Population Growth Increases Energy Demands and Atmospheric Emissions‏

Here's a thought - if every couple was only able to have one child, we'd be able to drop the population pretty rapidly within 1-2 generations. This would give every couple (regardless of whether they're male-female, female-female, or male-male) the right to have a single child. If a couple opted not to have one then another could take their right to have two.

This policy is similar to carbon credits where companies can trade with one another. If a company or industry is particularly clean and wishes to sell to another company or industry which is particularly dirty, they both benefit. The clean company or industry profits from cleanliness and the dirty one gets to pollute more, but for a price.

On the same token - we are made of carbon - therefore we could follow the same type of policy. For every human life there is a sizable carbon footprint, starting with the human body itself. Those who don't wish to have a child can profit directly by selling their rights to another couple who does. Once again they both benefit since the childless couple receives payment for giving the right to another, and the other couple benefits by having the rights to more than one child.

We could also institute some sort of fusion of the carbon credit/tax policy, where both an individual credit scheme (above) and a state tax is instituted. The tax wouldn't apply to individuals directly, but rather at the state level. States would pay more taxes for higher populations than a designated state cap (that which is considered comfortably supportable numbers). They'd also get bonuses and benefits for reductions to a certain extent. So if the population fell below another cap (i.e. the minimum comfortable number of people), they wouldn't derive any further bonus or benefit.

This may sound like warped science fiction, but shouldn't the same environmental policies flow from industry to individual? After all - our consumption is the reason that industry exists at all. We are therefore the inevitable reason that carbon footprints exist at all.

So if I understand Lord Acton correctly he is saying that it doesn't about small populations having lots of kids, until they become large populations. I agree with that.

I believe the people that use the most energy should have the fewest children.

Hence:

Two Cars = No Kids
One Car = One Kid
Two Kids = No Car
No Exceptions

How's that for an energy/population policy? A simple straight foward solution, that really would change the world as we know it.

For those of you who are curious yes, I did follow my own policy, but then I read

"The Limits to Growth"

and believed it. Anyone else know what I'm talking about?

The issue of population growth needs to be part of any discussion regarding energy needs, the economy, national and international security, health care, the environment, and every other topic regarding not only humans but every other living thing as well some non-living things. Many good points have been made here. When was the last time any public person ever mentioned the term "overpopulation?"

I have heard in the past that some places have had success in limiting population growth and in reducing the population without resorting to war or even government mandates. I was surprised to learn that some of these places included Italy, Spain, and Mexico, all countries with a large Catholic population. This happened despite the policies of the Vatican, which strongly condemn all methods of birth control besides abstinence and the unreliable rhythm method.

On the other hand, groups of people such as American Indians that have seen their numbers reduced can't be expected to take the lead in controlling population. China, which has a strict one child per family law, makes exceptions for racial minorities, or so I heard from a Chinese tour guide. It is easy for those of us who are better off financially to ask lower income people to have fewer children. This might help, but it won't convince members of minorities to believe that they will have much influence in public policy if there are fewer of them.

See my comments: "Global Warming 101" under....
http://www.planetforward.org/videos/chapter-two-changing-our-ways

Heat production is the threat, not CO2 production. Atmospheric CO2 catalyzes global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere. I think some people are having a problem grasping just how significant heat production (in whatever form) actually is here. More people, more heat production... it's that simple.

Facts?
How many people have to die in a day for Malthus & Ehrlich to be considered 'correct' by you?

"There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort."
1970 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Norman Borlaug

As usual this is an attempt to paint those that think that the world has too many people as eugenic racists, and steer away from the reality that the higher the population size, the greater the energy use, meaning that population growth *helps* economic growth, something that in some people's minds is something we want to encourage. Unless of course you are one of those 'voluntary simplicity' people who probably wouldn't be using a computer anyway.

This country cannot untie a population growth policy from all it's other policys, because it can't get re-elected that way. Nixon had to admit that:

http://www.population-security.org/rockefeller/001_population_growth_and...

and no one in government has had enough guts to say 'population' since then.

Yes, History, read some sometime.

Please consider history. A good start would be Thomas Robert Malthus and more recently Paul R. Ehrlich. I've heard this song before and the prognosticators are always wrong despite their 'facts'.

Our real concern should be that Europe is almost certainly going to be a Muslim society because of the 'low' birthrate and the U.S. is likely to be a Latino country for the same reason.

See comments under: Chapter 2 - Changing Our Ways.
Comment Title: The Reason It's Necessary to Deal With Population Now.
Link: http://www.planetforward.org/videos/chapter-two-changing-our-ways#new.

