We are overloading the planet: Now What?

[Elixir]

The hypothesis that more people leads to lower quality of life is exactly the reverse of what we observe

Yes, we do observe that. And without population pressure it may be unlikely that we would ever have developed the science and technology that has enabled most of that improvement in QoL. And it's possible that even without population reduction, QoL can continue to improve for most. But I doubt that it will, over the long term.

ETA it is impossible to reliably compare the qualities of other people’s lives, so we use “Standard of Living” metrics that are largely objective and don’t necessarily reflect the qualities that predominate people’s subjective well being.

its always someone else there are too many of

No. I’ll be the first to admit to having a disproportionate degratory influence on the planet. I hope to manifest qualities that might offset the damage, but there’s no assurance of that.

 

[steve_bank]

The beginnings of science, technology, and invention go far back in history.

It was calculus and Newtonian physics that started the rapid development of modern science and technology.

The principles of the Newton - Liebniz notation had historical antecedents. Same with Newton's Laws.

It all began with domestication of wild animals and agriculture.

Steam powered from machines would have ended slavery in the long run, slavery would not be profitable. The cotton gin.

Ancient Chinese had water powered stamping machines not unlike the machines we have today. They mastered large scale manufacturing. Manufacturing parts to enough accuracy to always fit together.

WE rte no different, it is the scale and global inerconectedness that is the issue.

 

[bigfield]

And others say it's just a matter of rich people consuming too much. If only we had enough laws preventing them from exploiting the planet, all will go well.

One type of law would probably be enough: enact a tax on the externalised costs of polluting the environment.

 

[Merle]

We are overloading the planet. In response, 250 scientists have signed a paper saying, "researchers in many areas consider societal collapse a credible scenario this century." (https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-on-climate-and-the-risk-of-societal-collapse ) Wait, what? Societal collapse this century? Perhaps we should pay attention.

Some people say that these scientists have made a big deal out of nothing. We can just ignore them.

Others say these scientists have a good point, but science will save us. It always does.

Still others have seen our technical reaction as being dismally inadequate, that we are rapidly losing out. And it is unlikely science will ever catch up.

And others say it's just a matter of rich people consuming too much. If only we had enough laws preventing them from exploiting the planet, all will go well.

And then others will say that, although technology improvements and reducing affluence may help, in the end, all those efforts will fall short unless there are fewer people on Earth. 15,000 scientists have signed a paper saying, "humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere." One of the steps they say is necessary is to address our failure to "adequately limit population growth," (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/12/1026/4605229?login=false ) Many scientists have told us to take steps to reduce the future population on Earth.

Still others say we should do nothing. We are doomed. Many will starve. There is nothing that will change this. Get over it. Accept it.

I address these issues in my latest blog post, https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/.

What do you think?

(Damn I liked your post by mistake)
Whenever some one tells me that the earth has too many people I ask ask them 1 question - when are you leaving?

I notice that its always someone else there are too many of. Never people like them. Funny that.

Uh, if you read my writing, you will see that my post has nothing to do with getting rid of people that exist.

Rather, it deals with the options of humanely reducing the birthrate by strongly encouraging voluntary reductions, thus making it easier to survive in a world with fewer resources.

 

[bigfield]

Rather, it deals with the options of humanely reducing the birthrate by strongly encouraging voluntary reductions,

We've already done that. What specifically do you propose in addition?

 

[steve_bank]

I think I'd start with California and turn into a park, then move on to New Jersey.

When we realize it what do you do?

Now that the COVID panic is passed Seattle is back to its normal self. Football, baseball, and now+ hockey. The biggest News Years Eve fireworks show in the USA.

Few are worrying about the future. People are concerned about climate, but keep n keeping on. Business as usual.

BTW, the fireworks on the space needle was big enough to cause a pollution health alert the next day in Seattle. The smoke hung around near the ground near the ground.

So much for climate awareness....

 

[Merle]

You are talking about using nuclear to make electricity, which is only about 1/5 of our total energy. And even in that niche which is especially suited for fossil fuels, we find the need for government subsidies to keep nuclear running. (Clifford, 2022). Much of our fossil fuels are used directly in high temperature industrial applications, where the direct use of fossil fuels is far more efficient than using electric. If nuclear can't fulfill its own niche without subsidies, how would it survive if we relied on it for everything?

