Petroleum and the future of civilization

[Neil_Anthony]

Who said anything about being doomed? I only stated the incontestable fact – which you consistently refuse to acknowledge – that infinite human population growth on a finite planet is impossible. Learn the math.

I see you’ve switched your wording from “exponential” to infinite. I guess someone pointed out to you that a 0-growth flat line on a graph is exponential? Or that even a decrease in population can be exponential? Good for you!

 

[drpmjhess]

I see you’ve switched your wording from “exponential” to infinite. I guess someone pointed out to you that a 0-growth flat line on a graph is exponential? Or that even a decrease in population can be exponential? Good for you!

Barring the possibility of exporting surplus humans to an undetermined extraterrestrial location, we will at some point, sooner or later, have to reach zero population growth.

 

[Doug50]

Al, Al, Al
Here’s the math (I’ll give you serveral versions):
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5051121482067161853

guba.com/watch/3000053112

media.globalpublicmedia.com/RAM/2004/08/AlbertBartlett20040829.ram

Or would you rather read?
mnforsustain.org/bartlett_forgotten_fundamentals_of_the_energy_crisis_partI.htm

In the summer of 1986, the news reports indicated that the world population had reached the number of five billion people growing at the rate of 1.7% per year. Well, your reaction to 1.7% might be to say “Well, that’s so small, nothing bad could ever happen at 1.7% per year.” So you calculate the doubling time, you find it’s only 41 years. Now, that was back in 1986; more recently in 1999, we read that the world population had grown from five billion to six billion . The good news is that the growth rate had dropped from 1.7% to 1.3% per year. The bad news is that in spite of the drop in the growth rate, the world population today is increasing by about 75 million additional people every year.

Now, if this current modest 1.3% per year could continue, the world population would grow to a density of one person per square meter on the dry land surface of the earth in just 780 years, and the mass of people would equal the mass of the earth in just 2400 years. Well, we can smile at those, we know they couldn’t happen. This one make for a cute cartoon; the caption says, “Excuse me sir, but I am prepared to make you a rather attractive offer for your square.”

There’s a very profound lesson in that cartoon. The lesson is that zero population growth is going to happen. Now, we can debate whether we like zero population growth or don’t like it, it’s going to happen. Whether we debate it or not, whether we like it or not, it’s absolutely certain. People could never live at that density on the dry land surface of the earth. Therefore, today’s high birth rates will drop; today’s low death rates will rise till they have exactly the same numerical value. That will certainly be in a time short compared to 780 years. So maybe you’re wondering then, what options are available if we wanted to address the problem.

In the left hand column, I’ve listed some of those things that we should encourage if we want to raise the rate of growth of population and in so doing, make the problem worse. Just look at the list. Everything in the list is as sacred as motherhood. There’s immigration, medicine, public health, sanitation. These are all devoted to the humane goals of lowering the death rate and that’s very important to me, if it’s my death they’re lowering. But then I’ve got to realise that anything that just lowers the death rate makes the population problem worse.

There’s peace, law and order; scientific agriculture has lowered the death rate due to famine—that just makes the population problem worse. It’s widely reported that the 55 mph speed limit saved thousands of lives—that just makes the population problem worse. Clean air makes it worse.

cont

 

[Doug50]

Now, in this column are some of the things we should encourage if we want to lower the rate of growth of population and in so doing, help solve the population problem. Well, there’s abstention, contraception, abortion, small families, stop immigration, disease, war, murder, famine, accidents. Now, smoking clearly raises the death rate; well, that helps solve the problem.

Remember our conclusion from the cartoon of one person per square meter; we concluded that zero population growth is going to happen. Let’s state that conclusion in other terms and say it’s obvious nature is going to choose from the right hand list and we don’t have to do anything—except be prepared to live with whatever nature chooses from that right hand list. Or we can exercise the one option that’s open to us, and that option is to choose first from the right hand list. We gotta find something here we can go out and campaign for. Anyone here for promoting disease? (audience laughter)

We now have the capability of incredible war; would you like more murder, more famine, more accidents? Well, here we can see the human dilemma—everything we regard as good makes the population problem worse, everything we regard as bad helps solve the problem. There is a dilemma if ever there was one.

The one remaining question is education: does it go in the left hand column or the right hand column? I’d have to say thus far in this country it’s been in the left hand column—it’s done very little to reduce ignorance of the problem.

 

[Doug50]

There’s a very profound lesson in that cartoon. The lesson is that zero population growth is going to happen. Now, we can debate whether we like zero population growth or don’t like it, it’s going to happen. Whether we debate it or not, whether we like it or not, it’s absolutely certain. People could never live at that density on the dry land surface of the earth. Therefore, today’s high birth rates will drop; today’s low death rates will rise till they have exactly the same numerical value. That will certainly be in a time short compared to 780 years. So maybe you’re wondering then, what options are available if we wanted to address the problem.

