Petroleum and the future of civilization

[drpmjhess]

As to overpopulation, it’s largely an alarmist myth made up by an Anglican clergyman with no knowledge of agriculture, and an American entomologist with no knowledge of demography.

No, it’s not a myth. The human population has grown from one to seven billion in 150 years, largely as a result of the temporarily beneficial use of antibiotics and the temporarily cheap and plentiful bonanza of fossil fuels.

 

[Al_Masetti]

So that totals out to about 280 billlion tons in the next 83 years (depending on how you calculate the rise) - about a quarter of our total known supply

So I would have to agree with the Dept of the Interior when it says we have about 200 years of coal supply.

To which we need to add natural gas. Arguably another few hundred years’ worth.

On page 210 of “Energy Victory” by Robert Zubrin www.energyvictory.net ] he suggests that coal might last the planet 790 years; natural gas WITH sub-sea methane hydrates: 24,000 years; nuclear fission: 685 years - without reprocessing and 50,000 years with reprocessing.

Going out on a limb to extrapolate the development of fusion power … [the United States in 1986 shut down most fusion research and most of the rest was halved in 1996.] So, mostly, fusion research is limping along in France … they did pick a site in 2005 after 20 years of deliberating where to have lunch …

So the ITER bureaucracy in France is barely plodding along. But a few laboratory leaders in the U.S. are fooling around with an idea for a next-generation tokamak fusion machine … the “Fusion Ignition Reactor Experiment” aka FIRE.

If our Congress will come up with some money, the competition between ITER and FIRE might actually advance Fusion from the breakeven energy level to the ignition energy level. Any day, now …

We have been fooling with magnetic containment systems since the 1960’s [the problem then was building instrumentation that would take a picture of the plasma … the scientists spent more time on camera design than on plasma generation…]

So, break out your check book, contributors … or, if you’re not in the Bill Gates and Warren Buffett category … get your local library to buy a copy of Energy Victory … and read pp 210-218.

[Actually, Buffett & Gates could fund the thing out of petty cash. No joke.]

 

[Doug50]

Doug,

The Dept of the Interior produced a survey of know coal deposits

The US has 957 billion tons of known deposits.

uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN0525299720070905

The current rate of consumption is 1.1 billion tons per year.

If your doubling calculations are correct, we will be using 2.2 billion tons anually in 43 years, and 4.4 billions ton annually in 83 years.

Correct?

So that totals out to about 280 billlion tons in the next 83 years (depending on how you calculate the rise) - about a quarter of our total known supply

So I would have to agree with the Dept of the Interior when it says we have about 200 years of coal supply.

No. Your math is incorrect. The easiest way to calculate doubling time is to divide your % growth rate into 70. For example: if you put money in a saving earning 7% compounded growth divide 70 by 7 and your doubling time is 10 years. $100 will grow to $200. What will the amount be in the next 10 years? $400.

The same exponential growth applies to resource consumptions. That qutoed link I gave had an average growth rate of 2.86%. 70/2.86=24.5 years (not 43) to doubling usage of 2.2 billion. At that rate, in 49 years (2x24.5) the usage will be 4.4 billion. In another 24.5 years the usage will be 8.8 billion per year and so on.

But you’re proposing we increase that rate to meet demand.

Go here hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/symposium/bartlett/bartlett.html and page down to Table 1:
Lifetimes of non-renewable resources for different rates of growth of consumption. Except for the left column, all numbers are lifetimes in years.

The 0% row is steady rate of us - current rate of consumption.

957 billion tons of known deposits / 1.1 = 870 years

Going to the table to column 1000 years (I’m being generious) and down to only 2% rate of growth gives a 152 years to total resource depletion of 1000 years. That’s assuming all reserves the est resevers will be extracted.

At a 4% rate it’s gone in 93 years, at 6% the 1000 year supply is used up in 69 years.

When we go back to using coal what do think the rate of consumption will be as oil and natural gas deplete? Here in Texas TXU wanted to build 11 new coal fired plants for electrical generation since natural gas has become more expensive and it’s questionable if there would be enough NG for those plants.

 

[drpmjhess]

Don’t worry about us, plenty of coal, and if neceesary, we can always go back to steam locomotives to bring it here. That’s how things worked for much of the 20th century. And it would be back to places like the Midwest. It’s a LOT easier to bring heat to Michigan than to bring more water to California.

