Rembrandt asked me to give a 'grand finale' presentation of a weekend conference on depletion, offering up a framework for how to view the supply/demand intersection. Many in audience were my friends/colleagues so there were quite a few inside jokes. I was also trying to squeeze a heck of alot into 60 minutes. There are several errata after a first listen:

1. Earth is 4.5 billion years old (sounded like I said trillion)
2. Brains began in simple organisms, I said 'single cell'.
3. 50% of obese children will grow up to be obese, (not 50% are obese)
4. Avg height difference between men and women in human cultures is range of 4-7 inches, not 7 inches.
5. Wages rose for 15 decades (not centuries...though that too is possible but data is only for certain countries)

The general thrust of lateral thinking...generalist vs specialist is what I was aiming at - i.e. it is a mistake to a)focus on one limiting resource and b)ignore who we are as evolved organisms and all that entails. Out of all topics I discussed, I would only consider myself an 'expert' on finance (which means I'm an expert on none...;-)

If you watched it, I hope you enjoyed/learned something. I was happy, given my severe lack of sleep, that I fit it all into 1 hour. There are no easy answers to these issues, and maybe no hard ones either - it is my hope that others at higher levels in business/government/academia can bring these concepts closer together...

**Some selected references that were not indicated on slides:
Life as a Manifestation of Second Law of Thermodynamics Schneider, E.D, Kay, J.J., 1994, Mathematical and Computer Modelling, Vol 19, No. 6-8, pp.25-48

The Continuing Importance of Maximum Power Charles Hall, Ecological Modelling
Volume 178, Issues 1-2, 15 October 2004, Pages 107-113

Cultural Objects Modulate Reward Circuitry, Erk, S. et al. Neuroreport Dec 2002.

Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Hurts the Middle Class Robert Frank Jan 2008

Humans Prefer Cockiness To Expertise New Scientist Jun 2009

Often in Error, Rarely in Doubt Don Moore, Association For Psychological Science Conference, May 25 2009.

The Elements of a Scientific Theory of Self-deception Robert Trivers, Annals of NY Academy of Science, 2000

Availability Cascade and Risk RegulationKuran, T., Sunstein, S., Stanford Law Review Vol. 51, No.4 1999

Biological Basis of the Stress Response James P. Henry, Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, January-March, 1992, volume 27, Number 1, pages 66-83.

The 'bible' on Sexual Selection: Mating Systems and Strategies Stephen Schuster, Mike Wade, 2003

Thank you for sharing this presentation Nate. I have one question please. Can you please briefly explain what slide 118 (Effective Net Worth Per Citizen) is describing.

I am a UK citizen and I think that it should scare the living bee-jeebers out of me. But before I go and drown my sorrows I would like to know exactly what it is!

Thanks again,
Hugh

Review: Is This Umbrella a Bit To Big For Me?

Now to Nate Hagens overall presentation:
First the compliments:

-It's a damn good presentation. Very inclusive and thought provoking and gives an inclusive overview of where the thinking is on this issue among those who consider depletion a serious issue, and believe in taking a "wholistic" approach to the problems. The presentation presents not only a theory regarding depletion but attempts to present something of an inclusive theory of "ecology" in the biggest sense. I would recommend it to thinking friends, because it would cause even those who think that depletion and near term peak oil are non-existent threats to think about things they are not in the habit of thinking about (why we want what we want, for one)

That doesn't mean I agree with all the conclusions, but Nate and I have differed on TOD on things before, and he has not suffered because I differ with him on some points, and I have learned from his positions and arguments in most cases.

