CHINA ZERO COVID RIOTS—LET’S NOT GLOAT—THEY ARE A THREAT TO US ALL

The western world has been consumed with the news of massive public demonstrations in 17 Chinese cities, including. Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and in many university campuses  The Chinese government has moved quickly to suppress the sometimes violent demonstrations which have erupted across that nation in response the the Zero Covid policy of Chairman Xi Jinping who has favored mass testing, strict lockdowns, tight travel restrictions, and digital tracking over other means of control.

Some US and western news outlets seem pleased (even happy) to report the difficulties the Chinese government is having in controlling the rising discontent. Even suggesting that Chairman Xi Jinping may be threatened with having to “stand down” as some protesters have demanded. As if such political and economic turmoil in China would in some way be a positive development for the USA. It would not. 

They are wrong.  The demonstrations, discontent and turmoil in China and the potential for evolution of new strains of virus there have the potential to negatively affect our supply chains, our own faltering economy and even our health. 

The problems the Chinese have are: their huge population (1.4 billion), their densely packed cities, a large cohort of elderly, the persistent resistance to vaccination of the vulnerable elderly, and a government policy to use Chinese-produced (often less-effective) vaccines. As a result of these circumstances, only about 40% of the population is fully protected. . As a result  the government was forced to turn away from wide-spread vaccination to an alternate  policy to protect the population using instead: mass testing, and the segregation and lockdown of those infected.    But that policy has its drawbacks. 

The lockdowns and segregation of huge portions of the population (Zero Covid policy), even to the extent of closing down entire cites, have had the salutary effect of limiting disease transmission.  For example, during the recent pandemic, the USA a nation of 325 million, had 100 million cases of Covid (about 30% of the population) , while China (with 1.4 billion) reported only 1.5 million cases (0.1% of the population).   Zero Covid policy has left that nation  with a very insignificant portion of the population protected by active or natural immunity (derived from having recovered from the disease), this coupled with low vaccination levels, high numbers of non-vaccinated elderly, and low effectiveness of  locally-produced vaccines, all have created a population facing a much higher  risk of a deadly surge of Covid cases which might have devastating medical and economic effects, and perhaps even overwhelm the medical system.  

In authoritarian China, public discontent with the lockdown system has little likelihood of changing the state policy of Zero Covid.  Government officials must have long realized that any reduced vigilance and lower levels of confinement of the infected would only result is massive and widespread disease, decreased productivity, closing of industries, and economic decline. 

Were such an event to occur,  China, with much of its  huge population infected with Covid would, in effect become an enormous human “Petri dish” for the rapid evolution of new, potentially more deadly strains of Covid.  The more humans infected the more likelihood for evolutionary change in the virus.    There would be a terrible price to pay in China to lost lives, and a stagnant economy.  But the disaster would likely extend to the wider world as a result of the globalized economy and the large numbers of global travelers—impossible to contain—in our modern society. These travelers would surely transmit these new strains of virus world wide.. 

Let us not gloat over the difficulties we see in China.  Let us hope that the Chinese get their human and viral populations under control.  We all live together in this modern global economy.  

We might be wise to offer our own unused vaccines to help   

PROFITER DE LA GUERRE DE BIDEN - LES DIRIGEANTS DE L'UE ONT JOUÉ POUR DES FOUS

 L'UE A ENFIN RÉALISÉ À QUEL POINT LEUR POLITIQUE DE SOUTIEN À BIDEN-UKRAINE EST STUPIDE ET AUTOMUTILATION.

 APRÈS PRESQUE UN AN DE SACRIFICE, QU'EST-CE QUE L'UE REÇOIT ?

 IL PEUT REGARDER AVEC ENVIE PENDANT QUE LES ENTREPRISES PÉTROLIÈRES ET MILITAIRES DES ÉTATS-UNIS RÉALISENT D'ÉNORMES PROFITS

 IL PEUT ÊTRE EN COLÈRE D'ÊTRE FORCÉ DE PAYER DES PRIX 4 FOIS PLUS ÉLEVÉS POUR LE PÉTROLE ET LE GAZ D'ORIGINE AMÉRICAINE.

