There is an anti-human TV program on the History Channel called Life After People, which portrays the aftermath of the imaginary scenario where all people on Earth suddenly vanished in a rapture-like event tomorrow.
I’ve often seen it flipping channels, and it has always been my impression that it represents the ultimate utopian vision of radical environmentalists, who see people as a scourge on the planet, sort of a Fear and self loathing in Las Vegas applied to Gaia.
I get word from Dr. David Deming, Geologist at the University of Oklahoma, of an essay he has composed asking about what would happen to people if fossil fuel based energy disappeared tomorrow. Deming asks this simple question: What would happen if we gave the environmentalists what they want?
It is an eye opener for those that really don’t think much about where the energy they use daily comes from. I’ve excerpted parts of it below, and I have a few observations of my own that follow.
What If Atlas Shrugged?
by David Deming
Atlas Shrugged is the title of Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel in which the world grinds to a halt after the productive segment of society goes on strike. Tired of being demonized and exploited, the world’s innovators and entrepreneurs simply walk away.
What would happen to the US today if the fossil fuel industry went on a strike of indefinite duration? What would happen if we gave the environmentalists what they want?
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Within 24 hours there would be long lines at service stations as people sought to purchase remaining stocks of gasoline. The same people who denounce oil companies would be desperately scrounging the last drops of available fuel for their SUVs. By the third day, all the gasoline would be gone.
With no diesel fuel, the trucking industry would grind to a halt. Almost all retail goods in the US are delivered by trucks. Grocery shelves would begin to empty. Food production at the most basic levels would also stop.
…
With no trains or trucks running there would be no way to deliver either raw materials or finished products. All industrial production and manufacturing would stop. Mass layoffs would ensue. At this point, it would hardly matter. With virtually all transportation systems out, the only people who could work would be those who owned horses or were capable of walking to their places of employment.
Owners of electric cars might smirk at first, but would soon be forced to the unpleasant reality that the vehicle they thought was “emission free” runs on coal. Forty-two percent of electric power in the US is produced by burning coal.
With natural gas also out of the picture, we would lose another 25 percent. The environmentalist’s favorite power sources, wind and solar, could not fill the gap. Wind power currently generates about 3 percent of our electricity and solar power accounts for a scant 0.04 percent. The only reliable power sources left would be hydroelectric and nuclear. But together these two sources could only power the grid at 27 percent of its normal capacity. With two-thirds of the electric power gone, the grid would shut down entirely.
Read his full essay here. (note: this link does not imply endorsement of the website on which the essay resides – Anthony)
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Here are a few observations of my own about what would happen if fossil fuels disappeared tomorrow:
- After elevated tanks of municipal water systems were depleted of drinking water in a few days, there would be no more water supply. This would force people to start looking for alternate sources, and we’d be back to a time when water treatment was unknown. Disease and death would follow for many as tainted water spreads disease. People with water wells would have to tear out electric pumps and install hand pumps or windmills to get water.
- Related to the first point, toilets would be useless without water to flush them. Fecal matter disposal becomes an issue as gravity fed sewage systems eventually clog, and eventually fecal matter will end up in streams and rivers contributing to the spread of diseases much like the Great Stink in old London.
- Garbage collection becomes a thing of the past. Garbage will be piled high in the streets.
- People that have grid tied solar power systems would be no better off than their neighbors, because the DC to AC inverters require an AC power grid presence signal. Otherwise they shut off for safety. Some people with electrical skills might be able to rewire them, but then they’d only have electricity during daytime.
- People who may have working solar energy might be targeted by the have-nots. They might wish they had paid attention to the Second Amendment to protect their home based energy source. People who still have gasoline in their cars trying to escape cities might find themselves victims of mob attacks as the have-nots look for the last remaining bits of energy. Mad-Max world ensues.
- Windmill farms (that also need grid presence to operate) will stand as icons of folly, unusable, and cursed by the populace since they can’t make use of them. Eventually they’ll all look like these wind farms or fall down.
- Radical climatologists like Mike Mann and James Hansen will no longer be able to communicate their apocalyptic visions of the future to us, since there will be no Internet or radio/TV networks or newspapers printed to disseminate their views.
- Along the same lines, thankfully, we’d never see another episode of Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo.
- Climate modelers like Kevin Trenberth would never be able to run another computer model telling us how hot our future apocalypse might be, since his NCAR computer is run by Wyoming coal. Likewise, NOAA’s Gaea supercomputer will be DOA since it can’t run on recycled vegetable oil.
- Al Gore will no longer be able to jet around the world to tell us how the world will end soon if we don’t pay attention to his new book about The Future. He’ll be reduced to holing up in one of his many properties and hoping the Mad-Maxers don’t come for his solar panels.
