We already know how to control population growth: lift people out of poverty. Rich nations invariably have lower birthrates, often below replacement level. You get a boom generation where infant survival rates go up because of the new prosperity, but after that they taper off. Turns out most people don't actually want 2.5 kids.
Discussion of forcibly limiting birthrates is stupid.
I agree on the fertility rate naturally falling, but am less calm about where the final number ends up. Less than 12 billion is better than greater than 12 billion, but I wish we had been smarter about all this and be talking about how the population would never exceed 5 billion or something.
Would you volunteer to be one of the 2.6 billion people never born to achieve that 5 billion number?
Man what? This is the dumbest argument. This is the type of thing which the 10th child of a family in Africa uses to justify no family planning funding. People aren't retrospectively erased by people choosing not to have children.
Is it any dumber than wishing we could be in a situation where we could be talking about having a maximum global population of 5 billion?
We already know how to control population growth: lift people out of poverty. Rich nations invariably have lower birthrates, often below replacement level. You get a boom generation where infant survival rates go up because of the new prosperity, but after that they taper off. Turns out most people don't actually want 2.5 kids.
Discussion of forcibly limiting birthrates is stupid.
I agree on the fertility rate naturally falling, but am less calm about where the final number ends up. Less than 12 billion is better than greater than 12 billion, but I wish we had been smarter about all this and be talking about how the population would never exceed 5 billion or something.
Would you volunteer to be one of the 2.6 billion people never born to achieve that 5 billion number?
How does... what...
If we had gotten out in front of it, 2.6 billion people would never have existed to have an opinion. Your question makes exactly as much sense as asserting that people should have as many kids as they can, because birth control amounts to murdering the children-who-might-have-been.
To be clear, I am not advocating that people should have as many children as possible. I am advocating against population controls. A family should be allowed to have as many children as they feel comfortable with. It's the exact same reason why I'm pro-abortion.
And "getting out in front of it" with regards to population control is a pipe dream. It doesn't work.
Look at China's One Child Policy. Despite being enforced for generations, China's population has continued to increase. It certainly has slowed, but I don't think it is possible to artificially limit global population growth without instituting inhumane policies.
The best way to slow population growth globally would be to devote the efforts of developed nations to assisting undeveloped nations become developed themselves.
Considering that I suffer from depression, anxiety, and/or feelings of worthlessness on a semi-regular basis, and have pondered whether I am part of Scrooge's "surplus population" since I was a teenager at least... yeah, I probably would.
But you probably don't want to select for people like me, 'cause you'll also get a lot of altruists, socially conscious, etc etc in the net. Which leaves you with the "fuck you, got mine"s as your future breeding population.
The best method of population control is prosperity and education.
As people become more prosperous, educated, less likely to die of childhood disease, and so on, people start getting less children.
Also comprehensive sex ed, easily available contraceptives, abortions and family planning.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
We already know how to control population growth: lift people out of poverty. Rich nations invariably have lower birthrates, often below replacement level. You get a boom generation where infant survival rates go up because of the new prosperity, but after that they taper off. Turns out most people don't actually want 2.5 kids.
Discussion of forcibly limiting birthrates is stupid.
I agree on the fertility rate naturally falling, but am less calm about where the final number ends up. Less than 12 billion is better than greater than 12 billion, but I wish we had been smarter about all this and be talking about how the population would never exceed 5 billion or something.
Would you volunteer to be one of the 2.6 billion people never born to achieve that 5 billion number?
How does... what...
If we had gotten out in front of it, 2.6 billion people would never have existed to have an opinion. Your question makes exactly as much sense as asserting that people should have as many kids as they can, because birth control amounts to murdering the children-who-might-have-been.
To be clear, I am not advocating that people should have as many children as possible. I am advocating against population controls. A family should be allowed to have as many children as they feel comfortable with. It's the exact same reason why I'm pro-abortion.
And "getting out in front of it" with regards to population control is a pipe dream. It doesn't work.