I am going to discuss, as best as I am able, the big picture issues and not dwell on small points or seek out tiny errors because the presentation is a "big picture presentation" and deserves to be seen as such. However, if we accept the premise that "the exception makes the rule" (with some exceptions!) then my interest in some following exceptions may make some sense:

-The presentation must by it's very nature do a lot of generalizing. This is fine in most cases as long as the viewer of the presentation keeps in mind that the generalizing is going on. We know that Nate places great importance on a few central themes that act as the scaffold that holds the rest of the argument together. Among the main ones are:
-Evolution
-Real wealth vs. fiat wealth
-Brain pharmacology (I could not come up with a better phrase than this to describe the discussion of the effect of dopamine and the need for what can only be described as a type of fascination with the chemical make up of the brain.
-marketing

We know that all of the above factors exist, and we can assume they play a considerable role in the drive of human beings to do what they do and want what they want. As Nate points out, evolutionary science is probably less accepted in the U.S. than in most advanced nations, so we simply must leave aside those who completely dismiss evolution for the moment.

However, this does not release us from the issue of how clearly evolution is understood, even by the best minds in the area of evolutionary biology. There are dozens of books, hundreds of articles, papers and abstracts written every year on corrections, abridgements, amendments and additions to evolutionary theory, and we can assume the continuing changes in the theory will continue to be forthcoming. Nate’s presentation points to one example that is still a bit of a mystery, that being decoration to attract mates even at the cost of consuming more resources and being more visible to predators (the case of the peacocks tail). We can see how this would make the peacock a better competitor among his own species, but what does it say of the interspecies competition?

New species and behavioral adaptations of older well known species are being found each day. These complicate the simplicity of evolutionary theory considerably and tell us humans how very little we really know about the “whole picture” of the way in which evolution really has worked in all of biological history. Some generalization is needed, but it can be dangerous to generalize too much regarding human behavior based solely on evolutionary theory. This does not mean that evolution is not a huge factor, but we must keep in mind that we may be making some dubious assumptions based on very limited understanding.

The same is true of the economic side, or “real wealth vs. fiat wealth”. With the recent economic crisis it has been very easy to sow complete lack of confidence in the financial system the world has built up since the birth of currency. However, both coin and currency were created in various forms long before the oil age began.
But the attack on “money” has now been accepted as common knowledge. Let me give as an example the definition given on Wikipedia of “fiat money”:
Since 1971 the US dollar is not backed by anything. It is pure fiat money. The promise to exchange it for gold or silver was quietly withdrawn, and currency notes no longer carry that pledge. The same is true of all major currencies in the world today.

Do we accept the above statement as true? We know that the promise by the government to exchange gold or silver for currency has been “quietly withdrawn”…but of course in a free and open market currency can still be used to buy gold and silver. It can also be used to buy oil, grain, cars, airplanes, whiskey and cocaine. So do we still accept that the money is “not backed by anything”? Do we give any value to the overall value of the economy that prints the money and it’s invested infrastructure of roads, airports, bridges, sewer systems, docks and dams, development of navigable waterways, schools, universities, military forces, information gathering and distribution systems…the list could go on, but would we assume that the U.S. dollar is “not backed by anything”? If this were true, then currency printed by the nation of Chad would be equal in value to the U.S. dollar? (!!) After all, if both were “not backed by anything”, what would cause open market buyers to place a premium on U.S. dollars (or Japanese Yen or the Euro?) as opposed to any other worthless bit of paper?

Only a few sentences later, the Wikipedia articles bails out of its own ludicrous position by saying “The transition from bank notes to government-guaranteed currency marks the evolution from trust in a financial institution to trust in the economic capacity and future prosperity of the nation. The greater a country’s production and productivity, the more the goods and services it offers in exchange for legal tender, and therefore the greater the confidence and trust in that currency.” Ah, so the currency is indeed backed by something, in fact it is backed by something more diverse and larger than all the gold and silver could provide, it is backed by the very ability of the economy to produce.

I use the above example not because I regard Wikipedia as a scholarly source, but because it and sites like it are where millions of people get their information. This explains the bizarre behavior described by Nate Hagens himself just today in the Campfire thread, when he recounted his hair stylist who exchanged “all of her bank cash for gold and tools.” Even Nate seemed a bit confused by her motives. The loss of confidence in the financial system is much more widespread and much more dangerous to the economy than any loss of energy supply, at least for now.

