15 ms·

The Population Bomb Has Been Defused

136 points by sethbannon 9y ago

ouid 9y ago
6 billion people burning coal to keep their refrigerators running is not what I would call defused.
- LifeLiverTransp 9y ago
  Not mentioned besides the ecological footprint- there is with high density, a high chance for infectious disease to wipe out great parts of this humanity. Another aspect is, that liberal society is only kept as "guest" for bribes- as long as capitalism delivers continously improvements and sedates the population with trinkets- it is accepted- the moment that wanes, anti-liberal sentiments come back with full force from all sides. Thus interesting at the moment is not what great archievments the west accomplishes, but wether science, free debate and education can exist on in decaying societs like North Korea (extreme end) or Turkey/ Russia (at the start). Can a scientist work in a country in the middle east or mexico. If that is the "default" state of humanity, that is where our interest should be. There will be no city on mars, but there might be a secret society, doing fusion research in a slum filled with racists and relgious fanatic luddites - condemning us as the decadent golden past.
- csallen 9y ago
  And what are the consequences of that? I would guess significantly milder than the predictions of mass starvation that we managed to avert.
  - Leader2light 9y ago
    Nobody knows, the destruction of the entire planet most likely. The earth is dying, you can see it everywhere you look if you open your eyes.
    - guskel 9y ago
      Agreed. If the bomb has been defused then it's only because it has already gone off.
    - stale2002 9y ago
      The scientists do indeed know. The scientific consensus is that sea levels will rise by a meter or 2 over the next 200 years, and cause damages measured in the couple trillions of dollars. This is all laid out in the IPCC report. Thats a lower cost than an Iraq war. That is the scientific consensus of the IPCC, which is the official authority on climate change. And the scientific consensus is that the world is definitely not going to end, nor is it even going to come close. Listen to the science and the scientific consensus!
      - telchar 9y ago
        You're taking the mean consensus prediction as gospel. There is a smaller but still very much possible chance of much more catastrophic consequences than that. It would be irresponsible for the IPCC to present only the most dire predictions, but I think it's also unwise for us to ignore them.
    - irrational 9y ago
      The earth isn't dying. It may become uninhabitable for humans, but that is quite different than the earth being dead.
      - honorarydarwina 9y ago
        Read between the lines. Nobody is that dumb to literally say that the earth is dying.
    - igravious 9y ago
      > Nobody knows, the destruction of the entire planet most likely. Entire planet? False. > The earth is dying, you can see it everywhere you look if you open your eyes. All I see when I "open my eyes" is people with your disposition making alarmist predictions based on either faulty reasoning, and/or ignorance, and/or out of fear. How is how you and other extreme pessimists like you behave not equivalent to yelling 'fire!' in a crowded theatre? If the Earth is our crowded theatre then you're being socially irresponsible with your doom and gloom scenarios, and the Earth is humanity's crowded theatre. My religious father used to predict the end of times, the end of the world as we know it, every few years. When the date came and went rather than revise his beliefs he'd move the date forward a couple of years. That is bonkers. Belief and identity are humanity's worst enemy: not birth-rates, not nukes, not CO2 emissions, not A(G)I, not any of these things but our own crappy cognitive mechanisms.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    The consequences could include things like forced mass migrations, wars over water rights, and an increase in territorial disputes among nations as land becomes more scarce than it already is. In addition, the byproducts of coal burning cause cancers and death, regardless of whether the previous stuff I mentioned actually happens (hint: it's already starting to happen).
- woolvalley 9y ago
  Don't worry, it will be solar panels soon enough. Simply because it will be cheaper.
- zanny 9y ago
  If solar can manage to maintain even 10% of its performance growth per annum it has had in the last decade coal will be obsolete completely everywhere except in the most geographically extreme environments by 2030. People are very much underestimating the momentum of something cheap and with minimal side effects can have on an economic status quo. Or more particularly, is already having - solar as a percentage of global energy production doubled from 1 to 2% in the last three years, and if we keep adding almost 100GW of solar per year (and cheaper / more efficient panels just accelerate that adoption, and nothing can really slow it down unless the prices regress) the planet will be 10% solar by 2025. And thats the pessimistic status quo figure.
  - freebear 9y ago
    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-g...
    - stale2002 9y ago
      This article is incorrectly using the current rate of growth of solar, in CONSTANT terms, and not in percentage terms. Solar panel is growing in percentage rates, as it has been doing so for the last 3 decades. IE, it increases by X% every year. When something doubles every Y years, it quickly overwhelms everything. Today we are adding 100 gigawatts of solar per year. And in 2-3 years that rate of change is now 200 gigawatts ADDED every year, and then its 400 gigawatts per year.
      - crowbahr 9y ago
        The original author shouldn't have done linear calculations but exponential. That said: the longer that it takes to get that exponential; the more there is in the atmosphere. I wonder how those curves compare to linear and where break even is...
      - freebear 9y ago
        Look at the chart, the numbers are correct, everything grows (in large amounts). We are about to double the amount of fossil fueled cars in the next 10-15 years. It will not matter how much solar we install if we keep increasing our fossil burning (as we will). In fact, we use other sources of energy than oil to extract and refine the oil. We are terribly addicted to oil. One could say we sold our mother (Earth) for a shot of hubris. It took us to the Moon and the stars. It gives and it takes lives, one could think we are dealing with the Devil. For each day we do not decrease our fossil fuel use nothing will make a difference, the fact is that the Earth is becoming a worse place for each of those days. Our culture is not only addicted to oil, there is a bigger picture. Our culture is dependent on growth, hence the addiction to energy, all kinds of energy. We will go on this way, no matter what, for as long as we can.
gruturo 9y ago
Now we just need to avoid destroying the planet through unsustainably polluting/wasteful practices, and then we need to figure out how to avoid an Idiocracy scenario of... let’s call it selective growth
nostrademons 9y ago
...if we can get through the next 20-30 years. Peak danger for societies isn't when there's a bulge in birth rates, or when the population starts to fall. It's when there's a bulge in the rates of young, unmarried men who don't have the wherewithal to marry and pass on their genes. That's when you tend to get an increase in crime, violence, warlike behavior, and other things that tend to rip a society apart.
- joshklein 9y ago
