[BigTex]

If I am digging a hole and I decide that I want to get out of it, I should stop digging it deeper. Whatever my options are, they are likely to be better if I stop digging the hole deeper. Doing nothing would be more likely to get me out of the hole than continuing to dig deeper.

If my friend Snik is also digging a hole next to me and he also decides that he wants to get out of the hole, he may continue digging. When I ask him why he is still digging the hole deeper if what he really wants is to get out of the hole, he may tell me: "At least I'm doing something."

***

With respect to the addiction analogy, as I recall, President Bush used the term "addiction" to describe our dependence on oil. If even he's using this analogy, there must be some value in it for purposes of describing our situation.

To the point about not having a vision of the future, that's silly. Merely having a fantastic vision of the future is meaningless if the conditions upon which the realization of the vision depends are not consistent with the physical laws of our habitat.

Hitler had a bold vision. So what?

My bold vision is that human beings will find a state of enlightenment to complement their remarkable reasoning and tool-making skills. That would be an amazing cultural/spiritual evolution there. People would begin saying "Wait a second, exponential population and economic growth in a finite world is impossible. We need to stop seeing these states as the ideal and start realizing that they represent a tremendous risk to our survival."

When you say "more energy is the answer", what is the last step in that process? What end is that strategy moving you toward? Is it just "live for today"? If it is, then that is actually a more coherent philosophy than trying to argue that the consumption oriented world we live in is somehow more than an aberrant evolutionary blip.

My point is that our civilization need not be a blip. There are sustainable ways for human beings to live. A very high quality of life can occur with vastly lower resource inputs than we are now using. But for some reason this vision is called doomer apocalyptic thinking. It's called defeatist. It's called stone age. Its opponents suggest that people who think this way would have trouble identifying something round as a wheel.

Sustainability is deeply distasteful to some people, and I don't know why. Perhaps it is because part of the sustainability paradigm involves an admission that mankind is not the king of the world, that we are not god-like, and when we try to be god-like bad things happen.

But no one wants to talk about LESS consumption, they want to talk about MORE energy. They want to talk about this lavish way of living as being "non-negotiable."

I consider "vision" to be the ability to look past tomorrow and the next day and to be able to make tough-minded cause and effect connections between our actions and their consequences.

Maybe to some people "vision" just means finding a rationale for doing what they wanted to do in the first place.

[MonteQuest]

We cannot simply stop using fossil fuels without completely, and utterly destroying our way of life, not to mention causing billions of untimely deaths by starvation, exposure to the elements, disease, etc.

But our way of life is unsustainable using any energy source.

Untimely deaths? Populations in overshoot die-off because it is their time to so so.

It's the way the world works.

I know that is what you believe is going to happen anyway, but as far as I am concerned I would just as soon put that off for as long as possible, just in case we can find a way out that is not as draconian as intentionally depriving people of medical care when they are ill, or allowing millions at a time starve to death so we can reduce our population to a sustainable level.

I'm just not ready to give up quite yet.

What? Like Carousel?

No, I believe it is more like this:

So, here we are in overshoot. We are living beyond our means. We spent our “bag of money” on toys and a phantom lifestyle that we don’t want to give up. We are insistent that giving up our toys, our lifestyle and our huge family is not an option. We won’t cut up the credit cards, nor powerdown our lifestyle.

We want a fix. We want something that keeps this phantom going...at all costs.

We foolishly believe that renewables will allow us to do so, while ignoring the writing on the wall from deforestation, loss of biodiversity, fisheries collapse, and global climate change.

We don’t want to submit to nature’s population correction. We wish to avoid that.

We are dreaming, while at the same time making matters worse with talk of electric cars and other techno-fixes to perpetuate an unsustainable lifestyle…a pure construct of overshoot via fossil fuels.

We want to focus on short-term, short-sighted, selfish solutions that allows us, (those living right now) to avoid bankruptcy, with no lasting solutions for those generations to follow. We need to stop this “solutions obsession” and focus on our options, instead.

[Snik]

Funny but true.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,368242,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,371001,00.html

[MrBean]

Without ideas and vision, we would still be hunter/gatherers dying at age 30, and wondering why round things roll.

