It sort of disappeared from the radar for a generation, but someone has had the nerve to raise the population bomb issue again. That someone would be Chris Rapley, who is William's boss, I reckon.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Tobis" <mto...@gmail.com> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: <globalchange@googlegroups.com> Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 6:10 PM Subject: [Global Change: 1829] breaking the population bomb taboo
> It sort of disappeared from the radar for a generation, but someone > has had the nerve to raise the population bomb issue again. That > someone would be Chris Rapley, who is William's boss, I reckon.
The population growth rate is slowing, as the article states: "UN figures foresee numbers leveling out at a point when we have between 8 and 10 billion humans by 2050." If the second derivative remains negative, a decline will follow. Should this be hurried up (and how)?
I would suggest giving greater attention to demographer's understanding of the factors driving this slowdown - much greater attention than the author gives. He describes "two possible explanations", although the first explanation "an inherent tendency of societies to find an equilibrium between births and deaths" is bizarre, I've never seen anything like it advanced in the demography literature (citations please). The second explanation offered is "improvements in medical practice and technology", but this is a trivialization.
If we wish to advocate population control policy we need to examine (as demographers have for decades) the forces impinging on reproductive decision-making by couples. Women's education and elevated economic status are widely regarded as the most important conditions for birth rate reductions. To get a better sense of what can be done to defuse "the population bomb" please consult http://www.popcouncil.org/ for a wide-ranging discussion of humane solutions.
Just because some segments of the scientific community are unfamiliar with current topics in population science does not mean that it has been ignored for "a generation" by everyone. One should not go further in the "population v. environment" discussion without first reading the consensus statement of major social and environmental scientists on the subject: "Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment" K Arrow, et al. -dl
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'So controversial is the subject that it has become the "Cinderella" of the great sustainability debate - rarely visible in public, or even in private.'
Like the great god of "economic growth", population issues must not be discussed.
What other taboos and "unthinkables" does our society have which prevent us from both acknowledging the problems and seeking appropriate solutions? And how do we demolish these barriers to rational action?
Phil
On Jul 3, 12:10 am, "Michael Tobis" <mto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It sort of disappeared from the radar for a generation, but someone > has had the nerve to raise the population bomb issue again. That > someone would be Chris Rapley, who is William's boss, I reckon.
In some ways, its one of the great unheralded success stories of our time that global population appears set to cap at 9 billion around 2050, and hopefully decline from there. Conveniently, this assumption on population growth underlies two of the main IPCC SRES scenarios (A1 and B1), where population caps at 9 billion before shrinking to around 7 billion in 2100. While further steps could be taken to hasten this decline, they mostly involve larger socioeconomic factors (female literacy and workforce participation in particular - see Amartya Sen's fascinating work on the subject). Coercive population control programs are rarely very successful, with China's one child policy standing out as the major exception (and, frankly, a similar program would be impossible to implement in a democracy, as "the emergency" in India so clearly showed.
Talking about the population bomb reeks slightly of hyperbole in this day and age. While reducing population is certainly a critical factor in limiting GHGs, it will not be the primary factor driving emissions in the future (that role will be reserved for technology).
Zeke Hausfather wrote: > Coercive population control programs > are rarely very successful, with China's one child policy standing out > as the major exception (and, frankly, a similar program would be > impossible to implement in a democracy, as "the emergency" in India so > clearly showed.
Coercive carbon taxes are rarely very successful, in fact there are no major exceptions I can think of (and, frankly, a similar program would be impossible to implement in a democracy, as the "fuel tax protests" in the UK so clearly showed).
> He stressed there the "tabooness" of the subject:
> 'So controversial is the subject that it has become the "Cinderella" > of the great sustainability debate - rarely visible in public, or even > in private.'
> Like the great god of "economic growth", population issues must not be > discussed.
> What other taboos and "unthinkables" does our society have which > prevent us from both acknowledging the problems and seeking > appropriate solutions? And how do we demolish these barriers to > rational action?
> Phil
The "Population Bomb" problem has been around for a long time and is still being ignored by both the politicians and the media. Paul Ehrlich coined the phrase when he wrote a book with that title in 1968 and then went on to write a text book "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment " in 1978 giving a fuller description of the mess we are in. His description of the demographics of a country like Mexico versus that in the U.S. give a clear picture of the problem as the fraction of young people was much greater in the fast growing Mexican population than it is in the richer, better educated U.S. where family sizes tend to be smaller. So, 30 years later, we have a large influx of poor, under educated Mexicans trying to make it into the U.S. economy. There's no surprise in that, I think. Have there been ANY discussion in the media or from the politicians about the population problem in Mexico?
