Primary Cause Of Global Warming

• Luxury?

• Consumerism?

• Modernism?

• Selfishness?

• Industry?

• Capitalism?

(PS: What can be changed? Go back to farming?)

Primary Cause = Us

Primary Cause Is Us

• Humanity cannot turn back.

• These 8 bn people are already here.

  • They want to live 21st century lives,

  • which will require food and energy.

• The human population is still growing.

  • Could we curb the growth?

• Whether you like it or not.

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Where are all these people?

Where Are All These People?

Where Will They Be?

• OECD done growing, except for some immigration.

• Asia

  • China is already shrinking, though surrounding countries compensate

  • India+ will grow for one generation and then maybe shrink back to today.

• Latin America is stable.

• Only (Sub-Saharan) Africa is growing in leaps and bounds.

  • 200 m in 1960
  • 1,300 m 2020
  • 4,300 m in 2100

Kaya Component Growth

• Emissions = Population * Income/Person * Inefficiency

• CO₂ = N * GDP/N * CO₂/GDP

  • CO₂ is in GtCO₂

  • Population is in (million)

  • Income/Person is in 1,000-$

  • Inefficiency is in gCO₂/$

• Multiplicative: Any of these zero, and they all go away.

• Matter only together.

Identity Co₂ = N * Gdp/N * Co₂/Gdp

Per-Annum Average Growth

Preview

Fighting Climate Change

• Donate to Greenpeace?

• Demonstrate at UN COP Conf?

• Use paper straws to reduce your carbon footprint?

• Shame your neighbors?

• Drown your sorrows and anxieties?

Which of these will meaningfully reduce the world’s population, reduce the world’s energy consumption, reduce the world’s CO₂ emissions, and reduce the accumulating CO₂ stock in the atmosphere?

If Everybody Did It…

• Would be great!

• But this will not be your doing or decision margin.

• If they would, they would; regardless of what you do.

Like It Or Not

• Be realistic!

• You are not divine.

• You are not even globally important..

• The world’s people won’t do what you tell them to do.

  • Even religious leaders have stark limits.

    • The pope can maybe get 10 million people to truly change behavior. What about the other 7.99 billion?

  • Even politicians have stark limits.

    • Even Trump and Modi are riding the tiger.

Economics 101

• In large numbers, humans act selfishly.

  • Ex-post self-rationalization is even built into our brains!

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How Many Can You Tackle?

Realistic Atmospheric CO₂ Reduction Plans:

• Stop 0.00003 billion UCLA students?

  • still tens of thousand of students. could you?

• Stop 0.0003 billion UC affiliates?

• Stop 0.003 billion Angelinos?

• Stop 0.03 billion Californians?

• Stop 0.3 billion Americans?

How many can you reasonably influence?

0.0001% of world is far more than 100% of your city.

American Success?!

• Assume you succeed on 0.3 billion Americans.

• You have been so influential that you have brought Americans to their tears and to their knees.

• They will immediately stop emitting and, if need be, even go back to the stone age.

• What about the 7-9 billion others?

  • Will the rest of world follow because of the US example?

  • Or will they act roughly independently?

  • It not, then you won’t have done enough.

• Who could shame China, India, or Nigeria?

  • Or can you get each then-stone-age Americans to pay for 5–20 other foreigners, too?

  • (depends on cost?)

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