Global Warming to Climate change to Climate Catastrophe.

[TSwizzle]

Final call to save the world from 'climate catastrophe'

What, again ?! More final calls than Sinatra.

 

[rousseau]

I'll preface this post with the fact that I admire your approach, but doesn't this kind of statement fall into the very same vein as mentioned prior in your post? Saying we can just 'flick a switch' sounds smart, but it doesn't offer anything substantive other than some kind of psychological optimism.

The hard problem with global warming is political. Lots of academics sitting in their ivory towers, far from the average hum of humanity, will make claims about carbon taxes, policy, and other things, but the hard problem is implementing that policy. Essentially what we're asking is that hundreds of millions, if not billions of people start acting in ways that are completely contrary to their own nature. To give up their comforts, their wealth, and so on, so we can only maybe do something about global warming. And roughly 50% of those people already consciously don't give a shit about doing anything, including people in political posts.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but that's the hard problem.

It's a hard problem for sure. But consider this: rather than asking a small number of rich people to do what needs to be done and hoping they find it in their hearts to make the sacrifice, it might become necessary to take the choice out of their hands entirely. The human nature of the wealthy minority to look after their assets can be countered and vastly outnumbered by the human nature of the poor and middle class who will soon be left without homes, infrastructure, clean water, food, and a future for their children. Things could get pretty ugly, and most likely it would be too late, so it wouldn't amount to anything in the end. If we did that now, and just decided to take the reins from the executive managers and political types... well, that would be ugly too, and wouldn't have a much better shot at amounting to anything. We are probably stuck, it's true. Yet, I think it's still worth holding people's feet to the fire about this, not only to soften the inevitable blow but also in the name of basic sanity.

I say hard problem not in in the sense of difficulty, but that it's the problem that needs to be approached with solutions.

I could go on with reasons it's a hard problem, but when I try to think of solutions very few come to mind. Essentially we need sociopathic politicians to consistently act against their own interests.

 

[bilby]

For those who are interested, this is a good article about the kind of shift I'm talking about, from a fairly neutral news outlet, that explains why the mechanisms of capitalism are ill-equipped for this challenge:

Why Growth Can’t Be Green

Study after study shows the same thing. Scientists are beginning to realize that there are physical limits to how efficiently we can use resources. Sure, we might be able to produce cars and iPhones and skyscrapers more efficiently, but we can’t produce them out of thin air. We might shift the economy to services such as education and yoga, but even universities and workout studios require material inputs. Once we reach the limits of efficiency, pursuing any degree of economic growth drives resource use back up.

These problems throw the entire concept of green growth into doubt and necessitate some radical rethinking. Remember that each of the three studies used highly optimistic assumptions. We are nowhere near imposing a global carbon tax today, much less one of nearly $600 per metric ton, and resource efficiency is currently getting worse, not better. Yet the studies suggest that even if we do everything right, decoupling economic growth with resource use will remain elusive and our environmental problems will continue to worsen.

In short, the current situation requires us to quickly and voluntarily decide to make fewer things next year than we made this year, and keep following that trend for an indefinite period of time. The driving force behind capitalist innovation is exactly the opposite and can, at best, be attenuated by incentives to something like make slightly fewer things than you originally planned to make next year while still making more things overall. That's not gonna fly anymore. Or, if you think I'm doomsaying and the situation isn't as bad as all the scientists say, well, one day it'll be that bad. Because the minute there is a whiff of "we might have over-estimated the timeline of this threat BUT PLEASE BE CAREFU--" all of the gears of production will wind up again to capitalize (that word again) on this newfound confidence.

The only way to avert that situation is to go for the biggest contributor to the problem: the 100 companies that contribute over 70% of the carbon output in the world today. Predictably, they are mostly oil and gas companies. Coal is a big part of it as well. These industries are neither willing nor can they be convinced through stick-and-carrot policies to do what is needed for the next few generations of human beings to have a livable biosphere. They want to "transition to clean energy", which is corporate marketing-speak for "spend as little as we can possibly spend, based on forecasts of public opinion of our brand." That approach was never good enough, never fast or comprehensive enough, and now it's becoming obvious.

