The Red Queen Effect

 We can learn much about our current predicament by re-reading a little of Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass".  

What does running faster and faster yet staying in the same place have to do with 8 billion people living in an environment of finite resources?  Let me explain. In previous posts I've shared the reality of mineral quality depletion.  Nothing new there, we all know about some open pit mine that closed when the ore body was no longer profitable to extract.  Or some fishery that has been so depleted it is now illegal to take fish from that area... or - you get the picture.  While all of this has been going on we've been growing in number.  Agricultural progress has allowed us to use more energy and crank up the crop output to feed a hungry world.  So far so good right?  

Back in 1918 the UK was running out of coal and was starting to transition to diesel powered war ships to maintain its ability to project power over its colonies. Not having much coal left and not owning a significant amount of oil... colonization of the honey hole known as the Middle East became a serious project.  There were winners and losers in this adventure which led directly into food insecurity and the stifled economies read:poverty that fueled WW2. 1.8 billion people who did not depend on oil were kicking around.  It's been a mess ever since.  

Back in 1945 the Hudson Institute chronicled the absolute requirement for energy dominance in war and without that dominance WW II would have had a different result. 2.3 billion souls on board.  Let us assume conventional energy dense warfare is now a thing of the past.

Back in 1957 Admiral Rickover gave a serious speech on oil depletion and what a catastrophe we were headed into unless we started to react. 2.8 billion people inhabited the Earth.

Back in 1972 the infamous Limits to Growth models were published (not all of them by the way). 3.8 billion people inhabited the Earth. 

Back in 1976 Roper published "Where have all the minerals gone?" 4.1 billion people inhabited the earth.

Back in the 1980's NASA published papers on the ozone hole... CFC's used in refrigeration, and a bunch of above ground nuclear tests in the Southern Hemisphere were effecting reflection of solar radiation in a giant spherical hole in the Southern Hemisphere. Skin cancer rates jumped. CFC's were banned and so were above ground nuke tests.  The hole will be back to pre 1980's size by 2024.  4.8 billion people inhabited the Earth.

Back in 1997 the Kushi Institute published data indicating that our industrialized farming methods were improving crop yields but drastically reducing vitamin and mineral content in the crops.  "One would have to eat 8 oranges today to get the same amount of vitamin A that our grandparents got by eating just one orange."  Vitamins A and D have a pronounced effect on our immune systems.  Hmmm, maybe boosting crop yield without attention to crop nutrient quality should have been a concern, but if you wanted a good tasting orange you found an organic supplier... not to worry technology to the rescue? 5.9 billion people inhabited the Earth. Gluten is now a thing and hydrogenated oil is too. Thanks FDA, you guys are always looking out for $omebody. Pay attention, the elite prefer to eat organic... no thank you petrochemical juiced crops for the royal we, just for thee.

Back in 2010 the Harvard Gazette published a warning on the jumps in chronic disease. 6.9 billion people inhabited the Earth. Is there a pharmacological solution to nutrient depleted food?  

In 2022 we are starting to see a lot of these articles pop up.  Resource wars, or the realization that a hungry world and an economic machine built upon growth wants to keep getting fed.  Only this time and for the first time shortfalls are global and regional.  The confluence of factors operating in the modern world will make those societies that cannot adapt to changes energy deserts with concomitant consequences.  Cold and dark, not happy places prone to act in desperation. 

Here we are in 2025 and we now have 8.2 billion people on space ship Earth.  Virtually all mineral deposits are of much lower concentrations than just a few years ago requiring much more energy to process and here is the part so many just can't cognate...

Overshoot in population is only apparent when you finally realize that the major inputs to the system a population lives on are noticeably degrading and subtle indications that energy is getting harder to get while everything is being consumed faster than ever before.  Not always easy to see, not profitable to discuss and certainly not a campaign issue to get elected with.  Rate of energy consumption is correlated to our huge population growth and our consumer appetite for economic growth making these factors combined with degradation a non-linear accelerated energy driver. Hence the Seneca Cliff.  Collapse - this time on a global scale - will happen quickly. Physics drives the final scene of how this show ends not investments or institutes, oligarchs or parliament's.  You see once in overshoot the best a population can hope for is that small pockets survive buy planning and good fortune.  