Look at China's One Child Policy. Despite being enforced for generations, China's population has continued to increase. It certainly has slowed, but I don't think it is possible to artificially limit global population growth without instituting inhumane policies.
The best way to slow population growth globally would be to devote the efforts of developed nations to assisting undeveloped nations become developed themselves.
The One Child policy was abandoned awhile ago, because the demographic bomb they are facing makes ours look like a firecracker.
The best method of population control is prosperity and education.
As people become more prosperous, educated, less likely to die of childhood disease, and so on, people start getting less children.
Also comprehensive sex ed, easily available contraceptives, abortions and family planning.
You should probably add (or specify as part of 'prosperity') retirement funding, whether by pension or superannuation or what have you.
Two of the most common arguments for children in the past have been cheap labor, and as part of the retirement plan. The former is mostly a thing of the past, but I see the latter still at least argued as part of the reason for kids.
If people are more secure that they won't be left out in the cold (literally and figuratively), people might not feel that need is so important.
"The best way to slow population growth globally would be to devote the efforts of developed nations to assisting undeveloped nations become developed themselves." is a reasonable argument to make
Like Rod Stewart sang, "I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger." It's a feeling, not a mission statement. The correct response to someone expressing a feeling is to commiserate. "Yeah, this sucks." Then you go about the task of fixing the problem together.
Like Rod Stewart sang, "I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger." It's a feeling, not a mission statement. The correct response to someone expressing a feeling is to commiserate. "Yeah, this sucks." Then you go about the task of fixing the problem together.
Like Rod Stewart sang, "I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger." It's a feeling, not a mission statement. The correct response to someone expressing a feeling is to commiserate. "Yeah, this sucks." Then you go about the task of fixing the problem together.
I'm sorry, that was Ron Wood
Originally, but Stewart covered it in 1998, which means I could listen to it on mp3 with a smaller carbon footprint.
Just because the population may stabilize around 12 billion doesn't mean 12 billion is a sustainable number. With an extra 60% population and having to raise the living standards of quite a lot of the world still we would conservatively need about twice as much stuff as right now yet still need to reduce overall emissions to less than a few decades ago
We will be fine at 10 and fine at 12 if it comes to it.
These arguments were probably made in cuniform thousands of years ago and have been made every generation since.
I'll never get the chicken little thing. People were shouting about 5 billion as the end of the world and I don't feel that's good company to keep.
I know climate change and population are linked topics, but it feels like we've been running down Population Control Avenue for a while and lost sight of Climate Change Boulevard.
I know climate change and population are linked topics, but it feels like we've been running down Population Control Avenue for a while and lost sight of Climate Change Boulevard.
The EPA took away all signposts, guardrails, regulation required road lines. It's a tough row to hoe now.
We will be fine at 10 and fine at 12 if it comes to it.
These arguments were probably made in cuniform thousands of years ago and have been made every generation since.
I'll never get the chicken little thing. People were shouting about 5 billion as the end of the world and I don't feel that's good company to keep.
I find your confidence that we 'will be fine' pretty bemusing. Right now? We will not be fine. Our descendants, and possibly even ourselves, will see their lives cut shorter than ours. They will be poorer than us. They will suffer, and know hunger and thirst. They will be few in number after billions die. They will have fewer places to live after the coasts are swamped beneath the sea. They will be plagued by insects, tropical diseases and see a world where so much of the natural majesty we enjoy today has been obliterated. They will see the extinction of the last large sea mammal. The last formation of an ice cap in the arctic. The death of the last polar bear.
Given current technology, and 'linear' progress on solutions. That is about the best we can expect right now. Just because Malthus and other doomsayers have been wrong in the past and we've always found a way to dodge the bullet doesn't mean we always have to dodge it. That picture above might be the rosy one. Undersea methane reserves and those trapped under permafrost in russia may open, pouring an absurd amount more greenhouse gases into the environment and leaving us perhaps scratching out a living far to the north while the entire tropics and subtropics are uninhabitable.