Water is certainly an issue as crucial as energy. At some point – perhaps sooner or perhaps later – and by some means, humanity will need to reach zero population growth. That’s a certainty considering that we inhabit a finite planet.

 

[Doug50]

Water is certainly an issue as crucial as energy. At some point – perhaps sooner or perhaps later – and by some means, humanity will need to reach zero population growth. That’s a certainty considering that we inhabit a finite planet.

and consider, it will take energy to pump water where it is needed and if you had the energy at a reasonable cost sea water can be desalinated for places like California.

Texas Monthly just did an article on the water situation for the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex area. texasmonthly.com/2008-02-01/feature3.php

Going back to coal, as oil supplies become a problem we will begin to make synfuel from coal. That costs a greater % of the consumer’s income.

 

[drpmjhess]

I gave up on Al. He’ll demand all kinds of things from someone else but is too closed to open another’s links to data and facts. I spent more time on him than I should have. And no matter how much you, me, or anyone could tell him that if some kind of mitigation isn’t put forth (for us it’s education which I think is immoral not to do) then a lot of people are going to starve.

I’ve encountered this kind before in the person of a priest who said we could never even in theory have a population problem because God would not allow it. Talk about invincible ignorance!

I concur whole-heartedly with you that education is sorely needed. The book I’m editing on the ethical and theological aspects of the end of the Age of Oil takes a careful look from a variety of theological perspectives at the challenges facing humanity if we are to survive for another five thousand years of civilization. Responsible optimism is necessary, but cornucopian resource economics (“science will replace all the lost energy”) is not.

 

[Doug50]

I’ve encountered this kind before in the person of a priest who said we could never even in theory have a population problem because God would not allow it. Talk about invincible ignorance!

I concur whole-heartedly with you that education is sorely needed. The book I’m editing on the ethical and theological aspects of the end of the Age of Oil takes a careful look from a variety of theological perspectives at the challenges facing humanity if we are to survive for another five thousand years of civilization. Responsible optimism is necessary, but cornucopian resource economics (“science will replace all the lost energy”) is not.

I’m looking forward to reading it.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Ignorance

(Latin in, not, and gnarus, knowing)

Ignorance is lack of knowledge about a thing in a being capable of knowing. Fundamentally speaking and with regard to a given object ignorance is the outcome of the limitations of our intellect or of the obscurity of the matter itself. In this article it is the ethical aspect and consequences of ignorance that are directly under consideration. From this point of view, since only voluntary and free acts are imputable, ignorance which either destroys or lessens the first-named characteristic is a factor to be reckoned with. It is customary then to narrow somewhat the definition already given of it. It will, therefore, be taken to mean the absence of information which one is required to have. The mere want of knowledge without connoting any requirement on the part of a person to possess it may be called nescience.

So far as fixing human responsibility, the most important division of ignorance is that designated by the terms invincible and vincible. Ignorance is said to be invincible when a person is unable to rid himself of it notwithstanding the employment of moral diligence, that is, such as under the circumstances is, morally speaking, possible and obligatory. This manifestly includes the states of inadvertence, forgetfulness, etc. Such ignorance is obviously involuntary and therefore not imputable. On the other hand, ignorance is termed vincible if it can be dispelled by the use of “moral diligence”. This certainly does not mean all possible effort; otherwise, as Ballerini naively says, we should have to have recourse to the pope in every instance. We may say, however, that the diligence requisite must be commensurate with the importance of the affair in hand, and with the capacity of the agent, in a word such as a really sensible and prudent person would use under the circumstances. Furthermore, it must be remembered that the obligation mentioned above is to be interpreted strictly and exclusively as the duty incumbent on a man to do something, the precise object of which is the acquisition of the needed knowledge. In other words the mere fact that one is bound by some extrinsic title to do something the performance of which would have actually, though not necessarily, given the required information, is negligible. When ignorance is deliberately aimed at and fostered, it is said to be affected, not because it is pretended, but rather because it is sought for by the agent so that he may not have to relinquish his purpose. Ignorance which practically no effort is made to dispel is termed crass or supine.

The area covered by human ignorance is clearly a vast one. For our purposes, however, three divisions may be noted.

