One Finite Planet: Everything has limits.

One Finite Planet today: Everything has limits and change accelerates as we approach them.

“Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.”

Attributed to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973) 

Everything has a limit, and every step we take takes us closer to tipping points or reaching those limits.

This site began, and remains, as a search for to understand what is driving change.

News sites report what happens, and the goal here has always been to determine why it is happening, where it all leads and what is likely to happen in future.

Change is always happening, but it feels like the rate of change is accelerating.

Consider the changes of the past 30 years: The introduction of the internet, mobile phones, smart devices and social media have changed our lives in ways that may have seemed hard to imagine at the outset, but those 30 years were relative stability in comparison with the level of change over the next 30 years, with not just new technology in the mix, the impact of paths reaching their limits.

Each of the topics selected for “a deep dive” has triggered a quest to understand at a deeper level than is generally reported in the media, and although content is divided into topics, the changes within each of the topics affects all others.

AI/Robotics was the most recently added topic, not appearing earlier despite contributors to the site having backgrounds going back decades and having been on standards bodies within software, electronics, and mechatronics going back decades. The recent rapid acceleration of AI has brought forward reaching the limit of technology increasing the productivity of human without fully replacing the human workers. This gives AI the potential to change everything about our lives from the economy to our purpose and making sense of this potential and determining what the real speed at which AI can change everything is quite a challenge.

Population/Immigration is the topic that has been investigated here for the longest time, and what is uncovered continues to surprise. While it is immigration that impacts our day-to-day lives, it is the revelation from a deep dive of a change from population growth to contraction over next decades prior to the next period of growth that provides insight into what will happen next and the problem with the immigration policies of most developed countries including the USA, most of the EU, the UK, Australia and Canada. There is also that potential for billions of AI robots has a big impact on what population targets countries will likely set.

Environment as a topic goes much further than just understanding the limit for rising CO₂ levels given they are still much lower than in distant past, with arguably much to be learnt from the bigger picture of where life on Earth is heading and that while some people mistakenly feel that life on Earth might be better off without us humans, that mistakenly ignores the reality that the amount of all life on Earth has already halved from peak life and the most recent “garden of Eden event” was over 500 million years ago, and without intervention from the only species so far to have achieved accessorised evolution, life will die out anyway and sooner than most realise, with whales and mammals and other complex species the first to go. If we get it wrong, we could bring the end even sooner, but us humans getting it right is the only solution in sight.

Influence is the topic examining how we determine who gets what. The topic by began focusing on the rise of companies that make profits from consumers beyond anything seen in history without their consumer customers even realising they are paying. However, once diving deep enough to find why these new influencers can earn so much by from being able to lead people into believing things, extends the topic to politics US Democracy and even wars as not all influence excludes the use of force.

Our “accessories” are, it turns out, the driver behind most change, and their changes will change our lives. Our homes, our vehicles, mobile and other computing devices that continue to change our lives are the drivers for evolution of our species, as it is the combination of human and accessories that evolves faster than biology alone that has taken us to a point of such dominance over this planet.

The final topic titled Philosophy/Science/Technology, not really a topic in the same sense, but rather a combination of explorations of basic principles the follow on from deep dives and explorations within these topics that have been requested.

A deeper dive?

Why makes a deeper dive website different?

News or blog content can be produced from start to publication in just one day and most contents is complete within a few days and then usually remains on the web in its original form as long as the site exists. Each entry published on a news or blog is typically of greatest interest when first published.

In contrast, it takes months and sometimes years to complete deeper research into a subject, and as a result content published on this site usually continues to be updated over months and even years. Content published as a deep dive can be of greatest interest years after first published.

This need for constant revision makes video content a challenge, and continually editing video content without AI beyond that available in 2024 is almost impossible.

Why this site exists, what is the motive behind this research driven content?

Core motive: Research.

This is an analysis website. Not a news website, nor a blog or website created to push a certain point of view. The views are in the open, and topics are explored with analysis and understanding being the goals.

As opposed to news sites or blogs, the main pages are “webpapers” which are continually updated as new information arrives.

The motive is the research itself. To find answers. There is no advertising revenue or sponsorship. There is no goal of recruiting people to a cause, as everything is approached with open mind to new data. The goal is as much to gain feedback from others as convince them, and comments from dissenting opinions are welcomed as there is always more to learn.

Financial motive: None, a non-profit, zero-revenue site.

If readership keeps growing as it has been, suggesting that more resources are justified, a subscription scheme may be added, but there would still be no profits and if this does occur, any subscription would be both optional and minimal, ensuring no possible influence on content. There is currently one primary author and two main consultants.

Everything has limits.

Everything has limits and everything we at first believe can continue in perpetuity we come to realise will at some point reach its limit.

