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The world has probably passed peak pollution

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Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#221

Post by marcosdumay »

tmvphil wrote: post #173
illiac786 wrote: post #120

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.

For e.g NOx with a high half-life, you are probably right that we are still increasing pollution. For short half-life pollutants like SO2 and CO, I would expect this means the actual atmospheric levels are decreasing.

> For e.g NOx with a high half-life

Their half-life is shorter than a day. On the same magnitude of SO2.

The one of CO is indeed much smaller.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#222

Post by marcosdumay »

jereze wrote: post #65
bryanlarsen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenhouse gases will most likely peak in 2024, but 2023 & 2025 are also probable. https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...

Even if we are close to peaking emissions, we must consider the phenomenon of accumulation. Given that CO2 has an effective lifespan of around 100 years and methane about 10 years in the atmosphere, reductions in emissions now will still result in these gases accumulating and impacting the climate for decades to come.

If you cut all methane emissions right now, the Earth would immediately start to cool down, and do it for a decade or 2.

That is half-lives work.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#223

Post by [deleted] »

iiovemiku wrote: post #8
Animats wrote: 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...

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…

[deleted]

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#224

Post by jackcosgrove »

nostrademons wrote: post #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, de…

The distinction between the two scenarios is the original, theoretical scenario did not foresee the negative feedback loops that actually occurred. It's a pretty glaring miss when you're trying to make predictions.

This is why I was always skeptical of dystopias that depend on overpopulation. If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#225

Post by faeriechangling »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #41
grecy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, I've never understood the panic over a declining birth rate. Are we to be scared that long after we're all dead and gone there would only be several billion humans on this planet?

The impact won't just be after we're dead, we're simply going to have less warm bodies to provide us care when we're seniors and retired than exist today. Schemes like social security, pensions, etc which are financed by new entrants into the system will also become fiscally unviable and benefits WILL be reduced.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#226

Post by graeme »

gavindean90 wrote: post #211
mycall wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I thinks that’s been predicted but not observed thus far.

We have on a small scale. Methane is escaping as the permafrost thaws. Boreal forests are also burning down as their climate warms. Reduction in polar ice changes the albedo of the earth to reflect less heat.

At a certain point sufficient warming could trigger a cascade. So far we haven't done that, but it's incorrect to say there's been no release of stored CO2.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#227

Post by cvwright »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #224
nostrademons wrote: post #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, de…

The distinction between the two scenarios is the original, theoretical scenario did not foresee the negative feedback loops that actually occurred. It's a pretty glaring miss when you're trying to make predictions. This is why I was always skeptical of dystopias that depend on overpopulation. If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

“life is so miserable” and yet “so many children” was basically most of human history

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#228

Post by rustcleaner »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #182
fallingsquirrel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a wild take. This is like claiming gay people will "die off" in 2 generations because they don't reproduce. 1000 years ago some subset of people chose not to have children, and humanity did just fine, and that same group of so-called "non-breeders" still exists today. Therefore we can conclude it's not purely a matter of genetics. There are a huge number of reasons people make that choice. People even change the…

>This is like claiming gay people will "die off" in 2 generations because they don't reproduce. It's a serious and interesting question as to why evolution tolerated/encouraged homosexuality in a small but significant proportion of the population. If you have the time, this article gives a good overview of the discussion [1]. Depending on your answer to that question - along with your views about how evolution affect…

I don't think nature promoted it, but that it is a maladaptive corruption of mating systems which isn't serious enough to result in its cause disappearing from the gene pool.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#230

Post by jackcosgrove »

ncruces wrote: post #192
rufus_foreman wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, young people just out of college who have lived off of their parents and the government for a quarter of a century might get upset about having to support non-productive people.

People will finally figure out that they're only productive for about a half their lives, and that it's not just the last quarter that they need help with, it's also the first. The real problem is the transition period where there are more unproductive people than not, because the stock of existing people is still here. That's why a crashing population is bad.

The question is if the complex society we have built actually requires growth to maintain it. In other words, our society requires 0.6 lives of work rather than 0.5.

If this is the case, even a steady state would mean a lowered standard of living.

It's hard to know, as our societies have decided to reduce costs on the front end (lowered birth rate) rather than on the back end (decreased longevity). That's understandable as someone who is never born doesn't suffer, but it's the worse solution from a social maintenance standpoint.

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