Global Warming

[sidcow]

1 minute ago, Xann said:

Ah yes. I've got a collection of Giles annuals somewhere. Should have got that. 

[sidcow]

On 28/06/2010 at 21:45, rjw63 said:

How certain are you that global warming exists?

 

I'd like another option added

Are you still unsure about this? 

[sidcow]

On 28/06/2010 at 22:14, TheWalletInspector said:

"I'm a selfish prick who doesn't really give a shit" - Can we have that option added too please?

Do you still not give a shit looking at all the deaths occurring recently and the lives devestated by flooding and fire? 

[Rugeley Villa]

38 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Had to sleep with 2 bedroom windows open last night the bedroom was so hot.

Yesterday we were walking round a garden centre in short sleeve shirts with sunglasses on. 

It's pretty much November for gods sake. I remember Bonfire night celebrations as a kid wrapped up like The Michelin Man with the frozen grass crunching underfoot. 

The next 2 weeks looks like being pretty wawm still taking us up to mid November. 

I'm pretty sure this is going to be the warmest year on record unless winter is unleashed in spectacular style late November and December. 

I’m still wearing shorts to work and out and about in general 

[legov]

4 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

He was claiming the decline in birth rates would be the biggest problem facing humanity in 20 years time.

He’s being alarmist but it is something humanity will eventually have to grapple with. The expectation of the UN is that in 2100 the world population would be 10.4bn and brith rates would be at 1.84 per woman. If that holds then in 2500 the world population is at 2bn and in 3000 it’s at 225m.

There’s quite a lot of economic problems that come from a shrinking population (mostly about ever smaller numbers of young people looking after larger numbers of elderly people) and it’s quite possible my kids will live to see 2100, so it’s not a completely abstract problem. At the moment the West deals with population decline via immigration but that’s less of an option if the population is declining everywhere.

Also, it’s quite striking how rapidly the population growth trends have been revised down in the past twenty years or so. It’s quite possible in another decade we might be thinking the world population will be peaking in 2050, etc.

But any problem that won’t wipe out humanity for millennia probably can’t be considered our biggest threat.

Japan and Korea will be interesting to look at going forward in terms of how they deal with this. Lower fertility rates than most of the West but more importantly hardly any immigration at all. Japan's population actually is already declining and South Korea is expected to follow suit soon IINM.

Edit: no, actually Korea's population is also already declining.

Edited October 30, 2022 by legov

[rjw63]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Are you still unsure about this? 

[Panto_Villan]

44 minutes ago, legov said:

Japan and Korea will be interesting to look at going forward in terms of how they deal with this. Lower fertility rates than most of the West but hardly any immigration at all. Japan's population actually is already declining and South Korea is expected to follow suit soon IINM.

To be honest China is the one that’s more interesting for me. Japan and South Korea reached Western levels of wealth before getting old, but it’s debatable whether China will. They’ll be in a very tough spot if they don’t.

In the short term that ends up being what matters for emissions too. Poor countries (or more specifically ones with lower rates of female education) generally have higher birth rates and are less interested in protecting the environment, but the energy (and water and food) that goes into producing the average Western lifestyle is way higher. So if China and India and Africa get rich and live like we do, the world is screwed irrespective of population trends.

[sidcow]

Wow, some truly astonishing responses in the first few pages of this thread. MMFy and MR.Smalljob must have been fully paid agents of the Oil and Gas lobby. 

[legov]

6 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

To be honest China is the one that’s more interesting for me. Japan and South Korea reached Western levels of wealth before getting old, but it’s debatable whether China will. They’ll be in a very tough spot if they don’t.

In the short term that ends up being what matters for emissions too. Poor countries (or more specifically ones with lower rates of female education) generally have higher birth rates and are less interested in protecting the environment, but the energy (and water and food) that goes into producing the average Western lifestyle is way higher. So if China and India and Africa get rich and live like we do, the world is screwed irrespective of population trends.

Oh, I agree with you that China's demographic problems are quite interesting. By some estimates its population is already decreasing and obviously this poses severe challenges in terms of living standards since this will be a drag on economic growth, but unlike the West or Korea/Japan they are not wealthy enough yet to sustain the increased social spending that is likely to be required with an aging population.

Not sure why this is necessarily bad in terms of emissions though. Assuming emissions per capita remain constant a decline in China's population would result in a decrease in emissions.

[Chindie]

Japan is already shifting slightly on immigration. They have made it easier for other South East Asian nationalities to take up jobs there - although I'm not sure they have a particularly easy journey to getting residence/citizenship. They've had to do this because they simply don't have people to do various jobs. They don't have the choice of rejecting immigration. But even that they've done kicking and screaming.

