In your opinion what is the most pressing envionmental problem for humanity, and is it feasable to solve?

Climate change?
Fossil fuel depletion?
Over use of other natural resources?
Pollution of the environment?
The way our economic system works, requiring exponential growth?


IMHO the underlying problem of most ecological and environmental problems on our planet is overpopulation.
With less people walking this earth all the above problems would have a significantly smaller impact as well as being a big step towards a 'sustainable' civilisation (if that can ever be reached as a total move away from a growth based economy would be required).

Problem is that most people are reluctant to accept that there are too many people, and are even more reluctant to try and change that. Any political party who tried to propose a cut in population would be ridiculed and immidiatly voted out if in power or sidelined in elections. OK China had a one child policy for a while but it proved unpopular and China is not exactly a shining example of a democratic society.


So whats your 'big issue'?

IMHO the underlying problem of most ecological and environmental problems on our planet is overpopulation.

The way we produce and consume energy is the problem, not the current global population.

Probably climate change since it's gonna fuck shit up globally, not much can be done about it.

I'll have to go with over population. Lacking that, climate change wouldn't affect so many and adjustment to the change wouldn't be seen as such a burden. Natural resources wouldn't be consumed so rapidly, contributions to global warming from human beings would obviously be lessened. Over use of energy wouldn't be that big of an issue either.

So yeah put me done as humans being the root of all our problems over blaming natural climatic changes and the fact natural resources don't magically replenish themselves for our convenience.

Personally, our depleting resources of fossil fuels scares me.

Does that mean I (along with the majority of society) has become "soft"/dependant on technology? Probably.

Maybe it's not even a big deal. So we go back to walking, and using sailing ships to get between continents, in the future, but it sure is worrying.

The way we produce and consume energy is the problem, not the current global population.

Thank you.

I think the most destructive and most urgent problem is the alterations humans make to ecosystems. Farming (including grazing) is the most significant example that I know of. This causes extinctions, and permits invasive species to enter an area, but also has many less well known effects. Soil salinity, erosion, degradation (compaction, or soil literally blowing away, nutrient depletion). The way we farm also drastically alters the ability of the soil to retain water, pollutes and erodes and dries up waterways, causes less rain to fall (because of less tree transpiration), less carbon dioxide to oxygen conversion. Less habitat for native animals and plants (usually almost no habitat).

The way we farm is not going to be able to continue, even if we conceded that the earth, waterways, and native species had no intrinsic value, or even benefit to humans. Our farming destroys the land. Forests are turning into deserts.

The way we produce and consume energy is the problem, not the current global population.

I must disagree. There are simply way too many of us cluttering up the planet. feeding the swarming mass of humanity has pretty much ruined vast ares of th ocean--dredging has literally destroyed many square miles of the ocean floor. Growing the corn in the midwest to sate Americans appetite for beef is destroying the huge midwest aquifer. I could go on and on--the point is, we are using up the planet.

Overpulation is the simplest problem to fix--just stop breeding like rabbits. This would be politically unpalatable to the masses, however. And by the way--I walk my talk here--I had a vasectomy, never reproduced. Reproduction today is selfish and grossly irresponsible.

Thank you.

I must disagree.

The ego swelleth, the ego poppeth, haha.

There are simply way too many of us cluttering up the planet. feeding the swarming mass of humanity has pretty much ruined vast ares of th ocean--dredging has literally destroyed many square miles of the ocean floor. Growing the corn in the midwest to sate Americans appetite for beef is destroying the huge midwest aquifer. I could go on and on--the point is, we are using up the planet.

Overpulation is the simplest problem to fix--just stop breeding like rabbits. This would be politically unpalatable to the masses, however. And by the way--I walk my talk here--I had a vasectomy, never reproduced. Reproduction today is selfish and grossly irresponsible.

You mention "appetite", a word which underpins my statement. If the gluttonous and bloated desires of the 'western' world (in terms of energy and material consumption) were not rapidly becoming the global norm, the current population would, I believe, be sustainable.

Although I do agree with you that current population growth is unsustainable.

To change mankind mentality !

We do not need cars that run up to 220 kmph!

Overpopulation, yep, it's true, but a very touchy subject, even the chinese who are not precisely democratic as someone mentionned above could not control efficiently this one child policy.

Rather than try to reduce the world population(needed ok) i believe it would be faster to ban commercials/advertising industry.
This industry is to my opinion the most evil one that earth carries, they influence us towards maximal consumerism, and frankly if you compare the advertising industry to eastern blocks propaganda(pre-Berlin wall fall) you'd realize they're quite similar.
this industry is RESPONSIBLE for the fact that a yogurt travels 8000 kms before reaching you, ooooh we all want strawberry yogurts in the middle of December, who cares if they have to come from another hemispher ? This industry is RESPONSIBLE for the SUV fashion...

Plus when is the last time you've seen a succesful boycott happening? even a boycott leaflet.
I tell you, big industries ate our political freedom for breakfast.
Don't picture me as a frustrated hippy, I'm for good food quality, but produced locally, I'm ok with cars as long as there are more than 2 persons in it.
I believe that kerosene should be taxed more, so we don't believe that it costs ONLY 30 $ to fly to another country.

So before flaming me, just take a good long look at the advertising industry, and its responsabilities.
Yours
B.

So what we need to do is prevent massive food cultivation and distribution, and we should be good. I think we should be shooting for a 800,000-1,000,000 population. Of course that would only be the good humans though.

