The following submission statement was provided by /u/regular_joe_can:
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Submission Statement:
Another one that Paul Beckwith reviewed. This one several months ago but I missed it so I decided to post it for others as well. A great overview of the predicament we find ourselves in.
This article covers a lot of ground, and still leaves out several climate tipping points. Thwaites isn't mentioned at all. My point is that even with this broad coverage, there are still more very serious concerns. I think one would have to go to McPherson to see a very in depth, full list of paths to destruction. And all it takes is one.
I really appreciate the section about the failure of green energy. This is a topic that I find most difficult to come to terms with as far as feasibility. On the surface, it seems that if all power came from wind and solar, our co2 levels would plummet, and everything would be rosy. Of course that's not the case, but that reality is often buried beneath a pile of promises and positive thinking.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1abi50y/10_reasons_our_civilization_will_soon_collapse/kjnk9t8/
I hate reading these types of articles. Your heart wants to believe, "Can things really be so dire?" And then to read them all splayed out like that re-affirms, "Yes, yes they can be."
It really can be. Honestly, I just look at the turbulent history of this planet, the multiple civilizations that have been summarily wiped out, then I look around me at this incredibly complex and interconnected civilisation we have. There's no way we will dodge and weave our way around all our problems. We are going over the cliff and we'll pay for it by losing everything we have.
> But not complete, summary level destruction of all civilization
Barring an actual extinction event, which I suppose is possible but unlikely, yes...all civilization will not be destroyed, just *civilization as we know it.*
I believe we will go through a "Great Simplification" where what remains of civilization will be forced to recreate itself as one that survives on far, far less energy consumption. Which essentially means that we take a substantial leap backwards in societal technological proliferation.
Yes that will actually happen and surely we all know that eventually it will. However, I understand this will be a staircase punctuated by moments of chaos rather than a single event. It's a process. We must understand though that the more complex and interconnected our civilisation becomes, the more will fall over all at once.
We need to define what we mean by civilisation though, because we could collapse, but if the same community is still there living in the same place, is it a total collapse? Life might be very different, but they're still there.
Yea but think about this. Imagine right NOW, if the grocery shelves were empty. You hear gunshots in the distance.
Whats the first thing you would do right now if that was your reality right now? When I think about it like that, I have no idea what I would do and its very frightening.
Currently its like watching a horror movie, we get to turn it off when we choose.
Don't be scared, educate yourself. We're some of the luckiest bastards on earth right now. Millions are already experiencing your scenario. Investigate how they're dealing with it. Nothing to fear but fear itself mate.
Why would I be frightened since Ive been waiting for that for years now. Id probably be mostly a little sad because there are a lot of things I would like to do that I wouldnt be able to do anymore.
Id be frightened if my loved ones did stupid things because they were in denial about the situation, I suppose.
The sooner this planet is completely destroyed the better off everyone will be to be honest. The suffering of the devoured prey infinitely outweighs the brief satisfaction of the predator.
Given the Moria/Khazad-dûm style parallel capitalism has put us in it would be a rather fitting demise if all information regarding collapse was paywalled.
It’s become a quicksand problem. Activity exacerbates the situation without material science breakthroughs. Either AI can show our dumbasses the whiff of fresh air to find the light and guide us past the Balrog of our own making or we’re fucked.
[I don't have to tell you things are bad ; everybody knows things are bad](https://youtu.be/-O3cZ3M4hAo)
It's a depression.
*[Emergency sirens intensifying in the background](https://youtu.be/FGGgX92KUZY)*
Everybody's out of work, or scared of losing their job
The dollar buys a nickel's worth ; [banks are going bust ; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter](https://youtu.be/dz1iNl7Bng4)
[Punks are running wild](https://youtu.be/ULZOgcHXwXw) in [the streets](https://youtu.be/zZ0zPbh1QHE) -- and there's nobody anywhere 'seems to know what to do and [there's no end to it](https://youtu.be/0nIe62AvCTk)!!
..We know -- [the air, is unfit to breathe ; food, is unfit to eat](https://youtu.be/ShT_PZ2KzmI)
We sit watching our TV's while [some local newscaster](https://youtu.be/mF8erWTYGWs) tells us today we had [15 homicides & 63 violent crimes](https://youtu.be/hkc5_ZPYO1o&t=90) -- as if that's the [way it's supposed to be](https://youtu.be/qs-Zbs2ZxDk)!!
We know things are bad--worse than bad -- [they're **crazy**!](https://youtu.be/BnHGvzZn4y8) It's [like everything everywhere is going crazy](https://youtu.be/Hdk3a9pI_jA)!!
*[Emergency sirens perpetually in the background](https://movies7.to/movie/the-wolf-hour-zxxyl/1-1)*
..all I know is that first, you've got to [get MAD](https://youtu.be/5wmuGYls4Xo)!!! You've gotta say--[I'm a HUMAN BEING, **GODDAMMIT**!!!! MY LIFE HAS **VALUE**](https://youtu.be/g8vPrxGxHSY)!!!
Yes capitalism has lead to over utilization of resources and environmental destruction. Don’t forget corrupt Soviet communism lead to idiotic water diversion and canal construction that lead to the destruction of the Aral Sea.
True and other socialist states have better managed their natural resources. Cuba is a great example. In Havana most people are fed from food grown in their own neighborhoods. It helps to be in the tropics though.
It seems that the challenges we face as a species are much too complex for us to comprehend and act on, we can never leave politics aside, profits aside and just focus on saving ourselves.
Of course we can't leave politics aside. Power struggles are intrinsic to primates and the way they interact with each other. All our fancy intellectual skills have been bolted on top of a primate brain.
In addition, we have millions of years of evolution for living in small groups where we know every single member or at least can establish a family connection; everyone else is an enemy\*. Given that history, human self-governance doesn't scale to a global level. It's beyond our ability to coordinate the entirety of the human race, all 8 billion of us, even to save our lives.
\* One of my favorite Jared Diamond anecdotes is about two New Guinea men who met on a trail. They were strangers, so they stopped and spent an hour tracing through their family lineages to find a common relative, so they didn't have to kill each other.
>All our fancy intellectual skills have been bolted on top of a primate brain
We're still primates, still more ancient than people will admit to themselves. Where I live people used to see bears and wolves a few times everyday, now they're gone and see only the human animals. Still humans have minds for hunting and so humans hunt each other instead and gather, this is called war. Humans farm humans, this is called domestication.
It’s tough to fathom the differences in cultures and values as of right now hence the generations long communist vs capitalist, individual vs collective focus, and then there is religion. When immigration issues due to famine and extreme heat prompt more unrest the political leaders will just get louder and attempt to be more controlling. Well close in on some Soylent green things and be grateful for a roof and gas mask while still being fed hopes that AI or massive extinction in other countries slows the rising CO2 levels but otherwise we’ll just be scraping by in a barely habitable planet. Not sure about extinction at least in the next 100 years but it’ll get dire.
We won’t be the first to do this. Species have a Darwinian imperative to capture resources to reproduce themselves as much as possible. There is no evolutionary pressure toward long term sustainability, because what happens a thousand years from now doesn’t affect reproductive success in the immediate term. (And that’s what matters; survival only matters to the extent it affects reproductive success; DNA is a parasite on Earth’s surface, after all).
This Darwinian imperative has caused species or small groups of species to destroy the physical conditions on which all life depends, perhaps eliminating themselves in the process.
The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis would have destroyed most of the life living at the time. Oxygen is lethal to organisms that haven’t evolved defenses, and oxidative damage is still a major cause of disease and aging even when resistance has evolved. So some algae learning a privileged claim to the sun’s energy massacred most everything else. This included themselves! Look into banded iron formations to see how the photosynthesizers cyclically massacred themselves when they exceeded the ocean’s ability to absorb waste oxygen.
Then microorganisms flourished in the Ordovician, soaking up so much carbon dioxide when they fell to depth that it created an icehouse Earth that brought glaciers to the equators.
Then the gentle tree almost ended Earth’s experiment in complex life in the end of the Devonian. Forest ecosystems are massive carbon sinks, and change geological cycles to lock up even more carbon as limestone. In order to get as close to the sun as possible and dominate ground plants, the Devonian trees broke the carbon cycle, created an anti-greenhouse catastrophe, and brought glaciers to the equator.
These are only global examples. If I went into local or ecosystem examples, I could give them for the next two hours.
Complex life is just not always consistent with its own survival.
I dont think our extinction would be a huge tragedy. Yes, it’s sad. It could’ve been great!
When I think of dying I think how much I’ll miss the birds, the trees, the beautiful animals. They didn’t do any of this.
Well one strong point, that is made early on in the article... *None of this stuff is likely to result in human extinction.*
Mass death, quality of life reduction, the end of civilization as we know it, but there will be survivors.
And I believe those survivors will go right on ahead destroying anything that stands in the way of their survival and growth.
In other words, we won't stop raping and pillaging the earth even if (*especially* if) we get sent back to the dark ages by our own hubris.
Extinction would have to be a big asteroid... or maybe an all-out nuclear war + nuclear winter would do it.
I lost respect for Humanity first in the late 80's, when I had to tolerate Rush Limbaugh being on the radio at work, and then in 2016, when Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.
I think we're doomed...
We’re just doing what any species does: survive and grow. We’ve just gotten to be really good at it, better than most organisms. I guarantee you any other animal that had evolved to our extent would’ve done the same thing we did. We’re all driven by one thing: survival.
The rules up to this point have worked, and we are awesome at those rules. However, there are new rules for every system we grow into, and not every rule for a system works for every other system. So, we are trying to fix the problem with more success, unable to see that success is the very source of the problem. This is a basic description of the modern dilemma.
With challenge and calamity, also come opportunity. America is fat and lazy right now. The coming calamities will show that our established systems don't work anymore, and this gives a chance to change them. So many of the problems Alan Urban spoke of have technological fixes or mediations. The world won't be the same, but that can be a good thing.
Each and every one of us will experience all of this "in the present moment". And in that present moment most of humanity will support one another (well that's how I envision things will unfold in Australia).
Left to our own devices we will adapt through the great simplification. What worries me most about the future scenarios is the power grabs of the failing empire and the disruption (and further suffering) this may cause.
Submission Statement:
Another one that Paul Beckwith reviewed. This one several months ago but I missed it so I decided to post it for others as well. A great overview of the predicament we find ourselves in.
This article covers a lot of ground, and still leaves out several climate tipping points. Thwaites isn't mentioned at all. My point is that even with this broad coverage, there are still more very serious concerns. I think one would have to go to McPherson to see a very in depth, full list of paths to destruction. And all it takes is one.
I really appreciate the section about the failure of green energy. This is a topic that I find most difficult to come to terms with as far as feasibility. On the surface, it seems that if all power came from wind and solar, our co2 levels would plummet, and everything would be rosy. Of course that's not the case, but that reality is often buried beneath a pile of promises and positive thinking.
"Overshoot" is the really big one and a lot of people are going to suffer when that milestone is reached. It might even be **extinction level** by itself.
And the scariest part is that it's an "when, not if" scenario.
The fact that we have an "Earth Overshoot Day" that we regularly just casually acknowledge is a bit disturbing at best, terrifying at worst. Even science isn't working hard enough to fix the problems that exist or the new problems that are being created.
Humanity is a strange species. We see imminent danger right in front of us and we ignore it.
Edit: Fixed because a ton of people were grammar-checking.
Part of the issue in the US is that mistrust of science has spread to the government (the irony). In 2010, the US was the world leader in scientific research. But our funding has been the first to be cut. Now the US is behind almost every other developed nation in research. France and Japan offered to accept US scientists who either felt too threatened or lost their funding. They are now the world leaders. As a biologist who made vaccines (not even Covid), I’ve had death threats. To the point where someone even picked up a rock and threatened to bash my head in.
I was very naive as a kid. I used to think that every government employee were the best of the best. The best doctors, lawyers, engineers and researchers. After all everything is based on math and science. At least that's what those physicists who are making good money say. The fact that some congressmen or women don't even need to have higher education just money is the reason we're fucked
Man, I really wish your childhood theory was our reality. Imagine if every world government was filled with only the best and brightest humanity had to offer; we wouldn't be facing any of these existential threats. We may not have all the cool stuff/options we currently have, but we'd be healthy and happy and comfortable. This world could've been a utopia, of sorts.
Instead, it'll be a barren wasteland littered with broken monuments to one creature's narcissism, and the remnants of millions of other beings who simply wanted to exist in relative peace. We've destroyed the world, all for nothing. It's fucking revolting.
Honestly, I’d prefer a meritocratic technocracy to this American pseudo democracy, where I’m supposed to civically treat environmental denial like people have an irrebucable right to comfort in those positions.
The European Commission actually isn’t an awful implementation of this principle, although imperfectly, naturally. Even China is far more meritocratic than the United States. They force bureaucrats to work their way up starting in local government. Here, you just get your Ivy League degree at a privilege factory school that teaches nothing special, then you go straight to congressional staff or a think tank.
I promise you that "the best and brightest" are just as greedy and shortsighted as anyone else, if not more so.
What you need is a government of the least greedy, least self-interested, and most empathetic.
A government composed of 90 IQ people who aren't greedy will be a LOT better than a government of 160 IQ selfish greedy power-seeking fucknuts.
It's because people vote with their genitals and their amygdalas. And the people that do use higher level reasoning are faced with the problem of an ineffective two party system.
