Category: Overshoot

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.

It’s Really a Shame

I’m almost finished The Vital Question by Nick Lane.

I may write a book review but the punchline is that bacterial life is probably common throughout the universe.

Complex eukaryotic life, on the other hand, is probably very rare.

And human-like intelligence will be even rarer if Varki is right.

We are wrecking a very special thing.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

By John Weber: Superman Plays With Kryptonite Dice

This fabulous essay written by John Weber in 2010 was brought to my attention by a friend.

In it Weber describes the relationship between energy and our destructive dominance as a species. This theme is central to the manifesto I wrote for this site but Weber expands on the idea and provides more color.

I’m also pleased to see Weber touches on denial but I doubt he assigns the same importance to denial as I do.

Your time will be well spent reading this.

http://sunweber.blogspot.ca/2010/05/superman-plays-with-kryptonite-dice.html

 

Tim Garrett: On the Nature of Growth, and Our Special Place

This is a recent KKRN Community Radio interview with Tim Garrett, one of the scientists I respect the most.

http://kkrn.org/broadcasts/1220

Garrett again explains his thermodynamic modeling of civilization and his conclusion that collapse is inevitable regardless of what we do.

One comment in particular I found very insightful and I’ve not heard him make it in the past: There is no such thing as steady state in the universe. Thing always change. If that change happens to be growth then collapse is inevitable due to finite materials and energy. This means that a steady state economy is probably not feasible.

The interview reminded me of how fascinating denial is. The interviewer clearly understood Garrett’s theory but also refused to accept its implications, believing that if more people purchased solar panels and electric cars we could save ourselves. The denial filter in his logic was humorous to observe.

Denial is everywhere and deep when you watch for it.

Finally, the interview again got me thinking about the implications of the advanced technology we’ve created that enables abundant food, easy transportation, central heating, health care, and plentiful leisure time and toys.

The logic is as follows:

  • advanced technology requires up-front investment
  • up-front investment requires debt
  • debt requires growth
  • growth requires increasing energy and materials
  • growth must eventually stop on a finite planet
  • debt, which is the majority of wealth, becomes worthless without growth
  • complexity cannot be maintained without wealth
  • all advanced civilizations must therefore collapse
  • since the majority of energy and materials used were non-renewable, a collapsed civilization is unlikely to rebuild.

The conclusion to all of this is that advanced civilizations have short lifetimes in the universe and we should be grateful for being alive to enjoy one of the universe’s rarer and most interesting events.

The Best Idea for Population Reduction

The best idea I’ve heard for how to implement a one child policy is to mobilize grandmothers. Grandmothers are past child-bearing age and no longer feel the influence of their genes to have children. Instead they are concerned about the survival of their grandchildren.

If we could educate grandmothers on the imminent threat to their grandchildren by human overshoot then it might be possible to mobilize grandmothers as a single issue voting block in favor of a one child policy. Grandmothers are a large enough group that they could probably sway most votes if they voted as a block.

There is some history to support this idea. The prohibition of alcohol in the US, which required a majority of states to approve a change to the constitution, was spearheaded by a small group of dedicated women fed up with widespread alcoholism in society.

The threat from human overshoot far exceeds that from alcohol abuse so perhaps this idea is not so crazy after all.

I first heard this idea in an interview with Jack Alpert.

Extraenvironmentalist #11: Temporal Blindness

https://xenetwork.org/xe/episodes/episode-11-temporal-blindness/

Our education system creates the models we use to interpret information. A faulty model can lead to significant blind spots, especially in thinking about nonlinear problems. Do the cognitive models that you’ve developed allow you to understand the severe problems threatening our global civilization? How accurately can you recognize how trends will impact your society and your life? What is a reasonable response to dealing with 7 billion homo sapiens sapiens?

In Extraenvironmentalist #11 we speak with Jack Alpert of the Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab about the role that our cognitive models play in recognizing the severity of our global predicament. Seth and I discuss Jack’s writings and his Nonlinearity and the Elephant Problem video. After talking about how to deal with scarce resources on a finite planet, we dive into how to deal with overpopulation, including Jack’s approach for building public of rapid population decline through convincing grandmothers that fewer babies need to be born.

By Richard Smith: Green Capitalism: The God That Failed

Richard Smith is a rare voice that speaks to the ineffectiveness of environmental organizations. Green growth is not and cannot be green.

Since the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, when environmentalists began to turn to the market, “green growth” theorists and proponents have argued au contraire that “jobs and environment are not opposed,” that economic growth is compatible with emissions reduction, that carbon taxes and/or cap-and-trade schemes could suppress GHG emissions while “green jobs” in new tech, especially renewable energy, would offset lost jobs in fossil fuel industries. Their strategy has failed completely, yet this remains the dominant view of leading climate scientists, including James Hansen, and of most environmental organizations.

All such market-based efforts are doomed to fail, and a sustainable economy is inconceivable without sweeping systemic economic change.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/21060-green-capitalism-the-god-that-failed

Unfortunately Smith studied economics and apparently did not study physics or biology and therefore incorrectly believes that a different economic or political system can solve our overshoot problems.

