Global Hunger Continues to Grow Driven By Climate Change

[Ivan Lapitski + 5]

9 hours ago, jaycee said:

Regards the trees, chopping down a tree and burning it is therefore the way to go you suggest? If so the average time to regrow a tree varies but on average I am guessing 20 years I don’t think we can grow enough trees to manage our energy needs for population size. https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-for-a-tree-to-mature

 

No, with our current population size it's impossible to satisfy our energy needs without using fossil fuels. Short term, nuclear energy is the best option. But in the long term we must reduce the human population on earth, perhaps by only allowing birth of one child per person.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

9 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Fortunately, except for India and swaths of Africa and a few places in Central America, the fecundity rates are below the replacement rate, and populations are declining, in some cases dramatically so.  All of Europe and Russia is below replacement, and will dwindle to about 1/3 current populations in the next 75 years absent in-migration.  China appears to be shrinking, rapidly aging population consequent to their one-child policy of decades ago, with the result that young men have no prospects for wives, thus will not reproduce, absent importation of fecund women from other Asian countries such as Vietnam. 

Male celibacy, incidentally, is the historical norm in several countries.  Prior to the advance of birth-control methodology allowing for sex for recreation, not merely procreation, perhaps one-third of Britain's male population were in a state of enforced celibacy.  The driver of that abstinence was lack of money, with the women that survived  (enough died in childbirth to keep the supply of women low and excess males in the population) seeking out men with money.  Those without, went without.  Of that group, lots joined the army and the navy, perfectly respectable albeit celibate careers. 

Very interesting. I was not aware of some of your facts. India does indeed seem to have the greatest problem with population. Their freedoms are similar to ours but they have not yet reached the wealth point where fecundity decreases. Their health system is relatively adequate for long life spans. Apparently, they still think lots of children, especially males, will help their families. Their diaspora is great but will not solve the population problem. The sex worker trade has of course always been a handy opportunity for men without mates. Far better than homosexuality IMO. It seems that celibacy often leads to perversions of various sorts.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

20 hours ago, Ivan Lapitski said:

 

No, with our current population size it's impossible to satisfy our energy needs without using fossil fuels. Short term, nuclear energy is the best option. But in the long term we must reduce the human population on earth, perhaps by only allowing birth of one child per person.

Both short term and long term, nukes are the only realistic means for sustaining the amount of energy that is required for the comforts of modern life.  Nuke power is quite benign, notwithstanding the hysterics of the uninformed. 

Right now, in most of the world, population regeneration is well below steady-state replacement.  In much of Europe, the fecundity rate is between 1.2 and 1.6.  This presages a population collapse - held up, at this point, by mass migration from Africa and the Middle East.  It is in areas of the Middle East  (such as, for example, Palestine) and Central Africa where you still see dramatic population increases, with fecundity rates as high as 6.0   [2.1 is steady-state].  Within 50 years even those areas will drop below replacement rate, all without any draconian government measures.  

Edited September 24, 2018 by Jan van Eck
typing error

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Very interesting. I was not aware of some of your facts. India does indeed seem to have the greatest problem with population. Their freedoms are similar to ours but they have not yet reached the wealth point where fecundity decreases. Their health system is relatively adequate for long life spans. Apparently, they still think lots of children, especially males, will help their families. Their diaspora is great but will not solve the population problem. The sex worker trade has of course always been a handy opportunity for men without mates. Far better than homosexuality IMO. It seems that celibacy often leads to perversions of various sorts.

It might surprise you to learn that the majority of sex-worker clients are men with mates - either wives or girlfriend partners.  Homosexual contact is widespread in the Middle East, and the typical path for early sex contacts there  (all subject to mass denial; for example, the Ayatollahs all claim there is no homosexuality in Iran, yet first sex experiences for virtually everybody there is homosexual).  Looked at objectively, homosexual contacts are benign, outside of infections, as they result in no population increases (by definition).  It raises interesting issues for the troop conduct of the Taliban. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Jan, unfortunately, the Muslims seem to frequently force young boys into a female role complete with makeup and feminine clothing. I forget the name for them. 

Edited September 23, 2018 by ronwagn
addition

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Jan, unfortunately, the Muslims seem to frequently force young boys into a female role complete with makeup and feminine clothing. I forget the name for them. 

All true, yet remember that historically that was the situation in English boarding schools.  Also among the lower ratings in the British Navy.  Hey, it happens. Today we look askance at all that, but placed in the times, it was fairly routine. 

[jaycee + 348]

13 hours ago, Ivan Lapitski said:

But in the long term we must reduce the human population on earth, perhaps by only allowing birth of one child per person.

I am glad we have found a point to agree on

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

The carbon footprint of the population is very different from one country to another.

So its not only about the total number of inhabitants on the planet but also about their consumption mode. The Earth can sustain far more Indians than Americans.

Some Americans are pointing to the Indian natality rate but don't you think a reduction of the US per capita carbon footprint to lets say the European levels could have a bigger impact than any natality rate reduction in India  ?

[Ivan Lapitski + 5]

4 hours ago, Guillaume Albasini said:

The carbon footprint of the population is very different from one country to another.

Some Americans are pointing to the Indian natality rate but don't you think a reduction of the US per capita carbon footprint to lets say the European levels could have a bigger impact than any natality rate reduction in India  ?

