Bad (and the few ok) population decline arguments

The population doomers/natalists are incredibly annoying, only slightly less illogical than climate denialists.

There are several reasons for this, and the most important one is that they're Ponzi-schemers in denial of their Ponzi-ism. The essence of the scheme is that it is easier to plan for future economic problems by assuming that there will always be a larger working age population than there was before, forever. This is, in fact, a problem with national retirement systems that pay out more than they can make from contributions plus interest. Population slowdown or reductions expose this problem earlier, but it still would have happened.

So, aside from playing along Ponzi-scheme pension planning, is there a reason to really be concerned about population decreases? Sure, in theory: 

Under all reasonable scenarios for population decline combined with minimal economic growth, future retirees will draw benefits from an economy that is much richer than the  present. However, that richer economy will be moderately less rich than it would be if population were unchanged. It would be significantly, if temporarily, less rich than Ponzi-scheme proposals that assume every younger generation will be bigger than older generations, forever. 

The Mikes have the Willies

Eli don't know what it is about the Mikes, but they certainly appear to have the Willies. Rabett Run now houses Mike Powell's take on Willie Soon's OISM front piece. Suffice it to say that Mike don't think much of it. Today Eli ran across a rather longer fisking aka comment, by another Mike, Michael MacCracken, hosted on Climate Science Watch. Now just as there are multiple versions of the various Baliunas, Soon and assoted Robinsons fish wrap, MacCracken provides multiple takedowns. His summary of the JPANDs version which Sallie was too shy to join in on (Little Bunnies, you do remember JPANDS, Journal of the American Physicians, Surgeons and Wingnuts, don't you?)

Expanding on a paper first presented ten years ago, the authors present a summary of climate change science that finds fault with nearly all of the internationally peer-reviewed findings contained in the comprehensive scientific assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In particular, the authors find fault with IPCC’s conclusions relating to human activities being the primary cause of recent global warming, claiming, contrary to significant evidence that they tend to ignore, that the comparatively small influences of natural changes in solar radiation are dominating the influences of the much larger effects of changes in the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations on the global energy balance. After many scientific misstatements and much criticism of IPCC science, the authors conclude with a section on the environment and energy that argues for construction of 500 additional nuclear reactors to provide the inexpensive energy needed for the US to prosper and to end importation of hydrocarbon fuels (particularly petroleum). Taking this step, along with the beneficial effects of the rising CO2 concentration, will, they argue in complete contrast to the prevailing scientific views, create a “lush environment of plants and animals” that our children can enjoy.

Of course, when Sallie was joined in things were not much better. MacCrackens comments on “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” by A. R. Robinson, S. L. Baliunas, W. Soon, and Z. W. Robinson are, perhaps, slightly stronger

This paper is filled with distortions, errors, and one-sided interpretations of the science and blithely presumes that because we have survived to the present, the future will bring no problems as the population rises, energy use rises, atmospheric composition changes, and the earth’s natural systems are seriously and rapidly altered by human activities. While it is true that we do not know all, or maybe even most, answers to questions about the future, the international scientific community has come to the conclusion that virtually all the evidence is pointing in one direction and these authors, ignoring that literature and the international conclusions, pick and select and come to the exact opposite conclusion. Theirs is truly the style of argument of a defense attorney with a very weak case--the first line of defense is that man is not causing any change; their second is that man is certainly not causing an exaggerated set of changes they attribute to the other side; their third is that if changes do occur, all of the impacts will be positive and easy to deal with (but here they leave out whole categories of impacts from consideration); and their fourth line of defense is that even if adverse changes do occur, what is happening is for the long-term greater good of society whether society likes it or not. All of these lines of defense have been considered by the international scientific community in great detail and then their analyses have been reviewed broadly by experts and governments--and all of these supposed lines of defense fail. With unanimity, the cautiously stated summary for consideration by policymakers is that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate” and that “the probability is very low that these correspondences could occur by chance as a result of natural internal variability only. The vertical patterns of change are also inconsistent with those expected for solar and volcanic forcing.” These conclusions stand unrefuted by this work.

No disrespect to Mike Powell, but among other things Mike MacCracken was atmospheric and geophysical sciences division leader at Lawrence Livermore, senior scientist at the Office of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, coordinated US review of the IPCC FAR, and president of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS). In other words, one of the few persons policy types should go to who wanted to know about climate science. It is true that MacCracken has not taken the vow of pablum required of all lily liver Honest Brokers, and lacks the ability to take fools gladly. That is a feature.

Between the two Mikes you might even be able to educate 30,000 ......... Oh well, hope springs eternal.

Just why are people doing the thing that I said they should do?

Continuing to track the Ukraine war and related events in Europe, I read an article this week about some Eastern European countries returning to the use of land mines, and as an aside they threw this in about border roads: "They also aim to plant trees along important roads to provide camouflage for civilians and soldiers."

