The future of the planet.

[gryffron]

One point that is made in the programme is that, on a global level, large families do not have as much of an impact on CO2 production as you might think. This is because most large families are in Africa (specifically) and the average CO2 production per capita in Africa is low, and forecast to remain low.

So using the same argument...
Pollution from the UK doesn't matter because we are only a tiny proportion of the world's population.

Both arguements utter rubbish of course, because neither people nor pollution are constrained by national boundaries.

Gryff

[kiloran]

There was quite a good More or Less on this subject that I happened to hear at the weekend. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswk2h

One point that is made in the programme is that, on a global level, large families do not have as much of an impact on CO2 production as you might think. This is because most large families are in Africa (specifically) and the average CO2 production per capita in Africa is low, and forecast to remain low.

Sounds like a rather dubious argument to me. Global warming is essentially due to consumerism. More people means more demand for heating/lighting, more cars, more food, etc. One extra person in the developed world will consume far more than one extra person in sub-saharan Africa.

--kiloran

[djbenedict]

One point that is made in the programme is that, on a global level, large families do not have as much of an impact on CO2 production as you might think. This is because most large families are in Africa (specifically) and the average CO2 production per capita in Africa is low, and forecast to remain low.

So using the same argument...
Pollution from the UK doesn't matter because we are only a tiny proportion of the world's population.

That is not at all using the same argument.

Both arguements utter rubbish of course, because neither people nor pollution are constrained by national boundaries.

I think you will find that both people and pollution of many types are, in fact, constrained greatly by geography.

The point is, if you are thinking about reducing CO2 production specifically, you might think of reducing the global birth rate to 2 or fewer children per female. This cannot be achieved by addressing Western demographics, because the birth rate is already lower than that.

[djbenedict]

There was quite a good More or Less on this subject that I happened to hear at the weekend. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswk2h

One point that is made in the programme is that, on a global level, large families do not have as much of an impact on CO2 production as you might think. This is because most large families are in Africa (specifically) and the average CO2 production per capita in Africa is low, and forecast to remain low.

Sounds like a rather dubious argument to me. Global warming is essentially due to consumerism. More people means more demand for heating/lighting, more cars, more food, etc. One extra person in the developed world will consume far more than one extra person in sub-saharan Africa.

Yes, that is the point. Large families are atypical in the developed world.

[Itsallaguess]

I just wish that every one of the protesters at yesterdays climate-protest events wore a t-shirt clearly marked with the number of children in their direct family...

I wonder how many '1' t-shirts we would have seen......

The laughable irony of an adult trying to convince me to personally alter my lifestyle to cater for their profligate approach to population increases is something that often seems beyond their really quite selfish comprehension...

We should be asking ourselves what the personal CO2 impact on the planet might be for the next 200 years by having two kids instead of one......just have a think about the size of those inverted people-pyramids in 200 years.....how much extra C02 is likely to be generated five generations out from a standing-start??......

There was quite a good More or Less on this subject that I happened to hear at the weekend. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswk2h

One point that is made in the programme is that, on a global level, large families do not have as much of an impact on CO2 production as you might think. This is because most large families are in Africa (specifically) and the average CO2 production per capita in Africa is low, and forecast to remain low.

Most of the climate-change hypocrites that I've come into contact with, that have what I'd consider to be large families for people with such strong and vocal views on this topic - and strong enough views to tell me to turn my heating down, let's not forget - have been developed-nation climate-change hypocrites, so my point stands...

Regarding Africa and their 'much lower forecasts of CO2 production', then surely it would be better to demographically prepare these countries now, before they develop their CO2-guzzling habits?

It seems to be a strange approach to what we're being told is a planet-killing issue, to simply ignore what is quite clearly the largest contributing factor with this problem, which is simply the huge numbers of people on the planet.....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[UncleEbenezer]

Sounds like a rather dubious argument to me. Global warming is essentially due to consumerism. More people means more demand for heating/lighting, more cars, more food, etc. One extra person in the developed world will consume far more than one extra person in sub-saharan Africa.

