Blowdown: Part 1 – Scarcity of Natural Resources
Last week a friend and I went camping near the Canadian border. Our location was as beautiful as it was desolate, ringed by lakes as clear as the azure-blue sea of the Caribbean, and circled by a deep forest of old growth evergreen, poplar and birch trees. The evergreens grow uniquely in this part of the world, with no branches sprouting out until they reach what I can only assume is close to fifty feet high; they then exhibit the shape and form of an evergreen we are accustomed to. This top-heavy structure, while beautiful, is prone to toppling over during severe wind storms, in a phenomenon known as blowdown. To see a once lushly endowed forest seemingly robbed of its luxurious green canopy, the remnants of which lay sadly on the forest floor, is to miss the deeper understanding of what is taking place as a result of this catastrophic blowdown – the necessary rebirth of the forest. As damaging as the blowdown appears at first glance, it is part of the cycle of nature: as nature matures then dies, it burns up, only to leave behind in its ashes the nutrients and seeds necessary to begin the cycle of life again.
In a similar sense societies experience blowdown. They too become top heavy and need to consolidate, with the ensuing destruction a necessary component of rebirth, reformation, and renewing the essential hopes and aspirations of humanity. In some societal blowdowns, it is impossible to see any beauty, for only shear horror and dismay will suffice when we look at societies that have run aground under their own poor stewardship. Wars, severe economic recessions, food scarcity and embracing totalitarian forms of government are all forms of cultural blowdown, and the winds are beginning to blow more formidably now than they have for some time. Individually each of the challenges presented within this series of essays are surmountable, but collectively they take on a different texture and import, potentially emulating the cascading effect of nature’s blowdown and resulting in something truly dire. The challenge of social blowdown is manageable and has been faced before, and is perhaps a necessary component of the rebirthing cycle as mankind invests his whole energies in making the world better, a decision more often born of recognized danger than aspiring hope.
Photo Taken By Anonymous … “My Friend Ben Portaging”
Scarcity of Natural Resources
In 1956, a geologist at Shell began studying the production trends of the US oil industry and predicted a peak in the mid 1970’s. He was, as we now know, correct both in the rough approximation of the date when production would peak, and in the steadily diminishing availability of domestic sources. Hubbert’s model, called the Hubbert Peak, has been reworked and applied to global petroleum production resulting in a prediction of global oil production peaking between 2008 and 2015. Keep in mind that these dates are not what is important (to do so would be to replicate the mistake of many who imprudently argued for bankruptcy of the US government by such-and-such a date only to find a good theory be destroyed because of the mistake of unwarranted and unnecessary specificity). Only a couple of points need to be retained when we discuss the implications to Hubbert’s Peak:
• oil is a non-renewable, naturally occurring product that we have finite supplies of,
• there are geopolitical implications to a world of diminishing oil reserves,
• there are socioeconomic changes that will come as oil becomes an increasingly unavailable natural commodity and,
• this predicted peak oil production will occur in the next 10-20 years.
As pundits will state, Americans will be in a sufficiently unique position as these changes occur that will make the underlying problems with global oil availability less felt in the short term. They are invariably right, although what created this ability to not feel the shortage as acutely is also non-renewable and will ebb as its strength is tapped to maintain a certain lifestyle. No doubt, the wealthiest nation in the world will certainly feel the effects of increasingly expensive oil, but less so than other industrialized countries simply because our global economic clout will be the last to accommodate the highest prices and to bend its habits to diminishing supplies. Pundits are also right in pointing to new technologies for automobiles and public transportation (natural gas buses, new expansions in public rail transportation, hybrid personal vehicles) that will diminish our reliance on oil; however, to view the automotive industry as the largest culprit in gobbling up our remaining oil reserves is to not have an appreciation for the role oil plays as a precursor to the global plastics industry as just one example. Tracing oil through the various technologies modern society is built on is to begin to appreciate the enormous set of implications simply a higher price, let alone a diminishing supply of oil will create.
