Establishing ever increasing wellbeing The book suggest that to change this decriptor from negative to positive, would require a rapid population decline. I have shown why this decline would have to proceed down to a global population below 1% of present or 50 million people. Even if we found a way to reduce the global population to 50 million. There are some large challenges left to be addressed. What would be the design of such a global community? What would be the steps in the transition from the present to that community. Most individuals would have to relocate to allow the world's renewing resources to facilitate their ever improving North American lifestyles. If people were thinly distributed over the entire earth then transportation costs would isolate people and prevent them from enjoying the benefits that only come from denser populations. For example symphonies, opera, great universities, and synergistic manufacturing and technology . ----------- remains below------ that we are worse of each year. If the number is negative homo sapiens are choosing behaviors similar to species that did not have our species thinking and forethought capacity. We are acting like a species whose evolutionary progress fills an opening niche in the ecosystem until full. Then as the niche widens the species population and footprint expands. As it narrows the population and footprint contract. In some cases a species unknowingly contracting its own niche when its waste products poison their their own niche. And like a species that was susceptible to their niche closing enough to cause extinction. Today our species is playing out this dance in the ecosystem with some additional twists. For example, our species is unique in that the individuals do not live at subsistence. Each can consume many times the resources required for the minimum. This variation means that one individual can consume the resources that could support another but by purchasing or taking them by force from an economically or physically weaker person, that second person perishes. The killing process ( pushing the weaker person off the plate) can be done efficiently. That is few resources are consumed in the transaction. For example a market processes. Or it can be done in efficiently, taking by force process consumes a large percentage of the supporting resources, destroys infrastructure, and depletes human capital. These processes, while being part of all human history, they obviously decrease the cumulative percentage wellbeing improvements described above.
------------ Because it can control its numbers, and because it For humans, living above subsistence, a narrowing niche would mean a contraction of supporting resources. the market distributions systems would cause a worsening of wellbeing for the poorest, a die-off and then a conflagration of conflict. Civilization would collapse leaving a community with less technology, and less potential for advancing technology. Much smaller future generation would be trapped at a lifestyle and technology far below what we have now. While this is a highly probable scenario, there is a second, maybe less probable one. In the second, people will live an ever improving lifestyle with ever improving technology. The second future is what we all want. It's what most of us expect. However, what humankind fails to realize is that the path between what exists today and what we want for our children tomorrow, follows a path, which includes a rapid decrease in human numbers down to below 1% of the existing global population. It also includes moving the remaining global population, industry, the arts (old and new), educational facilities, managing institutions, to the most benign environment. By benign I mean, best climate, best food production, most efficient transport routes, and access to renewable energy sources like hydro etc. We have to move to the new location, the stocks of previously mined and processed materials that will allow this community be self sustaining through recycling -- for example, steel, aluminum, plastic, potash, molybdenum, zinc, copper, etc would all be stock piled in large quantities with expectations that for this small and declining population and with careful recycling, they would not have to mine lower and lower grade ores to supply the communities needs. To make this transition we may have to use part of the remaining non-renewable energy resources So in this part of the book I sketch out the parameters of such a sustainable society living on 1/20 of the existing human footprint. Whose peaceful existence is dependent on two parameters. 1) a limitation on the separation between the rich and poor a genie number of ( xx) and 2) that each individual experience an improvement in well being each year. The first part of the book suggested that the initial population for this community would be below 80 million. Thus far i have not suggested where this community might be located. How the population and infrastructure would be distributed over this area. How this enterprise would be powered. How it would grow food. How it would transport goods and people within community. And how this population would interact with the vast area of earth that would exist outside the community's boundary. Certainly energy, until advancing technology harnessed fusion, would limit this interaction. The initial criteria that the community would not exceed the 1/20 of the present human footprint would shape operations of this community.
So let us compute some of the parameters of the community so we can see where an how it might exist if we could find a way to bring 50 million people together with the remaining bounty of the existing earth with all its infrastructure and stock piles.
