Not to mention that energy costs are skyrocketing, so even if we could grow the stuff in abundance we're still paying a fortune to get it to market.

Lately I've been wondering if I'm living at the beginning of the end of our civilization. Energy production per capita peaked with the Apollo missions in the '70s, and has been declining ever since. There are other indicators.

News like this doesn't do anything to dispel that feeling.

Where would you place your bets-- on the 4 to 5 billion plus hungry third world population, or the billion or so first worlders?

How long would the ammunition last?

Which leads to the next question-- if our high technology, high energy civilization collapses, how would another arise? We've already depleted the easy-to-get-at resources... (Yeah, I just finished rereading _Orion Shall Rise_.)

Which leads to the next question-- if our high technology, high energy civilization collapses, how would another arise?

I've had the same thought -- we've used up all the easily exploitable oil and coal deposits, and most of the easy-to-reach iron ore. But I guess the ruins of our dead cities would provide enough scrap steel to keep at least an Iron Age level of civilization going.

And then there's always firewood, and ethanol.

Enough resources to support a much smaller population living at a subsistance level?

Maybe that would be God's way of saying, "You had your chance to be civilized. Just consider yourself lucky not to be extinct."

And then there's always firewood

Not in LA, or San Diego, or Phoenix, or most of Mexico, not to mention Omaha and Kansas City.

More people demanding more resources from a quickly dwindling set of natural resources. Maybe somebody will invent a system where we can pee in our gas tanks or something. That's my cynical side.

On my tinfoil hat side, people have been saying this for decades, and we've somehow survived. Perhaps we've already got a hydrogen-based solution that won't be introduced until the last oil reserves have been depleted, and every penny of profit has been wrung out of our wallets.

Sorry, last comment mine.

something has to wake these people up but then
only a crisis will. They have no interest in
doing things right and just want the simplest,
cheapest way to make big bucks.

sometimes i've wondered whether the bush administration's casualness about global warming conceals a full recognition of the possible effects combined with the conviction that the US and its allies could beat them with technology. China, South America, India, and Africa won't be much competition if they have to expend all their efforts just to survive the changed climate. Sort of a global version of f*ck you Jack, I'm all right.

"Maybe that would be God's way of saying, "You had your chance to be civilized. Just consider yourself lucky not to be extinct."

We could always wait another few hundred million years until we have enough fossil fuel again...

On the plus side, the grape harvest in Europe this year is excellent in both size and quality. No inflation in wine prices this year. This sould ease some of the misery.

Starvation is just another tactic for the "cheap labor conservatives" see http://conceptualguerilla.com

I'm not a lawyer, I just drink like one. Thus I've been having a lot of barroom conversations with lawyers of various stripes and have been told that an American company doing business in another nation can be sued, in American courts, by citizens of that nation.

Thus my prediction: as the best climate models and the majority of climate scientists edge toward broad agreement with each other, with reality and with the fact that greenhouse gasses do contribute to climate change, we will soon reach an unforseen, yet critical, legal threshold.

When it becomes possible to convince a jury, through the use of expert testimony and to the "preponderance of evidence" standard of civil courts, that our C02 emmissions are even partially responsible for specfic climatological tradgedies like the heat-deaths in France, our own trial lawyers will tear America's oil companies and car manufacturers to shreds on behalf of foreign plaintiffs.

And justice will be served.

Fear not, they'll pass a law saying American corporations can only be sued by Americans. Creating new laws beneficial to the powers that be seems to be a favored pastime of this group. How do you think we came up with the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act" (USA PATRIOT Act).

As an aside, there is a saying that our kitchen sink garbage disposal units eat better than 75% of the world's population. As someone who has spent long years working in third-world countries, I can testify personally that that sadly is true based on my own observations.

Next time I go to the market, I'm getting 1,000 boxes of Cheerios and a truckload of grapefruit for the inevitable famine. Even if that's too much, I can sell my surplus at a profit-$10 a grapefruit-or you can starve to death! Deep in his secret hideout, hidden miles below the surface of the earth, I will be sprinkling sugar on my grapefruit as Civilization collapses in the chaos of the Grapefruit Wars.

