climate change

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Ken Fabian said:

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?

No. It's for less population growth altogether. But especially in places and among people who have less ability (due to religion, political conservatism, lack of access to birth control and infant health care, lack of education and opportunities, suppression of women's freedom of choice) to regulate their rate of reproduction, and who also have fewer resources to give their children a healthy, competitive start in life.

Family planning is not a punishment for overconsumption; it's a prerogative long enjoyed by high volume consumers, which privilege also increases the purchasing and consuming power of the people who have it. They ought to share the privileges, just as they ought to share the surplus of goods they enjoy.

Meanwhile, these same high volume consumers ought to reduce their waste and pollution, most notably and urgently at the corporate level, their energy use, their hold on power and distribution. Many individuals and businesses are doing this voluntarily and in innovative ways. Far more are not, and look for excuses to do nothing, or less than they should, or later. A few are actively seeking better recourses and solutions for the poor people - sometimes at considerable personal cost and risk. Some do not want to hear about altering their own lifestyle in any way. A few oppose it energetically, at considerable financial outlay, which, due to their wealth and power, costs them nothing at all.

There are not just two homogeneous baskets of people to consider.     

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Peterkin

[mistermack]

3 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

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,

Better education, more womens rights, freely available family planning products supplied free of charge, and better pensions for the elderly, will never be seen as crimes against humanity. 

As for the rich/poor argument, the surplus population from the poorest areas will always find a way to migrate to the richer areas, and become part of the high consuming problem, as is happening right now around the world. 

[Genady]

More people => more ideas, more solutions, more diversity, more expertise, more knowledge, more chances, more creativity.

[mistermack]

2 minutes ago, Genady said:

More people => more ideas, more solutions, more diversity, more expertise, more knowledge, more chances, more creativity.

=>   More cars, more houses, more cattle, pigs, horses, dogs, cats, chickens, more heating, more air conditioning, more shit, more forest clearing, more CO2, more factory fishing and farming etc etc. I've got nothing against people, but the place isn't big enough for nature and 8 billion of them.       

[Genady]

26 minutes ago, mistermack said:

=>   More cars, more houses, more cattle, pigs, horses, dogs, cats, chickens, more heating, more air conditioning, more shit, more forest clearing, more CO2, more factory fishing and farming etc etc. I've got nothing against people, but the place isn't big enough for nature and 8 billion of them.       

I think it is big enough, but it should and can be used more efficiently.

[Ken Fabian]

@Peterkin @mistermack I don't disagree that health care, education availability of contraception are the most effective ways to reduce population growth. I disagree with claims that effective climate action must address population first and is pointless without, that population should be regulated and worse, that deliberate disease releases may be used to reduce population -
 

Quote

 

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? 

 

 

[mistermack]

9 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

I disagree with claims that effective climate action must address population first and is pointless without,

The average American produces about 1,300 tons of CO2 in their lifetime. As well as producing kids who grow up to do likewise. One condom can stop that process in it's tracks. It's got to be the most CO2 saved, for the least money on the planet. 

The same applies to the rest of the world, to a lesser extent obviously. The world average is about 1/4 or the US average, but family sizes are a lot bigger in some countries.

16 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

and worse, that deliberate disease releases may be used to reduce population -

That was said as a joke I think, and not by me either.

[Genady]

49 minutes ago, mistermack said:

The average American produces about 1,300 tons of CO2 in their lifetime. As well as producing kids who grow up to do likewise. One condom can stop that process in it's tracks. It's got to be the most CO2 saved, for the least money on the planet. 

The same applies to the rest of the world, to a lesser extent obviously. The world average is about 1/4 or the US average, but family sizes are a lot bigger in some countries.

Sufficient. But not necessary. 

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Ken Fabian said:

I disagree with claims that effective climate action must address population first and is pointless without, that population should be regulated and worse, that deliberate disease releases may be used to reduce population

Neither of us actually recommended that.

I never even claimed that population reduction was a prerequisite to climate change mitigation; I said on many occasions that population growth would automatically stop if infant mortality were under control, standard of living was reasonable and women had reproductive choice.

My main contention is and has always been that the necessary conditions for an effective global response to our common existential threat are: sincere consensus, resource redistribution and a dramatic reduction in wasteful consumption.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Peterkin

[npts2020]

The question isn't so much how many humans the planet can sustainably support so much as what kind of lifestyle that number can expect to live. The Earth *could* support billions more people than exist now but everyone would have to live at a bare subsistence level with few of the things most first world citizens take for granted (cars, consumer goods, travel, meat in meals, etc.) being available. One of the bigger obstacles, IMO, is a clear idea of exactly what comprises a sustainable lifestyle. Few would argue that things like bicycling instead of driving, cutting meat from the diet and keeping your house cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer are good things but there is little guidance for what is one's "fair share".

