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> 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?

• 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.