The world’s carrying capacity is a theory which states that the world has equilibrium in the biosphere it can sustain with its available resources. The carrying capacity when discussed in the human context is the human population that the Earth can indefinitely sustain with regard to its resources. The theory was fronted by an English clergyman Thomas Malthus in 1798 as he predicted that the growing human population would someday reach a point where the available resources would be stretched beyond the limit and would lead to famines and mass deaths.
The Population Explosion
The world’s population is growing at an unprecedented rate. According to research and historical census evidence, the global population has grown over 100% faster in the last 100 years than in the last 1,500 years. In the first century AD, the global population was estimated to have been 300 million people, which then took 1,800 years to reach a population of 1 billion in the 19th century. The current global population is estimated to be around 7.5 billion people, which indicates a 750% increase in the past two centuries. The global human population is projected to reach 9.5 billion people in 2050, a 126% increase in fewer than 50 years.
Implications Of The Population Boom
The Earth has limited resources including land, water, and energy consumed. Many scientists and demographic analysts agree that the Earth is able to sustain its current population with the existing resources but only when the said resources are used frugally. Studies show that the current global food production by far exceeds the global consumption and can even sustain the global population in the future when improvements in agricultural practices are implemented. The main issue in agriculture is food distribution as well as the unsustainable livestock agriculture which consumes the majority of the land and water resources. Therefore, the carrying capacity of the Earth, according to several scientists, has little or no effect on food production. The resource which is at greatest risk of being depleted is energy due to the current use of non-renewable energy sources which also harms the environment. Using several indicators as well as using historical benchmarks, the human carrying capacity of the Earth is estimated to be about 10 billion people.
Future Projections
While the global human population has seen a spike in its growth in the past two centuries, the trend is experiencing a decline in several regions where the birth rates are declining and families becoming smaller. This trend is evident primarily in Japan and in several northern European countries where the demographics have shown a decline in birth rates reaching as high as 50%. This recent trend is becoming a global phenomenon with several projections foreseeing the global population growth declining in the late 21st century.
What Can Be Done?
There have been several measures that have been taken to remedy the increased population growth, especially in developing countries. There has been a controversial “one child” policy enforced in China to discourage bearing of many children per household while several countries in Africa have been embracing birth control methods to try and slow down the population growth rate.
Apneaman on Mon, 27th Mar 2017 9:20 pm
Increasingly Out of the Human Context: Atmospheric CO2 Likely to Hit Monthly Peak Near 410 ppm in 2017
https://robertscribbler.com/2017/03/27/increasingly-out-of-the-human-context-atmospheric-co2-likely-to-hit-monthly-peak-near-410-ppm-in-2017/
makati1 on Mon, 27th Mar 2017 10:00 pm
AP, at this point, I have stopped reading most articles in GW or CC because they are either unicorn hopium pieces or just rehash of the same. Ditto for oily pieces. We are on the downward slope of civilization and humanity’s existence. We just had a week of 95F/35C days which is about 5% higher than usual. It has dropped back a few degrees, but who knows what next week will bring.
My sister in PA had 15″ of snow a week ago after a week of 60+F and now it is back to 70+F there. Observing the world around us is much more interesting than reading someone else’ ideas. All we can do is ease the pain and watch events unfold. Too late to do anything about it. That’s my take, anyway.
Apneaman on Mon, 27th Mar 2017 11:52 pm
One of the most troubling ideas about climate change just found new evidence in its favor
“Ever since 2012, scientists have been debating a complex and frankly explosive idea about how a warming planet will alter our weather — one that, if it’s correct, would have profound implications across the Northern Hemisphere and especially in its middle latitudes, where hundreds of millions of people live.
The idea is that climate change doesn’t merely increase the overall likelihood of heat waves, say, or the volume of rainfall — it also changes the flow of weather itself. By altering massive planet-scale air patterns like the jet stream (pictured above), which flows in waves from west to east in the Northern Hemisphere, a warming planet causes our weather to become more stuck in place. This means that a given weather pattern, whatever it may be, may persist for longer, thus driving extreme droughts, heat waves, downpours and more.
