By Garry Baverstock AM, Director of Wise Earth P/L
Introduction: Energy Consumption Growth
In 2005 World President of ISES Professor Yogi Goswami of USF in Florida, made a keynote speech at the ISES Solar World Congress in Beijing. There he predicted that most of the world’s uranium, gas, oil and much of the world’s coal depleted.
At many of my talks in Australia and overseas since and in private discussion with fossil fuel, and uranium experts I noticed that I have either been looked at as have ‘two heads’, or the ‘specialists’ simply disagree, but offer absolutely no factual back up for their opinions. I have had the impression that it is yet another instance of an ‘inconvenient truth’ as exposed by Al Gore, or just plain ignorance that gets no response of any worth to anyone except their feelings of security.
This article squarely presents the latest information from the USA that clearly states Goswami and I, by my re-quoting his 2007 facts, have been perfectly correct. Having experts around the world that there is not an issue with population growth, energy consumption and supplies, and worse still denying the climate change effects that are so evident all around the world, with record breaking extreme weather events on the increase. The reasons why are governments moving so slowly and so divisively are complex ad are more to do with human psyche, primordial subconscious desires, rather than facts and data.
Who should we blame for such collective insanity? Surely this places the climate skeptics and ‘anti-sustainability types’ as anti-humanity forces not just an annoying or inconvenient impediment of change, as currently and often portrayed in the media.
It is a simple question but a very complicated answer that will take more resources that I can offer as part of this article.
Suffice is to say that in my opinion, all us thinking citizens of the world need to have a good look at ourselves and our integrity and start to take more affirmative action to move to sustainable energy world as soon as possible and solve ‘Climate Change’ once and for all and save humanity as we know it at present.
Defense and Security Issues
The following information has been researched and supplied by Peter Kasprzak and indicates dire consequences for the world beyond 2050. So indeed Yogi Goswami was correct after all as well as my placing this issue in context of what we should be doing with the built environment.
U.S. defense and intelligence communities are increasingly focusing resources on the operational and national security implications of climate change and energy. With the most recent quadrennial report identifying climate change as a global destabilizing force for the first time, an executive order from President Obama on sustainability across the Federal agencies, and an uncertain and unstable energy market, the challenges before American defense and national security communities to mitigate climate impacts and energy risks, as well as establish a leaner, more effective operational force in a down economy are clear.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration world energy demand will grow by half in less than 25 years.
World Market Energy Consumption Graph
The world consumes 500 quadrillion BTU today, but it will need 750 quadrillion BTU by 2035. (BTU or British Thermal Unit is the heat that will raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. One BTU = 1054 joules = 0.000 293 kWh and 1000 BTU per hour = 0.293 kW)
This would seem on the face of it to be a bonanza. When I have brought up the consequences on world population levels I have been accused by some ‘sustainability’ experts as being somehow racist. In fact I am being very reasonable. Instead of short term cashing in on demand for energy and encouraging population growth in the world, I believe we should restricting growth, and if anything working out humane methods of gradually reducing it.
Why? Well have at look at the following predictions for population growth towards the end of the century based on energy supplies. Do you think we have a crisis looming? The predictions are alarming and the security and stability of the world will be in tatters.
Total Energy use by Type Graph
Energy Use by Source
Population Growth
Also take a look at the World Energy and Population – Trends to 2100 study, which asserts that world population, and therefore energy usage will dramatically decrease in the second half of the 21st century.
This time instead of BTU the energy is expressed in Mtoe (Millions Tons of Oil Equivalent), 1 Mtoe = 39652608749183 BTU
Here is the alarming prediction for world population that we need to take into account very seriously indeed.
Why are we continuing to encourage population growth to ”grow” our economy? It is nonsensical. I have heard predictions that the world population will reach 9 billion. How is that going to happen? Is it the wish of the ‘business as usual’ pundits who make millions out of increased consumption of raw materials, carving up land for housing estates built by large project building companies.
