Most people seem to think, “The difference between models and myths is that models are scientific, and myths are the conjectures of primitive people who do not have access to scientific thinking and computers. With scientific models, we have moved far beyond myths.” It seems to me that the truth is quite different from this.
History shows a repeated pattern of overshoot and collapse. William Catton wrote about this issue in his highly acclaimed 1980 book, Overshoot.
Figure 1. Depiction of Overshoot and Collapse by Paul Chefurka
What politicians, economists, and academic book publishers would like us to believe is that the world is full of limitless possibilities. World population can continue to rise. World leaders are in charge. Our big problem, if we believe today’s models, is that humans are consuming fossil fuel at too high a rate. If we cannot quickly transition to a low carbon economy, perhaps based on wind, solar and hydroelectric, the climate will change uncontrollably. The problem will then be all our fault. The story, supposedly based on scientific models, has almost become a new religion.
Recent Attempted Shifts to Wind, Solar and Hydroelectric Are Working Poorly
Of course, if we check to see what has happened when economies have actually attempted to switch to wind, water and hydroelectric, we see one bad outcome after another.
[1] Australia’s attempt to put renewable electricity on the grid has sent electricity prices skyrocketing and resulted in increased blackouts. It has been said that intermittent electricity has “wrecked the grid” in Australia.
[2] California, with all of its renewables, has badly neglected its grid, leading to many damaging wildfires. Renewables need disproportionately more long distance transmission, partly because they tend to be located away from population centers and partly because transmission must be scaled for peak use. It is evident that California has not been collecting a high enough price for electricity to cover the full cost of grid maintenance and upgrades.
Figure 2. California electricity consumption including amounts imported from out of state, based on EIA data. Amounts shown are average daily amounts, by month.
[3] The International Rivers Organization writes that Large Dams Just Aren’t Worth the Cost. Part of the problem is the huge number of people who must be moved from their ancestral homeland and their inability to adapt well to their new location. Part of the problem is the environmental damage caused by the dams. To make matters worse, a study of 245 large dams built between 1934 and 2007 showed that without even taking into account social and environmental impacts, the actual construction costs were too high to yield a positive return.
Developed economies have made hydroelectric power work adequately in areas with significant snow melt. At this point, evidence is lacking that large hydroelectric dams work well elsewhere. Significant variation in rainfall (year-to-year or seasonally) seems to be particularly problematic, because without fossil fuel backup, businesses cannot rely on year-around electricity supply.
The Pattern of Overshoot and Collapse Is Well-Established
Back in 1974, Henry Kissinger said in an interview:
I think of myself as a historian more than as a statesman. As a historian, you have to be conscious of the fact that every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. [Emphasis added.]
History is a tale of efforts that failed, of aspirations that weren’t realized, of wishes that were fulfilled and then turned out to be different from what one expected. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy. As a statesman, one has to act on the assumption that problems must be solved.
Historians tend to define collapse more broadly than “the top level of government disappearing.” Collapse includes many ways of an economy failing. It includes losing at war, population decline because of epidemics, governments overthrown by internal dissent, and governments that cannot repay debt with interest, and failing for this reason.
A basic issue that often underlies collapse is falling average resources per person. These falling average resources per person can take several forms:
- Population rises, but land available for farming doesn’t rise.
- Mines and wells deplete, requiring more effort for extraction.
- Soil erodes or becomes polluted with salt, reducing crop yields.
One of the other issues is that as resources per capita become stretched, it becomes harder and harder to set aside a margin for a “rainy day” or a drought. Thus, weather or climate variations may push an economy over the edge, as resources per person become more stretched.
Scientific Models Too Often Prove Whatever the Grant Provider Wants Proven
It is incredibly difficult to figure out what the future will hold. Our experience is almost entirely with a growing economy. It is easy to accidentally build this past experience into a model of the future, even when we are trying to make realistic assumptions. For example, when making pension models in the early 1980s, actuaries would see interest rates of 10% and assume that interest rates could remain this high indefinitely.
