New Climate change paper/video... the vegans are coming!

[EatenByLimestone]

I was trying to point at developed world demographics. The US and France have decent demographics. Not awesome, but not horrible.

If you look at Nigeria, that’s a wonderful pyramid.

I think the core issue is the shift towards industrial society and away from agrarian.

I don’t think the less developed economies matter much in this sense. Vietnam, Indonesia, etc don’t matter a whole bunch. They don’t use a ton of energy. The places that do, the northern hemisphere more or less, use the greatest amount of energy.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Here’s a map showing fertility rates. 2/woman, actually a little above that, is a stable population. Blue is declining population. Red/brown is increasing.

I bet Africa has a pretty high infant mortality rate.

 

[woodgeek]

I was trying to point at developed world demographics. The US and France have decent demographics. Not awesome, but not horrible.

If you look at Nigeria, that’s a wonderful pyramid.

I think the core issue is the shift towards industrial society and away from agrarian.

I don’t think the less developed economies matter much in this sense. Vietnam, Indonesia, etc don’t matter a whole bunch. They don’t use a ton of energy. The places that do, the northern hemisphere more or less, use the greatest amount of energy.

I agree with you about what is happening, but my conclusions are different.

I learned about the 'Demographic Transition Theory' in high school... that birthrates fall, and population growth ends with development.
Its also clear that with development cultures increase their energy use a lot and often tend to eat more meat-heavy (high emission) diets.

You are suggesting that population declines in the developed world will lead to a rapidly declining population and associated emissions. Problem solved before you know it!

When I point out Africa, the middle East, and Southeast Asia, you just wave them away. You argue that either, they will not be able to grow their population (famine), their energy use is low (for now), or that they will fail to develop for some reason (?).

Look at a table of population by country: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/

After India/China/US, 6 of the next 7 are developing countries in the regions I mentioned, and together are already over a billion people, and all still have high birth rates! So even if the top 3 are flat in population and energy use, the global figure (for population and energy use) will still increase rapidly for the next few decades due to those next 6 countries that are still transitioning (not to mention the ones further down the list)

I doubt that ALL of them will fail to develop (grow population, energy and food emissions) over the next 30 years.

You might have argued that Chinese emissions wouldn't matter 30 years ago, when their GDP per capita and emissions were similar to the US in 1900.

Since people are free to have babies, and to choose what to eat, and will seek out energy services, the solution is to hope that they pick a lower emission path, more (cheap) renewable energy, lower emission (more traditional and plant based) foods, etc. Currently that path is being blazed with Chinese technology.

Technology evolves much faster than demographics.

 

[EbS-P]

I don’t think the less developed economies matter much in this sense. Vietnam, Indonesia, etc don’t matter a whole bunch. They don’t use a ton of energy.

So you don’t think think they will follow the normal progression and become more energy consuming nations in the next 20 years?

Technology evolves much faster than demographics.

^^ this^^

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I agree technology develops faster than demographics.

It’s completely fair that people come up with different interpretations when looking at data.

 

[woodgeek]

I agree technology develops faster than demographics.

It’s completely fair that people come up with different interpretations when looking at data.

Fortunately, neither you nor I need to interpret this data, neither of us are demographers.

The UN has some demographers, they wrote this summary sheet:

https://population.un.org/wpp/assets/Files/WPP2024_Key-Messages.pdf

Whose first two points are:
1. The world’s population is likely to peak within the current century. The world’s population is expected to continue growing for another 50 or 60 years, reaching a peak of around 10.3 billion people in the mid-2080s, up from 8.2 billion in 2024. After peaking, it is projected to start declining, gradually falling to 10.2 billion people by the end of the century.

2. One in four people globally lives in a country whose population has already peaked in size. In 63 countries and areas, containing 28 per cent of the world’s population in 2024, the size of the population peaked before 2024. In 48 countries and areas, with 10 per cent of the world’s population in 2024, population size is projected to peak between 2025 and 2054. In the remaining 126 countries and areas, the population is likely to continue growing through 2054, potentially reaching a peak later in the century or beyond 2100.

Of course, forecasts are always uncertain, but that is what the pros are saying. If I did my math right, 100-28-10 = 62% of people currently live in countries whose population is not expected to peak before 2054.

The pros estimating emissions indicate that future emissions from still growing countries will put a lot of pressure on the future climate.