Too many people?

[Tigers!]

I recently planted several white oaks on the property. Actually collected a few acorns and now the trees are about ten feet tall. I did that because the white oaks feed so many different species. They are home to over five hundred different caterpillars and insects which are food for birds and other native species. They also provide shelter and habitat for many other species as opposed to something like a Ginko or Bradford Pear, trees which look nice in homeowners' yards but literally drive native species into local extinction. I doubt more than a handful of people in my state know that it takes five thousand caterpillars to fledge a clutch of chickadees.

And most people just see a tree as a tree, they don't know how valuable and essential a native white oak is to native species. People are dumb that way, most of them anyway. Maybe life is too hectic for them.

The same problem in Australia.
Many houses around me have lovely gardens and trees, yet almost exclusively non-natives. Then complaints about where are the honey eaters, lorikeets etc.? Never dawns on these people that these birds thrive best with native plants, not non-native plants.
Admittedly doesn't help when house blocks are so small. My daughter's house (if ever completed) has only a 3m (~10Ft.) front yard. Can't put many natives in that area. Just too small.

 

[bilby]

be doing, nine hundred and ninety of them will include both "reduce our population" and "close our nuclear power plants" in their recommendations.

Because people are very effectively swayed by propaganda, and very bad indeed at observing what's actually going on.

And start using the brains we were given.

I grew my own. Nobody gave it to me.

 

[Politesse]

be doing, nine hundred and ninety of them will include both "reduce our population" and "close our nuclear power plants" in their recommendations.

Because people are very effectively swayed by propaganda, and very bad indeed at observing what's actually going on.

And start using the brains we were given.

I grew my own. Nobody gave it to me.

I suspect your mother would have something to say about that.

 

[Tigers!]

be doing, nine hundred and ninety of them will include both "reduce our population" and "close our nuclear power plants" in their recommendations.

Because people are very effectively swayed by propaganda, and very bad indeed at observing what's actually going on.

And start using the brains we were given.

I grew my own. Nobody gave it to me.

I suspect your mother would have something to say about that.

And father

 

[TSwizzle]

Such an odd bunch on here. Whining about overpopulation and yet were frantically locking people down and screaming about all the deaths from covid not so long ago. WEAR YOUR MASK!! LOL.

 

[Jarhyn]

It sure would be nice if people here would address the things I wrote on this thread instead of making things up, and forcing me to explain that I never said the things they just made up. That behavior only wastes everybody's time.

It is never a waste of time to carefully and fastidiously explain what you mean when you are proposing an address towards one of the three levers: acceleration, deceleration (really an acceleration eithed perpendicular or opposed to the acceleration), and/or the hard stop.

It wastes everyone's time to discuss it without those guard rails on your ideology.

Yes, it handcuffs the discussion.

Yes, it is necessary to handcuff that discussion.

Yes, many scientists say things that, like you, they do not realize is the same as a call to genocide.

They did not think their cunning statements all the way through. EIther we die together or we live together.

be doing, nine hundred and ninety of them will include both "reduce our population" and "close our nuclear power plants" in their recommendations.

Because people are very effectively swayed by propaganda, and very bad indeed at observing what's actually going on.

And start using the brains we were given.

I grew my own. Nobody gave it to me.

I suspect your mother would have something to say about that.

She gave me the environment to do it myself, and she made some rather questionable decisions even doing that much.

She didn't do it for me, even if she gave me the tools to do it myself. She was an enabler, not the doer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Solar is also useful for processes that can readily be turned on/off at the drop of a hat. (Say, cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen. Turn off the power, the production stops but the plant doesn't otherwise mind.)

This is what I’d like to see. Because it can be de-centralized. We could have autonomous fuel production stations in the middle of the desert, on city rooftops or anywhere the sun shines, which would make an energy infrastructure that would be far more robust than centralized generation.

Desert, no. One of the inputs is water. I'd put them near the powerplants to reduce transmission loss. Instead of making your reactors load-follow you run them at 100% and the fuel plants use the extra power to crack water and extract/crack CO2. Once you've cracked them the rest of the process is exothermic and doesn't need a lot of power.

I would prefer using overflow to push switchable methods to do hydrocarbon generation rather than cracking water.

What we need to do is run 100% and have a scalable overflow sink, but I disagree on the sink being water cracking.

Desalination, hydrocarbon production, ammonia fixation, etc... Not fuel cells.

Even lifting heavy rocks (kinetic batteries) would be better.

Cracking water is a precursor to hydrocarbon production as you need the hydrogen from it. IIRC you also need it for ammonia production.

I do agree with desalination as an overflow sink, but that's only meaningful if you have available salt water. A powerplant in Kansas can't desalinate.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So either we assume we still can accomplish this in a way that allows people to be as they are and encourage folks in all the ethical ways to attain their dreams of not having children, or we burn the world down in chaos that will be GUARANTEED to wipe us all out along with any life larger than a pinhead.

I vote for the former, and against the latter. The latter is what lies down the path of "deciding who gets to live".