- Congress would be reduced to debating in hot, sweaty, non air-conditioned rooms, just like the founders of our country did at the first Continental Congress and as they did in the summer of 1988, when Dr. James Hansen and his sponsor, Senator Tim Wirth, turned off the A/C in the hearing room for effect while they sold the idea of global warming to the Senators.
- Without air conditioning, city dwellers would truly experience the Urban Heat Island effect in the summer, that is when they weren’t scrounging for food and water, and fighting off the Mad-Maxer gangs who would take anything they could from them, including their life.
- Wood burning to stay warm during the winter becomes all the rage again. Smoke pollution returns to cities, especially in winter.
- Real climate refugees start streaming south from high latitude countries as people run out of fuel. Many towns in Alaska and Siberia that survive only because of regular supplies of heating oil and gasoline would be abandoned.
- Global warming, environmentalism, politics; all would be a thing of the past, since survival trumps everything.
- Paul Ehrlich wanders the streets near Stanford, dressed in rags shouting at people “I was right! I was right!“
I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
So which is the worse future, a slightly warmer one with fossil fuels or one without them?
Don K says:
February 7, 2013 at 2:29 pm
“You are, of course free to believe anything you wish. But I doubt those numbers have any relation to reality. On top of which you are assuming that the citizens of China, India, Paraguay, Somolia, et al are not going to use energy at more or less the per capita usage of Switzerland today. I don’t think they are going to behave as you expect. And that’s assuming that energy will be sufficiently expensive that they’ll be mildly discouraged from using more than 300,000 BTU per person per day. If fossil fuels are really as common as you believe, there will be two SUVs parked in front of every yurt, hut and shack on the planet — next to a heated swimming pool.”
First of all, I don’t just believe it, the geologists of the German Bundesanstalt fuer Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (our leftists call them “close to industry” to imply that they’re evil) counted it.
Second, while it is impossible at the moment to increase GDP without also increasing fossil fuel usage, it is a simple historical fact that over time we managed to extract more and more wealth from a given amount of fossil fuels.
Current real growth trajectories of the developed world seem to approach 1 % a year; not faster. So, sluggish growth actually. What holds growth back? Well for instance the 98 USD price for a barrel of oil of course. So that’s a feedback; growth will not happen faster than the energy supply and the efficiency of using the energy allow.
Real growth in China was 3 or 4% last year… their claims of 8% are incorrect. Analysts have looked at growth of electricity consumption, that’s a better indicator of what’s really happening. So, the growth in the developing world is dampened as well when fossil fuels are expensive. This will limit the amount of energy consumed worldwide – it is not an unchecked exponential growth due to the two factors I mentioned – the negative influence of high prices and the slowly increasing efficiency of fuel use.
At a certain point even wind and solar can be useful to prop up the energy supply, especially when fossil fuel is expensive. In sunny places in lower latitudes like southern US with 2500 sun hours a year it should already be economic to use some solar panels even without subsidies. Such partial replacement of fossil fuels is another influence dampening the use of fossil fuels.
And finally, while we currently use 450 EJ per year, in one year we also managed to discover 40,000 EJ of previously unknown resources. That’s somewhere in the report I linked to. So maybe I’m a little too pessimistic by saying 1,500 years.
Bryan A says:
February 7, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Ahem, yes, wood burning is all the rage here, but no smoke pollution. Our chimney sweeps who also enforce pollution limits would give you hell.
Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!
Here’s one mate.
He’s not dead.
Oh, he will be shortly
(apologies to MP)
MattS says:
February 7, 2013 at 1:34 pm
Does the catalog include engineering drawings and blueprints needed to build one yourself?
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I was looking at it from the be prepared ahead of time point of view but there are books like “Build it better yourself” and other books available.
(I am think of one for my harder to reach pasture) Also with the electric companies putting in a smart grid where you will no longer be guaranteed electric power it makes sense to have an alternate water supply when you have livestock.
You forgot to mention that their would be bugger all mining as well, as one government official told me his idea of how to run mining and exploration: “mines should be between 10-15km from human settlements, to reduce transport costs and not interfere with the social and economic activities of such settlements. And no mining or exploration area should be in or near any land with conservation value”.
Well, since mineral deposits are where they are, are not transportable, and don’t just occur where government officials want them to occur, you can forget about all those minerals for hybrid cars, windfarms, laptops, bridges, housing, copper wire, etc etc etc.
