I saw Children of Men the other night, and I can't stop thinking about it. It's easily my favorite movie of the past year.
The basic plot is: a numb and disillusioned ex-activist lives in London, 18 years after a sudden, unexplained worldwide epidemic of infertility. There are no children. The rest of the world is in chaos; the U.K. is held together by a brutal, authoritarian police state that rounds up and deports illegal immigrants. Through his still-activist ex-wife, he is given charge of a pregnant girl. He must get the girl to safety and her child into the hands of the possibly mythical Human Project.
This is dystopian realism at its gut-punching best. There's never a hint of "sci fi," just a raw, heightened version of our present world. It is resonant with philosophical and spiritual themes, but the main effect is relentless, unremitting tension. I swear my ass cheeks were sore from clinching. I could have eaten charcoal and shit diamonds during one scene, a car chase in which the car ... never starts. It's just rolling down a hill, occasionally boosted by Theo (Clive Owen) jumping out and pushing. It was nigh unbearable.
And there's an urban-warfare scene toward the end that I'll put up against anything in Saving Private Ryan. You really have to see it to believe it. I'm a huge fan of Alfonso Cuarón, who's part of an extraordinary young generation of skilled Latino directors, but nothing in Y Tu Mama Tambien (much less friggin' Harry Potter) could have prepared me for this.
The reason I mention it here is that it puts some flesh and feeling on the warnings of the doomers: the peak-oil doomers, climate-change doomers, nuclear-terrorism doomers, global-virus doomers, general-malaise doomers. The techno-optimist response to, say, peak oil, is hey, when oil starts to get expensive we'll respond in an orderly fashion and shift to something else, right? It's not like there'll be riots in the streets. Right? But one thing Children of Men shows to visceral effect is just how shallow civilization is. Just how quickly the veneer can be ripped away and the lawlessness and brutality let loose. They're always closer than we know.
I remember having a tiny shiver of that feeling during the "Brooks Brothers Riots" of 2000. It was slightly comical, of course, the doughy white guys in suits "rioting," but it shut down a vote recount. How far would it have escalated? How much holds the angry white men back from real mob violence? How many economic shocks or dislocations, how much constant provocation, will push them over the line? In the developed world, particularly in the U.S., we are so comfortable and insulated. Our bland, strip-malled, suburbanized landscape looks the same everywhere, and offers the illusion that history has stopped -- that time and space have collapsed into one weightless, gluttonous now. What we don't realize is that circumstances tip over into chaos all the time. Our own history is fresh with examples, and around the world it goes on as we speak. We read about wars, unrest, and famine, see the images on television, stridently debate foreign policy, but it all has a strangely disembodied feel, as though we're just manipulating symbols. "I think the images on TV should do this! No, this!"
Children of Men brings it home. These are yuppie Londoners, still herding around dazed, now at the mercy of organized street gangs and heavy-handed government agents. The infertility has never been explained. Some sort of genetic disease? Pollution? God's wrath? That rich symbolic space is left open for viewers to fill, but the wistful implication at several points is that humanity ended simply because it lost hope. As one character says early on: things went to shit well before the children stopped coming.
The story traces one man's rediscovery of hope and his fierce, almost monomaniacal efforts to hold on to it.
Though some bits of exposition are clumsily delivered and the occasional bit part goes over the top, Children of Men is the most haunting, thought-provoking, feeling-provoking movie you're likely to see this year. I can't shake it. It gets a five out of five star Gristmill rating. Check it out.
Climate Citizen: Mary Stuart Masterson
Happy birthday, EMA Awards ... and you other groups, too
Comments
View as Flat
d41295 Posted 3:32 am
16 Jan 2007
> nuclear terrorism doomers, global virus doomers,
> general-malaise doomers.
This is baloney. The movie is a movie--it's fiction. The truth is that never in the history of the world have so many people had it so good. Across the entire planet people are leading lives of ever greater material access and ever greater benefits of health.
This apocalyptism is a favorite tool of the left to paint a negative picture which they hope beings converts to their side. It is bullshit, and always has been. Of course there are problems in this world--just as importantly, there are many bright people with solutions, and just as importantly, every day we have more wealth with which to pursue these solutions. Compared to all of history, our lives are nearly magical, and only getting more so. Read some history for a change--what do you think life looked like during WW2, or the American Civil War, or during the Spanish Flu, or during the great and terribly devastating European epidemics, or during earlier times when adults died at 35 and many children died at birth and people led lives of real scarcity? That was suffering. Paying $3 for a gallon of gas is not.
Stop whining and stop hoping for the apocalypse. It is not coming and you only look like fools.
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jjwfmme Posted 4:46 am
16 Jan 2007
Human institutions are not indestructable, and they don't spring to life automatically (although the neoconservatives thought they would after the Iraq invasion). In fact, they can be fragile when things aren't maintained carefully. Just look at how government did at all levels in the wake of Katrina. Not that Katrina is a normal occurence, but it showed a little something about what can happen when cynics are at the controls...
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Bart Anderson Posted 5:03 am
16 Jan 2007
"It is demonstrable," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. ...: and they, who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best."
Candide ch 1 by Voltaire
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GreenEngineer Posted 5:30 am
16 Jan 2007
Yes, things are better now (on a material level, if you're an American) than they have ever been. That's not the point.
The point is, civilization is much more fragile than most people give it credit for. There is no guarantee that tomorrow will look like today, despite our (very natural) human tendency to assume it will, because for most of history, it did. The further we climb up the technological curve, the higher we can reach, but the more precarious our position becomes.
Now, in fairness, I also believe that civilization is much MORE resiliant than most doomers give it credit for. But it's still important to imagine, and think about, what could happen if we drop the ball as a species. If a movie helps make that excercise in imagination more visceral and effective, so be it.
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jjwfmme Posted 5:39 am
16 Jan 2007
Well said!
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willa Posted 5:48 am
16 Jan 2007
I think Jefferson gets the credit on this one: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
But yeah, I mean, in a world where people can get seriously injured in some absurd pre-Christmas scuffle over Tickle Me Elmo, I wouldn't be surprised, if something happened to provoke a crisis in the availability of consumer goods generally, to find that it wasn't safe to walk down the street anymore. I'm certainly not one of those building-a-bomb-shelter-in-my-basement types, but didaster preparedness, and being prepared for life to change dramatically, are reasonable things to think about, and because we are so sheltered, and lead such a cushy life, we hate more than anything to have to think about such things.
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caniscandida Posted 5:56 am
16 Jan 2007
I recall seeing in fragmentary and poorly projected form, in my high school's auditorium during lunch, a few scenes from the 1962 movie "La jete'e." A post-nuclear-war dystopia thing. The shot of the broken Arc de Triomphe destroyed me for days.