False dichotomy.

Here are the two choices you list:

1. We assume we still can accomplish this in a way that allows people to be as they are and encourage folks in all the ethical ways to attain their dreams of not having children
2. burn the world down in chaos

I think we can all agree that #2 is a bad choice, so lets throw that one off the table.

Now I would like to suggest one that you missed:
3. We go by the data. Based on what we find we decide on a response that best fulfills human needs.

Your #1 is a religious statement: "Let's assume X". No. Let's not just assume X. Let's go by the data, and make the best plan forward based on that data.

Except you #1 is actually a kick-the-can approach that inevitably eventually leads to #2.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We will either die back (and overshoot in the other direction due to war--likely taking out the entire human race) or we will learn how to move the limit. Your approach amounts to prolonging the dying, not avoiding it.

Excuse me, but I am all for "moving the limit", for expanding our capacity to meet human needs, and seeing as much prosperity in the future as possible.

I am a good person, and I want to do everything we can to expand human capacity to meet human needs.

No. You may think you are for moving the limit but your approach does not actually do that.

I. am. not. a. monster.

So, please, please, do not post that I am against "moving the limit" where it is possible to do so.

You misunderstand the outcome you favor.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The only response that is not "do it ethically" is "pick some folks to die".

I am for "doing it ethically".

I am against "Making something up and assuming it is true".

I am against "picking some folks to die."

You are against looking at the implications of what you're handwaving.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Your path leads to certain destruction--as you drop the tech level you drop the resources available and you ensure there's no chance of survival through increasing tech.

Wait, what? Now you think I am for dropping the tech level?

I. am. against. dropping. the. tech. level.

Period.

Yeah, I get it. You want a hard black pillow that is soft and white.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Capitalism is a problem when you have a system that doesn't count externalities. Properly charge for them and it works. The slash and burn doesn't pay for the destroyed rainforest.

Capitalism can count externalities. That's why western Europe has a squeaky clean environment, while USA is riddled with environmental disasters.

West European countries made a rule system that rewards environmentalism. The American system didn't.

Capitalism isn't the problem. It's the rules govorning it that is. Capitalism is an environmental disaster in corrupt countries. Its the corruption that's the problem. Not Capitalism. Corrupt socialist countries have historicaly been the worst environmental violators.

You're not rebutting me at all, I'm not saying you can't count externalities. However, you're wrong about Europe being anything like squeaky clean. They just aren't as messed up as the US.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The slash and burn doesn't pay for the destroyed rainforest.

A "slash and burn" human population is no danger to the rainforest ecosystem unless the human population practicing "slash and burn" is too big for the rainforest.

Leave the rainforest alone for a geological moment and it will back with a vengeance, as long as there’s still any remnant.

The problem is the large species need large areas to have viable populations. If you push it too small before it roars back you'll end up with a messed-up system because the large animals will be gone. There are also the species that will be driven to extinction in sky islands.

 

[Copernicus]

Every successful species expands and overpopulates its environmental niche.

No other successful species in the history of life on this planet has developed and implemented a non-lethal means of contraception.

It's a complete game-changer.

Humans, like all other species, are driven by their evolved instincts and physiology to keep on doing the things necessary to reproduce. But uniquely amongst all species past or present, humans can do these things without increasing their numbers.

In theory, yes. In theory, we could drastically reduce the amount of CO2 and plastic pollution that we produce. My argument is not that we don't have the physical means to do it, and maybe it will have some small impact if we try to do it intentionally. It may make us feel that we are having an effect, but to engineer a change in the behavioral patterns of billions of people in a way that stabilizes the world population probably won't happen. Famine, drought, war, ecological collapse, and pestilence are going to be larger factors simply because those are a predictable outcome of trends we observe happening right now. It really depresses me to say this, but I honestly don't see a future where there is time to engineer some kind of solution. The oceans are rising more quickly than predicted and largescale forest fires are now reliably seasonal. Last year, there were days in which I literally couldn't go outside. I had to stay indoors just to be able to breathe cleaner (albeit not smokeless) air. The fires have not started again this year. Not yet anyway.

It's a completely new phenomenon, and if we are smart, we can use it to not only become a dominant species in the history of our planet, but to remain dominant indefinitely.

Or we can just ignore our success and keep planning genocides to solve a problem that no longer exists.

Planning genocides??? Who has been doing or advocating that, other than Vladimir Putin?

If pollution is your major concern, don't worry about how many people we have, worry about how few nuclear power plants we have. Having children isn't a crime against our ecosystem, but building a coal or gas fired power station surely is.

I'm not worried about how few nuclear power plants we have, but I know that you take a very strong position on that. We don't need to reopen that debate. However, I certainly agree with you that mitigation should be our strategy going forward. We should change what we can. I just don't think that exhorting people not to have children will change many minds, although there will be those who choose not to because of evolving circumstances. That's already happening, and fertility rates are also dropping. These kinds of things take place even in the absence of campaigns for less procreation. Meanwhile, there are strong campaigns in the US and some other countries to force more women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Even contraception is under attack in the US.

