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If one believes in a Malthusian apocalypse then one must explain why THIS time things are different. People have been talking about a supposed Population Bomb

If one believes in a Malthusian apocalypse then one must explain why THIS time things are different. People have been talking about a supposed Population Bomb for literally hundreds of years. And each time, they have been wrong. Obviously, there exists some theoretical carrying capacity maximum on planet Earth, but perhaps that maximum is closer to 1 trillion people than 7 billion. That would be plenty of time for humans to figure that space travel thing out. Especially since it is predicted that pop size will peak within the next 40 years.

graeme 11y ago
>why THIS time things are different. Because all growth since Malthus' time has been due to the use of stored Carbon energy. Malthus' observations had been largely true until then. Maybe we'll figure out some way to replace our stored carbons inputs in a way that lets us keep the same energy surplus. But, that's the short answer for why things may be different: the past 200 years have been a historical aberration. The fact that an effect takes a while to work itself out doesn't mean that that effect is nonexistent.
- astine 11y ago
  When we run out of stored carbon energy we will probably switch wholesale to splitting atoms and harnessing the energy of the sun. Alternate energy is a matter of how soon, not whether.
  - c22 11y ago
    I tend to agree with this view. While population growth definitely comes at a cost it also provides us with our most valuable resource: human intellect. Perhaps this is the perfect time to tap our earth's carbon battery to propel us into the next orbital of energy production and consumption. Or perhaps we are not socially and culturally smart enough to make efficient use of this energy and we will exhaust our surplus and perish, another evolutionary footnote of history. Either way, I doubt we have the power to stop this juggernaut now so might as well assume (and try to achieve) the optimistic option.
- 13thLetter 11y ago
  > Maybe we'll figure out some way to replace our stored carbons inputs in a way that lets us keep the same energy surplus. We already have: unfortunately, massive and pervasive scientific illiteracy, often abetted by the same people complaining about population growth and carbon-based energy, has prevented us from making full use of nuclear power. If you'd like to fix the energy problem as quickly as possible, without waiting for breakthroughs in solar or battery storage or fusion, it's Greenpeace you need to talk to.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    You don't even need nuclear power, we could get all the energy we currently need from geothermal sources. It's not exactly renewable but it's non-polluting and there's enough energy to last us for a long long time to come (I can't remember the exact figures, I'll look it up). That said, it's good to diversify energy sources (so long as they're non-polluting), and I can see some potential benefits for thorium-based reactors. The main reason we haven't moved away from fossil fuels more quickly isn't due to blocking nuclear, it's due to short-term profit-led thinking. EDIT: "The MIT report estimated that over 200 zettajoules (ZJ) would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements – sufficient to provide all the world's present energy needs for several millennia." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy Plenty of time to develop renewables and nuclear fusion, no?
    - aidenn0 11y ago
      "present energy needs for several millennia" means actual energy needs is a much, much shorter timespan assuming we continue our exponential trend of energy use.
      - ZenoArrow 11y ago
        Doesn't matter, as long as it buys time to develop renewables and nuclear fusion.
      - ableal 11y ago
merpnderp 11y ago
If all the world population lived in a area as densely populated as Tokyo, they could all live inside Texas. And given we have great fission engineering, improving solar and wind power generation, and most of the world could easily improve land productivity, we aren't even close to a population cap.
- petra 11y ago
  If we're taking into account growing food using bio-industry in bioreactors,etc - we might even be able to do so at 10x-100x larger densities.
  - nosuchthing 11y ago
    Speaking purely utilitarian that may be true. In practice though it's not that easy. Good luck convincing people on how wasteful and pollutant beef production is, or solving the issue of affordable housing for the masses near city centers. I'd be interested in seeing a city-state attempt to design a modern planned-city architecture incorporating local food production. Maybe even something akin to Paolo Soleri's 'Archology' ; https://www.google.com/search?q=paolo+soleri&biw=1303&bih=785&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&#tbs=ic:gray&tbm=isch&q=paolo+soleri+arcology https://www.google.com/search?q=paolo+soleri&biw=1303&bih=78...
    - petra 11y ago
      >> Good luck convincing people In a world with a real pressing population problem, coupled with good alternatives(meatless meat that's good as the real thing, healthier ,cheaper, marketed well) it seems doable. >> local food production. In the grand scale of things, i'm not sure that's a huge problem. food miles are just 10% of food emissions, and we have some other ways to get rid of that(clean transport, greenhouses spread around cities) that seem more practical. But if you're interested, there's some interesting research on large-scale vertical agriculture[pdf]: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/download/4526/3952 http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/down... But to build it would be expensive - 200 million euro, and as far as i can remember , it wasn't price competitive.
throwawayaway 11y ago
I think opponents of Malthus, really do not pay attention to history or his arguments. He died in 1834. The Irish Potato Famine was in 1845. There were historical political aspects to The Great Famine, but there was also a prior huge population growth. > "That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence, That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and, That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice." His postulate hasn't proven true for the entire global population, it has very often proven true for smaller populations. Fossil fuels are to the world, as the Potato was to mid 19th century Ireland.
- vpribish 11y ago
  You mean: in that there is no tangible limit to the supply of fossil fuels and any local scarcity is due to economics and politics? I'm looking at you Organization of Potato Exporting Countries.
  - throwawayaway 11y ago
    There's a tangible limit to the supply and use of fossil fuels, and local scarcity can be affected by economics and politics.
aidenn0 11y ago
