Author Topic: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "  (Read 58292 times)

Kyle Schuant

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #350 on: October 19, 2019, 05:28:56 PM »

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks a capitalist economy can grow while using less resources. Turns out somebody just wrote a book about it.
It doesn't matter. That we change from 20mpg to 40mpg cars, for example, doesn't change the fundamental problem - that we are burning the resource, and once burned, it's gone forever. In the West our increases in consumption and pollution are masked by our outsourcing manufacturing to other countries. The growth is in service industries.

I work in the service industry - I own a training gym - and this exists on the back of a lot of resources. The gym itself consumes relatively little, just a bit of electricity and water. But it can only exist as a business because people drive to it, and it only needs to exist because people drive to it. Because this huge amount of cheap energy means we barely have to move our bodies, we have to move our bodies formally in a gym setting to avoid becoming gelatinous blobs of sloth.

What cheap energy does for us is really not appreciated by people. It saves stupendous amounts of time and labour. As the saying goes, if you think fuel is too expensive, get out and push. Without cheap energy, 90% of our lives are spent within 2 miles of home, and 99% within 20 miles. Most of our day is spent washing and mending clothing, growing and preparing food, maintaining the leaky roof, and so on. Without cheap energy there is no surplus to allow people to become trainers or accountants or lawyers, and without cheap energy there is no feminism or freedom for women (the first suffragettes were from the middle class, which in the 19th century was defined as "well-off enough to hire servants" - and cheap energy is a servant).

In Canada we have a consumption tax called the goods and services tax.   In order to (try to) keep it from being regressive, it doesn't apply to certain essentials like food.

Same here in Australia. Or rather, it does not apply to "fresh" food. Fresh fruit and vegies, bread and meat and so on don't have GST - but biscuits and lemonade and cheezels and TV dinners and restaurant meals have GST. Which is why I'm sceptical of a junk food tax: we already have one, really, we just call it a goods and services tax. And with or without a tax, it's not like a KFC bucket is cheaper than getting chicken and cooking it yourself. But people still do it.



I can also see a situation where someone sells their excess credits and then doesn't have enough for fuel in the winter. Or are they only usable by companies?

A straight up tax with a low-income tax credit seems much easier. Or much stricter standards for cars and trucks and machinery.

There's a zillion ways you could do things, but if they're tradeable then you pay for them, this is why you'd start with a surplus of them. But like a carbon tax, if instituted by a government they are most likely to be used to benefit the well-off. If there isn't a carbon tax in your country it's because nobody in government has yet thought of a way to make it benefit their campaign donors.

Emission standards don't mean much in terms of resource depletion. We need to use less, and eventually to use none at all.

BicycleB

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #351 on: October 19, 2019, 06:18:00 PM »


If there was carbon tax is divided per person and directly returned to the citizens in equal shares, poor people would benefit financially instead of suffering a net cost.

Such a tax wouldn't be a hard cap like a ration, but would be easier to administer.



maizefolk

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #352 on: October 19, 2019, 06:53:33 PM »


If there was carbon tax is divided per person and directly returned to the citizens in equal shares, poor people would benefit financially instead of suffering a net cost.

Such a tax wouldn't be a hard cap like a ration, but would be easier to administer.

A carbon tax also provides a more consistent economic incentive than Kyle's carbon voucher program.

One of the problems with cap-and-trade style systems is that prices are unpredictable from year to year. If emissions decline but the cap doesn't shrink fast enough, the cost of buying vouchers will be close to zero. If there aren't enough vouchers to go around after easy sources if mitigation are exhausted, the price of those vouchers can increase dramatically because for a lot of carbon emission sources change requires long term multi-year investments (whether from improved infrastructure or investing in R&D).

A carbon tax provides a known price of carbon emissions for years into the future (particularly if it has a built in ramp up of prices in future years), which means it is easier for people and companies to make long term decisions about lifestyle changes, investments, research, etc so we'd see larger reductions in emissions.

