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Climate Brief:Population-Rising? (or Falling? New Guardian study says "likely to peak sooner ") [1]
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Date: 2023-03-28
Is the population of the world rising or falling?
The world population has grown rapidly, particularly over the past century: in 1900, there were fewer than 2 billion people on the planet. The world population is around 8.05 billion persons in 2023. Two metrics determine the change in the world population: the number of babies born and the number of people dying.
https://ourworldindata.org › world-... World Population Growth - Our World in Data
(A UN report last year said the global population would be at 9.7 billion in 2100 (it's 8 billion today) & still grow for decades after that. This report says its figures may be more accurate as it is also modeling the effect income and education has on fertility rates.)
Decreased human populations
Some researchers have proposed that human influences on climate began earlier than is normally supposed (see Early anthropocene for more details) and that major population declines in Eurasia and the Americas reduced that impact and led to a cooling trend.
The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of the European population.[139] In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century.[140] It took 200 years for the world population to recover to its previous level.[141] William Ruddiman proposed that those large population reductions in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East caused a decrease in agricultural activity. Ruddiman suggests that reforestation took place as a result, with the effect of causing additional carbon dioxide uptake from the atmosphere, leading to cooling noted during the Little Ice Age. Ruddiman further hypothesized that a reduced population in the Americas after European contact occurred in the 16th century could have had a similar effect.[142][143] In a similar vein, Koch and others in 1990 suggested that as European conquest and disease brought by Europeans killed as many as 90% of Indigenous Americans, approximately 50 million hectares of land may have returned to a wilderness state, causing increased carbon dioxide uptake.[144] Other researchers have supported depopulation in the Americas as a factor and have asserted that humans cleared considerable amounts of forest to support agriculture in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans brought on a population collapse.[145][146] Richard Nevle, Robert Dull and colleagues further suggested that not only anthropogenic forest clearance played a role in reducing the amount of carbon sequestered in Neotropical forests but also that human-set fires played a central role in reducing biomass in Amazonian and Central American forests before the arrival of the Europeans and the concomitant spread of diseases during the Columbian exchange.[147][148][149] Dull and Nevle calculated that reforestation in the tropical biomes of the Americas alone from 1500 to 1650 accounted for net carbon sequestration of 2-5 Pg.[148] Brierley conjectured that the European arrival in the Americas caused mass deaths from epidemic disease, which caused much abandonment of farmland. That caused much forest to return, which sequestered greater levels of carbon dioxide.[13] A study of sediment cores and soil samples further suggests that carbon dioxide uptake via reforestation in the Americas could have contributed to the Little Ice Age.[150] The depopulation is linked to a drop in carbon dioxide levels observed at Law Dome, Antarctica.[145] A 2011 study by the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology asserts that the Mongol invasions and conquests, which lasted almost two centuries, contributed to global cooling by depopulating vast regions and by allowing for the return of carbon-absorbing forest in cultivated land.[151][152]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_anthropocene
"But the authors caution that falling birthrates alone will not solve the planet’s environmental problems, which are already serious at the 8 billion level and are primarily caused by the excess consumption of a wealthy minority"
🌎
from Nature.org:
"The average carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 16 tons, one of the highest rates in the world. Globally, the average carbon footprint is closer to 4 tons."
About 20% of greenhouse gases in the US come from homes amp.cnn.com/…
HELP SAVE THE PLANET AND OURSELVES:
Turn out the lights when not in use/use less Turn down the heat or AC
vent out at night if cooler
Avoid creating nighttime light pollution
Don’t waste water
Avoid burning wood (or other things), as wood fires are both pollutant and carcinogenic
Don't use pesticides
Limit your use of cars and planes (if possible)
Don't use gas powered vehicles
Take out grass and put in a garden or pond (or xeriscape )
xeriscape ) Mow, blow, and whack with electric or by hand
Plant for the animals (bees, birds etc)
Plant trees
Don't micro manage yards, go wilder
Try to use solar
Take a bus, trolley or train
Encourage your city/town to use electric buses
Use energy efficient products or products that work on clean fuels
Reduce dependence on non-biodegradable items
Walk, bike or carpool
Reuse items- give to Goodwill or Craig's list rather than dumping
Cut down or cease eating meat
Use reusable carry bags for grocerie; second choice, paper bags; not plastic
Compost
Save the bees
Be informed
Write your representative, sign petitions
E lect pro-environment candidates and demand action
Support the Green New Deal
Get involved
March
Blog about the environment
Control population
Earth Matters
with Meteor Blades
Earth Matters with Meteor Blades
[END]
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/3/28/2160566/-Climate-Brief-Population-Rising-or-Falling-New-Guardian-study-says-likely-to-peak-sooner
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