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Post by davidm on May 15, 2012 7:52:44 GMT 9.5
In the early 1970s without regard to party the US leadership seemed to get the challenge of overpopulation. This article provides a perspective on what was understood and how we devolved from then. MODERATOR In answer to your comment - the amount of text you pasted was considered to be within allowable limits.
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Post by Barry Brook on May 15, 2012 11:25:39 GMT 9.5
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Post by davidm on May 15, 2012 17:34:19 GMT 9.5
First to the moderator, I wasn't concerned about the length of the quote but about the possible focus on the Catholic Church as an obstacle to birth control. But of course the facts are the facts.
Barry, birth rates don't take into account immigration. The growth rate for most countries, including the US, is positive. I understand the world is increasing at a rate of over 200,000 new folks every day and somewhere around 3 million a year in this country. That's a lot of folks being added for nuclear power to keep up with.
I've seen the figures you offer and the descending rate of population growth they indicate. Of course we don't know what the future trends will be. We don't even know how long we can sustain at present population levels. What does seem clear to me is there isn't anything important to our future existence as a species that isn't hurt by increased population or helped by decreasing population. To me to run away from getting serious in this area is running away from the future.
It's interesting to me that the standard line of claiming wealth as the way out because wealthier people have less children ignores the environmental wreckage associated with increased wealth and the fact that the wealthiest country, the US, has a higher population increase than a lot of less wealthy countries. In Russia, for instance, economic collapse was associated with a dramatic drop in population. The whole cause and effect of population seems under the longer term to maintain its relation to the Malthusian exponential growth and limits principle, however the rates may vary.
One also needs to examine the export rate of populations from countries that have an apparent negative population growth rate and certain folks manage to not be around when the census taker shows up for obvious reasons.
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Post by Barry Brook on May 15, 2012 18:25:03 GMT 9.5
David M, you say: "To me to run away from getting serious in this area is running away from the future."
So what exactly do you propose? How fast will your solution work (presuming you have one)? Did you read the BNC post on this issue? (it doesn't sound like it, from your reply). Do you dispute the numbers?
Actually, it's not. 3 million people at current energy use in the US equates to about 6 GWe of addition power. The US has already installed 100 GWe, which is, expressed in these terms, enough to cover more than 15 years of population growth. You're focusing on the wrong problem.
The US is increasing its population because of immigration, yes. But its fertility rates continue to drop. If you want to bring affluence into the equation, then you've ceased to talk about population growth.
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Post by anonposter on May 15, 2012 19:40:26 GMT 9.5
First to the moderator, I wasn't concerned about the length of the quote but about the possible focus on the Catholic Church as an obstacle to birth control. But of course the facts are the facts. Yes, but birth control is about human rights (namely the right to control reproduction), not the environment and it needs to be argued from a human rights perspective. Barry, birth rates don't take into account immigration. So? What matters is what happens to the fertility of those immigrants in a few generations (and it does reduce the population of the originating country). Assuming of course that overpopulation actually were a problem (or even existed). I've seen the figures you offer and the descending rate of population growth they indicate. Of course we don't know what the future trends will be. No, but we also don't have any reason to suspect things will be different. We don't even know how long we can sustain at present population levels. I'd say until the sun burns out if we merely used the best available technologies. What does seem clear to me is there isn't anything important to our future existence as a species that isn't hurt by increased population or helped by decreasing population. So having more scientists would hurt us and reducing the number of scientists would help us? It's interesting to me that the standard line of claiming wealth as the way out because wealthier people have less children ignores the environmental wreckage associated with increased wealth and the fact that the wealthiest country, the US, has a higher population increase than a lot of less wealthy countries. Increased wealth also leads to people actually caring about the environment for its own sake, it also means more resources available to solve environmental problems. In Russia, for instance, economic collapse was associated with a dramatic drop in population. Of course the people of Russia were used to a higher standard of living than what those in the countries with the highest population growth have. It's been suggested that a reason for the negative correlation between wealth and population growth is that in wealthy societies children are a cost to the parents while in subsistence societies which just scrape by more children means more labour. Then there's infant morality, much of the reason for having a lot of kids is because a lot of them will die early (mothers in some parts of Africa have a saying that you don't count your children until after the measles). The whole cause and effect of population seems under the longer term to maintain its relation to the Malthusian exponential growth and limits principle, however the rates may vary. If Malthus was right why have things turned out almost the complete opposite of his prediction?
