[Jack]

I suppose we're all familiar with the Olduvai Gorge concept. The idea that our electrical grid is our largest, most complex machine - hence most subject to breakdown and failure - is intriguing.

But I wonder - is it possible that our most delicate machine is our air transportation system? And that expanding failures and breakdowns represent an Olduvai early warning system?

I don't recall airline disruptions and tie-ups like this 25 years ago. Or is that selective memory? It's true that the drive to expand profit margins may have reduced expenditures for maintenance - but isn't a failure of maintenance precisely what would cause the predicted failure of the electrical grid?

I'd like to see some other opinions...and, AirlinePilot, if you're so inclinced, I'd value your input particularly.

[I_Like_Plants]

This is the post that brought me in from the cold lol.

I noticed in Palo Alto, a travel office with amazingly cheap prices for travel to Europe, etc.

Fuel's up in price but air travel prices are down?

So, I'm thinking, unprecedented hassles at airports, hassles due to the incompetence of the airlines themselves like passengers left out on the runway in a place for 8 hours and 11 hours these last two times, terrorism scares and that thwarted terrorist on that Spanish plane, etc.

I'm wondering if the no. of flights is down, someone's gotta have stats on that.

Remember there are "security" type changes going on too, you need a passport to go in or *out* of the US, I suspect we'll start seeing high personal debt become a reason for being on the 'no-fly' list, as real estate continues to collapse in the US. Having an ATM for a house was a reason for lots of air trips too.

[Jack]

That's an interesting point, I_Like_Plants. I can certainly imagine that those with lots of debt and a destination among certain Caribbean islands might show up on the no-fly list.

And, welcome back!

[I_Like_Plants]

Thanks, Jack.

I heard on the radio today that Jet Blue has eliminated about 25% of their flights, because they don't want repeats of some of the fucx-ups they've had recently.

Less people flying because of internal/external travel restrictions, worsening financial situations, etc may well result in airlines that look "healthy" all the way down, since they'll be about the same price for a tickie, but less and less people flying, it will digress to where it was in the 1950s etc., something only the elite did. Along with this regression we will (hopefully!) regress to a somewhat decent national train system, and of course there are the old recourses of travel by thumb, bus, ride-sharing, and of course simply not traveling so darned much.

[AirlinePilot]

Jet Blue had a drastic problem with their entire system due to aircraft and crews being out of position for more than a day. It takes quite a while to get things back on track when your staffed to bare minimums and your pilots and flight attendants all run out of crew duty time and rest requirements. All the airlines don't staff like they did a few years back. Much tighter now so when it rains(snows) it pours. A significant event at a main hub like that can cripple their system for days while everyone gets back on track. I think that is what is going on. They are trying to mitigate the worse effects by canceling some flights now. Gets them back on track faster over the next day or so.

Another huge factor in the disruptions actually goes contrary to what your thinking Jack. The air traffic system these days is maxed out. I mean MAXXED TOTALLY. On a good ay you can still get delays due to volume especially in the N.E. and the larger hub airports.

IF there is ugly weather it impacts things significantly. As time goes on, we are continuing traffic growth. With more regional jets in the inventory it compounds the problem. They take up the same slot in the sky as a 747. Think about that one.

So basically its not going to get better until one of two things happens. We cut traffic somehow, or build a lot more concrete to land on and park at. PO should take care of the first problem handily!

[eastbay]

Yeah, speaking of debt... the US Dep't of State will not issue a passport to anyone with more than ... I think it's $5,000... in child support debt.

This started just a few years ago and it means, of course, you can't fly internationally or exit the country if you have this sort of debt. It's really unbelieveable how this could happen. Why not include other debts? An expansion denying travel to debtors may indeed be just around the corner.

[medicvet]

That's scary. Next thing you know they'll be getting people with other debts...then just low credit scores..I could see it happening eventually. Big Brother flying the friendly skies with us.

Anyway, I fly to Jamaica again this year, and hope that eventually I get to go there for good before the fuel prices make that impossible. It's a race against time I'm not sure I will win though.

[chris-h]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AirlinePilot', '
')
So basically its not going to get better until one of two things happens. We cut traffic somehow, or build a lot more concrete to land on and park at. PO should take care of the first problem handily!