Bear in mind that I'm not saying we can actually fix the problem, even if we do take the first step and deconstruct the global economy down to first principles. Even then, it's nowhere near guaranteed that there will be a positive outcome for us, as the Czechoslovakian example and others in history have shown, though perhaps during times when the gravity of the situation wasn't as appreciated. It could very well be that as humans, we are incapable of doing what is necessary to deal with climate change. But that does not change the fact of what is necessary, which is all I'm pointing out here.

Humans cannot fix something like this anymore than ancient bacteria polluting the atmosphere with oxygen could fix anything. What will inevitably occur is more conflict between humans competing for dwindling resources. Humanity will not become extinct by any stretch and there will be places on the planet where humans can still live and possibly even thrive.

It's not unusual that we cannot see the sense in limiting our own population, but in fact has there ever been a species that constrained itself instead of being constrained by the environment? No. Humans will take the same path.

The answer to your (rhetorical) question is "Yes, Humans".

Human population is self limiting. Indeed, the process of limiting human population is well advanced.



All of the problems traditionally ascribed to population in fact have other causes - there is not one single problem in history that was actually caused by population or population density alone - population density can make it harder to resolve problems, or easier to cause them; and can increase the absolute numbers of deaths during a disaster. But there's always an underlying cause that is unrelated to the population number itself.

Seriously, if we spent 10% of the effort that has been needlessly wasted in worrying about population growth in the last century, on instead fixing climate change, we wouldn't need this thread at all.

People need to shut the fuck up about 'overpopulation' - it's as real and as helpful in solving our issues as the idea of demons and devils.

 

[steve_bank]

Interesting. The histogram looks like the Weibull Distribution used in reliability of complex systems.

In the USA 1950 marks the start of the baby boomer generation. Food and energy was abundant and cheap. Medicine and vaccinations reduced infant mortality.

The generation the baby boomers created were more educated, economics were decent reducing the need for large families and support systems, birth rates dropped. Families had one or two kids instead of three or four. In my father's family there was six brothers and two sisters. Which is why we need immigration to sustain growth.

Japan has a problem with population and growth.

 

[Bomb#20]

Look, we can just cut to the chase here and save everybody a lot of pages of us talking past each other. Given what you have typed and I have bolded, is there any scenario, any level of urgency with respect to the threat of climate change, that would justify abandoning low priority goals and cooperating to pursue a single high-priority goal (such as for instance preventing the planet from becoming inhospitable to human life) and thus transitioning to a non-capitalist international economy?

That reply makes it appear that there is a fundamental point that you are not grasping. Let's try an analogy. Suppose we were debating what to do about children shooting each other. Suppose, after some back and forth, I asked you the following question.

"Look, we can just cut to the chase here and save everybody a lot of pages of us talking past each other. Is there any number of mass killings, any level of urgency with respect to the threat of school shootings, that would justify requiring all elementary school children starting at first grade to be provided with handguns, to be trained in their use, and to bring them to school, thus transitioning to a school environment where a bad kid with a gun will be shot by a good kid with a gun before he has time to take out several of his classmates?"

How would you react to someone who in all seriousness asked that question? I assume you can see what was wrong with that question. Please articulate it for us.

 

[DBT]

Perpetual sustainable economic growth, which is not the same as sustainable development that does not involve ever more use of resources, hence is sustainable, is a Delusional idea.

 

[bilby]

Perpetual economic growth, which can be distinguished from development that does not involve ever more use of resources, hence is sustainable, is a Delusional idea.

Sure. And there is a finite amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, so if you live long enough, and/or we reach a sufficiently large population, we will use it all up.

Of course, when we step back from pointless truisms, we can see that the amount of oxygen, while finite, is not limited.

Resources don't get 'used up'; They get used, and then recycled. Everything humans have ever consumed is still here (except some Helium, and the materials we used to make deep space probes). We can either wait for it to naturally re-cycle and re-concentrate, or we can collect it up and/or recycle it ourselves, if natural processes are not fast enough. All we need is a sufficient source of cheap energy. And energy is becoming cheaper and more abundant every year, and has been since at least the end of the Middle Ages.

