Some Anonymous doomers have attempted to taint the comments page (and in the process make this blog into a carbon copy of the other doomer peak oil cesspool blogs and forums). Additionally they have tried to muddy the waters by claiming that no doomer really believes in dieoff or collapse or indeed any of the other typical doomeresque crazy-as-a-loon beliefs held by our doomer friends.
Out of interest I decided to check the verifiable source of the truth: Wikipedia.
The results are pretty bleak: if wikipedia is correct and you're a doomer, it's time to hunker down in your basement awaiting the zombie hordes which will be created by a malthusian collapse of the population down past "carrying capacity" of the earths "depleted soil" which can "only be supported by oil-based-fertilizers."
Eeeeek!!!
As of March 8th 2011, The Wikipedia entry for doomers has the following to say:
"A convinced Doomer believes that the Green Revolution will collapse at the end of cheap oil.[1][dead link] According to Doomers, humanity will be in a state of overshoot after oil depletion makes modern farming methods economically unviable. Various academics have calculated that our numbers would then far exceed the carrying capacity of the earth. For example: they believe our situation is comparable to bacteria in a petri dish with cheap oil as the human growth medium. As the “growth medium” is consumed and runs out the “bacteria” dies off.
Doomers also hold a wide range of theories about the collapse of complex societies and systems.[2][dead link] The influences of Thomas Malthus and the Club of Rome are present in the doomer movement,[3][dead link][4][dead link][5] as are some of the more recent works by Joseph Tainter who wrote The Collapse of Complex Societies in 1988, and Richard C. Duncan who presented his Phd The Peak of World Oil Production and the Road to the Olduvai Gorge in 1989 (now known as the Olduvai theory.) The lectures and DVD by Albert Bartlett, Arithmetic, Population and Energy is also highly influential. (See below for online video streaming of the lecture he has been presenting and refining for over 30 years.)
The common concerns are that of overpopulation leading to resource and energy depletion, soil degradation and environmental destruction all culminating in agricultural collapse and famine. Some Doomers estimate that the anarchic collapse will be so catastrophic that population levels may fall below the levels prior to the industrial revolution — possibly below 2 billion. When trying to calculate the extent of the postulated dieoff, the most extreme doomer will also take into account that the existing eco-infrastructure is massively supported by oil based fertilizers and that we will not only hit peak oil but peak phosphate and peak nitrogen simultaneously. When oil production starts to decline the productivity of the soil will drop far below that of pre-industrial times and thus a drop down to 2 billion is optimistic. This kind of doomer will also ignore technology and dismiss it with commonly believed ideas such as "wind farms cost more energy to build than they get out". This common refrain is generally applied to all technology solutions since it is assumed a priori that a population crash is inevitable."
7 comments:
As always a most excellent post! (Though it seems like I caught it at its earliest stage, since it appears to be WIP, this doesn’t make the post any less good though):)
Keep up the good work! (and thanks for answering so many of my questions since I joined)
Ps: did you remove the anon option?
Great strawman analysis!
Did you write that Wikipedia entry?
In broad terms..
The folks that believe that the oil in the ground is finite, tend to be Malthusians.
The folks that believe in infinite energy through infinite substitution tend to believe in infinite population growth.
YMMV. Not valid in all states and principalities.
Your theory that safe nuclear power will cover the globe is getting tested of late. The situation in Japan is out of control. I hope they get a handle on this soon. Their entire nation may be lost if this keeps making turns for the worst.
And in the USA, California might end up getting a good dose of fallout.
But you live in Israel right? So i don't need to worry about your safety. I have a few online friends on the West coast that I am very worried about atm.
Sigh...who is the one making strawmen? He has never said that nuclear power would cover the world, he has said that it amongst other things will remove oil-use
read his block posts before making such statements...
besides, nuclear power is not likely to disappear after the Japan crisis
And whats with the overreaction and doom & gloom crap? Japan wont be destroyed by this crisis...
No surprises there from weaseldog who is entitled to hold his (wrong) doomer position.
For your education, however:
Last I checked Alberta isn't in Israel....
Go look at a map buddy.
"Last I checked Alberta isn't in Israel...."
On the internet, you can be from anywhere.
Many highly intelligent and optimistic people have predicted that Japan would never have a nuclear power crisis. As Cornucopians are always right and Doomers are always wrong, perhaps the news from Japan is just a hoax?
"nuclear power is not likely to disappear after the Japan crisis"
Heck no. We could have dozens of disasters on the scale of Chernobyl, and Nuclear Power would still be expanded.
There would just be more opposition to the idea. But their voices wouldn't matter.
@Weasel
Hey mate, I've been wondering how you are doing and what you are up to these days :)
I also wonder if the controversy surrounding the natural gas drilling methods in the US have died down, it did spark some nasty flaming last month or so
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