Oh LaVarr, if only you understood...
I meant to write a post about this a long time ago, but I never got around to it.
Back on May 24 of this year, LaVarr Webb wrote something in a short piece on Utah Policy Daily about global warming:
"We've seen plenty of hysterical hand-wringing by environmentalists in the past (remember "Silent Spring?") Scaremongers have tried to frighten everyone about the population time bomb and depletion of natural resources, issues that have turned out to be just plain silly."
No LaVarr, those issues have not turned out to be "just plain silly." We're just extremely lucky that they haven't really been a problem for us...yet.
Whenever I try to explain peak oil to other people, one of the most common responses is for people to say "Well, we've always had enough energy in the past, so we'll be fine in the future." Or likewise, "Overpopulation and resource depletion haven't happened in the past like some people predicted, so things will be okay."
Of course they're committing a logical fallacy. Just because a certain condition has existed in the past, it doesn't guarantee that it will exist in the future. Another illustration of this logical fallacy would be for me to say "I've never had a serious illness before, so it's just plain silly to believe that I'll ever have one."
LaVarr, step back for a minute. Remember that the earth is endowed with a finite amount of metals which have important functions in our world. After being mined and refined and used for the first time, some metal ends up being recycled, and some metal ends up in pieces so small, in landfills, or rusted at the bottom of the sea that it can never be used again. They are essentially removed from the world's finite supply. If we continue the pattern of discarding metals, then the world's supply gradually shrinks (unless we start harvesting old metal from landfills, if that's even feasible). Eventually there comes a point when our supply of recoverable metals (whether it be from mining or from recycling) isn't sufficient to cover our needs, and then we have problems. We haven't had any problems yet, but we could in a couple of decades. Evidently some people are already talking about "peak copper."
Same thing goes with population. Sure, the world can support 6.5 billion people right now, but how will we support that same amount as our industrial agricultural capacity shrinks? Even if agricultural output could keep expanding, the earth still has only a finite amount of land and water. Population expansion has to stop sooner or later.
LaVarr, don't you remember learning about carrying capacity in biology class?
Back on May 24 of this year, LaVarr Webb wrote something in a short piece on Utah Policy Daily about global warming:
"We've seen plenty of hysterical hand-wringing by environmentalists in the past (remember "Silent Spring?") Scaremongers have tried to frighten everyone about the population time bomb and depletion of natural resources, issues that have turned out to be just plain silly."
No LaVarr, those issues have not turned out to be "just plain silly." We're just extremely lucky that they haven't really been a problem for us...yet.
Whenever I try to explain peak oil to other people, one of the most common responses is for people to say "Well, we've always had enough energy in the past, so we'll be fine in the future." Or likewise, "Overpopulation and resource depletion haven't happened in the past like some people predicted, so things will be okay."
Of course they're committing a logical fallacy. Just because a certain condition has existed in the past, it doesn't guarantee that it will exist in the future. Another illustration of this logical fallacy would be for me to say "I've never had a serious illness before, so it's just plain silly to believe that I'll ever have one."
LaVarr, step back for a minute. Remember that the earth is endowed with a finite amount of metals which have important functions in our world. After being mined and refined and used for the first time, some metal ends up being recycled, and some metal ends up in pieces so small, in landfills, or rusted at the bottom of the sea that it can never be used again. They are essentially removed from the world's finite supply. If we continue the pattern of discarding metals, then the world's supply gradually shrinks (unless we start harvesting old metal from landfills, if that's even feasible). Eventually there comes a point when our supply of recoverable metals (whether it be from mining or from recycling) isn't sufficient to cover our needs, and then we have problems. We haven't had any problems yet, but we could in a couple of decades. Evidently some people are already talking about "peak copper."
Same thing goes with population. Sure, the world can support 6.5 billion people right now, but how will we support that same amount as our industrial agricultural capacity shrinks? Even if agricultural output could keep expanding, the earth still has only a finite amount of land and water. Population expansion has to stop sooner or later.
LaVarr, don't you remember learning about carrying capacity in biology class?
posted by Utah Peaknik at 10:21 AM
3 Comments:
Good post. You hit the key issues regarding resource depletion and the resistance people have to abandoning their faith in ever-increasing abundance.
I'm not going to disagree with you on the importance of the issues you address, nor on their urgency. I suggest reading "Cradle to Cradle" and "Natural Capitalism" to work on some ideas to solve the problems you're seeing. I found these books incredibly helpful.
See: http://provoutenergysource.blogspot.com/2006/10/book-review-and-thoughts-cradle-to.html
for my review of cradle to cradle.
Very few people are willing to explore an issue when it's all gloom and doom. Give people some light and then they will be more willing to look.
Hi, Peaknik
The Utah Sierra Club's quarterly newsletter has a feature article on peak oil and it's implications for road building in Utah.
I hope the Sierra Club has better luck than I've had trying to inject the Peak Oil issue into the Utah road building public conversation.
peaknik, have you considered setting up an email address where blog readers can pm you? I can be emailed at lowonoil[AT]xmission[dot]com
Post a Comment
<< Home