Are we on the cusp of global collapse?

[GliderGuider]

Last edited Mon Sep 24, 2012, 07:32 PM - Edit history (1)

A few days ago in another thread I mentioned a recent paper written by Dr Graham Turner of CSIRO, entitled “On the Cusp of Global Collapse?” I promised to get the paper and report on it. Well, I bought it (it’s behind a paywall here) and have just finished giving it a first reading. For anyone whose imagination was captured by the original Limits to Growth publication in 1972, this is definitely an “Oh shit!” moment.

Since I can’t publish the paper on line, I’ll attempt to give a summary, and reproduce the four-paragraph conclusion.

Dr. Turner (a senior research scientist at CSIRO in Australia) published a similar 30-year comparison in 2008, using data from 1972 to 2002 to examine how the how the real situation compared to the various LtG projections. In this update he adds ten more years of data, for a more robust 40-year comparison.

In the early part of the paper he goes into the history of the debunking efforts applied to the original LtG work, showing the objections to be primarily ideological and spurious. .He also give an overview of the results of the 30-year update I mentioned above.

The data sources he used for this analysis are carefully referenced. They include the United Nations for population, food, industrial output and literacy data, the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2011 for oil and electricity consumption figures, and CO2 data from NOAA, ESRI and Scripps.

He normalizes the data to the year 1900, and then compares it against three runs from LtG:

• The standard run assumes business as usual, parameterized from the 1900-1970 data.
  
• The comprehensive technology scenario models the attempt to achieve sustainability through a broad range of purely technological solutions.
  
• The stabilized world scenario uses both technology and social policies to achieve equilibrium states for key factors including population, food and material wealth.

In general the data follows the standard run scenario. Where there are diversions, it is in the direction of the comprehensive technology scenario, with little evidence that social policies are influencing the course of events.

The only factor that follows the stabilized world scenario is global death rates. These have levelled off lower than the standard run, but higher than the comprehensive technology curve.

Population, birth rates, and per capita food, services and industrial output all follow the standard run. So do global pollution (modeled through the proxy of CO2) and the consumption of non-renewable resources (modelled as the fraction of oil remaining).

The original World3 model showed that collapse in the standard run and comprehensive technology scenarios was initiated by resource constraints. It wasn’t necessarily resource shortages per se that caused the problem, but the increased diversion of a dwindling pool of capital into resource extraction. The same conclusion is supported by this analysis.

Basically, the driver of collapse is similar to John Michael Greer’s concept of catabolic collapse coupled with serious resource depletion (aka Peak Oil). He also acknowledges Joseph Tainter's theory of decreasing marginal return on complexity as a source of the problems shown by the comprehensive technology scenario as well as a being factor in the rising cost of resource extraction.

He explores the role of oil and food price shocks in feeding more general economic shocks, and I suppose the excessive complexity of the global financial system is a factor here as well.

With that said, here are the paper’s conclusions:

Our previous comparison of global data with the LtG modelled scenarios has been updated here to cover the 40-year period 1970 to 2010, i.e., from when the scenario simulations begin. The data has been compared with the outputs of theWorld3 model for three key LtG scenarios:standard run, comprehensive technology, and stabilized world. The data review continues to confirm that the standard run scenario represents real-world outcomes considerably well. This scenario results in collapse of the global economy and population in the near future. It begins in about 2015 with industrial output per capita falling precipitously, followed by food and services. Consequently, death rates increase from about 2020 and population falls from about 2030 – as death rates overtake birth rates.

The collapse in the standard run is primarily caused by resource depletion and the model response of diverting capital away from other sectors in order to secure less accessible resources. Evidence for this mechanism operating in the real world is provided by comparison with data on the energy required to secure oil. Indeed, the EROI has decreased substantially in recent decades, and is quantitatively consistent with the relevant parameter in the World3 model. The confirmation of the key model mechanism underlying the dynamics of the standard run strengthens the veracity of the standard run scenario. The issue of peak oil has also affected food supply and evidently played a role in the current global financial crisis. While the GFC (global financial collapse) does not directly reflect collapse in the LtG standard run, it may well be indirectly related.

