CHAPTER 30 Diminished resources, energy scarcity and ... · Diminished resources, energy scarcity...

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CHAPTER 30 Diminished resources, energy scarcity and climate change: unsustainable future development A. Yáñez-Arancibia 1 , J.W. Day 2 , C.A.S. Hall 3 & E. Reyes 4 1 Red Ambiente y Sustentabilidad, Instituto de Ecología A.C, México. 2 School of the Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University, USA. 3 Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, USA. 4 Department of Biology, and Institute for Coastal Science and Policy, East Carolina University, USA. Abstract No substitute for petroleum has yet been developed that can deliver energy at the scale, quality, or within the time frame required to replace decreasing availability. Most alternative energy sources provide much less energy than petroleum and do not have its high energy density. The interplay among shrinking resources, energy scarcity, economic crisis, and climate change will be difficult to solve. The biggest challenge is to articulate different aspects of an equation of energy, economics, and climate change that strive for a sustainable solution, at least within the cur- rent societal context. This is not simply a problem of physical dimensions but involves deeper social, economic, and policy aspects. The continued use of fossil fuels leads to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that leads to more climate disasters. An increasing energy scarcity will limit the energy intensive global economy as it currently operates. It is unlikely that eco- nomics solely can effectively address these problems since most economic models are based on incomplete information and largely ignore the biophysical basis of the biosphere. The economics of the future should be taught from a biophysical perspective that respects the limits to the natural world, rather than the unending growth of neoclassical market theories. Keywords: nonrenewable resources, economic crisis, environmental crises, energy crises, biophysical limits to growth, sustainable development. www.witpress.com, ISSN 1755-8336 (on-line) WIT Transactions on State of the Art in Science and Engineering, Vol 64, © 2013 WIT Press doi:10.2495/978-1-84564-75 - / 6 8 030

Transcript of CHAPTER 30 Diminished resources, energy scarcity and ... · Diminished resources, energy scarcity...

CHAPTER 30

Diminished resources, energy scarcity and climate change: unsustainable future development

A. Yáñez-Arancibia1, J.W. Day2, C.A.S. Hall3 & E. Reyes4

1Red Ambiente y Sustentabilidad, Instituto de Ecología A.C, México.2School of the Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University, USA.3Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, USA.4Department of Biology, and Institute for Coastal Science and Policy, East Carolina University, USA.

Abstract

No substitute for petroleum has yet been developed that can deliver energy at the scale, quality, or within the time frame required to replace decreasing availability. Most alternative energy sources provide much less energy than petroleum and do not have its high energy density. The interplay among shrinking resources, energy scarcity, economic crisis, and climate change will be diffi cult to solve. The biggest challenge is to articulate different aspects of an equation of energy, economics, and climate change that strive for a sustainable solution, at least within the cur-rent societal context. This is not simply a problem of physical dimensions but involves deeper social, economic, and policy aspects. The continued use of fossil fuels leads to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that leads to more climate disasters. An increasing energy scarcity will limit the energy intensive global economy as it currently operates. It is unlikely that eco-nomics solely can effectively address these problems since most economic models are based on incomplete information and largely ignore the biophysical basis of the biosphere. The economics of the future should be taught from a biophysical perspective that respects the limits to the natural world, rather than the unending growth of neoclassical market theories.Keywords: nonrenewable resources, economic crisis, environmental crises, energy crises, biophysical limits to growth, sustainable development.

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558 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development

1 Introduction

The emerging energy crisis during the 21st century will increasingly limit the continuation of the current globalized industrial economy and potentially lead to social instability [1, 2]. During the 19th century, the industrial revolution was pow-ered by coal. During the fi rst decade of 20th century, British millionaire William Knox D’Arcy arranged to pay £40,000 in cash and company stock to the Shah of Tehran, Muzaffar al-Din, for the right to drill for oil in western Persia [http://www.mec.gov.py/cms/recursos/9448-el-ingles-william-knox-descubrio-petroleo-en-el-golfo-persico]. After World War I, oil replaced coal as the most important fossil energy resource and it has remained the most important fossil fuel since. Currently, fossil fuels supply about 85% of the world’s energy [1, 3, 4]. After World War II, new large and seemingly inexhaustible reserves were discovered in the Middle East. However, as consequence of the explosive population growth of the 20th Century and even greater economic growth, humans begin impacting the biosphere at a global level and natural capital was diminished as economic capital increased [1, 5–10]. The beginning of the 21st century fi nds humankind at a point of emerging energy scarcity combined with diminishing biodiversity, and increas-ingly severe climate change; during the last 25 years, there have been considerable arguments about anthropogenic environmental impacts, especially in relation to climate change, energy scarcity, and biodiversity (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Natural renewable resources are in the foundation of pyramid where biotic resources (biodiversity) and energy consumption (oil, gas, and carbon) are overexploited toward unsustainable social economic devel-opment. Negative feedback produces severe environmental, social, and economic impacts toward scarcity of natural renewable resources. Climate change impacts (black arrows) occur at any level of this pyra-mid magnifying negative effects.