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Post by davidm on May 16, 2012 0:46:36 GMT 9.5
David M, you say: "To me to run away from getting serious in this area is running away from the future."
So what exactly do you propose? How fast will your solution work (presuming you have one)? Did you read the BNC post on this issue? (it doesn't sound like it, from your reply). Do you dispute the numbers? Barry, I've read your population piece a number of times and thank you for it. Short of complete sterilization by 2015, the most radical population drop scenario involves 7 billion folks by 2050. I don't think given the challenges that is enough. How would I address the population disaster? Get the best minds in the world together on the issue and have them based on the hard facts come up with a depopulation policy that will give us a future. If that means dropping population down to 1 billion by 2100 so be it. Maybe we will have to draw straws, I don't know; I'm not the expert. What I want is to do the obvious, make population the center piece of a solution, which I believe it has to be. 6 major NPPs a year in this country and not even replacing fossil fuel powered plants, good luck. And then of course there is the 80 million folks a year increasing worldwide. China seems to be the poster boy for new nukes and so it might be interesting to see what energy projections for China by 2035 look like. Coal continues to dominate. I'm not the one who brings affluence into the equation when population matters are being discussed. The most predictable response to any concern expressed about overpopulation is "raise the standard of living and people will have less children." And what are the trade offs? even if I accept the premise. And addressing that premise, culture and ideology seem to also be part of the equation. The Mormons might be one counter example. Just so I don't come off too negative toward nuclear let me reiterate, I am for nuclear energy over fossil fuel. I just think population reduction occupies the center piece in the solution.
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Post by anonposter on May 16, 2012 4:23:12 GMT 9.5
How would I address the population disaster? Get the best minds in the world together on the issue and have them based on the hard facts come up with a depopulation policy that will give us a future. If that means dropping population down to 1 billion by 2100 so be it. Maybe we will have to draw straws, I don't know; I'm not the expert. I''d need some actual evidence that population is a problem because so far I simply haven't seen any (all the evidence I've seen indicates that we can support >10 billion people at western standard of living for thousands of years). What I want is to do the obvious, make population the center piece of a solution, which I believe it has to be. The rest of the public won't like that, in fact to get down to a trillion by 2100 you'd need to commit mass murder on an unprecedented scale. I personally consider baseless claims of resource limitations to be quite dangerous as they work against positive sum thinking and instead encourage people to fight to keep what they have (instead of trying to help others get what they have as well). Asking people to sacrifice (especially for any great length of time) is really going against nature. 6 major NPPs a year in this country and not even replacing fossil fuel powered plants, good luck. France, a much smaller country than the US managed to build 3 reactors a year, almost completely phase out the use of oil (which they had been very dependent on) and go from being a net importer of electricity to the worlds' largest electricity exporter. With the political commitment ten reactors (or more) a year is probably doable in the US (SMRs would probably see much greater production rates of smaller units). I'm not the one who brings affluence into the equation when population matters are being discussed. No, but that doesn't mean it can just be ignored. The most predictable response to any concern expressed about overpopulation is "raise the standard of living and people will have less children." And what are the trade offs? even if I accept the premise. And addressing that premise, culture and ideology seem to also be part of the equation. The Mormons might be one counter example. The Morman average fertility rate isn't actually all that high, in the US it is lower than that of most developing countries. It's also worth noting that many of the most fertile Mormans depend on the welfare system. Just so I don't come off too negative toward nuclear let me reiterate, I am for nuclear energy over fossil fuel. I just think population reduction occupies the center piece in the solution. From the point of view of the public if we go for nuclear once all has been done there'd be no difference to their life (though coal miners will have to find other work) but any policy to reduce population is going to cause significant differences in the lives of the public (China only half enforces the one child policy, there is no way that a democratic government could force such a thing on the majority of citizens).
