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MIT Institute's Gloomy Prediction: 'Global Economic Collapse' By 2030
suraj.sun writes "A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester's institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from 'global economic collapse' and 'precipitous population decline' if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace. The study's researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without 'drastic measures for environmental protection,' the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash."
lulz!! Collapse!!
I'll be of retirement age by then, and I've had a vasectomy and have no kids.
It will suck if you're one of the dummies out there who is actually breeding and consuming resources that can not exist.
In other news, the sun is bright.
From the original source of garbage in garbage out.
At least the population decline doesn't sound like a bad thing. We're overpopulated now as is.
Captcha: predict
How do we keep the Internet running? Come on, this is about priories.
On the one hand, people have been predicting the imminent collapse of civilization for quite a while now with nothing to show for it. On the other hand, our high-tech society is basically a house of cards and it has to collapse sooner or later.
Forrester's group, btw, are the same folks who produced the Club of Rome-funded "Limits to Growth" study in the early '70s, which also predicted serious trouble around 2030. You can choose to read this as consistency, good initial assumptions, or simply a pig-headed insistence on sticking to his original premises rather than admit error, as you wish.
Were they using SimCity, Civilization, or simply the Sims to predict what is glaringly obvious.
i can imagine the Civilization model:
World ends in 2030 when Bismarck conquers Spain!
Waiting for someone to blame it on Bush . . .
Who pays for these reports? I want to write one! There seems to be a never ending market for claims that humans cannot adapt, and markets do not work, and history is no guide.
My prediction: we are all going to die within a month because the shops have less than one months's food in them!!!! Now how much should I charge for that speaking tour?
Didn't they learn anything from the Prophets of Old? Now if this doesn't happen then the people who made this prophecy will be beheaded and their other work entirely discredited. Here let me fix this for them.
I predict Global economics collapse by 2113
Now in a century or so there will be crazies doing all sorts of nuts stuff based upon my ancient and wise prediction. Now just imagine if I made a calendar system and decided to stop at the year 2113 instead.
Massive population control endorsed by the Club of Rome as the final solution to all our problems. Why am I unsurprised?
But without "drastic measures for environmental protection," the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.
Such as a one child law? The lottery? Soylent green?
What kind of drastic measures do they mean?
As 99.999% of the people that has power just focus on his own profit.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
He does not consider any technological advancement in next 18 years to augment our consumption rate and needs?
Heck we do not even find a new planet to move to?
--whacky
This has been predicted for quite some time now - I think the first study was in the 70s. The most recent study has merely confirmed that the earlier predictions have been more or less correct so far.
From TFA:
A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester's institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from "global economic collapse" and "precipitous population decline" if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace.
and this:
Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without "drastic measures for environmental protection," the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.
However, the study said "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.
AFAIC, this is another piece of propaganda, somehow aimed at either receiving more money from gov't or is paid by it.
The question, whatever it is, is always answered in the same exact manner by all these 'studies':
more government
this is the answer to all questions that are ever asked - more regulations, more taxes, more government.
Well, this is just more nonsense as usual, more propaganda, more people trying to control others. It's a prison like system, they want YOU to be the prisoner. THEY will 'provide' you with whatever meaning they want, in exchange, you will give up all your inspirations, all your liberties.
Of-course maybe you don't have any inspirations and desire to do anything useful with yourself, maybe you are just fine being controlled and fed by your prisoners. Maybe you want to be one of the guards or one of the managers in this prison.
--
AFAIC there is only one solution to our problems - more freedoms for people to do business as they want, not less. There is a huge reason why every single attempt at more government on this planet has always produced poverty and misery, while any reduction in government always produced more wealth, and this simple truth will remain, regardless of what they tell you and however they frame the question.
--
The question about finality of resources on this planet must never be answered with: 'more government', it must always be answered with: 'more freedom'.
Only people free from prison are able to create, able to find real solutions to these problems, able to create more supply, figure out how to create more supply. Supply is the driver of the economy, and even in this 'article' they admit it - they are worried about supply.
Well, supply is NEVER created by ANY government, supply is always created by the enterprising people, doing business, trying to make a buck, and there will be no exceptions, as governments are only able to consume whatever supply the market produces.
You can't handle the truth.
This is Slashdot. You'll get more +5, Informative posts blaming it on Obama and OMG teh Democrat Party!!1!".
30 years ago, Fred Hoyle predicted this happening in about 2025.
Read his books. A brilliant scientist, way ahead of his time.
Stop spending money we don't have
Denn nobel geht die Welt zugrund.
The same frauds are making the same claims in the same ways for 50 years. They are physical scientists who don't understand economics, with new technology and substitutes leading to ever-increasing quality and length of life -- sans goverment intervention.
Theodore Roosevelt decried the coming "timber crisis" because rotting railroad ties would soon consume all lumber production at current replacement rates. Then someone invented using creosote coatings.
Yes, you can predict this will happen. That is Julian Simon's theory, used to make predictions which come true over and over and over again. Said computer models don't include millions of scientists and engineers in a free society working to satisfy mass wants for profits, which call into existence new tech all the time. This is just the latest in sub-sentient drooling idiocy, disproven again and again and again.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
They think we have 18 years left?
I'll personally be surprised if we get through this year and the next without a major economic disaster.
Forrester model uses difference equations to link economic sectors. The solution to difference equation is an exponential. An exponential goes to zero or infinity given enough time.
This group was wrong in the 1970s. And is still wrong in the 2010s.
Our societies are now based on rampant consumerism and the freedom of the individual to do whatever they want, so long as it's not illegal and they can pay for it. As a result, we have gone from a few hundred million to seven billion people within a century. If we value our natural world, we will find some way to check this growth sooner rather than later.
However, the study said "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.
There was an article a while back about a decline in conservatives' trust of science. This is an example of why, in my opinion. I'm not finding fault with this study, but the conclusion seems to have stepped outside the realm of science and into politics by assuming (at least this is the impression the article gives) that government policy is the only way to limit the growth of our ecological footprint.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Is they assume that we will go on like business is usual. As soon as scarcity of a resource gets past a point we go and find alternatives. The Prius came popular at US gas went over $4.00 a gallon back in 2008. Then when prices went down the Prius wasn't popular and now it is getting popular again at $4.00. For US consumers $4.00 a gallon is a price enough to evoke change in behavior and look for alternatives.
We tend not to deplete a resource if possible, but when it gets scarce enough we go for alternatives. If pork or cattle get to expensive we go with less resource needed chickens or turkeys.
Usually the things that us humans kill off forever, are things that at least in our short term mindset see are things that are not directly useful for us. We don't see a drop in cattle. But we see a drop in wolves, as they are in competition with us for our cattle... So we kill the wolves, they are not really a direct resource for us so they killed. As well as lot of bugs and other animals. I am not saying this is a good thing we should work hard to preserve nature for it is better in the long term. But as human nature when scarcity happens we change our behavior, and we wont change our behavior until we feel the effect of scarcity.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I have several years to collect guns and ammunition which will enable me and my family to take what you have. It will be helpful having children who can gather up your food, you know ... after. ;)
How many of these stupid predictions are published over the years. And do they say "doom in five years"? No. They say doom in 30 years or doom in a 100 years... long after being embarrassed by being wrong would matter.
I'm not even going to get into the economics of the repeatedly proven wrong Malthusian theory. These predictions of doom are stupid.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Sounds like a self-correcting system to me. It's seen in nature all the time. It's just sad to me that we, as a species, are too stupid and stubborn to keep it from happening to ourselves.
I'll never understand so-called environmentalists who go out and have 5 or 6 kids. I can think of nothing quite so environmentally irresponsible...
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
The underlying assumption here is: "if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace.". When it comes to human behavior, such long term assumption may not valid especially since the problem is widely known among the people who care to look beyond the headlines. There are many smart people are working toward a steady state economy and sustainable future based on renewable energy. I am hopeful.
Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030.
