THE Die Off Thread Part 1 (merged)

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3591

The readers may judge whether Cuba is an appropriate guinea pig or not:
a. The period of extremely low energy was brief. Currently they are using 78% as much oil as they did before the rooskies went out of business, so only a 22% decrease. These guys have a little natural gas around, plus a small domestic oil industry, plus indications are they just cut back on driving mostly.
b. The 20% decrease caused a 40% decrease in GDP.
c. Their life expectancy is unusually high for a non-industrialized country, anyway, at about 76 currently similar to the US.
d. Their life expectancy grew 1.4 years during the period noted above. This compares to an average of 2.4 years for the other caribbean nations for the same period.
e. Fertility rate did, indeed fall sharply. What babies were born tended to do OK, though, the report says infant mortality % about the same as before they lost this percent of oil.
f. GDP started to rebound down there slightly, since then Fidel opened the door up to tourism a crack, and also they found a friend in Chavez of Venezuela who is taking care of them on oil.
g. The consumption rate is currently about 6.3 bbl/person compared to 8.1 before the special period. This is not necessarily the equivalent of the US going from 26 to 20. Arguments could be made either way as to which decrease would be the most serious.

PenultimateManStanding · Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:38 pm Post subject:

MonteQuest

PenultimateManStanding

MonteQuest

SilverHair · Guest

Fertilizer.

Tobias · Guest

Grind them up and feed them to chickens and hogs. The love meat better than grain and day of the week

Guest · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 8:17 am Post subject:

If we ran out of oil today, all the sudden, then yes, there would be a massive die-off. No question there. But we need to remember that running out of oil will be gradual. It is coming down to a race against the clock. Need to find alternatives and make them available to the market before oil runs out. That's the race. There is over 700 billon barrels of cheap oil left in proven reserves. Even if this number is exagerated by 100%, there is still 350 billion barrels, enough for the world for the next 10 years.

Over the next 10 years, the world is making a mad dash to natural gas, which mittigates the dependency on oil. Also, coal is seeing expanded use. Looking at the stats in detail, anyone can see that oil accounts for 40% of our energy needs, accross the world. (in barrels of oil equivalent) That said, the world is looking to replace only 40% of its energy needs. Looking towards higher prices equates to lowered demand and more efficient use. That eats into that 40%, but no one can tell by how much.

True, oil cannot be replaced as far as quality, and it has functions that coal cannot replace. But looking at the state of things in a quick overview:
Facts- oil represent about 40% of the world's energy needs
- oil is still a safe ressource for the coming 10 years
- during the next 10 years, nations (including US, China, India and more) are changing their energy diets to reduce as much as possible that 40%
- As higher oil prices occur, demand for oil will drop, eating once again at that 40% depence
- As higher prices occur, higher efficiency and better use will prevail, once again eating away at that 40% (and believe me, as a mechanical engineer, there is plenty of room for improvements in that category)

So with everything said and done, looking to 10 years down the line, the world will likely be looking to replace 20% of its overall energy needs rather than the 40% of today. Can we really say that there will be a die-off related to missing 20% of our energy needs? I would hesitate to claim such a thing. Everything will be more expensive, lifestyles will suffer greatly, quality and pay of jobs will hurt. The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer as always. But I do not think there will be a massive die-off, at least not within the next 10 years.

The only fact that works against the world in this respect is that oil demand as a whole is increasing each year. That is cause to worry, but not cause to panic. It simply means that the rush to alternatives requires more effort. This race is push to alternatives is gaining speed every year. There is still time to avert disaster, though it is too late to avoid an eventual recession unless a miracle of sorts gives the world a helping hand.
So is the die-off exagerated? Yes, definately. To the eventual disapointement of many visiting this site on a regular basis, the die-off is greatly exagerated.

khebab · Moderator Joined: Sep 27, 2004 Posts: 935 Location: Canada

I agree with the above posting, die-off is an excessive view of PO consequences which is based inplicitely on PO= no oil tomorrow. I think die-off advocates are not helping the cause, they are just scaring people off. They should also learn from the Y2K flop. Yes, our reliance on cheap oil is overwelhming but it has promoted irrational ways of personnal transportation which will gradually disappear when oil will become rare. 70% of our oil consumption is used for personal transportation (mainly cars). We can reduce a big part of this consumption where the use of cars has become counter-productive and a nuisance. For example, the use of a car should be prohibited in downtown areas. I think we have to raise awareness and educate people on this issue.

gwmss15 · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 8:40 am Post subject:

YES over the top but i all depend on if theres a nuclear war between europe, china, usa if this war occur then there will be millions dead however if i doen occur which i beleve it wont as every one will lose if it does there will be a slow transition from today to a post peak world in which railway rule the world transport's and computers and internet become more important no food will not run out it will just be moved by rail and tram and may not come as often as it does now ie instead of a truck somming to the shop 2 times a day a tram or train will come a few times a week instead but will carrier more in these trips

Guest · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 9:15 am Post subject:

clv101 · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 12:25 pm Post subject: I don't understand dieoff

It's often said that without hydrocarbon energy the carrying capacity of Earth is more like 2 billion people rather than the current 6.5 billion. What I don't understand is that since an average American consumes something like 100 times as much energy as the average Bangladeshi why does the population have to fall. For example if the billion or so people of America, Europe, Australia, Japan etc all reduced the ecological footprint to that of an average Bangladeshi the planet would have no problem supporting all 6.5 billion of us.

The crux of the point is that the shift from 6.5 to 2 billion is only a factor of 3 change. The difference in energy use and ecological footprint between the world's rich and poor is far greater, something like 100-fold. Therefore faced with less energy in the future, the population doesn't need to drop by a factor of three, it just needs to use less energy. If the energy available to America dropped by 80%, I don't think the population would crash, just the standard of living would be significantly reduced. So, how does the dieoff theory come to 2 billion people? Won't we just have 7 billion people with a relatively low standard of living?

PenultimateManStanding · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 12:41 pm Post subject:

For me it comes down to agriculture. The world's arable land is now infertile without the chemicals we put in for nutrients, pesticides etc. Plus the energy requirements of agribusiness though I suppose we would have to all go back and labor there and thus supply the energy ourselves. But if the land is sterile that won't do any good. We're just out of luck is all.