On state subsidies it's probably one area where Dom Cummings was right in a sense that he saw where the world was going. The only way the west can compete with highly subsidised Chinese industries undercutting is to have our own. Getting rid of state aid rules was a deal breaker in the EU negotiations for this reason. The EU rules are going to be a huge problem for European countries in the next two decades as the US, Japan, Korea and maybe even the UK climb aboard the state aid train.
China has shown that a planned/command economy can be made to work. The rest of the world has realised that some of that can be transposed to their own countries as well. I expect the UK will have very large state subsidies for science and technology research/development in the next decade that wouldn't have been possible within the EU.
There are about half a dozen fallacies in that post. For a start, selection bias. China has had plenty of failures in subsidising its industries. In the West, we are only conscious of the successful ones, because those are the ones that compete with our industries. Second, Chinese societies like Hong Kong and Singapore have done just as well, or even better, without subsidising and protecting industries to anything like the same extent. Thirdly, subsidising industries often misallocates resources heavily penalises captive or successful parts of the economy. Fourth, we've always been even worse than China at subsidising successful industries, which generally turn into boondoggles for favoured interest groups. Fifth, the part of China's economy that has worked the best is the least planned and distorted part - its state owned industries are generally a heavy drain on the economy. And finally, you're mistaking the natural growth of an economy when it stops shooting itself in the foot with Maoist communism with a triumphant success of state planning.
I am old enough to remember people making similar points about Japanese long-term government led planning in the 1980s. And you can also find people saying similar things about superior Soviet performance in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. Neither of those models are admired at all these days, though China's strategies seem to have been influenced heavily by Japan's and South Korea's.
But I'm afraid that the idea that the government can pick winners is highly seductive, so we'll keep on trying with half-hearted campaigns every few years, and never learn from our repeated failures.
I didn't say I agree with state subsidies, just that in the next 20 years they will become a feature of most advanced economies and Dom Cummings was correct that we'd probably need to have a less restrictive framework than what the EU allows for.
Why? Just because other countries shoot themselves in the foot, why should we do so?
UK companies will find it impossible to compete with the winners that do get picked which will erode our tax base. Ideally all companies would junk the idea, but that's not going to happen.
I've always thought that in the sprawling mess of Rattle and Hum one of the all time great albums was struggling to get out. Angel of Harlem is another classic.
Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
Most Conservatives see more to their philosophy than simply reducing barriers to the free movement of people, capital, and goods, which is why most Conservatives support Brexit.
Nobody who supports Brexit is a Conservative
Lower case c, Scott. Conservatives can be anything they want, including very un-conservative, as parties the world over do not match their name. Plenty of Liberal parties who are conservative.
But is an area where I get confused by the arguments. Some say Brexit was a very unconservative thing to do, others claim it was driven by conservative yearning for a 1950s heydey so was a very conservative thing.
Sometimes they claim both.
It's a version of the No True Scotsman fallacy. The only reliable indicator of a Conservative is whether they usually vote Conservative.
Except in Scottish council by elections.
I understand the local elections are suspended in Scotland now due to the May 2022 local elections
I've always thought that in the sprawling mess of Rattle and Hum one of the all time great albums was struggling to get out. Angel of Harlem is another classic.
Very good, not heard that and thought about it in ages (my old vinyl copy of Rattle and Hum Being in a storage locker somewhere).
“Don’t believe in riches, but you should see where I live…”
There doesn’t seem to be anything in the article that justifies the headline. There’s no inherent reason why windfarms should only be 50ft tall. Poor journalism. Unnecessarily introducing a “fear” angle into a good news story.
It is rather annoying if you have a nice business making 200ft wind turbines, if the new standard becomes 250ft.
If only the government would step in and stop those nasty innovators innovating.....
Britons over 50 with university degrees back the Tories by 41% to 29% for Labour while those aged 18 to 49 who left school after GCSE back Labour by 39% to 29%.
Confirms the so called education gap is just an age gap as about 40% of under 50s graduated from university compared to about 10% of over 50s
No it doesn't. There's an age gap and an education gap. In both age groups Labour does better in the high education group and the Tories better in the low education group.
The Tories lead amongst graduates and non graduates over 50, Labour lead amongst graduates and non graduates under 50.
As I said the divide is really an age one not an educational one
No you are wrong. There are divides due to age and due to education.
Let's look at over-50s. The figures are:
High educated Con 41-29 Lab Low educated Con 52-22 Lab
So we can clearly see that within this age group higher education is correlated with higher support for Labour and lower support for the Conservatives compared to the low education group.
If we look at the under-50s the same educational splits give these figures:
High educated Con 22-43 Lab Low educated Con 29-39 Lab
We see a similar difference between the two groups. Labour support is higher in the high education group when the age is the same.
If we look at the size of the difference then we can see that the Tory lead is +18 in low education compared to high education in over-50s and +11 for under-50s.
If we look at the difference by age then we see the Tory lead is +40 in over-50s compared to under-50s for low education voters and +33 for high education voters.
So we can see that the effect of age is about two and a half times as strong as the effect of education. Age is more important, but there is still a strong effect due to education.
I think that's right. Hence, partly, the well-known left-wing bias of academia.
The left-wing bias of academia is much-exaggerated, but it's a useful excuse for those on the right who observe the tendency of better educated people to favour more liberal or left wing parties and don't want to engage in any soul-searching.
The left wing bias in academia has got stronger and stronger but I think it’s because, at some stage, the right wing gave up on facts.
Right wing academics do still exist, quite vocally, but they are definitely a minority. As usual though I think social media and noise exaggerate the size of the full-on left wing contingent in academia. I know a few people working in research, and most are soft centre-left or liberal types. But they just get on with their work and don't make a noise. The ones who shout loudest are those with more of a hard-left axe to grind. So the decibel meter distorts the reality as usual.
My experience too. The characteristics that push people into academia - an open and enquiring mind, pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake, a desire to impart knowledge to the next generation, an empirical and sceptical bent, tolerance for relatively low pay - tend to be found at higher frequency among those of a liberal frame of mind. A similar kind of self selection bias explains why professions like the police and financial services attract more right wing people. The desire by some on the Right to demonise those with higher levels of education, basically because we can see through their bullshit, is one of the less pleasant developments of recent years.
Sometimes, I feel you're making progress - and then you post something utterly retarded like this.
You're the pb equivalent of Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates: @OnlyLivingBoy stars in 50 First Posts - tediously rehearsing the same arguments on the same subjects each and every day, before clearing the cache overnight and going right back to square one the next.
I'm honoured to be compared to Drew Barrymore. Don't use words like "retarded" though, please. Not only does it cross the line in terms of personal abuse (a recurring problem for you, sadly) but it is also an unacceptable word to use.
Words and phrases you've used today: "the right wing gave up on facts", "(right wing) bullshit" and implying that right-wing people are idiots. No doubt you'll play dumb and cry foul now but you know precisely what you're doing.
I will take absolutely no lectures from you.
I'm not asking you to take any lectures. I'm simply asking you not to call me "retarded", both because it is a needlessly personal attack and because it is an unacceptable slur against people with learning disabilities. I also reject your characterisation of my contributions as implying that right of centre people are idiots, as nowhere did I say that and nor do I think it. I reiterate that you should withdraw your use of this unacceptable slur and try to contribute to the debate rationally and calmly if you can.
Bore off. You're happy to dish it out, but just attempt to get on your high horse if you get it in return.
I've got no time for it or your pomposity.
I won't be engaging with you anymore on this forum until you change your behaviour, starting with your total lack of self-awareness.
Until then, I'm done with you. Trust that's clear.
Dish it out? All I have done is express opinions that you disagree with. I have *never* personally attacked you. Yet you continuously personally attack me. If you can't control yourself you shouldn't post. But if you ever want to disagree with something I have said and respond with rational debate or humour rather than unpleasant invective then I will be happy to engage with you, if you are not too preoccupied with all of those beautiful women. 😉
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. If we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we will need more babies not fewer to get more workers to fund the healthcare of the ageing population and state pensions
Such is the US-style partisanship of everything Brexit these days (and everything Covid, which in some ways has become even more partisan) that it seems some people are incapable of accepting that many of the supply chain problems we have are global, and other people are incapable of accepting - or perhaps admitting - that Brexit could be making things worse.
It may be pure coincidence but so many of the things that are now transpiring are soft-edged versions of exactly what I and my colleagues spent 4 years advising clients to prepare for in the event of no-deal. Including the terminology - I can dig out various bits of advice talking about cabotage, sanitary and phytosanitary checks, shortages of water treatment chemicals, costs per pallet for customs documentation, micro traders ceasing to sell into the UK, and so on. We also advised on potential long term upsides including greater automation, supply chain innovation, retraining. Things the government are now belatedly talking about.
One thing we got very wrong was the impact on circulation and the notorious Kent traffic jam that never happened. The lorries didn't clog up the M20, they just stayed at home (as did half the working population because of Covid).
Such is the US-style partisanship of everything Brexit these days (and everything Covid, which in some ways has become even more partisan) that it seems some people are incapable of accepting that many of the supply chain problems we have are global, and other people are incapable of accepting - or perhaps admitting - that Brexit could be making things worse.
It may be pure coincidence but so many of the things that are now transpiring are soft-edged versions of exactly what I and my colleagues spent 4 years advising clients to prepare for in the event of no-deal. Including the terminology - I can dig out various bits of advice talking about cabotage, sanitary and phytosanitary checks, shortages of water treatment chemicals, costs per pallet for customs documentation, micro traders ceasing to sell into the UK, and so on. We also advised on potential long term upsides including greater automation, supply chain innovation, retraining. Things the government are now belatedly talking about.
One thing we got very wrong was the impact on circulation and the notorious Kent traffic jam that never happened. The lorries didn't clog up the M20, they just stayed at home (as did half the working population because of Covid).
Andrew Pierce made the point on GMB it was a global crisis which is exacerbated in the UK by Brexit. Denied by his Labour supporting Chum who put it all down to Brexit. I think that is right. Brexit has not helped but the problems are largely global.
I think what does not help is FBPE head cases blame Brexit for everything and basically lie and overexaggerate about some of the issues we have such as so-called shortages in supermarkets. Of course die hard brexiteers are just as bad too.
As for the cabotage changes surely this is all part of taking back control ? Would we have the flexibility to do this had we been in the EU. I do not know.
