We are overloading the planet: Now What?

[Merle]

I've read your school essay.

Oh, what a zinger. Did you learn that debate tactic in middle school?

Suppose that we will soon be in overshoot by more than 200%, that it would take 2 planets the size of Earth to support our lifestyle. We could easily reach that point soon if we extrapolate our Ecological Footprint as calculated by the Global Footprint Network.

Question: If 100 years from now we needed to cut our consumption in half, which would you prefer:
a) 125% of the current population living at an average of 40% of today's consumption or
b) 50% of the current population living at an average of 100% of today's consumption.

Please answer. If a person refuses to answer that question, how can he be taking this discussion seriously?

I'm certainly not taking your hypotheticals seriously.

In other words, you refuse to answer the question, and yet you reserve the right to criticize anybody who dares to address the question. How can you criticize those who are brave enough to answer this question if you yourself avoid the question?

Actually, Wiedmann et al provide a clue to help answer this question:

...the world’s top 10% of income earners are responsible for between 25 and 43% of environmental impact. In contrast, the world’s bottom 10% income earners exert only around 3–5% of environmental impact.

That suggests that we shouldn't try to reduce the world's population uniformly, just eliminate the top one or two deciles of consumers.

That doesn't line up with either of your choices, though.

I will oblige you and add option "c".

Question: If 100 years from now we needed to cut our consumption in half, which would you prefer:
a) 125% of the current population living at an average of 40% of today's consumption or
b) 50% of the current population living at an average of 100% of today's consumption.
c) eliminate the top one or two deciles of consumers.

Now that I added option c, can you answer the question?

If you choose option c, can you explain how your plan would eliminate those who may be reading this that are in the top 20%? Some of us don't want to be "eliminated".

 

[pood]

I've read your school essay.

Oh, what a zinger. Did you learn that debate tactic in middle school?

Suppose that we will soon be in overshoot by more than 200%, that it would take 2 planets the size of Earth to support our lifestyle. We could easily reach that point soon if we extrapolate our Ecological Footprint as calculated by the Global Footprint Network.

Question: If 100 years from now we needed to cut our consumption in half, which would you prefer:
a) 125% of the current population living at an average of 40% of today's consumption or
b) 50% of the current population living at an average of 100% of today's consumption.

Please answer. If a person refuses to answer that question, how can he be taking this discussion seriously?

I'm certainly not taking your hypotheticals seriously.

In other words, you refuse to answer the question, and yet you reserve the right to criticize anybody who dares to address the question. How can you criticize those who are brave enough to answer this question if you yourself avoid the question?

Actually, Wiedmann et al provide a clue to help answer this question:

...the world’s top 10% of income earners are responsible for between 25 and 43% of environmental impact. In contrast, the world’s bottom 10% income earners exert only around 3–5% of environmental impact.

That suggests that we shouldn't try to reduce the world's population uniformly, just eliminate the top one or two deciles of consumers.

That doesn't line up with either of your choices, though.

I will oblige you and add option "c".

Question: If 100 years from now we needed to cut our consumption in half, which would you prefer:
a) 125% of the current population living at an average of 40% of today's consumption or
b) 50% of the current population living at an average of 100% of today's consumption.
c) eliminate the top one or two deciles of consumers.

Now that I added option c, can you answer the question?

If you choose option c, can you explain how your plan would eliminate those who may be reading this that are in the top 20%? Some of us don't want to be "eliminated".

I think he’s saying there is no reason to take seriously the mammoth IF in your question, and hence no reason to embrace any of your options.

 

[Merle]

I think he’s saying there is no reason to take seriously the mammoth IF in your question, and hence no reason to embrace any of your options.

My "school essay" includes this description of why we should take overshoot seriously.

=======================

In all the time that elapsed on that planet, one epoch, the Holocene, has been especially well suited to Homo sapiens for the last 11,000 years. And we have put that epoch in jeopardy (Steffan, 2018).

The Earth is huge and able to withstand our punches. But, if we stress Earth beyond certain limits, it will have permanent scars. Scientists have established 9 boundaries that they say we cannot cross if we expect to maintain that stable Holocene environment. Katherine Richardson and others have made the case that we have already crossed six of those critical boundaries, beyond which “Earth system stability and life-support systems conducive to the human welfare and societal development experienced during the Holocene” are at risk (Richardson, 2023). These boundaries we have already crossed include loss of animal species and their biological function, climate change, freshwater resource change, synthetic chemical pollution, fertilizer runoff, and loss of natural lands. This is cause for concern (Wiedmann, 2020).

