How shall we run the 21st century?

Humans act in concert like frogs in hot water. They will boil to death rather than jump out of the pot if the temperature increase is gradual enough. A few denialist idiots shouting "this temperature is natural !!" just adds a bit of comedy to the tragedy.

As for economics driving populist climate change mitigation -- that is hopeless. The reactionaries say:

• Good times ? Don't rock the boat!
• Bad times ? We need the money!

So what does alter our course ? Ironically enough, BIG money. Drought and Flood insurance will follow science to profit. People will have to adapt to the risk, and eventually the government will run out of money to react to yet another disaster.

That is the unfortunate scenario. The more rosy one is that technology advance will just by luck be green and profitable, and as a side-effect carbon will be left in the ground.

 

I'm pretty sure global population has doubled in my life-time and I don't see an inflection point in the curves suggesting our species is very good at controlling fertility, yet.

More precisely, the natural world doesn't care. As for "concern trolls", a little kinder term than I would choose but close enough. <grins>

Bob Wilson

 

You may want to look at where. In the US, Europe, Japan, China, Russia, population is under control, or maybe even growing too slowly to provide benefits to the retired.

Other countries are quite different. The highest growth rates are in Africa and muslem asia. You would likely add in India, not because of the growth rate, but because the population is so large already, and unlike china, the government is not really curbing it. The big problem with population is not growth, but more people want to eat more meat and drive cars. That change in buying patterns (they have more money) puts a strain on resources. Meat and energy require a great deal of water. We throw away 40% of our food in the US, and have problems with obesity, and obese cars(SUVs), if the rest of the world develops those habits, that's when problems happen. Population is already over 7x higher than when malthus wrote about over population, somehow resources available per capita is much higher now than then.

Let's be fairly clear, the head of the IPCC, the most recognized politician of green, the spokesmen of these green changes, burn much higher amounts of fossil fuels than the rest of us. If everyone burned as much as IPCC head Pachauri then we would already be out of fuel and water. Pachauri got photo opped, having his chaufer pick him up from his mansion, to go on 1 mile trips. Walking is probably out of the question, the ev given to him he would have to drive himself, biking may be good enough for some of us, but not if you are the lead preacher about how much others are destroyoing the planet. Other than the governments of germany and some scandanavian countries, those promoting low ghg lifestyles are going through it like their preaching does not include them. How many mansions should a man have, and how many trips on private jets. Pachauri and Gore look like the onceler from dr. seuss fame, at least Pachauri will be gone in 2015. We need need better lead spokesmen, those that actually try to live the lifestyle, and/or embrace the science;-) One recurring theme from sxsw eco that I attended last week, was that those advocating should also look like decent role models, or at least not look like resouce hogging pigs..

I found it quite illuminating that Curry modeled ghg versus natural and got 0.4 degree natural and 0.25 degrees human, in the recent 0.65 degree C warming (latest was 0.76 degrees from IPCC from the average of late 1800s to the average of the last 10 years, curry must have been looking at a shorter time period). And that is where the discussion among scientists really is, how much is the sensitivity, which would tell us by how much we will heat the earth by fossil fuel burning. Well that and having no idea of what is natural, how much trouble we will be in if we burn that fuel. No one really knows if there is a tipping point, or if we have already passed it. We do know what we should do to have less of an impact, and know the european tax and cap scheme was a failure, and needs to be heavily modified if it is going to work anywhere.

One interesting panel I went to at sxsw eco, was of journalists that cover climate science, and their discussion, on why climate science is so badly covered and understood by the public. One member of the panel, got very animated, and mad, and went on a rant about "deniers" and why they are "deniers" and not skeptics as other members of the panel were refering them as. The anger was clearly at the koch brothers and other groups that put out non-sense, non science to confuse. That is definitely a problem. But another problem is the battle of the super rich, as Bloomberg and gore also put out a great deal of misinformation. Now its easy to have more sympathy for the second group, as it will likely result in better government policies, but do we really fight obesity by limiting the size of softdrinks or fight climate change by government funding of the fisker? I would love it if the focus was on the scientists, not on the super rich that can get their non-sciency message out.

 

Recent NYTimes article (sorry no ref) said something like by 2050 the world economy will double and energy use will increase 30%. In other words, getting more efficient by necessity given rapid growth of energy consumption in China etc. and developing countries. I do not think we can repeat the 1900's, we will be more efficient per GDP but net consumption going up due to growth of population but also growth in the number of people wanting more energy.

