Climate Change Thread

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I think we need to look at the real issue here which is overpopulation.

That cuts across everything, from our consumption to our building on flood plains because we've run out of space on higher ground. Around 1927 the world population was about 2 Billion, by 1960 3 Billion, despite the World War, by 1974 4 Billion.

We hit 7 Billion in 2012 and are projected to hit 8 Billion in 2027.

I'd say we need to reduce the World population by half - in the short term that means introducing policies to penalise large families (which means penalising the poor) and in the medium term it means a global implementation of China's One Child Policy. We also need to "roll back" the expansion of Urbanisation.

All of this means at least two generations of people, many childless and never married, who will be employed for their entire lives demolishing unused houses and factories as the population falls and more marginal areas are abandoned. That is, objectively, a miserable existence and not one anyone is going to vote for willingly.

When the current Conservative Government in the UK tried to restrict child tax benefit to the first two children people screamed about women who were raped getting no support. When the Government said it would introduce a dispensation people screamed about women having to prove they were raped.

I think we're going to screw this up, we already have, and we should be focusing on pollution and hardening our infrastructure against climate change rather than trying to slow the temperature rise directly. By reducing pollution, including things like sun screen that kills coral, we can give ourselves and the other species still clinging onto this rock a better chance of weathering the coming storm.