Earth's recent climate spiral.

[Leonardo17]

Honestly I don't know why anyone bothers playing chess with this pigeon.

It’s the typical populist view. Populist / right wing parties are usually climate-change deniers. Think of Jair Bolsonaro with his policy of destruction of the Amazon Rain Forest. Another example is from Vlad Putin who made this joke (I think it was in 2017) as a response to Greta Thunberg saying that “a little bit of warm air would not really hurt the Russians” (Really funny )
 
The earth is a huge place to be in. And the earth (as a living organism) is very resilient too. But we are still in what is called “the Anthropocene era”. So we have become big enough to influence the very life on this planet. So we as people with brains have the unfortunate task of trying to explain to these people that a change is truly happening. + We need to do this despite the money backed propaganda of big oil companies. But I am confident that we will end up winning them over because big oil company leaders will be living on this planet too. And Elon Musk is not going to save them either.
 
There is a nice movie on Netflix called “Don’t look up”. I think everyone should see this movie.  

[Leonardo17]

I don’t remember the clear figures but it is the 1% very rich people of the world who are causing more than 50% of climate change.
 
On thing he is right about is that: “We are nice but we are too many”.
 
I think the ideal population of this planet is around 4 billion. A 10 billion planet is simply not possible.
 
See how he is able to tap on such real facts to distort the whole story and even turn it into “coal can still go on”.
 
-       No it can’t. We have to find ways to completely abandon fossil fuels by 2050. Than we can have a chance as a specie. Otherwise we don’t. And these are facts.

Consider how the bolded bits persuasively argue against each other.  It's not the number of people, it's how we organize our lives and industry.  The original malthusian predictions failed for the same reason.  7 billion or so reasons, to put a fine point on it.  Similarly, Marion Hubbert was wrong about peak oil in the 50's, then it's revamped advocates fucked the pooch again in the start of the 00's.  

We won't abandon fossil fuels by 2050.  It wouldn't surprise me if they're still around in 3050.  We still have windmills and water wheels and steam power, too.  Thus, the real issue, is how we plan for a future that doesn't depend on magical thinking in the form of a global warming benefit or a post ff world.  Ultimately, the issue is to do what we should have always been doing, and make better use of and take better care of our resources even without considering things like global warming.  

We've squandered a great deal of the very stuff we'll need to build that future world, and, in the long term...imo... that's even worse than the incidental effects of squandering it.   So much worse, that unless we get better -at that- then cutting back on carbon is polishing brass on the titanic.  In that larger context, people aren't the problem, we're the solution.  We're the only things we know of that even give a shit about this world - and it's going to take alot of us doing alot of actual labor.  We're certainly the only things capable of effecting the sorts of changes we're seeing now for the worse..but there's no reason we couldn't make it better.  Case in point, a green sahara?  If we want a green sahara then there's no reason to let global warming make one at the expense of so many of us.  We can do it directly.  Seems to me like we might even need the practice, if our hare brained two planet idea is supposed to be anything other than a shameless con.  Not particularly difficult in theory, just one hell of an engineering project.  Africa has a massive untapped reservoir of water.  Pump it.  Block the wind, slow down the water, introduce deep rooting and matting invasives and grazers to spread them.  Monetize the gains.  All of that could only be elective, though, just something we do because we want to...it's not like we need it.  We already grow enough food for 10b or more people even though we do it in a horrendously dumb way, by turning ff's into food.  Hasn't kept us from starving, either, so I guess there's also that.

1) Population is naturally decreasing wherever women are gaining more control over their own bodies. The population of Europe is declining despite immigration. The abandonment of the one child policy in China is also not leading a population boom in China. People cannot afford to have children so those who don’t like them make the choice of pursuing their own careers instead.
   So it doesn’t need to be pushed. If you just leave it on its own, population will decrease to 4 billion. Just educate women instead of marrying them at the age of 14 and this alone will do it.
 
2) That’s an important point too. But the fact is: We have carbon capture technology that can work with nuclear or geothermal energy. But what is it good for if we keep extracting oil and coal? I think methane and oil can still have some sort of future but coal must be immediately phased out. We don’t need that anymore.
   + You are right on the good usage of energy resources. For instance cryptocurrency factories are extremely demanding in terms of energy. So why do we have them in an age of global warming? I think these should just be banned until they become less demanding in their production in terms of energy.
 
3) I agree

[The Grand Nudger]

I think you overestimate the effect of westernization on global fertility rates. Still, it is true that people don't breed like rats or rabbits. We're more cognizant and more responsive to our circumstances. However, if the 4b have western carbon per capita to match their new western ideas about women and children, that's not improvement from the climate angle. Frankly, the entire overpop thing is a lingering effect of colonial attitudes. Where The Problem with the third world is all those ignorant filthy unwashed browns and their hyper fertile women. If they could be reduced in number, some way, then we remaining worthies can enjoy all of their stuff, and wouldn't that be best for Everyone™?

