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It’s remarkable that this sensible Los Angeles Times editorial is not the conventional wisdom of 2015:
Editorial Why we need to address population growth’s effects on global warming
By THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD
If the world population hits 11 billion, what then for climate change?
Overpopulation could thwart attempt to address climate change
Unsustainable human population growth is a potential disaster for efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions
Earlier this month, Pope Francis made news when he said that not only was climate change real, but it was mostly man-made. Then, last week, he said that couples do not need to breed “like rabbits” but rather should plan their families responsibly — albeit without the use of modern contraception.
Though the pope did not directly link the two issues, climate scientists and population experts sat up and took notice. That’s because for years, they have quietly discussed the links between population growth and global warming, all too aware of the sensitive nature of the topic. Few of them can forget the backlash after then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in 2009 that it was strange to talk about climate change without mentioning population and family planning. Critics immediately suggested that she was calling for eugenics, thus shutting down the conversation and pushing the issue back into the shadows.
You know, it’s almost as if the near-universal agreement that “eugenics” is the most evil concept ever, a truly Satanic plot against humanity by snotty old WASPs, is getting in the way of dealing with real world problems.
The pope’s support of smaller families might help that discussion come back into the light, where it belongs.
Sensitive subject or not, the reality is that unsustainable human population growth is a potential disaster for efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. These days, the biggest population growth is occurring in developing nations, which is why any discussion must be sensitive to the perception that well-off, industrialized nations — the biggest climate polluters, often with majority-white populations — might be telling impoverished people of color to reduce their numbers. In fact, person for person, reducing birth rates in industrialized nations has a bigger impact on greenhouse gas emissions because affluent people use more of the Earth’s resources and depend more heavily on fossil fuels.
Yeah, but you kind of already did that.
Anyway, the question of the expected lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of a child born in a third world country in 2016 depends upon whether you expect third world peoples to remain poor and unable to migrate to first world countries over the rest of the 21st century.
If you spelled out the assumptions behind the mainstream liberal conventional wisdom of why the soaring population of, say, Africa isn’t much of a threat to increase carbon emissions in the long run, they’d be:
1. Those dumb third worlders will never be able to get their economic acts together enough to be able to afford air conditioning and cars.
2. Us smart white people will never be so dumb as to let the teeming masses of third worlders into our nice countries.
3. When those third worlders arrive in the first world, they never assimilate economically. Instead, they just stay as poor and non-carbon emitting as back home. They never climb the ladder to be able to afford first world amenities. When you stop and think about it, it’s amazing they even come at all. They must be immigrating just to bring us the benefits of diversity rather than out of any self-interest.
4. When immigrants do prosper, they immediately turn into post-Puritan community garden recycler-types straight out of Portlandia. They never go through a phase of a few generations driving big pickup trucks and generally Living Large.
So … you don’t usually see these assumptions spelled out … at all.
In other words, population is not just a Third World issue. More than a third of the births in the United States are the result of unintended pregnancies, and this month the United Nations raised its prediction of population growth by the year 2050 because of unforeseen, rising birth rates in industrialized nations.
Who exactly within the populations of industrialized nations is behind this unexpectedly higher fertility? Could it be … immigrants?
So even though the highest rates of population growth are in the poorest and least educated countries — Africa’s population is expected to triple by the end of the century — any attempt to address the issue will have to target the industrialized world as well.
… Another 2010 report, by the nonprofit Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C, predicted that fast-growing developing countries will become the dominant emitters of greenhouse gases within a generation. That’s partly because of their rising populations but also because of their poverty; they are less able to afford solar energy projects or other investments in non-fossil energy.
The report also notes that these countries and their people are far more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A disproportionate number of impoverished countries are in low-lying areas where rising sea levels are expected to cause disastrous flooding. Agricultural productivity is expected to fall 40% in India and sub-Saharan Africa by the second half of this century.
The population issue is just beginning to get some of the public attention it deserves. The most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations’ board of climate experts, included concerns about population size, saying, “Globally, economic and population growth continued to be the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.” For the first time in its five years of producing such reports, the panel acknowledged that family-planning programs could make a real difference, both in slowing the rate of warming and in helping vulnerable nations adapt to its effects.
Isn’t it bizarre that the concept of “family planning” is considered by mainstream minds to be far more controversial and borderline unmentionable in 2015 than family planning was in 1975?
And progress can be made without draconian or involuntary measures. According to Karen Hardee, director of the Evidence Project for the nonprofit Population Council, developing nations are already beginning to recognize the usefulness of family planning in preventing hunger and crowding and in combating climate change. She cites Rwanda, Ethiopia and Malawi as countries that are taking the first steps on their own.
In overcrowded Haiti, there are something like 10,000 Western NGO’s active. But after the 2010 Haitian earthquake, I had a hard time finding any whose websites talked about promoting contraception. It’s disreputable, it’s … racist!
… The analysis by the Center for Global Development says that access to family planning and girls’ education — even a little of it — are among the most cost-effective strategies for combating climate change.
The Israelis figured out how to halve the fertility rate of the Africans they imported as a PR gesture for American Jews: push, hard, in favor of use of long term contraceptives like Depo-Provera.
In other words, these problems are not insoluble, they just seem that way under the reigning prejudices.
it is funny to read some of the responses to: google “worlds population in texas” . after you establish the fact everyone has 1000 sq ft/m^2(?), next they are worried about : where are the resources available to support the population. we live in idiocracy now?
What’s the average per person carbon emission difference between the US and Mexico?
Four to one for U.S. to Mexico.
Ten to one for U.S. to Central American republics.
It's the root of the NAU conspiracy.Replies: @William Badwhite
Population control is for the responsible white upper middle class, with their graduate degrees and IUDs. After all, they are privileged and oppressing, any more of them is worse. The huddled masses yearning for free stuff, they are different. For in China, the Han are held to the one child policy, the Uighurs and Tibetans are not.