The question of whether prices will rise to allow future energy extraction is another problematic area. If we believe standard economic theory, prices can be expected to rise when resources are in short supply. But if we look at Revelation 18: 11-17, we find that when Babylon collapsed, the problem was low prices and lack of demand. There were not even buyers for slaves, and these were the energy product of the day. The Great Depression of the 1930s showed a similar low-price pattern. Today’s economic model seems to need refinement, if it is to account for how prices really seem to behave in collapses.
If there is an issue that is difficult to evaluate in making a forecast, the easiest approach for researchers to take is to omit it. For example, the intermittency of wind and solar can effectively be left out by assuming that (a) the different types of intermittency will cancel out, or (b) intermittency will be inexpensive to fix or (c) intermittency will be handled by a different part of the research project.
To further complicate matters, researchers often find that their compensation is tied to their ability to get grants to fund their research. These research grants have been put together by organizations that are concerned about the future. These organizations are looking for research that will match their understanding of today’s problems and their proposed solutions for the future.
A person can guess how this arrangement tends to work out. Any researcher who points out endless problems, or says that the proposed solution is impossible, won’t get funding. To get funding, at least some partial solution must be provided along the lines outlined in the Request for Proposal, regardless of how unlikely the proposed solution is. Research showing that the grant-writer’s view of the future is not really correct is left to retired researchers and others willing to work for little compensation. All too often, published research tends to say whatever the groups funding the research studies want the studies to say.
Myths Are of Many Types; Many Are Aimed at Giving Good Advice
The fact that myths have survived through the ages lets us know that at least some people found the insights that they provided were worthwhile.
If an ancient people did not know how the earth and the people on it came into being, they would likely come up with a myth explaining the situation. Most of us today would not believe myths about Thor, for example, but (as far as we know) no one was being paid to put together stories about Thor and how powerful he was. The myths were stories that people found sufficiently useful and entertaining to pass along. In some sense, this background gives these stories more value than a paper written in order to obtain funds provided by a research grant.
Some myths relate to what types of activities by humans were desirable or undesirable. For example, the people in Uganda have traditional folklore about a moral monster that is used to teach children the dangers of craftiness and deceit. My sister who visited Uganda reported that where she visited, people believed that people who stole someone else’s crops were likely to get sick. Most of us wouldn’t think that this story was really right, but it has a moral purpose behind it. There are no doubt many myths of this type. They have been passed on because passing them on seemed to serve a purpose.
Clearly, which actions are desirable or undesirable changes over time. For example, Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:11 seem to condemn wearing fabrics that are a mix of linen and wool. Today, we use many fabrics that are mixes of two types of yarns. Perhaps there was a problem with different amounts of shrinkage. Today, our issues are different. Perhaps myths associated with issues such as these need to be discarded, because they are not relevant anymore.
How about myths of an afterlife? Things on earth don’t necessarily go well. The promise of a favorable afterlife has a definite appeal. Some people would even like a story in which people who don’t act in the desired manner are punished. Some religions seem to provide such an ending as well.
Follow a Religion Based on Scientific Models, or Based on Myth, or Neither?
Nature’s solutions and mankind’s solutions in a finite world both involve complexity, but the two types of complexity are very different.
Mankind’s solutions seem to involve more and more devices using an increased amount of resources and debt. The overhead of the system becomes greater and greater as the economy increasingly shifts toward robots and owners/overseers of the robots. The big problem that can be expected to develop comes from not having enough purchasers who can afford to purchase the end products created by this system. In fact, we seem to already be reaching an era of too much wage disparity and too much wealth disparity. Eventually, such a system can be expected to collapse under its own weight.
We can already see signs that wind and solar are not scalable to the extent that people would like them to be. Together, they currently comprise only 3% of the world’s energy supply. We need very large supplies of energy to provide food, housing, and transportation for 7.7 billion people.
Figure 3. World Energy Consumption by Fuel, based on data of 2019 BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
Regardless of what politicians would like proven, nature doesn’t move in a constant path upward. Instead, nature provides a self-organizing system of individual parts, none of which is permanent. Humans are temporary residents of this earth. Businesses are temporary, and the products they sell are constantly changing and adapting. Governments are temporary. Weather patterns are also temporary. Religions are constantly changing and adapting, and new ones are formed.
