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Somehow, as soon as you connect environmental strain to population size, not just lifestyle, ecological problems disappear and Earth is doing just fine.
by nhchris 4y ago
Somehow, as soon as you connect environmental strain to population size, not just lifestyle, ecological problems disappear and Earth is doing just fine.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hilbert42 4y agoExactly!
- simonblack 4y agoHuh? 'Environmental strain' = 'disappeared ecological problems' ? That just doesn't compute for me. Did you leave something out of the sentence? How I see it is that the more people there are, the more ecological strain on the environment, and the more the ecological problems. That will apply whether the extra population is in African Bushmen using negligible technology, or in New Yorkers whose energy requirements are through the roof. They both probably take up much the same sort of living space, meaning that there is less arable land available. They probably both eat similar amounts thus putting probably the same sort of strain on food production, they'll probably use much the same amount of fluids. Just in breathing, they'll produce a similar quantity of greenhouse gases. Better for the Earth as a whole if both of them hadn't been born. But there is no need to 'cull humanity'as some would propose, it just requires some forward family-planning over a couple of generations until we reach sustainable levels.* --------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Sustainable levels depend on the amount of energy used per capita. So we could sustain (say) one billion at US energy levels, (say) two billion at European energy-usage levels, and (say) five billion at African Bushman energy-usage levels.