Today’s guest post by Hideaway reviews our ‘plan’ to transition off fossil energy, and shows it is in fact a mirage.
Hideaway is a new force active at un-Denial and other sites that discuss energy and overshoot. He focusses on the feasibility of transitioning our energy system, and brings a data-backed, reality-based, adult conversation into a space that is more often than not filled with ignorance, hope, and denial.
As I was writing a post about EROEI, I came across data for energy production and consumption from Our World in Data. It’s all very professionally made and ‘free’ for anyone to use in their energy discussions.
I spotted one problem though, the data presented has a caveat, they use the substitution method for non-fossil fuel generated electricity, and in the fine print this is explained as… “ Substituted primary energy, which converts non-fossil electricity into their ‘input equivalents’: The amount of primary energy that would be needed if they had the same inefficiencies as fossil fuels. This ‘substitution method’ is adopted by the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, when all data is compared in exajoules.”
OK, how do they convert non-fossil energy into fossil fuel equivalents??
This chart provides the conversion factor.
An efficiency factor of 0.4 means that nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, biofuels and other renewables are made to look much larger than they really are by a factor of 2.5 in the following chart.
It suggests we are making good progress at replacing fossil with renewable energy, and that with a bit more effort we can convert all fossil energy to renewable electricity.
As is common in energy discussions today, reality differs from what is presented. The following chart shows electricity production by source.
Notice that total world electricity consumption for 2022, which of course must equal production, is 28,660Twh. Yet the above chart for energy consumption by source shows that nuclear, hydro, solar, wind and other renewables are by themselves 11,100Twh.
If we divide non-fossil electricity consumed by the 2.5 efficiency factor we get 11,740Twh which is close to the correct amount of non-fossil electricity produced. I say close because the energy from non-fossil sources adds up to 641Twh more than that shown on the electricity production chart, so this extra energy must be used for some other purpose, but has still been treated as 2.5 times more efficient.
From the above chart we see 10,212Twh of electricity from coal and 6,443Twh of electricity from gas, and we can calculate how much of the total oil and gas production was used for electricity by multiplying by 2.5.
From the 44,854Twh of total world coal consumption we used 25,525Twh for electricity, and 19,329Twh for other purposes. Likewise for the 39,412Twh of total world gas consumption we used 16,107Twh for electricity and 23,305Twh for other purposes.
With oil we only produced 904Twh of electricity. Assuming the same 40% efficiency for oil as coal and gas, then only 2,260Twh of oil was used for electricty and 50,710Twh was used for other purposes.
We can now complete the following table and use it for assessing how our energy transition is going.
Total primary energy production is 134,313Twh of which wind and solar contribute 3,408Twh or 2.5%.
Electricity is 21.3% of total energy, and fossil fuels produces 61.3% of electricity.
Only 8.2% of total energy comes from nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and other renewables, and the remaining 91.8% comes from fossil fuels and traditional biomass.
The following chart illustrates this graphically. Blue is all non-electricity energy, orange is electricity from fossil fuels, and grey is electricity from all other sources.
The world is currently trying to replace fossil fuel produced electricity (orange) with electricity from nuclear, hydro, solar, wind and other ‘sustainable’ methods (grey). It is not possible to manufacture, install, or maintain more ‘sustainable’ energy (grey) without fossil fuels. Even the newest mines and factories require fossil fuels in many forms.
There is no plan for the non-electricity portion of energy (blue).
Let’s now consider how fossil fuel and traditional biomass use has changed over time. Are we getting anywhere?
Traditional Biomass was 100% of energy used, according to Our World in Data (OWiD), until coal started to be used in the year 1800 at 1.7% of total energy. Interestingly, they attribute no energy to water power, wind (sails), or animals, perhaps because they were too small or hard to measure.
Fossil Fuels (FF) and Traditional Biomass (TB) contributed 100% of total energy until 1920 when Hydro contributed 1%.
The contribution of FF and TB to total energy changed as follows:
- <1920 100%
- 1920 99%
- 1940 99.2%
- 1960 98.4%
- 1980 97.6%
- 1990 95.2%
- 2000 94.4%
- 2010 94.3%
- 2020 92.1%
- 2022 91.8%
Most energy analyses lump TB in the mix without paying much attention to the size of its contribution. At 11,111Twh, as measured by OWiD, TB is a larger source of energy than nuclear, hydro, wind, solar and biofuels combined! TB is not going to be replaced by any other type of energy. Most energy analyses place TB on the other side of the ledger from FF, when in fact TB should be added to the FF side, as it is burnt and adds to greenhouse gasses.
The following chart shows the total contribution of energy from non-FF or TB, with columns 1-4 representing the period 1990-2020, and column 5 is what is ‘expected’ to happen by 2050.
We can see how little decarbonization progress we have made over the last 30 years, and the extraordinary progress we expect to make over the next 26 years, towards achieving our climate goals.
Now let’s consider fossil energy used as feedstock for products, and high heat applications.
There are around 1,100 million tonnes of coking coal mined, 700 million tonnes of oil products, plus vast quantities of gas (I couldn’t find the quantity of gas used as feedstock for products or high heat applications) to make 430 million tonnes of plastics, 240 million tonnes of ammonia (fertilizer), 160 million tonnes of asphalt, plus huge amounts of high end heat for cement and steel production, and hundreds of other products and high heat applications.
OWiD does not provide data on energy used for product feedstocks, or high heat, or normal heating, or transportation, or agriculture, or mining. It’s a huge weakness in all energy calculations.
Product feedstocks, by themselves, are a huge gap in our plan for an electricity only future. A world based on renewables would have to make these products from captured carbon, because there is no unused biomass, and we cannot increase our use of biomass without causing significant further damage to the natural world that sustains us. Only if we were willing to decimate remaining forests could we replace fossil fuel products with biomass, especially as world food demand is expected to go up by 60-70% by 2050 according to the FAO.
The only example of using renewable energy to create synthetic fuel, which is the base for all fossil fuel products, is the Haru Oni plant in Southern Chile. It has a 3.4Mw Siemens Gamesa wind turbine with an expected 70% capacity factor producing an expected 20,848Mwh of electricity per year. The first ‘commercial’ (sic) shipment of e-fuels was just sent 11 months after beginning operation, and 8 months after declaring commercial operations, of 24,600 litres. That is a process efficiency of only 1.77%, assuming an annual production of 36,900 litres, without considering the energy expended in the capital ($US75M), or operating and maintenance costs (unknown or not released).
Assuming we had to make ‘products’ from this process, replacing the Coking Coal 1.1Bt = roughly 7,700Twh, plus approximately 10% of a barrel of oil (using all liquids), another 6,205Twh, the raw energy needed from renewables to do this at a 1.77% efficiency rate would be 785,000Twh, or nearly 5 times current annual energy production from all sources!!
This is before adding the energy needed to mine, process, manufacture, and transport the materials required to build it all!!
It’s a ridiculous idea.
Considering I didn’t include the products from natural gas, or any capital, operating, or maintenance costs, and even assuming significant improvements in efficiency, it’s not even close to being possible.
One final calculation to further expose the mirage.
To make the products from renewable energy, with a Haru Oni type efficiency, would require over 1.8B tonnes of copper for the energy production side of the operation, based on 5 tonnes per Mwh of a solar power plant, and over 5 hrs/day of sunshine. This would consume 100% of our current copper production for about 80 years.
Modern civilization is a complex system. It has systems within systems, and a complexity far too high for anyone to understand as a whole. Our discussions and plans for continuing modern civilization after changing from fossil to renewable energy usually concentrate on one minor part of the overall system. It’s the only way to get an answer that looks plausible.
When multiple feedback loops are considered, it becomes obvious that we do not have the energy nor materials to keep modern civilization going for all. Unless of course, the real plan is to retain modern civilization for only a very small portion of humanity, much smaller than present…
February 15, 2024
Rob here, there are many interesting comments by Hideaway below that expand on his energy and materials analysis.
I found one comment particularly interesting because it introduced Hideaway’s background and the life path that led him to his current clear-eyed view of our overshoot predicament.
I’ve copied that comment here for better visibility.
I first learnt about limits to growth in 1975 in my first year of an Environmental Studies course. I’ve been studying and researching everything about energy and resources for decades. My wife and I moved to the country 40 years ago onto a block of land and started farming.
I was the state secretary of an organic farming group and on the certifying committee over 30 years ago. Virtually all organic, biodynamic, permaculture, regenerative properties I came across had similar characteristics. The profitable ones used lots of off property resources, which I argued was unsustainable, because of diesel use etc. I left the organic movement, also decades ago, because there was nothing really sustainable about it.
I was a believer in a renewable future for decades, always believing it was only a matter of time until they became better and cheaper than fossil fuels, which were clearly depleting. I had an accident 15 years ago, and since then have had way more time to do research than just about anyone. I really got stuck into working out how mines could go ‘green’ until I just couldn’t make the numbers work. (BTW I also had some economics and geology in my tertiary studies, but have learnt way more on both subjects in the last 15 years).
