@ Jacob from you Wikipedia link to ecological footprint :
In their comparison, deaths per TW-yr of electricity produced (in UK and USA) from 1970 to 1992 are quoted as 885 for hydropower, 342 for coal, 85 for natural gas,and 8 for nuclear.
I can see it now. The Fox Special Edition: "When Dams Attack!"
Politicized junk science, refuted by more politicized junk science. Or so says my barely educated judgemental side.
The global outcom might be bad if people wo have the ability to manage ressources sustainably stop making children, without any strategy to avoid a greater proportion of the power to control ressources to go to the then more numerous people who don't have this ability. (ouch, long phrase)
What I am saying, is that a world where everyone control its growth, isn't a nash equilibrium, because, people wo don't will have an advantage over those wo do.
It can only be achieved by a benevolent superpower.
I enjoy my life of peacefull plentyness, but it creates envy and I only see it as a temporary situation.
A stable nash equilibrium, is one in which everyone try to limit the growth of the other.
We should accept this.
A life in which we live 30 years killiing each other seems preferable than one in which we live 80 years following regulations. I assume enough people think this way to avoid any superpower to dominate eternaly.
I think ultimately this one will be controlled [because the world is still rich and sufficiently internationally coordinated], but this epidemic highlights the systemic problem in that we have a disease that thrives at high population densities and "underregulations" (cultural habits that are conducive to infection) that is only contained by throwing substantial amounts of resources at in. In particular, money, food (for those in quarantine), and medical workers (who despite their training are also dying). If we run out of either medical workers, money, or food, the former combination of overpopulation and underregulation will cause a positive feedback runaway.
When systems are strained and tightly bound, problems cascade. This is what Perrow would call a "normal accident". Also somewhat covered in the ERE book in chapters 3-5 for the personal "finance" field.
"Four decades after the book was published, Limit to Growth’s forecasts have been vindicated by new Australian research. Expect the early stages of global collapse to start appearing soon"
Price tag increased from 490M USD to 600M(*) USD over the past week. This ties in well with the Limits to Growth model that henrik posted about above. Also see my own post a few posts above this one.
(*) The cost of about four F35s (the Joint Strike Fighter) or thirty F16s. Alternatively, it's 0.1% of the cost of the 2008 TARP bailout.
Using modern statistical tools, a new study led by the University of Washington and the United Nations finds that world population is likely to keep growing throughout the 21st century. The number of people on Earth is likely to reach 11 billion by 2100, the study concludes, about 2 billion higher than widely cited previous estimates.
What's more interesting about that study is that 100%+ of the growth is expected in one place -- Africa. Everywhere else is flat or declining after 2050. As I mentioned before (Aug 11), this is a more of a local or country-by-country issue than a global one. Despite the "war on population growth" mantra that is often heard, there is no population problem to be solved in most places.
The real issues in most places would appear to pertain to resource mis-allocation (e.g., wasting energy to both grow food and then destroy it, as mentioned above).
Dragline wrote:What's more interesting about that study is that 100%+ of the growth is expected in one place -- Africa. Everywhere else is flat or declining after 2050. As I mentioned before (Aug 11), this is a more of a local or country-by-country issue than a global one. Despite the "war on population growth" mantra that is often heard, there is no population problem to be solved in most places.
The real issues in most places would appear to pertain to resource mis-allocation (e.g., wasting energy to both grow food and then destroy it, as mentioned above).
If Africa is projected to produce the bulk of the growth, does it take into account any black swan events that might dent the population? Africa currently has the highest violent death rate measured as a percentage of the population. It also seems the most likely candidate for [at least] one pandemic. If most of the growth is supposed to happen in the area most likely to see one or more population-reducing events, how accurate is the projection?
The future demography is linear in events (e.g. a pandemic that kills 20% of the population will reduce future predictions by 20%) but exponential in the growth rates which completely swamp most linear effects. For example, the casualties of WWII is just a tiny blip on the global population curve. One exception would be if a pandemic specifically hits reproductive women. That would have big repercussions on the growth rate 20-40 years from now (because there will be fewer children born now that will be reproductive then).
jennypenny wrote:If Africa is projected to produce the bulk of the growth, does it take into account any black swan events that might dent the population? Africa currently has the highest violent death rate measured as a percentage of the population. It also seems the most likely candidate for [at least] one pandemic. If most of the growth is supposed to happen in the area most likely to see one or more population-reducing events, how accurate is the projection?
The answer is no. These are projections based on current and recent past trends, and not actually "predictions". This article discusses the demographer debate over the new study: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... om-africa/
What I found interesting is the discussion of how erroneous these kinds of projections have been in the past due to the difficulty of forecasting future fertility rates -- first underestimating the steep declines in Asia and Latin American and then misapplying what was supposedly "learned" there to Africa, where the declines have not been as swift.
Also not accounted for are the possibility of mass migrations from one place to another.
jennypenny wrote:If Africa is projected to produce the bulk of the growth, does it take into account any black swan events that might dent the population? Africa currently has the highest violent death rate measured as a percentage of the population. It also seems the most likely candidate for [at least] one pandemic. If most of the growth is supposed to happen in the area most likely to see one or more population-reducing events, how accurate is the projection?
Catch22. Low mortality rates remove the need for high birth rates and visa versa.
Dragline wrote:
Also not accounted for are the possibility of mass migrations from one place to another.
I'm not sure Africans can migrate in mass anywhere. Geography really screws them on that option, not to mention the horrible geography for ports on the continent.
Africans are already mass-migrating to Italy in boats that barely float. Hundreds at a time. It's a source of daily Euro news. The Mediterranean is not very wide but it has crazy wave action, hence crossing is doable but dangerous.
jacob wrote:Africans are already mass-migrating to Italy in boats that barely float. Hundreds at a time. It's a source of daily Euro news. The Mediterranean is not very wide but it has crazy wave action, hence crossing is doable but dangerous.
Yes, that happens, but I wouldn't really classify it as mass migration. The number was barely above 20k last year. Europe could absorb that unnoticed every year forever.
The crossing, like you said is difficult and dangerous and that's just one part. The Sahara crossing is also very dangerous and seperates the majority of the continent from the Mediterranean coast. These two geograraphic barriers make mass migration very difficult.
The numbers in this article are closer to a mass migration (300k-1.3m/year). (I am not trying to derail this thread with a US immigration discussion. Article is just for the numbers.)
Chad wrote:Yes, that happens, but I wouldn't really classify it as mass migration. The number was barely above 20k last year. Europe could absorb that unnoticed every year forever.
I don't know what qualifies as mass migration, but the number of Mediterranean crossings alone was 60K last year and 100k+ into August this year. Your 20k is probably from 2012? This means successful arrivals only and it's not the only route from Africa to Europe. Not saying it changes your argument much, just shows how current events can change the numbers quite dramatically in a short time. http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21 ... -surge-sea
