THE Die Off Thread Part 1 (merged)

Viper · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 05, 2004 Posts: 204 Location: MO

If we just reduce population(rich or poor), or go to the effort of reducing birth rates, etc, then the next generation will look around, decide that they are not over populated, and start the problem over again.
This thing can not be fixed without breaking the machine, and breaking the machine will cause the population problem to work itself out anyway. Dieoff is not only unavoidable, the sooner it happens the better.
Finaly, we don't break the machine by throwing ourselves at it(terrorism anyone?), but by becoming important to it and then destabalizing it.

gg3 · Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 8:31 pm Post subject:

Breaking the machine is no solution. You have to build something to replace it. You can break first and build later, and suffer the consequences in between. Or you can build the new machine first and then dismantle the old machine, thereby reducing the consequences.
Certain freedoms are additive: speech, press, religion, etc.; my freedom in these areas adds to (rather than subtracts from) yours. Certain freedoms are zero-sum: breeding, consuming, etc. We as a species need to prioritize, i.e. put first things first.

As far as energy and military strength are concerned, as long as we have an efficient conventional force plus a viable nuclear deterrent, we can minimize the risk of some foreign foe taking advantage. Energy consumption does not equate 1:1 with military capability.
As far as operationalizing is concerned, start with public relations campaigns, then move toward appropriate legislation (e.g. rescind child tax credits for three and more). Also a more practical Administration in Washington can revive support for overseas family planning assistance. We have so far lost about 20 years leadtime on these tasks due to the dominance of certain religious extremist factions in our own government. That is a not-good sign.

OilBurner · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 03, 2004 Posts: 417 Location: UK

Speaking as someone who is soon to be a new parent themselves (I don't expect congratulations for contributing to the population problem Wink

), I think there are two obstacles to reducing the population in developed countries. I'm focusing on the UK here, because that's where I live and that's what I understand and know best.
The first obstacle is immigration. Immigration is clearly being used by politicians to overcome the pensions crisis and to increase economic activity to ensure there is a minimum and supposedly safe level of inflation.
That has to stop, all countries benefit socially and economically from immigrants, but as we all know - the ever spiralling energy needs of a growing population is a dead end. Whether it be Peak Oil or physically not being able to meet water and food consumption levels, there has to be a limit, so why not impose it now?
The other obstacle is poor people. These people have little or nothing in the way of limitations on how many children they can have. The more kids they have, the more support that get from the government in the form of tax credits, housing benefit and the like. Middle class people with higher incomes will generally be excluded from these benefits link and are faced with either giviing up work to have more children or paying incredibly high child nursery fees. These fees are typically around 600 UK pounds per month where I live.
On the other end of the scale is rich people, they can afford nannies and the like, so cost is no barrier to having children.
Fortunately, the rich people are in the minority, so it doesn't matter so much how many children they have.
The middle class people tend to have only 1 or 2 children (more frequently none at all) link and so do not contribute to a positive gain in population. High nursery fees and career women are two main factors here.
The poorer people can have almost as many kids as they like and will tend to start families younger, thus growing proportionally faster through time. The poorer they are, the more kids they can have as more help is available and it is more likely that one or both partners do not work and so there is no nursery fees to pay. There is also the correlation between poor contraception and lower or zero income individuals see: link
That is not to say poorer people are well off, many will live in poverty with the children. However, they are more likely to have kids anyway. Whereas middle class people look at their income, outgoings and the cost of nurseries and soon find a pack of condoms when they add the figures up.

Therefore, to control population growth is simple - stop immigration. Then, to ensure population decrease you have to remove benefits from poorer families and improve incentives for working. If both partners are too well off through working then they will not give up work and so be forced to use nurseries and thus regulated to one or two kids. In the long run, they would be better off as well as helping avoid the catastrophe of an ever increasing population.