The impending peak of global oil production will be a perfect object lesson when future historians reflect on the American empire. If we show an appreciation of the implications of the realities behind Hubbert’s Peak and adopt in the short term energy conservation decisions while in the mid-term elevating new technologies and focusing again on real innovation, we will be regarded as wise citizens of a republic whose brightest moment was precisely when many had felt we had lost our way. If, on the other hand, we remain wedded to a pattern of consumption that refuses to acknowledge needed changes we will be viewed as a society that satiated its desires at the expense of the future, a cost we will bear only after those more disadvantaged than we bear the most awful implications. In Kenneth Deffeyes’ book Hubbert’s Peak: the Impending World Oil Shortage he says, “Fossil fuels are a one-time gift that lifted us up from subsistence agriculture and eventually should lead us to a future based on renewable resources.” The diminishing returns promised by global oil production are a warning to us not simply to conserve - for conservation will not be enough, nor is it necessarily the ideal; what is needed now is real investment and social dialogue over lifestyle modifications (could we make suburban mass transit an economically feasible reality?) coupled with the best our technologists can offer. Seen rightly, the crisis Hubbert has predicted for us can be an incentive for an entirely new field of technologies that are more environmentally friendly, renewable and accessible. These new technologies may, in fact, also harbor the future of America’s economy, an economy that badly needs new sectors of semi-skilled employment for its growing population and those people already displaced from conventional manufacturing.
Blowdown is nature’s necessary destruction before it can renew itself; so may very well be our experience with losing access to cheap and readily available oil. Where nature’s hand is invisible and set in motion naturally by the act of loss, the experience of humanity is more visible, requiring that we wrestle with prudent policy guided by specific action. What solutions might we identify, what societal trends should we emphasize, and what technologies hold the greatest hope for our future?
Our government must audit the complex fields-of-use oil currently plays a dominant role in, and identify a hierarchy of needs that will serve as a means of guiding decisions both government and industry make for funding alternative energy resources and using those existing resources left in the ground. If replacing aviation fuel is much less likely in the short term than is finding hybrid fuel technologies for personal automobile transportation, as a society we will need to agree that our limited resources should be preserved for that which has no other short term viable option (aviation). A clear hierarchy of requirements would satisfy the average citizen’s need to have a basic understanding of why government in conjunction with industry is acting as it is.
Private industry needs to convene itself, whether in consortium form or in individual firm-specific analyses, and focus on short and mid-term solutions to those areas where it currently specializes. It is time again for the world of industry to dream, and to share its dreams with its consumers. Perhaps now is again the time for another round of World’s Fairs, where major corporations project an idea about new ways of doing things that reflect new realities. Such an approach would allow consumers to be gradually introduced to new forms of public transportation both in mass-transit form and individual means.
For private industry to focus its efforts around real innovation it must have incentives for doing so. Government can and should provide real foundational incentives not only for R&D, but perhaps special incentives for commercialized projects that address the elemental resource issues at play globally. Too many loopholes exist in the current R&D tax credit given by government to companies engaged in heavy R&D. While this should be continued in the basic form it exists in today, it might be prudent to provide special incentives for technologies that make good on their promised contribution to resolving oil-dependency. Government’s role in providing incentives for industry is actually more manageable and understandable than is the role for the private investor in these companies and the public at large. These two sectors of modern society also have a critical role to play in accommodating the restructuring that will inevitably be necessary for industry to create solutions for our gradually revealing crisis. Most importantly, these two areas must accept, accommodate and require the companies they choose to invest in be focused less on quarter-by-quarter financial performance and more on real new technology. Just as is time for pharmaceutical companies to no longer feel they have their investor’s full confidence to invest billions in erectile dysfunction and restless leg syndrome drug therapies, it is time for America’s automotive companies to feel they no longer have their investor’s commitment to make progress in fuel economy only when a gun is held to their head. The ideal would be for the automotive industry to feel it has their investor and employee’s backing to dream again; to think about new ways of transporting individuals from home to work and to do so outside of the roadway system we currently need and the petrochemical infrastructure the automotive industry relies on.
Assuming large and established companies will resist such creative endeavors if for no other reason than the trauma any such behemoth feels when forced to change, it may become necessary to anticipate the destruction of our automotive giants as the penultimate act before new entrepreneurs begin introducing truly innovative new ideas. We are not without solutions in these areas: if mass transit can be made a viable option, some entrepreneur could find a way to assemble a network of people who need to ride from their suburban home to their place of work. In a similar, but more individual version of the future, it is possible to envision private vehicles that utilize the existing road infrastructure, but one incorporating MagLev (electromagnetic) locution. Vehicles would access the road, one that would look very much like those today, but would be completely free of petrochemical reliance and would potentially be guided by a computer, making the time spent in the car communal and potentially productive.
