Here is why I am doomer fiver

China ready to use nukes over Taiwan

PO or no PO things are sketchy.

I voted 3,but am leaning towards 4.

Not going to happen ...

1) As I wrote in another thread, Zhu has been making these same nuke threats for a long, long while now.
2) As I've written in a couple of other threads, China will implode within the next two years, IMO.
3) If by some slim chance 2 doesn't happen, China is so concerned about saving face for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, that they will let a lot slide between now and then ... a lot. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Taiwan uses the knowledge that Beijing does not want to lose face with the international community and seizes this opportunity to expand their independence.

There are lots of good reasons to be a "doomer five", I just don't think nuclear war with China should be at the top of the list.

good point Aaron.

Yeah China imploding is a real possibility, that will be ugly though.

I'd very much like to read your thoughts on the matter. Might it be possible to get a link?

I'm not Aaron. I just like his quote.


Yes. It will be very ugly.
49 million multi-millionare members of the CPC vs. 1.2 billion disenfranchised peasants.

Each and every day now, there are multiple instances of civil unrest throughout China, where tens of thousands of peasants rise up against the police. China has struggled to keep this out of foreign press for a good while (thank goodness for Hong Kong newspapers) but now the CPC is starting to admit publicly that it has become a problem.

Chinese social unrest a growing problem

It will only get worse. Hence my prediction that China will collapse next year or the year after, at the latest.




I don't recall that I actually said anything particularly noteworthy other than "China will implode by 2006." Hardly worth linking to ...

When I am out on the highway and notice all the vehicles, I often think of the idea that 30 years after peak oil there will be no economically meaningful production of oil.

I an unconvinced that anything can come close to replacing that lost source of energy to move vehicles, not to mention all the other things dependent on oil.

I just don't see how the earth population can stay at 6.5 much less grow to 9 billion by 2050 as is predicted from some quarters. It seems a fairly basic conclusion that population must fall to meet the new food, water and shelter reality.

Without gas to power tractors the next best alternative is to revert to draft animals for farming. It will take decades to build up the number of draft animals. They need to eat and historically 1/3 of agricultural production has gone to feed draft animals. Agricuture without modern methods can only produce 1/3 of what modern methods produce. Given these two factors contributing to agricultural production, we are down to 22.22% of what we now produce and this will be where we will be in just 30 short years after peak. This only accounts for food production problems and does not address food distribution problems. This is without considering the problems people will have with keeping warm in the winter, cool in the summer, disposal of human waste and garbage or access to water in an economy that is contracting violently from lack of energy.

--

Fuck Fear! Drink Beer!

(Bumper sticker that I have on my car).

I voted 6, but I may have been a little hasty, 5 actually would be more accurate I guess. But what the hell is the difference really? I expect my life to change radically and then there is the strong liklihood that it will be cut shorter than I'd like, and I just turned 54. Either way, 5 or 6, it's so bad that it's hard to even think about the possibility that it'll really happen, even though I "know" it has to. At some point.
At various levels, I've sort of known for decades that this whole civilization thing was a house of cards. The 90's lulled me into thinking that at least I'd grow old before it all started hitting the fan. I never had much faith in things by, say, 2100. Not my problem, really. But now I know that the bottom row of that house of cards is where the fossil fuel cards are, and removing the bottom cards always creates problems quickly.

I'm a 3, if we conserve the hell out of what we have, yes by government edict, we've have that in the depression and WWII and went along with it ok, we can keep ourselves in food and it won't hurt the vast majority of Americans to walk or bike a bit. We'll also have to encourage a low birthrate although that may not need government enforcement since in the US birthrate has been pretty low, and will become lower.

Here's an interesting idea that just came to me - nuclear family on a farm, you need a bunch of kids for farm labor all right. But, if people set up in "clusters" like they do at Dancing Rabbit, you have say a group of 5-7 adults and a kid or two maybe three, and they farm their land and work in looser cooperation with other "clusters", from what I skimmed on their site that's how Dancing Rabbit is set up. This I think is also how a lot of sustainable societies have worked, like the forest pygmies studied by Trumbull (great book! The Forest People) and the plains indians etc. It comes down to that old "it takes a village.." thing

I voted for scenario 5.

This is the most likely outcome based on ecological principles - carrying capacity, ecological limits, overshoot, resource depletion and die-off. This cycle has been repeated several times in the past amongst other species. The only difference is that we humans are now the subject and the scope is global. The stark reality is too ugly for most of us to fathom.

Without oil, the carrying capacity of the planet is 1 to 2 billion. It is simply a matter of mathematics to grasp that our numbers will decrease as the oil depletes.

Scenario 4, which gives hopes that most of us will survive is an optimistic goal. We should all strive towards it. It has been calculated the population will continue to rise to 9 billion. Then we would see a rapid die-off. We are talking of 7 billion humans perishing of famine, starvation, diseases, pandemics, natural disasters and local warfare.

The next 50 to 100 years are going to be ugly.

I am leaving out option 6, because I believe that after the population stabilizes, the survivors will be able to pick up the threads and charter humanity on a solar based civilization. It would be very different from ours, maybe better in certain respects.

If the survivors learn from the hard lesson, and unite to embark on a new journey in tune with natural laws and limits, I believe we would see a new millenium of peace, cooperation, and social kinship.

In short, a paradigm shift from greed, gluttony, and over consumption to sustainability, moderation, symbiotic relationships and a spiritual awakening.

Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to catalyze a change.

I'm between 3 and 4. It really depends on how things go. 3 would be my best case scenario and 4 my worst case.

The wording for scenario 2 is vague, but it must mean something less than 3, that is, an economic catastrophe. I don't think it's possible to avoid an economic catastrophe taking into account peak oil, the level of debt of the average person, the housing bubble, and the twin deficits of the USA. It's too many tickets not to win the raffle, like we say in Spain.

I don't think there will be a massive dieoff, like in scenario 5, because I believe things will develop slowly enough to give people time to adapt and survive even in the worst case scenario. A moderate dieoff is possible, but in developed countries this will be a result of lower birthrate and higher mortality among the old. I don't think people will drop like flies, because that implies serious famine or nuclear war. I don't think nuclear war will happen because it's extremely foolish, though a nuke or two may be dropped on countries without no nuclear. As for serious famine, there are a lot of things we can give up before we run out of food. I know some of you say the carrying capacity of the planet is a lot less people, but Europe somehow managed to survive WWII with very little imports, and a war going on at the same time.

Between 3 and 4 for southern Europe.
An economic catastrophe, but MORE than twenty years to recover.
A global calamity with huge population shifts and all which that implies.
A global die off? I really dont want to believe it but if one thing leads to the other........ anything can happen.
I think the Med is going to be fine in any scenario.We been here 20 THOUSAND years.we go nowhere.

No, there was a die-off in Europe during WWII, also the population was considerably less at that time.