Transcript Ecosystem and resource decline

Lumpkin Family Foundation
July 15, 2010
I.
State of the World
II.
Building Resilient Communities
If a path to the better there be,
it begins with a full look at the worst.
Thomas Hardy, 1887
Winds of Change
Population
Peak Oil
Climate Change
Ecosystem and Resource Decline
Global Finance
Social Anarchy
Population
World population has increased from one billion people in
1800 to 6.8 billion today, and continues to increase by one
billion people every 14 years.
Meanwhile, the majority of the current population lives in
poverty, 2 billion lack access to clean water and sanitation,
and 1 billion are hungry.
World Population Growth, in Billions
Number of years to add each billion (year)
All of Human History
First Billion
Second
Third
Fourth
130 (1930)
30 (1960)
15 (1975)
Fifth
12 (1987)
Sixth
12 (1999)
Seventh
14 (2013)
Eighth
14 (2027)
Ninth
(1800)
21 (2048)
Sources: First and second billion: Population Reference Bureau. Third through ninth billion: United Nations, World Population
Prospects: The 2004 Revision (medium scenario), 2005.
United States in 2009
Population = 307 million
Annual increase = 3,461,200
49 million are “food insecure”
Peak Oil
The rate of global oil production has peaked and is entering permanent
decline.
No combination of alternative energy sources can fill the emerging gap
between global demand and supply of oil.
World Energy Use
No silver bullet
Tar sands
Shale gas
Nuclear power
Hydrogen
Solar
Wind
……………………
Climate change
The nearly 1°C increase in average global temperature during
the last century is largely caused by human emissions of
greenhouse gases and has resulted in major biological and
physical changes.
Further increases of 2°C to 7°C are projected for this century
along with impacts ranging from severe to disastrous.
Current effects of global warming include:
Expansion of arid regions
Acidification of oceans
Melting of glaciers and arctic sea ice
Forest decline
Stronger storms
Spread of diseases
Sea level rise
Additional warming this century:
Likeliest range 2°C to 7°C
European heat wave – August 2003
Temperatures exceeding 38 °C; hottest August on record
35,000 deaths
10% of Portugal’s forests burned
$1.5 billion crop damage
Record glacial melt
Low rivers disrupt transport and drinking water supplies
Averaged across the continent,
temperatures were 2.3 °C above normal.
Ecosystem and resource decline
Every major global ecosystem is in decline along with their
ability to provide resources and services essential to
human well-being.
About 50 mm (almost 2 inches) per hectare (2.5 acres) of soil
blew away from cropland in Kansas during the winter of
1995-96. That's the equivalent of 650 tons of topsoil per
hectare.
An unstable global financial system
Fiat currencies and a debt-based monetary system require infinite
economic growth, while a finite planet ensures that infinite growth is
impossible.
Exponential increases in money supply, private and public debt, and
financial derivatives make major disruptions of the global financial
system likely in the near future.
Total debt obligations of the US government exceed $70 trillion.
And then there is:
Consumer debt
Trade debt
European and Third World debt
Financial derivatives
Which combined dwarf the US government debt.
GDP of the planet = $58 trillion!
Social anarchy
Worldwide, central control by national governments is
declining as power shifts to private enterprises, criminal
groups, militias, tribes, or general lawlessness.
Collapse
Taken together, these trends are symptoms and causes of an irreversible
collapse of the global economic and social system.
In response, communities worldwide are relocalizing their economies and
increasing their resilience in order to survive and even prosper.