Contraception is a flawed solution, the real problem is that Haitians are beset with poor future time orientation thanks to nutritional deficits, genetics, violence. Haiti has the Western Hemisphere’s highest rate of AIDS, the problem is promiscuity. Frankly, honor killings carried out by the UN peacekeepers would probably reduce fertility more than free pills. We need to increase the social cost of sexual irresponsibility, contraception reduces it.
An easy way to reduce overpopulation in Africa: stop food aid and medical interventions, or make it contingent on sterilization.Replies: @Anonymous
And that is why the Sierra Club supports the invasion. They believe merging the countries will lower the average emissions.
It’s the root of the NAU conspiracy.
according to the left, the problem is white people..all those white heterosexuals having too many kids. Dare to suggest non-white people use birth control = eugenicist = nazi racist. That’s how the debate goes
Yay, another two billion Africans. I can’t wait.
Sigh. If only there could be another two billion whites. Or just another one billion. Or even a hundred million. Or… I’ll take anything!
Still, as easy as it is to despair about demographic trends (domestic or global), with good demographic management policies that reduced population by .5% per year, you could get 3 billion Africans down to 250 million in 500 years. Something to look forward to at least.
As the West social safety nets tear under the weight of an ever increasing population of elderly with birth rates below the replacement rate, I doubt the aid gravy train to Africa will continue forever.Replies: @silviosilver
Meanwhile in Japan who face a demographic crisis…
> Us smart white people …
I’m sorry, is the downscale grammar conscious irony? (Contra “We..”) Not obvious at all, given that you were supposedly channeling a white, liberal, educated mindset. Jarring. I’m crossing my fingers..
Isn’t it bizarre that the concept of “family planning” is considered by mainstream minds to be far more controversial and borderline unmentionable in 2015 than family planning was in 1975?
Soylent Green(1973). Bucket detain
Soylent Green(1973) Abridged
“Around 1,700 private jets flying in to Davos… for World Economic Forum meeting to discuss climate change and global warming ”
“Around 1,700 private flights are predicted over the course of the week
Zurich airport will handle most of the incoming private jets, 60 in total
New landing zone has been opened up via the Duebendorf military base
One 14-seater flight from Paris to Zurich will cost £18,500 return
A private jet burns as much fuel in an hour as a car does in a year ”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2916539/World-Economic-Forum-Skies-Switzerland-double-number-private-jets.html
“Billionaire Who Flew His Family’s Nannies To Switzerland On His Private Jet Thinks Americans Need To ‘Have Less Things’ ”
http://www.inquisitr.com/1775703/billionaire-who-flew-his-familys-nannies-to-switzerland-on-his-private-jet-thinks-americans-need-to-have-less-things/
OTOH, maybe this is an example of how they intend to sell a declining standard of living.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Cramdown. Where we're expected to kneel at the altar of globalism and gracefully accept our place in the new peasantry. Because "small is beautiful".Replies: @Wally
Contraception is a flawed solution, the real problem is that Haitians are beset with poor future time orientation thanks to nutritional deficits, genetics, violence. Haiti has the Western Hemisphere's highest rate of AIDS, the problem is promiscuity. Frankly, honor killings carried out by the UN peacekeepers would probably reduce fertility more than free pills. We need to increase the social cost of sexual irresponsibility, contraception reduces it.Replies: @Uptown Resident
Contraception really doesn’t work very well. I think the real problem for the fecund third world countries is not so much promiscuity as falling mortality rates thanks to Western food and medical aid.
An easy way to reduce overpopulation in Africa: stop food aid and medical interventions, or make it contingent on sterilization.
Soylent Green(1973). Bucket detain
Soylent Green(1973) AbridgedReplies: @Hippopotamusdrome
Star Trek The Mark of Gideon (1969)
Reminds me of the story I heard about the lieutenant who made the determination that there needed to be 5,000 sorties carried out in a certain valley to defeat the enemy. Problem was that a) there were not enough planes to carry out that many missions in the time period allowed, b) not enough ordnance c) not enough fuel, and oh yes, d) even if the material were available, couldn’t fit that many aircraft into the valley.
All these arguments about global warming and powering down and food, water etc are based on linearity and they all ignore limits.
Population control will be practiced the way it has been for millennia, except on a much grander scale.
It’s like that famous editorial in the Independent a couple years ago, saying that Western aid will cause overpopulation in Africa, totally went down the sinkhole.
And what’s the net reciprocity of population flow?
It would seem that the left is pro-life for anyone non-white and pro-choice for whites.
Steve,
You need to write an article on the potential HBD & Eugenic implications of the permanent yet reversible male contraceptive Vasalgel.
http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/vasalgel-faqs/
Vasalgel would have the potential to remove violent and criminal males from and early age from the gene pool. That it would seem to have huge eugenic benefits to mankind.
Well, eugenics is rather dangerous in the hands of progressives.
As is everything else.
With that thought in mind I must say I'm really starting to like this new pope. He is an idiot on race and immigration, certainly, but that alas is standard for Catholics. At least he is making encouraging noises on population. The more he annoys "real" Catholics the more encouraged I am.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Global warming will damage agricultural yields if left unchecked. The maturity bands have already moved north. (It’s going to be a great century for Canada.)
If agricultural yields are damaged, than there will be starvation and war. And the human population will significantly decrease. There’s little appetite in the world for taking real action to stop global warming; the coming Malthusian debacle will hurt less if the population is controlled.
http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/news/newsarchiv/2014/zabel_landnutzung.html
A surprising amount of food production in the West is wasted already, and Third World agricultural development such as in Rhodesia, is limited by socialist governments.
