Peak minerals
A New Scientist article (Earth’s natural wealth: an audit (23 May 2007) – David Cohen looks at the issues surrounding Platinum resources and then goes on to look at a range of other minerals including indium, tantalum, zinc, copper, nickel, phosphorus, gallium, and uranim. The article includes graphs described below:
(make sure to enlarge using the mangifying glass icon)
The graphs are at current rates of usage (accounting for what we’re already recycling).
Another graph also describes how much of each resource an average American will consume in an average lifetime.
Add comment August 4, 2009
Peak Fish occurred in the 1980s
We exceeded peak fish in the 1980’s and all the fish will be gone by 2048 at current rates of exploitation according to the documentary “The End of the Line” – narrated by Ted Danson. Technology has far exceeded the ability of fish to escape. Some fishing methods destroy far more than the species targeted, and destroy entire ecosystems. Blue Fin Tuna is of particular focus as an example of most unsustainable fishing. The film starts by highlighting the collapse of Cod in Nova Scotia despite the intense anger of the fishermen when Cod fishing was stopped by the Canadian Government. Despite the ban, cod stocks never recovered as they were too depleted by this time. By contrast, Alaska is depicted as much more sustainable, with better protection and with with the season made very short , but this is portrayed as protecting the future of the industry.
Scientists have analysed the decline of large fish, over 90% of which have been exploited in many species. When the remaining large species are gone, the next target will be medium sized fish and so on until small fish become the target. Although some debate took place about the figures, the key protagonists in the film agree that the percentage is pretty irrelevant as the point is that fishing practices are grossly unsustainable.
The film also describes how the EU fisheries agreement is political and allows far more fish to be caught than is sustainable. The EU allowances are about 150% of what is sustainable and 300% of what it takes for stocks to recover. However, fishermen are catching about twice the EU limits so half of the fish at our tables is illegally caught. One British politician is recorded saying politicians are fighting with biology which it is not possible to do.
The scientists interviewed identify that unlike Climate Change, the solution to this problem is quite simple, reducing catches, policing and encouraging consumers to eat fish from sustainable sources. A South American activist also came up with the suggestion of eating small fish such as mackerel and anchovies which are fed to fish farms instead of the salmon produced, saying that these small fish are more healthy anyway.
One of the most important points made by the film is that when food security and water crises come to the fore during this Century, exacerbated by Climate Change, Peak Oil & Gas, that is a time when fish could help feed the world.
Add comment July 31, 2009
Solutions – motor cars #2 (energy source)
Hydro powered electric showed signs of promise in the previous post on this subject. However it still doesn’t improve the overall ecological footprint setting CO2 aside. So the other options to consider are:
- Use renewable or waste energy to power the vehicle. This could include Hydrogen produced from excess wind; wave, tidal, and new biological techniques now being developed. Renewable power is often intermittent (worst-case being wind) and makes the electricity grid hard to manage. Diverting excess when not needed into other power sources is an option. These definitely improve the CO2 problem (depends how much renewable sources we can create), the overall footprint is still significant as the other life cycle stages remain unchanged. Electric cars seem to be emerging as having the lowest carbon footprint so the likelihood is that excess renewable and waste energy could be used to charge batteries (providing the batteries become sustainably produced, which includes the world not running out of Lithium).
- Using (renewables generated) compressed air to power the vehicle. At the moment the renewables part of the equation is mostly confined to wind power as turbines exist which convert directly from wind to compresssed air without first converting the energy to some form of electricity. Cost is a factor, however, though such a wind turbine may be inefficient (most of the wind power is not captured), it only has to be economical, i.e. the compressed air generation farms / companies / co-ops just need to make more money than they invest. This is a very clean source of power.
Wind turbines can also first convert to electricity before compressing the air, but this adds an extra stage of inefficiency to the energy chain. There are questions raised as to how economical this approach is, but like Hydrogen, compressed air can be generated as an almost free source of waste energy (e.g. at night or when it is too windy). -
Use 1 and/or 2 above in the entire life cycle including manufacture, transportation, service and repair. Now we’re getting there. The majority of the pollution is bypassed as the renewable energy is far cleaner.
Combined with reducing weight, drag and parts which require service from the previous post, the option is there provided resource depletion of the raw materials is taken into consideration.
It still is unlikely hundereds of millions of humans will be able to drive Electric Cars (even if they were much less than 1000kg each) because much energy will still be required to keep us comfortable and fed, so the next post on this subject examines transport ownership and lifestyle issues.