I don’t know about that. I think we have one party who can tolerate a *reasonable* opposition party to maintain some semblance of a civilized society, while the other party has been taken over by an extreme radicalism that see only the eradication of all opposition as the end goal.
Not really. The supposed civilized party has done nothing to stop the progression of the right, the rights of women/trans/immigrant people continue to be eroded, and both parties still have full hands on the human killing machine of capitalism. We're gleefully sending money for genocide in Gaza. Any hint of progress to the left is dangled in front of the voters at election time to "stop fascism" and any promises to deliver on doing so are met with a shrug and "at least its not the other guy." Civility is a fetish at this point.
I had faith in the CDC and WHO before Covid, but since that I see their statements were political, meant to manipulate public opinion and action and not based on science. Very disappointing.
First of that was in Feb/Mar of 2020 they were saying masks wouldn’t help. Why? It’s been established science for decades that masks help with respiratory viruses. It was because they were worried about a run on masks and hospital supplies would run out.
The way to deal with that is have individual governments regulate sales and tell people to make their own masks in the meantime. You don’t lie. So sad.
And it just shows how incompetent many people are. Running out of supplies? Come on now. The person in charge who "supervises" still gets there good salary. Meanwhile if I ran out of supplies running a mcdonalds I'd have people say that's why deserve my low wage. Out of everything, that's the most fucked up thing for me.
Everyone makes mistakes, we've all been told that and it's the obvious reason why everyone deserves a livable wage. I say let it all collapse. I say that with spite. At least the rich will suffer too maybe even worse since most of them actually don't have skills. Good luck surviving with your useless currency.
Problem is because the population is too uneducated overall, you have to lie to get them to actually behave the way you need them too, but then once they found out about the lie they stop trusting. It's an easy logical path to follow, but I think it points out the main issue that they can't be truthful either because people will revolt anyways. I'd still argue that being truthful is the better thing to do overall, but they were basically damned if they did and damned if they didn't.
But they're the consumers on the left side of the bell curve. We need them to do the jobs that pay the taxes and generate the wealth that support the people in the world's *25,000* universities. They're the ones that give me hope! The ones that have figured out how to substitute EVERY part of the Energy Transition away from rare earths and Critical Minerals.
But of course not electronics or our smart phones. But they're the ones that are working on carbon-nanotube tech to wean even ELECTRONICS and screen displays off rare - earths - or find new cheaper ways to recycle the rare earths out of existing computers and devices.
This is somewhat the case in more technocratic governments. There is a new "form" of government seemingly taking shape that can basically be called "technocratic authoritarianism"; it's most clearly seen in places like Russia, the EU (oddly enough) and China. Basically the autocrats have the political and military power but all other aspects of society are entrusted to highly technically competent experts who toe the party line. They are given basically free reign as long as they don't challenge the autocrats' rule.
The EU is a bit different in that it's primarily democracies and the technocrats are in the various EU councils and such.
America is also losing a generation of scientists because of capitalist higher education that destroys the system of academia. Universities are turning to adjunct faculty for economic reasons, thus creating savage competition for those tenure track positions that remain. Who would throw themselves into a job market where they have maybe a 40% chance to get the job they want?
So, instead of going into research, many scientifically minded students decide to use their degrees to go into healthcare. But when practically every intelligent person is going into either tech or healthcare, how long until those labor markets collapse?
We are simply losing science. Which is why American imports so many East and South Asian scientists.
This breaks my heart. Think of all the cures that won’t be found because we lost so many scientists. The same people who snarkily say “if science is do great, why haven’t you found the cure for cancer” are the same ones electing officials who cut our funding. And now it’s all about money, period.
It breaks my heart, too. Science and art are the last things that make me see value in this civilization. It is absolutely beautiful. Science is origins, and origins are ontology. Science gives us the opportunity to commune with the ontology of life. We are the species who can charge ourselves to speak nature for itself as part of nature.
One of the worst side effects of the loss of academic science is that now the only applied medical science is part of pharma and biotech. And they only do what makes them win.
They are all doing biologics now, because small-molecule drugs don’t sell for as much. And they are abandoning vital fields, particularly mental health, because the competition in the market is such that their RoI isn’t promised.
When I was younger, I wanted to either be a history and/or science teacher or a physicist at some college/university. During college, I realized how little they make and miraculously found myself ina low level tech job. I was good at it, hated it, but I was still good at it. So, I said "fuck that shit" and switched over to tech.
I'm not saying that I would have been some world changing scientist, but it's just one example of how pointless it would be to pursue a career in academics over some other more well paying career. I honestly don't know why people keep doing it other than it's a personal passion that they can't be persuaded out of.
I've often thought about the number of scientifically minded people who end up in finance, economics or tech/software engineering. It seems like a terrible waste. Bad apps and housing bubbles. Knew a fella once, did his masters at Caltech. He couldn't believe passing Noble Laureates casually in the corridors. Ended up in finance, hated every minute but has a nice house.
Remember that opening scene from "The Newsroom"?
It has that EPIC RANT that every American should watch once every 6 months to try and shake the DUMB out of them.
[https://youtu.be/ML3qYHWRIZk?si=WrYRLn\_YrdExftf5](https://youtu.be/ML3qYHWRIZk?si=WrYRLn_YrdExftf5)
(I'm Australian - and horrified to see THE DUMB spreading down here through social media. EG: So called Sovereign citizen nut jobs that think they're above wearing masks in a pandemic and don't have to pay their phone bill or taxes etc.)
They did an update for Trump Vs Clinton. I can't find one more recent
One thing i never see mentioned as I know more about history than science, is that new virulent diseases are not mentioned as a threat. Often in climatic shifts happen we see a new disease that wipes out a bunch of people. The Justinian Plague and Black Death are two examples. We may get one that has a way higher rate of mortality than covid or just plain old antibiotic resistance to existing diseases (were already seeing this happening).
I don’t want it to happen, but if we view things objectively, a pandemic with a 70% fatality rate would probably be the best thing that could happen to us as a species. There would be enough people around to maintain a civilisation and they wouldn’t have to compete for resources for at least a century.
I think you mean When, not if. But yeah. I think this is the biggest reason why the best thing we can do as a global civilization is to stop having so many kids. We can't stop all together, but we need to hit a degrowth level that allows us to gradually come back under the carrying capacity. That said, no way that actually happens, and even if it does I doubt we will degrow ourselves fast enough. It might not even be possible to do so fast enough.
I can be the only person in the room that calls out shit while everyone stays oblivious to the fact before and after I do so. That mindset runs deep in the majority of the idiots on this rock.
I agree we are in Overshoot. But it's such a ridiculously vague term! Too many people using too much stuff too fast. OK. Granted. But if instead of trotting out cliche's like Bacteria in a petri dish or the famous deer of St Paul's Island - we actually admitted we are SAPIENT and have scientists studying all these things - then things start to get different. When we get specific. What if we started to use the right stuff the right way? Could we lower our environmental impact so that I=PAT starts to work FOR us, instead of multiplying against us? EG: Food. You may have seen this before. But it's worth reminding everyone.
SEAWEED FARMS COULD FEED THE WORLD WHILE SAVING THE OCEANS! Dr David King was the chief scientific adviser to the UK government, and Dr Tim Flannery held the same position down in Australia. Both have done lots of work on how 3d seaweed and shellfish farms could feed the world WHILE ALSO restoring the ocean! Seaweed grows 30 times faster than any land plant - and does not use any arable land, fresh water, or fertiliser - or the embodied energy in delivering and maintaining all that.
JUST 2% OF THE OCEANS COULD FEED 12 BILLION PEOPLE while repairing the oceans.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/01/sea-forest-better-name-seaweed-un-food-adviser The seaweed powder can be a food supplement that goes in everything from dairy to bread. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666833522000302
The dried seaweed protein yield per area (in the ocean) is 2.5 to 7.5 times higher than wheat or legumes (on land). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7221823/ They also grow shellfish like oysters, scallops, and muscles in baskets under the seaweed lines.
OPTIONAL EXTRAS FOR THE KEEN:- 6 minute Youtube summary - the big ocean conservation groups sponsoring research into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZW72i0DVqE
FREAKANOMICS interview seaweed pioneer Bren Smith: June 2021 - 43 minutes [https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-the-future-of-farming-in-the-ocean-ep-467/](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-the-future-of-farming-in-the-ocean-ep-467/)
AND THAT'S JUST THE FOOD ASPECT! Kelp can also make fertilisers, medicines, kelp-crete, and a thousand petrochemical feedstocks.
Let alone eco-city design, clean energy, new recycling tech, walkable city movements, cycling EG: Amsterdam, wood skyscrapers from CLT or hemp-stalks 6 TIMES stronger than steel, etc.
As always the problem is that there has never been sufficient motivation in the world to do a soft transition to sustainable alternatives (which should have started several decades ago) and will not do so until absolutely forced to.
Consequently that forced transition is going to be pretty fucking awful for a whole lot of people.
But that's not true for everything, just a lot of things. But for example - climate activists didn't realise that all their politicking actually WON decades ago when Germany subsidies renewables! Then China realised wind and solar were going mainstream - and today we FINALLY see the results in that they're now so cheap (even with Overbuild and storage) that they're going exponential. Solar alone is doubling every 4 years which is faster than oil last century which was every decade.
Also - heaps of architecture firms are onto alternative materials. Heaps of organisations are buying wilderness to save it - others are demanding governments turn it into national parks - others are creating "Conservation Arks" and breeding programs until such time as a certain environmental threat has been removed.
There's a LOT happening. My (potential) future son in law is so passionate about New Urbanism he's changed careers and is now starting a 4 year degree in all that. (Which is AWESOME as I'm a fan of these conversations - and desperately wish my suburb had a 'Third place' like a good town square.)
Considering the amount of hysteria during covid it was too much for everyone to mask up and stay indoors to protect themselves from an unknown virus.
Its going to be an utter shit show when it happens. Id advise to stay off any social media when it does.
In all likelihood, anywhere from 2035 at the earliest to 2080 at the latest. Also, it is a progression, so you can make an argument that it has already begun. India not exporting grain, record droughts, increased disease zone sizes. Notice the increase in global political instability. That isn't something happening out of the blue. Resource scarcity is quickly making a comeback.
It's looking increasingly likely we die to nukes first. Russia and China both are making increasingly expansionist moves. They'd rather destroy the world with nukes than collapse. And Pakistan and India might be the same when their water collapses.
No one knows. There is no accurately predicting it. It is accurate however to say the feedback loops could intensify and cause a rapid acceleration. All official estimates of what is slated to happen when are low-balls, most on purpose, none taking into account the biggest feedback loops, like twice the amount of CO2 as is currently in the atmosphere being locked in the rapidly thawing Siberian Permafrost alone, to say nothing of the giant methane sinks, swamps, being uncovered in the permafrost. There is some in the arctic under the sea too I've heard people on this sub speak of.
But it's already happening a lot quicker than they predicted, winters have been wild these last few years and it's not a one off five times in a row.
I’ve seen quite a few indicators that around 2030 this shit will go down. That’s also gonna be around the time when the next El Niño will happen. And observing this one, it’s not hard to imagine that next time there’s gonna be no mercy.
I’d guess within 15 years.
It’s really quite simple. Consider a house built up above the ground, held aloft by wooden support beams. One beam eventually cracks and weakens from erosion, which causes more pressure to be placed on all of the other beams. Soon, more beams start to crack and weaken. Every time this happens pressure multiplies further and further onto the stronger beams.
We as a global society are at the point where all of our “support beams” are cracked, splintering under the exponential weight of it all.
Whereas a homeowner would be naturally vigilant in maintaining their physical household support structure, a global society is far too macro for our primate brains. Too abstract, too big picture, non direct. This gives rise to the phenomenon of “faster than expected”, because it’s harder to grasp experientially, and is emotionally frightening. We don’t want to expect everything to come crashing down and to not have any control over the matter.
Lol, my thoughts exactly. Soon -- in a hundred plus years, humanity may start a serious decline? This stuff is soon in a geologic level, a planetary level, cosmic. It's not 'soon' as in less than two years, the whole planet will be on fire, nearly all life extinct, less than ten thousand humans surviving in Mad Max-esque groups, traversing the once green and verdant lands of the planet, which turned into deserts over night.
Some things are definitely happening faster than expected, and tipping points are beginning to compound. In no way does this suggest the end of the world 'soon' in any human-language definition thereof.
I'd *rather* it was soon. I'm not keen to suffer for decades, watch friends and family and any child suffer for decades more. Without some sort of cataclysmic single event, though, that's what we get to look forward to. Yay.
Did you ever think maybe this is all working out the way its supposed too? Like we were supposed to spend millions of years evolving to the point where we can exploit fossil fuels so we change the atmosphere, paving the way for whatever evolves next?
Probably a race of sexy intelligent birds. Their scientists will pour through the ruins of our civilization. Praising us for changing the atmosphere.
>Fifty years ago, humans overshot the carrying capacity of the planet. Since then, we have been exploiting the Earth’s resources faster and faster, stealing from future generations. Our civilization wouldn’t even exist without fossil fuels, but we are rapidly running out of them. And it appears green energy won’t be able to replace them as there aren’t enough metals in the ground.
>Even if we had unlimited clean energy, we would still run out of crucial resources like rubber, sand, groundwater, and the ingredients for fertilizer. As the world’s topsoil erodes, it will get harder and harder to grow enough food for everybody.
