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What’s not sustainable? The human population doubling again? Or maintaining the current population? Clearly we have to address climate change but it’s not a gr

What’s not sustainable? The human population doubling again? Or maintaining the current population? Clearly we have to address climate change but it’s not a growing population that is unsustainable, if anything the progress over the past 50 years has indicated the exact opposite.

cyberpunk0 8y ago
Uhh our population is also a huge problem driving that climate change.. wtf?
montenegrohugo 8y ago
Human population by itself is not the measure we should worry about. With enough technological progress, the earth could reasonably sustain 100+ billion people. The problem lies in the doubling of human population in little more than a generation. The problem lies in that we are not being sustainable with this. We are depleting resources whilst polluting and rapidly changing our environment. For the moment, we only have one small rock in which to live and breathe. If we have to shit where we eat, then let's at least try to shit cleanly.
- ahje 8y ago
  Once that technological progress has been made, and we have implemented those new technologies on a global scale, then sure. Right here and right now, we're still largely relying on fossil fuels and machinery up to several decades old in order to produce food and considering it seems to be hard to even get up to modern standards, hoping for future tech to save the day seems far fetched.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    What if part of the reason is the fact that the new tech isn't better enough to justify switching - yet?
    - ahje 8y ago
      Sure. Do you believe we will be able to develop this new tech AND deploy it on a global scale within the next 10-15 years? Because that's how long we've got to turn this around before it turns really ugly. I don't think we can do that (although it is arguable that any drastic measures taken now doesn't have to be permanent, and that things can change again once we do have all that new fancy tech)
- philipps 8y ago
  There is no scientific basis for the claim that the earth could sustain 100+ billion people. These types of unsubstantiated claims are not just false but dangerous, as they suggest there is no need for significant action and change.
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    IMO, the claims that population is the problem is far more dangerous. Population growth is mostly a solved problem. All population growth models have the growth being much slower over the next 50 years than it was over the past 50. Most viable models actually show the growth reversing, and some even show it peaking near current levels. Does that mean we've fixed the problems? Far from it. The number of people is only a really small factor in the damage that people do. One jet-setting westerner does many orders of magnitude more damage than the typical subsistence farmer; and the damage done by subsistence farmers varies quite widely. (Some are causing desertification and chopping down trees) And of course there are some people doing more good than harm, reducing the population reduces those people too. No matter what the population is, we have a lot of work to do. Greenhouse gases are the most visible problem; there are lots of others.
    - philipps 8y ago
      I didn’t make the claim that population is the biggest problem. I responded to the incorrect suggestion that population size is not a problem (which you repeat without offering any evidence that we could sustain ourselves). Growth is by no means a “solved” problem. Growth is expected to slow, but even at our current population size we are consuming an unsustainable amount of resources. And growth will slow as a result of increased wealth > higher consumption. Given that we live within the finite ecosystem of of our planet, this means we need to make significant changes and we need to make them now.
  - jonsen 8y ago
    The size of the worlds livestock is around 100 billion. If all humans turned vegetarian, the human population could easily be of the that size.
- code_duck 8y ago
  With ‘enough’ technological progress, anything is possible since that’s the definition of enough.
  - montenegrohugo 8y ago
    No, technology is constrained by physical and logical laws. No amount of technological progress can make 1+1 = 2. Similarly, it can reasonably be stated that no amount of technological progress will make earth be able to sustain X population
    - adwn 8y ago
      > No amount of technological progress can make 1+1 = 2. I agree, 1+1=2 will forever remain in the realm of science fiction. But what would humanity be without its hopes and dreams?
    - code_duck 8y ago
      I don’t find those examples persuasive. One is a very simple logical impossibility because 1+1=2 is a very basic assumption of our system of mathematics. The other is a very complex issue, and I also disageee with your conclusion. That with ‘enough’ technical progress the earth can support a given amount of life makes sense to me.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  That's correct. The concept of overpopulation is quite misleading because it blames the sheer number of people regardless of the extreme inequality in consumption and pollution. "World’s richest 10% produce half of carbon emissions while poorest 3.5 billion account for just a tenth" Source: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-12-02/worlds-richest-10-produce-half-carbon-emissions-while-poorest-35 https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-12-02/...
lawlessone 8y ago
> The human population doubling again? Or maintaining the current population? Both
- casefields 8y ago
  Oh jeez. I thought we moved on from the Population Bomb hysteria.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Was it ever proven wrong? Or just delayed by a bunch of last-minute technological breakthroughs? Also, the problem is still here even if we maintain current population levels. It's here even if we do nothing, and in reality, we have 2/3 of the world desperately trying to grow their quality of life, which involves growing their energy use.
    - antisthenes 8y ago
      You can never prove it wrong. It has to be wrong in perpetuity, because even if it is correct just once, it results in a wasted/depleted planet. And honestly, considering how much non-renewable resources we are using and the rate of warming, worrying about the population bomb is sort of like trying to get enough cardio exercise while you have acute appendicitis.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        Those are connected, though. Energy use is a lagging indicator of population - which is why we're screwed even if population growth were 0, as we have a large part of the world still going through industrialization/development.
    - trentnix 8y ago
      Proven wrong? Yes! ehrlich said the human lifespan in 1981 would be 42. He assured us that, if we didn’t do something, there would be mass famine and billions dead and all manner of horror that never came to pass. It is not all that impressive to note that more consumers than producers creates a scarcity problem. That’s the entire driver behind Malthusian fear-mongering. But over and over and over those that stoke the fears of overpopulation (and it’s been going on for thousands of years) are especially terrible at estimating the capacity for supply. As you call it, “last-minute technological breakthroughs”, dismissing centuries of human progress as some sort of accidental stroke of luck. You say we “do nothing” but every something I see proposed has to, by necessity, damage the quality of life of lots of people. The majority of people. If we are honest with ourselves, that’s effectively what is being proposed when we pontificate over how the wizards of smart will dole out resources according to their flawed definition of sustainability. That will, inevitably, result in war. The fact is, if you want to improve the state of humanity on the Earth, your only effective means of doing so is technology.
CogitoCogito 8y ago
> if anything the progress over the past 50 years has indicated the exact opposite. Which progress are you referring to? The original article is claiming that 60% of animals have been wiped out in the last 50 years. Does that not at least call your claim into question?
drb91 8y ago
The earth definitely has a carrying capacity. Our ability to push our food production further doesn’t change this fact. I’ve seen around 10 billion people floated as a food production limit in several places. Crossing this with climate change, particularly our love of beef and pork, is not easy to disentangle. We may also never hit that carrying capacity if something else other than food supply limits our population growth—war, disease, artificial barriers to food (wealth inequality).
- afishisafish 8y ago
  Assuming that life expectancy will remain the same and that the number of children will also not change Hans Rosling predicted our world population never will exceed 11 billion people. He was a very passionate and entertaining public speaker. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen/discussion?language=nl https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...
  - Jach 8y ago
    Does anything in his talk refute the UN projection of over 11 billion people by 2100? https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2017.html https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world...
  - collyw 8y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation Carrying capacity is estimated at 7.7 billion. And I have seen that Hans Roslings predictions have been revised upwards. Doesn't look good either way.
    - empath75 8y ago
      carrying capacity keeps getting revised upward also.
      - collyw 8y ago
ixtli 8y ago
Thank you! “Overpopulation” is a canard. Humans didn’t eradicate these animals: a specific group of rich people who’re able to deploy capital without the consent of the people did that.
- deialtrous 8y ago
  What? This was done overwhelmingly by very poor people in an effort to make themselves slightly less poor. How do you figure they didn't consent?

