The article uses statistics selectively and simplistically. Poverty and institutionalised discrimination are not considered yet these factors are crucial when analysing national Infant Mortality Rates and Life Expectancy. So too when considering differences within nations. For example, Australia's IMR and LE rates are vastly different for the Indigenous and non Indigenous populations. As a non Indigenous Australian I will live 19 years longer than my Indigenous counterparts.

Israel's IMR is an enviable 7 per thousand while for the West Bank it's 20 per thousand. The institutionalised discrimination and apartheid that Israel practises are the telling causal issues here.

Cuba has a better IMR than the USA, despite the cruel US blockade. If the US had the same IMR as Cuba (6.22 per thousand) an additional 2,212 US babies per year would live. This year, the World Wildlife Fund recognised Cuba as the world's only country achieving sustainable development.

Bolivia's IMR is a tragic 53 per thousand and East Timor's is almost as sad at 47 per thousand. Taken holistically, statistics are a wake up call to us all to work to reduce and eliminate poverty and injustice. Taken selectively, as your writer has done, they can be used to justify an unequal world.

I would suggest the health of cultures is far more multi-dimensional than the author suggests.
For instance I would recommend Googling this title:
Closing the Barramundi Gap.
This is/was one of the most amazing programs that I have ever heard.Truly inspirational!
Also please check out 1. www.dabase.net/coopcomm.htm

Jack Sturgess appears to have no grasp of the fact that, in around 100 years, we have largely wasted a once-only endowment of energy and minerals resources which took at least tens of millions of years for geological and biological forces to create.

Most of the metals, upon which industrialisation depends, will run out in well under 100 years, and petroleum, upon which the world's agriculture and manufacturing depends, will very soon reach a peak after which, it will be impossible to stop a decline in production no matter how hard we try. The U.S's production of oil peaked in 1972 and Mexico's peaked last year.

Anyone who imagines an alternative to oil and other fossil fuels can be found, which will enable more than 6,500,000,000 humans to maintain and increase their current material standards of living, I suggest he/she read "Peak Oil and the Preservation of knowledge" by Alice Friedemann at http://www.energybulletin.net/18978.html

Here are some excerpts:

"At one time, the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI) for oil was at least 100 to 1. We are reaching the point where the EROI of oil will be 1 and no more drilling will take place. It was while the EROI of oil was high that most of our current infrastructure was built. ...

"Evidence suggests that the EROI of corn ethanol is less than one, which means it takes more energy to make than you get out of it – an energy sink.

"Even if the highest claim of a net energy for ethanol of 1.67 were true, a much greater EROI than .67 is needed to run civilization. The 1 in the 1.67 is needed just to make the ethanol. An EROI of .67 has 150 times less energy than oil when we started building American infrastructure."

As a matter of urgency we should scale back our extraction and processing of all these resources in order to limit the damage being done to our environment and so that some may be left for future generations.

Not only are current resources barely sufficient for the world's growing population those resources may be depleting, more expensive to extract or drowning us in waste products. I'd turn the problem around and ask what is a global population whereby everybody has access to comfortable services derived from renewable (or slow depleting) resources and recycling. Perhaps it is a third of the current number, in other words a global middle class of two billion or so with few people on the margins. As it stands the 'haves' have to brutally repress the 'have-nots' so as not to dilute their affluence. Now even the well-off are beginning to understand shortages of water and fuel. Maybe more people and more affluence is not the answer.

Yes, Jack Sturgess' data is bulletproof. As long as you don't look behind the statistics, believable.
Like "there are no fairies at the bottom of the garden."
But,the fairy statistics could be on better ground.
Reading Sturgess, the sky - no, beyond the sky - is the limit.
Six and a half billion people will be enabled - have access to the joys and uninhibited social pleasures of a Paris Hilton. No, not her personal heat and energy, but that which underpins it - from expenditure on her essential rubber and chemicals; aircon and transport; condominiums and communications; copper and aluminium; a surfeit of hot dogs. The ultimate of human success - excess!
To get that ultimate joy, the minerals industry will have to gear up, increase the contribution it already makes to the grinding-up of rock. That currently amounts to 10% of world energy use. A large increase will be required, in spite of new heat-soaking technology for the task.
Mining and Industry are essential in enabling society in the developed world. A world which remains a component of biology developed during the course of about three billion years. A component which will always remain dependent upon, not just the "flora and fauna", but also insects, fungi, algae, atmosphere, etc.. We are part of an ecological web - inseparable from it.
Mining and Industry, in the manner of society's free-running dog, needs to be put on the leash, jerked back to heel. If it has its way in urging unlimited development without constraint, that will cause eventual calamity for the developed world and, for the undeveloped, even more misery than presently exists.
In the Nigerian oilfields - if only Industry had taken Mining to the marriage altar - how much better those people might have been we do not know.
But we do know with mathematical certainty that exponential growth, as presently exists, of human numbers would, it it were possible, eventually reach infinity. In the real world it cannot. Nor can mining and industry keep pace with it.

