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England is very green at the moment. At least the areas that aren't flooded are. The issue for humans isn't the "amount of green", it's high quality crop yield

England is very green at the moment. At least the areas that aren't flooded are. The issue for humans isn't the "amount of green", it's high quality crop yields. Increasing CO2 increases plant growth, but also lowers nutritional value. https://cupblog.org/2023/04/06/the-truth-about-rising-co2-and-its-effect-on-plant-biology-lewis-h-ziska/ https://cupblog.org/2023/04/06/the-truth-about-rising-co2-an...

DinaCoder99 3y ago
We overproduce food for the human race by like 35% right now, we have a long ways to go before we hit a population issue. Regardless of all the hand-wringing certain rich people do about the birth rates in Africa. A much more pressing concern is our lack of any inclination to reasonably distribute it.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  The population of cattle is a bigger concern than the population of humans
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  Just the inefficiencies in beef yields alone could probably feed half of Africa. We've got a long, long, long way to go before half the world is starving to death.
  - ADeerAppeared 3y ago
    It's so much more than that. We produce ~77 million tonnes of beef, using (at the 1:25 ratio) 1925 million tonnes of feed. Africa currently imports most of it's grains, let's take a generous estimate of ~75 million tonnes of grain. Add another 25 million tonnes for their local production. And we're still off by a factor of 19x. Food production capacity is a non-issue. Availability to the people who need it is the real problem, and that is primarily about our willingness to aid those who need it and make some personal sacrifices for the greater good.
- Razengan 3y ago
  > we have a long ways to go before we hit a population issue. I wish people who say that would actually live in the overpopulated regions of the world for just 1 month.
  - DinaCoder99 3y ago
    > I wish people who say that would actually live in the overpopulated regions of the world for just 1 month. People need to stop dragging 19th century nonsense into a globalized economy. Regional carrying capacity is certainly a thing, but the primary constraint in most areas today isn't food (which is, after all, rather easy to ship and process) but water. Anyway, you can apply the same reasoning to migration as I did to food. It's just not really an issue outside of political utility. The US alone could support literally billions of people if we gave a shit about anything other than money.
    - starluz 3y ago
      I’ve heard this argument before and it is insane to me. Re comment above have you been to an overpopulated region? It is not just about food. Logically movement becomes more limited and difficult with people literally in each others way. Regions become incredibly inefficient. We are independent beings not meant to live like sardines
      - throwaway2037 3y ago
        > Regions become incredibly inefficient. Tokyo? Seoul? Manhattan? London? Paris? All very dense. Also very economically efficient. All have great metro systems, so it is easy to move around.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... Of the top ten on that list, at least 5 would be considered desirable places to live by most people. If the criterion is "better than most other countries in the region", it's more like 9 out of 10 (Gaza Strip is pretty bad). By contrast, many of the lesser-populated regions/countries are considered to be horrible places to live. As I scan down the list, it looks like there is only a very weak correlation, at best, between population density and "would I want to live there". Obviously, your mileage is going to vary. Nonetheless, I bet you'd rather move to The Netherlands (#33) than Afghanistan (#153).
- insane_dreamer 3y ago
  spoken like a true "inner"
api 3y ago
The whole environmental movement made a mistake framing things as a moralistic struggle to “save the Earth.” Like George Carlin famously said on this subject: “the Earth will be fine. We’re fucked. The Earth has been far warmer with higher CO2 concentrations in its past and it was fine, but there were no humans then. It’s also been in an ice age fairly recently, but there was little civilization as far as we know and far fewer humans. Environmental concerns are selfish. They’re about protecting our civilization and our quality of life. The Earth and its ecosystem will change and adapt as usual, but that doesn’t mean we will. The biggest dangers I see from CO2 are ocean acidification leading to the collapse of ocean ecosystems that feed us, and insane heat waves causing crop failures or even deadly temperatures. Look up “wet bulb temperature limit.” There are heat conditions under which humans die without shelter and unlike cold you can’t fix it by bundling up and using simple tech. I could see heat waves where people without A/C die.
- spacecadet 3y ago
  Ive used the same quote. This is an unpopular opinion, but true.
  - zokier 3y ago
    Unpopular?
- mylittlebrain 3y ago
  How should the environmental movement frame things?
  - api 3y ago
    Finding ways for humans to live well now without consuming their children’s ability to do the same in the future. A good framing would also draw a link to fiscal responsibility. A renewable sustainable civilization is paying its bills fully. Fossil fuels and other non renewable processes are putting it on a credit card, and one with an unknown interest rate. Eventually you can’t do that anymore and the interest comes due. Right now humanity is still putting something like 75% of its primary energy use on credit. The worst framing is the anti-human framing you see from radical greens or films like Avatar. If you really hate humans the logical thing would be to do nothing and let us crap where we eat until we render our environment inhospitable to us. If humans are the problem the activists should go home.
jijijijij 3y ago
I heard, the climate related "CO2 fertilization" leads to increased growth in trees. However, especially on mountain slopes, these trees have a lower strength and tend to break more easily in storms. The breakage in softer woods in turn promotes things like wind erosion and fires. I think this is somewhat plausible, since the "winter side" of a wood ring is the harder bit and the ratio of hard to soft wood may change due to increased summer growth. Iceland is the prime example of a place, which lost its trees a bit - and then lost its trees for real, as a consequence. That is, because of wind erosion after humans started cutting down most of the island's forests for lumber. Thanks, for coming to my TED talk.

