Category: Essay

Denial and Depression: An Informal Survey and Analysis

I belong to a group that discusses human overshoot.

I recently conducted an informal survey of members to see if anything could be learned from the relationship between denial of reality and depression.

I present here a summary of the survey and my analysis.

The survey consisted of 6 statements and participants were asked to check each statement they agreed with:

  1. Humans are in overshoot.
  2. There is no “happy” solution to overshoot.
  3. There is no life after death.
  4. I had above average depression in youth.
  5. I had above average depression before learning of overshoot.
  6. I had above average depression after learning of overshoot.

The first 3 statements were used to estimate the level of denial of reality as follows:

  • If someone disagrees with each of statements 1-3 then they fully deny reality.
  • If someone agrees with each of statements 1-3 then they do not deny reality.
  • If someone agrees with 1 or 2 of the first 3 statements then they partially deny reality.

An analysis of the data showed:

  • 3% of members deny reality.
  • 42% of members partially deny reality.
  • 55% of members do not deny reality.
  • About 95% of members believe that humans are in overshoot and that no happy solution is possible.
  • 55% of members are currently depressed.
  • 15% of members have been depressed throughout life.
  • 33% of members were depressed before believing in overshoot.
  • 27% of members were not depressed until they believed in overshoot.
  • 36% of members are not and have never been depressed, and 50% of these believe in life after death.

To put this data into context:

  • Google says that 8-10% of all citizens are depressed.
  • My observations suggest at least 99% of all citizens are partially or fully in denial.

I drew the following conclusions from this informal survey:

  • Being depressed significantly increases your chance of accepting reality.
  • Accepting reality significantly increases your chance of being depressed.
  • You can significantly reduce your chance of being depressed by believing in life after death.
  • To maximize your chance of happiness you should fully deny reality.

A larger sample size, more and better designed questions, and a better survey method would be required to draw definitive conclusions, but I see evidence here that supports Varki’s theory.

book review: The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life by Nick Lane

Nick Lane has long been one of my favorite science writers, setting aside Varki of course who will always have a special place in my heart.

Nick Lane’s last book “Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution” discussed the 10 most important inventions of evolution: the origin of life, DNA, photosynthesis, the complex cell, sex, movement, sight, hot blood, consciousness, and death. I read the book 4 times, was enthralled each time, and no doubt will read it again.

An earlier book by Nick Lane, “Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World” discussed the amazing transformation of our planet by photosynthesis. After reading this book I look at grass with different eyes. And I love to tell the story of oxygen to any soul who will listen.

In his latest book “The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life” Lane has outdone himself.

The book is sweeping in scope, tackles the most cosmic question, as well as some important earthly questions, is beautifully written, and reads like a page turning mystery thriller.

There is so much here, where to begin?

Lane presents the latest science on the origin of life and makes a compelling case that prokaryotic (simple single cell) life is probably common throughout the universe because all that is required is rock, water, CO2 and energy, all of which are found within alkaline hydrothermal vents on geologically active planets, of which there are 40 billion in our galaxy alone, and probably a similar number in each of the other 100 billion galaxies.

Life emerges as a gradual and predictable transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. Life is not some spiritual mystery, but rather a predictable outcome of the fact that the universe abhors an energy gradient, and life is its best mechanism for degrading energy.

This theory elegantly explains why LUCA (the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all life) and all life that followed is chemiosmotic meaning that it powers itself with a strange highly unintuitive mechanism that pumps protons across a membrane.

The human body, for example, pumps a staggering 10 to the 21st power protons per second of life.

If life is nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest, death is nothing but that electron come to rest.

Lane then turns his attention to the origin of complex life: the eukaryotic cell. All of the multicellular life on earth that normally interests us such as plants, animals, fungi, and hot girls or guys, have a common eukaryote ancestor, and it appears this ancestor emerged only once on earth about 2 billion years after the emergence of simple life. Lane considers this the black hole of biology. A vital but rarely acknowledged singularity that requires explanation.

Lane presents a theory to explain the emergence of the eukaryote and shows that unlike simple life which is probable and predictable, complex life is improbable and unpredictable. It depended on a rare endosymbiosis (merging) of prokaryotes (simple cells) somewhat analogous to a freak accident. The resulting LECA (Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor), having 2 genomes that needed to cooperate and evolve in harmony, was probably fragile, sickly, and vulnerable to extinction which forced it to evolve many unusual characteristics common to complex life such as the nucleus, sex, two sexes, programmed cell death, germline-soma distinction, and trade-offs between fitness and fertility, adaptability and disease, and ageing and death.

As the endosymbiont (cell within the cell) evolved into mitochondria (the energy powerhouses), eukaryotes were able to break through the energy per gene barrier that constrained the morphological complexity of bacteria and archaea for 2 billion years. Suddenly there was enough energy to power the evolution of complex structure, multi-cellular life, nail salons, and the iPhone.

How lucky that our minds, the most improbable biological machines in the universe, are now a conduit for this restless flow of energy, that we can think about why life is the way it is.

This theory will be particularly satisfying to students of human overshoot who understand that abundant non-renewable energy is the main reason for the size and complexity of today’s human civilization.

The universe, life, and complexity are all about energy.

I am a fan and student of Varki’s theory that human success is the result of a rare simultaneous mutation for denial of reality and an extended theory of mind.

Combining Nick Lane’s theory with Ajit Varki’s theory, and an understanding of our place on the overshoot curve, leads one to an amazing and almost mystical conclusion.

Intelligent life with an extended theory of mind is the result of a rare and unpredictable double mutation, layered on the emergence of complex cells, another rare and unpredictable accident. Intelligent life in the universe is therefore rare and will probably exist for only a short time before its intelligence fueled overshoot, and denial thereof, causes it to go extinct.

The fact that we are alive to witness and understand a very rare peak of intelligent life in the universe is cause for genuine awe.

We should savor it while it lasts.

Here is Nick Lane talking about some of the ideas in his book. I much preferred the book because the subject is too deep to be covered in a 30 minute talk but it’s a taste if you don’t have time for the full meal.

Here is an excerpt from the book’s epilogue.

All life on earth is chemiosmotic, depending on proton gradients across membranes to drive carbon and energy metabolism. We have explored the possible origins and consequences of this peculiar trait. We’ve seen that living requires a continuous driving force, an unceasing chemical reaction that produces reactive intermediates, including molecules like ATP, as by-products. Such molecules drive the energy-demanding reactions that make up cells. This flux of carbon and energy must have been even greater at the origins of life, before the evolution of biological catalysts, which constrained the flow of metabolism within narrow channels. Very few natural environments meet the requirements for life – a continuous, high flux of carbon and usable energy across mineral catalysts, constrained in a naturally microcompartmentalised system, capable of concentrating products and venting waste. While there may be other environments that meet these criteria, alkaline hydrothermal vents most certainly do, and such vents are likely to be common on wet rocky planets across the universe. The shopping list for life in these vents is just rock (olivine), water and CO2, three of the most ubiquitous substances in the universe. Suitable conditions for the origin of life might be present, right now, on some 40 billion planets in the Milky Way alone.

Alkaline hydrothermal vents come with both a problem and a solution: they are rich in H2, but this gas does not react readily with CO2. We have seen that natural proton gradients across thin semiconducting mineral barriers could theoretically drive the formation of organics, and ultimately the emergence of cells, within the pores of the vents. If so, life depended from the very beginning on proton gradients (and iron–sulphur minerals) to break down the kinetic barriers to the reaction of H2 and CO2. To grow on natural proton gradients, these early cells required leaky membranes, capable of retaining the molecules needed for life without cutting themselves off from the energising flux of protons. That, in turn, precluded their escape from the vents, except through the strait gates of a strict succession of events (requiring an antiporter), which enabled the coevolution of active ion pumps and modern phospholipid membranes. Only then could cells leave the vents, and colonise the oceans and rocks of the early earth. We saw that this strict succession of events could explain the paradoxical properties of LUCA, the last universal common ancestor of life, as well as the deep divergence of bacteria and archaea. Not least, these strict requirements can explain why all life on earth is chemiosmotic – why this strange trait is as universal as the genetic code itself.

This scenario – an environment that is common in cosmic terms, but with a strict set of constraints governing outcomes – makes it likely that life elsewhere in the universe will also be chemiosmotic, and so will face parallel opportunities and constraints. Chemiosmotic coupling gives life unlimited metabolic versatility, allowing cells to ‘eat’ and ‘breathe’ practically anything. Just as genes can be passed around by lateral gene transfer, because the genetic code is universal, so too the toolkit for metabolic adaptation to very diverse environments can be passed around, as all cells use a common operating system. I would be amazed if we did not find bacteria right across the universe, including our own solar system, all working in much the same way, powered by redox chemistry and proton gradients across membranes. It’s predictable from first principles.

But if that’s true, then complex life elsewhere in the universe will face exactly the same constraints as eukaryotes on earth – aliens should have mitochondria too. We’ve seen that all eukaryotes share a common ancestor which arose just once, through a rare endosymbiosis between prokaryotes. We know of two such endosymbioses between bacteria (Figure 25) – three, if we include Parakaryon myojinensis – so we know that it is possible for bacteria to get inside bacteria without phagocytosis. Presumably there must have been thousands, perhaps millions, of cases over 4 billion years of evolution. It’s a bottleneck, but not a stringent one. In each case, we would expect to see gene loss from the endosymbionts, and a tendency to greater size and genomic complexity in the host cell – exactly what we do see in Parakaryon myojinensis. But we’d also expect intimate conflict between the host and the endosymbiont – this is the second part of the bottleneck, a double whammy that makes the evolution of complex life genuinely difficult. We saw that the first eukaryotes most likely evolved quickly in small populations; the very fact that the common ancestor of eukaryotes shares so many traits, none of which are found in bacteria, implies a small, unstable, sexual population. If Parakaryon myojinensis is recapitulating eukaryotic evolution, as I suspect, its extremely low population density (just one specimen in 15 years of hunting) is predictable. Its most likely fate is extinction. Perhaps it will die because it has not successfully excluded all its ribosomes from its nuclear compartment, or because it has not yet ‘invented’ sex. Or perhaps, chance in a million, it will succeed, and seed a second coming of eukaryotes on earth.

I think we can reasonably conclude that complex life will be rare in the universe – there is no innate tendency in natural selection to give rise to humans or any other form of complex life. It is far more likely to get stuck at the bacterial level of complexity. I can’t put a statistical probability on that. The existence of Parakaryon myojinensis might be encouraging for some – multiple origins of complexity on earth means that complex life might be more common elsewhere in the universe. Maybe. What I would argue with more certainty is that, for energetic reasons, the evolution of complex life requires an endosymbiosis between two prokaryotes, and that is a rare random event, disturbingly close to a freak accident, made all the more difficult by the ensuing intimate conflict between cells. After that, we are back to standard natural selection. We’ve seen that many properties shared by eukaryotes, from the nucleus to sex, are predictable from first principles. We can go much further. The evolution of two sexes, the germline–soma distinction, programmed cell death, mosaic mitochondria, and the trade-offs between aerobic fitness and fertility, adaptability and disease, ageing and death, all these traits emerge, predictably, from the starting point that is a cell within a cell. Would it all happen over again? I think that much of it would. Incorporating energy into evolution is long overdue, and begins to lay a more predictive basis to natural selection.

Energy is far less forgiving than genes. Look around you. This wonderful world reflects the power of mutations and recombination, genetic change – the basis for natural selection. You share some of your genes with the tree through the window, but you and that tree parted company very early in eukaryotic evolution, 1.5 billion years ago, each following a different course permitted by different genes, the product of mutations, recombination, and natural selection. You run around, and I hope still climb trees occasionally; they bend gently in the breeze and convert the air into more trees, the magic trick to end them all. All of those differences are written in the genes, genes that derive from your common ancestor but have now mostly diverged beyond recognition. All those changes were permitted, selected, in the long course of evolution. Genes are almost infinitely permissive: anything that can happen will happen.

But that tree has mitochondria too, which work in much the same way as its chloroplasts, endlessly transferring electrons down its trillions upon trillions of respiratory chains, pumping protons across membranes as they always did. As you always did. These same shuttling electrons and protons have sustained you from the womb: you pump 1021 protons per second, every second, without pause. Your mitochondria were passed on from your mother, in her egg cell, her most precious gift, the gift of living that goes back unbroken, unceasing, generation on generation, to the first stirrings of life in hydrothermal vents, 4 billion years ago. Tamper with this reaction at your peril. Cyanide will stem the flow of electrons and protons, and bring your life to an abrupt end. Ageing will do the same, but slowly, gently. Death is the ceasing of electron and proton flux, the settling of membrane potential, the end of that unbroken flame. If life is nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest, death is nothing but that electron come to rest.

This energy flux is astonishing and unforgiving. Any change over seconds or minutes could bring the whole experiment to an end. Spores can pull it off, descending into metabolic dormancy from which they must feel lucky to emerge. But for the rest of us … we are sustained by the same processes that powered the first living cells. These processes have never changed in a fundamental way; how could they? Life is for the living. Living needs an unceasing flux of energy. It’s hardly surprising that energy flux puts major constraints on the path of evolution, defining what is possible. It’s not surprising that bacteria keep doing what bacteria do, unable to tinker in any serious way with the flame that keeps them growing, dividing, conquering. It’s not surprising that the one accident that did work out, that singular endosymbiosis between prokaryotes, did not tinker with the flame, but ignited it in many copies in each and every eukaryotic cell, finally giving rise to all complex life. It’s not surprising that keeping this flame alive is vital to our physiology and evolution, explaining many quirks of our past and our lives today. How lucky that our minds, the most improbable biological machines in the universe, are now a conduit for this restless flow of energy, that we can think about why life is the way it is. May the proton-motive force be with you!

Why is my message so unpopular?

No one supports a planned contraction of our population and economy.

Yet everything gets better with fewer people.

Those that are on the fence with respect to having children will decide to have none. Those that want a family can still enjoy one child. If we are worried about inappropriate selection for males we can provide a tax incentive for having females.

Those that care about growth and having more stuff can be assured that as the population falls there will be more resources per capita available, especially if we can induce the population to fall faster than the depletion rate of non-renewable resources.

There will be much less chance of war. There will be less traffic. Housing will be more affordable. Forests and wildlife will bounce back. The air and waters will clear. We will have more land available to grow food the old way when fossil energy is depleted. We will have space to move when climate change forces relocation.

To be open and honest, there will be a large reduction in paper wealth and credit with a shrinking economy, but that’s going to happen soon regardless of what we do. Instead of waiting for a crash we can anticipate the contraction and implement policies to ensure some fairness between rich and poor.

There will also be a lot less advanced technology. But again, that’s going to happen soon regardless of what we do due to depletion of non-renewable energy and other resources.

Fewer iPhones and more forests and fish for our grandchildren is a very good trade-off.

