Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread please. Thank you.
55 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, December 27, 2024”
Biophysical limits to Growth:
Is anyone aware of a study by any national government, ever, that explores the apparent contradiction between two perennial goals: economic growth versus retaining a stable Earth System & an adequate resource base for future generations?
I’m aware of the extensive literature on “sustainable development” and the hope that we can have both (growth plus a healthy ecosystem) but what I’m searching for is a study that explores the contradiction including biophysical limits, the impossibility of endless growth, etc.
Is anyone aware of such a study?
I’m in Canada and have had no luck in finding a study by any of our federal departments.
Just wondering whether anyone is aware of such an analysis conducted elsewhere.
Perhaps the closest I’ve seen to a 1:1 match might be the work done by Simon Michaux (e.g. The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth) for the Geological Survey of Finland.
There are other studies that approach aspects of this question such as EROI, but only from a more narrow perspective than you appear interested in.
I see that his study is 73 pgs which seems to be a fairly comprehensive examination of the issues. I will go through the study tomorrow.
The closest I’ve found so far from within Gov’t of Canada is a few of the studies published in various journals that were written by a veteran researcher within our Agriculture department.
But it’s only a few understated comments that point out the enviro harms that can result from the pressure on farmers to increase their yields in order to stay afloat financially.
What I’m hoping to find is an analysis that questions the wisdom of having, as an overt goal of governments, the pursuit of continuous economic growth/ increased GDP.
There are so many problems with such a study, you could write a book.
First, you need to define GDP. Such a study would seem to be based on an outdated definition, which includes only counting the volume of agricultural and manufactured goods. In fact, the majority of growth in developed countries is coming from services and quality improvements in agricultural and manufactured goods. Quality improvements generally don’t need more steel and fuel, just better design (which tends to come from laptops using maybe 50W*).
2nd, perpetual growth is unrealistic. Its persistence as an assumption really must be described as a “straw man”. Developing countries are very likely to follow the same path as the developed: growth in ag and goods which ends in a rough plateau. They may skip some of the goods consumption: no need for land lines and and an ICE vehicle for every home.
3rd, you have to clarify biophysical limits: peak Fossil Fuel, in particular, is not a realistic limit to growth. We can see that there is a scientific and economic consensus that net-zero is a necessary and practical goal, and does not necessarily limit the economy.
Similarly, it’s seems pretty clear that population growth will end pretty soon, and then reverse.
*”AI” is an interesting development, which is currently increasing the power used for certain information services. Developing a methodology to predict its future is a fairly new kind of project. You might want to take a look at Ray Kurzweil’s analyses & projections in his book “The singularity is closer”.
It’s worth noting that it uses electricity, and that solar power can provide at least 500x as much electricity as humans currently use – there’s really no evidence for a projection that human consumption will ever need to approach this limit.
There are a lot of solutions, including: not farming in deserts; not farming commodities which use excessive amounts of water, in deserts (beef, rice, almonds…). Farming in the inland Saudi peninsula? In Arizona, or inland S. California??
Farmers have excessive political power, and as a result they get massive amounts of free water, and they waste massive amounts.
Not a bad description of the silly state of water policy:
80% of irrigation water goes to agriculture – most of that is wasted (the reservoir/canal/farm distribution system loses a lot of water through evaporation and leakage), and most of the remainder is used for excessively high-water crops.
20% is residential, 15 of those 20 percentage points are for lawns(!), and of the remaining 5 points, most could and should be recycled (like Las Vegas).
Greater efficiency, optimal allocation of water, and recycling are all that’s needed. Desalination would be far more expensive than just using stuff properly. It’s not the city that’s unsustainable, it’s the water use policies.
And its not just groundwater.
Its hard to avoid noticing that large parts of the globe are experiencing a trend of increasing aridity. Perhaps not where you live, but very large regions.
“Growing aridity poses threats to global land surface” https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01935-1
Global combustion is making these problems worse and worse. So far global CO2 emissions are still on the rise, and while they may peak within 10 years the levels will remain very high for a long time. This will enable the accumulation of much higher levels of atmospheric CO2.
Nick we both think that many human policies are silly, and even agree about some of details on that. But lets all assume that being ‘silly’ is a factor in this whole mess that isn’t about to fade away. For example, it is silly to assume that Limits to Growth is only a hypothetical issue.
LoF, Hickory,
This is a complex issue, and I don’t have a lot of time right now to delve into it, but please remember that this is an answer to a theoretical question about growth vs biophysical limits.
There are a lot of solutions for water problems. If societies are too disorganized to implement them that’s not a biophysical limit.
As an analogy, there are a number of countries that are perfectly capable of feeding their population if they could just stop fighting civil wars. And yes, I know drought can cause civil wars, it’s a complex situation. Which is kind’ve my point: it would be very difficult to give a theoretical answer.
Have you tried researching the solutions, rather than just looking for descriptions of shortages?
Hickory,
Here’s a quote from the World Resources Institute:
“Every level of government, as well as communities and businesses, must step up to build a water-secure future for all. The world will ultimately require an all-of-the-above approach, as well as solutions specific to individual catchments and regions.
These findings may be daunting, but with the right management, every country can prevent water stress from turning into water crisis.”
“These findings may be daunting, but with the right management, every country can prevent water stress from turning into water crisis.”
I simply do not buy this opinion…extreme case of wishful thinking by those who stated it.
Dec 26, 2024 “Morocco faces a severe agricultural crisis as local authorities predict the 2024 wheat harvest will decline by approximately 50%, marking another blow to the country’s cereal production amid a prolonged seven-year drought.”
