6 ms·

Alex Epstien, who is widely despised, has written, in _The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels_ that to withhold cheap abundant energy, and the technology it enables, f

by grb423 10y ago

Alex Epstien, who is widely despised, has written, in _The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels_ that to withhold cheap abundant energy, and the technology it enables, from the world's emerging populations is immoral and fundamentally anti-human. Supported by people who think this Earth would be a much better place if Man never set his filthy foot upon it.

hasbroslasher 10y ago
I don't see what good being pro-human would do in this scenario - either those in the (future) developing world drown as global sea levels rise and traditional agriculture flounders under new climatic conditions (and in greater numbers), or they're unable to do so due to a lack of resources that enable food transit etc. Where does this illusion that we can just infinitely increase the world's population through reliance on technology come from? It's clearly untrue today, much less 50 years in the future.
- tptacek 10y ago
  This is such an obviously ahistorical sentiment it's hard to know where to start in rebutting it, but its discredited name might be a good place to start: Malthusianism.
  - danbruc 10y ago
    Population growth on the order of what we had since about 1750 - 0.5 % per year or above - is unsustainable in relatively short time. That really is not worth discussing, it is a matter of fact. But as I understand the comment the point is more that by burning more fossile fuels we would trade a benefit now for more issues in the future. Sure, it would be nice to have more energy at our disposal right now, but we know that burning fossile fuels causes problems in the future. Doing it anyway and hoping that future generations will find a way to deal with the consequences of our actions seems to me shortsighted and reckless at the very least.
    - nickik 10y ago
      I think an argument that can beade that not restricting emergin nations from using fossil fuel would allow them to grow faster and we know that when society grows more wealthy we automatically have more kids. If you are conserned that their are to many people, then faster growth is the best solution. The question is one of degree. We know it can be bad, but its highly variable. For some it is good as well. The longer timeframe you are talking about the more unknowns their are. So a moderate policy of supporting alternatives and restricting the most harful stuff is not a bad strategy.
      - danbruc 10y ago
        I think an argument that can beade that not restricting emergin nations from using fossil fuel would allow them to grow faster and we know that when society grows more wealthy we automatically have more kids. I assume you mean less children, right? More wealth means less children but only up to a certain point, after that the trend reverses and even more wealth means more children again. [1] I did not check the numbers but I will give the author the benefit of doubt. It certainly makes intuitive sense that more wealth gives you the opportunity to have the luxury of more children. It is actually harder to understand the initial decline because it is not obvious that having more children when you are less wealthy is a good thing. Maybe it is just a indirect effect because of less education and human development in general but I discussed this before and am not sure of the best way to think about it, especially because of arguments like having many children is a substitute for other social security system in less wealthy societies which implies that it is not really an indirect effect. But setting this aside and assuming that the observed pattern does not radically change in the future, then more wealth will not stop population growth but at best slow it down somewhat and the extend of that depends on where the countries finally end up. But it gets worse, not only does increasing wealth not reduce population growth in the long term, it also increases energy consumption per capita. [2] So increasing wealth gives us more people, which is not good, and higher energy consumption, which is also not good unless it is clean energy. And there is another aspect - India adds 5 times as many people to the world population per year as the USA. But the energy consumption per capita in the USA is so large that the USA nonetheless adds more than twice the