What I’m really talking about is getting ahead of the curve in a planned, controlled, and civilized manner. Rather than letting nature take over in a chaotic painful collapse.

I think it’s a hopeful positive message. Something to fight for.

Why doesn’t every wise leader and concerned grandparent and environmental activist and climate scientist and biologist in the world scream this message every chance they get?

The limits to growth today are so obvious and in our face that the time is ripe to start a new narrative about how we might live in a finite world.

I suspect the majority of citizens would support the idea of a stable or falling population. But I also suspect the majority would oppose big government forcing population reduction and economic contraction policies.

Breaking through this opposition will require limits to growth awareness.

And limits to growth awareness will require us to find a way to override our evolved denial.

It would help if more people who understand what is going on would speak up.

Silence guarantees a despot rising to blame others, war, and chaos.

Overpopulation Denial

Most non-domesticated life on earth is in decline and about 200 species a day are going extinct due to a wide range of environmental problems. Many humans are at risk of being harmed or killed by related problems this century.

All of the many problems are caused by the same thing: humans have used non-renewable energy to explode their population from 1 billion to 7 billion in 100 years, and now consume so large a share of the earth’s resources that almost all non-domesticated species are in decline.

Note that I use the word “resources” here in a broad context meaning land, water, minerals, photosynthetic output, biomass, and the planet’s capacity to recycle waste products.

The total quantity of resources consumed by humans equals the human population times the average consumption per person.

About 75% of the world’s population are poor and do not consume much more than is required for subsistence, although they desire and are working hard to consume more. The privileged 25% are working hard to maintain and grow their level of resource consumption and the majority are unwilling to contemplate a voluntary reduction in consumption, in part because they know that if they reduce their consumption others will consume the freed resources.

This dynamic makes it difficult to reduce the total human footprint by reducing per capita consumption.

Therefore, any progress towards solving the problems caused by human overshoot must come from a reduction in human population.

Paraphrasing Albert Bartlett, “There is no problem on earth that does not improve with fewer people”.

Establishing an effective and fair global population reduction policy will be very difficult and may be impossible for many reasons, not least of which it conflicts with what our genes want to do.

It may also be too late for a reduction in birth rate to prevent the worst consequences of overshoot. We can however say with certainty that a rising population will make things worse and a falling population will make things better. Therefore we should try to get the population down regardless of the prognosis.

Given that population reduction is the only thing that might help our predicament, why do we not even discuss it?

More to the point, why do those individuals and organizations with the best understanding of the seriousness of our predicament not speak out for population reduction? I am talking about environmental organizations, climate scientists, biologists, ecologists, deep greens, peak oilers, doomers, you name it. Almost without exception they are silent on population reduction.

I see the same dynamic in activist friends and acquaintances who deeply care about the planet and who work hard on environmental and social issues but never mention population reduction, despite the fact that population reduction is the only thing that might improve long-term environmental and social issues.

I understand that it may be impossible to gather enough political support, and that we might conclude that unintended consequences of population reduction policies are worse than the problems we are trying to solve. But at least we would have had the conversation and made a deliberate decision to not change course.

As it stands today we are racing towards a cliff without even discussing if we should slow down or change direction.

I like to think that if citizens understood that the choice was between having one child with some chance of a happy life versus having several children with no chance of a happy life, I think most people would choose a small family. Especially if they had confidence that the rules would be applied to rich and poor alike, and that cheaters would be punished. But if we don’t discuss it we’ll never find out if I am right or wrong. We’ll just blindly go off the cliff.

The fact that we do not discuss the only thing that might actually improve the future is amazing. I concluded several years ago that denial must be genetic. I later found a theory for evolved denial by Ajit Varki and Danny Brower and it is the reason this site exists.

Today, Alice Friedemann of the Energy Skeptic blog published a paper addressing this issue by Roy Beck & Leon Kolankiewicz titled “The Environmental Movement’s Retreat from Advocating U. S. Population Stabilization (1970-1998): A First Draft of History“.

It’s a long rambling paper on an important topic so I thought it worthwhile to summarize its key points here. Note that the paper has a U.S. focus with little analysis of what happened in other areas of the world.

What changed from 1970 to 2000?

  • In 1970 the need for population control was broadly understood and accepted by political leaders, business leaders, environmental organizations, universities, and the public. Strong environmental laws were passed. Earth Day had population control as a priority.
  • Thirty years later in 2000 the problems caused by population growth were still discussed but there was no discussion of the underlying population growth problem. The US population had increased by 70 million (33%) since 1970 . There was more nitrogen oxide pollution, more CO2, more endangered species, and fewer wetlands. Environmental groups no longer had population control as a priority and did not oppose laws that increased immigration. Earth Day did not mention population control.

What caused these changes from 1970 to 2000?

  • In 1970 the fertility rate of the white population fell below replacement level. All population growth after 1970 came from immigration and higher birth rates of the non-white population.
  • Environmental groups backed away from population control as a priority for fear of membership and donation loss due to potential charges of racism and the increased demographic influence of immigrants. Environmental groups competing for members and donations focused on issues that could demonstrate short-term successes rather than issues like population control that take decades to show results. It is much harder to raise funds for preventing future problems than for fixing an existing problem. In summary, protection of environmental institutions took precedence over protection of the environment.
  • Business used donations (or the lack thereof) to influence environmental groups to drop population control as a priority because they wanted the economic growth created by immigration and reduced labor costs from an expanding labor pool.
  • Politicians did not want to touch the population issue because of the increased voting power of immigrants.
  • The Catholic Church aggressively opposed any group in favor of population control, especially after abortion was legalized. It appears the Catholic Church had a large influence on government population policies but historians need to research this to confirm.
  • Women’s issues emerged as a priority which shifted the narrative from racially sensitive population control to politically correct empowerment of women.
  • A view emerged within the left that most environmental problems were caused by unfair distribution of resources and capitalism rather than overpopulation. Priorities shifted from population control to changing the economic system.
  • A view emerged that it was wrong to block immigration and to conserve resources for future generations while poor people struggled in developing countries.

The paper concludes with the following statement:

Historians need to explain how an environmental issue as fundamental as U.S. population growth could have moved from center-stage within the American environmental movement to virtual obscurity in just twenty years. For the American environment itself, the ever-growing demographic pressures ignored by the environmental establishment showed no signs of abating on their own as the nation prepared to enter the twenty-first century.

I found the paper to be a disappointment. I think it did a good job of explaining why environmental groups dropped population control as a priority. In summary they chose to give higher priority to protecting themselves than the environment. That’s no surprise.

A much more important issue that was not addressed was why did the majority of the public drop population control as a priority? Given that public sentiment shifted it is no wonder that political leaders, business leaders, universities, and environmental groups followed suit.

What really happened? I have a theory.

In 1970 economic growth was strong. The middle class was healthy and not threatened. Most white families, for whatever reason, had already decided to have 2 or fewer children. Making population control a priority did not require lifestyle changes for most. There was surplus wealth to spend on environmental protection laws and enforcement. People who understood the threat of overpopulation could form organizations and raise funds to support themselves.

By 2000, economic growth had slowed. The middle class was in decline and feeling threatened. Recent immigrants with higher birthrates became a powerful political force and resisted changes to their lifestyles or immigration reductions. Environmental groups chose survival over principles. Government deficits had replaced surpluses. Economic growth was becoming harder to achieve due to depletion of low-cost non-renewable energy. Our monetary system requires growth or else it collapses, however it will not collapse if per capita economic activity decreases as long as total economic activity increases. Therefore continued growth of the population via immigration became necessary to maintain some overall economic growth despite falling real incomes for individuals.

