Climate Change Prevention

[doogles]

It's not a personal theory as such Braininvat. The evidence is freely available. Highly expensive attempts to control carbon dioxide over the last 20 years have produced NO identifiable effects on carbon dioxide emissions. It is a classical equivalent of flogging a dead horse. See the graphs below.

Attempts to control carbon dioxide are obviously failing miserably and at great expense. This is a fact and not a theory.

Generally in life, if we try one method of fixing something and after 20 years, we see no visible change, don't we look for other solutions? The carbon dioxide faith appears to be very strong.

And I stand by my statement that unless we make some attempts to control population growth, we are not going to see any change. The job won't be easy, but greenhouse gas control has OBVIOUSLY been a dismal failure.

[TheVat]

If I misunderstood your implication, then OK. But I thought you were saying that because carbon mitigation has failed so far, then it must not be the correct remedy. I see now you simply meant that we should give up on that solution as impractical. I confess that I see little appeal in alternative solutions like massive die-offs of our species. Or everyone giving up meat and rice and hoping that the methane reduction from that tips the balance back. I find a large scale social commitment to wind, geothermal, tidal, and solar energy (i. e. No Carbon) to be far more appealing, and we get cleaner air and tremendous economic stimulus and innovation, too. It's practical, if nations like US, Germany, China, Japan and other tech leaders show initiative and optimism and lead the way on clean energy.

That soapbox is wobbly, so I'm stepping down now.

[doogles]

I should have included some references in my earlier post as evidence that controlling population growth as one means of climate control is not just a personal theory.

Myerson (1998; https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 4622220962) " ... Where possible, global warming policy should include strong but equitable incentives for sustainable development and population stabilization, important goals in themselves regardless of the extent of future climate change."

Shi (2003; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0902002239)

Carter and Parker (2009; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... j.54.4.676) " ... The combined effects of urban population growth, rising food demands and energy costs, and consequent demand for fresh water represent real cause for alarm, and these dwarf the likely impacts of climate change on groundwater resources, at least over the first half of the 21st century. ... " Whilst not claiming that population per se will affect climate change, this does suggest that urban population growth is one of several factors that needs more consideration than climate change itself.

Jiang and Hardy (2011; https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 010-9189-7) " ... In addition to the growth of total population size, research shows that changes in population composition (i.e. age, urban–rural residence, and household structure) generate substantial effects on the climate system. Moreover, studies by the impact, vulnerability and adaptation (IAV) community also reveal that population dynamics are critical in the near term for building climate change resilience and within adaptation strategies. This paper explores how global population dynamics affect carbon emissions and climate systems, how recent demographic trends matter to worldwide efforts to adapt to climate change, and how population policies could make differences for climate change mitigation and adaptation."

What we need is people with good imagination, thinking about practical ways of slowing down our global population growth. To my mind, it is the most sensible solution to the majority of our world's problems, including rising average global near-surface air temperatures.

[BadgerJelly]

doogles -

You’re repeating the same mistakes by focusing on a means to slow population growth as if it is the solution. Go to the site Gapminder and take a look at some of the counter intuitive ideas expressed there. Often enough people apply a quick fix solution which seems rational yet does no more than aggravate the problem (the palm oil scheme is merely one example of the myopic nature of human reasoning expressed recently on this forum).

There are two main factors improve the environment - one is decreased population (not an option if you’re against culling humans), and the other is wealth. In wealthier countries there is less polution because people are not overly busy simply trying to survive and have time to look to the future (your post above states this too).

What lies underneath this? Education. A population with a better education can provide more solutions to problems, increase net wealth globally, and thus stem the flow of polution (or so it seems!). There are various predictions about population growth and they all pretty agree that be end of the century the world population will level out at around 11 billion, or thee abouts. We can easily sustain such a population. What is more it appears that we can only ever reach such a population by accelerating global wealth and lessening global poverty ... so while it seems that slowly population growth is a no brainer it is, as far as I can see, actually the worst possible solution to our problems because population growth only comes with a more equal distribution of wealth and reduction of poverty.

I understand that this may sound like crazy talk to many people here.

