Talk:Olduvai theory

Picture

It would be nice to get an illustration to go along with the article. A graph would make this much easier to understand. Would it be possible to get a public domain illustration to accompany the article?

Consistency

Duncan's theory has changed over the years in the specific details (but not in the general conclusions). I am unsure how to express that in the article. For example, in his 1996 paper Duncan has the limit of industrial society at 37% peak per capita energy use but in his 2005 paper he revises it down to 30% Also in his 2000 paper he introduces the analogies of slide, slope and cliff. Where as in the 2005 paper he revises the analogy to plateau and cliff.

How should the article be revised to reflect this?

- Suggest you present the original theory as text (noting that it is the original), then have one table showing the numbers versus the revision. You'd then have a nomenclature subsection detailing each of the analogies and what their purpose was, then have a table plotting nomenclature versus the revision. Jcday 19:58, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Peak Oil

Why were their references to peak oil production per capita in this article? The theory is based on energy use per capita not oil use per capita. I have removed those sections as didn't seem related to the theory. Also, why in the world should this be merged with Hubbert's peak?!? Hubbert's peak is about geological constraints on oil production for a given geographic area. It has nothing to do with per capita energy usage and its effects on modern civilization.

Population Increases in Developing Countries

This discussion is confusing - see below.

I would like to add the following, but Wikipedia should be completely factual, so this should be verified first:

One of the arguments used by the paper is that energy production per capita has already begun falling. It must be remembered that most of the recent population increases have been in developing countries, which would cause a decrease in energy production per capita, even if there was no effect on developed countries.

OK, but that would still result in a reduction in energy per capita. Doesn't falsify the theory.

Exile 12:39, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's exactly the point. This argument seems to imply a reduction in living standards, but it does not, because most of the population increases were in areas with below-average energy production per capita, so energy production per capita in developed countries might actually be increasing. Brian j d | Why restrict HTML? | 09:24, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

The paper states that energy production per capita has already begun falling, which I don't dispute. The paper then implies that this means that living standards are falling, which I do dispute. It could just mean that the population with below-average living standards is rising faster than the population with above-average living standards.

I think it should be mentioned in the article. Can someone verify it? Brian Jason Drake 06:25, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Olduvai Gorge

The article doesn't make it clear how the actual Olduvai gorge figures into this theory. Is it a metaphor? Are you going to be reduced to the level of the earliest pre-humans? Or what? --Jfruh 20:18, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

From Duncan's paper ...

I chose the name "Olduvai" because (1) it is justly famous, (2) I've been there, (3) its long hollow sound is eerie and ominous, and (4) it is a good metaphor for the 'Stone Age way of life'. In fact, the Olduvai way of life was (and still is) a sustainable way of life — local, tribal, and solar — and, for better or worse, our ancestors practiced it for millions of years.

--noösfractal 20:38, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Added this to article. Brian Jason Drake 06:58, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great Depression comparison

Can we have something about how 2000-2005 hasn't resembled the Great Depression, and prove it with statistics? Superm401 | Talk 00:32, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

While 2000-2005 hasn't been a Great Depression, I'd say give the theory a bit more time, since the full 12 years has yet to elapse. If gas prices continue at their current rate, a great depression in a few years doesn't sound far fetched to me at all. After all, when gas prices rise so sharply, other prices will eventually be affected too (shipping rates increase, prices on all goods that must be shipped increase, etc.) -GamblinMonkey

-- "Can we have something about how 2000-2005 hasn't resembled the Great Depression?" -- How about something on how it has resembled the Great Depression?

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3236364.stm - BBC, 2003 -

"The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) annual report says nearly 850 million people go to bed hungry every night, mainly in Africa and Asia. The number of undernourished people is climbing by 5 million a year, it says."

- http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0708-01.htm - 2003 -

"Despite a widespread assumption that all countries are slowly getting richer, the report says that 54 are poorer now than they were in 1990, while life expectancy fell in 34 countries -- primarily because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic -- and 21 countries are hungrier than they were in 1990."

- http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0319-26.htm - 2005 -

"Time reports that nearly half of the world's 6 billion residents are poor. Over one billion of them subsist on less than $1 a day.

In the United States, according to the US Census Bureau, the number of impoverished Americans rose 3.7 percent in 2003. The number of children living in poverty rose 6.6 percent."

-- The entire population of the world during the Great Depression was on the order of 2.25 - 2.5 billion, so arguably more people now are living in conditions as bad or worse than those during the Depression. - 200.141.108.170 02:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This kind of explanation isn't scientific. That being said, this article as a whole needs its claims to be cited, especially in the "Details of the Theory". Whether or not the theory has been validated by experience, should be pointed out, and cited, and if this is not possible, then that it is not possible should be mentioned. Themusicgod1 06:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unemployment

Though I haven't read the paper, from the article it sounds like the author was focusing on unemployment when he compared the predicted economic climate of 2000-2005 to the Great Depression. From the research I have done, it appears we are not yet near the global unemployment rate of the Great Depression. The current global unemployment rate (as of 2004) is 6.1%, according to the International Labor Organization. However, I have yet to find any global figure for the Great Depression's rate. I have emailed the ILO and asked whether they can give me an estimate. Superm401 | Talk 14:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is important to keep in mind that the paper was actually referring to the period 2000-12. It may be a bit early to compare predictions with results (see above). Brian Jason Drake 06:56, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Import?

