Population Question

[LuckyR]

Yet, I have not heard a single commentator even mention overpopulation as a factor in climate change and other environmental issues. We are just told to make sure our five kids recycle their water bottles.

I think my comments have been superseded by others, but I'll say them anyway.

Yes, clearly the total vast human population of the world is one of the main factors in the problem. But I think one reason why it isn't mentioned much is that, for political reasons at least, there is simply not much that can be done about it directly. In the countries where most of us live a leadership candidate who declared his/her intention to pass a law restricting the number of children that people can have would not gain the political power required to enact that law. (That's true regardless of whether we or they personally think they should enact that law.)

So, as far as I can see, the only two things that are going to have a chance of reducing global human population are education and disaster.

Education: yes, it is well established driver of decreased childbearing. Disaster, OTOH tends to lower socioeconomic status and thus secondarily lowers education, which tends to increase childbearing. As a separate issue, biologically fertility rates are dropping, which is a good thing.

[creation]

Earth can easily sustain the current human population in the year 2019, and sustain an even much higher population figure.

Earth, however, cannot sustain for much longer the way the current human population is misusing earth, and its resources.

At humans current rate of misuse of earth, earth will not be able to sustain any human population at all, soon.

[Sy Borg]

Or disaster will be the education.

[Pattern-chaser]

The human equivalent to a "sacrificial weakling", of course, is the poor.

Just a minor comment I felt the urge to post as I read through these posts again:

...not forgetting that the "weaklings", in the case of your example, are the VAST majority, not a few stragglers who can't keep up with the rest of the herd.

[LuckyR]

The human equivalent to a "sacrificial weakling", of course, is the poor.

Just a minor comment I felt the urge to post as I read through these posts again:

...not forgetting that the "weaklings", in the case of your example, are the VAST majority, not a few stragglers who can't keep up with the rest of the herd.

Of course, the very vague term "the poor" is too blunt of an instrument to convey accurate meaning. For example, "the vast majority" of the 99% are not in poverty (a term with a specific meaning). About 13% are. The median income is above the sustainable level (ie able to afford "essentials"), though puts a majority of folks in the "one disaster away from bankruptcy" zone. Of course "essentials" in the 21st century include cars, multiple smartphones and high-speed internet connections. Things that rich folks a generation ago didn't routinely possess and no one could four generations ago.

[Sy Borg]

The human equivalent to a "sacrificial weakling", of course, is the poor.

Just a minor comment I felt the urge to post as I read through these posts again:

...not forgetting that the "weaklings", in the case of your example, are the VAST majority, not a few stragglers who can't keep up with the rest of the herd. 🤔

😉

Yes, it will be the vast majority.

When a small population out of a much larger one lives in a very different environment over a long period, the populations become ever more different, and ultimately cannot even breed with each other.

[Haicoway]

Are you telling me I can't have sex with a monkey?

Well, I guess breeding is different from having sex, so I guess I'm ok.

Can you tell I am already into my tini time? Meaning martinis, which I start at 4:00 pm.

[LuckyR]

Just a minor comment I felt the urge to post as I read through these posts again:

...not forgetting that the "weaklings", in the case of your example, are the VAST majority, not a few stragglers who can't keep up with the rest of the herd.

Yes, it will be the vast majority.

When a small population out of a much larger one lives in a very different environment over a long period, the populations become ever more different, and ultimately cannot even breed with each other.

The key words being "lives in" a very different environment. The 99% live in the same environment. They just happen to be working there, not vacationing there.

[Mychael]

Has anyone ever thought to pray for a bigger world to accommodate the people and their needs?

[Haicoway]

I never thought of praying for that. Double blind clinical trials show that prayer only helps those who know the prayers are going on.

Thinking about the COVID-19: The most intelligent people I know don't get colds, and the same preventative techniques probably also work for COVID-19. So, if it could turn into pandemic, it's possible it could wipe out normal people and leave the most intelligent standing. And I believe the most intelligent people would be way more respectful of the planet than normal people, and a sustainable world civilization could continue on.

[LuckyR]

I never thought of praying for that. Double blind clinical trials show that prayer only helps those who know the prayers are going on.

Thinking about the COVID-19: The most intelligent people I know don't get colds, and the same preventative techniques probably also work for COVID-19. So, if it could turn into pandemic, it's possible it could wipe out normal people and leave the most intelligent standing. And I believe the most intelligent people would be way more respectful of the planet than normal people, and a sustainable world civilization could continue on.

Can you say "internet rumor"?

[Haicoway]

What concept would be taught? Almost nobody would vote for a ban on having more than one child - or, gasp, have none, like I chose to do. Not to mention that even if one country could enact such a ban, like China did for a while, the other countries would keep producing - and the countries with the lowest average IQs would keep producing the most per family, further guaranteeing that nothing could ever be done.

I read yesterday, correct or no, by a respected scientist, that if every emission reducing proposal could be enacted, the calculated warming predicted for some year in the future (I obviously didn't memorize much of the article) would only be delayed by nineteen years (the gist). Too many people are the problem and there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Except simply for each individual to die, which he or she likely will, and that ends the problem for that individual. So death is the answer, even collectively, over time.

[Sy Borg]

... there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Except simply for each individual to die, which he or she likely will ...

"Likely will?" Who is not going to die? Maybe Ray Kurtzweil, if he takes the right mix of tablets and, maybe, has himself cryogenically frozen.

Coronavirus is a good one. It targets the elderly, exactly the cohort that needs removing (although I personally won't be rushing to volunteer my own demise). As you would know, the world economy has been standing on a huge pile of fiat currency debt that can never be repaid. The house of cards is exposed in times of trouble, when debts start to be called in.

I agree that human fecundity is the main issue, though. We are either expanding our families or our resource bases at the expense of the natural world, and it's unsustainable. We are in the process of building an exclusively human world - a place for (many fewer) people and machines. Outside of their protected compounds will be hordes of people living ever rougher, decimating what is left of nature before they decimate each other. People are already coming to blows over toilet paper. We live in interesting times, unfortunately.

In the future, there will either be total desolation or - more likely IMO - the wealthy minority and their posses will be protected in enclosed and guarded city states, using advanced technology to manipulate materials and microbes, surrounded entirely by deserts.

[Haicoway]

Yes, Greta, I was referencing the frozen aspect of immortality. Who knows.

And I agree with your guess regarding the wealthy minority.

I wish way more people could be as smart as you are, but of course that's impossible.

[LuckyR]

Those interested in reducing the human population should be advocating two things: 1- the education of women and 2- women's reproductive freedom/rights.