We will see Peak Oil before Peak Corn
1. Warming (or cooling) is concentrated in the coldest, high latitude areas.
2. A warmer planet is a wetter planet, more water = more food.
3. High latitude populations (eg Canadians) are smarter and much better at mechanised high-productivity agriculture.
As a bonus, higher C02 also increases crop yields. Historically humans have always done a lot better in the warm periods, and suffered in the cold periods, while we are currently in a coldish period.However the planet shows no sign of significant warming at present, no temperature gain since around 1998, so this may be academic. C02 levels look likely to continue increasing though. In all likelihood Africa's population will continue to explode and to be fed by high-latitude farm exports, as at present, while there is no or little temperature rise and no rise in sea levels.
http://www.inquisitr.com/1775703/billionaire-who-flew-his-familys-nannies-to-switzerland-on-his-private-jet-thinks-americans-need-to-have-less-things/Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @FUBAR007
From the article you linked to about one Jeff Greene, who I doubt is related to Nathanael:
It’s not amazing if he was selling short, as fellow Davosnik George Soros did with one or two countries. He could also have been “value investing”, à la Warren Buffet, scooping up the blood in the streets.
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/21/democratic-billioniare-jeff-greene-tells
As anyone here ever heard of the Sabatier reaction process???
Because the problem of CO2 as a greenhouse gas can best be resolved by using the mostly wasted off peak electrical production capacity of wind turbines to convert CO2 back into methane or methanol.
Think this a “Popular Science” fantasy??? Both NASA and DOD are heavily involved in its development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
International Space Station life support
As John Martin, who developed the iron hypothesis put it:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Martin/martin.phpReplies: @anonymous-antimarxist, @anonymous-antimarxist, @Reg Cæsar, @Kevin O'Keeffe
Lurker here, big fan of Sailer, just felt the need to add that. I recommend Zubrin's books to all space enthusiasts.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Good thing history is linear and nothing unexpected happens ever.
If agricultural yields are damaged, than there will be starvation and war. And the human population will significantly decrease. There's little appetite in the world for taking real action to stop global warming; the coming Malthusian debacle will hurt less if the population is controlled.Replies: @Anonymous, @Maj. Kong, @Simon in London
Global warming is expected to increase agricultural land for Canada, Russia, and China, so it’s unlikely for there to be war among the major powers over food:
http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/news/newsarchiv/2014/zabel_landnutzung.html
I like to use those stats when telling people that I don’t believe that carbon footprints are terribly important. When asked why, I point out that if they were that crucial then why would the authorities tolerate bringing in millions of people from low-carbon producing nations and converting them into wasteful Americans?
Ditto for the national health care argument about saving the system money. Just point out if cost savings were the driving issue, then the authorities would have never tolerated millions of illegals using our ERs, mostly gratis, as primary care office visits for the past thirty years.
If agricultural yields are damaged, than there will be starvation and war. And the human population will significantly decrease. There's little appetite in the world for taking real action to stop global warming; the coming Malthusian debacle will hurt less if the population is controlled.Replies: @Anonymous, @Maj. Kong, @Simon in London
In medieval Europe, wine production moved north during the warm period, and fell back south during the “Little Ice Age”.
A surprising amount of food production in the West is wasted already, and Third World agricultural development such as in Rhodesia, is limited by socialist governments.
We will see Peak Oil before Peak Corn
Because the problem of CO2 as a greenhouse gas can best be resolved by using the mostly wasted off peak electrical production capacity of wind turbines to convert CO2 back into methane or methanol.
Think this a "Popular Science" fantasy??? Both NASA and DOD are heavily involved in its development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reactionInternational Space Station life supportReplies: @Anonymous, @Romanian
There’s an even easier way to “solve” the problem of CO2. All you have to do is dump a trivial amount of iron in the ocean and it will produce plankton blooms that will rapidly suck the CO2 out of the atmosphere.
As John Martin, who developed the iron hypothesis put it:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Martin/martin.php
What I have serious doubts about is that we are doomed because nothing can be done about it short of giving up our modern carbon dependent lifestyles..
Algal Blooms Could Have Caused Last Ice Age
http://www.wired.com/2012/07/algae-ice-age-climate/
The Sabatier process has the advantage of simultaneously solving the problems of Peak Oil(that is of rapid low cost light sweet crude production depletion) , Global Warming and dependency on foreign oil from nations hostile to the West.
Think this is a fantasy?
Here in Indiana the world's first large scale high efficiency IGCC clean coal technology energy plant is in the second year of production shakedown at Edwardsport. The next phase is to add CO2 capture.
The CO2 from Edwardsport can be combined with the large surplus capacity of electricity from Northwest Indiana's wind turbine farms that never make it on to the grid due to high wind/low demand cycles to make methane or methanol. Once produced the Methane/Methanol can be shipped anywhere in the country.
Purdue University and the Departments of Defense and Energy are highly involved in commercial development of the Sabatier Process.
The ultimate solution to CO2 driven Global Warming is to create a market for it and make useful products from it .
By the end of the century the USA through purely capitalistic means could have a carbon footprint less than Africa's.
I saw Dr. Martin interviewed on "Firing Line," during the early 90s. I found his arguments pretty convincing.
As is everything else.Replies: @syonredux, @silviosilver
On the other hand, dysgenics poses a danger to everyone…..
There’s about ten thousand NGOs in Haiti? Whew, those people must be tripping over each other. When will their missions be accomplished so that those noble people can finally come back home? Saw an interview of Melinda Gates last year in a news magazine. Her big interest is in funding research for contraception, finding ways to make it as easy and hassle-free as possible, even more so than now. It’s probable that better educated first world women would be the most likely ones to avail themselves of the newest products since they’re more literate. They need never have any children whatsoever since it might crimp their participation in the labor force and might contribute to global warming, the two altars of modern worship.
Some have argued, quite convincingly, that “global warming” is the new eugenics. Because the implications that humans in quantity are “bad for the planet” is obvious enough even if left unstated. It’s implied in the concept of “man-made climate change.”
For example, here’s Delingpole:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100082087/climate-change-the-new-eugenics/
An easy way to reduce overpopulation in Africa: stop food aid and medical interventions, or make it contingent on sterilization.Replies: @Anonymous
Targeted genetic vectors that do selective sterilization. Deliver them secretly to children and infants. By the time the sterility is discovered and the cause sussed, two successive generations could be treated. It is just a matter of time. Some philanthropist will do the right thing.
