fwiw, I think the political accomplishment would outweigh the technical. But if there's enough money to be made, there's a solution to all problems.Originally Posted by Time Mage X
and I have no idea what silent giant means ... but I'll take it as a compliment (regardless of how it was intended).
Last edited by tg63; 10-06-2014 at 12:28 PM.
Actual voter participation is flaky, especially among millennials in mid-terms. If they are going to be "civics," they will need to cultivate the virtue of voting at the very least.
I used that quote in my book, and I suggested that the young man who stood in front of the tank outside Tiananmen Square was lucky that George Wallace wasn't driving the tank! The Chinese rebels in 1989 were definitely inspired by the young American protesters in the sixties, and adopted their people-power tactics."If any anarchists lie down in front of my automobile, it will be the last automobile they ever lie down in front of" - George Wallace
Well, I see that you've been here since 2001.You're almost a founding member of the community. Yet you've only made 15 posts, which means you've been very selective in your responses over the past 13 years. With long term members I used to know slowly disappearing, its good to have another "elder" around.
and I have no idea what silent giant means ... but I'll take it as a compliment (regardless of how it was intended).
Here comes the sun~Unfinished
well, that makes me silent ... tho not a silent ...
perhaps my "elder"hood will inspire more posting ... we'll see ...
there, post 16!
With the dollar rising (owing to weakness abroad), global demand for oil slowing rapidly (ditto), the Saudis playing hardball over market share, commodities like oil are getting clobbered. With the price breaking below key levels in the $80s at the beginning of the "slow" season, watch for the impact on the fracking boom. Given the boom's outsize role in the "recovery", a wave of bankruptcies here could be what tips the US over into its next recession.
Very possible.
I think we are already seeing the leading edge of the great inflection. The only subcultures left, and I am speaking globally, which are still fecund, are lower class folks in certain developing countries, plus some religious odd outs in the West. The middle and upper classes, world wide, as a whole, are below replacement. In other words, the main forces of demand, world wide, are already below replacement. Globally, this is first since the Holocene began.
Yeah, that's part of it. However, low fertility is not the driving part right now, as the global middle class is still expanding in the developing world.
Yes, the middle is growing, but it is also moving down. A middle class Indian is not as wealthy as a middle class Brit, for instance. I'm not sure how or even if one affects the other. Is a less wealthy middle class the new universal middle?
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Not really relevant to the point of resource consumption. The big shift is from a mudbrick hut to an apartment, a mule to a truck; not from a duplex to a penthouse or from a Tata to a Bugati EDIT And this is doubly true with the difference between the middle classes of a rich nation versus a poor one.
As for the last point, the answer is of course, yes. The economic justification for the enormous income disparity between a factory worker in the West and one in Southeast Asia, or a clerk in London versus one in Mumbai, has been eroding for decades. Even the much more resource-efficient European countries still support 2 or 3 "world" lifestyles, and as there is in fact only one habitable one any improvements on the part of the poor overseas must inevitably impact lifestyles here. "Efficiency" can only do so much.
Last edited by JordanGoodspeed; 10-16-2014 at 02:40 PM.
The answer to your question is Yes, oil is the great issue.
Here is an important study putting a time perspective on the contribution of oil to economic output.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
About 1/3 of the world economy is fueled by oil. What is available to fuel the economy out of each unit produced is what remains after accounting for the energy used up in producing, processing, and delivering that unit to the economy, i.e., net oil. The energy content of one gallon of oil is 140,000 BTUs. When oil products are employed in economic activity there is heat loss, so the actual usable energy available out of that gallon of oil equals about 99,400 BTUs. If the energy expended to acquire, process, and deliver oil products to the market exceeds 99,400 BTUs oil no longer contributes as a fuel to drive the industrial age. At that point the oil industry will be like a dead battery except for pumping the dregs out of old oil fields which are already near the end of their lives; oil exploration will cease for all practical purposes. There will be much oil in the ground when the oil age ends; it simply will take too much energy to acquire, process, and deliver it to the economy.
