Google gives up on renewables

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by IamIan

I was asking what evidence the number you come up with is based on .. what evidence did you use to come to the 500 Million number ??? why didn't you go with 500,000 or 5 Billion ... etc ... you picked a number ... what is the data that choice is based on?

Basically, extrapolation from population levels at the time when there appear not to have been major adverse effects on ecosystem sustainability. Which means I leave out things like the human-caused mass extinction of North American megafauna, since the post-extinction ecosystem seems to have been equally sustainable.

In fairness, let me ask you where you're getting your data from, as well.

FYI ... if those 500Million humans are ~90% calories from meat eaters ... your 500Million are consuming more planetary resources than 13 Billion 100% vegan plant eater humans.

I don't see how you conclude that. For a counter-example, a small population getting their meat from sustainable hunting & grazing has no effect on sustainability, a large vegetarian population supported by industrial agriculture is not.

Under that logic the failing/changing ecosystem of the dinosaurs was the fault of too many humans on the planet ... even though there were ZERO humans on the planet at that time.

Not so. Of course, major external events like asteroid impacts are really not included in sustainability. To use your spaceship example, it's the difference between quietly travelling between stars, and being attacked by the Klingons.

Except the word maximum does not carry with it the restriction of ( likely , easy , etc ) ...

But we aren't talking about absolute maximum (or at least I'm not), we're talking about sustainable maximum; the number that could be carried, not for a generation or two, but indefinitely. So to get that number, we have to consider all the internal things that could go wrong.

If meat carried with it it's actual cost ... ie being 34x the $ of planet calories...

I have to question that number.

The question was about utilization of the space for the purpose of maximum sustainable human population...

Yes, and the point here is that you're trying to build your spaceship by maximizing passenger load at the expense of life support systems, without really knowing how your life support systems work.

I notice you dodged the point about subterranean going lower .. building higher up ...

Running out of time & energy is not 'dodging'. But since you ask, that has a little impact, but not much, since humans living in such spaces still need surface area for their life support systems.

Unless it is impossible for humans to sustainably survive without the musk ox...

But that's the real question, isn't it? Do you KNOW with absolute, total certainty that humans can sustainably survive (again, not for a few generations, but for thousands) without the musk ox? How about all the other species in the Arctic ecosystem, or the oceans, or deserts? How many pieces can you pull out before the whole thing collapses?

[P-hack]

yes, I agree that 500 million appears to be the baseline before we really began manipulating our environment (perhaps even optimistic) for our own purposes. That looks like a figure based on reality.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

In fairness, let me ask you where you're getting your data from, as well.

Can you be more specific ?
I've listed several items .. they are not all from the same data source... Some I've already listed the sources of.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

I don't see how you conclude that. For a counter-example, a small population getting their meat from sustainable hunting & grazing has no effect on sustainability, a large vegetarian population supported by industrial agriculture is not.

And for any size meat intensive eating population you pick .. that will consume more resources than a equal sized Vegetarian or Vegan Population.

Take the total amount of resources that small sustainable hunting population you referenced above consumes ... and that same total amount of resources could just as sustainably feed a larger population of Vegetarian / Vegans... because every 1 meat calorie requires several times that input plant calories.

I think the disconnect might be , because you might not realize how horribly less efficient that 1 meat calorie is... I've read at different times and different sources how the amount of input to output varies ... but one example is :

Link

Originally Posted by LinkAbove

The Pimentels calculate that fruits and vegetables require 2 calories input to yield 1 calorie of output while animal proteins require 20 to 80 calories of energy input for 1 calorie of energy output.

There are numerous other variations different studies looking at it from different angles and such ... the exact number changes a bit ... as we say on this forum YMMV ... but the over all concept is still very firm ... every 1 meat calorie output (for a meat eater to eat) ... requires several times that more calories input (as plant calories) to get it... it is horribly low efficiency.

13B is roughly 26x larger than 500M ... I was actually fairly pessimistic against the plant eaters in favor of the meat eaters ... I didn't go on the high side of 80:1 ... or even in the middle ... I went fairly on the low end at only 26:1 ... but by all means ... If you have a good source of information that shows the input vs output is far less ... let me know.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Not so. Of course, major external events like asteroid impacts are really not included in sustainability. To use your spaceship example, it's the difference between quietly travelling between stars, and being attacked by the Klingons.