 IL PEUT SE PLAIGNER PENDANT QUE L'UE EST COUPÉE DES MARCHÉS DES VOITURES ÉLECTRIQUES AUX ÉTATS-UNIS PAR LA LOI SUR LA RÉDUCTION DE L'INFLATION DE BIDEN,

 IL PEUT RÉDUIRE LES PLAINTES DES CITOYENS DE L'UE PENDANT QUE LES 27 EXPÉRIMENTENT UNE INFLATION MASSIVE, UNE RÉCESSION MENACANTE ET UN CONFLIT NUCLÉAIRE POTENTIEL CROISSANT À LEUR FRONTIÈRE.

 Des responsables anonymes de l'UE se sont (enfin) plaints auprès de Politico, accusant l'administration Biden de "profiter de la guerre" de la guerre d'Ukraine*.  Les fonctionnaires de l'UE sont « furieux » (cet auteur ajoute peut-être à leur propre stupidité) avec la soi-disant « IRA, loi sur la réduction de l'inflation », un projet de loi américain de près de 400 milliards de dollars avec des dispositions fiscales et de dépenses que les fonctionnaires de l'UE qualifient de « protectionnistes » et « discriminatoires ».  Le projet de loi est "très inquiétant" selon les responsables européens et les intérêts industriels, puisqu'entre autres dispositions il oblige les entreprises américaines à "acheter américain" et d'autres incorporent d'autres éléments qui imposent une concurrence déloyale aux fabricants étrangers.  (Une disposition onéreuse accorde des crédits d'impôt aux citoyens américains qui achètent des véhicules électriques fabriqués en Amérique. (Cette loi rendra presque impossible pour les constructeurs européens de voitures électriques d'être compétitifs sur le marché américain des voitures électriques) et "aura un impact négatif très important  sur l'économie européenne", se plaignent-ils. Pour ajouter l'insulte à l'injure maintenant (avec l'explosion de Nordstream et la sanction du pétrole russe), "nous devons acheter du pétrole et du gaz aux États-Unis, mais à quatre fois le prix". (* De plusieurs sources, y compris  Pakistan Observer du 27 novembre 2022, « US Profiting from Ukraine War », par Zahid Malik)

 IL PEUT ÊTRE PLUS SAGE ET PLUS INDÉPENDANT DE LA POLITIQUE AUTONOME DE NOUS AUSSI !!

BIDEN WAR PROFITEERING- EU PLAYED FOR FOOLS

THE EU HAS FINALLY COME TO REALIZE HOW STUPID AND SELF-HARMING  THEIR BIDEN-UKRAINE SUPPORT POLICY IS.

AFTER ALMOST A YEAR OF SACRIFICE, WHAT DOES THE EU GET?  

IT CAN WATCH WITH ENVY WHILE USA OIL AND MILITARY FIRMS MAKE HUGE PROFITS

IT CAN BE ANGRY BEING FORCED TO PAY 4 TIMES HIGHER PRICES FOR US-SOURCED OIL AND GAS.

IT CAN COMPLAIN WHILE THE EU IS BEING CUT OUT OF USA ELECTRIC CAR MARKETS BY BIDEN’S INFLATION REDUCTION  ACT

IT CAN TAMP DOWN EU CITIZEN COMPLAINTS WHILE THE 27 EXPERIENCES  MASSIVE INFLATION , A THREATENING RECESSION, AND A SIMMERING POTENTIAL NUCLEAR CONFLICT ON THEIR BORDER.  

Anonymous EU officials have (finally) complained to Politico accusing the Biden Administration of “war profiteering” from the Ukraine War*.  The EU officials are “incensed” (this author adds perhaps at their own stupidity ) with the so called “Inflation Reduction Act” a nearly $400 billion US bill with tax and spend provisions EU officials call “protectionist’ and “discriminatory”. The bill is “very worrying” according  to European officials and industrial interests, since among other provisions it requires US firms to “buy American” and  other provisions  imposes unfair competition on foreign manufacturers. (One onerous provision provides tax credits to US citizen who purchase electric vehicles made in America. (This act will make it near impossible for EU electric a car manufacturers to compete in the US electric car market) and “will have a very big negative impact on the European economy”, they complain.  To add insult to injury now (with Nordstream blown up and Russian oil sanctioned)  “we must buy oil and gas from the US, but at four times the cost”. (*From several sources including the Pakistan Observer of Nov 27, 2022, “US Profiting from Ukraine War”, by Zahid Malik)

IT CAN BE WISER AND MORE INDEPENDENT OF US SELF-SERVING POLICY TOO!!

