We are overloading the planet: Now What?

[bilby]

The core problem is that we are in overshoot

No, there are several "core problems"; "overshoot" is an umbrella term that tells us absolutely nothing about what those core problems are, except that they are urgent. As such, it's a concept whose only value is as a way to scare people.

 

[bilby]

Great, we agree that we cannot simply say that we want nuclear power to work, therefore it will work

We can't simply say that we want gravity to work, therefore it will work.

We CAN however say, of both nuclear power and gravity, that they DO work.

 

[bilby]

Do we also agree that it is possible that nuclear power or any other technology will fail to save our ability to live at our consumption patterns for the next two centuries? It is possible we cannot continue at anywhere near the current consumption levels for the next few centuries?

Sure. That's a political question. If we don't implement the solution that we know works, then we might not implement an effective solution at all.

 

[bilby]

If you agree that it is possible we will be forced to live at significantly lower consumption levels, can you agree that it is ok to ask what we should do if people in the near future will be faced with that problem?

No, it's not. We will not be FORCED to live at significantly lower consumption levels; We may CHOOSE that path, but to do so would be nuts.

"We have a solution, but don't want to implement it, so what else can we do to solve this already solved problem?" is a question with only one reasonable response - Why the fuck don't we implement the solution we have, instead of fucking about??

 

[bilby]

I simply cannot understand how people can attack a well-respected science organization without first taking the time to hear what they say.

What on Earth makes you think that I haven't taken the time to hear what they say?

Because your posts misrepresents the Global Footprint Network. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was a mistake. I assumed , that you misrepresented what they said because you hadn't read what they said.

Are you saying I should not have given you the benefit of the doubt?

I am saying that my posts do not misrepresent the Global Footprint Network.

My failure to match your sycophancy towards an organisation who are, at best, well meaning, but who advocate for stupid policy based on a deeply flawed approach to problem solving is NOT evidence that I misunderstand, or that I am unaware of, their message.

I disagree with them. With good reasons. I don't misunderstand them; I understand them, and they are wrong. For the reasons I have already given.

 

[Merle]

Great, we agree that we cannot simply say that we want nuclear power to work, therefore it will work

We can't simply say that we want gravity to work, therefore it will work.

We CAN however say, of both nuclear power and gravity, that they DO work.

Of course I agree that nuclear works. I have told you several times that we should be doing more to build nuclear plants. Why would I be asking for more nuclear plants if I didn't think they worked?

The problem, once again, is that it appears that they do not work well enough to economically provide our future needs.

 

[Merle]

Do we also agree that it is possible that nuclear power or any other technology will fail to save our ability to live at our consumption patterns for the next two centuries? It is possible we cannot continue at anywhere near the current consumption levels for the next few centuries?

Sure. That's a political question. If we don't implement the solution that we know works, then we might not implement an effective solution at all.

How do you know that nuclear power could economically provide most of our energy needs for the coming centuries?

 

[Merle]

I disagree with them. With good reasons. I don't misunderstand them; I understand them, and they are wrong. For the reasons I have already given.

If anybody wants to know what the Global Footprint Network is saying, they can go to their site and read what they say. They simply are not saying what you claim they are saying.

And I simply am not saying what you claim I am saying.

What can I say at this point? If you disagreed with me, and we discussed the issues, we could have a meaningful dialog. But when I constantly tell you that you misrepresent me and others, and you never apologize, and you just keep on misrepresenting, what is the purpose of trying to continue this conversation?

 

[DBT]

It's the very serious 'core problems' that tipped us into overshoot. Which, if not corrected quickly, are going to come back and bite us hard.

 

[Elixir]

But we cannot simply say, "We need nuclear power to save us. We want nuclear power to save us. Therefore nuclear power will save us." That is a religious statement, not a scientific statement.

Then it's a good thing that literally nobody in this thread - except you - has said anything of the sort.

I’ll say it - nuclear power could save us.
From the world that will come without it. Which I opine, will be worse by any metric I’d want to use, than the future world of full utilization of nuclear energy (even at current tech levels).

 

[bilby]

Of course I agree that nuclear works. I have told you several times that we should be doing more to build nuclear plants. Why would I be asking for more nuclear plants if I didn't think they worked?

The problem, once again, is that it appears that they do not work well enough to economically they are not popular enough to politically provide our future needs.

FTFY.

 

[DBT]

Nuclear is a big step forward, but it's probably not enough to avert major climate and ecological crisis over the coming decades.

 

[DBT]

Figure 1: Carbon emissions growth 1990-2015 by population income group; Oxfam; 2020.

 

[Merle]

Of course I agree that nuclear works. I have told you several times that we should be doing more to build nuclear plants. Why would I be asking for more nuclear plants if I didn't think they worked?

The problem, once again, is that it appears that they do not work well enough to economically they are not popular enough to politically provide our future needs.

FTFY.