Little as changed in the political arena since the 1970's, except that there has been a reactionary response by conservatives, especially from those with strong religious beliefs. The rise of the Christian Right in American politics is just the tip of the iceberg. A large fraction of the U.S. population has no understanding of science and indeed holds to a mystical world view that rejects the scientific facts that are so clear to those who have taken the time to study them. About 1/3 the U.S. population sees the Bible as literal truth and a large additional fraction believes it to be based on the Word of God. The Islamist view is not much different, in that their Book is given similar reverence.
History has made any rational discussion of population control very difficult, after the eugenics movement of the early 1900's and the associated actions of Nazi Germany. Racial discrimination issues left over from the U.S. experience with slavery further complicates the discussion. To control population growth, which some think should be a negative, major intrusions in personal lives would be necessary. At the most basic level, the question is: Who is to be allowed to procreate and who is not? Where there a way to ask such a question without the previous historical nightmares, an answer would be almost impossible to find. The discussion has degenerated to questions about the "right" of a women to have an abortion as we see U.S. candidates for president lining up on opposite sides. Here's a current example:
Notice that there's no mention of population as a problem. Population control is off the screen.
How do "we" demolish these barriers to rational action? That's been the basic question for more than 40 years. I see no hope, given the political situation. So, famine, pestilence and wars will be the ultimate limits to growth. The unyielding religious fanatics will be happy with this outcome, as it fits into their world view in which the wicked will be punished for their original "sin" of being born. Worse yet, the Armageddon lovers may make it happen, whether "we" like it or not. There are lots of End Timers out there in Fly Over Land...
Just because some segments of the scientific community are unfamiliar with current topics in population science does not mean that it has been ignored for "a generation" by everyone.
Fair enough. I think we are also concerned with what is considered fair game for public conversation. Demographics is certainly a crucial issue in managing global change, more so than has been acknowledged of late. This is not to imply that nobody has been thinking about it at all. The question is whether it is a primary component of our circumstance. I believe that it is, and I believe that the debate has lost sight of this fact (just as the problem of nuclear armaments has mysteriously vanished from discourse without actually being solved).
One should not go further in the "population v. environment" discussion without first reading the consensus statement of major social and environmental scientists on the subject: "Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment" K Arrow, et al. -dl
Thank you! I'm on it.
I'm a bit confused by the tone of your response, though. Whatever the flaws in Rapley's understanding, he above all is arguing for a place at the table for demographers. I'd think you'd be in agreement.
Eric Swanson wrote: > Notice that there's no mention of population as a problem. Population > control is off the screen.
> How do "we" demolish these barriers to rational action?
Do you really see that rational action mandates population control?
I assume you mean coercive control, since we already have plenty of policy measures that bear on fertility, such as benefits and legislation. A fair amount of this is actually intended to support child-reading, but of course the strength of this support is easily enough varied in principle. What do you think we should rationally do, that goes beyond this approach?
Note that the USA is barely at break-even for total fertility, and pretty much the entire rest of the developed world is well below that. Education, wealth and healthcare seems to do the job you want pretty well, without the need for coercive measures (mind you, one could probably create a pretty good correlation with just about any environmental variable, so perhaps I shouldn't make any strong claims for causation).
Michael Tobis wrote: > How strong is the correlation between wealth and reduced fertility? > Are there wealthy countries with high fertility or poor countries with > low?
Michael Tobis wrote: > How strong is the correlation between wealth and reduced fertility? > Are there wealthy countries with high fertility or poor countries with > low?
> I've never really understood why this is supposed to happen, and why > we are expected to rely on it happening.
The major factors associated with reduced fertility also tend to be associated with increased wealth, but this is not always the case. For example, the state of Punjab in India has the highest per-capita GDP of any Indian state, but does not have a particularly low fertility rate compared to other states. Kerala, on the other hand, has a per- capita income of around a dollar a day and a lower fertility rate than the United States (and a comparable lifespan/literacy rate). Once female literacy and workforce participation are factored out, Sen and Dreze found no statistically significant relationship between income and fertility rates in Indian states.
