# Limits to Growth



## Carp614

Did some research this morning and found this material to be particularly disturbing:

Limits to Growth

Worth some consideration I think...


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## AquaHull

Welcome to the jungle


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## Lucky Jim

_"*We must leave oil before it leaves us"- Fatih Birol, Chief Economist EIA, 2008
Peak Oil represents the point in time when roughly half of the ultimate available oil has already been used.
Many scientists and experts believe that we are very close to the peak of conventional oil today. We may have already passed the peak*."_

Yeah last year i researched the question "when will the oil finally run out?" and the consensus of oil industry experts seemed to be "Sometime this century".
Some even said 2010 was the turning point when supply couldn't meet demand for the first time ever, and that oil therefore began running out in 2010 and it's downhill all the way from now on.
But some said it'll not run out for centuries because there are huge untapped reserves still waiting to be discovered. 
And others said scientists will probably create an "oil substitute" anyway which will last forever.

My gut feeling is to go with the industry experts who say the wells will run dry sometime this century which explains the West's obsession with getting Afghan's oil because it'll put off "Dry-day" that little bit longer.
The politicians nightmare is that when it runs out we'll have nothing to make our super-duper tanks, planes and ships go, and will be plunged back into stone age weaponry, right General?

*"Ugh"..*


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## Ripon

Peak Oil gets moved a lot. By that I mean they keep learning there are new supplies here, there,
and damn near everywhere. Its also pretty clear we can make bio fuels if we had too - we prefer to
eat that stuff right now, but if the world were starting to run out of oil the price would skyrocket
and then biofuels would be cheap. 

I equate the "peak oil" claim to that of the global warming crisis.


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## Lucky Jim

We can only squeeze so much oil or anything else out of this tiny globe, and the first sign that politicians are getting worried about dwindling supplies is when they start clamping down on private motorists by raising gasoline prices, heavily taxing new cars, restricting licences, and any other hassles they can think of to force people to give up their cars and switch to public transport or bikes.
No way hozay will they let motorists guzzle it when it's needed for their armies, navies and air forces..


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## Carp614

I see limits related to food availability becoming more of an issue earlier. Look at the 2012 corn crop. Big drought resulted in few exports and much higher commodity prices. For us in the US/1st world it just results in higher prices for now. 

But the billion or so people that don't have enough food now will just get bigger, and they have plenty of weapons and dictators who know how to use them. What happens when we stop paying them to keep quiet?


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## ralfy

"Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse"

Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse | Cathy Alexander and Graham Turner | Comment is free | The Guardian

Four decades of historical data vindicate forecasts made in '72.


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## darsk20

Carp614 said:


> I see limits related to food availability becoming more of an issue earlier. Look at the 2012 corn crop. Big drought resulted in few exports and much higher commodity prices. For us in the US/1st world it just results in higher prices for now.
> 
> But the billion or so people that don't have enough food now will just get bigger, and they have plenty of weapons and dictators who know how to use them. What happens when we stop paying them to keep quiet?


And this is why bio-fuels are not the answer to replacing oil based fuels.


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## Ripon

Collapse is projected by salesman and has always been. A clock is always right twice a day. These salesmen will be someday, but not soon.


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## Disturbed12404

I work for a large industrial transformer manufacturing company, a lot of our units are used in coal power plants and the oil refining plants. Cameron had originally put in a large number of units used to clean the oil last year. But completely backed out of the deal, they're having trouble getting crude oil that needs to be cleaned. 

So what is everyones method of travel post "Dry-day" I will be spending $25 on ammo instead of a gallon of fuel.


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## Spice

Limited resources, still growing population, still growing resource use/waste production per person. That has 'unsustainable' written all over it. I find the 'scientists will come up with something; they always have before' argument exactly as compelling as a guy falling past the fifth floor of a fifty story building, smiling and saying "All right so far!" There are already human populations that crashed spectacularly because (we think) they outgrew their resource bases and their scientists couldn't 'come up with something'.

I'm not enough of an expert to predict timelines, but I'm enough of a biologist to know every population has a carrying capacity.


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## Slippy

I believe that the people who make up the organization (provided by the OP via link) are full of hogwash. But I do concede, as Spice clearly states, that every population has a carrying capacity. There are indeed way too many idiots...er...I mean people... on the Earth. 

So, as the wise man once asked...What's 100 million islamists at the bottom of the ocean?

Answer; A Good Start! Ha!


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## dsdmmat

War is just population control.


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## rice paddy daddy

Slippy said:


> I believe that the people who make up the organization (provided by the OP via link) are full of hogwash. But I do concede, as Spice clearly states, that every population has a carrying capacity. There are indeed way too many idiots...er...I mean people... on the Earth.
> 
> So, as the wise man once asked...What's 100 million islamists at the bottom of the ocean?
> 
> Answer; A Good Start! Ha!


