The Myth That Malthus was Wrong

There is a widely accepted idea that we are NOT subject to Malthus'
notion that populations, including human populations, always
increase until reaching some limit where the available resources
won't sustain them. When that time comes there will be famine, or
other disaster, and the population will be greatly reduced.

But the truth is that it has happened many times in human history,
in many parts of the world. I was reminded of this recently when
watching a History Channel show about Europe's "Little Ice Age".
This occurred in the 14th century. Prior to that there had been 300
years of generally good weather in Europe. This led to excellent
crop yields, and also to expanding agriculture northward. This
greater food production had allowed the population to expand to
numbers never seen before in Europe. In the 14th century, when the
weather turned colder, and with long periods of heavy rain, food
production declined. This led, as was inevitable, to malnutrition
among a large fraction of the population, and that in turn led to
epidemics of diseases, which killed large numbers of people.
Europe's population was significantly reduced.

There is an excellent book, "Collapse", by Jared Diamond, which
describes similar events in many different parts of the world, and
at different times in history. So it is something the human race is
quite familiar with, although those living today in the World's most
powerful countries are not.

There is every reason to think that this will happen again. There is
a difference, though, when compared with past Malthusian
catastrophes, and that is the scale of globalization and
international interdependence. All of these events in the past were
local in nature, although some of them affected large regions.
Today, the world is functioning as an entity, at least in economic
matters. Very few, if any, nations are self-sufficient. The U.S. for
example, needs oil from abroad in order to grow the food which
sustains us. We need the energy in oil both for production of
chemical fertilizer and for transporting the food throughout the
country.

Our technology has allowed us to expand yields by the use of
chemical fertilizer, and the development of new strains of plants
which can exploit that better than older varieties. But our
technology is useless against floods, droughts, storms, changes in
cloud cover, and temperature changes.

There will be disaster. The only way it can be avoided is to stop
the growth of the human population. But humans like making babies,
so we are not likely to do it on our own. It will take disaster to
do it for us.

I didn't say anything about WHEN there would be disaster. The good
news is that it won't be this year, or next, or any time very soon. The
bad news is that it will probably be in your lifetime, if you're under 50
years of age.

m

I'm Expanding My Subject Matter.

And the revised blog title is meant to show that. I don't have much more to say about the environment, and saving the biosphere. I still hope that it will be preserved, at least to some extent, but I'm not optimistic. As a blog writer, there are lots of topics that I'm likely to write about. I have opinions on the current political situation, on the nature of reality, on economics and investing, and various other topics. I can't predict when I'll be moved to actually write an article.

Poking around in my hard drive, I found this list of stuff I think I know something about:

health & fitness
computer science fundamentals
investments
evolution
The Natural World
meditation
alternate zeitgests (philosophy)
Science & technology
Go (the board game)
Age of Empires (PC game)
effective living (does your life function well?)
History of the world, including humans
Alternate lifestyles
Zen

That list is in no particular order. I might write about any of those topics, but there are plenty of others also. In my long life I've done a lot of things, been to a lot of places. Mostly, I paid attention, and learned stuff. I have also sought out people who seemed to know something I didn't, and tried to learn from them. And I've read quite a few books along the way. There's been formal education also; I have a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from UCSD.

Clearly, I don't always feel bound by that old rule that says: a writer should not keep saying "I"! (But you won't find so much of that in the rest of the articles that I've written, or will write in the future.)

If you, dear reader, would like me to write about a particular topic, by all means please let me know! You can either post a comment to this article, below, or send me an email, to ze_zenguy@yahoo.com. I really prefer to write a message TO someone, rather than simply write for an unknown audience.

m

Earthchurch Needs a New Leader

Earthchurch is dormant, and has been for about a year. It still
exists, in the form of the website and the email list. There are still
27 people subscribed to the discussion list, but no discussions are
happening. There is also a small announcement list, but it's been a
long time since the last announcement. There are also archives of the
discussions that we had in the past. These are here:
http://lists.earthchurch.net/pipermail/discuss-earthchurch.net/

Of course I could simply abandon it, but everytime I read the
introduction on the website, about our fantastic planet, I always feel
this organization is needed. I think it's too potentially important to
abandon.

But I'm not the person for the job. Someone is needed who has more
energy than me, and who is more naturally sociable and charismatic.
Mainly, someone who will keep pushing and not give up. The truth is
that I'm old and tired and dispirited. I'm not optimistic about our
planet's future. (Of course I mean the biosphere; I'm not worried
about the rock and sand.)

