A Novel Way to Save the Planet

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

I, for one, am fed up with the climate change crowd telling me what I must do to save the planet. To hear them prattle on, I need to install solar panels on my roof and a windmill in my backyard or else I am contributing to the destruction of Mother Earth. Furthermore, if I do not buy an electric vehicle, stop using anything associated with fossil fuels, even think about buying any single-use plastic product or do not participate in a recycling program, then I will be held personally responsible for global warming/climate change, a massive extinction, and the sea level rising and wiping out hundreds of thousands of people living on islands or the coasts.

I think that we need to approach this from a more practical vector. First, we need to identify the root cause of ALL environmental problems. Even the most logically challenged among us will realize that out of control population growth, globally, is the driving force behind the rise in air pollution, garbage of all descriptions, the ‘trash islands’ in the Pacific Ocean, the increased demand for energy (regardless of how it is generated), etc...ad nauseum.

Let’s take a look at the global population from a historical perspective:

1700    Global population was 600 million

1800    Global population was 990 million

1900    Global population was 1.65 billion

1928    Global population was 2 billion

1960    Global population was 3 billion

1975    Global population was 4 billion

1987    Global population was 5 billion

1999    Global population was 6 billion

2011    Global population was 7 billion

2019    Global population is expected to hit 7.7 billion

https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

In a nutshell, in 319 years, the global population has increased by a factor of 12.83.

Keep in mind that each person requires a certain amount of energy, food and freshwater simply to stay alive, let alone prosper. Natural resources, in that same 319 year period increased by exactly zero.

The solution is simple…QUIT HAVING KIDS!

That goes for the tree hugging crowd as well!

Why do people feel the need to have children in the first place? In my 60 years on the planet, I have decided that there are two driving forces to have kids. First, the grandparents demand them, and second, ‘we need someone to carry on the name’.

The fact is, most newlyweds would much prefer to spend their hard-earned cash on vacations, a new house, a new car or something that actually enhances their life and lets them enjoy themselves BEFORE tackling a family, but grandparents are a strong adversary and do not have to keep, feed or clothe the rug rat, they simply hand them back when they get tired of them.

Carry on the name, what kind of nonsense is that? Is it that important in the long run? Especially that if in doing so, you destroy the planet.

In the past, in developed countries, the majority of the population were in an agrarian lifestyle and large families were required to work the land or the livestock. That has not been the case for eons. If you have kids now, they will have kids later, their kids will have kids and the population explosion continues until we reach the point where there are simply not enough resources to go around. Wars and Mother Nature (the Black Death in the mid-14^thcentury, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, and so forth) used to thin us out in the past, but modern medicine is now extending the expected lifespan which further complicates the issue.

Getting rid of fossil fuels (and their associated products), then depending on wind farming, solar power generation, hydropower and all the other ‘green initiatives’ will NEVER be able to keep up with the exploding global population and the demands it creates on resources!

If you want to save the planet, and you actually want to make a difference (although not in your lifetime)….STOP HAVING KIDS!

PS: I do not have kids, I am doing my part for the planet. I should get a 'carbon exemption' which would allow me to feel better about that next ICE motorcycle....

[remake it + 288]

Top marks for deflection.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

What exactly did I deflect?

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

24 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

What exactly did I deflect?

I had the same question.  Your post seemed pretty well thought out.

[Matthew w + 27]

Human beings are too vain, we will never stop procreating. As having children is more than carrying on the family name and more hands to sow the land. They're an extension of ourselves, and our closest taste of immortality. Not to mention for a vaste majority, they're purpose absent of any other in their lives.

Solution. We need a super evil villain to try and conquer the world. ;).

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

14 minutes ago, Matthew w said:

Solution. We need a super evil villain to try and conquer the world. ;).

The Clintons might be willing ; )

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

18 minutes ago, Matthew w said:

Human beings are too vain, we will never stop procreating. As having children is more than carrying on the family name and more hands to sow the land. They're an extension of ourselves, and our closest taste of immortality. Not to mention for a vaste majority, they're purpose absent of any other in their lives.

Solution. We need a super evil villain to try and conquer the world. ;).

We will likely never stop procreating for the reasons which you mentioned, plus it is kind of fun!