How serious is this? William Rees argues that “the global economy will inevitably contract and humanity will suffer a major population correction in this century,” (Rees, 2023). “The climate crisis may wipe out six billion people” (Rees, 2019). Milton Saier wrote, “It seems that only with a very substantial reduction in the size of the human population can we hope for a stable order for Earth’s biosphere and its human inhabitants” (Saier, 2023). Martin Desvaux agrees: “It is the sheer weight of human numbers that is causing the overdraft on natural resources. If this continues uncorrected, a population crash will be inevitable” (Desvaux, 2007). As William Ripple put it, our actions could be critical to “the very future of humanity” (Ripple, 2022).

When would this crash happen? Multiple scientists have warned that climate change could possibly be leading to global societal collapse this century (Weyhenmeyer, 2020). Eminent Australian scientist Frank Fenner goes so far as to say, “Humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change” (Edwards, 2010). Megan Seibert and William Rees argue that, “to achieve sustainability and salvage civilization, society must embark on a planned, cooperative descent from an extreme state of overshoot in just a decade or two” (Seibert, 2021). Other people say we have much longer. We don’t know. Perhaps we should at least pay attention.

15,000 scientists have signed this appeal to humanity:

We are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats (Crist et al. 2017). By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivize renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled [sic] biosphere…
Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out. We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and in our governing institutions, that Earth with all its life is our only home. (Ripple, 2017)

Unfortunately, all these warnings are often ignored (Washington, 2020; Washington, 2022).

=================

It is fine to say you disagree with all these scientists, but I don't understand how we can casually wave it all off as "school essays". At a bare minimum, can we talk about what we would do IF what they say is true? Why not?

 

[Swammerdami]

There is one claim I do NOT understand.

Eminent Australian scientist Frank Fenner goes so far as to say, “Humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change” (Edwards, 2010).

Troublesome results of overpopulation might lead to the collapse of civilization and a massive number of deaths, but is it likely to cause extinction within 100 years? Are there ANY examples of other species where their overpopulation led directly to extinction?

To the contrary, it would seem that deaths from over-population should be self-correcting. Even if 99.9% of humans are killed off by some poison or whatever, that leaves 8 million who should be able to survive in some niche. (Canada perhaps?) What am I missing?

 

[Elixir]

it would seem that deaths from over-population should be self-correcting. Even if 99.9% of humans are killed off by some poison or whatever, that leaves 8 million who should be able to survive in some niche.

Indeed. Even if it killed 99.999%, that would leave 80,000 humans - somewhat more than are estimated to have survived the Toba bottleneck.
But I can't readily visualize how the mechanism of overpopulation could ever achieve even a 99% kill rate.
(leaving some 80 million to breed. Lather, rinse and repeat.)

Rather than "If 100 years from now we needed to cut our consumption in half", I would ask "If 100 years from now the human population was cut in half, would you expect a 40-50% reduction in human environmental impact?" If so, why?

 

[Merle]

it would seem that deaths from over-population should be self-correcting. Even if 99.9% of humans are killed off by some poison or whatever, that leaves 8 million who should be able to survive in some niche.

Indeed. Even if it killed 99.999%, that would leave 80,000 humans - somewhat more than are estimated to have survived the Toba bottleneck.
But I can't readily visualize how the mechanism of overpopulation could ever achieve even a 99% kill rate.
(leaving some 80 million to breed. Lather, rinse and repeat.)

Rather than "If 100 years from now we needed to cut our consumption in half", I would ask "If 100 years from now the human population was cut in half, would you expect a 40-50% reduction in human environmental impact?" If so, why?

The issue is overshoot caused by a delayed affect. If it takes decades before the full result of our actions is manifest, and we continue to tax the planet far greater than it can withstand, then the delayed result can be a catastrophic crash. This is far difference from a logistic curve that deals with the case where the affects are quickly manifest, and the population slowly levels off to a maximum level. This results in overshoot. See https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/#Exponential

Consider, for instance, that the affects of global warming are delayed. CO2 heats up the planet, which then causes feedbacks such as melting polar icecaps or methane releases. Both of these feedbacks cause more global warming, which causes more feedback, which causes more global warming, ad infinitum. But fortunately, each feedback loop is significantly smaller than the previous step, so no, this does not add up to infinite temperature change. But it can result in a continuous increase in temperature for years after we would stop adding CO2. So even if we followed an aggressive "Bilby Plan" and had thousands of nuclear reactors nest year and totally stopped CO2 emissions, there will still be global warming in the pipeline, and this can continue to worsen the damage to the planet.