---------------omit below ---------- Humankind has several paths into the future. While new technology could play a significant role in shaping our future, raising or lowering our total human footprint is the dominant variable that will determine how our children fair. We need to cut total consumption by a factor of 20 to save the environment. We need to reduce stratification of wealth by a factor or 4. And we have to put in place a means for all the living people to improve their condition. Driving a high mileage car, changing light bulbs, recreating nearer to home, and eating less meat will reduce a personal footprint. However, these acts will not affect total human footprint. One of those billions, climbing the wellbeing ladder, with no car or little access to meat will succeed in consuming your leavings. Don't forget you and everyone else is working day and night to improve their wellbeing. The money you did not spend in gas is now buying a extra day at Disneyland. Getting better gas mileage never reduced your footprint. Given zero sum game conditions, the dominant control process is number of people. As the number of people goes up the amount of space (or resources) per person goes down. Zero sum game processes, those that make the rich richer and poor poorer creates losers of wellbeing. Scarcity increases. Increasing scarcity creates increasing conflict which creates increasing scarcity. This feedback loop collapses civilization. In the collapse, technology will be lost. Also lost will be the infrastructure to advance technology. Unless a new technology is discovered that miniaturizes the footprint of an individual, or allows transport of a large portion of the present human population to another space (off world or a new space or time dimension) humankind, like all biological species before them, will establish a human population limited by the earth's renewable resources. In the end each remaining person will exist near subsistence. The death throes of the a collapsing civilization will consume the remaining fossil energy and water resources. Over harvesting will deplete supporting species. Created waste will poison the air and water. Soil productivity will lower through lose and diminished mineral value. Humans will displace and thus extinguish many species. These loses will lessen the chances of humankind creating a technology that can break out of the resulting subsistence living. This is not the only path forward for the human experiment. Humans can create extremely high living standards if they elect to decrease their total human footprint below the earth's renewable supplies. The required reduction in footprint is large. The existing total human footprint is probably more that 20 times what the earth can support. The existing population must be reduce to a 1/20th. Further to accommodate the natural processes of wealth stratification the 1/20 will have to be reduced to a quarter. A new population 1/80 of those present or about 100 million is a good step toward a community which is both sustainability and peaceful. Even 100 million will be too many if individuals are allowed to strive to improve their wellbeing. One might ask what is the design of a community of 50 million people on earth. Where and how would these people live. The site (or sites) would have to minimize the transportation costs, the heating and cooling costs because the energy would all have to come from renewable sources like hydro, solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, Nuclear, like petroleum and coal, might be considered non renewable at least with our present science. Each form of renewable energy would have to be able to rebuild itself on the energy it produced. Not just the energy of fabricating, installing generation equipment, and transmitting the energy, but also the energy required to maintain the manufacturing and transportation infrastructure (e,g, roads manufacturing buildings and tools.) The produced energy would have facilitate the lives of all the people in the Energy supply chain. And all this support energy would be required before the first watt was passed on to the first consumer. Assuming we could attain a population of 70 million people in 70 years, how would we move these people and all their supporting infrastructure, including arts, technology, manufacturing plants, universities and food growing and processing capabilities into these consolidated and optimized areas. How would we use the remaining cheap fossil resources to make this transition? How would we make this transition and still have some left over to do the things that can only be done with fossil resources? These are important questions that should be answered. The answering will not only help in designing the logistics of the physical transition to a sustainable human experiment, but psychologically help us cope with giving up the old cultural patters and adopting new.
-----second copy of extras Then as the niche widens the species population and footprint expands. As it narrows the population and footprint contract. In some cases a species unknowingly contracting its own niche when its waste products poison their their own niche. And like a species that was susceptible to their niche closing enough to cause extinction. Today our species is playing out this dance in the ecosystem with some additional twists. For example, our species is unique in that the individuals do not live at subsistence. Each can consume many times the resources required for the minimum. This variation means that one individual can consume the resources that could support another but by purchasing or taking them by force from an economically or physically weaker person, that second person perishes. The killing process ( pushing the weaker person off the plate) can be done efficiently. That is few resources are consumed in the transaction. For example a market processes. Or it can be done in efficiently, taking by force process consumes a large percentage of the supporting resources, destroys infrastructure, and depletes human capital. These processes, while being part of all human history, they obviously decrease the cumulative percentage wellbeing improvements described above.
------------ Because it can control its numbers, and because it For humans, living above subsistence, a narrowing niche would mean a contraction of supporting resources. the market distributions systems would cause a worsening of wellbeing for the poorest, a die-off and then a conflagration of conflict. Civilization would collapse leaving a community with less technology, and less potential for advancing technology. Much smaller future generation would be trapped at a lifestyle and technology far below what we have now. While this is a highly probable scenario, there is a second, maybe less probable one. In the second, people will live an ever improving lifestyle with ever improving technology. The second future is what we all want. It's what most of us expect. However, what humankind fails to realize is that the path between what exists today and what we want for our children tomorrow, follows a path, which includes a rapid decrease in human numbers down to below 1% of the existing global population. It also includes moving the remaining global population, industry, the arts (old and new), educational facilities, managing institutions, to the most benign environment. By benign I mean, best climate, best food production, most efficient transport routes, and access to renewable energy sources like hydro etc. We have to move to the new location, the stocks of previously mined and processed materials that will allow this community be self sustaining through recycling -- for example, steel, aluminum, plastic, potash, molybdenum, zinc, copper, etc would all be stock piled in large quantities with expectations that for this small and declining population and with careful recycling, they would not have to mine lower and lower grade ores to supply the communities needs. To make this transition we may have to use part of the remaining non-renewable energy resources So in this part of the book I sketch out the parameters of such a sustainable society living on 1/20 of the existing human footprint. Whose peaceful existence is dependent on two parameters. 1) a limitation on the separation between the rich and poor a genie number of ( x) and 2) that each individual experience an improvement in well being each year. The first part of the book suggested that the initial population for this community would be below 80 million. Thus far i have not suggested where this community might be located. How the population and infrastructure would be distributed over this area. How this enterprise would be powered. How it would grow food. How it would transport goods and people within community. And how this population would interact with the vast area of earth that would exist outside the community's boundary. Certainly energy, until advancing technology harnessed fusion, would limit this interaction. The initial criteria that the community would not exceed the 1/20 of the present human footprint would shape operations of this community.