Yes, it would have a big impact but there is a very small probability of that ever happening. Just look at the whole "make America great again" campaign.

Humans are lazy and also very keen on having high status and raising their comfort level.

As long as there is cheap energy (cheap oil) people will strive to increase their energy use. 

The most likely scenario (if oil continues to be cheap) is that the population of India and other developing countries will increase their energy use per capita because they want to live a life with the same high standards as Americans/Europeans.

On a side note: I live in Sweden and I think that our carbon per capita is higher than what the statistics shows. This is because we're off-sourcing a lot of our production and workforce to lower income countries, something that is not accounted for in the statistics.

[markslawson + 1,057]

On ‎9‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 7:08 AM, Ivan Lapitski said:

The forest is basically a carbon dioxide storage, If you burn one tree you release the CO2 of that tree and over 50 years time a new tree grows on the same spot once again capturing the same CO2.

If we would instead burn fossil fuels, we need to add a new tree since the other trees are already busy absorbing CO2 that already existed in the atmosphere. (The forest is limited in the amount of CO2 it can absorb)

So when we are burning fossil fuels we are increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

When we burn biofuels/trees we are temporarily increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, this CO2 is however slowly absorbed by the plant that grows in the burnt plant's place. We lost what you call the "carbon extractor" but only temporarily.

My explanation of the carbon dioxide cycle is greatly simplified for explanatory purpose. It's not a closed system, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere vary naturally as you say, however it happens over a long period of time.

The difference now is the rate of change is happening very fast, see the picture below.

Ivan Lapitski - the graph you cite is quite correct. The point always used to counter it is that the emissions cited here are less than the estimation errors for natural carbon flows - that is to say, trivial. As real time, direct measurements show that CO2 only hangs around in the atmosphere only about eight years or so, that should mean human emissions are not worth considering. Global Warming theory has a way around this that involves the human-emitted molecule effectively making a difference for way longer than eight years - decades, in fact -  so that human emissions add up to much more but I don't follow that part of the theory at all. You may have better luck.

[Bob Hoye + 2]

All green growing things are improving--mostly due to increasing amounts of atmospheric CO2

Bob Hoye

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Jan, please tell me which countries have a historical norm of male celibacy. Do you mean that is a goal, accepted, fact, necessity, does that include homosexual celibacy, etc. 

[WaytoPeace + 62]

Let’s not forget that global warming doesn’t just mean that we will all experience temperatures that are just a few degrees warmer.  Although there have been gradual climate changes over the last centuries, we are effecting a much more rapid change in the earth’s overall climate that will disrupt the lives of billions of people.  While the average temperature will rise resulting in a rise of the oceans, the jet stream and ocean currents will also be affected resulting in more extreme weather events.  Some areas of the world where farming and grazing are still possible will experience worsening drought while others will experience even more severe hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons resulting in massive damage and flooding.  Some areas will experience much higher temperatures rendering them almost inhabitable for parts of the year while other areas will experience even more frigid temperatures.  All of this will result in increased migration, hunger due to the difficulty of getting food to people who used to be able to obtain food more nearby, increased urbanization, and conflict.  While there is still a window of opportunity to ameliorate the more extreme affects, the sooner we address this impending crisis the better the world will be for our children and grandchildren.

[Jovito Catungal + 6]

Climate change is undeniably contributary to global hunger but big factor is the man-made catastrophy like wars in any form..tribal wars,  wars due to ideology, religious wars, secessionist war. Farmers in these areas are reluctant to till yhe land because there are assurance that they  will benefits from those efforts. Why there are wars??..greed.. So climate change and greed is causing the global hunger..

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

Exxon and Shell were aware of the climate change and its consequences in the eighties...

http://www.climatefiles.com/shell/1988-shell-report-greenhouse/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings

Edited September 25, 2018 by Guillaume Albasini

[John Foote + 1,135]

On 9/21/2018 at 6:58 AM, Jan van Eck said:

The longer-term trend for the planet is ominous - the planet will continue to cool. 

In astro-physicist's terms the planet will get hotter. As the sun ages and expands the earth will become to hot for any water. Add a billion more years to that, and the sun will probably be so large as to engulf our tiny sphere.

We are but time zits in time.

I remember in school, too many years ago, learning our carbon burning efforts would great cloud cover, reflecting heat and causing an ice age.

Now I can't help but think emissions aren't good for the overall system, but the planet will survive for quite some time. In the 50s simple coal smogs in London killed people. China's air quality is legendarily bad, and I've lived in areas that are in the top ten for high ppm levels of particles in the air. After a while you don't even notice until you leave for a while, and return and the stench hits you, and it seems too many friends with more than a few years in those regions get cancer.

In flying there is a term I got in flying years ago, PIO, pilot induced override. Overwhelming the best way to usually regain control of a plane is to stop trying to fly it, take your hands off, let it settle, and then fly it. I used to council guys, "wind your watch". Of course we had altitude for that demo.

The human tendency is to over-control. So often the fix ends up worse than the cure. And that is my fear with many of our engineered fixes to the environment. Decimating the earth for rare earth metals in the interest of renewables is an example. Yet I am a fan of renewables, but you have to step back and realize what you are doing. There are no magic bullets that save the whales, people, souls, whatever. But there will always be ways to improve. Just not a single fix.