There's no reason to assume that humanity will encounter any resource limits while the sun continues to shine. Your claim is true enough, in a strictly technical sense, but is highly unlikely to ever be relevant.

 

[DBT]

Eco system collapse can be quite hard to reverse, climate change may become a huge problem.....and given the sheer number of hungry mouths to feed, 7 billion plus high maintenance, high consumption omnivores, a major climatic shift can mean that this situation becomes rapidly unsustainable.

 

[bilby]

Eco system collapse can be quite hard to reverse, climate change may become a huge problem.....and given the sheer number of hungry mouths to feed, 7 billion plus high maintenance, high consumption omnivores, a major climatic shift can mean that this situation becomes rapidly unsustainable.

Yes, all of that is possible. None of it has squat to do with the amount of economic growth that can or cannot theoretically occur without leading to unsustainable outcomes.

 

[steve_bank]

Bird watchers have been keeping records since the 19th century. Birds are arriving north earlier.

Some vegitaion is moving north.

It is reported that west cost costal maeine life is moving north as water warms.

Here in Seattle the Univ Of Washington did a study on global lake warming.

Here in Seattle we have salmon runs. In the lake there is a seasonal temperature dependent algae bloom that spawns small fish that spawn bigger fish that the returning salmon feed on. The algae bloom is shifting earlier as the average lake temperature rises so salmon are beginning to miss the peak food time interval.

A bee die off due to climate could be catastrophic.

I am thinking of sensing an email to the UW climate scince people asking if the models take into account the increase in heat generation.

All electrical energy consumed ultimatly ends up in the environment.

As a first order approximation what i calculated temperature rise of the atmosphere based on yearly energy usage.

As an approximation q = m*c*(dT) where m = mass of atmosphere, c = specific heat of the atmosphere, dT is temerture change, and q is energy. Assume no radiation to space, Erath mass >>> than atmosphere mass.

 

[DBT]

Eco system collapse can be quite hard to reverse, climate change may become a huge problem.....and given the sheer number of hungry mouths to feed, 7 billion plus high maintenance, high consumption omnivores, a major climatic shift can mean that this situation becomes rapidly unsustainable.

Yes, all of that is possible. None of it has squat to do with the amount of economic growth that can or cannot theoretically occur without leading to unsustainable outcomes.

Yes it does. Pure physics.....a finite area with finite resources cannot sustain ever increasing resource use. At some point the carrying capacity of that area is exceeded. The Earth is finite, finite land mass/area, finite arable land, etc, so we cannot keep increasing our consumption rate in the form of economic growth and at the same time have 'sustainable economic growth'

Keep in mind that I did mention the distinction between economic growth and development.

Development, research, etc, if it doesn't entail ever increasing consumption of resources is sustainable indefinitely.

 

[bilby]

Eco system collapse can be quite hard to reverse, climate change may become a huge problem.....and given the sheer number of hungry mouths to feed, 7 billion plus high maintenance, high consumption omnivores, a major climatic shift can mean that this situation becomes rapidly unsustainable.

Yes, all of that is possible. None of it has squat to do with the amount of economic growth that can or cannot theoretically occur without leading to unsustainable outcomes.

Yes it does. Pure physics.....a finite area with finite resources cannot sustain ever increasing resource use. At some point the carrying capacity of that area is exceeded. The Earth is finite, finite land mass/area, finite arable land, etc, so we cannot keep increasing our consumption rate in the form of economic growth and at the same time have 'sustainable economic growth'

Keep in mind that I did mention the distinction between economic growth and development.

Development, research, etc, if it doesn't entail ever increasing consumption of resources is sustainable indefinitely.

The limits imposed by 'pure physics' are so remote as to be of zero relevance to anything we do.