There is another feedback affect, and that is, as we warm the planet, the atmosphere holds more water vapor, which heats the planet further. This is a fast feedback, so we don't have the delays associated with the other feedbacks. But theoretically, if temperatures got high enough, we could end up in feedback loops that got progressively more intense. Temperature could rise, causing more water vapor, which causes a greater temperature rise, which causes more water vapor, etc., and each step could be larger than the previous. Thus, we could get to the point where it evaporated all the water from the oceans, making Earth like Venus. No, I don't think this is at all likely, but it is an illustration of a delayed effect that could eventually wipe out all humans, even if we all went on our best behavior tomorrow.

Regarding your second question, yes, if population was reduced in half at the same affluence level, lifestyle, and use of technology, then yes, we would have half the CO2 emissions, half the fertilizer runoff, half the plastic bottles adding to the ocean, etc.

 

[bilby]

* "Novel entities" pose risks. These include "hundreds of thousands" of synthetic unregulated chemicals, GMO and more. The chemicals, some used to increase agricultural yields as needed for overpopulation, have been implicted in animal disorders, and even human cancers and hormonal changes.

This is pure and unadulterated technofear, and tells us only that the author is terrified by modernity.

Natural entities pose risks. These include millions of natural unregulated chemicals, genetic variation, and more. Some of these chemicals, used to increase agricultural yields, or just directly consumed by people, without any testing whatsoever, have been directly and unequivocally demonstrated to cause animal disorders, and even human cancers and hormonal changes.

The writer of this horseshit should stick to campaining against dihydrogen monoxide, which kills infinitely more people than GMOs ever have.

 

[bilby]

Question: If 100 years from now we needed to cut our consumption in half,

We don't. We might need to cut our environmental impact; But that isn't the same thing as "consumption".

which would you prefer:
a) 125% of the current population living at an average of 40% of today's consumption or
b) 50% of the current population living at an average of 100% of today's consumption.

I would prefer 125% of the current population living at 125% of today's standard of living, while causing 40% of todays harm to the environment.

I have yet to see anything but arguments from incredulity (and equivocations around wtf "consumption" even means here) as to why this isn't achievable.

Individual environmental issues can each be demonstrated to have been massively mitigated by (ot to be able to be mitigated by) use of technology (eg slashing fossil fuel use through replacement of coal burning by nuclear fission; development of non-ozone depleting alternatives to CFCs; recycling of steel to reduce the amount of mining needed; etc., etc.).

This is not a zero sum game.

If a person refuses to answer that question, how can he be taking this discussion seriously?

If a person refuses to accept that that question is loaded, how can he be an honest contributor to this discussion at all?

If you had to stop beating your wife, which would you prefer...?

 

[bilby]

Scientists have established 9 boundaries

Multiple scientists have warned

15,000 scientists have signed

People who have scientific data to present don't talk about "scientists"; They cite individual findings, and are specific about the fields of those individuals whose findings they cite.

They also don't commit the argumentum ad populam fallacy; Nobody cares how many (or how few) "scientists" agree with you; They care whether your theories are in accordance with observation.

Arguments of the form you are presenting are the hallmark of pseudoscience. They are used by people who either don't grasp what science is, or how it works; Or who hope their audience doesn't understand what science is, or how it works; Or, in many cases, both.

Plate tectonics isn't true because "thousands of scientists agree" that it is true; Geologists have hypothesised that the best explanation for a number of otherwise implausible coincidences between geological formations in disparate locations, is that continents are moving relative to each other. There are no reliable observations that falsify this hypothesis; And hydrographers have found structures in the deep oceans that were predicted by the models proposed by those geologists. So it has become perverse to deny that continental drift occurs, as to do so leaves myriad observed coincidences inexplicable.

Tens of thousands of scientists agreed that plate tectonics was utter bunk, was stupid, and was frankly impossible. Then the evidence was collected, and it showed that those tens of thousands of scientists were simply wrong. Sucks to be them.

 

[Bomb#20]

How would an average of 1.3 children per woman lead to economic collapse? Japan and Italy are already at 1.3 and did not collapse.

They are facing economic collapse as the labour force shrinks quickly while maintaining a large number of pensioners.

