Comments Capster has made

  • The problem with natural gas...

    OK, I see two problems:

    1.  The cost right now is very high (about $12, it's basically doubled over the past year - just like oil).  More demand = higher prices.  And transporting gas is not nearly as easy as shipping oil, so supply issues would be problematic.  Thus, you have the same cost problems with oil or worse.  Note that increased demand for gas will raise electricity prices, home heating costs, industry costs (they use a lot of nat gas).  The issues with gas production are similar to oil production - it's getting harder to find and get out of the ground.  I think a shift to gas creates a whole new set of big problems.

    2.  There are decent alternatives to natural gas cars now.  Hybrids, plug-ins, mass transit - all are better alternatives.  I think it highly unlikely that there will be a massive investment in natural gas supply infrastructure for cars/trucks/etc only to have that become useless in 15 years - which it surely will.  No one will be willing to make that investment, because I don't think anyone should.  

    I think Joe is right on target with this one.On His energy plan is half brilliant, half dumb posted 1 year, 4 months ago 21 Responses

  • The truth, another take

    As someone who lives in DC (please, no stones) my take is that many here are actually reasonably well informed about these issues.  It's just hard to push through something that will raise prices on consumers, or allow high prices to continue, because, let's be honest - the american people are pretty short-sighted.  There's not much incentive for a politician to take the long view, which you need with climate, when s/he is really concerned with getting re-elected in 2 years.  Every 2 years.  

    Also, there's not much elasticity in rising gas prices.  I am fairly confident (but welcome dissent) that the consumption of gas has not gone down materially while prices for gas have doubled in the past few years.  That begs the question with politicians - if price increases don't appear to work, should we support price increases?  The answer is "yes", because at some point they do work, but it will take some time to get there.  Shifting behavior, shifting our economy - as many have pointed out, it won't be easy.

    David, I agree with you - our country is pretty deluded.  I hope that enough leaders in congress stand up to make these changes.  But to be crystal clear, it won't happen this year.  It will be 09 or 10 before a bill gets passed, regardless of who is in the WH.  On Democrats are undermining the strongest message behind climate policy posted 1 year, 5 months ago 6 Responses

  • I get your point..

    ..and understand what you're saying about both the allocation and the selection of winners.  I would suggest, however, that it's not quite as "black and white" as you make it seem.  There are some technologies that will not get gov't funding that will still be successful.  Will it help to get gov't funding?  Absolutely.  But a good idea is a good idea, and VCs and other folks out there are scouring the marketplace for good ideas in which to invest.  So I think that there will be some support for clever inventors, just not always from the big gov't pool.  

    But you make a very good point about the selection of technology.  If I had my way, like you, I would have the bill focus on goals, not the path to the goals.  The use of collected funding for things other than R&D is, my guess, some sort of political math.  I would bet that to get someone's support, they needed to throw in some funding for good ideas like those you outline even if they are not tied to GHG reductions directly.  I have no way of knowing if this is true, it's just my guess.  I suppose I should be pleased that at least the things they chose seem reasonably worthy to me, but you are right - 42 years is a looong time.  

    In the end, I think the bill will be edited, at least somewhat, finally passed in 2010, and be in effect in 2012.  And then there will be constant efforts to reshape it over the years.  I tend to be a "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" kind of person on these issues, so I'll be pleased to finally get something in the books.  I'm more than willing to keep taking runs at it in the ensuing years.  On Lieberman-Warner criticism, Part 2 posted 1 year, 7 months ago 18 Responses

  • Peak anything

    Joe, I'm with you on most of this stuff, certainly I agree with the broad theories you advance.  But I question peak oil and coal - we've been hearing about peak oil for decades.  What happens?  Oil technology gets better (horizontal drilling, shale oil, tar sands, etc.) and whammo, the peak is pushed off.  I suspect the same would be true for some crafty coal companies - if the price is right, they'll get the damn coal.  It's not a pretty thought, but it is the historical truth.  

    Moreover, your scenario leaves out many alternatives, which I firmly believe will be in play in 2020 - fuel cells, solar thermal, geothermal, etc. etc. - all of which you know, since you post on this stuff regularly.  Both distributed gen and centralized gen technologies will improve.  So while your models are fine with the many assumptions you make, they ignore a lot of stuff.  I'm not sure you can draw a conclusion when so much is left out of the analysis.  Perhaps you have plans to address this in future posts.  On What is the impact of peak oil and peak coal? posted 1 year, 7 months ago 10 Responses

  • Sean

    I have a couple of questions for you.  I don't see the bill, specifically the provisions to which you allude, exactly the same way that you do, but it's also possible that I don't fully understand them either.  