If we consider energy, dozens of reliable sources conclude we are a few years past peak oil production and the consumption rate of 8.2 billion people means we'll burn through what is left quicker than at any previous time in history.  Energy is an important enabling factor in modern life as it is used to provide food, heating, cooling, transportation, manufacturing, medicine, the list is incredibly long.  Of all the knobs and levers, energy is the biggest one! Sorry, wind and solar are intermittent additions not substitutions.  Even nuke fuel is finite.   If you have regional hydro power, you are a lottery winner!

So we have soil quality depletion, we are past peak in energy feedstocks and consuming at record rates, health quality is getting worse as nutrients just aren't there and environmental toxin waste streams grow by the tons every day - we still don't seem to be able to put these issues in front of the 8.2 billion stake holders who live here so we can first, get on the same page and second, start conservation methods in a serious way.  

So today we work harder, as just one example, copper ore is so poor now that it takes hundreds of tons of low grade ore to get the same return we knew in the 1940's with tons of mined ore.  That means exponentially more energy consumed and more labor expended, just to stay at the unsustainable rate of consumption we are now at. Which by the way also requires the creation of 293 "new" mines all of low quality ore, all requiring huge amounts of fuel just to make batteries that need to be charged with oil, coal, gas or nuke power plants - further increasing the energy draw!  The lights are on and nobody is home. 

You and I and most everybody else in 2025 are part of a Red Queen's race.  You don't have to be a part of it, but that will take some planning and changes in your life style.  Support small, sustainable non-petrochemical organic farms. Practice energy conservation, get involved with community awareness and learn how to work together.  Plant a garden, share, help, participate.  Integrate and identify each others abilities to contribute.  

Tick, tick, tick - how many minutes to midnight do you think it is?

Something to ponder...

 There are 50 Billion birds in the World... Birds like dogs, cats, elephants and squirrels can get a flu.  In their immune system, similar to our own, there is the mechanism of acquired immunity as animals get sick, recover or die and regenerate.  This cycle is broken when we decide to NOT let the animal recover and destroy it simply because somebody with a "solution" creates a "test" and proposes a for profit driven remedy. This get sick, recover thing is how life works on this planet. What is not natural is get jabbed and maybe avoid the get sick and recover part. Sometimes for lots or reasons recovery doesn't happen.  Sometimes for lots of reasons get jabbed and get sicker happens too. When we do get the flu and when our feathered friends get it and recover we all get to enjoy natural immunity. 

You can always spot the profit driven narrative when it is suggested that the made for profit jab is better, or represents less risk than the natural way of life.  Close one eye and pretend there are real studies behind the claims.  Recent events have revealed just how shabby that "science" - as in the scientific method - has been applied, or rather corrupted.  Science is after all a method used in a continuous quest for the truth IT IS NOT AN ENDPOINT.  Science is never settled, that is an asinine statement.    Science is a method which challenges, evolves and reveals a better understanding.  The sun doesn't rotate around the Earth. Blood letting didn't cure George Washington.  X-raying feet to get the right size shoe was a bad idea.... the science is settled! Or so say the boisterous fools or - paid to propagandize - idiots of their time. No conscience, just popular faces getting paid to act out a script.  

All of these things seem absurd to us now, but they were solidly held beliefs until the scientific method repeated over and over again that they were indeed truisms.  The folks invested in x-ray machines for shoe stores were pretty mad.  So was the Roman church when in 1600 they were so confident they had it right, only to admit they screwed up in the year 2000.  Bizarrely, the Vatican held onto the righteousness of burning people alive well into the 1940's.  So it sometimes takes a while to refute a dogma.

 Understand?  Think critically, and think for yourself.  

