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If the world stopped consuming fossil fuels today, overpopulation would no longer be an issue in about a year or two. Because 90% of the population would die.
by trashtester 3y ago
If the world stopped consuming fossil fuels today, overpopulation would no longer be an issue in about a year or two.
Because 90% of the population would die.
- 4ggr0 3y agoWell you don't have to stop in a matter of one day, because that's impossible and unrealistic anyways, but we could at least finally start with reducing our consumption, with the goal to land as close as possible to 0 as soon as possible. Then again, we missed the window to stop long ago. So why bother anyways, right?
- trashtester 3y agoMy main point is that demonizing the use of hydrocarbons is absurd. Our use of them is one of the main reasons we've been going from a world where most people was incredibly poor 200 years ago, to most of the world's population living in relative prosperity today (compared to 200 years ago). Now that we're developing alternative energy sources, we should start/continue to move away from fossil fuels, but if we try to do it too quickly, the price may be higher than the benefit.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoThat seems to be an excuse that's been in use for decades. Meanwhile, we're just dragging our feet about stopping oil use and kicking the can down the road for the next generation to deal with. Ultimately, it's a very poor excuse to state that because we can't stop immediately, that we might as well continue digging as much oil as possible out of the ground for burning.
- User23 3y agoThere’s no credible path for reducing carbon emissions enough to reverse warming under current models that doesn’t involve gigadeaths.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoI suppose that's what happens when we leave it as late as possible to even start to do anything. Unfortunately, we're going to have far more gigadeaths when crops fail due to the climate becoming unpredictable and wars over clean water become ubiquitous. It always surprises me that people claim that deaths will result from cleaning up our act when that's a small fraction of the deaths that will be caused by climate catastrophes.
- trashtester 3y ago"As late as possibe" might be something like year 2200-2300, after global temperatures have already risen 5-10 degrees. > crops fail due to the climate becoming unpredictable and wars over clean water become ubiquitous Currently, we're facing what can become the worst famine in decades because of a single war that was NOT caused by global warming or access to water. Just simple nationalism. The food supply 50-300 years from now is really hard to predict. If the birth rate stays at current levels, and also reach such levels in the few countries where the birth rate is still high today (mostly Africa), there will be a lot fewer mouths to feed in 2100 than today. And if the birth rate goes back up, and exponential population growth resumes, no amount of food production will ensure that we never run out. Right now (or rather, before 2022), the amount of food produced per capita globally, is probably higher than at any time before since the dawn of time. Thanks in very large parts to fossil fuels used for farm machinery and in fertilizers.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoI have difficulty believing any of what you are claiming. e.g. how is Africa going to have a high birth rate when it'll be largely inhabitable due to the high temperatures? Also, what famine are you referring to and why does it not feature here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines
- trashtester 3y agoI'm talking about the potential famine of 2024, it didn't really start yet. Caused mostly by reduced food exports from Ukraine and Russia.