In general, once women have the option to choose, they will generally choose to invest a lot of effort in a small number of children. Similarly, when women can earn money and support their families, they will be less likely to spend time having children. There are only limited cases when additional children are economically beneficial as a source of unskilled labor, and these opportunities tend to shrink as countries become wealthier.
On Jul 4, 10:01 am, "Michael Tobis" <mto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How strong is the correlation between wealth and reduced fertility? > Are there wealthy countries with high fertility or poor countries with > low?
> I've never really understood why this is supposed to happen, and why > we are expected to rely on it happening.
> mt
Oh, and touché James. But I would argue that any well designed carbon tax would have to be explicitly revenue neutral, with revenues used to cut distortionary taxes on labor (e.g. payroll and income taxes) in a progressive manner that offsets any regressive effects of tax increases. Ironically, carbon taxes will in most cases be considerably more progressive than tradable permit systems, if only we could get over our negative association with the term "tax". Just look at the windfall profits that utilities have experienced under phase one of the EU ETS...
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Tobis" <mto...@gmail.com> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: <globalchange@googlegroups.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 11:33 AM Subject: [Global Change: 1839] Re: breaking the population bomb taboo
> One should not go further in the > "population v. environment" discussion without first reading the > consensus > statement of major social and environmental scientists on the subject: > "Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment" K Arrow, et > al. > -dl
> Thank you! I'm on it.
> I'm a bit confused by the tone of your response, though. Whatever the > flaws in Rapley's understanding, he above all is arguing for a place > at the table for demographers. I'd think you'd be in agreement.
> mt
We need to be careful to bring fair game into public conversation. Examined carefully, we find "global overpopulation" is not fair game - it is a specious concept without scientific measure, so we must resist efforts to start the conversation by saying "the globe is overpopulated".
Examined carefully, we find many problems of local overcrowding all over the globe that demand understanding and action, but that is not the same as "global overpopulation". As evidence of overpopulation, Rapley cites a World Wildlife Fund figure of "1.25 earths needed to sustain the population", which is down from 5 earths just a few short years ago. If we carefully examine what goes into this number, we find that what it means is there are not enough forests to absorb carbon dioxide at a rate that would balance the rate of emissions. The overuse of coal relative to uranium is a very different problem requiring different solutions than the "overpopulation of the planet", yet careless thinking has led the former to be twisted around into the latter.
The danger of this carelessness is further confusion and delay in attacking the serious problems of our day, such as overcrowding, poverty, disease pandemics, the rate of carbon emissions, and the rate of biodiversity loss. It is tempting to believe that all these problems would be reduced if only the global population were reduced, but population reduction as a goal has historically brought about the most inhumane treatment of humanity. We must be careful not to confuse problems of population and the environment with problems of technology and organization if we are to improve sustainability without sacrificing civility.
The global population is currently stabilizing, carbon emissions are not. Therefore we must look to other causes of carbon emissions to deal with them effectively.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Swanson" <e_swan...@skybest.com> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: "globalchange" <globalchange@googlegroups.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 9:01 AM Subject: [Global Change: 1838] Re: breaking the population bomb taboo
>I see no hope, given the >political situation. So, famine, pestilence and wars will be the >ultimate limits to growth.
Erik, why so hopeless? Haven't you noticed the popualtion is indeed stabilizing? Ever wonder why? If your curiosity should lead you to investigate, you would find the reason is not "famine, pestilence and wars". Fight fear with knowledge.
> >I see no hope, given the > >political situation. So, famine, pestilence and wars will be the > >ultimate limits to growth.
> Erik, why so hopeless? Haven't you noticed the popualtion is indeed > stabilizing? Ever wonder why? If your curiosity should lead you to > investigate, you would find the reason is not "famine, pestilence and wars". > Fight fear with knowledge.
> -dl
It's been said that population in the developed nations is stabilizing and that claim is repeated here. I see it a bit differently, as the history in developing countries has not been the same. While India and China are not yet what one would consider fully developed, their populations have continued to increase. Together, just these two massive nations amount to about 2.3 billion people. As their development can be expected to continue and their energy per capita increase accordingly, I suggest that we will see some real limits to resource availability in the not too distant future. Already, we are see reports of the competition for oil between these two nations and the rest of the world.
