Population

[skepticalbip]

It is simple reality. If there is no water where you want to live then it needs to be imported or you will thirst to death. Do you have some magic that changes that reality?

So the choices are fairly straight forward if you live in an area where there is no water... I see three options:

1. Move to where there is water. (there are a hell of a lot of places where there is a hell of a lot of water)
2. Import water.
3. Thirst.

Feel free to offer a magic solution.

.

Actually there is another option, no magic involved.

4. Undo the reason there's no water. Stop effectively exporting it. (I'm looking at you, almond farmers.)

Why sacrifice? Why not import more water? (I know, people think water should be free in the desert.) And if it does come to sacrifice why not sacrificing golf courses, flowing fountains, swimming pools, car washes, etc.? (Again I know, people who bemoan the lack of water don't grow almonds but they do enjoy those other things.)

 

[Bomb#20]

Actually there is another option, no magic involved.

4. Undo the reason there's no water. Stop effectively exporting it. (I'm looking at you, almond farmers.)

Why sacrifice? Why not import more water? (I know, people think water should be free in the desert.) And if it does come to sacrifice why not sacrificing golf courses, flowing fountains, swimming pools, car washes, etc.?

That's an, er, nutty answer. It's not the people with golf courses, flowing fountains, swimming pools, car washes, etc. who think water should be free in the desert. City-folk are well-accustomed to paying market rates for the water they use. It's the rice and nut farmers who think water should be free in the desert.

 

[skepticalbip]

Actually there is another option, no magic involved.

4. Undo the reason there's no water. Stop effectively exporting it. (I'm looking at you, almond farmers.)

Why sacrifice? Why not import more water? (I know, people think water should be free in the desert.) And if it does come to sacrifice why not sacrificing golf courses, flowing fountains, swimming pools, car washes, etc.?

That's an, er, nutty answer. It's not the people with golf courses, flowing fountains, swimming pools, car washes, etc. who think water should be free in the desert. City-folk are well-accustomed to paying market rates for the water they use. It's the rice and nut farmers who think water should be free in the desert.

Google says that California farmers pay an average of $70 per acre-foot for water.

Of interest there are massive rice farms in Arkansas and the farmers only have to pay for the electricity they use to pump water from the Mississippi.

 

[Politesse]

Problem: There's not enough water in Arizona.

Solution: Move 7.2 million people to Marquette MI.



It must be amazing on a daily basis to live on the inside of some people's people's heads.

You missed the other option. The 7.2 million people in Arizona can pay to pipe water in from somewhere that there is water.


.

Otherwise known as the Central Arizona Project.

 

[Bomb#20]

It's the rice and nut farmers who think water should be free in the desert.

Google says that California farmers pay an average of $70 per acre-foot for water.

Yes, that's what I said. (City water near me is $2800 per acre-foot.)

Of interest there are massive rice farms in Arkansas and the farmers only have to pay for the electricity they use to pump water from the Mississippi.

Right. And with the massive water subsidies they get, it's probably profitable for California farmers to export rice to Arkansas.

 

[skepticalbip]

Yes, that's what I said. (City water near me is $2800 per acre-foot.)

Of interest there are massive rice farms in Arkansas and the farmers only have to pay for the electricity they use to pump water from the Mississippi.

Right. And with the massive water subsidies they get, it's probably profitable for California farmers to export rice to Arkansas.

It looks like golf clubs pay about the same for water as farmers do if the Desert Sun can be believed. Of course both are using primarily Colorado River water, not tap water that, as you point out, is more expensive.

From the Desert Sun...

For decades, relatively cheap water rates in the California desert encouraged growth in the numbers of golf courses. Most courses pay rates or assessments, for groundwater or Colorado River water, varying from about $42 per acre-foot to $110 per acre-foot. Statewide,

Maybe it is just me but if there was a necessary sacrifice and I was forced to decide which to cut, I think I would keep food production over pretty green fairways.

 

[Tigers!]

It looks like golf clubs pay about the same for water as farmers do if the Desert Sun can be believed. Of course both are using primarily Colorado River water, not tap water that, as you point out, is more expensive.

From the Desert Sun...

For decades, relatively cheap water rates in the California desert encouraged growth in the numbers of golf courses. Most courses pay rates or assessments, for groundwater or Colorado River water, varying from about $42 per acre-foot to $110 per acre-foot. Statewide,

Maybe it is just me but if there was a necessary sacrifice and I was forced to decide which to cut, I think I would keep food production over pretty green fairways.