[doogles]

Did you read this reference BJ. -- Jiang and Hardy (2011; https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 010-9189-7) " ... In addition to the growth of total population size, research shows that changes in population composition (i.e. age, urban–rural residence, and household structure) generate substantial effects on the climate system. Moreover, studies by the impact, vulnerability and adaptation (IAV) community also reveal that population dynamics are critical in the near term for building climate change resilience and within adaptation strategies. This paper explores how global population dynamics affect carbon emissions and climate systems, how recent demographic trends matter to worldwide efforts to adapt to climate change, and how population policies could make differences for climate change mitigation and adaptation." I would be interested in your critique of that paper.

I looked up the Gapminder site you mentioned and the only thing I could find was statistical data. Part of it projected that the world population would be 11 billion by 2100 which you mentioned. That seems a reasonable projected figure from a statistical point of view, but an unsustainable increase to my mind. When you say that we could easily sustain such a population, do you have any references to studies on that -- especially ones that take into account the unsustainability of phosphorus and nitrogen fertilisers for agriculture and also for water storages. And did you take into account the 400 'dead' zones of the oceans caused by run-off from agricultural fertilisers into the oceans? These have adverse effects on our ocean food resources.

I apologise for being unable to understand what you mean by this paragraph -- "What is more it appears that we can only ever reach such a population by accelerating global wealth and lessening global poverty ... so while it seems that slowly population growth is a no brainer it is, as far as I can see, actually the worst possible solution to our problems because population growth only comes with a more equal distribution of wealth and reduction of poverty."

BJ, could you please rephrase it, so that I can comment on it? I'm having difficulty understanding the point.

[davidm]

In wealthier countries there is less pollution because people are not overly busy simply trying to survive and have time to look to the future (your post above states this too).

Really? The two biggest economies in the world are those of the U.S. and China. They are also the two biggest emitters of carbon. China is now No. 1 in that regard; most of the carbon has heretofore been produced by the U.S. The wealthier a nation gets, the more greenhouse gas it emits. This is indisputable. Perhaps wealthy nations cut down on other forms of pollution, but carbon is of course the biggest threat.

Speaking of which: Greenhouse gas emissions accelerate ‘like a speeding freight train’ in 2018

We can easily sustain such a population.

Can we grow more on less land?

Based on current trends, the authors calculated, the world would need to produce 56 percent more calories in 2050 than it did in 2010. If farmers and ranchers met that demand by clearing away more forests and other ecosystems for cropland and pasture, as they have often done in the past, they would end up transforming an area twice the size of India.

That, in turn, could make it nearly impossible to stay below 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, the agreed-upon international goal, even if the world’s fossil-fuel emissions were rapidly phased down. When forests are converted into farmland, the large stores of carbon locked away in those trees is released into the atmosphere.

…population growth only comes with a more equal distribution of wealth and reduction of poverty.

Huh? This certainly is not happening in either the U.S. or China, the world’s two largest economies where population growth continues attended by widening income inequality. It certainly isn’t happening in burgeoning India, either.

…not an option if you’re against culling humans.

Climate change will radically cull the human population, and put an end to civilization.

I understand that this may sound like crazy talk to many people here.

You said it.

[TheVat]

I also had trouble seeing examples of more population growth leading to more equitable distribution of wealth. As Mr Sagan liked to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[BadgerJelly]

My point was not very clear ... my mistake. It was simply that in order to sustain a larger population wealth has to increase. Starvation was prevented by genetics and helped grow the human population - the alternative wouldv’e been allowing millions to starve to death.

Of course we can look at case by case scenarios and say inequality is increasing. That is simply a disingenuous use of the statistics (nothing new there).

Over all I am not looking for a way to “prevent climate change” because I am certain it is a stupid area for humans to target simply because nothing is going to make people like us stop using technology - not enough people are going to give ip their computers, cars, homes, diet, etc.,. Feel free to continue to complain about this and just don’t see the point.

So when I said increase population rather than believe you can magically stem it how about we just push to get where we’re going anyway? The only way to do this is to increase wealth, which is increasing even if you believe otherwise.

It is pretty hard to search for data in these areas because the do-gooder crazies are essentially flooding the intellectual sphere with cherry picked facts and delusional agendas (of which I imagine someone here will promptly start screaming in order to drown out the possibility of facing a problem that we can actually manage now not some fairytale scenario in which everyone suddenly decides to become vegan and move to Africa to provide educational aid and good will).

I am no more concerned about carbon emissions than I am about the the Earth being engulfed by the sun. Both are things beyond our control right now. True enough one is closer than the other, and maybe the generations coming through in the western world have been indoctrinated enough to actually do something - we’ve seen some signs if this in my generation. One thing I can promise you is that most of the people in the most quickly developing countries don’t give a crap about “global warming” because they’re busying themselves getting up to a western standard of living.