And as you point out, if returns its revenue to the population as a UBI it would be progressive rather than regressive. It'd be much harder for politicians to cut the tax in future years if it's taking money out of the pockets of the voters who elected them than if the carbon tax is just spent on other green new deal wish list items. The difficulty of repealing a carbon tax + UBI gives even more future price certainty to companies and hence even more investment in ways to reduce emissions to bring down costs.

pecunia

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #353 on: October 19, 2019, 07:18:05 PM »
You can come up with a really good tax plan to alleviate or even end greenhouse emissions, but I'll still bet that those people living in the vast slums of the world are not going to be ardent supporters.  If the slumlords that run those countries loosen their purse strings and allow a bit of trickle down to increase those folks living standards, I think they are going to love getting vehicles, central heat, hot water, air conditioning and are not going to give a hoot about the climate change problem.  Yeh - Could be billions of people in that situation.

maizefolk

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #354 on: October 19, 2019, 07:24:48 PM »
You can come up with a really good tax plan to alleviate or even end greenhouse emissions, but I'll still bet that those people living in the vast slums of the world are not going to be ardent supporters.

If it puts extra money in their pockets every month then yes, I predict those people living on the very least will rapidly become the most ardent supporters of a carbon tax.

BicycleB

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #355 on: October 19, 2019, 08:52:20 PM »
You can come up with a really good tax plan to alleviate or even end greenhouse emissions, but I'll still bet that those people living in the vast slums of the world are not going to be ardent supporters.  If the slumlords that run those countries loosen their purse strings and allow a bit of trickle down to increase those folks living standards, I think they are going to love getting vehicles, central heat, hot water, air conditioning and are not going to give a hoot about the climate change problem.  Yeh - Could be billions of people in that situation.

Those billions of people should receive enough carbon dividend to pay for more vehicles, central heat, hot water, air conditioning than they had before the tax.

I am favor of this plan because I think it will help the poor more than the rich. Most of the paying would be done by the rich, who spend the most. Most of the receiving would be done by the poor, who come out ahead in this system. If you want to help the poor, this climate plan helps them more than any other I am aware of.

Kyle Schuant

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #356 on: October 20, 2019, 01:56:46 AM »
Which is why it'll never be brought in.

For those unconcerned about resources: would we really be considering mining 5km down underwater if there were better options?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/20/cook-islands-manager-of-worlds-biggest-marine-park-says-she-lost-job-for-backing-sea-mining-moratorium

pecunia

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #357 on: October 20, 2019, 06:44:32 AM »
Per what I could garner from Wikipedia, Manganese is not all that rare.  I doubt whether the deposits are "played" out.  Since the nodules lie on the sea floor, perhaps someone feels that they could gather the material more cheaply than other means which extract the metal from nature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manganese

It could be an opportunity to create jobs and additional revenue for the Cook Islands.

History teaches us that it was the coal miners in England and the steam engines of Newcomen and Watt that set the Industrial Revolution in motion.  I guess this sea mining is merely an extension of that process that began long ago.  Whoever is financing this sea bed extraction may get very rich if their investment pays off.

I don't see it producing much in the way of additional greenhouse gases.

RetiredAt63

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #358 on: October 20, 2019, 07:57:18 AM »
We know so little about deep sea ecosystems and how they interact with the rest of the ocean ecosystems that Cook Islanders are gambling their ocean won't be affected.  Version X of dark satanic mills?

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #359 on: October 20, 2019, 08:55:43 AM »
We know so little about deep sea ecosystems and how they interact with the rest of the ocean ecosystems that Cook Islanders are gambling their ocean won't be affected.  Version X of dark satanic mills?

You can fit every scientist that is actively studying the deep sea ecosystems into a high school gymnasium.  Meanwhile, it makes up about 68% of earth’s total surface area.

It’s laughable how little we know. Most studies involve a few sediment cores over an area the size of Texas. Every expedition finds dozens of critters formerly unknown to science (aka “new species”).  Even reconstructing basic food webs is a giant-flipping-guess fort he deep sea (“well, there’s these hydrothermal vents which have symbionts bacteria... and some matter falling from above... and then somehow that gets to large fish and mobile invertebrates”)

pecunia

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #360 on: October 20, 2019, 09:50:11 AM »
Well - I wouldn't worry about it.  Seems like this would largely be a new technology.  The conventional mining of manganese has had many years to work the bugs out.  As it has been done for many years, techniques have been improved and costs have been driven down.  Undersea mining looks to be a risky investment.  Mining is a boom and bust boondocks industry.  The undersea mining practice may never even begin.  Looks like it is still pretty limited worldwide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_sea_mining

Given the choice, where would you put your money?

