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CHAPTER 30
Diminished resources, energy scarcity
and climate change: unsustainable future
development
A. Yáñez-Arancibia1, J.W. Day2, C.A.S. Hall3 & E. Reyes4
1
Red Ambiente y Sustentabilidad, Instituto de Ecología A.C, México.
School of the Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University, USA.
3
Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, USA.
4
Department of Biology, and Institute for Coastal Science and Policy,
East Carolina University, USA.
2
Abstract
No substitute for petroleum has yet been developed that can deliver energy at the
scale, quality, or within the time frame required to replace decreasing availability.
Most alternative energy sources provide much less energy than petroleum and do
not have its high energy density. The interplay among shrinking resources, energy
scarcity, economic crisis, and climate change will be difficult to solve. The biggest
challenge is to articulate different aspects of an equation of energy, economics,
and climate change that strive for a sustainable solution, at least within the current societal context. This is not simply a problem of physical dimensions but
involves deeper social, economic, and policy aspects. The continued use of fossil
fuels leads to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
that leads to more climate disasters. An increasing energy scarcity will limit the
energy intensive global economy as it currently operates. It is unlikely that economics solely can effectively address these problems since most economic models
are based on incomplete information and largely ignore the biophysical basis of
the biosphere. The economics of the future should be taught from a biophysical
perspective that respects the limits to the natural world, rather than the unending
growth of neoclassical market theories.
Keywords: nonrenewable resources, economic crisis, environmental crises, energy
crises, biophysical limits to growth, sustainable development.
WIT Transactions on State of the Art in Science and Engineering, Vol 64, © 2013 WIT Press
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558 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development
1 Introduction
The emerging energy crisis during the 21st century will increasingly limit the
continuation of the current globalized industrial economy and potentially lead to
social instability [1, 2]. During the 19th century, the industrial revolution was powered by coal. During the first decade of 20th century, British millionaire William
Knox D’Arcy arranged to pay £40,000 in cash and company stock to the Shah
of Tehran, Muzaffar al-Din, for the right to drill for oil in western Persia [http://
www.mec.gov.py/cms/recursos/9448-el-ingles-william-knox-descubrio-petroleoen-el-golfo-persico]. After World War I, oil replaced coal as the most important
fossil energy resource and it has remained the most important fossil fuel since.
Currently, fossil fuels supply about 85% of the world’s energy [1, 3, 4]. After
World War II, new large and seemingly inexhaustible reserves were discovered in
the Middle East. However, as consequence of the explosive population growth of
the 20th Century and even greater economic growth, humans begin impacting the
biosphere at a global level and natural capital was diminished as economic capital
increased [1, 5–10]. The beginning of the 21st century finds humankind at a point
of emerging energy scarcity combined with diminishing biodiversity, and increasingly severe climate change; during the last 25 years, there have been considerable
arguments about anthropogenic environmental impacts, especially in relation to
climate change, energy scarcity, and biodiversity (Fig. 1).
Figure 1: Natural renewable resources are in the foundation of pyramid where
biotic resources (biodiversity) and energy consumption (oil, gas, and
carbon) are overexploited toward unsustainable social economic development. Negative feedback produces severe environmental, social,
and economic impacts toward scarcity of natural renewable resources.
Climate change impacts (black arrows) occur at any level of this pyramid magnifying negative effects.
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Diminished Resources, Energy Scarcity and Climate Change
559
There has been less focus on the decline of basic resources to maintain humankind, for example, water, food, and energy [11]. This is occurring at a time when
neo-classical economics is increasingly unable to solve economic problems and
natural capital is dramatically diminished (Fig. 1) [1, 4, 5, 8]. Oil is particularly
relevant since conventional oil production has likely peaked and will likely soon
begin to decline (Figs. 2 and 3) [8, 12]. This peak correlates to peaks of many other
resources as oil is vital to their production (Fig. 4). This makes sustainable development doubtful [13]. Figures 1–4 are a major concern toward unsustainable
future development. Worldwide demand of primary energy is projected to increase
by approximately 57% from 2004 to 2030 [4], but growing energy scarcity and
increasing environmental degradation make this unlikely. Currently, fossil fuels
Figure 2: Worldwide oil Discovery and Consumption from 1930 until the present and projected future Discoveries. The rate at which oil is discovered globally has been dropping for decades and is projected to drop
off even more precipitously in future years (gray histogram). The rate
of worldwide consumption, however, is still continuing to rise (black
line). Thus, the gap between supply and demand of oil can be expected
to widen. Most major discoveries were made before 1980. In 1982 is
the turning point when Consumption is greater than Discovery (white
dots). World consumption is currently four to five barrels for each barrel
discovered with. Most production coming from fields discovered three
to four decades ago. Data courtesy of the Association for the Study of
Oil and Gas [14], redrawn from Day et al. [8].
