Science Frank Fenner sees no hope for humans

[statickid]

Statickid:
I'm afraid that we don't eat grass, and that our resources don't magically reappear like grass, so there won't be much left to manage. The energy consumption change needed is too big for humans IMO. Even the Dersertec will provide 15% of our energy needs.

it doesn't have anything to do with what resources we are using, it is a biological phenomenon.

and grass does not 'MAGICALLY REAPPEAR' grass is a plant and though it is highly adapted to thrive when it is abused, it is possible to eradicate grass or any and all plants from an ecosystem which is what is happening with desertification. we have an entire planet of diverse resources to manage. there is plenty. even what is currently discarded as sewage and garbage could be used as a resource in some way, but there has to be a need for it. the idea behind the population dynamic plateau is only seen as long term trend. If you look at the sheep graph you will see that when the plateau is reached there are several severe and sharp downward spikes which indicate that the hardships that entailed caused more than half of the population to die off. when billions of people die leaving the world with only half of it's population, this is not a small event, but is in no way extinction either.

The change in energy consumption become forced either by better management that allows for more population growth, or simply by starvation or competition.

I'm not saying its as simple as an S-shaped graph, or that humans aren't different than most other species in that they can't stretch their resources or self control their population.

However, the Earth does not have infinite resources to stretch, so they will have some limit. The human population can not continue to exponentially grow without limit unless we colonize other planets.

The resources we currently used are NOT the only resources that are available, and the current way of society is not the only way we can live without going extinct. A massive change in way of life is NOT extinction.

Even if we control our own growth with family planning, this is is STILL a population plateau. Just because it is self-inflicted does not mean it is not happening.

 

[Urwumpe]

Good point.
So, when are we starting to make glass bottles instead of aluminum cans then?

As if this would be the only way. The problem is just that we are too little aware about how much energy we waste without noticing it, because the costs are hidden in the products. Who consumes a lot of energy, pays actually less than the normal consumer.

PS: if resources for humans would be really limited, evolution would also apply to us.

 

[Enjo]

and grass does not 'MAGICALLY REAPPEAR' grass is a plant and though it is highly adapted to thrive when it is abused, it is possible to eradicate grass or any and all plants from an ecosystem which is what is happening with desertification.

Of course it doesn't, but our resources take much more time to rebuild. The Nature will help itself either way.

we have an entire planet of diverse resources to manage. there is plenty. even what is currently discarded as sewage and garbage could be used as a resource in some way, but there has to be a need for it.

Just a note: be careful not to go below 1 with your [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI"]EROEI - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

The change in energy consumption become forced either by better management that allows for more population growth, or simply by starvation or competition.

Well I do hope it will.

However, the Earth does not have infinite resources to stretch, so they will have some limit. The human population can not continue to exponentially grow without limit unless we colonize other planets.

Hey, I also like space, but let's leave the colonization for laaaaaater. First we need to have our butts warm.

The resources we currently used are NOT the only resources that are available, and the current way of society is not the only way we can live without going extinct. A massive change in way of life is NOT extinction.

I'm not necessarily with that extinction thing, rather with the Mad Max scenario.

Even if we control our own growth with family planning, this is is STILL a population plateau. Just because it is self-inflicted does not mean it is not happening.

And you can not force just everybody on this planet to do family planning ... unless you try "help" them, like they do in China.

As if this would be the only way. The problem is just that we are too little aware about how much energy we waste without noticing it, because the costs are hidden in the products. Who consumes a lot of energy, pays actually less than the normal consumer.

It's just capitalistic greed. No more, no less.

[EDIT]
Good night

---------- Post added 06-25-10 at 05:18 AM ---------- Previous post was 06-24-10 at 10:21 PM ----------

And by the way, it's a good opportunity to discuss the peak oil. Older guys know it, because it was used in the fifties to predict local USA oil shortage, and it was used in the late nineties to predict the same problem on the global scale existing nowadays.

Our current way of living is based on cheap energy (EROEI >> 1), which is depleting fast. We're not yet prepared for switching to alternatives such as hydrogen gas acquired from renewable energy sources. There's no infrastructure for that. Of course there is some research being done in this field, but we're not talking about the same scale.

So yeah, assuming that massive vaccine usage didn't hurt us so much that we can't live without it (it is an unnatural stimulus after all), we're not going to extinct, but we will have to dust out those plows soon, if no energy revolution comes suddenly.