Jack Sturgess has made the correct call. Over the past 300 or 400 years of human history there has been an exponential growth in human knowledge and skills. Mining and mineral exploration has with out doubt been a major influence for good. So too has been the associated changes in social organisation, the capitalist philosophy and the legal framework permitting the development of free markets and the sovereign nation state.

Not to be forgotten are other wealth creating occupations such as in manufacturing industry and engineering. Mention must also be made to the major advances in medicine, biology and bio technology. The future looks bright indeed. Nuclear energy is undergoing a renaissance. Bio engineering with genetic modified plants and animals is heralding a new agricultural revolution. Then there is the remarkable promise of nanotechnology. It should be clear to all that mining and metallurgy is a pillar of our technological and scientific society.

Who can doubt that the trend line of human happiness is upwards and will continue in that way? Yes there have been some downs, but the trend is up. For instance it was reported a few weeks ago that in the last thirty years the number of people living on a dollar a day has halved.

Among the negative influences are the “against everything” Green and Environmental Lobbies. Like the bark of little dogs the Greens emit a mass meaningless yapping.

I'm sorry Anna52, but the IMR in the West Bank at 20 per thousand is low in the Arab context. If the West Bank was booted out of Israel, it's IMR would no doubt rise to end up like it's pathetic Arab neighbours. Let's see...Egypt's is 31 per thousand, Algeria's is 30, Syria's is 29, Libya's is 23.

I'd say rather than reflecting Israel's "cruel apartheid and institutional discrimination...blah, blah, blah" it reflects the limitations of Arab abilities in statecraft, governance and organisational skills.

The Arab world should read the UN Arab Human Development Reports that have been issued annually by the UN for the last few years, take a long hard look in the mirror and DO SOMETHING TO FIX THE PATHETIC STATE THEY ARE IN - no more hot air, high-flown empty rhetoric, excessive pride, hairy chested machismo or blame-shifting. The world is really starting to tire of this region so they need to just shut up, knuckle down and fix the huge list of social and economic problems that the UN has identified in these dust-gathering reports.

I thought this was a well balanced article which offers the expectations to be derived from improved management of resources.

I find Anna52 negativity typical of those who believe we should parade around in sack cloth and ashes because not all parts of the world are as affluent as others, the world is not a perfect place anna, get used to it.

Daggett I think you should re-read Jacks article, particularly the bit which says “The crust of the Earth is 30-45kms thick under the continents. Almost all metal production to date has been extracted from the top one kilometre.”

Well said anti-green, bringing some sense to an otherwise morose and negative run of responses.

Kvasir your post also helping to balance the consequences of organized versus disorganized nation-states.

It is said, everything we have is either mined, harvested or manufactured.

When the first man shaped and tied the first rock to the selected stick to make his first axe, with which to go and kill a beast, he started the process –
Mining a mineral (suitable axe stone, which he shaped)
Harvesting a tree (the wood for the handle)
Using the two to manufacture an axe.

We have an earth to live on, we can either manage its resources or not. By not managing its resources we are neglecting them. Making somewhere a “wilderness area” equates to “mismanagement”. Wilderness also become the haven for feral critters so its contribution is in fact, not neutral, it is negative. The land was placed there to be managed, managed sustainably but, none the less, managed

Once again Col Rouge yammers on about something on which he has no idea.

"Daggett I think you should re-read Jacks article, particularly the bit which says “The crust of the Earth is 30-45kms thick under the continents. Almost all metal production to date has been extracted from the top one kilometre.”"