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560 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development
Figure 3: World liquid production of Oil indicating the severe decline after
2008. There is a strong correlation between IEA (International Energy
Agency) and EIA (Energy Information Administration), Official Energy
Statistics from the U. S. Government. Figure from data base courtesy of
Charles A.S. Hall, State University of New York. After [1] redrawn from
Yáñez-Arancibia et al. [2].
Figure 4: The original projections of the limits-to-growth model examined the
relation of a growing population to resources and pollution, but did
not include a timescale between 1900 and 2100. If a halfway mark of
2000 is added, the projections up to the current time are largely accurate although the future will tell about the wild oscillations predicted
for upcoming years. Pulsing are not in scale but showing in a simple
way the magnitude interrelationships between parameters sequence.
Modified from Hall and Day [1].
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Diminished Resources, Energy Scarcity and Climate Change
561
(oil, natural gas, and coal) provide about 85% of the world’s energetic demand.
But the projected energy demand by 2030 will be much higher.
If fossil fuels continue to supply 85% of the world’s energy in the same proportion, oil production will have to increase around 42%, natural gas by about
65%, and coal by about 74%. The great challenge of the 21st century is how to
articulate energy, economy, and climate change in an equation that already seems
to be without a solution. This is especially the case since this is not just a technological problem but involves social, economic, and human behavior. It is likely
that the production of none of the three major fossil fuels seems will be able
to increase to be able to supply projected energy demand by the middle of this
century [4, 12].
As challenging as the energy supply situation is, it will interact with other problems such as the provision of adequate food and water. In addition, policies will
have to confront – sooner than later – the dire effects of global warming and its
environmental impacts. All of these factors complicate the solution of the energy–
climate–economic–natural resources’ equation that currently is unresolved under
present national and international policies.
2 Analysis
How it is that energy, economy, and climate change have become interrelated since
the later part of the 20th century to become the elements of what seems to be a
clearly unsolvable equation?
2.1 The energy crisis is here to stay
We believe that society is entering a period when energy scarcity will be a permanent fact of life. Oil production in the United States peaked in 1970–1971 and
the world is at peak conventional world oil production now. Mexico serves as an
example of what will happen to petroleum exporting countries. Up until recently,
Mexico was – in the 1980s – a major petroleum exporting country.
But according to the Oil & Gas Journal [15] and the BP Statistical Review of
World Energy [3], in 2006 Mexico was close to the bottom of the 15 countries that
produce about 80% of global oil. By 2030, Mexico will no longer be a petroleum
exporting country (according to Department of Energy of United States [16]).
Mexico is also no longer among the top 15 natural gas reserves globally (according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy [3]). Furthermore, Mexico’s coal
reserves are so small that nuclear and hydropower is a more important source of
electricity. And hydropower may be impacted by decreasing rainfall due to climate
change. Thus, one cannot speak of ‘energy independence’ for Mexico because it
will become an importer of energy in the near future [2, 4, 12]. This will happen
during a period when the majority of countries that are energy exporters now will
become net importers.
Several authors [1, 8, 17–19] have emphasized the interaction of energy scarcity
with climate change. In the United States, this problem is confounded by the
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562 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development
widespread lack of public acceptance of global climate change. This is a general
problem because burning of fossil fuels is the main source of greenhouse gases.
As oil becomes scarcer, it is likely that other fossil fuels will be used more. If
burning of coal grows, there is a possibility that climate impacts will become
greater because coal produces more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than oil
does. It seems there is a clear need to become more efficient and to use more
renewable resources. However, efforts to do this are made complicated by a lack
of public acceptance not only of the evidence of climate change but also of coming
energy scarcity.
