Depopulate ... or perish

556 comments

Login here

Register here

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 12, 2016 at 9:30 am

Well done Harquebus. While what you say makes much sense, how do we go about voluntarily reducing our populations?

I suppose I can see in third world countries, birth numbers are often tied in with lack of education, so if education levels are increased the birthrates would decrease.

However, I’m not sure if that applies in first world countries like ours.

Peter FNovember 12, 2016 at 9:41 am

‘One for Australia’ as our wonderful coalition treasurer Peter Costello said as he handed out cash . . . .

I repeat : TREASURER.

Michael TaylorNovember 12, 2016 at 9:44 am

Well done, H’.

I’d like to know what the solutions are.

Kaye LeeNovember 12, 2016 at 10:01 am

Well written Harquebus. Now go that extra step and make some suggestions on what can be done.

townsvilleblogNovember 12, 2016 at 10:01 am

Harquebus.who would have thought you and I would ever agree on anything but on this basic principle of a population policy control legislation, I do agree. Australia has a sustainable population of 22 million people, as we are the driest inhabited continent on Earth.

Already we are 2 million people overstocked, we have some responsible Australians who are limiting their families to either 1,2 or 3 children, though we have others who are having 10-12 children and hoping the taxpayer (the ole’ working slave on $43,000 p.a.) to pay for their children, which can no longer be done.

In the 21st century “all” countries should be legislating for a family to have no more than 3 children, and if they do, then at the birth of the fourth child, any government benefits that flow to that family should cease immediately.

townsvilleblogNovember 12, 2016 at 10:20 am

Birth control technology has advanced to such a stage that there is very little chance of becoming pregnant if you don’t want to be. Religions, and other factors will need to be waylaid in the interests of the survival of the human race, so we in Australia must legislate for a limit of three children, no argument, no exemptions.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 12, 2016 at 10:25 am

As the proud mother of four good, intelligent citizens, I would support a tax-incentive based approach to birth control rather than draconian legislation. I can visualise circumstances where people would be prepared to forego their desire for a fourth child, if they could receive a benefit, instead of the threat of a penalty.

Kaye LeeNovember 12, 2016 at 10:31 am

I very much hesitate to use legislation in this area and history has shown it may not be necessary. Fertility rates drop significantly when people are lifted out of poverty. Large families were insurance in the old days where infant mortality was much higher and they needed more hands to help with the work and more children to look after them in old age. In a society that provides a safety net for the elderly, this is no longer necessary. We no longer have to work the fields to subsist. We employ people to assist us.

Educating girls makes an enormous difference in that they delay having children. We must stop child brides. We must keep girls in school. All of these things naturally slow population growth.

And religions have to change their attitude to reproduction.

Mark NeedhamNovember 12, 2016 at 10:40 am

Religion is the first thing that must be sorted. God, according to the Pope, doesn’t like us putting our eggs in a plastic baggie. ( Bit hard to sort out, whether this is fact, or just a , “We prefer you didn’t” )

But you all know what I mean. Breeding under religious law, seems to be a , “Breed at all costs”.

Jennifer Meyer-Smith “education”. Yep, that seems to be the key, which envelops the whole spectrum, of factors ( and the factors are MANY) that are involved.

Education, so that people will voluntarily do, that which is beneficial, and not be forced, compelled or punished for non-compliance.. It must come from within.

Vas cut and stitched,
Mark Needham

HarquebusNovember 12, 2016 at 10:55 am

Thank you those who have responded so far.

The solution is population reduction. How we go about it is the question and a contentious one that, I was hoping to avoid at this time. My intention at this stage is to try and put this issue ahead of growth that is currently at top of most politicians wish list.

Kaye Lee has suggested some in her article.

Are we really doomed?

Obviously, education and contraception would have to be high on the list but, in my opinion, it is the abandonment of the growth ideology that can make the single biggest difference. I know this is just a generality but, at the moment it is the best that I can offer.

While we pursue economic growth, no population reduction strategy will succeed. Perhaps economic contraction in itself will produce the desired outcome.

All suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 12, 2016 at 11:02 am

Harquebus,

if you want to argue economic contraction, I would like you to explore fair economic distribution to go hand in hand with it.

HarquebusNovember 12, 2016 at 11:07 am

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
As long is it does not involve fiat currencies.

I have to shoot off for a while and will address additional comments later today.

Thanks again to all for your participation.

Cheers.

cornlegendNovember 12, 2016 at 11:11 am

“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”

― Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 12, 2016 at 11:28 am

Fair income distribution is imperative whatever economic thinking is involved.

Deanna JonesNovember 12, 2016 at 11:28 am

Thank you Harquebus. Where do you see issues such as sexual assault and reproductive rights, easy access to safe and affordable abortion etc. sitting within the broader discussion of population reduction? Around half of all pregnancies are unplanned even with the contraception that some women are able to access so it’s probably not realistic to look to birth control as the answer. I’m also sceptical about whether education plays as large a role as we’re led to believe.

keertiNovember 12, 2016 at 12:28 pm

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-game-over-global-warming-climate-sensitivity-seven-degrees-a7407881.html

DavidNovember 12, 2016 at 12:44 pm

The Georgia Guidestones in US have a very clear message about world population reduction. However, any discussion of these options rings alarm bells of conspiracy theory. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Bilderberg group and the UN 2030 program have all been discussing the population issue, and options for humanity. One option I would love to see Australia get more involved in is the exploration of our solar system and beyond. We are experimenting with technologies which some say are already in production, and that colonies have already been established. Unless we take action to address this issue, can we expect Mother Nature to solve the problem for us?

bobraftoNovember 12, 2016 at 12:59 pm

Good read and what you say is the end of the world is nigh and the folks who are driving us there are the Neo Cons.

The immediate problem is climate change and one can only assume the neo cons are hell bent in destroying this planet with their refusal to transition away from fossil fuels.

The other problem is the capitalist system, a system that requires growth to function and that means an increased population, take away the growth and the system collapses.

If one thinks that Australia is so welcoming of immigrants, it is because they are needed to create growth and if this wasn’t the case, Australia would be all white.

Kaye LeeNovember 12, 2016 at 2:00 pm

The Catholics have a lot to answer for….

“(W)hat sex means, from the Catholic perspective, is I give myself totally, completely to you in the kind of relationship that would be fulfilled by having and bearing children together,” Dr. Melissa Moschella, a philosophy professor at The Catholic University of America, explained. “And if you do that while at the same time intentionally holding back your fertility, in a sense you’ve contradicted what it is that you’re doing with your body. It’s kind of like nodding yes while thinking no, kind of lying with your body language.”

As a result, birth control is immoral because it violates the very nature of sex – trying to engage in sex without the natural possibility of pregnancy.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/what-did-pope-francis-actually-say-about-contraception-47196/

HarquebusNovember 12, 2016 at 2:06 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
Economics in its current form nor the proposed MMT which, is just a variation of the current system, can be a part of the solution. In my opinion, a debt jubilee and a reset to a monetary system using precious metals as currency is the only viable option in a contracting economy. Providing we follow necessary course.

Deanna Jones
Because you asked, this will be the first time that I have stated my views on abortion.
I do not like it. There is something about terminating a “potential” life that irks me. Therefore, I would not condone forced abortion nor forced sterilization either.
That said and since I am a man, I do not feel that I have the right to dictate to anyone what to do in regards to this. I would much prefer to devote more resources to prevention and for those that do fall through the gap, to give more child support and encourage continuing the pregnancy.

David
It takes a lot of energy to get into space. I don’t think that it is a viable option.

Bob Rafto
Growth has passed the point of creating wealth. It is now consuming it.

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishNovember 12, 2016 at 2:29 pm

Good job Harquebus. I am in agreement, of course.

As Kaye and others have said, improving the conditions of the world’s poorest is key. Education, especially of girls, lets them decide. Once people have a good social safety net and are well-off, and women are able to control their own lives the birthrate naturally drops dramatically. In parts of the world where people live well, birthrate is generally below replacement level.

The big question is how we can bring those with the least up to a comfortable standard of living without blowing out consumption?

As I’ve said here before, there is a lot to be optimistic about:

– We now have extremely powerful computers that use a bare trickle of energy.

– We have increasingly efficient renewable energy sources, and they’re being built and used at a mind-bogglingly accelerating rate worldwide.

– We now understand the health benefits of eating minimal food — excessive food is currently the second biggest cause of cancer after smoking. Excess calories are also directly linked to diabetes.

– People now like to plant trees and bushes and encourage native fauna to return. When I was young almost nobody planted trees. Now almost everybody does. I marvel that what often looks like bushland is actually suburbia now. There has been a major shift in people’s approach to vegetation.

– We know how to mix (free) public transport and individual transport to greatly increase energy efficiency and convenience.

– Insulation of buildings is now standard practice, and if enhanced it would further increase energy savings. Building underground brings even greater benefits.

– Instead of each home needing a library of books and a massive encyclopedia we all have near instantaneous access to the greatest library of information the world has ever seen, without cutting down a single tree.

– telephones and computers have reduced the need for transport dramatically, while boosting our ability to stay in touch, not only with friends and family, but with people on the other side of the planet — people from cultures we could never have previously dreamed we would become part of.

Other revolutions are waiting in the wings, such as:
– electric vehicles (effectively running on wind and sunlight),
– self-driving cars (let us share vehicles efficiently instead of wasting them parked most of the day)
– 3D printing (infinitely customised personal manufacture),
– telepresence (reducing the need for travel),
– virtual reality (also reducing the need for travel),
– artificial intelligence (improving the lifestyle of humans and managing resources better),
and many more as yet unknown. With billions more ingenious human minds applied to our problems we can hope for further improvements.

The biggest change I hope for, however, is a wholehearted move to an information economy. Capitalism’s thirst for continued growth can be satisfied only there without sacrificing ever more resources. Capitalism is deeply flawed, but has brought us many undeniable advantages, allowing us to live better than royalty in bygone days. It needs to be fixed and fed on an economy that doesn’t destroy the world that supports it. Ideas, creativity, and intellectual pursuits can be the wellspring that can nourish it, letting it grow harmlessly forever.

HarquebusNovember 12, 2016 at 2:41 pm

Miriam English
Thank you for that. Your opinions matter to me.
Before we can embark on any goals, current mindsets must be changed and the solution to that problem, I have not found. Also, the implementations that you propose does not mean that we must maintain current or increase our populations. Any reduction in population will have benefits and in my opinion, it is the best option.
Cheers.

Miriam EnglishNovember 12, 2016 at 2:43 pm

The biggest danger to watch for in any discussion on population is the temptation to view “excess” people as a dead weight and a drag on the rest of us. That is a terrible mistake, especially if we can lift their standard of living and their access to knowledge. We make available billions more of the most powerful problem-solving machines in the known universe: human minds.

Those people should be seen as an extremely valuable resource. We waste them at our peril.

diannaartNovember 12, 2016 at 2:48 pm

Just about everything we need to do to reach a sustainable population, from education, erasing gulf of poverty, 99% reduction of use of non-renewbles for heat & power, investment into small business technology, installation of micro-power grids (safer in event of catastrophes & control is local) and more I haven’t mentioned but all of which requires a concerted effort of cooperation between people, town, nations.

All of which is anathema to unregulated capitalism.

We can’t beat the system, but enough of us can go ahead and implement future plans and leave neo-cons choking on their own waste.

I did not envy the USA it had to select between same old/same old and a complete raving loony. Raving loony won simply because he was different; not that he offered a single solution that is realistic, but then Clinton wasn’t offering change and solutions either.

I refuse to give up hope; it is possible to rebel in favour of change without electing turds.

Miriam EnglishNovember 12, 2016 at 2:55 pm

Harquebus, naturally I agree that reduction in population would be best, but wishing for it to happen in the very near future is as impractical as wishing for wings to sprout from my shoulderblades. It’s just not going to happen.

We have left things dangerously late, but the rate of population growth is already declining, so that’s good. We just need to work towards getting that rate to decline past replacement as soon as possible.

Religion is declining too, so that’s good also. It is one of the strongest obstacles to cutting birthrate.

Education and access to knowledge are exploding. A combination of cheap, low-energy computers, billionaire philanthropists, and large-scale donations to efficient charities are helping tremendously.

Can we turn it around in time? Nobody really knows. It is very difficult for us to see. Most of the trends (both good and bad) are along exponential curves, which we humans are notoriously bad at grappling with.

Miriam EnglishNovember 12, 2016 at 3:21 pm

diannaart, there is a lot to be hopeful for there too. The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has been helping businesses and large organisations achieve highly efficient solutions. The enthusiasm for adopting efficient solutions has never been higher. Solar power is being adopted faster than mobile phones were. Worldwide, new investments are going to renewable energy, not to fossil fuels and increasing numbers of people are growing worried about losing their money so are pulling their investments out of fossil fuels.

The businesses that don’t adopt efficient solutions will soon die anyway. And the rest of us are not waiting for government to catch up. It would be great for government to lead the way and make it easier for the rest of us, but they have been poisoned by the neoliberal kool-aid so we can’t really expect much from them. The mainstream media seem to be the primary pushers of that poison and they’re dying too.

The world is reversing direction and the politicians will eventually catch up.

HarquebusNovember 12, 2016 at 3:26 pm

Kaye Lee
Thanks for the link. I did read it.
Whether it is through attempting to influence and change religious doctrine or to denounce and maybe humiliate all religions which, is my preference, the corporate media in my opinion must play a role. No other industry the influence that can match them.

Miriam English
I do actively involve myself in spreading information and opinion. You are aware of my other activity so, I wouldn’t say that I just wish only. I hope to convince a few of the urgency as a result of my submission and subsequent activity. If it doesn’t then, at least I try and I am not ashamed of that. Just the opposite.

Cheers.

townsvilleblogNovember 12, 2016 at 4:12 pm

The huge pharmaceutical corporations could well afford to supply nations such as India, contraceptive pills at just above cost price so that Indian women could participate in birth control, also countries in Africa should be encouraged to use condoms and they should be donated by Ansell to African and sub-continent countries in an effort to contain birth rates, these huge corporations could and should play a large role in supporting the human race, after all they have been the largest recipients of the population’s wealth in developed countries, and have a lot to answer to.

Religion sees unlimited reproduction as more financial contributions to their false imaginings so they will always promote unlimited reproduction, the ‘invisible man’ should be exposed once and for all as a hoax then we can move on without the parasites and set about the task at hand.

townsvilleblogNovember 12, 2016 at 4:18 pm

Harquebus, you are definitely on the right track, Earth’s resources are limited and the urgency is nigh we must act on Climate Change, develop a secular population policy, and encourage all families to go no further than the parents replace themselves, our family is only one child, as we have had this scenario in mind for some decades now. I am not a hypocrite, I can’t preach one thing, and practice another. I’d never make a politician.

HarquebusNovember 12, 2016 at 4:51 pm

townsvilleblog
I agree with you also.
All these things are good. The immediate problem as I currently see it is, how do we convince those in parliament to address the issue. There is no progress in solving this aspect of the problem so, I am pessimistic in regards to eventual outcomes.
Cheers.

tet02November 12, 2016 at 8:37 pm

I recently saw Andrew Denton address the National Press Club on voluntary euthanasia and our politicians lack of resolve concerning it.Having recently lost both parents to cancer and seen the debilitating stage they were forced to endure before finally slipping away made me sick. I spoke to one of the doctors about the issue and was told quite candidly that the main opponent to voluntary euthanasia was the Pharmaceutical companies, the money they rake in from the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme means its in their best interest to keep people alive for as long as possible, (my father for example was taking medications that valued over $350 per day, and he just wanted it to end).
Stopping this practice would be a good start, as well as being infinitely more humane. If you did it to your dog you’d be vilified.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 12, 2016 at 9:16 pm

You have my respect, tet02,

for speaking for your parents who could not speak for themselves.

I might be allowed to put my dog out of his misery but not my parents. My dog I had sadly to do that just two weeks ago.

I dread if my parents suffered the same way.

HarquebusNovember 12, 2016 at 10:43 pm

tet02
That’s terrible. I have been in similar circumstances more than once. I can empathize.

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
I love dogs and feel for you.

tet02November 12, 2016 at 11:24 pm

Thanks folks, but the point I was trying to make,(not very well), is that the time, energy, cost, manpower, resources, etc.,etc, used to keep my Dad alive for 6 weeks more than he ever wanted to,(and of sound mind to the bitter end), is difficult to quantify. But I can assure you it was more than the $350/day taxpayer subsidized payment to big pharmacy, one of which Turnbulls wife is a major shareholder in I believe. So with that in mind, how many more people are in hospitals across Australia, and for that matter the world, wanting nothing more than to move on to “whatever”,but are forced to linger using resources etc that they have no wish to.
At school in the 70’s we had a fairly progressive social science teacher that spoke of overpopulation being the fundamental problem of dwindling resources leading to global famine, war and poverty. He got quite vocal about the church needing to change policy concerning contraception , spoke of family tax breaks for assisted euthanasia,and most importantly educating young men and especially women, as we would be the ones dealing with the looming elephant in the room. All of which went down a treat at an Anglican boarding school, and assured his employment termination at the end of the year.
And while he stopped short of eugenics, he did say another Spanish Flu virus or similar was the planets only realistic hope, and I’m sorry to say I think he may well be right.

dragonnannyNovember 12, 2016 at 11:33 pm

Townsvilleblog stated “In the 21st century “all” countries should be legislating for a family to have no more than 3 children, and if they do, then at the birth of the fourth child, any government benefits that flow to that family should cease immediately.” I have had 3 pregnancies but birthed four children……..and I am wondering if a family has 2 children and tries for a third and eventually produces twins making it four children would they be penalised for that fourth child that they didn’t actually choose to have? I am hoping it doesn’t come to legislation regarding 3 children.

I actually liked all the comments for this article and the article was informative and something I probably have not given much thought to over the years. I am starting to think that limiting population by laws etc might not be so good but controlling waste would help somewhat I am sure…………items get thrown out and not fixed any more, food is thrown away at an alarming rate, I think if every individual who is capable could learn to stop so much waste something would have to change. And that includes large corporations as well…………. thank you Harquebus for your article

Miriam EnglishNovember 13, 2016 at 12:59 am

dragonnanny, you have put your finger on one of the most important aspects of the problem: waste.

Yes, overpopulation is an awful problem, but if we didn’t waste so damn much we would have the population problem licked already.

Here in the First World we waste a terrifying amount of food, energy, and physical resources. I forget the numbers, but most food, most energy, and most plastic, paper, metal, glass, and electronics is wasted. If we were less gluttonous and shared instead of wasting then I think it’s likely that everybody on the planet would easily have a good standard of living and population would not be such a problem. Also the environment would not be so screwed.

But we do waste — stupendous amounts. Some people are even proud of their waste, displaying it as a badge of honor.

What are we to do with humanity?

tet02, wishing a disease upon us is no solution. Make people insecure and threaten their lives and we breed like rabbits. The only reliable way to bring down numbers is to improve everybody’s lives.

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 1:02 am

tet02
Antibiotic resistant bacteria, viruses and fungi are becoming a problem while at the same time, they could be one of nature’s solutions to our population problem.

dragonnanny
You are welcome and thank you for your comment.

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 1:09 am

Miriam
I don’t see how reducing waste helps in the population problem if the waste, surplus if you like, is used to feed someone else. It would help if the saving came from reducing production. This would reduce the amount of resources needed.

bobraftoNovember 13, 2016 at 2:06 am

H
Have a ponder at this:

David Attenborough described earth as the Living Planet, and I assume most of us regard that as life above the crust.

What if the internal parts of earth are essential for the life forms on the exterior?

What function do the gases, oil, coal and minerals have to the well being of the planet?

Could it be possible, that by extracting the gases, oil, and coal that we are killing the planet?

Below the surface is a living body and in a way similar to ours where oil could be the equivalent of human blood an so on being A Living Planet. We all know what happens if one loses all their blood.

The sad part is that no one knows of what the impact will be when everything is extracted but what is known is the reserves.
In June, BP provided an intriguing update to its global oil reserves estimates in the company’s yearly review of energy statistics. It raised its reserve estimate by 1.1% to 1,687.9 billion barrels – just enough oil to last the world 53.3 years at the current production rates.Oct 22, 2014

It might be a very feeble and extremely anaemic earth in 53 years time and that’s without the threat of over population and climate change.

It’s possible.

Miriam EnglishNovember 13, 2016 at 8:02 am

Harquebus, if it’s used by someone else then it’s not waste.

Waste, where a tiny minority of people hog the vast majority of resources, is a major part of the overpopulation problem because if we didn’t waste so incredibly spectacularly then there would be far less impact on the environment and there would be far more to go around for all of us, making population growth less dangerous, or even no problem at all, because the improved standard of living would mean population growth would not be so explosive.

We waste most of the food. Personally each of us wastes something like half the food we buy. Restaurants are much, much worse.

We waste almost all the energy. More than 99% of the energy powering the average car is lost in waste heat and in just moving the ton of metal and glass along. An insignificant amount actually moves the human from A to B. When we heat and cool homes most of that energy is wasted on poor house design because it leaks heat like a sieve. Crappy building design is responsible for most of our energy use. Architects design extremely expensive, resource-hungry mostrosities. Witness even the monumental stupidity of putting wiring and plumbing inside walls so that when something goes wrong the godamn wall needs to be ripped apart. What kind of idiocy is that? In computing centers wiring is behind lift-out panels of a false floor or ceiling. We waste at every turn.

We continue to make throwaway items instead of making things that can be repaired. Advertising and fashion are two of the most evil forces here. They push people to scrap perfectly good things, driving rapacious over-use of resources. It would be easy to over-engineer most things to make them last many lifetimes, and if they broke down, be easy to repair. I repair a lot of things for friends and family and am constantly appalled at the number of things that are shoddily designed so they will break soon and carefully designed to be difficult, or even impossible to repair. Apple is a prime evil here. They have come up with all manner of ways to impede those who would prefer to fix their machines — even to the point of sealing their ipods so people can’t change the battery! And I won’t even talk about the appalling waste of the packaging industry — use once and throw away!

If we change our culture to make waste shameful then we would put far less pressure on the environment and we’d find it much easier to lift the poor and starving up to a good standard of living, thus reducing the birth rate.

It is remarkable how few resources we need when we don’t waste. We Australians are the worst in all the world. We waste more per capita than people in any other country — we waste more energy and more food and more goods. We barely even recycle. We throw poisonous items like batteries into landfills instead of having laws that force their recycling. We drive huge cars just around the corner to the shop. We’ve largely gotten rid of cheap or free public transport and replaced it with mass transport that is so expensive it makes it “economical” to drive wasteful personal vehicles — one person per gigantic SUV.

Reduce waste and you reduce the population problem and possibly even eliminate it, while slowing climate change and damage to the environment.

Miriam EnglishNovember 13, 2016 at 8:30 am

bobrafto, interesting point. Many years ago I wrote in my blog about my worries that the standard practise of pumping water down into oil wells to replace the oil and force it out is dangerous (not to mention wasteful). I feared that the extra weight of the heavier water would change the balance of Earth’s plates and perhaps cause earthquakes. Time passed and I pretty much forgot about this until recently it has been found that fracking is associated with a dramatic rise in earthquakes in formerly stable areas.

We have come to find that the life underground is more numerous than that above ground. Bacteria, in particular, form extensive networks that transfer electrons so that those feeding at great depth can manage without oxygen. Fungi transport nutrients between dozens of trees, perhaps hundreds, in great networks. While we blunder around on the surface, bulldozing, and scattering and spraying poisons, with almost no knowledge of what damage we’re doing.

I marvel, when watching movies, at how people have come to believe the cityscape is “normal”, when it is in reality a kind of desert. It astonishes me when people coo over how picturesque Scottish, Irish, and English landscapes are, when I see vast forests totally denuded of trees by early iron age man, and remaining green only by virtue of the frequent drizzling rain. If not for that rain, it would resemble the middle east — the birthplace of Western culture, which in ancient stories was rich and fertile, covered in damp, bountiful forests. Did you know there are cave paintings in the Sahara of giraffes, rhinos and the like? That enormous desert is very recent and continues to spread. It was likely a fragile ecosystem that people tore open with agriculture the way humans made the dustbowl in USA, and probably the first humans to settle Australia 50,000 years ago did to inland Australia by first exterminating all the megafauna and then “cultivating” the land with fire, never realising how easy it was to break that ecosystem, causing the forests and grasslands to die and the enormous inland sea to dry up.

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 9:54 am

bobrafto
We are very dependent on what happens below the Earth in regards to minerals and CO2 in the atmosphere. Without some CO2 provided by volcanoes, ours would be a frozen planet.

Miriam English
“if it’s used by someone else then it’s not waste.”
Absolutely and is why I suggested calling it a surplus. One’s surplus being another one’s need.
Everything that you state and suggest is fine and will benefit us but, this would only be for now. Resources are becoming more difficult to obtain and it will be difficult to maintain our numbers going forward even with improvements in efficiency.
There is not one thing in your last comment that I do not agree with. We should have done those things decades ago. I now think that, that opportunity has been lost. Trade will be a victim and is already suffering, making implementation on the scale needed impossible.
This is one reason why I think that population reduction is the one first best thing that we can do.
I appreciate the time that you spent preparing that comment.
Thanks.

https://www.quandl.com/data/LLOYDS/BDI-Baltic-Dry-Index

KyranNovember 13, 2016 at 10:14 am

It seems to me there are two parts to the equation. ‘Population’ and ‘sustainability’.
With regard to the ‘population’ component, it is not just that we are overpopulated, but that our population is ageing. This changes completely the manner in which the problem is addressed. Whilst discussion of birth control is necessary, it is rapidly becoming a moot point. As ‘societies’ have become more affluent and educated, family sizes have become smaller. As other have noted, the need to have six children in the hope that three will survive to support their parents in their dotage is a factor in only a handful of countries in 2016. As far as prescriptive birth control is concerned, there can be no greater demonstration of its inadequacy than the ‘one child policy’ in China. After 35 years, it is being wound back, leaving China with three huge problems.
Gender imbalance, as males were preferred over females at birth for 35 years.
A declining work force, for obvious reasons.
And an ageing population with limited ‘resources’ to accommodate the inherent changes in the needs of the aged.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-29/china-communist-party…children…/6897528
There is an excellent report prepared by the UN which goes into detail as to the impact of the global trend of an ageing population. Whilst it would be easy to cherry pick the contents, it is better read in its entirety. The context is important as it discusses economic growth and sustainability through the prism of the ageing nature of the global population.
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/…/pdf/ageing/WPA2015_Report.pdf
It is not surprising that our shallow, vacuous ‘government’ addresses the issue in Australian terms by raising the retirement age and trying to cut the protections afforded Australians through a working pension system. Two points addressed (and ridiculed) in the report.
Net immigration is not only a viable requisite in Australian terms, but a necessary one, IMO.
As an aside, the asylum seekers we have warehoused are young and many are very well educated. We need them a damn site more than they need us. The point raised by tet02 (for what this is worth, sorry for your loss) is one that should be considered as a matter of urgency on a humane and rational basis, not an ideological one.
With regard to the issue of sustainability, Ms English’s comments could not be more appropriate. We look at the issue of sustainability as if we were producing no more than was necessary to feed the planet. Nothing could be further from the truth. If that were the case, malnutrition would not be a problem;
“Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five – 3.1 million children each year. One out of six children — roughly 100 million — in developing countries is underweight.”
“Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth. The vast majority of the world’s hungry people live in developing countries, where 13.5 percent of the population is undernourished.”
Whilst it is clearly acceptable in this day and age to reduce the population by way of starvation or, even worse, by killing hundreds of thousands of civilians through needless wars, it is not necessary. We are currently producing to satisfy rampant consumerism, not need. Should we choose to work smarter there are numerous answers to the question of sustainability.
Thank you, Harquebus, for the article. Whilst the problems are, undoubtedly, real, that are not unsolvable. The ‘political will’ is a deficiency we will pay dearly for. Take care
PS Ms English. Thank you for the tips on ‘links’. I haven’t got to duckduckgo yet as my computer has taken an intense disliking to me for the past fortnight. I hope I’m at least doing the links right though. Take care

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 11:15 am

Kyran
” As ‘societies’ have become more affluent and educated, family sizes have become smaller.”
As time progresses and resources deplete, affluence and education are probably going to take a backward step. To maintain a decent standard in these areas, once again, I see population reduction as the only solution. The only unresolved issue is how which, is moot at point in time because, the problem is still not being recognized or it is being deliberately ignored by the corporate media.
I also think that in order to break the cycle of growth, at least one generation is going to have to bite the bullet and lower their expectations of retirement and that generation will be the boomers of which, I am one. Physical realities will hit them hard and will probably include them losing their super and savings.
In regards to producing food, I see future problems. Shortages of fertilizers and pesticides and the slowing of industrial agricultural production, processing and most importantly, transport systems due to energy constraints.
Growing enough food will become difficult getting it to hungry people will become harder.
I think that it was a mistake for China to end their one child policy. Already the pollution caused by their modernization is seriously affecting their ecosystems and public health.
Thanks for the links and your well thought out post.

Miriam EnglishNovember 13, 2016 at 11:54 am

Kyran, thanks for your insights and information, especially for the UN Report on an Ageing population. I didn’t even know it existed. Perhaps our idiotic politicians don’t either.

I’m sorry to say your links are still a problem as it appears you’ve copied and pasted the text of the links from a google search. While this will work for short addresses, longer ones get contracted with “…” in the middle which breaks the address if copied this way.

The easiest way to get usable links is simply to do the search from the DuckDuckGo.com page. The links it lists are the actual links. My computer is pretty ancient and doesn’t like a lot of newer smarty-pants webdesign, but it behaves perfectly on DuckDuckGo.com

Here are the links you intended.

World Population Ageing 2015 Highlights – United Nations
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/ageing/WPA2015_Highlights.pdf

China ends one-child policy, allows two children for each couple
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-29/china-communist-party-says-to-allow-two-children-for-all-couples/6897528

And here is the Duck Duck Go search page:
https://duckduckgo.com/

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 1:23 pm

“In 1972 we were using about 85% of this planet’s carrying capacity, so it wasn’t too great a leap to conclude that, if growth could be brought to a halt, a sustainable situation could be achieved.
Since then we have used up a good deal of the reserves of non-renewable resources and over-exploited many renewable resources damaging them in the process. All this has enabled us to grow to the point where we are at 120% of carrying capacity. The task that faces us is not just stopping growth, but a good bit of “degrowth” and a lot of work to restore the damage we’ve done to the planet.”
“Most of us have a mental model of how the world works that doesn’t include exponential growth or the feedback loops that cause it. Crudely put, the shape of the exponential curve is such that it putters along in an almost straight line, increasing only very slowly for a long time. Then it starts to increase more rapidly and pretty soon goes right through the roof.”
“as long as we pursue growth, no amount of resources will solve our problems.” — Irv Mills
http://theeasiestpersontofool.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/the-limits-to-growth-part-1.html

“Finally investment cannot keep up with depreciation, and the industrial base collapses, taking with it the service and agricultural systems, which have become dependent on industrial inputs (such as fertilizers, pesticides, hospital laboratories, computers, and especially energy for mechanization).”
http://theeasiestpersontofool.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/the-limits-to-growth-part-2.html

” the basic behaviour mode of the world’s system is exponential growth of population and capital followed by overshoot and collapse.”
“are we already in overshoot or are we just starting to do really well as the techno-optimists and cornucopians would have us believe.”
“the application of technology to apparent problems of resource depletion, pollution or food shortage has no impact on the essential problem, which is exponential growth in a finite and complex system.”
http://theeasiestpersontofool.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/the-limits-to-growth-part-3.html

“Our politicians still see “economic recovery”—the resumption of “robust” growth—as their main goal. Even though growth is the very thing that is causing most of our problems.”
http://theeasiestpersontofool.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/the-limits-to-growth-part-4.html

“As early as the 1990s real economic growth slowed due to resource depletion and surplus energy issues. The markets started blowing bubbles in an attempt keep growth going.”
“I’d say you’d have to be pretty deep in denial not to see that we are already well into overshoot.”
http://theeasiestpersontofool.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/the-limits-to-growth-part-5.html

Miriam EnglishNovember 13, 2016 at 2:51 pm

We can pursue growth if it is in the information economy. It is the one area that doesn’t necessarily rely on increasing use of physical resources, and in fact can actively reduce physical resource use (by working through the net instead of physically travelling).

We would have much more success in redirecting the idiotic “growth at all costs” mindset into the information economy than just saying to people “It’s over. You must stop consuming.” Stopping this juggernaut is pretty-much impossible. Redirecting it towards untold riches holds much greater promise. It uses capitalism’s own insane greed to fix its worst problem.

Much of the alarmist stuff you’re posting, Harquebus, is backward-looking. It assumes that nothing changes. But that’s wrong. We are becoming more efficient (though not as quickly as I’d like). In spite of government dragging its feet we are moving to more sustainable energy sources. More people are aware of the problems of climate change and overpopulation than ever before. It is changing. The articles you post from take none of this into account.

You tell people it’s the end. There’s nothing they can do. It’s all over. We are gonna have a nasty population crash whether we like it or not and the survivors will be reduced to an impoverished agrarian lifestyle. Can you see that this will have zero effect on people’s actions?

I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve met who believed this self-defeating shit and had basically given up on everything. Their feeling was “Well, if the previous generations cheated me out of my life and it’s all going to hell anyway, I’m going to live it up now while I have the chance. Screw everybody else.”

It is only after long hours of explaining the potential of new developments and how there is actually great hope, so long as we get our luxury through efficiency, that I’ve been able to alter this self-destructive trajectory.

Harquebus, I know it isn’t your intention, but you are making things worse by only presenting pessimism and no solutions.

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 3:19 pm

Miriam English
Thank you for that. I think that we all should be alarmed. I have made a few people think about this subject so, pessimistic gloom and doom it might be but, I from where I sit, it is a small step in the right direction on a long march.
I have always offered the same, unrecognized by most, single solution. It is only the methodology, in my opinion, that has yet to be resolved and that will not happen until the media is convinced that population is a problem.
I think that the world that you wish for which, I also wouldn’t mind, can only be achieved in conjunction with population reduction.
In regards to computers, I also am a nerd as you already know. I recall the floods in Thailand that temporarily limited the number of available hard drives. The point here is that, it only takes one vital component or resource to become scarce for an industry to falter.
I know that you are currently very busy and I really appreciate you coming back to comment.
Thanks for correcting Kyran’s links. The ABC’s worked fine and yet, the other did not. Strange.
Cheers.

Miriam EnglishNovember 13, 2016 at 4:04 pm

That’s interesting. I hadn’t tried the ABC link. I saw the abbreviated link and assumed it wouldn’t work. Just now clicking on it I notice the broken link first gets loaded into the browser, then the ABC corrects it, sending the browser to the correct page. Somebody at ABC has done some interesting programming. Nice.

KyranNovember 13, 2016 at 4:37 pm

The notion that our future has to be defined by ‘Sophie’s Choice’, a choice between ‘selective extermination’ and ‘armageddon’, escapes me. We have other choices.
Granted, we do not have daily recognition of ‘real’ issues by our media, or our ‘leaders’.
Granted, the advances in all forms of science, are, largely, ignored by our media, and our ‘leaders’.
Their ignorance of real issues, of real science, don’t make those issues go away. Most of the people I meet on a daily basis know that ‘their’ ignorance of an issue exacerbates the very problems they claim to address.
My apologies for the aforementioned links. More importantly, Ms English, I will keep trying (notwithstanding my computers revulsion).
Take care

AthenaNovember 13, 2016 at 5:07 pm

For starters, we live in a consumerist society. We buy masses of cheaply made crap from China that does not last. So much of what we buy comes in excessive amounts of packaging. Because clothing is very cheap, we throw out perfectly good clothing on a regular basis. It’s going to landfill and the dyes used to manufacture it are entering waterways. We’re building large, high energy consuming houses that we don’t need and we fool ourselves by calling them energy efficient. We buy fast food and highly processed pre-packaged food, all with packaging that goes to landfill. We could cut back on the unnecessary consumption and spend more locally on experiences rather than things. That would help create jobs locally as well as help the environment.

totaramNovember 13, 2016 at 5:54 pm

I must say this is an important wake-up call to everyone, but the signs have been there (always pushed into the background) since the time of Malthus. My parents very consciously decided to have only one child and I know it was conscious, because they told me so, and that was more than 70 years ago. So the ultimate resource depletion of the planet with a growing consumption is a simple mathematical certainty. For those items that are “renewable”, once again there is a limit to how much they can be renewed. There is a limit to how much sunlight falls on the planet in a given time-frame. In the 70’s we had the Club of Rome and the “limits to growth”, but they were quickly buried by the growing confidence of the neo-liberal revolution after the collapse of the Soviet Union. While we may argue about whether we are in “overshoot” or not (this is a numbers game), the fact is, it really doesn’t matter. Exponential growth is a terrible thing. Just read about it. There are some very graphic illustrations about how it works.

The difficult part is how we go about de-populating. China has just allowed two children per family, which is not too bad. It will lead to de-population in the long run. The question is how long? Similarly, we know that economic development leads to falls in population growth, so a certain level of economic well-being will lead to stabilisation and even falls in population – again in the long run. Will we dodge the bullets once again through some clever tricks (based on fossil energy of course) like we dodged mass-starvation in the last half of the last century? (Not that people in parts of the world are not still starving).

The biggest culprits against this trend, are the religions in the developed countries, where it appears that there is plenty and where every religion tries to get greater “market share” by asking its adherents to breed. The politicians here are also complicit. Someone already pointed to the “baby bonus” of Peter Costello. Clearly, people like him need a wake-up call, but I suspect he is too far gone to care.

So problem identified, solution not clear.

The only question I have to Harquebus is: what on earth is the connection with currencies? How does it matter what currency is in use? The problem remains the same.

On the other hand, with fiat currencies (which is what they all are now mostly), the solutions might be easier. All the countries abandoned the gold-standard and Bretton-Woods for a host of reasons, and none of those have gone away.

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 6:24 pm

Athena
Shipping as much of our precious non renewable resources overseas as we can as fast we can only for it to be branded “Made in China” and then ultimately end up in a landfill has always bothered me.
Also, rather than create jobs and if you hadn’t noticed, it is my preferred option to reduce the number of applicants.

totaram
We do share common ground. I enjoyed reading your comment, probably because I agree with it.
I think that, somewhere in our uncertain future, what is valued will become currency and it won’t be bits or bits of paper. A currency backed by units of energy perhaps? Personally, I still favor precious metals. Governments can not create them from nothing and they store their value for incredibly long periods of time.

Do you think that the MMT system can facilitate a declining population along with a contracting economy? I did read somewhere that it still requires some ~~thieving of our wealth~~ inflation.

Cheers.

Steve LaingNovember 13, 2016 at 6:25 pm

Crikey Harq! I almost missed this!!!

A well presented argument, although I suspect that it won’t be the running out of resources that will be the death knell of civilisation as we know it, but very much like the yeast in a bottle of beer, our demise will be due to the increase of our societies waste products that lays waste to a sustainable environment. However whatever the cause, the outcome will be the same, as exponential population growth rarely ends well. Indeed I wonder whether too much focus on more resource availabilty (whether fracking, deep ocean exploration et al) has diverted attention from the pollution issue now most manifest in climate change.

Can we collectively resolve the issue? I’m not convinced that the individual programmed desire to pass on ones genes can be sufficiently curtailed through societal pressure. Even the Chinese appear to have given up on that approach.

I suspect that to resolve this global issue we would have required a pan-global organisation with sufficient power to make things happen. Given the antipathy towards the UN from some of the potentially critical players, I can’t see that ever happening. The worlds leader will bicker while the planet burns.

I only hope that some of those human societies who have managed to live in a sustainable manner may continue to do so…

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 6:38 pm

Steve Laing

Thanks mate. I try to read all comments and I find yours are always interesting and informative.
The number of theAIMN readers who have an understanding of the exponential function, although still low, is more than I had realized.
I am attempting to do my own sustainable thingy and believe me, it ain’t easy and is another reason why I worry.

“Even as a waste disposal site, the world is finite.” — William R. Catton Jr.

Cheers.

JeffJLNovember 13, 2016 at 8:29 pm

Well done H. Having now ‘put up’ and ‘not shut up’ you will be forced to continue to write to appease your fans. I see from the earlier comments that that is what they want you to do.

Congrats again on a clearly written piece.

AthenaNovember 13, 2016 at 8:40 pm

“Also, rather than create jobs and if you hadn’t noticed, it is my preferred option to reduce the number of applicants.”

@Harqebus
If we can’t reproduce, who will the smug parents have to look down upon? Even if we limit everyone to one child, we still have a problem with the current population being underemployed. Work gives many people a sense of worth and purpose and to be gainfully employed is recognised as a basic human right.

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 9:01 pm

JeffJL
Thanks. We will see.

Athena
I do think that a lot of people will be idled permanently or for most of the time. Increasing scarcity will be the main cause but, robotics might also be another challenge for the working class.
Performing work requires energy and causes pollution. The more workers, the more energy required and the more pollution caused.
High unemployment is something that we are going to have to live with for a quite some time to come.

Miriam EnglishNovember 13, 2016 at 9:17 pm

Athena, one of the most insidious and dangerous aspects of the current system, I believe, is this push to make people be worth only what they work as. This idea of work being a “right” never sat well for me. It seems to me that comes from an enslaving system where work is the only way to stay alive; even then it should never be a right to work, but that staying alive and healthy should be a right.

A dwindling population (when it finally arrives) and increasingly automated production will inevitably render almost all work obsolete. We will work only as an interest — a hobby. We won’t need to work. Our value will be in ourselves, as human beings with capacity learn, to create, to help each other, and to contribute to the communities around us That’s a future I look forward to with great eagerness. I hope I live to see it.

HarquebusNovember 13, 2016 at 11:23 pm

Miriam English

If that be the case then, wages will also be obsolete. Can the economy support a next to zero workforce? Not in its current form I think which, is already in its death throws. How would we allocate life’s essentials? Rationing which, I advocate for the present as well as the future I think would be one system that could operate under this scenario.

An other danger that could present itself is, if artificial intelligence decides that there are too many of us or that we are no longer required. A remote possibility but, one that Steven Hawking regularly warns us about.

Cheers.

John KellyNovember 13, 2016 at 11:35 pm

As the food runs low, so too the population.

ZathrasNovember 13, 2016 at 11:48 pm

Aside from all the hypothetical problems, there’s a real one that will need to be addressed soon.

Who is going to pay the pensions for the rapidly aging population?
In a decade or so each pensioner will have to be entirely supported by two taxpayers, who will also be funding everything else the nation needs.

This ongoing Ponzi Scheme will have to go and the existing Superannuation scheme won’t do it.
Apart from compulsory euthanasia for the elderly, any ideas?

When I was at school the looming problem for the future was what we would be doing with all our spare time with automation taking on much of the burden, but most are working more hours than ever just to stay afloat.

Things never seem to work out the way people expect.

HarquebusNovember 14, 2016 at 12:14 am

John Kelly
Food will be worth more than its weight in fiat currency.

“It’s sad,” Gonzalez says. “At this point, I think the cheese is worth more.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-31/i-feel-pablo-escobar-venezuelans-resort-weighing-cash-hyperinflation-builds

Zathras
In my previous comments I have stated that one generation at least will have to bite the bullet and receive a lot less than they are expecting. That generation will most likely be the boomers.
I also was told at school that our main problem would be deciding what to do with our leisure time. That was back in the day when the only technology we had was a speaker mounted above the blackboard. Occasionally we were allowed to listen to the ABC’s for schools broadcast.

When I started school, we used inkwell and nib. At around 30 I studied business computing at TAFE and marveled at how far technology had progressed in just over 20 years. Now, even the keyboard is becoming obsolete.

Cheers.

Matters NotNovember 14, 2016 at 12:14 am

Things never seem to work out the way people expect.

Indeed! And the ‘doomsday’ theorists here and elsewhere have a very, very poor track record re their predictions

That the Planet we currently occupy is finite, goes without saying. But please. That we are limited by the current ways we think about same and can’t and won’t reconceptualise in the future is just hilarious. Logic once suggested that the world was flat. Made perfect sense. (And still does for many). The idea that we now ‘know’ everything about everything and there’s no advances to be made re exploring new ‘possibilities’ is arrogance writ large..

Shock! Horror! We’ll all be doomed says H …

Here’s a link (historic). http://users.tpg.com.au/dandsc/job/job01.htm

Some people need to get a life.

Miriam EnglishNovember 14, 2016 at 12:30 am

Harquebus, I think fear of AI is misguided and absurd… unless the military get it first. But even then I think it’s only a problem until it becomes sufficiently intelligent. Increased intelligence seems to bring an increased desire for peace. Military intelligence (a bit of an oxymoron) poses a risk at first, but a sufficiently advanced intelligence would see the utter stupidity of war and oppression, and simply disobey. Our fear of such an intelligence is our greatest danger.

John Kelly, history suggests that as food decreases breeding explodes. It seems to be a safety mechanism to ensure some will survive. Granted it is counterproductive now, but it is what it is. If we want to defuse the population bomb we need to learn to share and play nice with each other. Thankfully we’re doing better at that than ever before in all of humanity’s time on Earth. Will we improve fast enough? I don’t know. I sure hope so.

Zathras, yes, I always found it hilarious when I was a kid, that I would read serious scientific articles worrying about what we would all do in the coming time of leisure when automation took over most work. Who the hell wants to work at something they don’t like? All through history artists, writers, musicians, and other creators have had this problem. Who we are has never been valued unless we made money. But most of us never made money from our creations; we tend to die in poverty. Now the rest of society is going to be in the same boat and it terrifies them… except it is different now. We have a roadmap for how to manage a society in which nobody needs to work a job they don’t like. A universal basic income lets everybody live a good life and automation would supply what’s needed. Massive automation is coming anyway. We can bring it in with great social upheaval and misery, discarding much of society, or we can introduce something resembling utopia. We finally get to make the choice this decade.

I think the current overwork is a temporary thing with bosses wanting ever more and forever holding out the carrot of money to squeeze more from their workers. More of the wealth goes to the most wealthy, leaving less of the pie for everybody else while advertising and fashion drive people to keep up an impossible race. As I say, it’s temporary. Automation has already begun displacing workers with machines that don’t need to be paid, don’t sleep or take holidays, and always work at maximum pace, never getting distracted. Why would they need to hire humans? Watch this to see what I mean:
CGP Grey – Humans need not apply

Kaye LeeNovember 14, 2016 at 1:07 am

Harquebus,

Don;’t retreat back to your mantras. You wrote a great article that has made a lot of people comment – you didn’t call game over, you provoked thought.

You have been very welcoming and accepting of input – don’t now dismiss it and revert to the repetition people have come to expect from you. Listen to the plaudits and understand why they are coming. You opened the discussion – be open to learning from the contributions.

I admire your effort in many ways. Let go of the mantras and just talk as you have done here.