See comments under: Chapter 2 - Changing Our Ways.
Comment Title: Smalley Brushes Off the Population Issue Too.
Link: http://planetforward.com/videos/chapter-two-changing-our-ways#new.

Well, you've been a good sport. I didn't mean to be impolite, or troll your post. And, I exaggerate to make a point. I understand the impacts of population growth, immigration and the exponential increase of the draw on resources.

I live in what was a small town in the early 60s when we moved here, and now the population is more than ten times what it was. It's like downtown Manhattan around the clock, and everytime I have to go somewhere I wish all the people would go home or go away.

Education is a good thing in terms of spreading understanding of the thousand impacts of our actions. You mention tax and immigration policy reforms, which have been contentious since the beginning of time, and whatever is decided to some people's satisfaction make other people unhappy. Somehow I doubt rules will ever come to mind for people at the threshold of intimacy when their responsibilities for the people they are creating don't. What would such rules be? I don't know. Can we do better? I don't know that, either, and getting real reform that makes a difference and is broadly accepted seems always out of reach.

And, I'm glad you think about these things. There are some good, new books on the subject. The administrators chose to put up your post and not mine. Supposedly, someone at the White House will look at something on this website. I advocate to individuals, industry and government, and have for nearly 50 years, more years than our president is young. What I want is something else, something free and things we've already paid for, beginning with simple intellectual honesty.

In your last comment you said "[t]he idea that someone has to designate who will live and who will die is a red herring." Do you believe that? In the last year, after all this time, I was shocked to learn that not only is that completely untrue, trimming the population by some unknown criteria has been going on for a number of years. It's done in many ways, but most dramatically by "psychoenergetics technology," known by other names and including several different methods. This is no internet legend, and I know that because I watched my brother and sister-in-law get tortured for a year, and during the last episode his heart stopped and he died. We didn't comprehend what was happening.

I can't prove it, but I know what happened. If you are unfamiliar with the subject, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. The caretakers have bent over backwards to keep the secret while spending trillions of tax dollars to develop the technology. It could be used to solve our most daunting health care issues; instead, it is used to attack and kill innocent civilians. My education comes at this very high price. Please begin your reading with this great report from Project Censored. It disappeared from their website a month after publication. I wrote to them asking why, and they did not respond. I'd grabbed the file and posted it, and it's posted elsewhere.

There are some good books on this subject. I recommend this one. These exotic technologies are hard to understand and even harder to believe, but trust me鈥攖hey're real and everything the authors tell you they are.

Similarly, I witnessed a stunning demonstration of MEG, antigravity and hidden space propulsion technologies in the 1960s. Whoever owned it wasn't shy about showing it off, and it was seen over the course of three years and by almost everyone in town. I got a close look that scared the hell out of me. I didn't comprehend what I saw, and even though I saw it, I didn't really believe it. It's taken years of study to understand it, and I promise and swear these things are real.

Our departments of defense and energy have these fully developed technologies and many others of which we in the public domain have no knowledge. They have the ability to cure any illness, fix any injury in seconds without radiation or drugs, and we paid for all of it. People could live for centuries in good health, and there would be real wisdom in the world. That sounds like a big solution to me. It all belongs to us, yet these things are classified. They aren't secret, but you can't read the technical data. The comment was made on another discussion that overunity is a scam. That just isn't so.

The president could declassify these technologies with the stroke of a pen; indeed, the law requires it. Our country and the world desperately need it, for the sake of the new industrial revolution it will spawn. I think it's a better way than politics and more laws. The people who make the decision to keep it secret don't care about partisan affiliation, operate outside the law and even the scrutiny of the executive and legislative. Their budget is secret, but thought to consume up to 25% of GDP. I don't feel it's wise to encourage any official moves toward population control, because these people have shown me they are evil and don't need any encouragement.

So, please don't take my statements personally. As you can see, the reason for my comments is really hard to explain. But there it is. I hope the president sees this, and gives it lots of thought. Without disclosure, the human race is finished. The issue is much larger than anything in media news. Thanks for your gracious patience, as well as that of this website, and for hosting my solitary vigile.

Doing one's part goes well beyond simply not having children. What is needed is support of all efforts to curb world and U.S. population growth. Education plays an important role. India and some Sub-Saharan counties in Africa are working very hard to reduce the fertility rates of their women. This doesn't mean the entire burden is on the women; that burden must be shared by men as well. But neither will agree or understand without a major effort to educate them how to do this and why it is essential in their own enlightened best interests.