This is directly related to Nate’s presentation, in that the increase in money was directly linked to the increase in oil supply. I think the case can be made that this relationship must be studied MUCH more deeply before such a broad generalization is made, and indeed if we assume that the infrastructure we have was “built by oil” we must give weighted value to current infrastructure, since it one way it is a form of energy storage. (I have often made this argument, by the way, in my local area. A great old brick building would be torn down, without considering the energy storage that the building itself provided. We could do much to stretch the usefulness of built infrastructure through correct maintenance and thus increase our energy “stock” simply by stretching the useful life our national infrastructure.)

Note that I am not saying that Nate is “wrong”, I am simply saying that overgeneralization and oversimplification of the hysteria concerning cash money (“fiat money”) is dangerous and could lead us into some very unpredictable territory. In fact I think we are already seeing this in the current financial crisis, as the popular media has turned against the financial community in a big way.
The last point is what I called above “brain pharmacology” and I will tie it to marketing for the purposes of this discussion, because both seem to be directly related in Nate’s mind to the issue of human motivation and desire, and this of course is tied directly back to the evolutionary discussion. If all of this worked it would give us a comprehensive system to explain human behavior and would have found the holy grail of social and behavioral science. While Nate’s discussion is fascinating and very well presented, I am not sure we are there just yet.

I will simply mention a few things that cause great confusion when we use such terms as “genetic competition”, or the “biological drive to procreate” or “the competition for a mate” in too general of a way. When we tie all human behavior to these things we must somehow account for the “exceptions”, especially if the exceptions are on a markedly upward trajectory.

Here are a few to consider:
-Homosexuality-How does one account for this in the biological drive to procreate? In every culture that has attempted to reduce discrimination against gay and lesbian people we find that there are a considerable number of them! When I was a child the number was given as perhaps 5%, maybe 10% on the high side, but that was from polls taken when a person could still go to jail for being an admitted homosexual, and would surely face job and housing discrimination and even physical danger in parts of the country. So we now know the percent of the population that is gay is somewhat higher. Once we get to a percent around 20%, this would have a decided effect on the gene pool. If being gay is genetic, one wonders why the gay population did not go genetically extinct centuries ago! We will leave that aside for now, and just say that there seems to be other factors to consider in human behavior than the “genetic competition.

-Voluntary childlessness-again, once social constraints are removed, the number of women choosing not to have children, both straight and lesbian women, begins to climb. These women are essentially taking themselves out of the genetic race. The need for children seems much more culturally driven than genetically driven, because in any nation that allows female liberation, education and contraception, the number of women choosing to remain childless increases. I do not know why this is, but it would given great reason to be skeptical of the principal driver of human behavior as being the “genetic competition”, or the “biological drive to procreate”.

Now with a bit of tongue in cheek, let us look at what is claimed to be the “marketing” factor and the drive to ostentatious excess in automobiles as the driving force for big, fast fuel hungry cars, and mention in passing a great marketing sensation:

-The Volkswagen Beetle-Here we have a small-low power-low status vehicle introduced into a nation that was growing, that faced no fuel supply issues at the time, that prided itself on living out the competitive “bigger is better” dream…and it became not only a success but a cultural icon. How? Why? How does the Volkswagen Beetle and the whole movement in the 1960’s toward “reverse snobbery” fit into the big picture of “ostentatious genetic display”. The kids who bought and drove Beetles were considered the hip ones, the ones that had style, and the women loved them (the cars and the guys)

…and it was not only the Beetle mind you: A wave of small efficient vehicles were hitting America by storm and are still prized by the cognoscenti: The BMW 2002 (2 liter, 4 cylinder), the MG Midget (how’s that for a macho name?), the Austin Healy “Bugeye” Sprite the Alfa Romeo and Lancia sedans, the Fiat. The Beetle was at least cheap…but people paid premium prices for many of the other small bore European brands. Apparently ostentatious display of “style” can be as valued as ostentatious displays of wasteful consumption. Again we are back to asking about the complex construction of human motivation that seems to defy evolution and brain pharmacology. We should do more studies of the marketing of these small cars, sold successfully in the richest period of American history, and ask why they were accepted by the American customer and culture. It could tell us much about some of the factors that drive human behavior and by extension human consumption (or voluntary lack thereof, which is what interests us).

