Wile E Coyote

Same as it ever was

    -Talking Heads

The song remains the same

      -Led Zeppelin

Greetings

    Here's a nice crystallization of our current conundrum from NPR (h/t Mark H) .  A California farmer runs out of surface water so digs a well.  So do his neighbors.  The water level drops , he needs to go deeper.  But can only afford to go deeper if he grows a high value crop like pistachios.  High value crops, like pistachios take a lot of water.  And so on.      Meanwhile, the neighbors who grow low water crops, like fava beans can't afford to chase the water.   Over pumping causes ground to sink 1/2 in a month in the Central Valley) 

      Here's another strange one.  As we reached peak conventional oil, the price rose.  The rising price made fracking economically worthwhile.   The frackers create a glut and the price drops.  The vehicle customers respond to the price signal, and buy trucks and SUV's, instead of hybrids and EV's.  Andf trucks and SUV's last a long time

  

        .We all make certain assumptions about the future.  It appears that Americans are assuming that gas price will remain low.  It reminds me of my rough and reday weather forecasting technique, I call "same as it ever was".  If I am trying to decide weather to wear a coat, I assume that today's weather will be the same as yesterday..    It works more often than it does't.     But if, I were to extend that logic, and assume that in six month the weather would be same?   Not so good.  

        The UN recently updated its projections about population.  see here

  "Over all, the report said, the world’s current population of 7.3 billion is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, slightly more than the 9.6 billion forecast two years ago. The number could reach 11.2 billion by the end of the century."

I found this a bit puzzling.   What assumptions went into this projection?   That things will remain basically as they are now?   According to the Footprint folks

"Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year.

"Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue, by the 2030s, we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us. And of course, we only have one.

"Turning resources into waste faster than waste can be turned back into resources puts us in global ecological overshoot, depleting the very resources on which human life and biodiversity depend.

So, if  at 7 billion, we are already in overshoot by 50%, then the carrying capacity is about 4-5 billion.  And every day, the carrying capacity grows smaller,  as we deplete soils  (soil, (soil lost a 10 to 40 times rate of creation. water, (see unsustainable use may threaten food security  fisheries (UNEP -commercial fishery gone by 2050),    Add to that peak oil, (2015?)   and peak natural gas in 10 years? - David Hughes .  What will the carrying capacity be in 2050?    

     Of course, it's only natural that we would yearn for things to remain "same as it ever was", and as a result grasp for future visions that might supports such a view.    This could explain the current  view of Elon Musk as a cultural hero, a Savior, one whose inventiveness will allow us to continue on our high energy path.   Thus, we have this type of reflexive sigh of relief :

"S]uddenly a post-carbon future that does not require a diminution of our standard of living seems within reach. While being able to maintain a relatively upscale lifestyle in the absence of fossil fuels may sound frivolous, it performs the psychological trick that has so far eluded environmentalists, that of making a fossil-free world sound appealing and familiar and not reflexively scary.from here

      Is this likely?  Or just wishful thinking?   I recently found a useful blog called "Beyond the Brief Anomaly",  which is an attempt to look at the energy situation , objectively, using a number of lenses and tools - financial, energetic, cultural, EROI, and systems thinking,   see Energy Descent Transition and Alternatives to 2050

       With respect to a cultural baggage. the author notes the prevalence of the "myth of progress", and the assumptions that go with it can blind us to the nature of our situation:

"Within this myth, our present high energy civilisation is seen as an inevitable consequence of the forward march of human ingenuity. An entailment of this way of understanding the pathways by which we arrived in our current situation is that further progress is primarily a matter of further growth in ingenuity. If we’re faced with the limits of our current energy sources, the default assumption becomes one in which those limits will inevitably be transcended by innovations in energy conversion systems. Living within this myth, it is essentially unthinkable that our present era of energy abundance might be an historical anomaly and that the energy available to us—along with the industrial civilisation that it makes possible—might be headed towards decline. We see this reflected in much conventional economic thinking, in which technological innovation driven by price signals is often regarded as the primary determinant of resource limits: if a resource becomes scarce, the price goes up, and this drives innovation leading to the expansion of the economic reserves associate with the particular resource. " from here

Of course progress isn't really a myth.  Human culture has gone through various changes -"revolutions"  The agricultural revolution,  industrial revolution, the green revolution, and so on.  As Ronald Wright points out in his "Short History of Progress", (highly recommended)  each change has contained its own "progress trap" , where the solution to one problem creates a bigger problem later on 

    

"In a progress trap, those in positions of authority are unwilling to make changes necessary for future survival. To do so they would need to sacrifice their current status and political power at the top of a hierarchy. They may also be unable to raise public support and the necessary economic resources, even if they try."

