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Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

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Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already do this. Go read up on how towns in Florida regularly get flooded by seawater and development continues apace. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01032016/ft-lauderdale-cl...

Miami Beach has already spent about $400 million to keep the ocean at bay. At some point, it becomes unsustainable.

They seem to be trying to prevent the inevitable. I wonder how much it would cost to raise the city by a floor or two and embrace their future island?

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#92
post #85
post #75

I generally get funny looks and the feeling that people are imagining me with a toothbrush mustache and a comb-over when I suggest this: Wouldn't population control to an extent help slow the rate of emissions? Caps on births or higher taxes on family sizes, etc. I know political/moral/ethical issues would make it impractical but I don't think any potential solution is worth ignoring.

When debugging performance problems you always search for the biggest bottlenecks not the minor ones, so what are the biggest contributors to CO2? I don't think the problem is the number of people living on earth but how modern society is making people live, for example some big contributors are high meat consumption (cattle methane) inefficient transportation (big suvs with just the driver inside sitting in traffic…

Agreed, we should tackle the biggest sources first. And meat production in particular is one of the biggest contributors. Scale back the subsidies for these types of farms and replace them instead with taxes. Consumers will change their habits once they are faced with the "real" cost of meat.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#93
post #75

I generally get funny looks and the feeling that people are imagining me with a toothbrush mustache and a comb-over when I suggest this: Wouldn't population control to an extent help slow the rate of emissions? Caps on births or higher taxes on family sizes, etc. I know political/moral/ethical issues would make it impractical but I don't think any potential solution is worth ignoring.

I recently read Dan Brown's Inferno - not a great reference work by any stretch, but some compelling arguments are made along the lines you suggest.

I suspect there is a lot more to it than just limiting the numbers of babies born. If there are more resources per person (a consequence of fewer people) then we will likely see the resources used per person go up.

Anecdotally - American cars are terribly inefficient with respect to fuel consumption. This is I think partly due to the low cost of fuel. In the UK, however, the cost of fuel per litre is almost double that of the US, and consequently people gravitate toward much more efficient vehicles.

Additionally - China has been a huge polluter for quite some time despite one child policies though admittedly it's partly because the global economy outsourced their pollution to China to a degree.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#94
post #85
post #75

I generally get funny looks and the feeling that people are imagining me with a toothbrush mustache and a comb-over when I suggest this: Wouldn't population control to an extent help slow the rate of emissions? Caps on births or higher taxes on family sizes, etc. I know political/moral/ethical issues would make it impractical but I don't think any potential solution is worth ignoring.

When debugging performance problems you always search for the biggest bottlenecks not the minor ones, so what are the biggest contributors to CO2? I don't think the problem is the number of people living on earth but how modern society is making people live, for example some big contributors are high meat consumption (cattle methane) inefficient transportation (big suvs with just the driver inside sitting in traffic…

Adding more RAM to a server won't fix a memory leak.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#95
We have to expand nuclear power. Many don't like it but at this point we have no other choice. Let solar drive the phasing out of nuclear reactors instead of coal power plants! Sadly in my country (Sweden) nuclear is not only taboo but it's illegal to perform research of the subject.. Laws passed by a severely misinformed "green" movement...

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#96
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When debugging performance problems you always search for the biggest bottlenecks not the minor ones, so what are the biggest contributors to CO2? I don't think the problem is the number of people living on earth but how modern society is making people live, for example some big contributors are high meat consumption (cattle methane) inefficient transportation (big suvs with just the driver inside sitting in traffic…

Agreed, we should tackle the biggest sources first. And meat production in particular is one of the biggest contributors. Scale back the subsidies for these types of farms and replace them instead with taxes. Consumers will change their habits once they are faced with the "real" cost of meat.

Slap extra taxes on meat and forbid any advertising for meat or meat-containing products. Boom.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#98
post #95

We have to expand nuclear power. Many don't like it but at this point we have no other choice. Let solar drive the phasing out of nuclear reactors instead of coal power plants! Sadly in my country (Sweden) nuclear is not only taboo but it's illegal to perform research of the subject.. Laws passed by a severely misinformed "green" movement...

Totally agree. But is this an issue in Sweden? I thought most of your electricity was from renewable energy already.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#99
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When debugging performance problems you always search for the biggest bottlenecks not the minor ones, so what are the biggest contributors to CO2? I don't think the problem is the number of people living on earth but how modern society is making people live, for example some big contributors are high meat consumption (cattle methane) inefficient transportation (big suvs with just the driver inside sitting in traffic…

Agreed, we should tackle the biggest sources first. And meat production in particular is one of the biggest contributors. Scale back the subsidies for these types of farms and replace them instead with taxes. Consumers will change their habits once they are faced with the "real" cost of meat.

You just lost the entire vote that put Trump into office and about three quarters of the country. Keep in mind those subsidies generally flow to investors in real estate, too, so you're losing more voters than you think. They had a real reason, once; the real problem is inertia and campaigning, which is what makes them stick. Hard to go to Iowa and tell them that billions of dollars are "being taken from family farms," which is exactly how it would be portrayed and oh by the way your Whopper is going to double in price too, and somehow still achieve office.

Solve that problem. Then we get somewhere.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#100
post #75

I generally get funny looks and the feeling that people are imagining me with a toothbrush mustache and a comb-over when I suggest this: Wouldn't population control to an extent help slow the rate of emissions? Caps on births or higher taxes on family sizes, etc. I know political/moral/ethical issues would make it impractical but I don't think any potential solution is worth ignoring.

A government with the power to population control probably would control us in other ways too. If you're going to tell people how many kids they can have, you might as well tell them what jobs they can work, what religion they can have, and just about anything that achieves your agenda.
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