SO WHAT IS SO BAD ABOUT INFLATION?

 For those in the Biden Administration and the media who have downplayed the terrible threat of “Bidenflation” caused by the President’s penchant to spend prolifically to “help” the working classes. The results are pouring in.  Read on.

Today (November 26, 2022) I read in the press of the ultimate consequences of this President’s unwise flagrant spending trillions of dollar spree—-the results  layoffs, labor unrest, strikes and lost jobs. You can read today of layoffs in South Carolina and California, strikes in Amazon plants around the world, a threatened national rail road strike in the US which may paralyze the nation’s already stretched supply chain problems. 

Then too a headline that caught this author’s eye— NY Post ran a headline entitled “Blindsided” in which the Post authors recorded the plight of 2,700 furniture workers in North Carolina who were summarily laid off the day before Thanksgiving Day from one of the largest furniture manufactures in the US…United  Furniture industries Inc .  

The firm,  one of the largest in the states produces wood frame furniture such as bedroom suites, couches and dining room tables.  In an economy in which workers are struggling to meet 40 year high inflation induced higher food and fuel expenses, there are fewer families in the nation who could afford to buy furniture these days.  Food, fuel to heat the house and fuel to get to work are all taking a 12-20% bigger bite out of the family earnings.  These folks do not have the excess to replace that sagging couch or scarred up headboard. Sales of furniture is way down.  Hence United Furniture’s decision to cut back on production of product they can not sell and shed itself of labor force it can not  support.  

Those folks in rural South Carolina will find it difficult to find other employment immediately. Then too the lay-offs there will cause a ripple effect. Communities where these folks live will experience a drop in income formerly spent by these workers in local stores.Retail stores, service industries and others businesses which supply the needs of these communities will also feel the bite of inflation. They will have to respond as well, some stores will layoff these retail employees, some businesses may close.  

The thrust of the story in the NY Post attempts to portray the corporate leaders of United Furniture Industries as the mean guys and gals who fired these poor working folks just before the holidays. But they are only co-victims of terrible economic decisions made in DC months earlier.  The real meanies are those who precipitated the awful plight of inflation, then (as they continued to spend prolifically) claimed inflation  was temporary, then when it persisted,  blamed it on supply chain problems or (always available for a charge of malfeasance of some kind Mr. Putin) as the Democrat politicians  continued to spend and spend encouraging inflation by dumping trillions of dollars into an already “cash rich” economy. The result was the highest bout of inflation (cheap money) that we have had in forty years. 

It will not go away too easily.  More bad times are ahead. 

Now that the mid term are over—reality will have to return.  The states will demand that we begin paying again the 20 to 30 cents per gallon for the highway tax that some states rescinded temporarily. Then too the millions of gallons of crude the President was removing from the strategic reserve and dumping on the market to keep prices down before the elections will end (January). Then too, US oil production is lower now or stable, while due to political machinations Russian and Iranian oil are off the market, so as people use more oil and gas over the winter..prices will necessarily climb.  We are living at a time of “peak oil” production just about meets demand.  Small changes in demand or production create large alterations in pricing.  

 Gasoline and diesel fuel are used to produce food, dry our grain crops, transport everything that you purchase in your local markets. If its price rises so does everything else. So sadly expect more inflation not less. 

LE PARADOXE DE FERMI ET LA GUERRE D’UKRAINE

 LE PARADOXE DE FERMI ET LA GUERRE D'UKRAINE

 Face à l'absence absolue de toute preuve vérifiable de vie extraterrestre, l'éminent physicien nucléaire italien Enrico Fermi a un jour demandé : "Où sont-ils ?"  Sa question, inventée plus tard : le « paradoxe de Fermi » nous a tous hantés.  Sommes-nous seuls dans l'univers ?

