Cherry Scenarios
Most of these scenarios are hopeful; however I found that the most useful scenarios in terms of further developing my own post-peak picture, from this site included a pessimistic view. Reading these articles I am starting to question more intensely how much anyone really knows anything about peak oil and how accurate such predictions can ever be (although Dr.Bartlett gives hope to accuracy). Two Scenarios is a worth while account, but as you will see a lot of the numbers seem arbitrary; for example the premise that in 150 years the world will be able to sustain a comfortably energy consuming population of 0.6 billion. I will focus on the Two Scenarios by William Stanton which includes a pessimistic scenario that ranks between numbers four and five on our scale of minimal to maximum change, what we called the Mad Max/ Global Nuclear Warfare( not an absolute apocalypse) scenarios. Stanton argues that oil will peak around the same time that the population has reached 7 billion. This is evident by the price increases in the past years and by the hostility between the “have” and “have-not” nations, in terms of fossil fuel reserves. This scenario will play out by 2150, and by this time fossil fuels will have been extremely exhausted. The world has a certain carrying capacity- in terms of consumption of energy in this scenario- and in order for humans to stay within this capacity we can either dramatically decrease consumption levels or the population size. The pessimistic scenario predicts population decrease will happen by humans being forced to not exceed the carrying capacity, as vital resources to the civilization continuance will be scarce. Stanton writes his scenarios on the premise that it is unlikely that humans will willingly abandon the “self-indulgent lifestyle” in order to avoid complete economic collapse, conflict and struggle including mass genocide. Therefore, the optimistic scenario plays out as the controlled and systematic management of the population, rather than the genocidal elimination of billions. Which is achieved by creating a mind set of the people living in nation states (compared to an ant colony); this is that no individual is more important than the nation state.
Rules to this optimistic scenario include:
“1. Every woman is entitled to raise one healthy child. No religious or cultural exceptions can be made, but entitlements can be traded on a one to one basis between women.
2. If a baby or fetus is so physically or mentally damaged that its life cannot be a net benefit to the state, infanticide or abortion is compulsory.
3. When, through old age, injury or disease, an individual becomes more of a burden than a benefit to the state, his or her life is painlessly ended.
4. Assisted suicide is legal, easy and painless.
5. Imprisonment is replaced by corporal punishment for lesser offences and painless capital punishment for greater ones.
6. Immigration is banned, and illegal arrivers are treated as criminals.”
Still let’s return to the pessimistic scenario since not only is it more beneficial in expanding and rethinking my own scenario but even the author found it to be the more probable. The goal for the population size which will be sustainable in this scenario is 0.6 billion, which the same as it was pre- industrial revolution. [The author doesn’t explain how a sustainable population size of a civilization is maintained, since of course population growth occurs exponentially?] The way in which this will be achieved is through a “Darwinian struggle to survive” between the strong and the weak and the have and have- not oil reserve nations (a strong group is not necessarily a have one as well- it is implied that strong means militaristically and agriculturally powerful). This bloody struggle can be seen by the heightened tensions between the West and the countries with the highest oil reserves such as Iran, Iraq and Venezuela.
The Darwinian Slaughter beings in 2006
1. Pre-emptive nuclear strikes on nations with reserves, non agreeable politics or development of nuclear energy and weapons. This may be carried out by either or both the strong and weak groups- since the weak may have secret and unconventional weaponry as Stanton points out. Essentially a dreadful struggle for resources.
2. Multiculturalism ends with massacre, since depleting resources can invariably no longer support the whole population. (This will be incomparable to any genocide or Holocaust of the past.)
3. 80% of the population lives in cities and will massively invade the country side because food transportation will be impossible (today 40% of fossil fuel energy is used up for transportation). “Rising sea levels will have the same effect on costal populations.” Still, global warming will only be another factor and not the problem that will bring about our civilizations demise, fossil fuel scarcity is a far more looming concern.
4. Famine, drought, poverty and natural disasters will of course still continue to happen but will not be attended to.
5. There will be a mass die off due to conflict, struggle and starvation, until the population is small enough to be sustainable.
Most fundamentally Stanton believes that we must maintain the population at sustain-ably low levels, rather than lower per capita consumption of renewable and finite resources, in order to continue life on earth. The author is optimistic that the survivors of this Mad Max/Global nuclear warfare (conflict and struggle in small isolated and subsistence based villages & mass massacres globally) scenario will have learned their lesson. They will know how to live sustain-ably in the future, after 150 years of misery. Conversely these survivors, who have maintained by having the most available resources and more importantly practiced the most effective Darwinian survival methods, Stanton argues will not go back to the mid-18th century quality of life. Rather, their sustainable population size will be able to maintain a comfortable standard of living due to developments (allowed by agriculture/ civilization) in science and technology.
