The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[oil pan 4]

Good point I don't see solar panels powering a tractor or pivot water pumps very well since they also run at night.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

My understanding is that China's population control resulted in the situation described in a "constrictive" pyramid and they feel they need more people to support the elderly.

1 child per every 2 heterosexual reproducing couple is a stupid idea. You have more than 2 people dying for every 1 birth. In very short order you starve the economy of eligible labor, and overburden it with entitlements. This is not to mention that any negative population rate is unsustainable.

... I just realized that since my grandpa was born, there are more than twice as many people on earth. Crazy to think there will be a time when there are less people on earth over time. I believe I will live to see that occur.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

In very short order you starve the economy of eligible labor, and overburden it with entitlements. This is not to mention that any negative population rate is unsustainable.

China would be a starving mess right now, begging with it's hand out if it had the 3 Billion people it was headed for instead of 1.4.
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I hope you can understand that perpetual growth on a finite planet is not possible. We have to develope a new economic system and make a transition to the end of growth. The only thing keeping this ball rolling right now is fossil fuel. When the crude oil tips over the top and we are left with only tar sands ect. the economy is dead. If we can't find a way to install 30 TeraWatts of mainly oil and gas free energy by 2100. And all of the wires batteries and long extension cords to use it.

[sendler]

570 Liters of diesel per day = 5,700 kWh per day. Even if you cut that by2.5 for the extra efficiency of electric motors with round trip losses you get 2,300 kWh per day for a large size farm machine. 12 Tesla grid scale 200kWh powerpacks per day to hot swap in and out. for just one tractor. We are going to need to start making a lot of wire to get all of this power around.
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[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by sendler

That is only because we are currently awash with fossil fuel energy.
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We need to pull out all of the stops now and use our current fossil fuel wealth to craft a new way. It takes a massive effort of 100 years using fossil fuel to save the disaster that is coming in 100 years.

More important yet is everything but fuel that oil is used for.

There are 2 modern examples of what happens when a country has fossil fuels but not quite enough of them.

Cuba planned for its reduced fuel levels for nearly a decade and still lost 20% of its population to starvation as they switched from synthetic fertilizers back to the old way. Cubans also became 4" shorter overtime as food was more scarce

North Korea did not plan and lost 50% of their population due to inadequate synthetic fertilizers.

A key thing to note is that these modern disasters were decades ago, farms rely on about 5x more oil based chemicals today than they did back then.

Without planning the switch to the old ways would be much more devistating

[sendler]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

More important yet is everything but fuel that oil is used for.

Great point. Reduce the population. switch everything we can away from fossil fuels as soon as possible. And leave it in the ground for the future generations as much as possible. They are going to need it.
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Just think. All we need to do is get 30,000 new Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear generators online worldwide by 2100 to replace all energy of 30 TW. That is only 1.5 new reactors per day. Seems doable. Not. Let's stretch it to the year 2,200. Now we are only needing to get 3 per week done. We are doomed. Now you see the scale of things. You think solar panels and batteries can do that in time? What a joke.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Have you never seen an episode of The Bachelorette?

No, I have better things to do than watch TV. If there's a point, you'll have to explain it in words :-)

[oil pan 4]

That 30TW, is that electrical only, not counting motor fuel or is that everything?

As of 2014 all the solar panels on earth could only produce a fraction of the power Japan uses. So solar panels are not the answer.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

1 child per every 2 heterosexual reproducing couple is a stupid idea. You have more than 2 people dying for every 1 birth. In very short order you starve the economy of eligible labor, and overburden it with entitlements.

That's the whole point: more people dying than are born, so the population is eventually reduced to a sustainable level. As for eligable labor, have you been reading the reports about how robots are going to (indeed, already are) replacing a lot of human labor? Or you could get rid of age discrimination...

This is not to mention that any negative population rate is unsustainable.

Sure, in the long run, just as any positive growth rate is unsustainable. The point is to maintain the negative rate until the world population reaches a sustainable level, then keep the rate around zero.

Crazy to think there will be a time when there are less people on earth over time. I believe I will live to see that occur.

Of course there will be a time when there are fewer people on Earth. It's just that there's a choice as to how this happens: either the population is reduced voluntarily, or we continue on the present course until we replay the Permian-Triassic extinction, leaving no humans on Earth. (And of course without Earth, those in space will die sooner or later.)

[Xist]

How many solar panels does it take to make one solar panel?

Would you stop the factory at night?