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Why is depopulation not even a consideration as a solution for climate change? Surely there are ethical ways to implement it. Or do the world's largest and we

Why is depopulation not even a consideration as a solution for climate change? Surely there are ethical ways to implement it. Or do the world's largest and wealthiest nations only care for their hold on economic power?

pfdietz 5y ago
There are some very nazi problems with the whole approach.
zarzavat 5y ago
Depopulation as in killing people? Or as in the one child policy? It turns out you don't need to implement a one child policy: people implement it themselves when the cost of living gets high enough.
- shroompasta 5y ago
  obviously not killing people. I'm just demoralized that low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP, when low birth rates are somewhat of a godsend in times like these. Then nations with low birth rates scramble to find ways to up the birth rates despite understanding the C02 cost. It's ironic, really.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    > low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP You have this backwards
    - shroompasta 5y ago
      the case in point was obviously Japan which fell from the third largest economy to the sixth largest in the past two decades. Japan wants to be like China and the US, not like Qatar or Switzerland. GDP is not GDP/Capita I believe you have this backwards.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    the hard part about shrinking populations is that they cause your population to get older which has a bunch of annoying economic side effects (like fewer people working)
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > I'm just demoralized that low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP Low birth rates are correlated with higher GDP/capita; concerns are raised about them because they have a (decades delayed) effect of population aging producing a drop in the ratio of workers to those two old and infirm to work.
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      The real problem is "living behind your means" at a generational level by putting debt in future generations. This is a problem with democracy, which incentivises short term gains over longer term. The solution is democracies that aren't allowed to accumulate long term debt over agreed upon levels.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- amelius 5y ago
  The problem is that politicians always choose to hide the true cost of living.
actually_a_dog 5y ago
Because the damage will be done in 30 years. It's not possible to reduce population enough to matter in that time frame without mass genocide.
- vba616 5y ago
  It's possible to reduce population by about 40% in 30 years without killing anyone, isn't it? Why is that obviously insignificant?
  - adrianN 5y ago
    No that is not possible without killing anyone because people will fight for the right to reproduce. You can't stop babymaking completely without violence.
    - vba616 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution (An alien invasion story where there's no fighting back like in Independence Day)
    - tinasabri 5y ago
      [flagged]
  - VBprogrammer 5y ago
    How do you simultaneously convince a whole generation of people to not have children? To a significant percentage of people, wearing a mask during a pandemic is too much of an imposition on civil liberties.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    First, 40% is nowhere near enough of a CO2 reduction, we need ~99.9% over slightly more than that timeframe; second, that’s a zero child worldwide policy, and doing that would require violence; and third, you have to ask who you’re doing this for if you’re not doing it for the next generation. I am now curious what graph of age vs. CO2 emissions looks like for various populations…
adrianN 5y ago
Depopulation is too slow to matter. We need to be carbon neutral in less than one generation. Unless you propose to start a campaign to kill billions of people in the next couple of years, you don't solve the problem.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Why is depopulation not even a consideration as a solution for climate change? [...] > Or do the world's largest and wealthiest nations only care for their hold on economic power? It would be very easy for depopulation to be suggested as a solution for climate change without adversely impacting the wealthiest nations (well, I mean, if it was implemented as suggested—actually suggesting it might provoke damaging blowback.)
bestboy 5y ago
Soylent Green (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/) "In 2022, Earth is overpopulated and totally polluted; the natural resources have been exhausted and the nourishment of the population is provided by Soylent Industries, a company that makes a food [...]"
lcam84 5y ago
There are ethical ways to implement it for instance give more education to women [1]. Consuming less meat should be a priority for us wealthy countries. Overpopulation is a problem but carbon inequality is much worse [2]: " . The richest 10% of the world’s population (c.630 million people) were responsible for 52% of the cumulative carbon emissions – depleting the global carbon budget by nearly a third (31%) in those 25 years alone (see Figure 1); • The poorest 50% (c.3.1 billion people) were responsible for just 7% of cumulative emissions, and used just 4% of the available carbon budget (see Figure 1); • The richest 1% (c.63 million people) alone were responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions, and 9% of the carbon budget – twice as much as the poorest half of the world’s population (see Figure 1); • The richest 5% (c.315 million people) were responsible for over a third (37%) of the total growth in emissions (see Figure 2), while the total growth in emissions of the richest 1% was three times that of the poorest 50% " [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3073853/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3073853/ [2] https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621052/mb-confronting-carbon-inequality-210920-en.pdf https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10...
legulere 5y ago
The problem is that there usually follows the question of who should have less children. And often the poor are seen as the problem, even though it's us rich people that emit more than we should. Famous people that are saying that the population is too high are Bill Gates or Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd, which both have 3 children.
woliveirajr 5y ago
Covid could do that. But, somehow, people got so afraid on being in the depopulated side that the whole life become fuzzy nowadays. /S

pfdietz 5y ago

There are some very nazi problems with the whole approach.