The basic problem with nuclear is we obsess with safety. The nuclear industry is saddled with a regulatory culture of as safe as feasible--which translates into no matter what you do it can never be competitive because doing so would make it feasible to add more safety. The result is counterproductive and increases the risk. (Another example of this is the rule that babies may be held during a flight and not given a seat. A baby in a proper seat is safer than a baby in arms, but the expense of that seat means more people will choose to drive rather than fly and thus more people will die.)

Instead, we should back up and totally rethink our approach to safety.

Ah, yes, let's just deregulate and all our problems will go away.

People forget that government regulations can't be enacted in the first place unless it is shown that the total of the risks, benefits and costs of the regulation show it is overall financially better with the regulation than without the regulation. Yes, the calculations may be wrong, and yes, we can ask that we evaluate again to see if we can do it better. All that is fine. But to simply state with full assurance that we would be better off without the regulation than with it, without ever seeing the calculations, seems a little out of order.

You seem to have missed my case for why nuclear will be much less easy to justify when fossil fuels are in short supply. Let's me try again, and see if this makes it clearer.

First, two important numbers: Nuclear plants have an energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of 5 (Murphy, 2021, p 232). And, when we use steam from fossil fuels or nuclear to make electricity, the best we can do is get about 37.5% of the source energy converted into electricity. The rest is lost. (Murphy, 2021, p 107).

Now, consider you have a pile of coal with 100 tWh of thermal energy. We have two choices: burn it and get 37.5 tWh of electric, or use it to build a nuclear power plant that will produce 500 tWh of steam over the course of its life. The nuclear plant seems like a much better choice, But remember, that steam in the nuclear power plant does us little good unless we convert it to electricity. That gives us about 187 tWh. Still 187tWh over the life of the reactor sounds better than a one-shot of 37.5 tWh when the coal is burnt directly, so that sounds like a good energy investment. But, of course, we need to consider all the other costs of nuclear (uranium enrichment, labor, waste materials, decommissioning, etc.). And when we add it all up, we find that nuclear reactors are often uneconomical, and require government subsidies to keep running. ((Clifford, 2022). Few plants are even being built any more. (Davis, 2012, Clifford, 2023).

And in the future it will be much harder to justify nuclear. Do the math. Lets say the pile of coal is gone, and we now need to use electricity from an existing nuclear plant to build our next plant. We don't even have the furnaces to make the components using electric, but lets say we can make them. Now we use 100 tWh of electricity instead of 100 tWh of coal to create the next nuclear plant that will eventually give us 187 tWh electricity output. Suddenly the cost justification becomes much harder, Now, instead of giving up the resulting 37.5 tWh of electricity we would get from that coal, we give up 100 tWh from the nuclear plant. And we still have all the existing problems that are driving investors away from building nuclear plants now.

Then consider that it takes 10 years to build a plant that lasts for 50 years. So basically we take 100 tWh dividing into 10 equal annual payments, until 10 years later when we finally start getting a return on our energy investment. Then we get a total of 187 tWh back over the course of 50 years. Does that sound like a good investment to you? Consider also that many power plants never even get finished. Is this looking like a good investment? If you like that deal, I have some ocean-front property in Iowa I would like to sell you. .

That is our problem. Even today when using fossil fuels to construct the plant, we find them to be a losing proposition. If we are someday forced to use electric to build the plants, the price skyrockets.

I support government subsidies of nuclear plants. Even if they cost more than simply burning coal, they extend the life of our coal, and that is worth doing. But in the future when coal supplies get short? I wander if we will ever even be able to build nuclear.

The same goes with all forms of alternate energy. They show promise for extending the life of fossil fuels, and yet they still have trouble showing a profit. Without fossil fuels, they might not even be possible for at a price that any but the extremely wealthy people can afford.

And without an electricity source that the masses can afford, the carrying capacity of the Earth goes way down.

 

[Merle]

Rather, it deals with the options of humanely reducing the birthrate by strongly encouraging voluntary reductions,

We've already done that. What specifically do you propose in addition?

Read the section, Reduce population, in the link I posted. https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/ .

 

[Merle]

And others say it's just a matter of rich people consuming too much. If only we had enough laws preventing them from exploiting the planet, all will go well.

One type of law would probably be enough: enact a tax on the externalised costs of polluting the environment.

And how high do you think we will need to make the taxes on the richest of the rich to make them stop flying private jets? My guess is they would fly in private jets even if we taxed the fuel at 10,000%.

And what do we do with all the tax revenues? Build highways?