You need to write an article on the potential HBD & Eugenic implications of the permanent yet reversible male contraceptive Vasalgel.
http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/vasalgel-faqs/
Vasalgel would have the potential to remove violent and criminal males from and early age from the gene pool. That it would seem to have huge eugenic benefits to mankind.Replies: @Anonymous
What is Vasalgel’s failure rate with regard to reversibility? If it’s too high, that may limit its adoption. Another thing to consider is that vasectomies (different, I know) may be associated with increased risk of prostate cancer. That’s still being sorted out, but if the connection holds, how will we know that’s not also the case with Vasalgel?
Vasectomy and Risk of Aggressive Prostate Cancer: A 24-Year Follow-Up Study
http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/early/2014/07/02/JCO.2013.54.8446.abstractI have heard the anti vasectomy propaganda about a significant prostate cancer risk for decades. It seems to emanate from anti birth control and abortion wing-nuts.
Prostate cancer is easily detected and very treatable now a days if caught early. Men with Vasalgel vasectomies could mitigate the risk through more regular screenings. Free testing is available in many areas.
http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/prostate-cancer-survival-rates-what-they-mean
The thing about Vasalgel is that it could be a low cost way of providing highly reversible vasectomies to the underclass. Criminals, drug addicts, chronic welfare dependents, the mentally ill and unemployable could be removed from the gene pool as a condition of parole, lighter sentencing, or receiving benefits.
Prostate cancer when it does kill mostly involves men in their sixties and seventies. How many felons and drug addicts live that long????
Straighten one's up act and the vasectomy can be reversed while still young. As insurance protection of future fertility potential, sperm banking for the non felons would be an affordable option. All vastly less expensive than more unwanted underclass bastards.
LET'S BE HONEST!!! THE HUGE FACTOR IN AMERICA' S DISPROPORTIONATE CARBON FOOTPRINT RELATIVE TO OTHER DEVELOPED NATIONS IS THE DESIRE TO LIVE AS FAR AS POSSIBLE FROM THE CRIMINAL UNDERCLASS.
Ask why we commute long distances, insist on single family homes, refuse to use public transportation?
To paraphrase Dave Chappelle via Paul Kersey, "No Ma'am you don't have a green house gas emission problem, you gottas a N&#$*S problem".
If the US had a per capita criminal underclass the size of Sweden's(prior to Jihadi immigration), then we would be a lot closer to Sweden's carbon foot print. Sweden has a per capita carbon footprint roughly a third of the US's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
1) The current global warming will continue no matter what we do, because the Earth is in the warming part of a cycle it has experienced repeatedly for millions of years.
2) Carbon emissions do not cause the climate to get warmer. Ice cores have shown that warming has preceded carbon dioxide increase repeatedly, during the very same warming-cooling cycles of Earth.
3) The question for human beings is not, “What can we do to stop global warming?”
4) The question is, “How can we prepare for global warming, which is inevitable?”
5) Asian humans overpopulated themselves long before white people even got deep into industrialization. If anybody should be blamed for overpopulating the Earth, it is Asians.
6) Nuclear power is not dangerous. It was the victim of hysteria created by propaganda. Nuclear power should be maximized, as a way to produce clean, abundant energy. But this has nothing to do with global warming.
As is everything else.Replies: @syonredux, @silviosilver
Their historical record is actually surprisingly good in this regard, going back all the way to the beginning of last century. Communist countries – particularly China under Mao – could be irritants when it came to international efforts to control population, but hands down the greatest opponents of sane population policy have been Catholics.
With that thought in mind I must say I’m really starting to like this new pope. He is an idiot on race and immigration, certainly, but that alas is standard for Catholics. At least he is making encouraging noises on population. The more he annoys “real” Catholics the more encouraged I am.
Eugenics and population control have little to do with each other. The former is concerned purely about “quality”, while the latter is concerned with quantity. The former justifiably acquired a bad name because it was underpinned by an explicit assumption of a racial hierarchy (treating some races as more worthy of survival than others.)
As for population control, it doesn’t matter a whit what sort of political correctness holds sway over the discourse in rich western countries. In the poor countries, which is where the population needs to be controlled, people argue for or against such control depending on the current zeitgeist. It’s just not a liberal/conservative issue. No one knows nor cares what westerners think about the issue. Back when I was a child in the 80s in India, we were bombarded with government-sponsored ads exhorting people not to have more than two children. Laws were passed preventing people with more than two children running for elected office at local government levels. Unfortunately, all that stopped after the Cold War ended and the formerly closed socialist economy was opened in the early 90s. Since then, the growing population has been marketed (by the MBAs) as a “demographic dividend”, as if every child being born is a budding software engineer. The result is that Indian cities (which were quite liveable before the 90s even though the number of goods and services were miniscule compared to rich countries) are now extremely overcrowded and over-polluted. Unfortunately the conventional wisdom of the market-dominating elite hasn’t moved. Guess it’s because they don’t have to live in these overcrowded Indian cities, having a free option to vacation in or move to more pleasant countries.
Races differ in heritable traits and, holding environment as constant as possible, those heritable differences produce measurable differences in group life outcomes. This has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt so those who do doubt do so in the face of mountains of contradictory evidence. If anything deserves to be discredited it is 'anti-racism,' for the unacceptable costs it imposes on white societies and for the completely unfair and unjustified blame it lumps whites with.
Lastly, since each racial group's interests differ from every other's there cannot be any objective measure by which to determine racial "worth." Each race (however so defined) must make such a determination on its own, as assessed against its own needs and interests. One of course would expect that members of a particular race would, in general, consider fellow racial members as "worthier" than racial aliens, so such a racial reorientation can expect to be furiously opposed by forces upholding the present anti-white status quo.
This article says he bet against mortgage backed securities. Like some of the other scum in on this game he was probably involved with the synthetic CDO market – something that never should have been allowed.
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/21/democratic-billioniare-jeff-greene-tells
“Agricultural productivity is expected to fall 40% in India and sub-Saharan Africa by the second half of this century.”
