What's Really Warming the World? Nice Bloomberg graph

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by P-hack

What I want, or what you want, and what everyone else wants, are very different things.

Maybe .. maybe not .. it depends on what each of those wants is.

I've already honestly said what I want.

I'm still waiting for you to tell me what you want.

If you want a reduced % rate of growth .. So do I.

If you want fewer total number of people .. So do I.

etc.

[P-hack]

if we breed out those who choose to self-reduce, then what?

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by P-hack

if we breed out those who choose to self-reduce, then what?

Results = reality .. not what one 'chooses' .. even if those don't 'choose to self reduce' .. if they do so anyway .. for any reason at all .. that is the result .. if it is what they intentionally chose to do or not.

If your if above ever happens to any statistically significant portion of the population for any statistically significant period of time .. that will manifest itself as an observable increasing % growth rate .. not for 1 day or 1 month (noise in the signal) .. but for entire generations.

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Observation to-date does not agree with your if above.

[niky]

Originally Posted by P-hack

if we breed out those who choose to self-reduce, then what?

Again, though... this presupposes there is a conscientious effort to outpopulate on the individual level. While one can see the thrust of cultural and political appeals to either breed more or less on a national level, these programs, drives, whatever, can't always force the outcome political and social leaders want.

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You can tell the Japanese to **** all you want, but they still aren't having babies.

Contrawise, you can apply all the population control propaganda you want in poorer countries, but they're still going to have too many babies.

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It all boils down to education and employment for women. Work on that, and you're well on your way to slowing down population growth.

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Progress is progress. Do it too fast, and you have a demographic nightmare on your hands... too few working age people supporting too many retirees.

Trains can't stop on a dime.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by niky

...It all boils down to education and employment for women. Work on that, and you're well on your way to slowing down population growth...

The problem is that both education and employment for women especially in the poorer countries of the world require wealth generation and growth, which in turn requires cheap and reliable energy.

[P-hack]

Originally Posted by IamIan

Results = reality ...

Observation to-date does not agree with your if above.

Oh, so populations of animals with low fertility rates don't die out :/

Originally Posted by niky

Contrawise, you can apply all the population control propaganda you want in poorer countries,

The problem here is the "reverse engineering" that goes into that assumption. Any reasonably well off population is perfectly capable of "improving" their fertility rate, if they believe it is in their best interests to do so.

Originally Posted by niky

It all boils down to education and employment for women. Work on that, and you're well on your way to slowing down population growth.

It may be too narrow an "education", sure you can convince them (and the males) that mass abortions of convenience isn't murder, but really you have moved conflict between adults competing for resources, to adults killing an undefensible and unrepresented population. And like colonization, we are so sure we are right (we are the smart and educated ones!) that nobody thinks twice about imposing our views on anyone we see fit. Another manifest destiny perhaps.

Originally Posted by niky

Progress is progress.

Again, that progress word. It is more like compromise, and while everyone thinks they have the answers, they don't know the long term effects of this either.

My take on it is that a large number of people want a "peaceful" reduction of the population, but observations about evolution have shown that conflict/struggle is necessary for evolutionary progress. I mean if the pacifists die out, then who is left to breed?

[niky]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

The problem is that both education and employment for women especially in the poorer countries of the world require wealth generation and growth, which in turn requires cheap and reliable energy.

And therein lies the rub.

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But I think at the very least opportunities for employment and a culture of female employment would help.

Originally Posted by P-hack

Any reasonably well off population is perfectly capable of "improving" their fertility rate, if they believe it is in their best interests to do so.

The question is... why don't they? So far, none of them have reversed the slide. Yet.

Originally Posted by P-hack

...sure you can convince them (and the males) that mass abortions of convenience isn't murder, but really you have moved conflict between adults competing for resources, to adults killing an undefensible and unrepresented population. And like colonization, we are so sure we are right (we are the smart and educated ones!) that nobody thinks twice about imposing our views on anyone we see fit. Another manifest destiny perhaps.

Who said anything about mass abortion? All you need to curb population growth is contraception and incentives not to breed. Both of which are in great supply in the developed world. Japan never needed abortion to attain negative growth.

Originally Posted by P-hack

My take on it is that a large number of people want a "peaceful" reduction of the population, but observations about evolution have shown that conflict/struggle is necessary for evolutionary progress. I mean if the pacifists die out, then who is left to breed?

Who's to say this hasn't happened already? The dominant ethnic groups on the planet are those who have won the largest piece of the planetary pie through millenia of warfare, exploration, conquest and the freak mutation of lactose tolerance which helped make all of that possible.

If you're looking for the last of the pacifists, they're pickling themselves to death on reservations and dwindling nature preserves around the world. You and I, we are the descendants of barbarians and conquerors.

We are, all of us, the children of Cain.

[P-hack]

population growth was fairly steady through affluent periods, I don't think affluence, which is largely a matter of perspective, explains everything, or possibly anything, regarding growth or lack of it.

[RedDevil]

News media in the Netherlands (nu.nl, De Telegraaf) bring out the story that the oceanografhical researcher Greg Johnson from the National Centers For Environmental Information claims:

the oceans will continue to rise in temperature for centuries, maybe even millennia, even if all man-made air pollution would stop today.

In other words, the air pollution up to now has set an irreversible climate change in motion.

I tried to find the source of that but haven't found it yet.
But I found this:

International report confirms: 2014 was Earth

Source: State of the Climate 2014: Bureau of Meteorology


Source: 2014 State of the Climate: Carbon Dioxide | NOAA Climate.gov


That's like the dials for climate change set to 11.

My home is just above sea level; I'm lucky with that as half of the Dutch homes are actually below sea level.
I hope I won't see the day that I have to abandon it as the rising sea levels can no longer be restrained by dykes etc.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by P-hack

population growth was fairly steady through affluent periods, I don't think affluence, which is largely a matter of perspective, explains everything, or possibly anything, regarding growth or lack of it.

You need to define where this applies and over what period, in short data or bollox.