Well,there is a simple(yet very very frowned upon) solution to overpopulation. My saying is this,we kill every child under 5 years of age starting from December 30,2002.We kill every Person above the age of 65 from the same date.We then use thier possesions to make things that would help the enviroment.

All of you are right,overpopulation is our greatest threat.What makes it even worse is that it is coupled by human passion and sympathy.For some reason human life is so greatly valued that even mentioning killing someone=jailtime.We arnt that great of a commadity anymore....Shit,were we ever?

Look at humans from a nonhuman perspective,we are parisites,a cancer that is slowly devoring the world.We move to a place,use all its resources and then move on....I value my life,and I value my loved ones lives...but this must be done or we will all suffer.The needs of the many outway the needs of the few.

Thats why I picked those ages.I follow the Redeker plan,which states, You cant save everyone...It would be unthinkable to assume you could.We dont leave out a single aspect (race,gender,creed,IQ,abilitys,ect...).Look at our ghettos,and not just americas,everyones.They are the worst places to be,filled with crime and death.

It saddens me that one day it will come to this...It really does,but I have a feeling that by then it will be far to late and even more of the masses will have to be destroyed in order to fix our mistakes.Yes,our mistakes.We are to blame,not anyone else.Not politicians,not the goverment,no one but ourselfs...

Gentleman,I want you to pray to your gods.I want you to pray,because since our plans are to evil to be considerd untill your childrens children are old.I want you to pray to what/whoever you belive in...That is all we can do for ourselfs now.Thats it...

200 years ago,we were even.We lived to be 40 and we had 4 kids.And that worked for so long,but things got better,things improved,which im not saying was bad mind you.Then things got really good,people lived to be 80-90 and were having more kids....The scales tipped and then it got bad.....and its still bad,not bad enough for planned mass genocides mind you(on a global scale)but its getting there.

Maby we can solve this before it gets to that.But as I said,the scales tipped and nature is no longer on our side.

Ahhh when I read the word "population reduction" I pull out my revolver!
Ok let's start to de-populate the planet ,well, Err, by YOU.
Yes YOU reading this post, or suggesting we should kill people.

COME ON, are you guys Enviros NAZIS, who could cooly plan to eliminate on a massive scale some human beings so some of us can go on driving HUMMERS!!!

In the other hand, YOU don't even need to buy amos to do your little enviro-friendly genocide. because well you can start to add the casualties RIGHT NOW:
MALARIA
AIDS
CANCER
FAMINS
DIABETES
OBESITY
POLLUTION
WARS
EPIDEMICS
CLIMATE
PHARMACEUTICAL ERRORS
CAR ACCIDENTS
TSUNAMIS
VOLCANOES
GSM and WIFI WAVEBANDS INDUCING CANCER, on a massive scale

So you see, one doesn't have to worry about overpopulation, most of the plagues mentionned above will hit predominantly the third world, though with a bit of luck maybe the braindead consumers of the first world will fall like flies.
Mankind will dissapear, OMG
well, GOOD RIDANCE!
yours
B.

I have changed my mind. The most pressing environmental issue is education about environmental issues.

GSM and WIFI WAVEBANDS INDUCING CANCER, on a massive scale

Fuck.

The ridiculously high level of life on this planet.
There should be an indiscriminate culling of all organisms with a population of over 100 million.

The ridiculously high level of life on this planet.
There should be an indiscriminate culling of all organisms with a population of over 100 million.

good luck digesting food :P


Some people here are talking about a forced (by human actions) population reduction. I don't think we will ever accept any leader (Even a dictator) or plan that proposes a forced population reduction. The only way for it to work effectively would be if people understood the problems that over population caused and actively chose to not have (many) children, but then thats not going to happen either.

Eventually the population will 'correct', whether we can control it or nature does is a big question.

If the gluttonous and bloated desires of the 'western' world (in terms of energy and material consumption) were not rapidly becoming the global norm, the current population would, I believe, be sustainable.

Nope.

The two most endangered commodities on this planet are clean water and unpolluted air.

Atop those substrates stands an enormous pyramid of industrial minerals and commodities that we in the west, at our current population and at current consumption levels with no additional growth (growth is the rule, mind you) consume at rates that make locusts look like lichens. Petroleum is a case in point.

There is no way our current population or even half of it is sustainable. We'd have to be at like 1 billion in order to be able to provide for ourselves on a sustainable basis.

Although I do agree with you that current population growth is unsustainable.

The first law of sustainability (http://www.design-site.net/bart1mag.htm) is that growth in population and/or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.

Some countries such as China give women who only have one child throughout their fertility lifetime economic gain. I forget how much exactly. But the main problem lies in undeveloped countries where education on overpopulation is not being taught.

It took all of human history to reach 1 billion, yet in the last 2 decades the population has grown to over 6.5 billion.

Back in earlier times population growth was sustained by war, famine, and disease, such as the bubonic plague. Now, we have more technology and advancment in medicine so people are living longer.

I just had an exam in Enviornmental Science class today and one of the essays was about overpopulation. Weird.

If you want the straight dope on overpopulation (and how it relates to resources, democracy, and quality of life) you need look no further than here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY).

Watch the following parts linked to as video responses as well.

All the growth comes from the poor countries though.

All the growth comes from the poor countries though.

Watch the video.

Watch the video.

I've seen that lecture before, years ago, I don't recall it saying growth comes from the rich nations, that's because I don't recall it being factually inaccurate.