--kiloran

That applies on a narrow view of today. A generation or so ago it applied to a lot more of the world, like the 750 million Chinese who have been lifted out of African levels of poverty (the number is one I heard earlier today in a programme about China - I think the 750m is since the death of Mao).

It breaks down if we "make poverty history". And it breaks down as African land gets repurposed to serve the needs of the developed world. Not to mention as a growing African population clear more land to feed themselves, and the desert advances. Or indeed as Africans migrate to Europe.

[djbenedict]

There was quite a good More or Less on this subject that I happened to hear at the weekend. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswk2h

One point that is made in the programme is that, on a global level, large families do not have as much of an impact on CO2 production as you might think. This is because most large families are in Africa (specifically) and the average CO2 production per capita in Africa is low, and forecast to remain low.

Most of the climate-change hypocrites that I've come into contact with, that have what I'd consider to be large families for people with such strong and vocal views on this topic - and strong enough views to tell me to turn my heating down, let's not forget - have been developed-nation climate-change hypocrites, so my point stands...

Well, yes, of course in terms of what people have said to you, your personal experience stands. But also no, in that you have only come into contact with a tiny sample of the world population, and the fact is that the majority of women giving birth to large numbers of children do not live in 'developed nations'.

Regarding Africa and their 'much lower forecasts of CO2 production', then surely it would be better to demographically prepare these countries now, before they develop their CO2-guzzling habits?

It seems to be a strange approach to what we're being told is a planet-killing issue, to simply ignore what is quite clearly the largest contributing factor with this problem, which is simply the huge numbers of people on the planet.....

Perhaps you should listen to the linked programme. The point being made is that if a section of the population does not, per capita, produce very much CO2, then it doesn't really matter, for total CO2 production, how numerous that section of the population is. That is a simple matter of multiplication (the numerical kind, not the reproductive kind). Secondly, it is not at all a given that these countries will develop CO2 producing habits on the same scale as developed nations.

Taken together, these points do mean that, in actual fact it is important to change the behaviour of the societies that do produce a lot of CO2. Probably haranguing people about their thermostat's settings is counter-productive, though.

[UncleIan]

Greta gives 'em both barrels

Wow, she gave Trump the right evils! Excellent.

[tjh290633]

Something that puzzles me. It is the belief that if we all foreswore meat eating, there would be less CO2 emitted,

Looking at your typical cow or sheep, it eats nothing but grass or silage, maybe the odd pellets from vegetation, converts that into protein and other bodily parts, emits some CO2 and methane from its bodily orifices, but the grass has already absorbed more CO2 through photosynthesis than is emitted.

Surely the animals are carbon neutral? Rather moreso than using plant based fuel to generate electricity.

TJH

[UncleEbenezer]

Perhaps you should listen to the linked programme. The point being made is that if a section of the population does not, per capita, produce very much CO2, then it doesn't really matter, for total CO2 production, how numerous that section of the population is.

It absolutely does matter!
Growing populations cause damage far beyond that which is counted. Historically with pressure on the land, new land use, leading in some cases to desertification. By war over scarce resources (both for the West and for themselves). Since the 1980s by provoking vast famine-relief operations when there's the kind of famine year that historically limited population growth. In recent years through Malthusian emigration of excess population to more-developed areas (in some ways a mirror of European emigration in past times). And all the time by development: what some in the West express as "make poverty history".

Looking at your typical cow or sheep, it eats nothing but grass or silage, maybe the odd pellets from vegetation, converts that into protein and other bodily parts, emits some CO2 and methane from its bodily orifices, but the grass has already absorbed more CO2 through photosynthesis than is emitted.

As ever, land use. Carbon sinks (topically, the rainforest) being destroyed to clear land. Plus the unnatural lives of farmed animals: those sheep and cows you actually see lead the closest to natural lives, yet even there the cows famously emit excess gas due to being bred and fed for intensive production.

[edit to add] That wikipedia link is crap: I suspect it's based on some film or other adaptation that completely changes the ending!

