Population, growth, and global warming temperature increase

by David G. Eselius

The number of people globally reached 1 billion in 1800, and then 2 billion in 1925, the report said. Within the last half century, the population boomed to just less than 7 billion from 3 billion. By 2050, the population will reach 9.3 billion, and 97 percent of the growth will be in less developed regions.

Medical advances, more effective vaccines, antibiotics and improvements in public-health conditions has boosted life expectancy in developing countries, where most of the population growth is taking place, according to the UN data reported July 29, 2011 in the journal Science.

● Science 29 July 2011 examines the opportunities and challenges created by demographic changes around the world. journal Science "Population and Development" Science 29 July 2011: Vol. 333 no. 6042 p. 499  

“Projections of population size, growth rates, and age distribution, although extending to distant horizons, shape policies today for the economy, environment, and government programs such as public pensions and health care. The projections can lead to costly policy adjustments, which in turn can cause political and economic turmoil. The United Nations projects global population to grow from about 7 billion today to 9.3 billion in 2050 and 10.1 billion in 2100, while the Old Age Dependency Ratio doubles by 2050 and triples by 2100.”

“All population projections are uncertain, as they are entirely dependent on assumptions about the future—for instance, how many children a woman will have 20 or 30 years hence. In that sense, the numbers in these graphics compiled by Science can be considered best scientific guesses, not destiny. What's more, the further out one looks, the cloudier these projections become. Still, population projections offer a window into what the world might look like in 2050.”

'Explosive' population growth threatens developing nations, says UN

Posted on Jul 29th 2011 by Kate Taylor

TG Daily

By the end of this year, there will be seven billion people on the planet, a whole billion more than in 1999, according to new UN figures.

In 2011, approximately 135 million people will be born and 57 million will die a net increase of 78 million people.

And between now and 2050, an estimated 2.3 billion more people will be added — nearly as many as inhabited the entire planet in 1950. By the end of the century, the population will reach 10.1 billion, says the Population Division of the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Practically all the growth in the next 40 years - 97 percent - will take place in less developed regions, with just under half in Africa.

By contrast, the populations of more developed countries will remain flat - although they'll age, with fewer working-age adults to support the rest of us on our pensions.

It's an unprecedented global demographic upheaval, says Professor David Bloom of the Harvard School of Public Health.

"Although the issues immediately confronting developing countries are different from those facing the rich countries, in a globalized world demographic challenges anywhere are demographic challenges everywhere," he says.

Naturally, there's considerable uncertainty about these projections. For some time, there's been a gradual decline in the number of births per woman - but if we all get a touch more enthusiastic about babies, the figures could be higher.

Depending on birthrate, the ranges for 2050 vary from 8.1 to 10.6 billion, and the 2100 projections vary from 6.2 to 15.8 billion.

Already under a lot of pressure for resources, many developing countries will likely face tremendous difficulties in supplying food, water, housing, and energy to their growing populations, with repercussions for health, security, and economic growth.

"The demographic picture is indeed complex, and poses some formidable challenges. Those challenges are not insurmountable, but we cannot deal with them by sticking our heads in the sand," says Bloom.

"We have to tackle some tough issues ranging from the unmet need for contraception among hundreds of millions of women and the huge knowledge-action gaps we see in the area of child survival, to the reform of retirement policy and the development of global immigration policy. It's just plain irresponsible to sit by idly while humankind experiences full force the perils of demographic change."

Fin

There are two major increasing influences on human (anthropomorphic) greenhouse gases (GHG): increased populations and increased gross domestic product (GDP).

Increased human GHGs increase natural GHGs.  It is the combined natural and human GHGs that form a carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) that produces global warming temperature increase.

A new peer-reviewed report released week of July 11, 2011, by the Economics and Equity for the Environment (E3) network found that each ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted in the atmosphere results in as much as $893 in economic damages, far greater than the government's current "social cost of carbon" estimate of $21 per ton.

