BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)

Subject: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Nov 22 - 09:30 PM

I wasn't totally sure if that BILLION is supposed to be plural.

In the coming months we shall see:

India's population surpass China's population.

A new pandemic

Aggression over water.

Aggression over arable land

Aggression due to lack of enough donated food.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Nov 22 - 06:10 AM

I think the biggest crisis in the decades to come will be one of hundreds of millions of climate refugees, trying to flee sea level rises and drought. That will be the trigger for enormous unrest.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Nov 22 - 12:46 PM

Yes, Steve... exactly! Also fires in dry forests and canyons in places where rich people build expensive homes (California, Colorado here)
When Greenland and the antarctic ice shelf add their contribution, very few seawalls will help.

   I'm not sure why simple math doesn't clue in those who doubt.

There's a brief glimmer of hope for the Amazon with the election on Brazil.... but I won't hold my breath.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Nov 22 - 01:45 PM

There are many other forests that need to be reestablished or protected in addition to the Amazon - the Amazon jungle is just the best known.

Back in the 1960s and 70s when books like Population Bomb came out there was a lot of discussion - even though from what I read these days, Erlich got a lot of it wrong. An interesting book from the same general period is Small Is Beautiful, by E. F. Schumacher, that talks about developing local services to the scale of the area - that is one I might reread. I wonder if I still have it here?

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Nov 22 - 03:13 PM

The Amazon has, over the centuries, had a direct relationship to conditions in the Sahara. The jet stream and other systems affected things so that the Sahara gradually got drier. Yes, of course other forests need protection, like those in Indonesia where Japan buys huge amounts for building forms...etc.
   (They used to send buyers to the northeast USA to buy hardwoods. The lumber would go to Baltimore and be loaded on Japanese ships with plywood mills onboard. They would unload finished plywood in Japan, then turn around and head back for more.)

   I shouldn't even get started on Japan and over fishing and the whales.. :>(

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 17 Nov 22 - 10:53 AM

> I'm not sure why simple math doesn't clue in those who doubt.

Humans aren't naturally good at doing sums, otherwise we wouldn't have invented computers to help us with them; bad teaching, exacerbated by the abomination known as New Maths, have made most people allergic to arithmetic. That's why gambling, the stock market and other get-rich-quick scams can not only exist but thrive.

.... Er, can somebody fetch me a ladder, please? this horse is especially high.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Nov 22 - 11:27 AM

When I was born there were 2 1/2 billion people.

WWII killed 50 million but the younger dryas event (~12,000 years ago) killed 99% of the population by fire, flood and cold. In fact Rap lives just south of where a comet hit the mile high ice shelf.
The resulting initial ice melt submerged all the coastal cities globally. Then the big freeze killed all the mammoths in mid chew.

A run away climate change will kill in slow motion in comparison.
Life will go on. Just not as much life as there used to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: meself
Date: 17 Nov 22 - 11:36 AM

It will be interesting to see if old Lula can actually do much about the Amazon rain forest - he's got his work cut out for him ......

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Nov 22 - 12:24 PM

The so-called Younger Dryas Event is disputed and is not accepted by most science, being generally seen as speculative only. There is no evidence for a 99% wipeout of the population, and the world in those days was hardly replete with "global cities." As I've said several times before, comment is free but facts are sacred.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Nov 22 - 08:55 PM

It depends on how much you know compared to old worn out textbooks and if you prefer the old textbooks or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 04:36 AM

No, it depends on how much you're prepared to look into the science in reputable sources rather than coming out with half-remembered (and badly remembered) titbits dredged from the back of of your mind. Respectively, that's me, then you.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 08:52 AM

Its a fool's errand to try and teach you new knowledge.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 01:07 PM

I'd spend twice as long having to check your facts than I would had I looked it up myself in the first place. Having knowledge is a fine thing as long as it isn't peppered with inaccuracies and misinformation.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 01:17 PM

Anyone studying the YDE and even the older Events must take into account the effect on and of the Beaufort Gyre and the Transpolar Current.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 01:34 PM

And also the possible weakening or even the temporary shutdown of the North Atlantic Conveyer and the possible northward drift of the jet stream. It's complicated, and imposing a simplistic explanation via an asteroid strike is rather like invoking the God of the Gaps.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 06:08 PM

(diameter of Earth)/(diameter of a human being) ~ 10^7, the population that (suitably supported) could hold hands & circle the globe; also the population that could stand on rafts & each have a private horizon.
(10^7)^2 = 10^14, the population that could cover the Earth, with perhaps room for everyone to roll over in bed.
(10^7)^3 = 10^21, the population at which the whole Earth consists of human bodies.
We are going to stop somewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 06:12 PM

Are you checking Steve?

Joe, can we hold hands all the way to the moon yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 07:32 PM

I've checked everything, and, as ever, I've found you wanting. Cut the bullshit for once, why don't you.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Nov 22 - 07:46 AM

You remind me of Steve Walker, the alter ego of Kenneth Bianchi, but was always foul-mouthed and mean. He is exactly your age and temperament.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Are Eight (BILLION)
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Nov 22 - 02:17 PM

I suspect that we – humankind- know, deep in our collective gut, how this will turn out. All nature has shown us, repeatedly, what happens when things become unsustainable. Nature has an unperturbable power: it kicks things back to viable levels, whether through disease or war or natural calamity. I’ll grant that conditions may become quite uncomfortable before that level is reached.