The question is whether communications improvements can overcome biological and geological limitations. Crude oil is now more than 50% depleted and concentrated phosphate about 70%. These problems can be worked around if we are prepared to substitute communication for physical transport. Thus we might spend our time in small communities getting around by bicycle and re-using our own wastes, but is that what people want? Better communications may not bring us exotic foods or enable us to visit those places.

While some technologies are showing steady improvement they may also be more costly. Examples are batteries and photovoltaic cells. Newer forms may have double the performance but triple the price of early versions. I see the next twenty years as a race between technology and increased demand for water, food, transport, housing of a quality not much different to now. I'm not sure technology can win that race.

Ziggy - here's another prediction: By 2030 the logistics swarm of raw materials, processed materials, fuels and equipment required to keep microprocessor factories running will have slowed and become so disrupted (due to declining oil availability and the economic and food-supply chaos and conflict that will ensue) that availability of computers, mobile phones and the like will have become problematic. The internet will consequently be failing if not already useless for most current purposes. Goverments will be strugglling to meet the short term cries for help from a hungry and largely unemployed population and will not have the energy/money for longer term investments such as nuclear reactors.

The crash of the finance bubble was triggered by the high oil prices due to an inability to grow the oil supply to support economic growth. The bailouts have not solved any of the toxic debt problems and there is much, much more coming down the pipeline. When the economy tries to grow again the oil price will shoot up and crush it again. Technology and complexity need energy Ziggy. But hey - you sing a nice version of "Don't worry, be happy"!

Dr Switkowsi is the eternal optimist and to some extent, rightly so. However it seems to me that for all the advances made and yet to be made by science and technology, there has been a failure to come to grips with a number of major global concerns.

Among these are the threats posed by the effects of seemingly unstoppable climate change, the increasing scarcity of oil and its many derivatives on which we depend and, growing inability to sustain burgeoning uncontrolled and unsustainable population growth.

For all their brilliance, technological advances made and yet to be made are put at risk because of their failure to overcome these problems.

GHG emissions into the atmosphere have been increasing for 200 years because technology has failed to devise an efficient and effective means of reducing their concentration, thereby averting the more dangerous effects of global warming.

Our ability to convert sunlight into affordable electricity or store and transport that energy is of fundamental importance. Yet over the past century we have made little progress towards production of efficient photovoltaic cells and although technology promises much, a high capacity, light durable and cheap battery has yet to be produced.

Unconstrained population growth increasingly pollutes the environment and in so doing reduces our ability to survive as a species and, in the process, condemns other species to extinction.

The need to address these problems is not entirely due to political myopia and government inertia. The failure of science and technology to adequately contribute to their resolution is also a significant part of the problem. Have we got our priorities right?

Ziggy - you might be interested to read this paper in full. (Note: rate of innovation is innovations/year/capita):

Technological Forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 980–986

A possible declining trend for worldwide innovation
Jonathan Huebner

Abstract

A comparison is made between a model of technology in which the level of technology advances exponentially without limit and a model with an economic limit. The model with an economic limit best fits data obtained from lists of events in the history of science and technology as well as the patent history in the United States. The rate of innovation peaked in the year 1873 and is now rapidly declining. We are at an estimated 85% of the economic limit of technology, and it is projected that we will reach 90% in 2018 and 95% in 2038.

I wonder if Zigs supports the rest of French society and culture or is it only their nukes he covets. Does he want their IR and union laws, their welfare state, their farm subsidies and protections, their bloated public service and socialist governments? Does he agree that such things as nukes should be in government control (as in his example France) or does he think the septic way of private owners is better? How much does Frances nuclear industry cost it and what do they do with their waste? No mention of that just selective and misleading propaganda.

Picking and choosing their arguments to suit their own spin is a hallmark of these capitalist spivs and their quest to enslave us all to their sick view of "progress" and to hell with the dangers and the will of the public. These turds with their money always know better than the rest of us even the ones who chased knowledge over power and wealth.

Ziggy, where is the evidence of well focussed, strategic science driven public policy from Australian Governments: 1 national, 6 state and 2 territory legislatures?

There is no way Australia can reach anywhere near its latent potential in the coming decades under our seriously dysfunctional federal system of government.

Our consitition was formulated in the horse and buggy era where small isolated communities needed to be united as a nation.

