Population Explosion, Climate Change, & Resource Depletion,

CAN NEW TECHNOLOGY SAVE US IN TIME?

2. Limits to Growth: Food Crash

Paul H. Carr, Ph. Dwww.MirrorOfNature.org.

1. Nature’s beauty versus its utility.

2.Can new technology save us in time? Limits to Growth. Food Crash. The MIT-authored book, Limits to Growth, projects an economic and food-per-capita collapse. Written in 1972, predictions for the population explosion, water shortages, non-renewable resource depletion, and climate change have been accurate to date.

3. Why be concerned about Global Warming? Weather Extremes 4. Data supporting anthropogenic global warming.

5. Technology and policies are available to save us.

CAN NEW TECHNOLOGY SAVE OUR ENVIRONMENT?

1. “Limits …”published in 1972 by MIT Ph.D. students of Prof. Jay Forrester.

*Has sold 10 million copies

*In 2012, predictions were shown to be accurate & updated.

2. Crash in the world’s food production predicted in 2030 -2052.

3.Can we deploy new doubly-green technologies in time?

Counterintuitiveness of Complex Systems http://www.clexchange.org/curriculum/complexsystems/default.asp

By MIT Prof. JAY W. FORRESTER (1971) Author of World Dynamics

•The intuitively obvious "solutions" to social problems are apt to fall into one of several traps set by the character of complex systems.

•Cause and effect are not closely related in time or space.

•Action is often ineffective because symptoms are treated, not the problem. -The cause of the problem is within the system.•Conflicts arise between short-term and long-term goals.

THE POPULATION EXPLOSION CAN’T GO ON FOREVER"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.“ Prof. Al Bartlett’s lecture “arithmetic, population, energy.”

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-population-problem/

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-population-problem/

1700-1870 corresponds to the Industrial Revolution, burning of fossil fuels1950 marks the Green Revolution: full-scale petrolification of agriculture, accompanied by massive fertilizer campaigns using natural gas as the chemical feedstock.

1880 to 1972: CO2 INCREASE 30 PPM 1972 – 2012: 77 PPM

CO2 POLLUTANT DRIVING CLIMATE CHANGE

• Fossil energy use started in the 1800s• Fossil fuels are a limited, non-renewable

resource.Figure By Tom Murphyhttp://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-population-problem/

Solar, Wind, Nuclear Needed

NON- RENEWABLE RESOURCE DEPLETION:FOOD PRODUCTION LIMITED BY

-FERTILE TOP-SOIL, -FERTILIZER (Potash),

-FOSSIL FUELS, -FRESH WATER

• Water levels in Lake Mead have dropped 100 feet.

• The Colorado

River no longer reaches the sea.

• http://prorev.com/2009/05/drying-of-lake-mead.html

1978 2011

1600 YEARS OF ICE MELTED IN 25 YEARSDating of those plants, using a radioactive form of carbon in the plant tissues that decays at a known rate, has given scientists an unusually precise method of determining the history of the Peruvian ice sheet’s margins. Lonnie G. Thompson, the Ohio State University glaciologist whose team has worked intermittently on the Quelccaya ice cap for decades, reported the findings in a paper released online Thursday by the journal Science.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/world/americas/1600-years-of-ice-in-perus-andes-melted-in-25-years-scientists-say.html?hpw&_r=0

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html#ixzz1rG5D2BHa

LOOKING BACK ON THE LIMITS TO GROWTH (1972) World’s food production predicted to crash in 2030..

“Social systems belong to the class called multi-loop nonlinear feedback systems.” MIT Prof. Jay Forrester, World Dynamics

Population

A Global Forecast for the Next 40 Years by Jorgen Randers, Ph. D. MIT 1973, Norwegian Business School

3rd author of “Limits to Growth”

Agrees with Meadows: We are on an OVERSHOOT & CRASH mode, but CRASH could come after 2052

We are not in the blue of “stabilized world” or soft landing mode.

We are one the green “standard run” or OVERSHOOT an COLLAPSE mode

2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years, by Jorgen RandersFood production will continue to increase while unused bio-capacity will decrease.

It Is Too Late For Sustainable Development

Dennis Meadows, Ph. D. MITSecond Author, Limits to Growth (1972)

Talk at Smithsonian InstitutionWashington, DC; February 29, 2012

2012 Creative Learning Exchange Conference mainly for Jr. & High School teachers.Babson Executive Conference CenterWellesley, MAJuly 1, 2012

NEW RESEARCH TO 2010 SHOWS WE ARE NEARING COLLAPSE.Is Global Collapse Immanent? An Updated Comparison of The Limits to Growth With Historical Data. Turner, G. (2014) MSSI Research Paper No. 4, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, The University of Melbourne.

RESOURCE DEMAND AND POPULATION GROWTHby Jorgen Randers (3rd author of “Limits to Growth, 1972)

1 B population in the developed world (US & Europe) and resource demand will not increase. Enough food for those who can pay.

3 B population of China & BRISE (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa and ten leading emerging economies) will increase demand for resources to increase GDP.

