New Reality

Well, a few years ago China was bringing a coal-fired power plant online about every 3 days, so one would expect the rate of new starts to fall.  Thank God.

Z wrote

Holy shit you guys are truely scarring the shit out of me.  This stuff makes the tweets of Trump seem sane.

You should be scared. I am a really bad hombre mofo!

I'm all for phasing coal plants out as quickly as possible.  The rise in fracking technology has helped speed that in the US with mire cheap nat gas available.  China and India built a shit ton of coal plants in the last 10 years so just because the pipeline of new plants is slowing there all those realitively new plants are going to be pumping out emission for decades.  

The issue is even a Trump EPA is 1000 times better for the environment than the policy in China and India.

D.B. Cooper wrote

Well, a few years ago China was bringing a coal-fired power plant online about every 3 days, so one would expect the rate of new starts to fall.  Thank God.

Agree that air quality is terrible in China.  Not only because of coal, but also because of the increasing number of private vehicles.

One energy source that China uses far more in residential settings is solar power.  There are rooftop solar water heaters all over the places, both in cities and in rural areas.

Larger solar farms are being built in the interior where there is more land.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/07/panda-power-china-just-made-solar-energy-look-adorable/458279001/

Thought this was an interesting read.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160311-how-many-people-can-our-planet-really-support

Thats a very good read. Attn:Coach

I read it and the key point is that key point is education and improved job prospects for women will reduce the birth rate in developing economies.  I recently read Freakeconomics and there is a chapter devoted to the issue of education level of moms is the key to winning the birth lottery and having a successful life.  So true.

And that's where Bernie's nutty speeches about free this and free that make sense. Investing in education is an investment for the health and well being of everyone's future.

It's still all fluff if we don't see actual numbers showing how it's possible to reduce the debt and provide socialized medicine and higher education though.

Anyways, the reality is that we aren't going to "fix" anything until it's already too late.

Mexico just had an 8.1 earthquake. Florida is about to get smashed, Houston is still fucked and the Pacific northwest and northern Colorado Rockies are burning up right now at an unprecedented rate, or at least during our lifetimes. The costs of these storms, fires etc. is probably going to be in the trillions. So much for that wall! These extreme events are linked to a changing climate just like it's happened before in Earth's history and will likely lead this civilization into a full on collapse. A lot of people want to say "not in our life time" but I think it might be naive to believe that.

Same as it ever was, right? https://qz.com/1072166/irma-jose-and-katia-three-hurricanes-in-one-satellite-image/?utm_source=qzfb

Another key point is rich nations need to smarten the fuck up and stop overvaluing materialism. But we all know that wont happen. For fuck sake America voted in Mr Prime Time Its all about me I need the most because my weewee is so small!!!  Talk about a validation of the most destructive lifestyle...  sad, very sad!  Johnny pass me some chocolatefuckingcake

billyymc wrote

Thought this was an interesting read.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160311-how-many-people-can-our-planet-really-support

"In the very distant future, technology could lead to much larger sustainable human populations if some people could eventually live off planet Earth."

That won't happen in my lifetime, but if it did, I have a few suggestions as to who could go.

It probably does show where a lot of Americas values are.

Z wrote

 Immigrants of both types have much higher birth rates than the established citizens so they caused the compounding effect..

Just going to leave this here:

Sorry Matt but I'm not used to you proving my point
Your graph did show a ramp down overall but birth rates historically follow economic trends so that is pretty much to be expected.

"Much higher" doesn't mean 0.3 births more per woman in my world, but I guess it does in yours.

3 tenths for the whole nation is substantial I think.

MC2 5678F589 wrote

"Much higher" doesn't mean 0.3 births more per woman in my world, but I guess it does in yours.

Before the recession it was .8+ per women between white and Hispanic and that is the fricking Grand Canyon.  You are truely clueless when it comes to economic issues.

Recessions always suppress the birth rate particularly at the lower end of the socio economic spectrum.

Or maybe this has something to do with it:

Hey was that Rush Limbaugh I just saw kite surfing in south fla??

Z wrote

Ok Marc tell me how you go about fixing the problem?  But understand that any solution that allows China and India to pollute as much as they want for another 30 years is really just something that makes you feel better and does nothing except cost developed economies jobs so we can buy cheap crap from Walmart.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/china-aims-industry-changing-ban-192600792.html