If we were purely logical Vulcans (Star Trek reference), that's the simple and obvious solution.
But we are illogical, emotional humans, and the urge to have children is a biological drive so strong that even violence rarely curbs it for long. Political attempts to control the human population have invariably had horrific consequences, both on the quality of life of the adults, and on the babies.
About 25 years ago I had a friend from mainland China, who had worked in a hospital there in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She once told me she used to see rows of babies - all girls - left out in the freezing hallway to die. Seeing the horror on my face, she clammed up, and would never speak of this again as long as I knew her.
China had a one-child-per-family rule at the time, and many families did not want that one child to be a girl; apparently some chose to just let their girl-babies die right after they were born.
Then there was Romania, where the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu put tremendous social and financial pressure on women to have as many babies as possible. Abortion and contraception were banned, and childless women were taxed heavily. The result was lots of babies - who were abandoned at the nearest orphanage shortly after birth. An estimated 100,000 babies ended up in these orphanages, where they survived and died in absolutely terrible conditions - inadequate food, inadequate human contact, inadequate space to move. Many suffered permanent developmental disorders that cripple them all their lives.
I've loved science, the scientific method, engineering, and technology most of my life. They've solved a lot of problems for us over the centuries, and made the quality of life for the average human incalculably better than it used to be. But the've completely failed to solve any of the biggest problems humanity faces now. Now, all our biggest problems are social / cultural / psychological ones.
-Gnobuddy
There are many measures politicians could take to discourage people from multiplying excessively without forbidding anything at all, just like they do for smoking or drinking alcohol. Unfortunately it is still too much of a taboo.
Taboo? You mean suggesting that one group of people should suggest to another group of people that they should not procreate?
Sorry guys... “the whole we are killing the planet” pontification threads, contributed to by rather smart people, sucking mains voltage into their wholly unneeded class A amps, or watching their captive reef fishes and corals bask under metal halides, while pretending to be environmentalists, tickles me. Save the “I offset my” blah blah, or “I do my part by saving blah blah”... it is all hyper-hypocritical nonsense.
Taking the next step and advocating the the very politicians that lie, cheat, steal and murder... should have a say in procreation, as you pat your beloved kids on the head...
Well absurd is an understatement. I don’t see many of the talkers, living in dirt huts and eating ants, or self terminating to save the planet... and to that end, I don’t think the planet cares. If we do ever wipe ourselves out, it (the planet) will erase our footprints in a spec of time long before the sun swallows it.
Just sayin
Sorry guys... “the whole we are killing the planet” pontification threads, contributed to by rather smart people, sucking mains voltage into their wholly unneeded class A amps, or watching their captive reef fishes and corals bask under metal halides, while pretending to be environmentalists, tickles me. Save the “I offset my” blah blah, or “I do my part by saving blah blah”... it is all hyper-hypocritical nonsense.
Taking the next step and advocating the the very politicians that lie, cheat, steal and murder... should have a say in procreation, as you pat your beloved kids on the head...
Well absurd is an understatement. I don’t see many of the talkers, living in dirt huts and eating ants, or self terminating to save the planet... and to that end, I don’t think the planet cares. If we do ever wipe ourselves out, it (the planet) will erase our footprints in a spec of time long before the sun swallows it.
Just sayin
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The solution to population control is well understood, ie create a society of social justice and security. The problem is that type-A people, for example Japan, have no children being obsessed with "success" while the poor and disenfranchised have too many children because too many of them will either not survive or otherwise become a genetic dead end. Science is a tool that can be used to achieve what ever we choose to use it for but it has no moral implications other than those who reject science are embracing all the classic plagues on humanity. Ultimately this planet will ~expire as a viable home and we will need science to find a replacement.
Steveu -
One thing is a certainty, the planet will expire and no amount of science or human intervention can change that. This planet has only been habitable by humans for a spec of its existence.
I find it laughable that any intelligent being thinks that the current (or any) climate, or order of species is “meant to be”, let alone sustainable. This planet has been ruled by many organism and will likely be ruled by many more. It has been a ball of ice and a ball of fire and will likely see those extremes many more times before meeting its demise in our sun.
