Depopulating Asia
transcript: Sly
Foxx Morning Show,
Robert's Creek Community Radio Sept 27 04 9:07AM
30 September, 2004
Countercurrents.org
Sly: Welcome
back gang for our final segment this morning and our guest, long time
Creeker and now surprisingly famous global futurist, Stan Doffish of
Pacific Fringe Consulting. Hi Stan good to see ya again.
Stan: I was
misquoted in the Vancouver media. I did not advocate depopulating Asia
to protect our standard of living. I was actually trying to draw attention
to the real danger, given policy and service sector path dependence,
of the Bush Administrations radical unilateralism given peak oil, the
Bottleneck, the
Sly: Whoa.
whoa Stan. Hold on. Peak oil? You have made headlines on the net for
depopulating Asia. Explain that Stan. What do you mean by depopulating
Asia?
Stan: Hi
Sly. I repeat I'm not advocating at all depopulating Asia. I'm just
saying that the path the US took in occupying Iraq for oil ends up in
a horrible logic of a future Administration deciding that in the upcoming
turbulence and resource crisis its them or us and acting preemptively.
I don't even think its possible, but we need to think these thoughts
to understand the evil places we could go.
Sly: Depopulating?
Stan: Depopulating
is the euphemism for killing all the livestock affected by a disease
as a preventive business measure to preserve markets, etc. The depopulating
of all Fraser Valley poultry operations because of the chicken influenza
outbreak is a recent example.
Depopulating Asia
means using modern weapons to kill off the Chinese, Japanese, Indian
and Muslim, Russian maybe, peoples in an attempt to head off the coming
war of resources predicted with the end of oil and Wilson's Bottleneck.
When Bush seized
Iraq - using Saddam as an excuse - it was the first step in an endgame
for the remaining oil reserves necessary for our way of life. Peak oil
is upon us, but very few understand the consequences. Very few understand
the importance of the signal that the US is sending about how the US
is going to react to peak oil.
Sly: Hold
on just a minute Stan old man - Killing all the people in Asia? Peak
oil? What"s peak oil?
Stan. M.
King Hubbert was a US oil geologist. He looked at records for oil discovered,
wells dug and production and predicted in the 50s that production of
oil in the continental States would peak around 1970. It did. Since
1970 US wells have produced less and less oil even with new discoveries
and increasing technology for better oil recovery.
A school (for lack
of a better word) of oil geologists and other oil production experts
have used Hubbert's methodology to try and predict the peak of global
oil production - there is a finite supply of oil. The range of predictions
for when we will reach peak production - followed by a steep decline
in production - begin with 2002 in the worst case scenario, through
a spectrum of predictions to a very optimistic 2050.
What does this mean?
- I can see your distress with what I'm saying Sly. Will we instantly
run out of oil tomorrow or next month or in a couple of years? Should
you switch to gas?
Oil industry expert
Andrew McKillop - check out his wisdom on the net - has tried to think
through the complex consequences and, to simplify, he sees little chance
of cooperative restructuring from our fossil fuel economy; he predicts
first a mini-boom as oil prices rise to $75+ a barrel then another great
depression.
The problem I was
trying to draw attention to when I was cheaply misquoted was that human
history doesn't point to a reasonable or scientific solution to the
serious, global-scale, problem of the end of oil.
Jared Diamond -
you've read Guns, Germs and Steel Sly? No - well Jared Diamond is a
learned American scientist and he has been researching the collapse
of civilizations like Easter Island and the Mayan civilization in Mexico
and one of his unsurprising conclusions is that you get a lot of warlord
infighting when resource depletion or climate change gets severe. And
this warfare gets in the way of possible cooperative solutions such
as migration or better organized irrigation.
Sly: Well
you're sure a downer this morning. So our civilization is going to collapse?
Stan, don't we live in the best world ever?
Stan: Yes
we do but at enormous expense.
Sly: Enormous
expense? To who?
Stan: To
future generations. Maybe even to us. Richard Heinberg, who is a peak
oil expert, put a great sci-fi description of our present unbelievable
waste of an incredibly precious resource up on the net called A Letter
from the Future. Look it up. We are completely submerged in an oil economy
and most of us have not a clue how special and transient the oil economy
is.
The best depiction
of the past century of human endeavor is exponential growth of the world's
population based on an exponentially growing world economy based on
the utilization of this incredibly cheap fuel. What happens when there
isn't enough oil to keep growing?
Americans use 25
barrels per capita yearly (BCY). A Japan or Italy size economy has a
10-12 BCY. The global average is less than 4.7 BCY. China and to a lessor
extent India are following the US in rapidly expanding their economies
using the technologies of cheap oil. The high prices for oil today are
a dawning understanding that there isn't enough oil being pumped today
to supply everybody. Poor Third World countries are already priced out
of the market.
Sly: But
higher prices and the market mechanism will mean more oil found in the
future..
Stan: Bullshit.
Sorry, bull tweety, the market mechanism will mask the onset of peak
oil until the steep decline of production can't be hidden any more.