Eventually I reluctantly did my own calculations on EROEI because I just couldn’t find anything with an unbiased approach that came close to making sense. I’ve been against nuclear for decades, mainly because of humanities failure to deal with wastes and the nuclear bombs we create, so I very reluctantly calculated the EROEI using my method and was stunned at the results.
I use to be a believer in the 100:1 EROEI that everyone in favor of nuclear constantly states (before I worked it out for myself). The reality is nothing like that, it’s pitiful worse than solar and wind, which instantly made me realise that modern civilization is not sustainable any any way, shape or form.
I also kept checking the numbers I calculated for Saudi oil and a small gas project in WA. Sure enough these came to the rough numbers we need for modernity, but of course fossil fuels are leaving us due to depletion, they are a dead end anyway, even before we consider climate issues.
All my work, over years, has given me a point of reference for when the world as we know it is in real trouble. It’s when the oil extraction decline accelerates to the downside. Everything runs on oil, especially farming and mining and heavy transport. The world falls to pieces without any of these, once they struggle to get the diesel/bunker fuel they need, collapse is baked in. A date of when? no idea, but suspect we will know by higher oil prices and a failure to respond with greater oil production, then the next year a further decline in oil production, while oil prices remain high etc.
Not even coal can save modernity, the EROEI is too low. Even if we went on a massive Coal to Liquids campaign, the energy return for the cost is way too low. When coal was last king we had approximately a 70% rural population even in the west, now we have multiples of the overall population, mostly in cities, and badly degraded agricultural land.
I don’t think anyone’s posted this recent interview by Nate Hagens of Steve Keen, who is the only economist with a clue.
I listened to it today. It’s very good and takes a deep dive into why the discipline of economics is so wrong about everything important.
Keen thinks its mostly stupidity and close mindedness. No mention of genetic denial.
Great talk nonetheless. I really appreciated the deep dive into the history of economics that he did. Somewhat obtuse but necessary. Neoclassical economics is a fraudulent specialty. Without a basis in Thermodynamics it is nonsense. I liked how Keen said that when approached by anyone with a problem, engineers first look and where the energy comes from (or something to that effect). Too bad economists are not the same. I wonder if German industry accepts that the removal of the 4% of cheap Russian energy from their economy will only reduce their GDP by 8%? Neoclassical economics should be thrown out of universities, business and especially government.
AJ
I should give you a little anecdote from a mathematician friend of mine. He would regularly review the maths of economics papers, just to check that the maths is correct. From his personal experience:
– 1/3 economics papers maths was wrong. Just plain incorrect.
– 1/3 maths worked, but assumptions were weird. E.g., having land area as a variable that can keep growing.
– 1/3 were ok as far as maths and assumptions, but he still thought it was suss.
His specialty was in math modelling for biology/ecology, etc. so making maths models for scientists.
LOL, I believe it.
I’ve often thought the reason economists ignore the effect of energy (and believe it or not debt) on the economy is that to model them your must calculate rate of change and that requires calculus, and they are too stupid for calculus, which is why they chose the discipline of economics.
I’ll divide this message into sections.
A). Personal.
Dear Rob and everyone else.
I have been truly apathetic, depressed and anxious for months now, wallowing in despair due to our predicament. Realising and processing this has been undoubtedly the most disturbing and turbulent of affairs.
I hope I have grieved enough and can now slowly start gaining momentum whilst moving upward.
I’d compare myself to a wave which has reached its lowest cyclical point. I am wondering what to do.
Empathy, wisdom & compassion are needed, yet they don’t have any “value” in our current society.
Only power is valued. As a 28 year old decent looking semi healthy nordic male with connections to European high society. Should I acquire wealth, practical skills or power? Focus on money and greed, ignore everyone and everything else only for the sake of acquiring resources quickly for oneself?
Focus on useful practical skills which will not pay enough to acquire vast resources, yet may be valuable when things turn sour? Focus on politics which will result in devastating casualties and events no matter how ”capable and knowledgeable” one is?
B.) MORT
The mechanism which I propose for MORT and thus cognitive dissonance is due to the fact that it requires more energy to alter an existing idea and the extended framework along with it.
MORT is due to expansion.
Life in all forms only has one task, to expand.
Going against expansion is against life.
If an entity perceives X, it builds a system around X.
* Change the value from X to Y, a fundamental need arises. To evaluate, deconstruct, re-evaluate and construct everything anew.
* This requires increased energy.
* Imagine an established pathway which needs to be diverted from entirely.
* Combine that with the tendency to hesitate, ie. loss aversion. X has operated and provided desirable results throughout time, to alter X to Y means potential energy loss and increased consumption at the same time.
* To alter a framework requires a shock or it could be altered delicately through time with adaptation if conditions are met.
* If this speculative idea has any viability, it is understandable that denial is intrinsically tremendously difficult to overcome as the conditions required for such are extremely demanding.
* Most lack the conditions to alter themselves entirely.
C). Casual discussion.
This website discusses peak everything and by such, reduction in population is inevitable.
It will be one of the most gruesome events in history.
Billions of h.sapiens will perish, along with the devastation of biodiversity.
Rob, I hope this does not come off as offensive.
How come you feel emotional distress by the parties in power engaging in such blatantly obvious nonsensical activities regarding covid?
– Throughout history “bread & circus” style whimsical novel power grab plays have helped build the cage for the h.sapiens feedlot.
– Matters will become far worse in all aspects, no matter what happens. Harsher authoritarian top down measures will come to play in due time because of the poly crisis.
It is sort of a paradoxical concept when corruption, politics, fraud, deception and power plays for control makes one upset who knows collapse is coming…?
I assume we all know how historically things have been, it’s always all about power.
It’s clear we are living in utter and absolute dystopian times.
As Edward O. Wilson stated about our archaic hardwired biology, medieval institutions and godlike technology combined with evolutionary tendencies of MORT, MPP, loss aversion etc.
I understand the emotional response to idiocy of all kinds (as a highly sensitive person even more so than most).
I want to think of myself as being mentally in a nihilistic headspace, not to be surprised by anything at this point.
The entities in charge are either aware of everything and are going off a cliff knowingly with some plan, or they are in denial which means they will do so unwillingly without a plan.
Either case, it’s down the cliff.
I’ve been ridiculed publicly for my actions, when standing against the government due to them violating the constitution in the recent years because of coercive covid policies.
I was not aware of peak everything back then, (I would likely not take such action today.)
I’ve had to go to court because of that action and “belief of liberty”.
I did win, if that makes a difference…
Now I simply wish I would not care anymore at all about matters at hand, as if to wish denial upon oneself.
Whatever is done, our species is going to suffer beyond comprehension along with all life.
Emotionally:
I sometimes feel infernally furious about our idiocy.
Intellectually:
There’s nothing more to understand or “fix”, watch the unraveling of our predicament and try to avoid the worst by being prepared.
A “taoist” mindset is not easy to cultivate whilst being still relatively young, experiencing a strong innate urge to have comparative advantage due to biology and on top of that from a privileged position nonetheless with plausible access, all whilst lacking the denial gene and possessing an averagely operating brain together with the internet.
Pardon my language.
What the hell should one make of all this batshit crazy Machiavellian style mental bonanza?
How I wish I could live a simple life in some “magical” place like New Zealand.
I hope you can pardon the elongated message and tonality.
I mean not to offend, insult nor brag.
Stating what I perceive and asking for advice in gaining perspective on how to steer myself towards the “North Star” from people with insight, hindsight and knowledge.
– Trying to simply utilise the knowledge of those who belong to the 0.0000001% who try to teach the 5%.
– When reading your messages as “old timers” discussing potential courses of action if you were younger with this knowledge at hand, I feel “lucky” yet my heart breaks at the same time.
Thank you in advance for reading and possibly responding to this message.
You have been very generous and helpful by simply existing and sharing your thoughts, knowledges and experiences.
You have my sincerest gratitude.
Kind regards,
ABC
Hi ABC,
I like your honest message. I am going to answer A) only. This answer is personal, it will only have value for you if it somehow resonates with who you are.
I get your state of mind. I feel for you. I used to live in the same prison. Recognize it for what it is.
This is a great time to be alive. And it’s even better, living like you, with eyes opened from a young age (but are they truly opened yet? What’s the value of abstract written knowledge?).
I travelled the valley of the shadow of death in despair for too long. Don’t be like me as I was. I fear no evil any more. Fear will blur your sight, smile to it. See the beauty in the world, in any situation. Because it is always there.
Trying to accumulate wealth or power is going to make your road longer. Power is evil, don’t worry about it. Do not quarrel with it. Do what you love. Do what you must (because sometimes we carry a heavy load we must first eliminate, we must purify ourselves, expunge the hate inside). Go on. The answer lies within you.
I love trees and the soil and the critters and the expansion of life. We are part of this. At the same time I still fulfill many (not all) of the obligations I have contracted over time and as a member of this society (People around me do not see the world as I do and expect me to behave in a certain way. Who am I to say I am the only one in possession of the truth? I also like them being my guest…) Your answer is not going to be mine. Your answer is tightly linked to your deepest concrete fear and deepest concrete hate. Listen to theses feelings, care for yourself.
Also, yes, this civilisation is going to crash. Given what it has become, isn’t it great news? That’s far from being the end. The worst is always possible but never certain. So much lies in the hand of people, especially men of goodwill. And at the same time, nothing is of our individual volition.