The corroboration here of the LtG standard run implies that the scientific and public attention given to climate change, whilst important, is out of proportion with, and even deleteriously distracting from the issue of resource constraints, particularly oil. In deed, if global collapse occurs as in this LtG scenario then pollution impacts will naturally be resolved, though not in any ideal sense.

Another implication is the imminence of possible collapse. This contrasts with the general commentary on the LtG that describes collapse occurring sometime mid-century; and the LtG authors stressed not interpreting the time scale too precisely. However, the alignment of data trends with the model’s dynamics indicates that the early stages of collapse could occur within a decade, or might even be underway. This suggests, from a rational risk-based perspective, that planning for a collapsing global system could be even more important than trying to avoid collapse.

I think that climate change may have more of a role in the coming events than Dr. Turner might concede, but in the end that's just a minor quibble in the face of the wholesale, grinding changes that both the model and the data suggest is coming. 2015 just doesn't seem that far away any more.

[Speck Tater]

1. Thank you for that summary.

It's difficult to tell whether global collapse will arrive in time to save us from global warming. Either way it seems our goose is pretty well cooked.

Here's another perspective on the issue: Trade-off - Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: A study in global systemic collapse by David Korowicz

This paper examines how a failure in one system can cascade through all connected systems in our modern, highly connected civilization. We are far more vulnerable than we realize. Things outside our experience seem unreal to us, and so because systemic failure hasn't yet happened, we can't really imagine that it could happen. It's a threat our brains won't let us take seriously.

[Eleanors38]

3. Can't say whether or not this will happen...

But a great concern is the "believability" of world currencies. A massive debt load and the various specie which represents it has shifted about from one hidey-hole to another, but soon folks will realize there is nowhere to hide. I wonder: Will any future collapse mean that the paper currency we have will lose most of its value (as in pre-Hitler German notes), resulting in hyper-inflation?

The inter-connectedness doesn't strike me as a well-thought out notion. Certainly, grids can fail to a point; but if hospitals keep running, and there is enough juice to keep potable water flowing, I don't think there will be anarchy in the streets. The need for grid-type power seems to be getting less and less for the average person, with regard connectedness.

I'm not planning to "bug-out" to the hills; I've lived too long in an urban setting (which I know best) to head for rural surroundings (which I know far less). In cities you have some shelter, perhaps a little land on which to grow, neighbors to lend and trade resources, defend communities, etc.

There is a (unincorporated?) town in the Florida Panhandle called "Two Egg." This stood for the egg-base currency used: "I'll pay three two-egg for them taters." "I'll take four." Etc. My Mom worked for $1 a day in the Depression, as did her sisters, and they lived on a farm. Better off than most.

[Speck Tater]

4. You put your finger on the problem.

Certain "keystone" nodes in the grid are critical and can lead to complete failure, and other nodes in the grid are less critical and we can survive their loss.

You said "... but if hospitals keep running, and there is enough juice to keep potable water flowing..." which underscores the fact that the electric grid is one of those critical systems. If the electricity stops flowing then water stops flowing and when water stops flowing the hospitals will be hard pressed to keep operating at anything like their current level.

The worldwide banking system is another critical system. If money stops flowing, manufacturing and shipping stop working. If shipping stops working to bring gasoline to the cities then transportation stops moving and if transportation stops moving the grocery store shelves empty out in a day or two.

On the other hand, if toilet paper stops arriving at the stores, it's inconvenient, and a lot of people will be angry and upset, but the whole system will not collapse. Toilet paper is not a critical node in the network.

Our blind spot is that because "X" has never happened we automatically tell ourselves "I don't think X will happen." We can't imagine it, because we've never seen it. Food shortages result in food riots. This has been true all through history and everywhere in the world. To say "I don't think there will be anarchy in the streets." is really only to say "My neighbors and I have never faced a real food shortage." Ask people who have if "it can't happen here."

You say "The need for grid-type power seems to be getting less and less for the average person, with regard connectedness." That's just wacky! Excuse me for putting it so bluntly, but 24 hours without the electric grid would be pretty bad. 24 days without the electric grid and we'd see skyrocketing death rates as people who didn't even realize how dependent they are on the grid suddenly faced stark reality.

