5 ms·

People who want to see a reduction in human population relish the same things you do. We can consume as much as we want if there are fewer of us. You can to al

by jsmcgd 14y ago

People who want to see a reduction in human population relish the same things you do. We can consume as much as we want if there are fewer of us. You can to almost anywhere on this planet and you can see human settlement encroaching on and damaging natural habitats. The magnitude of these effects are in direct correlation to human population growth.

InclinedPlane 14y ago
This is exactly backwards. The more people there are who are skilled, educated, and working, the more resources are produced. Resources aren't manna from heaven, they are the products of human labor and ingenuity. In 50 years we'll be using robots to pluck Neodymium and Copper from the ground and Iridium from asteroids. We're not going to be running out of resources, we're going to be wealthier and resources are going to be more abundant. It's easy to imagine that we'll "run out" of "resources" because in theory many resources are in finite supply. But in reality the hard natural limits are so high as to be effectively infinite over extremely long periods of current levels of use and historically humans have gotten more and more clever about finding new methods to extract or produce resources that previously were not available. Moreover, our increasing wealth and technological capabilities have made it possible to reduce and reverse our environmental impact and encroachment of habitats. Personally, I like my life and I think it's worth living, and indeed even justified, and I think that denying the ability to live a similar lifestyle to others simply because they were born into a different part of the world is just know-nothing nonsense and veiled racism.
- TimReynolds 14y ago
  I assume you also believe governments can spend their way out of debt?
- coldarchon 14y ago
  And you have exactly no direction. Look at the areas where desertification takes place and which rate of growth the populations have there. Sudan had 1.800.000 people 100 years ago, now they are at 48.000.000 Did the agricultural crop land multiply by 25? Even with fertilizer the growth was only 6 times compared to what was produced 100 years ago. So yes, with less people we will have much more CO2 used in biomass compared to the small amount we release by fossil energy ..

by jsmcgd 14y ago

InclinedPlane 14y ago

This is exactly backwards. The more people there are who are skilled, educated, and working, the more resources are produced. Resources aren't manna from heaven, they are the products of human labor and ingenuity. In 50 years we'll be using robots to pluck Neodymium and Copper from the ground and Iridium from asteroids. We're not going to be running out of resources, we're going to be wealthier and resources are going to be more abundant. It's easy to imagine that we'll "run out" of "resources" because in theory many resources are in finite supply. But in reality the hard natural limits are so high as to be effectively infinite over extremely long periods of current levels of use and historically humans have gotten more and more clever about finding new methods to extract or produce resources that previously were not available. Moreover, our increasing wealth and technological capabilities have made it possible to reduce and reverse our environmental impact and encroachment of habitats. Personally, I like my life and I think it's worth living, and indeed even justified, and I think that denying the ability to live a similar lifestyle to others simply because they were born into a different part of the world is just know-nothing nonsense and veiled racism.

TimReynolds 14y ago
I assume you also believe governments can spend their way out of debt?
coldarchon 14y ago
And you have exactly no direction. Look at the areas where desertification takes place and which rate of growth the populations have there. Sudan had 1.800.000 people 100 years ago, now they are at 48.000.000 Did the agricultural crop land multiply by 25? Even with fertilizer the growth was only 6 times compared to what was produced 100 years ago. So yes, with less people we will have much more CO2 used in biomass compared to the small amount we release by fossil energy ..