A post from Energy Resources list. It gives one pause as to physical limits and oversimplification of economies based on export/import. Resilience declines as interdependence globally increases, because self-sufficiency has been short-circuited.
Steve ======================================= > In "Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change," William Robert Catton pointed out: > > "Overuse of an environment sets up forces that will necessarily, in time, reduce the load [supported by it] to match the shrinkage of carrying capacity." > > In this book, the author discusses a principle of ecology first stated in 1863 by a German agricultural chemist, Justus von Liebig: "whatever necessity is least abundantly available (relative to per capita requirements) sets an environment's carrying capacity." Catton goes on to explain that the amount of the "least abundantly available necessity" in this "law of the mininum" can be increased by various means: by scientific technology, for instance, or (and especially) by trade. As he puts it, "Trade enlarges the scope of application of the law of the minimum." > > In fact, when two different regions of differing resource configurations trade, "supersummativity" (my term, not Catton's) can be the result: the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. This is the real reason behind the U.S. push to set up NAFTA, to organize a Western Hemisphere trade area similar to NAFTA, and to bring China into the WTO (now successful). Conversely, disintegration of the whole will not result in each part receiving its "own" share of carrying capacity; rather, its pre-disintegration carrying capacity *per capita* is reduced. In his book, Catton goes on to show how the workings of this law were responsible for both World War I and World War II, and will be responsible for the great dieoff to come. > > Argentina may be the first of the dominoes to fall due to Liebig's law, and an early test of alternative energy resources in practice. According to Richard Duncan's table (which I reformatted and disseminated here a week or so ago), Argentina's oil extraction rate peaked in 1997 - five years ago. Given its political realities, the nation's economic situation began declining almost immediately. Now it has gotten to the point where 44% of its population is below the national poverty line, last week it defaulted on its $141 billion foreign debt, and on Saturday it revealed an $11 Gigabuck budget deficit in 2001, double what the IMF had wanted. The government has decided to steal vast sums from those of its citizens who have deposited their money in banks by preventing "runs on banks" to avoid collapse of the banking system. The Argentine peso is about to be detached from the U.S. dollar and a 50% devaluation of the Argentine peso now looks inevitable, with many billions of dollars in immediate losses to American, Spanish and French investors. According to the IMF's publication at http://www.mecon.gov.ar/progeco/dsbb.htm the Argentine unemployment rate as of 2001 Oct 1 was over 18% of the labor force. It can only rise from there. The IMF, Spain and the U.S. are extremely reluctant to loan any more money to Argentina because of its internal socio-political problems. All of this, taken as a whole, suggests strongly that Argentina is now becoming decoupled from the world economic system. Unless some new international sugar daddy comes to the rescue, Argentina may now be about to suffer the effects of Liebig's law: it is being left to its own resources, which are simply too few to support its population of around 37 million at their current standard of living. > > Among other things, the Argentine collapse will show just how adequate or inadequate the alternatives to oil and income from oil might be in staving off total disintegration. Considering the volatility of South Americans (cf. the current riots), their leaders might have a pretty hard time doing that. The Commies will probably pick up a lot of adherents, and the country may sink into a dictatorship (whether of left or right will make little difference as far as per capita living standards go). > > There will be a lot of screeching for America to bail Argentina out like we did Mexico in 1995, but it is doubtful we can do that any more. The U.S. today is much like the Western Roman Empire in the decades before its downfall: possessing a powerful military but weak economy (see Tainter, "The Collapse of Complex Societies" on this). We depend on foreign sources for 60% of our oil; almost all computers and sophisticated electronics are now made abroad; our food is produced by vast agribusinesses using Mexican serfs; we have a chronically adverse trade imbalance with the rest of the world, especially China; and it is difficult to sell to an outside world laboring under global depression. The proximity of the Hubbert Peak (ca. 2005-2008) or perhaps, in Laherrere's words, the Hubbert "bumpy plateau" (in case of enduring U.S. and world depression, ca. 2000-2012) does not bode well for economic recovery either, especially to the speculation-buoyed levels of the late 1990s. So it looks like Argentina will be at least partly on its own, with the danger that an Argentine collapse may take some others of its trading bloc down with it. > > All in all, Argentina may be the first country to undergo the effects of Liebig's law. It may be a real-world test case for alternative energy resources from which we may be able to draw some realistic lessons. > > Brian (Tacoma) > -- http://magma.ca/~gpco/ http://www.scientists4pr.org/ Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.--Kenneth Boulding