I've been reading the posts on theoildrum.com of late and one of their main themes has been what they call "Export Land" vs. "Import Land". In this, they note that oil production and the impending Peak Oil situation is not the real problem. Those few nations where the oil is produced are also consumers and thus their exports can be expected to decline faster than the rate of decline of their production, since their internal consumption can be expected to increase. These producing nations are amongst the developing nations and their populations are also increasing. Mexico and Indonesia are prime examples, with Mexico having been a major source of U.S. imports. Even Iran now finds it necessary to cut the cheap gasoline subsidy to it's growing population.
I've been intensely interested in the energy situation since the OPEC Oil Embargo threw the U.S. into a mess back in 1973. As an engineer, energy is my thing, so to speak. My bias, if you want to call it that, is solar energy and I've known how to use it for more than 30 years. Yet, I've found almost no opportunity to do so, which I find very depressing. Your choice in the energy world is nuclear, as you've demonstrated many times. Back in 1974, nuclear generation was projected to expand rapidly to something like 1,000 plants by 2000. But, the nukes took a big hit after Three Mile Island and Chernobil, with only 104 plants now in operation. If those 1,000 plants had been built, how long would the uranium have lasted without reprocessing?
You want to be optimistic, so how many nukes would it take to power a fully developed India and China, not to mention the other nations that you apparently want to see brought up to Western levels of development. Where's the fuel to come from for all those nuclear power plants, without a recycling of fuel to recover the plutonium? The next question is, what sort of world would we find ourselves in if all that fuel were to be recycled and reprocessed? With all the bad actors around, what level of security would be necessary to prevent disruptions? I submit that a total government control of everybody's life would be necessary to catch even the least important threat. Such a system would make today's concerns about "terrorist's" seem like a mild spring breeze. Personally, on this day of celebration of American Freedom and Independence, I must say that I would oppose the creation of any such system, which would of necessity destroy all manner of freedoms that most Americans now take for granted. I do not want to live in a such police state.
----- Original Message ----- From: "James Annan" <james.an...@gmail.com> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: <globalchange@googlegroups.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 7:33 AM Subject: [Global Change: 1837] Re: breaking the population bomb taboo
> Zeke Hausfather wrote: >> Coercive population control programs >> are rarely very successful, with China's one child policy standing out >> as the major exception (and, frankly, a similar program would be >> impossible to implement in a democracy, as "the emergency" in India so >> clearly showed.
> Coercive carbon taxes are rarely very successful, in fact there are no > major exceptions I can think of (and, frankly, a similar program would > be impossible to implement in a democracy, as the "fuel tax protests" in > the UK so clearly showed).
> :-)
> James
Clever turn-about, James. Policies to reduce carbon emissions are deemed acceptable while policies to reduce baby emissions are taboo. I believe the taboo to be rooted in a value judgment as regards death by toxic shock following forced insertion of intrauterine devices, versus nicking drivers a few pence at the petrol pump.
Putting the issues on a more equal footing, some population control interest groups in the US tried to introduce a tax policy regarding family size a few years back. They wanted to repeal the incremental income tax exemptions for additional children after the second. This prompted one demographer to comment "The image of the paterfamilias in, say, Rwanda, filling out his tax form and worrying about his deductions is too bizarre to contemplate." (Paul Demeny "An Economist's Use for Sand" - a review of Garret Hardins' _The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia_ in _Nature_, 7 October 1999, p 528).
----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Swanson" <e_swan...@skybest.com> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: "globalchange" <globalchange@googlegroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 7:43 AM Subject: [Global Change: 1848] Re: breaking the population bomb taboo
>> >I see no hope, given the >> >political situation. So, famine, pestilence and wars will be the >> >ultimate limits to growth.
>> Erik, why so hopeless? Haven't you noticed the population is indeed >> stabilizing? Ever wonder why? If your curiosity should lead you to >> investigate, you would find the reason is not "famine, pestilence and >> wars". >> Fight fear with knowledge.
>> -dl
> It's been said that population in the developed nations is stabilizing > and that claim is repeated here.
Look again - that's *global population* stabilizing - as noted by Chris Rapley citing UN sources in the article that kicked off the thread.
> energy is my thing, so to speak. My bias, if you want to call it > that, is solar energy and I've known how to use it for more than 30 > years. Yet, I've found almost no opportunity to do so, which I find > very depressing. Your choice in the energy world is nuclear, as > you've demonstrated many times.