We must also note that ignorance may precede, accompany, or follow an act of our will. It is therefore said to be antecedent, concomitant, or consequent. Antecedent ignorance is in no sense voluntary, neither is the act resulting from it; it precedes any voluntary failure to inquire. Consequent ignorance, on the other hand, is so called because it is the result of a perverse frame of mind choosing, either directly or indirectly, to be ignorant. Concomitant ignorance is concerned with the will to act in a given contingency; it implies that the real character of what is done is unknown to the agent, but his attitude is such that, were he acquainted with the actual state of things, he would go on just the same. Keeping these distinctions in mind we are in a position to lay down certain statements of doctrine.
Invincible ignorance, whether of the law or of the fact, is always a valid excuse and excludes sin. The evident reason is that neither this state nor the act resulting therefrom is voluntary. It is undeniable that a man cannot be invincibly ignorant of the natural law, so far as its first principles are concerned, and the inferences easily drawn therefrom. This, however, according to the teaching of St. Thomas, is not true of those remoter conclusions, which are deducible only by a process of laborious and sometimes intricate reasoning. Of these a person may be invincibly ignorant. Even when the invincible ignorance is concomitant, it prevents the act which it accompanies from being regarded as sinful. The perverse temper of soul, which in this case is supposed, retains, of course, such malice as it had. Vincible ignorance, being in some way voluntary, does not permit a man to escape responsibility for the moral deformity of his deeds; he is held to be guilty and in general the more guilty in proportion as his ignorance is more voluntary. Hence, the essential thing to remember is that the guilt of an act performed or omitted in vincible ignorance is not to be measured by the intrinsic malice of the thing done or omitted so much as by the degree of negligence discernible in the act.

newadvent.org/cathen/07648a.htm

[article shortened to fit the size limits]

Publication information

Written by Joseph F. Delany. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter. Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII. Published 1910. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Bibliography

TAUNTON. The Law of the Church (London, 1906); JOSEPH RICKABY, Ethics and Natural Law (London, 1908); SLATER, Manual of Moral Theology (New York, 1908); BALLERINI, Opus Theologicum Morale (Prato, 1898); TAPPARELLI, Dritto naturale (Rome, 1900); ZIGLIARA, Summa Philosophica (Paris, 1891).

 

[Doug50]

“Ignorance is lack of knowledge about a thing in a being capable of knowing.”

And all you had to do was simply open the links read the data or, watch and listen to expert analysts.

Let’s try once more, Al. Since you’ve said your in the air business

Let’s just see how closed minded you actually are. Open the link and know what it’s trying to convey.

aspousa.org/proceedings/houston/presentations/Roger_Bezdek_Houston_Slides_10-19-07.pdf

I’ll even give you a partial quote
BUT, CONTRARY TO PERCEPTION
THAT HIGH OIL PRICES WILL
DESTROY AVIATION INDUSTRY….
• Aviation is currently “one healthy canary”:
– Air travel growth in past 3 years is strongest recovery in history
– Aviation growth in China is unprecedented
– Airlines have returned to profitability
– New airlines being started and some (e.g. Ryanair) have grown
spectacularly
– Boeing’s 787 is the best selling aircraft in history
– Airport industrial parks and infrastructure are very powerful and
profitable economic and job development machines
– Current problem is excess demand
– Aviation infrastructure straining to satisfy growing demand
• All this has occurred over a period when aviation fuel prices
have tripled and some contend that oil has already peaked!
• So, what is going on?

THE REAL ISSUE
• STUDIES FIND THAT AVIATION GROWTH IS DRIVEN
PRIMARILY BY DEMAND: GDP, BUSINESS REVENUES,
DISPOSABLE INCOME, ETC.
• As long as these are rising, forecasts predict that demand for
air travel will grow rapidly:
– Passenger traffic will grow faster than GDP
– Passenger revenues will grow faster than passenger traffic
– Air cargo will grow faster than passenger traffic or revenues
– New aircraft orders will increase rapidly
• However, causality works in both directions:
– If GDP growth lessens, or goes negative, aviation will be
disproportionately affected adversely
– It is the peak oil-induced economic effects that will do the
greatest damage to the aviation industry
• This is the real importance of peak oil for aviation

 

[drpmjhess]

I’ll even give you a partial quote
BUT, CONTRARY TO PERCEPTION
THAT HIGH OIL PRICES WILL
DESTROY AVIATION INDUSTRY….

