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> The fact of the matter is that there is only one environmental problem here on earth, and that is an overabundance of humans. How does your argument deal wit

> The fact of the matter is that there is only one environmental problem here on earth, and that is an overabundance of humans. How does your argument deal with the fact as nations becomes more developed, birthrates plummet? If it were not for immigration, populations would already have started declining in the western world. And even with it included, almost all rich countries are facing an aging population. Yet despite that, the richest countries produce far more greenhouse gases, not just per capita but often on an absolute scale, than countries with tremendously higher population and fertility. E.g., Canada produces more than 2x more CO2 than Nigeria despite being 5x less populous. Fewer humans != more pollution. Even in rich countries, a single wealthy businessman with a private plane, or luxury cruise ship, pollutes far more than an average worker with a petrol-powered car. I can certainly envisage a scenario where with increased automation and lack of environmental consciousness, you could somehow reduce the population of Earth tenfold, yet keep on polluting the same. Why bother with efficient engines when petrol is cheap? Would you rather have a million people each with an automated personal helicopter, a pleasure barge and a gas-guzzling SUV, or ten million people using public transport and bicycles? That's not going into the details how you would go about reducing the human population. You even made the argument yourself, those who refuse to go along with the anti-nativity plan would eventually outbreed those who do. So unless you want to carry out global campaigns of forced mass sterilization, the best solution is still focusing on making our current technology more environmentally friendly.

rocgf 7y ago
Apologies, but I am not sure about what you're trying to say. Yes, pollution is not evenly distributed across countries and populations, but that does not mean that the original idea is wrong. The truth is that overpopulation is a huge issue, but it is politically incorrect to bring this up. Given that our economy is really a Ponzi scheme, nobody wants to touch this topic. Everybody talks about declining fertility rates like a huge catastrophe, when in fact, that's some really good news.
- joefourier 7y ago
  And how do you plan on solving overpopulation? Rich countries already have birthrates below replacement threshold. Do you think that reducing them in India, Nigeria and other developing countries is the most effective and feasible way of combating CO2 emissions? I think not. While the number of humans certainly contributes to the total amount of pollution, it is not, in my opinion, the "only environmental problem".
  - rocgf 7y ago
    Apologies for being blunt, but you are heavily strawmanning. I don't think anyone said that it is "the only environmental problem" anywhere in this thread, and especially not me. I did not say it is the only environmental problem, but I am saying it is among the big ones. It is completely illogical to say that it is not. If you agree with the fact that consumption leads to pollution, then you agree with my premise whether you like it or not, it's simply a logical conclusion. > Do you think that reducing them in India, Nigeria and other developing countries is the most effective and feasible way of combating CO2 emissions? Again, kind of strawmanning here. I never said it is the most efficient way to tackle it, but we need to realise that if our population keeps going up, the problem will become more and more exacerbated.
- naasking 7y ago
  > The truth is that overpopulation is a huge issue, but it is politically incorrect to bring this up. It's really not an issue. Negative externalities associated with the environment is a huge issue, and population decline will become a big issue in about 80 years.
  - rocgf 7y ago
    > It's really not an issue. Really? As an extreme example, are you saying that if our planet only had only 1 million people, we'd have the exact same problem? This holds for 1 billion or 3 billion instead of the almost 8 billion we're going to get to soon. Population decline will become an issue _economically_. Environmentally, it's great.
    - naasking 7y ago
      > As an extreme example, are you saying that if our planet only had only 1 million people, we'd have the exact same problem? Our planet could in principle support hundreds of billions as long as you're not married to the idea of preserving biodiversity.
      - rocgf 7y ago
        If you separate this conversation from reality and strip any sort of relevant context, then yes, population and pollution are orthogonal concerns. What you're saying is "if human existence didn't cause externalities, then a growing population would no be an environmental problem". Preserving biodiversity is not desirable just to stroke our egos, it is actually vital for our world to continue. If we actually talk about the real world, without unrealistic hypotheticals, and without circular arguments, then you can't possibly be right. Every extra human born pollutes and has an environmental impact. We are very far away from bringing that to zero and, unless we do, population growth is an environmental problem.
        naasking 7y ago
        > If you separate this conversation from reality and strip any sort of relevant context, then yes, population and pollution are orthogonal concerns. What you're saying is "if human existence didn't cause externalities, then a growing population would no be an environmental problem". Not exactly. I'm saying that problems are always caused when negative externalities are not accounted for, therefore the problem of not accounting for negative externalities is literally to account for negative externalities. The population size is a complete red herring to this basic fact. The fact that a low population entails that we can ignore certain externalities is completely uninteresting. > Every extra human born pollutes and has an environmental impact. We are very far away from bringing that to zero and, unless we do, population growth is an environmental problem. It will never be zero. So what? Population growth for affluent nations is already negative. Growth rate falls as a nation enjoys better health care and more opportunities, which is why global population will start falling in about 80 years. Population growth clearly has a form of autoregulation. What's not autoregulating are negative externalities of common goods, by definition. That's why population growth is not a problem and negative externalities are.
w0utert 7y ago
Sustainability is not just about CO2 emissions. Countries that have low per-capita greenhouse emission or pollution have their own ecological problems caused by e.g. deforestation, depletion of fishing grounds, depletion of water sources, extinction of species that are vital for food production, air/land/water pollution by garbage, toxic waste, plastics. Ever went to a less-developed south-asian country? Low per-capita CO2 emissions, but I wouldn't say a hallmark of sustainability, especially not in the densely populated areas. I would say reducing per-capita CO2 emissions is probably one of the easier problems to solve, especially considering the already huge differences between developed countries. But that alone is not going to save the planet, not by a long shot.
lisper 7y ago
That point was raised earlier in a different branch of the discussion. My response is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20403067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20403067
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
> How does your argument deal with the fact as nations becomes more developed, birthrates plummet? There was an HN article recently that this (unfortunately) may be relatively short lived. Birthrates plummet particularly as women have better education and better access to contraception. However, as birthrates plummet, that also means there is new selective pressure that favors the genetics of people who want to have large families or are in some other way averse to birth control. That selective pressure didn't exist until the past 50 years or so.