What sort of a world are we leaving for our children and grand children?
World Population Projection Graph
It is clear to me that business as usual is leading this world clearly to a hellish existence. Is it too late to wake up? A rational thinker would have to say the odds of creating a peaceful sustainable and ecological stable world for our children and grandchildren is not looking good!
If I ever doubted myself for over the last 40 years of pushing ecologically sustainable development and maximum use of solar energy in the built environment to help create a solar economy, then those doubts are now completely evaporated.
In summary, please expect a lot more from me, my allies, ‘converts’ colleagues and www.solar-e.com and my company Wise Earth P/L. I hope you can do the same or join us as we push forward and try to adapt and change, as we will need to within one generation! This includes being solid mentors for the next generation so they can be far more effective in their lifetime.
Hi Garry,
The key to all this is the dramatic reversal in the population curve. How do we achieve this reversal? I fear that we are more likely to see the growth trend continue until some kind of forced disruption gets in the way. We’ve managed to build an economy that simply doesn’t seem to work in any kind of stable state, it is either growing or receding (‘correcting’ as some call it). I don’t like to be a pessimist, but if we can’t design a stable economy then I can’t help but wonder about our ability to stabilise population. It is clear that we are headed for an unpleasant ‘correction’ when we reach a physical breaking point. But what can we do to avoid this? What are the policies and mechanics of population stabilisation and population decline. Can open… worms everywhere.
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Yes Jamie
It is hard not to see some ugly correction or series of corrections after the year 2040 or so. To reduce the impact and scale of these we need to:
1. Conserve some fossil fuel for the next generation or two so it lasts longer
2. Use a large proportion of fossil fuel in making renewable energy devices and systems so it can maximize the potential replicate itself.
3. Stop population growth yesterday and encourage natural wastage asap
4. Institute a culture of eating less food, more nutritious and save on wasted capital on health costs
5. Stop all suburban development immediately and encourage new public transport systems and new patterns of development immediately
6. Encourage a culture of less consumerism and frugal living.
7. maximize community service and volunteer work
How is that for starters?
You and your kids are going to have to deal with this in a big way in your lifetimes.
OK “discover” fusion power and get it going in the next 30 years or plan B based on ideas above will have to happen. Even then world population is destined to sink, but maybe relying mainly on natural wastage rates and one child policies universally for a long time.
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Garry,
Adaption will be a key to the future. Overpopulation throws up a huge issue of intergenerational fairness, as we consume the planet, leving less for our grandchildren. With today’s technology, my guess is that the ‘sustainable’ population of the planet is probably 2 billion and for Australia, it is between 6 and 12 million. How to get to that level? I don’t think that humans are evolved enough to manage that transition smoothly. The Selfish Gene will win over and we are beginning to see the first effects with social unrest in North Africa and the Middle East. These welcome events are more about hunger than politics. You can tollerate 30 years of dictatorship if your belly is mostly full, but when you are hungry, you will rebel as you have littel to lose. We are animals that adapted to life on the African savanna. We are biologiccally and emotionally, very much that same animal, despite our computers and our technology.
The hope is that we CAN manage to reduce population rapidly. Working with women around the world to empower them will make a huge impact. working to ensure that everyone who wants birth contral has access to contraception, would rapidly reduce average family size to below 2 per woman, so that by 2050 global population would peak and begin to fall. The issue remains, do we have 40 years to manage this or is it already too late. As oil production begins to fall post 2013, access to petrochemically sourced fertilisers, pesticides and mechanised agriculture will become more expensive and so will food.
The more we raise awareness the sooner we can turn human life to a sustainable level and give up growth in consumption.
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Very thoughtful piece, Garry.
