[kublikhan]

Dohboi, sounds like you misconstrued the article. I suggest you read the entire article and not just the sections I posted. It was not the point of the article to cheer a victory cry that the end of the industrial age heralds a new green era. It is a call to action for change because the author does not like the path we are on. He is arguing for more protections for the environment, less policies emphasizing growth, and letting economic bounds be dictated by mother nature, not vise versa.

A good case can be made that failing to stabilize climate poses a major risk to the livelihoods of future generations.
...
In poor societies, growth can provide material goods that can satisfy urgent needs given just institutions that allocate goods and services to the impoverished. In affluent societies, however, growth generates a complex set of social and environmental costs, explaining why surveys of life satisfaction have remained largely unchanged in industrial societies despite the large increase in production and consumption that has occurred since World War II.
...
Because climate change policies would be phased in gradually over time, an economy that might have grown at a rate of 3.00 percent per year would instead grow at the lower rate of 2.95 percent per year if one assumed that climate policies had costs in the middle of the range described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its systematic literature review. This effect is so small that it would be difficult to distinguish from the year-to-year variability in growth that is driven by fluctuating trends in technology, human behavior, and other fundamental drivers. As the Nobel Prize winning economist Thomas Schelling once framed this point:
If someone could wave a wand and phase in, over a few years, a climate mitigation program that depressed [U.S.] GNP by two percent in perpetuity, no one would notice the difference.

A recent study by McKinsey and Company, for example, identified a set of specific technologies sufficient to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2030 by up to 46 percent at a maximum cost of $50 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, or 44 cents per gallon of gasoline. This cost is greater than zero but far too small to have major impacts on the overall level of economic activity. A carbon dioxide tax of $50 per tonne would favor lower-emission technologies and a shift towards low-carbon goods and services. The problem, then, is not a lack of technical potential but a lack of policies and price signals that promote the transition to a green energy system.
...
I have also argued that continued growth—while ecologically feasible up to a point set by ultimate thermodynamic and technological limits—may generate social costs that exceed the private benefits in affluent societies where the resources exist to meet people’s basic needs unless specific policies are implemented to address these impacts. This point is supported by data on trends in the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, subjective well-being, and a wide variety of social and environmental indicators. In the pursuit of growth, our society has told itself that our social and environmental values are too expensive to afford. The result is a systematic imbalance that, as John Kenneth Galbraith once argued, has brought into being a world of “private opulence and public squalor” through an overemphasis on growth, markets, and our identities as consumers that has crowded out our human roles as citizens, community members, caretakers, and friends.

Sustainability, Well-Being, and Economic Growth

[dohboi]

Yes, this section sounds a bit more reasonable. I'll see if I have time in the next couple days to read more.

[vtsnowedin]

. A carbon dioxide tax of $50 per tonne would favor lower-emission technologies and a shift towards low-carbon goods and services. The problem, then, is not a lack of technical potential but a lack of policies and price signals that promote the transition to a green energy system.

This begs the question, is there a low- carbon substitute for our transportation systems especially aircraft? While we could cut back dramatically on unnecessary trips and suburban commuting can we possibly provide all the necessary transport of goods and services with PV panels and wind mills. I fear the answer to that is no.

[kublikhan]

We had a substitute for our transportation system over 100 years ago. Namely trolleys and trains. They did not just up and die one day. A conglomeration of corporations(GM, Firestone, Mack Truck, Standard Rubber, and Phillips Petroleum) got together to purchase these systems one by one and run them into the ground. Of course back then we still used carbon, mostly in the form of coal. However it is doable to run this system with renewables instead. As for aviation, you can either take the slower train or pay the carbon tax on the fuel. Biofuel could be used as a potential substitute for jet fuel. There is not enough land to grow biofuel for all of our machines. But perhaps it would be doable for just aviation fuel, especially if flights were curtailed?

...Few Americans understand why those quiet, non-polluting electric rail system (trolleys) which once served all our major cities suddenly disappeared like the dinosaurs, and most accept the automobile as the evolutionary replacement. However, no asteroid from outer space wiped out America's trolleys. It was General Motors.