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Post by davidm on May 18, 2012 3:48:26 GMT 9.5
I''d need some actual evidence that population is a problem Food and water scarcity, broad environmental and political breakdown, a lot of these areas have been covered before in some detail. Judging from the last election nuclear isn't winning many popularity contests in France. And just to put the oil use matter in some perspective here is an interactive chart showing average barrels of oil use per day of a 1000 people by political unit. France comes in about even with Germany and greater than Britain. Yes, with the political commitment you would be right. And with the political commitment to get our population down to say a hundred million by 2100, it would also be doable. Both seem about as likely right now accept Mother Nature and history suggests the future might give the latter a nod. Is Romney atypical? There would be costs and there would be concerns and there is the question of how much fossil fuel displacement would you get for your investment or would it mainly simply accelerate growth and energy use across the board. With a major population drop all the indices are positive as far as I can see. Put them together, with nuclear phasing out fossil fuel and then being phased out in its turn, and we have a real future.
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Post by anonposter on May 18, 2012 9:17:01 GMT 9.5
I''d need some actual evidence that population is a problem Food and water scarcity, We're producing enough food to feed everyone on the planet and our food production has been increasing faster than our population, that does not sound anything like scarcity. As for water, whilst there are places with problems getting enough fresh water we do live on a planet covered mostly by water and have nuclear desalination technology available so I don't see any argument that we're running out there. broad environmental and political breakdown, Politically things do seem to be improving (albeit rather too slow for my liking). At the very least there are more democracies than ever. From the point of view of the environmental problems whilst some are getting worse it is worth noting that as people get richer they start to care more about air quality and water quality and so those problems do tend to be solved eventually (the cities with the worst air quality are pretty much all in the developing world). Judging from the last election nuclear isn't winning many popularity contests in France. Of course there are a lot of other things going in any election. And just to put the oil use matter in some perspective here is an interactive chart showing average barrels of oil use per day of a 1000 people by political unit. France comes in about even with Germany and greater than Britain. Which is irrelevant to electricity because almost no one burns oil for that in any great amount any more. That oil you'll probably find is for transportation. Yes, with the political commitment you would be right. And with the political commitment to get our population down to say a hundred million by 2100, it would also be doable. To get our population down to one hundred million by 2100 would require that a global one child policy be enacted, you'd need an oppressive global state to actually enforce such a thing (even in China which has a one child policy it's routinely violated). Proposing that we do things like we do now but without the downsides is politically possible, proposing that we tell people how many children they are allowed to have is not even close to being politically possible in a democracy. Look, most of us on this planet would rather cut down every tree, mine every coal vein, drill every oil well, etc before we allow for that kind of population reduction. Both seem about as likely right now accept Mother Nature and history suggests the future might give the latter a nod. History suggests nothing of the sort. There would be costs and there would be concerns and there is the question of how much fossil fuel displacement would you get for your investment or would it mainly simply accelerate growth and energy use across the board. Nuclear costs about the same order of magnitude as fossil fuels so the costs wouldn't be all that great, of course the faster you have to roll it out the more it's likely to cost but once it's done the average person just won't notice any difference. As for accelerating growth in energy usage, I personally don't see a problem when you've got a clean source of energy (and energy is the ability to do work so we should actually want to use more of it). With a major population drop all the indices are positive as far as I can see. The problem is that a major population drop isn't going to be happening because we, the majority of people on this planet will not let it happen without a fight (yes, we will fight nature if that's what it takes to stay alive, it is after all what we've been doing the past million years or so). Put them together, with nuclear phasing out fossil fuel and then being phased out in its turn, and we have a real future. I'd be very surprised if nuclear gets phased out (if you think it will what do you expect will replace it?).