This basic idea has sparked half a decade of criticism and debate, and at the cutting edge of research, scientists continue to grapple with it. And now, a new study once again reinforces one of its core aspects.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/27/one-of-the-most-troubling-ideas-about-climate-change-just-found-new-evidence-in-its-favor/
Sissyfuss on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 12:56 am
How can you estimate the carrying capacity if you aren’t exact in your resource use reporting. The science says we’re using one and a half Earths to supply the population presently. And everyone wants more, not less. This article is facile and simplistic which matches the Zeitgeist of our times.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 3:45 am
The world certainly has no carrying capacity for an all out inter-continental war. Yet the US deep state tries to organise one regardless:
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/dick-cheney-russia-2016-election-act-of-war-236556
Gentile neocon Dick Cheney and “Republican” has opined that:
Russian meddling possibly ‘an act of war’
“There’s not any argument at this stage that somehow the election of President Trump was not legitimate”
Note the word “somehow”. It is absolutely unnecessary to specify how exactly the Russians “interfered”, it’s just that the US MIC needs a war to justify its own existence.
Also note the absolute meaningless descriptor “Republican”. Cheney denies the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency, despite the fact that he is supported by the natural Republican base.
Trump is a populist intruder in a rigged system, where the US population has abdicated it sovereignty a long time ago. The US, that’s about moguls, think tanks, Israel Lobby, Wall Street, MIC (or deep state for short) and NOT about the American population. The US deep state is about global conquest for the purpose of turning the world into a “Judaic State”, a goal the powers that be have been pursuing since 1900 and militarily since 1933.
The US deep state is a time bomb under the rest of the world and needs to be defused. It’s a cancerous growth that needs to excised.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 4:43 am
NASA has calculated that for every human there are about 68 trees. That makes a grand total of 476 billion trees on this planet. Nobody ever complained that there are too many trees on this planet, instead there are great worries about deforestation.
If you would assemble all humans and place them eyeball-to-eyeball, they would fit in the tiny Dutch province of Utrecht:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utrecht_(province)
If all humans would behave like this fellow all day, there would be zero worries about carrying capacity, even if there were 50 billion people:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aTVVPHm3Z_s/maxresdefault.jpg
…provided they would not move and eat plants and fruit only and drink water.
The problem starts with civilization. Instead of water, they want cola, beer, coffee, tea. Instead of local fruit and plants they want meat. And instead of sleeping in a tent, they want to live in big houses, that are kept at a constant 21 degree Celsius. And worst of all, they all want to move and “go places”, preferably in a 1400 kg steel car or worse in a plane to the other side of the planet.
All these desires are realized by industrial civilization, powered by fossil fuel, necessitating a daily commuting effort by hundreds of millions (in the US alone 128 million).
To make a long story short… the physical presence of 7-11 billion is not the real problem. The real problem is the “foot print” that needs to be challenged:
– birth control programs, like the successful one in China
– limiting mobility, like yearly mile rationing and discouraging-forbidding private car ownership and promoting home office, high-speed internet, working via Skype and the cloud
– Wind/solar/hydro/biofuel energy base
– basic income in the West of say 500 euro/dollar per month and eliminating all other benefits
– discouraging females to work and concentrate on their 2.1 children instead
– large scale community gardens for local food production (like the Kibbutz in Israel)
– In general more of a (meager) lifestyle like in the (European) fifties.
http://tinyurl.com/mm4xy8m
Davy on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 5:50 am
“Trump is a populist intruder in a rigged system, where the US population has abdicated it sovereignty a long time ago. The US, that’s about moguls, think tanks, Israel Lobby, Wall Street, MIC (or deep state for short) and NOT about the American population….The US deep state is a time bomb under the rest of the world and needs to be defused. It’s a cancerous growth that needs to excised.”
The same thing is going on in Europe. Russia is a mafia state. China is quasi corrupted communist/capitalist state. There is no example of a good state today Clog. All states are beholding to globalism and all our survival depends on globalism and that including your messed up Europe. Globalism is decaying and may collapse and that includes your Europe. You are living in a fantasy world of an adapted 20th century fantasy.
Davy on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 5:57 am
“To make a long story short… the physical presence of 7-11 billion is not the real problem. The real problem is the “foot print” that needs to be challenged:”
BS, cloggie it is footprint and population. Both together and in separation. A small country with a complex adapted population divorced from nature is facing failure once globalism collapses. An overpopulated poor country is a failed state in the making. A complex overpopulated place like Europe is failing states in the making. Combine large concentrations of people in complexity and the curve goes hockey. You are just a diehard techno optimist. You still believe there are solutions for maintaining the status quo in its basis of predicaments. Good luck with your fantasy.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 6:18 am
The same thing is going on in Europe. Russia is a mafia state. China is quasi corrupted communist/capitalist state. There is no example of a good state today Clog. All states are beholding to globalism and all our survival depends on globalism and that including your messed up Europe. Globalism is decaying and may collapse and that includes your Europe. You are living in a fantasy world of an adapted 20th century fantasy.