I advise you to liquidate your stocks, bonds, CDs and savings accounts, and invest in a commodity whose intrinsic value has remained stable over the centuries: grapefruit. In the coming anarchy, only those with grapefruit will survive; those without will fall by the wayside, crushed in the ruthless struggle for breakfast.
Bwahahaha!
************************************************
Seriously though, Lester Brown is a nutcase who has been predicting global famine since the 70s. Not that GB (Global Warming) or GB (George Bush) aren't serious problems-but there are more serious, immediate problems to worry about.

The United States is also pro-venomous-spider. An Asian variety of the extremely poisonous Black Widow Spider has already killed two people and hospitalized eleven at very popular Baltic Sea resorts in Europe. Why is this spider, which has never before been seen in the region, thriving and setting up colonies? Why, the dry hot weather!
Costica Adam, an arachnologist at the Grigore Antipa Natural Science National Museum, in Bucharest, Romania, said: "Drought encourages the spread of this particular species of spider.

Romania is afraid that their seaside resort tourism industry will be severely injured by the spread of the Black Widow, whose venom is "15 times more deadly than that of the rattlesnake."

there are more serious, immediate problems to worry about.

That goes without saying, but it's the inability or unwillingness to think about the long term that got us into this mess in the first place.

Now, I'm no Luddite; in fact, it's my belief that the problems that technology brings can only be solved by other equally advanced technologies-- IOW, high technology culture is a one-way path, you can't ever go back-- but it seems to me that the permanent myopia the human race seems to suffer from means we won't see the brick wall until it's too late to turn the car.

Not that GB (Global Warming) or GB (George Bush) aren't serious problems-but there are more serious, immediate problems to worry about.

Yes -- idiot Americans like you, Checkmate.

Checkymate:

A big part of the problem is people such as yourself. You don't think, you can't think ahead and you don't care. What a waste of life.

Cerebus:
Technology has caused a lot of the problems - rampant unrestrained, untested technology to be specific.

We've let corporations deform our planet with deforestation, using our oceans as waste dumps. Did you know the Adriatic sea is almost dead and the Black Sea a polluted cess pit.
The mediterrean is also suffering and is the next ocean is the next to go lifeless.

Nor is technology a one way street. All it takes is a oil shortage to upend it. And its coming. A natural gas shortage is already here.

The natural gas shortage is already here as all the fields are mature. The business channel has been talking about this for the last 3-4 months. Expect high heating bills this winter and no let up in sight.

As far as Renewable enegry goes, in all its manifestations cannot sustain our consumption and comfort levels. Our way of life is simply unsustainable.

We are also facing a water shortage here in western part of U.S. As it stands we're about one or two dry seasons away from a drought condition and it will only get worse as millions of people are projected to immigrate to the western states over the next 20 years. Which BTW is not sustainable under any gov't projections including Bush's. No one and I mean no one wants to touch this topic with a ten foot pole because of its ramifications.

What cruel attacks on Checkmate-I am appalled!
Seriously, I apologize for any offense I may
have caused; I did not mean to offend, only to amuse. ):

It's just that I've heard this gloom and doom stuff before-back in the 70s. *Exactly* the same stuff-Malthusian crisis, too many people (brown third world people, especially) competing for too much food and energy, causing too much pollution: Paul Ehrlich, the 'Clubmen of Rome', half a dozen other guys to turned out to be completely, hopelessly wrong-but are still saying the exact same thing! Yet as it turned out, the 'corrupt economists' were right and the righteous ecologists and other scientists were wrong.
Les Brown is just the latest in a long line.

One problem is the pervasive 'corporation bashing' of which the last post is a perfect example. Corporations naturally seek to expand profits and cut costs. So baring *outright illegal behavior*, bashing corporations in general(like Nader loves to) is easy, tempting and wrong. The problem is not 'evil corporations' but governments and (more importantly) individuals/voters.

Most economists agree the most effective way to cut C02 emissions would be to put a hefty tax on gasoline. This would also be an effective way of immediately ending the career of any politican foolish enough to do any such thing; Americans, whether Moronic or Super-Geniuses, are overwhelmingly against higher gas prices.

Even those that acccepted the necessity for higher prices would never accept the collateral costs-the collapse of the Big 3 Auto-makers, which are hopelessly dependent on gas-guzzling SUVs and cars. If there is a politician willing to take on drivers AND Ford/GM/C. AND the unions, I would like to meet him-while he's alive.

So blaming evil politicians (Bush) or evil corporations (preferably oil companies) is easy and satisfying but not honest. No matter who the President or CEO of Exxon is, Americans in general will continue to be energy wastrels, probably until 'the juice runs out.' Either we will develop effective alternative energy sources in the next two decades (which I think very likely) or we will, indeed, be in trouble.