Links:
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil"]Peak oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

http://peakoil.com/
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.peakoil.pl%2F&sl=pl&tl=en - good articles

 

[statickid]

http://intraglobal.org/documents/ig_biomass_gasifier.pdf These are pretty cool, and they don't need to be fed woody biomass. I'm pretty sure you can put just about anything into it, but it will produce different types of slag

 

[Enjo]

Looks nice. I didn't do the figures, but they admit it themselves - it would power villages and remote areas, not big cities. They also say that it's capable for larger installations, but hey, that's their ad. If we talk about population plateau, I think that such a method wouldn't suffice. What we need is to get down a bit... War anybody?

[EDIT] Well, again, our population number is so high because of advanced agriculture, which is based on oil. It will sort out, but it won't be a plateau.

 

[AirSimming]

The global population growth rate has even been declining since 1963...

Yes, And the UNO expects no more than 9 billions until ~2050, followed by a decline of the world population.

You personally don't consume that much energy. What makes your statistics so high as western civilization member: Most of our products consume extremely large amounts of energy to be produced. And there is a lot of room for improvements, if you would just make pressure on the industry. Aluminum cans for example are not needed at all. Supermarkets only advertise them, because it is possible to stack more of them on top of each other. For the energy of making a single aluminum can, you can produce thousands of glass bottles.

You also can significantly reduce the extremely large amounts of energy by changing your eating habits I think. I don't know if the numbers are actually correct, but soja joghurt for example allegedly requires significantly less resources than the production of a usual joghurt made of cow's milk. Also, it is amazing how much water is required to make a small peace of meat "look nice" in the refrigerated counter. Not to talk about the fast food industry. What I don't eat at all anymore is prepared foods and packet sauces. It's degenerated crap anyway.

By the way, I also think that humans would be one of the last mammals to extinct on the planet. I tend to believe that smart levels of the population are able to survive millions of years by continuous development/progress. We already have the knowledge and awareness we need in order to exist for an unimaginably long period of time on this planet. Of course this does not fit to a population of 7 or 9 billion humans. But parts of the population get the chance. It might sound cynical, but I think a population on a prewar level, i.e. below 2 billions would be good for the planet and our species.

 

[clive bradbury]

[QUOTE
PS: if resources for humans would be really limited, evolution would also apply to us. [/QUOTE]

I have news for you - evolution DOES apply to us...

 

[Ghostrider]

I have news for you - evolution DOES apply to us...

Unfortunately, that's the case.

 

[Urwumpe]

I have news for you - evolution DOES apply to us...

so the resources ARE already limited?

 

[T.Neo]

I have news for you - evolution DOES apply to us...

Of course it does.

But it applies to us in a very unusual way compared to other organisms. Healthcare and the elimination of predation for example are a few of the things that mostly eliminate natural selection in humans.

 

[statickid]

Looks nice. I didn't do the figures, but they admit it themselves - it would power villages and remote areas, not big cities. They also say that it's capable for larger installations, but hey, that's their ad. If we talk about population plateau, I think that such a method wouldn't suffice. What we need is to get down a bit... War anybody?

<snip>

well that is just the portable one! they talk about villages because that company is targeted at that demographic specifically.

it's an up-and-coming technology currently under speculation by industry and government (international, and locals) as a solution for waste management.

There are also bigger ones, I think I read that there are 3 big ones in Japan, and there are plans to build a giant one in florida that can handle city sized waste piles. Some cities are looking at installing them specifically to "mine" landfills for their "resources." Thus cleaning them up in the process.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-09-09-fla-county-trash_x.htm

---------- Post added at 10:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:44 AM ----------

[EDIT] Well, again, our population number is so high because of advanced agriculture, which is based on oil. It will sort out, but it won't be a plateau.

what do you suggest then? a bell curve? exponential growth that becomes stable linear growth forever? asymptotic growth towards an infinite mass of humans? a pile of humans living on a planet made out of dead human bodies using human remains and waste as recycled resources?

 

[Enjo]

Fighting pollution and all that - yeah it's great, but what's the EROEI of this gizmo? Is it a reliable source to replace the depleting oil for sure?
When you see claims that such ambitious projects as Desertec, backed by big companies, will satisfy 15% of current Europe's energy consumption at best, then this can be called a realistic claim.

what do you suggest then? a bell curve? exponential growth that becomes stable linear growth forever? asymptotic growth towards an infinite mass of humans? a pile of humans living on a planet made out of dead human bodies using human remains and waste as recycled resources?

:lol:
Well, assuming that peak-oil is true, and because the population's explosion was caused by better agriculture, which uses oil massively, what's the most probable curve? Bell of course.

 

[dgatsoulis]

I don't know how many of you have watched this series of videos:

Some say that this is the only outcome with our present day consumption of Earth's resources.

Others say it is a 'what if' scenario based on sound scientific evidence. (My opinion as well.)

And some others say that it's just propaganda designed to promote population control & a global carbon tax.

In each case, you decide.

