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Fossil fuels: Is it a system?

The original problem statement said this: "Scientists know that our supply of fossil fuels is limited, and that burning fossil fuels is a factor is changing the Earth's climate. But many people do not believe that dangerous. Nor do we have a solution that satisfies enough people to make it politically feasible." And stated the problem like this:

The global problem: how can we define and describe the fossil fuel situation so that people can understand it?

The goal: we are looking for a way to explain the difficulties that arise with our continuing use of fossil fuels. To do this we have to take into account a number of factors.

The Facts

This problem is very, very large. It involves large numbers like billions and centuries. It has a large scope: the entire globe, and it has many different complications and side effects. All of this makes it hard, perhaps even impossible, to summarize.

In order to get a clear idea of what is going on, we will need to look at the two most dangerous aspects of the situation: availability of fossil fuels in the future, and the impact of burning fossil fuels on the earth's climate ... but ... we will also need to put these in context. For reference, I am going to call the two key aspects "availability" and "climate".

Availability

What we call the "global" civilization, including all of the "high tech" societies, is based on the availability of cheap fossil fuels. Without this, there would be no industry, no electric power, no high speed transportation and no electronic communications. This means that any attempt to reduce the use of fossil fuels must inevitably change the way that billions of people live their everyday lives.

Today most people who live in "developed" countries simply take it for granted that the power will be on, that there will be gas for the car and that there will be food in the stores. But a drop in the availability of fossil fuels would change this ... and ... the change would be dramatic. How long do you think that you could go without electricity, for example? A month? A year? What would happen if the trucks, trains and planes that deliver food to the stores stopped running? How long would your current supply of food last? How would you get food if the stores were empty?

No matter how you look at it, fossil fuel is indispensable to our current way of life.

And sooner or later, we will run out of it.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the world is now using roughly 36 billion barrels of oil every year. The same agency estimates that the total supply of oil still in the ground amounts to roughly 1,200 billion barrels. This suggests that we will exhaust the supply in about 30-40 years. Various other estimates estimate the date when fossil fuels become scarce in a range from 2015 to 2094.

There are additional factors. For example, use of fossil fuels is accelerating, and this would shorten the time span. On the other hand, there are likely to be regions of the earth that contain pools of oil which we have not yet found. So the time span could be somewhat longer.

For the purpose of this discussion, we need to pick a number, so I will take 50 years as a conservative guess. This means that if you are twenty years old today, you have a good chance of living through the period when the world runs out of petroleum ... which should come to fruition in the year 2060 or thereabouts.

This should not happen abruptly. Oil, for example, is already somewhat scarce. Think about gasoline, which costs about $1 more per gallon than it did in 1975. (In today's dollars ... adjusted for inflation.) We should not expect to suddenly run out of gasoline. Rather, we should expect the price to continue to rise, and we should expect it to rise faster in the future.

The slowly rising prices of everything from electricity to manufactured goods already reflect the fact that we have pumped most of the "easy" oil and that we are now drilling in more expensive places such as under the sea and in the arctic. These prices also take into account the development of new sources such as "fracked" natural gas in the United States and "oil sands" petroleum in Canada.

As oil (and natural gas, and even coal) becomes less available, its price will rise. This will cause people to seek alternatives. In the best case this would lead to a gradual reorganization of our way of life ... from one that depends on massive use of fossil fuel for manufacturing, heating and transportation to one that minimizes our dependence on these kinds of energy supplies.

In the worst case we, we do nothing to adjust to the coming shortage, and we suffer a "crash" ... no one knows what that would be like, exactly, but everyone assumes that it would be bad.

In the most likely case shortages of fossil fuels cause sudden spikes in the price and temporary shortages. These result in a certain amount of panic, which pushes people to find substitutes for fossil fuels and/or ways to use energy more efficiently. But, it takes time to invent and develop new forms of energy, so we would be in for a difficult period while the replacement was going on. This suggests that the sooner we get started, the better.

Climate

There is little doubt that the burning of fossil fuels is having an impact on the earth's climate. Scientific debate about the precise nature and extent of this impact are ongoing, but only a tiny minority of the experts who study the climate now doubt that the impact exists. [wikipedia]

Today, most people have heard of "global warming". But they know very few details, and they tend to think of it in news headlines ... such as: "Miami Underwater!", or "Polar Bears Perish!". However, the possible changes that will likely come about due to climate change are more complicated, but much larger than the headlines suggest.