The Dutch use about a tenth as much water per kilo of tomatoes as Californians do. And Holland isn’t exactly dry. Spain and Israel also get by on much less water consumption and remain agricultural power houses.
Cheap water for agriculture is good in small portions, but at some stage it starts leading to waste.
As for crops, Arizona needs to stop subsidizing water waste for alfalfa.
What the American West really needs is better rain catching and water retention. Flash flooding and deserts are a chicken-or-egg problem. One engenders the other.
Reintroducing the beavers to the American West would go a long way towards rehydrating the region. As American ranchers have proven themselves remarkably bad stewards of the land, turning vast areas of semiarid grasslands into deserts. Keeping the cattle out of the creek bottoms in the dry season would be a good start.
My grandmother, born 1888 in West Kansas, said about the Dust Bowl: “I always told them not to cut down the cottonwood trees. They were the only thing keeping the wind from blowing away their farms.”
The cottonwoods grew in the creek valleys, now mostly vanished. Planting a few billion trees between the crops in the vast corn, wheat and soybean field of the West would vastly improve the region.
I come from Appalachia, where they say “The good Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise”. My wife comes from Kyushu. The creeks rise and flood the rice fields there at the exact hour the farmer’s coop agrees on, months in advance. Gods aren’t involved. That’s why farming collapsed in Appalachia, but is still going strong in Kyushu.
To clarify, I certainly agree that water use management/policies/techniques are critical to optimize water resources.
However none of that can cure the widespread mass-scale groundwater depletion or the spreading aridity/land degradation that is related to large climate shifts and soil degradation.
Or massive overpopulation.
I’m really not saying that to needle – I’m just suggesting that you could give more attention to solutions…
I’m not one to pretend that management approaches come any close to being ‘solutions’.
management approaches
I’m not sure what you mean, and I suspect you’re not taking the possible solutions seriously enough.
For instance, removing free-water subsidies could be described as “management”, but it can have an enormous impact on eliminating waste: farmers should change their crop selection, irrigation methods, water sources, etc. It can cut water use dramatically: I think an 80% reduction is conservative.
Of course, farmers will fight this tooth and nail, as anyone would. But, to bring this back to the original question, shortages due to exorbitant waste is not what you’d call running into a biophysical limit. Remember, waste of a free resource is perhaps the one thing in economics that is truly potentially infinite.
After months of spewing anti immigrant hate and conspiracy theories, Elon Musk and MAGA are having a falling out over immigration.
“Elon Musk doesn’t support H-1B visas because it gets him the best employees, or because he has no other options, or because he can’t find qualified U.S. workers. He needs workers who are visa-insecure so he can abuse them.”
Elon Musk is perhaps the most hated man in America; Democrats, and now MAGA, both loath him. All he’s got left is the Fanbois.
• India’s government extended the mandate for coal-fired plants to run at full capacity until February 28.
• India is on track to add a whopping 90 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity by 2032.
• India’s growing population and industrial demand have kept coal firmly in the driver’s seat.
Despite the push toward cleaner alternatives like wind and solar, India’s growing population and industrial demand have kept coal firmly in the driver’s seat. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that global coal demand will remain close to the 2024 record-high levels over the next three years, in large part fueled by India and China. India’s power needs are skyrocketing, and coal is still the reliable backbone for maintaining a stable energy grid in the face of unpredictable weather events.
Some highlights: China produces about a third of all cars, three times as many as the US. Tiny Slovakia produces 50% more cars than Russia. Germany and South Korea are neck and neck.
Thanks Alim. I tried using claude.ai to produce a chart; the best I could do lacks an x-axis label for S.Korea. Any suggestions anyone? Also, the numbers are AI and therefore suspect 🙂
Alim, you’re right. The numbers are junk. And it (claude.ai) leaves the x-axis label blank rather than spreading it over 2 lines. Why should we trust AI?
“Why should we trust AI?”
Don’t trust it anymore than you trust humans. All data and analysis needs to be put through filters of reality testing and verification.
JOHN NORRIS
Claude is a large language model (LLM). They are amazingly good at imitating human interactions, but lack some basic ingredients of intelligence.
Model of the Mind — All higher animals dedicate grey matter to simulating the behavior of other animals. They understand the idea of intention. This is useful for learning from others, cheat detection (and cheating), long term planning (where the animal imagines what it will want in the future, even if it doesn’t want it now) etc. LLMs simulate this in a crude way. Nobody is sure how. But they are easy to deceive and usually don’t really “understand” what is going on and why, as this example shows.
Strategic thinking — Game playing software has algorithms involving mapping the consequences of series of events by multiple players and making choices based on the potential consequences. (Minimax and tree pruning) LLMs lack that, though again, they show surprising abilities in simple situations.
Editing — I have already made several corrections to this text. LLMs blurt out what pops into their “minds” without editing. You can tell Claude to correct the chart and it probably will.
Those are just three basic weaknesses of LLMs. I’m sure there are more.
You can tell Claude to correct the chart and it probably will.
Thanks Alim, but sadly no. I tried about 5 different ways to get the x-axis labels right. It didn’t.
I also told it “your numbers are wrong”. It apologised and asked me to provide the right numbers! Sigh…
“Apr 20, 2024 — China accounts for more than half (58 percent) of all new electric cars sold worldwide today.”…
up from close to zero 10 years ago.
Late in the last decade I had predicted that over 90% of global light vehicle sales would have a plug by 2030.
I might be off by a few years. Within China the percent of plug vehicles sales is approaching 60% now…in Europe over 25%.
My thanks to those who responded to my question at the top of this thread.
With the exception of the very useful lead by T Hill, my question remained unanswered.
