Call me silly, but I prefer the less apocalyptic approach to protecting our planet.
Further development of clean energy sources is preferable to complete and utter contamination and destruction of the Earth by your thermonuclear war.
Yes, that does sound silly..... ;-)
Kurt, I appreciate your presentation of the statistics above.
Mark Twain, my favorite satirist, once said: "There are three kinds of lies; lies, damned lies and statistics." Taking that into consideration, I present the following:
From the United Nations Department of economic and social affairs
21 June 2017"The current world population of 7.6 billion is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to a new United Nations report being launched today. With roughly 83 million people being added to the world's population every year, the upward trend in population size is expected to continue, even assuming that fertility levels will continue to decline....."
The report continues here:
My take away from the report is; at least through 2100, the overall world human population will continue to increase. In fact, if one believes the projections, the planet will have to accommodate an additional 3.2 billion human beings by the beginning of the next century. That is roughly 82 years, or the span of a single human lifetime.
Bringing the conversation back on track, at what point, exactly, do you foresee the actual population of the world beginning to decrease, not just a reduction the rate of growth? Keeping in mind that trends of the past several decades cannot reasonably be expected to represent trends over the next couple of centuries.
In the meantime, it would appear that without alternative energy sources, human beings will continue to dump massive amounts of CO2 into the environment, increasing the temperature of the oceans, which in turn will result in a cascade of changes to the global climate.
My original question still stands, with the human population continuing to expand, how do we accommodate everyone without drastically and negatively changing our planet? From my perspective, it would seem that eliminating the burning of organic fuels and replacing them as a source of energy with technological sources, would go a very long way to accommodate our population growth, at least with regard to stabilizing the climate, food production and water treatment.
Or, we could use Gfe's approach and scrub a few billion people off the planet with thermonuclear weapons......
As I mentioned, I don't know, that wasn't the question I was answering. The question was what do we need to do stop the growth in the areas you discussed. Nothing, since it will take care of itself. First of all why can't the trends be expected to represent what will happen or at least why do they need to reverse. If the trends bottom (or top out in the case of the life expectancy), then time will mean that population growth will eventually stop. Has to.
The other part of that equation, that is even more important in your part of the discussion, is the why both of these are occurring. This seems to be that as the an area becomes more prosperous, they tend to live longer and have fewer babies. But they also tend to consume more.
The other part is that what will these alternative sources contribute in the way of nastiness in their own right? You have to mine certain minerals to make the batteries, you have really nasty chemicals used in the making of solar panels and batteries, etc. Most of the discussion is that these things are all good with no talk about the downsides that they may contribute.
Fuels are but a small part of the equation though. What do you do to the environment to feed these people. House these people? It is simplistic to suggest that carbon footprint is even the main concern.
Prefer conventional. Less damage to the environment.
The problem with the "replacement" argument is people don't die as soon as the baby is born and as you pointed out life expectancy is rising so it is not unusual to have 5 generations still around. That life expectancy rise is sharpest in the 3d world where they are not going to be using high tech energy sources but they all want 20th century conveniences. I saw an interesting factoid about Freon, particularly R12 (the worst one). Years after the protocol to ban production in the developed countries there was actually more being produced because places like China were making a billion new refrigerators for their people.
Oh and the ozone hole still went away, pretty much on it's own.
The flip side of the equation gets little press. When these people are burning down forests and plowing under turf land to grow crops they are removing the natural CO2 sinks. That may be the most insidious effect of population growth particularly in the 3d world where farming is far less efficient. Al Gore's carbon credit idea sounds good on paper but when he buys a tree from a 3d world dictator that may not trickle down to the peasant who thinks he owns that tree and he will burn it for firewood as soon as he needs it.
Your interpretation of the statistics stands in stark contrast with those of the United Nations, who projects the world population will continue to increase. And, if you have been following the thread, the overriding question was, just how do we reduce the world population or "scrub a few billion people off the planet".
We have copious data on the environmental impact associated with the production and burning of organic fuels, oil, coal, methane, wood, etc.
Do you have actual data or are you speculating about the environmental impact associated with the production of alternative energy technology? If you have data, do you have any comparative analysis of the impact of the two categories, organic v. alternative?
Without empirical supporting data and analysis, it would seem rather careless to suggest or even, coyly imply that alternative energy production could remotely approach the level of environmental impact of organic fuels.
Energy is the main concern with accommodating the projected 11.2 billion people that will be present by 2100.
Energy is key to the production and delivery of clean water, food, shelter and waste conversion.
"Clean" energy is the key to minimizing the impact human beings inflict upon the climate of the planet.
Clean "renewable" energy sources are a key societal stabilizing factor. With ever more people competing for ever more scarce organic fuels, human beings will do what is in our nature and we will engage in more and more conflicts to ensure that, as individuals, we each "get our own" with little regard for the needs of others.
When energy production and distribution becomes clean, renewable, sustainable, plentiful and efficient, the quality of life will likely improve for the collective human population. This certainly cannot and will not happen if we remain dependent upon organic fuels.
Tree-hugging snowflake....... ;-)
Not sure what "the problem" is. As technological energy sources become more affordable and produce ever greater ROI, the rate of adoption amongst the less affluent countries will increase.
Additionally, as this is an issue of global impact, it benefits wealthier countries to assist poorer countries increase the rate of alternative energy production.
