somethingtosay,
"Today, when more complexity creates less return, the result is a decrease in the energy slaves available to to the adult population. The result of this is a decrease in leisure time, mobility and wealth. The birth rate will then go into decline as parents know or learn very quickly that children are a drain on available energy slaves. Also, today, the extended family is not available as it was in the past, making the chore of raising a family ever more difficult. Sex leading to birth decreases."
No no no no. The birth rate in America and the rest of the industrialized world has been declining at least since the 1970s, especially of the white and Japanese populations. In fact, the birth rates of the world as a whole, if I recall correctly, has gone down, but those of whites and Japanese have gone below 2%, below the replacement rate, meaning that these populations will soon decline.
In the past, it used to be that children were often needed to help the parents with work (such as on the farm) and they were needed to support the parents in old ages. Also, people believed in being fruitful and often wanted to have many descendants. Today, required those things are not, because of technological advances and things like Social Security, so that may be one reason why the birth rate has declined so precipitously. Social movements like the feminist movement are probably reasons too.
Also, has anybody heard of Marc Widdowson's theory of the dark ages at
http://www.darkage.fsnet.co.uk/
?
PeakOil is You
The Mechanism of Collapse
by nero » Thu 05 May 2005, 13:43:42
I found this study today from TD Bank that finds when corrected for the aging of the population and the increased level of schooling the median wage of Canadians has DECREASED between 1981 and 2004. That sort of observation shatters my faith in progress and reminds me of the decrease in marginal returns predicted by J. Tainter. People are having to run harder and harder just to stay still.
TD Report (pdf)
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')In fact holding age and education constant. Canadians of both genders saw outright declines in their wages. The real median hourly wage for university-educated men of a fixed age fell by 5.8 per cent between 1981 and 2004 while the real median hourly wage for non-university-educated men of a fixed age fell by 13.9 per cent. For women also holding age constant the result is a 4.8 per cent drop in real median hourly wages for university-educated women and a 4.0 per cent drop for non-university-educated women. Astonishingly, for all levels of education and for both sexes, workers earned less in 2004 than in 1981."
TD Report (pdf)
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')In fact holding age and education constant. Canadians of both genders saw outright declines in their wages. The real median hourly wage for university-educated men of a fixed age fell by 5.8 per cent between 1981 and 2004 while the real median hourly wage for non-university-educated men of a fixed age fell by 13.9 per cent. For women also holding age constant the result is a 4.8 per cent drop in real median hourly wages for university-educated women and a 4.0 per cent drop for non-university-educated women. Astonishingly, for all levels of education and for both sexes, workers earned less in 2004 than in 1981."
I don't know if this kind of analysis has been done for other countries, but I would be interested if anyone else has encountered similar findings for their country.
Biofuels: The "What else we got to burn?" answer to peak oil.
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nero - Heavy Crude
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by retiredguy » Tue 26 Jul 2005, 11:36:21
Just wanted to add a couple of thoughts to the Western fertility discussion. One significant factor in declining birth rates has got to be the availability of inexpensive and effective birth control devices. Being an early baby boomer, I lived through that era. The Pill prevented millions of unwanted births, believe me. My father relied on animal skin condoms - and luck.
Also, with the sixties, there came a general disdain for established institutions. This meant that the Catholic prohibition regarding birth control was largely ignored by my Catholic friends.
Another factor is the mass movement of Westerners off the farm. My mother was one of 12 children. In her era having lots of children made economy sense. My grandparents farmed with horses and had no electricity until the 30s. Their children WERE their energy slaves. My mother was typical of her siblings who left the farm - she had two children.
Also, with the sixties, there came a general disdain for established institutions. This meant that the Catholic prohibition regarding birth control was largely ignored by my Catholic friends.
Another factor is the mass movement of Westerners off the farm. My mother was one of 12 children. In her era having lots of children made economy sense. My grandparents farmed with horses and had no electricity until the 30s. Their children WERE their energy slaves. My mother was typical of her siblings who left the farm - she had two children.
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retiredguy - Tar Sands
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by nero » Tue 02 Aug 2005, 12:25:42
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nother factor is the mass movement of Westerners off the farm. My mother was one of 12 children. In her era having lots of children made economy sense. My grandparents farmed with horses and had no electricity until the 30s. Their children WERE their energy slaves. My mother was typical of her siblings who left the farm - she had two children.