    If you are an inventor, and you come up with a fantastic idea for reducing carbon emissions via some new widget - you seem to imply above that you have no incentive to deploy your technology because it's not listed in the bill.  OK, two questions:

    1.  Why not?  Why wouldn't some company, XYZ Industries, who is facing a cap on their carbon emissions, buy the widget from you?  Regardless of what the bill says, all they want to do is reduce emissions, and if they can do that cost effectively, well that's terrific.  So if your idea is a good one, companies will come clamoring for it, won't they?  Am I missing something?  Isn't this the market at work?  

    2.  I seem to read the bill a little differently, and it hinges on a few words.  The first bucket of money you describe above, the Energy Technology Deployment Fund, seems to leave some pretty big windows.  I completely agree re: goals instead of paths, but I don't think they are ruling anything out by saying "sustainable energy technologies" (that's a big category) and "low carbon electricity technologies" (another big category).  Right there you cover most of what is out there, and it seems that you could tuck inventions into either one of those categories.  

    If I could add anything, it would be language on efficiency, which I should note many people are going to propose, and frankly is likely to be added.  That, to me, would cover just about everything and leave room for the funding of innovation.

    Please let me know if I'm missing something here.On Lieberman-Warner criticism, Part 2 posted 1 year, 7 months ago 18 Responses

  • Well...

    ..your time has come.  You'd better get some bills amended while you can.  As you well know, the opportunity for getting good legislation on the table is now.  But I assume that's why Tom was wandering around DC and chatting with E&E.  On A REDtime story posted 1 year, 7 months ago 3 Responses

  • RE Development

    Sean, saw your father on E&E TV this morning discussing his/your business with Monica Trauzzi.  You guys are all over the place.  On A REDtime story posted 1 year, 7 months ago 3 Responses

  • Completely agree

    David, I was going to post on this exact point in one of the other threads, but thought better of it.  But now you've said it, so it merits support.  

    The technology question IS deceptive, because in theory, as Joe Romm has pointed out many times, we do have the technology.  But our institutions (such as the utility infrastructure and the automotive infrastructure) need a kickstart to changing them.  I have often wondered "why, when I read about the solar capacity in our deserts, the hypercar, various home energy reducing technologies, etc. are these things not getting done?"  And I came to the same conclusion you did - it's about our institutional roadblocks.  Some of these things make absolute economic sense (others don't yet, but when carbon is priced correctly, they will), yet we have barely moved the needle.  

    So it seems to me our focus needs to be on removing institutional constraints.  This may take some time, but some of us should focus less on new technology, more on insuring that current technology is allowed to be implemented.  On The implicit assumption in Pielke Jr.'s Nature commentary posted 1 year, 8 months ago 38 Responses

  • Clarification

    Clarifying one point:

     - I want low cost emissions reductions - definately.  That point came out wrong in my note above.  If we can figure out how to remove carbon cheaply, and there is a payback, I'd like those projects done all day long.  

     - I want the market to reflect the true cost of emissions reductions, however, and not be artificially high or low.  I want appropriate signalling.  On Almost always, but the reason is more subtle than you think posted 1 year, 8 months ago 11 Responses

  • Naturescene

    No hounds to release, I live in a no-dogs condo...

    Thanks for addressing some of my points.  But I don't think your arguments hold water (woof woof).  As an aside, it really is difficult to hold this discussion in a forum like this, especially when we are discussing something relatively nuanced like additionality.

    I'll just say this:  if you believe in financial additionality as critically important to any GHG protocol, as I do, and you are also a fan of markets, as I am, then you want prices to be accurate - not artificially high or low.  If you allow a bunch of non-additional projects to flood the market, then the price is artifically low, the wrong signals get sent, and true additional projects don't get built.  And then we have fewer GHG projects being built overall.  So I would disagree that the point is low cost emissions reduction - it's true cost emissions reduction.  I want appropriate signals to consumers, producers, etc. so that both demand-side and supply-side projects get done.  $1-3 carbon does not do that.  

    There already is a market in place for the projects to which you refer.  It's not the GHG market - it's the free market.  If a project is economic, it should get done.  I know Sean pointed out that in the free market good projects don't get done with some regularity.  I know this is true.  But having very very low value carbon offsets, as would happen without financial additionality, won't change anyone's mind about doing or not doing a project.  