Add comment July 30, 2009
Solutions – Motor Cars #1 (design process of elimination)
We know that everyone in the planet cannot (for sustainability reasons) drive a motor car, so what can be done to alleviate the problem.
First approach – design
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Eco-cars – hydrogen, hybrid, electric. In order to determine if you should buy an eco-car, first examine the entire eco-lifecycle of cars including production, repairs and usage. All of reduce the CO2 footprint (but not by multiple factors), and they don’t necessarily reduce the overall ecological footprint because much pollution still takes place throughout the life cycle.
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Reduce the weight. This addresses efficiency. A 75Kg person pushing around a 1000Kg vehicle is an greatly unnecessary load. A lighter car means less less fuel consumed and less materials go into the making of it, less things can go wrong and its lifecycle analysyis (both CO2 and overall ecological footprint) is smaller.
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Reduce the width. This reduces the aerodynamic drag. The faster the car goes, the greater the drag and the worse the fuel consumption. By reducing the width, the drag decreases.
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Reduce the width of the tyres. This reduces the friction on the road which is another source of loss of energy.
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Turn it into a motorbike. A lighter narrower vehicle with less wheels (half the friction or even less if the tyres are narrow) with less parts which can go wrong and weighing a lot less than a car. The main disadvantage of motor bikes is that some travellers see them as too dangerous . Another disadvantage is that the driver is more exposed to the elements – for many this rules motor bikes out.
The overall direction here = smaller, lighter, less drag, less moving parts that can go wrong, less maintneance.
It is quite clear that everyone driving around in > 1000Kg vehicles is not a solution no matter the technology (Hydro electric powered battery avoids CO2 emissions but still has production CO2 and ecological lifecycle (pollution) concerns). Even motor bikes consume significant energy and have an ecological footprint so other approaches are also needed…
Add comment July 30, 2009
How long will we last (natural causes)
The context of this post is to demonstrate that the universe has its own design. We may at some later point come up with means of delaying some impending natural universal and global events, but by and large things are out of our hands. What we have control of is our own impact (which in many be why we are here). This is the starting point for many of the posts to come – that there are some things we can do little about, but there is meaning in changing the things we can do something about.
Natural events which have large impact on us (working backwards) include:
- Perhaps 10 billion years before the Sun’s radiation becomes too hot for Earth.
- Up to a few hundred thousand years before the next super volcano (Yellowstone is the one most talked about – which would wipe out the middle section of North America. The resultant very cold summers could have a very large impact on the number of humans living globally.
- Up to tens or hundreds of thousands of years before a giant Tsunami. The most talked about is from a section of La Palma in the Canary islands which is predicted to eventually fall into the sea after first encountering a number of volcanic events (water spreading about 20 miles inland in North America and having a global impact).
- Less than 20,000 years to the next ice age (temperature will be 6 or more degrees C (13.5 degrees F) colder than normal). Ice ages greatly reduce the land available to humans and force migration, although some areas of the planet which are now unproductive may provide a lot more resources.
- Collisions from asteroids and comets are shorter in timescale. There is concern and asteroid strike in 2030 but according to this BBC article the risk has been downgraded to a 1 in 500 chance and a 5 million kilometre miss.
- Bacterial & viral threats are ongoing. Swine flu will tell us how well prepared we are for flu pandemics but certainly more people that a normal flu will be impacted although likely much less than the Sapnish Flu in early 20th Century.
Events 2 and 3 above may even be overdue, but the time scales involved are very large.
Many natural events, while catastrophic at the time, have also helped to renew the planet and make it the diverse place that it is.
Add comment July 22, 2009
Solution #2 – participation
Representative democracy is adversarial and is not leading itself well to solutions in a crisis. Political parties in opposition often oppose by necessity and often underine the party in power by necessity in order to increase their own chances of gaining the reins. If they succeed then roles of those in power and opposition are reversed.
The whip system means politicians on both sides have to vote in favour of things they are against and against things they are in favour of on a regular basis.
Democracy means the rule of the majority so where does that leave the minority – the poor, the weak, the disaffected, the opressed ? Often without a voice.
Additionally when crises such as the current economic situation occur, lack of agreement on solutions through lack of co-operation can arise. The attacks from opposition can be crippling for the decision makers. Moulding of the public anger and its manipulation takes place with some degree of success. The blame game takes centre stage.