2.2 A look to alternative energy
There has been an enormous amount written on the potential for alternative, nonfossil energy sources to replace fossil fuels that are used up (Table 1). New energy
conversions are thus highly unlikely to reduce CO2 emissions fast enough to prevent the rise of atmospheric concentrations above 450 parts per million (ppm).
They were nearly 390 ppm by the end of 2010. But there has been much uncritical
thinking about alternatives [20]. When one is considering substitutions for fossil
fuels, a number of questions should be asked. First, what is the quantity of energy
that can be produced from a given alternative or a suite of alternatives? Globally,
about 80 billion barrels of oil equivalents are used each year, approximately 85%
from fossil fuels. How much of this level of use can a specific alternative provide: 10%, 1%? If it is less than 1%, then it is probably not a viable alternative.
And consider that all solar, wind, and biofuel liquids together produce about 1%
of world energy use. On comparison, burning of biomass, mostly in developing
countries, accounts for 4% of world energy use.
The second question is what is the quality and versatility of an energy source.
Oil is the premier fuel in terms of quality. It is used for most transport and to make
Table 1: Specific energy, density, and CO2.
Fuel
Propane
Ethanol
Gasoline
Diesel
Biodiesel
Methane
Oil
Wood
Coal
Hydrogen
Specific
energy (KJ/g)
Density
(kWh/gal)
Chemical formula
Lbs CO2/gal
50.4
29.7
46.5
45.8
39.6
55.8
47.9
14.9
30.2
141.9
26.8
24.7
36.6
40.6
35.0
27.0
40.5
11.3
22.9
10.1
C3H8
C2H5OH
C7H16
C12H26
C18H32O2
CH4
C14H30
Approx. weight
Approx. weight
H2
13
13
20
22
19
3
20
9
19
0
Source: Stanford University, College of Desert & Green Economic Research, Department of Economics.
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Diminished Resources, Energy Scarcity and Climate Change
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plastics and many other useful materials. It can be used to make electricity although
most is generated by coal. By comparison, wood is a high net energy yielding
source for heating homes and other small spaces and to a limited degree for cooking. But beyond that it is not an important source of energy. Electricity is a highly
versatile energy source for many uses but it is not generally a heavy lifter. It has
limited use in most transport, heavy industry, and agriculture.
The third important question is what is the net energy yield of a particular
energy source. The net energy yield has been quantified as the Energy Return on
Investment (EROI). EROI is the ratio of the energy that is produced to all the
energy used to discover and produce that energy. EROI of world conventional oil
production was as high as 100:1, but over the intervening decades, it fell to between
15:1 and 10:1 for producing fields [21, 22]. Thus, it is costing more to find and
produce oil. The EROI for nonconventional sources of oil (oil shale and oil sands)
and most renewable resources are all less than 15:1 and most are far less than 10:1
[1, 8, 22, 23].
Renewable resource will clearly play a role in providing energy in the future,
but there is simply no mix of renewable resource that can provide fuels with both
the high EROI and at anything like the quantity and quality needed to offset the
decline in oil discovery and production. Ethanol is an example of an alternative
energy source that does not measure up when viewed in the context of these questions. Only 0.1% of solar energy is captured annually by all the green plants in the
United States, or about 32 quads (1015 British Thermal Units). This includes all of
agriculture, forests, grasslands, and other ecosystems. Currently, the United States
consumes a little more than 100 quads of fossil energy annually [24]. Thus, ethanol and other biofuels will never make the United States or Europe oil independent. The 5 billion gallons of ethanol produced in 2009 provides less than 1%
(gross) of total annual US oil use. It is questionable if EROI for ethanol from corn
is greater than 1. A substantial increase on the use of this biofuel raises important
questions [6, 25]. Presently, most of the ethanol being used in the United States is
made by cooking corn and fermenting the resulting mash, a method that uses considerable amounts of energy from the cultivation process to the conversion to fuel
[22, 25]. If ethanol is really an option – most unlikely – it will imply the conversion of a considerable portion of cultivated land into corn fields. In other words, it
will be a small contribution to the net energy equilibrium of any country while at
the same time it will create an unbalance on cultivated foods; consequently, it will
raise global prices and potentially could result in widespread food shortages [4].
