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Our only hope for long term survival

February 23, 2018

Our only hope for long term survival

 

Language warning: Many may find the following article offensive, such as:
  • Technocornucopians – eg geoengineering and carbon drawdown fantasists, blinkered university academics and engineers, TZM, Elon Musk etc
  • People who think reducing population and/or consumption are sacred cows which should never be mentioned
  • People who are shocked by and reject the idea that billions will die this century
  • Economists – who know the price of everything but the value of nothing
  • The Pope (who jumped on the bandwagon too late, but nice dress though)
  • Christians and other religious types
  • Global warming deniers
  • EconomistsCreationists
  • Politicians
  • Most Americans (they are mad)
  • Kim Jong Un (slightly less mad)
  • NBL fanatics (not referring to the basketball league here)
  • Economists
If you take umbrage at this article please consider the possibility you may be a fw rather than a sp

I agree entirely with Dennis Meadows that climate change should be regarded as a symptom or complication or side effect of our overshoot. Climate chaos will relentlessly worsen to become the worst problem threatening our very existence, but it is not the core problem. Furthermore it is not the most urgent problem right now. Despite many areas having been hit by severe weather events, global industrial civilisation is not immediately at risk of being brought down by climate change1. Financial and economic collapse, which are intimately linked with the depletion of “easy” (high EROEI) oil and the looming net energy cliff (which will cause all resource outputs to fall off their respective Seneca cliffs) are much more immediate threats.

I assert that those who endeavour to study our predicaments should categorise threats according to what is worst, what is at the core and what is most urgent. Climate change is just one manifestation of the Limits to Growth and is not a core problem. Trying to address climate change in isolation is and always was futile. Solitary focus on “fixing” climate change alone will result in:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Impending Curtailment of Conventional Oil and the Total Resource Curtailment

January 5, 2018

The Impending Curtailment of Conventional Oil and the Total Resource Curtailment 


In a previous post titled “The Soft Belly of the Oil Industry“, I mentioning the impending unlocking of numerous negative feedbacks affecting the oil industry. I argued that the gradual increase of production costs, the need of reducing emissions, the weakened demand created by the electrification of transport, and more were going to take the industry on a ride along the “Seneca Cliff.” Here, Geoffrey Chia goes beyond that, arguing that the negative feedbacks generated by a collapsing oil industry will affect the whole economic system.  It may be pessimistic as an interpretation, but it is a perfectly possible chain of events.  

Why the impending curtailment of Conventional Oil will lead to Total Energy curtailment and Total Resource curtailment

Outside of Medicine I am an expert in nothing*. In depletion matters I defer to the resource and energy experts such as Professor Ugo Bardi and Alice Friedemann who have conducted painstaking research and performed exhaustive quantitative analyses to arrive at robust conclusions. My main use, if I have any use at all, is to transmit important concepts from the experts to the general public in a qualitative manner, sometimes using my own original visual metaphors and bad jokes, which may hopefully facilitate better understanding by the lay audience. I also tend to view these issues through a medical lens in terms of diagnosis, prognosis and management planning, my aims being to prevent or minimise human morbidity (suffering) and mortality (premature death). Unfortunately due to gross overshoot, humanity are now well past any hope of cure and we are now into the phase of palliative care of a terminally ill industrial civilisation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

An Open letter to the School of Public Health, UQ, re: the looming net energy cliff

December 31, 2017

An Open letter to the School of Public Health, UQ, re: the looming net energy cliff

Geoffrey Chia publishes here the letter that he sent to his colleagues a few months ago. As you may have expected, he received no answer. But we know it is how it goes. So, here it is, for the record. Geoffrey Chia has also been the author of a previous post on “Cassandra’s Legacy” (UB)
Open Letter To: Staff of the School of Public Health,
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, August 2017

From: Dr Geoffrey Chia, MBBS, MRCP, FRACP

Re: The looming Net Energy Cliff, Global Economic/Industrial collapse and Human Die-off

“infinite consumption from a finite resource base is impossible”
Dear Colleagues,
I am a Cardiologist who convened the group “doctors and scientists for sustainability and social justice” in Brisbane from 2006 to 2013 www.d3sj.org. I am writing to your department in the virtually forlorn hope that a tiny handful of you may open your eyes to the most urgent public health issue we face, which will horrifically accelerate human suffering and die-off within a decade1. The effects are already being felt in many parts of the world, masquerading as global economic recession2 or the collapse of certain Middle Eastern societies. This issue has been ignored, denied and dismissed for years by “endless growth” economists and other flat earthers, but denial does not make a problem go away. I refer to the looming catastrophic curtailment of liquid hydrocarbon fuels, the “net energy cliff” that we face in the near future, which will trigger ever more wars (perhaps even nuclear war), cause global economic and industrial collapse, and cause the die-off of billions of people worldwide.

The countries most addicted to petroleum will be hardest hit and Australia will be no exception.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Seneca Cliff Explained: a Three Dimensional Collapse Overview Model

December 9, 2017

The Seneca Cliff Explained: a Three Dimensional Collapse Overview Model

A Three Dimensional Collapse Overview Model
In this post, Geoffrey Chia illustrates one of the fundamental characteristics of the “Seneca Effect”, also known as “collapse,” the fact that it occurs in networked systems dominated by feedback interactions. This is a qualitative interpretation of collapse that complements the more quantitative models that I report in my book “The Seneca Effect.” (U.B.)

The Limits to Growth was published in 1972 by a group of world class scientists using the best mathematical computer modelling available at the time. It projected the future collapse of global industrial civilisation in the 21st century if humanity did not curb its population, consumption and pollution. It was pilloried by many “infinite growth on a finite planet” economists over the decades.

However, updated data inputs and modern computer modelling in recent years (particularly by Dr Graham Turner of the CSIRO in 2008 and 2014) showed that we are in reality closely tracking the standard model of the LtG, with industrial collapse and mass die-off due sooner rather than later. The future is now.

The LtG looked only at 5 parameters, with global warming being a mere subset of pollution. Dramatic acceleration of ice melt and unprecedented, increasingly frequent, extreme weather events over the past two decades clearly demonstrate that global warming is progressing far faster and far worse than anyone could possibly have imagined back in the 70s. Global warming certainly deserves a separate category for consideration on its own, quite apart from the other manifestations of pollution.
The LtG did not include a specific category looking at the human dynamics of finance, economics and political manoeuvrings, which was fair enough, because it is impossible to mathematically model such capricious irrationality.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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