How shall we run the 21st century?

This is a malthusian myth, brought on by aristocratic thinking. That there is some moral hazzard to giving a mother in poverty, a helping hand to feed her children. As with any government program food stamps have fraud/waste/abuse, but no one is going to decide to not work just to get those sweet sweet food stamps. A bigger problem is educating some of the recipients on good nutrition, and not getting some food stamp cards to those in need.

I'm sure the corn lobby and the sugar lobby and the dairy lobby wouldn't like that idea We have a great number of subsidies in this country. I imagine free rice and beans would cost more than the food stamp program, but who knows, it might do some good. Then again rice and beans without fruits and vegetables is not a very healthy diet.

Food stamps have improved to be better than this, but it still talks about some of the problems today.
Q & A: The Causes Behind Hunger in America : NPR

The biggest problem with food in this country is with children, not adults. Other countries have much bigger problems than the US.

Hunger in america is really about poor government programs. My state, texas, is one of the shameful states, where we have high obeisity, but also malnurished children.

We have a shameful congress in this country that have decided acting like babies, is more important than actually trying to keep the government running. Its no surprise that food stamps are a fake political issue, even though it is only a tiny portion of government spending. Simply mis management in the dod budget is thought to be higher than the entire snap program.

 

You may be correct if looking at food stamps alone. but if you add welfair, and free housing you end up with a situation that is good enough that it becomes a problem. and don't forget it is not the government giving them these benifits it us the tax payers.

IMO any program that will really work must provide help but not be equilivent to what they could do if they get a job. there are a couple reasons that the food program can work. first there is no need to qualify so if you work great you still get these basic foods, if you are homeless and on drugs ect.. you still get these basic foods. anyone asking for help saying they are hungry on the street can just go to the nearest store and pick up some food. = no real hunger problem we would have everybody eating. that would be great.

I understand this only addresses food but that is a start.

you mention that rice and beans is not healthy without fruit and veg. I agree but I don't think much of that is bought with food stamps, or Oregon Trail card here in Oregon. I often see expensive cuts of meat, and a lot of food that is bad for you. with some milk cheese ect.

as far as cost. we used to pay farmers to not use land to raise crops. just instead pay to grow beans and rice. gather it up and pay stores to have it. soup kitchens/ missions ect could cook it and feed homeless people who have a hard time cooking it.

of course there would still be wick program providing formula ect.

 

Way off topic, but I cannot resist ...

How do you prevent the beans and rice from being collected for free and then used to feed animals, or exported out of the country, or simply turned into fertilizer or fuel ?

I think you will find that where there is subsidy, corruption is close behind. You just have to notice the burgeoning regulatory bureaucracies that spring up around subsidy to know this is true. They are a response to the corruption (and parenthetically are often *worse* than the corruption.)

 

If we are looking at feeding the hungry, why do we need to look further?

I am fairly libertarian, and would prefer that the government would get out of the way, and allow people to prosper. But we have many that are temporarily unforuturanate, and they deserve a helping hand, not a kick in the rear.

I would have quite a different program, but that ignores the food problem can be solved without worring about welfare or unemployment.

Too many people, I think some republicans and democrats want to follow the ideas of malthus -
Thomas Malthus's Essay on Population
To act consistently, therefore, we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavouring to impede, the

Be vigilant that you don't take this malthuian hate.

 

Let's say the bottom 20%. These don't live in north america. As Americans we can try to get them food and clean water and medicine, but even here it is difficult. It is not that they can not be helped, but I do not know how they can be helped much by US. The millitary or CIA could try to topple their governments, but that is unlikely to work out well for us or them.

Ok Now we are at the next 20% in my rejiggered calculus. Many of these live in places like india, that have decent relationships with our government. Perhaps cultural imperialism in talking to these governments. These folks have much more pressing issues than climate change. Things like sex education, empowerment of woman over their own bodies, a higher minimum wage, minimal work conditions are important. Foreign monetary aid to governments doesn't help much here, but giving them some programs including training and materials may help. When a natural disaster happens be it climate change or not, aid agencies like doctors without borders and red cross/crescent are the best way to help, although the navy could provide hospital ships and some rebuilding materials in hard to reach coastal areas.

These folks may be helped by mitigation strategies. For climate change these are the people to fear. They have money and want to buy more meat and energy. These are the people that you need to convince that we need less ghg, and factory farmed meat isn't best. Many of these people live in china and india. They need to be included in any agreement.

 

Irrelevant to the current discussion. The question was about how we got here, not where we are going for here. And you really seem to enjoy throwing a huge amount of baggage onto a simple question.

Which to remind you was: "why is the *percentage* of people starving a better metric than *total number* of people starving?"

Rant somewhere else about Malthus.