From Table 1 we can see that the real potential future alternative energies supply
at world level could be solar energy, wind energy, and hydrogen (DOE [26]
Stanford University, College of Desert & Green Economic Research).
The fourth important question is it should be asked how environmentally damaging an energy source is. Liquid fuel from tar sands is an example. It has been
estimated that there are 2 trillion barrels of oil in Canadian tar sands. But tar sands
do not contain oil but a substance called bitumen embedded in sand and clay. It is
doubtful that the EROI of tar sands is even greater than 1 [1]. Producing liquid fuel
from tar sands releases much more CO2 than producing other fossil fuels and
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564 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development
results in enormous damage to the landscape and water quality deterioration.
Likewise, growing corn for the production of ethanol results in more fertilizer
runoff, leading to water quality degradation.
The final question is how dependent are alternatives on fossil fuels and the current functioning of the industrial society. An obvious example is using waste oil
from restaurants for vehicle fuel. In the first place, even if all such oil were used,
it would supply only a tiny fraction of transportation fuels. But more important,
the oil comes mainly from chain restaurants like MacDonald that use large amounts
of oil for frying food that is produced by the industrial food system using cheap
energy. Increasing energy prices will certainly put an end to this. Similarly, fossil
fuels, mainly oil, are used in the manufacture of wind mills and solar panels. Can
wind and solar produce enough net energy to make them sustainable without a
fossil fuel subsidy? Probably not, with the present technology. Enormous amounts
of natural gas are used in getting usable energy from tar sands. As fossil fuels
prices raise so will the cost of energy from solar, wind, and tar sands.
Renewable resources, such as solar and wind, offer options for renewable
energy. However, their generally low EROI, mostly intermittent production, and
dependence on fossil energy for production and maintenance mean that they cannot replace fossil fuels as they are depleted. These are uncertain times, economically, politically, and socially [20]. The need for new departures seems obvious,
but effective actions have failed to keep pace with the urgency of needed changes;
particularly so in affluent democracies of North America, Europe, and Japan as
they contemplate their overdrawn accounts, faltering economies, aging populations, and ebbing global influence. In this sense, the search for new energy modalities is part of a much broader change whose outcome will determine the fortunes
of the world’s leading economies and of the entire global civilization for generations to come. None of us can foresee the eventual contours of new energy arrangements, but could the world’s richest countries go wrong by striving for moderation
of their energy use?
2.3 Climate change has its own agenda
We believe that the evidence on global climate change is clear. Global climate
impacts will affect food production [7], energy demand [13, 22], biodiversity [10],
environmental degradation, and diminishing resources [8, 18, 19, 27, 28]. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that ‘Warming of
the climate system is unequivocal’ [29] based on empirical observations of global
air and surface ocean temperature increases, melting of glaciers and land-based
ice masses, accelerating sea-level rise, and the extension of range of many species to higher elevation and latitudes. The IPCC also reported that ‘Anthropogenic
warming over the last three decades has likely had a discernible influence at the
global scale on observed changes in many physical and biological systems’ [29].
Although the IPCC report might have helped in the creation of political agendas at the national and international level, so far there have been few indications by global leaders that they are ready to tackle the enormous institutional
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efforts required to take necessary measures to address the rising accumulation of
greenhouse gases that threaten to lead to a number of impacts including extreme
droughts and rapid desertification, water scarcity, river flooding, coastal erosion,
and sea level rise [2, 30–32].Under current emissions growth rates, CO2 emissions
will rise from 27,000 metric tons in 2004 to about 43,000 metric tons in 2030
[4]. This increase of more than 60% will lead to strong impacts according with
Department of Energy of United States [16]. Fossil fuels, that is, oil, natural gas,
and coal, contribute about 85% of global energy use, and this percentage seems to
be increasing [12, 16]. Thus, the issue of climate change is, in essence, an energy
problem. As a consequence, its solution will require a radical transformation on
how humans extract and uses energy resources [33].