What exactly does this mean? Nothing really. It implies that we have the rest of the crust to drill materials out of. This implies that we can actually drill and mine materials and depths of 45km below the surface, which my mining Engineer mate tells me is an impossibility for now and the foreseeable future. But hey, Don't let reality and little things like actual engineering get in the way.

You of course ignore Daggets mentioned problem of oil depletion, as there is no alternative than can replace oil, even if there are significant advances in the efficiency of machines and processes that require oil.

The yammering on about the manufacture of an axe. What point does this raise in relation to this debate? Nothing really other than showing we use materials to make stuff. Thanks Captain Obvious.

"Making somewhere a “wilderness area” equates to “mismanagement”. Wilderness also become the haven for feral critters so its contribution is in fact, not neutral, it is negative. The land was placed there to be managed, managed sustainably but, none the less, managed"

The reason some areas are made "wilderness areas" has everything to do with sustainable management. Your generalizations about wilderness areas are also off. So I assume that you either don't know what you are talking about(Big surprise there) or imply that we should be using this land for agriculture etc. (which would be disastrous).But hey, I'm sure you know better than environmental scientists who have devoted most of their lives to the problem because of what you have read in a few sensationalist media reports and what you could find on google.

Anna; Cuba is always a popular example with lefties. It does indeed have a competitive IMR, for reasons which you perhaps prefer to ignore:
1. It is "de facto" industrialised as a result of the very generous aid it received from Russia up to the late 80s. Its infrastructure is now seriously deteriorating.
2. It manages its population with birth control by abortion, which has always clouded relations between Castro and the Pope. It population management is also assisted by the continuing exodus of its people to Florida for greater oppportunities out of the clutches of a centrally controlled economy. They of course end up assisting Cuba through their repatriated $US.

Jacks,

Cubans have roughly the same life expectancy as citizens of the U.S. even though the average Cuban consumes only one eighth of the energy that is consumed by an average U.S. citizen. Every Cuban has access to free health services, education and they are well fed. Every Cuban has a dwelling to live in and 85% own their own home. Contrast that to Australia today.

In 1994, with 2% of Latin America's population they had 11% of its scientists. That is why they were able to adjust their economy very quickly to the sudden drop by 53% of its oil imports in 1990. The agricultural system is now largely organic and sustainable, in comparison to, for example, Australia's (See http://www.communitysolution.org and http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/657, and contrast to Paul Sheehan "We Fiddle as the Continent Turns to Dust" at http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/102406ED.shtml).

It's easy to find fault with Cuba, but in many critical areas, including sustainability, they leave most other countries on the planet for dead.

---

Bobalot, thanks for your post. You have saved me some trouble.

Bobalot “Once again Col Rouge yammers on about something on which he has no idea.”

Maybe you could identify what I have “no idea” about bobittie,

I do recall hearing that in the 19th century drilling could only go to very limited depths, which have over the past 100 years been extended to 12,000 metres (about 8 miles). Until the 1970s drilling was vertical, then innovators found they could also drill on a diagonal. Of course most drilling through history was land based, now we see coast and ocean drilling.

Your “engineering mates” would have been telling you, 100 years ago “Only land based oil wells to depths of 200 metres” and they would have been as wrong then as they are today.

“The reason some areas are made "wilderness areas" has everything to do with sustainable management.”

Leaving places as feral cat and fox reserves is not “sustainable”.

Any idea which assumes that an area selected “wilderness” is something “special” is a joke, its continued existence is determined as the result of a human decision, therefore it is being “managed as “wilderness”.

I would be very interested in you showing me what is “sustainable” from a policy of deliberate neglect.

“But hey, I'm sure you know better than environmental scientists who have devoted most of their lives to the problem”

I support the values of free speech and the right of everyone to hold an opinion. I would not vote Marxist simply because someone told me they had studied his preachings any more than support, blindly, the rantings of a scientist about his pet obsession.

I am not sure what you have devoted your life to but whatever it is, I doubt whatever you could say would impress me sufficiently to sway me and before you suggest it, let me tell you, I could not give a stuff as to how I sway you.

Now bobalong and play with the other feral critters.

Notice how Col Rouge resorts to name calling when he is losing an argument as usual.