Thus we reach our current Wile E. Coyote moment.  It seems that we are standing in the air looking down.  Our unwillingness to see our situation objectively seems to make us unable to take useful actions - like drilling ever deeper for water, or buying low mpg vehicles. : Interestingly Rule #3 for Wile  E Coyote is as follows    

   

The Coyote could stop anytime if he were not a fanatic. (A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim."- George Santayana) 

What's eating Dennis Meadows?

We've to find our way
back the garden
      -Joni Mitchell

And I can't find my way home
   - Blind Faith

Control yourself
Take only what you need
    -MG MT  

Greetings

      I've been thinking about Dennis Meadows speech at the Smithsonian on the 40th anniversary of the publication of Limits to Growth.    Among the speakers he was the most pessimistic.  Why was that?  Was he just worn out and frustrated?  Or did he see things from a different perspective?.

      One thing I thought I heard him say, was that changes in technology and lifestyle couldn't tun things around, that they would be swamped by increasing population.  Why would he say that?  

    This lead me to take another look at the Footprint analysis, which I assume everyone is familiar with. .   Along the way I ran into a very interesting paper put out by Population matters.org.   The author creates an excellent way of looking at the population /affluence problem,

           As we know, the ecological impact is a function of both population an affluence.  Put another way, what is "sustainable" lifestyle ( affluence)  for a small population is not the same as for a large population.   Similarly a a lower standard of living would allow a larger population to be sustainable  in a given planetary limit.  The footprint folks say  this:  ( from Living Planet Report 2014)

"For example, if all people on the planet had the Footprint

of the average resident of Qatar, we would need 4.8 planets. If we

lived the lifestyle of a typical resident of the US, we would need 3.9

planets. The figure for a typical resident of Slovakia or South Korea

would be 2 or 2.5 planets respectively, while a typical resident of

South Africa or Argentina would need 1.4 or 1.5 planets respectively. 

  One way to look at this is to plot a graph of population versus per capita use of resources.  As the chart below shows the  "sustainability limit" can be shown as a curve.  If you are above the curve, you are in overshoot, if below, sustainable..    Note that is you are in overshoot, you can reach sustainability by either reducing population, or reducing per capita use of resources, or both.  

      If you have a growing population.,   "living sustainably" is a moving target.  As population increases, the available per capita biocapacity shrinks.   This moving target helps explain why back  when Limits to Growth came out, we could say  "We can have sustainable development , and we can all live sustain ably at the lifestyle of Europeans"     This  may have been true in the 1970's , but is no longer true.   In fact, the only countries that are "sustainable" , are also so poor that they fail to meet minumum UN standards. The footprint network notes:  

   " For a country to achieve globally sustainable development, it must

have a per capita Ecological Footprint smaller than the per capita

biocapacity available on the planet, while maintaining a decent

standard of living. The former means a per capita Footprint lower

than 1.7 gha – the maximum that could be replicated worldwide

without resulting in global overshoot. The latter can be defined

as a score of 0.71 or above on the UN inequality-adjusted Human

Development Index (IHDI). Currently, no country meets both of

these criteria."  

(This was not always the case.  About ten years ago (i can't fix it precisely) , when the world population was only 6.5 billion, , one country met both criteria.  That country was Cuba.    It's average footprint was 1.8 gha.   The Cubans are no longer sustainable.  Was this because the Cubans become more profligate in their energy use?    Probably not.  The world population increased to 7 billion, and the sustainability bar was raised.  Now, you have to get by on 1.7 gha.in order to be sustainable)

    

While the footprint network offers many useful ideas for reducing footprint, to date the trend has gone the other way.  This continued  overshoot can be shown in this graph from here   

             

This graph also shows that the main driver of overshoot has changed from lifestyle to increasing population.   (This report is dated 2006 , but the latest figures confirm this trend see here .)

"Until 1990, the path into unsustainability was due to a combination of increasing ecological footprint and population. After 1990, however, population increase became the driver towards further unsustainability; the path stops moving to the right and progresses almost parallel to the population axis. This appears to be because increases in population have been predominantly in poor countries with low footprints. So the average footprint is being held steady due to low-end weighting. But because the world population continues to increase, the overall footprint becomes less sustainable."

        Population continues to grow, albeit at a slower and slower rate.  In the short term, it is forecast to reach 8-12 billion by 2050.     As the graph indicates, such increases, make it very difficult to get us out of overshoot.

        At some point, of course, the population gets so large that it may not be possible to provide citizens with a minimum UN human development index , within sustainable limits.   At that point, continued overshoot may not be  not merely optional, but it  become inevitable.  

      Perhaps that's what's eating Dennis Maedows.

     

------- 

PS   I went over to Footprint Calculator to see how hard it would be to be sustainable.  It's an interesting exercise, and everyone should try it.  The first time thorugh, I had a typical American score.  So I started running scerios.  What if i never flew, if I gave up meat?   Even if I were to stop flying, driving, and eating meat, I would still be using three times the allowable amounts!    If fact there is no way for a US citizen to be sustainable, thanks to all of the shared infrastructure - hospitals, libraries, roads, police , military.  As the footprint folks explain:

"Why can’t I get my Footprint score within the means of one planet?