On Alfonso Cuaro'n: I like "Y tu mama' tambie'n," and I adore Gael Garci'a Bernal (e.g., "Motorcycle Diaries" was a very good if imperfect vehicle for him; and he had a fun little role as a universally cute devil in that metaphysical anti-US doggy romp, "Sin noticias de Dios," "No News from God," or else, "Don't Tempt Me"). But I do not think "Y tu mama'" is a great movie. In spite of the Mexican background sociology, the story is about French subject matter, and it is told in a French cinematic style. Francophile (and Mexicanophile!) that I am, I happen to find most French cinema boring.
Is "Wizard of Azkaban" a good movie? IMHO, none of the Harry Potter movies matter, really. They are all fluff. If your Harry Potter experience is based on the movies, in ignorance of the books, you have segregated yourself within a boring class of critics who clearly miss the point.
In fact, "Wizard of Azkaban" is my favorite of the six Harry Potter books. It lays the foundation for the Dumbledore/Voldemort/Muggle cosmology, and establishes Harry's values and affections, and offers real hope.
Cuaro'n's pendulum was excellent. And he managed the scenes around Hagrid's cottage very nicely. But he made too much of the Womping Willow, and too little of the map, and the tunnel. His Dementors were as bad and unconvincing as were Peter Jackson's orcs.
I suppose he handled Emma Thompson's character well enough. Sybil Trelawney is a minor but irksome problem. On the one hand, Hermione and Harry dislike her, and Dumbledore himself agrees that she is a fraud. On the other, she is lovable in her own way (were I a Hogwarts student, she would be my favorite teacher); and in "Order of the Phoenix," both her vulnerability and her occasional prophetic powers enter in; so she cannot be simply dismissed.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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JMG Posted 7:01 am
16 Jan 2007
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willa Posted 8:09 am
16 Jan 2007
Compared to all of history, our lives are nearly magical, and only getting more so.
I haven't known Jason to say that everything's wonderful and rosy now and that we have the economy to thank--only that economics is too important to overlook, which is most likely true even if I personally do not understand and therefore frequently overlook economics...
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caniscandida Posted 8:19 am
16 Jan 2007
What I found most loathsome about D4's post in this thread was that on the one hand, he/she made some valuable historical observations about various hardships, indeed deadly circumstances, faced by people in the past, but then he/she used them as a debating tactic, an argument for why we should stop complaining, sit back and do nothing. Pretty diabolic counsel, if you ask me.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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GreenEngineer Posted 9:26 am
16 Jan 2007
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markbahner Posted 11:01 am
16 Jan 2007
As has been pointed out by others, it's fiction, not reality.
I agree that the seens of fighting were emotionally powerful, but I thought the whole movie was ridiculously implausible.
Here we have a situation where not a single child has been born anywhere in the world for 18 #@$% years. Obviously, in such a situation, getting some children born would be the ONLY issue for essentially everyone in the world.
Why in the world are the British worried about **illegal immigrants**? In literally less than a century, there would be not one person in Britain! And why were all the people sitting at their monitors at work? What was the point?
A far, far, far more plausible scenario was in a book I read probably close to 40 years ago:
The Year When Stardust Fell
In that book, the Earth passes through the tail of a comet, and the comet dust fuses together every single piece of sliding metal on the entire planet. All internal combustion engines freeze solid. All turbines. All air conditioning compressors.
In such a situation, it is very plausible that civilization would indeed break down very quickly. No city on earth would be liveable without IC engines to deliver food. And without engines to get people out of cities (and densely populated areas) people would get very, very hungry. Finally, people living on farms would be swamped with people needing food.
And the final ridiculous part about "Children of Men" was the behavior of EVERYONE regarding this woman and her child. Here would be literally the most important two people on the entire planet, and she and her baby basically ended up dodging bullets for most of the movie. People stop fighting briefly and say, like, "Oh, wow, look at that!" And then they go back to shooting at each other, when she hasn't even left the scene. Completely unbelievable.
Mark Bahner
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d41295 Posted 11:52 pm
16 Jan 2007
> Yes, things are better now (on a material level, > if you're an American)
No--things are better for practically everyone on the planet.
> The point is, civilization is much more fragile > than most people give it credit for. There is
> no guarantee that tomorrow will look like today, > despite our (very natural) human tendency to
> assume it will, because for most of history, it > did.
In fact, you have it exactly backwards. Tomorrow has ALWAYS looked like today--for every day in history, except maybe the day a comet hit 65M years ago. There have been no great leaps backwards.
> The further we climb up the technological curve, > the higher we can reach, but the more precarious > our position becomes.
What is the evidence for this? There is none that I can see. Technology makes our lives more stable and LESS precarious. Do you have any doubts about where your food is going to come from tomorrow? Your heat? Your medical help? Your transportation? Sure, you might pay a few more cents per gallon--maybe even a few more dollars per gallon--but life has never been free, has it? And if gas gets too expensive, the free market will ensure that alternative methods of transportation will come into being to allow us to go as never before.
Stop painting such a negative picture and drop the apocalyptic fetish. I don't even think you believe it.
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jjwfmme Posted 12:16 am
17 Jan 2007
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d41295 Posted 12:28 am
17 Jan 2007
> D4's comments reflect what I have
> heard called the McDonough paradox.
> Basically, it's the idea that
> the surest way to make the
> alarmist/doomer's worst fears
> come true is to take the
> actions suggested by the
> deniers (i.e. nothing)
When did I ever suggest we do "nothing"? I have never even implied it.
On the contrary, we will have to work very hard to overcome the problems of climate change and peak oil and food supply and other challenges to the environment.
But we will do it. We have always done it. Throughout history people have worked extremely hard to make their lives better--wealthier, healthier, easier. It's what human beings do. I see absolutely no evidence that we will suddenly stop doing this. On the contrary, we have never before had such levels of knowledge and wealth with which to work.
I am not a "denier" and I do not advocate doing nothing. I advocate getting busy, today. Overcoming problems is how we got to have such large brains. Use them.
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d41295 Posted 12:32 am
17 Jan 2007
> Shorter d41295: Stop worrying and take your Soma.
Clearly you have failed to understand anything that I've written. That or you have purposely misinterpreted me.
See my message above, and then tell me where I said to "stop worrying."
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odograph Posted 12:51 am
17 Jan 2007
Looking around the real world, I think it is apparent that while modern civilization is generally stable, there are times when it is not. It is possible for previously gentle civilizations to flip into violence and then be unable to climb out. That kind of violence can, terribly, be a stable state.
But when you look around at Northern Ireland, Lebanon, etc., I think you also see that there was often trouble in the foundation of the house. Longstanding hatreds could come to a boil.
Is that really true broadly? If civilization is "fragile" why hasn't western europe, or north america, fallen into that abyss in the last couple centuries?
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Bart Anderson Posted 1:10 am
17 Jan 2007
I would argue, for example, that the population increase and rise in living standards are due mostly to our use of fossil fuels since the 1800s, rather than to capitalism or science. This means that we have a big problem as we gradually stop using fossil fuels, whether because of depletion or because of global warming.