With increased carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq), Earth’s temperature increases to a human race terminal point:

+6.4°C: Most of human life terminated (prior to 2099)

The sudden release of large amounts of natural gas from methane clathrate deposits in runaway climate change could be a cause of past, future, and present climate changes. Warming seas lead to the release of methane clathrates trapped in sub-oceanic sediments: methane fireballs tear across the sky, causing further warming.  The oceans lose their oxygen and turn stagnant, releasing poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas and destroying the ozone layer.  Deserts extend almost to the Arctic.  "Hypercanes" (hurricanes of unimaginable ferocity) circumnavigate the globe, causing flash floods, which strip the land of soil.  Humanity reduced to a few survivors eking out a living in polar refuges.  Most of life on Earth snuffed out, as temperatures rise higher than for hundreds of millions of years.

As populations and global warming temperature increases, the global food chain becomes more critical:  

“Efforts to anticipate how climate change will affect future food availability can benefit from understanding the impacts of changes to date. We found that in the cropping regions and growing seasons of most countries, with the important exception of the United States, temperature trends from 1980 to 2008 exceeded one standard deviation of historic year-to-year variability. Models that link yields of the four largest commodity crops to weather indicate that global maize and wheat production declined by 3.8 and 5.5%, respectively, relative to a counterfactual without climate trends. For soybeans and rice, winners and losers largely balanced out. Climate trends were large enough in some countries to offset a significant portion of the increases in average yields that arose from technology, carbon dioxide fertilization, and other factors.”

Major global warming affects on climate change are largely "irreversible" for more than one thousand years. Current global warming temperature increase above preindustrial is +0.8 °C with 7 billion people.

No temperature increase above preindustrial temperature is “safe” for the human race.

The failure by the UN Security Council to respond to this global warming manifest challenge continues to render the body counter productive to human morality.

by David G. Eselius


On Wednesday July 20, 2011, the United Nations Security Council concluded its open debate with a Presidential Statement (Security Council SC/10332) that formally recognized the link between climate change and the maintenance of international peace and security.  Security Council SC/10332


Following a heated debate in the UN Security Council on whether the environment was a security matter meriting the attention of the 15-nation body, it became obvious that too many members are ignoring scientific reality in order to keep their national economies dependent upon coal, oil, and natural gas energies.   

Clearly short sighted Russia, Germany, Brazil, India, and the US are determined to remain dependant upon carbon economies until the end of the human race, 2050-2099.   

"Climate change 'endangers global security'"

By Simon Bradley, swissinfo.ch

Jul 24, 2011 - 18:53

Climate change poses a major threat to future global peace and security, warns Swiss conflict specialist Kurt Spillmann.

His comments followed a heated debate in the United Nations Security Council earlier this week on whether the environment was a security matter meriting the attention of the 15-nation body.

“Climate change is not an immediate motivation for conflict between states,” Spillmann, former head of the Center for Security Studies [an academic institute at ETH Zurich], told swissinfo.ch

“But it is creating stress on large parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and in the Americas, and leads to tensions between groups and regions and results in large streams of environmental refugees.”

“And that in turn creates insecurity between populations. We have little experience of these kinds of threats to security.”

In the debate on Wednesday called by Germany, this month’s council president, western speakers said ever drier conditions caused by climate change had contributed to conflicts in Sudan’s Darfur region and in Somalia, where the UN recently declared famine in two southern regions after a terrible ongoing drought.

Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told the council that global warming was speeding up with unforeseeable consequences.

[NOTE: UNEP is an Implementing Agency of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and is the only GEF Agency whose core business is the environment. –DGE]

"Competition over scarce water and land, exacerbated by regional changes in climate, are already a key factor in local-level conflicts in Darfur, the Central African Republic, northern Kenya, and Chad. For example, when livelihoods are threatened by declining natural resources, people either innovate, flee or can be brought into conflict," he noted.

Steiner said some parts of the world would see 3-4 degree Celsius temperature rises by 2100 while negotiators are discussing a two degree target. He also noted that sea levels could rise by one meter this century and that natural disasters could “increase exponentially.”

[NOTE: Mr. Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), has “said some parts of the world would see 3-4 degree Celsius temperature rises by 2100,” by 2091-2100. The 3-4 degree C estimates under states the expected temperature at 2100.