There is only little use for concepts like “good” and “bad” in geopolitics.
More interesting are intentions.
Russia has zero intention of expanding; instead it will be happy to hold on to its current territory throughout the remainder of this century.
China has no intention of expanding (yet), apart from extending its sphere of influence over the South China Sea at the cost of US policing. China wants to increase its security and continued access of resources through a Eurasian overland strategy.
It is only in America that there are still groups of people who think that the US can have it all, although they are declining in numbers. Cheney is one of them.
Pursuing unrealistic goals is dangerous for everybody.
Davy on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 6:59 am
BS, again, cloggie, Russia is interested in expanding its influence at all levels with an eye on the respect and power it had as the leadership of the USSR. Its military has grown greatly in effectiveness and now has the whole of NATO in a tissy. China is no different and has global intentions of being a dominant player on all levels and they are currently expanding as a global military power. Economically they are on every continent. They are taking over economically by stealth and their military will try to follow. No arguing about the US and its power lust and IMA its decline.
I disagree with your convenient embellishments of the current global arrangements per your new world agenda of Paris, Berlin, and Moscow Confederated Super state. This along with your idea of a China sphere that will trade via the Silk Road with your European Super state. Yet, and final cake topping is your view of a collapsed US with your Euro Super state coming to save the US. (but only the heartland).
Clog that is pure Tom Clancy and you should sell it on Amazon. We are all tumbling down the rat hole clog and your Europe may be ahead of the packs. What is clear is we all are teetering together at the abyss.
Davy on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 7:09 am
Speaking of some good fiction pertinent to today:
“FOUNDATION – FALL OF THE AMERICAN GALACTIC EMPIRE”
http://tinyurl.com/l4ccy4p
“Many people argue the dynamic advancements in technology and science have changed the world in such a way to alter human nature in a positive way, thereby resulting in humans acting in a more rational manner. This alteration would result in a level of human progress not experienced previously. The falsity of this technological theory is borne out by the continuation of war, government corruption, greed, belief in economic fallacies, civic decay, cultural degradation, and global disorder sweeping across the world. Humanity is incapable of change. The same weaknesses and self- destructive traits which have plagued them throughout history are as prevalent today as they ever were.”
“Asimov’s solution to the failure of humanity to change was to create an academic oriented benevolent ruling class who could save the human race from destroying itself. He seems to have been well before his time with regards to creating Shadow Governments and Deep State functionaries. It appears he agreed with his contemporary Edward Bernays. The masses could not be trusted to make good decisions, so they needed more intellectually advanced men to guide their actions.”
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.”
“Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays – Propaganda”
davy-fan on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 7:20 am
it’s unclear whether radiation or overpopulation is a problem at all. there are too many effects in play. for example, in the US it’s not ok to be homeless. this is so that storefronts will look pretty and attract business. this is a good thing because it keeps the economy going, kids well fed, and fewer employed people joining the rank of the homeless.
i don’t like bums because they’re aggressive and a danger to my life. i used to have the biggest heart and i would double or triple down and giving a bum a $20 w/o a problem. not anymore after my first hand experience with bums. most behave just like animals, i kid you not. with drugs, alcohol, harsh life the person quickly revert to animal behavior. this seriously interfere with my ability to hit the books, install plumbing pipes, and irrigation so i can feed myself and others.
makati1 on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 7:43 am
“Russia claims to have created a devastating hypersonic missile that travels five times faster than the speed of sound and could rip through navy warship defences because it’s too fast to stop.
The Kremlin’s Zircon missile has been called “unstoppable”, “unbeatable” and “undefendable” with a 4,600mph speed that only one defence system in the world can destroy – that system is owned by Russia.
The missile employs revolutionary scramjet technology to reach its hypersonic speeds whereby propulsion is created by forcing air from the atmosphere into its combustor where it mixes with on-board fuel – rather than carry both fuel and oxidizer like traditional rockets. This makes it lighter, and therefore much faster.
…
The US Navy warns it could be fitted to Russia’s nuclear-powered Kirkov warship, where it would have a range of up to 500 miles.
In comparison, the Royal Navy’s Sea Ceptor missile, which is designed to destroy incoming missiles can only travel 15 miles and hit top speeds of 2,300mph.”