Again, all of the above is not to find fault with Nate Hagens presentation. It is simply to ask that broad generalizations be taken with a HUGE grain of salt. Over-simplification can be a dangerous thing if carried to extremes. Albert Camus was once asked what Hitler’s greatest crime was. He replied, “He gave us simple answers.” Camus’s observation was brilliant…Hitler only had a few stock answers…Germany had problems…it was the Jews….Germany was weak…arm and fight…opposition parties…destroy them.

We must be very careful to avoid falling back on a few stock answers…America uses too much gas…it’s the evolution…we like to try different things…it’s the dopamine…our cars are too big…it’s to impress the ladies…(has anyone done a study of the vehicles that gay and lesbian drivers buy to see if there is a noticeable difference in buying habits?)

We must also be very careful of using the newest scientific research as the basis for a model of the whole universe. This is a common error: When horse drawn chariots were invented, the sun was drawn across the sky by a chariot of the gods…an assumption that never occurred to cultures without chariots…when the clock was invented, the universe became a giant machine, put together the way gears meshed, everything times to gearworks of the universe…when Darwinism was published, the universe became survival of the fittest and the concept of “social Darwinism” shaped national policy…when the atomic bomb was exploded, of course the universe was born of a “big bang”…and now with the discoveries in brain pharmacology all behavior is explained by the dopamine.

Someday there may be a great sage, who speaks to his followers thusly…”man does not live by dopamine alone.”
Fascinating discussion and again Nate, fascinating presentation, great fun to watch and discuss!

RC

Nate,
The conventional wisdom in the enviro community (including my wife) is that we will voluntarily downsize our energy footprint through personal choices. My point is that only societal changes make a difference and the bottom up change will happen too slowly. Selfish choices will prevail.

This leads to the discussion of transportation. The rage currently is bus rapid transit, street cars and other forms of rail, but I think people will not choose to reduce their quality of life without some external pressure. Do we need to force people to use these systems by waiting for peak oil? The doomers think we have 3-5 years to build these systems before the collapse. Can we really rebuild our cities in 3-5 years?

My view is that we need a transportation system that appeals to the selfish person. Selfish needs are
1) save time
2) save money
3) security and privacy

Buses and train waste time and have a huge cost to society through subsidies (a typical bus/train system is only 25% paid for my fares) After riding the NY subway for 8 years, I switched to car pooling.

We need a new plan, not a solution that was designed for cities that don't have the same conditions.

Transport neesds to have the following characteristics:
0) better user experience than driving
1) cheap
2) fast
3) on demand
4) safe
5) private
6) low energy inputs
7) reduce congestion
8) encourage housing density
9) reduce need for parking lots
10) no liquid fuels

The system that fits these characteristics is personal rapid transit. Masdar has chosen PRT. Heathrow has installed a system. Skytran has developed a maglev high-speed prototype at NASA.

A 10-15 year transition plan to a transport system that is largely solar/wind/nuclear powered could work with by fulfilling the selfish needs of today's population.

A quick addition in the direction of being satisfied with less. Here's a link to an interesting measure (HPI):

The Happy Planet Index reveals the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered

http://www.happyplanetindex.org/

Central America seems to be one of the happiest parts of the world for the least consumptions of resources.

Thanks for posting this, Rembrandt and Nate. Stoneleigh posted a link to the vimeo on TAE a couple days ago, and I have it bookmarked. It so concisely sums up our current predicament, I have it bookmarked and am planning to send it to various family and friends.

