Population growth as a strategy?

There are arguments for a large population, arguments for a small population, and arguments for an increasing population.

Today, I want to examine the arguments for an increasing population. These arguments are not about how large the population is, but that it should increase.

The three arguments I have heard in favour of an increasing population are:
1) Population growth is necessary to secure essential economic growth
2) Population growth is necessary to maintain a sufficiently high ratio of younger people to elderly people
3) Population growth in a specific country is required to ease overcrowding in some other country or countries.

All of these sound reasonable, but lets first look at the argument against continued population growth. These are:
1) There is a limit to growth, sooner or later it must stop
2) Too many people must damage the earth to the detriment of all life on Earth

Is there a Limit to Growth?
Yes, demonstrably. One simply proof is to consider that people are made of atoms, and the number of atoms on earth is finite. Eventually you get to a point that there are not enough atoms to build each person. So growth must stop eventually, but is this 'eventually' so far away that it is completely hypothetical, or can we manage to colonise space before we reach maximum population on earth?
We have established that there clearly is a limit to the number of people we can have here on Earth, now the question becomes, 'What is the Limit?'.

Overpopulation does not depend only on the size or density of the population, but on the ratio of population to available sustainable resources. For every additional person, there is a decrease in resources per capita. This would not matter if every resource had an unlimited untapped supply, but clearly some resources are very finite. Consider beaches. Would it be ok if the average beach had twice as many people? Four times as many people? Eight times as many people? Does it matter if it is not realistic to expect our children to be ever able to visit a beach? Each doubling of the population currently occurs every forty years, how many doubling can we handle?

This is very subjective, but answer I get from many people is we could handle another doubling...maybe. Which, if correct, means we could maintain another forty years of a population growth strategy before we would need to stop.

When do too many people start to harm the Earth?
It is quite clear people are already damaging the planet, and for other species the earth is experiencing mass extinctions as a result. How much of this is due to bad practices as opposed to too many people is arguable, but a clear consequence of the need to produce food for people is habitat loss for other animals. Currently there are an estimated 7 billion people living on a planet that, without farming, is estimated could sustain an estimated population of 15million people.
(Luc-Normand Tellier (2009). "Urban world history: an economic and geographical perspective". PUQ. p.26. ISBN 2760515885)

There are currently debates about just how many people we are able to feed with currently available technology, with estimates ranging from clearly not everyone, through to there is a little to spare if we work at it. However it is clear we need to grow even more food, which would require even more farming land. This makes it difficult for significant parts of the globe to exist free of being transformed by human activity, which in turn means more species face extinction.

We are already down to 'it is us or them' will respect to allowing many of the other species we currently share our planet with to continue to exist outside zoos.


The Benefits: 1. Economic Growth.
There is a simple formulae: Maintain GDP per capita while increasing population and you have economic growth. However, there is another simple formulae: Share a fixed resource amongst a growing population and each share gets smaller. This means that as resources reach a limit the individuals must make sacrifices. A clear message is that economic growth through population growth is only realised by those who address the entire population, i.e. large companies and governments.

This is the underlying message. Big business and government wins with population growth, individuals pay the price. A far better path to economic growth is to increase GDP per capita since this works for everybody. Big business and government will still argue for the higher growth of complimenting any growth in GDP per capita with population growth, but individuals should not be misled as to the motives.

Benefit 2: Provide for the Ageing Population.
Yes, this does work as long as the population continues to increase over the longer term, as it has since 1900. The truth is that we have only had today's long life expectancy in a world with a rapidly growing population. Throughout most of history, where population growth was far lower, life expectancy was shorter. However, is it even realistic that the population will grow over the longer term? Almost all estimates are that growth will decline over the next forty years, which corresponds to the population growing beyond what most see as sustainable or desirable anyway.
(See: Wikipedia overpopulation)
At best this will solve the problem for one generation, and our children will need a new solution? Is it a good idea to push the problem back ensuring it is even more difficult for our children, or should we start searching for a better, long term solution to this problem now?
At the current point, it is clear that the price of the population growth is already to increase food prices, which will only make life difficult for the ageing population anyway.