Full report: International Business Time
The U$ is 3rd world. Russia and China have made the U$ navy obsolete. Zircon missiles and Carrier Busters. lol
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 8:17 am
Russia is interested in expanding its influence at all levels with an eye on the respect and power it had as the leadership of the USSR.
Are you seriously suggesting that Russia wants to restore hegemony over Eastern Europe and the Baltic States? Or even over the Ukraine?
Or even that it can’t wait to incorporate Russian Donbass?
That is simply not the case.
Its military has grown greatly in effectiveness and now has the whole of NATO in a tissy.
That is not true. Russian defense spending is comparable low. They have no means for an offensive against Europe, let alone the intention.
If the CIA had not organized the coup in Kiev in 2014, Crimea would still be in Ukrainian hands. Russia was forced to act there because otherwise their only warm water port would have fallen into NATO hands. Besides, Crimea (and Donbass) are majority ethnic Russian and want to be part of Russia.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 8:23 am
Russia claims to have created a devastating hypersonic missile that travels five times faster than the speed of sound and could rip through navy warship defences because it’s too fast to stop.
Another clear indication that in the 21st century Navy’s are largely obsolete. Large warships are simply sitting ducks for hyper-sonic missiles. Big war ships of party A are a drain on fiscal resources of party A and hence an asset of (potential) enemy B.
A missile is far, far cheaper than a floating sarcophagus, but nevertheless superior.
The US would be well advised to turn its fleet of carriers into tens of thousands of wind turbines. A carrier is nothing but a magnificent monument to stupidity.
Not going to happen of course; too many military careers on the line.
Well then, wait for this to happen:
http://tinyurl.com/lrnvwre
…for instance in the Gulf.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 8:32 am
Zircon missile – MACH 6
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/royal-navy-new-queen-elizabeth-class-aircraft-carriers-not-stop-russia-zircon-missiles-hypersonic-a7651781.html
http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/russia-develops-mach-six-anti-ship-missile
“Hypersonic missiles are virtually unstoppable. The whole idea of the carrier is the ability to project power. But with no method of protecting themselves against missiles like the Zircon the carrier would have to stay out of range, hundreds of miles out at sea,” a naval source told the UK’s Sunday People. “Its planes would be useless and the whole basis of a carrier task force would be redundant.”
Nony on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 8:37 am
I have been hearing the claims about carriers being irrelevant since the late 70s, early 80s. Yet, they have remained active useful parts of the fleet. I would take some of the missile and satellite worries with a grain of salt. Big ocean out there. Get some time on the pond. Carriers are a lot more worried about some crappy diesel Iran submarine than they are about a rain of missiles from the sky.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 8:46 am
I have been hearing the claims about carriers being irrelevant since the late 70s, early 80s. Yet, they have remained active useful parts of the fleet.
More significantly: they have never been tested in real battle.
The Falklands War in 1982 should have been a wake up call for every navy that missiles determine the outcome. The only reason why Britain won was because Alexander Haig could persuade third countries not to deliver French made Exocet missiles to the Argentinians. Otherwise Argentine would have won.
Actually this is good news because navies are essentially attack weapons, able to bring the war to the door step of your opponent. That’s still possible if the US for instance decides to rape a small country like Iraq, but against real adversaries, navies are useless. Since the eighties.
Interestingly the US spends its largest share of defense resources on the navy: 43.4%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
Completely useless. Scrap metal.
makati1 on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 8:47 am
Nony, you are such and expert on the subject right? Big ocean? Not at 5,000 mph. Across the US in 25 minutes. Across the Pacific in 1 1/2 hours. And a Chinaes carrier killer nuke that the U$ cannot stop IS a big deal. Iran is nothing.
I know how big the oceans are. I have flown over them many times in the last 12 years. Have you?
A carrier is just a huge target. Just like army tanks are obsolete, so is a carrier group. A multi-billion dollar ship taken out with a million dollar missile. Sounds like a good deal to me.
The next world war will be over in a day. Tanks will not even have time to fire up their engines. Carriers will be gone in a flash along with any nearby ships. We are in the supersonic missile age. Not ground troops like last century. lol
joe on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 9:00 am
“The only reason why Britain won was because Alexander Haig could persuade third countries not to deliver French made Exocet missiles to the Argentinians. Otherwise Argentine would have won.”
Argentina lost cause they were a military dictatorship who had no allies.