Rembrandt and Nate,
"Some points on EROI" slide;
" energy and natural resources are what we have to spend(not$)"

If this was true we would be building a lot more nuclear and wind energy as these have a relatively small direct energy input but a lot of human capital(labor, knowledge). The limitations on building these now are not a shortage of energy or of materials, as Gail has often said we have a financing limitation. Unless you know of some energy or material shortages?

" all BTU's are not equal"
Couldn't agree more, this is often missed in EROEI, Hall et al suggest delivered energy,exenergy? or work output as a better measure.

" EROI of current flow rate is overestimated"
This would be true of mature energy resources(oil) but not of solar or wind energy, where new capacity is being built from almost nothing.

I don't understand point7) EROI and risk??

Thanks for posting this ... but I gotta admit, it depressed the hell out of me.

At the risk of becoming a bit of a party pooper,
this mathematical function looks a lot like

power = Pmax-(2*sqrt(Pmax)*x-sqrt(Pmax))^2, where x=eo/ei from 0..1

If I integrate this I get a cubic,

Pmax*x-(2* sqrt(P)*x-sqrt(P))^3/(2*Pmax) which is
pretty much a straight line between Pmax/6 at normalized eo/ei=0% and 5* Pmax/6 at normalized eo/ei=100%.

In other words, except at the very ends eo/ei <.2 and eo/ei>.8 there is no appreciable change in slope, no dimishing returns. Instead a change in normalized eo/ei leads to a nearly exactly linear increase in output which sounds a lot more like Jevon's paradox--increasing efficiency leads to increasing power.

OTOH, if you differentiate
power = Pmax-(2*sqrt(Pmax)*x-sqrt(Pmax))^2, where x=eo/ei from 0..1

you get a straight line slope from .66 Pmax to .44 Pmax,
diff power = 2/3 Pmax-(2/3)^2 Pmax *x, where x=eo/ei from 0 to 1.

indicating a quite modest amount of 'wasted' power as eo/ei changes.

Perhaps there is a different function than a parabola but I doubt it.

If anything your power curve shows that changes in eo/ei
will modestly affect power requirements and that an decrease from 80% to 20% in normalized eo/ei will require an increase in differential power by only 27.3%.

I think this whole discussion is missing how these physical changes are connected to ordinary human decision making, i.e. through money.

We have economic growth as the primary driver of our life support system because people with money invest it to grow businesses and the economy so they can make more money. That's the mechanism that will be disrupted (by one or another means) by our running into natural limits, for example. Without that mechanism the satisfaction of "limitless human desires" just wouldn't be happening, because the causal mechanism driving that is the money pumping value of people using money to multiply money.

We really need to spend more time thinking in terms of how things actually operate, not just what could be and can't be. We simply can't have multiplying money and diminishing impacts, because making money *IS* the impact.

The way natural resource limits are observed and responded to by an economic system is with rising costs, serving to allow the diminishing resource use by those who can afford it financially, and cut off everyone else. That "big squeeze" is what we need to look for evidence of, try to understand how it will effect people's plans, figure our how to respond to... see my recent post "Profiting from scarcity"

I appreciate your efforts.
More synthesis and less exposition.
What ever your target audience erudition is always recognised and translates.
As Nietsche . . . 'She told me herself that she had no morality - and I thought she had, like myself, I more severe
morality than anybody'. . .
For example all that evolutionary biology is over blown it can be simplified down to animals take a meal where they find it, those with greater degrees of encephalisation do it better.
Perhaps as an American you think people are unique, manifest destiny and all that so you need to excuse human behaviour by characterisation rather than empiricism.

We humans have pretty much run riot over the planet.

We have behaved as we are -- a huge swarm of one species of animal addicted to maximizing pleasure for ourselves and minimizing pain for ourselves.

We are very good at consuming energy and materials quickly.

Our "pain" and "pleasure" signals are complex.

We not only want our personal best comfort zone for now, but we each want to expand our own personal best comfort zone infinitely.

