Discussing Die-off Should not be Taboo: The weatherman syndrome

Is die-off the truth that cannot be discussed? To solve any problem you must first be prepared to admit there is a problem that needs solving. Die-off is a real and serious possibility that won't go away by ignoring it.

Okay, maybe the term "die-off" wasn't the best choice. How many people, after all, would buy more appropriately named "death insurance"? Over the years how many concepts, ideas, theses, theories and movements have failed to spark the public consciousness because of a poor choice of name or slogan? There seems to be an unfortunate human tendency to reject a book because of it's unacceptable cover, a message because of the way it is conveyed. Alvin Toffler (or his publisher) aptly explored this phenomenon by releasing his then controversial book "Future Shock" in multiple colours when it was came out in paperback. I assume, though I do not know, that they tracked sales by cover colour. The marketing and advertising industry, in fact, exists to ensure that the combination of words and images used for a product fit together in such a way as to maximize public acceptance of the product. The product and the messages used to sell it are even tailored to fit different markets and different consumer niches. This is particularly important when that product has no built-in aesthetic appeal. Think of all of the possible bad terminology choices that could be used to try to sell "bathroom tissue" or "sanitary pads" or "suppositories" or a host of other products designed around various bodilly functions. Advertising and marketing, in fact, do not sell products. They sell dreams. They do not satisfy needs. They create them. They do not appeal to our rational consciousness. They appeal to the deeper, often unexpressed or even unrecognized desires of our subconscious.

So let us, instead of talking about "die-off", discuss "carrying capacity enhancement" or "personal spatial optimization" or some such positive and socially acceptable interpretation of the population rationalization that will accompany our transition into the new energy-minimized society of the future. In this new world the individual worth and importance of each of us will be much enhanced. Each of us will have a much bigger piece of the global pie...........

A rose by any other name........... Regardless of what we call it, "die-off" is a distinct and serious possibility in the near-term future of the human race. We are facing a serious convergence of global disasters that collectively will represent the greatest challenge to our species that there has ever been. Overpopulation, as well as being one of them is also central to several others. The other global disasters before us include, peak oil, climate change, habitat destruction, accelerated species extinction, global pollution, global pandemics, top-soil loss, desertification, aquifer depletion, sea-level rise, and more.

There is significant though debated evidence that the human race has gone through multiple die-offs in the ancient past. On at least one of those occassions it appears that human numbers were reduced to a few tens of thousands putting our species precariously on the verge of extinction. The bell curve that we have all become familar with in the peak-oil movement thanks to the work of M. King Hubbert also seems to apply to the evolutionary history of species which have gone extinct. Such species, about midway through their history on earth, reached their apex and then began a long, slow decline toward eventual extinction.

This, of course, begs the question of whether we are currently sitting at the point of peak-homo-sapiens, peak-humanity. That, of course, depends on how soon the global disasters mentioned above befall us and whether they do so concurrently or serially. Since the likelihood of any of those disasters erupting with a force sufficient to have a measurable impact on human numbers over the next few years it is reasonable to assume that the human population will continue to increase in the immediate short term. It is also unlikely that multiple of the above disasters will occur with full severity at exactly the same time. So peak humanity, if that is what we are soon approaching, will unlikely be a sharp peak but a bumpy plateau that could last for some time, perhaps decades, possibly centuries. Considering the energy use per person that has allowed the population to rise from a billion at the beginning of the industrial revolution to 6.5 billion today, and the permanent decline in available energy per capita that will follow the global peak in oil and other fossil fuels, it is very unlikely that there can ever be in the future a peak in global human population greater than whatever level we top out at in the near future.

The question before us now is whether we can sustainably maintain the peak in human population, whether it be the current 6.5 billion or something higher. According to a 1994 paper entitled "Optimum Human Population Size" authored by Gretchen C. Daily University of California (Berkeley) Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul R. Ehrlich Stanford University, "....world energy use [1993] amounts to about 13 terawatts (TW = 1012 watts), about 70% of which is being used to support somewhat over a billion people in rich countries and 30% to support more than four billion people in developing countries." Since that time, however, world population has increased by over a billion, the global energy use has, according to recent reports, increased to 14.5 terawatts. The overall energy use (availability?) per capita, however, has declined by six percent. The energy use per capita in the rich developed nations has increased so the gap in energy use between rich and poor has also increased. In the above paper, Daily, Ehrlich and Ehrlich then suggested that a sustainable level of global energy use would be about 6 terawatts. That is about 41% of the energy use per capita than present usage even if the population stabilized at the current 6.5 billion. The authors of the above report, however, also suggest that the potentially sustainable human population at that energy level would be about two billion. This is a figure that is generally regarded in die-off discussions as the high-end of sustainability. Admittedly it is difficult to see how over five billion people in the third world could possibly decrease their miniscule use of energy by another 41 percent.

The energy availability on the other side of the global peak in fossil fuels, despite heroic efforts to maintain it with alternative energy options, will begin to decline. It is a long way down from the current 14.5 terawatts to the suggested sustainable energy level of 6 terawatts. It is even debatable now, considering that nothing has been done since that paper was written to curb our consumption of non-renewable energy resources, whether 6 terawatts of usage would be sustainable in the future. That also, therefore, puts in question the suggested sustainable population level of two billion, which is one of the reasons it is the high-end estimate in die-off discussions. It must also be noted that the two billion number in the above paper was based on somewhat optimistic assumptions that needed political action would take place. To date there are no indications that such is happening.

It is difficult to see how the transition from the current levels of global population and energy usage to those projected in the above paper and countless other studies and papers in the intervening years could be called anything but a die-off. It is equally or more difficult to see any possible way in an energy-deprived future how we could possibly maintain current population levels. Even today between twenty and forty thousand people die every day of starvation and other nutrition-related illness and disease. With the decline in global food production capability that will parallel the decline in global fossil fuels and the loss of the associated artificial carrying capacity (termed "ghost acres" in the above report), it is unreasonable to assume that there will not be a significant escalation of global deaths due to nutrition related diseases. The additional impact from fossil fuel decline on medicines and pharmaceuticals and a host of other areas (there are over 300,000 products in every day use derived from oil) very strongly suggests that there will also be increasingly measurable impact on human population in these areas as well.

The purpose of this essay is to provoke thought, not to supply answers. I will close it this way. Those who are prepared to look at, consider, discuss and write about the impact of peak oil, global climate change and other potential near-term disasters are collectively suffering from what I call "the weatherman syndrome". There is an unfortunate tendency to blame them for what they are presenting, to suggest that they somehow are relishing and looking forward to the problems they are discussing. The weatherman does not make the weather he reports. Catastrophists, as we are often called, are likewise not responsible for the disasters they see approaching. The weatherman is conveying information on which you can make decisions. So too are we.