I’ve written about Do The Math, the blog that takes a quantitative, scientific, and usually non-judgmental approach to understanding our impact on the environment. I posted on it today for the first time about some questions I’d been thinking about for a while but haven’t approached in that blog’s way.
He has written about increasing his efficiency in using energy. I generally applaud that approach and do it myself, but I wonder about its value in the long-term, given population growth. I wrote the following on a thread on conserving energy in the home and persuading others to.
Regarding efficiency, while I also try to improve mine, I can’t help but put these gains in the context of population growth, mainly driven by having read Limits To Growth.
Gaining a few percent in efficiency, or even factors of two or ten seem to disappear in the face of exponential (or even slower) population growth.
When I talk about population growth, people point out the populations in some countries are declining. Still the overall population is increasing. I can imagine a future where everyone’s consumption balanced what we receive from the sun, but I can also imagine boom and bust cycles of the overshooting that balance and recovering. I don’t know of mechanisms to achieve the former and I don’t know how to avoid the latter.
I’d love to see a quantitative approach. Do you plan to analyze and write on population growth? Emotions can run intense on children and families, so I for one would welcome your non-judgmental approach of simply measuring effects without telling people what to do.
Some big questions to me seem
- Is the population leveling off or growing?
- How much is the population consuming (mainly of energy, but whatever other resources we need that energy can’t provide), relative to supplies?
- If we overshoot the supply, can we reduce our consumption to below that amount and keep it there?
- What are the consequences if we can’t? (not sure this one would fit in your blog)
There’s an underlying question of what’s the point of improving efficiency if we can’t stop population growth from causing us to overshoot our supplies. On the one hand, I can’t think of an example of humans cooperating to do something like cap its population. On the other hand, I suspect nature will do it for us if we don’t, so it seems worth trying.
I believe reducing consumption gives us longer to solve the problems of a boom and bust cycle (unlike economic booms and busts, which involve gaining and losing money, population boom and busts could involve gaining and losing lives), but I don’t know what past solutions could apply here.
I write this not to generate anxiety or fear but because I hope we can do something and I’m interested to learn what solutions people have thought of. People get angry, judgmental, and throw up their hands in futility when talking about these things. The point of my blog — and leadership in general — is to understand things in ways to enable doing things about them: not looking for blame but to take responsibility for improving things to the extent you can.
I think he makes the mistake of thinking that this has to be a morality play. A lot of efficiency can be achieved without us having to make majore changes to our habits:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/07/23/202908/energy-efficiency-is-the-core-climate-solution-part-1-the-biggest-low-carbon-resource-by-far/
“In the past three decades, electricity per capita has stayed flat in Californian while it has risen 60% in the rest of the country. If all Americans had the same per capita electricity demand as Californians, we would cut electricity consumption 40%. And if all of America adopted the same energy efficiency policies that California is now putting in place, the country would never have to build another power plant.”
World population is expected to peak at about 9 – 10 billion. Energy usage in advanced economies has been declining. We have the ability to increase efficiency, and we have the ability to roll out a variety of renewables. I think the big question is whether or not that happens before global warming destroys the planet. But if we can get our CO2 emissions under control, we should be fine.
I appreciate the comment. Without talking about these things I don’t see how we can change things, so discussion helps, I believe. I’m concerned we have to act more, though. But without numbers it’s just opinion, which is why I like Do The Math so much.
I haven’t analyzed Do The Math on how moral he gets, but I sense it’s less than most comparable sources. I agree we — especially Americans — can improve efficiency a lot.
For the California consumption leading to no more plants, I guess I’d have to see the numbers. My gut tells me if per capita consumption stayed constant while population grew, total consumption would grow.
If population levels off and consumption decreases, I agree we could do fine, but I’m not sure population is leveling off. Also, nine billion may be more than sustainable, depending on their efficiency.