What especially bothers me is the apocalyptic tone-global warming will certainly create very serious local problems (especially flooding on islands and seacoasts). However, global famine is not in the cards-a switch to warmer-weather plants (for example, corn instead of wheat) in warming areas, and the opening of huge tracts of now-useless land in Siberia and Canada will more than compensate for the loss of soil elsewhere.

So save the insults and moral superiority-it is neither nice nor justified. If you have a sensible argument to make, I am willing to listen with an open mind. I do apologize for the last post-I thought it was funny, and did not mean to offend.

Roger, about your reference to natural gas getting scarce, I have encountered a unique situation from which it is easy to draw several conclusions; none flattering to the govt or the company involved. We get a modest royalty check for natural gas every month. Early this year, that check suddenly dropped by 2/3 with the excuse that one of the separation plants had broken down and they had cut back on pumping since they couldn't separate the oil from the natural gas. Right about that time, the media started babbling about what a terrible shortage there was of natural gas. You would think that under the circumstances the oil company would go hell bent for leather to get that plant up and running, wouldn't you? Well, if you did, you were wrong! They just got it back on line this month and started pumping again. It will take a couple more months before they are their accustomed production level, right at the onset of winter.

Are they manipulating the shortage to create higher prices? I don't know if this has happened in any of the other wellfields around the country. But it is interesting that the gas will be dumped on the market coincidentally at the highest possible price since we will be going into winter and "there is a shortage."

So blaming evil politicians (Bush) or evil corporations (preferably oil companies) is easy and satisfying but not honest. No matter who the President or CEO of Exxon is, Americans in general will continue to be energy wastrels, probably until 'the juice runs out.'

Which I think was the point of my comment about "idiot Americans like you."

global famine is not in the cards-a switch to warmer-weather plants (for example, corn instead of wheat) in warming areas, and the opening of huge tracts of now-useless land in Siberia and Canada

The Soviets tried the "virgin lands" thing in Siberia during Kruschev's time. It was a fiasco. Most of the "now useless" land in Siberia and Canada is going to stay useless (from an agricultural point of view) because it doesn't have any top soil -- just glaciated rock. The productive soil is down in the temperate lands, where global warming will produce the most severe effects.

As for simply "switching to warm weather plants," you obviously haven't been keeping up with the research on global warming, Checkmate. One of the most potentially dire effects isn't that the temperate zones are going to get warmer (some, such as continental Europe, may even get colder, if the melting polar ice cap disrupts existing ocean currents) but that they are going to get drier which is going to drastically reduce crop yields no matter what is planted.

You seem to be operating on about the same intellectual plane as those nuts who a few decades ago were arguing that the hole in the ozone layer was no problem because people could just wear hats and put on more sunblock.

So save the insults and moral superiority-it is neither nice nor justified.

Maybe not nice, but eminently justified in this case, I'd say.

I understand that technology is the cause of some problems; my contention is that the solution isn't the undoing of these technologies, but the substitution of more advanced technologies which address the previous problem.

This is what I mean by technological civilization being a one-way street. While technology can of course be undone, its undoing will tend to be drastic, as the ties between the parts of a high technology civilization are so tight that the undoing of one thread will lead to the unravelling of the whole cloth.

Once undone, where will a similar high technology (and more relevant, high energy) civilization come from? All the cheap, readily available materials are used up, or bound into useless (from a low-tech point of view) forms. For example, the high-grade steel we manipulate so easily is going to be useless to a blacksmith with an Iron Age forge-- or even a medieval forge.

It looks, objectively, that we (as a species) only get one shot at making a high technology civilization work. If (or when) it fails, it will be far, far more difficult for a successor to arise.

This is essentially an interpretation of the Drake Equation, for you SETI heads.

To the suggestion of waiting for geologic processes to renew those easy-to-reach resources-- like waiting for 100 million years for oil deposits to reform, and for tectonic motion to replenish surface ore deposits-- well, you're really talking about a whole new species by then.

So we get one shot, and this is it. We need to make the most of it. I can only hope that it's not too late already.

I should also comment to Checkmate-- It should be noted that corn is far more labor intensive to farm than wheat or other grains, and yields fewer calories per acre. The only reason corn is cheap is it's heavily subsidized by the government.