 

Read the title of the thread bubba. How should we run the 21 century. The 20th century is yesterday. Wishing we were back in 1800 when a southerner could own as many slaves as he could afford isn't going to get us anywhere, but IMHO we are in a better place now. How did we get here, its too long to put in a simple form? We are here. I wasn't around when most of the good and bad decissions were made. If you want to institute some of those traditions from 1800 I will attempt to oppose you, but hey its your call about baggage. How are you going to get down to 1 billion people. I will tell you, you need to answer that question, and many have. I don't like the answers.

I did last week go to an environmental conference and saw a panel on how we feed 10 billion people using less energy, less water, and causing less pollution than today. That is what we should be talking about not, your fundemental, what if we only had 1 billion people. To me how you get to 1 billion, the means is more important than the ends.

I think the better question is why are people starving and how do we end that. That would be a better question.

But if your question is, is the world worse in terms of starvation than it was in 1800? Absolutely it is better. Its not about how many people are being starved its about the number of people being fed, and have enough to do more than subsist, waiting for the next starvation. We have plenty of food to feed everyone, we just are not getting it to them. That is a much better question than the one I have for you. How do you propose to go back to 1 billion people. Would you withold medicine from your family first. Who would you sterilize? These are the uncomfortable questions you have to answer if your proposal is we were better off with fewer people. I'm sure some were. Please ask one of your black friends if they think things were better in 1800, because you know, fewer people were starving. Your single metric 1 billion people are better because fewer people starve, is simply an awful idea of what is important in the world. Why not go back to 100 people, then at most 100 people can starve to death. Sterilize them so you can stop all starvation.

I am sorry, but your entire argument, and that of Ehrlich and the neo mathusians boils down to we would be better off with fewer people. Most in the civilized world reject the means to get there. While many of us support things like empowering women to make choises about their bodies, and we have statistics that when so empowered birth rates decline, most reject giving the upper class or some other self important group the power to decide that some should not be able to have children, or food, or medicine.

Now tell me again, how you would have prevented the births of 6 billion of the 7 billion, and how that is better than the much smaller number starving.

 

Ah yes, these same egalitarian pseudo-libertarian rich people who hog 95% of the resources and then invite the other 99% to enjoy the liberty of fighting over the scraps.

 

Basis of Estimate

• ~6 billion people @2000 (source: File:World-Population-1800-2100.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
  • ~2 B - 1/3 too young and uneducated to understand
  • ~4 B - old enough to understand, teenagers and above
• Distribution of knowledge (source: Powerpoint file (5.5Mb) )
  • 0% understand the mechanism causing global warming (pp.3)
    • A: black-body radiation and optical windows
  • 0.3%, 55%, 97% - pick a climate consensus
• Active misinformation (pp. 33)
  • Fake Debate
  • Logical Fallacies
  • Impossible Expectations
  • Cherry Picking
  • Conspiracy Theories

Bad News

Even within our small niche of current and past Prius owners, we have advocates for pretty much every point of view. We're a self-selected population that Prius owner studies indicate we tend to be older, wealthier, and more educated than the average car owner. Yet the advocacy of misinformation remains a thing of wonder and horror. So what chance do the other 4 B. humans have?

Good News

Nature doesn't care what 'we think' as the natural consequences of global warming accumulate. For example, fauna and flora are 'voting with their feet' and seeds as they migrate towards polar latitudes. Lysenko showed we have no practical way to 'educate' them any more than climate denier Anthony Watts can command the tides not to rise.

Our local climate discussions have and continue to lead to new insights on a subject I never felt much curiosity. An engineering problem, we've known that since the 1962 Mariner-2 mission, planet-wide, run-away, CO{2} heating has been a demonstrated fact. It is based on physics and chemistry. Knowing the long-term prospects for solar expansion, it is only a matter of time until earth becomes a second Venus. I'm casually curious if our fossil fuels might trigger it sooner rather than later but this is an engineering question. But ultimately:

Source: John Reisman (pp. 2)

Bob Wilson

 

It looks like the CO{2} levels affect the rate solar heat accumulates, not the immediate temperatures. So whether we are at 300, 400, 500 . . . 800 or higher ppm, it changes the rate of heat accumulation, not the global temperature value. We have to integrate the rate of heat influx with the material specific heat to get an idea of the temperature.

You're right to wonder about ocean and land effects. Ocean transport mechanisms exist but there is this problem of a thermal gradient. Maximum sea water density is what, 39C, and there sure is a lot of it. But apparently not as much as in past as the thermocline moves deeper and deeper. The slope of the terrain from the beach to the basins means over time, the amount of cold water decreases. A deeper and deeper layer of warm water is blanketing our oceans.

So I'm calm about these things. We've already passed 400 ppm and soon enough will be significantly higher. But this is a rate function and the deadly effect, global temperature, is the integration of this rate over time. So even if we clamped the CO{2} at this rate, we're still in for a long ride up the temperature scale . . . with local variations.