Resources don't get 'used up'; They get used, and then recycled. Everything humans have ever consumed is still here (except some Helium, and the materials we used to make deep space probes). We can either wait for it to naturally re-cycle and re-concentrate, or we can collect it up and/or recycle it ourselves, if natural processes are not fast enough. All we need is a sufficient source of cheap energy. And energy is becoming cheaper and more abundant every year, and has been since at least the end of the Middle Ages.

There's no reason to assume that humanity will encounter any resource limits while the sun continues to shine.

This remains true regardless of how often you ignore it in favour of your neo-malthusian dogma.

 

[DBT]

Recycling and managing finite resources only works if there is not ever growing demand for resources. It works in a steady state economy but not in an ever expanding economy (ever increasing use of resources) because no matter how efficient your recycling and management of natural resources becomes, they are still finite.


So What Is Economic Growth?

''Economic growth is the increase in real (after inflation) GDP, where GDP is the total value of the domestic production of all goods and services. The key word here is value. Economic growth occurs when the value of real GDP increases. There are two ways in which value can be affected. One is what critics of economic growth tend to focus on: an increase in the quantity of production. The other way, however, is to increase the quality of what is produced. (To read more, see: What is GDP and why is it so important to economists and investors?)

This leads to another distinction between “extensive” economic growth and “intensive” economic growth. Extensive economic growth describes increases in physical growth that uses more inputs. Intensive economic growth, on the other hand, describes growth increases resulting from more efficient or smarter ways of using inputs to produce higher quality goods.


Remember, too, that GDP doesn’t just measure the production of goods, but also services. With increases in education, health care and other services, economic growth expands without large quantities of the Earth’s resources being consumed or the environment being harmed.''

 

[bilby]

Recycling and managing finite resources only works if there is not ever growing demand for resources. It works in a steady state economy but not in an ever expanding economy (ever increasing use of resources) because no matter how efficient your recycling and management of natural resources becomes, they are still finite.

That's simply untrue.

All that matters is cycle time. If everything is recycled the instant it falls out of use, then the effective limit can be arbitrarily large, up to the point where materials in immediate use approach the total mass of their constituent elements in the lithosphere. Certainly we are nowhere NEAR to approaching those limits for any resource on earth (with the possible exception of Helium, which is something of a special case, and is abundant in space, should we need it).

This limit is so distant that even discussing it is insane - almost every other problem you could imagine is more pressing than this resource limit, and it's a near certainty that we will be extinct for other reasons long before this becomes an issue.

So What Is Economic Growth?

''Economic growth is the increase in real (after inflation) GDP, where GDP is the total value of the domestic production of all goods and services. The key word here is value. Economic growth occurs when the value of real GDP increases. There are two ways in which value can be affected. One is what critics of economic growth tend to focus on: an increase in the quantity of production. The other way, however, is to increase the quality of what is produced. (To read more, see: What is GDP and why is it so important to economists and investors?)

This leads to another distinction between “extensive” economic growth and “intensive” economic growth. Extensive economic growth describes increases in physical growth that uses more inputs. Intensive economic growth, on the other hand, describes growth increases resulting from more efficient or smarter ways of using inputs to produce higher quality goods.


Remember, too, that GDP doesn’t just measure the production of goods, but also services. With increases in education, health care and other services, economic growth expands without large quantities of the Earth’s resources being consumed or the environment being harmed.''

I know what you mean. I am disagreeing not because I don't understand you, but because you are WRONG.

Resources on earth are not unlimited. They are merely VASTLY more abundant than we could ever rationally expect to need them to be, and so are effectively unlimited, because we will never ever get close to their limits.

Malthus was wrong. On a large number of counts.

 

[Bomb#20]

Perpetual sustainable economic growth, which is not the same as sustainable development that does not involve ever more use of resources, hence is sustainable, is a Delusional idea.

The sun is going to burn out in five billion years. If our descendants aren't already extinct by then, then they will leave by starship or die, regardless of whether we have resources left at that point. Therefore perpetual economic development is unnecessary. We don't need our economic system to last forever; we only need it to last five billion years. Therefore your theoretical argument from "pure physics" to the effect that normal human behavior cannot continue forever is irrelevant. Is there some unsubstitutable resource that you can show we will run out of within five billion years if we keep using more and more of it?