Further, there aren't a whole lot of warmer climate plants that are suitable to domestication and intensive farming. Jared Diamond's book _Guns, Germs and Steel_ is a good primer on these issues.

So a switch to "warm-weather plants"-- even if it were viable, which as Billmon notes it probably isn't-- it would take *more* land to sustain the same population, and arable land is what's getting scarcer as things heat up.

Of course, the "back to nature" path isn't viable either. Yeah, we could all live like the Amish, and it would be sustainable-- for a billion or so humans. Anyone who promotes that solution must come to terms with the idea that 5 billion humans *have to die* to make it work...

Billmon,

Thanks for blogging on this issue. I've felt like it has been difficult to get any traction for energy and environment issues on the political blogs. The other day on Calpundit, Kevin complained about the exorbitant costs for consumables (toner cartridges, etc.) for his laser printer. I had commented on the lifecycle impact issues, but didn't get any bites.

Perhaps it's a little frightening to people to think about the economic dislocations associated with the impending end of the hydrocarbon economy (and that's before they've had a nice long read at Jay Hanson's website). So, they just don't confront it.

Yes, global warming isn't going to be a big deal to the U.S. comparatively - some aquifers are going to deplete sooner, some farmland west of the 100th meridian will disappear, we'll have more cases of West Nile virus, a whole bunch of fishermen will go broke and we'll have to build great big levees around Houston and New Orleans - nothing we can't deal with (I'm sure I'm glossing over a lot of details - I've only skimmed the findings on this issue). However, elsewhere in the world, there could be massive flooding, famine, and disease with the associated wars, dislocations and refugees, which we'll be obligated to help deal with (otherwise, all of the refugees in South and Central America will head our way. . .).

Dealing with these crises will leave us in a worse position to attempt to remake our industrial and economic system into the more sustainable model, which might stave off the resource crisis you discuss in your post. Admittedly, that is going to take quite time time, and we have yet to summon up the political will to even get started (America, the land of fat people driving around in SUVs. . .). So, while Checkmate is right, the problem is far off for now, global climate change and resource crash could be something we don't recover from, as a species. The solution is far off, and the sooner we start on it, the better.

Billmon, you are making yourself look fanatical. And thoughtless. You sound like the vulgar pigboy -- calling people names, simply saying they are wrong and stupid, etc.

Checkmate is right in most all said. I spent five years as a DOE Global Change Fellow, and left the PhD program in Environmental Engineering (ABD) at CMU, because, as CM says, there are more pressing things about which to worry.

Doomsday scenarios have been promulgated for decades, and every single actual prediction made has been proven wrong. Meanwhile, immense suffering has taken place because of problems that aren't as "sexy."

Now do I think that any of this excuses the Bush admin's turning their back on Kyoto? No. Is it worse than turning our back on slaughter in Rwanda, AIDS crises around the world, etc., etc.? No.

To say we're all about to die, and attacking people who point to the history predictions like this, is not going to accomplish anything.

See Lomborg and his rebuttals to his critics:

Lomborg

and the links here (by a group that sees the forest and the trees, IMO).

Billmon, you are making yourself look fanatical. And thoughtless. You sound like the vulgar pigboy

MattB -- Fuck off. You're banned.

Is that vulgar enough for you?

Lomborg's most significant contribution to science was bringing attention to the horrible practice of statistical data mining in the service of ideology.

His deeply flawed study has been thoroughly debunked. He avoided sanction for scientific dishonesty because his work was found not to be science.

Doomsday scenarios have been promulgated for decades, and every single actual prediction made has been proven wrong.

Actually, some of those scenarios *are* coming true.

Back about twenty years ago, marine biologists were starting to warn that we could collapse the oceanic fisheries if h.sap continued to treat the oceans as an infinitely exploitable commons via ruthless factory fishing.

Come 2003, and oceanic fish stocks are in absolute ruin. Many of these species are going to have to be left completely alone for several decades in order to have any hope of eventual recovery.

The human species' answer? Fish harder! Bigger nets! Deeper trawls!

With regard to climate change, again, there are climate scientists who clearly predicted some of the things we have seen happening this year, like unprecedented and deadly heat waves striking Mitteleuropa.

These guys will be the first to tell you that they were wrong -- wrong about the dates by which to expect this stuff to start happening. Most of them didn't figure to see such effects before the 2010-2020 time frame. We're ahead of schedule.