On the plus side, as you point out, we have powerful technologies and new forms of social organization.
But we also have cultural baggage as pathological as any described by Jared Diamond. Let us use our big brains to deal with that baggage, otherwise we are headed the way of the Romans and the Maya.
One book on the subject that's been getting good reviews is The Upside of Down by Canadian thinker Thomas Homer-Dixon. (website ... TOD review). I haven't read it yet.
BTW, dystopian works like Children of Men are a staple in science fiction and philosophical literature. They are not the monopoly of the left or right. Children of Men, for example, is based on the novel by P.D. James, a thoughtful Anglican, culturally conservative, and perhaps the best mystery writer alive today.
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jjwfmme Posted 1:10 am
17 Jan 2007
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odograph Posted 1:22 am
17 Jan 2007
Yes, that is one theme in recent history. But if you've studied history, you know that wars devastate nations, empires fall, and civilizations destroy their natural resource base. There are no guarantees. Often disaster follows a period of optimism (WWI after the optimistic turn of the century, WW2 and the Great Depression after the Roaring 20s).
Why don't you point to a model collapse of civilization, so I can better understand you?
Was WW2 such a collapse? I'd not call it that. At the time (and pre-WW2) "doomers" were looking for something that would take us down deeper, through generations of war, and collapse.
What really are the real-world models for these fears?
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d41295 Posted 1:46 am
17 Jan 2007
> But if you've studied history, you know that
> wars devastate nations, empires fall, and
> civilizations destroy their natural resource
> base.
And civilizations make use of new natural resources in ever new ways.
History is not a smooth path. Countries die. Most do not. But these are relative blips. The fact is that never before in history have so many lived such comfortable and healthy lives. We now take for granted many things that in decades and centuries past required huge amounts of struggle or which were simply impossible.
> Often disaster follows a period of optimism (WWI > after the optimistic turn of the century, WW2
> and the Great Depression after the Roaring 20s).
Also relative blips in the upward curve of history. Yes, some people suffered. Some people are always going to suffer whether the world is powered by fire, by oil, or by nuclear fusion. We made tremendous strides in quality of life before the Great Depression, and we have made huge strides since the Great Depression. In the big picture it was a small event that set us back a mere few years.
> I would argue, for example, that the population > increase and rise in living standards are due
> mostly to our use of fossil fuels since the
> 1800s, rather than to capitalism or science.
> This means that we have a big problem as we
> gradually stop using fossil fuels, whether
> because of depletion or because of global
> warming.
Yes, it will be a problem. But throughout history we have found more resources and new resources, and throughout history we have had new ideas and developed new technologies that have enabled us to overcome any shortage problems. Why are we suddenly going to stop thinking now? What is different about this period that means we are unable to use our brains and wealth to overcome our problems and to develop solutions? I see absolutely nothing. There are a plethora of ideas out there about how we can overcome our energy problems. The free market is working to overcome them -- look at the development of wind power in the last few years, or the development of solar energy in the last few decades. Or in fuel cells. We are at the mere beginning of such revolutions. As some markets become old and tired, new markets will open up and bold and brave people will take advantage of them.
It has been this way forever and it simply is not going to stop now. I'm surprised you people have such little faith in our civilization and such little faith in yourselves. Buck up and face the future with courage and optimism, not apocalyptism and defeatism. The defeatists of the world have existed forever, and history has always left tread marks across their backs.
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d41295 Posted 2:02 am
17 Jan 2007
> I agree that civilization is
> resilient--people pull through
> in a pinch, which has been a
> historical strength of our
> democracy--but it can also become complacent.
> Considering the way our elected officials and
> corporate citizens have acted regarding certain
> issues, like climate change, I think David can be > excused for writing an occasional jeremiad.
Well, some people become complacent. Maybe even most of them. But there have always been individuals with intelligence and daring and vision who reject complacency and who build the future that does not yet exist. They pull the rest of us into the future. It has been this way forever. Some elected officials are certainly mediocre--most of them, even. But the leaders come along at regular intervals to also pull us into the future: Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy. And if the elected officials don't lead, the brilliant men and women who create our new sciences and technologies make them irrelevant and and civilization adopts their new and better ideas. It will be the same with climate change. The world will warm a couple of degrees, which will open up huge new swaths of livable territory in the US, Canada, and Russia. Some people will become refugees, sure. They will be tiny minorities. As climate science is better understood and more readily accepted (and look at how much that acceptance has changed merely since 2000, or, for that matter, since 2004) and as its signs become ever more prominent, society and governments will devote more and more resources to solving the problem. Bright people will invent new solutions, and they will become rich precisely because they are better solutions and because people will want them. When in history have humans ever laid down in the face of a problem? Never. We have always and continuously developed better ways to feed ourselves, to defend ourselves, to house ourselves, and to take what we're given and mold and master it into solutions. There is nothing special about where we're at now. Nothing.
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jjwfmme Posted 2:03 am
17 Jan 2007
I'm all for the free market, but not a brainless one. It seems like many of the advocates for a free market are arguing for these days. Talk about a fetish.
If we mindlessly relied on the free market, the solution to our problems would be all about the people with the deepest pockets-- namely, Big Coal and Big Oil.
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Tom Philpott Posted 2:13 am
17 Jan 2007
Victual Reality
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caniscandida Posted 2:29 am
17 Jan 2007
The inward-looking American perspective is morally clueless, apparently, so far as judging these matters goes. Just consider: the hundreds of thousands of casualties in the Soviet Union. And then, on the other hand, consider the fate of Eastern European nations, following the fall of Berlin.
And consider what befell European Jewry. Only a Gentile would take away from that story the happy moral that civilizations are always resilient and in the end triumphant.
Soon after WWII, Britain was more or less forced to grant independence to its South Asian possessions. That was a good thing. But the Partition of India and Pakistan, little known to most Americans, was one of the most horrendous, bloody episodes of civil strife in history. And that story is not over, it is still playing out today.
For deeper considerations, there is Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Smaller, easier and more contemporary in style, is Thomas Cahill's "How the Irish Saved Civilisation," which builds on the first chapter of Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation," "By the Skin of Our Teeth."
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Bart Anderson Posted 2:34 am
17 Jan 2007
But those are extreme cases.
I think it's much more likely that civilization will survive, but we will face depressions and wars. Michael Klare has just written what I think is a plausible scenario in Is energo-fascism in your future?.
A picture of a modern day depression is given by Dmitry Orlov, who experienced the fall of the Soviet Union. The picture there was much grimmer than we in the U.S. commonly realize.
But are these real "collapses"? I don't think so.
Even the society in The Children of Men is not a collapse (from what I've read - I haven't seen it yet). Bad things happen, but the government and economy still function.