A simple example is life on Earth has a limit. When most people first imagine a limit then often picture the end of the Sun’s life over 4 billion years from now as the limit. But then, when you look closer, it becomes clear that in within 1 billion years, rising temperatures will mean the Earth will no longer be able to support life. The deeper and more specific the dive becomes, the more tangible the limit becomes until you realise, we can’t be confident Earth will support large mammals like humans on most of the planet for any more than 25 million years. Still a long time for us humans, but not long enough to totally ignore considering conditions deteriorate on the way.

Navigating The One finite planet website.

Topics, subtopics and explorations as puzzle pieces of a big picture.

Most explorations or ‘exploratory papers’ lead to other related explorations, that become grouped into one or more subtopics and broader overall topics. The topics and subtopic dropdown allows viewing content for the relevant topic.

Webpapers.

The content on this site is divided into ‘webpapers‘ and ‘news’ or new/seed pages.

‘News pages’ simply have a “Date Published” and are the pages most similar to most other content on the web, as observations made around the time topics make the news. These pages are written because it is possible the subject may be worth a much deeper look at a future date: “seed” for a potential webpaper following further exploration. Sometimes these pages later do evolve into a webpaper as more information is gathered information and added over the course of time and if that new information becomes significant.

Webpapers have a date commenced, and typically a ‘latest update’ link reveals a list recent major updates with a brief summary of what was updated and when. If one of these pages is of interest, it can be worth periodic checks to follow future updates, as these pages can continue to evolve over many years.

Webpapers are on subjects that have had a deeper look. People have asked: ” why not videos?” and one reason is that continually updating videos tends to result in mess.

Each major topic now has content that allows conclusion I have not seen explained elsewhere.

Navigating and finding content on this site.

A search bar features on most pages, which helps finding content based on presence of one or more keywords, such as “hydrogen” or “BYD”.

The “Topic and Subtopics” drop-down will generate topic index page with some with a key page on that topic, and then key information about parent topics and subtopics, together with a list of pages or “webpapers” on that topic, listed in order of the most recent update.

Every individual “webpaper” has a list of updates, which can be viewed by clicking “update” link at the top of the page. Each page header provides a link to an update history, plus has a note on the most recent update will usually contain a link to the most recently updated content.

The site Title: One finite planet.

Because we all, keep forgetting we exist on one finite planet and forgetting we need to navigate the limits.

Our planet is finite, so everything has a limit. There is a finite surface, finite amount of space, finite total life or ‘biosphere’, and even finite time we can live on this one planet.

Many limits have already been reached without us realising. For example, total life. Just 10,000 years is sufficient time for any species to completely ‘carpet’ the planet’s finite surface. Not only is the total amount of life supported by the planet finite, that finite amount of life is now less than half what it once was. The finite time the Earth can naturally remain able to sustain complex mammals like us humans, could be as little another 25 million years.

For the early years of my own life, I assumed that the human population had no effective limit and could just grow indefinitely. In fact, I assumed we must be living on a young planet where all life was still expanding to fill this vast planet.

It is not only economists who seem to forget exponential growth cannot continue forever.

One because, given it took 4 billion years before life could exist on the surface of this planet, considering there are only 25 million years remaining for life like us here, finding another is essential, and is going to take a long time.

Finite, because no matter how obvious it is the planet is finite and everything has limits, our planet is large enough for us to mistakenly overlook that the planet being finite impacts everything, from the environment to the economy.

For me, the combination defines our existence, presents us with a challenge, and a mission to solve that challenge. The definition of sustainability

If humans were already living on an infinite number of planets, then it would not matter that every individual planet was finite, because overall we would have an infinite environment. Reality is, we are at the very least centuries from even one true second planet, with the clock ticking on how long we can survive on this planet.

It took until around the 1700s for many to know the finite surface, and until the 20th century for many to consider implications of finite resources and think sustainability. One finite planet is about the next step: recognising that time is also finite and, even provided humanity does nothing to end things prematurely, there is as little as 2% of the time Earth can support now remaining. Sustainability alone, is a death sentence.

A tagline: Sustainability++ Here for a good time and a longer time.

There is the line which even became song: “Here for a good time, not a long time“, which suggests you can’t have both. Some approaches to sustainability seem to also believe it is not possible to have both, and thus adopt an approach of austerity.

Population: Topic zero, that launched this site.

The first topic I researched for this site was population, and it is topic of both great concern as overpopulation may yet result in demise of civilisation, and great achievement, as arguably humanities greatest achievement has been the near elimination of infant mortality.

Our ancestors prior to the 1700s had to suffer the loss of 2 of every 3 children. Life expectancy almost doubled during the 20th century alone, even though at record levels, not because ‘old age’ became twice the age it was previously, but because almost twice as many people survived through childhood and then had the chance to reach old age.

