Energy use cannot grow at past rates indefinitely. Physics, not Malthus determines this.

⦿ If economic growth is tied to energy growth, we will get less and less economic growth.

⦿ If on the other hand the economy can grow without energy growth, which seems very likely to me, the economy can still grow and cutting fossil fuel use will not cause the economic harm alarmists like to forecast.

So which is it?

Found this on Wikipedia.

Sweden set up a commission to investigate the feasibility of an oil-free economy, but the government changed and it went no further.I'll look further.

I remember a quote, "No society has ever successfully reduced its energy consumption" I'm looking for the source.

Entropic man
Any society/civilisation which has disappeared from history has successfully reduced energy consumption. For instance you could say that the Minoans, Hittites and Sumerians all reduced energy consumption. The reduction wasn't their prime target, but it reduced none the less.

A a corollary perhaps any society that does reduce energy consumption is going to whither and fade away.

The human situation is complicated by some factors which haven't been present in the past, such as the interaction between wealth and population, wealth and innovation, I'm sure you can think of others.

Raff
Don't fall into the Nothing left to discover trap

"Energy use cannot grow at past rates indefinitely." Raff.

Who says it needs to? If western population trends are eventually experienced globally, the populations will eventually decline. However one of the key reasons for lower birth rates is prosperity and productivity. In other words, people (and women in particular) need to be too busy providing themselves with a comfortable lifestyle to pop loads of babies out. Those women need to be part of a consumer society to gain the rights and desires to reject a life of continuous reproduction.

Fossil fuels would run out at the same rate if we use a lot of energy for a smaller population or a little amount of energy for a larger population. Without major nuclear stations, renewables would only suit a smaller population using less energy but without brutal enforcement low energy people breed larger populations. As China found out, even slowing population growth requires a very brutal regime, stopping growth would be horrific. The West has achieved more with no enforcement at all.

Without a great deal of persuasion, people won't go back to a low energy lifestyle. Poor people won't stop striving for a high energy lifestyle. Tell people that energy is running out and they'll speed up their use so they can have their share before it's too late. What's in it for them to 'save' energy for later? They can't guarantee that the energy they don't use now would be available for them or their descendents later. They can’t guarantee their sacrifice would benefit them in any perceptible way.

Cutting CO2 for the greater good might be a turn on for those who have more money than sense but for the majority, the idea we have to suffer for no tangible benefit is not acceptable and therefore won’t happen.

Nike Jackson,
You forgot to add that Raff also knows he has right on his side, which makes him doubly dangerous. A bit of a Holy Willie really.

SandyS

I think whoever ooriginated the quote equated success with survival as a society.

Raff: "Energy use cannot grow at past rates indefinitely."
TinyCO2: "Who says it needs to?"

People like those here who say that cutting energy use and CO2 emissions will cause economic ruin. Maybe you haven't noticed them.

So you clearly think that energy use need not grow for societies to prosper. So I think you disagree with my first suggestion for a no energy growth scenario:

⦿ If economic growth is tied to energy growth, we will get less and less economic growth.

And instead agree with the second:

⦿ If on the other hand the economy can grow without energy growth, which seems very likely to me, the economy can still grow and cutting fossil fuel use will not cause the economic harm alarmists like to forecast.

But that goes against local dogma, so my guess is that you will backpedal furiously.

Raff, you forget you used the word "indefinitely". That doesn't mean that energy use declines or even stops rising in the short/medium term. Economic ruin is relative and societies can and have survived without fossil fuels but they weren't happy ones for the poorest. We've let the genie out of the lamp and nobody really wants to go back to pre fossil fuel energy levels.We will fight to keep what we've got and press for more. Only a declining population or a reliable new energy source would naturally reduce demand.

Sure, oil will run out, at which point we will all be in the same boat. The obvious replacement would be another fossil fuel but people would have to swap to whatever there was because there would be no oil. No arguments, no self sacrifice, no choice. If the choice was between wind power and no power we'd make do with wind power but we'd be competing with other countries who were also using wind power. If the choice was between reliable nuclear and unreliable wind, we'd choose nuclear, despite our fears of radiation.