If population continues to grow exponentially, a Malthusian apocalypse is a physical certainty, it's merely a question of when, not if. A 1% growth rate would put us at 1 trillion in about 500 years. Let's say we then invent a new technology that doubles the carrying capacity of Earth; that buys us about 70 years. Now we figure out how to terraform mars to hold about as many people as earth: another 70 years. So assuming a 2 trillion maximum capacity of earth and a steady 1% growth rate, we have 640 years to figure out how to colonize the moons of the outer planets... If population sizes do peak in the next 40 years we are a lot better off, but are still stuck with the question of how to grow the economy at an exponential rate indefinitely, or come up with a different macroeconomic plan.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > If population continues to grow exponentially, a Malthusian apocalypse is a physical certainty World population isn't growing exponentially, so it can't continue to do so; growth rate (% of current population added per year) peaked in the mid 1960s, and has declined since, exponential growth would have a constant growth rate. > A 1% growth rate would put us at 1 trillion in about 500 years. Current growth rate is a little above 1%, but its dropping.
  - coddingtonbear 11y ago
    Any positive population growth is necessarily exponential -- the fact that that rate is getting lower is cause for hope, but that doesn't change the mathematical reality.
    - dllthomas 11y ago
      "Any positive population growth is necessarily exponential" That's just false. If the average number of children per person is falling toward replacement fast enough, population growth is not exponential while still being positive (potentially indefinitely).
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > Any positive population growth is necessarily exponential No, its not. There are all kinds of growth curves that are not exponential. Exponential growth is has a constant multiple over a fixed time frame. (so, a constant doubling interval.) Positive growth and exponential growth have nothing to do with each other; exponential growth can be positive or negative, and positive (or negative) growth can be non-exponential. > but that doesn't change the mathematical reality. The mathematical reality is that the population isn't growing exponentially, and that positive growth doesn't imply exponential growth.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Because we've tapped into all stored carbon and managed to invent a way to turn nitrogen from air into biologically usable form - the latter, Haber–Bosch process developed long after Malthus was dead, has pretty much single-handedly quadrupled the amount of food we're able to produce. Current world population would already be far beyond our capacity to make food if it wasn't for this process. So yeah, Malthus was "wrong" because we've found some ways to temporarily extend the growth curve. But, unless you believe that we'll keep lucking into high-impact solutions, we still have a problem, because his basic reasoning was sound and "limits to growth" are pretty much laws of physics.
dredmorbius 11y ago
I'd very much recommend the writings of Vaclav Smil who's been exploring numerous parameters of this issue for years. His Energy Realities, Energy Myths, and Making the Modern World all answer your question in large part. But briefly: 1. Vast amounts of coal, oil, and gas. We're using in one year the legacy of about 5 million years of accumulation of fossil fuels. We've managed to burn through much of the total initial endowment of these fuels, and there isn't more where they came from. 2. Improvements in very fundamental health and sanitation practices created a vast boom in population. Far more of this came from simple measures such as fresh water supplies, sewerage systems, and municipal waste collection than all modern medicine since 1920, including antibiotics, organ transplants, and vaccines. Understanding of germ theory, antisceptic controls in hospitals, and quarantines succeeded in taming the epidemics and plagues of the 19th century. 3. Chemical fertilisers, most especially the highly energy-intensive Haber-Bosch nitrogen fixation process. Take away the energy and this grinds to a halt -- it fueled the growth of Europe in the early 20th century. 4. Other chemical and mineral wealth. From iron to platinum, minerals on Earth are present only in limited quantities, and the abundance on Earth as a whole is markedly different from prevalence in the crust. There's a long and growing list of critically short minerals, including such elements as copper, silver, phosphorus, tin, lithium, and more. These are crucial in electronics, fertilizers (especially phosphorus), and other industrial processes. 5. One-time gains from the Green Revolution. By providing plants' needs for fertiliser and pest control artificially, we've managed to divert more of their energy into food production. Take away those inputs, and ag productivity falls. We're also reliant on a vast transport, storage, refrigeration, and processing system -- food requires 10x the energy inputs as it delivers in calories in the US, 5x in most of Europe. Short of it: Malthus didn't anticipate the total wealth of energy in fossil fuels, or the possible applications of that one-time windfall in further boosting Earth's population. His basic premise was, however, correct. His constants were wrong. Thats' all. That space travel thing is kinda complicated. And the distances are really far. And last I heard, Amazon's delivery time on other Earths was. Oh crap. They're out of stock. But enjoy your wishful thinking.
- PepeGomez 11y ago
  0. Who publishes a book with an obviously fake name? 1. Only a small part is used for food production and none of it directly. All our food comes from photosynthesis, that is, solar energy. 2. That only made people live longer, it didn't make them have more children. It does the opposite actually. (and BTW, sanitation is ancient, mediavel Europe was an abberation. Bronze age cities alredy had water supply, sewage systems and such.) 3. It's energy intensive, but not that intensive, it could be replaced with solar energy or natural bacteria and losses could be minimized by recycling waste. Nitrogen is a building block of cells, it's not a source of energy for them. The fixation process takes a lot of energy because nitrogen molecules in the air are hard to break. 4. Minerals, unlike fuels, aren't used up. They can be recycled forever, you only need to recover the losses. 5. Fertilizers aren't made from fossil fuels, there is no reaosn why we should stop using them. Transport storage and processing is done that way because it's more convenient or the final product is preferable. ("fresh" vs. dried or salted food)
memracom 11y ago
Malthusian apocalypse is far too simplistic. It is a nice thought experiment to demonstrate that linear growth is not possible, but it has too few dimensions to be useful beyond that. The problem is the same order of complexity as chess, where you have to understand the future implications of an action many steps in the future. But in the real world, economy, politics, and society are rather more complex than a chess game. In addition, in the real world there is no chess master playing the game. The pieces are acting on their own, at times independently and at other times dependently. Different people want to solve different parts of the problem. Do you want to run faster than a bear, or just run faster than your neighbor who is also being chased by the bear? Some people are focusing on how to survive the chaos caused when one major player reaches the state of collapse. Because only the survivors will get to pick up the pieces.