Yet the population explosion resulting from nearly 3 of every 3 children living to have their own children, in place of 1 of every 3, resulted in population explosion that many predicted would result in famine and devastation. Yet it wasn’t, humanity managed to increased food production sufficiently to handle a period of population surge, and birth rates have fallen to the level that returns humanity to historically normal rates of population growth.

When I was a child mind peak population explosion, it seemed it seemed everyone accepted continual population growth as normal and something that could continue forever, at least until they did the math. Perpetual rapid population growth had been like a belief beyond question, almost following from the ‘go forth and multiply’ from religious text, and I had grown up assuming that all life on Earth was constantly increasing in population. Doing the maths, the first reaction was to panic about exponential population growth being near its limit.

Then, it dawned on me that, given we now know the earth is far, far, older than assumed when the biblical texts were created, and long in the past the Earth would have reached its limit if even very slow population growth was sustained over even tens of thousands of years. That finally a triggered a series of light bulb moments of realisations of what I had previously been missing.

In the end, the final picture I have arrived at, is that evolution has resulted in species that can survive for millions of years on a finite planet, and as most species would devastate their own environment within even 5,000 years of unregulated population growth, the fittest species regulate population growth.

Most of our current challenges, from environment, through to how we should live, and how to live together, face huge challenges as a result of the fact that our planet, which for early man seemed infinite, is now noticeably finite.

All of the topics on this site, have a connection with the understanding that we exist on one finite planet. For science topic, the relationship is sort of inverse, as this topic focuses on either basic research for other topics, or explorations of other basic research.

The topics and subtopics of the one finite planet site.

AI and AI robots.

With our technology or “accessories” evolving faster than biology, there was always a limit to how long we could remain more advanced than technology. That limit is rapidly approaching.

Population and immigration.

Overpopulated?

What should the global population be? Should we have more people? Or less? How many?

It turns out the answer depends on how much your wealth, or share of the planets resources, exceeds that of the average person.

Less people would increase the wealth of the average person, but more wealth would creates more for those with the greatest wealth and power. This is why wars are all about bringing more people and their lands into empires.

Explosion.

As already explained, as a child of the population explosion of the 20th century, my first fear was this explosion could not continue on a finite planet.

Economics and Consequences. (housing, solutions)

What steps are required to deal with impacts of the either rise or falls in population.

Much of our economic systems was designed in the population explosion, with a focus on leveraging the explosion to create wealth for a rich and powerful minority. The biggest challenge faced by economics today, is how to evolve the system for a ‘post population explosion’ world. Fortunes will be won on lost depending on who gets its right.

Principles: The pursuit of abundance.

What determines population, and what population is ideal?

Too few people and life lack the richness of culture, invention, progress and the opportunity of their being countless new people to meet.

Too many people and yes, we do all need to live in tiny houses in towering potential slums with less and less resources per person. With enough people even EVs don’t allows the freedom to still have or even eventually our own homes.

Environment.

Planetary Boundaries & Sustainability. (Sustainable vs Finite.)

To early man, our planet appeared infinite.

We now understand that every species has an environmental footprint, as we evolved technology and numbers such that our footprint is noticeable, we eventually learnt a new concept: sustainability.

While the usage of the term sustainable for long term use of a natural resource dates back to  Hans Carl von Carlowitz in 1713, it was not something most people were considering, even after 10 centuries of human civilization.

It was in the 1970s, at the height of the population explosion, when Green political parties first emerged that it became clear that sustainability became a key issue for a significant number of people.

Sustainability in One Finite Environment: History.

The topic of environment covers:

• understanding the environment.
• humans existing without destroying the environment.
• the environment existing without destroying us humans.

Climate Change.

• Climate Actions Scams & Resistance.
• Climate challenges & Threats: Is climate change merely inconvenient, or is it an existential Threat?
• Climate events & milestones timeline.
• Principles. How does climate work?

Covid-19.

It is hard to ignore Covid-19, from when I first suggested it was going to be a wild ride in January 2020.

Clearly the environment is linked to population, and Covid-19 is part of that environment.

Climate Events & Threats (others)

This section is currently empty, as no threats beyond Covid-19 and climate change are currently being closely analysed.

Influence, Wealth, Power & Equality.

Influence Industry.

• Principles and problems.
• The traditional press.
• The new giants.

(subtopics not yet fully implemented)

Throughout history, there has been power plays to convince a large population of people to act in a certain manner. There have always been leaders who sought to expand the population they influence in order to increase their power and wealth.

The ability to influence people has now become arguably the largest industry the world has seen, and logic dictates one of the key goals of influencing people is to build empires by encouraging increased population.

Leaders, Followers and Propaganda. (Power)

There is a continuum between leaders who serve the people, and leaders who seek power so the people can server them.