Well then, they're bullshit. Every single country in the world that has ever industrialized has experienced steep declines in population growth as its citizens become wealthier and more educated. This trend is already very noticeable in the up-and-coming Asian and BRIC countries. There is no reason, none whatsoever, to assume that the trend will not apply (gradually) to every other country as they find their way to productive governments and growth--in fact, really, only Africa and the Middle East are left at this point, and thing there are starting to change.
There can be only one reason to base models on such a startlingly unlikely assumption...
Sounds like a self-correcting problem. We consume too much too fast, and our population is resized to be supported sufficiently by the available resources - whether by choice or by necessity. Yeah it's going to suck if you're not one of the survivors, but the end result will be either that we're forced to create technologies to circumvent the problem out of necessity, or we'll have learned a lesson (hah!) for the second time around.
Long signatures suck.
Some times you just need to start over. I'm well stocked with solver coins, shotgun shells, peanut butter, and tampons. I'll be able to trade for whatever I need in the collapse.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Land Area of the Earth: 148,940,000 km^2
Population of the Earth 7,000,000,000
Land Area Per Person: 0.02127 km2 -> 21270m^2
So approx 200m x 100m (americans read yds per person)
But then there are mountains, desert, barren lands, asphalt to take into account.
Lets say 100m x 100m per person (roughly 2 football fields). That is the source of your food, your clothes, ....
This is ignoring all other life as that is likely part of the food chain that feeds us.
And that land is used year after year, getting less fertile, limited resources disappearing, getting smaller and smaller as more people appear.
So, the data started to decouple from predictions, circa year 2000. It seems rather convenient to say that 1970-2000 matches the model, and then simply ignore 2000-onward.
And could we maybe narrow down that prediction a bit, too? Anything between economic collapse (zero) and "unlimited economic growth" is pretty open-ended. (And what the fuck does the term "unlimited economic growth" actually mean, anyway? Money growing on trees?)
Reading predictions of economic doom always brings to mind a quote from "The West Wing" about how economists and futurologists almost always fail to account for technological progress:
BARTLET: You ever read Paul Erlich's book?
TOBY: "The Population Bomb"?
BARTLET: Yeah. He wrote it in 1968. Erlich said it was a fantasy that India would ever feed itself. Then Norman Borlaug comes along. See the problem was wheat is top-heavy. It was falling over on itself and it took up too much space. The dwarf wheat... it was an agricultural revolution that was credited with saving one billion lives.
Who is going to tell the elderly? We're trying to get qualified people to immigrate to this country to counteract the declining population growth needed to sustain those retiring. Choices, choices...
E=MC2 and Space Elevators! We will continue on our present course, and no changes will be made to this social model!
"Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate"
...
That's already a sign that their models are wrong. Did their models, if run on historical data, predict: the 1930's depression? the 1970's stagflation? the babyboom? the current economic situation? the current population growth trends in Africa?
Humans (and markets) are adaptable. If resources get scarce, prices rise. People change their behaviors.
I have to wonder about these studies. Seems like they ignore the population's ability to modify their behaviour based on the events of the times in which they live. Most societies are currently realizing that the baby boomer's frat party is over, and our children will live in a different world than we were born into. By reaching this understanding, we are all actively changing how we prepare our children for the future. My parent's generation had concepts like lifelong employment, pensions and isolated economies. My generation is adapting to fragmented employment, self insuring for old age and global economic influences. My son's generation is very aware that employment prospects are grim without very focused education and preparation. Quality of life standards are redistributing globally on a daily basis. As a result of the changing world and it's impact on various societies, many of the conditions required to reach MIT's predicted disaster scenario are changing radically. Fossil fuel pricing changes are certainly real. The effect on casual motoring, inefficient vehicle purchase and the old-school cachet of driving Hummers and Escalades is visibly changing to admiration of Prius and other vehicles. At the same time, emerging economies aren't getting cheap gas, and will never go through the V-8 powered 60's and 70's that I did.
Computer predictions on a societal level are about as useful as using Excel to predict business performance. If Excel was such a good tool the whole tech market bubble would never have burst, because all the projected growth and ridiculous valuations would be true. Idiots behind analytical tools can predict any result they envision, and construct plausible worksheet scenarios to reach that goal. The real challenge is in critically questioning their assumptions and formulas - while also realzing that the world changes continually making those assumptions worthless.
Question everything. Doubt everyone. Make your own future. The timeline of our life may progress at a fixed rate, but the conditions affectting it do not. Massive influences can happen in fractions of seconds - and societies DO respond. Look at the USA - once freedom and liberties there meant something very different than they do today. 9/11 changed the whole mentality in the US in seconds. The Supreme Court just made it legal to strip search anyone for any infraction. Wasn't like that in the US I was born into in 1960.
As soon as I read this I stopped reading.
"However, the study said "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint."
Firstly, "unlimited economic growth" isn't possible unless we get off this rock (difficult), and even that just opens the timescale up quite a bit. Here is a great (if depressing) discussion prompted by the same book mentioned in the article. http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/
Second, the statement turns what seemed an interesting research conclusion into "the sky is falling, but give us enough money and you'll all be fine." It could be that this wording is different than what is in the actual report, but I can't find a link to it.
A focus on increasing the efficiency with which we use our resources is important, but this sounds like an unrealistic promise in order to obtain funding. This close to the wall we should be focused on how to make a transition to the steady state economy more orderly and less disruptive so that we can keep chugging towards the next breakthrough technology that will get us back into growth for a while, and perhaps eventually off earth so that we can delay the inevitable even more. Allocating large amounts of resources to finding that next breakthrough only gets us relatively little time if it succeeds, and it neglects the risk that if we fail we could have a sudden transition to steady state which would cause a great deal more suffering than is necessary.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
What is your source of such inspiration, genius MIT scientists?
Lots of pot? Acid?? Idea balls???
I don't think I've seen anything that indicates that steady population growth is likely, most of the predictions I've seen show leveling off and shrinking population somewhere between 9 and 12 billion people, within the next 10-50 years. I tend to trust the UN population experts over some PhDs at MIT who have probably never stepped foot outside of their labs.
The photo of chinese people in the link is morphed to show more people. Look at top right hand corner.
...to be old with nobody to look after you.
"Retirement" is only an option when you have savings or someone supporting you like government or family. In a situation like MIT spells out you will not be retiring. Stay healthy.
I'm sure you feel superior referring to the rest of the world as dummies and breeders. But the passion and drive of young people is a key element in making the world a better place. You have failed to renew that resource. You are a cynic. Cynics do not change the world. They just stand to the side and watch while making snide remarks.
I used a model therefore it is true. If I say it, and then you repeat it, it’s true. And through repetition, something becomes true even if it's not true. If you repeat it enough until it becomes true then it's true. Or do I need to repeat that for you?
Is there a link to the actual study instead of this Yahoo fluff?
Michelle Duggar, star of TLC's reality show, "19 Kids and Counting", says there needs to be more children because our world needs more joy. And as for overpopulation? That's just a lie, Duggar recently said in an interview. "The idea of overpopulation is not accurate," Duggar says, because the entire population of the world could fit inside of Jacksonville, Florida. --"I agree with Mother Teresa when she said, 'to say that there are too many children is like saying there are too many flowers,'" Duggar said. Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/parenting/1539119-michelle-duggar-overpopulation-lie.html#ixzz1rB2V8ta0--
Anything on reality TV must be true. What she means is that everyone she knows could fit in Jacksonville.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Everyone who firmly believes our society is going to collapse due to over-population should be signing their organ donor cards and finding the nearest closed-in-space with a running combustion engine and hang out for a while.
Everyone who firmly believes our society or economy is going to collapse due to over-consumption should be selling off all of their worldly possessions to ensure a ready supply of reused goods for others, and wandering off into the wilderness naked where there are large concentrations of deadly predators.
"Put your money where your mouth is" seems to fit here.
Or, we could stop whining about it and start figuring out how to make the sub-arctic and ocean floor widely habitable for humans to increase the available population areas. We should be investing in subterranean development of the earth's crust to increase raw material access and living spaces. We're barely tapping the potential of the planet, just scratching the surface in so many literal ways. The science and technology advancements that come from these endeavors will make the Moon, Mars, and possibly even Venus approachable as outposts of civilization and commerce in the next century.