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Post by davidm on May 18, 2012 17:23:24 GMT 9.5
A population drop is going to happen one way or another so we might as well be as humane, deliberate and responsible about it as we can. And yes, fresh water is getting scarce and I think desalinization as a major answer is a bit of a fantasy.
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Post by anonposter on May 19, 2012 9:53:33 GMT 9.5
A population drop is going to happen one way or another so we might as well be as humane, deliberate and responsible about it as we can. How do you propose we reduce the population and how far should we reduce it to? The biggest problem though is that the people you're going to have to either kill or sterilise aren't going to see it as humane or responsible. In the unlikely event that we do have to reduce population it won't be responsible or deliberate, instead it'll happen through mass starvation (but it appears unlikely that we won't be able to grow our agricultural production to the levels needed, given that we've still got significant untapped potential in genetic engineering and aquaculture). Desalination works and it's reasonably economical (even if it is a bit more expensive than rainwater or groundwater, it's still incredibly cheap compared to what bottled water costs and appears to be of about the same order of magnitude as end users are charged for water), there'll probably also be increased use of water recycling and more efficient use of water (genetically modified crops able to grow in salt water could also end up helping).
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Post by davidm on May 22, 2012 3:08:17 GMT 9.5
Well our natural source of fresh water employs solar desalination. Of course we can add to that natural process and do. However our contribution was recently less than 1% and I doubt that desalination by man is going to seriously make up for the looming deficits. ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/drinkseawater.html
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Post by anonposter on May 22, 2012 16:05:38 GMT 9.5
According to the wikipedia article in Israel in 2005 it cost US$0.53 m -3 and Singapore was doing it for US$0.49 m -3 in 2006. Pricing for water from utilities tends to be around that level so the economics make it look possible and with nuclear energy we can do it without any global warming problems for a very long time. I suspect that main reason desalination isn't used more often is because at the moment it just isn't necessary for most places.
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Post by davidm on May 25, 2012 13:15:12 GMT 9.5
It seems to me that once you take serious population reduction off the table one becomes nonserious as far as blocking us from a 6th extinction event or some similar outcome. By all means develop nuclear as a fossil fuel alternative but I still don't see any real world projection that doesn't continue to employ ff as the principal source of energy into the forseeable future short of a major population drop. Natural gas appears to be taking on greater influence these days, the phony "bridge fuel." Either a major population drop is necessary or it isn't. You can't keep running away from that question with scare stories about how draconian addressing it will be. If the best evidence shows it is necessary then we need to get on it in the most humane democratic way possible. For my own trilemma I'll go with this - you get to choose two: 1. Nonsurvival. 2. Major population drop. 3. Significant lowering of per capita fossil fuel emissions. As far as democracy a lower population would seem to be the ticket along with a lot of other benefits.
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Post by anonposter on May 25, 2012 22:55:22 GMT 9.5
It seems to me that once you take serious population reduction off the table one becomes nonserious as far as blocking us from a 6th extinction event or some similar outcome. We're going to get a lot of extinctions whether we want them or not ( there are some species I would like to see extinct and two I'm glad we wiped out). Either way, mass murder is worse than what we're doing right now and there is simply no way to get population reduction in the time frame we'd need without mass murder which as policy is completely unacceptable. By all means develop nuclear as a fossil fuel alternative but I still don't see any real world projection that doesn't continue to employ ff as the principal source of energy into the forseeable future short of a major population drop. If it weren't for the anti-nuclear movement we'd have already mostly moved away from fossil fuels as our principal source of energy a decade ago with no need for any population drop. Natural gas appears to be taking on greater influence these days, the phony "bridge fuel." Fossil fuels are the bridge between renewables and nuclear, nothing phony about that (of course claiming they are the bridge from other fossil fuels to renewables is phony, renewable energy is obsolete technology). Either a major population drop is necessary or it isn't. You can't keep running away from that question with scare stories about how draconian addressing it will be. If the best evidence shows it is necessary then we need to get on it in the most humane democratic way possible. There is no humane way to kill off large numbers of people (and who is going to vote to kill their family?). The fact is that we will mine every last vein of coal, burn every last drop of oil, cut down every last tree and drive every single other species into extinction before we let what you think is necessary happen. You may not like that your proposal has no chance of actually happening but it does indeed have no chance of actually happening. So far no one has presented a population reduction proposal which actually is humane (and don't confuse promoting reproductive rights with population reduction, the former can't reduce population fast enough for what you'd need and promoting it as population reduction tends to undermine it). For my own trilemma I'll go with this - you get to choose two: 1. Nonsurvival. 