DinaCoder99 3y ago

We overproduce food for the human race by like 35% right now, we have a long ways to go before we hit a population issue. Regardless of all the hand-wringing certain rich people do about the birth rates in Africa. A much more pressing concern is our lack of any inclination to reasonably distribute it.

CalRobert 3y ago
The population of cattle is a bigger concern than the population of humans
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Just the inefficiencies in beef yields alone could probably feed half of Africa. We've got a long, long, long way to go before half the world is starving to death.
- ADeerAppeared 3y ago
  It's so much more than that. We produce ~77 million tonnes of beef, using (at the 1:25 ratio) 1925 million tonnes of feed. Africa currently imports most of it's grains, let's take a generous estimate of ~75 million tonnes of grain. Add another 25 million tonnes for their local production. And we're still off by a factor of 19x. Food production capacity is a non-issue. Availability to the people who need it is the real problem, and that is primarily about our willingness to aid those who need it and make some personal sacrifices for the greater good.
Razengan 3y ago
> we have a long ways to go before we hit a population issue. I wish people who say that would actually live in the overpopulated regions of the world for just 1 month.
- DinaCoder99 3y ago
  > I wish people who say that would actually live in the overpopulated regions of the world for just 1 month. People need to stop dragging 19th century nonsense into a globalized economy. Regional carrying capacity is certainly a thing, but the primary constraint in most areas today isn't food (which is, after all, rather easy to ship and process) but water. Anyway, you can apply the same reasoning to migration as I did to food. It's just not really an issue outside of political utility. The US alone could support literally billions of people if we gave a shit about anything other than money.
  - starluz 3y ago
    I’ve heard this argument before and it is insane to me. Re comment above have you been to an overpopulated region? It is not just about food. Logically movement becomes more limited and difficult with people literally in each others way. Regions become incredibly inefficient. We are independent beings not meant to live like sardines
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      > Regions become incredibly inefficient. Tokyo? Seoul? Manhattan? London? Paris? All very dense. Also very economically efficient. All have great metro systems, so it is easy to move around.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... Of the top ten on that list, at least 5 would be considered desirable places to live by most people. If the criterion is "better than most other countries in the region", it's more like 9 out of 10 (Gaza Strip is pretty bad). By contrast, many of the lesser-populated regions/countries are considered to be horrible places to live. As I scan down the list, it looks like there is only a very weak correlation, at best, between population density and "would I want to live there". Obviously, your mileage is going to vary. Nonetheless, I bet you'd rather move to The Netherlands (#33) than Afghanistan (#153).
insane_dreamer 3y ago
spoken like a true "inner"

api 3y ago

The whole environmental movement made a mistake framing things as a moralistic struggle to “save the Earth.” Like George Carlin famously said on this subject: “the Earth will be fine. We’re fucked. The Earth has been far warmer with higher CO2 concentrations in its past and it was fine, but there were no humans then. It’s also been in an ice age fairly recently, but there was little civilization as far as we know and far fewer humans. Environmental concerns are selfish. They’re about protecting our civilization and our quality of life. The Earth and its ecosystem will change and adapt as usual, but that doesn’t mean we will. The biggest dangers I see from CO2 are ocean acidification leading to the collapse of ocean ecosystems that feed us, and insane heat waves causing crop failures or even deadly temperatures. Look up “wet bulb temperature limit.” There are heat conditions under which humans die without shelter and unlike cold you can’t fix it by bundling up and using simple tech. I could see heat waves where people without A/C die.

spacecadet 3y ago
Ive used the same quote. This is an unpopular opinion, but true.
- zokier 3y ago
  Unpopular?
mylittlebrain 3y ago
How should the environmental movement frame things?
- api 3y ago
  Finding ways for humans to live well now without consuming their children’s ability to do the same in the future. A good framing would also draw a link to fiscal responsibility. A renewable sustainable civilization is paying its bills fully. Fossil fuels and other non renewable processes are putting it on a credit card, and one with an unknown interest rate. Eventually you can’t do that anymore and the interest comes due. Right now humanity is still putting something like 75% of its primary energy use on credit. The worst framing is the anti-human framing you see from radical greens or films like Avatar. If you really hate humans the logical thing would be to do nothing and let us crap where we eat until we render our environment inhospitable to us. If humans are the problem the activists should go home.

jijijijij 3y ago

I heard, the climate related "CO2 fertilization" leads to increased growth in trees. However, especially on mountain slopes, these trees have a lower strength and tend to break more easily in storms. The breakage in softer woods in turn promotes things like wind erosion and fires. I think this is somewhat plausible, since the "winter side" of a wood ring is the harder bit and the ratio of hard to soft wood may change due to increased summer growth. Iceland is the prime example of a place, which lost its trees a bit - and then lost its trees for real, as a consequence. That is, because of wind erosion after humans started cutting down most of the island's forests for lumber. Thanks, for coming to my TED talk.