So let us compute some of the parameters of the community so we can see where an how it might exist if we could find a way to bring 50 million people together with the remaining bounty of the existing earth with all its infrastructure and stock piles.
---------------omit below ---------- Humankind has several paths into the future. While new technology could play a significant role in shaping our future, raising or lowering our total human footprint is the dominant variable that will determine how our children fair. We need to cut total consumption by a factor of 20 to save the environment. We need to reduce stratification of wealth by a factor or 4. And we have to put in place a means for all the living people to improve their condition. Driving a high mileage car, changing light bulbs, recreating nearer to home, and eating less meat will reduce a personal footprint. However, these acts will not affect total human footprint. One of those billions, climbing the wellbeing ladder, with no car or little access to meat will succeed in consuming your leavings. Don't forget you and everyone else is working day and night to improve their wellbeing. The money you did not spend in gas is now buying a extra day at Disneyland. Getting better gas mileage never reduced your footprint. Given zero sum game conditions, the dominant control process is number of people. As the number of people goes up the amount of space (or resources) per person goes down. Zero sum game processes, those that make the rich richer and poor poorer creates losers of wellbeing. Scarcity increases. Increasing scarcity creates increasing conflict which creates increasing scarcity. This feedback loop collapses civilization. In the collapse, technology will be lost. Also lost will be the infrastructure to advance technology. Unless a new technology is discovered that miniaturizes the footprint of an individual, or allows transport of a large portion of the present human population to another space (off world or a new space or time dimension) humankind, like all biological species before them, will establish a human population limited by the earth's renewable resources. In the end each remaining person will exist near subsistence. The death throes of the a collapsing civilization will consume the remaining fossil energy and water resources. Over harvesting will deplete supporting species. Created waste will poison the air and water. Soil productivity will lower through lose and diminished mineral value. Humans will displace and thus extinguish many species. These loses will lessen the chances of humankind creating a technology that can break out of the resulting subsistence living. This is not the only path forward for the human experiment. Humans can create extremely high living standards if they elect to decrease their total human footprint below the earth's renewable supplies. The required reduction in footprint is large. The existing total human footprint is probably more that 20 times what the earth can support. The existing population must be reduce to a 1/20th. Further to accommodate the natural processes of wealth stratification the 1/20 will have to be reduced to a quarter. A new population 1/80 of those present or about 100 million is a good step toward a community which is both sustainability and peaceful. Even 100 million will be too many if individuals are allowed to strive to improve their wellbeing. One might ask what is the design of a community of 50 million people on earth. Where and how would these people live. The site (or sites) would have to minimize the transportation costs, the heating and cooling costs because the energy would all have to come from renewable sources like hydro, solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, Nuclear, like petroleum and coal, might be considered non renewable at least with our present science. Each form of renewable energy would have to be able to rebuild itself on the energy it produced. Not just the energy of fabricating, installing generation equipment, and transmitting the energy, but also the energy required to maintain the manufacturing and transportation infrastructure (e,g, roads manufacturing buildings and tools.) The produced energy would have facilitate the lives of all the people in the Energy supply chain. And all this support energy would be required before the first watt was passed on to the first consumer. Assuming we could attain a population of 70 million people in 70 years, how would we move these people and all their supporting infrastructure, including arts, technology, manufacturing plants, universities and food growing and processing capabilities into these consolidated and optimized areas. How would we use the remaining cheap fossil resources to make this transition? How would we make this transition and still have some left over to do the things that can only be done with fossil resources? These are important questions that should be answered. The answering will not only help in designing the logistics of the physical transition to a sustainable human experiment, but psychologically help us cope with giving up the old cultural patters and adopting new.
-------------------- The book suggest that to change this intergenerational descriptor from negative to positive, would require a rapid population decline. I have shown why this decline would have to proceed down to a global population below 1% of present or 50 million people. Even if we found a way to reduce the global population to 50 million. There are some large challenges left to be addressed. What would be the design of such a global community? What would be the steps in the transition from the present to that community. Most individuals would have to relocate to allow the world's renewing resources to facilitate their ever improving North American lifestyles. If people were thinly distributed over the entire earth then transportation costs would isolate people and prevent them from enjoying the benefits that only come from denser populations. For example symphonies, opera, great universities, and synergistic manufacturing and technology . |