The major underlying issue is that the world's economy has been built on global supply chains / JIT logistics and that its limitations have been tested globally by the pandemic and exacerbated in the UK by Brexit. Longer-term, I think we are going to see quite significant on-shoring, particularly in the UK.
One other point. I always saw Brexit as a long-term thing, not short-term transformation, which is why I think the analogy of Irish independence vs the UK is quite a useful one.
Absolutely right. JIT supply chains only work when the whole global supply chain is functioning smoothly. If you are a car maker and you buy your glass windows from China or your interior trim from China, due to cheaper labour costs, and you are reliant on continuity of supply then the moment this happens you are stuffed. All the supplier has to do is declare Force Majeure and, in that case, won’t be liable to any consequential losses being passed back.
There will be significant onshoring to come in the future, you are quite right, as people evaluate the risk v reward. It has been seen as, if not risk free, minimal risk. Not any more. The reality is coming back to bite companies who pushed the Low Cost Country Sourcing mantra, indeed mandated it to their supply chain in many cases – hello Car Industry !!!.
One of the principle shortages for manufacturing has been in semiconductors. There is almost no chance of our onshoring that industry - rather more chance in Europe.
Tbh, I'm not sure Europe will get much of a bite either. Projects that are currently proceeding are in Korea, Japan and the US. No country in Europe will get the chequebook out and it would need a complete rewrite of state aid rules. Intel are talking big about a new EU foundry but they're also asking for €8bn. Who is going to give them that subsidy and how will they do it without breaking state aid rules? No one seems to know the answer to the questions and that means countries who are happy to pay the money are getting foundries. Aiui the new Japanese government is readying a $100bn industrial regeneration fund and the US is doing something similar, no country in the EU (or the UK) can compete with that.
We all want to decouple from China and Chinese supply chains but we're relying in private companies to do it in Europe. That's just never going to happen because companies will always pick the cheaper option and the cheaper option will generally be a Chinese import. In the end we just have to hope we can hang onto the coat tails of Japan and US to benefit from their state aid programmes. I don't see the UK or EU having anything close to what those two are doing.
The EU Chips Act seems to have an alleged budget of $160bn.
Most Conservatives see more to their philosophy than simply reducing barriers to the free movement of people, capital, and goods, which is why most Conservatives support Brexit.
Nobody who supports Brexit is a Conservative
Lower case c, Scott. Conservatives can be anything they want, including very un-conservative, as parties the world over do not match their name. Plenty of Liberal parties who are conservative.
But is an area where I get confused by the arguments. Some say Brexit was a very unconservative thing to do, others claim it was driven by conservative yearning for a 1950s heydey so was a very conservative thing.
Sometimes they claim both.
It's a version of the No True Scotsman fallacy. The only reliable indicator of a Conservative is whether they usually vote Conservative.
Except in Scottish council by elections.
I understand the local elections are suspended in Scotland now due to the May 2022 local elections
There was one yesterday..
Indeed, which the SNP won. Have been busy in the shed this am so haven't been able to work out if it is a replacement of a first on the list or a lower one, to make sense of the relative changes.
In other Scottish news, I see a Scottish party leader has joined the SNP and, IIRC, DavidL in complaining about the Boundary Commission changes:
There doesn’t seem to be anything in the article that justifies the headline. There’s no inherent reason why windfarms should only be 50ft tall. Poor journalism. Unnecessarily introducing a “fear” angle into a good news story.
On state subsidies it's probably one area where Dom Cummings was right in a sense that he saw where the world was going. The only way the west can compete with highly subsidised Chinese industries undercutting is to have our own. Getting rid of state aid rules was a deal breaker in the EU negotiations for this reason. The EU rules are going to be a huge problem for European countries in the next two decades as the US, Japan, Korea and maybe even the UK climb aboard the state aid train.
China has shown that a planned/command economy can be made to work. The rest of the world has realised that some of that can be transposed to their own countries as well. I expect the UK will have very large state subsidies for science and technology research/development in the next decade that wouldn't have been possible within the EU.
There are about half a dozen fallacies in that post. For a start, selection bias. China has had plenty of failures in subsidising its industries. In the West, we are only conscious of the successful ones, because those are the ones that compete with our industries. Second, Chinese societies like Hong Kong and Singapore have done just as well, or even better, without subsidising and protecting industries to anything like the same extent. Thirdly, subsidising industries often misallocates resources heavily penalises captive or successful parts of the economy. Fourth, we've always been even worse than China at subsidising successful industries, which generally turn into boondoggles for favoured interest groups. Fifth, the part of China's economy that has worked the best is the least planned and distorted part - its state owned industries are generally a heavy drain on the economy. And finally, you're mistaking the natural growth of an economy when it stops shooting itself in the foot with Maoist communism with a triumphant success of state planning.
I am old enough to remember people making similar points about Japanese long-term government led planning in the 1980s. And you can also find people saying similar things about superior Soviet performance in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. Neither of those models are admired at all these days, though China's strategies seem to have been influenced heavily by Japan's and South Korea's.
But I'm afraid that the idea that the government can pick winners is highly seductive, so we'll keep on trying with half-hearted campaigns every few years, and never learn from our repeated failures.
I didn't say I agree with state subsidies, just that in the next 20 years they will become a feature of most advanced economies and Dom Cummings was correct that we'd probably need to have a less restrictive framework than what the EU allows for.
The EU approach on this is interesting. In many ways it is idealistic; if the rest of the world did the same it would be a good thing. In other ways it is naive: they don't. The idealism came from a time when a fairly protectionist and somewhat smaller EU thought that between them they had market enough. That is obviously no longer the case. But surely the most important thing about the EU rules is that it gave the French opportunities to cheat and feel smug about it. They really need that.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
On state subsidies it's probably one area where Dom Cummings was right in a sense that he saw where the world was going. The only way the west can compete with highly subsidised Chinese industries undercutting is to have our own. Getting rid of state aid rules was a deal breaker in the EU negotiations for this reason. The EU rules are going to be a huge problem for European countries in the next two decades as the US, Japan, Korea and maybe even the UK climb aboard the state aid train.
China has shown that a planned/command economy can be made to work. The rest of the world has realised that some of that can be transposed to their own countries as well. I expect the UK will have very large state subsidies for science and technology research/development in the next decade that wouldn't have been possible within the EU.
There are about half a dozen fallacies in that post. For a start, selection bias. China has had plenty of failures in subsidising its industries. In the West, we are only conscious of the successful ones, because those are the ones that compete with our industries. Second, Chinese societies like Hong Kong and Singapore have done just as well, or even better, without subsidising and protecting industries to anything like the same extent. Thirdly, subsidising industries often misallocates resources heavily penalises captive or successful parts of the economy. Fourth, we've always been even worse than China at subsidising successful industries, which generally turn into boondoggles for favoured interest groups. Fifth, the part of China's economy that has worked the best is the least planned and distorted part - its state owned industries are generally a heavy drain on the economy. And finally, you're mistaking the natural growth of an economy when it stops shooting itself in the foot with Maoist communism with a triumphant success of state planning.
I am old enough to remember people making similar points about Japanese long-term government led planning in the 1980s. And you can also find people saying similar things about superior Soviet performance in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. Neither of those models are admired at all these days, though China's strategies seem to have been influenced heavily by Japan's and South Korea's.
But I'm afraid that the idea that the government can pick winners is highly seductive, so we'll keep on trying with half-hearted campaigns every few years, and never learn from our repeated failures.
I didn't say I agree with state subsidies, just that in the next 20 years they will become a feature of most advanced economies and Dom Cummings was correct that we'd probably need to have a less restrictive framework than what the EU allows for.
Why? Just because other countries shoot themselves in the foot, why should we do so?
UK companies will find it impossible to compete with the winners that do get picked which will erode our tax base. Ideally all companies would junk the idea, but that's not going to happen.
No.
Even if a country suffers discrimination against its own industries, it is irrational for it to retaliate. The best strategy for us is to buy their subsidised and protected goods, and use the cheaper goods either as inputs for our industries or to improve its standard of living.
The problem with selling that is political (most people, including Dominic Cummings, do not have higher degrees in economics and are seduced by protectionist fallacies), not economic.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Most Conservatives see more to their philosophy than simply reducing barriers to the free movement of people, capital, and goods, which is why most Conservatives support Brexit.
Nobody who supports Brexit is a Conservative
Lower case c, Scott. Conservatives can be anything they want, including very un-conservative, as parties the world over do not match their name. Plenty of Liberal parties who are conservative.
But is an area where I get confused by the arguments. Some say Brexit was a very unconservative thing to do, others claim it was driven by conservative yearning for a 1950s heydey so was a very conservative thing.
Sometimes they claim both.
It's a version of the No True Scotsman fallacy. The only reliable indicator of a Conservative is whether they usually vote Conservative.
Except in Scottish council by elections.
I understand the local elections are suspended in Scotland now due to the May 2022 local elections
There was one yesterday..
Indeed, which the SNP won. Have been busy in the shed this am so haven't been able to work out if it is a replacement of a first on the list or a lower one, to make sense of the relative changes.
In other Scottish news, I see a Scottish party leader has joined the SNP and, IIRC, DavidL in complaining about the Boundary Commission changes:
I wasn't really complaining. I just thought that it was odd that Scone was becoming a part of Angus despite being in deepest Perthshire and Arbroath was becoming a part of Dundee East despite having a lot more in common with the lands to the north of it than Dundee.
I also said, in fairness, that I did not envy their task.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
Golden rule, acquiring wealth is deeply virtuous if you're a righty, deeply sinful if you're a lefty.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
There doesn’t seem to be anything in the article that justifies the headline. There’s no inherent reason why windfarms should only be 50ft tall. Poor journalism. Unnecessarily introducing a “fear” angle into a good news story.
It is rather annoying if you have a nice business making 200ft wind turbines, if the new standard becomes 250ft.
If only the government would step in and stop those nasty innovators innovating.....
It isn't innovators though, it's a Chinese state subsidised company stealing IP and undercutting a European company.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Agreed. We could do with losing roughly half of the world's population over (a considerable) time. And Japan has demonstrated that that does not necessarily mean the end of your economy.
On tax incentives vs targeted subsidies, this is a live debate at the moment because the evidence is mixed on tax breaks. I can speak from a bit of knowledge here as my day job involves advising companies on how and where to set up their cross border supply chains, IP and headquarters.