Hunter/gatherers had and have visions and even special social function for especially talented visionaries - shamanhood.

That's why they they live or lived or would live if industrial society would let them full satisfied lives. Because they had visions beyond their nose, beyond the most short sighted greed, visions seven and more generations ahead and where not, instructing them how to behave in order not to disrupt the natural balance that would give their future generations fair chance to live a full satisfied life.

We have very little to teach "primitive" peoples and not really anything of any real value, but a world to learn.

[Ludi]

We have very little to teach "primitive" peoples and not really anything of any real value, but a world to learn.

http://www.survival-international.org/

[outcast]

Read up on carrying capacity and overshoot.

Done that. The problem I have with these arguments is that they rest on two assumptions:

1.) That there will not be any new technological developments. This point assumes that there will not be any more innovation, which is flat wrong.

2.) That when there are shortages of resources, alternatives will not be found. With very few exceptions (such as phosphorus) this is also not true.

Let me share with you a quote:

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.."


Sound familiar? If I didn't include the dates, you would think this prediction was made very recently. This actually came from a book written in 1968 called "The Population Bomb", which was a best seller back then. The predictions didn't happen, because new methods (in particular "shuttle breeding" and other selective breeding programs) and technologies were developed to deal with the problem.

[MonteQuest]

Read up on carrying capacity and overshoot.

Done that.

Then I suggest you didn't grasp the concepts you read about.

The problem I have with these arguments is that they rest on two assumptions:

1.) That there will not be any new technological developments. This point assumes that there will not be any more innovation, which is flat wrong.

"People continue to advocate further technological breakthroughs as the supposedly sure cure for carrying capacity deficits. The very idea that technology caused overshoot, and that it made us too colossal to endure, remains alien to too many minds for"de-colossalization" to be a really feasible alternative to literal die-off. There is a persistent drive to apply remedies that aggravate the problem" William Catton from Overshoot.

2.) That when there are shortages of resources, alternatives will not be found. With very few exceptions (such as phosphorus) this is also not true.

So, infinite growth is possible? Or, we can always find ways to beat nature at her own game?

Dizzykin? Here's your boy!

[MrBean]

Sound familiar? If I didn't include the dates, you would think this prediction was made very recently. This actually came from a book written in 1968 called "The Population Bomb", which was a best seller back then. The predictions didn't happen, because new methods (in particular "shuttle breeding" and other selective breeding programs) and technologies were developed to deal with the problem.

The most basic problem with any technofix is that it allways creates many more additional problems needing a fix by fixing the most current one.

And the definition of insanity goes: doing same thing again and again allways with equally bad result.

Wise men preach not-doing and letting things happen by themselves.

[BigTex]

Read up on carrying capacity and overshoot.

Done that. The problem I have with these arguments is that they rest on two assumptions:

1.) That there will not be any new technological developments. This point assumes that there will not be any more innovation, which is flat wrong.

2.) That when there are shortages of resources, alternatives will not be found. With very few exceptions (such as phosphorus) this is also not true.

If you have mastered the concepts of carrying capacity and overshoot, it's probably time for you to move on to cargoism.

You may discover that you are a devout cargoist and you didn't even know it.

[outcast]

OK, so when is the overshoot supposed to catch up to us? When is this "die off"/"de-collasilization" going to happen?

[Snik]

Who is saying we will stop using fossil fuels?

I would think that a crack addict should stop, don't you?

Who is intentionally depriving anyone of medical care?

Your fearless leader, Monte.

Get out of the way of disease and stop trying to save everyone.

I think that is pretty clear.

[Snik]

Without ideas and vision, we would still be hunter/gatherers dying at age 30, and wondering why round things roll.

Hunter/gatherers had and have visions and even special social function for especially talented visionaries - shamanhood.

That's why they they live or lived or would live if industrial society would let them full satisfied lives. Because they had visions beyond their nose, beyond the most short sighted greed, visions seven and more generations ahead and where not, instructing them how to behave in order not to disrupt the natural balance that would give their future generations fair chance to live a full satisfied life.

We have very little to teach "primitive" peoples and not really anything of any real value, but a world to learn.