We have crypto for the same reason that we have scarcity - to make and launder money. To really drill this down, crypto is another form of petrodollar - it's predominantly mined where coal is cheap in a bid to turn physical stockpiles into USD. It's real and perceived value is tied to how much energy is consumed to create it. Similarly, alot of the people starving on this planet are starving as they work in food production. They're both fronts for resource extraction, labor exploitation, and market capture...and in this they overlap with the overpop line. Where the right number of 3rd worlders is better matched with the minimum labor required to satisfy 1st world comfort and demands. Crypto isn't great from a climate standpoint, for sure, but more than anything crypto needs to be banned because it's a ponzi scheme. Even if it could somehow be decoupled from ff consumption, it would still be a ponzi scheme. It would still be consuming energy that could be better used to directly address the needs of the communities that mine it..and when it goes belly up (as it's been doing recently) it's not -just- that people lose their shirts... that energy is simply gone no matter where that energy came from.

[Anomalocaris]

It is not westernization.   It is social investment that offsprings can benefit from.   There are two strategies for improving the chances of one’s own genetic line.  

1.  Invest a lot in very few offsprings, so the few you have would likely prosper.    This strategy presupposes there is good social wealth invested in healthcare, security, and equitable opportunity that offspring can benefit from,  so it is not dangerous to invest too much of your own resource in just a few offspring because these few offspring are relatively unlikely to blow your investement by dying from childhood diseases or get murdered for their Apple watches or iPhones.

2.  Invest a little in each of many offsprings, so maybe a few of the many you have might blunder his/her way out of failure.   This strategy assumes each offspring’s chances of biological or social success are slim, because social investment in their health, security and equitable opportunity are slight.   so one would spread one’s own investment  amongst as many offsprings as possible so a few of them might rise from loin cloths to pants.

So the upshot is as  society becomes relatively wealthy, the optimal reproductive strategy changes from having a lot of children to maximize the chance that a few will scrap out a living, to having a few children and give them the best possible education and career opportunities.

So, if our confused, dim witted and deeply malevolent friend really thinks the most important way to control global warming is to reduce birth rate in the developing world, then he should seek to enrich the developing world as quickly as possible. Then the social wealth invested in health care, security, and equitable opportunity in the developing world increases,  \ so the optimal reproductive strategy for the hoi palloi would changes from investing little in each of many children, to investing a lot in just a few children.

But in his gleeful, malevolent and ill informed urge to degrade and harm the majority of mankind, he actually argues for the opposite, to impoverish the developing world so the optimal reproductive strength in the developing world tilt even further to having lots and lots of semi-disposable babies.

[The Grand Nudger]

Exactly so. While female bodily autonomy tracks with low birth rates, that's likely incidental - an effect of greater wealth in countries keyed in to female bodily autonomy at the present moment in time. The wealthier subsets of countries (and within countries) that are not so interested in female bodily autonomy also have low fertility rates. Even in countries that do emphasize female bodily autonomy, the poor subsets have higher fertility rates than the wealthier subsets.

TLDR version is that poor people have lots of kids because it's a good idea. Perhaps even more suprising, is that most people have as many kids as they want to. Not just here in the us or the west, but everywhere. This could easily be explained as having conditioned females to want whatever the appropriate number of children is, and I'm sure that's the case, but there it is. People have alot of kids because they want to and it makes sense. Changing that is the way to change overall fertility rates, which wouldn't in and of itself decrease co2 - and there's still the trouble that gdp and carbon emissions are correlated for obvious reasons.

Want the world pop to go down? Get more wealth in the hands of moms. Unfortunately, when we do that, those same moms and their kids co2 numbers are bound to go up.

[Leonardo17]

I think you overestimate the effect of westernization on global fertility rates.  Still, it is true that people don't breed like rats or rabbits.  We're more cognizant and more responsive to our circumstances.  However, if the 4b have western carbon per capita to match their new western ideas about women and children, that's not improvement from the climate angle.  Frankly, the entire overpop thing is a lingering effect of colonial attitudes.  Where The Problem with the third world is all those ignorant filthy unwashed browns and their hyper fertile women.  If they could be reduced in number, some way, then we remaining worthies can enjoy all of their stuff, and wouldn't that be best for Everyone™?  