Most of these scenarios are hopeful; however I found that the most useful scenarios in terms of further developing my own post-peak picture, from this site included a pessimistic view. Reading these articles I am starting to question more intensely how much anyone really knows anything about peak oil and how accurate such predictions can ever be (although Dr.Bartlett gives hope to accuracy). Two Scenarios is a worth while account, but as you will see a lot of the numbers seem arbitrary; for example the premise that in 150 years the world will be able to sustain a comfortably energy consuming population of 0.6 billion. I will focus on the Two Scenarios by William Stanton which includes a pessimistic scenario that ranks between numbers four and five on our scale of minimal to maximum change, what we called the Mad Max/ Global Nuclear Warfare( not an absolute apocalypse) scenarios. Stanton argues that oil will peak around the same time that the population has reached 7 billion. This is evident by the price increases in the past years and by the hostility between the “have” and “have-not” nations, in terms of fossil fuel reserves. This scenario will play out by 2150, and by this time fossil fuels will have been extremely exhausted. The world has a certain carrying capacity- in terms of consumption of energy in this scenario- and in order for humans to stay within this capacity we can either dramatically decrease consumption levels or the population size. The pessimistic scenario predicts population decrease will happen by humans being forced to not exceed the carrying capacity, as vital resources to the civilization continuance will be scarce. Stanton writes his scenarios on the premise that it is unlikely that humans will willingly abandon the “self-indulgent lifestyle” in order to avoid complete economic collapse, conflict and struggle including mass genocide. Therefore, the optimistic scenario plays out as the controlled and systematic management of the population, rather than the genocidal elimination of billions. Which is achieved by creating a mind set of the people living in nation states (compared to an ant colony); this is that no individual is more important than the nation state.
Rules to this optimistic scenario include:
“1. Every woman is entitled to raise one healthy child. No religious or cultural exceptions can be made, but entitlements can be traded on a one to one basis between women.
2. If a baby or fetus is so physically or mentally damaged that its life cannot be a net benefit to the state, infanticide or abortion is compulsory.
3. When, through old age, injury or disease, an individual becomes more of a burden than a benefit to the state, his or her life is painlessly ended.
4. Assisted suicide is legal, easy and painless.
5. Imprisonment is replaced by corporal punishment for lesser offences and painless capital punishment for greater ones.
6. Immigration is banned, and illegal arrivers are treated as criminals.”
Still let’s return to the pessimistic scenario since not only is it more beneficial in expanding and rethinking my own scenario but even the author found it to be the more probable. The goal for the population size which will be sustainable in this scenario is 0.6 billion, which the same as it was pre- industrial revolution. [The author doesn’t explain how a sustainable population size of a civilization is maintained, since of course population growth occurs exponentially?] The way in which this will be achieved is through a “Darwinian struggle to survive” between the strong and the weak and the have and have- not oil reserve nations (a strong group is not necessarily a have one as well- it is implied that strong means militaristically and agriculturally powerful). This bloody struggle can be seen by the heightened tensions between the West and the countries with the highest oil reserves such as Iran, Iraq and Venezuela.
The Darwinian Slaughter beings in 2006
1. Pre-emptive nuclear strikes on nations with reserves, non agreeable politics or development of nuclear energy and weapons. This may be carried out by either or both the strong and weak groups- since the weak may have secret and unconventional weaponry as Stanton points out. Essentially a dreadful struggle for resources.
2. Multiculturalism ends with massacre, since depleting resources can invariably no longer support the whole population. (This will be incomparable to any genocide or Holocaust of the past.)
3. 80% of the population lives in cities and will massively invade the country side because food transportation will be impossible (today 40% of fossil fuel energy is used up for transportation). “Rising sea levels will have the same effect on costal populations.” Still, global warming will only be another factor and not the problem that will bring about our civilizations demise, fossil fuel scarcity is a far more looming concern.
4. Famine, drought, poverty and natural disasters will of course still continue to happen but will not be attended to.
5. There will be a mass die off due to conflict, struggle and starvation, until the population is small enough to be sustainable.
Most fundamentally Stanton believes that we must maintain the population at sustain-ably low levels, rather than lower per capita consumption of renewable and finite resources, in order to continue life on earth. The author is optimistic that the survivors of this Mad Max/Global nuclear warfare (conflict and struggle in small isolated and subsistence based villages & mass massacres globally) scenario will have learned their lesson. They will know how to live sustain-ably in the future, after 150 years of misery. Conversely these survivors, who have maintained by having the most available resources and more importantly practiced the most effective Darwinian survival methods, Stanton argues will not go back to the mid-18th century quality of life. Rather, their sustainable population size will be able to maintain a comfortable standard of living due to developments (allowed by agriculture/ civilization) in science and technology.
posted by Nina Jankovic at 23:50
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