The problem is not the number of people, but their individual carbon footprints. So blowing up NA and the EU rather than liquidating Asia is the short term solution. The Earth is capable of sustaining 10 billion, we just aren't doing the things now for that to be possible. Making poorer nations wealthier will slow their population growth, but also increase their energy usage. The solution is to make low carbon footprint technologies available to the developing nations AND to make them wealthier ASAP and cut out all this nonsense about reducing the population to 2 billion gradually or otherwise. He never said how or when.
----- Original Message ----- From: "jim woolridge" <[email protected]> To: "geoengineering" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2009 6:59 AM Subject: [geo] Geonurturing - Ray's first attempt at a classification > > Just a quickie: nice concept, overall approach seems to tick most, if > not all, of the boxes. Analogising in terms of the human body, in this > case comparing the earth to a sick child, tends to have a strong > resonance for us--well, we all know a bit about human bodies and can > easily relate in terms of them. > > A niggle about the child analogy: isn't the planet a bit past the > child stage in terms of development? Our species is now old enough to > try prescribing the planet's treatment. A better fit than childhood > would be 'coming of age' in the old Brit sense of reaching adult > estate at the age of 21. Adults have to make their own ways, make > their own decisions and live or die by the results. But I am probably > running off down another road with that. > > In general there are many of us who would prefer what might be > described as a geonurturing approach--historically we have seen enough > scorched earth and bold radical surgery approaches to be very wary of > going down that road again in the current apocalyptic situation. > > Alvia: the kind of approach Ray is taking precludes nuclear options. > What he says about population isn't addressed at all in your > response. And what do you suggest re population? It isn't a topic > that can simply be ignored in the long term--even though, in the long > term we are all dead.... > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
