perhaps, if we get some scientific breakthrough or not
4%
[ 6 ]
no, it won't get that bad (see Cuba for example)
14%
[ 18 ]
who knows?/I have no idea
12%
[ 15 ]
Total Votes : 124
Author
Message
JackBob Heavy Crude
Joined: Aug 13, 2004 Posts: 115 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 3:47 am Post subject: Re: Leibig’s Law, Why There Will Be a Die-off.
kochevnik wrote:
...The more oil we use, the faster entropy increases, the further we have to fall when that energy is in it's ultimate chaotic state, spread through the atmosphere of earth. This is why the greenies are ultimately correct, and why the statement the higher they are, the harder they fall, is the essence of our future in a world without oil. Sidenote: It's also why it is the ordered state of the USA is going to fall the hardest and the fastest in the coming energy shortages. Nations which need lower levels of energy usage to prop up their ordered societies will fare much better.
kochevnik
Very interesting food for thought but I have to quibble with the part in bold just as I have with everyone else who has posted this. While it's true that less developed countries will miss oil itself less than us, they will miss very much more than us the massive amounts of food the USA has given to or sold them over the decades. North Americans can feed themselves if they have to - using sustainable small-scale techniques like Ecology Action are championing. Heck - the first year they can just lose the massive amounts of fat many of them are carrying around now. But in the less-developed nations, their birth rates are very much higher than ours and they will starve (IMO).
What are the necessities for life? Food, air, and water. Fossil fuels, in this case is the least necessary, so it sets the carrying capacity.
Small correction, but important. What are the necessities for life? Food, air, and water. Fossil fuels(food), in this case is the least abundant, so it sets the carrying capacity.
The food system accounts for 15.6% of total energy use in the US, and the breakdown of that is as follows:
Sector Average (percent)
Production 17.5
Processing 28.1
Transportation 11
Restaurants 15.8
Home preparation 25
So total available energy would have to be 15.6% of what it is now before we even started cutting into the current wasteful food system. Eliminating waste, I figure we could probably adequately feed everyone in the US with 5% of our total energy use today. Now, if we assume that total available energy will decline by 3% a year, starting today (a ridiculous assumption, but hey, this is Monteworld), then I calculate it will be roughly the year 2104 before people start getting undernourished. We're in no danger whatsoever of starving in the near or medium term. Neither is anybody in the poor countries, because they don't use oil (as I've been told numerous times in the last few days). So if the rich people aren't going to die, and the poor people aren't going to die, where's the big die-off?
Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1180 Location: England
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 4:39 am Post subject:
I think adding to john Denvers points you could include:
1) The massive waste in the food chain of producing crops to feed animals for meat(70% of corn in the US feeds livestock for meat consumption I have read on this forum somewhere!)
2) The amount of food consumed per person is 3500 calories in the US , where the required daily amount is 1500 per woman , and 2500 for a man.
3) Large food retailers waste HUGE amounts of food in there quest to acheive 100% product availability all of the year round of all products.
So assuming some sort of resource prioritisation a die off by starvation should be avoidable in the US and the EEC at the very least.
Joined: Aug 24, 2004 Posts: 397 Location: United Kingdom, Various
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:56 am Post subject:
Monte,
I think you've been reading Heinberg's The Party's Over.
All I can say is that many of the products - particularly exported to the US - that are made out of oil are not necessities. It is not so much the food that is the problem in my book, because in theory we could direct and ration oil over to food.
What concerns me is the fact that if we consume less oil, we will consume less products, and hence unemployment will rise, disabling some without subsistence ability from obtaining food without stealing/other methods.
Unemployment will rise because those businesses that sell some of the more pointless products will be hit by reduced sales as people buy less of their goods.
But you appear to be talking about oil as if oil = food. In fact oil = pesticide, but it also = pointless plastic consumables, and a pluthoria of other products that human beings can survive without.
Therefore whilst population will have to go down, I question the 'crash' scenario..it appears to assume (incorrectly) that oil is food, when rather a fraction of it is used in aiding the production (and of course transport) of food.
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 8:02 am Post subject: Re: Leibig?s Law, Why There Will Be a Die-off.
JohnDenver wrote:
You didn't answer the question: Are you saying that we shouldn't even make an effort to develop new sources of energy?
Not at all. Entropy law just states that unless their is a net energy flow into the system to maintain order, chaos and die-off will ensue. Developing new sources of energy for that net inflow, is like being hungry and waiting for your garden to grow.
Quote:
Hardly. Not everyone in the scientific community is an anti-growth Earth Firster.
Entropy law has little to do with monetary policy other than that they comflict. Exponential growth always leads to chaos.