In 1922 only one American family in 10 owned an auto. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., GM's president, decided to change this. With friends at Firestone Rubber, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum and Mack Truck, Sloan began secretly, first to buy up and then destroy the rail systems in America's cities. To hide his campaign from the public eye, he hired an unknown, E. Roy Fitzgerald, as a figurehead, advertising him as an entrepreneur from the sticks. They formed a company, National City Lines, and quickly purchased Yellow Bus, America's largest diesel bus builder, and Omnibus, a bus-operating company.

National City Lines, headed by Fitzgerald, but privately funded by a consortium organized by Sloan and friends began buying up the rail systems in America's cities, one by one. Their approach was simple: using political know-how and money to influence city councils, while they paid Madison Avenue to tell the country "the trend was away from rail," they systematically destroyed America's clean, electric rail systems, replacing them with their polluting diesel buses. By 1941, National City Lines owned the transportation system in over 83 American cities across the country.

The day National City Lines signed a purchase agreement, their staff took over. Rail management was fired, and the process of piecemeal destruction set in motion: Fares were increased, routes cancelled and trolleys were taken out of service, schedules were reduced, salaries of workers cut, maintenance neglected. As rail systems thus self-destructed, a nationwide media campaign offered "modern, non-polluting diesels." Eventually, the last trolley disappeared, along with the tracks. An independent observer, Commander Edwin Quinby, caught onto GM's plot and took it upon himself to warn the city fathers across the country. At his own expense, he mailed out a 31-page brochure, outlining the takeover plan. GM hoisted an expensive public-relations campaign to discredit Quinby. Some readers, however, got the news, and a grassroots protest finally brought an investigation by the Justice Department.

In 1936, National City Lines, along with General Motors, was found guilty. The two were fined $5,000 apiece, while their management staff were fined $1 each. Later Justice Department investigations got nowhere, because by 1932 GM had created the National Highway Users Conference, a powerful Washington lobby to push for more freeways and silence discussion of diesel or gasoline pollution. Alfred P. Sloan headed the conference for 30 years until another GM man took over.

With the post-WWII boom in home construction, President Eisenhower, in 1953, appointed the then-president of General Motors, Charles Wilson, as Secretary of Defense and DuPont's chief, Secretary of Transportation (DuPont was GM's biggest investor). These two set out to pave over America for the auto. DuPont got Eisenhower to set up the Highway Trust Fund which funnelled gasoline tax money into highway construction. Two thirds of these funds went to build inner-city freeways. Meanwhile, GM, recognizing the limits of bus sales as contrasted with automobiles, changed its tactics, and in 1972, convinced the House of Representatives to deny all funding for public transportation, hoping to reduce bus service. The money was diverted to freeways. By the 1950's buses were disappearing and everyone wanted a car. Thus while post-war Europe and Japan were rebuilding their rail transit, America was destroying hers.

Though the House of Representatives in 1972 blocked monies for rapid transit, public pressure was making itself heard. San Francisco's Mayor Alioto, in the 1974 Senate hearings, publicly questioned whether what was good for General Motors was good for the country. By 1992, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) allowed local input into transit decisions, and by 1991, 25 cities across the country were experimenting with light rail systems....

The Conspiracy to Destroy America's Trolley Systems

[Newfie]

This whole sustainable debate is difficult to come at piecemeal. Trolleys and trams a an improvement, maybe we can grow enough to support limited aviation. But really, aren't ewe just asking those questions in a Westpern or USA centric context?

Lets look at the world as a whole.

First we want everyone to have adequate food and water. Let's say that's 2000 calories a day and one gallon of potable water.

Then let's say we can stabilize populations t current level aw, say 7.3 billion. ( fat chance, but this is a mind game.). One rule, use today's technology only, if we eventually develop something better then we can reevaluate, otherwise this just becomes far to speculative.

Then the question becomes....can we so this in a way that is sustainable, using no fossil fuel or fossil water?

If we can, at what level of technological sophistication?

If we then want to make additional technology available, at what level how deeply will the population need to be reduced to sustain that technological level?

If we can't sustain the current population with a minimum of technology then how deeply do we need to reduce the population in order to keep the maximum number of humans alive sustainably?

