What do you think the probability is that humans will figure out how to make a sustainable civilisation?

[UndercoverElephant]

Related to previous questions I've asked here, but I'd specifically be interested in people's guess at a probability for whether, given enough time (maybe thousands of years), human beings will finally figure out how to run a civilisation in a way that doesn't doom it to collapse. Happy to discuss the details, but I'm really interested in the headline figures people will come up with. I'll save my guess until such time as a few others have been given.

What do you think is the probability that humans will eventually create a civilisation that lasts for the long term (say, tens or hundreds of thousands of years)?

[adam2]

Most metals and other mineral resources can be recycled.
Many metals and other useful materials can be extracted from seawater.

The limiting factor is energy for all this recycling and extracting from seawater. Given enough energy then yes I believe that a reasonably sustainable civilization could be developed.
NOT TOTALLY sustainable though. There are bound to be some materials that are consumed and cant be recycled. Large human populations will drive vulnerable species to extinction. Huge solar arrays and continent sized wind farms are bound to have negative impacts on something.

And of course nuclear weapons cant be "un invented" and use of same remains a risk. Existing nuclear fission power plants, including the remains of those that have blown up, will be very dangerous for centuries, and somewhat dangerous for thousands of years.

[UndercoverElephant]

NOT TOTALLY sustainable though. There are bound to be some materials that are consumed and cant be recycled.

Sure, but are there any of those which are critical to building a sustainable civilisation? It doesn't have to be a sustainable civilisation which has lots of touch screens (for example).

Large human populations will drive vulnerable species to extinction. Huge solar arrays and continent sized wind farms are bound to have negative impacts on something.

Human populations don't need to be large though. That is a cultural choice.

And of course nuclear weapons cant be "un invented" and use of same remains a risk. Existing nuclear fission power plants, including the remains of those that have blown up, will be very dangerous for centuries, and somewhat dangerous for thousands of years.

It is not possible to end war forever, nor is it possible to stop the Earth from being destroyed in a cosmic collision with rogue planet. In other words, when I say "sustainable" I mean "potentially sustainable" in the sense that it is not physically wiped out either by nature or by the Deathstar...

[Potemkin Villager]

Zero

[johnny]

It is not possible to end war forever, nor is it possible to stop the Earth from being destroyed in a cosmic collision with rogue planet. In other words, when I say "sustainable" I mean "potentially sustainable" in the sense that it is not physically wiped out either by nature or by the Deathstar...

It is possible, yes. But many things are possible, like reigning in CO2 emissions through global lifestyle changes, a stable or slightly declining population, COP events being meaningful, people who talk about climate change caring enough about it to live the lifestyle required (call that maybe Amish+ ?), the global community coming together in a great union and caring about their lemmings....excuse me...citiznes....driving human happiness and activity towards sustainability, etc etc.

Possible is easy, I just listed a bunch of possible things that could take humanity to sustainable.

I wonder why when possible is so easy to conceive and outline, when examined in the light of human behavior, it appears so impossible?

[BritDownUnder]

One might argue that Amish civilisation is not sustainable. It relies on a very flat population pyramid with large numbers of fit young people and not too many oldies. Come to think of it I hardly ever see old Amish people on videos featuring Amish people. One can assume that the Amish expand by buying farms from non-Amish who leave the land and go to the cities.

The Amish demographics are almost unbelievable. From about 3000 people in 1900 to more than quarter of a million nowadays.

To be sustainable you seem to need...

- stable population control
- recycling
- renewable energy (and a lot of it - more than 99% of 'work' done for humans in advanced countries is not done by human muscle power)
- peace helps
- government planning
- EROEI > 5 for 'civilisation lite' and EROEI > 10 for Western civilisation

Jared Diamond seems to think in his books that only two societies seemed to have pulled it off. Tikopia, and Japan during the 17th and 18th Centuries.

I think on a continental basis North America has the best chance of the above. South America is too corrupt and divided but if they weren't they would be OK too. Australia has the resources but is too weak at the moment to stop getting invaded by the starving hordes.

[UndercoverElephant]

Jared Diamond seems to think in his books that only two societies seemed to have pulled it off. Tikopia, and Japan during the 17th and 18th Centuries.

Which suggests it can be done. We only have to get it right once, and we probably have a very long time to try.

[Eclipse]

I think we've got 95% of the tech we need - just airlines troubles me a bit. But if we have to pay more to fly long haul international flights with hydrogen jets or expensive synthetic fuel, it's hardly the end of civilisation.

Sadly, we've also got the tech to undo civilisation fast. My teenage nuclear war angst is back a bit after seeing Oppenheimer a week ago. I'm in my mid 50's - and thinking what we could do to my kid's generation is just awful.

What excites me is we have most of the technology we need for a sustainable world, and it’s about to go exponential. Remember the old example of bacteria in a Petri dish. Assume you know it doubles every minute, and the dish will be full in an hour. When is the dish half full? In 59 minutes! The bacteria has been almost invisible for 50 minutes then in the last 10 minutes goes from a tiny blotch to an eighth, then a quarter, then a half, and suddenly the dish is full!