"I do recall hearing that in the 19th century drilling could only go to very limited depths, which have over the past 100 years been extended to 12,000 metres (about 8 miles). Until the 1970s drilling was vertical, then innovators found they could also drill on a diagonal. Of course most drilling through history was land based, now "we see coast and ocean drilling.

Your “engineering mates” would have been telling you, 100 years ago “Only land based oil wells to depths of 200 metres” and they would have been as wrong then as they are today."

My Engineering mate said no such thing, I believe you may lost your ability to read as well as your ability to post an reasonable argument.

Now of this does not explain how exactly you are going to drill at 45km under the crust. You just assume that eventually somebody will invent something to do it, while we are at it, lets just assume somebody will invent teleporters, faster-than-light space travel, and a machine that can drill to the centre of the earth sometime in the near future. The current depths maybe the limit to the extent we maybe able to drill safely. Unlike your strange economic theories, in real life (That's science,engineering etc.) there are limits to all technologies. Internal combustion engines can only be so efficient, some electronic components can only be so small etc.

"Leaving places as feral cat and fox reserves is not “sustainable”.

"They are not left as "reserves" for introduced feral animals, which is why the government agencies are actively trying to exterminate them. They have even created special diseases to kill them in the case of rabbits. How dishonest can you be?

These areas are left to ensure local species survive, they are vital to surrounding areas. For example the elimination of certain species from a river can help accelerate algae booms.

"I support the values of free speech and the right of everyone to hold an opinion. I would not vote Marxist simply because someone told me they had studied his preachings any more than support, blindly, the rantings of a scientist about his pet obsession."

Translation: I do not know what I'm talking about, but I demand that my views have the same weight as experts who have actually studied the subject. You do not seem to understand, while you have free speech, it still doesn't change the fact the opinion of experts trump yours when it comes to certain fields just like how the opinion of a trained doctor trumps a self taught witch doctor

Bobitty “Notice how Col Rouge resorts to name calling when he is losing an argument as usual.”

Oh it is just my way of “yammering”, you introduced the invective, I suggest it is extremely poor form to complain about what you started.

As for “My Engineering mate said no such thing,”

What you did say is “my mining Engineer mate tells me is an impossibility for now and the foreseeable future.”

I was pointing out that 100 or so years ago, your engineering mates antecedents would have said “drilling beyond 200 metres was an impossibility, for now and the foreseeable future”

The sign of a small mind is the one which predicts the future by looking at the past and present. You and your “engineering mates” have no idea what is possible in the foreseeable future.

And you prove the point with “some electronic components can only be so small etc.”

What would the manufacturers of WWII radio valves have said about 1960’s transistors and transistor manufacturers said about silicon chips and what will silicon chip manufacturers say about the next technological innovation?

In short, give up being a luddite and stop underestimating the capacity of man to invent and innovate.

I recall in 1978 a 100 megabyte hard-drive had a sale value of around $200,000. Look where “invention and innovation” has brought us.

I can tell you one thing, my next PC will not have a 60 or even a 200 gigabyte hard drive.

It will have no hard drive at all. It will have an array of memory chips with a capacity of as many gigabyte I want. “Solid-state” is always preferable to mechanical alternatives, no worn out parts..

“How dishonest can you be?”
I am being perfectly truthful, wilderness areas are populated by feral cats and foxes. Feral pest populations represent a failure of environmentalists to manage their "wilderness".

As for “just like how the opinion of a trained doctor trumps a self taught witch doctor”
People seek holistic healers because of the herbal remedies which work but which modern doctors do not understand.

Col Rouge,

You must cease your resort to childish personal attacks if you hope ever to be taken seriously in these discussions.

Many people, whom you would dismiss as having 'small minds' would have once been technological optimists like yourself, however, they have come to understand that there are physical limits to what can be achieved with the earth's existing endowment of natural resources. One of the earlier 'small minded' scientists was M. King Hubbert, who accurately predicted that the production of oil in the U.S. would peak in 1970 at a time when the conventional wisdom was that these supplies were, to all intents and purposes, inexhaustible. His pleas that the U.S. not waste those precious reserves were largely ignored by all administrations except those of Carter, and, to some degree, Nixon, and they are now paying the cost.