In 1900, the amount of energy expended to acquire, process, and deliver oil products was about 1,000 BTUs. The growth in that expenditure of energy is a logistic function and has grown presently to about 72,000 BTUs; this growth curve will arrive at 99,400 BTUs approximately by 2030. The end of the era of cheap oil is upon us, and the wish of the anti prosperity, anti freedom Ludites among us will be granted.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_020.htm
But the issue is closer at hand than 2030. The size of economic output depends on how much oil is available to fuel it. As less and less net energy from oil is contributed to the industrial engine, even in the face of expanding total oil production, economic output sputters. The current malaise in world economies has at its root the declining net oil energy being contributed to the fuel supply. As economies fail, the buyers of oil products increasingly lack the income to afford oil products, so oil companies are caught in a downward spiral between rising costs and the inability of customers to afford the price necessary to justify oil company continued operations. A temporary glut in supply has resulted today because oil companies paid the high cost to acquire difficult oil deposits, but customers didn't have the incomes to pay the high price. The low oil prices today are the temporary result of the terminal phase of the oil industry. Oil companies in response are cutting capital spending to the bone, which will have the effect of an even more significant failure to deliver future supply to the market. It is estimated that by 2020 the price that is affordable by users of oil products will be under $50 per barrel, while the associated cost for most oil companies are nearer $100 per barrel. We are witnesses to the death of the oil industry, yet there is no possible replacement, much less one that can be implemented by 2020 or even 2030.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_022.htm
For those of you who think there is a solution, you might want to read this perspective which show how silly it is to think there is a workable alternative or the capital necessary to finance a transition in such a short period of time:
http://energyskeptic.com/2014/an-overview/
At the dawn of the industrial age, the world was populated by about 3/4 of a billion people. If you optimistically take that is as what was sustainable without fossil fuels, a reasonable conclusion is that absent fossil fuels, the current 7 billion world population must move back in the direction of 3/4 of a billion. It is doubtful that coal, natural gas, or nuclear energy can continue to be produced in sufficient supply, absent the available of oil to fuel that production, and the "sustainable" alternatives are so heavily dependent on fossil fuels that they will never get off the ground, even if they theoretically could mitigate the collapse.
A logical conclusion, considering the timing of these events in the 4T cycle, is that the failure of the oil age will make this Turning remarkable. Financial, economic, social, and political collapse are likely results. The death rate must far exceed the birth rate, until such time as human numbers come into balance with the ability of the earth to provide for us. Technology, being the application of knowledge to resources, is impotent without the resources upon which to apply the knowledge. This changes everything.
Failure of the oil age? WTF are you alluding to?
It is the GLUT of oil that is currently adding woe unto misery. The great deflation is a rising storm. None can escape it.
You need to look longer-term than a few months. The Saudis can manipulate the price to preserve their competitive position right now. But long-term oil is more and more expensive and dangerous to produce; dangerous in many ways. But it is not just oil that is the problem, which is used mainly for transportation; it is also coal that is used for electricity. That is a bigger problem for the climate, although less so for the expense.
Jeil appears to be the typical libertarian denier, but the fact is we can make the transition to green energy almost as fast as we wish. The only obstacle is political, from the naysayers like jeil.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 04-22-2015 at 03:25 PM.
You're missing the forest for the trees. One of the reasons for the glut and deflation is that markets are already pricing in the pending secular decline in demand for all goods and services. Those with the greatest purchasing power have fallen into negative fecundity globally. Global population dynamics cloud this fact because those still fecund are the poorest and least educated. But those with money are already in secular population decline. This thing feeds on itself. It is already past the point of no return.
The projection for final population stability (circa 2300) has India as the most populous state (1.37 Billion), China is #2 (1.28 Billion) and the US is #3 (493 Million). After that, the largest are all currently poorer nations. #4 is Pakistan (359 Million) and #5 is Nigeria (283 Million). Since #6 is Bangladesh (243 Million), if the Pakistan that was created originally was still intact, it would be #3 with 602 Million.
Some are just shocking. Yemen is projected at 129 Million - more than Mexico or the Philippines. Ethiopia (207 Million) and Indonesia (276 Million). Iran and Japan will be about 100 Million, but Russia will only have 92 Million..
Last edited by Marx & Lennon; 04-23-2015 at 08:37 AM.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
XYMOX_2AD_84
If you read the analysis, you would know that I was alluding to nothing. I directly summarized what the author of the referenced report said about where we are in the oil age; no alluding was necessary.
Last edited by jeil; 04-22-2015 at 05:41 PM.
What is the source and what are the assumptions? I can't see Yemen at 129 million!