I assume the argument is that the immigration to the rich nations subsidizes growth in poor countries, but that's not really relevant to the point. Which is that if the poor countries get rich, the growth will stop.

If you watched the video then all your misconceptions you're stating here would go away.

The question of population growth is not just who is adding more bodies to the system, but in which areas does a growth in population have the largest impact.

And the answer is, without fail, the developed nations.

A person in a developed nation will consume orders of magnitude more resources than those starving in third-world shitholes.

Therefore, it logically follows that population growth is the biggest problem in the developed nations since ever new person introduced there places much more strain on the resources of then planet than people living in mud huts eating tree bark.

If you compare population with per-capita consumption, you get a much better look at which areas are causing the largest strain on the support systems of our planet, and they're not in the poor nations.

So contrary to some expectations, the growth (in consumption of resources, which is the crux of the issue) comes from the rich nations.

People in developed nations dont have enough kids to sustain growth. If every nation were rich there would be little to no growth.

In the case of Japan where people are smart and don't have kids because there's an overwhelming incentive not to, it's true that they aren't having enough kids to sustain their population. That's a good thing, because they're already overpopulated as it is and space goes at a premium due to population density.

Some people there are ignorant though and treat it like it's a bad thing so they use propaganda to try to keep their population growth going by encouraging big families.

People in developed nations dont have enough kids to sustain growth.

Let's address this claim about population growth in developed nations.

According to the CIA world factbook, the current population growth as of 2007 of the United States is a whopping .894%. Not even a whole percent.

Using the doubling time formula of T2= 70/P where P is the percent growth per unit time (in this case, .894% being the percent growth and a single year being the unit time) if that low rate were to be sustained, the population of the Unites States would double in 78.2 years, or rougly 1 human lifetime.

Tiny growth rates can yield incredible increases over short periods of time. This is the exponential function, which Bartlett thouroughly explained in the video.

You really should go back and watch it.

If every nation were rich there would be little to no growth.

I don't see where you're getting that from, as even a sub 1 percentile population growth rate is unsustainable and essentially all rich nations are experiencing population growth.

The only relevant figure is the fertility rate which is 2.09. This is slightly greater than 2.0, but if you look at european countries you'll see numbers like 1.4 for germany and 1.7 for finland.

The only relevant figure is the fertility rate which is 2.09. This is slightly greater than 2.0, but if you look at european countries you'll see numbers like 1.4 for germany and 1.7 for finland.

China, one of the largest countries in the world, only has a 1.6 fertility rate. But since China has such a large preference for males, there's a huge gender imbalance.

India, on the other hand, still hasn't found out how to balance out their huge population. And they wonder why they are all poor and starving.

In rapidly developing countries like China and India though the biggest factor in population growth is the rapid extension of life expectancy so you can not just look at fertility rates to say what a population is going to do.

People in developed nations dont have enough kids to sustain growth. If every nation were rich there would be little to no growth.

thats retarded

The biggest problem with the environment? The people who posted in this thread, and the others like them.

To change mankind mentality !

We do not need cars that run up to 220 kmph!



Speak for yourself you fuckhead. Golf courses are bad for the environment too, because that land could be used to grow precious oxygen producing trees. Scuba diving is bad for the environment because we damage the environment making the scuba equipment, and we get nothing in return except fun (except for scientists) so maybe we should ban recreational scuba diving for the good of the environment. Infact internet sites like totse are bad for the environment because they require energy, which is created by environmentally damagingpower plants. Every time you go on totse you are damaging the environment.

The point is everything humans do damages the environment. If you try to take away my enjoyment in life in the name of the environment, I will take away yours, starting with your childrens lives. You said yourself overpopulation is the biggest problem we face...

This brings me to my next point, overpopulation may indeed be bada for the environment. However if you would kill a fellow human being because overpopulation is causing some rare and exotic species of coral to become instinct, you ought to be fired into the sun. Humans are hardwired to protect their own species, it's how we have survived as long a we have. We do not simply kill our own.

Totse should have flood control, not after you submit a post, but after you click the 'post reply' button. If people had to think about their post for 63 seconds, this board would be a better place. It's so fucking easy to say 'we should kill people'. Ok mister, you go and do it. Start with your mother. Then your father, sister, brother, girlfriend, children, family dog, hell everyone you care about. I hope the thought that you are lowering the globes average temperature by 0.2 degrees sustains you.

We need resources to maintain our lifestyles. That is it. I am prepared to make some changes to my lifestyle to make resources last until we find a solution. If you expect me to go back to the shithole lives our ancestors enjoyed, well fuck you. I would rather see humanity die out.

The biggest problem with the environment? The people who posted in this thread, and the others like them.

Speak for yourself.

Noone is saying go on a killing spree.

Overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we posses. What's lacking is the will to implement them. Especially when you have religious zealots preaching an "every sperm is sacred" doctrine whose every ejaculation results in live birth.

Sure, you won't be able to drive 50 liter engines that can break the land speed record, but that's coming at any rate, so we should take a proactive approach instead of waiting for naure to bat last with the cold, grim efficiency of wild dogs.

At the end of the day, environmental issues all come back to how humans and the planet are intertwined. Does anyone actually give a shit about the planet, or do they give a shit about how a bad planet affects humans?

We need to stop focusing on issues like climate change and fix the problems that face humanity. The most pressing of which at the moment is resource depletion. All energy comes from the sun, fossil fuels are this planets way of storing that energy, like a battery. 65 million years of energy storage has been used by humans to get to where we are now, to a point where we use much more energy in a day than we could harvest in a day. Resource depletion is sending us spiralling into a global war (give it 20 years or so), which will surely end humanity faster than the oceans rising in temperature by 1 degree. The problem of resource depletion to me is simple economics.