Benefit 3: Sharing the burden through Immigration.
There is a strong argument that some countries need to allow their population to grow to relieve the burden faced by people in overpopulated countries. This argument is valid, but it concedes that the problems of overpopulation are real and immediate. The country which is the source of the immigration provides a clear demonstration of just how real the problem is, the countries which realistically act as a destination for such immigration without very soon reaching their own crisis point are very limited.

Conclusion.
Some people already are living in overpopulated areas, and globally if the Earth is not already overpopulated, it is very close to that point. Any policy of ever increasing population now has a very limited life which can achieve short terms goals, but with a risk for the longer term. This means that short term economic growth can be achieved through population growth but other problems, such as population ageing, cannot continue to be addressed by such a strategy. The challenge is to minimise the degree to which we pass on the problem over population to future generations.

The gas station: closing down forever?

Today, I read an preview of the Mercedes Benz vision for the future.

Link- Road and Track
Second link- Drive.

The car is appears to be a plug in hybrid driven by in wheel electric motors. The electricity comes from a hydrogen fuel cell and a lithium sulfur battery, with inductive charging to charge the battery. 100km can be traveled on battery power alone.

This appears an extremely viable vision of future motoring.

Electric propulsion and inductive battery charging seem to be inevitable. Hydrogen power to replace today's internal combustion engines as a way to deliver long range makes real sense too. So is this future car a hydrogen fuel cell car with additional 'plug in' hybrid power, or an electric car with hydrogen fuel cell range extension?

Well, either, depending on your perspective. Which refueling is more convenient? If you have a garage or other dedicated car space, then the car will automatically top recharge the battery whenever the car is parked. If you drive less than 100km per day, then you never need visit a refilling station, and never use any hydrogen. However on a long journey only 10% of the range comes from the battery. In reality for most people, I suspect the over 100km days will be the exception and over a year the car will be more than 90% battery powered, which is good because this is the greatest efficiency.

But it started a thought process.... if cars may actually use battery power for over 90% of power, then you need way, way less fuel stations!

At least this will make the challenge of creating the hydrogen refilling stations that much easier, but we may have to travel further to find one.

The interim step to this 'plug in' hydrogen car, is the the 'plug in' diesel of gasoline car. The same rules of usage can apply and again and if cars get to drive mostly on battery power then a whole range of fuel stations will convert to apartment blocks. Now this process somehow seems to have started already, but it could really accelerate!

Hydrogen vs Electric Cars? No contest!

Some say Electric Cars are the future, others say Hydrogen. Who is right? Well there is no contest really, here is the explanation.

I recently watched a top gear episode which reviewed two electric vehicles, and clearly demonstrated that there were tasks for which these cars were clearly unsuited. Now it could be said the episode was a trifle unfair, since it did not look at other tasks for which the vehicles would be suited.

(The episode screen July 31 I believe and had a Nissan Leaf and a Peugeot iOn if you wish to search for it.)

The test cars ran out of power, and with recharging both taking time and no recharge points established in the area of the test the result was most inconvenient. The program did demonstrate neither of these cars was a good choice for a weekend away. The reality is those same cars might well be suitable for a regular commute, where the distance to be traveled is both known and typically quite short, and recharging can be planned.

The conclusion of the show suggested that Hydrogen power cars, as tested once on a previous occasion, provide the perfect answer.

The arguments I heard put forward for the hydrogen car are:
1) With power coming from combustion, the car would feel like current cars.
2) The only tailpipe pollution is water!
3) Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe, so it will never run out!

This all sounds compelling, but looking lets look at the claims.

1) We can make powered by combustion. This can actually be true, but I would suggest having combustion in a car is not actually a good thing. Even the potential for combustion means carrying fuel that burns and thus is a safety hazard. As we will see, in truth, the inefficiency of the combustion process is the Achilles heel of the whole idea. So instead hydrogen cars produce electricity via a fuel cell, and we then use the electricity to drive electric motors. Search for the Honda Clarity and you will find this is how this car, and all other proposals work.

