- Re: I think the accurate fact about fossil hydrocarbons subsidising 'renewables' is that the entire Archived Message
Posted by Ian M
on May 10, 2020, 6:32 pm, in reply to "Re: I think the accurate fact about fossil hydrocarbons subsidising 'renewables' is that the entire"
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Sure, consumption is a multiplier as GM notes in the twitter thread: 'Many of you know the formula for predicting environmental impact: Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology. Among the poorest, there’s little A or T to multiply the P. The impact of population growth on climate, resource use etc is MUCH less than 1/3rd of rising consumption. As Our World in Data notes, “Even several billion additional people in low-income countries … would leave global emissions almost unchanged. 3 or 4 billion low income individuals would only account for a few percent of global CO2.” ' - https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1258364688435478528 but that doesn't make pop growth a non-issue, as he also admits. Agreed tackling consumption would be most effective at this point for a number of reasons, however isn't it all part of one big picture? We affluent consumers in the west hoover up the resources and fruits of labour from those in the global south, while at the same time western govts do everything they can to keep them in the kind of poverty where, apart from anything else, the only security they get is from having large families. Export of food surplus is another aspect of this, whereby agribusiness overproduction, mainly of grains, gets dumped in 3rd world countries, undermining local systems and basically exporting the pop growth that would have taken place in the grain belt countries (most often the wealthier ones). It's a thorny subject which Dan Quinn (yes, another white guy...) spent a lot of time getting to grips with: Agreed on the oxymoron of a 'green' capitalism. cheers, I |