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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. But saying that is taboo, even h

by sgift 7y ago

> The fact of the matter is that there is only one environmental problem here on earth, and that is an overabundance of humans. But saying that is taboo, even here on HN. Because it is wrong, or rather: Only correct if you say humans cannot change. The core problem is resource usage. Now, fewer people use fewer resources. So far, you are correct. But what also uses fewer resources is a different lifestyle. People in the west, and especially in the USA, use far more resources in their life than people living in other parts of the world. So, we only have an "overabundance of humans" if we don't change that. And that is more a matter of society than evolution.

lisper 7y ago
> The core problem is resource usage No, it isn't. The core problem is exponential growth. The population today is double what it was just 50 years ago, so you could cut resource usage in half and all that would accomplish is taking us back to the problem as it stood in 1970 or so. It's true that this is a social issue, but even there the problem is very difficult. The entire world economy is built on the premise of eternal exponential growth in something with economic value. That is fundamentally unsustainable. At some point we will have to transition to at leasy polynomial growth, if not an actual steady-state solution. No one is even talking about that AFAICT.
- carapace 7y ago
  Just to emphasize what lisper is saying, the core problem is exponential growth, even if we invent FTL spaceships, even if we invent warp drive, the core problem is still exponential growth. We could turn the Galaxy green† and still not have enough room. We could fill it with Ringworlds, with Dyson Spheres, and still not have enough room. The core problem is exponential growth. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project:_Colonizing_the_Galaxy_in_Eight_Easy_Steps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project:_Coloni...

by sgift 7y ago

lisper 7y ago

> The core problem is resource usage No, it isn't. The core problem is exponential growth. The population today is double what it was just 50 years ago, so you could cut resource usage in half and all that would accomplish is taking us back to the problem as it stood in 1970 or so. It's true that this is a social issue, but even there the problem is very difficult. The entire world economy is built on the premise of eternal exponential growth in something with economic value. That is fundamentally unsustainable. At some point we will have to transition to at leasy polynomial growth, if not an actual steady-state solution. No one is even talking about that AFAICT.

carapace 7y ago
Just to emphasize what lisper is saying, the core problem is exponential growth, even if we invent FTL spaceships, even if we invent warp drive, the core problem is still exponential growth. We could turn the Galaxy green† and still not have enough room. We could fill it with Ringworlds, with Dyson Spheres, and still not have enough room. The core problem is exponential growth. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project:_Colonizing_the_Galaxy_in_Eight_Easy_Steps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project:_Coloni...