In the left hand column, I’ve listed some of those things that we should encourage if we want to raise the rate of growth of population and in so doing, make the problem worse. Just look at the list. Everything in the list is as sacred as motherhood. There’s immigration, medicine, public health, sanitation. These are all devoted to the humane goals of lowering the death rate and that’s very important to me, if it’s my death they’re lowering. But then I’ve got to realise that anything that just lowers the death rate makes the population problem worse.

There’s peace, law and order; scientific agriculture has lowered the death rate due to famine—that just makes the population problem worse. It’s widely reported that the 55 mph speed limit saved thousands of lives—that just makes the population problem worse. Clean air makes it worse.

Now, in this column are some of the things we should encourage if we want to lower the rate of growth of population and in so doing, help solve the population problem. Well, there’s abstention, contraception, abortion, small families, stop immigration, disease, war, murder, famine, accidents. Now, smoking clearly raises the death rate; well, that helps solve the problem.

Remember our conclusion from the cartoon of one person per square meter; we concluded that zero population growth is going to happen. Let’s state that conclusion in other terms and say it’s obvious nature is going to choose from the right hand list and we don’t have to do anything—except be prepared to live with whatever nature chooses from that right hand list. Or we can exercise the one option that’s open to us, and that option is to choose first from the right hand list. We gotta find something here we can go out and campaign for. Anyone here for promoting disease? (audience laughter)

We now have the capability of incredible war; would you like more murder, more famine, more accidents? Well, here we can see the human dilemma—everything we regard as good makes the population problem worse, everything we regard as bad helps solve the problem. There is a dilemma if ever there was one.

The one remaining question is education: does it go in the left hand column or the right hand column? I’d have to say thus far in this country it’s been in the left hand column—it’s done very little to reduce ignorance of the problem.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Wind energy, and harness the energy in the tides.

 

[Catherine_S]

That statement could have been made a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago, and be just as valid.

Or be invalid.

Would some folks have been willing to stop the human race a thousand years ago because they worked out the math?

Just remember that God will provide.

God made us and He provides the resources for us to survive.

He did that for the Jews as they wandered through the desert for 40 years, eating manna.

He did that when Jesus commanded the nets be lowered and they were filled to breaking.

He did that when Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

To be Christian, means to put our faith and trust in Him.

God will provide.

Besides we have scarcely scratched the surface of what this planet (Earth) can provide for us. AND we have the miracle of the Sun being in exactly the right distance … bombarding us with light for photosynthesis … [and photovoltaic cells] … and yet we are protected from being fried by radiation by the magnetosphere.

Pretty amazing.

And if we work at it we can tap the heat reservoir that is at the core of the Earth. It’s only about 7000 miles in diameter and a temp of several thousand degrees. Lots of energy there available for the taking.

God will provide.

***God will provide, He knowes the future ***and **He knowes how humanity will cause many things to automatically take place. Aids may just be the beginning. **
Who can know for certain what else is in the making or what we will be dealing with in the future. Perhaps it may be under population!
A very good book to read is…
The Coming Plaque:
Newly Emerging Diseasses in a World Out of Balance.
by Lawrie Garrett.
+
A forboding statment by Rene Dubos in 1954
Any attempt to shape the world and modify human personality in order to create a self chosen pattern of life involves many unknown consequences. Human nature is bound to remain a gamble, because at some point and in some unforseeable manner nature will strike back.
.
Those little suckers we look at under the microscope have the same mandate as humans…increase and multiply! To date - there is no cure for aids and while I am very respectful of Science - God still gets top billing from me !

 

[Doug50]

Why is that so many Christians, including Catholic Christian, believe that to be a good Christian you must reject reason and rationalism and let fate take its course? God gave us the ability to reaons and to plan so that it’d be possible to create a better world. That was Christ’s mission and it is our mission in Him. We share in this Creation with Him. Saint Augustine was critical of such Christians pibburns.com/augustin.htm

 

[drpmjhess]

The one remaining question is education: does it go in the left hand column or the right hand column? I’d have to say thus far in this country it’s been in the left hand column—it’s done very little to reduce ignorance of the problem.

Doug, thanks for your litany. I once gave a conference paper on the Church’s conspiracy of silence about the population issue, and ignorance certainly featured as one of the reasons people fail to speak to demographic issues.

I had organized a conference on theological perspectives on population and sustainability, in the course of which an Orthodox priest flatly rejected the idea that the earth had any maximum carrying capacity, on the grounds that “God would provide.” The Catholic (a Franciscan) allowed that there might someday be a problem, but that we were decades away from it. The other speakers – including a Protestant pastor and mother of two children – acknowledged that we have a serious challenge and it is imminent.

