Peterkin

That's quite true, and I know some African nations are making efforts (Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and Ghana) toward renewable energy sources, but it's unclear how many have the financial capability, coupled with the political stability to carry out a comprehensive long-range plan. They are also struggling with outmoded infrastructure and transportation - and soon be faced with skyrocketing temperatures and the life-and-death importance of refrigeration and air conditioning. They may not be able to wait for the cost and feasibility of green energy installations on the scale required to be within reach. Lots of challenges!

It should be ample, if the present trend continues. Those numbers do not account for the future development of developing nations, where the current birth rate is higher than the mortality rate and the population is still growing and young enough to keep growing for some time, in contrast to the much older American population. Those faster-growing nations will have not only increasing demand for energy, resources and consumer goods, as well as food and water, with a commensurate increase in the per capita carbon footprint. Meanwhile, Europen and North American demographics are changing rapidly through immigration, which, in turn, will alter the fertility pattern as well as the ethnicity, age and dispersion of populations. (and cause a whole lot of xenophobic hostility) However, that only seems to last one generation; the birth rate of immigrants declines as their economic and educational attainment rise. This is far down the document (all of which is interesting), under the heading Family and Living Arrangements. There is a very strong link between economic well-being and lower fertility. It's been cited enough times: if you want people to have fewer babies, give the babies they already have a better prospect of life. The IPCC can collect the information and tell governments what they "should" do to improve their situation, but has no power to make them follow its advice.

By far the better option is vat production of meat, as it would liberate vast areas of land for oxygen-producing plants. Some of those could be grain for human consumption - rather than for feedlots and biodiesel. Of course, for long-term and large scale sustainability, the meat culture industry has to become more efficient and make use of clean energy sources. This is a very thorough analysis: The scale of cattle production required for the very high levels of beef consumption modeled here would result in significant global warming, but it is not yet clear whether cultured meat production would provide a more climatically sustainable alternative. Urban food production has to be improved and increased, to reduce transport, improve the air and supply fresh vegetables and fruit to the population. Not a bad community building strategy, either. But that doesn't mean we don't also need to stop growth in both numbers of people and their demand for more energy, more manufactured goods, more more mobility; most importantly, we have to reduce waste. Less economic disparity might help, too.

That second, self-contained monetary reward already manifests in at least two generations: a higher standard of living, more parental supervision and care (fewer accidents and shorter illness periods - less medical expense and work-time lost) and much fewer childbearing years, (so that women can return to the work-force at a young age, when they still have advancement prospects.) But that's only a viable issue in societies where birth control is readily available and women have the freedom to choose... which is currntly limited to 'modern industrial' countries - and some of them are clawing back both freedom of choice and access. However, the pandemic has been a boon to population control. I don't just mean the number of people who have died and will die, but the birth-rate itself. Uncertainty and anxiety have motivated couples to think harder about the future and refrain from or put off having more babies. Of course, the put off segment may cause a huge baby boom if/when they feel secure again - unless they've discovered, in the meantime, the benefits of not having babies. However, it's been devastating to the planet in waste-production. While air quality generally improved when industries and city centers were locked down, the manufacturing sector is set to resume in the same old way, only with more robots, that require more energy, but fewer employees.

Solid fencing, stalwart policing and absolutely no razor wire. What insane maniac invented that stuff? I don't see where you'd put a checkpoint and I imagine most of these people won't wear masks anyway. Just put up a few cameras.

Very true. But would you ask them for romantic advice, a loan or to stay over for Christmas? I think it just produced yet another level of friendship. We used to have best friends, close friends, family friends, school friends, work friends and mutual friends (another couple, one of whom is a close friend of a spouse, or the old friend of someone to whom we recently grew close) and even pen friends. Now we also have a low level of relationship brought about by 'friending' someone - a stranger with whom we have a superficial sympathy - and friend a foe lists - people with whom often agree or disagree. The word is worn out, but the relationships haven't changed very much - only diluted in intensity.

Because those "some" people restrict their movements to their near vicinity. They may be old and/or frail, so that mobility is physically difficult for them, or recent immigrants, uncertain of the language and mores of their new country, or children, who can only go outside the range of home-school-babysitter-friends' houses with adult accompaniment, or home-workers, farm wives, stay-at-home mothers who have no independent transport, or lives so busy that they have no time go anywhere. The "others" may have jobs, social activities, clubs, sports, classes or hobbies far from their homes and meet people there who live farther away. It's more a question of access and exposure than personality.

Might be easier to peel them off the fence if/when they try to climb over than to conceal thousands of police on the capitol grounds. Further problems such a move might entail: unnecessary casualties on both sides; escalation of hostilities; police defections with a resultants lack of cohesion in their ranks. The whole situation is so fraught right now, any incident can potentially set off a major confrontation.

