The scientific community is confident that by mid-century cheap, clean energy will be widely available.

You come from an age where people talked of fusion and the like. That time has past, though I have no doubt you haven't noticed it because you hang around with older scientists who haven't kept up with technology and reinvented themselves from time to time.

"Cheap and clean"???

That's a 1960's mantra. Right up there with "too cheap to meter."

And you've missed the fact that energy is only a small part of the issue. Water and food are even more key.

I'd like to end this blog with a very important video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

which explains how rapidly exponential growth breaks the system in so many ways (this includes less political representation as well!).

And best of luck to us in the future. If we can't overcome our animalistic urges, or change the general cultural attitude about procreation as damaging to the environment (and all evidence is that we can't, just look at the resistance here), then your children and guaranteed your grandchildren will live in a world with far fewer rights and choices than you do now. That's a fact.

The selfish need to have your genes propagate will deny those same genes liberty in very short order. Something to think about.

If the argument was so very weak, it would have been self evident, but there are no crickets here.

The problem is you have no counter argument so you simply want to dismiss everything.

What does that have to do with this topic?

Nothing.

Does that count as my "hijacking" a thread then?

There's certainly a certain illness among some here... when I say people are obsessed with things, it's conversations like this that back it up.

I know I will taste sweet.

There are others here who will clearly be sour and bitter.

And I can think of one person who is salty. So salty the language caused the blog to come down.

Just as the left here expect the wealthy to sacrifice more for the good of the nation, this country, the wealthy, have more to sacrifice for the rest of the world.

The topic is emotionally antagonizing because it forces a person to have to deal with a difficult issue.

People are greedy and selfish. It's as if people would claim they are obese because there is a refrigerator in their home and they have a right to eat every time they pass it.

Plenty of people link to articles. This is a special issue of a known publication (not a stupid blog website), and I quoted from one of the article to show how one westerner is not equivalent to one person elsewhere in the world.

Your complaint is disingenuous and carefully applied to me and me alone.

And still you offered nothing substantial against my questions of what would you do?

Of cours as ARG pointed out, no more child credits on your taxes.

But you are framing the issue in terms of energy and global changes. However, it's about resources (energy merely only being one). Water is key. And water isn't 100% global (there is a climate change component) but there are draw down issues as well.

The US is running out of fresh water... fast. I supposed we can simply construct a new agreement with Canada to get some (they are okay for the foreseeable future)... or fight a resource war over water.

Either way, control of local (national) population pays big dividends for political stability.

How much is enough? William Catton pointed out that this is determined by technology. The "new world" was empty to the Europeans because in their high-tech lifestyle, it was. To the natives, it was far more crowded. They simply needed more land per person.

It's clear that if you want to convert all present farming to a more organic type, you are going to get less yields. That was the point of the Green Revolution, of course, and it will also work in reverse.

We've seen participation, but little intellectual (your post certainly included).

The overpopulation issue looms large, I've talked about it in the past, complete with numbers.

If you wish to state that overpopulation is a key issue and you have no solutions, that's fine.

But if you have solutions, than I challenge you to post something here and I will analyze it showing how it doesn't pass the back of the envelope test.

Yes, America is overpopulating things because with 5% of the population, it used 25% of the world's energy resources ... just for starters.

And go and read the blog where ONE PERSON in the West can equal a WHOLE VILLAGE of people in Africa.

Conflating Medicare with kids taking care of elders is ridiculous. Medicare is an impersonal system where you pay a tax for (supposedly available) ability to get benefits from the government in the future.

The water is drying up in the middle of the country because too many people are drawing out of it than can be replenished. Too many people are emitting gases that have changed global climate...

and on and on.

There is no reason to try to artificially create more people and add to the problem.

The Ponzi scheme that was set up can't continue forever.

So life expectancy drops a bit because a ridiculous amount of resources won't be spent on the elderly (who currently pull out 3x as much from the system as they put in).

A drop in life expectancy is guaranteed either way and it will be much uglier if you don't take a real controlling hand in shrinking the population rather than crashing it.

This is pure economics and therefore, in principle, more flexible. (Afer all, few societies have had our style of open capitalism that has been around only for a few hundred years.)

Either way, our economics collapses, the only question is if it's a glide or a crash. I prefer the glide.

Also, one can imagine that shrinking populations will make certain regions more attractive to immigration. And this type of population migration will also have to occur if you want a smooth transition for a downsizing.

The only truly scary thing about downsizing is that you have to emotionally stomach that the future is not going to be like today. But that's true with the total collapse...and the collapse is more violent and disruptive.

Second, my conversations with Chris were over lunch and dinners. Of course, what Zip has been trying to "prove" really isn't the point -- it's not that I'm calling black for white, but rather pointing out that terraforming is not a well-defined idea to begin with. For example, terraforming Mars... for what? Dinosaurs? Algae? What terrestrial life?

Well, if it's for humans, than again -- what are we terraforming for? A true Earth with zones where no vegetation can form? Polar caps? Tropical paradise? Temperate farm regions? What?

Great thinkers advance and discuss ideas like this. The claim that we are not so good at terraforming our own planet -- e.g. making it more suitable for us in the long term, makes a real point by pointing out that when you think about it, the word (a) doesn't have a precise meaning to begin with and (b) which implies we don't have a precise notion of what we really deem habitable for humans.

Interesting, right?

Don't the kids have a choice in this?

You might have a point if we were talking about Japan or some other culture where the family nucleus was strong... but this is America and that's simply not our culture.

I note that above you talked of not have the energy or the time to write a short few paragraphs to add something intelligent to the conversation.

Instead, you spent many comments trying to talk about the word "terraforming". I think this is very telling to the strengths of your over all arguments. In other words, you have none.

If I'm so dangerous, how about a real refutation on your part?

None coming. You try an ad hominen attack and a side topic.

You will note that not one person put any effort into coming up with numbers showing how it can all be made okay. That was the challenge of the blog -- and not picked up by anyone.

That's the other problem.

As I said, it's not sure numbers of people, you have to normalize by carbon footprint. The more educated you are, I'm betting the larger your footprint, so you still have to drop your birthrate.

The problem in general that people talk sustainable energy, sustainable food supply, sustainable everything... except sustainable population. That people think can still grew. Because no one talks about where you have to cap it.

I'm for curbing the birthrate, not accelerating the death rate.

Curbing the birthrate doesn't influence any beings and is highly ethical and non-entities can't have rights.

But that doesn't stop anyone else here.

Shutting down a fertility clinic simply doesn't restrict someone's right to choose to have a baby... so long as they can do it naturally.

http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16115.full

Note careful the conclusions: they are carefully written and not sensational.

Not published? Bummer. But then I guess that means you've never worked with an editor... and therefore don't know much how that interaction works either.

Double standard?

Hypocritical?

You tell me.

In fact, there was no GBCW post from me.

There was a comment by me back on Jan 20, 2009 or there abouts. But the circumstances changed.

Why is it that we see do-or-die efforts for something small like healthcare, but the future of our planet people give up so easily?

Seriously, some of the arguments presented are beginning to sound neo-connish.