I called several financial advisors asking how I should invest $1m for 40 years (hypothetically, but they didn't know that). I verbally explained the trends for the future, based on your excellent articles, and asked them to advise me a suitable investment portfolio that will deliver returns. Every single one of them laughed me off the phone and told me I was delusional. I am in no way surprised that 99% of the Global North assumes the trajectory of the last 75 years will continue for the next 75 years. And quite frankly, at this point, we deserve everything coming for us.
I have known we are on this road for my entire adult life (I turned 18 in 1986). We stumble significantly about once every 10-15 years and then pick ourselves up, although each time a little weaker than before. Artificially low interest rates between 2001 and 2022 grossly inflated real assets even while accounting for the 2007-2010 financial crisis. That crisis of 2007-2010 fueled deficit spending which continued during the COVID lockdown. The debt spiral is truly out of control and may yet tear our economy apart. Although I agree with the idea that growth cannot continue forever, I expect that the unexpected tipping points will reveal themselves slowly then all at once, at a moment we cannot predict.
Great article. All the high school kids everywhere should be given time to read and discuss it in class… it would freak out the teachers.
The ecologist in me has one point. Population growth was a consequence of the exogenous energy powering food production. If we had not found fossils, agriculture would have produced enough food for roughly 2 billion by today. Agree that population is a huge driver of economies but knowing its origins are about food production and not economics would be a core message for the high school kids.
It might even get them thinking where the first solutions will be found… protecting the soil.
What are concrete steps to "an ecological awakening at a global scale"? What about 30 by 30? What about green hydrogen from solar or wind? ... and what about your retirement plans?
I don't believe there are any easy solutions at this point. And possible solutions depends on what you are referring to. A solution to save our current high-consumption way of life? Or solutions that give us the best possible chance at long-term survival living within planetary boundaries? It seems modern civilization is not compatible with the planet, so the first step is for the majority of people to realize that and understand the bigger picture of what we are doing. This is what I mean by ecological awakening. 30 by 30 sounds like a step in the right direction.
Hydrogen would be useful (and free of emissions) for many things within transportation, but as you said it would need to be from solar or wind, not natural gas is it currently is for the most part. It's an energy-conversion (there is some 20-30% energy loss) so we shouldn't go all-in on it for things that could work just as well directly with solar and wind – that would be wasting energy. My understanding is that hydrogen is a challenging fuel in terms of storage and transportation, because it leaks easily and it's very flammable.
I don't think in terms of a typical retirement, but I have tried to diversify as much as possible between different asset classes and try to be self-sufficient where possible. We don't know what the future brings.
We either expand to mars and somehow maintain growth for another couple centuries. (Highly unlikely in my opinion) Or we face a couple centuries of population and economic collapse and hope whatever is left of humanity has enough info to create a better system so they don’t just repeat.
No vital resources are running out. Dematerialization is ongoing in almost every field, using less resources per unit of product. We can handle the modest global warming projection of 3.1 Celsius by 2100 without much problem at all. Not with the adolescent dream of wind and solar, but as grown-ups using cleaner burning, fossil fuels, nuclear, and future tech. Productivity will rise due to AI, robots and other technological advances. Biotech will improve our health. Basically everything is going to get better. I hate to break that bad news to you.
Source? I’m pretty sure 3.1 degree warming would change the weather patterns to a point where our global food supply chain would collapse. Considering the global temperature changes that have occurred already at our 1.5. Also are you aware of the energy cost of AI? If not you should look into how high and therefore unsustainable it is. Less materials per unit of product does not take into account the increase in total products sold therefore still increasing overall materials consumed. I desperately wish what you said could be true but unfortunately I don’t think we’re getting out of this mess.
Just read the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Not the summary, constructed by zealots, but the actual analyses and projections. No cataclysm projected there. Growth, instead.
Thanks again for some really excellent work. Interested in your thoughts regarding a long-tailed collapse taking place over centuries. My conception is that this is not possible due to many issues you've already raised and some more also. Leibig's Law suggests that, like the game Jenga I play with my nephews, collapse of one vital element changes the state of the whole, and this seems to be borne out in physics, chemistry, biology and ecology and sometimes also in the social sciences.
Ignore my remark if you like, because I haven’t yet read your post. Saying that, I have saved it ready for reading later, although I suspect anyone who needs 100,000.00 per year is the reason we’re heading for disaster in the first place.
We humans are challenged simply for having everything, in fact we’re not supposed to have everything, and there’s much to say about how learning to live without “things” and comfort, how alone that can and does humble, saving each from inherent fears.
I agree with alot of your premise, although I disagree on the room for debate on (anthropogenic) climate change. We are at least now greening the planet and allowing for harvest yields to increase as a result of the increase in CO2. It is not a pollutant as claimed--it is a vital necessity to life on this planet. It should be treated as such. We are all a product of and consumer of carbon
I called several financial advisors asking how I should invest $1m for 40 years (hypothetically, but they didn't know that). I verbally explained the trends for the future, based on your excellent articles, and asked them to advise me a suitable investment portfolio that will deliver returns. Every single one of them laughed me off the phone and told me I was delusional. I am in no way surprised that 99% of the Global North assumes the trajectory of the last 75 years will continue for the next 75 years. And quite frankly, at this point, we deserve everything coming for us.
