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"worthless speculation about the future" No really - trends are real, this is science, and we use them to actually estimate the future, in much the same way we

by jariel 6y ago

"worthless speculation about the future" No really - trends are real, this is science, and we use them to actually estimate the future, in much the same way we try to do so with climate and other things. "It will be positive for the environment" Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. " population declines. one thing is for certain though. it will be a positive for the environment. at some point the ponzi scheme, " Most GDP growth does not come from resource utilisation. So there are definitly some upsides to less people, but it's also a tremendous risk. Never before in history has this happened naturally, and it's happening fast. This is a 'really big, kind of scary' issue that we have to contend with, and as your points illustrate, there are definitely many facets let alone the social one's.

bawolff 6y ago
> Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. That is one of the most egregious example of not controlling for confounding factors i can think of. People with high carbon emissions are in the group having less children. It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children.
- jariel 6y ago
  "It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children." Except that it does. Literally from the article, they state "women entering the workforce, education jobs etc" - which increases income, and this is 100% correlated to increased consumption of all forms. It's consistent everywhere. FYI this is the de-facto neoliberal plan (not being conspiratorial here). It's more directly apparent in China's ambitions i.e. Belt and Road: "The stated objectives are "to construct a unified large market and make full use of both international and domestic markets" [1], but it's not like it's their 'new' idea. The objective of the wealthier nations is to get the remaining 4 Billion people driving cars, eating Cheetos, wearing H&M (fast fashion, ie 'disposable') and living in IKEA (i.e. trendy, but generally low-quality furniture, that can be replaced every several years). This is effectively 'the plan'. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
walleeee 6y ago
Calling it a tremendous risk doesn't seem warranted given that it will not produce a significant drop in the earth's total population this century (see my comment above). A top-heavier age spread may strain political and economic systems: these are the social effects you mention. But from an ecological standpoint, not much will change for some time. There is tremendous risk in covering the planet with ourselves and our waste, though; imho the more relevant risk, especially since we're pretty much locked into the pattern now.
- jariel 6y ago
  "not much will change for some time" If you look at it from much longer term perspective, it's scary because it's happening extremely fast (1 generation) within nations that have reached a certain level of material prosperity and stability. It's also 'scary' because it's never happened before. '100 years' when we will really see the effects more globally, is not a 'long time', it's a 'quite a short time'. We only ever knew 'one natural direction' and though it's exploded since the industrial revolution, it was at least, in normal times, 'up' to the extent the system could support it. So yes, it's not 'scary' right now, and as you point out, Mother Earth could use a break from all of us. But thinking about the next 'few hundred' years, it's spooky.
  - walleeee 6y ago
    I would agree but for the fact that if we look at habitability prospects from that same longer-term perspective, we see an ocean of scarier things happening just as fast. Humans have endured and are generally resilient to population fluctuations. We and our industrial societies are not resilient to e.g., significant departure from the Holocene equilibrium[0]. [0] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    The transition from 2B to 7.8B was also kind of fast: 90 years. The exponential growth we've seen recently is unique in human existence. Before the last several centuries human population growth was much slower. In fact, it seems unlikely that population growth will become that slow again without some sort of disaster scenario.

by jariel 6y ago

bawolff 6y ago

> Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. That is one of the most egregious example of not controlling for confounding factors i can think of. People with high carbon emissions are in the group having less children. It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children.

jariel 6y ago
"It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children." Except that it does. Literally from the article, they state "women entering the workforce, education jobs etc" - which increases income, and this is 100% correlated to increased consumption of all forms. It's consistent everywhere. FYI this is the de-facto neoliberal plan (not being conspiratorial here). It's more directly apparent in China's ambitions i.e. Belt and Road: "The stated objectives are "to construct a unified large market and make full use of both international and domestic markets" [1], but it's not like it's their 'new' idea. The objective of the wealthier nations is to get the remaining 4 Billion people driving cars, eating Cheetos, wearing H&M (fast fashion, ie 'disposable') and living in IKEA (i.e. trendy, but generally low-quality furniture, that can be replaced every several years). This is effectively 'the plan'. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

walleeee 6y ago

Calling it a tremendous risk doesn't seem warranted given that it will not produce a significant drop in the earth's total population this century (see my comment above). A top-heavier age spread may strain political and economic systems: these are the social effects you mention. But from an ecological standpoint, not much will change for some time. There is tremendous risk in covering the planet with ourselves and our waste, though; imho the more relevant risk, especially since we're pretty much locked into the pattern now.

jariel 6y ago
"not much will change for some time" If you look at it from much longer term perspective, it's scary because it's happening extremely fast (1 generation) within nations that have reached a certain level of material prosperity and stability. It's also 'scary' because it's never happened before. '100 years' when we will really see the effects more globally, is not a 'long time', it's a 'quite a short time'. We only ever knew 'one natural direction' and though it's exploded since the industrial revolution, it was at least, in normal times, 'up' to the extent the system could support it. So yes, it's not 'scary' right now, and as you point out, Mother Earth could use a break from all of us. But thinking about the next 'few hundred' years, it's spooky.
- walleeee 6y ago
  I would agree but for the fact that if we look at habitability prospects from that same longer-term perspective, we see an ocean of scarier things happening just as fast. Humans have endured and are generally resilient to population fluctuations. We and our industrial societies are not resilient to e.g., significant departure from the Holocene equilibrium[0]. [0] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115
- jessaustin 6y ago
  The transition from 2B to 7.8B was also kind of fast: 90 years. The exponential growth we've seen recently is unique in human existence. Before the last several centuries human population growth was much slower. In fact, it seems unlikely that population growth will become that slow again without some sort of disaster scenario.