A Discussion of a Bright Future

Horse-drawn transport — the bright future of humanity?
Richard Heinberg, a prominent British specialist in petroleum extraction, delivered a lecture to members of the UK Soil Association in London. In that address, Heinberg joined the pessimists who paint bleak pictures of the future awaiting humanity following the decline of oil production.
Do you think oil is needed merely to keep motor vehicles running? Are you aware of the substance's significance to the chemical industry? In reality, oil is even more important than that. One might say that we eat it. Of course, we directly consume food produced in fields; yet to fertilise, plough, sow, weed, irrigate, harvest, transport, process, and deliver that food to consumers, we use the energy of oil. In effect, every slice of bread — as with almost any other food we eat — contains a share of renewable solar energy and a share of non-renewable fossil energy. What does it matter that fossil energy has a solar origin? The reserves accumulated over a million years are being burned within a single year.
[IMG_1]
In 1956, the American geophysicist M. King Hubbert presented a paper to the congress of the American Petroleum Institute in which he proposed that the dependence of US oil production volumes on time follows a Gaussian curve — a bell-shaped relationship corresponding to the distribution of a quantity influenced by many mutually independent factors. He predicted that the peak of US oil production would be reached between 1956 and 1970, and that an analogous global peak would occur around the year 2000. Hubbert truly became famous when, following the 1971 peak, US oil production began to decline.
Whether Hubbert's forecast was fulfilled on a global scale is a matter of debate. Naturally, the recorded global dynamics of oil production differ considerably from a Gaussian curve. In certain respects it is evident that Hubbert was mistaken — he expected the peak to be reached at approximately 13 gigabarrels per year, whereas in the spring of 2004 production corresponded to a rate of 23 gigabarrels per year. According to some interpretations, the peak was reached at precisely that moment. Why not in 2000? The OPEC oil embargoes of 1973 and 1979 slowed growth and delayed the culmination. Some optimists, however, believe the peak has not yet been reached and anticipate it in, for example, 2010. One point is difficult to dispute with Hubbert: the peak is inevitable. What will follow? A decline. Rising oil prices. A restructuring of the current economy.
These sombre matters were precisely the subject of Heinberg's recent address. According to him, food production will be affected by four interrelated processes: the depletion of oil reserves and rising fuel costs; the necessity of expanding areas devoted to biofuel production; climate change; and the exhaustion of fertile soils and fresh water. The food production crisis will unfold against a backdrop of growing population.
The fact that food production was tripled in the second half of the twentieth century is a consequence of fossil energy use. In the world in which we live, it is difficult to imagine how real the threat of famine caused by crop failure was for the majority of humanity throughout almost all of its history. The present situation — in which obesity in developed countries is a far more pressing problem than hunger — is only a temporary condition, founded upon the use of non-renewable resources.
Without pronouncing a definitive verdict on whether the peak of oil extraction has been passed or not (but noting that the majority of authoritative sources date it to 2006), Heinberg draws attention to the fact that over the past decade the price of a barrel of oil has risen from approximately $12 to $100. And despite such economic stimulus, the growth of oil production has ceased, and today more oil is consumed each day than is extracted. The expert forecasts an acute civilisational convulsion linked to the withdrawal from oil dependency. What is there to hope for? Coal? Its peak is expected in ten to fifteen years. Gas? Heinberg does not provide the corresponding data, but the peak of production for this fuel type is likewise anticipated by 2020. What awaits us? A food production crisis.
Alas, these changes are not far off. Heinberg cites current statistics on rising food prices and dwindling reserves. At present, global grain stocks are lower than at any point in the past quarter century. According to UN data, there are currently 854 million people facing hunger in the world, and every year that number grows by 4 million. If current forecasts are to be believed, the situation will only worsen.
Perhaps the only source that humanity can place as a substitute for oil is biofuel. However, its production requires cultivated land. Are you aware that at the end of the nineteenth century approximately one quarter of the arable land in developed countries provided fodder for horses — one of the primary energy sources of agriculture at the time? Internal combustion engines made it possible to dispense with those costs and multiply the energy capacity of agriculture many times over. Today that quantity of arable land will not suffice. How should the land be used? The competition between a billion motorists and a billion hungry people is becoming a serious ethical problem. The range of assessments of biodiesel production is vertiginous: from humanity's greatest hope for the future to a crime against humanity.