Don’t worry about it all, do your thing, concrete thing. Stop the cyclical loops of negative thoughts. Thinking without direct experience is pointless, a complete waste of time.
There is no general truth, all truth is personal. So, do not take for granted anything anybody tells you, be it from authority, from this site, from me. Your experience matters most. See for yourself, decide for yourself. Maybe, there is life after death. (Even though, I believe that is probably not the right way to frame it, I am still throwing this big one here. Just because it is anathema on this site. However, I have seen things which are not accepted by reasonable people and yet…) There is certainly more than we understand.
Anything goes, truly.
After you started your inner voyage and plunged into your heart, come back here and tell us what you love, what you are focusing on. (it could be anything really, politics is fine, even money, even power, if these are truly your thing, but maybe you prefer just making candies or losing yourself in the eyes of maidens that you will visit on foot all over Europe…)
It will be a great pleasure to listen to it.
Hi ABC, nice to meet you.
Being young and aware today must be very difficult. I’m sorry for your pain.
If I were in your shoes I would choose an occupation that:
– pays reasonably well and is in demand today
– has value today and will also have value in the future when people are much poorer
– can be done today with modern tools and energy, and can be done tomorrow with simpler tools and less energy
– provides satisfaction by accomplishing something useful associated with needs rather than wants
I’m thinking of trades like carpentry, masonry, plumbing, electrician, mechanic, etc..
Farming is useful but it pays very poorly and the cost of land is too high. If you want to grow some food, try to rent space in a community garden.
I would use my awareness of probable future troubles to build some resiliency in my life with some stores of high priority necessities like food, medicine, tools, lighting,etc. Get yourself organized and build a spreadsheet to track your preps. Looking at the spreadsheet will make you feel better. Even if nothing bad happens, or if the worst happens, and the preps are not needed, the act of doing something to prepare will make you feel better. Try to buy preps that you use in your normal life so nothing will be wasted no matter what happens. Think of your preps as a safe investment because nothing is likely to go down in price.
Set a good example. Live your life the way you would like others to live. Many things provide pleasure. When faced with a choice, choose the one with the lightest footprint.
Look after your health. Low sugar, exercise, sleep, vitamin D should be priorities.
Try to be a nice person. In the end, that’s all that matters, and all that people will remember about you.
Hello ABC. I enjoy that kind of honesty. I have no answers for you, as I am way too novice to be giving advice. I like Charles and Rob’s advice. Just wanted to say how I cope with the sometimes-paralyzing depression bouts I have. Prior to my journey into the collapse world, I did not have a religious/spiritual bone in my body. I dont know what those words even mean. But the more I learn, the stronger I feel about earth being my creator/sustainer/end. I also bounce around with the whole “life after death” thing. I try not to focus on it because well, whats the point. When I die (if it’s not over) then fine, my notion of god will no longer be earth, but something new.
And just like everything, there is a balancing act. When I am too focused on the destruction of earth part of the story, it’s more of a dreaded, frantic tone “Oh Mother Earth, what have we done to you? We are going to hell. All humans living today. Anyone who drives a car, uses plastic, eats food from our animal factory system. We are all participating sinners in this destruction.”
When I study the human history side of the story, it starts taking a healthier & peaceful tone of “Oh Mother Earth. We lost our way. We’re confused. Forgive us, for we know not what we do.”
The hardest part is the ‘waiting’. If the Guy Mcpherson types are correct, humans will not be around by 2030. I like the sound of that. If the John Michael Greer types are correct, humans will still be here for a long, long time. A slow drawn-out collapse gives me nightmares. Sometimes I wish I would have never gone down this road (life was simpler when my biggest worry was if my sports teams won. Heck, I cant even watch my favorite sci-fi movies anymore. I get too hung up on the magical “energy” that is never discussed).
I think about the people who knew this info a long time ago. William Catton, Donella & Dennis Meadows, etc. After it was clear that nothing was gonna change, and we were pressing the gas pedal even harder, how did they manage to not blow their brains out? How did they cope?
Chris
I am a few years younger than you and I am in a somewhat similar position.
Just know that you are not alone in those feelings.
ABC what part of the world are you in?
I live in New Zealand and fantasise about moving to other countries where land and food are cheap LOL. The only real benefit of NZ is isolation from most of the population and nuclear fallout.
But when times are tough, it’s good to have friends, family, and extended kin around you. During colonial times, there was some crazy figure that around 70% of people who immigrated to NZ left, either went home or went somewhere else. Immigrating anywhere is hard.
Eventually air travel will be so expensive, and I suspect many people are going to regret leaving their parents and other loved ones behind with no one to care for them. A good loving family is worth its weight in gold. And making your family stronger (working through dysfunction and conflict) is the first step to building a resilient community.
I am in my early 30s by the way.
Something that helps me a lot is when I see dumped rubbish, which happens a lot in “magical NZ”. And I just think to myself how excited I am for collapse, because spoilt brat humans don’t deserve everything that we’ve got when we can’t even do something so basic for nature as pointing rubbish in the bin.
So true. I still don’t think it is as bad as the UK, which I left, but that might be due to a far smaller population. It’s definitely gotten worse in the last decade. Mind you, there shouldn’t be any rubbish. Why are we making stuff that needs to be thrown away and concentrated in land fills? Only collapse has a chance of correcting all of this, scary though it is. I both hope I experience it and hope I don’t experience it.
Looks like my theory on the reason for an open US border is right.
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/biden-unleashes-propaganda-machine-illegal-immigration-will-boost-us-gdp-7-trillion
The rest of the article is political crap with no awareness of energy depletion or overshoot.
In case you missed it this interview a week ago on obesity in the US is excellent. I knew US health was bad but not this bad.
Apparently treating illnesses related to diabetes will soon exceed the cost of the military. Also interesting is his claim that Alzheimer’s is a form of diabetes.
The biggest company in Europe makes Ozempic but the drug is banned in Europe because it is too dangerous yet is welcomed in the US rather than telling people to quit eating sugar.
Just watched this again 2 years after I saw it the first time. In those two years I have gained much knowledge, regarding collapse, by following other people. I was starting to get a sense that Michael Dowd was more for the beginners of collapse awareness.
But after watching this video again (and several of his other ones), and because my knowledge has increased so much since the last time I watched it…. I am having what feels like an epiphany… Michael had it all figured out! I think you can skip everyone else and go straight to this video to get the most accurate story behind “how did we get here?” and “whats gonna happen next?”
The only nitpicking I can come up with is: I wish he had focused a little bit more on EROEI as well as the evilness of agriculture. Also, he should have dumped the phrase “anthropocentrism & human centeredness” and replaced it with “human supremacy”.
But thats all I got. Miss you Michael. RIP
Chris
Dowd was a very good man and was well read with a very good understanding of overshoot. He did have a couple blind spots.
Having a Christian background he was understandably uncomfortable with the idea that god was created by a mutation to deny mortality.
He also had a strong opinion that some tribes lived peaceful sustainable lives. In my only phone conversation with Dowd we had a very heated discussion because I think all tribes are basically the same and are governed by behaviors like the MPP. I said I was only interested in the truth and was willing to be proven wrong so I challenged him to name three sustainable tribes that I could research to confirm he was right. He refused. Some weeks later he apologized but never did name even one tribe.
Hi Rob. Can you help me out with this? I always hear something like: for 99% of our existence we lived in harmony with nature.
This was (and still is) one of the more difficult things for me to grasp. I’ve had lots of “oh, you’re just romanticizing the past” and “so you think hunter and gatherers were these ecological gurus who knew exactly what they were doing” moments. And then Daniel Quinn connected some dots for me. This quote probably sums it up best:
“Man was born MILLIONS of years ago, and he was no more a scourge than hawks or lions or squids. He lived AT PEACE with the world … for MILLIONS of years.
This doesn’t mean he was a saint. This doesn’t mean he walked the earth like a Buddha. It means he lived as harmlessly as a hyena or a shark or a rattlesnake.
It’s not MAN who is the scourge of the world, it’s a single culture. One culture out of hundreds of thousands of cultures. OUR culture.”
So when I add in Dowd’s idea about life centered cultures “when religion is doing its job, its the control mechanism to keep humans in check”….. the whole sustainable thing starts making more sense for me.
Why dont you agree with Dowd that some tribes lived peaceful, sustainable lives.
Thanks,
Chris
It’s true that behaviorally modern humans lived in balance with nature (but often competed against and fought other tribes) for our first 1-200,000 years but it was not because we had different behaviors or culture or religions. It was because our population was constrained by resource scarcity, as it is for all other species.
For the last 10,000 years we broke through normal resource constraints with agriculture (bigger share of solar energy) and fossil energy (ancient solar energy) and became a destructive unsustainable species, that is smart enough to know better, but denies what it is doing.
MORT explains that our unique intelligence cannot exist without denial of unpleasant realities.
Thanks for that. I like the way you worded it and you may have just convinced me to read the famous ‘Denial’ (Im intimidated by a book all about denial. I dont have confidence in my attention span)
If you prefer not to read, this video is the best introduction to Dr. Varki’s MORT theory.