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Diminished Resources, Energy Scarcity and Climate Change 559

There has been less focus on the decline of basic resources to maintain human-kind, for example, water, food, and energy [11]. This is occurring at a time when neo-classical economics is increasingly unable to solve economic problems and natural capital is dramatically diminished (Fig. 1) [1, 4, 5, 8]. Oil is particularly relevant since conventional oil production has likely peaked and will likely soon begin to decline (Figs. 2 and 3) [8, 12]. This peak correlates to peaks of many other resources as oil is vital to their production (Fig. 4). This makes sustainable devel-opment doubtful [13]. Figures 1–4 are a major concern toward unsustainable future development. Worldwide demand of primary energy is projected to increase by approximately 57% from 2004 to 2030 [4], but growing energy scarcity and increasing environmental degradation make this unlikely. Currently, fossil fuels

Figure 2: Worldwide oil Discovery and Consumption from 1930 until the pres-ent and projected future Discoveries. The rate at which oil is discov-ered globally has been dropping for decades and is projected to drop off even more precipitously in future years (gray histogram). The rate of worldwide consumption, however, is still continuing to rise (black line). Thus, the gap between supply and demand of oil can be expected to widen. Most major discoveries were made before 1980. In 1982 is the turning point when Consumption is greater than Discovery (white dots). World consumption is currently four to fi ve barrels for each barrel discovered with. Most production coming from fi elds discovered three to four decades ago. Data courtesy of the Association for the Study of Oil and Gas [14], redrawn from Day et al. [8].

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560 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development

Figure 3: World liquid production of Oil indicating the severe decline after 2008. There is a strong correlation between IEA (International Energy Agency) and EIA (Energy Information Administration), Offi cial Energy Statistics from the U. S. Government. Figure from data base courtesy of Charles A.S. Hall, State University of New York. After [1] redrawn from Yáñez-Arancibia et al. [2].

Figure 4: The original projections of the limits-to-growth model examined the relation of a growing population to resources and pollution, but did not include a timescale between 1900 and 2100. If a halfway mark of 2000 is added, the projections up to the current time are largely accu-rate although the future will tell about the wild oscillations predicted for upcoming years. Pulsing are not in scale but showing in a simple way the magnitude interrelationships between parameters sequence. Modifi ed from Hall and Day [1].

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Diminished Resources, Energy Scarcity and Climate Change 561

(oil, natural gas, and coal) provide about 85% of the world’s energetic demand. But the projected energy demand by 2030 will be much higher.

If fossil fuels continue to supply 85% of the world’s energy in the same pro-portion, oil production will have to increase around 42%, natural gas by about 65%, and coal by about 74%. The great challenge of the 21st century is how to articulate energy, economy, and climate change in an equation that already seems to be without a solution. This is especially the case since this is not just a techno-logical problem but involves social, economic, and human behavior. It is likely that the production of none of the three major fossil fuels seems will be able to increase to be able to supply projected energy demand by the middle of this century [4, 12].

As challenging as the energy supply situation is, it will interact with other prob-lems such as the provision of adequate food and water. In addition, policies will have to confront – sooner than later – the dire effects of global warming and its environmental impacts. All of these factors complicate the solution of the energy–climate–economic–natural resources’ equation that currently is unresolved under present national and international policies.

2 Analysis

How it is that energy, economy, and climate change have become interrelated since the later part of the 20th century to become the elements of what seems to be a clearly unsolvable equation?

2.1 The energy crisis is here to stay

We believe that society is entering a period when energy scarcity will be a per-manent fact of life. Oil production in the United States peaked in 1970–1971 and the world is at peak conventional world oil production now. Mexico serves as an example of what will happen to petroleum exporting countries. Up until recently, Mexico was – in the 1980s – a major petroleum exporting country.

