Charlie Rose

jeff_crowded  01/08/2010 05:05 PM Report

What follows below are comments made on the interview with Ted Turner on 4/1/08 (and as well the interview with Thomas Friedman on 9/9/08):

To those below picking-up on the overpopulation comments by Mr. Turner: "you got it!"

What follows are my comments posted to 'A Converstion with Thomas L. Friedman, on 9/9/08, on his book: "Hot, Flat and Crowded"':

The interview reflects the book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded" sure enough, but I am disappointed in each as to the missing treatment of 1/3 its namesake: "Crowded". Ted Turner said it best on this very program, not long ago: paraphrasing: "the root cause/source of global warming/climate change is too many people..."

Until the collective world deals with that most unpleasant and most controversial problem (which I predict to be impossible in the time-frame needed), everything else (such as Friedman suggests in the other 2/3 of his book and this interview), although a help, is/will be a drop in the bucket, and as such the world as we know it is on a collision-course to catastrophe.

Contemporary thought has it that the world as we know it can sustain approx 20-25B people. The world at present is at approx 7B. The population at present doubles approx every 8 generations; assuming approximately 20yrs per generation world-wide, that's a population doubling approx every 160yrs. Thus, in about 250yrs or so from now, at the current world-uncontrolled human population growth rate, the earth will be at its maximum sustainable population - but that's all in consideration of the climate and resources of today remaining flat, which given Friedman's thesis, which I believe to be true, will not be flat, but will decline drastically, due to that same population's consumptions. So its a double-whammy effect. We can therefore expect, at best, that 250yr sustainment point to be more like 1/2 that: approx 100yrs from now.

The current world-wide human population growth and its present and projected carbon-based energy consumption, without drastic cut-back measures to both (not likely) are like a freight-train traveling 100mph, 100ft from a concrete impasse, and accelerating! Stopping the train at this point would require a miracle - not going to happen.

In the blink of time, it will happen at once, but in our lifetimes, changes might appear "gradual", but these "gradual" changes over our and our children's lifetime will be catastrophic. There will be drought, famine and disease on an unprecedented scale. It means a massive collapse of the food chain as we know it and all the consequences attendant thereto. Billions of people will necessarily have to die before nature, after a millennia or so, is able to correct; only then, if still in existence, the homo sapiens might get the bright idea to control its population within the available sustainable resources of the planet.

We are now starting to see the beginning effects (ice melts, unprecedented species extinctions and inhalations, jelly fish over-abundance in the Sea of Japan, ocean acidity,…it goes on-and-on right now, and will continue…).

Mainstream thought has that the same was the demise of the Maya: over exploitation of their resources relative to their population growth (due to agricultural ignorance at the time combined with unplanned, unsustainable population growth). Yet, as a parody, this was the most advanced civilization of its time...

In the very good recent PBS miniseries "Becoming Human", in particular, part 3 of 3, it is explained that the homo sapiens, only approx 200K yrs in existence while habitable conditions have existed for approx 1000X longer - 200M years, has been, and is, not only the most, but highly exploitive of the environment, of all species past and present.

Too many people is a big problem.

_________________________________

And this a follow-up posting on the same Friedman Conversation site on the specific math...it was developed separately so appologies if some thoughts are redundant with that above:

The following equation represents a rough/first approx of human population multiplication factor, N; that is, N is the approx multiplication factor of the human population after approx G generations, each having approx x surviving babies on average per generation:

N = 2^(G(x/4 - .5))

x = no of babies per generation

G = no of generations

That is, if humans had but 2 babies, there would be zero growth, N = 1;

If x = 2.5 and G = 8, then N = 2; that is, under these circumstances, the population approximately doubles after approx 8 generations given each generations bearing on average approx 2.5 surviving babies per generation.

The average is about 2.5 babies per couple world-wide; this means at this continued rate, the population doubles every 8 or so generations.

250 generations @ 2.5 surviving babies per generation, yields approx 6-7 billion people, i.e. the population today.

{It’s interesting to me that I worked this out over a couple hours on a recent Sunday morning…I’m not a rocket scientist…as such, it begs the question as to why someone has not put forth a similar analysis/projection a 50-100 hundred years ago or so (the simple math above is/would-have-been the same) when corrective measures would have been perhaps “easier”, but then no one wants to erect a stop-sign or traffic light until someone dies – we are a reactionary society, so even if one or some did run the predictions, nobody would have paid any attention or would have done anything about it…a hundred years ago or so the population was “only” a few billion…”nothing to worry about”…}

The equation predicts that human population must therefore have been small & more-or-less “flat” (little growth) at about 250 generations ago and before, or approx 5000 yrs ago - the historical data and analyses support this (ref: Wikipedia human growth data). This is reasonable since major civilization & agriculture started about 10K - 5K years ago.