The ONLY reason to drop fossil fuels prematurely is because of CAGW and almost nobody believes in it. The only way that the public will come to believe in it is if the scientists and politicians start acting like they believe it and they can present decent evidence. Until that point they won't allow anyone to make laws that seriously impinge on their lives. They will oust any politician that does anything but the most modest nods towards CO2 reduction. They will rebel against anyone who attempts to force the issue. You can make plans and have conferences till the cows come home but the public will vote with their wallets when they're not voting in an election.

TinyCO2, take a look at this video: http://fora.tv/2011/10/26/Growth_Has_an_Expiration_Date

Martin, you are wrong there. In all of your examples there was no knowledge of what was coming. In the case of oil, we know for sure that 100 years from now we won't be using oil and we know also that if we continue burning carbon we will cause irreversible climate change. So thinking about how we protect our environment and our way of life in the process of losing our main source of energy seems quite sensible.

Martin
I was using a slide rule in the 1970s, it was still good in the days of Sir Clive's calculators ;)

Raff,
was that deliberate idiocy or natural?

The difference is that, with the possible exception of whales, none of the items on your list was known at the time to be limited. There was no finite amount of usable tubes or vacuums (;-), no prospect of running out of horses or grass, no looming shortage of stones, pigeons, velum etc. Sure, they were unaware of better technologies to come but they had no way of planning how to get them, no need to adapt.

We on the other hand know for sure that oil is a wonderful but limited resource. We also have alternative technologies and can plan and build efficient infrastructure using the oil (and gas) while it is abundant and cheap. Or instead we can piss through this resource with abandon and maybe not have the energy resources to build alternative infrastructure when the oil gets scarce (no doubt you've read about the supposed "energy trap" - see the last link I posted).

"When oil eventually costs much more than it does today, we'll adapt our useage to match its cost. "

Just as we do today when the vagaries of supply and demand or the greed or needs of Russian or Middle Eastern dictators raise and lower its price. But of course in the face of a carbon tax, we'd all just sit down and cry.

"On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration behind us?"

Thomas Babbington Macauley (1830)

and

"If any person had told the Parliament which met in terror and perplexity after the crash of 1720 that in 1830 the wealth of England would surpass all their wildest dreams, that the annual revenue would equal the principal of that debt which they considered an intolerable burden, that for one man of £10,000 then living there would be five men of £50,000, that London would be twice as large and twice as populous, and that nevertheless the rate of mortality would have diminished to one half of what it then was, that the post-office would bring more into the exchequer than the excise and customs had brought in together under Charles II, that stage coaches would run from London to York in 24 hours, that men would be in the habit of sailing without wind, and would be beginning to ride without horses, our ancestors would have given as much credit to the prediction as they gave to Gulliver's Travels."

Macauley in the Edinburgh Review, 1830

Typo Correction to the first Macauley quote

"On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?"

That makes more sense. Apologies

Mike Atway
Thomas Babbington Macauley remarkable man, my mother learnt "The Lays of Ancient Rome" by heart as a schoolgirl and would recite them and other epics to us as bedtime stories when we were children.

A Victorian man of many facets and talents.

Cheers SandyS,

I remember back in 1959, as a first year grammar school sprog reading Macauley's "Horatius" with our teacher, Miss Treharne, acting it out to make it more dramatic. Classic tales of heroes fighting against huge odds are unfashionable these days. Perhaps that's why it's so hard for us swotty sceptic types to take on the might of the warmist establishment.

It seems we just don't have the imagination to foresee what human inventiveness will come up with.

I can agree with that.

What I do foresee, is that human inventiveness is going to speed up because human knowledge will scale with population and modern electronics disseminates that knowledge faster then ever.

I think tens of millions of newly-minted Chinese scientists and engineers are more likely to invent something useful than they would if they were scrabbling in the dirt to try and get enough food to stay alive.

I also foresee that a handful of western 'climate-scientists' and ardent environmentalists are likely to invent jack-s!tt that is of any use to either man or beast.

Mike Atway
One last off topic comment, I thought I was the only one who still loved that poem.

michael hart

I think tens of millions of newly-minted Chinese scientists and engineers are more likely to invent something useful than they would if they were scrabbling in the dirt to try and get enough food to stay alive.

I also foresee that a handful of western 'climate-scientists' and ardent environmentalists are likely to invent jack-s!tt that is of any use to either man or beast.

Agree with that.