Monthly Archives: June 2007

Note on peak oil and population

Posted on June 29, 2007 | 9 comments

As as follow-up to Jim Lydecker’s essay, My World Without Oil, I wanted to remind readers of an essay by occasional GIM commenter, Paul Chefurka. Titled Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room, it makes the case that our use of oil dramatically increased the earth’s carrying capacity for humans. Paul argues that therefore, post-peak-oil, we will be in serious overshoot of that carrying capacity: “The decline in oil supply will reduce the planet’s carrying capacity, thus forcing humanity into overshoot with the inevitable consequence of a population decline.”

You may have noticed in Jim’s essay his comment, “But it is not going to be a pretty scene as hydrocarbons are depleted. We are talking social strife, mass migration, starvation, epidemics and worse.” Paul’s essay outlines carefully the population dynamics such a scene could involve. (more…)

9 Comments

Posted in Carrying capacity, Consumption, Ecological collapse, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Environment, Jim Lydecker, Overpopulation, Paul Chefurka, Peak oil, Population, Population growth, Population-environnment, Resource consumption, Sustainability, World population

My world without oil

Posted on June 22, 2007 | 28 comments

For this post, I’m happy to feature another guest article by Jim Lydecker. I’ve been slow to cover peak oil here more than in passing, not because it isn’t terribly important (It is.) but because I’ve had my hands full researching and writing about population and economic issues. Jim’s essay begins to fill that void. Peak oil links closely with the main themes here, and this piece brings to life its potential impact on our day to day lives.

For a primer on peak oil, try this.

Thanks, Jim.

–JF
__________________________________________________________
By Jim Lydecker:

Napa, California
June 19, 2007

I woke up this morning to the sound I fell asleep to last night: The whooshing of cars going north and south on Rt. 29.

Actually, the whooshing is being replaced by a huge sucking sound… It is the sound of crude oil being sucked out of the ground to allow those cars to go flying by.

In America, unlike the rest of the world, over 1/2 of the oil we use goes to the production of gasoline. Each day, the world uses over 80 million of barrels of oil. The United States, with 7% of the world’s population, uses over 25% of that 80+ million. That’ll happen when a nation of 320 million has almost as many cars and trucks as people.

I lay in bed thinking of all the other things oil and its cousin, natural gas, are used for and how today would go if they were non-existent. This little exercise has been done before and everyone should think about it.

Living in Northern California, we have a fair amount of electricity generated by hydro, but not enough to keep all of us out of the dark all the time. Since it is 6:30 and still dark, I roll over, turn on my light and hope my section of the grid is not blacked out.

The light, in a fixture circa 1890, lit. I noticed the wire from the light needed attention as the fabric covering it was coming frayed… remember, no oil means no rubber insulation.
(more…)

28 Comments

Posted in Consumption, Ecology, Economics, Environment, Jim Lydecker, Peak oil, Resource consumption, Sustainability

Coming up on GIM

Posted on June 19, 2007 | 1 comment

For the next ten days I’ll be taking a summer break. GIM will be less active, but look for another guest article by Jim Lydecker. I’ll post that in a few days.

Soon I anticipate receiving Russ Hopfenberg’s responses to readers’ questions and comments following his first set of remarks. If all goes as planned, watch for a post announcing those later this month or in July.

I’m working on an overdue article concerning evidence and expert opinion that the past decade’s neglect of the population issue has been a major setback to both environmental and social causes. That should appear in early July.

As a prelude to that you might try these looks at population politics:

— John

1 Comment

Posted in Albert Bartlett, Ecology, Environment, Jim Lydecker, Overpopulation, Population, Population growth, Population-environnment, Russell Hopfenberg, Sustainability, This site, World population

Conservation groups speak out on problem of economic growth, and you can too!