You appear not to have grasped my earlier point (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5291#66063) about Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI). At one point we only needed to invest one joule of energy in order to extract 100 joules of energy. In other all that was necessary was to drill a shallow hole in the ground, and huge quantities of high-grade oil, which was easy to refine, would flow to the surface. These days, as it becomes necessary to extract oil of ever lower grade from ever smaller fields in ever deeper and less accessible locations, the EROI is becoming less and less, so much so, that alternatives such as ethanol which, has a most optimistic EROI of only 1.67. This means that one joule of energy has to be expended in order to get a net gain of only 0.67 joules, instead of around 99 joules as used to be the case. I am inclined to agree with Alice Friedemann(http://www.energybulletin.net/18978.html) that an EROI far greater than 1.67 will be necessary to maintain civilisation.

(toBeContinued)

(continuedFromAbove)

Most of the technological marvels to which you refer were only possible, on the scale necessary to meet the needs of a significant proportion of the world's burgeoning population, because high grade energy was abundantly available.

As we are forced to divert an ever higher proportion of available energy into the production of energy itself, it will prove ever more difficult to maintain the complex interconnected manufacturing processes which make it possible to produce the hard disks or solid state memory chips to which you refer.

As you also have yet to appreciate, when high grade energy becomes scarce, the cost of extracting minerals from deep below the earth's surface will become prohibitively expensive, not to mention dangerous, as Bobalot has pointed out.

What humankind needs to achieve before we can truly achieve long term sustainable growth, is an ability to meet all of our needs using only nature's 'interest' of energy ultimately derived from the sun, rather than being dependent upon the consumption of nature's capital in the form of fossil fuels and other minerals.

To quote from an article copied from a mailing list onto the web, which compares the record of humankind with that of dinosaurs (http://www.candobetter.org/node/24):

"We have a long way to go to catch up with the Dinosaurs and we have already run into problems. We have been living profligately on borrowed sunlight in the form of oil and coal and we have not developed an alternative for when these finite forms of energy run out."

Daggett “Col Rouge, You must cease”

Never presume to tell me what I must and must not do. You will have already found I am quite contrary by nature. Telling what I must not do is to challenge me to do it.

“taken seriously in these discussions.”

Take me whatever way you care and I will do the same. Better to amuse than bore and my posts are rarely as boring as yours.

“. . . dismiss as having 'small minds' would have once been technological optimists like yourself,”

That they “lost their optimism” is sad.
It is like the cripple with a broken bone, no longer able to walk he resents those who run ahead.

I will never limit my expectations of what might be simple to what already is. The alternatives to optimism are doubt, cynicism and despair.

I am an optimist because I believe there is no greater thing than the creativity of man. Unfortunately, ignorance ensures a ready supply of small minded luddites and doubters.

Do not bother to attempt to limit me to what your expectations are. Ultimately anyone who suggests “there are physical limits to what can be achieved with the earth's existing endowment of natural resources.” Is conditioning themselves for mediocrity.

This earth is, currently, all we have. Without it we have nothing but how we use it is open to the creativity and inventiveness of man.

As for “the cost of extracting minerals from deep below the earth's surface will become prohibitively expensive, not to mention dangerous,”

The process of market supply and demand determines the value of minerals and whether they are worth extracting. Same to the value of the “complex interconnected manufacturing processes” which you refer.

“is an ability to meet all of our needs using only nature's 'interest' of energy ultimately derived from the sun.”

“absolute sustainability” will be achieved by implementing the inventiveness and creativity of optimistic individuals.

Human evolution and mans the ability to manage his environment proves that there has never been any alternatives to the product of the inventive and optimistic individual.

Looks like you're having a ball there Uncle Col!

Dear Dagget...

Col was actually fairly close in his assessment of the interaction between you blokes.
'Small minded' is probably not my choice of words.. more preferable would be 'limited vision'.. but thats Col, you should know this by now. Don't take it too personally, just roll with the punches and come back with a counter argument.

Annnnyway.. my point in all this discussion is a bit different.
-Mining...fine.

I'm more concerned with what is often done in order to SELL the stuff in terms of 'shareholder value' rather than true national interest.
I consider "national" interest to be as follows:

A Sales strategy which does NOT sacrifice other local industries on the alter of the nth degree of financial return for shareholders.