Doug, I agree with you that commercial air travel is destined to wither away as fuel surcharges price out all but the rich. The question is, how resilient is our economy, and how capable of making the transition to a more local basis? Can we replace most business meetings with video conferences? Can we do without most academic conferences? Can we restructure corporations so that they do more local and less international business? Can we retrofit our food production system so that most people eat mostly locally? Can this be done in places that for much of the year are uninhabitable without fossil fuels, e.g., the Midwest? Can the Midwest and Alaska grow and/or store enough food to survive without air transport? Can we do without Chilean tomatoes in winter? Can we build high-speed rail fast enough to bring food to Minnesota and the Dakotas, or will they become Pripyats of North America? Can 30 million people survive in the heat of summer in the desert Southwest when fossil fuel becomes so costly that electricity generation and air conditioning fail?

These are some questions that will bear reflection. I worry that the invincibly ignorant will refuse to join the discussion, depriving us of valuable insights. We need contributions from everyone.

Petrus

 

[Doug50]

These are some questions that will bear reflection. I worry that the invincibly ignorant will refuse to join the discussion, depriving us of valuable insights. We need contributions from everyone.

Petrus

Yep. But it doens’t seem most will listen until they have no choice…and even then it’ll just be blame whomever was/is in the adminstration. You know, it’ll be “well why didn’t they anticipate this and make plans for it?” Because they represent people whose attitude is much like Al’s?

 

[Al_Masetti]

First of all, I don’t like opening links I am not familiar with.

Second, you might consider being civil.

Third, there ARE recent huge petroleum discoveries, but for some reason they don’t seem to show up on the graphs of discoveries.

Fourth, I did open the link on the Bedzek slide show on airline economics … took a chance on getting a virus.

My summary assessment: the airline industry has been through hell having weathered heavy-handed regulation; nationalization (with the Army debacle of taking over instrument flying of the mail; and, unreliable technology (the piston engined airliners and user-unfriendly avionics). But, with the advent of schedule / fare / freight rate deregulation, airline (and rail / trucking) management were able to adjust schedules, service innovations, and rates to accommodate what the various markets at various times.

At the same time, there were enormous strides in technology. The new jet engines have fantastic reliability. New electronics allow unprecedented reliability (the one open “issue” being the failure of the government [FAA] to match the commercial side in technology. [Me talking: the FAA is approximately 50 years behind the state of the art in computers and radar and communications technology.] And runway construction has also not kept up.

Gradually, transportation management has learned to use the tools and accommodate the needs of the customers.

Airlines have a real problem in that the industry is inherently capital intensive, labor intensive, and energy intensive.

The technology has allowed labor costs to be reduced … formerly 3-person and four-person crews [pilot, copilot, flight engineer, navigator] were replaced by two persons. Four engine planes are replaced by twin-engine planes. Airline management has used bankruptcy as a tool: the stockholders get destroyed … so there is no merit in anyone investing new money or secondary market money in airlines. However, the airlines (and the railroads) have been able to push pension costs onto the taxpayer … and they get beyond the lack of capital by leasing planes instead of buying them. Creative financing, for better or for worse.

Energy intensiveness has been combatted in several ways: the new turbo-fan engines just sip fuel compared even with the turbo-fans of a few years ago. Continual improvements. And the engines burn cleaner. Airline managements have learned how to impose fuel cost surcharges on ticket prices without violating the Sherman Antitrust Act on collusion and without unduly annoying their passengers.

Fuel issues are also being “resolved” by research into alternate fuels … primarily (so far) using the [nearly 100-year old] Fischer-Tropsch process to manufacture methanol that is blended with petroleum-based fuels. So far, the U.S. Air Force has done some extremely successful experiments. Methanol is cheaper than gasoline or aviation kerosene (Jet A-1) at this point, on an equivalent energy basis. The one disadvantage of methanol is that is is much less “dense” than gasoline or kerosene. So that even though it is cheaper, you need to carry larger volumes of it to fly the same range. On the plus side, very few airplanes need to completely fill their tanks to capacity with conventional jet fuel for most routes. So on runs that are less than 5000 miles, the larger planes can still carry enough “flex fuel” to operate non-stop. Methanol production is up substantially, and does not require edible agricultural products, unlike ethanol which needs to use corn, sugar, and soybeans.

I want to avoid running on and on here.

But basically, after more than a century, aviation managers have FINALLY figured out how to “play this here game” (to paraphrase Casey Stengel). And they are getting better and better every day. Making more and more improvements.