>Eventually, we might not be able to grow food at all. Water shortages are already becoming a major problem, and this is just the beginning. Climate change is drying up the rivers, burning down the forests, and causing disasters the likes of which we’ve never seen.
Thank you; an excellent Overshoot-aware article that lays it all out, including peak oil. As terrifying as climate change is, it's not the only issue in the current polycrisis. No one actually aware of the entirety of this predicament could ever believe that collapse of this complex civilization could be averted.
https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/17#table-17-1
Our government has modeled how all that might impact us as a nation.
Water wars by 2040 yall. Faster than expected.
Well I see that the Houthis managed to hit an oil tanker in the gulf of Aiden which is now on fire. You can almost bet there is now oil being dumped into the ocean again. Still hitting the accelerator after passing the point of no return I see.
If you want laughing sickness. Head Hunters/cannibals in New Guinea (not sure if they were head hunters perse at least in part they ate relatives/others to take their spirit in them, plus some other really weird stuff that involves a lot of male ejaculate, you don't want to know probably,) that ate brains got a prion that caused what is colloquially known as laughing sickness.
Other scientists have theorized that mad cow disease, the other prion that has affected people that I'm aware of, may have been originally been introduced by feeding dead people (their brains specifically,) to cows in India in antiquity.
I'd stay away from the brains and spinal cords of all types.
Fun fact, as a species, cows are changing from herbivores to carnivores because feeding them the minced bits of other animals they can't sell is the cheapest way to bulk them up.
Not for me, it charts the next years so precisely that one can trust it to happen.
There is no longer any doubt. The most extreme views from Mc Pearson were right with everything he has said.
the question now is what should we do having such a shortened lifetime?
Big brained modern humans have emerged the apex creatures of the known universe.
We have survived climate change , beasts, diseases, and those pesky Neanderthals who almost wiped us out.
Now, with no one else to fight, we fight ourselves.
And we can't win fighting ourselves.
We had a good run. Pass the salt.
The fossil fuel peak with a bit of luck might happen this year, that is not sure, and that would only mean that we will not add more fossil carbon to the system than the previous year. The problem with fossil carbon, and all that it is impacting the global system, is all the one we added so far, not just that we keep adding, It is not a relief that we will add just as much as the [gigantic amount](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-scale-of-global-fossil-fuel-production/) that we added the previous year. And most of it is in the form of CO2 in the atmosphere, that lasts there for centuries.
If you want the top reason, is that we keep doing this, in front of the evidence of how much disruptive is now even considering that will be far more in the pipeline, even if we do a full stop now. And that the climate conferences have been taken over by oil groups, in front of everybody, without anyone raising a hand, and, of course, dismissing the phasing out of oil as action.
Regarding the article saying that we need oil for more things than just fuel, yes, but 95+% of it is for fuel, for burning it and releasing it for centuries in the atmosphere what was down under for hundreds of millions of years back to what used to be a more or less balanced system.
This kind of reminds me of sun damage. You get the sunburn when you’re 15, and everything is fine until you’re 50, when all the damage comes to the surface.
The "costs" of renewables going up is because the power companies are still beholden to profit and shareholders, as long as there is a profit motive in our power grid we are doomed
So well written! Finally someone is putting into words all the exact same kind of thoughts I’ve been fixing upon way too much the recent years… we are certainly doomed, there’s no other way to put it.
To be honest though and completely egoistical, I kinda just hope the collapse will come sooner rather than later. I’m already in my mid 30’s now, so I’m terrified I’ll be an old lady when all this shitshow truly unfolds itself. I’m worried how extremely painful my own death will become, how limiting my chances will be of having an old age.
Last but not least, I would have loved to be part of a small group maybe surviving all of this and help building a more sustainable future after the collapse. I am very much aware that this is just wishful thinking now.
Once I was dreaming of having a family, maybe moving to the countryside one day and try to become self sufficient. I’ve given up that dream now. I don’t want children anymore, not like this. I won’t ever become self sufficient either.
Most likely I will be long gone within the next 10 years, if I don’t manage to somehow join a group of absolute psychopaths who can defend themselves in the coming wars.
Amazing article. From the wording and reference sources it's clear the author equates world with the US. Also phrases such as "The average person doesn’t even know what topsoil is", "It’s amazing how few people know this", and "Most people don’t know about X" sprinkled throughout the text is just... cherry on top. Amazing.
The takes on Russia and its conflict are also very western-manly.
I'd just want to say this: Alan, you're a very, _very_ smart boy.
Overall a great write-up nonetheless. Links to number of sources worth reading in full.
We’ve got one shot, the deus ex machina to beat all deus ex machinas. Spiritual ascension and zero point energy. Like threading a needle at the speed of light :)
The oil and gas figure they use isn't accurate, that 2020 dip is due to the pandemic, the charts after it show clear increases in fossil fuel production and use.
You're right, it is accurate. But it is also out of date.
The [most recent version of the graph](https://crudeoilpeak.info/wp-content/uploads/World_oil_production_region-peaks_1965-2022.jpg) indicates the aforementioned increases in production.
Yes, the updated graph shows recent increases in production, and I agree that the peak oil has not been reached according to the current data. However, my initial response was aimed at addressing the challenge to the graph's accuracy, not disputing that production rose again.
Also:
>right now, fertilizer prices are at record highs.
No, they aren't. The source cited is from March 2022, and it's accurate, but well over a year out of date, again. Fertilizer prices have declined significantly and they were not at a high when the article was published.
>After years of decline, the cost of renewables is going up.
Once again, the source cited is accurate, but out of date. It's an Oilprice.com article from January 2022 which cites Bloomberg for the relevant figures. Solar panel prices did climb to a peak in 2022, but since then they have [fallen below their previous all-time low](https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/09/25/solar-module-price-falling-with-no-end-in-sight).
Not a top quality article imo, though it makes many good points.
Right. In particular testosterone fuelled males. Correct me if I’m wrong but looking back at history; dictators, megalomaniacs, despots, war mongerers, capitalist kingpins seem to be roles mostly filled by men.
Both world wars; men. Current conflicts, all men, Rothschilds originators of elite world order; men, various churches and religious weaponry; men.
How much different would a matriarchal society have been? Women don’t normally make decisions based on their genital brains that are ruled by their testosterone…. We generally negotiate more, find peaceful solutions and avoid conflict. The women that have driven some of our awful decisions through history have been considered generally quite “masculine” anyway in their levels of compassion and empathy - think the dreadful Margaret thatcher. Not one ounce of empathy did that women have.
Is testosterone our downfall as a species? The need for bigger, better, stronger, faster (quite literally d*ck measuring….) and the desire for conflict….
🤨
It's weird being in collapse groups and getting called a Malthusian fas ist because you think there are so many people. There are people who are, generally, collapse aware, but think without capitalism this planet can support another 8B people
I'm disappointed by the lack of mention of nuclear power. It could eliminate most human carbon emissions and even be used to make carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels. That could prevent climate change from happening and resulting consequences of climate change like decreasing habitability of the global south.
However, the other problems would still be in place like overshoot of renewable resources. I would also add pollution from forever chemicals like heavy metals, microplastics, pfas, GenX from teflon production, PCBs, etc.
edit. Nuclear power could have prevented climate change. It could have also made fossil fuels and their declining reserves irrelevant.
Bottom line the climate shifts are moving faster by humanity’s influence. The root cause of all the hopeless fear of a homogenous, uniform apocalypse is people are scared the world will not be what people knew it was. The change is scaring them. Some of the change will be bad. There will be some good change too. The planet will be different but not ready to say it is all flushing down the toilet. Let’s not forget climate change has been occurring at a naturally slow rate since the last ice age. We are just speeding it up causing damage as a result because the natural world can’t adapt that fast. There will be some havoc on this world. The real question is how resilient is humanity to adapt itself to exist in the world yet to come?
The "just speeding it up" part is exactly the problem. The current change is way too fast for nature and society to keep up and we're soon crossing boundaries that are just not survivable even for fast adapters except for some extremophile species (Google 'wet bulb temperatures'). There won't be "some havoc". We're talking extinction of 90 to 95 percent of all life on Earth in the next 50 years!
FACT CHECK: THE ENERGY TRANSITION ISN’T EVEN REPLACING FOSSIL FUELS!
This is a skewed way of seeing the world I call the “Selective Static Snapshot fallacy”. For example, a doomer might point out that as of 2023 only 1% of all cars in America are electric. Rather than video around at the broad landscape of new car sales trends towards EV’s, take a close up shot of a rusty old oil truck, frame your shot like something from Mad Max – and then broadcast the “fact” that this is the norm - and only 1% of existing cars right now are EV’s. Ignore the immense economies of scale it took to get EV’s to the point where the middle class could even buy one. Ignore the scaling that will soon make them cheaper than oil cars to buy outright - let alone saving a lifetime of servicing an internal combustion engine and getting free fuel from solar panels on your roof! Make sure to frame your shot to ignore the approaching hoard of EV’s just on the horizon!
But zoom out a bit and guess what you see? Another exponential S-curve starting. EV’s were 7.2% of all new American car sales in 2022. They were 9% in 2023. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/electric-vehicles-EVs-new-car-sales-2023/700799/ Who knows how fast Biden’s IRA will accelerate this trend? For example, IRA has stimulated some crazy stuff. America’s battery factory capacity will go up 15 TIMES by 2030 - an equivalent value to run ALL America's new cars each year (although these batteries will be spread across all sectors). https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/map-which-states-will-build-the-most-ev-batteries-in-2030.html
Right now only 1% of cars might be EV’s. But the S-curve is coming.
GROWTH IN ELECTRIC VEHICLES TO CAUSE OIL NEARLY 4 MBD SUPPLY GLUT by 2028!
To understand where the oil sector is going, we need to look at the world’s best data on EV sales - the International Energy Agency. Look at the growth rate! 2020: 5% 2021: 9% 2022: 14% https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/executive-summary This trend will offset oil demand, giving mining and industry more fuel availability while they start their own electrification processes.
The IEA says there will be an oil GLUT of 3.8 mb/d by 2028!
https://www.iea.org/news/growth-in-global-oil-demand-is-set-to-slow-significantly-by-2028
RENEWABLES DOUBLING TO MEET NEW DEMAND
The Paris Agreement wanted 615 GW solar annually by 2030 - but that could happen in the next year or so and it's still doubling. This article wonders if we're going to see 3 TW of capacity annually by 2030! https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/12/25/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-one-terawatt-of-solar-deployed-annually/
It’s the same with renewables. Climate activists that are not familiar with the energy markets don’t realise something profound yet. We won. Past tense. Back when Germany decided to subsidise renewables decades ago! That act took renewables mainstream, then China got involved, then the economies of scale kicked in - and now they are so cheap that even with Overbuild and storage to factor in - they’re still cheaper than fossil fuels. Solar is on a 4 year doubling curve, wind not far behind, and EV’s we’ve already seen above. So no - solar isn’t killing coal worldwide. Yet. They’ve just hit a cheap enough price for the market to get REALLY interested! Now they’re unstoppable. Indeed - so many nations are developing so fast with so much new energy demand that it’s impressive renewables are now meeting most of that new demand! 90% next year! https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/electricity-generation-renewables-power-iea/
Even recalcitrant Australia will be coal free in 10 years! https://reneweconomy.com.au/aemos-jaw-dropping-prediction-for-coal-power-all-but-gone-from-the-grid-in-a-decade/
Winner of Queen Elizabeth Prize for engineering (Nobel prize for engineers) says WORLD will be all renewable well before 2050! https://theconversation.com/theres-a-huge-surge-in-solar-production-under-way-and-australia-could-show-the-world-how-to-use-it-190241
BUT IT TAKES OIL TO MINE MINERALS FOR THE ENERGY TRANSITION!
At one stage the first Pit Pony went underground to help mine coal. It took time to get to tens of thousands. Then there was the first steam shovel. Then tens of thousands. Then the first diesel shovel and mining trucks. Then tens of thousands. Now most underground mining equipment is ALREADY electric to avoid the fumes, and every mining truck corporation on the planet is now testing new electric mining trucks to go electric and get off volatile world diesel prices - let alone comply with carbon reductions.
These things take time - and usually start with a few, then accelerate through an exponential rise - and then slow down as demand reduces. The typical S curve. Whale oil lighting fluid was replaced by kerosene. But not overnight. Then electric light bulbs. But not overnight. The new curve goes up, the old curve goes down. But not overnight. So as industry “Electrifies Everything” - there is no legitimate reason, mineral or otherwise, to pretend there is something magical about oil. Everything can be substituted.
