Green New Deal

[juliusa]

Of course there will never be 9 trillion people.

100 years ago they said there would never be 8 billion people.
Population has doubled in 50 years. 9 trillion in 500 years. Perhaps sooner as we eliminate the current population controls - disease, famine, wars, poverty, lack of heath care, homicide, suicide, etc.

The vast majority of the inhabitants of the earth don't use that much energy - so there is that little fact.

That is changing - we are all people and everyone is deserving of the same lifestyle. Energy per capita is growing.

You of course have done the math and have realized how small of an area is really needed, right?

Yes. You of course have dome the math and have realized how large an area is needed to grow food to feed 9 trillion people, right?

It is the elephant in the room - we all know energy and other resource consumption are driven by the number of people in the world, but nobody except a small fringe is advocating for population control.

 

[JRP3]

Perhaps sooner as we eliminate the current population controls - disease, famine, wars, poverty, lack of heath care, homicide, suicide, etc.

Considering the worldwide pandemic we're experiencing right now I don't see any decrease in "population controls" happening anytime soon. Your 9 trillion number is ridiculous nonsense, especially as we are already seeing widespread decrease in reproduction rates in many areas. I don't agree with people like Elon who think the population is going to crash anytime soon as we are still projected to grow to 11 billion in the next 100 years or so but assuming we do reduce poverty and raise the living standards across the world we'll likely see further reduction in reproduction rates.

 

[mspohr]

Here's the classic Hans Rosling video about population.

In this TED video, Hans Rosling explains why ending poverty – over the coming decades – is crucial to stop population growth. Only by raising the living standards of the poorest, in an environmentally-friendly way, will population growth stop at 9 billion people in 2050.

Population growth explained with IKEA boxes | Gapminder

www.gapminder.org

 

[winfield100]

Where will we put them when there are 9 trillion people? And all those people will need a lot of energy.

9 trillion
It's nice to see a fellow traveler who see's the future where humans, and variants of humans can inhabit either in similar densities 1,000+ other earth type habitats or SHIPS or Orbitals & such, or somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 more habitats.
You are correct, a lot of energy. take a glance Sol, lot of energy there and in a few 1,000's of other stars.

once we get out of this pesky gravity well and think in 3 dimensions instead of 2 dimensions, since we live on a 2D plane wrapped around a sphere

But thats not the thrust of the discussion

cheers

 

[mspohr]

Today it’s cool, tomorrow it’s junk. We have to act against our throwaway culture | Jonathan Chapman

Do not be fooled by the deceptive material lightness of Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service. The extended product network of an AI system reaches out to a globally distributed infrastructural stack comprising energy-hungry datacentres and swarms of planet-orbiting satellites. Consider all the material-rich products in a typical home. Cities, and the mountains of material-rich products within them, are the “urban mines” of the global north.

Over the past century, economically aggressive corporations have mined, logged, trawled, drilled, scorched, levelled and poisoned the earth, to the point of total ecological collapse. Our material possessions connect us to destructive practices via invisible threads of commerce, politics and power. Rare elements are clawed from the earth by the fingers of children small enough to jam their bodies into fissures within ore seams, beneath rock and mud. A “smart” light switch houses a fingernail-sized microchip containing more than half the elements of the periodic table. Many are “conflict minerals” such as tin, tungsten and tantalum, linking us to violence, war and unimaginable human suffering in underregulated parts of the world.

Simply having more stuff stopped making people happier years ago. We need new business models based on products and services that last – products designed to be maintained, upgraded and easily repaired, and which can be leased or shared, giving them multiple lives in the hands of multiple users. It’s a new vision for an “experience-heavy, material-light” sensibility that increases the quality and longevity of our relationships with material things, and which demonstrates why design can – and must – lead the transition to a sustainable future.

 

[juliusa]

Population has been pretty much doubling every 50 years for the past 150 years - not slowed by reduction in poverty, industrialization, or anything else. There are no plans to slow population growth.

This is very relevant to GND - it must take into account the increasing population, increasing energy requirements, and increase in other resource requirements.

 

[JRP3]

Actually no, the GND must not take those things into account because shifting to a more sustainable, efficient, and renewable way of life will benefit everyone regardless of what happens with the population. Population is a separate topic.

 

[juliusa]

Actually no, the GND must not take those things into account because shifting to a more sustainable, efficient, and renewable way of life will benefit everyone regardless of what happens with the population. Population is a separate topic.

Ok, then no need for GND. The entire world is already shifting to a more sustainable, efficient, and renewable way of life without it.

 

[JRP3]

Nothing wrong with speeding up the transition and expanding it, no rational reason to fight against it. Your viewpoint is equivalent to saying why have the government expand the highway system early in the ICE age since it would eventually happen anyway. The original New Deal public works program was a huge benefit to the country, the GND could be the same.

 

[juliusa]

Nothing wrong with speeding up the transition and expanding it, no rational reason to fight against it.

Nope, nothing wrong. But have further intervention to speed it up and expand it by how much? Should we create policy that eliminates fossil fuels in 1 year? 10 years? 50 years? 100 years?

Regardless of your answer, you need to take into account population, among many other things, to develop the policy.

 

[eevee-fan]

Medicare for all! Please take us out of first and a half world status.

 

[JRP3]

Regardless of your answer, you need to take into account population, among many other things, to develop the policy.

I've already explained why you don't.