Fast forward 108 years to 2009 and our plethora of inconsistant standards and science policy directions has been responsible for appallingly expensive and ineffective outcomes for the Murray-Darling basin, our national energy grid and smart government investment in Reaearch and Development is just a dream.

Clearly we need a new forward thinking constitution for the next 100 years but only a few leaders recognise the urgency of linking better governance with the potential for more participatory democracy.

Wow what a bunch of pessimists!

All the posters above seem to lack imagination and 'can't see the wood for the trees'. It is obvious that any potential future innovation will not be coming from these people.

I think the point of the article is that future innovation and invention is unforeseeable, therefore the people that raise potential problems of 'peak anything' or 'seemingly unstoppable climate change' ignore the fact the the human race is highly adaptable and sometimes it is only when there is greatest need (such as war or competition) that we have the motivation to innovate.

Although I won't comment on issues such as peak oil or climate change, I fail to see any current motivation for the drastic measures some people expect. It will be once difficulties actually start to effect the population that the drive for innovation in these areas will occur.

These pessimists used a computer to write their posts, then put on the gas heater and cooked their dinner on the electric stove; they sleep under woollen blankets, enjoy high tech medical care and call each other on mobile phones from the offices of Sustainable Population Australia and their uber leader Sandy Kanck. Hypocrites.

The only thing worse than reading their silly posts would be sitting next to one on a flight to London as they whined about how the jet fuel was punching a hole in the ozone layer.

I wasn't much of a fan of Zig's at Telstra but he's spot on re mobile telephony.

Cheryl,

Australians are very quick to support things when they think it won't affect them or that some else is paying.

Once the ETS and renewables legislation is enacted, and the price of electricity, manufacturing, transport etc increase, and they are faced with higher local gov costs, inflation, and unemployment, the attitudes will begin to change, and the NIMBY approach might be reviewed as it was in France.

Population is the problem, technology is the solution.

This is just Big Bonus, Big Business making hollow promises in return for more IMMIGRATION:

"We know y'all are pi$$ed off with immigration that makes us and OUR Politcians richer, you stressed out of your fear-laced discretionary-spending minds, the rivers dry , the seas dead and not enough power to run a DESAL.
Things are GRIM but if I am to get "more-richer" I need more immigration. Bigger markets for more profits.
And so we SPIN a high tech future with robots that paint your pretty toenails, and phones that for only the-cost-of-a-house will let you smell your sexy mate overseas.
We'all know ENERGY &WATER really's what you need. We know our overpopulation ploy will make them scarcer till WAR comes so we can secure what's left. We know people will die. But the point is we'll be so rich that it won't be US. Anywho, don't tell, mum's the word. I'm not rich enough yet! 20 or 30 million more immigrants should do it. And - if they start a civil war I'll sell 'em all the new hi-tech guns&bullets they need."

My online opinion:

The Author of this Hi-Tech saviour CRAP and his ilk should have been drowned at birth.

Those of you who think that technology can do anything and solve every problem should go back and read some of the science fiction and popular science articles of the 1950s. It is quite true that we now have technologies that they never even imagined, but a great many of the predictions they made have never been realised:

Where are our flying cars and robot servants? Why don't we have bases (let alone colonies) on the Moon or Mars? Where is our nuclear power that was going to be too cheap to meter? Why don't we have so much leisure time that we don't know what to do with it (unless we are unfortunate enough to be unemployed)? Why can't we regrow amputated limbs? Why are cancer and infectious diseases still problems? (Remember President Nixon's "War on Cancer"?) Why is there still widespread hunger and poverty? According to a recent UN report the number of hungry people is actually increasing, in both absolute and relative terms.

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/20568/icode/

Instead of, say, blowing out the population in the hope that some magical technology will make the interior of Australia green and fertile, it might be smarter to wait until the technology is proven and then increase the population, if it still seems like a good idea.

I have known and worked with a lot of scientists and engineers over the years, and I can't recall one of them who was a Cornucopian like some of you here. Mathematical literacy and a basic knowledge of science tend to be sobering influences.

Kaep,

Thanks for you report from the lunatic fringe.

Divergence,

The reason that Maltheus has been discredited, is that in spite of the world's population growing, the real price of all commodities has decreased (despite predicted increases), and the percentage of those below the poverty line has decreased steadily and where it still exists is largely due to corruption and gov mismanagement rather than incapacity.

