Category Archives: Limits To Growth

Peak food production happened, how will we feed 2-3 billion more?

Preface. Also see related article Limits to Growth? 2016 United Nations report provides best evidence yet. Nichols (2015) below shows that climate change is already affecting harvests of the world’s top 10 crops that comprise 83% of our calories: barley, … Continue reading

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Telling others about peak oil and limits to growth

Preface. Obviously the planet is finite.  World crude oil production peaked in 2018, and been on a plateau since 2008.  Other resources, such as food, are peaking while the polycrisis depletes fisheries, forests, groundwater and more. Yet this reality is … Continue reading

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Spermageddon: Sperm is declining around the world

The rate sperm concentration is falling globally from samples collected from 1972 to 2000 (orange) and since 2000 (red) Source: Davies 2022 Preface. I’ve been seeing this issue in science news for years now. Scientific data has accumulated long enough … Continue reading

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Dennis Meadows of Limits to Growth: Collapse inevitable

Preface. Dennis Meadows is a co-author of The Limits to Growth.  In 1972, the team of 66 scientists he assembled for the original Limits to Growth study concluded the most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline … Continue reading

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Limits to Growth: Natural gas fertilizer that feeds 4 billion of us

Preface.  In chapter 4 of my book “Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy“, I explain how it came to be that fertilizer is made out of natural gas, using the energy of natural gas, and why … Continue reading

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Rees on Overshoot: Growth through contraction: conceiving an eco-economy

Preface.   William Rees writes some of the best and most comprehensible papers of all on the overshoot crisis we are in.  We should have begun a U-turn in the 60s after The Population Bomb, or the 70s when Limits to … Continue reading

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Your life and the economy depend on biodiversity

Preface. We are trained in school, newspapers, and TV to view the world politically and economically. Not ecologically.  The World Economic Forum article below is an excellent summary of why biodiversity is so important, as much as climate change, which … Continue reading

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Lifespan of infrastructure, transportation, and buildings

Preface. What follows is from the International Energy Agency 2020 report “Energy technology perspectives” on how to transition to net zero emissions by 2050. This might require the replacement of just about everything, since power plants, steel blast furnaces, cement … Continue reading

Posted in Airplanes, Automobiles, Concrete, Dams, Electricity Infrastructure, Energy Infrastructure, Limits To Growth, Manufacturing & Industrial Heat, Oil & Gas, Transportation Infrastructure, Trucks | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Civilization will collapse in 20-40 years from deforestation

Preface.  At current rates of deforestation, forests will be gone in 100-200 years. Long before that, in 20-40 years, the effects will be felt, with a 90% chance of civilization collapse likely.  Below “deforestation in the news” are excerpts from an … Continue reading

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Only a fifth of Earth’s land has little human influence

Preface. Humans have basically taken over the best land on the planet, the places where we aren’t ruining it are really cold, high or dry areas of land, such as arctic landscapes, mountainous areas or deserts. Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author … Continue reading

Posted in Biodiversity, Deforestation, Limits To Growth, Overpopulation | Tagged , , | 2 Comments