The only problem I can see with this scenario is running into Jevons paradox (thanks for that post Aaron). If more poor people become middle class sub-urbanites with 1-2 kids then will they be using more energy than poor inner city people with 4-5 kids?
Taking into account the other perspective, forced population control in the manner the Chinese have used, that will also ensure population decrease. However, the same problem occurs. We have an acronym here which I guess you may also know in the US. It's DINKies - Double Income, No Kids. Well known for being a sector of the population who live the high life because they have no kids to squander their income on. That is, instead of using more energy through a higher population, they are purchasing far more goods and services than parents do. Therefore, the net energy balance is much the same.

So, my full point is this: any attempt to reduce the population through societal measures is actually likely to back fire, or if populations decrease naturally, energy use still increases. It may be that the only form of control that really works is one forced on us, e.g. a die off or a giant leap in technology or the distribution of renewables. Choose your own favoured ending out of those three.
As to how many people are actually sustainable in the UK, that would depend on the intesity of collapse.
But put it this way, many new houses built now are three storey with 3-4 bedrooms and enough garden to put a pair of swings in them and a garden bench (just). Without cheap supplied food etc, these people will really be in impossible conditions.
I think that if society fell back towards something like the pre-industrial age style of living then the population must also be a similar level to that time. In 1599 there were 4 million people link, so expect in the region of 10 million people in the UK thanks to modern knowledge that should help prevent plagues and infant mortality etc. i.e. only 1 in 6 can survive.

OilBurner · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 03, 2004 Posts: 417 Location: UK

Thanks Leaf. I find it quite shocking myself that somehow the population can grow so much in such a short period of time. It makes you wonder how much populations might rise in the next 400 years unless Peak Oil hits? Imagine the CO2 outputs if populations increased by a similar percentage - there would be 900 million people in the UK alone, all consuming energy like there's no tomorrow. The environmental impact of that doesn't bear thinking about.

I agree too, in the event of economic meltdown, Britain will be hit very hard - it's well known for being overcrowded. We have a similar population to France but only a fraction of the land, even then most people are concentrated in London and the South East. So why on Earth do we encourage more people in, mostly to settle in, you guessed it, London and the South East. It seems like a recipe for disaster.
The thought of that makes me hope that there won't be such a disaster, although I have to acknowledge that it seems very likely.

OilBurner · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 03, 2004 Posts: 417 Location: UK

Thanks for you concern Leaf, but not to worry - I have a get out plan that essentially involves relocation but within the UK. I figure most of the population are too stupid and slow (sorry Mr Joe Public!) to head for relatively unpopulated areas like the Scottish Highlands. So that's where I'll go if TSHTF. I'm half-Scottish so I might just get away with it with the locals!! Laughing

My wife sympathizes with the idea of Peak Oil but is not sufficently motivated to drop our current energy intensive lifestyle to make the break just yet. I'd sooner take my chances than leave my wife and unborn child just at the moment!! Smile

I also worry about the effect of society breaking down in the UK. There are so many different people from so many ethnic backgrounds, it's not hard to imagine different communities turning on each other in a competition for jobs, electricity and fuel. I think the population is split along the lines of those who will help each other in a crisis and those who would spit on people they secretly hated anyway.
Maybe, if we're lucky, the Peak will be enough years from now so that racism will be less of a factor in the future. After all, it was much worse in Britain in the 60s and 70s. So progress can be made.
That's the blind optimist in me!!

tkn317071 · Heavy Crude Joined: May 29, 2004 Posts: 106

Everyone here is familiar with the yeast/wine analogy, so I guess everyone agrees that a die-off is inevitable without some major changes, given the historical trend of population growth (exponential growth).
So, just to add my two cents, I don't think the dieoff is necessary or avoidable, it is inevitable. I used to think that humans were the one species with the ability to grow exponentially, realize what was happening and change its behavior to avoid a massive population collapse, but now I'm thinking that the collapse itself will be the only thing that could cause a mass awakening. It feels like we're Noah, we should build an "ark".

gg3 · Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:07 pm Post subject:

How about: it feels like we're Hari Seldon, we should build a Foundation. Re: poor people and population: birth rate will go down when prosperity goes up. Ultimately if we can't grow our way out of that one, the question boils down to distributional equity, which is a political time-bomb but there's no way around it.

