Over population derail from "Humans as non-animals"

[DBT]

I think we are a long way from achieving long term sustainability, which doesn't appear to be a part of the political or economic agenda.

 

[Politesse]

THAT much is certainly true.

 

[steve_bank]

Nature always seem to pull things into balance. Washout a vaccine COVID might have led to large scale population reduction.

That depends on whether you think 8 billion humans is actually environmentally "balanced" for the planet. I have a friend who maintains that climate and nature is "self-correcting" for humans, that nothing we do can threaten us. I too am a trillionaire in my dreams.

Science and technology has allowed population to grow being sustainable levels.

There are too any crowed into the La area where a fire has created widespread devastation.

Not just fire, in an area like La a two or three week disruption in food supplies will lead to chaos.

What the fires show is that the scale of La is not manageable or governable.

We see it in Congress.

China tries to compensate with rigid social and political control, but that too is having problems as well.

 

[bilby]

Science and technology has allowed population to grow being sustainable levels.

Or, more accurately, science and technology are what has made a high population sustainable.

But lets assume, ad argumentum, that science and technology have actually allowed population to grow beyond a sustainable level. What should we do?

a) Do more science and invent more technologies, to make the new population level sustainable;

b) Kill a bunch of people to bring the population down to a austainable level;

c) Remove some technologies, to hasten b (above);

d) Sit around waiting to die; or

e) Something else - please specify in detail exactly what.

 

[bigfield]

Science and technology has allowed population to grow being sustainable levels.

That has been true since the canal was invented.

 

[bilby]

Science and technology has allowed population to grow being sustainable levels.

That has been true since the canal flint hand axe was invented.

FTFY.

 

[bigfield]

There are too any crowed into the La area where a fire has created widespread devastation.

Not just fire, in an area like La a two or three week disruption in food supplies will lead to chaos.

What the fires show is that the scale of La is not manageable or governable.

Australia has the same problem: the country is just too full. You can't walk two minutes in the bush without seeing some mudflap-haired youth on an electric scooter, blasting music on his bluetooth speaker, weaving between the trees on the side of the mountain. The country fire service can't do burn-offs or fire breaks because they can never get all of the people out of the gum trees.

 

[bigfield]

Literally anything the government screws up can be blamed on overpopulation.

Ancient Roman pensioner, looking out of his apartment window, remarks out loud to no-one in particular: "This fire wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have so many houses."

 

[bilby]

Literally anything the government screws up can be blamed on overpopulation.

Ancient Roman pensioner, looking out of his apartment window, remarks out loud to no-one in particular: "This fire wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have so many houses."

Well, he'd be right. Or Nero makes no difference.

 

[steve_bank]

There are too any crowed into the La area where a fire has created widespread devastation.

Not just fire, in an area like La a two or three week disruption in food supplies will lead to chaos.

What the fires show is that the scale of La is not manageable or governable.

Australia has the same problem: the country is just too full. You can't walk two minutes in the bush without seeing some mudflap-haired youth on an electric scooter, blasting music on his bluetooth speaker, weaving between the trees on the side of the mountain. The country fire service can't do burn-offs or fire breaks because they can never get all of the people out of the gum trees.

I listened to a BBC panel discussion from Australia tonight. Same economic and climate problems as here.

Despite 24/7 global reporting us Americans are as ignorant of global events as ever.

As to scooters and loud music you have described Seattle. People are living in a child like fantasy reality.

 

[steve_bank]

Science and technology has allowed population to grow being sustainable levels.

That has been true since the canal was invented.

Well, it all began with being able to make fire and creating sharp cutting edges, The rest is history.

Agriculture led to excess food, population growth, and producing things not needed for survival.

And here we are.

Exhaustion of resources is not new. I read that in ancient Rome or Greece a coastal marine critter was harvested to extinction for purple dye.

England exhausted trees, a major American colonial export was timber.

Over here fishing boat licensees were regulated. The result increase in fishng boats out to get rich, and depleting of fishing stocks to near extnction in the Northeas fisheries.

 

[Swammerdami]

Science and technology has allowed population to grow being sustainable levels.

Or, more accurately, science and technology are what has made a high population sustainable.

But lets assume, ad argumentum, that science and technology have actually allowed population to grow beyond a sustainable level. What should we do?

Birth rates are already trending sharply downward, and typical estimates call for a peak population of about 10½ billion circa 2100.

Suppose governments introduce strong incentives (e.g. taxation policies) that reduce the birth rates by a further 20%. Now the population might peak at about 9½ billion instead of 10½.

That's only a smallish improvement for what might be punitive and very unpopular programs.

But if a problem has no easy solutions, does that mean we should "stick our heads in the sand" and ignore it?

 

[laughing dog]

Humans are the most dangerous (in terms of the environment and ecology of the planet) invasive species on this planet. If we could ask the dodos or passenger pigeons whether there are too many people around, we probably would have gotten a different view of "sustainability" level of the human population.

 

[bigfield]

Suppose governments introduce strong incentives (e.g. taxation policies)

Considering that most population growth is happening in Africa, it's weird to use taxation as an example of an incentive.

You'd probably get better results by funding better access to contraceptives and education, which seem to be the strongest incentives, aren't punitive, and are actually helpful in other ways.