Demand > Supply.

How do we fix this? Three possibilities:

1: We lower demand.
2: We increase supply.
3: We use the current level of resources better and satisfy the same level of demand.

A combination of the three is the best solution.

Lowering demand is not easy. Lets face it, peoples lives are better when they have alot of resources to use. Lowering demand may become necessary, but it would be the worst of all the possible solutions because ultimately it would affect our quality of life, and lowering the quality of life when it can be avoided is just plain stupid. As I said earlier, we now use more energy in a day than we can harvest in a day. Using less energy would mean reducing our quality of life, so we must figure out a way to harvest more energy. That to me sounds like sustainable living.

Increasing supply is not pheasable at this point in time. There are no huge resource deposits left undiscovered anymore. There will be no middle east oil reserve found in time, at least on this planet. Any major increase in resources must come from outer space.

Using resources more effeciently is a combination of discovering new technology and implementing current technology that we haven't implemented yet. For example, many people drive a motor car to work every day. If instead they drove a motor cycle which uses up to a quarter less fuel, not to mention less resources to produce, that is a more effecient way of commuting to work every day without the need for new technology to be discovered, but you aren't sacfirising anything in doing so. How many houses have air conditioning but no roof insulation? In Australia, far too many. After installation it costs nothing, yet it will cut down on your energy bills and therefore energy usage considerably. We already have this technology, but people don't use it, because they are dumbshits.

The final answer lies in scientific discovery. Colonising offworld planets opens up more resources we can exploit, aswell as devising more effecient ways to use those resources. If America halved the size of it's military and dedicated that money to science it would still be the most powerful nation in the world, but the scientific world would increase by a thousandfold. You think with those resources they couldn't devise a solar panel above 90% effeciency?

Speak for yourself.

Noone is saying go on a killing spree.

Overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we posses. What's lacking is the will to implement them. Especially when you have religious zealots preaching an "every sperm is sacred" doctrine whose every ejaculation results in live birth.

Sure, you won't be able to drive 50 liter engines that can break the land speed record, but that's coming at any rate, so we should take a proactive approach instead of waiting for naure to bat last with the cold, grim efficiency of wild dogs.

My point is overpopulation is not a problem. It should be humanities goal to create as many humans as possible, or at least as many as we want. If we had the resources, there wouldn't be any overpopulation would it? And I have a solution to lack of resources, but as you say people won't implement it. They are too busy throwing around shit like 'KILL EVERYBODY'! 'OMG RATIFY KYOTO'

My point is overpopulation is not a problem. It should be humanities goal to create as many humans as possible, or at least as many as we want. If we had the resources, there wouldn't be any overpopulation would it? And I have a solution to lack of resources, but as you say people won't implement it. They are too busy throwing around shit like 'KILL EVERYBODY'! 'OMG RATIFY KYOTO'

What's your solution then genius?

My point is overpopulation is not a problem. It should be humanities goal to create as many humans as possible, or at least as many as we want. If we had the resources, there wouldn't be any overpopulation would it?

Unfortunately we live in a world with finite resources that can only support a finite amount of people. Infinite growth in a closed system is mathematically, theoretically, and physically impossible.

As a matter of our very survival, we have to become sustainable if we are to sustain ourselves.

Population growth and/or growth in the consumption of resources cannot be sustained.

We routinely control animal populations to prevent them from devouring natural capital and overpopulating because we're familiar with the consequences of overpopulation and why balance is essential.

However, in their hubris and ego, people think themselves somehow immune to these same basic elementary principles, and that's where we start having problems.

People are all for completely rational and logically unimpeachable control measures for populations of a species until the mirror reflects back onto theirselves.

Fair point about culling animal populations. But animals don't have the ability to solve a lack of resources through other more civilised means. Humans can, though it has never been a priority to do so with animal populations. We can do it for ourselves though for fucks sake.

Humans are intelligent, unlike animal populations. So it's natural for one to think that we wouldn't behave like dumb beasts by consuming our resources and exploding our population (and thus consuming even more resources and creating more consumers in which to consume and create more, etc.) until we're at an impasse.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what we're doing and on an exponentially increasing level.

Furthermore, there are no adequate measures currently being taken that will provide for our needs in the future. And I'm not talking about the "I'll be dead by then so I don't care" distant future. It's the immediate future.

The world consumes 1000 barrels of oil a second. We're already consuming more oil than is capable of being produced right now as you're reading this. The deficit is being filled by liquidating above-ground stocks, which won't last very long. The supply deficit will continue to widen as we have nothing in sight in place to take the place of oil.

No alternatives that we even have the capacity to produce can replace more than a fraction of the energy we're getting right now from oil.

So the future will have orders of magnitude less energy use necessarily. The question is, is it going to be on our terms where we develop a planned initiative and realize that the days of hedonic excess and waste are over - or are we going to wait for nature's usual cruel and effective methods to come through and cause massive chaos and suffering.