A simple example is: Lets say ESSO locks up a contract with the Chinese to sell them LPG at such and such a price, which has been negotiated vigorously by the Chinese to get the lowwwest possible price. Ok..so far so good, BUT.. if Esso THEN say "Hey.. we need to get a better return on this.. lets CRANK UP the price of DOMESTIC sales to make up for what we will NOT get from the Chinese !

AAAAH.. now that.... is where shareholder value has transgressed against NATIONAL interest.

The same applies to Mining output..and the deals made by government and private enterprise which see the evaporation of the Slavery Tax (tarrifs) which protect local industry from unfair, unjust and slave based competition.

Why is this important ? Simple, if you kill a blokes livelihood and his family by your own selfishness, don't be surprised if he comes back and gives you a kick in the shins without mercy later on. We reap.....what we sow. Just because we seem to be getting away with something after we do it, it doesn't mean we will continue to do so forever. Sadaam Hussien being a very contemporary example.

"Do for others as you would have THEM do for you"

David BOAZ “Share holder interest: National Interest”

That is a bit of a furfy David.

I know what a “share holder interest” is, being one (share holder, that is). I am stuffed if I know what you mean by “National Interest” in any context which it could conflict with “share holders interest”, except where the share-holder is an ex-national, not subject to the regulatory environment enshrined in national statute.

Your attempts to quantify/qualify it do not help

Re “A Sales strategy which does NOT sacrifice other local industries on the alter of the nth degree of financial return for shareholders.”

Since “other local industries” are also owned by shareholders, such an action would be to the detriment of shareholders as well as the “national interest”.

If you are talking about selling cheaper overseas than locally, such an action risks Dept of Customs and Excise trading sanctions (one reason why we have government, as arbiter and regulator of commerce).
The loss of the local market, assuming the local market is not a monopoly will be taken up by other suppliers.

If it is a monopoly, the government should step in and break it up, as enshrined, in US, in the Sherman Anti-Trust Acts, and as used by US Supreme Court to break , guess who, “ESSO” in 1911.

We already have, in Australia, the necessary statutes and processes to avoid “conflicts of National versus Shareholder Interest” of the context you speak.

Rainier “Looks like you're having a ball there Uncle Col!”

Nothing like “unmasking” the fallacies, Rainier.

Enjoying the post Christmas euphoria.

Following on from your comment, I would call it a “un-Masked Ball”

(Note happy to be included in your extended family)

I was just reading on one of daggett's links about Cuba. I can't say I aspire to returning to using oxen to plough my fields. Perhaps someone could tell me the EROI ratio for them. Also I'm a bit attached to my air conditioning, and fridge because it's too far to walk to town from my place for fresh food.(oh I forgot, I'd be growing it myself).
It is interesting that in organic systems bio-pesticides don't seem to count as pesticides despite their toxicity.
Ever wondered why Cuba has so many doctors? No better ticket into any other country in the world perhaps.
Perhaps someone could shed light on why so many Cuban inhabitants go to so much trouble to leave if things at home are so rosy.

rojo,

The Cubans had no choice but to use non-mechanised means to farm their crops.

Our own oil reserves will be exhusted in 6 years time, if something else is not found before then, after which we will be totally dependent upon imported oil and will have to vie with the likes of China and India in attempting to procure our share of a global supply of oil that most oil geologists believe will be diminishing by then.

If Howard doesn't succeed in selling the rest of our gas reserves off overseas, this might help, but gas is not nearly as convenient a form of energyas is oil. And coal liquefaction can help, but only by worsening global warming and overall pollution levels.

Sooner, rather than later, we may be faced with no choice but to return to non-mechanised forms of agriculture, as the Cubans are now doing.

I suggest you need to re-read my earlier post in which I discussed the diminishing EROI figures of oil and the low EROI values of its alternatives, then, perhaps, follow the link to read Alice Friedemann's article "Peak Oil and the Preservation of Knowledge" at http://www.energybulletin.net/18978.html

Then you may care to tell us why you think she is wrong.

Cuba fell so far backwards because it relied so heavily on foreign backing that when the money dried up the people were not in a position to afford oil let alone alternatives. This doesnot mean they "wanted" to go through such a change.
A bio diesel EROI of 3:1 suggests that farmers will not have to return to non mechanised agriculture, but conceivably labour may become so cheap in a worst scenario future that it is more profitable to do so.