One planet and one lifetime is not enough for any of us -- whether we want to tell ourselves otherwise or not

We want eternal bliss.

The complexities of the stories we tell ourselves seem to boil down to this: all levels of violence against other humans, other species, and our habitat in general arise from our insatiable lust to become eternal, infinite, and all-powerful.

The Full Spectrum Dominance of God is what we want even though none of us can get it.

So we either die trying, or we die trying to change the way we are.

Are there other possible modes of being available to us to choose and to shape? I think that there are.

Mostly those who preach, teach, and live lives that challenge the dominant mode of being are hung on crosses or beheaded or simply marginalized and mocked.

It seems to me that rape and murder are the core and dominant features of our species. The stories of other ways of being in the world have been co-opted for use as manipulative devices along the way -- history is replete with "liberation" and "conversion" as cover for rape, pillage, and plunder.

"Love" and "Peace" are thus made synonymous with "Hate" and "War."

We continue to expand the death-dealing riot even as people talk of peace and "sustainability."

No great plans for survival or change will help us at this point -- we've crossed the threshold into a Hell significantly of our own making, and find that we get to live here together for a little while.

Welcome to the Eremozoic Age.

Now all we need is "apocatastasis" -- some transformative combination of actions and events that make all well again.

The earth groans as in the pains of childbirth. What will be revealed? A soon-to-be lifeless planet? A global wasteland of sewer-like ooze? New Sons and Daughters of God or Gaia? Another -- hitherto unimaginable -- Divine evolutionary leap?

Resources are depleted....The competition intensifies....The human response? More weapons....more environmental devastation....more war.....even as we speak of peace and sustainability and cooperation.

I still work for Peace and Love and Sustainability. I am a happier animal when I do.

It is a ridiculous thing to hope, to believe in love or peace. And yet I do. It is even more ridiculous to think that one's words or actions will matter. And yet I do.

Brilliant.
But I had to discount my commenting time.

Really good presentation.

It is the summary of the state of thinking on TOD.
As I was watching it I was thinking of who I can send it to.

A guy called Chris Martenson did "The Crash Course"
You should think of expanding this - maybe just into 3 one hour presentations and posting it so that people can re-use it

Nate

Nice presentation thanks. I'm left wondering to what degree your thinking, especially concerning maximum power principle and EROEI, has been influenced by Odum? Reading his book 'Environment, Power, And Society For The Twenty-first Century' was a revelation for me and I was impressed by his ability to consider whole systems.

Assuming you are aware of his work, what do you think of his more innovative (and hence controversial) ideas around transformity, emergy and energy heirarchy? The emergy concept in particular I find fascinating and if it is correct it throws a whole new light on calculations of net energy. The concept of fuel quality and that a calorie = a calorie = a calorie is wrong is especially powerful and has massive implications for determination of EROEI and for consideration of the importance of the FF subsidy we currently enjoy.

Interested to hear your thoughts and apologies if this has already been covered before.

Rgds
TW

Beggar
Get your thinking cap. You can not see that your culture is making you think man is bad rather than just another animal.
Alternatively you can recognise most people stay civilised most of the time within their own milieux (social group) unless hunger intervenes.
Get cold, hungry and desperate then see if you have a moral picture of the world that stands up to scrutiny.
Life will go on that is what comes from ancient religions and under pins American culture e.g. the handshake is pagan symbolising a joint faith that the sun will rise again.
Your angst is no more than an inversion of straight forward pagan notions that life is firmly rooted in the here and now.
The handshake becomes affirmation that a metaphysical being will rise again.
When it does not there must be someone or something to blame rather than the whole premise being BS.

I want to posit something regarding the male Peacock's tail.
Just looking at the large and very distracting pattern and also noticing that there are many eye shaped spots might suggest that the tail had a value in escaping a predator.
And attacking predator might strike at the false eyes and get a mouth full of tail feathers and consequently be dissuaded from further pursuit.
I think there is more to the tail than just getting a piece of tail.