Another academic told me that “large scale mining simply has to go”, because it uses up too much energy, and contributes to greenhouse warming. So we are back to much more damaging small scale miners dotted across the landscape, doing more environmental damage, for metals that would become very scarce, except of course for climate change conferences.
Am I the only one reminded of the film “A Day Without a Mexican”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Day_Without_a_Mexican
Common theme: you never miss something until it’s gone. 🙂
we’d never see another episode of Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo.
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Oh dear God! Sorry Anthony, I’ve just followed that link and I’m off to give Al Gore all my money. Ending that would be worth ALL the consequences you’ve listed and more!
On a more serioous note, the fuel protests here in the UK back in 2000 gave a very small idea of just how quickly the problems outlined can start. Bear in mind that these didn’t remove ALL fossil fuels, only road fuel from 6 out of 9 refineries and 4 distribution depots). The blockades lasted about a week in total (but took 2 or 3 days of that to affect more than a few facilities). By that time public support for the blockades had dropped from over 75% to about 35%. Even though the purpose of the protests was for their immediate benefit, people didn’t like it when supermarkets started rationing!
In fact, if Big Oil really is the Evil Driving Force behind scepticism, surely by now they would have pulled the plug for a few days just to make the point? 2 or 3 days globally should do it.
I think the take home message is that if fossil fuels disappeared tomorrow then billions would die. But before they do they would ravage the environment in a wild and frenzied manner to try and survive.
Today, one of the major things that holds Western civilization together are fossil fuels. Without it overnight, then it’s over.
Anthony, how about making a Youtube video titled “What If Fossil Fuels Disappeared Tomorrow?”.
Thank you fossil fuels. Thank you. Now, where is my oil check Al. 🙂
Before I go to bed, please do not be under the illusion that eco-fascists simply care about the environment. They want billions to die as soon as possible (but not themselves or the loved ones).
Navy nukes with Navy protocols and procedures. If fossil fuels were to disappear say, in five years time. Any western society could install hundreds, thousands of duplicate nuclear power stations placed at existing nodes on the power grid.
For containment, build a concrete bunker the size of an aircraft carrier hull, put a Navy style nuke into it and Viola! No need for fossils. In case of accident, fill the bunker with cement. Put Yucca Flats to full use. Electric cars for everybody
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MattS,
Hey, thanks for your comment.
I would agree with you that the existing pre-Apocalypse chain of command may not necessarily survive the hypothetical loss of fossil fuel Apocalypse. We can each write our own fiction account about what would happen. My future account would have initial maintenance of the pre-Apocalypse status quo in authority and the authority will take advantage in the deepening chaos to ensure its own survival as a greater good for society at the expenses of those not in authority. I think in the long term they would yield to counter groups that slowly would organize against them and a semblance of democratic republicanism could prevail again.
I am at a Barnes and Noble Bookstore so a few moments ago I surveyed the post technology Apocalypse fiction in their Science Fiction & Phantasy section.
I would guesstimate ~20% of those books deal with some kind of post technology Apocalypse. I have read maybe a dozen odd sampling of those ~ 100 books over the past several years. Based on that, there are a wide variety of post technology Apocalypse visions / guesses.
MattS, what is your post technology Apocalypse vision / guess?
John
John Whitman says: @ur momisugly February 7, 2013 at 2:14 pm
I was think of a loss of fossil fuel CAUSED by the bureaucrats since that seems to be their goal.
Heck you are looking at the scheduled closing of over 30 power plants on the east coast map How do you think the inner city types are going to react to that if we have a real cold or real hot spell that overloads the grid AND their electric bills have skyrocketed to boot? What do you think will be the reaction when THEIR electricity is shut off but the factory down the street still has power?
OH, WAIT Obama can blame it on Bush because Congressional Resolution 25X25 was passed in 2007….
John Whitman,
“those controlling the guys with disciplined and organized use of guns are going to have the ultimate advantage in the staying alive game.”
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MattS
You are assuming that the “guys with disciplined and organized use of guns” are going to keep listening to the bureaucrats under the postulated conditions. While this is not impossible it is unjustified as an assumption.
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I agree it is unjustified. It would depend entirely on who the commanders felt they owed loyalty to, the people or those in authority. It would also depend on the military’s opinion of the leadership qualities of the bureaucrats. It would depend on the military’s opinion of the cause of the crisis and what could be done to rectify it.
There is a darn good reason why the greens are doing a gradual phase in of their fossil fuel free paradise. They hope to boil a frog or at least brain wash it.
What is laughable is most of them will be the first to scream bloody murder when they have their energy intense toys taken away.
This is exactly what Obama is angling for. Then he will come out as a communist with a plan to save us.