If you decide to read, this paper fixes defects and expands on his book:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-25466-7_6
All species try to access as many resources as they can as quickly as they can. Humans are no different, which is why human tribes could not live sustainably, even if, for periods they were part of a climax ecosystem and may have appeared to live in harmony (though that isn’t really the right word) with nature. Humans are always bound to discover ways to access more resources or to access resources more quickly and both of those would kick them out of kilter with the balance of the ecosystem. Other external factors could also do that but it’s guaranteed that humans would eventually do that, due to their dexterity and cleverness.
Quinn probably got it wrong, in that respect. Humans could never live at peace with the world for millions of years but early humans weren’t as clever as modern humans so maybe could have been part of climax ecosystems in the way all other species could be.
Thanks Mike. Makes sense. Damn you guys for messing with my perfect view of sustainable cultures. Lol.
If we could leave a message (instructions or a warning) for the next dominant species that comes out of this upcoming bottleneck…. I think all we need to say is “if you can read this, you are too clever, and you are already in overshoot and collapse is inevitable.”
Good one! 🙂
We should try to enjoy (or at least appreciate) being at the peak of what is possible in the universe.
I thought balance was a better word than harmony.
Yeah, I didn’t really want to use either because it implies something which is not really true. In a climax ecosystem, the system appears to be in balance with all species living in harmony. But it’s an illusion and no species intended it that way. It’s always going to be a tenuous balance that could be broken by any perturbation of the system, and, in a chaotic world, there will always be perturbations, even if the balance lasts for decades or centuries.
I can’t think of any way that Homo sapiens could live in harmony with nature. We would have to stop using other than very simple and basic tools, stop thinking of how to improve our situation. But then we’d be trying to usurp evolution, which is impossible. So, I guess that all of the well-meaning true environmentalists are seeking something that is impossible. I wish it were not so. I really do.
How Capitalism Is Causing A Sixth Mass Extinction
At 3:06, he denies overpopulation being a factor.
If overshoot is to be solved in at least a semi-humane way, capitalism has to be replaced with another economic system. What that system is, I don’t know yet.
First change the monetary system from a fractional reserve debt backed system to a full reserve energy backed system.
That will create a sustainable pie aligned with our means.
Then chose your ‘ism (capitalism, socialism, communism, facsism, etc.) based on how your culture wants to share the pie.
“Capitalism” is the boogeyman. The word should be replaced with “industrial civilization” in this context.
Our senior leaders are doubling down on their lies.
The denial module in their brains requires this behavior.
Otherwise they would have to admit to themselves they killed millions of people with more to follow.
The US policy to delay economic collapse by opening its border to millions of immigrants means that when resource depletion and excess debt eventually cause collapse, many more people will suffer and die.
In other words, they are increasing overshoot to delay overshoot collapse.
Plus ecological models show that the more a population overshoots, the worse the population die-off is.
Energy per capita x population = a mess
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/governance/population-can-t-be-ignored-it-has-to-be-part-of-the-policy-solution-to-our-world-s-problems-94341
I came across this link from a commentor on Tom Murphy’s blog. Its a “next ten billion years” article that John Michael Greer wrote in 2013. It was a fun read and got me thinking.
https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz/2013/09/the-next-ten-billion-years.html
It’s a very good interview.
Can you imagine any western leader speaking clearly on complex topics for 2 hours without a teleprompter?
The last 2 leaders of the US can’t even form a single coherent sentence.
What has happened to us?
S very articulate conversation by an extremely intelligent leader. Putin appears overshoot unaware, is there any world leader that is overshoot aware?
AJ
Summary of Tucker Carlson’s key take-aways.
good interview from a couple weeks ago.
The Gaza Zeitgeist w/ Peter Joseph & Abby Martin
I left this comment:
“I love Abby and Peter. But they glossed over something very important when she was asking how “we” could do these certain acts to other humans. At the 46:26 mark she says “how did we treat humans like animals”. Ding, Ding, Ding. That right there is the answer. The human supremacy is so thick that Abby does not even see it.
If we are gonna talk about how humans need to treat other humans better…that conversation is a waste of time until we unpack the extreme human supremacy that dominates our culture.”
I’m re-reading Derek Jensen’s Myth of Human Supremacy, so I am in that mode right now. As far as what route to take to wake people up, it seems a toss up for me between the MORT factor and the Human Supremacy factor.
In case you are not aware, Dr. Tom Murphy @ Do the Math has recently shifted his focus to human supremacy as a core issue that must be addressed before any progress can be made. He’s written some excellent essays that you will probably appreciate:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/02/human-exceptionalism/
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/11/and-why-is-that-desirable/
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/12/confessions-of-a-disillusioned-scientist/
Thanks Rob. Ya, I follow Murphy and am loving his recent shift. Especially in regard to religion.
I’ve been re-watching old Michael Dowd videos and he is looking more and more like a prophet than I remember in my first time viewings.
Chris
I miss Michael Dowd’s videos and his free book readings
MORT on steroids.
This one is easily explainable in ‘market thinking’ terms. The energy sector has only a limited life as they rely on resources that are rapidly diminishing, so will eventually be worth nothing much, while Microsoft is based on proprietary information that can be continually improved and will never run out, so it’s much more valuable.
Of course the market doesn’t care, that without energy, Microsoft is not possible, so ‘something’ will replace all the energy produced by the energy sector.
There is nothing rational about the stock market.
Thanks for the excellent explanation.
And 0.0000001% tries to educate the 5% that what they’re fighting for won’t help because humans evolved to deny unpleasant realities.
It is freakishly warm in the Midwest right now.
Chris Martenson discusses what he saw on his recent trip to a migration camp in Panama.
The route is well organized. Time from arriving in the camp to having a driver’s license in New York is 10 days.
Chris has not connected the dots that the migration is a plan to delay collapse, perhaps because that would sell fewer subscriptions than a Chinese plan to undermine the U.S..
Denial of reality on steroids. Chris Martenson interviews Adam Rozencwajg, a natural resources investment advisor and fund manager, who lays out the case for peak oil pretty well. He admits there are big challenges but then proceeds to call those who see peak oil and extrapolate a dire future as Malthusian, including the Limits to Growth authors. He thinks our brightest days lie ahead, we have an unbelievable amount of prosperity and growth that will mostly come from nuclear power which will save the day. Chris did push back on the gap of powering ships, jets and trucks but Rozencwajg reckons the solutions will come from the free market and the US.
It’s just over an hour long but skip to about 19 minutes to hear peak denial.
I just listened to the denial bit at the 19-22 minutes. It’s funny (as in absurd) how all these people that are aware in a lot of ways, end up clinging to ‘something’, in this case nuclear.
Without his nuclear argument, he would probably segue straight to something else, as surely human ingenuity will win the day, as it always has in the past… denial in it’s finest form.
From requiring mRNA gene therapy transfections in children to protect them from a virus that poses no threat, to genetically modifying plants without regard to possible implications, we have lost our minds.
https://www.rintrah.nl/i-fucking-love-glowing-plants/
Alice Friedemann today reviews possible (probable?) grid down events and their implications.
https://energyskeptic.com/2024/book-review-of-lights-out-a-cyberattack-a-nation-unprepared-surviving-the-aftermath/
h/t Canadian Prepper
23M views.
109-Year-Old Veteran and His Secrets to Life Will Make You Smile
Nate’s doom porn is extra titillating today.
What was unimaginable a year ago is ho-hum today.
Sometimes I’m just a little concerned that Canadian Prepper is fear mongering (does it drive up his sales?). This one seemed a case in point in that no one in the Russia commentariat on-line has said a word about this.?????
AJ
For sure he sells click bait. He also sells preps that no one serious about prepping would ever buy, like a battery powered air conditioner to make your tent comfortable. Or freeze dried lobster tails. He also has a fetish for secret massive underground tunnel complexes our enemies have apparently built. I do think he has a good heart and his intelligence shines in one on one interviews.
So many interesting topics and comments over the last day or 2, I have no idea where to start…
Firstly Rob, apologies for not getting my EROEI article to you, I keep rewriting it, throwing it out, restart it etc.. Trying to condense what should be a book into an article is not that simple, there are so many angles the topic needs to cover.
The quickest short summary here.. We all know that money can buy energy and that everything we buy with money has embedded energy. Roughly, on average, the more expensive anything is, the more embedded energy in that item or service..
I’m now working on a normalised energy production, ie 1Twh of useful energy, all dollars in $US. Each of the following covers all capital, operating and maintenance costs over the life of the energy production, broken down to the ‘total cost’ per Twh of energy produced..
A Saudi oil well costs around $1,470,000 to produce, after refining of 85% efficiency $1,730,000
A Gas project in WA costs around $1,700,000 for gas in pipeline for home, industry, products etc.
A coal fired power station in Queensland $9,140,000, power into the grid over 90% of time.
A Nuclear PP (Hinkley PC est final cost) $66,041,280
Australia’s largest Solar Farm $35,614,292, power into grid 23% of the time
A 132Mw wind farm $34,318,432, with a 24% capacity, power into grid.
