The UN's IPCC has been busy this spring. They've published thier document for policy makers, and they are ready to publish the remainder of thier TAR later in May. Seminars, position papers, media interviews, Op Eds, etc... are still being conducted to ensure that everyone is aware that our warming climate will continue its merry way indefinitely. For the next 100 years, global surface temperatures are expected to climb about 1.8 Deg C.

I'm sure most people are aware of the arguements. According to the IPCC, an overwhelming majority of scientists from many disciplines agree that the Earth is warming, and humans are the main if not the exclusive cause. Let's enscapulate the theory. First, CO2 exhausted by oil and gas run turbines (giant electrical generators the power our electrical grids), the huge rise in automobile use, and the doubling of humans worldwide since 1940, have added billions of tons of CO2 into the lower atmosphere. In 1850, the amount of CO2 concentrations was estimated at 280 ppm (parts per million); today, it is at 380ppm. The addition of so much CO2 has trapped heat near the earth's surface that normally would have been reflected back into space. Since 1900, global surface temperature have risen 1 Deg C.  The increase in both surface temperatures and CO2 levels also create many positive feedbacks ( increases) in other areas of our enviorment : melting glaciers (increase in sea levels), increases in sea surface temperatures (increases in destructive tropical storms), increases in evaportation (droughts), etc... All of this is caused mainly by the Industrial West (the US being the worst CO2 emitter).

The dire predictions are many:droughts, continued loss of glacial ice, massive species extinction, large increases in sea levels, the loss of winter in many places of the middle latitudes are just a few. However, all of these predictions assume  one thing: sustained or increased  industrial activity through out the next 100 years.  For all of the scientific brain power entrusted in the IPCC, no one bothered to check with a demographer. For the life of me, I couldn't find one reference, or one codecil that predicted what the population of the Industrial West will be. Which is too bad. What the IPCC predicts cannot possibly come to pass if the current demographics continue unabated.

Let's simply assume that everything that the IPCC stated in the TAR is scientifically correct. Their main argument is that our life style, or industrial, consumer based economy is simply poisonous to the long term health of our climate. Let's assume the greenhouse gas CO2 is the cause of all of our warming since 1850. Now, currently the population of the US is at 300 million souls. Our absolute fertility rate is 2.1 children per couple. If this rate continues, and we see no more immigration, our population in 2100 will be 300 million. The 2.1 children per couple ratio is the absolute minimum needed to sustain a population. However, if one was to look at Europe as a whole or in part, thier fertility rate(s) is well under 2.1 per couple. As a matter of fact it is alarmingly low. According to current EU census data Italy's fertility rate is 1.3, Spain's is 1.1, Greece is 1.3, Poland's is 1.3, France's 1.7, Sweden is 1.8, Germany's is 1.5,  Russia's is 1.1. Overall, Europe's native population will begin to be halved every generation. Canada's is no better -it's fertility rate is 1.5. Japan's fertility rate is 1.1, and while China refuses to release its fertility numbers, it  has had a 1 child policy for decades. India, while still having a respectable fertility rate of 3 children per couple has seen a marked decline in its middle class fertility rate. It's rate of growth has stopped climbing. Outside of the US, the Industrial West will simply rapidly depopulate the next 100 years if current trends continue. That is, the most  technologically advanced nations in the world, which own about 85% of the worlds industrial and technological assests will shrink by anywhere from 40 to 60% population wise. Africa, which is going through an AIDS epidemic, and the Islamic nations -which have more than healthy fertility rates, are technologically backward and are not repdisposed to the kind of dynamic, liberal capitalism which flourishes in the West.

Many may see this as positive. I disagree. If current trends continue, we will see an economic collapse the modern world has never experienced. There are about 250 million babyboomers in the industrial nations who, during the next 20 years will die leaving few children and grand children. Those children and grand children have even less progeny. The Industrial nations could easily lose a billion people during the next 100 years with no one else to fill the gaps for the future. Economically speaking, that means that most of today's wealth is tied up in the 40 to 65 year old age group. When they die, so goes the wealth. Fewer people means fewer engineers, fewer research scientists, fewer laborers, fewer financiers, capitalists, and most of all, fewer consumers. Begining in 10 years, most of the West as well as the Industrialized East (China, Japan, India) will have to devote trillions of dollars to take care of an aging population, but do it with fewer workers. In the US, this means a massive redistribution of wealth from the younger to the older generation. For Europe, Japan, and China, well... there is no solution. Dynamic, growing economies just don't need producers; they also need wealthy consumers. An economic collapse of world markets is likely.

This brings us to CO2 and Anthropenginc Global Warming. Currently the world's economies are humming at a decent pace of growth. China, and India lead the way in pure growth. The US continues to generate wealth, and even Europe and Japan are improving. However, within a decade a steep industrial decline is likely as nations begin to borrow and tax to pay for ever growing health care for its geriatrics. With so few people to pick up the slack in Japan and Europe, a lowering of thier standards of living will result. The US won't be immune despite its stable population. Massive outlays in Social Security and Medicare, coupled with a dwindling market for exports and capital will cause an over all reduction in industrial activity. The reverberations will hit China and India. China will especially be hit hard since it relies on exports so heavily. Overall, a shrinking population and a decline in worldwide industrial output will lower the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

How the IPCC can project continued economic growth in the face of such demographic numbers is a mystery. The West has been blind to this demographic time bomb; why should the IPCC be any different? Numbers don't lie.  Economies need not only free markets, know-how, and liberty to flourish -they most importantly need people.  With fewer people, there will be less wealth generation, less travel, less demand for consumer goods, less demand for power.  With so much time and money going to geriatric care, the 2010s through 2030s will be a time of large scale recessions as world markets try to react to such a fast change of events (that is if the geopolitics of the world allow  it). Instead of a century of large increases in greenhouse gases, the majority of the 21st century will be a time of rapid decreases in global greenhouse gas concentrations.

To make matters worse, Russian physicist Dr Abdussamovtav believes that by 2040 the sun will begin to dim in much the same way it did in the 17th Century (the coldest century of the Little Ice Age). Here's a link:


http://http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005KFNT...21..471A

If the Russians are correct, the earth will begin to rapidly cool (about 1.5 deg C during the period 2040-2200). The loss of Greenhouse gases will only exasperate things. Faced with a cooling planet,  and a smaller population, industrial recessions, and most probably war, the last thing the people of the late 21st Century will have to worry about is Global Warming.  Historians 100 years from now will read all of the peer reviewed "science" generated by the IPCC scholars, and shake thier heads in disbelief. As they shiver through May frosts and September snow storms, they will wonder how such smart people could be so self absorbed.