A new study in PNAS by O’Neill et al. (2010) describe “population shifts” as having a substantial influence upon greenhouse gas emissions. From the abstract of Global demographic trends and future carbon emission:
Substantial changes in population size, age structure, and urbanization are expected in many parts of the world this century. Although such changes can affect energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, emissions scenario analyses have either left them out or treated them in a fragmentary or overly simplified manner.We carry out a comprehensive assessment of the implications of demographic change for global emissions of carbon dioxide. Using an energy–economic growth model that accounts for a range of demographic dynamics, we show that slowing population growth could provide 16–29% of the emissions reductions suggested to be necessary by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change. We also find that aging
and urbanization can substantially influence emissions in particular world regions.
Thankfully, the authors did not make any assumptions about how reduced population growth would occur. From the discussion: (O’Neill et al. 2010)
Economic development is one factor that can facilitate declines in fertility and slower population growth. If it were assumed that increases in economic growth rates were driving fertility decline, our results would differ: faster economic growth would have an upward effect on emissions, offsetting the emissions reductions caused by slower population growth to some degree.
And from the final paragraph:
However, more rapid economic development is not the only factor, or a necessary one, in facilitating fertility decline. Policies can also significantly affect fertility trends. Although the appropriateness of policies that encourage even lower fertility in countries where it is already low is debatable and would require consideration of the trade offs associated with increased aging (29), in other regions, there are several such policies already considered desirable in their own right. For example, household surveys indicate that there is a substantial unmet need for family planning and reproductive health services in many countries. Policies that meet this need would reduce current fertility by about 0.2 births per woman in the United States (30) and 0.6–0.7 births per woman in the developing world (SI Text has details of this calculation). This reduction is comparable with the 0.5 births per woman difference in fertility assumptions between the population scenarios used here. In our analysis, emissions reductions in these regions (i.e., the United States and developing country regions other than China) amount to about one-half of the total reductions that result from following a lower global population growth path, suggesting that family planning policies would have a substantial environmental cobenefit.
Note the paper is freely available online through the PNAS open access option. Nature.com has a blog posting that’s helpful:
Aging reduces emissions as elderly people contribute less to economic growth. Urbanization has the opposite effect: The migration of people from the countryside to large cities boosts the supply of labour and so fuels economic growth and the demand for energy, the study finds.
Aging is likely to dominate future demographic development in most industrialised countries, the study concludes. But in China and India, which together account for more than one third of global population, urbanization is likely to be the key factor.
GM strikes me as kind of a glass-half-empty type. Popular at parties, too, I bet. 🙂
“Population density tell you absolutely nothing. If we could move the whole population of the Earth to Neptune, there would be about 1 person per km2 there. And, assuming the were properly clothed so they don’t freeze immediately, they would die of starvation and dehydration very soon after.”
Sometimes it’s best not to comment. Sometimes you let a masterpiece stand by itself, without criticism or elaboration.
GM wrote: “Oil, gas, coal, uranium, phosphorus, water, soil, fish, a laundry list of minerals.”
“Gas” as in natural gas? You’re really ignorant if you think we’ll run out of that in 40 years.
I was under the impression that the whole reason behind AGW was the population and resource scarcity issue. The Erhlichs, Kissingers and Rockerfellors brigade have simply hijacked a genuine conservation movement and created things called “Greenies”.
Curiously, that’s also what people do when they simply have nothing of meaning to say
1. What is the meaning of “we”? I have the suspicion that we don’t apply the same meaning to the word
2. Yes, we aren’t going to “run out” as in not having any of it. That’s not the point, the point is there won’t be enough to meet demand. Unfortunately, demand for energy tends to be quite inelastic, and that coupled with the nice socio-political system we have set up that requires perpetual growth in order to sustain itself, means that at some point the shortage becomes big enough to trigger collapse.
3. I happen to have seen depletion profiles for gas wells and gas fields, and I happen to have seen the proven reserves figures for all the major producers. Have you seen those?
Let’s say that I am familiar with the conditions on Neptune. That was part of the point I was making. And I am not questioning nobody’s science, the people here are questioning legitimate science, while I am trying to fix the damage ideologically-influenced pseudoscience has afflicted to their brains. Not very successfully so far, but I will keep trying
Several basic things that are terribly wrong with this.
1. You are assuming that poor people will just roll up and die outside of your view. That’s not what has happened historically, and a lot of those poor people are in countries that are sufficiently well armed to cause a lot of trouble.
2. You are assuming that if all the poor people just died, there would be enough for the rich. That’s not the case either, currently there are way more rich people on this planet than it can support, and their lifestyle is primarily supported by carrying capacity imported from poor countries anyway. That’s a very big problem.
