Earth Overshoot Day Continues Advance

Looks like another science fiction plot may become science fact in the future!

As an aside, take on the challenge of estimating how much crude oil has been pumped out of the earth worldwide since the first oil well started production nearly 159 years ago on August 27, 1859 in Titusville, PA. I've done it and compared it to the volumes of the known bodies of water on Earth, the answer will surprise you.

I found it interesting that 90% of the crude remains in the ground when wells are retired....It seems only the top 10% or so is thin enough to pump up....We really never run out, it just becomes more costly, both economically and environmentally....

I thought this already happened back in the 70's?

I remember reading "Limits to Growth" back in the 70's and being depressed by our gloomy future. We should have been out of oil by now. But one factor that never seems to be considered is that science marches on and we adapt and develop new technologies and achieve what couldn't be done before. JMHO...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

The reality is that the amount of crude remaining is a closely guarded secret by Big Oil, something that no mere mortals will ever get close to. Watch the Twilight Zone episode known as The Rip Van Winkle Caper, season 2 episode 24, to see why.

An OT? Id give that a 'good answer' if it were socially acceptable...

I have a co-worker, liberal as all get out who is now labeled a "Redneck, Racist Cracker" on social media for saying something similar. Interesting how some random, unsupported speculations "Must Be" while phenomena with objective evidence in support "Must Not Be". National Socialist Democrat fascism is coming if it's not already here.

Agreed. Certainly not coal.

We already have nuclear fusion power, that is all we need.

We just need to reduce our usage to meet the output and be clever how we utilise it.

The USA is now on a course to pollute the air, water natural habitat of millions of people and animals, because the Trump robber barons are set to plunder this country of all they can get, no matter how many die in the process or how many resources are stolen in the process.

Don't worry either Trump or the Middle East or both simultaneously will wipe most of us out soon.
Del

That would stop the breeding.

At least the middle East has SOME legitimacy, unlike the other.

A bit off subject perhaps? but, I think the creatures that call this planet home, should maybe on the list?

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when we (all of humanity) have used more from nature than our planet can renew in the entire year. In 2018, it fell on August 1.

So we do consider Oil, Gas coal, rare elements "renewable" as in Nature can renew them?

Phosphorus is an element which occurs in so many natural compounds. Which one is considered old and which one is "renewed"????

Find a solution for #4 first. Because without #4, you won't have to worry about 1235 or 6.

#4 will be difficult to control.

Only complete fools think girls remain virgins until they can afford to start a family.

Birth control is frowned upon even in some developed countries.

In this country, and maybe others too, mostly here, the self proclaimed Christians in power will fight to the death to see a child born and then immediately abandon them to a life of neglect and abuse, if not murder.

Advances in factory farming are contributing to higher birth and survival rates everywhere.

That dirty word climate change may solve the problem for us.

Well Lyn,
from what I understand, strangely enough high birth rates are not linked to poverty but to the education level the girls reach.

It has been shown that increasing the education level reduced birth rates without that being an intended goal.

Education is a winner even in developed countries, keeping people out of prison and no doubt improving their quality of life, not to mention the vast saving in cost.

The USA seems to have a very high incarceration rate, especialy for low level crime such as dope possession. Boys without fathers is not a good model.

Ah, but to capture and restore these resources requires energy. Coal and oil are energy dense, the products of their combustion/consumption are not. Sure, we could mine landfills for rare earth minerals, etc. but at the moment, it's not worth the effort or energy needed to accomplish it. That won't last forever.

These are things that need to be taken into consideration. We've lived for several generations that have seen abundance and we've grown used to consuming to far excess. That is what Earth Overshoot Day is about. It's reconciling public consumption to match responsible personal consumption, i.e. making your budget balance and not spending more than you are earning.

Who decides what is responsible personal consumption?

You do....

https://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/index.htm

I explained it right there. Responsible personal consumption is:

"making your budget balance and not spending more than you are earning."

In the context of Overshoot Day, it means not consuming more natural resources than we can produce, balancing usage with production.

Just for my understanding do you mean to say that we use natural resources and we also produce the same resources?

I was of the understanding that we are using the natural resources and if nature does not renew them, we use them up or at least change them so you will not be able to even tell where they came from.

Usage is production. I am not at all following your thoughts here.

I noticed that the same what you say is said on the web site for the Earth Overshot day and if you mean what you are saying then the wording needs changing to reflect reality.

Particularly with the energy resources there is no way back after we "used" them.

BTW I did the test from the link in SE post and the score is 42% of the quoted average.