Or, you can curl up and die secure in the knowledge that you did nothing to cause or prevent a dire future.
Mildly joking since there are really no proven facts (other than the population growth decline), but I find reasons to think that we are headed towards more like one of those population attrition futures in which due to
1.- The lack of "new people" to occupy the lower ranks because there is less people born,
2.- Longer lifespans that will cause upper job positions to be almost a lifetime thing, resulting in lack of reward or motivation to most,
3.- Widespread implementation of education, further reducing the separation between people for the different jobs...
4.- Media and entertainment will be better than ever, causing people to loose interest in their real needs (Rome rings a bell?).
The above will lead to a population that, instead of revolting like in the old days, will get depressed (not having offspring, suicide, reclusion, substance abuse, alcohol, etc...) since we are now in a non-violence era, further decreasing the population growth rate down to a population shrinkage until we are down to only the bare minimum to maintain society up and replacing simpler jobs entirely by machines (since there won't be people to do it, but society will still demand their products) which in turn will further the attrition process until humanity is only a small portion of what it is today.
Less people walking around, more robots serving you coffee... then things will become stable for a while until the next aftermath: Robot Rebellion!
This is something William Gibson would love to write about...
UgaBuga!
ou8 >chances
Yes yes yes and we'll all be reduced to eating humans. In the 1960s they thought this would happen by 1990. It didn't. And we haven't been reduced to a Mad-Max style dystopia where Mel Gibson yells at people about being Jewish and a leather wearing Tina Turner oppresses us in some sort of thunder dome. Nope, I don't buy it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
While "The limits to growth" is an interesting book, it assumes that collapse will be the result of humanity consuming more than the Earth can produce, slowly using up our reserves. According to them, there are two limits: the amount of resources/energy the Earth can produce, and the amount of pollution/harmful effects the environment can take. Their conclusion is that sooner or later humans will be forced to switch to renewable energy, and as reneweable sources won't be able to support those populations (the population we have today), the economy will collapse in 2020.
But there were many advancements in technology since the seventies. With new ways of storing energy (making for example electric cars possible) we now have the ability to switch completely to nuclear. And with advancement in nuclear energy, we can use many other sources we couldn't before, making nuclear reserves last for hundreds of years, during which time we have a good chance of cracking fusion. Nuclear energy also solves many environmental concerns, although other problems will still require our attention.
While fossil fuels are already running out, and their disappearence will surely shake the economy, it won't be the end of the world, and it won't be the end of consumption growth. Even if we really had to go renewal, our chances are much better now with all the research that went into it.
If you were on the fence about buying a hybrid instead of normal ICE-only car, buy a hybrid. The more people who do that, the less oil we will need.
If you are trying to lose weight or maintain health, switch to a more vegetarian diet instead of meat. We won't have to grow food for cattle, and can use that for people.
The environmentalism angle covers deforestation and oil burning, as well as maintaining habitat for things we might like to eat from time to time.
I did not read this in depth when it hit a few days ago, but this is a fairly obvious way to jump from resource consumption to environmental protection. And part of the environmental aspects presume that we don't know for certain if global climate change is man made, but by the time we find out for sure it may be too late. So best to reduce our footprint, because that's something we have the knowledge to do now.
This was done 20 years ago and the predictions line up quite well so far. I think the take-away here is: consider that it *is* going to happen, and if so, what can we do now to be prepared? Growing a small vegetable garden and teaching your kids to hunt might not be such a crazy idea.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html
Hey, we get to live out Asimov's Foundation trilogy in real life! Woo! Er... wait a minute, that didn't exactly end well for modern society, did it.
Coffee is my drug of choice.
But his intellectual heirs live on. I mean, we may indeed face economic collapse if we don't figure out how to spend less money than exists, but it's not going to be because of resource depletion.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
I want to start shooting feds NOW. Can't we use oil faster or something? :/
I'ts pretty simply, just using population estimates, projection of fuel supplies, total arable land, and you can see a strong convergence from 2030 on. I would say that at 2050 at the latest there will be a malthusian apocalypse
How to Survive the Coming Apocalypse?
I'm rather surprised their predictions are not for an earlier date. I have been keeping in the back of my mind the idea of joining a permaculture farm in some tropical locale (I'm in Costa Rica, so it wouldn't be too much of a change), hopefully one with solar power, but I would hate to say goodbye in any permanent sense to the global internet and the benefits of a developed manufacturing society. So, if the world does come to an end, what electronics would be possible to construct? Hand wire-wrapped 8-bit processors? What could be done for a screen? Is it possible to manufacture DIY LEDs? What data storage might be possible? Archival "100 year" CDs exist, but what about an archival 100-year CD reader? Is an "Encyclopedia Galactica" possible?
Lastly, is it overly cynical to believe that these goals are more possible than the change necessary to avert this catastrophe?
P.S. It strikes me that there are few things humanity is worse at than predicting the future. However, in a world where the economy can barely survive normal human activities, but which is subject to a multitude of natural disasters, I imagine that the only question concerning a collapse of human society is when we may expect it.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I was playing along with the author until I saw this:
However, the study said "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.
We've seen what happens when the government invests in "green" technologies. We see solar power companies that produce no product but the executives get paid. We see electric cars that can't go more than 200 miles before the battery self destructs and has to be towed. We see $400,000 wind farms that saves less than $100 in electricity over a year. (I suppose that might pay off in 5000 years or so.) In all these cases the government pays *MY* money to people that have provided me nothing. It's theft by proxy.
Another problem is the government setting policies that drive adoption of these "green" technologies. People don't like to be told what to do. People will do what they believe is best for themselves in spite of government mandate. We saw this with Prohibition. People wanted alcohol so they made it themselves, paid people to smuggle it for them, and so on. We see it now with the current prohibitions on other intoxicating substances. We see it with the hoarding of 100 watt light bulbs.
If someone wants me to act in a certain way they need to convince me that doing so is in my best interest. By having the heavy hand of government remove that choice from me I get the feeling that the government is no longer acting in my best interest. I get upset. I find ways around the government mandates.
A government governs with the permission of the governed. The government cannot impose a mandate upon me. I must be convinced of the need for something to happen for it to happen. I will live with small transgressions upon my life but there comes a point at which these transgressions become unbearable. I am but one of many and everyone has their breaking point. If this goes too far there will be a change in government. I just hope it will be a peaceful transition.
These people do not need to convince the government of the need for a change in economic polices, they need to convince *ME* and all the other people that make up the governed of the need. Doing otherwise will not end well.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
20 year predictions are generally little more than glorified guessing.
Think back 20 years. That's 1992. That means no Facebook, no Google, no Slashdot either. You'd run Windows 3.1 or if you are amongst the geekiest of the geeks, Linux 0.1 or so. But you had to roll it on your own because there are no distributions (Slackware started in '93).
Yugoslavia had just started breaking apart. The war in Afghanistan just ended. I'm talking about the soviet invasion.
That's for context. Now on the long-term "visions". We had the Earth Summit , so climate change was already on the agenda.
Economically, there was no Euro. The economical collapse of Russia was yet to come, as was the economic crisis of the Asian nations. Had you asked people what the future would bring, they would have likely extrapolated from Black Wednesday the way we would extrapolate from the current financial crisis. Chinas rise to power was just beginning and most people, including experts, wouldn't have predicted it, because it was in late 1992 that the government turned towards even a bit of capitalism.
In healthcare, we didn't yet have bird-flu and pandemics, AIDS was the scare of the day. We also didn't have LASIK, stem cells or any of the other recent advantages. Antibiotics were considered undefeatable by many.
And so on and so forth. There's a lot of big events that a prediction made in 1992 would've missed completely. Yes, we can extrapolate population growth somewhat, but we can't account for inventions in agriculture, for example.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
My cattle eat grass, on land that requires large herbivores to stay optimal (plains rangeland, used to have bison).
Rangeland does not grow crops. Only insane people feed cattle grain (other than a bit for finishing). The rest of us use them to convert marginal land into healthy food (grass-raised beef is far denser in nutrients than any vegetarian diet).