additional energy consumption of India per year. [3] While population growth is a serious problem - a constant 1 % population growth per year will definitely kill every human on Earth within 1400 years - it just won't happen. If there are to many people, they will just die, either starve or get killed in resource wars. The problem will solve itself although I would much prefer that we proactively ensured that population growth will not be stopped by some disaster. But the more pressing issue is the climate change due to our energy consumption and the way we produce it. We probably can not solve that problem by simply killing enough people. Therefore population growth is at least currently only an issue insofar as it contributes to the increase in energy consumption and trying to reduce population growth by increasing wealth and energy consumption is pretty likely counterproductive for both issues. But admittedly the exact outcome is not so easy to predict. If countries would stay at the point where the trend in [1] reverses for a long time, then we could get reduced population growth or even a population decline without further increase in energy consumption per capita and the former might offset the later depending on the pace of the increase in wealth. But I do not see what kind of policy could keep countries there, one would essentially have to stop the further development of countries when the trend reverses. And here is the blog [4] I took the graphs from. [1] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/grow-ppp.png http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/... [2] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/tpes-ppp.png http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/... [3] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/enadd-added1.png http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/... [4] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-population-problem/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-populat...
  - Zigurd 10y ago
    We have not yet outlived the Club of Rome's projections. Globally, oil consumption continues to increase as if renewables did not exist. We live inside the OECD bubble where oil consumption is declining, and that's not the global trend. There are some rays of hope in the form of population stabilization. But whether we're screwed or not depends quite a bit on what the number is: Is it 9 billion, or 15 billion? Are we already so far past long term sustainability ? Are we screwed due to climate change? Maybe we'll be eating and burning stuff made in vats by CRISPR-ized algae and 15 billion will be OK, if by "OK" you mean everyone eats, just don't look to hard at the environmental degradation. But without some breakthroughs things could get rather tight.
    - nickik 10y ago
      Population growth levels of as people get richer. If China or India get their global population will level of dramatically. Yes consumtion is still growing but the alternatives are there and could easly be scaled up. Sure price of energy would increase somewhat and that might lead to a small stagnation in living standerds. Nothing to worrying. Food production can also be scaled, their is tons of potential land, changes in mode of production and thats even before we get into the more extrem options. Such a small part of the global economy is food production, and I see very little reason why it cpuld not triple without living standerds going down. Even if the go down, because of general development, they should still rise on avg.
droopyEyelids 10y ago
What if that energy has a 10% chance to destroy humanity's reserves of fresh water?
- brucefancher 10y ago
  What if aliens show up tomorrow and blow the planet up? There's no evidence for that happening either, but as long as we're pulling scenarios out of our asses, I like mine better.
- khattam 10y ago
  Yeah, one of the main issues is clean drinking water. A third of the world is facing consequences of lack of clean drinking water. Energy from fossil fuels can be used to purify water. This is one of the main arguments for fossil fuels in the book.
tremon 10y ago
to withhold cheap abundant energy, and the technology it enables, from the world's emerging populations is immoral In what worldview is Germany among "the world's emerging populations"?
- nickik 10y ago
  I think the point is that increases in production wouldake fuel cheaper fpr everybody, not that germany is an emerging population.

