3 ms·

The US is effectively zero population growth, as are many other affluent parts of the world. This seems like an overly simplistic assessment.

dominotw 6y ago
I am assuming we need to go negative in population growth, current population levels are not sustainable.
- aboringusername 6y ago
  It's almost like a pandemic could be natures way of enacting that, yet it seems now we've conquered its capability to do widespread damage in terms of human lives lost. This must be one of the least fatal pandemics in history
monkeydreams 6y ago
The problem is not necessarily the population growth, but the growth in aggregate demand. The rich demand more and more every year, the middle-class demand more and more every year, and the poor demand to live like the middle class. Your population can be stable, but the economy is not.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  While economy has historically been coupled to resource and energy usage, recently we have decoupled economic growth from things like that, countries can and do have economic growth with stable or decreasing ecological footprint as the service economy and digital/attention economy can provide more and more things people want without necessarily consuming more physical resources.
  - monkeydreams 6y ago
    > While economy has historically been coupled to resource and energy usage, recently we have decoupled economic growth from things like that I get what you are saying but I would need to see this sustained before I believe that we have finally broken the back of GDP to Ecological Footprint linkage. I'm not optimistic about mankind's ability to keep its footprint under control.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    A lot of the time, that is only achieved by outsourcing production and other high-environmental tole activities to the third world. I am extremely skeptical of most countries claiming to have achieved this.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      Do you have a source for this? Considering the basic improvements seen in the efficiency of various devices and processes, I'm dubious that the outsourcing of environmentally costly activity is the cause of this GDP-resources trend.

dominotw 6y ago

I am assuming we need to go negative in population growth, current population levels are not sustainable.

aboringusername 6y ago
It's almost like a pandemic could be natures way of enacting that, yet it seems now we've conquered its capability to do widespread damage in terms of human lives lost. This must be one of the least fatal pandemics in history

monkeydreams 6y ago

The problem is not necessarily the population growth, but the growth in aggregate demand. The rich demand more and more every year, the middle-class demand more and more every year, and the poor demand to live like the middle class. Your population can be stable, but the economy is not.

PeterisP 6y ago
While economy has historically been coupled to resource and energy usage, recently we have decoupled economic growth from things like that, countries can and do have economic growth with stable or decreasing ecological footprint as the service economy and digital/attention economy can provide more and more things people want without necessarily consuming more physical resources.
- monkeydreams 6y ago
  > While economy has historically been coupled to resource and energy usage, recently we have decoupled economic growth from things like that I get what you are saying but I would need to see this sustained before I believe that we have finally broken the back of GDP to Ecological Footprint linkage. I'm not optimistic about mankind's ability to keep its footprint under control.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  A lot of the time, that is only achieved by outsourcing production and other high-environmental tole activities to the third world. I am extremely skeptical of most countries claiming to have achieved this.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    Do you have a source for this? Considering the basic improvements seen in the efficiency of various devices and processes, I'm dubious that the outsourcing of environmentally costly activity is the cause of this GDP-resources trend.