Davy on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 9:01 am
Hey dumbasses, then why are Russia and China resurrecting their carriers? Duh…. Those hyper missiles are no different than other extreme weapons. If used the warfare will esculate. The US has specially designed warheads it can use to take out much of China and Russia’s important military assets. You guys are struggling with your military understanding becuase it is a binary agenda based military story
joe on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 9:04 am
Thank God for ICBMs and future nuclear tech eh clogger, are you one of these fools that thinks any army is really relevent in any war? Probobly do. Armies, navies, tanks, soldiers, its all prelude to the big one, the one that counts.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 9:29 am
Argentina lost cause they were a military dictatorship who had no allies.
Britain had no military allies either in the case of the Falklands.
The UN, EEC and NATO sided with Britain, South-America with Argentine, on the diplomatic front that is.
http://www.naval-history.net/F16-Falklands_War-Diplomatic_Events.htm
And dictatorships can be effective fighting forces, as Germany and your noble ally the USSR have shown during WW2. The UK and US mainly excelled at fire-bombing innocent civilians.
The Americans were very reluctant in the case of the Malvinas to chose sides and organized a shuttle diplomacy that failed: war did break out. In the end diplomacy managed to keep nations from delivering more Exocet missiles to Argentina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUZu8bvxJs4
Exocet MACH 0.92
HMS Sheffield Hit by Exocet Missile and sank.
The war was entirely determined by the Exocet missile. Read up on it here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9767736/Thatchers-blistering-attack-on-French-over-Exocets-during-Falklands.html
Thatcher exerted maximum pressure on the French not to deliver missiles to Peru or Brasil, otherwise the consequences for Anglo-French relations would be “disastrous”. The British even considered “James Bond-like actions” against neutral Brasil.
The sinking of both the Argentinian Belgrano by a British torpedo and the British ships Sheffield and Atlantic Conveyor by Exocet missiles in 1982 were clear proof that ships were no longer a match against missiles with high chance of hitting targets.
Owning a single relatively slow MACH 0.92 Exocet missile was enough in 1982 to sink a war ship. In 2017, no ship can be protected against MACH 6 hyper-sonic missiles.
Navy’s are useless.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 9:40 am
Thank God for ICBMs and future nuclear tech eh clogger
Don’t put words in my mouth, joey boy.
then why are Russia and China resurrecting their carriers?
They are not. As I said, Russia can use its carrier to launch planes and rape ISIS but that’s it. There are no signs that either Russia or China are interested in building a large fleet of carriers. They rely on their missiles. Much cheaper and effective.
US carriers could be used against Japan in the forties, but even then they had to be careful with these Japanese Kamikaze single engine fruit flies of 150 mph. Modern missiles are 30 times as fast and have far more explosive power. Forget is.
The US has specially designed warheads it can use to take out much of China and Russia’s important military assets.
Like which assets? You seriously think that US bombers or jets can make it into Russian or Chinese airspace?
Missiles yes. But against which military targets? HQ’s? Dug in. Tanks? Overkill.
There is no military target on land with which you can inflict remotely comparable damage as with a carrier or other large war ship.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 9:43 am
Weight super carrier: 64,000 ton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercarrier
That’s 64,000 wind turbines of 3 MW 😉
Or 200 GW.
Or 2,000 GW installed wind power if you recommission them all. You can keep one carrier as a souvenir and-or theme park.
Just a friendly hint.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 10:10 am
Now that we have established that the US is continuously wasting 43.4% of its military resources on a useless navy, it is interesting to establish who is in reality the biggest bully on this planet.
Let’s make an inventory of troops.
(active, reserves, paramilitary, total)
China 2,333,000 510,000 660,000 3,503,000
United States 1,492,200 843,750 14,000 2,349,950
Russia 845,000 2,000,000 519,000 3,364,000
France 222,200 29,650 103,400 355,250
Germany 186,450 40,320 0 226,770
Italy 176,000 18,300 183,500 377,800
United Kingdom 169,150 79,100 0 248,250
Greece 143,350 216,650 4,000 364,000
Spain 134,900 14,200 80,700 229,800
Romania 71,400 45,000 79,900 196,300
Portugal 42,600 211,950 47,700 302,250
Serbia 40,000 170,000 4,500 214,500
Netherlands 37,400 3,200 5,900 46,500
Bulgaria 31,300 303,000 16,000 350,300
Belgium 30,700 6,800 0 37,500
Hungary 26,500 44,000 12,000 82,500
Norway 25,800 45,940 0 71,740
Austria 22,800 171,400 0 194,200
Switzerland 22,650 161,250 74,000 257,900
Finland 22,200 354,000 2,800 379,000
Estonia 5,750 30,000 12,000 47,750
If you add up the totals of European countries: 4 million
More than any other military entity. Oh and they are almost all white.