  Particularly when those young men feel disempowered, usually through unemployment or under-employment. Consequently, their well-being and the well-being of society in general are no longer neatly aligned, and their rational self-interest does not allow them to support the status quo. It’s worth noting that “driver” is the most common job for white American males, and the United States can’t be too many years from full automation of vehicles. If the benefits accruing to the broader society from this automation are not redistributed in such a way to alleviate the strain placed on the workers displaced from their roles, I fear it will be the moment this pot boils over.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    That "most common job" was debunked. It's an artifact of where you draw arbitrary taxonomy lines.
    - joshklein 9y ago
      I’d assume even those with a generous definition are too conservative by far. We rapidly approach a future where no human will operate any heavy machine that accomplishes a discrete task. That task might be to transport goods or people across the country, to lift a steel beam into place, or to assemble ingredients into finished products. Once the cost curve flips over to the other side, the whole thing accelerates. Even worse if the harmed group is a smaller concentrated minority; they have no legitimate recourse through democratic expression.
- sidyom 9y ago
danbruc 9y ago
Some of the most spectacularly wrong predictions in history have been made by those who claim that overpopulation is going to swamp the planet. Thomas Malthus, a British economist writing in the late 1700s, is the most famous of these. Extrapolating past trends into the future, he predicted that population growth would inevitably swamp available food resources, leading to mass starvation. That didn’t happen - we continued to develop new technologies that let us stay ahead of the reaper. Why are people so eager to point out that Malthus was wrong all the time? As far as I can tell he was not. He said if population growth continued as in the past, then we would starve, not that we necessarily will. I also think it is wrong to say we engineered us out of starvation, at best it bought us some time to get the fertility rate down. As the article admits, exponential population growth can never be finally solved by technology.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  I think the problem is, no one predicted that educated women, the accessibility of family planning aids, and economies developing [1] would be so effective at reducing fertility rates (with that said, it would've been convenient if this occurred earlier in the 20th century; we're going to hit 11 billion people before the population decline is in full swing, and that's going to challenge the carrying capacity of the planet). Were these unintended consequences? In most countries, yes. Humanity keeps turning up lucky in this regard (the above mentioned outcome, solar and wind becoming cheap enough we might be able to go carbon neutral for energy consumption, etc). [1] PDF: http://www.earth-policy.org/images/uploads/book_files/ecoch10.pdf http://www.earth-policy.org/images/uploads/book_files/ecoch1...
  - danbruc 9y ago
    I admittedly did not read »An Essay on the Principle of Population« in its entirety, but that may actually be the point where he was the most wrong. He could not imagine the fertility rate to fall as much as it eventually did and therefore did not really expect that disaster could be avoided. But I still think it is rather misleading to turn this lack of imagination on his side for the evolution of this - of course extremely important - one factor into calling his work wrong and disproven.
birksherty 9y ago
Terrible title. "Population bomb" is not defused, only "birth rate" is decreasing. There are already too many people on Earth. It's big problem in developing countries.
- Viliam1234 9y ago
  > "Population bomb" is not defused, only "birth rate" is decreasing. This is all that needed to be said about the article. The author doesn't (want to) understand the difference between a number "getting smaller" and the number "increasing less quickly". When someone gains 10 kg in January and then gains 9 kg in February, we don't say that they are losing weight.
nyolfen 9y ago
not in subsaharan africa. nigeria alone is set to hit ~1 billion by the end of the century, even if current birthrates slow dramatically. if china is the centerpiece of the 21st century, africa is the stage for the 22nd: https://i.imgur.com/9obArWa.png https://i.imgur.com/9obArWa.png
- philipwhiuk 9y ago
  140K in 2006, 185K in 2016. 1B in 2100? That seems a big jump. Africa does need an economic super power however to avoid hundreds of millions of economic migrants moving to China, the EU and the US.
  - CUViper 9y ago
    Directly extrapolating that 32% in 10 years would predict over 2B in 2106.
  - 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
    > 140K in 2006, 185K in 2016. If those are supposed to be the population of Nigeria, you've missed a factor of 1000 somewhere.
  - nyolfen 9y ago
    i believe those numbers are meant to have an ‘m’ instead of a ‘k’? lagos alone has over 20m. the US had a population of ~76m in 1900, and severely restricted immigration for much of the 20th c
akshayB 9y ago
One of the reasons that is not tracked here is the fact that in developing countries as more and more people get educated. They tend to have 1 or 2 children and they try to ensure their kids have good education and upbringing. These parents realize that if they have more children they might not have enough resources and money to push them through higher education.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  There's significantly less randomness now. Less disease, more economic mobility, higher standard of living, and more safety nets then 150 years ago. The only way to succeed when the odds are disadvantageous and out of your control is to make many attempts.
f- 9y ago
Not long ago, a significant proportion of the scientific establishment - along with a number of celebrities and policymakers - believed that the "population bomb" is an inevitable, imminent, and apocalyptic threat. There was talk of "point of no return", calls for worldwide China-style fertility restrictions, and so forth. Instead, what happened over the past several decades is not just a drop in birth rates, but also dramatic improvements in our ability to grow cheap food at a scale (something that the article doesn't really talk about). So it is a very interesting take to claim that the population bomb has been "defused" - since this implies it wasn't an episode of pathological science flirting with mysticism (with frequent allusions to the pristine "natural" order contrasted with the evils of Man), but just some sound science that turned out to be a bit off. (Please don't read into this as a critique of any contemporary scientific debates; that's not my point, but I think we should be more willing to recognize our past mistakes.)
- usrusr 9y ago
  > but also dramatic improvements in our ability to grow cheap food at a scale Are those improvements sustainable? Agriculture that is generating high yields from converting very fertile natural ecosystems into deserts and then moving on is almost like eating through fossil resources, only that the timescale for replenishment is a few orders of magnitude closer to being relevant for humanity (but still far or of reach). Failure ecosystems that have been farmed out of existence in antiquity are still as barren as thousand years ago. If you ignore the yields of unsustainable farming, our ability to feed billions looks a lot less rosy.
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    "Are those improvements sustainable?" Available evidence suggests yes. http://plantsci.missouri.edu/grains/corn/graphs/USA-corn-yield.jpg http://plantsci.missouri.edu/grains/corn/graphs/USA-corn-yie... "Agriculture that is generating high yields from converting very fertile natural ecosystems into deserts" Iowa didn't look much like a desert the last time I was there. "Failure ecosystems that have been farmed out of existence in antiquity are still as barren as thousand years ago" Yeah, that's why you don't want to rely on "organic" farming. Good thing we don't do that any more.
