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The world has probably passed peak pollution

sustainabilitybynumbers.com

201–210 of 383 posts

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#201
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Peak baby - 2013. [2] I think your source's claim that "The planet will never see more babies than it has in 2013" is open to question. To just use the US as an example: mainstream Americans have a declining fertility rate, and we have no reason to think that is going to reverse in the foreseeable future. Immigrants have higher fertility, but they tend to converge to the mainstream after a generation or two. So,…

> mainstream Americans What is a mainstream American?

SWM

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#202

The population still hasn't peaked so I'm doubtful.

China's population is rapidly declining and India's population already peaked and just started declining. More to do elsewhere, but is is really not the case population hasn't peaked or is about to?

edit: well according to: https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022

it'll be 2083 (!) before we peak in population

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#203
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly. I had always thought that low birth rates were a problem for only countries like Germany, Spain, Japan, etc. (at least for the time being). Seeing countries like India even out (and even going under replacement rate) gives me some heavy pessimism about population graying. I had always thought that heavy swingers like them would carry on the whole growing population th…

> Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly Are you worried 8 billion is somehow not enough humans?

A big dividing line is between those who think people are a burden vs those who think they're an asset.

I've grown convinced people are overwhelmingly an asset. In a rough sense that means they/we produce more value than they consume on average.

I think debates about population size are mostly really about this difference.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, I think the standard of living, at least in the long-term and for the many future climate refugees, is not actually that much improved. This is basically pure anecdote.

Tell that to the people in Mato Gross do Sul now who don't even have running water now because of the extreme weather events caused by technology. Just an anecdote, I guess.

It's cold and harsh, but yes that's just an anecdote. What do you mean extreme weather caused by technology?

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#205
post #175
post #2

That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

I'm not sure "peak baby" is a good thing, but agree with you that the other three peaks are encouraging. Arguments by smart people like Sabine Hossenfelder have led me to question the conventional wisdom on population growth. For example, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1AaZ9OkH8 .

Conventional wisdom on population growth is that it’s a solved problem and that the population will inevitably stabilize or decline. I say let’s not count our chickens just yet. There are still countries and groups where the growth rate hasn’t stabilized at all, and even if these are small today, exponential growth means they soon won’t be. Population growth will continue until everyone agrees it shouldn’t.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#207

I find this title highly misleading “peak emission” would be much more accurate. “Peak pollution” sounds like the amount of pollution in the environment will actually _decrease_ going forward. That is simply not true, it will continue to increase, just slightly less fast. Sorry if I don’t feel euphoric right now.

I thought greenhouse gasses will increase in concentration as the feedback loop of polar region is forcing trapped gasses out of the ground.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#208
It's interesting to revisit the Limits to Growth study [1] in light of these recently-declining exponential curves. Somebody did [2] and found that we're basically on track for the model's bleak predictions.

But the way that the model's predictions have come true is different than what's been popularized. Instead of mass die-offs from famine and pollution, we're seeing population collapse because of birth control, declining fertility, and the rising (opportunity) cost of raising a family. Instead of seeing a collapse in industrial output because of declining resources, we're seeing a collapse in industrial output because of market saturation and a shift toward services and online experiences. Instead of pollution growing unbounded, it's actually declining because of green technology and de-industrialization.

The world is still trending toward a dystopian hellscape, but the dystopian hellscape is not a barren planet where nothing grows and we've stripped everything bare, it's a dystopian hellscape of everybody glued to their device and ignoring social interaction or family formation because Fortnite is more interesting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicat...

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#209
post #85
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s misleading because they are idling their existing coal power plants more often. Essentially they are using new coal as demand following peaker plants rather than base load power generation. “In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They're now running around 50%.” https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants#... . By comparison China added 217 GW of PV in 202…

Also critically they don’t have to build these coal plant to be economically used in the same way as free market states do. They’re building them mostly as a hedge - if they end up barely used , which is likely given renewable trends, that’s ok for state owned power. It makes everything a bit more expensive, but you can’t exactly vote for an alternative. If they need to get used a lot for whatever reason, no one is u…

[deleted]

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#210

It's interesting to revisit the Limits to Growth study [1] in light of these recently-declining exponential curves. Somebody did [2] and found that we're basically on track for the model's bleak predictions. But the way that the model's predictions have come true is different than what's been popularized. Instead of mass die-offs from famine and pollution, we're seeing population collapse because of birth control, de…

It might be more like the "dark ages". The people got along we don't know what they were doing but the result was the "renaissance".
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