Most tax incentive regimes, like the patent box, our R&D credit rules or the recent CT superdeduction, are quite difficult to quantify for an individual business before making the decision and it's hard to get certainty about the value before investing. That comes later with the tax return and possible tax enquiries from HMRC. Particularly the case for R&D credits which are highly fact specific. Most companies invest as they would have done anyway, and then work out what they can or can't claim after the event.
Most grants, and some subsidies, on the other hand are awarded to the individual business following an application process. That means they get certainty of the financial benefit before investing. It is easier to track and monitor the success of subsidy regimes in encouraging domestic investment or FDI by monitoring takeup. We see this very clearly in stats around green incentives like solar FITs and insulation subsidies.
Tax regimes can be more targeted and involve up-front certainty / rulings, but then they run the risk of negative coverage as "sweetheart deals". Not something that has traditionally bothered the likes of Singapore or Switzerland but a big issue in the UK, and over in the EU the issue with tax rulings is they can fall foul of state aid rules as Ireland has discovered.
So there are downsides of picking winners, but there are also downsides of overly broad untargeted regimes that sometimes just give a post-facto benefit to businesses without actually changing behaviour.
There doesn’t seem to be anything in the article that justifies the headline. There’s no inherent reason why windfarms should only be 50ft tall. Poor journalism. Unnecessarily introducing a “fear” angle into a good news story.
It is rather annoying if you have a nice business making 200ft wind turbines, if the new standard becomes 250ft.
If only the government would step in and stop those nasty innovators innovating.....
It isn't innovators though, it's a Chinese state subsidised company stealing IP and undercutting a European company.
Perhaps, in part. But the race to increase turbine size has been going on for a while and is driven by reducing costs per watt of generated power.
On state subsidies it's probably one area where Dom Cummings was right in a sense that he saw where the world was going. The only way the west can compete with highly subsidised Chinese industries undercutting is to have our own. Getting rid of state aid rules was a deal breaker in the EU negotiations for this reason. The EU rules are going to be a huge problem for European countries in the next two decades as the US, Japan, Korea and maybe even the UK climb aboard the state aid train.
China has shown that a planned/command economy can be made to work. The rest of the world has realised that some of that can be transposed to their own countries as well. I expect the UK will have very large state subsidies for science and technology research/development in the next decade that wouldn't have been possible within the EU.
There are about half a dozen fallacies in that post. For a start, selection bias. China has had plenty of failures in subsidising its industries. In the West, we are only conscious of the successful ones, because those are the ones that compete with our industries. Second, Chinese societies like Hong Kong and Singapore have done just as well, or even better, without subsidising and protecting industries to anything like the same extent. Thirdly, subsidising industries often misallocates resources heavily penalises captive or successful parts of the economy. Fourth, we've always been even worse than China at subsidising successful industries, which generally turn into boondoggles for favoured interest groups. Fifth, the part of China's economy that has worked the best is the least planned and distorted part - its state owned industries are generally a heavy drain on the economy. And finally, you're mistaking the natural growth of an economy when it stops shooting itself in the foot with Maoist communism with a triumphant success of state planning.
I am old enough to remember people making similar points about Japanese long-term government led planning in the 1980s. And you can also find people saying similar things about superior Soviet performance in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. Neither of those models are admired at all these days, though China's strategies seem to have been influenced heavily by Japan's and South Korea's.
But I'm afraid that the idea that the government can pick winners is highly seductive, so we'll keep on trying with half-hearted campaigns every few years, and never learn from our repeated failures.
I didn't say I agree with state subsidies, just that in the next 20 years they will become a feature of most advanced economies and Dom Cummings was correct that we'd probably need to have a less restrictive framework than what the EU allows for.
Why? Just because other countries shoot themselves in the foot, why should we do so?
UK companies will find it impossible to compete with the winners that do get picked which will erode our tax base. Ideally all companies would junk the idea, but that's not going to happen.
No.
Even if a country suffers discrimination against its own industries, it is irrational for it to retaliate. The best strategy for us is to buy their subsidised and protected goods, and use the cheaper goods either as inputs for our industries or to improve its standard of living.
The problem with selling that is political (most people, including Dominic Cummings, do not have higher degrees in economics and are seduced by protectionist fallacies), not economic.
This assumes that your competitor has benign intentions.
I've always thought that in the sprawling mess of Rattle and Hum one of the all time great albums was struggling to get out. Angel of Harlem is another classic.
Very good, not heard that and thought about it in ages (my old vinyl copy of Rattle and Hum Being in a storage locker somewhere).
“Don’t believe in riches, but you should see where I live…”
I love the lines "Don't believe when they tell me that there ain't no cure, The rich stay healthy and the sick stay poor"
But the mass of contradictions in every verse finished off with the simplistic nostrum "I, I believe in love" is brutal.
There doesn’t seem to be anything in the article that justifies the headline. There’s no inherent reason why windfarms should only be 50ft tall. Poor journalism. Unnecessarily introducing a “fear” angle into a good news story.
It is rather annoying if you have a nice business making 200ft wind turbines, if the new standard becomes 250ft.
If only the government would step in and stop those nasty innovators innovating.....
It isn't innovators though, it's a Chinese state subsidised company stealing IP and undercutting a European company.
Well the fears seem largely to be developers' fears that they won't make a profit.
I think Malmesbury was thinking about the planning limits on the size of onshore development.
These have been relaxed, but there will probably be a large scale replacement of onshore wind assets, as a number of the best sites were planning consent limited in the size they were allowed to build at the time. (I see there's a Scottish onshore development with 220m turbines being developed).
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
By far the best economic way to deal with declining population is for the remaining world population to concentrate ever more into a smaller area through mass migration to the centres of economic activity, allowing the rest of the world to depopulate and rewild. This is great news for the environment, it means we don't see the same crunch in the working age population, and it increases the efficiency of capital flows.
Socially, culturally and politically of course it's a deeply unpopular option. But it's where the logic lies. It's already happened on a smaller scale within shrinking demographies like Germany and Italy, and to some extent across borders in Europe too.
I think one also has to take self-interest into account: most universities are dependent on public funding, and their employees an extension of the broader public sector, so you'd expect them to skew left on economics to an extent as their livelihoods depend on it. It's the same for actors, and why they almost all join Equity.
Furthermore, the character of those interested in undertaking pioneering academic research will tend to be those interested in exploring something different to how society operates at present, and to do so largely in solitude, so whilst you will get some great ideas and breakthroughs here and there you'll also get some outlandish wackiness than doesn't translate into the real world.
Not convinced by this. Police & army are also publicly funded, but probably skew right wing... Actors on the other hand surely normally are self-employed and get their money from private tv/film production companies?
But, they're normally viewed more sympathetically by right-wing Governments.
Most actors earn peanuts and rely on Equity for a fair wage as they know there are thousands of others who'd otherwise do the work for next to nothing. The one we know who are in a position to do what you describe are the top 0.1%.
Yes, actors as a group have a median wage barely over minimum wage, and the vast majority of them earn “Equity Scale”. They are mostly self-employed, have long periods of unemployment and their work is in cities with high living costs.
It’s not particularly surprising that most of them are politically left of centre; what grates is when those very few who make big money think they can use their profile to opinionate. They simply don’t see they’re being completely hypocritical, being happy to see the market pay them massive wages based purely on their name.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
You are right, it is, but I think it is a bullet worth biting.
if we can get 3rd world standards up it will happen anyway and then rather than encouraging people to have more babies we should look at how to overcome the problems the reducing population creates.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
You're astonished that right wingers don't like the dream of a left wing hippy? Really?
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Agreed. We could do with losing roughly half of the world's population over (a considerable) time. And Japan has demonstrated that that does not necessarily mean the end of your economy.
It may not mean the end of your economy, it does mean a vastly higher tax burden for those in the workforce to fund the ageing population
I've always thought that in the sprawling mess of Rattle and Hum one of the all time great albums was struggling to get out. Angel of Harlem is another classic.
Very good, not heard that and thought about it in ages (my old vinyl copy of Rattle and Hum Being in a storage locker somewhere).
“Don’t believe in riches, but you should see where I live…”
I love the lines "Don't believe when they tell me that there ain't no cure, The rich stay healthy and the sick stay poor"
But the mass of contradictions in every verse finished off with the simplistic nostrum "I, I believe in love" is brutal.
I view the world envisaged in "Imagine" as a dystopia, not a utopia,
On state subsidies it's probably one area where Dom Cummings was right in a sense that he saw where the world was going. The only way the west can compete with highly subsidised Chinese industries undercutting is to have our own. Getting rid of state aid rules was a deal breaker in the EU negotiations for this reason. The EU rules are going to be a huge problem for European countries in the next two decades as the US, Japan, Korea and maybe even the UK climb aboard the state aid train.
China has shown that a planned/command economy can be made to work. The rest of the world has realised that some of that can be transposed to their own countries as well. I expect the UK will have very large state subsidies for science and technology research/development in the next decade that wouldn't have been possible within the EU.
There are about half a dozen fallacies in that post. For a start, selection bias. China has had plenty of failures in subsidising its industries. In the West, we are only conscious of the successful ones, because those are the ones that compete with our industries. Second, Chinese societies like Hong Kong and Singapore have done just as well, or even better, without subsidising and protecting industries to anything like the same extent. Thirdly, subsidising industries often misallocates resources heavily penalises captive or successful parts of the economy. Fourth, we've always been even worse than China at subsidising successful industries, which generally turn into boondoggles for favoured interest groups. Fifth, the part of China's economy that has worked the best is the least planned and distorted part - its state owned industries are generally a heavy drain on the economy. And finally, you're mistaking the natural growth of an economy when it stops shooting itself in the foot with Maoist communism with a triumphant success of state planning.
I am old enough to remember people making similar points about Japanese long-term government led planning in the 1980s. And you can also find people saying similar things about superior Soviet performance in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. Neither of those models are admired at all these days, though China's strategies seem to have been influenced heavily by Japan's and South Korea's.
But I'm afraid that the idea that the government can pick winners is highly seductive, so we'll keep on trying with half-hearted campaigns every few years, and never learn from our repeated failures.
I didn't say I agree with state subsidies, just that in the next 20 years they will become a feature of most advanced economies and Dom Cummings was correct that we'd probably need to have a less restrictive framework than what the EU allows for.
Why? Just because other countries shoot themselves in the foot, why should we do so?
