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Human behavior is vastly more impactful on the planet than human numerosity. We are not feeling the consequences of simply people - it is our gross behavior.

Human behavior is vastly more impactful on the planet than human numerosity. We are not feeling the consequences of simply people - it is our gross behavior. impact = people * behavior To make people reduction the target in this situation would be systematically misanthropic. Behavior can improve by orders of magnitude and even reverse polarity amicably and rapidly, through culture, inspiration, technological potential, historic renaissance - this is the solution to envisage - not come on... you know... people ~reductions.

redleggedfrog 8y ago
I think the problem with this is plausibility. I have much more faith in humanity culling itself, by whatever misanthropic means, than behaving "amicably and rapidly." The possible solution might not be the pleasant one.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  Basically stop eating beef and using internal-combustion cars, and the situation is vastly improved. Not impossible. A bunch of tax law changes would do it. And that's a lot more passable than killing a bunch of people.
  - JTbane 8y ago
    The problem with that is people are really attached to their cars and beef.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Basically stop eating beef and using internal-combustion cars, and the situation is vastly improved. Not impossible. For one, beef's not that much of a problem: https://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-environment-but-cows-are-not-killing-the-climate-94968 https://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-envi... But second, all kinds of systems we have have been premised on economic growth year after year. When we hit some harder limits, we'll hit them hard.
    - iN7h33nD 8y ago
      Many sources would beg to differ about meat not being a problem. https://youtu.be/NxvQPzrg2Wg https://youtu.be/NxvQPzrg2Wg (Sources: https://sites.google.com/view/kgssourcesmeat/startseite https://sites.google.com/view/kgssourcesmeat/startseite) So even if FAO got it wrong, I just don't see beef not being a problem.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >Many sources would beg to differ about meat not being a problem. The "sources" in the link either reference to mistaken FAO stats, or give some numbers out of context and with no argument (e.g. "One kilogram of steak needs up to 25 kilos of grain and 15,000 liters of water" -- ok, but what's that compared to other consumers of such resources? Or "Meat just makes up 18% of our calories humans eat", ok so?)
        osense 8y ago
        > "One kilogram of steak needs up to 25 kilos of grain and 15,000 liters of water" The argument is that in order to produce 1000 calories worth of meat, more resources (e.g. land, water, greenhouse emissions) are needed than to produce 1000 calories worth of plant-based food. > "Meat just makes up 18% of our calories humans eat" Same argument: even though meat makes up only 18% of calories in our diets, it produces 58% of agriculture-produced greenhouse gases and takes up a whopping 83% of currently farmed land, compared to overall agriculture [1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...
        coldtea 8y ago
        >The argument is that in order to produce 1000 calories worth of meat, more resources (e.g. land, water, greenhouse emissions) are needed than to produce 1000 calories worth of plant-based food. Sure, but either quantity might not be the real issue on the grand scheme of things, if it's just eg. 5% of resource use or pollution.
  - deialtrous 8y ago
    Except that my diet and car have absolutely nothing to do with the problem. You're fixating on CO2 when the problem the article talks about is clearly environmental destruction. Canada and the US produce all of our own beef. There is no environmental destruction happening here for beef production. We can in fact produce much more beef using the existing idle grasslands we have now. And the only relevant problem from cars here is the mining, which is worse with an electric vehicle. Nothing you suggested even attempts to address the issue at all.
    - GVIrish 8y ago
      The energy, land, and water required to produce 1 lb of beef is several times greater than the resources required to produce 1 lb of chicken, which in turn is several times greater than the resources required to produce 1 lb of the average vegetable. Not only that, but methane emissions from cattle contribute to climate change. About a third of anthropogenic methane emissions in the US are from livestock. Not saying we need to stop eating beef completely, but if diets shifted away from beef it would have a number of positive environmental impacts.