To say that the climate will change is to say that the weather will change, in very specific ways, everywhere, including the place where you live. For example: amount of rainfall, average temperature, wind speed, and the timing of the seasons will all be affected. Consider a few of the likely effects:

• Changes in rainfall affect plant growth ... this impacts farming in a big way. Areas that now plant wheat, for example, might have to switch to some other crop. This doesn't sound all that bad, but changing the way farming is done across the entire planet is a big deal ... we don't know how much of what kinds of foods we might be able to produce in the future. And, more importantly, we don't know if the new climate will let us produce enough food to feed everybody. [US EPA]
• Changes in the timing of the seasons ... when winter begins and ends, for example ... affects the life cycle of animals. Much of this probably won't be a problem to humans ... but it will likely bring new pests into areas that have never seen them before. And some, perhaps many, species of plants and animals will be on the move. Some will die out entirely. Consider the economic impact to the lumber industry, for example, if certain species of trees no longer grow in the American northwest. Consider the impact to commercial fisheries if the tuna species die out.
• If the average temperature rises, many cities will need more air conditioning ... which will increase their need for power ... which is already part of the problem.
• The polluting gases in the air affect human health. The cost of this is hard to estimate, but essentially, all of us will live shorter lives. [US EPA]

Most importantly, this is not a problem that will happen somewhere else. Wherever you live on the planet, your way of life will change.

In the worst case the coming changes are all bad: food supplies dwindle, cities are flooded, species die out, and we find ourselves in a desert wasteland. In the best case the changes are good: northern areas of the planet are open to farming, we can sail ships in the arctic ocean, species migrate but don't die out, and the world is actually a nicer place to live.

The most likely result is somewhere in the middle. Some of the changes will be harmful, and some will be beneficial. The problem is that we have no reasonable method of estimating which will be which. By changing the climate we are basically taking a huge gamble with our future.

The Public Attitude

Today most people simply take it for granted that the coming changes will not be a big deal. People assume that the power will stay on, and that the price of gas will not rise beyond their ability to pay for it. They believe that some parts of the coastline might be submerged eventually, but they don't think that the place where they live will be affected much. This is why the problem is stated like this:

How can we define and describe the fossil fuel situation so that people can understand it?

We are not tasked with finding a replacement for fossil fuels. Our job is to see if we can find a way to describe the situation so that people understand the difficulties that are in store for everyone if we don't start making changes soon.

This is a problem in communication. It must take into account the current public attitude:

1. Most people are more or less ignorant of the facts. You can test this yourself. Ask your friends to tell you where the electricity they use comes from. You will find the most cannot. (Mine comes from: 40% coal fired plants, 30% natural gas powered generators, 20% nuclear, and 10% hydroelectric other sources. I found this by searching the web for "electric power generation" in my state.) Or, ask your friends to estimate how far the average bushel of produce travels to reach your grocery store. (Over 1000 miles for Chicago, Illinois, according to one study.)
2. Because the problem is so large, most people do not take the time to think about it in depth ... or to learn enough facts to truly understand it.
3. While people respond immediately to a crisis, it is hard to get them to cooperate in addressing very large problems that are hard to understand and take many years to solve.

Is It a System?

As always, the important part of the systems process is the thinking that we do to describe the situation. And the first step is to ask the question: "can I develop a systems model for this situation?"

The earlier description included two effects: the impact on our climate and the changes to our economic and social well-being. It also identified a "flow": fossil fuels are mined and used. Based on these observations, I can assemble a very simplistic systems diagram.

As you can see, the fossil fuels start in the ground. They are extracted, refined and used. All of these processes have an environmental impact (which is probably negative).

We can decide to use less fossil fuels ... or not. If we use less, we will change the way our current economics work ... and we will have an impact (probably beneficial) on the environment.

If we do not use less fossil fuel, then the cost of using it will continue to rise. This, too, will bring about changes in our economics.

Although I haven't thought much about it yet, it looks like our environment and economics will change regardless of whether we continue to use fossil fuels or not. So the question looks to be about what kind of change we want ... there does not seem to be a way to avoid change altogether. And so it seems that this problem needs a second diagram ... one that deals with what people are thinking and doing about the situation.

If you compare this diagram with the first one, you'll see that the second one includes the first one as the box labled "Global Use of Fossil Fuels". In other words, the earlier diagram shows how the world uses fossil fuels, while this diagram shows how the world reacts to information that comes out about the use of fossile fuels.

Two kinds of reactions are shown: direct effects, which happen when a change in the situation affects you directly ... if the price of gasoline goes up, for example ... and reported effects, which happen when the media takes an interest in the situation.

The feedback loop in the middle of the diagram shows how media coverage and public interest interact with one another. In this case, if the public shows increased interest in the situation, then the media tends to give it more coverages, which in turn increases public interest, which draws more coverage, and so on. If interest drops off, then coverage decreases in the same manner.

Public interest produces change by influencing personal actions and public perceptions. For example, if the price of gasoline rises, the people buy less gasoline, which directly influences the price of gasoline. Similarly, if people are unhappy with the price of gasoline, they communicate that to their governments, which directly influences the global political situation and indirectly influences the global economic situation.

What Next?

It doesn't seem to me that I've made a lot of progress. This is a very large problem and while I have a general diagram of the situation, it doesn't contain many details. If I have to make an argument that will convince people that they need to act, I'm not sure what I would be saying.

So, the next step would seem to be to study the problem in more depth and try to describe it in more detail.

(For more on how to read and make systems diagrams, look here.)

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