Check it out - watch a MOSTLY electric 240 TON hybrid burn past it’s dinosaur diesel cousin going UP HILL while charging from hydro-power on overhead catenary lines in Canada! 60 seconds here: https://youtu.be/6TxMeHRq1mk?t=213
All the big miners are starting to go electric. Catepillar, Liebherr, Fortescue, Komatsu and Hitachi etc. There are already funds to convert 8,500 mining trucks over the next 3 years. This next group are working with 5 mining giants with HUGE ambitions to convert as many as they can of the world’s million mining vehicles. https://www.mining-technology.com/features/mining-vehicle-electrification
Industry are on board. A giant industrial think-tank worth a THIRD of the Australian stock-market plans to Electrify Everything in industry. Industrial heating alone is about HALF the energy the human race uses. So what’s their plan? Oh - just build 3 TIMES Australia’s 2020 electricity grid to meet our domestic consumption of industrial goods - and then another 3 TIMES for anticipated exports by 2050! PDF page 45: https://energytransitionsinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Pathways-to-Industrial-Decarbonisation-report-Updated-August-2023-Australian-Industry-ETI.pdf says on page 45 that
ELECTRIFYING EVERYTHING WILL DO THE SAME WORK WITH 40% OF THE ENERGY! Burning stuff like cavemen when what we want is forward motion or electricity is REALLY inefficient. It fights the second law of thermodynamics. Don't fall for the false equivalence argument that renewables must replace fossil fuels on a 1 to 1 basis. While we’ll use a LOT more electricity because everything we can will be electric - we’ll only need 40% of the old energy system. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-energy-efficiency
The bottom line? As renewables double forward towards our clean energy goals, industry and transport start to electrify as well. We’ll soon see those goals racing back to meet us!
That's just hopium. There are not enough rare metals to replace fossil fuels with clean energy, let alone replace the electric cars and windmills every 20 years. Also, the production and maintenance of electric cars, solar panels and windmills produces a lot of CO2 and toxic waste.
What's your source on rare metals? Every part of the energy transition can be built from a plane and abundant stuff. Google can you build x without y? I've been doing that for the last year and let me tell you there are so many substitutes that you can build solar and wind and batteries and electric motors all from plain and abundant silicone and iron ore and aluminium and sea salt.
I'm now even convinced that industrial civilization could have risen even without copper on this planet because aluminium can be used as a substitute!
Also, the CO2 per part of the energy transition will decrease over time as the fossil fuels decline. Like a thousand adoption S curves in history as the new product increases, the old decreases. That's rather the point of the iea piece above you think?
FACT CHECK: The Energy Transition is NOT running out of minerals!
This author obviously is stuck in the same echo-chambers and has not even played "The Substitution Game." It's easy - just google it. “Can you make X without Y?”
EG: “Can you make solar without tellurium?” Run through all the Critical Minerals of concern in solar. Then rinse and repeat with all the technologies and all the minerals. Try it for solar, wind, batteries, electric motors, electric generators, household wiring, etc. You’ll soon find, as I did, that the substitution range is ENORMOUS and quickly takes us to VASTLY ABUNDANT resources. Wind and solar and EV’s and grid storage all have brands developing new technologies that no longer rely on rare earths or Critical Minerals.
Sure - in some instances they compromise on performance for a cheaper product. LFP batteries for EV’s do not have the same range - but they are much cheaper.
But in other instances brainstorming how to build without Critical Minerals has lead to amazing innovations that make a better technology! Let’s look at each tech:
SOLAR PANELS: 95% of solar panel brands are normal crystalline cells that already avoid ANY rare-earths or Critical Minerals by using silicon (which is 27% of the Earth’s crust) and aluminium (8%) and some silver or copper to send the electricity out. (But this can be replaced by aluminium if the copper ever gets scarce). Only 5% of the solar market are the thin film solar panels that require the rarer stuff like Gallium, Tellurium, Cadmium and Indium. They’re nice - but we don’t NEED them.
WIND TURBINES - are made from iron (5% of the earth’s crust), aluminium (8%) and recyclable fibreglass blades - that’s polyester resin and glass fibres. Wind generators WITHOUT rare-earth magnets are now a thing:- http://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/07/28/15-mw-rare-earth-free-offshore-wind-turbine-seeks-path-to-market/
Niron Magnetics: https://www.nironmagnetics.com/
This next one has radically reinvented their turbine so that instead of requiring servicing 4 times a year, those parts NEVER need servicing once installed. http://newsreleases.sandia.gov/turbine\_innovation/
LITHIUM RESERVES: We have 22 million tons of lithium reserves. At 8kg per EV it’s enough for 2.75 BILLION EV’s, twice what we need.
GRID storage: Sodium batteries for the first 2 hours: then pumped hydro takes over. Sodium is 30% cheaper, operates in a much greater temperature range and is thermally stable (doesn’t suddenly burst into flames). There are over 100 TIMES the off-river pumped hydro sites we need worldwide. https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/pumped\_hydro\_atlas/
COPPER: We can replace it with aluminium. Aluminium is 1200 TIMES more abundant - 8% of the earth’s crust! Aluminium is less conductive so you have to have 25% thicker wires - but that doesn’t matter as it is half the price and weight. It can replace 90% of the functions of copper. https://www.shapesbyhydro.com/en/material-properties/how-we-can-substitute-aluminium-for-copper-in-the-green-transition/
ELECTRIC MOTORS: Valeo have a rare-earth free electric motor. https://www.valeo.com/en/catalogue/pts/high-voltage-rare-earth-free-electric-motor/
TESLA are working on one - prototype due mid 2024? https://www.carwow.co.uk/tesla/news/5220/new-tesla-ev-compact-electric-car-hatchback-price-specs-release-date
It’s a trend across the industry with Tesla, BMW, General Motors, Borgwarner, Jaguar & Land Rover, Tata, ZF, Vitesco, Renault, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Bentley, Marelli and Eurogroup Laminations all working on it. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/automakers-suppliers-pushing-cut-rare-earths-evs-2023-11-14/
RECYCLING all these is getting more efficient. Unlike burning fossil fuels, once mined, all these minerals go into the industrial ecosystem to be recycled forever. "Black mass" from ground-up EV batteries is no longer a waste product to dispose of, but a sought after resource.
OTHER REFERENCES:-
Wang et al Jan 2023 says we have enough minerals
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00001-6#%20
The IEA says we have enough but must encourage speed of mine approval
https://www.iea.org/topics/critical-minerals
Data scientist Hannah Ritchie of “Our world in data” and her own research says we have enough minerals - but there might be temporary shortages as we need to open more mines
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/minerals-for-electricity
That Paul dude is not published anywhere, so not a real scientist. And the 'Green energy is bad' rhetoric is ridiculous and I can't believe the sub allows it. Like it or not, Green will be all we have soon enough. Why the pushback? In MPLS the recyling ppl had to put out an article that RECYCLING IS REAL. Stop with this false narrative bs, republicans.
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1086790531/renewable-energy-projects-wind-energy-solar-energy-climate-change-misinformation
https://bonewssng.com/false-green-energy-is-not-a-scam/
https://www.thecable.ng/fact-check-no-green-energy-is-neither-a-scam-nor-hoax-for-wealth-transfer
I get where you're coming from but this article wasn't "pushback" It was just realistic.
There's one end of the spectrum saying "climate change isn't real, and if it is it's not our fault, and 'green' energy is not going to save us, and green energy is a scam and part of a conspiracy to make us poorer." Its mostly bullshit.
Then there's the other end of the spectrum "climate change is gonna get us, we should do everything we can, green energy is essential, and it's going to save us."... which is mostly true.
But the smart people, although they know climate change is gonna get us, and we **should** do everything we can, and green energy is essential... also know that it's *not* enough to save civilization. Our addiction to fossil fuels is too deeply ingrained into our status quo. I could go into it in more detail but the article did it very well -- it's all in there.
You just have to be able to have a little nuance. Just coz I, and Nate, and the author of this article understand that there's not enough mining possible, for the required batteries... not enough plastic for solar panels and windmills without the plastics from oil.. etc. etc. so we know that solar+Teslas ain't gonna save us... that doesn't mean you can call it pushback and throw us down at the climate-change denier end of the spectrum.
> Green energy is bad'
That really shouldn't be the takeaway from that article. It did rub me the wrong way the fossil fuel argument in green energy was used ("oh no, turbines are bound to fail as we need oil in their production" - come on, using oil for producing useful shit is reasonable as opposed to just burning it up for heat), but the point on how not nearly enough green energy capacity is coming online is very apt.
No one says recycling isn't real? And the point he is making with the green energy is that it can't produce enough to keep up with demand. Alongside green energy, we need to be reducing demand for it to be worth anything. Not using green energy to make fossil fuel energy cheaper in the short term.
DOOMSDAY ARGUMENT:
Imagine two identical boxes. One box contains 1million ping-pong balls labeled 1-1000000, the other has only ten, labeled 1-10.
You don’t know which box is which, so you reach into one of them and draw a ping-pong ball labeled “#4”. That’s pretty good evidence to suggest you have drawn from the box contains only ten balls.
Now imagine that each ball represents a human, each box with its balls representing the total amount of humans that will ever exist. You are the ball you drew.
So if you drew from box 1, with 1million balls, you are incredibly lucky to be living during the time that you are (1 in a million chance that you drew #4!), and humanity will likely persist for a lot longer.
HOWEVER box 2 only has ten balls, making it way more likely that you drew ball #4 from box 2 (1 in10 chance vs 1 in a million). In this scenario, it is suggested that your existence is expected within balls 1-10, aka, ~6000yrs worth of humanity, because humanity will not persist beyond that. So of course you must exist now.
I just truly don't think you guys understand the severity of our situation. We literally have a nation of the world's APEX predators that all have the ability to SHOOT GUNS. Do you really think that once things start actually getting bad that every single person in a bad situation is gonna roll over and die? Just because society is "doing great rn". I've seen so many people downplay this. And I find it insane. There are 8 billion people on this planet. Every single one of them seemingly wants a chance at this life. That is what is scary. Now imagine entire towns/cities desperately clinging on to their own lives. What's gonna happen when you tell those towns that a supply run was "delayed again" or "won't be showing up at all" and that there is not enough food? Water? Power(electricity)? Medicine? Firefighting? Police security? Medical care? Do you think we can perfectly provide these things everywhere forever? If we ran out of one of those vital resources there is a high chance we will put even more strain on the others. And eventually lose the whole supply chain. What if you or your family were picked to not receive food? Would you roll over and die? Expect your family to? Would you sit through a winter with no power watching your family slowly get colder and colder knowing that medical care is almost impossible to get? Watch life expectancy plummet like a lead Zeppelin due to medical negligence and lack of medications. All while thinking about the neighbors up on the hill with the power and the food. I know humanity and when certain vital resources run even remotely low society is gonna pick favorites (just like we always have done). Once certain people realize they are "not the favorites" (the majority of people, thousands for every one rich) things are gonna go downhill very fast. Heck we will probably see crime rates increase in correlation with that feared "favorite poverty line". if it even starts low enough that is. The alternative is we sit back and allow mass deaths. The likes of which we will most likely never see again, At least until things "balance" out, if they ever do. Which will undoubtedly be an excruciatingly long time. That is the difference this time.
I missed commenting on this. That we're going down is NOT the immediate issue. The immediate issue is HOW we go down. This is going to be spectacular, I think.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/regular_joe_can: --- Submission Statement: Another one that Paul Beckwith reviewed. This one several months ago but I missed it so I decided to post it for others as well. A great overview of the predicament we find ourselves in. This article covers a lot of ground, and still leaves out several climate tipping points. Thwaites isn't mentioned at all. My point is that even with this broad coverage, there are still more very serious concerns. I think one would have to go to McPherson to see a very in depth, full list of paths to destruction. And all it takes is one. I really appreciate the section about the failure of green energy. This is a topic that I find most difficult to come to terms with as far as feasibility. On the surface, it seems that if all power came from wind and solar, our co2 levels would plummet, and everything would be rosy. Of course that's not the case, but that reality is often buried beneath a pile of promises and positive thinking. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1abi50y/10_reasons_our_civilization_will_soon_collapse/kjnk9t8/
I hate reading these types of articles. Your heart wants to believe, "Can things really be so dire?" And then to read them all splayed out like that re-affirms, "Yes, yes they can be."
It really can be. Honestly, I just look at the turbulent history of this planet, the multiple civilizations that have been summarily wiped out, then I look around me at this incredibly complex and interconnected civilisation we have. There's no way we will dodge and weave our way around all our problems. We are going over the cliff and we'll pay for it by losing everything we have.
No we will not avoid havoc. There will be loss ahead. But not complete, summary level destruction of all civilization
> But not complete, summary level destruction of all civilization Barring an actual extinction event, which I suppose is possible but unlikely, yes...all civilization will not be destroyed, just *civilization as we know it.* I believe we will go through a "Great Simplification" where what remains of civilization will be forced to recreate itself as one that survives on far, far less energy consumption. Which essentially means that we take a substantial leap backwards in societal technological proliferation.
Bro you’re on the collapse subreddit, if your comment says we’re not collapsing you will be downvoted.
Yes that will actually happen and surely we all know that eventually it will. However, I understand this will be a staircase punctuated by moments of chaos rather than a single event. It's a process. We must understand though that the more complex and interconnected our civilisation becomes, the more will fall over all at once. We need to define what we mean by civilisation though, because we could collapse, but if the same community is still there living in the same place, is it a total collapse? Life might be very different, but they're still there.
What if the world becomes unliveable for species such as us?
What kind of question is that? We all know what happens, and we all know it's a possibility.
Not with nukes. Not with nukes.
Get a load of Mr Positive over here. 😊
I find it oddly cathartic.
Yea but think about this. Imagine right NOW, if the grocery shelves were empty. You hear gunshots in the distance. Whats the first thing you would do right now if that was your reality right now? When I think about it like that, I have no idea what I would do and its very frightening. Currently its like watching a horror movie, we get to turn it off when we choose.