 

It is a sure thing that oil use can not increase 30% in 2050, without oil prices going through the roof, as the unconventional oil would be quite expensive. Biofuels, methanol, and electricity may be able to fuel a bigger growth in transportation fuel though. Wind and solar can definitely grow greatly. Natural gas fracking world wide can grow at a much higher rate, and Isreal, Egypt, and Turkey may benefit along with the US. There is plenty of coal, coke, and shale to burn in power plants for that increase, but perhaps they should be more efficient and sequester their ghgs, and capture the NOx, SO2, mercury, and particulates. Finally there is the possibility by then for smaller safer nuclear that may be financially viable.

No reason that the world can not double its electrical production by 2050 (and use some of that for transportation, and manufacturing), but reduce ghg and pollution at the same time. It will take money and technology, but also a will of governments to work together on things like sequestration of carbon dioxide, and development of safer fracking methods and ways to produce nuclear power.

Not mentioned with fuel, is factory meat farms. These produce large amounts of methane, perhaps 20% of human generated ghg contribution. These also create huge amounts of water pollution, and require huge amounts of water and land to grow the soybeans and corn to feed livestock, along with the problems of gmo, fertilizer, pesticides on those crops. As more of the population gets wealthy there are dollars chasing more meat, and other countries will end up wasting as much food as the US. This may be a bigger problem with 10 billion people in 2050 than reducing the carbon intensity of energy.

 

The Return Of King Coal

1) The Return Of King Coal: Black Gold On Track To Be World’s No 1 Fuel Again - Daily Mail, 14 October 2013
2) Europe Is Marching Straight Back To Coal - Hot Air, 14 October 20913

3) Czechs And Poles Look To Coal For Energy - Business Day Live, 15 October 2013

4) Europe Threatened By Blackouts This Winter - EurActiv, 14 October 2013
5) Britain's Unilateral Carbon To Kill Cheap Coal Power - Reuters, 20 September 2013
6) A Warning From History: Why Was The Industrial Revolution British? - Robert C. Allen, 15 May 2009

 

Luckily for most of the planet, those reports are mostly wrong.
Coal's future darkens as use declines | The Desert Sun | mydesert.com

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Those of us that have visited china, know that it needs to come to terms with coal pollution far before 2050. Coal is king today, and should remain there for at least the next 5 years, but after that most economist expect a decline at least of coal pollution. By 2020, growth in china will be less than the decline in the US and Europe. By 2030, there is hope new plants will include ccs, and drastically lower ghg as well as particulates, SO2, NOx, and mercury, coming out of new coal plants. In the US that will soon be the law of the land.​

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I haven't even finished reading this, but couldn't let this pass.

Never before have so many humans done so poorly. There are more starving people on Earth right now than there were people in 1800.

Total number of humans (and its variants) are a terrible way to measure progress.

 

When malthus wrote his diatribe, it is likely fewer than 5% had the standard of living attributed to 70% of humans today. If you like aircondtioning, or cell phones, or cars, cable tv, books, the internet, etc, the top 5% live better than the kings did back then. With refrigeration and airplanes, we can get fresh food from all over the world. Well many don't have slaves, and most don't have sex with children, but I don't think that is a good measure of how good they had it back then. It is true we have many more people (7x), and this will have many more living in poverty. The number starving today, are starving because of politics. There is plenty of food for 7 Billion people, but governments because they are evil or incompetant don't get the food to the people. I firmly reject your idea that starvation is as much of a problem as in 1800, when more evil governments decided people were property, and starving people just should not be helped.

 

Please don't firmly reject something that I didn't say.

I do say that I don't see how number of people with TVs is a better metric for global societal health than number of people starving.

 

I thought I covered that. The percent of the people starving is much lower, the percent that are college educated is much higher. The percentage in slavery, in debtors prison, kept in poverty and starvation simply because the ruling class decided they were not good enough is much lower.

I understand that when there are a billion people, that the raw number starving will be lower, than we have today with seven billon people and some evil and incompetent governments. The problem is not a lack of resources, it is those governments and their policies. We have enough food in the US that obesity is a problem, we throw away 40%, and still export enough to feed a population greater than our own. Let us not confuse poor government policies with lack of food. I do think that the number of slaves in the 1800s, the number of children forced to have sex at that time, makes it hard to idealize it as a better world.