EdgarVerona 9y ago
It is interesting to contrast the decline in fertility rates in China and India. Would China have had a similar dropoff if not for the One Child policy? Will we see the number increase again given enough time after the 2013 easing of that policy? I'd be curious to see these numbers again ten years from now.
- toyg 9y ago
  It’s unlikely that numbers will change dramatically in China. They have dramatically eroded their agrarian culture, which is the main demographic engine pretty much anywhere. It is unlikely that well-paid industrial workers and urban professionals will start cranking out children above and beyond replacement rates.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  I'm sure I remember reading that fertility rates had already declined significantly before the one child policy was introduced.
  - telotortium 9y ago
    Indeed -- you just need to take a look at the graph in the original article for further confirmation (the one-child policy was instituted in 1978, and fertility rate was in definite decline by that point).
lanewinfield 9y ago
Here's the non-AMP link, for anyone not viewing on mobile: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-in-world-fertility-rates-lowers-risks-of-mass-starvation https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-i...
- dang 9y ago
  Changed to that above.
wesleytodd 9y ago
Better link (non amp version): https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-in-world-fertility-rates-lowers-risks-of-mass-starvation https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-i...
- dang 9y ago
  Changed to that.
themgt 9y ago
Shocker, Noah Smith pens yet another of his "whig history" takes. The reality is just a few short years ago the UN updated its population estimates for the end of the century from less than 9 billion to a more likely 11 billion, and as many as 13 billion people. [1] Nearly the entirety of that increase is because fertility rates in Africa have not fallen anywhere near what was expected, so the population there is set to quadruple from 1->4 billion people over 100 years. The 4 billion figure assumes fertility will begin to rapidly fall in line with the rest of the developing world - nearly all of the growth is already "baked in the cake" due to the extremely young population, and if TFR doesn't drop the population could well soar significantly higher. The population of Nigeria alone is expected to be more than the entire population of Europe by 2085. Whether the fertility rate can actually be brought down is very much an unsolved question, with a history of optimistic mistakes Noah Smith is smart enough to be aware of. Combine with climate change, resource depletion, the utterly dysfunctional nation-states where this is occurring and the the meteoric rise of neo-fascists after Europe accepted something like 1/100th of the potential economic migrants/refugees as want to come, and this vapid "forward march of history" perspective looks at best cherry-picked and facile, if not disingenuous in the extreme. [1] https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/articles/sa1214Gsci31_web.png https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/art... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-population-will-soar-higher-than-predicted/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-population-...
- rukittenme 9y ago
  > The population of Nigeria alone is expected to be more than the entire population of Europe by 2085. Do you think that's realistic? The population of Niger is expected to be 200 million in 2100 (20 million today)[1]. Have you seen Niger? Its a desert with little natural resources. 1. https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/ edit: I'm aware Niger and Nigeria are different countries. I'm changing the subject to Niger intentionally. 10x population growth in the Sahara desert.
  - antisthenes 9y ago
    Maybe that's because it's 2 different countries and the parent comment said nothing about Niger?
thinkloop 9y ago
I never understood this logic, population growth is 100% dependent on the amount of resources the system is able to produce, not the other way around. Resources are the precursor to growth. It is not possible to grow unabated then one day realize we're 50% short on resources. Population necessarily has to stabilize at around 100% resource utilization.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  And when resources are depleted? That's the bomb.
  - rukittenme 9y ago
    Resources don't plummet to zero. Prices rise gradually and people change their behaviors gradually. That's not a bomb.
    - rohit2412 9y ago
      1) Prices don't rise gradually on supply demand mismatch. They can rise as much as somebody can pay 2) People will not really change behavior. Say a country of 1 billion people can only grow food for 600 million people due to a draught. Maybe the food can be stretched to 700 million, but don't expect it to be enough for 1 billion people. In this case, hundreds of millions will die of starvation and the remaining 700-800 million will pay hand over foot for food. That is the "bomb".
  - thinkloop 9y ago
    What would get depleted?
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      Core strategic resources. A set of 14: http://i.imgur.com/L5qWNN9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/L5qWNN9.jpg Rainforests, coral reefs, ag land, coal, oil, gas, aluminium, phosphorus, tantalum, titanium, copper, silver, indium, antimony. Sources: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-global-resources-stock-check http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-global-resources-st... http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc.com/future/BBCF_infoData_stock_check.pdf http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc.com/future/BBCF_infoData_stock_chec... A list of six: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/oct/31/six-natural-resources-population https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/oct/31/six... Longer general discussion: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G01035.pdf http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G01035.pdf
amriksohata 9y ago
India had a population of approx 79million in 1000 CE https://i.stack.imgur.com/2928N.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/2928N.png After successive invasions, by the Mughals, Dutch, Portuguese and British it shot up to over 300 million, a much bigger rise say compared to other countries. Largely due to the poverty it was left in, people ended up having more kids to make sure they survived. Anyhow I agree it has been refused as the poverty levels are now being tackled and mass education programmes in place.
- rgbrenner 9y ago
  "After successive invasions..." You draw this clear line between invasions and population growth for India... but India doesn't look a whole lot different than others (considering it started off with a higher base than other countries also): http://visualeconsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/popgrowthsince_1500.jpg http://visualeconsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/po... It was the 2nd largest by population even in 1000 CE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio... India, like every other country, was affected by vaccines and other developments that reduced the death rate and caused population to explode.
  - amriksohata 9y ago
    My point is the rate of growth rather than the baseline, were these vaccines you mention available in 1700? To the general poorer population? Highly unlikely.
    - rgbrenner 9y ago