The question was, “Is anyone aware of a study by any national government, ever, that explores the apparent contradiction between two perennial goals: economic growth versus retaining a stable Earth System & an adequate resource base for future generations?”
I’m very concerned about multiple ecological dimensions (soil, water, food security, energy supply, etc).
We and my wife’s siblings farm in Ontario and I devote endless hours to research on these issues.
Michaux’s study is the closest I’ve found so far: it is a detailed (72 pg) critique of the current Growth paradigm and, most importantly, it is published by a department of a federal government (Geological Survey of Finland).
I continue to search for something similar that has been published by my Government, by USA or UK, etc.
I will write to Michaux to thank him for his study and to see whether he is aware of similar efforts by other government departments (eg. agriculture, natural resources, enviro).
Thank you for considering my request for more info.
I doubt you find any such study that will really answer the question you are interested in.
Nonetheless there is plenty of good food for thought to read on the issue.
Here is one such thoughtful author of topics around these issues…ask him. Tim Morgan.
His postings frame these topics very well, for example https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/11/20/138-inflexion-point/
RICK MUNRO —
The general term for this is sustainability. Well, it’s part of sustainability. Here’s what the UN agenda on the topic looks like: https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
Of course that’s just a statement of goals, not an analysis of the situation. But you can start there to find more information.
The question as you stated it won’t be answered anywhere because it is too overarching. But there are lots of studies on parts of the problem.
I still have documents in our basement from the late 1980s following the release of the Brundtland/ UNCED report on “sustainable development” in 1987 and represented our farm organization at several conferences during the early 1990s.
Looking back at it, the entire exercise seemed to be, “How can we have our cake and eat it, too?”
I find nothing in Our Common Future (the main UNCED) publication that even questioned the merits of economic growth, much less pointed to its downsides.
Regarding the Brundtland/UNCED report
In that timeframe I could imagine “how can we have our cake and eat it, too?” was a main question. It was all about exploring the options for the time being.
I am questioning a bit the economy growth theses at the moment, because real economic growth is monetary economic growth minus inflation. The inflation bit is a tax that makes growth not very significant for the time being, at least not since the post covid recovery period.
Nothing is entirely sustainable, so the question is more how to get down to a more sustainable model that can last for a certain timeframe. That certain timeframe can be 50-100 years or a couple of hundred years. The longer the timeframe, the higher the sacrifice short term. Not politically acceptable most places, because people don’t like to think in that direction. What it could boil down to is that with the wealth of knowledge and research available, we utilise “tools” to downsize our standard of living only when necessary. A lot of places will struggle with authoritarian leadership only concerned about their own (and the accompanied elite) wellbeing with no real progress to solve underlying issues. Most short term disasters could happen, but I think humans then will come together and stabilise the situation so it gets in line with the (unfortunately) slow deteriorating long term outlook.
I’m glad you found that useful. I’m not too far south of you across the border and share your same concerns. For example, I suspect I’m MUCH smaller scale than you, but will spend time this summer on soil improvement with cover crops and with completing work on a root cellar.
Why do you want to find something that is coming out of a government entity? I am skeptical that you will find much. Keep in mind that these entities work for politicians, and the famous quote by Upton Sinclair:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
“Why do you want to find something that is coming out of a government entity?”
Because they determine societal goals (or at least claim to).
In this case, they have two goals that are inherently opposed. Economic growth/ GDP is boosted by the extraction & consumption of resources. Even waste management and enviro cleanups boost GDP.
But accelerating the conversion of resources to wastes has two major consequences, both of which were highlighted in Limits to Growth: resource depletion and “pollution” including GHGs (ie. wastes beyond the capacity of our ecosystem to absorb them).
Here in Canada we have two agencies that are responsible for Foresight: our military analysts and a civilian agency. Neither shows much awareness of (much less, concern over) the research by Steffen & Rockstrom re. planetary boundaries, nor the warnings of Bill Rees @ UBC, nor the excellent work in UK by Lenton & Kemp, etc, all of which warn about biophysical limits and enviro tipping points, etc.
Instead, they focus on geopolitical risks in the Arctic, AI and automation, radicalization & terrorism… all of which are serous concerns, of course, but none of which is a major goal of government policy.
Economic growth is.
WORLD ENDURES ‘DECADE OF DEADLY HEAT’ AS 2024 CAPS HOTTEST YEARS ON RECORD
“The UN’s climate and weather agency, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), will publish official temperature figures for the year in January. The organisation said the past year was set to be the warmest on record, capping a decade of unprecedented heat fuelled by human activities and driving increasing weather extremes, while greenhouse gas levels continued to reach new highs, locking in more heat for the future.”
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
The flavor comes across as humor or comedy.
But the reality isn’t at all funny.
Back in the thirties the old gaurd, the rich people who owned the major industries in Germany, believed they could control Hitler and use him to suit their own ends.
Now we have our own wannabe Hitler.
He’s headed back to the White House, as I see things, for two basic reasons.
One, you can fool enough of the people enough of the time to get elected by telling them what they want to hear.The breadth and depth of the ignorance of a typical working class, impoverished or evangelical voter is simply astounding.
Trump has near perfect cult management skills. Nuf said.
Two, he has a fair number of so called ” tech bros” who have put fortunes into getting him re elected. They generally believe they can control him . I believe they are getting what they want from him, for the most part, at least for now.
What they get in the long run may not be at all what they expect, or want.
I want to think that there are enough cooler heads in high positions all thru our own government and the governments of our allies that he won’t be able to actually invade any of our allies or otherwise set the stage for WWIII.
But it’s hard to imagine he could be doing any worse job when it comes to holding the Western countries political coalition together. The sort of reckless rhetoric he is spouting on a regular basis couldn’t be better designed to encourage various tin pot wannabe dictators that they’ll never be in a better position to invade a neighbor.
