According to the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, in 2009, world population stood at 6.8 billion, up about 83 million from 2008. The world total is likely to reach 7 billion in the latter half of 2011, with the bulk of growth in the world’s poorest nations.
Bill Gates in remarks made this past February at the invitation-only Technology, Entertainment and Design 2010 Conference in Long Beach, California made the following statement: “Every person on the planet puts out an average of about five tons of CO2 per year.”
It was based on this equation: CO2 (total population emitted CO2 per year) = P (people) x S (services per person) x E (average energy per service) x C (average CO2 emitted per unit of energy).
If I remember my high-school algebra correctly unless one of these numbers goes to “zero”, or pretty damn close to it, all this Copenhagen nonsense and the upcoming financial rape of Americans through cap and trade, or “crap and tax”, take your choice is going to be totally irrelevant.
Consider this; China and India both have extensive economic expansion plans based on, you guessed it, automobiles and trucks and intrastate or interstate highways! How’s your math doing so far!
Setting the explosive growth in the Chinese economy and the cumulative impact on CO2 growth that energy and services expansion will have; there is a much BIGGER factor in our “Equation to Extinction” scenario – that is India’s program to extend basic electricity to over 400 million Indians who currently have none. Fuel source for this electricity – most likely coal and some nuclear.
The poorest nations have the lowest per capita CO2 emission rates per year and that seems to be obvious, but these nations also account for approx 80% of the world’s population growth. The current well-meaning and morally correct position of most developed countries is to help the poorest achieve a decent standard of living, and who among us with any sense of humanity or morality can refute that goal. The unintended consequence of this world-wide endeavor is a catastrophic increase in CO2 emissions that can’t be avoided, let alone stopped, by any decree or international regulatory effort.
Practically speaking the only way to prevent an “environmental Armageddon” is to reduce population growth to Zero, or damn close to it. That will never happen as population control is the “third rail” of international politics, religion and nationalism.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I can breath easier, for now.
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