re: #1 A Mom Anon

The next 100 years will be interesting in a Chinese sense*. We’re not there yet, and surviving without traumatic changes is not guaranteed.

We’re seeing several trends that counteract with each other.

Positive:
- Climate change is starting to get visible, and it might be getting through to people that they have to get things done. Even some nutjob Floridian politicians acknowlege that climate change is real and is a problem.

- Population is starting to fall in the entire developed world, which is the part of the world which is the highest per capita polluter of carbon.

- Green energy is taking off and dropping in cost much more rapidly than anyone could have thought 20 years ago.

- We’re rapidly making it easier for our automotive infrastructure to not require carbon.

Mixed:
- Large parts of the developing world already have a Total Fertility rate below 2.1. Which means that population will start dropping there. This includes most (but certainly not all) of the middle east, most (but not all) of India and the rest of South Asia, and most of South East Asia. (I think this is true of Latin America too).

- China has gone from a 1 child to a 2 child to a 3 child policy recently, and has been making policy changes to try to slow down its population drop amongst the Han majority**, by making it easier to have families. But small families might have become ingrained in China.

Negative:
- It will take decades before population starts dropping in the developing world because of the population pyramid. And Africa hasn’t reached this stage yet.

- Energy use is taking off from an _very_ low base throughout the developing world. Even if most new energy is green, any new non-green energy will counteract decomissioning of polluting sources in the developed world. It needs to be entirely green energy for all new energy everywhere.

** The one child policy applied to urban Han Chinese for the most part. Other ethnic groups or rural Chinese had looser limits.