One thing I like about living in Huntsville is I can often assume basic engineering skills in our population. Sure engineers have their 'tribal' aspects, they like to see themselves as Ayn Rand heros. But when you use engineering terms, the stuff they learned in school, a funny thing happens . . . they begin to get it.

Now one thing I learned in John Cook's YouTube, in the questions at the end, is the problem of discussing global warming with conservatives using conservative terms (note, not engineering.) For example, trying to discuss the cost of mitigation versus avoidance, another recent thread.

There is a paradox that using the language of conservatives drives them more into denial. Call it the 'tribal' effect but the same can happen when discussing faith with some of our more conservative, religious neighbors. John does not offer an answer, yet, but he has identified the problem. How to break through tribal thinking patterns remains a nearly intractable problem.

Regardless, the natural world doesn't care what our species of primates thinks. But it can be fun trying to help folks understand.

Bob Wilson

 

This tribalism, can work to benefit in very small populations, but in larger populations is quite destructive. It often manifests its worst incarnations when resources are short, especially because of government policy. The most recent negative tribalism was in the hutu-tutsi violence in africa that led to attempted genocide.

These tribal instincts were strong with the British governent, and help explain the inexplicable, the widespread starving of controlled population. It is not as if the british government went about to starve the other tribes on purpose, but they definitely did starve them, and allowed them to starve.

The first incident I would like to bring up, the bengal famine killed about one quarter of the population in the period 1769-1773. The policies of the east indian company, were all about profit. They made it illegal to horde food, which really was about storing food for future shortages. They gave themselves a monopoly on rice, and taxed people so high that when shortages occurred they had no money to buy imported food. They converted land from food to opium, which was a much more profitable export. All those people dying made it rough to hit profitability goals for the company, so the british government helped out. They passed a tea tax, which was one of the factors in the american revolution. People in Bengal were not really as worthwhile as rich people in england, and the British government really didn't care much about them dying, other than how it hurt profits.

What lessons were learned from this humanitaian disaster? For some it was that it didn't really hurt people at home when those lower tribes died. Come to the Irish famine, where about 10% of the Irish population died, but the population started much lower. They weren't brown though, right? England and Ireland were both white and christian, well the Starving Irish were the wrong kind of christian and they were poor, and that was their own fault. They deserved to starve according to many of the British aristocracy. There was a shortage of potatoes, but during the famine, a great deal of more expensive food was exported from Ireland to England. There was plenty of food that could have been imported but again it cost more than the starving people could pay for. Ireland is a small country, the population was 8M at the start of the famine, it was 6M after. 750,000 are estimated to have died, many of the others left Ireland for north america.

It is not as much of a tragedy as Bengal, but shows that this is not tribalism, it was destruction and hording of resources by those in power, and they used racism to justify their position. Only a handful profited from the mass suffering. We can see some parallels in the current policy talks. By the way, the British created another famine in bengal in 1945, just in case you think this is ancient history, it is not.

We can see many parellels in today's resource discussions. In Europe the ruling class handed a small number of people loads of money in cap and tax, but at least it did not cause a great famine, it just was a tax from the people to those the government favored, that has done nothing to curb global climate change. In the US we have some folks like the east indian company trying to profit off coal policies (like british opium policies), these have like the EUs cap and tax not killed massive amounts of people yet, but they do destroy the ability to get better policies passed.

Many seem to think the solution is to be racist imperialist like the british. Maybe if the Indians and the Chinese starve they won't use as much oil and coal and there will be more for those of us that are deserving.

The bengal famine had food land converted to a cash crop, opium. In the US food is switched to corn ethanol. In Ireland pressures caused a mono culture that made a massive crop loss more likely. In the US we are creating this in corn.

The solutions are not in tribalism, they are in technology. Don't let the Koch brothers, or 350.org use tribalism to delay solutions. Answers are often in technology, but the tech needs some government help to get a hold. Again we can substitute away from old coal plants and oil wells to provide the energy we need for the future. It can be cleaner, it can cause less pollution. It takes time, and it takes some empowerment of those that have solutions, and removal of the government subsidies from those that want to keep the status quo.

 

The famines discussed and others were the result of crop failures due to harsh climate of the Little Ice Age.
If we are entering a similar climatic period as 1850, as predicted by solar physicists,we will again see crop failures and starvation.
100,000 cattle died this week from an early Wyoming snowstorm.Similar storm killed sheep in England last year.
Last year Germany had the harshest winter in the past 200 years.
Early cold has already hit Europe this year.
Cold climate devastated humanity in the past .
Global warming is actually much more desirable .