Today, 15 years later, the middle class is under even more pressure because low-cost non-renewable energy continues to deplete and globalization has eroded their standard of living. They see that immigration has not benefited them, seek someone to blame, and many have decided to vote for Trump.

If I am right, it is ironic that economic growth slowed due to the overpopulation related depletion of non-renewable resources which then required a further population increase to maintain some economic growth to avoid collapse. It’s analogous to the positive feedback loop of rising temperatures causing ice loss and methane release.

We have only two paths. We can find a way to break through our evolved denial and proactively act. Or we can let nature act for us.

Why We Want Growth, Why We Can’t Have It, and What This Means

I want to talk a little about growth and why it is such a powerful force in society.

Growth is an interesting denial topic because it is obvious, even to a child or uneducated person, that infinite growth is not possible on a finite planet. Yet growth is a top priority for every country in the world, and most citizens. I have a hunch that most of our leaders and citizens do not understand the real reason they want growth which makes this topic even more interesting.

Albert Bartlett argued that part of the problem is that the human brain does not understand the exponential function. He has a point. I have taken about 10 university level mathematics courses and I still needed to create a little spreadsheet to satisfy myself that Bartlett was correct. Anything that grows exponentially, regardless of how small the exponent is, will eventually explode into a hockey stick. So if you want society to become more sustainable, it is not sufficient to argue that we should reduce our goal of say 4% annual growth to a smaller number. Any growth rate bigger than zero is a problem.

But even without this advanced understanding of exponential growth, it is still obvious that growth creates many problems. Why then does almost everyone want growth?

I think most people want growth because most people want the future to be better for themselves and their children. The logic being that in a growing economy there is a good chance my income and wealth will grow. There are other human behaviors that create a desire for growth such as competition for status, the maximum power principle, and our dopamine response to novelty. But I think most people mainly want the future to be better rather than worse. More is a happy thought. Less is a depressing thought.

There is in fact a much bigger reason to desire growth that few people understand and it has to do with the design of our monetary system.

We have a debt based fractional reserve monetary system. Money is not created at the same time that we create real stuff to buy. Money is created in advance of us creating real stuff to buy. In other words, money is loaned into existence on the promise of it being repaid from future earnings. The mathematics of this system requires growth to pay the interest on debt. I may write another essay to explain this in more detail but for the purposes of this essay please assume these statements as true, because they are.

The real reason growth is so important is not because growth will give us a little more next year, it is because growth gives us A LOT more today.

It’s all about debt. An example is probably the best way to explain this.

Let’s assume you are an environmentally aware person trying to live a low impact life. You need and want a place to live. A small used house will suffice. Lets say it costs $200,000. You have a modest income and you are able to save $10,000 per year. In a no-growth economy the only money available to borrow is surplus money saved by someone else. Therefore a no-growth economy has very little credit available and you would probably have to live with your parents and save for 20 years before you could buy the house. In a growing economy, you can save a down payment for 2 years and then borrow the balance of $180,000 to be repaid over the next 18 years. No other people had to save the $180,000 you borrowed. The $180,000 was created out of thin air on the promise of you repaying it with interest. Even though you only own 10% of the house, you get to enjoy 100% of the house now. You do not have to wait 20 years.

This logic applies to everything we typically purchase on credit like education, cars, furniture, appliances, and vacations. For many people struggling today, this logic also applies to necessities like groceries and gasoline.

Back to the original example. You are a green aware person. You did your best by buying a small used house. To enjoy the house now rather than waiting 20 years you needed an economy that is growing. What are the implications of an economy that is growing at say 3%? Anything that grows at 3% per year will double in size every 25 years (5% doubles in 16 years, 2% doubles in 36 years). So if you live for 75 years in an economy that is growing at 3% then the human footprint will be 8 times larger when you die than when you were born. Eight times! Think about that. Imagine you have a baby today and imagine Earth with 8 x 7=56 billion people and an economy of 8 x $108 = $864 trillion dollars when your child dies. Obviously this is not going to happen and we will destroy our home and most other life if we try to get there.

We all need some form of shelter to survive. A house with furniture and appliances and plumbing really does improve the quality of our lives. But we can’t destroy the planet to have a house. What to do?

There are no easy answers to this conundrum. There may be no answer. Perhaps in the long run we won’t be able to live in a nice house. I need to think more about this but my current belief is that if we could constrain our population to zero growth, and if we adopted policies to ensure the economy does not grow, then it probably means that multiple generations of a family need to share a house. For example, in a richer world, newly weds would move into their grandparent’s home and the grandparents would move into the space vacated by the newly weds in their child’s home. In a poorer world, all 3 generations would live in the same house.

There are many other deep implications of a no-growth world.

Most of the technology we enjoy today requires a large amount of up-front capital. For example, a television takes hundreds of people to design, billion dollar mines to extract the raw materials, billion dollar factories to produce its components, a billion dollar global supply chain of ships and trucks for transport, a many billion dollar energy infrastructure for oil and electricity, a billion dollar industry for television program content creation and fiber optic distribution. None of this is possible without a lot of debt to build and maintain the infrastructure.

It’s quite possible that we won’t be able to have advanced technology products like cars and airplanes and televisions and cell phones in a no-growth world.

A no-growth world also has huge implications for governments. Every country in the world today operates with a deficit which means they spend more than they collect in taxes by borrowing money. This in turn means that most citizens enjoy many more services like health care, education, water, sanitation, security, unemployment insurance, and old age pensions than they pay for. This is only possible when governments have access to large amounts of credit and this is only possible in a growing economy.

Politicians usually get elected by promising things to citizens that cost money. Since all countries are already running large deficits, our leaders are highly motivated to achieve more economic growth because this helps them stay in power. This dynamic also explains why government deficits tend to grow and often become dangerously high.

Banks make money by loaning money and more growth means they can loan more money. A no-growth world would have many fewer banks.

The value of a company is primarily determined by the growth rate of its profits. It’s much easier for a company to grow when the overall economy is growing. Managers are often compensated based on share price and are highly motivated to grow their company.

The concept of retiring and living on a pension depends on growth. If the value of money invested by pension funds in company shares did not grow there would not be sufficient funds for most people to live on at retirement. It may not be possible to retire in a no-growth world.

Last but not least, growth is required to maintain the value of the majority of our wealth which is in the form of debt. Without growth it is not possible to make interest payments and the debt will default and lose its value. This in turn will reduce the value of assets purchased with debt. Goodbye investment portfolios and million dollar shacks in San Francisco. Hello a much poorer world.

Clearly there are some very good reasons for growth. At the same time, growth cannot continue forever due to physical limits, and because we are already destroying the planet with our current footprint.

Today’s myriad economic problems and our weird and unprecedented responses to these problems are primarily due to the fact we have hit limits to growth.

Everything we do and make requires energy. By using external energy, in addition to our muscles, we increase our productivity and ability to create wealth. Energy extraction and consumption must increase for the economy to grow. Efficiency can help, but we have already harvested most of what is possible and are bumping up against the laws of physics for any further efficiency gains.

Most of our energy is fossil carbon which is a depleting non-renewable resource and extraction rates cannot increase without higher energy prices. Higher energy prices, above say $80 (not the current temporary $30 deflation price), are not possible because consumers and governments have already borrowed the maximum that is possible, even at zero interest rates.

Most renewable energy costs more than most non-renewable energy, and renewable energy is dependent on non-renewable energy so the price of both tend to scale together. It is therefore unlikely we could run today’s civilization on renewable energy, but even if we could, switching over would require a huge amount of up-front debt that will not be available in our growth constrained world.