Note: to answer this question, you need to stop writing "finite" and start writing finite numbers.

 

[DBT]

I know what you mean. I am disagreeing not because I don't understand you, but because you are WRONG.

Resources on earth are not unlimited. They are merely VASTLY more abundant than we could ever rationally expect to need them to be, and so are effectively unlimited, because we will never ever get close to their limits.

Malthus was wrong. On a large number of counts.

I'm not sure that I am being understood, despite assurances to the contrary.

For a start, perpetual economic growth in the form of ever increasing consumption is impossible given a stable world population, market saturation, any given person can only eat so much, own only so many houses before cost of upkeep exceeds income, etc, so demand peaks and stabilizes at that level until something interrupts the equilibrium.

But that is not what neoclassical economists or governments hope for or desire because it is perceived as stagnation rather than stability.

There lies the problem, governments want to stimulate growth in the form of consumption rather than development, more people, more houses, more everything. Unless this mindset is broken, our system of doing business is going to get us into a lot of trouble.

If things keep going as they are, business as usual, it's only a question of, not if, but when the shit hits the fan.....



Some people try to solve the impossible equation with the myth of dematerialisation: the claim that as processes become more efficient and gadgets are miniaturised, we use, in aggregate, fewer materials. There is no sign that this is happening. Iron ore production has risen 180% in 10 years. The trade body Forest Industries tells us that "global paper consumption is at a record high level and it will continue to grow". If, in the digital age, we won't reduce even our consumption of paper, what hope is there for other commodities?

Look at the lives of the super-rich, who set the pace for global consumption. Are their yachts getting smaller? Their houses? Their artworks? Their purchase of rare woods, rare fish, rare stone? Those with the means buy ever bigger houses to store the growing stash of stuff they will not live long enough to use. By unremarked accretions, ever more of the surface of the planet is used to extract, manufacture and store things we don't need. Perhaps it's unsurprising that fantasies about colonising space – which tell us we can export our problems instead of solving them – have resurfaced.

As the philosopher Michael Rowan points out, the inevitabilities of compound growth mean that if last year's predicted global growth rate for 2014 (3.1%) is sustained, even if we miraculously reduced the consumption of raw materials by 90%, we delay the inevitable by just 75 years. Efficiency solves nothing while growth continues.

The inescapable failure of a society built upon growth and its destruction of the Earth's living systems are the overwhelming facts of our existence. As a result, they are mentioned almost nowhere. They are the 21st century's great taboo, the subjects guaranteed to alienate your friends and neighbours. We live as if trapped inside a Sunday supplement: obsessed with fame, fashion and the three dreary staples of middle-class conversation: recipes, renovations and resorts. Anything but the topic that demands our attention.''

 

[PyramidHead]

Look, we can just cut to the chase here and save everybody a lot of pages of us talking past each other. Given what you have typed and I have bolded, is there any scenario, any level of urgency with respect to the threat of climate change, that would justify abandoning low priority goals and cooperating to pursue a single high-priority goal (such as for instance preventing the planet from becoming inhospitable to human life) and thus transitioning to a non-capitalist international economy?

That reply makes it appear that there is a fundamental point that you are not grasping. Let's try an analogy. Suppose we were debating what to do about children shooting each other. Suppose, after some back and forth, I asked you the following question.

"Look, we can just cut to the chase here and save everybody a lot of pages of us talking past each other. Is there any number of mass killings, any level of urgency with respect to the threat of school shootings, that would justify requiring all elementary school children starting at first grade to be provided with handguns, to be trained in their use, and to bring them to school, thus transitioning to a school environment where a bad kid with a gun will be shot by a good kid with a gun before he has time to take out several of his classmates?"

How would you react to someone who in all seriousness asked that question? I assume you can see what was wrong with that question. Please articulate it for us.