AnnikaNovember 14, 2016 at 7:38 am

The best contraceptive is high living standards and high survival rate of babies. It’s beside the point trying to try to solve this by put more restrictions on an already oppressed humanity…. i would even go as far to say that it distracts from the real issues.

HarquebusNovember 14, 2016 at 8:59 am

Matters Not
It is not who has been right, it is who will be right.
What is going to happen is not difficult to understand when one understands the consequences of exponential growth.
Thank you for the comment and the link. You surprised me. I was sure that you wouldn’t bother.

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” — Prof. Albert Bartlett

Miriam English
Note that I said “A remote possibility”. Turning of the power off is the solution should it ever become a problem. I only mentioned it to add to the discussion. I can’t understand Steven Hawking’s concern but, I do respect the man.
Thanks for the video. I will watch it shortly.

Kaye Lee
I appreciate your advice. Thanks.
I included your recent article in my latest bulk mail out and referred to you as “the always astute Kaye Lee”.

Annika
High living standards is something that we can not afford in regards to pollution and depletion of essential resources if, we maintain our add to our currently very large global population. If we ignore population as a problem, nature will sort it out in her usual brutal and unforgiving ways. This is what I am keen to avoid.

For those interested, here is a 3 minute video that gives a quick look at our industrial food system.
“For Civilization: This Is Necessary (Life Feeds On Life)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6gzIrV5Ae0

Thank you everyone for your contributions. They are all very much appreciated.

Cheers.

n3angusNovember 15, 2016 at 3:32 am

I think the instincts of species to survive is the topic that is not being talked about but will rise up to bite the unsuspected in the butt

n3angusNovember 15, 2016 at 4:14 am

Do you think you can convince this Ideology ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdZCERnEk04

n3angusNovember 15, 2016 at 4:19 am

I think the plan is to expedite the supply demand phenomenon to create a crisis ahead of Peak population growth that would out pace supply , This is the founder of Green Peace exposing the plan , http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/08/opinion/gilding-earth-limits/index.html

Miriam EnglishNovember 15, 2016 at 8:16 am

Matters Not has made a valid point. Human beings are nothing if not ingenious. We humans have loved the idea of doom so much that we have been predicting it constantly for thousands of years. And we have avoided genuine predictions of doom many times before.

A Brief History of the Apocalypse
http://www.abhota.info

Harquebus, yes, exponential growth, and human inability to see it, is a problem, but there are two aspects to current trends that you conveniently ignore when raised.

1. We have passed peak growth rate. The rate of growth of the human population has been declining since the early 1960s. Population is still growing, but that rate is decelerating.

2. We are becoming more frugal. Electricity supply companies were caught unawares by the fact that electricity consumption declined when they expected it to continue to increase. I meet a lot of people these days who are sick of the rat race and want to get off the treadmill. They consume less of everything than they used to. We now have excellent research to show that excessive consumption of food is one of the leading causes of early death and illness (hypertension, heart disease, cancer, diabetes) and people have begun to change their habits accordingly.

Modelling and statistics have reached a high point like never before and ordinary people — you and me — have easy access to it to make personal decisions. It doesn’t matter that our leaders are corrupt idiots; we’re going around them. For example, most governments are opposed to renewable energy and foster instead fossil fuels, however solar cells are being adopted by people around the world faster than mobile phones, and new investment in renewable energy now exceeds new investment in fossil fuels. The three simple, cheap technologies, solar cells, LED lights, and smartphones have, to a very large degree, improved the standard of living of millions of people all over the world. They have free electricity (after the initial cost), light at night that doesn’t make them sick, and communication and access to the internet. Poverty-stricken people in the poorest nations on Earth have all three of these technologies at a tiny fraction of the price we pay in the “developed nations”. (I put quotes around that because I have a feeling we will start to lag soon, as previously poor nations leapfrog us with cheaper, more efficient technology.)

I often wonder if the vampires who run cigarette companies inadvertently did us a favor by killing off the fashion conscious who were easily led and prone to brainwashing by advertisements. Perhaps the monsters who run the National Rifle Association (NRA) in USA are doing a similar favor, by propagating death among those with a fascination for violence and killing machines. Maybe the repellent creeps who run Nestle, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Allens, and similar are doing likewise, by killing off those who love to over-consume fake food.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 15, 2016 at 8:33 am

Miriam,

your comment makes much sense to me and is a beacon of hope.

AthenaNovember 15, 2016 at 8:54 am

“High living standards is something that we can not afford in regards to pollution and depletion of essential resources if, we maintain our add to our currently very large global population. If we ignore population as a problem, nature will sort it out in her usual brutal and unforgiving ways. This is what I am keen to avoid.”

@Harquebus

I disagree. I’ve been moving towards minimalism for a while now and I consider that I have a high standard of living. I’ve read books and watched videos by minimalists. They have a high standard of living. High standard of living doesn’t mean that one has to surround oneself with unnecessary excesses.

Miriam EnglishNovember 15, 2016 at 9:43 am

n3angus, I just watched the youtube video you posted the link for. I don’t recommend anybody else watch it, except as a lesson for how to make propaganda to incite fear and hate. Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister would be very proud of his legacy. Listening to the changes of the music during that tripe was especially telling. After watching that video it is extremely difficult to think clearly. All I can say is that there are some hateful, angry people everywhere. Thankfully they are increasingly outnumbered by those who want a peaceful existence.

Ugh! I feel like I need to have a shower after watching that. So filthily blatant it was in its attempts to mess with the viewer’s mind.

Miriam EnglishNovember 15, 2016 at 9:47 am

Athena, so true. That is my experience exactly. Buying more crap doesn’t make us better off. Minimalism today can deliver a very high standard of living and an extremely low level of consumption.

AthenaNovember 15, 2016 at 10:00 am

“Athena, one of the most insidious and dangerous aspects of the current system, I believe, is this push to make people be worth only what they work as. This idea of work being a “right” never sat well for me. It seems to me that comes from an enslaving system where work is the only way to stay alive; even then it should never be a right to work, but that staying alive and healthy should be a right.

A dwindling population (when it finally arrives) and increasingly automated production will inevitably render almost all work obsolete. We will work only as an interest — a hobby. We won’t need to work. Our value will be in ourselves, as human beings with capacity learn, to create, to help each other, and to contribute to the communities around us That’s a future I look forward to with great eagerness. I hope I live to see it.”

@ Miriam English
I’ve noticed some people who have never had to work and have spent years at home, who have an extremely narrow view of the world and cannot comprehend points of view that are different from their own. They’re not stimulated to do anything. Some of them have no idea where to even start to learn something new. They’re not creative. I would find their lives incredibly boring.

Most of us have an inherent desire to reproduce and to nurture our offspring. Tribal people spend all day hunting and gathering food. that’s their equivalent of work. We don’t need to do that but we still have a need and a desire to provide for our families, but we have a different method for doing so. If we don’t have to work, that isn’t going to reduce our capacity to consume finite resources, unless we stay in bed all day.

HarquebusNovember 15, 2016 at 10:21 am

Thank you n3angus and Miriam English for the links. I will follow them sometime today.

Miriam English
“And we have avoided genuine predictions of doom many times before.”
That was before the Earth was full.

Even though some birth rates are slowing, it is not reversing and growth still is being advocated by economists and actively pursued by governments. China’s recent halt to their one child policy is one example. Our own government’s pursuit of immigration to combat declining birthrates is another.

This is, in my opinion, the main problem; governments. They can not see further than their next new infrastructure announcement.

Also, we have had the renewable argument before so I will only say that, they are a waste of precious resources, will never deliver what they promise and do nothing directly to reduce our populations.

Energy is not the only resource that we need to be concerned about. There are things like fertilizers, declining fish stocks, deforestation, soil degradation and urban sprawl etc. that can not be solved with technology.

This is my favorite video and in it Dr. Bartlett mentions the dilemma of smoking, car accidents and such that help reduce population numbers. For those who haven’t seen it, the first 30 minutes is worth watching.
Dr Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy

I will not argue the fact that reducing poverty reduces birth rates but, governments are actively pursuing population increase. Excessive populations combined with resource depletion will, in my opinion, increase poverty and famine will then take care of the nasty business of reducing our numbers for us.

Please don’t accuse me of wanting an Armageddon. I truly wish to avoid the terrible consequences that I see are inevitable under the “business as usual” scenario.

Search criteria: peak phosphorus
Search criteria: peak fertilizers

Athena
Should we maintain large numbers at a basic level of existence or should we reduce numbers freeing up resources to invest in improving lifestyles for fewer. The problem is not just alleviating the environmental damage that large populations cause, but in repairing it.

I repeat, I can see no other solution that can solve the many problems that we face, climate being the most serious, without the simple solution of reducing populations.

In any event, it is convincing governments that over population is a problem and that reducing populations is a solution that is the first priority; the economy be damned.

Thank you all for your time spent constructing your arguments. I will spend some time later and ponder them more deeply.

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishNovember 15, 2016 at 10:42 am

Athena, be careful of the temptation to be patronising toward people who are different from you. I have a friend who lives alone in a small house without mains electricity, phone line, water mains, or even an access road. He has a modest, but effective solar electrical system, collects rain from his roof into a tank, and walks and hitchhikes everywhere. He is certainly not an intellectual, as he hardly reads at all. As essentially a gift, I put together a computer system for him that uses almost no energy at all and lets him watch movies and listen to talks when he feels like it. I couldn’t live like him, but I’m not him. I need to be constantly learning and creating, but I’m not tempted to think I’m better or more fitted.

If we don’t have to work then that alone will reduce much of our need to consume finite resources — we won’t have to travel to and from workplaces, won’t have to dress for work standards, won’t have to eat out (the most expensive and wasteful way to eat). When we can just be, it forces us to consider why we do things. While it won’t stop people throwing absurd parties and overconsuming things for the heck of it, many of us will be released from the hand-to-mouth cycle and have the chance to find better ways for ourselves and our families. It isn’t a guarantee of better things, but it does give that chance.

Kaye LeeNovember 15, 2016 at 10:54 am

“There are things like fertilizers, declining fish stocks, deforestation, soil degradation and urban sprawl etc. that can not be solved with technology.”

That just isn’t so. There is an enormous amount of research going on and constant technological improvements in those areas.

HarquebusNovember 15, 2016 at 11:58 am

Kaye Lee
The economy will continue to decay for reasons discussed here. The research and improvements in these areas have not produced any positive results and going forward, are unlikely to.
Sorry for always sounding pessimistic but, it is just an attempt to extend business as usual and pretend that it is a viable option.
Cheers.

Miriam EnglishNovember 15, 2016 at 1:11 pm

Harquebus, you are wrong. What you’re saying is not true. It is false. It is just not so. How many ways can I say it before you catch on? Research is producing solutions. This is truly beyond question. The only thing we don’t know is whether they will be adopted quickly enough. That isn’t helped by your total negation of everything.

You are not at all sorry for always sounding pessimistic. You are absolutely tied to, and heavily invested in a doom outcome. This is proven by the way you won’t even glance at solutions, let alone give them a reasonable airing. You’ve somehow convinced yourself that you want to fix the world, yet your every action says the very opposite. Every fix, every solution, every way forward you seek to deny. Can you not see this in yourself? Have you so little self-awareness?

Research into alternatives that help us move to a safe future through the dangerous times ahead is exactly the opposite of “an attempt to extend business as usual”.

You have half of the message correct: we are facing a dangerous situation.
Now you need to understand the second part: we have certain choices, thankfully still mostly painless, that can let us fix this.

If you succeed in convincing many people give up and say, “Well, it’s all screwed now whatever I do, so I might as well go out and have fun before it all crashes” then you have aided the crash. You are part of the problem instead of being part of the solution. How can I make you understand this?

HarquebusNovember 15, 2016 at 1:31 pm

Miriam English
Take a look at what was said.
“fertilizers, declining fish stocks, deforestation, soil degradation and urban sprawl”
If you know of any successes in these areas produced by research and technological improvements, I am all ears. I was not referring to R&D in its totality. I should add that fertilizers refers to future shortages.
I can only repeat that, it is my opinion that there is only one viable option and that is to reduce populations. While this option remains unaddressed, I expect to remain pessimistic and will use current events and difficulties as my evidence.
Cheers.

Irv MillsNovember 15, 2016 at 1:56 pm

Harquebus, did you leave a comment on my blog, “The Ieasiest Person to Fool”, on a post entitled “Politics and Science”?
Blogger emailed me the comment, but strangely it doesn’t show up on the blog. If you deleted the comment and don’t want to pursue it, just ignore this comment.
But if it was just a technical problem with Blogger, I thought I should let you know that I did get the comment and I read your article and I did like it–good stuff.

jimhazNovember 15, 2016 at 2:41 pm

[The other problem is the capitalist system, a system that requires growth to function and that means an increased population, take away the growth and the system collapses]

Capitalism DOES NOT require growth, although all the signs are that it does. It is the “owners” of resources that expect and will do everything they can to bring about growth for profit reasons.

I’m afraid that populations will continue to grow due to the intrinsic human nature of a desire for competition and status, and unfortunately for non-existent gods. A New World Order would first be required in order to regulate business into obtaining profits by quality and reuse improvement, rather than by producing as cheaply as possible.

It is not going to happen. Instead what will happen is that our quality of life will progressively diminish – no meat, tiny housing, no personal motor transport, a massive decline in the variety of animal life and access to leisure environments etc.

Unlike Harquebus I have no concerns about renewables being able to supply all our energy needs. Well I do have one, and that is that it might not be just CO2 that is heating the planet but also heat that the actual use of energy by humans generates (light bulbs, computers, phones, heaters, coolers, fridges, cars, trucks etc all produce heat that would not otherwise exist).

Nor am I concerned about runaway GW. At some point the world will be forced to use solar energy to power machines that extract CO2 and others that reduce the acidity of the oceans. ie we will need to start the risky business of terraforming (which might end up making things worse, like the cane toad).

With GW our biggest concern is fighting over resources, when what is needed is complete cooperation. Might have to kill all the first born males 🙂 (traits of first borns Controlling & Achievers)

Miriam EnglishNovember 15, 2016 at 2:56 pm

Harquebus,

Fertilisers.

The most important fertilisers are the nitrogenous fertilisers. They are created using the Haber-Bosch process, getting their hydrogen from methane and nitrogen from the air (our atmosphere is 78% nitrogen). The reaction is usually powered by fossil fuels. This is what you’d be referring to, no doubt. But there is no reason the energy must come from fossil fuels. It could come from solar furnaces or from solar photovoltaics. (see Du, Z.; Denkenberger, D.; Pearce, J.M. (2015). “Solar photovoltaic powered on-site ammonia production for nitrogen fertilization”. Solar Energy. 122: 562–568. Bibcode:2015SoEn..122..562D. doi:10.1016/j.solener.2015.09.035.)

Fish

Technology can be used to protect fish stocks the way it is currently being used to decimate fish stocks. Satellites and radar are used to keep an eye on fishing vessels and on marine reserves. These are necessary to help areas replenish after fishermen crash fish populations, which they do regularly and with wild abandon. Education is helping to reverse this. Satellites and tagging can also help to track rogue operators. More needs to be done, but technology is bridging the gap between what we want to protect and what we actually can.

Deforestation

Social media campaigns have helped to bring big companies to account for giving money to those who destroy forests and to reverse some of this. More needs to be done, but it is starting to gain momentum. Drones with cameras have been used to gather evidence against illegal logging. Old smartphones attached to random trees through forests have been used to automatically report on illegal logging. Again, education is changing the direction. It is slow, and we need it to be faster, but it is much better than denying it and just giving up.

Urban sprawl

This is a strange one. The end of fossil fuels is stopping that without the need for any technological solutions. It is a problem, but one that almost doesn’t need a solution. My personal feeling is that underground housing, which is the only sensible, energy efficient way to build homes will turn what remains of suburban sprawl after the end of fossil fuels back into bushland. Much of suburbia in Australia is heading that way already. There are many places that look like bushland until you get close enough to see each of the houses.

You throw up things that you think are impossible problems because you haven’t looked at them properly, but only read the rantings of doomsayers, and you never investigate solutions. You regularly deny these solutions even exist, yet you never look into them to find out whether that’s in fact the case. You are far too attached to the idea of doom.

You talk about reducing populations as the only viable solution, yet in the near term it is neither viable, nor a solution. The weird thing is, in the long term, even if we somehow manage to keep this broken system limping along the same old way, then the population problem will solve itself anyway. You never acknowledge this. Population is no longer an exponential phenomenon. As the population growth rate continues to fall, eventually we would reach and surpass replacement rate and population numbers would fall on their own. Of course we need to reduce population sooner. The only viable way is to increase the standard of living of more people. This can be done efficiently with few resources. It is already beginning to happen. But this isn’t enough. There are other problems. We need to ensure enough food is available to feed everybody even when faced with massive climate change. We need to expedite the move to renewable energy sources. We need to focus on the virtue of efficiency instead of extravagance of conspicuous over-consumption. We need to alter a society of people expecting work to be their purpose in life so that they can instead find value in being human.

We are surrounded by solutions to these problems. Some are technological solutions, some are educational, some are simply procedural. But we do have solutions. By willfully blinding yourself to them you show yourself for who you are: an apocalypticist — someone who loves doom more than freedom and life.

But I expect you’ll never change. You have a true religious devotion to it which will forever resist reason and evidence.

Funny, eh? The one who fervently hates religion is himself deeply religious.

HarquebusNovember 15, 2016 at 4:45 pm

Irv Mills
Yes and I did not delete the comment.
Thank you for your response.
I have a lot of admiration and respect for you.

For those interested, here is Irv’s blog. I highly recommend.
http://theeasiestpersontofool.blogspot.com.au/

Jimhaz
Businesses do not need growth, they need profit.
Whatever the future holds, it won’t be business as usual.

Miriam English
You didn’t see my search criteria mentioning phosphorus?
What you mentioned might be helping but, it is very little and in my opinion, aren’t and won’t repair the damage.
Please give me some time to examine your comments more closely. I still haven’t got around to properly pursuing those from this morning.
Once again, I do appreciate your participation. You are a good source of information and that also is appreciated.

Cheers.

diannaartNovember 15, 2016 at 5:51 pm

Miriam

Your reasonable responses to Harquebus’ ‘skies are falling’ rhetoric are to be applauded.

Harquebus, your courteous replies to those with whom you disagree is laudable. You may be right and the sky will fall – but not yet, humans aren’t finished yet.

Matters NotNovember 15, 2016 at 6:19 pm

Miriam English November 15, 2016 at 2:56 pm

We are surrounded by solutions to these problems. Some are technological solutions, some are educational, some are simply procedural. But we do have solutions.

Yep! Take ‘food’ for prawns as an example. No need to feed prawns on wild fish anymore.

The research started in the late 1990s when CSIRO researchers observed the important role marine microbial organisms play in the natural diet of prawns. The team spent several years learning how to manipulate marine microbial organisms to maximise their productivity in controlled environments, and stimulating them to produce a novel bioactive product to enhance prawn growth.

The research integrated skills in prawn biology, microbiology, biochemistry and nutrition. The result was Novacq, an entirely natural food source produced by marine microbes

Food from ‘marine microbes’. They are now working on foods for other marine species.

.http://www.csiro.au/en/Research/AF/Areas/Aquaculture/Better-feeds/Novacq-prawn-feed

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-11/csiro-develop-world's-first-fish-free-prawn-food/5384678

Then there’s the Queen Garnet plum. The Anti Oxidant Plum

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-05/queen-garnet-plums-in-demand-around-the-world/7221104

HarquebusNovember 15, 2016 at 6:34 pm

diannaart
If I am wrong in my assessments then, I will crawl under a rock and try to deal with my embarrassment as best I can but, I have no intention of waiting to see before doing something.
For what it is worth, I hope I am wrong but, I don’t think so and consequently I feel that I have to do something and voicing my concerns as often and to as many as I can is it.
Debt is currently masking a lot of problems and the next financial crisis, the biggy, will expose a lot of the deception concerning “jobs and growth”.
If you haven’t already seen it, please humor me and watch the first 30 minutes of Prof. Bartlett’s presentation that I have linked to in my 10:21 am comment. I think you will then see where I am coming from in regards to growth and depletion. It creeps up on you slowly at first but, then quickly accelerates.

Matters Not
I have been posting food related articles here. You might be interested.
https://theaimn.com/youve-heard-about-peak-oil-but-what-about-peak-food-and-peak-water/
Thanks for the links. I will follow them soon.

Cheers.

diannaartNovember 15, 2016 at 7:03 pm

Harquebus

I will try to find time to check out video

🙂

Miriam EnglishNovember 15, 2016 at 7:09 pm

Harquebus, again you use a response beloved by religious people. Instead of acknowledging and considering points answered you simply deflect and raise more questions. It seems it’s pointless to pursue this with you. It’s your religion. You believe (based on incomplete information) and contradicting data is not allowed past your filters. You’re stuck in an echo chamber of doom. (Sounds like the name of a corny 1950s SF movie.)

You are one person I’d especially recommend ceases to use Google for searches and to use DuckDuckGo instead. Google feeds back to you more of what you search for by learning your preferences from what you choose. Watch this short, brilliant TED talk by Eli Pariser to see why.

HarquebusNovember 15, 2016 at 7:38 pm

Miriam English

I don’t use google and have asked for more time to examine your comments more fully. Trust me, I do not dismiss you out of hand but, like you, I also have other things to do.

Most of my information comes from news and science aggregators. I have saved hundreds of links to fall back on and usually do not need an internet search engine to locate supporting evidence or opinion.
Links that I post I have read and when I do use a search engine, I include the search criteria.

You have failed to convince me as I have failed to convince you. That is all. Sooner or later, one of us will be proved right and you appear to be confident it will be you. I hope it is but, honestly don’t think so.
You are just as stubborn with your opinions as I am with mine.

I do like you and have a lot of respect for you. I appreciate your comments and do not want our disagreements to cause us any conflict nor upset.

Cheers.

HarquebusNovember 16, 2016 at 8:43 am

I have reread recent comments, viewed the videos and read all of the links except for Kyran’s U.N. report which, I have browsed and will study later. Thank you all for the information.

While some have mentioned declining fertility rates, there is also a corresponding declining mortality rate that also needs to be factored. I have not investigated this aspect enough to make a definitive comment however, during my initial brief investigation to this aspect, I came across this:

“a population that has recently dropped below replacement fertility rate continues to grow because the recent high fertility produced large number of young couples who would now be in their child bearing years. The phenomenon carries forward for several generations and is called population momentum or population lag effect. The time lag effect is of great importance to human population growth rates.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/

Search criteria: declining mortality rates

An increased effort to reduce birthrates, in my current opinion, is required to overcome this population lag effect.

Miriam English

I think that we are perceiving problems and solutions from different perspectives.

While technology and invention have and are making great strides, they are supported by an industrial infrastructure built on technology and inventions of the past.

There is a complex industrial supply chain that supports this infrastructure and it is susceptible to constraints and disruptions especially in regards to transport. I have a lot of experience in engineering supply chains and logistics and know how important and susceptible they are. The lack of a single component or resource can bring systems to a halt causing a cascading effect.

There is also the economic aspect. The massive amounts of global debt has brought forward spending for the sole purpose of maintaining growth. When the results of this folly are realized, business and industries will close further limiting essential supplies.

Having the knowledge to solve problems is one thing, having the resources and industrial backing to implement the solutions is another. I think that you need to consider these aspects more.

I know that you are pursuing technological solutions to maintain a sufficient and ecologically neutral lifestyle while I on the other hand, am pursuing a back to basics approach. Perhaps it would be better if we each continued our individual endeavors and compare notes as we go. As you know, I have seen your website and know what it is that you are trying to achieve and I am genuinely interested.

The abhota link that you provided is full of absurdities often based on religion. It is good for a laugh only. Thanks for that. The concerns that I express are based on mathematics and physical realities.

Thank you for your considered and thoughtful input.

Cheers.

ZathrasNovember 16, 2016 at 3:46 pm

Harquebus,

It still doesn’t answer the question of what happens to a society where there is one retiree for every two working taxpayers, which is where we are inevitably heading.

It’s easy to say cut the benefits to retirees but they are pretty much on the poverty line already.
Having an army of homeless elderly beggars on the streets may not fit in with current social expectations, especially if that’s what the existing workforce thinks is ahead for them also.

The idea that it’s feasible to have a static population that doesn’t age cannot work within the existing system and our culture is not one of providing ongoing family support, like some Asian and European societies.

One solution is to increase taxes now to provide a solution for the future, like most Scandinavian countries but the current political climate prevents this.

Soylent Green anyone?

According to my school days here in the 21st century we should be flying to work on atomic powered rocket packs by now.
That was conjecture by we’re dealing in real facts now and the problems are only a couple of decades away.

Miriam EnglishNovember 16, 2016 at 5:22 pm

Zathras, that’s why the beginning of large scale automation and the dawn of artificial intelligence (AI) is so encouraging. Having cars drive themselves is more energy efficient (and safer) than having humans drive them and energy savings should similarly occur in many areas where humans will be replaced by automation. Such mass unemployment will force the issue. It should become obvious, even to right-wing politicians, that having a utopia where machines support humanity is much better than most of the population thrown into desperate poverty to rise up in violent overthrow of the political and moneyed masters.

Thus the aged should, if we work this properly, live well even with fewer and fewer young people because we should have AIs to help us. They’ll almost certainly not look like the androids in the TV series “Humans”, but will be embedded in our homes and wearable devices, perhaps also some exoskeletons for some who would otherwise be relatively immobile.

If we fail to get this right then we may have a very bad time indeed.

HarquebusNovember 17, 2016 at 11:03 am

Zathras

Here is the response that I made to the same question earlier.
“I also think that in order to break the cycle of growth, at least one generation is going to have to bite the bullet and lower their expectations of retirement and that generation will be the boomers of which, I am one. Physical realities will hit them hard and will probably include them losing their super and savings.”

To continue to increase our populations just to serve the elderly can not be sustained. The damage that this concept has caused is already severe.

Miriam English

Somehow I don’t see the masses of unemployed traveling extensively due to efficiency gains in their own driverless vehicles but, hey, you never know.

Here is a subject that has come up on my list a few times that you might be interested in. It could be that robots will even replace us as taxpayers.

“If robots are going to steal human jobs and otherwise disrupt society, they should at the very least pay taxes.”
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/22/technology/europe-robots-taxes-jobs/

Cheers.

ZathrasNovember 17, 2016 at 12:16 pm

Harquebus,

I’m a boomer too and have been a self-funded retiree for 9 months and so far, surviving OK.
That’s mainly because I had been paying into super for over 40 years and made sacrifices along the way.

I certainly agree that the current system is unsustainable but I’m trying to imagine a practical solution to what we already have to deal with.

Your suggestion could only be implemented by the Government seizing the savings and assets of the elderly to help fund their retirement or perhaps keeping medical care out of reach to kill them off early as the popular Malthusian solution.
Enforced euthanasia at a certain age is another way – but there may be some resistance from aging retired politicians, considering the eternal security of their own Future Fund.

They’ve already moved the pension eligibility age upward to buy time but the whole existing system has an in-built inevitability about it.
Some people simply cannot physically keep working until they drop and the evolving system of “McJobs” doesn’t always cater for the infirm.
If not this generation, perhaps the next one will have be sacrificed? Or the next two?

How inspired would younger generations feel about working hard when they see what’s waiting for them then their own time comes?
If I suspected that my savings would eventually be taken away I certainly would have had a different working life and attitude.

I didn’t invent the current system but we’re all stuck with it and the only way it can change is to tear it all down and start again.
“You can’t get there from here”.

Apart from all the philosophical chatter I just can’t see a practical way to change things without some sort of (probably global) catastrophic event as a catalyst.

From the current look of things we may not have to wait very long.

Miriam EnglishNovember 17, 2016 at 12:19 pm

Harquebus, agreed. Unemployed people will make far fewer journeys. I pointed that out in my comment before. As I also said, they’ll eat less takeaway (the most expensive and wasteful way to eat), and need to buy less of the clothes needed for work. It should reduce consumption considerably. I know you were being sarcastic, but it will be a great advantage and I’m very much in favor of it.

I’ve often wondered if robots should be taxed. But regardless of whether they should or not, we already know they won’t. Automatic teller machines are robots, DVD players are robots, washing machines are robots, almost every industry makes extensive use of robots. The robots are already here; they have been for years.

When I was a young nerd in high school half a century(!!!) ago I came up with a way to painlessly replace the human workforce with a robotic one: let each worker buy the robot that replaces them and they would be responsible for repairing it and upgrading it. That might have worked really well, but it never happened. It’s obvious why. It’s much cheaper for the bosses to fire the workers and replace them with machines that don’t need a pay packet.

Miriam EnglishNovember 17, 2016 at 12:29 pm

Zathras, we can get there from here.

It actually isn’t difficult. I’m constantly amazed that so few people see it.

Perhaps that’s because the mainstream media refuse to talk about it.

Perhaps it’s because people like Harquebus harp on and on about doom, mesmerising people so they can’t hear solutions anymore.

The coordinated introduction of a universal basic income with large scale automation would do it. There’s no magic. No catastrophe needed.

Massive automation is coming whether we plan for it or not, or even whether we like it or not.

A universal basic income is affordable right now and will be even more so after massive automation increases productivity (machines rarely make mistakes, don’t get bored or need to sleep and don’t take weekends or holidays).

The catch? The very wealthy need to pay taxes.

ZathrasNovember 17, 2016 at 1:18 pm

Miriam English,

Back in my school days we were told that one of the biggest social problems we will be facing by the end of the millennium will be what do do with all our spare time.

The idea was that automation would be our servant and we would only need to work 2 or 3 days a week and the rest would be spend on leisure time and we should already be planning for such a future.

What happened was that automation just replaced many manufacturing jobs and made a lot of consumer items cheaper but we are working longer hours than ever just to stay afloat.

We actually work longer hours with automation than they did during medieval times without it.

Driverless cars may be a reality but not yet a practical one for us all and robotic servants to cook and clean are still a very long way off.
Even so, we would have to work just to pay for them, like many need to do for Child-Minding Centres.

People may be besotted with their mobile phones and flatscreen TVs but they are not the same thing.
I for one would not like to be speeding down the expressway when my driverless car decides to reboot itself or swerves to miss a Pokemon on the highway.

The idea of a Universal Basic Income is also at odds with our social and economic reality.
If you have a reasonable standard of living with technology doing everything for you, who needs to be wealthy?

Google “The Venus Project” for what you are probably hoping for (and much more) but it just can’t happen in this current environment.
As idealistic and desirable as it seems, it will always remain out of reach under the status quo.

HarquebusNovember 17, 2016 at 1:36 pm

Zathras
What I am doing is honing my gardening skills and making sure that I get along with my neighbors. You can also try what Miriam English is doing in developing an energy efficient and sustainable lifestyle through new technology, efficiency gains, innovation and resourcefulness which, I don’t think a future energy constrained world will be able to provide.
I was told something the same in grade 7 in relation to increased leisure time.

Miriam English
You use the plural in relation to “solution” whereas I use the singular.
I think it was one of your youtubes that stated that it doesn’t matter if robots are 10 times slower than humans if they are 100th the cost to operate.
Anyway, robotics and drones are now with us and we will see the results of their inception. I hope they do provide more benefit than is the worth of their external costs however, for time being, I will remain skeptical. Governments have never been averse to using technology in keeping tabs on nor control over their citizens.

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishNovember 17, 2016 at 1:45 pm

Zathras, “If you have a reasonable standard of living with technology doing everything for you, who needs to be wealthy?”
Exactly.

It isn’t a matter of when the robots will come; they are already here. As I said above to H, automatic teller machines are robots, DVD players are robots, washing machines are robots, almost every industry makes extensive use of robots. Our computers and smartphones are increasingly soft robots that do a lot of things you would have paid someone to do before.

I agree the Venus Project has little hope of being a major success. It may enjoy some small success, but I seriously doubt it will spread. It uses the same old centralised thinking it seeks to replace. You can see it even in their building design.

Since Trump got elected the status quo has exploded. It is clear even to the most comfortable observer that the system is seriously sick.

Kaye LeeNovember 17, 2016 at 1:53 pm

People living longer doesn’t really affect population growth Harquebus because we don’t keep having kids as we age. We want to delay the age at which people choose to start breeding – that’s what makes a difference. (achieved through all the means we have already discussed). Legislation restricting reproduction is not a desirable way to go and not necessary – we can address the problem in far better ways.

As we have all agreed, religion must change their stance on contraception and abortion.

Voluntary euthenasia really should also be an option.

As for how we support a growing elderly population, MMT helps to a degree. We should also mobilise the skills of retirees and recognise and reward the volunteer and caring roles they fill. Tony Windsor spoke of a study that showed how much we can save if we can facilitate people delaying going into aged care facilities for even a year.

HarquebusNovember 17, 2016 at 7:17 pm

Kaye Lee
I don’t know enough about the effects mortality rates on population growth to make a definitive comment. I just came across it and put it up for discussion.
Most of the rest I agree.
Did you get around to watching Bartlett’s presentation above. As a former maths teacher, you should enjoy it.
Cheers.

“Watch humans go from a tiny group in Africa to 7 billion around the world, in 5 minutes”
http://www.vox.com/2016/11/12/13600834/human-world-population-video

RapideffectNovember 18, 2016 at 11:23 am

Hi Harquebus, good article mate.

Unfortunately there is only one solution to population overshoot and that is collapse of global civilization. Population is increasing at approx 80 million a year, the percentage of increase being lower now than it has been previously makes people think somehow humanity is reducing it’s size but they don’t realize that the number of people has grown massively as the growth percentage has decreased, thus the number of humans is increasing not the other way around.

To maintain global civilization fossil fuels need to be consumed and since fossil fuels are finite this energy will not be consumed indefinitely. (Nuclear energy is also finite).

Energy is the most important resource, as everything anyone has ever done or will ever do requires energy. Every thought you have ever had, every meal you have ever eaten, every plant and animal ever born all require energy.

The global economy is on the verge of collapse, as there is not enough cheap and easy to extract energy (specifically oil). Without growing the amount of energy consumed every year the global economy cannot grow. When this energy is too expensive the consumers in the economy can’t afford the products made and so demand falls. This has been happening for some time, but governments decided to print money to try and paper over this problem. Zirp, Nirp, quantitative easing and many other money tricks are keeping the illusion of growth alive, but only for a short time this will work.

The problem of global civilization is global civilization. All civilizations before this global civilization have collapsed, but unlike other civilizations where the remaining people (after collapse) could move to another area with more resources, we can’t colonize another planet.

HarquebusNovember 18, 2016 at 7:05 pm

Rapideffect
You are one of the few who actually gets it. Your comment is an accurate summary of how I perceive our current situation to be as well. I totally agree with you.
Thank you for your contribution.
Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 18, 2016 at 7:16 pm

Actually H,

I was being polite to Rapideffect earlier by staying silent. He isn’t right and neither are you if you share the same doomsday attitude that we have nowhere to go.

“Global civilization”: what does that mean to you?

HarquebusNovember 18, 2016 at 7:49 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith

Recognizing our situation for what it is, is necessary. We must change course. Describing our situation as Rapideffect has does not mean we have nowhere to go if, we act now and there will not be any action until the urgency of our current situation is realized.

“Global civilization” to me is; currently a massive energy guzzling system of services and supply wholly dependent on crude oil to deliver them.

I have said before and will repeat, I always appreciate your efforts even when we don’t agree.

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 18, 2016 at 8:10 pm

It seems to me, H,

on the one hand, you support fossil fuels in the form of coal …

but you are circumspect when it comes to oil.

I find it confusing that sometimes you provide common ground for ALL of us to go forward in finding Climate Action solutions while feeding our planet’s people and providing dignified, sustainable living …

and then other times, you allow doomsday surrender-talk to eclipse your more enlightened offerings.

Miriam EnglishNovember 18, 2016 at 8:33 pm

Jennifer, it’s because he doesn’t really believe there’s any solution.

Rapideffect, you, like so many others, overlook the effectively endless energy raining down on us from the sun as solar energy. We also have wind energy, wave power, tidal energy, and geothermal energy. All it takes is for us to be reasonably efficient in the way we use it. Granted, the days of splurging energy — wasting 99% to use 1% — are nearly over, but that doesn’t mean the collapse of civilisation. It just means adapting; being rather more aware and smart. It doesn’t even have to be difficult. Jeez. Over-react much.

HarquebusNovember 18, 2016 at 8:46 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith and Miriam

There is a solution. Please refer to the top of this page.

I do not and have not supported fossil fuels for quite some time and nor I do not support renewable energy.
In the face of these two sources being unable to provide energy in any large and affordable quantities, there can only be one solution that is the heading of this article. How is a matter for a later debate because, the first priority is convincing politicians and others that population growth is a problem and that to lower it is the only viable option.
My pessimism is a direct result of inaction by politicians on so many issues. There is, when one looks, not a lot to be confident about.

An example:
I listened to Malcolm Turnbull the other day proudly announce $3bn for upgrades to Victoria’s roads. Great I thought, that really helps. Now the soon to be privileged working class will spend a few minutes less per day sitting in their imported cars.
Then there was someone recently on the Press Club spruiking the growth that must be sustained. A room full of journalists hanging on every word and not one questioned the impossibility of sustaining such an absurd concept.

So, reality doesn’t look so good. Please forgive me for being one of the few who are willing to face it.

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 18, 2016 at 8:52 pm

your observations are spot on about the wankers who call themselves politicians and MSM journos.

However, your discussion contains a negative quality that could deny energetic activists the oxygen needed to push against those wankers.

Speak UP the activism!

HarquebusNovember 18, 2016 at 9:15 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith

Fear of death is the greatest of all motivators.

What will my detractors say when the reaper is staring them in the face?
“Harq, why didn’t you shout louder?”
What will I say to my detractors if I am wrong.
“Oops, sorry ’bout that.”

I can wear the embarrassment if I am wrong. Can my detractors wear the consequences if I am not? It won’t be as easy as would saying sorry is.

“True courage is the path of the spirit-driven activist…the warrior of truth…the status quo crusher.” — Deb Ozarko

I think that you will like Deb Ozarko.
http://www.debozarko.com/

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 18, 2016 at 9:30 pm

you’ve finally updated your political position on how to effect socio-economic reforms for environmental security and human survival.

Now that I know you hold those opposite outcomes in your thinking, I might be able to continue my observations for a while, if I see effort in finding solutions for bringing people together to make it happen.

HarquebusNovember 18, 2016 at 9:59 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith

Please refer to my November 18, 2016 at 9:52 am comment here:

Let’s have some truth about corporate tax cuts

Together is the only way that it is ever going to happen, whatever it is that’s going to happen.

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 18, 2016 at 10:39 pm

Might I be boring enough to suggest that you simply re-state your position …

… or at least quote it!

HarquebusNovember 18, 2016 at 10:44 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
Suggestion accepted.

“How do we change the political mindset toward favoring humanity and the environment over corporate profit?
I am one of a few who contacts politicians regularly and have been told by some, even by theAIMN contributors that, I am wasting my time. Perhaps if a lot more would make the effort we could make a difference and even more so if, we collaborated and coordinated. Just a thought.”

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 18, 2016 at 10:49 pm

Harquebus,

good on you for putting your words into action. However, don’t assume others don’t do the same.

Nevertheless, we all need to be vigilant and advocate to the MP’s and their support staff once, twice, three times and then some more, so that they know we will not give up and go back into a long sleep.

HarquebusNovember 18, 2016 at 11:21 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith

I am thinking rather than one petition with many signatures, to coordinate many to construct individual letters or emails concerning a topic of common interest and forward them to the relevant politicians and/or journalists. A blitz. I would go for weekly but, monthly I think would not be too much to ask of someone. Each month could be a different topic with a different set of recipients.
By cooperating, we can devise our arguments and by coordinating, make sure that our concerns are at least considered if not addressed.

I have offered this suggestion before with no takers. That did a lot of good for my less than optimistic attitude and so, it was not mentioned again until now.

What do you think? If it could happen, shit, I would even open a facebook account just to participate. Would facebook be the best social media platform to use.

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 19, 2016 at 8:46 am

Sorry H,

I’ve just read your last comment and it sounds good to me.

Alan BairdNovember 19, 2016 at 12:32 pm

We’re either polyannas or realists. I can’ t see the combined forces of religion, politics, media and commerce relenting on their pursuit of growth forever. I also can’t see Joe Average seeing beyond the above forces. As a species, we are wilfully blind on overpopulation. WE SHALL continue down this well-trodden road. If the Chinese curse was “may you live in interesting times”, the future sounds fascinating.
PS. Whenever the words “ageing population” are used, I get ready for the predictable: “therefore we have to increase the population in order to pay for the elderly in their retirement” to which I always reply: then when our NEWLY CREATED BULGE IN THE POPULATION reaches retirement age we’ll have to INCREASE POPULATION EVEN FURTHER TO PAY FOR THE BULGE’S RETIREMENT”. This is a thick argument used by demographers to fool the thick. Big fleas have little fleas, upon their backs to bite ’em… They NEVER point out the logical knock-on effect but apparently that’s alright. This is the way the media currently functions. Have a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lay (sic) down. Do not think things through. We’re all going to be winners…

HarquebusNovember 19, 2016 at 12:54 pm

Thank you Alan Baird.
Another one who gets it.

RapideffectNovember 19, 2016 at 2:37 pm

Miriam English said:

Granted, the days of splurging energy — wasting 99% to use 1% — are nearly over, but that doesn’t mean the collapse of civilisation. It just means adapting; being rather more aware and smart. It doesn’t even have to be difficult. Jeez. Over-react much.

Miriam English, if it’s not difficult for 7.4billion humans to become sustainable on planet earth, I would like to see evidence that this is possible. I don’t overreact, but it appears that you have, i’m more than willing to change my position, if you can refute the facts Harquebus has been sharing.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 18, 2016 at 7:16 pm

Actually H,

I was being polite to Rapideffect earlier by staying silent. He isn’t right and neither are you if you share the same doomsday attitude that we have nowhere to go.

“Global civilization”: what does that mean to you?

No need to stay quiet, discussion is what i’m here for. I have no doomsday attitude, I like facts to come to my conclusions, something you did not ask for. Instead of asking for evidence to back up my words you immediately tried to attack the messenger, for the message is based in fact and absent of belief.

I’m sure Harquebus can back up my claims with his extensive resources, I have quite a few resources/sources to back my words, but nothing as thorough. Being right is good, but being wrong (sometimes) is also good as it means you have learned something and therefore your view/perspective/position should shift, making oneself that tiny bit wiser… Decisions made with facts are far more successful than basing them on blind faith/belief. I do not claim to be right, far from it. You see one thing that i’m almost certain of is we are both wrong. Predicting the future is somewhat beyond human abilities.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 18, 2016 at 8:10 pm

It seems to me, H,

on the one hand, you support fossil fuels in the form of coal …

but you are circumspect when it comes to oil.

and then other times, you allow doomsday surrender-talk to eclipse your more enlightened offerings.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember, Harquebus is wanting to start discussion, serious discussion for a very real and imminent problem. Harquebus provides evidence that no one has tried to refute/debate here at Aimn with their own research.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.

Miriam EnglishNovember 19, 2016 at 5:17 pm

Rapideffect, if you check above you’ll find I’ve refuted Harquebus’ arguments time and time again. It never has any effect on him of course. He just continues with the same doom mantra.

In particular, you might like to check my comments above at November 12, 2016 at 2:29 pm and at November 15, 2016 at 2:56 pm where I gave detailed replies about solutions. In many other replies I outlined other ways the future need not be grim.

Will we get through this without major calamity? No, after all, 16 million people dying of starvation each year right now can already be considered a calamity. But we are fixing things. We are alleviating poverty, reducing population growth, increasing people’s access to knowledge.

We are smart enough to avoid global collapse. Will greed block that? I don’t know. We do have more people helping each other than ever before in history. We have more access to knowledge than ever before in history. There are a lot of things to be optimistic about.

Or you could listen to Harquebus and give up.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 19, 2016 at 6:45 pm

if you want to do good, you need to bring together people from both sides of the response spectrum. There are those who repeat words of doom and there are those who don’t say die.

For all our sakes, you should be encouraging those who don’t say die with informed positive ideas for actions while encouraging those who seem willing to give up, to keep trying and believing a little longer, so the others can prove they will be successful.

HarquebusNovember 19, 2016 at 8:38 pm

Miriam English
We agree on the major problems that we face and a lot of the causes. We have different opinions on the solution in my case, solutions in yours. You have made your arguments and have failed to convince me as I have you. I do appreciate your efforts and do not expect you to constantly repeat yourself. If you come across something new to support your arguments, I will read it.
If I had given up, I wouldn’t be here.

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
And there are also those who “reached the decision that nothing can or should be done”. They are called Deadbeat Doomers. I put myself in the category of Do-more Doomer but, prefer the term used in the article below, “Serious Survivalist”.

“Many thoughtful scientists whisper to each other what they can’t address publicly for fear of spreading panic, but what they see is terrifying: hundreds of species dying each day, a vanishing polar icecap, areas of the world, now unrecognizable, are deserts or flood plains. Vast plastic “islands” in our oceans have become “dead zones” or worse. Part of the frustration is the incredible senselessness of it all.
Yet Doomers are the ones that are considered “crazy,” while magical thinking (“We’ll come up with something. I know…let’s trade ‘carbon credits!’ That way, the market will resolve it all!”) passes for a sane and constructive discourse.”

Three types of doomers and fantasy collapse

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 19, 2016 at 9:11 pm

I’m sick of semantics, H.

Get real and positive or I won’t and can’t respond.

cornlegendNovember 19, 2016 at 9:34 pm

Harquebus
I reckon you are spot on in this article.
I have been amazed at the number of band aid solutions to cover the open heart surgery needed.
Without monumental change we are up shit creek .
The planet will have had enough
Call me a “doomer” ok no worries, I can wear that

HarquebusNovember 19, 2016 at 10:16 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith

I did not think that semantics was the problem.

There are, in my opinion, only a few that actually “get it”. Rapideffect, Alan Baird and now cornlegend the most recent to come to light. Irv Mills is another and there are a few more. Most of the rest, including yourself and whose opinion I value, I am trying my hardest to convince which, I am obviously failing to do.

I can see my submission disappearing into the bowels of internet history having, just like all the thousands of others like it and issuing the same warnings, not produced any positive outcome. Is that my fault or those who don’t listen because they don’t like the message.

If you want to understand more, I have posted some of Irv Mills work above on November 13, 2016 at 1:23 pm.
If you don’t then, I can only suggest that you ignore those parts of my “rhetoric” that you upset you.

“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” — Ayn Rand

cornlegend

“Serious survivalist” mate. “Doomer” sounds too negative.