3 B remaining population will remain poor and largely undeveloped. World population growth will peak in 2045.

CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGES

NEW TECHNOLOGY DEVEL0PMENTS

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9023#more

IMBALANCE: US ENERGY CONSUMPTION IS TWICE THAT OF OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRIESCHINA TRYING TO CATCH UP TO INCREASE ITS GDP & STARDARD OF LIVING

Energy Use increases Purchasing Power. Each American has 100 energy slaves.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-population-problem/

2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years, by Jorgen Randers (3rd author of “Limits to Growth, 1972)

• While the process of adapting humanity to the planet’s limitations has started, the human response could be too slow. (Will technology save us in time?)

• The current dominant global economies, particularly the United States, will stagnate. Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa and ten leading emerging economies ( ‘BRISE’) will progress.

• But there will still be 3 billion poor in 2052. Enough food for those who can pay.

• China will be a success story, because of its ability to act. • Global population will peak in 2042, because of falling fertility in urban areas • Global GDP will grow much slower than expected, because of slower productivity

growth in mature economies.

• CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to grow and cause +2°C in 2052; temperatures will reach +2.8°C in 2080, which may well trigger self-reinforcing climate change.

ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL.

POPULATION PROBLEMS ARE LOCAL.

“THE RICH ARE GETTING RICHER,THE POOR ARE HAVING MORE CHILDREN.”

Population Imbalance

*Italy’s fertility rate only about 1.4—well below the number needed to replenish its population (2.1).

* Population of Europe is decreasing.

* Heavy debt and an aging, shrinking population are a very bad combination.

Europe’s Real CrisisThe Continent’s problems are as much demographic as financial. They won’t go away soon.The Atlantic, April 2012

Most population growth is occurring in Africa and southern Asia.

Population explosion (World): -Birthrate exceeds deaths. Population decline(Europe): -Death rate exceeds births.

Population explosion (Africa & Middle East ): -Birthrate exceeds deaths. Population decline(Europe & Russia): -Death rate exceeds births. Source: CIA World Factbook http://www.ourbreathingplanet.com/happy-world-population-day-not/

Social unrest correlates with food price increases.http://necsi.edu/research/social/foodcrises.html

Russia Banned Grain Exports, Aug -Dec 2010, as Drought Cut Yields

Population Explosion+ Drought = Syrian Revolution

Syria’s population explosion started in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to better health care.

From 2006 to 2011, 60 % of Syria’s land mass was ravaged by drought. With the water table already too low and river irrigation shrunken, it wiped out the livelihoods of 800,000 Syrian farmers.

People left their farms settled in towns around cities. Some small towns swelled from 2,000 people to 400,000 in a decade or so.

The government failed to provide proper schools, jobs or services for this youth bulge, which hit its teens and 20s, right when the revolution erupted. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/opinion/sunday/friedman-without-water-revolution.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/08/12/opinion/12drought-map.html?ref=sunday

2012 DROUGHT: 52% OF U.S.$ 20 -$25 B loss in crop insurance.

Droughts: Rising Food Prices

2007-08: Grain and soybean prices more than doubled, leading to food riots and unrest in some 60 countries

2010-11: Another price spike helped fuel the Arab Spring

2012: Drought in our Midwest, the worst since the dustbowl, raised corn prices to the highest level in history.

Corn Futures Prices

Source: CME Group

DECLINE IN THE MIDWEST

ACQUAFERRed areas represent a decrease of

more than 150 feet.

In the southwestern corner of Kansas, farmers are adjusting to wells that produce one-third of the water they did twenty years ago, switching from water-intensive corn to cows.

Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/midwest-has-less-water-more-drought-its-future/65414/

WATER WAR BETWEEN EGYPT & ETHIOPIA?•The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is under-construction on the Blue Nile. •Essential for irrigation & hydropower for Ethiopia’s exploding population of 80 million.

• Egypt, which relies heavily on the waters of the Nile, has threatened war to stop the dam.5

]

• Egypt’s population of 84 million has quadrupled from 20 million in 1950.

Ethiopian Theodros Wigiorgis at 2011 IRAS Conf.

The deserts in the US Southwest will expand into the central farm belt. - Farmable land in under-populated Canada will increase.

Farmland in under-populated Siberia will increase. - Farmland in over-populated China will decrease.

POPULTION INCREASE CREATES NEW TECHNOLOGY WHICH COULD SAVE US.

Can we deploy new technologies in time?

• PERENNIAL WHEAT

• FRESH PAPER REDUCES FOOD WASTE

• BIRTH CONTROL

• PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLAR CELLS: GRID PARITY ($0.10/kWh)

• Doubly Green ELECTRIC CARS NOW GET 100 MILES PER GALLON EQUIVALENT

WILD PLANTS TO THE RESCUEDavid Van Tassel & Le DelHaanAmerican Scientist May-June 2013 vol 101 pg 228

•Perennial plants have extensive roots which allow them to better survive winter and droughts. The Land Institute in Salena, KS is working with intermediate wheat grass to improve it seed yield and make it easier to harvest mechanically.

• The wild relative of wheat (right) called Kernza has a massive root system, 10 feet deep. •Annual wheat (triticum aesivum) (left) is shown for comparison.