The problem of global dependency on oil is real, even if those who advocate it make the mistake of speaking too specifically about the ultimate date of our shared demise. As with any prognostication that shares a resemblance to the “chicken little” we all loathe to be around, those who speak the most loudly of this problem often times make the mistake of assuming no other viable options for our way of life to survive exist; they are wrong about that. What they may, however, be right about is whether or not we can survive (or in what form) as a species were we to face an unrestrained escalation in the price and availability of a key raw material with limited alternatives. I suspect that unless we act to provide incentives for alternative technologies, the market may signal much to late its need for other options. As with nature’s blowdown, the limitation of oil may usher in a new era of better and brighter technologies; but it will only do so through conscious effort, not subconscious hope.
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3 Responses to “Blowdown: Part 1 – Scarcity of Natural Resources”
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“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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July 25th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
It’s nice to read your thoughts on this issue. I’d like to enounter more of your own unique position and view on matters cultural, social, and spiritual. An occasion review of anothers’ work would add some seasoning to the mix.
You have alot to say, I’d like to hear it!
July 25th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
In your analysis of Blow down, I think one important evaluation of such an event was not discussed. Although, the blowdown event is catastrophic for the very large tree species, such an event is also welcomed by the underlying saplings, other tree species and undergrowth. All of these less dominant trees and plant species were just waiting for such opportune conditions to emerge onto the landscape previously dominated by the old large timber specie.
Contrary to what we term as devastation in Blow down
events, the forest continues to thrive, live and exist. Such an event is short of total destruction and rebirth, but rather a situation that more simply forces the forest to adapt and change in response to Mother Nature.
In a study of a 1934
blowdown of a Subalpine forest in Colorado, it was shown that the Blowdown created a shift in species dominance in the recovering area. The previous sub-dominant species did not require incentives or subsidies, all they needed was for Mother Nature to run her course and allow for the perfect conditions to foster its emergence onto the landscape.
This is exactly what will take place regarding your concerns for Hubbert’s ‘Blowdown’ of oil production and for the emergence of a new core energy source(s) for the US and the rest of the world.
Such a drawn out Hubbert’s Blowdown event will generate the conditions for an existing alternative energy source to emerge and blossom on its own.
Analogous to your Blowdown analysis, I would argue that the only incentive required to address the ultimate decline of oil would be for the Hubbert’s Peak to pass and to allow industry and innovation to run it course, without incentive or intervention.
Your assertion that government incentives are required in this area is based on what I would see as several possibly incorrect assumptions:
1. The motivation of profit is not sufficient for industry to spawn work, development and ‘conscious effort’ in alternate energy technologies on their own.
2. Industry and innovators are incapable of knowing or understanding the decline and downslide of declining oil availability in the market on their own.
3. The peak and decline will be sudden or that technology development will not be quick enough to address the situation.
a. Even in agreement with your analysis, the Hubbert peak has not peaked, and when it does, many argue that the peak and decline will be over several decades
4. A Government official is better suited to determine the correct areas of funding emerging energy technology development.
The development in alternative energy technologies has been and will continue to develop. The ultimate implementation of such a technology will occur, only when a ‘Blowdown’ situation exists that fosters the conditions required for the emergence of these alternative energy technologies.
Just as man ventured from reliance on human power, to wood, to coal, to oil, natural gas and electricity, the transition to new energy forms will undoubtedly emerge to dominate just as new species emerge to dominance in Blowdown forests.
I am personally hoping that this transition and shift in energy leads to a societal evaluation and inoculation of the Affluenza currently afflicting this country!
BTW….that’s one funky looking long hat you’re wearing in that Photo…
Have Fun in All You Do,
Maxximus
July 27th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
Maxximus - Thanks for the post. Two points I’ll draw out: first, I think it would be in our collective best interests to avoid a blowdown event of such significance that a species shift takes place and second, as Jarred Diamond argues in his most recent book Collapse, “…in all politically complex human societies people encounter those with whom they have little in common … government has been found to be necessary for the enforcement of shared moral values…” Diamond uses the word moral in an ecological and socio-economic sense hence its appropriateness in my response. Much like Madison’s famous argument about the necessity of law (if all men were angels law would not be necessary, but as men are not, laws are), so to does government have a place to cultivate those things a pure profit motive alone will not support. Just as we can see now that healthy balance between the rule of law, a balance of powers in government, and a free market all contribute to one another, so they all need one another to thrive. Hopefully my essay suggested that to survive the upcoming shortage of oil, we will need to use both government and private industry. I would be very happy to see private industry accept this challenge w/o government incentives, but thus far, we can see that what a non-incentive based approach by the government has yielded from industry - remarkably pallid results. I do agree with you that this shift will mark an end to the Affluenza we currently are seeing in America; my only fear is that the short term results will be conflict and economic recession not seen since the 1930’s. That’s a terrible price to pay!