[Artanis568]

"1. Get the world quickly onto a path of depopulation."

We already are. Russia and many European countries now have negative population growth rates, and I believe the US would if not for immigration.

"2. Rapidly change our diets in the first world to primarily vegetarian, and live much simpler (material and energy consumption wise)."

Have you ever actually succeeded in convincing someone to do this? It would be well-nigh impossible for most of us to change our lives drastically without sufficient impetus (nuclear war, depression, etc.)

"3. Start planting on a massive scale (like on my own property) for a bio-fuels fix,"

The advantage of biofuels is that they're easy to improvise, at least on a local scale. The disadvantage is they're only around 1-2% efficient, and require energy and labor intensive harvesting, processing, et cetera. So there's really no reason to switch over to them on a massive scale, not as long as the infrastructure is still functioning.

"Which was an extremely small scale situation,"

The Great Depression was not a "small scale" situation. Fully one quarter of the country was out of work, and many other people faced pay cuts. Apparently, after the stock market crash there were widespread reports of hotel rooms being used for jumping more than sleeping. There were certainly enough people who lost everything to start a violent uprising, but they didn't.

"If the violence began, it would snowball."

Violence only snowballs in the absence of government and law enforcement; after all, we don't see large angry mobs roaming around during depressions or wartime as long as the government is still functioning.

"but they certainly won't be as fortunate as their grandparents were when it comes to feeding themselves."

The disadvantage with home farming as a large percentage of the economy is that, on the demand side, food must be an equally large percentage of the economy. And so if 40% of the economy is home-grown farming, you're automatically assuming that people will spend 40% of their income on food. Which then can't be spent on things like electricity. And so yes, you can have a 1945 level of farming, but you'll also get a 1945 standard of living- no TV, no VCR, no computer, no MP3s, no SUVs, no cellphones, no Internet, no nothin'.

And while I'm at it, since the original topic was the "Olduvai theory", I'll break down that as well.

(taken from http://dieoff.org/page125.htm)

"In 1989, I concluded that the life-expectancy of Industrial Civilization is horridly short. This hypothesis"

Okay, right away we have a contradiction. He concludes that Olduvai is correct, yet he describes it as a "hypothesis", a coherent body of logic that hasn't been tested. How you can conclude that something is correct without bothering to test it is beyond me.

"The broad sweep of human history can be divided... and continuing deterioration of the natural environment."

Blatant assertion, with no evidence. He might as well proclaim that there's an invisible teacup in orbit around Pluto.

"Only one problem— I had no hard data to test the theory."

A confirmation of the above, straight from the horse's mouth.

"In the main it concluded,..."

More conclusions with no evidence.

"Eureka! The Olduvai signature appeared at last."

Except that this "Olduvai signature" doesn't just fit the Olduvai model, it fits dozens of other models as well, with no way to distinguish between them. As an example, suppose I list all the odd numbers: 1, 3, 5, 7... Hey, these numbers are prime! I can therefore pretend to conclude that all odd numbers are prime, and show this as definitive evidence. Obviously we know what the next prime number is, but there's no way for us to know what the next data set is, and so therefore there's no way to know, based on this, how right or wrong the theory is.

"3. FROM THE CAVES, TO THE MOON, TO THE CAVES"

A description follows, with (of course) no supporting evidence.

"world per capita energy-use peaked in 1977"

"Peak" implies that per-capita energy usage will keep going down and never go up again. What evidence is provided for this assertion? None whatsoever. While we're at it, here's a chart of the water height at some random reservoir:

http://www.midkentwater.co.uk/images/wa ... wl_gif.jpg

Clearly, all the graphs have "peaked" and are now going down, so they will all keep going down until the Atlantic is drained dry.

"6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Industrial Civilization doesn't evolve. Rather, it..."

Wow, we're at the conclusion already? And here we find still more bald assertions with no supporting evidence.

Some conclusions from a later paper (at http://dieoff.org/page224.htm):

"Oil is liquid, power packed, and portable. It is the major primary source of energy for Industrial Civilization."

While oil does supply more energy (in terms of thermal BTUs, not actual usable energy) than any other source, it still accounts for only ~35 of world energy, not a large majority or even a strong lead over any other source.