      - deialtrous 8y ago
        None of those things have anything to do with the discussion though, which is developing nations torching natural ecosystems. Neither my beef nor my car is in any way a factor in this. Also, your comparison is disingenuous. A pound of beef or chicken contains far more calories and protein than a pound of any vegetable. And grass fed beef actually requires less energy to produce than vegetables.
        wiz21c 8y ago
        for the beef : https://slate.com/technology/2010/12/is-grass-fed-beef-better-for-the-environment.html https://slate.com/technology/2010/12/is-grass-fed-beef-bette... for the car : just stop using a car, that'll be better for the environment.
        8y ago
  - belorn 8y ago
    Freshwater habitats are the worst hit according to the article with populations having collapsed by 83%. To that we have several major causes with one being acidification from CO2, eutrophication, fresh water usage/water treatment, waste management and electrical dams. Beef and internal-combustion are part of the issue of C02, but we need to also start addressing the other issues if we want to see the trend change.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  We have a much better record of cleaning up the environment than we do have in human culling. Compare the US of today with that of 50 - 100 years ago. The tree cover is almost back to pre-contact levels, lakes & rivers are potable, smog doesn't kill 10's of thousands of people per year, et cetera. IOW, local environmental problems have been solved. And we know how to solve them elsewhere in the world: economic growth. Once people have their basic needs secure, they start caring about this stuff. Internalize the externalities and let the market sort it out. The challenge is global problems; climate change is a fairly classic tragedy of the commons. The solution here is similar: internalize the externalities and let the market sort it out. A global carbon tax, for example. We used to be able to do this stuff. We banned CFC's world-wide, for example. Our track record in culling is much worse. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot only managed to kill about 1% of the population, and the instability they created actually increased birth rates. Mao had an impact with the one child policy, but...
  - deialtrous 8y ago
    >The tree cover is almost back to pre-contact levels The number of trees is not the issue. The ecosystem is. Huge plantations of SPF in rows that are all the same age and size does not make a natural ecosystem, and biodiversity is very low. >lakes & rivers are potable Public drinking water isn't even potable in many places, nevermind lakes and rivers. This is pure fantasy talk. >IOW, local environmental problems have been solved No, they have been relocated overseas so they are out of sight and out of mind. >The challenge is global problems; climate change is a fairly classic tragedy of the commons. Yes, I am sure the animals going extinct really just wish we could come together and tax people for breathing. Of course they don't care about their ecosystem being destroyed to grow corn for 5 years before exhausting the land and burning down another 1000 acres of forest for another 5 years of corn. >Our track record in culling is much worse. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot only managed to kill about 1% of the population None of them were trying to lower the population. Funny how you want to equate "lowering global population" with "mass murder" even though you clearly are aware that limiting births is the actual strategy, which actually works.
    - jlawson 8y ago
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Your evidence that behaviour can improve? The whole of human existence shows we're pretty consistent about choosing easiest every time. That leaves blind optimism or restrictions. Since WW2 the developed nations have been systematically throwing away sustainable approaches to literally everything. Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 slices of meat. Even paper often comes in a plastic pack. If all humanity were to approach a developed Western lifestyle the planet simply couldn't cope with the current global population. We need an entirely different approach.
- thealfreds 8y ago
  > The whole of human existence shows we're pretty consistent about choosing easiest every time. This isn't the case across the globe. Japan's recycling and Singapore's trash policies come to mind immediately but there are sure to be better. Probably the most common though. Will certainly require a shift in culture for most people on this planet. > Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 slices of meat. The EU has recently voted to remove the use of single use plastics. I do wonder what the overall effect will be but I think policy could change this as well as affect behavior around it.