If there really is an energy crisis you'll see a bunch of modern nuclear reactors get built on come online quite quickly. Red tape often disappears in a crisis.
Even with a disaster like Fukashima, nuclear power is quite safe. In fact if Fukashima had been a modern plant (instead of a very old first gen plant) the disaster would not have happened since all modern plants can cool via convection in the event of power loss.
The new molten salt reactors look even more promising.
I'm all for using renewable energy, but I think it's a pipe dream right now. Nuclear is real, safe and pretty clean (especially compared to coal power, which is simply horrific... radioactive ash FTW).
The only transportation that really still needs gasoline is air travel... everything else could run hybrid/electric/etc
This one has to get behind the 12/21/2012 doomsday prediction - http://www.livescience.com/14184-21-doomsday-predictions-apocalypse.html - and the other Armageddon predictions, e.g., http://www.spiritualresearchfoundation.org/articles/id/spiritualresearch/spiritualscience/armageddon . How can we have an economic disaster after the Earth has been nuked, fried by solar flares, invaded by aliens, and repossessed by god? But wait, there's more -- http://www.bible.ca/pre-date-setters.htm .
I predict that the world will end on the day everyone agrees that it will never end. It is based on a corollary of Murphy's Law.
"Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without 'drastic measures for environmental protection,' the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash."
I dunno, the programmer side of me says, "Sounds like they've found a glitch in their algorithms and assumptions."
Why do people think this has never happened before? It's happened, jsut on a smaller scale.
With a growing population and consumnption of non renewable resources, this will happen. Why? Becauser putting controls in place to avoid this will fuck up the economy. Imagine what would happen to housing prices if the population started declining.
Where does fertizlizer come from? non-renewables ....
This world is pretty much F'ed unless things change. I don't know when, but I do know.
That this isn't common knowledge to most is surprising to me. World population is growing exponentially, we are consuming resources faster than they can be replaced, and people not fit to lead are leading many countries. I don't know if the year of this happening is right, but we will eventually crash and burn. This could be due to war, famine, mass civil disruption, running out of resources, over-population, or any number of other ways I have not thought of. Going green may put this on hold for a while, or it may not, but there must eventually be a culling of the human race.
Things are escalating much faster than most people are predicting. Global warming is a good example, they said it would be a few hundred years before we see climate change, now it's only a few decades. In Australia, people are hunting animals at such an alarming rate, that most of the outbacks are empty. At this pace, we will need to find Earth #2, if we want to survive.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Well, here's one, by analogy, that applies to people, civilizations, and even worlds/universes then: "On a long enough timeframe, everyone & everything's survival rate goes to zero", especially considering differential equations are just measures of weighted factors over a given timeframe (many times with other inputs), with time being one of the inputs for the derivatives calculated.
Peak oil is when the VOLUME of oil we extract from the ground is less and less each year. Nothing to do with price vs other commodities.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2010/1111/International-Energy-Agency-says-peak-oil-has-hit.-Crisis-averted
It has nothing to do with money, rather volume of oil. If it costs us the energy of 2 barrels of oil to extract 1 barrel of oil it doesn't matter what it costs, we can't use it for energy. We also can't burn gold or silver as an alternative.
Heavy non conventional oil is currently being used to prop up supply, but even then it isn't enough to compensate for the decline in conventional oil. The peak was predicted to be early 2000's and indeed that does seem to have been the case.
BTW the drop is sharp, ask OPEC member Indonesia, which now *imports* more oil than it exports, or the UK which likewise used up its North Sea Oil and now imports loads.
The "article" linked from the summary is just a blog that links to the Smithsonian Magazine. It's got a nice graph. The actual story is:
There's a graph comparing the 1972 study with what actually happened from 1970-2000. Not much technical information and I couldn't find a link to the study itself, but the lines are fairly close. Wikipedia has a number of references to other recent studies looking back on the predictions, most of which seem to agree.
Visit the
*Bzzzt* You are incorrect about Greece. You should read more.
The GP has said the same thing (parroted?) that 'The Economist' has been saying for over a year now.
If anyone needs to "read more" it would be you my dear sir.
If yous ay exponential, you won. Except for a few knick due to recession, the last decades in energy resource consumption (oil, coal) can be quite well macthed to an exponential. So, you can stuff your sarcasm.
Especially if we have to keep bailing Greece out every year!
He's dead? Its starting already! We told you so!
Have gnu, will travel.
"The idea of overpopulation is not accurate," Duggar says, because the entire population of the world could fit inside of Jacksonville, Florida. --"I agree with Mother Teresa when she said, 'to say that there are too many children is like saying there are too many flowers,'" Duggar said.
Societies with sufficient capital (like say, Japan or Singapore) can function fine with enormously high population densities. Now, by "capital" I don't just mean money and physical resources, but other forms of capital as well; technical and economic human capital, and social capital such as a highly-ordered, highly-collaborative culture.
In comparison, other societies would experience mass chaos if they had to fit the current population of Jacksonville, in the land area of Jacksonville. Overpopulation is very much a situational phenomenon; one can raise as many "flowers" as they like given the competency of one's society. Unfortunately though, it seems the key characteristics that allow a particular society to raise more flowers (such as foresight, saving and investment, and self-discipline), are at odds with the characteristics that actually result in more, um... seeds being sown.
I should RTFA, but let's just consider a few things...
The nerves that convey the 5 senses to the human brain don't appear to run at very high data rates - the challenge is correct interfacing and data encoding. Granted, we don't appear to have made much progress, but I would guess that within 10 years there will be a variety of solutions to this problem. I can see a redesign of Toxoplasma Gondii, for instance.
Once the 5 senses can be disconnected from the body at will, nutrition can be delivered without any concern for aesthetics. When this happens, we can abandon the "boutique" industries of grain-intensive livestock production, in the same way that we abandoned land-line phones. The actual perceived experience of nourishment will likely have improved aesthetics by the delivery of digital data, while the excesses and inefficiencies of the farming industry will be reduced, then removed.
At this point, we will all most likey have a giant Apple logo stamped on our foreheads. Isn't it wonderful having something pleasant to anticipate?
Like I dunno, how some investment institute like Citi or JP Morgan Chase will keep your money safe for that crash? Whoever writes you the bigger check.
What everybody seems to be missing is the simple fact that unsustainable lifestyles are unsustainable, and increasing consumption of finite reserves is unsustainable. It really doesn't matter if it's in 2030, or if the model precisely matches reality (it is only a model after all) the fact that remains is that if you continue on an unsustainable course you will not be able to sustain it!
Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it. Every civilization has collapsed because of some form of unsustainability and then been reduced to a simpler more sustainable way of living. We either design and engineer this 'collapse' into a simpler way of living or we'll have to accept the period of anarchy that will ensue.
Don't worry, the second foundation will take care of it! (that's a joke!)
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
If the residents on Planet Earth insist on treating the universe as a closed system confined to their little planet, they are going to run out of resources at some point. Sooner or later, someone will realize that the Sun is contributing resources to Earth and these off-planet resources should not be used. I can't imagine the environmentalist/limited growth response to this revelation. It is certain to be severe.
There are two choices here - zero growth (stagnation) with a greatly reduced population so life is sustainable within its limited bounds, or the serious pursuit and acquisition of off-planet resources. It is a choice that we have nearly made with the virtual abandonment of manned space flight. Within a few years the decision will be irreversable and there will be no choice of either embarking on a massive population reduction program or watching while it is done for us.
The idea that without nuclear energy we can sustain life for over 6 billion people on the planet is a joke. It is the only possible course of action for constant, reliable energy - both electrical power and other forms. The idea of burning anything to produce heat in large quantities is just absurd - look at a steel mill for an example of large amounts of thermal energy that could be from non-fossil fuel sources. Sure, fusion power is a great goal and we will likely get there, but we will never get there if the zero-growth "sustainable" crowd gets there way.
Anyone that has studied biology understands there are two and only two states for life: growth and death. If we aren't growing, we are dying. It applies to mold in a petri dish and it applies to the human race. There is a substantial fraction of humanity that believes constant growth is impossible and we must "cut back" to remain "sustainable" They do not understand that this sustainable way of life is just a delayed form of extinction because they weren't paying attention in high school.