 

[eevee-fan]

Here's what is (and isn't) in the new bipartisan infrastructure bill for EVs

Here's what's in the latest bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill for electric vehicle and clean energy – and what got the chop.

electrek.co

Good thing TX does not want to interconnect to the rest of the US... we can beef up the rest of the country and not waste it on TX.

 

[juliusa]

I've already explained why you don't.

Maybe you don't, but the US Congress does. Proposed legislation gets scored to know how much it will cost over 10 years. They use population and other projections and assumptions to accomplish that.

Did you notice the (current) "soft" infrastructure bill, a down payment on the GND, costs $3.5T? Based on population projections, among other things, to figure out how much child care, paid leave, elder care, EV subsidies, EV charger subsidies, etc will cost.

 

[mspohr]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Xi Jinping’s Capitalist Smackdown Sparks a $1 Trillion Reckoning
After 40 years of allowing the market to play an expanding role in driving prosperity, China’s leaders have remembered something important — they’re Communists.
Call it progressive authoritarianism. From exhausted couriers in the gig economy, to stressed parents struggling with ever-rising housing prices and tuition fees, to small businesses battling tech monopolies, Xi is swinging the cudgel of state power in support of the squeezed middle class. These challenges aren’t unique to China, but the policy response has been.
“Capitalism without competition isn't capitalism; it’s exploitation,” President Joe Biden said in July, signing a sweeping executive order that signaled the beginning of a move against monopoly power in the U.S.

 

[JRP3]

Maybe you don't, but the US Congress does. Proposed legislation gets scored to know how much it will cost over 10 years. They use population and other projections and assumptions to accomplish that.

Did you notice the (current) "soft" infrastructure bill, a down payment on the GND, costs $3.5T? Based on population projections, among other things, to figure out how much child care, paid leave, elder care, EV subsidies, EV charger subsidies, etc will cost.

I thought you were referring to your previous ridiculous 9 trillion "projection". A 10 year projection is not difficult nor does it need to be exact.

 

[David_Cary]

We are already seeing the effects of too many people and exacerbation by climate change. The rise in authoritarian/populism is present partly because of these conflicts.

Population does not double every 50 years - it has doubled in less but the current trend is to double in 200 years. It is not a constant and the growth rate has plummeted in the last 34 years. No serious forecaster predicts a doubling in 50 years from now (or from 1987). You can ignore that and just look at 1830 to 1980 and pretend that will continue forever when the trend since 1987 has been dramatically different.

Now - you are right - I should never say never. And maybe the population will climb more aggressively at sometime due to some technologic innovation - probably skipping pregnancy and child rearing - growing people in pods and having them come out at at least 12 years old - fully educated. But otherwise, as people have options and the future is troubling, growth will not accelerate.

There is no model where the entire world will use as much energy as Americans. Guess what? - you can have a modern luxurious lifestyle without driving an ICE SUV 15 miles to work everyday. No model without some technologic revolution but you can be sure that doesn't involve burning ancient carbon.

As an aside, we have 1 child. He is 11. Enough has changed in the world in 12 years, not sure we would do it again.

Population control is happening already. And the growth is happening in low impact areas so it is on the back burner. But of course it is an issue. When my neighbor has 100 times the impact of a child born in Africa or Asia, the priorities change. Now - the pressures there cause migration to high energy places of course and that can't be ignored.

 

[juliusa]

I thought you were referring to your previous ridiculous 9 trillion "projection". A 10 year projection is not difficult nor does it need to be exact.

Solar is just an interim, like hybrid cars. A transition to a solution that will work. Government is short-sighted. Musk, Bezos, and others are thinking about real solutions. Coal and oil were not (and would not be) a problem when there were less population. Too bad government was only looking 10 years out - imagine if the feds were giving tax credits for electric vehicles starting in 1913 when they started taxing. Or instituted a carbon tax 100 years ago.

Solar will go the way of coal and oil - just a matter of time.

 

[nativewolf]

Pop

Solar is just an interim, like hybrid cars. A transition to a solution that will work. Government is short-sighted. Musk, Bezos, and others are thinking about real solutions. Coal and oil were not (and would not be) a problem when there were less population. Too bad government was only looking 10 years out - imagine if the feds were giving tax credits for electric vehicles starting in 1913 when they started taxing. Or instituted a carbon tax 100 years ago.

Solar will go the way of coal and oil - just a matter of time.

When the marginal costs of power approaches 0 I am not sure we'll see the financial incentive to develop alternatives. One day there may be some advance in fusion, but even then the cost of developing and rolling that out will be greater. Frankly I'd be more focused on what near 0 energy costs due to the economy than holding my breath waiting for solar to be displaced. Other than uranium/nuclear all of the energy we use today is in fact solar, from 10 million year old algae or from an active panel. Solar panels just cut out the middleman so to speak.

 

[jimm01]

Solar is just an interim, like hybrid cars. A transition to a solution that will work. Government is short-sighted. Musk, Bezos, and others are thinking about real solutions. Coal and oil were not (and would not be) a problem when there were less population. Too bad government was only looking 10 years out - imagine if the feds were giving tax credits for electric vehicles starting in 1913 when they started taxing. Or instituted a carbon tax 100 years ago.

Solar will go the way of coal and oil - just a matter of time.

10 years out. What government is that?

The issues is humans need to look at the Earth's (and Solar System's) resources as common resources. It's simply a tragedy of the commons for not doing so.

By the way, sorry if I have not followed this tread thoroughly; what energy source will be our prime source, fusion?