Says Julien:
>I don't care much about the number of individuals in most species as long
>as it
>stays above the extinction danger zone,
Well that's exactly where the devil is, in identifying the danger zone. More
below ...
>but I'm quite puzzled about what you
>say...
>How would that happen, barring a transformation of Earth into Venus.
Well, Julien I'm not able to post all the references to what I am going to
say in response, but the bottleneck FAQ I sent you off-list and the dieoff
website have ample footnotes and resources. There are a bunch more places I
can quote, but I don�t have to do I?
>Lots of
>species will indeed die, but do you imagine us cutting down all forests and
>stuff like that?
We indeed seem to be cutting down all the forests, no imagination is needed.
The rate of deforestation is currently unmatched in geological time, except
for that comet that killed the dinosaurs. The US has cut down approximately
90%+ of its original forests. It is estimated that Indonesia will be
deforested before 2100. Nestor could probably supply better figures than
mine for deforestation in South America, but I read a very conservative
rebuttal to one of my chickenlittle alarmist buddies wherein the arguer
himself admitted to a 20% destruction of the rainforests in the southern
hemisphere already, and with projections that by 2075 they will be incapable
of recovering.
>We are not living on an island. The crash implies precisely that
>we won't be able to "domesticate" all the earth's surface for the
>foreseeable
>future, isn't it?
1) We are living on an island, Julien, that's the point. (Ricardo applies
here, diminishing returns, depletion of the British Isles finally perceived
to be applicable to the whole planet, it just took time to see it.<g>)If we
could extrapolate capitalism or any other system moving off-planet to
replace fast-disappearing resources, it would be harder to argue that the
crash is lethal.
2)It's the percentages, it's not necessary to domesticate all for the
problem to push us over the abyss, we just have to domesticate "too much".
See Mark's current post about overfishing. we don't have to domesticate the
entire ocean, just start tilting the imbalances. The idea that we could be
harvesting the plankton at the very foundation of the food chain is terribly
frightening. We just have to render a small part of the oceans sterile -- a
certain small unknown percentage more than can be adapted to by species.
The crash �implies precisely� that we can do that by 2075 (my calculation)
to 2200, (a more optimistic alarmist).
>Otherwise, only a small number of species (relatively to the total
>number of existing species) are vulnerable to us, isn't it? Or have I
>missed
>something?
Go read E.O. Wilson about it. The whole biosphere is vulnerable to us.
Currently the acts of man on the planet are causing the extinction of
species at a wholesale rate matched only by the dieoff at the end of the
Cretaceous, and twice before in the history of Earth. (some say 5 times it
has happened) The purely natural dieoffs in the past left the planet with
less than 6% of species each time. This one we are involved in looks to be
equal or worse. We are "extincting" thousands of species a day.
The evidence is becoming increasingly clear that our assault on the ozone
layer has now damaged a whole ORDER of species beyond repair. (amphibians).
Almost the whole rest of the animal kingdom, -- and parts of the plant
kingdom -- are dependent in fundamental ways upon amphibians. The disruption
to the food chain alone is staggering. Mass dieoff of species is going on
right now, we just don't know where OUR place in line is yet.
> >the growth of human numbers since W.W.II (3 billion) is not
> >sustainable once the petroleum that runs the engine of the Green
>Revolution
> >is withdrawn.
>
>On that issue, what do you think (I'm illiterate on that issue) about
>Mark's post
>on the "GM crops ..." thread on the original CL the 11th of June with the
>excerpt
>from the Vananda Shiva talk?
It's part of a much bigger problem. The whole area of "totalitarian"
agriculture is a house of cards, from over-reliance upon monoculture systems
to the dangers of GM viral destruction to the simple shortsightedness in
trying to solve overpopulation by racing to catch up via food production.
The idea of locking up the seeds means that if the bank fails, .. WE fail.
>Besides, didn't Hanson say that 90% of the energy expanded in the food
>sector is expanded in distribution and processing (we discussed that on the
>list briefly). If so and if oil production across time indeed looks like a
>kind of
>bell curve, that petroleum won't be withdrawn soon. (And I'm not mentioning
>stuff like more people working in agriculture, going 90% veggie, untapped
>food sources, slaying of huge dogs, etc.)
Distribution and processing are not where the threat to the Green Revolution
is strongest. (I have had this argument with Hanson, BTW, and we disagree.
He ignores the uses of petroleum other than as �energy�.) The Green
Revolution is at its foundation possible only via petrochemical fertilizers.
This allowed the massive increases in population after W.W.II, instead of
"ending world hunger" as it was envisioned. Now .... subtract the word
"petro" from petrochemical as oil depletes. Anybody can then do the math to
see what happens to agriculture and the Green Revolution. (when doing the
math, remember: The energy reserves bound up in the lighter petro products
such as natural gas do not lend themselves easily at all to petrochemical
fertilizer.)
>And Nestor can tell you about the
>relativity of the amount of foos needed to live. I don't think that it's
>physical oil
>shortages that will bring us famine (poverty/bad distribution of oil as
>well as
>food, loss of usable land notably because of lack of water, population
>growth,
>maybe the end of fishing and stuff like that, rather). But sure, we'll have
>less
>nonsense like apples from South Africa in the supermarket near my place (of
>course apple trees grow very well here).
Famine aside, any one of these triggers is not enough in itself to kill us.
Take them all together, (poverty/bad distribution of oil as well as food,
loss of usable land � lack of water, population growth, maybe the end of
fishing and stuff like that�) and continue with the attitude that
perpetuates them and you have the crash. I keep asking various folks I
correspond with to do the actual computations from the best sources they
know, based upon the assumption that the most likely scenario is the status
quo, using just those kinds of factors you listed. Usually they sober right
up and join the rest of us alarmists. The only projections where there is a
win are those that invoke the deus ex machina of a �scientific breakthrough�
as you noted the other day.
>I don't think that we'll be able to do more than wild speculation on the
>"how
>hard". What we can think of however are ways to make it less hard whatever
>the hardness.
I agree. I misspoke. It was a long day. <g>
>speciation
>
>What do you mean by speciation here? Are we talking about a timeframe long
>enough for that to occur anyway? Or are you talking about GE?
Well, in the most simple and most chicken little-ish terms: we can endanger
or render extinct most species on the planet above the level of bacteria
(which are more than 50% of the biomass, btw) by simply continuing to do
what we are doing now. We can achieve this dubious goal in 100-500 years
depending upon whom you listen to.
> >natural resource debt
>
>What's that?
There is a cost involved in utilizing natural resources in our economy. MOST
of the cost is largely ignored by economists, and is outside the area they
consider to be economics. (note everyone: spare me arguments about how
transfer costs and acquisition costs and extraction costs, etc. are included
in economic calculation, that ain�t what we�re talking about here.) However
the cost shows up in consequences to the biosphere. In purely monetary terms
it�s calculated that the natural environment contributes about US$30
trillion a year to the global economy. It would cost at least that much to
replace what gets used up for free. (examples: consider the "services" of
water pollution, or the heat sink of the atmosphere) The debt becomes
apparent when the water runs out, the oil runs out, etc etc etc ad nauseum.
In local economies one begins to see these costs added into economic
calculations, particularly in areas where the resources have been depleted,
vital water sources polluted, etc., when these cause unemployment and end of
production; but as yet it�s a very esoteric area of econometrics. It won�t
be esoteric in a hundred years.
Enough?
Tom
"IF the corporations only can be stopped by human die off, THEN the
corporations will be stopped by human die off."--- Jay's Theorem (Jay
Hanson)
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