The grid is what feeds you and brings you water and carries away your sewage. Without the grid you would be hard pressed to survive very long at all in a city.

And don't forget, to grow your own food, in the city or the country, means you have to wait for planting season (if you live that long) and prepare the garden beds (if you have any energy while you slowly starve to death) and plant the crops, and wait, and wait, and wait (while slowly starving to death) and carry hundreds of gallons of water from somewhere, all the while weak from hunger, and hope that somebody doesn't sneak into your garden in the middle of the night and make off with your potatoes,... etc. Can you really survive in the city long enough to accomplish all that?

I'm sorry to break this to you but you city folk really have no idea what is involved in feeding yourself. It's not something you can decide to do at the last minute, and see results by tomorrow afternoon. If the grid fails permanently the vast majority of city people will die. There is no happy ending. Stock brokers and advertising managers are not going to transform into Amish wheat farmers and ox-plow handlers over night. They will die.

And to be perfectly honest, even though I have grown a large percentage of my own food and know what it takes, I'm 67 years old, and not able to do many of the things it would take to survive on my own. If the grid fails permanently, since my own friends and family don't have a clue how to feed themselves either, I will die too. And that's just the way it goes.

[GliderGuider]

8. I think you present a very clear picture of reality.

One question is going to be how much does the system rupture due to the failure of critical infrastructure, and to what extent does it grind down gradually, as we burn the furniture and the asphalt for heat.

The question is one of catastrophic vs. catabolic collapse. I used to be a catastrophist, but now I think we'll see some of each in varying mixes in different places, depending on circumstances. It's not as satisfying and definitive as predicting a single resounding crash, but it's a lot more realistic.

Electricity, finance, sanitation and food are the big ones we need to keep an eye on.

[Blanks]

28. My biggest concern...

...if we had a sudden breakdown of the system would be the roving bands of armed right-wing 'survivalists' who didn't realize that guns don't automatically provide food.

I have 3 acres; about a hundred chickens, an incubator, a garden, a couple of solar panels and a well, 5 horses and a donkey. I know how methane gas is generated from waste and I have a couple of 55 gallon drums and I'm not afraid to use them.

In the worst possible scenario (if the scenario does not involve destroying my property) I could easily survive for the long term. Certainly I wouldn't be as comfortable as I am now, but I have a septic tank, i know how to build a solar cooker, I own several water hoses so that I could have a warm shower on most days.

I have been quietly preparing for the unexpected 'downfall of civilization'. What I am unable to prepare for; is the roving band of un-prepareds.

I am a civil engineer and I see (and participate in) the design of residential subdivisions. The primary goal seems to be: maximize the number of living units; while still meeting the municipality's density requirements. What this does is create living spaces that prevent even a minimum level of self sufficiency. These are the high dollar homes that everyone aspires to live in. These homes have lawns that require mowing.

I would rather we designed living units so that we consolidated areas; for example instead of a 10'x60 strip in front of 15 houses we should have 15 homes with no space between them and only the sidewalk between the home and the street. Then we could consolidate all that green space behind the houses into one large garden and small livestock area (9000 sf).

If you tell people in the suburbs to raise chickens they tell you that it is illegal. So they spend $20 a week on gas to mow their lawn $1000 on a riding mower and drive to the grocery store to buy eggs.

We are being conditioned to helplessness. We are lining up to insist that the system starve us out. Encouraging those with the money to take advantage of us. Not very many folks seem to be awake to this.

[Eleanors38]

32. I see the problems of grid-dependence. The challenge in collapse is going back...

to another time and different practices. Yes, crops would take months, but there are trees and trash lumber for fuel, greenbelts for squirrels and birds, barrels for rain run-off, and most important, people for trade and knowledge exchange. As you point out, deaths will occur for months; but survive, and you have a shot for the long haul.