cyberpunk0 8y ago

Uhh our population is also a huge problem driving that climate change.. wtf?

montenegrohugo 8y ago

Human population by itself is not the measure we should worry about. With enough technological progress, the earth could reasonably sustain 100+ billion people. The problem lies in the doubling of human population in little more than a generation. The problem lies in that we are not being sustainable with this. We are depleting resources whilst polluting and rapidly changing our environment. For the moment, we only have one small rock in which to live and breathe. If we have to shit where we eat, then let's at least try to shit cleanly.

ahje 8y ago
Once that technological progress has been made, and we have implemented those new technologies on a global scale, then sure. Right here and right now, we're still largely relying on fossil fuels and machinery up to several decades old in order to produce food and considering it seems to be hard to even get up to modern standards, hoping for future tech to save the day seems far fetched.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  What if part of the reason is the fact that the new tech isn't better enough to justify switching - yet?
  - ahje 8y ago
    Sure. Do you believe we will be able to develop this new tech AND deploy it on a global scale within the next 10-15 years? Because that's how long we've got to turn this around before it turns really ugly. I don't think we can do that (although it is arguable that any drastic measures taken now doesn't have to be permanent, and that things can change again once we do have all that new fancy tech)
philipps 8y ago
There is no scientific basis for the claim that the earth could sustain 100+ billion people. These types of unsubstantiated claims are not just false but dangerous, as they suggest there is no need for significant action and change.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  IMO, the claims that population is the problem is far more dangerous. Population growth is mostly a solved problem. All population growth models have the growth being much slower over the next 50 years than it was over the past 50. Most viable models actually show the growth reversing, and some even show it peaking near current levels. Does that mean we've fixed the problems? Far from it. The number of people is only a really small factor in the damage that people do. One jet-setting westerner does many orders of magnitude more damage than the typical subsistence farmer; and the damage done by subsistence farmers varies quite widely. (Some are causing desertification and chopping down trees) And of course there are some people doing more good than harm, reducing the population reduces those people too. No matter what the population is, we have a lot of work to do. Greenhouse gases are the most visible problem; there are lots of others.
  - philipps 8y ago
    I didn’t make the claim that population is the biggest problem. I responded to the incorrect suggestion that population size is not a problem (which you repeat without offering any evidence that we could sustain ourselves). Growth is by no means a “solved” problem. Growth is expected to slow, but even at our current population size we are consuming an unsustainable amount of resources. And growth will slow as a result of increased wealth > higher consumption. Given that we live within the finite ecosystem of of our planet, this means we need to make significant changes and we need to make them now.
- jonsen 8y ago
  The size of the worlds livestock is around 100 billion. If all humans turned vegetarian, the human population could easily be of the that size.
code_duck 8y ago
With ‘enough’ technological progress, anything is possible since that’s the definition of enough.
- montenegrohugo 8y ago
  No, technology is constrained by physical and logical laws. No amount of technological progress can make 1+1 = 2. Similarly, it can reasonably be stated that no amount of technological progress will make earth be able to sustain X population
  - adwn 8y ago
    > No amount of technological progress can make 1+1 = 2. I agree, 1+1=2 will forever remain in the realm of science fiction. But what would humanity be without its hopes and dreams?
  - code_duck 8y ago
    I don’t find those examples persuasive. One is a very simple logical impossibility because 1+1=2 is a very basic assumption of our system of mathematics. The other is a very complex issue, and I also disageee with your conclusion. That with ‘enough’ technical progress the earth can support a given amount of life makes sense to me.
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
That's correct. The concept of overpopulation is quite misleading because it blames the sheer number of people regardless of the extreme inequality in consumption and pollution. "World’s richest 10% produce half of carbon emissions while poorest 3.5 billion account for just a tenth" Source: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-12-02/worlds-richest-10-produce-half-carbon-emissions-while-poorest-35 https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-12-02/...

