It's all over but for the sweating?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

We had this discussion tens of pages ago and you were wrong then and remain so.

Just saying.

I have a choice here. I can believe you, or I can believe census figures and my own eyeballs. Guess which I choose?

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Top notch report on climate change that is happening already:

...which is summarized in these graphs:

[TheEnemy]

At 20:50 I have a problem with that map. As has been discussed here before the colder polar regions will experience greater warming due to the nature of the system. The map is indicating that the warmer regions are going to warm up more than the polar regions. Remember the heat radiated by a body determined by the third power of the temperature in Kelvin.

Other than that I didn't see anything seriously wrong.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Don't watch this video IF you want to avoid learning something about climate science:

[niky]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

I have a choice here. I can believe you, or I can believe census figures and my own eyeballs. Guess which I choose?

What's Driving the Decline in U.S. Population Growth? - Population Reference Bureau

Fact Sheet: The Decline in U.S. Fertility - Population Reference Bureau




(a fertility rate of 2 and below means the population is in decline, assuming an equal gender ratio)

Both prosperity (which leads to greater female education and empowerment) and economic turmoil hurt population.

Poor people has mo' kids, yo. And Rich people have less. And even less kids when economic hardship forces them to concentrate on their careers and maintaining their standard of living.

[elhigh]

^^

That's the way I always understood it. Assorted Smithsonian Magazine articles, Nat'l Geo articles, Scientific American articles etc keep saying it over and over, so unless they're all quoting the exact same resource and that resource is just plain wrong, I don't see a reason to doubt the conclusion.

I've been seeing other articles that talk about population declines in other countries too, not just US. Generally it's the middle class and above that are dying out.

A small nucleus of upper-middle class shall inherit all the money, and the fiscally meek shall inherit the rest of the earth.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by elhigh

^^

A small nucleus of upper-middle class shall inherit all the money, and the fiscally meek shall inherit the rest of the earth.

...essentially, back to fifedoms: a few rich/powerful and many peasants.

[Occasionally6]

Originally Posted by elhigh

I've been seeing other articles that talk about population declines in other countries too, not just US. Generally it's the middle class and above that are dying out.

A small nucleus of upper-middle class shall inherit all the money, and the fiscally meek shall inherit the rest of the earth.

It's an interesting, uncontrolled, experiment in eugenics; poor, uneducated and religious people outbreeding (physically at least) the educated middle class.

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...essentially, back to fifedoms: a few rich/powerful and many peasants.

Isn't that the natural consequence of laissez faire capitalism? (That has been tried, often with at least some degree of success, in many past civilisations.)

The biggest problem at the moment is not that the global population is growing but that wealth is. While that is not inherently a bad thing, for the poor at least, the consequences of that and the speed with which it can occur will outstrip any of the effects of population growth.

The world will almost certainly have an extra 2-3 billion people in it by the middle of the century. That will certainly have some impact but, because they will mostly be poor, it's not necessarily catastrophic. 3 billion more in the middle class will be, if they do it the same way as we do now.

I find it incredible that anyone who can read and write, even without a high school level of scientific knowledge, can still think that AGW is not occurring. Rather than argue whether or not there is a problem, it is far more productive to discuss how it can be solved.

Is it all over but for the sweating (and collapse of civilisation)? I don't think so but it is going to be challenging, not technically, that's pretty straightforward, but politically and socially.

At the moment, it's not easy. It is very difficult for an individual (and family) to try to do what is required alone. Try to build a Tiny House (or even a slightly smaller one) amidst a sea of McMansions and see how far you get. Try to grow your own food in your front yard and see how quickly the home owner's association jumps on it. That is not freedom.

What will it take?

[niky]

Mud huts and pig-farming.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...essentially, back to fifedoms: a few rich/powerful and many peasants.

Fiefdom, surely. You Have No Control Over Security on the Feudal Internet -- by Bruce Schneier

Originally Posted by niky

Mud huts and pig-farming.

Or Compressed Earth Blocks and Biochar; if we choose

[Occasionally6]

I mean what will it take politically. Vision would be a start.

Originally Posted by niky

Mud huts and pig-farming.

It isn't necessary to go (back?) to doing that; we're still going to have an industrialized, developed society, with electrical power, running water, refrigeration etc., just not a consumer based growth economy. A lower level of material wealth, as distinct from standard of living, than that currently found in the developed world may be necessary (possibly will be).

I'm sure any of us are capable of finding "global footprint" stats. While they vary some and not all limits are the same, most of them are currently at something like 1.2-1.5 times the Earth's supply capacity. Multiplying that by 3 or 4, let alone 8 or 9, cannot physically happen.

Doing what we do now with much less environmental impact is possible. We can also reassess societal values and design an economy that does make meeting basic human needs possible long term.