Sorry, I phrased that wrong. I meant that completes my contribution to this topic.

You're welcome. I have handed in my homework.

No, I was wrong https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/households-debt-to-gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/households-debt-to-gd It's big in numbers, only fifth or so in standing. It must be somebody else's turn to look something up - no?

Which carries an enormous - without looking it up, I'll venture to guess, the biggest in the world - debt-load, both in personal and public finances. Which, in turn, does limit the range of opportunities available both to individuals and government.

It was about debt and whether debt decreases opportunity. That's pretty vague. In general, debt is people borrowing money and people lending money, at interest. How that affects the economy of a nation varies according to how much is borrowed, who borrows it, how it's used and whom it benefits. I have attempted to cover some aspects of national debt and consumer debt and how each might affect the economy. If my efforts are inadequate, at least they're sincere. Wait, what? Will you please clarify what you’re trying to say here? I'm saying that there are some government services that are funded by contributions such as paycheck deductions benefit the same people who contributed to them. Welfare programs, Medicaid, and other social services benefit people who live in the country where they pay income tax and sales tax and property tax. When they get that money, they spend it on food and rent and interest payments on their cars and gasoline and hydro and cable bills and their children's shoes. They support the businesses and sevrices in their community. Whatever tax revenues that spending generates also go to the same government. A trans- or multinational corporation can invest its profits in any country in which operates, and not pay tax on those profits in the country where the profits were made. And the individual share-holders are even more free to take profits out of the economy. Capital is mobile; government and workers are border-bound.

I've supported my claims. I'm asking you to support yours.

The 'opinion pieces' (only a fraction of the actual cost of the armaments industry) are backed up by some pretty solid numbers and research. If you see the balance tipping in favour of the American taxpayer, I'd like to see the figures. Thing 1 about government spending : how much is borrowed to cover it and who collects the interest? Thing 2 about government spending: How much does it benefit the nation as a whole? Thing 3 about government spending: What is the ratio of contribution to benefit? Certainly, the revenue for the export of military ordnance is big $ figures, but the profit goes to the shareholders of those corporations, who can use or reinvest it however they want. It might stay in the same economy that generated the profits or go wherever they take it. But the government contracts have to come from the taxpayers and the incidental costs have to be borne by the taxpayers. The other government expenditures, whether financed from contributions or with loans or a combination, the recipients of those moneys stay inside the country, spend it inside the country and create some wealth that doesn't jeopardize people or have to be neutralized later at the expense of the same people who paid for making it and paid again for moving it around and paid again for cleaning up after it and paid again for the damage it did to their environment. Maybe not, but it seems to to jump for every war. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/the-long-story-of-us-debt-from-1790-to-2011-in-1-little-chart/265185/ Not one bullet or bomb or shattered jeep is ever coming back into the US economy, but the interest payments still have to be kept up after they're gone.

I just lost an entry with three quotes, but I'll try to retrieve them. That's just making them. Then, there are the waste products And when you don't want them anymore, destroying them. That doesn't even get into transportation, storage and guarding, and it doesn't even approach the waste form the factories themselves, the cost of cleaning those up, or the health hazards they cause the surrounding communities.

Some of the money spent goes into the economy. Munitions manufacturers employ workers who pay taxes and live in the US. Does that offset the debt servicing and environmental cost the government undertakes? Half of what they manufacture is shipped - at great cost to the taxpayer - overseas to be blown up (none of that raw material or human labour is coming back into the economy). The other half (47%) is exported to foreign countries - including those unfriendly to US interests, and which sales encourage future wars and diplomatic embroilments that will cost the US more down the line. The shareholders pay as little tax as possible and take the profits wherever they want to. They also import many expensive components, shipping more tax-money abroad. And they add nothing tangible to welfare of the population ... no, that's not quite true: municipalities can buy outmoded tanks and bazookas for their police at quite reasonable prices. Their hospitals get lots of casualties. On the whole, I strongly suspect th arms industry, in spite of $multi-billion role in the economy is a net drain, if we tallied all the peripheral costs that rarely appear on ledgers. Hypothetically Hence the word "can". It has happened on several occasions, in several countries. If it happens in a major economic power, it can topple others. No, it's a problem all the time, for all parties, at all levels of government, and for a great many, if not the majority of families. The polarization of politics merely exacerbates the accumulation of debt at all levels, as does lack of regulation.