But according to the Oil & Gas Journal [15] and the BP Statistical Review of World Energy [3], in 2006 Mexico was close to the bottom of the 15 countries that produce about 80% of global oil. By 2030, Mexico will no longer be a petroleum exporting country (according to Department of Energy of United States [16]). Mexico is also no longer among the top 15 natural gas reserves globally (accord-ing to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy [3]). Furthermore, Mexico’s coal reserves are so small that nuclear and hydropower is a more important source of electricity. And hydropower may be impacted by decreasing rainfall due to climate change. Thus, one cannot speak of ‘energy independence’ for Mexico because it will become an importer of energy in the near future [2, 4, 12]. This will happen during a period when the majority of countries that are energy exporters now will become net importers.

Several authors [1, 8, 17–19] have emphasized the interaction of energy scarcity with climate change. In the United States, this problem is confounded by the

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widespread lack of public acceptance of global climate change. This is a general problem because burning of fossil fuels is the main source of greenhouse gases.

As oil becomes scarcer, it is likely that other fossil fuels will be used more. If burning of coal grows, there is a possibility that climate impacts will become greater because coal produces more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than oil does. It seems there is a clear need to become more effi cient and to use more renewable resources. However, efforts to do this are made complicated by a lack of public acceptance not only of the evidence of climate change but also of coming energy scarcity.

2.2 A look to alternative energy

There has been an enormous amount written on the potential for alternative, non-fossil energy sources to replace fossil fuels that are used up (Table 1). New energy conversions are thus highly unlikely to reduce CO2 emissions fast enough to pre-vent the rise of atmospheric concentrations above 450 parts per million (ppm). They were nearly 390 ppm by the end of 2010. But there has been much uncritical thinking about alternatives [20]. When one is considering substitutions for fossil fuels, a number of questions should be asked. First, what is the quantity of energy that can be produced from a given alternative or a suite of alternatives? Globally, about 80 billion barrels of oil equivalents are used each year, approximately 85% from fossil fuels. How much of this level of use can a specifi c alternative pro-vide: 10%, 1%? If it is less than 1%, then it is probably not a viable alternative. And consider that all solar, wind, and biofuel liquids together produce about 1% of world energy use. On comparison, burning of biomass, mostly in developing countries, accounts for 4% of world energy use.

The second question is what is the quality and versatility of an energy source. Oil is the premier fuel in terms of quality. It is used for most transport and to make

Table 1: Specifi c energy, density, and CO2.

Fuel Specifi c energy (KJ/g)

Density (kWh/gal)

Chemical formula Lbs CO2/gal

Propane 50.4 26.8 C3H8 13Ethanol 29.7 24.7 C2H5OH 13Gasoline 46.5 36.6 C7H16 20Diesel 45.8 40.6 C12H26 22Biodiesel 39.6 35.0 C18H32O2 19Methane 55.8 27.0 CH4 3Oil 47.9 40.5 C14H30 20Wood 14.9 11.3 Approx. weight 9Coal 30.2 22.9 Approx. weight 19Hydrogen 141.9 10.1 H2 0

Source: Stanford University, College of Desert & Green Economic Research, Department of Economics.

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Diminished Resources, Energy Scarcity and Climate Change 563

plastics and many other useful materials. It can be used to make electricity although most is generated by coal. By comparison, wood is a high net energy yielding source for heating homes and other small spaces and to a limited degree for cook-ing. But beyond that it is not an important source of energy. Electricity is a highly versatile energy source for many uses but it is not generally a heavy lifter. It has limited use in most transport, heavy industry, and agriculture.

The third important question is what is the net energy yield of a particular energy source. The net energy yield has been quantifi ed as the Energy Return on Investment (EROI). EROI is the ratio of the energy that is produced to all the energy used to discover and produce that energy. EROI of world conventional oil production was as high as 100:1, but over the intervening decades, it fell to between 15:1 and 10:1 for producing fi elds [21, 22]. Thus, it is costing more to fi nd and produce oil. The EROI for nonconventional sources of oil (oil shale and oil sands) and most renewable resources are all less than 15:1 and most are far less than 10:1 [1, 8, 22, 23].