All my financial advisers don’t want to hear this either. I don’t know where to invest my money. I’m trying to diversify, but no where seems safe.
Keep it diversified and invest in some hard assets. Markets can stay irrational for a very long time.
"Renewables are an attempt to save our current way of life, not the environment or nature." This should be on billboards everywhere.
I have known we are on this road for my entire adult life (I turned 18 in 1986). We stumble significantly about once every 10-15 years and then pick ourselves up, although each time a little weaker than before. Artificially low interest rates between 2001 and 2022 grossly inflated real assets even while accounting for the 2007-2010 financial crisis. That crisis of 2007-2010 fueled deficit spending which continued during the COVID lockdown. The debt spiral is truly out of control and may yet tear our economy apart. Although I agree with the idea that growth cannot continue forever, I expect that the unexpected tipping points will reveal themselves slowly then all at once, at a moment we cannot predict.
Great article. All the high school kids everywhere should be given time to read and discuss it in class… it would freak out the teachers.
The ecologist in me has one point. Population growth was a consequence of the exogenous energy powering food production. If we had not found fossils, agriculture would have produced enough food for roughly 2 billion by today. Agree that population is a huge driver of economies but knowing its origins are about food production and not economics would be a core message for the high school kids.
It might even get them thinking where the first solutions will be found… protecting the soil.
Now I must restack
So what's a solution? 🤔
What are concrete steps to "an ecological awakening at a global scale"? What about 30 by 30? What about green hydrogen from solar or wind? ... and what about your retirement plans?
Hi Olaf,
I don't believe there are any easy solutions at this point. And possible solutions depends on what you are referring to. A solution to save our current high-consumption way of life? Or solutions that give us the best possible chance at long-term survival living within planetary boundaries? It seems modern civilization is not compatible with the planet, so the first step is for the majority of people to realize that and understand the bigger picture of what we are doing. This is what I mean by ecological awakening. 30 by 30 sounds like a step in the right direction.
Hydrogen would be useful (and free of emissions) for many things within transportation, but as you said it would need to be from solar or wind, not natural gas is it currently is for the most part. It's an energy-conversion (there is some 20-30% energy loss) so we shouldn't go all-in on it for things that could work just as well directly with solar and wind – that would be wasting energy. My understanding is that hydrogen is a challenging fuel in terms of storage and transportation, because it leaks easily and it's very flammable.
I don't think in terms of a typical retirement, but I have tried to diversify as much as possible between different asset classes and try to be self-sufficient where possible. We don't know what the future brings.
There is no solution. We are fucked.
We either expand to mars and somehow maintain growth for another couple centuries. (Highly unlikely in my opinion) Or we face a couple centuries of population and economic collapse and hope whatever is left of humanity has enough info to create a better system so they don’t just repeat.
Regenerative agriculture on a global scale for a start.
The Great Filter awaits... unless benevolent AGI becomes real. Strange times indeed.
No vital resources are running out. Dematerialization is ongoing in almost every field, using less resources per unit of product. We can handle the modest global warming projection of 3.1 Celsius by 2100 without much problem at all. Not with the adolescent dream of wind and solar, but as grown-ups using cleaner burning, fossil fuels, nuclear, and future tech. Productivity will rise due to AI, robots and other technological advances. Biotech will improve our health. Basically everything is going to get better. I hate to break that bad news to you.
Source? I’m pretty sure 3.1 degree warming would change the weather patterns to a point where our global food supply chain would collapse. Considering the global temperature changes that have occurred already at our 1.5. Also are you aware of the energy cost of AI? If not you should look into how high and therefore unsustainable it is. Less materials per unit of product does not take into account the increase in total products sold therefore still increasing overall materials consumed. I desperately wish what you said could be true but unfortunately I don’t think we’re getting out of this mess.
Just read the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Not the summary, constructed by zealots, but the actual analyses and projections. No cataclysm projected there. Growth, instead.
Read Bjørn Lomberg
Fossil fuels WRONG, your entire thesis is bass akwards
Huh?
Thanks again for some really excellent work. Interested in your thoughts regarding a long-tailed collapse taking place over centuries. My conception is that this is not possible due to many issues you've already raised and some more also. Leibig's Law suggests that, like the game Jenga I play with my nephews, collapse of one vital element changes the state of the whole, and this seems to be borne out in physics, chemistry, biology and ecology and sometimes also in the social sciences.
All important information. You may want to discuss what people may want to do in response.
Deep Adaptation is an approach.
https://medium.com/@jylterps/joining-together-as-imperial-modernity-breaks-book-review-and-essay-with-excerpts-75599918206a
Ignore my remark if you like, because I haven’t yet read your post. Saying that, I have saved it ready for reading later, although I suspect anyone who needs 100,000.00 per year is the reason we’re heading for disaster in the first place.
We humans are challenged simply for having everything, in fact we’re not supposed to have everything, and there’s much to say about how learning to live without “things” and comfort, how alone that can and does humble, saving each from inherent fears.
Anything else only produce’s entitlement.
I agree with alot of your premise, although I disagree on the room for debate on (anthropogenic) climate change. We are at least now greening the planet and allowing for harvest yields to increase as a result of the increase in CO2. It is not a pollutant as claimed--it is a vital necessity to life on this planet. It should be treated as such. We are all a product of and consumer of carbon
......
Like rabbits but much worse.