2. Major population drop. 3. Significant lowering of per capita fossil fuel emissions. We only need to choose one, number 3 will do the job on its own (and is much easier to sell than killing off 9 out of 10 of the people those who survive know, which is what would be required for the population numbers you claim we need). I would also contend that the people who survive your population drop may not be the kind of people you'd really want (it would not surprise me if manipulators who don't have any concern for other people are more likely to survive, in other words you may end up with a society of sociopaths). In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the only thing zero-sum (or worse) rhetoric like yours does is causes people to try to hold on to what they've got at the expense of other people when we need positive sum thinking. As far as democracy a lower population would seem to be the ticket along with a lot of other benefits. Desalination would be a better solution to water shortages (as would where people can afford it increasing the cost of water so that the user pays what it costs to make). 2500 years ago, Aristotle considered the best size for a city and concluded that a large increase in population would bring, "certain poverty on the citizenry, and poverty is the cause of sedition and evil." He considered that a city of over 100,000 people would exclude most citizens from a voice in government. Yet we seem to be managing OK with much larger cities (in fact we have better governance than pretty much any of the ancient Greek city states (though Athens under Pericles was really the only one which had good governance)). It almost seems like Aristotle was wrong here (as he often was). To get an idea of what the founders of the United States had in mind for our representative Democracy, at the low end, the Constitution says (Article 1, Section 2) that a Representative to the House should represent a minimum of 30,000 people. When the Constitution was written, the United States had a total population of around 2.5 million, and the Constitution allocated 65 Representatives to the 13 states. So each Representative of "the People's House" had about 38,500 constituents. Currently each Representative has 712,650 constituents. It's really a form of irony today to call it "the People's House" when only wealthy donors and paid lobbyists really have the ear of your "representatives." What we have now is not Democracy in the sense intended by the country's founders. The problem with wealthy donors running a country has less to do with population size and more to do with voting system and campaign finance laws (Tasmania's legislative council is pretty much the other extreme in terms of wealthy donor influence).
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Post by anonposter on May 25, 2012 23:11:45 GMT 9.5
The question, as pointed out in the other thread, is what exactly do you propose to do about the population? Carpet neutron bombing of four out of five population centers? Bioengineered viruses? Mandatory sterilizations and euthanasia? They could technically work, politically is another matter. If I were trying to kill off a large proportion of the population I'd probably just try to confiscate food. At the very least you'd nee a global dictatorship of unprecedented oppressiveness (the Khmer Rouge probably came the closest). The reality is that there is no way - and hopefully there will be no way - that the civilization as a whole will initiate mass murder on this scale, or even conduct gross violations of fundamental human rights (as even China seems to have problems enforcing its policies), merely to prevent something that may well be preventable by other means. The Khmer Rouge managed to kill a third of the population of Cambodia, a global Khmer Rouge but with overpopulation as their main 'concern' may very well be able to do it (of course actually getting such a global dictatorship is another matter). Your Manichean logic reminds me of Cold War ultra-hawks like John von Neumann who advocated pre-emptive nuclear attack against the Soviet Union, sooner rather than later, because in their calculus, a war was anyway inevitable. They do look a bit foolish in retrospect, don't they? Not to mention all the other Malthusians throughout history (including Malthus himself). One could also argue that the necessary condition for solving the environmental crisis is the the invention of limitless, nonpolluting, cheap and uncontroversial energy source. Note that fast breeders and LFTRs may offer a pretty good performance on two or three of those dimensions. It is, making nuclear energy non-controversial is going to be a lot easier than convincing most of the people on the planet that they must die.