UK companies will find it impossible to compete with the winners that do get picked which will erode our tax base. Ideally all companies would junk the idea, but that's not going to happen.
The free market ideologues are guilty of perpetuating fallacies in a comparable manner to that of the enthusiasts for state intervention in everything. As with virtually everything that matters, it is complicated, and dogma isn't much help in formulating successful policies.
There doesn’t seem to be anything in the article that justifies the headline. There’s no inherent reason why windfarms should only be 50ft tall. Poor journalism. Unnecessarily introducing a “fear” angle into a good news story.
It is rather annoying if you have a nice business making 200ft wind turbines, if the new standard becomes 250ft.
If only the government would step in and stop those nasty innovators innovating.....
It isn't innovators though, it's a Chinese state subsidised company stealing IP and undercutting a European company.
Well the fears seem largely to be developers' fears that they won't make a profit.
I think Malmesbury was thinking about the planning limits on the size of onshore development.
These have been relaxed, but there will probably be a large scale replacement of onshore wind assets, as a number of the best sites were planning consent limited in the size they were allowed to build at the time. (I see there's a Scottish onshore development with 220m turbines being developed).
Well isn't that the point of the Chinese company? Be a loss making entity, force everyone else out of business and then corner the market.
If it wasn't for Trump pushing back against Huawei they would own the 5G market completely.
Such is the US-style partisanship of everything Brexit these days (and everything Covid, which in some ways has become even more partisan) that it seems some people are incapable of accepting that many of the supply chain problems we have are global, and other people are incapable of accepting - or perhaps admitting - that Brexit could be making things worse.
It may be pure coincidence but so many of the things that are now transpiring are soft-edged versions of exactly what I and my colleagues spent 4 years advising clients to prepare for in the event of no-deal. Including the terminology - I can dig out various bits of advice talking about cabotage, sanitary and phytosanitary checks, shortages of water treatment chemicals, costs per pallet for customs documentation, micro traders ceasing to sell into the UK, and so on. We also advised on potential long term upsides including greater automation, supply chain innovation, retraining. Things the government are now belatedly talking about.
One thing we got very wrong was the impact on circulation and the notorious Kent traffic jam that never happened. The lorries didn't clog up the M20, they just stayed at home (as did half the working population because of Covid).
Such is the US-style partisanship of everything Brexit these days (and everything Covid, which in some ways has become even more partisan) that it seems some people are incapable of accepting that many of the supply chain problems we have are global, and other people are incapable of accepting - or perhaps admitting - that Brexit could be making things worse.
It may be pure coincidence but so many of the things that are now transpiring are soft-edged versions of exactly what I and my colleagues spent 4 years advising clients to prepare for in the event of no-deal. Including the terminology - I can dig out various bits of advice talking about cabotage, sanitary and phytosanitary checks, shortages of water treatment chemicals, costs per pallet for customs documentation, micro traders ceasing to sell into the UK, and so on. We also advised on potential long term upsides including greater automation, supply chain innovation, retraining. Things the government are now belatedly talking about.
One thing we got very wrong was the impact on circulation and the notorious Kent traffic jam that never happened. The lorries didn't clog up the M20, they just stayed at home (as did half the working population because of Covid).
Andrew Pierce made the point on GMB it was a global crisis which is exacerbated in the UK by Brexit. Denied by his Labour supporting Chum who put it all down to Brexit. I think that is right. Brexit has not helped but the problems are largely global.
I think what does not help is FBPE head cases blame Brexit for everything and basically lie and overexaggerate about some of the issues we have such as so-called shortages in supermarkets. Of course die hard brexiteers are just as bad too.
As for the cabotage changes surely this is all part of taking back control ? Would we have the flexibility to do this had we been in the EU. I do not know.
The major underlying issue is that the world's economy has been built on global supply chains / JIT logistics and that its limitations have been tested globally by the pandemic and exacerbated in the UK by Brexit. Longer-term, I think we are going to see quite significant on-shoring, particularly in the UK.
One other point. I always saw Brexit as a long-term thing, not short-term transformation, which is why I think the analogy of Irish independence vs the UK is quite a useful one.
Absolutely right. JIT supply chains only work when the whole global supply chain is functioning smoothly. If you are a car maker and you buy your glass windows from China or your interior trim from China, due to cheaper labour costs, and you are reliant on continuity of supply then the moment this happens you are stuffed. All the supplier has to do is declare Force Majeure and, in that case, won’t be liable to any consequential losses being passed back.
There will be significant onshoring to come in the future, you are quite right, as people evaluate the risk v reward. It has been seen as, if not risk free, minimal risk. Not any more. The reality is coming back to bite companies who pushed the Low Cost Country Sourcing mantra, indeed mandated it to their supply chain in many cases – hello Car Industry !!!.
One of the principle shortages for manufacturing has been in semiconductors. There is almost no chance of our onshoring that industry - rather more chance in Europe.
Tbh, I'm not sure Europe will get much of a bite either. Projects that are currently proceeding are in Korea, Japan and the US. No country in Europe will get the chequebook out and it would need a complete rewrite of state aid rules. Intel are talking big about a new EU foundry but they're also asking for €8bn. Who is going to give them that subsidy and how will they do it without breaking state aid rules? No one seems to know the answer to the questions and that means countries who are happy to pay the money are getting foundries. Aiui the new Japanese government is readying a $100bn industrial regeneration fund and the US is doing something similar, no country in the EU (or the UK) can compete with that.
We all want to decouple from China and Chinese supply chains but we're relying in private companies to do it in Europe. That's just never going to happen because companies will always pick the cheaper option and the cheaper option will generally be a Chinese import. In the end we just have to hope we can hang onto the coat tails of Japan and US to benefit from their state aid programmes. I don't see the UK or EU having anything close to what those two are doing.
The EU Chips Act seems to have an alleged budget of $160bn.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
Bit like those people who rush to point out that Bryan Adams was only nine in the summer of 1969.
On tax incentives vs targeted subsidies, this is a live debate at the moment because the evidence is mixed on tax breaks. I can speak from a bit of knowledge here as my day job involves advising companies on how and where to set up their cross border supply chains, IP and headquarters.
Most tax incentive regimes, like the patent box, our R&D credit rules or the recent CT superdeduction, are quite difficult to quantify for an individual business before making the decision and it's hard to get certainty about the value before investing. That comes later with the tax return and possible tax enquiries from HMRC. Particularly the case for R&D credits which are highly fact specific. Most companies invest as they would have done anyway, and then work out what they can or can't claim after the event.
Most grants, and some subsidies, on the other hand are awarded to the individual business following an application process. That means they get certainty of the financial benefit before investing. It is easier to track and monitor the success of subsidy regimes in encouraging domestic investment or FDI by monitoring takeup. We see this very clearly in stats around green incentives like solar FITs and insulation subsidies.
Tax regimes can be more targeted and involve up-front certainty / rulings, but then they run the risk of negative coverage as "sweetheart deals". Not something that has traditionally bothered the likes of Singapore or Switzerland but a big issue in the UK, and over in the EU the issue with tax rulings is they can fall foul of state aid rules as Ireland has discovered.
So there are downsides of picking winners, but there are also downsides of overly broad untargeted regimes that sometimes just give a post-facto benefit to businesses without actually changing behaviour.
Interesting, thanks. My concern about State aid is that all too often it facilitates the undercutting of competition which might otherwise have thrived and can result in the risks being borne by the taxpayer and the profit by the shareholder. But as investments become more complex and massive, such as a new chip factory, it is completely unrealistic to think that some sharing of the risks can be avoided.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
By far the best economic way to deal with declining population is for the remaining world population to concentrate ever more into a smaller area through mass migration to the centres of economic activity, allowing the rest of the world to depopulate and rewild. This is great news for the environment, it means we don't see the same crunch in the working age population, and it increases the efficiency of capital flows.
Socially, culturally and politically of course it's a deeply unpopular option. But it's where the logic lies. It's already happened on a smaller scale within shrinking demographies like Germany and Italy, and to some extent across borders in Europe too.
Most people do not want to live in overpopulated concrete jungles, certainly past 30-35
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
An example of the free market which could do with a little more fettering...
Dying oil and gas wells are a climate menace. One company — Diversified Energy — has amassed about 69,000 wells across the U.S. Our reporters went to some of those sites and found that many were emitting methane. [THREAD] https://twitter.com/climate/status/1448679620069531649
Regarding Brexit, I think it is possible that it will end up getting cancelled. A few people will be fuming; but most will just shrug their shoulders and get on with life.
Not a chance in hell.
It can't be cancelled, it's happened. And it won't be reversed either.
Neither politicians nor the public are going to want to go through that again, and even if we did have a collective reversal the French would say non.
England will never again be a part of the EU.
It can. All it takes is for a government consumed by woke thinking to declare the whole thing as racist and proscribe any opposition to rejoining the EU on the same grounds. And then they can just sign us back up again on whatever terms the EU demand. You think that this is mad but that is how a lot of woke remainers think.
Or perhaps more accurately, how you think 'a lot of woke remainers' think. You have at least given us some insight into how you think...
I had my company leaving drinks last night. I was sitting in the corner with an ex-colleague (alumni of the firm) who's a very dark skinned female Egyptian in her mid-40s who - totally unprompted - spent 3 minutes ranting to me about how Woke the firm had become and how it was totally OTT. We were both slightly worse for wear but she was fed up being categorised and its divisiveness.
An ever bigger smile crept across my face as I listened and I eventually had to politely interrupt her to say I agreed with her 100%. 110%. 500%.
Sometimes people surprise you.
Your company sounds like an awful place to work.
That's why I left.
And why I've always been fairly relaxed about "political correctness/woke gone mad" in the private sector*. Companies that persistently do stupid things and enact stupid policies will lose good people and, consequently, do less well (even beyond losing good people if they waste their employees time). The market will sort it out, most likely. Equally, companies with a sexist/racist/homophobic culture will like fail too. The ones that prosper will be those with a good atmosphere based on sensible policies, open debate and compromise.
*And, indeed, most of the public sector - people there will also leave jobs if it gets too painful, the exceptions perhaps being health care and teaching where there are fewer opportunities to change job without also changing career, the private sector roles being fewer in number.
I've got little time for this 'meh, it will sort itself out' argument, which is rather dismissive and lazy. You might well be "relaxed" about it - I can assure you the last two years have been anything but relaxing for me.
