[tanbog4]

It's not that silly to model as historically that has also happened. To use the "peak oil" example this work also influenced, the technology of fossil oil reserves was a response in part to "peak whale" (not a joke). The main source much commercial 'oil' for things like Street lamps in the 1800s was whale blubber. As whales got overfished fossilised oil reserves were developed and not only took over those markets but created many many new ones.

You can of course make the point fossilised oil is worse for global warming etc but from the point of view of the economy and population growth fossilised oil was much better than whale.

[zug_zug]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "peak whale" and "peak oil" are naturally self-correcting in a free-market, because as the resources become scarce their prices goes up hence leading to technological incentives to find alternative sources.

This would also apply to topsoil erosion. However this isn't the case with carbon emissions for example, unless we had some financial feedback loop (e.g. some carbon tax).

[crispyambulance]

> [Limited resources are] naturally self-correcting in a free-market, because as the resources become scarce their prices goes up hence leading to technological incentives to find alternative sources.

You say that as though it's a theorem. It's not. It's perhaps reasonable when discussing small perturbations of resources, but it's not a magical phenomena that will "just work" in a free market (assuming one even exists) at any scale.

The globe itself is finite and we have only finite time to make corrections to diminishing resources like oil. No one knows how long it will take to adapt, or what the human cost will be on the way to arriving at that adaptation. To make matters far worse, we have global warming to contend with and that's still subject to political whims and not even a concern yet for the "free market".

If you must take "the free market" as axiomatic truth, then consider also that the free market may "decide" that human extinction is the "optimal" outcome regardless of what monopolists and oligarchs say.

[pirate787]

The best way to understand global warming is that the market doesn't account for the true cost of carbon emissions. That's because the atmosphere is an unregulated commons, lacking property rights or other legal mechanisms to assign the costs of carbon emissions. A carbon tax or some other way to assign a "price" to carbon twill begin to assign that cost, and the market system will naturally, in a million small ways, reduce the emission of carbon. The result will be dramatic, unforeseen levels of reductions.

[crispyambulance]

> ...the market system will naturally, in a million small ways...

You place a lot of faith in it but "the free market" is not a construct that functions according to immutable natural laws. It's a man-made and very much corruptible system.

Nature does not comply with property rights, legal mechanisms, nor quarterly results. People have to force ecological concerns into their markets. That's a tall order and it won't just happen without a serious taste of what is to come, sadly.

[roenxi]

Well, in a free market supply and demand will match. But the free market is totally capable of throwing up "most humans die" as a path to equilibrium, if all the available energy disappears.

[pjc50]

> naturally self-correcting in a free-market

Only once the resource has been consumed. And with topsoil I'm not sure you want to see what happens when food prices rise dramatically.

[fsloth]

Even small hikes in food price cause massive local upheavals around the globe. Lots of people who cannot afford to pay more for food than they do now...

[adrianN]

Most markets aren't particularly "free". Agriculture for example is heavily subsidized.

[exporectomy]

Don't think that's relevant since whale and mineral oil are finite natural resources. Governments can't distort them into existence like farm products.

[adrianN]

Fertile topsoil is a finite natural resource too.

[freemint]

Top soil can be regenerated so it is literally not finite. Yes it takes long to regenerate and systems with latency are harder to control but it's decidely an regeneratable resource.

[bklaasen]

You'd hope so, wouldn't you? However our markets aren't free. I can highly recommend Clive Ponting's "A New Green History of the World". The weight of historical evidence is against us finding a fix. We have tended to over-exploit every resource until it's depleted. For instance, we switched to coal because the wood and whales were running out, not because coal was a better source of energy.

(My main concern with the book is the lack of references; for each chapter he provides " further reading", but I'd have preferred to see a source for each claim.)

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

Parent's point was that "whale oil scarcity" had a natural mechanism to get people invested in alternatives because as whale populations dwindle and it becomes expensive. That was the problem and it was solved to our satisfaction.

It also helped the whales, but that was purely incidental. Without fossil energy, the whales would be gone.

Today, there is unfortunately too much oil and coal to force the search for alternatives. And the "whales" are the the climate and, again, that problem doesn't have the feedback loop because the atmosphere, like the high seas, does the tragedy-of-the-commons thing.

[sgt101]

The catastrophic results come from overshoot; peak whale didn't have an overshoot where the folks exploiting whale oil then got into trouble because of fossil oil. Topsoil erosion will have overshoot because it's caused by people trying to get fed. When the topsoil goes those people are in trouble. For carbon the same is true - when it passes a certain point catastrophes occur - stopping the exploitation is not an option as it's toooooo late!

[tanbog4]

I would generally agree, but i guess the point is, extrapolating about production/growth/pollution when fossil oil was introduced probably failed to account for technological change driving economic and industrial change.

We can measure global warming, it is happening, and we know what drives it right now. We should at least try to model what kind of change would fix it. Including new technologies.

[raxxorrax]

Fossil fuel prices are highly political and a mechanism to sanction economies right now. So it is only partially a free market at best. Especially if many players try to keep the price that low...

[Draken93]

Two completly different situations,

Today the problem is less the lack of ressources, but that we destroy the eco-system with our current technology. We can not just use another technologie to exploit a different kind of ressource. Instead we need a technology that has less consequences or even one that undoes the damage we already made.

Fossile oil reserves where not developed around 1800. They developed over millions of years. And actually they were already used in the middle east, china and myanmar way before europeans&americans started to use them to replace the shrinking and therefore more expensive supply of whale oil.

IMO the usage of petroleum was fueled(no pun intended) by the market and the rising price of whale blubber. It could have been used way earlier but was not lucrative.

Sadly the technologies that destroy our environment are still more lucrative then existing solutions that could solve our problem. That is especially if you look at the investments that are still made in this sector. We have the technologies to solve our problems, they are called renewable energies.

The problem is that we need a technology that takes over the market share that is currently taken by technologies that damage the environment. But that is very hard, as it would need to be more lucrative.

Just having the technology does not help, if people still use the damaging technologys. Cause they alone are enough to reach certain tipping points. And after those, no technology can save us even if it would undo damage that we caused earlier.

[cjohnson318]

It's worth noting that by the time "peak oil" became a talking point on cable networks, operators had figured out that the time of barn-burner "easy oil" was over, and were starting to optimize their fracking operations, which targets mud rock instead of traditional reservoirs.

Now industry leaders are talking about "peak oil demand", the idea that demand for petrochemicals will crash over the next decade or so.

[themodelplumber]

Sure, sure...and someday they'll be paying households to provide the cities with electricity! :-)