• Fragile Democracy.
• WWIII – Russia? China?
• USA Democracy Threats: 2020 Election and beyond.

Othering, Justice, Tribalism, Terrorism and Religion.

• Justice & Equality
• Left vs Right
• Othering, Religion & Tribalism
• Terrorism

As populations grow, divisions emerge. This topic focuses on the emergence as populations grow.

Wealth and Power: Farming humanity & Wealth Creation.

• Free Trade vs Ethics
• Inequality – wealth and other inequality (as a result of the pursuit of wealth and power)
• Wealth distribution employment and basic income.

This focuses on the link between the influence of wealth, and the implications on a finite planet.

Tools, Toys and Superpowers: Humans are the species with accessories.

It turns out that through tools, humans can evolve even without updating our genes, by instead, updating our accessories. This evolution has enabled humans to dominate this finite planet and may eventually enable expansion beyond one finite planet.

Do our ‘tools’ give us superpowers as individuals?

EVs.

EVs represent a crossroads between “righteous environmentalists” who say people don’t need cars, but if they must have cars, they should be the smallest possible cars, the viewpoint of this site, which is that people get pleasure from cars, and the goal is both the cars (or even pick-ups) people want and sustainability. Do people still all need the smallest possible boring microcar when cars don’t have emissions?

The impact of peak population is that humans need to reduce their environmental impact, which means ending the use of fossil fuels, even if it means significantly disrupting two globally significant industries: the oil, gas and coal, and the automotive industry.

• BYD and Atto 3
• Tesla & Emerging EV brands.
• Living with EVs and the EV Future.
• Reference
• Timeline
• Impact.
• Transition To EVs & Renewables: The realities behind the problems. (answering the questions)
• EV Politics barriers & Alternatives.
• Car Wars: The war against EVs*

AI and Robots (coming soon).

The industrial revolution was seen as a threat to employment. But instead, it was mostly a boost to productivity, as it meant each individual could do so much more. Increasingly the manual strength became the role of machines, and the skill became intelligence. This, combined with reduced infant mortality lowering the desired number of births, liberated women, who were always on par with males for intelligence, but not, on average for physical strength.

However, robotics and AI could now means those long-held fears and dreams of automation fully replacing employment may become far more real.

Web Tools & Computing.

Bags & Miscellaneous: Other Tools, Gadgets, Enhancements, and Reviews.

Bags (coming soon).

Science and philosophy.

• Philosophy & Perception.
• Science
  • Earth 2.0 & Escape
  • General Science
• Tech
  • Electricity & Wireless
  • AI & Robots

At the most abstract level, all science and in fact all knowledge, is merely a branch of philosophy.

René Descartes famously began the very first principle of “I think therefore I am”, and is regarded as not only a philosopher, but also a scientist and mathematician.

Aristotle was regarded as a polymath:

Aristotle (/ˈærɪˌstɒtəl/;^[1] Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs, pronounced [aristotélɛːs]; 384–322 BCE) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science.

It all starts with philosophy, and then mathematics follows. Add the properties of universe and things move to physics with forces and atoms. For how the world around is built from atoms we move to chemistry, and focusing on the chemistry of life we move to biology.

The topics in this section are all here to provide background and begin with that broad brush titled “philosophy” but provide background that does not fit within the more specific topics of this site.

• Everything begins with philosophy, science and our ability to perceive the universe.
• From science and philosophy stems the big picture of “finite planet”.
• From science we also develop the technologies that underpin our efforts to create the “accessories”/tools to enable use to break free of one finite planet.

Finite Planet: When the world of humanity progressed to ‘finite’.

To the first people on Earth, it must have seemed that no resource was finite, virtually nothing had any known limit. It is not that people believing things infinite, it is that numbers seemed unknowable, and undetermined seemed equivalent to without limits.

There were always new lands to be discovered, hunting animals did not noticeably impact their population, nor did gathering fruit and vegetables make an impact. Fishing did not noticeably impact fish populations.

Most things remained finite until around 1650 CE. At that time no individual even knew of all the continents on Earth making even the amount of land seem unlimited. Sustainable was not a concept people needed to contemplate, as it seemed every thing humans did was inherently sustainable.

Fast forward to the 21st century and there has been a population explosion dramatically increasing the number of humans, and an industrial revolution increasing the impact individuals have on the planet. Now, most people see ‘sustainable’ as essential, but in surprisingly many ways, there are still people who do not, deep down accept the Earth is finite, and sustainability is essential.

Technologies.

Background on how stuff works.

Bridging the gap between the underlying science and embodiments of technology that become our accessories.

Updates.

• 2023 March 3 rd: Updated ‘philosophy‘ section.
• 2017 December 31: First Published.