The Dimensions of the Crisis

If the Earth’s resources were divided evenly and we were to consume them sustainably, each of use would need 1.4 earths.  By August 21 of each year we have used up our personal supply of renewable resources and start pushing the Earth beyond its capacity,  which shows up as denuded forests, melting glaciers, collapsing fish populations and on and on.

And the population keeps growing.

The peak of conventional oil production was reached in 2005-2006.  We stayed on the plateau for several years and now conventional oil production is declining.  We have entered an era of economic oscillation where reduced economic output causes the price of oil to drop.  The drop in the price of oil allows economic activity to speed up, which then increases demand and the price of oil, which causes another slump.  This can continue for a while before we start a one way trip down the oil production slope, but not long.

And the population keeps growing

Our farmlands have become sterile, good only as receptacles for fertilizer and providing purchase for the roots of our crops.  Their effluent poisons our rivers and create hundreds of dead zones in our oceans. And to top that off, we are losing soil at ten to twenty times the speed we are replacing it.

And the population keeps growing

To feed our exploding population’s demand for fish, highly efficient trawlers have harvested fishery after fishery to collapse.

And the population keeps growing

The insatiable appetite for shark fin is killing seventy three million sharks each year and has contributed to an explosion of the jellyfish populations around the world.  The giant Nomura jellyfish have largely destroyed the fisheries around Japan. These jellyfish are the size of a large refrigerator and can weigh 200 kg.  In 2005 an estimated twenty billion of them surrounded Japan and made fishing virtually impossible, decimating Japan’s domestic industry in a poetic payback for the years that its fleets have wandered the seas destroying fishery after fishery.

Now they are threatening tourist beaches all over the planet as illegal commercial predation continues to deplete world fish stocks.

And the population keeps growing

The sustainable rate of forest production in the Solomon Islands is 250 thousand tonnes a year but the forest is being cleared at a rate of a million tonnes a year. This may be the year that the lumber industry collapses because there are now trees left.  If not this year, then next.

And the population keeps growing

The ocean is great at absorbing CO2 and over time can do a great job of sequestering the CO2 in limestone.  However, if there’s too much CO2 then the water becomes acidic.  The acid then starts destroying the marine life at the base of the food chain. And when they go, most marine life goes.  If the growth of CO2 emissions continues as forecast by the IPCC, we will see the problem starting in 2030.  The trouble is that every forecast that IPCC has made so far has turned out to be too conservative.  This one may be too conservative as well.  Where will be be with the oceans largely dead?

And the population keeps growing

We all know that nitrogen is essential for our crops and that we are using fossil fuels to create the ammonium nitrate that we use to provide it.  With the decreasing availability of fossil fuels, the price of this fertilizer is rising, but that isn’t the real story.  You see, we need phosphorus too, and its getting harder and harder to come by.  No phosphate, no food.

And the population keeps growing.

The planet’s ice is melting, that we know. That it is melting faster than originally expected is also clear.  But the evidence coming in as to the mechanisms behind the melt are so many and so contradictory that any forecast we make is likely to be wrong but it what way we can’t know yet.  But it is clear that hundreds of millions of people are going to become climate refugees before too long.

And the population keeps growing.

What does this have to do with architecture and city planning?  A lot.  The architect or city planner who plans for today with no eye to the near or distant future is failing to do his job properly.  Cities must plan for water rising, high costs for most minerals, not just oil, unavailability of food from distant markets, unavailability of fish from the sea and meat from the land.  Buildings must be able to cope with dramatically reduced energy availability and be designed to provide pleasing environments, even when the population is twice as dense as it is today.

Simply following the old rules isn’t going to work.  Post Peak planning calls for a wider range of knowledge and a greater range of skills than have been required of planners in the past.

Next:  Planning for the Post-Peak World

Contributed by Frank Bouman