Renewable and finite are relative terms...All energy is ultimately finite...

Kind of. Since energy cannot be produced, it also cannot be finite. It's kind of infinite, really; only the way we can make use of the energy is limited, but not finite either.

"...balancing usage with production."

I should probably have said "consumption" instead of "usage". Consumption meaning taking a natural resource, using it up leaving only waste.

Now there is a proverbial saying that you can not use more than you produce. I do not think, that what you say, is the meaning or intention of the web site for the Earth Overshot day.

You use some bad wording that does not give the intention credit.

Currently your version very much smacks of "green wash" where the words "usage, production, natural resource, consumption, balance" are put together in seemingly coherent sentence but is void of any real meaning.

Maybe you can explain that a bit better?
Further above I posted a sentence straight from the web site and I asked if we deem for example the natural energy resources - renewable.

This would be an interesting discussion to have.

If you've built up a stockpile you most certainly can use more than you produce in a given time period. You are using up your stockpile.

I think you're reading more into my words than I intend. At a basic level, Earth Overshoot Day is simply calling for responsible consumption. A micro example would be the Easter Islander's depletion of trees as a resource. Theories about the collapse of the Easter Island civilization often center around the loss of trees as a resource, something to ponder for our future.

Do I think that we should not consume? No. Consumption drives economies. We can't do without it. Consume responsibly? Absolutely!

Consider that it takes x barrels of oil to produce one solar panel. I don't know what the real value of x is, but it is a finite number. It also takes x barrels of oil to propel the coal-rolling oversize diesel pickup truck for a distance in front of me as I commute. Which do I think is a more responsible use of x barrels of oil?

Consider that someday a future miner is going to discover a rich seam of polyethylene that carbon dates back many thousands of years to the 1900's. They will invest many hours determining the geological process that caused that seam of polyethylene to form between those two layers of bentonite clay.

Too funny. That's an archeologist in a nutshell.

Nah, we'll start mining our landfills before that. Think of how much copper, lead, gold and who knows what minerals & metals, not to mention all the plastics and other organic chemicals, are encapsulated in that bentonite in landfills. At a certain point, it might just be easier to dig up a 200 ft deep landfill than to dig far deeper to mine those resources.

A good read and a laugh or two.

As if on cue:

Study Shows that Urban Mining Is Less Expensive than Traditional Mining

So we just build larger stock piles!

In which case we produce more than we use. But at the end of the stock pile you will find that you still cannot use more than you produced. I am using the past here to avoid confusion.

As for the question if I think stacking up solar panels everywhere instead of using oil this might be a lengthy discussion, but in general if the electrical truck performs the same way as the up until now reliable diesel - I don't care.

But I think it is more responsible to make sure that we do not waste energy or resources on anything and that includes building solar panels build with oil if the outcome is no more beneficial than using the oil directly.

After all the question still stands: Do we consider oil and coal and gas and any natural resources renewable or not???

BTW I commute by train. Looks like in my personal footprint I am way ahead!

No argument there, start to finish, we cannot use more than we produce. As I noted, consuming frivolously is something to avoid. Knowing the amazing creativity and ingenuity humans possess, I think we'll find solutions to replace oil and coal before supplies actually do start to dwindle. There are other reasons to replace them but that's a different discussion. Keep in mind the chaos that could reign if supplies come up short too quickly. I was just a kid in the '70s during the OPEC oil embargo. I don't recall any serious violence, but there was a lot of worry about fuel supplies to the point that my parents stockpiled gasoline. That situation was low key compared to a serious shortage that could potentially occur.

Agreed, we don't want to waste resources on useless endeavors. I think the push for using resources on renewable energy has less to do with using up natural resources and more to do with the topic not being discussed in this thread.

Yes, oil and coal are renewable. The problem is that we are using them far faster than nature is renewing them. Eventually we'll find alternatives. Will it be a Mr. Fusion? Or will it be something like the ammonia based internal combustion engine mentioned in another thread?

We'll still need to get the energy to make these fuels from something.

At this time, I don't know that we could replace the energy from natural gas, coal and oil with solar and wind. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's enough available to completely replace one with the other. This means that we'll have to use a fossil fuel that gives up a lot more available energy, nuclear. While it is a fossil fuel and subject to being used up faster than it is formed, the available energy vs. the supply pushes the "peak uranium" date out thousands of years. Unless, of course, our consumption increases drastically.

We are, after all, only human.

Roughly translated, Live in a plastic bag and don't ever let anything in or out.

The individual.