What also needs to be remembered is that oil, gas and coal also produce products, whereas we would have to build a ‘synthetic oil’ production system to get the same products from just the electricity producers, which would make their ‘costs’ per Twh much, much higher..
I’ve also worked out how they get such great numbers for the EROEI of renewables and nuclear. They basically divide world total energy use by World GDP and come up with a number of ‘background energy cost’, being around $610/Mwh. They then divide total cost of whatever electricity producer by $610, then divide ‘electricity produced’ by this number, which for Australia’s largest Solar farm comes out at 17.7 and call this the EROEI. Using that methodology the Walyering Gas Project would have an EROEI of 355 and the coal power station 66.
I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that all the talk and research into the so called ‘renewable future’, is not just denial, but a deliberate deception. There is no way that all the top highly educated engineers, university energy experts, etc, wouldn’t understand just how bad the situation really is.
Why do leaders & the public deny peak oil & limits to growth?
On top of MORT
https://energyskeptic.com/2021/climate-change-deniers/
You still need MORT because if you take the time to explain with evidence and facts why innovation and substitution won’t help, most people still won’t believe you.
Hi Hideaway,
No pressure on the EROEI essay. You’ve written many interesting comments on the topic. I just think it’s a shame they’re disconnected and buried. You have some fresh and insightful ideas. Someday you should pull them all together into an essay and publish here or somewhere else so they get a proper airing. This might be a case where brevity is not a blessing. It’s complex, frequently misunderstood, and needs a proper top to bottom treatment.
I wonder if you could figure out how to include the “% of the time” numbers into the normalized costs? When I read the above I thought solar and wind look really expensive, but their low x% of time must mean the actual costs are even higher, assuming we want 24/7 power.
In case you don’t know of him, David J.C. MacKay was a master at comparing energy types. His book is available for free. I wrote a eulogy here:
https://un-denial.com/2016/06/17/david-j-c-mackay-thank-you-and-goodbye/
MORT on steroids.
Yes in a box. Good riddance.
I’m dense and do not see the connection to above.
Scratch that. Now I get it. 🙂
“Is there a way out?”
“Yes in a box. Good riddance.”
It never ceases to amaze me that people are so obsessed with boxes but don’t realise it.
Most western people spend their lives living in a box, travelling to work in a box (car, bus or train) crammed with others, to then work all day in a box, cram into a box to go home and then sit down in front of the box to tune out. Even worse we can now all carry our little phone box that we all “escape” into its confining cell like boundaries.
We were educated in boxes, raised in boxes and everything we think about and do is catagorised into boxes.
Our reward for working so hard to pay our boxes off – a box.
Talk about a delusional species.
Art Berman today says it’s too late for an energy transition.
He did not elaborate the reason is we denied reality for too long.
https://www.artberman.com/blog/betting-the-world-on-an-imaginary-energy-future/
Friend Panopticon does a nice job of connecting the dots today.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/02/07/7th-february-2024-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
That begs the question: Is the banking system no longer sound and resilient?
It hasn’t been sound and resilient since 2005.
Shhhhhhhhhhhh.
Rob, I wanted to share with you a post from Facebook made by a friend of mine.
“A reflection over my experiences over my last few years.
Conflicts over gender politics forced me to conclude that the vast majority of people are incapable of rational thought.
That is, when given the opportunity to inquire into an assumed truth, most people lack the psychological capacity to step back and genuinely interrogate an idea. Especially when that idea has some importance to their world view.
I was doing some thinking over a break that I just returned from. And I had a secondary realisation:
That that initial realisation in regard to the reasoning capacity of the average person has fundamentally shaken my belief in democracy, liberalism and human rights.
Democracy relies on an informed population.
Even when decision-making processes result in mistakes or are based on poor or insufficient information, the system is flexible enough to recover as long as its leaders and institutions are able to question doctrinal articles that lead to mistakes.
If a population is largely intellectually incompetent then democracy is at best inadvisable.
I’m not sure how to resolve the apparent contradiction between my fondness for liberal democracy and an acknowledgment of scarcity of intellectual capacity.”
Thank you. Very good, and very true.
I’ve said this many times, but covid destroyed whatever hope remained in my soul. Our leaders and institutions did everything wrong, including overriding what they had previously agreed was good pandemic policy, and they made no attempt to correct as new evidence emerged.
Equally shocking was the support our leaders received and continue to receive from the majority of citizens and healthcare professionals.
It’s repeating again now with Ukraine and Gaza.
There’s not one intelligent sane leader in any western country. The political opposition is equally ignorant.
Chinese migrants are fastest growing group crossing into U.S. from Mexico | 60 Minutes
Video is not available in Canada.
Why are there Chinese migrants in Mexico?
How did they get there?
Why did Mexico let them in?
Are they skilled and educated?
TLDR;
The Chinese migrants are mostly coming to the U.S. to seek political asylum and to get jobs in the U.S. One person said that he flew to Ecuador (Chinese citizens can access Ecuador without a visa), and a 2nd flight from Ecuador to Tijuana. Another said they flew to Ecuador and took the long land journey to the U.S.-Mexico border. I don’t know why Mexico is letting them in. Many of the migrants learned on TikTok that there is a gap in the border fence, that a person easily get through. Many of the migrants are middle class and even are carrying rolling suitcases like you would see at an airport.
Interesting, thanks.
I would have guessed economic propsects for a young educated person are better in China than the US.
Any mention of the cause being insufficient women for men to marry due to China’s one child policy? That would be a very strong force to cause migration.
Here are Dr. Bret Weinstein’s first hand observations on the migration.
The Chinese component of the migration is separate, distinct, and large. He suspects something nefarious is afoot.
Bret thinks it’s possible China is sending an army of men into the US, using other migrants as cover, who will wage war on the US when ordered to do so.
Here’s my guess as to the motive of the US (and Europe) for allowing so many migrants in.
It has nothing to do with trying to help less fortunate people, nor about staffing the military, nor about influencing elections.
1) Per capita wealth is falling due to falling EROEI.
2) The design of our monetary system requires growth to not collapse.
3) The system doesn’t care if per capita wealth falls, it only cares that aggregate wealth grows.
4) By importing a lot of people willing to work for lower incomes, you can prevent the system from collapsing by growing aggregate wealth, even as living standards fall.
The goal of the migration is to delay collapse.
This explains the bi-partisan support for the migration and the unwillingness to discuss what is going on or why.
That is my best guess on it too!
So refreshing to hear some intelligent ethical truth from a journalist.
Best ZeroHedge comment:
Has it changed from ‘What would Elon do’??
Dr. Tom Murphy is circling the drain thinking about the reality of free will and consciousness.
He might make progress on something that would actually help if he focused on our evolved tendency to deny unpleasant realities and how we might override this behavior, as we have for other evolved behaviors.
We are plenty smart enough to know what to do if we could see our overshoot predicament.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/02/mysterious-materialism/
I don’t necessarily see that what you think of as MORT is an evolved behaviour, but what other evolved behaviours have we managed to override?
If denial of reality is a feature of being a species (i.e. all life) then it can’t be overridden, or overriding it would lead to our extinction (for example, by having no new births).
Without an actual free will, having only cause and effect thoughts from experience and genes, then denial of reality will continue until it offers an advantage to those genes which promote acceptance of reality (and the drive to act on that).
Not in this case. Evolution needed to deny mortality but the solution it chose had the side effect of denying all unpleasant realities. We should be able to keep our gods and heavens and accept the other unpleasant realities without impacting our fitness as a species.
Other genetic behaviors we’re identified and collectively decided to manage include:
– laws to prevent alcohol and drug abuse in situations that might endanger others
– laws to protect person property from envy
– laws to prevent injuries or death due to jealousy
– laws to prevent infancticide
– laws to prevent racism and genocide
– etc. etc.
With a few minutes thought I’m sure you can think of many other examples.
Sorry, Rob, I don’t see any of those things as evolved behaviours, more attempts in most societies (probably not all) to keep order. They are also laws which are often broken.
No species can see the future, so short term goals will always dominate behaviours. From the gene’s point of view, it had better get on and propogate itself while it can, because who knows how much longer it can do that. To take it to the extreme (as a way of making the point), if humans suddenly realised that having kids is detrimental to the environment which sustains us, then a gene to act on that realisation would doom itself to extinction. Of course, genes aren’t making conscious decisions but all species will always live for today.
Really?
We evolved to be a tribal species. Where do you think racism comes from?
50% of alcoholism is genetic. We don’t let drunks fly planes.
Most of denial is genetic. It’s dangerous and will kill most of us. We should screen for denial before permitting people to hold important positions in society.
Before this site closes, just once, I’d like to hear Mike Roberts say, gee Rob, you’re right, I didn’t think about that. I expect it won’t happen. It’s not in your genes.
I think about that all the time, Rob. I love to have my views challenged. I could write the same last paragraph about many people. Your inference is that you’re right and I’m wrong. It might be true. Or not.
I would say that we are still a tribal species. We don’t let drunks fly planes, or drive cars, but both can happen. The controls are more strict in the former case. Societies have “overidden” evolved behaviour by rule of law and enforcement. If societies break down, would those behaviours return?
Denial is genetic. We agree on that!
