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.

 

[dougstove]

Great discussion. The UN forecasts have sequentially moved the population peak earlier and lower. And much of the remaining projected growth in countries like Nigeria seems dubious to me.

 

[dougstove]

I work on the biological gas exchanges. Methane releases from permafrosts and coastal sediments are worrisome. Methane clathrates are currently stabilized at high pressures and low temperatures; sea warming may allow burbs out of the sediments. Algal growth on glaciers is also a warming feedback loop as the pigments absorb light, lowering albedo/reflectance.

 

[begreen]

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.

Here's some research in this area.

Global, regional and national burden of male infertility in 204 countries and territories between 1990 and 2019: an analysis of global burden of disease study - BMC Public Health

Background Many countries and regions have experienced male fertility problems due to various influencing factors, especially in less developed countries. Unlike female infertility, male infertility receives insufficient attention. Understanding the changing patterns of male infertility in the...

bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com

And some evidence is pointing to potentially related cause.

Parasite Infecting Up to 50% of People Can Decapitate Human Sperm

Male fertility rates have been plummeting over the past half-century.

www.sciencealert.com

 

[Whitenuckler]

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Two good video's I watched this morning.

 

[woodgeek]

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Two good video's I watched this morning.

Agree 100% with the JHAT video, but wasn't really surprised by any of it. The projected warming has a wide error bar. Check. Bankers and Actuaries are not good at modeling non-linear effects and positive feedback loops (cf. global financial crisis). Check. Bank CEOs are going to follow the political breeze every time it changes. Check. Policy makers doing motivated reasoning will choose the bankers projections over the scientists, bc they are less dire? Check.

Fortunately, we are not relying on either policy makers or bankers to solve the climate crisis.... they haven't been doing it so far, and they are not going to start anytime soon. In the last year in the US bankers have changed from mildly positive for the climate to mildly negative. But I don't think we will know what they will be saying in 2030, let alone 2050 or 2100.

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The first video I only skimmed, but I felt it was rather dated (2019). A little google shows that just since 2019 global solar generation has grown by a factor of 4, while the price for the resulting solar electricity has fallen by a factor of 4! And the people that predicted those two changes 6 years ago were rather few and generally considered kooks, and definitely not bankers.

The bits of the BBC video I saw seemed to come down again and again on the need to reduce consumption, and that carbon based fuels would not be left in the ground bc they are too valuable. Both of these ideas are quite dated IMO in 2025. The first one, I would say has failed utterly. People demand energy services, and the climate fix is to get them the energy services they want with less climate impact, technologically. The second one is naive, bc the way fossils stay in the ground is when they get more expensive than climate friendly ways to make energy... a transition that has largely happened since 2019. All that remains now is to scale the existing technology. What does a scaling technology look like? It looks like 20-30% annual exponential growth. Which is what (global) greentech is (still) doing.

I get it. Incentives in the US have been yanked. Sad. But all incentives actually do in 2025 (now that we are scaling) is pull the growth curve forward a little bit, and removing them just pushes them back a little bit. The only incentives that matter at a global level at this point are the ones in China... if Xi decides to capriciously end those (definitely possible) then I guess I picked a bad week to stop drinking.

While I'm showing the CCP a little love, here are some photos for solar in China:

Photos: The Scale of China’s Solar Power Projects

As the Trump administration's “big, beautiful bill” eliminates many clean-energy incentives in the U.S., China continues huge investments in wind and solar power, reportedly accounting for 74 percent of all projects now under construction worldwide.

www.theatlantic.com

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Looking to the future, I am almost ready to take the bet that a timely transition for global energy to green sources is baked in. Gimme a few more years. But I also think we are far from done. I think that in 10 or 15 years we will not be patting ourselves on the back for a job well done on green energy... we will be panicking about how FOOD is still going to the wreck the climate anyway!

 

[EbS-P]

China installed 93 GW of solar in May! Context at the end of 2024 the USA had about 240 GW installed. So in one month China installed 38 of the US total capacity There will be winners and those left on the sidelines of the economic benefits of the green revolution.

