Why environmentalists don't talk much about population

If you ask some people, the solution to our environmental problems is simple – reduce population.

Global population growth is about increased longevity as well as the birth rate.

When I wrote a response to the United Nations report on biodiversity loss two weeks ago, my article attracted 350 online comments, many questioning why I didn't write about population. One person even went to the effort of clipping out the print article, annotating it with comments about population and posting it to me anonymously.

Read the story from The Sydney Morning Herald by Caitlin Fitzsimmons - “Why environmentalists don't talk much about population.”

(Resolving the population issue is not among the “low-hanging fruit” in moving towards easing the world’s climate difficulties, and, generally, slowing population growth is not something friendly to existing market philosophies embedded in the world’s economic systems.

The resolution lynch-pin to population growth is education, particularly that of women, something is fundamentally opposed in some societies - Robert McLean)

Is climate change really too hard to understand?

It’s a big subject, all right. And a difficult one to address. But too big to understand it isn’t. Quantum physics is too big to understand. Climate change is simple. I’ll put it in one sentence: There are known heat-trapping gasses, and if we add too much of them to the atmosphere, it will cause large, foreseeable damage to humans and natural environments. That is not too big to understand.A lot of people wonder why we are doing so little to prevent the slow-motion catastrophe of climate change. One theory is that it’s too big a subject to understand.

And a majority of people understand it just fine. They are making the assumption that the political process will work normally and that the government will take the steps necessary to deal with it. Like government did with smog, and with polluted water, and with acid rain, and with ozone depletion. The thing that is hard to understand is how people in positions to do something about it do nothing. Or rather, do everything in their power to stop action.

Read the opinion piece from The Washington Post by Tom Toles - “Is climate change really too hard to understand?”

People without electricity could end up living the energy dream

MORE than 100 million people around the world now have access to electricity for the first time thanks to simple solar power systems that typically provide LED lights and a phone charger. More powerful versions include radios and even televisions.

Those who have lived without electricity could be the winners. 

The LEDs provide a clean and cheap alternative to the kerosene lamps normally used by those with no electricity. “People spend 50 cents a day on kerosene,” says Nick Hughes, co-founder of M-KOPA Solar of Kenya, which has sold 550,000 home solar power systems in East Africa. Some families spend a tenth of their income on fuel for lighting. “It’s a crazy price for a poor fuel,” says Hughes.

His firm has just raised the money it needs to finance a million more systems, and Hughes thinks they could eventually sell up to 11 million in East Africa alone. And M-KOPA is just one.

Read the New Scientist story By Michael Le Page - “People without electricity could end up living the energy dream.”

(Apologies, but the full story is only available to subscribers - Robert McLean)

Hydrogen cars: what are they and when will we drive them?

Tipped as the future of green motoring, hydrogen cars are virtually emissions-free and both simple and fast to refuel.

Toyota has its own portable refuelling
station for its Mirai hydrogen cars.

So what are they and how soon will we be driving them?

As their name suggests, they use hydrogen as a fuel to power the car.

Colourless, odourless hydrogen gas passes through a fuel stack, where it interacts with oxygen. This process both generates the electricity and creates water, which is the car's only emission and dribbles out from a little tube at the back.

Read Rebecca Turner’s ABC News story - “Hydrogen cars: what are they and when will we drive them?”

(The hydrogen powered car sounds wonderful, and it is, until you consider its Achilles' heel - it doesn’t use any actual fossil fuel as a direct energy source and produces only water from its exhaust, but the hydrogen fuel it depends upon is the product of a fossil fuel, in this instance, gas. And beyond that, construction of the car itself is energy-rich and the infrastructure of which it is a part is simply an extension of a way of life that is clearly unsustainable, concentrating public interest in private transport when the focus should be, clearly, on the creation of a sophisticated public transport system - Robert McLean)

Umair Haque discusses 'The Chaos Factor'

A polar bear on an ever shrinking piece of ice
symbolizes Umair Haque's chaos factor.

We’ve grown up in a world like a warm blanket. Safe and secure, peaceful and placid. Every now and then, something might jerk us awake, like a nightmare. But on the whole, life was tranquil, calm, simple.

Only now the threads of that blanket are beginning to fray. What I’ll call the world’s chaos factor is spiking, and I don’t think it’s going back down. At least not in our lifetimes, and probably beyond.

Chaos factor. What do I mean? I’m not a big fan of pseudo-quantification. But it consists of the following elements. Global political order, stable broadly shared economic growth, and social cohesion. Translation: international agreements, real leaders, thriving middle classes, and life changing breakthroughs. No, not the iPhone 7. Antibiotics.

Read Umair Haque’s opinion on “The Chaos Factor.”