No, Mathew, per capita does not account for gross overpopulation's other nasty effects. China has surpassed the US and Europe in general with total emissions. The Earth itself is 7 1/2 times human carrying capacity on average, with China and India WAY over that. The total is going up at least 2% per year, and even if brought to zero instantly would still cause a 1* more rise by itself. However, the rise so far has begun an exponential methane release from arctic and other tundra and other sources. This 23 times stronger greenhouse gas has formed the feedback loop of perpetuating and increasing itself. Now that it has started, there isn't anything humans can do to stop it that won't kill us all off itself. The US military and others, have used additives to jet fuels to mitigate the global warming of 3* we have already. It isn't enough, and some of the additives are cancer causing. We will run out of cheap oil soon, and that method will become increasingly impractical, then impossible as peak oil effects deepen. The surface water pollution rates, groundwater depletion rates and soil depletion rates, put them below the population's needs also, by 2040.
Greenhouse gases rise to a point of crop failures every three years in any given place, and no more irrigation water, and much less usable soil from citification, salinization, micro-nutrient depletion, poisoning of soil micro-organisms by pesticides and herbicides(groundwater, too), and loss of area from ocean level rise.
The 20% decrease by 2030 will be far too little, far too late. Typical of human inertia, stupid stubbornness, and greed. Another 6*F of temperature rise(for 9* total) and 2' ocean level rise(total) are most probable by the human population crash of 2050 or before. By 2100 this will increase to +18*F and Ocean level rise of 20' or more. 80 to 90% of species will be unable to adapt and die-off, too. Professor Leakey's Sixth Extinction will hold true for humanity, too.
|
Linear Mode
