The Story of Stuff

[WIP]

That's not an alternative, that's a problem. And economics is about overcoming problems.

And our present system of globalized, consumer-driven...or perhaps more correctly - debt-driven capitalism is an extremely wasteful system for supplying goods and services.

It's more than a handful of examples. Humans have been finding more efficient ways to do things, and ways around expensive materials and practices since civilization began.

Well, it's not good enough! Until I hear about new inventions that are going to reduce water use, soil depletion, while increasing crop yields, new inventions are not going to fix the problem....and most new technologies have increased resource use, not reduced it.

You're focusing on today's problems as if they won't ever be solved. Again, look at history.

They won't be solved as long as most people are ignorant of what we are heading towards, and policy-makers think they can solve the problems by tweaking and adjusting the dials of globalized capitalism. Jared Diamond asks as question in his book "Collapse" about the disappearance of the Easter Islanders who built those giant head statues that could be asked today: "Why didn’t they look around, realize what they were doing, and stop before it was too late? What were the Easter Islanders thinking when they cut down the last tree?" And the answer is probably that they would somehow get by and continue on what they were doing.....just like people today!

As for population growth, there's no reason to think that it won't be curbed.

The issue is not whether population growth will be curbed...it will be curbed one way or the other! The point that escapes all of the policy-makers focused on short term needs, is that the world's population is already three times a permanently sustainable level. The longer we maintain too high a population, that uses too much of our resource base, the more the sustainable population level will drop, because of a simple population dynamic called overshoot...wherein it was observed that isolated animal populations free of predators would not consume a sustainable level of food supplies, but instead overconsume until a total collapse of food supply caused starvation and forced migration from their ideal location. And guess what? Looking at simple resource availability statistics from soil erosion rates, declining water supplies, depleting natural resources...like oil...we are doing exactly what every other animal does which has been freed from the predator/prey cycle in nature. Current Population is Three Times the Sustainable Level

Again - doom and gloom. We've been hearing it for 40 years now, yet the percentage of the world that is hungry continues to fall, the number of countries that have opened themselves to trade, and improved standard of living for its citizens increases.

So have I! And how long is 40 years, when we're talking about Earth history? Many climatologists studying the changes consider the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution about 10,000 years ago to be the beginning of what's called the Anthropocene Era; since the slow, gradual growth in human population, which often used slash and burn agriculture, correlates with the loss of forests and decline and extinction of many large animal species. Certainly the effects since the Industrial Revolution are more pronounced: atmospheric CO2 levels, which are now over 392 ppm, started rising above 280 at the dawn of the industrial age. CO2 levels over 300 can be correlated with the decline in sea ice, and large scale species extinctions really started taking off in the last century....which has seen the greatest increase in human population and changes to the atmosphere. So, putting this issue in proper perspective, saying 'I heard it 40 years ago...it's old news' is ignorance of where we are and how we got here.

Some predictions have had to be adjusted down, like population growth rates, while others like resource use, and greenhouse gas levels are accelerating.

[WIP]

Reality check: more stuff equals fewer babies. If you care about overpopulation you should want to see the world develop as quickly as possible.

The decline in population correlates more closely with birth control use than it does with anything you can find in modernization. When women have free access to birth control and the abortion option, birth rate numbers drop. The stalling and rebounding in some countries in Africa, Latin America and the MiddleEast correlates with the reactionary return to power of conservative religious forces who ban their use. But even with the meddling of patriarchal clerics, when they become aware of the crisis in overpopulation, some of them...like the Ayatollahs in Iran, all of a sudden find ways to sanctify birth control. So, even in a theocracy like Iran, birth rates have been cut in half after realized the mess overpopulation was causing.

An unsupported assertion on your part. In a free market economy scarcity leads to price increases and a change in consumption patterns. As resources deplete this will naturally lead to many of the changes that you seek but the changes will occur without any special government intervetion or moralizing.

It's funny how this natural evolutionary process of capitalist economics is considered so efficient, while no biologist would make a contention that the same process in the development of life is an efficient process....suboptimal design for example. The basic premise of free enterprise is questionable from the start, since unrestrained business desires to get larger and eventually large enough to build monopolies and take the "free" out of the free market.