    And I'll leave it with this.  I agree the protocols are not perfectly neat and tidy.  But they are not as arbitrary, in my mind, as either you or Sean paint them.  And I'll take some level of messiness, at least initially, for the one thing that all markets need - credibility.  The ability for buyers to trust that what they are buying is delivering what they were promised.  Without financial additionality, you don't have that.  Any/every market needs that.  

    Thanks.On Almost always, but the reason is more subtle than you think posted 1 year, 8 months ago 11 Responses

  • Adam

    Yes, I find it interesting as well.   I keep asking for feedback on my positions, so I can see if I have a blind spot or if there is some other failure to understand this issue.  So far, internally and externally, I have mostly gotten a lot of distractions - people addressing other points, failing to directly address mine.  Also odd that in the EU and UK, this discussion is settled, but we seem to want to rehash this ourselves.  In the end, I'm 98% certain we'll end up in the same place as they are.  On Almost always, but the reason is more subtle than you think posted 1 year, 8 months ago 11 Responses

  • Naturescene

    In my last two posts over at "Let me boil it down for you" I explained why financial additionality is necessary:

     - You'd end up paying for projects that would be done anyway;
     - With the flood of non-additional projects because of no financial additionality, the market prices would go to near zero, and none of the real, additional projects would get built;
     - Credibility would be missing without assurance of financial additionality;
     - Financial additionality does not hinder projects from getting done, it provides incentives for projects to get done;
     - The rules are not as subjective and arbitrary as some would say - if you read the various protocols (almost all of which have financial additionality), you'll see some fairly straightforward rules.

    Why does it matter if a project is revenue positive?  Well, it doesn't - those projects that are revenue positive should just get done on their own merits.  I don't feel like paying them for their "carbon offsets" for no reason.  Why give a developer money to do a project that already makes money?  You wouldn't.

    But what if a project is not financially viable, but with the addition of the sale carbon offsets that they could sell, it becomes viable?  Then by all means, let's have them sell those offsets.  

    I'm not sure I can make it plainer than that.  Perhaps I'm just really crappy at explaining this stuff.  I'm keyed up on this issue because it's close to what I do on a daily basis, and within my company we've been discussing this issue, in conversations just like this, for many months.  I think we're reaching consensus, but it's been really interesting having the conversations along the way.  So pardon me if I come across as shrill.  On Almost always, but the reason is more subtle than you think posted 1 year, 8 months ago 11 Responses

  • Sean and anotherID

    Good discussion.

    Just to be clear, you're saying that financial additionality should be thrown out because facility managers don't currently do projects that make sense.  So they are currently not being economically rational, in your model, and for some reason eliminating financial additionality is going to push them over the edge?  No, I don't think so.

    I have been a facility manager, I've been the global director of utilities for a large consumer product company, and now I work for a very large energy company leading efforts on climate change (damn, this makes me sound old - I'm not, it's just been an interesting career).  So I hear what you're saying.  I know how capital is sometimes allocated.  I know that I did not do efficiency projects that had very good paybacks on paper.  I had to make choices about limited capital and constrained opex.  Plus, let's be honest, many of the projects look good on paper but in practice...not so much.  So credibility around these project was lacking (familiar theme, anyone?), and we would put a higher hurdle on some of them.  

    Sean, you do fail to address a few of my points that I think are valid:

     - Allowing any reduction project to be considered an offset will result in a flood of offsets into the market, which will depress offset values, providing no value to companies who want to actually do offset projects - this would crush the number of carbon reduction projects done.  And it will give the "industrial employee with a burn on for energy efficiency" absolutely no incentive to look again because of carbon offsets.  Seriously, they are trading for a few dollars these days on the CCX, because they aren't credible.  A few dollars for a ton of CO2 is just not enough to push many projects - especially if all the hurdles you describe internally are in place.  While typing this up, I'm multi-tasking I'm on a call with CERA, and they are discussing the need for CO2 prices to be between $25 and $100/ton to make the shift from coal.  

     - How do you propose to maintain credibility in the market when there are, frankly, specious offsets floating around in there?  Please see my chiller or production line improvement examples above that generate "offsets" as a by-product, but which would have been done regardless.  How do you address the front page articles in the Post?  Why would anyone want to buy these offsets?