If you read
Sly: Look
Stan we already went through a scheduled break - we can do that folks
on laid back Creeker radio - but we're running out of time and I'm still
really confused. Are you predicting that the US and China will fight
it out over oil, over declining oil, after Hubbert or what ever his
name was?
Stan: The
US has signaled that it won't cooperate in finding possible multilateral
solutions and what I've been trying to get on the menu for public debate
is that down the road, down the unilateralist policy path the US is
taking today, the US might not even wait for end of oil wars. Bush has
acted peremptorily in Iraq as part of a geo-strategic foreign policy
to use the US military to secure needed resources -oil, for now, - for
Americas future. People today have to think through where this unilateralist
path takes us in the future.
The end of oil or
severe resource depletion is predicted as part of the Bottleneck analogy
developed by the esteemed American scientist Edward O. Wilson in his
book THE FUTURE OF LIFE.
Sly: The
future of life...?
Stan; Look
Sly the universe is now figured to be at least 13 billion years old;
the Earth 4 1/2 billion - the odds against Armageddon have never been
better, but a good many people out there are preparing rapturously for
naked bottoms floating up to join Christ. Don't sell your season tickets.
Now look, I'm no
apocalyptic person. Nor am I paranoid that Cheney was behind 9/11 or
any of that crazyness. Wilson is perhaps Americas foremost scientist
and super reasonable. Read his wise little book. Life in some form will
go on, but the present human caused Sixth Extinction could easily include
us.
As Wilson points
out in his Bottleneck chapter - available to everyone on the net - when
humanity exceeded 6 billion people we had achieved at least 100 times
the cumulative biomass of any previous animal species. Biologically
we should anticipate some return to equilibrium.
The 21st century
will be a turbulent time even without the coming end of oil. Even if
we can find enough oil or mine methane hydrates or new solar technology.
Whatever. And we are heading into trouble with the international rule
of law in shreds, with our nascent multilateral organizations like the
UN marginalized, with
Sly: Hold
it! Hold it! Hold on Stan. More doom and gloom. This is where you get
to depopulating Asia?
Stan: What
was the last book you read Sly? You think your opinion is equal on subjects
you know nothing about. You've always been much more concerned with
hustling Smogs or our local braided armpit variety, with - God knows
its been a while since we been in Club Zero together - bisexual erect
slugs out in the rainforest now Sly? Obviously peak oil or Wilson's
Bottleneck or Jared Diamond aren't searches you do on the net.
Sly: What's
this slander got to do with anything?
Stan:You're just
like my fellow buds at work at Termoil completely caught up in cheque
to cheque living and shopping. You don't know what service sector path
dependence is cause you can't get away from paying the shadows to get
out of the cave and look around in the real world.
You laugh at me
as a 'futurist' but I just read and have freed up my life so I can get
out of the rat race and look around. We both smoke a little bud, but,
as the gentleman used to say, you still got your mind up your bum.
We are all caught
up in the tyranny of the present. we all have jobs, mortgages and cars
with confidence that the future will be the same as it is now but better.
How many kids you got now Sly? How far..
Sly: I've
got three. What's the matter?
Stan: How far do
any of us look into the future and what information do we use? Reasonable
people, highly trained experts, predict a very difficult near future
unprecedented in our million year existence 'cept perhaps for the previous
Bottleneck that probably reduced the human population to less than ten
thousand of us 70,000 years ago.
The average guy
can't deal with these timeframes, with anything but right now. He/she
is incredibly sophisticated and knowledgeable today, but that knowledge
is day to day or within specialized disciplines predicated on day to
day. Both a knowledge of history or even a good bridge players skilled
planning for alternative card possibilities, an ability to conceive
of alternative futures, are sadly lacking.
As a species we
learn in our individual upbringing the particular skills needed to survive
right now and reproduce. Whether you live in Dahka, for example, or
like most of us here in the Burbs you learn what you need to know to
survive- driving, using a cash machine; how to change channels, etc.,
etc., And this preoccupation with the present - combined with $ 500
billion + globally worth of positive feedback in the form of advertising
- means that only a very few are aware and thinking about alternative
possible futures.
By the way there's
this new movie out called The End of Suburbia cause suburbs are only
possible thanks to cheap oil.
Sly: We got
to go. We're almost at news time.
Stan: What we need
is a much strengthened global framework for cooperation and governance.
We desperately need a strengthened international rule of law.
Sly: We have
to go now Stan,,
Stan: And
Bush is taking us in precisely the opposite direction and the path he
is choosing for us all will be very hard to back up and get out of if
we go much further
Sly: Bye
Stan. Nice having you on again.
Stan: And
depopulating Asia is a possible move down the path Bush is taking us.
Sly: Bye
Stan. Good luck as a futurist.
By Bill Henderson
www.pacificfringe.net
This article is
written by Bill Henderson.Bill
chose the present format by mimicking talk radio to make it more reader
friendly.