[TimG]

The decline in population correlates more closely with birth control use than it does with anything you can find in modernization.

It correlates with education of women which correlates with wealth. Buying stuff you don't necessarily need also correlates with wealth. I don't think you can seperate one from the other.

No one said it was efficient. It simply works. This makes it better than any 'doom-to-fail' attempt at central planning.

Edited April 18, 2011 by TimG

[Michael Hardner]

And our present system of globalized, consumer-driven...or perhaps more correctly - debt-driven capitalism is an extremely wasteful system for supplying goods and services.

We're back where we started.

Suggest an alternative.

Well, it's not good enough! Until I hear about new inventions that are going to reduce water use, soil depletion, while increasing crop yields, new inventions are not going to fix the problem....and most new technologies have increased resource use, not reduced it.

New inventions most definitely reduce use of resources.

Hybrid cars for example reduce the use of gasoline. There are many examples of power saving devices, water saving devices, and labour saving devices too so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

They won't be solved as long as most people are ignorant of what we are heading towards, and policy-makers think they can solve the problems by tweaking and adjusting the dials of globalized capitalism. Jared Diamond asks as question in his book "Collapse" about the disappearance of the Easter Islanders who built those giant head statues that could be asked today: "Why didn’t they look around, realize what they were doing, and stop before it was too late? What were the Easter Islanders thinking when they cut down the last tree?" And the answer is probably that they would somehow get by and continue on what they were doing.....just like people today!

Honestly, I think that doom-and-gloom and impending-disaster cries fall on deaf ears.

Diamond actually explained how that last tree was cut down in terms of the collective memory of the local tribes, if you remember. Since deforestation happened over generations, nobody had a full realization of what was happening.

We don't have that problem today as collected memory is stored over generations in the form of scientific studies, recorded media such as video, print and online.

The issue is not whether population growth will be curbed...it will be curbed one way or the other! The point that escapes all of the policy-makers focused on short term needs, is that the world's population is already three times a permanently sustainable level. The longer we maintain too high a population, that uses too much of our resource base, the more the sustainable population level will drop, because of a simple population dynamic called overshoot...wherein it was observed that isolated animal populations free of predators would not consume a sustainable level of food supplies, but instead overconsume until a total collapse of food supply caused starvation and forced migration from their ideal location. And guess what? Looking at simple resource availability statistics from soil erosion rates, declining water supplies, depleting natural resources...like oil...we are doing exactly what every other animal does which has been freed from the predator/prey cycle in nature. Current Population is Three Times the Sustainable Level

Your link doesn't state where they got their numbers from. My link quotes a UN study. Don't believe everything you read.

Again, material wealth and personal freedom is continuously on the rise. Things are getting better all the time.

So have I! And how long is 40 years, when we're talking about Earth history?

It's two generations, or enough to make people stop listening. You have to be more discerning when you're reading these things. There is cause for alarm on many fronts, but that link you provided just puts a bunch of facts out there without supporting them - that should be a red flag for any thinking reader.

Secondly, even when you have an agreed-upon point of concern - such as Global Warming - the effects aren't always agreed upon, or the economic effects. Think and read, read and think.

[Bonam]

The issue is not whether population growth will be curbed...it will be curbed one way or the other! The point that escapes all of the policy-makers focused on short term needs, is that the world's population is already three times a permanently sustainable level.

How many people the Earth can sustain depends on technology, which makes available resources that are otherwise not accessible. For example, the link talks about fresh water aquifiers and how these are being depleted, and so people won't have enough drinking water. What it fails to mention is the technologies already exist to provide drinking water even in the complete lack of natural fresh water: desalination plants and atmospheric condensers. The same can be said of food, if we run out of natural arable land, food can be mass produced in hydroponic facilities and by other artificial means. As for energy, we've barely begun to tap the tiniest fraction of the available energy, whether it is solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, fission, or fusion. Through the use of current and future technology, the Earth will be able to sustain far more people than it does today. Barring an unforeseeable calamity (apocalyptic nuclear war or massive asteroid impact) that ends advanced civilization, our continued progress in technology will allow tens if not hundreds of billions of people to be supported on Earth, whether or not our population ever actually grows that large. And, there's always migration to non-Earth locations to consider in the future.

