How Many Earths Would We Need?

[AndyH]

The term "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron

I think this statement is wrong

It doesn't matter AT ALL that modern cars are somewhat more fuel efficient than 1950s cars - because efficiency has not improved as fast as the number of vehicles. Therefore there is nothing sustainable about it - it's continued growth.

And there CERTAINLY cannot be anything 'sustainable' about continued use - at any rate - of a finite resource. We can push the end away for a time, but we cannot make the end disappear.

Drawing water from an aquifer so that it maintains the same level year to year without polluting or otherwise harming the aquifer seems to me to be sustainable. Using trees from an area at the rate they regrow so the net number of mature trees remains constant seems to be sustainable. But there is no sustainable way for me to shoot windows out of my bathroom - even if I only shoot one every 200 years - 'cause I've only got one.

The car thing misses the mark, anyway, because fuel is finite, the iron and aluminum are finite, the air and water absorbing manufacturing pollution are finite, the soil used to grow the food to feed the workers is finite (using industrial farming methods)...

 

[klapauzius]

The car thing misses the mark, anyway, because fuel is finite, the iron and aluminum are finite, the air and water absorbing manufacturing pollution are finite, the soil used to grow the food to feed the workers is finite (using industrial farming methods)...

The car was just an example. I thought computation per watt was more impressive...

Also bear in mind that matter is not mysteriously disappearing from this planet.
There is still the same amount of water, air, iron and aluminum here as there was a million years ago.
Ok, maybe a little less oxygen, because of all the carbon fuel burning...

Stuff (air,water, iron, aluminum) can be recycled. It just takes energy.
As long as we have enough energy, all problems can be solved.

Of course the total amount of e.g. available steel would limit the total number of e.g. cars we could build, but that number is hypothetical.

Although I am looking forward to the end of the oil-age, you could imagine this:
If we constantly keep increasing the efficiency of ICEs, we might reach a point, where we could
sustainably keep our ICE cars going with grown or artificially generated fuel...
Fortunately, 100 mpg+ ICE cars these days look kind of goofy and are totally impractical, but who knows....

 

[AndyH]

Also bear in mind that matter is not mysteriously disappearing from this planet.
There is still the same amount of water, air, iron and aluminum here as there was a million years ago.
Ok, maybe a little less oxygen, because of all the carbon fuel burning...

Stuff (air,water, iron, aluminum) can be recycled. It just takes energy.
As long as we have enough energy, all problems can be solved.

How much energy will it take to remove DDT from the environment? How much energy will it take to get endocrine disruptor chemicals out of breast milk? How much energy will it take to bring all the life back to the planet that's been lost during this man-made extinction?

Of course the total amount of e.g. available steel would limit the total number of e.g. cars we could build, but that number is hypothetical.

Sure - the total amount of steel, aluminum, etc. is the same. But the per capita distribution is not the same. And no amount of energy is going to create new aluminum on the planet.

If I recall correctly, Dr. Bartlett commented that around 1980 the per capita allocation of fossil fuels was about 1.7 liters per person per day. Some might think that they aren't using that much fuel in their car so therefore they should have a very good 'green score.' Consider this:

In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994).7 ... Energy costs for packaging, refrigeration, transportation to retail outlets, and household cooking are not considered in these figures.

400 gallons per year per person is about 1514 liters - 4.1 liters per person per day. We've already moved into fossil fuel unsustainability just for food.

How much fuel is left over for making our clothes (synthetic fibers come from oil), our furniture, our toasters, our computers?

Sure, it's about energy. But it's also about what we do with the energy - and how we waste so much of it.

 

[klapauzius]

I think the whole lecture by Dr. Bartlett is a bit beside the point:

Around 1. A.D the world could probably sustain ~ 100-200 million people, maybe a bit more or maybe a bit less.
Had someone told them that 7 billion would live on the earth, they probably would have told you the same as Dr. Bartlett is telling us today: No way, our ecological footprint will not allow it. Farming was just not very efficient back in the day, and while diseases and war were decimating people at much higher rates than today, food was probably the limiting factor.

Yet here we are, at 35-70 times more people than 2000 years ago.

So given the right technologies, we can squeeze quiet a bit out of existing resources, certainly no enough
to sustain exponential growth (unless we manage to grow efficiency exponentially too, which is, like exponential growth not going to happen), but that will not be necessary.

There is no question that we will run out of oil, but that will hopefully not put a damper on overall progress...
As for all the other non-transportation related uses of oil: Any other hydro carbon, e.g. coal, will do. You could even make gas from coal (its an established technology since WW2), its just not economical at below $140/barrel.
Not that I would look forward to a continuation of the fossil fuel binge, but, until population growth and consumption will slow down, there are technologies that can bridge the transition to a sustainable energy economy.

 

[AndyH]

I think the whole lecture by Dr. Bartlett is a bit beside the point:

Watch it again with feeling this time because he provides a tool that can open a really huge doorway to understanding!

Around 1. A.D the world could probably sustain ~ 100-200 million people, maybe a bit more or maybe a bit less.
Had someone told them that 7 billion would live on the earth, they probably would have told you the same as Dr. Bartlett is telling us today: No way, our ecological footprint will not allow it. Farming was just not very efficient back in the day, and while diseases and war were decimating people at much higher rates than today, food was probably the limiting factor.

Yet here we are, at 35-70 times more people than 2000 years ago.