      India was the worlds 2nd largest population in 1000 (60m), 2nd largest in 1500 (90m), the 2nd largest in 1700 (160m), the 2nd largest in 1900 (330m), and the 2nd largest today. It had 19% of the population in 1000; 20% in 1500; and 17.5% today. And you say that last part is someone elses fault. What surprise that the worlds 2nd largest population for over 1000 years would be the 2nd largest today... with nearly exactly the same percent of the world population it had over 1000 years ago. Clearly some outside force has caused India to grow from 2nd largest in the world a 1000 years ago all the way up to 2nd largest today. What else could explain it? /s Do you realize that the US from 1900 to today has had a higher growth rate than India? 428% vs 401%
21 9y ago
A few other taboo "bombs": water wars and climate change. Same basic mistake, assuming nothing will change. For example, for water wars: desalination using solar power (see Israel) For climate change: carbon sequestring strategies or market pressures - CO2 credits, reputational risk (being "green"), ...
Gys 9y ago
The article is very happy to point out that the trend changed 50 years ago. Then shown a graph with a 100 years forecast, based on that changed trend. Sure, from now on the fertilization will play nicely along.
- macintux 9y ago
  Did you read the supporting arguments for why the rates have historically not gone back up?
rsuelzer 9y ago
Has anyone else here made an active decision to not reproduce? Even with low birth rates in my country and small families being the norm, I still find myself being pressured to have children, as if my genetic code was critical to the survival of the species.
- rukittenme 9y ago
  The species will be fine. Its your phylo-genetic tree you have to worry about.
- scythe 9y ago
  Your decision not to reproduce on Malthusian grounds amounts to nothing more than a selection effect against people who care against overpopulation. If you're happier without kids, by all means, enjoy it, but don't imagine you're saving anyone.
- Markoff 9y ago
  good luck finding wife with same attitude
  - rsuelzer 9y ago
    Already done.
retox 9y ago
The population is so high we need to stop having kids, and the population is so low we need to import low skilled workers, and the job of the future will be fully automated. Modern policy is a cognitive dissonance minefield.
nootropicat 9y ago
>the ultimate, final victory Famous last words. What happens evolutionary is that genes that make it more likely to have children in the industrialized society setting - whatever they are - are getting an enormous boost.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > What happens evolutionary is that genes that make it more likely to have children in the industrialized society setting - whatever they are - are getting an enormous boost. No, whatever makes it more likely to have children that survive to reproduce, not just tomhave children, would be getting the boost, but the environment is probably shifting faster than can give a consistent boost to anything.
- danieltillett 9y ago
  We know exactly what those genes are - or more accurately their phenotype.
  - dennisgorelik 9y ago
    What is the phenotype of the genes that increase chances of having children in industrialized society?
RobLach 9y ago
I feel like all these estimates of "overpopulation" are massively overblown. These issues are almost entirely political/social. The capacity for Earth to hold humans is massive. Currently only a tiny sliver of the surface has people on it and if that becomes a problem we can build vertically (up and down). We're barely capturing relatively free energy such as sunlight, wind, geothermal, and tidal. Think of how much of the Sahara isn't a solar energy production plant. If the labor of 1 human can feed at least 2 people you can have a society. With technology 1 human can work to feed thousands if not millions with increased automation. Food production can be fully automated with the ambition to. The only real bound of food production if you consider vertical hydroponic farming alongside nuclear and freeish energy, is the amount of nutrients plants and insects require to produce adequate amounts of human nutrition. Virtually all plant nutrients have evolved to be highly recyclable through natural processes, most of which can by accelerated with technology.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-many-people-can-the-earth-support/oclc/898942239 https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-many-people-can-the-earth...
  - thebigspacefuck 9y ago
    Tldr?
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      He's a, or the, highly definitive source. L. R.
natecavanaugh 9y ago
> eventually, population growth will overwhelm the Earth’s ability to provide calories. Really? When? And how? Because I don't see how a planet that can support at least a factor of 10 times our population size currently is going to realistically start running out of calories, short of moronic political decisions, some of which are perpetuated by statements like that. Where are these calories going? They're evaporating into the ether, never to be reclaimed? Or is it possible that we're losing out on massive amounts of human capital because, like NIMBY activists that argue against new housing development, we're trying to maintain a status quo out of fear?
MR4D 9y ago
So, in the next 30 years, we’re adding about 2 billion more people (net) to the planet. The odds that it goes smoothly is small. First, 30 years is a long time to not have a big population event. Second, 2 billion people will strain resources considerably (its a 25% increase over today). The impacts on disease, pollution, war, etc., are significant even if food supply can handle it. And what about climate change, or increasing algae blooms (due to pesticide use)? There are so many things that’s ave to work to not have a population event, that it’s a pretty scary proposition. Sure, the birth rate has declined dramatically, but Malthus may yet be proven correct.
dailycrud 9y ago
The late (and quirky) Julian Simon wrote on this topic, and on the related notion of ostensibly limited resources. Worth checking out if you are not already familiar with his viewpoint: The Ultimate Resource, 1981, Princeton University Press, ISBN 069109389X. The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691042691. http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/ http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
X6S1x6Okd1st 9y ago
For anyone that wants a deeper look Charles C Mann's recent publication The Wizard and the Prophet covers the figures behind over population concerns & modern environmentalism as well as the figures behind the green revolution which played a large role in pushing famine and food insecurity down to the level that exists at today, even with a growing population.
pascalxus 9y ago
As worldwide population increases, resources become increasingly stretched and per capita income goes down (relative to the cost of living). This, in first world countries will probably result in a decline in the birthrate. You only need to look towards CA to see where this is already happening. CA with it's excessive regulations has decreased the prosperity of it's people to the point of where it now has x3 times the number of poor people per capita than the national average (that's living cost adjusted ~ mostly due to housing cost and excessive energy costs and countless other regulations that increase living costs). I suspect this has played a roll in the decline of the birth rate in CA, now at the lowest its ever been since the great depression (it's been going down for the last 3 decades). As life becomes increasingly harsh, people have less babies - it's kinda hard to have a kid when your sharing a room in your parent's house, or live 6 to an apartment.
- horsecaptin 9y ago
  Another reason why California has 3x the homeless people is because it is friendly to homeless people - weather and services inside big cities.

