May 2013 Atmospheric CO2 Concentration 399.89 ppm; May 2012 396.87; May 2011 394.29

[GliderGuider]

26. No, you're not alone.

Most people, especially those on a political board, accept the idea that individual actions determine the collective outcome. I mean, it's just obvious, right? I'm now pretty sure this is just another flat-earth mistake born of misinterpreted perceptions, though. It falls in the same category as the Sun revolving around the Earth.

The realization that human behaviour is limited by hard-to-perceive physical principles is simply a completion of the Copernican/Galilean revolution. No matter how many people would prefer that it not be so, and therefore decline to look through the telescope.

Population is a case in point. The main driver of actual population reduction (as opposed to merely slowing its growth) is economic collapse a la Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR. Even simply slowing its growth requires enriching the world's population, and there aren't enough resources to manage that for the whole planet. We'll try, of course, and kill the planet in the process - which will bring about population reduction.

I've seen no evidence that education alone acts to reduce the population of impoverished countries. Poor countries are usually trying too hard to grow in order to become rich.

World population along with material consumption and the expansion of technology are the main growth factors that are controlled by the second law of thermodynamics.