Projected climate impacts include a raise of global mean sea level between 0.6
to over one meter during the 21st century, more frequent droughts in arid zones,
heavy rains in short periods of time, and more intense tropical storms [27, 28,
34–37]. Climate impacts will affect energy use. As these impacts intensify, large
amounts of energy will have to be dedicated to dealing with them. As examples,
seawalls and bulkheads will have to be stronger and reconstruction efforts after
climate disasters, such as for Hurricane Katrina, will be expensive. There will also
be thousands of climate refugees [38]. Tropical storms will increase in frequency
and strength as a result of increasing sea surface temperatures. This is especially
worrisome for oil and gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico as a great portion of this
production, processing, and distribution of these fuels is concentrated in coastal
areas. Recently, lethal hurricanes like Ivan and Jeanne in 2004, Katrina and Rita in
2005 (for the U.S. coast), Wilma and Emily in 2005, and Stan and Felix in
2007 [39], as well as Alex and Karl in 2010 (for the Mexican coast) caused the
largest damages by hurricanes in recorded history. It has been estimated that the
2004–2005 hurricane season had an economic impact of more than 200 billon US
dollars for the Gulf of Mexico and tropical regions to the south. These events
demonstrated how vulnerable is infrastructure for tourism, transportation, oil and
gas production, and refining. The 2004–2004 hurricanes led to a drop in tourism,
large expenditures for refugees, and a temporary drop in oil and gas production for
both the United States and Mexico [4, 40]. These kinds of impacts have been demonstrated for other coastal areas.
Some experts have suggested that with global warming, new fields for exploitation for oil and gas will be opened, for example, access to the Polar Regions
(although the size of these deposits is undetermined). Setting aside the issues of a
world without a polar ice caps (i.e. unknown impacts on flooding and oceanic circulation), it’s most likely that violent storm events will hinder the exploration and
drilling and such drilling will certainly be more. Consider the BP oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico off the Mississippi delta. This was a rather benign environment and
thousands of individuals and vessels could be mobilized to cap the well and clean
up spilled oil. Have this spill would have happened in the winter in the arctic, capping the well and cleanup would have been much more difficult if not impossible.
The possibility of catastrophic climate change is characterized by deep structural
uncertainties in the science coupled with an economic inability to evaluate
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566 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development
meaningfully the welfare losses from high temperatures [41]. The probability of a
disastrous collapse of planetary welfare from global warming seems non-negligible,
even if this low probability is very difficult to quantify. Through informal reasoning,
elementary examples, and simple numerical exercises, this paper attempts to convey
an overview of some of the background uncertainties behind extreme climate
change. Weitzman [41] argues that the tails of the relevant probability distributions
should not be ignored because they are likely to be fat with probability and important. A few implications for climate change analysis and policy are explored.
But perhaps the largest impact global warming will have on the energy equation
will be to force political leadership to directly confront the problem and advocate
moving away from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources. But we have to accept
the idea that no suite of alternative sources can power the global industrial economy as it exists now. Thus, society is facing a fundamental change in the way
society operates. And this is at a time when large segments of the population,
especially in the United States, question the validity of both climate change and
energy scarcity.
3 Discussion
3.1 Future challenges: energy
Energy scarcity will certainly become an increasingly important factor affecting
society. ‘Peak oil’ – the point in time when world oil production reaches its highest
level and then declines forever – has gone from a rather esoteric discussion among
a small group of petroleum geologists and environmentalists to being front-page
news. The production of conventional oil peaked in the United States in 1970, and
production has declined most years since. Global production of oil stopped increasing in 2005 and began to decline sharply in July 2008. Production of oil and related
liquids has fallen by nearly 5% in the past year. Although some of this is due to
the global economic crisis, much of this decline is attributable to the collapse of
production from the very largest oilfields such as the Mexican field Cantarell in the
Gulf of Mexico. The only thing that has kept the price of oil relatively low over the
past year is the fact that our global economies have been declining at about the rate
of our largest oil fields. Globally, oil consumption began to surpass new additions
to reserves almost three decades ago. The main reason is that we have not been finding new, very large oilfields since the 1970s, and these fields are overwhelmingly
important to total production. Today, the world is using about four to five barrels
of oil for each barrel discovered – we are emptying the giant reserves discovered
decades ago to supply the world’s growing thirst for oil. Clearly, this is an unsustainable situation. An important factor that affects any consideration of energy use
is EROI. If the EROI for our most important fuels continues to decline, there will
be large social implications, such as having less disposable income available.
