WHY 'ARE NEO-
Luca Pardi
Malthus Malthus in his Essay on the Principle of Population (1789), states that food supply increases at best in a linear (arithmetic progression: 1,2,3, 4 .....), while the population grows according to a geometric progression (1,2,4,8 ....).
It 'obvious that the purely mathematical aspect of the problem population / resource is exceeded. But Malthus was the first to challenge the concept of infinite growth (affecting Ricardo)
So often those who are opposed to the advocates of endless growth polemically defining neo-Malthusian although today, particularly in the field of population dynamics in relation to ecological resources, the mathematical tools are much more refined than those available to Malthus at the end of '700.
The whole neo-Malthusian I know, including myself, reject entirely the odious social doctrine of Malthus. Some of them gladly replace the idea of \u200b\u200bMalthus to control population growth through vice, disease, hunger and abstinence, the idea of \u200b\u200ba return through: health food and reproductive health with the cultivation of some vice recreation and friendly with a generous and informed use of contraceptives.
Window fossil. What Malthus did not foresee in his essay was the discovery of the use of fossil fuels has increased the opportunities for growth of livelihoods in the population. And because of this fact that almost all the resources have increased over the past two and a half centuries, corresponding to industrialization. If this needs a proof enough to say that for every calorie that today consume foods that are in the agricultural industry, 10 calories have been spent in the form of petroleum fuels for machinery, fertilizers (produced by oil), pesticides, energy needed to pump water in the fields, processing and storage refrigeration of food distribution. Why it comes to window? Because fossil fuels are the product of millions of years of stored solar energy from plants in the distant past hundreds of millions of years, and we're exploiting them in a time that is measured in centuries at most, but has accelerated in recent decades . This is a short window of time over time. Today we can say that since the beginning of the oil at the beginning of 900, we consumed about half of the oil stored underground. This is what has allowed the great growth of population and economy. Of course, it also allowed that technological progress mentioned by Raphael, and of which we are all conscious and that all persons with a minimum of the brain as the only hope for humanity. The point that divides us is that some see technology as a kind of god can solve together with the law of the market, any practical problem of limited resources, while the neo-Malthusian thinking that this is not given, and it is therefore prudent to think of a rientrodolce of population and socio-economic metabolism to the extent permitted by the carrying capacity of the planet.
The load capacity is a well-defined concept in the study of population dynamics in ecology and has numerous experimental observations that confirm the validity, even if neglected by our economists.
In particular, it was observed (see Imhoff et al Nature 2004) that the population of single species Homo sapiens appropriates globally at least 25% of the plants on the planet produces in one year. From this point of view it should be noted that the human species represents less than 1% of animal biomass (which of course is no small thing) and a tiny fraction of total biomass. This appropriation reached in some areas, generally those economically rich or rapidly growing, levels of catastrophe that may only be the general use of fossil energy in the particular form of liquid fuels, that energy intake from a tank, has arisen in certain conditions hundreds of millions of years ago, which is quickly (even on historical scale) low.
Malthus is then taken as a symbol to me of a position that recognizes the physical limits of the planet. The particular 'movement' of scientists and technicians who throws alarms about the effects of the exhaustion of the resource particularly oil, were self-defined Hubbertiani (named after Martin King Hubbert who first model the problem of peaking oil production) and are in fact, a subset of neo-Malthusian to which I belong.
Quote: Entropy of Earth, which is what interests us, is daily increased by man with a speed that proportional, or more than proportional, economic efficiency
's speech Raffaele entropy refers to a very theoretical and abstract discussions that may be interesting to investigate, but not here.
When it comes to talking about thermodynamics Entropy and enter an area that should be much clearer to all, ordinary citizens (consumers today prefer to call them, but this is a different matter), political and religious leaders, and especially economists. Unfortunately, in the faculty of economics and political science, thermodynamics, such as biology and ecology, is not a compulsory subject.
The only school of economics, I know of that has made use of thermodynamic arguments and attempted to draw conclusions is that of N. Georgescu-Roegen. Marchitto help but wonder that this is certainly the most documented of me. We may also ask for help to B. Della Vedova, which seems to have written his thesis (PhD or do not know) that refutes the very theories of Georgescu-Roegen.
