Hi Everyone,
During my daily doom scroll, I came across this article regarding Overshoot & Civilisational Collapse by William (Bill) E. Rees.
I love to hear people’s opinion’s on the article, especially as it relates to energy.
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/4/3/32
by Pondy001
6 comments
It reads exactly like Ehrlich’s 1969 article “the population bomb”
His 1969 predictions included the UK not be able to sustain any population by 2020.
Ultimately everything depends on the underlying hypotheses, the rate of technical progress and Black Swan events. Not saying the author in this piece is right or wrong, just that there have been countless similar predictions in the last 50 years and most have turned out wrong.
Sorry but the whole “we must always have population growth” is a capitalist viewpoint.
A steadied regression down to 4 billion is sustainable and preferred by this generation.
The 1%’ers hate it obviously, as their fortunes are predicated on having a massive labor force all struggling over the same resources.
None of us want that for our kids so increasing the population is dead on arrival.
No amount of FUD is going to change our minds on our decision.
Nope. Deal with it.
IDK, man. It seems like there is an inverse relationship between education of women and family size. So maybe if we increase global living standards to the point that education of girls become the norm, we won’t continue with the exponential growth.
At the same time, we can continue with the energy transition and end up with a cleaner, more efficient, and more equitable system.
this article was discussed here a month ago.
It’s wrong that fossil fuels are needed always. Example: solar cell production might be heated with electric furnaces (btw one company even tried in 10s and claimed it’s cheaper than other approaches, but the company was small and disappeared and what happened with their process is unclear, possibly they just keep their patent till it expires) or with hydrogen (currently more expensive, but if green hydrogen is $1 kg and currently we are on the way to it – then it will be not).
The claim that Musk electric truck is impossible could be checked in few years. Obviously it’s possible and will be profitable.
etc.
But the article has editorial warning, so you might figure out it was published by mistake.
OP, *you yourself posted this same article 5 months ago*
https://www.reddit.com/r/energy/s/XMj3ScinTP
what gives? why are you posting it again pretending like you just came across it? did you take onboard the comments from last time and have you gone and read anything different since?
I think there’s a lot of weak foundations in this argument that there’s an inevitable societal collapse coming. Especially these statements
> However, there is a problem. It is becoming increasingly evident that a quantitatively equivalent energy transition from FFs to so-called green electricity sources on a climate/overshoot friendly schedule is not likely to occur.
Look at the extraordinary global growth in RE deployment in the last two years and a different opinion to this is very possible.
> Renewable green energy clearly has a long way to go—in some years, additions to renewable capacity do not even keep up with the growth in total demand for energy.
This is a really premature understanding of the transition – until 3-4 years ago RE capacity additions were *never* anywhere near the global growth in demand. That they are now in the ballpark of capturing ~80% of new global demand is an extraordinary achievement already; and in 2-3 more years will shoot past it and begin to send fossil generation into global decline. What has been achieved in dozens of countries will soon cascade to a global level.
> As we phase out (or run out) of FF, some analysts suggest that the world community should be preparing for a steep energy descent…
> The obvious, but often unspoken, corollary is that the weakening of our energy gradient will be accompanied by a massive simplification of that greatest of dissipative structures—the human enterprise…
> aggressive moves to reduce FF use by even the Paris Climate Agreement’s minimal 45% by 2030, would constitute political (if not societal) suicide in the absence of viable energy alternatives.
Nope, I don’t agree with any of these statements and I don’t think they’re really supported by the recent evidence of the increasing pace of the energy transition.
Single author academic papers are often lacking in breadth of expertise and this one is no exception.
Collapse is underway right now and will accelerate