If (and it's a big "if") what you describe happens it will take years and years - there will be a lot of dislocated careers and upset people along the way, people who didn't necessarily want to leave or move in the first place.
It's far better for open conversations to take place across government, the civil service, the major corporates, the third sector and media *now* about what common sense looks like - and exert a bit of leadership on best practice and guidance.
Otherwise, radical activists will fill the void under cloak of inclusion and be misguidedly followed by far too many.
Aye, there's something in that. I'm not really sure how we get there though, good luck to anyone writing guidance. Unfortunately we probably need a few stupid employer decisions getting slapped down at tribunals/in the courts to help those that need it work out what is sane.
Mostly, I guess I'm relaxed because I don't see these problems day to day and neither do my colleagues, friends, family (at least, none have mentioned it). That makes me think the stupidity is far more limited than media reports would have us believe. I do accept there may be whole industries infected with stupidity, beyond my experience.
We have had unconscious bias training (mandatory only for those involved in hiring, although open to all, not sure if/when it has to be renewed) and - actually - it was good and well done, it gave me some things to think about. It went beyond the usual things into ageism etc. There's equalities monitoring, but transparency about how that is used (I mentioned the other day the example of finding that women apply for promotion later). That's about it. I don't have to put my pronouns on my emails. I'm allowed to talk about sex rather than gender in papers. And this is in a university, so - we'd be led to believe - it should be awful. It's not, not here.
I would be interested in some examples of the problems at your old employer, if you can provide suitably anonymous examples. As it's something I haven't really experienced, I do accept it's hard for me to judge.
Thanks @Selebian. Happy to discuss privately over VM if you'd like.
VM? A couple of examples via direct message on here would be helpful (I assume you're concerned they could identify you if made public? I don't know who you are and you don't know who I am, but the mods have my name via my email address, so I have some accountability. I won't share anything further.)
Still, if it's not something you can really share in a generic, non-identifiable way then maybe you should not share. I'm not after examples to prove your veracity, which I do not doubt, just after examples of the kind of thing. All I've got so far is demographic information being collected in forms (not problematic to me; how it is used could be though). So other stuff, like you all being required to put your pronouns on email/letters and/or having to use some dictionary of terms for every eventuality. Or examples of nonsense training (I can see that unconscious bias training could be done in a terrible way - I once had to do research ethics training at a previous employer, which came down to "don't make up results, don't steal results, don't hide results that don't favour your worldview, don't plagiarise" - not particularly enlightening!)
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
Bit like those people who rush to point out that Bryan Adams was only nine in the summer of 1969.
I always took that as evidence that the song wasn't referring to the year.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
Bit like those people who rush to point out that Bryan Adams was only nine in the summer of 1969.
I always took that as evidence that the song wasn't referring to the year.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
And the music is about to stop.
I'd rather be alive now than at almost any point in history.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Agreed. We could do with losing roughly half of the world's population over (a considerable) time. And Japan has demonstrated that that does not necessarily mean the end of your economy.
It may not mean the end of your economy, it does mean a vastly higher tax burden for those in the workforce to fund the ageing population
Not necessarily. In Japan they have used technology to provide care for the elderly in a big way, for example. If we had invested in anything like the same we wouldn't be worrying about a shortage of care workers and the "output" of those who were employed would be massively higher. The per capita productivity is key and technology can do far more there than it has done to date.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
And the music is about to stop.
You didn't have a great great uncle Malthus, did you ?
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. If we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we will need more babies not fewer to get more workers to fund the healthcare of the ageing population and state pensions
That is because all Western countries have bought into an unsustainable ponzi scheme. In the long run we have to change that model because it will eventually fail of its own accord. Using that as an excuse for increasing the world's population is utterly irrational and ultimately self defeating.
There doesn’t seem to be anything in the article that justifies the headline. There’s no inherent reason why windfarms should only be 50ft tall. Poor journalism. Unnecessarily introducing a “fear” angle into a good news story.
It is rather annoying if you have a nice business making 200ft wind turbines, if the new standard becomes 250ft.
If only the government would step in and stop those nasty innovators innovating.....
It isn't innovators though, it's a Chinese state subsidised company stealing IP and undercutting a European company.
Well the fears seem largely to be developers' fears that they won't make a profit.
I think Malmesbury was thinking about the planning limits on the size of onshore development.
These have been relaxed, but there will probably be a large scale replacement of onshore wind assets, as a number of the best sites were planning consent limited in the size they were allowed to build at the time. (I see there's a Scottish onshore development with 220m turbines being developed).
Well isn't that the point of the Chinese company? Be a loss making entity, force everyone else out of business and then corner the market.
If it wasn't for Trump pushing back against Huawei they would own the 5G market completely.
Loath as I am to give him credit for anything, I have to agree with this.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
And the music is about to stop.
Oh snap. I hadn't seen you comment when I wrote pretty much the same thing.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
And the music is about to stop.
I'd rather be alive now than at almost any point in history.
I've always thought that in the sprawling mess of Rattle and Hum one of the all time great albums was struggling to get out. Angel of Harlem is another classic.
Very good, not heard that and thought about it in ages (my old vinyl copy of Rattle and Hum Being in a storage locker somewhere).
“Don’t believe in riches, but you should see where I live…”
I love the lines "Don't believe when they tell me that there ain't no cure, The rich stay healthy and the sick stay poor"
But the mass of contradictions in every verse finished off with the simplistic nostrum "I, I believe in love" is brutal.
I view the world envisaged in "Imagine" as a dystopia, not a utopia,
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
And the music is about to stop.
I'd rather be alive now than at almost any point in history.
I'm just glad to still be alive. And the doctor this morning gave me a follow up appointment more than 2 weeks away which I regard as profoundly encouraging!
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
And the music is about to stop.
I'd rather be alive now than at almost any point in history.
So would I. But that is because we are currently enjoying the thrill of the skydive but haven't yet realised we forgot to pack the parachute.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Agreed. We could do with losing roughly half of the world's population over (a considerable) time. And Japan has demonstrated that that does not necessarily mean the end of your economy.
It may not mean the end of your economy, it does mean a vastly higher tax burden for those in the workforce to fund the ageing population
Not necessarily. In Japan they have used technology to provide care for the elderly in a big way, for example. If we had invested in anything like the same we wouldn't be worrying about a shortage of care workers and the "output" of those who were employed would be massively higher. The per capita productivity is key and technology can do far more there than it has done to date.
That extra technology for the ageing population still needs to be paid for and can only go so far.
There are also the extra hospital costs, drugs costs for the ageing population using state healthcare to consider as well even if they don't need social care
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
And the music is about to stop.
I'd rather be alive now than at almost any point in history.
I'm just glad to still be alive. And the doctor this morning gave me a follow up appointment more than 2 weeks away which I regard as profoundly encouraging!
You are offering the government a great spin on those waiting lists.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
Bit like those people who rush to point out that Bryan Adams was only nine in the summer of 1969.
I always took that as evidence that the song wasn't referring to the year.
I think Adams himself somewhat admitted to the smutty interpretation. That saddened me in a way. I'd always felt that having it as the year 1969 was to imbue it with a 'Withnail and I', end-of-an-era poignancy.
They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworth's, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
Bit like those people who rush to point out that Bryan Adams was only nine in the summer of 1969.
On a rather unrelated note, other than song years..
"December 1963 (Oh What A Night)" by The Four Seasons was originally written as "5th December 1933" - the day when prohibition was ended (so a boozing celebration song, I'd like to hear that version!), and 9 years years before Bob Gaudio the composer was born. Frankie Valli and Judy Parker (who co-wrote the song, and later married Gaudio), urged him to rewrite it to be about the night when Bob and Judy met.
A fine nerdy thread on the PCR test failures. (Which incidentally demonstrates how difficult it would be to fake the figures and not have it noticed by someone.)
UK Covid Mystery Thread #2. In a recent thread, I highlighted anomalies in case data in 9 particular LTLAs in the South West region, and stated my theory that there was an intermittent but ongoing PCR processing problem. Sorry, but this is gonna be long. https://twitter.com/ArtySmokesPS/status/1448927559970967556
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
You're astonished that right wingers don't like the dream of a left wing hippy? Really?
Sense it's not a critique of the lyrics more of a rich rock star's "hypocrisy" in writing them.
He ought to have been crafting a haunting ballad about the Laffer curve.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. If we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we will need more babies not fewer to get more workers to fund the healthcare of the ageing population and state pensions
That is because all Western countries have bought into an unsustainable ponzi scheme. In the long run we have to change that model because it will eventually fail of its own accord. Using that as an excuse for increasing the world's population is utterly irrational and ultimately self defeating.
Good luck with getting elected promising to abolish all state funded healthcare and state funded social care and abolish all state pensions and fund healthcare and social care only with private insurance and private assets and pensions only with private contributory pensions alone.
I was not arguing for increasing the global population anyway, just keeping it at replacement level
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
And the music is about to stop.
I'd rather be alive now than at almost any point in history.
I'm just glad to still be alive. And the doctor this morning gave me a follow up appointment more than 2 weeks away which I regard as profoundly encouraging!
You are offering the government a great spin on those waiting lists.
Interestingly, my GP practice is now back to the full pre-Covid service with the same number of face to face appointments as before. My GP admitted that other doctors in other practices are not quite so keen to open their doors but well done them.
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
In other words, human civilization is one big Ponzi scheme.
And the music is about to stop.
I'd rather be alive now than at almost any point in history.
What about in 100 years time?
Obviously, I can't know what life will be like then. But, history is full of predictions that Armageddon is just around the corner which were not fulfilled. If humanity can survive two world wars, hundreds of nasty conflicts worldwide, pandemics, famines (just looking at the last hundred years) then I'm inclined to think the future will be okay.
A fine nerdy thread on the PCR test failures. (Which incidentally demonstrates how difficult it would be to fake the figures and not have it noticed by someone.)
UK Covid Mystery Thread #2. In a recent thread, I highlighted anomalies in case data in 9 particular LTLAs in the South West region, and stated my theory that there was an intermittent but ongoing PCR processing problem. Sorry, but this is gonna be long. https://twitter.com/ArtySmokesPS/status/1448927559970967556
Is it overly simplistic to conclude that if the number of positive tests have been materially understated it means that the vaccines are even better than we thought?
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
You're astonished that right wingers don't like the dream of a left wing hippy? Really?
Sense it's not a critique of the lyrics more of a rich rock star's "hypocrisy" in writing them.
