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"The myth, as is commonly told, tells the story of a mid-twentieth century world headed for disaster. There were too many people being born and not enough food
by adevx 6y ago
"The myth, as is commonly told, tells the story of a mid-twentieth century world headed for disaster. There were too many people being born and not enough food being produced. This combination of forces would lead inexorably to famine, unchecked migration, conflict and other calamities. However, thanks to the inventiveness of Western scientists more food was produced, Armageddon was avoided, and the world did not experience a population crisis."
Maybe we do have a population crisis. Our climate issues are in large due to overpopulation and subsequent increasing demand for resources. Sure we can cut down even more of the Amazon rainforest to supply food for more people, but not attributing any of this to population growth seems dishonest.
- Synaesthesia 6y agoBangladesh has some struggles. It is the most densely populated (large) country on earth. They have major floods often which cause big problems. But they manage to survive. Thus there isn't really a threat to anyone else. There's enough food to feed everyone, and the only problem remaining is political and with distribution. It would not be difficult or expensive to end world hunger, cents a person.
- paganel 6y ago> Bangladesh has some struggles. It is the most densely populated (large) country on earth. They have major floods often which cause big problems. But they manage to survive Countries like Denmark and Norway are a lot more detrimental to the planet's ecosystem because they consume a lot, lot more per capita compared to what Bangladesh does (and they consume lots of bad things that Bangladeshi people do not consume).
- liaukovv 6y agoBut if you look at this from country abstraction level, what does it matter how much they consume per capita? All that matters is absolute number
- magicalhippo 6y agoIf every country had the population of Norway, the globe would host just over 1 billion people. So then, would 1 billion Norweigans be better or worse than our current situation?
- liaukovv 6y agoWho knows, considering developed countries produce science at higher rates the climate change might have already been solved.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoSo countries like Luxembourg can continue to pollute because at an absolute level it doesn't matter but countries like India or China can't have any development because at an absolute level their emissions are huge. I can't see poorer countries accepting that argument.
- bildung 6y agoWhy do single out exactly these two countries and not the dozens with higher footprint per capita? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecologica...
- thefz 6y agoTo conveniently leave out North America.
- marcus_holmes 6y agoI'm always curious about this. Cambodia (for example) has a terrible rubbish problem. They burn their trash, and vast amounts of it get thrown in the Mekong river and washed out to sea. There's also a big problem with unlicensed forest logging, and all sorts of environmental concerns. This is, primarily, because poor people are too busy with immediate survival concerns to worry about their environment. Norway (for example) has a higher per-person consumption of resources, but also looks after its countryside and environment. What's the relative damage being done to the global environment? Is there an argument that raising people out of poverty will actually reduce their impact on the environment even though it increases their resource consumption?
- samvher 6y agoNorway looks after its own countryside and environment. But it imports lots of stuff meaning it effectively has a pretty large footprint elsewhere. Also while Norway looks clean, that doesn't mean it's not affecting the environment negatively (e.g. greenhouse gases). Of course none of this is specific to Norway.
- h0l0cube 6y agoIt's pretty well known that when you look at individual consumptions habits, which account for overseas production emissions, there's a clear correlation between income and greenhouse gas emissions. Though it has been shown that some countries are beginning to reduce emissions while increasing GDP. Much of that shift could be explained by a global shift to renewables as they become the cheapest form of power, but this is a tide that lifts all boats, and the correlation remains. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#co2-embedded-in-trade https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- marcus_holmes 6y agoYeah but emissions are only one part of the equation - logging a forest will produce more net atmospheric carbon than taking a long-haul plane trip, even though cutting down trees doesn't emit anything. The biggest carbon sink is the ocean, so doing things that damage the ocean (like dumping trash into a river) are more of a concern. There's also other environmental concerns than CO2 and climate change. Damaging jungle and ocean ecosystems creates other effects that we need to be concerned about (not least biodiversity losses from loss of habitat and population).
- greenwich26 6y agoBangladeshis spent the second half of the twentieth century having about 6 kids each, while Danes and Norwegians were having less than 2. Why is that factor excluded from your assignment of which country is "more detrimental to the ecosystem"? The Bangladeshi behaviour of having 6 kids each from 1950-1990 is overall far more detrimental than the Norwegian behaviour of consuming a lot per capita.
- g8oz 6y agoPer capita resource consumption dominates raw population to a surprisingly large extent. Bangladesh vs Denmark + Norway seems like a contrived example doesn't it? A population of 163 million for the former vs a combined 11 million for the latter. And yet total consumption based CO2 emissions are about equivalent. It's even worse when you look at production based emissions. Bangladesh emits less than half the total of CO2 vs Norway + Denmark. Take a look at this page and do the math: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...
