$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Monkeydust', '
')What I mean instead is the amount of labour and energy that we put into non-essential goods and services. When push comes to shove, the entire leisure industry, most of the service sector, and a good deal of commodities created for entertainment are non-essential.
PeakOil is You
THE Energy Recession Thread (merged)
Re: Will peak oil cause recession or collapse?
by Ludi » Mon 02 Jun 2008, 21:24:54
Told ya, there goes my job!
Instead, I need to go become a farmer,I guess. Who is going to pay me to farm? What if I suck at farming? (I can't even grow enough food for myself presently, let alone other people)
- Ludi
Re: Will peak oil cause recession or collapse?
by Monkeydust » Mon 02 Jun 2008, 21:26:42
What I'm suggesting isn't that we could achieve more yields per hectare with increased labour mobilization, but that we could achieve greater yields with more hectares. This would require more people, and more cultivatable land, both of which we have.
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Re: Will peak oil cause recession or collapse?
by Pops » Mon 02 Jun 2008, 21:34:50
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Monkeydust', 'W')hen push comes to shove, the entire leisure industry, most of the service sector, and a good deal of commodities created for entertainment are non-essential. If the labour and energy focused in these sectors were instead allocated to the essentials, and in particular food production, then we could radically increase our ability to feed our own populations even if the other current fundamental, i.e. cheap petroleum, were to go into decline.
I see your point and I agree to a large extent - except the part about this vast luxury liner making even a gradual about face.
We'll see.
Cheers.
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
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Re: Will peak oil cause recession or collapse?
by btu2012 » Mon 02 Jun 2008, 21:38:38
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Monkeydust', 'W')hat I'm suggesting isn't that we could achieve more yields per hectare with increased labour mobilization, but that we could achieve greater yields with more hectares. This would require more people, and more cultivatable land, both of which we have.
The point I am making is that the UK would be a net ecological debtor in the absence of fossil fuels even if it were to use all available land to grow food. You would have to reduce the GDP to about 1/4 of what it is now and massively reorganize the economy. The UK standard of living would become about equal with that of Albania, assuming that the transition could be managed.
Countries which are ecological creditors could become much richer than the UK by exporting food. It almost makes you wish that the UK had been a bit nicer to those unwashed East Europeans.
Last edited by btu2012 on Mon 02 Jun 2008, 21:51:11, edited 2 times in total.
only the paranoid survive
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Re: Will peak oil cause recession or collapse?
by Monkeydust » Mon 02 Jun 2008, 21:44:53
That's a fair point, and you may well be correct. All I am saying is that there's a big difference between the standard of living of Albanians and a 'die-off', and this is a distinction a lot of catastrophists don't seem to be able to make.
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Re: Will peak oil cause recession or collapse?
by nobodypanic » Mon 02 Jun 2008, 21:44:57
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ProudFossil', ' ')And to NoBodyPanic:
The pathogen which you mentioned in the Irish Famine was on the potato, not the humans. And incidentally the US lost more of its potato crop from that same pathogen than the Irish. The only difference is we used our other grains to feed the population, the British did not.
The pathogen which you mentioned in the Irish Famine was on the potato, not the humans. And incidentally the US lost more of its potato crop from that same pathogen than the Irish. The only difference is we used our other grains to feed the population, the British did not.
i know it was a potato pathogen, which makes it a little more complex than simply saying it was nothing but, and nothing more, than british policy. in any case, it doesn't matter why the limiting resource became scarce. what matters are the consequences.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ProudFossil', 'A')nd if 125 people leaving a colony is classified as a die off than we have a die off going on every day in New York City, Los Angelos, Chicago, etc., etc. I classify a die off (at least from the term itself) as the complete depopulation of an area. That did happen in Ireland in the famine and in fact there are parts of it which have not had anybody return to it. That also has happened in New Mexico. We have several communities with less population now than in 1880. Are those die offs? The whole world is full of chost towns. Are those die offs?
do you understand the concept of ratio, proportion, percentages? if a 100 out of a population of 150 die, that's a significant event for that population--that's a die off. in your hypothetical w/modern cities, 100 people suddenly dying would be a nearly insignificant number of the total. if 100 out of every 150 people were to die in LA, that would be a death toll of 6,887,959.33 people. how does that sound?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ProudFossil', 'A')nd my understanding of a die off has nothing to do with the decline or loss of a civilization. The Mayans still speak the language, practise the same religion, and have much of the same culture as those in the 1400's. The government of that time is gone. If the loss of a civilization iis based upon the loss of a government then I would suppose all the monarchies of Europe and Asia were subjected to die-offs.
the mayan collapses occurred in the tenth and ninth centuries, not the fifteenth. many cities were abandoned and their empire collapsed because they simply could not sustain their numbers.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ProudFossil', 'D')id we have a die off because we went from a colonial system under a monarchy to a republic?
what percentage of the population died? was it enough to cause any collapse?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ProudFossil', 'B')efore you start chastising somebody please define the terms you are basing your discussion on. I am still asking for a definition of the term die-off. I have seen at least five different ones so far in these forums.
