Some light reading
This report, by Professor François Cellier of the Institute of Computational Science of ETH Zurich, Switzerland, is simply one of the best things about energy/sustainability that I’ve read in a long time. It succinctly lays out some of the big issues that societies will have to face as they make (or are forced to make) decisions concerning future development.
The picture it paints is one that will be very unappealing to many, of course. Being a model-driven analysis, it is only as good as its underlying assumptions, but even given a broad tolerance for error, the possibility of enjoying a future as abundant as ours is right now appears dim indeed.
Some choice quotes follow.
On sustainability and quality of life:
In order for the inhabitants of planet Earth to lead a decent life without taxing the resources of the planet in an unsustainable fashion, each nation should consume less than the 1.8 hectares per capita of the ecological footprint available, while being granted an HDI [Human Development Index] of 0.8 or better. Hence all nations should strive to have their “dots” move to the orange box in the lower right corner of the graph.
Currently, there is only one nation that has its dot inside the orange box. That nation happens to be Cuba. In order to move towards a sustainable world, we all must become not Berliners, but Cubans.
“Unfortunately,” Cellier writes, “expansion is in our genes.”
On the problems of exponential growth and market forces:
We can rely on our business managers and politicians to fix the exponential growth problem as much as we can rely on junkies to fix the drug abuse problem.
and
Since market forces always optimize with a short time horizon of two years or less, our politicians and business managers will invariably embrace the blue or red scenarios [models that maximize short-term gains while neglecting the stewardship of existing resources], and consequently, we are meeting our demise with our eyes wide shut.
On population collapse
In order to get an annual excess death rate of 3% [the attrition rate that would achieve a “sustainable” population of approximately 1 billion people] or “better,” we would need, on a global scale, a situation that is worse than that of current-day Iraq [150,000 war deaths/year] by a factor of six, and we would need to maintain these conditions for 50 years in a row.
This is not a cheery subject. But it’s well worth the read.