And the airline customers have improved their ability to properly use air travel. They use the internet to shop for the best prices and schedules. They use the internet and video conferencing if they can avoid the inconvenience of travel.

Also, It is grossly inappropriate for “technologists” and other commentators to judge the moral and ethical value(s) of people desiring to travel.

The railroads are now spending close to $10 billion of private money on infrastructure improvements … so they can compete better and offer better service. [Front page, Wall Street Journal, Wednesday 13 February 2008]

Be of good cheer.

[the quote below had to be truncated to fit the forum size limit]

And all you had to do was simply open the links read the data or, watch and listen to expert analysts.

Let’s just see how closed minded you actually are. Open the link and know what it’s trying to convey.

aspousa.org/proceedings/houston/presentations/Roger_Bezdek_Houston_Slides_10-19-07.pdf

I’ll even give you a partial quote
BUT, CONTRARY TO PERCEPTION
THAT HIGH OIL PRICES WILL
DESTROY AVIATION INDUSTRY• So, what is going on?

THE REAL ISSUE
• STUDIES FIND THAT AVIATION GROWTH IS DRIVEN
PRIMARILY BY DEMAND: GDP, BUSINESS REVENUES,
DISPOSABLE INCOME, ETC.
• As long as these are rising, forecasts predict that demand for
air travel will grow rapidly:
– Passenger traffic will grow faster than GDP
– Passenger revenues will grow faster than passenger traffic
– Air cargo will grow faster than passenger traffic or revenues
– New aircraft orders will increase rapidly
• However, causality works in both directions:
– If GDP growth lessens, or goes negative, aviation will be
disproportionately affected adversely
– It is the peak oil-induced economic effects that will do the
greatest damage to the aviation industry
• This is the real importance of peak oil for aviation

 

[Doug50]

First of all, I don’t like opening links I am not familiar with.

Second, you might consider being civil.

Just as I thought. You are closed minded to anything that doesn’t go with your wished for world view. I should be civil? You said I was promoting some pretty immoral stuff like abortion. Best way I can be civil with you, Al, is to ignore you from here on.

 

[Doug50]

Brenden, you mentioned coal. This video link is to the Congressional TV channel. Rep Bartlett quotes studies on new est for coal reserves.

video.energypolicytv.com/displaypage.php?vkey=ae62f4140325d09b9afd&channel=Congress

 

[drpmjhess]

Just as I thought. You are closed minded to anything that doesn’t go with your wished for world view. I should be civil? You said I was promoting some pretty immoral stuff like abortion. Best way I can be civil with you, Al, is to ignore you from here on.

Good plan.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Just as I thought. You are closed minded to anything that doesn’t go with your wished for world view. I should be civil? You said I was promoting some pretty immoral stuff like abortion. Best way I can be civil with you, Al, is to ignore you from here on.

For the record:

You have yet to clarify what the specific “population reduction” options are for folks who receive “education”.

So … what are those specific options? The only population reduction options I can think of are abortion, birth control and euthanasia.

So: educate me. What are the specific options.

I am being open minded.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Just as I thought. You are closed minded to anything that doesn’t go with your wished for world view. I should be civil? You said I was promoting some pretty immoral stuff like abortion. Best way I can be civil with you, Al, is to ignore you from here on.

Also … I did respond to Bedzek’s slide presentation … in some detail … and you did not respond to my factual discussion. No comments at all.

So, I guess, unless folks agree with you, you’re not interested in discussing.

Your position seems to be that there are no alternatives to petroleum. Civilization will end.

And, in fact, there are alternatives to petroleum.

Civilization will not end.

 

[drpmjhess]

Your position seems to be that there are no alternatives to petroleum. Civilization will end. And, in fact, there are alternatives to petroleum. Civilization will not end.

I will not speak for Doug. For my part, I have never assumed that civilization will end; in fact, that is what I am working as hard as I can to prevent. And you are right that there are alternatives to petroleum – that’s why among other things we push for nuclear power, which can buy us another 100-200 years, depending on the uranium supply.

What we cannot do - even if all the alternatives were in place when oil production begins its inexorable drop in the next decade or so – is support indefinitely without petroleum the current population of seven billion, much less the nine or ten billion expected by 2050. Transportation aside, we cannot grow enough food without petroleum based fertilizers to support indefinitely ten billion people in relative plenty.