It’s too late to change, and it probably never was possible to continue this lifestyle without cheap fossil energy.

Pain is on the horizon. It can’t be avoided. I think a proactive response of conservation, austerity, and population reduction measures might help by slowing us down in a more controlled manner, rather than our current high-speed trajectory towards a brick wall.

In conclusion, the end of growth is a really big issue.

We are not considering wise strategies to mitigate the problem.

We don’t even talk about it.

We deny the problem exists.

Peak Oil and Low Prices??

I spent a few days over Christmas with my brother. He is bright, has a degree in Engineering Physics, and has discussed (and understood) resource depletion with me over the years.

He said he thought peak oil was no longer an issue due to the current global oil glut and low prices. I tried to explain to him that nothing had changed but I could tell he was not convinced. If my brother feels this way I have no doubt that most other citizens also believe peak oil is a non-issue.

They are wrong. In fact really wrong. The low prices are an indicator that the end game is in sight and that we should be very concerned.

It’s difficult to explain in a few words but here is my attempt…

  • Oil is non-renewable. This means the total quantity of oil is finite.
  • The quantity of oil we can extract and use is dependent on the price. If the price is high we can use more technology, energy, materials, and labor to extract it.
  • Consumers want to minimize their expenditures and companies want to maximize their profits. This means we always exploit the lowest cost sources first. As the low cost sources are depleted the cost of a finite resource will increase.
  • We built our civilization on oil that cost about $20 per barrel and that oil is all gone. What’s left costs on average about $80 to $100 per barrel to extract.
  • It is difficult, maybe impossible, for the economy to grow with oil at $80+. After paying for the energy that every product and service depends on, there is insufficient surplus left to reinvest for growth.
  • The design of our debt based money system requires growth or it collapses. We kept growth going despite high oil prices by reducing the interest rate thereby making it possible for us to afford the higher cost oil by increasing our debt load. This in turn allowed high cost producers like the tar sands, shale oil, and deep water to increase production.
  • This trick of using debt to create growth works well for a while but must come to an end when the total debt reaches a level that is not sustainable even with zero interest rates. We are there now.
  • Because private sector debt is now saturated the global consumer is no longer able to afford $80+ oil. This created an imbalance between supply and demand. The oil industry is a finely tuned “flow” business with a lot of inertia. A small drop in demand can have a large impact on price because global storage capacity is limited, and because oil producers are motivated to produce at the maximum rate because their capital expenditures are already spent and cash flow can keep them alive for a period, even if they sell at a loss. Similarly, countries like Saudi Arabia are motivated to produce at the maximum possible rate, even if prices are low, because they need the cash to pay for the social services that keep them in power.
  • In summary, oil now costs more to produce than consumers can afford. And maybe more than is required for economic growth.
  • The first expected outcome is low prices. Check.
  • The next expected outcome is a reduction in exploration and production investment. Check.
  • The next expected outcome will be oil company bankruptcies and austerity and social unrest in oil producing countries. Starting.
  • The next expected outcome will be a decrease in oil production as existing wells deplete and new wells are not brought on line due to a decrease in investment (see above). Coming soon.
  • The next expected outcome will be a decrease in global GDP because every product and service we make or use requires energy. As energy declines so must GDP. Due to the inherent instability of high debt levels in a no or low growth environment this step may occur at any time and may actually precede a decline in oil production.
  • The next expected outcome may be a deflationary collapse as existing debts can no longer be serviced by a shrinking economy. There is some uncertainty in this step because governments will do everything possible to avoid a collapse and may take extreme measures such as printing and spending money to force inflation. This may work for a while but will end at the same destination by destroying the value of money.
  • In the end the world will one way or the other be much poorer. It may be impossible to invest enough to rebuild oil production to the level we enjoy today, and it will certainly be impossible to invest enough to replace oil with renewable energies as they cost more than today’s $80+ oil we already cannot afford.

A caveat. Economic changes rarely move in a straight line. The oil price has oscillated since the 2008 crisis and may do so again. We can be certain however that with each oscillation the oil that is left in the ground will be more expensive to extract and therefore the trend will and must be bad.

So to answer the opening question, the low oil prices we see today are in fact an indicator that peak oil is upon us now.

What should we do?

There are no good solutions. I believe that aggressive conservation policies are needed. And we should do what we can to reduce our debt level through austerity. Conservation and debt reduction will further reduce economic activity and may cause a depression but we might have some ability to control the contraction rather than being forced to surf an uncontrolled crash.

The good news is that most in the developed world can survive with much less than we currently consume. And an economic contraction will be good for climate change.

The bad news is that economic depressions almost always result in war and war this time will only make things worse, even for the victor, because there are no spoils to capture, and war will burn up what’s left even faster.

COP21 and Air Travel

Earlier I criticized the COP21 agreement for accomplishing nothing to reduce the climate change threat and for leading uninformed citizens to believe things are moving in a positive direction.

It gets worse. I just learned that COP21 does not require countries to reduce air travel.

Long distance travel is one of the most disgraceful things we do as humans. It consumes large quantities of non-renewable fossil energy and releases large quantities of CO2 for a discretionary luxury we call vacation.

Long distance travel is a relatively new phenomenon. Travel was rare or non-existent for most people in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s. During this period the downslope of oil production and the threat of climate change were not in sight, yet we traveled very little, and were at least as happy as today. Hawaii might have been a once in a lifetime trip for a special occasion like a 25th anniversary.

Today the remaining expensive to extract oil is constraining growth which underlies our global economic problems, and climate change threatens the lives of our children, yet we travel more than ever. Most people think they are entitled to travel, and many link their happiness to a mega annual vacation.

It’s obscene.

I went to a climate change meeting of concerned citizens. I proposed we target the high schools to stop their current practice of flying the graduating class to some far away location each year. When I was in high school in the 70’s our big annual trip was to take a yellow school bus to the West Coast Trail and hike for 5 days. No one supported my proposal. “Our children have a right to travel”.

This issue is deep. I have immediate family and close friends that have some understanding of the unfolding climate change disaster yet refuse to change their lifestyles on something as simple and painless as stopping long distance travel.

This behavior might be understandable if they have rationally concluded that climate change is unstoppable and will cause human extinction regardless of what we do, which by the way is quite possibly true, however I don’t think these people have given up.

They just don’t want to make any meaningful sacrifices.

Coincidence or Expected?

Is it coincidence or expected that we are simultaneously facing:

  1. economic collapse
  2. peak oil
  3. runaway climate change

And yet everything appears sort of normal, if you close one eye and squint.

I think it’s to be expected:

  • wealth is proportional to energy consumption
  • wealth growth is facilitated by debt
  • debt requires economic growth
  • economic growth requires increasing energy consumption
  • most energy useful for creating wealth is non-renewable
  • non-renewable means finite
  • the use of anything finite must eventually peak and decline
  • more debt can delay the onset of finite resource decline
  • energy consumption releases CO2
  • CO2 causes temperature rise
  • temperature rise triggers many self-reinforcing feedback loops
  • many self-reinforcing feedback loops acting together cause runaway climate change
  • declining energy causes economic contraction
  • climate change causes economic contraction
  • more debt can temporarily mask economic contraction
  • low interest rates can temporarily make more debt affordable
  • debt growth must eventually stop when it saturates the system
  • economic contraction with high levels of debt causes collapse
  • denial prevents most people from seeing or acting on any of the above
  • forces build until they overwhelm the herd’s faithThen something snaps.