  - siruncledrew 8y ago
    > Will certainly require a shift in culture for most people on this planet. And that's the issue we run into with human behavior. Developed nations have adapted to a convenience mentality, and tend to use more because they consume more. Changing behavior takes more than awareness, it takes some sort of proxy for force or compulsion. With Singapore for example, they have heavy fines for littering and improper trash disposal. They have achieved cleanliness by mandating it upon their citizens. Western nations aren't always as amenable to that form of governance as it impedes on someone's impression of their own free will to do as they please. In the case of American politics, I bet we will encounter "I don't want to go through the effort to recycle, and nobody can make me." This is why cultural attitudes and shifts take so damn long to change. Getting everybody on board is a hell of a lot harder than saying "This is what we are doing now because it is good for the planet even though it adds a bit more inconvenience to your life." People go apeshit when the government tells them what to do, even if it's something positive. There's just that much resentment to change that people will choose irrational, illogical action over changing behavior even slightly that would benefit them in the long-run. Only when shit hits the fan do people look around and wonder "So what do we do now?". There are things that must be done, even when the desire to do them is not that high. It's like people have a basic understanding that they could be doing something good, but they still don't do it, because they don't have to.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deialtrous 8y ago
There is no evidence that any acceptable behavioral alteration will help. The kind of behavioral modification needed is horrifying dystopian nightmare stuff, people naturally resist things like that. The population is going to be reduced no matter what. The question is purely "are we going to do it by lowering birth rates, or are we going to wait until India or Africa unleashes an antibiotic resistant super plague on the world that kills a few billion people?"
- jchrisa 8y ago
  Rethinking our property system need not be draconian. The economic solutions to a steady state economy have been on the shelf for years. The ideology of growth will need a humiliating defeat, and then folks will be ready to accept alternatives.
  - deialtrous 8y ago
    That's stopping growth, that's what I am suggesting we do. The alternative which I think can only be draconian is "modifying our behavior" to accommodate a huge population. This means eliminating almost all food in favor of the half dozen highest producing crops. It means eliminating all natural spaces and consuming all resources for ourselves and leaving nothing for non-humans. I can't see any reason why a high population is a good thing, much less so good that it warrants making all those lives as miserable as possible. A billion people with high quality of life and a diverse planet full of billions of creatures beats the hell out of a hundred billion people living like factory farmed chickens on a planet virtually devoid of non-human life.
  - Chris_Jay 8y ago
    The ideology of growth being dealt a genuinely humiliating defeat would involve massive depopulation event anyway. It seems far better to shift away from growth-dependent economics before any humiliating defeat rather than hope the people who survive it happen to be well-versed in regenerative economics. I've started a meetup group for the purpose of discussing how a grassroots effort could shift some of the resources of the growth-economy to a steady-state economy while the former is still in place, but interest has been miniscule in my midsized college town.
kiliantics 8y ago
> Behavior can improve by orders of magnitude and even reverse polarity amicably and rapidly, through culture, inspiration, technological potential, historic renaissance I think, without the right economic incentives, people do not change their behaviours substantially. I think the GP comment is right about political engagement being necessary. However, I don't think electoral politics will cut it since it is so corrupt. The best chance is for mass collective action in the form of worker strikes and other acts of civil disobedience to force the governments of the world to act in our favour, rather than in the favour of the elites.