graeme 11y ago

>why THIS time things are different. Because all growth since Malthus' time has been due to the use of stored Carbon energy. Malthus' observations had been largely true until then. Maybe we'll figure out some way to replace our stored carbons inputs in a way that lets us keep the same energy surplus. But, that's the short answer for why things may be different: the past 200 years have been a historical aberration. The fact that an effect takes a while to work itself out doesn't mean that that effect is nonexistent.

astine 11y ago
When we run out of stored carbon energy we will probably switch wholesale to splitting atoms and harnessing the energy of the sun. Alternate energy is a matter of how soon, not whether.
- c22 11y ago
  I tend to agree with this view. While population growth definitely comes at a cost it also provides us with our most valuable resource: human intellect. Perhaps this is the perfect time to tap our earth's carbon battery to propel us into the next orbital of energy production and consumption. Or perhaps we are not socially and culturally smart enough to make efficient use of this energy and we will exhaust our surplus and perish, another evolutionary footnote of history. Either way, I doubt we have the power to stop this juggernaut now so might as well assume (and try to achieve) the optimistic option.
13thLetter 11y ago
> Maybe we'll figure out some way to replace our stored carbons inputs in a way that lets us keep the same energy surplus. We already have: unfortunately, massive and pervasive scientific illiteracy, often abetted by the same people complaining about population growth and carbon-based energy, has prevented us from making full use of nuclear power. If you'd like to fix the energy problem as quickly as possible, without waiting for breakthroughs in solar or battery storage or fusion, it's Greenpeace you need to talk to.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  You don't even need nuclear power, we could get all the energy we currently need from geothermal sources. It's not exactly renewable but it's non-polluting and there's enough energy to last us for a long long time to come (I can't remember the exact figures, I'll look it up). That said, it's good to diversify energy sources (so long as they're non-polluting), and I can see some potential benefits for thorium-based reactors. The main reason we haven't moved away from fossil fuels more quickly isn't due to blocking nuclear, it's due to short-term profit-led thinking. EDIT: "The MIT report estimated that over 200 zettajoules (ZJ) would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements – sufficient to provide all the world's present energy needs for several millennia." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy Plenty of time to develop renewables and nuclear fusion, no?
  - aidenn0 11y ago
    "present energy needs for several millennia" means actual energy needs is a much, much shorter timespan assuming we continue our exponential trend of energy use.
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      Doesn't matter, as long as it buys time to develop renewables and nuclear fusion.
    - ableal 11y ago