Nature’s way doesn’t seem to require much overhead. Over the long run, it seems to be much more permanent than mankind’s attempts at solutions. As the system changes, each replacement differs in random ways from previous systems of a particular type. The best adapted replacements survive, without the need for excessive overhead to the system.
We may or may not agree with the religions that have formed over the years in the self-organizing way that nature provides. The fact that religions have stayed around indicates that at least for some people, they continue to play a significant role. If nothing else, religious groups often provide social gatherings with others in the area. This provides an opportunity for friendship. In some cases, it will allow people to find potential marriage partners who are not closely related.
One of the roles of religions is to pass down “best practices.” These will change over time so some will need to be discarded and changed. For example, in some eras, it will be optimal for women to have several children. In others, it will make sense to have only one or two.
The book, Oneness: Great Principles Shared by All Religions by Jeffrey Moses, lists 64 principles shared by several religions. Of course, not all religions agree on all of these 64 principles. Instead, there seems to be a great deal of overlap in what religions of the world teach. Some sample truths include “The Golden Rule,” it is “Blessed to Forgive,” “Seek and Ye Shall Find,” and “There Are Many Paths to God.” This type of advice can be helpful for people.
People will differ on whether it makes sense to believe that there really is an afterlife. There may very well be; we can’t know for certain. At least this is better odds than the knowledge that all earthly civilizations have eventually failed.
I personally have found belonging to and attending an ELCA Lutheran Church to be helpful. I find its earthly benefits to be sufficient, whether or not there is an afterlife. I will, of course, be attending around Christmas time. I will also be getting together with family.
I recognize, too, that not everyone is interested in one of the traditional religions. Some would even like to believe that with our advanced science, we can now find a way around every problem that confronts us. Perhaps this time is different. Perhaps this time, world leaders, with their love for overhead-heavy solutions, will finally discover a solution that can produce long-term growth on a finite earth. Perhaps energy from fusion is around the corner. Wish! Wish!
My wish to you is that you have Happy Holidays, of whatever types you choose to celebrate!
I thought this was an interesting article on what they believe will be difficult conditions for the German aviation market in 2020.
https://simpleflying.com/german-aviation-will-suffer-from-a-harsh-market-in-2020/
Peak Walrus, not CC, drove the vikings off Greenland.
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2020/01/over-hunting-walruses-contributed-to-the-collapse-of-norse-greenland-study-suggests/125258
“An overreliance on walrus ivory was not the only factor in Norse Greenland’s demise. However, if both the population and price of walrus started to tumble, it must have badly undermined the resilience of the settlements,”
What does that remind me of?
Sorry but this is an overly reductive analysis. Any climate data shows that the climate was a massive factor; the medieval warm period ended and areas that were lush pastures became basically tundra. Additionally with the economic slowdown associated with that cooling, the shipping and trading that the Greenland colonies relied on with Iceland and Norway largely dried up.
I think you describe the mainstream view of greenlands fall.
What did greenland export?
If they ate mostly seals, did the cooling really matter for food?
Agreed, but the quote started out by admitting that “peak walrun” “was not the only factor…”
I’d read that the Norse settlers were almost exclusively farmers, and one big factor was their failure to fish.
No doubt that, like today’s situation, a number of factors came together simultaneously. Does it really matter which factor was the straw that broke the camel’s back? When a population overshoots its resource base, it is often one factor that seems to be the “keystone,” and yet, other factors are waiting in the wings — Liebig’s Minimum principle.
Does anyone here really think that, if 8,000,000,000 clever hairless apes were given a second shot at what appears (at the time) to be limitless energy, we’d be able to avoid hitting other limits?
“Greenland’s Viking settlers feasted on seals, then left.”
https://sciencenordic.com/archaeology-denmark-food/greenlands-viking-settlers-feasted-on-seals-then-left/1379411
True, false or inbetween, I found the theory they st matthews/easter islanded themselves, not just being victims of nature, interesting.
Ok, Easter Island with a life boat.
Like we’re gonna go to Mars when this is no longer viable.
It’s 2020. Gail, overall, are you surprised that the world is doing as well as it is?