As for land ... the big issue is the destruction of habitats for sure. Again, this will be attended to moe when people are wealthy enough to care about such things and there effect. Basically increasing wealth and education is the same as increasing the population to a stable level. We’ll be well on our way there 20-30 yrs I reckon.

[BadgerJelly]

To add, population growth has been falling quite rapidly. Nature is doing its thang! :)

My point was to get to the point where pop. growth is as good as 0%.

As usual I said things backwards. Pop. growth decreases as wealth increases. What I should’ve said was we should be increasing the population NOT population growth. Basically I am saying culling people isn’t a good idea helping them is. I’d also say fatalistic drivel about being “culled” anyway by climate change is silly at best.

The one quick way to lower your carbon footprint is obvious. Generally people prefer not to commit suicide though.

Once healthy food is easily and cheaply available to everyone (which is more and more) and once everyone can cheaply and easily get online (which more and more can), then it is just a matter of watching how things pan out in regards to education and the whole revolution around that deadly importanf area of human development.

A far bigger problem than “climate change” is the idea of nation. I don’t see people protesting about the idiocy of zealot nationalists (aka “patriots”). There are a whole swath of items we can actively attend to. What we cannot do is stop people using the physical power they’ve grown accustomed to, nor look down on other nations and blame them or blame teh market place for selling us stuff we want to buy.

Leave the western world if you think your carbon footprint is too big or simply shut the fuck up. And saying “but I don’t ...” is redundant too because if you live in a country than munches through so much power then you’re indirectly benefiting from the carbon footprints around you.

Globally wealth inequality has plummeted!

The developed countries do churn out muck - what ou going to do about it? Nothing.

[davidm]

Globally wealth inequality has plummeted!

Simply false, as a plain matter of fact.

The remainder of your last two posts are, to put it bluntly, delusional nonsense. Maybe I'll dissect them later, if I have to stomach for it. I know it won't do any good though. I see how you completely ignored the two NY Times articles I linked to you. Don't like the inconvenient truth, eh?

[davidm]

...some fairytale scenario in which everyone suddenly decides to become vegan and move to Africa to provide educational aid and good will).

Here's another inconvenient truth for you to chew on.

Also, who said that everyone should move to Africa and provide educational aid and good will? Did Fox News order you to believe that liberals believe that?

[TheVat]

It's a new moon and the Strawmen are roaming the intellectual landscape.

Let's stick to the topic which was concrete and specific problems (e.g. slash/burn of tropical bog forest, say) that will contribute to anthropogenic global warming, and what practical remedies present themselves and how we can support said remedies. On a personal level, it could be combining a sense of public spirit and service with changes in how we get around, what we pick from the menu, and our general consumer choices. It could be something as mundane as teaching a child to ride a bicycle and nurturing their joy and pride in getting to school and around the neighborhood under their own power rather than being chauffeured by a "soccer mom" in a minivan. Living lighter on a planet can mean better health and fitness, better diet, and developing a sense that we're all in this together.

[BadgerJelly]

Doogles -

There are plenty of papers I’ve read over the years about the amount of people the Earth can sustain. 11 billion is no big deal. The worry is getting to the plateau in one piece.

As far as I can see most economies that have historically been down and out have certainly made major turn arounds over the past several decades (even more so over the latest.). Population growth had been steadily decreasing too. The only thing that could possibly make it rise fast again would be an acceleration in wealth on a global scale (something that is, and has been, happening for quite a while).

This is why I say increasing the population quickly would help, because it can only increase rapidly due to wealth.

Either way my answer is and has been the same for around 8 years now. It is education that makes the serious short and long term differences. The rest is a repercussion of the culture of education - which is now growing more and more out of institutional hands and has been squeezed out of maknstream schooling a reasonable amount by the adoption of a business mentality at all levels of education.

[doogles]

Here's another scientific article suggesting that stabilising human population sooner, rather than later will reduce emissions. It puts population control as its number 1 recommendation.

Roerto Sumiblan Deluna Jr2 (2012; https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/36603/) published an article titled Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Emission in Asia: Effect of Population, Affluence and Energy Efficiency.