I'm not sure how great the advantage is to "bug-out" to a countryside where thousands, perhaps millions, labor under the illusion of some Jeffersonian lifestyle, will follow. Would anyone's crop be safe from deprivation; would the time for its growth somehow be shortened? I can see where an old farm house with a windmill well would be hugely better than a luzury condo in a big city. But I and most city dwellers don't "enjoy" that extreme (and frankly, at age 64, I don't desire such due to the incredible dependency on other systems and stuff). But in my freezer are the remains of 2 deer taken from the woods which would be immediately boiled up and sealed in Ball Jars, all to go with my sacks of rice & beans & canned veggies. Not all of us in the city are "immune" to rural survival arts.

I guess the point is, no one has the perfect bug-out bag, or the perfect plot of land. But I have some skills and aptitudes to get me past those first months. I bet you do as well.

BTW, my Mom during the Depression had a (car) battery-powered radio, no electricity, and hand-pump well water. It helped that they were on a farm -- and traded with near-by towns.

[Speck Tater]

33. You're right. Those with skills will have a better chance. But...

...go to Central Park in New York City. Look around you. Count the number of people. Now count the number of squirrels and birds. See any problems with those numbers?

[GliderGuider]

34. Nobody knows how things will unfold.

Really big cities would be a bad bet (hell, some already are, as far as I'm concerned). Being isolated in the countryside is a bad bet. No matter which way one chooses to dodge, though, there is no guarantee that you won't deke into the path of the train.

The one relatively sure bet under any circumstance is to be part of some kind of smallish (but not too small) close-knit community. Even if they're mostly unskilled, 20 or 50 or 100 people who care about each other have a better chance than one or two or five.

Keep the size under Dunbar's number so the bonds are close. Cement your realtionships with generosity in the good times, and you will repay each other with help if things go pear-shaped.

IMO community is more important than anything else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

[Speck Tater]

35. I do believe you are absolutely correct on this.

There is no better insurance than a "clan" or "tribe" of 100-150 people who know they can rely on each other.

As for Dunbar's number, I remember reading somewhere that even huge mega-churches are organized into smaller sub-units of 150 maximum per sub-group. Even if such subdivision is informal and unofficial, it still happens. It's like a self-organizing principle.

[Eleanors38]

38. Understood. In austin, tx there is more wildlife and a river with fish.

The challenge is holding out for some months. We have thousands of pecan trees as well. From a different era, too.

[genxlib]

26. Two Egg!

My maternal family is all from the Two Egg area. We used to get T-shirts from there to amuse the City folk.

I never thought I would see that in national media.

[Eleanors38]

31. Our family goes back to antebellum Florida; I have some old tales somewhere in print. nt

[truebrit71]

2. Is it worth buying the paper ourselves?

...

[GliderGuider]

5. Not for $20.00

The paper from 2008 is freely available, and says basically the same things.

[CRH]

7. Thank you for spending to ascertain, there is nothing really new, ...

and others need not pursue, a costly remedial lesson. GG you are certainly providing a service for many with less means, a consolidation and filtering of what is really important. Thank You. hrh.

[truebrit71]

10. Cool..thanks

[AlecBGreen]

6. clarification needed

"The collapse in the standard run is primarily caused by resource depletion and the model response of diverting capital away from other sectors in order to secure less accessible resources."\

Does this imply that because oil and other natural resources will become scare, we will divert funds away from such things as infrastructure, public services, etc? If so, I disagree. The money chasing resources is most often private while public services are (obviously) publicly funded.

[GliderGuider]

9. He's speaking in more general terms than that.

While you may be right to a degree in the USA, think of all the NOCs around the world - they most definitely run on public money.

[Odin2005]

11. One cannot predict the future because one cannot predict...

... what technological and scientific developments and discoveries will occur, hence these models are pretty much worthless. ALL attempts at trying to predict the future "scientifically" are worthless for this very reason.

[cprise]

12. Prediction is at the heart of scientific endeavor

Your stance implies that we should hope for a last minute miracle from the God of Technology rather than project the course we're on and attempt to alter it based on a precautionary principle.

There has been no major technological breakthroughs since the 1970s (VLSI microchips). Virtually all of the "hightech" development since then has been refinement and novel applications of microcircuitry.