Renewable resource will clearly play a role in providing energy in the future,
but there is simply no mix of renewable resource that can provide fuel with both a
high EROI and in the quantity we need to offset the decline in oil discovery and
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production. Even if there is a substitute, there is no indication that we could bring
it online at the rate necessary to compensate for the projected fall in oil supplies.
Moreover, there is much sloppy thinking about the potential for renewable resource
to replace oil. Ethanol is an example as has been explained above. We cannot
physically grow enough corn to make ethanol replace oil. In addition, the energy
costs of producing ethanol are very large. These include not only the energy to
drive tractors and harvesters, but also the energy required to make fertilizers and
pesticides. It is questionable if EROI for ethanol from corn is much greater than
1.5:1, which is very unfavorable compared to most fossil fuels and probably in no
way a net contribution to the nation’s energy needs. Thus, ethanol and other biofuels will never make the United States, Mexico, or Europe oil-independent. Many
people hold onto the promise that technological innovation will allow us to find oil
indefinitely into the future. Certainly modern technical innovations can make a
difference in the degree to which we find oil in the future. All too often, those who
enthuse over technology forget that we have been scouring the surface (and depths)
of the planet looking for oil for a century, and the declining EROI analyses suggest
that depletion is trumping technological advances and oil will become scarce and
expensive. There is no replacement that can be supplied at a level to meet current –
much less projected – demand.
3.2 Future challenge: economics issue
A major impediment to convincing society that sustainable ecosystem management is important to the human economy is neoclassical economics – free market
economics. Free market economics has become the dominant social and economic paradigm for the developed world’s economies. The problem is that free
market economics has little ability to take into account critical long-term issues
such as oil depletion, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. It is largely disconnected from the biophysical reality upon which economics must be based. For us,
the issue is not simply that economists do not recognize that there are externalities not captured by the market. The problem is that conventional economics has
little formal way to incorporate these externalities without, for example, public
pressure. Yet often, the information or the political structure to deal with these
issues is simply not there or is deliberately down played or undermined by political actors. In addition, many of these issues are cryptic and gradual, and people
are not aware of the losses that are taking place or do not understand how to relate
them to economic activity. For example, in the delta region of Mississippi (USA),
when flood control levees were constructed along the river and large-scale oil
development was undertaken in southern Louisiana more than a half-century ago,
people paid very little attention to the marshes that were destroyed because they
were perceived as having little value. Now we know that those marshes are worth
thousands of dollars an acre in term of fish production, waste processing, and hurricane protection, for example, although we still have no way of knowing for sure
how their value enters into routine market transactions. Thus, we are attempting to
develop a new approach to economics called ‘biophysical economics’ that starts
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568 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development
with the importance of natural resources [42]. Under the model of biophysical
economics, reducing energy use and sustaining rich ecosystems and biodiversity
are considered central to the health of our economy – they are not externalities.
However, a discussion of these issues is generally unheard of in economists’ and
even most ecologists’ discussions because over the last few decades of energy
abundance, the concept of limits has disappeared from economic thinking. In
addition, because limits are intrinsic to ecology, there will certainly be conflicts
with the ideas of the lack of absolute scarcity and infinite substitutability that are
central to free market economics. The rationale used almost universally to advocate free market economics is ‘efficiency’ – the concept that unrestricted market
forces will seek the lowest prices and the net effect will be the lowest possible
prices.
It is rather amazing to see this argument trotted out repeatedly with so little
understanding or testing of the concept, and with the definition of efficiency constantly transmogrified into whatever suits the writer’s preconceptions or politics.
We and our colleagues likewise have found that when efficiency is measured by
commonly accepted scientific and engineering formulas – physical output over
physical input, with output sometimes measured with a monetary proxy – there is
little or no evidence that free markets do indeed increase efficiency. For example,
when we examined some 130 countries, we found that efficiency is declining in
agriculture and in economies in general in most developing countries, even when
free market economic policies had been implemented. Likewise, the solution of
most free market economics-guided development schemes – that more growth will
solve all problems – has rarely worked in the past and has even less chance of
doing so in the future due to the progressive exhaustion of cheap oil complicated
by climate change.