Back in the thirties the old gaurd, the rich people who owned the major industries in Germany, believed they could control Hitler and use him to suit their own ends.
Have you seen a good discussion of this, especially in a well researched book or long article with supporting sources/foot notes?
Maybe your looking for something like this chapter-
“Shirer, William L. (October 17, 1960). “Chapter 7: The Nazification Of Germany: 1933–34”. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-5168-3. “”Now we stand before the last election,” Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that “regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat.” If he did not win, he would stay in power “by other means… with other weapons.” Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of “financial sacrifices” which “surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years.””
My first reaction is, Wow! That certainly sounds like language we’ve been hearing for the last 9 years…
My 2nd is that this doesn’t really support the idea that industry was part of the creation and early planning of the Nazi party. It does provide evidence of industrial support of Hitler, and it’s consistent with the idea that capitulation and cooperation with someone like Trump (such as we’re seeing with people like Bezos, owner of the Post, and Soon-Shiong, owner of the LA Times) is the pathway to dictatorship.
Adam Gopnik did a fantastic book review that focuses on the strategies and enablers that brought Hitler to power in the New Yorker. I think you can read this without a subscription:
“The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction,” Goebbels said as the Nazis rose to power—one of those quotes that sound apocryphal but are not.”
Recall that the Nazi party did not receive a majority of the vote and did not control the legislature or judicial branch. The new administration will be in far more favorable position than Hitler was in 1932.
The book that Gopnik reviews, Timothy W. Ryback’s “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” is a deep study of the year, people and tactics that Hitler used to transform the Weimar Republic from a representative democracy to an authoritarian state.
What happened in Germany cannot be under in isolation.
The book written by Richard Lamb. The Drift To War.
He describes in detail how views held in France, Britain and America had effects. Often it was the biases of a few individuals that caused devastating results. What led to WW2 was the culmination of 20 years of petty thinking and politicians lacking the imagination to see where their policies would lead.
To be honest, that has been my suggestion for a long time, just get any ship going through Öresund with an anchor down, it would solve SE4 electricity price instantly. https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/
“Until we take our fate into our own hands and start putting Musk’s, Bezos’, Gates’, Zuckerberg’s, Arnault’s, Ellisson’s, Page’s and other kleptocrat’s heads on pikes, neutering their political lackeys and nationalizing their ill gotten fortunes, we are doomed to a slide towards totalitarian serfdom.”
Norway set yet another record in electric vehicle (EV) market share in 2024, as nine out of ten new passenger car sales were battery EVs, data from the Norwegian Road Federation OFV showed on Thursday. A total of 88.9% of all new passenger car sales were battery EVs, up from 82.4% in 2023, according to the data.
” According to EPRI, a single ChatGPT query requires around 2.9 watt-hours, compared to just 0.3 watt-hours for a Google search, driving a potential order of magnitude more power demand. Even inference data centers will need to be 100MW or above.”
“In due course, I expect the tech titans to learn the same lesson as utilities have learned: relying on a purely fossil-based power supply will turn out more expensive than one which hybridizes cheap renewables and batteries with a little gas. It turns out there is a reason why 91% of all new power capacity added worldwide in 2023 was wind and solar, with just 6% gas or coal, and 3% nuclear.”
This might be pie in the sky but so was EVs not too long ago & we might be able to say the same thing about solid state batteries pretty soon. I’m only an amateur but I remember quite a while ago Buckminster Fuller saying doing more with less . So far he’s been right.
(I’m not saying Carnot & hideaway are wrong; not smart enough)
Biophysical limits to Growth:
Is anyone aware of a study by any national government, ever, that explores the apparent contradiction between two perennial goals: economic growth versus retaining a stable Earth System & an adequate resource base for future generations?
I’m aware of the extensive literature on “sustainable development” and the hope that we can have both (growth plus a healthy ecosystem) but what I’m searching for is a study that explores the contradiction including biophysical limits, the impossibility of endless growth, etc.
Is anyone aware of such a study?
I’m in Canada and have had no luck in finding a study by any of our federal departments.
Just wondering whether anyone is aware of such an analysis conducted elsewhere.
Thanks for considering my question.
No, not exactly as you describe.
Perhaps the closest I’ve seen to a 1:1 match might be the work done by Simon Michaux (e.g. The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth) for the Geological Survey of Finland.
There are other studies that approach aspects of this question such as EROI, but only from a more narrow perspective than you appear interested in.
Thank you, TH.
I see that his study is 73 pgs which seems to be a fairly comprehensive examination of the issues. I will go through the study tomorrow.
The closest I’ve found so far from within Gov’t of Canada is a few of the studies published in various journals that were written by a veteran researcher within our Agriculture department.
But it’s only a few understated comments that point out the enviro harms that can result from the pressure on farmers to increase their yields in order to stay afloat financially.
What I’m hoping to find is an analysis that questions the wisdom of having, as an overt goal of governments, the pursuit of continuous economic growth/ increased GDP.
There are so many problems with such a study, you could write a book.
First, you need to define GDP. Such a study would seem to be based on an outdated definition, which includes only counting the volume of agricultural and manufactured goods. In fact, the majority of growth in developed countries is coming from services and quality improvements in agricultural and manufactured goods. Quality improvements generally don’t need more steel and fuel, just better design (which tends to come from laptops using maybe 50W*).
2nd, perpetual growth is unrealistic. Its persistence as an assumption really must be described as a “straw man”. Developing countries are very likely to follow the same path as the developed: growth in ag and goods which ends in a rough plateau. They may skip some of the goods consumption: no need for land lines and and an ICE vehicle for every home.