3. (Here is where your ignorance of basic ecology hurts you the most). When populations go in overshoot, what happens is that carrying capacity is destroyed, sometimes quite drastically if the overshoot is very deep. In a way, that’s the definition of overshoot. In our case it means that after we’re done with our overshoot orgy, the planet will support a much lower number of people. As I said, if there are already a lot more “rich people” than the planet can support, that mismatch will only grow bigger as we progress further into overshoot and destroy more and more carrying capacity. It’s not terribly complicated. And on top of that, there is a non-zero probability that people’s refusal to die will take a truly desperate and violent form and we will destroy all of the carrying capacity.
That’s correct. Which is why species have gone into overshoot and paid the cost repeatedly. We, however, are supposed to be smarter than that, aren’t we? And it is much different for us, because, as I have said many times before, first, we are for the first time in the history of the planet capable of destroying the whole thing, and second, if this civilization fails, there won’t be another because all the concentrated resources will have been dissipated.
The ever discredited malthusian ideas repackaged in new eco fascist garments. They have never been right before, and they are equally wrong now.
“GM says:
October 13, 2010 at 2:56 am”
Well, if you believe that “we” are a drag on the planet (Whatever the planet is “doing”), AND we are running out of stuff (Like that was supposed to happen in the 1970’s…ok too short a timespan to tell I agree) then please be the first to remove yourself from the nasty consumption stream. The Greens in Australia support it!
Goodbye and thanks for the fish!
I suppose this is the end of all hope for a Neptune settlement. After GM’s bad rap, people will even prefer Melbourne weather!
But seriously, I can see how the worst could happen. Green burning and water policies, de-industrialisation, organic and localist agriculture, socialist government, controls and taxes everywhere, clunky and expensive energy supply, lots of economic planning by a few fat commissars in their comfy dachas. Yep, the worst could happen.
The New Green Man at Year Zero, in a society run by lots of little finger-wagging GM’s. Can’t you just hear him haranguing the crowds, threatening all suspected bourgeois overshooters with re-education camp? “You uneducated mind terribly complicate! I trying to fix the damage ideologically-influenced pseudoscience has afflicted to you brains!”
GM,
What is peak fossil water?
GM has the situation well analyzed. Those of you who disagree with him should ask yourselves where you will get your food from when the next “oil embargo” occurs and all the gas stations have been closed for 10 days? When oil depletes, those Third World types, struggling to scratch out a crop now, will be the ones already adapted and will continue to survive. We “rich people” who don’t produce our own food will starve.
Nuclear power & other alternatives may be able to produce enough kWs, but there is no practical way currently (no pun intended) to harness electricity to supply our automotive needs. Your family car may easily be taken out of service for 6 hrs to “fill up,” but how do you change the huge bank of battteries needed to run a farm combine a mile or so from the nearest road out in a field, when that machine needs to be run for 96 straight hours to get the crop harvested in time?
While water is of course a renewable resource, and fresh water is renewable too, you can pump out aquifers at a much higher rate than the recharge rate and if you do that, they become an essentially non-renewable resource. Which is the situation in many of the most important agricultural regions in the world.
http://geology.com/usgs/images/high-plains-aquifer-map.gif
http://www.wrsc.org/category/wordpress-category/global-issues/aquifer-depletion
http://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2010/09/100923142503-large.jpg
This is total insanity. The TFR for the world has plunged from over 5.0 in 1970 to 2.6 per female in 2005. All we have to do is look around. Even in Mexico and South America birth rates are regressing at record levels. In Asia, it is no better. Thailand had a TFR of almost 6.0 in 1980; it is below 2.0 now. Nations like Russia, China, Italy, Japan, Greece, and Spain have TFRs that barely register (China’s is about 1.3, Russia and Japan’s is about 1.1). Only some regions of Africa (Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Niger) have anything resembling healthy TFRs. In the many Muslim nations it is no better. Subtract Yeman and Afghanistan, and one sees plunging TFRs in Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria. With each passing year, these nations are producing less and less offspring. At the current rate, the world will pass the TFR rate of 2.1 in the next 7-10 years.
We won’t see this in the raw population numbers for perhaps another decade. But the median age of the world’s population will begin to climb steadily. Europe and North America, two areas that traditionally depend upon immigration to backfill its populations will begin to see thier source of immigrants dry up (North Africa for Europe; Mexio and Central America for the US), as these nations will have a dearth of young people in coming years.
What is amazing is that these numbers were available to the IPCC when they published AR4 in 2007. Thier climate projections based up population growth and its attendent GHG emissions do not take the rapidly aging world populations. By 2090, the population of the world will be in free-fall if current trends continue. But the economic ramifications will occur much sooner. The elderly do not produce or consume as much as the younger. Demand for world resources will begin to drop probably in the next decade. Perhaps sooner.
The Alarmists in a way will get what they want. But, they should be careful for what they wish for. Those nations with the most generous entitlements are also the nations with the smallest birthrates. In less than 2 decades, the world’s wealthiest nations will also be the world’s oldest nations. And as they consume more and more of thier aggregate wealth through redistrubtion from young to old, the young will simply leave. And who will care for the eldery? It certainly won’t be thier children, for they have few.
