While watching individual countries on evolve on the site, I find myself cheering them on: You can do it, India! Keep climbing that ladder!
Also, jeez, progress sure ain't inevitable, is it? Even over these 200 years of rapid development, we humans sure have spent a lot of time stagnant or headed in the wrong direction.
Was Russian life expectancy at birth really 12 in 1933? Did a huge number of 8-12 year olds die in the Great Patriotic War?
Let's try that again: 12 in 1933.
Fuck. I'll preview this time, I swear, and won't hit post unless it works. 12 in 1933.
I did it! I did it! I'm so proud of me.
Sorry. At home, we're trying to move to 100% big potty usage and I'm cheer leading.
Except for the fish. The fish just shits in the water.
There's a yellow (or was it orange? I watched it last night) bouncing ball that's like, woah, why is your life expectancy hopping between 10 and 50? War? Plague?
I imagine the biggest factor would be the famine at that time. With adults starving by the millions, infant mortality must have skyrocketed.
Disturbing
I am one of those, I have allies at the oildrum, who think most of the improvement over the last 150 years is due to oil, or access to the oil economy.
On one of the science channels, I saw a old steam railroad engine prepared for a run. It ran on wood or coal of course, but before moving they lubed it up with 15 pounds of grease for a twenty mile trip.
Hmm, on research at Wiki, I see that both the grease and oil used on steam engines was not petroleum-based. Also that rack railways using steam engines are vastly more efficient than electric or diesel.
I see that both the grease and oil used on steam engines was not petroleum-based.
Burger King makes the same claim, but I'm not sure I buy it in that case either.
Wasn't it whale oil they used for lube? Are you sure you want to go back in time?
Wasn't it whale oil they used for lube?
Spermicidal lubricant?
15:I am not sure. Mineral oil?
Wiki on grease = "it typically applies to a material consisting of a calcium, sodium or lithium soap base emulsified with mineral or vegetable oil.[1]"
Steam Engine Lubrication:"As speeds and distances increased, mechanisms were developed that injected thick mineral oil into the steam supply. " (Earlier:tallow)
Ok, sorry, mineral oil is from petroleum distillate, and grease is made from mineral oil.
Since my original postulate was that steam engines did not really take off until the oil-based lubrication became available, my thesis that a lot of the growth is based on the petroleum economy.
I would of course give free trade a lot of credit, but pretty much think that free trade and discourse is almost inevitable and unstoppable as transport and communication become cheaper. Takes a lot of effort to close a border and a society.
Watch yer tongue. Spermaceti is what we're after, not spermacides
For bob, from wiki:
Sperm whaling increased until the mid-1800s, as spermaceti oil was important in public lighting (for example, in lighthouses, where it was used in the United States until 1862, when it was replaced by lard oil, which was quickly replaced by petroleum) and for lubricating the machines (such as those used in cotton mills) of the Industrial Revolution.
Hmm, peak oil, obesity epidemic....I'll bet there's an essay in here somewhere.
On one of the science channels, I saw a old steam railroad engine prepared for a run. It ran on wood or coal of course, but before moving they lubed it up with 15 pounds of grease for a twenty mile trip.
Is that all that much? One gallon of gas weighs 6 pounds, and even if it's a small train, it carries a lot more people than a car. (Even if it does need that much every 20 miles, and that doesn't reflect infrequent use.) And if lard works, that's renewable even after whales and wells dry up.
And if lard works, that's renewable even after whales and wells dry up.
And I don't mind me at all.
See, I can't even type for joy.
i really don't think infant mortality should be considered in the same category as child/adolescent/adult mortality
bob is pretty much on the same side as the people who say we can't limit coal burning or gas use without destroying the economy. so i guess the sun came up again todya.
To prepare myself for peak oil or peak cholesterol, I walked home from work again today. It took about 50 minutes, same as last week. I was hoping to be a bit faster because of the cooler weather. From the looks I was getting, 40ish men wearing business casual clothes look at bit out of place to the twenty year olds on the jogging trail I used for parts of the trip.
i used some red palm oil for making dinner tonight (carrots, red kale and cashews & some other sauce things). that is oil that is either killing some orangutans or some malaysian's biofuel refill. and doing *something* to lipoprotein levles..
26: I think Bob's point in 13.1 is very probably correct and worth worrying about. Where or not we can continue without fossil fuels is a very different question, but I don't think we would have gotten to where we are without them.
30: oh, like we'd run out of whales.
32: it would be much less intimidating than the joggers.
why is it worth worrying about, outside of concern for our decendents' post-apocalyptic post-dark-ages industrial revolution?
31: Fossil fuels were likely critical in increasing population density and longevity, which is what it takes to develop a technologically advancing society and slash fiction.
i mean, i like worrying about it, in a reccomend-me-scifi kind of way.
33: Have you see what the kids wear jogging these days? I'm thinking of walking everyday this summer.
In this context I think it's particularly important to distinguish between "fossil fuels" and "oil."