     - Lastly - you have this refrain about subjective rules.  I assume you've read the CDM rules and the Green-E GHG proposal?  You surely know that Jan Hamrin and her colleagues at CRS got input from many on the development of these rules?  You also must know that virtually every protocol for carbon offsets requires financial additionality?  I have in front of me a spreadsheet of research my team has done on offset protocols.  The real fact is that the rules are NOT all subjective, there are some easy ways for projects to get approved as additional, and as the expertise with specific project types grows with the certifiers, the process will become easier.  

    I really wish you'd hit these items head on.  I'm interested in your thoughts on these issues, and how you would solve these.  On When additionality always matters posted 1 year, 8 months ago 18 Responses

  • Can't agree

    Alright, I'm going to walk through this, see if I can figure out your position.  You and I both want carbon reductions.  We both want projects that provide a positive environmental impact.  On this I am certain we agree (please tell me we DO agree on this).  OK.

    I want to ONLY pay people to do projects they would not otherwise do without factoring in carbon costs (financial additionality).  I don't want to pay someone for a project they would do based on its economics.  You state "What happens if the potential offsetter, even though the project makes economic sense on paper without offsets, refuses to go through with the project if it is not certified as additional?"  To which I state - HUH?!?  Who would NOT do a project that makes economic sense?  That's what companies do - weigh projects and invest in the ones that make economic sense.  This is one of the places where I don't follow you.  

    Let's look at the alternative - we have no financial additionality, any "reduction" in carbon is considered an offset.  As I've stated previously, I am supportive of a cap and trade system, and like Sean, am supportive of market based solutions.  Without financial additionality, any project/activity that "reduces" carbon will be available as an offset, regardless of whether a company or person would have done it anyway.  So, using Sean's example, my car breaks down and I need to ride my bike to work - hey, I have an offset.  My chiller breaks down and I need to replace it - hey, the new chiller is more efficient (they all are), so I have an offset.  My company finds a new manufacturing process that is an improvement over the old one - and it requires less energy - so I've created an offset.

    The problem with those three offsets generated?  They would have been done regardless.  Because they made economic sense on their merits.  But you would have me pay these people for something they are already doing.  Why?  Why pay for that?  

    The other side of the coin - what happens in the market?  Well, now we have a market awash is offsets.  Everyone is submitting "projects" into the market that are offsets.  Liquidity is high, supply is high - so offset prices drop down to next to nothing.  What does this mean?  It means that many carbon reduction projects don't get built.  Why?  Because these projects need the value of offsets to make them viable (financial additionality), and since the offsets are priced low, the math doesn't work; they don't get done.  

    So instead of increasing the number of projects - you've decreased the number.  And the "projects" that do get done are ones that WOULD BE DONE ANYWAY.  

    The last point to make is my refrain on credibility - without it, people won't buy the offsets.  Without them buying the offsets, the offset cost stays low.  With a market awash in offsets, and no buyers, the market collapses.

    I simply disagree with your comment that the tests are subjective and loose.  If you haven't, please read the Green-E GHG proposals.  Or read the CDM rules, or any of the many protocols out there for GHG.  Virtually all contain financial additionality.  And I recognize that they are not perfect, but as I outline above, the alternative is not acceptable.  On When additionality always matters posted 1 year, 8 months ago 18 Responses

  • Naturescene

    Thanks for the clarifications on how you define additionality, that's helpful.  When I am talking about additionality, I define it as BOTH environmental additionality and financial additionality.  Both need to be present for credibility.  

    I agree that there is no "iron-clad" measurement for financial additionality.  I agree that it could be messy, particularly at the start.  I'm OK with that, if in the end we have a true market that people can trust.  Without such a hurdle, there is no market.

    As rcire points out, the CDM rules around additionality are not just on financial issues.  I'll also add that they don't look at a specific company's finances, but at project finances, using typical IRR and WACC.  I know it's not as precise as you or others would want, but in using these, they attempt to address another concern - that every project needs to be individually analyzed.  The CDM process allows for whole groups of projects to be considered additional on a prima facie basis.  This also makes the process easier, though keeps the hurdle high.  

    I'm not trying to dismiss the discussion that Sean and Adam are having, I'm just asking that they get out of the details and focus on the larger issue of what we're trying to accomplish - credible reductions.  I know that right now there are many offsets being sold and traded that are simply not real.  They are resulting from projects that would have been done regardless.  It's just a way for a project developer to make more money, for no added value.  This is why offsets were recently attacked on the front page of the Washington Post, because of the belief that they are not real.  On When additionality always matters posted 1 year, 8 months ago 18 Responses

  • Offsets = reductions

    David, perhaps Gar and I are not on the same page in every respect - I do support market based solutions, and if the market wants to take risks on offsets, so be it.  It's likely they would spur innovation around carbon reductions by sending (high) price signals.  But with regard to additionality, I agree with Gar.