First, I share your experience in the response to scientific evidence- society’s acceptance of science has always been tenuous, but until fairly recently, the public attitude could fairly described as “grudging acceptance”. This view has changed- scientific evidence is now generally seen as “just another opinion”, so victory in discourse no longer goes to the guy with the most facts, but the guy with the loudest voice or most muscle- just like the front-bar culture of my parents’ generation. Today, the voice and muscle are the “media”, that are essentially controlled by a few powerful interest groups. Further, scientists have been successfully depicted as “on the take” from taxpayers’ funds.
As to the long-term outcome of this- Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse” makes sobering reading. Time after time civilisations have ignored (what seems to us) obvious signs of environmental problems. In most cases, they simply increased what they were doing until collapse was inevitable.
We seem to think that we are better at survival than those example countries- but all the signs are there and it’s hard to see them changing suffciently and in time. The population curves that Garry shows will only happen with societal collapse- and even then, only with disease.
Energy use is correlated with prosperity, so any efficiencies in energy use simply get “re-invested” to make more goods and services. The IEA’s graphs show this.
I think that the biggest technical issue will be #1 point that Garry makes above- I think that energy will become expensive for everyone and everything- including making the new energy sources.
At this stage, I would say that our best hope for survival is China- they certainly are an energy problem at the moment, but they have a real sense of history on a millenial timescale and they are putting real effort into new energy sources. The US is still in denial and they their technical base is perilously depleted. You can’t grow millions of technologists in a few years.
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Reading this article carefully has frightened me into seeing the true situation of population growth. Thanks for your considerable input Garry.
I agree with the sentiments of Peter, above, but even with education, women in the far and middle east are controlled by tradition and suffer the lack of social security. The tradition to have large families stems not only from the lack of birth control and education, but the need to have male children and the economical reality that statistically you need to start with a large family to have enough children alive of working age, to provide for your old age. Thus social security also plays its part. The birthrate in the West has been reduced because of all of the factors mentioned.
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As an investment expert, it is refreshing to see that you are seeing the sustainability issues as they really are. Most people in the financial world and conventional businesses seem only concerned about their cash flows and present day capital values and how they can keep population growing to increase their wealth. An economic as well as environmental collapse is the only result of such a strategy.
Those who follow your trends will be the survivors in the future.
garrybaverstock recently posted..“So you want to know the facts about Solar Energy ”
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Population tends and rising costs of energy and the reducing world population are all prompts for us to act now with knowledge. One would be excused for thinking, what has this conversation got to do with solar energy? This is the point is that we need to use relatively cheap fossil fuel while it is in abundance to manufacture renewable energy systems so its energy alone will be able to replicate itself.
Wasting valuable capital and energy to feed the materialistic desires and rates of consumption of the current economic system, which is becoming known as the plan A economy, is not very good governance nor forward planning. China recognizes this and is doing something about it. It is high time the Western economies followed suit. Instead of 1 Billion as a future sustainable limit, maybe we can support more? Surely we should be trying!
Now is the time to act. The next 20 years are critical. After that it will be too late to avoid many human disasters and conflict because of a shortage of resources to effectively act. There will be so much capital going into damage control of Climate Change, that we will not have enough capital resources to avoid the calamities caused by the population, energy and food problems that will become very visible the second half of the 21st century.
garrybaverstock recently posted..“So you want to know the facts about Solar Energy ”
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There is another invisable issue … it is called speculation. This has become a phenomen which governments can not control any more. We see it now in Europe. Any long term serious attempt from a government to improve the environment, can easily be destroyed by speculaters. I believe if we want to control economic impacts on environment … we should get rid of stock markets. Abstract growth (the heart of stock markets) means nothing else then unecessary consumption, overproduction, waste of raw materials.
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Peter Strachan Reply:
May 27th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
George,
speculation will not set the overall direction but only make noise around the signal.
stock markets are efficient places to direct capital to investors.
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Yes I agree Peter, but see George’s point about the continual push for more growth and consumption. The real challenge is for most people to understand the facts rather than perceptions and move forwardly collectively. This means many more people developing their ethical positions, qualities and values so our institutions function as they were originally devised.
