Our planet

[wobs]

Whilst the population growth, grows ever faster, the wealthiest countries spend 100's of millions of pounds on fertility treatments.

You could not make it up.

Population growth is a non-issue in teh context of the state of the planet. It will plateau to about 11-12 billion(ish). What is the issue is economic growth. We are stuck on the need for growth, and that pushes CO2 emissions up, and the other issues, such as habitat loss, and plastic pollution.

Renewables can't yet keep up with such growth and energy efficiency will only make it worse in the long term.

We need to work out clean sustainable growth (and build lots of nuclear power plants), and measure growth by things other than GDP, that reflect the true cost/balance of the things we value.

 

[Brigadier]

Not while people are running around in big V8’s.

So few and far between, and so little full-life-cycle impact compared to the millions of "eco" boxes, more "funny" than fact

 

[Brigadier]

Whilst the population growth, grows ever faster, the wealthiest countries spend 100's of millions of pounds on fertility treatments.

You could not make it up.

Tell Wobs (among others).
He reckons the planet can support 12-14 billion.
Perhaps not the planet he's on, but hey ho.......
(Last bit was jocular, btw)

 

[Diver Fred]

My family love watching these programs, we watch a lot on geographic, Netflix BBC etc.

Watching tonight's one on BBC, it's actually heart breaking seeing what we are doing to out planet.

So True.

We have for a long time been trying to do "our bit" but have found it extremely difficult finding responsibly sourced products and packaging etc.

Our lives just aren't built around eco consciousness.

Hopefully that is changing but needs politicians and Religous leaders to change their attitudes and lead by example.

But how did we get here in the first place. Is it globalisation? Our desire to have everything and anything as cheap as possible, make as much profit as possible..

Is it our ever growing populations?

YES YES YES

Etc etc

I know there is more than one trigger and is likely a multitude of things.

Should we be doing more than we are.

Should the rainforests be protected worldwide from

de-

forestation and human activity?

Be a good idea!

It's very scary what the future may be like,

So True.

The greenest move has to be small families - world wide. With 2 births per family the population will remain pretty near constant.

If people like Rice-Pud, BoJo and Prince William understood that big families does not en-rich peoples lives but makes everyone on the planet poorer that would be a start. The press needs to support that idea as well. All religions need to broadcast that as well.
The planets population ought to be at the level it was at the end of WW2.

This country could make a start by stop paying child allowance after the 2nd birth and remove it completely after 4th and tax families after the 5th birth.

 

[sxturbo]

Population growth is a non-issue in teh context of the state of the planet. It will plateau to about 11-12 billion(ish). What is the issue is economic growth. We are stuck on the need for growth, and that pushes CO2 emissions up, and the other issues, such as habitat loss, and plastic pollution.

Renewables can't yet keep up with such growth and energy efficiency will only make it worse in the long term.

We need to work out clean sustainable growth (and build lots of nuclear power plants), and measure growth by things other than GDP, that reflect the true cost/balance of the things we value.

what about all the nuclear waste, i cannot count nuclear power as renewable or green personally

 

[Brigadier]

Utter nonsense.

So what is Attenborough prattling on about then?
Do you think that the shoite we've polluted the planet with will just vanish?
The tracts of land we've butchered; do you think it's previous occupants (even if they still exist) will just recolonise it?

Life will go on, but it will (in some places, anyway) be very different from that which went before.....

 

[wobs]

what about all the nuclear waste, i cannot count nuclear power as renewable or green personally

We know how to deal with nuclear. If we want to live a comforatble lifestyle long term, this needs to be on the cards

While Finland has shown the way in disposal (although there are many other examples), they only have a once through system, meaning they don't re-process, meaning they have oodles of actinides to deal with. Re-processing means that the end waste will return to ore levels of radioactivity in hundreds rather than thousands of years.

The future needs to be a renewables/nuclear mix to be sustainable.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

I did less than 500 miles last year in any of em

And you were missing for several days on just one of those outings.
I thought you'd run out of fuel and was pushing it home.

We're guests on this planet, not the masters.

I understand that the next major refugee crisis will be caused by the climate change.
Potentially tens of millions migrating from hostile environments caused by climate change.
It's already happened/ happening in small localised incidents.

 

[Trazor]

I understand that the next major refugee crisis will be caused by the climate change.
Potentially tens of millions migrating from hostile environments caused by climate change.
It's already happened/ happening in small localised incidents.

The next "wars" will be fought over food and water.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

The next "wars" will be fought over food and water.

Haven't they always been over resources?

 

[wobs]

Tell Wobs (among others).
He reckons the planet can support 12-14 billion.
Perhaps not the planet he's on, but hey ho.......
(Last bit was jocular, btw)

I'm not saying we can, I'm saying we will. Its just whether we want to avoid the pesky issue of war and other issues when climate change and other issues kick in.

There are only a handle full of countries where birth rate is a problem and these have a tiny carbon footprint. The birth rate drops in countries where you have education and urbanisation, which is pretty much the bulk of the world these days (in very general terms). The world average fertility rate is 2.4 per head.

Take plastic pollution for an eg: Most comes from a small number of large rivers. This can be solved, by improving the resource efficiency of those regions. The rest of the world can improve as well of course (look at our cloths, use less plastic packaging, make it easier to recycle, find a way to make it valuable....), but these are not insummountable. Getting the plastic out of the ocean that's already in there is another issue.

As for feeding 12billion: Look at how efficiency has driven up crop production. We can feed more people per hectare than befroe, and this will likely improve. Our diet will likely change though, to a low meat diet, with beef and lamb being very expensive.

If Malthus could have seen our world, he would have been amazed at how many could be fed.

There will be habitat loss, along the way, but unless we have to major war or plague that kills billions, we will end up with a world population in that region. Africa will increase by a few more billion, but the rest of the world won't increase too much.
https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-the-world-is-facing-a-population-crisis/

The late great Hans Rosling has this to say:
https://www.gapminder.org/answers/the-rapid-growth-of-the-world-population-when-will-it-slow-down/

Its not all rosy of course. Club of Rome made many predictions that are coming true:
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ight-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

There will be habitat loss, along the way, but unless we have to major war or plague that kills billions, we will end up with a world population in that region. Africa will increase by a few more billion, but the rest of the world won't increase too much.
https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-the-world-is-facing-a-population-crisis/

It's this habitat loss that will drive the impending refugee crisis.

 

[Diver Fred]

Haven't they always been over resources?

NO - Religon or/and Politics (is there any difference?)!

 

[transam]

And you were missing for several days on just one of those outings.
I thought you'd run out of fuel and was pushing it home.

We're guests on this planet, not the masters.

I understand that the next major refugee crisis will be caused by the climate change.
Potentially tens of millions migrating from hostile environments caused by climate change.
It's already happened/ happening in small localised incidents.[/QUOTE

guests on the planet u say himagain

hmmm margret thatcher made a speech on this in the 80s

as world leaders go

on this subject she was well ahead of her time
And probably did more the environment than any other world leader

she decimated the dirty coal industry

as has been said Germany needs a margret thatcher to sort out there coal burning

 

[sxturbo]

wonder what excuses bobby will come up with on behalf of the krouts and their coal burning.

maybe they burn special zero carbon coal thats only available to the EU...

also doesnt poland burn considerable amounts of the stuff to?