N.S. Miller seems to be someone who died back in the 50s.
And Dr Nathan S Lewis works for Caltech so that is probably some other guy.
PeakOil is You
THE Economists and Oil Thread (merged)
Re: Economist goes doomerish
by MrBill » Fri 12 Jan 2007, 05:02:06
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JustinFrankl', 'T')here are some good ideas here, but I'd like to think things through a little further.
So we have an extremely efficient system of food delivery that, per crate, uses less energy than the person uses in getting to the store. The ease with which we get food contributes to uncontrolled population growth. So "efficient food delivery" contributes to both the feeding of humans and growth.
MrBill:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')nfortunately most the growth in terms of human population is taking place in the developing world. This has little to do with the efficiency of manufacturing and storing food in the western world, and has more to do with cultural, religious, ethnic and status reasons.
But you are right. Out of moral grounds we often perpetuate acute problems like draughts and the famine they bring by delivering emergency food aid that turns these problems into chronic ones as the local population then do not adjust to the new realities of perhaps living in an area incapable of sustaining high population numbers.
I think it was pop55 who wrote about Scrooge saving Tiny Tim who went on to produce 142.000 offspring in the next century. Clearly there is a link between saving a life and the chain reaction of uncontrolled population growth exacerbating a pre-existing problem.
So we have an extremely efficient system of food delivery that, per crate, uses less energy than the person uses in getting to the store. The ease with which we get food contributes to uncontrolled population growth. So "efficient food delivery" contributes to both the feeding of humans and growth.
MrBill:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')nfortunately most the growth in terms of human population is taking place in the developing world. This has little to do with the efficiency of manufacturing and storing food in the western world, and has more to do with cultural, religious, ethnic and status reasons.
But you are right. Out of moral grounds we often perpetuate acute problems like draughts and the famine they bring by delivering emergency food aid that turns these problems into chronic ones as the local population then do not adjust to the new realities of perhaps living in an area incapable of sustaining high population numbers.
I think it was pop55 who wrote about Scrooge saving Tiny Tim who went on to produce 142.000 offspring in the next century. Clearly there is a link between saving a life and the chain reaction of uncontrolled population growth exacerbating a pre-existing problem.
Spoiled food isn't waste. You can compost it, put it back in the field, thus depleting less than you would have otherwise.
MrBil:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')nfortunately, we do live in an age of waste. And much of the food that is spoiled either in the supermarket or at home is not composted but simply thrown away.
For anecdotal evidence I can say this. In a company cantine in Germany for example food has to be thrown away. Employees cannot take it home. They cannot donate it to charity to feed the needy. It is against the law. All unserved food has to be thrown away whether it is edible or not.
That is not a sensible policy, that is decadence. Post peak oil energy depletion will hopefully put an end to useless laws and regulations that serve no purpose whatsoever. They also have nothing to do with efficiency. So therefore what is is not what can be.
I will state this once again because I think it is crucial to understanding post peak oil energy depletion. Efficiency matters. Doing more with less. Feeding 'extra' workers or 'surplus' labor to perform the task easily done with stationary power is not efficient. It is a luxury we can enjoy now because we have an abundance of cheap energy. That will change because it will have to.
Food storage is certainly necessary in many parts of the world, where the seasons don't accomodate farming and hunting year round. But why is most of our food "wasted" (unused by humans) in the first place? Addressing root causes, and not the symptoms, will use less overall energy than efficient crating.
The storing of resources breeds hoarding and exploitation.
Again, why is food processing efficiency beneficial for the planet as a whole?
MrBill:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')uman history in the past 6000 years since we stopped being hunters and gathers as a whole and settled into communities has been about nothing but food processing and storage. Being able to store an agricultural surplus is what lead to a division of labor in the first place.
People stopped being hunters and gathers approximately when existing supplies of wild game were insufficient to support approximately 300 million inhabitants. We are now 6.5 billion and headed for 9 or 10 billion.