2) The only tailpipe pollution is water. Again this is true, but it is because, like all electric cars, the pollution is moved to elsewhere, not eliminated. Remember, conventional battery electric cars have no tailpipe pollution at all.

3) Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe. Again true, however with a large 'but'. Here on earth Hydrogen floats away and does not stay on the ground, or even in the atmosphere. I refer to the article on Wikipedia 'Atmospheric escape', but in summary, Hydrogen is so light if eventually floats away from a planet the size of the Earth. To get hydrogen to use to power cars, we have to extract it from compounds, We can extract if from fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, but we can be truly sustainable and extract hydrogen from water. This means no reliance on fossil fuels, and a closed loop since burning the hydrogen produces water again. Any other source than water and we are changing the world and making more water, so in the long run creating an imbalance. If we really need more water we could melt the ice caps a little....or did someone already think of that?

So our cycle becomes, put energy in to extract the hydrogen, transport the hydrogen both to the car an in the car, then burn the hydrogen to get back the energy we put in. The hydrogen is not a source of energy, since we have to put energy in to extract it. If we use water to extract hydrogen, we need at least the exact same amount of energy in the extraction as we get back. Going from fossils fuels gives only a slight gain, more than offset by other problems in the long term, but workable while we are digging up the fossil fuels anyway. Overall, hydrogen becomes a way to carry energy, not a source of energy.

But it is not easy to carry energy in the form of hydrogen. As the smallest atom it escapes very easy and is very light, so to carry hydrogen you need highly compress it. Transferring, refueling and transport are all expensive using hydrogen. All to get back the electricity we started with.

But the biggest problem is that to get our energy back, we use combustion. With combustion we produce heat and every bit of heat that is not turned into motion is lost energy. Think how hot our current engines get. All that heat is lost energy and we produce so much we need to power a cooling system to get heat away from the energy. When you had to add the energy in the fist place, you really notice that you lose most of it to heat in the engine.

This is why all proposed hydrogen cars do not combust the hydrogen. They use an alternative method called a fuel cell, which is far more efficient than combustion and produces not heat, but electricity. All proposed hydrogen cars use fuel cells and are, in effect, an electric car with a hydrogen fuel cell in place of a battery. So the comparison becomes a battery electric car vs a fuel cell electric car.

Since now we are comparing two types of electric car, the drive system is identical. The choice is charging by refilling plugging in, or charging by refilling hydrogen.

The 'refilling hydrogen' is like conventional refueling, the conventional battery takes hours. The conventional battery is efficient and easily provides adequate range for most driving requirement, the hydrogen fuel cell is a more complex inefficient system but can more easily provide a much greater range.

So hydrogen fuel cell to produce electric = long driving range but reduced efficiency.

The most logical answer is a plug in hydrogen 'hybrid'. It is really only two sources of electric power, so can have less total bulk than a plug in hybrid gasoline/diesel vehicle. This gives the ultimate efficiency from the battery direct electrical storage,
and the additional range on demand from the fuel cell. The best of both worlds.

Such a car could in theory be an improvement on the cars of today for refueling. If we have can refuel the hydrogen as we today refuel gasoline or diesel, isn't the same? Well... no! Since we can also drive on plug in power, and in fact on most daily trips only need 'plug in' power. We can go far, far longer without a refuel stop. An important step is that 'plug in' can mean just leaving the car in the garage, and charging by induction with no actual plug in at all.

While fuel cells are expensive and hydrogen refueling uncommon, the plug in hybrid gasoline/diesel makes a great interim step and achieves are large percentage of the gains- if not all while we still get hydrogen from fossil fuel.


So there is no hydrogen vs electric - it is just conventional battery vs fuel cell with an electric car in both cases. And a combination of both power sources is probably the ultimate solution. In the interim, the plug in internal combustion engine hybrid is a great solution.

