THE Power Down Thread (merged)

[Ludi]

My point is that they were able to live there for 40,000 years.

No where do I claim they were noble.

[Malthus]

Well easter islanders also would have survived and most probably will survive in the next 40000 years unless something really bad happens. The western people would probably also survive in the next 40000 years but living in a world of environemental degradation, poverty, misery and famine just like eastern islanders or aborigens. At least native australians destryed their habitat so slowly that they were able to adjust easily to the damage they have dealt. Probably they didnt even noticed it. For us on the other hand the ride to poverty and misery may be more bumpy.

[Ludi]

Your information about the Australian savanna and the australian natives is faulty. Far from being a place of scarcity, it was a very diverse and productive landscape. Prior to the white colonists, the aborigines did not live in misery and poverty as you portray them, but had rich cultures. Link

[Malthus]

Because the burning practices of the Aboriginals in northern Australian savannas remain largely unknown, it is difficult to infer the influences of fire on the species present. While savanna ecosystems are known to have evolved with fire, it is difficult to test empirically whether species have adapted to Aboriginal burning, or whether they are the evolutionary result of pre-Aboriginal fires.

The fossils clearly show biodiversity and vegetation droping after the arival of the aboriginals and more desert like plants gaining ground. It is a very logical conclusion after all where would you prefer to live on a tropical island or in the australian desert? Of course the pastoralist fire practices are much worse but give them a break they ve came just some 150 years ago while the aboriginals lived there for 40000 thousand years they have adapted to the misery they have created if you think that living of the desert is cool you should try it out. I also laugh at the myth of the rich aboriginal culture which falls appart when you compare it to our achievements like Bach or Beethoven just to name a few.
Story

WASHINGTON - Settlers who came to Australia 50,000 years ago and set fires that burned off natural flora and fauna may have triggered a cataclysmic weather change that turned the country's interior into the dry desert it is today, US and Australian researchers said on Tuesday.
Their study, reported in the latest issue of the journal, Geology, supports arguments that early settlers literally changed the landscape of the continent with fire.
"The implications are that the burning practices of early humans may have changed the climate of the Australian continent by weakening the penetration of monsoon moisture into the interior," Gifford Miller of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who led the study, said in a statement.
The geological record shows that the interior of Australia was much wetter about 125,000 years ago.

The last Ice Age changed the weather across the planet but monsoons returned as the glaciers retreated 12,000 years ago -- all except the Australian Monsoon.
The Australian Monsoon now brings about 39 inches (one metre) of rain annually to the north coast as it moves south from Asia, but only about 13 inches (33 cm) of rain falls on the interior each year.
Miller's study suggests that large fires could have altered the plant population enough to decrease the exchange of water vapor with the atmosphere, stopping clouds from forming.

The researchers, working with John Magee of Australian National University in Canberra, used computerized global climate simulations to show that if there were some forest in the middle of Australia, it would lead to a monsoon with twice as much rain as the current pattern.
Fossil evidence shows that birds and marsupials that once lived in Australia's interior would have browsed on trees, shrubs and grasses rather than the desert scrub environment that is there today.
It also shows large charcoal deposits most likely caused by widespread fires, conveniently dating to the arrival of people.
People are also blamed for killing off 85 percent of Australia's huge animals, including an ostrich-sized bird, 19 species of marsupials, a 25-foot-long (7.5-metre) lizard and a Volkswagen-sized tortoise.
Some experts have suggested climate change caused by burning killed off these species, rather than direct hunting by human.

[Ludi]

I also laugh at the myth of the rich aboriginal culture which falls appart when you compare it to our achievements like Bach or Beethoven just to name a few.

I thought this kind of outrageous bigotry was out of fashion.

