Transcript Welcome to Ottawa’s First Showing of

PEAK OIL AND THE
FATE OF HUMANITY
Chapter 10 – Conclusion
By Robert Bériault
So your
conclusion is
that humans
should invest
massively in
renewables?
NO!
 Investment in renewables is very energy intensive.
 If all countries decided to do this at once, it would
precipitate the oil peak.
 There just isn’t enough spare capacity to supply the
oil for everybody to invest in wind and solar energy.
And if there were enough oil for everybody to invest
heavily in renewables…
-- it would further
increase the Earth’s
carrying capacity
(temporarily), allowing
us to deplete more of
its resources, to pollute
more and to destroy
more biodiversity.
It would result in more
overshoot and a more
catastrophic population
crash.
I’m talking about only CANADA
As demonstrated in previous
chapters, Canada has the
possibility to become a “Safe
Zone” where humans can
survive the crash.
Lifeboat ethics?
Humanity is facing the
end of centuries of
progress in science and
social advancement.
It’s possible to save
civilization by creating
safe zones for its
survival. It is tragic, but
it is inevitable that large
parts of the world will
perish, probably this
century.
When I first contemplated the “safe zone”
solution for Canada I was uncomfortable
with the idea, just as it probably makes
you feel uncomfortable.
It goes counter to my life philosophy of
helping the less fortunate.
I spent a lot of time reflecting
on this.
I struggled extensively with
this dilemma before
concluding that the “safe
zone” option is the only one
that has a chance of working.
What’s in this
for you,
Robert? Why
are you telling
me all this?
This is why:
The beautiful little girl
holding the baby is my one
and only grandchild.
She’s accompanied by my
cousins’ grand-children.
Every child born today
should have the
expectation of a decent
life.
But reality will be very
different for them than it
was for today’s adults.
Love
We give our kids love and
devotion and we provide
them with the best
education and medical care
we can afford.
Yet we steal from their
future by plundering the
Earth’s resources and
destroying Nature’s lifesupporting infrastructure.
And how did this come about?
I was born in 1941 into
a world that naïvely
promised prosperity and
material comfort for
every human being.
The popular belief was
that technology would
enable us to eradicate
poverty around the
world.
Man had conquered space!
The entire universe was
within reach. There was no
limit to man’s domain over
nature.
Very few people had any
understanding of the
concept of carrying
capacity, natural limits and
overshoot. I certainly
didn’t.
When I look back now, I
see a much different
picture.
Nature’s legacy
Mother Nature has
bestowed upon us a
wonderful planet rich
with biodiversity,
minerals and sources of
energy -- what one
thinker refers to as our
“natural capital”.
For hundreds of millennia
humans lived more or less in
balance with nature.
Lived on
Except
for instances where they
interest
hunted species to extinction,
they used only the renewable
resources - the “interest”,
without depleting the natural
capital.
Then came the discovery
of coal, which allowed
technology to take off.
Then came
This
allowed humans to
coal
extract Nature’s nonrenewable resources, using
up not only the “interest”
but also the “capital”.
Later, about a century and
a half ago, humans
discovered an
unimaginable source of
energy in the form of oil, a
gift that Mother Nature
had hidden away for them
millions of years
beforehand.
Discovery of
oil
Urbanization and the automobile
This energy allowed them to
create industrial centres that
drew people away from
farms. Enormous cities thus
resulted.
Oil allowed them to put in
place a transportation system
that allowed individuals to
travel in energy-hungry
private cocoons along wide
roads paved with an oil
product.
This same source of
energy enabled them to
grow food in quantities
never before achieved,
thereby tripling the
output per acre.
Enormous
food output
This resulted in phantom
acres of land being put
into production, acres
that will evaporate when
oil runs short.
Having at hand a source
of energy that they
treated as inexhaustible,
they were able to conduct
research to create
vaccines, pharmaceuticals
and medical procedures
that more than doubled
their lifespan.
Medical
advances
This contributed to an
unprecedented population
increase.
Exponential growth
Their population grew
exponentially, greatly
surpassing the
carrying capacity of
their planet.
Manufacturing frenzy
Inexpensive energy
replaced much human
labour in manufacturing.
This allowed them to
create vast quantities of
consumer goods.
The result is today’s
feeding frenzy of
manufacturing and
consumption.
Destruction of farmland
All this has
contributed to
covering valuable
farmland with more
and bigger buildings
and houses, roads
and parking lots,
thereby reducing
future carrying
capacity.