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Post by davidm on May 26, 2012 0:48:12 GMT 9.5
because there seems to be no way to carry out any meaningful population reduction actions, arguing that that is the necessary condition is meaningless. That's a curious configuration of words. In other words the question of whether our survival requires a meaningful reduction in population is meaningless because you can't imagine a best way politically to do it. I'd hate to think our future is limited by your imagination. For myself if the wisest folks in our world decide that we need to reduce our population to say 1 billion by 2100 that gives us a lot of time to come up with a decent hopefully democratic solution whether you can imagine it or not. Maybe we could start by getting a UN panel involved. As a twin to the IPCC maybe we could put together an IPPC(Intergovernmental Panel on Population Change) so we have some experts from around the world to help guide us toward population sanity.
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Post by davidm on May 26, 2012 1:23:00 GMT 9.5
We only need to choose one, number 3 will do the job on its own That doesn't compute. If the population doubles and each person uses half the fossil fuels they used before they are right back where they started. From earlier Anon. I'd say that comes close to being a faith statement. However I am open to a serious comprehensive narrative that shows how such an outcome is possible in the real world.
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Post by anonposter on May 26, 2012 3:20:39 GMT 9.5
That's a curious configuration of words. In other words the question of whether our survival requires a meaningful reduction in population is meaningless because you can't imagine a best way politically to do it. Well how do you propose to do it? Anyway, the question itself is moot because there's just no way it'll happen even if it must, as I keep saying, we'll burn every fossil fuel we can get our hands on and destroy every forest before we let that happen (and when any such population reduction happens it'll be starvation and war which does it as people on the planet fight each other over what resources they can get). I'd hate to think our future is limited by your [Janne M. Korhonen] imagination. Don't worry, I think his imagination allows for a better future than the one you claim we'll need. For myself if the wisest folks in our world decide that we need to reduce our population to say 1 billion by 2100 that gives us a lot of time to come up with a decent hopefully democratic solution whether you can imagine it or not. There can be no democratic way to do that for people simply will not want their reproduction choices to be made by anyone other than themselves (allowing people to make their own choices does tend to lead to them having less children then if the Catholic church got its way, but the average will still be well above what you'd need for the kind of population reduction you think we need). Even a global one child policy rigidly enforced couldn't get the kind of reduction you claim we need and China hasn't been able to really enforce their one child policy (despite being quite a bit more oppressive than any country we'd want to live in). Maybe we could start by getting a UN panel involved. As a twin to the IPCC maybe we could put together an IPPC(Intergovernmental Panel on Population Change) so we have some experts from around the world to help guide us toward population sanity. Don't see why not, it's not as if the UN is useful or anything. That doesn't compute. If the population doubles and each person uses half the fossil fuels they used before they are right back where they started. Oh I'm not at all proposing that we merely halve fossil fuel use, we can go a lot further than that. From earlier Anon.I'd say that comes close to being a faith statement. However I am open to a serious comprehensive narrative that shows how such an outcome is possible in the real world. Wikipedia gives an energy usage per capita of Qatar at 898.62 GJ year -1 person -1 in 2003 (giving them the record of highest per person energy usage) which I'll just assume is the case for 10 billion people (a more realistic average is probably around what Australia uses, maybe a bit higher due to lots of desal or a bit less with better efficiency). This gives global energy usage of 8.9862 ZJ which I'll round to 9 ZJ year -1 (though this energy usage rate would probably be enough to cause some global warming without even needing to alter atmospheric chemistry, this is pretty much treading the limits and going any higher is likely to require some pretty serious geoengineering, though when we get to that kind of energy usage I expect our civilisation to have a very strong presence in space). Using breeder reactors and assuming ≈80 GJ g -1 of energy from fission (a bit less than wikipedia says you get from a gram of 235U so probably reasonable) and 25% efficiency we'd need 450 Gg Uranium per year (or 450,000 tonne). The oceans contain about 4.6 billion tonnes of Uranium dissolved in them if the wikipedia article on Uranium is accurate extraction of which has been demonstrated to be technically feasible and which would last us about ten thousand years. That should be enough time to work on getting fusion to work (or maybe we'll have zero point modules by then).