He ought to have been crafting a haunting ballad about the Laffer curve.
I was the one who brought it up, and I was criticising the lyrics.
Whether he's hypocritical or not, that 'dream' is a nightmare.
Sean_F said "I'd rather be alive now than at almost any point in history."
Richard_Tyndall said "So would I. But that is because we are currently enjoying the thrill of the skydive but haven't yet realised we forgot to pack the parachute."
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
Bit like those people who rush to point out that Bryan Adams was only nine in the summer of 1969.
I always took that as evidence that the song wasn't referring to the year.
I think Adams himself somewhat admitted to the smutty interpretation. That saddened me in a way. I'd always felt that having it as the year 1969 was to imbue it with a 'Withnail and I', end-of-an-era poignancy.
They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworth's, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over.
He has admitted the song is about the first year he had wild sex, including that (overrated) sexual position
Relatedly, Stairway to Heaven is, in part, about puberty and orgasm
‘If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now It's just a spring clean for the May queen’
I've always thought that in the sprawling mess of Rattle and Hum one of the all time great albums was struggling to get out. Angel of Harlem is another classic.
Very good, not heard that and thought about it in ages (my old vinyl copy of Rattle and Hum Being in a storage locker somewhere).
“Don’t believe in riches, but you should see where I live…”
I love the lines "Don't believe when they tell me that there ain't no cure, The rich stay healthy and the sick stay poor"
But the mass of contradictions in every verse finished off with the simplistic nostrum "I, I believe in love" is brutal.
I view the world envisaged in "Imagine" as a dystopia, not a utopia,
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
Bit like those people who rush to point out that Bryan Adams was only nine in the summer of 1969.
On a rather unrelated note, other than song years..
"December 1963 (Oh What A Night)" by The Four Seasons was originally written as "5th December 1933" - the day when prohibition was ended (so a boozing celebration song, I'd like to hear that version!), and 9 years years before Bob Gaudio the composer was born. Frankie Valli and Judy Parker (who co-wrote the song, and later married Gaudio), urged him to rewrite it to be about the night when Bob and Judy met.
The only other thing I know about Frankie Valli is that he sang the theme tune to Grease, which also had Barry Gibb (who wrote it) on backing vocals, and Peter Frampton on guitar.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
You're astonished that right wingers don't like the dream of a left wing hippy? Really?
Sense it's not a critique of the lyrics more of a rich rock star's "hypocrisy" in writing them.
He ought to have been crafting a haunting ballad about the Laffer curve.
Open goal missed. It rhymes with "lurve". Amateur!
c) Try this out. It is very very crude as stuff isn't linear which I am assuming it is but it will do for the explanation as otherwise it would be very complex
According to the internet the output from humans of CO2 through just breathing is about 1kg per day
Let us say the average profligate factor for a country is 'x' That is how many more times per head CO2 is produced in that economy
Let us say the population is 'y'
Let us say the birth rate is 'w'
Let us say a generation is replaced every 'z' years.
Let us say that the year you want to predict the CO2 output for is 'v' years away
The CO2 output for that country is then 1xywv/2z
[snip]
Now waiting for this absolute drivel of maths to be massacred as I know there are lot more able people on PB than me. Sorry!
In general you are right but there is a factorial change that you need to take into account. We're supposed to be getting to "net zero" where everyone is net responsible for zero emissions.
On your formula you can drop the 1 it isn't doing anything or necessary so xywv/2z is the formula.
Now swap out x for 0 since we've moved to net zero.
The formula then becomes 0ywv/2z = 0
w (and y) cease to matter once they're multiplied by 0. They only matter if we're not at zero.
So the technology to get us to zero is what matters. Once you've done that, then the quantity of people is irrelevant.
The 1 was there to show the 1 kg had been taken into account when multiplied by the profligation factor. It was in response to @HYUFD 's statement yesterday hence why I showed all of that, but other than the whopper of assumptions I made re being linear and not taking into account exponential growth that applies to births there is also a whopper of an error. Hint see what happens if you put in a prediction for 1 year away!
I don't want to embarrass myself any further.
Just trying to prove to HYUFD that population is a factor in CO2 production, which to be honest shouldn't need stating after all zero people produce none, some people produce some, lots of people produce more. For most people that is a given, but this is HYUFD we are dealing with.
Indeed but its only a factor if we've failed to reach net zero.
The issue is we're supposed to be using our technology to get to net zero. If we can get to net zero then it doesn't matter what our population is. 1 million, ten million, 7 billion or 50 billion - whatever figure you times by zero the answer is always zero.
I hate to say this but HYUFD is right on this one. For the wrong logic, but he's right. Technology is the key. If our technology makes us reach net zero then having double or half the population times by zero won't make any difference at all.
I don't disagree with that. Never did disagree with the issue (if you see the posts I agreed with HYUFD on that). It is the bloody logic that gets me.
Sadly I think if we are going to get out of the mess it may be that we do have to rely on technology like carbon capture (I don't see us doing it any other way) before it is too late as I don't see other technical advancements coming in time. I'm not sure how that works in a capitalist world though.
Of course if we overcome the carbon issue, population growth will bring the next lot of issues with it (water, food, etc). I am very pro population control as a solution (not in the Hitler type of way) as that can be very rapid (within a generation). It does mean though we can't have constant growth and there are a multitude of other problems like the age issue to deal with also with this approach, which means many don't like it. I suspect you may be in that camp.
Re HYUFD: As always with him it is the logic and only the logic. I mean he made the point that the West is more polluting than Africa, particularly per head with which I agree (I mean how can you disagree?). I have now had 4 arguments with him recently and out of those 4 I have actually agreed with him on the point he was making on 3 of them. I know, why the hell am I arguing with him if I agree with him? But he comes out with these 'mad as a frog in a box' deductions, which he did yesterday that was completely unfounded in any logic whatsoever. And although umpteen people tell him he just can't get it. I am baffled as to how someone can't see this stuff. To me he is unique. It seems to be an extreme case of the Kruger Dunning effect when it comes to deduction.
It is like having a family argument and suddenly you find your mad uncle is supporting you. Anyone sensible would ignore it, but me, I stupidly go and have an argument with my mad uncle instead because I am embarrassed to have my opinion supported by irrational arguments.
I agree with you on the issues with a certain other poster's logic (in general).
However on the issue with the environment the only thing that matters is technology. Realistically if we get to net zero by 2050 then we've achieved what we need to achieve - and if we haven't we've failed. But that only leaves us 28 years and two months until we reach 2050. Knock off nine months for pregnancies and you're talking 27 years and five months.
Being completely realistic the overwhelming majority of those who will be alive in 2050 are those who are alive or conceived already today.
There simply isn't the time or the possibility to affect population figures meaningfully in the next 27 years. Whether in that time you increase population by 2% or drop it by 2% is pretty irrelevant.
The only tool in our arsenal is technology, not population.
But 2050 is an utterly artificial date with no relevance in the real world. It is a target set up to try and force Governments to meet their commitments and although that is perfectly sensible, it should not be considered as anything more than that.
If the wider issue over and above climate change is population size (as I and many others believe it to be) then saying we can't do anything about it in the next 27 years as if that means we should not bother is a completely straw man argument. Yes technology will help us with net zero. It will not necessarily help us with the many other issues affecting the world some of which are even more serious. And it definitely won't help us if we don't recognise the problems in the first place. Technology only helps when it is properly directed to address the problems.
Now actually it appears that the best way to reduce global populations is to make everyone middle class - or some such equivalent. First world countries have reducing birth rates and the richer the country the more stable the natural population (excluding, for a moment, migration). What we should be aiming to do is massively improve living conditions and wealth in Africa, India and other Third World countries. In the long run that will do far more for our environment than any short term technological stop gaps.
As I pointed out the global average fertility rate is now 2.4 ie almost exactly at the replacement rate of 2.1 only and no more.
So the issue is not global population growth, the issue is getting technology and renewables to replace fossil fuels and other solutions to tackle other problems.
Indeed if global population growth falls further below the 2.1 replacement rate then the issue becomes we need more babies to produce more workers to pay for the ageing population, an issue currently confined mainly only to some parts of the West like Italy or Japan and to some extent here
Global population is increasing by 1.1% per year. That is around 88 million people a year. We are a long way from needing more babies.
For now, it is perfectly possible in a decade the global population will be declining by 1.1% a year, we are barely above global replacement level as it is. Once we dip below 2.1 global fertility rate then the problem will be the other way, we need more babies not fewer
Why is maintaining the highest ever human population a good thing?
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
Any decline in population means we need more workers to provide the state revenues to fund the healthcare and state pension needs of the elderly. If we do not get more workers then higher taxes and NI etc will be required to be imposed on the existing workforce to fund it instead.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
By far the best economic way to deal with declining population is for the remaining world population to concentrate ever more into a smaller area through mass migration to the centres of economic activity, allowing the rest of the world to depopulate and rewild. This is great news for the environment, it means we don't see the same crunch in the working age population, and it increases the efficiency of capital flows.
Socially, culturally and politically of course it's a deeply unpopular option. But it's where the logic lies. It's already happened on a smaller scale within shrinking demographies like Germany and Italy, and to some extent across borders in Europe too.
Most people do not want to live in overpopulated concrete jungles, certainly past 30-35
Virtually everyone in the UK including those in the "countryside" already live at a population density which, if replicated for the entire world population, would leave vast areas of the globe rewilded even at current population levels, let alone when the numbers start shrinking.
A fine nerdy thread on the PCR test failures. (Which incidentally demonstrates how difficult it would be to fake the figures and not have it noticed by someone.)
UK Covid Mystery Thread #2. In a recent thread, I highlighted anomalies in case data in 9 particular LTLAs in the South West region, and stated my theory that there was an intermittent but ongoing PCR processing problem. Sorry, but this is gonna be long. https://twitter.com/ArtySmokesPS/status/1448927559970967556
That’s an awesome thread.
Equally, it’s awesome that we have the data to be able to play with it - as seen by the @Malmesbury daily posts. Was this a Cummings project, or did we used to get real-time government data APIs in the past?
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
Golden rule, acquiring wealth is deeply virtuous if you're a righty, deeply sinful if you're a lefty.
I'd go further. Every type of "me me" behaviour under the sun, from the most understandable and trivial to the most truly repulsive, is deemed way less objectionable if the person is squarely on the right of the politics. Why? Because they are not "pretending" anything. Better to be devoid of virtue than to "signal" any. Countless examples of this. It crops up all the time. Quite a warping factor actually imo.