With that in mind, if we don't limit our enjoyment and trying to attain immortality, we'll simply over run the place (you saw the numbers) and no amount of green thinking or technological advancement will save us from ourselves.

Once we are crammed in like sardines in a can, one good pandemic could easily sort us out....

[Meredith Poor + 883]

"Natural resources, in that same 319 year period increased by exactly zero." An example of a vague and largely unsupportable statement.

"Natural Resources" only exist to the extent that anyone knows about them and can extract them. First one has to know they're there, then they have to know what to do with them.

Question 1: what was uranium worth in 1940, in comparison to 1945?

Question 2: what is heavy water (deuterium) worth now, in comparison to the point where nuclear fusion becomes viable for power generation?

Question 3: what is the molecular and elemental makeup of feldspar, which is asserted to make up 60% of the earth's crust? Can anyone think of a reason why commodity prices on materials that can be made from feldspar would decline in proportion to declining renewable energy costs? In what ways would this matter?

[Matthew w + 27]

6 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

We will likely never stop procreating for the reasons which you mentioned, plus it is kind of fun!

With that in mind, if we don't limit our enjoyment and trying to attain immortality, we'll simply over run the place (you saw the numbers) and no amount of green thinking or technological advancement will save us from ourselves.

Once we are crammed in like sardines in a can, one good pandemic could easily sort us out....

Fun indeed, and a biological imperative :).

You're a hundred percent right, and I'm by no means a cynic. It's a question of when and how we run out of an essential resources for sustenance, then the ship will be set right. I hope I'm not around to see it though.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

Question 3: what is the molecular and elemental makeup of feldspar, which is asserted to make up 60% of the earth's crust? Can anyone think of a reason why commodity prices on materials that can be made from feldspar would decline in proportion to declining renewable energy costs? In what ways would this matter?

You are way above my pay grade on this one.  Cheers.

[remake it + 288]

7 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

I had the same question.  Your post seemed pretty well thought out.

Blaming children - really 😡!

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

7 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

We will likely never stop procreating for the reasons which you mentioned, plus it is kind of fun!

Douglas, inasmuch as it is your proposal to not procreate, you are banned from doing it for "recreation."  To be a true stalwart soldier in this front-line, you would need to be voluntarily celibate!  

That said, all of the Western world as well as China are already below replacement numbers, and have internally falling populations.  The US would have a shrinking population were it not for the migrants.  The big population-increase areas are the countries of the African equatorial belt areas, and the Middle East, and Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Once those populations stabilize, the entire planet will have a rapid population shrinkage, all by natural causes, no plague or flue pandemics.  Should be about there by now. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 6/27/2019 at 4:39 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

PS: I do not have kids, I am doing my part for the planet. I should get a 'carbon exemption' which would allow me to feel better about that next ICE motorcycle....

Meanwhile, I sire very willing women who throw themselves at me for my sterling quality DNA and dashing good looks.  They find the idea of blond hair and blue eyes and a Teutonic jaw to be irresistible for their offspring.  So I have this duty to preserve the genetic material in the following generations, or it would be lost for all time:

 

OK, so I have forsworn that ICE motorcycle, I leave that one to Doug for his pleasure....

Edited August 21, 2019 by Jan van Eck
photograph removed. Willing women are exclusive to me.

[Meredith Poor + 883]

3 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

You are way above my pay grade on this one.  Cheers.

One example of 'if you can't see it, it doesn't exist'. The reason people make money in fracking or in bitcoin or in collecting comic books is that they are aware of something (or things) that elude(s) the vast majority of people. The way this stuff was brought to market was patient trial-and-error experiments, 'what-if' type thinking, and paying attention to people's irrational emotional responses to things rather than right-brain rationality.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

2 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

One example of 'if you can't see it, it doesn't exist'. The reason people make money in fracking or in bitcoin or in collecting comic books is that they are aware of something (or things) that elude(s) the vast majority of people. The way this stuff was brought to market was patient trial-and-error experiments, 'what-if' type thinking, and paying attention to people's irrational emotional responses to things rather than right-brain rationality.

I beg to differ Meredith. The amount of natural resources available, discovered or undiscovered, at the beginning of that 319 year period did not increase one iota.

I never indicated that 'if you can't see it, it isn't there'. What I essentially said was 'whether yo can see it or not, it hasn't increased'.