[eric_b]

I've discussed this a little with Bart and others, but I'd like to hear more opinions from other posters.
The theory seems to be this: Powerdown (whether intentional or unintentional) will have positive effects on the health of the environment, and thus is something environmentalists should welcome.
I would argue for the opposite effect: Powerdown will make everyone increasingly poor, and they will assault the environment to compensate. For example, fuel shortages (or expensive fuel) will lead people to poach trees for fuel, and food shortages (or increasing poverty) will lead people to clear new land, poach wildlife, overfish, fish over the limit etc.
Cuba is often cited as an example of successful powerdown, but the evidence shows that Cuba has the same environmental problems as other countries, i.e. deforestation, desertification etc. North Korea, another country which has experienced a form of powerdown, also has severe ongoing environmental problems.
Will powderdown ameliorate environmental problems? Or make them worse?

Oh, I definitely feel any sort of powerdown - intentional or not - will only make any environmental problems worse. Lots and lots of cheap oil and a largely 'hidden' infastructure allow us to hide most of the profligate consumption needed to keep things going currently.
Once cheap oil/gas is not an option, people will burn whatever they have to get by. Where I live (Wisconsin) I can easily imagine a tremendous amount of tree/wood poaching so people will be able to stay warm in the Winter, cook food, etc.

Once push comes to shove, environmentalism will be a luxury. People will do what they have to to survive. I can imagine hordes of hunters illegally hunting and fishing the limited amount of game (deer, rabbits, fish) to near extinction in just a few years in the case of a hard crash and loss of ag/modern farming practices.
In a nushell, we're F*cked at this point, the way I see it. Only question is how bad it will be.

[JohnDenver]

The intentional powerdown, where people decide to cut their consumption of everything and content with much less, will be very beneficial because it will dramatically lower our foot print. You must clearly agree on that and it could eventually happen for countries like Canada or Russia, or Scandinavia where population density is low.

I like the idea of looking at countries with declining populations (like Russia, Japan, Italy etc.) as a model. Instead of "powerdown" you might call it "scaledown". Let the population drop naturally, and let consumption fall with it. There are downsides to scaledown -- like handling social security -- which make countries like Japan nervous about it, but it might turn out to be a cloud with a silver lining. If resources are getting more and more expensive, and a country is using less and less of them over time (due to less people), they will enjoy a selective advantage, in the same way that a person who doesn't drive benefits when the price of gasoline rises. Depending on the situation, extremely large amounts of money could be involved. Also, scaledown doesn't pose the same risks to the environment because per capita energy can stay level.

[Bandidoz]

I think the Japanese anime you're thinking of is Gaia.
Perhaps there is another powerdown angle to consider; Educated and Uneducated.
Educated will use solar water heating and possibly woodchip micro-CHP, and practice permaculture.
Uneducated will burn trees and practice uncontrolled hunting.
Since most people are uneducated or in denial I don't hold out much hope.

[holmes]

Because the burning practices of the Aboriginals in northern Australian savannas remain largely unknown, it is difficult to infer the influences of fire on the species present. While savanna ecosystems are known to have evolved with fire, it is difficult to test empirically whether species have adapted to Aboriginal burning, or whether they are the evolutionary result of pre-Aboriginal fires.

The fossils clearly show biodiversity and vegetation droping after the arival of the aboriginals and more desert like plants gaining ground. It is a very logical conclusion after all where would you prefer to live on a tropical island or in the australian desert? Of course the pastoralist fire practices are much worse but give them a break they ve came just some 150 years ago while the aboriginals lived there for 40000 thousand years they have adapted to the misery they have created if you think that living of the desert is cool you should try it out. I also laugh at the myth of the rich aboriginal culture which falls appart when you compare it to our achievements like Bach or Beethoven just to name a few.
Story

WASHINGTON - Settlers who came to Australia 50,000 years ago and set fires that burned off natural flora and fauna may have triggered a cataclysmic weather change that turned the country's interior into the dry desert it is today, US and Australian researchers said on Tuesday. ...
People are also blamed for killing off 85 percent of Australia's huge animals, including an ostrich-sized bird, 19 species of marsupials, a 25-foot-long (7.5-metre) lizard and a Volkswagen-sized tortoise.
Some experts have suggested climate change caused by burning killed off these species, rather than direct hunting by human.