We've had continuing refinement of existing energy tech as well, but here a revolution in renewables was not in the cards because it didn't suit the short-sighted goals of capitalists. (Nuclear did suit them, however, and they attempted to turn it into a racket in short order.)

We have all the technology we need to be responsible to the planet and to ourselves: Dense, mixed-use zoning and public transportation; Birth control; Ample data collection and processing ability; and a bevy of alternatives to fossil fuel. But putting them to proper use means getting past some of our current delusions and nasty habits.

[aletier_v]

13. LENR is a strong candidate as a break-out technology

with world-changing possibility

[GliderGuider]

16. Technologies like that generally solve one set of problems while creating new ones.

It's the way Progress™ works. The only way we can see such developments as having only good effects is if we view the rest of the world as a bag of resources and/or a waste sink rather than as the substrate for life itself.

[happyslug]

14. But it is done all the time, and more often then not the predictions come true.

In short terms, i.e. less then five years, "technological and scientific developments and discoveries" will occur, but more often then not the affect will take decades to come into play. For example the transistor was invented in 1948, but did NOT become widely use till the late 1950s and even as late as the early 1970s tubes were still in use. The percussion ignition system was invented about 1805, but not adopted by any army till 1830, even through with the percussion system you went from one misfire in every six shots, to one is 6000 shots. Pulp paper (without which newspapers as we know them could NOT exist) was invented in 1801, but did NOT come into widespread use till the 1850s. By the late 1970s, personal computers were on the market, but most Americans did not have one till the 1990s. The Net was founded in the 1960s, but most people did NOT hook up to the net till after 2000.

Just pointing out, yes "technological and scientific developments and discoveries" occur, but for any to have a MAJOR affect on society often takes decades to kick in. On the other hand, we have a good idea of what will occur in the near future. Hubbard, when he predicted US peak oil in 1969, was using data he had in front of him. He ended up being wrong by a year, not bad given he made the prediction in 1954. Why was he so close, he had the data. Hubbard restricted his predictions to the Continental US, for that is what he had the best data for. What was overseas, in Alaska and off the coasts were less known in 1954 and thus he excluded them from his prediction. On the other hand, all of these "Exceptions" meant increase cost to Americans of the oil they were using, the point he was most concerned about.

In more recent years, we have learned a lot about where oil is and thus have a better idea of where it is, the cost to recover it and how much is left. This is enhanced by the fact that if oil ever falls more then 20,000 feet under ground, the heat of the earth converts it to Natural Gas and we had the ability to drill down to 20,000 feet in 1938. Thus it is fairly easy to make an estimate as to how much oil can be pumped. It is much harder to predict Natural Gas production. Coal production is also relatively easy to calculate for given how coal forms we know where the vast majority of coal is, unlike uranium, being a element, and as an element can be almost anywhere. Thus we can calculate how much coal we can mine, coal miners have been doing that for centuries. Oil companies have had to calculate how long any oil field can stay productive, the same with Natural Gas wells. Given that it may take a decade or more to get a new oil/coal/natural gas field in operations, any new find of any of them will have little if any affect in the next five years.

School boards calculate how many high schools students they will have in six years, based on how many sixth graders they have at present (and any new students from any new developments in their district). Governments and business do similar calculations, known as "Budgets" every year. The same organizations often do long term budgets, to see how things will be in the next five years. The reason is simple, it is possible to make such estimates and rely on the fact it will be hard to change most things in the budget. i.e. how many police officers the local government will have, how many miles of highway will be paved, how much taxes will be collected. Details on all three can vary within any five year period, but more often then no the variances are quite small. A new highway may be built, and with it development that requires expenditures by the local government (and increase tax revenues), but again the new highway is something that will take five to ten years to build (From first engineering plans to final opening).

The same with the estimate of 2015. It is within a five year period, any long term new "technological and scientific developments and discoveries" will be entered into the estimate OR have almost no affect in the five year period. Thus, while long term predictions can be affected by new "technological and scientific developments and discoveries", anything within five years will occur despite any new "technological and scientific developments and discoveries" discovered during that time period.