 

[statickid]

i agree, moving agriculture away from oil use would be extremely difficult! one thing i could see is synthetic fuels and/or biofuel junk, but then the agriculture would be self cannibalizing, as in it would take vast fields to supply fuel for the vast fields that are needed to make the fuel. :idk: oil is used for MANY more techs than fuel too. its used for the obvious things like plastics etc... but I've also heard (not sure about it) that there is some in things that aren't so obvious like paper products.

I've also read some speculative papers that suggest that the earth actually actively creates oil and organic compounds somewhere under the crust, and that it is more of a living process byproduct of some kind of geology rather unlike the term "fossil fuel" denotes.

This is a little different, but similar to the subject:
http://www.rense.com/general63/refil.htm

 

[eveningsky339]

But I thought the world was going to end in 2012 after it should have ended in 2000 after it should have ended in 1999 etc etc etc etc...

As for those who believe that human evolution has mostly ceased due to low infant mortality rates, access to high quality medical car, and so on... Most of the world is malnourished and has very little access to medical care. So human evolution is alive and kicking, but perhaps more so in underdeveloped countries.

 

[Enjo]

I've also read some speculative papers that suggest that the earth actually actively creates oil and organic compounds somewhere under the crust, and that it is more of a living process byproduct of some kind of geology rather unlike the term "fossil fuel" denotes.

You must be meaning this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_oil#Abiogenesis
The idea is quite shot down there ...

I was also looking for an interesting quote form Colin Campbell and I found it in this article. It's a good read!

FTW: What would you say to the people who insist that oil is created from magma, or that there's really so much that we don't have to worry?

Campbell: Oil sometimes does occur in fractured or weathered crystalline rocks, which may have led people to accept this theory, but in all cases there is an easy explanation of lateral migration from normal sources. Isotopic evidence provides a clear link to the organic origins. No one in the industry gives the slightest credence to these theories: after drilling for 150 years they know a bit about it. Another misleading idea is about oilfields being refilled. Some are, but the oil simply is leaking in from a deeper accumulation.

dgatsoulis:
Thanks for the clip. I'll watch it tomorrow.

 

[statickid]

You must be meaning this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_oil#Abiogenesis
The idea is quite shot down there ...

I was also looking for an interesting quote form Colin Campbell and I found it in this article. It's a good read!



dgatsoulis:
Thanks for the clip. I'll watch it tomorrow.

aha its the alchemy of the 21st century! turning random things into black gold!

I'm not a huge proponent of the geologic-only idea, but i do wonder about certain ideas being overlooked, like the other paper talking about lifeforms living by eating the oily-type products. It's not impossible that the old oil pockets contain biomarkers not because they were made only by organisms, but what about really old colonies of these chemosynthetic animals biomarking up the oil with their presence? :idk:

the inability to produce such things in a lab makes the idea less probable, though.

 

[T.Neo]

one thing i could see is synthetic fuels and/or biofuel junk, but then the agriculture would be self cannibalizing, as in it would take vast fields to supply fuel for the vast fields that are needed to make the fuel. :idk: oil is used for MANY more techs than fuel too. its used for the obvious things like plastics etc... but I've also heard (not sure about it) that there is some in things that aren't so obvious like paper products.

Perhaps more radical approaches, such as algaculture, could be more practicable.

The other uses for oil might also be taken over by synthetic products. It might not be easy or doable today, but considering this might be quite a time into the future...

As for those who believe that human evolution has mostly ceased due to low infant mortality rates, access to high quality medical car, and so on... Most of the world is malnourished and has very little access to medical care. So human evolution is alive and kicking, but perhaps more so in underdeveloped countries.

I never said that evolution does not exist in humans, just that natural selection is mostly eliminated.

What healthcare does exist in the third world still applies somewhat. Malnutrition is also not as pervasive as one might think; 923 million people were malnourished in 2007, which works out to about 13.9%, 17% in the developing world (if my math is correct, which there is a large likelihood that it is not). Whether this sort of malnutrition on a large scale could be considered "natural" is debatable.

Nevertheless I agree; natural selection is less prevalent in developed nations than it is in underdeveloped ones. Evolution is very much alive in humans, sexual selection and random mutations are mechanisms that have an influence on humans, for example.

 

[statickid]

Perhaps more radical approaches, such as algaculture, could be more practicable.
<snip>

AND some of the algae out there thrive off our pollutants! sooooo... by polluting the ocean we are merely "fertilizing" it for future algae harvesting for renewable fuels! :tiphat::thumbup:

 

[AirSimming]

AND some of the algae out there thrive off our pollutants! sooooo... by polluting the ocean we are merely "fertilizing" it for future algae harvesting for renewable fuels! :tiphat::thumbup:

So your message is that polluting the oceans is useful?