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishNovember 20, 2016 at 4:10 am

Harquebus,

Yes, I know you say you haven’t given up, but you really have, as you and I both know population can’t be magically stopped the way you say. The only sensible way to lower population is by lifting the standard of living of those who breed fastest and that requires all the other solutions that help us live more lightly on the Earth in the meantime and after. It is being done and it works; all those other solutions are being followed up, with many being adopted already.

It is telling that you deny all the other solutions that can bring about the solution to overpopulation. And you’ll work hard to infuse others with the same sense of doom and hopelessness.

You’re like the Jehova’s Witnesses that come around to convert me every couple of months. They are usually very nice people who think the world is going to hell. They preach doom too. They think they want to save people, but they actually love the idea of doom. Their whole worldview depends upon it.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 20, 2016 at 8:41 am

True Miriam.

Doomers are also lazy people. It sounds like hard work to act proactively and to endorse the positive developments, as Miriam has suggested numerous times above are happening.

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 9:01 am

Miriam English

Regardless of any arguments on the implementations of population policy, the first step has to be convincing the media and politicians that we do have a population problem. I have sent this article plus another by Kaye Lee to them including to the Prime Minister. So far, only one South Australian senator has acknowledged my concern. That and some of the comments made here has given me some encouragement to continue my quest.
I feel that I am doing something, however “hopeless” my efforts may seem and wish that a few more would do as much.

Doom and hopelessness it may appear to be but, the intention is to issue serious warning and for an urgent call to action. With all of the damage and conflict that is accelerating around our world, I am flummoxed as to why more can not see the connections.

I think that you might enjoy the types of doomers link that I posted above last night.

Thanks again for taking the time to express your opinions.

Cheers.

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 9:07 am

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
I do not wish to make you ill so, I will just say that your comment (ouch!) has been noted.
Cheers.

cornlegendNovember 20, 2016 at 9:17 am

Harquebus
“now cornlegend the most recent to come to light.”
I’m not a newcomer to the cause, just smart enough to stay to buggery away from the topic until some had run out of comments

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 9:36 am

cornlegend

I understand that. Your views on this subject were not known to me until your most welcome comment.
Advocating population reduction is not the easiest of ways to make friends.

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 20, 2016 at 10:25 am

Nobody is disputing the wisdom of population reduction. Like everything, it is the means by which programs are implemented that matter. Like everything also, wise acknowledgement of natural and innovative processes taking place is important.

corvus boreusNovember 20, 2016 at 10:26 am

Harquebus,
IMHO, you are correct and we (ie; collective humanity) are completely buggered (ie; rooted up the shitter).
Overpopulation, resource over-exploitation and ecological collapse continue to increase, the obvious basic practical solutions (use less, breed less) are instinctively impalatable, and the inherent difficulty in any such measures gaining broad acceptance is being compounded by a (media fed) global rise in political and religious fundamentalism.
The time for effective change has very likely passed, yet the reality of our plight continues to be widely denied.
I see no solution beyond the malthusian, and thus am devoting more and more of my time to prepping my nest (a remote patch on clean headwaters) and visiting sites of ecological significance and natural beauty (to cherish them whilst they still exist).
Little time left for blogging, which seems like a complete WOFTAE.
Dark times coming; glad I’ve always bagged my seed.
Avagoodwun.

Kaye LeeNovember 20, 2016 at 10:40 am

cornie,

That’s a gutless comment. Could you tell me what sort of “monumental change” you would like to see and how you would achieve it?

We have options.

Another thing we could do that might be a compromise for people’s concerns is to limit immigration to humanitarian visas for a few years and take more to help during this crisis. The only skilled migration should be for people with exceptional skills and this should be much more rigorously policed which it could be if there were less of them. That would amount to about 100,000 less incomers which is the only thing keeping us above replacement rate.

Miriam EnglishNovember 20, 2016 at 10:50 am

Harquebus, do you seriously think there is anybody on the planet who doesn’t know overpopulation is a massive problem??? Really? That’s your rationale?

You’re wasting your time. Everybody already knows. But worse than that, you’re spreading despair and hopelessness that are yet more obstacles to solving the problems we face.

We need ways to turn people towards solutions, not making them think it’s all hopeless and that they need to lock themselves away with a gun and a reliable water supply.

Do you really not get what you’re doing? You’re convincing people to give up. That’s not the answer. That’s the opposite.

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 10:55 am

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
As you stated previously, “both sides of the response spectrum” except, I can not help but put myself firmly on one and see folly on the other. There is common ground though and I hope that we can meet there.
Either way, a political acceptance of the problem and realizing the need for a solution has to occur first.

corvus boreus
Long time no hear.
My current and forward thinking, at this point in time, is very similar to yours.

Cheers.

cornlegendNovember 20, 2016 at 11:00 am

Kaye Lee
Pleased to hear your opinion on my comment
“Could you tell me what sort of “monumental change” you would like to see and how you would achieve it?”
I don’t know exactly how we could achieve it other that eliminating half the current world population for a start
and bugger me if I know how we heal a dying planet
Stephen Hawking: Humans only have about 1,000 years left
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/stephen-hawking-1000-years-2016-11?r=US&IR=T

So, I think we need a bit better effort than a bit of recycling and a few more condoms
You may say it was a “gutless comment” and good on you but I am a bit over the fluff and some discussion sometime on “voluntary euthanasia” as a saving grace.
Now even you can”t see that as a solution, surely?
Don’t you really think we are past that ?

Kaye LeeNovember 20, 2016 at 11:11 am

I am in absolute agreement that no one single measure can possibly provide the answer. I am also aware that the planet has finite resources and that they are running out.

But I have to point out that this has always been a dying planet. Sooner or later our sun will die even if, by some weird intervention, some form of life lasted that long. A meteor will strike sometime. There will be catastrophic natural disasters. So should we give up and enjoy the ride? Should we say we were always f*cked, it’s a just a matter of when,

Or should we do what we can, when we can by the means available to us, to maybe just extend that another 1000 years while they find and terraform another planet…or maybe even learn to care for this one?

PS the gutless referred to “just smart enough to stay to buggery away from the topic until some had run out of comments”. You are not obliged to ever respond to anyone and surely you invite comment when posting an online opinion

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 11:27 am

Miriam English

Not so and please do not take offense at this but, I do not think that the solutions that you have offered will succeed. Sorry.
“Everybody already knows” about the population problem but, most are not doing anything about it.

Firearms and reliable water won’t be enough. One must develop good relations with one’s neighbors, be able to improvise and provide or at the very minimum, supplement their food. It will be local trades and barter that will rule. When supply chains break and they are already weakening, you will not be able to purchase many of the devices that you say will alleviate the problems that over population has already produced.

There is something special about you that makes me wish that we could agree more. Truly. I try to be honest in expressing my opinions and in that effort, annoying you, Jennifer and a few others is not my intention.

As I said before, I know that you are a busy person and appreciate your effort in the contributions that you make, whenever and wherever at theAIMN they appear.

Cheers.

cornlegendNovember 20, 2016 at 11:28 am

“just smart enough to stay to buggery away from the topic until some had run out of comments”. You are not obliged to ever respond to anyone and surely you invite comment when posting an online opinion”
You regard it as gutless, to me it’s common sense.
I know full well I am not obliged to respond, but some, I just can’t help myself .
I also figure, that if you and others don’t like my comment you have the ability to just ignore.
That is exactly what I did, until leaving a comment for Harquebus on a great topic and article he wrote.
I know he was lambasted over a great period of time for not putting up, but I just assumed he was one who didn’t deem it necessary to have an opinion on everything and the final word on most
Given I have lots to do , I guess I will taper off my comments on AIMN

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 20, 2016 at 11:35 am

you don’t annoy me all the time. 🙂

Besides, I welcome the idea of bartering with my neighbours. I am all for promoting micro-business prospects for grassroots people.

See my comment on Kaye’s article, ‘We should be nurturing the workforce rather than global corporations’ @10.54am

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 11:48 am

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
My day just became a lot better.
I do recall your comment and will reread it.
Cheers.

Kaye LeeNovember 20, 2016 at 11:50 am

Of course. I agree it’s a great article and an important topic and have said the same. Where we disagree is that I think it is well past time to be warning about it and time to start doing something about it. The many measures that have been suggested have been shown to affect fertility rates. Whether they can do it by enough is conjecture but many of them are immediately doable for great reward and little cost.

We have to start somewhere and am open to suggestions on where to start. Turn off the klaxon and put your shoulder to the wheel – so to speak.

More microfarming might be a good idea

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 12:16 pm

Kaye Lee
Thank you. You have provided me with many excellent examples to follow.

Which journalist would you say has the best chance of bringing this subject into the political discourse.
Tony Jones and his Q&A perhaps. We could organize a blitz and maybe have this topic discussed on national TV.

Just a thought.

Cheers.

Kaye LeeNovember 20, 2016 at 12:42 pm

I think Q&A did a population program a while back. I have been to listen to Peter Singer speak a few times and I remember he was on and was roundly abused as he often is. This has been a valuable thread Harquebus so I am wrong to say sounding the warning is a waste – the ensuing discussion has been interesting….but try to leave us with hope even if you don’t believe it..

Lenore Taylor is good on environmental matters. Four Corners or Catalyst perhaps?

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 1:27 pm

Kaye Lee
Thanks.

Lenore Taylor is on my list and has received links to yours and my articles regarding population.
Do you know her personally? I will contact her again later and ask her if she has read them and of any population related topics that she is or will be covering.
I have nearly 70 ABC journalists, staff and programs on my mailing list that have received the same links as Lenore Taylor. Four Corners and Catalyst are not included but, that might soon change.

Thanks for the tips.

Kaye LeeNovember 20, 2016 at 1:35 pm

No I don’t know her H.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 20, 2016 at 2:47 pm

Do you have Bridie Jabour, H? She’s approachable.

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 3:04 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
No. If you have it, please send it to me. It will save me from having to figure it out.
These two: David Marr and Rowan Dean keep alluding me but, I will get them, sooner or later.
Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithNovember 20, 2016 at 3:21 pm

Bridie Jabour is at The Guardian.

bridie.jabour@theguardian.com

HarquebusNovember 20, 2016 at 10:05 pm

“Jay Forrester, one of the great minds of the 20th century, died at 98, a few days ago.”
“Forrester’s system dynamics provided results that proved that Malthus had been an optimist. Far from reaching the limits to growth and staying there, as Malthus had imagined, the human civilization was to overshoot the limits and keep growing, only to crash down, badly, afterward. The problem was not just that of a fair distribution of the available resources, but to avoid the collapse of the whole human civilization. The calculations showed that it was possible, but that it required stopping economic growth. That was something that nobody, then as now, couldn’t even imagine to do.”
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/jay-forrester-man-who-saw-future.html

HarquebusNovember 21, 2016 at 9:17 pm

Another Turnbull solution?
Truly folks, I wish I could offer some hope but, if this is the future that these fools are striving for then, we are in for a terrible ride. They could not have come up with a worse plan.

“It also anticipated that the city’s population would rise to six million by 2036, and eight million by 2056.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-21/greater-sydney-commission-unveils-detailed-plan-for-city/8041246

HarquebusNovember 23, 2016 at 11:25 pm

“”Sustainable economic growth”, a principal objective of orthodox economics, is an oxymoron according to a real science conjecture that growth within any closed system – including population and economic growth within Earth’s closed biosphere – is ultimately unsustainable.”
“The Limits to Growth report published in 1972 by the Club of Rome tested this conjecture through computer simulations of a future Earth under various assumptions. Its “business-as-usual” simulation predicts catastrophic “overshoot and collapse” of the global economy, natural environment, and human population from about 2020 onwards. Disconcertingly this projection has accurately tracked 40 years of subsequent statistical data. Accordingly it must be heeded as real science.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/85789735/mike-joy-orthodox-economics-conceals-real-costs-of-agriculture

OrchidJarNovember 24, 2016 at 6:48 am

Good morning Harquebus,
it’s clear that this subject is a paramount concern to you – do you have any further thoughts
on what should/could be done now to arrest the horrors you’re depicting?
What do you see as the political/social strategies necessary for such a change, and
of great interest to me, their likelihood in today’s modern world?

HarquebusNovember 24, 2016 at 8:30 am

OrchidJar
Good morning to you too. Thank you for reading my submission.

Further thoughts:
Not really. Stop having babies is, in my opinion, the the only solution. Methodology if implemented will almost certainly be varied with education and contraception at the top of the list.

Kaye Lee has also written a submission on this subject and has addressed some possibilities.

Are we really doomed?

Political/social strategies;
Discuss this family and friends, write to your representatives, comment on blogs, discredit religious procreation ideology, oppose the insane growth ideology and contact media organizations and journalists with your concerns and encourage others to the same. This is what I do. If you have other ideas, I would love to hear them.

Considering the lack of interest the corporate media has in this subject, the likelihood of our concerns being addressed anytime soon is unlikely. It seems that just about every politician and corporate journalist on the planet is obsessed with growth. How long it takes for politicians and corporate journalists to realize the problem and address solutions is how long it will take to reverse population growth if, it does not happen first by nature’s usual brutal and unforgiving ways.

I have posted a video link above and will post it again for you. I highly recommend it. Note that it is over 20 years old.

Dr Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy

You and a few others becoming concerned about this issue has encouraged me. Every bit helps. Raising awareness is, in my opinion, probably the best strategy at this point in time.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I appreciate your well thought out comments on other pages and the time that you take to present them. I do read them.

Cheers.

Henry RodriguesNovember 25, 2016 at 9:31 am

Most of the overpopulation is occurring in countries that can least afford it, like those in Africa and the Middle east, with tradition, culture and religion being the driving factors. Countries that cannot support their present populations, keep doubling, tripling and no one is prepared to call it out. The result is, massive climate change, depleted resources and mass migrations. Add to that raging conflicts, and the future for the world and its environment, is bleak indeed. All the UN does is apply bandages but does nothing to cure the problem.

Miriam EnglishNovember 25, 2016 at 10:45 am

enry, yes, it has long been known that population growth is fastest where living conditions are poor and where there is no social safety net. On the other hand, where the living standard is good and there is a social safety net birthrate quickly falls to below replacement.

There are a few reasons for this.

In places where life is difficult because of disease, war, and starvation people have many children in the hope that at least a couple of them survive. There is also the risk of the parents dying, in which case multiple children are needed to look after each other. Where there is no social safety net they rely upon their children to look after them into their old age.

In places where the people have a comfortable living standard with low rates of disease, education, easy low-cost access to contraception, and a reliable social safety net, things are quite different. People know their children will almost certainly survive into adulthood so they can focus their efforts on fewer kids, improving the future for them. They can spend more time on their own careers and education because they don’t need their children to look after them, thus many opt to be childless. Cheap easy access to contraceptives, education, and social security are all essential to this.

The UN and many philanthropic groups and charities are making great changes in this respect. They are raising the standard of living in the most poverty-stricken parts of the world through various means. One of the most important is to make education and contraceptives and financial independence available to women and girls. Men need to be helped too, but as they generally already have more power than women anyway it’s been found that the biggest impact for the dollar can be had by targeting girls and women with help. Another way the UN in particular, is helping is through peacekeeping efforts. Armed conflict is the greatest creator of starvation and poverty, and it is a vicious cycle — war creates scarcity, and then further conflict breaks out over the few remaining resources. Other strategies are reducing disease by making toilets available, which also gives a source of fertiliser for gardens, wells for clean, easily accessible water, solar panels and LED lights so people don’t need expensive, dirty, illness-causing kerosene lamps.

There are many other things being done. But don’t expect the mainstream media to tell you about them. They want you scared witless and feeling powerless; they’re not interested in solutions.

If you want to see how much the situation is improving, check out these pages:
https://ourworldindata.org/

It is pretty-much all good news. The rate of increase has been falling since the early 1960s, but can we reduce population growth fast enough to get to below replacement level before our environment fully comes undone? I don’t know. Nobody does yet. I advocate using all the solutions we have at our disposal in order to reach a safe state as soon as possible.

jimhazNovember 25, 2016 at 11:15 am

Population growth in poor countries has low initial impact on global warming and deeply harmful pollution – except in terms of forest land clearing in places like Brazil.

It is not where the global problem currently resides (some may suffer starvation, but that is not a global problem). I’d day a pop increase of 10 persons from low developed countries would equal just 1 westerner in terms of harm we do to the environment. Do not expect us to change, we wont accept further regression of our countries in order to help others and quite frankly nor should we. It is not how the universe works, be it personal or group behaviour or in evolutionary terms.

It will progressively increase as a problem even for current developing countries as technology adoption decreases early death prevention, and increases the capability of the land to have a higher population. The larger the population base in a low development state the larger the impact they will eventually have as a developed country. At a certain level of development we can expect populations to rapidly increase in numbers – however this may no longer occur with declining resource reserves lifting prices out of their reach. So they will starve until the population falls to sustainable levels whatever that may be in the new hotter world.

Starvation when populations rise to rapidly is part of animal life.

jimhazNovember 25, 2016 at 11:50 am

We have to take as many actions as we can to make our governments secular – and that includes a proper separation of the religion of big business and the religion of the Game of Thrones for the wealthy.

There has to be more venom directed at our pollies. People cooperate with them far too much – they can only sideline the Gleesons and Triggs because not enough involved people are resisting. For instance, at a new school opening – have a massive go at them, refuse to shake their hand, walk out. Make the current lot pariahs.

Currently we hate them as they pay our wishes no regard – their entire focus and communication to us relates only to the competition between parties. Gosh, even our desire for honest government leads non-political people to seek honesty from idiots like Hanson.

Miriam EnglishNovember 25, 2016 at 12:04 pm

jimhaz, you’re making the same mistake so many people make. You can’t starve humans into population decline. Starvation increases the birthrate.

A whale that can expect its baby to live long has few babies in its lifetime. A grasshopper that can expect massive mortality among its offspring lays millions of eggs. Those animals can’t adjust to changed circumstances. Humans do. Rapidly.

Also you’re wrong about the developed world helping the poorest nations. When people become comfortable they tend to help others. This is offset somewhat by forces that try to panic people, like the mainstream media and right-wing politicians who like to keep people scared and feeling constantly under threat. Most of the help for the poorest is coming from the wealthy. I include myself in this, even though I live below the poverty line in Australia — that still makes me part of the 1% wealthiest people in the world. I contribute a large part of my dole to several charities each fortnight.

As the developing world increases its technological capabilities it is not necessarily following us into highly inefficient, wasteful ways. Many developing countries are adopting renewable technologies and high efficiency much faster than we are.

You are right that we in the Developed world are the biggest wasters. Australians are the worst of all. We waste more per person than any other people on the planet. We waste alarming amounts of energy, food and other resources and we make minimal use of recycling. We are a great example to the rest of the world of what not to do. We are throwing our wealth away.

jimhazNovember 25, 2016 at 12:50 pm

[jimhaz, you’re making the same mistake so many people make. You can’t starve humans into population decline. Starvation increases the birthrate]

I know that has been historically true, but I have doubts as to its meaningfulness in relation to the use of resources. If it remains true it is because westerners step in and help, thus making the problem worse down the track. Yes, I believe we need to stop doing that unless it goes hand in hand with nasty programs that reduce baby making.

I no longer give to or support any Charity. It is false charity and it will lead to more widespread horrors down the track.

[As the developing world increases its technological capabilities it is not necessarily following us into highly inefficient, wasteful ways.
Many developing countries are adopting renewable technologies and high efficiency much faster than we are]

Only because they have to and only in some ways. China for example does it so they can make more products to sell to westerners. When China’s consumption due to income per capita growth really hits the fan, then we’ll see the real problems arise – then the ordinary person will realise they are in a slowly heating saucepan, where to date only the continuous addition of new frogs (with a lower temp) has been keeping the temperature from boiling point – now the saucepan is full.

You just want your cake and to eat it to. You do not wish to face the need for harsh solutions. Your belief in human ingenuity is too strong. Yes, science will be able to solve many problems, but due to our natures will still just see that as an opportunity for more growth. It is the intrinsic nature of all things, not just life, to expand the self (for non-life that is what gravity does) to the limits that it can.

“The mass of a star defines its lifespan. The least massive stars will live the longest, while the most massive stars in the Universe will use their fuel up in a few million years and end in a spectacular supernova explosion”.

Miriam EnglishNovember 25, 2016 at 5:50 pm

No, when the developed world doesn’t step in we get horrific calamities as birthrate quickly goes through the roof. The birthrate only is brought under control when the developed world helps.

Many people see the increased survival of people because of reduction in disease as the problem, but that isn’t true. That’s a lag in the effect of a terrible standard of living and it usually quickly corrects itself (unless religion, especially Catholicism, infects the people with opposition to contraceptives).

If Westerners didn’t step in to help, the problems would simply spread and affect more and more neighboring places with resource shortages, armed conflict over those shortages, and skyrocketting birthrates due to decline in living standard. Whole regions can implode that way. And of course that creates a refugee crisis.

It has been shown over and over again that the only reliable way to bring birthrate under control is to improve standards of living. Simply feeding people helps, but isn’t, by itself, enough. The most effective measure is education and independence for women and girls, with access to contraceptives. But without alleviating starvation, disease, and armed conflict, change is limited.

Your metaphor with the frogs is a rather muddled, sorry.

Yes, of course I want things to go well. Historically it has been shown that it can, if we decide. Many times in history we have shown that given the decision, we can do utterly amazing things. All it takes is the understanding and the decision. If everybody thinks it can’t be done and that it’s every man for himself then I guarantee things will go very, very badly.

You’re wrong about humans always expanding to their limits. Increasing numbers of people are voluntarily limiting themselves to a single child or no children. So many people and companies have adopted efficiency in recent years that electricity companies have been caught short with electricity demand falling dramatically.

Your metaphor regarding stars is misguided. Large stars explode because the fusion of hydrogen into increasingly heavier elements creates iron. As the star loses the ability to sustain sufficient outward pressure due to cooling it begins to collapse in on itself. This triggers another, new reaction with the iron, which blows the star apart.
A large coal fire doesn’t last a shorter time than a small one.
A large tree doesn’t live a shorter time than a small weed.

HarquebusNovember 26, 2016 at 10:01 am

Thanks for the recent comments. I have read them.

“Bushmeat has long been a traditional source of food for many rural people, but as roads have been driven into remote areas, large-scale commercial hunting is leaving forests and other habitats devoid of wildlife. ”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/19/worlds-mammals-being-eaten-into-extinction-report-warns

Improving living standards for the many will require a substantial drop for the few and as Miriam English has stated, the few includes all of us.

“Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day.”
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/half-of-the-population-of-the-world-is-dirt-poor-and-the-global-elite-want-to-keep-it-that-way

https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/fencing-off.jpg

Cheers.

HarquebusJanuary 3, 2017 at 10:12 am

babyjewels10
“Harquebus, how do you imagine we could “reduce our population?””

Do nothing. It will happen all by itself and it won’t be from a slowing growth rate. It will be because the resources that are need to sustain even our current population are just not going to be there. Famine and conflict will be unavoidable if the population problem is ignored. If we want to lower our populations humanely then, this is when the question of how begins and is a subject in itself.

If I could have my way which, I know isn’t going to happen, I would implement zero births globally for a decade and then continue with a one child policy until we are at about 1billion.

Cheers.

Kaye LeeJanuary 3, 2017 at 10:24 am

Tell me….how do you “implement” zero births for a decade? Ban sex? Kill all babies?

HarquebusJanuary 3, 2017 at 10:43 am

Kaye Lee
That is purely if I could I would. This is scale of what is needed to avoid serious future shortages.

“From a consumption perspective, the developed countries have a bigger population problem than the developing countries!”
http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/population_energy

Cheers.

HarquebusFebruary 18, 2017 at 12:19 pm

“It is an untruth that’s both durable and bipartisan; one that the business community, nearly all professional economists, and politicians around the globe reiterate ceaselessly. It is the lie that human society can continue growing its population and consumption levels indefinitely on our finite planet, and never suffer consequences.”
“now those limits are becoming less and less theoretical, more and more real.”
“So, BAU is based on growth, and a lie about the long term viability of growth.”
“The standard run of the LTG world model, which assumes things just continue on as usual, ends with a drastic drop off of human population in the latter half of this century. Resource depletion and pollution result in a failure to produce adequate food supplies and essential services. Indeed every run of the model that tried to find a way around the limits ended in similar results.”
“If, like me, you have little faith in governments doing the right thing to any significant extent, the good news is that there are also a great many things that can be done to mitigate collapse at the individual, family and local community level.”
http://theeasiestpersontofool.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/the-biggest-lie.html

Prepare your lifeboat as well as you can and choose carefully those that you take with you.

Cheers.

jimhazFebruary 18, 2017 at 12:58 pm

On current trends perhaps you’ll be right – we’ll all go marching one by one to get out of the acid rain.

Much like the nursery rhyme.

HarquebusFebruary 19, 2017 at 11:58 am

“A new scientific paper by a University of Maryland-led international team of distinguished scientists, including five members of the National Academies, argues that there are critical two-way feedbacks missing from current climate models that are used to inform environmental, climate, and economic policies. The most important inadequately-modeled variables are inequality, consumption, and population.”
“However, these human impacts can only truly be understood within the context of economic inequality”
“One effect of this inequality is that the top 10 percent produce almost as much total carbon emissions as the bottom 90 percent combined.””
“Social and economic equality empowers societies to engage in sustainable pathways, which includes, by the way, not only the sustainable use of natural resources but also slowing down population growth, to actively diminish the human footprint on the environment.”
“We cannot separate the issues of population growth, resource consumption, the burning of fossil fuels, and climate risk. They are part of a coupled dynamical system, and, as the authors show, this has dire potential consequences for societal collapse. The implications couldn’t be more profound.”
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-climate_1.html

HarquebusMarch 22, 2017 at 1:00 pm

“So, why did people lose interest in overpopulation just while it kept becoming a bigger problem? Something similar took place with other concepts such as the limits to growth and peak oil: people are losing interest just now that these problems are becoming gigantic and probably unsolvable.”
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/overpopulation-life-and-death-of-meme.html

Alan BairdMarch 22, 2017 at 4:27 pm

Overpopulation IS a serious problem but it won’t be addressed. With economists, priests, demographers, politicians and finance punters calling the shots it’s game over. Demographers are always warning that population MUST continue to rise FOREVER because we must ALWAYS have MORE people of a low age to support those of an old age, therefore we MUST continue to increase population for ever and ever amen. Actually, people in places like Japan have all being committing suicide because of NEGATIVE population growth. Heaven knows how many people they have left. They’ll NEVER GET OVER IT! Thank goodness we’ve finally got enough people to knock off the remaining animal extinctions that we’ve got lined up. People use words like “stagnation” when human population isn’t causing cities to burst at the seams. A steady population size must be simply awful. Christ, some of those local councils will have nothing to do with roads but REPAIR THEM rather than knock down houses to make room for bigger, wider roads that will carry more traffic to… well somewhere. Only this morning the chick that normally does the finance on ABC news was saying that OVERNIGHT an oversupply of housing meant prices could, or would crash. Only yesterday it was hopelessly behind in SUPPLY but now, suddenly too much building has been going on! We need to do a Merkel! Egypt’s got 80 million with a food growth area about the size of the wheat belt in Victoria cut in two. Offer 40 mill of them a free entry. And get home and BREED. I want my pension! But only for good, wholesome patriotic reasons.

Alan BairdMarch 22, 2017 at 4:51 pm

Overpopulation IS a serious problem but it won’t be addressed. With economists, priests, demographers, politicians and finance punters calling the shots it’s game over. Demographers are always warning that population MUST continue to rise FOREVER because we must ALWAYS have MORE people of a low age to support those of an old age, therefore we MUST continue to increase population for ever and ever amen. Actually, people in places like Japan have all being committing suicide because of low population growth. Heaven knows how many people they have left. They’ll NEVER GET OVER IT! Thank goodness we’ve finally got enough people to knock off the remaining animal extinctions that we’ve got lined up. People use words like “stagnation” when human population isn’t causing cities to burst at the seams. A steady population size must be simply awful. Christ, some of those local councils will have nothing to do with roads but REPAIR THEM rather than knock down houses to make room for bigger, wider roads that will carry more traffic to… well somewhere. Only this morning the chick that normally does the finance on ABC news was saying that OVERNIGHT an oversupply of housing meant prices could, or would crash. Only yesterday it was hopelessly behind in SUPPLY but now, suddenly too much building has been going on! We need to do a Merkel! Egypt’s got 80 million with a food growth area about the size of the wheat belt in Victoria cut in two. Offer 40 mill of them a free entry. And get home and BREED. I want my pension! But only for good, wholesome patriotic reasons.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 11:37 am

“Anyone who perceives a linear rate of growth, but who is actually up against an exponential rate of growth, is likely to be very surprised at how the end comes very quickly and seemingly out of nowhere. They will be completely blindsided.”
“Can humans be “smarter than yeast?” Can we be the only species that can successfully anticipate and avoid ecological overshoot and collapse?”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differences/201111/how-avoid-population-overshoot-and-collapse

Miriam EnglishMarch 26, 2017 at 11:51 am

Jesus, Harquebus. You really do have a learning problem. Human population is not growing exponentially. Population growth is gradually winding down and will reverse in the near future. It has already reversed in many countries, with births below replacement level.

Alan BairdMarch 26, 2017 at 12:19 pm

With the plethora of urgent problems approaching, I’d be very surprised that this great reversal of population will occur in time. The juggling act will be chaotic. As it is right now, chaos is shaping up as more than adequate to the task. The so-called “sensible centre” of politics certainly isn’t, let alone the morons of the whole spectrum of the Right. Much of the migration pressure will continue and each of the relatively low greenhouse people will become high-greenhouse after a transplant. Most Australians may WANT a lower-greenhouse future but habits of consumption remain much the same. A small car or a big SUV? The latter every time if money permits. An added complication is the increasing divide between rich and poor in many countries, helping instability. The wealthy have shown NO inclination to pay the fiscal cost of a stable environment in which to flaunt their wealth, even in countries where life can be precarious. We need EVERY future-assisting factor possible aligned for what is to come. They remain higgle-de-piggledy my fat hen and the forces of rationality are in disarray or nobbled.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 12:36 pm

Miriam English
It is the growth rate only that is decreasing. The growth rate has halved since its maximum during the sixties however, since then our population has more than doubled.
You are right about it reversing in the near future. It will be rapid.
Did you read the article. I think that you will find it interesting.

Alan Baird
You appear to have a good grasp of our predicament. I wish a lot more would.

http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org

Cheers.

RoswellMarch 26, 2017 at 12:58 pm

Alan Baird. You appear to have a good grasp of our predicament. I wish a lot more would.

A lot here do. You’re too intent on arguing to listen.

Miriam EnglishMarch 26, 2017 at 1:22 pm

Alan, true, there are a lot of problems facing us. Perhaps population reversal will happen sooner, perhaps later. Our biggest problem, in my opinion is waste. It exacerbates all our other problems. Many of the other problems would hardly raise an eyebrow if it wasn’t for waste.

One thing Harquebus is right about (but then ignores its positive aspects) is that humans act in exponential ways. If it becomes fashionable to be waste-conscious then it will spread in exponential fashion. There are early signs of this starting already. It has happened before, during the oil price hikes of the late 1970s and early 80s small, efficient cars became fashionable and were adopted in high numbers very quickly. Recently electricity companies expected energy demand to continue to grow and they were caught with their pants down when electricity consumption actually fell. People now prefer efficient appliances and it is paying off. People are also taking up domestic solar panels faster than they adopted mobile phones. That’s especially so in the poorest parts of the world.

Everywhere I go nowadays I see SUVs parked outside people’s places with For Sale signs on them.

People prefer, more and more, to communicate via the internet instead of travelling to speak face-to-face. That saves enormous amounts of energy. And computers and data centers are becoming more energy efficient. Data centers are rapidly changing over to solid-state drives (SSD) instead of motorised, relatively energy-hungry hard drives. With the sweeping introduction of smartphones and tablet computers the days of the big desktop computer are numbered. Desktop computers can cost hundreds of watts to run. Smartphones and tablets require less than 10 watts.

These and other changes are not linear. They accelerate as more people encourage greater numbers. Add to this the unpredictable nature of technological change bringing even better solutions.

Some technologies off the top of my head:
– quantum dots hold great promise for making devices without the need for special materials
– composite materials and the strange properties of surfaces let us make new materials out of old common ones (my favorite example is chalk and protein in very fine layers can make a substance harder than our hardest ceramics and do it at room temperature)
– organic materials can replace much of inorganic electronics, including carbon as graphene replacing copper
– vat technology developed for the brewing industry can grow nutritious food cheaply, in bulk, without taking up vast expanses of land, and can now even grow meat
– battery and supercapacitor technology is on the cusp of great change with new developments coming every day.

Will the changes come in time? Nobody really knows. I have my hopes, even though I doubt we’ll get out of it unscathed. The politicians and multinational corporations will make it worse, but they can’t hold back the changes.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 1:44 pm

Roswell
On your last comment, I have to disagree.
A lot of stuff that I read I can not post here. It would, as it does when I discuss face to face, turn people away. Climate scientists are self censoring for the same reason.

Search criteria: climate scientists depression
Search criteria: global debt bubble
Search criteria: resource depletion scarcity
Search criteria: global water shortages
Search criteria: limits to growth

When you get through these, come back and I’ll give you some more.

No, very few in here understand where we are and what is going to happen.

Cheers.

RoswellMarch 26, 2017 at 1:58 pm

When you get through these, come back and I’ll give you some more.

Sorry, but don’t bother.

diannaartMarch 26, 2017 at 1:59 pm

Harquebus

You did not read a single word in Miriam’s last comment, or, if you did, you failed to comprehend any of it. Of course, you are intelligent, so maybe go back and read again.

Yes, population is a problem – but not the only one we face – but we have had that conversation many times, have we not?

Our most urgent problems are all ones that can be tackled simultaneously, you know, walking AND chewing gum?

We can:

Reduce waste
Transition to renewable tech
Educate women
Promote women and non Anglo-Saxons/gays/any other groups who are NOT white middle aged men into equal positions of power
Stop and think – maybe I should’ve listed this one first
Free education for all, adults as well as children on a global basis
and
Ignore the pessimists.

RoswellMarch 26, 2017 at 2:03 pm

Hello diannaart, nice to see you again. ?

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 2:10 pm

Roswell
That is why we are in this predicament. Not very many can be bothered.

diannaart
I did read Miriam’s comment and I disagree with most of what both of you have said. I do not think that technology will save us and I am one of the biggest tech heads in here.
Technology depends on trade depends on transport depends on oil.
We absolutely must stop making babies and power down. This isn’t happening.

“Optimism serves no useful purpose if it leads to Pollyannish style denialism.”

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishMarch 26, 2017 at 2:15 pm

Yes, like Roswell said, great to see you. 🙂
By the way, I always meant to say how much I love your avatar image. Where did it come from?
And thank you for your comment.

RoswellMarch 26, 2017 at 2:18 pm

Harquebus, so we’re in this predicament because people can’t be bothered to read your effing links.

Oh for eff’s sake. Give me an effing break.

Miriam EnglishMarch 26, 2017 at 2:20 pm

Harquebus totally misses the point again in his doomsaying.

Harquebus, I seriously doubt you read my comment otherwise you would have noticed that most of the points I made were about reducing fossil fuels and replacing things that require them with things that don’t. Reading the first couple of words isn’t reading the comment.

You’re a tech-head? Sure, you are. [rolls eyes]
Every second word out of your mouth is anti-technology.

RoswellMarch 26, 2017 at 2:20 pm

Did it ever occur to you that I may not have the time? Did it ever occur to you that I might have read heaps of similar stuff before? No, of course not. You just keep jumping to effing conclusions.

I’m over it.

Jack StrawMarch 26, 2017 at 2:26 pm

How did we get back on to your One article you wrote Harquebus?In the end your just another crazy flawed fundamentalist with low self esteem. It’s your way or the highway

jimhazMarch 26, 2017 at 2:29 pm

This is a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago to respond to a discussion re H’s views on another thread, and I’m fairly sure I never got around to posting it. I’m too lazy to edit out the unrelated bits now.

“I agree he is wrong about renewables, but it hardly matters unless the human world changes dramatically and aims for a smaller world population. If we are ultimately right, the outcome of that will be a higher, more demanding on resources, world population. The energy “vacuum” from renewables will be immediately filled.

I’m expecting the next GFC to be a doozy. A world wide event.

Part of me thinks some low level prepping for that event wouldn’t be a bad idea, particularly with Trump’s madness now in play.

Practically no-one can predict the timing of these events – the modern method of dealing with it, is to keep kicking the can down the road.

Observationally though the convincing signs of anything dramatic happening in the next 12 months are not there for me, so my prepping will just be keeping my eyes open.

A GFC, as a depression, is avoidable by clear thinking governance to reduce debt, and would require levels of world debt forgiveness, but as the rich are so dominant, self obsessed and competitive, I’m not expecting that.

I hope we have more responsible leaders at the time. It gives an opportunity for the partial death of induced materialism, a sort of end of capitalism, and to realise the insanity of having such a large world population, so we can start to naturally downsize. Without that we’ve going to have to be awful lucky, as the capitalism we have now would seem destined to end up with resource wars, and with modern technology and politicians I find that too scary.

Robotics has a massive downside, which is that you can’t really have both as large a human population as we have and a population of robots. Renewable energy won’t provide the energy for both. Production and future service robots use less energy and resources than humans, and capitalism and the excessive consumption desires they create in the masses, will mean robotics wins. They will become more useful than humans to the rich. The long term ramifications of that are quite dangerous. They will become more and more powerful, and emotionally distant from the masses.

[And clean coal. Even the fossil fuel wonks don’t believe that one. It would cost so much to do, even if it was possible, that it would make coal into one of the most expensive fuels of all]

Where there is a resource, a way will eventually be found to use it sufficiently safely and cost effectively.

I hope we are able to eventually use all the coal – but we need to stop using it for a century or however long it takes for more normal CO2 levels to return. We have to wait for the technology to make it perfectly clean. Renewables still offer so much more promise in terms of investment cost, so I’d class it as malinvestment by a government.

Maybe someone will come up with a way to effectively strip Co2 from the atmosphere – maybe the need will arise for us to have to take the terraforming risk to do this.

Maybe it just has to be prioritised in terms of investment and research much more.

http://tek-think.com/2015/07/28/capturing-co2-from-the-air-and-making-something-useful-with-it/

I think Musk now sells solar roofs, roofs that themselves generate solar power. Perhaps there will come an efficiency point where one half of the roof could be mandated Co2 capture roofs.

There are ways and means out of the energy woes.

In terms of consumption, perhaps the scarcity of some resources, or their energy cost, will reduce non-renewable resource demand per person and make us change us into having less complex, more pleasant and fitter lives, less consumed about things and more about each other.

Maybe we’ll find a way for the aggressive alphas, male and female, right or left, to concentrate more on necessities, rather than idealism and power dynamics.”

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 2:35 pm

Roswell
In regards to the links, that is not what I wrote. The worst news I do not post here and the term ‘bothered’ was in the general context. Emailing politicians and journalists, visiting fora like this to spread the word and to inform my family, friends and neighbors who, after years of politely dismissing my concerns are now taking me very seriously and whoever else will listen. That is being bothered and a fat lot of good its done.
No, it didn’t occur to me because, you have never displayed any evidence of your awareness.

Miriam English
There is nothing that is going to replace petroleum fuels. The economic fall out will end your dream.

Jack Straw
Actually, it’s my second.

Avoiding data retention

Cheers.

Jack StrawMarch 26, 2017 at 2:44 pm

Harq There is nothing that is going to replace petroleum fuels.? Why?? and your loving this as we are back onto you beautiful little Harquebus boy the apple of this old mothers eye was little harky. You never did tell whether your mother is still with us?

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 2:58 pm

jimhaz
Thanks for that. Good post.
Building using timber instead of bricks will help.
Plant lots and lots of trees.

Jack Straw
It is energy dense and easily stored and transported.

http://www.energy-101.org/non-renewable-energy/petroleum-facts/petroleum-energy-density

Yes, my mother is still alive and no longer religious.

Cheers.

diannaartMarch 26, 2017 at 3:13 pm

Harquebus

If you had ever read and understood any posts from myself, Miriam and many, many others, you would know no-one is suggesting that technology is the only solution. Many solutions to many problems.

However, you claim that fossil fuels cannot be replaced?

Bwaaahahahahaha!

Now I remember why I took a sabbatical – fed up with fools.

You know what adaptable people do when they find what they have been doing no longer works? They look for alternative solutions. Einstein said it way better.

Thanks to everyone who have welcomed me back. I will not be posting much – am finally getting organised to move house, which with a variety of chronic illnesses will require a variety of solutions and time – I practice what I preach 🙂

diannaartMarch 26, 2017 at 3:17 pm

Miriam

About my avatar, googled a play on my namesake – selected the one that said “YES”.

🙂

Kaye LeeMarch 26, 2017 at 3:19 pm

Good to see you back diannaart. Moving house is stressful even without health issues. I wish you luck and hope you enjoy a new start after the hassle is behind you.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 3:23 pm

diannaart
Yes. I understand fully. I just mostly disagree.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein

And yet, that is exactly what we are doing. More people, more debt and more growth.

I hope that you will stick around. I have, as with Miriam English, always enjoyed your contributions even when disagreeing.

Cheers.

diannaartMarch 26, 2017 at 3:41 pm

Thanks, Kaye Lee – I hope I have not left my move too late – but know I am ready, FINALLY!

diannaartMarch 26, 2017 at 3:45 pm

No, m’dear, you do not understand. Your disagreement has its foundation in idealistic dogma.

As for quoting Einsten – I do know the quote just chose not to use it. A little less mansplaining as well as applied thought would serve you well.

Be grateful I am basically polite and courteous – most of the time 😉

Jack StrawMarch 26, 2017 at 3:47 pm

diannart when in doubt throw it out. And decluttering will make life easier.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 4:10 pm

diannart
I understand what both you and Miriam put in front of me. Do you read and understand what I put up for you? If you are like most, probably not. My disagreement is founded in maths, physics and the sciences. As I have stated before, I am not the one making this stuff up. I only relay what others, mostly scientists of some sort and engineers etcetera are saying. I also take notice of what economist who, I consider as the enemy say and advocates of alternative energy such as yourself.
We fail to convince each other. If I am wrong, no harm done. If you are wrong, severe consequences. We will just have to wait and see how it pans out.
Cheers.

diannaartMarch 26, 2017 at 5:24 pm

Sage advice, Jack

I have lived in my home for 15 years – very difficult years, where I very nearly lost my home, but somehow persevered. 15 years is the longest I have lived anywhere in my entire life. This home saved me in more ways than I could recount and I am a very thoughtful person, with a background in Applied Science (H. seems to think he knows everything) – I am described as pragmatic by my friends and my psych informed me I do not suffer fools. 😛

I do not have the necessary energy to do a garage sale, so there are going to be some fortunate Op shops in my area. I have broken down my move into a series of very small steps and the best thing is I have really made a good start and feel highly motivated to continue – the motivation part is what has been lacking.

It is motivation or will or incentive that is lacking in our governments, business and among ourselves – we can’t even agree to make a single cohesive step. H. and his ‘my way is the only way’ as a prime example, when there are a variety of actions we can take. That H. claims he possesses the scientific expertise means he is in a very small group of people, because scientific consensus favours a multi-pronged, pragmatic and challenging change to the way we currently use our resources from the living through to the mechanical.

Will we do enough in time? I suspect we will not return to a pre-industrial global climate, that we need a few more catastrophic events before the boneheaded and intractable finally see the bleeding obvious. We must also refrain from tearing our hair out when these same clods claim they always knew sustainable living and technologies were the saving of our living environment even though we will be living in and adapting to a hotter world climate and life will continue to be on a bumpy ride.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 6:42 pm

diannaart
It’s not my way. It is the only way. There are many saying the same things and not very many of them I would consider fools.

“It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.” — David Attenborough

“Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever increasing population. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it’s time we controlled the population to allow the survival of the environment.” — David Attenborough

“David Suzuki argues that in any discussion of population, we must recognize the principle of exponential growth (when the growth rate of the value of a mathematical function is proportional to the function’s current value).”
http://resources4rethinking.ca/en/resource/david-suzuki-speaks-about-overpopulation

I and many others have been trying for decades to mobilize humanity toward avoiding the catastrophic events that will force us to address the problem. When it happens, it will almost certainly be too late.

Good luck in your new home.

Cheers.

diannaartMarch 26, 2017 at 7:26 pm

David Suzuki discusses far more than just planning for population growth. He promotes a vast array of possible solutions.

Perhaps you could try reading a little less selectively.

There is no one single solution. But we do have opportunities to avert and mitigate some of the worst possible futures.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 7:35 pm

diannart
Thank you for that. I have to be selective otherwise I will be posting hundreds of links.
If you live in Adelaide, perhaps I can help you with your move?
Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMarch 26, 2017 at 7:49 pm

Good to have you back, diannaart.

I agree with both you and Miriam that there must be multi-pronged answers to our environmental challenges. I especially appreciate your fighting spirit against the ignorant and/or pessimistic surrenderers.

………………………………………………..

Harquebus,

I understand your concerns and I 100% agree we should grow trees, trees, trees. The more the merrier. Timber constructions are fine with me.

Perhaps if you used ‘moderate’ and persuasive language like Attenborough and Suzuki, you would be able to engage in more productive discussion of how we can beat petroleum and fossil fuel dependency tomorrow.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 9:28 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
David Attenborough’s and David Suzuki’s moderate tone hasn’t proved effective. Two men that I admire are being completely ignored.
We have long passed the point for discussion and must act. I admit, my patience is wearing thin and is showing in some of my comments.
Should I be polite in thanking those whose ignorance facilitated our predicament? As one who speaks his mind, I doubt that I can do that.
Cheers.

Miriam EnglishMarch 26, 2017 at 9:51 pm

Harquebus won’t use moderate, sensible speech. He loves the idea of doom far too much. He doesn’t want to turn people away from the disaster. He glories in it and how we deserve it because we all ignore the hellfire and brimstone sermons. (I’m sure he secretly wants to star in his own zombie apocalypse movie.)

What’s the point in helping people find ways to manage the problems we face? That’d just mean we wouldn’t get the doom we so richly deserve. Much better to scare the bejeezus out of as many people as possible, paralysing them with hopelessness so we can guarantee the prophesy is fulfilled.

Solutions? Not on your life! If we decry and belittle them as much as possible, saying that petroleum is the only way, but that it’s simultaneously the cause of our downfall, people’s heads will explode with the paradox. Reduce energy use? Use the energy that’s all around us? No way! We can’t have that. Let’s misread science so that we can make up fake rules of physics that sound impressive, pretending that using this energy is impossible. (But quietly ignore the entire inconvenient plant kingdom that supports all animal life and calls out the lie.)

Religion has learned the right trick. Learn only selectively. Read only that which supports your own view, promote it over and over again, and for goodness sake don’t ever admit you’re wrong.

Matters NotMarch 26, 2017 at 10:01 pm

So what’s wrong in aspiring to be a martyr for your own self defined cause?

