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We're swimming in environmental problems. We can come up with makeshift solutions to many, but for solving them all, and not to suggest it's the only solution,
by spodek 7y ago
We're swimming in environmental problems.
We can come up with makeshift solutions to many, but for solving them all, and not to suggest it's the only solution, but a part of anything comprehensive, is there any environmental problem that a smaller human population doesn't alleviate?
- jandrese 7y agoI prefer to keep "kill all humans" lower down on the list of possible solutions to environmental problems. Lets try some alternatives first.
- astrodust 7y agoNobody has to be killed, but if a handful of people were put in jail the world would be a dramatically different place.
- jandrese 7y agoPeople are going to say you're persecuting them for their religion if you jail "quiverfull" parents.
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- spodek 7y agoI don't understand the persistent misstating what lowering the population means. It's no secret we're all going to die. We don't need to kill anyone. As for alternatives, we've exhausted plenty. Growth, in particular, has failed. Stepping on the gas pedal is not slowing us down. When should we step on the brake? After we drive off the cliff feels too late.
- throwaway2048 7y agoCheck the rest of the thread, there is no shortage of people that mean it in exactly "the bad way".
- mirimir 7y agoBut that's the thing. Our behavior, in overshooting global carrying capacity, will lead to increasing death rates. From famine, war, disease, etc.
- homonculus1 7y ago"Stop having multiple children for Christ's sake" is a great alternative.
- everdrive 7y agoNo is suggesting this. Population control via less breeding is always an alternative.
- jandrese 7y agoThat's a lot more difficult than just killing everyone. People are very protective of their breeding rights, and even in totalitarian regimes like China it eventually breaks down. Politically it's probably the hardest solution to our environmental problems. Harder even than strict carbon caps.
- conanbatt 7y agoGood lord, are really americans from the Land of the Free having thoughts like this one.
- chadcmulligan 7y agoI feel the whole "land of the free" thing has gone out the window, land of the indentured servants is more like it, with their health care and higher education costs
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- phkahler 7y ago>> is there any environmental problem that a smaller human population doesn't alleviate? Shhhhh. Nobody is willing to talk about that for a number of reasons. Most of those reasons are nothing more than burying ones head in the sand.
- mirimir 7y agoPopulation has been a red flag topic in the environmental community, for decades at least. One issue is the typical inverse relationship between population growth rate and per capita resource usage. Plus the fact that population growth rate tends to drop with increasing economic development, particularly increased educational opportunities for women. So it tends to self correct, over time. Still, the overshoot is problematic.
- wins32767 7y agoWe're exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet. The alternatives are either less people on the planet, lower standard of living, or resources from off the planet.
- ip26 7y agoArtificial meat seems like a pretty exciting workaround. Beef has a feed conversion of something like 10:1. So, if you imagine a post-beef world, we will need only 10% of the field corn & soy to produce similar amounts of artificial meat. Corn, by the way, is the US's largest crop. This has a lot of open questions around, e.g. what happens to all the corn & soy farmers. But if we're just talking about the planet's carrying capacity at Western standards of living, it seems clinch.
- chadcmulligan 7y agoHeadlines I'm expecting in 10 years - "problems caused by artificial meat are as bad as the obesity epidemic caused by processed food." There is no need for artificial meat, just eat less meat, and eat more veggies, nuts and beans. They are way better for you and provide a lot of micro nutrients (anti - oxidants, phytochemical etc) that may or may not exist in artificial meat. Artificial meat is a processed food, and like any other may have the same problems.
- ip26 7y agoI eat very little meat, but I'm not optimistic about convincing everyone else. Also, we already know regular red meat causes cancer and other issues, so the health bar is not high.
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- booboolayla 7y agoWe really are not "swimming in environmental problems," you're just made to feel that way through incessant reporting on anything that might be construed as a doomsday scenario. I hope there's a good reason for why the hidden hands have been trying to freak us out for the last 40 or so years. In the real world however the climate is very nice most of the time, we haven't killed all bees, birds are still chirping away, cow farts aren't setting the planet on fire, airplanes and rockets are not depleting the ozone layer, etc. etc. I'm honestly flabbergasted at how many otherwise perfectly sane and rational people have bought into the climate doomsday scenario without a shred of evidence.