4 ms·

Less people on the planet -> less CO2 emissions. I just don’t understand why no one talks about how we produce more and more people, each consuming a lot.

martincmartin 5y ago
We did in the 1970s. Have you seen Soylent Green?
Zababa 5y ago
Because ecologists are often left-wing people, and talking about overpopulation would shift the blame from the occident to Africa and Asia. Edit: as an example of that, look at that map of mismanaged plastic https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#share-of-global-total-mismanaged-plastic-waste https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#share-of-global.... Do you think that fighting against plastic straws and bags had any kind of meaningful impact?
- billiam 5y ago
  What a lazy and irrelevant point. Social scientists won't shift the blame to Africa and Asia because their energy intensity is still a tiny fraction of the developed world, and unless and until we deal with energy intensity, we don't have political authority to dictate terms to the rest of the world.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    > Social scientists won't shift the blame to Africa and Asia because their energy intensity is still a tiny fraction of the developed world China is in Asia.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    China pollutes more than the US, the EU and Canada combined https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di.... The amount of resources on Earth is limited, and doesn't increase with the population. Pollution by capita is irrelevant. I'll also let you take a look at energy intensity and see if Africa and Asia are so good at it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity_by_country. China is worse than the USA, India is worse than France. What exactly do we have to deal with? And something else, Asia consumes the most energy in the world by far: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-consumption-by-region https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-consumptio.... At some point you have to face reality, even if you don't like it.
delecti 5y ago
> why no one talks about Because most people frown on genocide. And it's not like it's a secret that people living is why CO2 emissions happen. A big part of the Paris Agreement includes details about the varying development states of different places around the world (the average Ghanian is responsible for way less carbon emissions than the average American, but it's not fair to enforce them staying that way). But fine, I'll bite; lets talk about it. What do you suggest? Who are you suggesting we have fewer of?
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > most people frown on genocide. We don't necessarily have to kill everybody to get them off the planet - if we focus on space travel and terraforming, we can reduce the population of a given planet to an almost arbitrary number... once we figure out a way to safely get somewhere else.
  - delecti 5y ago
    We are at least many decades (if not centuries) from having anywhere off of earth where we could realistically put on the order of a billion people.

martincmartin 5y ago

We did in the 1970s. Have you seen Soylent Green?

Zababa 5y ago

Because ecologists are often left-wing people, and talking about overpopulation would shift the blame from the occident to Africa and Asia. Edit: as an example of that, look at that map of mismanaged plastic https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#share-of-global-total-mismanaged-plastic-waste https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#share-of-global.... Do you think that fighting against plastic straws and bags had any kind of meaningful impact?

billiam 5y ago
What a lazy and irrelevant point. Social scientists won't shift the blame to Africa and Asia because their energy intensity is still a tiny fraction of the developed world, and unless and until we deal with energy intensity, we don't have political authority to dictate terms to the rest of the world.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  > Social scientists won't shift the blame to Africa and Asia because their energy intensity is still a tiny fraction of the developed world China is in Asia.
- Zababa 5y ago
  China pollutes more than the US, the EU and Canada combined https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di.... The amount of resources on Earth is limited, and doesn't increase with the population. Pollution by capita is irrelevant. I'll also let you take a look at energy intensity and see if Africa and Asia are so good at it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity_by_country. China is worse than the USA, India is worse than France. What exactly do we have to deal with? And something else, Asia consumes the most energy in the world by far: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-consumption-by-region https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-consumptio.... At some point you have to face reality, even if you don't like it.

delecti 5y ago

> why no one talks about Because most people frown on genocide. And it's not like it's a secret that people living is why CO2 emissions happen. A big part of the Paris Agreement includes details about the varying development states of different places around the world (the average Ghanian is responsible for way less carbon emissions than the average American, but it's not fair to enforce them staying that way). But fine, I'll bite; lets talk about it. What do you suggest? Who are you suggesting we have fewer of?

commandlinefan 5y ago
> most people frown on genocide. We don't necessarily have to kill everybody to get them off the planet - if we focus on space travel and terraforming, we can reduce the population of a given planet to an almost arbitrary number... once we figure out a way to safely get somewhere else.
- delecti 5y ago
  We are at least many decades (if not centuries) from having anywhere off of earth where we could realistically put on the order of a billion people.