[acsinuk (OP)]

As the population of a country expands then the requirement to feed, house and transport more people increases proportionally..


But any fossil fuel that we burn whether coal, gas or oil based will produce carbon dioxide which causes global  warming.

The following link shows the global use of fuels   

   https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels 

From these stats for FOSSIL FUEL CONSUPTION  WORLD  graphs we can see that in 1965 we used 40,000 Trillion Watt hours but now are using 130,000 TWh. of fuel

This ratio of nearly 4 times is nearly identical to the increase in world population. according to UN stats.

  https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/DemographicProfiles/Line/900   

Government are tasked to keep up by using tax moneys to fund developments of housing and roads water, sewage, electric etc.

Governments next important responsibility is to curb landowner profiteering and remove restrictive monopolies using greenwashing to hide behind.

What governments need to do is advise its residents that their large family sizes are what is holding back its ability to increase their standard of living.

After all, if a marriage produces only 2 children then there is no need to build extra housing saving around 50% of all carbon emissions. 

[alancalverd]

Pretty much the truth.

Fact is that what has become a reasonably aspirational standard of living requires the expenditure of about 5 kW of "artificial" energy per person, and this cannot be provided sustainably for the present world population. The choice is simple: either reduce the population of future generations or reduce their quality of life. I think the rational choice of anyone who cares about their descendants, is obvious.

Your arithmetic is somewhat flawed by the recent and foreseeably continuing increase in life expectancy. Time was that very few children had more than one living grandparent. My eldest son was the first on either side of the family to actually have four, and it is now fairly common to have surviving great-grandparents, so you actually need to keep the reproduction number below 2 to maintain a stable population, and not much above 1 if you want to reduce future numbers to an indefinitely  sustainable level with a reasonable standard of living.

How do we achieve this? By the taxpayer giving every woman $500 every 6 months if she isn't pregnant, and eliminating all child benefits.  No compulsion, but plenty of encouragement to do nothing! The overall saving to the Treasury (around $250,000 for every child not conceived) would be substantial.

Note: the calculation is actually based on UK economics but this forum doesn't support the UK currency sign!

[Bored chemist]

The problem is nothing new- it's the "tragedy of the commons".
Also, for many people in the developing world where social security is inadequate, the only sensible thing to do is have lots of children and hope that they look after you when you are old.

You can ask them to have fewer kids, but unless you offer a viable alternative, they are not going to listen to you.

What governments need to do is advise its residents that their large family sizes are what is holding back its ability to increase their standard of living.

But a government with that policy would never be voted in. It didn't work well when China did it.

It doesn't help when some people are saying that global warming is either non-existent or "nothing to do with us".
If the problem is not us, then we don't need to change our behaviour to fix it.

[alancalverd]

Being attacked by a shark or abandoning a ditched plane is "nothing to do with me" but it's still advisable to take avoiding action or wear a lifejacket (as appropriate). 

My concern is that faffing about with the fuel mix is going to cost a lot of money and waste a lot of time that should be spent preventing the disaster of overpopulation in a planet with shrinking agricultural resources. Worse, it might persuade people that the underlying physics will go away of we flagellate ourselves a bit. Fossil fuels will run out anyway, but climate change is inexorable, so the sensible thing to do is the negative-cost option that will mitigate its effect and lead to indefinite (as long as the sun shines) sustainability.

[vhfpmr]

Population growth is already fixed: the birth rate is already down to 2 per woman, and we've passed "peak child". The projected growth to 11bn is the result of children already born growing up and having kids of their own.

The real problem is this:

Wealth Distribution.jpg (513.6 kB . 1200x1000 - viewed 216 times)
If the rich 12% cut their consumption, there's enough wealth to give the poor 88% a big increase in living standards and cut total consumption as well.

[alancalverd]

If the rich 12% cut their consumption, there's enough wealth to give the poor 88% a big increase in living standards and cut total consumption as well.

Wealth and consumption are not the same. The King owns vast areas of land and huge quantities of jewellery but doesn't eat any more than I do, and probably doesn't drive much more either. Overall, I doubt that his lifestyle requires much more than 10 - 15 kW, maybe twice my personal consumption.

And however you redistribute wealth, it doesn't improve the quality of the soil, increase rainfall, or decrease summer temperatures. Climate change is going to kill lots of people because of where they are, not how much they own, and the sensible ones are going to migrate to somewhere a bit more temperate, using whatever violence is necessary to get there.

