I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:07 pm Post subject: Alternate PO Futures.
After spending a bit of time here, I see that most anticipated PPO futures fall into one of two stock projections:
1) A gradual decline in quality of life which will leave cities uninhabitable/unsafe due to resource scarcity, accompanied by gradual dieoff.
2) A sudden decline in quality of life which will leave cities uninhabitable/unsafe due to resource scarcity, accompanied by sudden dieoff.
Granting the assumption that PO is a reality, and that Petrol costs will rise sharply in the future, what OTHER possible outcomes came we come up with?
Let's think outside the box - I'm interested in hearing other possible futures that could evolve. I have one in mind, but I'm going to wait to share it, as I'd like this thread to be about generating new ideas, and not limit it to discussing my own.
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:19 pm Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
Endless resource wars. _________________ 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: Oct 23, 2004 Posts: 5928 Location: New Jersey
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:28 pm Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
MonteQuest wrote:
Endless resource wars.
Modern resource wars started in the middle 1980s when the US encouraged Iraq to make a quick grab for Iranian oil fields (although one could argue WWII was a resource war). After some initial success by Iraq the war bogged down - but Iraq manged to destroy some Iranain refineries that were never rebuilt.
It just gets worse from there. US-Iraq I. US-Iraq II. Resource wars don't seem to work well anymore, but we'll probably get more anyway. _________________ It's already over, now it's just a matter of adjusting.
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:45 pm Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
The crash is coming, that much has been reasoned years ago. The speed of the crash is still up in the air. The three most common scenarios I find:
Slow Crash. Conservation, renewable energies and demand destruction keep things moving, but in the end, we go out with a wimper.
Multiple Crash. While conservation and renewables are brought to bear rapidly, bottlenecks in the system present, resulting in sudden small crashes all the way to the bottom.
Fast Crash. TSHTF all at once. A combination of energy availability/price, economics, resource wars, climate change, disease, famine, pretty much the worst parts of the bible.
The speed of the crash must also be coordinated with the Timing of the crash:
Early. The interdependent nature of the global network and economies collapse under the strain of debt and prices.
Middle. We tough it out for a while, but it catches up with us.
Late. Human resourcefulness, technology, and changes in lifestyle keep things moving, albeit with difficulty, long after the peak is identified.
As a species we have exceeded the carrying capacity of this small blue planet. Mother Nature will do her job, as she always does to return balance. We are past the point where our actions could make a difference.
We are in the first stages of the Transition from our present day paradigm, fossil fuels/high grade ores/global economics, to the paradigm of the future, renewable energy/local resources/local trade. We know the past, we can predict to some degree the future AFTER the Transition, but the Transition can not be predicted with accuracy. It's a problem not unlike the Heisenberg Principle. The problem with predicting the Transition is simply too many variables. The money, cultures, people, governments, resources, capacity to adapt, technology, all will play a role. We can predict that we will move from point A to point B, but we don't know the road to be taken or the speed of the car.
I believe economics and the interdependent nature of modern trade will be a critical factor. The world system of trade of all goods is based on some sort of transfer of wealth. Value of goods is traded based on number and news. The way information is disseminated, you don't need an actual disaster to affect trading, you only need the threat of bad news to affect trading. Take the money out of the equation, things come to a stop real sudden like. This leads me to think a crash will begin early.
Interdependency leads to chain reactions and bottlenecks. One part of the system goes down, the dominoes start to tumble. We may be able to stop the falling for a time, this is the pervue of the politicians-they will have to do something, but strain on the remaining systems will start the fall again. I think the multiple crashes scenario makes the most sense.
There is still one more potential scenario, but I shall not speak of it. _________________ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984
______________
Accept the Facts.
Last edited by kpeavey on Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:50 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Apr 27, 2007 Posts: 4351 Location: The Great Sonoran Desert
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:49 pm Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
500 MPH into a brick wall. _________________ "There must be a bogeyman; there always is, and it cannot be something as esoteric as "resource depletion." You can't go to war with that." Emersonbiggins
"... hope is a rotten-thighed whore" Niko Kazantzakis
Joined: May 06, 2006 Posts: 873 Location: Tustin, CA
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:30 am Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
My late father use to have a favorite saying, "If wishes were horses, beggers would ride". _________________ Skeptical scrutiny in both Science and Religion is the means by which deep thoughts are winnowed from deep nonsense-Carl Sagan
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:50 am Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
Not everybody here believes you have to run out to the farm and grow potatos to survive.
(near term aka 50 years) I think it's perfectly possible to live in a "city" post PO.
Notice I specifically said "city" and not suburbia....BIG difference.
I have yet to find a public "consensus" on any topic on this site.
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:08 am Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
I guess I'm an "optimistic doomer" if that is possible .
I believe we will have an extremely difficult 20-40 years ahead of us, with the scenarios mentioned above (depending on the speed of the collapse). I think different countries will collapse at different speeds and in different ways, some may be affected sooner and others later.
In Europe, I see a future in small villages, and maybe small towns that are surrounded by farmland. I don't think large cities will make it due to the chaos/lack of food.