26:limit coal burning or gas use without destroying the economy
Not quite, or not so simply. I would like to give alternatives a very strong try, and my actual preference is for a growth economy based on the transition.
However
a) The alternatives may not be enough
b) the transition will be materially expensive, and the current economy is at least partly based on rents derived from the oil economy. Unlike Yglesias. I actually think about what happens to suburban home values at $5-10 gal gas, what that decline means to FIRE and other asset prices, etc I also think about the socio-politics of revaluation.
c) and for other reasons, like developing world growth, I would vastly prefer no net decline in world energy usage. Just different sources and different uses. The OECD and rich won't be the ones hurt most by energy decline, as the OP shows.
I basically agree with everything in 39.
I actually think about what happens to suburban home values at $5-10 gal gas Not that much except in the very short term for most of them since people will switch to higher mileage cars.
I also agree with 39, except that I pay 3% more in wage taxes than most suburbanites around here, so I say "Meh" to their house price.
Damn I hate the coupling of growth to energy.
I am not proposing alternative solutions, I just hate it.
Can't live with that business.
"I would vastly prefer no net decline in world energy usage. " That sounds like nukes to me (cf. Patzek, Pimentel): which sounds like very centralized, bureaucratic management if not dirty (cf. France); which doesn't sound like you, bob.
Wasn't it whale oil they used for lube?
The Whale that wanders round the Pole
Is not a table fish.
You cannot bake or boil him whole
Nor serve him in a dish;
But you may cut his blubber up
And melt it down for oil.
And so replace the colza bean
(A product of the soil).
These facts should all be noted down
And ruminated on,
By every boy in Oxford town
Who wants to be a Don.
My original source for my understanding, meager tho it might be, of the oil economy was Sterling Newberry, but the oildrum discusses it all the time. This has a graph of oil production vs World GDP since 1950, and discusses it in detail.
i used some red palm oil for making dinner tonight (carrots, red kale and cashews & some other sauce things). Yoyo, would you care to elaborate? I have trouble integrating cashews such that they don't get soggy.
(I feel that we will never give up oil and we're all doomed, so I got a nice new pair of English boots to wear to the apocalypse.)
I'm too lazy to look up the data, but I'm pretty sure that the GDP/oil consumption ratio has been going up pretty steadily since the seventies. In general I'm not too worried about peak oil for two reasons. The first is that there are ways to maintain a high tech economy with much, much lower oil consumption and I expect that their costs will decline courtesy of incremental technological progress. The second reason is that the decline in oil production will be relatively gradual, with prices more or less going up in tandem. This is the kind of incentive that capitalist societies deal with quite well. Global warming is a whole different type of problem that the capitalist economy can't adapt to without massive political intervention, which doesn't seem to be on the table so we're all fucked anyways or at least our grandkids are.
13: I am one of those, I have allies at the oildrum, who think most of the improvement over the last 150 years is due to oil, or access to the oil economy.
But most of the economy over the last 150 years (at least the parts that were tied to places that "improved") has been the petroleum economy. Plus some coal, of course, at the beginning of that period. That doesn't mean oil automatically improves things, it simply shows the degree to which the petroleum industry interpenetrated every other industry.
I think we could massively, massively reduce overall energy consumption, worldwide, while increasing virtually everyone's standard of living. Of course, this is unlikely to happen as long as the groups and individuals who wield the most power are reliant on practices that waste gigantic amounts of energy for much of their wealth.
I'm too lazy to look up the data, but I'm pretty sure that the GDP/oil consumption ratio has been going up pretty steadily since the seventies.
It's shown in bob's link.
Anyway, the GDP/oil consumption ratio has been going up and could go up quite a bit. However, the GDP that it takes to keep people from getting rock-throwing angry and the number of people have been increasing faster than the GDP/oil consumption ration has been dropping.
I walked to work today, thus saving whatever extra oil it takes to move a bus with me in it.
[img]i used some red palm oil for making dinner tonight (carrots, red kale and cashews & some other sauce things). Yoyo, would you care to elaborate? I have trouble integrating cashews such that they don't get soggy. [/img]
hm, i'm not sure what i'm doing thats different since i've never had soggy cashews.
It was short/hot cooking with low moisture (saute for carrots and onion, and with some steam when kale was added), and i added the cashews (these were roasted already, if i buy at the indian grocer then i'd roast them on their own) right at the end while plating. i had chopped them a bit with a chef's knive, but not powderized them in a mortar/pestle. so the only moisture was from the bit of wine in the sauce, which i added right at the end for about a minute. t mostly clung to to kale. so maybe the oil (cooking and what the roasting process caused to exude) is basically coating them which reduces moisture penetration. do you get soggy cashews from more of a wet simmering type sauce?
If you get soggy cashews, you need to dry off and change shorts before you get an embarrassing itch.
I made peanut butter ice cream and the peanut chunks turned out a bit soggy.