Category Archives: Limits To Growth

Phosphate: All hopes rest on Morocco with 75% of remaining reserves

Posted on July 21, 2020 by

Preface. Phosphate is absolutely essential for both plants and animals.  It’s estimated that Morocco has of 75-85% of phosphate reserves that might last for 300-400 years.  Or peak in 25 years.  Walan (2014) has estimates of researchers who’ve predicted peak … Continue reading →

Posted in Farming & Ranching, Limits To Growth, Peak Food, Peak Phosphorus, Recycle | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Phosphate: All hopes rest on Morocco with 75% of remaining reserves

Book review of Wrigley’s “Energy and the English Industrial revolution”

Posted on April 12, 2019 by

Preface. I’ve made a strong case in my book “When trucks stop running” and this energyskeptic website that we will eventually return to wood and a 14th century lifestyle after fossil fuels are depleted. So if you’re curious about what … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Energy Books, Farming & Ranching, Life Before Oil, Limits To Growth | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Vaclav Smil. Making the modern world: materials and dematerialization

Posted on January 30, 2019 by

Preface.  I can’t believe I read this book, it is just a long litany of the  gigantic amounts of materials we exploit, with no analysis, implications, or the meaning of what impact this will have on the planet. I certainly … Continue reading →

Posted in Infrastructure Books, Life Before Oil, Limits To Growth, Peak Resources, Vaclav Smil | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

75% of Earth’s land is degraded threatening 3.2 billion people

Posted on December 1, 2018 by

  Preface. By 2050 95% of Earth’s land could be degraded and reducing or even preventing food production, forcing hundreds of millions to migrate. More than 75% of our planet has been altered by humans, a figure that will likely … Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Limits To Growth, Peak Food | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on 75% of Earth’s land is degraded threatening 3.2 billion people

Book: John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”

Posted on October 18, 2018 by

Preface.  This contains excerpts from John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”. It’s one of my favorite books about natural resources, exploring the role wood has played in the rise and fall of civilizations since they … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse of Civilizations, Collapsed & collapsing nations, Deforestation, Life Before Oil, Limits To Growth, Peak Resources, Soil, Wood | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

U.S. Industrial farming destroys future food production for centuries

Posted on June 13, 2018 by

Preface. Below are excerpts from a devastating critique of current farming practices by the National research council who show the myriad ways that industrial farming is harming the land and future food production.

Posted in Air, Biodiversity Loss, Groundwater, Limits To Growth, Peak Food, Pesticides, Planetary Boundaries, Soil, Water Pollution | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Conventional economic theory ignores the laws of physics

Posted on November 4, 2017 by

Preface. It’s the energy stupid!  These figures clearly show a link between energy and the economy. Conventional economic theory has to ignore energy or that would prove that there are Limits to Growth.  What follows is from Nafeez Ahmed’s 2017 … Continue reading →

Posted in Limits To Growth | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Limits to Growth? 2016 United Nations report provides best evidence yet

Posted on April 23, 2017 by

Preface. This is a summary of a United Nations report that ought to scare the pants off of anyone who understands exponential growth. Here are a few examples what that means: If 2 grams of gold grew at a 5% … Continue reading →

Posted in ! PEAK EVERYTHING, Distribution of Wealth, Exponential Growth, Limits To Growth, Organizations, Other Experts | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Gail Tverberg: 2017 The year the world economy starts coming apart

Posted on February 9, 2017 by

[ Note: In a 2016 post “Overly Simple Energy-Economy Models Give Misleading Answers” Tverberg points out that: “The common lay interpretation of simple models is that running out of energy supplies can be expected to be our overwhelming problem in … Continue reading →

Posted in Limits To Growth, Net Energy Cliff | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Failing states, collapsing systems: biophysical triggers of political violence

Posted on January 31, 2017 by

Preface. In this post I summarize the sections of Nafeez’s book about the biophysical factors that bring nations down (i.e. climate change drought & water scarcity, declining revenues after peak oil, etc.) The Media tend to focus exclusively on economic … Continue reading →

Posted in Cascading Failure, Caused by Scarce Resources, Collapse of Civilizations, Collapsed & collapsing nations, Drought & Collapse, Exports decline to ZERO, Food production, Interdependencies, Limits To Growth, Middle East, Net Energy Cliff, Other Experts, Over Oil, Overpopulation, Peak Oil, Violence, War & Violence | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments