Oil and Population

welly160 · Post by **welly160** » 22 Oct 2014, 12:20

'Without fossil fuels, the world’s population would be about 1 Billion today, instead of its current 6.8 Billion.'
Simple, but diverse question...
What does the future have in store for us?

http://www.transitionnelson.org/learn-m ... sil-fuels/

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 22 Oct 2014, 13:01

ever see the film or read the book "the road "

The road was fluffy and cheerful quite restful, you could have made a far more nasty book looking at the earlier stages .

eat cream cakes while you can

ceti331 · Post by **ceti331** » 22 Oct 2014, 14:54

i wish those stories about chemtrails,vaccinations, GMO food etc sterilising the general population were true, that would be the best outcome by far

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 26 Oct 2014, 23:35

welly160 wrote:'Without fossil fuels, the world’s population would be about 1 Billion today, instead of its current 6.8 Billion.'
Simple, but diverse question...
What does the future have in store for us?

Short answer is less oil and less people. It is the getting from here to there that holds the unknowns. Prime suspects are War, Famine, and Pestilence.

frayne · Post by **frayne** » 28 Oct 2014, 09:32

According to the new study, even population can be restricted. It would not solve the environment problem.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29788754

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Oct 2014, 11:23

Yes, the two things that come to mind are that differences in behaviour have an environmental impact at least an order of magnitude greater than differences in numbers, and changes in global population resulting from governmental policies and societal attitudes takes much longer than the critical changes in climate.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 28 Oct 2014, 13:33

You just repeatedly spew this bullshit don't you Biff Vernon. That doesn't diminish the stink of it one iota, however, Okay then, spell it out how changes in behaviour alone in the absence of any constraints on numbers have done in the past or will do at any point in the future, radically alter the trajectory of environmental destruction of this species on this planet. And before you do, note that non-realisable fantasies do not count. Real world examples if you please or, in the absence of any, plausible real world scenarios.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Oct 2014, 13:42

stevecook172001 wrote:Okay then, spell it out how changes in behaviour alone in the absence of any constraints on numbers have done in the past or will do at any point in the future, radically alter the trajectory of environmental destruction of this species on this planet.

Nope, I don't think it will. You do love these strawman arguments.

Did you read the Bradshaw and Brook paper that frayne's post highlighted?
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/23/1410465111

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 28 Oct 2014, 13:42

frayne wrote:According to the new study, even population can be restricted. It would not solve the environment problem.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29788754

They did not consider an actual reduction down to one billion which certainly would reduce pressure on the environment. They get caught up in the inability to reduce numbers for long given the present number of childbearing age women alive today.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 28 Oct 2014, 13:47

biffvernon wrote:
stevecook172001 wrote:Okay then, spell it out how changes in behaviour alone in the absence of any constraints on numbers have done in the past or will do at any point in the future, radically alter the trajectory of environmental destruction of this species on this planet.
Nope, I don't think it will. You do love these strawman arguments.
Did you read the Bradshaw and Brook paper that frayne's post highlighted?
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/23/1410465111

So, you hide behind a link to a paper that does not even address the central issue, but instead states that picking away at the edges of it will make no difference. Well, no shit Sherlock.

I'm insisting that you spell it out where such changes in behaviour having a significant impact of the trajectory of destruction of our species have been shown to exist or can be plausibility shown to potentially exist. And, as usual, you obfuscate.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Oct 2014, 13:51

Heck, Steve, I said, I don't think it will.

But I do think the Bradshaw and Brook paper that frayne usefully introduced us to is worth reading.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 28 Oct 2014, 13:56

biffvernon wrote:Heck, Steve, I said, I don't think it will.

But I do think the Bradshaw and Brook paper that frayne usefully introduced us to is worth reading.

The fact is, you keep posting on this forum utterly unsubstantiated banalities that more or less take the form of stating that changes in behaviour will solve our problems in the absence of any addressing of the issue of numbers even to the extent of suggesting that addressing the issue of numbers is irrelevant.
Back up these bland, banal assertions or pack it in.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Oct 2014, 14:00

Oh have another utterly unsubstantiated banality: A nice cup of tea with a biscuit might help you.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 28 Oct 2014, 14:07

Your reply is no more than I expected, but I should be grateful since it demonstrates to any passer by precisely my point. The reason I get so cross with some of your posts, biff, is because you just put of these bland assertions on any thread that relates to them that population size makes no difference to the scale of destruction when, in fact it is central to that destruction. Put at its simplest and most demonstrably unarguable, a population of 7 million could live like profligate hydrocarbon kings in perpetuity and still have little effect on the world's environment as a whole. A population of 20 billion, no matter how privatious their existence, would destroy it irrespective. There are lots of arguments in between these two extremes about the carrying capacity of the earth. But, it is unarguable that there is a carrying capacity and it is clear for all but the blind, that we are already exceeding it in the absence of radical behaviour that we are logistically, politically and psychologically incapable of. Thus, for all purposes that are relevant, we are already exceeding that carrying capacity.

But, your your position does not even appear to recognise carrying capacity as an issue and so therefore being worthy even of discussion other than to airily and completely without substantiation dismiss it. Do you not see what an utter fool this makes you look?

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Oct 2014, 16:20

Trouble is, Steve, I've no idea what your point was.

In response to frayne's link to the BBC report about the Bradshaw and Brooks paper I said:

Yes, the two things that come to mind are that differences in behaviour have an environmental impact at least an order of magnitude greater than differences in numbers, and changes in global population resulting from governmental policies and societal attitudes takes much longer than the critical changes in climate.

I don't know what you took exception to. Was it:
1. the 'Yes', which was short-hand for saying I'd followed the link and thought it worth reading, or
2. the idea that behaviour has a bigger impact than numbers, what with the ecological footprint of the average American being maybe 20 times that of the average African, or
3. the idea that it takes a long time to change the global population by shifting the birth rate (that was a central part of the paper) or
4. that climate change could be rapid in comparison?

Of course all four points are utterly unsubstantiated banality, but I'm just wondering which ones (perhaps all four) caused you to write

You just repeatedly spew this bullshit don't you

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