That’s a breathtakingly false claim even by the standard of these things.
I don’t think these people really believe in catastrophic human-induced climate change as an actual thing that will actually happen; it is an article of faith, like belief in the non-existence of races, belief in the non-existence of intelligence, and belief that all races have the same average intelligence. And talk of reducing populations always focuses on reducing white populations, because again it is an article of faith that whites are the source of evil in the world and should be phased out.
If agricultural yields are damaged, than there will be starvation and war. And the human population will significantly decrease. There's little appetite in the world for taking real action to stop global warming; the coming Malthusian debacle will hurt less if the population is controlled.Replies: @Anonymous, @Maj. Kong, @Simon in London
Because of the way the planet works, a warmer planet should have greatly increased agricultural productivity overall. There are a few reasons for this:
1. Warming (or cooling) is concentrated in the coldest, high latitude areas.
2. A warmer planet is a wetter planet, more water = more food.
3. High latitude populations (eg Canadians) are smarter and much better at mechanised high-productivity agriculture.
As a bonus, higher C02 also increases crop yields. Historically humans have always done a lot better in the warm periods, and suffered in the cold periods, while we are currently in a coldish period.
However the planet shows no sign of significant warming at present, no temperature gain since around 1998, so this may be academic. C02 levels look likely to continue increasing though. In all likelihood Africa’s population will continue to explode and to be fed by high-latitude farm exports, as at present, while there is no or little temperature rise and no rise in sea levels.
In the UK, ALL of the lefty parties are in favor of massive uncontrolled third world immigration.
These days, the Labour Party keeps it quiet, lest it be entirely politically destroyed in a popular backlash, but believe you me, that overriding, overbearing instinct is still there hidden away, just like that frog and scorpion story.
Ironically, it’s the Greens, the environmentalist party, which is most rabid in support of immigration. Supposedly, Greens would want to control carbon emissions. The easiest and best way they can do this is by limiting the UK population. But no, the Greens want unlimited mass immigration.
In reality, the Greens are a Marxist hard left party masquerading as environmentalists in order to fool the gullible.
The United States and Japan are unique in that they are currently the only 1st world countries on the planet that have a population of over 100 million people.
Russia is not a 1st world country despite it’s racial demographics being considered desirable by iSteve standards.
Awhile back pro-open borders Eva Longoria said on MSNBC that America needs more immigrants if we want to successfully compete with India and China. She said China and India are thriving because of their huge populations.
Typical Democrat mentality that believes quantity trumps quality.
TFR in developing countries is NOT in general high. It is ONLY high in subsaharan Africa. Thats something those editors should start to learn.
!!!!! CAUTION POSSIBLE HATE & EUGENICS SPEECH AHEAD !!!!
Vasectomy and Risk of Aggressive Prostate Cancer: A 24-Year Follow-Up Study
http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/early/2014/07/02/JCO.2013.54.8446.abstract
I have heard the anti vasectomy propaganda about a significant prostate cancer risk for decades. It seems to emanate from anti birth control and abortion wing-nuts.
Prostate cancer is easily detected and very treatable now a days if caught early. Men with Vasalgel vasectomies could mitigate the risk through more regular screenings. Free testing is available in many areas.
http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/prostate-cancer-survival-rates-what-they-mean
The thing about Vasalgel is that it could be a low cost way of providing highly reversible vasectomies to the underclass. Criminals, drug addicts, chronic welfare dependents, the mentally ill and unemployable could be removed from the gene pool as a condition of parole, lighter sentencing, or receiving benefits.
Prostate cancer when it does kill mostly involves men in their sixties and seventies. How many felons and drug addicts live that long????
Straighten one’s up act and the vasectomy can be reversed while still young. As insurance protection of future fertility potential, sperm banking for the non felons would be an affordable option. All vastly less expensive than more unwanted underclass bastards.
LET’S BE HONEST!!! THE HUGE FACTOR IN AMERICA’ S DISPROPORTIONATE CARBON FOOTPRINT RELATIVE TO OTHER DEVELOPED NATIONS IS THE DESIRE TO LIVE AS FAR AS POSSIBLE FROM THE CRIMINAL UNDERCLASS.
Ask why we commute long distances, insist on single family homes, refuse to use public transportation?
To paraphrase Dave Chappelle via Paul Kersey, “No Ma’am you don’t have a green house gas emission problem, you gottas a N&#$*S problem”.
If the US had a per capita criminal underclass the size of Sweden’s(prior to Jihadi immigration), then we would be a lot closer to Sweden’s carbon foot print. Sweden has a per capita carbon footprint roughly a third of the US’s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
With that thought in mind I must say I'm really starting to like this new pope. He is an idiot on race and immigration, certainly, but that alas is standard for Catholics. At least he is making encouraging noises on population. The more he annoys "real" Catholics the more encouraged I am.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Because they leave it up to individual families, rather than the state?
Who do you want deciding how many children you have– Kofi Annan? Hillary Rodham Clinton? Or yourself?
End subsidies. That’s the simplest and best “policy”.
“Population control” sounds like gun control in the nude.
As John Martin, who developed the iron hypothesis put it:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Martin/martin.phpReplies: @anonymous-antimarxist, @anonymous-antimarxist, @Reg Cæsar, @Kevin O'Keeffe
FWIW, I believe that CO2 contributes to global warming, just as I believe that Sulfur Dioxide(from dirty coal plants in China) contributes to global dimming/cooling.
What I have serious doubts about is that we are doomed because nothing can be done about it short of giving up our modern carbon dependent lifestyles..
Algal Blooms Could Have Caused Last Ice Age
http://www.wired.com/2012/07/algae-ice-age-climate/
As John Martin, who developed the iron hypothesis put it:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Martin/martin.phpReplies: @anonymous-antimarxist, @anonymous-antimarxist, @Reg Cæsar, @Kevin O'Keeffe
While I largely agree with you, you are still missing a key point.