Why I don't like current hybrids: Misplaced moral superiority!

Actually, they are both good and bad.

First, let me start with the bad.
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The worst part is that they are not the 'silver http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifbullet' for an environmentally sound car. The fact is they actually do not buy that much in terms of fuel economy. The hero of the hybrid cars is so far the Toyota Prius, which granted is an economical car. But if it was not a hybrid it would still be economical. Actually, under some conditions, it would more if they took out the hybrid system.

See:
The London Times test against a BMW 5 series 520D

Hyundai I30 beats Toyota Prius in fuel economy / low emissions race.

In stop start traffic, the Prius is quite competitive, but on a long run it is not. Generally, with a mix of stop start traffic, whahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift would have otherwise been a very economical car, is even more economical. But is it not economical because it is a hybrid, it is just slightly more economical because it is a hybrid.

But what about cars like the Lexus, LS600h, whihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifch is not an economical car before it gets the hybrid treatment? Well, the answer is, even though it is a hybrid, it not economical.

See:
Comparison by Lexus enthusiast, Audi goes 50% further each gallon.
Audi A8: 31.5 MPG on test vs Lexus LS600h: 19.4 MPG.

Despite the rather woeful fuel economy, the LS600h actually qualifies for special concessions as an economical car! Not because it is actually economic, which it clearly is not, but simply because it is a hybrid.

So the negative is, these 'regenerative hybrids' as simply not that economical, and can even be very uneconomical. The technology is not 'game changing' as in the end all of the power, even the electrical power, is still generated as a result of gasoline in an internal combustion engine.

It has been pointed out that the production of the batteries can make these cars a very unsound environmental proposition, but this is somewhat an implementation problem rather that a fault of the idea. The problem is the idea is just not that good.

So why do people buy these cars?

Answer: Misplaced moral superiority.

Even if the car is really not that economical, you would think that hybrids alone could save the planet. People driving hybrids sometimes seem to feel they are doing their bit for the planet that everyone else is destroying.

OK- so is there anything good about these cars?

Answer: Yes, environmental consciousness!
Even if the whole 'superiority' thing is a bit annoying (especially when it can be completely misplaced) at least the whole question of economy and emissions has been taken to a whole new level and been made into a selling feature.

Sustainability- just what is sustainable?

The topic 'sustainable living' is topical, but what does it mean. The question arises, just what is sustainable?

Simplistically, all mining of natural resources is unsustainable.

Each natural resource that is mined is finite and thus must one day be exhausted if we simply keep digging from the ground. But will we ever run out?

Through landfills etc., it is clear the minerals we mine do usually eventually go back into the ground in some way. However, what was extracted from the natural resource originally is effectively 'used up' once and forever unless we have a realistic and sufficiently cost and energy efficient way of extracting the material back from landfill.

Of course, if we did have cost and energy efficient ways of recycling minerals that we have previously used, surely there would no longer be a need for mining? Well in reality we would still need some mining if the per/person requirement of a given resource increased, and also as the number of people increase. Now of course we cannot have infinite people. The earth has a finite amount of each element so you cannot produce infinite people on a finite Earth. One day population must stabilize.
So this leaves increases in the amount of a given element per person. Again this should be finite, so one day we should be able to treat mining natural resources as a special exception and simply get virtually all resources from recycling.

Until that day, we will not have reached 'sustainable living'. A zero 'carbon footprint' alone simply is not enough. It comes down to everything we dig out of the ground, not just oil and gas.

Gay marriage - a right or a wrong?

There are constant calls for legal recognition for gay marriage. Despite almost universal agreement that there should be no discrimination on the basis of sexuality, there is still sufficient resistance that many jurisdictions who value equal rights for all sexual persuasions, resist calls to legalise gay marriage.

How can this be?