COP21: Doubling Down on Denial

What have we done to date?

  • We set a goal to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees, despite it being clear that the current 1 degree rise is already unsafe.
  • We did absolutely nothing to achieve the goal; we didn’t even try.
  • We emitted enough CO2 to guarantee at least 2 degrees, even if we stopped all emissions today.
  • No one knows for sure, but we may have already triggered self-reinforcing feedback loops that will increase the temperature by a civilization killing 4-6 degrees; the point being that time is of the essence.

What should we have done at COP21?

  • We should have acknowledged the severity of our predicament.
  • We should have discussed the relationship between wealth and climate change; namely that wealth is proportional to energy consumption, CO2 emissions are proportional to energy consumption, and temperature is proportional to accumulated CO2; therefore to mitigate climate change we must reduce our total wealth.
  • We should have discussed the differences between fossil energy and renewable energy, and why the latter do not have the density, quality, or scale to run our advanced civilization.
  • We should have discussed the depletion of fossil energy and why aggressive conservation now would be a really good idea for both climate change and world peace.
  • We should have acknowledged that there are no easy solutions but lifestyle changes to focus on needs rather than wants, and population reduction policies would help.
  • We should have acknowledged that rich people and countries will have to reduce consumption much more than the poor if we want to maintain peace.
  • We should have acknowledged the good news that most people in developed countries have much more than they need to have a comfortable life.
  • We should have explained all of this to the citizens of the world and asked for their cooperation.

What did we actually do at COP21?

  • We changed the already impossible goal of 2 degrees to a more impossible goal of 1.5 degrees, thus grossly misleading the citizens of the world that our leaders are doing something useful.
  • We took no actions that will reduce CO2 emissions.
  • We made the situation worse by emitting tons of CO2 to fly 40,000 people to Paris to achieve nothing, and set a bad example in the process.
  • In summary, we doubled down on denial, instead of having an adult conversation.

un-Denial Manifesto: Energy and Denial

Winners and Losers

This essay launched and defined un-Denial.com.

This is the story of the two most important things that enabled the success and possible demise of humans: energy and denial.

Simple single cell (prokaryotic) life emerges as a gradual and predictable transition from geochemistry to biochemistry, in the presence of rock, water, CO2, and energy, all of which are found within alkaline hydrothermal vents on geologically active planets, of which there are 40 billion in our galaxy alone, and probably a similar number in each of the other 100 billion galaxies.

Simple life like bacteria and archaea is therefore probably common throughout the universe. Strong evidence for this is that prokaryotes appeared 4 billion years ago, as soon as the earth cooled down enough to support life, and never once winked out despite many calamities throughout geologic history.

LUCA (the Last Universal Common Ancestor), and all life that followed, is chemiosmotic meaning that it powers itself with an unintuitive mechanism that pumps protons across a membrane. This strange proton pump makes sense in the light of its hydrothermal vent origins. For a sense of the scale of life’s energy, consider that the human body pumps a staggering 10**21 protons per second of life.

The transition to, and existence of, complex multicellular life, like plants and animals, is much less predictable and certain. All of the complex life on earth has a common eukaryote ancestor, and it appears this ancestor emerged only once on Earth about 2 billion years ago. This is a vital but rarely acknowledged singularity in biology.

The eukaryote cell was created by a rare endosymbiosis (merging) of prokaryotes (simple cells) somewhat analogous to a freak accident. The resulting LECA (Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor), having 2 genomes that needed to cooperate and evolve in harmony, was probably fragile, sickly, and vulnerable to extinction which forced it to evolve many unusual characteristics common to complex life such as the nucleus, sex, two sexes, programmed cell death, germline-soma distinction, and trade-offs between fitness and fertility, adaptability and disease, and ageing and death.

As the endosymbiont (cell within the cell) evolved into mitochondria (energy powerhouses), eukaryotes were able to break through the energy per gene barrier that constrained the morphological complexity of bacteria and archaea for 2 billion years. Suddenly there was enough energy to power the evolution of complex structure, multi-cellular life, a symphony of fungi, plants and animals, and one single hominid with an extended theory of mind that took over the planet.

The magnificent and varied life we enjoy on Earth may not be unique in the universe, but is probably very rare, and our existence and ability to understand and discuss the origin of this life, is extraordinarily rare and precious.

Life at its core is chemical reactions that consume energy to replicate themselves. There is a minimum quantity of energy required to sustain life. This subsistence energy supports growth to sexual maturity, finding and winning a mate, reproducing, and feeding the offspring. It also includes the energy for shelter and clothing to create a hospitable environment for the chemical reactions to operate, energy to power the muscles used to evade or fight threats, and energy for the cells to repair damage from sickness or injury.

All of this subsistence energy must come from the surplus left after using energy to gather, hunt, grow, steal, or purchase energy. In other words, life must obtain more food than the food it takes to obtain food. Otherwise it dies. For example, if a coyote burns 2 rabbits worth of energy to capture 1 rabbit then it will die. If on the other hand, a coyote burns 1 rabbit of energy to capture 2 rabbits then it might be able to produce offspring that survive to repeat the achievement. Similarly, an ape that sells life insurance and uses its wages to buy food must be employed by a life insurance company that makes a profit. Without a profit the ape will lose its job and ability to buy food. Profit is an energy surplus.

Energy is required to produce anything and everything. For example, your coffee mug required diesel-powered machines to dig up and transport clay to a factory that used natural gas-fired furnaces to fuse the clay into a durable ceramic container that was then transported by a diesel-powered ship and diesel-powered trucks to a store that you drove to in a gasoline-powered car and purchased with wages your earned from a company that generated a profit by using energy to create something worth more energy. Money is a token we can exchange for real things. Therefore money is a claim on energy.

If a species finds a way to capture more energy than is required to subsist, then its probability of survival and population increases. Additional surplus energy is first used by life to increase fertility and decrease mortality. This makes intuitive sense because the chemical reactions at the core of life are replicators that replicate until some resource shortage constrains them. The most important resource, by far, is energy because with sufficient energy many other resource shortages can be overcome. For example, a well fed coyote can range farther to find water, and an ape can use natural gas generated steam to extract oil from sand.

Until recently all species obtained their energy from the current flow of sunlight (e.g. grass) or the recent flow of sunlight (e.g. wood). As an aside, a few species use instead chemical energy from geothermal processes but I will not discuss this since the ideas are analogous. An ape that eats a cow uses current solar energy via the photosynthetic grass eaten by the cow to produce flesh, and recent solar energy via the wood used to predigest (cook) the meat.

The sun shines at a relatively constant intensity and the earth is a fixed size at a relatively constant distance from the sun. Therefore the available sunlight on earth is finite and fairly constant. If one species captures more energy it must come at the expense of a different species. This tension is the driving force behind evolution.

The competition for finite resources as governed by the laws of evolution has created many amazing variations of life. For example, trees that grow tall to capture more sunlight than its neighbors, cheetahs that run faster than their prey, giraffes that eat high leaves, and birds that migrate with the seasons. One species emerged with a unique capability to out-compete all other species for available sunlight, and then used this same capability to break through the sunlight barrier.

About 100,000 years ago there were several intelligent social species of hominids spread around the world, all with about the same brain size and power. For some period of time, perhaps several million years, these species bumped up against evolving an extended theory of mind, which would have been advantageous for these social species because it enhances cooperation by enabling an individual to understand the minds of other individuals. Each time an individual was born with a mutation for an extended theory of mind they would have observed, through the normal course of daily activities like hunting and childbirth, other individuals being killed or injured, and therefore would have come to understand their own mortality. All animals have a very useful inherited behavior that causes them to fear and avoid injury, and therefore mortality awareness caused fear, depression, and risk avoidance, which reduced their reproductive fitness, and so the mutation for an extended theory of mind did not fix in the gene pool.

