5 ms·

instead of peak oil this model suggests we are now in peak population? Funny Interesting package. Neat work

by truthwhisperer 5y ago

ausbah 5y ago
maybe it's referring to how the rate of change of population growth is decreasing?
- errcorrectcode 5y ago
  Global population stopped accelerating (had an inflection point, or: the "second derivative" went from a positive to a negative value) in the early 1960's. And so, overall population growth has been slowing ever since. It's difficult to say if or when population will reach a new, lower carrying capacity. It's curious that population growth peaked in most Axis countries before Allied ones in WW2. It would make sense if each country's values were more aligned with others in their faction.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    Another inflection point could arguably be the year in which global fertility levels reach less than replacement level. Technically the global population can keep growing after that point, just by people living longer, but if life expectancy starts reverting to the mean then birth rates will have already past the threshold for decreasing global population. Here's what a recent Economist article says: "The world’s fertility rate, which stood at 3.5 births per woman in the mid-1980s, fell to just 2.4 in 2019. Indeed it is possible, given observed declines in rich-world births during the pandemic, that covid-19 may have pushed the world as a whole within sight of a replacement-level fertility rate, if only temporarily." https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/12/11/why-the-demographic-transition-is-speeding-up https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/12/11/w...
  - truthwhisperer 5y ago
    Yes but on the other hand Hans Rosling described in this book/talks the world population will peak around 2100 with 11 billion people. The models seems to predict differently.. https://fs.blog/hans-rosling-population-growth/ https://fs.blog/hans-rosling-population-growth/
pugworthy 5y ago
> Funny Can you extrapolate on what you mean by this?
- truthwhisperer 5y ago
  Yes, sure. Funny because people like Hans Rosling (mentioned above) predicted that we would reach "peak population" around the end of this century with approx. 11 billion people. This models suggests quite a different outcome. Not marginally but drastically. Interesting to see (interesting was maybe better to have said) where the differences lie but Rosling has already been mentioned above.
jeffparsons 5y ago
You may enjoy this TED talk about the global population leveling off: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies/transcript https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies/... It's where I first heard the term "peak child" or "peak baby" to describe this.
shoo 5y ago
Other important state variables in the model are the stocks of "non renewable resources" and "pollution". From memory I believe one of the ideas in the world model is that over time, as existing stocks of non-renewables are consumed, the remaining stocks of non-renewable resources become more expensive for society to access. E.g. EROI [1] for fossil fuel deposits decreasing. Similarly when mining ore, if the richer ore deposits have all being exhausted, then only lower-grade ore remains, so maybe you need to expend more energy blasting and moving 2x or 3x as much rock as a few decades ago to obtain the same output of metal. So the idea is that at some point it starts to become more and more expensive -- in terms of the energy input required -- to produce resources that society requires to exist in a steady-state, let alone to continue to fuel growth of the physical economy. Similarly for pollution -- e.g. for global warming you can regard the atmosphere as a stock where you can store some finite amount of CO_2 pollution before it really starts creating a mess. Once there isn't much stock of cheap CO_2 pollution storage capacity remaining in the atmosphere, you have to start figuring out something else to do, which consumes more energy. The increasing energy costs of extracting enough non-renewables and dealing with pollution to fuel society leaves less energy for everything else. At some point the energy required for industrial output grows to the extent that there is no longer sufficient energy left for services such as healthcare, education, etc. Therefore the quality of healthcare and education falls off. That has consequences for the human population. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment
- bencollier49 5y ago
  Yes. Checking this via various sources online shows that the predictions are that capital intensity will reach 50% of all investment by 2020, at which point the collapse begins. https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2763500/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/00...
- TrispusAttucks 5y ago
  You're right on. People often think peak oil means no more oil. Really it just means it's no longer energy positive investment. [1] The EROI for fossil fuels has decreased as the availability of oil, coal, gas has reduced and the cost of production increased. Fracking for oil or gas (as has been done in Taranaki for years) is expensive and polluting. Extracting oil from the tar sands in northern Canada is a similarly destructive process. So, what was an EROI of 100:1 last century is now sometimes little more than 10:1. [1] https://www.newsroom.co.nz/why-hydrogen-is-not-a-cure-for-emissions https://www.newsroom.co.nz/why-hydrogen-is-not-a-cure-for-em...