The reality is, for prognosticating any trends over more than the next 10-20 years, by far the dominant effect will be technological change. Trying to extrapolate modern social, economic, or environmental trends with the underlying assumption that technology will not play an impact on them over the next few hundred years is the worst possible kind of fallacy.

[Moonlight Graham]

Retiring to do what? To replace "stuff" with knitting? No thanks.

To do whatever you want. I guess how much retirement is appealing to people largely depends on how much satisfaction they get out of their jobs.

[WIP]

We're back where we started.

Suggest an alternative.

The alternative is Zero Growth

New inventions most definitely reduce use of resources.

Hybrid cars for example reduce the use of gasoline. There are many examples of power saving devices, water saving devices, and labour saving devices too so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Honestly, I think that doom-and-gloom and impending-disaster cries fall on deaf ears.

And even if they do, that doesn't make the problems go away.

Diamond actually explained how that last tree was cut down in terms of the collective memory of the local tribes, if you remember. Since deforestation happened over generations, nobody had a full realization of what was happening.

He's taking a little bit of artistic license there, since that first population crash took place before the arrival of Capt. Cook, and there hieroglyph symbols are mostly unknown.

We don't have that problem today as collected memory is stored over generations in the form of scientific studies, recorded media such as video, print and online.

And yet we have the evidence that we are changing the climate to our detriment, and using up topsoil and fresh water at unsustainable levels, and yet nothing of substance is done to address the problems of high population and increasing resource use. That's why Jared Diamond finds the example of Easter Island so similar to the world situation today.

Your link doesn't state where they got their numbers from. My link quotes a UN study. Don't believe everything you read.

The basics are simple: we have an economy dependent on continuous growth, a growing population that is using up natural resources at increasing rates...and we still live on a finite planet! That should explain most of what needs to be explained about the need to find a way to live on this planet without doing what most species do when they are unrestrained -- grow in numbers until lack of food and disease causes the population to crash, and threatens extinction. The fact that we are a species that has thousands of nuclear warheads, means that it would be a good time to use those higher cognitive centers in the brain to make a break from doing what comes naturally.

Again, material wealth and personal freedom is continuously on the rise. Things are getting better all the time.

See above.

It's two generations, or enough to make people stop listening. You have to be more discerning when you're reading these things. There is cause for alarm on many fronts, but that link you provided just puts a bunch of facts out there without supporting them - that should be a red flag for any thinking reader.

There were plenty of sources on the links page. The problem is that many of them lead to copyrighted material or require membership for full access, but the basic information about the problems has been repeated many times over the last few years, and the fundamentals keep popping up on a regular basis on many mainstream news sites.

World Watch Institute

Water: Will There Be Enough?

Secondly, even when you have an agreed-upon point of concern - such as Global Warming - the effects aren't always agreed upon, or the economic effects. Think and read, read and think.

Oh, don't tell you're "teaching the controversy!" The only facts that haven't been agreed upon are how fast the changes will occur. And the fact that climate models have underestimated the temperature and CO2 increases, meaning that we moving faster down the road to destruction.

Edited April 20, 2011 by WIP

[Michael Hardner]

You did post an alternative, so thanks for that.

From your source, they advocate a world freeze on growth, then add:

To carry out this proposal does not require a world government. If not carried out under the aegis of the United Nations, it could be organized through international consortiums for the various materials, similar to OPEC but more all encompassing and with a different mission. Enforcement would be assured through the commercial, and if necessary, military power of the leading industrialized nations. The implementation, and the success, of the plan does, of course, depend on overwhelming global support for the concept.

I'm going to be generous and just say that this plan is not realistic.

Any plan for changing something that is so intrinsic to human life as our economic system needs a little more complexity. How about changing our money systems so that scarcity is factored into every economic exchange ? That would deal with scarcity - which appears to be the real concern here, not "growth".

That would allow capitalism to continue, while paying for long term costs. Now, how would that be implemented ?

Oh, don't tell you're "teaching the controversy!" The only facts that haven't been agreed upon are how fast the changes will occur. And the fact that climate models have underestimated the temperature and CO2 increases, meaning that we moving faster down the road to destruction.