Unfortunately our current economic ethics seems to be all about growth in quantity rather than quality. I would like solar-e to stand for quality over quantity, doing the job once and well. A product or system that lasts many economic cycles and avoids wasted embodied energy is where we need to head from hereon. This can be applied to products, systems, services. The best form of government is in one’s head and soul.
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Peter Strachan Reply:
May 28th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Julia,
I absolutely agree. However realistically, changing people’s behaviour will be a multi generational task that could take 100 years or more. We don’t have that time frame available since the situation is critical now. Calling for a ban on stock markets is an unrealistic aspiration and nullifies all that comes before in George’s well intentioned thoughts. It is not an achievable target. (tell me how?)
We need achievable solutuons not pipe dreams. Unfortunately, humans are hardwired for conditions prevailing as we developed into modern man. The selfish gene is hard at work in the animal that emerged from Northern Africa about 120K years ago and we appear to be slow at adapting to the new environment. Its a bit like the elephants knocking down all the trees for fodder and eventually changing their local climate so that the country becomes a desert and they all die! We have interfered with the environment in a way which has made the earth less able to support us long term. I don’t know the answer but it certainly does not involve, and can not be improved by more people on the planet.
Peter
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At this stage the big clear decision is population control and should be the primary focus of us all. There are simply too many people. The fact that marketing and sales professions have convinced us all to consume over 3 times what we did just after WWII is certainly bringing population control even to a stage where it is more needed and more drastic than it should be. It clearly is something that must be addressed. Peter is right- culture change could take 100 years and we simply do not have that amount of time. The immediate quick fix is obvious when the data and credible projections are known.
We need a plan B economy that makes this aspect of population levels to quickly become a corner stone of what happens next. Governments pushing business as usual and a Plan A strategy of growth in consumption and population are doing us all a great disservice and the dilemma will be painfully obvious and felt within 30 years. The facts clearly show that.
But perhaps the depletion of oil, gas and key minerals on the planet as well as a large fall in food production will solve this for us anyway, if we do not act responsibly and soon.
In the meantime mechanisms and communications that speed up the change of consciousness and informed opinions of the general population will definitely help the long term position of human civilizations on planet Earth.
The economic mechanisms and capitalist system I believe are fine as institutions. It took a long time for them to evolve. It is the attitude of the movers and shakers using and managing them which is the problem.
Private enterprise is really the solution not just the problem, because of the “hard wiring” Peter identifies. However, Governments can help more by penalizing bad behaviour and encouraging and supporting good behaviour. At the moment most governments seems to have some impaired vision. Lobby groups with not necessarily the public interest in mind are corrupting the due process from which more democracies evolved.
This is where community involvement and collective actions of experts can do great things to help change this position. This is part of solar-e.com’s vision as well as promoting the positive networks, services, technologies and systems that provide answers and practical solutions.
While we still have governments being elected by the people, this informative strategy is the only salvation to this huge looming economic and environmental malaise we are rapidly approaching.
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Peter Strachan Reply:
June 15th, 2011 at 10:58 am
Garry,
It is true that we humans are squandering our fossil fuels, which are too cheap and pollute our planet. But they will soon (20-50 years) be gone. In the meantime, it turns out that scientists have invented a pill to stop global warming! It is called the contraception pill and if it were made available to all women who wanted to use it, then the number of emitters on the planet would stabilise and begin to fall to a population which the planet can sustain and feed, while they do only a small amount of damage to the environment. This simple act would cost a lot less than all the carbon taxing plans currently being made and needs to be considered in conjunction with efforts to reduce pollution from the 7 billion of us already here.
Interestingly, by the year 1900 the world had consumed about 19 million tonnes of copper over all of of human history. Today, we consume that amount of copper annually! Yeah, that’s sustainable!
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Participants might like to look around here:
http://population.org.au/
Lots of very good background info
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