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Bolivia has more forest than Western Europe, Southern Europe and Central Europe together. I had a look at Google Maps; Brasilia is frightening. The rainforest g

Bolivia has more forest than Western Europe, Southern Europe and Central Europe together. I had a look at Google Maps; Brasilia is frightening. The rainforest gets divided into smaller parts. The South American rainforest is still larger than the African rainforest, but looks like an organism becoming devoured by bacteria. The problem is that there are too many people on Earth. Our impact on Earth is much too high. We would already need 2 Earths. Overpopulation causes a lot of problems, not just deforestation, mass extinction of animals and climate change, but also lack of food, human mass migrations, elevating crime rates, and so on. However if we could reduce the world population to 3 or 4 billion people, than all mentioned problems should be solved and Earth should be able to re-establish a natural balance. I am ready to help.

evincarofautumn 10y ago
How do we realistically reduce population? People in more developed countries, particularly with access to contraception, tend to have fewer children by choice, but I don’t know if that can work fast enough. China’s One Child Policy was effective but controversial at best. A bit counterintuitively, even though many people are starving around the world, globally we produce a surplus of food every year—that’s what all the new people are made of. If we capped food production, it would necessarily cap population. But it’s hard to be enthusiastic about the ethics of letting people starve now so there are fewer people to starve in the next generation…
boomka 10y ago
"Too many humans" is a lazy, negligent argument by those who don't want to make any changes in how we conduct business. Deforestation in Brazil is happening not because humanity really needs that lumber. It doesn't. Deforestation is happening because people in Brazil see those trees in their country's backyard as essentially free money lying around, and they do not give a second thought to chopping them down. Nothing to do with overpopulation of Earth.
- senorjazz 10y ago
  >> Deforestation is happening because people in Brazil see those trees in their country's backyard as essentially free money lying around, and they do not give a second thought to chopping them down. The same as all peoples in all countries have done. It is very easy to sit in our developed countries, which developed off the back of these types of practises and condemn others for doing the same to provide for their families and create a better life for them and future generations
- graeme 10y ago
  > Nothing to do with overpopulation of Earth. I wouldn't say so. The forest is being cut down because there's profit in farming it. Why is there profit? Because people are paying for higher priced food, and more people exist. Resource demand per capita * number of people = Total resource demand Overpopulation isn't the entire cause, but it's certainly a factor. (Yes, yes, some people consume much more than others. But there's also a baseline minimum in food required, and also as we've eliminated the worst poverty over the past 20 years, that raises the baseline) So since 2000, we've added 1.5 billion people and dramatically increased the size of the middle class and also cut the worst poverty. Which means more resource consumption at all levels, multiplied by a greater number. I should note that more efficient global transport and supply chains is also a cause. It's now a lot easier to take resources from the amazon and sell them to north america, europe, asia, etc. When trade and transport were less efficient, there was less incentive to use all resources to their pure maximum.
MomentarySanity 10y ago
So are you going to shoot yourself or what?
- sctb 10y ago
  We've banned this account for violating the HN guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

evincarofautumn 10y ago

How do we realistically reduce population? People in more developed countries, particularly with access to contraception, tend to have fewer children by choice, but I don’t know if that can work fast enough. China’s One Child Policy was effective but controversial at best. A bit counterintuitively, even though many people are starving around the world, globally we produce a surplus of food every year—that’s what all the new people are made of. If we capped food production, it would necessarily cap population. But it’s hard to be enthusiastic about the ethics of letting people starve now so there are fewer people to starve in the next generation…

boomka 10y ago

"Too many humans" is a lazy, negligent argument by those who don't want to make any changes in how we conduct business. Deforestation in Brazil is happening not because humanity really needs that lumber. It doesn't. Deforestation is happening because people in Brazil see those trees in their country's backyard as essentially free money lying around, and they do not give a second thought to chopping them down. Nothing to do with overpopulation of Earth.

senorjazz 10y ago
>> Deforestation is happening because people in Brazil see those trees in their country's backyard as essentially free money lying around, and they do not give a second thought to chopping them down. The same as all peoples in all countries have done. It is very easy to sit in our developed countries, which developed off the back of these types of practises and condemn others for doing the same to provide for their families and create a better life for them and future generations
graeme 10y ago
> Nothing to do with overpopulation of Earth. I wouldn't say so. The forest is being cut down because there's profit in farming it. Why is there profit? Because people are paying for higher priced food, and more people exist. Resource demand per capita * number of people = Total resource demand Overpopulation isn't the entire cause, but it's certainly a factor. (Yes, yes, some people consume much more than others. But there's also a baseline minimum in food required, and also as we've eliminated the worst poverty over the past 20 years, that raises the baseline) So since 2000, we've added 1.5 billion people and dramatically increased the size of the middle class and also cut the worst poverty. Which means more resource consumption at all levels, multiplied by a greater number. I should note that more efficient global transport and supply chains is also a cause. It's now a lot easier to take resources from the amazon and sell them to north america, europe, asia, etc. When trade and transport were less efficient, there was less incentive to use all resources to their pure maximum.

MomentarySanity 10y ago

So are you going to shoot yourself or what?

sctb 10y ago
We've banned this account for violating the HN guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html