The Sabatier process has the advantage of simultaneously solving the problems of Peak Oil(that is of rapid low cost light sweet crude production depletion) , Global Warming and dependency on foreign oil from nations hostile to the West.
Think this is a fantasy?
Here in Indiana the world’s first large scale high efficiency IGCC clean coal technology energy plant is in the second year of production shakedown at Edwardsport. The next phase is to add CO2 capture.
The CO2 from Edwardsport can be combined with the large surplus capacity of electricity from Northwest Indiana’s wind turbine farms that never make it on to the grid due to high wind/low demand cycles to make methane or methanol. Once produced the Methane/Methanol can be shipped anywhere in the country.
Purdue University and the Departments of Defense and Energy are highly involved in commercial development of the Sabatier Process.
The ultimate solution to CO2 driven Global Warming is to create a market for it and make useful products from it .
By the end of the century the USA through purely capitalistic means could have a carbon footprint less than Africa’s.
As a Catholic it worries me that our hierarchy doesn’t understand how dangerous the ‘New Environmental God’ is to Catholicism and thus to world order!
‘Mother Church’ as currently structured has an immature understanding of ‘Capitalism ‘, the true source of shrinking family size because as populations get richer more resources are attributed to already born members who are expected to be independent and educated, this become the new source of family pride rather than more hands to grow food!
Because ‘Mother Church’ is anti-capitalistic it follows that it’s leaders are enamored with the, ‘NEW ENVIRONMENTAL GOD’!
Not unless Africa figures out how to feed itself. Right now, a good portion of both sub-Saharan and northern Africa is being kept alive by a combination of foreign aid and oil / gas revenues. Without it, countries like Kenya and Egypt could see their population half in very short order.
As the West social safety nets tear under the weight of an ever increasing population of elderly with birth rates below the replacement rate, I doubt the aid gravy train to Africa will continue forever.
Steve:
Looking at the historical record, I honestly don’t know how you can have any confidence whatsoever that eugenics, if employed as the basis for public policy, wouldn’t be used as an excuse to designate large segments of the population as “undesirables” and then abuse them horribly. Best case scenario, we’d get an India-style caste system. Worst case, we’d get the Holocaust.
I don’t disagree with much of your criticism of progressive diversity ideology, but I do think bringing back eugenics as the basis of policy would too easily be twisted into something far worse.
You must have more faith in people and their predilection for decency than I do.
Maybe the US and Europe could just stop their current dysgenic policies, where poor people are paid to have babies and single motherhood is a heavily subsidised lifestyle.Replies: @The Practical Conservative
http://www.inquisitr.com/1775703/billionaire-who-flew-his-familys-nannies-to-switzerland-on-his-private-jet-thinks-americans-need-to-have-less-things/Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @FUBAR007
It’s always refreshing when one of America’s elite lets the mask drop and says what they really think.
OTOH, maybe this is an example of how they intend to sell a declining standard of living.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Cramdown. Where we’re expected to kneel at the altar of globalism and gracefully accept our place in the new peasantry. Because “small is beautiful”.
http://www.nipccreport.org
real science here:
http://www.principia-scientific.org/Replies: @silviosilver
'Mother Church' as currently structured has an immature understanding of 'Capitalism ', the true source of shrinking family size because as populations get richer more resources are attributed to already born members who are expected to be independent and educated, this become the new source of family pride rather than more hands to grow food!
Because 'Mother Church' is anti-capitalistic it follows that it's leaders are enamored with the, 'NEW ENVIRONMENTAL GOD'!Replies: @Maj. Kong
The institution is dominated by cultural Marxist thought. The official documents hide it, but their is more Gramsci than Aquinas.
It's the root of the NAU conspiracy.Replies: @William Badwhite
“And that is why the Sierra Club supports the invasion. They believe merging the countries will lower the average emissions.
It’s the root of the NAU conspiracy.”
Hardly. The Sierra Club doesn’t so much support the immivasion as says nothing about it. That’s because David Gelbaum and his $100mm had strings attached. They were not to oppose immigration in any form, and so far the Sierra Club remains bought.
An organization that on one hand believes that CO2 emissions lead to “climate change”, yet on the other hand does not oppose large 3rd world populations adopting 1st world energy usage levels is not a serious organization.
OTOH, maybe this is an example of how they intend to sell a declining standard of living.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Cramdown. Where we're expected to kneel at the altar of globalism and gracefully accept our place in the new peasantry. Because "small is beautiful".Replies: @Wally
I’m convinced that the entire ‘global warming’ canard is NOT about lowering CO2, but about taxation of CO2 emissions. The last thing the Marxists want is for people to lower their “carbon footprint”, they want money that is utterly dependent upon increasing emissions.
The fact that the left will allow you to emit as much as you want as long as you’re willing to purchase ‘credits’, gives away the scam, it’s not about the environment, it’s about the money.
The same is valid for 3rd world countries which want to extract money from industrialized countries which alleviates them making the necessary changes that would enable business creation and the resultant boost in employment that would occur. Not to mention the vast amounts the elitist in each country can scrape off the top.
a must read here:
http://www.nipccreport.org
real science here:
http://www.principia-scientific.org/
I say just send some of that excess population over to my place to help me move the 30+ inches of climate change that’s forecast to fall on my front walk tonight!
“I do think bringing back eugenics as the basis of policy would too easily be twisted into something far worse”
Maybe the US and Europe could just stop their current dysgenic policies, where poor people are paid to have babies and single motherhood is a heavily subsidised lifestyle.
American fertility has always been skewed, with a small percentage of women having a zillion and the rest having 1-2 (before about 1960 1-3). The small percentage having a zillion has dropped a lot, wrecking the overall TFR.
Europe is the same on a smaller scale. Few women having kids, and often having only one, with the TFR propped up by the small number willing to have 3-5.Replies: @silviosilver
Exactly. Steve always makes the good point that the elites seek ways to limit and avoid competition for themselves, and I imagine this would apply in “eugenics” as well. It seems unlikely that the elites would seek more competition for themselves. If they did end up implementing eugenics, what is “eugenic” would be defined as what is good for them interests.
