4 ms·
"the carrying capacity of the Earth is closed to 1 billion people" This is FUD. The carrying capacity of earth is determined by the ingenuity of humanity. It ca
by rubidium 6y ago
"the carrying capacity of the Earth is closed to 1 billion people" This is FUD. The carrying capacity of earth is determined by the ingenuity of humanity. It can go poorly for the environment or not, but considering it purely a function of the number of people is Malthusian hogwash.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoSure, and if you're skilled, you can disarm a bomb before it explodes. You're ingenious as a species, but you're still dead. The data does not show that on our current trajectory, we are going to disarm the bomb. Even with COVID-19, we're unable to reduce CO2 emissions to levels needed to avert climate change, without going on ad nauseam about natural resource exhaustion (fish stocks continue to be depleted [1], rapidly exhausting phosphorus reserves for fertilizer [2] and fossil aquifers for agriculture [3], etc). 800 million people out of 7.6 billion are chronically undernourished [4] and your argument is we can still support more people? At what point do people get real that we are burning the gas faster than we can fill the gas tank of the ecosystem engine? Hope is not a strategy, and we are not so ingenuous if we already have so many people struggling to survive. Less people over time (total fertility rate stepdown), less demand on world resources, less suffering. It's that simple. [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/fish-stocks-are-used-up-fisheries-subsidies-must-stop/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/fish-stocks-are-used-... [2] https://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/solutions/phosphorus.html https://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/solutions/... [3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/5/100505-fossil-water-radioactive-science-environment/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/5/100505-fossil... [4] https://www.worldhunger.org/world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/ https://www.worldhunger.org/world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-a...
- orwin 6y agoMmm, the phosphorus reserves are doing better than a lot of other ressources. Its trues that _US_ reserves have peaked and will be exhausted soon, but currently China and Australia (from memory) are exporting currently half the world consumption and still have not peaked, while the place with the most reserves should be Morocco [0]. Anyway e is growing and will always be (unless our universe is not isolated) and we will all die even if we manage to: save our planet/move out of our planet/move out of our solar system/move out of our galaxy. I realise that i argued against your point even though i'm quite agreeing with it. Oh well, precision do not hurt anyone. [0]https://www.statista.com/statistics/681747/phosphate-rock-reserves-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/681747/phosphate-rock-re...
- toomuchtodo 6y agoTo want to kick e down the road seems to be in line with my species' desire to keep kicking the can :) Appreciate the link regardless.
- vincentlee 6y agoagree. source: Rational Optimist How prosperity evolves by author Matt Ridley
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]