The One Doctor wrote: » Fine, but the Earth's population is increasing rapidly. How do we balance global population growth with global carbon reductions?
Peregrine wrote: » The world can sustain plenty more Ugandans and Kenyans. Another Irish person living in a McMansion in Meath, driving an SUV, eating meat every day of the week and taking 10 flights a year is a problem.
Peregrine wrote: » It's impossible to talk about climate change and population without addressing the elephant in the room. The world population doesn't consume or emit uniformly. The emissions from the lifestyles of the wealthiest 10% is the equal to the emissions of the remaining 90%. We live in a world where the poor subsidise the emissions of the rich who then often turn around and blame climate change on the growing population of poor people. The world can sustain plenty more Ugandans and Kenyans. Another Irish person living in a McMansion in Meath, driving an SUV, eating meat every day of the week and taking 10 flights a year is a problem.https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/richest-10-per-cent-cause-half-of-lifestyle-carbon-emissions-climate-expert-1.3727750https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/12/09/carbon-footprints-climate-change-rich-one-percent/
ForestFire wrote: » How many Irish people are in the top 10% of the world's most wealthy?
ForestFire wrote: » There's a bit of a contradiction in you portrayal of Irish people there I think. How many Irish people are in the top 10% of the world's most wealthy? Even the top 20% or 30%. There is a big drop off again after each of these steps.
SantaClaw wrote: » And if you trust https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-hfcs/householdfinanceandconsumptionsurvey2018/wealth/ Somewhere between 60% and 70% of Irish households fall into that
Blacktie. wrote: » How do they define household? I can't see it in the link.
Padre_Pio wrote: » So population isn't a problem, the lifestyles of the western world are the problem. But the world economy is based on production and consumption, so we're in a catch 22.
ForestFire wrote: » There's a bit of a contradiction in you portrayal of Irish people there I think. How many Irish people are in the top 10% of the world's most wealthy? Even the top 20% or 30%. There is a big drop off again after each of these steps. I'm guessing we can sustain a lot more Irish people also. What are the 10% doing to contribute so much? Is there any breakdown of the specifics of this? Does involve a lot of private jets, mansions, supercars, multiple holiday homes, luxury goods etc. Etc. I don't think SUVs in meath are the problem, unless it's your, butler's/nannies/personal assistants, run around car, when the Bentley is being washed and polished.
Swindled wrote: » And yet the solution being pushed is to produce and consume brand new electric cars...
Padre_Pio wrote: » Exactly. Governments could solve the climate crisis today if they wanted to, but they'd need to put the world's population on the breadline. The alternative (and the only politically acceptable solution) is to keep the cycle of production and consumption going, only encourage green products and hope to God that we can somehow outrun the looming climate disaster. The problem is that this process should have started 40 years ago and it didn't, and all evidence says that unless our consumption changes dramatically, we're all fvcked.
Peregrine wrote: » If you think the richest 10% in the world have butlers and Bentleys then you're in for a real shock. There's a very good chance that you're in that top 10% richest in the world who, together, contribute to 49% of global lifestyle emissions. During my life, I can expect to be in the richest 10% too. Certainly, most of Ireland are in the richest 20%. But it's the poorest 50% who are only responsible for 10% of emissions that will suffer first and suffer the most.
ForestFire wrote: » Is the idea of 2/3 kids person/couple really a restriction on human rights? If you want to go above this figure, are they ways to allow it, but discourage it? Or incentivise 1 and 2 child families? Even rewarding childless people? There a whole forum on this now here, and if you got offered 50K to stay childless, would you take it? and would it help?
ForestFire wrote: » I will say however, that 10% of the worlds population is 80 Million and there are almost 52 million millionaires in the world.
ForestFire wrote: » Okay 800 million (just missed 1 decimal point)... And I told you all we would be here all night ..... Let's just skip over that and try to concentrate on population control here :-)
Peregrine wrote: » You're asking to skip over the issue and concentrate on your preferred non-solution. Why?
ForestFire wrote: » I don't have a solution for population control , just trying to have a discussion and what, if anything is possible.
magicbastarder wrote: » there are countries where the average CO2 output per capita is 100kg. the average amount of driving i do in a month is equivalent to this. forget everything else i do, driving 1000km in a reasonably modern ICE car is equivalent to what a citizen in once of these countries produces in total in a year.
It has been suggested by some contributors that 'anthropogenic climate change' (Human Greenhouse Gas Emissions, "HGGE") is inevitable or unsolvable due to the large and also increasing world human population. I believe we need not take such a pessimistic view. (A pessimistic view also encourages people to "give up".) We need not take that view because while 8 billion people using HGGE energy would lead to the destruction of our livable atmosphere, we can also compare 8 billion people where the majority of them have successfully switched to green (non HGGE) energy and thus to the recovery of the atmosphere from previous HGGE damage.
The reason why we need to move from HGGE in both energy and industrial sources urgently, is because the current damage to the atmosphere from HGGE will take time to improve once the HGGE have been reduced enough for such recovery to take place!
Contributor "The One Doctor" referred to reducing our 'carbon footprint': HGGE in fact comprise of three main gases (not one): Carbon Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide, Methane.
The last two are more damaging to the atmosphere than the first, while the first remains in the atmosphere longer than the other two.
Slightly more detail:
'Carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapour are the most important greenhouse gases. (To a lesser extent, surface-level ozone, nitrous oxides, and fluorinated gases also trap infrared radiation.) [...]’ (I'm not yet allowed to post Links, but the latter information comes from: Britannica_com > science > greenhouse-gas).
By the way, when governments and companies refer to meeting targets for “net zero” my conclusion from available information is that this term appears to refer to a bogus concept of “off-setting”. This is because there is not enough “off-set” in the entire world, to “off-set” HGGE.
The climate emergency is now so significant, that we may all need to agree to accept less electricity each day, every one of us all over the world, that is from current HGGE sources. This less electricity means energy gaps. What then about these energy gaps? They can be substantially filled by each household or business using solar cells, while plugging in to other electricity sources from Green energy such as also solar, wind, wave. While this sounds extreme, the history of inaction on HGGE now leaves us with little choice but to immediately substantially-reduce HGGE. In order for politicians to have the courage to do this, the international public need to get behind this idea and demand it from their politicians so they have the courage to take the necessary and immediate action.
Slightly more detail about that energy "gap" to which I refer above: During the hours when HGGE energy is off, households and businesses who seek to harvest energy from Solar connected to Batteries, need to be supported by subsidy and by tax-breaks for this purpose.
While nuclear cannot be regarded as "green" because it produces radioactive waste, it is also non HGGE, and so must be used as transitional energy.
By the way, those working in HGGE industries such as the petro-chemical sector, need to be given first opportunity for retraining for the Green energy sector.
Some people remain in psychological-denial that HGGE are the cause of climate change / global warming, despite the mainstream science.
The public are also being mislead by the international Media which tends to refer to climate weather events that are have become more often and also are made significantly worse by HGGE, as "Climate change". Describing this as "Climate change" makes it seem like these weather events or severity of them is unconnected with HGGE. When next time you are told in a news report by the Media whether on TV, on the Internet, or in a newspaper or magazine, that such and such a weather event is due to "Climate change", in your mind substitute the words 'anthropogenic climate change' or "Human Greenhouse Gas Emissions" as you prefer, in order to ensure you understand the truth!
