.3 live births per couple (against a replacement level of 2.1). And where something is in excess supply, its price will fall proportionally. Life is cheap in a population explosion. As we have seen, with martyr ideologies fostering suicide bombers.

But out of the ashes of Iraq and the blood-splattered streets, has arisen a counterpoint to western military might: the tactics of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), exemplified by cellphone-coordinated attacks and IEDs. These tactics are portable: they do not depend on a supply of martyrs whose greatest value in death may actually be the cessation of their demand for calories and litres and square feet. These tactics can as well be used by the poor who are not populationally exploded.

The poor have, in other words, developed the counterforce to the military might of the wealthy. They have effectively brought a measure of equalization to the equation. And the techniques of 4GW are at their most effective when used against the frail infrastructure of wealth, particularly when the latter begins to teeter at the downside of the curve of blinding energy (n.b., no misspelling; intentional plays on words).

So in fact if the poor nations kicked their baby habit, whilst the wealthy kept shooting up on consumer goods, the poor would have a means of defense that could bring the wealthy to their knees. Thus they have the means to quarantine themselves, as surely as the newly ex-junkie has to quarantine him or herself from the still-shooting speed freak.

We have seen this in Venezuela, and now in Nicaragua where Daniel Ortega has won the presidency fair and square, with pledges of reform tempered by the statement that he is no longer a flaming Marxist. But flaming or merely simmering, the message is the same: those less advantaged countries are going to take a tough line on the West, whilst the West is in need of a tow line to extract itself from the hot dry quicksand of the Middle East. There is a macabre symmetry to all of this, as I have tried to intimate through the juxtapositions of words.

So now each party to the dangerous dance has the means to self-quarantine and to make it stick, whether the other likes it or not.

And this brings us back to a just and fair equation.

The place to start is with the assumption of a sustainable population level, to wit, 2 to 2.5 billion. Allocate resource consumption per person based on that level, and then recalculate for the present population. Thus we will see that as population declines, prosperity per person will increase.

We in the West can begin reducing our consumption levels accordingly. Those in the populationally-exploding countries can begin reducing their overt numbers accordingly. To the extent that either participant makes progress they will benefit. To the extent that either fails, they will fall but they will fall in isolation.

And thus will the growth of sheer numbers, and the "growth" of the economy, be replaced with the growth of real personal prosperity and in personal liberty as well. It is an incentive, so long as we can make it stick. Making it stick is after all the hard part, and we know what will happen if we don't.

[Revi]

We can all use less fossil fuels and switch to renewables. We've saved over $2550 per year by switching to alternatives, insulating and shrinking our cars. I own a woodlot with a friend and we cut wood to supplant half our winter heating fuel, we have solar hot water and a small pv system for back up lights. We don't fly around and we eat some out of the garden. It's fun. I think the world situation is bleak if you really look at it, but you can change your individual situation. Sustainability is a goal that we can all work towards. It's like any goal, maybe it's not completely attainable, but when you start to work towards it things open up to you. Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', ' ')The fact that people are starving to death and fighting tribal wars over water holes is the prima-facie proof of overshoot and the beginning of collapse.

It does not matter that the world grows theoretically enough food to feed everyone and the issue is primarily one of distribution. The fact that we cannot get it from the fields to the mouths proves that we are past the limit of a resource, in this case distribution, as real a shortage as a dearth of grain itself.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', '[')i]I am willing to powerdown as needed, in the context of an overall reduction of population. I am not willing to powerdown in order to accommodate increases in population.

[Ludi]

I agree with you, Ibon, those of us in the First World have a responsibility to provide alternative models for the rest of the world. But this is actually quite difficult. I understand what Revi is saying, but, it is actually quite difficult to cut one's energy use 60 - 90% (estimated need for First World to decrease carbon emissions) and maintain anything like what we would consider quality of life in our society. If someone here has done so, I would love to see their model.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') agree with you, Ibon, those of us in the First World have a responsibility to provide alternative models for the rest of the world. But this is actually quite difficult. I understand what Revi is saying, but, it is actually quite difficult to cut one's energy use 60 - 90% (estimated need for First World to decrease carbon emissions) and maintain anything like what we would consider quality of life in our society. If someone here has done so, I would love to see their model.

[Ludi]

Yes, but my point is that is the approximate number now, as we live currently. Of course the process is dynamic, but the fact is, we use an amount of resources NOW which exceeds the sustainable level. Don't you think it is relevant to discuss what level of resource use is sustainable under the circumstances we currently observe? I guess I'm missing your point....

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'Y')es, but my point is that is the approximate number now, as we live currently. Of course the process is dynamic, but the fact is, we use an amount of resources NOW which exceeds the sustainable level. Don't you think it is relevant to discuss what level of resource use is sustainable under the circumstances we currently observe? I guess I'm missing your point....