 

[Whitenuckler]

China installed 93 GW of solar in May! Context at the end of 2024 the USA had about 240 GW installed. So in one month China installed 38 of the US total capacity There will be winners and those left on the sidelines of the economic benefits of the green revolution.

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Another early morning video which is good. One point he makes is "what is the net increase/gain" in your activity.
His example was planting wheat. If you plant one grain, you might get 6 in return. You save one for next year, and you
have 5 for profit. He gives solar and wind a very low payback.
BTW, I am no expert on any of this, and it is very complicated but important. There are many theories out there on what's
happening and thousands of scientists looking at it.

 

[woodgeek]

Another early morning video which is good. One point he makes is "what is the net increase/gain" in your activity.
His example was planting wheat. If you plant one grain, you might get 6 in return. You save one for next year, and you
have 5 for profit. He gives solar and wind a very low payback.
BTW, I am no expert on any of this, and it is very complicated but important. There are many theories out there on what's
happening and thousands of scientists looking at it.

This energy payback question is a bit of a trope, and has been used for decades to 'debunk' renewable energy. Following citations from these skeptic work often lead back and back to 'data' in the 70s or earlier. Which is obv obsolete.

The claim is absurd on its face. If making PV cost nearly as much energy as it generates in its lifetime, then that would be reflected in the manufacturing cost (plus materials). That higher cost would make the economic payback very long to the point that solar would be unprofitable. Skeptics then assert that PV IS unprofitable, being supported entirely by govt grants, etc. Again, that might have been true (enough) decades ago (which is why we didn't build out solar then), but its not true now.

Peer-reviewed papers (from those scientists) from the last few years indicate that the EROI (Energy Return On Investment) of solar PV is >10 and increasing. This ofc assumes that you put the PV somewhere that the sun actually shines.

This is consistent with another concept: the time it takes for a solar panel to return the amount of energy required to make it (another trope of solar skeptics). Depending on location, this is typically 2-3 years maximum. Given the 20-30 year lifespan of the panel, this agrees with a minimum EROI of 10.

So, what was the EROI decades ago? Why is it 'increasing' now? There is economic pressure to make panels that cost less per watt they produce. You can do this by using less silicon by making the cells thinner. You can do this by making the cells more efficient per area of silicon. And the same forces that have led solar PV to get 1000X cheaper since 1970 have also increased the EROI.

The EROI for wind is similar or better, and has followed a similar story.

Looking at his wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ridley#Climate_change
he seems to be a bit of a gadfly, staking out controversial opinions on a variety of current issues, He is not a scientist in climate or energy.

 

[Whitenuckler]

This energy payback question is a bit of a trope, and has been used for decades to 'debunk' renewable energy. Following citations from these skeptic work often lead back and back to 'data' in the 70s or earlier. Which is obv obsolete.

The claim is absurd on its face. If making PV cost nearly as much energy as it generates in its lifetime, then that would be reflected in the manufacturing cost (plus materials). That higher cost would make the economic payback very long to the point that solar would be unprofitable. Skeptics then assert that PV IS unprofitable, being supported entirely by govt grants, etc. Again, that might have been true (enough) decades ago (which is why we didn't build out solar then), but its not true now.

Peer-reviewed papers (from those scientists) from the last few years indicate that the EROI (Energy Return On Investment) of solar PV is >10 and increasing. This ofc assumes that you put the PV somewhere that the sun actually shines.

This is consistent with another concept: the time it takes for a solar panel to return the amount of energy required to make it (another trope of solar skeptics). Depending on location, this is typically 2-3 years maximum. Given the 20-30 year lifespan of the panel, this agrees with a minimum EROI of 10.

So, what was the EROI decades ago? Why is it 'increasing' now? There is economic pressure to make panels that cost less per watt they produce. You can do this by using less silicon by making the cells thinner. You can do this by making the cells more efficient per area of silicon. And the same forces that have led solar PV to get 1000X cheaper since 1970 have also increased the EROI.

The EROI for wind is similar or better, and has followed a similar story.

Looking at his wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ridley#Climate_change
he seems to be a bit of a gadfly, staking out controversial opinions on a variety of current issues, He is not a scientist in climate or energy.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/solar-was-the-leading-source-of-electricity-in-the-eu-last-month-says-report-1.7583280