monuments to failure

Today, the world's largest building -828 meters- opened in Dubai. It is supposed to be a bold statement and a testament to the achievement of Dubai, a small nation that many think is showing the way to the future. (It surely is but not the future these people envision)

Visitors to Dubai will tell you how advanced and futuristic the country looks. They will tell how America has lost its edge and how all the new gadgets -if gadgets are not a sign of progress what is?- are in Dubai. Some friends have urged me to visit Dubai to get a glimpse of what is to come.

Face it skeptics around the globe, isn't Dubai's latest phallic symbol the ultimate proof of success? And isn't it a great way to forget all about that nasty little default?

When Jared Diamond argues how the people on Easter island kept on hewing statues in the face of habitat destruction, some of us would tend to wonder. Are people really that stupid? Would they really go on with their silly quests when everything around them is falling apart? Would they not stop and try to fix the problems instead? The short answer is no.

It is customary in the West to look upon civilizations through the lens of buildings and monuments. The great civilizations of the past are those that have left behind stone or steel ornaments. The more imposing the monument, the more advanced the society, is our mantra. So it is good to see when history in the making highlights the fallacy of that argument. Monuments are better seen as illustrations of failure. Sorry Parthenon!

It has been argued before that collapse nearly always comes at the pinnacle of success. And there are a a couple of reasons why this counter-intuitive idea is so plausible. First, there is the inherent lag time. The tower in Dubai was started when all was going great. It continued to grow while Dubai was falling apart. It had already been set in motion. Much like the continued housing construction in 2008-9 when the bubble burst. These projects were already financed and what were builders to do but to keep going?

Second, collapses are abrupt events that happen when human societies -which have even larger lag times due to the life expectancy of individuals- overextend themselves. This is far more likely to happen when populations are near a max. At the max, consumption and waste is near its peak too. Dubai is a fake economy built on oil. When oil runs out, so will Dubai. It is an inhospitable place made to look good by energy. Like a patient on a respirator. When you pull the plug it is over.

Third, when primates are idle -and I say primates because the following applies to monkeys and apes too- the arts flourish. Zoos have shown that bored apes start painting when given the opportunity. When people are idle they find something to do. And what is there to do other than build and decorate useless and imposing structures? Leave a legacy.

collapse in Peru

Wonderful piece on the Nazca collapse on BBC news. You may not know the Nazca - it was the first time I heard about them- but I am sure you have seen their most famous works. These were the people that lived in Peru more than 1,500 years ago and left enormous drawings on the desert floor. These drawings are many kilometers in size and they have made that particular desert very famous. A desert of the Nazca's own making, I am afraid to say. The images can be seen from very high up and they have featured prominently in books on UFO's and extraterrestrials. The German UFO man par excellence, Erich Von Daniken was very fond of the Nazca drawings.

However, perhaps more surprising is that the Nazca once lived in a fertile landscape protected by forests of the huarango tree. This rather bizarre tree is one of the few that can fix nitrogen -through a symbiosis with micro-organisms-. Even so it is a rather rare skill in nature. The huarango tree protected the land where the Nazco thrived and where they built a very sophisticated society that came to a rather sudden end about 1,500 years ago. If this sounds familiar you are absolutely right. Many advanced societies have abruptly disappeared leaving nothing but enormous deserted artifacts behind.

These great mysteries have always intrigued people and they have led to much speculation. How can an advanced society at the height of its power abruptly fall apart? Recently we have uncovered much evidence to elucidate these questions. And time and again the answer has been very simple indeed. Those very smart and advanced humans destroyed the habitat they lived in. The process often took a long time and no doubt many in those societies must have seen it coming. However, their warnings were unheeded. Worse than that, in many cases there is clear evidence that the destruction accelerated prior to the collapse. The society's prominence was often at an all time high right before it fell apart. The Nazco are a chip off the old block.

For many years the Nazco demise was attributed to a strong El Nino event that took place about 1,500 years ago. However, as you can surely imagine, sophisticated and well-run societies are rarely wiped out by a single catastrophic event, no matter how big. Unless they live on an island that blows apart and disappears, people will survive and the survivors will rebuild.

One thing humans are very good at, and have always been very good at, is dealing with catastrophes. There is ample evidence for example, that ancient Alexandria survived many disastrous floods before it finally collapsed. Even in "primitive" times, people were smart and ingenious enough to deal with such events and they would quickly manage to rebound, much like we do today.

New evidence has been presented that the Nazca brought about their own demise through deforestation. The deforestation left them very vulnerable and turned their once fertile soil into desert. It also exposed them to flooding and other destructive events. It now appears that a big El Nino became the straw that broke the camel's back.

The Nazca are yet another example of an advanced society that dug its own grave. The unfortunate fact is that we seem to learn very little from what happened in the past. As the saying goes, he who ignores history is bound to repeat it. And repeat it we will, only this time on a much larger scale.

scenario number one

On January 9th, 2008, I went on record predicting one of three possible outcomes to the "Chinese miracle." It appears scenario #1, a Chinese implosion is starting to materialize. Today's Washington Post article, "As China's Losses Mount, Confidence Turns to Fear," implies as much. Somewhat ironically, and just to show you that predicting the future is problematic for all, China's implosion is not just due to it choking on growth, although that growth played a key role. It turns out the Western depression -recession is too mild a word- is the proximate cause.

Although I wrote that "if we somehow started consuming less," and called it "unlikely to the point of being ridiculous," it did in fact happen. We are consuming less. Not by choice mind you, but because we overspent so wildly for so long that we could no longer pretend business as usual. We can no longer pay our bills, let alone buy stuff from China.

Now China, having grown so crazily to supply us and the rest of the world with goodies, finds itself suffering from a very nasty hang-over. It has built factories, supply chains, infrastructure, etc. to produce useless junk that people suddenly no longer want to buy.

Add in the many scandals of tainted toys, tainted toothpaste, and tainted food and you can see that a long downhill slide is very likely. That too, won't be pretty.

missing the point

John Tierney is a would-be scientist who writes a column and a blog for the NY Times. The blog is called TierneyLab and he uses it "to check out new research and rethink conventional wisdom about science and society." It appears John prefers the court of public opinion over peer review. Not that peer review is all that much better, mind you. TierneyLab takes a conservative middle of the road position on most topics but has a definite "laissez-faire" bias when it comes to the environment. John likes to reassure us that all is well.

Now John has a short list of "10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List." Numbered lists like these are very popular with the public and they pervade periodicals, magazines, and do-it-yourself books. Who has time to read a real book these days? What we need in "today's fast paced society" is action items. You know how the ad goes. You've seen it a million times. Still, it is hard to put down these valuable lists. It is not often that you can learn so much in so little time. Smart learning or smart bombs?

Unfortunately, numbered lists frequently miss the point. Their main purpose it seems is to either rally the troops, or to lull everyone back to sleep by telling them that they are doing just fine. Whatever the flavor, lists convey little useful information and they allow the writer to get away with pushing opinions without having to make a solid case for them. In short, lists are not just easy on the reader, they also benefit the lazy writer.

Here are some examples of non-information from today's list. 

#3. John thinks you need not worry about forbidden fruits from afar. This one fits in the category of condoning your bad behavior while giving you some ammunition to fight off your more environmentally conscious friends. The argument is that food from other countries is often produced and shipped "much more efficiently" than domestic food. Note that the local producers haul their wares around in small trucks. The argument is not just false, it ignores the big picture in favor of pushing an image of inefficient local producers clogging up the highways with their pickup trucks trying to deliver inferior food.

Never mind that the "efficiency" of foreign growers is largely due to predatory practices, lax environmental regulation, excessive use of pesticide and fertilizer, mono-culture driven to the extreme, exploitation of cheap labor, enforcement by the military, and most of all, cheap oil. There is a reason bananas are cheaper in the US than locally grown apples. 

John prefers to stick to apples from New Zealand having a smaller carbon footprint than apples in the UK. The NZ argument avoids nasty problems with banana republics. But it misses the point. The point is that efficiency does not matter. There are no brownie points for eating apples with a smaller carbon footprint. Certainly not if those apples are cheaper and hence we eat more of them. 

Shipping foods over long distances is an environmental disaster and no amount of whitewashing will cover it up. Becoming a locavore is the best thing you can do for the environment.

