climate change

[Intoscience]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

And AFAIK the only way to artificially alter the number of humans on the planet, is murder and there's A LOT wrong with that.

Produce a virus and leak it, to kill off the vulnerable, reset economy, and divert attention, claiming it as a pandemic. 

I'm not advocating this, but I have heard such conspiracy theories doing the rounds.

 

But it does get you thinking - 

Less humans = less carbon emissions? Does this equate?  

[dimreepr]

5 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

Less humans = less carbon emissions? Does this equate?  

It depends on which half/third the Galgemesh decided to eliminate...

God damn it, now I'm going to have to listen to"The hitchhikers guild to the galaxy" again. 😆 

Edited March 30, 2023 by dimreepr

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

Produce a virus and leak it, to kill off the vulnerable, reset economy, and divert attention, claiming it as a pandemic. 

Couple of things about that: Thing 1: Viruses already exist, and are already coming for the vulnerable; they don't need any help, though they're getting plenty from the lunatic right. Thing 2: Explain about resetting the economy - who is expected to do this, where, on what scale, by what measures?

 

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

Less humans = less carbon emissions? Does this equate?  

Not necessarily, if the remainder, bereft of human labour to create all the stuff for them resort to more and more mechanization, which requires energy production: an automated world of super-consumers can still be overheated.

It would be wiser to reduce population voluntarily, by empowering women to control their own fertility. Not so very strangely, the same political entities that oppose reproductive rights also oppose ecological initiatives.  

[Genady]

34 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

It would be wiser to reduce population voluntarily

What for? Why to reduce population at all?

[TheVat]

Population reduction seems like a complex issue that is as much about quality of life as about species viability.  (And what humans value, as to the quality, would be another thread.  If you like lots of wilderness to hike in, then the world probably got too crowded for your taste around 1800.  If you like big cities and all they offer, then you might be content with a larger number.)

The question here would be what population is sustainable, i.e. doesn't eventually collapse the ecosystems that support us.  I would take a WAG at 3 billion.  

[Peterkin]

43 minutes ago, Genady said:

Why to reduce population at all?

Because we're using up the resources and killing every other species - that was happening before we heated up the atmosphere and threatened nuclear holocaust. The more crowded we are, the crazier we get. 

[Genady]

1 minute ago, Peterkin said:

Because we're using up the resources and killing every other species - that was happening before we heated up the atmosphere and threatened nuclear holocaust. The more crowded we are, the crazier we get. 

Then the answer is reduction of the craziness. 

[Peterkin]

 

 

 

 

 

40 minutes ago, Genady said:

Then the answer is reduction of the craziness.

Okay. How? Given the present state of politics, economics, religiosity and environmental conditions - who [bearing in mind there is no unanimous "we", only individuals and organizations] should be doing what, how where and with what resources?  

 

[Genady]

52 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Okay. How? Given the present state of politics, economics, religiosity and environmental conditions - who [bearing in mind there is no unanimous "we", only individuals and organizations] should be doing what, how where and with what resources?  

 

Unlike reducing population, reducing craziness consists of a set of separate goals, which perhaps will require different answers. Answers pertaining to this thread's topic are known. Reducing population, as you know, will not necessarily solve this problem, and is not easier than other answers. It will not necessarily solve other components of the craziness either.

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, Genady said:

reducing craziness consists of a set of separate goals, which perhaps will require different answers.

Nolne of which you have supplied, any more than have all the overcrowded, overstressed civilizations - without even mentioning the enormous profits to be gleaned from the craziness. 

2 hours ago, Genady said:

Reducing population, as you know, will not necessarily solve this problem, and is not easier than other answers.

It happens automatically with improved living conditions, lower infant mortality, the liberation and education of women. 

Let's try both and see which works better.

[MigL]

All the 'crazies' are already trying to reduce the population in the US, by shooting  as many school kids as possible, every other week.

I don't think that's helping ...

[Genady]

9 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

improved living conditions, lower infant mortality, the liberation and education of women

This would be good to achieve regardless of it resulting or not in reducing population and regardless of such reduction solving or not any of the problems such as "using up the resources and killing every other species ... heat[ing] up the atmosphere and threaten[ing] nuclear holocaust." 