 

And you have given NO reason why percentage of people starving is a better metric than total number of people starving. As if the misery were somehow reduced.

I really couldn't care less about the excuses and blame throwing.

 

What measures would you use to reduce the population, instead to feed it and raise it out of poverty. I really sometimes think that those that want lower populations really hate mankind. Would you sterilize minorities or the mentally ill. Would you withhold medicine from the old. Would you increase infant mortality so we could get back to that 1800s population. Most reasonable people don't think that is a good way to reduce suffering.

What is your solution?
If you do not have one, admit that food is not a problem, it's governments getting the food distrubuted to those that are hungry. You are on the moral and ethical low ground if you are worshiping at the idea of government having fewer people simply because they want it. Should the british queen, start shooting people in india, because there are too many of them? Or is it up to the indian government, perhaps with some help to slow population growth and help feed those that have already been born.

I am offering no excuses, just a clear mirror at the idealized world people had of the low population 1800 time period. If you were not a land owner of the right color and the right faith with the right connections life could positively suck. The idea is to make life better now in the present, not falsely think things were better in the past, by ignoring our history, and believing a false one.

Your metric fails because you are not thinking of what it would take to reduce the world down to 1 billion people. If you do that, do you think we would really be better off.

I really hate the mathusian point of view. Its fascist and authoritarian. And requres the thinking that some people are more deserving to live than others.

 

I tend to believe the first link as its info which was presented to the World Energy Council conference.
Why should the opinion of the "Desert Sun" be more believable?

 

We won't run the 21st century, the Chinese will.

 

Its actually from Citibank and Bernstein Research. This is consistent with deutch bank. The problem with your links is they redraw the discussion to something quite different.

The first one, and the most accurate, claims more coal than oil in 2020. It does not talk about coal declining after 2020 because it does not look at it.

Oil will definitely decline by 2050 as I stated, but so will coal that does not have strong pollution controls. It is hard to look out in the chrystal ball, but most see coal declining world wide starting before 2030. Those non scrubber coal plants need to get shuttered in china. Coal could increase, in the future especially with ccs. Arguing short term trends will continue seems foolish, given the current Chinese government positions.

 

Darn. I was hoping since 'economics' got us into this mess, we might learn something from our mistakes and do something about it. With an economy based on 'developing' natural resources, the least we could do is price them appropriately. Limitless destruction is not exactly a good basis for a stable and successful civilisation.

 

The overwhelming majority of the world's population is still dirt poor. They are interested in helping themselves and their families to a better today and tomorrow. 100 years from now is just not on their radar. Economics as you and I discuss it might as well be a moon walk to these people.

I work on a native Indian reservation. Overall they are richer than the world's masses, but there is no doubt that money and resources are scarce. When it is cold they burn coal lumps in their homes. A nearby coal mine is soon to be sold by the regional energy utilities because even New Mexico has to comply with national pollution regulations and the mine is not expected to be profitable (or at least profitable enough for them.) Only one possible buyer so far as I know -- the local Indian reservation. Their motivation is simple: some 50 - 100 Indians *work* there, and the reservation is trying to prevent job loss. The coal jobs are for a population of about 10,000.


AG's vision of Japan and Germany as the models for decreased population and resource utilization is so profoundly off-base it is idiotic. Just imagine AG arguing with the *real* poor people of the world. As one example using per capita carbon as a marker for affluence: Americans are ~ 20X richer than the people of India on average. To say that the American demand that India curb carbon emissions in lockstep with the US falls on deaf ears is the understatement of the century.

 

It seems to me that one of the great problems is that government is so inefficient at helping those who need help without causing them to become reliant on the help.

I remember someone who said we should change the food stamp program to a food program. instead of giving the ability to buy foods from retail stores, we would pay farmers to grow rice and beans. we would then offer them to anyone who wanted them. rich or poor no need to keep track of who gets them they would be provided for everyone in our country. our hungry would not be hungry and would also desire to have other things to eat and that would motivate them to be productive and contribute to society. this is only one idea, but I think it would work here and could work in most places rice and beans very healthy! and very cheap! taste good but not to good!

I think it is right to help those who need help, and it is wrong to ignore the needs of others. we need to be smart in how we help them. I think programs need to be very simple to manage like the example above.