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Post by davidm on May 26, 2012 11:48:10 GMT 9.5
Suppose it becomes clear that nuclear power is not going to be the center piece in saving human civilization. Call it a recognition of human perversity if you like. Have you got a backup?
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Post by anonposter on May 26, 2012 19:42:39 GMT 9.5
Suppose it becomes clear that nuclear power is not going to be the center piece in saving human civilization. Call it a recognition of human perversity if you like. Have you got a backup? If I had a backup ready and waiting I'd be proposing it along with nuclear (or at the very least mentioning it as a possibility) but right now there isn't anything which can be called proven to be able to do the job. In a few decades we might have fusion and space solar available (if fission didn't exist my strategy for solving global warming would likely be to try those while making fossil fuels as clean (or at least not as dirty) as we can). I suspect that anything else which could solve the problem would run into the exact same political problems nuclear has (or worse, as your population reduction proposal would).
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Post by davidm on May 27, 2012 6:42:32 GMT 9.5
Well I wish our nuclear saviors the best. This is what the "smart guys" project for our future, unless....... The commentary is also worth checking. MODERATOR In future please desist from cutting and pasting slabs of text. This violates the Comments Policy - please read it before commenting again. Further breaches may be edited.
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Post by anonposter on May 27, 2012 7:58:52 GMT 9.5
Looking at all of their commentary it is clear that the real disagreement is much deeper then merely which strategy is best for saving the environment, it is one as to what type of society is best, over whether it is better to be in a society which is always getting better, or in one where everything stays much the same and is much simpler.
But with nuclear energy and electrified transport we can provide a high standard of living to everyone on the planet without needing fossil fuels (we could even do synthetic fuels if batteries turn out not to be good enough). Switching to nuclear only require fossil fuel profiteers to sacrifice, reducing population requires most of the people on this planet to sacrifice their lives and most of the rest to sacrifice their reproductive rights (not to mention a whole heap of other freedoms you'd need to get rid of to enforce it) and even then a lot of the overpopulation chicken littles think those who do remain will have to accept a lower standard of living.
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Post by davidm on May 30, 2012 13:28:09 GMT 9.5
reducing population requires most of the people on this planet to sacrifice their lives I don't buy that. Reducing population on this planet will be a net benefit to the residents in practically every way.
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Post by anonposter on May 30, 2012 14:22:45 GMT 9.5
reducing population requires most of the people on this planet to sacrifice their lives I don't buy that. Reducing population on this planet will be a net benefit to the residents in practically every way. Alright, we've got 7 billion people on the planet, how do we get down to 1 billion without 6 billion dying? Yes, maybe a lower population would be better for those who are left (though I dispute that, lower population means less scientists and engineers), but those who aren't left (or allowed to have as many children as they want) may not be so happy about it.
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Post by LancedDendrite on May 30, 2012 14:24:06 GMT 9.5
Reducing population on this planet will be a net benefit to the residents in practically every way. Except for the ones who are dead. EDIT: removed irrelevant part relating to the thread this post was moved from
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Post by davidm on May 30, 2012 15:22:47 GMT 9.5
We all have one death coming and I don't believe confronting the problem of population means setting up some kind of murder inc. although I am probably a minority in that view around here.
The nuclear issue has very much to do with the issue of population in this sense. The possibilities of the IFR as a kind of cornucopia utopia repeatedly gets asserted. As such overpopulation becomes unworthy of concern.
My view is that if you take any technology and try to make it into a solution, you ultimately walk yourself off the cliff. Limits still hold. It's just where you set the limit points.
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Post by davidm on May 30, 2012 15:29:58 GMT 9.5
I don't buy that. Reducing population on this planet will be a net benefit to the residents in practically every way. Alright, we've got 7 billion people on the planet, how do we get down to 1 billion without 6 billion dying? 100% of the people on this planet are going to die some time.
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