But, to achieve the above, it is not clear, "[g]iven the present state of politics, economics, religiosity and environmental conditions - who [bearing in mind there is no unanimous "we", only individuals and organizations] should be doing what, how where and with what resources", and if we have time to do it and to see the results.

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

But, to achieve the above, it is not clear, "[g]iven the present state of politics, economics, religiosity and environmental conditions - who [bearing in mind there is no unanimous "we", only individuals and organizations] should be doing what, how where and with what resources", and if we have time to do it and to see the results.

We know exactly which organizations and individuals should be doing what. We also know that they are refusing or failing to do it in a timely and effective manner. It's just not in the immediate interest of the powerful to facilitate the long-term welfare of the powerless. In climate change mitigation, in population control, in economic reform, in political compromise or in the preservation of ecosystems.

The only things be we can be quite sure of: a growing, hungry, threatened human race will not improve the situation.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Peterkin

[Genady]

57 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

We know exactly which organizations and individuals should be doing what. We also know that they are refusing or failing to do it in a timely and effective manner. It's just not in the immediate interest of the powerful to facilitate the long-term welfare of the powerless. In climate change mitigation, in population control, in economic reform, in political compromise or in the preservation of ecosystems.

The only things be we can be quite sure of: a growing, hungry, threatened human race will not improve the situation.

In the light / darkness of the above, what did you mean when you said, "Let's try both and see which works better?" How can we try anything at all?

[iNow]

3 hours ago, MigL said:

All the 'crazies' are already trying to reduce the population in the US, by shooting  as many school kids as possible, every other week.

I don't think that's helping ...

It’s actually 12 per day. Leading cause of death among US children, above car crashes and cancers and other similar. 
 

https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/blog/gun-violence/17-facts-about-gun-violence-and-school-shootings/

Quote

1. Each day 12 children die from gun violence in America. Another 32 are shot and injured.¹

2. Guns are the leading cause of death among American children and teens. 1 out of 10 gun deaths are age 19 or younger.² 

 

3. In fact, firearm deaths occur at a rate more than 5 times higher than drownings.³

 

4. Since Columbine in 1999, more than 338,000 students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence at school.⁴ 

 

5. There were more school shootings in 2022 -46- than in any year since Columbine. This mirrored America’s broader rise in gun violence as it emerged from the pandemic.⁴  However, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security research shows that if we “know the signs” of gun violence, we can prevent it and reverse the trend.⁵

 

6. In 2022, 34 students and adults died while more than 43,000 children were exposed to gunfire at school.⁴ 

 

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

How can we try anything at all?

There is no "we". Each of us can try to to affect what we are able to reach. Voting, writing letters, protesting, getting arrested, turning off the air conditioner, donating money, eating less meat, practicing birth control, picking the slugs off our lettuces by hand instead of setting out poison traps.   We can each do something.

[iNow]

Of course each individual drop contributes to the water in our bucket which itself will eventually overflow, but change at the scale we need requires more buckets more than it requires more tiny drops. 

Edited March 31, 2023 by iNow

[Genady]

31 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

There is no "we". Each of us can try to to affect what we are able to reach. Voting, writing letters, protesting, getting arrested, turning off the air conditioner, donating money, eating less meat, practicing birth control, picking the slugs off our lettuces by hand instead of setting out poison traps.   We can each do something.

I didn't ask, what you can do. I've asked,

 

2 hours ago, Genady said:

In the light / darkness of the above, what did you mean when you said, "Let's try both and see which works better?"

For the reference, here is where you said it:

 

5 hours ago, Peterkin said:

It happens automatically with improved living conditions, lower infant mortality, the liberation and education of women. 

Let's try both and see which works better.

 

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

I didn't ask, what you can do.

for reference, I attempted to answer:

3 hours ago, Genady said:

How can we try anything at all?

Not:

3 hours ago, Genady said:

In the light / darkness of the above, what did you mean when you said, "Let's try both and see which works better?"

The answer to which is: It was rhetorical. Obviously, neither your solution of reducing craziness while population continues to grow, or mine of reducing population through reproductive freedom and improved living conditions, which I believe would incidentally reduce the craziness, will ever be tried by any non-existent collective humanity that could be encompassed by the theoretical "we" that should be doing what we each think should be done.