Now, I will give you 100% that in the past, humanity has always managed to just enough to dodge the bullet of resource limitation and climate issues. And, if you look at the second derivative of our progress on renewable energy and say that we can hold THAT constant (IE, the rate of change of the rate of change of solar capacity and carbon emission per kWh will stay the same) then we can make it with 10 billion or 12 billion. But, if we only had 5 billion, we'd already be OK. If you look at the amount of solar, nuclear and geothermal we've installed, and then add in natural gas to give us enough energy to get to where we need to be.
And sure, you're right, the best way to do this would have been to travel back in time to like 1930 and say to everyone in the voice of god...
"WAIT! WE'RE JUST ABOUT TO DEVELOP ALL SORTS OF THINGS WHICH MEAN YOUR KIDS WONT DIE! ONLY HAVE TWO OF THEM"
And then do a great job of sharing out the new advances in medicine and water purification that were being thought up.
Even if we DO manage to technology our way out of this, which I agree we probably will, a stable and happy 12 billion humans will have cost the world species extinctions, billions of acres of forest, and they will all be sharing fewer resources than a happy and stable 5 billion. More is harder. We cannot count on being able to do the hard thing every time.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Stanford University released an article yesterday that's paraphrasing research in Nature Research Journal (that you must pay for) stating that the countries contributing the most to climate change, mainly the US, will benefit greatly by meeting the 1.5 degree C rise in global temperature, as opposed to the more-likely 2C that we could reach before the end of the century.
New Stanford study suggests climate mitigation could yield trillions in economic benefits
Stanford scientists found that the global economy is likely to benefit from ambitious global warming limits agreed to in the United Nations Paris Agreement.
BY MICHELLE HORTON
Failing to meet climate mitigation goals laid out in the U.N. Paris Agreement could cost the global economy tens of trillions of dollars over the next century, according to new Stanford research. The study, published May 23 in Nature, is one of the first to quantify the economic benefits of limiting global warming to levels set in the accord.
The agreement commits 195 countries to the goal of holding this century’s average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius above levels in the pre-industrial era. It also includes an aspirational goal of pursuing an even more stringent target of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. To date, the economic benefits of achieving these temperature targets have not been well understood.
Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees benefits the global economy.
The three largest economies in the world and almost 90 percent of the global population benefit economically from limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 degrees. (Image credit: iStockphoto/leolintang)
“Over the past century we have already experienced a 1-degree increase in global temperature, so achieving the ambitious targets laid out in the Paris Agreement will not be easy or cheap. We need a clear understanding of how much economic benefit we’re going to get from meeting these different targets,” said Marshall Burke, assistant professor of Earth system science in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and lead author of the study.
To develop this understanding, a team of Stanford researchers studied how economic performance over the past half-century correlated with changes in temperature around the world. Then, using climate model projections of how temperatures could change in the future, they calculated how overall economic output is likely to change as temperatures warm to different levels.
The researchers found a large majority of countries – containing close to 90 percent of the world’s population – benefit economically from limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 degrees. This includes the United States, China and Japan – the three largest economies in the world. It is also true in some of the world’s poorest regions, where even small reductions in future warming generate a notable increase in per capita gross domestic product.
“The countries likely to benefit the most are already relatively hot today,” said Burke. “The historical record tells us that additional warming will be very harmful to these countries’ economies, and so even small reductions in future warming could have large benefits for most countries.”
The projected costs from higher temperatures come from factors such as increases in spending to deal with extreme events, lower agricultural productivity and worse health, the scientists said.
Previous research has shown that the actual climate commitments each country has made as part of the Paris Agreement add up to close to 3 degrees of global warming, instead of the 1.5–2 degrees warming goals.
Given this discrepancy, the researchers also calculated the economic consequences of countries meeting their individual Paris commitments, but failing to meet the overall global warming goals of 1.5–2 degrees. They found that failing to achieve the 1.5–2 degrees goals is likely to substantially reduce global economic growth.