[dohboi]

Good points. The overall general direction we have to be headed for, and quite rapidly, involves severely limiting humans--demographically, economically, technologically...

We have been deep in the mind set of crowing about every technology that can give humans greater and greater power. But as we have seen, that power largely goes toward wiping out the rest of the natural world (as well as using up resources that really belong, if to anyone, to our future offspring, it any make it).

It is a major shift of thinking to reset our sights on judging each new 'advance' based on how much it will help in the urgent goal of limiting human potential. In ibon's terms, we have to become our own kinder/gentler Overshoot Predator, because the real thing will be neither kind nor gentle.

[kublikhan]

Newfie, probably figure 9 billion as that's where most demographers predict the population will level off at. Just like with our transportation system, sustainability requires that out agricultural system also switch to renewable energy. Just one example, lets look at nitrogen fertilizer production.

Nitrogen accounts for 80% of volume of atmospheric gas but it is in a non-reactive form that is not readily available to plants, making it the main limiting factor for global crop production and human growth. It is a vital component of chlorophyll, amino acids, nucleic acids, proteins and enzymes. Synthetic N is responsible for raising crop yields approximately 35 to 50% over the last half century accounting for 80% of the increase in cereal crops, without which much of the worlds population would not exist.

For most of human existence N fixation (the splitting of N2 to form Ammonia) was limited to bacteria (primarily Rhizobium). With the invention of the Haber-Bosch process in 1913 humans began domination of the N cycle (Smil 1991). This process is extremely energy intensive requiring the reaction of 1 mole of nitrogen gas with 3 moles of hydrogen gas under temperatures of approximately 400°C and pressures of approximately 200 atmospheres. This accounts for 30% of the energy expenditures in agriculture. The hydrogen gas for this process comes almost exclusively from natural gas which is considered as a feedstock and not factored in as part of the energy expenditure. It is also possible to get the required hydrogen by the electrolysis of water but this requires more energy, making it an unfavorable alternative at this time. Natural gas currently accounts for 90% of the monetary cost of N fertilizer.

Although synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and its dependence on natural gas is a major limiting factor of the industrialized food system, perhaps the greatest vulnerability is the dependence on the transportation system for farm inputs and outputs; for example fertilizer is of little value if it can not be effectively delivered to where it is needed. The transportation of farm inputs and outputs consumes a large amount of fuel. Data from 1977 shows that 2,892 million gallons of diesel fuel and 411 million gallons of gasoline were consumed for this purpose in the U.S. Of this amount 195 million gallons were used for the shipment of fertilizer. In the U.S. long distance food transportation is often a luxury, providing us with “fresh” produce and seafood from exotic places at any time of year

Implications of Fossil Fuel Dependence for the Food System

And that's just fertilizer and transportation. Then there's running irrigation pumps, crop drying, etc. It all requires energy. So sure it is possible to sustainably feed 9 billion people without the use of fossil fuels. However it would take changes to our food system. And a whole lot of renewable energy. You might want to check out this report as well: "Energy-smart" agriculture needed to escape fossil fuel trap

Besides supply side changes like renewable energy, some demand side changes were suggested as well. For example: curtail food waste, animal products, and biofuels. Some countries, such as the USA and India, have high levels of food waste of around 40%. Cutting this would increase the amount of food available to eat. Also, you can feed alot more people by feeding crops directly to people instead of feeding them to cows, pigs, chickens, etc. But that would mean less meat in your diet. And despite my earlier suggestion about biofuels, cutting these out would give more crops for people to consume.

[dohboi]

Good points, k. Keep in mind that, for the major 'food' crop in the US, corn, only a small percent of the harvest is eaten directly as food. So in theory almost all of that crop could go away tomorrow and, if people adjusted their diets a bit, it could have little to no effect on world food supplies.

Meanwhile, here's a site I found that is relevant, though I think it doesn't do enough to balance consumption against population.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/prog ... xtinction/

Extinction is the most serious, utterly irreversible effect of unsustainable human population.

But unfortunately, many analyses of what a sustainable human population level would look like presume that the goal is simply to keep the human race at a level where it has enough food and clean water to survive.

