December 18, 2014
Study; Slower population growth would reduce climate change
A new research paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research
offers more evidence that slower population growth could significantly
reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change. The paper, “The Consequences of Increased Population Growth for Climate Change” by economist David Rosnick,
finds that that an additional 1 percentage point of population growth
through the end of the century would coincide with about an additional 2
degrees Fahrenheit in average global temperatures. “Over time,” the
paper concludes, “the temperature change is greater and becomes
increasingly sensitive to population growth.”
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5 comments:
Well, duh, of course. After all, it is a mathematical fact that:
total carbon emissions
equals
average amount per person
times
the number of people.
The political difficulty some have with dealing with the second factor doesn't change the math!
The political difficulty some have with dealing with the second factor doesn't change the math!
Exactly.
The goal should be painless population reduction via limiting reproduction. A good number would be 0.5 live birth per person, followed by medical sterilisation. All around the world.
If we do that, plus box up the psychopaths, replace Capitalism with a global economy of open-handed sharing, and create crash programs to reforest to the 50-75% level, build truly universal terabit ethernet and mixed-speed physical-transport nets, and use technology to reduce the global energy draw to what natural processes can provide, we could be out of the woods by 2100 without the famines, plagues, and wars that will otherwise make a living hell out of Earth as we gradually succumb to pan-extinction.
7:53
I agree with most of what you've wrote. My only problem is with medical sterilization. It's alright if all new parents are offered free sterilization services, without any pressure to use them. It's bad if all new parents can't leave the hospital without getting sterilized. Sterilization surgery has plenty of risks that many people would not want to expose themselves to. Making sterilization compulsory might make matters worse, because people will act against their own interests if they feel too pushed into getting a surgery they consider a private matter.
The first step is education, especially education for women, to lower birth rates. This works all over the world, even when education is the only service available.
In addition to education, all birth control services should be available for free, including the new reliable long term methods like IUDs and hormonal implants. IUDs and Implants are reversible, and popular, but cost enough to make most women hesitate to get them. It's hard to afford an IUD out of pocket on a modest income when it costs $1000. Make long term reversible birth control free and birth rates will drop dramatically, with no need for risky surgeries, and people will line up for the services, because they can afford it.
We have China as an example of why it has to be medical sterilisation.
Even though they made 1 kid a law, they yielded to special-interest pressure and their population continued to increase. It didn't even flatten out, it keeps increasing by a MILLION A WEEK.
Too many, especially the wealthy, agree that the law is good...for other people. But naturally it doesn't apply to themselves. Nor does it apply to families that want a boy or three. Or a dozen other groups.
If we want to survive, it has to be scrupulously fair and without special pleadings. People will support fair, as has been shown experimentally, but (contrary to the myth of Homo Economicus) will actually sacrifice a prospective gain to punish attempts at being unfair. People really do not like unfairness.
If we don't do it with scrupulous fairness, there'll be no end to "the Joneses have 3, why can't we have 2?", "we are wealthy and can afford more", and -that all-time favorite- "it's against my religion!"
These comments reinforce my belief that the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, which has morphed into a theory of Anthropogenic Climate Change (with virtually NO supporting data), is simply Malthusianism for a new generation:
http://drtimball.com/2014/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/
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