Rather than dwelling on the catastrophes, I'd rather be thinking about what we can do now.
The problem with movies like Children of Men is that they evoke fear, without necessarilly encouraging real awareness or positive action.
Dystopias are photogenic, so moviemakers like them. Thoughtful movies are more difficult to come by. An excellent movie was Syriana about the intersection of Mideastern oil and politics. Still waiting, though, for a positive vision in a movie.
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d41295 Posted 2:35 am
17 Jan 2007
>> The free market is working to overcome them
> If we mindlessly relied on the free market, the
> solution to our problems would be all about the
> people with the deepest pockets-- namely,
> Big Coal and Big Oil.
In fact you're wrong, as the development of wind power, solar power, and fuel cells shows. These are all the free market at work. Or that the acceptance of anthropogenic climate science shows. Big Coal and Oil do not have all the power.
And if you don't like the free market, then I'm sure you'll have no trouble pointing to the multitude of advances that have come about through government planning. Let's see your list....
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d41295 Posted 2:45 am
17 Jan 2007
> There's nothing in it for you.
It is sad that you think the readers of this blog must be in such complete lockstep that any competing ideas can only be from a "troll."
What exactly do you find so threatening?
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Bart Anderson Posted 3:06 am
17 Jan 2007
Most of us are quite familiar with mindless libertarianism. Some of us may be recovering libertarians.
It is possible to be an intelligent conservative and/or libertarian. But one has to understand the arguments of one's opponents, and see that reality is more complex than a set of talking points.
I often disagree with economist Jason Scorse who posts on Gristmill, for example. But his thinking has become increasingly interesting and hard to categorize, as he engages with other points of view.
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d41295 Posted 3:36 am
17 Jan 2007
>> d4: What exactly do you find so threatening?
> Not threatening -- just boring and
> a waste of time. I'm tired of
> slogans and lack of depth.
That's funny, seeing as how this last post of your's contained no new ideas and so no depth whatsoever. I guess that's how it is if you reflexively buy the liberal line.
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jjwfmme Posted 3:51 am
17 Jan 2007
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David Roberts Posted 3:54 am
17 Jan 2007
For the record, I'm not much of a doomer myself, and I've criticized that kind of thinking elsewhere. The power of the movie for me was just that it showed a situation that is not drastically different from our own (the social circumstances, I mean, not the infertility thing), but nonetheless horrendous to contemplate.
On the larger question: Odo, you ask for historical models, but show me any historical model where there are 6.5 billion people on earth. The amount of energy we use has no historical precedent. The disparities of wealth and health, the global flow of goods and information and people, the ability of small groups of people to wreak global havoc, etc. etc. -- all these have no historical precedent.
It would be nice to think that things can just continue on the way they have, but that means accepting that there are no physical or ecological barriers, that sheer ingenuity can fit exponentially more people on the same planet at historically high levels of consumption. Perhaps that true, but it doesn't seem to me that history is a particularly good guide for what to expect.
www.grist.org
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d41295 Posted 5:02 am
17 Jan 2007
I can straight away think of only one: nuclear weapons. Do you really want to hang your hat on that?
Let's see your list. Otherwise we will assume the superiority of the free market.
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d41295 Posted 5:09 am
17 Jan 2007
> It would be nice to think that
> things can just continue on the
> way they have, but that means
> accepting that there are no
> physical or ecological barriers,
This is absolutely and utterly false. There are some physical limits (the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics, etc.), just none that are holding us back. Or none that ever have. If there are, please name them instead of referring to them in the abstract.
> that sheer ingenuity can fit
> exponentially more people on the
> same planet at historically high
> levels of consumption.
"Sheer ingenuity" has always and everywhere worked in the past to ensure ever higher standards of living for an exponentially expanding population. Why should it stop now or anytime soon? You failed to say.
> Perhaps that true, but it
> doesn't seem to me
> that history is a particularly
> good guide for
> what to expect.
WHY isn't history a good guide for what to expect?
WHAT is a better guide than history?
Do you always try to end arguments by fiat, instead of by reasoning and argumentation?
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Bart Anderson Posted 5:10 am
17 Jan 2007
Trouble is ... reality got in the way.
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d41295 Posted 5:10 am
17 Jan 2007
And, we are not uncalm. We might have passionate beliefs, but that does not mean we need to calm down. If anything, the majority of the people here need to calm up.
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d41295 Posted 5:12 am
17 Jan 2007
> you young whippersnapper! Marched for Barry
> Goldwater and knew all the answers at age 12.
> Trouble is ... reality got in the way.
How about explaining what it is you mean, with details and examples, instead of expecting us to be able to read your mind and somehow magically be able to understand what it is you are obliquely referring to by "reality." That is not too much to ask.
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Tom Philpott Posted 5:50 am
17 Jan 2007
"I let that one hang there. There was nothing in it for me."
Victual Reality
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d41295 Posted 5:59 am
17 Jan 2007
> ... the narrator of Raymond
> Chandler's detective novels,
> had a great way of responding
> to idiotic remarks: silence.
> Confronted by a feeble
> wisecrack from a would-be
> tough, Marlowe would describe
> his reaction something like
> like this: "I let that one
> hang there. There was nothing
> in it for me."
And once again Tom Philpott has contributed absolutely nothing whatsoever to the substance of the debate at hand.
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Bart Anderson Posted 8:31 am
17 Jan 2007
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tylepard Posted 8:45 am
17 Jan 2007
From a purely film-as-entertainment point of view, I love Children of Men. I think the characters were interesting, full of good and bad - in fact, Theo is not a very likable guy, yet I still felt myself really pulling for him... hoping he'd make it. The plot is interesting and unpredictable. The cinematography is breathtaking! That seven-minute long single-shot sequence amidst explosions? Incredible. And it wasn't a typical Hollywood wrap-up ending. Nicely done.
Cheers,
Tyler
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markbahner Posted 10:06 am
17 Jan 2007
My apologies for introducing another pesky scientific fact (aka, inconvenient truth) into the discussion on this blog, but the human population hasn't been increasing exponentially for close to 40 years.
Exponential growth means something is expanding at the same percentage rate every year. Human population growth rate peaked at about 2.1 percent per year circa 1970. It's down to 1.2 percent per year, and continues to fall:
Figure 1, world population
Mark Bahner
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odograph Posted 11:09 am
17 Jan 2007
On the larger question: Odo, you ask for historical models, but show me any historical model where there are 6.5 billion people on earth. The amount of energy we use has no historical precedent. The disparities of wealth and health, the global flow of goods and information and people, the ability of small groups of people to wreak global havoc, etc. etc. -- all these have no historical precedent.
It would be nice to think that things can just continue on the way they have, but that means accepting that there are no physical or ecological barriers, that sheer ingenuity can fit exponentially more people on the same planet at historically high levels of consumption. Perhaps that true, but it doesn't seem to me that history is a particularly good guide for what to expect.
