4 ms·
You can look for causes all you want. They all lead to human population growth. Talking about it could possibly lead to finding something to do about it, which
by spodek 9y ago
You can look for causes all you want. They all lead to human population growth.
Talking about it could possibly lead to finding something to do about it, which would mean deliberately lowering the birth rate. How? I don't know, but the alternatives are 1) hoping we get lucky and don't overshoot Earth's carrying capacity or 2) letting nature lower our population for us.
Regarding option 1, everyone knows population growth rates in many places (not everywhere) are declining, but the rates have nothing to do with Earth's carrying capacity, so it would only be luck if we stabilized below the carrying capacity. If we've already overshot it, lowering rates won't prevent option 2.
Option 2 means people dying prematurely from disease, famine, war, pestilence, etc.
Are there meaningful third options? Going to space or Mars doesn't lower the population here, and it presupposes that people could manage population growth on the spacecraft and early colonies. If we can there, we can elsewhere.
So however challenging figuring out how to lower the birth rate is, it seems the best option of the three. It seems like talking to you kids about birth control. It's easier not to talk about it, but the parents who don't do it end up with grandchildren sooner than they expect, and less cohesive families since they were chosen by circumstance, not deliberate choice.
- mikeash 9y agoA third option is to increase Earth’s carrying capacity. I don’t know how, but the capacity depends on technology and resource use, so it should be possible.
- graeme 9y agoWe have been doing that. But one problem is that it's easy to fool ourselves: you can temporarily raise carrying capcity by eating capital. So, we catch many more fish now, for example. But we are catching at faster than replacement rate, depleting the natural capital stock. Carbon energy + space in the atmosphere for CO2 is another variety of capital stock which we have used for temporary carrying capacity gains. There are also long run carrying capacity improvements in the mix. General efficiency improvements fall in this category.
- majos 9y agoI'm in the camp that says the earth's carrying capacity is much higher than anything we're likely to reach. I also believe that fertility rates are strongly tied to development, so that this problem will sort itself out if global development continues (especially in sub-Saharan Africa -- see maps [1] and [2]). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...