GM:
At October 13, 2010 at 2:56 am you make the silly assertions;
“if this civilization fails, there won’t be another because all the concentrated resources will have been dissipated.”
Firstly, if by “fails” you mean “ends” then such failure is inevitable given sufficient time (e.g. the Earth will be scorched by the Sun eventually). But there is no indication of any kind that “this civilization” has discernible possibility of failure in the foreseeable future (excepting global thermonuclear war) .
Your assertion that “all the concentrated resources will have been dissipated” displays a mistaken view of human existence. The clear mistake is that you are considering humans on the Earth to be like microbes in a Petri dish: the microbes die when they consume their resources.
But humans have never exhausted any resource and we never will. We did not run out of flint, antler bone, bronze, iron, etc. And we will not run out of anything else.
When a resource becomes scarce its value increases and, therefore, humans look for alternatives. And the alternatives often prove to have advantages.
Pessimists see a glass and say it is half empty.
Optimists say it is half full.
Economists say it is wastefully large.
Engineers say it has great potential.
The Earth has great potential that human ingenuity utilises. There is no sign that human ingenuity has reduced.
This ingenuity is why every bet that depletion of a resource will increase its value has always failed. And it is why any such future bets will fail.
When a resource becomes “depleted” humans find another source of the resource or an alternative to the resource.
So, in summation, for all practical purposes, the resources available to humans are infinite.
Richard
Let’s see, what do we have in history. Easter island. Check. Roman Empire. Check. Anasazi. Check. Ancient Mesopotamia. Check. Mayans. Check. The list goes on and on.
So a brief look at history shows that not only humans have ran out of resources, but their civilizations have often collapsed because of that.
I have no idea where you get you wishful thinking from…
A total insanity is to claim that there is no problem with population growth if we’re going to go from 7 billion to just 9-10 billion when we have to be at under 100 million
GM, but those are not the resources being referred to, and I think you know it.
I’ve known Malthusian, Luddite pessimists in my time, but you take the cake.
And, 100 million?? You first. Show us you’re sincere.
GM:
Please provide some evideence for your assertions of civilisations that failed from resource depletion. I know that one of those you cite (i.e. Easter Island) has often wrongly been cited as such an example by misanthropes, and until you provide some evidence I shall assume your other assertions are equally wrong.
More importantly, instead of providing your distraction, why did you not merely agree the fact that for all practical purposes resources can be considered to be infinite?
Richard
GM says:
1. What is the meaning of “we”? I have the suspicion that we don’t apply the same meaning to the word
We the humans. We the Norwegians might run out of gas in our offshore gas fields within the next 40 years, but that’s not the point.
2. Yes, we aren’t going to “run out” as in not having any of it. That’s not the point, the point is there won’t be enough to meet demand.
Yes, there will be enough for MUCH longer than 40 years, new enormous gas reserves are reported almost every day. I’ve seen even Peak Oil scaremongers report 70 years, so I think you might have set a world record in pessimism here.
Why don’t you boring Malthusians simply disconnect from the Internet and move together into a cave somewhere in the wilderness where you can live out your fantasies, practicing celibacy and live as collectors and hunters? We’re SO bored of your pessimism!
GM is one of the many technology illiterate folks around these days. They cannot foresee technological advancement … period. They then proceed to look at the world through a blindfold of technological stagnation. It must be terrible to be so short-sighted.
The truth is if you go back 50 or 100 years and keep everything constant we would have a disaster on our hands today. We would not be able to feed the world’s current population and many other resources used then would be scarce. However, that did not happen … why? … because of technology. I believe the human species will continue to solve problems with technology just as it always has. GM will continue to ignore logic and history and tell us how stupid we all are.
What a clown.
Max Hugoson says:
October 12, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Here in Oz, my son tells me they use a broom-handle. I hope that does not reflect on the Aussie ‘stature’ as such, but merely the lack of available funds for said cucumbers!
He got a nice box of coloured & flavoured ones for his 16th birthday. Oddly enough that caused his peers’ parents to label me as irresponsible. I’d say the opposite, but heigh, ho.
“Using an energy–economic growth model that accounts for a range of demographic dynamics, we show…..”
If they put me in charge of the population reduction programme, those who revere “models” will be going to the head of the list.
GM,
Do the math. Both the UN and CIA Factbook have been recording an alarming drop in fertility rates for over 3 decades. If trends continue the world will see the TFR go below replacement levels before 2020. Once it goes below 2.1, the world population growth will reach a point 0 growth. By 2030, the TFR will fall below 1.8 if trends continue. Your fixation with population numbers and not growth trends clouds your thinking. Since overall life expectancy has gone up, the actual population will grow, but the median age of our population will steadily increase. With fewer and fewer children in each successive generation, the world’s population will age significantly. And once the current generations die off, the world’s populations will begin to fall rather quickly. Plunge is a better word.
GM says:
October 13, 2010 at 2:38 am
Actually, I think they just keep on blabbing meaninglessly…..