As to the long term predictions, i.e. longer then five years, it is often possible to estimate the affect of potential new "technological and scientific developments and discoveries". One of my Favorites involved the City of Pittsburgh and a proposed World Fair set for 1980 that was entered into a computer in the late 1960s. That early computer, when it first ran the proposal with the addition of as much data as the computer could handle in the 1960s, at first put the proposed world fair on the rivers. The program was then "fixed" in that the Rivers were excluded from possible options. The program was run again, and this time came up with putting the World Fair on the cite of the J&L Steel plant that had existed on the South Side of Pittsburgh since the 1860s. Everybody laughed at that, for the plant was making money. Come the early 1980s, that plant was closed down and abandoned. A few years off but ended up with an accurate prediction.

In most cases, we can make very good long term predictions. We do it all the time. When we build highways, we do NOT look at who will use it today, but who will use it 10-15 years from now. In the early 1960s I read a paper where the President of US Steel said that unless the Federal Government nationalized the steel industry, it would be put out of business by the 1980s (and he was right, he did not need a computer, all he needed to know what new steel plants were coming on line overseas and what was the expected demand for steel, with those two factors it became clear that US plants would have to be shut down or subsidized by the Federal Government). No new "technological and scientific developments and discoveries" was going to change those facts, facts he as President of US Steel had to accept.

My point is simple, just because it is a prediction for the future, does not mean it is not going to happen. Often what will happen is known to all (For example the German High Command made no long range planning after 1942, for the result only varied in one aspect, whether the Russians, the British or the Americans took Berlin) but refused to be accepted by people in charge (Hitler after 1942). The further out we go, the more likely new "technological and scientific developments and discoveries" will change what will happen (For example if Hitler had concentrated on making an atomic bomb and actually dropped one on Britain) but most new "technological and scientific developments and discoveries" are like the German Jet Fighters of WWII, faster then anything else in the sky, but due to limited numbers having no affect on the outcome of the war (The lack of fuel, troops and other equipment could NOT be offset with new "technological and scientific developments and discoveries" such as the Jet fighter). Jet fighters were the wave of the Future, but it was in incremental step not a leap and thus fitted within long term plans.

Most of what the long term programs is based on, are well known facts, things that will NOT change over the next 10-20 years, lit alone between 2012 and 2015. Food production is a product of fertilizer, ground and seeds. All of which we can make a good prediction of increase productively based on how each has increase productivity over the last 50 years. Oil we have a good idea of when it will start to decline in production, the same with Coal. Natural Gas we do NOT have as good an idea, but a usable one. The new drills everyone is bragging about have been around for decades (the latest one for the last decade) and any increase production due to the use of such drills can be calculated quite precisely. Population increase can be estimated based on past population increases. Death and birth rates can be calculated based on past data (and the affect of any famines on both rates). Improvements in computers have long stayed within a set rate of improvements so it is also predictable.

Thus unless we see something on the scale of the Transistor, the percussion cap or pulp paper, I do not see anything of a new ""technological and scientific developments and discoveries" that would affect even predictions of 20-50 years in the future. The electric light was the product of slow development and then implementation between 1800 and 1900, the Gasoline engine was used in the 1860s, and then slowly improved until the invention of the Carburetor around 1904 made it a truly usable engine for automobiles (and then most Americans did not own a car till after WWII). The Steam engine was perfected by Watt in the early 1700s, but it took till the mid 1800s before steam engines became widely used. None of these had the speed of adoption of the the more fundamental inventions of the Transistor, the percussion cap or pulp paper. To change the results of these long term predictions you need something on the order of the Transistor, the percussion cap or pulp paper, not the electric light, the Steam engine or the Automobile. The last three took decades to affect how Americans lived, the former change society relatively quickly, but I do not see anything on the level of the Transistor, the percussion cap or pulp paper coming into widespread use in the next 20-50 years. The net will get faster, and use less electrical power but most of the changes in society the net can do has been done. The same can be said of all of the inventions I mentioned above. Solar power will expand, but it will do so slowly and most calculations take Solar and wind power into consideration.

Thus I see this report as having a good bit of facts to support its view of the future, more then your mere dismissal of it.