I don't expect things to continue on as they are. I expect change, but even then not all the possible futures I see are happy ones. I might hope at best for a soft landing of some sort, but to my eye the most darkly possible future is "China everywhere." It would be sad if every region in the world hit Chinese environmental and resource limits before trying to curb population.
Modern China is to my mind at once a disproof that the rest of us will collapse anytime soon (we have a ways to go before we test the same limits) and at the same time, an illustration of how damaging a non-collapse can be.
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odograph Posted 11:10 am
17 Jan 2007
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markbahner Posted 11:24 am
17 Jan 2007
Since the world population has been increasing steadily for essentially the last 600 years, for the last 600 years, one could always have asked the question, "When has the human population been as large as today?"
In fact, Thomas Malthus predicted approximately 200 years ago that human population would collapse within 50 years.
Not only was he spectacularly wrong, but human beings are becoming farther and farther removed from the famine and/or pestilence he thought were just around the corner.
"The amount of energy we use has no historical precedent."
That could also be said essentially every year for the last 600 years.
"The disparities of wealth and health,..."
It's interesting that you should focus on "disparities," rather than progress.
Yes, there were few disparities in health when the average life expectancy was under 40 years, and when doctors were not even aware that germs caused disease.
"...the global flow of goods and information and people,..."
You say that like it's a bad thing.
"...the ability of small groups of people to wreak global havoc,..."
Now, there (finally) is something definitely worth worrying about.
Of course, the flip side of that is that never before has there been the ability of small groups of people to do so much global good.
Mark Bahner
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markbahner Posted 11:41 am
17 Jan 2007
Ummm...has anyone been paying attention to world population trends in the last ~15 years?
The absolute number of additional human population has been declining since it reached a peak of ~89 million in 1990. In 2006, it's approximately 75 million and falling.
World population
The U.N. median population projection has human population plateauing circa 2050 at 9 million.
Mark Bahner
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GreenEngineer Posted 1:39 pm
17 Jan 2007
Well put. I'm going to keep that in mind, because it's a succinct and effective way of illustrating my primary concern about the future of humanity.
Caveat, though: "anytime soon" is (I estimate) of timescale 5-10 years at the rate of change we're dealing with. Decades out, I think collapse is still a real possibility. Sooner, it's maybe possible as the result of a cascade of catastrophic trigger events, but such a confluence is pretty unlikely.
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GreenEngineer Posted 2:27 pm
17 Jan 2007
First of all, you got the definition of "exponential growth" wrong. It's a growth rate where n = n^x, and x is greater than one. It can be very slow, depending on the value of x, but the problem is, the size of the growth increment increases as the base number, with each iteration.
Earth's population is still growing exponentially. The exponent is decreasing over time, but it's still exponential (i.e. nonlinear) growth.
Second, the fundamental problem is not population per se (though I would argue that it is at the root). It is resource use and, more importantly, damage to the biosphere. And those things are certainly growing on a worldwide basis.
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Bart Anderson Posted 2:45 pm
17 Jan 2007
Mark would like to extrapolate the trends from the last few centuries. There's no question that inertia in that direction is very strong. On the other hand, as the investors say, "Trees don't grow to the sky."
To my mind, the key factor is the fossil fuels that came into use with the Industrial Revolution. That's when population began to skyrocket. Synthetic nitrogen from the Haber process solved the food problem (for a while). Advertising and consumerism created a limitless market for goods, at the same time damping political opposition to capitalism.
The degree of uncertainty is high. We're in a 200-year experiment very different from the other 10,000 years of civilization. Resource depletion and climate change on the present scale is not something we've faced before.
Positive trends:The web
Soil ecology
Moving beyond seeing capitalism vs socialism as a polarity.
New, sophisticated forms of co-operation (e.g. science and and online collaboration.)
Culture change - developing a satisfying way of life that is low-energy and non-consumerist.
Technologies that support sustainability.
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David Roberts Posted 3:06 pm
17 Jan 2007
I'm not a doomer -- I don't think we're going to plunge to our deaths. I think we can build a glider. But this lollipop Randian utopianism grates. There's no more rocket fuel. Y'all talk about the last 10K years like it establishes some sort of permanent human trajectory. But what about the 10K years before that, or the 100K before that? Seems like there's a much longer, better established trajectory, and that's organisms balancing with their ecological niche -- and when overshooting, dying out.
www.grist.org
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wackatalpidae Posted 3:44 pm
17 Jan 2007
Some say most species eventually go extinct and humans will follow. But not all go extinct. Cockroaches have been around for millions of years, barely changed. Humans are just as adaptable.
Are you planning on dying or surviving? What are you doing, personally, to save your life, your descendents, and the rest of creation? Have you all given up your 1500+ square foot homes? Your imported food? Thermostat set below 60F? Your freezer? Your television? Your computer? Why aren't you living in minimalist huts for the sake of preserving humanity? I don't expect you to, but you must have decided where to draw the line. How much are you really willing to sacrifice to save the planet? How much is accomplished by blogging to a select few, most already sharing your views, the rest obnoxiously opposed?
Are you CHANGING any people for the better? How so?
Time to stop laying on the guilt trip and set an example for everyone else to follow. Lectures are pointless. Examples are priceless. INSPIRE ME TO BE A BETTER PERSON.
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wackatalpidae Posted 3:49 pm
17 Jan 2007
Hopefully, the movie will scare the crap out of me and encourage me to devote more effort to ensuring a soft landing for our civilization. I'm really not interested in a road-warrior lifestyle. I'm just not aggressive enough.
Later.
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Nucbuddy Posted 5:20 pm
17 Jan 2007
I think a better metaphor for our situation would be that of an accelerating airplane still on the ground and halfway down a runway at the end of which lies the base of a mountain. Some people want to ease back on the throttle to maintain ground speed. Some people want to ease off more on the throttle, or even kill the engines and hit the brakes. Some people want to open up the throttle all of the way and take off, continuously clearing the rising ground-elevation.
David Roberts wrote: There's no more rocket fuel.
I found some for you:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html
Half of the world's seawater uranium would supply all of the world's present energy needs for more than 10,000 years -- without the use of breeder reactors. Thorium-232 (breedable to the fission-fuel uranium-233) resources are several times as large as those of uranium. The ocean floor contains ten times as much uranium as does the water. Ocean water contains fusionable deuterium. The moon contains fusionable helium-3.
And Occam's Razor would seem to suggest that there is infinitely more rocket fuel where that came from.
Going back to your choice of metaphor, what happens to the glider when Yellowstone erupts, a K-T-class comet hits the earth, a nearby sun supernovas, or another global-extinction-level event occurs?
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David Roberts Posted 7:06 pm
17 Jan 2007
www.grist.org
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Nucbuddy Posted 7:21 pm
17 Jan 2007
That article is three months old. Here is another old article about that article...