This is the claim that you have repeated many times. I have asked you what evidence you have. You never seem to come up with any evidence. You just endlessly repeat the claim. This sure looks to me like, "I want nuclear to solve our problems. I need nuclear to solve our problems. Therefore it will." If you have evidence, please show it.

For the record, I had ChatGPT DALL E (my new toy) draw a picture of government regulators arguing against nuclear construction and idling the equipment. How did it do? If you like it, you can keep it as my gift to you.



Certainly this should be the heyday of nuclear construction. We have known for decades that we will need to phase out fossil fuels in the coming years. Nuclear is a mature technology. We have had nuclear power plants for 70 years, which is a longer timespan than the time from the Wright Brother's flight to the landing on the moon. Certainly the technology has had time to mature. The need is urgent. And we still have plenty of diesel fuel to power the equipment and fossil fuels for industrial heating processes to build the components. Surely this should be the day of nuclear.

And yet the production in the United States is dismal. We recently built the first nuclear plant in seven years. Meanwhile many existing plants are being retired. Worldwide we see the same thing. Nobody is making a significant investment in nuclear, except for China, and they are investing in any energy technology under the sun. They are building two new coal plants a week. . So even they do not see nuclear as the energy of the future. They prefer--uh--coal!

If nuclear is such a bargain, and is restricted only my government and grassroots resistance, why is it that nobody in the world catches on that nuclear is so urgently needed? Why is nobody going all-in?

I have provided multiple links that show the economic woes of nuclear today. Throughout the world, people are having troubles running nuclear economically. And this occurs even when diesel fuel and coal is readily available to build and run the facilities. Where will nuclear be if we need to rely solely on it?

l am for the construction of nuclear plants. Most of us here are for the construction of nuclear plants. But none of that means anything if the people that could build them decide it is not economical to build them.

Yes, we can take it by blind faith that our nuclear god will save us, and that the only thing holding this back is the devil himself, government regulators. But so far I have seen nothing from you that documents this claim is anything other than a faith claim.

Where is your evidence?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think Bilby means that population increase BY ITSELF is not a problem, since our best current projections predict population growth is scheduled to level off later this century and then decline (and decline has its own problems, as Japan is finding out). The problems lie elsewhere.

We have been over this many times in this thread. Yes, the UN says population will level off at about 130% of the current population, and perhaps even start to decline.

The problem is that we are already in overshoot. The Global Footprint Network calculates that it would take 1.75 planets to sustainably support us. We continue on, but the overshoot is rapidly deteriorating our planet.

I got curious about this and looked it up. There are several different formulations. One is that today we are using resources AS IF we have 1.75 earths. Another is that to sustain our CURRENT world population, we WOULD NEED 1.75 earths. And so on.

It’s rather odd. What does it really mean? Nothing, so far as I can tell. It’s vacuous. Clearly, we ARE sustaining (albeit badly in many cases) our CURRENT world population, with ONE earth — the other .75 of an earth is nowhere to be found, which strongly suggests it is not actually needed.

The Ecological Footprint calculated by the Global Footprint Network is a measure of the amount of land required to sustainably replace renewables and absorb our waste carbon as fast as we impact the planet.

If, for instance, you are burning wood from a forest at twice the rate that the forest can renew it, that is not sustainable. But if you had twice as much forest, and burned at the same rate, that is sustainable for a long time.

But that assumes wood is the only solution. We are not stuck in the notion of a static situation.

To compare the promise of technological advances to the empty promises of religion is obviously empirically unwarranted. Technology produces results (often, granted, with unforeseen and unintended negative side effects), while religion produces zilch except intolerance and ignorance.

If the best available science told you a major hurricane was very likely to hit your hotel along the coast in the next day, would you be concerned? Or would you tell us you are trusting science to produce results and divert the hurricane away from you?

I agree the hurricane is coming--but you are proposing hiding from the wind in the basement.

But we cannot simply say, "We need nuclear power to save us. We want nuclear power to save us. Therefore nuclear power will save us." That is a religious statement, not a scientific statement.

Do you agree that, when we seek to understand if science can do something, we should go by the best available science to tell us the likelihood that science can do it, rather than having blind faith that science can do anything we want?

But this is exactly what you're doing with your green answer. You're taking it on faith that your answer works and we can see it doesn't.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think Bilby means that population increase BY ITSELF is not a problem, since our best current projections predict population growth is scheduled to level off later this century and then decline (and decline has its own problems, as Japan is finding out). The problems lie elsewhere.

We have been over this many times in this thread. Yes, the UN says population will level off at about 130% of the current population, and perhaps even start to decline.

The problem is that we are already in overshoot. The Global Footprint Network calculates that it would take 1.75 planets to sustainably support us. We continue on, but the overshoot is rapidly deteriorating our planet.

If future population rises 30%, and our average footprint per person remains the same, we end up needing 2.25 planets to support us all. If affluence also increases in that timeframe we could easily get to the point of needing 3 planets.