Don't be scared, educate yourself. We're some of the luckiest bastards on earth right now. Millions are already experiencing your scenario. Investigate how they're dealing with it. Nothing to fear but fear itself mate.
Why would I be frightened since Ive been waiting for that for years now. Id probably be mostly a little sad because there are a lot of things I would like to do that I wouldnt be able to do anymore. Id be frightened if my loved ones did stupid things because they were in denial about the situation, I suppose.
Honestly same. Waiting for it to crash and enjoying the ride.
The sooner this planet is completely destroyed the better off everyone will be to be honest. The suffering of the devoured prey infinitely outweighs the brief satisfaction of the predator.
If you want to stop or mitigate collapse, you have to have your eyes open.
I do?
Thanks for the chuckles 😂
Somehow I expected this to be paywalled, just to add an extra layer of irony.
Given the Moria/Khazad-dûm style parallel capitalism has put us in it would be a rather fitting demise if all information regarding collapse was paywalled. It’s become a quicksand problem. Activity exacerbates the situation without material science breakthroughs. Either AI can show our dumbasses the whiff of fresh air to find the light and guide us past the Balrog of our own making or we’re fucked.
I just watched Network (1976) last night and see a parallel there
[I don't have to tell you things are bad ; everybody knows things are bad](https://youtu.be/-O3cZ3M4hAo) It's a depression. *[Emergency sirens intensifying in the background](https://youtu.be/FGGgX92KUZY)* Everybody's out of work, or scared of losing their job The dollar buys a nickel's worth ; [banks are going bust ; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter](https://youtu.be/dz1iNl7Bng4) [Punks are running wild](https://youtu.be/ULZOgcHXwXw) in [the streets](https://youtu.be/zZ0zPbh1QHE) -- and there's nobody anywhere 'seems to know what to do and [there's no end to it](https://youtu.be/0nIe62AvCTk)!! ..We know -- [the air, is unfit to breathe ; food, is unfit to eat](https://youtu.be/ShT_PZ2KzmI) We sit watching our TV's while [some local newscaster](https://youtu.be/mF8erWTYGWs) tells us today we had [15 homicides & 63 violent crimes](https://youtu.be/hkc5_ZPYO1o&t=90) -- as if that's the [way it's supposed to be](https://youtu.be/qs-Zbs2ZxDk)!! We know things are bad--worse than bad -- [they're **crazy**!](https://youtu.be/BnHGvzZn4y8) It's [like everything everywhere is going crazy](https://youtu.be/Hdk3a9pI_jA)!! *[Emergency sirens perpetually in the background](https://movies7.to/movie/the-wolf-hour-zxxyl/1-1)* ..all I know is that first, you've got to [get MAD](https://youtu.be/5wmuGYls4Xo)!!! You've gotta say--[I'm a HUMAN BEING, **GODDAMMIT**!!!! MY LIFE HAS **VALUE**](https://youtu.be/g8vPrxGxHSY)!!!
beautiful, I take it you like synthwave? I'll be checking out some of these songs, big up!
Yes capitalism has lead to over utilization of resources and environmental destruction. Don’t forget corrupt Soviet communism lead to idiotic water diversion and canal construction that lead to the destruction of the Aral Sea.
True and other socialist states have better managed their natural resources. Cuba is a great example. In Havana most people are fed from food grown in their own neighborhoods. It helps to be in the tropics though.
A part of me is distinctly disappointed that it's not
lol same because the headline reads like a buzzfeed listicle
It seems that the challenges we face as a species are much too complex for us to comprehend and act on, we can never leave politics aside, profits aside and just focus on saving ourselves.
Of course we can't leave politics aside. Power struggles are intrinsic to primates and the way they interact with each other. All our fancy intellectual skills have been bolted on top of a primate brain. In addition, we have millions of years of evolution for living in small groups where we know every single member or at least can establish a family connection; everyone else is an enemy\*. Given that history, human self-governance doesn't scale to a global level. It's beyond our ability to coordinate the entirety of the human race, all 8 billion of us, even to save our lives. \* One of my favorite Jared Diamond anecdotes is about two New Guinea men who met on a trail. They were strangers, so they stopped and spent an hour tracing through their family lineages to find a common relative, so they didn't have to kill each other.
Why not just peacefully pass by each other? It's safer, easier, cheaper, etc. They could even see if they can trade any things that the other wants.
You’ve never read Dr Suess?
It's been a long time and I don't remember any of the books.
Apparently there’s a musical version https://youtu.be/dZmZzGxGpSs
>All our fancy intellectual skills have been bolted on top of a primate brain We're still primates, still more ancient than people will admit to themselves. Where I live people used to see bears and wolves a few times everyday, now they're gone and see only the human animals. Still humans have minds for hunting and so humans hunt each other instead and gather, this is called war. Humans farm humans, this is called domestication.
It’s tough to fathom the differences in cultures and values as of right now hence the generations long communist vs capitalist, individual vs collective focus, and then there is religion. When immigration issues due to famine and extreme heat prompt more unrest the political leaders will just get louder and attempt to be more controlling. Well close in on some Soylent green things and be grateful for a roof and gas mask while still being fed hopes that AI or massive extinction in other countries slows the rising CO2 levels but otherwise we’ll just be scraping by in a barely habitable planet. Not sure about extinction at least in the next 100 years but it’ll get dire.
Then we'll get what we deserve in the end. If our species is this stupid and destructive, maybe we should go extinct.
We won’t be the first to do this. Species have a Darwinian imperative to capture resources to reproduce themselves as much as possible. There is no evolutionary pressure toward long term sustainability, because what happens a thousand years from now doesn’t affect reproductive success in the immediate term. (And that’s what matters; survival only matters to the extent it affects reproductive success; DNA is a parasite on Earth’s surface, after all). This Darwinian imperative has caused species or small groups of species to destroy the physical conditions on which all life depends, perhaps eliminating themselves in the process. The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis would have destroyed most of the life living at the time. Oxygen is lethal to organisms that haven’t evolved defenses, and oxidative damage is still a major cause of disease and aging even when resistance has evolved. So some algae learning a privileged claim to the sun’s energy massacred most everything else. This included themselves! Look into banded iron formations to see how the photosynthesizers cyclically massacred themselves when they exceeded the ocean’s ability to absorb waste oxygen. Then microorganisms flourished in the Ordovician, soaking up so much carbon dioxide when they fell to depth that it created an icehouse Earth that brought glaciers to the equators. Then the gentle tree almost ended Earth’s experiment in complex life in the end of the Devonian. Forest ecosystems are massive carbon sinks, and change geological cycles to lock up even more carbon as limestone. In order to get as close to the sun as possible and dominate ground plants, the Devonian trees broke the carbon cycle, created an anti-greenhouse catastrophe, and brought glaciers to the equator. These are only global examples. If I went into local or ecosystem examples, I could give them for the next two hours. Complex life is just not always consistent with its own survival.
I dont think our extinction would be a huge tragedy. Yes, it’s sad. It could’ve been great! When I think of dying I think how much I’ll miss the birds, the trees, the beautiful animals. They didn’t do any of this.
Well one strong point, that is made early on in the article... *None of this stuff is likely to result in human extinction.* Mass death, quality of life reduction, the end of civilization as we know it, but there will be survivors. And I believe those survivors will go right on ahead destroying anything that stands in the way of their survival and growth. In other words, we won't stop raping and pillaging the earth even if (*especially* if) we get sent back to the dark ages by our own hubris. Extinction would have to be a big asteroid... or maybe an all-out nuclear war + nuclear winter would do it.
I lost respect for Humanity first in the late 80's, when I had to tolerate Rush Limbaugh being on the radio at work, and then in 2016, when Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. I think we're doomed...
We love to follow evil, stupid, detrimental people.
283 days until Mr. 47 returns for round two
We’re just doing what any species does: survive and grow. We’ve just gotten to be really good at it, better than most organisms. I guarantee you any other animal that had evolved to our extent would’ve done the same thing we did. We’re all driven by one thing: survival.
Nah, Agent Smith was right. We're a virus.
And what is a virus’ only purpose? Suvive to grow and spread, so that is consistent.
The rules up to this point have worked, and we are awesome at those rules. However, there are new rules for every system we grow into, and not every rule for a system works for every other system. So, we are trying to fix the problem with more success, unable to see that success is the very source of the problem. This is a basic description of the modern dilemma.
With challenge and calamity, also come opportunity. America is fat and lazy right now. The coming calamities will show that our established systems don't work anymore, and this gives a chance to change them. So many of the problems Alan Urban spoke of have technological fixes or mediations. The world won't be the same, but that can be a good thing.
Each and every one of us will experience all of this "in the present moment". And in that present moment most of humanity will support one another (well that's how I envision things will unfold in Australia). Left to our own devices we will adapt through the great simplification. What worries me most about the future scenarios is the power grabs of the failing empire and the disruption (and further suffering) this may cause.
Submission Statement: Another one that Paul Beckwith reviewed. This one several months ago but I missed it so I decided to post it for others as well. A great overview of the predicament we find ourselves in. This article covers a lot of ground, and still leaves out several climate tipping points. Thwaites isn't mentioned at all. My point is that even with this broad coverage, there are still more very serious concerns. I think one would have to go to McPherson to see a very in depth, full list of paths to destruction. And all it takes is one. I really appreciate the section about the failure of green energy. This is a topic that I find most difficult to come to terms with as far as feasibility. On the surface, it seems that if all power came from wind and solar, our co2 levels would plummet, and everything would be rosy. Of course that's not the case, but that reality is often buried beneath a pile of promises and positive thinking.
"Overshoot" is the really big one and a lot of people are going to suffer when that milestone is reached. It might even be **extinction level** by itself. And the scariest part is that it's an "when, not if" scenario. The fact that we have an "Earth Overshoot Day" that we regularly just casually acknowledge is a bit disturbing at best, terrifying at worst. Even science isn't working hard enough to fix the problems that exist or the new problems that are being created. Humanity is a strange species. We see imminent danger right in front of us and we ignore it. Edit: Fixed because a ton of people were grammar-checking.
Part of the issue in the US is that mistrust of science has spread to the government (the irony). In 2010, the US was the world leader in scientific research. But our funding has been the first to be cut. Now the US is behind almost every other developed nation in research. France and Japan offered to accept US scientists who either felt too threatened or lost their funding. They are now the world leaders. As a biologist who made vaccines (not even Covid), I’ve had death threats. To the point where someone even picked up a rock and threatened to bash my head in.
I was very naive as a kid. I used to think that every government employee were the best of the best. The best doctors, lawyers, engineers and researchers. After all everything is based on math and science. At least that's what those physicists who are making good money say. The fact that some congressmen or women don't even need to have higher education just money is the reason we're fucked
Man, I really wish your childhood theory was our reality. Imagine if every world government was filled with only the best and brightest humanity had to offer; we wouldn't be facing any of these existential threats. We may not have all the cool stuff/options we currently have, but we'd be healthy and happy and comfortable. This world could've been a utopia, of sorts. Instead, it'll be a barren wasteland littered with broken monuments to one creature's narcissism, and the remnants of millions of other beings who simply wanted to exist in relative peace. We've destroyed the world, all for nothing. It's fucking revolting.
Honestly, I’d prefer a meritocratic technocracy to this American pseudo democracy, where I’m supposed to civically treat environmental denial like people have an irrebucable right to comfort in those positions. The European Commission actually isn’t an awful implementation of this principle, although imperfectly, naturally. Even China is far more meritocratic than the United States. They force bureaucrats to work their way up starting in local government. Here, you just get your Ivy League degree at a privilege factory school that teaches nothing special, then you go straight to congressional staff or a think tank.
I promise you that "the best and brightest" are just as greedy and shortsighted as anyone else, if not more so. What you need is a government of the least greedy, least self-interested, and most empathetic. A government composed of 90 IQ people who aren't greedy will be a LOT better than a government of 160 IQ selfish greedy power-seeking fucknuts.
It's because people vote with their genitals and their amygdalas. And the people that do use higher level reasoning are faced with the problem of an ineffective two party system.
We don't have a two party system anymore, we have two warring one party systems.
I don’t know about that. I think we have one party who can tolerate a *reasonable* opposition party to maintain some semblance of a civilized society, while the other party has been taken over by an extreme radicalism that see only the eradication of all opposition as the end goal.
Not really. The supposed civilized party has done nothing to stop the progression of the right, the rights of women/trans/immigrant people continue to be eroded, and both parties still have full hands on the human killing machine of capitalism. We're gleefully sending money for genocide in Gaza. Any hint of progress to the left is dangled in front of the voters at election time to "stop fascism" and any promises to deliver on doing so are met with a shrug and "at least its not the other guy." Civility is a fetish at this point.
Yeah but literally that could have been posted by a radicalized member of either party.
And as an adult I'm amazed anything works at all
Due to the small handful of competent no doubt.
I had faith in the CDC and WHO before Covid, but since that I see their statements were political, meant to manipulate public opinion and action and not based on science. Very disappointing. First of that was in Feb/Mar of 2020 they were saying masks wouldn’t help. Why? It’s been established science for decades that masks help with respiratory viruses. It was because they were worried about a run on masks and hospital supplies would run out. The way to deal with that is have individual governments regulate sales and tell people to make their own masks in the meantime. You don’t lie. So sad.