So yes, we need off-planet resources to maintain life on Earth. The universe is not a closed system on any scale humans can comprehend and the resources are out there for the taking. If we fail in this we doom the human race to extinction - nobody is going to be coming to rescue us from our own folly and there is no third "sustainable" alternative. Grow or die. It is a lesson learned by every form of life one way or another.
Economics, that is why.
Lets take one resource we heavily depend on: Oil. Suppose we deplete a significant amount of oil wells, what will happen? well laws of supply and demand kick in: as supply becomes shorter, the price of oil goes up. As the price of oil goes up, it will be used progressively less and less since alternatives become more and more attractive in comparison. The whole point of a prices in markets is that there the amount of buyers match the amount of suppliers. Through pricing, the market has a way to ration ALL resources efficiently. This effectively means that we WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF OIL, that we will simply use less of it as it becomes more scarce, but there will always be some available for those willing to pay the price. In fact, we use oil today not because it is the only way to power our cars, but only because it is the cheapest (most efficient).
Another thing they ignore is advances in technology. Take fracking for example, we can extract oil and natural gas from places we never could before. As technology improves, so does our ability to get more and more resources. All these models completely ignore the fact that we will come up with better and more efficient ways to get more resources.
The only thing that can and does stop this natural and efficient rationing of resources are governments.
They put a caviat and say: "if we continue consuming resources at the current pace". Completely overlooking the fact that markets would not allow the current pace to continue when scarcity increases. That is like saying: "If I continue climbing up this mountain at the current pace, I will get to space in a month"
Do whatever the hell you want. Your personal sacrifices won't change things one iota. The major driver now is the enormous growth in resource utilization in regions of the world which have, until recently, been limited to a more or less subsistence lifestyle and are now trying to emulate a Western way of life.
I'm referring to, of course, China and India. Billions of people who want a steak, air conditioning and a car. Nothing inherently wrong with that, except they're going to compete for our steak, air conditioning and car. And 'we' are not likely to give it up without protest.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
...
The highways and cars
Were sacrificed for agriculture
I thought that we'd start over
But I guess I was wrong
Once there were parking lots
Now it's a peaceful oasis
you got it, you got it
This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies
you got it, you got it
I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
you got it, you got it
And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
you got it, you got it
I dream of cherry pies,
Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
you got it, you got it
We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries
you got it, you got it
This was a discount store,
Now it's turned into a cornfield
you got it, you got it
Don't leave me stranded here
I can't get used to this lifestyle
Nothing But Flowers
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
We damn near had "global economic collapse" a couple of years back and the only "exhaustion of resources" involved was High Finance taking the piss until the world's piss reserves eventually ran out.
Fortunately, they're now all showing such contrition and self-sacrifice in their efforts to put right what went wrong that its unlikely to happen again for at least a year.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Given that we've already run out of copper, oil, air, water, computers are the size of buildings, travel is expensive, and cars fly.
But I do agree with one perspective. It'll take a growth spurt like over-population to encourage a lunar colony. And it'll take at least one resource shortage to encourage mining an asteroid.
But we can always kill two birds with one stone. In 2029, maybe we'll get lucky. A meteor can impact earth, killing a few billion people and providing new resources. Gotta love instant solutions to complex problems.
They have been predicting this since Malthus and something has always come along to change the game. There is simply no reason technology will not continue to make larger populations possible. It has always been the pattern in the past
The other issue economic collapse is usually not the result of resource constraints, war is. We are not all going just sit around and stave to death. We will kill each other.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Let's start by suggesting that by then, most cities will be as expensive as Tokyo is now. Like your big apt? Now fit it all into one the same size that was subdivided two or three ways.
A little tight, you say?
There'll be some housing boom... an hour and a half to two hours commute from your work, since it'll be in the now-exurbs, because everything closer's taken, or too expensive.
But let's look further: the drought in TX, and other places around the globe. The beginning of water wars (what, you didn't see that on news.google.com the other day, from mainstream media?). And let's not forget my own personal bugaboo: some a**hole 24 yr old MBA, working for agribusiness, decides that it would add to the ROI to *not* plant, say, 10% of the US cropland that year... and within a year, there's famine in many, many places around the world.
Gas - you can scream all you like, but oil ain't gonna last forever. Example: the most productive fisheries in the world, the Grand Banks, are legally protected now, because they've almost been fished out.
Now, how's that all going to go with a world population 25% or 50% higher?
Put down your freakin' idiot-ologies, and do a reality check.
mark
When I was born in 1927 the world population was roughly 2 billion. The US population was roughly 119 million. The US has now surpassed 300 million and world population is at 7 billion folks and this planet does, believe it or not have finite resources. My gut feeling - sad as it sounds - is a massive outbreak of an untreatable infection that decimates the world population. Like I say - this isn't even remotely amusing!
History is an excellent guide. Plenty of societies have been faced with existential challenges. Some of them died. Others fell under the domination of societies that coped better or did not face the same limitations[1]. A very few survived (you can probably count them on your fingers).
History is written by the survivors. Our history is that of the societies that survived. In North America, that recent history is exceptional: over a hundred years of peace within our borders. If by "history" you mean living memory, you are correct. Though if you back just a little farther and consider history from a native perspective, many societies died or fell under domination here. People adapt - but that's no guarantee that our society will be among the survivors.
Market societies are extremely recent, arising only in late 18th century England, before which point the vast majority of the population lived from subsistence agriculture[2]. Market society was then deliberately constructed through government action. How markets are constructed matters very much: they do fail, particularly when it comes to public goods and the environment.
Nor do markets somehow escape the limitations of nature. The rise of industrial capitalism corresponds to the exploitation of fossil fuels. Markets did not create coal and oil: they only discovered them. Would capitalism have been successful if they were not there to be found? One thing capitalism does extremely well is to replace one resource for another. When a resource grows scarce or expensive, something else is substituted. An efficient capitalist economy may not run out of anything: until it runs out of everything[3]. The problem-solving efficiency of markets can actually make the economy more fragile, not less.
[1] Jared Diamond's Collapse examines numerous examples.
[2] See Karl Polanyi's book The Great Transformation for a fascinating account of this. For a broader view of capitalism before this point, see Fernand Braudel's The Wheels of Commerce (Capitalism & Civilization 15th-18th Century Vol. 2).
[3] Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies argues that a societies develop they realize diminishing marginal returns from adaptation and innovation. When the marginal returns turn negative, they collapse. The only solution he sees is an external energy subsidy - which is where our problem lies.
... because then we'll be starving *and* the network switches will crash.
Hay, I just spent 2 life-years shooting aliens, and earning +2 Fire swords...
They have not taken into account our economy is going virtual -- which requires nearly 0! resources.
http://www.perlmonks.org/ (all those CGI-BIN's were written in Perl)
Although not totally related but I think a game like this illustrate better on possible outcome. They should have fund a game like this: http://www.molleindustria.org/en/oiligarchy
Most societies are currently realizing that the baby boomer's frat party is over, and our children will live in a different world than we were born into ...
Follow American politics much? The only concession that the current crop of political idiots is making is that they think they can get gasoline down to $2.00 a gallon instead of 50 cents per gallon.
Sounds like the same old party to me.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
And the one thing in common with every major pandemic, catastrophe, and economic collapse has had in common? No one ever saw them coming.
Only people who put fingers in their ears and say "LALALA, I can't hear you!".
The Club of Rome made a prediction forty years ago that's coming pretty close to reality. RTFA and take a look at the comparative plots.