In other words, it must be an enormous relief for our American cousins to know that the European Mother Civilization has such a powerful force at its disposal to come to the aid of the Americans in case the latter will have run into trouble.
Even better, all these forces will soon be integrated under a single European command, run from a European Pentagon in Brussels, already built:
http://tinyurl.com/lz74q7s
onlooker on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 10:15 am
what good is all those troops against WMD’s?
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 10:40 am
what good is all those troops against WMD’s?
Stalin could have told you that nuclear weapons are useless, because you can’t use them against an adversary that has them as well.
You can only use them if you are with your back against the wall.
If China sinks a carrier in the South China Sea, the US won’t retaliate by nuking a large Chinese city, because it is disproportional.
GregT on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 11:26 am
Nony said,
“I have been hearing the claims about carriers being irrelevant since the late 70s, early 80s. Yet, they have remained active useful parts of the fleet.”
Great for invading countries without the capability of fighting back. Not so great in a real war. Sitting ducks or floating tombs. Take your pick.
Davy on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 11:43 am
“If China sinks a carrier in the South China Sea, the US won’t retaliate by nuking a large Chinese city, because it is disproportional.”
Clog, where do you get this insight? You part of the secret intelligence briefings? A carrier task force is a city and an expensive one. If Russia or China attack a carrier group there will be significant retaliation that will be an escalation to who knows.
Davy on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 11:47 am
Clog, what good is 4MIL men Euro army ineffectively deployed with no coordinated command. You guys can do little without American help. The Chinese military is huge and yet to be proven effective. The Russians are another story. There smaller army projects significant power. You doing the makatiland bigger is better.
Hello on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 11:56 am
Clog, the situation must become pretty bad before your great white army is used to clense europe. Not sure you want to live through that. Also, according to you, europe as such a bright future, solar and innovation and such. Not much need to pull out the big army when everybody is well fed.
davy-fan on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 12:06 pm
china is a homogeneous society with old boys network. I’m going to say “incompetence”
but don’t go to war based on my assessement alone
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 1:14 pm
Clog, what good is 4MIL men Euro army ineffectively deployed with no coordinated command.
As I wrote above the EU is busy setting up such a command now that Brexit (application) happened (tomorrow). The army already exists, it is a matter of integration. And even that largely exists thanks to NATO. And president Trump even kindly asked that Europe should organize its own defense, so we can do it without antagonizing America. What’s not to like.
You guys can do little without American help.
Like what? For which task do we need American help? There are none. Never forget Davy that America is a limb from the European body. We really ruled the entire world between 1492 and 1960, until you guys “liberated us”, mainly thanks to the good services of the largest criminal in world history, the USSR. We’ll learn to walk again in no-time after the end of the US empire.
Having said that I think I’m going to buy me a nice silk hat and pick up cigar smoking. 😉
The Chinese military is huge and yet to be proven effective. The Russians are another story. There smaller army projects significant power.
Everybody has to be proven effective as there was (thankfully) no intercontinental scale war after 1945.
You doing the makatiland bigger is better.
Over the last 500 years Europeans have shown to be a formidable fighting force.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 1:38 pm
Clog, the situation must become pretty bad before your great white army is used to clense europe.
Let’s begin to protect our European border before contemplating more robust solutions.
Davy on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 2:35 pm
Clog, Europe does not have much force projection without American help. NATO is hollow without the US. I did not mean Europe is not capable. It will be a long drawn out process for Europe to become a large and effective coordinated army. It is not clear if there is the political will. If they do become their own army they will surely embrace NUK weapons without US NUK umbrella. That is another long costly process. Another thing to consider is the cost of a European Army. Add that to the alternative energy transition and the costs add up.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 3:01 pm
Europe does not have much force projection without American help.
That sounds like attack capability. It suffices to defend our own territory. No need to “project power”.
If they do become their own army they will surely embrace NUK weapons without US NUK umbrella.
France already has nuclear weapons including ca. 300 submarine based ICBM’s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion
The nuclear umbrella could be extended over Europe. We don’t need “parity” with Russia or USA.
DerHundistlos on Tue, 28th Mar 2017 3:39 pm
“Using several indicators as well as using historical benchmarks, the human carrying capacity of the Earth is estimated to be about 10 billion people.”
I knew an unsubstantiated statement of bullshit was coming as soon as I read, “The world’s carrying capacity is a theory….”