The effects of warming on people are actually far more contentious than the question of whether warming is happening.

[WIP]

How many people the Earth can sustain depends on technology, which makes available resources that are otherwise not accessible. For example, the link talks about fresh water aquifiers and how these are being depleted, and so people won't have enough drinking water. What it fails to mention is the technologies already exist to provide drinking water even in the complete lack of natural fresh water: desalination plants and atmospheric condensers.

Yes, but we've talked about desalination before and there still is the problem of cost when doing desalination on a large scale. Unless you've come up with a zero point energy or cold fusion machine, the idea that continued misuse of fresh water resources can be carried on with desalination is ludicrous. And, desalination is not free of environmental impacts, even if it could be produced from free, clean energy, because desalination plants will still produce water pollution and kill marine life. The practical problems of cost can be witnessed in Saudi Arabia today, which has decided that it's dreams of mass irrigation projects to feed its growing population are too expensive, and has gone back to importing its grains from other elsewhere.

The same can be said of food, if we run out of natural arable land, food can be mass produced in hydroponic facilities and by other artificial means. As for energy, we've barely begun to tap the tiniest fraction of the available energy, whether it is solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, fission, or fusion. Through the use of current and future technology, the Earth will be able to sustain far more people than it does today. Barring an unforeseeable calamity (apocalyptic nuclear war or massive asteroid impact) that ends advanced civilization, our continued progress in technology will allow tens if not hundreds of billions of people to be supported on Earth, whether or not our population ever actually grows that large. And, there's always migration to non-Earth locations to consider in the future.

I don't know much about hydroponics; but I do know that nutrient and mineral solutions have to be made to provide the plants with nutrients. It's not like hydroponic systems are providing plants free of any resource requirements from the natural environment. And since they seem to be exclusively indoor systems, how would this replace large scale agriculture?

And then there is the problem that as human population has grown, and our food and resource demands on Earth have increased, that has correlated with a decline in available resources for other animal species...and so, we now find ourselves living in the middle of a mass extinction and loss of biodiversity equal to five major extinctions of the past. How many plant and animal species can be lost, before it impacts on the welfare of the human species? We may be finding out the answer to that question in the coming decades.

The reality is, for prognosticating any trends over more than the next 10-20 years, by far the dominant effect will be technological change. Trying to extrapolate modern social, economic, or environmental trends with the underlying assumption that technology will not play an impact on them over the next few hundred years is the worst possible kind of fallacy.

You seem to have some idea that new inventions will find some magical formula that provides free food from a finite planet. At some point, blind faith in future scientific progress is just as delusional as blind faith in divine salvation.

[WIP]

You did post an alternative, so thanks for that.

From your source, they advocate a world freeze on growth, then add:

I'm going to be generous and just say that this plan is not realistic.

And have you thought about why it doesn't seem realistic? One big problem standing in the way of zero growth and degrowth strategies, is that they do not coincide with the economic wishes of large global corporations that run the world economic system. There seems to be no problems when it comes to expanding GATT and regional trade agreements, but that's about the only international cooperation we find these days. That's a big part of the reason that Zero Growth has largely vanished since the Club Of Rome of 40 years ago discussed the problems facing the world in the Limits To Growth report for the then distant future of the year 2000. How does any attempt at a global cooperative system make any headway (UN sponsored or not) when the only agencies of global power are all in the hands of the big multinational corporations: IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization or the OECD. McGill economics professor Henry Mintzberg provided an example of the corporate tail wagging the dog last week on CBC Sunday Edition, when he reminded us that European concerns about GMO foods were not handled by the World Health Organization, but instead by the WTO! As long as large multinational corporations control the fate of nations, it will be next to impossible to create any effective world bodies that can end wars, enforce climate change regulations, or stop the plundering of non-renewable resources!

Any plan for changing something that is so intrinsic to human life as our economic system needs a little more complexity. How about changing our money systems so that scarcity is factored into every economic exchange ? That would deal with scarcity - which appears to be the real concern here, not "growth".

That would allow capitalism to continue, while paying for long term costs. Now, how would that be implemented ?