I believe that even though there will be a lot fewer humans, the ones that remain will be able to live a sustainable life using renewable energies, and that it will be a very good life.
I think the culture/thinking of the remaining people will be a lot different, and it will be a new culture based on this experience, where sustainable living is a core part. Maybe there will even be a new religion that will justify the new kind of life?
I think life will be simpler, but I still think technology will be important, but in a different/smarter way, using the resources in a more efficient way,and technology will be focused in areas where it is truly needed.
Joined: Dec 07, 2005 Posts: 1985 Location: Australia
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:14 am Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
Hard times until end of 2012 when the aliens land and reveal free energy technologies that so far has been surpressed by governments with vested interest in oil.
The '1 amero' coin is changed to have a picture of Nicholai Tesla.
It could happen... _________________ It's not a bailout, it's a buy-in" - Nancy Pelosi
Joined: Mar 19, 2007 Posts: 162 Location: Ontario, Canada
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:15 am Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
(With a tip of the hat to Heinlein, Niven, Sturgeon, et all)
The Chinese space program launches a series of rockets (fueled by hydrogen slush as per NASA space shuttle) that meet in orbit to deliver components of a huge solar array.
Turns out that while the middle east was pumping oil out to the west, they were pumping cash into research and development of renewable resources. They developed the solar array, the microwave transmission capacity, and prevailed upon the Chinese to supply the industrial base to manufacture orbital power generation and transmission stations.
The third world declares bankruptcy, and defaults on all notes. They return to subsistance farming, and after a generation or two of re-learning old skills, return to something like their old cultures and senses of community.
Travel becomes much more expensive, but advances in communication and telerobotics reduce the need to move actual people around. The moving of people and goods is mostly by mass transit... Busses, trains, solar and sail powered ships. Cars, for those who can afford them, are electric. Emergency vehicles are internal combustion deisel, using biofuels.
Industry becomes local again, with small companies working to supply local needs. Foreign trade goes back to small, easy to ship items and commodities that are region specific and expensive.
Europe and asia become the two major superpowers, as both have made significant strides towards renewables and sustainable production.
North america is relegated food production. Its vaunted military power wasn't a match for the combined disapproval of Europe and Asia, backed up by an orbital power platform that also doubles as an energy weapon. North americans dismantle their bloated military machine, and scavenge the resources to fuel the long climb back to a technological and information based economy, paying the same high price for renewable technologies that everyone else has, but paying it all at once instead of over decades.
United Earth forces man the satellites, and make sure that wars of aggression between states are quickly and decisively stamped out. New jobs in the renewable energy sector, space exploration, orbital production and processing fuel the next economic wave. _________________ If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research. ~A. Einstein
TANSTAAFL ~R.A.H.
The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today. ~Chinese proverb
Joined: Sep 03, 2007 Posts: 637 Location: Sunny Virginia, USA
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 7:20 am Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
mos6507 wrote:
As you'll learn, everyone here is their own personal nostradamus.
With apologies...
With the black king once again taking the future in hand,
as the black knight resigns the board,
the sun sets upon the future of men,
and the leather clad warrior of the road makes his stand. _________________ When somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means. -- Otto Harkaman, Space Viking
Joined: Sep 29, 2004 Posts: 2330 Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:02 am Post subject: Re: Alternate PO Futures.
In the short term: the end of environmentalism. This is all part of the "classical" plateau in conventional PO theory when all stops are pulled. The 1975 movie "Three days of the Condor" was on last night and one of the great quotes from the movie is:
Quote:
Higgins: It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. Maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?
Joe Turner: Ask them?
Higgins: Not now - then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!
You will see a shift in attitudes as people start to hurt. People in the rich countries such as the USA have grown accustomed to the world changing for them, to accommodate their lifestyle. They will demand action from the government and they will get it. However, this will be short lived as the truth sinks in that we are trying to get blood from a stone. Unemployment will reach levels never seen before and the traditional provider of last resort; the government will be swamped. Eventually, law and order will break down and it will be every man for himself. There are too many mouths to feed and not enough food, literally. The food I'm talking about is everything we consume. Ironically, right now we are, in vain, turning our food into food for our cars. As far as I can see, things are progressing right on schedule.
On the brighter side, humans have survived countless past trials by being adaptable. Ironically, humans are the most adaptable animals on the planet, though looking at modern man in the rich countries, you wouldn't think so. I think that we have it within ourselves to come to realization and adapt. However, that doesn't change the numbers. The old and sick will die off as health care becomes rationed. That alone will bring about huge population reduction. Our kids will find a tough world for sure.
As our oil fueled economy shrinks and resources are diverted to government ends, employment will become a luxury. I'm not sure how the government will deal with millions of people not able to pay their mortgage and utility bills, let alone their grocery bill. What will the government do when utility providers declare bankruptcy? Probably take them over and sign people up as wards of the State. Having people sign up for government care allows the government to enforce expanded powers over those people. Freedom as we know it may all but vanish as the government tells you where to report for work and how to live your life. When the alternative is homelessness and starvation, the choice is obvious. _________________ "That's the problem with mercy, kid... It just ain't professional" - Fast Eddie, The Color of Money
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