A Perfect Storm Cometh: February 2009

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Why Exponents (Growth) Matters or Excessive Growth Will Kill You Dead

This post is intended to help you understand the basics underlying the problems of eternal growth. It is a fundamental problem with our current situation because our leaders and our populace have convinced themselves that growth can be a permanent condition.

Unbridled, uncontrolled growth, as Diamond, Homer-Dixon, The Club of Rome, and others, have pointed out, cannot and will not go on forever. It never has and never will. To believe it can depends on believing that human beings are completely and utterly divorced from the natural system of this planet, and even the universe.

Cycles happen. In everything. Period. There is not a single highly complex civilization in history that has not collapsed. Not one. Think on that.

I have posted on these issues before, so will leave you with a simple flow of info that should bring this home to you. It is vital you understand this, for if you do not, you may not have sufficient motivation to make changes. Necessary, unavoidable changes. From energy to food to economics to weather and climate, it is all affected by the underlying issue of exponential, constant growth.

Please use time you might have used to read a book, watch a movie, or just sitting doing nothing to go over these materials. It will be time very well spent.

First, the reason for this post. Here is a video (h/t WRH) that makes exponents really easy to understand. You don't need to know any math or science. It's self-evident. It's essentially Al Bartlett's hour-long lecture condensed into five minutes.

Below that is Al Bartlett explaining the problem of exponential growth (also have linked to the right.) If you want to understand the math/consequences of exponential growth, spend time to immerse yourself. Are we dumber than yeast? (Hint: apparently so!)

Next is an interview with Thomas Homer-Dixon (h/t to Dryki @ TOD) explaining the relevance of this issue in terms of growth and collapse of complex systems.

Finally, is an excellent review/overview of Homer-Dixon's book, The Upside of Down. It will pull various elements of The Perfect Storm together for you.

So, first, Did You Know?

Stop for minute and think about what the above might mean for population, for energy consumption, for food production...

Next, now that you see how fast things have been growing, watch Al Bartlett explain why ignorance of exponents is a HUGE problem. (About 1 hour.)

General page with audio, video and transcript links: Are we dumber than yeast?

Video stream (RealPlayer): Are we dumber than yeast?

Audio stream: Are we dumber than yeast?

Audio download: Are we dumber than yeast?

Now listen to Thomas Homer-Dixon explain, via an interview on a C-Realm podcast, why these things are relevant now. He does this in terms of complexity of our current system. If you don't understand complexity and chaos clearly, don't worry. After watching/listening to these three media sources, you will have some idea.

Audio: Thomas homer Dixon on Complexity and Collapse : The Growth Imperative

Now, if you have time to read and/or listen to and/or watch only one of these, read this review/overview of Homer-Dixon's book by contributor Stoneleigh at The Oil Drum: Canada dot com:

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization

Note: Stoneleigh and her partner, Ilargi, now have their own quite excellent economics-oriented website, The Automatic Earth (also linked to the right.)

Not to bum you out, but time is short. Action is needed.

Start now.

Cheers

Where We Stand

Economic Crisis

Peak Oil
* Peak production appears to have occurred in 2005 or 2008. Certainly, production has been on a plateau since 2004-5. The recession and the high prices from last year caused falling demand. This is brought on lower prices. That caused new production projects to be slowed, delayed or stopped. Because starting up projects takes much longer than shutting them down, this will likely lead to oil shortages if the economy and demand rebound, certainly by 2012 or so.

UPDATE Nov. '09: The new IEA World Energy Outlook revised **downward** to 105 million barrels a day it's projections for future oil production. What they are saying is, over the next 20 years, we won't be finding much oil. Whistle blowers, one still employed, one not, say even this is wishful thinking. We agree. We have thought so for two or three years. They also say the decline rate is higher than admitted - and it was already 4.2%!!! This means we are looking at, what? Six percent? Eight? At six percent we lose the equivalent of Saudi Arabia every two years. Of course, we aren't finding that much new, recoverable oil each year and haven't for decades. Where's the extra coming from?

** Peak occurred from 2005 to 2008. It is slightly possible we could exceed past production in the next two years *if* there is economic growth as there is some spare capacity and some new spare capacity came on this year. There appears to be just enough new oil coming online - or there would have been if projects hadn't been shut in due to the economic crash - the next two years to barely stay even. After that, decline will have eaten away two Saudi Arabias and it will be impossible to reach a new high.

* Production surpasses new oil discoveries by a margin of 3 :1 or 4:1. This is unsustainable.

*The global economic downturn may decrease these numbers, which would help slow the fall down the back slope of the decline curve.

* The "Export Land" Model (.pdf) shows increased consumption in oil exporting nations leads to decreasing exports. Exports dropped by 3% in 2006. For oil importing nations, this means oil availability falls 2x to 3x the global decline rate.

* Current prices make some alternative energy projects economically infeasible. While oil is depleting and declining, the low prices and economic crash are impacting our ability to ramp up renewables to replace fossil fuel-based energy.

* OPEC has announced (1/2/08) future production is in peril. Many believe OPEC cannot raise their current production by more than 3 million barrels a day. Ever. Or can do so only at the cost of future production. I.e., they must choose between their own citizens and the rest of the world.

* A nice, but older, overview (.pdf). Its age, 2005, makes the time lines a little longer than seems probable. Still, excellent forecasting.

People & Power - Peaked - 06 Jan 08 - Part 1.
(Part 2 can be found on youtube.)
An excellent overview of Peak Oil right now.

Climate Change
* James Hansen, et al., published some very important papers (article) this year. Conclusions are thus:

1. The world is at @ 392 ppm CO2, but irreversible climate change happens at just 350, which we passed decades ago. This is why time is shorter than it seems.

2. The goal now is to stop warming at only 2 degrees C. This will still mean seas rising a meter or more and climate change globally, but we may be able to stabilize there. It also means reducing carbon emissions by 90% by 2100. That's creating an entirely new energy system in less than a century. We did that already, but that was when there was virtually no infrastructure in place.

3. Action must be taken in a very short time period. Waiting ten years is almost certainly too long. The silver lining that comes with Peak Oil? It may give us no choice but to act sooner rather than later. The solutions for Peak Oil and Climate Change are the same (except for bio-fuels.) This situation is unprecedented in human history.

* The Arctic melted to an extraordinary degree in 2007 and nearly as much in 2008 - despite perfect conditions for 2008. This is THE canary in the coal mine. Back in February, when the first of three IPCC (Those rock-n-rollers of recent Nobel fame.) reports came out and didn't include ice melt in their projections, I was stunned. Various scientists, also. I knew viscerally that change was coming faster than they stated. Much faster. The summer melt validated that view. Hold on to your hats. f you know anything of Chaos, bifurcations, tipping points and non-linear systems, you're probably as scared as I am.

* New findings of methane being released from the Arctic permafrost and sea floor, along with increased atmospheric methane are ominous signs we may be well past key tipping points. There have been massive, abrupt climate changes in the past due to the release of methan clathrates from the sea floor.

The Big Melt - Arctic ice melt accelerates by 20+%.

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