merpnderp 11y ago

If all the world population lived in a area as densely populated as Tokyo, they could all live inside Texas. And given we have great fission engineering, improving solar and wind power generation, and most of the world could easily improve land productivity, we aren't even close to a population cap.

petra 11y ago
If we're taking into account growing food using bio-industry in bioreactors,etc - we might even be able to do so at 10x-100x larger densities.
- nosuchthing 11y ago
  Speaking purely utilitarian that may be true. In practice though it's not that easy. Good luck convincing people on how wasteful and pollutant beef production is, or solving the issue of affordable housing for the masses near city centers. I'd be interested in seeing a city-state attempt to design a modern planned-city architecture incorporating local food production. Maybe even something akin to Paolo Soleri's 'Archology' ; https://www.google.com/search?q=paolo+soleri&biw=1303&bih=785&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&#tbs=ic:gray&tbm=isch&q=paolo+soleri+arcology https://www.google.com/search?q=paolo+soleri&biw=1303&bih=78...
  - petra 11y ago
    >> Good luck convincing people In a world with a real pressing population problem, coupled with good alternatives(meatless meat that's good as the real thing, healthier ,cheaper, marketed well) it seems doable. >> local food production. In the grand scale of things, i'm not sure that's a huge problem. food miles are just 10% of food emissions, and we have some other ways to get rid of that(clean transport, greenhouses spread around cities) that seem more practical. But if you're interested, there's some interesting research on large-scale vertical agriculture[pdf]: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/download/4526/3952 http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/down... But to build it would be expensive - 200 million euro, and as far as i can remember , it wasn't price competitive.

throwawayaway 11y ago

I think opponents of Malthus, really do not pay attention to history or his arguments. He died in 1834. The Irish Potato Famine was in 1845. There were historical political aspects to The Great Famine, but there was also a prior huge population growth. > "That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence, That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and, That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice." His postulate hasn't proven true for the entire global population, it has very often proven true for smaller populations. Fossil fuels are to the world, as the Potato was to mid 19th century Ireland.

vpribish 11y ago
You mean: in that there is no tangible limit to the supply of fossil fuels and any local scarcity is due to economics and politics? I'm looking at you Organization of Potato Exporting Countries.
- throwawayaway 11y ago
  There's a tangible limit to the supply and use of fossil fuels, and local scarcity can be affected by economics and politics.

aidenn0 11y ago

If population continues to grow exponentially, a Malthusian apocalypse is a physical certainty, it's merely a question of when, not if. A 1% growth rate would put us at 1 trillion in about 500 years. Let's say we then invent a new technology that doubles the carrying capacity of Earth; that buys us about 70 years. Now we figure out how to terraform mars to hold about as many people as earth: another 70 years. So assuming a 2 trillion maximum capacity of earth and a steady 1% growth rate, we have 640 years to figure out how to colonize the moons of the outer planets... If population sizes do peak in the next 40 years we are a lot better off, but are still stuck with the question of how to grow the economy at an exponential rate indefinitely, or come up with a different macroeconomic plan.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> If population continues to grow exponentially, a Malthusian apocalypse is a physical certainty World population isn't growing exponentially, so it can't continue to do so; growth rate (% of current population added per year) peaked in the mid 1960s, and has declined since, exponential growth would have a constant growth rate. > A 1% growth rate would put us at 1 trillion in about 500 years. Current growth rate is a little above 1%, but its dropping.
- coddingtonbear 11y ago
  Any positive population growth is necessarily exponential -- the fact that that rate is getting lower is cause for hope, but that doesn't change the mathematical reality.
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    "Any positive population growth is necessarily exponential" That's just false. If the average number of children per person is falling toward replacement fast enough, population growth is not exponential while still being positive (potentially indefinitely).
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > Any positive population growth is necessarily exponential No, its not. There are all kinds of growth curves that are not exponential. Exponential growth is has a constant multiple over a fixed time frame. (so, a constant doubling interval.) Positive growth and exponential growth have nothing to do with each other; exponential growth can be positive or negative, and positive (or negative) growth can be non-exponential. > but that doesn't change the mathematical reality. The mathematical reality is that the population isn't growing exponentially, and that positive growth doesn't imply exponential growth.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Because we've tapped into all stored carbon and managed to invent a way to turn nitrogen from air into biologically usable form - the latter, Haber–Bosch process developed long after Malthus was dead, has pretty much single-handedly quadrupled the amount of food we're able to produce. Current world population would already be far beyond our capacity to make food if it wasn't for this process. So yeah, Malthus was "wrong" because we've found some ways to temporarily extend the growth curve. But, unless you believe that we'll keep lucking into high-impact solutions, we still have a problem, because his basic reasoning was sound and "limits to growth" are pretty much laws of physics.