There there not some from of usage charge i.r. agriculture pays less than golf courses? Might force some water savings.

 

[Swammerdami]

I am surprised at how Pollyannish many people are about the effects of human overpopulation.

Let's talk about insect populations for a moment. Although some sciences offer very precise quantitative measurements, the decline in insect populations is something of a mystery: most of the loss is reported in "anecdotes." There is growing awareness among experts however that human activities have caused a dramatic plunge in insect populations in the past few decades. This will also lead to declines in populations that depend on insects for food (birds etc.) or pollination (fruits, flowers). I wonder what the Pollyannas say about this.

• Prove it. I don't think there's any decline.
• So what? Seen one pretty butterfly you've seen them all. Our grandkids can see butterflies on old YouTubes.
• Technology to the rescue! Nano-drones will be developed to pollinate the few types of fruit that serve humanity's needs.

I think mankind should view loss of biodiversity with great regret, even when affected species don't obviously benefit humans. Earth's life may continue to suffer from these losses millions of years after H. sapiens itself is extinct.

Did someone mention uranium as an inexhaustible energy source? Google shows

Uranium abundance: At the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors, the world supply of viable uranium, which is the most common nuclear fuel, will last for 80 years. Scaling consumption up to 15 TW, the viable uranium supply will last for less than 5 years. May 11, 2011

Pessimistic? Probably. But "inexhaustible uranium"? No.

I know, the technology-dreaming Pollyannas aren't worried. If fusion power doesn't pan out, we'll invent dilithium crystals!

And then there's WATER. Clear facts on river flow are hard to get and hard to interpret. The flow of the Tigris River past Baghdad in May is only a tiny fraction of what it was a century ago, but that's in part a good thing: Dams have smoothed out water flow over the year. Anyway, Iraq's loss is Turkey's gain! (In skeptical's model, are Iraqis supposed to move up-river to the other side of Turkey's dams?)

But unlike river flow, water table levels provide a stable reference. (This is a topic on which I'm ignorant. Why are some aquifers "non-replenishable"?)

Scores of countries are over-pumping aquifers as they struggle to satisfy their growing water needs, including each of the big three grain producers—China, India, and the United States. These three, along with a number of other countries where water tables are falling, are home to more than half the world’s people. (See Table 3–1.) 5

There are two types of aquifers: replenishable and nonreplenishable (or fossil) aquifers. Most of the aquifers in India and the shallow aquifer under the North China Plain are replenishable. When these are depleted, the maximum rate of pumping is automatically reduced to the rate of recharge.

For fossil aquifers, such as the vast U.S. Ogallala aquifer, the deep aquifer under the North China Plain, or the Saudi aquifer, depletion brings pumping to an end. Farmers who lose their irrigation water have the option of returning to lower-yield dryland farming if rainfall permits. In more arid regions, however, such as in the southwestern United States or the Middle East, the loss of irrigation water means the end of agriculture.

Falling water tables are already adversely affecting harvests in some countries, including China, the world’s largest grain producer. A groundwater survey released in Beijing in August 2001 revealed that the water table under the North China Plain, which produces over half of that country’s wheat and a third of its corn, is falling faster than earlier reported. Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer, forcing well drillers to turn to the region’s deep fossil aquifer, which is not replenishable. 6

The survey, conducted by the Geological Environmental Monitoring Institute (GEMI) in Beijing, reported that under Hebei Province in the heart of the North China Plain, the average level of the deep aquifer was dropping nearly 3 meters (10 feet) per year. Around some cities in the province, it was falling twice as fast. He Qingcheng, head of the GEMI groundwater monitoring team, notes that as the deep aquifer is depleted, the region is losing its last water reserve—its only safety cushion. 7

His concerns are mirrored in a World Bank report: “Anecdotal evidence suggests that deep wells [drilled] around Beijing now have to reach 1,000 meters [more than half a mile] to tap fresh water, adding dramatically to the cost of supply.” In unusually strong language for a Bank report, it foresees “catastrophic consequences for future generations” unless water use and supply can quickly be brought back into balance. 8

The U.S. embassy in Beijing reports that wheat farmers in some areas are now pumping from a depth of 300 meters, or nearly 1,000 feet. Pumping water from this far down raises pumping costs so high that farmers are often forced to abandon irrigation and return to less productive dryland farming. 9

NASA's satellites are looking into aquiifer depeletion.

"If measures are not taken to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, consequences for the 114 million residents of the region [northern India] may include a collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water," said Rodell, who is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

In skeptical's model, do we build a pipeline from Africa to bring water to South Asia?