"Figure 2 shows the historic data."

It does indeed show the data; however, it also shows a blatant distortion. Looking at the graph from 1980 to 2000, it is obvious that it fell off rapidly around 1980, and has remained constant ever since. The overlay, on the other hand, shows a steady sloped "decline".

"The basic behavior of Forrester's world model was overshoot and collapse. It projected that the material standard of living (MSL) would peak in 1990"

This is not only unsupported, but is now obviously wrong. It's 2007 and I'm fine enough.

"sustainability could be achieved in the modeled world system"

These are numbers, inside of a computer (not even a modern computer, a 1970 computer). They behave according to the rules of if and while statements; they need not bear any resemblance to reality.

Honestly, at this point I'm not going to even bother calling all the bold assertions with no supporting evidence. There are too many of them and the same ones are made over and over.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Artanis568', '"')1. Get the world quickly onto a path of depopulation."

We already are. Russia and many European countries now have negative population growth rates, and I believe the US would if not for immigration.

[Jester]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Artanis568', '
')
"Which was an extremely small scale situation,"

The Great Depression was not a "small scale" situation. Fully one quarter of the country was out of work, and many other people faced pay cuts. Apparently, after the stock market crash there were widespread reports of hotel rooms being used for jumping more than sleeping. There were certainly enough people who lost everything to start a violent uprising, but they didn't.

"If the violence began, it would snowball."

Violence only snowballs in the absence of government and law enforcement; after all, we don't see large angry mobs roaming around during depressions or wartime as long as the government is still functioning.

[farmingengineer]

Artanis568 wrote:

3. Start planting on a massive scale (like on my own property) for a bio-fuels fix,"

The advantage of biofuels is that they're easy to improvise, at least on a local scale. The disadvantage is they're only around 1-2% efficient, and require energy and labor intensive harvesting, processing, et cetera. So there's really no reason to switch over to them on a massive scale, not as long as the infrastructure is still functioning.

-------------------------------

My calling fruit/nut trees and home gardens bio-fuels was simply a shot at irony on my part. (You may want to expand the quote a little so as to capture what you know the author meant).

I know full well the limitations of trying to spend X amount of fossil fuels to get a little less than X (or in possibly some cases – sugar cane grown near the equator – a little more) amount of energy is futile and just a political ploy mainly. On a small scale I’m not sure what you mean by 1-2% efficient though. For example a small farm that maintains a wood lot for heating and a small amount of construction materials is a very efficient use of resources.

[pea-jay]

I just flew the other day AFTER the Eastern foul-ups. It was a spur of the moment deal that wouldnt have happened if the airlines had so many open seats. I got a good deal to fly my family cross country for a quick vacation. There is no way the airlines are going to stay afloat financially at those prices.

I was considering that and the more fundemental problem of aviation in general. Fuel. For almost every other form of transportation there is an electrical, human, animal or biomass alternative to oil or natural gas. They may not be great, fast or scalable but they do exist. You could drive an electric car, fuel one with waste vegetable oil or ethanol. Theoretically you could even power it with straight hydrogen. Or you could walk, bike or ride a horse. Trains and boats have similar options. Not so with planes. Bio-fuels dont meet the tolerance levels for use in aviation. H2 is not practical nor are battery powered electrical planes. It kind of appears to be hydrocarbon or bust on this form of transit.

The only thing I've heard is acceptable is synthesized oil (kerosene) from coal. that worked, but is itself not sustainable.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pea-jay', 'I') just flew the other day AFTER the Eastern foul-ups. It was a spur of the moment deal that wouldnt have happened if the airlines had so many open seats. I got a good deal to fly my family cross country for a quick vacation. There is no way the airlines are going to stay afloat financially at those prices.

I was considering that and the more fundemental problem of aviation in general. Fuel. For almost every other form of transportation there is an electrical, human, animal or biomass alternative to oil or natural gas. They may not be great, fast or scalable but they do exist. You could drive an electric car, fuel one with waste vegetable oil or ethanol. Theoretically you could even power it with straight hydrogen. Or you could walk, bike or ride a horse. Trains and boats have similar options. Not so with planes. Bio-fuels dont meet the tolerance levels for use in aviation. H2 is not practical nor are battery powered electrical planes. It kind of appears to be hydrocarbon or bust on this form of transit.