Eugenics is not a zero-sum game; it is a positive-sum game.
Moreover, is it reasonable to assume these 'elites' would or could implement eugenic policies without widespread public support and hence public input into what constitutes eugenic improvement?
If the “maturity bands” (I’m pretending I know what those are) move north into the bulk of Siberia (and Canada), wouldn’t that dramatically increase the amount of good farmland?
That’s what I was wondering. If we could make Siberia, or even a sizable fraction of it, into decent farmland, hoo boy (20 billion, here we come!). It’s already got plenty of rivers for irrigation.
Yep. That’d fit the historical pattern, and that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
The problem is that a lot of the soil in Siberia and forested Canada is crap. Or permafrost.
Hypothetically, the main gain from global warming in terms of arable land would be the lengthening of the growing season in the existing farmland of Canada (i.e. Alberta, Saskatchewan). That said, it’ll be offset–probably more than offset–by territories to the south (i.e. Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska) shifting from good crop land to scrubby semi-desert (i.e. what much of West Texas is today).
A note to all who do not believe that anthropogenic climate change is happening really fast. It’s happening even faster than the climate doomers predicted. So if you think it’s all a hoax, or it can be fixed, please move to Southern California.
The people I’ve been reading for the past twenty years all say the same thing, it’s past the tipping point, no signs of slowing down, and most of you won’t survive. All talk of eugenics or population control is meaningless. Population will be controlled, and the survivors will be those who positioned themselves where they need to be.
As John Martin, who developed the iron hypothesis put it:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Martin/martin.phpReplies: @anonymous-antimarxist, @anonymous-antimarxist, @Reg Cæsar, @Kevin O'Keeffe
Like, say, the Titanic, the Lusitania, or the Andrea Doria?
Maybe the US and Europe could just stop their current dysgenic policies, where poor people are paid to have babies and single motherhood is a heavily subsidised lifestyle.Replies: @The Practical Conservative
Single moms have one kid, mostly. The problem is that women in general aren’t having children, not that single moms have a single one.
American fertility has always been skewed, with a small percentage of women having a zillion and the rest having 1-2 (before about 1960 1-3). The small percentage having a zillion has dropped a lot, wrecking the overall TFR.
Europe is the same on a smaller scale. Few women having kids, and often having only one, with the TFR propped up by the small number willing to have 3-5.
The global trend, even in Africa, is people having fewer kids overall. The urban parts of even sub-Saharan Africa mostly have TFRs under 3 or even under 2.
Haiti has a TFR of under 3, hardly a scenario where women are breeding like rabbits there.
Africa is getting more, not less urban, so the TFR will continue to fall there too. Wealth/Prosperity makes people want to party, not have kids. And globally people are still mostly getting more prosperous or maintaining historically high levels of prosperity. There’s been a general global increase in prosperity that will be very hard to roll back. And some would say it’s better for TFRs to fall over time more slowly with increased prosperity than to crash due to massive sudden poverty.
As for population control, it doesn't matter a whit what sort of political correctness holds sway over the discourse in rich western countries. In the poor countries, which is where the population needs to be controlled, people argue for or against such control depending on the current zeitgeist. It's just not a liberal/conservative issue. No one knows nor cares what westerners think about the issue. Back when I was a child in the 80s in India, we were bombarded with government-sponsored ads exhorting people not to have more than two children. Laws were passed preventing people with more than two children running for elected office at local government levels. Unfortunately, all that stopped after the Cold War ended and the formerly closed socialist economy was opened in the early 90s. Since then, the growing population has been marketed (by the MBAs) as a "demographic dividend", as if every child being born is a budding software engineer. The result is that Indian cities (which were quite liveable before the 90s even though the number of goods and services were miniscule compared to rich countries) are now extremely overcrowded and over-polluted. Unfortunately the conventional wisdom of the market-dominating elite hasn't moved. Guess it's because they don't have to live in these overcrowded Indian cities, having a free option to vacation in or move to more pleasant countries.Replies: @silviosilver
No, it has completely unjustifiably acquired a bad name. If the eugenic practices of the early 20th century had been continued and expanded/deepened, the world – or at least western countries – would be in far better shape today. There can be little serious doubt about this.
Races differ in heritable traits and, holding environment as constant as possible, those heritable differences produce measurable differences in group life outcomes. This has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt so those who do doubt do so in the face of mountains of contradictory evidence. If anything deserves to be discredited it is ‘anti-racism,’ for the unacceptable costs it imposes on white societies and for the completely unfair and unjustified blame it lumps whites with.
Lastly, since each racial group’s interests differ from every other’s there cannot be any objective measure by which to determine racial “worth.” Each race (however so defined) must make such a determination on its own, as assessed against its own needs and interests. One of course would expect that members of a particular race would, in general, consider fellow racial members as “worthier” than racial aliens, so such a racial reorientation can expect to be furiously opposed by forces upholding the present anti-white status quo.
Because they reject outright any policies that seek to curb what they consider “natural” fertility. Since the world our descendants will inhabit tomorrow will be to a significant degree shaped by who breeds today and how much they breed, such thinking is very foolish. Any reduction in Catholic political influence is therefore to be wholeheartedly welcomed.
As the West social safety nets tear under the weight of an ever increasing population of elderly with birth rates below the replacement rate, I doubt the aid gravy train to Africa will continue forever.Replies: @silviosilver
Africans wouldn’t necessarily have to be able to feed themselves. Agricultural entrepreneurs from outside could step in to fill the breech. If countries like Egypt are unable to produce enough food to feed themselves they can be productive in other ways and simply import what they require. There would have to be a drastic, sustained global crisis in agricultural output to set off the kind of population reductions you cite. Frankly, in that scenario the well-being of Africans would be the farthest thing from my mind.
Wrong.
Eugenics is not a zero-sum game; it is a positive-sum game.
Moreover, is it reasonable to assume these ‘elites’ would or could implement eugenic policies without widespread public support and hence public input into what constitutes eugenic improvement?
