- 18 Nov 2012 08:40
#14109133
Hi all, new member here
I was reading this rather startling thread on revleft :
It made me think that while a North American technate might be able to implement a high standard of living (the estimates I've read hover around an equivalent lower upper-class/upper middle-class salary), would other continental technates live in squalor because of their smaller resource base? Do we really need to lower Earth's population to less than 2 billion for everyone on Earth to have a high standard of living?
I was reading this rather startling thread on revleft :
Technocrat wrote:More specifically, how many people could the earth support while still giving everyone a "good life?"
-a "good life" is one in which a person can meet their physical and psychological needs. This can be measured as the physical and mental health of a person. Physical health can be measured by things like adequate nutrition, life expectancy, access to medicine, etc. Mental health correlates with happiness, so overall mental health can be measured by self-reported happiness levels.
-mental health is measured by reported happiness levels. By looking at these levels over time, we can determine an "optimal level of resource consumption" to attain maximum happiness. The optimum level would be that level which is the lowest level required to attain the maximum level of happiness.
-Peak happiness was achieved in the late 1950s in America - happiness peaked around 1957, declined somewhat, and has remained pretty steady ever since. When happiness peaked in America, per-capita income was roughly 1/3rd of what it is today (adjusted for inflation). So, we could attain the same or higher happiness with an income 1/3rd of the current average. Source: http://citizenactionmonitor.files.wo...ess-chart2.jpg
-Similar studies were conducted in Britain and Japan with similar results, suggesting this pattern is not specific to a particular culture
-Mexico has reported happiness levels 4 times higher than the United States but is much poorer
-using the above information we can get a general idea of what is physically required to give everyone a "good life."
-using ecological footprint we can determine the footprint required to give a person a "good life," and so we can determine the maximum number of people that can be supported if everyone has a good life.
-The following is meant to be an approximation of the minimum that would be required to give a person a good life, using the above information.
-dwellings would be in apartments no larger than 500 square feet per person (a family of four would have 2000 square feet alloted to them). Detached single family homes would be very rare. 500 square feet is small by American standards but large by the standards of most of the rest of the world (most of which has higher happiness levels than America).
-meat only consumed 3-4 times per week (enough to ensure adequate protein intake).
-less than 50% of food produced more than 200 miles from where it is consumed. This is to minimize the fuel used in transporting food.
-no travel by car or motorcycle. walking and cycling would become the dominant forms of transportation. See below for an explanation of why alternative fuels will not be capable of maintaining car culture.
-travel by airplane is very rare
-50+ miles travelled by public transportation, weekly
-much less trash generated; all packaging is recyclable and recycling is extensive
-to support the above lifestyle, it would take approximately 20 acres of land per person
-To check this, you can go to http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/i...e/calculators/ and plug in the numbers yourself.
-worldwide, there exists ~4.5 acres per person of productive land.
-it would take ~5 times the amount of land that exists on earth to support everyone with the above lifestyle
-there are more than 7 billion people on the planet. Divide this by 5 (amount of land required per person), and this yields 1.4 billion.
-fewer than 1.4 billion people could be supported sustainably with the above lifestyle.
-fossil fuel use must be replaced with sustainable renewable energy sources. It is important to remember that these alternative sources are "alternative;" they are not replacements for oil. For one thing, electricity cannot readily be substituted for liquid fuels without converting vehicles to run on batteries, a costly project in itself.
-For another, how are we going to generate the massive amounts of energy required to power every single car in America in addition to our other needs? It isn't going to happen because the EROEI of alternatives is lower than that of oil. This means we will have less "surplus energy" to dedicate to unessential things like cars.
-To elaborate, wind and solar energy simply do not provide the same "bang for the buck" that we get from crude oil. In the early bonanza days of oil, back when the United States was the world's leading producer of oil, you got something like 100 units of energy returned for every 1 unit of energy invested into the process.
-This is called EROEI, energy returned on energy invested, for short. Today, we get a much lower return on oil because we have to expend a great deal of energy to ship the oil halfway across the world - from the middle east. This doesn't even include the costs of protecting that oil supply with a massive military presence.
-The reason we get our oil from the Middle East is because domestic oil production peaked in 1970 (United States), as Shell Geologist M King Hubbert predicted it would in the 1950s. At the time, Hubbert was ignored by his colleagues. Another important contribution Hubbert made was recognizing that the earth's endowment of fossil fuels is finite. This was also ignored.
-Hubbert predicted that world oil production would peak shortly after the year 2000. All indications are that world oil production peaked 2006; it has not gone up since then despite massive and ever-increasing investments. Simply put, we are spending more energy to find less energy. We are on the downslope.
-Today, the EROEI of crude oil from the middle east is more than 30:1
-Wind power is 25:1 under optimal conditions, but it suffers from intermittency problems and is totally site-dependent.
-Solar (photovaltaic) is around 10:1, but also suffers intermittency
-soy biofuels and grain ethanol have pathetically low EROEI, sometimes lower than 1:1. In other words, they can consume more energy than they produce.
-Source for EROEI numbers: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6854#more
-Upgrades to the electrical grid are needed to make renewable energy work without intermittency. A connected "smart grid" is essential for renewable energy to work. This is a massive project on scale with the interstate highway system. It is doubtful that "the market" can acheive this. The interstate highway system wasn't achieved by the market. It took strong central planning by the national gov't. Projects of this scale require central planning, and that requires the national gov't.
-Wind and solar cannot replace oil because they do not have the same EROEI. The lifestyles we have built around the availability of cheap oil are simply unsustainable. This means an end to car culture and consumerism.
-Nuclear power is not a sustainable solution because the nuclear fuel is finite. A feasible breeder reactor has yet to be built or designed. Those breeder reactors which have been built have all been dismantled for cost or safety problems. The engineers of the 1950s who were betting on this technology as the silver bullet to solve our energy problems would probably be horrified at the utter failure of this technology.
-Nuclear fusion is a fantasy that will never be realized. The quest for fusion energy is the modern-day equivalent of the alchemist turning lead into gold. We have been pouring billions into fusion reserach since the 1950s, and every year the scientists tell us that fusion energy "is still 50 years away." 50 years from now, fusion will still be "50 years away."
-passenger rail will have to be greatly expanded in the United States since travel by car will no longer be feasible. A state of emergency should be declared in order to get the necessary projects built, like Eisenhower did with the interstate highway system
-an end to consumerism also means an end to capitalism; capitalism cannot exist without growth. This means something else (socialism) will have to replace capitalism.
It made me think that while a North American technate might be able to implement a high standard of living (the estimates I've read hover around an equivalent lower upper-class/upper middle-class salary), would other continental technates live in squalor because of their smaller resource base? Do we really need to lower Earth's population to less than 2 billion for everyone on Earth to have a high standard of living?