Updated: 80% of world CO2 emissions are related to population levels.

[GliderGuider]

7. GWP is a red herring.

After all, money doesn't emit CO2. Producing steel and concrete, however...

You may disagree with my analysis, but it's just another effort to find some way to drive home this basic argument:

1. Our civilization and all our individual lives depend on fossil fuels for survival at this time, whether directly or indirectly.
   
2. The more people there are, and the bigger and more active civilization becomes, the more CO2 is released by our increasing consumption of fossil fuels.
   
3. CO2 is now impacting the planet through weather changes - changes that are fairly mild right now, but will accelerate.
   
4. The only way to slow this acceleration (we are past the point of being able to halt the temperature rise) is to reduce our CO2 emissions.
   
5. The only way to reduce CO2 emissions enough to matter while maintaining population levels is through a massive, global shift away from fossil fuels.
   
6. There is no sign that we are preparing, or prepared, to reduce our fossil fuel use.
   
7. The only other way to reduce emissions is through population reduction.
   
8. There is no sign that we are prepared to reduce our population growth below its 50 year plateau of 75 million per year.
   
9. That means that CO2 emissions will not be reduced unless Things Fall Apart.
   
10. If things do not fall apart, fossil fuel use and temperature will continue to climb until things do fall apart.
    
11. When things do fall apart people will die, population will be reduced, fossil fuel use will fall, and global warming will eventually decelerate.

The human race is in a box. Even if some of us want to reduce fossil fuel use - whether through substitution, activity reduction or not reproducing - there are too may who don't feel like doing that, and it's too late to avoid the impact in any event. For those few of us who do want to make changes, the degree of deceleration that we can manage is minuscule compared to the forces already unleashed on the planet. This situation may (will) change after Things Fall Apart.

Even in the face of this awful prospect, however, we are still left with the perennial advice of the sages: "In all matters, strive to do the right thing."