Our feudalised future

[cromwell]

It's going to be great.
Eat meat? Why, you planet killer!
Drive a car? Don't you know that riding a bicycle is so much better for you?
Go on holiday? Don't you know how many baby seals that plane has just killed?
Drink alcohol? Not more than 0.05 of a unit per week I hope?

I don't know enough about climate change one way or the other, but I do know a hypocrite when I see one. And I see lots of them lecturing us about saving the planet. Ed Miliband, who has an 8,000 mile round trio to watch basebal in America. Emma Thomson who flies the same distance to lecture us about carbon footprints.
This stuff is relentless.
Every night on the abysmal Look North we get it. Last night a damp eyed woman paddle boarded from Liverpool to Hull on the canal, picking up litter. Also a doctor from Extinction Rebellion telling us that people were going to have to change, like it or not.

But. The UK contributes only 1.2% of all man made carbon emissions. 90% of all plastic in the oceans come from ten rivers. Two in Africa, eight in Asia. The UK's carbon emissions are lower now than since Victorian times.
The big polluters in vehicles are ships, planes and trains - not cars.

We are being pushed towards a less enjoyable future by people who have no intention of joining us in the cheap seats.
Merry Christmas, pass the celery.

[Workingman]

OK, hands up. I don't have a beard, but I do wear sandals and am generally in line with Friends of the Earth, Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace et al.

Some decades ago climate change hijacked the general environmental movement and became its cause célèbre. The UN even set up a commission that included it in the name - the IPCC.

There is no doubt it was an issue in urgent need of action, but unfortunately it took focus away from other equally important factors such as deforestation, desertification, pollution of land, sea and air and, of course, population.

Population is the common denominator driving all of the other issues. In the 1970s the global population was 3.7 bn, by the end of this decade it will be 7.4 bn, that's the population doubling in just 50 years.

Each one of those new humans needs air, water, food, shelter, clothes and sleep just to survive, and the numbers are frightening. In just one day each one needs:

* 2 litres of fresh drinking water, plus more for hygiene and sanitation
* 11,000 litres of fresh air
* 2,000 calories of food containing a good mix of protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals

and they all drive the economic model of never ending growth - another problem.

In modern times only China has instigated a policy to slow or stop population growth and it failed because people tended to ignore it, though it is claimed its population is some 500m fewer than it would have been without it. It was also heavily criticised on human rights grounds by the likes of Liberty and Amnesty in the West.

And so we tinker at the edges with straws, plastic bags, windmills and veggie burgers. We are told that we can all do our bit and that even the little things help. Bollocks! Unless we do the big things, and do them now and with vigour, we are on the brink of nature taking the planet back.

When it does so the economic model will be shattered to smithereens and the population will crash. For the survivors feudal times will seem like nirvana.

[TheOstrich]

I couldn't agree more, WM. Over-population is the over-riding problem.

Whether the eventual solution will be war, famine or plague, take your pick. But one will happen sooner or later, I'm afraid.

[cromwell]

Overpopulation is a massive problem, yes. Exacerbated by capitalism which needs constant economic growth or so we are told.

And as the locals aren't sprogging enough in the west, the answer is to import millions from the third world into the first world to keep consumption up. There's a reason that "racism" became the worst of all accusations, and it isn't morality, it's economics. Anyway I digress.

[Workingman]

There's a reason that "racism" became the worst of all accusations, and it isn't morality, it's economics

There was a time where if any person was anti or wanting control of immigration it made no difference how well they put across reasons such as pressure on housing, transport, schools, the NHS, welfare, jobs and such, they were automatically shouted down as racists. That's it, no counter arguments or debate are given, they are racists: "End of", as a lot of the accusers terminated their profound insights.

Thankfully things are changing and those who play the race card are being forced to back up their claims. Some of them do try, but those who don't are ignored and dismissed, as should be the case. It is a bit late in the day but the economic reasons for mass immigration are being microscopically dissected.

[Suff]

I was recently called a closet climate change denier, on a climate change site, because I backed up a statement that one of the biggest challenges to reducing CO2 was population growth.

I got a bit testy. Got the figures and clearly articulated that the 400m increase in population in India, by 2040, at current levels of per capita emissions from India, would override both the UK and France going to 0% emissions. Plus a bit.

The next bullet in that gun?

India's emissions grew 6%, per capita, in 2016! So not only did the population increase but the emissions per head of population increased too.

It's rather a novelty me being called a climate change denier. I was a bit blunt in my response. I didn't quite ask the poster which breast they were feeding from when I was being pilloried as a "Global Warming Nut" in the mid 90's, but I was close.

[cromwell]

I was recently called a closet climate change denier, on a climate change site, because I backed up a statement that one of the biggest challenges to reducing CO2 was population growth.

I got a bit testy. Got the figures and clearly articulated that the 400m increase in population in India, by 2040, at current levels of per capita emissions from India, would override both the UK and France going to 0% emissions. Plus a bit.

People won't have it Suff. Population growth driving emissions in the industrialised third world is the most obvious thing. But people don't want to know and won't admit it.

On the other tack some members of Extinction Rebellion have long been vegetarians. Some are now complaining that they are being bullied by vegans.

There is always someone to point an accusing finger at someone else for not being (fill in the blank) enough.