redleggedfrog 8y ago

I think the problem with this is plausibility. I have much more faith in humanity culling itself, by whatever misanthropic means, than behaving "amicably and rapidly." The possible solution might not be the pleasant one.

lallysingh 8y ago
Basically stop eating beef and using internal-combustion cars, and the situation is vastly improved. Not impossible. A bunch of tax law changes would do it. And that's a lot more passable than killing a bunch of people.
- JTbane 8y ago
  The problem with that is people are really attached to their cars and beef.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Basically stop eating beef and using internal-combustion cars, and the situation is vastly improved. Not impossible. For one, beef's not that much of a problem: https://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-environment-but-cows-are-not-killing-the-climate-94968 https://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-envi... But second, all kinds of systems we have have been premised on economic growth year after year. When we hit some harder limits, we'll hit them hard.
  - iN7h33nD 8y ago
    Many sources would beg to differ about meat not being a problem. https://youtu.be/NxvQPzrg2Wg https://youtu.be/NxvQPzrg2Wg (Sources: https://sites.google.com/view/kgssourcesmeat/startseite https://sites.google.com/view/kgssourcesmeat/startseite) So even if FAO got it wrong, I just don't see beef not being a problem.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >Many sources would beg to differ about meat not being a problem. The "sources" in the link either reference to mistaken FAO stats, or give some numbers out of context and with no argument (e.g. "One kilogram of steak needs up to 25 kilos of grain and 15,000 liters of water" -- ok, but what's that compared to other consumers of such resources? Or "Meat just makes up 18% of our calories humans eat", ok so?)
      - osense 8y ago
        > "One kilogram of steak needs up to 25 kilos of grain and 15,000 liters of water" The argument is that in order to produce 1000 calories worth of meat, more resources (e.g. land, water, greenhouse emissions) are needed than to produce 1000 calories worth of plant-based food. > "Meat just makes up 18% of our calories humans eat" Same argument: even though meat makes up only 18% of calories in our diets, it produces 58% of agriculture-produced greenhouse gases and takes up a whopping 83% of currently farmed land, compared to overall agriculture [1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...
        coldtea 8y ago
        >The argument is that in order to produce 1000 calories worth of meat, more resources (e.g. land, water, greenhouse emissions) are needed than to produce 1000 calories worth of plant-based food. Sure, but either quantity might not be the real issue on the grand scheme of things, if it's just eg. 5% of resource use or pollution.
- deialtrous 8y ago
  Except that my diet and car have absolutely nothing to do with the problem. You're fixating on CO2 when the problem the article talks about is clearly environmental destruction. Canada and the US produce all of our own beef. There is no environmental destruction happening here for beef production. We can in fact produce much more beef using the existing idle grasslands we have now. And the only relevant problem from cars here is the mining, which is worse with an electric vehicle. Nothing you suggested even attempts to address the issue at all.
  - GVIrish 8y ago
    The energy, land, and water required to produce 1 lb of beef is several times greater than the resources required to produce 1 lb of chicken, which in turn is several times greater than the resources required to produce 1 lb of the average vegetable. Not only that, but methane emissions from cattle contribute to climate change. About a third of anthropogenic methane emissions in the US are from livestock. Not saying we need to stop eating beef completely, but if diets shifted away from beef it would have a number of positive environmental impacts.
    - deialtrous 8y ago
      None of those things have anything to do with the discussion though, which is developing nations torching natural ecosystems. Neither my beef nor my car is in any way a factor in this. Also, your comparison is disingenuous. A pound of beef or chicken contains far more calories and protein than a pound of any vegetable. And grass fed beef actually requires less energy to produce than vegetables.
      - wiz21c 8y ago
        for the beef : https://slate.com/technology/2010/12/is-grass-fed-beef-better-for-the-environment.html https://slate.com/technology/2010/12/is-grass-fed-beef-bette... for the car : just stop using a car, that'll be better for the environment.
        8y ago
- belorn 8y ago
  Freshwater habitats are the worst hit according to the article with populations having collapsed by 83%. To that we have several major causes with one being acidification from CO2, eutrophication, fresh water usage/water treatment, waste management and electrical dams. Beef and internal-combustion are part of the issue of C02, but we need to also start addressing the other issues if we want to see the trend change.
bryanlarsen 8y ago
We have a much better record of cleaning up the environment than we do have in human culling. Compare the US of today with that of 50 - 100 years ago. The tree cover is almost back to pre-contact levels, lakes & rivers are potable, smog doesn't kill 10's of thousands of people per year, et cetera. IOW, local environmental problems have been solved. And we know how to solve them elsewhere in the world: economic growth. Once people have their basic needs secure, they start caring about this stuff. Internalize the externalities and let the market sort it out. The challenge is global problems; climate change is a fairly classic tragedy of the commons. The solution here is similar: internalize the externalities and let the market sort it out. A global carbon tax, for example. We used to be able to do this stuff. We banned CFC's world-wide, for example. Our track record in culling is much worse. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot only managed to kill about 1% of the population, and the instability they created actually increased birth rates. Mao had an impact with the one child policy, but...
- deialtrous 8y ago
  >The tree cover is almost back to pre-contact levels The number of trees is not the issue. The ecosystem is. Huge plantations of SPF in rows that are all the same age and size does not make a natural ecosystem, and biodiversity is very low. >lakes & rivers are potable Public drinking water isn't even potable in many places, nevermind lakes and rivers. This is pure fantasy talk. >IOW, local environmental problems have been solved No, they have been relocated overseas so they are out of sight and out of mind. >The challenge is global problems; climate change is a fairly classic tragedy of the commons. Yes, I am sure the animals going extinct really just wish we could come together and tax people for breathing. Of course they don't care about their ecosystem being destroyed to grow corn for 5 years before exhausting the land and burning down another 1000 acres of forest for another 5 years of corn. >Our track record in culling is much worse. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot only managed to kill about 1% of the population None of them were trying to lower the population. Funny how you want to equate "lowering global population" with "mass murder" even though you clearly are aware that limiting births is the actual strategy, which actually works.
  - jlawson 8y ago

