Comments on: The Australian solution to Greenhouse

By: Benno

Benno — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 22:15:06 +0000

“What this means is that because of the land mass of Australia, as a country we absorb more than we emit. Gabon does even better. Bolivia, Mongolia and New Zealand are close.”
Does sand in the deserts of Australia absorb carbon dioxide?
Mongolia? Come on! it’s more desert than Aus.
I did that test and was told “Blah blah blah, if everyone in the world lived liked you we would need 4.5 Earths to support everyone, guilt trip, guilt trip.”
Well my conclusion was the same as yours, too many people, we need to massacre many of them. I think 2 billion is a good cap. Which means removing the 4.5 billion who are the ugliest, stupidist, weakest. etc…
But killing is impracticle, massively so. So I proposed we ship them off on colony ships to colonise the rest of the galaxy. With of course appropriate corrective measures so that their genetic stocks improve over the generations of traveling.

By: Bob Foster

Bob Foster — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:10:54 +0000

OK. No one nowadays believes in a geocentric universe. Thank you Copernicus, thank you Galileo. But – I promise I am not making this up – the Good, the Great, and the Wise still act as though we have an autonomous Earth, and hence, an autonomous climate. If you believe that “by doing the right thing about fossil fuel use”, we can regain the benign stability of a pre-industrial Arcadia, you will believe anything. The Sun drives our ever-changing climate, and planetary motions drive the Sun.
These motions are amenable to calculation. If the Sun keeps playing by the rules, the next Little Ice Age cold period (Landscheidt Minimum) will be fully developed by 2030. This is within a responsible government’s planning horizon – people starved in the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715). Remember, in electro-magnetic and inertial terms, Earth is but a cog in a larger wheel – the solar system.

By: Graham Young

Graham Young — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 10:20:42 +0000

I think that the second comment largely answers the first. Rich countries appear to naturally gravitate towards birth-rates that without immigration would stabilise, or lead to a steady decline of, their populations.
However, I doubt whether it is possible to raise the living standards in the world to such an extent that this could happen at such a scale, to reduce global population significantly anytime in the next 100 years.
Are there any demographers out there who can do the figures? What if the whole world had Australian fertility levels. How long would it take for population levels to halve?

By: Glenn Graham

Glenn Graham — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:47:55 +0000

Hi Ambit Gambit,
One of the striking things that appeared to come out of the AP6 was the curious notion that progress in control of Global warming requires the subsidising of coal producers to the tune of $9 billion dollars and the removal of the domestic solar energy system rebate collectively worth $75 million dollars. That for me is progress alright, the continuous progress, at increasing speed to Global weather changes and human hardship. While I want to reduce my own outputs of CO2 I don’t want to commit to lowering my standards of living. These spreadsheets show us an important point, we need to be fewer humans. Rather than being 7 billion people and running ourselves back to Central African standards of living, why not as a species commit ourselves to being 2 billion people? Let us see ourselves progressively reducing our populations globally to 1.5-2.0 Billion and have all of them enjoy high standards of living. This could be done over the next 100 years or so. A hard ask but not impossible, a simple commitment to a highly valuable and empowering process known as “education” and BAM down goes the birth rate. Fewer people less CO2 and methane. In the interim perhaps an equal sharing of the $9 billion dollars in subsides to coal and alternative energy supply.
Woody

By: Guy

Guy — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:44:59 +0000

Are you calling for a one-child policy Graham? Mao would be proud!