On the flip side, could there possibly be positive benefits to stirring up the bottom?  Will there be minerals in the water that will feed the small organisms in the water?

scottish

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #361 on: October 20, 2019, 09:55:41 AM »
You can come up with a really good tax plan to alleviate or even end greenhouse emissions, but I'll still bet that those people living in the vast slums of the world are not going to be ardent supporters.

If it puts extra money in their pockets every month then yes, I predict those people living on the very least will rapidly become the most ardent supporters of a carbon tax.

But will they use the extra money to buy cars, motorcycles and scooters?    They can support the tax, but not its intent.

bacchi

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #362 on: October 20, 2019, 10:06:52 AM »
You can come up with a really good tax plan to alleviate or even end greenhouse emissions, but I'll still bet that those people living in the vast slums of the world are not going to be ardent supporters.

If it puts extra money in their pockets every month then yes, I predict those people living on the very least will rapidly become the most ardent supporters of a carbon tax.

But will they use the extra money to buy cars, motorcycles and scooters?    They can support the tax, but not its intent.

Increased emissions standards. Major infrastructure changes.

We can use more than one tool to combat climate change.


BicycleB

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #363 on: October 20, 2019, 10:07:47 AM »
Which is why it'll never be brought in.

For those unconcerned about resources: would we really be considering mining 5km down underwater if there were better options?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/20/cook-islands-manager-of-worlds-biggest-marine-park-says-she-lost-job-for-backing-sea-mining-moratorium

I haven't seen any people on this board who are unconcerned about resources - that description looks like an attribution error.

I think that scarcity of non-renewable resources should be met by minimizing use and improving re-use, not by excessively expanding mining. Fwiw, I am in favor of protecting the marine park discussed in the article, not mining it.

ETA: That said, of course any individual company that sees a short term advantage can try to mine something, unless the rest of us stop them. That doesn't mean that mining it is a better choice for we the human species, or for the biosphere. It only means that someone imagined they would earn a short term profit. So we certainly could be considering underwater mining even if there are better options.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2019, 05:29:43 PM by BicycleB »

nereo

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #364 on: October 20, 2019, 10:46:35 AM »
Well - I wouldn't worry about it.  Seems like this would largely be a new technology.  The conventional mining of manganese has had many years to work the bugs out.  As it has been done for many years, techniques have been improved and costs have been driven down.  Undersea mining looks to be a risky investment.  Mining is a boom and bust boondocks industry.  The undersea mining practice may never even begin.  Looks like it is still pretty limited worldwide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_sea_mining

Given the choice, where would you put your money?

On the flip side, could there possibly be positive benefits to stirring up the bottom?  Will there be minerals in the water that will feed the small organisms in the water?

I have a colleague who studies the potential impacts of deep-sea mining, dredging and drilling.  Her research is precisely WHY I worry about such techniques. 
It’s largely ungoverned, under-regulated and preprioratory.  Because there’s so little baseline data and because there’s zero monitoring going on, a company can royally f-up a deep-sea ecosystem and no one will likely know.  EVen if they do, the response becomes “prove-it”.

It seems unlikely that there will be positive benefits to stirring up the bottom.  Sediment from the deep sea (ave depth 4,000 meters, or over 2 miles) doesn’t migrate to the euphotic zone where photosynthesis occurs, which is what people are talking about when we discuss ‘seeding’ the ocean with minerals to trigger phytoplankton blooms.  Almost all mining minerals are denser than seawater, and hence sink.  Hydrocarbons (e.g. crude oil) is less dense, which is why blowouts like the deep-sea horizon are so destructive to shallow-water environements even though they begin very deep... the oil eventually floats to the surface.

scottish

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #365 on: October 20, 2019, 02:15:04 PM »
You can come up with a really good tax plan to alleviate or even end greenhouse emissions, but I'll still bet that those people living in the vast slums of the world are not going to be ardent supporters.

If it puts extra money in their pockets every month then yes, I predict those people living on the very least will rapidly become the most ardent supporters of a carbon tax.

But will they use the extra money to buy cars, motorcycles and scooters?    They can support the tax, but not its intent.