So my plan is simply to be a caretaker until our new leader appears.

Nominations are welcome.

m

It's so hard to form new habits!

I don't know if any of you guys ever deliberately form new habits. I
have done it many times. The latest one that I've been working on for
over a year (!) is to take my canvas shopping bags from my car into
the grocery store. A cupla years ago, before I realized that the
natural world was doomed, I bought a couple of canvas grocery bags.
My initial motivation was to help reduce the plastic bag count on our
planet's surface. After using them a cupla times I found that they
are much better bags than the plastic ones. They have better handles
that are easier to find and don't hurt your hands. Plus, when loaded,
you can set them down and they stay upright. That even works when you are also loaded!

But after you get home and put away the stuff, you have to get the
bags back to the car for the next trip. That has not been a serious
problem because I hang the empty bags on the doorknob. That way, I
can't leave the house without seeing them, so I take them out to the
car with me. But, they tend to stay in the car! :(

One must develop the habit of taking them from the car into the
grocery store. I forget to do this about half the time. Sometimes
I don't realize it until I'm in the checkout line; then it's too late
to do anything. But often I will realize it when I'm in the middle of
shopping. Many times I have quickly left the store, gone quickly to
my car, and brought the bags into the store. I do this in an effort
to train myself. I'm amazed at how long it has taken, and I'm still
not trained! Perhaps this particular habit is difficult to form
because I only shop about twice a week. Also, exiting the car is
something one does frequently for various reasons, not just to go
grocery shopping. Besides, I have been buying groceries for fifty
years, using the store bags.

Hopefully, writing this may increase my awareness of this issue, and
lead me to finally have this new habit!

m

Denial and Motivation and the Future of the Planet

As you probably know, denial is a common human phenomenon. People commonly avoid thinking about behavior that they repeat to their own disadvantage. Sometimes individuals grow enough to overcome the denial and change the behavior. A key to this is motivation. The source of the motivation is the hope that confronting the behavior will lead to some improvements in one's life. It is commonly accepted that without motivation there will be no change in the behavior, nor in the denial.

Now, zooming out to the big picture, we see that the behavior of most humans is causing the slow destruction of the biological earth. Furthermore, denial is in full bloom. Most humans avoid the awareness of this. Now, what's their motivation to become aware? Unfortunately, if an individual becomes aware of the phenomenon, it
does not make his life any better. If anything, it may make him/her
less happy, or more depressed, as the case may be. It does not help
the planet to any significant degree either; that would take
collective action by billions, or at least by their thousands of
leaders.

This is not a new phenomenon; it was given a name long ago: "The
Tragedy of the Commons". Originally, it applied to a local situation,
such as a common area used for grazing. But now it applies to the
biological earth.

m

Click for Earthchurch website.

Making Electric Cars Practical, by Jim Hasper, Guest Blogger

I feel that the only way to significantly reduce CO 2 emissions is to completely stop burning fossil fuels. The way to do this is to move to a total electric and hydrogen fuel economy. As a registered professional engineer who has worked extensively with industrial furnaces, I can tell you that there are very, very, few industrial processes that absolutely require the burning of fossil fuel. Most could be served by electric heating. Those that absolutely require combustion could use hydrogen as a fuel. The hydrogen, in turn, could be produced through the electrolysis of water. Facilities for doing this could be located in proximity to major users, so long distance transportation of the hydrogen would not be necessary. That leaves only the industries that use fossil fuels as a feed stock for producing materials such as plastics and lubricants. Even here, the actual processing could be done with electricity or hydrogen, so that the fossil fuels would not have to be burned.

Of course, generating this much electricity would be a problem. Even now, coal fired plants produce most of the electricity and also produce a large portion, if not most, of the CO 2. Converting to wind, water, or solar power are the ultimate answers, but these will require a long time to develop sufficient capacity to entirely replace coal. As an interim measure, I support using nuclear power. These plants could be built relatively rapidly and would greatly reduce the CO 2 emissions. Air pollution from these is far, far, less than from coal fired plants. As far as the hazardous waste, the physical amounts are relatively small and I'm sure that means could be developed, given the will, to safely handle them.

Automobiles are another major source of CO 2 emissions. Even hybrid vehicles still emit sizeable amounts of CO 2. Again the answer is the use of all-electric vehicles. Motor and battery designs have improved to the point that an all-electric vehicle is or soon will be feasible. One of the drawbacks, however, is the time needed to recharge the battery.

