RE: The world's population should be at most 50 million.
October 10, 2018 at 10:32 pm
(This post was last modified: October 10, 2018 at 10:43 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(October 10, 2018 at 10:28 pm)Thoreauvian Wrote:(October 7, 2018 at 9:21 pm)Thoreauvian Wrote: I recently saw a program where a population expert said the present population of 7.4 billion had overshot the carrying capacity of the planet by 50%. We are only sustaining our population through burning non-renewable fossil fuels and otherwise mining our natural resources. He also said that the sustainable carrying capacity varies with the affluence of the inhabitants. The Earth could sustain 15 billion living at very low levels of affluence, but only 1.5 billion at American standards.
Adding to the information I posted above, this population expert did not arrive at these numbers arbitrarily, but did so after studying exactly how much food, water, land, and other limited resources are required to maintain living standards for populations with different levels of affluence.
And don't forget that with climate change, we are likely to reduce the present carrying capacity of the planet through increased temperatures, floods, droughts, extreme storms, and sea levels.
IOW, basing his estimate on current patterns of consumption and current practices, over some undefined but long timescale, and specifically excluding the viability of any other metric. Way to aim for the bottom!
That's the trouble with doom and gloomers. Yes, we -are-...currently, sustaining our population through burning fossil fuels. We do not have to, and alternative methods also happen to have greater productivity in important areas...so his metrics would have to change to reflect that..if he were discussing the carrying capacity of earth....instead of the carrying capacity of a particular methodology. An important distinction, don't you think?
The whole pop reduction thing is only superficial plausible. The claim at the end, that the earth could only sustain 1.5 at american standards..is rank garbage. If we more equitably distributed all resources on earth..every single person would live -at american standards- today..with less productive and dirtier techs than we could already employ in a greener future. More baseless pessimism.
Compounding that issue, is that affluence appears to be used as a euphemism for pollution. Couldn't we suggest that we arrange for a less destructive manifestation of affluence, before we float the idea of sterilizing the poors? Is it necessarrily true that to be affluent is to have a massive carbon footprint? In a word, no.
(as a minor but important correction..climate change is not a punishment from the gods, it doesn't have uniformly bad effects. It will open up alot of newly productive cropland and change what crops a person can grow. I mean, if the train really has no brakes..take solace in the fact that we'll be able to produce chocolate in the US, start to finish, someday
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