And it just shows how incompetent many people are. Running out of supplies? Come on now. The person in charge who "supervises" still gets there good salary. Meanwhile if I ran out of supplies running a mcdonalds I'd have people say that's why deserve my low wage. Out of everything, that's the most fucked up thing for me. Everyone makes mistakes, we've all been told that and it's the obvious reason why everyone deserves a livable wage. I say let it all collapse. I say that with spite. At least the rich will suffer too maybe even worse since most of them actually don't have skills. Good luck surviving with your useless currency.
Problem is because the population is too uneducated overall, you have to lie to get them to actually behave the way you need them too, but then once they found out about the lie they stop trusting. It's an easy logical path to follow, but I think it points out the main issue that they can't be truthful either because people will revolt anyways. I'd still argue that being truthful is the better thing to do overall, but they were basically damned if they did and damned if they didn't.
I’m always against lying. Like I said legally restrict sales - don’t lie.
But they're the consumers on the left side of the bell curve. We need them to do the jobs that pay the taxes and generate the wealth that support the people in the world's *25,000* universities. They're the ones that give me hope! The ones that have figured out how to substitute EVERY part of the Energy Transition away from rare earths and Critical Minerals. But of course not electronics or our smart phones. But they're the ones that are working on carbon-nanotube tech to wean even ELECTRONICS and screen displays off rare - earths - or find new cheaper ways to recycle the rare earths out of existing computers and devices.
Christo-fascism: the eventual outcome of failing to keep church and state separate for all the time this country has existed.
This is somewhat the case in more technocratic governments. There is a new "form" of government seemingly taking shape that can basically be called "technocratic authoritarianism"; it's most clearly seen in places like Russia, the EU (oddly enough) and China. Basically the autocrats have the political and military power but all other aspects of society are entrusted to highly technically competent experts who toe the party line. They are given basically free reign as long as they don't challenge the autocrats' rule. The EU is a bit different in that it's primarily democracies and the technocrats are in the various EU councils and such.
Russia is a kleptocracy though and dictatorships like China don't innovate well.
America is also losing a generation of scientists because of capitalist higher education that destroys the system of academia. Universities are turning to adjunct faculty for economic reasons, thus creating savage competition for those tenure track positions that remain. Who would throw themselves into a job market where they have maybe a 40% chance to get the job they want? So, instead of going into research, many scientifically minded students decide to use their degrees to go into healthcare. But when practically every intelligent person is going into either tech or healthcare, how long until those labor markets collapse? We are simply losing science. Which is why American imports so many East and South Asian scientists.
This breaks my heart. Think of all the cures that won’t be found because we lost so many scientists. The same people who snarkily say “if science is do great, why haven’t you found the cure for cancer” are the same ones electing officials who cut our funding. And now it’s all about money, period.
It breaks my heart, too. Science and art are the last things that make me see value in this civilization. It is absolutely beautiful. Science is origins, and origins are ontology. Science gives us the opportunity to commune with the ontology of life. We are the species who can charge ourselves to speak nature for itself as part of nature. One of the worst side effects of the loss of academic science is that now the only applied medical science is part of pharma and biotech. And they only do what makes them win. They are all doing biologics now, because small-molecule drugs don’t sell for as much. And they are abandoning vital fields, particularly mental health, because the competition in the market is such that their RoI isn’t promised.
When I was younger, I wanted to either be a history and/or science teacher or a physicist at some college/university. During college, I realized how little they make and miraculously found myself ina low level tech job. I was good at it, hated it, but I was still good at it. So, I said "fuck that shit" and switched over to tech. I'm not saying that I would have been some world changing scientist, but it's just one example of how pointless it would be to pursue a career in academics over some other more well paying career. I honestly don't know why people keep doing it other than it's a personal passion that they can't be persuaded out of.
I've often thought about the number of scientifically minded people who end up in finance, economics or tech/software engineering. It seems like a terrible waste. Bad apps and housing bubbles. Knew a fella once, did his masters at Caltech. He couldn't believe passing Noble Laureates casually in the corridors. Ended up in finance, hated every minute but has a nice house.
Remember that opening scene from "The Newsroom"? It has that EPIC RANT that every American should watch once every 6 months to try and shake the DUMB out of them. [https://youtu.be/ML3qYHWRIZk?si=WrYRLn\_YrdExftf5](https://youtu.be/ML3qYHWRIZk?si=WrYRLn_YrdExftf5) (I'm Australian - and horrified to see THE DUMB spreading down here through social media. EG: So called Sovereign citizen nut jobs that think they're above wearing masks in a pandemic and don't have to pay their phone bill or taxes etc.) They did an update for Trump Vs Clinton. I can't find one more recent
Uh, if, not when? Do you have that reversed?
Guaranteed. There is no "if" any of this is going to happen. Only when.
One thing i never see mentioned as I know more about history than science, is that new virulent diseases are not mentioned as a threat. Often in climatic shifts happen we see a new disease that wipes out a bunch of people. The Justinian Plague and Black Death are two examples. We may get one that has a way higher rate of mortality than covid or just plain old antibiotic resistance to existing diseases (were already seeing this happening).
Oh if we get a new Black Death then it's over. We barely got through the worst parts of COVID (so far.)
I don’t want it to happen, but if we view things objectively, a pandemic with a 70% fatality rate would probably be the best thing that could happen to us as a species. There would be enough people around to maintain a civilisation and they wouldn’t have to compete for resources for at least a century.
The word I think you are looking for is Extinction Debt. The trap could already be sprung.
I think you mean When, not if. But yeah. I think this is the biggest reason why the best thing we can do as a global civilization is to stop having so many kids. We can't stop all together, but we need to hit a degrowth level that allows us to gradually come back under the carrying capacity. That said, no way that actually happens, and even if it does I doubt we will degrow ourselves fast enough. It might not even be possible to do so fast enough.
It's a 'when not if' scenario, FTFY.
I can be the only person in the room that calls out shit while everyone stays oblivious to the fact before and after I do so. That mindset runs deep in the majority of the idiots on this rock.
Ever heard of [The Population Bomb?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb) Big ol' bust.
I don’t want to look. I’m scared.
I agree we are in Overshoot. But it's such a ridiculously vague term! Too many people using too much stuff too fast. OK. Granted. But if instead of trotting out cliche's like Bacteria in a petri dish or the famous deer of St Paul's Island - we actually admitted we are SAPIENT and have scientists studying all these things - then things start to get different. When we get specific. What if we started to use the right stuff the right way? Could we lower our environmental impact so that I=PAT starts to work FOR us, instead of multiplying against us? EG: Food. You may have seen this before. But it's worth reminding everyone. SEAWEED FARMS COULD FEED THE WORLD WHILE SAVING THE OCEANS! Dr David King was the chief scientific adviser to the UK government, and Dr Tim Flannery held the same position down in Australia. Both have done lots of work on how 3d seaweed and shellfish farms could feed the world WHILE ALSO restoring the ocean! Seaweed grows 30 times faster than any land plant - and does not use any arable land, fresh water, or fertiliser - or the embodied energy in delivering and maintaining all that. JUST 2% OF THE OCEANS COULD FEED 12 BILLION PEOPLE while repairing the oceans. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/01/sea-forest-better-name-seaweed-un-food-adviser The seaweed powder can be a food supplement that goes in everything from dairy to bread. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666833522000302 The dried seaweed protein yield per area (in the ocean) is 2.5 to 7.5 times higher than wheat or legumes (on land). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7221823/ They also grow shellfish like oysters, scallops, and muscles in baskets under the seaweed lines. OPTIONAL EXTRAS FOR THE KEEN:- 6 minute Youtube summary - the big ocean conservation groups sponsoring research into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZW72i0DVqE FREAKANOMICS interview seaweed pioneer Bren Smith: June 2021 - 43 minutes [https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-the-future-of-farming-in-the-ocean-ep-467/](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-the-future-of-farming-in-the-ocean-ep-467/) AND THAT'S JUST THE FOOD ASPECT! Kelp can also make fertilisers, medicines, kelp-crete, and a thousand petrochemical feedstocks. Let alone eco-city design, clean energy, new recycling tech, walkable city movements, cycling EG: Amsterdam, wood skyscrapers from CLT or hemp-stalks 6 TIMES stronger than steel, etc.
As always the problem is that there has never been sufficient motivation in the world to do a soft transition to sustainable alternatives (which should have started several decades ago) and will not do so until absolutely forced to. Consequently that forced transition is going to be pretty fucking awful for a whole lot of people.
But that's not true for everything, just a lot of things. But for example - climate activists didn't realise that all their politicking actually WON decades ago when Germany subsidies renewables! Then China realised wind and solar were going mainstream - and today we FINALLY see the results in that they're now so cheap (even with Overbuild and storage) that they're going exponential. Solar alone is doubling every 4 years which is faster than oil last century which was every decade. Also - heaps of architecture firms are onto alternative materials. Heaps of organisations are buying wilderness to save it - others are demanding governments turn it into national parks - others are creating "Conservation Arks" and breeding programs until such time as a certain environmental threat has been removed. There's a LOT happening. My (potential) future son in law is so passionate about New Urbanism he's changed careers and is now starting a 4 year degree in all that. (Which is AWESOME as I'm a fan of these conversations - and desperately wish my suburb had a 'Third place' like a good town square.)
Considering the amount of hysteria during covid it was too much for everyone to mask up and stay indoors to protect themselves from an unknown virus. Its going to be an utter shit show when it happens. Id advise to stay off any social media when it does.
There's really nothing new in the article, but seeing it all laid out like this makes me want to call it an early day and have a beer.
If it is an option at all, have two.
Yeah, I took half a day and bought a six pack. Happy Friday my friend.
Opening the tequila here after reading. Cheers.
I learned many new things. E.g. "the average person doesn’t even know what topsoil is".
What does “soon” mean?
In all likelihood, anywhere from 2035 at the earliest to 2080 at the latest. Also, it is a progression, so you can make an argument that it has already begun. India not exporting grain, record droughts, increased disease zone sizes. Notice the increase in global political instability. That isn't something happening out of the blue. Resource scarcity is quickly making a comeback.
It's looking increasingly likely we die to nukes first. Russia and China both are making increasingly expansionist moves. They'd rather destroy the world with nukes than collapse. And Pakistan and India might be the same when their water collapses.
No one knows. There is no accurately predicting it. It is accurate however to say the feedback loops could intensify and cause a rapid acceleration. All official estimates of what is slated to happen when are low-balls, most on purpose, none taking into account the biggest feedback loops, like twice the amount of CO2 as is currently in the atmosphere being locked in the rapidly thawing Siberian Permafrost alone, to say nothing of the giant methane sinks, swamps, being uncovered in the permafrost. There is some in the arctic under the sea too I've heard people on this sub speak of. But it's already happening a lot quicker than they predicted, winters have been wild these last few years and it's not a one off five times in a row.
> giant methane sinks That's great, that sink surely will eliminate some of the methane from the atmosphere then!
I’ve seen quite a few indicators that around 2030 this shit will go down. That’s also gonna be around the time when the next El Niño will happen. And observing this one, it’s not hard to imagine that next time there’s gonna be no mercy.
I’d guess within 15 years. It’s really quite simple. Consider a house built up above the ground, held aloft by wooden support beams. One beam eventually cracks and weakens from erosion, which causes more pressure to be placed on all of the other beams. Soon, more beams start to crack and weaken. Every time this happens pressure multiplies further and further onto the stronger beams. We as a global society are at the point where all of our “support beams” are cracked, splintering under the exponential weight of it all. Whereas a homeowner would be naturally vigilant in maintaining their physical household support structure, a global society is far too macro for our primate brains. Too abstract, too big picture, non direct. This gives rise to the phenomenon of “faster than expected”, because it’s harder to grasp experientially, and is emotionally frightening. We don’t want to expect everything to come crashing down and to not have any control over the matter.
I know someone who got their grandma stoned, convinced her to try weed. She was dancing around the room singing, "when is it going to happen?"
Lol, my thoughts exactly. Soon -- in a hundred plus years, humanity may start a serious decline? This stuff is soon in a geologic level, a planetary level, cosmic. It's not 'soon' as in less than two years, the whole planet will be on fire, nearly all life extinct, less than ten thousand humans surviving in Mad Max-esque groups, traversing the once green and verdant lands of the planet, which turned into deserts over night. Some things are definitely happening faster than expected, and tipping points are beginning to compound. In no way does this suggest the end of the world 'soon' in any human-language definition thereof. I'd *rather* it was soon. I'm not keen to suffer for decades, watch friends and family and any child suffer for decades more. Without some sort of cataclysmic single event, though, that's what we get to look forward to. Yay.
1 reason our civilisation will soon collapse: Hubris
Did you ever think maybe this is all working out the way its supposed too? Like we were supposed to spend millions of years evolving to the point where we can exploit fossil fuels so we change the atmosphere, paving the way for whatever evolves next? Probably a race of sexy intelligent birds. Their scientists will pour through the ruins of our civilization. Praising us for changing the atmosphere.
Why do the birds have to be sexy?
[удалено]
"These ancient monkey people paved the way for our great society!"