136 points by sethbannon 9y ago

ouid 9y ago

6 billion people burning coal to keep their refrigerators running is not what I would call defused.

LifeLiverTransp 9y ago
Not mentioned besides the ecological footprint- there is with high density, a high chance for infectious disease to wipe out great parts of this humanity. Another aspect is, that liberal society is only kept as "guest" for bribes- as long as capitalism delivers continously improvements and sedates the population with trinkets- it is accepted- the moment that wanes, anti-liberal sentiments come back with full force from all sides. Thus interesting at the moment is not what great archievments the west accomplishes, but wether science, free debate and education can exist on in decaying societs like North Korea (extreme end) or Turkey/ Russia (at the start). Can a scientist work in a country in the middle east or mexico. If that is the "default" state of humanity, that is where our interest should be. There will be no city on mars, but there might be a secret society, doing fusion research in a slum filled with racists and relgious fanatic luddites - condemning us as the decadent golden past.
csallen 9y ago
And what are the consequences of that? I would guess significantly milder than the predictions of mass starvation that we managed to avert.
- Leader2light 9y ago
  Nobody knows, the destruction of the entire planet most likely. The earth is dying, you can see it everywhere you look if you open your eyes.
  - guskel 9y ago
    Agreed. If the bomb has been defused then it's only because it has already gone off.
  - stale2002 9y ago
    The scientists do indeed know. The scientific consensus is that sea levels will rise by a meter or 2 over the next 200 years, and cause damages measured in the couple trillions of dollars. This is all laid out in the IPCC report. Thats a lower cost than an Iraq war. That is the scientific consensus of the IPCC, which is the official authority on climate change. And the scientific consensus is that the world is definitely not going to end, nor is it even going to come close. Listen to the science and the scientific consensus!
    - telchar 9y ago
      You're taking the mean consensus prediction as gospel. There is a smaller but still very much possible chance of much more catastrophic consequences than that. It would be irresponsible for the IPCC to present only the most dire predictions, but I think it's also unwise for us to ignore them.
  - irrational 9y ago
    The earth isn't dying. It may become uninhabitable for humans, but that is quite different than the earth being dead.
    - honorarydarwina 9y ago
      Read between the lines. Nobody is that dumb to literally say that the earth is dying.
  - igravious 9y ago
    > Nobody knows, the destruction of the entire planet most likely. Entire planet? False. > The earth is dying, you can see it everywhere you look if you open your eyes. All I see when I "open my eyes" is people with your disposition making alarmist predictions based on either faulty reasoning, and/or ignorance, and/or out of fear. How is how you and other extreme pessimists like you behave not equivalent to yelling 'fire!' in a crowded theatre? If the Earth is our crowded theatre then you're being socially irresponsible with your doom and gloom scenarios, and the Earth is humanity's crowded theatre. My religious father used to predict the end of times, the end of the world as we know it, every few years. When the date came and went rather than revise his beliefs he'd move the date forward a couple of years. That is bonkers. Belief and identity are humanity's worst enemy: not birth-rates, not nukes, not CO2 emissions, not A(G)I, not any of these things but our own crappy cognitive mechanisms.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  The consequences could include things like forced mass migrations, wars over water rights, and an increase in territorial disputes among nations as land becomes more scarce than it already is. In addition, the byproducts of coal burning cause cancers and death, regardless of whether the previous stuff I mentioned actually happens (hint: it's already starting to happen).
woolvalley 9y ago
Don't worry, it will be solar panels soon enough. Simply because it will be cheaper.
zanny 9y ago
If solar can manage to maintain even 10% of its performance growth per annum it has had in the last decade coal will be obsolete completely everywhere except in the most geographically extreme environments by 2030. People are very much underestimating the momentum of something cheap and with minimal side effects can have on an economic status quo. Or more particularly, is already having - solar as a percentage of global energy production doubled from 1 to 2% in the last three years, and if we keep adding almost 100GW of solar per year (and cheaper / more efficient panels just accelerate that adoption, and nothing can really slow it down unless the prices regress) the planet will be 10% solar by 2025. And thats the pessimistic status quo figure.
- freebear 9y ago
  https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-g...
  - stale2002 9y ago
    This article is incorrectly using the current rate of growth of solar, in CONSTANT terms, and not in percentage terms. Solar panel is growing in percentage rates, as it has been doing so for the last 3 decades. IE, it increases by X% every year. When something doubles every Y years, it quickly overwhelms everything. Today we are adding 100 gigawatts of solar per year. And in 2-3 years that rate of change is now 200 gigawatts ADDED every year, and then its 400 gigawatts per year.
    - crowbahr 9y ago
      The original author shouldn't have done linear calculations but exponential. That said: the longer that it takes to get that exponential; the more there is in the atmosphere. I wonder how those curves compare to linear and where break even is...
    - freebear 9y ago
      Look at the chart, the numbers are correct, everything grows (in large amounts). We are about to double the amount of fossil fueled cars in the next 10-15 years. It will not matter how much solar we install if we keep increasing our fossil burning (as we will). In fact, we use other sources of energy than oil to extract and refine the oil. We are terribly addicted to oil. One could say we sold our mother (Earth) for a shot of hubris. It took us to the Moon and the stars. It gives and it takes lives, one could think we are dealing with the Devil. For each day we do not decrease our fossil fuel use nothing will make a difference, the fact is that the Earth is becoming a worse place for each of those days. Our culture is not only addicted to oil, there is a bigger picture. Our culture is dependent on growth, hence the addiction to energy, all kinds of energy. We will go on this way, no matter what, for as long as we can.

gruturo 9y ago

Now we just need to avoid destroying the planet through unsustainably polluting/wasteful practices, and then we need to figure out how to avoid an Idiocracy scenario of... let’s call it selective growth

nostrademons 9y ago

...if we can get through the next 20-30 years. Peak danger for societies isn't when there's a bulge in birth rates, or when the population starts to fall. It's when there's a bulge in the rates of young, unmarried men who don't have the wherewithal to marry and pass on their genes. That's when you tend to get an increase in crime, violence, warlike behavior, and other things that tend to rip a society apart.