Petrus

PS – I’ve used your oil-filled swimming pool analogy to good effect.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Why is that so many Christians, including Catholic Christian, believe that to be a good Christian you must reject reason and rationalism and let fate take its course? God gave us the ability to reaons and to plan so that it’d be possible to create a better world. That was Christ’s mission and it is our mission in Him. We share in this Creation with Him. Saint Augustine was critical of such Christians pibburns.com/augustin.htm

Ah, yes … just what we need … more “rationalism”.

[yes, sarcasm]

Have you ever considered that the “construction” … the way the Planet Earth is constructed … is a miracle in itself???

Would any rational and reasonable earthling have “designed” the Planet Earth the way it appears to be actually built?

With a flaming hot, molten rock core … 7000 miles in diameter and a paper thin crust that insulates us from the heat.

Doug, I hate to tell you this, but that heat and magnetic field are energy sources. The Planet Earth is a virtual infinite source of energy.

Get to work and start to tap into it.

Someone figured out how to extract aluminium at almost no cost. Remember aluminum (or aluminium as the rest of the world spells it.).

So get to work, show us your brilliance and get that geothermal and magnetic energy harnessed!

Either that … OR … join the “Man Will Never Fly” club. It meets at Kitty Hawk, NC on the day before the anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight.

[Maybe YOU could be the inventor of the Warp Coil! ]

 

[Doug50]

What, Al, don’t you like being rational?

You said: “With a flaming hot, molten rock core … 7000 miles in diameter and a paper thin crust that insulates us from the heat.”

Since I know something 'bout drilling maybe you can tell me something about just how you could drill that deep? What metals/materials do you have in mind for the pipe and drill bits that can handle the strain in weight, friction, pump pressures, and even heat.

Since you don’t trust my arguments about world oil capactiy maybe you’d trust the former head of Saudi Aramco;

energybulletin.net/36510.html

In a revealing interview with journalist David Strahan at this year’s Oil & Money Conference, former head of Saudi Arabian exploration & production Sadad Al-Husseini told the world that he now believes that the current level of world oil production will likely never be exceeded. Al-Husseini’s view coincides with that of T. Boone Pickens, who stated at ASPO-USA’s Houston conference that the world oil production peaked in 2006. The 85 million barrels per day of liquids available to the markets now is all we’re ever going to get if these oil industry veterans are correct.

With demand rising and supply flat, prices must rise. Accordingly, Al-Husseini believes that oil prices will rise by $12 per barrel per year from here on out, assuming a “base” price level of about $70 in 2007. The nominal price is now just above $92/barrel, so the difference must be due to the usual suspects cited by the mainstream media, including speculators, the weak dollar, rising Asian demand, resource nationalism, geopolitics in the Middle East, disruptions in Nigeria, and Iraq.

To listen to the interview with Sadad al-Huseini page down to the mp3 link.
davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=67

 

[Doug50]

Doug, thanks for your litany. I once gave a conference paper on the Church’s conspiracy of silence about the population issue, and ignorance certainly featured as one of the reasons people fail to speak to demographic issues.

I had organized a conference on theological perspectives on population and sustainability, in the course of which an Orthodox priest flatly rejected the idea that the earth had any maximum carrying capacity, on the grounds that “God would provide.” The Catholic (a Franciscan) allowed that there might someday be a problem, but that we were decades away from it. The other speakers – including a Protestant pastor and mother of two children – acknowledged that we have a serious challenge and it is imminent.

Petrus

PS – I’ve used your oil-filled swimming pool analogy to good effect.

Yeah, That additude I get is “Trust in the Lord and do nothing.” Whenever I confront another Catholic who has this additude about the future I ask them if the have health and life insurance on thereself and family

 

[drpmjhess]

Yeah, That additude I get is “Trust in the Lord and do nothing.” Whenever I confront another Catholic who has this additude about the future I ask them if the have health and life insurance on thereself and family

Right. I wonder if Catherine S. and Al check ever have their brake fluid levels checked. What’s the point? If God doesn’t intend for you to experience catastrophic brake failure, it just won’t happen, and if God does intend it there is nothing you can to to prevent it anyway.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Yeah, That additude I get is “Trust in the Lord and do nothing.” Whenever I confront another Catholic who has this additude about the future I ask them if the have health and life insurance on thereself and family

WHERE in any of my posts, did I write “… do nothing”?

Are you are being dishonest? Or did you not read what I wrote?

No… what I wrote was to get busy and get working.

Find and develop new energy sources.