I do not recall a public admission that all of your strongly held covid beliefs were wrong. Instead of joining the dissidents you went silent on the issue.
The only strong belief I held about COVID-19 was that it is a dangerous disease that I never want to catch, though that is just a hope. That hasn’t changed. I never held a strong belief about the vaccines but thought it was probably a good idea to get the primary course, even though protection was limited. I was fooled into getting a booster, which the data in NZ show was a bad idea, leaving me at the same chance of hospitalisation, if I contract the disease, as the unvaccinated. I never believed the more extreme opinions about what the vaccines might do to the virus and what they might do to the population and still don’t see any data to support them. I’m becoming more pragmatic about the whole thing but I don’t have strong beliefs other than that first one I mentioned.
I went largely silent on the issue because I didn’t feel that there was open discussion anywhere. There are far more important issues – the polycrisis. These are all my opinions – I have no special insight into the truth.
Mike I do believe your vax opinion voiced on OFW was something like “everyone should just take it to get along”. Your position was a point a great ridicule especially from FE.
You seemed to go quiet because your position was proved to be the position of the gullible and non critical thinking person. Even when great debate was occurring on OFW and here you chose poorly. That I suppose is a hard pill to swallow knowing you were so easily duped and your immune system is now probably permanently altered for the worse. But at least you weren’t alone.
The question is whether you will do it again with the next one. I hope you will show more fortitude and critical thinking.
This makes me so mad. It is typical of the riff-raff on OFW to quote something out of context and continually ignore my explanation of that. That out-of-context quote still comes up from time to time but I ignore it because, well, most of the OFW commenters are easily ignoreable, shall we say. I won’t bother correcting it again because I hate doing the same thing and expecting different results.
Your comment is quite insulting and unbecoming of this site. Perhaps I’ll just leave you to think about it for a while.
Mike you are insulted because your intelligence has been questioned. I don’t give a flying turd how you feel about it. As far as I am concerned you sided with and supported tyrannical rule that forced vaccination. If you suffer from it – know that you chose your end. It had nothing to do with people that could actually see through the BS. Must suck being you knowing you didn’t. I wish you no bad outcomes but thanks to people like you things are just getting worse.
Further insults don’t boost an argument but you’re entitled to your views.
I think it’s ok to have made a mistake in the early days because the social pressure was enormous and the mis-information was overwhelming.
It’s NOT ok to remain silent today while our leaders continue to harm and kill people despite overwhelming evidence that transfecting people with mRNA is dangerous and provides zero benefits.
Rob, I’ve read a lot about the problems with the vaccines. I don’t think any of the predictions has played out. Where such claims are made, I think (i.e. it’s my opinion) that data has been cherry picked or deliberately misinterpreted (e.g. the apparent spike in all cause deaths). The vaccines were supposed to spur deleterious strains but that was happening before the vaccines and all of the most dangerous ones evolved either before the vaccines or before a significant roll out of the vaccines in the places the strains evolved. From the data, it looks like the primary course had a positive effect but I do wish the full story had been promoted and I wish the full testing had been done. The attenuated testing in a panic was wrong.
So, I remain silent because I’m unconvinced that people have been and are being harmed (other than what I’ve said before about boosters). However, a lot of the more detailed arguments go over my head because I’m not versed in the nitty gritty of the inner workings of the body or in epidemiology. I note that mRNA is now being tested for cancer treatment, so it seems this technology is locked in, for better or for worse. Given our overshoot predicament, I can’t say that, overall, it isn’t a good thing if death rates increase. So, in some ways, I hope you’re right.
As I’ve always said, this is my opinion though, despite doubts in the minds of some here, I’m always open to new information that I can assimilate. Politicians and elites will always fuck with us, so there is nothing different about this episode, if that’s what’s happening. The society is so fucked up anyway, so why do some fixate on one aspect of an unsustainable society. Really, the only thing that matters is what we’re doing to life on this planet. I have very little interest in other issues, though, being human, I do dive in from time to time, particularly where it could affect me.
I understand your position but I think the evidence for harms is overwhelming and you and many others are making a serious error by remaining silent about a crime that is harming many citizens and the stability of our society.
My guess is MORT is in play because there is no rational reason to continue, and many reasons to stop, all mRNA injections, forever.
OK, Rob, but I can’t advocate for a position I don’t hold. If you think MORT is in play, then that shouldn’t be suprising since that gene forces denial of reality. So what is actually real? How can we know?
The MORT genes cause us to deny unpleasant realities, not all reality.
In this case the unpleasant reality is that many people transfected themselves and their loved ones with an inadequately tested novel gene therapy technology having several well understood biological mechanisms for serious harm, and plentiful data confirming those harms, despite best efforts to hide the data by the institutions we pay to protect us, and zero biological mechanisms or supporting data for benefits.
One can imagine the MORT forces in doctors are unbelievably powerful given what they did to themselves, their family, and their patients. This explains why the entire healthcare profession has not, and probably never will, acknowledge their error until this generation is dead and replaced by a younger generation.
I don’t think a younger generation will do much better because, a) there is not enough time and b) they will also have the gene.
I guess what is “unpleasant” can vary among people. It can be unpleasant to think that some companies and their officers are getting hugely rich from an activity that doesn’t offer much (or any) benefit. But the potential downsides might seem beneficial to others. Some people feeding on certain ideas can make themselves a lot of money, also. It’s a complicated world that’s difficult to navigate through.
There are species that engage in rational projection and planning for the future. Insects, yeast, trees, animals the bury food for later. Yeasts and earth worms voluntarily go dormant when they run out of resources so they don’t all die (they literally pause reproduction until more food becomes available). Yes humans are dumber than earth worms
That’s very true, monk. There are some species behaviours that do include some notion of planning. Does that counteract the short-term thinking? When there are plenty of nuts, squirrels that store some of them would do better than those that didn’t. If there weren’t plenty of nuts, they wouldn’t starve now to avoid starving later.
Humans aren’t dumber than earth worms, though that seems like a great observation, they just didn’t evolve that capability!
We have overridden many evolved behaviours! Living in mega groups without killing each other (cities), ignoring crying babies, leaving babies in containers for long periods of time, not breast-feeding babies, breaking girls feet for a thousand years, running marathons, being in scary places like central city train stations, wearing shoes with thick soles, shift work, weird religious diets, wearing excessive clothing, choosing not have children for a long time or ever, having the sexes work together in jobs, etc. etc. there are heaps of things humans train ourselves to do that go completely against our biology / evolved behaviours. If I really thought about it I could think of tonnes of examples. Modern humans live almost entirely opposite of what a “natural human” would naturally choose to do.
Yes, some can force themselves to change cultural habits but “evolved behaviours”?
Rob,
I have actually thought that what Tom has written lately is quite profound and insightful. I appreciate how he is trying to tease out meaning for his life in an apparently deterministic universe. I think he could use a read of some of Nick Lane’s books. Tom is one of the few people I have read that thinks that humans might lack the cognitive ability to understand more than we already know (about consciousness and if I read him correctly the universe).
As I approach the end of my life (at 70 and a strong genetic potential for Alzheimer’s – not going to allow myself to go beyond 75) I think a disproportionate amount of time about death. Considering the vast amount of time before my existence (and the universe did ok without me) my ceasing to exist concerns me less and less as it will be again as it was before my existence and I will not be. I’m becoming more ok with that and gaining a certain amount of equanimity.
AJ
I should cut Murphy some slack. He’s a very good and wise man. I think I’m upset that after more than 10 years not a single bright light in the overshoot space has joined me in trying to spread the importance of MORT. I suppose this could mean MORT is incorrect, but I’m pretty sure it’s correct.
I just spent several days culling my deceased father’s and mother’s papers. I’m also thinking about the end and expect I have about 10 years left. I’d like to be a nicer person for the remainder of my time. In the end, whether or not you were a kind person is probably all that matters.
Hi Rob,
I hope that going through your parents’ effects was meaningful and gentle for you and thank you for taking on board that often lonely and uneasy task. It falls to all of us at some point (at least in this current society where we still have houses and personal things to pass onward) and I think it’s a chance like all others to honor, be grateful for and humbled by what had to come before us so we could have the lives we do. I’ve been trying to adopt that attitude when I had to go through boxes and boxes of my mother’s things whilst she is still alive and wanting to keep it all, perhaps I missed the mark quite widely.
I am 53 and think about my demise all the time. I can’t believe I have the fortune to have the rather indulgent life I do when every day I read about the terror of those in Gaza or Sudan or any number of places I could have been born into, in our current day and age. The grief of injustice stuns me into total submission and at once saps my capacity for joy as well as delivers me into a giddy sense of gratitude for the life I have. Then there’s the guilt immediately following the never to be answered Why? that plagues me, stalks me for the imposter and intruder I am to have this life and not another whilst another suffers so. At countless points throughout the day I unconsciously or actively turn off this recurring penance-laced thoughtworm because I have to live in the modern world I was born into, and then wondering if my phone is charged up or opening the fridge for something cool to drink becomes the main task, like WTF, how can this be my life when there’s other human beings who just had their apartment blown up? It’s so surreal but I have to completely disconnect just so I can function.