That depends on what kind of capitalism you want continued! If you're talking about what we have now, taxing waste and promoting conservations would help, just as taxing carbon would help factor in the externalized costs of coal, oil and natural gas; but that might slow down the race to destruction, but it would not be a permanent solution, since a growth based economic system would eventually be straining the limits of what the Earth's resources can provide. The only option other than gradual decline in resource use is to do what comes naturally, and push those upper limits until a crash causes a massive die-off and threatens extinction.

The effects of warming on people are actually far more contentious than the question of whether warming is happening.

This must be a riddle or something! Because the only dispute over how people will be affected by climate change is how badly we will be affected. The basic rule of thumb is that for every one degree rise in global temperature, there will be a 10% decline in agricultural output, and a 7% increase in the amount of precipitation in the atmosphere....which is why storms become more intense. And then there is sea level rise, which will start to take off later in this century as ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica move out to sea and flood coastal areas where much of the world's population presently lives. So what is there to be contentious about?

[TimG]

Because the only dispute over how people will be affected by climate change is how badly we will be affected. The basic rule of thumb is that for every one degree rise in global temperature, there will be a 10% decline in agricultural output.. yada yada

Environmental Malthusians have been peddling their scare stories for decades and have been proven wrong over and over again - invariably because the Malthusians think people are stupid and will not change behavoir to deal with a changing environment.

The climate will change. People will adjust. And people like WIP will be left making excuses for why the disaster they foretold never appeared...

Edited April 21, 2011 by TimG

[WIP]

Environmental Malthusians have been peddling their scare stories for decades and have been proven wrong over and over again - invariably because the Malthusians think people are stupid and will not change behavoir to deal with a changing environment.

Your analogy is similar to creationists like Kent Hovind or Ray Comfort, who argue that because they haven't witnessed new species developing in our time therefore it doesn't exist! I have some bad news for you about Robert Malthus -- he is fundamentally correct about population dynamics for animals who's continued growth goes unchecked. And, in spite of all the lofty rhetoric that our new technologies created by our big brains have put us in control of our natural environment, what we are starting to find out now is that new inventions, such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation systems, and even genetically engineered plants that have combined to greatly increase crop yields over the last century, have not addressed that issue of limits to growth....only delayed the results!

In fact, the situation for the human animal is a bigger problem than animals that exist in natural environments, because our ability to invent and engineer with natural resources has provided the capacity to use the Earth's resources at increasing levels. The demands of growth-based economic systems for continuous economic growth, fuels the drive to use more renewable and non-renewable resources. Some economic increase can result from information technologies and more efficient product development; but the overall trend is upward when it comes to using the planets resources. Now, what I want to hear from all of the libertarian capitalists and the happy clappy liberals who want a kinder, gentler version of capitalism, is what to do when the planet has no more new frontiers for exploitation?

The run of severe weather worldwide, that has noticeably increased in the last few years, has demonstrated just how precarious the situation is for producing enough food to feed 7 billion people. The Food Bubble Is About To Burst

The climate will change. People will adjust. And people like WIP will be left making excuses for why the disaster they foretold never appeared...

Sure we will! The oil-based capitalism that you advocate has only delayed the inevitable. The problems mentioned above by Lester Brown, of the Earth Policy Institute have already taken effect around the world, where poor people spend more of their disposable income on food, have been more seriously affected by rising food prices. The uprisings in North Africa and the MiddleEast have more to do with food prices and food shortages, than Facebook or Twitter all of a sudden providing the means to overthrow unpopular dictators. Here in Canada, if you have a family to support, you will have noticed that groceries are taking a bigger bite out of your budget, while most of the media is fixated on rising gas prices.

[TimG]

I have some bad news for you about Robert Malthus -- he is fundamentally correct about population dynamics for animals who's continued growth goes unchecked.

Animals don't have technology and don't self limit population growth once it reaches a certain level.

And my contempt for Malthusians is based on evidence. They have been predicting the end of the world decades but it never seems to appear. Shall I dig up some Malthusian failed predictions from the 70s or will you accept that as a fact?

The uprisings in North Africa and the MiddleEast have more to do with food prices and food shortages, than Facebook or Twitter all of a sudden providing the means to overthrow unpopular dictators.