Part of his Abstract reads " ... Results showed that 97 percent of the variation in the level of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission could be explained by changes in population, GDP per capita and energy efficiency. Results also confirmed the existence of EKC in Asia, A monotonically upward trend in emissions with increasing income level was observed."

Apropos of the last few posts, it also found that emissions increased with increases in GDP per capita.
It's interesting that the author's first recommendation below is human population stabilisation.
Recommendation:
The result of the study suggests the following:
(1) Stabilize human population sooner rather than later will help reduce future emissions.
(2) Changes in industrial sectors and other sectors that utilize energy to reduce emission using readily available technology. Shifting to wind, solar and geothermal power for all electricity generation could greatly reduce the use of fossil fuels.
(3) Increased appliance and machinery efficiency could lower industrial and residential energy use. In the short term, shifts away from personal vehicles toward mass transit, along with increases in fuel efficiency, can reduce transportation emissions. And in the longer term, use of hydrogen-fueled cars and buses could cut emissions even further.
(4) Finally, increasing funding for further research and development of clean energy technologies can also help move the world from a carbon-based and toward a hydrogen-based energy system.

BadgerJelly, where do you get your info from? This graph does not show a plummeting of world population.

And what about a reference to "11 billion is no big deal"! Please provide some evidence.

I found your references interesting davidm. I don't know that people will give up dairy and meats too easily though. I think it would be more difficult than finding ways to slow down the population growth.

Why do I get the impression that there seems to be a stigma against discussing population control. It will have to be vigorously discussed sooner or later and the sooner the better as far as I can see. If you look at the graph, you will note that it doesn't vary too much from an arithmetic progression. When does 9 billion become 18 billion and the 18 becomes 36, etc.

davidm, your link, Can we grow more on less land?, was interesting. It makes the point that more agriculture for more people will require more land clearing and more fertilisers. Rather than advocate more efficient agriculture to sustain more people, why don't we think about ways in which we can harmoniously lower the rate of population growth. We are, after all supposed to be Homo sapiens.

I notice some use of the word 'cullng' in some posts. That's not an option.

[TheVat]

Why do I get the impression that there seems to be a stigma against discussing population control.

Doog, I don't know. I think the need to get population down to carrying capacity is widely agreed upon by most who have studied the relevant research. If I haven't said much here, it's because I find it blindingly obvious. The stigma seems to be more with totalitarian nightmare scenarios of coldhearted
and draconian measures of culling and sterilizing. But I see nothing repugnant about positive incentives orchestrated towards smaller families, or looking at ways to educate everyone about how ecosystems work and what breaks them down. Or teaching the value to humans of unspoiled wilderness areas to mental health and overall quality of life. Or the spiritual value of living with other species and sharing space with them. I don't think good intentions are of any use without the knowledge of what we lose when we have 12 billion people on the planet.

Where's the sense in reducing per-person emissions if we keep cancelling those reductions by increasing the number of people?

[BadgerJelly]

Doogles -

I said pop growth has fallen not the population. The whole “wealth inequality” issue is more about misrepresentation of the statistics.

[BadgerJelly]

The main tack I’m taking here - in case it wasn’t clear - is that we can talk about what we “need” to do and what would help strengthen our ecological situation for the better, yet this doesn’t really take into account the realistic application of these “requirements.” There are many contradictory factors involved.

First of all we have seen that the more developed a country becomes the lower the population growth; although this is a recent trend not a universally applicable formula to how population growth fluctuates. Today we can see that developed western countries have a low population growth and that generally this pattern is seen no a global scale in today’s situation with poorer nations having higher pop growth - combined the growth has all been falling and we can propose maybe a dozen possible reasons why this is occuring and likely highlight which half of these proposals are likely more significant (with some concerted effort).

Secondly, when it comes to stating a major factor we then have to face up to the uncomfortable task of being honest about whether or not we can actually do anything to make a difference, what kind of plans need to be implimented, what our short ad long term expectations are, and how to adjust and measure the success of said plan/s. We all know it’s likely going to be messy no matter what and that mistakes will inevitably be made. When it comes to food production it would make great sense for the more developed countries with the agricultural know how (technological breakthroughs) to provide sustance to the poorer nations so they can better manage their land rather than go down the road of slash-and-burn-like strategies. This is already kind of implemented by the developed nations in the form of farming subsidies which lower the production value of less developed countries and discourage, in part, a pattern of accelerating agriculture to the detriment of the ecosystem. This isn’t much of a solution either as we’d now find ourselves in a position where we’d have to export the food to developing countries cheapy in order to stop them expanding their food industries - in terms of raw materials (staple foods and other). Now we have a issue of wealth involved and teh problem of how we can provide developing nations with a means of wealth AND sell them food. What can these nations do and why should they not expand (physically) their own agriculture industries; why would they not other than by way of force through the richer nations stranglehold on the market due to subsidizing? No reason. There are means of increasing food production and if these can be allowed to develop properly in the western world (which often they aren’t due to false fears and protests about “genetic engineering” being some evil) then other countries will not be able to adopt these methods and will be forced to expand land usage, eventually, rather than multiply production on the current land they have set aside for food production.

