Estimates of Native American populations in the 1400s CE average about 1-2 million people (cite). That’s population not only without fossil fuels, but also without domesticated horses (cite.) Undoubtedly billions of people would die in the transition period (making it The Very Bad Thing[sup]TM[/sup],) but a century or eight afterwards you are vastly underestimating the number of people who can be supported without fossil fuels.
The transition period would be genocide on a massive scale, but I see no support for your claim this would be an extinction event for the human species or a Toba-level genetic bottleneck (if that even occurred according to the worst hypotheses.)
No, Peak Oil theory is that there is SOME DATE where we will no longer produce more. We’ve already hit it, in terms of what we used to call oil. We haven’t hit it, in terms of fossil fuels (mostly thanks to fracking). But unless someone believes that fossil fuels can be created faster than we’re using them, or some other disaster intercedes, then there will definitely come a day when production heads into a permanent decline.
Better for whom? Probably not for the 2-3B dead people.
I agree with XT, not specifically his numbers, but his point that a mass extinction is very likely. The world now is very little like the world that sustained 1B people in 1800 AD. People today don’t know how to live and produce like people did then. 1800 is a bad example of pre-industrial world, too, since it was largely dependent on infrastructure, everywhere but in the most primitive places.
My guess is that hundreds of millions might survive the first geneeration; the highest numbers probably in India, since I bet a lot of people living subsistence lifestyles there would be less affected. I’d be surprised if much more than 1% survived in the continental US, though. And as XT says, starvation isn’t the only culprit. Our fellow humans might be just as bad or worse.
[QUOTE=wevets]
Estimates of Native American populations in the 1400s CE average about 1-2 million people (cite). That’s population not only without fossil fuels, but also without domesticated horses (cite.) Undoubtedly billions of people would die in the transition period (making it The Very Bad ThingTM,) but a century or eight afterwards you are vastly underestimating the number of people who can be supported without fossil fuels.
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Two things about that. First off, their agricultural infrastructure was already set up to their level of technology and and methods of production. Ours isn’t. Secondly, when they DID have a major resource issue (such as, oh, say a large scale water shortage due to chronic drought) most of their civilizations ended up collapsing.
I think you are vastly underestimating the scale of the disaster if all fossil fuels disappeared tomorrow, and vastly overestimating anyone’s ability to shift to new technologies or even survive in such an event.
My support for my claim, such as it is, would be pointing to every example of complete systemic civilization collapse due to a critical resource shortage that we have in history…except that this time you don’t have isolated civilizations collapsing alone and having only a peripheral, if any, effect on more remote civilizations. Instead, today, our civilization is world wide and completely interconnected…and relies on a distributed and constant logistics system to keep it supplied and working. Our agricultural system is equally dependent on technology, especially fossil fuels…and so is much of the third worlds agricultural system. And this doesn’t even factor in disease and modern weapons and how easy it would be for the largest, most advanced nations to panic and lash out.
Ok, that’s my support. What would yours be? I can see why you might think that extinction is unlikely (I conceded that it was only a possibility myself, and one I find improbable), but I could see a Tobo bottleneck like event, where only a few tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of folks survive in highly isolated areas (I realize that Tobo was just a few thousands, but there are billions of humans today, so I think it’s comparable). Why wouldn’t that be a likely outcome, in your mind? What would prevent it? Certainly not your comment that American Indians could support populations of millions before fossil fuels in the past??
If the world’s fossil fuels vanished tomorrow of course there would be a total collapse of most of civilization. War and chaos would ensue. There’s just no way around it. I cannot understand how anyone would reasonable argue otherwise.
As for it being an extinction event, no, probably not. For one thing,** there are isolated groups of people in the world NOW who wouldn’t be much affected**; the people of North Sentinel Island aren’t going to give a hoot. People in the Amazon and central New Guinea will get by, even if most of us will be facing a Mad Max scenario. Not everyone is interconnected.
