På lånt tid i en utvidet, malthusiansk syklus

"Ruiner i Holmstadengen etter Olteruddalen."

Nb! Disse ruinene er faktisk fra Holmstadeie Vestby, og ligger ikke i Holmstadengen, men i Storenga, som Dahl trolig etablerte samtidig som han satte opp ny låve i Holmstadengen. Holmstadeie Vestby forsvant da inn i Storenga, og ble siden glemt.

De ligger på oversida av Nygardsæterbruvegen, hvor Herman og Mina holdt til i 10 år, og hvor oldefar Even Helmer ble født i 1874.

Riktig artig var det at vi fant igjen plassen hvor oldefar ble født, til 150-års jubileet hans😌

Ovren Mikkelson, som het Even Mikkelsen Karsrud inntil 1871, fikk dessverre ikke se sitt barnebarn Even Helmer før han emigrerte til USA, men jammen fikk han en stor flokk barnebarn i Cambridge, Wisconsin!

Pussig å tenke på at Ovren Mikkelson var her på besøk rett som det var, hvor han nok gjerne tok seg en svingom sammen med sin Marthe på danseplassen øverst i Stysjin, før de tok turen ned i Overnengen igjen😄

-Wikimedia.

Of history’s great thinkers, the one most relevant to farmers and ranchers is probably the English demographer Thomas Robert Malthus. He’s famous for doubting that farmers could increase food production fast enough to feed a rapidly rising population. He thought the resulting food shortages would beget famines, diseases and wars, which would eventually reduce population back to sustainable levels.

A lot has happened since Malthus first published “An Essay on the Principle of Population” in 1798 and much of it undermines his thesis. When Malthus wrote, 800 million people called planet earth home. Today 7.7 billion do. Most have enough to eat. Hunger has not been eliminated, to be sure, but that’s arguably a distribution problem. Farmers produce enough to feed everyone, or close to enough; the world just doesn’t get the food to everyone who needs it.

During the 15 years I’ve been inflicting my opinions on DTN readers, I’ve more than once taken a swipe at Malthus, or, to be more precise, at those who continue to advocate his theory, the neo-Malthusians. As recently as last February, I headlined a post, “Do Calls for Radical Diet Changes Repeat the Malthusian Mistake?” - Urban C. Lehner

- Rethinking Malthus

Åndelig, kulturelt og sosialt har vi som samfunn allerede kollapset. De på topp i samfunnet ser det naturligvis ikke slik, da de kjenner seg allmektige, som administratorer av dette alt-gjennomgripende, teknologiske underet. Men sett fra bunnen av samfunnet er man hjelpeløs, underlagt en teknologi våre herrer kontrollerer, verdiløs, uten autonomi. En skamming, en fredløs, en skygge, en nymoderne husmann, en deplorabel og reaksjonær hatist. I et samfunn hvor penger har overtatt for tradisjonene, og hvor teknokratisk ekspertise har tatt Guds plass.

Men fremdeles holder energi og teknologi samfunnet sammen, og dette er det eneste som holder oss sammen nå, da alle sosiale relasjoner har brutt sammen. Bare fordi kull lå i dagen i England. Ja, de hadde kull i Kina også, men der lå de store kullforekomstene langt unna maktens sentrum, ovenfor de øvre, ville strykene i Yangtze-elva. Derfor startet den industrielle revolusjon i England og ikke i Kina. Følgene av dette kunne naturligvis ikke Malthus forutse.

Christian changed my view of Malthus by the way he defined historical periods. What he calls the Agrarian Era began roughly 10,000 years ago with the rise of agriculture and ended in 1700. One of this period’s key characteristics, Christian says, was the slow pace of technological change.

Because it was slow, the era was marked by repeated Malthusian cycles, which Christian defines as “Long cycles of economic, demographic, cultural and even political expansion, generally followed by periods of crisis; warfare; and demographic, cultural and political decline. These cycles, generally lasting several centuries, are apparent throughout the Agrarian era and were probably generated by the fact that, though there was innovation (which produced the upward swings), rates of innovation could not keep pace with rates of growth (which explains the eventual crashes).”

Christian backs this contention with population statistics showing a very long-term uptrend during the Agrarian Era but lots of crashes along the way.

By contrast, the distinguishing feature of Christian’s Modern Era, the time since 1700, has been a sharp acceleration in the pace of innovation. According to Christian, between 1900 and 2000 world population quadrupled but global grain production rose by five times and global industrial output by 40 times.

By Christian’s definition of the historical periods, Malthus was actually right as far as the Agrarian Era was concerned. What he failed to foresee was that in the Modern Era, which was just getting started when he wrote, the pace of technological innovation was accelerating. Not only accelerating, but accelerating so quickly that food supply would be able to keep up with population growth from 800 million to 7.7 billion.
Malthus did not live to see the sharp increase in the pace of technological innovation that took place in the 19th and 20th centuries. You have to wonder if he would have concocted his gloomy theory had he lived a century later.