3rd, you have to clarify biophysical limits: peak Fossil Fuel, in particular, is not a realistic limit to growth. We can see that there is a scientific and economic consensus that net-zero is a necessary and practical goal, and does not necessarily limit the economy.
Similarly, it’s seems pretty clear that population growth will end pretty soon, and then reverse.
*”AI” is an interesting development, which is currently increasing the power used for certain information services. Developing a methodology to predict its future is a fairly new kind of project. You might want to take a look at Ray Kurzweil’s analyses & projections in his book “The singularity is closer”.
It’s worth noting that it uses electricity, and that solar power can provide at least 500x as much electricity as humans currently use – there’s really no evidence for a projection that human consumption will ever need to approach this limit.
Rick
Water is one of the greatest limits to growth.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-highlighting-for-each-basin-the-percentage-of-900-simulated-scenarios-in-which-the_fig2_380003054
Water is not just used for agriculture at an unsustainable rate but is being polluted also.
Potable water is certainly a big problem.
There are a lot of solutions, including: not farming in deserts; not farming commodities which use excessive amounts of water, in deserts (beef, rice, almonds…). Farming in the inland Saudi peninsula? In Arizona, or inland S. California??
Farmers have excessive political power, and as a result they get massive amounts of free water, and they waste massive amounts.
Not a bad description of the silly state of water policy:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/20/phoenix-least-sustainable-city-survive-water
80% of irrigation water goes to agriculture – most of that is wasted (the reservoir/canal/farm distribution system loses a lot of water through evaporation and leakage), and most of the remainder is used for excessively high-water crops.
20% is residential, 15 of those 20 percentage points are for lawns(!), and of the remaining 5 points, most could and should be recycled (like Las Vegas).
Greater efficiency, optimal allocation of water, and recycling are all that’s needed. Desalination would be far more expensive than just using stuff properly. It’s not the city that’s unsustainable, it’s the water use policies.
Just silly.
Nick
What alternative crops would you suggest?
Fact is globally we are using far too much water and increasing droughts are making things much worse.
There are over a billion people living in countries which have severe water shortages.
https://www.wri.org/insights/highest-water-stressed-countries
What do you suggest for people living in the counties in the bottom 50 of this list?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_precipitation
I am aligned with Loads of Oil over the concerns on this issue. That is a very good report on the issue- https://www.wri.org/insights/highest-water-stressed-countries
from the World Resources Institute.
And its not just groundwater.
Its hard to avoid noticing that large parts of the globe are experiencing a trend of increasing aridity. Perhaps not where you live, but very large regions.
“Growing aridity poses threats to global land surface”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01935-1
Global combustion is making these problems worse and worse. So far global CO2 emissions are still on the rise, and while they may peak within 10 years the levels will remain very high for a long time. This will enable the accumulation of much higher levels of atmospheric CO2.
Nick we both think that many human policies are silly, and even agree about some of details on that. But lets all assume that being ‘silly’ is a factor in this whole mess that isn’t about to fade away. For example, it is silly to assume that Limits to Growth is only a hypothetical issue.
LoF, Hickory,
This is a complex issue, and I don’t have a lot of time right now to delve into it, but please remember that this is an answer to a theoretical question about growth vs biophysical limits.
There are a lot of solutions for water problems. If societies are too disorganized to implement them that’s not a biophysical limit.
As an analogy, there are a number of countries that are perfectly capable of feeding their population if they could just stop fighting civil wars. And yes, I know drought can cause civil wars, it’s a complex situation. Which is kind’ve my point: it would be very difficult to give a theoretical answer.
Have you tried researching the solutions, rather than just looking for descriptions of shortages?
Hickory,
Here’s a quote from the World Resources Institute:
“Every level of government, as well as communities and businesses, must step up to build a water-secure future for all. The world will ultimately require an all-of-the-above approach, as well as solutions specific to individual catchments and regions.
These findings may be daunting, but with the right management, every country can prevent water stress from turning into water crisis.”
“These findings may be daunting, but with the right management, every country can prevent water stress from turning into water crisis.”
I simply do not buy this opinion…extreme case of wishful thinking by those who stated it.
Dec 26, 2024 “Morocco faces a severe agricultural crisis as local authorities predict the 2024 wheat harvest will decline by approximately 50%, marking another blow to the country’s cereal production amid a prolonged seven-year drought.”
The Dutch use about a tenth as much water per kilo of tomatoes as Californians do. And Holland isn’t exactly dry. Spain and Israel also get by on much less water consumption and remain agricultural power houses.
Cheap water for agriculture is good in small portions, but at some stage it starts leading to waste.
As for crops, Arizona needs to stop subsidizing water waste for alfalfa.
What the American West really needs is better rain catching and water retention. Flash flooding and deserts are a chicken-or-egg problem. One engenders the other.
Reintroducing the beavers to the American West would go a long way towards rehydrating the region. As American ranchers have proven themselves remarkably bad stewards of the land, turning vast areas of semiarid grasslands into deserts. Keeping the cattle out of the creek bottoms in the dry season would be a good start.
My grandmother, born 1888 in West Kansas, said about the Dust Bowl: “I always told them not to cut down the cottonwood trees. They were the only thing keeping the wind from blowing away their farms.”
The cottonwoods grew in the creek valleys, now mostly vanished. Planting a few billion trees between the crops in the vast corn, wheat and soybean field of the West would vastly improve the region.
I come from Appalachia, where they say “The good Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise”. My wife comes from Kyushu. The creeks rise and flood the rice fields there at the exact hour the farmer’s coop agrees on, months in advance. Gods aren’t involved. That’s why farming collapsed in Appalachia, but is still going strong in Kyushu.