Then one day, through random chance, a member of one tribe in east Africa was born with a mutation for an extended theory of mind plus denial of reality.  The two independently maladaptive behaviors, when improbably combined, became highly adaptive. The genes from that individual became fixed in her tribe and the resulting improvement to the tribe’s ability to communicate and cooperate increased the success of the tribe.

Having broken through the mortality barrier, it now became advantageous and probable for natural selection to evolve a larger and more powerful brain with complex symbolic language, planning and analytic skills, and increased memory capacity. An additional fortuitous side effect of denial of reality was the optimism bias it created which the intelligent species used to advance technology, hunt dangerous animals, wage war, and explore new continents.

This new species that emerged from a small tribe of hominids, that we now call human, and that is sometimes referred to as the chosen people, used its new abilities to out compete all other hominid species.

The mutation for denial of reality, which was essential for dampening the inherited fear of injury and death, caused each new human tribe to create life after death stories which served to define, unite, govern, and entertain the tribe. Thousands of different stories, which we now call religions, were created by thousands of tribes, with their one and only common feature being, due to its genetic foundation, a life after death subplot.

Over this same period of time, and probably even longer, there were other intelligent social species like chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, and crows that were bumping up against the mortality barrier to evolving an extended theory of mind. Some of these species achieved partial theory of mind as demonstrated, for example, by behavior consistent with mourning their dead and revenge, however because of the improbability of mutating an extended theory of mind simultaneous with denial of reality, these species never evolved brains similar to humans.

The enlarging human brain soon became constrained by the size of the birth canal and associated pregnancy health risks. Because of the strong fitness advantage a larger brain provided, evolution found a clever way to work around the birth canal constraint by delivering babies with undeveloped brains. Therefore, as humans became smarter, parents were required to care for their offspring for a longer period before they became independent and able to breed. This led to other behavioral and cultural changes, such as pair bonding, and religions with stories that discouraged adultery.

The humans used their intelligence and social skills to develop technologies to capture a larger share of solar energy. Examples of these technologies include mastery of fire for cooking, heating, and land clearing; domestication of animals initially for protection and hunting assistance and later for transportation, agricultural labor, and sources of food; metal for weapons and tools; projectile weapons for extending its lethal range; replacement of indigenous plants with cultivated food plants; redirection and storage of water; methods and vehicles for migrating to all available continents and islands; shelter and clothing to survive in all climates; architectural structures for defense; and written language to store and transmit the technologies.

The human population increased rapidly and spread to all continents. Large prey went extinct everywhere shortly after the arrival of humans, except in Africa, where the large animals co-evolved with early humans. All of the humans’ close relatives were out-competed and went extinct. Human civilizations like the Egyptians, Romans, Mound Builders, and Mayans, experienced cycles of growth, overshoot, and collapse as they bumped up against the barrier imposed by finite solar energy.

Then, 200 years ago, humans used their intelligence to discover a new technology that fundamentally changed the rules. Humans learned how to exploit a new source of energy to augment finite sunlight. This energy is ancient buried biomass commonly called fossil energy. Unlike sunlight that is constrained to the real-time flow from the sun, fossil energy accumulated over millions of years and therefore acts as a giant solar energy battery. Now humans could not only exploit current solar energy (e.g. grass) and recent solar energy (e.g. wood) but also ancient solar energy (e.g. coal, oil, natural gas).

Because energy is the master resource that can be used to extract other resources, including more energy, fossil energy created a positive feedback driven 200 year period of explosive population, wealth, and technology growth. With surplus energy available to replace human labor with machines such as tractors and combines, fewer humans were required to work on subsistence activities and more humans could specialize in a wide variety of scientific, engineering, and cultural domains.

Food production was increased through the use of natural gas derived nitrogen fertilizer, oil based pesticides, diesel-powered tractors, combines, and irrigation, and diesel-powered trucks, trains, and ships to deliver it. More food enabled the population to increase from 1 billion to 7 billion. New technologies that used the surplus fossil energy improved the quality of human life such as housing, drinking water, sanitation, medical and dental care, communications, transportation, labor-saving machines, and entertainment. Humans used the surplus fossil energy to make amazing advances in science and technology including traveling to the moon and understanding the origin of life and its respiration, replication, and photosynthesizing chemical reactions, and invented light speed digital networked communications technology to share and discuss this understanding with other members of the species anywhere on the planet.

Some side effects of the new technologies also reduced the quality of life for some humans. These included health problems caused by pollution and the new abundance of delicious but unhealthy foods such as sugar that were evolutionarily scarce.

Almost all other species, except those cultivated or domesticated by humans, and those that piggyback on the success of humans, like rats, suffered from the success of humans. The rate of species extinction increased to unprecedented levels. Rather than using fossil energy to replace sunlight energy, thereby freeing some energy for other species, humans used fossil energy to add to the solar energy they already commanded, and most wild species declined. Fast and powerful fishing boats capable of scooping and scraping all life from the ocean anywhere on the planet are one of many examples.

The purpose of the universe, if it can be said to have a purpose, is to increase entropy. The universe abhors an energy gradient and life is its best invention for degrading energy gradients. Humans are the champions of life at degrading energy, and from this perspective, may be the universe’s pinnacle of invention.

Conflict between tribes is a persistent feature of human history with periods of calm and periods of extreme violence. The inherited denial of reality enables a high level of violence without the temper of empathy because tribes with different gods are viewed as lesser humans. For example, one large civilized tribe exterminated millions of “inferior” humans using gas chambers. Another large civilized tribe routinely kills innocents labeled as terrorists with automated drones to protect sources of fossil energy while telling itself it is spreading democracy.

There are three dark clouds looming over human success.

First, climate change and pollution.

The use of fossil energy releases CO2 into the atmosphere which acts as a blanket to trap solar energy which increases the temperature of the planet. Human released CO2 has already increased the earth’s temperature by about 1 degree resulting in many problems including droughts, storms, ice loss, and sea level rise. The CO2 already released by humans guarantees another 1 degree of rise, even if all fossil energy emissions were stopped today. It is now clear that the 2 degree limit agreed by many countries is not a safe target and is in fact very dangerous for civilization. Worse still, probable future human emissions will cause a 4-6 degree rise which raises the possibility of human extinction.

Sea level rise predictions from melting ice on Greenland and the Antarctic increase with each new study. At least a meter of sea level rise by the end of the century is now probable and subsequent predictions are expected to worsen. This is a significant problem because much important land for agriculture and cities is near sea level. There will be heartbreaking refugee migrations, starvation from decreased food production, and loss of capital property this century.

CO2 also acidifies the ocean which harms many species such as shellfish and corals, both of which are in sharp decline. Another large and widely unrecognized problem is that byproducts of fossil energy combustion create ozone which harms plants and trees. There is evidence that trees are in global decline. This should concern humans for many obvious reasons. One not so obvious reason is that planting trees is one of the few things humans can do that might succeed in removing CO2 from the atmosphere. If trees are being killed by the same activity that puts CO2 in the air then this strategy will not work.

Climate change is a wicked problem. A rising temperature creates other self-reinforcing feedback loops such as ice loss and methane release which act to further increase the temperature. At some point these feedback loops may dominate over human influences thus eliminating any ability for humans to affect the outcome. No one knows for sure, but we may be near or passed this tipping point.