The opportunity to use solar energy is all around you: biomass - like pizza and beer, among other things. Perhaps availing yourself of the opportunity to use pizza and beer would cheer you up? And I suppose if we push the chain of cause and effect back far enough we would find wind and hydro to be solar powered as well. Photovoltaic is getting cheaper all the time, and of course solar thermal mustn't be overlooked. I am a huge fan of all of these options, and also conservation. But I can also do arithmetic and I appreciate the value of a dollar - when it comes to building a new coal-fired power plant (and more are being built every day), what are the alternatives, really?
> You want to be optimistic, so how many nukes would it take to power a > fully developed India and China, not to mention the other nations that > you apparently want to see brought up to Western levels of > development. Where's the fuel to come from for all those nuclear > power plants, without a recycling of fuel to recover the plutonium?
Again, I refer you to the IPCC stabilization scenarios for estimates of *global* nuclear power development, which range from six to ten times higher than today (approximately 2,500 to 4,500 1Gw plants world-wide, including India and China). Expanding the use of fuel breeding and recycling beyond current practice may be necessary, and why not? Proliferation concerns may be addressed in various ways, such as "denatured plutonium" or integral fast reactor facilities, and continued commitment to the non-proliferation treaty.
> > You want to be optimistic, so how many nukes would it take to power a > > fully developed India and China, not to mention the other nations that > > you apparently want to see brought up to Western levels of > > development. Where's the fuel to come from for all those nuclear > > power plants, without a recycling of fuel to recover the plutonium?
> Again, I refer you to the IPCC stabilization scenarios for estimates of > *global* nuclear power development, which range from six to ten times higher > than today (approximately 2,500 to 4,500 1Gw plants world-wide, including > India and China). Expanding the use of fuel breeding and recycling beyond > current practice may be necessary, and why not? Proliferation concerns may > be addressed in various ways, such as "denatured plutonium" or integral fast > reactor facilities, and continued commitment to the non-proliferation > treaty.
I presume from the above that you think that nuclear power in Iran and North Korea is a good idea. If you disagree, then, why is it OK for nuclear power in ANY other nation, given that national governments have been known to undergo major changes over time. The "terrorists" aren't the only "bad actors", as we've seen many times in history. There are many people, such as the Fundamentalist Islamists or Christians, that see the world from a very different perspective than that of the educated Westerner. What if the Saudi's have intentionally overstated their oil reserves to lead the Western world into a major crisis from which they might profit or their religion prevail? How do you talk to the 1/4 (or 1/3?) of the U.S. population that thinks the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and that the End Times are upon us?
> Fight fear with knowledge: know nukes.
I'll build a wind energy system in my backyard if you will build a nuke in yours.
>You want to be optimistic, so how many nukes would it take to power a >fully developed India and China, not to mention the other nations that >you apparently want to see brought up to Western levels of >development. Where's the fuel to come from for all those nuclear >power plants, without a recycling of fuel to recover the plutonium? >The next question is, what sort of world would we find ourselves in if >all that fuel were to be recycled and reprocessed? With all the bad >actors around, what level of security would be necessary to prevent >disruptions? I submit that a total government control of everybody's >life would be necessary to catch even the least important threat. >Such a system would make today's concerns about "terrorist's" seem >like a mild spring breeze. Personally, on this day of celebration of >American Freedom and Independence, I must say that I would oppose the >creation of any such system, which would of necessity destroy all >manner of freedoms that most Americans now take for granted. I do not >want to live in a such police state.
>ES
Eric,
I agree with what you are saying here.
A year ago I posted references to a couple articles on this issue by Amory Lovins:
Nuclear Power: Economic Fundamentals and Potential Role in Climate Change Mitigation The PowerPoint slides from Amory Lovins's 16 August 2005 invited testimony to the California Energy Commission (in .PDF format) outline why nuclear power's inherently high cost and slow deployment make it a counterproductive answer to climate change. The world market is instead buying end-use efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled cogeneration faster and on a larger scale, and those superior investments will save more carbon sooner per dollar. http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E05-09_NukePwrMitig.pdf
The nuclear proponents on this list have not explained any reasons why Lovins' analysis is in error. As far as I can tell, they simply ignore it because they don't like the conclusions.