For discussion purposes, I would define "fair share" as the resources an individual would be entitled to if all the world's obtainable resources were divided equally between its inhabitants. Can everyone in the world eat hamburgers twice a week or filet mignon once a month or does everyone need to cut all of that out of their diet? Is it even possible to build sustainable mechanized transportation for 8,000,000,000+ humans? Will everyone have to move to temperate zones because energy for heating and cooling is unsustainable or will it be enough to better insulate houses?

[Ken Fabian]

12 hours ago, mistermack said:

The average American produces about 1,300 tons of CO2 in their lifetime. As well as producing kids who grow up to do likewise. One condom can stop that process in it's tracks. It's got to be the most CO2 saved, for the least money on the planet. 

The same applies to the rest of the world, to a lesser extent obviously. The world average is about 1/4 or the US average, but family sizes are a lot bigger in some countries.

But that isn't a climate solution. It doesn't even buy us time. We still have to make everyone's emissions very low to have a solution and when they are low enough then not having kids stops saving much emissions.

With some caveats around land use and agriculture, it looks possible to greatly reduce per capita emissions by shifting to low and potentially zero emitting energy and that will have greater and more lasting effect on global emissions than stopping population growth. As well as being more conducive to the economic development that provides healthcare and contraception.

I think it is a mistake to frame global warming as a population problem instead of a dirty energy problem; if it truly were so inextricably linked then the logical conclusion is zero emissions can only be achieved by having zero people. I'd call that doomist; it is a framing that denies us solutions. And denies the technological progress we've made.

Land use and agriculture? Biological solutions to animal gut and rice paddy emissions may be possible; significant movement on clean energy would buy us more time, more time than slowing or stopping population growth can buy us.

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Ken Fabian

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, npts2020 said:

The question isn't so much how many humans the planet can sustainably support so much as what kind of lifestyle that number can expect to live. The Earth *could* support billions more people than exist now but everyone would have to live at a bare subsistence level with few of the things most first world citizens take for granted (cars, consumer goods, travel, meat in meals, etc.) being available. One of the bigger obstacles, IMO, is a clear idea of exactly what comprises a sustainable lifestyle. Few would argue that things like bicycling instead of driving, cutting meat from the diet and keeping your house cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer are good things but there is little guidance for what is one's "fair share".

For discussion purposes, I would define "fair share" as the resources an individual would be entitled to if all the world's obtainable resources were divided equally between its inhabitants. Can everyone in the world eat hamburgers twice a week or filet mignon once a month or does everyone need to cut all of that out of their diet? Is it even possible to build sustainable mechanized transportation for 8,000,000,000+ humans? Will everyone have to move to temperate zones because energy for heating and cooling is unsustainable or will it be enough to better insulate houses?

Growth has nothing to do with it, because the economy will grow with it, as proven by history, and fair share is a purely political issue. Niether need be a problem, but "Houston, we have a problem"...

I feel like the only real response to any argument, for some sort of status quo approach to this problem, is to flash them my signature, with a cheeky hint of more.

"as that they who are about mee, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for mee, and I know not that."

I'm starting to feel like no one even reads my signature🖖

Edited April 2, 2023 by dimreepr

[npts2020]

49 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Growth has nothing to do with it, because the economy will grow with it, as proven by history, and fair share is a purely political issue. Niether need be a problem, but Houston we have a problem...

It seems "history" is beginning to show us what unlimited economic "growth" will do to us. "Fair share" may well be a political issue but it seems to me to be a good place to start for considering what exactly constitutes a sustainable lifestyle

 

1 hour ago, Ken Fabian said:

I think it is a mistake to frame global warming as a population problem instead of a dirty energy problem; if it truly were so inextricably linked then the logical conclusion is zero emissions can only be achieved by having zero people.

And I think it is a great mistake to not consider population to be a large part of the problem. Firstly, zero emissions is not necessarily the goal, we will almost certainly have some amount of them no matter what we do. The real goal IMO should be to keep emissions of all kinds of pollutants (not just greenhouse gases) below the level at which the ecosphere can effectively filter out or neutralize them. With the current rate and style of resource use/waste, overpopulation is certainly a problem and has been for longer than the time anyone commenting here has been around, especially if we are all to aspire to a first world lifestyle.

[dimreepr]

17 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

It seems "history" is beginning to show us what unlimited economic "growth" will do to us. "Fair share" may well be a political issue but it seems to me to be a good place to start for considering what exactly constitutes a sustainable lifestyle

What exactly does constitute a sustainable lifestyle?

And we have enough history to know why Trump and his cohorts, are just wrong...

[iNow]

27 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

The real goal IMO should be to keep emissions of all kinds of pollutants (not just greenhouse gases) below the level at which the ecosphere can effectively filter out or neutralize them.

We’re well passed that threshold and have been for quite some time already. You may as well be arguing for solutions like “don’t allow the internet to be created.”