Simply put, the industrial world is dead without oil. Everything you do is only possible because of oil, up to and including the food you eat and the water you drink. It takes oil just to mine the uranium for nuclear power, which everyone is getting hot about lately. Unfortunately, that's not going to be a solution either - aside from the fact that it's not electricity that is the immediate problem (although it will be since natural gas is in steep decline). The problem with nuclear is with the resource that fuels it. Uranium requirements for currently existing reactors are already twice of what uranium production levels are. The deficit is being filled by - you probably guessed it - above-ground stocks. The resource is in decline and demand is on the rise. This is why the price has been exploding and why I've been telling people to invest in it, along with oil and grain (grain production has been falling short by additional millions of tons every year for the last decade).

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going to happen as oil production continues to decline. We were warned in the 70s of the threats of petroleum depletion, and we payed absolutely no attention to it. Now the consequences that president Carter spoke of in his famous speech on energy are at the doorstep and it's too late to do anything about it to prevent what the Hirsch report (http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/the_hirsch_report.pdf) describes as a "chaotic" scenario.

Keep in mind, I'm not some hysterical hippie preaching doom and gloom. I used to be ignorant about this issue like everyone else. Then when i heard about it, rather than dismissing it offhand as most people have a psychological tendency to do due to the undesirable consequences, I actually investigated it. Thouroughly. I found out that this time, the people warning us were right. And the people doing the warning are the leading experts in their fields - petroleum geologists, energy investment bankers, former presidents of major mideastern oil companies that can now speak freely about the issue, etc.

Regarding human population, I am fairly confident that the earth could sustainably support 6 billion humans, or even more.
This is because, as has already been mentioned, developed nations use much more energy than developing nations. I don't think the wasteful lifestyles of the developed nations are sustainable, so I am not so much concerned about the population size.

At first, when I learned about the energy crisis, I became very concerned about it. This is because of how it is related to food production and distribution. We need food, right?
I am not so much concerned about helping the developed nations maintain their lifestyles, but I am concerned about peoples real quality of life.

In my post on page 1, I described why industrial agriculture is such a problem. It destroys the land. It is also not possible without fossil fuel inputs. I think more energy goes into farming than is returned in energy in the food. This is ridiculous.

It seems to me that if people can cooperate to grow their own food sustainably, as well as building materials, fuel, etc, and garage industry, basically be self contained like a village, then the energy and resources running out is not going to be a big disaster. The problem seems to be that most people live in cities, where there is not much land available for use.

It seems to me that making things local again is the solution. And also focusing on meeting everyones modest needs, not worrying about how rich people are going to fuel their cars and power their homes.

No, you're all fucking wrong ok :P If we put enough resources into the science sector we would have solutions to these problems. Instead what is the richest government in the world doing? Increasing it's fucking military.

The super rich individuals and businesses are just as guilty in this. But we can't control what they do, we just have to write them off as evil.

Regarding human population, I am fairly confident that the earth could sustainably support 6 billion humans, or even more.

This is where I'm going to disagree.

Look what happened to the human population the moment we started using oil:

http://dieoff.com/Crash1.GIF

As oil consumption/available energy increased and petroagriculture exploded the amount of food we were capable of producing, the population shot up like a rocket as a direct result.

In short, we're eating fossil fuels (http://www.mnforsustain.org/oil_eating_fossil_fuels_pfeiffer_d.htm).

Which way to you think population is going to go as the substance that enabled us to reach the most eminant of heights begins to decline?

I can't believe you are still citing that eating fossil fuels article. I have pointed out it's errors many times to you, most notably how fossil fuels aren't requited at all to get nitrogen fertilizers.

It's like you're a robot that just copies and pastes whatever somewhat related rant from your textfiles and never bothers to update them.

Post your refutations.

So what say you about everything else?

Dark_Magneto:
Thank you for your post. I am aware of the role fossil fuels play in agriculture, and the effects this has had on the human population.
But, Real.PUA is correct that agriculture is possible without fossil fuels.

In my last post, I suggested small-scale, local, sustainable agriculture as a solution to the crisis.

I am not interested in arguing with you, but I must reiterate that I advocate sustainable agriculture. I made a post on page 1 criticizing industrial agriculture.

Dark_Magneto:
Which way to you think population is going to go as the substance that enabled us to reach the most eminant of heights begins to decline?

If people are dependent on the economy (and fossil fuels) for their food, we may see starvation events.
We're going to have to grow our food sustainably. And we're going to have to hang our clothes out in the sun to dry.

Since no one seems to have said it yet:

MANBEARPIG

I'm serial.

Goatse! I mean who cleans all the shit that comes out of his ass?

He needs his own sewage system and imagine the amount of toilet paper he goes through!

Dark_Magneto:
Thank you for your post. I am aware of the role fossil fuels play in agriculture, and the effects this has had on the human population.
But, Real.PUA is correct that agriculture is possible without fossil fuels.

In my last post, I suggested small-scale, local, sustainable agriculture as a solution to the crisis.

Yeah, it's possible to still grow food, but not on the same scale.

You have to look at agricultural density and time. We can mechanically grow food at densities and speeds that would be impossible or totally impractical to accomplish otherwise.

Okay, so say post-peak you live in this permaculture hippie intentional community. All natural foods, hemp fibers, french intensive gardening, recycle waste and orchard trees, the whole 9 yards.

Say you plant 1 acre of corn by hand. Each seed poked into the ground to a depth of 2 inches. You use a stick to poke the hole and you take a corn seed out of your bag. Every 4 inches on rows 3 feet apart you plant a seed.

Reach in to the bag, grab corn seed, poke a hole, plant seed, cover hole, move to next hole. Repeat. It takes about 4 seconds per seed.

1 acre = 210 feet x 210 feet

So each row is 210 feet long which means that there are (210 feet x 12 inches / 3 inches) 840 corn seed holes per row.