American fertility has always been skewed, with a small percentage of women having a zillion and the rest having 1-2 (before about 1960 1-3). The small percentage having a zillion has dropped a lot, wrecking the overall TFR.
Europe is the same on a smaller scale. Few women having kids, and often having only one, with the TFR propped up by the small number willing to have 3-5.Replies: @silviosilver
You’re missing the point. The point is to create a scenario in which the most capable segment of the population is outbreeding the least capable segment. Whether it is doing so 2:1 or 1.5:1 or 5:1 is of secondary importance.
For some fifty years now the least capable segment has been outbreeding the most capable. Therein lies the problem.
http://www.nipccreport.org
real science here:
http://www.principia-scientific.org/Replies: @silviosilver
Carbon-trading schemes find their most fervent opposition among leftists. You’re grossly overstating your case.
The people I've been reading for the past twenty years all say the same thing, it's past the tipping point, no signs of slowing down, and most of you won't survive. All talk of eugenics or population control is meaningless. Population will be controlled, and the survivors will be those who positioned themselves where they need to be.Replies: @Simon in London
“please move to Southern California” – so AGW is apparently a euphemism for Mexican immigration.
As a general note, most countries aren’t food-sufficient. This is not in itself a criteria for being economically successful. Singapore gets along fine not being able to grow enough food to feed itself, as just one example of many. The UK is another.
Not yet, anyway.
Russia is not a 1st world country despite it's racial demographics being considered desirable by iSteve standards.Replies: @ben tillman
They’re unique?
As John Martin, who developed the iron hypothesis put it:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Martin/martin.phpReplies: @anonymous-antimarxist, @anonymous-antimarxist, @Reg Cæsar, @Kevin O'Keeffe
“In July 1988, during at a lecture at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, oceanographer John Martin stood up and said in his best Dr. Strangelove accent, “Give me a half tanker of iron, and I will give you an ice age.”
I saw Dr. Martin interviewed on “Firing Line,” during the early 90s. I found his arguments pretty convincing.
“As a general note, most countries aren’t food-sufficient. This is not in itself a criteria for being economically successful.”
Not yet, anyway.
Because the problem of CO2 as a greenhouse gas can best be resolved by using the mostly wasted off peak electrical production capacity of wind turbines to convert CO2 back into methane or methanol.
Think this a "Popular Science" fantasy??? Both NASA and DOD are heavily involved in its development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reactionInternational Space Station life supportReplies: @Anonymous, @Romanian
The Sabatier reaction was also the bedrock of Zubrin’s Mars Direct proposals, since it enabled the Martian explorers to make fuel on-site, to power rovers and their return vehicle, lowering mission weight requirements. Zubrin calculated that bringing just 6 tons of hydrogen to Mars with a small contraption and a small nuclear reactor, you could make 90 tons of fuel plus all the water they would need. Better yet, you can have this done by an unmanned mission and have the certainty, before you leave Earth, that fuel and water are waiting for you.
Lurker here, big fan of Sailer, just felt the need to add that. I recommend Zubrin’s books to all space enthusiasts.
Lurker here, big fan of Sailer, just felt the need to add that. I recommend Zubrin's books to all space enthusiasts.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Thanks.
I hope Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” with Matt Damon as a stranded astronaut is a return to form.
I don't have high hopes for the film. The book was ok (so dry, I actually prefer Kim Stanley Robinson's books to it, which are drier than sand), but the heyday of MacGyvering as mass entertainment was in the 1980s-early 1990s, with some sci-fi lingerers during the 2000s (specifically the Stargate series, one of which also starred MacGyver himself). Notice that few are big screen affairs. Eastern Europeans were up until recently perpetually ten years behind the entertainment frontier because of syndication, licensing, costs etc, so it might still seem fresh to us. And we aren't adverse to acknowledging Western ingenuity and achievement, we've been trying to ape it for centuries.
For a book that's almost entirely about MacGyvering things and not feelings, relationships, angst and some demeaning revelation of inadequacy that must be overcome, the movie will have to be unrecognizable for it to stand a chance at the box office. Expect long halucinations of lovers left behind, romantically ambiguous female friends, minority friends and regret for one's ambition overriding recognition of the proper things in life. Also at least a few throwaway comments on how Mars shows us what Earth can become if we don't reform our way.
It's why Avatar and especially Interstellar were such huge letdowns with their new age-y credentials of naive base environmentalism and love as a universal force. I even bought Imax tickets for those and suffered crowds, geez, to experience the nerd equivalent of stopping every few moments of pleasure to verbally verify continued consent :))
Thanks for the reply. I also enjoy your comments on marginalrevolution
I don’t have high hopes for the film. The book was ok (so dry, I actually prefer Kim Stanley Robinson’s books to it, which are drier than sand), but the heyday of MacGyvering as mass entertainment was in the 1980s-early 1990s, with some sci-fi lingerers during the 2000s (specifically the Stargate series, one of which also starred MacGyver himself). Notice that few are big screen affairs. Eastern Europeans were up until recently perpetually ten years behind the entertainment frontier because of syndication, licensing, costs etc, so it might still seem fresh to us. And we aren’t adverse to acknowledging Western ingenuity and achievement, we’ve been trying to ape it for centuries.
For a book that’s almost entirely about MacGyvering things and not feelings, relationships, angst and some demeaning revelation of inadequacy that must be overcome, the movie will have to be unrecognizable for it to stand a chance at the box office. Expect long halucinations of lovers left behind, romantically ambiguous female friends, minority friends and regret for one’s ambition overriding recognition of the proper things in life. Also at least a few throwaway comments on how Mars shows us what Earth can become if we don’t reform our way.
It’s why Avatar and especially Interstellar were such huge letdowns with their new age-y credentials of naive base environmentalism and love as a universal force. I even bought Imax tickets for those and suffered crowds, geez, to experience the nerd equivalent of stopping every few moments of pleasure to verbally verify continued consent :))