I would think that most of what they had on their mind was how to survive through the next day. I believe your view of their existence is a bit on the romantic side. It's easy to romanticize the way they lived while you are sitting in your air conditioned home in front of you electrically powered computer with a full belly after watching the latest DVD release on your flat screen TV, and thinking about a nice hot shower before climbing into your nice comfortable bed.

That is the reality of our life today. To think that existing as a hunter/gatherer is preferable is complete denial at best, and verging on delusional.

[BigTex]

Snik, living in a sustainable manner and going back to a primitive hunter/gatherer lifestyle are two entirely different things.

I'm not sure what caused you to think that they were the same thing.

As for when the die-off is scheduled to occur, I don't think there is a schedule for it.

How long have you been working with these concepts prior to your arrival here a week ago?

If you haven't spent a lot of time thinking about these things, I suggest you let it simmer for a while. One week of arguing with some people on the Internet is really not enough time for most people to make an informed judgment about whether they have been wrong about everything they have thought and believed about what human "progress" is all about.

[Snik]

If I am digging a hole and I decide that I want to get out of it, I should stop digging it deeper. Whatever my options are, they are likely to be better if I stop digging the hole deeper. Doing nothing would be more likely to get me out of the hole than continuing to dig deeper.

If my friend Snik is also digging a hole next to me and he also decides that he wants to get out of the hole, he may continue digging. When I ask him why he is still digging the hole deeper if what he really wants is to get out of the hole, he may tell me: "At least I'm doing something."

Really, please don't go into the analogy writing business. You need to look at what I've said a little more closely.

With respect to the addiction analogy, as I recall, President Bush used the term "addiction" to describe our dependence on oil. If even he's using this analogy, there must be some value in it for purposes of describing our situation.

Must be getting desperate here....quoting Bush now. My My.

Hitler had a bold vision. So what?

If you can't differentiate, I feel for you.

My bold vision is that human beings will find a state of enlightenment to complement their remarkable reasoning and tool-making skills. That would be an amazing cultural/spiritual evolution there. People would begin saying "Wait a second, exponential population and economic growth in a finite world is impossible. We need to stop seeing these states as the ideal and start realizing that they represent a tremendous risk to our survival."

And my vision is what?

When you say "more energy is the answer", what is the last step in that process?

I never said more energy was the answer. It is part of the answer for the near term. My proposal, if you paid any attention, was to use the royalty money from the new drilling for funding of alternative/renewable energy sources as well as additional research into more efficient ways of using the energy sources we have now.

But no one wants to talk about LESS consumption, they want to talk about MORE energy. They want to talk about this lavish way of living as being "non-negotiable."

That's just plain wrong. In fact, everyone I know that is a proponent of opening these areas up for drilling also believes that conservation and more efficient use of what we have is at least as important as the drilling to getting us out of this mess. There are two sides to the equation, and all we are saying is let's work both sides of it instead of just one.

And believe it or not, I do think one of the biggest problems we have is that there are just too damn many people. I'm just not willing to "get out of the way of diseases, and stop trying to save everyone". I just can't go there. Frankly I don't have an answer for that one, and wish I did. Massive non-consensual sterilization doesn't really appeal to me either. If Monte is right, we don't really have to do anything, and whatever we try to do is too little too late anyway, so why worry about it. I can't quite go there either.

[outcast]

I never said more energy was the answer. It is part of the answer for the near term. My proposal, if you paid any attention, was to use the royalty money from the new drilling for funding of alternative/renewable energy sources as well as additional research into more efficient ways of using the energy sources we have now.

But, that is too rational and would make it so that we can't run around shouting "OMFG DOOM is upon us!!!!!!!!!!" We can't have that now can we.......

[MrBean]

I would think that most of what they had on their mind was how to survive through the next day. I believe your view of their existence is a bit on the romantic side. It's easy to romanticize the way they lived while you are sitting in your air conditioned home in front of you electrically powered computer with a full belly after watching the latest DVD release on your flat screen TV, and thinking about a nice hot shower before climbing into your nice comfortable bed.

That is the reality of our life today. To think that existing as a hunter/gatherer is preferable is complete denial at best, and verging on delusional.

No, you are still captivated by the Hobbesian world-view.