Italy has a 7.5% unemployment rate. Why would supporting a large number of pensioners require manufacturing new workers when it evidently doesn't require using the ones you already have? As the number of workers per pensioner goes down, the burden pensioners place on each worker goes down too, because the quality and quantity of machine assistance keeps going up.

 

[bilby]

Eminent Australian scientist Frank Fenner goes so far as to say, “Humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change”

Frank Fenner was (he died in 2010 at the age of 95) an eminent virologist.

If you wanted to know about viruses (particularly pox viruses; He was an important contributor to the eradication of smallpox), he was the guy to ask. If you asked him about epidemiology, immunology, or molecular biology, he would likely give you much better answers to your questions than the average 'man in the street'.

His qualifications to opine on "overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change" are less clear; Why should his opinion here be given any special weight or respect?

Again, this is a typical pseudoscientific ploy; Take a genuine expert, promote him as "an eminent scientist", and then provide his opinion on a subject in which he is a non-expert, but in which he happens to agree with you.

This is the same argumentation methodology that leads to Jehovahs Witness publications full of eminent scientists declaring evolution to be nonsense. A close examination shows that the people they cite really are eminent scientists but, crucially, are from fields such as electronics or materials science. They're not biologists, much less evolutionary biologists; Asking for their opinions on evolution is like asking Richard Dawkins to design a suspension bridge - he might have a crack at it, but he would be the first to advise that you get a real civil engineer instead.

 

[bilby]

if population was reduced in half at the same affluence level, lifestyle, and use of technology, then yes, we would have half the CO2 emissions, half the fertilizer runoff, half the plastic bottles adding to the ocean, etc.

Is your italicized caveat even remotely plausible, though? What mechanism could halve human population, without having massive effects on affluence, lifestyle, and use of technology?

What mechanism could halve human population fast enough that affluence, lifestyle, and use of technology wouldn't change radically during that reduction, even if not as a consequence of the reduction itself?

Any model that assumes these things to be static is in deep trouble, given that we observe that all of these things are currently changing very rapidly.

 

[Bomb#20]

Indeed. Even if it killed 99.999%, that would leave 80,000 humans - somewhat more than are estimated to have survived the Toba bottleneck.
But I can't readily visualize how the mechanism of overpopulation could ever achieve even a 99% kill rate.
(leaving some 80 million to breed. Lather, rinse and repeat.)
...

The issue is overshoot caused by a delayed affect. If it takes decades before the full result of our actions is manifest, and we continue to tax the planet far greater than it can withstand, then the delayed result can be a catastrophic crash. This is far difference from a logistic curve that deals with the case where the affects are quickly manifest, and the population slowly levels off to a maximum level. This results in overshoot. See https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/#Exponential

Consider, for instance, that the affects of global warming are delayed. CO2 heats up the planet, which then causes feedbacks such as melting polar icecaps or methane releases. Both of these feedbacks cause more global warming, which causes more feedback, which causes more global warming, ad infinitum. But fortunately, each feedback loop is significantly smaller than the previous step, so no, this does not add up to infinite temperature change. But it can result in a continuous increase in temperature for years after we would stop adding CO2. So even if we followed an aggressive "Bilby Plan" and had thousands of nuclear reactors nest year and totally stopped CO2 emissions, there will still be global warming in the pipeline, and this can continue to worsen the damage to the planet.

There is another feedback affect, and that is, as we warm the planet, the atmosphere holds more water vapor, which heats the planet further. This is a fast feedback, so we don't have the delays associated with the other feedbacks. But theoretically, if temperatures got high enough, we could end up in feedback loops that got progressively more intense. Temperature could rise, causing more water vapor, which causes a greater temperature rise, which causes more water vapor, etc., and each step could be larger than the previous. Thus, we could get to the point where it evaporated all the water from the oceans, making Earth like Venus. No, I don't think this is at all likely, but it is an illustration of a delayed effect that could eventually wipe out all humans, even if we all went on our best behavior tomorrow.
...

The dinosaurs lived with Cretaceous temperatures; our lemur ancestors survived the Eocene; so I think humans will be able to handle the current interruption in our era's prevailing Pleistocene conditions. Not to say that global warming isn't going to cause us a lot of temporary misery, but it's not going to become an extinction-level problem for hundreds of millions of years.

 

[DBT]

We should have stabilized at no more than two billlion.

How??

Population reached that milestone in the late 1920s. Using only the technologies and geopolitical structures available at that time, how could population have possibly have been "stabilized"?

Piece of cake -- worldwide communist revolution. Look how many people Lenin stabilized just in Russia.