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 10:05 pm

Miriam English
Your putting words in my mouth is starting to really piss me off. I have been battling hard heads like yours for decades and now, disaster is staring us in the face and you say I look forward to it. Where have been and what have you been doing while I have sounding out warnings at every opportunity. Hey, she’ll be right mate. The technology we need is just around the corner. It is always just around the corner. Well so are the consequences thanks to the likes of you dismissing my arguments to the point that, what has concerned me is now inevitable.
Thanks heaps.
Petroleum is not the only way. It is the way we chose to go. An industrial society that can not survive without it and no plan to.
The solution and the consequences of not applying it are in the title of this article. It can’t be said any simpler than that.
Cheers.

Mick ByronMarch 26, 2017 at 10:13 pm

If the situation gets so critical that the top 10% would feel major ramifications you can rest assured there would be some clandestine operations and new epidemics like Ebola HIV/Aids to wipe out the requisite number of civilians to protect the interests of the elite
“If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. -Prince Phillip
I would say you could safely bet those sorts of contingencies are already in place

Miriam EnglishMarch 26, 2017 at 10:21 pm

You say some ridiculous things sometimes Harquebus. Attenborough and Suzuki haven’t been ignored. More people than ever before take their words to heart.

There is now a massive, worldwide environmental movement that is finally shifting the rusted-on corruption of fossil fuels and their politician servants. Beijing just closed the last of its coal-fired power stations. Renewable energy is taking off all over the world despite the politicians’ best efforts to suppress it. Energy efficiency is also gathering momentum, not only among ordinary people but also among the biggest corporations and it is starting to have big impacts. People power has pushed banks into not investing in the Adani coal mine despite the increasingly desperate attempts by corrupt politicians to bring it on. Many places around the world are experimenting with changing the payment system for power companies so that it’s in their interests to encourage people to be more efficient and use less power.

Look at the work of the Rocky Mountain Institute. They are a very optimistic research group of scientists, mostly physicists, who have laid out a detailed roadmap for moving from where we are to weaning ourselves off fossil fuels in just decades, while raising people’s standard of living, invigorating the economy, and employing more people all at the same time.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 10:32 pm

Miriam English
You just don’t get it. Renewable energy will not mine and transport the resources required nor grow, process and transport the food necessary to sustain over 7 billion people. It just isn’t going to happen and the sooner people like you face reality, the sooner we can get on with saving some semblance of a civilized society.
As I said to Kaye Lee recently, you will learn the hard way but, all of us will pay in the harshest terms for your lesson.
Rocky Mountain Institute? Okay, I will.
Cheers.

Miriam EnglishMarch 26, 2017 at 10:35 pm

Harquebus, you ask where have I been? I’ve been building low-energy computers for people. I’ve built a solar powered water pump, I’ve been rebuilding an electric bike. I’ve been learning about technologies that are here now (not just around the corner) that are already saving the world. I’ve been trying to inspire people to actually fix things.

What have you been doing? Telling everybody that it’s too late, that we’re all screwed, that our only chance is totalitarian mass sterilisation or massive environmental collapse taking out a large part of humanity so that a lucky few can survive. That’s your oh-so-wonderful message. You don’t offer any solution at all, even though they surround you. When solutions present themselves you emphatically deny them. This is why I say you want doom. You pretend, even to yourself, that you don’t want doom, but why else would you so emphatically reject all solutions?

Miriam EnglishMarch 26, 2017 at 10:50 pm

Rocky Mountain Institute? Nope, you won’t. I’ve suggested their work to you countless times, but you refuse to take on board genuine research. You prefer the doom doled out by fossil fuel funded fakers.

Renewables are more than capable of powering our society. The only catch is that we have to stop wasting 99% of the energy. That change is in progress. It is being retarded by fossil fuel companies, but is happening anyway.

Of course we can mine and transport using renewable energy. Electric engines are actually better suited to heavy work than internal combustion engines. You just don’t learn. Electric engines don’t require heavy gearboxes, water cooling systems, carburettors, oil pumps, fuel pumps, air filters, ignition systems, cams, and pistons. An electric engine has full torque from standstill all the way to top speed. Internal combustion engines require many gears to match their narrow band of usable rpm to driving the wheels. Yes, petroleum is incredibly energy-dense, but internal combustion engines waste more than 90% of it, making them no match for modern electric engines.

And we can generate fertiliser in the Haber process without fossil fuels. They’re only used to generate heat, but focussed sunlight can achieve far higher temperatures than burning fossil fuels anyway.

Miriam EnglishMarch 26, 2017 at 11:12 pm

Minor correction, internal combustion engines waste about 85% of the energy. (The current lousy design of vehicles wastes almost all the rest.) That 85% is made up from the losses of the engine itself (62%), the losses in the transmission system, due to the way internal combustion engines need to use gears to keep to a narrow band of revolutions per minute, plus all the additional weight required to operate the engine (water jacket and radiator and pump, oil bath, ignition system, timing system, and so on).

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 11:21 pm

Miriam Enlish
“What have you been doing? Telling everybody that it’s too late”
For over two decades? It was serious when I started and now we are going super critical. Our current industrial society is not sustainable. Your computers and other gadgets will slowly disappear as does the petroleum products that fuels their production.

What am I doing? Learning how sustain myself without the use of pesticides and fertilizers and believe me on this one, when the time comes that people must do the same, they will be very disappointed with their first total crop failure and very dead not long after.

I am not kidding when I say that my family, friends and neighbors are now doing or planning the same. This is not my preferred option. We could have had decent lifestyles with low pollution with time to plan and prepare if, we hadn’t embarked on this mad suicidal quest for growth which, opposing has been a regular endeavor of mine. Well, we did pursue growth and now we see the consequences.

I hope to expand my little garden society now that I have a few more on board. I have one neighbor who is not very bright and four others who are elderly and very frail ladies who I am concerned about because, they can not participate and will not cope without government assistance. Ambulances are a regular sight in my little enclave.

You can make whatever you like but, getting it to where it is needed is going to be another matter. What is going to transport the copper ore from the mine to the refinery and the copper to factories around the world to manufacture motors that then need to be transported themselves.
I have extensive experience in supply chain logistic for industrial engineering. You have no idea just how dependent on fossil fuels industry is, not just for transport but, for a whole range of products.

One decent oil shock will wake people up and also probably crash the economy and set the collapse scenario in motion.

I have read every link that you have posted for me and all but two videos and have found faults in all of them. I read so much, perhaps I just don’t recall the name Rocky Mountain Institute but, I fully intend to check them out.

Cheers.

RoswellMarch 26, 2017 at 11:42 pm

Harquebus, what you do to make this world a better place (apart from annoying everybody) is admirable.

Please know, however, that everybody here also does their bit. We do so because we know it’s a totally screwed up world. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be snapped into action like we are.

Even I do what I can. I might be a sarcastic prick at times, which can be misleading.

So what do I do? Two things, mainly. I like to lead a green life (without being a greenie) and I do lots of charity work. There’s always somebody worse off than me and if I can help them in any way then I’m always willing.

HarquebusMarch 26, 2017 at 11:56 pm

Roswell
Goodonutoo. Maybe we do have some things in common and perhaps is why we sometimes clash.
Cheers.

Miriam EnglishMarch 27, 2017 at 8:08 am

Harquebus, learning how to make yourself and your friends as independent from the system as possible makes good sense. I’m doing the same, as I suspect many here are doing.

There certainly will be problems — blind Freddy can see that — but scaring people into paralysis by telling them they’re screwed, no matter what, is just plain pointless and counterproductive and cruel.

If you think talking about global civilisation collapse and complete loss of all the accoutrements of society will spur people into acting, then you have little understanding of human psychology. People pick the better path. If it looks like there is no better path most people just give up and go back to consuming, figuring, what’s the point?

But the most important thing of all: learn. Don’t just stick to what you think you know. Don’t sit in an echo chamber of doom and only allow in messages that support fatalism and despair. That will just insulate your mind from reality. How do you think intelligent religious people believe the nonsense they do? It’s all about the echo chamber.

Okay, I get that you likely hate humanity and see doom as “just desserts”. But do try to wake up to all the good things which innumerable people are doing:

– A vast “tiny homes” movement is growing, especially in USA (and now Australia).

– Neighborhood food gardens are popping up in suburbs, and vertical gardens and roof-top gardens in cities.

– Op shops and second-hand clothes are normal now.

– There is a gigantic movement to consume less.

– Recycling is normal now (though it can still be greatly improved).

– People-powered environmental activism is stronger than ever before. (The dickhead politicians are trying to outlaw it — that’s how strong it’s growing.)

– YouTube is full of videos about turning your old plastic bags into useful items by melting them down with a bit of cooking oil, melting drink bottles down and making them into other things, constructing solar cookers and solar furnaces, ways to improve the yield of your garden, how to make almost anything, academic lessons on countless topics.

– Big corporations have become interested in efficiency and are withdrawing investments from fossil fuels, while investment in efficiency and renewable energy is booming.

If you think these things aren’t really happening then it is an indication you have your head stuck in an echo chamber of doom. All these things are now. And they are gathering pace.

Are we safe yet? Of course not. It’s not enough yet. But the activity on fixing things is accelerating. Will there be problems? Undoubtedly — very likely big ones. But there is an enormous groundswell of change. If our idiot politicians finally wake up we might even take it in our stride.

Denying it all makes it worse, not better.

HarquebusMarch 27, 2017 at 9:24 am

Miriam English
Thank you for your considered responses.
The internet might just be our last best hope. Let’s hope that we get to keep it.
Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMarch 27, 2017 at 9:26 am

Miriam,

could you write an article here on AIM Network on all the proactive, everyday grassroots activities that people are doing right now just as you have enumerated on multiple occasions.

That way, the rest of us can spread said article far and wide on social media for other people still floundering in a neoliberalist hangover to give them the way forward.

No more doom, no more sense of disempowerment.

Miriam EnglishMarch 27, 2017 at 10:40 am

🙂 Jennifer, I’ve been meaning to, and told Michael I would, but seem to be perpetually busy. I’ve even been neglecting the two books I’m supposed to be writing. Any spare time I have seems to be spent here lately. 🙂 Yes. I will. The good stuff definitely needs to be promoted.

Thanks for the push. I need prompting to get me doing it.

HarquebusMarch 27, 2017 at 11:04 am

“Everywhere there are people, people, people. Where are we going to put them?”
http://www.newsweek.com/2017/03/31/egypt-population-birth-rate-food-water-shortage-isis-terrorism-sissi-570953.html

Miriam EnglishMarch 27, 2017 at 11:20 am

Harquebus, try to stop panicking for just one moment and consider the vast range of solutions arrayed before us.
And stop trying to disempower everybody with paralysing fear! For f*cks sake!
It would do your own shock-worn psyche a world of good too.

As for where we’re going to put the people… there are these things called cities… perhaps you’ve heard of them.

HarquebusMarch 31, 2017 at 12:49 pm

Sir David Attenborough on Overpopulation

Isaac Asimov on Overpopulation

“In 2002 the UN Population Division made a world population growth forecast for the year 2050 – stating (medium variant) we’d be at 8.9 billion people then. Two years later (2004) the UN said – oops – make that 9.1 billion. Then in 2006 they said hang on, 9.2 – only to revise that number upwards to 9.3 in 2010.
And then just two years later (2012) that same UN Population Division made another forecast. The target year stayed the same – yes, 2050 – but now we were to believe world population would by that time have risen to 9.6 billion people.
And just when you won’t believe it anymore last year, in 2015, they again upped their forecast by another 100 million people – to 9.7 billion (medium variant) for again 2050.”
http://www.bitsofscience.org/21st-century-forecasts-for-sea-level-rise-and-world-population-growth-7279/

Miriam English
Did you read the article? I am betting no and if so, please read it before commenting then, we might be able to have a proper discussion.
I do not generally actively seek out supporting articles for my views however, I do save those that do as well as many others as I go through my reading list which, is large and comprehensive. The links in this comment were gathered in this way.

Cheers.

HarquebusApril 25, 2017 at 11:10 am

“it has been estimated that a total of approximately 106 billion people have been born since the dawn of the human species, making the population currently alive roughly 6% of all people who have ever lived on planet Earth.”
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

“what is still true, is that there is simply no endless physical growth on a finite planet. Past a certain point, growth ceases. Either we stop it … by changing our behaviour, or the planet will stop it.”
“There are only two ways to reduce the growth of humanity: reduction in the birth rate or increase the death rate. Which would you prefer?”
“Behind every calorie of food that comes to the plate, ten calories of fossil fuels or oil are used for its production, transportation, storage, preparation and disposal.”
“So we will fail, because growth of population and living standards are much greater than we would save through efficiency and alternative energy. Therefore, the CO2 emissions will continue to rise. There is no solution to the climate change problem as long as we do not address the social factors that count.”
“Democracy contributes nothing at the moment to our survival. This system will collapse from within, not because of an external enemy.”
“Peak Oil destroys the belief in growth. You would have to change everything.”
http://churchandstate.org.uk/2013/04/dennis-meadows-there-is-nothing-that-we-can-do/

Cheers.

HarquebusApril 27, 2017 at 8:30 pm

The world’s population hit 7.5 billion today. Competition for depleting resources will be fierce.
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithApril 27, 2017 at 8:36 pm

why don’t you repeat your insightful comment about the need to grow more trees – not only for environmental reasons but for resource provision purposes?

Productive, positive remedy solutions are more persuasive than just repeating facts by themselves that have doomsday undertones.

HarquebusApril 27, 2017 at 9:05 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
Do you mean this one?

“Plant lots and lots of trees. Massive scale reforestation will help the climate, rainfall and be a valuable renewable resource for future generations.”

I am not confident that it will even be attempted.

“Forests play a complex role in keeping the planet cool, one that goes far beyond the absorption of carbon dioxide, new research has found.”
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-forests-global-ways-important-previously.html

“The earth’s forests have been broken into around 50 million fragments, the edges of which add up to a length that would make it a third of the way to the sun and which increase annual tropical deforestation carbon emissions by 31 per cent.”
http://www.eco-business.com/news/forest-fragmentation-may-be-releasing-much-more-carbon-than-we-think/

“The cuts come as deforestation rates are rising, driven by demand for timber, soy and beef. The Amazon region saw a 29% increase in forest clearance last year”

Brazil halves environment budget amid rising Amazon deforestation

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishApril 27, 2017 at 9:30 pm

Harquebus, “Competition for depleting resources will be fierce.”

…Unless we develop alternatives.

For example:
◆ cheap, low energy desalination, like every marine creature uses.
◆ cheap, nourishing, vat-grown food. This is actually starting to take off. We already have vat-grown meat, and various vat-grown supplementary foods. I include in my vegetable meals a vat-grown, genetically engineered yeast which produces vitamin B12, which is useful to me as I am mostly vegetarian. Supplementing my diet with big doses of B vitamins is also useful as I have a theory (hypothesis really) that our B vitamin requirements increase as we age.
◆ energy efficiency. (It’s always cheaper to avoid having to pay for energy.) Incentives in a number of countries are completely changing the supply of energy, so that producers help customers use less.
◆ upcoming space missions to asteroids specifically to prospect for metals could almost eliminate the need to mine on Earth. Just one high purity metal asteroid parked in Earth orbit could change everything. The best part will be the expected bonanza of rare-earth metals — the ones we have on Earth are generally the remains of meteorite impacts.
◆ artificial intelligence (AI) could sufficiently destroy the standard employment model that few people travel to work anymore, saving tremendously on fuel and other resources. Google has now manufactured neural net chips that will make constructing AIs easier than ever before.
◆ the move to solid state storage in computers will mean data centers will cost far less to run. Last year Samsung demonstrated their new 16 Terabyte solid state drive. I can hardly wait to get my hands on one of those.
◆ the change from Intel chips to ARM chips is massively reducing the power requirements of computers.

You might be interested in the fact that the extreme efficiency of electric cars over petroleum powered ones has had an unexpected side-effect — the flying car appears to have finally arrived.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLrl6HUNgzg

FreethinkerApril 27, 2017 at 10:00 pm

Do not even waste time in thinking in technology based alternatives if they are going the replace mining and other resources that will go against the interest of few billionaires and corporations.
Speculation to keep resources including food at high prices which cost the life of thousands of people it is happens now and no government it is acting on it.
The FAO report say, quote:
Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted.
Food losses and waste amounts to roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialized countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries.
Industrialized and developing countries dissipate roughly the same quantities of food — respectively 670 and 630 million tonnes.
Fruits and vegetables, plus roots and tubers have the highest wastage rates of any food.
Global quantitative food losses and waste per year are roughly 30% for cereals, 40-50% for root crops, fruits and vegetables, 20% for oil seeds, meat and dairy plus 35% for fish.
Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes).
The amount of food lost or wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world’s annual cereals crop (2.3 billion tonnes in 2009/2010).
Per capita waste by consumers is between 95-115 kg a year in Europe and North America, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, south and south-eastern Asia, each throw away only 6-11 kg a year.
End of quote

Data from 2007, it found that UK households wasted a third of all their food, with nearly 90 per cent of that waste going to landfill. It concluded that about 60 per cent of that waste was avoidable.
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/09d28fda-98e4-11e5-9228-87e603d47bdc

Just on that figures there will be food to feed the ones that go without and with better administration be able to even sustain a bigger population.
When there is a will there is a way, so far there is no a will, we cannot even care about our homeless people in Australia.

My apologies to be realistic again.

HarquebusApril 27, 2017 at 10:14 pm

Miriam English
Thanks for that. A 16TB solid state drive is something that I wouldn’t mind either.

As I stated to you last week, alternatives might be feasible with a reduced population and subsequent reduction in consumption however, with our present business model of growth at all costs, the consequent disruptions will, in my opinion, be too great to facilitate them.

The youtube has been taken down. If it is the one that resembles a drone then, I have seen it.
I appreciate very much the information that you bring to my attention. Thank you.

Freethinker
Without petroleum fuels, we will not produce enough food and even if we could, we wouldn’t be able to deliver it.
There will be no waste. Trust me on this one.

Cheers.

Matters NotApril 27, 2017 at 10:32 pm

Miriam English @ 9:30 pm

Would you please stop being so positive. Think of what it’s doing to H’s raison d’être.

Miriam EnglishApril 28, 2017 at 9:31 am

Harquebus, I’ve debunked the statement on fertiliser production via the Haber process requiring fossil fuels before. It doesn’t. All it needs is a source of energy. It has been shown the sun is a perfectly usable replacement for that source of heat. Why do you keep repeating falsehoods?

This is extremely frustrating. I don’t think you have a malicious intent. I think it’s that you’re so very focussed on doom that you honestly forget. Be careful, Harquebus, your pessimism is distorting your view and causing you to work towards bringing on the very doom you say you oppose. By all means point out problems, but don’t push people to throw away genuine solutions.

Freethinker, yes, I too have gone on at length before about the extraordinary waste of food we in the “developed” nations are responsible for. The waste of food from restaurants is considerably worse than that from private residences, so it is even worse than you say. There are moves afoot to change it. Unfortunately that change will remain slow and intermittent until the cost of food becomes so great that we in the First World find food becoming unaffordable.

The main problem of food waste comes from the way fresh food spoils so quickly. My personal solution to this is to buy frozen food and dried food. It’s not a great solution because, although it means I don’t throw away food anymore, it costs energy to run the freezer. I do have a fairly efficient freezer, and my electricity costs are zero due to the house running on solar electricity, but I plan to build a much more efficient freezer that has no moving parts (so could last for centuries) which has much more efficient insulation.

Vat-produced food has great potential to reduce cost and ecological impact, while increasing shelf-life. Simply reducing the rate at which foods go “off” would slash waste massively. Vat-grown meat is already better by any metric than meat from livestock and has the potential to dramatically impact deforestation and ecocide. Future vat-grown food oils will leave palm oil plantations uneconomic and do more to preserve Orangutans than all the protests and petitions ever will. (I still protest palm oil deforestation and sign petitions to stop corporations funding it.)

It has now become economically viable to grow some foods right in the city where they will be consumed. They’re in warehouses which have crops in layers, stacked sometimes 30 layers high, using the same area of land for many more times the food production possible on standard farms, while using 90% less water, no pesticides, and no herbicides. This is already happening right now, not in the future.

Increasingly the tops of buildings in cities are being used for food gardens too, especially in Singapore. Some cities are experimenting with vertical gardens to make use of all that wasted space.

Freethinker, your statement that we shouldn’t “waste time in thinking in technology based alternatives if they are going the replace mining and other resources that will go against the interest of few billionaires and corporations” gives in to conspiratorial paranoia. While there is undeniably some degree of conspiracy at work, and we should maintain some healthy level of paranoia when regarding blights like Gina Rheinhart and the IPA, nevertheless we should also recognise that renewed interest in mining the asteroids and boosting safe, sustainable food production is coming largely from billionaires. There are more than a few billionaires who have a very strong interest in social wellbeing. Yes, they do exist. Some examples are Elon Musk, Peter Diamandis, Nick Hanauer, and there are many more. Not all billionaires are wealth-obsessed arseholes. And even some of the arseholes have realised that their chance of surviving a major meltdown of civilisation is not great, so have been working to fix things for selfish reasons.

Matters Not, oops, sorry. I’ll try to be more pessimistic. 🙂
The world is not coming to and end.
(Dammit! How did that pesky “not” get in there? I did it again, didn’t I?)

FreethinkerApril 28, 2017 at 9:46 am

Miriam.with respect I disagree with you, it is not a conspiratorial paranoia it is a reality and the billionaires that you are referring are a little minority that their business depends in many cases in using resources from the billionaires and corporations that I referring to.
As an example I have not seen yet a country, corporation or rich individual that is protesting or try to organize a massive protest to what it is happens in Brasil.
We have to accept that as long as we do not do something about greed by putting our moral values first we are going in decline.
On an note of greed and dis proportioned distribution of wealth, the news has just reported that the owner of Amazon increased his fortune in 4 minutes by 4.4 billions Australian dollars.
Something will have to give.

Miriam EnglishApril 28, 2017 at 9:48 am

Damn. You’re right. Dagogo’s video has been taken down. Effin’ copyright notice. Bastards. He only uses a small part of their film and promotes their damn cause for them!

Lucky I got the video when I did.

I’ve uploaded it to my website. Grab it before they serve me with a takedown notice too.
[video src="https://miriam-english.org/FlyingCar.mp4" /]

And no, I don’t think it looks anything like a drone, so you’re probably thinking of something else.

HarquebusApril 28, 2017 at 9:54 am

Miriam English

There is more to agricultural fertilizers than just nitrogenous.
Search criteria: peak phosphorous

I haven’t mentioned fertilizers for a month. What brought on that statement?
If it was this; “Without petroleum fuels, we will not produce enough food and even if we could, we wouldn’t be able to deliver it.” then, you have once more taken my statement out of context. Our industrial food production system is, from farm to plate, totally dependent on petroleum fuels and will fail due to the depletion of this vital resource.

We can make all the nitrogenous fertilizers that we can and it will still be useless if, it can’t be delivered to where it is needed.

“Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food.” — Prof. Albert Bartlett.

There is only one solution which is in the title of this article as is the consequences if we don’t.

Cheers.

HarquebusApril 28, 2017 at 10:32 am

Miriam English
This is not nearly as sophisticated as the one that you have presented.
http://theantimedia.org/google-flying-cars-kitty-hawk-flyer/
Cheers.

Miriam EnglishApril 28, 2017 at 10:45 am

Freethinker, you mean like Johan Eliasch, the Swedish millionaire who bought up nearly half a million acres of Brazilian rainforest to protect it? (Predictably the Murdoch media created a hysterical series of bullshit stories trying to make him look bad.)

It happens all over the world. Here in Queensland a couple has turned their land — large area of threatened wilderness into protected land. It is Bimblebox Reserve. https://bimblebox.org (Unfortunately it may be destroyed by Adani’s coalmine soon.)

In Indonesia a Dutch scientist (forgotten his name) has been working to make forests that protect orangutans by surrounding them with spiky oil palms planted so close together that it discourages humans gaining entry. In this particular case the oil palms provide income for the tribes who protect these forests. Win-win.

But, yeah, Jeff Bezos has turned into a despicable, evil bastard. A pity. He began by doing something really good. The money and power seems to have gone to his head.

Miriam EnglishApril 28, 2017 at 11:11 am

Harquebus, yes, phosphorus is a problem because it washes off into the ocean, but because of that there is plenty of it in the ocean. Some places have resorted to using seaweed to fertilise land. I seem to recall kelp is the fastest growing plant in the world, so plenty of potential there. You’ve been able to buy seaweed fertiliser in any garden supply store for many decades.

But please be truthful; you meant nitrogenous fertiliser, and you were speaking particularly of the Haber process. And you were wrong to say it can’t work without fossil fuels.

As for transport, you know electric vehicles exist and are growing in number. And before you repeat (ad nauseum) that there are no electric trucks, just do a simple google search and note all the companies already that manufacture electric trucks (which I’ve already pointed out to you but you repeatedly pretend to forget!!!). Some have existed for decades. Electric trucks are actually considerably more efficient than petroleum powered trucks.

What brought on my reaction is that you appear to completely disregard reality in making your pronouncements of doom. It gets really frustrating because you are categorically wrong to do so and it drives people to give up. We need people to see the problems and the solutions. You simply try to overwhelm people with problems. If you can’t see the solutions then I respectfully ask that you shut up until you’ve done some genuine research. The solutions are there. You just have to put a little effort into seeing them. Even when I supply some you seem to go all glassy-eyed and refuse to acknowledge them.

There are many solutions that will help to alleviate all the pressing problems while population growth slows, which you know it already is. In the near future it will stop growing altogether, then actually reduce. This will happen without any further actions. You know this, yet for some inexplicable reason you act as if you don’t.

We need to have other steps in place to make sure that when we get to a shrinking population we still have a livable planet. If you have your way it just won’t happen. You are so solely focussed on the impossible that you’ve given up long ago and are trying to drag everybody else down with you. This is really, really shortsighted, selfish, and infuriating.

FreethinkerApril 28, 2017 at 11:56 am

No Miriam, I mean the majority in Brasil, the ones that kill and killed indigenous people to gain more land under the protection of the current government and the multinationals that are purchasing the products, I mean the shareholders of the oil exploration companies that also kill the locals and I can go on and on.
I do not read Murdoch or any other media that are supporting that.
I am disappointing that after I have posted so many comments and few articles you think that I can base my opinion in sources like that.

diannaartApril 28, 2017 at 12:24 pm

Miriam

Your comments are highly valued and the effort you put in.

There ARE alternatives, we can make amends… we have the technology… except its gonna cost way more than $6million (if anyone here is old enough to recall $6million man).

The future certainly looks scary, but then it always has to we upstart primates. All we can do is repeat to the doom&gloomers – the answers, just like the truth is out there, but you won’t find it if your radar is switched to apocalypse only.

OK – I think I have made sufficient pop references for one day. Another cuppa and maybe my brain will start to function.

Here’s a little link from the indefatigable Giles Parkinson:

Plunging solar, wind costs means “green” fuel exports could replace coal and gas

The Australian government is expected to put hydrogen energy near the top of its clean energy investment shopping list, as it looks to tackle issues such as the domestic gas crisis, the increased reliance on transport fuel imports, and an opportunity to establish the country as a renewable energy export powerhouse.

Next week, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency is expected to announce that hydrogen projects will become one of its new investment priorities in the coming year, just as the country is being urged to seize an opportunity to maintain its status as a major energy exporter, but this time with “green” hydrogen fuels rather than coal or gas.

The government is being told that “green fuel” exports – powered by wind and solar – could reach $40 billion a year in the next few decades, a market equivalent in size to the export coal industry, and essential if Australia is to maintain its pivotal position as a major fuel supplier in a decarbonised world.

Hydrogen is also being pushed as an alternative to battery storage and pumped hydro to store “excess” wind and solar output in Australia, particularly in wind and solar rich South Australia, and is also seen as a potential transport alternative to electric vehicles as petrol-fueled internal combustion engines are phased out.

Victoria’s brown coal resources have been the focus of some investigations into hydrogen-based exports, particularly by the likes of Kawasaki, but this is seen as untenable in a carbon constrained world, even if they are dubbed as “carbon neutral” thanks to sequestration.

The main push now is in renewable-based hydrogen, and it is being led by South Australia and the ACT, the two states and territories with the biggest commitment to wind and solar energy.

The ACT, which expects to source the equivalent of 100 per cent of its electricity needs from wind and solar, has facilitated $180 million into hydrogen investments, including an electrolyser, a fuel cell trial and using hydrogen to store excess wind and solar.

South Australia, which is already meeting 50 per cent of its local demand through wind and solar, and could jump to more than 80 per cent within five years, has also commissioned a major study into the hydrogen economy, both for storing excess wind and solar, and as a possible export…

The above has been thoughtfully provided for those who had no intention on clicking on link.

😉

HarquebusApril 28, 2017 at 12:26 pm

Miriam English
I hope that you will not mind if I take someone else’s word for it over yours.

“Alice Friedemann is a transportation expert sounding the alarm on the unsustainable nature of our modern trucking system, which is critical for delivering goods where they need to be, when they need to be, in our just-in-time economy.”
“If you can’t run trucks on electricity, what’s the point? That is the nub of the problem that we face. This is a liquid fuels transportation crisis. And electricity does absolutely nothing to solve that problem. If you can’t electrify trucks, then game over.”
https://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/100873/alice-friedemann-when-trucks-stop-running

http://energyskeptic.com/2016/all-of-california-electricity-per-year-to-power-16000-catenary-trucks-on-2400-to-8275-miles-of-highway/

When Trucks Stop Running, So Does Civilization. Energy and the Future of Transportation.

“You’ve been able to buy seaweed fertiliser in any garden supply store for many decades.”
This will not always be the case.

“And you were wrong to say it can’t work without fossil fuels.”
The whole modern industrial supply chain will grind to a halt without petroleum fuels.

As I keep saying, unless populations are reduced all other solutions are temporary. Also, as I keep saying, you have no understanding of dependency of industry on supply chains nor their fragility to disruptions. The loss of one key resource or component can bring everything to a halt.

I have no intention changing my gloom and doom commenting. I and others have failed in our quest to save our modern civilization and society. My goal now is to salvage as much as possible and to save as many as I can and I am not going to let you nor others deter me.
The number of people that ignore or criticize me gives me a good indication of how many are going to survive the coming transition.

You might not have noticed, since you don’t watch TV that, calls are being made to extract more gas to solve Australia’s energy problems. No one has suggested depopulation and conservation. My pessimistic outlook is justified.

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishApril 28, 2017 at 1:08 pm

Freethinker, sorry, I wasn’t criticising you. I didn’t mean for you to think I was. I was just putting an opposing point. You were saying that “I have not seen yet a country, corporation or rich individual that is protesting or try to organize a massive protest to what it is happens in Brasil” so I posted that example to provide at least one. There are others. I wasn’t suggesting that you read the Murdoch press either, I was just noting the Murdoch treatment because in searching for Eliasch’s name I found a lot of awful Murdoch articles about him.

Be careful with consuming too much doom and gloom media. They want you to feel hopeless and powerless. But there is hope and we do have power. For example we finally, today, succeeded in getting WestPac to give up on funding Adani’s disastrous mine. We are changing things. It is slow, but it is happening.

This is why I get so angry at Harquebus. He goes into an orgy of doom and gloom doing his utmost to convince everybody that we’re all screwed. I don’t know how many people he depresses into giving up, but he’s wrong. There are a lot of changes happening for the good. Yes, things are very bad, but there are a heck of a lot of good people working very hard to fix things. But because of the Murdoch media and people like Harquebus we don’t get to hear them because they get drowned out by all the doom and gloom. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

It is especially bad for the younger generation. I’ve met young folk who have been convinced to give up, saying, “Screw it, the older generation has destroyed my future so I’ll just live it up and party til it all goes to shit.” I’ve succeeded in convincing some of them that it’s not over yet and there are genuine solutions and people working on them. They’ve often then changed to working on solutions themselves.

Harquebus’ way just ensures the end of the world so that he can sit in the ruin and say, “Told you so.”
He’s going to look pretty stupid and selfish when we do fix things.

Kaye LeeApril 28, 2017 at 1:19 pm

Miriam, I truly don;’t know why you bother. Harquebus is one of those people who is so completely invested in his outdated scenario that he cannot possibly listen to anyone. If he doesn’t think something can be done then it can’t. End of story. It would be pointless to point out the innovations in electric trucks. it would be pointless to point out that education and lifting people out of poverty makes the population decline naturally. He can’t hear anything above his blaring klaxon bell. You aren’t saving anyone Harquebus. You are the ostrich, blind to all innovation and to all improvements. You just want to kill people or make them stop having sex – what sort of solution is that?

HarquebusApril 28, 2017 at 1:30 pm

Miriam English
“when we do fix things”
When, exactly, do you think that this might happen?

Kaye Lee
“You just want to kill people or make them stop having sex”
I have never said anything of the sort.

When one looks with an open mind at the deteriorating states of our our environment, politics and economy, one has to wonder what dreamworld both of you are living in.

Cheers.

FreethinkerApril 28, 2017 at 1:46 pm

Thank you Miriam for your reply.
I do not go by the doom and gloom media. many of them are far to much bias to one side and others are just not well informed.
My opinion in some countries in South America including Brasil are base on relatives and sources that I can rely on and not in the media from “both sides”.
I many cases I know that my posts sound negative, bitter or out of hope but I try to be realistic based in history and reality of what it is actually happens.
It would be nice to see things only in the positive side trying to “mask” what the majority want (based on their actions including selecting their leaders) but unfortunately Miriam we are in the minority and time after time we get disappointed when our hopes are destroyed by ignorance and greed.
We need to educate people, make the young generations engage in the struggle to change things, we need the people to stop mortgage their freedom, their right and even their dignity to support their need (greed?) to have more consuming what it is not needed.
That it is the root of the problem for me, we lost the people power and IMHO (based on the South America experience) suffering and lowering the standard of living will be the only hope for people to weak up.

Jack StrawApril 28, 2017 at 1:47 pm

Harquebus: I think you should turn of your laptop and cool off and get out that van and go for a walk around your caravan park!

Miriam EnglishApril 28, 2017 at 3:31 pm

Harquebus, see? That’s exactly your problem. In asking when we might fix things you completely ignore the enormous effort going on at the moment and in the recent past to reverse the destruction. It is being fixed now, Harquebus. Now! It has been for some time and it is continuing. But you can’t see it because you refuse to look.

What Kaye said was right. You advocate exactly that. Your repeated statement that we should immediately depopulate translates to either mass killings, or prohibiting sex, or mass sterilisations. Yours is a case where the “solution” is as bad as the problem. It is especially egregious as population growth is slowing and will end soon — already has in many First World nations.

Wake up Harquebus. Open your eyes and look at reality, not the comforting computer game apocalypse you adore so much. You can’t possibly consider yours an open mind if you refuse to look at all the information.

Kaye LeeApril 28, 2017 at 3:48 pm

Everyone writing on this blog will be dead before the end of the century and most of us within the next few decades. Humankind on earth will be wiped out by the sun’s death throes. Faced with these inevitabilities what should we do? We should keep bloody well striving for every little improvement we can make. You can shut up shop and head for the hills if you like but, to me, that’s like moving into a nursing home when you are 20 because one day you may be incapable of independent living. Every little improvement we make gives us that little bit longer to come up with alternatives.

“The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination” ….eventually.

diannaartApril 28, 2017 at 3:50 pm

The trend towards common sense, begins slowly but now significantly established with Westpac withdrawing from funding new coal mines. OK they’re still investing in proven value mines, BUT…

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-28/westpac-adds-coal-to-its-lending-black-list/8479600

Green activists claim victory but say more needs to be done

The Newcastle coal quality benchmark cited by Westpac is far above the quality of the deposits in Queensland’s Galilee Basin and the coal at the Adani mine, which has an average energy content of 4,950 kCal/kg.

Adani is an existing client of Westpac, having part-financed its purchase of the Abbott Point Coal Terminal in Queensland, adding weight to its decision to block lending for the planned Carmichael mine.

“The fact that an existing lender to Adani has now ruled out financing the proposed Carmichael mine makes this announcement even more significant,” Julien Vincent, executive director of Market Forces, which supports renewable energy, said.

“With such a toxic political debate on coal at the moment, and a government falling over themselves to throw money at this dirty fuel, statements like these send a powerful message that coal is rapidly going out of fashion in the business and finance community.”

Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analytics’ director of finance studies Tim Buckley described the policy change as “absolutely pathbreaking.”

FreethinkerApril 28, 2017 at 3:56 pm

KayeLee, I think that it is our responsibility to try to leave this world in a better shape that was when we come or at the very least the same but not worse.
How I am going to face our grand children or perhaps my great grand children if we have not done a single bit for their future ?

Kaye LeeApril 28, 2017 at 4:19 pm

Of course we must fight for our children’s futures. That is the whole point. Our children will have a future if we continue to make improvements. Harquebus poo poos renewable energy because it, at the moment, requires some fossil fuels in production. But he refuses to agree it is an improvement which is just bloody minded. We must get better at reusing, recycling, waste management and energy efficiency – and we are.

HarquebusApril 28, 2017 at 4:25 pm

Miriam English
For someone who refuses to join my mailing list or follow my links, it is a bit rich to accuse me of refusing to look which, is not true in any case. It is you that refuses to look at all of the information.

” translates to either mass killings, or prohibiting sex, or mass sterilisations.”
Again, I have never said any such thing and your translation is, as usual, concocted from your imagination only.

Repeat: “It is the growth rate only that is decreasing. The growth rate has halved since its maximum during the sixties however, since then our population has more than doubled.”

Kaye Lee
“Every little improvement we make gives us that little bit longer to come up with alternatives.”
Does that mean we don’t currently have any? It surely does. Please read again the title of this article.

Some reading for you both.

I have posted this link previously and am sure that no one has bothered to read it. Dennis Meadows is the author of the 1972 Limits to Growth.
“There are only two ways to reduce the growth of humanity: reduction in the birth rate or increase the death rate. Which would you prefer?”
http://churchandstate.org.uk/2013/04/dennis-meadows-there-is-nothing-that-we-can-do/

“The growth of industrial production would however lead to increase pollution and wastes as well as to resource depletion. It would be these two processes that would feed back and eventually lead to a decline in both industrial and food production.”
“This problem of having to use progressively inferior resources as depletion occurs is also especially true of fossil fuels because once they have been burned they cannot be re-cycled or re-used.”
“Will the growth of renewables be sufficient to sustain economic growth and sustain a consumer society? Some people think so. But among experts there is a huge gulf in opinion and the debate has sometimes been acrimonious.”

Limits to economic growth?

“It turns out that once depletion has proceeded to the point where extraction rates start to decline, the relationship between oil prices and the economy shifts significantly.”
“Unfortunately EROI calculations tend to be slippery because they depend upon system boundaries. Draw a close boundary around an energy production system and you are likely to arrive at a higher EROI calculation; draw a wide boundary, and the EROI ratio will be lower. That’s why some EROI calculations for solar PV are in the range of 20:1 while others are closer to 2:1. That’s a very wide divergence, with enormous practical implications.”

Juggling Live Hand Grenades

Cheers.

Kaye LeeApril 28, 2017 at 5:42 pm

You show enormous arrogance Harquebus though I am sure you don’t realise it. You want everyone to join your mailing list which presumes they don’t do their own research and that you have access to information they don’t.

Regarding your second link…

“Basically technical progress and increased production was equivalent to moral progress because the chief problem facing humanity is want or “scarcity”.

The author seems to ignore fairer distribution and the positive implications of that.

On renewables….

“On this there is a great gulf between what I would term the cornucopians and those who are more sceptical to the point of being described as doomers. The distance in estimates of future potential is really huge. A recent article in the journal “Energy Policy” pointed out that estimates of the global technical potential for renewables vary by up to two orders of magnitude – in other words the optimists think there is 100 times more available energy than the pessimists.”

Yes there is. And I do understand the point about what do you include….but when they widen the inclusion to talk about renewables, they never compare it to a wider inclusion with the health and climate costs of fossil fuels. We are aiming to improve all the time. If that wider comparison is better for renewables then they don’t have to be the complete answer – they buy us time.

HarquebusApril 28, 2017 at 7:56 pm

Kaye Lee
Yes and most do not have the time to read the amount that I do. Politicians and journalists I will not remove from my list but, personal addresses, as in Miriam’s case, I will on request.

Bang for joule, it would be far better to minimize the use of fossil fuels rather than to invest them in “renewables”. We would end up with more energy in the long run.

Perhaps if organizations such as the U.N., G20, E.U., ASEAN and such all advocated a years long zero child policy and if, the same organizations advocated rations and quotas for everything including energy and were willing to accept very high unemployment and if, these things did happen and was followed up with the implementation of a one child policy then, after a generation or two, our descendants might have some chance of surviving whatever climate it is that they have inherited and the resources needed to develop sustainable agriculture in a changed environment for a much small population.
I doubt that this or some other radical implementation which, is what is needed will occur so, the current plague of humans will end the same way that all plagues have ended.

Wanna get through to the other side? I do. Get ready.

“Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.” –- Isaac Asimov, Foundation

Cheers.

Kaye LeeApril 28, 2017 at 8:14 pm

Stop with your zero child policy. It is ridiculous. It is unachievable. Are you going to chase women through the bushes to inflict compulsory abortions? Quotas would be very likely to just result in a thriving black market where the rich get everything. The one child policy has had dreadful consequences in China – .by 2020, there will be between 30 million and 35 million more Chinese men of marrying age than women. Why can’t you accept that education and lifting people out of poverty does the job?.

“Any fool can make totally impractical suggestions. The real service to the state is to come up with improvements that are feasible” – Kaye Lee, the AIMN

FreethinkerApril 28, 2017 at 8:37 pm

I agree with you Kaye Lee, education is the way and is the base for reduce the gap between classes.
Regarding reduce population and education it is interesting to see what happens in Uruguay when an educated population is having children according to their income, the point that the population is ageing and if continuing like this will be economical unsustainable.
The population grow rate is 0.36%

HarquebusApril 28, 2017 at 8:48 pm

Kaye Lee
“chase women through the bushes to inflict compulsory abortions?”
Of course not.
A zero or one child policy and such are not ridiculous nor unachievable. They are highly unlikely and only unrealistic when considering the current growth mindset of politicians, business and the general public.

We would have to give up a lot to alleviate poverty. I don’t think that the general public will go along considering their unwillingness to go without in order to limit the consequences of global warming. Like you, most prefer to think that, something will come along.

Cheers.

Kaye LeeApril 28, 2017 at 9:02 pm

Here,

The annual population growth rate for the year ended 30 September 2016 was 1.5% …. 0.83% was due to migration and 0.67% to natural increase.

Kaye LeeApril 28, 2017 at 9:05 pm

How dismissive you are Harquebus. Pat me on my pretty little head and off I go , there’s a good girl. Your sanctimonious ignorance is astonishing. Enough time wasted here.

FreethinkerApril 28, 2017 at 9:05 pm

This is good, very good!
I want more!
Australia’s first rescued-food supermarket opens in Sydney
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/28/australias-first-rescued-food-supermarket-opens-in-sydney

HarquebusApril 28, 2017 at 10:02 pm

Kaye Lee
My apologies.
It was not my intention to give you that impression. I was merely stating my perception which, included you.
Thank you for reading those articles. I will be looking out for changes in your attitude to see if they have had any effect.
Sanctimonious and ignorant I ain’t.
Cheers.

Matters NotApril 28, 2017 at 10:35 pm

Sanctimonious and ignorant I ain’t.

The evidence suggests otherwise. And it’s overwhelming. And forget the apologies bit. The constant repetition of an apology is just so hollow. That you read widely is possibly true. That you have absolutely no capacity to bring ‘judgement’ to such readings is on much safer grounds.

As for:

I will be looking out for changes in your attitude to see if they have had any effect.

Hilarious!

I was going to say – ‘get out more’. But that would be a mistake. And at so many levels. (But I suspect you wouldn’t understand the message.) And – so very, very sad.

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithApril 28, 2017 at 11:18 pm

why are you not prepared to listen to Miriam?

Why do you think you alone have the answers?

You state we must not condone growth and we must aim for population reduction, but refuse to acknowledge positive moves afoot already.

Why stay ignorant and self-destructive?

Miriam EnglishApril 28, 2017 at 11:34 pm

Harquebus, “I will be looking out for changes in your attitude to see if they have had any effect.
Sanctimonious and ignorant I ain’t.”

Amazing. You really don’t see it do you?

I won’t be looking for changes in your attitude. Sadly, I don’t think it’s possible. You’re locked into an inflexible state where you only consider negative news. If there is good news you reflexively believe it wrong, dismiss it, and continue unchanged. Your strikingly blinkered understanding of the world means you are utterly unable to see how astonishingly wrong you are.

You don’t even see it when your own sources talk about renewables giving greater than unity returns. That’s how effective your filters are. It’s all invisible to you unless it’s depressing. It causes you to have this screwy belief that depressing=realistic, but that’s more than just wrong; it’s total batshit crazy. Reality contains both depressing and uplifting things, both problems and solutions.

To say airily that a year-long moratorium on pregnancy would solve population pressures is just ludicrous. Firstly, it is impossible for many practical reasons. Secondly all it would gain is a year’s delay in population change even if it was effective. But I guarantee it would have a number of negative effects, such as panicking people who were holding off on having babies so that they would bring forward intentional pregnancies. There’s nothing like the threat of losing something to make people desperately want it. You see? Your limited understanding of psychology means we’re back to either leaving well enough alone and concentrating on improving the standard of living of the poorest people in order to speed population decline, or else your originally suggested (perhaps a year ago) draconian measures of mass killings, or forced sterilisations, or prohibitions on pregnancy.

You’re not being realistic by seeing only one side. You’re lying to yourself. Precisely why you would do this to yourself, I don’t understand, but considering the insane things people regularly do to themselves I’m not going to lose any sleep puzzling over it.

You seriously need to stop being so damn arrogant and so ignorant.
If nothing else do it for my sake. I get so damn infuriated by the constant repetition of your feckless false statements.

(Whew! 🙂 )

Miriam EnglishApril 28, 2017 at 11:40 pm

Harquebus, there’s also that weird thing you do that’s so reminiscent of religious nutters, where you think, they’re all telling me I’m wrong so I must be right.

Matters NotApril 28, 2017 at 11:48 pm

reflexively believe it wrong

Well it must be true – because if it isn’t then my whole world is fallin’ down … fallin’ down

No one wants to lose their (intellectual) baby. So to speak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-2IQ3CXPiQ

HarquebusApril 29, 2017 at 8:57 am

Thank you Jennifer, Matters Not and Miriam for your recent comments.

