We cannot drill our way out of this oil crisis. Since 2000, oil companies working in the U.S. have doubled the number of wells drilled per year.
Although increased drilling has added new oil to the nation's supply, it has not done so fast enough to offset the terminal decline of existing fields.
We are going to have to import more of our oil. Period.
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 6:13 pm Post subject: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
Note to new readers: I have merged the rebuttal with the original thread. The first 23 pages are consensus building, followed by a rebuttal that was a separate thread at first.
The rebuttal starts with my moderators note on page 23.
The results of the finalized consensus can be viewed here.
Joined: May 19, 2004 Posts: 892 Location: San Francisco, California
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 6:59 pm Post subject:
I advocate approximately 50 years to net decline. This is consistent with scenario 9 of Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, in which population plateaus at approximately 8 billion and begins to decline in the second half of the 21st century.
I advocate approximately 50 years to net decline. This is consistent with scenario 9 of Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, in which population plateaus at approximately 8 billion and begins to decline in the second half of the 21st century.
Ok, then that means roughly a ZPG model. Two children per couple world-wide. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:30 pm; edited 1 time in total
Whether volutary or involuntary population reduction measures are taken, is a pseudo-dilemna. If no action is taken, it will happen in a nasty way, if measures at taken it does not have to be this way.
We physicians often joke that being born is a condition invariably lethal (in the end we are all dead). There are two ways for an individual to internalize this absolutely true statement :
1) eat drink be merry and do not care about what happens since in the end we are all death OR
2) Since death of the individual is inevitable, is there something that we humans (or this planet) can produce that is immortal? (at least in a 5 billion year horizon ). Is there something that CAN transcend the limits of our mortality, and even grand us immortality through its existence?
From the individual's viewpoint both positions are equivalent under a finite time horizon. You die no matter what ... unpleasant but true. If one accepts that nothing but one self's matters, then one should stop here go buy an SUV, eat till one drops dead, fly till one runs out of SkyMiles, have a gazillion kids, buy 5 McMansions, leave the AC and the water running day and night, leave the lights on 24-7 and finally leave this web site. There is nothing one can contribute and nothing to gain (except headache, and carpal tunnel syndrome from typing).
If one does not accept this position, then he or she defaults to (2).
Different people here have different definitions of what they think is important to preserve till the end of time. For me is science, the long line of people starting from the ancient Greeks continuing through Newton, Einstein, Watson and Creek, the Human Genome Project etc.
Others like MQ are environmentalists they want the natural world to continue till the sun burns out (Monte I apologise if I misinterpret your motives, values), others might choose religion, some might choose a set of ideas or a particular way of life (even the silly notion that SUV+McMansion = reason the human species exists).
Note that all the dicussions implicity involve around the idea of sustainability ... the need to preserve something for a long long time allowing us AND future generations to enjoy that. (BTW if you anonymous reader do not buy the intergenerational justice argument, default to position 1 ... do the stuff I mentioned).
What is the problem then? Cant we all live and let others do the same?
Yes and No. Everything we do is based on matter, energy (even religions admit that, body and soul distinction etc) feeding living beings (i.e humans, birds, bacteria, trees, the spider that is about to die in my window etc).
To enjoy my science, MQ's environment, or areligion takes materials and energy. To sustain my science, MQ's environment, one'sreligion takes energy to feed, clothe, house humans. Some of these goals can be contradictory and untainable in the long run, others are not. For example to promote the McMansion ideal, other life forms have to die, the climate has to die if this is to be enjoyed by everyone. Even "terminating" (Arnie, where are you?) everyone except people in the Western world would do no good the way the game is played. Mindless consumption will eventually lead to the termination of all life (along with our "immortal" ideals) on this planet.
If we decide to fix the size of the pie (global material+energy flows) we will allow humans to consume (fossil fuels bought us a short period that we could pretend we did not have to address this) to allow life sustaining systems of the planet to continue, then:
the more of us are around, the less quality we can enjoy on some goals, and the less likely we are to create something sustainable.
At this point, we are threatening systems which , if compromised, might not recover ... so in order to reduce OUR impact on the planet, we have to reduce BOTH the individual's impact AND the number of inviduals around. Hence population reduction AND individual powerdown is required .
Simple physics tells that Population at the end of year X = People alive at end of year X-1+Births-Deaths.