And the thing is, even in Mad Max, a few people survived. It’s very unlikely that out of seven billion people, nobody will be able to scrape by. Once the initial fighting’s over, people will dust themselves off; it doesn’t take a real genius to figure out how to plant some seeds, raise a few chickens, and run patrols to keep the bandits out. Someone will do those things, and civilization will eventually rise again.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
As for it being an extinction event, no, probably not. For one thing, there are isolated groups of people in the world NOW who wouldn’t be much affected; the people of North Sentinel Island aren’t going to give a hoot. People in the Amazon and central New Guinea will get by, even if most of us will be facing a Mad Max scenario. Not everyone is interconnected.
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Depends on how it all comes apart. North Sentinel Island is in the South Pacific somewhere, so assuming they have zero trade or contact with the outside world, and are 100% self sufficient, then the only thing they would need to worry about is the possibility of a thermonuclear war in India/Pakistan, or in Southeast Asia…they probably wouldn’t need to be worried about refugees or anything like that though. The Amazon might face more challenges, since there is the possibility of refugees or connected disease or other impacts (probably won’t need to worry about nukes there though), and the remote regions of central New Guinea would probably be ok.
And, as you say, there will most likely be some survivors somewhere, even in Europe or America/Canada (probably more in Canada than the US, as there are more isolated communities there)…but thinking that our civilization would survive, or that we are talking about billions of folks being left after is pure fantasy.
I suppose it depends on the circumstances…and what sort of civilization might arise again and how long it would take. And who all survived and how.
yeah we’d just have to rewind to the days columbus was around where they used ships powered by wind and stuff like that but not necessarily caveman days and I think a major factor is whether or not communications systems would still be around and whether we could utilize them. Communication is just as important as mobilization.
I am confused. It sounds like you are criticizing my post, but you are repeating my points back to me. I get the feeling that you did not read my entire post.
I pointed out that billions of people would die of famine and war in the short term. But, (eventually) people would return to non-industrial agriculture and (eventually) population would rebound to exceed one billion.
Not sure why you are being critical when it sounds like we are agreed.
I think we are in agreement on some points, but you asked why some people (presumably me since I’ve been the main person arguing for a total systemic collapse) were saying ‘no food’. Humanity and early agriculture were certainly able to sustain hundreds of millions of people in the past, but we’d have to rediscover a lot of the techniques to do that sort of thing now, and not simply the planting and reaping aspects, but the logistics of doing it AND transporting the food outside of a small local region. We’d also need to rediscover how to do it without modern fertilizers, without modern gene technology for seeds, without modern pesticides, modern pumps and water infrastructure, animal husbandry, etc etc etc.
I wasn’t so much being critical of your post as simply giving my thoughts on it. I often come off as hostile when I don’t mean to be…I’m just sort of an asshole, plus when I post from an iPad things often come out a bit stilted and weird. My apologies for coming off in attack mode…wasn’t my intention.
I don’t think it would be an extinction-level event, but I don’t think that those disconnected groups would remain disconnected, either. How many sailboats are there that could reach those islands? Certainly plenty enough that they could completely overwhelm the inhabitants. How far will the millions in Rio be able to make it along the Amazon river? The reason that those places are currently undisturbed is that we have international agreements against pillaging the remaining enclaves of humanity, not that they’re so removed that we can’t get there.
When infrastructure collapses in cities, people are going to get the hell out of Dodge as fast as they can by any means possible. A sailboat is probably about the best place to be during the industrial apocalypse. You can be far away from the most dangerous thing (other people), you can fish for food and fashion a solar still to make drinking water. Anyone capable of rigging a sail who’s in sprinting distance of the harbor when we collectively realize exactly how fucked we are is going to be heading for the most remote life-sustaining islands they can find on a map. Probably with a few automatic weapons in the hold.
I’m with walrus…if something like this happens I’m heading to the docks for the nicest sailboat I can handle. I’m bringing a gun and fishing poles. Hopefully everything else I need is on the boat.
