5 ms·

AFAIK, world population is projected to peak around 11 billion, which by many estimates could be feasibly sustainable with a few technological improvements to i

• zelphirkalt 5y ago
  Perhaps I should remind you of a day, that comes once a year, called "Earth Overshoot Day". It is the day, when we used up more resources than the planet regenerates. The tendency for that day's date is come earlier each year. The current population is not even sustainable. Half it and then perhaps it will be sustainable, if capped. Ecological damage will probably increase in the future, as swathes of people from developing countries will want to have the same living standards, that the first world countries experienced for decades. If you combine that with 11 billion people, it will be a disaster.
  • yosito 5y ago
    I'm familiar with the problem. The question is, what is the solution?
    • zelphirkalt 5y ago
      Doing everything we can, including birth limitations and laws, to not get there. I recently heard about China stopping the one-child law stuff and I only wanted to facepalm. That's so typical. "We need more population for all our old people here!" disregarding what will happen with the planet (an objectively much more important thing than China, but hey, it's not China, so not their problem, right?!), if population surges again in China. I just hope, that the experts are correct and that it will not lead to another population increase.
      • neverminder 5y ago
        China is bad, but it's not the main problem, Africa is. Africa is projected to quadruple it's population while rapidly industrializing. Africa will be the last nail in this particular cofin.
        • toomuchtodo 5y ago
          Empower women. That is a proven path to reducing the fertility rate, even if direct cash transfers to women are necessary to more rapidly provide the autonomy and empowerment that would naturally occur through industrialization. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-change-in-the-number-of-children-women-have https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-...
          • neverminder 5y ago
            Sure, western women have been empowered so much so that birth rates have been below replacement for ages now. So this idea has some major problems. First, it will take too long - cultural changes take decades. Second, you won't be able to stop this particular snowball once it picks up momentum as is evident from the west.
            • deleted 5y ago
              [deleted]
          • Glavnokoman 5y ago
            Yep. Women education is the only thing with proven negative correlation to birth rate. That's why apart from WWF I only donate to women education in Africa.
            • toomuchtodo 5y ago
              Any charities in particular you’d recommend?
  • tines 5y ago
    How many years of resources does the earth have stored in it though?
  • hungryforcodes 5y ago
    Thanks for the doom and gloom, but to be fair -- the GP did mention this could happen with a few technological improvements -- specifically in food and ecology.
    • realreality 5y ago
      Citation needed. We’re 50 years away from running out of topsoil. Combine that with many other resources that are running out, and the compounding crises of climate and biodiversity loss. We’re not a few techno tweaks away from sustainability.
      • yosito 5y ago
        Citation needed.
        • realreality 5y ago
          https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-...
  • pdonis 5y ago
    > The current population is not even sustainable. If you make a certain set of highly unrealistic assumptions about what "sustainable" requires, yes. If you look at how human history has actually gone, you find that doomsayers in every time could find trends that, if projected out forever into the future, looked "unsustainable". And of course, if those trends had continued as they were, it would not have been sustainable. But the trends never continued as they were. We humans can adapt to change by changing how we do things. Claims that our current population, or indeed any current human activity, is "unsustainable" ignore that crucial fact.
    • Glavnokoman 5y ago
      That's just a selection bias. No reasonable conclusion can be driven from all that. Even if you believe that extrapolation like that could make any sense.
      • pdonis 5y ago
        If your argument were valid, it would apply to any attempt to draw conclusions based on past experience. Which means your argument can't be valid, since we can draw valid conclusions based on past experience.
  • hackeraccount 5y ago
    Is there any reason to think that the number of people able to be supported is a static number?
    • yosito 5y ago
      It's not static. But it probably approaches a ceiling where additional population would struggle to survive.
      • hutzlibu 5y ago
        You know that there are many, many people struggling to survive as of today?
• remir 5y ago
  How many of those 11 billion will thrive, tho? 11 billion people living in the same way we are living in the first world would be impossible.
  • Pompidou 5y ago
    I disagree. It will be possible only if we continue to do as we do today. In other words, being a climat migrant is not a big problem for rich people. For the poor, it will be a problem.
  • hackeraccount 5y ago
    They'll live better then we do now. Will they have everything we do? Probably not - but probably in the sense that 200 years ago I could have owned a human being and I could have had them cook me a Dodo for breakfast. If you ask me if I would trade places with that 200 years ago person I would say no. If you ask a person 200 years hence if they'd trade places with me I have no doubt that they'd say no as well.