At 01:39 PM 10/8/97 PST, you wrote:
>[coal, fission, fusion and wind considered briefly and dismissed]
>
>>It's hard to tell the economists that there is no Santa
>>Claus -- that the world runs on energy instead of money.
>>But someone has to tell them: there is no way out --
>>physical laws DEMAND that Christmas must end -- and soon ...
>
>There is ultimately only one source of energy - the self-gravitation
>of stars, which catalyzes the nuclear potential of hydrogen to produce
>both sunlight and the heavy nucleii which fuel fission reactors. And
>this is an immeasurably immense source of energy. Unfortunately it's
You are not taking the systems view. You assume that each
problem is discrete and isolated from the rest of the system
-- it's not. If your sci-fi sources of energy can not be
harvested at an energy profit, they will forever remain sci-fi
Moreover, optimists tend to assume that the "quality" (e.g.,
liquid vs. solid) of energy we use is not significant, that
an infinite amount of social capital is available to search
for and produce energy, and that an infinite flow of solar
energy is available for human use. Realists know that none
of these assumptions is true.
Do we actually believe that democratic social systems will
survive the following scenario?
"In Scenario 1 the world society proceeds along its historical
path as long as possible without major policy change. Technology
advances in agriculture, industry, and social services according
to established patterns. There is no extraordinary effort to
abate pollution or conserve resources. The simulated world tries
to bring all people through the demographic transition and into
an industrial and then post-industrial economy. This world
acquires widespread health care and birth control as the service
sector grows; it applies more agricultural inputs and gets
higher yields as the agricultural sector grows; it emits more
pollutants and demands more nonrenewable resources as the
industrial sector grows.
"The global population in Scenario 1 rises from 1.6 billion in
the simulated year 1900 to over 5 billion in the simulated
year 1990 and over 6 billion in the year 2000. Total
industrial output expands by a factor of 20 between 1900 and
1990. Between 1900 and 1990 only 20% of the earth's total
stock of nonrenewable resources is used; 80% of these
resources remain in 1990. Pollution in that simulated year has
just begun to rise noticeably. Average consumer goods per
capita in 1990 is at a value of 1968-$260 per person per year
-- a useful number to remember for comparison in future runs.
Life expectancy is increasing, services and goods per capita
are increasing, food production is increasing. But major
changes are just ahead.
"In this scenario the growth of the economy stops and reverses
because of a combination of limits. Just after the simulated
year 2000 pollution rises high enough to begin to affect
seriously the fertility of the land. (This could happen in
the 'real world' through contamination by heavy metals or
persistent chemicals, through climate change, or through
increased levels of ultraviolet radiation from a diminished
ozone layer.) Land fertility has declined a total of only 5%
between 1970 and 2000, but it is degrading at 4.5% per year in
2010 and 12% per year in 2040. At the same time land erosion
increases. Total food production begins to fall after 2015.
That causes the economy to shift more investment into the
agriculture sector to maintain output. But agriculture has to
compete for investment with a resource sector that is also
beginning to sense some limits.
"In 1990 the nonrenewable resources remaining in the ground would
have lasted 110 years at the 1990 consumption rates. No
serious resource limits were in evidence. But by 2020 the
remaining resources constituted only a 30-year supply. Why did
this shortage arise so fast? Because exponential growth
increases consumption and lowers resources. Between 1990 and
2020 population increases by 50% and industrial output grows by
85%. The nonrenewable resource use rate doubles. During the
first two decades of the simulated twenty-first century, the
rising population and industrial plant in Scenario 1 use as
many nonrenewable resources as the global economy used in the
entire century before. So many resources are used that much
more capital and energy are required to find, extract, and
refine what remains.
"As both food and nonrenewable resources become harder to obtain
in this simulated world, capital is diverted to producing more
of them. That leaves less output to be invested in basic
capital growth.
"Finally investment cannot keep up with depreciation (this is
physical investment and depreciation, not monetary). The
economy cannot stop putting its capital into the agriculture
and resource sectors; if it did the scarcity of food,
materials, and fuels would restrict production still more. So
the industrial capital plant begins to decline, taking with it
the service and agricultural sectors, which have become
dependent upon industrial inputs. For a short time the
situation is especially serious, because the population keeps
rising, due to the lags inherent in the age structure and in
the process of social adjustment. Finally population too
begins to decrease, as the death rate is driven upward by lack
of food and health services." [p.p.132-134]
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
GLOBAL POPULATION GROWTH WITH LIFE-SUPPORT COLLAPSE Billions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |11
You are here----------------+ |10
| _ |9
| _ -|~~-_ |8
V _ -~ | ~ - _ |7
_-~ | ~ _ |6
_- ~ | ~_|5
_-~ | |4
_-~ | |3
____ ---~ Massive human die-off begins. |2
-- ~~~~~~ (GIGADEATH) |1
--|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|---
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080
[P. 133, Meadows, et al., BEYOND THE LIMITS;
Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1992. 800-639-4099,
603-448-0317, Fax 603-448-2576; ISBN 0-930031-62-8]
Jay -- http://dieoff.org