instead of peak oil this model suggests we are now in peak population? Funny Interesting package. Neat work

ausbah 5y ago

maybe it's referring to how the rate of change of population growth is decreasing?

errcorrectcode 5y ago
Global population stopped accelerating (had an inflection point, or: the "second derivative" went from a positive to a negative value) in the early 1960's. And so, overall population growth has been slowing ever since. It's difficult to say if or when population will reach a new, lower carrying capacity. It's curious that population growth peaked in most Axis countries before Allied ones in WW2. It would make sense if each country's values were more aligned with others in their faction.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Another inflection point could arguably be the year in which global fertility levels reach less than replacement level. Technically the global population can keep growing after that point, just by people living longer, but if life expectancy starts reverting to the mean then birth rates will have already past the threshold for decreasing global population. Here's what a recent Economist article says: "The world’s fertility rate, which stood at 3.5 births per woman in the mid-1980s, fell to just 2.4 in 2019. Indeed it is possible, given observed declines in rich-world births during the pandemic, that covid-19 may have pushed the world as a whole within sight of a replacement-level fertility rate, if only temporarily." https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/12/11/why-the-demographic-transition-is-speeding-up https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/12/11/w...
- truthwhisperer 5y ago
  Yes but on the other hand Hans Rosling described in this book/talks the world population will peak around 2100 with 11 billion people. The models seems to predict differently.. https://fs.blog/hans-rosling-population-growth/ https://fs.blog/hans-rosling-population-growth/

pugworthy 5y ago

> Funny Can you extrapolate on what you mean by this?

truthwhisperer 5y ago
Yes, sure. Funny because people like Hans Rosling (mentioned above) predicted that we would reach "peak population" around the end of this century with approx. 11 billion people. This models suggests quite a different outcome. Not marginally but drastically. Interesting to see (interesting was maybe better to have said) where the differences lie but Rosling has already been mentioned above.

jeffparsons 5y ago

You may enjoy this TED talk about the global population leveling off: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies/transcript https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies/... It's where I first heard the term "peak child" or "peak baby" to describe this.

shoo 5y ago

Other important state variables in the model are the stocks of "non renewable resources" and "pollution". From memory I believe one of the ideas in the world model is that over time, as existing stocks of non-renewables are consumed, the remaining stocks of non-renewable resources become more expensive for society to access. E.g. EROI [1] for fossil fuel deposits decreasing. Similarly when mining ore, if the richer ore deposits have all being exhausted, then only lower-grade ore remains, so maybe you need to expend more energy blasting and moving 2x or 3x as much rock as a few decades ago to obtain the same output of metal. So the idea is that at some point it starts to become more and more expensive -- in terms of the energy input required -- to produce resources that society requires to exist in a steady-state, let alone to continue to fuel growth of the physical economy. Similarly for pollution -- e.g. for global warming you can regard the atmosphere as a stock where you can store some finite amount of CO_2 pollution before it really starts creating a mess. Once there isn't much stock of cheap CO_2 pollution storage capacity remaining in the atmosphere, you have to start figuring out something else to do, which consumes more energy. The increasing energy costs of extracting enough non-renewables and dealing with pollution to fuel society leaves less energy for everything else. At some point the energy required for industrial output grows to the extent that there is no longer sufficient energy left for services such as healthcare, education, etc. Therefore the quality of healthcare and education falls off. That has consequences for the human population. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment

bencollier49 5y ago
Yes. Checking this via various sources online shows that the predictions are that capital intensity will reach 50% of all investment by 2020, at which point the collapse begins. https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2763500/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/00...
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
You're right on. People often think peak oil means no more oil. Really it just means it's no longer energy positive investment. [1] The EROI for fossil fuels has decreased as the availability of oil, coal, gas has reduced and the cost of production increased. Fracking for oil or gas (as has been done in Taranaki for years) is expensive and polluting. Extracting oil from the tar sands in northern Canada is a similarly destructive process. So, what was an EROI of 100:1 last century is now sometimes little more than 10:1. [1] https://www.newsroom.co.nz/why-hydrogen-is-not-a-cure-for-emissions https://www.newsroom.co.nz/why-hydrogen-is-not-a-cure-for-em...