Increased emissions standards. Major infrastructure changes.

We can use more than one tool to combat climate change.

Increased emissions standards?   The US is having a big internal fight about making emissions standards more lenient...

nereo

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #366 on: October 20, 2019, 05:46:29 PM »
You can come up with a really good tax plan to alleviate or even end greenhouse emissions, but I'll still bet that those people living in the vast slums of the world are not going to be ardent supporters.

If it puts extra money in their pockets every month then yes, I predict those people living on the very least will rapidly become the most ardent supporters of a carbon tax.

But will they use the extra money to buy cars, motorcycles and scooters?    They can support the tax, but not its intent.

Increased emissions standards. Major infrastructure changes.

We can use more than one tool to combat climate change.

Increased emissions standards?   The US is having a big internal fight about making emissions standards more lenient...
I wouldn't characterize it as a "big internal fight".  Most of the automakers have signed onto the new standards, as have 23 states representing over 2/3rds of the population.  It has broad support among the public.  But Obama passed it so the current administration is trying to repeal, despite the wishes of state governments, industry and the public in general.

pecunia

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #367 on: October 20, 2019, 05:51:17 PM »
You can have tighter emission standards, but with the big trucks that seem to predominate perhaps actual emissions are higher.  People love their big trucks.  The most ardent supporters love their big diesel trucks.

Kyle Schuant

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #368 on: October 20, 2019, 05:52:20 PM »
I haven't seen any people on this board who are unconcerned about resources - that description looks like an attribution error.
I'm judging by actions rather than words.


In any case, the public discussion is not about how much resources we have, but the effects of their use.


It's a funny thing. A decade or so ago there was a strong movement of concern about peak oil. This kind of fizzled out after the GFC, good old "demand destruction" dropped prices, ie economies went into miserable recession. Anyway, I saw a strange thing... a lot of peak oilers were climate change denialists. But when I went over to the climate change discussion groups, many of them denied peak oil.


From this I came up with Problem Exclusion Principle. The Pauli exclusion principle is one in physics, that two electrons can't occupy the same space (or more precisely, have the same four quantum numbers, but anyway). There seems to be a Problem Exclusion Principle, that once a person has decided X is a problem, they then insist that other problems either don't exist at all, or are merely expressions of X.


For X, put in climate change, resource depletion, the patriarchy, debt-burdened money supply, or whatever. Obviously this is a psychological defence mechanism. If X is the root of all problems and we sort out X, then all our problems are solved and we ascend upon a sunbeam into heaven for eternal bliss. But if X is a problem and Y is a problem and Z is a problem and they're all independent - well, it gets a bit overwhelming and we're a bit lost.


And this is why I am keen on changes which are solutions to several problems. For example, take the guidelines:


1. don't fly
2. bring work and home closer
3. trips under 5km walk; under 15km, cycle; over 15km, public transport


these address fossil fuel depletion, climate change, personal financial problems, and physical and mental health. Even if one of these things doesn't seem like an issue to you, one of the others will, and they help with all. You can quibble with the details, of course, and this is indeed a good way to avoid the discomfort of action. But broadly-speaking at a city-wide level they are true and good solutions to these several problems.


Likewise eating seasonal and local food, eating less processed food, using less electricity, and so on.

middo

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #369 on: October 20, 2019, 06:06:47 PM »
I think this may be appropriate somewhere in this discussion...

maizefolk

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #370 on: October 20, 2019, 06:12:43 PM »
It's a funny thing. A decade or so ago there was a strong movement of concern about peak oil. This kind of fizzled out after the GFC, good old "demand destruction" dropped prices, ie economies went into miserable recession.

I too remember peak oil being a significant topic of discussion about a decade ago. Here in the USA gasoline broke the psychologically important $3/gallon barrier and kept on going.

I think the emergence and widespread adoption of new fracking technology has a lot more to do with the reason we don't hear as much about peak oil anymore now that the effects of the Great Recession on oil demand is a thing of the past. Doesn't help at all with the CO2 emissions obviously, but enough to stave off the particular flavor of societal collapse folks like James Kunstler were sure we were headed into back in 2008.

middo

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #371 on: October 20, 2019, 06:20:31 PM »
It's a funny thing. A decade or so ago there was a strong movement of concern about peak oil. This kind of fizzled out after the GFC, good old "demand destruction" dropped prices, ie economies went into miserable recession.