 

[bigfield]

Rather, it deals with the options of humanely reducing the birthrate by strongly encouraging voluntary reductions,

We've already done that. What specifically do you propose in addition?

Read the section, Reduce population, in the link I posted. https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/ .

This might include teaching people about the value of a smaller population, educating and empowering women to make their own decisions about childbearing, giving people ways of assuring security in their senior years without relying on large families, providing easy access to birth control and abortions, and making tax incentives for smaller families.

So basically just do what is already working.

 

[bilby]

And how high do you think we will need to make the taxes on the richest of the rich to make them stop flying private jets?

Why do you imagine that they need to stop doing that?

If they are paying enough to cover the cost of extracting the carbon dioxide their jet produces from the atmosphere (and permanently locking it away), then their jets are carbon neutral. They can use them all they want with zero impact on climate.

Same for remediation of all the other environmental harm done by their jets.

The tax isn't about stopping them from having jets, it's about stopping them from harming the environment. It's their choice whether they do that by paying for repairs or by not causing the damage in the first place.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Oddly enough, I read an opinion piece earlier today, which I will gift, that said population is soon to peak and that will be a problem.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...e_code=1.KU0.KQUa.V2XROkZZ77gC&smid=url-share

So, this writer's opinion is that a falling population is a bad thing. I'm not interested in discussing this, but when I saw the thread title, I thought I'd add the article that I read a few hours ago. There's a lot more in the article, including some graphs that demonstrate the expected population decrease.

Interesting article. I don't agree with the conclusion.

We have had close to 140 million births per year for the last 35 years, as I show in the chart above. One simple estimate of future population is to say this trend will continue, and that people will continue to live to an average of 71. That would mean the population will asymptotically approach 140 * 71 = 9.9 billion if current trends continue. That is very close to what the far more sophisticated UN estimate says.

It's also well within the carrying capacity of the planet, with current technology.

Of course, it's not with current worst-practices designed to enrich a handful of people by allowing them to externalise their waste streams. But that's not a population problem, just a political one.

I don't think we can agree on a carrying capacity. With current technology the question is when we will hit a problem, not whether we will hit a problem.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The answer to maintain standard of living and population growth is technology?

Science and technology has taken us out of the natural checks and balances in the ecosystem, at least for a while.

We have no natural predators. Vaccinations and antibiotics extend natural life. People live to the point when they need daily care.

We are already having a social-civil-political meltdown in the industrialized west. Too many diverent people. Our border is being over run by people form the south of the border.

I think Elixer is right, we are headed for a bloody population decline.

It has happened periodically in history. Mayan and Incan civilizations peaked and then collapsed.


Today in the USA we have too many peoole crowded into too small areas.

The checks and balances have not failed, they just take time. Hopefully our declining birthrate will avoid the problem.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You are talking about using nuclear to make electricity, which is only about 1/5 of our total energy. And even in that niche which is especially suited for fossil fuels, we find the need for government subsidies to keep nuclear running. (Clifford, 2022). Much of our fossil fuels are used directly in high temperature industrial applications, where the direct use of fossil fuels is far more efficient than using electric. If nuclear can't fulfill its own niche without subsidies, how would it survive if we relied on it for everything?

The basic problem with nuclear is we obsess with safety. The nuclear industry is saddled with a regulatory culture of as safe as feasible--which translates into no matter what you do it can never be competitive because doing so would make it feasible to add more safety. The result is counterproductive and increases the risk. (Another example of this is the rule that babies may be held during a flight and not given a seat. A baby in a proper seat is safer than a baby in arms, but the expense of that seat means more people will choose to drive rather than fly and thus more people will die.)

Instead, we should back up and totally rethink our approach to safety.

Ah, yes, let's just deregulate and all our problems will go away.

No, I'm for making regulations sensible. Most regulations are, but there are outliers where we pay extreme costs for safety. What I would like to see is major regulations must present the benefit/cost analysis that goes into making them. They can be challenged on the basis that the cost is too high (compare it to other safety regulations) or that the analysis is not a reasonable representation of reality. Spend our safety efforts on the things that produce the biggest return. Safety spending inherently can't be infinite, spending too much on low risk things actually makes us less safe. (And I would also like to see their rejects published--in case someone figures out a cheaper way to do it in the future.)

I most definitely do not agree with the chainsaw approach of the Republicans!