One thing is a certainty, the planet will expire and no amount of science or human intervention can change that. This planet has only been habitable by humans for a spec of its existence.
I find it laughable that any intelligent being thinks that the current (or any) climate, or order of species is “meant to be”, let alone sustainable. This planet has been ruled by many organism and will likely be ruled by many more. It has been a ball of ice and a ball of fire and will likely see those extremes many more times before meeting its demise in our sun.
That helps, but apparently not enough. For example, the Netherlands are a country with a relatively good social security system, but still, the population grows rather than shrinks. Not nearly as fast as it used to grow, thank goodness, but still it grows.
From my point of view, I have no solutions to offer; I don't believe there will be any, until our species is gone. As you say, we're not about to retreat to dirt huts, and even if we did, we wouldn't be able to grow enough food to survive, not while there are 7.7 billion humans on planet earth. Remember, in an earlier post I pointed out that we can no longer survive without enormous amounts of synthetic ammonia.
But just because I have no solutions to offer doesn't mean I / we shouldn't talk about it, or that talking about it makes me a hypocrite. If grandma is dying from cancer, a healthy family will talk about it, grieve over it, think about it. They won't have solutions to offer - grandma's days are numbered, and that can't be changed. But talking about her upcoming death is not hypocrisy, it's humanity.
For some fifteen years now, I've been trying to come to terms with the realization that billions of people are going to die long before their time. It's a hard pill to swallow, so I talk about it, and my foolish heart still hopes our fairy godmother will fly in from outer space, wave her wand, and save us from our self-inflicted fatal wound. My thinking brain doesn't believe it, though.
(Please don't start criticizing the use of "heart" and "brain" - yes, I know that hearts are blood-pumps, and have no emotions!)
Of course not, it's a ball of rock! You are taking the word "planet" much too literally. When people say "...save the planet", they mean "save all the living things on the planet that will otherwise suffer and die as a result of human activity". It's not a practical goal, but at least it's a compassionate one.
The planet may not care. But I do. We've already caused a lot of suffering to millions of animals and people. That suffering will increase as we continue to dominate the planet, decimate animal habitats, poison the environment, and overheat the biosphere to the point where most species will go extinct.
I have no solutions to offer. But I am sad over the incredible loss of life and beauty, and the suffering and death, past, present, and future. And so I talk about it. And will continue to do so. Grandma's about to die, and that is a tragedy too big to be quiet about.
-Gnobuddy
Feel glad if the Dutch population still is able to grow on it's own. The German population doesn't. Yes, the number of inhabitants is increasing here at the moment. But this is only due to blindfold decisions made in 2015
.Best regards!
Major power failure in UK - a sign of things to come?
Two power supply plants, a gas fired power station and an off-shore wind farm, failed almost simultaneously at about 17:00 BST yesterday.
The sudden drop in available power caused protective measures to kick in that immediately cut electricity supply to a section of the network, affecting nearly 1,000,000 people.
The National Grid, which balances the UK's electrical system, described it as an "unexpected, and unusual event".
UK power cut: National Grid promises to learn lessons from blackout - BBC News
Two power supply plants, a gas fired power station and an off-shore wind farm, failed almost simultaneously at about 17:00 BST yesterday.
The sudden drop in available power caused protective measures to kick in that immediately cut electricity supply to a section of the network, affecting nearly 1,000,000 people.
The National Grid, which balances the UK's electrical system, described it as an "unexpected, and unusual event".
UK power cut: National Grid promises to learn lessons from blackout - BBC News
It's interesting and timely. Perhaps the hoi polloi will get an inkling of the complexity of the issues
Perhaps it's the rich, well educated and upper class people that need to get the message first? 😉
Wow, that's a pretty big one.
When I was a boy living in a small town, high winds routinely caused power failure every rainy season. Everyone was prepared with candles, paraffin lamps, and gas or wood fired stoves. Life went on pretty much as usual when the power failed.
Not long after I moved to BC, I was living on a farm when a huge windstorm hit, knocking out power in the entire region, Vancouver and several outlying cities. We had no power for some four and a half days.
Things were different this time. The farm had no water service - water came from a well, and when the pump shut down, so did the water. The only stove in our rental suite was electric - so we couldn't cook. The 'fridge shut down, of course. The central heating blowers shut down too, so there was no heating - and it was wintertime in British Columbia. In southern BC where I live, it wasn't severe or life-threatening cold, but it was cold enough to be uncomfortable, especially after the first couple of days.
The gas (petrol) stations shut down, too - the newfangled pumps they use now have no manual option, and do not work when the power fails. Thankfully my car had a full tank of gas, and once the majority of the fallen trees had been removed from the roads by cleaning crews, I was able to reach a supermarket and buy some canned food which we ate cold.
I was glad I didn't have an electric car - otherwise it would have been back to walking. The farm was many kilometres from the nearest shops, and it would have taken hours and hours of walking even to procure food.
Even that's got to be better than being stuck in a subway train for hours. Those poor people.
All the newer homes I've seen here in BC have entirely done away with open flames in the kitchen. No more gas stoves and ovens - cooking is invariably electric-only.
Clearly, we've become far more dependent on electricity since I was a kid.
(And let's not even talk about all the desperate people rushing around trying to find a place to plug in their precious fondle-slab 'phones. Many of them were clearly suffering considerable psychological distress, withdrawal symptoms from the sudden loss of their drug of choice.)
-Gnobuddy
On the positive side, people plunged into darkness were able to use their phones as torches to find their way out of underground stations and airports!
"He said the near-simultaneous loss of two generators was more than the grid was routinely prepared for..."
Um.
Two faults at once may seem to be a once-a-century event, but have turned out to happen every decade. At least that seems to be the sequence in the large USA blackouts.
November 9, 1965, 30 million affected, long domino failure of minor faults in a healthy system. Lessons learned.
Dec 8, 1998: PSE&G put a sub-station online while the station was still grounded for maintenance. 25 other sub-stations immediately shut down.
August 14, 2003 (55 million affected)
12:15 p.m. Incorrect telemetry data
1:31 p.m. The Eastlake, Ohio generating plant shuts down.
2:02 p.m. The first of several 345 kV overhead transmission lines in northeast Ohio fails due to contact with a tree
September 8–9, 2011: maintenance of a 500kV line brought it offline, and subsequent weaknesses in operations planning and lack of real-time situational awareness at multiple power stations led to cascading outages.
That's an area which "can" be reliable (little economic or political trouble) and not counting storms (we've had some whoppers) or vandalism.
Lessons have been learned, but one at a time. I feel sure the 1965 blackout won't repeat, but some of the protection for that was part of the 2003 cascade.
National Grid's top brass do not read detailed reports from other lands. Some lessons make it into equipment design so incidentally apply globally. But many lessons from many lands are still to be learned.
We had 17 minutes of darkness that day. Around noon, warm. Didn't even think of firing-up the generator and its 300 gallon supply. Here, we have been 30 hours without power. Back where we used to live, the winter we left that dense suburb, an ice-storm socked all the trees and it was TWO WEEKS getting my ex-neighbors' power back.
I suspect that the UK now has less 'spinning reserve' than it used to have. It costs money, and almost certainly requires a fossil-fueled generator which can run for long periods at low power output just in case it is needed. Politicians need to understand that they can have a stable supply, or a cheap supply, or a green supply but they can't have all three.
Lord Adonis on Channel 4 news last night said the power outage was "completely unacceptable" and there should have been a backup generator (power station) that would have cut in under the circumstances. In other words, a power station, that would be used for approximately 40 minutes every 11 years 🙄
There is now a surge in adverts encouraging people to have smart meters
There is now a surge in adverts encouraging people to have smart meters
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100%. For example, green energy, without special regulation by laws - don't have a reserve to "eat" peaks (because it always will try to produce 100% of it's rated power, or mecanical power, or solar power).
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The one I saw yesterday said how they help with anticipation of demand to help maintain supply, I hadn't seen that one before.
I think I found a major flaw. When was the last time you recall a politician understanding anything? 🙂
-Gnobuddy
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