Sadly if you ask a thousand self-described "environmentalists" what we should be doing, nine hundred and ninety of them will include both "reduce our population" and "close our nuclear power plants" in their recommendations.

Aha. This is where Tigers' misquote came from in his reply to your reply on my post. I was wondering where he got that language from. It's too late for him to go back and fix it.

Because people are very effectively swayed by propaganda, and very bad indeed at observing what's actually going on.

True, especially when the propaganda tells them what they want to hear. My very pessimistic post did not recommend that we stop trying to fix problems, but it did lament that it is probably too late for our efforts to do much more than mitigate inevitable impending catastrophes. When coastal cities start getting more and more flooded in the coming decades, the detritus from those urban centers will just add to the pollution in the oceans.

So-called Doomsday Glacier is ‘in trouble,’ scientists say after finding surprising formations under ice shelf​

 

[bilby]

to engineer a change in the behavioral patterns of billions of people in a way that stabilizes the world population probably won't happen.

It has happened literally everywhere where girls routinely have access to good primary education, even in places like Ireland where religious pressure has made contraception (and abortion) hugely difficult to obtain.

I don't agree that it won't happen; It is happening, and it's going to be almost impossible to prevent at this stage.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Capitalism is a problem when you have a system that doesn't count externalities. Properly charge for them and it works. The slash and burn doesn't pay for the destroyed rainforest.

Capitalism can count externalities. That's why western Europe has a squeaky clean environment, while USA is riddled with environmental disasters.

West European countries made a rule system that rewards environmentalism. The American system didn't.

Capitalism isn't the problem. It's the rules govorning it that is. Capitalism is an environmental disaster in corrupt countries. Its the corruption that's the problem. Not Capitalism. Corrupt socialist countries have historicaly been the worst environmental violators.

You're not rebutting me at all, I'm not saying you can't count externalities. However, you're wrong about Europe being anything like squeaky clean. They just aren't as messed up as the US.

No. It's much worse in USA. If you take into account that Europe had a 200 year head start, the differences are just bizarre.

It can be explained by that, in order to attract people to the colonies, regulations were lax and permissive. People like freedom. The regulators lived in Europe and didn't care so much about the colonies. The attitude was exploitative.

Europe has always been ruled by conservative NIMBYs. Europeans are generally very good at taking care of their countries environments. Southern Europe is not as good as the north. Endemic corruption breeds apathy. Eastern Europe used to be as Conservative and NIMBY as the west, until communism.

Europe is less dynamic than the economies of the ex-colonies. For good and for bad.

US and Europe behind majority of global ecological damage, says study

Groundbreaking report is first to assign responsibility for damage caused by 160 countries in past 50 years

www.theguardian.com

 

[Jarhyn]

to engineer a change in the behavioral patterns of billions of people in a way that stabilizes the world population probably won't happen.

It has happened literally everywhere where girls routinely have access to good primary education, even in places like Ireland where religious pressure has made contraception (and abortion) hugely difficult to obtain.

I don't agree that it won't happen; It is happening, and it's going to be almost impossible to prevent at this stage.

Like, this isn't engineering the change, it isn't modifying belief structures at all really.

It's just making damn well sure that the people can actually ACT on their intentions to not reproduce in the long term.

No propaganda, no campaigns, no radical discussion is necessary. Just an adjustment to a conversation as follows:

"Doctor, I want a tubal ligation"

"No, you might want children later"

To

"Doctor, I want a tubal ligation"

"Ok, come back in 6 months and ask again"
(6 months later)
"I still want a tubal ligation."

"Ok, I'll get it scheduled!"

And then government funded postsecondary education can improve the results even more.

 

[lostone]

The US has a long history of corruption, that is true, and it has infected the nation very adversely. The idea that freedom and corruption are related is a new one for me, but it is worth thinking about.

 

[Jayjay]

to engineer a change in the behavioral patterns of billions of people in a way that stabilizes the world population probably won't happen.

It has happened literally everywhere where girls routinely have access to good primary education, even in places like Ireland where religious pressure has made contraception (and abortion) hugely difficult to obtain.

I don't agree that it won't happen; It is happening, and it's going to be almost impossible to prevent at this stage.

#1 There's no guarantee that girls will inevitably have access to primary education in all countries. Or whatever is the pre-condition to lowering birth rates.

#2 Future technological advances that increase longevity and fertility might reverse the trend. This will happen first in the affluent countries, which also use most resources per-capita.

I think by end of the century we'll need to impose a two-child policy to keep population growth in check.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

AI is going to unemploy hundreds of millions (to billions) of people.

The question is much much less about population, but managing how we will transition to a planet where so much of the work is done by computers, and how livelihoods can be managed where AI isn't in control (effectively arts, human services, sports, AI management). In the smaller scale of it, we have seen so many people who were replaced by machines not manage the change well, and resort to wanting to put toothpaste back in the tube and voting for a narcissistic sociopath in order to do so.