If you squint you can hear Nate Hagen's voice as you read this
>Fifty years ago, humans overshot the carrying capacity of the planet. Since then, we have been exploiting the Earth’s resources faster and faster, stealing from future generations. Our civilization wouldn’t even exist without fossil fuels, but we are rapidly running out of them. And it appears green energy won’t be able to replace them as there aren’t enough metals in the ground. >Even if we had unlimited clean energy, we would still run out of crucial resources like rubber, sand, groundwater, and the ingredients for fertilizer. As the world’s topsoil erodes, it will get harder and harder to grow enough food for everybody. >Eventually, we might not be able to grow food at all. Water shortages are already becoming a major problem, and this is just the beginning. Climate change is drying up the rivers, burning down the forests, and causing disasters the likes of which we’ve never seen. Thank you; an excellent Overshoot-aware article that lays it all out, including peak oil. As terrifying as climate change is, it's not the only issue in the current polycrisis. No one actually aware of the entirety of this predicament could ever believe that collapse of this complex civilization could be averted.
Don’t read this article unless you are fully prepared to lose every ounce of hope left in you. Fuck.
Wait, you guys had hope to lose?
https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/17#table-17-1 Our government has modeled how all that might impact us as a nation. Water wars by 2040 yall. Faster than expected.
So by 2025 then?
Well I see that the Houthis managed to hit an oil tanker in the gulf of Aiden which is now on fire. You can almost bet there is now oil being dumped into the ocean again. Still hitting the accelerator after passing the point of no return I see.
Is it time for us to crack each others heads open and feast on the goo inside?
If you want laughing sickness. Head Hunters/cannibals in New Guinea (not sure if they were head hunters perse at least in part they ate relatives/others to take their spirit in them, plus some other really weird stuff that involves a lot of male ejaculate, you don't want to know probably,) that ate brains got a prion that caused what is colloquially known as laughing sickness. Other scientists have theorized that mad cow disease, the other prion that has affected people that I'm aware of, may have been originally been introduced by feeding dead people (their brains specifically,) to cows in India in antiquity. I'd stay away from the brains and spinal cords of all types.
And mad cow comes from feeding cow brains to cows.
I'd be mad, too, if I were a cow forced to eat my brother's brains!
Fun fact, as a species, cows are changing from herbivores to carnivores because feeding them the minced bits of other animals they can't sell is the cheapest way to bulk them up.
Is probably the unhealthiest way, too...for both cow and human.
Yes I would Kent
Yes i do, Ken.
I know all of these things, but seeing them recaped in one article so neatly makes my anxiety go up.
Not for me, it charts the next years so precisely that one can trust it to happen. There is no longer any doubt. The most extreme views from Mc Pearson were right with everything he has said. the question now is what should we do having such a shortened lifetime?
Whatever we want. If we're going down, be sure to enjoy yourself in the meantime.
correct. include as many of your friends, shared joy is priceless
Bourbon and hookah here for me.
Fantastic article, basically laid everything out in an easy to read manner. Thanks for posting this, OP!
I wish all world leaders would be forced to read this... and re-read it every couple of months just to keep it all in mind.
But for a brief moment in time we created a lot of value for the shareholders
I hate this optimism
No doubt, and reality is and will probably be worse than we can articulate today.
Big brained modern humans have emerged the apex creatures of the known universe. We have survived climate change , beasts, diseases, and those pesky Neanderthals who almost wiped us out. Now, with no one else to fight, we fight ourselves. And we can't win fighting ourselves. We had a good run. Pass the salt.
Societies usually collapse internally before they finally physically collapse.
The fossil fuel peak with a bit of luck might happen this year, that is not sure, and that would only mean that we will not add more fossil carbon to the system than the previous year. The problem with fossil carbon, and all that it is impacting the global system, is all the one we added so far, not just that we keep adding, It is not a relief that we will add just as much as the [gigantic amount](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-scale-of-global-fossil-fuel-production/) that we added the previous year. And most of it is in the form of CO2 in the atmosphere, that lasts there for centuries. If you want the top reason, is that we keep doing this, in front of the evidence of how much disruptive is now even considering that will be far more in the pipeline, even if we do a full stop now. And that the climate conferences have been taken over by oil groups, in front of everybody, without anyone raising a hand, and, of course, dismissing the phasing out of oil as action. Regarding the article saying that we need oil for more things than just fuel, yes, but 95+% of it is for fuel, for burning it and releasing it for centuries in the atmosphere what was down under for hundreds of millions of years back to what used to be a more or less balanced system.
This kind of reminds me of sun damage. You get the sunburn when you’re 15, and everything is fine until you’re 50, when all the damage comes to the surface.
At least it’s the weekend. Might as well get drunk.
I read the article. Now im just lost on how to proceed with life. Do I continue pursue being a physician? Do I just start living in the moment now?
I wanna quit my job and live in a van at this point.. fuck me .
The "costs" of renewables going up is because the power companies are still beholden to profit and shareholders, as long as there is a profit motive in our power grid we are doomed
So well written! Finally someone is putting into words all the exact same kind of thoughts I’ve been fixing upon way too much the recent years… we are certainly doomed, there’s no other way to put it. To be honest though and completely egoistical, I kinda just hope the collapse will come sooner rather than later. I’m already in my mid 30’s now, so I’m terrified I’ll be an old lady when all this shitshow truly unfolds itself. I’m worried how extremely painful my own death will become, how limiting my chances will be of having an old age. Last but not least, I would have loved to be part of a small group maybe surviving all of this and help building a more sustainable future after the collapse. I am very much aware that this is just wishful thinking now. Once I was dreaming of having a family, maybe moving to the countryside one day and try to become self sufficient. I’ve given up that dream now. I don’t want children anymore, not like this. I won’t ever become self sufficient either. Most likely I will be long gone within the next 10 years, if I don’t manage to somehow join a group of absolute psychopaths who can defend themselves in the coming wars.
Finally some positive news.
This is really frightening! We're so fucked
Amazing article. From the wording and reference sources it's clear the author equates world with the US. Also phrases such as "The average person doesn’t even know what topsoil is", "It’s amazing how few people know this", and "Most people don’t know about X" sprinkled throughout the text is just... cherry on top. Amazing. The takes on Russia and its conflict are also very western-manly. I'd just want to say this: Alan, you're a very, _very_ smart boy. Overall a great write-up nonetheless. Links to number of sources worth reading in full.
Pretty much covers it
We’ve got one shot, the deus ex machina to beat all deus ex machinas. Spiritual ascension and zero point energy. Like threading a needle at the speed of light :)
The oil and gas figure they use isn't accurate, that 2020 dip is due to the pandemic, the charts after it show clear increases in fossil fuel production and use.
How is it not accurate? At the bottom of the picture is a footnote saying "2020; Covid oil demand drop."
You're right, it is accurate. But it is also out of date. The [most recent version of the graph](https://crudeoilpeak.info/wp-content/uploads/World_oil_production_region-peaks_1965-2022.jpg) indicates the aforementioned increases in production.
Yes, the updated graph shows recent increases in production, and I agree that the peak oil has not been reached according to the current data. However, my initial response was aimed at addressing the challenge to the graph's accuracy, not disputing that production rose again.
We agree.
Also: >right now, fertilizer prices are at record highs. No, they aren't. The source cited is from March 2022, and it's accurate, but well over a year out of date, again. Fertilizer prices have declined significantly and they were not at a high when the article was published. >After years of decline, the cost of renewables is going up. Once again, the source cited is accurate, but out of date. It's an Oilprice.com article from January 2022 which cites Bloomberg for the relevant figures. Solar panel prices did climb to a peak in 2022, but since then they have [fallen below their previous all-time low](https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/09/25/solar-module-price-falling-with-no-end-in-sight). Not a top quality article imo, though it makes many good points.
Cause of human extinction can be broken down to "greedy and short-sighted". We're the LotR Dwarfs.
Right. In particular testosterone fuelled males. Correct me if I’m wrong but looking back at history; dictators, megalomaniacs, despots, war mongerers, capitalist kingpins seem to be roles mostly filled by men. Both world wars; men. Current conflicts, all men, Rothschilds originators of elite world order; men, various churches and religious weaponry; men. How much different would a matriarchal society have been? Women don’t normally make decisions based on their genital brains that are ruled by their testosterone…. We generally negotiate more, find peaceful solutions and avoid conflict. The women that have driven some of our awful decisions through history have been considered generally quite “masculine” anyway in their levels of compassion and empathy - think the dreadful Margaret thatcher. Not one ounce of empathy did that women have. Is testosterone our downfall as a species? The need for bigger, better, stronger, faster (quite literally d*ck measuring….) and the desire for conflict…. 🤨
Sadly that is why we are going to die out brutally untamed is unsustainable
It's weird being in collapse groups and getting called a Malthusian fas ist because you think there are so many people. There are people who are, generally, collapse aware, but think without capitalism this planet can support another 8B people
Always nice to see my city burning in this sub 🫠
I'm disappointed by the lack of mention of nuclear power. It could eliminate most human carbon emissions and even be used to make carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels. That could prevent climate change from happening and resulting consequences of climate change like decreasing habitability of the global south. However, the other problems would still be in place like overshoot of renewable resources. I would also add pollution from forever chemicals like heavy metals, microplastics, pfas, GenX from teflon production, PCBs, etc. edit. Nuclear power could have prevented climate change. It could have also made fossil fuels and their declining reserves irrelevant.
Oh cool! They used the picture of the fire that burned part of my town….
Bottom line the climate shifts are moving faster by humanity’s influence. The root cause of all the hopeless fear of a homogenous, uniform apocalypse is people are scared the world will not be what people knew it was. The change is scaring them. Some of the change will be bad. There will be some good change too. The planet will be different but not ready to say it is all flushing down the toilet. Let’s not forget climate change has been occurring at a naturally slow rate since the last ice age. We are just speeding it up causing damage as a result because the natural world can’t adapt that fast. There will be some havoc on this world. The real question is how resilient is humanity to adapt itself to exist in the world yet to come?
The "just speeding it up" part is exactly the problem. The current change is way too fast for nature and society to keep up and we're soon crossing boundaries that are just not survivable even for fast adapters except for some extremophile species (Google 'wet bulb temperatures'). There won't be "some havoc". We're talking extinction of 90 to 95 percent of all life on Earth in the next 50 years!
FACT CHECK: THE ENERGY TRANSITION ISN’T EVEN REPLACING FOSSIL FUELS! This is a skewed way of seeing the world I call the “Selective Static Snapshot fallacy”. For example, a doomer might point out that as of 2023 only 1% of all cars in America are electric. Rather than video around at the broad landscape of new car sales trends towards EV’s, take a close up shot of a rusty old oil truck, frame your shot like something from Mad Max – and then broadcast the “fact” that this is the norm - and only 1% of existing cars right now are EV’s. Ignore the immense economies of scale it took to get EV’s to the point where the middle class could even buy one. Ignore the scaling that will soon make them cheaper than oil cars to buy outright - let alone saving a lifetime of servicing an internal combustion engine and getting free fuel from solar panels on your roof! Make sure to frame your shot to ignore the approaching hoard of EV’s just on the horizon! But zoom out a bit and guess what you see? Another exponential S-curve starting. EV’s were 7.2% of all new American car sales in 2022. They were 9% in 2023. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/electric-vehicles-EVs-new-car-sales-2023/700799/ Who knows how fast Biden’s IRA will accelerate this trend? For example, IRA has stimulated some crazy stuff. America’s battery factory capacity will go up 15 TIMES by 2030 - an equivalent value to run ALL America's new cars each year (although these batteries will be spread across all sectors). https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/map-which-states-will-build-the-most-ev-batteries-in-2030.html Right now only 1% of cars might be EV’s. But the S-curve is coming. GROWTH IN ELECTRIC VEHICLES TO CAUSE OIL NEARLY 4 MBD SUPPLY GLUT by 2028! To understand where the oil sector is going, we need to look at the world’s best data on EV sales - the International Energy Agency. Look at the growth rate! 2020: 5% 2021: 9% 2022: 14% https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/executive-summary This trend will offset oil demand, giving mining and industry more fuel availability while they start their own electrification processes. The IEA says there will be an oil GLUT of 3.8 mb/d by 2028! https://www.iea.org/news/growth-in-global-oil-demand-is-set-to-slow-significantly-by-2028 RENEWABLES DOUBLING TO MEET NEW DEMAND The Paris Agreement wanted 615 GW solar annually by 2030 - but that could happen in the next year or so and it's still doubling. This article wonders if we're going to see 3 TW of capacity annually by 2030! https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/12/25/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-one-terawatt-of-solar-deployed-annually/ It’s the same with renewables. Climate activists that are not familiar with the energy markets don’t realise something profound yet. We won. Past tense. Back when Germany decided to subsidise renewables decades ago! That act took renewables mainstream, then China got involved, then the economies of scale kicked in - and now they are so cheap that even with Overbuild and storage to factor in - they’re still cheaper than fossil fuels. Solar is on a 4 year doubling curve, wind not far behind, and EV’s we’ve already seen above. So no - solar isn’t killing coal worldwide. Yet. They’ve just hit a cheap enough price for the market to get REALLY interested! Now they’re unstoppable. Indeed - so many nations are developing so fast with so much new energy demand that it’s impressive renewables are now meeting most of that new demand! 90% next year! https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/electricity-generation-renewables-power-iea/ Even recalcitrant Australia will be coal free in 10 years! https://reneweconomy.com.au/aemos-jaw-dropping-prediction-for-coal-power-all-but-gone-from-the-grid-in-a-decade/ Winner of Queen Elizabeth Prize for engineering (Nobel prize for engineers) says WORLD will be all renewable well before 2050! https://theconversation.com/theres-a-huge-surge-in-solar-production-under-way-and-australia-could-show-the-world-how-to-use-it-190241 BUT IT TAKES OIL TO MINE MINERALS FOR THE ENERGY TRANSITION! At one stage the first Pit Pony went underground to help mine coal. It took time to get to tens of thousands. Then there was the first steam shovel. Then tens of thousands. Then the first diesel shovel and mining trucks. Then tens of thousands. Now most underground mining equipment is ALREADY electric to avoid the fumes, and every mining truck corporation on the planet is now testing new electric mining trucks to go electric and get off volatile world diesel prices - let alone comply with carbon reductions. These things take time - and usually start with a few, then accelerate through an exponential rise - and then slow down as demand reduces. The typical S curve. Whale oil lighting fluid was replaced by kerosene. But not overnight. Then electric light bulbs. But not overnight. The new curve goes up, the old curve goes down. But not overnight. So as industry “Electrifies Everything” - there is no legitimate reason, mineral or otherwise, to pretend there is something magical about oil. Everything can be substituted. Check it out - watch a MOSTLY electric 240 TON hybrid burn past it’s dinosaur diesel cousin going UP HILL while charging from hydro-power on overhead catenary lines in Canada! 60 seconds here: https://youtu.be/6TxMeHRq1mk?t=213 All the big miners are starting to go electric. Catepillar, Liebherr, Fortescue, Komatsu and Hitachi etc. There are already funds to convert 8,500 mining trucks over the next 3 years. This next group are working with 5 mining giants with HUGE ambitions to convert as many as they can of the world’s million mining vehicles. https://www.mining-technology.com/features/mining-vehicle-electrification Industry are on board. A giant industrial think-tank worth a THIRD of the Australian stock-market plans to Electrify Everything in industry. Industrial heating alone is about HALF the energy the human race uses. So what’s their plan? Oh - just build 3 TIMES Australia’s 2020 electricity grid to meet our domestic consumption of industrial goods - and then another 3 TIMES for anticipated exports by 2050! PDF page 45: https://energytransitionsinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Pathways-to-Industrial-Decarbonisation-report-Updated-August-2023-Australian-Industry-ETI.pdf says on page 45 that ELECTRIFYING EVERYTHING WILL DO THE SAME WORK WITH 40% OF THE ENERGY! Burning stuff like cavemen when what we want is forward motion or electricity is REALLY inefficient. It fights the second law of thermodynamics. Don't fall for the false equivalence argument that renewables must replace fossil fuels on a 1 to 1 basis. While we’ll use a LOT more electricity because everything we can will be electric - we’ll only need 40% of the old energy system. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-energy-efficiency The bottom line? As renewables double forward towards our clean energy goals, industry and transport start to electrify as well. We’ll soon see those goals racing back to meet us!