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=216475&am...
...reposted on an apocalyptic discussion site.
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randino Posted 10:41 pm
17 Jan 2007
Apocalyptic scenarios are about as useful as trying to save a drowning person, by throwing him or her an anvil.
Starting with the trenches of World War I, and the crematoriums of the holocaust, on through to the detonation of the first nuclear device at Trinity site in New Mexico in 1945 (where Oppenheimer witnessing the nuclear blast, quoted the Bhagadavita "Behold I am death, destroyer of cities.") our imagination has been monopolized by apocalyptic scenarios. Utopia was one of the first casualties of the Battle of the Somme. It hasn't been seen or heard from since.
I think we should be bold, and buck the tide, and while not dismissing all the grim scenarios we see around us, we should start to promote utopian scenarios where we do get things right, and come out of this pit into some place that is worth living in. If all we have to offer people are ashes and sack cloth, we had might as well close up shop and go home right now.
Randy Cunningham
Randy Cunningham
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willa Posted 12:15 am
18 Jan 2007
Thanks for the note on math. I started to write that post myself, but I was having trouble for some reason explaining it as simply and clearly as you did, so I gave up. :)
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amazingdrx Posted 1:01 am
18 Jan 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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markbahner Posted 2:32 am
18 Jan 2007
I'm not a "population skeptic." I'm not a "climate skeptic." I'm a skeptic, period.
"First of all, you got the definition of "exponential growth" wrong. It's a growth rate where n = n^x, and x is greater than one."
My definition (that growth increases by a fixed PERCENTAGE per fixed unit of time) returns the same result, as long as one includes something you left out...
"x is greater than one...and NONCHANGING." See Wikipedia (source of all truth, except where it is ridiculously biased):
"All formulas of the form k^n, where k is an UNCHANGING number greater than 1 (e.g., 2), and n is the amount of time elapsed, grow exponentially." (emphasis added)
"Earth's population is still growing exponentially."
No, it is not. See Wikipedia definition above (with emphasis added).
"The exponent is decreasing over time,..."
Then it is not exponential growth. See definitions above. The exponent must be unchanging for the growth to be exponential.
"...but it's still exponential (i.e. nonlinear) growth."
No, it's not. Anything where the exponent decreases with time eventually gets to where the exponent equals one, and the growth is linear.
And in fact, the overall trend has been SUB-linear since approximately 1989, when the number added peaked at 87.8 million. (Although it's returned to about linear since 2000).
World population growing linearly since 2000
And the U.S. Census Bureau projects world population to be growing firmly SUB-linearly circa 2012. See above table.
Once again, I apologize for introducing a fact into the discussion...but the human population has not been growing exponentially (same percentage added each year) since about 1970.
"GreenEngineer--
Thanks for the note on math. I started to write that post myself, but I was having trouble for some reason explaining it as simply and clearly as you did, so I gave up. :)"
It was simple and clear, all right. But it was also wrong. Human population has not been growing exponentially since about 1970. Anyone who thinks it has is simply wrong.
Mark Bahner
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Andrew Dessler Posted 3:27 am
18 Jan 2007
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Yolanda Crous Posted 6:52 am
18 Jan 2007
What struck me most about the film was the very real-world sense of uncertainty. We, like the characters, are left with no sense of what caused the infertility epidemic, let alone whether humanity will have the wisdom--or ability--to remedy the imbalances set in motion by the previous generation.
And let's face it, guys--we're uncertain about a helluva lot. We don't know which endangered plant species may one day yield a life-giving drug. We don't know where some pollutants will turn up after they've been released into the environment. We don't even know what the carrying capacity of the earth is. And yet, we as a society continue to ignore all the things we don't know, figuring we'll be able to sort it all out if and when our actions become a problem.
But amid all of this uncertainty lies one scientific certainty--environmental degradation is not always a linear process. Increasing a problem by a unit may cause a unit's worth of damage for a while, but once a system's threshold is reached, we may find ourselves sliding off the proverbial cliff. A chemical considered "safe" for exposure to humans may become lethal when combined with another. Fishing at a certain level may cause a small decline in population, while fishing at another may disrupt the reproductive cycle enough to cause near extinction. And someday all our melting glaciers might, just might, flush enough freshwater into the ocean to shut down the thermohaline circulation belt in the North Atlantic, sending a chunk of Europe into a deep freeze.
Or not. We just don't know. But wouldn't it be nice if we started doing a little preventative care before the patient gets too sick to save?
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markbahner Posted 11:11 am
18 Jan 2007
Ummm...once again, I hate to inject a fact into the discussion, but fossil fuels have only been a signficant source of humanity's energy since about 1700-1750.
"I'm not a doomer -- I don't think we're going to plunge to our deaths. I think we can build a glider. But this lollipop Randian utopianism grates. There's no more rocket fuel."
You think fossil fuels are what make human beings wealthy?
Why don't you go to my bet on Longbets, and put in your own predictions for world GDP per capita in 2020, 2040, 2060, 2080, 2100?
Longbets #194, discussion
Mark Bahner
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Bart Anderson Posted 3:06 pm
18 Jan 2007
People tend to point to one or the other as THE determining factor, particularly for purposes of argument. But really they are inextricably entwined. Fossil fuels provided the energy, which in previous eras had been the limiting actor. Science/technology harnessed this energy, and capitalism provided the means for society to make use of energy and invention.
Fossil fuels have been taken for granted because no limits seemed to be in sight. Except in times of war, they were available on the open market, and the price was cheap.
We now see supply constraints, because of depletion, rising demand, and global warming. Also, as Michael Klare says, the world is become divided into energy-haves and energy-have-nots. (A similar picture emerged in a recent Senate hearing.)
The question is, what will happen to this system of energy-science-capitalism as energy is severely constrained?
I've found that the more people understand the problem, the less glib they are about answers. "The Great Transition" is one phrase I've heard that seems to describe our situation.
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Nucbuddy Posted 5:27 pm
18 Jan 2007
The question is, what will happen to this system of energy-science-capitalism as energy is severely constrained?
Why do you think energy will be severely constrained?
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willa Posted 12:31 am
19 Jan 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:30 am
19 Jan 2007
Nucbuddy: Why do you think energy will be severely constrained?I think that's the conclusion of anyone who's studied the issue. The main questions are when and how shortages will show themselves. Briefly, the causes are: Energy demand is increasing because of rising populations and especially greater consumptionSince quantities of fossil fuels (+ uranium) are limited, at a certain point (e.g., peak oil), we will have gotten all the easy stuff. Subsequent production wil be more difficult and expensive (oil companies are already noting this). Action against climate changes means reducing the use of fossil fuels ("Coal is the enemy of the human race.") I assume from your name, Nucbuddy, that you look to nuclear for a solution. I think many governments are thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, even putting aside problems with nuclear processes, it would be physically very difficult to build reactors as quickly as required.