About 50% of the global food supply is wasted. Fenugreen is taking on this enormous, global challenge with a simple design. FreshPaper. Low-cost, compostable and infused only with organic spices. FreshPaper is a simple sheet of paper infused with organic spices, including Fenugreen, which inhibit bacterial and fungal growth,.

FreshPaper keeps produce fresh for 2-4x longer.

FreshPaper can keep produce fresh up to 2-4 times longer.

-Fresh Paper only needs to be placed wherever the produce is stored – in a refrigerator drawer, fruit bowl, or any other container. Customers have described it as a “dryer sheet for produce” because it does not have to be in direct contact with the produce to work. It is available at Whole Foods and Wegmans.

Melinda Gates’ New Crusade: Investing Billions in Contraception TechnologyShe plans to use the Gates Foundation’s billions to revolutionize contraception worldwide. The Catholic right is pushing back. Is she ready for the political firestorm ahead? (Newsweek, May 7, 2012 )

Her Catholic faith, has always informed her work. “From the very beginning, we said that as a foundation we will not support abortion”“We’re serving the other piece of the Catholic mission, which is social justice.”

“100,000 women annually die in childbirth after unintended pregnancies.600,000 babies born to women who didn’t want to be pregnant die in the first month of life. “

Teaming with British to start raising the $4 billion the foundation says it will cost to get 120 million more women access to contraceptives by 2020.

Depo-Provera is popular in many poor countries because women need to inject it only 4 times a year. http://www.londonfamilyplanningsummit.co.uk/

SOLUTIONS TO OUR DEPENENCE ON FOREIGN OIL & GOBAL WARMING

Electric Cars powered by

• Windmills• Solar Cells• Nuclear Fission & Fusion Power Plants

Electric cars get the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon.

NISSANLEAF® Plug INAs low as:$27,700*Net value after federal tax credit

106City MPGal100 mi range.®

Mitusbishi i

ELECTRIC CARS106 MILES/GALLON

EQUIVALENT

Tesla Model S

All Electric 260 mile

range.

Chevy Volt: 90 miles/gal running quietly on 40 mile battery

A Darfuri mother and child tend to a meal cooking on a Berkeley-Darfur stove.

3 B PEOPLE COOK ON 3-STONE

“STOVES” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) designed stove: - Doubles efficiency -Halves polluting emissions

$20 Cost funded by - Contributions - Sale of Carbon Credits •Solar stoves are an even better option.

“There will still be 2 - 3 billion poor in 2052.” Jorgen Randers

Conservation, efficiency, & a more vegetarian diet can reduce our use of fossil fuels. Nature is the capital on which capitalism is based. In the long-term, our world’s economy will be constrained by ecology. There are indeed Limits to Growth.

What are you doing to conserve?

What car would Jesus Drive?

Energy/Portion

The EnergyTo Create Your Food

MoreEnergy Efficient

Replacing meat with eggs, soy, and dairy is equivalent to switching from a Camry to a Prius.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/the-energy-to-create-your-foodIEEE Spectrum,June 2013, pg 37

2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years,

by Jorgen Randers (co-author of “Limits to Growth, 1972)

The main cause of future problems is the excessively short-term predominant political and economic model.

“We need a system of governance that takes a more long-term view. It is unlikely that governments will pass necessary regulation to force the markets to allocate more money into climate friendly solutions, and must not assume that markets will work for the benefit of humankind”.

1. “Limits …”published in 1972 by MIT Ph.D. students of Prof. Jay Forrester.

*Has sold 10 million copies

*In 2012, predictions were shown to be accurate & updated.

2. Crash in the world’s food production predicted in 2030.

3.Can we deploy new doubly-green technologies in time?

TECHNOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE TO SOLVE OUR POPULATION & EVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

CAN WE DEPLOY THEM IN TIME TO MINIMIZE HUMAN SUFFERING?When asked if we have enough time to prevent catastrophe, Donella Meadows

always said that we have exactly enough time -- starting now.

• WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE.

• CONSERVE, INVEST IN SOLAR CELLS ($0.10/KWHR) - ELECTRIC CARS, 100 MILES/GAL

• ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO VOTE FOR THE ABOVE.

http://peoplesclimate.org/marchNY City, Sunday, September 21, 11:30 AM

http://watchdisruption.com/

1. Nature’s beauty versus its utility. 2.Can new technology save us in time? Limits to Growth. Food Crash. The MIT-authored book, Limits to Growth, projects an economic and food-per-capita collapse. Written in 1972, predictions for the population explosion, water shortages, non-renewable resource depletion, and climate change have been accurate to date.

3. Why be concerned about Global Warming? Weather Extremes. 4. Data supporting anthropogenic global warming.

5. Technology and policies are available to save us.

CAN NEW TECHNOLOGY SAVE OUR ENVIRONMENT?

To see this PowerPoint

Visit my web page www.MirrorOfNature.org and click on My PowerPoint Talks & thenCan New Technology Save Our Environment?

Or

http://mirrorofnature.org/RISE_TechnologyEnvoronment.htm