Just the other day I read about garment workers in Myanmar, thousands of young mostly women and some men corralled in a huge shed sewing 48 pieces an hour for 10 hours making about $3 USD a day. That’s slavery and even worse because we call it a wage and it’s good enough for them. Not only do we get the fossil fuelled energy for nothing, we harness members of our species as energy slaves, too. This is why we have the lives we do and the others do not, and I just can’t make this right in my head. Why am I alive and here? What am I to do about it? And does it make any difference at all?
I think the greatest denial we have is of the vagaries of the roulette of human existence, if we can deny the lives of others of our own kind, that almost makes denial of overshoot understandable.
If I could I would trade any remainder of my life which has already seen more than half-century of ease, comfort and prosperity, to increase that possibility in any other person who has not even begun to experience such a prospect. Of course it doesn’t work that way and I know I am only saying this but I have long come to the conclusion that my cup already has runneth over and I am at peace with what I have experienced in and added to this world for me to leave at any time now. It is also easier for me to farewell this life because I don’t have children, my duty to my remaining parents is nearly complete, and I have already had a long and fulfilling relationship with my husband.
I couldn’t agree more with you, Rob when you say that the remaining days left to us are for us to be kind in whatever form we choose. If anything can pay the piper for what we have been blessed with, our generosity of spirit and compassion are both our remittance and remuneration for being a human being. That is no small consolation prize at this end of ages.
Namaste, friends.
Hi Gaia, that’s a really good point about us denying the luck that created our western good fortune.
I’ve spent too much of my life angry and I don’t want spend my last 10 years angry. I think the solution has something to do with learning to forgive others and myself. I know Christianity is big on forgiveness so I asked a Christian friend for advice but I did not find it helpful. He struggles to forgive like I do.
I saw some other advice for happiness the other day that rang true:
1) Stop regretting the past.
2) Stop worrying about the future.
It seems a bunch of us are a similar age (I just turned 70) and that seems to be true on other forums. Must be something about being born in the early 50s.
My mum had Alzheimers but that doesn’t make me think I’ll definitely get it. It’s one reason why I try to eat healthily. I don’t think my wife would agree with my taking an early exit, though I do think about that subject from time to time. I wouldn’t have a clue about how to go about it, though, and don’t really want a discussion on it but I have mentioned that assisted dying should be one of the few medical services available to stop extending life and making the population problem worse.
I’d go along with the notion that we might not have the cognitive ability to understand much more than we already do but I wouldn’t really be surprised if significant leaps in understanding were still possible. I wonder how much would be retained as civilisation collapses. It could well be down to word of mouth eventually and that can distort all sorts of stories.
That’s a lot of carbon to meditate.
Why not hire a yoga coach from your home town?
That would support the local economy, with very little burned carbon, and would demonstrate you are walking your talk.
WASF. Even the oracle is incapable of setting a good example.
The outright hypocrisy of those who are overshoot/climate catastrophe aware is what makes the “conservative right” scream that “green” and “climate” are fake/frauds. Al Gore set the prime example – Do as I say you plebeians, not as I do.
AJ
There’s a lot we could do to reduce emissions with very little real hardship, but we won’t.
Oh dear. I predict lots of airy-fairy videos from Nate until he gets his critical thinking back.
He told us we need to simplify, and he is simpliFLYing
Firstly, most of us here are aware that there will ne nothing done to stop us going over the Seneca cliff, and despite Nate trying to educate people he still only gets a few thousand to watch the videos, not the hundreds of millions that we need to have a chance of changing anything..
I’ve personally come to the belief that it really wont matter what any of us do, there is no stopping the end of civilization. It will happen when it happens.
Perhaps Nate has come to the same conclusion, that life is for living, so enjoy modernity and all it’s benefits while it lasts. Realistically is flying any worse than using a computer to contact people around the world?? None of it is sustainable in any way. Lots more flying might just bring us to the end a bit faster, but in geologic time scales there will be no difference.
Enjoying a lot more carbon than you need for a comfortable life, while it lasts, is a strategy many people follow.
I think it’s wrong, but what I think has zero influence on what others do, so what I think doesn’t matter.
I haven’t flown in 10+ years, and even though I would love to travel I content myself with watching some Youtube videos and trying to live more sustainably. I also think I have a lot of overshoot (having kids) that I did when not aware of the problem, that I have to make up for. Of course if I could do life over again I would never have wasted time going to law school or have any kids (I’d probably be like Gaia and living childless in NZ. Tasmania, or Tierra del Fuego).
AJ
Every word you said is also true for me.
If I knew what I now know I’d probably still have kids. It just gives life meaning, besides being a genetic impulse; my daughter was against kids for a decade (because of the state of the world) but now realises that’s what’s missing in her life so is trying for a kid belatedly (but not too late, these days). I can’t criticise anyone for wanting children.
I’m against flying and any frivolous travel – I’ve only had one vacation in years and that was within NZ, driving. The reasons I rationalise travel for are health, education and family. I will be taking my first trip abroad for 8 years, to see family and friends I left behind in the UK. Leaving behind family was my only regret when moving to NZ. It will probably be the last such trip I ever make.
If I could do it all again, I probably wouldn’t have emigrated and would have focused on sustainability (though I now realise that sustainability within an unsustainable system is impossible). I’d always had an urge to be self reliant but it’s only recently that I’ve been in a position to do something about it (though I recognise that’s probably a cop-out). It’s a shame I’m 70 now (can’t believe it, as I feel as I did 20 years ago, apart from the arthritis in the hands) and left it so long. Luckily my kids have similar views, so I must have done something right.
Hi there AJ,
Hope things are going well for you and your family in the Pacific Northwest, by now you have probably done a full assessment of your trees after that ice storm and worked out what you need to do, it’s never ending maintenance I know and what would we do without chainsaws?
I was a bit chuffed that you thought I might be some sort of example in choosing to be childless but truth be told, I feel that I’ve overabused that one redeeming attribute by some of our family’s other activities, especially of late in getting my mother’s property ready for sale (and it’s nearly there, I really can’t quite believe it even after 4 months of unrelenting work). I also fly regularly between two climate zones and although it is for my health and for the time being there is no other viable alternative, it does hit me as being hypocritical every time.
But maybe my self beratement is just that and whatever we do now isn’t going to make one iota of difference in the big picture. I remember when I went back to the States 5 years ago to help my father-in-law after the death of my mother-in-law (see, there’s another example of me jet-setting around the globe!). It was only the second time I went back in nearly 20 years and both times for family emergencies. Having lived in Tasmania for all the while and becoming more and more a hermit and ever more sufficient in our own fruit, I was astounded to see the gargantuan warehouses that people shop in aka Costco, where even the trolleys were the size of a small car. It horrified me that 12 apples were sold sandwiched between rigid plastic forms that encased each individual apple. It struck me then that all the effort I took trying to reduce, reuse and recycle in my 20 years of rural living would be wiped out in a nanosecond by the existence of normal suburban living in America. This was even before I truly became overshoot aware, but the sense of futility of it all was overwhelming.
It’s always futile to try to make changes of our past, for better or worse. I am respectful that everyone did have the lives they did because that led to your authentic selves and besides, what is left to us now but our choices, come what may? I am especially grateful and humbled that all here have a clear sense of wanting to do less harm knowing what we do and to actively help reduce suffering as they encounter it in whatever form. In the end analysis, that may be the only true thing that defines us as species.
Namaste, friends.
Flying is the worst possible thing though. Nate’s trip was probably 4.5 metric tons CO2 equivalent. The average American was responsible for emitting 14.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide (tCO₂) in 2022 for the whole year. Just a couple of flights per year make more carbon emissions than a low income person makes in an entire year from all of their living. These were very rough figures, but I hope to make the point that flying is orders of magnitude worse than all other personal choices one can make to reduce their carbon use
B today on mining.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/we-are-not-mining-with-renewable
Not bad. I’d need to read it again but I got the impression that there were too many openings for the optimists to come back on.
With a greatly diminished population, we may find that the minerals in our decaying cities and infrastructure are more than enough.
I live rurally. There are so many decaying resources lying around on local farms in the “I might need it one day” category. They may very well need it one day and then I ponder what tools and energy will be available to convert / transform it to a usable form? A good friend who is overshoot aware reckons you can never have too many hacksaw blades. Take that as a prep tip Rob 😀
That’s a good preptip. Right up there with never too many buckets.
Spare bike tyre tubes is also on the list. It’s quite a long list. A lot of items involve steel like corrugated iron and stainless steel benches.
Here in NZ the number one selling vehicle for a few years now has been the Ford Ranger (https://www.ford.co.nz/showroom/future-vehicle/next-gen-ranger/) a classic 4×4 beast mainly driven as a status symbol around cities and to take the kids to school. Same friend reckons he might write a book for life after fossil fuels “101 Uses of a dead Ford Ranger”. One of the reasons to have hacksaw blades on the list. And socket wrenches. 🙂
My dad died at 72 and my mom at 77 which means I’ve probably got about 10 years left.
Not so hard to prep for 10 years. I probably have enough hacksaws and buckets to make it.
Here is a comment from Steve Bull:
Scale is an important barrier for recycling. But so is straight up feasibility. There are many materials that can’t be recycled for cost or technical reasons.