Renewable resource will clearly play a role in providing energy in the future, but there is simply no mix of renewable resource that can provide fuels with both the high EROI and at anything like the quantity and quality needed to offset the decline in oil discovery and production. Ethanol is an example of an alternative energy source that does not measure up when viewed in the context of these ques-tions. Only 0.1% of solar energy is captured annually by all the green plants in the United States, or about 32 quads (1015 British Thermal Units). This includes all of agriculture, forests, grasslands, and other ecosystems. Currently, the United States consumes a little more than 100 quads of fossil energy annually [24]. Thus, etha-nol and other biofuels will never make the United States or Europe oil indepen-dent. The 5 billion gallons of ethanol produced in 2009 provides less than 1% (gross) of total annual US oil use. It is questionable if EROI for ethanol from corn is greater than 1. A substantial increase on the use of this biofuel raises important questions [6, 25]. Presently, most of the ethanol being used in the United States is made by cooking corn and fermenting the resulting mash, a method that uses con-siderable amounts of energy from the cultivation process to the conversion to fuel [22, 25]. If ethanol is really an option – most unlikely – it will imply the conver-sion of a considerable portion of cultivated land into corn fi elds. In other words, it will be a small contribution to the net energy equilibrium of any country while at the same time it will create an unbalance on cultivated foods; consequently, it will raise global prices and potentially could result in widespread food shortages [4]. From Table 1 we can see that the real potential future alternative energies supply at world level could be solar energy, wind energy, and hydrogen (DOE [26] Stanford University, College of Desert & Green Economic Research).

The fourth important question is it should be asked how environmentally dam-aging an energy source is. Liquid fuel from tar sands is an example. It has been estimated that there are 2 trillion barrels of oil in Canadian tar sands. But tar sands do not contain oil but a substance called bitumen embedded in sand and clay. It is doubtful that the EROI of tar sands is even greater than 1 [1]. Producing liquid fuel from tar sands releases much more CO2 than producing other fossil fuels and

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results in enormous damage to the landscape and water quality deterioration. Likewise, growing corn for the production of ethanol results in more fertilizer runoff, leading to water quality degradation.

The fi nal question is how dependent are alternatives on fossil fuels and the cur-rent functioning of the industrial society. An obvious example is using waste oil from restaurants for vehicle fuel. In the fi rst place, even if all such oil were used, it would supply only a tiny fraction of transportation fuels. But more important, the oil comes mainly from chain restaurants like MacDonald that use large amounts of oil for frying food that is produced by the industrial food system using cheap energy. Increasing energy prices will certainly put an end to this. Similarly, fossil fuels, mainly oil, are used in the manufacture of wind mills and solar panels. Can wind and solar produce enough net energy to make them sustainable without a fossil fuel subsidy? Probably not, with the present technology. Enormous amounts of natural gas are used in getting usable energy from tar sands. As fossil fuels prices raise so will the cost of energy from solar, wind, and tar sands.

Renewable resources, such as solar and wind, offer options for renewable energy. However, their generally low EROI, mostly intermittent production, and dependence on fossil energy for production and maintenance mean that they can-not replace fossil fuels as they are depleted. These are uncertain times, economi-cally, politically, and socially [20]. The need for new departures seems obvious, but effective actions have failed to keep pace with the urgency of needed changes; particularly so in affl uent democracies of North America, Europe, and Japan as they contemplate their overdrawn accounts, faltering economies, aging popula-tions, and ebbing global infl uence. In this sense, the search for new energy modali-ties is part of a much broader change whose outcome will determine the fortunes of the world’s leading economies and of the entire global civilization for genera-tions to come. None of us can foresee the eventual contours of new energy arrange-ments, but could the world’s richest countries go wrong by striving for moderation of their energy use?

2.3 Climate change has its own agenda

We believe that the evidence on global climate change is clear. Global climate impacts will affect food production [7], energy demand [13, 22], biodiversity [10], environmental degradation, and diminishing resources [8, 18, 19, 27, 28]. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that ‘Warming of the climate system is unequivocal’ [29] based on empirical observations of global air and surface ocean temperature increases, melting of glaciers and land-based ice masses, accelerating sea-level rise, and the extension of range of many spe-cies to higher elevation and latitudes. The IPCC also reported that ‘Anthropogenic warming over the last three decades has likely had a discernible infl uence at the global scale on observed changes in many physical and biological systems’ [29]. Although the IPCC report might have helped in the creation of political agen-das at the national and international level, so far there have been few indica-tions by global leaders that they are ready to tackle the enormous institutional

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Diminished Resources, Energy Scarcity and Climate Change 565

efforts required to take necessary measures to address the rising accumulation of greenhouse gases that threaten to lead to a number of impacts including extreme droughts and rapid desertifi cation, water scarcity, river fl ooding, coastal erosion, and sea level rise [2, 30–32].Under current emissions growth rates, CO2 emissions will rise from 27,000 metric tons in 2004 to about 43,000 metric tons in 2030 [4]. This increase of more than 60% will lead to strong impacts according with Department of Energy of United States [16]. Fossil fuels, that is, oil, natural gas, and coal, contribute about 85% of global energy use, and this percentage seems to be increasing [12, 16]. Thus, the issue of climate change is, in essence, an energy problem. As a consequence, its solution will require a radical transformation on how humans extract and uses energy resources [33].