    Pangolin, I do appreciate your comments, but perhaps we'll never agree.  I believe that correctly pricing carbon will force people/companies to start plugging their holes.  A cap and trade system is my preferred method of doing that.  Economic signaling is important.

    Naturescene, I think you may need to read up on how CDM projects are ruled additional.  Or you can read the new CRS Green-e GHG proposals.  It's certainly a hurdle, as Sean points out in many other posts on Grist, but it's also not as difficult as you make it out to be.  "Objective test"?  Some of the rules are objective, some are not.  It's a long discussion, and I'm really not the person to be leading it, but I'll just say having additionality rules in place is much better than not having them at all.  On When additionality always matters posted 1 year, 8 months ago 18 Responses

  • That's it.

    Thanks.

    Otherwise, they have no credibility.  Without credibility, there is no market.  Without a market, the whole idea collapses.  I don't care about liquidity, I don't care about Sean making money (sorry dude).  I want a high hurdle to separate the phony projects from the real ones, Even if an occasional well intentioned project doesn't get built.  Without this, it's more likely that people will be duped - that's just the truth.  I'd rather have credibility, and have people play by some tough rules.

    Sean, I just don't see how you don't get this.  I really can't figure out how some very bright people can't see that a credible, verifiable market is necessary.  Don't you see the stories in the paper about the "dubious offset market"?  I agree with many things you say, but on this issue I see a gap in the logic.  As Gar correctly points out, you need to get out of the weeds - it's not that damn hard.  If someone buys an offset, they need to know it's additional.  Period.  On When additionality always matters posted 1 year, 8 months ago 18 Responses

  • Dereg, strips, spots

    Sean ,
    In the end I am in agreement on your key point - we should trust markets.  We should/will have strips, spots, and all the financial permutations that the market wants to invent.  A stock is just like an offset - it's a spot price.  The NYSE has then allowed all sorts of derivatives, puts, calls, etc to be built around these as hedging tools.  I do believe this will happen with carbon.  Now, I disagree with your comment that it took 10 years for this to happen with electricity.  The NYMEX was trading electricity in various forms in the late 90s.  Mostly spot pricing, but once deregulation occurred, there were other ways to hedge your electricity position.  Some were "dirty" hedges, but options were there.

    As for deregulation - well, I disagree that it didn't work.  That's surely another discussion altogether.  But in some well constructed markets, it has worked very well.  In some markets that were badly constructed, it didn't.  You seem to imply that the purpose for electricity deregulation was "to encourage investment in electricity reducing technologies" (correct me if I'm wrong).  But that's not right - the reason for deregulation was to lower overall electricity prices, to allow some market forces to push prices down, and to give customers a choice in how they bought their electricity and gas - fixed price, variable, fixed with cap, etc.  Innovation was certainly one of the possibilities, and we've seen enormous growth in investments in new energy technologies since deregulation in the late 90s/early 00s.  Much of that is due to deregulation forces.  

    Good ongoing dialogue.On Spots vs. strips posted 1 year, 8 months ago 19 Responses

  • New Capacity

    Let's look at the UK.  If you're the UK, you need new capacity because your gas is running out (North Sea), and you're at the end of an unpredictable pipe from Russia.  So you want as many renewable energy sources as possible.  Your only alternative is nuclear or coal, and both are being seriously studied.  

    The same is generally true for other countries - they have limited natural resources, so they want power diversification so they are not (as) beholden to other countries as they could be.  You are right, France is 80% nuclear.  They are very low carbon producers.  Radioactive waste is another issue.  

    In the end, societies have always increased energy consumption to increase GDP, even accounting for productivity increases.  I'm not sure if this is a rule or just a history, but it would posit that growth in power consumption will happen as economies grow, regardless of population (well, to a point, I suppose). On New report on massive growth of renewables last year posted 1 year, 8 months ago 5 Responses

  • Credibility is key

    Sean, the difference in RECs is that they are born from very specific projects, with the stated goal of producing RECs.  Windmills may be energy generators, but they also are REC producers.  Same with solar, or biomass, etc.  