What if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were to provide free tubal ligations and vasectomies using mobile clinics in the overpopulated areas of the world as well as here at home?

What if world religious leaders were to have revelations that would enable them to throw off ancient, outmodedreligious doctrines that encourage large families or discourage effective family planning?

With the stroke of a pen religious leaders could do more good in terms of relieving human misery and poverty than all of their good works of the past put together.

The idea that someone has to designate who will live and who will die is a red herring. However, from time to time, officials like former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm and former Senator Tom Daschle have suggested the old folks have a duty to die. Daschle apparently had some ideas about rationing health care that may become a part of the Obama health care reforms. These ideas must be rejected to the extent that they go beyond voluntary acceptance by the individuals involved. Tax, education, and immigration policy reforms constitute a much better approach.

I was born in 1953. I have no children, and I'll have no children. I decided that when I began grade school, because I could see how the world would be - and I didn't want to put more people in it.

I did my part.

The other assumption here is that we need to decrease immediately. Immediate action is warranted to insure that global population decreases over a reasonable period of time. But immediate decreases are not. It's ludicrous to assume that this is even possible without some sort of unnacceptable action. So why even state such things? I think people make statements about immediate measures just to shut down conversation on the subject. That being said - let's stop talking about the impossible and start talking realistically ablout what can be done without violating human rights and other liberties.

We have so little education on the subject and it's so controversial, that it's natural to consider control measures here to be both invasive and dehumanizing. What people need to start realizing is that there are control measures that are based on freedom of choice (ex: tax disincentives, etc.). The fact that no one wants to consider them, let alone broach the subject without going off the deep end is more of a reflection of our inability to come to terms with basic realities (resource and diversity pressures, etc.) than anything else. Whether we like it or not, something needs to be done here - and we can either do it the hard way at the 11th hour (kicking and screaming in desperation and with no regard for human rights), or we can be proactive - and in so doing insure the preservation of human rights... And quality of life for all... And the preservation of both diversity and our complex renewable resource base.

...wow. Family planning used to get discussion in this country. The population has doubled since Nixon left office. Do you want the job of culling the population?

In fact, there are many models floating around for doing just that, including recent political discussions about "reforming entitlements programs," which means eliminating social security. It's nice and neat to talk about reducing the population, but not so clean when you yourself are burying rotting corpses.

Do any of you social scientists want to volunteer to be the first to pop yourself in the head? Be my guest - but not in MY backyard, fella.

We made eternal population growth offical US government policy when we created social security. It worked great then but back then we didn't have almost 6.8 billion people on the planet.

We haven't fixed the problem because it makes lots of money, any saleman can tell you it is easier to sell vacuum cleaners in New York City than it is in Mayberry, because you have more potenial customers.

In the Flat World View of economics it makes perfect sense, more people means more money, a larger stock market, more customers to buy your product. More pollution, less animal habitat, and less freedom don't appear on any balance sheets.

So what if the real world is a sphere, and Mother Nature will not, should not, and cannot allow humans to grow forever. That will be a problem that probably will not get bad till after I die, why should I worry?

Those attitudes really have worked for thousands of years, they also seem to have been the attitudes of the people who first settled Easter Island.

Regarding the preservation of humanity - the population problem may actually be a far greater threat to our survival than climate change. Because without diversity, we may find ourselves dealing with problems that are way more complex than climate change. All I'm trying to say here is that our survival is dependent on a multitude of factors, and that energy issues are critically tied to population, as our many other things. Therefore - it cannot be ignored.

(1) Between a fifth and a generous third of the world's mammal species now face the threat of extinction, according to the first comprehensive review since 1996. Now 1,139 species rank in the most imperiled categories... In the new view, habitat loss or degradation ranks as the most widespread threat grinding down the populations of some 40 percent of species studied. Hunting for food, for medicinal use and for other purposes affects 17 percent of mammal species, researchers say.

Article Title: Mammals encounter tougher times, new assessment of species shows. Source: ScienceNews.org. Date: November 8, 2008. Author: Susan Milius.

(2) According to a report this week from the international conservation group Plantlife, 15,000 of the world's 50,000 plants used as medicines now face extinction. Not only are most of the patented, synthetic pharmaceutical drugs used in Western medicine originally derived from naturally occurring medicinal herbs, in addition, the majority of the world's population in the developing
world still obtains most of their medicines from plants. Scientists warn that this mass extinction is a result of over-harvesting, loss of habitat, pollution, and invasive species. Sara Oldfield, the secretary general of Botanic Gardens Conservation International says, "The loss of medicinal plant diversity is a quiet disaster."