It is possible, to be sure, that however fast the pace of innovation, population growth might yet eventually outpace it. This is why the neo-Malthusians haven’t conceded the debate.

When the Big History course hit the market in 2008, the world’s population was 6 billion something. It’s already risen to 7.7 billion and some demographers think it will be 10 billion in 2050. Not only is population rising, but incomes are rising in China, India and other developing countries, generating demand for not only more food but more goods of all kinds.

“Each of the more than 6 billion humans on Earth today consumes approximately 60 times as much energy as humans of the Paleolithic era,” Christian writes. “These figures suggest that the total energy consumption of our species has increased by about 60,000 times in 10,000 years.”

To Christian, then, there’s a “real threat” of a Malthusian crisis in our future. But there’s also increasing awareness of the dangers and some encouraging trends. Population growth rates are actually slowing. Ecological awareness is increasing. - Urban C. Lehner

Så, grunnet at vi var så heldige å sparke borti litt kull i England, lever vi nå på overtid, i en utvidet, historisk syklus. Og når denne tar slutt, når vi en utvidet kollaps, ja faktisk verdenshistoriens første globale kollaps, hvor vi i beste fall faller tilbake til en global, mørk middelalder.

Selvsagt er det lett å bli arrogant etter 200 år på lånt tid, et lån vi har sløst vekk, ikke minst ved vår suburbane livsstil, som har gitt oss en fragmentering av alle aspekter ved livet, slik at ingen lenger kan leve helhetlige liv. Dette er den mest ressurssløsende og sosialt ødeleggende livsstil som tenkes kan!

Det finnes nå kun en mulighet for å fortsette og for å avslutte disse historiske syklusene på en god måte, da avslutningen på vår nåværende syklus kan bli så voldsom, at det kanskje aldri igjen reiser seg en ny sivilisasjon på jorden. Denne lille muligheten er lommedemokratiet til Terje Bongard!

Javisst, det er trist at Mjøslandet har tapt sine høylys, at vi har mistet kulturelva vår fra Tjuvåsen, at husmannstroen måtte gi tapt for hovdetroen, at våre forfedres smekre urbane landsby ved Kværnumsstrykene endte sine dager lik ei utflytende, konturløs billørje, samt at vårt fedreland i disse dager maltrakteres av vindkraftverk. Men det aller, aller mest tragiske, var at MEDOSS ble nedstemt av Norges forskningsråd.

Vår helt, Terje Bongard, har samlet en liten gjeng prominente medspillere, for å gjøre et siste forsøk for å få på plass lommedemokratiet. Min slekt, min familie, og andre som ikke har støttet PermaLivs kamp for lommedemokratiet, har virkelig våre barns framtid, ja kanskje universets eneste intelligente sivilisasjon, på samvittigheten.

Trist er det, etter denne voldsomme innsatsen gjennom de siste ti år, å ende opp som skammingen i engen. Akkurat som om lommedemokratiet er en skam! De burde virkelig skamme seg, alle sammen!

Relatert

Kina planlegger massiv satsing på kullkraftverk (Kull startet den industrielle revolusjon, og det ser jammen ut til at kull kommer til å avslutte den også. Antar det er de store kullforekomstene i Mongolia, Kina tenker å utnytte.)

Defending Degrowth is not Malthusian

In my book I show how such romantic (and related socialist, feminist and anarchist) ideas articulate a notion of limits as a source of freedom and abundance. Likewise, those of us who defend degrowth today do not call for limits because the world is running out of stuff. We are not worried that growth might come to an end – we want to end growth and stop its catastrophic and meaningless path, despoiling the abundance of this planet that we can enjoy in common.

To put it differently: environmentalists like us are not warning of limits. We want limits. Limits in order to stop ecological and social destruction. Limits to stop in its tracks a capitalist system that knows no limits and is exploitative and ugly. Limits to leave space for others, human and non-human.

Limits bring freedom. A pianist can make infinite music with a limited keyboard. Give the pianist an infinite keyboard, and she or he would paralyze. Limitless choice is debilitating. Capital’s limitless and senseless pursuit of more is not freedom – it is slavery.

The call for ‘self-limitation’ is different from (neo)Malthusian views of limits as a natural property of the world. The atmosphere is not a limited ‘sink’ (what a terrible way to think of the sky) – it is we who should limit emissions so as not to screw the climate. The limit is on us, not the sky. There are no ‘natural limits’ that force us to do this or that. There is an ethical and political imperative not to: not to do everything that can be done, not to despoil the beauty we have inherited. - Giorgos Kallis