Now there are 70 corn rows x 840 corn seed holes = 58.8k corn seed holes to poke.

58.8k corn seeds x 4 seconds = 65.4 hours to plant the seeds.

Then comes cultivation to kill weeds. You and nature have thinned to one plant on 8 inches but the plants are surrounded . You hoe each corn row with a spade or hand hoeing tool, being careful not to damage the plant. If you're good and you do it quickly, 10 seconds per plant.

29.4k corn plants x 10 seconds = 82 hours to cultivate.

Do it again because weeds are persistent.

Second hoeing is another 82 hours to cultivate.

So the plants are doing pretty good at this point, but you have to get rid of the corn borers. You mix up a batch of BT spray and walk the corn garden and spray each ear. That takes about 1 second per ear.

29.4k corn plants x 1 second = 8 hours to spray the big plants.

Spray 'em again. That's another 8 hours.

Now the corn field is as high as an elephant's eye and ripe for the harvest.

Each plant has 4 ears and it takes about 2 seconds to rip an ear off.

29.4k corn plants x 4 ears x 2 seconds = 65 hours to pick the corn ears.

So after 310 hours (nearly 8 weeks) of gardening you are finally finished.

Oh, also I'm forgetting about the fertilizer. That would take 29.4k fertilizations (at approx. 10 seconds per plant). That's another 82 hours.

See why we need mechanical agriculture?

Dark_Magneto:
Yeah, it's possible to still grow food, but not on the same scale.
...
Cullz:
In my last post, I suggested small-scale, local, sustainable agriculture as a solution to the crisis.


What you are describing sounds like the subsistence farming I've seen in Mexico.
And fair enough, those techniques of growing corn take a lot of human labor. Peasant farming societies share the labor amongst many people, but it can still be a lot of labor. (I just googled this up, http://www.fatcow.com.au/articles/Maize-Yield-Records-Broken-with-HSR_z73023.htm, apparently average yield in Vic, Australia is 8.5tonnes/acre. That's quite a lot of corn.)

Consider, corn may not be the most appropriate crop for small scale agriculture.

Crops like plantain, cassava, pigeon peas and taro may be more appropriate in a subtropical area. These are generally pest resistant, and require less fertilizer than crops like corn and wheat.

Meat animals are easy to raise if the land is managed sustainably.

Nut trees can give high yields over many years for little effort once established.

In sustainable agriculture a lot of labor saving techniques are used. For example, traditional South American corn societies grow corn, beans, and squashes/melons all together. I have read that less than 2% of light reaches the ground when they do this effectively. This means weeding is greatly reduced.
There is emphasis on growing legumes for nitrogen fixation, and also returning crop wastes to the soil to keep the fertility up.

So I'm not necessarily talking about hippie communes. I'm talking about a change in the way we source our food as a society. Because the way it's happening at the moment is madness. I don't want to go back to the stone age or something like that.

Cuba grows 80% of their food organically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil_in_Cuba

So I'm not necessarily talking about hippie communes. I'm talking about a change in the way we source our food as a society. Because the way it's happening at the moment is madness. I don't want to go back to the stone age or something like that.

I totally agree. However, you have to look at the grand scheme of things.

The earth currently has about, what, 6.5 billion or so people going around.

This is way above and beyond what the earth could normally support under a sustainable system. It's a direct product of the increased available energy that we've received. Oil primarily.

Now sustainable agriculture is good an all (in fact, it will be a matter of necessity if we want to keep eating), but the world can't support this many people with sustainable farming practices.

If you look at the fact that

A.) We're already way in overshoot as far as sustainability is concerned.

B.) Sustainability will have to be a state we achive if we are to maintain long-term survival.

and

C.) We alre hell and gone from sustainability and aren't making any changes that will lead us there.

Then you see that ultimately a massive reduction in the human population (and subsequent energy use) is as inevitable as the energy we are using to support it declining. Sure, we can cut back energy use and waste to a large degree, but that still does nothing to change the underlying fundamentals. Cutting back only buys us time at best - it doesn't solve the root of the issue.

People talk about the markets bringing on other sources of energy as our current ones become more problematic, but what all these deus-ex-machina free market types fail to realize is that no truly free markets exist (and probably never will. If they did, then we wouldn't have the problems we are now experiencing which were a result of extramarket forces subsidizing growths) and even if they did, we're already using all of the energy dense available resources - fossil fuels and nuclear.

The energy provided by these renewable sources that peopel speak of only have the potential to replace a fraction of the energy we're now getting from our primary energy sources due to elementary physical limitations.

The available energy in our system has always gone up every time we started using a new major energy source. First it was coal and other fossil fuels, then nuclear, of which a small amount contains as much energy as tens of tons of coal. Ok, now we're on the horizon and what new energy sources are we looking at? Sparse bits of intermittent sunshine and wind. It can't work like that. As available energy (the ability to do work) goes downhill, it drags everything with it. We can't run a civilization predicated upon by vast sources of energy on increasingly dwindling amounts, so ultimately something's got to give. I, for one, don't think it's going to be the physically defined limits.

Cuba grows 80% of their food organically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil_in_Cuba

Yeah, Cuba has had their nuts in an artificial vice that has kept their access to foreign sources of energy down for quite some time, so they've had to develop more sustainable methods of doing things as a matter of necessity. As a result, they're going to get off comparatively light when the oil famine hits.