Current estimates are that global warming temperature increases will exceed an unlivable +6C prior to 2099. The global warming negotiators “discussing a two degree target” note that +2C will be exceeded 2030-2040. Unfortunately, there is already so much greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere that even if we stopped all emissions today, these impacts would still be with us tomorrow and for decades to come.

It is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) who, over a decade ago, was formed by most countries with an international treaty -- the UNFCCC. UNFCCC begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable.  –DGE]      

“The world is confronted with a global warming scenario that is already well beyond where we believe we might be able to manage these changes and trends - if we will be able to conclude our negotiations,” he noted.

“Unnecessary”

However, not all states agree on discussing climate change within the Security Council.

Russia initially opposed the adoption of a statement on the issue saying the move was “unnecessary.” Envoy Alexander Pankin doubted whether it would bring any added value, adding that it would “merely lead to increased politicization of the issue and increased disagreements”.

Temporary council members Brazil and India also raised doubts whether climate change should be put on the council’s agenda and developing countries said it was an attempt by the large nations to muscle in on the territory of the UN General Assembly and UN agencies specializing in climate change.

But Nauru, one of several small Pacific island states endangered by rising sea levels, urged the council to appoint a UN special envoy for climate and security.

US ambassador Susan Rice hit out at “pathetic” and “short-sighted” failed attempts to reach consensus.

“The council has an essential responsibility to address the clear-cut peace and security implications of a changing climate,” she said.

“Good day”

In the end countries agreed to a revised text that spoke of only “possible security implications” of climate change. [That is, the UN Security Council voted and agreed to another meaningless global warming statement. –DGE]

However, German ambassador Peter Wittig said this was still a “good day” for climate security.

“We had quite extensive discussions. We wanted to get everyone on board and we did,” said the ambassador.

Spillmann agreed that this was an advance on the last council debate on the issue in 2007.

“UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will have to report on these issues on a regular basis. Therefore people will become more aware of the importance of the link between security and climate change,” said the Swiss.

“We need growing awareness otherwise people will remain stuck in short-term gains and advantages and lose sight of the long-term necessities.”

Fin

● Also speaking in the Wednesday UN Security Council debate were the representatives of the United States, Brazil, China, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, Colombia, France, Lebanon, South Africa, Gabon, India, Portugal, Germany, Egypt (on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement), Argentina (on behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries and China), El Salvador, Slovenia, Denmark, Luxembourg, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Chile, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Ecuador, Cuba, Honduras, Ireland, Japan, Singapore, Iceland, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Iran, Kuwait (on behalf of the Arab States Group), Kazakhstan, Belgium, Peru, Bangladesh, Palau, Hungary, Finland, Barbados (on behalf of the Caribbean Community), Turkey, Philippines, Kenya, Sudan, Ghana, Venezuela, Fiji, Poland, United Republic of Tanzania, Israel, Spain, Italy and Pakistan.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who opened the Council SC/10332 debate, pointed to the devastating impact of extreme weather and rising seas on lives, infrastructure and budgets — an “unholy brew” that could create dangerous security vacuums.  “We must make no mistake,” he said.  “The facts are clear:  climate change is real and accelerating in a dangerous manner,” he said, declaring that it “not only exacerbates threats to international peace and security; it is a threat to international peace and security.”  

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) - A world under stress today

● Environmental damage -- such as overgrazed range land, deforested mountainsides, and denuded agricultural soils -- means that nature will be more vulnerable than previously to changes in climate. In any case, when climate shifts occurred thousands and tens of thousands of years ago, they generally took place more gradually. Natural systems had both more space and more time to adapt.

● Human population damage – Earth's vast human population, much of it poor, is vulnerable to climate stress. Millions live in dangerous places -- on floodplains or in shantytowns on exposed hillsides around the enormous cities of the developing world. Often there is nowhere else for them to go. In the distant past, man and his ancestors migrated in response to changes in habitat. There will be much less room for migration this time around.

● Global warming almost certainly will be unfair. The industrialized countries of North America and Western Europe, along with a few other states, such as Japan, are responsible for the vast bulk of past and current greenhouse-gas emissions. These emissions are a debt unwittingly incurred for the high standards of living (aka GDP per capita) enjoyed by a minority of the world's population. Yet those to suffer most from climate change will be in the developing world (with large populations and low GDP per capita). They have fewer resources for coping with storms, with floods, with droughts, with disease outbreaks, and with disruptions to food and water supplies. They are eager for economic development themselves, but may find that this already difficult process has become more difficult because of climate change. The poorer nations of the world have done almost nothing to cause global warming yet are most exposed to its effects.

