I'm also aware of overshoot day. It's not completely terrible as a metric, but it's based on shoddy data, and in the end simply shows that we are not raw material efficient enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day#Criticism
Carrying capacity only makes sense for a given technology.
> At some point, our resource usage WILL fall down UNDER the line of globally available renewable resources. The longer we wait, the LOWER we will need to back down.
That will likely take thousands of years. Just solar and batteries can go a very very very long way. Especially if we consider that it seems the human population is going to peak after every region goes through the usual development phases (education, health, more choices for women, more economic freedom).
> They enabled the "great acceleration" by providing almost limitless energy, and doing without them is a tremendous, unprecedented effort.
Yep, and now we're likely switching back. It'll not be easy, but a collapse (big reduction in population) is very unlikely.
> Notice that we never "switched" from an energy source to another: we piled them up
Yes and no. For example we stopped burning wood for energy. We stopped burning wood for potash. Coal plants reached the point that it's uneconomical to run them in developed economies.
> It's literally an unprecedented challenge, particularly at the global scale we're talking about.
Yes, agreed. But there's nothing fundamentally preventing it. Humans are pretty much known for these sudden huge Earth-wide changes. Roads, cars, planes. Churning out war stuff.
Of course the possibility that we stubbornly refuse to allocate the required resources, dig in, and make the situation a lot worse is there. But since there's at least some minimal "rationality forcing" in climate change (meaning, that the stubborn denialist ones tend to face worse problems) it's likely that eventually people will be incentivized to allocate those resources.
I'm also aware of overshoot day. It's not completely terrible as a metric, but it's based on shoddy data, and in the end simply shows that we are not raw material efficient enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day#Criticism
Carrying capacity only makes sense for a given technology.
> At some point, our resource usage WILL fall down UNDER the line of globally available renewable resources. The longer we wait, the LOWER we will need to back down.
That will likely take thousands of years. Just solar and batteries can go a very very very long way. Especially if we consider that it seems the human population is going to peak after every region goes through the usual development phases (education, health, more choices for women, more economic freedom).
> They enabled the "great acceleration" by providing almost limitless energy, and doing without them is a tremendous, unprecedented effort.
Yep, and now we're likely switching back. It'll not be easy, but a collapse (big reduction in population) is very unlikely.
> Notice that we never "switched" from an energy source to another: we piled them up
Yes and no. For example we stopped burning wood for energy. We stopped burning wood for potash. Coal plants reached the point that it's uneconomical to run them in developed economies.
> It's literally an unprecedented challenge, particularly at the global scale we're talking about.
Yes, agreed. But there's nothing fundamentally preventing it. Humans are pretty much known for these sudden huge Earth-wide changes. Roads, cars, planes. Churning out war stuff.
Of course the possibility that we stubbornly refuse to allocate the required resources, dig in, and make the situation a lot worse is there. But since there's at least some minimal "rationality forcing" in climate change (meaning, that the stubborn denialist ones tend to face worse problems) it's likely that eventually people will be incentivized to allocate those resources.