Mar 12, 2024 06:32 PM
Global population collapse isn't sci-fi anymore
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-15561-...l#pid62812
EXCERPTS: . . . All this drives up the probability of right-wing politics in the developed world (old people vote for this and they outnumber the young), more conflict (borders can’t seriously be defended without at least the threat of violence), the more rapid spread of infectious pathogens, and no effective attempt to address the climate issue.
Yet immigration still seems to North American and European elites to be the simplest solution to the problem of falling fertility...
[...] In contemplating these and other scenarios, most pundits struggle to grasp that, when the human population begins to fall, it will do so not gradually, but almost as steeply as it once rose...
[...] The problem is that this precipitous decline will come a century too late to avert the disastrous consequences of climate change that many today fear — and which are another reason why people will flee Africa, and another reason why young people in Europe say they will have few or no children... (MORE)
Climate policy rethink
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/cli...cy-rethink
INTRO: Last week three new analyses were published that together should help to motivate a much-needed rethink of climate policy. They are:
Let’s take a closer look at each... (MORE - details)
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-15561-...l#pid62812
EXCERPTS: . . . All this drives up the probability of right-wing politics in the developed world (old people vote for this and they outnumber the young), more conflict (borders can’t seriously be defended without at least the threat of violence), the more rapid spread of infectious pathogens, and no effective attempt to address the climate issue.
Yet immigration still seems to North American and European elites to be the simplest solution to the problem of falling fertility...
[...] In contemplating these and other scenarios, most pundits struggle to grasp that, when the human population begins to fall, it will do so not gradually, but almost as steeply as it once rose...
[...] The problem is that this precipitous decline will come a century too late to avert the disastrous consequences of climate change that many today fear — and which are another reason why people will flee Africa, and another reason why young people in Europe say they will have few or no children... (MORE)
Climate policy rethink
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/cli...cy-rethink
INTRO: Last week three new analyses were published that together should help to motivate a much-needed rethink of climate policy. They are:
- An essay by Vaclav Smil on the prospects for net-zero carbon dioxide by 2050, shared along with Michael Cembalest’s Annual Energy Paper for J.P Morgan;1
- “Equity assessment of global mitigation pathways in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report,” by Tejal Kanitkar and colleagues (preprint here for those paywall blocked);
- and “Coal transitions—part 2: phase-out dynamics in global long-term mitigation scenarios,” by Jan Minx and colleagues (see their Part 1 here).
- Climate policy targets and timetables need revisiting as the Paris Agreement targets are infeasible;
- Global equity needs to considered with equal (or even greater) priority than emissions reductions;
- Scenarios that guide climate policy are biased towards the expansion of coal energy, misleading us in many ways, and in particular, away from the lowest hanging fruit.
Let’s take a closer look at each... (MORE - details)