Politics of national carbon economies

The U.S. left Democrat anti nuclear Socialists have a long history since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was formed (January 19, 1975) of increasing nuclear facility delays by excessive NRC nuclear regulation, litigation, and increasing the cost of nuclear power. President Obama is also known for his opposition and de-funding to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository and lack of national energy policies.

Since the 1970s, politicians and protest groups placed the body of global warming human-race into the coffin. It was 1990s-2011 self serving evil politicians and indecorous immoral news media supplied the coffin nails and dug the hole into the ground to bury the human race.  In a political suicide pact, current politicians are shoveling carbon dirt to cover coffin of the human race.

A new peer-reviewed report released week of July 11, 2011, by the Economics and Equity for the Environment (E3) network found that each ton of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere results in as much as $893 in economic damages, far greater than the government's current "social cost of carbon" estimate of $21 per ton.

To develop a reduction of greenhouse gas for a major industrialized economy it takes about 15 years of rapid nuclear energy development. Mainland China has 14 nuclear power reactors in operation, more than 25 under construction, and more about to start construction soon. Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world's most advanced, to give more than a ten-fold increase in nuclear capacity to at least 80 GWe by 2020, 200 GWe by 2030, and 400 GWe by 2050. China is rapidly becoming self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as other aspects of the fuel cycle.  

The Westinghouse AP1000 is the main basis of China's move to Generation III technology, and involves a major technology transfer agreement with the U.S.

France is an exporter of nuclear energy. No other country has started a shift to a clean energy economy.  

Most of mainland China's electricity is produced from fossil fuels (80% from coal, 2% from oil, 1% from gas in 2006) and hydro power (15%). Two large hydro projects are recent additions: Three Gorges of 18.2 GWe and Yellow River of 15.8 GWe. Rapid growth in demand has given rise to power shortages, and the reliance on fossil fuels has led to much air pollution. The economic loss due to air pollution is put by the World Bank at almost 6% of GDP.  

Global electricity demand is increasing twice as fast as overall energy use and is likely to rise 76% to 2030. Nuclear power is the most environmentally benign way of producing electricity on a large scale.  See World Nuclear Association (WNA) “World Energy Needs and Nuclear Power”  

Not conveyed to the public by the TV and print media is the critical nature of global warming temperature increase.  With U.S. and Germany dismantling the future of their nuclear energy facilities there is no hope of reducing global warming greenhouse gas emissions that increase global warming.

Natural methane in the atmosphere is to increase dramatically in the coming decades. Major economies will increase their use of coal, oil, and natural gas. As population and gross domestic product (GDP) increases, energy consumption increases. The carbon-cycle carbon-uptake storage for oceans and land is being significantly reduced.  Because politicians remain self serving evil incarnations, many world leaders remain defiant of scientific warnings and explanations of global warming.

Projected global warming affects

Major global warming affects on climate change are largely "irreversible" for more than one thousand years. Current global warming temperature increase above preindustrial is +0.8 °C.

No temperature increase above preindustrial temperature is “safe” for the human race. Global warming schedule of events are:

+2.4°C: Coral reefs almost extinct (~Year 2035)

In North America, a new dust bowl brings deserts to life in the high plains states, centered on Nebraska. In addition, wipes out agriculture and cattle ranching as sand dunes appear across five US states, from Texas in the south to Montana in the north.  California water reserves experience major limitations. As populations increase and temperature increase, the demands for water increase. Thus, currently over drafted aquifers are depleted.  Other aquifers become increasingly groundwater overdraft.

Large ocean fish biomass is reduced to zero because of over fishing, global warming, and reductions in phytoplankton feed stock. Arctic methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) releases has increased markedly. Ocean acidification is increasing.