Nothing is wrong with that question, and the answer is simply no; there is no degree of mass killings that would justify putting guns into the hands of children. You could have just said no to my question as well, and told me what I needed to know. The fundamental point is that you think any alternative to capitalism is analogous to arming elementary school students. And since I asked the question in order to determine if there was any reason to engage you in a discussion about the relationship between capitalism and climate change prevention, it looks like we don't have to subject everyone to those pages of rhetorical posturing after all. Isn't it great when major catastrophes like this are prevented before they happen? All you need sometimes is a little foresight.

 

[PyramidHead]

bilby, an honest question about population growth for you since you so often appear to tell us why it's not a problem. Maybe not a pointed question per se, but a comment.

What I'm hearing is that overpopulation should not be a primary concern, since theoretically we could sustain many times the current population if we managed our natural resources more efficiently. Therefore, since there is no problem that can directly be placed at the feet of overpopulation, we should ignore it and focus on the actual problems.

However, since all the problems of human survival on a large scale are intertwined, couldn't you reframe any of them with the same reasoning? For example, why not instead say, "resource management should not be a primary concern, since theoretically we wouldn't have to change anything about how we produce and distribute resources if we could get the population low enough for everyone to be covered."

To put it differently, it seems that there is no reason to single out population growth as a constant or a given, and pull all the other levers around it to make survival happen, rather than treating population growth as the primary lever. You either change the way mouths are fed or change the number of mouths that need feeding, and while it's true that the number of mouths is technically not a problem given the right feeding strategy, it's symmetrically true that feeding all the mouths isn't a problem either given a smaller number of mouths. Yet, you often suggest that focusing on limiting the number of mouths is foolish and wasteful.

Is this because population is self-limiting in a way that resource use is not? At some point we would expect there to be an inflection that would force societies to ration, preserve what they have, and flatten out the allocation of basic goods and services. Does this not mirror the natural tendency of populations to contract (relative to previous years anyway) in times of scarcity? It arguably must, but that doesn't mean talking about improving the allocation of goods is a waste of time.

Not insignificantly, generations of humans that are never born are impervious to all harm. That takes away a huge portion of the risk involved in pulling any lever, be it population or allocation. By itself, that lack of a tangible downside seems to make population control an attractive strategy compared to rationing for a growing population; if rationing is the wrong move, then many people will be affected negatively, but if population control is the wrong move, there will be fewer people to suffer the consequences since they wouldn't have been born to suffer them. Why wouldn't this be a compelling reason to give more attention to at least hastening the decrease in population growth?

By the way, of course we can do both, but I'm placing them in a dichotomy here because you seem set against even considering population control as a topic worth worrying about.

 

[steve_bank]

Water despite all the oceans is becoming in short supply. Desalination is energy intensive.

Part of the Arab Israeli dispute we don't hear much about is water

There is an old ST episode where a planet eradicated death and pathogens leading to overcrowding.

How much people is enough while maintaining quality of life.


.

 

[bilby]

bilby, an honest question about population growth for you since you so often appear to tell us why it's not a problem. Maybe not a pointed question per se, but a comment.

What I'm hearing is that overpopulation should not be a primary concern, since theoretically we could sustain many times the current population if we managed our natural resources more efficiently. Therefore, since there is no problem that can directly be placed at the feet of overpopulation, we should ignore it and focus on the actual problems.

Add the fact that population is never likely to exceed 1.5 times it's current value, and you have my point.

This is not so much a non-problem, as it is a solved problem. Population growth has almost completely stopped.

It was a real problem in the mid 20th century; It was significantly addressed in the 1960s by the invention of an effective contraceptive that is under the control of women; and finally resolved in the 1980s as life expectancy at birth, education levels for women, and general wealth continued to improve.

Population will stop growing in the next few decades, and will never exceed 15 billion - unless we take active steps to stop that from occurring.

We already have sufficient resources for that many people to live comfortably, and nothing has yet run out (or even run short).

However, since all the problems of human survival on a large scale are intertwined, couldn't you reframe any of them with the same reasoning? For example, why not instead say, "resource management should not be a primary concern, since theoretically we wouldn't have to change anything about how we produce and distribute resources if we could get the population low enough for everyone to be covered."