 La question de Fermi a été qualifiée de "paradoxe" car étant donné le nombre incommensurable d'étoiles dans notre galaxie et la forte possibilité conséquente que nombre de ces étoiles aient des planètes semblables à la Terre sur leurs orbites, logiquement et mathématiquement, il devrait y avoir de très nombreuses preuves d'autres extraterrestres.  ou vie « intelligente ».  Avec notre technologie de jours prédéfinis, nous devrions être en mesure de les détecter.  Mais notre galaxie et même au-delà est silencieuse et apparemment sans vie.  Il n'y a personne là-bas.  Enrico Fermi a demandé, "Pourquoi" ?

 L'une des hypothèses proposées par les répondants à la question de Fermi était que la vie "intelligente" est un terrible abus de langage.  Jetez un coup d'œil à la façon dont nous avons traité notre propre Terre.  Si sur d'autres planètes ces formes extraterrestres ressemblant à des humains existaient - comme notre propre espèce - elles devaient très probablement avoir - comme nous - des tendances similaires enracinées, évolutives ou induites par la génétique pour la cupidité, le gaspillage et l'autodestruction.

 S'ils ont évolué, le silence dans l'espace indique qu'ils sont tous partis maintenant.  Sur la base du comportement de notre propre espèce, ils se sont probablement tués… peut-être par une peste mortelle auto-causée, ou une surpopulation massive, en polluant l'atmosphère de leur planète, en décimant ses forêts et sa faune, ou une autre destruction de son environnement -  ou encore plus probablement - l'holocauste nucléaire.

 Il y a de plus en plus de preuves que notre propre Terre et les terriens «intelligents» se rapprochent également de ce même état d'autodestruction.

 Au-delà de notre déclin culturel et moral, de nos échecs sociaux et politiques, de nos catastrophes écologiques, la preuve la plus récente en est nos tendances agressives - qui ont permis à des dirigeants incompétents de nous emmener au bord de la falaise meurtrière de la guerre nucléaire (en Ukraine  ).  Un faux mouvement de plus, une autre gaffe de Biden au mauvais moment, une fusée atterrissant à travers une frontière dans une nation protégée par l'OTAN - pourrait forcer nos 30 nations liées à l'OTAN à une guerre mondiale contre la Russie et nous plonger dans la Troisième Guerre mondiale...

 Autrefois appelée la Grande Guerre - la Première Guerre mondiale - a commencé de cette façon - l'Entente cordiale et la Grande Alliance - (l'OTAN de l'époque) ont lié les mains des diplomates du début du XXe siècle.  Lorsque l'assassinat a frappé la Serbie, des alliances à toute épreuve et des engagements fermes d'entrer en guerre ont forcé les nations alliées lourdement armées du monde à un conflit qu'elles ne pouvaient pas éviter.  Même avec ce que nous appellerions les armes rudimentaires de l'époque, des millions de personnes sont mortes.

 De notre point de vue moderne, nous rions et ridiculisons peut-être leur stupidité… mais Biden (et ses collègues faibles et complices) en Europe se sont placés dans le même carcan mortel d'alliances multiples et contraignantes.

 Les circonstances en Ukraine sont similaires à celles de la Première Guerre mondiale, tout comme la menace - mais les armes d'aujourd'hui sont une classe entièrement différente d'armes "mortelles" - et leur utilisation entraînerait une destruction mondiale totale.

 Ne suivons pas le chemin des autres….arrêtons la folie.

WE FACE NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST IN UKRAINE

 

Zelenskyy knew the munitions that hit Poland were fired from Ukraine yet he persisted, even in the face of precipitating a wider war, in claiming it came from Russia.  Zelenskyy is a dangerous fellow. 

Yesterday November 15, 2022 may be a turning point in our reenact human history.  Will we survive as a species or will we go the way of the dinosaurs and the trilobites?  In these last days in the festering war in Ukraine we have come the closest to world nuclear war as we have since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

The war in Ukraine was always a dangerous enterprise.  The policy of expanding NATO to Putin’s doorstep was always fraught with danger.  NATO is a dangerous mutual defense alliances similar to those that triggered WWI and  plunged the world into terrible conflict which killed millions.  Yet we unwisely expanded the “North Atlantic Treaty Organization” from the few nations in the North Atlantic into thirty nations all across Europe and on to Russia’s front door.  