In speaking of global warming, Heinberg draws attention to the fact that the principal problem is not the rise of average temperatures by a few degrees, but the destabilisation of weather patterns. The farming practices already adopted have led to land degradation and the depletion of fresh water sources: every year 100,000 square kilometres of agricultural land turns to desert. Over the past century, the Earth's population has tripled while water consumption has grown sixfold. Already one third of humanity suffers from water scarcity, and 1.1 billion people lack access to reliable water sources. Climatic chaos will accelerate many times over the destruction of soils and the exhaustion of water sources. And how is one to manage without fertilisers, the majority of which are produced using oil energy? No, there are certain things that even oil cannot accomplish — for instance, phosphorus-containing fertilisers. The global peak of phosphate production was passed in 1989.
What is to be done? Heinberg mentions the idea of creating genetically engineered agricultural plants capable of tolerating heat and drought. How do you suppose the Greens will react to that? In any case, even if such a measure were implemented, it would be insufficient to change the situation. It is necessary somehow to transition to agriculture independent of fossil fuel energy.
It is worth noting that Heinberg's audience consisted of supporters of so-called “organic farming.” At present, such farming is more a plaything for the wealthy than a solution to pressing problems. And yet it appears that precisely these farming methods — which dispense with pesticides, chemical fertilisers, and high-technology land treatment — may serve as a prototype for the technologies to which we will be confined in the future.
Another model worthy of emulation proved to be Cuban agriculture. Before the collapse of the USSR, Cuba, as a bastion of socialism in America's backyard, was firmly hooked on the needle of cheap fuel supplies from its “older brother.” When the fragments of the Soviet empire could no longer afford international aid, the average Cuban lost 9 kilograms. Several organic farming specialists who had previously languished in Cuban universities helped to rectify the situation. Large farms had to be broken into smaller units, oxen were adopted as draught animals, and biological methods were used to combat pests. Unfortunately, the share of meat in the population's diet had to be drastically reduced: feeding one meat-eater requires an area of arable land sufficient for several vegetarians. Cuba survived thanks to these measures.
[IMG_2]
So — is there a solution? Oh, how difficult it will be! Among other things, it will require a fundamental restructuring of the social order. The volume of labour in agriculture will increase sharply, necessitating a dramatic increase in the number of hands employed in it. States will be compelled to take measures to transfer a significant portion of the population “to the land.” Long-distance transportation of produce will become an excessive luxury, and food consumers will need to disperse to be closer to producers. The expert, who prophesies adverse changes, already demands an immediate halt to subsidising industrialised agricultural producers and a transfer of funds to post-industrial farms. And how is one to cope with the inevitable decline in food production that will follow the implementation of such a solution? There is no answer. And who, and by what means, will protect the idyllic patriarchal communes from the hungry hordes arriving from regions where it will have become impossible to grow the required quantity of food? And how will the struggle to redistribute the remaining oil, coal, gas, and fertile soils affect the fertility of the Earth? Heinberg said nothing on this point… In his address, as in the ideology of “organic farming” as such, one can find a great many flaws.
But one will have to change one's way of life in response to the depletion of fossil fuels, regardless!

1Not that phosphate reserves suddenly became exhausted in the subsoil. It is simply that over time increasingly poor deposits must be worked, and the extraction of useful minerals requires ever more energy. A vicious circle. VB Back to text

Between Eeyore and Piglet
"Computerra" is not a discussion forum, and its readers are unlikely to be interested in disputes between the journal's authors. So I shall venture to continue the polemic begun by Mikhail Vannakh's response in issue #719 to my article in issue #718, not at all for the sake of the differences in outlook between two scribblers. Our example may serve to illuminate two approaches to solving pressing problems.
Brief summary of previous episodes
Thesis. In my article, I set forth with considerable sympathy the main ideas of a report by petroleum extraction specialist Richard Heinberg before members of the British Soil Association. Among Heinberg's forecasts are a crisis of the contemporary way of life caused by the depletion of fossil fuels, and a transition to energy-efficient technologies (up to and including the widespread use of horse-drawn transport).