Cuba also had much smaller scope of a crisis to deal with than the rest of the industrialized world is facing.

Here's a good read on the subject

The Probable Agricultural Response to Peak Oil (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/agricultureandpeakoil.htm)

There has recently been a claim that in the post-peak oil world, life will go on pretty much as normal. For a while, as the world squeezes inefficiencies out of the economic system and fuel switching occurs, this is true. But one can not seriously believe that the world economy is infinitely elastic with regards to energy. With regard to the agricultural system, there is data which shows the limits to this inelasticity and these limits are due to the laws of physics

Or use electric and biofuel powered machines to farm. A mere fraction of the power input from the sun is enough to power all of human activity several times over. So clearly, the potential is there.

A mere fraction of the power input from the sun is enough to power all of human activity several times over. So clearly, the potential is there.

What do you think fossil fuels are? They are merely hundreds of millions of years worth of concentrated solar energy which nature has already done all the work to produce. It's just a matter of us extracting and processing it.

The problem comes in when you try to switch from something that has such orders of magniutude higher energy density to trying to collect it on the fly.

We'll burn up like a million+ years of concentrated solar energy in a single year just through fossil fuels. Imagine how hard it would be to capture an equivalent amount through solar arrays that only work in real-time.

Also you have to factor in that we have to use energy and raw materials just to make these intermittent, condition-dependent solar collectors. It takes something like 2 years before a solar panel will produce an energy equivalent to what went in to manufacturing it. We never had that problem with fossil and nuclear fuels. And that also ignores the issue of cost and scarcity of required materials that go into the solar arrays and switching out a global infrastructure that runs on liquid petroleum. That's a daunting task, even in the big money, big energy, halcyon days. We're not taking sufficient measures even now while we're entering the age of decline.

Simply put, the future is going to be using less energy necessarily unless we figure out some scheme that essentially produces "free" energy, like cold fusion. Even if we had a guaranteed solution right now, there's still the issue of implementing it. That takes time in and of itself.

More like 2 months for modern solar panels.

Anyways, like I said the solar input to the earth in a given YEAR is several times more energy than all of humanity uses in a YEAR. Fossil fuels are only a minute fraction of the energy that hit the earth over the hundreds of millions of years that they were formed. The point is that if we could harness 0.1% of the solar energy that hits earth we could replace fossil fuels entirely. So clearly the potential is there to run a modern world with billions of people on just solar.

More like 2 months for modern solar panels.

You have to factor in the energy that went into extracting the raw materials for the panels, processing those materials, transporting those materials, assembling the panels, transporting the panels, and installing the panels.

You're not going to get all that back in any 2 months off of an intermittent, weather-dependent energy source that is around 30% efficient. You also have to figure in transmission losses over distance. That's why we can't just set up a huge solar array in the Sahara.

Anyways, like I said the solar input to the earth in a given YEAR is several times more energy than all of humanity uses in a YEAR. Fossil fuels are only a minute fraction of the energy that hit the earth over the hundreds of millions of years that they were formed. The point is that if we could harness 0.1% of the solar energy that hits earth we could replace fossil fuels entirely. So clearly the potential is there to run a modern world with billions of people on just solar.

Theoretically, yeah. In practice, it's not gonna work like that. Solar makes up a mere fraction of 1 percent of our energy and is expected to remain that way for the forseeable future. Upscaling solar to something like what you're imagining would require hundreds of times our GNP and take a long time to implement. In other words, not in this lifetime.

You have to factor in the energy that went into extracting the raw materials for the panels, processing those materials, transporting those materials, assembling the panels, transporting the panels, and installing the panels.

2 years was the figure for older panels, modern thin film design takes 2 months or less.

You're not going to get all that back in any 2 months off of an intermittent, weather-dependent energy source that is around 30% efficient. You also have to figure in transmission losses over distance. That's why we can't just set up a huge solar array in the Sahara.

Just convert the electricity to methanol or H2 on the spot. No need to transmit it.

Theoretically, yeah. In practice, it's not gonna work like that. Solar makes up a mere fraction of 1 percent of our energy and is expected to remain that way for the forseeable future. Upscaling solar to something like what you're imagining would require hundreds of times our GNP and take a long time to implement. In other words, not in this lifetime.

Seeing as how they just built the biggest solar factory in the world it looks like solar production in increasing dramatically. And thankfully we don't have to rely totally on solar right now, just need enough to make up for decline in fossil fuels. But potentially would could power our entire society several times over on the solar energy that hits the earth.

2 years was the figure for older panels, modern thin film design takes 2 months or less.


Just out of interest a source? Iv just done a search on google and the lowest energy payback time i came up with was 1 year most were saying (even specifically for thin film) around 2 -5 years.



Just convert the electricity to methanol or H2 on the spot. No need to transmit it.

Hydrogen gas is very difficult to transport even in existing infrastructure.
Methanol? This can be done but is very difficult and inefficient.


Seeing as how they just built the biggest solar factory in the world it looks like solar production in increasing dramatically. And thankfully we don't have to rely totally on solar right now, just need enough to make up for decline in fossil fuels. But potentially would could power our entire society several times over on the solar energy that hits the earth.

The largest solar system generates an impressive 11 MW i believe (in portugal). Remember that not only do renewables need to replace lost production but also continue to expand in supply. So a modest 3% drop in oil production could mean that to sustain energy growth and hence economic growth we would need to replace 6% of energy. Considering that would mean a 600 percent increase in solar panel energy production in 1 year it is unlikely.