What has been the reception of this paper in peer-reviewed journals? Is this an important paper worthy of mention in an encyclopedia, or a minor, redundant, or ill-conceived paper, in the eyes of the scientific community? -- Beland 03:01, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto. I don't see any mention of solar, fission or fusion. And "we're running out of oil!!!DOOM!" started in the 1970s. In adjusted dollars, gas isn't substantially more expensive and there are plenty of existing proved reserves and more coming online. So what is he basing this on?Mzmadmike 03:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reserves are not that important in all of this, provided you accept that there are a finite number of them, that they have finite capacity and that humans have finite ability to tap them. The need for energy is rising exponentially, particularly in massively developing economies, but our ability to address those needs is flat in many places and sub-linearly increasing in only a handful of countries. You may be able to run a store on credit schemes, but you can't run a power grid on power that doesn't yet exist.

To address your other points, the "peak oil" theory has now been largely accepted and the current timeline (already happened through to 2012) is generally taken as fact. This is about the time that was expected in the 1970s, so it seems a little unfair to slam them for being right about something. Gas is not substantially more expensive, but if peak oil has not been hit, there'll be no significant inflationary pressure on it. Even if it has been hit, it will take time - economies have massive latencies.

Other power sources? Solar power is great for heating water and cooking even as far north as Scotland, which could be used to relieve pressure on the power grid, but there is no real effort to deploy it. Wave power might have worked well, but the nuclear industry effectively killed the Salter Duck and other such systems some time back. Fission might be usable, but uranium reserves are extremely limited and a certain former oilman was quoted as saying that Iran didn't need nuclear power as it was awash with hydrocarbons. Whether he was right or not is not important. What matters is that they have been forbidden from using fission, whether they want to use it or not. Nobody has yet built a self-sustained fusion reaction, the political wars over where to build a test reactor demonstrated that politicos don't want a solution as much as they want status. The US could start building a dozen test reactors tomorrow if they wanted, with the best going online when complete. Much can be assembled in parallel, if you want to spend the money. If you want to pay the taxes needed to to this, fusion by 2010 could be achieved. Hands up all those who want to pay significantly higher taxes! --Jcday 20:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Green energy

Green energy reduces greatly the need for oil based energy sources. This theory takes nothing of green or alternative energy sources into account. Does anybody have any source showing it factored in? If not i'd say this theory did not take alternative energy sources into account, maybe a fatal flaw in a theory? I could be wrong. Mad_Gouki 16:23 4 July 2006 (EST)

Don't know about that, but I know George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have made their ranches solar powered and are stockpiling them up to harness alternative sources of energy... //// Pacific PanDeist * 06:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't have exact numbers but it is widely known that green energies are too much unproductive to tamper with oil substitution. Could be said that OT is about a bird's eye view, only making assumptions based on the overall energy world graphs, unconsidering in-depth analysis, and thus be completely wrong. But unless a deus ex machina new technology comes out of the blue, I would consider this scenario as a big possibility, even if it's dates calculation isn't exact and rigorous.

Ditto! And carbon induced global warming is likely to whack us hard well before oil reserves decline to 25% (note also that there is plenty more gas before we reach "peak-gas" I think and gas burns much cleaner (something like 2/3rds) than oil. The order of cleanliness is Coal, Oil, Gas but not exactly sure where shale and bitumen sands fit in (probably towards the coal end of the equation (th ey take alot more energy and therefore CO2 to refine to oil)). Nice idea but this guy is off the mark and sustainable energy sources whilst expensive are supportable with a huge effort on efficiency which also throws his calculations/predictions out again if we can do alot more with less which we can if the body politic and politcal had the wherewithall but then "global warming" will see to that if only we have the time - several decades or more - to make the switch to renewables and nuclear fission (unfortunately the latter is essential to avoid the depression he predicts and buy us more global warming time for the sustainable transition). 220.240.58.190 17:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Anthropogenic Global Warming" is a crack fantasy. Even if it weren't, the Earth receives 40% more energy from the Sun now than it did 4 billion years ago. I can just hear the extinction events outside my windows./sarcasmMzmadmike 03:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments moved from main article

I'm not sure who the original author is, but this shouldn't be on the main page. —Viriditas | Talk 20:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments follow:

Two of the references for the paper are other websites. The one that does not work is as follows:

Duncan, RC (2000a). The Heuristic Oil Forecasting Method: User's Guide & Forecast #4. www.halcyon.com/duncanrc/ (Forecast #4). 30 p.

This site is no longer accessible. Some versions of this site, however, are available in the Internet Archive at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http%3A//www.halcyon.com/duncanrc/.