Tag: gdp

Lemmings

Posted on by Mark

Lemmings are small rodents that live in the Arctic. Sadly, we have given them a bad, inaccurate rap. We assume they breed to outrageously large numbers and then they stampede to a cliff edge and throw themselves off to their deaths. This misconception haunts them to this day. But, it’s also a great analogy. That is, people who rely upon the guidance of others may rush madly forward, maybe toward the proverbial cliff.

Consider today’s life goals advertised as being consumerism and wealth generation. If these are our sole life goals, then we could readily relate our actions to those of the misconceived lemmings. And it seems for many, this is true. We’ve seen an expanding population bent on consumerism that has fuelled GDP growth for millennia. There’s little expectation in the growth stopping as we expect a continual rise in global population and energy consumption for many decades. There are indicators of abatement. But, how do we encourage a life that is more than satisfying these economic metrics?

Last year (2021), humans consumed 696 exajoules of primary energy. The greatest annual amount ever. It’s safe to say that our species’ consumption of energy has increased monotonically every year over the last 10,000. Initially, we consumed biofuels, e.g. wood and charcoal. Now we utilise non-renewable fossil fuels; oil, natural gas and coal. These amount to over 70% of all primary energy sources. Eventually, we will consume all remaining sources. And then what? Is our consumerism heading us for a cliff?
Berry

Forecasting GDP

Posted on by Mark

We have developed a measure of our productivity that we call the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By this measure, we can estimate the totality of what we do. Historically, with an agrarian lifestyle, the GDP related primarily to two factors being the quantity and quality of farmland. With mechanization, the GDP also related to access to machinery and energy to power it. On viewing the world GDP over the millennia, we see its steady increase.

Notably, the GDP relies upon our access to resources, whether pastures to grow food or deposits to mine ores. Equally, we need energy to power our machines. If we assume a boundless world, then we could continually farm new pastures, dig new mines and burn fossil fuels. In consequence, the world’s GDP would continually increase. Obviously this assumption errs on a finite Earth as we will eventually have put all available land under pasture, have dug up all accessible ores and have burnt all fossil fuels. Equally, this assumption does not consider potential negative feedback such as today’s climate change as caused by burning fossil fuels. Thus, while GDP will continually rely upon our access to resources, we cannot assume that our access to resources will continue.

So how will the GDP change? According to models, GDP will steadily increase for the duration of this century and result in an overall increase from year 2020 by 3 to 10 times. On an infinite world, without negative feedback, this is possible. But what if the negative feedback has a significant impact? Should we plan to decrease GDP or do we simply react as need? If you foresee the need for a decrease, how do you ensure it occurs long into the future?

Further, what will happen to the Earth’s wildlife? Note that the GDP does not include wildlife, even if it’s a fundamental basis for life. Do we assume it will mostly disappear as our GDP grows? To what effect?
Life Cycle

Bucket List

Posted on by Mark

The lucky young have their whole lives ahead of them. They can dream of adventures and plan for them in the future. Great times. However, as we age and we realize that there are only a limited number of days before we are too old to travel then planning becomes serious. Often we create a Bucket List; a list of things we want to do before we die. Many, if not all, items on the list consist of travel. To be a tourist. That’s lucky.

Tourism has become quite an industry. One source has it generating $7.6trillion in 2014. Close to 10% of global GDP. Another sources sets international tourist arrivals at 1.4 billion in 2018; that’s about 20% of the global population. Tourism generates 319 million jobs world wide; that’s about 10% of the estimated global employment. All told, tourism is expansive and growing.

Now let’s appreciate what tourism is all about. Tourism is leisure. Tourism is neither a necessity nor a right. We don’t need to be a tourist to survive. Tourism is a luxury. And after all, a Bucket List is all about ‘wants’ rather than ‘needs’. Now what does this ‘want’ cost us in energy? Let’s draw a direct comparison between energy and money. Therefor, if tourism uses 10% of GDP then we claim that it uses 10% of global annual energy usage. This amounts to 5.67e19 Joules which is almost equal to the world’s total electrical energy consumption. Think about it. We are effectively allocating all of world’s electrical production to tourism.

If the supply of clean, useful energy was limitless then using a good portion of it for leisure doesn’t represent a problem. And today, with little concern for energy future’s there seems to be little concern about how we allocate its usage. But what happens when the supply of energy diminishes? How should we discriminate between needs and wants? Are we ready to remove items from our Bucket List so that future generations can prosper?

 

Raw

 

Memory

Posted on by Mark

The average human has an incredible memory. A simple sniff might trigger a reminiscence dating back decades. Perhaps of your mother setting a hot apple pie on the window sill to let it cool. We learnt about memory tricks during school. Memorizing large quantities of data to regurgitate on exam day. Eventually, later in life, our memory fades. Fewer details appear. Instead our memory provides vague stimulation to goodness and pleasure.

Then along comes computers. Computers keep our memories. Vast quantities of childhood photographs and videos. No longer do we need memorize data. It gets thrown at our eyes by the megabyte-full. Some is online. One video storage service has over 216,000 years worth of video. Some is off-line. In your personal computer. Totaling both these amounts comes to over 5 zettabytes; that’s 21 zeros. We don’t need our memories anymore. We can use computer storage to revisit any time from our past. Nothing will fade from our memories.

Do we need all these memories? Let’s consider. Not so long ago, in hunter gatherer days, humans had an average life expectancy of 33 years. At that age we were still learning; there wasn’t much to forget. Lifestyles improved and we quickly achieved longer lives. Now, the world average life expectancy is about 72 years. Many places, with high GDPs, have values above 80 years. And higher GDP means greater technology. Technology that places a commensurate higher demand on energy to create storage media, to record data and to replay. Over and over again. To what avail have we replaced our biological memory?

Cap