And, I just looked at a map, and Rio is nowhere near the Amazon river. :smack: But, still, there are lots of Brazilians around who will be heading away from the cities and towards the jungle.
John Varley just wrote a great book on this very subject, called “Slow Apocalypse”. All the world’s supply of unrefined fossil fuel is eaten by a bacteria in a short period of time and civilization proceeds to collapse.
TLDR version: anarchy followed by mass migrations (Los Angeles’ water supply gets cut off and the city is destroyed by earthquakes and fires). What government there is by the end is a mix of libertarian and communist values.
The novel is worth reading if for no other reason than to realize how fragile a footing our modern lifestyle rests on. Humans are resilient and we will survive… but it will be the shits for a long time.
And that is just oil. This OP is talking about ALL fossil fuels…everything, all gone at once and suddenly, not over years or even months or days.
Or we could talk to the people doing just this today - one example of which would be the Amish (US population around 270,000).
Possibly by means of trains?
We’d first need to discover why things like gene technology and pumps (not to mention the others) couldn’t get by on electrical power.
[QUOTE=Xema]
Or we could talk to the people doing just this today - one example of which would be the Amish (US population around 270,000).
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How would you ask them? Take a car or plane over to have a visit? And how would they be able to show you during the apocalypse? You’d need to relearn the techniques and build the tools and knowledge to do it.
Powered how? By what? Trains are run on diesel mainly. You could build older steam trains I suppose…but how? Using what machines and tools? Built how? Using what materials? How do you clear the dead trains from the tracks?
They could…but how do you convert them over? How do you get the materials to do so, and manufacture the things required to do so? How do you get the electrical power, and distribute it? There will be some nuclear power plants, and solar and wind and geothermal and hydroelectrical…how do you maintain and support them so that they continue to operate? Where do you get the spare parts from? How do you feed and otherwise support the workers?
We can do all of these things, of course…given time. But there won’t be any time. Our entire system is geared towards fossil fuels. Everything we do is geared towards that. Shifting would take resources. Where do they come from, how do you get them and how do you support them while this stuff is all happening?
Answer…you can’t. No one can. Your Amish are all dead, because they have been over run by starving people in the big cities fleeing and desperate for food. Your trains are scattered around, and the tracks are all jammed up with dead trains that are impossible to move without fossil fuel using machines to do it.
Walk up to them and talk to them. Or read what they have written.
By electricity.
Electrically powered machinery.
As is done today. You yourself mention the current methods: hyrdo, nuclear, solar, wind.
As is done today.
Easy when the value of the electrical power they produce has increased substantially.
No one would be interested in preserving the Amish because of their knowledge and the food they produce? No one would be willing to defend them in exchange for some of that food?
No one is arguing that the transition would be smooth - clearly the population that could be supported would be well below current levels. But the idea that a world that once supported hundreds of millions without fossil fuels or any sources of electricity could not, armed will all sorts of technological advantages, do as well today seems quite silly.
[QUOTE=Xema]
No one is arguing that the transition would be smooth - clearly the population that could be supported would be well below current levels. But the idea that a world that once supported hundreds of millions without fossil fuels or any sources of electricity could not, armed will all sorts of technological advantages, do as well today seems quite silly
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Not trying to be harsh here, but it only seems silly to you because you just don’t get it, or understand or realize how dependent every single thing in your life is on fossil fuel…or how dependent you and everyone else reading this thread is on a constant and continuous flow of logistics that keeps your local supermarket in beer and pretzels, or what would happen if suddenly that was all cut off.
Your replies to me were flip, and I figure you were thinking you were scoring points, but I’m not lashing back…it’s really obvious that you don’t understand. So, let me try to explain by addressing another point you made here.