The point I was trying to make ... is that the basis (you listed) of you conclusion did not require humans to actually be involved at all to yet still have you put the blame on the number of humans... I was trying to point out that just because an ecosystem is degrading is not enough on it's own to make the leap you were making about the sustainability of the global human population... An Ecosystem can degrade for a wide variety of reasons .. the effects of a large human population is not the only potential cause.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But we aren't talking about absolute maximum (or at least I'm not), we're talking about sustainable maximum; the number that could be carried, not for a generation or two, but indefinitely. So to get that number, we have to consider all the internal things that could go wrong.

Agreed.
But we are also not talking about low impact population ... or a zero impact population .. and a maximum does not include a requirement to keep luxury items like 5 MPG SUVs .. 10,000 Square foot houses .. meat eating .. etc.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Running out of time & energy is not 'dodging'. But since you ask, that has a little impact, but not much, since humans living in such spaces still need surface area for their life support systems.

I apologize than for my error in my claim about you... my bad ...

However I disagree.
There is a massive difference in the amount of total utilized space between a 1 story house with no basement ... and a 50 story tall building (or taller) that both have the same 2D earth surface area.

It isn't a question of if you need any surface area ... the question was about the maximum amount of sustainably utilized space... and I'll have to still say we are not at 100% max utilization of the entire planet ... even from a sustainability point of view.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But that's the real question, isn't it? Do you KNOW with absolute, total certainty that humans can sustainably survive (again, not for a few generations, but for thousands) without the musk ox? How about all the other species in the Arctic ecosystem, or the oceans, or deserts? How many pieces can you pull out before the whole thing collapses?

No.
If they are honest no one knows with absolute total certainty ... not unless you want to leave evidence and just believe it on pure faith.

As for the musk ox ... you could make that same type of claim about anything ... are you absolute total certain that humans can sustainably survive without that 1 specific cow you killed for a burger ? ... it might have carried vitally import DNA to the future survival 1 million years from now ... or that the musk ox species isn't actually going to be an invasive species that destroys many entire ecosystems... better not leave the house (you aren't totally absolute certain) that you won't be hit my lightning or an asteroid , or die in car crash , or ... or ... or.

Absolute total certainty is about as useless as asking magic and wizards to cast spells to fix all our problems.

[P-hack]

Ian seems in diversion mode. But since there is no data to suggest unrestrained population growth is a good idea (aside from human sense of self importance) and has offered no guesstimate how many people *should* occupy the planet, ~500 million it is.


You can't look at the huge numbers of farmland, then take more fore renewable energy, and the vast number of people, and believe for a second that we aren't extinguishing other species pell-mell.

[gone-ot]

Soylent Green will become a fact!?!?

[P-hack]

Who knows, plenty of folks would prefer a brisket over a biscuit...

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by IamIan

And for any size meat intensive eating population you pick .. that will consume more resources than a equal sized Vegetarian or Vegan Population.

I don't want to write a book here, but seems to me that if you are going to have a sustainable system, you simply can't think in terms of 'consume' and 'resources'.

and that same total amount of resources could just as sustainably feed a larger population of Vegetarian / Vegans... because every 1 meat calorie requires several times that input plant calories.

Not true - or rather, true only in a very limited sense, where you just measure energy input and outputs in isolation. If you think instead of entire systems, you might see that those 'meat calories' are actually doing some pretty important things in the ecosystem on their way to becoming calories. If you don't have them performing their functions naturally, you have to replace them with external inputs like chemical fertilizers, plowing, hand pollination, &c, all of which are necessary to make the system sustainable.

... every 1 meat calorie output (for a meat eater to eat) ... requires several times that more calories input (as plant calories) to get it... it is horribly low efficiency.

But those calories are, in most cases, being gathered from sources that humans can't utilize directly. For one simple example, humans can eat only a small part of grain plants such as wheat or corn. Grazing animals can eat the whole plant, and turn any excess into fertilizer to boot, as well as providing numerous other ecosystem services.

For a different argument, we might step back a bit and ask why, if meat-eating (or carnivory/predation in general) is so inefficient, it persists despite several hundred million years of evolutionary pressure to eliminate inefficiency?

I was trying to point out that just because an ecosystem is degrading is not enough on it's own to make the leap you were making about the sustainability of the global human population... An Ecosystem can degrade for a wide variety of reasons .. the effects of a large human population is not the only potential cause.

Certainly - but we find numerous examples that ARE caused by the activities of large human populations, it seems fair to hypothesize that such effects are inescapable, and so peg our maximum sustainable population at a level where the effects are not significant. Of course if it could be demonstrated that the effects could be eliminated somehow, that would change, but AFAIK that can't be done.

But we are also not talking about low impact population ... or a zero impact population ..