More on this issue is contained in an excellent presentation by Caltech chemistry professor Nathan Lewis on potential energy sources, given the need to reduce greenhouse gases. The presentation is available several places on the web, including his home site: http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html. (Warning: it's techie and information-dense).
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caniscandida Posted 7:54 am
19 Jan 2007
There is a fascinating exhibition now making the rounds -- it was in NYC, at the American Museum of Natural History, last year -- , of art and archaeology from Petra. It is sponsored by the museum in Cincinnati, whose name I forget, and which has an impressive collection of Nabataean artefacts, as well as by the Jordanian government. Clearly, Petra was an important trading center. BUT petroleum products were not included in what was being traded there. Generally, ancient peoples used olive oil, fat from animal sources, and to a lesser extent coal, for illumination.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Bart Anderson Posted 8:24 am
19 Jan 2007
In historic times, the Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians each used bitumen from important seeps at Hit and other nearby sites on the Euphrates: Ain Ma'moora, Ain Elmaraj, Ramadi, Jebba and Abu Gir. It served in the construction of irrigation systems, as a caulk for ships, and as both an additive to strengthen fired clay bricks and a mortar to hold them together. These large-scale civilizations used bricks by the millions and bitumen by the ton - used them, in fact on a scale we would have to describe as industrial. But I'm not a classical scholar - just quoting an amateur historian from the area. (BULLS FROM THE SEA : Ancient Oil Industries by Dr. Zayn Bilkadi)
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wiscidea Posted 8:24 am
19 Jan 2007
"Petra not only possessed the advantages of a fortress but controlled the main commercial routes which passed through it to Gaza in the west, to Bosra and Damascus in the north, to Aqaba and Leuce Come on the Red Sea, and across the desert to the Persian Gulf." In my opinion, this is a sufficient explanation for repeated attacks on the city.
More interesting...
I recall reading that Petra was supplied with water by an elaborate array of channels and cisterns that collected run-off from the mountains around it. The water could then be released slowly to irrigate the crops necessary for sustaining their population -- which exceeded the natural carrying capacity of the area. An important element of the collection system was the vegetation that prevented erosion and accumulation of sediment where water was stored.
One theory regarding the decline of Petra...
Overgrazing. They essentially put too many animals in the hills around their city. The vegetation was severely reduced. This changed the hydrology of the area. And their system for collecting water collapsed. Add in a couple of unexpected droughts that further reduced the water supply and they were history. The population declined. The remaining water management system fell into disrepair. The city was ripe for conquest. I wish I could recall where I learned about this.
I think there is a lesson here.
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caniscandida Posted 10:59 am
19 Jan 2007
Anyway, Petra was not on a trade route between the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia, on one end, and the Mediterranean on the other. So we should allow it to remain uncertain for now, why the Seleucid general Athenaeus attacked Petra.
You surely realize that you should not say "oil" when you mean "petroleum." Olive oil in particular has been of terrific importance to the economy of many Mediterranean countries, from antiquity to the present. There is a myth that when the city of Athens was founded, Poseidon and Athena competed for the honor of being its patron god. Poseidon gave the city a spring of water, from which leaped out a horse -- beautiful, but a symbol of warfare. Athena gave the city an olive tree, a symbol of peace. The Athenians chose Athena; and indeed they grew rich by cultivating olives, and exporting olive oil.
On Petra: It was indeed for a while an important trading center; but if it was all that important, the Seleucids, the Ptolemies and the Romans would have done whatever it took to secure it. The Romans were much more interested in securing northern Mesopotamia, including such centers as Aleppo, Edessa and Nisibis.
The ruins of Petra are very interesting, in that there are preserved not only the monumental tombs cut into the faces of cliffs, but also a Hellenistic column-lined avenue, a theatre, and a few temples. But there are no residences! One not unreasonable speculation is that it was a fascinating cultural meeting place of tent-dwelling Bedouin and Hellenistic urbanites. Imagine: caravan-driving Arabs, writing Aramaic inscriptions, attending performances of Euripides tragedies in the theatre!
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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markbahner Posted 11:34 am
19 Jan 2007
Perhaps you should read more closely. I wrote:
"...but fossil fuels have only been a significant source of humanity's energy since about 1700-1750."
Actually, I was overestimating the length of time coal has been a significant source of humankind's energy.
Even as late as 1850, coal was only 1 percent of humankind's energy:
See Figure 3 of Jesse Ausubel's "Where is Energy Going"
Mark Bahner
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amazingdrx Posted 3:39 pm
19 Jan 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:29 pm
19 Jan 2007
Back to the subject of apocalyptic movies.
Caniscandida's erudition makes me yearn for movies that give an authentic feel for ancient civilizations. How did they work? What made them fall? What was life like?
Two movies that did give me that sense of otherness were Satyricon by Fellini and Chac about Mayan villagers.
If we are going to consider the subject of collapse, let's do it on the basis of real history and archaeology. I guess that's why discussions about apocalypse are so unsatifactory to me - they are more about our fears and anxieties than about reality.
Caniscandida, when are you going to essays or a novel about the ecology of the classical world?!?
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caniscandida Posted 9:28 pm
19 Jan 2007
Actually, it means, first of all, that I get to have Little Dog all to myself;
It also means, I get to watch whatever TV shows and movies I want to, without his demanding, "No, don't you dare turn off that stupid thing right now or I shall throw the TV out the window."
And so: first: a beautiful documentary, done by an Italian-American film-maker from Salem, Massachusetts, Joe Sultero, mostly about the story of his brother, Paul, who was sexually abused by a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston back in the mid 1960s, and his parents and their reaction. Someone in my parish discussion recommended it, and did well to do so. It is called "Hand of God," and it is very well done, and I highly recommend it too. And I would not have got to see it, had that dear husband of mine not been out of town.
Also: The current movie to see, "The Battle of Algiers," by Gillo Pontecorvo. Brilliant. Plus, there are two accompanying disks, on the first of which I watched a documentary on the interesting though disappointing career of Pontecorvo, narrated by the late Edward Said; and on the second of which there is a fascinating documentary history on the independence of Algeria, including a fascinating discussion of what we would call "terrorist" bombing.
The book by Alastaire Horne on the French defeat in Algeria is all the rage right now. And rightly so. He has no idea if George W. Bush read it, although Henry Kissinger recommended it. Kissinger, for his part, says he has never seen the movie. So, who knows who knows what. The movie struck me as more comparable to the Israeli situation than the Iraq situation, but the latter parallels are nevertheless there.
Finally, altogether different, there was the animated movie, "Beyond the Hedge." Superb! There can be no better indictment of Western suburban sprawl; a magnificent Western suburban epic! Little Dog and I laughed and laughed.
And, I do not know if anyone ever developed a crush on a singer, sight unseen, just by listening to him: but I sure do have a thing, right now, about Ben Folds.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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amazingdrx Posted 2:38 am
20 Jan 2007
Not a good plan then or now. With it's land and soil devestation it stops natural CO2 sequestration.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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hank Posted 12:15 pm
20 Jan 2007
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Nucbuddy Posted 8:20 am
26 Jan 2007
Since quantities of fossil fuels (+ uranium) are limited, at a certain point (e.g., peak oil), we will have gotten all the easy stuff. Subsequent production wil be more difficult and expensive (oil companies are already noting this).
Action against climate changes means reducing the use of fossil fuels ("Coal is the enemy of the human race.")
I assume from your name, Nucbuddy, that you look to nuclear for a solution. [...] it would be physically very difficult to build reactors as quickly as required.
Regarding building-speed, what problem are you attempting to solve and what time-frames are you considering?
Regarding the mining of "limited" energy resources:
Identified uranium resources have been described as "vast". (Your reference did not discuss uranium resources.) Depending on parameters, they may be characterized in supply terms of thousands, tens of thousands, millions, billions, etc., of years. Do the time-frames you are considering extend beyond billions of years?
I take it as axiomatic that energy resources grow, if a given society consumes them quickly enough. The reason is that energy-availability tends to be an important limiting-factor in terms of feasability of both resource-identification, and resource-extraction. (Oil was not a motive-energy resource until cars were invented; uranium was not an electrical-energy resource until nuclear-power-reacters were invented; the creation of each invention relied upon super-critical levels of energy use.) If the growth-curve is steep enough, continuous exponential energy-growth should be sustainable. What would end human civilization would be a "hedonistic pact" involving limited/no/negative growth.
I would consider 20x per century to be a reasonable energy-growth rate. This would be growth of 8,000 fold in three centuries, which -- counting from right now -- would just eclipse the total solar insolation value. Every millennium, energy-growth would be 10 trillion fold.
If your affinity-group's bottom line is a continuation of civilization, it might be apropriate to consider the relative odds of low- and high- energy-use-civilizations surviving one of the many well-known extinction events that periodically occur on this planet.
If you happened to be transported back to the 19th century, and decided to go backpacking in a wilderness area whereupon you found yourself lost and in need of help, would you hold out hope for a helicopter/airplane search-and-rescue? Such a rescue would neither be surprising nor particularly difficult in the relatively-energy-rich present. In the relatively-energy-poor present, our civilization may find itself in a pickle if faced with a K/T-class comet impact.
I suspect a K/T-class comet would not pose much of a survival-problem for a civilization using energy at 10 trillion times the present rate of ours. (You mentioned climate-change. Ditto for that threat.)
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Bart Anderson Posted 9:40 am
26 Jan 2007
...I would consider 20x per century to be a reasonable energy-growth rate. This would be growth of 8,000 fold in three centuries, which -- counting from right now -- would just eclipse the total solar insolation value. Every millennium, energy-growth would be 10 trillion fold. This is a heckuva extrapolation, based on a tiny fraction of human history! This makes the Cornucopians look like wimps. I haven't read of anything else so optimistic.
One reason I am dubious (to say the least) is that we are biological organisms in a system whose growth is determined by limiting factors. If it isn't energy, it will be something else. Water, degraded ecosystems, soil ... it's hard to say what it will be, but it will be something.
About uranium supplies I have seen different studies with different estimates. Estimates of "vast" supplies are rare, especially if one considers the energy-cost of obtaining a viable product. On the other hand, breeder reactors and nuclear fusion do promise virtually unlimited supplies of energy - though they have other severe problems.
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Nucbuddy Posted 11:38 am
26 Jan 2007
I did not intend to convey optimism. I intended to convey that our civilization is under the gun to live thusly in harmony with nature. Mine is a cold, grim analysis. I would say the Cornucopians are optimistic -- and perspective-limited.
Bart Anderson: we are biological organisms in a system whose growth is determined by limiting factors. If it isn't energy, it will be something else. Water, degraded ecosystems, soil
Non-energy limiting-factors can be recycled more-easily when energy is available. Ecosystems can be managed more-easily when energy is available. We cannot easily afford to recycle today, because we have so little energy available to us. Care would have to be taken, though, to not burn too much hydrogen for energy -- until energy is being used at a high-enough rate to allow hydrogen-extraction from the sun.
This is a Dyson Sphere, by the way:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
These are Kardashev-scale civilization stages:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
What would soil be useful for? It is not even useful today, when all of our nutrition can be manufactured in factories.
Humanity can already survive in the absence of biological ecosystems. However, it might be more-competitive at some point to create all offspring in silico, and let the biological forms die out.
Bart Anderson: About uranium supplies [...] Estimates of "vast" supplies are rare, especially if one considers the energy-cost of obtaining a viable product.
I can provide a broad-perspective tour of uranium resources, but I would ask that you please first familiarize yourself with the relevant literature. That the earth's oceans contain thousands of years worth of economically-extractable uranium -- and are continuously being supplied by rivers with more -- is not controversial.
thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/01/bill_would_cap_.html#comment-28026313
thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/01/bill_would_cap_.html#comment-28094767
Bart Anderson: breeder reactors and nuclear fusion do promise virtually unlimited supplies of energy - though they have other severe problems.
Again, problem-strength is inversely-proportional to energy availability. Breeder reactors and fusion will not be relevant in the near future, owing to the vast supplies of uranium obtainable at virtually zero cost (relative to energy unit equivalents, and the latter's typical costs). The moon has helium-3, which might be useful during a short period of growth.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Lunar_supplies
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Bart Anderson Posted 2:28 pm
26 Jan 2007
Not to mention the Singularity and nanotechnology (Grey Goo). Neural networks was one technology that especially interested me.
I don't think any of these things will happen, despite the technical arguments behind them. They are extrapolations of the technical progress of the period from about 1939-1969 (the prime years of science fiction), when nuclear energy was developed, DNA was unravelled and computers were invented. It was an exciting period and anything seemed possible. Science fiction stories set in the year 2000 had us zooming around the solar system, if not to nearby stars.
In the meantime, population was increasing, just like the population of a bacteria strain feasting on agar in a Petri dish. Just like the bacteria, we are merrily running through our energy sources and polluting our environment. I would like to think that we could out-think bacteria but so far the race is even.
And in the social sphere, world civilization is making the same mistakes previous civilizations have made: polarization into rich and poor, overshooting our resource base, creating more and more complexity.
No matter what dreams may lodge in our brains, we're still of woman born, living in social settings not much different than Ancient Rome. We can't get away from our biology and society.
Poor Amory Lovins can't get his hyper-efficient cars manufactured and distributed -- pretty basic stuff. How would the complex technologies you favor have a chance?
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sunflower Posted 7:05 am
04 Jun 2007
On the DVD click the Possibility of Hope, very much about global warming, a mostly moral view from mostly famous philosophers. It is a fascinating short film.
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