joshklein 9y ago
Particularly when those young men feel disempowered, usually through unemployment or under-employment. Consequently, their well-being and the well-being of society in general are no longer neatly aligned, and their rational self-interest does not allow them to support the status quo. It’s worth noting that “driver” is the most common job for white American males, and the United States can’t be too many years from full automation of vehicles. If the benefits accruing to the broader society from this automation are not redistributed in such a way to alleviate the strain placed on the workers displaced from their roles, I fear it will be the moment this pot boils over.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  That "most common job" was debunked. It's an artifact of where you draw arbitrary taxonomy lines.
  - joshklein 9y ago
    I’d assume even those with a generous definition are too conservative by far. We rapidly approach a future where no human will operate any heavy machine that accomplishes a discrete task. That task might be to transport goods or people across the country, to lift a steel beam into place, or to assemble ingredients into finished products. Once the cost curve flips over to the other side, the whole thing accelerates. Even worse if the harmed group is a smaller concentrated minority; they have no legitimate recourse through democratic expression.
sidyom 9y ago

danbruc 9y ago

Some of the most spectacularly wrong predictions in history have been made by those who claim that overpopulation is going to swamp the planet. Thomas Malthus, a British economist writing in the late 1700s, is the most famous of these. Extrapolating past trends into the future, he predicted that population growth would inevitably swamp available food resources, leading to mass starvation. That didn’t happen - we continued to develop new technologies that let us stay ahead of the reaper. Why are people so eager to point out that Malthus was wrong all the time? As far as I can tell he was not. He said if population growth continued as in the past, then we would starve, not that we necessarily will. I also think it is wrong to say we engineered us out of starvation, at best it bought us some time to get the fertility rate down. As the article admits, exponential population growth can never be finally solved by technology.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
I think the problem is, no one predicted that educated women, the accessibility of family planning aids, and economies developing [1] would be so effective at reducing fertility rates (with that said, it would've been convenient if this occurred earlier in the 20th century; we're going to hit 11 billion people before the population decline is in full swing, and that's going to challenge the carrying capacity of the planet). Were these unintended consequences? In most countries, yes. Humanity keeps turning up lucky in this regard (the above mentioned outcome, solar and wind becoming cheap enough we might be able to go carbon neutral for energy consumption, etc). [1] PDF: http://www.earth-policy.org/images/uploads/book_files/ecoch10.pdf http://www.earth-policy.org/images/uploads/book_files/ecoch1...
- danbruc 9y ago
  I admittedly did not read »An Essay on the Principle of Population« in its entirety, but that may actually be the point where he was the most wrong. He could not imagine the fertility rate to fall as much as it eventually did and therefore did not really expect that disaster could be avoided. But I still think it is rather misleading to turn this lack of imagination on his side for the evolution of this - of course extremely important - one factor into calling his work wrong and disproven.

birksherty 9y ago

Terrible title. "Population bomb" is not defused, only "birth rate" is decreasing. There are already too many people on Earth. It's big problem in developing countries.

Viliam1234 9y ago
> "Population bomb" is not defused, only "birth rate" is decreasing. This is all that needed to be said about the article. The author doesn't (want to) understand the difference between a number "getting smaller" and the number "increasing less quickly". When someone gains 10 kg in January and then gains 9 kg in February, we don't say that they are losing weight.

nyolfen 9y ago

not in subsaharan africa. nigeria alone is set to hit ~1 billion by the end of the century, even if current birthrates slow dramatically. if china is the centerpiece of the 21st century, africa is the stage for the 22nd: https://i.imgur.com/9obArWa.png https://i.imgur.com/9obArWa.png

philipwhiuk 9y ago
140K in 2006, 185K in 2016. 1B in 2100? That seems a big jump. Africa does need an economic super power however to avoid hundreds of millions of economic migrants moving to China, the EU and the US.
- CUViper 9y ago
  Directly extrapolating that 32% in 10 years would predict over 2B in 2106.
- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
  > 140K in 2006, 185K in 2016. If those are supposed to be the population of Nigeria, you've missed a factor of 1000 somewhere.
- nyolfen 9y ago
  i believe those numbers are meant to have an ‘m’ instead of a ‘k’? lagos alone has over 20m. the US had a population of ~76m in 1900, and severely restricted immigration for much of the 20th c

akshayB 9y ago

One of the reasons that is not tracked here is the fact that in developing countries as more and more people get educated. They tend to have 1 or 2 children and they try to ensure their kids have good education and upbringing. These parents realize that if they have more children they might not have enough resources and money to push them through higher education.

paulddraper 9y ago
There's significantly less randomness now. Less disease, more economic mobility, higher standard of living, and more safety nets then 150 years ago. The only way to succeed when the odds are disadvantageous and out of your control is to make many attempts.

f- 9y ago

Not long ago, a significant proportion of the scientific establishment - along with a number of celebrities and policymakers - believed that the "population bomb" is an inevitable, imminent, and apocalyptic threat. There was talk of "point of no return", calls for worldwide China-style fertility restrictions, and so forth. Instead, what happened over the past several decades is not just a drop in birth rates, but also dramatic improvements in our ability to grow cheap food at a scale (something that the article doesn't really talk about). So it is a very interesting take to claim that the population bomb has been "defused" - since this implies it wasn't an episode of pathological science flirting with mysticism (with frequent allusions to the pristine "natural" order contrasted with the evils of Man), but just some sound science that turned out to be a bit off. (Please don't read into this as a critique of any contemporary scientific debates; that's not my point, but I think we should be more willing to recognize our past mistakes.)

usrusr 9y ago
> but also dramatic improvements in our ability to grow cheap food at a scale Are those improvements sustainable? Agriculture that is generating high yields from converting very fertile natural ecosystems into deserts and then moving on is almost like eating through fossil resources, only that the timescale for replenishment is a few orders of magnitude closer to being relevant for humanity (but still far or of reach). Failure ecosystems that have been farmed out of existence in antiquity are still as barren as thousand years ago. If you ignore the yields of unsustainable farming, our ability to feed billions looks a lot less rosy.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  "Are those improvements sustainable?" Available evidence suggests yes. http://plantsci.missouri.edu/grains/corn/graphs/USA-corn-yield.jpg http://plantsci.missouri.edu/grains/corn/graphs/USA-corn-yie... "Agriculture that is generating high yields from converting very fertile natural ecosystems into deserts" Iowa didn't look much like a desert the last time I was there. "Failure ecosystems that have been farmed out of existence in antiquity are still as barren as thousand years ago" Yeah, that's why you don't want to rely on "organic" farming. Good thing we don't do that any more.

