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China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

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Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#481

Post by thiago_fm »

simsla wrote: post #466
shubhamjain wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. They haven't, imo. I am from India, and I have been hearing for the last two decades how we have avoided same mistakes as China and the latter is headed for a demographic collapse. China is only marching forward, and focusing more on automation to hedge its bets. While overpopulation in India has choked almost every city in Ind…

European here. One of the problems is that many of our society's systems are predicated on a growing population. Social security and pensions, for example, are structured not unlike a pyramid scheme: for every old person we should have more than one working young person. People take more than they give. Fixing that will be painful, but possible. More worrying is how many countries' birth rates have fallen below the r…

> Social security and pensions, for example, are structured not unlike a pyramid scheme: for every old person we should have more than one working young person.

I'm from a western country and I agree with your statement and have a similar fear. My country is doomed because of the pension system.

BUT this doesn't apply to China. Their system isn't structured this way, therefore this is mostly irrelevant for them.

As long as China have a working population bigger than most countries, as well such amazing universities, they will perform better than all those countries.

Even with the population decline, they'll still have more able workers than all western countries for at least the next 100 years.

Let that sink in.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#482

Post by yanhangyhy »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #477
yanhangyhy wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this topic is too hot. I originally just wanted to mention it in passing, since these are all slogans ingrained in our minds. Everyone's discussion is about groups, not individuals. It's about government policies. Just like in China, our generation basically doesn't expect to have a pension, nor to retire before 70. Our elderly enjoy life in the parks, benefit from free public transport and cheap tickets to att…

Well, one of the issues, is that younger folks look at retired older folks, and think “unproductive leech,” while ignoring wrecked hands, shattered spines, and cancers. I also know many veterans, and they provided a Service that I definitely benefit from, today. Also, speaking only for myself, I live off of investments and savings, created from 40 years of living frugally and sensibly. Every few months, I have to cha…

I find it hard not to suspect that some countries are using certain policies to subtly eliminate the elderly. Of course, I will also grow old, so the consensus is to rely on oneself—invest and save, just in case. Optimistically, household robots might change a lot. I often think of that example: in the past, people often imagined futuristic skyscrapers but could not imagine elevators. New technologies are always unpredictable. There is a Chinese saying: “Where the cart reaches the mountain, there will be a path,” so perhaps there’s no need to worry too much.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#483

Post by fransje26 »

hereme888 wrote: post #153

Wise to use forests to contain deserts. Problem is that China still plays a big role in importing deforestation-linked commodities and fund overseas projects that exacerbate global loses. There are low tree survival rates and falsified coverage, like the Three-North Shelterbelt program which is plagued by inefficiencies over its 40 years of operation. It's also hard to balance afforestation without causing scarcity o…

> It's also hard to balance afforestation without causing scarcity of water

Is that not a bit of a non-sequitur though?

From the reforestation reports I've read, bringing back trees was also coupled with bringing back springs, water and rain to the local environment.

Do you mean that it can cause water scarcity in the original planting and nursing stages before the biotope becomes self-sustaining?

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#484

Post by yanhangyhy »

voidUpdate wrote: post #452
vishnugupta wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really curious to better understand what aspects of China’s government would hurt your day to day life. From what I read online the people there are free to rant and get things fixed. Their local government representative is held accountable if the people in his/her province are unhappy. Not too different from a typical democratic setup I guess? But this could be off because I don’t know anyone personally there.

I am a trans lesbian and thus I am ineligible for a legal gender change in china. The UK is bad about trans people, sure, but at least it is legally possible for me (for now)

This is false information. Gender transition is legal in China. There are many cases on Chinese social media. We even have a celebrity who is transgender.