A fine nerdy thread on the PCR test failures. (Which incidentally demonstrates how difficult it would be to fake the figures and not have it noticed by someone.)
UK Covid Mystery Thread #2. In a recent thread, I highlighted anomalies in case data in 9 particular LTLAs in the South West region, and stated my theory that there was an intermittent but ongoing PCR processing problem. Sorry, but this is gonna be long. https://twitter.com/ArtySmokesPS/status/1448927559970967556
Is it overly simplistic to conclude that if the number of positive tests have been materially understated it means that the vaccines are even better than we thought?
If we've missed 43,000 cases from a recorded ±900,000, no, not really....
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
You're astonished that right wingers don't like the dream of a left wing hippy? Really?
Sense it's not a critique of the lyrics more of a rich rock star's "hypocrisy" in writing them.
He ought to have been crafting a haunting ballad about the Laffer curve.
Indeed, it is a massively under utilised topic for song. As are gilt yields, of course.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
I don't take the lyrics seriously but there are plenty who do.
It's this idea that if we abolish possessions, religions and nations we'll all be living in harmony whereas in reality you'd be taking away what makes us human. If it was ever seriously attempted we'd replace it with new idols and axioms instead, and people would have different takes and tangents on that too.
We need beliefs and identities in order to co-operate en-masse, and thus progress socially - the issue is keeping the negative sides of our character in check - not abolishing our character.
Most Conservatives see more to their philosophy than simply reducing barriers to the free movement of people, capital, and goods, which is why most Conservatives support Brexit.
Nobody who supports Brexit is a Conservative
Lower case c, Scott. Conservatives can be anything they want, including very un-conservative, as parties the world over do not match their name. Plenty of Liberal parties who are conservative.
But is an area where I get confused by the arguments. Some say Brexit was a very unconservative thing to do, others claim it was driven by conservative yearning for a 1950s heydey so was a very conservative thing.
Sometimes they claim both.
It's a version of the No True Scotsman fallacy. The only reliable indicator of a Conservative is whether they usually vote Conservative.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
You're astonished that right wingers don't like the dream of a left wing hippy? Really?
Sense it's not a critique of the lyrics more of a rich rock star's "hypocrisy" in writing them.
He ought to have been crafting a haunting ballad about the Laffer curve.
I was the one who brought it up, and I was criticising the lyrics.
Whether he's hypocritical or not, that 'dream' is a nightmare.
It isn't that it is a nightmare for me, it's that it is so trite. It would be nice if everything was nice. Well, yeah, but it isn't. Almost like a nursery rhyme.
There doesn’t seem to be anything in the article that justifies the headline. There’s no inherent reason why windfarms should only be 50ft tall. Poor journalism. Unnecessarily introducing a “fear” angle into a good news story.
It is rather annoying if you have a nice business making 200ft wind turbines, if the new standard becomes 250ft.
If only the government would step in and stop those nasty innovators innovating.....
It isn't innovators though, it's a Chinese state subsidised company stealing IP and undercutting a European company.
Well the fears seem largely to be developers' fears that they won't make a profit.
I think Malmesbury was thinking about the planning limits on the size of onshore development.
These have been relaxed, but there will probably be a large scale replacement of onshore wind assets, as a number of the best sites were planning consent limited in the size they were allowed to build at the time. (I see there's a Scottish onshore development with 220m turbines being developed).
Well isn't that the point of the Chinese company? Be a loss making entity, force everyone else out of business and then corner the market.
If it wasn't for Trump pushing back against Huawei they would own the 5G market completely.
Loath as I am to give him credit for anything, I have to agree with this.
Same here, but it shows just how difficult it is to get western companies to not take the cheaper Chinese option.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
You're astonished that right wingers don't like the dream of a left wing hippy? Really?
Sense it's not a critique of the lyrics more of a rich rock star's "hypocrisy" in writing them.
He ought to have been crafting a haunting ballad about the Laffer curve.
Indeed, it is a massively under utilised topic for song. As are gilt yields, of course.
There's an even worse than usual Beatles song about marginal tax rates, I think.
Regarding Brexit, I think it is possible that it will end up getting cancelled. A few people will be fuming; but most will just shrug their shoulders and get on with life.
Not a chance in hell.
It can't be cancelled, it's happened. And it won't be reversed either.
Neither politicians nor the public are going to want to go through that again, and even if we did have a collective reversal the French would say non.
England will never again be a part of the EU.
It can. All it takes is for a government consumed by woke thinking to declare the whole thing as racist and proscribe any opposition to rejoining the EU on the same grounds. And then they can just sign us back up again on whatever terms the EU demand. You think that this is mad but that is how a lot of woke remainers think.
Or perhaps more accurately, how you think 'a lot of woke remainers' think. You have at least given us some insight into how you think...
I had my company leaving drinks last night. I was sitting in the corner with an ex-colleague (alumni of the firm) who's a very dark skinned female Egyptian in her mid-40s who - totally unprompted - spent 3 minutes ranting to me about how Woke the firm had become and how it was totally OTT. We were both slightly worse for wear but she was fed up being categorised and its divisiveness.
An ever bigger smile crept across my face as I listened and I eventually had to politely interrupt her to say I agreed with her 100%. 110%. 500%.
Sometimes people surprise you.
Your company sounds like an awful place to work.
That's why I left.
And why I've always been fairly relaxed about "political correctness/woke gone mad" in the private sector*. Companies that persistently do stupid things and enact stupid policies will lose good people and, consequently, do less well (even beyond losing good people if they waste their employees time). The market will sort it out, most likely. Equally, companies with a sexist/racist/homophobic culture will like fail too. The ones that prosper will be those with a good atmosphere based on sensible policies, open debate and compromise.
*And, indeed, most of the public sector - people there will also leave jobs if it gets too painful, the exceptions perhaps being health care and teaching where there are fewer opportunities to change job without also changing career, the private sector roles being fewer in number.
I've got little time for this 'meh, it will sort itself out' argument, which is rather dismissive and lazy. You might well be "relaxed" about it - I can assure you the last two years have been anything but relaxing for me.
If (and it's a big "if") what you describe happens it will take years and years - there will be a lot of dislocated careers and upset people along the way, people who didn't necessarily want to leave or move in the first place.
It's far better for open conversations to take place across government, the civil service, the major corporates, the third sector and media *now* about what common sense looks like - and exert a bit of leadership on best practice and guidance.
Otherwise, radical activists will fill the void under cloak of inclusion and be misguidedly followed by far too many.
Aye, there's something in that. I'm not really sure how we get there though, good luck to anyone writing guidance. Unfortunately we probably need a few stupid employer decisions getting slapped down at tribunals/in the courts to help those that need it work out what is sane.
Mostly, I guess I'm relaxed because I don't see these problems day to day and neither do my colleagues, friends, family (at least, none have mentioned it). That makes me think the stupidity is far more limited than media reports would have us believe. I do accept there may be whole industries infected with stupidity, beyond my experience.
We have had unconscious bias training (mandatory only for those involved in hiring, although open to all, not sure if/when it has to be renewed) and - actually - it was good and well done, it gave me some things to think about. It went beyond the usual things into ageism etc. There's equalities monitoring, but transparency about how that is used (I mentioned the other day the example of finding that women apply for promotion later). That's about it. I don't have to put my pronouns on my emails. I'm allowed to talk about sex rather than gender in papers. And this is in a university, so - we'd be led to believe - it should be awful. It's not, not here.
I would be interested in some examples of the problems at your old employer, if you can provide suitably anonymous examples. As it's something I haven't really experienced, I do accept it's hard for me to judge.
Thanks @Selebian. Happy to discuss privately over VM if you'd like.
VM? A couple of examples via direct message on here would be helpful (I assume you're concerned they could identify you if made public? I don't know who you are and you don't know who I am, but the mods have my name via my email address, so I have some accountability. I won't share anything further.)
Still, if it's not something you can really share in a generic, non-identifiable way then maybe you should not share. I'm not after examples to prove your veracity, which I do not doubt, just after examples of the kind of thing. All I've got so far is demographic information being collected in forms (not problematic to me; how it is used could be though). So other stuff, like you all being required to put your pronouns on email/letters and/or having to use some dictionary of terms for every eventuality. Or examples of nonsense training (I can see that unconscious bias training could be done in a terrible way - I once had to do research ethics training at a previous employer, which came down to "don't make up results, don't steal results, don't hide results that don't favour your worldview, don't plagiarise" - not particularly enlightening!)
VM = vanilla message. It doesn't reveal your identity. It's username > username off-thread.
On state subsidies it's probably one area where Dom Cummings was right in a sense that he saw where the world was going. The only way the west can compete with highly subsidised Chinese industries undercutting is to have our own. Getting rid of state aid rules was a deal breaker in the EU negotiations for this reason. The EU rules are going to be a huge problem for European countries in the next two decades as the US, Japan, Korea and maybe even the UK climb aboard the state aid train.
China has shown that a planned/command economy can be made to work. The rest of the world has realised that some of that can be transposed to their own countries as well. I expect the UK will have very large state subsidies for science and technology research/development in the next decade that wouldn't have been possible within the EU.
There are about half a dozen fallacies in that post. For a start, selection bias. China has had plenty of failures in subsidising its industries. In the West, we are only conscious of the successful ones, because those are the ones that compete with our industries. Second, Chinese societies like Hong Kong and Singapore have done just as well, or even better, without subsidising and protecting industries to anything like the same extent. Thirdly, subsidising industries often misallocates resources heavily penalises captive or successful parts of the economy. Fourth, we've always been even worse than China at subsidising successful industries, which generally turn into boondoggles for favoured interest groups. Fifth, the part of China's economy that has worked the best is the least planned and distorted part - its state owned industries are generally a heavy drain on the economy. And finally, you're mistaking the natural growth of an economy when it stops shooting itself in the foot with Maoist communism with a triumphant success of state planning.
I am old enough to remember people making similar points about Japanese long-term government led planning in the 1980s. And you can also find people saying similar things about superior Soviet performance in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. Neither of those models are admired at all these days, though China's strategies seem to have been influenced heavily by Japan's and South Korea's.
But I'm afraid that the idea that the government can pick winners is highly seductive, so we'll keep on trying with half-hearted campaigns every few years, and never learn from our repeated failures.