[Meredith Poor + 883]

19 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I never indicated that 'if you can't see it, it isn't there'. What I essentially said was 'whether yo can see it or not, it hasn't increased'.

One volcanic eruption can wipe out a lot of 'resources', including forests, wetlands, reefs, etc. In this case 'resources' are things like wood, freshwater lakes, arable land, etc. Eventually, of course, things grow back. Destruction is always occurring, and regeneration usually follows on it's heels.

When the Earth was young our atmosphere was made up largely of methane. The organisms living in that soup considered oxygen a poison. Algae oxygenated the Earth's atmosphere. So we're all breathing 'poison'.

Solar flares, comet impacts, gamma ray bursts, and seabed methane eruptions can all trigger massive dieoffs. The geological record is full of these. So resources do get 'lost' that are never replaced. What appears over time are 'new' substitutes.

This is why I find the term 'resources' to be so vague. Perhaps you can make some distinctions.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

Let's cut funding to Planned Parenthood and make things worse.  #trumpLogic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ImRyPymRAM

Edited June 28, 2019 by Enthalpic

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

6 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

Let's cut funding to Planned Parenthood and make things worse.  #trumpLogic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ImRyPymRAM

@Tom Kirkman

@Douglas Buckland

pls tell me that you do NOT have a ridiculous defense for Trump on this.... 

 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

Hans Rosling on population growth. watch the whole thing. it says it all. 

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth/transcript?language=da

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

8 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

One volcanic eruption can wipe out a lot of 'resources', including forests, wetlands, reefs, etc. In this case 'resources' are things like wood, freshwater lakes, arable land, etc. Eventually, of course, things grow back. Destruction is always occurring, and regeneration usually follows on it's heels.

When the Earth was young our atmosphere was made up largely of methane. The organisms living in that soup considered oxygen a poison. Algae oxygenated the Earth's atmosphere. So we're all breathing 'poison'.

Solar flares, comet impacts, gamma ray bursts, and seabed methane eruptions can all trigger massive dieoffs. The geological record is full of these. So resources do get 'lost' that are never replaced. What appears over time are 'new' substitutes.

This is why I find the term 'resources' to be so vague. Perhaps you can make some distinctions.

Okay, but how many of those items uou mentioned occured in that 319 year period?

Perhaps I should have been more specific and said the amount of coal, natural gas, oil, fresh water, landmass, and the other natiral resources required to support a human being from the cradle to the grave.

On a macro scale and only during those years. You can nitpick if you like, but natural resources are not INCREASING to keep pace with population.

[Meredith Poor + 883]

"On a macro scale and only during those years. You can nitpick if you like, but natural resources are not INCREASING to keep pace with population." Aside from events like Tunguska, where material was added to the Earth's mass, 'Natural' meaning unmodified by man pretty much remains constant. A 'Resource', however, is something man uses, and in some cases consumes. So I'm continuing to debate semantic nuance - the mass of atoms that make up the Earth has barely changed. However, in the 'timespan' we're talking about, resources have changed in a breathtaking scale - far outstripping population growth.

Read up on the Carboniferous. Trees at the time had bark that was several inches thick. The reason so much plant matter piled up in coal deposits is that no microorganisms were capable of breaking it down. At some point some microbe evolved to digest cellulosic plant matter. Microorganisms have recently been discovered that are eating certain kinds of plastic.

Is CO2 in the atmosphere a 'resource' or a 'waste product'? Same goes for landfills and the plastic piling up in recycling centers. Humanity is forever converting lemons into lemonade.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

11 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

12 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

@Tom Kirkman

@Douglas Buckland

pls tell me that you do NOT have a ridiculous defense for Trump on this.... 

 

 

I never defend trump, Tom on the other hand.

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Enthalpic

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

On 6/27/2019 at 4:39 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

I, for one, am fed up with the climate change crowd telling me what I must do to save the planet. To hear them prattle on, I need to install solar panels on my roof and a windmill in my backyard or else I am contributing to the destruction of Mother Earth. Furthermore, if I do not buy an electric vehicle, stop using anything associated with fossil fuels, even think about buying any single-use plastic product or do not participate in a recycling program, then I will be held personally responsible for global warming/climate change, a massive extinction, and the sea level rising and wiping out hundreds of thousands of people living on islands or the coasts.