 

[none]

I am surprised at how Pollyannish many people are about the effects of human overpopulation.

Let's talk about insect populations for a moment. Although some sciences offer very precise quantitative measurements, the decline in insect populations is something of a mystery: most of the loss is reported in "anecdotes." There is growing awareness among experts however that human activities have caused a dramatic plunge in insect populations in the past few decades. This will also lead to declines in populations that depend on insects for food (birds etc.) or pollination (fruits, flowers). I wonder what the Pollyannas say about this.

• Prove it. I don't think there's any decline.
• So what? Seen one pretty butterfly you've seen them all. Our grandkids can see butterflies on old YouTubes.
• Technology to the rescue! Nano-drones will be developed to pollinate the few types of fruit that serve humanity's needs.

I think mankind should view loss of biodiversity with great regret, even when affected species don't obviously benefit humans. Earth's life may continue to suffer from these losses millions of years after H. sapiens itself is extinct.

Did someone mention uranium as an inexhaustible energy source? Google shows
Pessimistic? Probably. But "inexhaustible uranium"? No.

I know, the technology-dreaming Pollyannas aren't worried. If fusion power doesn't pan out, we'll invent dilithium crystals!

And then there's WATER. Clear facts on river flow are hard to get and hard to interpret. The flow of the Tigris River past Baghdad in May is only a tiny fraction of what it was a century ago, but that's in part a good thing: Dams have smoothed out water flow over the year. Anyway, Iraq's loss is Turkey's gain! (In skeptical's model, are Iraqis supposed to move up-river to the other side of Turkey's dams?)

But unlike river flow, water table levels provide a stable reference. (This is a topic on which I'm ignorant. Why are some aquifers "non-replenishable"?)


NASA's satellites are looking into aquiifer depeletion.

"If measures are not taken to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, consequences for the 114 million residents of the region [northern India] may include a collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water," said Rodell, who is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

In skeptical's model, do we build a pipeline from Africa to bring water to South Asia?

Roaches, they eat everything humans "leave behind".
Eat grass.

 

[Bomb#20]

Did someone mention uranium as an inexhaustible energy source? Google shows

Uranium abundance: At the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors, the world supply of viable uranium, which is the most common nuclear fuel, will last for 80 years. Scaling consumption up to 15 TW, the viable uranium supply will last for less than 5 years. May 11, 2011

Pessimistic? Probably. But "inexhaustible uranium"? No.

At current rates of production of nuclear power, the world's proven reserves of uranium are enough for thirty thousand years. We will run through our known supply of literally every single other mineral before we run out of uranium. That's "proven" reserves. "Proven" means when we use it up we aren't out, we just have to get the prospectors to look for more.

Normally we never have more than a few hundred years of proven reserves of anything, because once we have that much there's no money to be made by prospecting for more. Minerals are valued according to their scarcity. The reason we have about a hundred and forty times more proven reserves of uranium than anything else is because natural uranium is a mixture of one part U235 and a hundred and forty parts U238, and when we consume uranium in conventional reactors, we use the U235 for fuel and we throw away the U238.

We don't have to do that. We've been building U238 reactors since the 1940s. We build a lot more U235 reactors, i.e. "conventional reactors", because uranium is so cheap we can afford to use cheap U235 reactors instead of expensive U238 reactors and throw away over 99% of the fuel.

 

[skepticalbip]

... snip ...

NASA's satellites are looking into aquiifer depeletion.

"If measures are not taken to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, consequences for the 114 million residents of the region [northern India] may include a collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water," said Rodell, who is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

In skeptical's model, do we build a pipeline from Africa to bring water to South Asia?

Why from Africa? There are four major watersheds in northern India. The combined runoff is several tens of thousands of cubic meters/second into India's major rivers that flow into the ocean. The Ganges alone dumps almost 20,000 M³/sec into the Bay of Bengal. India doesn't have a shortage of water... It is just that there isn't a glut of free water everywhere people want it. Pipelines can solve that but it isn't free. There are thousands of miles of oil pipelines to bring oil from where it is to where people want it only because people are willing to pay for it. Apparently people aren't willing to pay for water.

Well actually there are some places where people accept that water isn't always free. Saudi Arabia invested quite a bit into desalination plants and pipe lines from them to where people wanted water to insure that its ~30 million population living in a desert have plenty of water.