I didn't say I agree with state subsidies, just that in the next 20 years they will become a feature of most advanced economies and Dom Cummings was correct that we'd probably need to have a less restrictive framework than what the EU allows for.
Why? Just because other countries shoot themselves in the foot, why should we do so?
UK companies will find it impossible to compete with the winners that do get picked which will erode our tax base. Ideally all companies would junk the idea, but that's not going to happen.
No.
Even if a country suffers discrimination against its own industries, it is irrational for it to retaliate. The best strategy for us is to buy their subsidised and protected goods, and use the cheaper goods either as inputs for our industries or to improve its standard of living.
The problem with selling that is political (most people, including Dominic Cummings, do not have higher degrees in economics and are seduced by protectionist fallacies), not economic.
This assumes that your competitor has benign intentions.
No it doesn't.
Incidentally I'm not entirely opposed to all intervention and subsidies. But I am opposed to almost all of it for economic reasons. If there are non-economic reasons to subsidise or protect industries (national security, environmental, etc.) then one can look at those case by case.
But, for a mixture of theoretical reasons and experience, I do not see any economic case for us doing so, no matter what the Chinese do or Dominic Cummings or the EU say.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
I don't take the lyrics seriously but there are plenty who do.
It's this idea that if we abolish possessions, religions and nations we'll all be living in harmony whereas in reality you'd be taking away what makes us human. If it was ever seriously attempted we'd replace it with new idols and axioms instead, and people would have different takes and tangents on that too.
We need beliefs and identities in order to co-operate en-masse, and thus progress socially - the issue is keeping the negative sides of our character in check - not abolishing our character.
Not a bad effort. But you need to work on your verse lengths and harmonic structure. Some rhyme might help with the flow.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
I know, honestly. The ubiquitous "hypocrisy" charge again. About song lyrics!
But I must dissent about the song itself. I do not like it one bit. Find it a bit of a dirge. I prefer his more strident numbers as a solo artist.
Just reading the comments on 'Imagine' in astonishment. I can't believe people taking umbrage at the lyrics. Lennon was a bit of an old hippy writing about a dream, as old hippies are wont to do. Great song, cheesy but harmless lyrics.
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
You're astonished that right wingers don't like the dream of a left wing hippy? Really?
Sense it's not a critique of the lyrics more of a rich rock star's "hypocrisy" in writing them.
He ought to have been crafting a haunting ballad about the Laffer curve.
I was the one who brought it up, and I was criticising the lyrics.
Whether he's hypocritical or not, that 'dream' is a nightmare.
It isn't that it is a nightmare for me, it's that it is so trite. It would be nice if everything was nice. Well, yeah, but it isn't. Almost like a nursery rhyme.
That's why the greatest utopian songs implicitly acknowledge they are not promoting a long term solution to anything, just a great moment of hope before returning to the humdrum. Epitomised by "we can be heroes. Just for one day".
Comments
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
“Don’t believe in riches, but you should see where I live…”
If only the government would step in and stop those nasty innovators innovating.....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-58907526
https://techmonitor.ai/silicon/european-chips-act-eu-infineon
In other Scottish news, I see a Scottish party leader has joined the SNP and, IIRC, DavidL in complaining about the Boundary Commission changes:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19646958.douglas-ross-unhappy-westminster-plans-carve-up-moray-constituency/?ref=ar
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53409521
According to that, the projection is that we hit 2.1 in just a few years.
https://twitter.com/alanferrier/status/1448898351995494400?s=20
It wasn't meant to be a political manifesto - he didn't employ Corbyn to write the lyrics. It's just a song, ffs.
Before we know it, people will be telling me that there isn't really a Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelin were making it up.
I would just ask a simple question how can any of this happen if these two are not on board
Even if a country suffers discrimination against its own industries, it is irrational for it to retaliate. The best strategy for us is to buy their subsidised and protected goods, and use the cheaper goods either as inputs for our industries or to improve its standard of living.
The problem with selling that is political (most people, including Dominic Cummings, do not have higher degrees in economics and are seduced by protectionist fallacies), not economic.
And even with zero births the population would only decline by around 1.5% per year (initially). So 1.1% per annum decline isn't going to happen unless another pandemic comes along.
I also said, in fairness, that I did not envy their task.
Population decline below replacement level is just as problematic as population growth well above replacement level
Most tax incentive regimes, like the patent box, our R&D credit rules or the recent CT superdeduction, are quite difficult to quantify for an individual business before making the decision and it's hard to get certainty about the value before investing. That comes later with the tax return and possible tax enquiries from HMRC. Particularly the case for R&D credits which are highly fact specific. Most companies invest as they would have done anyway, and then work out what they can or can't claim after the event.
Most grants, and some subsidies, on the other hand are awarded to the individual business following an application process. That means they get certainty of the financial benefit before investing. It is easier to track and monitor the success of subsidy regimes in encouraging domestic investment or FDI by monitoring takeup. We see this very clearly in stats around green incentives like solar FITs and insulation subsidies.
Tax regimes can be more targeted and involve up-front certainty / rulings, but then they run the risk of negative coverage as "sweetheart deals". Not something that has traditionally bothered the likes of Singapore or Switzerland but a big issue in the UK, and over in the EU the issue with tax rulings is they can fall foul of state aid rules as Ireland has discovered.
So there are downsides of picking winners, but there are also downsides of overly broad untargeted regimes that sometimes just give a post-facto benefit to businesses without actually changing behaviour.
"Don't believe when they tell me that there ain't no cure,
The rich stay healthy and the sick stay poor"
But the mass of contradictions in every verse finished off with the simplistic nostrum "I, I believe in love" is brutal.
I think Malmesbury was thinking about the planning limits on the size of onshore development.
These have been relaxed, but there will probably be a large scale replacement of onshore wind assets, as a number of the best sites were planning consent limited in the size they were allowed to build at the time.
(I see there's a Scottish onshore development with 220m turbines being developed).
Socially, culturally and politically of course it's a deeply unpopular option. But it's where the logic lies. It's already happened on a smaller scale within shrinking demographies like Germany and Italy, and to some extent across borders in Europe too.
It’s not particularly surprising that most of them are politically left of centre; what grates is when those very few who make big money think they can use their profile to opinionate. They simply don’t see they’re being completely hypocritical, being happy to see the market pay them massive wages based purely on their name.
if we can get 3rd world standards up it will happen anyway and then rather than encouraging people to have more babies we should look at how to overcome the problems the reducing population creates.
I agree it won't be easy.
As with virtually everything that matters, it is complicated, and dogma isn't much help in formulating successful policies.
If it wasn't for Trump pushing back against Huawei they would own the 5G market completely.
And the music is about to stop.
Dying oil and gas wells are a climate menace.
One company — Diversified Energy — has amassed about 69,000 wells across the U.S.
Our reporters went to some of those sites and found that many were emitting methane. [THREAD]
https://twitter.com/climate/status/1448679620069531649
Still, if it's not something you can really share in a generic, non-identifiable way then maybe you should not share. I'm not after examples to prove your veracity, which I do not doubt, just after examples of the kind of thing. All I've got so far is demographic information being collected in forms (not problematic to me; how it is used could be though). So other stuff, like you all being required to put your pronouns on email/letters and/or having to use some dictionary of terms for every eventuality. Or examples of nonsense training (I can see that unconscious bias training could be done in a terrible way - I once had to do research ethics training at a previous employer, which came down to "don't make up results, don't steal results, don't hide results that don't favour your worldview, don't plagiarise" - not particularly enlightening!)
There are also the extra hospital costs, drugs costs for the ageing population using state healthcare to consider as well even if they don't need social care
They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworth's, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over.
"December 1963 (Oh What A Night)" by The Four Seasons was originally written as "5th December 1933" - the day when prohibition was ended (so a boozing celebration song, I'd like to hear that version!), and 9 years years before Bob Gaudio the composer was born. Frankie Valli and Judy Parker (who co-wrote the song, and later married Gaudio), urged him to rewrite it to be about the night when Bob and Judy met.
https://twitter.com/ElectCalculus/status/1448985030194257920?t=dET9WNYHIoBjDXA5fQhogw&s=19
(Which incidentally demonstrates how difficult it would be to fake the figures and not have it noticed by someone.)
UK Covid Mystery Thread #2. In a recent thread, I highlighted anomalies in case data in 9 particular LTLAs in the South West region, and stated my theory that there was an intermittent but ongoing PCR processing problem. Sorry, but this is gonna be long.
https://twitter.com/ArtySmokesPS/status/1448927559970967556
He ought to have been crafting a haunting ballad about the Laffer curve.
I was not arguing for increasing the global population anyway, just keeping it at replacement level
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1448921853981085723?t=JdUIW6fNh71pLX5Rbj7ihg&s=19
Whether he's hypocritical or not, that 'dream' is a nightmare.
Richard_Tyndall said "So would I. But that is because we are currently enjoying the thrill of the skydive but haven't yet realised we forgot to pack the parachute."
I say " ! ! "
Some 2019 Labour have gone Green, a few 2019 Tories have gone ReformUK.
Interestingly on that chart Tory-Labour or Tory-LD movement and Labour-Tory movement is near zero since 2019
Relatedly, Stairway to Heaven is, in part, about puberty and orgasm
‘If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May queen’
Amateur!
Equally, it’s awesome that we have the data to be able to play with it - as seen by the @Malmesbury daily posts. Was this a Cummings project, or did we used to get real-time government data APIs in the past?
It's this idea that if we abolish possessions, religions and nations we'll all be living in harmony whereas in reality you'd be taking away what makes us human. If it was ever seriously attempted we'd replace it with new idols and axioms instead, and people would have different takes and tangents on that too.
We need beliefs and identities in order to co-operate en-masse, and thus progress socially - the issue is keeping the negative sides of our character in check - not abolishing our character.
Almost like a nursery rhyme.
I'll send you a test.
Incidentally I'm not entirely opposed to all intervention and subsidies. But I am opposed to almost all of it for economic reasons. If there are non-economic reasons to subsidise or protect industries (national security, environmental, etc.) then one can look at those case by case.
But, for a mixture of theoretical reasons and experience, I do not see any economic case for us doing so, no matter what the Chinese do or Dominic Cummings or the EU say.
Some rhyme might help with the flow.
But I must dissent about the song itself. I do not like it one bit. Find it a bit of a dirge. I prefer his more strident numbers as a solo artist.
Hope he makes a full recovery.