Entropy is a physical quantity that measures the amount of useful work that a system can accomplish. And is a measure of the quality of this energy. Take the case of a liter of gasoline. In it, the energy is immobilized within the chemical bonds that make up hydrocarbons. At the time of the gas is burned in a combustion engine the chemical energy is converted into thermal energy at high temperature and transformed into the 'mechanical energy that can move the car and heat at low temperature. In turn uteriormente mechanical energy is transformed into heat energy at low temperature to overcome the forces of friction. The end result of the process is the result of the work: the changing position of the car, the heat at low temperature and high-entropy gas exhaust. The degradation of energy from highly ordered form of the chemical bonds of hydrocarbons to the disorganized and diffuse out of the tailpipe in the form of exhaust gas hot (if combustion is perfect carbon dioxide and water) is measured by an increase in entropy. The statements fondametali of thermodynamics state that energy in the universe is constant and that the entropy of the universe can only increase.
Life on Earth and probably elsewhere if it exists, is to maintain a low internal entropy of the various bodies at the expense of the environment. The man doing this process the technosphere and economic process that amplify the natural process of entropy increase of the environment in favor of its own metabolism. Promotes economic efficiency in every way possible entropic processes and is therefore thermodynamically unsustainable. The whole system works because of the living, evolving, thanks to an intricate system of mutual control between organizations allows the closure of all the natural cycles. The socio-economic metabolism is upside down a highway towards the uncontrolled increase of entropy. This contradiction, which is not ethics, but then thermodynamics and physics, the basis for the rational part of ecology. It is not whether the man is evil and nature is good. Poor boy who is lost in these philosophical considerations of social club, because the problem does not even arise. Is to establish the conditions under which the socio-economic human metabolism began to violate the balance of power that allows, in the biosphere, to maintain entropy compatible with life. What is not sustainable and can obviously be maintained in place for as long as necessary to consume non-renewable resources and renewable resources in an irreversible way.
Quote: Expediting is only possible in certain circumstances. In particular, when there is availability of unlimited amounts of energy. I assert that is not our case. We had the window
fossil that is closing, after we return to the solar flux. Before the window closes definitively or we have learned to live with the solar flux or the population will return to the previous era fossil, or, probably, to a lesser extent in view of its human ecological overshoot. At this point the acceleration
Raffaele has insisted for some time. Years I'd say. Conceptually, many reasons. The current globalized system has little chance of being able to simply slow down. For this reason we are doom. The system is actually made to grow indefinitely. For this policy has no answer, and anyone who makes political or pretend not to understand, or does demagoguery ecologist. When we met in Rome, Raffaele understood my position for the decrease, but commented, saying it is not possible, it all ends in disaster. We Rientrodolce We believe that it's easy to our soft landing, but we think that it is not likely to accelerate based on the use of renewable sources. Our entire society is based on energy. Renewable energy sources: sun, wind, biomass, hydro, solar flux that is dependent on a large but limited in time and, particularly low-intensity compared to the intensity of fossil fuels (coal and oil) or mineral (uranium and other materials fissile). If we think we equip ourselves to convert our society from dependence on oil to reliance on renewable sources should also size your metabolism to a flow of energy (energy: time) much lower that to which we are accustomed. In any case, even if we deliver a method of generating unlimited energy such as fusion, ecological limits would be found in other forms, such as the depletion of other mineral resources.
Every living thing has a growth phase, a static phase and a phase of senescence. If we identify the critical phase of industrial society at the time when he will be lacking the power source easy to excellence of the past half century, the oil, then we realize that the time to start working for a different way of life is hours.
Quote: If we want to talk about science fiction, I prefer Asimov.
And here closes the loop of this long post. If someone arrives at this point realize that my conception of the present moment is devoid of all the founding myths of our society: homo faber, homo economicus. Man is only Homo sapiens, one of many primate species, the only representative of the family of hominids and the genus Homo, to have passed the scythe of extinction. At least until now.
Among the founding myths of our society also includes the science fiction that provided the expansion of human myth and illusion in the universe as though it were a repetition of the conquest of the New World and is part of quell'intrattenimento stereotyped imagination group that includes most of the cinema, pop music and literature of the 900 as well as nearly 100% of television-based soap sandwiched by advertising.
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