I too remember peak oil being a significant topic of discussion about a decade ago. Here in the USA gasoline broke the psychologically important $3/gallon barrier and kept on going.

I think the emergence and widespread adoption of new fracking technology has a lot more to do with the reason we don't hear as much about peak oil anymore now that the effects of the Great Recession on oil demand is a thing of the past. Doesn't help at all with the CO2 emissions obviously, but enough to stave off the particular flavor of societal collapse folks like James Kunstler were sure we were headed into back in 2008.

Yes, there seems to be a misunderstanding that when oil becomes more expensive, society will move to other technologies to conserve it.  If the oil price triples overnight, it will create a shock.  If it triples over the next ten years, people will use less oil for transport, heating and electricity generation as they move to different technologies.  Those technologies are available right now, they just cost more and require change.  One of the tenets of MMM is to make sure you aren't spending too much due to inertia (check your insurance...).  People are not good at this until it starts to hurt them financially, then they will change their transport options.  Businesses are more attuned to costs and hence would lead the way on some of these.

pecunia

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #372 on: October 20, 2019, 06:23:45 PM »
It's a funny thing. A decade or so ago there was a strong movement of concern about peak oil. This kind of fizzled out after the GFC, good old "demand destruction" dropped prices, ie economies went into miserable recession.

I too remember peak oil being a significant topic of discussion about a decade ago. Here in the USA gasoline broke the psychologically important $3/gallon barrier and kept on going.

I think the emergence and widespread adoption of new fracking technology has a lot more to do with the reason we don't hear as much about peak oil anymore now that the effects of the Great Recession on oil demand is a thing of the past. Doesn't help at all with the CO2 emissions obviously, but enough to stave off the particular flavor of societal collapse folks like James Kunstler were sure we were headed into back in 2008.
 

Ole King Hubbert came pretty close to hitting the peak right on when he guesstimated the peak for oil extraction from conventional means in the 1950s.  How long is the oil supposed to last with the new extraction techniques?  It is still a limited resource.

BicycleB

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #373 on: October 20, 2019, 07:15:57 PM »
I haven't seen any people on this board who are unconcerned about resources - that description looks like an attribution error.
I'm judging by actions rather than words.

You are judging, yes. And the standard you are using appears to be that anyone who doesn't agree with your exact solution set must be unconcerned.

I have repeatedly acknowledged that you care and are putting forth effort, even if our assumptions and thus our conclusions differ. Your replies appear highly unreciprocal in return.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2019, 08:13:05 PM by BicycleB »

OzzieandHarriet

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #374 on: October 20, 2019, 07:45:59 PM »
More New Yorker ...  speculative fiction RE climate change from Joyce Carol Oates:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/14/sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god

Kyle Schuant

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #375 on: October 21, 2019, 02:00:38 AM »
I think the emergence and widespread adoption of new fracking technology has a lot more to do with the reason we don't hear as much about peak oil anymore now that the effects of the Great Recession on oil demand is a thing of the past. Doesn't help at all with the CO2 emissions obviously, but enough to stave off the particular flavor of societal collapse folks like James Kunstler were sure we were headed into back in 2008.
High prices causing recessions which then destroy demand is a really painful way to get to lower emissions.

Fracking, aside from its environmental effects, has the issue that there's a quick peak of production and a quicker dropoff (as opposed to the longer tail of conventional production). So there can be some uncomfortable moments there when production suddenly disappears. And of course, the US companies mostly haven't turned a profit and have massive debts - there's the potential for that to be another debt crisis for the West.

Kunstler's still talking doom! The US is about to collapse into civil war any day now! And his comment section is full of all sorts of nutty conspiracy theorists and trolls. From his most recent blog,

"Now, persons throughout all these agencies are waiting for the hammer to fall. If they are prosecuted, the process will entail yet another monumental excursion into the replaying of those digital records. It could go on for years. So, the final act in the collapse of the USA will be the government choking itself to death on replayed narratives from its own server farms. In the meantime, events are actually tending in a direction that will eventually deprive the nation of the means to continue most of its accustomed activities including credible elections, food distribution, a reliable electric grid, and perhaps even self-defense."