I’ve always wondered if some of the coal-based power stations and fuel companies decided to restrict, or even stop, their output for say a month or so, that people would begin to rebel against the ‘green movement’ and put all their silly ideas to rest. The coal/fuel companies could justify it by saying they are reducing their CO2 footprint.
“What if fossil fuels disappeared tomorrow?”
Day of the Triffids, Planet of the Apes, The Lord of the Flies. There’s no shortage of people who’ve attempted to describe a modern civilizational collapse.
A disaster-lite version might be Germany post World War II, but without a Marshall Plan and without a United States able to keep the wheels turning.
The post made me laugh gently. Some of the comments have me face palming. I think a lot of you need to put more thought into this. Yes there would be a harder life and life expectancy would go down. But really guys
Even in the United States, where 40% or more of the population live in rural areas, there are millions who live in the country, not big cities. In many countries, loss of petroleum would have minimal effect on their life. Even here where I live (Arkansas Ozarks), there are people who remember how to live without power. And there are books that tell how that can be found in most libraries.
In other countries, there are even more people who fit in this category. So the end of people?
Hee, hee, hee. I’ve read better pulp novels. The end of big cities? Maybe.
Mr. President, I think we could preserve a nucleus of humanity by expanding some of our deeper mine shafts… 😉
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Gail Combs,
The horrific anti-human implications of the radical environmentalists is suggested as a possible scenario by Deming. I think the regulating bureaucracies have some influence from them. How much? Not an insignificant amount of influence is my assessment.
I am suggesting that initially the chain of command and the balance of guns remain remains with the bureaucrats and they would have the advantage in the initial struggle. In the middle timescale of say 10 years I guesstimate there would be a counter movement and since I am an optimist there would in the long term there would be a much wiser democratic republic. In the meantime most of existing humanity is destroyed.
Vigilance and public outcry is good now before there is a technology collapse from bureaucratic regulation.
John
Gail Combs on February 7, 2013 at 3:44 pm
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Gail Combs,
You seem to disagree with my guesstimate of what may happen in a post technology Apocalypse, like MattS also disagrees with me..
What is your guesstimate?
John
Somewhere along the line – at about a billion years ago – we quit the contract and became a cancer. ,
During the Paleozoic Era?
(No, that’s 400 m years too recent. Make that the Precambrian.)
It is civilization that is tenuous, not nature.
For a nice video that I think shows just how amazing the human race really is, try this …
John Whitman says:
February 7, 2013 at 4:13 pm
You seem to disagree with my guesstimate of what may happen in a post technology Apocalypse, like MattS also disagrees with me..
What is your guesstimate?
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The cities are goners. Most of the north is also wiped out. The south will be in better shape. Places like Fayetteville NC or Columbia SC near military bases will be the most likely to have a high survival rate because of a combination of young disiplined men and their families, good farmland that does not require irrigation a local farming community that has “saved” a lot of the old ways of doing things, a relatively small population and a mild climate.
Those two states also have a good number of nuclear power plants. link and the military has oil reserves. Oh and NC has the highest number of horses outside of Texas.
The biggest threat is the city dwellers swarming like locust that is why the nearby military is important.
Mr. Watts, thank you for this article. You wrote, “I’ve often seen it flipping channels, and it has always been my impression that it represents the ultimate vision of radical environmentalists . . . (citing Robert Zubrin’s excellent work titled “Merchants of Despair”). I’ve been studying the Malthusian ties to the greens for a few years now, and I would be happy to share the fruits of my labors in an essay titled “In the Footsteps of Thomas Malthus: Disdainable Development, A Perverse Society, and our ‘Green’ Culture of Death.” It is, of course, based upon a biblical understanding of current events, and refutes Al Gore’s mishandling of Rev. 11:18. Let me know how to forward it to you, and I’ll happily try.
My opinion is that there would be a period of chaos, mass starvation, mob rule, death, a massive population drop.
There would be a war between the truly rural areas and the hordes trying to get out of the cities. The soft, unprepared, city folk would loose that battle. After all, where are the military bases located ……. rural at least in Canada except for Naval bases (ever try to row a destroyer).
Once things began to stabilize the local war lords, basically a quasi Feudal system (think Middle Ages) with many trappings of say the late 1700’s would emerge. Energy would be from local coal mines and wood. Enough technology would survive to recreate aspects of the late 1800’s. We would then revert right back to where we were now. We would be of course minus the greenies, vegans, etc. Those who new how to make a wagon wheel, a plough, catch a fish, a blacksmith, gunsmith would suddenly be the new Phd’s of the world. Just my two cents worth which really isn’t worth much since the penny is soon gone in Canada.