The Indians definatley learned through trial and error and had perfected their systems by the time of wasp contact.
However productivity is a fraction of pre contact levels.
They learne dthe hard way and according to most records they corrected their errors which were miniscule compared to ours.
The extermination of the plankton and zooplankton are really issues not what was extermiated 1000's of years ago.
Much rings true in your post. However the ideal model should lie in the northern tribes of N. America and the tribes of the amazonia and some other areas of S. America like in the pampas. who seem to have and have had much luck. Until exponential growth contact.
Where empire took hold your truths came about mostly. The Indians of N. America pre Spanish and WASPS were the closest to the ideal prototype. Their culture was their environment. There was just the right mix of environmental factors for high IQs.
cant get any better than that, so far. The festering overbreeding originated from the direction of mexico and post wasp and spanish contact from catholic indoctrination. Smaller bodies tend to breed more in nature. combine that with low IQs.
Our relatives were small and weak. the algonquins were like oaks and Iraqois redwoods. still are.
All our rivers were once bloated with runs. Anadromous, catadromous, Indigenous, etc.. Shellfish was loaded salt water and all fresh water streams, rivers, lakes, seas, brooks.
Its ahrd to understand the productivity thats was once on this continent. Its a really small amount now. scary.
if you find out the local history of your area youll be surprised that most were inhabitated by Indians for a long long time and a lot of them. And how come we are through almost everything all ready.
The Iraqois nation was sustainable. Ours is not.

[Ludi]

if you find out the local history of your area youll be surprised that most were inhabitated by Indians for a long long time and a lot of them. And how come we are through almost everything all ready.

It's certainly clear to me my area (Central Texas) was much more productive back in the day of the Lipan Apache, when it was tallgrass prairie instead of regrowth cedar and shortgrass. The cattle and goat operations destroyed most of the productivity. Now many edible plants only grow in the margins of the roads, where the cattle can't graze. It looks like the place used to be practically wall-to-wall food. Now it's mostly eroding away...this all in the last 150 years or so.

[holmes]

O sure. The entire eastern seaboard east of the missipis has been transformed from hyperproductive wetlands and tall grass praires and Old growth prtective forests. Into low productivity 5 gen selective cut firewood forests with thin eroded soils and denuded drained farmland and destroye d woodland wetlands. the wetlands left under assault with exotics and pollutionand drainage.

Its hard to imagine the waterfowl that was once here either. The skys were blackened.
and passenger pigions. I have found numerous net sinkers they used to snag them to eat. little arrowheads.
also the mast crops. Chest nut, wal nut, beech nuts, acorns, hickory nuts, butter nut, cherries, berries. Jesus.
pecans down in the texas area.
Alot of people are going to be hungry. LOL. we are already fucked.

[Ludi]

pecans down in the texas area.

Do you know the white settlers would cut the pecan trees down to get the nuts? That's how dopey they were.

[Malthus]

JD I think that countries with low population density will fare much better than countries with high population density. It will be fairly easy for candians and russians to revert to a sustainable society with decent standards of living just look at their teritory besides they have the benefit of declining population as you mentioned. Japan is not a good example without imports Japan is dead in 6 months just look at their arable land to population ratio it so low probably one of the lowest in the world. And social security is not a problem you just cut those retirement and health benefits and life expectancy will drop.

[bobbyald]

JD, what you say is correct.
I do fear greatly for the environment and each day that passes more irreversible damage is done. How much more damage the human race does on their way down I don't know but it could be immense.
Taking the long-term view however, earth's infestation will soon be gone and the environment will hopefully recover. IF we are still a part of it and we get a second chance will we make the same mistakes again? Absolutely.

[savethehumans]

I do fear greatly for the environment and each day that passes more irreversible damage is done. How much more damage the human race does on their way down I don’t know but it could be immense.