 

Actually the ones I mentioned were because of british government policy. The most recent multi million person famine, was from chinese government policy. It is not that we don't have enough resources, we have governments that seem to want people to starve. The british government policies actively increased deaths in both the bengal and irish famine. If we have people starving today, its because some government or group is actively denying food. It is not climate.

Why? We now have ships to move food. We have the internet to share ideas about seeds, fertilizer, pesticides. The mad scientist haber, helped create process where food could be grown in bad soil without animal fertizer. Borlaug and other helped create the green revoluion. If the planet gets hotter or colder, wetter or dryer, we can choose to feed everyone. Many people though want to let people starve and use it for money or politics just as the british did in the mentioned famines.

So what? Do you think we have a meat shortage? You can supersize it, and get burgers as big as your face covered in as many strips of bacon and dripping cheese as you desire.
Extreme Eating: 5 Most Fattening Foods

Do you really think cold is what makes people starve. Walk into a buffet and look at the obeisity.

All indications are the world is still warming, no matter what kind of pseudo science you read, but the point should be starvation is largely caused by governments today, not climate.

CLimate change, as catastrophic as it can be, seems to be a plaything of polictians. Is it really that hard to pay 20% more for electricity from a plant that does less potential harm. I know, I know, our friends Mitt Romney and the koch brothers have our best interests at heart, and are great humanitarians. They say that paying a little more for clean energy will ruin america, or at least reduce the money they take from americans. They each have special spots in the tax code just for them. Before you listen to coal is good, follow the money, and tell me if its really good for you. The same with the tax and cap plan, that was a giveaway to many super rich without really reducing ghg. Thanks congress, for sticking up for the super rich that contribute the most. And congress explain why we should trust you.

 

Ultimately, I believe we need to find a way to reconcile our economic system with how the rest of the planet works. What we pay for things - especially energy - is completely out of synch with the actual costs. Yes, this would be hugely disruptive, but not nearly as catastrophic as the harm we're doing to our only home. Basing our idea of wealth on environmental destruction is simply not viable. And no, there's no intent to bankrupt anyone by charging 'too much' for petroleum - people would naturally choose the best and cheapest option.

 

AG's question can be paraphrased as: is it really so hard to waste 20% less energy in America ?

The answer is: impossible, until rates rise.

 

You'd think 20% would be easy. We probably waste more than we use.

 

Yep, but people do not act that way in aggregate. They want convenience, and waste up to some threshold personal cost.

In the language of economists, energy use is elastic. I was looking a few weeks ago how much German households pay for energy. Although their cost/kWh is triple the US average, the monthly bill is similar to US. They have simply adapted to higher unit prices by using less, conserving, and taking advantage of efficiency. This is why the Republican mantra of cheap energy = affluence is BS. Closer to the mark is: cheap energy = waste.

 

I was talking about paying 20% more for energy 20 years from now versus business as usual, to produce 50% less ghg and use much less fossil fuel (but not 50% less) in the US. We have the technology today to do that, but it takes will and cooperation. The chief extra costs will come from having to build new infrastructure (grid improvements, solar, wind, ccgt, coal with ccs, more efficient cars and cars that use alternative fuels like plug-ins), and shutting down old plants. Some costs will come from making fuels more expensive, and I would limit these to coal and oil to get the biggest bang for buck, and when the government taxes something, they seem to waste some of the money, so these should be set to make the transition not to punish. One reason it should only cost 20% more is because of efficiency improvements, reduced health care costs from breathing in polluted air, reduced natural gas costs because more power is supplied by renewable.

The reason this is hard is because of politics. The politicians in crafting tax and cap actually locked in a great deal of coal pollution, and had big giveaways to their corporate sponsors. Duke energy, one of the biggest polluters, was set to have hundreds of millions sent its way. We can learn a lot from europe's cap and trade, and how they funneled money to some corporations, but did not reduce ghg nearly as much as they should have been able to do. For the other side, cap and trade in Europe also didn't cost nearly as much as people thought it would. We can learn from the good and bad of programs in Spain, Germany, and England.

One reason politics is brutal in reforming infrastructure is that increased costs would happen mainly on the east coast and midwest, and would not be spread evenly around the country. West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio would likely be the hardest hit economically. Senator Bird's death, really helps with the possibility of passing something, as he really was senator coal. Senator minority leader McConnell is now the most powerful coal politician, but he is no where near as uncompromising as Bird. There is a group called the coal caucus in the house, but they are losing power so there is hope. These groups are funded from around 15 extremely rich men and corporations, and there is now large groups funding the other side, but we have dysfunction in washington. In Beiging its even worse, but there is hope.

The reason I say 20 years instead of 5, is these power plants last a long time. We can't just shut them off, without having all hell brake lose about rates skyrocketing, even if prices would move much less in a differently regulated environment. These things take time, and we can do a lot in the next 5 years.