- watwut 6y ago> Bangladeshis spent the second half of the twentieth century having about 6 kids each This is not true. That was true in 1950, started to drop in 1970. Now it is 2.04 kid per woman. And when you compare contemporary consumption of Danes, you have to compare it with contemporary consumption of Bangladeshis. Currently, the fertility rates are 1.73 vs 2.04 kid per woman. Which is much smaller difference.
- lupire 6y agoThis is silly. If it only cost cents to feed a person, food wouldn't cost dollars.
- i_haz_rabies 6y agoA cup of rice and dry chickpeas will feed a person for cents.
- watwut 6y agoYou cant subsist on these only.
- i_haz_rabies 6y agoYou could survive for a long time on this, and if you add cheap produce like carrots and beets for a few cents more you could survive indefinitely.
- watwut 6y agoNo, you would not.
- chiefalchemist 6y agoIn the context of the environment and more specifically climate change, it's not overpopulation per se but a growing middle class. The middle class, drives cars, have larger homes (to heat, cool and furnish) and so on. A million people in poverty is not the same as a million living a traditional middle class lifestyle.
- Fricken 6y agoIt's either middle class people consuming huge amounts of resources per person, or it's subsistence dwellers cranking out 5 kids for every fertile woman.
- TulliusCicero 6y agoThe latter seems to be solving itself, as birth rates are steadily on the decline. Though it tends to happen in conjunction with development (and thus more intensive energy usage).
- Phenomenit 6y agoThen we should find the optimal point of socio-economic development with regards to co2 emissions? Or is upward mobility impossible to remove from the system?
- Fricken 6y agoI don't think finding that optimum is a hard problem. Convincing the world to abide by it is.
- chiefalchemist 6y agoIn general...where there are 5+ children there is very little hope; there is extreme poverty (read: little consumption); and so on. Children don't survive in those environments. Higher birthrates is a family's / culture's answer to that. It's playing the odds. Put another way, if there was consumption to Western middle class levels, there would be no need to have 5+ children. This is why, as a middle class grows, birth rates fall.
- jcelerier 6y ago> This combination of forces would lead inexorably to famine, unchecked migration, conflict and other calamities. ... and.. it does ? https://www.worldvision.org/refugees-news-stories https://www.worldvision.org/refugees-news-stories
- 0-_-0 6y agoNo mention of famine
- yorwba 6y agoIf you just grep the list of articles for "famine", you'll miss the "malnourished children" and "hunger" mentioned in the articles.
- simonh 6y agoThe top 7 regions creating refugees are Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Somalia or Democratic Republic of Congo. None of them do so due to overpopulation, or even environmental or ecological crisis. They're all political issues.
- orwin 6y agoSouth-eastern Mediterranean situation was caused by repeating drought since 2006 collapsing their agricultural production. A drought in 2010 in Russia reduced their grain production by 30% and doubled the price of grain during the winter 2010-2011: it was basically a death sentence to already famished people in some African countries (Centrafrique, but also Sudan at the time), but what wasn't expected was the price of oil declining sharply, making Syria, Lybia, Tunisia and Egypt and Algeria less solvent. Algeria managed, but other countries less so. What do you think these countries have in common?
- kspacewalk2 6y agoAgain, these famines are also entirely a socioeconomic crisis, not actual lack of food. If Sudan wasn't a terribly run place at war with itself on two fronts, it would not have food shortages. If Somalia had a functioning government at any point in the preceding two decades, it would not have food shortages. Supply chain disruptions occur all the time in the global food market, but in non-basketcase countries there's enough resiliency for this to never reach anywhere near "death sentence" territory. >What do you think these countries have in common? Terrible authoritarian governments that buy off its impoverished populaces with a mirage of huge food subsidies, while stealing most of the wealth of their nations for themselves.
- drewcoo 6y ago> Our climate issues are in large due to overpopulation and subsequent increasing demand for resources Industrialization, not population is to blame. Maybe we have an industrialization crisis. But it's difficult to blame that on "developing nations" so it probably won't get much press. Then again, things like the Paris Agreement provide incentives to move polluting industry to China, so nationalist anti-Chinese media may eventually lay the blame on industrialization.
- lupire 6y agoAnother way to frame it is we have a developed-world population crisis. I agree that still makes "8billion+" a false alarm. But another way to say it that if we are to lift the materialistic standard of living for the other 4 billion people, there needs to be same or less population of them.
- jonnycomputer 6y agoBut in many ways the situation described was true, until artificial nitrogen fertilizer was invented. It is apparent that we've been pretty good at improving productivity and efficiency. But use of fertilizer has caused other problems.
- rmrfrmrf 6y agoThis is incorrect. The richest 10% of the population causes 49% of climate change. The poorest 50% of the population causes 10%.
- andrew_ 6y agoPlease cite sources for statistics like these.