In this metaphor - renewables are just becoming visible as a smudge on the side of the petri dish. They are now so cheap we can Overbuild renewables to get through winter. Here’s the thing - so many solar factories are being built today that when they are finished in 2025 they will build FOUR TIMES the solar built in 2022! This is 6% of today's electricity built EVERY YEAR! 17 years to build out today's electricity grid from solar alone! (But that's cheating - as we're going to Overbuild most grids about 3 times. But 4 times 2022’s capacity by 2025 - what will the increase be after that? It shows how fast things are accelerating.) https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/epis ... roi-of-re/

It’s a similar story in battery tech - as America has so many battery gigafactories coming online in the next 7 years it will be a 13 to 15 TIMES increase to nearly all their cars by 2030.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/map-whi ... -2030.html

Trucking is changing - Tesla have their 40 ton Semi, but Janus Australia even have a 100 ton electric ROAD TRAIN that runs on a giant battery-swap system! https://youtu.be/9eYLtPSf7PY
Mining prototypes could be heading in that direction soon. Electric mining trucks are being experimented with. https://www.caterpillar.com/en/news/cor ... truck.html

Electric arc furnaces, hydrogen to replace coking coal as reductant, and so many other innovations are coming to mining. Lithium from seawater is nearly economical - and there’s a million years of lithium in the ocean. But sodium batteries are superior for grid storage as they are less fire prone, less toxic, and less expensive.

It's all growing SO FAST that the head of the International Energy Agency predicts that oil DEMAND will peak by 2026 and decline from there. https://www.iea.org/news/growth-in-glob ... ly-by-2028

Experts think peak FOSSIL FUELS will be reached soon, and phased out WELL before 2050!
http://theconversation.com/theres-a-hug ... -it-190241
Basically, people are going to be shocked at how fast things change across the next 10 years, let alone 20.

[johnny]

What do you think the probability is that humans will figure out how to make a sustainable civilisation?

The same as the T-Rex had of dodging the consequences of a meteorite hitting the planet.

[Eclipse]

So if we provide everyone with everything they need, powered by renewable energy made from renewable materials, and feeding them on Precision Fermentation which could be cooked up from an area the size of Greater London to basically feed the entire WORLD of 10 billion, and then let the Demographic Transition take over so that the population starts declining from there - all of this operating in an increasingly circular economy while 3 TRILLION trees regrow in the former grazing lands - you don't think we have a chance?

[johnny]

So if we provide everyone with everything they need, powered by renewable energy made from renewable materials, and feeding them on Precision Fermentation which could be cooked up from an area the size of Greater London to basically feed the entire WORLD of 10 billion, and then let the Demographic Transition take over so that the population starts declining from there - all of this operating in an increasingly circular economy while 3 TRILLION trees regrow in the former grazing lands - you don't think we have a chance?

Of course we don't. As I have detailed in posts before, my perspective with respect to time is more macro than most, who tend to view the life cycle of humans in micro terms.

The Sun is getting lighter. The consequences of basic physical processes like that are fatal to our species on this planet. We certainly have problems to solve, in terms of our pollution of the biosphere, but even if we solved or survived that exactly according to your scenario, the Sun will continue getting lighter by about 4.3 million kg/sec. And that, as they say, is that.

[Eclipse]

The sun getting bigger? I thought this was a peak oil forum looking at the impacts of energy decline in the next century or so, not the next hundreds of millions of years.

But while we're side tracked - some people even have plans for that eventuality

https://youtu.be/5lqgisGmREg

https://youtu.be/pzuHxL5FD5U

OK, back on topic!

[johnny]

The sun getting bigger?

I said lighter. But yes, ultimately the surface of Sun will expand as well. Well before that its increased output will happily boil away the oceans on our planet.

I thought this was a peak oil forum looking at the impacts of energy decline in the next century or so, not the next hundreds of millions of years.

This hasn't been a peak oil forum since about the 5th one claimed or occurred this century happened (2015 give or take?). The entire topic of ditching the forum in exchange for something else has its own thread.

[Eclipse]

So is it more of a Degrowth or Collapse forum now?

But if you watch the videos above, you'll see that we have the engineering to get out into the solar system and mine the sun. We have the knowledge and engineering - it's only a matter of scale and willpower and economics. It's called Starlifting, and could give us unbelievable resources and shrink the sun down to the point where it lasts a trillion years.

[johnny]

So is it more of a Degrowth or Collapse forum now?

I don't believe so, no. Perhaps a splash of degrowth, but more prepper oriented would be a better description? How do we cope with <fill in general societal decline, Brexit, bad economic times>? Get some land, live simple, grow food, if it weren't for the solar panels, you could describe the entire operation as "How To Become Amish".

But if you watch the videos above, you'll see that we have the engineering to get out into the solar system and mine the sun.

I am familiar with "mankind flees the solar system" scenarios, or perhaps Dyson Spheres and other ideas, but until you are building one the topic is theoretical. You don't see it being advocated with a straight face in prepper groups though. Back in the day you would get banned for daring to suggest escapes from the end of the world Peak Oil scenarios. You either sang the dogma in tune with everyone else in the church pews or you were excommunicated pronto. Even then there were favorite angles, prepping being one of them. The internet had something to do with all of this of course. Colin Campbell and his global peak oil claims of 1990 generated so little attention that peakers themselves didn't seem to know about them. But when he did it again during the early internet days in his Scientific America article (1998 or so?), putting global in the first 3-4 years of the new century, well now, THAT one folks noticed and presto, the fuse was lit and exploded all over the internet with the early peak oil forums.

I didn't know anything about it until the Friday after Thanksgiving Day, 2005. I then spent 6 months researching it, and was hooked.

We have the knowledge and engineering - it's only a matter of scale willpower and economics. It's called Starlifting, and could give us unbelievable resources and shrink the sun down to the point where it lasts a trillion years.

On time and target. If you can't get it working before we self immolate it is irrelevant. Post up when it's ready to start working.