Are you are suggesting famines never occurred in the past? The death toll from famine is at record lows despite world population being at its peak.

[Michael Hardner]

And have you thought about why it doesn't seem realistic? One big problem standing in the way of zero growth and degrowth strategies, is that they do not coincide with the economic wishes of large global corporations that run the world economic system. There seems to be no problems when it comes to expanding GATT and regional trade agreements, but that's about the only international cooperation we find these days.

The same economic conditions govern corporations as people, when you're talking about Zero Growth. It's not realistic because it's a wholesale redesigning of our economic systems and the impacts would be massive.

Collapse is a more realistic outcome than international cooperation on this scale.

That depends on what kind of capitalism you want continued! If you're talking about what we have now, taxing waste and promoting conservations would help, just as taxing carbon would help factor in the externalized costs of coal, oil and natural gas; but that might slow down the race to destruction, but it would not be a permanent solution, since a growth based economic system would eventually be straining the limits of what the Earth's resources can provide.

That's theoretical. As has been pointed out, technology can be used to address scarcity.

This must be a riddle or something! Because the only dispute over how people will be affected by climate change is how badly we will be affected.

Yes, as long as you accept that some are arguing "not badly at all".

So what is there to be contentious about?

Lots. For example, whether it makes more sense to try to prevent warming, or to adapt.

[bloodyminded]

Here's Ralph Nader explaining it well. This is the best video in this thread:

I agree. This is a really good, concise little video.

[bloodyminded]

How about if we have the choice to limit the amount of commercial advertising (especially to children). And, you may think you're buying just what you need, but marketers gather every new, useful fact and strategy they can put together from psychology and sociology. They are aware that much of what we buy (especially younger consumers) is based on status needs and little else. When I lived in the suburbs, there were a lot of things I thought I no longer feel the need to buy.

Advertising and the PR industry are not distinguishable. We can talk about "consumer choice" all we like--it's not as if there's no truth to the idea--but we can't dismiss the effectiveness of PR bullshit.

There's not a single person on this forum who has not been directly and intentionally deceived by the industry.

The reason there was an Iraq war is because of PR expertise in the art of persuading people of that which isn't necessarily true.

Advertising works on the exact same principle. And one of the key aspects of Free Market Theory is that of "informed consumers making educated choices." Except that Business works very, very hard to subvert this principle. The PR industry does not spend countless billions of dollars a year to inform us of the unvarnished truth.

[WIP]

Animals don't have technology and don't self limit population growth once it reaches a certain level.

And my contempt for Malthusians is based on evidence. They have been predicting the end of the world decades but it never seems to appear. Shall I dig up some Malthusian failed predictions from the 70s or will you accept that as a fact?

I read Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb and other books by the Club Of Rome group. They made it clear that their future projections were based on the present trends of the day, but your conclusion is bogus, since the declines in birth rates and the Green Revolution in agriculture did not provide a solution to the Limits to Growth...only ways to delay the final reckoning.

Are you are suggesting famines never occurred in the past? The death toll from famine is at record lows despite world population being at its peak.

Take a look at the stats from World Hunger, which shows the decline in the malnourished population reached its lowest level in the mid 90's. Since then after successive declines in overall grain output, it spiked to over a billion in 2009, dropped below 950 million last year thanks to better world wide harvests, and will show worse numbers this year due to flooding and droughts in major food exporters. And, as mentioned previously, declining groundwater and freshwater levels, topsoil loss, rising oil prices, indicate that we are living in the peak of a food producing bubble similar to the peak oil bubble that we are just coming to realize now with $1.35 a litre gas prices.

[WIP]

The same economic conditions govern corporations as people, when you're talking about Zero Growth. It's not realistic because it's a wholesale redesigning of our economic systems and the impacts would be massive.

Collapse is a more realistic outcome than international cooperation on this scale.

The global cooperation that's needed is a joint pushback against the power of the large multinational corporations that control many governments and set global trade and economic policies. It's not as if civilization always existed with continual economic growth. We can, and should find ways of breaking the cycle of consumer-driven economics. If we don't...well then collapse is the eventual alternative.