To clarify, I certainly agree that water use management/policies/techniques are critical to optimize water resources.
However none of that can cure the widespread mass-scale groundwater depletion or the spreading aridity/land degradation that is related to large climate shifts and soil degradation.
Or massive overpopulation.
Hickory,
The quote that appeared to be wishful thinking? It came from the report that you described above as “ That is a very good report on the issue”.
https://www.wri.org/insights/highest-water-stressed-countries
from the World Resources Institute.”
I’m really not saying that to needle – I’m just suggesting that you could give more attention to solutions…
I’m not one to pretend that management approaches come any close to being ‘solutions’.
management approaches
I’m not sure what you mean, and I suspect you’re not taking the possible solutions seriously enough.
For instance, removing free-water subsidies could be described as “management”, but it can have an enormous impact on eliminating waste: farmers should change their crop selection, irrigation methods, water sources, etc. It can cut water use dramatically: I think an 80% reduction is conservative.
Of course, farmers will fight this tooth and nail, as anyone would. But, to bring this back to the original question, shortages due to exorbitant waste is not what you’d call running into a biophysical limit. Remember, waste of a free resource is perhaps the one thing in economics that is truly potentially infinite.
After months of spewing anti immigrant hate and conspiracy theories, Elon Musk and MAGA are having a falling out over immigration.
“Elon Musk doesn’t support H-1B visas because it gets him the best employees, or because he has no other options, or because he can’t find qualified U.S. workers. He needs workers who are visa-insecure so he can abuse them.”
Elon Musk is perhaps the most hated man in America; Democrats, and now MAGA, both loath him. All he’s got left is the Fanbois.
As our world warms.
INDIA KEEPS COAL POWER AT FULL THROTTLE
• India’s government extended the mandate for coal-fired plants to run at full capacity until February 28.
• India is on track to add a whopping 90 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity by 2032.
• India’s growing population and industrial demand have kept coal firmly in the driver’s seat.
Despite the push toward cleaner alternatives like wind and solar, India’s growing population and industrial demand have kept coal firmly in the driver’s seat. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that global coal demand will remain close to the 2024 record-high levels over the next three years, in large part fueled by India and China. India’s power needs are skyrocketing, and coal is still the reliable backbone for maintaining a stable energy grid in the face of unpredictable weather events.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/India-Keeps-Coal-Power-at-Full-Throttle.html
Why Can’t the US Get the Giant, Bloodsucking Health Insurance Tick off Its Back?
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-private-health-insurance
we shall see
Car manufacturing by country.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-top-30-countries-automobiles-manufactured/
Some highlights: China produces about a third of all cars, three times as many as the US. Tiny Slovakia produces 50% more cars than Russia. Germany and South Korea are neck and neck.
Thanks Alim. I tried using claude.ai to produce a chart; the best I could do lacks an x-axis label for S.Korea. Any suggestions anyone? Also, the numbers are AI and therefore suspect 🙂
Change it to Korea. It’s probably too long so it gets dropped.
Also the chart is totally wrong lol. For example, my link says the US produces nearly 3x the number of cars as Germany.
Alim, you’re right. The numbers are junk. And it (claude.ai) leaves the x-axis label blank rather than spreading it over 2 lines. Why should we trust AI?
“Why should we trust AI?”
Don’t trust it anymore than you trust humans. All data and analysis needs to be put through filters of reality testing and verification.
JOHN NORRIS
Claude is a large language model (LLM). They are amazingly good at imitating human interactions, but lack some basic ingredients of intelligence.
Model of the Mind — All higher animals dedicate grey matter to simulating the behavior of other animals. They understand the idea of intention. This is useful for learning from others, cheat detection (and cheating), long term planning (where the animal imagines what it will want in the future, even if it doesn’t want it now) etc. LLMs simulate this in a crude way. Nobody is sure how. But they are easy to deceive and usually don’t really “understand” what is going on and why, as this example shows.
Strategic thinking — Game playing software has algorithms involving mapping the consequences of series of events by multiple players and making choices based on the potential consequences. (Minimax and tree pruning) LLMs lack that, though again, they show surprising abilities in simple situations.
Editing — I have already made several corrections to this text. LLMs blurt out what pops into their “minds” without editing. You can tell Claude to correct the chart and it probably will.
Those are just three basic weaknesses of LLMs. I’m sure there are more.
You can tell Claude to correct the chart and it probably will.
Thanks Alim, but sadly no. I tried about 5 different ways to get the x-axis labels right. It didn’t.
I also told it “your numbers are wrong”. It apologised and asked me to provide the right numbers! Sigh…
“Apr 20, 2024 — China accounts for more than half (58 percent) of all new electric cars sold worldwide today.”…
up from close to zero 10 years ago.
Late in the last decade I had predicted that over 90% of global light vehicle sales would have a plug by 2030.
I might be off by a few years. Within China the percent of plug vehicles sales is approaching 60% now…in Europe over 25%.
My thanks to those who responded to my question at the top of this thread.
With the exception of the very useful lead by T Hill, my question remained unanswered.
The question was, “Is anyone aware of a study by any national government, ever, that explores the apparent contradiction between two perennial goals: economic growth versus retaining a stable Earth System & an adequate resource base for future generations?”
I’m very concerned about multiple ecological dimensions (soil, water, food security, energy supply, etc).
We and my wife’s siblings farm in Ontario and I devote endless hours to research on these issues.
Michaux’s study is the closest I’ve found so far: it is a detailed (72 pg) critique of the current Growth paradigm and, most importantly, it is published by a department of a federal government (Geological Survey of Finland).
