Energy Policy
Arithmetic, Population and Energy, Part 2
For the
love of the human race.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Our Thesis
We believe that Dr. Bartlett’s work is unfinished: it must
be continued; newer, creative solutions, which may not have been apparent a few
years ago, when Dr. Bartlett did his primary investigations, need to be uncovered. The single human mind is always limited in
its abilities: this work needs the contribution of every mind. New solutions must be found.
Arithmetic, Population and Energy, Part 2
http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_video1.html Better results were achieved by playing the
video clip directly from this site, rather than by linking through
YouTube. Click on the arrow in the
middle of the picture, rather than on the black bar at the top. This is Part 2.
The
problem of inflation.
An inflation rate of 7% per year yields a precise doubling
time of 10.24 years, and a rule of 70 estimate of only 10 years. This means that the dollar in your pocket
will be worth fifty cents in ten years.
If your dollar is invested in a savings account at the bank
at 2% interest, it will be worth two dollars at future face value in 35
years. However, in real dollars, your
savings dollar will only be worth twenty-five cents in twenty-eight years, and
roughly fifteen cents in thirty-five years.
So, don’t save your money; instead, carefully purchase
quality durable goods as you can pay cash for them. Get that gall bladder surgery today. The suit, however, is a bad investment,
because it will either wear out or grow out of style too quickly.
You can see that investment in the face of inflation is a
difficult problem with which to cope. It
is made more difficult when we consider that almost all investments operate
from a Dutch Book. Worse yet, many of
them are outright frauds, such as Bunko or Ponzi Schemes. Gambling is often safer, because the bookie
or casino usually won’t mind telling you what their cut is. In the world of investments the cut
frequently exists in multiple hidden fees of possibly 40% or more. Between these hidden fees and taxes, you will
be lucky if you clear 4%, which will put your buck at two dollars future face
value in 17.5 years: but it will only be worth a little more than fifty cents.
The
problem of population.
Dr. Bartlett suggests that overpopulation is a problem. He may be on to something here. Population growth at 1.3% per year yields a
precise doubling time of 53.66 years, and a rule of 70 estimate of 53 years,
provided that we round down to err on the safe side. Population growth at 1.7% per year yields a
precise doubling time of 41.12 years, and a rule of 70 estimate of 41 years. His observations are well taken. The population glut along the I-25 corridor,
fondly known as Little Silicon Valley, has transformed the landscape from a
pleasant quiet ranching community, into a seething ugly monster.
He discusses options that increase population, options that
decrease population, and notes that nature will chose from the right hand list,
if we do not.
From a Christian standpoint, the key Bible passages on the
subject are found in Genesis. The
following Bible passages are often called the cultural mandate.
And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, the cattle,
all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image
of God, He created him; He created them male and female. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be
fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of
the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves on earth.”[1]
Because of the expression “fill” or “replenish” many
Christians, not just Roman Catholics, are reluctant to limit their family size:
thus telling God how and when they will submit to His command. That being said, perhaps it is a fair
question to ask, When will the earth be filled?
With this in mind we have completed a population study to attempt to
evaluate the saturation density of population.
Our population data showed a current world population of 7
billion, 162 million people, and a United States population of 317 million
people. Of course these numbers change
every day, so we arbitrarily froze the numbers at what we hope are reasonable values:
but in a year or so, they will be hopelessly out of date. These are numbers you should look up for
yourself.
The world has over 4 billion acres under cultivation, and
another 10 billion acres in fixed crops, such as forests, fruit trees, bushes,
etc.: an aggregate in excess of 14 billion acres of useable land worldwide. The United States has over 1 billion acres of
useable land. Again, these are numbers
where you will profit most by doing your own research
Dividing the usable acres by the population yields the
number of acres per person: the world average is 2.01 acres per person; the United
States, 3.67; India, 0.45; China, 0.66; Russia, 16.04; Brazil, 7.49. We collected data for nearly every country imaginable.
The reasonable question now becomes, Can a family of four
live comfortable, healthy lives on 8 acres, or 14 acres? Since families are already living in India
and China on around 2 acres per family of four, mostly without the benefit of
fossil fuels, perhaps we should investigate their health and welfare to get a
better picture. However, families living
in colder climes cannot get by on 2 acres, because they have lost the soil
fertility, have limited growing seasons, have more or less precipitation, etc. The difference between one crop per year and
four crops per year makes an obvious difference that must be considered. The one-hundredth meridian marks the
approximate boundary for semi-arid land in the United States. Land to the west of the one-hundredth
meridian is not very suitable for most cultivation. Wheat is successfully grown there. But we must wonder about the continued
success of milo and other crops without artificial irrigation, chemical
fertilization, and chemical pest control, all of which depend on fossil
fuels. Much of this land is only fit for
grazing livestock.