It was before your time, but there was an earlier oil crisis … when the primary flammable fluid for illumination was whale oil. Big crisis when the supply got short.

But then, someone discovered petroleum.

NOW, we have folks who are preventing the United States from developing existing known sources of petroleum, locking coal deposits up to prevent their development, placing all manner of obstacles to natural gas development, nuke, etc, etc, etc.

As I have written several many times, get cracking on geothermal energy development. Get moving!

Read how Mr. Hall discovered how to refine aluminium.

Now… GET TO WORK AND QUIT COMPLAINING!!

 

[drpmjhess]

!

You sit there at your computer ordering other people around. If there is an energy source in the quantity we need it to replace the soon-to-be-lost oil, tell us where it is. You have never yet responded to Doug50, because you have no answer.

 

[Al_Masetti]

:juggle:

You sit there at your computer ordering other people around. If there is an energy source in the quantity we need it to replace the soon-to-be-lost oil, tell us where it is. You have never yet responded to Doug50, because you have no answer.

Where in my posts have I ever said to do nothing?

These are debates on the issue of "petroleum and the future of civilization.

One group wants to cut the population “by education” (whatever that means).

The other group says to not take the human math so seriously, that there are other sources of energy that we already know of that are not being developed AND there are other sources of energy that need to be developed. AND to trust in God AND to work to develop those sources of petroleum and non-petroleum energy.

This is a debate.

Sounds like some folks just want to sit around drawing lines on paper that tell the drawerer that we are doomed because there is no more energy and the population must be cut immediately if not sooner (or retroactively, for that matter.).

So … GET BUSY AND GET DIRTY!!!

:juggle:

 

[Neil_Anthony]

You sit there at your computer ordering other people around. If there is an energy source in the quantity we need it to replace the soon-to-be-lost oil, tell us where it is. You have never yet responded to Doug50, because you have no answer.

Sounds like some of you guys think there are way too many people on Earth. If you think there’s too many people, stop making more. No one forced you to get married. No one says you have to express your love to your spouse all pervertedly. You could just say “I love you” or buy some flowers.

BTW I don’t hear many kids complaining that their parents shouldn’t have brought them into this world cuz its too full. In that case maybe there’s still room.

 

[drpmjhess]

:here in my posts have I ever said to do nothing?:

Al, you have yet to give Doug the courtesy of a reply to his devastating demonstrations that we are close to the end of affordable oil. Will you please show us what this new energy source is, or shall I assume you have none?

 

[Al_Masetti]

Al, you have yet to give Doug the courtesy of a reply to his devastating demonstrations that we are close to the end of affordable oil. Will you please show us what this new energy source is, or shall I assume you have none?

I have responded numerous times.

His demonstrations are less than devastating and focus on negativity of the sort promoted by the Club of Rome report on “Limits to Growth”. That report claimed that by 1990 or thereabouts all natural resources would run out. They were wrong.

Doug is also wrong.

Neither Doug nor any of the other posters that claim we are running out of petroleum has demonstrated in the details of where the Club of Rome report was wrong.

They just say that this time is different.

But they fail to get into specifics.

There is plenty of energy available. The low-hanging fruit … the easy oil … has already been discovered.

However, to repeat what I have posted previously:

1. Develop oil where ever oil is discovered, including shale and other oil forms (not permitted by the United States;
2. Expand natural gas development (not permitted in the United States);
3. Expand gasoline refinery development (not permitted in the United States)
4. Expand coal mining and development (not permitted in the United States)
5. Expand nuclear power (not permitted in the United States).
6. Expand development of methanol (discouraged in the United States)
7. Stop closing sources of hydro-electric power (environmentalists are actively pursuing tearing down dams)

Secondly, Doug has stated repeatedly that we must start reducing population. However, not only is that unChristian, but also Doug has failed … FAILED … to give specifics on how that is to be done … oh, yes, except for stating, the population reduction is to be done by “education” … the specfics of which he has failed to elucidate.

 

[Catherine_S]

Right. I wonder if Catherine S. and Al check ever have their brake fluid levels checked. What’s the point? If God doesn’t intend for you to experience catastrophic brake failure, it just won’t happen, and if God does intend it there is nothing you can to to prevent it anyway.

**Cause and effect drpmjhess! Cause and effect!
If I buy a car but do not read the manuel I receive on the day of my purchase because I labour under the illusion that if I can drive a car I know **all about cars **than the consequences belong to me and me alone. The **Maker **of the car is in no way involved in what has happened. I can learn from my mistake ( if I live ) but the consequences of my decision belong to me.
*I still do not believe that over population will ever be a problem. *
In terms of Petroleum it needs to go for many reasons. **The sooner the better. Their are great and creative minds out there (God’s Providence again) who can **and **will make this happen. **