[vrdiver]

Something that puzzles me. It is the belief that if we all foreswore meat eating, there would be less CO2 emitted,

Looking at your typical cow or sheep, it eats nothing but grass or silage, maybe the odd pellets from vegetation, converts that into protein and other bodily parts, emits some CO2 and methane from its bodily orifices, but the grass has already absorbed more CO2 through photosynthesis than is emitted.

Surely the animals are carbon neutral? Rather moreso than using plant based fuel to generate electricity.

TJH

The problem with cows is that they fart*. A lot. So a lot of the grass is released back into the atmosphere as CO2, leaving less of it to end up on your plate as steak.

If we were to eat kangaroo (for example) they are better at converting grass to meat, so less vegetation consumed, more CO2 left as plant matter. If we were to eat vegetable crops instead of meat this would be significantly more efficient, perhaps removing between 50-80% of the land required for human food production**.

Most (excluding organic) farming uses petroleum-based fertilisers, so the CO2-grass-cow-burp/fart cycle isn't a zero sum game but a release of fossil fuel via the fertiliser-to-grass-to-cow-to-atmosphere section. In the case of beef produced say, in the Amazon, rainforest clearance to create a field for the cows has had the impact of reducing the amount of CO2 sequestered by the trees as well as all the other issues, so is again a CO2 issue even before the first cow belches...

VRD


*Fart, belch, produce gas which escapes from either end.
** Back-of-envelope estimate based on it taking 10Kg of grain to produce 1Kg of meat, but with extra land available farmers might not need to farm so intensively.

[Itsallaguess]

The point being made is that if a section of the population does not, per capita, produce very much CO2, then it doesn't really matter, for total CO2 production, how numerous that section of the population is. That is a simple matter of multiplication (the numerical kind, not the reproductive kind).

Secondly, it is not at all a given that these countries will develop CO2 producing habits on the same scale as developed nations.

I'm not sure if you've noticed the news recently, but it seems to be telling us that the current situation is untenable for the planet, so the simple fact is that un-developed CO2 populations don't have to develop exactly the same CO2-pumping habits as we do for it to be a major, catastrophic issue, they simply need to stay the same, or even worse, rise from their current position....

If you're trying to tell me that we can forget about un-developed nations because the above is unlikely to happen, then I'm afraid I'll leave you to settle on that conclusion on your own...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[djbenedict]

The point being made is that if a section of the population does not, per capita, produce very much CO2, then it doesn't really matter, for total CO2 production, how numerous that section of the population is. That is a simple matter of multiplication (the numerical kind, not the reproductive kind).

Secondly, it is not at all a given that these countries will develop CO2 producing habits on the same scale as developed nations.

I'm not sure if you've noticed the news recently, but it seems to be telling us that the current situation is untenable for the planet, so the simple fact is that un-developed CO2 populations don't have to develop exactly the same CO2-pumping habits as we do for it to be a major, catastrophic issue, they simply need to stay the same, or even worse, rise from their current position....

If you're trying to tell me that we can forget about un-developed nations because the above is unlikely to happen, then I'm afraid I'll leave you to settle on that conclusion on your own...

I am saying that focussing on undeveloped nations, which produce a small amount of the global CO2 output, is unhelpful. What is needed is focus on the developed nations which produce a large amount of the global CO2 output. That is implicitly resisted if you worry only about family size. It is the entire planet's CO2 habits that are the problem, and the vast bulk of that problem is in developed nations.

To put it another way, to solve the current problem, people in developed nations need to adopt the CO2 production habits of Africans. Africans adopting the family size habits of developed nations will not have the same effect.

[Itsallaguess]

I am saying that focussing on undeveloped nations, which produce a small amount of the global CO2 output, is unhelpful.

Can you please point out where I've done that?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[JohnB]

We need to focus on the developing nations, because they aspire to Western lifestyles. Removing the second car from a European household makes much less difference than not adding the first car to 5 Asian ones.

The meat issue was nicely described as the "lonely cow" problem with Amazon deforestation. The cleared land is so poor it only supports one cow per hectare. Perhaps we should encourage tropical hardwood plantations, and we can all have mahogany and ebony furniture.