Antithesis (Mikhail Vannakh). Reflections on the dwindling of the resources necessary for modern civilisation are almost as weighty as the musings of Eeyore the donkey. Progress will provide new energy sources as well as a natural halt to population growth. Those who call for a return to horse-drawn transport will prove useful to new feudal lords and slave-owners.
What now? Certain arguments put forward deserve discussion. The Stone Age did not end due to a shortage of flint — in this Mikhail Vannakh is entirely correct. His observation that as recently as last summer he saw several flints suitable for making a good stone tool is interesting. But were there any aurochs, tarpans, peat bogs deer, woolly rhinoceroses, or — at the very least — mammoths nearby, which might have been killed with the aid of such a tool? The Stone Age ended because of a shortage of the animals that could be hunted using a technology preserved for tens of thousands of years. The crisis of the former way of life compelled the development of other means of obtaining food — above all, animal husbandry and agriculture. These new forms of activity demanded a technological revolution. The spade, the plough, the sickle, the clay pot — these are its fruits. And the fact that the labour of the farmer began to yield not perishable prey but long-storing grain gave rise to powerful social transformations — among them the emergence of the state, which appropriates a portion of the harvest for its own benefit.
Thus, an important conclusion: in order not to perish following the exhaustion of a particular resource, humanity was obliged to radically alter its way of life… I read Vannakh's text. What arguments has he advanced to refute my contention that the end of the oil age is inevitable? I find none. Of course, Mikhail Vannakh allows for a certain change in lifestyle. His column describes orbital reflectors dispatching “shafts of energy” towards the Earth. Among other things, such reflectors could become super-weapons.
One wonders how much the development of such technologies would cost. What share of its economic might must the United States direct towards solving this problem in order to obtain — perhaps — space-based energy stations some fifty years hence? Would this be cheaper than controlling the principal oil-producing regions of our planet? Judging by the actions of the United States, it would not be cheaper. And how much oil must be expended to develop and launch these stations into space? Perhaps what the United States cannot accomplish, Russia will do? Ah… Russia has enough to contend with regarding the Caucasus and the Kuril Islands…
Yes, of course, in those societies where per capita energy availability is no less than 3.5 kW, population growth slows. However, even this deceleration is a protracted process. For instance, for the population to remain constant, the average healthy couple of parents must have more than two children (in order to compensate for inevitable mortality). So if every family has only two children, will the population begin to decline? It will, but not soon. For if until now the population has been growing, then there are more children and young people in it than old people. Even if the young limit themselves to a single child, many years will pass before fewer children are born than old people die. It follows that for some time the population will grow “by inertia.” And it is not certain that the level of energy consumption corresponding to the “transitional period” will remain at such a level thereafter. For a human being, what matters is not the absolute level of material well-being but the dynamics of its change — what today's life is like compared to yesterday's.
Thus, since the populations of developing countries have grown rather rapidly in recent times, they will grow further before coming to a complete halt. Of course, famine, war, and catastrophe may halt growth. But that is precisely what we must avoid.
The most lamentable thing is that large-scale famine produces a domino effect. Those who lack food will not quietly pass into the next world, leaving resources for those who remain. Many — and this is entirely natural — will fight desperately for the redistribution of life's necessities, which will only cause the quantity of resources to diminish further. It is precisely this circumstance that leads me to doubt the realism of Heinberg's forecasts (to say nothing of Vannakh's). The social problems associated with resource depletion may require from developed countries a disproportionately high expenditure of energy to ensure their own security. There may simply not be enough strength to smoothly reduce energy consumption — let alone to increase it in the course of new technological revolutions. And what will happen in the “Third World” is too terrible to contemplate.
Thus, I do not know what the future will look like. But I am convinced that reflections on it — and on the measures that may help to alleviate the trials awaiting us — are of the utmost importance. The optimistic certainty that some super-technologies will eliminate the problems we face seems to me more befitting a carefree Piglet than an intellectual of the twenty-first century acquainted with history and human psychology.