Society is circling the bowl just waiting for that big gulping sound as it goes down the drain. Nature is being destroyed. The quality of life is already destroyed for most people. Labor is so precious that it is unaffordable in a world that craves labor but does everything it can to beat labor down. It is a new form of slavery. People in the computer industry should be able to see it. Many have slept on or under their desks and had horrid diets of pizza and junk food while slaving away endlessly nights, days, weekends and holidays. Yet inflation makes it near impossible to save enough for retirement while traditional measures such as purchasing land and homes has also failed people completely. Many areas in the nation are being so covered with roads that health and human activity are squashed and while needing less roads more roads are being built as local economies usually can not self sustain without constantly seeking growth and gathering money from outside the local area. Want a hamburger? The meat comes from Argentina, the cheese is shipped in from Malaysia and tomato is so expensive that you don't get a slice on the burger. All of this is created using high technology devices and planning yet the cost keeps rising sharply and the quality and product size keeps getting less. The eve of destruction need not be posted on the tenement walls. We need to tattoo it on the foreheads of the population as they are too brain warped to hold a thought.
Unlikely because the inevitable civil wars of social unrest resulting from the ever-increasing concentration of wealth will "solve" the population problem.
How much of our economic statistics - both boom and bust - are tied up in meaningless garbage? And how much are bubbles like the random "values" assigned to housing rotating among different neighborhoods? What if we didn't produce 27 different sizes of toothpaste tubes and dozens of types of incompatible wall-wart chargers, and didn't have entire industry segments dedicated to producing waste paper and waste material? Imagine if the cost of food didn't have to incorporate the costs of producing and managing all of the coupons, and the costs of advertising in general - I'll bet we could feed lots of people right there.
Birth rates in Canada and US have been below 2 per couple for quite some time now... Canada right now admits 250,000 immigrants a year to "maintain" our population, I believe in the near future Canada want to increase this to 750,000 for the same reason.
I believe this is one of the reasons why Canada didn't have the same "housing" crash the US did; the simple fact we kept allowing enough people in that demand stayed constant while the US significantly reduced the number of immigrants and thus had more supply than demand.
I am seriously wondering what is going to happen in 20 years when all the baby boomers don't want, can't maintain, or can't live in, their three bedroom, two story houses any more. I think the "crash" we just experienced will be nothing compared to that. In the early 80's there were towns in central Canada (Rural areas, but still) that would let you claim the deed and property of a house for just the filing fees (I know because I was very close to buying one); the town just wanted a "owner" on paper so they could collect the land tax. I can see this happening again, especially in towns that have been "kid unfriendly".
"Kid Unfriendly", a definition I use to represent towns/cities where they make having kids unfeasible (removing parks and green space, closing down kid activities/businesses, converting Rec centers to old age retirement fitness centers (e.g., 1 family swim each day from 1pm to 2:30pm -- like any family can go then!!!) and having 4-5 timeslots for "senior" swimming and "senior" aerobics, etc), converting kids parks (with play equipment) to off leash parks (so elderly can take their dogs to play -- got a daughter who is terrified of dogs now because of this), not allowing and/or granting permits for family houses/apartments/townhouses (1 bedroom and bachelor apartments/townhouses are not suitable for a family), and finally, allowing "senior only" mobile parks, apartments, and housing communities.
Truthfully, the last place I lived was exactly that, to the point I finally said screw it, picked up the family and left; they want a senior only city they can have it! I found a city that wants a future, wants children and has plans to still be a community after the boomers die off.
My personal quote:
"The boomers are the first and last generation to have a retirement where it can be considered a retirement; and yet they say we are the one who are not doing enough to ensure their retirement is good enough...."
I don't know about any of you, but I know I'll be working to the day I die, using the financial planning tools that exist right now it is NOT possible to have a retirement (let alone the fact that anything saved will be taxed to death to pay for the last of the boomers and the debt they staddled us with) without giving up any pretence to actually having a life. [My father only worked 40 hrs a week, 50 wks a year, my mother never worked, she stayed home and took care of the kids; Yet, to even pretend to have the same lifestyle they did, my wife and I both have to work (and more than 40 hrs) and vacations are really taken just to get the family shit done (like taxes, paperwork, kids activities, etc)... for the first time in 20+ years this summer I am planning to take a 2 week vacation (but I'll still be on call); before this I had to use a day here and there throughout the year to get family and personal stuff done instead. Tell me again how great and easy the baby boomers made everything for us?
Therefore, any policy to reduce children in Canada and the US I believe is pointless; instead worry about the places where population growth is currently out of control and get those countries to agree to terms and/or stop all shipments of food/supplies so that natural selection will solve their problems; just like lack of kids is going to solve ours in 20 years :(
Modern society is quite interdependent. We rely heavily on centralized systems, big infrastructures. There is inherent vulnerability in that. If those systems break down anywhere along the way, the chain reaction brings everything down. Look at what the blackout in the Northeast US a few years back did.
But there's a countervailing trend now toward self reliance. We're not talking about neo-primitive cave dwelling, but technological self-sufficiency. As more people are able to supply their own energy needs with solar, wind, etc, that's a host of dependencies that go away. If 3D printers become widespread then fabrication of items for personal use becomes a lot more possible. If wifi nodes continue to multiply and we swith to a mesh network protocol, then communication's covered too.
So, the decline of the centralized society and the rise of decentralized society taken together, the former will collapse one way or another, but the latter may save the day. Either way we're in for a heck of a paradigm shift.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Lets say 100m x 100m per person (roughly 2 football fields). Can feed more than a person.
Many farmers use commercial hydroponic systems already. No need for land anymore. Just water and poop from fish.
I predict a global infustructure collapse on Janurary 19th 2038 assuming all of todays systems remain in place for the next 9420 days.
No shit
from the ashes the singularity arises?
Assume one person occupies two square feet when standing: (2 sq ft/person) * 7 billion people = 14 billion sq ft = 502 sq miles. According to Wikipedia the consolidated Jacksonville city-county area includes 767 sq miles of land, so everyone would actually get one whole extra square foot of space to move in! Why, with sufficient coordination you might even be able to set up currents so people could move around!
I will not comment on the idiocy of overlooking the acreage required to feed each person, or for that matter how fast that many air-breathers in one place would likely strip the air of oxygen. Even with strong winds I'm thinking the downwind side of the county would be suffering from an epidemic of carbon dioxide poisoning.
Especially considering it's NOT spelled "board", it's "bored", moron.
Why is it every press release from MIT is painfully stupid? They sell themselves as one of the top schools in the world and yet there is so much idiocy leaking out of that place.
Wow, the dirty reds are out in full force. This is dribble all of it.
dissident and/or revolutionary.
"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're
inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers,
lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save.
But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that
makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are
not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly
dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
If you were on the fence about buying a hybrid instead of normal ICE-only car, buy a hybrid. The more people who do that, the less oil we will need.
That'll only be true when they do something about the atrocious fuel efficiency of the hybrids....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
This is nothing new - reminds me of the "olduvai"-theory, which looks at the energy-per-head consumption during the centuries..
http://2012.com.pa/?page_id=207&lang=en
Same prediction 2030!!!!
Actually I do follow Amercian politics - as only ex-pats and people who have left the States do. My reply ignored the current crop of political idiots (nice turn of phrase by the way) and was hopefully representative of the people. The people all realized long ago that the political system was broken and pointless - one glance at any branch of the US government proves that. Since people have realized they can't expect leadership from leaders many have moved back into the driver's seat and have been guiding the next generation in the leadership void.
The only partially sensible person visible in the current GOP Hunger Games (meaning the nomination process) unfortunately drifts into periodic bouts of lunacy - which unortunately kills his chances. I'm referring to Ron Paul who has a good grasp of the fundamental economic issues which have cornered the US into a debt position it can't get out of without serious pain. Decades of abusing the great power in the hands of the Fed, printing money and abusing Reserve Currency status have brought the States to a Greece-like position. Pretty soon, the rest of the world will get royally pissed with Bernanke/Greenspan watering down the Reserve Currency, and will move the Reserve Currency outside the grasp of the Fed. When that happens, watch out! - Wall Street will be a bit player in the global economy and the tail will wag the dog.
Is it just me or should all these Green/malthusian/progressive idiots be de-tenured and sacked so some one who wants to crate can get paid. I am so sick of Global Warming, Climate Change, weather Wierding, Club of Rome Socialist crap!
None of these idiots would know an opportunity if it bit them.
