—“Curt: What are your views on anthropogenic climate change?”—
The question is not whether the climate is changing (it always does), and not whether we are contributing to it (it seems like we might be), but whether our contributions are meaningful (causing a marginal difference), or whether they are merely noise amidst the normal solar cycles (hard to tell), and whether given that we should be entering another period of cooling (it seems though we are), even if we will raise the temperature, if it’s actually harmful or beneficial.
Now, even if that is said we must choose between lowering the consumption of energy, lowering our use of petroleum products, or lowering the size of the population.
The evidence would indicate that the most important method of correcting the problem is to convert to nuclear power where possible, and to reduce the population of the planet to the point where we able to consume (convert) as much energy as we possibly can, in order to innovate (and exit the planet) as fast as we can. Or whether we expand the population indefinitely.
This is the real debate. And the rest of it’s all lies as far as I can understand.
1B seems to be a good top number for a planet like earth.
3 responses to “The Climate Change Question is a Deception to Distract from the Real Problem: Populations and Energy.”
How do you arrive at your estimate of 1B Earth-like planets? Where are these planets distributed — in our galaxy or throughout the universe? I suspect pseudoscience in play.
I don’t. I arrive at a rough estimate of the zero risk carrying capacity of the planet. 😉
Oops! I misread. Sorry about that.
Regarding 1B humans being Earth’s carrying capacity, the Population Bomb nonsense of circa 1970, which has since been proven false (ie, an excellent example of pseudoecology), hit in an era where the global population was well over 1 B. I’m guessing the planet will support 10 B with ease. Authentic ecology, however, tells us some level will function as a carrying capacity in a close system, and exceeding that level will have adverse consequences. I don’t know of any way to reliably predict what that level is before exceeding it. And, the level can change dramatically over time. For example, the human carrying capacity in the early Paleolithic, when our technology was much more crude and our habitat dramatically smaller than both are today, may have been about 1 M. That appears to have declined to perhaps 10 K in the wake of the Toba supereruption just 75,000 years ago. Scientific thinking points not to restricting our population size on Earth, but on increasing our available habitat and resources by migrating off Earth. Of course, this goal would likely be more easily attained if we abandoned our current dysgenic policies for eugenic ones (although effective eugenic policies could lull us into complacency).