Does the controversy surrounding climate change bother you?

Generally in mathematics, an exponential curve with a zero (or negative) exponent is not given the glory of that title, but yes. They would be called linear, or inverse rates (or something else).

I prefer to think of it as 'skilled' or 'wise' rather than lucky, as we do have a measure of control over it.

 

I knew when I was making the comment, that I was on thin ice. The real point was that the rate is decreasing, so the future should hold a population growth inflection point. Maybe this is the good news in a worrisome situation

 

? Really?

Read more: http://priuschat.com/threads/does-the-controversy-surrounding-climate-change-bother-you.120365/#ixzz2HKs6Fu24​

 

The discussion trigger concerned what should be said to families having any children and wanting to reduce GHG generation. Calling them something negative entirely based on having even one child seems rather strange. (I don't know of any fractional children, so the only integer less than one --that I know of--- is zero.) I wanted to see if that was the actual situation while definitely not trying to be (too) negative.

 

Right, that would achieve the apocalypse in one fell swoop.

The best number is an interesting question. We would have no trouble living completely sustainably in a hunter-gatherer mode (which despite what propaganda will tell you is a much better life than any that followed it up until about 1950) with around 300 Million of us. That seems to me a reasonable lower limit. My personal desired lower bound would be enough people that we could still make Lord of the Rings movies, and perform space exploration (maybe deflect an incoming killer asteriod). Beyond that, I don't see any value in strictly more humans per se. We are well past that. That said, I am a product of millions of years of evolution favoring those who create and look after babies. It seems pretty clear to me that we are not living sustainably, and less clear but still apparent that our current technology is unlikely to be able achieve sustainability with our current numbers. Making bets on future technology, all-in, with humanity as chips seems... ill-advised.

 

We are gonna need many more warm bodies to pay off this national debt. Talk about sustainability...

 

On the other hand, say we determined that what we needed to do to save ourselves was to achieve 1 child for every 8 in the next 3 breeding generations. We would be saying that many couples (or whatever) need to have NO children. I suspect pressure in that form (i.e. "no one should have kids") would be required to attain that goal, with only the very committed overcoming that pressure and having any children at all.

[Note, I am not saying that we need to do that, but it is no outside the realm of eventual possibility. Certainly, to me anyway, that is vastly preferable to letting half the babies born, die of starvation, for example.]

 

Ever notice that the debt is positively correlated with population? The more people, the more debt. Economics will disagree, and from this counter-example we can learn something about economics...

 

Global Warming is such a Political Lightening Rod that if some people looked at a Palm Tree growing outdoors in Alaska they would still call it a natural occurance. It is a shame since pollution should be a universal concern.

 

But there is no palm tree growing outside up here. I can verify that.

 

True, I'm exaggerating to make a point.

 

I never "called someone something negative entirely on having even one child"! I simply answered (in my post #38) you question if having kids (and ergo thier impact) was somehow destructive to the environment, which it demonstrably is. Added population is a draw on finite resources, ergo few children lessen total impact. That said, children born of advanced societies have a disproportionate impact as well.

Like I said before if it were me, I would like to see a population that looks to reduce population over time, like 1 per family for a generation or two, as I suggested. Economists disagree as they have a "science" based on the notion that growth is not only good, but required. (a notion that I object to however by the way!)

Icarus

 

Interesting. China limits families to one child. Much of it is based on a finite amount of natural resources and economic prosperity. Hard to have that conversation in America, people won’t listen.

 

For better or worse, the one child policy created conditions in China, that for nearly the first time in history, the Chinese could feed themselves. (just to fend off the usual nut balls, I am not advocating the kind of things that China did to enforce it's one child policy)

Interestingly enough, the best birth control in the world is basic education. As people begin to be educated (particularly women!) they realize that having large families is not in thier own economic interest, as it had been in the past. Better educated people tend to have fewer children across nearly all cultures.

Icarus

 

True statement !

 

What point? Exaggerations are what lead to lighting-rod topics.

 

My grand parents had 12 children , my parents 3, and I had 2. My grand father with 12 children owned 2 homes and a commercial retail center in NYC. Go figure.

 

Well you will be delighted to know that PPH performed 333,964 abortions in FY 11. That is one every 94 seconds. Those are the ones reported, I suspect there were many, many more. We will likely see that number sky-rocket in the next few years.

 

All bets are off when government is involved.

 

Going to the dark side. I understood the intent of Incarus.