Most recently, Biden ignored Russian pleas for diplomacy and compromise.  Then once the war was initiated, rather than seek a diplomatic solution, President Biden decided to proceed to wage  a proxy war in the Ukraine. He could have supported a peaceful solution to the conflict early on, and saved many lives, in Ukraine and Russia, but he preferred to expand and extend the conflict for domestic purposes and in an unwise attempt to economically bleed Russia—a potential rival in Eastern Europe.   Biden armed Ukraine to the teeth, providing more than $60 billion dollars in aid, untold advanced military hardware, strategic guidance,  intelligence updates and guidance, as well as secret military “advisors” on the ground.  The “meat grinder” war has continued for nine months  generating a world-wide inflationary spiral and looming recession, devastating the economy of the UK with 12% inflation and that of Europe, the US and the wider world which as a result suffers from looming food, fertilizer  and fuel shortages.   

Yesterday, the underlying fear of a wider war raised its ugly head when we were faced with the prospect of direct NATO-Russia conflict that could have had the potential to lead to WWIII.  Russia is surrounded by NATO nations—all bound together in a mutual defense pact that would force that entity into a joint military response  against any aggressor.  If any one of the 30 NATO members is attacked it would automatically insist on an escalation that would draw all thirty nations into the conflict and surely precipitate a nuclear response from Russia. 

Our worst fears were realized when just that seemed to have occurred yesterday, when the Polish Prime Minister Andrzej Duda reported to NATO that a Russian missile struck a farm building in rural Poland close to the Ukraine border, killing two Polish citizens.   Duda called for NATO’s Article 5 response.    The incident rattled our aging President Biden who was roused out of bed (in Bali) to contact the Polish PM for a night conference.  The disconcerted and nonplussed President responded to reporter’s shouted questions about how he would respond to this new atrocity from Russia —with a one word answer:”No!”  There was no further explanation as to what that meant. “No” there will be no response, or “no” I do not want to answer.        …

Duda revealed to the press that the wreckage at the Polish site, located some 60 miles west or southwest of Kyiv, revealed that the missile was a Russian manufactured munition.  Only a few hours later  Volodomyr Zelenskyy the Ukrainian PM immediately called for a military response from NATO to what he termed “Russian missile terror”. 

The war crisis rattled the world for a full day..until several facts emerged.  The missile was tracked on a trajectory from Kyiv toward the Polish border and not from Russian positions.  The missile was indeed of Russian manufacture but was one of those in long use by Ukraine for anti-missile defense response. The Russians insisted that they had not fired the munition at Poland.  

The NATO nations and military heads all declared unanimously that this event was not a case of Russia targeting Poland, or even a case of a Russian missile gone astray. The NATO members  have concluded that the munition was fired by Ukrainian forces probably at incoming Russian missiles. The Russian target was not hit and the Ukrainian rocket apparently flew on into Polish territory, killing two on Polish territory. 

What was important to underscore here was the fact of how close we all have come to an all out war.  Mutual defense alliances with a trigger mechanism for all out war are dangerous affairs (remember WWI ) Would we really want to ignite the world into a nuclear holocaust for the question of whether a few hundred square miles of Ukraine, should be a semiautonomous Ukraine state, or a part of Russia?  Would we really want a full scale war between nuclear armed Russia and the USA?  

One more little mistake like this last one—the Polish farm incident and we may have one.    Perhaps the circumstances might take place at a time or place in which the facts are not so clear—or are obscured by the fog (and lies) of war, or  the blunders of “war lords”.  The results would be that the rest of us will be heading for bomb shelters every time a truck backfires on a local road. 