[vrdiver]

I thought this graph was a good way of representing CO2 emissions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2018 ... ons%22.jpg

For a given country, its emission is proportional to the area of its block, but you get an idea of whether that is due to high per capita output, or high population by whether the bar is tall and thin (high consumption per capita but small population) or short and wide (low CO2 output per person, but a lot of people).

Looking at the graph, every country on the chart could point to another and say "they are worse than us because... and therefore they must act first."

Looking at the UK (just to the right of China) we could argue that: we're small, we're lower than China, the USA is much worse than us etc. etc. but the reality is that we have the wealth to do more, should we choose to do so, and if we did, it would put pressure on other countries to up their game (soft power and influence). To misquote: "All that is necessary for Global Warming to succeed is that good countries do nothing".

VRD

[scotia]

Something that puzzles me. It is the belief that if we all foreswore meat eating, there would be less CO2 emitted,
Looking at your typical cow or sheep, it eats nothing but grass or silage, maybe the odd pellets from vegetation, converts that into protein and other bodily parts, emits some CO2 and methane from its bodily orifices, but the grass has already absorbed more CO2 through photosynthesis than is emitted.
Surely the animals are carbon neutral? Rather moreso than using plant based fuel to generate electricity.
TJH

Its the methane that they emit which is the major problem. Although methane degrades in the upper atmosphere, (I think with about a 10 year half life - and usually producing Carbon Dioxide) it is a much more potent greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide. The figure usually quoted over a 20 year span (taking account of the degradation) is that Methane is about 85 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide.
I first became aware of this when fishing late one night with my son, and we returned through a field of cows. With no other sounds, the noise of cows farting was impressive. And my son, being a biological scientist, informed me that this was a significant factor in global warming.

[djbenedict]

I am saying that focussing on undeveloped nations, which produce a small amount of the global CO2 output, is unhelpful.

Can you please point out where I've done that?

The post I just replied to! Where you say:

the simple fact is that un-developed CO2 populations don't have to develop exactly the same CO2-pumping habits as we do for it to be a major, catastrophic issue, they simply need to stay the same, or even worse, rise from their current position....

That completely fails to mention anything about the actual major source of the problem — developed nations — and focusses entirely on the CO2 habits of "un-developed CO2 populations". Look at the graph! If their habits and family sizes stay the same they will be continue to be literally the least of our worries.

[JohnB]

Cows don't fart, they belch. And people are working on genetically engineering the bacteria in whichever stomach it is to not produce methane as a by-product.

[Itsallaguess]

I am saying that focussing on undeveloped nations, which produce a small amount of the global CO2 output, is unhelpful.

Can you please point out where I've done that?

The post I just replied to! Where you say:

the simple fact is that un-developed CO2 populations don't have to develop exactly the same CO2-pumping habits as we do for it to be a major, catastrophic issue, they simply need to stay the same, or even worse, rise from their current position....

That completely fails to mention anything about the actual major source of the problem — developed nations — and focusses entirely on the CO2 habits of "un-developed CO2 populations". Look at the graph! If their habits and family sizes stay the same they will be continue to be literally the least of our worries.

I'd like you to please remember that you entered this particular thread in a direct reply to me when I originally made this point -

"We should be asking ourselves what the personal CO2 impact on the planet might be for the next 200 years by having two kids instead of one......just have a think about the size of those inverted people-pyramids in 200 years.....how much extra C02 is likely to be generated five generations out from a standing-start??......"

and you chose to reply with the following snippet about Africa -

"One point that is made in the programme is that, on a global level, large families do not have as much of an impact on CO2 production as you might think. This is because most large families are in Africa (specifically) and the average CO2 production per capita in Africa is low, and forecast to remain low."

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=19611&start=20#p253280

So it was you who originally brought up the subject of un-developed nations, and not me - and for some reason you brought it up as a reply to a point I made regarding just two-kid families, and how vocal climate-change hypocrites who choose to either maintain or raise their own personal population-group should look much closer to home before telling me I need to manage my own CO2 output better....

So the fact that we then meandered into 'un-developed-nation' territory was due to your original straw man, and nothing more, and so to then tell people that we are then 'wrong to focus on it', when it was you who brought it up in the first place, is curious to say the least....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess