Climate Change Thread

[Montmorency]

Peeves, the only way I see your overall point is if you take for granted a scenario of severe warming (4-5+* C) as well as near-total failure of constructive cooperation among the international community in that scenario and in the progression into that scenario. So - it's quite possible that things transpire the way you fear, but why moan about a duty of states to proactively cull the herd? As long as we're aiming at something implausible why not aim at producing an actual good result? "I can only offer blood, sweat, tears, and toil" is one thing to say to the public, but "I have a vision of the future for you: a jackboot stamping on a human face, forever, or at least until we all die..." why would anyone even humor that as a veneer of wisdom? They might as well just violently revolt.

Demography of the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogr...ange_over_time

I'm suggesting the population of the UK should be around 16-20 million, so well below Victorian levels (but still much higher than population density in our former "white" Dominions).

I figured excluding Ireland, but it appears your peg does indeed hark back to the time of Malthus himself.

But why "should" it be around 16-20 million? What do you base this range on? Obviously agricultural practices have changed, and will continue to change. The baseline carrying capacity is much higher - again, unless you think industrial-scale agriculture as we practice it will somehow not be possible because even the major states themselves will have dissolved and can no longer guarantee the conditions necessary for it on a "national" scale. As long as this doesn't happen the state will certainly act to mobilize its resources and reorganize agricultural production and distribution in a more suitable way, as well as introduce new techniques and methods that were not previously economical under the crowding effect of entrenched capitalist industry.

In the former case of state failure, I suppose we can envision a world like a technobarbarian cyberdystopia - fortunately well-represented in contemporary speculative fiction - marked by a constellation of more or less militarized city states with variable holdings of hinterland. The wealthy and powerful ones will have the best infrastructure, a concentrated skilled workforce to maintain it and develop new technology, and some variant of efficient high-yield hypercapitalized agriculture like in the Netherlands, allowing them produce a surplus toward a limited trade of comparable sophistication to existing networks and to hold down the slums and country peasants from which they draw members of the security forces.

...

But it hardly has to be that way. While we draw breath we should fight for a more optimistic (read: not totally pessimistic) vision of the world. And it's still unclear where your range comes from, if it's based on a projection of future conditional carrying capacity or a subjective opinion for what constitutes an "ideal" population size. Whichever it is, why not 10 million, 5 million in Neo-London and the rest distributed across the island? As far as I can tell you're giving an arbitrary number.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting such transformation is achievable in my lifetime, I'm simply pointing out that Europe is horribly over anything that could be considered a reasonable population. Above those sorts of levels you need to engage in mass-import of food, without which your economy and hence society collapses. This is not a new problem, the disruption of shipping between Egypt and Rome alongside reduced soil fertility due to mono-cropping and climate change caused a catastrophic population drop in Italy in the late 4th-early 5th Century, essentially hollowing out the economic and administrative heart of the Western Empire.

As I'm repeatedly emphasizing, the course of our history very much could go this way - hence my determination that neoliberal capitalism is totally inadequate, if not opposite, to the task of saving the world - but it doesn't have to be. We have huge advantages of skilled and educated manpower, a generative common weltgeist, and an enormously complex world economy and world society undergirded by our acknowledged and constantly-expanding technological prowess. Complexity in the past has meant "the bigger they are, the harder they fall", but perhaps with even a modicum of adjustment in the modern day this becomes a system of redundant failsafes. Though it's a terrible prospect and one we should strive to avert, much of the modern order could arguably remain intact under even a billion refugees and tens of millions of deaths if you believe transnational solidarity (or even naked self-interested multilateralism as with the WW2 Allies) is a reasonable expectation.

Since it's somewhat analogous, how do you engage with zombie fiction? Are you the kind of guy who expects society to rapidly come undone due to the flagrant mistakes, negligence, and selfishness of the elites, followed by the dumb fear and blind panic of the masses - or is it more of a tragic and costly emergency that is ultimately overcome once the stakeholder blockades are battered aside and a collective sense of responsibility is empowered?

In view of that you need to assume there's going to be increased climate change and a corresponding drop in food variety, nutrition etc. We're not going to starve here because we have all the ships and guns (need bigger Royal Navy btw) but our standard of living IS going to decline in an appreciable way.

Lol your military at its peak potential would not be in a state to overcome countless thousands of desperate civilians+, let alone imperialize them as a tributary food source. But it's a moot point because if the UK - or enough of the rest of the world - can't maintain enough agricultural production for subsistence and trade, you certainly aren't going to be able to maintain the supply chains to maintain and operate any kind of modern military. No bullets, no bombs, no fuel, no replacing equipment (outfit the infantry with fresh Sten guns perhaps?), forget about it - would you even have a national state left to employ the manpower? Are provisional militias going to airlift raiders to Norway and Normandy to loot as much as the troops can load? Never mind, I imagine you like the sound of that.

Since it's relevant to the general topic, I should note that I'm aware Norway has a contingency doctrine of being able to sustain almost the entire population on an adequate diet even if it were to lose access to food imports. (Unfortunately, I can't find a link on short notice! @Viking) Governments think about these things. I believe we can commit more resources and coherence behind thinking.

Now, on top of that you have large, consumption orientated economies without enough arable land to feed their population.

Self-sufficiency is often bunk. Agrarian societies have always relied on trade to fill the gaps in, or even replace, domestic production. (First thing that comes to mind is classical Athens, their wheat preferences, and the human cost of being finicky about local produce during wartime.) We know it doesn't have to be fatal because we know how to adapt, if we would take adaptation seriously. Speaking of ancient Athens, while ancient societies were characterized by collapse they were also characterized by continuity and resilience. Polities like Athens could endure breathtaking apocalyptic losses of life as a proportion of population and still not lose their fundamental integrity. Same thing held for the various major epidemics across Eurasia, up to and including the Black Death. Even the periodic titanic tumbles of the Chinese empires - with concomitant population declines measured in tens of millions - rebounded almost immediately, even if into competition between smaller fragments.

Though I remind you a country like America absolutely has the arable land to sustain its population and more, if the country can hold itself together. And how often do I have to harp on "cooperation?" As new arable land becomes available for development its fruits can be shared as necessary.

Think about that for a second - in the developed world we have governments gearing their immigration policy in a way to offset declining fertility rates that are, in part, the result of an environment that discourages procreation.

The logical conclusion as I see it would be freedom of movement within a world state, but you don't even need a single jurisdiction to facilitate mutual population transfers as merited.

These are the guys who did 'Saturday Night Special'. Think about that.

I don't know what this means.