Quote:
Cool. That's my agenda too. Should we stop growing, or not? Best leave that decision up to the people and have a vote
We have to stop growing. Second Law demands it. We don't have a vote per se, just a choice on how to adapt, not whether we should or not. In order to grow, we must have a net increase in the flow of energy. We can not meet that demand right now. We need to cut back the demand. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:39 am; edited 1 time in total
which means we will literally have to stop all births and force those who won't stop consuming.
Here, Monte shows his true colors. You really gotta wonder when he starts talking about the necessity of mass death, and forcing people to behave. On the outside, Monte's a warm, cuddly park ranger who loves animals. On the inside, he's Mao Tse Tung.
John, you have continously shown your utter ignorance and vile distaste for reality. You have no basic understanding of these concepts and detract from a critical understanding of the forces at play on our world. Leibig's Law is the result of years of study of complex ecological systems and how nature maintains balance. This isn't Monte's Law, this is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It isn't the necessity, but the inevitability of death that is certain. If we are to avoid mass die-off, we must stop the increase for demand of energy(new consumers, and growth) while reducing the consumption of those already consuming. We either do it voluntarily or by the force of nature. Mother Nature bats last. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
What are the necessities for life? Food, air, and water. Fossil fuels, in this case is the least necessary, so it sets the carrying capacity.
Small correction, but important. What are the necessities for life? Food, air, and water. Fossil fuels(food), in this case is the least abundant, so it sets the carrying capacity.
The food system accounts for 15.6% of total energy use in the US, and the breakdown of that is as follows:
Sector Average (percent)
Production 17.5
Processing 28.1
Transportation 11
Restaurants 15.8
Home preparation 25
So total available energy would have to be 15.6% of what it is now before we even started cutting into the current wasteful food system. Eliminating waste, I figure we could probably adequately feed everyone in the US with 5% of our total energy use today. Now, if we assume that total available energy will decline by 3% a year, starting today (a ridiculous assumption, but hey, this is Monteworld), then I calculate it will be roughly the year 2104 before people start getting undernourished. We're in no danger whatsoever of starving in the near or medium term. Neither is anybody in the poor countries, because they don't use oil (as I've been told numerous times in the last few days). So if the rich people aren't going to die, and the poor people aren't going to die, where's the big die-off?
Again, your ignorance shows. Read carefully food = fossil fuels. We are talking about the net flow of energy into an open system. I'm not talking about groceries but energy. Energy to hold chaos a bay. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
I can't really say I've had an epiphany reading this post, but the theory of die off of a species over populating an area is of course pure fact.
About 20 years ago in NY state I lived as a kid and we had an invasion of Gypsy Moth captepillars. Millions of them. I mean, you couldn't look anywhere and not see a tree without at least a half dozen of those silky web nests. The trees were decimated. With the exception of the conifers, which the catepillars didn't seem to like eating.
Next year... boom... all gone. No more catepillars. Apparently there was a massive die off, and nobody could really explain why. Simple logic dictates that they put too high a burden on the ecosystem and the laws of nature balanced the scales. In my opinion, mankind is overpopulating the environment. We'd like to think we are all too smart to fall victim to nature's laws, but it's not conceivable.
My position, however, has always been that our biggest worry should be nuclear exchanges and probably more apropos, some sort of devestating plague. Peak oil and energy shortages I really don't think are going to be the nails that seal the coffin lid. Humans flourished for the last 10,000 years without refined pretroleum products and it's not that critical to the advancement of the race. At least not in the long term (~1000 years down the road). The problem I think many people have is that they see things in terms of the span of their own lifetime.
You see an end to modern society because of energy shortages. So what? I see an end to modern society and a new beginning. And another end, and another beginning. Etc etc.
Barring an ELE asteroid or massive planetary disruptions there's not much that is going to keep the homo sapiens very far off the heels of the cockroach. Roaches represent the microverse, humans the macroverse. The bugs will always have their hives, and we'll always have our cities to a lesser or greater extent.
But the die off won't be pretty, that much is certain.
I think you've been reading Heinberg's The Party's Over.
All I can say is that many of the products - particularly exported to the US - that are made out of oil are not necessities. It is not so much the food that is the problem in my book, because in theory we could direct and ration oil over to food.
What concerns me is the fact that if we consume less oil, we will consume less products, and hence unemployment will rise, disabling some without subsistence ability from obtaining food without stealing/other methods.
Unemployment will rise because those businesses that sell some of the more pointless products will be hit by reduced sales as people buy less of their goods.
But you appear to be talking about oil as if oil = food. In fact oil = pesticide, but it also = pointless plastic consumables, and a pluthoria of other products that human beings can survive without.
Therefore whilst population will have to go down, I question the 'crash' scenario..it appears to assume (incorrectly) that oil is food, when rather a fraction of it is used in aiding the production (and of course transport) of food.