JR · Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 4:49 am Post subject: THE Die Off Thread (merged)

question about die-off. I have a question relating to the Die-off theory. Say Peak Oil is reached in 2010. If there is a “fast”Die off…..how many years are we talking? 5, 10, 15, more? If there is a “slow” die off…again, how many years would this cover. 10, 20, more? I understand nobody can tell me the exact answer to this, but I am just trying to understand the approximate time-frame of each. Thanks! JR
{JR, I hijacked your thread to redirect some DieOff discussion happening elsewhere. Hope this works! EE}

JayHMorrison · Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 5:52 am Post subject: Re: question about die-off.

MadScientist · Heavy Crude Joined: May 19, 2004 Posts: 418

I agree with Jay's analysis for the most part.
I would like to add the distinct possibility of continued, escalating warfare which will accelerate the developments.
The die-off wont be directly from peak oil itself, or even the economy. It will be conflict that does the dirty work. Whether global world war or inter-neighborhood shootouts, the desperate situation will produce a degree of competition that the domesticated human animal has not seen.
Considering the proliferation of WMD these days and what's at stake with the coming peak in oil, I expect it to get bad anytime.
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Aaron · Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 8:36 am Post subject:

I agree that the real threat is from resource conflicts.
As energy becomes more expensive, the places where millions are already starving could be tipped over the edge into complete social chaos.
Many economies, including South American, African, and Pac Rim countries, are heavily leveraged financially, and any serious ripples in international markets for energy (& therefore almost everything else), could initiate economic implosion of these fragile economies.

That alone should prove a mess, but escalation of any or all of these "hot spots" into regional or even global conflict is entirely possible. Predictions are probably almost meaningless factually, but can serve to provide a sort of "landscape" or "context" for understanding these complex issues.
I suspect we have much more to fear from ourselves, than from resource depletion.
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JR · Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 10:21 am Post subject:

MadScientist, why do you think things will get bad anytime? Colin Campbell predicts peak in 2008 so why would the situation get bad now? Or do you come to your conclusion because of events in the Middle-East.
JR

claus · Coal Joined: Jun 19, 2004 Posts: 2

I'm not so sure that the effects of peak oil will be THAT disastrous for regions like Africa. I wonder whether the impact will be as great as it will be on the industrialised West. Peasants involved in subsistence farming form three-quarters of the population in Africa. The folk in the cities might well suffer, and certainly those people in famine prone areas will be at greater risk through lack of food aid. But given that much of Africa is pre-industrial, I don't know if the impact will be as disruptive as in say the US or Europe.

MadScientist · Heavy Crude Joined: May 19, 2004 Posts: 418

Things are already bad...
Demand is eclipsing supply.
The middle east holds most of the rest of the world's Oil.
There's more than a little talk of draft or mandatory 2 year civil service for USA after elections.
President Bush has said this is a long war on Terror.
The Neocons and the CIA "know" Peak Oil.
The bombings by terrorists, extremists, and insurgents are multiplying.
Connect the dots.

My dot-to-dot shows a USA flag over the Persian Gulf indefinitely.
That's obviously creating some geopolitical issues for the US and close allies. Regardless, the USA is there to secure the flow of oil to the States and elsewhere that can afford it. Without the hard charging, do-or-die US fighting man there, busting ass and dying bloody fu ck ing deaths 24/7/365, how much Oil would be flowing out of the middle east?

Well, Hussein would be in control of at least Iraq and Kuwaiti Oil, maybe more. Probably with one of the largest armies in the world.
Saudi Arabian Oil would likely be held hostage by now, or soon anyway.
So, America is at War. Which is no big deal. Put Arnie up for Prez and let's dig-in for the long haul! Laughing

Just remember who's gonna get first turn at the pumps. Not many countries offered to send warm bodies. My overall point is that the threat of War over Oil reserves today is as real as the threat of declining Oil production in 2008. And many of the preparations are the same.
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