[Genady]

6 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

for reference, I attempted to answer:

Not:

The answer to which is: It was rhetorical. Obviously, neither your solution of reducing craziness while population continues to grow, or mine of reducing population through reproductive freedom and improved living conditions, which I believe would incidentally reduce the craziness, will ever be tried by any non-existent collective humanity that could be encompassed by the theoretical "we" that should be doing what we each think should be done.

Very well, it clarifies your response. To clarify the last, I hope, misunderstanding I want to point out that my word "we" referred to "us" in your "let's". IOW, it was a rhetorical "we" rather than some non-existent collective humanity that could be encompassed by the theoretical "we".

[MonDie]

11 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

There is no "we". Each of us can try to to affect what we are able to reach. Voting, writing letters, protesting, getting arrested, turning off the air conditioner, donating money, eating less meat, practicing birth control, picking the slugs off our lettuces by hand instead of setting out poison traps.   We can each do something.

I agree, the cows need to stop reproducing.

Feel-free to Popper or Whewell me on this.

Define "crazy."  That's your hypothesis (Step 2), which solves an emergent system, and regarding the system:  Are the inputs clearly observable or at least definable, or the outputs?  Are some inputs potentially wrong or still unknown?  Is the whole system and its outputs complex and noisy, or homogeneous and null?  Can you tell?  Can you observe the whole system well, or the relevant outputs?

1. Observe precedes 2. Hypothesize.  You can "work backward" (i.e. backward chaining) or work forward.  To falsify, reduce to definable inputs that constrain emergent outputs.  Assuming this isn't just philosophy, some inputs are ill-defined, wrong, or obscuring/obscured.  Try working backward.

Working backward ramble, because WTH:

The biosphere isn't a big ball of gas, and we aren't rocks, we're endotherms.  If the biosphere receives unexpected complicating inputs, they are likely biological and metabolic, and the single most likely complicating input is us, a lot of us.  Except, it's in an indirect way, because our brains have invented extended homeostasis with artificial metabolism.  A brain will tell you that brains and their conversations are notoriously hard to reduce, but their metabolism is simpler, and inventions simpler still.  We need to simplify their metabolism by removing the livestock animals and the extensive enclosures, or by integrating them with the natural ecosystems.  The sun's nuclear fusion and the chloroplast (/cyanobacteria) are nature's ultimate power source, and man-made systems clearly subvert this, unintentionally destabilizing species, ecosystems and the biosphere.  Blam!  There it is!  We subvert the natural metabolic order because we're hungry, cold, and artificially smart.  Applied to livestock farming, we are growing cows instead of growing photosynthetic food for wild bovines, which would be more sustainable???

Sorry, it has been more than a decade.

[Intoscience]

15 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Couple of things about that: Thing 1: Viruses already exist, and are already coming for the vulnerable; they don't need any help, though they're getting plenty from the lunatic right. Thing 2: Explain about resetting the economy - who is expected to do this, where, on what scale, by what measures?

I didn't post this conspiracy to defend (i'm not advocating it). It was just angle to come from regarding "artificial population control".

However, for those who are advocating it, if you believe certain governments or organisations are ruthless enough to commit mass genocide, and find a way to cover it up. Then what better than using a virus that can be disguised as natural and consistent with other similar historical pandemics. Regarding the economy, it was greatly affected by the pandemic. re-set? well that's another subject. 

16 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Not necessarily, if the remainder, bereft of human labour to create all the stuff for them resort to more and more mechanization, which requires energy production: an automated world of super-consumers can still be overheated

One could argue that smaller population = less resource requirements = less consumer demands = reduced industry = reduction in energy, thus carbon emissions. Probably not as straight forward as this, but you could easily see the basic logic behind it. 

[CharonY]

8 hours ago, Intoscience said:

One could argue that smaller population = less resource requirements = less consumer demands = reduced industry = reduction in energy, thus carbon emissions. Probably not as straight forward as this, but you could easily see the basic logic behind it. 

