[Closed] Climate change and war?

Probably helping rather than contributing.

Think about how many people have died in wars in the last 50-70 years
Afghanisation
Iraq
Sudan
Congo
Vietnam
Korea
Nigeria.....

Must be in the ball park of 10million people.

That's an awful lot of people not contributing to global greenhouse gases and consumption of natural resources.

Mmmm, but they are burning tyres dont you know. Thats not good, is it ?

we need a few low emission high casualty wars in western nations it's no good killing poor people from the third world they have very little negative impact on climate change .

But they burned a lot of jungle in the Vietnam war and that can't have helped things.

Also, 10 million people is not that big a burden on global warming given that the bulk/all of those were in countries that have a low per capita production of greenhouse gas*.

You'd need a decent global war covering lots of places with lots of people in to get a good reduction in global greenhouse gas production.

*except Iraq, where maybe the burning oilfields contributed a fair wadge.

I just wondered what, if anything all the riots/wars/world conflict are contributing to what the scientist are measuring?

Not much at all compared to 'normal' human activity like power stations, cement manufacture, mining etc etc

Next to none .
World peace will not alter climate change

Climate change will alter world peace.

once the oil wars are done, the water wars will be next...

Must be in the ball park of 10million people.

That's an awful lot of people not contributing to global greenhouse gases and consumption of natural resources.

It's also a pretty insignificant number of people compared to the amount by which the population has grown over the same period.

Yes but if 10million people all had 3 kids, and their kids had 3 kids, that's 100million people not breathing, farting and using natural resources.

At a relatively low average of 5 tonnes per head, thats the same amount of emissions emitted by the UK per year. Must make a difference? No?

once the oil wars are done, the water wars will be next...

The Water wars are the ones to be fearful of as said above.

Must be in the ball park of 10million people.

High mortality rates lead to high birth rates tbh so I doubt any of that works out beneficial.

willard - Member

But they burned a lot of jungle in the Vietnam war and that can't have helped things.

7700 square miles according to a bit of googling, so basically nothing in terms of deforestation/dejungling. Much easier to do that sort of thing industrially than militarily.

Likewise people worried about burning oil in iraq, what do you think was going to happen to the oil?

Pigface - Member
The Water wars are the ones to be fearful of as said above.

Mmmm, so basically climate change will not be reduced by a few wars. But climate change will cause a few wars.

So, in a decade or two we are all f***ed.

Good job Ive only got a decade or two left then before I start loosing my marbles.

*contiunues to burn fossil fuels with no regard to the planet*

Afghanistan - 1.5M
Korean War - 4.0M
Nigerian Cival War - 3.0M
Vietnam War - 2.0M
Iran Iraq War - 1.0M
Congo War - 3.0M
Sudanese War - 2.0M

Total - 16.5M

Multiply that up over a couple of generations and you're probably over 100M people

It's a pretty brutal way to cut down on climate change to be fair. Bunging in a bit of loft insulation has got to be better all round, surely?

In reality I dont see anything the first world plans to do, or more importantly, will do; having any noticable effect on climate change.

A drastic lowering of the population will have a noticable effect.

We actually need a first world pandemic that mainly affects the young and the old. Reduces consumption and the pensions crisis.

I'll try not think about it too much tonight when I tuck the kiss up in bed and then phone my mum 😥

Implement Sandmen?

It's the other way around.

It is self-regulating. Once we start running out of oil climate change will reduce. It'll reduce at the rate the population reduces through famine and war until it gets back to pre-fossil fuel levels.

Expect lots of riots along the way.

we're not going to run out of oil, there's chuffing loads of it.

there's something like 50-100 years left of conventional oil.

and there's much more* than that in the form of tar sands / oil shale / whatever.

(*much, much, much, much more)

we're not going to run out of oil, there's chuffing loads of it.

definitely not in your lifetime.

definitely not in your lifetime.

🙂

You're not my GP are you?

we're not going to run out of oil, there's chuffing loads of it.

However two important questions, is it economically viable to extract and Is it energy viable to extract?

No point extracting if no one can afford and not really much point if it takes more energy to extract than you obtain.

Much of the reserves are covered by the above two questions.

The issue isn't really about running out, more about when we can no longer afford to extract what is left. Standard human practice has been to use a resource until another resource becomes more viable.

There was a theory that Iraq invaded Kuwait for the relatively large acquifer not the oil

tar/oil sand/shale is already profitable at around $100/barrel.

and there's a LOT that's accessible for $100/barrel...

Standard human practice has been to use a resource until another resource becomes more viable.

exactly, we'll move onto alternatives before we run out.

but if we keep burning all this oil at an ever increasing rate will we **** the climate up so badly that well all die anyway?

but if we keep burning all this oil at an ever increasing rate will we **** the climate up so badly that well all die anyway?

We won't all die. Just most of us.

kimbers - Member

but if we keep burning all this oil at an ever increasing rate will we **** the climate up so badly that well all die anyway?

Well we've survived (and are currently still in) an ice age, glacial maximum, extinction level events (Mt Toba eruption) and global temperatures approx 3 degrees hotter than we have currently so I should think we'll manage. (Albeit the world population was reduced to less than 10k individuals at some points!)

Things are changing, so saying we have dealt with problems before and expecting us to deal with new ones is not realistic.

Population is currently exponential, even if its growth might slow its still growing.

Climate is changing.

Oil, Water, Wood, Food is running out. Its being consumed faster and faster, even for populations that are not growing like the UK one.

The differences will become more noticable. So even now we can see differences between us and our parents. Soon you will see differences between one decade and another that are as great as us and our parents.

Things like tanks etc are now starting to fall under emissions legislation (in the so called "off highway" category), which is slightly ironic i feel as it's really the large pipe sticking out the FRONT of the thing you need to worry about 😉