The only thing I've heard is acceptable is synthesized oil (kerosene) from coal. that worked, but is itself not sustainable.

[gg3]

Monte, Missouri? Last I checked, the entire Southeast is going to be a loss as climate change gets rolling.

---

The prediction that overshoot always leads to collapse is a logical necessity backed up by empirical observations that have no exceptions whatsoever: every time a species overruns its food supply, it experiences a dieoff, and thus we can expect to do likewise.

However, turning anthropological and sociological observations into "laws" is highly suspect in my book. It might be good futurism, or good business planning, or good fiction writing (thought not often good poetry!), but those are not disciplines that produce "laws."

Yes, in the 1930s there was vicious racism directed against black Americans. The probability of that situation recurring, at least in the northern half of the ocountry, is approximately nil.

Instead the tribalisms and inter-group frictions will take on new forms.

Already we see state constitutional amendments passed against gay people, and we see vigilante groups going after Mexicans just north of the border. And we see religious "identity movements" (i.e. tribalisms) across the globe, including here at home, with concomitant religious bigotries and violence.

If we want to extrapolate from the 1930s depression to the one that's just around the corner, we should all become conversant with Marx and with various anarchists, seeing as Marxism & anarchism were ascendent in the 1930s until the New Deal popped their balloon. Anyone want to assign a probability to the idea that we will see a truly significant resurgence of Marxism or anarchism next time..? I'd give it somewhere 10% to 15%.

---

Everyone has a stake in preserving a lawful and orderly society, except for abject criminals and criminal-wannabees. Any potential collapse would have to be of enormous magnitude, as in complete breakdown of the means of sustenance, before the majority or even a decent plurality decided to abandon lawfulness in favor of lawlessness.

As long as the dying of the diers in the dieoff (!) increases incrementally rather than in sudden leaps and bounds, the system can remain basically intact. This however carries other risks. A fast crash favors those who work with their hands; a slow crumble favors those who work with abstractions such as debt instruments.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'M')onte, Missouri? Last I checked, the entire Southeast is going to be a loss as climate change gets rolling.

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', '
')Everyone has a stake in preserving a lawful and orderly society, except for abject criminals and criminal-wannabees. Any potential collapse would have to be of enormous magnitude, as in complete breakdown of the means of sustenance, before the majority or even a decent plurality decided to abandon lawfulness in favor of lawlessness.

[smallpoxgirl]

I don't know about prices overall, but I can offer my anecdote. For the last 6 months or so I've been flying back and forth to Seattle on a commuter flight every week. Last fall, that flight was $250. It's currently at $380. I suspect that these smaller commuter flights are a lot less fuel efficient and may be a lot more vulnerable to fuel costs than hub-to-hub flights.

That's sort of where I see the airline industry going right now is shrinking and working to make sure the flights that do happen are on bigger planes and are full. Biofueled jet flights are the ultimate irony. You don't get a meal in flight due to airline cut backs, but your flight burns enough calories to feed 1000 people for a week. I think biofuels are the final chapter of continuing a lifestyle of extravagance for a shrinking minority even at the price of starving the majority. Government leaders will fly biofueled aircraft to international conferences. They will be met at the airport by biofueled limos. Between the lobster bisque and the poached salmon, they will pause for a photo op to wring their hands about the growing number of people unable to afford food.

[I_Like_Plants]

[quote="Artanis568"
"3. Start planting on a massive scale (like on my own property) for a bio-fuels fix,"[/quote]


LOL love the language!! Fix, how appropriate. Reminds me of reading how when Eric Clapton and his wife were heavily addicted to drugs, they were coming through the carpet for any grains of heroin or coke that might be there.

[pea-jay]

It would be an irony to fly high while the earth-bound masses starve. But again, the fundemental question is does biofuel meet the rigorous specifications required of aviation fuel. I was under the impression these fuel dont stand up to -40degree temps found at 30000 feet.

A fully loaded plane with 60% of its range because its fuel has 60% of its energy would also suck for transpacific routes.