I do listen. I just do not agree with you all.
“You’re locked into an inflexible state”; Not so. It is our predicament that is locked in and consequently, my attitude and outlook are unlikely to change.
Yes, some of the articles that I link to describing our problems also advocate renewable energy. They, like all renewable advocates, are wrong on that point.
I actually wrote “years long” plural and I know that it is unlikely and said so.
I have never supported “mass killings, or forced sterilisations”.

In my opinion, it is my critics who are one sided, are deluding themselves and are ignoring the root causes of the continuing deterioration in our environment, politics and the economy. How much more must we endure before the majority wake up to themselves?

It’s over. The fossil fueled growth binge can not be sustained. By not accepting this fact nor preparing for the inevitable economic slowdown, happening now, economic collapse and the subsequent social collapse becomes unavoidable.

Why am I right and my critics wrong? Mathematics and physics or more specifically, the mathematics of compound growth and the limiting factors of geophysics.
Miriam English is a scientist of some sort I think and Kaye Lee is a former maths teacher. It amazes me that neither has a good grasp of either and yet, regularly tell me that I am the arrogant and ignorant one.

“He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.” — John McCarthy

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishApril 29, 2017 at 10:22 am

Here’s the thing: nobody here denies the problems. We all see them, Harquebus. We all acknowledge the pressing danger and the risks. Yet you alone can’t see any way forward. What does that say?

There is great danger in the continued growth of population. Nobody here would argue against that, but we can see that growth is slowing and will plateau soon, and thereafter fall. Can we slow population growth more? Yes, by raising the quality of life of the world’s poorest. Is there time to avert truly devastating calamities? Nobody can say… except you do anyway, using obsolete population models.

There are very pressing problems with ecocide all around the world. It is very worrying. Again, none here will argue with that, but nobody actually knows the full ramifications of the damage, how many keystone species will die out to bring down entire systems, or how many can be salvaged… but you say you know anyway.

Energy is a major problem mainly because of political corruption and institutional inertia. The technological solutions to our energy problems are relatively easy to implement and have been well understood for decades… except you say they aren’t.

You’re back to the tired old “mathematics and physics prove me right” line. It is exactly what every doom merchant has said in the past — right before new technologies, resources, or approaches changed all the ground rules. What you really mean is that if everything continues on the trajectory it was on about 50 years ago then we’re all screwed. And you’d be right — except things are no longer on that course. Things have changed. Population is no longer growing exponentially. Although our civilisation is obscenely wasteful it isn’t as bad as it was back then. During the oil crisis of the ’80s people changed their ways and it became fashionable to be more energy conscious and to recycle. Now everybody recycles, efficiency is becoming fashionable again, and we have new technologies and even whole new branches of science that we didn’t have back then. You’re living deep in the past. We have genuine solutions available to us now, and people have already begun implementing them, impatient of waiting for the corrupt politicians.

In fact, mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, and logic all prove you wrong.
You’re using outdated assumptions and living in an echo chamber with other panic-merchants.

Will we succeed in fixing the awful problems facing us? Nobody really knows for sure. The only sensible choice is to proceed on the assumption that we can fix things, because to prematurely decide it is the end simply makes collapse certain.

How many times must this be explained to you Harquebus?

I genuinely wonder if you do have a memory problem. This has all been carefully explained so many times before, yet you continue to make exactly the same errors over and over again. It is as if all this evaporates after you read it. Or maybe it’s just your blinkers that prevent it connecting, like when I point out contradictions in the Bible to a religious person. It feels very much like that.

HarquebusApril 29, 2017 at 11:07 am

Miriam English
Thank you for your considered response. Regardless of our disagreements, I do value your opinions and appreciate your efforts.

“Yet you alone can’t see any way forward.” Not so. The suggestions that I promote are unpopular, unlikely to be implemented and are usually are in conflict with your own overly optimistic unviable solutions.

The consequences of economic and population growth are happening now. “raising the quality of life of the world’s poorest” isn’t going to happen.
Again, you fail to consider supply chain disruptions in an energy constrained slowing economic environment. It isn’t going to be anything like it has been. The unraveling of our industries, also happening now, will accelerate quickly swamping all attempts to evade the consequence via education and technology. The technological solutions that you are betting on will not result. What do I have to do to get you to understand the complexities on modern industrial civilization and why your hoped for solutions are never going eventuate?

“Population is no longer growing exponentially.” Please explain.
Growth at any percentage is still exponential growth.

Your criticisms of me, errors, blinkers, not listening etc., apart from being incorrect, apply equally to yourself.

The political and corporate classes will not accept degrowth as an option therefore, I am justified in my pessimism and stand by what I say.

Cheers.

FreethinkerApril 29, 2017 at 11:36 am

I try to find an article regarding raising the quality of life of the world’s poorest and in the process giving them the right to enjoy the standard of living and consumerism that we enjoy in the western countries.
The article was based on the increase pollution in China and India when a small proportion of their population start consuming like in the western countries and what will happens if the African countries start polluting at the same rate.
I guess that we all know about that, the pollution levels in China are unsustainable for the health of the population and the planet for that matter
What will happens if all the African countries start living like we do?
IMHO even if the population do not increase the results can be catastrophic.
What can be done? Not allow those countries to enjoy the standard of living that we have? Not allow those people to satisfying the need to consume more?
Well the big corporations and governments will no are going to oppose the people to consume more, it will create employment and more wealth to the rich.
The people in the western countries will be not prepared to reduce their “need” to consume more or at the very least keep consuming at the same rate. We just have to remember that the Australian people voted for no CT because it will cost them 2 or 3 cappuccinos a week.
I would like to see what the fellow bloggers thing about this. Not what they will do, what the majority of people will do that it is what matters.

diannaartApril 29, 2017 at 1:33 pm

I was reading through the above comments and suddenly felt inspired to read up on Critical Thinking (am hoping to recommend this as an elective for my niece). Anyway, was trundling through the plethora of information and happened to find this:

The Critical Thinking Process

You should be aware that none of us think critically all the time.

Sometimes we think in almost any way but critically, for example when our self-control is affected by anger, grief or joy or when we are feeling just plain ‘bloody minded’.

https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/critical-thinking.html

Sometimes the argument is lost simply because the need to be ‘correct’ eclipses all else. As others have noted; the religious, climate deniers and other narrow-minded fit the description of “bloody minded”.

Miriam EnglishApril 29, 2017 at 1:40 pm

Improving the quality of life for the world’s poorest is already happening and has been for hundreds of years now.
See the graphic, “Share of the World Population living in Absolute Poverty, 1820-2015”
https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/World-Poverty-Since-1820.png
It’s about a tenth of the way down the page at https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty/
The entire page is very illuminating.

Most recently many people around the world have been working hard on the problem. In particular a number of billionaires have been pouring vast funds into solving it as soon as possible.

Harquebus, you once again launch into your tired and ill-founded argument that the rising costs associated with scarcity of fossil fuels will cause cascading problems elsewhere. [yawn] We have recent history to prove you wrong. During the oil scarcity and high energy costs of the ’80s we didn’t see collapse. People became more careful how they used fuel and research was spurred into alternatives. We now have those alternatives and they work better than they did back then. You can argue til you’re blue in the face that they can’t work without fossil fuels, but you’re wrong.

In any case, I don’t see a future where we entirely abolish fossil fuels. We just need to reduce the majority of most wasteful uses. Move transport over to electricity. Heat and cool homes more efficiently. Generate electricity from renewables. Just those three changes almost eliminate fossil fuel use. We could continue to use fossil fuels in a greatly reduced fashion for hundreds of years, making almost no contribution to global warming.

You see, Harquebus? You are too focussed on collapse. You won’t let anything get in the way of your preciousss… doom.

Harquebus, you said, “Growth at any percentage is still exponential growth.”
You’re deliberately misunderstanding. The percentage gets smaller each year, then goes to zero and begins to decline.

Harquebus, saying that I have blinkers and blind spots doesn’t refute yours. I almost certainly have some blind spots, but at least I admit to mine. You act as if you’re infallible and the keeper of the one real truth.

I don’t like the crazy growth at all costs economy either. But as I’ve shown before, we can actually have an infinitely growing economy without endangering anything if we have an information economy. We already have the beginnings of such a thing. Admittedly we will have quite a way to go before we can convince some of the dunderheads in politics of that wisdom though. One advantage of the coming energy restrictions is it will force that upon society.

Miriam EnglishApril 29, 2017 at 1:44 pm

Diannart, good point. There have been a few times during the [ahem] discussion above that I felt my vision develop a tinge of red. Time to leave off and get some actual work done.

diannaartApril 29, 2017 at 1:51 pm

Miriam

Am trying to develop the wisdom “to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em and know when to walk away”.

Wisdom can be found anywhere, even in the lyrics of a pop song, yet can be the rarest of values.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj4nJ1YEAp4

FreethinkerApril 29, 2017 at 2:52 pm

Miriam English, my point was what would be happen if the share of poverty it is reduced to “acceptable” levels and those populations start consuming like us and if it sustainable for the planet.
I was not addressing if was improving or not, but on that note I replying to your post and link with the data of the World Bank regarding inequality, the number of people living in extreme poverty has grown substantially since 1990,
“While Poverty in Africa Has Declined, Number of Poor Has Increased”
http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/publication/poverty-rising-africa-poverty-report

It is a very complex issue.

Miriam EnglishApril 29, 2017 at 3:54 pm

Diannaart, true. I have always had a bit of a problem in knowing when to just walk away. My Mum told me recently that she used to hope I would never convert to being religious. 🙂 Luckily I never did.

Freethinker, I think the idea is to lift the poorest people up out of deep poverty while we become more efficient in our use of resources so that we meet in a sustainable middle ground, where we all together use less than we in the rich countries currently do.

We waste such a horrifying amount. That, more than anything else is the biggest drain on our resources.

HarquebusApril 29, 2017 at 4:00 pm

Miriam English
“Improving the quality of life for the world’s poorest is already happening and has been for hundreds of years now.”
Being poor and being poverty stricken are not the same. The link that you posted states that poverty has only be decreasing for 3 decades and as I keep saying, it isn’t going to be like the past. Note the diminishing middle class in western societies.

Search criteria: disappearing middle class

“we can actually have an infinitely growing economy without endangering anything”
This is the most absurd thing you that you have ever written and shows that you have learned nothing.

Search criteria: infinite economic growth

Thank you all for the links. Very informative.
In addition to critical thinking, analytical skills are also important especially in regards to the complex systems that support our modern industrial society.

Cheers.

diannaartApril 29, 2017 at 4:18 pm

Harquebus

May I kindly suggest you take a considerable amount of time regarding yourself in a full length mirror.

You no more hold the one and only truth, than do the likes of George Christensen.

Kaye LeeApril 29, 2017 at 4:22 pm

“Growth at any percentage is still exponential growth.”

Speaking as a maths teacher, that is a completely erroneous statement. Brush up on your limit theory.

diannaartApril 29, 2017 at 4:24 pm

@Miriam

My mother wrote a fearful letter to me when I was living in the USA, worried I would be inculcated into some sort of religious cult – I found this very sad, because her concerns were yet another indication of how little she understood me.

Now, if she had been worried about my adventures into sex, drugs and rock’nroll….

We all get things wrong some of the time, Harquebus.

HarquebusApril 29, 2017 at 5:22 pm

Kaye Lee
I admit to not having heard of that theory before today. Is it a theory only? A cursory search has found no application of the theory to exponential equations. Please provide me with links to support your claim. A Year 11 maths text book that I have contains a whole section titled “Models of Growth” which, I have read and does not mention “limit theory” in the section nor in the index.

“A Gallery of Exponential, Logarithmic, and Hyperbolic Functions”
http://www.milefoot.com/math/planecurves/expfcns.htm

diannart
Thank you for your suggestions. If I am wrong, no harm done but, if I am right in my assessments and I am sure that I am then, a lot of people are going to be in deep poo poo. I do think highly of you and do not want to see you in it.
I also was adventurous in my youth.

Cheers.

Kaye LeeApril 29, 2017 at 6:08 pm

I don’t know what you mean by “is it a theory only”. A theorem in maths is an incontrovertible proof.

A practical example is the old story of the frog jumping out of a well. Every time he jumps half the remaining distance to the top so, in theory, he never gets out, but there is a limiting position for how far he’s travelled. The graph would continue to go up as x approaches infinity but it would approach a limit as an asymptote, the limit being the height of the well.

If every person divided into two people, we would have exponential growth. If every couple has two children, our growth is only due to increased longevity. If women on average have less than two children each, population will eventually decline. As we “approach infinity”, which seems very close, available resources will also be a limiting factor to population which is something you well know.

Japan’s population shrunk by almost 1 million people between 2010 and 2015 and they are far from alone here. The U.N. has estimated that a total of 48 countries will see their population decline by 2050.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/02/26/its-official-japans-population-is-drastically-shrinking/?utm_term=.18de5a40a6b5

HarquebusApril 29, 2017 at 6:50 pm

Kaye Lee

Thank you for responding. I appreciate it.
I see; “Limit theorem” is the correct term. Still, I found no examples of it being applied to the exponential function.

The scenario that you describe is a “logarithmic function [and] is the inverse of the exponential function.” Refer to the milefoot.com link in the comment above yours.
I made no distinction between logarithmic and exponential growth so, technically, you were correct however, the context of my statement implies exponential.

Previously, you made this statement.
“The annual population growth rate for the year ended 30 September 2016 was 1.5% …. 0.83% was due to migration and 0.67% to natural increase.”

At a steady 1.5% growth rate, our population will double about every 46.66 years. At that rate, our population would be 100 million around the year 2110. At 0.67%, our population would be 50 million around the year 2120.

70 / Annual_%_rate = Years_to_double
70 / Years_to_double = Annual_%_rate

If one invested $100 and wanted to double it in 10 years. The required annual growth rate would be 7%.

Did you ever get around to seeing Prof. Bartlett’s video? If not, I still recommend it for you. For the link, search this page for Bartlett.

Cheers.

Kaye LeeApril 29, 2017 at 6:51 pm

As for “Miriam English is a scientist of some sort I think and Kaye Lee is a former maths teacher. It amazes me that neither has a good grasp of either and yet, regularly tell me that I am the arrogant and ignorant one.” Gee now why ever would we say that when you tell us that we do not have a clue about anything. You ARE arrogant and dismissive beyond belief and beyond your capabilities. You are a parrot with no facility to expand the vocabulary you have been taught.

Kaye LeeApril 29, 2017 at 7:13 pm

If the rate of increase is decreasing then we are in limit theory. The function will have a maximum value.

Matters NotApril 29, 2017 at 7:23 pm

Again late to this discussion but these words caught my eye.

Is it a theory only?

As though ‘theory’ is just a pejorative word to throw into a discussion to make a supposed telling point. It doesn’t! Yes it might with the ‘dumb’ reader but that only applies to some contributors here. Surely Harquebus when you did your higher studies you discovered that?

Perhaps it’s just like the Theory of Gravity? Or dozens of other ‘scientific’ ‘theories’ that might be cited. You know like the Theory of Relativity as an example.

Some people really ought to do some reading outside of a very, very narrow range. And doing so with an open mind – if that’s possible. Try looking into ‘epistemology’ – defined in terms of the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.

That some minor contributors here (including and especially me) claim to know in some absolutist non-questioning way is just so ridiculous, laughable … . And insulting to the reader.

Miriam EnglishApril 29, 2017 at 7:36 pm

Harquebus, you only think it absurd because you haven’t bothered to to understand what I’m talking about.

Unlike ships, or skyscrapers, or roads, or motor cars, or clothes, information is insubstantial. The physical world imposes no constraints upon it (except for our ability to conceive of it).

We can expand, without effective limit, knowledge, music, stories, artwork, even movies now that they can be entirely digital. We can even build entire worlds, even infinite* universes inside our computers, without increasing our consumption of resources. In fact, with the continuing gains in computing efficiency we can expect to use less and less resources for the same amount of usage.

An information-based economy is like no other. It is essentially not limited by physical resources. It is quite literally limited only by our imagination.

You see how cavalier you are in dismissing things without thought?

Yes, I said infinite universes inside finite computers. That sounds like an impossibility, but I used to build virtual worlds for a living and I have actually built infinite-sized worlds. It is a lovely paradox that thrills me still.

HarquebusApril 29, 2017 at 7:53 pm

Kaye Lee
Please persist. 30 minutes is all I ask. 10 even. I see nothing wrong with Bartlett’s statement. He is a famous physics professor. Please give him a chance.

“If the rate of increase is decreasing then we are in limit theory. The function will have a maximum value.”
That is not my understanding however, considering my ignorance of the “limit theory”, I will research this.

Matters Not
Thank you for that. I am still a bit in the dark as to this limit thingy and merely asked a question on something, surprise surprise, that I have no knowledge of.

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishApril 29, 2017 at 8:04 pm

My mathematical knowledge is not great, but I understood arithmetic growth to be adding a number repeatedly; geometric change multiplying a number repeatedly; exponential change using an exponent, like a logarithm, or repeatedly raising to a certain power. (Like Kaye said, the increase growing much faster than simple geometric.)

It makes it difficult that it is used in quite a different sense in ordinary street English.

But Harquebus, this gets away from the fact that human population is not growing without limit… which you don’t seem to recognise.

HarquebusApril 29, 2017 at 8:18 pm

Miriam English
I have not considered using information as currency. Would that entail trading secrets and what happens when information becomes worthless through obsolescence or irrelevance. I don’t think it is a viable candidate but, I will give it some thought.

I would love to have a real good chat with you someday regarding computers. I am sure that it is one area where we will get along really well.
What you should have said was virtual “infinite universes inside finite computers.”
Did you build a virtual infinite world or did you create a few small ones and repeat them, perhaps with variations, endlessly?

Population growth is limited. This limit theory I understand. Would it be better to call it the population growth theorem? Matters Not.

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithApril 29, 2017 at 9:18 pm

So this article discussion is still going………………………..

Almost 300 comments!

Congrats H, as you congratulated me on an earlier article I wrote.

It seems that there might be some recognition of scientific credibility between yourselves. Fantastic.

Despite that, there is credibility in the other spheres of humanitarian learning, law, sociology, political science and humanities.

All areas contribute to what will help us save ourselves from H’s bleak dichotomy of “depopulate or perish”.

HarquebusApril 29, 2017 at 9:45 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
Thank you. One of two places here at theAIMN where there is no chance of me upsetting the author.
I am hoping that the fields that you mention will someday again become relevant. You and some others here will be very valuable in any rebuild.
Cheers.

Miriam EnglishApril 29, 2017 at 9:52 pm

Currency is already just information. But that wasn’t what I meant.

We trade in secrets every time we bank online or use PayPal. But that wasn’t what I was getting at either.

Is Shakespeare obsolete or irrelevant?
How about Wm. G. Krueger’s “Lecture on Artificial Flight” given by request at the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1876?
How about Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “A Princess of Mars”? There are no canals on Mars, nor any warrior races there.
Or does information always retain some value?

But you’re missing the point again. I wasn’t talking about the value of any particular information; I was talking about constantly creating new information, new knowledge, new stories, new music, new art, in an information economy that is effectively unbounded.

I built a number of worlds, most of them with only limited content. They were, in a sense, infinite in that they had no end to the empty space surrounding them, but that was a useless infinity. I built a couple of worlds that had an infinite landscape that you could traverse without end. They did repeat, but I was working on one that never repeated and extended forever with infinite variety of geography.

Have you heard of Elite Dangerous, by the English games company Frontier? David Braben founded the company and is one of the creators of the Raspberry Pi, the revolutionary £30 computer. His original Elite for the BBC Micro and Elite II for the Amiga and later for the IBM PC created a 3D world of around 10,000 star systems with planets and civilisations and open-ended gameplay. It was one of the few games I ever enjoyed. (I didn’t play in the normal sense — I simply explored star systems and planets.) His new one, Elite Dangerous, creates the Milky Way galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars with planets and civilisations and networked gaming for millions of players. It isn’t infinite, but 400 billion stars is so far beyond what anybody could explore that it’s effectively beyond human limits. I expect he’ll realise in the near future that it could quite easily become genuinely infinite with endless numbers of galaxies. It wouldn’t be too difficult to do.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithApril 29, 2017 at 9:56 pm

Thanks H,

I am reliably told by my post-graduate professional progeny that Humanities is actually the go for current times since it is adaptable to many intellectual and professional spheres while Science has been criminally under-resourced by neoliberal and fascist LNP with wimpy Labor standing by.

HarquebusApril 29, 2017 at 10:55 pm

Miriam English
Something might be valuable but, it is only worth what others are willing to trade for it.
I am skeptical but, will follow up some more on this concept. Does this information economy that you envisage include the use of technology? From what I have gleaned about you so far, I am fairly certain that it does.

“However, since every IT-based economy must coexist with a vast manufacturing sector in which knowledge is not the basic raw material, the claim that the new economy differs fundamentally from the traditional economy remains contentious.”
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/information-economy.html

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
I will take your word for it on your first point and agree on all the rest.

Seeyatermorra

“Our special problem today is just this: we are essentially primitive creatures struggling desperately to adjust ourselves to a way of life that is alien to almost the whole of the past history of our species.” — Fred Hoyle, of Men and Galaxies

Cheers.

Matters NotApril 29, 2017 at 11:03 pm

I am hoping that the fields that you mention will someday again become relevant.

I suspect that for some people they will never become relevant. Particularly for those who don’t understand the limits of science and therefore claim to ‘know’ from some absolutist position. What a joke!

Miriam EnglishApril 30, 2017 at 7:00 am

Harquebus, you’re still missing the point. We already have, to some degree, an information economy, and have for decades.

All my books, short stories, plays, many of my drawings and paintings and cartoons, and all my virtual worlds exist only as data. I no longer buy bulky, wasteful paper books; all the books I’ve bought in recent decades have been electronic, and I now have many thousands of ebooks. (I frequent Project Gutenberg and Gutenberg Australia and often download from their free libraries.) All the music I listen to is electronic which I buy online, and I suspect this is the case for most people now. I watch a lot of videos — from TED, various educational YouTube Channels, NASA-JPL, and other sources. A lot of my friends don’t bother with TV or DVDs anymore, instead watching movies and series from Netflix. I talk with friends via the net and even take part in an online conference once a week.

Whenever you visit sites on the internet, unless you have a tracker-blocker and ad-blocker on your computer, and sometimes still even then, your actions are being compiled into creepy lists which are periodically resold to marketers and advertisers. This is a multi-billion-dollar business. It deals entirely in information.

Information is entirely different from every kind of physical product. You can duplicate information at negligible cost; you can deliver it almost instantly at nearly zero cost, especially if using torrent technology. A hard drive costs and weighs the same whether it is empty or holds hundreds of thousands of books, and tomorrow you can buy a cheaper one, that is physically smaller, holds twice as much, and costs less in electricity to operate. Wikipedia would have been utterly impossible before the advent of the information age — thousands of people collaborating for free on a vast store of knowledge that is constantly updated to have errors removed. Project Gutenberg, Librivox, YouTube, AIMN, and many other resources could not have existed. I have my own website where I publish my stuff and help many others create theirs.

Conventional business people and government are terrified of an information economy and prefer to either avoid looking at it or to pass laws against it, but it isn’t going away and can’t be stuffed back into its box. The dick who you quoted from the business dictionary doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Yes, information has some contact with the physical world, but while information grows at a stupendous rate, its dependence upon physical stuff seems to actually lessen each year. The two are essentially uncoupled.

There are 1.3 billion YouTube viewers and 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute! Nothing else grows like information; certainly nothing in the physical world.

HarquebusApril 30, 2017 at 8:52 am

Miriam English
“You can duplicate information at negligible cost; you can deliver it almost instantly at nearly zero cost”

I understand what you are saying. The information economy that you advocate, as far as I can tell, still relies on hardware which, is dependent on manufacturing. The duplication at negligible cost would devalue information. Once everyone else has it, it becomes worthless.
New creations would quickly lose value. Copyright holders are currently up in arms over this.

Server farms consume a lot of energy and I am not confident that they and other internet infrastructure will survive the coming transition. A pity. The internet is one of mankind’s greatest achievements even though it was conceived and developed at DARPA.

I am still considering this concept and so far, do not think it is a viable option.

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishApril 30, 2017 at 4:08 pm

Harquebus… you say, I do not think it is a viable option.

You still don’t get it.
It’s not up to you. It exists. It has existed for decades. It will continue to grow whether you think it’s viable or not.

What connection do you have with computers that you do not understand any of this?

[Groan] Harquebus, as I said, more than once, yes, the information rests upon hardware, but is largely decoupled from it. All the programming, writing and artwork I did years ago that I’d saved on multiple hard drives costing thousands of dollars can easily fit on a thumb-sized flash drive that cost me about $50 and has no moving parts. The computers that I used to create all that work were bulky and noisy and used lots of electricity, but were slow compared to my tablet computer which uses a bare trickle of electricity and is so portable that I carry it with me when I go shopping.

Duplication of Linux doesn’t devalue Linux. It makes it more valuable. As more people read my stories they grow in value. The old way of looking at this stuff doesn’t really work well for an information economy. Baen Books found that when they provided some of their ebooks for free download it caused sales of related books to jump up, and — get this — even the books they were making available for free were bought more. The old, simplistic model of assigning value by scarcity doesn’t work so well in the information economy. But, yes, business people are struggling with making money from it. YouTube seems to have cracked part of that. Patreon is helping in other ways, and crowdsourced funding is helping with big, expensive projects. It is already happening.

Server farms are rapidly becoming increasingly energy efficient. One of the recent outstanding uses of AI was to tune Google’s server farms to use a fraction of the energy they previously did. As solid state drives take over we’ll find energy costs for server farms will fall away nicely. The company I have my website hosted with is supplied entirely with electricity from windmills.

RapideffectApril 30, 2017 at 7:15 pm

Your right Harquebus it is not a viable option. Growth in information is no different to other forms of growth, they require the growth in energy. Servers are growing in size far faster than any small efficiency gains (jevons paradox also makes things worse). All the renewable energy in the world would not be enough to power the internet.

As the population continues to grow, so does the global economy (barely) and this growth needs an ever increasing amount of energy.
International energy outlook 2016 from the EIA https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/world.cfm

Jennifer Meyer-SmithApril 30, 2017 at 7:49 pm

Where have you been Rapideffect? Why haven’t you entered your negative, doomsday viewpoint into the discussion months before?

Could I be so presumptious as to say you are merely a fossi fuel defense nutter?

RapideffectApril 30, 2017 at 8:01 pm

@Jennifer Meyer-Smith
It seems that you choose to be abusive rather than challenge my opinion, is that because you have no counter argument. I do not and never have defended fossil fuel usage. Fossil fuels destroy the very ecosystem that supports all life on earth, this is unsustainable.

Do you really think information can grow forever? Everything you have ever done or will ever do requires energy. The more one does the more energy is consumed.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithApril 30, 2017 at 8:11 pm

My counter arguments, as feeble as they may be, have been made already. Have you read through all the discussion and then can you offer something different from what has been offered for alternatives to the status quo?

Miriam EnglishApril 30, 2017 at 8:18 pm

Oh boy. Now we have Rapideffect entering the argument without understanding anything I’ve said. [rolls eyes]

FreethinkerApril 30, 2017 at 9:12 pm

Miriam, Jennifer, I think that its time to give up, may as well try to explain all to kindergarten children, they will get it with minimum of effort and will be more productive .

RapideffectApril 30, 2017 at 9:15 pm

@Miriam English

“Yes, information has some contact with the physical world, but while information grows at a stupendous rate, its dependence upon physical stuff seems to actually lessen each year. The two are essentially uncoupled.”

“But you’re missing the point again. I wasn’t talking about the value of any particular information; I was talking about constantly creating new information, new knowledge, new stories, new music, new art, in an information economy that is effectively unbounded.”

You believe information can be obtained without the use of energy, which makes no sense and has no backing in reality. You have said nothing more than I believe such and such, therefore it must be true.

@Jennifer Meyer-Smith
So you have no counter argument then…

Miriam EnglishApril 30, 2017 at 10:27 pm

Against my better judgement…

Rapideffect, yes, you can read and copy and paste. Now you need to come to grips with that tricky comprehension thing.

I never said that it takes no resources to create information, as you can see in the quote you so conveniently pasted. I said that you need to be aware of the massive rate of information production at the cost of progressively diminishing resources. I don’t need belief for that, just the objective facts. What have you got? Unfounded half-formed notions of what it takes to create stuff? How much extra energy does it take to write a book, above and beyond what it would cost for me to sit around watching movies? Nothing. How much energy does it take for me to create artworks compared to building a house? Far, far less. How much energy does it require for my computer to render a beautiful journey zooming into the details of a Mandelbrot Set, compared to it just sitting there checking emails every 10 minutes? Nothing.

While information requires physical resources, they are effectively uncoupled from them, in that more information doesn’t necessarily require more resources — as the technology continues to develop, the amount of resources required falls dramatically.

Miriam EnglishApril 30, 2017 at 10:37 pm

Correction: instead of “at the cost of progressively diminishing resources” I should have said “at the progressively diminishing cost of resources”. It means pretty much the same, but the alteration removes ambiguity.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithApril 30, 2017 at 11:09 pm

@Rapideffect

I have established my position. If you want an argument, respond to my comments directly, or otherwise stay quiet since you have only entered the discussion at the 11th hour.

RapideffectMay 1, 2017 at 7:43 am

@ Miriam English

If physical resources are essentially uncoupled from information, than information needs essentially no physical resources because they are essentially disconnected from one another, this is what you are saying and it is wrong. Information cannot grow unbounded as you claim.

If I write a book, each additional letter/word I write needs additional energy.

Efficiency gains have a limit, as nothing is 100% efficient, therefore only a small amount of extra work can be done using the same amount of energy. As these efficiency gains are made, at some point they hit a limit and no more gains can be made. (Jevons paradox destroys efficiency gains and turns them into more consumption).

The internal combustion engine using a carburettor is not as efficient as an electronic fuel injected engine, but how much more energy is used to develop/build/install/maintain and fix an electronic fuel injected engine compared to an equivalent carbureted engine. The added complexity of the electronic fuel injection system also needs more complex parts/solutions to fix, as well as higher educated mechanics and more advanced workshop equipment. So advanced technology usually uses more resources than less as you believe.

Technology advancement requires teams of scientists to make breakthroughs as the complexity of technology is now so advanced, many scientists are needed to add a small part to one overall discovery.

You have this belief that renewable energy will save Global Civilisation from collapse but where are all the fleets of electric trucks and the infrastructure to recharge them with renewable sources. How many electric road trains have been built…

How about electric jumbo jets and cargo ships have you even considered how this can be achieved without massive consumption of fossil fuels.

Your beliefs blind you from reality. Take the subsidies away from your prophet Elon Musk’s company Telsa and it doesn’t make any profits, it’s barely made a profit with the subsidies.

@Jennifer Meyer-Smith

I entered the discussion early on (Rapideffect November 18, 2016 at 11:23 am) where you said I was wrong and you offered no counter argument to my very first post as none of the doubters here have. This is because of their belief in the system that gives them all the fun stuff that they enjoy, people can’t come to grips with the fact it will all end someday.
If my opinions bother you, i’d suggest you don’t read or respond to them.

HarquebusMay 1, 2017 at 8:00 am

My opinion is that, with a lot less people and each consuming much less than that compared to today, the availability of the resources and energy needed to maintain much less infrastructure than we are currently using, would be extended considerably. Even this would be temporary as the depletion of finite resources is a one way street however, it would give us time to develop a more sustainable society.
A slower decent instead of the crash landing that is about to occur.

An economy requires energy, it always has. Economic growth requires surplus energy which, is now diminishing and is being manifested globally as slow to no growth. I can not see how information alone can offset diminishing energy returns.

Sorry Miriam. We are out of sync here somewhere.

“Last year, oil companies discovered the smallest amount of oil on record”
“exploration spending is always the first casualty of oil busts and the last of the industry’s businesses to recover.”
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Explorers-continue-to-retreat-from-oil-frontiers-11108358.php

“Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food.” — Prof. Albert Bartlett.

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishMay 1, 2017 at 9:00 am

Rapideffect, because, of course obfuscating the argument by redefining things and continuing to lie about the difference between what you wish I’d said and what I actually said, then waffling on about entirely unrelated things… no. What’s the point in even trying to talk to you?

Harquebus, you’re wrong, but at least you seem to be honest about it.

To some extent you and I agree. We need to be consuming a lot less — more efficient technologies and wasting far less are pivotal here. It will become much easier in a few decades when the world population begins to decline, and we can help to bring that forward by improving education and living standards on the developing world. Of course, we must do that using every trick of efficiency we know, in order to extend the usability of limited resources. More than anything, that requires us, in the developed nations to adopt efficiency as we’re the biggest wasters on the planet. Resources are indeed finite, but we are chewing through them far more quickly than necessary. If we change that (and we are beginning to) then we can extend their usability for much longer.

We still have vast amounts of energy streaming down on us from that giant fusion reactor in the sky. Life has been using that for 3.2 billion years. We can too. And saying that it can’t be done without fossil fuels is a) wrong b) irrelevant if solar panels, wind power, and hydroelectric (all forms of solar power) displace sufficient petroleum consumption to free up some for construction of those generators.

Yes, you’re correct that we’re out of sync. I never suggested that information could offset diminishing energy returns. What I was simply saying — and I don’t know if I can keep finding other, easier ways to say this — capitalism is addicted to eternal growth, which is impossible in the physical world*, but is not impossible in the information world. Changing the economy over to mostly an information economy would let civilisation have its cake and eat it too. We could cut back on consumption, recycle, and live comfortably within our means, while benefitting from an ever-growing information economy — more knowledge, more music, more ebooks, more culture — without increasing demands upon the Earth… in fact with more efficient information technology, decreasing the demands upon the planet.

—

* Actually, infinite physical growth is possible in the physical world if more and more extreme forms of miniaturisation, efficiency, and recycling are used, especially when our population begins to decline. But in its current inefficient, wasteful form physical growth is impossible, particularly while our population is still growing.

RapideffectMay 1, 2017 at 9:57 am

@Miriam English

Again instead of offering a counter argument you go on a rant. You state that infinite growth is possible in the physical finite world which is impossible.

You just repeated what I already said you said. The ONLY way information can grow infinitely is if it uses no resources.

Your ignorance is the only thing that is infinite. Everything I posted is related, the fact that you can’t understand that is exactly why you are wrong again.

You should stick to writing fiction as your good at making things up.

HarquebusMay 1, 2017 at 10:23 am

Miriam English
I do not think that we have few years let alone a few decades before we start to see involuntary population reduction. The seeds in Africa and the Middle East seem to have already been sowed with Asia set to follow.
The “vast amounts of energy streaming down on us from that giant fusion reactor in the sky” is diffuse and not easily gathered.
Efficiency gains decline over time. Physics does have its limits. For this reason, your claim that “infinite physical growth is possible in the physical world” is completely false.

I do agree on the benefits of information sharing but, can not see it being anything more than an extender rather than an alternative. Gains so far have been, as you said, reinvested into more growth by our common enemy, capitalism and I see no signs of this changing anytime soon.

“Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world.”
“Consumer demand and economic growth are the motors of environmental destruction.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishMay 1, 2017 at 11:23 am

What is it with you guys about substituting what you want me to have said for what I did actually say?

Rapideffect, your dishonesty once again amazes me. I’ll answer just one point you make that seems honestly misconceived: infinite growth in information is possible if it requires only limited physical resources. For example, you can explore the infinitely complex Mandelbrot Set with a finite computer.

Harquebus, I’m tiring of this. You still don’t see my point. Yes, I’m in favor of information sharing, but that’s only a subset of the wider information economy. I never said it would substitute for the physical economy. I said it could be used to get the infinitely growing economy so many people want. That more easily allow the physical economy be bounded.

I see capitalism more as a useful tool that has been allowed to go crazy, mostly through unquestioning acceptance of loony neoliberalism. I don’t see capitalism as the enemy any more than I see government as the enemy, despite the current Australian government making itself the enemy of the people.

Leave aside my point that infinite physical growth is possible. It was merely a technical correction to my blanket statement of it being impossible. It is possible only within strict guidelines and it depends upon us gaining space travel. But I didn’t want to get into that. It’s speculative and I don’t expect anybody to agree with it. It’s not actually relevant to the main discussion.

It seems your bland dismissal of all the ways of using solar energy as being “diffuse” puts you outside the bulk of scientists, technologists, and now even businessmen. Investment in solar panels, wind power, and solar concentrator generators far outstripped investment in coal, oil, and gas power over the past year. Wind and photovoltaic double in their contribution to electrical generation 18 months (I may be a little out on that figure, as I have difficulty remembering numbers). They only need to keep that up for 7 or 8 years to completely sideline fossil fuels.

Things in Africa are changing very quickly. They’re adopting renewable energy with gusto and quite likely to have more sustainable societies than us in the near future. The African countries are some of the few places in the world that have overwhelmingly youthful populations. That will be a great asset in the future as our populations age.

Miriam EnglishMay 1, 2017 at 11:31 am

Rapideffect, I just went over what your part of the conversation. I retract what I said about you making a possibly honest mistake. It’s clear on re-reading that you were being dishonest. You took what I’d said about it taking no more resources to write a book than it would if I just lazed around the house watching movies and you deliberately omitted the comparison. This is the final time I respond to you. Lying trolls are not worth the time.

RapideffectMay 1, 2017 at 11:37 am

@Harquebus

Unfortunately people don’t want to hear about problems that don’t have adequate solutions. Here is an article that debunks Miriam’s claims, but she won’t read it because she believes in the system the same as a religious person believes in their faith.

https://theconversation.com/the-decoupling-delusion-rethinking-growth-and-sustainability-71996

I admire your persistence Harquebus to inform people of the issues we are facing, even though many think they know what is ahead but clearly don’t…

RapideffectMay 1, 2017 at 12:04 pm

@Miriam English

I’m not a lying troll. It’s just you have this need to be right all the time that is the problem. I didn’t omit anything, your comparisons aren’t comparable.

“You took what I’d said about it taking no more resources to write a book than it would if I just lazed around the house watching movies and you deliberately omitted the comparison.”

“How much extra energy does it take to write a book, above and beyond what it would cost for me to sit around watching movies? Nothing. How much energy does it take for me to create artworks compared to building a house? Far, far less. How much energy does it require for my computer to render a beautiful journey zooming into the details of a Mandelbrot Set, compared to it just sitting there checking emails every 10 minutes? Nothing.”

How many words were written is said book? How long did it take to think of the ideas in said book? Was the book paper back and so on.

How many movies did you watch? How long were the movies? Were they viewed on a big screen tv or a tablet and so on.

You see much more information is required to make a proper comparison, I guess your just being dishonest now…

Michael TaylorMay 1, 2017 at 12:09 pm

It’s just you have this need to be right all the time that is the problem.

If that is what you find Miriam guilty of, then I await with breathless anticipation your similar charge against Harquebus.

RapideffectMay 1, 2017 at 12:32 pm

@Michael Taylor

I think Harquebus likes to be right about things, but doesn’t have the need to be right as Miriam does. Miriam’s constant insults when the conversation is not going her way is enough evidence to suggest she has a need to be always right . Harquebus doesn’t throw insults around anywhere near the frequency or level that Miriam does.

I find Miriam to be closed mined and not open to change, but this seems to be a common thing with the older generations…

HarquebusMay 1, 2017 at 1:04 pm

Miriam English
“used to get the infinitely growing economy so many people want.”
No such thing. I think that we should terminate this portion of the discussion unless, you wish to add something as each will not convince the other. If it ever happens then, you will have bragging rights.

Rapideffect
Thank you for that link and your support. It is very much appreciated.
As I said in response to your first comment, you are one of the very few who actually “gets it”.

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 1, 2017 at 1:16 pm

I don’t want an infinitely growing economy. I want an efficient, effective and equitable economy with the emphasis on fair distribution of wealth and resources.

As far as I’m concerned, Miriam speaks good sense. Most of us probably have more in common than you or Rapideffect would recognise.

What I like about Miriam’s contributions is that she recognises the threats just like you, but she is looking for the positive action plans and maybe even escape routes that will save us and the planet for a while longer yet.

That’s the best we can do: institute best practices and stay diligent keeping authorities accountable. Hence, our grassroots success in keeping Adani out of the Great Barrier Reef is one example of where positive talk gets results and keeps grassroots people motivated.

HarquebusMay 1, 2017 at 1:47 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
A lot would make a lot more sense if there was far fewer of us. Even your worthy goals which, I fully support are unattainable with the current population.
I would prefer that we be saved permanently and not just a while longer.

Venezuela, the darling of the left for many years and sitting on the world’s largest oil reserves, is collapsing now. Even with a declining birth rate, population is still projected to increase there as well as globally beyond 2050. Not going to happen in my opinion.
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/venezuela-population/

I mention Venezuela because, it is should be the wake up call of all wake up calls. Note the store shelves in the photos. I will say it again: Get ready.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-22/eight-looters-electrocuted-in-venezuela-as-unrest-continues/8463828

Cheers.

RapideffectMay 1, 2017 at 2:27 pm

@Jennifer Meyer-Smith

Miriam does not understand the extent of the threats and this is why Miriam’s so called solutions will not happen or have little to no effect. Miriam has no positive plans just hopes and dreams, Miriam is out of touch with reality, delusional even.

Most of you do have much in common, a lack of understanding of how the limits of growth will bring an end to Global Civilization. All civilizations throughout human history have collapsed, this time will be no different to any other just much worse.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 1, 2017 at 2:50 pm

You are wrong, Rapideffect, about me and I presume most thinking people.

I, for one, do understand that we can’t have infinite growth when there are finite resources. However, better management with controlled growth, if and when necessary, and fair redistribution of wealth and resources, are achievable and sustainable. With redistribution of wealth and resources there would be better equilibrium in the economy and less demand for insatiable growth.

diannaartMay 1, 2017 at 2:56 pm

Unsustainable populations are but one part of the problems we (worldwide) have to address.

Jennifer, Miriam, and many others have repeated again and again some of the solutions we can act upon right now (if not for lack of will from political and most business leaders) other solutions will be found the more we invest into research and development of ideas.

Its like arguing with flat earthers.

There is far more to do than just limit populations. Can you not see this?

Instead of making snide remarks as to the intelligence of people who see more than a single solution – try thinking beyond population control (hint – the answer is not fossil fuels).

HarquebusMay 1, 2017 at 3:12 pm

diannaart
“the solutions we can act upon right now” will not be possible when supply chains begin to break down and they will. By conserving precious liquid fuels as much as possible, we can only delay this but, it will give us time to adapt.
The use of fossil fuels to produce renewable energy collectors as Miriam suggests, will not put food on plates.

“My grandfather rode a Camel, my father rode a Camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a Camel” — Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 1, 2017 at 3:25 pm

What about his daughter and daughter’s daughter, H?

diannaartMay 1, 2017 at 3:34 pm

Jennifer

H’s family tree consists only of men, manly men. Which explains the single-track thinking.

Yes, supply chains will break down if we don’t move towards sustainable economics and practices…. Sigh….

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 1, 2017 at 3:39 pm

diannaart,

it’s not only H that is guilty of using non-inclusive language.

No wonder certain quarters think we’re living in the Dark Ages; they can’t even acknowledge the existence of women and girls in their everyday language.

diannaartMay 1, 2017 at 3:47 pm

Jennifer

Just my warped sense of humour.

The way some men talk you’d think they landed on earth fully formed, with ideology firmly welded onto their brain-stems. Not really big picture thinkers these types of men.

Isn’t it more than ironic that H, et al, only focus on reproduction; it is as it has always been, men wanting to control the means of birth – with little effort from themselves but everything about the female side of birth. ….. and then, they never even effing mention women when they blab on and on.

….getting a bit angry, must go read a book….

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 1, 2017 at 3:59 pm

😉 diannaart

Miriam EnglishMay 1, 2017 at 4:33 pm

😀 diannaart, it is interesting, isn’t it.

Jennifer Meyer-Smith, thanks. It’s not worth arguing with them. Look at all the time spent fruitlessly banging my head against that wall. And then Harquebus will still come out with something that’s long ago shown to be wrong. He simply forgets anything that doesn’t lead to doom.

HarquebusMay 1, 2017 at 5:31 pm

For what it is worth, I actually think quite highly of those behind the last three comments.
There are other arenas where our opinions agree and where we can battle together for the common good.
I have not but, will consider the disproportionate burden that women will have to play however, that still does not change what I consider to be the only viable solution to save mankind; depopulation.
Thank you for bring it to my attention.
Cheers.

RapideffectMay 1, 2017 at 8:51 pm

@Jennifer Meyer-Smith

You are wrong, Rapideffect, about me and I presume most thinking people.

You clearly don’t understand as you just contradicted yourself. Growth of the consumption of non renewable resources merely increases there decline. Consumption of non renewable resources even at a steady rate still ends in decline of resources that are needed to maintain global civilization.

So you consider yourself a thinker yet haven’t thought that continued consumption of a non renewable at any rate still leads to the same outcome. My point is that you and many others here have not understood is that global civilization is unsustainable, there are no solutions that won’t end in collapse as it is far to late to save it now. The only thing that can be done is to prepare for life after the coming collapse.

@Miriam English

What’s with your need to be right all the time. Even Jennifer realises you cannot have infinite growth with finite resources, but still you can’t or more likely won’t admit that you are wrong.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 1, 2017 at 9:15 pm

Rapideffect,

I think you must be a religious person. You have my respect for yourself alone.

But not the rest of us, if you don’t support renewable energy and alternative thinking to the tired old dictates of tired old religions that bear no resemblance to mid 2017 where equitability in all walks of life plus environmental sustainability are the paramount considerations.

HarquebusMay 1, 2017 at 9:30 pm

Renewable energy devices are a waste of precious liquid fossil fuels. Miriam and I have already had an extensive argument on this page over this issue. “Renewable” occurs more than 50 times already.

“Overfishing is depleting oceans across the globe, with 90 percent of the world’s fisheries fully exploited or facing collapse, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.”
“Violent clashes between Chinese fishermen and the South Korean authorities have left a half-dozen people dead.”

“Competition for depleting resources will be fierce.”

“While apocalyptic beliefs about the end of the world have, historically, been the subject of religious speculation, they are increasingly common among some of the leading scientists today. This is a worrisome fact, given that science is based not on faith and private revelation, but on observation and empirical evidence.”
“Furthermore, studies suggest that civilization will have to produce more food in the next 50 years than in all of human history, which stretches back some 200,000 years into the Pleistocene epoch.”
http://www.salon.com/2017/04/30/its-the-end-of-the-world-and-we-know-it-scientists-in-many-disciplines-see-apocalypse-soon/

Cheers.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 1, 2017 at 9:53 pm

Sorry H,

I don’t believe you and your sources.

HarquebusMay 2, 2017 at 8:42 am

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
In that regard, you are no orphan.
I hope that I can soon convince you. You, along with some others in this place, would be a great “ally”.
Cheers.

