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[stui magpie]

^

China is in more shit, not only are they aging but the young are escaping. But, as I asked before, I don't get what this Demographic Transition has to do with mitigating the resource strain of increased population and consequent impact on increasing CO2.

Yes you need to refresh aging populations through either increased birth rates or immigration to keep the economy going, but immigration doesn't mean more people on the planet, it's just moving them from one country to another.

It's perhaps lucky that the majority of the worlds population is in poor areas where they don't get to consume as much energy and materials as the first world but if/as their standards of living improve, as China has done for it's population in recent decades, consumption of energy and resources follows.

Please explain?

[pietillidie]

^Yep, agreed.

I can see why the way I put it is confusing because the two things are both about demography. But the bit about immigration was just for parallel. Both think they can overcome ironclad laws without explaining how. Compare the two claims:

(1) that the demographic transition can be overcome generally

(2) that population ageing can be overcome without immigration

In the first case, you can't get to low birth rates without a very long development process or population cleansing (gunpoint birth control, enforced sterilisation, and human culling).

In the second case, you can't avoid immigration because you can't (a) keep society viable if you don't have newer generations supporting older generations, and in any case (b) one of the critical multipliers or at least maintainers of capital is population growth (more building, more infrastructure, more jobs, more new skills coming through, and more dynamicity generally), so investors flee greying and shrinking populations in advance, forcing countries to increase immigration. In practical reality, that's also ironclad (i.e., insurmountable).

A further point we could add to that is domestic birth incentives never work for much the same reason: what self-respecting modern person of increasing means not keen on having kids or more than one child wants to become a birthing machine for the state?

Of course, the far right and far left will dream up utopian/dystopian solutions (the people are in charge, not demography and economics, damn it!). It's a bit like communists imagining some utopia, but failing to grasp that we can't get there (without turning nasty and dystopian, defeating the purpose). Naturally, they are beside themselves with frustration that no one will listen, unable to grasp that most people by adulthood have decided life is too short to engage time-wasting fantasies.

(As an aside, you can see why white replacement conspiratorialists and anti-abortionists make very comfortable extremist bedfellows in the US).

On the point about poor nations, most economists, leaders and serious business people assume a technology/innovation/pricing/incentive solution (i.e., things will evolve to cope with that as demand grows, people demand change, and capital moves into including renewables, clean manufacturing, etc., nudged by policy settings).

The most Machievellian are probably secretly assuming mass death through plague, famine, pestilence and war is the go. Futurists are of course now thinking how AI and robots might play into this, etc. American evangelicals are banking on the lord returning to save them (or rapture them off into space somewhere). Naturally, he will judge and kill everyone who is not them, and pop them on a brand spanking new earth where everyone thinks, looks and talks like them today, but plays harps on golden streets!

(Just read your last post WiaN. The above explains more; we might even agree more than i thought, reading your comment. But you can't just throw around ideas like population reduction; as I say, it might as well be a communist slogan envisioning a new earth. Also, as I say, if you reduce fecundity you have to deal with the economic consequences. Perhaps that's why Musk keeps crapping on about Mars, although he doesn't seem to grasp how elongated the demographic transition is. Radical atmospheric engineering could the more likely futuristic option).

[stui magpie]

OK, I get most of that and generally agree. China enforced low birth rates and are now paying the price, but they've reached a similar stage (as I understand it) as japan and even Sth Korea where young people are consumed with their work and the culture around that and just aren't having kids by choice. It's the poor and uneducated who just breed uncontrollably and they're ironically the least able to afford it.

Interestingly in China, there's a rising "Lie Flat" culture where young people are rejecting the work pressures and demands and high rents and moving to the dying older industrial cities where they can get cheap rent and pick up enough work to pay bills and live frugally without pressure.

But none of that addresses how population growth doesn't impact increased Co2 production.

[pietillidie]

^That's what the gravity/communist utopia bit was about. Of course CO2 production is a product of demand, and demand of population growth (among other things). But as I say, you can't get at the population part of the problem; even though it still seems hard, it's actually far simpler to make an energy transition. There's just no point even trying to deal with population outside the demographic transition, while we don't have a fix for declining replacement rate capital flight, either.

Speaking of solutions, next-gen batteries for solving the wind and solar problem are getting closer. This is a good update in the NYT if you can access it, looking the jump in battery use in the US. The good news is that it's actually happening before next-gen battery tech (i.e., non-lithium or modified lithium batteries) because EVs have brought the price down so much, although Lithium still has to go ASAP:

[What'sinaname]

CO2 but also CH4. While accounting for 16% of total emissions it is at least 30 times more potent in warming the Earth.

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/methane-emissions-are-driving-climate-change-heres-how-reduce-them

The problem again is over population of the planet.

[stui magpie]

^

Yeah, that makes sense. Reducing population as a hypothetical works but isn't practical. Sticking solar farms with batteries in So Cal and Texas makes sense, Nevada would also work as it's got a similar climate to the Riverina area, fkn hot in summer and fkn cold in winter but the sun shines 300 days of the year. Stick a wind farm and battery in San Fran and you could power the west coast of the US, I've never felt wind like it.

[Magpietothemax]

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/10/michigan-woman-living-inside-store-sign

[What'sinaname]

^ housing crisis is a myth. People's thinking is just too compartmentalised.

[pietillidie]

^Apartmentalised?

[What'sinaname]

^ 10 / 10

[Culprit]

I saw a story about a guy with a Neck tattoo who is upset that he was refused entry into a restaurant/Club. His choice was to get the ink. Their choice is to deny him entry. It's all about choice.

[David]

Doesn’t sound like a good reason to refuse someone entry, tbh. That’s what’s good about anti-discrimination law – places like that don’t get the choice.

[Culprit]

It is in Qld, the laws were brought in for the Bikies. They want the criminal types out of venues. You want to look like a criminal, these are the consequences. One could argue the case for culture tattoos but that isn't the issue here.

[pietillidie]

No time to comment, but this is a big finding as far as archaeology and the earth sciences go, and just plain fascinating. The stones used in the building of the pyramids were most likely carried on an ancient branch of the Nile, long covered, literally, by the sands of time. This was always speculated, but never proven until this latest work.

Haven't read enough to see how it was done, exactly, but posting it now before I forget:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99zwkzzrxvo