3.3 Future challenges: climate change
There is a strong consensus in the scientific community that Earth’s climate is
changing, that these changes are, in large part, most likely a consequence of human
activity, and that they will have a dramatic impact on society – especially coastal
areas. Human development, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, is responsible for the near doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere
during the last two centuries. Further warming projected over the next century
will cause additional problems, including higher temperatures, more and stronger
storms, changes in precipitation patterns, and accelerated sea-level rise. Rising sea
levels will affect coastal areas all over the world. Every coastal city has large areas
that are only 1 to 2 m above sea level. But the effects will be felt most dramatically in broad, low-lying coastal areas such as the Mississippi Delta (USA) and
Grijalva-Usumacinta Delta (Mexico) where the land is subsiding. The sinking of
the land increases the rate of relative sea level rise – the sum of the average global
sea level rise and subsidence – which in the delta is much greater than the global
average. For example, the average rate of sea-level rise was about 2 mm per year in
the 20th century. By contrast, in the Mississippi Delta, the rate of relative sea-level
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rise was as high as 1 cm per year in the 20th century. In much of the Mississippi
Delta and Grijalva-Usumacinta Delta, by the end of the 21st century, relative sealevel rise may approach 1.5 m (or more).
Projected changes in tropical storm systems, which are expected to increase in
frequency, duration, and strength, are likely to threaten coastal ecosystems and
human activities there. Tropical storms mainly affect coastal areas from the outer
tropics to the lower temperate zone. However, increased warming may result in
storms moving more frequently to higher latitudes such as Carolina Bight, New
York, and New England. Any development plans have to take these climate implications into account.
4 Conclusions with unsustainable implications
4.1 Unsolved questions
Unless there is a societal change, the combination of natural resources scarcity,
food crisis and growing pollution, growing energy scarcity, and accelerated climate impacts could lead to disastrous results with a severe impact on human population (Fig. 4) [1, 8, 13, 19]. Although we believe that there is no mix of alternative
energy sources that can maintain the current global industrial economy, the adoption of some reasonable changes could make the transition to a future society
that is more sustainable. For one thing, a reduction in energy use could lessen
the impact of the coming transition. For example, use of ultralow emission diesel
and hybrids could double average vehicle efficiency and reduce oil imports. But
geopolitical tensions and internal national politics, especially in the United States,
make this seem unlikely [4, 43]. By not taking action, energy efficiency will be
lower and climate impacts will be worse [1, 8].
At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the answers to the following
questions are still pending.
• To what extent can the global economy be de-carbonized through the implementation of policies and businesses that would lead to a more sustainable society and will individuals are willing to make the behavioral changes that would
be necessary to allow this to happen?
• To what extent can society achieves a sustainable, clean, efficient, renewable,
and decentralized low energy system and what will that system look like.
• How would it be possible to avoid accelerated climate change, secure overall
welfare, and restore the ecological life support system of the planet?
Never before in history has national and international political leadership confronted so many challenges related to the gathering, distribution, and use of key
natural resources such as energy, food, and water. For many, the challenge is maintaining the pattern of every increasing economic growth and resource utilization.
For others, the task is just maintaining accustomed living standards in an increasingly competitive world. However, few world leaders have accepted that there is
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570 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development
likely to be negative growth and diminishing resources as well as strong impacts
from global climate change.
There’s a need to change the competitive impulses toward continued economic
growth and resource depletion toward a more cooperative world of lower energy
consumption and environmental restoration. If this transition is successful, we
must accept that it will be a society of less consumption. If not, there is the near
certainty of economic depression. If society accepts that the future will be one of
lower consumption and negative growth for a while, then it could be possible to
transition to this new, low-energy steady state without disastrous disruption. In this
way, basic needs could be satisfied without serious conflict while at the same time
maintaining the ecological life support system.