DOOM!!!

RetiredAt63

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #376 on: October 23, 2019, 03:26:16 PM »
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/03/analysis/data-based-dismantling-jason-kenneys-foreign-funding-conspiracy-theory

I found this on an election discussion site.  Interesting for Canadians to see where some of the rhetoric from Alberta is coming from, totally based on mis-information.  Some of the comments are also pretty interesting.

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #377 on: October 28, 2019, 06:27:18 PM »
Jared Diamond wrote a book called Collaps, which describes that advanced civilizations can collaps within a few decades. I think that will happen with most of the modernized world, as we are not taking climate changes seriously.

I like him.

pecunia

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #378 on: October 28, 2019, 07:30:28 PM »
Hmmmmm - the collapse will take a few decades.  Sounds like it's pushing the long run.  So we've got maybe 30 years.

"In the long run we are all dead," John Maynard Keynes

Seriously - It sounds like a book worth reading.  Do we currently see the first effects?
 

Kyle Schuant

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #379 on: October 28, 2019, 08:00:23 PM »
Yes.

Part of the cause of the Arab Spring was rising bread prices, which came about because of drops in local grain production, which came about because of climate change and aquifer depletion - and then the young rural males with nothing to do went to the cities and rioted. Thus ongoing civil wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen.

High oil prices were also a cause of the GFC in 2009.

And of course, part of the cause of the Second Congo War around 2000, killing 5 million people, was the mining of coltan and other resources - for our electronics. Nobody would be fighting a war for it if it were plentiful. And to this day slave child labour provides many of these resources.

So we have already seen regional and global effects of resource depletion and climate change, depressions and wars.

A "collapse" won't be overnight. It's just things gradually getting shittier. Transport and utilities getting less reliable. More waiting for an economic revival that doesn't come. More people marching or rioting. More crackdowns from government. A few more people dying from preventable diseases. Brownouts and alcoholism. And so on.

nereo

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #380 on: October 29, 2019, 06:21:34 AM »
In the aforementioned book, Jared Diamond describes how collapse of developed civilizations follows decades of declines until it reaches an unknown tipping point when the populace at large loses confidence in the established government, the mechanisms of power (e.g. efficient taxation, police/military, justice/penal system) stop functioning and then the civilization collapses in a very short time period.  This pattern has been repeated throughout history and across continents and cultures.

So slow decline, followed by an abrupt end.

It’s a good book - well researched and clearly written.

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #381 on: October 29, 2019, 10:15:13 AM »

Should we stop polluting, producing and reproducing....certainly.  Will it happen....certainly not.

I share your pessimism concerning population growth.

Every minute ~250 humans are born and ~105 die so global population increases ~208,800 per day.


nereo

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #382 on: October 29, 2019, 10:42:03 AM »

Should we stop polluting, producing and reproducing....certainly.  Will it happen....certainly not.

I share your pessimism concerning population growth.

Every minute ~250 humans are born and ~105 die so global population increases ~208,800 per day.

Global population growth is being driven by a handful of developing nations, mostly in African and Asia. About 40% of the countries are now below the replacement rate of ~2.1, and another 20% are very close.  Back in the 1960s this seemed inconceivable. 
The factors which are tightly correlated with lower pregnancies include literacy and education for women, access to healthcare and financial security (e.g. rising above subsistance).  These changes can happen in under a generation, and have for a number of countries large countries.

tl;dr - if we want to stop or slow population growth we need to increase education, health care and standards of living in the largest developing nations. 

OurTown

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #383 on: October 29, 2019, 12:58:52 PM »

Should we stop polluting, producing and reproducing....certainly.  Will it happen....certainly not.

I share your pessimism concerning population growth.

Every minute ~250 humans are born and ~105 die so global population increases ~208,800 per day.

Global population growth is being driven by a handful of developing nations, mostly in African and Asia. About 40% of the countries are now below the replacement rate of ~2.1, and another 20% are very close.  Back in the 1960s this seemed inconceivable. 
The factors which are tightly correlated with lower pregnancies include literacy and education for women, access to healthcare and financial security (e.g. rising above subsistance).  These changes can happen in under a generation, and have for a number of countries large countries.

tl;dr - if we want to stop or slow population growth we need to increase education, health care and standards of living in the largest developing nations.