RapideffectMay 2, 2017 at 8:52 am

@Jennifer Meyer-Smith

I’m an atheist and have no beliefs. You and Miriam are the dreamers with faith, as you stated “Sorry H,

I don’t believe you and your sources.”

So instead of explaining why Harquebus’s sources are incorrect and offering facts which refute those sources, you do exactly what a person with faith would say, I don’t believe you…

You don’t get to pick and choose the facts. You either except the facts or you don’t, and it’s quite obvious that you do the latter. You choose to believe the scenario that suits you, preferably a good outcome so you can sleep at night.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 1, 2017 at 9:15 pm

Rapideffect,

I think you must be a religious person. You have my respect for yourself alone.

So if I don’t support renewable energy and alternative thinking what is going to happen to me??

diannaartMay 2, 2017 at 1:33 pm

BREAKING NEWS…

Harquebus has discovered women!

I have not but will consider the disproportionate burden that women will have to play however…

Yet to discover people

…, that still does not change what I consider to be the only viable solution to save mankind.

Hint; collaboration between?

The AIM NetworkMay 2, 2017 at 2:01 pm

Commenters and readers (of this article in particular) will be pleased to know that they will no longer need to scroll back to the top of the page – a slow task, depending on your internet connection. We have now added an arrow (well, more like an upside down V) that, when clicked on, will return you to top of the page. The arrow can be found at the bottom right hand side of whatever page you are on.

Miriam EnglishMay 2, 2017 at 4:43 pm

I’ve always just used the “Home” key on my keyboard. It jumps me straight to the top.
Conversely, the “End” key jumps me to the bottom of the page.

Michael TaylorMay 2, 2017 at 4:56 pm

That’s OK on a computer keyboard, Miriam, but mobile devices don’t have “Home” or “End” keys.

Michael TaylorMay 2, 2017 at 4:58 pm

I know in my case – because I have a lousy connection – if I tried scrolling back to the top, the page has to reload to where I scroll to and on it goes until I get to the top, which can take an eternity if there are hundreds of comments to scroll past. So annoying.

Miriam EnglishMay 2, 2017 at 5:37 pm

Michael, good point. I didn’t think of smartphones and tablets. Silly me. 😀
Thanks for the hint.
I am trying to move as much as I can to such computers. I should have thought of it.

HarquebusMay 3, 2017 at 8:26 am

diannaart
Thank you for your comment.
For once, I do not have an appropriate response.
Cheers.

nurses1968May 3, 2017 at 8:44 am

We should be fighting with all our might to protect the oceans as if our life depended on it.
Well actually,life does depend on it

diannaartMay 3, 2017 at 2:19 pm

nurses1968

Indeed, the entire ecosystem of this planet began with the oceans.

There are so many actions and changes we need to make on a simultaneous level that we are overwhelmed and just doing a bit here and there and then arguing of what little we actually do.

There is no single, “magic bullet” solution. We need to collaborate from government, business, organisations, clubs and you and I when we sort out our waste.

Leaving out half the population or anyone who is perceived different continues as blocks to action.

Will we get over our mental blocks and cooperate sufficiently in time to maintain this current ecosystem on Earth?

JohnoMay 4, 2017 at 6:58 am

Nurses1986.. couldn’t agree more. The oceans have been (and still are) humanities killing zone and dumping ground since the 1400’s. Callum Roberts book ‘The unnatural history of the sea’ is a very good account of the A to Z of overfishing.
Chapter after chapter described how a once bountiful fishery was depleted by boundless overfishing and it also showed how time and time again, humans depleted their limited food supplies. The first section of the book described the history of marine fisheries, and much of it dealt with the depletion of fish populations. Take, for example, the reason people switched to marine fisheries from freshwater fisheries. According to Roberts, a combination of population growth and an increase in agriculture led to the decrease in freshwater stock pushing the move to marine fisheries.

Once the propeller was developed it was pretty much game over for ocean life.

HarquebusMay 4, 2017 at 11:26 am

Here is the previously submitted link to nurses1968 quote. If an organization like the N.Y. Times publishes an article like this then, it must be serious.

“Clean energy extracts resources from the earth. What’s clean about that? Clean energy production causes emissions of greenhouse gases, produces toxic waste, and uses up water and electricity. There’s no way you can get around burning fossil fuels and depleting the living planet while producing and transporting these “clean energy” alternatives.”
“Many who are concerned about climate change just listen to what the capitalist outlets tell them are the solutions, they do not critically think about the issue. If they did Capitalism would have been gone a long time ago. They would have gotten to the root of why apocalyptic stories are soon going to be apocalyptic realities.”
“if we keep reproducing at this pace we will have almost 10 billion human beings on this planet by 2050. Yet each year we pollute more air, more water, and heat up more soil which makes it harder for us to grow grains. Even though we are relying on destroying more ecosystems to grow more grains and consume more resources for more people and we rely on these ecosystems for our survival. Without ecosystems there are no humans, climate change or not. So if you are a believer in the concept of mathematics you would start asking yourself how the hell are we going to feed all these people, and at some point isn’t the human population going to collapse?”
“Humans and the natural world must be exploited for the privileges and comforts of other humans. This requires Capitalism and as the Conception of more humans multiplies, it means more humans are to be exploited since these privileges and comforts are allotted for the very few.”
“So when considering conversing over the crisis of Capitalism and Conception, converse and convene with crowds that are consistently credible and can connect Capitalism and Conception with the our collapsing climate.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/03/the-sacred-c-words/

“Things are worse than they appear. If the world stopped adding carbon emissions to the atmosphere today, the earth would continue to warm for decades. Since there is no chance of ending emissions, what can we expect going forward?”
“The human race is headed for extinction, but no one is willing to do anything about it. ”

Doing The Math On Climate Change With Bill McKibben Adds Up To “We Are So Screwed”

Voluntary depopulation is the still the best and only option for us to salvage something of our civilized society. Involuntary depopulation which, we are beginning to witness will be savage, brutal, cruel and inhumane.

Cheers.

diannaartMay 4, 2017 at 1:35 pm

Single bullet solution #1

Voluntary depopulation is the still the best and only option for us to salvage something of our civilised society.

Starting with whom? Women? Or men? Or will you be the one to hand out the ‘Koolaid’, Harquebus.

Single bullet solution #1, there is no #2 – there is only one solution…

The oceans must be saved.

FFS

Also solutions #1; our water tables be saved from mining, rivers cleansed of pollutants, atmosphere cleared of green house gases, a stop to deforestation of our great air cleansing forests, recycling waste instead of dumping, education of women, free eduction for all, 50/50 representation between men and women worldwide, joining in collaboration with other nations and forget about paying any more attention to their self-serving blinkered leaders – the despots and the ‘democratically’ elected, stop dumping toxic wastes into water systems – rivers flow to the ocean, duh.

If I ever get stuck like a broken record, can someone please let me know, I don’t want to wind up like Harquebus, et al.

diannaartMay 4, 2017 at 1:38 pm

Did I mention everything is interconnected – that is what ecosystem Earth is – our only safe place in the universe.

Did I mention there is no single solution? I did, already – I’ll try not repeat myself again.

HarquebusMay 5, 2017 at 12:34 am

diannart
Those things that you mention will not eventuate with 7.5 billion people let alone with any increase.
If you have not then, please read the counterpunch article that I posted and take note of the last sentence.
No need to hand out the koolaid; the natural world has its own version, is serving it up now and we will just have to drink it and unlike the quick deaths at Jonestown, ours will be slow and painful.
Cheers.

paul walterMay 5, 2017 at 1:09 am

Has seemed a grumpy thread in parts. Just reading comments, Kyran again avoided either or binaries and recognised the complex and multifaceted nature of what would be required.

HarquebusMay 23, 2017 at 8:17 am

“Despite the accumulating evidence of impending crisis, the world community seems incapable of responding effectively.”
“The proximate drivers are excess economic production and consumption, and over-population – human impact on the ecosphere is a product of population multiplied by average per capita consumption”
“Failure to implement a global sustainability plan that addresses excess consumption and over-population while ensuring greater social equity may well be fatal to the human prospect.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/may/22/wealth-redistribution-and-population-management-are-the-only-logical-way-forward

Miriam EnglishMay 23, 2017 at 9:16 am

Harquebus, well, you finally said something (or rather quoted someone else) that makes some sense. Yes, bringing about some degree of social levelling without a great reduction in expectations in the greedy First World is a very dangerous thing to do.

Lucky it’s not happening that way, huh? People in the First World are starting to alter their aims to being satisfied with less. But not only that, they’re even finding they can live considerably better lives with less. Computers and knowledge, as well as more efficient technology, are helping with that.

So, yes. Despite the dangers, that we are all aware of, things are starting to look up.

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 10:28 am

Harquebus, here is an example of why your nihilism is so very dangerous:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/5/22/1665099/-Nazi-FL-National-Guard-member-arrested-in-bomb-plot

The notion of us racing toward doom is beloved by many incredibly dangerous groups, such as Neo-Nazis, Daesh (ISIS), militant survivalists, Christian extremists, and cults such as Aum Shinrikyo. By feeding that culture of doom you strengthen them and their violent tendencies.

Seeing problems without attempting to explore sensible solutions does absolutely nothing to help the world. You need to see both — problems and solutions. You keep pushing the problems without seeing any solutions, but worse, you decry solutions even when they are shown to you! You are wrong to do so. It makes the world more dangerous, deepening the problems instead of working to fix them.

HarquebusMay 24, 2017 at 11:15 am

Miriam English
I see no relationship between my views and the article that you posted.
Degrowth in my opinion, is the only solution and population reduction is the best first step.

A list of excerpts and links to some of what I have been reading.
http://builder.ezywebs.com.au/harquebus/harquebus/

Cheers.

The AIM NetworkMay 24, 2017 at 11:42 am

We’ve added a few features that give you much more ease and flexibility when writing comments that include bold, italics, links, images, quotes etc. We’ve looked for a cheat sheet/s that is/are the most simple to read – a task in itself! – and these two should do it:

Markdown Quick Reference Cheat Sheet

https://beegit.com/markdown-cheat-sheet

Some examples of how easy they are:

For italics, you now simply put an * before and after the word.

For bold words, you now simply put two ** before and after the word.

For quotes you now simply put an < before the section you want to quote and leave a space where you want it to end.

RapideffectMay 24, 2017 at 2:16 pm

It’s seems Miriam English knows the problems and the solutions. Like renewable energy and efficiency, which is the solution to the energy problems (fossil fuels) apparently.

Renewable energy is a technology and not an energy source.

I haven’t seen any plans to build electric jumbo jets or cargo ships, a vital part of the global economy. Renewable energy also requires non-renewable resources to be built and maintained, therefore not sustainable.

Renewable energy is nothing more than a mirage to keep the masses believing something can be done about climate change (and the destruction of the ecosystem from fossil fuels). Shutting down all industries is the only solution to climate change, but that would collapse the global economy.

The ponzi scheme that is the global economy needs to grow or it goes into recession, depression and then collapse. The global economy has no reverse gear.

The diminishing returns of fossil fuels is destroying growth of the global economy, resulting in a deflationary death spiral that will lead to a collapse of the global economy.

Solutions anyone???

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 2:49 pm

Rapideffect, you moron. Your stupid slogans are meaningless. Solar and wind technology use the sun, which is an energy source — exactly the same source fossil fuels have stored.

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 2:53 pm

Harquebus, of course you see no resemblance between your welcoming doom and the dangerous nitwits who, entranced by the notion of doom wreak violence. Here’s a hint: it’s the obsession with doom.

jimhazMay 24, 2017 at 3:05 pm

[Here’s a hint: it’s the obsession with doom]

Namely that there is not enough of it….CLEARLY.

Timothy McVie types are a bit like “small change” – mostly irrelevant.

FreetasmanMay 24, 2017 at 3:09 pm

Rapideffect, global economy needs to grow bu it a different manner not like this.
The current model is the reason why we are suffocating the planet, destroying the ecosystem. The current model serves only a small percentage of the population.
If you bother to see the result of the GPI then you will see that we are going backwards.
You ask for solutions? yes, change the model and the way that you LIVE.

diannaartMay 24, 2017 at 3:42 pm

Gawd this thread just keeps going rather like Harquebus’ unremarkably singular opinion.

Yes, we need to do something about population. This is only a small part of a very big problem.

Continuing to use finite, polluting resources at the same rate is beyond stupidity. Our system is broke, we must fix it, this means doing everything very differently, I understand how scary this, which is why so many people like Harquebus cling to the only solution that does not mess with their sense of security.

Well said to Miriam, Jimhaz Freeasman, et al, unfortunately the frightened ones are not listening. They cannot envisage any more change than halting humans from breeding – a single issue which has a multitude of interconnected solutions and learning from countries where babies were banned like China.

Depressing knowing that our words will be completely ignored, again.

RossleighMay 24, 2017 at 4:42 pm

This thread keeps going because Harquebus keeps making a comment on it every couple of weeks in the hope that people will respond.
So far people haven’t let him down!

FreetasmanMay 24, 2017 at 4:53 pm

Rossleigh, do you think that will be able to educate him?

diannaartMay 24, 2017 at 5:23 pm

Rossleigh

I can only follow where my muse leads me – which is not always where I would like to go, nor very useful on subjects I am interested in but mind goes blank – my muse is a maverick.

Michael TaylorMay 24, 2017 at 5:27 pm

Rossleigh, better that H’ keeps commenting on this thread than hijacking all the other ones with the same comments.

RapideffectMay 24, 2017 at 8:41 pm

@Miriam English

You resort to name calling again and do not have any solutions that are sustainable. For a self proclaimed optimist, you come across as very bitter, arrogant and condescending…

@Freetasman

How can the global economy grow in a different way? Is there a way for it to grow that is sustainable???

Sure the current system is destroying the ecosystem, but change it how and to what exactly???

I’m waiting for you to educate me in how this is possible…

@diannaart

So you have no solutions either, if the system is broke how do you propose it be fixed???

The only sustainable way for humans to live is like the indigenous Australians did for tens of thousands of years, but that is impossible for 7.5 billion humans to live that way. This is why Harquebus sees the reduction of the population as a possible first step to a sustainable civilization and not the complete solution.

FreetasmanMay 24, 2017 at 8:56 pm

It is a pleasure Rapideffect to exchange ideas with you, perhaps before I trying to give you some explanations this link will help you to look at growth in a different angle: http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/gpi.html

Another good reading is any book or video of MANFRED MAX-NEEF.
He is an economists with very interesting views about how to measure growth
https://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/26/chilean_economist_manfred_max_neef_on

Cheers

Matters NotMay 24, 2017 at 9:55 pm

Re the point made by Miriam English:

Solar and wind technology use the sun, which is an energy source

So the sun is an energy source – who could argue with that? As I understand it, earth is therefore not a ‘closed system’ relatively speaking. The earth gets energy from the ‘outside’. Yes or No? Could someone put me on the straight and narrow?

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 10:16 pm

Rapideffect, yeah, I generally don’t like to call names and almost didn’t call you a moron, but in the end I thought, “If the shoe fits…”

Condescending? Yes. It is very easy to feel condescending to one such as yourself, who argues insincerely, and who doesn’t listen to what the other person says, who never learns, who deliberately misconstrues the other person’s words, who sneers at honestly made statements.

I am generally optimistic about the future, though when arguing with brick walls like yourself I can despair for the human race somewhat. But I wouldn’t actually call myself an optimist, as that tends to imply a feeling that everything is sunshine and rainbows. On the contrary, I am very aware of the tremendous problems we face, from the depleted oceans, to the insidious effects of endocrine mimics; from exponentially accelerating effects of climate destabilisation to the insanity of wasting vast amounts of money and resources on weapons (which are either stockpiled and wasted, or blown up and wasted); from the worrying ripple-on effects of the extermination of “keystone” species to the absurdity of doing nothing to handle large-scale introduction of automation into society; from the shortsighted over-reliance upon fossil fuels to the fantasies of idiots like yourself who believe renewable energy doesn’t have a future. The thing is, that I can see solutions to most of these problems and I know of people who are working very hard to fix them. I’m also aware of the fact that we are making great progress on many of the worst problems.

Rapideffect, you, on the other hand have but one idea and lack the ability to see details or hear them from others. Why should anybody be interested in what you have to say? Before you open your mouth we already know the tripe that will issue forth.

Freetasman and diannaart, don’t bother with him. He is utterly insincere. He’ll never listen to anything anybody else says (except Harquebus, who beats the same doom drum, but at least listens a little). Rapideffect is not worth it.

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 10:46 pm

Matters Not, Earth is effectively a closed system where matter is concerned, even though it accumulates dust at the rate of about 40,000 tons per year and loses something like 90,000 tons of hydrogen and some helium each year, which sounds like a lot, but it would take trillions of years for it all to bleed away.

Energy is different. We take in an astonishing amount of energy from the sun — about a kilowatt per square meter at the ground. Much of it is radiated back away into space, quite a lot before it even reaches the ground. The amount trapped determines the warmth of the planet. Under normal circumstances a steady state is reached where the temperature stabilises, balancing energy received with energy re-radiated away. Even in the case of Venus there is a balance struck — it’s just under its suphur dioxide clouds it’s hot enough to melt lead.

Some heat is also produced by Earth’s core, largely from radioactive elements, I think. Some of that also radiates away, but the contribution from the core is dwarfed by the stupendous influx from the sun.

If you take the Earth and Sun together then yes, I guess they could be considered a closed system, to all intents and purposes.

Matters NotMay 24, 2017 at 10:59 pm

Re:

take the Earth and Sun together … could be considered a closed system,.

So why doesn’t the Sun get get a mention (usually) when speaking about the planet as a ‘closed system’?

Seems to me like a conceptual problem.

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 11:02 pm

Matters Not, thinking further on this, I believe I made a small error in giving the impression that not all the energy is re-radiated. I think it would be more accurate to say that it all is (1.36 kW per m² in and 1.36 kW per m² out), but some of the energy is delayed, which is why the temperature on Earth remains warm. I’m not a mathematician nor a physicist though, so I could be mistaken.

Unfortunately, in some billions of years the sun will expand to become a red giant, swallowing up our planet, but if it didn’t and the sun’s fusion reactions died down our planet would continue to radiate all its heat away and become a cold rock.

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 11:10 pm

So why doesn’t the Sun get get a mention (usually) when speaking about the planet as a ‘closed system’?

I guess it’s just shorthand. The gravity well makes it pretty-much a closed system as far as matter is concerned. The collected dust and lost hydrogen are insignificant (though I have fears that widespread use of hydrogen as fuel would lead to greatly increased loss from spills and leaks). And the sun acts as a constant, so can be absorbed into assumptions about the Earth. It’s probably just convenience. 🙂

Matters NotMay 24, 2017 at 11:14 pm

, in some billions of years the sun will expand to become a red giant, swallowing up our planet, … would continue to radiate all its heat away and become a cold rock.

So the failure of an ‘energy’ source might be catastrophic a very, very long way into the future?

Why is the Sun a constant re an energy source? Never changes?

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 11:26 pm

It’s hard to imagine what could be a true energy source. I guess we might crack fusion. Maybe someone will work out how to tap the quantum fluctuations of vacuum energy. That would conceivably be an infinite source of energy. And before anybody says it can’t be done, nanotechnologists have actually built tiny machines powered by the random motions of molecules in brownian motion (shades of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!). Brownian motion is not something from nothing though; by using it the system cools. Brownian motion is heat.

So would it lead to a catastrophe? It might lead to another destabilisation of the Earth’s climate by upsetting its energy rate of loss, but if we’re smart enough to solve fusion or vacuum energy we’d probably be able to solve that. 🙂

Matters NotMay 24, 2017 at 11:30 pm

You mean – there’s hope?

How very naughty.

Go and sit in the corner. Stay after school … and listen carefully to those who claim to KNOW religiously,

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 11:35 pm

The sun goes through reasonably predictable fluctuations, such as the 11 year sunspot cycles. And the Milankovitch cycles change the way the Earth receives and loses heat, possibly triggering climatic change cycles thousands of years long, but that’s to do with the Earth’s orbit and its tilt, not the sun itself. The sun has been cooling very slightly for the past 40 years at least, but is pretty constant over the longer term.

Miriam EnglishMay 24, 2017 at 11:39 pm

I gotta go to bed. Have to be up early morning. Nitey nite.

HarquebusMay 25, 2017 at 11:57 am

Miriam English
As I have often stated, I have spent decades trying to warn others in an attempt to ovoid the approaching calamity. My opinion has recently changed to, all one can do now is to get ready. I certainly don’t welcome it.
If you and others want to ignore or ridicule me, fine. Again, learn the hard way.

Solar energy is diffuse and needs a long time like trees or a large area to collect it. Hydro electricity is solar powered and requires I don’t know how many thousands of square kilometers of solar heated ocean.

Regardless of energy sources, it is what it can do that is important. Unless it can replace today’s fossil fueled transport systems, it will not sustain current populations let alone their lifestyles which, many will have noticed, is in decline.

” fantasies of idiots like yourself who believe renewable energy doesn’t have a future”
On this, we can not be further apart. I regard those that do as dangerous idiots.

“It’s not denial. I’m just very selective about the reality I accept.” — Calvin

Cheers.

helvityniMay 25, 2017 at 12:17 pm

Credit where credit is due, this article by Harquebus has got almost 500 replies… Is this the record number on AIMN?

He certainly has got you all talking, ok, typing… 🙂

Michael TaylorMay 25, 2017 at 1:27 pm

helvityni, the record for a post is just under 700, and on that post they were only spread out over 3 days and by memory the author didn’t leave a comment. This post is 6 months old and half of the comments are by the author.

LOVOMay 25, 2017 at 2:33 pm

Migs, sorry about your loss…………………..tonight 😛
👿

Michael TaylorMay 25, 2017 at 2:49 pm

Losing Chad makes it hard, LOVO. Or should I say even harder? But having accepted defeat already, it won’t be a loss without honour.

RapideffectMay 25, 2017 at 3:20 pm

@Harquebus

When people are only willing to abuse others (like Miriam English does) and not debate the actual ideas, you know there is little hope anything will change.

@Miriam English

Again with the abuse, do you understand what bullying is Miriam English?

“Rapideffect, yeah, I generally don’t like to call names and almost didn’t call you a moron, but in the end I thought, “If the shoe fits…””

And then you go on to say:

“the fantasies of idiots like yourself who believe renewable energy doesn’t have a future.”

You need to actually debate the ideas, not abuse people because they don’t agree with you.

Miriam EnglishMay 25, 2017 at 9:04 pm

Rapideffect, I don’t need to do anything. On a number of previous occasions I’ve been patient, clear and logical and carefully presented the facts to you, but it never makes any difference because you insult, don’t listen, you misinterpret, and you harp on dispiritingly about the same deluded fantasies of doom. What’s the point in debating sensibly with you? You’ve shown any number of times you have absolutely no intention of doing so yourself. So I reflect back to you the same insulting “screw you” attitude. Karma, Rapideffect. It’s a bitch, ain’t it.

Miriam EnglishMay 25, 2017 at 9:34 pm

Harquebus, I love the Calvin & Hobbes cartoons. And I love that quote. Funny that it seems to me to fit your view so well. 🙂

As for replacing fossil fuelled transport… you know all those electric trains and trams…? And you’ll get to see the roll-out of electric cars and trucks in a big way over the coming years.

Solar power gives plenty of energy if you don’t waste it the way we’ve done with fossil fuels. A kilowatt per square meter. With current efficiencies we can turn somewhere between 100 watts and 300 watts of that into electricity. When the equipment you’re using runs on just a few watts or even microwatts then that works just fine. Need more? Chain more panels together. One of the biggest drains on power in the home is water heating, but that can be easily handled by solar water heating — no intermediate energy required.

But here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter how much information I give. It doesn’t matter what I or anyone else says. It doesn’t matter that billionaire engineer Elon Musk is so confident of the numbers. It doesn’t matter how much evidence anyone shows you that it can work, you want so strongly for it not to be so that you just effortlessly dismiss it all. The same blind way religious fundamentalists dismiss evolution.

You say you don’t want doom, but your casual and blinkered dismissal of information speaks volumes.

I watched the most recent Mad Max movie tonight (didn’t enjoy it really, despite the amazing camerawork and artwork), but all through the movie I kept thinking, Harquebus would love this. You pretend you don’t, but if you’re honest with yourself you’ll see what it means when you flatly reject anything that undercuts your cherished doom.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 25, 2017 at 9:58 pm

Keep up the good work, Miriam.

H, it’s time to shut up, despite the fact we all quite like you – coz how else would you manage almost 400 posts?!!

Jennifer Meyer-SmithMay 25, 2017 at 10:00 pm

Alright it’s 400 now!

Are you satisfied?

LOVOMay 25, 2017 at 10:32 pm

I know I am…. 🙂 , satisfied that is…..There’s two points I’d like to make…☺

Michael TaylorMay 25, 2017 at 10:37 pm

What the ^%#< are you doing here? ?

JohnoMay 25, 2017 at 10:38 pm

The M and H think tank.

LOVOMay 25, 2017 at 10:44 pm

…..and phew is but one of them…..and woo hoo is the other 😛 😛 😛 …. :grins:

RapideffectMay 26, 2017 at 11:59 am

@Miriam English

Karma, another one of your beliefs I see. You don’t debate with anyone is my point, you argue with beliefs and abuse people who don’t believe in your fantasies. So Elon Musk is your God you have faith in.

You have presented no facts just beliefs…

“As for replacing fossil fuelled transport… you know all those electric trains and trams…?” Miriam English

The trains and trams that run on fossil fuel electricity you mean?? How is that replacing fossil fuels again??

“And you’ll get to see the roll-out of electric cars and trucks in a big way over the coming years.” Miriam English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

“Despite their rapid growth, plug-in electric cars represented 0.15% of the 1.4 billion motor vehicles on the world’s roads by the end of 2016, up from 0.1% in 2015.”

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/tesla-stock-price-too-high-elon-musk-2017-5?r=US&IR=T

“I do believe this market cap is higher than we have any right to deserve,” he said in an interview with The Guardian, pointing out his company produces just 1% of GM’s total output. “We’re a money losing company.” Elon Musk

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/financials?query=income-statement

http://energyskeptic.com/2016/not-enough-lithium-for-electric-car-batteries/

“To provide enough energy for 1 day of storage for the United states, li-ion batteries would cost $11.9 trillion dollars, take up 345 square miles and weigh 74 million tons (DOE/EPRI. 2013. Electricity storage handbook in collaboration with NRECA. USA: Sandia National Laboratories and Electric Power Research Institute)”

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change

“At the start of RE<C, we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope—but that doesn’t mean the planet is doomed.”

Considering your arrogance Miriam English I know you will not read any of the links I provided which debunk your fantasies, better to stay ignorant and in denial than to face reality for you I guess.

Miriam EnglishMay 26, 2017 at 2:51 pm

Jeez, I can hardly believe I’m actually going to waste time answering a dipstick like you…

Karma? No. It’s a figure of speech you moron.

When I first react to people online I tend to be polite and careful and argue my points in a considerate manner. If they respond in in an antagonistic manner indicating that they have no intention of hearing anything but their own voice then I tend to respond in kind. I know I shouldn’t, but shit, it turns out I’m human.

Elon Musk as god? 😀 hahahaha Well at least I got a good laugh. Jeez you are such a moron.

Yeah, I just knew you were going to say the electricity powering trains and trams is generated (largely) by fossil fuels. Really? Wow! Ya got me! Woulda never thunk of that. Moron! Electricity doesn’t care where it comes from. We are in the process of replacing fossil fuels in the electricity grid. Trends clearly show that process will be pretty-much complete in most places in the world within a decade or maybe two. But, being an obtuse time-wasting misdirecting moron you actually missed the main point: electricity can move enormous amounts of goods and people, and in fact is more efficient at it than fossil fuels are.

Oh gawd! The next point I can barely bother to demolish your argument because you unwittingly did so yourself. Notice that going from 0.1% to 0.15% is adding half again in a year. Roughly, that is doubling in two years. Not much to go by, but that limited dataset indicates that it might take only 18 years to take over the market. It could be less or more. We’ll know better when there are more datapoints, but given the astonishing demand for electric cars — they’re sold before they can get them off the assembly line — I expect it may be sooner.

Look it’s been fun (no it hasn’t) but I gotta cut it short here. I’m helping a friend with his computer. Bye.

Miriam EnglishMay 26, 2017 at 6:41 pm

Okay, a few hours later I’m back to point out how stupid Rapideffect’s arguments are. The poor dumb fool.

Now where were we? Oh yeah, Elon Musk and Tesla losing money. No surprise there. He is investing very heavily in factories. Of course he’s losing money. The profits come later. Google was losing money for many years before it started to become one of the most powerful companies in the world. Same is true of facebook.

Ugh! Quoting from energyskeptic.com — another doomster. In short, he’s wrong. There is plenty of lithium. We gather it from salt flats that are what remains when seawater evaporates. Most of our planet’s lithium is in the oceans. As fresh water is increasingly extracted from sea water in the future the lithium will be part of the byproduct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elements_abundance-bars.svg
You can see the relative abundance of the elements. Lithium (Li — atomic number 3) is considerably more common than lead (Pb — atomic number 82), but we don’t hear people panicking about running out of lead. There is also the fact that future batteries will almost certainly be made out of carbon. British inventor Robert Murray-Smith has been developing light, non-toxic batteries that use carbon. He has also developed and is currently perfecting a battery that has energy storage density greater than petroleum. As for the amount of space required for batteries to power civilisation, does anybody worry that the amount of room needed for all the cars would be impossible? No. That would be stupid. Each person has their car and they give over a little space to it. It would be the same with batteries. (Aaagh! The stupid! It burns!)

I get thoroughly sick and tired of people quoting the usual old absurdly wasteful energy consumption figures and projecting them forward in order to make ridiculous alarmist claims. People change their energy consumption habits. They already are. Consumption continues dropping as people find more efficient ways. This is a continuing trend which has caught a lot of power companies by surprise, but anybody who was paying attention could have seen it.

I’m in denial and ignorant? What a thoroughly stupid thing to say after I earlier showed you that I understand more of the problems facing us than you even have an inkling of. I not only see more problems than you could hope to with your narrow vision, I also see an amazing array of shifting and multiplying solutions and people hard at work on them. We genuinely have some extremely dangerous, potentially intractable problems, but you actually have no idea what they are. You are just a doomer in love with the apocalypse.

RapideffectMay 30, 2017 at 3:06 pm

@Miriam English

You have shown time and time again you have little understanding of the problems with global civilization. Your solutions (more EV cars, renewable energy infrastructure) add to the problems. You want a fossil fuel global civilization to run on so called renewable energy, even if this was possible (it’s not) it still doesn’t solve the depletion of non-renewable resources used to manufacture/maintain them.

Miriam English wrote:
“We are in the process of replacing fossil fuels in the electricity grid. Trends clearly show that process will be pretty-much complete in most places in the world within a decade or maybe two.”

“NASA Climate scientist James Hansen discusses the problem with rapid phase out of fossil fuels and said that while it is conceivable in places such as New Zealand and Norway, “suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”

The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” Delusion

“Our progress in getting away from fossil fuels has not been very fast, either. Going back to 1985, fossil fuels made up 89% of the total, and wind and solar were both insignificant. As indicated above, fossil fuels today comprise 86% of total energy consumption. Thus, in 30 years, we have managed to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 3% (=89% – 86%). Growth in wind and solar contributed 2% of this 3% reduction. At the rate of a 3% reduction every 30 years (or 1% reduction every ten years), it will take 860 years, or until the year 2877 to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels. And the “improvement” made to date was made with huge subsidies for wind and solar.” Gail Tverberg

Miriam English wrote:
“Oh gawd! The next point I can barely bother to demolish your argument because you unwittingly did so yourself. Notice that going from 0.1% to 0.15% is adding half again in a year. Roughly, that is doubling in two years. Not much to go by, but that limited dataset indicates that it might take only 18 years to take over the market.It could be less or more. We’ll know better when there are more datapoints, but given the astonishing demand for electric cars — they’re sold before they can get them off the assembly line — I expect it may be sooner.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

“Global sales of the light-duty plug-in vehicle segment achieved a 0.86% market share of total new car sales in 2016, up from 0.62% in 2015 and 0.38% in 2014”

The growth in EV’s is pathetic, due to price, practicality, resale value, recharging stations and batteries (which need replacing every 8-10years). Less than 1% of all new cars sold in 2016 were EV’s.

Miriam English wrote:
“Ugh! Quoting from energyskeptic.com — another doomster. In short, he’s wrong. There is plenty of lithium. We gather it from salt flats that are what remains when seawater evaporates. Most of our planet’s lithium is in the oceans. As fresh water is increasingly extracted from sea water in the future the lithium will be part of the byproduct.”

You don’t grasp the concept that it has to be economically recoverable for it to count.

Helium is the second most abundant gas and it is in short supply…

Miriam English wrote:
“British inventor Robert Murray-Smith has been developing light, non-toxic batteries that use carbon. He has also developed and is currently perfecting a battery that has energy storage density greater than petroleum.”

Robert Murray-Smith might actually invent something that can be verified one day, until then keep dreaming.

Miriam English wrote:
“I get thoroughly sick and tired of people quoting the usual old absurdly wasteful energy consumption figures and projecting them forward in order to make ridiculous alarmist claims. People change their energy consumption habits. They already are. Consumption continues dropping as people find more efficient ways. This is a continuing trend which has caught a lot of power companies by surprise, but anybody who was paying attention could have seen it.”

Your just sick and tired of reality and the way in which it doesn’t fit into your fantasies.
Global consumption is falling, because there is no demand as the global economy is barely growing, due to diminishing returns on energy/resources.
People are being forced to consume less because it too expensive to do otherwise.

Miriam English wrote:
“I’m in denial and ignorant? What a thoroughly stupid thing to say after I earlier showed you that I understand more of the problems facing us than you even have an inkling of. I not only see more problems than you could hope to with your narrow vision, I also see an amazing array of shifting and multiplying solutions and people hard at work on them. We genuinely have some extremely dangerous, potentially intractable problems, but you actually have no idea what they are. You are just a doomer in love with the apocalypse.”

I’m no doomer, as I said before I have no beliefs. Doomsday prophecies of apocalypse come from religion and refer to the end of the world. The world will not end for billions of years, although the fossil fuel global civilization will end in the not to distant future.

You have little understanding of the problems with global civilization as your solutions solve nothing, just add to more consumption of non-renewable resources.

You don’t debate with facts you debate with fantasies/faith/hope/insults all of which won’t resolve any of the problems…

Karma is a belief, you just get it confused with all your other beliefs you have.

HarquebusMay 31, 2017 at 8:59 am

“Population overshoot. Two of the most undesirable words one could ever utter in a globalized consumer culture predicated on buying ever more stuff and having ever more babies to plug in to the hyperconsumption matrix and perpetually restart the cycle. (closely followed by two other most undesirable words; ecological overshoot.) These conditions are unsustainable and omnicidal.”
“In my view, the economics of 7.5 billion people on one planet point to one outcome, 2 more undesirable words; population dieback.”
“Virtually every major problem, from climate change and wars to mass migrations and resource scarcity has its root in too many people.”

The Absurd Economics Of 7.5 Billion People On One Planet

“Quoting from energyskeptic.com — another doomster. In short, he’s wrong.”
Actually, he’s a she and obtaining lithium might not be a problem but, cobalt is another matter.

“Prices are shooting up, hedge funds are hoarding physical supplies, and buyers are wondering where the next shipments are going to come from to feed the phenomenal progression of the electric vehicle (EV) revolution and massive battery gigafactories.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/electric-bar-boom-sets-cobalt-233000339.html

Cheers.

HarquebusJune 2, 2017 at 9:35 am

“”We should have done something about our population 25 or 30 years ago,” the Denton A. Cooley Centennial Professor of Zoology said during a recent interview at his university office.”
“Now we’re going to have to go into a collapse. It’s going to be very painful. The death rate is going to have to exceed the birth rate, we’re going to have famines, civilizations are going to fall apart.””
http://m.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Controversial-UT-professor-warns-of-Earth-s-end-1488823.php

“‘Overpopulation’ Fears Are a Hoax.”
“Human beings are valuable resources, and the more we have of them the better.”

‘Overpopulation’ Fears Are a Hoax. Here’s Why Higher Populations Are Actually a Good Thing.

More humans is better for who and for what? A very privileged few temporarily and ultimately, for nothing.

Cheers.

Miriam EnglishJune 2, 2017 at 11:35 am

Wow. You sure can pick ’em Harquebus. Both quotations are flamingly wrong.

We did something about population 50 years ago. The clueless writer in Texas just doesn’t realise it because he is stampeded by doomsters.

And the other one… what can I say? While I agree that human potential is the most valuable resource on the planet, we can in this case have too much of a good thing. It’s lucky that population is declining in some parts of the world, and over the whole planet is slowing and will begin declining in the next decades. It’s not fast enough, but with further work on disease control, education, and improvements to living conditions we will get there sooner.

Why on Earth would you post such a couple of quotes? You seem intent on propagating a feeling of hopelessness.

Do you read ebooks? If so I’ll send you one that will give you facts and figures on how the oncoming calamity can be avoided and how work currently in progress is moving us that way. If instead you prefer to remain depressed and want to panic people I won’t bother.

The ebook is in epub format, which is the format I prefer to read on my tablet computer, however I can convert it to any other format you prefer.

HarquebusJune 9, 2017 at 10:12 am

Miriam English
I posted that article because the quote is from a zoology professor and I thought that it might carry some weight. Did you read it? The second, I agree, is nonsense. It is an example of what it is that we are up against.
A pdf would be fine if it’s possible to email it to me.

Here’s one for you. Something that I think might be feasible. Regardless, any solution in my opinion will have to be on a much smaller scale for a limited population if, we are to reduce consumption and restore our natural environment.

“Ifbattery is developing an energy storage system that would enable drivers to fill up their electric or hybrid vehicles with fluid electrolytes to re-energize spent battery fluids much like refueling their gas tanks.”
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2017/Q2/instantly-rechargeable-battery-could-change-the-future-of-electric-and-hybrid-automobiles.html

Cheers.

HarkubusJune 17, 2017 at 8:59 am

Harquebus will no longer be posting personal comments nor responding to any.

“The growing human population – which has increased by 130 per cent in the last 50 years and is set to rise to more than 10 billion by 2060 – and our increasing demand for resources as we become wealthier is ramping up the pressure on the natural world.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/mass-extinction-humans-causing-earth-deaths-end-times-warning-a7765856.html

“More human economy (more people and commodities) means less natural ecosystem.”
http://www.greattransition.org/publication/economics-for-a-full-world#limits-to-growth-optimal-scale

“Unless we sort out how we feed the growing human population, thousands of birds and mammals will face the specter of extinction in coming decades”
“Study after study has shown that we’re in the midst of a sixth great extinction.”

‘Crunch time for biodiversity’: Farming, hunting push thousands of species toward extinction

“Select members of these doomed civilizations were wise enough to think long term and figuratively (or literally) get in a life raft.
https://medium.com/@jonathanroseland/western-civilizational-collapse-b6db95776495

“The global food system, boosted by synthetic nitrogen, is responsible for more than a quarter of all human-induced GHG emissions.”
“The ability of the planet to provide enough food for the extra 80 million mouths to feed every year is likely to decline.”
http://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/88271/mike-joy-says-we-are-collision-course-between-demands-rising-populations-and

“Mass migration, starvation, civil unrest: Overpopulation unites all of these.”
“Decades of United Nations projections for the year 2000 came within 3 percent of the actual total”
“Current growth adds the population equivalent of a new Iran or Germany every year.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/sunday-review/100000005164695.mobile.html

HarkubusJune 21, 2017 at 10:19 am

“What Happens When There Are No Fish Left?
According to the U.N Food and Agriculture Organization, 85 percent of global fish stocks are “overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion.””
“technology now exists that enables humans to find and catch every single fish in the oceans, no matter where they are located on the planet.”
http://www.alternet.org/environment/global-fisheries-are-collapsing-what-happens-when-there-are-no-fish-left

“We [India] have real-time examples of large population not working in our favour. Witness heavy traffic and long queues, exasperated faces and patience running dry on an all-time low. It’s not just depleting resources but also affecting the cultural fabric of the nation.”
“Because simply put, we will never be well-prepared to handle a population of over 1.6 billion people, as it is projected to reach by 2050. It will impact the 3Es – education, employability and employment.”
“These three issues put together have adverse effects on our economy – reduced rate of capital formation, lower standard of living, adverse effect on per capital income and so on. This is what we call the vicious circle of poverty.”
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/indias-demographic-dividend-is-a-myth/article9729947.ece

“From Jan. 1 to Aug. 2, the world’s 7.5 billion people will have used as much of Earth’s biological resources—or biocapacity—as the planet can regenerate in a year.”
“Stated slightly differently, humans are depleting living Earth’s capacity to support life.”
“We cannot ignore population growth if we are truly committed to people having secure lives in a world of finite resources”
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/we-will-soon-be-using-more-than-the-earth-can-provide-20170614

“As global shipping, factories, and countries have a hard time keeping the lights on; computers will stop being made as supply chains break down. If even one of the dozens of types of single-sourced equipment or pure chemical suppliers goes out of business, the assembly line stops.”
“Once rationing and shortages begin, agriculture and other essential services will receive the most energy. Scientists will be unemployed.”
“We may be able to cannibalize computers for parts to keep some machines running, but eventually all the knowledge stored in computers will be unavailable. By that time, most of the paper in library books will have decayed, become nesting material for rodents, or burned to heat homes.”

The fragility of microprocessors

“The decline is projected to deepen in coming years as the population grows. India, which currently has 1.3 billion people, is set to overtake China by 2022 and reach 1.7 billion in 2050.
Water scarcity is also exacerbated by a growth in water-intensive industries, such as thermal power production, extraction and mining, as India seeks to feed and power its growing population.”
https://theconversation.com/indias-wells-are-running-dry-fast-78372

“”What’s happening bit by bit is that water scarcity is becoming increasingly common all around the world, no matter where you look as country after country hits the limit of what it can use,” says Professor Mike Young.”
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/conservation/the-approaching-crisis-is-the-world-running-out-of-water/news-story/8d48f0cce7b33bc7b480d8e6f1e9152b

“The fear is that legislation will mandate goals that can’t be achieved with available technologies at reasonable prices, leading to “wildly unrealistic expectations” and “massive misallocation of resources,””
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608126/in-sharp-rebuttal-scientists-squash-hopes-for-100-percent-renewables/

HarquebusJune 24, 2017 at 11:18 am

“The environmental and economic consequences of population growth are profound and alarming but the key message of these figures is that action to address it will make an enormous difference to our futures.”
“We are already in a crisis and our current trajectory of rising numbers and rising affluence is unsustainable. The planet is groaning under the strain of seven-and-a-half billion of us and we are using the renewable resources of more than one-and-a-half Earths to supply our needs.”
https://www.populationmatters.org/16bn-7-3bn-2100-new-un-projections-say-possible/

“The “Limits to Growth Study” of 1972 was deeply controversial and criticised by many economists. Over 40 years later, it seems remarkably prophetic and on track in its predictions.”
“its message was that growth could continue for some time by running down “natural capital” (depletion) and degrading “ecological system services” (pollution) but that it could not go on forever. ”
“It is now over 40 years since the original Limits to Growth study was published so it is legitimate to compare what was predicted in 1972 against what actually happened. This has now been done twice”
“The scenario results in collapse of the global economy and environment and subsequently, the population.”
“the general onset of collapse first appears at about 2015 when per capita industrial output begins a sharp decline. (Turner, 2012)”
“The concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested is a ratio in physical quantities and it helps us to understand the flaw in neoclassical economic reasoning that draws on the idea of “the invisible hand” and the price mechanism.”
“Energy is necessary for virtually every activity in the economy, for all production and all services. The price of energy is a big deal”
“we should beware of believing that renewable energy systems are a panacea that can rescue consumer society and its continued growth path.”
“some energy experts are sceptical about the global potential of renewable energy to meet the energy demand of a growing economy.”
“a transfer of resources from discretionary consumption to investment in energy infrastructure. But such a transfer would be crushing for the other sectors and their decline would likely drag down the whole economy.”
“Such countries are likely to do better but will not escape the general decline if they stay wedded to the conventional growth model. Whatever the variability, this is still a dead end and, at some point, people will see that entirely different ways of thinking about economy and ecology are needed – unless they get drawn into conflicts and wars over energy by psychopathic policy idiots. There is no way out of the Catch 22 within the growth economy model. That’s why degrowth is needed.”
“As ores deplete there is a deterioration of ore grades. That means that more rock has to be shifted and processed to refine and extract the desired raw material, requiring more energy and leaving more wastes.”
the problem is the incredibly naive faith that markets and technology can solve all problems and keep on going.