Another matter to underscore here is the less than diplomatic behavior of Volodymyr Zelenskyy who must have know immediately that the weapon which exploded on Poland territory was fired by his own forces.  Yet he persisted to blame the Russians, even to the point that it may have precipitated a wider war which would have horrible consequences for Ukraine and the rest of the world.  Zelenskyy is a dangerous fellow.  His interaction and seeming control over our own aging and frail leader represents a very serious threat to the safety and survival of the rest of the world.  Our own leaders are irresponsible if they ignore this fact. 

Someone —somewhere in a position of authority perhaps in Europe should take over from these two dangerous leaders—-one weak and too old and the other too evil and dangerous— and begin a process of deescalating this terrible conflict and its threat to the world economy and world peace. 

THE FERMI PARADOX AND THE UKRAINE WAR—EVIDENCE OF STUPIDITY

November 15, 2022.  Poland claims a Russian rocket landed in Polish territory close to the border with Ukraine. The blast killed two civilians.  Their PM  has alerted NATO and called for implementation of Article 5….Article 5 of NATO rules calls for gearing up for a joint US NATO military response to attack Russia…or the beginning of WWIII.    

 When faced with the absolute absence of any verifiable evidences of extraterrestrial life, the eminent Italian nuclear physicist, Enrico Fermi once asked “Where are they?”  His query,  later coined: the “Fermi Paradox” has haunted us all.  Are we all alone in the universe?  Fermi’s question was termed  “a paradox” because given the immeasurable  number of stars in our galaxy and the consequent very high possibility of many  of those stars having earth-like planets in their orbits, there should be many evidences of other extraterrestrials and of  “intelligent” life.  With our present-day technology..we should be able to detect them.  But as Fermi noted…our galaxy and even beyond is silent and seemingly devoid of intelligent  life.  There is no one out there.  Enrico Fermi asked, “why”?  

One of the hypotheses proposed by Fermi’s respondents was that “intelligent” human life is a misnomer. If these other human-like forms did exist—like our own species—-they very likely had similar ingrained genetic or evolutionary proclivities for self-destruction.  If they did evolve, the silence in space indicates they are all gone now; probably having killed themselves off…by some deadly viral plague, by over-population, by polluting their planet’s atmosphere or destruction of their planetary environment— or even more likely— nuclear holocaust.  

There is a substantial body of evidence that our own Earth and “intelligent” earthlings are now approaching that self destructive state too. 

The evidence in point is the latest threat of nuclear war…the Biden war in the Ukraine. Biden’s war is the result of so many typically “unintelligent” decisions I have lost count. But let us hope that someone in the Biden Administration is wise enough to prevent global  disaster…and we survive a bit longer.  Perhaps we will prove Fermi wrrong. 

  

JOE GETS MORE ROPE TO HANG HIMSELF

 

More rope for Joe, the only bit of good news from 2022 elections? 

The electorate has spoken.  There was no “red wave”. 

Three out of four Americans believe that the nation is heading in the “wrong direction”, but these same  folks were not hurting enough, too fearful of more drastic change, or simply unaware or unconcerned with the dangers ahead for their pocket books or the nation’s security to pull the “lever for change” in the poll booth. 

The results —no clear mandate for change—have simply emboldened the fringe-left leaders in the Biden Administration to continue on the disastrous course they have plotted for us all.  We can assume that the “new” socialist Democrat party in DC will continue with spending sprees that fuel inflation,  policies which curtail domestic fossil fuel production  and cause high gasoline prices and and ultimately intensify the economic recession. They will proceed to continue to lay open our southern JM border for the use and financial advantage of human and drug traffickers. They will continue huge outlays of our tax funds and military hardware which encourage the festering and dangerous war in Eastern Europe. 

These foreign and domestic policies will simply continue the fearful spikes in violence and criminality, and exacerbate the frightening shortages of heating fuel, world wide scarcity of wheat and corn grains, shortages of fertilizers and other essentials moved by fossil fuels. .  They will continue a foreign policy which has led to a near collapse of the economy of Europe and a world wide economic recession. 

I guess these  Biden generated disasters of national policy were not  enough to get the attention of an electorate so focused on self-analyzing the “fuzz in their belly buttons”…such as how best to kill their own in-vivo  progeny, or how many skin colors or genders in a classroom equals “inclusion” or “diversity”, or their deep anxiety over which defines “equity” more fully, a violent recidivist criminal free from bail pounding and kicking on an innocent subway rider, or that same person behind bars. 