Oil peak soon
Now this technological
civilization is
threatened to collapse,
as the oil peak is soon
to come.
From then on, every
year there will be less
oil available than the
year before.
Less comfort
From then on, our
descendants will have
to learn to live with
deteriorating
infrastructures.
They will enjoy less
and less material
comfort from year to
year.
End to growth
There is also a distinct
danger that an end to
consumption growth will
destroy our fragile
growth-dependant
economic system.
If this happens, it could
generate social chaos
and disintegration.
Perished
civilizations
Many ancient
civilizations have
exceeded the carrying
capacity of their
territory and collapsed.
Our technological
civilization is not
immune to such an
outcome.
Mayan civilization “The Collapse of Complex Societies”, Josep A. Tainter
Nature’s prerogative
Since our present
population has exceeded
the Earth’s carrying
capacity, Mother Nature
will exercise her
prerogative and cull the
excess population.
She usually does this with
a vengeance and slashes
an offending population to
a level below carrying
capacity.
Limits to growth
Soon, when the oil peak
arrives, the human population
will face limits to growth headon.
That’s when Mother Nature
will use one of the many tricks
she has up her sleeve to
decimate the humans who
thought they could outsmart
her with their technology.
Starvation
It would be easy for Mother
Nature to impose starvation
upon humanity.
She can’t create more oil for
us, at least not fast enough to
make any difference.
She just needs to sit back and
watch us struggle to feed
ourselves without oil-derived
inputs, from impoverished
soil that we have depleted of
humus, moisture and
minerals.
Disease
She would have no qualms
about turning one of her
myriad viruses into a form
deadly to humans.
We humans would actually
assist her in her deadly
work by expediting the
virus around the globe and
throughout cities by
means of our aircraft,
subways and busses.
Aggression and violence
Finally, but not least, Mother
Nature would make humans
kill each other by unleashing
the aggressiveness she
embedded into human genes.
She instilled this potential for
violence into us through
hundreds of thousands of
years of evolution.
In the anarchy that
will likely occur in
the world, Canada
has the potential to
remain an island of
sanity and security.
Let’s save our part of the world.
Now that we are
aware of what’s
happening, we’re in
a better position to
make the hard
choices that are
needed.
Lets make Canada a
“Safe Zone”.
These
kids
are
counting
on us .
And now you will be able to appreciate the wisdom of
this individual:
Energy & Society – The Historical Roots of Understanding
“The laws expressing the relations between energy and matter are not
solely of importance in pure science. They necessarily come first . . . in
the whole record of human experience, and they control, in the last
resort, the rise or fall of political systems, the freedom or bondage of
nations, the movements of commerce and industry, the origin of wealth
and poverty and the general physical welfare of the race. If this has
been too imperfectly recognized in the past, there is no excuse, now
that these physical laws have become incorporated into everyday habits
of thought, for neglecting to consider them first in questions relating to
the future.”
Frederick Soddy, Matter and Energy, 1912; Nobel Laureate in
Chemistry, 1921
I urge you to read more on this subject
and to make all your acquaintances
aware of the importance of preparing
Canada for the oil decline.
The first book I would recommend is Richard
Heinberg’s “The Party’s Over”
Within the next couple of weeks I will publish
on this web site a list of good books. Please
check with me later.
You might be interested in contributing
financially…
Since you’ve read the entire book, you are probably motivated to take
action in preparing for the oil decline. If you think that publicizing this
book is a worthwhile effort, please contribute as much as you can toward
that end. Not everybody has the time to become directly involved in an
organization, and that is possibly your case. However, you can be of
great help by providing funds towards the cause. 100% of any donation
will be used for no other purpose than promoting awareness of the oil
peak and carrying capacity problem. The main method of publicity will
be through newspaper adds.
How much should you contribute?
Any amount at all. I will accept a donation of $2,000,000 and if that's out
of your range , $2000 or even $20 No amount is small enough to be
sneered at! I do not have charitable status and don't intend to
compromise my position by applying for it (Revenue Canada dictates
what charitable organizations can say) , so unfortunately your donation
won't qualify for tax exemption.
Another way to help would be to buy some of our environment-friendly
nylon shopping bags. Go to shopping bags.
What payment methods are available?
Please send a cheque to: Robert Bériault
895 rue de l'Oasis, Unit 4,
Gatineau, QC,
J8R 2W7
Thank you!