Projected climate impacts include a raise of global mean sea level between 0.6 to over one meter during the 21st century, more frequent droughts in arid zones, heavy rains in short periods of time, and more intense tropical storms [27, 28, 34–37]. Climate impacts will affect energy use. As these impacts intensify, large amounts of energy will have to be dedicated to dealing with them. As examples, seawalls and bulkheads will have to be stronger and reconstruction efforts after climate disasters, such as for Hurricane Katrina, will be expensive. There will also be thousands of climate refugees [38]. Tropical storms will increase in frequency and strength as a result of increasing sea surface temperatures. This is especially worrisome for oil and gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico as a great portion of this production, processing, and distribution of these fuels is concentrated in coastal areas. Recently, lethal hurricanes like Ivan and Jeanne in 2004, Katrina and Rita in 2005 (for the U.S. coast), Wilma and Emily in 2005, and Stan and Felix in 2007 [39], as well as Alex and Karl in 2010 (for the Mexican coast) caused the largest damages by hurricanes in recorded history. It has been estimated that the 2004–2005 hurricane season had an economic impact of more than 200 billon US dollars for the Gulf of Mexico and tropical regions to the south. These events demonstrated how vulnerable is infrastructure for tourism, transportation, oil and gas production, and refi ning. The 2004–2004 hurricanes led to a drop in tourism, large expenditures for refugees, and a temporary drop in oil and gas production for both the United States and Mexico [4, 40]. These kinds of impacts have been dem-onstrated for other coastal areas.

Some experts have suggested that with global warming, new fi elds for exploita-tion for oil and gas will be opened, for example, access to the Polar Regions (although the size of these deposits is undetermined). Setting aside the issues of a world without a polar ice caps (i.e. unknown impacts on fl ooding and oceanic cir-culation), it’s most likely that violent storm events will hinder the exploration and drilling and such drilling will certainly be more. Consider the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the Mississippi delta. This was a rather benign environment and thousands of individuals and vessels could be mobilized to cap the well and clean up spilled oil. Have this spill would have happened in the winter in the arctic, cap-ping the well and cleanup would have been much more diffi cult if not impossible.

The possibility of catastrophic climate change is characterized by deep structural uncertainties in the science coupled with an economic inability to evaluate

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566 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development

meaningfully the welfare losses from high temperatures [41]. The probability of a disastrous collapse of planetary welfare from global warming seems non-negligible, even if this low probability is very diffi cult to quantify. Through informal reasoning, elementary examples, and simple numerical exercises, this paper attempts to convey an overview of some of the background uncertainties behind extreme climate change. Weitzman [41] argues that the tails of the relevant probability distributions should not be ignored because they are likely to be fat with probability and impor-tant. A few implications for climate change analysis and policy are explored.

But perhaps the largest impact global warming will have on the energy equation will be to force political leadership to directly confront the problem and advocate moving away from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources. But we have to accept the idea that no suite of alternative sources can power the global industrial econ-omy as it exists now. Thus, society is facing a fundamental change in the way society operates. And this is at a time when large segments of the population, especially in the United States, question the validity of both climate change and energy scarcity.

3 Discussion

3.1 Future challenges: energy

Energy scarcity will certainly become an increasingly important factor affecting society. ‘Peak oil’ – the point in time when world oil production reaches its highest level and then declines forever – has gone from a rather esoteric discussion among a small group of petroleum geologists and environmentalists to being front-page news. The production of conventional oil peaked in the United States in 1970, and production has declined most years since. Global production of oil stopped increas-ing in 2005 and began to decline sharply in July 2008. Production of oil and related liquids has fallen by nearly 5% in the past year. Although some of this is due to the global economic crisis, much of this decline is attributable to the collapse of production from the very largest oilfi elds such as the Mexican fi eld Cantarell in the Gulf of Mexico. The only thing that has kept the price of oil relatively low over the past year is the fact that our global economies have been declining at about the rate of our largest oil fi elds. Globally, oil consumption began to surpass new additions to reserves almost three decades ago. The main reason is that we have not been fi nd-ing new, very large oilfi elds since the 1970s, and these fi elds are overwhelmingly important to total production. Today, the world is using about four to fi ve barrels of oil for each barrel discovered – we are emptying the giant reserves discovered decades ago to supply the world’s growing thirst for oil. Clearly, this is an unsus-tainable situation. An important factor that affects any consideration of energy use is EROI. If the EROI for our most important fuels continues to decline, there will be large social implications, such as having less disposable income available.