This still pretends that there is a sustainable rate of resource production. For many there is not. No matter how many times you try to derive from a false premise you can never reach the truth.

No, the Ecological Footprint calculation has nothing to do with the decline of non-renewable resources. They admit that we will eventually run out of non-renewables. That is not their immediate concern. Their concern is that we are using renewables faster than they can be replaced, and are adding CO2 faster than it can be absorbed.

If you want to tell us what the Global Footprint Network says, please read what the proponents write. Nobody can become an authority on what the Global Footprint Network proponents write unless they first read what they write. In my writeup, I provide 3 helpful links for anybody who wants to understand them.

The Global Footprint Network has been actively monitoring our impact on this planet for decades, using a method that calculates the Ecological Footprint in global hectares (about 2.5 acres) that each nation needs to support its lifestyle. We can add it all up to see the total impact on the planet as a whole (Wackernagel, 2002; Lin, 2018). We can then compare this to the productive land in the nations and the planet. The Global Footprint Network concluded that, in 1970, we went into overshoot, that it then required more than one Earth-sized planet to support us all. But the effects were not immediate. And so, we could continue to grow. And now, 53 years later, the Global Footprint Network concludes that it would take 1.72 Earths to support humanity without overshoot. That delay in reckoning has allowed us to soar high above the limit. If we wanted to get back to the place where we had first stressed the planet as much as it could withstand, we must either have the population drop to 58% of today’s population at today’s lifestyle or reduce our impact per person such that we average 58% of the impact per person that we have today. -- https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/

You continue to focus on one metric that doesn't really have that much relationship to our survival. You're searching for your keys under the streetlight.

 

[DBT]

Tipping point/overshoot is basically a matter of consumption rate in relation to population numbers.

Even with a relatively small percentage of the population, we have too many overconsumers.

 

[Millrat]

Of course I agree that nuclear works. I have told you several times that we should be doing more to build nuclear plants. Why would I be asking for more nuclear plants if I didn't think they worked?

The problem, once again, is that it appears that they do not work well enough to economically they are not popular enough to politically provide our future needs.

FTFY.

This is the claim that you have repeated many times. I have asked you what evidence you have. You never seem to come up with any evidence. You just endlessly repeat the claim. This sure looks to me like, "I want nuclear to solve our problems. I need nuclear to solve our problems. Therefore it will." If you have evidence, please show it.

For the record, I had ChatGPT DALL E (my new toy) draw a picture of government regulators arguing against nuclear construction and idling the equipment. How did it do? If you like it, you can keep it as my gift to you.

View attachment 45399

Certainly this should be the heyday of nuclear construction. We have known for decades that we will need to phase out fossil fuels in the coming years. Nuclear is a mature technology. We have had nuclear power plants for 70 years, which is a longer timespan than the time from the Wright Brother's flight to the landing on the moon. Certainly the technology has had time to mature. The need is urgent. And we still have plenty of diesel fuel to power the equipment and fossil fuels for industrial heating processes to build the components. Surely this should be the day of nuclear.

And yet the production in the United States is dismal. We recently built the first nuclear plant in seven years. Meanwhile many existing plants are being retired. Worldwide we see the same thing. Nobody is making a significant investment in nuclear, except for China, and they are investing in any energy technology under the sun. They are building two new coal plants a week. . So even they do not see nuclear as the energy of the future. They prefer--uh--coal!

If nuclear is such a bargain, and is restricted only my government and grassroots resistance, why is it that nobody in the world catches on that nuclear is so urgently needed? Why is nobody going all-in?

I have provided multiple links that show the economic woes of nuclear today. Throughout the world, people are having troubles running nuclear economically. And this occurs even when diesel fuel and coal is readily available to build and run the facilities. Where will nuclear be if we need to rely solely on it?

l am for the construction of nuclear plants. Most of us here are for the construction of nuclear plants. But none of that means anything if the people that could build them decide it is not economical to build them.

Yes, we can take it by blind faith that our nuclear god will save us, and that the only thing holding this back is the devil himself, government regulators. But so far I have seen nothing from you that documents this claim is anything other than a faith claim.

Where is your evidence?

This has already been explained to you at some length.

Your picture would be more accurate if you asked for the reactor building to be constructed out of straw.

 

[Merle]

Your picture would be more accurate if you asked for the reactor building to be constructed out of straw.

Like this one better?



Image by ChatGPT DALL-E

 

[Merle]

Or, if you prefer, we could build our reactor out of rocks.

Nuclear reactors are such simple technology that they can occur (and have occurred) naturally...

4) Shielding (it's just a big pile of rocks. We stick those rocks together, to stop them from moving; That's called "concrete". The Romans used it to build loads of stuff, including the Collosseum, and they didn't need a single piece of fossil fuel burning equipment to do so).

5) Orderliness (We stack the components up neatly, rather than just heap them up any old how and hope that some of them end up in the right configuration).

Image by ChatGPT DALL-E