Given all the same parameters of course a smaller population has likely fewer emission, though it would depend on other factors, too. Things like travel and energy use can be big factors.  Canada has about four times the per capita emission of Switzerland, for example. This is of course an imperfect comparison as in a globalized economy carbon emissions can be outsourced, but at least taken at face value, 3 billion Canadians would produce as much as 12 billion Swiss folks. That would cover the range from the proposed 3 billion sustainable population to the likely maximum population that we are going to see.

On 3/30/2023 at 1:16 AM, Intoscience said:

They don't like the idea of losing big sums of money that will affect their current wealth and/or status in order to mitigate a disaster that is (to most of them) far enough in the future that it's not likely to impact them personally. 

And if it does, they will just up sticks with along with their wedge of cash and find the highest hill to live on. 

To be fair, most folks do not like substantial changes in their day-to-day. Folks railed against simple measures like seat belts and masks. Having to have to change habits or convenience in any sudden way usually results in sever pushback, and this is often something folks with power can leverage. 

Things change either slowly, require legislation or have to freak out folks enough that they are willing to do something. A level-headed cost-benefit calculation only seems works for some folks some of the time.

[Peterkin]

10 hours ago, Intoscience said:

re-set? well that's another subject. 

It was your word; your suggestion. I merely asked for an explanation of what that means or entails.

On 3/30/2023 at 8:45 AM, Intoscience said:

Produce a virus and leak it, to kill off the vulnerable, reset economy, and divert attention, claiming it as a pandemic. 

 

10 hours ago, Intoscience said:

One could argue that smaller population = less resource requirements = less consumer demands = reduced industry = reduction in energy, thus carbon emissions.

I believe this to be case. Thus: probably, but not necessarily.

12 hours ago, MonDie said:

I agree, the cows need to stop reproducing.

The cows need to stop being tortured.

13 hours ago, MonDie said:

Define "crazy." 

Out of touch with reality, delusional, disoriented, irrational, out of conscious control. Thinking, communicating and behaving in ways that are inimical to own and others' wellness and security; disruptive to social order; ultimately threatening survival. E.g. bulldozing the forests that produce oxygen essential to life; electing violent megalomaniacs and compulsive liars to the highest public offices, shooting schoolchildren and drug addicts, bombing orchards, poisoning rivers, attacking health care workers.... 

 

13 hours ago, MonDie said:

Applied to livestock farming, we are growing cows instead of growing photosynthetic food for wild bovines, which would be more sustainable???

+/-260,000,000 years vs 10,500 years and counting down fast, I would definitely peg the wild ones as more sustainable.  

 

13 hours ago, MonDie said:

That's your hypothesis (Step 2), which solves an emergent system, and regarding the system:  Are the inputs clearly observable or at least definable, or the outputs?  Are some inputs potentially wrong or still unknown?  Is the whole system and its outputs complex and noisy, or homogeneous and null?  Can you tell?  Can you observe the whole system well, or the relevant outputs?

Pretty much. Universe 25 and Twitter.

[Ken Fabian]

16 hours ago, Intoscience said:

One could argue that smaller population = less resource requirements = less consumer demands = reduced industry = reduction in energy, thus carbon emissions. Probably not as straight forward as this, but you could easily see the basic logic behind it. 

Seems like most of the calls for less population are for less poor people, not less high consuming people - ie less of the people who are least responsible. In order to allow high consuming by the lucky fewer to continue? I think population control and especially deliberate population reductions will continue to be legitimately seen as great crimes against humanity, made more vile if it intended to leave some of humanity temporarily better off at the expense of the rest. It will be counterproductive; it will be the strengthening of our rules of law and reducing corruption that gets better results, not the taking of such things into the hands of criminal conspirators.

In any case I think our primary energy can zero emissions energy and be abundant and that flows through the whole economy including energy used by industry and what is embodied in consumer goods. ie these can (mostly) be de-coupled from emissions. Most actual action on reducing emissions is about building lots of low, potentially (when it is our primary energy) zero emissions energy.

There are real resource constraints in a finite world and those will limit economic growth but reducing energy availability and imposing shortages of energy are not essential or unavoidable when fixing the climate problem. Of course the opponents of strong climate action appear much taken with that fear and promote economic alarmist doom (from addressing the problem) relentlessly. That also turns the "use less" environmentalist approach back at those calling loudest for strong action.

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by Ken Fabian