At the same conference, Marshall Sahlins presented a paper entitled, "Notes on the Original Affluent Society," in which he challenged the popular view of hunter-gatherers living lives "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," as Thomas Hobbes had put it in 1651. According to Sahlins, ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more leisure than typical members of industrial society, and they still ate well. Their "affluence" came from the idea that they are satisfied with very little in the material sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society

[BigTex]

When you say "more energy is the answer", what is the last step in that process?

I never said more energy was the answer. It is part of the answer for the near term. My proposal, if you paid any attention, was to use the royalty money from the new drilling for funding of alternative/renewable energy sources as well as additional research into more efficient ways of using the energy sources we have now.

I think that would be a great idea. It seems incredibly unlikely, however, given that every dollar of federal revenue has already been spent as far into the future as you care to look. But if that proposal comes to a vote I will be happy to vote "yes" for that one.

But no one wants to talk about LESS consumption, they want to talk about MORE energy. They want to talk about this lavish way of living as being "non-negotiable."

That's just plain wrong. In fact, everyone I know that is a proponent of opening these areas up for drilling also believes that conservation and more efficient use of what we have is at least as important as the drilling to getting us out of this mess. There are two sides to the equation, and all we are saying is let's work both sides of it instead of just one.

And believe it or not, I do think one of the biggest problems we have is that there are just too damn many people. I'm just not willing to "get out of the way of diseases, and stop trying to save everyone". I just can't go there. Frankly I don't have an answer for that one, and wish I did. Massive non-consensual sterilization doesn't really appeal to me either. If Monte is right, we don't really have to do anything, and whatever we try to do is too little too late anyway, so why worry about it. I can't quite go there either.

Your frustration is not very different from mine.

This situation is a "double bind"--any approach you take seems equally unpleasant. Although the human mind is for the most part exceptionally intelligent and able to work through most problems reasonably well, when faced with a double bind the brain often not only doesn't come up with a suitable response, it often gets completely derailed from rationality and starts unconsciously changing the assumptions in order to reach a more acceptable conclusion.

[socrates1fan]

Yes but some is better than none even if it takes several years. Right now and in the coming decade we have no alternative. That scares me.

joeltrout

We have alternatives.
But none that can keep the SUV suburban life.
Alternatives can be used for things such as electricity, medical, industry, etc.
Never can it be used for the mass fueling of private cars.

[MonteQuest]

OK, so when is the overshoot supposed to catch up to us? When is this "die off"/"de-collasilization" going to happen?

When the supply of fossil fuels can no longer keep up with demand is when the crunch comes...but that won't stop growth as the exponential momentum of overshoot continues to expand the population ...even in the face of declining food/energy. That's the definition of overshoot.

The rate and magnitude of a die-off scenario is unknown for many reasons.

Primarily, that we don't know what the rate of oil decline will be.

Second, we are continung to try to find ways to replace the "phantom" sugar in our petri dish...furthering overshoot numbers for an even more resounding crash later with even greater collapse of the environment.

4.5% is the current decline of existing fields. Some believe it will be closer to 8% some say 2%.

Let's do some math using the Rule of 70 to determine doubling time.

70/4.5 = 15 1/2 years until oil production goes from peak to half of peak.

In todays numbers, that means 85 mbpd to 42.5 mbpd.

70/8% = 8 3/4 years.

70/2% = 35 years.

Everyone is hoping for the 2%.

Answer: No one knows.

[Ludi]

Primarily, that we don't know what the rate of oil decline will be.

Second, we are continung to try to find ways to replace the "phantom" sugar in our petri dish...furthering overshoot numbers for an even more resounding crash later with even greater collapse of the environment.

4.5% is the current decline of existing fields. Some believe it will be closer to 8% some say 2%.

Let's do some math using the Rule of 70 to determine doubling time.

70/4.5 = 15 1/2 years until oil production goes from peak to half of peak.

In todays numbers, that means 85 mbpd to 42.5 mbpd.

70/8% = 8 3/4 years.

70/2% = 35 years.

Everyone is hoping for the 2%.

Answer: No one knows.

These figures are so important to look at from time to time. We should always keep these projections in our minds as we consider "solutions."