Self-organizing systems seem to operate in ways that constantly surprise. I had originally thought that when the effect of the US tax cut wore off, there would be more of an adverse effect on the world/US economy than there was. But there seem to be a lot of other things going on at the same time which affect things too. Interest rate changes, currency relativity changes, and US state level tax changes are some of these. So yes, the economy has hung on better than I might have expected.
I think that economic development will be very uneven in 2020, as the stresses on the world economy get worse.
Will the stresses manifest themselves profoundly before say ~ Nov 2020 though?
I doubt it, also given the above Harry’s links about next “visible” QE rounds commencing around the world.. not mentioning the plethora of other more or less under the table/behind the scene lift athlons and stimuli going on like Donkey Kong..
The myth that does the most damage to our planet and our species is that our systems of government and economics work for the common good. This is not true. Our species has two living varieties: tyranni and democrati. Democrati are timid, unselfish and naturally work for the common good. Tyranni are aggressive, selfish, and naturally work against it. When tyranni naturally, aggressively, push forward to take power, democrati naturally, unselfishly, step back to let them pass. Tyranni then use their power to cause great harm to society. This enables tyranni to mistreat seven hated groups in our population: the not-white, not-male, not-Christian, not-heterosexual, not-well-to-do, not-native-born and the disabled. Tyranni are now working to create an eighth hated group: school children. Any government that enables the murder by gunshot of its children while they are in school, at their desks, studying for that wonderful day when they will graduate and finally have the liberty to live their own lives while they pursue their own happiness, is a government that has forever forfeited its right to rule.
But tyranni will continue to rule and continue to destroy our planet and the life it harbors. This is why nobody is doing anything about global warming. Our government has, with rare exceptions, always worked against the common good. It is a myth to say otherwise.
There are probably “expansion” and “contraction” forces that go on everywhere around the world. Your particular view seems to come from the culture you are in. The particular groups at risk will vary around the globe.
If energy consumption per capita is rising, the “expansion” forces can be dominant. If energy consumption per capita is falling, the “contraction” forces will likely be dominant.
Most of us would probably not like the contraction forces but, unfortunately, such contraction seems to be an outgrowth of the energy-based system that we live in. These non-democratic forces enable the possibility of a remnant holding on, even as total energy consumption per capita falls. You talk about forces associated with contraction as “tyranni,” but unfortunately, that is the way it is. The vulnerable get marginalized when energy consumption per capita falls.
I would add “the elderly” to the list of vulnerable groups that might get marginalized. Anyone who is not a full contributor to today’s economy would seem to be at risk.
I hear you in general, but I think this is a gross simplification.
There are numerous commenters on this blog who could, by no stretch, be described as “tyranni,” and yet they express a reluctance to give up all the Earth-harming things that are delivered by the “tyranni” to the masses.
Like the woman who stays with the wife-beating man — even while complaining about it — it’s classic co-dependence.
Don’t like how you are treated by the “tyranni?” Go to a mirror and take a good, long, look at them. Then back away from the shiny new iThingy, and go plant some food.
(Yea, it’s tough. I just got a 3D printer, justifying that I could make parts with it to fix things.)
Does the 3D printer print plastic or metal?
Unfortunately, plastic. But it can do something similar to the “lost wax” process in order to make cast metal parts.
My war is primarily with single-use plastic. I think responsible use of plastic — which pre-dates petroleum-based plastic, by the way — is not necessarily a bad thing, and is much preferable to simply burning up petroleum.
Imo 3d printers are toys. Limited use for prototyping ala dimension check to real world. People watched “tea earl gray hot” too many times. To give polymers any strength they need a bit of fiber. aluminum is easy to machine and is hell of a material. Machining steel takes some power and some machining skills. Any fool can machine aluminum to 5 or ten thousands. As you mentioned its all fantasy role playing anyway so no matter. Master blaster had a 3d printer.
Force seems to require hate
Words are used to create imagry that create
enemies
Identification group as victim
Your post is a textbook example albeit unusually bizarre.
True compassion values all of us.
Identity politics is an exercise in intolerance and hate. A self justifying imaginary fantasy creation of hate.
“Top central banks will sweep up bonds worth hundreds of billions of pounds to kick-start growth again in 2020 in their latest unprecedented intervention into financial markets.