lawlessone 8y ago

> The human population doubling again? Or maintaining the current population? Both

casefields 8y ago
Oh jeez. I thought we moved on from the Population Bomb hysteria.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Was it ever proven wrong? Or just delayed by a bunch of last-minute technological breakthroughs? Also, the problem is still here even if we maintain current population levels. It's here even if we do nothing, and in reality, we have 2/3 of the world desperately trying to grow their quality of life, which involves growing their energy use.
  - antisthenes 8y ago
    You can never prove it wrong. It has to be wrong in perpetuity, because even if it is correct just once, it results in a wasted/depleted planet. And honestly, considering how much non-renewable resources we are using and the rate of warming, worrying about the population bomb is sort of like trying to get enough cardio exercise while you have acute appendicitis.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Those are connected, though. Energy use is a lagging indicator of population - which is why we're screwed even if population growth were 0, as we have a large part of the world still going through industrialization/development.
  - trentnix 8y ago
    Proven wrong? Yes! ehrlich said the human lifespan in 1981 would be 42. He assured us that, if we didn’t do something, there would be mass famine and billions dead and all manner of horror that never came to pass. It is not all that impressive to note that more consumers than producers creates a scarcity problem. That’s the entire driver behind Malthusian fear-mongering. But over and over and over those that stoke the fears of overpopulation (and it’s been going on for thousands of years) are especially terrible at estimating the capacity for supply. As you call it, “last-minute technological breakthroughs”, dismissing centuries of human progress as some sort of accidental stroke of luck. You say we “do nothing” but every something I see proposed has to, by necessity, damage the quality of life of lots of people. The majority of people. If we are honest with ourselves, that’s effectively what is being proposed when we pontificate over how the wizards of smart will dole out resources according to their flawed definition of sustainability. That will, inevitably, result in war. The fact is, if you want to improve the state of humanity on the Earth, your only effective means of doing so is technology.

CogitoCogito 8y ago

> if anything the progress over the past 50 years has indicated the exact opposite. Which progress are you referring to? The original article is claiming that 60% of animals have been wiped out in the last 50 years. Does that not at least call your claim into question?

drb91 8y ago

The earth definitely has a carrying capacity. Our ability to push our food production further doesn’t change this fact. I’ve seen around 10 billion people floated as a food production limit in several places. Crossing this with climate change, particularly our love of beef and pork, is not easy to disentangle. We may also never hit that carrying capacity if something else other than food supply limits our population growth—war, disease, artificial barriers to food (wealth inequality).

afishisafish 8y ago
Assuming that life expectancy will remain the same and that the number of children will also not change Hans Rosling predicted our world population never will exceed 11 billion people. He was a very passionate and entertaining public speaker. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen/discussion?language=nl https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...
- Jach 8y ago
  Does anything in his talk refute the UN projection of over 11 billion people by 2100? https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2017.html https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world...
- collyw 8y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation Carrying capacity is estimated at 7.7 billion. And I have seen that Hans Roslings predictions have been revised upwards. Doesn't look good either way.
  - empath75 8y ago
    carrying capacity keeps getting revised upward also.
    - collyw 8y ago

ixtli 8y ago

Thank you! “Overpopulation” is a canard. Humans didn’t eradicate these animals: a specific group of rich people who’re able to deploy capital without the consent of the people did that.

deialtrous 8y ago
What? This was done overwhelmingly by very poor people in an effort to make themselves slightly less poor. How do you figure they didn't consent?