My first impression of that website is this is just New World Order bs put out by the UN and the UN's Agenda 21. The site is probably owned, managed, and maintained by the UN.
Nature has a way of controlling population. Example - mass starvation in over populated Africa. But then man steps in with modern medicine, food supply airlifts, etc and upsets the balance.


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## Slippy

Right you are RPD (As usual)

But to lighten the mood a bit, an oldie but a goodie;


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## Ripon

These folks ignore new finds reported almost annually. 
These folks ignore dramatic efficiency improvements.
And finally they ignore that when the commodity prices rises usage declined seriously.


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## ralfy

Ripon said:


> Collapse is projected by salesman and has always been. A clock is always right twice a day. These salesmen will be someday, but not soon.


Unfortunately, the argument works both ways. That's why it's much better to use evidence.


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## ralfy

Slippy said:


> I believe that the people who make up the organization (provided by the OP via link) are full of hogwash. But I do concede, as Spice clearly states, that every population has a carrying capacity. There are indeed way too many idiots...er...I mean people... on the Earth.
> 
> So, as the wise man once asked...What's 100 million islamists at the bottom of the ocean?
> 
> Answer; A Good Start! Ha!


Actually, that's the main argument of the study.


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## ralfy

rice paddy daddy said:


> My first impression of that website is this is just New World Order bs put out by the UN and the UN's Agenda 21. The site is probably owned, managed, and maintained by the UN.
> Nature has a way of controlling population. Example - mass starvation in over populated Africa. But then man steps in with modern medicine, food supply airlifts, etc and upsets the balance.


Highly unlikely, as the UN is essentially run by the Security Council whose industries are dependent on the opposite.


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## ralfy

Ripon said:


> These folks ignore new finds reported almost annually.
> These folks ignore dramatic efficiency improvements.
> And finally they ignore that when the commodity prices rises usage declined seriously.


Yes, and yet real data still tracks the forecasts.


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## Slippy

So ralfy, cut to the chase...are you some sort of global warming troll?


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## ralfy

Slippy said:


> So ralfy, cut to the chase...are you some sort of global warming troll?


There's no such thing as a global warming troll in a prepper forum. They only show up in "everything is fine" forums.


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## PaulS

As George Carlin says, "The Earth is fine!... it's the people's place on Earth that is in trouble!"
The Earth will get along fine without us - We can't save ourselves, how are we supposed to "save the Earth"?
News FLASH! the hole in the ozone is closing - in spite of third world countries using more Chlorofluorocarbons than were in use in the first world AND the other even more harmful chemicals that have more effect on the ozone than Chlorofluorocarbons ever were!

Maybe it is just one of the Earthly cycles that we know nothing about...


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## ralfy

If historical data continues to track the forecasts, then Carlin is right.


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## PaulS

Historical data hasn't followed the forecast. The North pole ice field was supposed to be gone a couple of years ago. Instead now it is growing again.

These cycles in the ice of the north have been recorded for almost a century. The "North West" passage has opened for a few years and then closes back down due to sea ice. The glaciers in Europe are "melting away" yet there is still more Ice in the Alps than when Hannibal drove his elephants over the Alps in 218 BCE. That should tell you right there that these cycles are natural and not man made.


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## Medic33

well if they are so worried about global this or peak oil that then why in the hell do they still put out cars with crappie gas mileage-I mean come on a hybrid that only gets 35 miles a gallon shit they have had the tech to get 100+ per gallon since what the late 40's on a normal internal combustion engine running of a primitive carburetor set up!!!!!:stick:


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## ralfy

PaulS said:


> Historical data hasn't followed the forecast. The North pole ice field was supposed to be gone a couple of years ago. Instead now it is growing again.
> 
> These cycles in the ice of the north have been recorded for almost a century. The "North West" passage has opened for a few years and then closes back down due to sea ice. The glaciers in Europe are "melting away" yet there is still more Ice in the Alps than when Hannibal drove his elephants over the Alps in 218 BCE. That should tell you right there that these cycles are natural and not man made.


They have. See the link I shared earlier.


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## ralfy

Medic33 said:


> well if they are so worried about global this or peak oil that then why in the hell do they still put out cars with crappie gas mileage-I mean come on a hybrid that only gets 35 miles a gallon shit they have had the tech to get 100+ per gallon since what the late 40's on a normal internal combustion engine running of a primitive carburetor set up!!!!!:stick:


It's part of capitalism, i.e., profit-making and getting returns on investment.

In the same system, greater mileage doesn't lead to less consumption.


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