 A person’s Ecological Footprint includes both personal and societal impacts. The Footprint associated with food, mobility, and goods is easier for you to directly influence through lifestyle choices (eating less meat, driving less, etc). However a person’s Footprint also includes societal impacts or “services”, such as government assistance, roads and infrastructure, public services, and the military of the country that they live in. All citizens of the country are allocated their share of these societal impacts.

The Footprint of these societal impacts (i.e. the “services” category of your Footprint score) does not vary, and therefore in some nations it is not possible to reduce your Footprint to below one planet.

This is why, if we want to achieve sustainability, we need to focus on two things: both our own lifestyle as well as influencing our governments. Even with significant changes in individual behavior, a large portion of a personal Footprint comes from the way national infrastructure is designed, goods are produced, and government and public services operate.

In order to allow their citizens to achieve a lifestyle that fits within one planet, governments need to dramatically improve the efficiency of the built environment and invest in renewable energy and smart land-use planning.

Demographic momentum

People who need people

are the luckiest people

in the world

   - Barbara Streisand

Hey you, get off my cloud

     -Mick Jagger

Greetings

       Demographers had been telling us that world population would flatten out around 2050 at 9 billion.  Now, the UN says that we may hit 12 billion by 2100.  

      So, IPAT, keeps marching along.      What would stop population growth?  How about ebola?  WWIII?     Not really,  according to the studies below.  

       "They found that even an event that wiped out two billion people would still leave about eight and a half billion in 2100. "Even if we had a third world war in the middle of this century, you would barely make a dent in the trajectory over the next 100 years," said Prof Bradshaw, something he described as "sobering"."

       

      

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The Human Germ

A lot of times when you hear studies pointing out that human population will not magically stabilize at nine billion when we all become latte-sipping, SUV-driving cubicle drones, but will just keep growing to perhaps 11 billion by century's end, you hear people saying "We'll never reach that!"

According to this study, neither another world war, a global pandemic, or a universal one-child policy will do anything to stop runaway population growth thanks to demographic momentum.

Apparently nothing can stop humanity from behaving like yeast:

According to the study, attempts to curb our population as a short-term fix will not work. If China's much criticised one-child policy was implemented worldwide, the Earth's population in 2100 would still be between five and 10 billion, it says.

"We've gone past the point where we can do it easily, just by the sheer magnitude of the population, what we call the demographic momentum. We just can't stop it fast enough," said Prof Corey Bradshaw from the University of Adelaide. "Even draconian measures for fertility control still won't arrest that growth rate - we're talking century-scale reductions rather than decadal scale, because of the magnitude."

In their paper, the researchers also look at the impact on numbers of a global catastrophe in the middle of this century. They found that even an event that wiped out two billion people would still leave about eight and a half billion in 2100. "Even if we had a third world war in the middle of this century, you would barely make a dent in the trajectory over the next 100 years," said Prof Bradshaw, something he described as "sobering".

Population controls 'will not solve environment issues' (BBC)

The pace of population growth is so quick that even draconian restrictions of childbirth, pandemics or a third world war would still leave the world with too many people for the planet to sustain, according to a study.

Rather than reducing the number of people, cutting the consumption of natural resources and enhanced recycling would have a better chance of achieving effective sustainability gains in the next 85 years, said the report published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We were surprised that a five-year WW3 scenario, mimicking the same proportion of people killed in the first and second world wars combined, barely registered a blip on the human population trajectory this century,” said Prof Barry Brook, who co-led the study at the University of Adelaide, in Australia.

The second world war claimed between 50 million and 85 million military and civilian lives, according to different estimates, making it the most lethal conflict, by absolute numbers, in human history. More than 37 million people are thought to have died in the first world war.

Using a computer model based on demographic data from the World Health Organisation and the US Census Bureau, the researchers investigated different population reduction scenarios. They found that under current conditions of fertility, mortality and mother’s average age at first childbirth, global population was likely to grow from 7 billion in 2013 to 10.4 billion by 2100.

Climate change, war, reduced mortality and fertility, and increased maternal age altered this prediction only slightly. A devastating global pandemic that killed 2 billion people was only projected to reduce population size to 8.4 billion, while 6 billion deaths brought it down to 5.1 billion.

“Global population has risen so fast over the past century that roughly 14% of all the human beings that have ever existed are still alive today. That’s a sobering statistic. This is considered unsustainable for a range of reasons, not least being able to feed everyone as well as the impact on the climate and environment,” said co-author Prof Corey Bradshaw, also from the University of Adelaide.

Global overpopulation would ‘withstand war, disasters and disease’ (Guardian)

In other words, we're f*cked.