Joshua –
I highly agree that we need to do a lot more, and we need to do it quickly. Joe Romm, whose site I got that from, is a pretty active climate hawk himself. I highly recommend the posts from his blog (though it’s gone a bit down hill now that it’s part of Think Progress and interns fill up the posts). Here’s Romm’s list for what should be done:
http://is.gd/Ym6jRg
I think that’s a decent jumping off point. I think his point about energy consumption was that California uses substantially less electricity now than the rest of the US:
http://is.gd/e9K0kH
And will use even less when new conservation measures kick in. If the rest of the US followed this path, we should be able to keep our consumption stable even if the population increases (and perhaps even cut back?).
My best guess would be that the world population would level off soon. It seems that as countries advance, their population growth slows down dramatically, and even starts to decline (in the US we’re still growing mostly because of immigration). But really, it’s hard to predict. If Mormonism spread around the world I suppose population might rise dramatically; if (when?) another epidemic hits, the population might drop off.
At the moment I think we should be able to contain the worst of it if we act quickly enough (rolling out renewables, increasing energy efficiency, etc). With most Americans agreeing that something should be done about global warming (which I see as the preeminent threat), I think our best shot might be in showing people how close we are to the edge, and trying to organize a strong political movement to press our government to act.
I’m not sure what to make of your first link. He says “This is what the entire planet must achieve,” by which I think he means “… to stabilize carbon in the atmosphere.” He sounds like an academic just proposing things without any plan to implement them. Where does the motivation come from? Who pays for it?
He also says nothing about population.
It seems to me the first steps for his plan would have to be to motivate people to change priorities and behavior. Since many people, particularly those with money and political power, disagree a problem exists or on its cause if they do, I don’t understand the point of proposals that don’t include hundreds of millions of people changing their minds. You address this point in your last paragraph. I think social change will be harder and take longer than technical change.
I haven’t studied how global social change happens, but I feel like changing widespread belief systems comes not through individuals changing their minds based on things like people being shown how close we are to the edge but by people with old beliefs dying off while children learn new beliefs. The time scale for that change is generations, though, which appears too slow to avoid some disasters.
From my experience, people holding certain beliefs only get you so far. In the US now we have ~2/3’s of the population who agree that we need to have a major shift to renewables. The problem is, we don’t have any group as well organized as the fossil fuel industry actively fighting for these changes.
Judging from what I see at the local level, a small portion of engaged people are able to control things, especially when it seems the vast amount of people are tuned out. If people aren’t engaged, they hand over their democracy to those that are.
I agree that there’s a problem with blogs trying to advocate something, but not trying to actively organize people. But that’s bothered me about…well, just about every political blog I go to.
I see what you describe as the major issue — a majority of people in agreement, a powerful minority disagreeing, and a political structure designed for slow change. We don’t need more research because the data is overwhelming (though more research won’t hurt), at least in my opinion, though I’m open to finding I’m wrong.
I see the challenge in organizing and motivating people on the scale of Gandhi and King — a huge leadership vacuum. Carter made some moves with sweaters and solar panels on the White House. Gore’s movie increased the level of dialog. Will someone emerge for people to rally around so people voluntary decrease consumption and vote pollution-advocates out of office so the government follows them the way they actively sat at lunch counters in the south next to people with different skin color and vote segregationists out of office?
When Bull Conner held power, I doubt anyone could have foreseen a black U.S. President within fifty years, yet here we are. So we have precedent.
To clarify, I see the parallel primarily with social change, not technical (though technology will play a major role), so I don’t look for a put-a-man-on-the-moon parallel. This change would have to affect the average person on the street, not a group of engineers. Then plenty of technological change will follow that demand.
Take a look at Peter D. Ward’s “The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps” and Heidi Cullen’s “The Weather of the Future.” Both authors note that without ice caps, warming will increase, and places that were once frozen will now be warm enough to use the petroleum that is now inaccessible (Greenland and northern Canada). Both seem to feel that we have passed the “tipping point,” the point of no return, regardless of whether we curtail population growth or not.
For other readers, I found excerpts of both of these books online.
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=Xz7hu4qq2PoC&pg=PP6&lpg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/books/excerpt-the-weather-of-the-future.html?pagewanted=print
I found them sober and interesting. If I come across copies, I’ll try to read them.