Being rational, putting aside political ideology, be it left or right, and dealing with issues such as overpopulation, resource use, climate change, etc, reasonably without politics and ego getting in the way would have been a good starting point a century ago.

 

[Elixir]

The issue is overshoot caused by a delayed affect. If it takes decades before the full result of our actions is manifest, and we continue to tax the planet far greater than it can withstand, then the delayed result can be a catastrophic crash.

Yes, failure to foresee the foreseeable can cause avoidable disasters.

It all might be much much worse than even what you warn of. What if a critical point of oceanic warming precedes sea level rise by so much that a humungous methane hydrate release from the northeast Atlantic ocean floor triggers undersea tsunamis, which travel across the ocean, devastating the east US coast and triggering massive MH release from the US coast, collapsing huge sections of the continental shelf and sending a thousand foot high wall of displace water screaming east across the Atlantic, and all that methane causes a heat wave for twenty years, causing mass famine and tens of millions of urban heat deaths?
That would suck. But it would barely make a dent in the “overpopulation problem”.

 

[Elixir]

I would prefer 125% of the current population living at 125% of today's standard of living, while causing 40% of todays harm to the environment.

That’s where I differ with you.
I am 86% certain that 40% of current impact will still exceed environment’s ability to recover, by at least 64% in some important ways.
To be safe, I’d “prefer” about 2-4b global population, with 8-10% of current impact.

But this is a problem for each generation, not for any single generation. Some forward looking new behavioral “norms” will need to be established and handed down, if the next significant human population decline is to be gradual and humane. That’s all I know.

 

[Elixir]

Scientists have established 9 boundaries

Multiple scientists have warned

15,000 scientists have signed

People who have scientific data to present don't talk about "scientists"; They cite individual findings, and are specific about the fields of those individuals whose findings they cite.

They also don't commit the argumentum ad populam fallacy; Nobody cares how many (or how few) "scientists" agree with you; They care whether your theories are in accordance with observation.

Arguments of the form you are presenting are the hallmark of pseudoscience. They are used by people who either don't grasp what science is, or how it works; Or who hope their audience doesn't understand what science is, or how it works; Or, in many cases, both.

Plate tectonics isn't true because "thousands of scientists agree" that it is true; Geologists have hypothesised that the best explanation for a number of otherwise implausible coincidences between geological formations in disparate locations, is that continents are moving relative to each other. There are no reliable observations that falsify this hypothesis; And hydrographers have found structures in the deep oceans that were predicted by the models proposed by those geologists. So it has become perverse to deny that continental drift occurs, as to do so leaves myriad observed coincidences inexplicable.

Tens of thousands of scientists agreed that plate tectonics was utter bunk, was stupid, and was frankly impossible. Then the evidence was collected, and it showed that those tens of thousands of scientists were simply wrong. Sucks to be them.

Yup. When theories like plate tectonics or evolution turn out to be profoundly predictive and explanatory, and ace every test of falsification, we just have to live with them in the absence of anything more explanatory and predictive.
Absent such a stellar record, especially immediately upon introduction, novel ideas tend to look like red meat to scientists, who are eager to make their name by falsifying them. They’re vicious and unrelenting, and that’s why science works.

 

[DBT]

To bring us down (not extinct), all that has to happen is what has happened numerous times in the past, a 536ad event, a mini ice age lasting a few centures, etc.

 

[Elixir]

To bring us down (not extinct), all that has to happen is what has happened numerous times in the past, a 536ad event, a mini ice age lasting a few centures, etc.

Yeah, that would be cool.

In New York, the ice that covered Manhattan was about 2,000 feet high before it began to melt in about 16,000 BC. The ice in the area disappeared around 10,000 BC. The ground in the New York area has since risen by more than 150 ft because of the removal of the enormous weight of the melted ice.

Makes ya wonder … that’s geologically not even yesterday, it’s like five minutes ago. If it happened again would there be any trace of NYC left whatsoever when the ice withdrew? What might all that ice have destroyed? How crowded would equatorial regions get if the big cold snap happened soon (next few centuries)? Was the Sahara a Garden of Eden 30,000 years ago?

 

[bilby]

If it happened again would there be any trace of NYC left whatsoever when the ice withdrew?

I sincerely doubt it. A substantial amount of the bedrock on which the city rests would be gone, nevermind anything that sits on it. Maybe some of the deeper subway tunnels would still be identifiable to distant future archaeologists. Maybe.