On Chinese internet there is even a joke. Because women retire earlier than men in China, people discuss whether they can exploit a loophole by changing their legal gender to female in the year before the female retirement age to retire earlier.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#485

Post by ivan_gammel »

trhway wrote: post #235
ivan_gammel wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding your Global Forest Watch source I recommend to look below the tagline. The numbers that you picked have very specific meaning and the same page says that most of the loss (ca.75%) was due to wildfires and it grew more forest than it was lost due to logging. When including the loss for wildfires, the total balance is negligibly negative. Regarding you Guardian and Topwar links, you are citing the sources tha…

>Regarding you Guardian and Topwar links, you are citing the sources that speculate about rumors about some science fiction projects. Russia does not export water from Baikal or Ob River and won’t export it. Official state news https://ria.ru/20160503/1425318933.html "Moscow invited Bejing to discuss fresh water transfer project from Russia to China - stated the Russian Minister of Agriculture" and the further descri…

One article in propaganda outlet from 2016 doesn’t count as fact. The fact is, nothing did happen, there’s no export of fresh water and there’s no such plans.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#486

Post by tsimionescu »

dgfl wrote: post #396
darkmarmot wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're on the verge of ecological collapse, undergoing an insane mass extinction event with ocean acidification and methane release going off the charts. I can't even begin to conceive of your reality.

The point is that this is not what people were worried about in the 70s. Even halving the population we’d still have all of these problems. While we obviously don’t suffer from famine, at least not globally. Those predictions have completely failed and were replaced by new issues.

We're not yet suffering from famine, because new technologies allowed us to extract way more food than anticipated from the same surface area. However, these practices are not workable long term. You can't actually extract the amount of food we are currently extracting from our agricultural land for another 100-200 years. If we try, we'll ultimately leave the soil in such a bad state that will not grow much of anything - and mass starvation will happen long before then.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#487

Post by pjc50 »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #417
yanhangyhy wrote: post #233

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but nearly thirty years ago when I was in elementary school, a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Every part of that slogan has been put into action, continuously, for decades. Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. Xi Jinping may be a…

Not to glaze unelected uniparty governments, but this is what you can actually achieve if you don't have to focus on your new election the moment you enter office.

You can achieve a lot of bad things that way too, with nobody to stop you. It's the promise of every totalitarian: free you from all the messiness of having to deal with conflicting opinions.

It is remarkable how well the tradeoff of "you don't need political freedom if the economic growth rate is high enough" works for China, and also previously Korea and Singapore. Even, to a certain extent, Japan - fairly high levels of political freedom, but somehow it's still a one-and-a-half-party state.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#488

Post by voidUpdate »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #484
voidUpdate wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a trans lesbian and thus I am ineligible for a legal gender change in china. The UK is bad about trans people, sure, but at least it is legally possible for me (for now)

This is false information. Gender transition is legal in China. There are many cases on Chinese social media. We even have a celebrity who is transgender. On Chinese internet there is even a joke. Because women retire earlier than men in China, people discuss whether they can exploit a loophole by changing their legal gender to female in the year before the female retirement age to retire earlier.

I'm sorry, I got my information from The Economist, which says that you have to be unmarried, heterosexual and get permission from your family to change your gender, and you have to have surgery before you are recognised

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#489

Post by tsimionescu »

adrianN wrote: post #378
catmanjan wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>food is largely a solved problem It really isn't...

Production of calories is a solved problem. Distribution of food to people in need on the other hand…

It's not really a solved problem, we're depleting many extremely slow to recover resources in order to produce the amounts we are today.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#490

Post by consp »

simsla wrote: post #466
shubhamjain wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. They haven't, imo. I am from India, and I have been hearing for the last two decades how we have avoided same mistakes as China and the latter is headed for a demographic collapse. China is only marching forward, and focusing more on automation to hedge its bets. While overpopulation in India has choked almost every city in Ind…

European here. One of the problems is that many of our society's systems are predicated on a growing population. Social security and pensions, for example, are structured not unlike a pyramid scheme: for every old person we should have more than one working young person. People take more than they give. Fixing that will be painful, but possible. More worrying is how many countries' birth rates have fallen below the r…

The problem with most current pension systems is the inability of the last boom to plan for that boom to become part of it. And people hating on immigration, not realising it is massively needed to offset the negative replenishment rate. We might also have a negative growth rate when the boom generation starts dying but that might not actually be a bad thing. Note: the boom lasted from about 1948 to 1974 so it will take a while.
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