Title: Health News of the Week - Medicinal Plants Face Extinction. Source: OrganiConsumers.org. Organic Bytes Newsletter. Date: January 14, 2009. Web Address: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob158.htm.

(3) The industrial model of livestock production is causing the worldwide destruction of animal diversity. At least one indigenous livestock breed becomes extinct each month as a result of over reliance on select breeds imported from the United States and Europe, according to the study, "The State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources," conducted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Since research for the report began in 1999, 2,000 local breeds have been identified as at risk. The industrial livestock breeding and production system that is being imposed on the world requires high levels of investment in technology and receives subsidies and other resources that have distorted the market.

Article Title: 19. Indigenous Herders & Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction. Source: WantToKnow.info. Top Censored Press Stories of 2008. Web Addresses: (1) http://www.wanttoknow.info/mass_media/media_news/2008_press_censorship. (2) http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/19-indigenous-herder....

And there are more... just look around.

Just to drive the point home about how little airtime population issues get, and therefore how married to technology we are...

I had a little email correspondence with Nate Lewis a while back - global energy expert and Caltech's Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry. Here was his response. Keep in mind that his world is tech-centric, as our most of ours:

"Of course one method of controlling human based energy consumption is to control the number of humans. However it is important to understand the constraints involved. One American consumes as much energy as four Chinese and probably ten Africans. Furthermore CO2 emissions are cumulative so were we to cut the rate of build up by 80% one would need to decrease population
significantly, for instance from 6 billion people to something like 1 billion people. Furthermore if the remaining 1 billion people included Americans and Europeans only, then emissions would hardly decline if our current energy use rate remained the same per capita." (from a March 2008 correspondence).

With that I think we're all supposed to be convinced that population control doesn't matter at all. But it's hardly convincing. All this says to me is that if 6-billion people get their hands on first world status, we truly are screwed.

I pressed the issue in my response to Nate. And I tried to relay that the combination of population control measures (be that via tax disincentives or whatnot) and green energy advancements would go great distances to insure that we ACTUALLY achieved our goals... and that energy advancement alone wouldn't do what it's been hyped to accomplish in time. He never responded.

He basically hammers out what we've already said here - that the population problem is indeed the greatest threat to humanity on the whole. He also reminds that no amount of technology is going to change that. At one point he was asked why so few people are talking about this fundamental issue, and responded predictably. Check it out...

http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/05/07.php#26147

A friend pointed out that the fact that people are living longer also has a bearing on population. In other words, in setting any cap we would have to consider net births over deaths as well as net in migration.

Great comment, Cliff. I shudder to even think about the potential extinction of the magnificent polar bear.

Posting:
http://www.planetforward.org/content/how-the-media-misleads-us-on-energy...

Comment:
http://planetforward.com/content/how-the-media-misleads-us-on-energy-ind...

I should mention that I'm an engineer and have been so for a lonnnnng time. And as such, I've seen compartmentalized thinking too many times on too many things. Many of our current problems are social in nature rather than technological, and therefore don't necessarily need to be solved with a technology band aid. But the US has had a love affair with tech for a long time, and until we get over it that lens is always going to be in the way of clear, sober thinking.

As you discussed - I also want to emphasize that we are in a closed system with limited resources. And that's not going to change. So we need to come to terms with the fact that human bodies need a lot of resources. Each body requires about 2 to 4 liters of fresh water per day alone. If this water's going to a person, then it's not going to somewhere else to sustain other life forms. And if that's the case, diversity will be compromised in favor of more human life.

The question we need to ask is whether diversity is truly important or not? I "actively" believe so. But many people "passively" (or unconsciously) do not. And until they are educated as to the necessity of diversity to help maintain Earthly integrity, we've got a problem on our hands. Because population control means nothing unless it is attached to some sort of an important context. Right now it doesn't appear to be.

I agree completely. Ask a doctor how they want to deal with a problem and the first things that pop to mind are either to give you medicine or operate. Ask an engineer how to solve a problem and they'll come up with some grand engineering solution. Corporate leaders will come up with products, and so on and so forth.

But clarity-wise there's only one real solution to our existing problems - population control. And if we don't deal with that directly, no amount of tech or public policy are going to be enough to hold back the constant disease, crime, and resource problems that are coming. We just won't be able to keep up... because the more people, the faster things will break down.