For those who are arriving late to the party here, I would encourage you to take a look at these.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Swanson" <e_swan...@skybest.com> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: "globalchange" <globalchange@googlegroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 10:03 AM Subject: [Global Change: 1851] Re: breaking the population bomb taboo
>> Again, I refer you to the IPCC stabilization scenarios for estimates of >> *global* nuclear power development, which range from six to ten times >> higher >> than today (approximately 2,500 to 4,500 1Gw plants world-wide, including >> India and China). Expanding the use of fuel breeding and recycling >> beyond >> current practice may be necessary, and why not? Proliferation concerns >> may >> be addressed in various ways, such as "denatured plutonium" or integral >> fast >> reactor facilities, and continued commitment to the non-proliferation >> treaty.
> I presume from the above that you think that nuclear power in Iran and > North Korea is a good idea. If you disagree, then, why is it OK for > nuclear power in ANY other nation, given that national governments > have been known to undergo major changes over time. The "terrorists" > aren't the only "bad actors", as we've seen many times in history.
Isn't it interesting to see how quickly a discussion of the population bomb taboo has turned into a discussion of the nuclear bomb taboo?
You too easily equate "nuclear power" with "nuclear weapons". In principle I don't think it is a bad idea for the people of Iran or North Korea to enjoy the benefits of electric power, whether that be produced by combustion or by fission.
With respect to nuclear weapons, I would prefer to see both nations sign and abide by the NPT and allow regular IAEA inspections, and to choose not to build nuclear weapons production facilities, just as most of the 30 or so nations with nuclear power plants have done.
The ethical dilemmas of our time have us now confronting whether the human toll and environmental consequences of a "limited" nuclear war with 1 or 10 or 100 weapons detonated would outweigh the human toll and environmental consequences of failing to replace 2,500-4,500 coal-fired power plants with nuclear power plants over the next 50-100 years.
I entertain the benefit of a doubt that the risk of nuclear war would be substantially elevated by further development of nuclear power, and a case could be made that greater prosperity and diversity of fuel supply would actually reduce the risk of international conflict, but I wouldn't know how to measure the risks in any case.
> I'll build a wind energy system in my backyard if you will build a > nuke in yours.
I would have no problem living as close as possible to a nuclear plant, or even *gasp* working in one. In fact, if property values near plants are indeed depressed by the fear factor, then it is more likely that I would find a house in my price range. ;-)
But as it turns out, the greater issue in my back yard is whether to build a powerline to the west to bring more wind energy to market from Iowa, Minnesota and western Wisconsin, or to build a powerline to the south to bring more nuclear energy to market from Illinois, where it is quite likely a new reactor will be built within a few years, or to build a powerline to the east to bring more coal energy from the giant new coal plant already under construction near Milwaukee. A vocal crowd doubts that any new powerline is necessary at all, but we could expect to hear loud noises either against new powerline construction to prevent black-outs, or in favor of new powerline construction as a result of black-outs. Ain't democracy grand?
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Torson" <jtor...@commspeed.net> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: <globalchange@googlegroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 10:44 AM Subject: [Global Change: 1852] Re: breaking the population bomb taboo
> A year ago I posted references to a couple articles on this issue > by Amory Lovins:
> Nuclear Power: Economic Fundamentals and Potential Role > in Climate Change Mitigation > The PowerPoint slides from Amory Lovins's 16 August 2005 > invited testimony to the California Energy Commission (in .PDF > format) outline why nuclear power's inherently high cost and > slow deployment make it a counterproductive answer to > climate change. The world market is instead buying end-use > efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled > cogeneration faster and on a larger scale, and those superior > investments will save more carbon sooner per dollar. > http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E05-09_NukePwrMitig.pdf
> The nuclear proponents on this list have not explained any reasons > why Lovins' analysis is in error. As far as I can tell, they simply > ignore it because they don't like the conclusions.
Thanks for the repost, Jim. Mr. Lovins is correct that the world market has recently been "buying end-use efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled cogeneration", at least, I can confirm that has been the case in Wisconsin for the past decade, which has built wind farms, photo-electric plants, and gas-fired co-gen plants like crazy (even as they have decommissioned run of river hydro plants), as well as adding significant new nuclear production by uprating existing plants. In fact a new gas-fired co-gen plant was built in my back yard two years ago (or actually about 1 km from my back yard).