Mark
Yes, I have read that book among many others. But his views come from the same place as all ecologists and academics in the field, including Hubbert. Again, the operative principle in determining the carrying capacity of an ecosystem is known as Liebig’s Law, which states that whatever necessity is least abundant, relative to per-capita requirements, sets the environment’s limit for the population of any given species.
Energy is the least abundant, not water, not air. The energy that flows through our system comes in the form of sunlight. That is our food. You have to look at this as an equation. We are currently dependent on the fossil fuel form of that sunlight energy to avoid chaos. We are running out of our ability to provide enough net energy flow into our system to avoid the chaos and die-off that results. To assume that we are diiferent and immune to the laws of nature is absurd. It has never been observed before in the natural world, and it won't be observed now. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1180 Location: England
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 8:59 am Post subject:
Monte.
I can understand that energy (the least available resource) sets the carrying capacity and I agree, but I guess where it is a matter of opinion is whether this population reduction (die off) happens over years, decades or centuries.
I really do not think die off will be immediate and quick post peak, simply because only one of the sources of energy into the system is declining by 3% a year , not disappearing overnight(also some over sources may actually increase). There maybe in some countries, but not in countries like the US , Europe becasue the available energy can be managed as the population decreases naturally(so some sort of child limiting policy would have to implemented with immigration control to ensure this happens).
Is this unreasonable? Or am I blowing out of my ass again
I've never read Rifkin. (I admit, I consider him to be somewhat of a flake.) But I don't understand how someone who wrote a book about entropy can claim that hydrogen will be the answer.
I do think the Laws of Thermodynamics are at the root of the problem. The earth is actually not a closed system. Otherwise, life would never have evolved, since that would mean order was increasing with no energy coming in. We have energy coming into the system, via sunlight.
But it's not enough, and the Laws of Thermodynamics explain why it isn't enough. Geothermal, solar, wind, biomass...all of that together cannot replace oil.
Matt once said that more engineers believed in peak oil than any other profession, and I can believe that. Engineers understand entropy.
Joined: Aug 24, 2004 Posts: 397 Location: United Kingdom, Various
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 9:40 am Post subject:
The way it works is this. We are using up energy every day; we produce food, we solve problems using food energy, we use machines to produce, we use machines to transport.
On the face of it, it looks like we have some sort of order going here. But let's imagine for a moment that we suddenly withdrew energy from this system.
Suddenly, everything would degrade. Previously, we used energy to keep things in 'order'; but of course, according to the laws of entropy, in using energy, you always yield some form of energy in the form of heat, which cannot be collected back into ordered, usable form without the further use of energy to do it; which would of course yield more heat, and so on and so forth.
Therefore, entropy states that we are constantly evolving to some state of disorder, and that time's direction is defined because it is the direction in which we are constantly becoming more and more disordered.
However, the 'die-off' scenario, a quick scenario, would only occur if energy was suddenly cut off from society. In fact in a way the laws of entropy do not strictly apply to peak oil (at least not in the way you are suggesting), because there will still be energy available, but it's availability will be decreasing steadily over time. All the time of course, entropy will be increasing as normally.
If you are suggesting that because a decrease in oil and therefore net energy (although of course we're forgetting about gas and coal here) will lead to a decrease in the rate of entropy (in the case of energy, rate of energy yield is called power) then I do not quite see the science behind it. Of course we humans too are involved in entropy production; are you suggesting that because our ability to produce entropy will fall, a fall in population will result, and if so, why?
Monte - The forward momentum (to catastrophic change) you speak of is far larger than simply the 3% growth delusion: since '91 I've been tracking the research into the feedback loops of climate destabilization. Several are already active on a significant scale and others have been triggered. If they are left to accelerate past the point where they effectively swamp the planet's sink capacity (which recovers about 40% of anthropogenic GHG output), then all bets are off.
That position appears to be 2 or 3 decades hence.
The costs of switching to renewables over the normal replacement cycles of energy production plant would not be all that great. Doing so faster than that will of course entail capital write-offs of fossil plant at a time when the economy has ceased to 'grow'. Difficult, but feasible, given the popular & political will, and, crucially, a global structure within which nations can undertake an orderly retreat from fossil fuel dependence. (See Contraction & Convergence at www.gci.org.uk)
The axiom you quote (if it becomes readily apparent to everyone that there is a problem, it is too late to do anything about it) seems a bit facile. If those who recognize a problem identify its resolution and take action, which itself alerts others to the problem, then the problem is already being addressed by the time all are aware of it. Surely in reality this is our position ?
The way it works is this. We are using up energy every day;
Sorry but you're ingoring the first law of thermodynamics. Energy is neither created or destroyed.
There's no such thing as "using up energy". It just changes.
Although I guess it's theoretically possible to 'remove energy from the system'. But that's something that would have to fall into the realm of mystical, not scientific.
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