A first guess at population saturation might lie between 1
and 3 acres worldwide, or between 3 and 5 acres in the United States. This is a problem that requires further
investigation and better analysis methods.
Under current living conditions it seems unlikely that we have reached
saturation in most parts of the world.
However, those conditions will change drastically with the
total depletion of fossil fuels. Even if
we are shrewd enough to prevent massive death rates due to environmental
exposure and famine, our life styles will be radically changed. We will revert to a cultural model similar to
that of 1850. We will then discover that
one of the chief sources of energy will be human muscle. Draft animals will also become critically
important. Under these conditions, we
may well need more people, not less.
These are questions that we need to ask our best thinkers. Since these questions have broad moral
implications, we need to ask our most profound Christian thinkers as well. The most knowledgeable soil conservation,
efficiency, and use expert is the plain dirt farmer, forester, orchardist, and
rancher.
I believe that we need to maintain the world at its ideal
population saturation point in obedience to God’s command: but this leaves me
with personal moral dilemmas I cannot resolve.
The
problem of consumption.
Dr. Bartlett will address this problem later; but, we
believe that it is the fundamental problem.
Inflation is a monetary problem, which exists strictly
because of human foolishness: it can be stopped whenever the ruling individuals
decide to stop it. Money in the United
States is presently a mythology built out of nearly worthless paper and
electronic transfers: it has been this way ever since money was divorced from
gold and silver standards. There is
nothing new about this. The Romans cut
their smaller coins with lesser metals, but kept the face values the same. However, they had the good sense not to
meddle with items like a talent. In the
United States the value of money is determined by the Federal Reserve Bank, an
independent corporation, with some oversight from the President. When the Federal Reserve decides to flood the
economy with additional paper money, the value of the money in your pocket
diminishes accordingly. This has little
to do with the loss of limited resources.
Population is a serious problem, but it is in part dependent
on the consumption of limited resources.
We cannot really resolve the problem of population until we solve the
consumption problem, because population stability is a matter of the consumption
per person.
So, we believe that the consumption problem must be solved
first. When the consumption problem is
solved, then we will be in position to tackle the population problem.
Using a fair share. Dr.
Bartlett will later use the example of gasoline. The world’s fair share use of gasoline is
about two quarts, half a gallon per person per day. The problem is painfully obvious; some people
are using more than their fair share of gasoline. This is true of every fixed resource
imaginable, but it is also true of many renewable assets.
Avoiding uncontrolled depletion. Moreover, this does not address the fact that
even if everyone is limited to their fair share we will still run out of fixed
limited resources, someday. If we
deliberately reduce the world population, which amounts to some sort of wicked
scheme of mass murder, the remaining people, unrestrained, will rapidly double
their consumption, and the problem will not be resolved. Running out of fixed limited resources is an
inevitability that needs to be managed globally.
Dealing with population after we learn to budget and manage. Once we determine how to manage fixed limited
resources we can figure out how many people it will take to accomplish that
task and aim at getting there.
Energy policy. At
present no such plan exists, not in America.
The United States has not had a real energy policy since the Carter
administration. If we do not change the
way we think about consumption, we will quickly run out of fossil fuels.
What happens next?
One of the next things that will happen, in addition to death by
environment exposure and famine, will be the unbridled stripping of
forests. Since we never learned how to
budget or manage fossil fuels, there is no good reason to believe that we will suddenly
learn to budget or manage forests. As we
strip the forests, we will deplete the available atmospheric oxygen, and the
world will become uninhabitable. The
good news is that once man is gone the earth will eventually recover on its
own.
We must change! We
must change the way we think about consumption.
We must stop thinking in terms of growth. We must start thinking in terms of reduction,
conservation, and sharing. No, I’m not
talking about washing and reusing your paper towels.
Dr. Bartlett tends to see this problem as an overpopulation
problem. This overlooks that fact that,
even if we reduced the population by half, we would still be confronted by widespread
death due to exposure and famine, whenever fossil fuels are totally depleted. Hopefully, our deaths due to war might
decrease. A population solution does not
solve the overconsumption problem, or other problems. If we cannot find suitable math models for
sustainability, we hope to write some new ones.
This, we hope, will be the start of a mathematics of sustainability.
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