The inability of technology to solve all the world's problems immediately also ignores the fact that cancer survivability has increased from nearly 0% a century ago, to 50% in the 60s / 70s to close to 80% today.

I am not an advocate of increased population, as there are diminishing returns, but it is not the bogey man that everyone claims, and if it does peak in 2050, the world will be able to cope thanks to increased productivity.

Shadow Minister,

While there certainly are countries that would have enough food, were it not for social inequality and mismanagement, Rwanda and Haiti are pretty good evidence that Malthus was right. This is because the population growth in these countries went on to the point where arable land per person was less than the minimum required to produce a nutritionally adequate vegetarian diet for an individual (0.07 hectares according to Vaclav Smil at the University of Manitoba). The Rwandans have dealt with this problem in the time-honoured human way, by killing or driving off some of the competitors for food.

Grain prices have been rising for some time. See this graph from the World Bank

http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/0,,contentMDK:21665883~pagePK:64165401~piPK:64165026~theSitePK:469372,00.html

This graph shows trends in the price of phosphate rock (essential for fertiliser) from 2000

http://www.mongabay.com/images/commodities/charts/phosphate_rock.html

If the famous Ehrlich-Simon bet on the price of 5 commodities had closed in 2008, Simon would have only been right about one of them and would have lost.

http://biolaw.blogspot.com/2008/03/ehrlich-simon-bet-update.html

Ehrlich and others like him were wrong about famines in the 1970s because they could not predict the success of the Green Revolution. You are betting that because technology saved us once, it therefore always will.

Divergence,

If there is no change in technology, such as in Rwanda, and centuries old subsistence farming is used, then Maltheus will be right. With the proper technology the amount of food could easily be tripled.

Another case in point is the "land redistribution" in Zimbabwe, where the "rich" farmers on 35% of the land were producing 70% of the food. These farms were confiscated and given to landless indigenous farmers who were unable to maintain the infrastructure.

The production on these farms dropped between 80% to 90% within a year, and the bread basket of Africa began to starve.

likewise India with a population of 400m in 1960 could not feed itself, but with 1.1bn today can export food.

I think if the famous Ehrlich-Simon bet on the price of 5 commodities had closed in 2009 we might have been back to square one.

The supply of commodities requires considerable capital expenditure, and will take years to catch up with sudden demand changes. The price spike of phosphoric rock by 400% or so in about a year is an anomaly.

If you were to ask how the real prices of commodities compared to the 60s, you will find a huge drop.

This is mostly true for food, as the prices dropped steadily over the decades, but with climate change, there is now a huge focus on biofuel, the supply of food has yet to catch up, and the alternatives to grain and sugar are still being developed.

Technology can't do everything, but even what we have now if applied properly can cater for the 9bn of 2050, assuming that is the peak, and much more.

You are probably correct about Zimbabwe, but Rwanda was down to 0.03 hectares of arable land per person just before the genocide, according to the Worldwatch Institute. Smil does assume modern farming methods, but no expensive chemical inputs. An FAO report gave the figure of 0.053 hectares as the minimum necessary to adequately feed an individual with the full panoply of modern agriculture. Rwandans were basically hungry because there was not enough to go around, and there was a population doubling time of less than 25 years. The marginal and hillside land that had been cultivated was losing its ability to yield. This graph shows grain production from 1960 to the genocide in 1994

http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/grain_production_in_rwanda

India can now feed itself because the Green Revolution doubled or tripled yields, causing grain production per person to peak in 1984. It may be in trouble, though, when the ground water it is using to grow the crops runs out. See

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/325/5942/79

Divergence,

Just read the link on Rwanda. It would appear that the production is presently lower than in 1960, and even in the 80s it was not much higher in spite of the population quadrupling.

The green revolution saw productivities increase by about 100% in most other countries.

This proves my point.

Shadow Minister,

It is true that there have been problems in applying the Green Revolution in Africa, but even 100% more food than in the 1960s would not have been enough. As you have said, the population has quadrupled, and the Rwandans were hardly living in affluence in 1960. At the time of the genocide, there wasn't enough arable land per person, even with perfect equality and the best possible management. Nor, unlike Japan and some European countries, were they able to trade enough goods and services to the rest of the world to buy the food they needed on the world market. Why is it so hard to admit that people can sometimes outbreed their resource base?