Renewable resource will clearly play a role in providing energy in the future, but there is simply no mix of renewable resource that can provide fuel with both a high EROI and in the quantity we need to offset the decline in oil discovery and

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Diminished Resources, Energy Scarcity and Climate Change 567

production. Even if there is a substitute, there is no indication that we could bring it online at the rate necessary to compensate for the projected fall in oil supplies. Moreover, there is much sloppy thinking about the potential for renewable resource to replace oil. Ethanol is an example as has been explained above. We cannot physically grow enough corn to make ethanol replace oil. In addition, the energy costs of producing ethanol are very large. These include not only the energy to drive tractors and harvesters, but also the energy required to make fertilizers and pesticides. It is questionable if EROI for ethanol from corn is much greater than 1.5:1, which is very unfavorable compared to most fossil fuels and probably in no way a net contribution to the nation’s energy needs. Thus, ethanol and other biofu-els will never make the United States, Mexico, or Europe oil-independent. Many people hold onto the promise that technological innovation will allow us to fi nd oil indefi nitely into the future. Certainly modern technical innovations can make a difference in the degree to which we fi nd oil in the future. All too often, those who enthuse over technology forget that we have been scouring the surface (and depths) of the planet looking for oil for a century, and the declining EROI analyses suggest that depletion is trumping technological advances and oil will become scarce and expensive. There is no replacement that can be supplied at a level to meet current – much less projected – demand.

3.2 Future challenge: economics issue

A major impediment to convincing society that sustainable ecosystem manage-ment is important to the human economy is neoclassical economics – free market economics. Free market economics has become the dominant social and eco-nomic paradigm for the developed world’s economies. The problem is that free market economics has little ability to take into account critical long-term issues such as oil depletion, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. It is largely discon-nected from the biophysical reality upon which economics must be based. For us, the issue is not simply that economists do not recognize that there are externali-ties not captured by the market. The problem is that conventional economics has little formal way to incorporate these externalities without, for example, public pressure. Yet often, the information or the political structure to deal with these issues is simply not there or is deliberately down played or undermined by politi-cal actors. In addition, many of these issues are cryptic and gradual, and people are not aware of the losses that are taking place or do not understand how to relate them to economic activity. For example, in the delta region of Mississippi (USA), when fl ood control levees were constructed along the river and large-scale oil development was undertaken in southern Louisiana more than a half-century ago, people paid very little attention to the marshes that were destroyed because they were perceived as having little value. Now we know that those marshes are worth thousands of dollars an acre in term of fi sh production, waste processing, and hur-ricane protection, for example, although we still have no way of knowing for sure how their value enters into routine market transactions. Thus, we are attempting to develop a new approach to economics called ‘biophysical economics’ that starts

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568 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development

with the importance of natural resources [42]. Under the model of biophysical economics, reducing energy use and sustaining rich ecosystems and biodiversity are considered central to the health of our economy – they are not externalities. However, a discussion of these issues is generally unheard of in economists’ and even most ecologists’ discussions because over the last few decades of energy abundance, the concept of limits has disappeared from economic thinking. In addition, because limits are intrinsic to ecology, there will certainly be confl icts with the ideas of the lack of absolute scarcity and infi nite substitutability that are central to free market economics. The rationale used almost universally to advo-cate free market economics is ‘effi ciency’ – the concept that unrestricted market forces will seek the lowest prices and the net effect will be the lowest possible prices.

It is rather amazing to see this argument trotted out repeatedly with so little understanding or testing of the concept, and with the defi nition of effi ciency con-stantly transmogrifi ed into whatever suits the writer’s preconceptions or politics. We and our colleagues likewise have found that when effi ciency is measured by commonly accepted scientifi c and engineering formulas – physical output over physical input, with output sometimes measured with a monetary proxy – there is little or no evidence that free markets do indeed increase effi ciency. For example, when we examined some 130 countries, we found that effi ciency is declining in agriculture and in economies in general in most developing countries, even when free market economic policies had been implemented. Likewise, the solution of most free market economics-guided development schemes – that more growth will solve all problems – has rarely worked in the past and has even less chance of doing so in the future due to the progressive exhaustion of cheap oil complicated by climate change.