I continue to search for something similar that has been published by my Government, by USA or UK, etc.
I will write to Michaux to thank him for his study and to see whether he is aware of similar efforts by other government departments (eg. agriculture, natural resources, enviro).
Thank you for considering my request for more info.
I doubt you find any such study that will really answer the question you are interested in.
Nonetheless there is plenty of good food for thought to read on the issue.
Here is one such thoughtful author of topics around these issues…ask him. Tim Morgan.
His postings frame these topics very well, for example
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/11/20/138-inflexion-point/
Thanks… I will examine Tim’s work.
RICK MUNRO —
The general term for this is sustainability. Well, it’s part of sustainability. Here’s what the UN agenda on the topic looks like: https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
Of course that’s just a statement of goals, not an analysis of the situation. But you can start there to find more information.
The question as you stated it won’t be answered anywhere because it is too overarching. But there are lots of studies on parts of the problem.
I still have documents in our basement from the late 1980s following the release of the Brundtland/ UNCED report on “sustainable development” in 1987 and represented our farm organization at several conferences during the early 1990s.
Looking back at it, the entire exercise seemed to be, “How can we have our cake and eat it, too?”
I find nothing in Our Common Future (the main UNCED) publication that even questioned the merits of economic growth, much less pointed to its downsides.
Regarding the Brundtland/UNCED report
In that timeframe I could imagine “how can we have our cake and eat it, too?” was a main question. It was all about exploring the options for the time being.
I am questioning a bit the economy growth theses at the moment, because real economic growth is monetary economic growth minus inflation. The inflation bit is a tax that makes growth not very significant for the time being, at least not since the post covid recovery period.
R. Munroe
Nothing is entirely sustainable, so the question is more how to get down to a more sustainable model that can last for a certain timeframe. That certain timeframe can be 50-100 years or a couple of hundred years. The longer the timeframe, the higher the sacrifice short term. Not politically acceptable most places, because people don’t like to think in that direction. What it could boil down to is that with the wealth of knowledge and research available, we utilise “tools” to downsize our standard of living only when necessary. A lot of places will struggle with authoritarian leadership only concerned about their own (and the accompanied elite) wellbeing with no real progress to solve underlying issues. Most short term disasters could happen, but I think humans then will come together and stabilise the situation so it gets in line with the (unfortunately) slow deteriorating long term outlook.
Rick Munroe,
I’m glad you found that useful. I’m not too far south of you across the border and share your same concerns. For example, I suspect I’m MUCH smaller scale than you, but will spend time this summer on soil improvement with cover crops and with completing work on a root cellar.
Why do you want to find something that is coming out of a government entity? I am skeptical that you will find much. Keep in mind that these entities work for politicians, and the famous quote by Upton Sinclair:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
A quote with more than one level for this site…..
“Why do you want to find something that is coming out of a government entity?”
Because they determine societal goals (or at least claim to).
In this case, they have two goals that are inherently opposed. Economic growth/ GDP is boosted by the extraction & consumption of resources. Even waste management and enviro cleanups boost GDP.
But accelerating the conversion of resources to wastes has two major consequences, both of which were highlighted in Limits to Growth: resource depletion and “pollution” including GHGs (ie. wastes beyond the capacity of our ecosystem to absorb them).
Here in Canada we have two agencies that are responsible for Foresight: our military analysts and a civilian agency. Neither shows much awareness of (much less, concern over) the research by Steffen & Rockstrom re. planetary boundaries, nor the warnings of Bill Rees @ UBC, nor the excellent work in UK by Lenton & Kemp, etc, all of which warn about biophysical limits and enviro tipping points, etc.
Instead, they focus on geopolitical risks in the Arctic, AI and automation, radicalization & terrorism… all of which are serous concerns, of course, but none of which is a major goal of government policy.
Economic growth is.
Maybe someone can find some good news in this?
WORLD ENDURES ‘DECADE OF DEADLY HEAT’ AS 2024 CAPS HOTTEST YEARS ON RECORD
“The UN’s climate and weather agency, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), will publish official temperature figures for the year in January. The organisation said the past year was set to be the warmest on record, capping a decade of unprecedented heat fuelled by human activities and driving increasing weather extremes, while greenhouse gas levels continued to reach new highs, locking in more heat for the future.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/world-endures-decade-of-deadly-heat-as-2024-caps-hottest-years-on-record-un-antonio-guterres
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
The flavor comes across as humor or comedy.
But the reality isn’t at all funny.
Back in the thirties the old gaurd, the rich people who owned the major industries in Germany, believed they could control Hitler and use him to suit their own ends.
Now we have our own wannabe Hitler.
He’s headed back to the White House, as I see things, for two basic reasons.
One, you can fool enough of the people enough of the time to get elected by telling them what they want to hear.The breadth and depth of the ignorance of a typical working class, impoverished or evangelical voter is simply astounding.
Trump has near perfect cult management skills. Nuf said.
Two, he has a fair number of so called ” tech bros” who have put fortunes into getting him re elected. They generally believe they can control him . I believe they are getting what they want from him, for the most part, at least for now.
What they get in the long run may not be at all what they expect, or want.
I want to think that there are enough cooler heads in high positions all thru our own government and the governments of our allies that he won’t be able to actually invade any of our allies or otherwise set the stage for WWIII.
But it’s hard to imagine he could be doing any worse job when it comes to holding the Western countries political coalition together. The sort of reckless rhetoric he is spouting on a regular basis couldn’t be better designed to encourage various tin pot wannabe dictators that they’ll never be in a better position to invade a neighbor.
When the cat’s away the mice will play.
Back in the thirties the old gaurd, the rich people who owned the major industries in Germany, believed they could control Hitler and use him to suit their own ends.