The 2022. by-election has given our own Uncle Joe a new, fathom-long length of hemp rope to more fully and completely entangle and hurt himself (and the nation) with for the next two years. 

Expect life and the economy  to get much worse before a lot more than a moiety of Americans wake up from their propagnx induced  coma and turn from belly button fuzz analysis to actual existential problems.   

That is the only bit of “good news” from this last election.  Things must get worse before they can get better,  

 

CARBON PROBLEM NO! —ITS A POPULATION PROBLEM

WE HAVE A TICKING POPULATION TIME BOMB ON OUR HANDS.

On November 15 of this year experts claim that the world’s human population will reach the 8 billion mark!  Humans evolved on the planet almost 3 million years ago. The oldest fossils date to 2.8 million years.  Their simple nomadic life as hunter gatherers kept their populations relatively low and stable for well more than two million years.  But the advent of agriculture at about 10,000BC (after 2,790,000 years of nomadic life) caused a spike in population to about 6 million individuals. From that period  onward the population exploded.  In only 8000 years it reached the 100 million mark  (@ 2,000BC), and it took only two thousand years to more than doubled to the 250 million level (at or around 1century AD). It jumped to one billion only 1700 years later, in the 1800s AD. Today a little more than 200 years later humans teem around the planet with its population “octupled” to 8 billion.

Population experts claim that there is a limit to the number of people the earth can support. Most put that number at the 10 billion level.  We are clearly approaching that critical level very rapidly, as we experience a human population explosion. That is the real threat humans face—not the slow accumulation of carbon in our atmosphere.  

But the Green New Deal supporters, those who would continue in our present course and claim to “solve” the carbon problem by chemically sequestering fossil  carbon, and the fearful “geo engineers “ who would permanently  alter the Earth atmosphere by dumping particulates into the stratosphere  in a “Hail Mary” attempt to cool the atmosphere,  all  ignore the elephant in the room—the ticking population bomb!

In 2022 Homo sapiens on this  planet (a clearly misnamed species) generated 35 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide which was unceremoniously released into the atmosphere as an earth-warming gas.  On November  15, 2022 each one of the 8 billion strong world human population will directly or indirectly (each of us) add to that  carbon load by contributing another 4.4 tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year.  

This amount includes the carbon “costs” of the food we grow, the grain we dry, the food we transport, the machines we manufacture, and the food eat, the energy  costs of the clothes we wear and all their transport costs, as well as the “costly in carbon” concrete we walk and ride on, and the oil and gas energy we use to warm our houses and heat our shower and bath water.  It’s simple—the more people we have the more carbon waste we generate.. Our population is growing so fast that without some form of control we will never be able to reach the goal of a neutral carbon footprint.  

The goal of the Paris Accords is to reduce carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 (or to a level of 15.75 billion metric tons). But with our present rate of use unchanged and our rapidly expanding population growth, that is impossible. We add about 110 million humans a year to our world population. Each one will contribute about 4.4 metric tons of carbon each year for a total of (4.4 tons x110 million = 484 million m tons) or nearly 500 million metric tons of carbon annually. 

If we do not control our population explosion, energy conservation efforts will be simply a waste of time and (yes energy). It is irresponsible to continue to claim that our earth is imperiled by carbon emissions and yet ignore the obvious threat of burgeoning human population growth.  

The first and easiest way to reduce carbon emission is to limit human populations!  

Furthermore, without population control the 1.5C target of the Paris Accords becomes a moving goal post that could never be reached.  

However, with strict population control, a moratorium on forest clearing.  coupled with a global effort at reforestation (the best of all solutions), reduction of energy waste, and greater efficiency of transport and manufacturing  as well as reasonable and sustainable decreases in fossil fuel consumption —-humans may have the time to adapt and may actually survive on this planet past 2100! 

 

*Adapted from:  “How Earth Population Exploded”, ABCNews site, dl 11/06/22 and Institut National d’Etudes Demographiques, INED Herve LeBras