Percentage gain in GDP per capita in 2100 from achieving 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming instead of 2 degrees. (Image credit: Marshall Burke)
“It is clear from our analysis that achieving the more ambitious Paris goals is highly likely to benefit most countries – and the global economy overall – by avoiding more severe economic damages,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, professor of Earth system science and paper co-author.
The authors note the study may underestimate the total costs of higher levels of global warming. That’s especially true if catastrophic changes such as rapid melting of the ice on Greenland or Antarctica come to pass, or if extreme weather events such as heatwaves and floods intensify well beyond the range seen in historical observations. A recent study by Diffenbaugh and his colleagues showed that even with reduced levels of global warming, unprecedented extreme events are likely to become more prevalent.
The new research helps shed light on the overall economic value of the Paris Agreement, as well as on the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the accord because of concerns that it is too costly to the U.S. economy. The researchers calculated that the overall global benefits of keeping future temperature increases to 1.5 degrees are likely in the tens of trillions of dollars, with substantial likely benefits in the U.S. as well. They note that these benefits are more than 30 times greater than the most recent estimates of what it will cost to achieve the more ambitious 1.5 degrees goal.
“For most countries in the world, including the U.S., we find strong evidence that the benefits of achieving the ambitious Paris targets are likely to vastly outweigh the costs,” said Burke.
Burke is also a fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment, the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Diffenbaugh is also the Kara J Foundation Professor, the Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and an affiliate of the Precourt Institute for Energy. Additional co-authors include W. Matt Davis, a former researcher at the Center on Food Security and the Environment. The research was supported by the Erol Foundation.
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
There's a difference between "remains kinda habitable, and therefore gets more economic activity" and "profits".
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
It's tough to see how an individual country would gain economically when the entire world economy will incinerate and change dramatically.
I don't buy it.
PSN: Honkalot
+5
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
There's a difference between "remains kinda habitable, and therefore gets more economic activity" and "profits".
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
Yeah, but Putin and his pet oligarchs don't give a shit about the suffering of the ordinary people if they personally profit of it.
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
There's a difference between "remains kinda habitable, and therefore gets more economic activity" and "profits".
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
There's a difference between "remains kinda habitable, and therefore gets more economic activity" and "profits".
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
There's a difference between "remains kinda habitable, and therefore gets more economic activity" and "profits".
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
It's tough to see how an individual country would gain economically when the entire world economy will incinerate and change dramatically.
I don't buy it.
Remember Russia's MO in foreign policy is that fixing Russia is harder than just fucking up everyone around them to mitigate the gap.
I don't think that climate change was a factor in their election meddling in the US and elsewhere, but if Putin saw a scenario in which Russia's GDP would be relatively stable while the US, India, China, and Western Europe took a collective shit, he would absolutely consider it a desirable outcome.
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
There's a difference between "remains kinda habitable, and therefore gets more economic activity" and "profits".
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
I don't imagine Canada or Russia would survive the agricultural collapse that would take place.
+2
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
We had record breaking highs yesterday, and today we had like a whole cluster of tornadoes touch down a few miles north.
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
There's a difference between "remains kinda habitable, and therefore gets more economic activity" and "profits".
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
I don't imagine Canada or Russia would survive the agricultural collapse that would take place.
I mean, "Canada and Russia are expected to survive the agricultural collapse that will take place" is one of the points the article makes. Canada and Russia will actually grow more food, just nowhere near enough to make up for the massive losses in Africa, Europe, the USA and South America.
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
There's a difference between "remains kinda habitable, and therefore gets more economic activity" and "profits".
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
I don't imagine Canada or Russia would survive the agricultural collapse that would take place.
I mean, "Canada and Russia are expected to survive the agricultural collapse that will take place" is one of the points the article makes. Canada and Russia will actually grow more food, just nowhere near enough to make up for the massive losses in Africa, Europe, the USA and South America.
Enough to feed themselves?
Enough to feed themselves and the sudden influx of immigrants, documented or otherwise?