This also means that in only about 8 more generations (100 - 160 yrs assuming approx 20yrs per generation on average world-wide), the population would be expected to double again, to about 14B +/-; contemporary thought has it that the world as we know it can only support/feed about 20-25B, under the best of current circumstances, and this is based solely on current resources and their availability; remember, that there are only certain latitudes (30 - 50 deg) that are "inhabitable" and "farmable" for livelihood and proteins (wheat/grains, other produce, as well as animal products), and those lands in those latitudes are already pretty much full/occupied.

Now this situation is bad enough, but now add the effects of climate change/global warming of the world's massive and increasing population and all the energy and survival demands attendant thereto (CO2 and other hydro-carbons emissions into the atmosphere as a result of current and projected world energy consumption (1st, 2nd, and up-and-coming 3rd worlds), and the deforestation activities due to burgeoning local peoples and the economic/survival forces on them as well as land development forces – more and more people again) - that is, as Ted Turner well-pointed-out, the global warming effect is a direct result of more people - more people means more energy consumption, which means more burning of carbon-based resources (fuel and forests), not only for us, the 1B people in the "first world", but also the 2B in the "second world" that are "up-and-coming", and that of the 3B in the "third world" that want (and we obviously want them) to go to the first and second worlds…and then what about the 3B "in-the-oven"?

It is therefore a double-whammy due to the burning of carbon of a growing population approaching the limits of their environment’s capacity; a snow-ball effect. I highly doubt that we have 8 or so generations left before catastrophe/calamity set in (climate change, drought, famine, disease, disasters, commensurate wars (over resources: historically the primary rational for war)) - we are already now seeing the initial effects (effects will appear most gradual at first, as at present), but the current global changes (extinctions, plant/animal growth/population abnormalities, ice-melts, etc.) will disrupt food-chain and plant/animal populations, and as an ultimate result, disrupt our food supply, as minute as they may now appear, the current species and food-chain disruptions are only the beginning of what is to come in the end.

Such is the contemporary thought of the demise of the great Mayan civilization (the most advanced, philosophically and scientifically, of their time): overexploitation of their environment/resources and the commensurate wars.

We must control our population, energy consumption, and live within the means of our resources should we want to endure - we have in our (inherent) power to do so...shall we? Or shall we be the cause of own demise, like that of a parasite which kills its host?

The time has come (in fact, past) to change course and speed; a great many of us, and those yet to come, are already facing unprecedented calamity and suffering.

It’s ironic that climate change and geography, changed us into who we are (the homo-sapiens species, about 50,000 yrs ago, reference recent PBS series “Becoming Human” in particular Part 3 or 3), and yet now we are inflicting our own change on our own selves and our planet, its climate, its environment, and thus back onto ourselves….

rondeevous  08/20/2009 03:18 AM Report

I thought this talk was one of the most genuine of this year. Once past the climate, it was nice. His pre-life theory on the origins or begining of life seem valid enough for the investment of our species. I also liked the positive out look on humanity for I am (well) less positive than he.

robdverity  08/17/2009 07:49 PM Report

Your swan-off: "Now it must be supposed that this has been evolution's objective, just as has been a stable climate."

Hope your not ascribing a stable climate to evolution(?). Our species has evolved to the capability to self destruct. Climate destabilization will be a piece of cake for such specimen.

REMant  08/17/2009 06:08 PM Report

The issue in the global warming debate is whether the climate is equilibrating or not, and whether human activity is making this more difficult with the result that we have more violent swings in weather events with the consequence that it puts habitats under great stress. It has taken a long time to get the kind of climate that appears to most everyone to be relatively stable and richly diverse, but which seems threatened at the present time. Is it wrong for us to believe that THIS world is good and some future one a potentially dangerous fancy? Not all scientists are philosophers, indeed, these days, perhaps not many. Many are extreme enthusiasts, as religious as the most fanatical. Mr Dyson's understanding of this seems as faulty as his understanding of climate. Scientists seem more and more often to avoid conceptualization. Instead of theory, we have technology. But, surely, we paint and compose, as well as, do science in order to externalize our thoughts so that we can view them objectively. In the process we develop understanding, which would otherwise reflect our passions. Now it must be supposed that this has been evolution's objective, just as has been a stable climate.