#5. Here is another one, evil plastic bags. In this case John again condones bad behavior and once again his argument is totally beside the point. He says, the EPA thinks paper bags are no better for the environment than plastic bags, and that is true. It is true that the EPA thinks that way, but who can trust the EPA any longer? Unfortunately, it is also true that paper bags as they are currently used are just as bad for the environment. The issue is that throw-away bags, be they paper or plastic, are to be avoided.

Americans are wrappers of the worst kind. Everything we buy is wrapped and sealed and packaged and bagged many times over. We put boxes in boxes and bags in bags. We use so much packaging that the weight of the package rivals that of the goods inside. We use more wrapping than an Egyptian mummy. And all of it is one-time use and gets discarded promptly. We are consumers of bags and wrappings as much as we are consumers of goods that we don't need. 

Yes the plastic bags are evil. And yes you should worry about it. As a matter of fact you should worry about ALL bags, boxes, wrappings, sealing, etc. It is all a huge waste of resources.

To top it all of, in #8, John thinks we need not worry about the missing Arctic ice. And in a clever juxtaposition he also thinks we need not worry about the universe's missing mass (#9). There is no doubt these two are listed in succession because the second one makes the first one look silly. The universe's missing mass is a scientific issue. The mass is not missing in a real sense, we just don't know (or don't agree) where it is. And it is only missing if you accept the leading hypothesis of the birth of the universe. It is an academic problem, and you need not worry about it unless you dream of winning a Nobel prize.

The missing ice in the Arctic is a different matter. It is missing. Granted it is happening far away. But it is real and it is a sign that something is going terribly wrong. Something that will have major repercussions, if not on our lives, then certainly on future generations. The ice is missing because it is melting. It is melting because our climate is changing. And regardless of your beliefs about the cause of global warming, climate changes are serious business.

Despite the drama of comets and other Hollywood-like extinction scenarios, mass extinctions were probably due to climate changes and not to acute events. Even if you doubt that, rest assured that most if not all successful human civilizations collapsed because of climate changes and over-taxing the local environment.

I would say it is the one thing you definitely do need to worry about.

malthusian hoopla

For as long as humanity has existed there have been prophets of doom. It is, if not the oldest, surely the second oldest profession around. And yet, so far their predictions have not materialized. Does that mean we should ignore the warnings? Are all the warnings false?

Our favorite prophet of doom at this point in time is none other than Englishman Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, who lived from 1766 to 1834. Malthus is the poster child of global disaster and whenever resources are depleted, oil prices spike, or food shortages appear, Mathusian is on everyone's lips. We quickly start seeing signs of global disaster and the end of humanity. It has made headlines many times during the last century and every time, we are told, it was a false alarm. But was it? Clearly, global events work on a time-scale that is rather more extended than the attention span of the public and the news media. I have previously pointed out that Club of Rome's predictions were "within the next 100 years," so by 2070. Yet nearly everyone has already written off the Club of Rome as an alarmist hoax that is so passe.

What Malthus said, in his famous "An Essay on the Principle of Population," is that populations always increase, and when they do, they do so geometrically. He also noted that these populations depend on food and that food production grows linearly. Now, if you remember some of your high school math, you will realize that this invariably creates a serious problem of food shortage. Throughout his life time Malthus came up with various "solutions" to this problem but overall his tone remained pessimistic and it is therefore no surprise that we associate Malthus with disaster and not with a solution to such potential disasters.

The truth is that calamities of Malthusian nature have occurred throughout history. Many population groups and even advanced civilizations have perished because they ran out of resources and could not sustain themselves. Because the lengthy human life-span introduces significant lags, these events have invariably been catastrophic in nature.

Pollution and resource limitations are responsible for most, if not all collapses we know about. This fact is always conveniently ignored by those who think Malthus was nothing but an alarmist whose predictions turned out false. It is also obscured by the tendency of historians to attribute success and failure of civilizations to the acts of individual humans. This tendency is especially strong in the West, where individual accomplishments and hero worship are big themes.

One could of course argue that no disaster on a global scale has (yet) occurred. This is somewhat of a perverse argument though, as I pointed out before. If we all die, there won't be anyone around to say, I told you so. As long as a large enough group survives, they are going to rebound and so they can keep arguing that Malthus was wrong.

The main reason we have not seen a global disaster is that until very recently, humans were not a global force. However, in the last century all that has changed. There are now enough humans on the planet for them to make a real difference on a global scale. What that means is that the dimensions and scope of the next collapse will be orders of magnitude bigger than what we have witnessed so far.

Time to fasten your seat belts.

diapers, tires, and a global crisis

Oil prices are surging and soon the effect on the economy will become noticeable to all, not just drivers and travelers. Oil is not just used for transportation. It goes into everything from diapers, paper towels, laundry products, plastics to tires. Already many companies are switching back to the natural products that made up these goods before the advent of petroleum. Natural rubber, palm oil, and other natural commodities are making a huge comeback. But these items are not cheap either and prices are rising everywhere.

The reason is simple. Global warming is not our only problem. Not by a long shot. Global warming is but one symptom of a much larger problem. A problem that won't be so easy to ignore or deny. While it takes some understanding of mathematics, statistics and probability -not something most people excel at- to understand climate science and modeling, it won't take a PhD for people to see that nearly everything will soon be in short supply. Why? Too many humans, all acting as if they have infinite resources. Wasteful overindulgence on a global scale.

There have been other times in human history where people acted just as irresponsibly as we do now. Times of plenty, when excess and gluttony were the norm. Invariably such times were followed by rather dramatic collapses where the overall standard of living dropped significantly. The collapses were dramatic because they did not just affect the poor and the "middle classes," but also the rich and the very rich. In short, these events were not pretty and very few were immune.

Never before though have we experienced a global crisis. Even though previous crises affected all of the then known world, their scale was small compared to the planet. That is no longer true. We are now faced with global crises. That has never happened before and so in a very real sense, all bets are off. We are facing shortages in energy, natural resources, water, food and nearly everything imaginable. Furthermore, most of these problems are interconnected, so there is no telling which way the dice will roll. Food production is dependent on cheap oil. So is irrigation. The list goes on and on.

While it is certainly possible that we make a soft landing as slowly increasing prices eventually cure most excesses, I would not bet on it. The probability of that happening is close to zero. Soft landings are the stuff of dreams. Too many people's livelihoods depend on these excesses. Their jobs will have to go. It won't be as simple as designing eco-bottles to put water in. The whole bottled-water business has to disappear. And many other businesses too. That cannot be done without millions of job losses.

Given how many humans we have, and how long these humans live, these crises will not be resolved without some very bloody fighting and cruel warfare. Nobody is simply going to roll over and accept a much lower standard of living. And it appears the standard of living will have to drop rather dramatically from what we are used to today. It also appears that the population will have to shrink in a very real sense.

green recipe: downsize

Today's Wall Street Journal has another article about the cost of going green. And guess what, it isn't cheap. Unfortunately, it is also bogus -most of it that is. As the article correctly points out, going green is first and foremost a business slogan that hardware and home furnishing stores are adopting in order to boost sluggish sales. And that is the problem. It is a battle cry to spend more and "save" the economy. It is also the worst thing you can do.

To go green you need to reduce spending, or stop spending. You need to keep stuff instead of throwing it out. If you ditch your "old" car, appliance, furniture, etc. and buy something new that is eco-friendly, chances are you are doing a lot more damage than if you had just kept the "old" item. That is all the more true since most "old" items are not really old at all. Most have years of useful life in them. And even if they use more energy, replacing them puts a much bigger burden on the environment than keeping them. By all means keep using your old stuff and find new uses for it. That is the very best thing you can do for the environment.

To really go green what you need to do is downsize. That is also my recipe for health in America. America needs to downsize in a major way. Downsize your home, your car, your other toys, and your body. Fortunately this can all be done concurrently. If you drive less and walk or bike more, you will downsize your gas expenditures, cut back on greenhouse gases and pollution, and give your body some much needed exercise. The latter will help you lose weight and reduce your chances of getting some nasty diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. It will also make you tired naturally and that will allow you do away with sleeping aids and the like. Exercise will reduce your stress and likely reduce your blood pressure as well. More savings and more health.

It is true that spending less will damage the economy. Especially since that economy is based on wasteful spending. But that should not worry you too much. The current economy is unsustainable to begin with. Sooner or later it will have to disappear. Yes, you heard that right. Disappear. Not a recession or a depression mind you. A total overhaul. And yes, this will be very painful and will cause a lot of hardship, especially for the less-well-to-do and the poor. Lest you let your bleeding heart guide you, remember that the sooner we abandon this economy the less painful it will be and the less people will have to suffer. To keep going only makes matters worse.