A side benefit that should please the xenophobes among us is, more plentiful energy production in poorer nations will serve to stem the migration of populations. Energy impacts virtually all aspects of human existence.
Not that I am interested in following you down the ozone rabbit hole, but, the ozone depletion issue has NOT gone away. It is simply getting less coverage in the media. See:
The part above, I also mentioned that I wasn't a demographer and that was a guess. Never said otherwise. You pointed out another more rigorous suggestion.
If you had been following the thread, you were wondering how were supposed to stop growth in those countries. They are already near the stop growth part. Growth is based on how many babies are being made. Period. Those that already here continuing to live longer than they used to is a different part of the puzzle.
There are numerous places where you can see the types of nasty things that happen for these things. Lithium mines for instance. There is a long and well established bias against the exact kind of comparisons you are asking for. For example, they came up with tailpipe admissions to pretend there are fewer enviormental impacts. This sorta ignores the pollution needed to make the electricity.
But the data isn't available because people aren't looking at using things like tailpipe emissions which is pretty much irrelevant for electric cars. It is at least as careless to suggest that they are environmentally friendly for the same reason.
You know that how in any way that is reproducible when others look at the information.
Nah. I just am a fan of Albert Nobel. :)
Not being one to parse words, I must disagree. If you re-read my posts, you will see I asked how anyone proposed to "scrub a few billion people off the planet", I also asked how trader proposed to deal with several nations when it came to scrubbing people from the planet.
So, speculation, thanks, that is all you needed to say.
Just because data isn't available, that is not license to speculate. Such behavior is the purview of religions.
My statement above was clearly opinion as I did not attempt to support it with statistics of citations. Would you like to discuss and refute the obvious logic that went into formulating the opinion?
It appeared you were fine with introducing opinions based upon your assertion about the inevitable reduction in world population.
Ahh, the smell of dynamite, C-4 and RDX in the morning. Brings back memories.......
The problem is we are still not addressing the other side of the equation, the loss of the ecosystems that absorb CO2, mostly due to the agriculture necessary to feed the population and the homes they live in.
That problem will be diminished by reducing the amount of CO2 put into the environment.
Are you suggesting much poorer nations should refrain from developing their territories and feeding their populations so that wealthier nations can continue dumping massive amounts of CO2 into the environment? What is your solution for the issue you raised?
Lastly, according to the following paper in the journal Nature, the oceans are the largest sink for anthropogenic carbon dioxide, absorbing 40% of the CO2.
See:
Why pick those then? The Western Countries are the biggest. With the exception of China and Brazil, all of those together have populations that are but small parts of the problem.
Not at all, at least no more speculation than your suggestions. You get upset about ME parsing words?
The data isn't available at your end either. But that isn't speculation?
No, because I see nothing obvious about it.
Still stands. At sometime when fertility rates and the life expectancy stabilizes, world population has to reduce. If you have fewer births, eventually you have to start downward. Heck we are seeing this in the US. For years the largest percentage of the net growth has been in immigrants. The "local" population has been shrinking in growth since the end of the Boomers, with a little bump as the Boomers hit child bearing age. Even with Immigration, our growth rate has declined. Japan, which has less immigration, had has negative growth over the last couple of decades. Europe may well soon. So, there is ample evidence that there is an inevitable reduction. The question is how soon. And for that I was rather ill advised to make such a quick judgement.
Don't go all Apocolypse Now on me. :)
At least we can agree on one point......... ;-)
Good discussion.
Yeah. Let's quit while we are ahead. :)
We can keep going if you prefer, it seemed to be getting a little stale, might have been my imagination.
And as pointed out, why must I explain how to deal with every country? Even if the US reduced it's population growth rate there would be benefit. It's like saying we shouldn't do anything about any problem unless we can get every country to also do it. And it will have a direct, significant impact on environmental problems here. Less population, less garbage to dispose, less roads to build, less covering of the urban landscape with pavement, less power lines to build, etc.
No, I'm done/ We were about to the point where we likely to start repeating ourselves, and that is always a good place to stop. Then we don't run the risk of talking AT each other and not TO each other.
Good grief. All Gfre is saying is that there are TWO sides to the equation. If you have less people, you will have less pollution, less competition for the earth's resources, less deforestation. I can't believe you're still arguing against that, including with images of genocide.
Agreed, that's two points. ;-)
Come on Charlie Brown, (good grief? really?), take a another run at the football. Muggles is holding t for you. ;-)
For the record, I am convinced human beings, as a whole, are currently dumping far too much CO2 into the environment.
I am also convinced there is virtually no possibility of intentionally and peacefully reducing the population of the planet, certainly not within the next century and certainly not below our current levels. As none of you have been able to provide any peaceful, sane methods for reducing the overall global population, my perspective remains unchanged.
Resultantly, with an ever increasing population (into the foreseeable future, according to the UN), the only realistic approach to reducing CO2, is to reduce the amount anthropogenic carbon dioxide being dumped. The only way I know of doing that is to change how we produce potential and kinetic energy.
If you actually know how to reduce the global population below today's levels, or, if you know how to technically and economically absorb and safely dispose of anthropogenic carbon dioxide, please, share those solutions. The entire world would like to know.
I will say it again Trader, please elucidate, how do we reduce the GLOBAL population? How do we reduce anthropogenic carbon dioxide? Be specific, please!
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