You could indeed reframe my argument to say that. It's completely true for the current population and all population levels that are likely in the foreseeable future. Nothing is running out that we cannot replace, by simply reconcentration and recycling of our waste. Given current technology and sufficient cheap energy, we can replace everything and anything that has been 'used'.

We extract and refine mineral oil into gasoline, because doing so is cheaper than making gasoline by using sunshine, wind, or nuclear power, to concentrate CO₂ from air, and convert it to synthetic gasoline.

If we make fossil fuels more expensive (by pushing back against the oil companies' externalization of their environmental costs), then synthetic gasoline will at some point be cheaper, and mineral oil extraction will become needless and unprofitable. Or gasoline use will be replaced by the use of other fuel technologies. Or both.

As iron ore becomes more difficult and expensive to mine, scrapyards become a more viable source of raw material for steelworks. Scrap iron values go up, and more people decide to sell old steel objects for scrap, or dig up and recover those objects from landfills and rubbish tips.

Our current method for ensuring provision of resources (mixed mode capitalism with government regulation) need not change - things will continue to improve under this system with only the routine tweaks that are a characteristic of the way such systems operate.

To put it differently, it seems that there is no reason to single out population growth as a constant or a given, and pull all the other levers around it to make survival happen, rather than treating population growth as the primary lever.

Population growth is not constant; And it is a given that barring some positive action to increase birthrates, it will very shortly come to an end.

Our survival is not threatened by resource shortages, nor by population growth. It is threatened by climate change. This is not a resource use nor a population problem, it is a problem of allowing atmospheric CO₂ levels to rise unchecked.

No matter what population we had, we will run into problems if (when) we burn a sizable fraction of all the coal, oil and gas that is reachable. This crisis will occur more slowly with lower population, or lower fossil fuel use per capita; But it is inevitable at any population level if we keep using fossil fuels without taking steps to extract the resulting CO₂ from the atmosphere.

You either change the way mouths are fed or change the number of mouths that need feeding, and while it's true that the number of mouths is technically not a problem given the right feeding strategy, it's symmetrically true that feeding all the mouths isn't a problem either given a smaller number of mouths. Yet, you often suggest that focusing on limiting the number of mouths is foolish and wasteful.

Spending time, effort, money or resources to get something you already have IS foolish and wasteful.

Is this because population is self-limiting in a way that resource use is not? At some point we would expect there to be an inflection that would force societies to ration, preserve what they have, and flatten out the allocation of basic goods and services. Does this not mirror the natural tendency of populations to contract (relative to previous years anyway) in times of scarcity? It arguably must, but that doesn't mean talking about improving the allocation of goods is a waste of time.

Your false premise that population is going to continue to grow unchecked would, perhaps, have been a reasonable position to take for an informed person in the 20th Century. Maybe not so much in the 1990s. Certainly not today.

People who want to discuss population really need to start by finding out what the current rates and trends are, rather than assuming that the numbers in fifty year old texts are still accurate.

Of course, it's understandable that they don't - keeping up with a subject is hard work. But it's very frustrating to have the same outdated information used over and over to justify continuing wasted efforts when we have real issues that that effort could be used to mitigate.

Not insignificantly, generations of humans that are never born are impervious to all harm. That takes away a huge portion of the risk involved in pulling any lever, be it population or allocation. By itself, that lack of a tangible downside seems to make population control an attractive strategy compared to rationing for a growing population; if rationing is the wrong move, then many people will be affected negatively, but if population control is the wrong move, there will be fewer people to suffer the consequences since they wouldn't have been born to suffer them. Why wouldn't this be a compelling reason to give more attention to at least hastening the decrease in population growth?

I am not convinced that it wouldn't, but I value the freedom of the existing population over any hypothetical benefit from coercing them to have fewer children than they desire - given that we can see that when women have an informed choice (ie are educated, have access to and control of contraception, and have a reasonable expectation that any children they have will survive to adulthood), they on average choose to have a number of children that is somewhat below replacement level.

By the way, of course we can do both, but I'm placing them in a dichotomy here because you seem set against even considering population control as a topic worth worrying about.

I am. Because it isn't.