The key word is potentially. Given enough time and resources we probably could but time and resources are things we don't have.

Just out of interest a source? Iv just done a search on google and the lowest energy payback time i came up with was 1 year most were saying (even specifically for thin film) around 2 -5 years.

http://www.nanosolar.com/economic.htm, the energy payback is less than 1 month actually.

Hydrogen gas is very difficult to transport even in existing infrastructure.
Methanol? This can be done but is very difficult and inefficient.Methanol, ammonia, etc. Any hydrogen carrier. We are going to need these chemicals anyways so you might as well synthesize them on the spot if you want to build a solar plant far away from where energy is going to be used.

The largest solar system generates an impressive 11 MW i believe (in portugal). Remember that not only do renewables need to replace lost production but also continue to expand in supply. So a modest 3% drop in oil production could mean that to sustain energy growth and hence economic growth we would need to replace 6% of energy. Considering that would mean a 600 percent increase in solar panel energy production in 1 year it is unlikely. The nanosolar plant in california will be able to produce 430W of solar cells a year, which more than doubles US production. 1 plant doubling production...

Renewables plus increases in efficiency need to make up for the decline. Seeing as how the cost/watt of solar is dropping every single year, and only now is it starting to become cost competitive with the grid, I expect to see very large gains in solar energy. The thin film technology can be incorporated into pretty much anything too.

The key word is potentially. Given enough time and resources we probably could but time and resources are things we don't have.Potentially was the exact word Dark_Magneto used.

biggest issue is all the poisonous co2 comming out of asians(and indians) mouth's

no asians + indians = less polution

In the January issue of the IEEE Spectrum magazine last year, it contained the following article:

Joules, BTUs, Quads—Let's Call the Whole Thing Off. (http://spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4820)

They proposed to measure energy quantities in terms of Cubic Miles of Oil (CMO) [1 CMO= 4.17 cubic kilometers= 26.22 Gb (assuming 1 US barrel= 42 gallons].

In '06, the world produced around 26.86 Gb of crude oil + condensate or 1.02 CMO. The figure below gives you an idea of the scale of a CMO compared to the Eiffel tower:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3816/cmoig6.jpg
1 Cubic Miles of Oil (CMO) or 26.22 Gb or 71.82 mbpd

The cumulative production for crude oil through '06 was about 1,000 Gb= 38.13 CMO or enough to fill up one third of Lake Erie (~115 CMO).

Hewitt Crane and Ed Ed Kinderman from SRI International translated the figures of energy from various sources into one CMO unit:

"To obtain in one year the amount of energy contained in one cubic mile of oil, each year for 50 years we would need to have produced the numbers of dams, nuclear power plants, coal plants, windmills, or solar panels" shown on this amazing representation:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/4758/ncmo010pg3.gif

Yeah, good luck with that.

And that's just for an equivalent energy of '06 oil consumption. That doesn't include all the energy required to switch out and maintain all the new requred infrastructure and speaks nothing of growth and says nothing of declines in energy on some of those technologies like coal (http://www.energybulletin.net/29919.html) and nuclear (http://www.uic.com.au/graphics/UprodWorld.gif).

It seems abundantly clear that the amount of energy we'll have to work with for the the forseeable future will be on the decline. It wouldn't have to go down like this if people were thinking rationally with all the information on the table. In the 70's when we first had a taste of the wages of oil depencency... That was the crossroads, and not just in retrospect. We should have noticed it there. That the flow of the energy was unsustainable. We should have taken measures to break off the dependency on OPEC. If we had, we wouldn't be in the state we're in now. People should be satisfied with that. But we forced our dependency to rise, and dug our own grave. We were given a sign that we had gone as far as we should, and we ignored that valuable warning. We should have sensed the importance of that sign, and submitted to it. We would have made plans to lower our energy consumption and made powerful strides away from oil. We would have been reluctant, but it would have worked with properly implemented means we had available at that time. No matter how strong our nation looks on the outside, deep down we're vulnerable. The greed bleeds through and we insist on protecting our foreign energy dependence or finding more of the stuff domestically.

Thankfully there is no need to replace all of the 2006 levels of oil consumption with outdated solar panels. We just need to replace the decline in oil production with the solar panels of the future.

Thankfully there is no need to replace all of the 2006 levels of oil consumption with outdated solar panels. We just need to replace the decline in oil production with the solar panels of the future.

growth?

aswell as declines in other fossil fuels.

And don't forget the entire global transportation infrastructure.

And you have to replace the panels after around 2 decades.

And if you have accumulated enough panels to generate 2006 levels of oil consumption in the future, we're talking about billions of them.

Unless, of course, you want to admit that current levels of consumption (nevermind growth) are unmanageably unsistainable and will come down to a much more manageable level, which is what I would argue.

If we're talking about total energy consumption we have lots of room to grow.

IMHO the underlying problem of most ecological and environmental problems on our planet is overpopulation.

Kill yourself, seriously.

Kill yourself, seriously.


See i know the above post was probably just for the hell of it but this is an underlying issue in all efforts to reduce our environmental impact. Im not talking about the military going out and kiling people, making suicide legal or the government releasing a secret virus to kill everyone. Im talking about educating people in the problems caused by overpopulation and a well controlled reduction in birth rates. Any efficiency gains you make will be immidiatly of set by growing demand all accross the world. When people think of population control they think in terms of genocide (AKA Hitler or Stalin).

Personally, im not going to have children unless something dramatically changes.

global warming
because were fucked already