cyclic collapse 2 of 2

CYCLIC COLLAPSE 2

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note: prices per gallon on storage containers:
At Home Despot, 5 gallon buckets with lids 92 cents ( bought by the 20 pack, 82 cents ).  Grey tote, 20 gal, 29cents.  IBC tote, way over priced $1.45.  31 gallon metal trash can, best value ( considering the grey tote isn't an optimal storage container-I don't use them but for a few hundred pounds ), 71cents.  If not shopping there: Drive a good distance to pick up an IBC, 73cents.  Pick up locally, about 37cents.  That varies, remember it has to be food grade.  Each gallon holds six and a half to seven pounds of wheat.  One cup of d-earth per five gallon bucket.
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note: hard red wheat was going for $10 a fifty pound sack locally, white soft $11.  
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Looking at the global population estimation of 180 million in 750 AD, and the 500 million in 1700 ( after the weather change and famine/war adjustments sixty years prior and the coal powered industrialization to come shortly ), I would estimate that trade allows for a three times population allowance.  In other words, without trade between regions there can be a lot less natural carrying capacity worldwide.  Trade increases efficiencies in supplying resources.  An easy and quick example is the oil production of the US.  Without imports, we have one third the oil.  Oil is food today.

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Five hundred million population is the estimated global carrying capacity of solar powered agricultural civilization.  That is based on 1700 figures, just prior to the Industrial Revolution ( which had little to due with private property or innovation or skin pigment and everything to do with carbon fuels.  Yes, the Chinese had plentiful coal and did nothing with it, so other arguments such as the above do carry some weight.  Yet, coal comes first.  Without excess resources, cultural, geographical, anthological and biological forces are still powerless, in the larger context ).  But that is with trade.

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I would argue that, just as the Roman civilization collapsing halted almost all trade for five hundred years, the Oil Age Empire collapsing will also usher in another Dark Age whose defining characteristic is lack of trade ( you need a central government with excess resources to secure trade routes.  Without a monopoly of force, trade has neither the secure transit lines nor the financial system to take place ).  Hence, 500 million is too generous of an estimate.  180 million is better.  Let us be optimistic and round up to 200 million global population.

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The entire globe today is organized into urban areas which are fed and watered from long distances away.  Almost every area extracts or manufactures items to be sent elsewhere on the planet, receiving substance from another area.  Almost nowhere do you see the traditional model of an urban area surrounded by enough farmland to sustain the center.  The more “efficient” trade is, the more dangerous it is be live away from food production because the food comes from further and further away.

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I say this to underline that the entire globe is equally at risk and few areas will retain an increased share of the population.  But, of course, almost all of us here only care about the US.  What portion of that 180 million does our area get?  Let’s go back to 1500 and take the 500 million ( in 1700 it was a bit more, but the period as a whole was hovering around the half billion mark ).  The whole hemisphere was estimate at 110 million.  But remember, the indigs had very efficient trade networks ( which was why the smallpox and etc. traveled so swiftly ).  So one third of that number, the assumption of lack of trade, is about 35 million.  For the entire hemisphere, not the US. 

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For the high estimation of 110 million ( which is the highest, but since 7 million Indians are estimated to have survived the disease outbreak, and we assume a 90% fatality rate, the 50 million or 18 million pre-disease estimate were surely too low.  Which leaves us at 70-110 million estimation as a realistic figure ) for the entire hemisphere, it is estimated about 18 million were in the area of modern day USA.  Again, that is three times too many if we assume a trade collapse.  So, a HIGH estimation of US population is in actuality a mere 6 million people ( solar output, no carbon fuels ). 

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The low estimate, using 15% of the hemisphere, and a total of 70 million rather than 110, brings us from a high of six to a low of four million for the US.   That is the No Trade natural carrying capacity.  I would give the odds of the low estimate being more probable at about 80%.  Given the post-plague survivors numbers, I think the estimate of a hemisphere total of 70 million to be far more likely.  The US’s portion of that ( given the higher carrying capacity of the moderate climate areas ) was more likely than not a mere four million in population.

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And that was with soil NOT denuded.  After centuries of overproduction, only oil and carbon fuel inputs allow us to grow any crops.  And, WITH centralized governments.  So, the soil was more productive AND there was less war allowing maximum production.  However, allowing for our existence of better grains, better domesticated animals, metal and knowledge, let’s just assume the initial number is correct rather than lower.  Natural solar powered agriculture saw our country having a four million person carrying capacity. 

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And, big math problem!  What is ten percent ( the number who survive overpopulation die-off ) of four million?  Four hundred thousand.  Most will be east of the Mississippi.  Today that figure is 60%.  It will be a bit more, as the West is artificially populated through rail and irrigation, but with numbers that low it is probably irrelevant ( we‘ll figure it anyway ).  Now isn’t that a much nicer number of people to be around than what we are subjected to today?  If today’s numbers are 333 million ( they lie about immigration ), and the natural carrying capacity without trade is 3.3 million ( I know, I’m lowering it slightly to make the math easy ), that makes for a future population of 1% of what your area is now.

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And remember, the figures now are be a bit inflated out West.  But hey, close enough for back of the envelope figuring.  I’d LOVE if only 160 people lived in my town ( and that is the maximum ).  Too bad you need a global die-off for that!  If you take full trade population as a starting point, you can estimate that carbon fuels increase population fifteen times ( 500 million to 7.5 billion ).  So the arid West, only being populated because of coal and oil, is one fifteenth the figures just given.  So, 40% ( west of the Mississippi ) of 4 million is too much.  Again, for ease of math, call it 1.5 million population, and taking that down 1/15^th to 6% we arrive at 90,000.  Ten percent of that ( post die-off ) means nine thousand live east of the Mississippi and 391,000 east of it.

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The Western population is a mere rounding error in comparison to the east.  For the well watered areas of the West, the Pacific edge and a few spots near or in the Rockies, a good rule of thumb is 1% of your current population survives the die-off ( just like back East ).  The arid regions, most of the area, figure one tenth of one percent survives ( that is, 1/10^th of 1% of today’s population ).  That brings my town down to 16 people.  That is a tenth of the natural carrying capacity of this area.  And that was hard nomadic living.  To get a mate and do any trading, you travel for two weeks or longer to an annual meeting.  Fun stuff!

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2FJ5V5Z )

 

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