It is true that Capitalism has proven to be the most effective system for growth however every other economic and political system has also proven to be destructive to the environment.

The problem is not our economic or political system.

The problem is that humans are consuming a lot of non-renewable energy and materials, and too large a share of renewable resources. Full stop.

And another similar article by Richard Smith…

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19872-capitalism-and-the-destruction-of-life-on-earth-six-theses-on-saving-the-humans

If we want a sustainable economy, one that “meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs,” then we would have to do at least some or all of the following:

  1. Put the brakes on out-of-control growth in the global North – retrench or shut down unnecessary, resource-hogging, wasteful, polluting industries like fossil fuels, autos, aircraft and airlines, shipping, chemicals, bottled water, processed foods, unnecessary pharmaceuticals and so on. Abolish luxury-goods production, the fashions, jewelry, handbags, mansions, Bentleys, yachts, private jets etc. Abolish the manufacture of disposable, throw-away and “repetitive consumption” products. All these consume resources we’re running out of, resources that other people on the planet desperately need and that our children and theirs will need.
  2. Discontinue harmful industrial processes like industrial agriculture, industrial fishing, logging, mining and so on.
  3. Close many services – the banking industry, Wall Street, the credit card, retail, PR and advertising “industries” built to underwrite and promote all this overconsumption. I’m sure most of the people working in these so-called industries would rather be doing something else, something useful, creative and interesting and personally rewarding with their lives. They deserve that chance.
  4. Abolish the military-surveillance-police state industrial complex, and all its manufactures because this is just a total waste whose only purpose is global domination, terrorism and destruction abroad and repression at home. We can’t build decent societies anywhere when so much of social surplus is squandered on such waste.
  5. Reorganize, restructure, reprioritize production and build the products we do need to be as durable and shareable as possible.
  6. Steer investments into things society does need, like renewable energy, organic farming, public transportation, public water systems, ecological remediation, public health, quality schools and other currently unmet needs.
  7. Deglobalize trade to produce what can be produced locally; trade what can’t be produced locally, to reduce transportation pollution and revive local producers.
  8. Equalize development the world over by shifting resources out of useless and harmful production in the North and into developing the South, building basic infrastructure, sanitation systems, public schools, health care, and so on.
  9. Devise a rational approach to eliminate or control waste and toxins as much as possible.
  10. Provide equivalent jobs for workers displaced by the retrenchment or closure of unnecessary or harmful industries, not just the unemployment line, not just because workers cannot support the industry we and they need to save ourselves.

Nowhere in Smith’s 10 possible solutions does he clearly state the most important thing: Restoration of the planet’s health requires poorer people and/or fewer people.

It seems Smith has fallen into the same trap as the greens he criticizes.

The only possible solution is to reduce total consumption. We can do this by reducing consumption per person and/or reducing the number of people.

Achieving this will be difficult and maybe impossible because it requires an override of evolved behaviors.

Nevertheless, if we fail to voluntarily reduce total consumption, nature will do it for us, soon.

Hat tip Bodhi Paul Chefurka.

book review: The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager

The Alchemy of Air is one of the better books I’ve read.

http://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Air-Jewish-Scientific-Discovery-ebook/dp/B001EUGCTS

As an engineer I’ve always been interested in the history of important science and there is nothing more important than the Haber-Bosch process which uses fossil energy to produce inexpensive fertilizer that enabled the green revolution and human overshoot.

Lest you doubt its significance, 50% of the nitrogen in our bodies was manufactured in a Haber-Bosch factory, and it is the primary reason our population grew from 1 billion to 7 billion over the last 100 years.

In addition, our liberal use of manufactured fertilizer has distorted the nitrogen cycle creating dead zones in the ocean, and contributed to pollution that is causing the decline of trees worldwide.

The Haber-Bosch process also produces the raw materials necessary for explosives and was a major contributor to the lethality of World Wars I and II.

Haber-Bosch technology was adapted to produce gasoline from coal which powered the Nazi war machine, and someday will probably power industrial civilization’s last gasp when real oil becomes too expensive to extract.

There’s a lot more in the book that I enjoyed.

The detailed history of fertilizer and the wars over its scarce non-renewable resources prior to Haber-Bosch was fascinating.

The behind the scenes look at the role of technology and big business in WWI and WWII was very interesting.

The story of how great minds were destroyed by a scapegoat seeking Hitler provides insight into what we’ll likely see in the future.

Lastly, I found the human side interesting in that men who accomplished much and earned great wealth were still unhappy and unsure of themselves.

I’ll be reading it a second time. Highly recommended.

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.

We Owe Our Existence to Haber-Bosch

Topsoil and Rain

I’ve edited this wisdom to be more accurate:

Despite all our accomplishments, all 7 billion of us owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact it rains; and 6 billion of us also owe our existence to Haber-Bosch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

This invention, by far, has had the biggest negative impact on our planet.

Had Haber-Bosch been used with birth control it would have been a mostly positive invention.

I wrote a book review on the biographies of Haber and Bosch here.