Think of all the lovely COAL we're gonna dig out, burn, "process" and convert before industrial society collapses! Then throw in oil shale, nuclear waste, inefficient collapsing energy infrastructures, people scrounging for wood and cow patties to keep the fires burning....
COULD be immense?!

[cube]

..... Japan is not a good example without imports Japan is dead in 6 months just look at their arable land to population ratio it so low probably one of the lowest in the world. And social security is not a problem you just cut those retirement and health benefits and life expectancy will drop.

Japan is a weird country. It has always been heavily populated and short on natural resources. Even way back in the 1700's the population was about 30 million! How is it that they managed to feed 30 million people on an island that's mainly mountainous terrain with weather that's not exactly the most ideal for farming?.....and of course no fossil fuel based agriculture. I think that's pretty amazing.

[JohnDenver]

..... Japan is not a good example without imports Japan is dead in 6 months just look at their arable land to population ratio it so low probably one of the lowest in the world.

Japan is a weird country. It has always been heavily populated and short on natural resources. Even way back in the 1700's the population was about 30 million! How is it that they managed to feed 30 million people on an island that's mainly mountainous terrain with weather that's not exactly the most ideal for farming?

Teamwork... and fishing! Arable land calculations are misleading because they leave out most of the productive area of the earth, i.e. the oceans. The Japanese also have a long history of aquaculture. They eat a lot of seaweed and kelp. In fact, they eat a whole bunch of weird stuff out of the ocean that nobody else eats, so I don't think they're in any serious danger. Furthermore, their minds haven't been polluted with counterproductive Christian notions like "the apocalypse" and "armageddon".

[DriveElectric]

Teamwork... and fishing! Arable land calculations are misleading because they leave out most of the productive area of the earth, i.e. the oceans. The Japanese also have a long history of aquaculture. They eat a lot of seaweed and kelp.

That option will not be available for another 50 years. The oceans have been so overfished that it will likely take that long for fish populations to recover, and that is only if we seriously stop the industrial fishing trawlers now.
China's trawler fleet is raping the entire ocean.

[johnmarkos]

I like the idea of looking at countries with declining populations (like Russia, Japan, Italy etc.) as a model. Instead of "powerdown" you might call it "scaledown". Let the population drop naturally, and let consumption fall with it. There are downsides to scaledown -- like handling social security -- which make countries like Japan nervous about it, but it might turn out to be a cloud with a silver lining. If resources are getting more and more expensive, and a country is using less and less of them over time (due to less people), they will enjoy a selective advantage, in the same way that a person who doesn't drive benefits when the price of gasoline rises. Depending on the situation, extremely large amounts of money could be involved. Also, scaledown doesn't pose the same risks to the environment because per capita energy can stay level.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to lower per capita energy use from current levels, IMO. I advocate a middle ground between Cuban (or North Korean) style powerdown and business as usual. If people reduce energy use by eliminating waste, their quality of life will not drop. It is possible to live a comfortable life using a small fraction (say 20-33%) of current mean US per capita energy consumption. I'm not talking about eco-peasantry here. My wife and I live a fully modern, comfortable life using approximately 300 kwh/month (US average household use is about 1000 kwh/month). We're not even really trying to conserve -- at least not much. Did I tell you about the fluorescent light bulb fiasco? Suffice to say, we're still using incandescents in our built in fixtures. What, exactly, does the average US household do with those extra 700 kwh/month? I suspect it's Christmas lights.

Anyway, there's a lot of waste right now. You'd have to power down a lot (>80%) before people really started suffering.

[JohnDenver]

"The committee voted down, 39 to 12, a separate amendment to require the federal government to find a way to cut U.S. oil demand by 1 million barrels a day by 2013. The amendment offered by Democrat Henry Waxman of California aimed to reduce imports of crude oil.
Lawmakers with automakers in their districts led the fight to defeat Waxman's proposal, arguing it was backdoor way to require U.S. mini-vans, sport utility vehicles and pick-up trucks to improve their fuel efficiency."
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