The good news is that after a period of turmoil things will settle down. It is not the end of time. But we will have to change our life-style and we will have a lot less discretionary income. We will live a much simpler life and one that is much more in tune with reality. No more green lawns in the desert. No more 100 mile daily commutes. No more hour long showers. No more cars for everyone. But if you think that is too much for you to bear, just remember that if we keep going the way we are, we will end up in another Middle-Age-like period. A period where "standard of living" is a meaningless expression. One where mere survival is a true everyday adventure instead.

collapse

Recently, the New York Times published an editorial on "A Question of Blame When Societies Fall." In it the author discusses theories of Jared Diamond, put forth in his popular books, "Guns, Germs, and Steel," and "Collapse." The focus is especially on the latter work, which is understandable as it is a tale of destruction and loss and invariably brings up the question who is to blame. The first book, about how societies become powerful, also met with controversy but since it is more upbeat, much less so.

What is novel about Guns, etc. is that the prime movers of success appear to be accidents of geography, presence of raw materials, ease to grow crops, a hospitable climate, accessible trade routes and shapes of continents and their coastlines. People do not like such notions and human history books only mention these items in passing. Nobody wants to acknowledge that their success was due to being at the right place, at the right time. Surely individual choices must matter? What about the Yankee spirit?

But in general, since Guns, etc. is a tale of success, it is much less bothersome to read. And especially for us, since we are the ones who are successful.

When it comes to Collapse though, the roles are reversed in more ways than one. Here we have the tale of how societies failed. And although the book does mention some partial successes -after all there is no way to tell whether these will hold- the main focus is on failure. And unlike the first book, in Collapse, Diamond does seem to point a finger at humans. Perhaps he did so for no other reason than to attempt to convince us to be careful so we don't end up where some of our ancestors did. But pointing a finger is dangerous and it is likely to anger people, especially those whose forefathers were part of the collapse. And there is no shortage of these either.

And so a criticism like the one that ends the article, where the authors ask why Tikal, Chichen Itza, etc. are seen as signs of failure for the Mayans, but Stonehenge is not seen as a sign of failure for the British, are to be expected. The criticism is misplaced though. And there are several reasons.

One is that Diamond lost track of his story and in attempting to warn humans, gave them back the role that he had denied them -rightfully so- in Guns, etc. What is very easy to see in the stories about Easter Island, the Greenland Norse, and to some extent Iceland and Japan, is that geography, climate, resources, etc. play the key roles. The Icelanders and Japanese only survived because another resource was nearby and available, i.e. fish. But now that fish is running out, where will they go? Today, Japan is unable to feed more than 1/3 of its population and its food security ranks lowest among first world nations.

Humans do play a role in the demise of societies of course, but it is overall, average human behavior that matters, not individual choices. Another recent NYT article about the brain clearly illustrates this matter. For decades now neuroscientists have focused on single neurons. Led by advances in technology and by reductionism, many people have spent their lifetimes studying individual nerve cells. And surprise, surprise, they found them to be very complex. Add to that that the "single neuron guys" have been much more successful than the people studying the system as a whole.

So, in spite of all the medical evidence to the contrary, the single neuron people are now putting forth theories about the brain that rely on the magical abilities of individual cells. This by the way is a flattering notion for readers. Imagine having a brain that has billions of wonder cells. Does this not make you feel good?

But as any physicist would tell you, transistors are very complex too. We do not yet fully understand everything about them. Yet a transistor in a given circuit -such as a radio or a computer- plays a very simple role and one that is easily understood and that utilizes but a very small part of its "potential" as a computing device.

And the same is true for the brain. Single cells play a small role here. A role that is easily taken over by other cells should the first one die -and they do. The brain is an organized whole and our mental abilities operate at that level. The contribution of an individual cell is nearly immaterial at that level.

And the same applies to an individual human in a society. No matter how complex and gifted that person is, there is always someone else or a collection of others that can and do take over. The path they follow will not be identical, but except in truly rare cases, it won't matter. Because a society, like a brain has complex control mechanisms to deal with such events. Societies do not fall apart when one individual dies. And while some may accelerate or slow the demise, the individual contributions are puny compared to the other forces at work.

To be continued.