 

[Swammerdami]

Did someone mention uranium as an inexhaustible energy source? Google shows

Uranium abundance: At the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors, the world supply of viable uranium, which is the most common nuclear fuel, will last for 80 years. Scaling consumption up to 15 TW, the viable uranium supply will last for less than 5 years. May 11, 2011

Pessimistic? Probably. But "inexhaustible uranium"? No.

At current rates of production of nuclear power, the world's proven reserves of uranium are enough for thirty thousand years.

I'll let you argue this out with Google.

What do you think about water? Impending extinctions of animals like insects?

... snip ...

NASA's satellites are looking into aquiifer depeletion.

"If measures are not taken to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, consequences for the 114 million residents of the region [northern India] may include a collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water," said Rodell, who is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

In skeptical's model, do we build a pipeline from Africa to bring water to South Asia?

Why from Africa? There are four major watersheds in northern India. The combined runoff is several tens of thousands of cubic meters/second into India's major rivers that flow into the ocean. The Ganges alone dumps almost 20,000 M³/sec into the Bay of Bengal. India doesn't have a shortage of water... It is just that there isn't a glut of free water everywhere people want it. Pipelines can solve that but it isn't free. There are thousands of miles of oil pipelines to bring oil from where it is to where people want it only because people are willing to pay for it. Apparently people aren't willing to pay for water.

I'll let you argue with the experts. Pumping from 300-meter deep wells doesn't sound like the behavior of "people unwilling to pay for water." On the attached map, much of the red and orange in the northeast is part of the Ganges basin. (In your model, are all of the "red" areas supposed to be pumping water from the few "yellow" areas?)

 

[Bomb#20]

Uranium abundance: At the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors,

At current rates of production of nuclear power, the world's proven reserves of uranium are enough for thirty thousand years.

I'll let you argue this out with Google.

Dude! Did you even read my post? What you quoted from "Google" didn't contradict me in any significant way. "Google"'s claim was explicitly limited to conventional reactors. People talking up "inexhaustible uranium" understand going this way means the industry has to switch to fast-breeder reactors. Not that big a deal. So switch to fast-breeder reactors already.

What do you think about water? Impending extinctions of animals like insects?

Oh, those are real problems. And you didn't even mention topsoil depletion.

 

[bilby]

I am surprised at how Pollyannish many people are about the effects of human overpopulation.

I am dismayed by how many apparently rational people in the 2020s still think that "human overpopulation" describes a plausible state of affairs.

"Human overpopulation" isn't a thing. It describes:

a) A fear, widespread in the 1960s and '70s, of a then plausible state resulting from the indefinite continuation of mid-20th century rates of population growth, whereby population was extrapolated to reach hundreds of billions within as few as five or six generations; Rendered moot by the collapse in fertility rates over the succeeding two or three decades, and ridiculous by the continuation of that collapse; or

b) A racist 'dog whistle', used to imply that 'they' will overwhelm 'us' unless 'we' act to match or exceed 'their' observed fecundity. This idea has zero basis in reality, and is factually wrong on every possible level.

To describe the recognition of these facts as "...how Pollyannish many people are about the effects of human overpopulation" seems to be a strawman; IF people were living in the fictional universe predicted (quite reasonably, given the information available at the time) at the end of the 1960s, THEN their disinclination to seek remedies for the population 'problem' might be described as "Pollyannish". But we're not, so it can't.

According to the predictions of people like Ehrlich, William and Paul Paddock, and other authors between the late 1950s and early 1970s, human population would have been about 16 billion by 2010, with the only possible reason to not hit that number being massive worldwide famines in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

No such famines occurred. Indeed, no notable famines on the scale of the early to mid 20th century famines occurred at all; The last significant famine event in human history was the "Band Aid/Live Aid" famine in Ethiopia in the mid 1980s. The cause of that famine was civil war; Today, Ethiopia's population is almost treble what it was at the start of the 1980s famine, and yet there are no food shortages there.

Humans are not insects.

And a lot of people are making a very comfortable living prophesying doom (as it has always been) but few seem to grasp the difference between a reserve and a resource. Uranium is inexhaustible. That the same people who spout absurdities about 'overpopulation' and the unthinkable dangers of our safest technology ever for making electricity, say otherwise, should come as no surprise. Idiots gonna idi.

We have real existential threats, such as our increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, to concern ourselves with. We need to stop being distracted by non-existent threats like 'overpopulation', 'resource depletion' and 'The Rapture'.