“The balance sheets of the four main central banks in the eurozone, US, Japan and UK are collectively expected to swell to more than £12 trillion by the end of 2020 after policymakers resorted to rebooting their quantitative easing (QE) programmes.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/06/central-banks-unleash-billions-qe-rebooted/
“Two monetary-policy experts, contradicting former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, said they wanted the central bank to consider new “radical” approaches to fight the next recession, out of a concern that existing tools might not be as effective as they were in the last crisis.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/experts-doubt-fed-has-all-the-tools-it-needs-to-fight-recession-2020-01-05?link=MW_latest_news
“China moved to pump more cash into its financial system, suggesting that Beijing remained concerned about faltering growth… the People’s Bank of China, announced that it would inject about US$115 billion into the economy by freeing up banks to lend more money.”
https://en.mercopress.com/2020/01/04/china-pumps-an-extra-us-115bn-stimulus-to-the-economy-effective-monday
The article seems to suggest that China is doing pretty much what is did one year ago, back before the Lunar New Year last year. A person wonders why this time the result will be better.
“Bernanke said he thought QE, and verbal guidance from the Fed, would be equivalent to a 300-basis-point easing of the central bank’s benchmark federal funds rate.”
Also, there seems to be a technique called yield-curve control that Japan has tried, that seems to be helpful, according to the article.
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A huge article of enormous importance just posted at the Saker blog by Michael Hudson:
http://thesaker.is/america-escalates-its-democratic-oil-war-in-the-near-east/?inmoderation
a small morsel to chew on!!!!!!!
Oil is the key, because it is imported by U.S. companies at almost no balance-of-payments cost (the payments end up in the oil industry’s head offices here as profits and payments to management), while profits on U.S. oil company sales to other countries are remitted to the United States (via offshore tax-avoidance centers, mainly Liberia and Panama for many years). And as noted above, OPEC countries have been told to keep their official reserves in the form of U.S. securities (stocks and bonds as well as Treasury IOUs, but not direct purchase of U.S. companies being deemed economically important). Financially, OPEC countries are client slates of the Dollar Area.
Thanks! I don’t watch politics closely enough to understand all of this.
I think getting the price of oil up was a major motivation for the attack. Trying to assert the US control of the Middle East was probably another major reason.
The price of oil now is so low that I find it hard to believe that oil profits, and where they are located, have anything to do with anything. Other than, of course, the need to get the price of oil higher. If the price of oil is higher, it will make more sense to pump US oil out.
WTI $64
Brent $70
“new highs for 2020” haha…
but still below the 2019 highs 66 and 75…
looks like those highs will be surpassed soon, but with higher or with lower prices, either way the economy is heading for De-Growth in the 2020s…
“The U.S. airstrike that killed a powerful Iranian general and heightened tensions in the oil-rich region could boost the fortunes of troubled North American energy companies.”
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2020/1/3/iran-driven-oil-rally-is-a-boon-to-troubled-us-producers
But the flip side is that Trump is aware that higher oil prices hurt consumers and has spoken out on this issue before. From Feb 2019:
““Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy. World cannot take a price hike – fragile!” the president said in an early morning tweet.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/25/oil-falls-after-trump-says-prices-are-too-high-and-tells-opec-the-world-cannot-take-a-price-hike.html
On February 24, 2019, WTI oil price was $57 and Brent was about $67.
So the prices were lower than they are now, and lower than they were later in the year.
I understand that a leader needs to try to keep peace and try to be empathetic. This seems to require sympathizing with both sides when there are oil price problems. Thus, Trump’s flip-flops seem to serve a useful purpose.
Ah, there’s the rub.
I’m not much on conspiracy theories. I seriously doubt Trump and his minions, including the oil industry, thought this up in some smoke-filled room.
But I’ll bet people smarter that Trump are all too willing to cater to his narcissism to get what they want.
Washington is nothing but a conspiracy. Every meeting with an elected official and a lobbyist is to conspire about the “favor” that Corp X wil receive for it’s “campaign contribution”. It’s no theory. It’s fact. The smoke filled room is surely gone but so is the horse and buggy.
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