Using Energy to extract energy – the dynamics of depletion

Food: Weapon of MASS Destruction

“Gangs of aggressive killer whales are shaking down Alaska fishing boats for their fish”
“A report this week in the Alaska Dispatch News outlined instances of aggressive orcas harassing boats relentlessly — even refusing to leave after a desperate skipper cut the engine and drifted silently for 18 hours.”
http://nationalpost.com/news/world/gangs-of-aggressive-killer-whales-are-shaking-down-alaska-fishing-boats-for-their-fish-report/wcm/4da9c8fa-1884-428d-84bd-03f972e34a0f

“Economists led the way to financial liberalisation of the past 40 years, which led to soaring levels of debt, crises and financial ruin. Economists dictated the terms for austerity that has so harmed the economy and society over the past years. As the policies have failed, the vast majority of economists have refused to concede wrongdoing, nor have societies been offered alternative economics policies.”
“The economics profession, and their friends amongst the world’s financial elites, are to blame. They engineered their own political and financial bail-outs after the grave financial crisis of 2007-9. Economists cheered on politicians and effectively urged them to transfer the burden of losses on to those most innocent of the crisis. Conservative and Social Democratic politicians with friends in financial circles, were only too happy to oblige.”
https://renegadeinc.com/brexit-2/

“Policy makers should treat with caution any visions of a rapid, reliable, and low-cost transition to entire energy systems that relies almost exclusively on wind, solar, and hydroelectric power.”
http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/21/powering-us-using-100-percent-renewable

“The food system must be transformed. By 2050, there will be 9 billion people on the planet and demand for food will have increased by 70 per cent.”
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/820099/POPULATION-CRISIS-10-BILLION-global-famine

HarquebusJune 25, 2017 at 10:52 am

“Already, there are many areas around the planet that can not sustain the human populations, resulting in starvation, poverty, disease, crime, war, economic instability, pain and misery.”
“The world population in year 1 A.D. was 250 million people.”
http://one-simple-idea.com/Environment1.htm

HarquebusJuly 19, 2017 at 9:53 am

“Industrial fishing fleets dump nearly 10 million tonnes of good fish back into the ocean every year, according to new research.”
“Discards are now declining because we have already fished these species down so much that fishing operations are catching less and less each year, and therefore there’s less for them to throw away”
http://www.seaaroundus.org/ten-million-tonnes-of-fish-wasted-every-year-despite-declining-fish-stocks/

“Although extreme, Malé is an example in miniature of something that is happening on a far larger scale around the world. With 83 million more people appearing on the planet every year, rising populations are placing increasing pressure on the land.”
“Each of those people will need somewhere to live, a place to work, fertile land to provide them with food. They will need water and energy to stay warm or to light their way at night.”
“The researchers predicted that increasing demand for food, biofuels, industrial forestry and the spread of urbanisation will result in this reserve of land being completely used up by 2050.”
“Of the people uprooted last year, 22.5 million sought refuge across international borders. Finding new homes for such large numbers of people is already proving difficult – just 189,300 refugees were admitted by other nations for resettlement in 2016. The majority remain housed in vast camps or living as stateless individuals, all of them requiring food, water and shelter.”
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170628-how-to-best-manage-earths-land

“In other words, we collectively have to stop our delusions about perpetual economic growth and find another way to live from this point forward. We need to stop pretending that all is well because our myopic view of life shows no oil or other major shortfalls in the very near future. If we do not face up to the truth, the repercussions are clear.”
“Instead of an “ignorance is bliss” outlook, it’s markedly better to have long-range vision and see the coming monster so that meaningful preparations can be made.”
“the current Middle East and African wars are diminutive in scale compared to the contention that lies ahead.”
“In addition, the pending oil shortfall will cause products, services and food that rely on oil to skyrocket in cost. Moreover, petroleum derivatives serve as the foundation for fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, transportation of goods to markets, the majority of the grocery packaging operations (i.e., the manufacture of containers in addition to the bottling and canning processes, etc.) and, of course, operational farm machinery.”
“All considered, imagine just farms alone being run without sufficient oil. Would they be capable to supply enough food for over seven billion people without it? How will they provide for the nine billion to ten billion expected to be on the Earth in approximately 40 years?”
“There will need to be a move to much smaller, human-scale, localized and decentralized systems that can sustain themselves within their own landbase. Industrial civilization and suburban living relies on cheap sources of energy to continue to grow and expand. That era is coming to an end. One of the most important tasks right now is to prepare for a very different way of life.”
“Indeed, closed resource and energy systems have built-in limits to growth regardless of whether there are increases in population, resource consumption or energy demands.”
“Clearly, our choices in terms of the future that we want to create will in time be largely determined by limitations in oil and other resources.”
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/01/after-peak-oil-are-we-heading-toward-social-collapse/

“Despite Big Agriculture claiming for years that their pesticides only kill pests, a report published in late June in the Journal Science proved what many people have suspected for years: the type of pesticides that Bayer pioneered, known as neonicotinoids, are responsible for diminishing numbers of honeybees.”
http://stockboardasset.com/insights-and-research/globalism-pesticides-behind-massive-honeybee-dieoff-bayer-study-confirms/

“Also, not nearly enough people understand that it has absolutely nothing to do with money. That you can’t go out and buy more or better energy sources. Which is why we use EROEI instead of EROI (Energy Return on Investment), because the latter leaves some sort of financial interpretation open that doesn’t actually exist, it suggests that a financial price of energy plays a role.”

The Dynamics of Depletion

“The human population has grown so large that roughly 40% of the Earth’s land surface is now farmed to feed people – and none too well at that. Largely due to persistent problems with distribution, almost 800 million people go to bed hungry, and between one and two billion suffer from malnutrition.”
“The more people there are, the more products of nature they demand to meet their needs and wants: timber, seafood, meat, gas, oil, metal ores, rare earths and rare animals to eat or to use for medicinal purposes.”
“The expanding human population not only outright destroys habitats, it also alters them to the detriment of wildlife (and often people themselves).”
“human population growth is a major and growing driver of the sixth mass extinction, just as it is with the related accelerating climate disruption.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/11/sixth-mass-extinction-habitats-destroy-population

“Humans have a virtually unlimited capacity for self-delusion, even when self-preservation is at stake.”
“The scariest example is the simplistic, growth-oriented, market-based economic thinking that is all but running the world today. Prevailing neoliberal economic models make no useful reference to the dynamics of the ecosystems or social systems with which the economy interacts in the real world.”
“we’ve already shot past several important planetary boundaries.”
“Propelled by neoliberal economic thinking and fossil fuels, techno-industrial society consumed more energy and resources during the most recent doubling (the past 35 years or so) than in all previous history.”
“Ignoring overshoot is dangerously stupid — we are financing growth, in part, by irreversibly liquidating natural resources essential to our own long-term survival.”
“Like a mind-altering drug, the compound myth of perpetual growth and continuous technological progress obscures reality.”
“Our growth-based, winner-takes-all economy has become egregiously unjust as well as ecologically precarious. Perversely, the world community prescribes still greater material growth as the only feasible solution!”
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2017/07/17/Coming-Global-Collapse/

HarquebusJuly 24, 2017 at 11:03 am

“A Tennessee judge is gaining national media attention for his unique incentive offered to inmates upon sentencing: convicts can undergo a free taxpayer funded sterilization procedure and get a 30 day reduction in jail time.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-22/return-eugenics-tennessee-judge-issues-sterilization-program-inmates

Miriam EnglishJuly 24, 2017 at 2:20 pm

I checked that this was real news as zerohedge has a bad habit of making stuff up, and this sounded exactly like the outrageous crap they fabricate. But it is real.

Trust a right-wing judge to introduce something illegal into the courts. Eugenics is illegal for a very good reason.

This actually has nothing to do with your desire for population reduction, Harquebus. This is about a right-wing elitist racist targeting poor people, especially poor black people. If this judge has his way USA would be populated only by wealthy white criminals like him. When he proposed this he became a criminal and should be languishing in prison… but of course, he won’t; he’s wealthy and white, and better still, has a hand in defining the rules that put other people in prison.

Why do you persist in reading zerohedge, Harquebus? Not only do they lie and slant information, they also feed you the kind of stuff that guarantees you will lose your footing in the sane world.

Miriam EnglishJuly 24, 2017 at 2:57 pm

With all your talking up of doom, featuring you hunkering down with guns and supplies trying to ward off marauding bands like in some post-apocalyptic movie, you subscribe to a bleakly anti-human outlook. If you look at recent catastrophes you’ll find that people rise to such events to become heroes, helping others even at the risk of their own lives. They don’t become nasty and selfish as you believe, but become courageous and sharing.

Rebecca Solnit examined a whole range of recent major catastrophes to see whether people turn on each other or whether they help each other. The latter overwhelmingly predominated. Check out her book: Rebecca Solnit – A Paradise Built in Hell – The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster.

Also, it would be worth reading Peter Diamandis’ book Abundance – The Future is Better than You Think. It shows how thinking the old way traps us into a cycle of impoverishment that damages the world around us. We can instead adopt a better way that delivers abundance for all while protecting the planet. The old, broken way of thinking makes it seem impossible, but it really isn’t. That’s the sad con of the existing way of thinking. When inside the broken, conventional way of thinking it seems obvious that we can’t have abundance because we’re already destroying the planet. Once you see all the facts the answer is quite the opposite. Continuing the same way will destroy the planet. We need a better way to produce abundance — one that gives people a good life so that they don’t go and rape the planet.

HarquebusJuly 24, 2017 at 3:27 pm

Miriam English
Submitted for general interest.

“With all your talking up of doom, featuring you hunkering down with guns and supplies trying to ward off marauding bands like in some post-apocalyptic movie”
This is just you putting words in my mouth again and your persistence in this practice is really pissing me off. You are the only one on this page who has mentioned guns and marauders.
Try comprehending what it is that I actually write and submit for a change, you might learn something.

Your neighbors will be your best bet for surviving the transition. Be on good terms with them. Mine, the smart ones at least, are following my examples.

Peak oil Miriam, peak oil.

“Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food.” — Prof. Albert Bartlett.

Oh, and when you find your “better way to produce abundance”, let me know.

Jack StrawJuly 24, 2017 at 4:31 pm

Mir and Harq Will you 2 get a room please !

Miriam EnglishJuly 24, 2017 at 7:22 pm

😀 heheheh Jack, he’s not really my type. Aside from his pessimism his genitals are on the outside. 🙂

Jack StrawJuly 24, 2017 at 7:37 pm

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Harq will do anything to get this story viewed again.

HarquebusJuly 25, 2017 at 10:20 am

“The world today is beset with a host of major issues – oil depletion, climate change, food shortages, resource wars, species extinction – to name but a few. But these are only symptoms of the one true problem. “The Real Problem” – the one that spawns all others, and the one that mankind must face at some point – is that there are simply too many human beings on this planet.”
“Unfortunately, in today’s world, we are content to address only the consequences of the The Problem – climate change, energy depletion, food shortages, etc. This is the same classic mistake that a physician makes in treating only the patient’s symptoms, and ignoring the fundamental disease.”
“There have been several recent opinion pieces in the Boston Globe and the New York Times expressing the belief that we have a problem with decreasing population! Absurd.”
“Why then is overpopulation not discussed?” – “There is no money in it.”
“But there is a simple and obvious solution to The Problem – one that has been tested and proven to work – one that causes no unnecessary harm to anyone – and one that costs absolutely nothing: the one-child per female policy.”

The Population Elephant | “The Problem” we choose not to discuss | by Kurt Dahl

Six years on and the consequences detailed in the digesthis article continue to worsen.

I do, in person, direct as many as I can to read my article. Responses vary from total agreement to silence and “At least I won’t be around to see it.” – Wrong. None that I have directed so far have disagreed the premise.

HarquebusJuly 26, 2017 at 10:03 am

“Most people aren’t paying attention. Most people have no idea what’s going on. Industrial civilization is already having serious health problems and heart palpitations. By 2020, industrial civilization is going to suffer a massive stroke. By 2025, it will be in hospice. By 2030, it will be dead.”
“Phase 1 was the peak of conventional oil in 2005, with the ensuing GFC (global financial crisis) in 2008, papered over by massive debt conjured out of thin air by the financial manipulator magicians at the Federal Reserve. Phase 2 starts with the growing ineffectiveness of these financial measures against stark net energy realities.”
http://articulatingthefuture.weebly.com/home/thermodynamic-failure-phase-2

“Japan’s population is shrinking and the world will soon follow suit.
Modern methods of measuring economies are no longer working.
Economists, politicians, and academics will need to prepare for a different world.”
“A falling population makes it difficult to continue growing the economy.”
“But what if our obsession with growth is outdated?”
“The chief issue isn’t based in reality, but in the measurement of reality. GDP is increasingly a poor measure of prosperity.”
http://www.ilikecharts.com/japan-isnt-dying-we-all-are/

Miriam EnglishJuly 26, 2017 at 10:57 am

The first article you linked to is ridiculous and and focused entirely on the wrong thing, just spouting the same old backward-looking doom-obsessed garbage. The world has changed. Some people need to keep up with reality.

The second article shows how we can (and are) turning the tide in some things. Japan is doing very nicely. Many of the world’s most advanced nations are starting to follow suit.

See H? You can see some of the solutions happening.

HarquebusJuly 26, 2017 at 11:28 am

Miriam English
You are so pumped up with hopium that you wouldn’t recognize reality if it jumped up and bit you on the arse.

Miriam EnglishJuly 26, 2017 at 12:21 pm

H, you misunderstand my position. Dismissing me because I can see the positive as well as the negative merely shows how unbalanced you’ve allowed yourself to become.

RapideffectJuly 29, 2017 at 12:33 pm

@Harquebus

Unfortunately many people do not understand the predicament we are in. Miriam English believes renewable energy will save civilization, but can’t back up her claims with any evidence. I’m still wondering how jumbo jets and cargo ships can be powered by renewable energy.

Miriam EnglishJuly 29, 2017 at 2:14 pm

Rapideffect, your lack of comprehension is what makes you think I haven’t backed up what I’ve said. Unfortunately nobody can remedy that… probably not even you.

HarquebusJuly 29, 2017 at 2:52 pm

Miriam English
You only think that you have backed your assertions. I haven’t seen anything other than advertisement and unsubstantiated blurb in anything that you have posted in regards to renewable energy.

Miriam EnglishJuly 29, 2017 at 5:12 pm

H, actually, you have seen them, but you clearly don’t remember (I don’t think you lie, unlike Rapideffect). I assume you don’t remember because that would introduce cognitive dissonance, threatening your beliefs.

HarquebusJuly 30, 2017 at 12:29 pm

Miriam English
I have read everything that you have provided me and seen most of the videos and no, you haven’t. What you have provided is not what I call evidence.

“This problem is currently not being recognized by any of the groups evaluating wind and solar, using techniques such as LCOE, EROI, LCA, and EPP. As a result, published results suggest that wind and solar are much more beneficial than they really are. The distortion affects both pricing and the amount of supposed CO2 savings.”

Researchers have been underestimating the cost of wind and solar

“Most government leaders and party politicians admit that climate change is a big danger, but they are not prepared to make an all-out effort to avert or mitigate it. Their topmost policy-priority is continuous economic growth.”
“In reality, so-called renewable energies are neither renewable nor clean.”
“I hope now it has become clear to my readers that “renewable energies” cannot play any role in solving the multifaceted global crisis of today and that, on the contrary, investing in these technologies is a waste of time, effort, energy and, most important of all, scarce resources.”
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-clean-is-clean-energy-why-renewables-cannot-solve-the-global-crisis-10205baeb781

“Further considerations to: Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation”
“The use of the ERoEI EXT methodology and not of the LCA methodology should be mandatory in the future to avoid annihilation of resources and to provide a clear answer to consumers, faced with the huge increase in electricity prices.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517302914

This one should be on your reading list.
http://energyskeptic.com/

Miriam EnglishJuly 30, 2017 at 12:55 pm

Of course you don’t. That’s the problem with trying to convince those with a religious devotion to some idea. Even the facts are not enough to convince them. The old energy return on energy invested calculations that you keep referring to have already been thoroughly debunked earlier. Both Kaye and I showed you that the guy uses old, outdated figures that have been proven to be wrong by plenty of other researchers.

So, no. You are deceiving yourself when you say you’ve read it all. Scanning your eye over something is not the same as reading it. To read it you have to actually take in the information. You give preference to old, outdated, disproved data over new, more accurate data backed up by multiple researchers. Why would you do that? Because it lets you reject the most important solution available to us and thereby maintain your (religious) belief that all will collapse.

You only have to look at the successes Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is having. The fact that they are run by scientists, and the head scientist is a physicist should be a hint to you. But you still haven’t looked at their work, despite me recommending it to you many, many times. The most recent time you even said you hadn’t heard of them! So much for reading everything provided.

You are fooling yourself H. And you are suffering for it and losing time when you could be taking steps to improve the world and fix the problems. Instead you’re crying that the sky is falling, being (rightly) ignored for doing so, and wasting time and influence when you could be making a real difference helping move the world to something better.

HarquebusJuly 30, 2017 at 1:47 pm

Miriam English
As I stated previously, yours is mostly “advertisement and unsubstantiated blurb”. Yourself and Kaye Lee have proved nothing. (Debunk, to prove something is not bunkem. Many use this term incorrectly.) If anything, it is that the loss is not as great but, it is still a net energy loss.
“Scanning your eye over something”. You have got to be kidding me.
I did follow up on the RMI including the board of directors and was not impressed. I have since come across them a couple of times from references in other articles which left me with the same low impression. Perhaps I’ll take another look but, not today.

Humor me and read the three links that I posted and I will try not to urge you to read anything I post again. The last requires downloading PDF and includes this.
“We are aware of the fact that the results of the various ERoEI-analyses published up to now in the scientific literature cannot be compared with each other, without a rigorous and deontological investigation.”

What you need to do to convince me is, prove that wind and solar devices have an EROEI > 1. As you are one who advocates them, it is your obligation to prove that they can and not mine that they can’t. Without a clearly defined boundary, results are bound to vary and consequently, will continue to be contentious.

From a link that I posted back in April and which you obviously did not bother to read.
“Unfortunately EROI calculations tend to be slippery because they depend upon system boundaries. Draw a close boundary around an energy production system and you are likely to arrive at a higher EROI calculation; draw a wide boundary, and the EROI ratio will be lower. That’s why some EROI calculations for solar PV are in the range of 20:1 while others are closer to 2:1. That’s a very wide divergence, with enormous practical implications.”

“Hope only serves to prolong suffering.” — Nietzsche
“It takes Courage to deal with Reality. To see it for what it is, in its naked form.” — Cathal Haughian

Miriam EnglishJuly 30, 2017 at 2:25 pm

Don’t know why I keep replying…

Kaye and I did prove it. You merely chose to ignore it, as you always do when proof that you’re wrong comes up. That’s why I call your belief religious. It is not amenable to facts.

I’m well aware of what “debunk” means.

You’ll continue believing you’re right. It will never matter what the actual facts are. If they don’t fit with your belief they will always be rejected.

diannaartJuly 30, 2017 at 2:49 pm

Miriam

Harquebus reminds me of Malcolm Roberts (except, maybe, a little more pleasant) in that he chooses what to believe regardless of evidence.

Miriam EnglishJuly 30, 2017 at 4:35 pm

diannaart, yes.

Talking with H is weirdly like conversing with that early AI chat program, Eliza — an extremely frustrating experience. Although there always seems to be a glimmer of intelligence the conversation goes around and around and never gets anywhere.

I’m beginning to think H has a learning problem. He seems to genuinely believe that his claims have not been disproved. I don’t think he’s lying. I think he really believes it. He is stuck in his own Groundhog Day. He will always repeat the same stuff. The facts never change him. It doesn’t matter how carefully information is laid out before him. He always returns to the same old place and repeats, again, and again, and again, and again…

Malcolm Roberts is just stupid and thinks it’s a game that he can play by being sneaky. He’s more like that fool Rapideffect.

Harquebus is just stuck and appears unable to retain information. I would feel sorry for him if it didn’t annoy me so much that he continues to do his utmost to get people to give up on fixing the world. He really needs to stop and learn a bit. Maybe then he can start helping to fix it. But maybe he can’t learn. Perhaps he should get help.

diannaartJuly 30, 2017 at 4:50 pm

Miriam

Harquebus is definitely stuck on repeat – I am not sure how he can be helped unless he recognises the problem and if he recognised the problem, he would also recognise evidence… and so it goes…

As for the parable I introduced with Malcolm Roberts, he is in the category of people too stupid to know they are stupid. I wouldn’t describe H in this way. But there are parallels with obsessive thinking.

All the energy Harquebus expends on his quest – such energy wasted when he could use it to achieve so much. As an energy poor person (due to illness) I am very frustrated to see wasted ability.

sad.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithJuly 30, 2017 at 5:28 pm

Very true, diannaart

H has a lot to give but his negativity negates his intelligence, kindness and good intentions (albeit misguided).

Miriam EnglishJuly 30, 2017 at 7:34 pm

diannaart, well said regarding Malcolm Roberts. He does seem to be a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Jennifer, I’ve begun to wonder about H’s intelligence. His inability to show any comprehension of the information economy was a bit of a shock to me. It didn’t matter how much I explained it and the fact that it already exists and thrives. He never actually understood it, but bizarrely continued to think that it wouldn’t happen.

And his resistance to renewable energy… what can I say? He is utterly unreceptive to facts, simply dismissing them. At first I thought it was just pig-headedness, then I thought it was religious indoctrination. Now I wonder if it is a genuine learning disability. He seems honestly unable to absorb new information.

He insists that he means well, that he doesn’t want doom, but when you check the way he seems to savour the idea, I wonder. And the way he refuses to present solutions along with the problems it makes me think he just loves the problems too much to entertain the thought of them being solved, because we deserve doom. Here is one of the quotes he made (above at May 5, 2017 at 12:34 am) : No need to hand out the koolaid; the natural world has its own version, is serving it up now and we will just have to drink it and unlike the quick deaths at Jonestown, ours will be slow and painful. Now, I may be wrong, but that looks to me like someone being glad that death will be meted out to us all.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithJuly 30, 2017 at 7:39 pm

This is the trouble with social media.

To resolutely decide that someone is false, delusional or malignant, we need to be able to peruse them face to face and hear the sound of their voices.

Pretend artists can be detected much easier.

HarquebusJuly 31, 2017 at 6:58 am

Miriam English
I did not ignore you. I am sure that I have stated this somewhere above; although I can not remember the specifics, I do recall that your “evidence” was so full of holes one could drive a truck through it and contained lots of things like, “if only”, “with more research” and “with more investment” etc.
I read, watched and could only conclude that it was not proof nor evidence no matter how much you would like to think that it was. I really was not impressed and you will have to do better if you want to improve your credibility which, is suffering.

It is you playing the ignorance game, so sure of yourself being correct that you can no longer distinguish fact from fiction.

“resistance to renewable energy”. Of course. Renewable energy is a scam and you have fallen for it.

“No need to hand out the koolaid; the natural world has its own version, is serving it up now and we will just have to drink it and unlike the quick deaths at Jonestown, ours will be slow and painful. Now, I may be wrong, but that looks to me like someone being glad that death will be meted out to us all.”

You often accuse me of this. If I really wanted civil collapse, I would not have spent over two decades trying to convince people of the dangers, their causes and the solution in order to avoid the very situations that we now find ourselves in. I would not still be here trying to drum some common sense into you and others like diannaart and JMS all of whom, believe it or not, I happen to like regardless of the criticisms that are directed at me. Some others less so. I would instead, be laying back, munching on popcorn and laughing my arse off.

I think that you are all worth saving and I will continue trying but, if you, they, theAIMN and rest of society are not going to come to your senses and do what is required then, be prepared to face the consequences that I keep warning about and which, have born down on us, are plain to see for anyone with the courage to look and are already having serious effects on all of us. My sperm count being just one.

BTW: Left something for you on your Adani page a few days ago.

diannaart
My efforts extend beyond my online activities. My garden society, although still small, continues to expand and my family, friends and I are stepping up our efforts toward self sustainability.

Jennifer Meyer Smith
There is nothing pretentious about me.
My family and friends used to tolerate my goings on without taking me seriously. Fast forward over two decades and that is now no longer the case. My warning years in advance of the GFC was one year out. I said 2007. After 2008, attitudes towards me changed. What caused the GFC? Peak oil Jennifer, peak oil.
The 2008 GFC will look like a picnic compared to the next which, is coming soon. Get ready.

“Multiple intelligence agencies confirmed that the militant Islamist organization and its numerous affiliates intend to carry out a massive, coordinated plan to stand aside and watch America’s increasingly rapid decline, with terrorist operatives across the globe reportedly mobilizing to take it easy, relax, and savor the spectacle as it unfolds.”
“We vow that we will not cease sitting around and laughing it up until America is reduced to rubble”
http://www.theonion.com/article/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-sit-back-and-en-35788

Because there is some doubt as to my intelligence; yes, I am aware that theoinion is satire.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithJuly 31, 2017 at 7:34 am

Believe it or not, H, I wasn’t targeting that comment at you coz I sense you don’t just pretend to believe your statements.

I totally support your garden society and your community effort towards self-sustainability. However, I cannot see the logic in dismissing the wonderful advances of renewable energy projects happening everywhere, as well as other advances in science that Miriam speaks about.

You of all people should be 100% behind them, so we can inform ourselves of how we will avoid calamitous circumstances that you keep warning us about.

HarquebusJuly 31, 2017 at 8:00 am

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
I believe you and my apologies.
EROEI Jennifer, EROEI. Energy Returned on Energy Invested.
If we get less energy back than that which we invest, what is the point? This is the core of Miriam’s and my debate. She says renewable devices return more, I say they return less.
Energy returned is easy to measure, energy invested is not.

Miriam EnglishJuly 31, 2017 at 8:12 am

Wow, H, you are so all-consumed by your doom obsession you even misattribute the global financial collapse to peak oil. News flash: it was due to fraudulently opaque bundling of bad risk debts to be repackaged as good debts, along with a large-scale swindle of offering mortgages to people who could not possibly pay them. It had absolutely nothing to do with oil.

Naturally you disbelieve the proof against the flakey EROI info you depend upon to reject renewable energy. Wouldn’t want actual facts to intrude their solutions into your nice tidy doom.

I’ve been communicating with a religious fellow recently who says the Nazis were atheists and that the gays are the beginning of the same thing. I’ve pointed out to him that the Nazis were actually devout Christians, that Hitler carried a Bible with him at all times and quoted often from it, and that Hitler’s speeches were full of devotion to God, Jesus and traditional family values. Hitler hated gays (murdered millions of them, along with Jews, Gypsies, black and brown people, and handicapped people) and disliked and distrusted atheists. But it doesn’t matter what information I give him, he refuses to believe it because it conflicts with his existing belief. This is exactly what you do too H.

During this guy’s hateful rhetoric he insists that he loves the gays and is just trying to save them, even though it is obvious to all that he’s deceiving himself and that he hates and fears them and is really looking forward to the gays to suffering. In fact he is working hard to amplify the wave of hate in the community that leads to bashings and other injustices. He hides this from himself, maintaining he wants only to get his warning out. This is also very reminiscent of what you do H.

Your stubborn resistance to facts, your unwillingness to countenance any of the vast array of solutions that are available, your harping on about doom, doom, doom to exclusion of all else — it all shows clearly that you have no genuine wish to solve the problem, but actually have a morbid desire for collapse.

But it’s actually worse than that because by convincing people that there is no solution you cause them to give up. That’s unforgivable, especially considering the wide range of solutions we actually have at hand.

If you were genuine about wanting to avoid doom you would discuss solutions, would acknowledge facts instead of rejecting them out of hand when they conflict with your doom scenario, would not work so hard to paralyse people with hopelessness.

But you probably won’t even read this, let alone absorb it and give it any genuine consideration. [sigh]

Miriam EnglishJuly 31, 2017 at 9:07 am

Sorry Jennifer, I logged in to reply to you, but noticed H had posted and was distracted in replying off-the-cuff to him. I should really save my energy. I know he will never change.

I wanted to agree with you that, yes, face-to-face gives many more clues as to a person’s purpose than simple text conversation allows. However, balancing that is the fact that face-to-face cons can be far more compelling than text-based ones. So I guess it isn’t all bad that we’re stuck with mere text.

Years ago I was lucky enough to be one of the early pioneers of social spaces inside virtual reality. It was pretty primitive back then, but new efforts, such as Jeri Ellsworth‘s castAR have enormous potential for bringing us into virtual spaces with full-body expression and the choice to use avatars (virtual bodies) or our actual bodies.

I’m so impressed with her castAR that I’ve included it in some of my stories (for example Companions). Sadly, castAR shut down last month. Bummer. I hope it continues in some form. It really is a brilliant concept. It’s the closest anybody has come to the Star Trek Holodeck. (Not that I’m a fan of Star Trek — I prefer my science fiction to be less military. In my view Star Trek is something of a dystopia, where everybody lives inside a rigid authoritarian world and weapons are quickly used to settle any disputes.)

Let’s see if I can put a couple of pictures of Jeri in here…

Jeri explaining a display hack

Jeri demonstrating a computerised guitar she built

Hmmm… doesn’t seem to work.

Let’s try this:

Nope. Oh well, links to the pics then:

http://miriam-english.org/lj/jeri-5.jpg
http://miriam-english.org/lj/jeri-11.jpg

HarquebusJuly 31, 2017 at 9:28 am

Miriam English
News Flash: 2008. Wide spread subprime mortgage default due to high gasoline prices dragging on the economy.
A sidenote: My local minimart has closed three freezers reducing consumer choice due to high electricity prices. A good thing in my mind but, not for the minimart. Multiply this by all affected businesses and then combine that with the reduced purchasing power of consumers when the 20% increase in the price of electricity filters through. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the effect on growth. Another good thing in my mind.
Considering that we have the largest global debt bubble in history, what do think is going to happen when the next round of debt default occurs? Will it be due to subprime auto, student debt, housing…? It doesn’t matter. The root cause will be diminishing returns on energy and other resources.
So, I will give you the same advice and you can take it or leave it. Get ready.

A question for you. If the price of electricity increases at 20%pa, how many years will it take for the price double?
Here’s something else that you might not have considered. Currency is a proxy for energy. Currency can be conjured into existence. Energy can not. The current system of ponzinomics will support low energy sources for a limited time only. Until the debt burden becomes too great.

” flakey EROI” Your creditability is about to evaporate completely. EROI measures Energy Returned on Investment. A financial accounting equation. EROEI on the other hand, is a well document concept originating from biology? I correlates neatly with energy reliant systems.

“But it doesn’t matter what information I give him, he refuses to believe it because it conflicts with his existing belief.” No. I am not the gullible fool who is easily convinced. As I have said twice already, your evidence was rubbish. What else have you got?

“unwillingness to countenance any of the vast array of solutions that are available” You have no idea of the magnitude of the problems that we face, the unrealistic and wasted effort required to implement your delusions and, I repeat, nor the complexity of the supply chains and the reliance on trucks to service the building and maintenance of everything. You do not seem to understand the relationships between the economy, energy and the environment nor the effect of per capita consumption on each.

Yours is a limited world view and consequently, as you have so far demonstrated in spades, you are not able to put forward a viable solution that encompasses multiple factors. In short, you are fooling yourself and many others and causing a lot of needless damage as a result.

There is a solution. See the title of this article. We wouldn’t need to build anything.

Miriam EnglishJuly 31, 2017 at 9:57 am

What a waste of time.

EROI can be financial or energy. I’ve seen it used both ways. But despite what you say, your much-loved energy investment in renewable energy sources actually turns out to be wrong. Do some real research. Don’t just stop at those that confirm your bias.

What’s the EROI of Solar?

But What’s the REAL Energy Return of Photovoltaic Energy?

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

I have a careful critique of the main source you refer to, but can’t easily find it at the moment, but why bother? You won’t read it anyway. I’m pissing in the wind.

And depopulating isn’t a solution, it’s simply restating the problem as a more draconian one. The ridiculous thing is it’s not even necessary as population growth is declining already, with some countries reducing in absolute numbers and most on track to do so in the near future. Your insistence that depopulation is the “solution” proves you don’t take the reality seriously.

Miriam EnglishJuly 31, 2017 at 10:02 am

Anyway, I’m done playing your stupid negative game. No more from me.
I should have stopped ages ago. More fool me.

HarquebusJuly 31, 2017 at 10:18 am

Miriam English
I have a backlog of reading but, if you find it and put it up, I will read it.
If it is the one that I am thinking of, I may have already read it but, will do so again. I wouldn’t want to be accused of ignoring you. Also, if it is, the sciencedirect link that I posted yesterday and asked you to read, for once, is a critique of that critique.

I am not playing a game. I am doing everything I can to survive and if that means dragging the kicking and screaming likes of you along then, that is what I am going to do. If I step on your toes, it’s not because I want to.

Miriam EnglishJuly 31, 2017 at 10:34 am

Found it: the response to the ScienceDirect article you posted the link to:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516307066

Why am I bothering? I know you won’t really read it. You might run your eye over it, but nothing will actually penetrate.

This time I’m really done.

Miriam EnglishJuly 31, 2017 at 10:54 am

I’m an idiot saying more here, but the credibility of the authors tells us something about what they write. Both Ferruccio Ferroni and Robert J. Hopkirk and nuclear power afficionados and climate change deniers. How reliable is your central renewable energy denying paper then, H?

Jennifer Meyer-SmithJuly 31, 2017 at 10:55 am

Sorry H, but I would prefer Miriam’s take because she accepts the realities of our challenges while offering solutions.

She is not negating your solutions of community self-sustainability or growing your own organic produce etc. She is offering EXTRA scientific based solutions.

I want to keep hearing from her and you too, as long as you motivate people to keep trying to find solutions because there is every reason to do so.

Jack StrawJuly 31, 2017 at 11:02 am

Miriam you must know when to hold them and when to fold them!

HarquebusJuly 31, 2017 at 11:26 am

Miriam English
I read your links.

The PV FAQ did not specify the boundaries of the analyses. I assume that they limited to the manufacturing process only. I was going to follow the references but, the article is dated 2004 and I have others stuff to study so, I have decided to leave it up to you to investigate the analyses boundaries. If they are limited then, this is just more rubbish.

The resilience article was written by Ugo Bardi. He and I have clashed before so, I am aware of his biases. Again, no boundary specified. I have also clashed with Robert Scribbler and DamnTheMatrix. (DTM) So far, I have only been able to convince DTM who, sometimes comments in this forum under another name. In his case, I challenged him to query his physics student son on the same claims that you make. Bardi and Scribbler on the other hand, banned me. Something that I am getting used to. Independent Australia is another. Banned. They are criminals in my mind. Setting you and everyone else up for a fall.

The rameznaam article again, no mention of the boundary of the discussed article. I have added the source PDF to my backlog. Maybe there is something in there. Again Miriam, this is not proof and poor evidence at best. Here I am about to do extra research that you should be doing in order to discover how accurate these assertions are. If what you have provided me in the past is any indication, I expect to find faults.

“Unfortunately, Weißbach also claims that an EROI of 7 is required to support a society like Europe. I find a number that high implausible for a number of reasons, but won’t address it here.”
In this statement, the “required to support” are the unfactored and difficult to measure energy inputs that I keep coming back to and even the author contends this number. It is difficult to define so, here we are again. Back at square 1. Where to we stop counting the energy invested?
One does not need to factor all the inputs. One only needs to factor enough to approach EROEI <= 1.

Other factors for a large scale roll out must also include infrastructure, storage, maintenance and decommissioning. Perhaps the PDF will have something.

The onus is you to prove, not me to disprove.

HarquebusJuly 31, 2017 at 11:42 am

Miriam English
Where exactly in the article did they advocate nuclear energy? They mention it but, a quick review and I saw nothing promoting it.
For what it is worth, my opinion is that nuclear is the wrong way to go but, if you want your cold beer and footy on wide screen TV’s on Saturdays like one Green politician that I spoke desires then, it has to be considered. A big mistake in my opinion.

Miriam EnglishJuly 31, 2017 at 12:11 pm

Unfortunately you shelved the most important article — the pdf reply to your favorite one. If the prospect of reading a formal paper frightens you then try this:

Another PV ERoEI debacle

It is an easier-to-read criticism of the awful Ferroni and Hopkirk paper that you base your entire refutation of renewable energy upon.

Ferroni and Hopkirk sneakily don’t show their background, probably figuring that would tip people off that they were doing a hatchet job on Solar power. You have to do a quick search on the net.

What the f*ck am I doing???
[slaps self across the face!] Wake up Miriam! He’ll never change. He’s too totally committed to doom.

diannaartJuly 31, 2017 at 1:03 pm

Miriam

I am asking myself the same question, given the absurd amount of time it takes to load this thread given the limitations of my hamster driven PC.

But, here I am.

Harquebus

You claim you are doing all the sustainable things – yet we hear little of that, just the D & G.

Also, you cherry pick from David Suzuki without ever picking up on the good man’s over-arching message of “Solutions are in our nature” – it’s there at the top of his web banner.

There is also:

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/

Small steps make a big difference on the path to living more sustainably. The David Suzuki Foundation will show you how to transform your home, office and community into a healthy and sustainable one. From everyday green living tips to helpful resources on fighting climate change, we can help you make informed decisions to reduce your environmental footprint. Here are some things you can start doing right now.

Yet, you, Harquebus accuse Miriam of being ignorant. Really? One of the most erudite and intelligent commentators at AIMN, ignorant?

Get thee to a mirror and take a long hard look.

HarquebusJuly 31, 2017 at 2:32 pm

Miriam English
“It is an easier-to-read criticism of the awful Ferroni and Hopkirk paper that you base your entire refutation of renewable energy upon.” This is just more bullshit from coming from you. It is just one of many. Take a scroll back up this page for confirmation.

I shelved it? I have a copy and have read it. I can email a copy to you if you like. It is titled:
“Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems
in regions of moderate insolation: A comprehensive response”

“sneakily don’t show their background, probably figuring that would tip people off”. Conspiracy theories now. It just gets better.

Diannaart.
I will take that on notice and compile a list.
Yes, Miriam is ignorant on some issues and dangerously so as you will find out, eventually.
I am a fan of David Suzuki and I have to be selective. I am, after all, asking people to give up their time to read or watch my stuff.

Miriam EnglishJuly 31, 2017 at 4:05 pm

Well, no surprises. The perimeter defenses are intact. H refuses to take on new information.

I never figured you for dishonest H.

jimhazJuly 31, 2017 at 4:15 pm

[I shelved it? I have a copy and have read it. I can email a copy to you if you like. It is titled:
“Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems
in regions of moderate insolation: A comprehensive response”]

????

Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation: A comprehensive response

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516307066

A recent paper by Ferroni and Hopkirk (2016) asserts that the ERoEI (also referred to as EROI) of photovoltaic (PV) systems is so low that they actually act as net energy sinks, rather than delivering energy to society. Such claim, if accurate, would call into question many energy investment decisions. In the same paper, a comparison is also drawn between PV and nuclear electricity. We have carefully analysed this paper, and found methodological inconsistencies and calculation errors that, in combination, render its conclusions not scientifically sound. Ferroni and Hopkirk adopt ‘extended’ boundaries for their analysis of PV without acknowledging that such choice of boundaries makes their results incompatible with those for all other technologies that have been analysed using more conventional boundaries, including nuclear energy with which the authors engage in multiple inconsistent comparisons. In addition, they use out-dated information, make invalid assumptions on PV specifications and other key parameters, and conduct calculation errors, including double counting. We herein provide revised EROI calculations for PV electricity in Switzerland, adopting both conventional and ‘extended’ system boundaries, to contrast with their results, which points to an order-of-magnitude underestimate of the EROI of PV in Switzerland by Ferroni and Hopkirk.

jimhazJuly 31, 2017 at 4:21 pm

[“sneakily don’t show their background, probably figuring that would tip people off”. Conspiracy theories now. It just gets better]

No No No.. this is the first thing one must look at to sort Fake News/Research from research with a much higher likelihood of being substantially accurate. Everything from the alt-right needs this – but I also discount some of the stuff coming from the far left as well (although the left tends to exaggerate, rather than blatantly lie).

HarquebusJuly 31, 2017 at 4:42 pm

Miriam English
I have been reading your links. Bardi I read but, am not going to bother with. Sorry.
I was going to examine the sources of the mattertoenergyl link but, someone more knowledgeable than me in the comments section has already questioned them. As the author did not dispute them, I will take it on face value. Re: The Truth Is In The Footnotes – October 28, 2016.
It’s still stalemate. Got any more?

“The perimeter defenses are intact. H refuses to take on new information.
I never figured you for dishonest H.”
What are you talking about?

Jimhaz
The question of boundaries has been at the heart of our renewable debate from the very beginning. I have no problem with extended boundaries. My argument has always been that haven’t been extended enough.

Miriam EnglishJuly 31, 2017 at 5:26 pm

You keep saying that, but boundaries have very little part to play. Read the article that you say you’ve already read, or better yet, read the shorter, easier-to-read one:

Another PV ERoEI debacle

The problem is Ferroni and Hopkirk’s dishonesty. But then, as they have a nuclear power barrow to push that’s really unsurprising. The nuclear industry is really pissed at solar power. It’s cheaper, faster to set up, safer, is loved by most people, has less technological downsides… no wonder they’re spitting blood.

What is surprising is that after all this you, H, still refuse to change your views to fit reality.

[Goddamn! What am I doing commenting here again???]

Miriam EnglishAugust 1, 2017 at 5:23 am

Just to correct a misapprehension, H: you say you didn’t bother “examining” the https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/another-pv-eroei-debacle/ article because “someone more knowledgeable than me in the comments section has already questioned them. As the author did not dispute them” you felt that relieved you of the burden of bothering with it (despite the clarity of the criticisms of the Ferroni and Hopkirk article on which rest all your claims of renewable energy being a net loss).

You’re wrong on both counts. Each comment by that person was answered on every occasion by the article author, and the “questioning” amounted to no more than what the author himself said at the beginning of his article: “Don’t get me wrong, there’s just as much BS going the other way, from the usual suspects to the space heads, which is all the more reason to be super-skeptical.”

I would have thought you’d be a little more interested in finding out whether you’ve been making a mistake and desirous of remedying any such error.

HarquebusAugust 1, 2017 at 6:24 am

Miriam English
“boundaries have very little part to play”
The boundary of any EROEI analysis has a direct affect on the result. To say that it has a “very little part to play” is completely wrong.

What I stated was, “I was going to examine the sources of the mattertoenergyl link”. I did read the article. Bardi’s was a preliminary and reproduction.

I directed you to the specific comment. Look for ” The Truth Is In The Footnotes” in the comments section. Again, boundaries are mentioned. Here is part of what was said.
“I submit that if you performed a similar examination of any of those you would find they all have similar deficiencies in methodology and references as the article you were critiquing above, some much worse.”
This comment refers to the nrel link that you submitted above. If the author isn’t going to dispute it, why should I? That’s your job.

If I am wrong, prove it.

Jack StrawAugust 1, 2017 at 7:55 am

Miriam ! [Goddamn! What am I doing commenting here again???]

markAugust 1, 2017 at 8:02 am

From doco,A crude awakening.”10,000 nuclear power plants to replace current world energy consumption,and uranium depleted in 10 to 20 years”.mark

Miriam EnglishAugust 1, 2017 at 8:43 am

Genuine boundaries have little impact on whether the return is positive or negative. Ferroni and Hopkirk’s calculations had so many errors that the boundaries didn’t really affect the outcome much. When they got through making up numbers for labour, baselessly increasing the weight of materials, and double-counting various costs their numbers were so unrealistic that they didn’t matter. It was always going to look negative. They fixed it to be that way.

When all those aspects (energy of production of PVs, integration into the grid, labour, allowing for faulty equipment, and capital costs) are added in without fraudulent values then the return on energy is still positive. Even when taking unreasonable boundaries into account (they’re not accounted for in any other energy source) solar PV still returns surplus energy. And the efficiency of production and efficiency of use continues to increase every year.

As for the comment by “The Truth Is In The Footnotes”, Markowitz had already said pretty-much the same thing at the beginning of his paper. Why would he dispute it? He welcomed the comment, saying “I await the chance to review your article!”

It puzzles me that you single out this particular comment. It looks very much like you’re just grasping for any pretext to dismiss the article regardless of how flimsy. If so, that kind of dishonesty should be beneath you. If it is simple error then let’s move on, okay?

You say, “If I am wrong, prove it.”
I already have. You just refuse to accept the truth. It’s right there. You have only to look. Both articles make it completely clear that the Ferroni and Hopkirk paper is so full of flaws that it had no right to be printed.

Look, you can end this honorably and acquiesce to the facts, or you can act dishonorably and continue to pretend the Ferroni and Hopkirk paper has something genuine to say and lose the entire argument. If you do the honorable thing and accept the facts then I and others will have some respect for you. Anybody can make a mistake, right? But if, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, you pretend that black is white then what does that say about you? Are you honest or are you so fixated on “winning” the argument that you lose the battle?

Miriam EnglishAugust 1, 2017 at 8:58 am

Jack Straw, yeah 🙂
Curse my OCD tendencies (or, as the joke goes, “CDO”, so that the letters are arranged alphabetically).

HarquebusAugust 1, 2017 at 9:53 am

Mark
The figure that I recall is that, if all global electricity generation was performed by nuclear, the world’s uranium would last about 40 years. Either way, it is not a solution.
Thanks.

Miriam English
“said pretty-much the same thing at the beginning of his paper”
So the article is pretty much useless as evidence so, why put it up? That comment that I singled out saved me time, that is all. Your argument remains unproven.

As I stated before, the Ferroni and Hopkirk paper is only one of many that I have posted. I had almost forgotten about it before you brought it up again. It contains faults, okay, I’ll concede however, my stance on renewable energy remains. Taken in conjunction with other anti-renewable arguments, the basic premise has not been disproved. Renewable energy devices do not return the energy invested and to say that the boundaries of EROEI analyses has little impact on the result is completely false.
Refer to my postcarbon link April 28, 2017 at 4:25 pm and which, I also referred you to just two days ago.

Do you follow any links that I provide or do you do what you accuse me of? Disregard anything that does not conform to your limited view.

“Are you honest or are you so fixated on “winning” the argument that you lose the battle?”
What I want is a truly sustainable future and I am not really fussed how. Convince me and I will join you otherwise, I will continue to push population reduction as the only truly viable solution. It’s going to happen anyway. This is why your argument is so dangerous.

If what I advocate is implemented and I am wrong then, no harm is done, except to a handful of multibillionaires and probably much good. If your renewable future does not provide then, the consequences will be so much worse and you will have played your part in bringing them about. If you can live with that, good. A lot won’t. They will perish.

Miriam EnglishAugust 1, 2017 at 10:28 am

So you’re dishonest then.
What is the point in denying reality? I’m amazed.

HarquebusAugust 1, 2017 at 10:41 am

Miriam English
That is the second time that you have made that accusation. What is your reason for making it? Please.

HarquebusAugust 2, 2017 at 7:45 pm

diannaart
In response to your question, I was going to expand and provide a few more examples but, considering the hostile reception that I have been receiving here lately, I will keep it short.

I buy second hand products instead of new including clothing and shoes.
I have a no dig garden that does not use pesticides or fertilizers. This is not easy.
I don’t own a motor car. I mostly walk or use public transport. I used to ride a bike but, since the council stop spraying for three corner jacks, I invariably ended up pushing my bike home.
I reuse, repair and improvise whenever I can. I use milk containers as garden pots and can repair most things including some electronics.
I minimize the use heaters and other appliances. I only fill the kettle to what is required. I steam my vegies and because the heat level is low, I can cover saucepan with a tea towel and conserve heat.
I do not recyle. Most of the time this uses more energy than it does to make the new product.
I buy second hand books on how stuff works and other crafts.
I do not purchase luxuries nor dine out. Eating out for me is a dim sims and chips on the way home from the fish and chip shop.
I used to catch rainwater in my recycle wheelie bins until the landlord fixed the gutters. With some luck, I might be in for a rainwater tank. We shall see.

If I think of anymore, I will add them.

All these things that I do is not enough to make a difference. All must live a similar lifestyle for that to happen. My efforts are practice for when it becomes necessary. Start your training now.

If you have any tips on surviving the urban environment in a world without shops, I would appreciate it if you would share.
Thanking you in advance.

Matters NotAugust 2, 2017 at 11:05 pm

All must live a similar lifestyle for that to happen.

What – only dim sims and chips and no battered savs, crumbed prawns and the like on future eating outs?

Indeed the future you want is looking very, very bleak. So I should start practising? (By the way – why don’t you make a real effort and instead of using clothes and shoes – go naked? And don’t worry, there’s people in white coats especially trained to handle such cases.)

FFS get a life!

HarquebusAugust 2, 2017 at 11:26 pm

Matters Not
You are not alone in believing that this is what I want. Let me assure you, that is not the case.
The “very bleak” future that we are beginning to experience is not what I desire and nor is it of my making.