[acsinuk (OP)]

Chris Pacham EARTH last night chatted on about global freezing due to to many trees and vegetation causing a lack of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that leads to an ice age.
But the opposite is also true that too much carbon dioxide in the air causes global ice melts and warming.
We must get to a balance point quickly by adopting policies that will correct the overpopulation in poorer countries by making them more prosperous so they do not need large families.. .
So how to balance the planet

[vhfpmr]

Wealth and consumption are not the same. The King owns vast areas of land and huge quantities of jewellery but doesn't eat any more than I do, and probably doesn't drive much more either. Overall, I doubt that his lifestyle requires much more than 10 - 15 kW, maybe twice my personal consumption.

Here's the carbon emissions by income decile just for the UK:


CO2 Decile.png (62.87 kB . 904x622 - viewed 211 times)

Now imagine it applied here.

the sensible ones are going to migrate to somewhere a bit more temperate, using whatever violence is necessary to get there.

I don't dispute it for a minute, my prediction is that we'll carry on pursuing the holy grail of economic growth until civilisation collapses, and only cry "Do something" after it's decades too late. Whilst the politics of economic growth is the only game in town, environmental policy is just a gimmick for scoring points off the opposition, and cutting consumption is something that everyone else needs to do, there isn't a cat in hell's chance of fixing the problem at all, let alone in time. What's needed is a "we've done it, now you" world instead of a "not me, you first" world, and the Prisoners' Dilemma will see to it that we never get that.

"Vote blue, get green...........cut the green crap".

[Petrochemicals]

Government are tasked to keep up by using tax moneys to fund developments of housing

Could have fooled me!

Governments next important responsibility is to curb landowner profiteering and remove restrictive monopolies

Could have fooled me again!

Chris Pacham EARTH last night chatted on about global freezing due to to many trees and vegetation causing a lack of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that leads to an ice age.
But the opposite is also true that too much carbon dioxide in the air causes global ice melts and warming.

I missed  that one, I saw the other 2. He said in the 2nd programme the early life was nearly snuffed out by carbon dioxide being sequestered, leading to the CR-T extinction, only saved by volcanic co2 emmissions. My biggest problem with this theory is that co2 is not the major greenhouse gas, water is.

40,000 Trillion Watt hours but now are using 130,000 TWh

Most of this is used to turn liquid water into gaseous stuff.

We must get to a balance point quickly by adopting policies that will correct the overpopulation in poorer countries by making them more prosperous

Jawohl Mein Fuhrer? More prosperity as to western standards, the west uses most of the recourses yet is only a small fraction of the populace, if we bring the projected populace up to western standards we consume resourses 10 times faster and fossil fuels are entirely spent by 2080 or something.  War breaks out famine pestilence and death, hey presto not only is the over population problem solved but the best specimens of the human race are the ones who survive.  We  could survive the apocalypse in deep mines ready to emerge and repopulate the earth once the radiation had subsided.

[alancalverd]

Here's the carbon emissions by income decile just for the UK:

Income, not wealth. But let's look at income anyway:

The graph is  per household. If everyone earns the same amount, then a household with four adults will have four times the income of a singleton, and, you'd expect, four times the CO2 emission. But the y axis runs from 6 to 14, so it seems that the household with 10 times the lowest disposable income only discharges 2.3 times as much CO2. Now that is surprising.

Anyway, the best news today was that UK house prices are falling. Since 30% of the UK's economy consists of mortgages, there's half a chance that we might find more productive ways to spend our money than giving it to bankers as interest on secondhand houses. The British Isles could be entirely selfsufficient and indefinitely sustainable at an exceptional standard of living if we reduce the population to somewhere in the region of 10 - 20% of the current level and invest in storage systems for renewable energy. The only people who would suffer en route are economists, because you can't measure the transition by a simplistic metric of economic growth.

[Petrochemicals]

Anyway, the best news today was that UK house prices are falling. Since 30% of the UK's economy consists of mortgages, there's half a chance that we might find more productive ways to spend our money than giving it to bankers as interest on secondhand houses.

I completely agree, but they still remain unaffordable to people on 30,000 a year, house prices where too high before Corona, now it is just stupid. Economically the money is disappearing, we have no disposable income, people are finding mortgages unaffordable yet interest rates are only at or below around what they where for the rest of history. It is crippling this country, weakness in the pound, inflation and slow growth, it is not a suprise.

The concerns are green belt, population increace and houses, you can only have 2 of the three.

[alancalverd]

War breaks out famine pestilence and death, hey presto not only is the over population problem solved but the best specimens of the human race are the ones who survive.