We have crypto for the same reason that we have scarcity - to make and launder money.  To really drill this down, crypto is another form of petrodollar - it's predominantly mined where coal is cheap in a bid to turn physical stockpiles into USD.  It's real and perceived value is tied to how much energy is consumed to create it.  Similarly, alot of the people starving on this planet are starving as they work in food production.   They're both fronts for resource extraction, labor exploitation, and market capture...and in this they overlap with the overpop line.   Where the right number of 3rd worlders is better matched with the minimum labor required to satisfy 1st world comfort and demands.  Crypto isn't great from a climate standpoint, for sure, but more than anything crypto needs to be banned because it's a ponzi scheme.  Even if it could somehow be decoupled from ff consumption, it would still be a ponzi scheme.  It would still be consuming energy that could be better used to directly address the needs of the communities that mine it..and when it goes belly up (as it's been doing recently) it's not -just- that people lose their shirts... that energy is simply gone no matter where that energy came from.

1) This is a very important point. The solution to that is
a) To consume less. Western style of capitalism is dictating us that we must have more in order to be more. Not only is this a completely false idea but it is also very harmful to the planet.
b) To switch to a cyclical economy. We must move away from the “use it than throw it” model of consumption to more durable goods that can be repaired, upgraded and then recycled ideally to 100% percent. Today we can’t even repair our smart devices when they are broken. There are even people who switch devices every month or so. So this cannot go one. Our economic model is fundamentally wrong as Greta puts it.
 
2) I can’t agree more. Everyone has probably heard about Sam Bankman. I am not saying that it should be banned. I’m only saying that we also have to cut down on our energy consumption right now. Besides Crypto is something that is being used in the darkweb in the buying of human organs, assault rifles, drugs, virgin Caucasian girls etc. In Kazakhstan they have crypto currency mines working on Coal power.
 
   So I understand it if an Indian family needs coal energy to do their homework in the evening, to heat themselves in winter or to run a textile plant. But is Crypto currency one of these basic needs we cannot live without? I don’t think so. There has to be more political will to realize our climate goals.

[Leonardo17]

It is not westernization.   It is social investment that offsprings can benefit from.   There are two strategies for improving the chances of one’s own genetic line.  

1.  Invest a lot in very few offsprings, so the few you have would likely prosper.    This strategy presupposes there is good social wealth invested in healthcare, security, and equitable opportunity that offspring can benefit from,  so it is not dangerous to invest too much of your own resource in just a few offspring because these few offspring are relatively unlikely to blow your investement by dying from childhood diseases or get murdered for their Apple watches or iPhones.

2.  Invest a little in each of many offsprings, so maybe a few of the many you have might blunder his/her way out of failure.   This strategy assumes each offspring’s chances of biological or social success are slim, because social investment in their health, security and equitable opportunity are slight.   so one would spread one’s own investment  amongst as many offsprings as possible so a few of them might rise from loin cloths to pants.

So the upshot is as  society becomes relatively wealthy, the optimal reproductive strategy changes from having a lot of children to maximize the chance that a few will scrap out a living, to having a few children and give them the best possible education and career opportunities.

So, if our confused, dim witted and deeply malevolent friend really thinks the most important way to control global warming is to reduce birth rate in the developing world, then he should seek to enrich the developing world as quickly as possible. Then the social wealth invested in health care, security, and equitable opportunity in the developing world increases,  \ so the optimal reproductive strategy for the hoi palloi would changes from investing little in each of many children, to investing a lot in just a few children.

But in his gleeful, malevolent and ill informed urge to degrade and harm the majority of mankind, he actually argues for the opposite, to impoverish the developing world so the optimal reproductive strength in the developing world tilt even further to having lots and lots of semi-disposable babies.

I agree. On one hand current third worlders have a small carbon footprint and it is true that their footprint will increase are their society are modernizing. But on the other hand a) fertility rates will decrease and b) It will be like Europe. They will become more intelligent societies who know to control events around them rather than being masses of people who simply react to some outside even without any real social-consciousness.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think you overestimate the effect of westernization on global fertility rates.  Still, it is true that people don't breed like rats or rabbits.  We're more cognizant and more responsive to our circumstances.  However, if the 4b have western carbon per capita to match their new western ideas about women and children, that's not improvement from the climate angle.  Frankly, the entire overpop thing is a lingering effect of colonial attitudes.  Where The Problem with the third world is all those ignorant filthy unwashed browns and their hyper fertile women.  If they could be reduced in number, some way, then we remaining worthies can enjoy all of their stuff, and wouldn't that be best for Everyone™?  

We have crypto for the same reason that we have scarcity - to make and launder money.  To really drill this down, crypto is another form of petrodollar - it's predominantly mined where coal is cheap in a bid to turn physical stockpiles into USD.  It's real and perceived value is tied to how much energy is consumed to create it.  Similarly, alot of the people starving on this planet are starving as they work in food production.   They're both fronts for resource extraction, labor exploitation, and market capture...and in this they overlap with the overpop line.   Where the right number of 3rd worlders is better matched with the minimum labor required to satisfy 1st world comfort and demands.  Crypto isn't great from a climate standpoint, for sure, but more than anything crypto needs to be banned because it's a ponzi scheme.  Even if it could somehow be decoupled from ff consumption, it would still be a ponzi scheme.  It would still be consuming energy that could be better used to directly address the needs of the communities that mine it..and when it goes belly up (as it's been doing recently) it's not -just- that people lose their shirts... that energy is simply gone no matter where that energy came from.