3.3 Future challenges: climate change

There is a strong consensus in the scientifi c community that Earth’s climate is changing, that these changes are, in large part, most likely a consequence of human activity, and that they will have a dramatic impact on society – especially coastal areas. Human development, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, is respon-sible for the near doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere during the last two centuries. Further warming projected over the next century will cause additional problems, including higher temperatures, more and stronger storms, changes in precipitation patterns, and accelerated sea-level rise. Rising sea levels will affect coastal areas all over the world. Every coastal city has large areas that are only 1 to 2 m above sea level. But the effects will be felt most dramati-cally in broad, low-lying coastal areas such as the Mississippi Delta (USA) and Grijalva-Usumacinta Delta (Mexico) where the land is subsiding. The sinking of the land increases the rate of relative sea level rise – the sum of the average global sea level rise and subsidence – which in the delta is much greater than the global average. For example, the average rate of sea-level rise was about 2 mm per year in the 20th century. By contrast, in the Mississippi Delta, the rate of relative sea-level

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Diminished Resources, Energy Scarcity and Climate Change 569

rise was as high as 1 cm per year in the 20th century. In much of the Mississippi Delta and Grijalva-Usumacinta Delta, by the end of the 21st century, relative sea-level rise may approach 1.5 m (or more).

Projected changes in tropical storm systems, which are expected to increase in frequency, duration, and strength, are likely to threaten coastal ecosystems and human activities there. Tropical storms mainly affect coastal areas from the outer tropics to the lower temperate zone. However, increased warming may result in storms moving more frequently to higher latitudes such as Carolina Bight, New York, and New England. Any development plans have to take these climate impli-cations into account.

4 Conclusions with unsustainable implications

4.1 Unsolved questions

Unless there is a societal change, the combination of natural resources scarcity, food crisis and growing pollution, growing energy scarcity, and accelerated cli-mate impacts could lead to disastrous results with a severe impact on human popu-lation (Fig. 4) [1, 8, 13, 19]. Although we believe that there is no mix of alternative energy sources that can maintain the current global industrial economy, the adop-tion of some reasonable changes could make the transition to a future society that is more sustainable. For one thing, a reduction in energy use could lessen the impact of the coming transition. For example, use of ultralow emission diesel and hybrids could double average vehicle effi ciency and reduce oil imports. But geopolitical tensions and internal national politics, especially in the United States, make this seem unlikely [4, 43]. By not taking action, energy effi ciency will be lower and climate impacts will be worse [1, 8].

At the end of the fi rst decade of the 21st century, the answers to the following questions are still pending.

• To what extent can the global economy be de-carbonized through the imple-mentation of policies and businesses that would lead to a more sustainable so-ciety and will individuals are willing to make the behavioral changes that would be necessary to allow this to happen?

• To what extent can society achieves a sustainable, clean, effi cient, renewable, and decentralized low energy system and what will that system look like.

• How would it be possible to avoid accelerated climate change, secure overall welfare, and restore the ecological life support system of the planet?

Never before in history has national and international political leadership con-fronted so many challenges related to the gathering, distribution, and use of key natural resources such as energy, food, and water. For many, the challenge is main-taining the pattern of every increasing economic growth and resource utilization. For others, the task is just maintaining accustomed living standards in an increas-ingly competitive world. However, few world leaders have accepted that there is

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likely to be negative growth and diminishing resources as well as strong impacts from global climate change.

There’s a need to change the competitive impulses toward continued economic growth and resource depletion toward a more cooperative world of lower energy consumption and environmental restoration. If this transition is successful, we must accept that it will be a society of less consumption. If not, there is the near certainty of economic depression. If society accepts that the future will be one of lower consumption and negative growth for a while, then it could be possible to transition to this new, low-energy steady state without disastrous disruption. In this way, basic needs could be satisfi ed without serious confl ict while at the same time maintaining the ecological life support system.