    However, "offsets" without additionality could be broadly defined in a million impossible to verify ways.  Let's take your bike example - if my car broke down and I needed to ride my bike to get to work I would do it.  Without additionality, I could then claim an "offset" was generated, and sell that to someone.  

    But the credibility would be lacking.  What people want to know is that, when they spend dollars for offsets, there is an actual reduction that would not have otherwise happened without that spend.  If I'm going to take a flight and generate a ton of carbon, I want to know that when I spend $20 on an offset, a ton is removed that wouldn't have otherwise been removed.  

    Without additionality, people won't necessarily do more projects - they'll just make more claims on ordinary things.  Hey, our company changed replaced their chiller units with high efficiency units - nevermind that they would have done it anyway, because the payback is a no-brainer.  But now we'll claim some offset that we'll try to sell.  Is that credible?  Is that what you want to buy?  You'd spend $20 for a ton of carbon offset - that would have happened anyway?  You think that makes sense?  I don't.  People want to know that the money they spend makes a real difference.

    Additionality rules are admittedly cumbersome, but with experience we are finding they can be manageable.  Per the CDM, whole types of projects can prima facia be accepted as additional, so you need not do one-off calculation on them.  And CRS has a proposal out for GHG offsets which I think makes sense as well.  It's not an easy hurdle, but it's a legitimate one.  

    I'm not interested in a market flooded with noncredible offsets - that will kill the whole thing.  We need to instead go the other way - make sure that the offsets are very credible, so that they have true value.

    In fact, if we ever want to have a unified market for offsets (EU, US, etc.) we in the US will have to agree to additionality - it's a basic tenet of the EU ETS.  

     On Does additionality matter? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 29 Responses

  • Another view...

    Sean,
    I think you are approaching this from one viewpoint, which is OK, but there are a number of ways to look at additionality.  Let's start with one of your assumptions, first.  You say that "any reduction in GHG is going to require some capital investment".  This is not correct.  A change in status quo, perhaps.  Using your car bike analogy - you made no capital investment, you just rode your bike (or mass transit) to work.  You actually reduced your cost and the impact on GHG.  I think there are other, more realtime and large scale examples in business.  

    Second, let's appproach additionality from another viewpoint.  What if there is a project which could reduce GHG by 1000 tons, but is not economic for a company (investment does not meet ROI hurdle, for example).  But if they value the GHG reductions, which is not a "public incentive" as you call it but a real cost of business, then the project becomes economic.  And perhaps very economic, if the credits are worth enough.  Then that project, which would not have otherwise been built, would be built.

    Using your final question, if you want to build a plant that is 50% more efficient, has lower operating costs and is efficient - dude, why wouldn't you build that, additional or not?!?  Additionality is a tool to get GHG reduction projects built, NOT to stop otherwise profitable projects from going forward.  Additionality simply values carbon - that's it - and says that if a project would be done on its economic merits, then it gets no value for the carbon.  But for projects on the margin, this gives them a boost.  It actually should increase the number of GHG reducing projects.  

    My company (large multi-national energy) has had plenty of internal discussions on this.  We think that without additionality, carbon offsets are, to be blunt, complete crap.  To be honest, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, you are looking at this as a project developer, with a perhaps too narrow view of this issue.  We see this as a necessary issue for credibility in the offset market.  CCX, quite frankly, in our eyes is not credible, because their "tests" are so limited.  Center for Resource Solutions (the Green-e people, for those who don't know) has proposed much more stringent rules around offsets, and we agree with them.  In the end, credibility will be critical in these markets.On Does additionality matter? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 29 Responses

  • Formulas, et al

    While I might agree with the basic formula provided (I=P*A*T), I would suggest this is just too simple.  The weightings of each of those variables is different, and the P, population, should be heavily weighted.  

    We've ignored this issue for many of the reasons stated - fear of being lumped in as racist, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, pro-eugenics, etc.  But ignoring it, as we generally have, does not make it go away, and the problem is NOT stabilizing, as one poster posits.  In fact, the problem is continually getting worse (check UN population estimates).  While there are immediate things we can do about climate change, absolutely, we need to immediately do something about this as well.  The long term implications - more food demand, more overfishing, more carbon output, more poverty, more malnourishment, more war, more deforestation - are bigger than just climate change.  If we put our heads down and just focus on "consumption" and "affluence", in 20 years we'll be broadsided by a population problem with much, much bigger impacts.On Is it only OK to talk about limiting population after it's too late? posted 1 year, 11 months ago 117 Responses