I think that we need to approach this from a more practical vector. First, we need to identify the root cause of ALL environmental problems. Even the most logically challenged among us will realize that out of control population growth, globally, is the driving force behind the rise in air pollution, garbage of all descriptions, the ‘trash islands’ in the Pacific Ocean, the increased demand for energy (regardless of how it is generated), etc...ad nauseum.

Let’s take a look at the global population from a historical perspective:

1700    Global population was 600 million

1800    Global population was 990 million

1900    Global population was 1.65 billion

1928    Global population was 2 billion

1960    Global population was 3 billion

1975    Global population was 4 billion

1987    Global population was 5 billion

1999    Global population was 6 billion

2011    Global population was 7 billion

2019    Global population is expected to hit 7.7 billion

https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

In a nutshell, in 319 years, the global population has increased by a factor of 12.83.

Keep in mind that each person requires a certain amount of energy, food and freshwater simply to stay alive, let alone prosper. Natural resources, in that same 319 year period increased by exactly zero.

The solution is simple…QUIT HAVING KIDS!

That goes for the tree hugging crowd as well!

Why do people feel the need to have children in the first place? In my 60 years on the planet, I have decided that there are two driving forces to have kids. First, the grandparents demand them, and second, ‘we need someone to carry on the name’.

The fact is, most newlyweds would much prefer to spend their hard-earned cash on vacations, a new house, a new car or something that actually enhances their life and lets them enjoy themselves BEFORE tackling a family, but grandparents are a strong adversary and do not have to keep, feed or clothe the rug rat, they simply hand them back when they get tired of them.

Carry on the name, what kind of nonsense is that? Is it that important in the long run? Especially that if in doing so, you destroy the planet.

In the past, in developed countries, the majority of the population were in an agrarian lifestyle and large families were required to work the land or the livestock. That has not been the case for eons. If you have kids now, they will have kids later, their kids will have kids and the population explosion continues until we reach the point where there are simply not enough resources to go around. Wars and Mother Nature (the Black Death in the mid-14^thcentury, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, and so forth) used to thin us out in the past, but modern medicine is now extending the expected lifespan which further complicates the issue.

Getting rid of fossil fuels (and their associated products), then depending on wind farming, solar power generation, hydropower and all the other ‘green initiatives’ will NEVER be able to keep up with the exploding global population and the demands it creates on resources!

If you want to save the planet, and you actually want to make a difference (although not in your lifetime)….STOP HAVING KIDS!

PS: I do not have kids, I am doing my part for the planet. I should get a 'carbon exemption' which would allow me to feel better about that next ICE motorcycle....

The biggest problem with your logic is that the countries that pollute the most have stable populations while the counties that contribute least to climate change have higher birth rates.

Another thing to consider is that as tired as you are of having people tell you that you need to change the way you live, those same people are more tired of you telling them that you don’t care how much your negligence hurts their children as long as you are comfortable now.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

6 hours ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

The biggest problem with your logic is that the countries that pollute the most have stable populations while the counties that contribute least to climate change have higher birth rates.

Another thing to consider is that as tired as you are of having people tell you that you need to change the way you live, those same people are more tired of you telling them that you don’t care how much your negligence hurts their children as long as you are comfortable now.

First, there is no problem with my logic, population is the root cause of every environmental issue. Where you assign the pollution was your contribution to the discussion.

You are also making the assumption that my lifestyle and 'negligence' is harming someones children. Could you please list specific items of negligence you are refering to?

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

20 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

First, there is no problem with my logic, population is the root cause of every environmental issue. Where you assign the pollution was your contribution to the discussion.

You are also making the assumption that my lifestyle and 'negligence' is harming someones children. Could you please list specific items of negligence you are refering to?

Populations exist that are in balance with nature, so no, population in and of itself is not the cause of every environmental issue. When there is an issue, population acts as a multiplier of a particular issue such as industrial pollution, but it is by no means necessary that a population pollute.

As to how your lifestyle contributes to harming future generations, it is your expressed unwillingness to do anything to actually address the problem, literally pointing the finger at everyone but yourself. Even just writing your Representatives to say you support climate initiatives would be something.