The disturbing CACOR view of peak oil and overshoot; So long, hydrocarbon man
CACOR are the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome, I've recently found their site and their perspective is close to mine. The home page is here:
http://www.cacor.ca/index.html
The September 2005 proceedings are about oil:
http://www.cacor.ca/Proceed-Sep%2005.pdf
http://www.odac-info.org/bulletin/documents/Proceed-Sep05.pdf (alternate, duplicate, source)
A brief article in it just about sums up my view on what is likely to happen to humanity in the nearish future. It can be found on pages 16 to 19. Here's its beginning and end....
What to do in a failing civilization
By David M. Delaney
Copyright © David M. Delaney, 2005
[he begins...] "Can global civilization adapt successfully to degradation of the biosphere and depletion of fossil fuels? I argue that it cannot. Important elements of all constituent societies would have to be reformed. Reform would have to be radical and would be uncertain of success. It could be undertaken only in the presence of incontrovertible necessity—a necessity that will reveal itself incontrovertibly only when catastrophic collapse has become unavoidable. I conclude that those who seek to preserve civilization should plan for its survival in restricted regions."
[...and ends...] "A catastrophic collapse of the economy and population ofthe world is more than likely. We cannot escape overshoot’strap. What should we do?
First, who are “we”? Until now I have used “we” to refer to all humanity. If we insist that “we’re all in the same boat”, we shall all drown, because the one boat will sink. Those who hope to preserve civilization must accept that it is likely to sink into chaos in much of the world. The survival of some elements of civilization will require lifeboats that can be constructed only from communities, regions, perhaps nations, that are not now in overshoot. To preserve civilization at least some of these must choose to stay out of overshoot, establish independence in the production of food, energy, materials, and crucial manufactured goods, and defend their borders against the migrations that will tend to spread overshoot everywhere.
This strategy may fail. The necessary awareness and resolve may not develop soon enough in any of those fortunate regions not already in overshoot. Awareness and resolve may be prevented by the very institutional and psychological mechanisms that have been described earlier in this essay. Regions with resolve may be prevented from implementing it by superior governments or by economically or militarily stronger trade partners. But those who argue for survival of a community may have a better chance of persuading their audience than had those who argued for better management of global population and resources. They will have the advantage of arguing at a time when less fortunate regions of the world have begun to provide both unmistakable examples and unmistakable threats.
There is a great need for a culture of guerilla relocalisation—a movement that would have as its goal to partially prepare communities so that they may coalesce more readily into autonomous regions when the need becomes apparent. Richard Douthwaite has discussed methods that would serve these goals in his book Short Circuit.
Overshoot and crash may so damage the biosphere and deplete other natural capital as to extinguish humanity, or to reduce humanity to a few bands of wandering hunter gatherers.These possibilities are now beyond our control. We can only hope there will be enough world left to sustain at least a greatly reduced new civilization, and act to keep the final struggles of overshoot from precluding even that possibility."
The whole of those proceedings are well worth reading. As are the May 2006 proceedings which are about human ecological footprint and overshoot. Probably few of us in the developed economies are aware that per capita oil and grain production peaked over 20 years ago. Globally we are currently consuming more grain than we are producing:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graintoc.htm
There is a limit to how long that can continue without beginning to constrain population growth. Needless to say some more poor people in poor countries will be hungry and probably starving as a result already. That will be paralleled in oil soon enough.
Another stumbling was to here:
http://hydrocarbonman.com/index.html
Though it has only just opened there is something that rings very true about the place (to me, anyway), worth keeping an eye on. I particularly liked the "Peak Oil: Am I crazy, or what?" blog entry.
On one hand it is reassuring that others are seeing what I see, being truly mad and deluded is not something I wish for, but on the other hand it is utterly frightening and sickening thinking that what I anticipate will actually happen.
http://www.cacor.ca/index.html
The September 2005 proceedings are about oil:
http://www.cacor.ca/Proceed-Sep%2005.pdf
http://www.odac-info.org/bulletin/documents/Proceed-Sep05.pdf (alternate, duplicate, source)
A brief article in it just about sums up my view on what is likely to happen to humanity in the nearish future. It can be found on pages 16 to 19. Here's its beginning and end....
What to do in a failing civilization
By David M. Delaney
Copyright © David M. Delaney, 2005
[he begins...] "Can global civilization adapt successfully to degradation of the biosphere and depletion of fossil fuels? I argue that it cannot. Important elements of all constituent societies would have to be reformed. Reform would have to be radical and would be uncertain of success. It could be undertaken only in the presence of incontrovertible necessity—a necessity that will reveal itself incontrovertibly only when catastrophic collapse has become unavoidable. I conclude that those who seek to preserve civilization should plan for its survival in restricted regions."
[...and ends...] "A catastrophic collapse of the economy and population ofthe world is more than likely. We cannot escape overshoot’strap. What should we do?
First, who are “we”? Until now I have used “we” to refer to all humanity. If we insist that “we’re all in the same boat”, we shall all drown, because the one boat will sink. Those who hope to preserve civilization must accept that it is likely to sink into chaos in much of the world. The survival of some elements of civilization will require lifeboats that can be constructed only from communities, regions, perhaps nations, that are not now in overshoot. To preserve civilization at least some of these must choose to stay out of overshoot, establish independence in the production of food, energy, materials, and crucial manufactured goods, and defend their borders against the migrations that will tend to spread overshoot everywhere.
This strategy may fail. The necessary awareness and resolve may not develop soon enough in any of those fortunate regions not already in overshoot. Awareness and resolve may be prevented by the very institutional and psychological mechanisms that have been described earlier in this essay. Regions with resolve may be prevented from implementing it by superior governments or by economically or militarily stronger trade partners. But those who argue for survival of a community may have a better chance of persuading their audience than had those who argued for better management of global population and resources. They will have the advantage of arguing at a time when less fortunate regions of the world have begun to provide both unmistakable examples and unmistakable threats.
There is a great need for a culture of guerilla relocalisation—a movement that would have as its goal to partially prepare communities so that they may coalesce more readily into autonomous regions when the need becomes apparent. Richard Douthwaite has discussed methods that would serve these goals in his book Short Circuit.
Overshoot and crash may so damage the biosphere and deplete other natural capital as to extinguish humanity, or to reduce humanity to a few bands of wandering hunter gatherers.These possibilities are now beyond our control. We can only hope there will be enough world left to sustain at least a greatly reduced new civilization, and act to keep the final struggles of overshoot from precluding even that possibility."
The whole of those proceedings are well worth reading. As are the May 2006 proceedings which are about human ecological footprint and overshoot. Probably few of us in the developed economies are aware that per capita oil and grain production peaked over 20 years ago. Globally we are currently consuming more grain than we are producing:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graintoc.htm
There is a limit to how long that can continue without beginning to constrain population growth. Needless to say some more poor people in poor countries will be hungry and probably starving as a result already. That will be paralleled in oil soon enough.
Another stumbling was to here:
http://hydrocarbonman.com/index.html
Though it has only just opened there is something that rings very true about the place (to me, anyway), worth keeping an eye on. I particularly liked the "Peak Oil: Am I crazy, or what?" blog entry.
On one hand it is reassuring that others are seeing what I see, being truly mad and deluded is not something I wish for, but on the other hand it is utterly frightening and sickening thinking that what I anticipate will actually happen.
posted by Agric | 23:47
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