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

Your evidence that behaviour can improve? The whole of human existence shows we're pretty consistent about choosing easiest every time. That leaves blind optimism or restrictions. Since WW2 the developed nations have been systematically throwing away sustainable approaches to literally everything. Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 slices of meat. Even paper often comes in a plastic pack. If all humanity were to approach a developed Western lifestyle the planet simply couldn't cope with the current global population. We need an entirely different approach.

thealfreds 8y ago
> The whole of human existence shows we're pretty consistent about choosing easiest every time. This isn't the case across the globe. Japan's recycling and Singapore's trash policies come to mind immediately but there are sure to be better. Probably the most common though. Will certainly require a shift in culture for most people on this planet. > Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 slices of meat. The EU has recently voted to remove the use of single use plastics. I do wonder what the overall effect will be but I think policy could change this as well as affect behavior around it.
- siruncledrew 8y ago
  > Will certainly require a shift in culture for most people on this planet. And that's the issue we run into with human behavior. Developed nations have adapted to a convenience mentality, and tend to use more because they consume more. Changing behavior takes more than awareness, it takes some sort of proxy for force or compulsion. With Singapore for example, they have heavy fines for littering and improper trash disposal. They have achieved cleanliness by mandating it upon their citizens. Western nations aren't always as amenable to that form of governance as it impedes on someone's impression of their own free will to do as they please. In the case of American politics, I bet we will encounter "I don't want to go through the effort to recycle, and nobody can make me." This is why cultural attitudes and shifts take so damn long to change. Getting everybody on board is a hell of a lot harder than saying "This is what we are doing now because it is good for the planet even though it adds a bit more inconvenience to your life." People go apeshit when the government tells them what to do, even if it's something positive. There's just that much resentment to change that people will choose irrational, illogical action over changing behavior even slightly that would benefit them in the long-run. Only when shit hits the fan do people look around and wonder "So what do we do now?". There are things that must be done, even when the desire to do them is not that high. It's like people have a basic understanding that they could be doing something good, but they still don't do it, because they don't have to.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deialtrous 8y ago

There is no evidence that any acceptable behavioral alteration will help. The kind of behavioral modification needed is horrifying dystopian nightmare stuff, people naturally resist things like that. The population is going to be reduced no matter what. The question is purely "are we going to do it by lowering birth rates, or are we going to wait until India or Africa unleashes an antibiotic resistant super plague on the world that kills a few billion people?"

jchrisa 8y ago
Rethinking our property system need not be draconian. The economic solutions to a steady state economy have been on the shelf for years. The ideology of growth will need a humiliating defeat, and then folks will be ready to accept alternatives.
- deialtrous 8y ago
  That's stopping growth, that's what I am suggesting we do. The alternative which I think can only be draconian is "modifying our behavior" to accommodate a huge population. This means eliminating almost all food in favor of the half dozen highest producing crops. It means eliminating all natural spaces and consuming all resources for ourselves and leaving nothing for non-humans. I can't see any reason why a high population is a good thing, much less so good that it warrants making all those lives as miserable as possible. A billion people with high quality of life and a diverse planet full of billions of creatures beats the hell out of a hundred billion people living like factory farmed chickens on a planet virtually devoid of non-human life.
- Chris_Jay 8y ago
  The ideology of growth being dealt a genuinely humiliating defeat would involve massive depopulation event anyway. It seems far better to shift away from growth-dependent economics before any humiliating defeat rather than hope the people who survive it happen to be well-versed in regenerative economics. I've started a meetup group for the purpose of discussing how a grassroots effort could shift some of the resources of the growth-economy to a steady-state economy while the former is still in place, but interest has been miniscule in my midsized college town.

kiliantics 8y ago

> Behavior can improve by orders of magnitude and even reverse polarity amicably and rapidly, through culture, inspiration, technological potential, historic renaissance I think, without the right economic incentives, people do not change their behaviours substantially. I think the GP comment is right about political engagement being necessary. However, I don't think electoral politics will cut it since it is so corrupt. The best chance is for mass collective action in the form of worker strikes and other acts of civil disobedience to force the governments of the world to act in our favour, rather than in the favour of the elites.