The lithosphere is fucking huge. We're not going to run out of anything (except possibly helium); And human population will never reach twelve billion - and we're already producing enough food for that many people.

There are real problems. But they're not caused by 'overpopulation', or even by population in any useful sense. Climate change is caused by carbon dioxide emissions. That's not a population problem; It's a burning fossil fuel problem, and is largely caused by a tiny fraction of our current population.

Slaughter the poorest 90% of humanity, and you would have pre-industrial population levels, and STILL have a carbon dioxide emissions problem.

Such problems could only be 'solved' by population reductions, if your proposed reductions are in the order of 100%. That's not acceptable. Find better solutions.

 

[steve_bank]

The idea that there is plenty of water and just move to where it is, is worthy of Shaun Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Water shortage is a leftist fake news.

You omitted the other options. If people want water then they either have to live where the water is or transport the water to where they want to live. There is no world shortage of water but there are a hell of a lot of people who live in an area (like deserts) where there is a lack of water... they need to import water. OTOH there are a hell of a lot of people who live in areas (like river flood plains) where there is too fucking much water during the spring floods.... they need to build flood protection. Life sucks like that. We don't live in "the garden of Eden" under the protection of some benevolent god.

It isn't too much global population that makes water scarce in some population centers. It is where that population center is. It isn't too much global population that makes some population centers subject to flooding. It is where that population center is.

Two thousand years ago the Romans handled their lack of sufficient water for their population centers by building aqueducts. Thousands of years before the Romans, the Sumerians supplied their population centers with water by channeling water. Today we handle the same problem by bitching and declaring that the world is coming to an end because "we are running out of water".

You must not be folloeing any news rports over the kast 20 yeras.

In some areas of the world people walk for hours to get water for a family. There is no place for them to go. In the 90s I read a govt rert that the LA region woud run out of drinkling water in th short term.

What fueled the growth of LA was an aqueduct through the desert. In current news agriculture in Ca is string to be curtailed by water rationing.

If you live in the USA Ca is a major source of fresh food along with the mid west. The mid west ancient aquifers are being depleted with no chance of restoration. Again govt mates we will cease to be a net food exporter.. Agricultural areas in Arizona are sinking due to wataer being pumped out.

The University Of Washington reports the Columbia River will be drawing down due to reduced snow packs and spring melts. The river provides water for desert agriculture in Wa and Or.

Going somewhere else is not an option in coming decades, even in the USA.

As o salt water distillation Saudi Arabia has the largest distillation operation in the world with cheap oil energy, yet with its small population and low industrialization it is not enough.

The economic and population inertia is too big to make any effective change. Nature will run its course and population will decline. Military conflict wit China over resources is lurking. Again current news, China arbitrily redrew maritime boundaries to encompass fishing an natural resources. It bulit an artificial island as a military base.

The UK and the EU are at odds over fishing rights, and there has been gunfire between boats.

China tried population control and it failed.

 

[Swammerdami]

Sir Isaac Newton espoused the atomic theory of matter but he got some details wrong. Does that mean that matter is NOT composed of atoms?

I am surprised at how Pollyannish many people are about the effects of human overpopulation.

According to the predictions of people like Ehrlich, William and Paul Paddock, and other authors between the late 1950s and early 1970s, human population would have been about 16 billion by 2010, with the only possible reason to not hit that number being massive worldwide famines in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

No such famines occurred.

If Ehrlich had predicted that it would rain on Monday, and it did not rain on Monday, does it follow that it won't rain on Thursday either?

If you agree that such reasoning would be a nonsensical "syllogism", then kindly explain how Ehrlich's failed prediction has any relevance whatsoever to the thread topic.

 

[skepticalbip]

... snip ...

NASA's satellites are looking into aquiifer depeletion.

"If measures are not taken to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, consequences for the 114 million residents of the region [northern India] may include a collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water," said Rodell, who is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

In skeptical's model, do we build a pipeline from Africa to bring water to South Asia?

Why from Africa? There are four major watersheds in northern India. The combined runoff is several tens of thousands of cubic meters/second into India's major rivers that flow into the ocean. The Ganges alone dumps almost 20,000 M³/sec into the Bay of Bengal. India doesn't have a shortage of water... It is just that there isn't a glut of free water everywhere people want it. Pipelines can solve that but it isn't free. There are thousands of miles of oil pipelines to bring oil from where it is to where people want it only because people are willing to pay for it. Apparently people aren't willing to pay for water.