For a few notable scientists (see references), there has never been any doubt that the ‘victory of neoclassical economics’ during the 20th century was an illusion and that economic models were based on incomplete information and lack of knowledge on the dynamics of ecosystems and the limitations imposed by the laws of thermo-dynamics [1, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 19, 21, 43]. A number of basic assumptions of neoclas-sical economics such as continued growth, lack of absolute scarcity, and infi nite substitutability are incompatible with basic ecology and thermodynamics. Ecologists have introduced the logistic equation to replace exponential growth to demonstrate limitations to continual growth. Limitation such as Liebig’s law of the minimum and limiting nutrients shows that scarcity is a daily fact of life in ecosystems. Additionally, the economic defi nition of effi ciency has not been consistent. The use of energy as a factor, perhaps ‘the’ factor, controlling economic growth has been poorly quanti-fi ed, but we believe that this explains economic growth in economics such as the United States, Japan, and Germany better than technology or effi ciency. Several analysis have demonstrated that agro industrial technology, for example, is highly energy intensive which shows that technology very rarely acts alone, but rather requires an intense use of energy and water before and during food production [2, 4, 6–9, 13, 17, 19, 21, 23, 43, 44]. Let us not be mistaken. No substitute for abundant, cheap oil has been or is likely to be discovered or developed, especially at the scale and net energy return of cheap oil has. The majority of alternative energies have the versatility, quantity, or net energy yield of oil in the middle of the 20th century. We must embrace a biophysical and social perspective that emphasizes the inherent limits to growth and resource exploitation rather than continue to adhere to the neo-classical model of unlimited growth and lack of constraints.

The equation of diminished resources/energy crisis/economic crisis/climate change is very delicate. To approach the interrelated challenges of competition for food, energy, and other resources is going to be one of the biggest problems faced by humankind. If we continue to extract and consume the planet’s vital resources in the same irrational manner of the last century, the planet will be transformed – sooner rather than later – into a much less hospitable place. We need to begin to protect the important ecosystems that generate valuable ecosystem goods and ser-vices that are going to be so important to supporting the human economy in the future. If we continue behaving as previously, relaying on an inappropriate eco-nomic model, we’ll be witness to a crisis and confl agration at the global scale with unexpected and undesirable consequences. The red lights are on!

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4.2 Reaching the unsustainable threshold

The declining availability of oil and natural gas during the fi rst half of the 21st Century and the inability of renewable resource to meet a signifi cant portion of energy demands mean that coal use will intensify during the 21st century. In other words, in spite of striving to fi nd solutions to the energy problem in the context of a changing climate, global leaders will be confronted with a variety of inter-connected challenges, geopolitical, economic, and environmental, resulting from growing climate stress and energy scarcity. These will interact with other resource problems such as providing adequate food and water. Decreases in precipitation in many areas coupled with growing will only make these problems worse. Rising sea levels will cause fl ooding and salt increase will impact many food producing regions in coastal areas such as Egypt, Bangladesh, Mexico, and Thailand. This will increase the number of environmental refugees. In a time when there will be more demand for energy to solve these problems, there will be growing energy scarcity.

Failure to address these problems will increase the probability of economic downturn and confl ict. Even if military confl ict can be avoided, people are likely to suffer a steady decrease in living standards due to resource scarcity and climate change. What is needed is a clear realization of the problems the world society faces, a recognition of what is and is not possible, and an agreement that coopera-tion and not confl ict will lead to the most effi cient and effective solutions. But given the recent history of confl ict throughout the world and the severe inequitable distribution of resources, this is not very likely. International cooperation not only should try for a lessening of these crises, but also attempt to increase the number of options for alternative and new energy sources capable of replacing the ones diminishing and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases. But given the enormous dependence on fossils and the lack of obvious replacements, it is not likely that global industrial economy can be sustained on alternative energy sources. Thus, an important component in adjusting to the future is a realization that society will have to transition to lower energy state. But even so, there are many ways to those multinational institutions and countries can work together around this equation. As pointed out by Klare [4], of all the conceivable options, none will be more impor-tant or essential for the 21st century than the one between the United States and China. They represent the two largest economies and are predicted by 2030 a sig-nifi cant portion of the world’s energy resources, and emit more than 45% of the total emissions of carbon dioxide, Department of Energy of United States [16]. This is in spite of the fact that the two countries will produce no more than 13% of world oil barrel production. This is a paradox in unsustainability!

Acknowledgments

This contribution is under the Research Project No. 10368 from INECOL, to produce the book ‘Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development’ contract signed on October 5, 2011 (WIT Press Ltd, Southampton

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UK) and September 15, 2011 (Alejandro Yáñez-Arancibia, Raymundo Dávalos, John W. Day, Enrique Reyes, invited Editors).

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