Standing around the patio fireplace here at the country inn, we talked about the terrible events in Japan and how the world’s economies are affected by the tragedies there, as well as by the social upheaval in north Africa and Arab countries recently. The conclusion one must reach is that economic interdependency is tighter than ever, the web stretched so taught around the world that a pluck of one line causes reverberations to sing across the entire span of the web. Global trade and economic specialization has reached a point that we cannot find peace and prosperity in one part of the world unless it exists significantly in most of the world.
The supply and demand equation is so narrowly managed that perturbations of even minor amounts can create great disruption in price stability, availability of commodities and reliability of the livelihoods of many millions of people. Ideology, politics and religion are comparatively inconsequential when compared to the effect that economic volatility has on social relationships within a country or between countries. Our current world condition has never existed before, in the history of humanity: we are completely dependent upon each other for our material well-being, even if we disagree about forms of government, human rights definitions or explanations for how the universe came to be and what a Supreme Being might expect of us.
I find this both encouraging and dangerous.
The encouraging part is that the chances for massive world conflict diminishes as more and more countries become economically tied together. Social and political scientists note that economic treaties are much more resilient and resistive to extinction, while purely military treaties are much more unstable, fluid. The dangerous part is that our international interconnectedness causes an instant economic flu in one hemisphere when another catches the virus.
Just focusing on Libya and Japan for the moment, we have two events that instantly translated to large scale economic changes around the world. Oil is perceived to be less reliable in supply, so its price goes up. Nuclear energy as a “sustainable” option gets a black eye as radiation spews from several damaged reactors, and nations respond by pulling the emergency brake of the nuclear energy option. The price of uranium goes down, as do the market values of publicly traded engineering firms who design and build atomic power plants. The price of coal and natural gas go up, as these power-generation fuels return to the spotlight of attraction. Worldwide, the increased prices reach far shores as quickly as the post-quake tsunami spread from Japan to Oregon.
Millions of people all around the world have thus been immediately affected by two types of calamity, one natural and one human-caused. Such an economic infection reminds me of the lessons I learned in high school biology classes, related to population pressures of a species in a closed ecosystem.
When the deer herd grows so large that it is barely sustained by the available forage and water in a contained region, certain behavioral and physiological factors emerge to ultimately “correct” the population so that pressure is relieved on the ecosystem and on the remaining numbers of the herd. Population correction can come in the form of disease, increased predation, lethal intra-herd competition for resources or natural catastrophe. These four apocalyptic horsemen tend to travel together.
One could make a strong case that the human species has reached a point of ecosystem saturation, with population pressures causing increased probability of population corrections.
As I pondered this notion, sipping a glass of wine and talking with other students of human economics, I asked the assembly, “Does anyone know of a species on Earth that has voluntarily and proactively corrected its population pressure with a methodical, peaceful reduction in numbers?”
And while I was at it, I asked, “Has anyone heard of a nation, state or even a town which voluntarily reduced its use of energy, resources, food, etc.? I mean before they had to?”
Before anyone could answer either of those questions, I finished with, “Does anyone know a person who consciously decided to reduce their income and material consumption so that they had a lower overall impact on the world around them?”
Silence filled the evening air, punctuated periodically by the pop and crack of the wood fire. I said, “Yeah, me neither.”
Paul Roberts, who wrote “The End of Oil” back in 2005, cited in the book a study done by economists and energy experts. That study noted that the world, in aggregate, achieves a “spontaneous” rate of energy usage efficiency of 2 percent annually. We make two points of progress each year on how we generate and use energy. The study further concluded that if this “spontaneous” efficiency rate could be nudged up to 3 percent, the world could double its population, use 25 percent less total energy and provide living standards equal to the American middle class. That assumes everybody gets fed, of course. But the point is a dramatic one.
Could we be the first animal to pre-emptively solve the population pressure problem? The motivation will be driven by the sound of galloping hooves from the Four Horsemen. I can hear two of them already.
Friday, March 18, 2011