And I would assume that trend to continue, but for the fact that a very large new coal plant started construction last year near Milwaukee. As stated in the environmental impact statement for that plant, the economic model used to determine the least costly new power supply options would choose to continue adding more gas and wind to the grid for the foreseeable future (out to 2014), unless carbon emissions are monetized by a carbon tax, in which case the model would choose to add a new nuclear plant in 2013.
Does anybody in the GlobalChange group think monetizing carbon emissions with a carbon tax is a good idea? Doing so will change the economics of electric power production in a way that Mr. Lovins' presentation has not anticipated. To learn more about what a carbon-monetized future might hold, we might turn instead to MIT professor John Deutch and his group's report http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/ or prof Paul Joskow's power-point summary at http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/download_pdf.php?id=1358 .
Amory and Hunter are not the only ones with educated opinions about electric power economics, although they probably do have the most interesting house among that crowd. If we fail to monetize carbon emissions, we can expect many more big new coal plants to be built, despite the market's appetite for "end-use efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled cogeneration" and Lovins-inspired protestations to the contrary. Carbon monetization and nuclear power plant construction will fill the gap left over by the failure of "end-use efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled cogeneration" to satisfy base-load electricity demand in a GHG stabilization scenario.
I have a relatively minor point, in the present context, about forests and carbon balance, but I feel compelled to make it. I also address some of the larger issues below.
> As evidence of overpopulation, Rapley cites a > World Wildlife Fund figure of "1.25 earths needed to sustain the > population", which is down from 5 earths just a few short years ago. If we > carefully examine what goes into this number, we find that what it means is > there are not enough forests to absorb carbon dioxide at a rate that would > balance the rate of emissions.
While I don't know what goes into the calculation (and would like to know), your analysis about forests is incorrect.
A mature natural forest at equilibrium is neither a net source nor a net sink of carbon, almost directly by definition of "mature".
A growing forest is a sink.
A forest being cleared or shrinking back under assault from invasive vermin is a source, of course.
A harvested forest used for paper products could conceivably be a sink provided we eschew recycling and sequester the paper, a point which rarely garners esteem from self-identified "environmentalists", but as far as I know nobody is considering this, as it is probably impractical from other points of view.
Forests may have other sustainability advantages, but my main point is they don't sustainably constitute a net carbon flux.
> The overuse of coal relative to uranium is a > very different problem requiring different solutions than the > "overpopulation of the planet", yet careless thinking has led the former to > be twisted around into the latter.
Indeed.
> The danger of this carelessness is further confusion and delay in attacking > the serious problems of our day, such as overcrowding, poverty, disease > pandemics, the rate of carbon emissions, and the rate of biodiversity loss. > It is tempting to believe that all these problems would be reduced if only > the global population were reduced, but population reduction as a goal has > historically brought about the most inhumane treatment of humanity.
Nevertheless, the question of what the maximum population that can be sustained indefinitely actually is remains a real one. We may not know how to do something and still need to do it.
> The global population is currently stabilizing, carbon emissions are not.
I still think it is worth considering what the goal should be. Regardless of the actual number, in the very long run the only sustainable global fertility is the one that exactly balances mortality (and in the unlikely event that space travel ever becomes important in this matter, net emigration)
> Therefore we must look to other causes of carbon emissions to deal with them > effectively.
I agree that this is far the more urgent problem. However, I would like to see the sustainability issue addressed quantitatively. The fact that in the long term any population growth rate other than exactly zero is necessary in the very long run may not need to be embedded in the culture anytime soon, but it's still true and interesting.
I am very puzzled about the tight correlation between income and fertility. We may be relying on it too heavily if we don't understand it. At my current level of understanding it strikes me as possible that cause and effect have been reversed. If so, it reminds me of my plan to plant palm trees in Wisconsin to make the winters less harsh.
Don, or somebody, please reassure me that the causality is understood if you can.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Tobis" <mto...@gmail.com> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: <globalchange@googlegroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 12:27 PM Subject: [Global Change: 1857] Re: breaking the population bomb taboo
> I have a relatively minor point, in the present context, about forests > and carbon balance, but I feel compelled to make it. I also address > some of the larger issues below.
> ... >> As evidence of overpopulation, Rapley cites a >> World Wildlife Fund figure of "1.25 earths needed to sustain the >> population", which is down from 5 earths just a few short years ago.
> While I don't know what goes into the calculation (and would like to > know), your analysis about forests is incorrect.