Now there are those who claim we have to vaccinate birds.  50 billion birds are a lot of birds.  Do we wish to suspend logic and pretend that if we jab a few domesticated farm animals the 49.9 billion feathered colleagues will respectfully mask-up and stay away from the domesticated  aviaries? Or you in your back yard? Now our media megaphones are so very concerned with zoonotic jumps it makes one ponder the wisdom of our modern age and the voices of the be$t expert$ money can buy...  Could it be that the mess made by gene experimentation has made the pathways more likely to occur? To whom do we owe the creation of this great threat? Think critically.  

OK, I hear you. After a couple of thousand visits I will continue...

 I have to say I am amazed.  

OK then, let's get started.  I have been a consumer of Colin Campbell's work for a very long time and I suppose that helped me to see - many years ago - that energy, physics and ecology (biology, toxicity of waste etc.), was what really drove the World's sometimes arcane policies and was really what defined the "economy".  It isn't sage politicians or financial wizards as much as they like to take credit for the exploitation of the fruits of our well endowed planet. Depletion of quality in minerals is very real.  Yes, there are mega-tons of (name the ore) around the planet but in lower and lower concentrations.  Copper for example, a key element in electrification is now commonly mined at 0.6 % purity or LESS.  Think about that.  There was a time when 2 billion people inhabited the World and copper could be found at 75% purity.    Now we have 8.2 billion souls and 0.6% pure ores.

So in 1930, one ton of mined copper ore would yield 2000 lb * 0.75 = 1500 lb of copper.  The cost of mining, heavily dependent on diesel fuel, electric power for crushing and finally concentration yielded 1500 lb of copper for each 2000 lb dug up from a rich lode of ore at some mine.  Usually a deep shaft mine following a rich ore body.

In 2025 2000 lb of copper ore yields 2000 lb * .006 = 12 lb of copper and only after a huge increase in the consumption of diesel fuel required to mine it and the coal burned to make the electricity needed to crush the low grade ore and then concentrate it.  By the way 1500 lb of copper now requires 250,000 lbs of ore to be dug up, crushed and concentrated.  See the problem?  Depletion of ore quality and increased consumer consumption towards electrification is a dead end - full stop.   We could look at lithium and the other needed rare earths for magnets and see a scarier cliff. The lithium ore requires about 500,000 liters of water to process enough ore to make one battery pack.  Anybody want a lithium mine in their back yard?  These new low concentration ore bodies are always open pit mines that end up being environmental disasters from the point of view of heavy metal pollution and water table contamination.  On a massive scale...

Copper is just one commodity.  Take a look at this analog for energy required vs commodity out done by Dr Roper. This suggests that we are arriving at a time when many previously cheap and abundant minerals will cost more to mine and concentrate into useful materials than they are worth as a finished product. This scenario is real, geology, physics and the toxicology associated with activities encouraged by the growth based economic financial systems on a finite planet simply do not work in a depletionary regime.  A new way of thinking is needed. Tariffs may actually facilitate a destruction in demand and in an odd way act as a conservation mechanism.  We shall see. 

The current popular monetary beliefs evolved from the good fortune of abundant resources, cheap labor and cheap energy which in turn allowed the view to exist that resource quality and energy required were so inconsequential that they simply weren't factors needed to consider in an economy focused on short term gains, greed and hubris.  If you needed more of something,  just go on a conquest.  That doesn't work well anymore.  One: no land mass is immune from depletion, and Two: the thinkers advising most sophisticated societies have made it pretty clear how this ends.  We as humans are pretty bad at cognating non-linear circumstances. Especially when there is no monetary reward for espousing that reality.  As the social creatures we are, we have recently seen demonstrated on a global scale how incredibly easily duped the general population is, sadly. The network of government sponsored social engineering doesn't help either when it is used to destroy the truth or malign critical thinking.  I actually think that is evil. 

