Jones’ing 7 Billion People

The Epitome of Jones-Esque Vain Materialism and Waste

Did you ever hear a scientist say something about “ Earths Carrying Capacity” “Sustainable Population” the “Fossil Fuel Epoch” or “Energy is Wealth” ? If not, have a look......  



Energy is Wealth

In this world there are three things. Energy, matter and information. Information includes things like “ideas, knowledge, data, pictures, books, music, schematics, plans, ect: all human knowledge and activity can be described or recorded as information”. Matter is the physical stuff, rock, minerals from rocks, glass, oil, plastic, metals, ceramics; the stuff that everything is made of: with living things a lot of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. Energy is the stuff we need to manipulate matter: to turn a pile of rocks into copper, iron, indium, gallium, gold, aluminum, ect. Energy is the stuff we need materialized ideas. It takes energy to turn and idea into a physical thing, or system of things. The world is rich with matter, and it is rich with natural energy. Human systems however make only limited use of this natural energy. Most human energy that was used to give rise to 7 billion people and aircraft supported globalization comes from coal, natural gas and crude oil. These carbon fuels that society is so heavily reliant upon for function are finite resources that are being rapidly depleted. The rapid depletion and utilization of carbon energy has been described as a “Carbon Epoch”, a brief window in human history where carbon fuels were exploited to raise the material standard of living of billions of people, whilst simultaneously fueling population growth that eroded the material standard of living for billions of people.

The Human Population Problem

The earths materials, with current human technology, cannot sustainably support a high materials standard of living for 7 billion people.  In other words it is impossible using current or near term technology to allow all of earths people to live like Kim Kardashian. China formally recognized the relationship between overpopulation and poverty when they enacted the 1 child law. Other developing countries do not have an intelligent law to address overpopulation. The majority of the people in countries like Bangladesh live in abject poverty because they continue to add more people to a dire and poor situation with limited human intellectual capital or energy resources. The literally shit into the same river where they take a bath in those kinds of countries. Look at the desolate shit hole that Haiti has become: fueled in large part by a population that demands more energy then their resources can yield. Home here in America there are no shortages of people having Children they cannot afford. I speak this issue on a very personal level. It would be easy for me to just write off developing nations for terrible population problems, but the sad truth is that the human population problems is a problem right here where I live too. Something like 40% of American children are now born into broken homes to single mothers. The state almost encourages these incompetent reproductive choices through lavish public handout programs via section 8 housing allowances and other forms of social welfare that encourage terrible family planning choices. I see people like the no college Duggard’s parading around their army of children in the media, not one adopted child, and it makes me want to puke!

Earths Sustainable Carrying Capacity

The number of humans the Earth can sustainably support is largely related to the way in which those people choose to live. The kinds of choices that people are making now are very different then they were historically. So much has changed in just the last 30 years with computers and the Internet.  We now have the tools to study human population, carbon energy, and huge scale global resources problems. The evidence all points to a similar conclusion. If humans adopt energy and materially efficient, recycling heavy, conservation dominate lifestyles, then the earth can sustainably support a few billion people. If humans embrace frivolous wasteful excessive lifestyles decked with storage bins filled with stuff that is rarely used, ect, and a private Tank (SUV) to commute 50 miles one way from suburbia to the city, then the earth can only sustainably support a few hundred million people behaving like that. Clearly, we are probably going to be forced to strike a balance of around 1 billion people in the long run. As fossil fuels are depleted to critical levels, they become harder and more costly to drill, pump, process and distribute. The energy return on investment with carbon fuels has been steadily declining for the last 60 years and things are only getting worse as China and India has just arrived to the Oil Party. The future will be interesting. Do your self a favor and think ahead. Be ready to pay more for food and fuel. Be prepared for a world where there is increasing competition for increasingly scarce resources!

I was inspired to write this by a tech article about buying fewer mobil phones/ electronics. 
http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/27/2828509/buying-less-in-the-absence-of-an-ethical-smartphone