Let’s say this happened tomorrow…that’s the premise of the thread after all. What would happen next? The government would try and assert control of course…but how would they? Almost instantly, power would go down. Even in places where there are nuclear or solar/wind/hydroelectric plants, the grid system we have would shut down because suddenly there would be too much demand and not enough supply. Food and supplies would instantly shut down as well…whatever you have in your area is what you’d have. If you live in Iowa, it wouldn’t be so bad…but in New York or, say, Philadelphia it would be VERY bad very quickly. And there would be no way the government could do anything about it. They couldn’t send in troops. They couldn’t send in relief. There simply would be no way they could do so, because all of our military and relief lifting capabilities rely completely on fossil fuels. Air planes wouldn’t work, trucks wouldn’t run. Maybe the Navy could use some of their nuclear powered ships for a time, and the government at least has backups for their communications, so it wouldn’t all fall apart instantly…but, realistically, there isn’t much they COULD do. Even bringing in nuclear powered ships that are close enough to use, you’d need to get the supplies to the docks somehow (need trucks for that…or trains that work), get it on board, and then at the other end the same thing. Roads would be clogged with dead vehicles. Even if you HAD an all electric vehicle and could use it while the charge lasted, where would you take it? How would you drive when all the roads are clogged with dead cars?
Anyway, back to the Amish. So, there they are…they are doing ok. They have food, and they don’t rely on electricity. But…they are pretty close to some pretty big cities. No large natural barriers. For a couple of days, maybe a week or two, that is…until you have folks (with guns) who start to get hungry and who are panicked and desperate…and looking for food. What do you do when 50, or 100…or 10,000…people show up on your door step? Do you just give them your food? Damn right you do…or you die right then. And after that? You starve, just like they do, because your low tech farm simply can’t supply large numbers of people.
No one at that point is going to be nicely asking you to demonstrate your farming techniques and for advice on building old style plows and harvesters, or how to care for horses to run them…they are going to be EATING your horses and everything else you have that they can get at. Long before you can plant a new crop you are going to be dead…and so are most or all of the folks who just ate your food.
The thing is, it’s the speed of this happening that’s the killer. If it happens over the next 100 years, we’d have time to adapt. Lots of people would still die world wide, and even in the advanced countries, but not this sort of mass death. But in the scenario in the OP? We’d be fucked. We COULD go back to old style farming, but it would take too long to build what would need to be built and re-adapt…and we wouldn’t have the access we do now to get the materials and manufacturing to do it rapidly enough to stave off disaster. The thing is, folks in this thread concede (well, not you but others) that we are talking about billions dying, but they seem to think that’s going to be an orderly process, with the folks who are going to die just calmly shuffling off somewhere to get on with it, and leaving the rest to rebuild. It won’t be like that at all…people will be panicking, rioting, and trying to make sure they and their families survive, while not giving a damn about strangers. That very panic is going to be the death blow for our civilization, as people fight for whatever they can get in any way they can get it.
Anyway, no point in addressing the rest, as the answer boils down to ‘sorry, that’s fantasy’. There is zero chance that any of what you wrote there would happen. Again, I’m not trying to be a dick here, you just don’t get it. Hell, I have been involved in emergency planning for years as part of my job as an engineer, and I’ve gamed out worst case scenarios, and I don’t think that even I grasp the full magnitude of what the disaster would be. Oh, intellectually I do, but it would mean my death and the death of everyone I know. I’d be one of those desperately trying to maintain order, since that’s part of my job, but there is just no way it would happen. Maybe if I lived in Iowa or one of the large plain states that produces such an abundance of food there would be a chance. They have pretty low population density, and that’s where all the food is grown, so they would have TIME to try and do something. But here, in New Mexico? We’d all be fucked here. As would every person on the east and west coasts and in every large city.
No, they were factual.
Your theory - which I find tenable, but not compelling - says that the breakdown in civilization would overwhelm everything. So even those able to produce an excess of food would be killed for the food they have on hand, after which everyone starves to death.