The only thing wrong is these types breed and go to good universities to tell us this never ending immature nonsense
MFG, omb
Yes, resources are obviously limited, but calling it a "collapse" gives everyone the impression that depletion of non-renewable resources is a singular, instant event that would have riots on the streets in something akin to a zombie apocalypse. The reality is that, as resources become more scarce, the prices will just keep rising. This will eventually lead to it becoming cheaper for businesses to recycle and dig up old trash. There won't be an apocalypse, but there WILL be a depression era in which the majority of people can't afford the high costs of many things that are cheaply available today until the volume of construction material can be salvaged (and maintained) at high enough levels again. You can already see this happening in other industries, like energy, where renewable fuels are getting increasing corporate support as oil and natural gas sources become depleted. Exxon doesn't care about global warming, pollution, or any other public costs; all that matters is profit. Same goes for every other Fortune 500 company.
It'll just be another scenario in which a few plutocrats keep being wasteful until it screws everyone over, then get the government to enact laws for their benefit (in this case, enforcing recycling, composting, and so on--which should already be enforced--once it means a net profit for businesses) once everything comes back to bite them in the ass. Nobility: 9001, proletarians: 0.
Appeal to fictional character on FOX television show.
According to the Pentagon report given to Bush in 2004, the shit will hit the fan by 2020 with raising sea levels wiping out large parts of Europe, Asia and the US Coastal Areas. Along with the collapse of major financial markets, we will face severe shortages in food, raw material and potable water. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver
"The planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated."
-- Pentagon Report 2004
From reading the vague and confusing article which talked more about a report drafted in 1972 than these new findings, it seems the Pentagon's findings conflict with MIT citing the consumption rates of our resources rather than climate change as the catalyst for collapse and that this outcome is preventable by behavior change.
... "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.
-- MIT 2004
But, who says these dire predictions have to be mutually exclusive? When taken together they seem to cast some real doubt on the MIT reports finding that collapse may be averted by Green Technology.
So it's probably safe to predict that around 2025, the rise of sea levels, climate change and over-consumption will cause for global wars over limited resources such as water and mineral rights with the resulting market collapse causing a sudden plummet in the global population back to more sustainable levels.
I see a lot of fish and seafood sold in supermarket that is "farmed". It must be profitable, so it is cost effective now and as long I there is a spece for new farmed seafood we will see more products being produced there.
...are all people who actually act to make a change. hey are trying to change the world to be something they want to live in. That requires a certain amount of hope and optimism that a person's actions can make a difference. Cynics do not believe in the power of individuals, they think the whole game is rigged against them. To a cynic the world consists of lemmings who go with the flow and individuals who engage in a futile fight against the power.
By shrugging one's shoulders and saying 'there's no point in bringing kids into this world like you breeders and dummies' a person shows they don't feel any optimism for the future so there's no point even trying.
Quitters and Sheep.
Steven Colbert said the following once and I've liked it ever since:
"Now will saying 'yes' get you in trouble at times? Will saying 'yes' lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don't be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying 'yes' begins things. Saying 'yes' is how things grow. Saying 'yes' leads to knowledge. 'Yes' is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say 'yes'."
Read Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Civilizations".
He said they failed due to a "failure of problem-solving institutions" not due to the rate of consumption. Later empires flourished despite massively greater consumption.
The difficulty with peak oil people is that they do not understand how the economy adjusts. Their entire theory of collapse/decline is based upon an incorrect understanding of the economy as a static entity which was built up over decades and will collapse with any changes. In fact the economy more resembles an intelligent organism which is always adapting, seeking out, making changes, evolving.
Most of peak oil doom and energy descent theory is based upon 4 simple fallacies: 1) assuming exponential growth for quantities which are not growing exponentially (like population or energy usage); 2) ignoring alternatives and substitutes; 3) assuming a non-adjusting economy, or assuming the economy will not adjust to alternatives; 4) conflating resources with reserves.
Most importantly, energy decline theorists do not understand the price mechanism. This is their main source of difficulty.
AC who posted http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2768095&cid=39584357
If you're still reading this and it made you mad what I wrote, good. You honestly need a good kick in the ass. Your attitude sucks.
The wonderful thing about this prediction is that it is testable.
It's wrong though, because this model failed to take into account the likely imminent (next 1-2 years) outbreak of WW3.
Read this about the Doomslayer in Wired magazine back a few years ago: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html
Oops, this article was written way back in 1977 and yet I still remember it.
The YouTube video previously linked is of a lecture given by Albert Barlett. If you find it not so easy to navigate, or that it obscures the credibility of the content, go straight to the source for the definitive copy, and the summary. This lecture truly is among the most important videos any of us will see. It makes plain the simple reality of exponential growth against finite resources in terms that are entirely relevant to our daily lives.
...technology is making things more efficient. The problem is that the demand for things keeps increasing as more and more countries join the high-tech revolution.
So, aparently, technology can make "things" more efficient, but can't do the same for life in general.
I think a big part of our problem is that we have come to worship consumer technology as a religion and congregate around its impressive cathedrals (fossil fuel tech), and in doing so we resist science and new/responsible technologies as heresy. Even the specific label for the heretics has remained unchanged: People who today promote the use of sustainable technologies (incl. renewables and birth control) are called "Luddites" about as often as they are called environmentalists. They oppose some technologies, so they are given a label used to denote someone who opposes all new technology. Of course, there's more to it than that: The environmentalist solutions not only tend to promote decentralization of power generation and other means of production, but they also want to dispense with the culture of constantly creating and reinforcing consumption patterns in people. So environmentalism is a threat to the status quo.
Enter the Singularity cult: It's not only religious but is also intensely pro-consumerism. All our gadgetry from the high consumption is supposed to "wake up" and someday become the messiah.
Great post!
About a year before the housing bubble Canada and the US passed new laws that required Photo ID and proof of citizenship (via photoID) to purchase property (I know since I had to go through this). This means that illegal's would have had to jump through a lot more hoops, and increase their chances of getting deported, to buy property (thus, in a way, sort of supports what I said)...
Although Truthfully, I stated "one of the reasons" and the other BIG one is still shady financial companies and practices but as of recently I believe that has less to do with it then we have been lead to believe. One of the reasons I am starting to believe that is simply because Canada's banking is no better than the US (and regardless of Harper talking about how great it is and how we were better prepared, yada, yada, yada, the Banks are the SAME! and just as corrupt and irresponsible here) and about 5-6 months ago Canada hit the same debt level ratios that the US did before their market burst, but it still has not happened here yet (and our debt ratio continues to grow).... Needless to say, I am hopeing it hits hard here too as prices are ridiculous (I will personally get shafted as I bought a year before the crash in the US but would rather loose everything now and start over again in 7 years with a sane market than continue this facade that is screwing over anyone under 30).
If the "rich" gave all their money away, there would be still the same number of rich versus the same number of poor.
Why do you think the "rich" have all the money?
I'll give you a hint: if they gave away all their money, they'd have it all back again in under 10 years. The reason those people have the money is because they're better at life than you.
That's something that people don't like to face. That they're simply mediocre people who actually live by the grace of others. Its actually a jarring thought, but its true. The people who survive on society's largess and by the taxes paid by "the rich" would in other circumstances never have been born, because their parents were mediocre and they would never have been born either.
You should thank your lucky stars that "the rich" paid your way so far.
And Ayn Rand and the Tea Party have very little to do with each other.
Their philosophies are fundamentally different.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Because I'm hearing an awful lot of criticism against the current neoliberal/globalist system being dismissed as "cynicism". Real cynicism is a comment on human nature, that things will always be the same or worse... and you have to do a gigantic amount of conflation to read that into the AC's comment (and I think that's what you did).
What you told the AC was essentially that people continuing to act in self-interest (you give having children as an example) are the ones who have hope for future generations... borrowed from the classic market-fundamentalist stance that only acting in self-interest can create optimum outcomes for the whole (or perhaps you were unknowingly contradicting yourself).
The only change I can see between the two of you is the AC going against the grain and getting a vasectomy. And much as you would like to decry such an evaluation, by most societal indicators the vasectomy is a much bigger change against the status quo than someone continuing to have kids. Both of your stances reek of dualism, an all-or-nothing viewpoint, in addition to acute selfishness. You just have different ideas of the form that selfish 'virtue' takes.