People forget that government regulations can't be enacted in the first place unless it is shown that the total of the risks, benefits and costs of the regulation show it is overall financially better with the regulation than without the regulation. Yes, the calculations may be wrong, and yes, we can ask that we evaluate again to see if we can do it better. All that is fine. But to simply state with full assurance that we would be better off without the regulation than with it, without ever seeing the calculations, seems a little out of order.

You have a very unrealistic view of how the process works. It's very much driven by politics.

I do not know what specific nuclear regulations are problematic, that would require delving far deeper into the engineering of nuclear facilities than I'm qualified to do. However, the wildly different deaths per TwH tell me the regulations need fixing. We are spending far too much on nuclear safety and far too little on coal safety (although I suspect the result of proper coal safety would drive it out of existence.)

You seem to have missed my case for why nuclear will be much less easy to justify when fossil fuels are in short supply. Let's me try again, and see if this makes it clearer.

First, two important numbers: Nuclear plants have an energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of 5 (Murphy, 2021, p 232). And, when we use steam from fossil fuels or nuclear to make electricity, the best we can do is get about 37.5% of the source energy converted into electricity. The rest is lost. (Murphy, 2021, p 107).

Now, consider you have a pile of coal with 100 tWh of thermal energy. We have two choices: burn it and get 37.5 tWh of electric, or use it to build a nuclear power plant that will produce 500 tWh of steam over the course of its life. The nuclear plant seems like a much better choice, But remember, that steam in the nuclear power plant does us little good unless we convert it to electricity. That gives us about 187 tWh. Still 187tWh over the life of the reactor sounds better than a one-shot of 37.5 tWh when the coal is burnt directly, so that sounds like a good energy investment. But, of course, we need to consider all the other costs of nuclear (uranium enrichment, labor, waste materials, decommissioning, etc.). And when we add it all up, we find that nuclear reactors are often uneconomical, and require government subsidies to keep running. ((Clifford, 2022). Few plants are even being built any more. (Davis, 2012, Clifford, 2023).

I've already pointed out why they are uneconomic--the rules inherently define them as being uneconomic. France is doing fine with it's reactors, they're not uneconomic.

And your "source" is not a source--he's simply stating numbers no doubt gathered from elsewhere but I do not see any references. I would think that such numbers were life cycle, not merely the plant itself. And the numbers are most certainly wrong--because they assume the plant is junk at the end. Nope, some parts wear out, they can be replaced. Yes, the parts that wear out include the reactor vessel--but you can still use the rest of the facility.

And in the future it will be much harder to justify nuclear. Do the math. Lets say the pile of coal is gone, and we now need to use electricity from an existing nuclear plant to build our next plant. We don't even have the furnaces to make the components using electric, but lets say we can make them. Now we use 100 tWh of electricity instead of 100 tWh of coal to create the next nuclear plant that will eventually give us 187 tWh electricity output. Suddenly the cost justification becomes much harder, Now, instead of giving up the resulting 37.5 tWh of electricity we would get from that coal, we give up 100 tWh from the nuclear plant. And we still have all the existing problems that are driving investors away from building nuclear plants now.

Then consider that it takes 10 years to build a plant that lasts for 50 years. So basically we take 100 tWh dividing into 10 equal annual payments, until 10 years later when we finally start getting a return on our energy investment. Then we get a total of 187 tWh back over the course of 50 years. Does that sound like a good investment to you? Consider also that many power plants never even get finished. Is this looking like a good investment? If you like that deal, I have some ocean-front property in Iowa I would like to sell you. .

Even if the numbers were right (and I don't think they are) it's realistically the only game in town.

That is our problem. Even today when using fossil fuels to construct the plant, we find them to be a losing proposition. If we are someday forced to use electric to build the plants, the price skyrockets.

I support government subsidies of nuclear plants. Even if they cost more than simply burning coal, they extend the life of our coal, and that is worth doing. But in the future when coal supplies get short? I wander if we will ever even be able to build nuclear.

The same goes with all forms of alternate energy. They show promise for extending the life of fossil fuels, and yet they still have trouble showing a profit. Without fossil fuels, they might not even be possible for at a price that any but the extremely wealthy people can afford.

And without an electricity source that the masses can afford, the carrying capacity of the Earth goes way down.

I haven't read that whole book but the page you pointed me to seems to mean your same logic would apply to all sources of power. Fundamentally, all the "green" answers end up saying the same thing: die.

 

[Elixir]

Hopefully our declining birthrate will avoid the problem.

Nope. There are too many who will rush to occupy the ecologically devastating niche of the absent population. The rate of population growth slowing, or even population decline, is sort of irrelevant at this point.
Intelligence looks more and more to me like a lethal mutation.

