Re: OT: Electric cars and nuclear power plants

On 2 Apr, 03:27, tgdenn...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Apr 1, 4:55 am, "stew dean" <stewd...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On 31 Mar, 13:05, tgdenn...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Mar 30, 2:23 pm, "stew dean" <stewd...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 29 Mar, 12:57, tgdenn...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Mar 29, 5:42 am, "stew dean" <stewd...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Environmental issues are directly solved by reducing population. The
solution that would work *and is consistent with human nature* is to
show people that their children will be better off if there are fewer
of them, and fewer people in the world in general. The former applies
to the poor, and the latter to the well-off.

Population control is a viable idea but it's moral minefield. In most
western countries the birth rate is falling, except the US which is
acting more like a less developed country in that respect.

But there's no point cutting the birth rate by, say, a fifth if
everyone then produces a quarter more pollution etc.

This is one of the worst fallacies, and people just repeat it
reflexively with no thought. Let's see what it would really mean:

The US produces 25% of CO2, with a population of 300 million. Multiply
by 4 to give current total CO2, and you have 1.2 billion pop, which is
just about 1/5 of current world pop, living at profligate US
standards, and producing the same total CO2.

So you are saying that if everyone produced CO2 like the US then we'd
have to have one fifth of the worlds population?!?

Well, that would not be pointless.

Just impossible without some non man made intervention.

I could go on but my point is that the environmental movement seems to
have forgotten its roots in the understanding of ecology---it is
focused on humans 'fixing things', which is what created the mess in
the first place.

Population control has long been one of the main environmental issues,
but your 'one fifth' example really drives home how impossible it is
to get to a point of equilibrium in the world.

If you really go for it you might be able to level off popultion
growth. So how do you reduce global warming? Reduce everyone's global
foot print. And how do you do that, change peoples behavour.
You have
to do that anyway to reduce population.

No no no no!!! People's behavior **is** to have fewer children. In
countries where people are wealthy and can afford as many children as
they want, **they have fewer children**.

But consume far more. As you pointed out one wealthy person appears to
speed up global warming five times as much as a someone from a third
world country does, or used to before they decided they where being
left out.

What exactly don't you get about this?

I got it, and know about it. The problem is that if population growth
stayed even, as it tends to do in wealthy countries, the drive to
consume means that causes of global warming still accelerates.

That's the point. World wide population would have to shrink quite
rapidly to stay in line with the need to consume. Clear?


And you've completely ignored the multiplier effects that I've
described. Get to 3 billion, and it might be just enough to give
enough time to sort things out.

The multiplier effects I can't see.

That might be possible by the end of
the century with first-world birthrates applied universally.

With first world birthrates (not including the US which has more third
world trends and is still growing) comes first world consumption and
large global foot prints.


Quite simply the fastest and most effective method of reducing global
warming is to stop eating meat.

People who have the money have fewer children.
People who have the money eat meat.

Well done for demonstrating my exact point. I and millions of other
veggies don't eat meat. I don't eat meat because of health (less fat
and salt whilst still getting all the protein, iron etc I need).

As I said originally, you seem intent on rolling boulders up the hill
instead of down.

You're not rolling the boulder, you're watching it as it smashes it's
way through town.

Let me repeat what I've said. Stopping eating meat is the quickest
and easiest way to start saving the planet. Meat production is
probably the biggest cause of global warming in the world, therefore
making meat consumption in the US the biggest cause of global warming.

Love to see someone tell W that.

I say if you're going to sort things out at least know what you're
facing and do something about it rather than attempt to find solutions
that are very difficult to implement, have a long time scale and
require someone else doing something first. Getting people to stop
eating meat (or at least get them back to the natural level of meat 3
times a month or so) is much easier than stopping them having 4
children because of their social or religious position.

Quite frankly I don't understand you point as making everyone rich
leads to everyone consuming more leading to much greater global
warming with a fraction of the people. Just as well as there will be
less inhabitable land anyway.

Stew Dean





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