For a few notable scientists (see references), there has never been any doubt that
the ‘victory of neoclassical economics’ during the 20th century was an illusion and
that economic models were based on incomplete information and lack of knowledge
on the dynamics of ecosystems and the limitations imposed by the laws of thermodynamics [1, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 19, 21, 43]. A number of basic assumptions of neoclassical economics such as continued growth, lack of absolute scarcity, and infinite
substitutability are incompatible with basic ecology and thermodynamics. Ecologists
have introduced the logistic equation to replace exponential growth to demonstrate
limitations to continual growth. Limitation such as Liebig’s law of the minimum and
limiting nutrients shows that scarcity is a daily fact of life in ecosystems. Additionally,
the economic definition of efficiency has not been consistent. The use of energy as
a factor, perhaps ‘the’ factor, controlling economic growth has been poorly quantified, but we believe that this explains economic growth in economics such as the
United States, Japan, and Germany better than technology or efficiency. Several
analysis have demonstrated that agro industrial technology, for example, is highly
energy intensive which shows that technology very rarely acts alone, but rather
requires an intense use of energy and water before and during food production [2, 4,
6–9, 13, 17, 19, 21, 23, 43, 44]. Let us not be mistaken. No substitute for abundant,
cheap oil has been or is likely to be discovered or developed, especially at the scale
and net energy return of cheap oil has. The majority of alternative energies have the
versatility, quantity, or net energy yield of oil in the middle of the 20th century. We
must embrace a biophysical and social perspective that emphasizes the inherent
limits to growth and resource exploitation rather than continue to adhere to the neoclassical model of unlimited growth and lack of constraints.
The equation of diminished resources/energy crisis/economic crisis/climate
change is very delicate. To approach the interrelated challenges of competition for
food, energy, and other resources is going to be one of the biggest problems faced
by humankind. If we continue to extract and consume the planet’s vital resources
in the same irrational manner of the last century, the planet will be transformed –
sooner rather than later – into a much less hospitable place. We need to begin to
protect the important ecosystems that generate valuable ecosystem goods and services that are going to be so important to supporting the human economy in the
future. If we continue behaving as previously, relaying on an inappropriate economic model, we’ll be witness to a crisis and conflagration at the global scale with
unexpected and undesirable consequences. The red lights are on!
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4.2 Reaching the unsustainable threshold
The declining availability of oil and natural gas during the first half of the 21st
Century and the inability of renewable resource to meet a significant portion of
energy demands mean that coal use will intensify during the 21st century. In other
words, in spite of striving to find solutions to the energy problem in the context
of a changing climate, global leaders will be confronted with a variety of interconnected challenges, geopolitical, economic, and environmental, resulting from
growing climate stress and energy scarcity. These will interact with other resource
problems such as providing adequate food and water. Decreases in precipitation
in many areas coupled with growing will only make these problems worse. Rising
sea levels will cause flooding and salt increase will impact many food producing
regions in coastal areas such as Egypt, Bangladesh, Mexico, and Thailand. This
will increase the number of environmental refugees. In a time when there will be
more demand for energy to solve these problems, there will be growing energy
scarcity.
Failure to address these problems will increase the probability of economic
downturn and conflict. Even if military conflict can be avoided, people are likely
to suffer a steady decrease in living standards due to resource scarcity and climate
change. What is needed is a clear realization of the problems the world society
faces, a recognition of what is and is not possible, and an agreement that cooperation and not conflict will lead to the most efficient and effective solutions. But
given the recent history of conflict throughout the world and the severe inequitable
distribution of resources, this is not very likely. International cooperation not only
should try for a lessening of these crises, but also attempt to increase the number
of options for alternative and new energy sources capable of replacing the ones
diminishing and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases. But given the enormous
dependence on fossils and the lack of obvious replacements, it is not likely that
global industrial economy can be sustained on alternative energy sources. Thus, an
important component in adjusting to the future is a realization that society will
have to transition to lower energy state. But even so, there are many ways to those
multinational institutions and countries can work together around this equation. As
pointed out by Klare [4], of all the conceivable options, none will be more important or essential for the 21st century than the one between the United States and
China. They represent the two largest economies and are predicted by 2030 a significant portion of the world’s energy resources, and emit more than 45% of the
total emissions of carbon dioxide, Department of Energy of United States [16].
This is in spite of the fact that the two countries will produce no more than 13% of
world oil barrel production. This is a paradox in unsustainability!
Acknowledgments
This contribution is under the Research Project No. 10368 from INECOL, to
produce the book ‘Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic
Development’ contract signed on October 5, 2011 (WIT Press Ltd, Southampton
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572 Ecological Dimensions for Sustainable Socio Economic Development
UK) and September 15, 2011 (Alejandro Yáñez-Arancibia, Raymundo Dávalos,
John W. Day, Enrique Reyes, invited Editors).
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