I have an idea that would eliminate this problem. My idea is very simple - design the vehicle with an easy-to-remove battery pack and encourage all manufacturers to use a common design for this component. Different sizes would be needed for the various types of vehicles, but all vehicles of the same type should use a common design. When the battery needs to be recharged, the user will drive into (or land at) a filling station, where his discharged battery will be removed and replaced with a freshly charged one. The design would permit this to be done in less than a minute - open the access door, release the clamping mechanism, and slide the discharged battery out. Repeat the procedure to install the freshly charged battery. The handling mechanism for the batteries would permit this to be done with a minimum of manual labor.

The user would pay only for the electricity stored in the freshly charged battery, not for the battery itself. He would also receive credit for any electricity remaining in a partially-discharged battery. The program would work similar to that used for the sale of propane for grills. - you initially buy just one tank, then just drop it off at the suppliers store when empty and pick up a filled one, paying only for the propane in the tank.

The vending company would stock a supply of the various sizes (probably only a few needed) of batteries. Batteries would eventually become un-rechargeable, but the replacement cost would be born by the vendor and would be recouped over time as a small portion of the cost for a freshly-charged battery, again similar to the cost of eventually replacing a propane tank. Batteries that were obviously damaged, as in a collision, would not be accepted for trade.

How would the needed network of such stations be developed? Either by some ambitious entrepreneur or in the same way that the network of gasoline stations was developed after the invention of the automobile. General stores first carried small quantities of gasoline for the few cars in existence. As the cars become more common, specialized filling stations developed. As entrepreneurs discovered that filling stations were profitable, more and more stations were developed. Eventually, the oil companies discovered that there was additional money to be made in retailing the fuel that they formerly only wholesaled, and began building their own stations and buying up the privately owned ones. The rest is history, as they say.

I began writing about this in April of this year. Just a week ago, I heard that Shai Agassi, the former head of the product and technology group at SAP, the business software developer, is planning to do exactly this. Not that I'm claiming any credit for his idea, but I am very pleased to see that someone is getting serious about this.

Click for Earthchurch website.

Diversity Within Earthchurch

I'm only talking about diversity of ecological footprints. Let's call them EF's for short. A person's EF is the total of all of his impacts on the biosphere. For example, when you sit in your warm home in the winter, there is some fuel being burned to generate the heat. The burning of the fuel puts some contaminants into the air. And so on. Our EF is a composite of many things. Automobile and aircraft use are important components, but so are many things that we don't even see, such as the diesel powered ships that transport the goods from China. When you buy a nice shirt that was made in China or Indonesia, some pollution was enabled, since a diesel ship and then a truck was used to bring it to you. Of course there was energy used to manufacture the shirt, and the cloth from which it was made. Laundry, especially the drying, also uses a lot of energy.

Within our Earthchurch group we have a wide diversity of ecological footprints. In my opinion we need to welcome them all. We have two people who have a very low EF. They have a lifestyle based on walking and bicycling, and a minimum of purchasing new things. Jay wrote about that when we were discussing saving money and helping the planet. At the other end we have some members who have a high EF lifestyle, living in large homes, putting lots of miles on large vehicles, taking a couple of plane trips each year, and buying lots of stuff. The rest of us are spread across the EF spectrum. My own EF is in the middle, perhaps a little less than the north American average. That's mostly because I'm retired and don't drive to work every day. I own a small car, but I also walk and bicycle quite a bit. I don't buy a lot of stuff. I haven't flown since April of 2001, but that's because it's become such a hassle. I hate waiting in lines. Also, I like it where I am.

We need members all across the EF spectrum. Our long term goal is to help change the mind set of many millions of people, worldwide. That's what it will take to rescue the biosphere. If we were to restrict our membership to those who are already living a low EF life, we would fail in that endeavor. The high EF people represent the mainstream, at least in north America. Furthermore, the high EF people typically are more influential than the low EF people. Our
community leaders, of all kinds, are almost always very high EF people. This is true worldwide. An extreme example is Al Gore. He has brought his ecological message to more people than perhaps anyone, and he also lives a very high EF lifestyle.

There is no possible way that we can convince millions of people to quickly shift from a high to a low EF lifestyle. They LIKE their high EF lifestyle. So we need to take a long term approach, and hope to change things over the next decade or two, or three. The low EF people serve as an example, perhaps a model, for the direction that human beings need to move. Our members who are currently high EF can also take a long term view, and look toward lowering their
EF gradually, over the coming decades. Perhaps they will buy a small car next time. Perhaps they will install a solar water heating system. Given a long term viewpoint, there are many things they can do.

m

Click for Earthchurch website.