Comments on: Climate Change: Are People the Problem?

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By: Alice Kelly

Alice Kelly — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:19:33 +0000

it is very evident that climate change is already taking effect in this decade.*,

By: Erika

Erika — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:22:43 +0000

I agree that the advent of massive greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning is an effect of the relatively recent the industrial revolution. I also agree that humans living tens of thousands of years ago as hunter gatherers did not cause the emission of greenhouse gases at our current rates. But let me propose this scenario:

Let us pretend that 50,000 years ago, when the global population is estimated to have been stabilized at roughly 1 million, the same GHG-emitting industries and technologies we have today were employed; i.e. the GHG emission rates per capita (x) were equal to today’s per capita emission rates.

Would the total emissions globally equal the total emissions of today’s world, populated at just under 7 billion?

Absolutely not. (X per capita emissions)(1 million) does not equal (X per capita emissions)(7 billion)

Regardless of your political stance, it makes no arithmetical sense to believe that human population growth has not had, and will not further have, any effect on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Perhaps global population growth is slowing per capita. Perhaps it is only growing in “non-industrialized” countries. Regardless of any of the greater illogical statements in this piece, it still stands that these countries, based on predictable trajectories, will become more developed in the future (take China as a perfect example of this), therefore opening themselves to economies that consume carbon-rich products and operate on large, heavily emitting, electrical grids.

By: Tim Maher

Tim Maher — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:11:29 +0000

If we succeed in reversing the trend of greenhouse gas emissions, the next most pressing environmental crisis is to reverse the trend in population growth.

The UK is beginning the first real study on this topic soon:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10578484.stm
For a semi-deep analysis of the historical relationship between Population and Climate, I recommend a book called “Plows, Plagues and Petroleum” by William F. Ruddiman

Also, (I promise I’m not trying to burst all of your bubbles here), but focusing our “climate solution” on just energy/technology is not going to provide the Earth with GHG stability. You might find this recent Romm article interesting: http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/17/the-breakthrough-institute-shellenberger-nordhaus-waxman-markey/

-Tim