I've considered the Earth-as-Self-Cleaning-Oven.  But I enjoy the prospect of human survival as a species.  So, I am ok with exploring opportunities to help keep us around a bit longer.

http://xkcd.com/164/

I still think that "Overpopulation" should be the first word in the thread title, and for that matter, Friedman's book should be called "Crowded, Flat, and Hot." Booming populations are going to be *the* major problem, regarless of what "the truth" is about global warming--it's Pogo logic, the enemy "is us."

The kerfuffle over the crazy lady in California and her should-be-criminal fertility doc has spawned a lot of interesting buzz, even for a fellow who only reads for-profit news and barely spends time on nonprofit broadcasters. I'm a longstanding supporter of negative population growth, but an article in today's NYTimes has some really interesting stuff to consider for just about everyone who has a strong reaction to couples with numerous children.

I still believe the world would be better off if our population was closer to what it was in 1900 than in 2000, but I'm open to the idea that a one-child-per-woman policy might be workable if it was done along the lines of cap-and-trade emission control policies. I suppose that weird rich-people's show Big Love poked the original chink in my 'micro-family' armor. But darnit, the big families are indeed under a lot of social pressure, and some of their answers like "a light bulb lights a room whether there are four people in it or fourteen" are definitely food for thought. I also think it might indeed be a benefit for kids to be raised in groups large enough that their caregiving adults can't hover over them the way so many modern activity-maddened, college-worried parents do.

Well, yes and no. It's of course true that if you halve the human population you use half the planetary resources. On the other hand, if you halve the population, but have all of them live lives under western standards, you would still need multiple earths.

I think in the west, as we have our fertility under control, getting the amount of resources used per head is the prime concern, while in the developing world, overpopulation is the prime concern.

I read and re-read Known Space stuff for many years, but that was many years ago. Niven's one of my favorite hard SF writers, but I'd totally forgotten the birthrights mechanics. (I still regularly think about being sentenced to the organ banks, and Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex comes up regularly for all sorts of reasons.)

The fun lit flashback is also a vexingly good body-blow for my little policy fantasy. I'm a lapsed anarchist and a testicle-owning feminist, so force in general is a worry for me. Having force applied to things as fundamental as a reproductive decision...well, I probably couldn't vote for it unless we were in a simulation.

Old? I caught this from the GalCiv2 'side' of Stardockland, and over here, I'm a Gerontocrat. The thing I remember most about Independence day was that it seemed like the True Sign that Will Smith was going to put profit over fun/quality when he sells himself to film companies. The flim version of Six Degrees of Separation had me thinking he wanted to do some honest payback for the Fresh Prince stuff, but then maybe the whole 'honest payback' question is just too much at the moment...

Overpopulation is definatly a dilemarous situation. Its definately a problem, but how to solve it? Any method of controlling birth is going to be met with resistance, however good for the species as a whole it might be.

Personly I'd want to limit who can have children based on their ability to raise children. They'd need to have a proper house, and decent jobs, to ensure they can give them a decent life. I'd also be tempted to add some sort of parental preficiencey exam.

I think my views would be met with a fair bit of resistance though

I also don't understand how some people post on this thread (and other places) about not listening to the media about global warming, and 'dont be a sheep', and 'it's obviously just a ploy'...

Uhm, last I checked, both the American and British governments were HIGHLY reluctant to adopt CO2 reduction schemes, and alternative power sources. The British government is still trying to get the people to accept nuclear power. If it truely was just a markleting ploy and lies by the government to fool us all, wouldn't they be accepting all the environmental proposals, rather than dissmissing them so readily?

If you ask me, these people are just anti-sheep. They blindly dissmiss whatever mass media says, citing it as lies to dupe everyone, without actually bothering to think about it. They are just as bad as the sheep really.

Mass media is frequently trieing to dupe everyone, thats true, but not ALWAYS. You have to learn to think for yourself and look into it yourself, rather than blindly jumping on either the bandwagon, or the anti-bandwagon going in the other direction. From what I've read, I'd say thats what Mumblefratz is doing, thinking for himself and looking stuff up, doing his research.

A little reminder of where we've been.

co2 is a minor climate gass, about 4% atm. over half of the climate effect comes from condensed water. Condensed water rises at the tempature rises.

Climate gasses in the atmosphere disperses heat(light) in all directions. So the heat increase comes from that light is longer in circulation on earth with that with a higher density of climate gasses . This also means that the north and south pole will have the greatest heat increases, while the equator will only have very minor increases in tempature.

Rain and wind will rise under such conditions, but for human mankinds survival chances a little bit of global warming is needed. The pacific islands that are lost is simply no match for the increased food supply from the close to artic lands.

The sun is the most important heatsource. But do not forget that rapid use of fossil fuels/atomic power can increase the heat of the planet. The only thing that matters is how fast you burn it. If you burn it too fast then you better counter that increased heat generation with some dust in the atmosphere.

The only way human mankind is going to survive, is if they do massive research in natural research. I mean mankind needs to learn how to alter a planet so it becomes hapitable, or change a humans genome so we can travel longer, or create a new race that can spread itself. The earth will not last forever.