Choosing to act on climate change in a meaningful way will also create new problems. Wealth is proportional to energy consumption. More specifically, $1 US adjusted for inflation to 1990 equals about 10 mW of energy. Over 90% of our energy comes from fossil energy. Therefore any meaningful reduction in CO2 emissions must shrink the economy, and because we have a debt backed fractional reserve monetary system with a large and rising quantity of outstanding debt, a meaningful reduction in CO2 emissions will probably cause an economic depression, at best. Thus a political platform promising to actually do something about climate change is unlikely to be elected, or re-elected.

Furthermore, a decline in economic activity will result in a rapid reduction of aerosols that currently mask some UV radiation resulting in a warming impulse of about 0.5 degrees thus making climate change worse in the short-term.

Second, finite and non-substitutable fossil energy.

The fossil energy that supports 7 billion humans is finite and rapidly depleting. The easy low cost oil is gone. The oil that remains, while substantial, is expensive, and becoming more expensive to find and extract. Each year it takes more energy to produce the same quantity of energy.

The fossil energy that remains is also dirtier and creates more pollution and CO2.

As the cost of energy goes up, the amount of energy society can afford to leverage productivity goes down. Thus productivity and incomes are falling at the same time that the cost of producing energy is increasing. This is the root cause of the worldwide economic problems that began in 2008 and persist today.

The price of energy required for energy companies to produce the quantity of energy necessary to maintain our current standard of living is now higher than society can afford. We have masked this problem with near zero interest rates and a huge increase in debt. These are temporary solutions that will soon be overridden by the laws of thermodynamics and mathematics, and will most likely end with an economic depression more painful than that had we chosen to take our medicine in 2008.

Think of a coyote forced, because rabbits are becoming faster, to burn 2 rabbits worth of energy to catch 1 rabbit. Even though there are plenty of rabbits, the coyote is in serious trouble. The coyote could switch his diet to mice (solar & wind energy) but then he’d have to burn 3 mice of energy to catch 1 mouse. The coyote is able to lead a fairly normal life for a while because he burns fat (debt) that he built up in previous good years. The coyote knows it could make do with less food if it quit fighting, played slower games, and had fewer pups, but prefers not to change its lifestyle. Over time, the coyote becomes weak and sick, and then decides to change, but no longer has the strength to catch even mice.

Any system in nature, including human civilization, is sustainable only if it survives on the interest generated by the capital of the system. For example, bison on prairie is a sustainable system surviving on the interest generated by sunlight, soil, and rainfall. Replacing the bison and grass with wheat fertilized with natural gas generated nitrogen and irrigated with diesel pumped non-renewable aquifers converts the capital (soil, aquifer, and fossil energy) into income (calories).

Debt at near zero interest rate is a means of converting capital into income. Our recent increase in debt can therefore be viewed as energy that would otherwise have been available to future generations. We are aggressively impoverishing our grandchildren (and other species) in an attempt to maintain our current privileged lifestyles.

Depleting fossil energy is a wicked problem. A law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created. The battery we have been relying on is running low and will take millions of years to recharge, and may never recharge unless the planet’s biological and geological processes realign in the necessary and fortuitous configuration that created fossil energy the first time.

Renewable energies such as wind and solar do not have the density, scalability, or storability necessary to replace the fossil energy humans currently depend on. Most importantly, we do not have a viable alternative to the diesel that powers our critical life support network of trucks, trains, ships, tractors, combines, and mining machines. If trucks stop running, for any reason, all of civilization will be in immediate and extreme danger.

Renewable energies cannot stand on their own without fossil energy to create, install, and maintain their materials and infrastructure. For example, wind turbines use large quantities of concrete, steel, and copper that cannot be made without fossil energy. Renewables are at best fossil energy extenders. At worst they accelerate economic growth and burn up the remaining fossil energy faster to capture some wind or solar energy with equipment that will wear out in less than 50 years when there will be little or no fossil energy needed to replace the equipment.

Nuclear energy has the required density and scalability but lacks the storability necessary to replace vital diesel discussed above. In addition, current nuclear technologies rely on non-renewable and possibly peaked uranium fuel, plus non-renewable fossil energy for infrastructure, materials, transportation, construction, and maintenance. Future nuclear technologies might address these shortcomings but are many years and trillions of dollars away from deployment. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the combined threats of climate change, fossil energy depletion, and limits to growth caused economic instability, make it a very dangerous bet that we will be able to properly govern and maintain nuclear facilities in the future.

Third, denial of reality.

Humans succeeded as a species due in large part to their evolved denial of reality. This behavior is now a disadvantage because it prevents the majority of humans from recognizing and acting on climate change and fossil energy depletion. It is noteworthy that there is not one senior leader in any country on any continent that has publicly communicated an understanding of what is going on and what we should be doing at this time, even after leaving office. Likewise, all groups including climate scientists, climate deniers, fossil energy experts, renewable energy experts, environmentalists, capitalists, socialists, communists, conservatives, liberals, Christians, Muslims, Scientologists, you name it, everyone is in denial about human overshoot. This is of course what we should expect given the genetic basis for denial. But it is nevertheless a concern.

The human brain, the God it believes in, and the overshoot it enabled and denies, all resulted from the same improbable genetic adaptation that occurred about 100,000 years ago.

What should we do?

There are no painless solutions to our predicament. The problems are wicked and politically intractable:

  • problems are complex and difficult to understand;
  • there are no easy or short-term solutions;
  • solutions that improve the long-term are likely to worsen the short-term;
  • solutions usually conflict with evolved human behavior;
  • some problems are out of our control.

We are in a severe state of overshoot which guarantees some form of bottleneck and collapse. Our aim should be to slow the descent and prepare a softer landing zone.

Despite the depletion of fossil energy we still have a lot more surplus energy than is required for subsistence. Remaining surplus energy should be redirected from activities that have no future such as air travel, automobiles, military, and advanced technology; and towards infrastructure and skills that will be required in a simpler low energy world such as local food production, resilient water supplies, and energy conservation.

Policies should be implemented to reduce the population as quickly and humanely as possible. Paraphrasing Albert Bartlett, there is no problem on the planet that does not improve with fewer people.

After the inevitable economic reset, a new monetary system will be required, preferably an energy-backed full-reserve system,  as we move into a long-term energy constrained contracting economy. Wealth redistribution and rationing policies should be developed in anticipation of their need.

Citizens should be proactively educated on the root causes of our problems to avoid inappropriate blame and wars which will only worsen the situation by accelerating the depletion of non-renewable resources.

What will we do?

Evolved denial of reality will probably continue to block any constructive discussion or proactive action. When a crisis forces action we will probably blame the wrong actors. Our responses are not likely to be rational or optimal. Expect chaos.

A few people have broken through inherited denial. So it is possible. But scaling this to the majority will be a challenge.

The singular emergence of human intelligence, and its ability to write and read this paragraph, evolved in a gene controlled machine with an unusually powerful computer, that was created by an improbable simultaneous adaptation for an extended theory of mind with denial of reality, and whose complexity was enabled by the increased energy per gene provided by mitochondria, that resulted from an accidental endosymbiosis of two prokaryotes, powered by an unintuitive chemiosmotic proton pump, that originated in an alkaline hydrothermal vent, on 1 of 40 billion planets, in 1 of 100 billion galaxies, and that planet had an improbable store of photosynthetic and geothermal generated fossil energy, that the species leveraged to understand and appreciate, the peak of what may be possible in the universe, before it vanished, because it denied the consequences of its success.

A good place to go next is Why My Interest in Denial?