I'll let you argue with the experts. Pumping from 300-meter deep wells doesn't sound like the behavior of "people unwilling to pay for water." On the attached map, much of the red and orange in the northeast is part of the Ganges basin. (In your model, are all of the "red" areas supposed to be pumping water from the few "yellow" areas?)

View attachment 35665

You apparently didn't actually read my post. I did not say India doesn't have large areas suffering from lack of water. I said that they can solve that lack by building pipelines to bring in water from the runoff from the watersheds that is constantly being replenished rather than sucking water from the aquafer that is not being replenished. Just one of India's rivers, the Ganges, dumps almost 20,000 cubic meters of fresh water ever second into the ocean. There are several other large rivers in India dumping thousands of cubic meters of fresh water per second each into the ocean. They are pumping the aquafers dry because it is much cheaper than piping in water from those sources that now dump their water into the ocean and because the aquafers are where they want to use the water. We have pipelines thousands of miles long to pump oil. Do you really think that we couldn't do the same for water?

India suffers from a water distribution problem, not lack of water. Someone living 10 miles from the Ganges can be suffering from lack of water even though there is more water than they can imagine flowing down the Ganges just over the hill. Someone suffering from lack of water living a thousand miles from the Ganges is in the same situation as the one living 10 miles from the Ganges.

 

[bilby]

Sir Isaac Newton espoused the atomic theory of matter but he got some details wrong. Does that mean that matter is NOT composed of atoms?

I am surprised at how Pollyannish many people are about the effects of human overpopulation.

According to the predictions of people like Ehrlich, William and Paul Paddock, and other authors between the late 1950s and early 1970s, human population would have been about 16 billion by 2010, with the only possible reason to not hit that number being massive worldwide famines in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

No such famines occurred.

If Ehrlich had predicted that it would rain on Monday, and it did not rain on Monday, does it follow that it won't rain on Thursday either?

If I made a number of arguments, and you found that one unconvincing, did that invalidate my other arguments? Because I note you haven't addressed them.

Ehrlich predicted that each day it would rain more than it did the day before, and that that trend would continue until we all drowned.

Then the rain stopped. And there's no rain forecast. But his acolytes are still insisting that we build boats, to the exclusion of any other activities. That's insane.

If you agree that such reasoning would be a nonsensical "syllogism", then kindly explain how Ehrlich's failed prediction has any relevance whatsoever to the thread topic.

Because it was hugely influential, and has left us with a generation of people who remain convinced that population growth is a major problem, even after that problem has demonstrably been solved.

Exhibit A: You.

 

[Swammerdami]

Sir Isaac Newton espoused the atomic theory of matter but he got some details wrong. Does that mean that matter is NOT composed of atoms?

If I made a number of arguments, and you found that one unconvincing, did that invalidate my other arguments? Because I note you haven't addressed them.

I have attempted to convince you your other arguments are faulty, but no progress is being made. By the way, did you have any comment on insect extinction besides "people aren't insects"?

And I do NOT appreciate being called a blind follower of Ehrlich, or profiteering from a scare campaign! You don't know me, but I amused myself 55+ years ago by facetiously computing how long it would take humanity's expansion to exceed the speed of light. My concern about human impact on the planet comes from recent readings, not the 1960's.

You still haven't demonstrated an understanding of the difference between sustainable and unsustainable usage. You apparently think helium is the only non-renewable. You refuse to acknowledge that renewable power (hydroelectric, wind, etc.) would be adequate to service lower populations.

Also wrong is your claim that almost all CO2 is emitted by the rich. India emits about eight times as much CO2 as France. France emits more per capita, but about 2.6X, not 10X.

Over-population is ALREADY a problem. Climate change IS occurring. Important habitats, even in the oceans, HAVE been destroyed. Species ARE going extinct at an alarming rate. Water tables, topsoil, phosphate deposits ARE being depleted.

Once-abundant resources will experience shortages. Coal and petroleum have uses other than polluting the atmosphere, but will become harder to obtain. Rare earth elements useful to technology will become more expensive. And all for what? Is maximizing population a worthy goal?

 

[Politesse]

"Maximizing population" isn't anyone's goal...

The problem is that trying to reduce by any means other than what is already being tried it is unethical, and doesn't actually solve any of the problems you mentioned anyway. Peabody Energy doesn't check the local population statistics before laying a new shaft, they check the market prices. Killing poor people might cause the price to go down a bit for a few years, but it won't change the scarcity of the resource and the bottomless hunger of the wealthy classes; eventually, the value of the resource will bounce back up. So you'll have committed your crimes for no good reason.