Then there’s the issue of inevitable inefficiencies in the recycling process. Even if we recycled 99% of everything, which we could never achieve, that 1% leakage means we eventually run out.
so true Rob, well said!
I’ll let you know if Elon thanks me for setting him straight and volunteers to bury a few of his billions to set a good example.
Interesting intelligent discussion on the risk of nuclear war and how it will likely unfold.
Chris Hedges “The Death of Israel: How a Settler Colonial State Destroyed Itself”
Very good talk.
Must watch discussion between Dr. Bret Weinstein and Tucker Carlson on the mass invasion/migration of people into the US, and the possible connection to biological warfare and the mRNA transfections. If you’re short of time skip ahead to about 1:02:00.
I don’t think Tucker Carlson is a very trustworthy source on this issue. Especially given the comments he made about immigrants on his show.
I have not seen Tucker do anything to make me question his integrity. But I also only have maybe a total of 5 hours following him so my database is small. What have you seen that concerns you?
I have seen 10 or 20 hours of interviews by Tucker. He is “right” (correct) on maybe 75% of what he talks about. He likes Trump, which I think is a mistake as big as liking Biden or Obama. He is a climate change denier and has just bought into the right wing talking points (sure the “green” transition is fallacy but climate change is basically settled science). If anything he seems too open to any idea without rigorous skepticism (think Alex Jones, et al).
AJ
Some intelligent dissidents think Weinstein’s theory is rubbish.
None of the leading covid dissidents are overshoot aware which means they have no solid foundation for their observations.
I’m still very confused.
The migrants at the southern border aren’t planning on doing anything like this are they?
No, I imagine most migrants want a job and are willing to accept a lower hourly wage than most resident Americans, just like my fellow Polaks did in the UK, causing social unrest and Brexit. One big difference with the US is there’s a lot more angry people with guns.
We are in severe overshoot and need our population to go down. Here in Canada I would close the borders to achieve population reduction. Can’t speak for the US.
In the U.S., I would do the same although with limited exceptions.
But global population won’t be affected.
It’s too late to get a global agreement. Every country for itself.
However, every country for itself doesn’t help the global situation. What would stabilising the Canadian population achieve? Not that it’s likely that its borders would be closed.
By the way, Eliot Jacobson advocates for completely open borders, as mentioned in this interview:
There’d be a better chance Canadians could feed themselves without diesel and fertilizer, and fewer Canadians would suffer.
Given Canada’s low population density, it may be able to feasibly do that. Most other countries are in deep trouble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_arable_land_density
Some other countries that might be able to feed themselves include but are not limited to Russia, Argentina, and Australia.
Yes, it’s a big problem.
I read The Alchemy of Air which is a history of the Haber-Bosch process that makes fertilizer from natural gas. It talked about how close the world was to starvation as the bird guano deposits were running out and Haber Bosch had not yet been invented.
That was with about 1 billion people. Now we have 8 billion.
https://un-denial.com/2016/02/03/book-review-the-alchemy-of-air-by-thomas-hager/
Wow! I never thought about this but it makes perfect sense.
Almost every drug ad ends with a long list of potential side-effects that makes you wonder who in their right mind would ever buy the drug after listening to the ad?
Duh. Drug ads are not intended to sell drugs.
Covid is truly mind boggling.
Every time you think you’ve discovered all the slimy things hidden under rocks, another one appears.
This is the future that has been promised and believed to be just around the corner by 99.99 % of the population. To their credit it is a well made documentary.
We could do a lot of things if we had unlimited energy. It’s too bad we wasted so much of our fossil energy.
Thanks Kira, that ‘documentary’, which is of course pure fiction is so funny. Firstly they didn’t bother to explain how they will overcome cosmic radiation, secondly they didn’t bother to say what happens when they find there is no atmosphere around the new planet, or perhaps just no oxygen.
Then they think people after they die will be jettisoned into space after death instead of recycling their organic matter.
I wonder what happens when they come across a field of micro meteorites not much bigger than grains of sand at a speed of 4% speed of light. That’s around 43,000,000 Kph compared to the fastest bullet speed of 4,500Kph. The spacecraft will be pelted with tiny bullets that are going 10,000 times the speed of the fastest bullet!! LOL, the hull will be penetrated multiple times very quickly in it’s voyage.
I wonder what happens to the fusion chamber when penetrated multiple times by space dust?? LOL
No humans will ever arrive at Proxima Centuri B alive….
Have a look at this video of ‘The Slow Mo guys’ (around the 10 minute mark) of a bullet from a rifle at the 2-4Kph speed, go through 1/2 inch plate steel..
Then think of anything hitting the spacecraft at 43,000,000Kph…
The particle (and object) impact problem is worse than you depicted. It is implied that the particles are stationary and only the ship is moving fast – that is almost impossible.
The only solution is a giant almost spherical ship with ;
– a circumference of about 24,000 miles.
– sufficient gravity to allow a 50 mile thick gas shield (mostly nitrogen).
– giant magnetic field probably useful.
– and another even bigger ship (ahead) that mops up the big stuff (lets call that one Jupiter).
– and a star that tags along as the energy source.
LOL! Perfect!
You could add the requirement for an unbelievably complex nano-machine, that self-replicates for free over the entire surface of the planet, and that uses a photon of light to split a water molecule, and the resulting waste oxygen stops the protective atmosphere from evaporating away into space, and this oxygen is sufficiently attractive to an electron that it enables a self-sustaining and free source of complex plants and animals for food.
All my thoughts exactly hideaway.
Following is a comment by Don Stewart over at the Surplus Energy Economics comment section which I liked a lot.
Public Reaction to Unknown Risk
Consider a study in Nature Communications. It discovered that humans hate the unknown so much that we’d rather experience punishment. In that study—which I covered in Scarcity Brain—participants had to click rocks on a screen.
Once they clicked a rock, it would overturn and reveal whether a virtual snake was hiding underneath. The participants received a painful electric shock if the rock hid a snake.
Along the way, the scientists altered how predictable finding a snake was.
The main finding: the participants became most stressed when they were least able to predict whether a rock hid a snake.
They became the sweatiest. Their eyes the most saucer like.
But the wildest and most important aspect of this study was this: When participants were more confident they’d be painfully shocked, they were less stressed than when they felt like getting shocked was a coin flip.
My comment: I have been a doomer for quite a while. I find it less stressful than trying to keep up with “we should do” advice.
Simplicius the Thinker thinks the US is trying to do the right thing and will succeed at creating a two state solution.
Canadian Prepper thinks the US is gearing up for WWIII with Iran.
Who is right?
Those sulfur emissions are technically still a form of pollution, but If this is what happens when that pollution is removed, we might need it.
There’s no doubt a good reason to reduce sulfur emmisions.
But accelerating the climate to a state incompatible with civilzation is probably worse.
Good one today from Hideaway @ POB:
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-jan-25-2024/#comment-769510
It’s just bizarre that people appear to actually believe that industrial civilisation can be saved and that if we just build enough so-called renewables then it’s job done on that front. Sadly, that seems to be the view of the vast majority of people, which shows just how much trouble we’re in.
You’re right. In fact it’s so bizarre, and so common, that you need a theory like MORT to explain it.
There’s a level above humans are a species. You’re almost there Mike. 🙂
I think I got there a while ago, Rob. Humans being a species is all that is needed to explain the behaviour, bizarre though it seems.
I did a quick skim of the latest WEF report to see what our elites are worried about.
Their top concerns for 10 years out seem pretty accurate with a focus on environmental problems and resource shortages.
Their top concerns for the next 2 years seem to validate Dr. Varki’s MORT theory by focusing on issues that they might have some ability to influence.
A threat that is 10 years out that they don’t know what to do about is not so unpleasant that it must be denied.
Further evidence for MORT being in play is that nuclear war is missing from both the 2 and 10 year threats, presumably because it is so unpleasant that they can’t even mention it, especially when their policies are increasing the nuclear threat.
Click to access WEF_The_Global_Risks_Report_2024.pdf
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/1/31/defunding-unrwa-is-worse-than-collective-punishment
They forgot New Zealand in the list.
I guess NZ hasn’t suspended funding because it didn’t plan a further contribution for a few months, anyway. But it’s a crazy decision by those countries, anyway. I can’t think of a rational explanation for it.
Some possible good news from one of the war journalists I trust, Simplicius the Thinker.
The US may be trying to stand down from a war with Iran, there’s a possible deal in the works to end the Gaza genocide, and the Ukraine leadership may implode soon.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-13124-secret-back-channel
I wonder when the meltwater pulses will start as a result of climate change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltwater_pulse_1A
When we trigger a meltwater pulse, we can kiss most coastal cities goodbye.
Rob,
Has no one on this website read Canadian Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy?? I read it so long ago I have forgotten most of it (comes with being 70+ years old). BUT some of her imagery is so prophetic it is hard to ignore. Such as coming to the new shoreline and seeing all the old skyscrapers of the city far offshore standing/slowly falling into the now advancing ocean. Or the new religion based on a worship of nature. ????
AJ
Thanks for the tip. I’ve added the trilogy to my queue.