Climate Change Thread

[Montmorency]

Monty, you're not getting it.

Where is over-population the worst?

It's not Africa - it's Europe and Asia. In the UK we are at about four times what might be considered a "healthy" population for the land to actually support. We are roughly thirty times what a pre-industrial economy can support (Something like 2-3 million).

The populations of Europe and Asia also drive consumption - especially of things like read meat and electronics. In Africa there is over-population but this is in large part being driven by the needs of advanced economies, strip-mining resources, over-production of cash crops...

In the event of the collapse of the global economy who starves? Europe or Africa.

If you want to get serious about "saving the planet" you need to recognise the real problem is over-population leading to over-consumption. Everything else, including climate change, comes from that. If you don't address the population issue you are just kicking the can down the road.

European scientists with a Euro-centric worldview will be the literal death of us.

So you're a primitivist? My takeaway is that you believe only a pre-modern carrying capacity (where population of settled areas hovered around an upper limit for up to millennia) is sustainable in the long-term, which is extreme even for a Malthusian. I invite ACIN to take Thanos here to task on his premises, a prospect I'm sure he relishes, but I'll also address a few points. I told you that in principle I agree it's easier to deal with fewer humans to an extent, but I think you're wildly underestimating the durable carrying capacity of our civilization (unless you're taking for granted that the very worst apocalyptic scenarios are inevitable??).

How did you determine a "healthy" population level for the UK? Are you citing some source? Are you just referring to the Victorian era as your ideal?

Why do you think developed economies can't be concertively redesigned (as a near-medium program given time pressure) to significantly lower consumption (in terms of raw inputs) as well as to neutralize positive-emissions industry (which again is the immediate source of the vast majority of emissions and pollution)? I mean this question in a more material sense than a political one.

What do you think it would take to enforce a global One Child policy, with respect to non-compliant individuals as well as to non-compliant states? What concrete persons would participate in enforcing it, and what sociological implications does it have? If this kind of derogation of liberties is possible and permissible, what other derogation would you allow for - or reject out of hand?

All the modelling that has been done assumes that once a certain income-threshold is reached and a certain level of infant mortality is achieved then people will stop having so many children and the population will stabilise.

This is rather like the fallacy ten years ago that Islam "just needed a reformation" and Muslims would stop being so zealous as they mellowed out.

Why? What's the connection? Isn't the modeling too conservative as it is given real performance? Unlimited growth in all forms is constrained, including (falling out of) socially.

European scientists with a Euro-centric worldview will be the literal death of us.

The scientists, but not the plutocrats? Hmmm...


By the way, I urge you to read my link above on African fertility rates, and the embedded reference to another look at American/European fertility vis-a-vis a "fertility gap" (women having fewer children than they desire or intend, and also lowering their intentions/expectations in line with the pressures of a modern economy). You shouldn't find much objectionable there, the articles are under a conservative, pro-family, pro-marriage think tank.

That's one angle to take, but with the huge amounts spent in Europe on non-Western immigration; you could quickly rake up vast sums money for the kind of purpose you describe here by turning the European migration policy on its head.

As a specific example, Norway had a budget of 18.9 billion NOK in 2017 (non-English source) for "integration and diversity", or roughly $2.19 billion with today's conversion rate. Five years worth of similar-sized budgets, and you are up to roughly $10 billion, and that's all from a country of 5 million inhabitants.

With agreements with African governments, all non-legal migrants into Europe could be given the offer to be sent either to their home country, or to locations in Africa (potentially newly established migrant cities). It is much cheaper to provide for migrants in Africa, the labour market there is much, much more open to people with lower education than it is in Europe, and treating almost all asylum applicants and illegal migrants the same should free up a lot of money that would otherwise be spent on handling the individual cases, appeal processes, and other general benefits that can be expected by managing things in bulk. The flow of migrants would also be reduced to those who consider themselves to be in serious danger where they come from, unless the African migrant locations turn out to be success stories, which should be a good thing.

Sure, I encourage massive European investment, but it can't come in the form of haphazard and piecemeal state aid or charity, it has to be a comprehensive program engaging the whole of Europe with the bureaucracies and civil societies of most African countries, at once. Or the process will be too diffuse and small-scale to deliver sweeping results, and a relatively large proportion will be vulnerable to fraud, waste, and corruption (especially when it's just direct money transfers sight unseen).

I've also long supported massive FDI to support refugees regionally, along with investment to ameliorate the conditions driving their refugee status. Maybe if the EU had been active in this regard it wouldn't have been subject to a refugee emergency that all the Eastern Mediterranean countries were already having to struggle under. Human groups of all kinds find acting with foresight a threshold too high.

However, the above can't be used as a pretext to keep Africans out of Europe. In transformational programs there should be extensive population rotations in both directions, including with the aim of training up African professionals and leaders en masse. Churn it up.