Well at stake are actually two core issues.
Number 1- equal treatment under the law for gay unions
Number 2- the right to use the word 'marriage'

Although in many cases not actually achieved, it seems difficult understand any argument against point number 1 if there is acceptance of equal rights for all sexual persuasions.

So now to argument number 2. Often the right to the usage of the same word becomes an integral part of the debate.

Note that equal rights for women has never hinged on the right of women to call themselves men.

If we give women the right to call themselves men, we lose the ability to refer to one specific gender. While it could be argued that we should never need to single out one gender, in the real world it is necessary to make the distinction between genders from time to time.

The biggest argument against allowing gay unions to use the word marriage is it removes having a distinct word for a union between a man and a woman. While again many may argue we should never need to make such a distinction, I think it is also a fundamental right to be able to keep a specific word. Equality is not dependant on removing gender specific words from the language- even though it can be dependant on such words not being used in an incorrect manner or to reinforce stereotypes.

The argument is reduced to semantics. There is a real problem that we have no 'more inclusive term' to describe a life partnership and perhaps we need one. Then laws could be altered to reflect the more inclusive term and the injustices overcome without continually being stuck on an emotive word.

A take on the global warming debate

There is a large group of people who are sure that the earth is warming due to CO2 produced as a bi-product of human activity.

There is another group with an opposing view. Some are certain the certain there is no warming at all, others certain that although the earth is warming it is all part of a natural cycle and nothing to do with human activity.

So who is correct? Well, actually there is no certainty that any of these opinions is correct, which is one reason there is so much argument.

You can find science to support the idea the earth is getting warmer and other science saying maybe not. Then, if following the getting warmer belief, there are several possible explanations as to why the earth is getting warmer.

The answer is we do not know, we can only speak in probabilities. For ever a hypothesis there are too many variables to account for them all. In science, to move from hypothesis and to move to a theory, we need to be able to test ideas. Since we can't actually test completely without being able to conduct experiments using the earth and solar system.....we are stuck with 'models' that are trying to model such a complex system the model just has to be missing variables.

Even the IPCC does not say they know the definitive answer, the truth is they speak in probabilities. Being scientists, they give a percentage probability using data available so far. So the truth is there is no declaration 'the earth is warming due to CO2' but rather, a percentage chance the Earth is warning due to CO2. Think they are wrong? Well they can't be wrong because they only say 'there is a chance'. Perhaps the odds are not exactly in line with their projections.....but the clear the 'might be, might not' is a fairly safe overall position.

How can anyone ever say 100 percent anything. Surely every one can agree with the statement "there is some chance the world is warming due to the carbon emissions from human activity". The odds are clearly not ZERO that people are warming the earth....and clearly not ZERO that people are warming the earth. The argument should be either about what the correct probability is, or what is the significance of a given probability. The last report from the IPCC I saw stated they believed 90% chance people are causing warming...10% they are not. Now that report did not say the 90% was people causing the warming through C02...just 90% people are to blame.

Others can have different ideas. Maybe the IPCC did things wrong and the probability is 80% ....or 60% .....or even 40%???

The next question is at what percentage would you take action to change things. Now lets see.....what are the changes being required? 1) Use less fossil fuel. Hang on...it keeps getting more expensive because of supply issues anyway! 2) Stop clearing the worlds rainforest....3. reduce pollution in general..it keeps going.

Generally, every measure really seems to be a good thing anyway.Each step is something we would all agree makes sense eventually, it is just a question of when. To work to a timetable there is a cost. Each step is something we know we should do anyway.. it is just that there is a cost slowing problem that slows us from doing what we generally believe is correct anyway, and there is a chance that climate change is the wrong motivation anyway.

Now, for comparison, I insure my car every year. The insurance costs money- yet i do this even though the odds I will really need this insurance are much less than 10%. It is just that the consequences of my car being stolen are sufficiently unattractive that even with small odds, I pay. Just in case.

Now there is some chance things will really really get screwed up with the only earth we have, so what odds do we need before it is worth the expense of insuring against the risk?