Human caused climate change/overpopulation

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by joesnagg, Oct 30, 2020.

  1. joesnagg

    joesnagg Banned

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    First let me state I'm extremely skeptical of human activity having any meaningful effect on the Earth's climate. The geological record has shown the Earth's climate has changed many times over, sometimes drastically and nary a human around. If the Earth is entering one of those periods then we adapt or die, period. But if you believe human activity is affecting the Earth's climate then by necessity the exploding human population has to be factored in too. If you believe the use of fossil fuels is the culprit then how can you ignore rampant population growth in countries that can least afford such growth and thus use the cheapest, dirtiest fossil fuels available. So if you're a believer what possible solutions do you see? For my part I see overpopulation as the greater threat long-term (look up "Behavioral Sink"), and I can't think of any "moral or ethical" solutions, just totalitarian nightmares. Let's see where this goes.
     
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  2. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    What overpopulation? Birth rates are falling almost everywhere, and are now below replacement level in many advanced countries. We have under-honesty, under-liberty, under-justice, under-honesty, under-intelligence, under-courage, under-education and under-honesty, but no overpopulation.
     
  3. joesnagg

    joesnagg Banned

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    Thanks for replying to the thread. I'd gave up hope that anybody would.
     
  4. drluggit

    drluggit Well-Known Member

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    Most of the "honest' brokers in the eco warrior class have noted exactly what you're writing here. Over population is, in their view, a must address issue. And you are correct. Barbaric, tyrannic measures are being noodled. Its the way of the very elite who seem to believe that perhaps less than 500 Million total people would be "optimal". Of course that essentially puts the world population at 14/5% of what it is today. And you're right, emerging economies are going to need energy, and they will use the energy that is the most extensible to their populations, and that is going to mean more, not less carbon based and likely very dirty forms of producing energy. And these are the issues.

    So, as many of us have made the observation that green is entirely antithetical to people. And what started with the desire to "help" people. or "save" people, well, it's turned into how to punish the people and drastically cull the herd they fear. And this is the "dirty little secret" that those on the green side won't talk about, because, rightfully, it scares the people that rightfully understand they aren't going to make the cut.
     
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  5. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    I am more concerned about our ecological damage by an ever-expanding human footprint than I am human activity. BTW, even if we do all the things people claim will save us, we are still going to hit 1.5° C warming just from food production alone https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ne-is-set-to-push-earth-past-1-5c-of-warming/
     
  6. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Whatever happens we will adapt.

    No point in stressing over it.
     
  7. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    How is our ecological "damage" qualitatively different from beavers building dams?
    More nonscience with no basis in empirical fact.
     
  8. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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  9. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Former WMO Official: CO2 “Insignificant For Balance Of Energy”, “Completely Unnecessary” To Reduce CO2
    By P Gosselin on 6. December 2020

    Share this...
    [​IMG][​IMG]
    CO2 has little impact on climate, important for life, says former UN official.
    [​IMG]

    A CO2 Memorandum
    By Albert Köhler MSc.

    (Translation, editing, subheadings by P Gosselin)

    With this manuscript I would like to deal with the CO2 topic, which currently seems to be so extremely important for media and politics, solely according to the precepts of free and real scientific argumentation, but also driven by my conscience as a physicist who has been active in this field since about 1960. I am compelled by moral obligation for my fellow human beings, to whom one would expect financial sacrifices in the trillions of dollars and very significant losses in quality of life in the following years and decades, although CO2 has practically nothing to do with climate change.

    After having played a major role in the development and operation of the German air pollution monitoring network for the DFG and UBA, I had the opportunity to gain a lot of experience as Chief Environment Division at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) of the United Nations. I was also responsible for the office of the WMO “Panel of Experts on Meteorological Aspects of Environmental Pollution”. Its members, under the then Director of the MPI for Chemistry in Mainz, Prof. Chr. Junge as Chairman, were the world’s leading experts, mostly heads of university institutes, some of whom were also the authors of the then standard textbooks. This panel also dealt with the recently emerging interest in CO2 and its presumed impact on the climate. . . .
     
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  10. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    If the World Is Ending, It's Not Because of Climate Change

    Glenn Stanton, Quillette

    How is the world going to end? Polls consistently show that most believe the cause will be environmental. “Climate anxiety” has reached such a fevered pitch among young people across the globe that the Lancet recently issued a special “call to action” to help with the problem. Clinicians have even created “climate anxiety scales” to measure the runaway angst spreading through our children, and the rest of us.

    But what if the best, emerging science is actually telling us quite firmly that such fears are not only deeply misplaced, but that the most realistic cause of our collective human demise is likely the precise opposite of what most assume? This is the conclusion of a very interesting body of highly sophisticated and inter-disciplinary research. The greatest threat to humanity’s future is certainly not too many people consuming too many limited natural resources, but rather too few people giving birth to the new humans who will continue the creative work of making the world a better, more hospitable place through technological innovation. Data released this summer indicates the beginning of the end of humanity can be glimpsed from where we now stand. That end is a dramatic population bust that will nosedive toward an empty planet. New research places the beginning of that turn at about 30 years from today.

    This means that Thomas Robert Malthus, and his many influential disciples, had it precisely wrong. More people are not only not the problem, but a growing population is the very answer to a more humane future in which more people are living better, healthier, longer lives than they ever have in our race’s tumultuously dynamic history. . . .
     
  11. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    The atmosphere is a huge thing and the climate is simply a function of that atmosphere. Now yes the climate has changed but there has always been a reason for that change. What also changes is TECHNOLOGY and coal is no longer the cheapest option around. In fact many of these countries “that can least afford it” are now becoming wealthy off of alternate energy. Take Kenya

    upload_2020-12-14_1-39-25.jpeg

    that is not a coal plant - that is a geothermal plant

    wind farm in the Philippines
    upload_2020-12-14_1-42-8.jpeg
     

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