rocgf 7y ago

Apologies, but I am not sure about what you're trying to say. Yes, pollution is not evenly distributed across countries and populations, but that does not mean that the original idea is wrong. The truth is that overpopulation is a huge issue, but it is politically incorrect to bring this up. Given that our economy is really a Ponzi scheme, nobody wants to touch this topic. Everybody talks about declining fertility rates like a huge catastrophe, when in fact, that's some really good news.

joefourier 7y ago
And how do you plan on solving overpopulation? Rich countries already have birthrates below replacement threshold. Do you think that reducing them in India, Nigeria and other developing countries is the most effective and feasible way of combating CO2 emissions? I think not. While the number of humans certainly contributes to the total amount of pollution, it is not, in my opinion, the "only environmental problem".
- rocgf 7y ago
  Apologies for being blunt, but you are heavily strawmanning. I don't think anyone said that it is "the only environmental problem" anywhere in this thread, and especially not me. I did not say it is the only environmental problem, but I am saying it is among the big ones. It is completely illogical to say that it is not. If you agree with the fact that consumption leads to pollution, then you agree with my premise whether you like it or not, it's simply a logical conclusion. > Do you think that reducing them in India, Nigeria and other developing countries is the most effective and feasible way of combating CO2 emissions? Again, kind of strawmanning here. I never said it is the most efficient way to tackle it, but we need to realise that if our population keeps going up, the problem will become more and more exacerbated.
naasking 7y ago
> The truth is that overpopulation is a huge issue, but it is politically incorrect to bring this up. It's really not an issue. Negative externalities associated with the environment is a huge issue, and population decline will become a big issue in about 80 years.
- rocgf 7y ago
  > It's really not an issue. Really? As an extreme example, are you saying that if our planet only had only 1 million people, we'd have the exact same problem? This holds for 1 billion or 3 billion instead of the almost 8 billion we're going to get to soon. Population decline will become an issue _economically_. Environmentally, it's great.
  - naasking 7y ago
    > As an extreme example, are you saying that if our planet only had only 1 million people, we'd have the exact same problem? Our planet could in principle support hundreds of billions as long as you're not married to the idea of preserving biodiversity.
    - rocgf 7y ago
      If you separate this conversation from reality and strip any sort of relevant context, then yes, population and pollution are orthogonal concerns. What you're saying is "if human existence didn't cause externalities, then a growing population would no be an environmental problem". Preserving biodiversity is not desirable just to stroke our egos, it is actually vital for our world to continue. If we actually talk about the real world, without unrealistic hypotheticals, and without circular arguments, then you can't possibly be right. Every extra human born pollutes and has an environmental impact. We are very far away from bringing that to zero and, unless we do, population growth is an environmental problem.
      - naasking 7y ago
        > If you separate this conversation from reality and strip any sort of relevant context, then yes, population and pollution are orthogonal concerns. What you're saying is "if human existence didn't cause externalities, then a growing population would no be an environmental problem". Not exactly. I'm saying that problems are always caused when negative externalities are not accounted for, therefore the problem of not accounting for negative externalities is literally to account for negative externalities. The population size is a complete red herring to this basic fact. The fact that a low population entails that we can ignore certain externalities is completely uninteresting. > Every extra human born pollutes and has an environmental impact. We are very far away from bringing that to zero and, unless we do, population growth is an environmental problem. It will never be zero. So what? Population growth for affluent nations is already negative. Growth rate falls as a nation enjoys better health care and more opportunities, which is why global population will start falling in about 80 years. Population growth clearly has a form of autoregulation. What's not autoregulating are negative externalities of common goods, by definition. That's why population growth is not a problem and negative externalities are.

w0utert 7y ago

Sustainability is not just about CO2 emissions. Countries that have low per-capita greenhouse emission or pollution have their own ecological problems caused by e.g. deforestation, depletion of fishing grounds, depletion of water sources, extinction of species that are vital for food production, air/land/water pollution by garbage, toxic waste, plastics. Ever went to a less-developed south-asian country? Low per-capita CO2 emissions, but I wouldn't say a hallmark of sustainability, especially not in the densely populated areas. I would say reducing per-capita CO2 emissions is probably one of the easier problems to solve, especially considering the already huge differences between developed countries. But that alone is not going to save the planet, not by a long shot.

lisper 7y ago

That point was raised earlier in a different branch of the discussion. My response is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20403067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20403067

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

> How does your argument deal with the fact as nations becomes more developed, birthrates plummet? There was an HN article recently that this (unfortunately) may be relatively short lived. Birthrates plummet particularly as women have better education and better access to contraception. However, as birthrates plummet, that also means there is new selective pressure that favors the genetics of people who want to have large families or are in some other way averse to birth control. That selective pressure didn't exist until the past 50 years or so.