<Hofmeister v. Simmons The Oil Drum The Oil Drum Turns Three Today>

100 comments on Green Jobs

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

tstreet on March 22, 2008 - 1:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Our local group in Estes Park, Sustainable Mountain Living, is providing a series of lectures to the town on peak oil,population, global warming, and localization. Last week, we had John Feeney, who has written on TOD, speak on population. The talk was well attended, but unfortunately mostly by people who are well past child bearing age. In any event, he clearly reminded me that if population is not reduced significantly, all our other attempts to become more efficient and cut back on energy and resource use will be for naught.

Dieoff will occur if we don't find a way to cut way back on births. The only uncertainty is exactly when this will occur. Thanks for bringing this issue up.

I in no way am trying to detract from or ridicule those who are trying to find alternatives to fossil fuels. But we still need to keep the population issue at the forefront whenever possible.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
jokuhl on March 22, 2008 - 4:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

tstreet;
We had a sustainable development discussion in Portland Maine yesterday, with the Mayor and the most recent State Energy 'czar' (!!??) in attendance. Keynote by [Charlie Stephens
Adjuvant Consulting, Oak Grove, Oregon ] , who spoke very directly about PO, Rail Efficiencies, etc..

His comment when he was posed the population question was first, that the best effects we've had on fertility rates are happening where educational and international efforts are raising the status and education of women in their societies, citing Mexico's fertility going from around 6 down to 2.6 after such changes (another poster at Drumbeat? today said the Church had cancelled out such gains.. not sure which is right.)

His second was the incongruity of the US consumption of 25% of the gross energy, with 4%(?) of the global pop, and so that for him this discrepancy was actually his priority.

I don't dismiss the importance of Population overall, but I wonder if the US Birthrate would make this our key issue in terms of Stateside changes needed.

Bob Fiske

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
joemichaels on March 22, 2008 - 8:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I was the poster that cited the Catholic Church shutting down Planned Parenthood Centers in Mexico during the 60's and 70's. That was when their fertility rate was almost 10% annually. Even if we could herald the "good news" of 2.5% that still means a net gain annually of more than 3,000,000 people. Even at a 2.5% annual fertility rate it takes only 28 years for that population to double.

We better make that fence high...

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
FuturePundit on March 23, 2008 - 3:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We need to drastically cut back immigration and only let in high skilled engineers and scientists.

Also, we need to fund more research into birth control methods.

Also, we need to shift our foreign aid more toward birth control. Poor women in the Third World should be able to get free contraceptives and should be taught family planning.

Also, girls should be encouraged to stay in school since the greater the number of years of education the fewer babies women have. The poor teen girls should have their high school education funded and get free lunches in Africa and other super poor places.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
jokuhl on March 23, 2008 - 5:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

'only let in high skilled engineers and scientists...'

Cause they will take jobs that most Americans won't (train for).

BTW, will that wall help to keep OUR engineers from leaving?

Bob

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
FuturePundit on March 23, 2008 - 6:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Where would our engineers go? Where in the post-peak world will be better off? France maybe?

I can tell you I'm not going to China for the same reason I do not smoke cigarettes.

Jobs we won't train for: I can say as someone who has a lot of software developers reporting to me that the limit isn't how many people will get training but how smart the average person is. I have a very hard time using someone with less than 120 IQ because they can't follow the complex chains of thought and can't picture all the interacting pieces. Mind you, there are simpler forms of software development like web page scripting. But for the stuff I do I need smarties.

Some of the best software developers I know do not have C.S. degrees. One of the absolutely best ones I know never went to college. Training? Thinking is the hard part.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
FiniteQuantity on March 23, 2008 - 5:34am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

" But we still need to keep the population issue at the forefront whenever possible."

I think just making it a part of the discussion would be a big improvement. What will probably end population growth is a lack of resources (not just oil, but coal and natural gas and probably water and minerals). In the 1980's in the San Francisco Bay Area they had two years of drought. In the second year they put a moratorium on issuing building permits. That is, for a brief period of time the beaurocrats saw a relationship between population and a resource. They realized that adding more people to the area would cause an even greater decrease in the amount of water each person could use (at the time there was some limitation on yard watering and on using a hose to clean the driveway). Once oil production begins declining, people will start to realize that each and every immigrant, each and every new born, means that the remaining oil must be divided into even smaller junks. And that the remaining coal and natural gas will be even less able to meet the electricty and heating needs of the entire population.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

100 comments on Green Jobs

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version