Have you seen a good discussion of this, especially in a well researched book or long article with supporting sources/foot notes?
Maybe your looking for something like this chapter-
“Shirer, William L. (October 17, 1960). “Chapter 7: The Nazification Of Germany: 1933–34”. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-5168-3. “”Now we stand before the last election,” Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that “regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat.” If he did not win, he would stay in power “by other means… with other weapons.” Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of “financial sacrifices” which “surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years.””
source from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Meeting_of_20_February_1933
My first reaction is, Wow! That certainly sounds like language we’ve been hearing for the last 9 years…
My 2nd is that this doesn’t really support the idea that industry was part of the creation and early planning of the Nazi party. It does provide evidence of industrial support of Hitler, and it’s consistent with the idea that capitulation and cooperation with someone like Trump (such as we’re seeing with people like Bezos, owner of the Post, and Soon-Shiong, owner of the LA Times) is the pathway to dictatorship.
Interesting. Thanks.
Adam Gopnik did a fantastic book review that focuses on the strategies and enablers that brought Hitler to power in the New Yorker. I think you can read this without a subscription:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/25/takeover-hitlers-final-rise-to-power-timothy-w-ryback-book-review
“The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction,” Goebbels said as the Nazis rose to power—one of those quotes that sound apocryphal but are not.”
Recall that the Nazi party did not receive a majority of the vote and did not control the legislature or judicial branch. The new administration will be in far more favorable position than Hitler was in 1932.
The book that Gopnik reviews, Timothy W. Ryback’s “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” is a deep study of the year, people and tactics that Hitler used to transform the Weimar Republic from a representative democracy to an authoritarian state.
What happened in Germany cannot be under in isolation.
The book written by Richard Lamb. The Drift To War.
He describes in detail how views held in France, Britain and America had effects. Often it was the biases of a few individuals that caused devastating results. What led to WW2 was the culmination of 20 years of petty thinking and politicians lacking the imagination to see where their policies would lead.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14236981/Putin-spy-ship-anchor-Baltic-seabed-tear-cables-sabotage.html
Russian spy ship drags anchor across energy cables between finland and estonia.
To be honest, that has been my suggestion for a long time, just get any ship going through Öresund with an anchor down, it would solve SE4 electricity price instantly.
https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/
“Until we take our fate into our own hands and start putting Musk’s, Bezos’, Gates’, Zuckerberg’s, Arnault’s, Ellisson’s, Page’s and other kleptocrat’s heads on pikes, neutering their political lackeys and nationalizing their ill gotten fortunes, we are doomed to a slide towards totalitarian serfdom.”
Do we have enough pikes?
HT,
It’s very helpful to give the source for quotes, so people can go take a look.
The USA does lead in many things:
https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/472028744_1003741398456460_5247443406589466741_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=BXj3TdZZ85cQ7kNvgHZeLbV&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&_nc_gid=A8_NGR2e6Wd3pq9Btv6T6nj&oh=00_AYBSzv8cgIQCf6RmHP46UhPj_MtGpfTd80YpCXTrWVnnAQ&oe=677A00F3
And this is a country with cold winters!
89% OF NEW CARS SOLD IN NORWAY LAST YEAR WERE EVS
Norway set yet another record in electric vehicle (EV) market share in 2024, as nine out of ten new passenger car sales were battery EVs, data from the Norwegian Road Federation OFV showed on Thursday. A total of 88.9% of all new passenger car sales were battery EVs, up from 82.4% in 2023, according to the data.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/89-of-New-Cars-Sold-in-Norway-Last-Year-Were-EVs.html
On AI and electricity requirement.
This author does a great job of exploring the various issues around this topic
https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-generative-ai-the-power-and-the-glory/
” According to EPRI, a single ChatGPT query requires around 2.9 watt-hours, compared to just 0.3 watt-hours for a Google search, driving a potential order of magnitude more power demand. Even inference data centers will need to be 100MW or above.”
“In due course, I expect the tech titans to learn the same lesson as utilities have learned: relying on a purely fossil-based power supply will turn out more expensive than one which hybridizes cheap renewables and batteries with a little gas. It turns out there is a reason why 91% of all new power capacity added worldwide in 2023 was wind and solar, with just 6% gas or coal, and 3% nuclear.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14243231/mystery-alien-signal-scientists-solve.html
Scientists identify mysterious signals from space thought to be alien transmissions (NOT).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14214499/Dark-energy-mystery-finally-SOLVED.html
Dark Energy mystery “solved”!
Actual science in these!
I knew the Daily Mail would be on top of it!!!!!!
The Daily Mail sits at the top of a great heap of doo-doo of its own making
I assumed solid state batteries were a bit into the future. so now I’m guessing Dennis is going to be right in less oil usage.
Hyundai aims to begin full-scale production of all-solid-state batteries in January 2025
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/hyundai-pilot-production-of-ev-batteries
So it still takes oil to produce all this. How much? Who cares? producing energy seems to be more of an issue.
World’s 1st self-charging supercapacitor harnesses solar energy with 63% efficiency
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/self-charging-supercapacitor-harnesses-energy
This might be pie in the sky but so was EVs not too long ago & we might be able to say the same thing about solid state batteries pretty soon. I’m only an amateur but I remember quite a while ago Buckminster Fuller saying doing more with less . So far he’s been right.
(I’m not saying Carnot & hideaway are wrong; not smart enough)
“Those who control the present, control the past; and those who control the past control the future.”
— George Orwell, 1984
A new Open Thread Non-Petroleum has been posted.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-january-3-2025/
An update to US October Oil Production has been posted.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/new-record-high-for-u-s-october-oil-production/