According to this https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/ we are going to peak at 11 billion at the turn of the next century.

nereo

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #384 on: October 29, 2019, 01:56:34 PM »
According to this https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/ we are going to peak at 11 billion at the turn of the next century.

Interesting.  So that's a 43% increase over the next 80 years, following two centuries where global population went from ~600 million to ~1.8B (19th century) and then from 1.8B to 6B (20th).

population growth has been falling for the last quarter century.  Population decline has begun in many (mostly developed) parts of the world (ignoring immigration). 

scottish

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #385 on: October 29, 2019, 06:09:00 PM »
There was a Scandinavian professor, Hans Rosling, who did a nice talk on population growth rates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg

nereo

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #386 on: October 29, 2019, 06:43:01 PM »
There was a Scandinavian professor, Hans Rosling, who did a nice talk on population growth rates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg

I like his analog diagrams :-)

pecunia

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #387 on: October 29, 2019, 07:59:03 PM »
So, Is Thomas Malthus finally right?  Will the population bomb explode or will technology once again pull a rabbit out of a hat?  Lots of smart people out there.  Necessity is the mother of invention.

Metalcat

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #388 on: October 30, 2019, 06:11:31 AM »
So, Is Thomas Malthus finally right?  Will the population bomb explode or will technology once again pull a rabbit out of a hat?  Lots of smart people out there.  Necessity is the mother of invention.

According to the history of a lot of major inventions, it really isn't. Invention is usually the mother of necessity.

Shit gets invented because crazy people like to invent crazy things, and then a use is found for them. Necessity tends to be the mother of refinement, not of invention itself.

Humans actually have a TERRIBLE history of inventing what we need. We're, however, tremendously good at utilizing and refining what comes along.

So our hopes are really pinned on the wild machinations of lunatics.

Neat, huh?

nereo

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #389 on: October 30, 2019, 07:05:35 AM »
So, Is Thomas Malthus finally right?  Will the population bomb explode or will technology once again pull a rabbit out of a hat?  Lots of smart people out there.  Necessity is the mother of invention.

Well, if you are talking about his calculations of population growth made over 200 years ago, there has already been serious deviation from his predictions. The most congruent estimates have global population plateauing somewhere between 9-11 billion in the next 30-50 years, and afterward possibly declining slowly. Will that actually come to pass?  We shall see.  Pandemic(s), global war or societal changes in how we view child-rearing could all shift things  dramatically in decadal timescales.

Regardless, it's almost certain that the global population in 2040 will be higher than it is now, and we are already massively impacting our climate and consuming a mind-bogglingly large amount of resources.  We will have to do far better with consumption and resource management/generation in the decade to come to offset even more people.

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #390 on: October 30, 2019, 09:27:32 AM »
Malthus seems to have had very simplistic and negative views on human nature. He also comes at it from an extremely male-dominate point of view. In his day, women were basically chattel. If they were ever actually consulted, I’m sure many would have been very happy to have less children and pregnancies. Men looked at it simply as a numbers game. I suspect he might not have been as off with his ideas if he’d considered women’s autonomy or the desire to have the means to limit births (which really was impossible then without abstinence).

As a woman, the population drop off in developed nations seems very expected. Giving women power to not only prevent births but make it morally okay to do so (yes, I support legal abortion, but outside of that, many deeply religious cultures think limiting family size in any way is a sin - that’s some powerful messaging to even the poorest of families) is pretty huge.

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #391 on: October 30, 2019, 09:41:23 AM »
...Necessity is the mother of invention.

According to the history of a lot of major inventions, it really isn't. Invention is usually the mother of necessity.

Shit gets invented because crazy people like to invent crazy things, and then a use is found for them. Necessity tends to be the mother of refinement, not of invention itself.

Humans actually have a TERRIBLE history of inventing what we need. We're, however, tremendously good at utilizing and refining what comes along.

So our hopes are really pinned on the wild machinations of lunatics.

Neat, huh?

Very interesting proposition! @Malkynn, where does one read more about this?
« Last Edit: October 30, 2019, 10:44:24 AM by BicycleB »

Metalcat

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #392 on: October 30, 2019, 02:10:36 PM »
...Necessity is the mother of invention.

