Former Obama-administration energy secretary and Nobel laureate, Steven Chu, says the global economy is dysfunctional because it depends on constant population growth.
"The world needs a new model of how to generate a rising standard of living that’s not dependent on a pyramid scheme," Chu said at the University of Chicago.
"Increased economic prosperity and all economic models supported by governments and global competitors are based on having more young people, workers, than older people," Chu said.
For example, healthy young workers pay the health care costs for aging workers and retirees, the former energy secretary said, a scheme that requires increasing numbers of young workers. And economic growth requires more and more people to buy more and more stuff, with dire environmental consequences.
...Chu, the man who solved the Gulf Oil spill with a doodle on a napkin, then offered two painless solutions to population growth:
"Education of women and wealth creation. Across all cultures. You go negative. You go negative birth.
"In many countries around the world, developed countries, Japan, Spain Italy, we’re talking about 1.3 (children per couple), 1.2 going below 1, where 2 is steady state."When it comes to anthropogenic global warming and climate change, Chu says we're blinding ourselves by thinking in terms of this century and where we'll be by 2100.
"Once it’s carbon dioxide, some of the models are saying that circulates with a half life of about 10,000 years. So don’t think 2100, think 12100. Let that sink in. We never talk about beyond 2100. So the longevity of this is going to be much longer than the next century or the next millennium," Chu said. "I want to point out that three quarters of the greenhouse gas emissions have occurred over the last 65 years, so it’s a recent phenomenon, since about 1950."
To put it bluntly, humans have done something since 1950 that is going to change the climate until 12100, and we're only beginning to feel that change.
"What we’ve already done won’t be really visible for 50-100 years. That’s actually easy to understand but no one explains it."
9 comments:
A few years ago I have mused here that population growth issue suddenly disappeared from public discourse in the 1970's and that "vanishing act" was a deliberate and coordinated strategy of the emerging cabal of globalists.
""What we’ve already done won’t be really visible for 50-100 years."
He is correct. The latency of CO2 is well know. Not talked about outside scientific circles cause ... we can't seem to handle the truth.
This is why Lovelock keeps flying. Why wear a hairshirt when the rest of the world is determined to party-to-death?
Willful ignorance rules the roost.
The man obviously gets it. But is anybody listening?
No, Owen, there are few in positions of power who are listening and most of the rest of us feel like we're in steerage class and just along for the trip.
NPoV, if that is Lovelock's capitulation and I've not read of it, it's still wrong-headed thinking. Lovelock turns 100 this July so I doubt there are many foreign destinations that can lure him away from his pastoral country cottage.
The point you're missing is one I've tried to drive home for years, an argument that formed the backbone of Canada's climate commissioner's recent report - we plainly cannot avert climate change, not any longer, but there's still a great deal to we can do to ensure that that those who follow us will have a particularly hellish climate. I'm talking about the young and those who'll be born over the next two decades.
Knowing what awaits these young people, what sort of person other than our legislators, our presidents and prime ministers, and the denizens of our corporate boardrooms, can turn their back on them?
Do you think you have a right to do that? Are you prepared to write them off, diminish their already grim prospects? Perhaps you do. I don't know. I suppose there's some argument to support that I haven't heard. Enlighten me.
.. a term I don't see.. recently.. is 'ruthless'
in the right hands its priceless ..
and let's not quibble about 'in the wrong hands'
.. as that's the reality..
I have a vast reservoir of 'ruthless' .. its a black Irish genome I recognized about age nineteen and subdued.. I buried it deep. With it I buried a foolish attraction to gambling I recognized back in my Klondike Days daze..
Don't snow the snowman.. Don't piss on my leg.. that just pisses me off enuff I will mess with ya.. somewhere, some day. But never ever bring out what I buried so deep. A black raging heat seeking missile. I feel a pulse in there currently.. the black thing is thinking.. lurking.. but a long way from going off.. its not in charge.. I am.
But watching and feeling the piecemeal destruction of Canadian fabric by careless or witless political animals.. requires some 'ruthless' ! I've made the analogy before.. 'rats in the granary' .. what to do ? It takes some 'ruthless' .. no different from weeding the garden or eradicating measles.. or lamprey eels. Small talk never resolves tapeworm.. In the meantime, here in Canada, we need to get some salty characters involved. Start purging the fat cat politico multi millionaires.. Scheer for one.. Kenney, Trudeau, defang Harper/Novak amd Lyin Brian, Dug Ford, our deadwood rascist Senators, our malicious partisan sellout MainMedia thugs.. Lard Black, Rex Murphy, Gunter, Levant et al & Op Ed parasites a la Joe Oliver and all the sold out networks
What was ever wrong about calling out a dirtbag lying scum as just that ?
For those offended.. consider letting things get so out of hand
that the real adults unleash just a hint of the dark demon rage
.. 'ruthless' may seem fine to wallow in..
it aint so fine when it clouds up and rains all over you..
and there's lightning bolts striking everywhere
O/T but... https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/norway-oil-drilling-arctic-ban-labor-party-unions-a8861171.html.
Arctic sovereignty seems to be coming up again in Canada. Although it may just be a military plea for more money, I always think it is just greedy oil companies with little regard for the Innuit, the arctic environment or Canada.
"the global economy is dysfunctional because it depends on constant population (and GDP) growth."
Ponzi schemes tend to keep going, until they stop.
Post a Comment