I think while this view has an element of truth, it doesn't accurately represent the complexity of the system. People didn't consider their children their "energy slaves" (they could hire an extra hand if it came to that). While the children did at some point start to become a net benefit to the farm they required years of investment of time and effort before they were of much use and then all too quickly they left to set up their own household, usually with economic assistance from their parents. Children didn't make economic sense as labour saving devices. They made sense as a place to invest your surplus time and effort. Compared to other possible investments children gave the highest possible returns, in terms of long term security and happiness.
Biofuels: The "What else we got to burn?" answer to peak oil.
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nero - Heavy Crude
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by entropyfails » Tue 02 Aug 2005, 19:54:24
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('retiredguy', 'M')y grandparents farmed with horses and had no electricity until the 30s. Their children WERE their energy slaves.
I will continue to recommend The Allometry of Human Fertility and Energy Consumption to people wishing to understand the link between energy use and population. One of the primary causes (and perhaps the underlying cause) of Western nations fertility decline comes from having access to more energy per capita. This dovetails nicely with the economic arguments as the higher energy use societies end up having the highest economic growth rates. It explains the larger family size in energy and economically poor nations.
This paper establishes that parents have to trade off between the number of children and the energy investment that it takes to raise that child to raise them to a competitive level of fitness. These studies (and I'll assume based on this discussion that this book expands on this, though perhaps not within allometric theory itself) show that our human built energy transport networks scale similarly to the biological transport networks that we can explain with power laws. Allometric theory shows that metabolic energy throughput determines biological rates because selection for both the maximum energy throughput and the maximally efficient energy transport networks. Since these behave with diminishing power law relations, as energy use per capita increases, fertility rates will decrease.
To quantify this, let us take a look at Kleiber's law. It shows that the metabolic rate(B) is proportional to mass(M) to the 3/4 power.
B ~ M ^ (3/4)
Other biological rates(R) work on a negative 1/4 power to the mass.
R ~ M ^ -(1/4)
which reworks to
R ~ B ^ -(1/3)
Of course, human energy throughput also includes extra inputs so our reproductive rates don't come directly from our mass. By plotting human fertility rates with energy per capita use, we find that we DECLINE in fertility as we RISE in energy use, at a -(1/3) rate.
Tying this all into the thread, this means that as world energy per capita continues to fall, we should expect to see a resurgence of human fertility though with a higher death rate due to lack of energy inputs. For civilization to continue on its current course and for us to see the population limitation that has been projected from developing countries we must not only replace the energy lost due to Peak Oil we must find an exponentially larger source or the energy per capita of these countries will never reach a point where fertility will decrease.
And unlike collapses of civilizations before with local ecosystem damage and local famine, this collapse has global implications. The decreased availability of energy will cause a fertility rates to rise, meaning lower per capita energy. Combined with a lower overall energy picture with a population growth that demands an exponentially larger energy source, and we have an intensification of our environmentally destructive resource patterns, which also tends to get worse with lower energy and economic situations. While we may measure the time in decades, I doubt that any of us will refer to these times as "soft".
Of course, we could choose to live a different way. But civilization’s people have true belief in its unlimited power, even when the science says otherwise. Hopefully we will make the right choice.
EntropyFails
"Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of nature are constantly broken for their sakes." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of nature are constantly broken for their sakes." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Re: The Mechanism of Collapse
by abelardlindsay » Mon 15 Aug 2005, 00:58:48
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ElijahJones', 'S')o in Tainter's theory the attempts to rebuild the world trade center and erect the world's tallest building in Chicago are attempts at legitimation and the moneys could be better spent elsewhere? Nice article Leanan, I am going to read that book when I get time, but I almost feel like you gave us such a thorough overview that I may not need to. I still will though.
EJ
EJ
I think you're not seeing the big picture. The costs of building these structures is trivial in comparison with the "legitimization" expenditures of the government otherwise known as middle class entitlements (social security, medicare, etc). The construction of these buildings may run a few billion dollars. Entitlements cost 100s of billions of dollars a year.
The best analogy to the Mayan Pyramid building is actually our military expenditures. The Mayans Kings built Pyramids to impress the other Mayan Kings as to how powerful they were, and how they should not be attacked or raided because their mighty structures were proof as to their abilities to the armies they could muster. It was sort of an Arms race model. The Mayan buildings even had very elaborate murals of captives being tortured and ritually sacrified on them. Of course the government these days just focuses on building the army and lets the embeded journalists and their news agencies do the intimidating of other governments.
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