Participation by the public is one key to finding solutions. Presently once politicians are elected, with the exceptiuon of a relatively small number of people active in lobbying (some for self-interest and others for the common good), the public leaves them to get on with it. However, the expertise to get out of the problems is often within the communities and not within government or its advisors. Therefore – participation from the public is going to need to increase (at the moment, the most prevalent public feeling is anger – by and large a destructive emotion which isn’t really going to get us anywhere fast).
More town hall meetings are required involving people getting together to pool their ideas on effective decision making. It means a re-examination of all levels of governance towards a more participatory system where greater consensus and non-adversarial methods are sought.
Add comment July 6, 2009
Solution #1 Helping each other
We posess more knowledge and better tools than ever before. Solutions can be found more quickly if the will is there. The rich developed and underdeveloped worlds can benefit mutually with the right co-operation and somehow the vested interests on both sides need to be bypassed. Dr. Desmond Tutu spoke about this an award acceptance speech by the at National University of Galway in February 2009. The vice grip that is debt needs to be removed. Is the global banking system extracting its many pounds if flesh on regions who have already paid far more than a fair price any good to the wider human family ? Merit in continuing to extract this debit is very hard to find.
It stands to reason that we may access sustainably, some of the resources in the underveloped regions, but in return, the people from these regions get to access some of our resources and expertise. In contrast to this is the debt caused (on our side) and conflict driven / poor / corrupt governance induced poverty. This sounds idealistic but is actually the opposite – pragmatic in the context of the multiple global crises facing us this century. Ways need to be found to bypass the debt ball and chain and diplomatic persuassion is required to sidestep the regional factors such as the greed, corruption and power abuse of the few.
By the same token people should consider pooling local skills rather than protecting their ideas and innovation. Hoarding of ideas means slowing down solutions. The recently unemployed need to be viewed as a vast resource of skills who can all contribute. Opportunities involve local co-ops in the areas of energy, agriculture, forestry, science and innovation.
Funding could also be provided by local and community banks using the mature and well-off workforce who wish to give a future to their children, grandchildren and communities.
Add comment July 6, 2009
Conundrum 1 – Poor Countries still forced down globalization route
While we can look at sustainability models in the west, these (sustainable) choices in many African, South American and Asian Countries are severely restricted by globalization. Using SAP’s (Structural Adjustment Policies) (wikipedia ref.) mean that special fiscal conditions are imposed on Countries in return for loans from the IMF, for example healthcare and education come under attack. Decisions are imposed on farmers as to what cash crops to grow. The crop prices can later come under competition attack from other Countries where SAP’s are introduced causing a downward spiral of prices for farmers and reducing the countries ability to pay back the loans. The weaker power causes destruction of environment, GM introductions and powerlessness. More recently a system called “Economic Partnership Agreements” has been introduced.
Peter Sutherland (Director General of the GATT (now the World Trade Organisation (WTO)) seems to genuinely believe that free trade is the way to help poorer countries. This fails to see the problems of imposed competition on sustainability. Worryingly, rock star anti-poverty activists like Bono and Bob Geldolf appear to be following this model. They may be adopting a short term approach that its better to do something than nothing and address immediate poverty taking a pragmatic position that they won’t change the system. As they don’t have the same vested interests of politicians and banking organisations it’s more likely they’re saying it as they see it but that they suffer from a blind spot that is failure to recognise the unsustainable nature of globalization.
The rich world is now heading more towards protectionist policies as a reaction to the sever global economic recession. Now the IMF is focussing its attention on some of the European Countries where the economic situation is worst.
The conundrum for poor countries (globalization advocates would suggest) is that they would be weakened by the removal of globalization. The poorer citizens deserve a chance of the good life we’ve just had in the rich world is part of the midnset – China and India being ana example – but we’ve just seen the impact that had on global energy supply, pollution and going forward other resource depletion.
Add comment June 29, 2009
Pesticide use – a prime example of unsustainability
Pesticides are designed to kill what we humans see as pests (weeds, insects and fungi). The problem is that anything designed to kill one thing doesn’t necessarily leave everything else alone. One of the big risks with pesticides is the hormonal impact on humans and other organisms in the food chain.
Another problem is that we humans fail to see how we are interdependent on, for example insects. Bees are the most glaring example because if they are wiped out (check out the colony collapse disorder post) then about a third of all pollination ends, and in turn there goes a huge block of food for us humans – shoot ourselves in the foot scenario.
One of the main reasons for pesticide use is monoculture farming – the growing of one crop only. The lack of diversity in a field or region makes it attractive to certain organisms and hence affects yield. The so-called pests develop resistance over time and the ammount of spraying required can increase accordingly. A vicious circle.
Add comment June 29, 2009