Wrong and wrong!
War used to be about killing the finest and fittest whilst the criminals and parasites stayed at home and made a profit, but nowadays it also involves destroying civilian infrastructure  and annoying people so that they fight another war.

We  could survive the apocalypse in deep mines

Who we? Only the rich and the parasites. Anyone else will be required to defend them to the death. 

Anyway the other good news, as far as the UK is concerned, is that both the Labour and Tory parties  are determined to cap child benefit at 2 children, thus nudging folk towards smaller families. One small step.

[Petrochemicals]

War breaks out famine pestilence and death, hey presto not only is the over population problem solved but the best specimens of the human race are the ones who survive.

Wrong and wrong!
War used to be about killing the finest and fittest whilst the criminals and parasites stayed at home and made a profit, but nowadays it also involves destroying civilian infrastructure  and annoying people so that they fight another war.

We  could survive the apocalypse in deep mines

Who we? Only the rich and the parasites. Anyone else will be required to defend them to the death. 

Well some of the fittest will go in the war, but most victims of wars loose their lives to famine, disease or just succumb to the stress of the situation.

Admittedly the nazis did try to alter this via humanitarian crimes, and stalin by employing cannon fodder tactics, but still famine and disease. See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#:~:text=An%20estimated%20total%20of%2070,war%2Drelated%20disease%20and%20famine.

[alancalverd]

You could subtract the number who would die from famine and disease anyway. The fighting of WWIII will not last 6 years, more like 6 weeks, but the postwar consequences will last for hundreds of years.

The criminals and parasites who start the war will, of course, survive and profit from it - why else would they start it?

[vhfpmr]

This is what I was looking for:

CO2 Wealth Distribution.png (188.39 kB . 754x524 - viewed 161 times)
https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/research-publications/extreme-carbon-inequality/
If you're trying to reduce carbon emissions rather than looking for excuses to do nothing, blaming the poor isn't going to get you very far.

[alancalverd]

I have little interest in carbon emissions, but inexorable climate change is clearly going to impact the poorest more than the richest, so the two important questions are what are we going to do to mitigate the effects of climate change, and how will our descendants live when we have exhausted fossil fuels?

You could argue that per capita carbon emission is actually the cause of wealth or income. Start with the most basic problem of food production. You can scratch a living from the soil by hand cultivation, or even hunting and gathering, but you will have to work very hard to feed yourself. Or you could use an ox to plough the fields - more CO2 emission but a lot more food. Or use a tractor: huge per capita emission (one bloke burning umpteen gallons of diesel per day) but feed thousands, some of whom contribute in other ways to your wellbeing, and the system runs on money, not barter. Then you might consider preservation, storage and distribution of food - selling fresh vegetables from a bike is fine for a very small, dilute population, but if you want to feed London you need to use cans, refrigerators and trucks, and then burn some fuel to clean up the waste and recycle the water without causing another cholera outbreak. People might walk to work, and only work in daylight, but this shortens the working  day compared with getting on a bus or switching on a light, so wealth comes from mechanised transport as well as mechanised production.

The wineglass graph is actually a chicken and egg question.

[Bored chemist]

Or use a tractor: huge per capita emission (one bloke burning umpteen gallons of diesel per day)

Or...
https://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/23270318.cow-poo-power-revs-tractor-ground-breaking-initiative/

[Petrochemicals]

Or you could use an ox to plough the fields - more CO2 emission but a lot more food..

Every time, an animal in a wholly renewable cycle is claimed to be a source of co2/methane emissions. There is a biological cycle that is there, if the animal thing doesn't eat the plant thing, plant thing rots, producing co2 and methane. If we remove all life from earth the co2 should drop, maybe global warming will end and everyone will be happy.

[Petrochemicals]

If you're trying to reduce carbon emissions rather than looking for excuses to do nothing, blaming the poor isn't going to get you very far.

What do you recommend?

The said "poor" will require the same recources as the rich soon,

https://www.overshootday.org/

[alancalverd]

f the animal thing doesn't eat the plant thing, plant thing rots, producing co2 and methane. If we remove all life from earth the co2 should drop, maybe global warming will end and everyone will be happy.

Not true. Not all plant material degrades to CO2 and CH4 - coal, oil and sedimentary rocks were all derived either directly or indirecltly from atmospheric CO2 by photosynthesis. Geology shows us that the primordial atmosphere was mostly CO2, and plant life is responsible for reducing it to the current negligible concentration..