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The only problem for the Amazon rainforest is high birth rates in Brazil and in the rest of the world. If high birth rates continue, then there will be no more

The only problem for the Amazon rainforest is high birth rates in Brazil and in the rest of the world. If high birth rates continue, then there will be no more rainforest, I can assure you.

zorked 7y ago
Brazil's fertility rate is somewhere between France and Germany.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  This. I must admit that I had similar thoughts to u/boyadjian about the world's population. A few months ago I read the book Factfulness, which turned my world view upside down. Particularly on the point of fertility, the best we can do is help the final billion people that currently live in extreme poverty. This causes the transition from large families and high mortality rate to 2-child families with low mortality, independent of religion or anything else. We are almost there, except for that last 13%. The population explosion we have seen in the last century is due to the transition, where people got large families and suddenly none of the children died before they could get children of their own. The projection from the UN is that the population increase will stop around the year 2100 and top off at about 12 billion. That's a lot of people, but there is no reasonable alternative: nobody will stand for killing even one billion people, let alone the multiple billions that would make a significant difference in humanity's footprint. For perspective, to kill one billion, you would have to kill everyone currently alive in both north and south America. We can't let Africa starve to death (most of them aren't starving to death anymore anyway), so withholding vaccines or development aid won't prevent those four extra billion people from coming into the world, either. We need to continue to support countries to make the transition as fast as possible. Even if it is a big risk to try and live with 12 billion people on this planet, that is the only way forward that people will support, and so it is our only option. By the way, if anyone else would like a copy of Factfulness, I think the book is hugely important to read for everyone. If you think the price is too steep, I would be happy to pay 50% of your copy. (I would say 100%, but people abuse stuff that is free, and it's not expensive anyway.) I can also share a preview of the book to help you decide whether you should buy a copy or not.

The only problem for the Amazon rainforest is high birth rates in Brazil and in the rest of the world. If high birth rates continue, then there will be no more rainforest, I can assure you.

zorked 7y ago

Brazil's fertility rate is somewhere between France and Germany.

lucb1e 7y ago
This. I must admit that I had similar thoughts to u/boyadjian about the world's population. A few months ago I read the book Factfulness, which turned my world view upside down. Particularly on the point of fertility, the best we can do is help the final billion people that currently live in extreme poverty. This causes the transition from large families and high mortality rate to 2-child families with low mortality, independent of religion or anything else. We are almost there, except for that last 13%. The population explosion we have seen in the last century is due to the transition, where people got large families and suddenly none of the children died before they could get children of their own. The projection from the UN is that the population increase will stop around the year 2100 and top off at about 12 billion. That's a lot of people, but there is no reasonable alternative: nobody will stand for killing even one billion people, let alone the multiple billions that would make a significant difference in humanity's footprint. For perspective, to kill one billion, you would have to kill everyone currently alive in both north and south America. We can't let Africa starve to death (most of them aren't starving to death anymore anyway), so withholding vaccines or development aid won't prevent those four extra billion people from coming into the world, either. We need to continue to support countries to make the transition as fast as possible. Even if it is a big risk to try and live with 12 billion people on this planet, that is the only way forward that people will support, and so it is our only option. By the way, if anyone else would like a copy of Factfulness, I think the book is hugely important to read for everyone. If you think the price is too steep, I would be happy to pay 50% of your copy. (I would say 100%, but people abuse stuff that is free, and it's not expensive anyway.) I can also share a preview of the book to help you decide whether you should buy a copy or not.