 

[DBT]

Sooner or later, Mother Nature corrects an imbalance in the ecosystem. And when it does happens, as it surely will, what happens may not be to our liking.

 

[bilby]

Sooner or later, Mother Nature corrects an imbalance in the ecosystem. And when it does happens, as it surely will, what happens may not be to our liking.

Yeah, sorry, but that's bollocks.

If there were an "imbalance", it would be swiftly and very obviously corrected.

Mother Nature is a myth; There's just reality. And the reality is the Homo Sapiens is currently enjoying high population, low and declining population growth, high and increasing life expectancy, and high and improving quality of life.

And that's entirely a consequence of our technology, and our demonstrated ability to meet challenges with more technology.

Population growth was a problem; We developed safe and effective contraception.

Plague was a problem; We developed antibiotics and vaccines.

War was a problem; We have dramatically reduced its frequency, severity, and area of effect.

Famine was a problem; We eliminated it.

The reality is that life is, mostly, better for a random human today than it would have been at any time in the history of our species.

That we constantly worry that it's all going to collapse, and cherry pick our news to focus only on the places where it's not going so well, may be a significant contributor to that success. Certainly it's not objective evidence that things are bad, or are getting worse, or are about to collapse.

 

[DBT]

Sooner or later, Mother Nature corrects an imbalance in the ecosystem. And when it does happens, as it surely will, what happens may not be to our liking.

Yeah, sorry, but that's bollocks.

If there were an "imbalance", it would be swiftly and very obviously corrected.

Mother Nature is a myth; There's just reality. And the reality is the Homo Sapiens is currently enjoying high population, low and declining population growth, high and increasing life expectancy, and high and improving quality of life.

And that's entirely a consequence of our technology, and our demonstrated ability to meet challenges with more technology.

Population growth was a problem; We developed safe and effective contraception.

Plague was a problem; We developed antibiotics and vaccines.

War was a problem; We have dramatically reduced its frequency, severity, and area of effect.

Famine was a problem; We eliminated it.

The reality is that life is, mostly, better for a random human today than it would have been at any time in the history of our species.

That we constantly worry that it's all going to collapse, and cherry pick our news to focus only on the places where it's not going so well, may be a significant contributor to that success. Certainly it's not objective evidence that things are bad, or are getting worse, or are about to collapse.

You know that the term "Mother Nature" is just a metaphor for how ecosystems work, where 'corrections' and extinctions do in fact happen, and that we are not exempt.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think we are a long way from achieving long term sustainability, which doesn't appear to be a part of the political or economic agenda.

We have not had a long term sustainable system since the development of worked stone tools. Nor is there any technological level we could retreat to that would be sustainable. We either develop the tech for long term sustainability or we die. There is no other path. The greens like to propose a path that pushes the collapse out beyond the end of their chart but all the remotely scientific stuff shows humanity going down, not up.

There are things we can do to help like switching from coal/oil/gas to nuclear, but that will not address the fundamental issue.

 

[lostone]

I think we are a long way from achieving long term sustainability, which doesn't appear to be a part of the political or economic agenda.

We have not had a long term sustainable system since the development of worked stone tools. Nor is there any technological level we could retreat to that would be sustainable. We either develop the tech for long term sustainability or we die. There is no other path. The greens like to propose a path that pushes the collapse out beyond the end of their chart but all the remotely scientific stuff shows humanity going down, not up.

There are things we can do to help like switching from coal/oil/gas to nuclear, but that will not address the fundamental issue.

We can extended the existence of our species, but nothing we can do can change the fact that all of our resources are finite. That some, if not almost all of us, think the universe has never seen our like before and that we are so specially talented to escape that fate is an unfortunate conceit, and hurries up our extinction, but only makes it a bit sooner rather than a bit later. The universe can and will probably make more species just as capable as us, and they too, will suffer the same fate.

 

[Politesse]

Sooner or later, Mother Nature corrects an imbalance in the ecosystem. And when it does happens, as it surely will, what happens may not be to our liking.

Yeah, sorry, but that's bollocks.

If there were an "imbalance", it would be swiftly and very obviously corrected.

Mother Nature is a myth; There's just reality. And the reality is the Homo Sapiens is currently enjoying high population, low and declining population growth, high and increasing life expectancy, and high and improving quality of life.

And that's entirely a consequence of our technology, and our demonstrated ability to meet challenges with more technology.

Population growth was a problem; We developed safe and effective contraception.

Plague was a problem; We developed antibiotics and vaccines.

War was a problem; We have dramatically reduced its frequency, severity, and area of effect.

Famine was a problem; We eliminated it.

The reality is that life is, mostly, better for a random human today than it would have been at any time in the history of our species.

That we constantly worry that it's all going to collapse, and cherry pick our news to focus only on the places where it's not going so well, may be a significant contributor to that success. Certainly it's not objective evidence that things are bad, or are getting worse, or are about to collapse.

You know that the term "Mother Nature" is just a metaphor for how ecosystems work, where 'corrections' and extinctions do in fact happen, and that we are not exempt.

It's not a very good metaphor. Ecosystems don't function like a mother correcting her children, and if you're using mothers correcting their children as your model for understanding ecosystemic interactions, you'll make poor predictions. Who is the "mother" and who is the "child"?