Closer to home, consider the energy costs just to maintain what we have already put in place.  Will we be maintaining the millions of miles of roads and hundreds of thousands of bridges we as a global society built, mostly in the past 70 years considering most major roads and bridges have a 50 year life, or will we be economizing our use of energy and trying to figure out how to feed a hungry World whilst transitioning to sustainable non-petrochemical enabled farming?  Can you say "Deferred maintenance please"? Big industrial ag, with its investor class have a dependency on petrochemicals to juice up crop output. Ain't gonna work - not sustainable based on the toxicology and fuel feedstock limitations.  What about the cost to de-comission 440 aging nuke plants (a typical 30 year life span often extended to as much as 50 years!) sprinkled around the World at a cost of one billion USD per plant? And whoopsie, what happens when those plants go silent and the grid has that much less energy to provide?  Who gets what's left, policy makers?  Who gets to keep their lights on, who doesn't?  The current kicking-the-can-down-the-road style of governance has resulted in 42,000 US bridges rated as unsafe... Hmmm, what about water treatment plants and keeping the water safe to consume in the delivery pipelines?  All of this is adding up isn't it?  One generation away from the poop hitting the high rpm rotating blades.  

It is also likely that the middle class (the majority of tax payers etc.) will evaporate as economies slow down and growth becomes negative.  So called social services that depend on tax revenue will evaporate too.  Ouch.   

Will governments create committees with physicists, geologists and ecologists as law makers or will the union card for tomorrows bureaucrat still be a law degree married to a Wall Street MBA?  Or does it even matter at this point in time? The seriousness of the problems we face seem to be woefully mis-understood by those who are supposed to look out for their respective societies.  In my humble opinion, the middle ages solution of conquest seems to be the path they are all on.  Good luck with that barbaric but traditional solution.  It does lower populations, so maybe that's the ticket? I sincerely hope not. We have to learn to live within our geophysical reality and not based on our credit limit - which is fantasy.  Growth based economics is incompatible with sustainable human existence amid finite resources, but that seems to be poorly understood if not outright rejected by the masses including the thought leaders, moguls and grant writing academics alike who are obviously too bright to consider such pedestrian issues.  Perhaps their solution is to let it crash and for the observant, build your clan a good, well stocked and defensible bunker...preferably in the Southern Hemisphere.  The old canard that innovation and technology (just fund my idea...) will save the day always seems to put rational thinking in a headlock as one belief system is profitable the other is not. Beware: Physics, energy and ecological systems do not care about profits.  Not one iota.  So summary point: Money doesn't drive the survivability of our ecosystem, it never did. Neither do today's wealthy cliques and their elaborate financial machinations. But I'm pretty sure there are those who would disagree.  

Conquest! <- This is especially prescient, I recommend you watch it. It has all been done before... seems like this is all we know on this planet.  Only this time with less fuel, the mechanisms are likely to be different, but with similar horrific results.  Let us hope we can evolve.  

Don't expect computer programs like AI to fix this either. Actually that technology will probably speed the delivery of a lower quality of life as knowledge automation replaces educated decision makers in various professions. AI  can perhaps give better advice for some things (or worse depending on who and how it has been programmed) and so consequent labor costs should drive down as the diagnostician and thinker class gets pink slipped.  An incremental step towards collapse in my opinion  as globally our intellectual traditions continue to get dismantled and diluted.  LOL, the AI made me do it...  Watch for the sketchy climate experts too!  As an aside, the planet is always changing, what is attributed to CO - a trace gas of 100 ppb - 0.001% - is more influenced by solar and geophysical phenomena naturally occuring in nature.  Just the 91 volcanos under Antartica could get froggy and change the ocean warm water / cold water current loops and viola! Utter chaos in weather for untold generations.  So we live on a complicated planet with lots of feedback loops and stuff we can try to understand but never control.  Sorry, that's reality.

But hey - maybe a good story about running out of energy dense fuels is easier to take if you are led to believe that we had better stop consuming it 'cause it's gonna make the global temp go up a couple degrees C and we're all gonna die!  Good grief the idea we can control the Earth's climate is insane with one exception - nuclear winter.  Why not just be honest?  No problems can be solved by propagandizing lies and deceiving the unaware, but useful idiot.  

Until next time.

Happy B-Day NLO

 All my love!

Dad