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
He appears to be using a "high model" which has repeatedly been discredited, as we continue to encounter surprises regarding declining fecundity. Those high models, for instance, assumed that Muslim countries would continue averaging 4+ kids. A few still do but a number are now dropping so quickly replacement will cease shortly. Latin America has experienced similarly surprising drops in fecundity. I needn't comment on what is happening in Europe, as well as Japan and more recently, other East Asian nations.
The source is "World Population to 2300" from the UN, dated 2004. It's the latest I've found.
Actually, I selected the medium model on purpose. The High model is absurd. If it's not, then it's scary.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
In the long run, population decline is needed if our economy and ecology are going to work. Continued growth would just mean an explosive global crash followed by a new depopulated dark age. We need to decline our population in a more-pleasant way than that. A lower birth rate is a good thing.
But this dilemma seems down the road a piece. Europe's white population is declining, but elsewhere it is still rising now, and those who are "the poorest and least educated" will not remain so. Nations like China and India are becoming middle class, and using more energy.
The only way to avoid this global crash, not due this 4T but maybe the next, is to change the basis for our lifestyle. That means first and foremost no more fossil fuels. Government needs to plan for this, but whether it does or not, fossil fuels are becoming more expensive to find and produce, while solar and wind costs are declining fast. Prices will be effected by the respective costs.
After a while, costs will come down for both kinds of energy. Fossil fuel barons will have competition. That will force them to lower prices, and will force a decline in their profits and their production. In the long run, declining population could also lower energy costs.
But decline in growth will be a good thing. The pressures of our recent astronomical jump in population on our planet are not sustainable, and will not be economically beneficial for much longer. A measured and gradual decline is our best hope for survival and prosperity. The latter will need to find a new basis besides growth in free markets and customers. People will work less, get paid more for it, be more innovative and creative, and produce what is needed rather than what people can be convinced to buy. I may be wrong, but I don't see a better way forward than this.
Interestingly, if one plots the "population" of bacteria in a culture vs. time, it grows at kind of a flat rate for a while and then increases exponentially, shooting off the top of the graph, almost vertically. What grabs one's attention, however, is what happens once the nutrients are used up. The population, of course, dies off. Completely.
This is actually not a bad model for our species. One could say, "Oh, but bacteria can't 'think;' they don't know how to turn it around; it's their nature to generate their own little tragedy." And yet ... does it not seem that despite our "intelligence" that is many orders of magnitude greater, that OUR nature may well be much the same? To simply continue lolly-gagging along until, woops, too late!
The "oil issue" is nothing more than a proxy for the "population issue," as are the food issue and the water issue and the lebensraum issue.
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
Could well be, and your model makes my point well; but of course, in our species we make that choice at the ballot box; certainly in America the choice is crucial and clear-cut. You could almost say that Democrats and liberals at least show some signs of humanity, but Republicans are just bacteria. Or they act like they were, in your model.
Plausible, but not quite. If oil is one of the "nutrients" we are using up, if we switch to renewables, then we might evade the loss of that nutrient, at least for a while. But I don't think we can evade the need to control our population.
The "oil issue" is nothing more than a proxy for the "population issue," as are the food issue and the water issue and the lebensraum issue.
Fortunately, except in Africa, the birth rate is levelling off now. People tend to have more children if their survival is uncertain. My mind boggles when I look at my direct family-tree ancestors and how many children they had.
This is neither wrong or right. No, we don't have to see population decrease, though it certainly must stabilize at some point. We have technology to make the previously unattainable mundane, so food, energy and water will be supplied to 9 Billion on a better basis than it is to the current 7 Billion. 14 Billion may stretch our capacity ... or not. We simply don't know what will be possible in the next century, when these issues come to a head.
This century's issue is global warming, which will either create massive havoc or revolutionize energy production and consumption. Perhaps both, since we tend to ignore problems until they become crises. Next in line is water, then food. Perhaps we, as a species, will do better with them.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Yes, this is also possible. We're wired for life as hunter gatherers, and we haven't gotten past that. The only thing that has slowed the growth of population is broadly shared prosperity, which is hard to obtain in most of the world. We may not maintain it here, either. That we have achieved it once is a plus; we can reproduce prior success, if we decide to do it.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
My concern is that, given the increasingly global nature of mankind, "Success" may in fact come to pass!! And that will indeed be the death knell. Once EVERYONE demands the same high standard of living that is evident to anyone with access to media, the final overwhelming of resource can take place.
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