That's theoretical. As has been pointed out, technology can be used to address scarcity.

Here's some numbers I'd like you to explain then, courtesy of the Worldwatch Institute's summary on climate change issues:

* In 2006, the world used 3.9 billion tons of oil. Fossil fuel usage in 2005 produced 7.6 billion tons of carbon emissions, and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide reached 380 parts per million.

* More wood was removed from forests in 2005 than ever before.

* Steel production grew 10 percent to a record 1.24 billion tons in 2006, while primary aluminum output increased to a record 33 million tons. Aluminum production accounted for roughly 3 percent of global electricity use.

* Meat production hit a record 276 million tons (43 kg per person) in 2006.

* Meat consumption is one of several factors driving soybean demand. Rapid South American expansion of soybean plantations could displace 22 million hectares of tropical forest and savanna in the next 20 years.

* The rise in global seafood consumption comes even as many fish species become scarcer: in 2004, 156 million tons of seafood was eaten, an average of three times as much seafood per person than in 1950.

The renewable resources depleted, like wood, seafood, and meat production are being done so at unsustainable levels. Commercial fishing is expected to be virtually done for in our lifetime. And non-renewable resources cannot be replaced to begin with. I'm still waiting for that explanation for how a growing population, with growing environmental demands can keep going along the present course in a finite world.

Yes, as long as you accept that some are arguing "not badly at all".

Lots. For example, whether it makes more sense to try to prevent warming, or to adapt.

This is not an either/or choice, since the forces we have set in motion by increasing atmospheric CO2 levels are going to run a natural course of increased melting of sea ice, and increased global temperatures over the coming decades. The only question is how big of an increase we, or our descendents will have to deal with. If we just let things go and do nothing about man-made contributions to greenhouse gas levels, the next generations will have to try to adapt to 7 degree F increases in global temperature at the end of this century. We don't even know what effect that will have on the world ecosystems, let alone further increases. So, at some point, future populations will not adapt, and the cockroaches will inherit the Earth!

[WIP]

Advertising and the PR industry are not distinguishable. We can talk about "consumer choice" all we like--it's not as if there's no truth to the idea--but we can't dismiss the effectiveness of PR bullshit.

There's not a single person on this forum who has not been directly and intentionally deceived by the industry.

The reason there was an Iraq war is because of PR expertise in the art of persuading people of that which isn't necessarily true.

Advertising works on the exact same principle. And one of the key aspects of Free Market Theory is that of "informed consumers making educated choices." Except that Business works very, very hard to subvert this principle. The PR industry does not spend countless billions of dollars a year to inform us of the unvarnished truth.

I started thinking of this when I saw a few episodes of the show "Mad Men," which is set in the early 1960's at the time when major breakthroughs were being made in product promotion. The advertisers understand more about psychology and behaviour than most of the experts working in academia. And if we consider that we are approaching the anniversary of 9/11, what did George Bush tell Americans to do to fight the terrorists? It wasn't to declare war, or buy war bonds, or to give blood...instead it was to go shopping! Get out there with your charge cards and buy more crap! That says more about how our system works than anything I've heard from economists in the last 20 years.

[TimG]

They made it clear that their future projections were based on the present trends of the day

They were proven to be completely wrong because new technologies kept finding more resources and improving productivity. The same trends will prove you wrong today.

And, as mentioned previously, declining groundwater and freshwater levels, topsoil loss, rising oil prices, indicate that we are living in the peak of a food producing bubble similar to the peak oil bubble that we are just coming to realize now with $1.35 a litre gas prices.

Higher oil prices are inevitable. But that does mean a disaster is coming? The world will adjust. The average global citizen is many times better off today than they were 200 years ago. There is nothing to be gained by turning back the clock. Edited April 23, 2011 by TimG

[Michael Hardner]

The global cooperation that's needed is a joint pushback against the power of the large multinational corporations that control many governments and set global trade and economic policies. It's not as if civilization always existed with continual economic growth.

Over the long term, though, there has been continual growth. I'm wondering if you're confusing growth with consumption here.