None of their farry figures account for the trillions that will be lost due to population displacement and worsening storm activity. The fact of the matter is that we will see more catastrophe scale weather events thanks to all the extra energy being pumped into the water cycle. There's no free lunch. This isn't going to save a fucking dime.
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
My conspiracy theory is Russia planted Trump specifically to give up the Paris Climate Accords so that they could gain economically from a warming earth.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
There's a difference between "remains kinda habitable, and therefore gets more economic activity" and "profits".
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
I don't imagine Canada or Russia would survive the agricultural collapse that would take place.
I mean, "Canada and Russia are expected to survive the agricultural collapse that will take place" is one of the points the article makes. Canada and Russia will actually grow more food, just nowhere near enough to make up for the massive losses in Africa, Europe, the USA and South America.
Enough to feed themselves?
Enough to feed themselves and the sudden influx of immigrants, documented or otherwise?
Both have small populatuons and immense tracts of land that would become usable for agriculture. In the short term, yes, with surplus to export. In the long term it depends on so many thins who know.
Once you get the kind of refugee flows that would happen in any scenario where Russia and Canada become the world's sole remaining arable land, you can pretty much stop worrying about the nation states that currently occupy their territory. At best, you'll have an Afghanistan situation where the "nation" controls a few cities but everywhere outside is chaos and warlords.
Russia, in particular, can barely keep their shit together in periods of relative prosperity. They aren't going to suddenly become master statesmen in the kind of global crisis that kills off the majority of humanity and has the survivors flooding north and south.
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Is it any dumber than wishing we could be in a situation where we could be talking about having a maximum global population of 5 billion?
To be clear, I am not advocating that people should have as many children as possible. I am advocating against population controls. A family should be allowed to have as many children as they feel comfortable with. It's the exact same reason why I'm pro-abortion.
And "getting out in front of it" with regards to population control is a pipe dream. It doesn't work.
Look at China's One Child Policy. Despite being enforced for generations, China's population has continued to increase. It certainly has slowed, but I don't think it is possible to artificially limit global population growth without instituting inhumane policies.
The best way to slow population growth globally would be to devote the efforts of developed nations to assisting undeveloped nations become developed themselves.
But you probably don't want to select for people like me, 'cause you'll also get a lot of altruists, socially conscious, etc etc in the net. Which leaves you with the "fuck you, got mine"s as your future breeding population.
As people become more prosperous, educated, less likely to die of childhood disease, and so on, people start getting less children.
Also comprehensive sex ed, easily available contraceptives, abortions and family planning.
The One Child policy was abandoned awhile ago, because the demographic bomb they are facing makes ours look like a firecracker.
Two of the most common arguments for children in the past have been cheap labor, and as part of the retirement plan. The former is mostly a thing of the past, but I see the latter still at least argued as part of the reason for kids.
If people are more secure that they won't be left out in the cold (literally and figuratively), people might not feel that need is so important.
"Well would you not want to have existed?" is not
They don't directly relate to one another at all.
Why not 2 billion or 23 million?
Because limited resources and round number.
I'm sorry, that was Ron Wood
Originally, but Stewart covered it in 1998, which means I could listen to it on mp3 with a smaller carbon footprint.
These arguments were probably made in cuniform thousands of years ago and have been made every generation since.
I'll never get the chicken little thing. People were shouting about 5 billion as the end of the world and I don't feel that's good company to keep.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
The EPA took away all signposts, guardrails, regulation required road lines. It's a tough row to hoe now.
I find your confidence that we 'will be fine' pretty bemusing. Right now? We will not be fine. Our descendants, and possibly even ourselves, will see their lives cut shorter than ours. They will be poorer than us. They will suffer, and know hunger and thirst. They will be few in number after billions die. They will have fewer places to live after the coasts are swamped beneath the sea. They will be plagued by insects, tropical diseases and see a world where so much of the natural majesty we enjoy today has been obliterated. They will see the extinction of the last large sea mammal. The last formation of an ice cap in the arctic. The death of the last polar bear.
