The population question goes beyond carbon footprints to take in access to resources other than fossil fuels and also intangible goods such as quality of life and access to the natural world. And how about universal access to the same level of contraceptive possibilities currently enjoyed by us privileged folk? Perhaps the Earth could sustain a population of 10B--surely a more interesting, and important, question is 'what is the optimum range of population?' That question feeds back into and enriches any discussion about geonurturing and geoengineering.
In fairness to Ray his mention of a 2B population was in a specifically 'longer term' context and his whole approach (holistic approach?) would preclude nuking anyone. I couldn't agree more about low carbon footprint technologies--their dissemination has long been the logical and rational thing to do but of course it hasn't happened. Rationality and logic fly out of the decision making window when politics and sectional interests come into play. It is fairly easy to come up with broad brush stroke solutions to problems, e.g. export best tech to the developing world, but another level of complexity is encountered when trying to carry those solutions through to implementation. Having said which there is no mention of 'sustainability' in Ray's piece. Has sustainability's currency become debased through over-use? Hopefully not; IMHO it is still a useful concept and tailor-made for geonurturing. On Jul 12, 12:44 am, "Alvia Gaskill" <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