And the Earth has been showing the strain - and so have the two-headed turtles and the 6 year old girls shopping for training bras.

So given the right technologies, we can squeeze quiet a bit out of existing resources, certainly no enough
to sustain exponential growth (unless we manage to grow efficiency exponentially too, which is, like exponential growth not going to happen), but that will not be necessary.

There is no question that we will run out of oil, but that will hopefully not put a damper on overall progress...
As for all the other non-transportation related uses of oil: Any other hydro carbon, e.g. coal, will do. You could even make gas from coal (its an established technology since WW2), its just not economical at below $140/barrel.
Not that I would look forward to a continuation of the fossil fuel binge, but, until population growth and consumption will slow down, there are technologies that can bridge the transition to a sustainable energy economy.

It doesn't matter what happened in 1 AD - we're in an entirely different world now because while humans have been changing the planet from the very beginning, now they are REALLY making a mess!

Disconnect from 'gas' for a minute and step back here with me. Look around. See that corn over there? Yes - all those bazillions of acres? Well, it's fertilized with oil, the insecticides are oil, the herbacides are petrochemicals as well...and then we get to transportation. So sure - let's do GTL and coal to gas. One problem. All that CO2 is harming corn growth - because C4 plants don't do as well as soybeans and other C3 plants when the CO2 goes up. Increased CO2 also increases the need for herbacides (but reduces their effectiveness). And then there's heat - 1°C cuts productivity 10%, increases the need for water (but fresh water supplies are not used sustainably now), and a bit more temperature pushes the plant out of it's reproduction zone - and darn it all - if those yellow corn kernals are the blasted seeds! :lol:

So, If I read you correctly, we'll have a future world with tons of energy, GTL, liquified coal, increased CO2, increased heat, the US breadbasket in shambles as Canada takes over growing corn after they cover the tarsands pits and clear cut the boreal forest to prepare the new farmland. That'll take some time, and of course we'll wait until it's pass midnight to start making the changes, so world hunger, disease, starvation, and war will get all hyperactive until things reach a new normal. But - on the bright side - the population drop will take a load off the food supply...

No thanks.

And that's why that 'crappy survey' gives us a less-than-rosy grade - because even those organic tomatoes we move to are shipped in from Canada and Mexico and Argentina!

 

[klapauzius]

And the Earth has been showing the strain - and so have the two-headed turtles and the 6 year old girls shopping for training bras.

Yes, the bra thing is pathetic, but on the positive side, we dont stone people to death for having an affair or saying "Jehova" (Not sure if Monty pythons depiction of these times is entirely accurate )

As for all the lament about our primordial forests gone, no more living in romantic caves, chewing the meat of beasts you hunted down and slaughtered with your own hands, wearing your pelt and so forth romanticism....
On the spiritual side, billions more are enjoying our "spoiled" world than in the stone age.
That is worth something, wouldnt you think?

So, If I read you correctly, we'll have a future world with tons of energy, GTL, liquified coal, increased CO2, increased heat, the US breadbasket in shambles as Canada takes over growing corn after they cover the tarsands pits and clear cut the boreal forest to prepare the new farmland. That'll take some time, and of course we'll wait until it's pass midnight to start making the changes, so world hunger, disease, starvation, and war will get all hyperactive until things reach a new normal. But - on the bright side - the population drop will take a load off the food supply...

No thanks.

No, you did NOT read me correctly. I am totally against burning more fossil fuel. But it is a necessary evil to bridge the gap to a sustainable energy supply.
The real problem is that many people are simply too short-sighted to realize that
oil, gas and coal are just stop gaps.

 

[AndyH]

And the Earth has been showing the strain - and so have the two-headed turtles and the 6 year old girls shopping for training bras.

Yes, the bra thing is pathetic, but on the positive side, we dont stone people to death for having an affair or saying "Jehova" (Not sure if Monty pythons depiction of these times is entirely accurate )

It is pretty pathetic, isn't it? And yet as a result of a long line of petrochemicals - many derived from chemical warfare agents developed during WWII - we have kids drinking out of plastic containers that leach BPA (a known endocrine disruptor). And in the container is milk from cows laced with antibiotics (so they can tolerate the nasty farm conditions and tolerate corn - not their native food) and growth hormones (so they can make more mon...I mean milk). And guess where those antibiotics and growth hormones go? Right into our bodies. BPA alone reduces reproductive rates and causes DNA damage. And those growth hormones? Well, it's good for the undergarment industry... :evil:

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/924002-overview#a0199

However, many in the United States had the impression that girls had been maturing earlier than in the past. No data were available to confirm this impression until 1997, when Herman-Giddens et al reported on the incidence of breast and pubic hair development by age and race in 17,000 US girls aged 3-12 years.

Smile and say "Man - is it GOOD to be on top of the food chain!" along with "Bioaccumulation is Good For Us*!" *us in the petrochemical industry, that is...

As for all the lament about our primordial forests gone, no more living in romantic caves, chewing the meat of beasts you hunted down and slaughtered with your own hands, wearing your pelt and so forth romanticism....
On the spiritual side, billions more are enjoying our "spoiled" world than in the stone age.
That is worth something, wouldnt you think?

There's NOTHING spiritual about raping the planet and destroying the lives of those 'poor stone-age underlings' so that we can eat atrazine-laced lettuce and write poetry about how we lost our way and decided to defecate in our food dish. Even my cat is smarter than that. :evil:

Sorry man - I'm done with this. I need to go throw up.