 

[steve_bank]

The answer to maintain standard of living and population growth is technology?

Science and technology has taken us out of the natural checks and balances in the ecosystem, at least for a while.

We have no natural predators. Vaccinations and antibiotics extend natural life. People live to the point when they need daily care.

We are already having a social-civil-political meltdown in the industrialized west. Too many diverent people. Our border is being over run by people form the south of the border.

I think Elixer is right, we are headed for a bloody population decline.

It has happened periodically in history. Mayan and Incan civilizations peaked and then collapsed.


Today in the USA we have too many peoole crowded into too small areas.

The checks and balances have not failed, they just take time. Hopefully our declining birthrate will avoid the problem.

Of course the ultimate check and balance is availability of resources.

Maybe that is why solar systems are impossibly far apart. Limits the effects of a greedy runaway consumptive race of creatures.

 

[DBT]

If nothing else, Gaia will sort it out. It just may not be to our satisfaction.

 

[Elixir]

If nothing else, Gaia will sort it out. It just may not be to our satisfaction.

^ Master of understatement.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Now, consider you have a pile of coal with 100 tWh of thermal energy. We have two choices: burn it and get 37.5 tWh of electric, or use it to build a nuclear power plant that will produce 500 tWh of steam over the course of its life. The nuclear plant seems like a much better choice, But remember, that steam in the nuclear power plant does us little good unless we convert it to electricity. That gives us about 187 tWh. Still 187tWh over the life of the reactor sounds better than a one-shot of 37.5 tWh when the coal is burnt directly, so that sounds like a good energy investment. But, of course, we need to consider all the other costs of nuclear (uranium enrichment, labor, waste materials, decommissioning, etc.). And when we add it all up, we find that nuclear reactors are often uneconomical, and require government subsidies to keep running. ((Clifford, 2022). Few plants are even being built any more. (Davis, 2012, Clifford, 2023).

And in the future it will be much harder to justify nuclear. Do the math. Lets say the pile of coal is gone, and we now need to use electricity from an existing nuclear plant to build our next plant. We don't even have the furnaces to make the components using electric, but lets say we can make them. Now we use 100 tWh of electricity instead of 100 tWh of coal to create the next nuclear plant that will eventually give us 187 tWh electricity output. Suddenly the cost justification becomes much harder, Now, instead of giving up the resulting 37.5 tWh of electricity we would get from that coal, we give up 100 tWh from the nuclear plant. And we still have all the existing problems that are driving investors away from building nuclear plants now.

Seeing we need nuclear to manage a real problem of climate change, this economic issue is a red herring. The reality is the economics get better if we tax carbon.

I support government subsidies of nuclear plants. Even if they cost more than simply burning coal, they extend the life of our coal, and that is worth doing. But in the future when coal supplies get short? I wander if we will ever even be able to build nuclear.

The same goes with all forms of alternate energy. They show promise for extending the life of fossil fuels, and yet they still have trouble showing a profit. Without fossil fuels, they might not even be possible for at a price that any but the extremely wealthy people can afford.

And without an electricity source that the masses can afford, the carrying capacity of the Earth goes way down.

Fuck me! The real problem with population growth is the global capacity to provide 12 billion people a first world standard of living... all the while not torching the planet. Not whether we can produce electricity. That has got to be the easiest of the issues to resolve.

 

[bilby]

I support government subsidies of nuclear plants. Even if they cost more than simply burning coal, they extend the life of our coal, and that is worth doing.

What a crock.

We need to stop "extending the life" of coal. Coal, as a fuel, needs to die, now, if not sooner.

We have already burned too much coal. Whatever remains in the ground needs to stay there forever; We need to behave as though there is no more of it, no matter how much more of it there actually is.

Same for oil.

Same for gas.

Not only that, but we also need to take some of the carbon dioxide that we have put into the air, extract it, and bury it. Which is pretty much what coal IS. Not only do we need to stop mining coal; We need to start putting it back.

There's at least enough fossil fuel in existence to increase carbon dioxide levels to about 1200-1500ppm (the concentration that existed at the beginning of the Carboniferous Period).

Running out of coal, oil, and gas is the least of our problems; If we tried to run out, we would be completely fucked long before we succeded.

And in the absence of a carbon tax, our economic system is optimised to try to find and burn it all - the harder it gets to find or extract more, the more we pay to the people who do so.