Our notion of sustainability and ecological footprint — indeed, our notion of world worth living in — presumes that humans will allow for, and themselves enjoy, enough room and resources for all species to live.

[Pops]

There is no problem producing enough food for 10 billion, the problem is keeping the 1 billion from feeding it all to their animals (and cars) thereby starving the 9 billion

Ag (to the farm gate) only consumes 2% of overall primary energy, so N isn't much in the overall scheme, and ag overall isn't much. There is more for packaging and out of season of course but that is just luxury.

All the gains in yield resulting from the "Green Revolution" have been spent in feeding cattle and ethanol plants.

[dohboi]

What Pops said. Two green thumbs up!

[careinke]

There is no problem producing enough food for 10 billion, the problem is keeping the 1 billion from feeding it all to their animals (and cars) thereby starving the 9 billion

Ag (to the farm gate) only consumes 2% of overall primary energy, so N isn't much in the overall scheme, and ag overall isn't much. There is more for packaging and out of season of course but that is just luxury.

All the gains in yield resulting from the "Green Revolution" have been spent in feeding cattle and ethanol plants.

I agree with you, except I don't think you have taken soil loss into account under the current system. Simply put current ag practices are not sustainable. Something we will all soon see.

[dohboi]

Car has an excellent point, too. We have ripped the very living soil out of much of our croplands. They don't recover very easily or quickly from the kinds of chemical insults they have endured now for years.

[Newfie]

The Footprint Network calculates that we are using 1.5 earths of resources, and they don't calculate fossil fuel or fossil water. Nor. AFAIK, do they calculate the amount of ecological degradation we have inflicted on Earth.

So doing BAU we would have to go down to sometihing like 5 billion. But that is clearly a best case scenario. Reality is less, much less.

[Newfie]

It's not just food, you also have to look at heat. That is a biggie in a temperate climate. To be sustainable yu would have to return a lot of Cropland to forest.

That's what I meant above ny saying yes difficult to get an accurate picture piecemeal.

[ralfy]

According to this site:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _footprint

as of 2007 our ave. ecological footprint is around 2.7 global hectares per capita, while biocapacity is around 1.8.

[Pops]

Simply put current ag practices are not sustainable. Something we will all soon see.

There is no way to sustain this population without modern ag. We are beyond the point where any other system will sustain us, we certainly can't feed 10 billion from a food forest, we can't feed 5.

I'm not sure how we will 'all soon see how unsustainable ag is' because yields are still increasing. Of course they can't increase forever but currently an Earther is much more likely to starve from poverty than crop failure. Or maybe a better way to put it is the market finds making a 200 calorie Quarter-Pounder hamburger pattie for a first worlder more profitable than a 2,000 calorie coarse grain subsistence diet for a third worlder - even though the burger uses the same or more cropland and inputs.

IMO a random Earther now and quite a way into the future is much more likely to starve because food is unaffordable than because food is unavailable.

I realise that is uncomfortable for we first worlders to accept. It means that any one of us reading this board can look in our fridge right now and see the reason people are hungry - and it is likely to be the same reason tomorrow. All the highbrow WHO studies and cliched 2.3756324 "earths" and indignation about "industrial ag" are just cover. The reason people starve is because of the gluttony of the rich - that would be us.

Increasing precision in application of inputs and increasing ability to monitor crops and soils along with improvements in conservation tillage, strip-till, no-till and of course genetic engineering will offset some of the decline in soils and increasing scarcity of inputs.

But really, the best we can hope for to reduce hunger and avoid starvation in the bottom half is a flattening of incomes that reduces the gluttony of the top half.


Here is from a study about NW dryland wheat showing conservation till means zero erosion.

[Newfie]

It's not just food, you also have to look at heat. That is a biggie in a temperate climate. To be sustainable yu would have to return a lot of Cropland to forest.

That's what I meant above ny saying yes difficult to get an accurate picture piecemeal.

People give off a lot of heat, about 100 watts per day like a incandescent light bulb. We could live in large chicken incubators together.

But we would all have to be.neked to share fairly.