I learned about global warming in the spring quarter, 1975. I also got grounded in a general way in environmental science. The professor was John Holdren.
Holdren and Paul Ehrlich had come up with the equation I = PAT, those letters standing for, in order,
Impact (total), Population, Affluence, and Technology.
I learned about global warming in the spring quarter, 1975. I also got grounded in a general way in environmental science. The professor was John Holdren.
Holdren and Paul Ehrlich had come up with the equation I = PAT, those letters standing for, in order,
Impact (total), Population, Affluence, and Technology.
Since I was in that class, the US population has grown from slightly over 200 million to ~336 million--an expansion of well more than 50 percent. Yet, in our efforts to reduce American CO2 emissions, we totally ignore population, as immigration has become a sacred cow, at least on the Democratic and liberal side. (I am a fairly left wing Democrat--my great uncle ran the Colorado Democratic Party for nearly half a century--but I differ with the current orthodoxy (carefully chosen word) on population.
The average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival in the US. That shouldn't be surprising. They come here because they want to consume like Americans, and they are coming from countries which have quite low per capita GH emissions. I'm not blaming them for wanting to come here, although I think if they used their energy and abilities on their home countries, they'd make this a better world instead of boosting GH emissions. They could avoid all the mistakes we made in our country--cars instead of public transportation, and emphasis on making money and consuming, instead of education and social life.
Our population explosion, combined with our affluence and our technology, is killing nature. In the last 50 years, insects, a large chunk of the bottom of the food chain, have diminished in number by around a third. That's a good part of the reason why mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, are diminishing similarly in numbers, along with invertebrates other than insects, and fish.
We're killing nature.
In '09, I went to a town hall meeting with Senator Markey. At the time, he was working on the Waxman-Markey bill which was an attempt at greatly reducing CO2 emissions. I raised my hand, and I told him that his immigration policy was undermining his environmental policy. Senator Markey pulled himself up to his full height, and boomed, THAT MAN'S A PESSIMIST! I'M AN OPTIMIST! If I'd had a chance, I would have said, "No. I'm a realist." And indeed, Waxman-Markey never made it into law.
I don't hold a grudge. Aside from his immigration policy, I think he's one of the better senators. I voted for him in the primary against young, wet-behind-the-ears Joe Kennedy III, and again, in the general, against whoever the Republican was.
But if the US is going to make inroads on global warming, we need to stabilize the population.
If we don't stabilize the population, the US is going to be even more of a mess several decades from now, when MILLIONS of Americans become climate refugees, as per Propublica
I learned about global warming in the spring quarter, 1975. I also got grounded in a general way in environmental science. The professor was John Holdren.
Holdren and Paul Ehrlich had come up with the equation I = PAT, those letters standing for, in order,
Impact (total), Population, Affluence, and Technology.
Since I was in that class, the US population has grown from slightly over 200 million to ~336 million--an expansion of well more than 50 percent. Yet, in our efforts to reduce American CO2 emissions, we totally ignore population, as immigration has become a sacred cow, at least on the Democratic and liberal side. (I am a fairly left wing Democrat--my great uncle ran the Colorado Democratic Party for nearly half a century--but I differ with the current orthodoxy (carefully chosen word) on population.
The average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival in the US. That shouldn't be surprising. They come here because they want to consume like Americans, and they are coming from countries which have quite low per capita GH emissions. I'm not blaming them for wanting to come here, although I think if they used their energy and abilities on their home countries, they'd make this a better world instead of boosting GH emissions. They could avoid all the mistakes we made in our country--cars instead of public transportation, and emphasis on making money and consuming, instead of education and social life.
Our population explosion, combined with our affluence and our technology, is killing nature. In the last 50 years, insects, a large chunk of the bottom of the food chain, have diminished in number by around a third. That's a good part of the reason why mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, are diminishing similarly in numbers, along with invertebrates other than insects, and fish.
We're killing nature.
In '09, I went to a town hall meeting with Senator Markey. At the time, he was working on the Waxman-Markey bill which was an attempt at greatly reducing CO2 emissions. I raised my hand, and I told him that his immigration policy was undermining his environmental policy. Senator Markey pulled himself up to his full height, and boomed, THAT MAN'S A PESSIMIST! I'M AN OPTIMIST! If I'd had a chance, I would have said, "No. I'm a realist." And indeed, Waxman-Markey never made it into law.
I don't hold a grudge. Aside from his immigration policy, I think he's one of the better senators. I voted for him in the primary against young, wet-behind-the-ears Joe Kennedy III, and again, in the general, against whoever the Republican was.
But if the US is going to make inroads on global warming, we need to stabilize the population.
If we don't stabilize the population, the US is going to be even more of a mess several decades from now, when MILLIONS of Americans become climate refugees, as per Propublica
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/15/magazine/climate-crisis-migration-america.html
We ALL need our populations "stabilized" - Less humans More nature!
Good point about the difference in consumerism in countries being left and the countries gaining population. Never thought of that.