1) This is a very important point. The solution to that is
a) To consume less. Western style of capitalism is dictating us that we must have more in order to be more. Not only is this a completely false idea but it is also very harmful to the planet.
b) To switch to a cyclical economy. We must move away from the “use it than throw it” model of consumption to more durable goods that can be repaired, upgraded and then recycled ideally to 100% percent. Today we can’t even repair our smart devices when they are broken. There are even people who switch devices every month or so. So this cannot go one. Our economic model is fundamentally wrong as Greta puts it.
 
2) I can’t agree more. Everyone has probably heard about Sam Bankman. I am not saying that it should be banned. I’m only saying that we also have to cut down on our energy consumption right now. Besides Crypto is something that is being used in the darkweb in the buying of human organs, assault rifles, drugs, virgin Caucasian girls etc. In Kazakhstan they have crypto currency mines working on Coal power.
 
   So I understand it if an Indian family needs coal energy to do their homework in the evening, to heat themselves in winter or to run a textile plant. But is Crypto currency one of these basic needs we cannot live without? I don’t think so. There has to be more political will to realize our climate goals.

There's no "western style" of capitalism.  It is what it is, everywhere, and no different anywhere.  OFC no one needs crypto, but crypto isn't actually being mined "in the west" - because we don't have those beautiful dirt cheap energy prices.  Crypto is mined in the developing world. That's sort of the point. Crypto is a thing you can do to make money especially where western enegery rates arent in effect. To turn cheap offbrand energy into our currencies. Because no one wants funny money from those places. They want to turn burnt material into cold hard USD. Crypto is a petro-currency just about uniquely suited to shitting on people from not-here-istan.

You might not be ready to say it, but I am, and always have been. Crypto is a fucking scam. It should be banned. I've been burning wood for years to heat my house, why am I not a crypto gazillionaire? Is that not how it works...cuz it looks like that's how it works...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Apres moi, le microwave.

[Anomalocaris]

1) This is a very important point. The solution to that is
a) To consume less. Western style of capitalism is dictating us that we must have more in order to be more. Not only is this a completely false idea but it is also very harmful to the planet.
b) To switch to a cyclical economy. We must move away from the “use it than throw it” model of consumption to more durable goods that can be repaired, upgraded and then recycled ideally to 100% percent. Today we can’t even repair our smart devices when they are broken. There are even people who switch devices every month or so. So this cannot go one. Our economic model is fundamentally wrong as Greta puts it.
 
2) I can’t agree more. Everyone has probably heard about Sam Bankman. I am not saying that it should be banned. I’m only saying that we also have to cut down on our energy consumption right now. Besides Crypto is something that is being used in the darkweb in the buying of human organs, assault rifles, drugs, virgin Caucasian girls etc. In Kazakhstan they have crypto currency mines working on Coal power.
 
   So I understand it if an Indian family needs coal energy to do their homework in the evening, to heat themselves in winter or to run a textile plant. But is Crypto currency one of these basic needs we cannot live without? I don’t think so. There has to be more political will to realize our climate goals.

There's no "western style" of capitalism.  It is what it is, everywhere, and no different anywhere.  OFC no one needs crypto, but crypto isn't actually being mined "in the west" - because we don't have those beautiful dirt cheap energy prices.  Crypto is mined in the developing world.  That's sort of the point.  Crypto is a thing you can do to make money especially where western enegery rates arent in effect.  To turn cheap offbrand energy into our currencies.  Because no one wants funny money from those places.  They want to turn burnt material into cold hard USD.  Crypto is a petro-currency just about uniquely suited to shitting on people from not-here-istan.

You might not be ready to say it, but I am, and always have been.  Crypto is a fucking scam.  It should be banned.  I've been burning wood for years to heat my house, why am I not a crypto gazillionaire?  Is that not how it works...cuz it looks like that's how it works...

There certainly are different styles of capitalism.   The existence of private ownership of means of production and service for the purpose of profit making is not the end all abs be all of capitalism.    Its local style reflect local culture, politics, and economic tradition that may go as deep, or deeper, as shocking as it may sound to the American audience, then elements of capitalism as neo-liberal Americans understand it.     So in practice each style of Capitalism is the local manifestation of the effects of the existence of private ownership of means of production and service for the purpose of profit making under the influence of local economic, social and political culture.