Japanese society is in trouble generally. It's flagged up as some utopian economy, but that's had it's costs. It's not uncommon for Westerners living there to leave fairly quickly because of the working practices, cultural issues, outright racism... And as a society they have enormous issues with birthrates that is exacerbated by the country having massive issues with relationships. It's not just that people aren't having kids - they aren't coupling up at all. And the birthrate issue is made all the worse because Japan has higher percentages of elderly people whilst also having an infrastructure which isn't really fitting for frail people.

[Panto_Villan]

12 hours ago, legov said:

Oh, I agree with you that China's demographic problems are quite interesting. By some estimates its population is already decreasing and obviously this poses severe challenges in terms of living standards since this will be a drag on economic growth, but unlike the West or Korea/Japan they are not wealthy enough yet to sustain the increased social spending that is likely to be required with an aging population.

Not sure why this is necessarily bad in terms of emissions though. Assuming emissions per capita remain constant a decline in China's population would result in a decrease in emissions.

I’m just saying that China isn’t rich yet, and as consumption rises with wealth it’s bad news for the planet if China does get rich (like Japan and South Korea did) before it gets old simply because it’s a lot of extra consumption.

Emissions per capita in China are half those of the US, and in India they’re less than 1/8th of US levels. If those countries ever reached Western levels of consumption then population levels would have to fall a LONG way to cancel it out.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Panto_Villan

[villakram]

Population decline is only a problem for those wedded to the current growth uber alles paradigm. Japan is the exemplar of how population decline is not the end of the world.

[sidcow]

On 31/10/2022 at 14:38, villakram said:

Population decline is only a problem for those wedded to the current growth uber alles paradigm. Japan is the exemplar of how population decline is not the end of the world.

Japan has MASSIVE problems ahead of it as few young people of tax paying age have to pay for social care of a massive ageing population.   It's going to be a good illustration of where the rest of The Western world is going to be soon.  

Edited November 4, 2022 by sidcow

[sidcow]

We have a strawberry plant in the garden.

it's currently got Strawberries growing on it......in November.

Problem is they will probably die in frost and not have enough warmth to actually ripen.

And then it will have expended too much energy to flower properly in the summer.    Many crops could have this problem.

[villakram]

4 hours ago, sidcow said:

Japan has MASSIVE problems ahead of it as few young people of tax paying age have to pay for social care of a massive ageing population.   It's going to be a good illustration of where the rest of The Western world is going to be soon.  

Maybe... but, they've already been in a zero growth state for over ~25yrs and it's been dropping for the past 10. Their economy has rumbled along and general society too. It is a question of interest, how much their relative lack of diversity has helped with the end to endless growth. Of course, as an export economy, the rest of the world opening up has helped massively, so when global population levels off in 50 yrs... say add another 50 for an economic levelling of sorts and then we'll see. Perhaps that should be 75 or 25 rather than 50, tis happening regardless.

We are continuously told about how the old people will be such a massive problem, but societies will find a way to muddle through. Public pensions etc. have only been a reliable thing for ~50yrs.

[maqroll]

It's 4pm in November in Maine and it's 70F.

Will be just as warm the next 2 days as well.

[maqroll]

Dandelions are sprouting and a catnip plant is still sprouting little leaves.

[one_ian_taylor]

On 04/11/2022 at 11:24, sidcow said:

We have a strawberry plant in the garden.

it's currently got Strawberries growing on it......in November.

Problem is they will probably die in frost and not have enough warmth to actually ripen.

And then it will have expended too much energy to flower properly in the summer.    Many crops could have this problem.

It's mad. Same here. And daffodils coming up. And for other plants, we and mild will probably mean hordes of slugs.  But then with the weather  being so  unpredictable, a heatwave or cold snap at the wrong time can completely bugger things up. Last year's apples were rubbish because of cold May weather for example, but this year's  weren't. And while that's  more of an annoyance when it happens in my garden,  when it happens on a large scale it's pretty scary. Food production is not longer nearly as predictable as it has been for decades. Unpredictability was pretty commonplace until  the 1950s ir so, but will be a nasty shock when it returns on a global  scale

 

[sne]

The world is so already lost.

[Panto_Villan]

17 minutes ago, sne said:

The world is so already lost.

It’s all very depressing, but I feel like if either the EU or the US passed legislation forcing drinks to be sold in biodegradable packaging in say 5 years time, the big companies would be forced to figure out how to do it because those are such big markets. And once they’ve done it in one place, it’s easy to roll it out elsewhere too.

Its a bit like the rules on car fuel consumption in California and Europe that force companies to raise standards everywhere.