As to population, euthanasia and abortion are obviously inadmissible for Catholics (or for anyone). There are two ways to reduce a population: increase the death rate, or control the birth rate. Nobody I know favors the former, so that leaves decreasing the birth rate as the only option. We propose doing that through comprehensive education about the finite resources on this planet. Where people refuse to listen to reason and control births, there is no alternative to at least two of the apocalyptic horsemen – famine and resource wars – to prune the overloaded tree for them. As a humanitarian and a Christian, I would obviously prefer voluntary control of birth to the inevitable control by nature.

 

[Doug50]

I will not speak for Doug. For my part, I have never assumed that civilization will end; in fact, that is what I am working as hard as I can to prevent. And you are right that there are alternatives to petroleum – that’s why among other things we push for nuclear power, which can buy us another 100-200 years, depending on the uranium supply.

What we cannot do - even if all the alternatives were in place when oil production begins its inexorable drop in the next decade or so – is support indefinitely without petroleum the current population of seven billion, much less the nine or ten billion expected by 2050. Transportation aside, we cannot grow enough food without petroleum based fertilizers to support indefinitely ten billion people in relative plenty.

As to population, euthanasia and abortion are obviously inadmissible for Catholics (or for anyone). There are two ways to reduce a population: increase the death rate, or control the birth rate. Nobody I know favors the former, so that leaves decreasing the birth rate as the only option. We propose doing that through comprehensive education about the finite resources on this planet. Where people refuse to listen to reason and control births, there is no alternative to at least two of the apocalyptic horsemen – famine and resource wars – to prune the overloaded tree for them. As a humanitarian and a Christian, I would obviously prefer voluntary control of birth to the inevitable control by nature.

exactly. But I’m afraid the message fell on deaf ears to whom it was addressed…but there are lurkers who read.

 

[Al_Masetti]

So, these Malthusian approaches … to reduce the birth rate … are in direct contradiction to Catholic doctrine.

The intervention of the Holy Spirit is not an option according to the discussion.

So, there we are.

No alternatives to petroleum. The OPEC countries are buying those hundreds of jumbo jets and super jumbo Airbus A380’s for nothing.

HOWEVER, Robert Zubrin in his book “Energy Victory” offers a lot of alternatives.

Visit www.energyvictory.net

If OPEC had not dropped the price of oil to $10 in 1986 [which resulted in the termination of projects to create energy independence], we might already be independent of oil [especially OPEC oil ] … with nukes, with fusion, and with methanol. It will take time to get nuke and fusion research and development and construction back up and running.

But we can get Flex Fuel cars on the road in the U.S. in mere months. And have a viable market for methanol in a couple of years at most.

In fact, it would be great if the governors of Iowa and the other corn / ethanol producing states were to mandate that all new cars sold in those states to be Flex Fuel cars … because they could start burning straight ethanol or an E85 mix right away.

In fact, there not only is hope, but it is achievable in mere months. Brazil has demonstrated that it can be done. They are doing it. Painlessly. And quickly.

Once the monopoly that OPEC has over liquid fuels is broken, the price of oil will drop to $20 per barrel and their support for worldwide terrorism will also dry up … for lack of money. And then we can make it policy to strangle their finances. Worldwide terrorism will end. They will be begging us to take their petroleum.

Six months.

I will not speak for Doug. For my part, I have never assumed that civilization will end; in fact, that is what I am working as hard as I can to prevent. And you are right that there are alternatives to petroleum – that’s why among other things we push for nuclear power, which can buy us another 100-200 years, depending on the uranium supply.

What we cannot do - even if all the alternatives were in place when oil production begins its inexorable drop in the next decade or so – is support indefinitely without petroleum the current population of seven billion, much less the nine or ten billion expected by 2050. Transportation aside, we cannot grow enough food without petroleum based fertilizers to support indefinitely ten billion people in relative plenty.

As to population, euthanasia and abortion are obviously inadmissible for Catholics (or for anyone). There are two ways to reduce a population: increase the death rate, or control the birth rate. Nobody I know favors the former, so that leaves decreasing the birth rate as the only option. We propose doing that through comprehensive education about the finite resources on this planet. Where people refuse to listen to reason and control births, there is no alternative to at least two of the apocalyptic horsemen – famine and resource wars – to prune the overloaded tree for them. As a humanitarian and a Christian, I would obviously prefer voluntary control of birth to the inevitable control by nature.