EdgarVerona 9y ago

It is interesting to contrast the decline in fertility rates in China and India. Would China have had a similar dropoff if not for the One Child policy? Will we see the number increase again given enough time after the 2013 easing of that policy? I'd be curious to see these numbers again ten years from now.

toyg 9y ago
It’s unlikely that numbers will change dramatically in China. They have dramatically eroded their agrarian culture, which is the main demographic engine pretty much anywhere. It is unlikely that well-paid industrial workers and urban professionals will start cranking out children above and beyond replacement rates.
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
I'm sure I remember reading that fertility rates had already declined significantly before the one child policy was introduced.
- telotortium 9y ago
  Indeed -- you just need to take a look at the graph in the original article for further confirmation (the one-child policy was instituted in 1978, and fertility rate was in definite decline by that point).

lanewinfield 9y ago

Here's the non-AMP link, for anyone not viewing on mobile: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-in-world-fertility-rates-lowers-risks-of-mass-starvation https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-i...

dang 9y ago
Changed to that above.

wesleytodd 9y ago

Better link (non amp version): https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-in-world-fertility-rates-lowers-risks-of-mass-starvation https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-i...

dang 9y ago
Changed to that.

themgt 9y ago

Shocker, Noah Smith pens yet another of his "whig history" takes. The reality is just a few short years ago the UN updated its population estimates for the end of the century from less than 9 billion to a more likely 11 billion, and as many as 13 billion people. [1] Nearly the entirety of that increase is because fertility rates in Africa have not fallen anywhere near what was expected, so the population there is set to quadruple from 1->4 billion people over 100 years. The 4 billion figure assumes fertility will begin to rapidly fall in line with the rest of the developing world - nearly all of the growth is already "baked in the cake" due to the extremely young population, and if TFR doesn't drop the population could well soar significantly higher. The population of Nigeria alone is expected to be more than the entire population of Europe by 2085. Whether the fertility rate can actually be brought down is very much an unsolved question, with a history of optimistic mistakes Noah Smith is smart enough to be aware of. Combine with climate change, resource depletion, the utterly dysfunctional nation-states where this is occurring and the the meteoric rise of neo-fascists after Europe accepted something like 1/100th of the potential economic migrants/refugees as want to come, and this vapid "forward march of history" perspective looks at best cherry-picked and facile, if not disingenuous in the extreme. [1] https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/articles/sa1214Gsci31_web.png https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/art... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-population-will-soar-higher-than-predicted/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-population-...

rukittenme 9y ago
> The population of Nigeria alone is expected to be more than the entire population of Europe by 2085. Do you think that's realistic? The population of Niger is expected to be 200 million in 2100 (20 million today)[1]. Have you seen Niger? Its a desert with little natural resources. 1. https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/ edit: I'm aware Niger and Nigeria are different countries. I'm changing the subject to Niger intentionally. 10x population growth in the Sahara desert.
- antisthenes 9y ago
  Maybe that's because it's 2 different countries and the parent comment said nothing about Niger?

thinkloop 9y ago

I never understood this logic, population growth is 100% dependent on the amount of resources the system is able to produce, not the other way around. Resources are the precursor to growth. It is not possible to grow unabated then one day realize we're 50% short on resources. Population necessarily has to stabilize at around 100% resource utilization.

fjsolwmv 9y ago
And when resources are depleted? That's the bomb.
- rukittenme 9y ago
  Resources don't plummet to zero. Prices rise gradually and people change their behaviors gradually. That's not a bomb.
  - rohit2412 9y ago
    1) Prices don't rise gradually on supply demand mismatch. They can rise as much as somebody can pay 2) People will not really change behavior. Say a country of 1 billion people can only grow food for 600 million people due to a draught. Maybe the food can be stretched to 700 million, but don't expect it to be enough for 1 billion people. In this case, hundreds of millions will die of starvation and the remaining 700-800 million will pay hand over foot for food. That is the "bomb".
- thinkloop 9y ago
  What would get depleted?
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    Core strategic resources. A set of 14: http://i.imgur.com/L5qWNN9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/L5qWNN9.jpg Rainforests, coral reefs, ag land, coal, oil, gas, aluminium, phosphorus, tantalum, titanium, copper, silver, indium, antimony. Sources: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-global-resources-stock-check http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-global-resources-st... http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc.com/future/BBCF_infoData_stock_check.pdf http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc.com/future/BBCF_infoData_stock_chec... A list of six: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/oct/31/six-natural-resources-population https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/oct/31/six... Longer general discussion: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G01035.pdf http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G01035.pdf

amriksohata 9y ago

India had a population of approx 79million in 1000 CE https://i.stack.imgur.com/2928N.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/2928N.png After successive invasions, by the Mughals, Dutch, Portuguese and British it shot up to over 300 million, a much bigger rise say compared to other countries. Largely due to the poverty it was left in, people ended up having more kids to make sure they survived. Anyhow I agree it has been refused as the poverty levels are now being tackled and mass education programmes in place.

rgbrenner 9y ago
"After successive invasions..." You draw this clear line between invasions and population growth for India... but India doesn't look a whole lot different than others (considering it started off with a higher base than other countries also): http://visualeconsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/popgrowthsince_1500.jpg http://visualeconsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/po... It was the 2nd largest by population even in 1000 CE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio... India, like every other country, was affected by vaccines and other developments that reduced the death rate and caused population to explode.
- amriksohata 9y ago
  My point is the rate of growth rather than the baseline, were these vaccines you mention available in 1700? To the general poorer population? Highly unlikely.
  - rgbrenner 9y ago
    India was the worlds 2nd largest population in 1000 (60m), 2nd largest in 1500 (90m), the 2nd largest in 1700 (160m), the 2nd largest in 1900 (330m), and the 2nd largest today. It had 19% of the population in 1000; 20% in 1500; and 17.5% today. And you say that last part is someone elses fault. What surprise that the worlds 2nd largest population for over 1000 years would be the 2nd largest today... with nearly exactly the same percent of the world population it had over 1000 years ago. Clearly some outside force has caused India to grow from 2nd largest in the world a 1000 years ago all the way up to 2nd largest today. What else could explain it? /s Do you realize that the US from 1900 to today has had a higher growth rate than India? 428% vs 401%

21 9y ago

A few other taboo "bombs": water wars and climate change. Same basic mistake, assuming nothing will change. For example, for water wars: desalination using solar power (see Israel) For climate change: carbon sequestring strategies or market pressures - CO2 credits, reputational risk (being "green"), ...