dredmorbius 11y ago

I'd very much recommend the writings of Vaclav Smil who's been exploring numerous parameters of this issue for years. His Energy Realities, Energy Myths, and Making the Modern World all answer your question in large part. But briefly: 1. Vast amounts of coal, oil, and gas. We're using in one year the legacy of about 5 million years of accumulation of fossil fuels. We've managed to burn through much of the total initial endowment of these fuels, and there isn't more where they came from. 2. Improvements in very fundamental health and sanitation practices created a vast boom in population. Far more of this came from simple measures such as fresh water supplies, sewerage systems, and municipal waste collection than all modern medicine since 1920, including antibiotics, organ transplants, and vaccines. Understanding of germ theory, antisceptic controls in hospitals, and quarantines succeeded in taming the epidemics and plagues of the 19th century. 3. Chemical fertilisers, most especially the highly energy-intensive Haber-Bosch nitrogen fixation process. Take away the energy and this grinds to a halt -- it fueled the growth of Europe in the early 20th century. 4. Other chemical and mineral wealth. From iron to platinum, minerals on Earth are present only in limited quantities, and the abundance on Earth as a whole is markedly different from prevalence in the crust. There's a long and growing list of critically short minerals, including such elements as copper, silver, phosphorus, tin, lithium, and more. These are crucial in electronics, fertilizers (especially phosphorus), and other industrial processes. 5. One-time gains from the Green Revolution. By providing plants' needs for fertiliser and pest control artificially, we've managed to divert more of their energy into food production. Take away those inputs, and ag productivity falls. We're also reliant on a vast transport, storage, refrigeration, and processing system -- food requires 10x the energy inputs as it delivers in calories in the US, 5x in most of Europe. Short of it: Malthus didn't anticipate the total wealth of energy in fossil fuels, or the possible applications of that one-time windfall in further boosting Earth's population. His basic premise was, however, correct. His constants were wrong. Thats' all. That space travel thing is kinda complicated. And the distances are really far. And last I heard, Amazon's delivery time on other Earths was. Oh crap. They're out of stock. But enjoy your wishful thinking.

PepeGomez 11y ago
0. Who publishes a book with an obviously fake name? 1. Only a small part is used for food production and none of it directly. All our food comes from photosynthesis, that is, solar energy. 2. That only made people live longer, it didn't make them have more children. It does the opposite actually. (and BTW, sanitation is ancient, mediavel Europe was an abberation. Bronze age cities alredy had water supply, sewage systems and such.) 3. It's energy intensive, but not that intensive, it could be replaced with solar energy or natural bacteria and losses could be minimized by recycling waste. Nitrogen is a building block of cells, it's not a source of energy for them. The fixation process takes a lot of energy because nitrogen molecules in the air are hard to break. 4. Minerals, unlike fuels, aren't used up. They can be recycled forever, you only need to recover the losses. 5. Fertilizers aren't made from fossil fuels, there is no reaosn why we should stop using them. Transport storage and processing is done that way because it's more convenient or the final product is preferable. ("fresh" vs. dried or salted food)

memracom 11y ago

Malthusian apocalypse is far too simplistic. It is a nice thought experiment to demonstrate that linear growth is not possible, but it has too few dimensions to be useful beyond that. The problem is the same order of complexity as chess, where you have to understand the future implications of an action many steps in the future. But in the real world, economy, politics, and society are rather more complex than a chess game. In addition, in the real world there is no chess master playing the game. The pieces are acting on their own, at times independently and at other times dependently. Different people want to solve different parts of the problem. Do you want to run faster than a bear, or just run faster than your neighbor who is also being chased by the bear? Some people are focusing on how to survive the chaos caused when one major player reaches the state of collapse. Because only the survivors will get to pick up the pieces.