Not my analysis. My reading of University of British Columbia urban planners Reese and Wackernagel who first published the "ecological footprint" concept (a rehash of ancient carrying capacity thought for modern mass consumption.) I'm sure you can google your way to the source but five or ten years ago I went through their article fairly carefully and traced the adoption and diffusion by others such as the World Economic Forum and WWF. Acreage for trees to absorb carbon is the biggest part of the footprint, and as you point out, among the more dubious. But the larger point is that the whole enterprise of carrying capacity measurement is dubious.
> Nevertheless, the question of what the maximum population that can be > sustained indefinitely actually is remains a real one. We may not know > how to do something and still need to do it.
Like studying perpetual motion? Grant funding is pretty thin in that field, for good reason.
Michael, that question is not a real one, it is a hypothetical conjecture at best. The authoritative encyclopedia of carrying capacity estimation is geographer Joel Cohen's 1995 _How Many People can Earth Support?_ It will satisfy your curiosity about quantification efforts, but the estimates range to a high of 10^12 - maximum indefinitely sustainable population (with people stuffed into huge nuclear powered anthills spaced evenly over earth's land and ocean surface).
As you will find in the "consensus statement" cited previously, the *real* questions are what kind of life we want to live, what kind of environmental quality we want to preserve, and so on - these are questions of human values, not of scientific laws that constrain human activity. Human activities are constrained by scientific laws, but "global population carrying capacity" is not one of them. The possibility is not excluded by the laws of physics or biology.
>> The global population is currently stabilizing, carbon emissions are not.
> I still think it is worth considering what the goal should be. > Regardless of the actual number, in the very long run the only > sustainable global fertility is the one that exactly balances > mortality (and in the unlikely event that space travel ever becomes > important in this matter, net emigration)
Michael, in the very long run we are all extinct - species only last an average of 4 million years. Fertility and mortality rates can fluctuate over time, and in the limit as t goes to infinity, the average is zero. Natural preadator-prey cycles may oscillate sinusoidally with birth and death rates locked in phase but rarely equal - such cycles may be sustainable without "exact balance". Biologist Stewart Pimm has shifted thinking about population equilibrium away from the rigid notion of carrying capacity and toward a much more dynamic concept of "resilience" with populations and resources swinging about through more-or-less broad ranges of tolerance.
As I've said before, in my opinion the goal should be "stabilization". Under current conditions, we're well on the way to achieving population stabilization by mid-century. We're doing less well on the carbon stabilization front. Perhaps an accelerated decline in fertility would increase the chances of carbon stabilization - I would agree that continuing to promote the conditions associated with fertility decline is a laudable goal for many reasons.
>> Therefore we must look to other causes of carbon emissions to deal with >> them >> effectively.
> I agree that this is far the more urgent problem. However, I would > like to see the sustainability issue addressed quantitatively.
Yes the topic has fascinated many over the centuries (nod to Malthus - see Cohen to more than satisfy your curiosity.) Today it is regarded as a sterile concept, as one reviewer of Cohen put it "to be consigned to the intellectual dead letter box" (F. Landis MacKellar review of Cohen in _Population and Development Review_ March 1996 p 145).
> I am very puzzled about the tight correlation between income and > fertility. We may be relying on it too heavily if we don't understand > it. At my current level of understanding it strikes me as possible > that cause and effect have been reversed. If so, it reminds me of my > plan to plant palm trees in Wisconsin to make the winters less harsh.
> Don, or somebody, please reassure me that the causality is understood > if you can.
> mt
Michael, the "cause and effect" is manifold and not strictly material, but socio-cultural, summed up in the term "women's emancipation".
Here's my reassurance: relax good fellow. Relax with a good book reviewing the research literature in an readable discourse: R.A. Easterlin _Growth Triumphant: the 21st Century in Historical Perspective_ U Mich Press, 1997.
Also on your summer reading list: Brian O Neill, F. Landis MacKellar and Wolfgang Lutz, _Population and Climate Change_. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001.
I have read Cohen's book "How Many People Can the Earth Support?" and I highly recommend it.
It is there that I understood the amazing narrowness of the constraint on population growth rate on very long time scales.
Perhaps I took a different lesson from the book than was intended.
As for the four million years, that is based on very little. We are no ordinary species. We could be gone in two hundred years or still be hanging around in two billion. I suppose it will make little difference to me but I much prefer the latter.