Gys 9y ago

The article is very happy to point out that the trend changed 50 years ago. Then shown a graph with a 100 years forecast, based on that changed trend. Sure, from now on the fertilization will play nicely along.

macintux 9y ago
Did you read the supporting arguments for why the rates have historically not gone back up?

rsuelzer 9y ago

Has anyone else here made an active decision to not reproduce? Even with low birth rates in my country and small families being the norm, I still find myself being pressured to have children, as if my genetic code was critical to the survival of the species.

rukittenme 9y ago
The species will be fine. Its your phylo-genetic tree you have to worry about.
scythe 9y ago
Your decision not to reproduce on Malthusian grounds amounts to nothing more than a selection effect against people who care against overpopulation. If you're happier without kids, by all means, enjoy it, but don't imagine you're saving anyone.
Markoff 9y ago
good luck finding wife with same attitude
- rsuelzer 9y ago
  Already done.

retox 9y ago

The population is so high we need to stop having kids, and the population is so low we need to import low skilled workers, and the job of the future will be fully automated. Modern policy is a cognitive dissonance minefield.

nootropicat 9y ago

>the ultimate, final victory Famous last words. What happens evolutionary is that genes that make it more likely to have children in the industrialized society setting - whatever they are - are getting an enormous boost.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> What happens evolutionary is that genes that make it more likely to have children in the industrialized society setting - whatever they are - are getting an enormous boost. No, whatever makes it more likely to have children that survive to reproduce, not just tomhave children, would be getting the boost, but the environment is probably shifting faster than can give a consistent boost to anything.
danieltillett 9y ago
We know exactly what those genes are - or more accurately their phenotype.
- dennisgorelik 9y ago
  What is the phenotype of the genes that increase chances of having children in industrialized society?

RobLach 9y ago

I feel like all these estimates of "overpopulation" are massively overblown. These issues are almost entirely political/social. The capacity for Earth to hold humans is massive. Currently only a tiny sliver of the surface has people on it and if that becomes a problem we can build vertically (up and down). We're barely capturing relatively free energy such as sunlight, wind, geothermal, and tidal. Think of how much of the Sahara isn't a solar energy production plant. If the labor of 1 human can feed at least 2 people you can have a society. With technology 1 human can work to feed thousands if not millions with increased automation. Food production can be fully automated with the ambition to. The only real bound of food production if you consider vertical hydroponic farming alongside nuclear and freeish energy, is the amount of nutrients plants and insects require to produce adequate amounts of human nutrition. Virtually all plant nutrients have evolved to be highly recyclable through natural processes, most of which can by accelerated with technology.

dredmorbius 9y ago
https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-many-people-can-the-earth-support/oclc/898942239 https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-many-people-can-the-earth...
- thebigspacefuck 9y ago
  Tldr?
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    He's a, or the, highly definitive source. L. R.

natecavanaugh 9y ago

> eventually, population growth will overwhelm the Earth’s ability to provide calories. Really? When? And how? Because I don't see how a planet that can support at least a factor of 10 times our population size currently is going to realistically start running out of calories, short of moronic political decisions, some of which are perpetuated by statements like that. Where are these calories going? They're evaporating into the ether, never to be reclaimed? Or is it possible that we're losing out on massive amounts of human capital because, like NIMBY activists that argue against new housing development, we're trying to maintain a status quo out of fear?

MR4D 9y ago

So, in the next 30 years, we’re adding about 2 billion more people (net) to the planet. The odds that it goes smoothly is small. First, 30 years is a long time to not have a big population event. Second, 2 billion people will strain resources considerably (its a 25% increase over today). The impacts on disease, pollution, war, etc., are significant even if food supply can handle it. And what about climate change, or increasing algae blooms (due to pesticide use)? There are so many things that’s ave to work to not have a population event, that it’s a pretty scary proposition. Sure, the birth rate has declined dramatically, but Malthus may yet be proven correct.

dailycrud 9y ago

The late (and quirky) Julian Simon wrote on this topic, and on the related notion of ostensibly limited resources. Worth checking out if you are not already familiar with his viewpoint: The Ultimate Resource, 1981, Princeton University Press, ISBN 069109389X. The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691042691. http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/ http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

X6S1x6Okd1st 9y ago

For anyone that wants a deeper look Charles C Mann's recent publication The Wizard and the Prophet covers the figures behind over population concerns & modern environmentalism as well as the figures behind the green revolution which played a large role in pushing famine and food insecurity down to the level that exists at today, even with a growing population.

pascalxus 9y ago

As worldwide population increases, resources become increasingly stretched and per capita income goes down (relative to the cost of living). This, in first world countries will probably result in a decline in the birthrate. You only need to look towards CA to see where this is already happening. CA with it's excessive regulations has decreased the prosperity of it's people to the point of where it now has x3 times the number of poor people per capita than the national average (that's living cost adjusted ~ mostly due to housing cost and excessive energy costs and countless other regulations that increase living costs). I suspect this has played a roll in the decline of the birth rate in CA, now at the lowest its ever been since the great depression (it's been going down for the last 3 decades). As life becomes increasingly harsh, people have less babies - it's kinda hard to have a kid when your sharing a room in your parent's house, or live 6 to an apartment.

horsecaptin 9y ago
Another reason why California has 3x the homeless people is because it is friendly to homeless people - weather and services inside big cities.