De-industrialisation.

[Suff]

Well actually Net Zero is the goal of controlling technology and consumption to reduce our CO2 output to a balance. It is about not making it worse.

Granted I agree it also has to include all imports and exports of CO2 (meaning we count he Oil we sell).

As for consumption? There are a lot of resources still untouched on the planet plus a whole moon's worth in the asteroid belt. "Healthy economy" is good for a long time yet.

Do I believe Net Zero is a fix for everything? No I don't. But it is a start and a goal. If we don't even try then we might as well give up and if we give up we can enact 2100 levels of climate by 2050. So far all our emissions reductions have done is kick the can down the road a bit. Net Zero will kick it further. But, again, better than nothing.

It is for the following generations to get a grip and sort out their consumption or they will reap what we have sown.

[Workingman]

It is for the following generations to get a grip and sort out their consumption or they will reap what we have sown.

So, we pass on our problems to our children and grandchildren?

I like the idea, brilliant, it absolves me / you / us from any blame. "Look kids, we screwed up, it's now up to you to sort it: this windmill, solar panel and E-Tractor might help" We made loads of them so there should not be a problem.

Batteries? We have millions we couldn't recycle. Buy one, get two free. I'd sell you some logs to heat your shack, but all the trees have gone.

Net-zero a start? You are having a laugh. Solve population and economic models? Nah, let's tinker at the edges of the edges.

Jeez.

[Suff]

Actually if you change the diet of the people to vegetarian with supplements and move all agriculture to GM where they use GM to make the crops more able to withstand drought and flood, move all labour to bots and out of expensive human hands, plus drop all trade barriers for agriculture and you could feed 20bn people on the planet. Without a doubt.

OK you couldn't necessarily also provide them with the same life that we in the west have. Then again there are certainly 3bn people in the world today who would accept that as an improvement.

So let's talk about population. If we want a consumer society we can't support 8bn people, let alone the 10bn or 12bn that we are likely to have before I die.

Then again if we reduce the expectations of what "life" means for that population, reduce the ridiculous rules designed to save jobs and keep the rich rich in the agriculture world, then we can certainly feed 8bn easily.

If we move away from the more destructive emissions we are creating and do not increase them with the expanding population, then we are not making things worse. Getting rid of single use plastics is good and we now know that if $10bn were invested the oceans could be cleaned of Plastics fairly comprehensively. Not $10bn a year, a one time investment. Peanuts.

So let's get away from the emotive side of things. The future generations cannot have the same life as we have. Then again, we have a life radically different than that seen by our grandparents and not necessarily better outside of the medical advancements.

There is no reason why our technology cannot accommodate the number of people on the world today. Not at the level we have today or the lifestyle we have today, however is that actually a necessity? A mobile phone every year? I just replaced my 5 year old mobile with a new one. Granted I need 3 mobiles to run my life but I run those phones till they die. Some will last closer to a decade. New cars every 3 years? Why? I can see it for businesses but cars now can easily last 20 years. But we know why, because garages make older vehicles impractical to maintain through their crazy prices. I pay less than €50 per hour for mechanic time in France, in the UK I'm going to struggle to get that time for under £100, double that for a main dealer in London. BTW that €50 is Citroen main dealer price, if I went to a local shop who is not a dealer I could get it for €25 per hour.

I recently bought a 12 year old Peugeot 508 with 95,000 miles on the clock. Why was it sold? It has passed the 10 year timing belt change window and is closing on the 140,000 mile change window. How much does it cost to change it? £550 at a back street garage and £1,000 for a main dealer. I paid £1,500 for it. How much does the belt cost? £65. They do the water pump too so it doesn't fail, total cost of parts can be under £120. Naturally I will do this myself. But for others? Car to the scrap yard for no reason.

It is all very well raging on about the net zero strategy but reality is this, CO2 will get us long, loooooong before not recycling or GM crop changes in our physiology will. The climate will change the liveable biosphere and we won't be growing food in the food oases that they are found in today. The US mid west will dry again and that is 25% of all grain in the world. Without drought resistant GM Crops those crops are going to be lost from the world, as are Australian crops and Russian. 75% of the grain harvest. It was lack/price of flour which drove much of the Arab spring. Think what losing 75% of the world wheat market would do.

I'm sick and tired of hearing that net zero should not be attempted because it is not a 100% solution. It does NOT NEED to be a 100% solution. 30% would give the following generations time to bring in more and more changes to reduce impact and finally draw back the change and move us to a better track in their lifetime.

The only thing we should not be doing is going on about recycling and burning single use fossil fuels which emit CO2 into the atmosphere to warm our climate for the next 1,000 years. That means get the hell off petro land diesel vehicles, stop burning gas in heating and coal and gas in power stations. No matter how you do that and that includes Nuclear.

The only reason I believe, as you do, that the population needs to fall and not to grow is that I believe that all the poor of the world today will want to destroy the climate faster chasing after our wasteful society we have today instead of moving to a cleaner, more sustainable society of their own which can grow and eventually overtake the waste.

Does that mean we have to mine some more copper, Lithium and other materials (Cobalt is going away from Li cells and everyone needs to know it), Iron, bauxite? Sure. Does that mean we won't re-use it? No, it is the cheapest option once we get to pervasive battery usage. You may not be able to rely on companies to do the right thing but you can sure as hell rely on them to look after their bank balance.

[Workingman]

I never said that we should not aim for something like net-zero, what I have said is that it (net-zero) is not achievable - it is a slogan, a mantra. Now if they said a reduction of greenhouse gases of 75%, say, by 2050 I could go along with that. Then we can get on with reducing the total, the concentration. If we can begin to reduce the global population at the same time so much the better.

However, we will not be able to do it if we go to a population of 20bn - that's nonsense. The fairytale is that we can even go somewhere near there. How are we going to feed them? Where is the land coming from to grow all these GM crops? The fertilizers? What about the fresh water to irrigate them? Then we need the machinery to harvest them, factories to process them, transport...Oh look, its Little Red Riding hood and Hansel and Gretel racing over the sunlit uplands to help us.

I now ask where these extra 12bn humans, up from the 8bn of today, will live and what in and where? Will they be in mud huts, tents, mansions or 150 storey high rise blocks? And where will all the furniture and appliances and the energy to run them come from? What about water for cooking and hygiene? And what will the residents be doing? Playing bowls and dominoes and watching TV or will they want work in order to buy things and pay the rent? What work? Hopefully nothing too damaging to the environments - what's left of them. Oh, hang on, bots will be doing all the work...

The people will also need clothing... We are already short of natural fibres such as cotton, jute, flax, hemp, coir from plants, and wool, hair and silk from animals as well a skins and hides. With all this land being used for food there will not be much left for producing clothing. So it will probably be more polyester, acrylic and nylon from.... oil. Ah, but we will have turned that off, oh well, there are plenty of plastic bottles to recycle if we have not just dumped them. Plastic clothing and furnishings - use once, throw in the sea or landfill, along with the plastic food trays, pots and bottles.

Then the seas will need cleaning up - constantly, not just once. Saying it will be a one-off $10bn job is absolute nonsense. In 2020 it was estimated that the initial cost would be $150bn with unknown ongoing running costs, and that is the "today" problem. Since that time hardly any investment has been made and little has been done. Even this might be an underestimate. but not as bad as your $10bn fantasy when there are 20bn of us.

Have a nice future y'all.