Posted on June 15, 2007 | 5 comments

This press release came to me via email:

British Columbia Field Ornithologists take a position on the fundamental conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation

At their Annual General Meeting in Lillooet on 26 May 2007, the BC Field Ornithologists (BCFO) adopted a position on the fundamental conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation. The BCFO addresses the study and enjoyment of wild birds in British Columbia through research and conservation efforts to preserve birds and their habitats.

The timing of the vote was opportune as Birdlife International announced the previous week that 22% of the planet’s birds are now at increased risk of extinction. A total of 1,221 bird species are presently considered threatened with extinction and an additional 812 species are considered Near Threatened, an increase of 28 species from last year….

The British Columbia Field Ornithologists group is one of a growing number of conservation groups, ecological economics groups, and others which have adopted official positions stating that economic growth is fundamentally incompatible with environmental protection. They include the United States Society for Ecological Economics and the Society for Conservation Biology, North America Section. (more…)

5 Comments

Posted in Biodiversity, Brian Czech, Ecological economics, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Steady state economy, Sustainability and the Big picture

Local breakthrough in addressing population and urban growth

Posted on June 10, 2007 | 3 comments

I received word last night from Bob Fireovid who maintains the site, Controlling Growth in Our Communities, that a group in the Charlottesville, Virginia area has had set aside by their county board of supervisors $25,000 in funding, with preliminary approval that it be applied toward a study to determine an optimal sustainable population for their community.

Though they have more steps to complete to secure this and more funding, this is a breakthrough with regard to urban growth control and the the need to recognize limits to growth. The group, Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population (ASAP), one of the most active and forward thinking local groups addressing urban growth, has been working toward this for some time.

According to the email forwarded to me, this may be the first time a local government in the US has voted to approve funds for such research.

In my view, other communities should follow ASAP’s and Albemarle County’s lead on this. And communities which have in place other measures to limit growth, might do well to add a population cap based on such research. (more…)

3 Comments

Posted in Carrying capacity, Ecology, Environment, Overpopulation, Population, Population growth, Sustainability and the Big picture, Urban growth

Waking up to humanity’s most urgent challenge

Posted on June 6, 2007 | 27 comments

The future: determined by ecological awareness or complacency and denial?

By John Feeney:

It is essential to see the profound peril in continued flagrant misperception of the very nature of the human situation. — William R. Catton, Jr.

I write often about specific topics within the categories, “population growth” and “corporate economic growth” as they link to to environmental degradation. It seems, however, the larger message concerning the broad impacts of these kinds of growth has yet to gain much traction in the media. It’s time, therefore, to consider what’s at stake if we do not address forthrightly the growth of the human population and our unceasing push for corporate economic growth. I hope to make clear that humanity’s most urgent challenge has little to do with the topics currently making headlines. It is, instead, clearly ecological in nature. Of this we need much more awareness if we hope to achieve solutions.

Know this: Population growth and corporate economic growth, in conjunction with excessive and growing per capita consumption rates, are driving ecological deterioration of unprecedented proportions, pushing us ever closer to global ecological collapse. Remember that term. Barring decisive corrective action, you will be hearing more and more about ecological collapse in the coming years.

The most important issues receive little coverage

If you haven’t heard much about it previously, that’s understandable. It hovers in the background of the news, mentioned occasionally, but has so far received little of the attention it warrants. I’ve been critical of environmental writers’ avoidance of the subject of population growth, but it goes further than that. By and large, they seem squeamish about discussing the extent of global environmental decline the possibility of widespread ecological collapse. (more…)

27 Comments

Posted in Biodiversity, Climate change, Corporatization, Deforestation, Ecological collapse, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Ecosystem, Environment, Extinction, Glen Barry, Jeffrey Sachs, Overpopulation, Peak oil, Population, Population growth, William Catton

We must lose our arrogance

Posted on June 1, 2007 | 20 comments

A familiar poem, nearly 200 years old, may provide the theme for our future if we, as one among millions of species, do not soon let go of our sense of privilege, and grasp what “sustainability” means.

Ozymandias

by: Percy Bysshe Shelly, 1818

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear —
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”