Shall we wait until fantastic problems are solved, or muddle through with half-measures for the time being? There is no single answer, nor can there be. I can only share my own experience. Many years ago, my colleagues and I established the production of toad venom — a raw material for pharmacological and cosmetic use. We earned some money, spent it wisely, and learned to analyse and purify the raw material. We calculated how much profit we would make — it was the stuff of dreams! We were on the verge of signing contracts, and the money would come flooding in. In the meantime, we could be patient, borrow a little… A great hope distracted us from solving small tasks. When it became clear that the hope would not be realised, it had already become the cornerstone of all our plans for the future… That was a heavy blow… How difficult it was to transition to small earnings, the opportunities for which had been frittered away in the pursuit of a windfall!
I do not believe that attempts at technological breakthroughs should be abandoned. But nor should one ridicule “small steps,” explaining to readers that new feudal lords and slave-owners need people who have set about conserving energy.
Allow me to quote myself. At one time I published in “KT” a list of myths which, in my opinion, humanity must abandon for its own well-being. I believe that from the present it is difficult to say what the future will look like; it is simpler to determine what it cannot look like (in other words, it is easier to characterise it apophatically — through negation — than cataphatically — through positive assertions). So then, in my view, the myths that must be discarded include:
— the myth that there exists an authority (political leader, superior, God, prophet, genius, father, Big Brother, etc.) who can prescribe the correct course of action;
— the myth that the “ordinary person” need not trouble their head with global problems; solving them is the business of scientists, who “will think of something.”
Our way of life will change substantially, for it is impossible to preserve it unchanged. I believe that we must be prepared for these changes. Undoubtedly we will have to give up much. Is it necessary, in preparing for an anxious future, to portray one's opponents as fools? That is for each person to decide.

Rational Nutrition by Caterpillars
Humanity is divided into groups that do not understand one another. Those who care about the quality of food and table presentation find it difficult to understand people for whom the procurement of nutrients is a matter of survival.
Of course, a well-fed life is conducive to the cultivation of refined sensibilities, and developed countries are prepared to help the hungry. But imagine the following situation. In country A, agricultural production is so efficient that a portion of foodstuffs must be destroyed in order not to collapse market prices. In country B, food is insufficient owing to underdeveloped technologies and a corrupt government. Country A supplies its surplus products to country B free of charge or at very low prices. As a result, the producers of country B cannot compete with imported goods, are ruined, and the state falls into absolute dependence on humanitarian aid. The ineffectiveness of direct assistance to underdeveloped countries has been termed the “extremely sad theorem” in the West. It became necessary to develop the so-called “adequate technology” of assistance, providing for the preservation of the social structure of less-developed countries, placing minimal demands on the level of education and skill of their citizens, using abundant and inexpensive local resources, and relying on existing material provision and small-scale producers.
Of course, this is a sound solution, but it too has its drawbacks. One of them is the fear of the population that it is being “locked into the past.” These problems were once again brought to light by the recommendations of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which called upon the populations of countries suffering from protein deficiency to collect and eat forest caterpillars. The arguments in favour of this shocking recommendation are quite reasonable: certain caterpillars are nutritionally superior to meat and fish; insects collected in forests contain few pesticides but are rich in vitamins and micronutrients; caterpillars can be gathered by people of any skill level; it is by no means unnatural food — caterpillars are eaten by more than 90 per cent of the population of Botswana (and one need only recall what a variety of protein sources Chinese cuisine employs!). In short, by all accounts caterpillars are so valuable a product that it is unclear why the citizens of the country hosting the UN headquarters do not eat them.
However, whichever way one looks at it, a human being is not only a biological but also a social creature. When it comes to the quality of diet, the pleasure of consuming food is no less important than its nutritional value. Eating caterpillars will bring many people not only the necessary substances but also a sense of humiliation. Even if that feeling has nothing rational about it, changing people's views on life is more difficult than changing their diet. So a universal transition to caterpillar nutrition appears, in all likelihood, to be postponed.

D. Shabanov. Horse-drawn transport — the bright future of humanity? // KT, Moscow, 2008. – no. 1–2 (717–718). — pp. 38–39.
D. Shabanov. Between Eeyore and Piglet // Computerra, Moscow, 2008. – no. 5 (721). — pp. 42–43.
D. Shabanov. Rational nutrition by caterpillars // Computerra, Moscow, 2004. – no. 45 (569). – pp. 17–18.