Business debt is the least of it. The two big problem areas are national and household debt. The first is largely spent on military ordnance, which returns no benefits or profits, but the interest can grow to be crippling to the entire economy. Even before that, it's used by conservatives, who pay the least tax, to reduce social services to the working people who pay most taxes, and defund government agencies like FEMA and CDC. In a natural or man-made disaster, such agencies are incapacitated and the damage mounts up, so that governments have to borrow even more. On the household level, student debt or mortgage debt can very severely restrict an individual's or family's freedom to take advantage of opportunities that involve any financial risk. Marginal earners, with insecure employment, have to get to work - often two part-time jobs in opposite directions. They either rely on the inadequate-to-execrable public transport (that we 'can't afford' to improve because of municipal, state/provincial or national debt) or have to buy a car. They don't clear enough to make large monthly payments, so they buy used cars at a much higher interest rate than well-to-do people with good credit, and pay out more over time than they would have on a new car that didn't need so many repairs. For the repairs, they resort to credit cards at $25-30% - they have no choice: if they can't get to work, they lose the job and the car is repossessed - but they still have to pay off the credit card, only with less income. So they get sick, and of course marginal employers don't provide health insurance and low-paid workers can't afford private plans. One ambulance ride or hospital stay, or even just tests and drugs, can wipe out the foreseeable finances of a whole family: they spend all of their disposable income paying off massive debt. No education for those kids! No better apartment, and no risk-taking for the parents: they'll have to take whatever job they can get and put up with whatever it entails. Meanwhile, the money-lending industry makes stupefying profits, without creating any material wealth. The shareholders can do as they please with those profits: they are under no obligation to reinvest any profit in the country that produced it. After whatever tax they can't evade, they can take that money to China or bury it in Bitcoin or salt it away in secret offshore accounts. When the investment industry overheats and causes a depression, millions of debtors default. Manufacturing is already a shrinking and soon-to-be extinct source of employment with benefits and salaries as robots take over. Career opportunities expand in professions with long, expensive training, that add nothing new to the GDP, even though they funnel large quantities of money from one bank to another, many of them increasing consumer debt. There is a good chance of a single climate event or political folly collapsing the economy.

Curbing interest rates might help, as well. Fundamentally, Capitalism runs on debt: having to pay your investors back with interest is an incentive to grow (whether growth is needed or not, beneficial or harmful), which tends to generate more debt, etc. But it can be kept functioning for quite a long time with commensurate taxation and very strict regulation. Those are the somethings that need to be done in the very near future. Whether they can be done is a different matter:the opposition is powerful and growing.

Yes, but they rarely come armed with carefully selected counter-data. In this instance, the question was: It follows a scatter-shot refutation of some of "these claims". Anyone want to address this part?: I shudder even to contemplate it. I realize that's a reflexive, emotional reaction rather than a scientific one - it's just that I'm partial to whales.

That ^^ certainly poses a threat to all of us. Of course, many of the migrants will die along the way and not be recorded as victims of heat. In fact, record-keeping will become impossible as fatalities mount up from the cumulative effects - including energy system breakdowns as the demand for cooling grows in industrial nations. Of course, an even bigger question is: What will all those people drink and eat? But, never mind, they might not even be able to breathe. The fact of an occurrence being not unusual doesn't preclude its size, intensity and frequency being unusual. Maybe not Siberia. But that certainly poses a threat to all of us. Of course, many of the migrants will die along the way and not be recorded as victims of heat. In fact, record-keeping will become impossible as fatalities mount up from the cumulative effects - including energy system breakdowns as the demand for cooling grows in industrial nations. Of course, an even bigger question is: What will all those people drink and eat? But, never mind, they might not even be able to breathe. The fact of an occurrence being not unusual doesn't preclude its size, intensity and frequency being unusual. Sorry about repeating myself there; can't seem to edit out the mistake.

You can't see the difference in glaciers? Or the polar ice? Why would NASA fake this data? Why Russia for fires, cyclones in Australia, and hurricanes in the US? Why not fires in Spain, droughts in India, floods in France? ... Better still, why not compare overall predictability of weather, or change in patterns in any one place over time, or a combination of extreme summer and winter weather on one continent? Or insurance statistics in one country? There are so many factors in climate change, so many kinds of manifestation and so many sources of information, it's hard to get a clear overall picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm1p9mE9RBw

He understood far more than the concept: he understood the importance of faith as a unifying force - which Jesus apparently had not, but Paul did and Constantine used. Of course, that was before Christian sects broke away in all directions and started fighting one another. The language of prophets is not an issue, since they speak to different peoples, under different historical conditions. I think we've pretty much exhausted any commonality between religion and physics.

I didn't say both were correct. I said the analogy of Newton-Einstein and Jesus-Muhammad was good: in both cases, the person who lived later had the other's ideas to draw on. However, With science, we can test hypotheses and measure the degree of accuracy of any prediction. With prophets, we have no way of measuring or testing the "correctness" of their pronouncements and denouncments. We have no standard of comparison for any two prophets' degree of accuracy; we don't even know how to interpret the meaning of their prophecies.