29 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

overpopulation is certainly a problem

Which specific groups do you recommend we murder first, and have you thought through the logistics of forced sterilization? 

[npts2020]

32 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

What exactly does constitute a sustainable lifestyle?

That is the slippery fish I am trying to get hold of. I defined what "sustainable lifestyle" was in the context in which I am using it but nobody seems able to see any limits the planet's citizens ought to limit themselves to within that context.

27 minutes ago, iNow said:

We’re well passed that threshold and have been for quite some time already. You may as well be arguing for solutions like “don’t allow the internet to be created.”

Obviously! That is why the current threshold would be well below some future one after the ecosystem has gotten back to a more steady state.

30 minutes ago, iNow said:

Which specific groups do you recommend we murder first, and have you thought through the logistics of forced sterilization?

It's a shame that someone with your intelligence can't imagine any other ways of reducing the population, something I have not advocated. If you take the statement of overpopulation being a problem within the context of everything I have written previously on this thread, you will see that it is only overpopulation in relation to resource use. Hence, the question of what is sustainable for the number of humans in existence?
 

[dimreepr]

2 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

That is the slippery fish I am trying to get hold of. I defined what "sustainable lifestyle" was in the context in which I am using it but nobody seems able to see any limits the planet's citizens ought to limit themselves to within that context

You've certainly slipped past an answer... 🙄

[Peterkin]

3 hours ago, npts2020 said:

For discussion purposes, I would define "fair share" as the resources an individual would be entitled to if all the world's obtainable resources were divided equally between its inhabitants.

divided equally between its ^human^ inhabitants ?

It might be a start, but we have already killed off a great many other species and are rapidly extinguishing the rest. We are already in the process of discovering how difficult subsistence is for humans in an environment stripped of its ecological complement. With average temperatures, spike temperatures, rain and wind patterns, rivers and glaciers, the very land itself shifting continuously, what is a subsistence farmer - anywhere on earth - supposed to rely on? 

The only way a human population of this size or larger can sustain itself is by moving into self-sufficient cities, a substantial part of which are underground, with their own energy generating capability, water supply, mass transit and pedestrian walkways, and produce its food locally in intensive hydroponic farms and meat factories.

And even so, population growth would be restricted by available space and water, but presumably, the inhabitants could see directly, for themselves, the limits and limitations of their environment. Thus far, humans have always assumed that there was more of everything, someplace else or in the future, available through conquest or trade or technology. Only recently is becoming clear that a sphere is finite.   

[iNow]

14 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

It's a shame that someone with your intelligence can't imagine any other ways of reducing the population, something I have not advocated.

If you believe overpopulation is a core problem yet are totally unwilling to address it in any way whatsoever or even discuss the possibility, aren’t you just wasting our time with tangential distractions that will never be actioned? 
 

Us: We need to reduce emissions

You: We need to reduce number of people

Us: Fine then, how?

You: Uhhmm… Erm… Uhhh… Never mind. You’re a dummy

Either way, you are correct about one thing. I can’t imagine other ways of reducing the population. Will you please help me to fill this gap in my current knowledge by suggesting some?

[npts2020]

Apparently, trying to figure out what is sustainable for the number of humans on Earth is a tangential discussion to climate change. I fail to see how that translates into;

7 minutes ago, iNow said:

You: We need to reduce number of people

Especially when put into the context of what I have actually written on this thread.

[dimreepr]

7 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

Apparently, trying to figure out what is sustainable for the number of humans on Earth is a tangential discussion to climate change. I fail to see how that translates into;

Yes you do...

Like I say, "is no-one reading my signature?"??? 

[studiot]

Who benefits most from this failure to address population issues, Men or Women ?

[npts2020]

23 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Yes you do...

What I see is that depopulation is being conflated with what is sustainable for 8,000,000,000 humans in the environment they desire to live. I would not (nor have seen anyone here) argue that depopulation wouldn't be necessary for everyone to live the lifestyle of an average American. Are you telling me you can't see the difference between figuring out a lifestyle for X number of people and how many people can be supported at X type of lifestyle?

Edited April 2, 2023 by npts2020
misspell

[iNow]

57 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

Apparently, trying to figure out what is sustainable for the number of humans on Earth is a tangential discussion to climate change.

That isn’t a fair summary of my stance, though perhaps I did conflate yours a bit with that being shared by Mistermack

 

 

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Who benefits most from this failure to address population issues, Men or Women ?

If one considered the nations with the highest birth-rates, one could assume that men, who dominate the culture of those nations, drive the birth-rate upward, and one might further assume that's because they have something to gain. But it certainly isn't a longer life. More soldiers to carry on internal and border disputes? Hardly a benefit to the soldiers. An excuse to keep women out of the workplaces and schools? Again, it's hard to see a benefit to men or women - or anyone - except despots and despotic oligarchies.