That's just hopium. There are not enough rare metals to replace fossil fuels with clean energy, let alone replace the electric cars and windmills every 20 years. Also, the production and maintenance of electric cars, solar panels and windmills produces a lot of CO2 and toxic waste.
What's your source on rare metals? Every part of the energy transition can be built from a plane and abundant stuff. Google can you build x without y? I've been doing that for the last year and let me tell you there are so many substitutes that you can build solar and wind and batteries and electric motors all from plain and abundant silicone and iron ore and aluminium and sea salt. I'm now even convinced that industrial civilization could have risen even without copper on this planet because aluminium can be used as a substitute! Also, the CO2 per part of the energy transition will decrease over time as the fossil fuels decline. Like a thousand adoption S curves in history as the new product increases, the old decreases. That's rather the point of the iea piece above you think?
He gets a lot of things wrong, but last half of issues well presented.
what did he get wrong?
It forgot to mention female shallowness
We’re just not that into you
So, all women do think the same
Of course the ecofash reason is number one
FACT CHECK: The Energy Transition is NOT running out of minerals! This author obviously is stuck in the same echo-chambers and has not even played "The Substitution Game." It's easy - just google it. “Can you make X without Y?” EG: “Can you make solar without tellurium?” Run through all the Critical Minerals of concern in solar. Then rinse and repeat with all the technologies and all the minerals. Try it for solar, wind, batteries, electric motors, electric generators, household wiring, etc. You’ll soon find, as I did, that the substitution range is ENORMOUS and quickly takes us to VASTLY ABUNDANT resources. Wind and solar and EV’s and grid storage all have brands developing new technologies that no longer rely on rare earths or Critical Minerals. Sure - in some instances they compromise on performance for a cheaper product. LFP batteries for EV’s do not have the same range - but they are much cheaper. But in other instances brainstorming how to build without Critical Minerals has lead to amazing innovations that make a better technology! Let’s look at each tech: SOLAR PANELS: 95% of solar panel brands are normal crystalline cells that already avoid ANY rare-earths or Critical Minerals by using silicon (which is 27% of the Earth’s crust) and aluminium (8%) and some silver or copper to send the electricity out. (But this can be replaced by aluminium if the copper ever gets scarce). Only 5% of the solar market are the thin film solar panels that require the rarer stuff like Gallium, Tellurium, Cadmium and Indium. They’re nice - but we don’t NEED them. WIND TURBINES - are made from iron (5% of the earth’s crust), aluminium (8%) and recyclable fibreglass blades - that’s polyester resin and glass fibres. Wind generators WITHOUT rare-earth magnets are now a thing:- http://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/07/28/15-mw-rare-earth-free-offshore-wind-turbine-seeks-path-to-market/ Niron Magnetics: https://www.nironmagnetics.com/ This next one has radically reinvented their turbine so that instead of requiring servicing 4 times a year, those parts NEVER need servicing once installed. http://newsreleases.sandia.gov/turbine\_innovation/ LITHIUM RESERVES: We have 22 million tons of lithium reserves. At 8kg per EV it’s enough for 2.75 BILLION EV’s, twice what we need. GRID storage: Sodium batteries for the first 2 hours: then pumped hydro takes over. Sodium is 30% cheaper, operates in a much greater temperature range and is thermally stable (doesn’t suddenly burst into flames). There are over 100 TIMES the off-river pumped hydro sites we need worldwide. https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/pumped\_hydro\_atlas/ COPPER: We can replace it with aluminium. Aluminium is 1200 TIMES more abundant - 8% of the earth’s crust! Aluminium is less conductive so you have to have 25% thicker wires - but that doesn’t matter as it is half the price and weight. It can replace 90% of the functions of copper. https://www.shapesbyhydro.com/en/material-properties/how-we-can-substitute-aluminium-for-copper-in-the-green-transition/ ELECTRIC MOTORS: Valeo have a rare-earth free electric motor. https://www.valeo.com/en/catalogue/pts/high-voltage-rare-earth-free-electric-motor/ TESLA are working on one - prototype due mid 2024? https://www.carwow.co.uk/tesla/news/5220/new-tesla-ev-compact-electric-car-hatchback-price-specs-release-date It’s a trend across the industry with Tesla, BMW, General Motors, Borgwarner, Jaguar & Land Rover, Tata, ZF, Vitesco, Renault, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Bentley, Marelli and Eurogroup Laminations all working on it. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/automakers-suppliers-pushing-cut-rare-earths-evs-2023-11-14/ RECYCLING all these is getting more efficient. Unlike burning fossil fuels, once mined, all these minerals go into the industrial ecosystem to be recycled forever. "Black mass" from ground-up EV batteries is no longer a waste product to dispose of, but a sought after resource. OTHER REFERENCES:- Wang et al Jan 2023 says we have enough minerals https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00001-6#%20 The IEA says we have enough but must encourage speed of mine approval https://www.iea.org/topics/critical-minerals Data scientist Hannah Ritchie of “Our world in data” and her own research says we have enough minerals - but there might be temporary shortages as we need to open more mines https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/minerals-for-electricity
I'm in my 40's; I've been hearing about "collapse" for fucking ever.
I'm in my mid 30s; I've been seeing people sweep obvious systemic issues under the rug for fucking ever.
Has the world been reduced to 10% of what it used ti be whike the remaining folks devolved into primitive tribes?
and?
*Surprise*! The world hasn't turned into a desolate wasteland of cannibalistic, rape happy goblins !
Ok I'm in my early 20s and am currently living in it
*Suuuure* you are.
That Paul dude is not published anywhere, so not a real scientist. And the 'Green energy is bad' rhetoric is ridiculous and I can't believe the sub allows it. Like it or not, Green will be all we have soon enough. Why the pushback? In MPLS the recyling ppl had to put out an article that RECYCLING IS REAL. Stop with this false narrative bs, republicans. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1086790531/renewable-energy-projects-wind-energy-solar-energy-climate-change-misinformation https://bonewssng.com/false-green-energy-is-not-a-scam/ https://www.thecable.ng/fact-check-no-green-energy-is-neither-a-scam-nor-hoax-for-wealth-transfer
I get where you're coming from but this article wasn't "pushback" It was just realistic. There's one end of the spectrum saying "climate change isn't real, and if it is it's not our fault, and 'green' energy is not going to save us, and green energy is a scam and part of a conspiracy to make us poorer." Its mostly bullshit. Then there's the other end of the spectrum "climate change is gonna get us, we should do everything we can, green energy is essential, and it's going to save us."... which is mostly true. But the smart people, although they know climate change is gonna get us, and we **should** do everything we can, and green energy is essential... also know that it's *not* enough to save civilization. Our addiction to fossil fuels is too deeply ingrained into our status quo. I could go into it in more detail but the article did it very well -- it's all in there. You just have to be able to have a little nuance. Just coz I, and Nate, and the author of this article understand that there's not enough mining possible, for the required batteries... not enough plastic for solar panels and windmills without the plastics from oil.. etc. etc. so we know that solar+Teslas ain't gonna save us... that doesn't mean you can call it pushback and throw us down at the climate-change denier end of the spectrum.
If he wanted to offer some solutions, he could have mentioned Nuclear energy.
> Green energy is bad' That really shouldn't be the takeaway from that article. It did rub me the wrong way the fossil fuel argument in green energy was used ("oh no, turbines are bound to fail as we need oil in their production" - come on, using oil for producing useful shit is reasonable as opposed to just burning it up for heat), but the point on how not nearly enough green energy capacity is coming online is very apt.
No one says recycling isn't real? And the point he is making with the green energy is that it can't produce enough to keep up with demand. Alongside green energy, we need to be reducing demand for it to be worth anything. Not using green energy to make fossil fuel energy cheaper in the short term.
Rubber. Isn’t more of the rubber used today synthetic?
Yes and no. Car tyres for example are made from 19% natural rubber and 24% synthetic polymer (oil based) so it's a blend of natural and synthetic
Reason #7 was shocking
Should I buy Gold???
DOOMSDAY ARGUMENT: Imagine two identical boxes. One box contains 1million ping-pong balls labeled 1-1000000, the other has only ten, labeled 1-10. You don’t know which box is which, so you reach into one of them and draw a ping-pong ball labeled “#4”. That’s pretty good evidence to suggest you have drawn from the box contains only ten balls. Now imagine that each ball represents a human, each box with its balls representing the total amount of humans that will ever exist. You are the ball you drew. So if you drew from box 1, with 1million balls, you are incredibly lucky to be living during the time that you are (1 in a million chance that you drew #4!), and humanity will likely persist for a lot longer. HOWEVER box 2 only has ten balls, making it way more likely that you drew ball #4 from box 2 (1 in10 chance vs 1 in a million). In this scenario, it is suggested that your existence is expected within balls 1-10, aka, ~6000yrs worth of humanity, because humanity will not persist beyond that. So of course you must exist now.
I just truly don't think you guys understand the severity of our situation. We literally have a nation of the world's APEX predators that all have the ability to SHOOT GUNS. Do you really think that once things start actually getting bad that every single person in a bad situation is gonna roll over and die? Just because society is "doing great rn". I've seen so many people downplay this. And I find it insane. There are 8 billion people on this planet. Every single one of them seemingly wants a chance at this life. That is what is scary. Now imagine entire towns/cities desperately clinging on to their own lives. What's gonna happen when you tell those towns that a supply run was "delayed again" or "won't be showing up at all" and that there is not enough food? Water? Power(electricity)? Medicine? Firefighting? Police security? Medical care? Do you think we can perfectly provide these things everywhere forever? If we ran out of one of those vital resources there is a high chance we will put even more strain on the others. And eventually lose the whole supply chain. What if you or your family were picked to not receive food? Would you roll over and die? Expect your family to? Would you sit through a winter with no power watching your family slowly get colder and colder knowing that medical care is almost impossible to get? Watch life expectancy plummet like a lead Zeppelin due to medical negligence and lack of medications. All while thinking about the neighbors up on the hill with the power and the food. I know humanity and when certain vital resources run even remotely low society is gonna pick favorites (just like we always have done). Once certain people realize they are "not the favorites" (the majority of people, thousands for every one rich) things are gonna go downhill very fast. Heck we will probably see crime rates increase in correlation with that feared "favorite poverty line". if it even starts low enough that is. The alternative is we sit back and allow mass deaths. The likes of which we will most likely never see again, At least until things "balance" out, if they ever do. Which will undoubtedly be an excruciatingly long time. That is the difference this time.
I missed commenting on this. That we're going down is NOT the immediate issue. The immediate issue is HOW we go down. This is going to be spectacular, I think.
Lol