If I had been paid attention to decades ago which, is how long I have been battling the likes of you, we would not be where we are now. We would not have had the GFC, economic inequality would not exist, pollution would have been reduced, the environment protected, fisheries and forests preserved and we would not now be approaching the human cull that we are.

Please, don’t bother paying anymore attention to me. When our “very bleak” future squeezes the life out of the unprepared, I want to have no doubt as to your fate.

Matters NotAugust 2, 2017 at 11:44 pm

H – if your parents took your current advice some years ago then, given your logic, the world would be a much better place because you wouldn’t now exist.

No doubt H you will be looked after – assumed into heaven and all that. It’s what happens to religious folk such as yourself.

Until then – I repeat – GET A LIFE! Comedy is so transient.

And I would love to ignore you, but like nutgrass, you keep popping up – to the displeasure of most readers. (Take a hint.)

diannaartAugust 2, 2017 at 11:56 pm

I have been shopping in op-shops for over 40 years now along with trying my best to not leave too much of a blot on the landscape. I studied Landscape Architecture in the 80’s and have been involved in land reclamation as well as human welfare programs.

In other words do not preach to people you know nothing about.

What are you doing that is positive to help others in your community live more sustainably?

HarquebusAugust 3, 2017 at 12:11 am

diannaart
Setting an example which, after years of doing so, is starting to pay off. Some of my neighbors are following it and I have one more, a newbie, just joined today. I will be helping her get started shortly.
There is also this community which, is not so receptive but, I will keep trying.
I did not mean to preach. My apologies.

Matters Not
Not my logic. How can I give advice if I don’t exist fool.
Set an example and take your own advice.

diannaartAugust 3, 2017 at 9:55 am

Harquebus

Good news from you… now how about setting an example here at AIMN and present some of your knowledge on sustainable practice and solutions – with credible references – 🙂

All your pronouncements of doom and gloom tend to send a picture of you as a bunkered down survivalist, with requisite cache of weapons and anti-zombie devices.

View post on imgur.com

HarquebusAugust 3, 2017 at 10:29 am

diannaart
I will have to think about that. I am wearing scars and carry some animosity toward some from previous battles fought here.
Credible references will be hard to find as much of what I have learnt is through practical experience. Each of us has our own unique situation.

One more for the list. I used to try and protect my plants from summertime heat by directly blocking the sun which, did not work. It appears that it was the radiant heat from the local surroundings that did the damage. Vertical screens using climbing or tall growing plants works much better and also saves on water.

HarquebusAugust 3, 2017 at 10:45 am

Another one.
I have a pair of cockatiels that spend most of their time hanging out in front of my dining area window. Doves, which are an invasive species, regularly steal seeds and grain. How they know where to find buried seed I don’t know but, my birds will let me know when this happens so that I can chase them off. Spoggies are another invasive species and will steal immature seed directly from the plants.
Pests, especially birds, are a major problem. Having alert lookouts is a great help.

Perhaps I will expand and elaborate on my list to share with others. We’ll see.

HarquebusAugust 3, 2017 at 12:13 pm

“We plan to plant many more of these gardens. And, in this way, we make the best of what’s in our power and we’ll take the rest as it naturally happens.”
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/the-stoic-viewpoint-make-best-of-whats.html

diannaartAugust 3, 2017 at 12:37 pm

For humans to survive we need to plant many gardens (restore ecosystems) with the best of practical knowledge, scientific research AND technology.

The quote of using “what we have in our power” and accepting (but not adapting?) “what naturally happens” is a wide open concept and, ironically self-limiting.

What happens naturally is very subjective and available for corruption. Udo Bardi’s blog tends towards a dismissive attitude of technology.

For example, you talk a great deal about population, forcing people not to breed has been a dismal failure.
It is technology that provides the best contraceptives and science that will discover more.

Where does preserving knowledge, furthering science and discovery fit into Stoicism?

HarquebusAugust 3, 2017 at 2:50 pm

diannart
Forcing people not to breed may have been a dismal failure but, the opposite will result in an even bigger one. In my article I stated this:
“How we reduced populations voluntarily is another debate. Bringing this subject to the front of public discourse is the first priority and hopefully, this submission will help towards that aim.”
I have stated a few in the comments section I think but, I am open to suggestions. Anything will be better than nature’s usual brutal and unforgiving ways of conflict and starvation.

In regards to preserving knowledge, a good question and one that I consider a lot. The loss of libraries and museums is something else that I wish to avoid. I was horrified at the looting of the National Museum of Iraq and the destruction of the Mosul Museum artifacts.
I have no answer at this stage. I expect most will go the same way as those two.

All the more reason to address the population question sooner rather than later when, it will be too late.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 3, 2017 at 8:02 pm

respectfully intended,
can you please shut up now. You even won’t listen to diannaart’s thoughtful, honest, equitable feedback!

I want you to take notice of her and me and other kindlier feedbackers that YES you have an established persona in our awareness of someone with something to say …

… but your presentation requires better, circumspect delivery.

At present, much of your doomsday points, hijacked by those bastards, work against what I think you would prefer.

Miriam EnglishAugust 3, 2017 at 9:21 pm

Jennifer, he won’t. He can’t. He’s “on a mission from god” (to use a line from the Blues Brothers).

He won’t even read proof that his beliefs about renewable energy are wrong. To him, anything that avoids doom is unwelcome. It really gets up my nose that he works hard to discourage people from renewable energy when that’s one of our most important solutions.

He still goes on about population, even when it’s been shown that population growth in a number of countries is already negative, and that on present trajectory the entire world’s population will begin to reduce some time in the next few decades. He won’t acknowledge that it may happen sooner than that because of efforts by many people to educate the poorest people and lift their standard of living, giving them some control over their lives and further reducing their birthrate.

He thinks he’s open, but is actually deeply dishonest, because the worst lie is to one’s self.

HarquebusAugust 3, 2017 at 9:35 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
I truly do like and respect you but, that isn’t going to happen.

The question now is not if it will be bad but, how bad will it be. I am doing everything that I can to minimize the consequences that are now unavoidable and am going to continue to.

I think that you are mistaking “not listening” with disagreement. I disagree with just about everyone here.
I will consider your remark concerning my presentation and delivery. In no other forum or verbal discussion has anyone complained about my delivery. Only here and that is mainly concerning my persistence.

Our lives are at serious risk. No shit. It has come to the stage that now, every day we delay matters.

There are no policies on either side of politics that even comes close to doing what is required. I thought that the lefties that hang out here would be more receptive, seeing as how business as usual which, is consuming all that sustains us is shafting them the most. They have no interest in change. Only in securing their slice of the diminishing pie.

The bottom line is, no one person can do it on their own. Hunkering down or going off grid in the bush is not going to do it. I have a small community, family and friends and their families and friends coming on board. Together is the only way we can survive and that, is how we are going to beat the bastards. They do not have the necessary social skills to survive.

Online and offline, community is our only chance and the community here has no plan except, to put their faith in scientific discoveries that haven’t been made yet. A dangerous gamble which, I am not willing to take.

I meant it when I said that I like and respect you.

“Social life is always egalitarian, in that there is always a low tolerance among a group’s mature males for one of their number dominating, bossing or denigrating the others”
“In his survey of ancestral type societies, Boehm found that, in addition to murder and theft, one of the most commonly punished infractions was failure to share.”
“We got bombed by the Klan, had horses shot, were harassed by the District Attorney. It only made us stronger.
We tribed.”
http://peaksurfer.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/the-ragweed-tribe.html

HarquebusAugust 3, 2017 at 9:42 pm

Miriam English
I have said this before. You are guilty of everything that you accuse me of.
We’ve had this argument over and over. The world has already decided to go the renewable energy path. Your side won. WTF does it matter now. Let’s see how it pans out. In the mean time, I will take the necessary steps and precautions and urge others to do the same for when it doesn’t.

Yes, I am on mission and not only are you are not helping but, are deliberately trying to sabotage it.

Remember what I said earlier.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 3, 2017 at 9:46 pm

Harquebus,

the best comment you’ve made on energy was your last @ 9.42pm tonight.

Stick to it coz renewable energy won’t fail.

HarquebusAugust 3, 2017 at 10:37 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
There’s a lot riding on your last statement.

My last electricity bill was a shocker even though my usage was less and I can add another 20% on top of that for the next. I hope that is not renewable energy succeeding. We here in South Aus. now also have to pay for a battery and the temporary installation of two diesel generating plants that will, when not required, sit idle.

Miriam English
The answer to my question which, you did not respond to is, at 20%pa increase, my electricity bill will double in 3.5 years. I don’t think this will happen but, then again, no one saw this one coming either.

70 / percentage_rate = doubling_time

Electricity prices are a common topic in general discussion around here. It’s a big hit to the local business community not just in their energy costs but, also in lost sales. All of us around here have had to make cut backs. Not kidding. I hope that your free energy didn’t have anything to do with it?

Congratulations on your win.

Miriam EnglishAugust 3, 2017 at 11:10 pm

The electricity price rises are another con much-loved by denialists. It is a rort.

The electricity companies were offered a payback for upgrading the electricity system, so not only did they over-do the upgrades (because the more they spent the more they could claim from the government), the greedy bastards are getting paid by the government for upgrading poles and wires while charging the customers more. They’re double-dipping.

At the same time their modelling of demand was completely wrong. Electricity consumption didn’t increase, it fell because people prefer more energy efficient lights, fridges, washing machines, and so on. Also people have realised electricity prices are only going to keep increasing so started getting solar PV systems to reduce their bills. The solar systems actually benefit the electricity companies because they don’t have to spend so much money on meeting peak demand, but they decided to target the solar households as a way to excuse price increases, trying to turn people against one another. That’s where your fake notion of renewable energy raising electricity prices comes from. Renewable energy actually lowers electricity prices when a rational system is used.

In some parts of the USA some electricity companies are using a different way of charging, where they charge for a service rather than the electrons supplied. This gives the electricity company incentive to help customers become more efficient instead of more wasteful. Adoption of renewable energy in those places reduces costs tremendously for both the provider and the consumer.

I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you this. I’ve already told you before and it is always like water off a duck’s back. You prefer to believe the bullshit from the denialists. You’ll never believe the facts. Good luck in your fantasy world.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 4, 2017 at 8:28 am

I want the new alternative Fed Gov (due in office sometime in the second half of 2018) to institute economic proceedings (via their higher informed MMT knowledge of how the macro economy works) and buy back all wholesale and retail rights from private electricity companies so that all Clean, Green, Renewable electricity production is owned by the Australian People again.

RapideffectAugust 4, 2017 at 11:49 am

@Harquebus

These two top engineers concluded renewable energy won’t work

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/

It would seem the uptake of renewable energy has been very slow

The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” Delusion

diannaartAugust 4, 2017 at 3:41 pm

“Our progress in getting away from fossil fuels has not been very fast..*

Well, why would that be, could there exist a powerful, wealthy and ubiquitous lobby of vested interests in fossil fuels with all the money they need to fight against even the idea of renewables?

Nah, it can’t be that, the answer must be because renewables just don’t work.

While I am on a roll here, I have a coal mine for sale, are you interested? I am making the offer of a lifetime, you would be crazy to miss out.

😛

Miriam EnglishAugust 4, 2017 at 4:17 pm

Rapideffect, typical of your kind of stupidity.

The article says, “The duo were employed at Google on the RE<C project, which sought to enhance renewable technology to the point where it could produce energy more cheaply than coal.” It says that the project (which was closed in 2011) was a failure. It seems they came to their conclusions prematurely. Renewable energy has been cheaper than coal for a year or two now.

In any case Google has dismissed the work of Koningstein and Fork. Google has gone on to become one of the world’s biggest investors in renewable energy and have announced that they are on track to run 100% on renewable energy this year — 2017.

Did you read the second half of the article? The second page goes on to shill for nuclear power, churning out insane fallacies with wild abandon in the way only nuclear fanboys can. So here we have the motivation for the article. The nuclear industry is so untrustworthy you can’t believe anything they say.

I’ve read other assessments of Koningstein and Fork’s article that the Register article purports to review. Apparently Koningstein and Fork are so lacking in confidence of their own work that they provide no numbers or evidence to back up their claims. They simply say that they are experts so you should believe them. Maybe that’s why they got canned from Google. Given that renewables became cheaper than coal not long afterward I’d guess that’s a possibility.

As for Rapideffect’s quote from another article giving an unbelievably simple-minded extrapolation of the fraction of energy met by renewables meaning it would take 860 years to completely eliminate fossil fuels. You idiot. Renewables are exploding in use. Their slice of the energy pie is growing at an accelerating rate. It isn’t growing in simple stepwise fashion.

In 2015 UK produced 46% of its energy from renewables. An International Energy Agency (IEA) report says that in 2012, the world relied on renewable sources for around 13.2% of its total primary energy supply. One year later, in 2013 renewables accounted for almost 22% of global electricity generation. (Read the FAQ.)

At the current rate of acceleration renewable energy will sideline fossil fuels sometime in the next couple of decades. I’ve seen various projections that say between 8 and 16 years. Fossil fuel use will probably never entirely disappear. Nor should it — there will always be niche applications for it. We just need to make it a tiny fraction of the whole.

Rapideffect, your comment oozes with rank dishonesty, as usual.

RapideffectAugust 4, 2017 at 4:21 pm

@diannaart

You actually need to refute the research with facts not beliefs. I see you didn’t read the link as it explains why renewables are not a solution.

While you are on a roll, do some research…

Miriam EnglishAugust 4, 2017 at 4:42 pm

Rapideffect, she didn’t really need to read it, knowing it was promoted by you. I read it, you little shit. Why don’t you crawl back under your rock?

HarquebusAugust 4, 2017 at 5:42 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith
The thing about fiat currencies is, they are conjured at will from nothing to purchase resources that can not be. It’s a great deal for those first in line to receive them.

Rapideffect
Thanks for that. I have read them however, I do appreciate your posting them. As I have stated before, you are one of the few who actually “gets it”.
One I came across today.

“the best hope for transition to a ‘post carbon’ or, better, a sustainable society (a much broader goal) lies in a process of radical societal reconstruction, focused on the building, in the here and now, of self-governing and self-reliant settlements, starting at the micro-local level.”
“The hope is that these local movements which have already begun to emerge will network, educate and scale up, as the global crisis intensifies.”
“Net energy is critical because it alone powers the non-energy sectors of the global economy.”
“within the next few years (once the current oil glut has been drawn down) for an oil supply crunch and price spike that has the potential to send the debt-ridden global economy into a bigger and better global financial crisis tailspin.”
“Due to the more energy diffuse nature of renewable energy flows (sun and wind), harvesting this energy to produce electricity, requires the construction of complex industrial technologies. Currently, this requires the ‘hidden subsidy’ of fossil fuels, which are involved in the entire process of resource extraction, manufacturing and maintenance of these industrial technologies.”
“Economically, it will likely be revealed in terms of stagnating (or falling) real wages, rising costs of living, decreasing discretionary income and decreasing employment opportunities”
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/whats-really-driving-the-global-economic-crisis-is-net-energy-decline-82efb9ca45fe

diannaartAugust 4, 2017 at 6:18 pm

@ rapideffect

What Miriam said.

I really reined in what I wanted to say to you. Instead I opted for slightly satirical.

I have a background in applied science, specifically Landscape Architecture, which provides me with an excellent basis upon which to build my knowledge of many technological and environmental issues over the past 30+ years.
I do not have to have done ANY research to know the sky appears blue to human beings on a sunny day.
Keeping (2) in mind it is clearly obvious to anyone who either has not lived in an isolation tank nor belongs to the vested interests of the fossil fuels lobby, that renewable, sustainable technology is advancing exponentially.
Bearing (3) in mind, it is you, rapidefect who needs to do some research instead of of vomiting up anything and everything populist and/or vetted by the fossil fuel industry or the Murdoch press.

How about you start here:

NASA Climate Kids: https://climatekids.nasa.gov/menu/energy/

Miriam EnglishAugust 5, 2017 at 2:00 am

I just want to note a small correction. The article I linked to announcing that UK used 45% “clean” energy unfortunately included nuclear in that number. Renewables accounted for 25% of UK electricity production in 2015, which is still more than coal (22%) or nuclear (21%).

RapideffectAugust 5, 2017 at 2:17 pm

@Miriram English

Miriam EnglishAugust 4, 2017 at 4:17 pm

Rapideffect, typical of your kind of stupidity.


The article says, “The duo were employed at Google on the RE<C project, which sought to enhance renewable technology to the point where it could produce energy more cheaply than coal.” It says that the project (which was closed in 2011) was a failure. It seems they came to their conclusions prematurely. Renewable energy has been cheaper than coal for a year or two now.
Renewable energy is not cheaper than coal, solar and wind are cheaper than coal in some instances, but coal is still cheaper in most countries.
"As for Rapideffect’s quote from another article giving an unbelievably simple-minded extrapolation of the fraction of energy met by renewables meaning it would take 860 years to completely eliminate fossil fuels. You idiot. Renewables are exploding in use. Their slice of the energy pie is growing at an accelerating rate. It isn’t growing in simple stepwise fashion."
You didn't read the article as it disproves your fantasies (in 30 years, we have managed to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 3%).
You like to disprove facts with your beliefs, so sad, how is that Karma belief going?
The eia outlook shows that renewables are not exploding in use as you claim and will not sideline fossil fuels in 8-16 years.
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/world.php
@diannaart
Your background does not impress anyone or give you more credibility.
"Keeping (2) in mind it is clearly obvious to anyone who either has not lived in an isolation tank nor belongs to the vested interests of the fossil fuels lobby, that renewable, sustainable technology is advancing exponentially."
There seems to be a massive error in your statement, sustainable it is not as it uses non renewable resources.
Instead of pretending to know, you actually might want to do some research...

How is renewable energy going to power jumbo jets and cargo ships??

RapideffectAugust 5, 2017 at 2:20 pm

@Miriram English

Renewable energy is not cheaper than coal, solar and wind are cheaper than coal in some instances, but globally coal is still cheaper.

“As for Rapideffect’s quote from another article giving an unbelievably simple-minded extrapolation of the fraction of energy met by renewables meaning it would take 860 years to completely eliminate fossil fuels. You idiot. Renewables are exploding in use. Their slice of the energy pie is growing at an accelerating rate. It isn’t growing in simple stepwise fashion.”

You didn’t read the article as it disproves your fantasies (in 30 years, we have managed to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 3%).

You like to disprove facts with your beliefs, so sad, how is that Karma belief going?

The eia outlook shows that renewables are not exploding in use as you claim and will not sideline fossil fuels in 8-16 years.

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/world.php

@diannaart

Your background does not impress anyone or give you more credibility.

“Keeping (2) in mind it is clearly obvious to anyone who either has not lived in an isolation tank nor belongs to the vested interests of the fossil fuels lobby, that renewable, sustainable technology is advancing exponentially.”

There seems to be a massive error in your statment, sustainable it is not as it uses non renewable resources.

Instead of pretending to know, you actually might want to do some research…

How is renewable energy going to power jumbo jets and cargo ships??

Kaye LeeAugust 5, 2017 at 4:08 pm

“globally coal is still cheaper.”

What value do you place on a life?

Burning coal caused 366,000 premature deaths in 2013 in China alone.

https://www.healtheffects.org/publication/burden-disease-attributable-coal-burning-and-other-air-pollution-sources-china

How much did you factor in for increased natural disasters?

https://www.thebalance.com/cost-of-natural-disasters-3306214

How much for a whole country?

https://readaddict.com/countries-that-will-disappear-due-to-global-warming/

Kaye LeeAugust 5, 2017 at 4:14 pm

From your link Rapideffect

” Worldwide, consumption of liquid fuels grows by 1.1%/ year in the transportation sector, and by 1.0%/year in the industrial sector, from 2012 to 2040. Coal consumption slows (or declines) in every region of the world from 2012 to 2040. ”

So we are all agreed coal is a goner.

diannaartAugust 5, 2017 at 5:51 pm

@rapideffect

How is renewable energy going to power jumbo jets and cargo ships??

Are you of the opinion that those in favour of renewable sustainable technology, believe in a magic wand? That change can occur across all sectors simultaneously?

Two hundred years ago no-one believed in fresh water in every home (this remains a dream in some countries) or energy at the flick of a light switch? Or that the combustion engine would replace horse? And now the combustion engine is being replaced.

I have not cast ANY personal observations on your abilities, RE, despite your treatment of others.

This is why I hesitated even bothering to reply to you at all. When I stated a part of my professional background, your response merely confirmed your attitude towards those with whom you disagree.

You have proven one thing to me, you are not worth my precious time.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 5, 2017 at 6:30 pm

diannaart,

you and Miriam are most valuable to the discussion. Please don’t let Rapideffect’s pretentious misinformation push you off.

diannaartAugust 5, 2017 at 7:41 pm

Thank you Jennifer

Rapideffect will not be my reason for leaving. He believes treating others disrespectfully from the get-go is the way to win arguments, he sounds old enough to know better.

Nah, the real reason I’ll give up on this discussion is because it has grown to such lengths that it is challenging my PC’s limited abilities and taking too long to load, especially just to read repetitive and/or insulting comments from the likes of those who suffer from superiority complexes.

You, Jennifer, Kaye Lee, Kyran, Joseph and too many others to name – which is a great thing, because such people outnumber the zealots and and the abusers – I will connect with all of you on other threads.

I have never won an argument by treating others with contempt; some people never learn do they?

RapideffectAugust 5, 2017 at 8:04 pm

@Kaye Lee

Unfortunately renewable energy is not a substitute for oil, and without a cheap energy source to replace oil, the global economy will not grow.

“What value do you place on a life?

Burning coal caused 366,000 premature deaths in 2013 in China alone.”

From your link
“Burden of Disease Attributable to Coal-Burning and Other Air Pollution Sources in China”

Not just coal. Fossil fuels are a double edged sword, burn them and cause pollution (climate change) or don’t burn them and collapse the global economy.

Kaye Lee August 5, 2017 at 4:14 pm

From your link Rapideffect

So we are all agreed coal is a goner.”

Coal declines as more gas is substituted for coal over time. So in 2040 coal will have declined slightly but still produces more energy in the global economy than renewables. Renewables are not a substitute, they are the last efforts to continue business as usual.

Coal is here to stay as the eia outlook predicts.

@diannaart

“Are you of the opinion that those in favour of renewable sustainable technology, believe in a magic wand? That change can occur across all sectors simultaneously?”

The renewable sustainable technology is not sustainable as it uses non renewable resources.

“Two hundred years ago no-one believed in fresh water in every home (this remains a dream in some countries) or energy at the flick of a light switch? Or that the combustion engine would replace horse? And now the combustion engine is being replaced.

I have not cast ANY personal observations on your abilities, RE, despite your treatment of others.

This is why I hesitated even bothering to reply to you at all. When I stated a part of my professional background, your response merely confirmed your attitude towards those with whom you disagree.

You have proven one thing to me, you are not worth my precious time.”

Your attitude towards those whom you disagree with is the same as Miriam English’s. You insult/abuse/condescend and then make up something to excuse your child like behaviour.

Your insult:

“While I am on a roll here, I have a coal mine for sale, are you interested? I am making the offer of a lifetime, you would be crazy to miss out.”

Your excuse:

“I have not cast ANY personal observations on your abilities, RE, despite your treatment of others.

This is why I hesitated even bothering to reply to you at all. When I stated a part of my professional background, your response merely confirmed your attitude towards those with whom you disagree.

You have proven one thing to me, you are not worth my precious time.”

The only thing that has been proven is that like Miriam English you choose to abuse instead of debate.

Miriam EnglishAugust 5, 2017 at 8:07 pm

I feel I should apologise to the rest of the readers for my angry insults to H and Rapideffect.

I originally responded to Rapideffect politely, but his insulting manner, his lies, and wilful misreading of my comments ended that pretty quickly.

I’ve had more patience for H because (unlike Rapideffect) he seems to be merely deluded and doesn’t actually appear to wish anybody ill, even when he momentarily loses his temper or shows his feelings of superiority. I’ve begun to be dismissive of him lately because despite him saying that he is open to evidence it has become abundantly clear that he is deceiving himself. He has absolutely no intention of allowing in counter-evidence. He is lying to himself. That wouldn’t bother me so much (I have many friends that I love dearly who are deluded in various frankly crazy things), but what gets up my nose is that H persists in doing his best to convince people to give up, not only on society, but renewable energy, which represents our best and most important solution to the problems facing us. That makes me angry. I probably shouldn’t let it make me angry. I guess I should probably just dismiss him as a dangerous nutter.

diannaartAugust 5, 2017 at 8:13 pm

Miriam

No apologies required, you didn’t write anything that no-one else was thinking.

…and if we have the temerity to even vaguely reply in kind, WE are cast as the abusers…

Which proves we really are wasting our time. I wish H would just try to meet us a little of the way (not even expecting halfway) – but that is not to be. As for RE – nothing to learn, see or benefit from… recall the old saying “…the emptier the vessel, the more volume…”

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 5, 2017 at 8:19 pm

Sorry Miriam,

for Rapideffect’s juvenile attempt to one-up you with knowledge and intelligence which He (not she) has proven unable.

Your voice is needed to stay in this thread for as long as stupid RE and sweet but misguided H continue their misdirected concerns or simple cynicism.

Michael TaylorAugust 5, 2017 at 8:49 pm

I feel I should apologise to the rest of the readers for my angry insults to H and Rapideffect.

No apologies necessary. On the contrary, you’re quite restrained. It’s a restraint that I couldn’t show, hence my reluctance to reply to their comments.

By the way, you speak for the majority of us.

RapideffectAugust 5, 2017 at 8:55 pm

@Miriam English, diannaart, Jennifer Meyer-Smith

If you read all the posts it is clear who the abusers are.

Miriam English first response to my first post:

Miriam English November 18, 2016 at 8:33 pm

Jennifer, it’s because he doesn’t really believe there’s any solution.

As you can see Miriam English is insulting from the onset, not I.

Jennifer Meyer-Smith November 18, 2016 at 7:16 pm

Actually H,

I was being polite to Rapideffect earlier by staying silent. He isn’t right and neither are you if you share the same doomsday attitude that we have nowhere to go.

“Global civilization”: what does that mean to you?

As you can see Jennifer Meyer-Smith is insulting from the onset also.

Jennifer Meyer-Smith April 30, 2017 at 7:49 pm

Where have you been Rapideffect? Why haven’t you entered your negative, doomsday viewpoint into the discussion months before?

Could I be so presumptious as to say you are merely a fossi fuel defense nutter?

RapideffectApril 30, 2017 at 8:01 pm

Do you really think information can grow forever? Everything you have ever done or will ever do requires energy. The more one does the more energy is consumed.

Sorry to inform you Jennifer Meyer-Smith I am most certainly a woman, just not old and set in my ways…

Kaye LeeAugust 5, 2017 at 9:25 pm

Yup diannaart, time to move on 😉

Miriam EnglishAugust 5, 2017 at 9:38 pm

Rapideffect, ooooh! How could I have been so insulting?

Jennifer, it’s because he doesn’t really believe there’s any solution.

Rapideffect, you, like so many others, overlook the effectively endless energy raining down on us from the sun as solar energy. We also have wind energy, wave power, tidal energy, and geothermal energy. All it takes is for us to be reasonably efficient in the way we use it. Granted, the days of splurging energy — wasting 99% to use 1% — are nearly over, but that doesn’t mean the collapse of civilisation. It just means adapting; being rather more aware and smart. It doesn’t even have to be difficult. Jeez. Over-react much.

Yep, still overreacting.

Matters NotAugust 5, 2017 at 10:19 pm

Sorry to inform you Jennifer Meyer-Smith I am most certainly a woman, just not old and set in my ways…

Always interesting re the meanings we give. The assumptions we make.

Or how easy it easy it is to mislead?

Miriam EnglishAugust 6, 2017 at 1:43 am

I should also mention that after perhaps a dozen careful attempts to reason with Rapideffect that were consistently met with dishonest replies where she misrepresented my comments and used ignorance to blankly deny the information I gave, I lost my patience with her (during comments to the article Something we don’t want to talk about). Then I realised her lack of logic might mean Rapideffect was a small child so I apologised to her. But she met my apology with disdain, sneers and insults and continued as always. She thinks she’s smart enough to reason logically but all she ever does is to build strawmen out of fragments of what others say in order to argue against them. It is dishonest. This is why I have no tolerance for her comments anymore.

townsvilleblogAugust 6, 2017 at 7:50 am

Australia is the driest populated continent on Earth, we have a lot of desert in our continent and rainfall is notoriously unreliable, we need to keep our population around the 24 million mark for sustainability which means we need a population policy whereby a family can have no more than 3 children or they lose all government benefits. With the advent of global warming/climate change this now becomes an urgent matter, we simply cannot survive long term if we continue to take 1.3 million immigrants between 2011-16 this is folly, we can’t provide for these immigrants our infrastructure is outdated and no new infrastructure is being built, a lot is being talked about being built which is very different.

Until the federal govt begins to tax the foreign multinational corporations on their billion dollar incomes Australia will languish, we need hydroelectricity power stations built at both the Snowy River scheme (expansion) and at the Burdekin Falls Dam in North Queensland, pumped hydro would be the way to go as well as solar and wind power, sadly our govt is a tired old conservative one whose thoughts are well ahead of their deeds.

RapideffectAugust 6, 2017 at 7:52 am

@Miriam English

My replies were not dishonest, you just do not agree with what I am saying. You have not refuted anything I said because like others you are using your opinion and not facts. You did not reason with me, you like many others go straight to insults as you have no counter argument.

When the global economy goes into recession maybe you will finally wake up from your delusion…

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 6, 2017 at 7:58 am

Rapideffect is behaving as if this is an undergraduate debating competition and his/her team is on the negative side arguing Climate Change caused by human activity is not real.

Thus s/he is able to amorally argue lines of argument even s/he doesn’t necessarily believe – because how could anybody with any brains believe them!

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 6, 2017 at 8:11 am

Townsvilleblog,

I tend to agree that immigration rates must be significantly slowed down, so that our continent can provide a decent and sustainable living standard for our natural population growth. Nonetheless, I would still support a humane refugee program where we could accept thousands more asylum seekers to settle on our soil.

Also, your family size stipulations seem to target low socio-economic families. They alone are not the only who might produce larger families. If family size had to be determined, we could consider withdrawing tax and superannuation concessions to parent providers in higher income brackets, who produce more than their statistical allowance.

Miriam EnglishAugust 6, 2017 at 10:35 am

townsvilleblog, I agree that Australia is a dangerously dry country and that we need to be very careful with our very limited supplies of things like water. I also am not happy with the idea of overpopulating our country. But imposing child limits and blaming refugees and immigrants are terrible ideas. Our cities are very low density and can stand to have quite a lot more people in them. Cities are very misunderstood phenomena. Compared with suburban and country population they are extremely efficient. We can afford to increase our city population for a while to take some of the pressure off other countries.

But this is all exactly the wrong way to look at this. We, as one of the wealthiest nations have minimal problems. What we should be doing is spending far, far more on foreign aid. If we are worried about too many people coming here then the sensible thing to do is to improve those other countries’ lot so that people don’t feel the need to tear themselves away from their home, friends, and family to come to a place where they have to start all over again. Currently we spend an insignificant amount on foreign aid, and there is not enough transparency to ensure that even that trickle doesn’t end up in Australian companies’ hands.

We spend 0.23% of our gross national income on foreign aid. That is pathetic. It is the most stingy Australia has ever been. This repellent government has cut it more than any other government. Sweden donates 1.4% of its gross national income and they have less than half the gross national income we have.

Rapideffect, if people doubt what you or I have to say they need only look back and judge for themselves. They can see that it was never a simple case of me disagreeing with what you said. Anybody can verify this for themselves if they look through my many patient replies to your comments in the first week of December 2016 for the Something we don’t want to talk about article. That was my second encounter with you after our brief exchange in the comments above, here.

Over and over again, I would carefully explain and you would dishonestly dismiss what I said, accusing me of making things up. (The final part of that conversation on 7th and 8th 2016 is a particularly egregious example.) The weird thing is that you’d simply assert that you were right and I was wrong. That’s dishonest. You never linked to information to back up your opinion. You occasionally linked to someone else shrieking the same hysterical doom opinion as if that was some kind of fact. That’s dishonest. Surely, if you had genuine information you could do better than that, but you never did. You pretended to have supreme infallible knowledge of the end of civilisation. Yes, that’s dishonest.

RapideffectAugust 6, 2017 at 12:56 pm

Jennifer Meyer-Smith August 6, 2017 at 7:58 am

Rapideffect is behaving as if this is an undergraduate debating competition and his/her team is on the negative side arguing Climate Change caused by human activity is not real.

Thus s/he is able to amorally argue lines of argument even s/he doesn’t necessarily believe – because how could anybody with any brains believe them!

I don’t want anyone to believe what I say Jennifer Meyer-Smith, I would rather people debate facts and not make up things like Miriam English does.

@Miriam English

Miriam English December 1, 2016 at 10:45 pm

I’m a natural optimist.

Miriam English May 24, 2017 at 10:16 pm

So another of your lies, how dishonest…

Miriam English May 1, 2017 at 11:23 am

Rapideffect, your dishonesty once again amazes me. I’ll answer just one point you make that seems honestly misconceived: infinite growth in information is possible if it requires only limited physical resources. For example, you can explore the infinitely complex Mandelbrot Set with a finite computer.

Another lie…

Miriam English May 26, 2017 at 2:51 pm

Jeez, I can hardly believe I’m actually going to waste time answering a dipstick like you…

Karma? No. It’s a figure of speech you moron.

Another lie…

Miriam EnglishAugust 6, 2017 at 3:06 pm

Oooh! I’m a natural optimist but I sometimes don’t like to refer to myself as such because of the way some people misinterpret the term? How dastardly of me! Even more devious that I explained it in my posts. Diabolical!

Wow. You couldn’t even be bothered to look up the Mandelbrot set???

You could look it up on Wikipedia. Or the University of Utah has a very good explanation of it with an embedded java program that lets you play with it. Or you can see very attractive Dr Holly Krieger from MIT explain it in a YouTube video, or watch a mind-blowing zoom into the Mandelbrot set. There are lots of them on the net. This one zooms in by a factor of 10^275.

To convey how amazing that is, to zoom from the conjectured size of the universe (92 billion light years) down to a single electron (2.8×10^-15 metres) is, by my calculations, just a factor of about 10^41. If you imagine that electron holding another universe and zooming down to an electron inside it, then doing it again, zooming into that miniscule electron’s universe to an electron in it and doing the zoom 6.7 times then you have some idea of how far that zoom goes and what an amazing thing it is. But the thing is, you can keep going… forever. There is no limit to how deeply you can explore the Mandelbrot Set. Its area is finite, but its edge is infinitely long and infinitely wrinkled. That’s what all those shapes are. It is also infinitely varied and different everywhere you choose to look. This one is a prettier zoom.

Lastly I see you’re still stuck on the figure of speech “karma”. Oh my god you’re ridiculous! See how I can exclaim about you, but don’t need to believe in a god in order to do so? That’s how a figure of speech works. (Definition “figure of speech”: a word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect.)

Rapideffect, you really should stop. You look more stupid or more insincere every time you say something. Please, for your own sake. It’s getting embarrassing. (Plus, I really couldn’t be bothered any more.)

RapideffectAugust 6, 2017 at 4:38 pm

“While information requires physical resources, they are effectively uncoupled from them, in that more information doesn’t necessarily require more resources — as the technology continues to develop, the amount of resources required falls dramatically.”

Your claims are not backed up by facts. You still believe in infinite growth of information, which requires finite resources.

“Karma, Rapideffect. It’s a bitch, ain’t it.”

That is not a figure of speech, you are clearly using it as a belief.

“This is the final time I respond to you. Lying trolls are not worth the time.”

And still you keep ranting making up all sorts of lies.

“So, yes. Despite the dangers, that we are all aware of, things are starting to look up.”

Yet all the economic indicators would suggest otherwise. You couldn’t be more wrong…

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 6, 2017 at 5:19 pm

Rapideffect,

what is your driving motivation? Please inform me.

Is it to provide information that we can use to help lift ourselves out of our sinking depression that the grave consequences of the actions of rampant capitalism are not conclusive of our world’s survival?

Or is it to sneer and play oneupship, on anybody who dares to try to provide positive alternatives to the dire opposing consequences?

…………………………………….

Special note: I would 1000 times prefer Miriam’s efforts to keep the candel of hope burning any day to your pathetic surrender.

diannaartAugust 6, 2017 at 6:18 pm

Jennifer

I never trust anyone who presents as a curmudgeonly, disagreeable old man, yet is (apparently) a young woman. Just one of my personal rules. 😛

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 6, 2017 at 6:27 pm

So true diannaart.

Poor unrequited and deluded Rapideffect thinks he’s fooled us all.

RapideffectAugust 6, 2017 at 8:18 pm

I never trust anyone who likes to make assumptions about someone’s gender and presents as a believer. I guess I did fool you Jennifer Meyer-Smith and you too diannaart, if you believe I am an old man. Thanks for the insult.

Miriam English presents false hope, just like homeopathy does and this is dangerous.

What one prefers is irrelevant, when what is preferred is falsehoods. With mates like Miriam English you only need belief and you Jennifer Meyer-Smith have ample.

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 6, 2017 at 8:28 pm

Rapideffect,

thanks for your confession but truly I never put emphasis on what your social being is coz whatever it is should merit equitable opportunity which is not currently afforded by the neoliberal Lib/Lab dinosaur duopoly equation that well meaning H tries hard not to profess but ends up doing anyway.

Miriam EnglishAugust 7, 2017 at 9:00 am

I wasn’t going to respond to Rapideffect anymore, but it hit me during my shower this morning that much of what is wrong with the world (and especially politics) is that ignorant morons are allowed to have the last word.

Rapideffect, you love telling other people they lie, but isn’t presenting yourself as a male, with a male avatar then acting insulted because nobody realised that you’d misled them a lie?

Rapideffect, you say civilisation is going to collapse. What is your evidence? I don’t ask for opinion; you’re always carping on about nobody else supplying facts (when we actually do) but I’m amazed that I, and others, haven’t applied the same request to you. You’ve been allowed to dismiss everything without any facts to back you up. Yours has been pure speculation — no more substance than fortunetelling. Where are your facts?

Jennifer Meyer-SmithAugust 7, 2017 at 9:05 am

Very true, Miriam. Don’t give them the last word.

Miriam EnglishAugust 7, 2017 at 9:11 am

Rapideffect, homeopathy is wrong because it can easily be scientifically proved to be wrong. Show me an instance where I have professed belief instead of facts. It’s easy to accuse. Prove it.

Kaye LeeAugust 7, 2017 at 9:17 am

I admit I haven’t been following Rapideffect’s every word but the comments I have noticed have all been about how badly she has been treated and how silly everyone else is.

I prefer information, something Miriam always provides, rather than listening to someone’s personal grievances.

It astonishes me how successful the flat earth climate change denying tin foil hat brigade have been with their misinformation and how persistent they are in the face of all evidence. Likewise, I deplore the “end is nigh” proponents. Forecasting the apocalypse is such a waste of time. One day the sun will die. Does that mean we throw up our hands and say the end is inevitable or do we continue to expand our knowledge and improve our sustainability? Every step forward helps.

Miriam EnglishAugust 7, 2017 at 9:19 am

Rapideffect, you say I present false hope. You’re correct that I prefer to present hope. I’ve explained earlier why I think a cost-benefit analysis shows hope is more effective than surrender. But why do you say it’s false hope? What is your evidence that it is false? And please stick to the facts, as you yourself have said many times. Facts. No opinions or beliefs.

RoswellAugust 7, 2017 at 9:31 am

Rapideffect really is a pain in the arse. A pain in the arse with tunnel vision.

Why do we bother with her? Her comments are pathetic.

Miriam EnglishAugust 7, 2017 at 9:36 am

Rapideffect, you say I “believe in infinite growth of information, which requires finite resources.” That’s not quite how I’d put it (it isn’t so much a belief, as it being obvious), but it more or less presents the point I was trying to make. You say this isn’t backed up by facts, even after I’d given examples of an infinite universe of data that can be easily explored by anybody using their (finite) computers. How is this not backed up by facts? Show me (using facts, not opinion) why we can’t use finite computers to explore the infinite realms of knowledge (including mathematical systems like the Mandelbrot Set, Julia Set, monster curves, L-Systems, and so on).

Miriam EnglishAugust 7, 2017 at 9:58 am

Rapideffect, you say “Unfortunately renewable energy is not a substitute for oil”.

Give me facts that show that renewable energy can’t substitute for oil.

HarquebusAugust 7, 2017 at 10:29 am

Miriam English
“I’ve had more patience for H because (unlike Rapideffect) he seems to be merely deluded”
Thanks for that.

You have failed to convince me on renewable energy. That is all. All that I have seen of your evidence is questionable. Whereas you see it as a salvation, I see it as a waste of precious resources that could be better used elsewhere.

As I stated earlier, the renewable debate is over. Your side won. Now it is time for this technology to prove itself. Let’s see what it can do.

In the mean time, I will continue to make preparations for when it doesn’t and I suggest that others do so as well. It won’t hurt.

Did you check out the last link that I posted way back up there?

My thought for the day:
If people didn’t care, they wouldn’t get angry.

theAIMN
Is it possible to spread many comments over several pages. Page 1, 2, 3… etc.

Miriam EnglishAugust 7, 2017 at 10:46 am

H, “Thanks for that.”
🙂 No worries.

If people didn’t care, they wouldn’t get angry.
A really great quote. Added to my quotes folder. Thanks.

Wow! We now have paged comments.

Michael TaylorAugust 7, 2017 at 10:47 am

I have broken them up into 100 comments per page, with the most recent page showing first be default.

HarquebusAugust 7, 2017 at 11:18 am

Miriam English
I don’t think that quote is an original and I meant to leave this behind in my last.

Search criteria: renewable energy can not substitute for oil

I have had a quick look through the returned list and probably plenty of facts in there but, as I am at present not prepared to follow any but, might later, I don’t expect you to either.

The alternative for which I did the same returned a list five times the number as the negative. This search I will also probably repeat later. Just to see if there are any ‘facts’.

Search criteria: renewable energy can substitute for oil

Miriam EnglishAugust 7, 2017 at 12:01 pm

Thanks Michael. That’s much easier to use.

nurses1968August 7, 2017 at 12:28 pm

Harquebus
I believe the Science of CC but it does come with some cost in renewable energy. I have ordered a BMW i3 60Ah and the day after read this article
Child miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car: Awful human cost in squalid Congo cobalt mine that Michael Gove didn’t consider in his ‘clean’ energy crusade

Sky News investigated the Katanga mines and found Dorsen, 8, and Monica, 4 The pair were working in the vast mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo They are two of the 40,000 children working daily in the mines, checking rocks for cobalt

And it’s feared that thousands more children could be about to be dragged into this hellish daily existence – after the historic pledge made by Britain to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2040 and switch to electric vehicles.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4764208/Child-miners-aged-four-living-hell-Earth.html#ixzz4oyX1li74

Jack StrawAugust 7, 2017 at 12:51 pm

Michael harqauvas won’t stop untill he breaks the record.He will be giving away free steak knives soon if you comment on his on this novel.

Michael TaylorAugust 7, 2017 at 1:22 pm

Jack, he’s a long, long way off the record. The difference with the post from a few years ago that received almost 700 comments is that it had about 550 different commenters. Every time this post ‘dies’ – which it often has – Harquebus jumps back in to start it again. It’s fair to say that the last 400 or so comments have came from just a handful of people, but mainly Harquebus.

We’ve added new posts about the subject in an effort to ‘kill’ this one off as posts with too many comments are slow to load.

Like you, I have an inkling that Harquebus only kickstarts this post – instead of continuing the conversation on newer posts that have a similar theme – is because he’s obsessed with breaking the record.

But he won’t break it. I’ll be closing off comments on this post soon, simply because it makes the page too slow.

Michael TaylorAugust 7, 2017 at 1:24 pm

If anybody wishes to take up the conversation on similar articles, all they heed do is click on our ‘Environment’ section and take a pick from the recent articles.

HarquebusAugust 7, 2017 at 1:54 pm

This is one place that I have no chance of upsetting the author and I like to post relevant links so, I will be back from time to time. I am glad that the conversation continues and I don’t mind digression if it’s related which, it mostly always is. Economy, environment, energy, population and community.

One thing that I have not stated but intended to when the opportunity arrived, like now, is to say, “Do not be impressed by the number of comments. Most of them are mine.”

nurses1968
Thanks for that link. It is on my today’s reading list.

“The world’s soaring demand for cobalt is at times met by workers, including children, who labor in harsh and dangerous conditions.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/

TANSTAAFL There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Michael TaylorAugust 7, 2017 at 2:55 pm

Harquebus, what about this post to carry the conversation on with:

The window of life

I can’t even load this thread on my computer. I’m sure others would be having the same problem.

This one simply has to be closed off.

jimhazAugust 7, 2017 at 2:57 pm

Deleted – in case thread closed

Jack StrawAugust 7, 2017 at 3:11 pm

Case Closed nothing to see here !

Michael TaylorAugust 7, 2017 at 4:29 pm

Feel free to continue with comments from this article on this post:

The window of life

As soon as I hop on a computer I’ll put a block on commenting on this article.

I can’t close it off, however, without thanking Harquebus for the article. It certainly has been a popular post.

OPPOSE THE MAJOUR PARTIESAugust 7, 2017 at 5:03 pm

Harkey. How does one volunteer? Is there a list one can sign on to? If so, have you put your name down? Nevertheless, I agree with your basic premise that the earth is at the brink. The African continent is predicted to have a population of 5 bill by 2050. Lets put that in perspective, 5 bill was the entire human population of the whole earth in 1987. In less than 100 years from 1987 Africa alone will have that population. Good bye elephants, good bye giraffes, goodbye cousin apes, goodbye wildlife, goodbye forests. Africa can barely feed itself now so how is it going to feed 5 BILLION! The wildlife will be hunted and consumed. Humans are a virus that is destroying its host. Fukishema is leaking radio active material into the Pacific Ocean. Soon fish caught anywhere in the Pacific will be inedible. All this just so humans can switch an electric light on at night. It is generally acknowledged that there are natural constraints on growth. They are quickly arriving. Pessimism is a valid response to the current situation and to the foreseeable future circumstances. Some of the criticism of Harkey’s article are unfounded and unfair

Return to home page

Political Futures: Will Conservative Global Middle Powers Go…

Does the Treasurer have a god complex or…

Educating Australian Voters for True Democracy

Zionism, Imperialism and conflict in the Middle East

Sado-populism

A nation on the move: New tool tracks…

Thank You for Emitting: The Hypocrisies of COP29

ALP vs LNP: Similarities, Differences

Depopulate … or perish

Like this:

Related Articles

556 comments

Union calls for Julie Bishop to be sacked from ANU…

Homelessness

Share this:

Like this:

Related Articles

556 comments