Rising sea levels accelerate as the Greenland ice sheet tips into irreversible melt, submerging atoll nations and low-lying deltas.  In Peru, disappearing Andean glaciers mean 10 million people face water shortages.  Warming seas wipe out the Great Barrier Reef and make coral reefs virtually extinct throughout the tropics.  Worldwide, a third of all species on the planet face extinction.

Carbon dioxide and methane have unique long-term effects on climate change that are largely "irreversible" for one thousand years after emissions stop. The greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide do not persist over 100 years in the same way as carbon dioxide. Even if carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions were to cease completely now, atmospheric temperatures will not decrease significantly.

Stabilizing the greenhouse gas induced component of global warming is an energy balance problem. At +2.4°C, Earth’s temperature continues to clime because atmospheric greenhouse gas levels exceed Earth’s temperature regulation point. That is, atmospheric greenhouse gas levels will still trap heat, thus increasing the temperature until the heat lost to space (space radiation) balances the heat generated by the body of Earth and atmosphere.

+3.4°C: Rain forest turns to desert (~Year 2050)

World population exceeds 9 billion

The Amazonian rain forest burns in a firestorm of catastrophic ferocity, covering South America with ash and smoke.  Once the smoke clears, the interior of Brazil has become desert, and huge amounts of extra carbon have entered the atmosphere, further boosting global warming.  The entire Arctic ice cap disappears in the summer months, leaving the North Pole ice-free for the first time in 3 million years. Arctic methane releases has increased markedly. Polar bears, walruses and ringed seals all go extinct.  Water supplies run short in California as the Sierra Nevada snow pack melts away.  Tens of millions displaced as the Kalahari Desert expands across southern Africa

+4.4°C: Melting ice caps displace millions

Rapidly rising temperatures in the Arctic put Siberian permafrost in the melt zone, releasing vast quantities of methane and carbon dioxide.  Global temperatures keep on rising rapidly in consequence.  Melting ice caps and sea level rises displace more than 100 million people, particularly in Bangladesh, the Nile Delta, and Shanghai.  Arctic methane releases has increased markedly. Heat waves and drought make much of the sub-tropics uninhabitable: large-scale migration even takes place within Europe, where deserts are growing in southern Spain, Italy, and Greece.  More than half of wild species wiped out, in the worst mass extinction since the end of the dinosaurs.  Agriculture collapses in Australia

+5.4°C: Sea levels rise by five meters (~Year 2075)

The West Antarctic ice sheet breaks up, eventually adding another five meters to global sea levels.  If +5.4°C temperatures are sustained, the entire planet will become ice-free, and the sea levels will become 70 meters (230 feet) higher than today.  South Asian society collapses due to the disappearance of glaciers in the Himalayas.  The Indus River dries up.  In East India and Bangladesh, the monsoon floods threaten millions. Arctic methane releases has increased markedly. Most of humanity begins to seek refuge away from higher temperatures closer to the poles.  Tens of millions of refugees force their way into the Siberia, Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, and the British Isles.  World food supplies run out

+6.0°C (~Year 2050-2099)

Human (anthropogenic) and natural global warming greenhouse gas concentrations previously exceeded critical temperature stabilization trip points.  Resulting impacts were abrupt and irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the global warming temperature increase, climate change, gross domestic product (GDP) and human population impacts upon the environment.

+6.4°C: Most of human life terminated (prior to 2099)

The sudden release of large amounts of natural gas from methane clathrate deposits in runaway climate change could be a cause of past, future, and present climate changes. Warming seas lead to the release of methane clathrates trapped in sub-oceanic sediments: methane fireballs tear across the sky, causing further warming.  The oceans lose their oxygen and turn stagnant, releasing poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas and destroying the ozone layer.  Deserts extend almost to the Arctic.  "Hypercanes" (hurricanes of unimaginable ferocity) circumnavigate the globe, causing flash floods, which strip the land of soil.  Humanity reduced to a few survivors eking out a living in polar refuges.  Most of life on Earth snuffed out, as temperatures rise higher than for hundreds of millions of years.

The with the support of self serving politicians, 1970s to 2011 anti nuclear groups’ activities markedly increased human (anthropomorphic) and natural greenhouse gases that results in global warming temperature increase. Had there not been a strong politically support of the multinational anti nuclear movement the world would now be a much better place in which to securely live.