I see some of this happening, but hardly to the point where no one is left. The Amish may not be a good example, because they deprecate violence. But I live in an area with lots of farmers (some of them Amish), almost all of which have guns and know how to use them. If those starving city-dwellers (who are most unlikely to be well organized) show up for a battle with distinctly well-armed and tolerably well-fed farmers, the outcome isn’t guaranteed to be death to all.
Nobody has any particular reason to go to North Sentinel Island, which would in fact be hard to find. It’s small and there’s not much there for you, and the residents kill all outsiders on sight. But even if the North Sentinelese were not psychotically xenophobic, which they are, why would anyone go to North Sentinel? It’s just one of a zillion islands, covered in trees. It is noteworthy solely for the isolation and hostility of its inhabitants. You won’t be any better off sailing there.
Much the same is true of the upper Amazon. There remain parts of the Amazon, as well as parts of Africa and other places, that remain occupied by neolithic tribes because nobody else wants to live there. If all hell breaks loose tomorrow, why would someone go to a place that is insanely hard to get to and where they have no means or understanding of how to survive?
And if everyone leaves the city, well, I’m staying. I can get by with just be and my family if everyone else fucks off. There’s a lot of room. Most people will die, but some won’t. And some’s enough to restart it all.
[QUOTE=Xema]
Your theory - which I find tenable, but not compelling - says that the breakdown in civilization would overwhelm everything. So even those able to produce an excess of food would be killed for the food they have on hand, after which everyone starves to death.
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Not exactly. As I said, in some places of low population density coupled with high food availability, I would expect people to survive…as long as we didn’t also have something like a nuclear war in the final throes of the civilization dying, which is a possibility. THAT was what I was saying wrt an extinction event.
Assuming that doesn’t happen, then I’d expect some folks to survive even in high population countries like the US. The very fact that you wouldn’t have any ability to move freely, especially initially, would save many people.
However, in the Amish example, or in even high productivity agricultural areas in high population density areas, I’d say it’s pretty obvious that just about everyone would starve. Why? Because the ability to produce the food couldn’t possibly keep up with the large numbers of people desperate to eat it without the modern mechanized and fossil fuel dependent machines to do so. Oh, I suppose if someone wanted and could take really draconian measures they might be able to do it…after all, machine guns and such will still work…but I doubt many would have the chance to get that organized, or have the wills to machine gun starving civilians the way they would have to. I certainly couldn’t.
No, I don’t expect the city dwellers to be organized…but neither will the farmers be. Also, the farmers would have to farm…and that’s going to be back to a totally manual process. In addition, you are talking about thousands or even millions of people on the move…even if your theoretical farmers were willing to machine gun down starving women and children, there just aren’t enough bullets in any given area. Remember, no logistics, no ability to shift troops or concentrate in areas…no ability to build defenses, outside of what could be built by hand. And everyone is going to be in shock, everything falling apart, and everyone panicking.
In pretty much every place that you could reasonably walk to from any of the largely populated cities (with some exceptions, such as in places that are bread basket areas, since there is going to be huge quantities of stored food, or food in the midst of being transported when everything dies), you are going to have pretty much most people dying. If the farms you are talking about are within a few days walking distance to a major city or large population center, then there is no way they would survive what would be happening. It might take months, or even a few years, but they wouldn’t make it. Simply too many mouths to feed, and not enough ability to feed them without the equipment to do so.
Anyway, you are obviously not buying any of this, and I don’t know any other way to say what I’ve already said, so I’ll leave it at that. My gut feeling is that, even assuming the best case (i.e. no nuclear war), we are talking about a huge percentage of the population dying in something like this…maybe 90+% in the long run, before things stabilize and start to rebuild on a lower tech base. Certainly our civilization would be done at anything like those levels of death, and I doubt much of our technology would survive the disaster, though a lot of our machines would still be in use and useful to the survivors. We wouldn’t go back to the stone age, but it would be pretty grim.