For example - I'm a neolithic farmer in the fertile crescent 20,000 BCE. ( I'm not, actually, but this is an example. ) I start using a cart with my ox, so that allows me to bring more water from a canal to irrigate my farm, and increase my crop yields. That's economic growth from technology and improved processes.

One of the biggest booms for the economy was a centralized system of trade. That wasn't so much a new technology as it was a new social practice that greatly reduced waste while improving the economy.

As for the six points below, I could find six points of optimism too. For example, new technology is allowing America (which leads the consumer world) to consume less oil.

[WIP]

Here's an interesting study out today which puts the crisis of human over-consumption into focus:

Warning: Human's Devouring 40% of All Land and Sea Life

Humans are devouring 40 percent of the life that Earth's land produces and "take a similar proportion of what the coastal seas produce. For one midsized creature that collectively weighs just half a percent of the animal mass on Earth, that is a staggering proportion. It redefines 'dominion.' We dominate."

As the UN estimates Earth's human population will exceed 9 billion people by mid-century, Safina sees trouble ahead sustaining a growth equivalent to "two more Chinas." He explains, "We'd still probably have to expand agriculture onto new land, and that means using more water" when water supplies are drying up. "Since all growth depends on what plants make using sunlight, continuous growth of the human enterprise for more than a few decades may not be possible."

" By mid-century it would take about two planet Earths to provide enough to meet projected demand (add another half-Earth if everyone wants to live like Americans.") While Americans comprise just five per cent of the world's population, they use roughly 30 percent of the world's nonrenewable energy and minerals.

Safina warns, "We're pumping freshwater faster than rain falls, catching fish faster than they spawn. Roughly 40 percent of tropical coral reefs are rapidly deteriorating; none are considered safe. Forests are shrinking by about an acre per second."

Compared to the era of America's founding, ozone is thinner and carbon dioxide denser by a third; synthetic fertilizers have doubled the global nitrogen flow to living systems, washing down rivers and, since the 1970s, "creating hundreds of oxygen-starved seafloor 'dead zones.'"

" We've learned that we can eliminate the most abundant herds and birds, and the fishes of even the deepest haunts; take groundwater out faster than it goes in; change the composition of the atmosphere and the chemistry of the ocean," Safina writes.

" As a new force of nature, humans are changing the world at rates and scales previously matched mainly by geological and cosmic forces like volcanoes, ice-age cycles, and comet strikes. That's why everything from aardvarks to zooplankton are feeling their world shifting. As are many people, who don't always know why."

As humanity pushes the planet toward destruction, it is incredible that half of all the taxes collected from the American people---who are principal players in this rush---are used for warfare rather than to rebuild and rejuvenate the planet they are ravaging

Okay, now are some of you who still think the Earth is a giant candy store getting the picture? It's not mentioned here, but other studies claim that humans now represent the largest animal biomass on the planet. This is a big part of the reason why more and more plant and animal species are being driven to extinction. There are too many people, consuming resources exponentially for faint hopes and wishful thinking that some new-fangled technology will fix everything. Continued ignorance will lead to a peak mass extinction that likely includes our descendents....and that's reality, not alarmist rhetoric!

[TimG]

Okay, now are some of you who still think the Earth is a giant candy store getting the picture? It's not mentioned here, but other studies claim that humans now represent the largest animal biomass on the planet.

You are missing the point. Technology is the only solution to deal with excess population if we don't want mass starvation. This means more fertilizer and GMOs and fossil fuels.

[Michael Hardner]

Your article had a spelling error in the headline, which made me pause to wonder about the quality of the information.

Again, the tone is full-on alarm bells with no substantiating links and few sources for the information. This person may have received fellowships, but it doesn't mean that I have to accept what he says without sourcing.

[Sir Bandelot]

For all things there is a natural cycle. That is, the cycle of creation and destruction. And I feel, despite the good intentions of people like WIP to try and warn us and get people to change, we are "hell-bent" on our own destruction because of several irreconcilable factors mainly to do with human nature, greed, shortsightedness and political/ ideological fanaticism. Among other things. But I have a certain faith in the human being, that people will come to know the difference between right and wrong, if not by being taught then by example of pain and suffering. The human being will survive, that is what we are good at. But this world about a come to an end

Edited April 25, 2011 by Sir Bandelot