zarzavat 5y ago

Depopulation as in killing people? Or as in the one child policy? It turns out you don't need to implement a one child policy: people implement it themselves when the cost of living gets high enough.

shroompasta 5y ago
obviously not killing people. I'm just demoralized that low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP, when low birth rates are somewhat of a godsend in times like these. Then nations with low birth rates scramble to find ways to up the birth rates despite understanding the C02 cost. It's ironic, really.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  > low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP You have this backwards
  - shroompasta 5y ago
    the case in point was obviously Japan which fell from the third largest economy to the sixth largest in the past two decades. Japan wants to be like China and the US, not like Qatar or Switzerland. GDP is not GDP/Capita I believe you have this backwards.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
  the hard part about shrinking populations is that they cause your population to get older which has a bunch of annoying economic side effects (like fewer people working)
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I'm just demoralized that low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP Low birth rates are correlated with higher GDP/capita; concerns are raised about them because they have a (decades delayed) effect of population aging producing a drop in the ratio of workers to those two old and infirm to work.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    The real problem is "living behind your means" at a generational level by putting debt in future generations. This is a problem with democracy, which incentivises short term gains over longer term. The solution is democracies that aren't allowed to accumulate long term debt over agreed upon levels.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
amelius 5y ago
The problem is that politicians always choose to hide the true cost of living.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

Because the damage will be done in 30 years. It's not possible to reduce population enough to matter in that time frame without mass genocide.

vba616 5y ago
It's possible to reduce population by about 40% in 30 years without killing anyone, isn't it? Why is that obviously insignificant?
- adrianN 5y ago
  No that is not possible without killing anyone because people will fight for the right to reproduce. You can't stop babymaking completely without violence.
  - vba616 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution (An alien invasion story where there's no fighting back like in Independence Day)
  - tinasabri 5y ago
    [flagged]
- VBprogrammer 5y ago
  How do you simultaneously convince a whole generation of people to not have children? To a significant percentage of people, wearing a mask during a pandemic is too much of an imposition on civil liberties.
- ben_w 5y ago
  First, 40% is nowhere near enough of a CO2 reduction, we need ~99.9% over slightly more than that timeframe; second, that’s a zero child worldwide policy, and doing that would require violence; and third, you have to ask who you’re doing this for if you’re not doing it for the next generation. I am now curious what graph of age vs. CO2 emissions looks like for various populations…

adrianN 5y ago

Depopulation is too slow to matter. We need to be carbon neutral in less than one generation. Unless you propose to start a campaign to kill billions of people in the next couple of years, you don't solve the problem.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Why is depopulation not even a consideration as a solution for climate change? [...] > Or do the world's largest and wealthiest nations only care for their hold on economic power? It would be very easy for depopulation to be suggested as a solution for climate change without adversely impacting the wealthiest nations (well, I mean, if it was implemented as suggested—actually suggesting it might provoke damaging blowback.)

bestboy 5y ago

Soylent Green (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/) "In 2022, Earth is overpopulated and totally polluted; the natural resources have been exhausted and the nourishment of the population is provided by Soylent Industries, a company that makes a food [...]"

lcam84 5y ago

There are ethical ways to implement it for instance give more education to women [1]. Consuming less meat should be a priority for us wealthy countries. Overpopulation is a problem but carbon inequality is much worse [2]: " . The richest 10% of the world’s population (c.630 million people) were responsible for 52% of the cumulative carbon emissions – depleting the global carbon budget by nearly a third (31%) in those 25 years alone (see Figure 1); • The poorest 50% (c.3.1 billion people) were responsible for just 7% of cumulative emissions, and used just 4% of the available carbon budget (see Figure 1); • The richest 1% (c.63 million people) alone were responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions, and 9% of the carbon budget – twice as much as the poorest half of the world’s population (see Figure 1); • The richest 5% (c.315 million people) were responsible for over a third (37%) of the total growth in emissions (see Figure 2), while the total growth in emissions of the richest 1% was three times that of the poorest 50% " [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3073853/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3073853/ [2] https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621052/mb-confronting-carbon-inequality-210920-en.pdf https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10...

legulere 5y ago

The problem is that there usually follows the question of who should have less children. And often the poor are seen as the problem, even though it's us rich people that emit more than we should. Famous people that are saying that the population is too high are Bill Gates or Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd, which both have 3 children.

woliveirajr 5y ago

Covid could do that. But, somehow, people got so afraid on being in the depopulated side that the whole life become fuzzy nowadays. /S