Given current technology, and 'linear' progress on solutions. That is about the best we can expect right now. Just because Malthus and other doomsayers have been wrong in the past and we've always found a way to dodge the bullet doesn't mean we always have to dodge it. That picture above might be the rosy one. Undersea methane reserves and those trapped under permafrost in russia may open, pouring an absurd amount more greenhouse gases into the environment and leaving us perhaps scratching out a living far to the north while the entire tropics and subtropics are uninhabitable.
Now, I will give you 100% that in the past, humanity has always managed to just enough to dodge the bullet of resource limitation and climate issues. And, if you look at the second derivative of our progress on renewable energy and say that we can hold THAT constant (IE, the rate of change of the rate of change of solar capacity and carbon emission per kWh will stay the same) then we can make it with 10 billion or 12 billion. But, if we only had 5 billion, we'd already be OK. If you look at the amount of solar, nuclear and geothermal we've installed, and then add in natural gas to give us enough energy to get to where we need to be.
And sure, you're right, the best way to do this would have been to travel back in time to like 1930 and say to everyone in the voice of god...
"WAIT! WE'RE JUST ABOUT TO DEVELOP ALL SORTS OF THINGS WHICH MEAN YOUR KIDS WONT DIE! ONLY HAVE TWO OF THEM"
And then do a great job of sharing out the new advances in medicine and water purification that were being thought up.
Even if we DO manage to technology our way out of this, which I agree we probably will, a stable and happy 12 billion humans will have cost the world species extinctions, billions of acres of forest, and they will all be sharing fewer resources than a happy and stable 5 billion. More is harder. We cannot count on being able to do the hard thing every time.
https://news.stanford.edu/2018/05/23/reducing-emissions-save-trillions/
If you're rich:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0071-9
The article says that we will have to pay a huge amount for all the climate management stuff, but that we will save trillions from avoiding increased incidences of exactly what you describe. Doing ANYTHING about global warming is a good investment. Whether it be enough to take us from 3->2.5 C of warming, or from 3->1.5 C.
Unless you live in Canada or Russia. Curse their chilly environments.
They gain a lot economically. Probably end up as home for the majority of the world
Bad news for you both: climate change is not kind to continental climates. The variance is just awful.
Well, it's not me that your news is bad for. It's the highly respected international study based on the best available data which studied the problem in detail and found both Canada and Russia grow economically up to 3 c of warming. Just nowhere near enough to make up for the catastrophe elsewhere.
I would like not having 10-20 degrees C swings from one day to the next.
I don't buy it.
Yeah, but Putin and his pet oligarchs don't give a shit about the suffering of the ordinary people if they personally profit of it.
You mean like May in Alberta?
Oh, are we talking about the chinook winds, here?
Remember Russia's MO in foreign policy is that fixing Russia is harder than just fucking up everyone around them to mitigate the gap.
I don't think that climate change was a factor in their election meddling in the US and elsewhere, but if Putin saw a scenario in which Russia's GDP would be relatively stable while the US, India, China, and Western Europe took a collective shit, he would absolutely consider it a desirable outcome.
I don't imagine Canada or Russia would survive the agricultural collapse that would take place.
It is May. In Wyoming.
Shit is not normal.
I mean, "Canada and Russia are expected to survive the agricultural collapse that will take place" is one of the points the article makes. Canada and Russia will actually grow more food, just nowhere near enough to make up for the massive losses in Africa, Europe, the USA and South America.
Enough to feed themselves?
Enough to feed themselves and the sudden influx of immigrants, documented or otherwise?
Both have small populatuons and immense tracts of land that would become usable for agriculture. In the short term, yes, with surplus to export. In the long term it depends on so many thins who know.
Russia, in particular, can barely keep their shit together in periods of relative prosperity. They aren't going to suddenly become master statesmen in the kind of global crisis that kills off the majority of humanity and has the survivors flooding north and south.