by grb423 10y ago

hasbroslasher 10y ago

I don't see what good being pro-human would do in this scenario - either those in the (future) developing world drown as global sea levels rise and traditional agriculture flounders under new climatic conditions (and in greater numbers), or they're unable to do so due to a lack of resources that enable food transit etc. Where does this illusion that we can just infinitely increase the world's population through reliance on technology come from? It's clearly untrue today, much less 50 years in the future.

tptacek 10y ago
This is such an obviously ahistorical sentiment it's hard to know where to start in rebutting it, but its discredited name might be a good place to start: Malthusianism.
- danbruc 10y ago
  Population growth on the order of what we had since about 1750 - 0.5 % per year or above - is unsustainable in relatively short time. That really is not worth discussing, it is a matter of fact. But as I understand the comment the point is more that by burning more fossile fuels we would trade a benefit now for more issues in the future. Sure, it would be nice to have more energy at our disposal right now, but we know that burning fossile fuels causes problems in the future. Doing it anyway and hoping that future generations will find a way to deal with the consequences of our actions seems to me shortsighted and reckless at the very least.
  - nickik 10y ago
    I think an argument that can beade that not restricting emergin nations from using fossil fuel would allow them to grow faster and we know that when society grows more wealthy we automatically have more kids. If you are conserned that their are to many people, then faster growth is the best solution. The question is one of degree. We know it can be bad, but its highly variable. For some it is good as well. The longer timeframe you are talking about the more unknowns their are. So a moderate policy of supporting alternatives and restricting the most harful stuff is not a bad strategy.
    - danbruc 10y ago
      I think an argument that can beade that not restricting emergin nations from using fossil fuel would allow them to grow faster and we know that when society grows more wealthy we automatically have more kids. I assume you mean less children, right? More wealth means less children but only up to a certain point, after that the trend reverses and even more wealth means more children again. [1] I did not check the numbers but I will give the author the benefit of doubt. It certainly makes intuitive sense that more wealth gives you the opportunity to have the luxury of more children. It is actually harder to understand the initial decline because it is not obvious that having more children when you are less wealthy is a good thing. Maybe it is just a indirect effect because of less education and human development in general but I discussed this before and am not sure of the best way to think about it, especially because of arguments like having many children is a substitute for other social security system in less wealthy societies which implies that it is not really an indirect effect. But setting this aside and assuming that the observed pattern does not radically change in the future, then more wealth will not stop population growth but at best slow it down somewhat and the extend of that depends on where the countries finally end up. But it gets worse, not only does increasing wealth not reduce population growth in the long term, it also increases energy consumption per capita. [2] So increasing wealth gives us more people, which is not good, and higher energy consumption, which is also not good unless it is clean energy. And there is another aspect - India adds 5 times as many people to the world population per year as the USA. But the energy consumption per capita in the USA is so large that the USA nonetheless adds more than twice the additional energy consumption of India per year. [3] While population growth is a serious problem - a constant 1 % population growth per year will definitely kill every human on Earth within 1400 years - it just won't happen. If there are to many people, they will just die, either starve or get killed in resource wars. The problem will solve itself although I would much prefer that we proactively ensured that population growth will not be stopped by some disaster. But the more pressing issue is the climate change due to our energy consumption and the way we produce it. We probably can not solve that problem by simply killing enough people. Therefore population growth is at least currently only an issue insofar as it contributes to the increase in energy consumption and trying to reduce population growth by increasing wealth and energy consumption is pretty likely counterproductive for both issues. But admittedly the exact outcome is not so easy to predict. If countries would stay at the point where the trend in [1] reverses for a long time, then we could get reduced population growth or even a population decline without further increase in energy consumption per capita and the former might offset the later depending on the pace of the increase in wealth. But I do not see what kind of policy could keep countries there, one would essentially have to stop the further development of countries when the trend reverses. And here is the blog [4] I took the graphs from. [1] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/grow-ppp.png http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/... [2] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/tpes-ppp.png http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/... [3] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/enadd-added1.png http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2013/... [4] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-population-problem/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-populat...
- Zigurd 10y ago
  We have not yet outlived the Club of Rome's projections. Globally, oil consumption continues to increase as if renewables did not exist. We live inside the OECD bubble where oil consumption is declining, and that's not the global trend. There are some rays of hope in the form of population stabilization. But whether we're screwed or not depends quite a bit on what the number is: Is it 9 billion, or 15 billion? Are we already so far past long term sustainability ? Are we screwed due to climate change? Maybe we'll be eating and burning stuff made in vats by CRISPR-ized algae and 15 billion will be OK, if by "OK" you mean everyone eats, just don't look to hard at the environmental degradation. But without some breakthroughs things could get rather tight.
  - nickik 10y ago
    Population growth levels of as people get richer. If China or India get their global population will level of dramatically. Yes consumtion is still growing but the alternatives are there and could easly be scaled up. Sure price of energy would increase somewhat and that might lead to a small stagnation in living standerds. Nothing to worrying. Food production can also be scaled, their is tons of potential land, changes in mode of production and thats even before we get into the more extrem options. Such a small part of the global economy is food production, and I see very little reason why it cpuld not triple without living standerds going down. Even if the go down, because of general development, they should still rise on avg.

droopyEyelids 10y ago

What if that energy has a 10% chance to destroy humanity's reserves of fresh water?

brucefancher 10y ago
What if aliens show up tomorrow and blow the planet up? There's no evidence for that happening either, but as long as we're pulling scenarios out of our asses, I like mine better.
khattam 10y ago
Yeah, one of the main issues is clean drinking water. A third of the world is facing consequences of lack of clean drinking water. Energy from fossil fuels can be used to purify water. This is one of the main arguments for fossil fuels in the book.

tremon 10y ago

to withhold cheap abundant energy, and the technology it enables, from the world's emerging populations is immoral In what worldview is Germany among "the world's emerging populations"?

nickik 10y ago
I think the point is that increases in production wouldake fuel cheaper fpr everybody, not that germany is an emerging population.