According to the history of a lot of major inventions, it really isn't. Invention is usually the mother of necessity.

Shit gets invented because crazy people like to invent crazy things, and then a use is found for them. Necessity tends to be the mother of refinement, not of invention itself.

Humans actually have a TERRIBLE history of inventing what we need. We're, however, tremendously good at utilizing and refining what comes along.

So our hopes are really pinned on the wild machinations of lunatics.

Neat, huh?

Very interesting proposition! @Malkynn, where does one read more about this?

Hmm...crap, I don't know, I read a lot of history and anthropology. My brain is a big ol' mess of text books. Without the narrative element of normal books, it's hard to ever remember where I've read anything.

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #393 on: October 30, 2019, 04:47:50 PM »
Malthus seems to have had very simplistic and negative views on human nature. He also comes at it from an extremely male-dominate point of view. In his day, women were basically chattel.
Exactly. He had not had an example of a country where women achieved widespread literacy and improved economic power and thus had less children. Even as patriarchal a country as Iran, the births per woman has dropped to 1.66. This means that around one-third of Iranian families have decided to do without a male child - that's quite something in a culture where historically men are everything. And Saudi Arabia is at 2.53 - down from more than 7 in 1980.

People are actually fairly good at matching their birth rates to available resources. The problem is that the resources available when your child is born may not be as available 25 years later. A couple of researchers studying the genocide in Rwanda noted that inheritance laws meant that a family's land was split among their sons, leading to trying to farm on smaller and smaller plots of land (as little as under an acre), and that many of the people murdered had plots of land adjoining their killers, or the leader of the local killing group. Zimbabwe and South Africa have had their land seizures, and so did Rwanda, they just did it in a much more sudden and murderous fashion.

Given time and foreknowledge, people can and do plan births and other uses of resources fairly well - not to avoid long-term effects like climate change, but well enough to avoid immediate destruction. Bear in mind that the countries with such horrible suffering are not democratic. Famines, for example, do not happen in more-or-less democratic countries, however impoverished they may be.

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #394 on: November 11, 2019, 01:17:13 PM »
Quote
"The climate apocalypse is coming ... "

Rome burns while Nero fiddles.

My state of NSW is on fire today. Conditions are so bad, the Rural Fire Service had to invent a new category of fire danger. The scale used to go Low, High, Very High, Severe, Extreme.

It now starts at High, then goes through Very High, Severe, Extreme, and today they've slapped a Catastrophic sticker on the entire Sydney Metropolitan area, including the Central Coast and the Illawarra.

The dams are running dry in Sydney on account of subsistence from coal mines underneath them (no joke, there's a massive dollop of irony if ever there was one). Water is scarce and the landscape barren. Politicians will give their thoughts and prayers and not much else, doing their best to tell everyone who mentions the CC words to stop playing politics.

Stay safe out there. It's going to be a long day.

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #395 on: November 11, 2019, 02:47:28 PM »
Thinking of the NSW MMM'ers - I have a few friends in the Illawarra and I'm supposed to go to a wedding on Saturday, hopefully there's still something to celebrate.

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #396 on: November 11, 2019, 05:43:32 PM »
I have friends and family in NSW that I am concerned about.  NOW is the perfect time to talk about climate change.

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #397 on: November 11, 2019, 07:25:01 PM »
McCormac's rhetoric about inner city lefies is total tosh and harmful juxtaposition. Really ugly stuff.

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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #398 on: November 11, 2019, 07:42:41 PM »
I can't be the only person concerned about pandemics, can I?

Maybe it's having a DH who used to specifically work on pandemics that biases my thinking, but every time I read about dormant viruses coming from the melting ice caps...well...it's not comforting.

Even if these viruses only affect other mammals, it's not a minor deal waking up dormant pathologies. The impacts to the entire global ecosystem can be profound.

Pandemics, even just among animals, have a lot of sweeping impact.

Let's see what oozes out of the ice.
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Re: "The climate apocalypse is coming ... "
« Reply #399 on: November 11, 2019, 07:53:17 PM »
Not quite the same thing as viruses coming out of the melting ice, but African Swine Flu is now projected to be responsible for the deaths of more than 1/4th of all the pigs on earth.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!