4 ms·
That is the point: we do not care, we just reproduce. We have been doing that (reproducing over the real carrying capacity, which is what the local environment
by gonvaled 11y ago
That is the point: we do not care, we just reproduce. We have been doing that (reproducing over the real carrying capacity, which is what the local environment can sustain) forever.
You can argue that we'll get soon better at distributing food, but that is just wishful thinking. And, human nature being what it is, improving food distribution will just lead us to a bigger population increase, keeping us above carrying capacity.
There is no period of human history when humanity has managed to sustainable restrain its growth. We go wherever technology can bring us, but always a little bit farther. It is simply not how life works: life overproduces to guarantee delivery.
For that scenario that you are proposing to become reality we need to reign on very strong instincts acquired during millions of years of evolution. I am not saying that it can not be done, just that we are not there, that we are not getting anywhere near, and that I think the chances of bringing about that utopia are really slim. Mad Max is way more probable.
- eru 11y agoPlease have a look at eg the UN's population growth forecasts. Fertility rates are falling in nearly all countries (or already at sub-replacement levels).
- gonvaled 11y agoIrrelevant. If population drecreases, and you still lose people to starvation, you are living above carrying capacity. Even if that only happens in certain regions. The world is losing lots of people to starvation. We are not able to reign on our instintcs.
- dagw 11y agoyou still lose people to starvation, you are living above carrying capacity. By that definition the carrying capacity of earth is zero. No matter how few people there are on earth there will always be some scenario where some guy starves to death because he couldn't get to the other side of the valley where the food was.
- gonvaled 11y agoWe are losing about 10 million people per year to starvation, and there are close to 800 million undernourished people in the world. I am not talking about a random guy not finding his way to an opulent dinner, but about a systemic proplem.
- dagw 11y agoYes, and that systemic problem is completely unrelated to global food production. We could double production or half the population and people would still starve to death and be undernourished because we are incapable of distributing the food we have to all the people who need it.