Yes, I published something two years ago saying, do that (suprisingly, I guess I never reposted it here). It reminds me a little about the dispatchable hydropower thing also happening. It's weird that they're now doing these things.

My guess is that a few plaintive blog posts about dispatchable hydropower probably had no impact on events, although I guess you never know. I'm slightly more hopeful that I had some marginal effect on defensive rewilding, at least in Europe, which has progressed to the point where it's mentioned casually.

Anyway, last week The American Society of Military Engineers published my co-authored piece on defensive wetlanding, arguing that wetland restoration and creation in the right locations can provide significant military advantages to defenders (as well as helping the environment), and so they should do it. I also said the US Army Corps of Engineers is especially well situated to do this, because their combat responsibilities make them fully aware of how difficult it is to cross wetlands, and their domestic environmental responsibilities under the Clean Water Act make them experts in wetland restoration and creation.

Rabett readers get the exclusive chance to see my original introductory paragraph, which sadly did not survive the editing process:

Few military analysts have noted the similarity between the US Army Corps of Engineers and a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Still, those of a certain age might remember the candy’s slogan, “Two great tastes that taste great together.” Peanut butter corresponds to USACE’s domestic responsibilities and expertise under the Clean Water Act to protect, restore, and create wetlands. Chocolate corresponds to its overseas military responsibilities to cross difficult terrain, something that acknowledges the incredible defensive barrier that wetlands impose. USACE can and should put these tastes together through “defensive wetlanding,” actively using its expertise on wetland restoration to help allies enhance defensive terrain through wetland creation and expansion, simultaneously yielding both defensive and environmental benefits. 

The full article is here. Ironically, in recent months (after we submitted) there are at least two other articles that also discuss forms of defensive wetlanding, although our article is still unique.

Hopefully this will also go somewhere, maybe including here in the US. 

Elon believes in half of "Fake It Til You Make It"

Greetings, long-ignored friends! I've been scratching the writing itch elsewhere but felt this is a good place for thoughts occasioned by Musk's ethical decline. It was triggered by finishing Isaacson's biography. (Summary review if you want to skip the rest and return to BlueSky: very interesting and worth reading despite suffering from successful-author's-pagecount-bloat, and also ending in 2023 before Elon did the worst misdeeds of his life.)

Maybe a bit of a 3-part morass, but I'll start here:

1. My normal prior is that enviros don't have to worry or pull punches when advocating for our interests in competition with every other interest out there. One reason is that we provide a public good while economic interests internally benefit from their advocacy, so they're much better funded than we are, and they don't need us to hold back. Of course other social interests are somewhat different: spending on the arts is also a public good. Still, we advocates aren't the decisionmakers, so usually, we should advocate zealously for the environment, arts advocates do the same for their field, and politicians or voters get to decide who gets the attention and budgetary dollar.

Priors can be overcome though. My longstanding concern has been DEI issues in particular are something traditional enviros have to keep in mind. Innovative Elon has created a new concern though: using environmentally-created dollars to do really, really evil things. This puts the environmental advocacy community in a quandary when it comes to Tesla. I don't have answers.

2. I'll contribute my small part in making sure the world doesn't forget what Elon has tried to do to democracy. An illuminating aspect of Musk 2024 was that PACs funded by Musk told pro-Palestinian voters in Michigan that Harris was pro-Israel while telling Pensylvania Jewish voters that she was anti-Israel. This is where the "Fake It" side of Musk's bio kicks in. He has said rabidly false things about Tesla and Space X for so long that I think he concluded it didn't even have to be eventually-true, just as the cynically-contradictory messaging to voters could never be consistent. His companies are now tainted with the same credibility for anything he claims about them. (I suppose he could claim he didn't do the voter-messaging thing, but I'm dubious. It feels like him for what that's worth, and AFAICT he didn't try to stop or denounce it.)

Worse still is his pioneering steps to use money in US politics, already a scourge, and knock us down to Third-World democracy-corrupting levels. The worst of it so far was on the day of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election when Musk PACs offered $50 to voters standing in a polling line who showed the photo of the Republican candidate for the Court:

 

 I've spent time in developing countries, and this is just another version of what the local oligarchs do to corrupt elections. I remember reading in Thailand many years ago that people felt it was ethical to accept the voting bribes from the wealthy but it would be unethical to then vote against the stooge being propped up for office. That's want Musk wants to do to the US. At $50 a person, Musk could spend $5 billion bribing 10m people across seven swing states in 2028 (or 2026), and producing 1 million new MAGA votes in those states could swing national results. Musk could easily afford this, although it's very fortunate that it didn't work in Wisconsin. I hope Musk and Republicans give up on bribery but they could also double down in the next elections, with their minions posted somewhere near polling stations and offering $100 bills on the spot to people who repeat some pro-MAGA mantra.

3. Thoughts about the book. I finally got to that. In no particular order (too long, so I'm putting it below the jump):