Remember that technically humans are little more then animals, we cannot disobey the laws of nature. In a sence we live in perfekt harmony with nature, because nature controlls us all. Nature cannot be destroyed it will only change.

4% is wonderful.  It doesn't tell us what percent is supposed to be there, but it sounds so tiny that it makes it easy to disregard.  But what if C02 is supposed to be only 2% of our atmosphere?

Need to put the stat into context.  Otherwise, it's worthless data, and not useful information.

The increased food supply? Are you kidding me?
Crop A can be grown in the regions between 10 and 40 degrees (+ or -) from the equator of a sphere. Now, say the region in which this crop can be grown shifts northward by 10 degrees due to global warming. This leaves the crop able to be grown between 20 and 50 degrees from the equator. The size of the area in which the crop is able to grown decreases. To demonstrate this, I will use a circle (since spherical math is a bit more complex than I feel like doing in the morning).

First, we need to know the radius of the circle. Lets say radius = r.
Now we need to find the area between the chords which are at said degrees.

10 degrees: 180-10(2)=160
sin(10)=h/r=.173648                               h=.173648r
sin(160/2)=b/r=.9848                             b=.9848r
1/2*b*h*2=.171*r^2
160/360*pi*r^2-.171*r^2=1.225*r^2=area above 10 degrees on circle

20 degrees: 180-20(2)=140
sin(20)=h/r=.34202                                    h=.34202r
sin(140/2)=b/r=.9396                             b=.9396r
1/2*b*h*2=.3214*r^2
140/360*pi*r^2-.171*r^2=.9003*r^2=area above 20 degrees on circle

40 degrees: 180-40(2)=100
sin(40)=h/r=.6428                                    h=.6428r
sin(100/2)=b/r=.766                             b=.766r
1/2*b*h*2=.492*r^2
100/360*pi*r^2-.171*r^2=.3806*r^2=area above 40 degrees on circle

50 degrees: 180-50(2)=80
sin(50)=h/r=.766                                    h=.766r
sin(80/2)=b/r=.6428                             b=.6428r
1/2*b*h*2=.492*r^2
80/360*pi*r^2-.171*r^2=.2061*r^2=area above 50 degrees on circle

Now that we have these areas, we can find the area between the two chords like so:

10 and 40:
(1.225-.3806)r^2=.844*r^2

20 and 50:
(.9003-.2061)r^2=.6942*r^2

Now we have the difference in the two areas.
.6942/.844=82.25%
Meaning, on a 2 dimensional figure 17.75% of the area was lost from a 10 degree shift. On a three dimensional figure, the area lost percentage will be even higher. I would estimate the area lost on a sphere to be close to 25% (1-.8225^(3/2)) loss in area.

Now that I have refuted your claim with mathematics, I shall refute it will logic. First of all, if plants are growing farther north, it means they will have less sunlight, due to the lower angle at which the sun will be. Global warming cannot affect the angle of the sun, and thus even if an area is warm enough for a certain plant, it may not have the required sunlight and growing season requirements. Next, areas near the equator are likely to be lost permanently or nearly permanently due to desertification, not only rendering the area un-farmable, but also displacing the people who live there. Such is the case in many of Africa's worst countries. Darfur for example. The crisis there has been brought about by desertification, overpopulation (unsustainable population in a now un-farmable region).

The argument that it helps humanity somehow is completely false as I have just shown.

Particulate matter actually can help prevent global warming. However, for the past few decades (since the 50s) many acts have been passed to lower particulates in the air, since particulates in the air is another term for air pollution. Smoke, smog, and the like are generally seen as nasty to live in.

His point is entirely valid.  The earth has been through countless warming & cooling cycles through millions of years.  The consensus scientific mantra in the 70's was that global cooling was occurring so fast that an ice age was inevitable and that we should start preparing for it post-haste (I guess we did, in a perverse sort of way, by increasing our 'carbon footprint' ).  The current consensus scientific mantra, such as it is, contends just the opposite.  You don't really believe that global sea ice data from 30 years of observation (a billionth of a blink of the geologic eye, if that) are sufficient to meaningfully inform the argument, do you?

Alway, a flaw in your theory.  Well, there are multiple ones, like how massive the land mass is in the subarctic northern hemisphere, the increased growing seasons(yeah, they're longer too) and what the increased rainfall and storm severity will do to the desertification process, etcetera etcetera, but your severe fuckup is as follows.

Having observed light patterns in Anchorage, Alaska for nearly my entire life, I can safely say that you overlooked a minor detail.  You forgot that we have 17 hour days that far north during the summer.  I can't grow corn in anchorage, but I can grow bowling ball size cabbage with nominal fertilization, I can fill a ten pound sack off one potato plant.  If I'd lived in the Matanuska Valley fifty miles inland instead of at the coastal Anchorage, I could not only grow corn, I could grow freakishly large corn.  Check it.

Yes, that really is a thousand pound pumpkin in the list.  Alaska may be too damn cold for pumpkins, but that doesn't stop them from trying anyway.  All those world records are what happens when your shortest night is less than five hours long.  Increase the temperature of Anchorage and you'd double the output.