If I had to choose between the two of you, I'd have to say the AC - but only in the context of our current skyrocketing population. Additionally, you seem to imply that any person who does not try to have children can be labeled a "cynic", so your stance seems to me like the one more fervently asking to be pushed to its logical and destructive conclusion.
Male Birth Control. It's not far off (although there's a joke in there). As we map the Genome we find why some men are sterile w/o having other problems/side effects. Using that data making shots and pills that are 100% effective and safe. Birth rates are already declining in every industrialized nation.
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The *real* reason people take issue with the "growing gap between the worlds' rich and the poor" has almost NOTHING to do with a true concern for people in either of those situations.
It's really primarily about people caught somewhere in-between. You know, the "middle class" (and more accurately the "lower middle" to "upper middle" class as well). That's because THEY are the bulk of the population who actually get up every morning and go to some kind of job ... likely one that's at least incrementally better than a previous one they held, which was incrementally better than the one before it, etc. They (quite rationally, IMO) except to see ever increasing results for all of their labor as they gain experience and struggle to move from job A to B to C (which they've got to prove themselves at, over and over again, every time they switch).
They're the ones who see this increasing gap as a threat, simply because it appears to result in pushing them in a downward direction, to become part of the "poor" (or at least for "upper middle class" citizens, a push down to simply "middle class" or "lower middle class" -- a status they believed they'd managed to work their way out of already, years prior).
This is the truth that most people refuse to (or fail to) acknowledge. Once you attain a certain amount of wealth, all you have to do is invest it wisely, and your money earns your money for you, vs. your labor earning it. So absolutely, the "rich keep getting richer". It's the way our entire economic system is designed... rather unavoidable, and IMO, not a "bad" thing at all. Nobody has yet managed to escape death with all of their wealth -- meaning no matter how much it frustrates you what a particular "uber rich" individual does with his/her money, all that wealth is going to shift elsewhere in a matter of just decades, anyway.
As for the "dirt poor"? Again, there's a truth that isn't very politically popular to acknowledge.... Many (not ALL) of them are in that situation due to their life choices. There are a fair number of people on this planet who are just plain lazy. They're more content to live in poor conditions than to do the work required to improve on it. Other people just suffer from mental illnesses. They can't hold down a productive job, so in all reality, they're a drain or a cost to society vs. being a contributing member. Obviously, we have systems in place to assist them because we generally believe that's basic human decency. But that doesn't justify, in my mind, demanding people who have no relation to them foot the bill to improve their lifestyle beyond the basics. It should be given voluntarily, via charities, vs. taken by force of law (taxation).
And your arguments about the rich being able to afford rising costs for such items as gas while the poor can't? I don't see how that's relevant to solving the problems at hand? Fact is, I don't know many "rich" people who got that way by spending more than necessary on goods or services. I don't think they're running around saying how they rather LIKE paying $6/gallon for their gas, vs. much lower prices. (Maybe someone with a big stake in an oil company would, but few others!) What I *do* see are wealthy business owners complaining that the rising fuel costs are really putting dents in their ability to turn a profit on truck deliveries.... In turn, that makes it tougher to give out raises to their workers or to pay performance or sales bonuses they used to pay. It may even cause some of them to do cutbacks, putting more people out of a job.
You can't begin to solve the problem if you're still fixated on the simplistic concept that "the rich hate the poor and think they're all parasites". You've got to focus on doing whatever helps create more job opportunities (encourage growth of new small businesses for example). Give the working class the ability to do the work they want to do.
The human race have a disgusting surplus of resources. 2% of us can and are providing for the rest of 98%.
We can multiply by a factor of 50 and do nothing, just get more fat and find more entertainment.
Also, anything can happen in 15 to 20 years, its bullshit prediction.
.... will solve the crisis with QE11 !
All one can get is the rubbish news article on yahoo and couple of others that are nearly identical or worse. Is there some more detailed information about this study available any where -- the authors, the exact title, can it be downloaded or bought?
Why cant those writers of "news" stories like at yahoo include a reference to their sources, goddamnit?
Get used to higher fuel prices, USA. Yesterday I filled my tank and here in the UK it is 1.42 GBP for a litre, that's 1.42 * 1.5849 (GBP->USD) * 3.785 (litre->US gallon) = 8.51836203 for a US gallon of standard gas in US dollars.
It's going to get more expensive everywhere, you'd best think about how you'll alter your life style to manage when it is 8.5 dollars a gallon for you too...
I like how at least two separate news articles have shown images of Chinese population to go along with it.
If there is one country in the world that is doing the most to control population growth, it's the PRC.
From my 50 0r more year experience as a driver of cars, big and small, and trucks (10 wheels and under), I believe the best position of hands on the wheel is 7:30 and 4:30.The next best would be at 9:00 and 3:00 o'clock. I also believe that the best position for the driver is with arms only slightly bent at the elbow. It is unfortunate that many drivers bend their arms at the elbow such that the angle between forearm and biceps is less than 90 degrees sometimes much less. In some cases, that situation may be because the driver is of short stature and may have no way for his/her feet to reach the pedals except by bringing the seat close to the driving wheel, resulting in arms bent at less than 90 degrees. These drivers would be well advised to choose a car where the seat can be positioned further away from the wheel but still allows them to be within easy reach of the pedals. The reason for having the arms bent at a much large angle is that the driver's ability to react quickly when faced with an emergency requiring the wheel to be turned is that it will be much easier to turn the wheel (for instance to avoid a collision) when the driver's arms are cocked at an angle more than 90 degrees. Conversely, when the arms are cocked at a much sharper angle, (for instance when the wheel is used to rest the forearms on), the wheel or even the thighs will interfere with the forearms. Professional drivers and race drivers will frequently have their arms nearly straight (say 160 to 170 degrees angle between forearm and biceps) because it gives more leverage and control. In a collision, a driver with overly bent arms and her/his face close to the wheel is at greater risk of injury to his/her face than if he/she positions himself/herself at a greater distance.
The principle source of any significant collapse over that past 2000 years has been, well, the barbarian hordes (probably a reasonable characterization by the conquered whether you are talking about visagoths, spaniards, or the british -- conquered = civilized, conqueror = brutish). The last true collapse was the roman empire and that was a somewhat localized affair (i.e., western europe). Empires and countries have waxed and waned over the last 2000 years, but again their weakening has been brought on by the actions of other countries and empires. Big, rich countries can do a lot of stupid things that don't amount to much until they encounter an able competitor, think General Motors. The point is that civilizations do collapse, but they generally need some help. Moreover, all civilizations do not collapse simultaneously. The civilizations that dominate the globe today are all quite different:, USA, Europe, China, India, Russia. Each has different weakness and strengths. Each will respond differently to future stresses.
I trust a "rule of thumb" that has been right for 47 years a lot more than I trust the many doomsday scenarios that has been wrong several times in the same time frame.
47 years.....lol.....a wink of a gnat compared to the whole sum of human history. 47 years is nothing.
You have a RUDE awakening ahead of you son....
Simply stating that a resource is finite is no proof that we are about to run out of it. The ocean is finite, yet we are not in any danger of running out of sea water.
Just fish.
You really put the ass in Picass0. I think it's safe to say that you've just learned a new word, and like any child who learns a new word, you try to label everything with it.
Time to grow up. You sound like one of those young kids you berate for pretending to know how everything works. You certainly don't.
You are a fool. You've colored yourself as one. Stop trying to be the wise man who knows all. You're not a visionary, you won't be leading the world to a bold new vision that will save us all. You're just a dick on the internet who thinks he knows better than everyone else.
"No one ever saw them coming." This is wrong, many see the troubles coming, but seldom are the short-term-interest of the greedy/god-blind fools seeking to prevent the pandemic, catastrophe, collapse, and their own friends and families horribly violent deaths. The fools (hitler, stalin, madoff ...) surrounded by sycophants believe up until their last days/hours that they will profit from the tragedies and tribulations of all others.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?