Merle
Member
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2022
- Messages
- 415
- Gender
- Male
- Basic Beliefs
- Agnostic Humanist
In the latest issue of Free Inquiry, Milton H. Saier, Jr, wrote an article, Save the Earth; Don’t Give Birth. Saier warns that the planet is overpopulated with 8 billion people, potentially leading to famine, social unrest, and war. He suggests the current population rise and consumption habits could lead to the extinction of Homo sapiens in a century. That sounds serious.
Saier says the only hope for a stable order on earth is a “substantial reduction in size of the human population.” How far would we need to go? One commonly suggested figure is Paul Ehrlich’s 2 billion people (e.g., see Tom Flynn, Will World Population Drop Far Enough, Fast Enough, Free Inquiry, August/September 2021) which is 25% of today’s population. Is that our target? If we are to reduce to that population level, and the average person lives 72 years, then we would need to sustain a birth rate of only 28 million per year, which is 21% of the current rate. That sounds difficult.
The next question is how much time we have available to reach that goal. If resource depletion, pollution, and global warming could indeed lead to the extinction of Homo sapiens in a century, one would think we should try to reach sustainable limits well before that, so let’s use 80 years as our timeframe. If we want a sustainable population 80 years from now, and the average lifespan is 72 years, then we would have 8 years to ramp the birthrate down to sustainable levels.
Do we have far longer than 80 years to reach a sustainable population? Can the planet sustainably hold far more than 2 billion people? Or is the situation indeed as dire for our near descendants as those figures suggest? Should we really target reducing the birthrate 80% within the next 8 years?
We all want humanity, and our collective accomplishments, to endure far more than a few centuries. Saier says this will require a substantial population reduction, but he is not specific on how much. He says our only hope to achieve the required reduction is through overcoming natural human greed, dishonesty, and selfishness. “It is not clear that we humans are capable of such an achievement,” he adds, “but it is our only hope.” And that, my friends, is our predicament.
Saier says the only hope for a stable order on earth is a “substantial reduction in size of the human population.” How far would we need to go? One commonly suggested figure is Paul Ehrlich’s 2 billion people (e.g., see Tom Flynn, Will World Population Drop Far Enough, Fast Enough, Free Inquiry, August/September 2021) which is 25% of today’s population. Is that our target? If we are to reduce to that population level, and the average person lives 72 years, then we would need to sustain a birth rate of only 28 million per year, which is 21% of the current rate. That sounds difficult.
The next question is how much time we have available to reach that goal. If resource depletion, pollution, and global warming could indeed lead to the extinction of Homo sapiens in a century, one would think we should try to reach sustainable limits well before that, so let’s use 80 years as our timeframe. If we want a sustainable population 80 years from now, and the average lifespan is 72 years, then we would have 8 years to ramp the birthrate down to sustainable levels.
Do we have far longer than 80 years to reach a sustainable population? Can the planet sustainably hold far more than 2 billion people? Or is the situation indeed as dire for our near descendants as those figures suggest? Should we really target reducing the birthrate 80% within the next 8 years?
We all want humanity, and our collective accomplishments, to endure far more than a few centuries. Saier says this will require a substantial population reduction, but he is not specific on how much. He says our only hope to achieve the required reduction is through overcoming natural human greed, dishonesty, and selfishness. “It is not clear that we humans are capable of such an achievement,” he adds, “but it is our only hope.” And that, my friends, is our predicament.