[GliderGuider]

15. Game-changing technologies

I was thinking this morning about what the fundamental, planetary-scale, game-changing technologies have been over the last few hundred years. The list I came up with is:

Carbon steel (and the Bessemer process)
Electricity
The Haber Bosch process
The internal combustion engine
The assembly line
The VLSI microcircuit

These were the ones I came up with off the top of my head as I walked the dog, I'd welcome anyone else's additions.

Each of these has revolutionized how humanity lives on this planet. Everything else has arguably been a follow-on innovation, a refinement or scaling based on commercialization.

The thing that's interesting to me is that none of these technologies resulted in a reduction of humanity's overall impact on the planet. All of them, with the possible exception of VLSI, increased our impact dramatically (thus giving rise to the T in the I=PAT equation). Even VLSI has turned out simply to be neutral, as seen in the fact that since its development the impact curves as measured in this report have not improved, but simply stayed the course. Of course the development of computers has allowed us to apply all the other technologies more efficiently on a larger scale...

This supports my basic belief that technology improvements do not (can not) intrinsically reduce our impact on the planet. Instead they typically solve some problem that is preventing Progress™, and that opens the door for more activity that impacts the planet in new and different ways.

The "Kurzweil Rapture" is a shibboleth of technologists, but it remains an article of faith because there has been no evidence in our entire history that technology can act as a saviour. The reality is that it merely enables us to gobble more and more of the planet.

The core issue, as far as I can tell, is in the kind of critter we are: smart, innovative, self-interested, short-sighted and reproductive. These qualities are not ameliorated by technological progress.

[happyslug]

17. My comment, was most predictions, based on facts, tend to be be very accurate.

Each of your inventions changed Human society, but NOT overnight, it took decades. Lets look at your examples:

Carbon steel (and the Bessemer process) - While important, Steel rails did NOT replace Iron rails on railroads till after 1900. Some Railroads (The Pennsylvanian for example) where quick to adopt the new technology, but when the Russians decided to build the trans-Siberian they opt for cheaper Iron rails, it took till the 1920s for those Iron rails to be replaced.

Electricity - Has been known and used since ancient times. The real big improvement was the Arc Lamp, but that is early 1800s and while powerful produced a lot of sparks. The electrical light bulb took the invention of the ability to produce a vacuum in a glass sphere to be usable, and even then it was less popular then gas and oil lamps. Electricity only took off for it was easy to install than Natural Gas, and could be turned on instantly, unlike oil lamps

The Haber Bosch process
The internal combustion engine - Known before the civil war, first automobile is the 1880s, the US was the first country to really embrace the automobile, and then most American Families only purchased their first car after WWII.

The assembly line - another factor known for centuries, but just made bigger after 1900.

The VLSI microcircuit - Less important then the Transistor for it is nothing more then a complex combination of transistors. Predicted something like the microcircuit would be created came with the transistor, through it took a few decades to come out.

Just pointing out, most "fundamental" inventions take years (often decades) before the full effect of the invention is seen. I mention the percussion cap, invented around 1805, adopted by the British Army in 1830. Without it what we called Smokeless powder (Invented in the 1880s) can not be ignited and without smokeless powder, things like the Machine guns (Most popular 1814 till today) could NOT be created. Transistors are similar invention, its full effect is not yet known, but without what we call computers was not possible (the first computers used tubes and had less ability then people's electronic watches of today).

My point was that, unless we are talking of a truly fundamental invention, the percussion cap or the transistor for example, most "inventions" effect are predictable. For example, people were predicting an gasoline powered automobile by the 1880s, but it was NOT truly "invented" till 1900 and then not widespread till the 1920s (and most people only obtain one in the US early 1950s). This advancement was fairly predictable. As to truly fundamental inventions, the effect takes decades to be seen, as seen in the transistor and the percussion cap. Once invented, the effect of the fundamental invention is quickly seen and accounted for, but it takes decades to affect society.

My previous comments was directed at the person's attack on predictions of the future. In most cases. we have a good idea of what will happen in the next 20-50 years. Fundamental inventions only truly come to affect society after that time people, if one is invented (Thus as you look further out into the future, it gets harder to predict). On the other hand as you reduce the look into the future, it becomes more and more fixed, for more and more of it is based on things going on today. Thus predictions for the next 20 years (and even 50 years) are very usable and tend to be accurate which is the point I was trying to make.

