Primal/Paleo x Population = Unsustainable page 2

[paleo-bunny]

Something to consider is wether that would be a good thing or a bad thing anyway. If we returned to a limited availability of food, the human population might shrink back towards a more healthy population. Just a thought anyway!

I agree that a smaller human population would be better for the planet ... and would also improve quality of life for humankind. Hence primal eating is better all round.

[Wildrose]

I see this as a pointless question. Why? Well, several reasons...

To answer your question directly, as Mark pointed out on the Daily Apple, America's biggest crop is lawn grass. All of that crap could be torn up for vegetable gardens if necessary, so we could make it happen. However... agriculture in general is not sustainable. I would recommend reading the Vegetarian Myth, although she tends to wander into feminist rhetoric and parts of it are very depressing. But as someone else already said, we are completely dependant on oil for agriculture. So it doesn't really matter if the whole world could or couldn't turn paleo tomorrow. We're screwed in the long run anyway.

Cheerful, eh? It gets even better if you think about the economic and social consequences to lowering the population. People have said that the developed world eats most of the worlds resources and we need to consume less. Okay... but people consuming less has a name. It's called a recession. If people cut back enough, it's a Depression. Our entire economic system is based on the idea of infinite growth, and trying to fix it is going to be painful and likely impossible. I have no idea where all this will go, but I'm almost glad I'll be dead before it all goes to hell...

[Scott F]

<wildrose>....and while I don't like a crowd and an over populated earth whose going to be ones who volunteer to checkout first and depopulated it. Not me.

But the models predict a population collapse circa 2030-2050 due to resource scarcity. I have a saying "humans, today, are the petrosapiens and telling a petrosapien it's addicted to oil is like telling a fish it's addicted to water." But here's the reality of how much oil the world must have for its current economic model: Think of 55-gallon steel drums laid end to end. Now try to imagine 67,200,000 of those drums stretching into the horizon. Each one of those drums are 3 feet long. That many steel drums laid end to end would stretch 38,182 miles long. At a circumference of the earth begin 24,900 miles those steel drums of oil would encircle the earth 1 1/2 times.

Let's try a trivia question: How many days does it take for the world's global economy to use that much oil? Anybody want to take a guess?

[paleo-bunny]

<wildrose>....and while I don't like a crowd and an over populated earth whose going to be ones who volunteer to checkout first and depopulated it. Not me.

Surely only those who have had more than 2 children should have to consider volunteering.

[Scott F]

<wildrose>....and while I don't like a crowd and an over populated earth whose going to be ones who volunteer to checkout first and depopulated it. Not me.

But the models predict a population collapse circa 2030-2050 due to resource scarcity. I have a saying "humans, today, are the petrosapiens and telling a petrosapien it's addicted to oil is like telling a fish it's addicted to water." But here's the reality of how much oil the world must have for its current economic model: Think of 55-gallon steel drums laid end to end. Now try to imagine 67,200,000 of those drums stretching into the horizon. Each one of those drums are 3 feet long. That many steel drums laid end to end would stretch 38,182 miles long. At a circumference of the earth begin 24,900 miles those steel drums of oil would encircle the earth 1 1/2 times.

Let's try a trivia question: How many days does it take for the world's global economy to use that much oil? Anybody want to take a guess?

Nobody wants to guess? It's one (1) day. Everyday the world consumes 88,000,000 42-gallon barrels of oil. That volume would fill enough steel drums to encircle the earth 1 1/2 times. You could encircle the earth 560 times each year with steel drums.

The kick in the ass is this: Oilfields decline as they are produced so the oil industry must continually fined new fields to replace that decline or go out of business. After the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, and we were sitting in blocks long gas lines, the OECD countries form the International Energy Agency (IEA). In 2008 the IEA did a field by field decline rate calculation on 800 of the world's largest oilfields. Those 800 fields produce 2/3rds of the world supply.

There conclusion was:
National Geographic Magazine - NGM.com
"The Energy Information Administration, an arm of the U.S. government, forecast last year that, all things being equal, world energy consumption would increase 50 percent by 2030. That's a good round number, summing up the desire of people across the world for refrigerators, televisions, ice cubes, hamburgers, motorbikes, and maybe even a little air-conditioning in the tropics.”

“But it's not at all clear where that energy can come from, because we happen to be alive at the moment when the oil is starting to run out. In November 2008 the International Energy Agency estimated that production from the world's mature oil fields was declining 6.7 percent a year, a rate that is expected to get even worse over time. Offsetting this decline will require finding a new Kuwait's worth of output every year, or somehow squeezing that much more from existing fields. Many observers think we've already passed the peak of oil production. An optimist in this world is someone who thinks it might still be a matter of years. But there's little question where the future lies, which is why the cost of a barrel of oil spiked to $147 last year. It took the prospect of a Great Recession to bring it back down to $40. Curbing high gas prices with recurrent economic slumps is probably not the smartest of remedies."

www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/WEO2008SUM.pdf
"The projected increase in global oil output hinges on adequate and timely investment. Some 64 mb/d of additional gross capacity — the equivalent of almost six times that of Saudi Arabia today — needs to be brought on stream between 2007 and 2030. Some 30 mb/d of new capacity is needed by 2015. There remains a real risk that under-investment will cause an oil-supply crunch in that timeframe. The current wave of upstream investment looks set to boost net oil-production capacity in the next two to three years, pushing up spare capacity modestly. However, capacity additions from current projects tail off after 2010. This largely reflects the upstream development cycle: many new projects will undoubtedly be sanctioned in the near term as oil companies complete existing projects and move on to new ones. But the gap now evident between what is currently being built and what will be needed to keep pace with demand is set to widen sharply after 2010. Around 7 mb/d of additional capacity (over and above that from all current projects) needs to be brought on stream by 2015, most of which will need to be sanctioned within the next two years, to avoid a fall in spare capacity towards the middle of the next decade."

By my math, the oil industry needs to put on a new Saudi Arabia worth of oil every 4 years or you'll will see major economic unrest. Nobody knows of anything capable of replacing petroleum for all it does. Humanity is in a race against time to find a replacement that doesn't yet exist. And while that's going on we have a clues populace and House of Reps who don't seem to grasp the seriousness. See Sonia Shah's interview: Crude - the incredible journey of oil - Broadband edition - ABC Science

[Puddleglumish]

When I was at school my text book stated that we had about 25 years of oil left. When I started teaching - still 25 years of oil left. 30 years on fracking is being offered as a plentiful source of oil with the caveat of potential earthquakes and pollution of the water table.

What are your thoughts on fracking Scott? Does it have the potential to save us long term or is it a short term sticking plaster with unpalatable consequences?

[Bushrat]

Current farming is not sustainable anyway. We are depleting topsoil at an alarming rate.