There is no way to escape this formula ... you cannot send people to Mars (I'm sure one of the deranged cornocupians will propose that , it is a matter of time!!!)
It is much less painful to prevent new people from being born than killing people i.e. see the births go down ... this way you keep people with skills around to help with the transition. If you let people being born only to die ... then this is a waste of resources and a source of unnecessary pain
So it has to be one or the other .... Christian and Muslim and Hindu Religions all want babies around .... and they rather have a high birth rate and a high death rate than a small death rate and small birth rate . The question is which one is the most humane solution if sustainability is a goal (And If anyone decides to throw mud on my after I fried Stanton, then he or she should be prepared to become a (death rate) statistic ). There is no way make this omelette without breaking eggs. No way to have your cake and eat it too
Is there a way to enforce this so it becomes voluntary?
The voluntary way would have people have only 1 child. It is painful that this might lead to some couples breaking apart (it might happen to me for example, she wants 2-3 kids) , but I'd rather have this scenario that have 4 kids only to see 3 die (most sane people would too I presume).
To ensure that free rides do not happen ... a combination of incentives AND preventives will be used.
People will have to choose among things they want including babies and or occupation, tax benefits and even forced adoption (your second or third kid is given for adoption). If you have more than one child then it is taken away from you or less painfully a shot of DepoProvera to all females (the way we mandate vaccinations). I know it leaves a bad taste in one's mouth, and probably there are better policy makers out there; I'm only good with the numbers on this one.
Actually enhancing the role of woman in society will lead them not to have kids anyway; promotion of breastfeeding ... will do the same although less effectively.
There is NO warm fuzzy answer here for ALL people. Most professionals come to see kids as a burden (biased view from my personal example and my friends/colleagues) and will do this voluntary. Catholics or Muslims will view this as a disaster and will recoil in horror thinking they cannot pump 15 babies before they bite the dust, so they will need to be "encouraged". The less demanding lifestyle one has, the more at peace he will be during the transition.
If one thinks that the Lord (or Allah or Budah) will take care of this issue(the real issue is not PO, PO is just a symptom of a wider situation, the insatiable appettite of the current financial monetary system for resources, human lives and suffering) , feel welcome to do so, do not put your eggs in tha basket though when it comes to take an action. _________________ "Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.
1) You aren't talking about powerdown. Depopulation policies and powerdown are two totally different things. "Powerdown" refers to measures aimed at reducing oil/energy usage by the current population. Typical proposals include the Uppsala protocol, rationing, increasing fuel taxes, carbon credit systems and sensible urban planning practices. You should not try to smuggle in your sadistic ideas about "increasing the death rate" under the name of respectable common sense measures like powerdown.
Depopulation will have no effect on oil consumption. Suppose, for example, that the U.S. can surreptitiously kill a certain fraction of the Chinese people, and eliminate their demand. That will just lead to the U.S. sucking down the freed up oil. Similarly, if the U.S. nuked the entire non-U.S. population, this would crash the price of oil, and stimulate hog-trough consumption. The U.S. would then continue to oink down fuel, as before. Therefore, I would call your depopulation program a form of resource war, not a form of powerdown. The basic idea is to eliminate other people so you can have more resources for yourself.
2) Anyone promoting non-voluntary measures is essentially promoting authoritarian government, and should be resisted by whatever means necessary, including violence if it comes to that.
The suggestion of 50 years made by johnmarkos makes sense. Whatever action needs to be gradual, or else a demographic imbalance (i.e. too many older folks and not enough younger ones) would create additional difficulties.
How to go about achieving any sort population reduction is an excellent question.
However, realistically, I don't think there's any way to achieve this, short or long term. And I
have thought about this before in the past.
The world is too fragmented and there's no coherent way to implement any population
control policy across the board. Especially considering most of the growth is occuring
in 3rd world countries where anarchy and chaos are common.
Population control is also contrary to people's genetic conditioning, which is to
breed, breed and breed. Many people get very angry if you even bring up the topic.
Realistically I can see only two ways the population will be reduced.
First, we continue on the path we are currently on, and Nature takes care of things.
It will likely not be pretty.
Second, and more sinister, there may be an active 'NWO' plot to reduce the population.
Whether this be through engineered diseases, organized famines, or
limited nuclear war is hard to say. The intractable nature of the problem (at least
voluntarily) does unfortunately lend credence to this last line of thought.
Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 4147 Location: Boston, MA
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 8:08 pm Post subject:
Well that settles it.
Each soccer mom must be turned into a suicide bomber. She will go to India and blow herself up in a cafe or market. That way we A. get rid of a soccer mom B. take out a couple dozens possible future middle class Indians.
I think its a win-win.
To save on fuel, we can turn NASCAR into a sail boat building organization that ships the soccer moms to India/China in order to accomplish their dirty deed.
Now which Congressman will propose this? Which senator will stick his political neck out in order to propose the "Soccer Mom Suicide Bomber Act"?
It is not politically viable and by the time it will be politically viable, it will already be too late... _________________ "www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."
That was the solution arrived at in a 1977 seminar at Caltech "The Next Eighty Years" by biology professor James Bonner. TPTB have been thinking about these issues for a very long time. Of note, this talk was a 20 year followup to the 1957 (Caltech) Brown,Bonner, and Weir book "The Next Hundred Years", which mentioned peak oil and dieoff likely in this (present) decade. The think tank scientists were doomers 48 years ago _________________ "The world is changed... I feel it in the water... I feel it in the earth... I smell it in the air... Much that once was, is lost..." - Galadriel
Ok, then that means roughly a ZPG model. Two children per couple world-wide.
How long would a one child per couple world-wide policy take to lead to net decline, assuming all the children survived to reproduce?
50 years, just less growth. It's all about letting the demographics work through the population. Usually takes a generation. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
The suggestion of 50 years made by johnmarkos makes sense. Whatever action needs to be gradual, or else a demographic imbalance (i.e. too many older folks and not enough younger ones) would create additional difficulties.
Yes, this is true if we address the birth rate only. We will get to that. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 4147 Location: Boston, MA
Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 12:02 am Post subject:
MonteQuest wrote:
Shannymara wrote:
MonteQuest wrote:
Ok, then that means roughly a ZPG model. Two children per couple world-wide.
How long would a one child per couple world-wide policy take to lead to net decline, assuming all the children survived to reproduce?
50 years, just less growth. It's all about letting the demographics work through the population. Usually takes a generation.
I am going to have to disagree with MonteQuest on that one.
It doesn't make mathematical sense. If we have a 1 child per couple limit starting immediately (and we allow all extra children current alive to live) population growth would slow after a few years. Immediately after the current pregnant women give birth, fertility rates would fall everywhere to less than 1 child per couple.
Why? Because most women already have a child. They would be immediately taken out of the reproduction pool. Right?
The current children (many of whom from large families) would have one child per couple, but by the time they reach reproductive age, the current generation of women would have already pretty much filled their quotas. Population growth would cease after 20-30 years, not 50. The population would start declining in many places within 10 years.
This also depends on whether or not I can sell my child credit. Many couples will never have children and don't want any kids. If they are allowed to sell the "child credit" to another couple, the population would increase more than if the credit stayed with the non-reproducing couple.
I hope this is on topic and I believe it is.
The increased death rate caused by PO and its related consequences may also aid in population growth reduction.
Assuming we follow the 1 child per couple rule with no sale of the child credit and have economic problems (increased death rate), it may be possible to have a net reduction in population by as soon as 2025-2030. _________________ "www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."
Ok, then that means roughly a ZPG model. Two children per couple world-wide.
How long would a one child per couple world-wide policy take to lead to net decline, assuming all the children survived to reproduce?
50 years, just less growth. It's all about letting the demographics work through the population. Usually takes a generation.
I am going to have to disagree with MonteQuest on that one.
It doesn't make mathematical sense. If we have a 1 child per couple limit starting immediately (and we allow all extra children current alive to live) population growth would slow after a few years. Immediately after the current pregnant women give birth, fertility rates would fall everywhere to less than 1 child per couple.
Why? Because most women already have a child. They would be immediately taken out of the reproduction pool. Right?
The current children (many of whom from large families) would have one child per couple, but by the time they reach reproductive age, the current generation of women would have already pretty much filled their quotas. Population growth would cease after 20-30 years, not 50. The population would start declining in many places within 10 years.
Hmm...have you considered that the breeding population is not a constant due to demographics? For example, in Pakistan 70% of the population is under 16. In the next 5 years, instead of 30% breeding population you have a 70% increase.
You may be right if you considered this fact. I need to look up some numbers. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
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