Another issue is trade. Open trade leads to expanding markets, which leads to freight and haulage costs. If we’re going to buy and produce locally good for us ... but what about those without the infrastructure to survive isolated from the world? This is a whole other can of worms regarding the best means to boost global wealth whilst wanting to cut energy usage at the same time.

To look at the targets that are useful ...

People will not give up their personal transport willingly; nor will they pay more to live “greener lives” as much as we may try to do so ourselves the real world shows us it is futile - options are to create cheap and sustainable personal trasport vehicles and/or create a more “global” network of public transport systems maintained and regulated on a non-profit basis (many things could likely improve under global tax systems; but we’d nowhere near this kind of “global regulation” yet - cannot forsee such an idea having serious application for at least 15-20 yrs if I’m overly optimistic). Energy demands currently outweigh anything renewable energy can offer and the sensible cleaner option has been nuclear power for quite some time - this holds within it the issue of technological knowhow and safety concerns (again, suggesting some “global organisation” as a means of nuclear maintenance ; meaning a non-profit well paid profession).

A common theme I hope you see is that the less developed nations are not in a position to function like western societies just yet; some populations of nations are so out on the fringe in regards to wealth that overall humanity is being crippled by them, or rather (and to the point), by our lack of international unity, politicizing of “environmental issues” to dupe, manipulate and deny developing nations for “good” and “bad” outcomes - see the issue of subsidies above and the potential damage it has and could incur in the near future with open markets and fairer trade (another obvious double-edged sword that no mattr what we do someone is going to get hurt and it is more a matter of self-preservation than some “greater good” with the embedded irony of the myopic nature of humans being that of an inability to see with ease that “self-preservation” necessarily means “greater good”.

I don’t personally see how we can look at the physical environment and see this as the be-all and end-all of the human endeavor. I don’t think reductist views of the current ecology can do anything other than fall prey to weak-willed intentions, greedy manipulations, and/or propagandic purposes for politicizing some “opposition” to press up against in order to feel “justified” and “righteous” in our speech and actions.

The only abstract ecological I can see that needs our immediate attention is that of the social economy. We simply haven’t got to grips with how unbelievably entwined we are as a race of peoples and what a immeasureable boon our ability to cooperate and communicate is.

The big solution for me is always about ACCESS. If people have access to information they can do anything and given that I truly believe in humanity I believe the networth of humanity is positive (call me bias!).

Stopping people being people is not an option. Allowing people the opportunity to become all they can become is not only an option we can put into action today it is useful it is essential for coping with growth and change. Saying “stop cutting down the forest!” Isn’t really going to anything other than stoke the fire as far as I’ve seen. The better choice would be to provide better options or think of some to offer them in a realistic manner as quickly as possible. Saying “get rid of your car!” Isn’t going to help. Provide a workable alternative people are open to or open them to the idea of an alternative at the very least.

Everyone here has access to the internet. If you want to help humanity and the world (and that was in essence what originally brought me here after a rather extreme experience) then what canwe do from here? Can we open up communications with people in other developing nations as well as our own and encourage investigation? If there are people online who aboid these discussions thencan they be encouraged to take part rather than being ridiculed and talked down to? Can we reach people who have direct access to the people who woudl most benefit from our combined “stupidity”? Could we produce a programme on this forum where we actively seek out teachers across the globe and offer our “perspectives” as a means of exchange between students, teachers and peoples of different ages, classes, natoinalities and occupations?

I would imagine taking the above proposition as a serious workable programme could be useful. It might fail or we might simply not be up to the task. The question is how willing are you to make a change given you’re already decided upon the current state of the world and the problems of the future we’re going to face - I imagine many would be surprised, and disbelief, about the attitudes people have around the world.