[GliderGuider]

18. I should have made it clear that I agree with your original point.

Last edited Tue Sep 25, 2012, 11:10 AM - Edit history (1)

Every fundamantal invention undergoes a long period of elaboration and refinement before it can become a game-changer.

When I use the word "game-changer", I'm looking at what technologies are required to support global industrial civilization in its current form - which ones are most pervasive in their influence. So while I agree that transistors were the breakthrough, they didn't become a game-changer until VLSI was developed.

In most cases it's the combination of technologies that really changes the game - steel plus the ICE plus the assembly line gave us the modern automobile, for example. but without any of the ones I listed, civilization as we know it could not exist.

But your basic point is absolutely valid - when we're looking at a 30 year projection, the assumption that today's technologies will be the main influences over that period is absolutely valid. Is there one example of a disruptive technology that blossomed in a single decade? I can't think of one.

My point is a follow-on from yours, that even if we were to introduce such a technology in a single decade the chance that it would come without any cost to human society or the planet is zero.

[Speck Tater]

23. I would add the steam engine

Before internal combustion there were steam locomotives and steam ships moving cargo around the world. Their reign was comparatively short, being replaced by diesel, but for a while steam made a big difference in our world.

Heavier than air flight too. It's hard to know where to draw the line.

[NickB79]

22. So, no worries about global warming then?

Your logic implies we shouldn't worry about global warming either, because maybe we'll discover a way to sequester gigatons of carbon a year and implement it within the next few years.

I wouldn't bet money on it.

[Odin2005]

25. When did I say GW was not an issue?

It is an issue, what I am saying is that it is a waste of time trying to act like prophets and claim to know what will hapen in the future.

We can change the future when we quit trying to be it's prophets.

[NickB79]

27. The entire science of GW is based on predicting the future with science

Which is something you sounded like you were critical of in your post.

Like I said, if we aren't supposed to attempt to use science to predict the future because we can't anticipate new technologies and policies, what are we supposed to do about global warming?

[GliderGuider]

37. Deleted the above: the topic is too serious for my gratuitous snark. nt

[Gregorian]

19. A couple of thoughts

I've wondered just how much petroleum it would take for us to create a nonrenewable energy infrastructure.

If you look at the bottom line, we're talking about an eventual death rate that is greater than birth rate. This is a scenario of duress. What I have been suggesting on DU for the last ten years is a voluntary decrease in birth rate immediately. This is almost always countered with protests. However, when one looks at this in comparison to the inevitable resulting situation of the same condition, we would accomplish not only a quicker decrease in global warming (among other things), but we would be doing so in a far more compassionate way than the alternative.

[GliderGuider]

20. The wise ones are already refraining from reproduction.

Idiocracy, anyone?

[Gregorian]

21. Sadly, a more prophetic film than people realize.

prophetic

[The2ndWheel]

24. A voluntary decrease immediately

That sounds like two different things to me.

Which I think is the foundation of all these issues. We want the best of every option, without having to pay the cost. And as was already mentioned in this thread, there is always a cost. We don't always take it into account, but it's there.

A voluntary decrease in birth rates. Alright, what's the cost of doing that? What's the downside to that? There has to be something. There isn't a single, perfect solution, to anything, much less something as complex as our increasingly global project of human civilization.

[Speck Tater]

29. There's another problem with voluntary decrease in birth rate.

To do any good it has to be unanimous and world-wide.

If country 'A' decreases its birth rate and neighboring country 'B' goes on exploding its population then the excess population will end up spilling across the border from country 'B' into country 'A', so the people of country 'A' have not accomplished a thing.

[GliderGuider]

30. It ends up being a multi-player "Prisoner's Dilemma" game

Exactly the same as one country decarbonizing their economy or embarking on unilateral degrowth. No nation will take that risk.

[pscot]

39. Someone needs to check the accuracy of the Mayan calendar

It seems to be running 3 years fast.