But that's my argument: unless & until ecology becomes an exact engineering discipline, a sustainable population has to be low or zero impact, otherwise the impacts eventually cause the system to collapse.

PS: Quite by coincidence, I just happened on an interesting example of those unconsidered ecosystem services: the effect of insects in urban garbage removal: http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2...rash-each-year

[P-hack]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

...For a different argument, we might step back a bit and ask why, if meat-eating (or carnivory/predation in general) is so inefficient, it persists despite several hundred million years of evolutionary pressure to eliminate inefficiency?...

That is an excellent question, and as seen in "safety improvements" where humans eat up the safety margins anyway, I don't see making everyone become vegans panning out either, just stalling for time and assisting further population expansion, and setting the stage for a conversation in some future rogue group like "mmm... grass fed pacifist".

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But those calories are, in most cases, being gathered from sources that humans can't utilize directly. For one simple example, humans can eat only a small part of grain plants such as wheat or corn. Grazing animals can eat the whole plant, and turn any excess into fertilizer to boot, as well as providing numerous other ecosystem services.

We intentionally plant things to feeds the cows and such to get our meat .. it is no accident that those plants are not indented for human consumption ... we can (for fun) look at how meat eaters actually get the meat produced in the real world .. and the massive environmental damage their meat eating is actually doing compared to if they didn't eat meat.

Also ... any part of the plant that a human doesn't eat ... will decompose into soil and fertilizer without the need to be eaten by some other animal like a cow... Thus that ecosystem does not ultimately suffer from the loss of the giant herds cows to produce our 66+ Million Tons of Beef per year... there are more herd cows in the US than humans.

It's like if someone advocated for being able to net better overall MPG by adding a horrible 5% efficient (20:1) energy converting step between the ICE and the Wheels that all energy has to flow through to get to the wheels... it makes things worse .. not better.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

For a different argument, we might step back a bit and ask why, if meat-eating (or carnivory/predation in general) is so inefficient, it persists despite several hundred million years of evolutionary pressure to eliminate inefficiency?

Evolution does not pressure to eliminate inefficiency ... Evolution does one and only one thing ... reward that which breads the most , who live long enough to themselves bread ... that's it.

Even if you want to try and draw a indirect correlation ... Meat eaters still loose and loose horribly ... there always in all stable / sustainable ecosystems far far fewer meat eaters than plant eaters ... meat eaters are in the evolutionary minority, by a large margin.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But that's my argument: unless & until ecology becomes an exact engineering discipline, a sustainable population has to be low or zero impact, otherwise the impacts eventually cause the system to collapse.

Or ... it doesn't collapse... maybe it thrives.

Not knowing all details ... does not guarantee being wrong about every decision one makes ... nor does it guarantee collapse or 100% complete failure.

Also just because we don't know 100% everything ... doesn't mean we know nothing (0%).

Edison knew next to nothing about what electricity even was .. or what was going on ... etc ... and none of that prevented his light bulb from working.

- - - - - - -

Originally Posted by P-hack

Ian seems in diversion mode.

Well I'm not.

Originally Posted by P-hack

But since there is no data to suggest unrestrained population growth is a good idea

AFAIK there is also no one claiming it is a good idea.

Originally Posted by P-hack

You can't look at the huge numbers of farmland, then take more fore renewable energy, and the vast number of people, and believe for a second that we aren't extinguishing other species pell-mell.

Well we , don't have to take farmland for more renewables ... so that's mute.

We could reduce (nearly all) the farmland damage being done in order to grow the grain and such , in order to produce the 320 Million tons per year of horribly low (5% or less) efficient , high polluting , unnecessary , luxury , meat eating... that's a lot.

At roughly ~2.9cal/g (Beef).. and the low 20:1 input to output ratio.
That's (roughly)
~843,636,363,636,363 meat output Calories
Inputing ~16,872,727,272,727,272 input feed Calories to get that output.
Or if you like that in energy terms closer comparable to RE.
~1.162 Wh per Food Calorie

~19,606,109,090,909,090 feed input Wh of energy per year
~19,606,109,090,909 kwh
~19,606,109,090 Mwh
~19,606,109 Gwh
~19,606 Twh
~19 Pwh

That's a big number of energy (and all the land and other resources that were used to produce it)... just for the luxury item of meat.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by P-hack

That is an excellent question, and as seen in "safety improvements" where humans eat up the safety margins anyway, I don't see making everyone become vegans panning out either, just stalling for time and assisting further population expansion, and setting the stage for a conversation in some future rogue group like "mmm... grass fed pacifist".

If ... they eat up the safety margins anyway.

Current data shows declining growth rate sense the 1970s.