I always sing the same one note, actually its a bit of a short melody:
Since I'm not a government or business leader and don't expect to become one, I'm not subject to the same constraints. Resolving the issues is tricky since we need to achieve three goals at the same time.
Number 2 has no current solution. Efforts at renewables are too modest and don't encompass the need for liquid fuels. Basic R&D has been neglected in favor of rushing in to engineering before new technologies are fully developed. Perhaps we might be able to replace 20-30% of fossil fuel use over the next 20 years with a combination of wind, solar and nuclear, but that seems to be about the realistic limit. This is insufficient, population growth will eat up all the savings.
Number 3 is also "fixable" in theory. It requires bringing the bottom billion out of poverty as well as educating women and allowing them to fully enter into society. Cultural restraints have limited this for thousands of years and even in the most advanced societies residual barriers are quite apparent. Expecting a rapid change in attitudes seems utopian.
The alternatives are unpleasant, which is why no one (with the exception of the planning units of the DoD) are discussing them. Basically they boil down to the strong nations continuing to exploit the weaker for their resources while the weaker get poorer and fall into chaos and become "failed" states. The pattern is already clear in much of Africa, but world leaders chose to see each instance as a special case rather than as part of an emerging pattern.
Those wanting a more equitable world have not been able to make a convincing case as to why the rich states should sacrifice for the benefit of weak, that's why they hide their true intentions with talk of "growth" and non-existent new technology.
Sorry, to be so negative, but I don't see any way out of this given the present world alliances. Just as those in Europe could see the inevitability of the wars in the 1910's and 1930's I think we have to consider that we are in a similar situation now.
Perhaps this is why so many have turned to hedonism, just as in the 1920's. You might as well live it up while you can. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
While I agree with you on reducing consumption and using education and subsidies to deal with the population growth brought about by poverty, I'm not sure one will ever manage to encourage voluntary, long-term population decline.
Further, as it is often the careerist drive to accomplish and succeed that leads Westerners to control their fertility, often to the desired below-replacement levels, than reducing consumption and in turn reducing the focus on accomplishment and accumulation may well run counter to your stated population goals.
We have the means...to immediately carry out rapid population reductions in a targeted, yet thorough fashion. For whatever reason, though, most people don't seem too enthused with the idea.
There seem to be a number of "leaders" perfectly willing to play the monster if they are not stopped. And there is no shortage of others, with cleaner hands, who will find themselves unable to act effectively in a timely manner, as in Darfur. Another problem is governments that effectively committ slow rolling genocide against their own population, as with North Korea or Burma. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
And for good measure:
... it would seem that the low technology reduction would be more further east in the Eurasian continent, in that country that looks like a Chicken and which is progressing rapidly through a demographic transition. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
(this maxim can be applied to economic policy to great effect, I expect)
most people at least want to think of their actions as moral.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
It presents ethical issues that are... not trivial.
Half measures and lip-service or, in the case of the US, a Mao-like headlong rush in the wrong direction, have likely taken the whole world past the point of avoiding big ethical dilemmas with the climate crisis. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
But what made 92-94 so pivotal is that it was basically the best chance to make gains against the run of play ... when the bad guys are mostly playing offense for all but two years of a quarter century, then on the one hand, it makes that any slips in that narrow opening critical, but on the other hand, the fact that the opening is so narrow shows what you're up against.
As LBJ said, the Civil Rights act meant the loss of the White House for a generation, except for the fluke of a wealthy third-party run at the White House ... but now that generation has passed. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
but now that generation has passed.
