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But is this just saving the planet from only the most pressing symptom of human over population? If we do get an abundance of cheap clean energy, what then?
by hanoz 7y ago
But is this just saving the planet from only the most pressing symptom of human over population? If we do get an abundance of cheap clean energy, what then?
- darawk 7y agoAn abundance of clean energy would solve a pretty huge amount of our problems for quite a while. That's not to say that everything would be great forever...but we'd have a whole lot more breathing room to figure things out.
- hanoz 7y agoMore breathing room for mankind, yes, but not necessary the rest of the natural world.
- darawk 7y agoI'm not really sure what you mean by that. Firstly, we are part of the natural world as much as anything else is. Secondly, having access to clean and abundant energy would allow us to do a lot of things to preserve the other parts of the natural world that we are currently not doing because it's too expensive.
- hanoz 7y agoI did say the rest of the natural world. If it turns out that the only way to bring down carbon emissions is to make low carbon energy much cheaper, then why would anyone think that we'd spend our newfound wealth on cleaning up our act in other matters? There are a multitude of cases of human over-expansion proving catastrophic for other natural environments which have nothing at all to do with climate change yet have been totally eclipsed by the issue. I don't know why anyone would think that much cheaper energy would help those cases rather than make them worse.
- darawk 7y ago> If it turns out that the only way to bring down carbon emissions is to make low carbon energy much cheaper, then why would anyone think that we'd spend our newfound wealth on cleaning up our act in other matters? Humans are consistently willing to devote some percentage of their wealth to nature preservation. That percentage is probably more or less fixed. Therefore bringing down the cost of doing so substantially increases the amount of nature preservation that can be achieved.
- mepian 7y agoThe birth rates seem to be declining in the developed countries, to the point where we might have to worry about underpopulation rather than overpopulation as the markets stop growing and the older part of the population begins to strain welfare systems.
- Lev1a 7y agoProblem is that population growth in developing nations is continuing to be explosive which isn't helped by developed nations "providing aid" which interferes with the natural limitations on population growth (i.e. food ressources within reach are insufficient => population can't reliably grow).
- ClumsyPilot 7y agoA lot of people talking about human overpopulation as it will grow infinitely. Many dont realise that it's projected to max out at 10bn and then we will have a perpetual declining population / demographic crises.
- tanbog 7y agoNeo-Malthusians generally only get as far as intro biology and avoid demography classes.
- vanniv 7y agoIt amazes me that we are still talking about Malthus. There has been a Malthus in every generation since the one to actually carry the name, and they've ways had "compelling" arguments... ...and always, life has gotten better and resource starvation has always gotten rarer... and still, Malthus won't die.
- tanbog 7y agoI used to think its roots lay in some kind of biblical fetish for armageddon. I have no qualifications in this area though so this is just my armchair-psychologist theory. Oh that and often weird racism about how many people live in poor countries.
- vanniv 7y agoI also don't pretend to understand. It can't just be those two things, though, because it's really big in the U.S. right now on the political left, and especially that part of the far-left that relentlessly mock the right for both their religion and their supposed racism/"whiteness". In some ways, it's an anti-economic-growth, anti-capitalist sentiment that portrays the great conflict of the world as between "the world" and "human economic activity" But there's a lot to unpack in the question "Why won't Malthus die" that I won't claim to understand at all.
- 7y ago
- vanniv 7y agoMalthus has been dead for a really long time.
- Nasrudith 7y agoThen it wouldn't be overpopulation anymore. Actual overpopulation is based upon carrying capacity exceeding the environment.