To talk about not producing and storing food is nonsense. Even if we hope to manage a controlled shrinking in population against a backdrop of not just post peak oil depletion, but a collapse in marine stocks as well as climate change and other challenges, we have to address basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter and a means of distribution. Otherwise in the words of Jarrod Diamond those that do not have will be swamping the life rafts of those who do.
Machines need maintenance to keep them working. Machines need to be built. Machines break down and need to be repaired and replaced. All of which could be said about humans as well. Machines, intrinsically, need a specific industrial infrastructure that supports their maintenance, production, replacement. Oh, and all that unrenewable fossil fuel upon which we have built our world.
MrBill:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')orm follows function. Machines run on petroleum or power derived from fossil fuels because up to now it was cheap and abundant.
I am quite aware, as in anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes at peak oil dot com, that alternative energy cannot replace petroleum to keep our existing infrastructure operating at its current capacity much less provide for unlimited growth.
However, if you have ever used a chainsaw versus an axe you will realize that some sources of power are 'almost' infinitely superior to muscle power. That is not to say that a man cannot walk 10-days with a 100 pound pack on his back. Clearly the porters between Tibet and Nepal do this everyday for pennies. But all that manpower still needs to be fed.
Stationary power built around renewables like wind, solar, geo, etc. will not replace petroleum. Not even coal to liquids. However, they will be still more efficient than human labor. Therefore, in the demise that we call post peak oil depletion machines will be more important than they are today. Even if they are fewer in number and clustered around sources of stationary power.
Preserved, canned food that has a long shelf-life can be transported a hell of a long way by water or rail and then distributed from central depos. On the other hand fresh fish without refrigeration is spoiled in less than 3-days.
If you do not think that creating an agricultural surplus and then perserving it is central to the problem of post peak oil depletion then we are not even reading from the same script.
Humans, intrinsically, do not have any of these additional specific requirements. Humans require food, and the majority of work required to grow food ultimately is provided by the biospehere.
Unfortunately, humans also don't really like to work.
Efficiency, again, needs to be looked at in situ. In this frame, efficiency is still spurring uncontrolled growth.
MrBill:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')gain you are comparing an age of indulgence fuelled by cheap and abundant energy. Where luxury goods have become common place necessities. Suffice it to say, and I hate to carp on about post peak oil depletion, but that will hopefully end non-essential consumption. What we want to consume today versus what we need to consume to preserve life and limb are two different pairs of work boots.
Industrialized agriculture most of the time feeds people, but it will also breed famines, because when crops do fail, the people previously supported by those crops now have no food. Food transported from another region requires extra energy costs, and either depletes another region's resources or requires stockpiles. Stockpiles, in times of no famine, will again encourage hoarding and exploitation. To manage hoarding and exploitation through laws and government, again requires extra energy costs. It also consolidates power, thus promoting corruption, abuse, and further exploitation of resources.
MrBill:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')torage is a means to an end. Hoarding is a human desire if you will. You may well say that all private property is the root cause of crime as the have nots covet what they do not own? In fact laws that protect private property actually lead to order and to prosperity not vice versa.
Then you see that even in our prisons there is crime, and drugs and cigarettes are used as a form of currency. Because people are by nature both bad and good. No matter how small the advantage people strive to become part of the pecking order. Look at academia. The fights are so great because the stakes are so small.
Government, laws and all those customs developed over 6000 years of living together in communities did not happen by accident. They were by their very nature a means of survival of the group. Only by subjugating individual rights and creating obligations in their place could the collective survive.
Peak oil depletion is not going to change human nature. Quite the opposite. It will reinforce lessons learned and long since forgotten. Again blame cheap, abundant energy for running a quasi-welfare state where everyone seeks to live at someone else's expense. Now strip out the easy means of production and you will see it is luxury an energy poor state cannot afford and one that workers will not tolerate to pay for.
It seems to me that the system is the reverse of deus ex machina, in that it contains the seeds of its own demise, rather than any long-term solution.
MrBill:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')o all life comes death. This is a timeless truism. Nothing lasts forever. Man will replace man. Machine will replace machine. I would be much, much more worried about a collapse in fish stocks then I would be about man forgetting how to build the next machine.
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