We are overloading the planet: Now What?

[bilby]

I'm saying the optimum is to maximize people-years, not simply years.

The optimum is to maximise happiness. People, or Years, are up to the individuals involved.

 

[Bomb#20]

1) I place the value in people-years, not in years. If a crash is inevitable, 10 billion for 150 years is superior to 1 billion for 1000 years.

Why do you value people-years? We don't owe anything to hypothetical people. If this is some kind of Utilitarianism thing, why is total happiness more important than average happiness, and why is a happy person more precious than a happy elephant or a happy hedonismbot?

2) The sustainable level is early stone age with a sub-million population. We have already taken all the easy-to-get resources, a low-tech society would already be on their way to a crash. The existing stuff will last for a while but it will wear away eventually.

We haven't already taken all the easy-to-get resources -- a garbage dump is typically way higher quality ore than a vein of rock.

More to the point, why do you think the sustainable level is early stone age with a sub-million population? What was unsustainable about the ten-odd million in the late stone age, other than our tendency to invent stuff and figure out how to increase the carrying capacity? If you mean that leads to overloading and a crash, Neolithic societies crashed right and left for thousands of years but it's never worldwide all at once. If metals ever really become unavailable then the long-term steady state is a mix of subsistence agricultural societies on the way up and on the way down, and that counts as sustainable overall. The world is never going back to just a million hunter-gatherers.

 

[DBT]

My question is, what is the minimum number people, living the typical affluent western consumer lifestyle, needed to reach overshoot? One billion? Two? Five billion or more?

That depends entirely on how much those people are allowed to damage the environment in order to save (or make) money.

As I said, just calculated at the standard of living we enjoy in the west, here in Australia, the US, EU, Britain, New Zealand...a car, appliances, air con in the summer and heat in the winter, eating out, holidays away, etc.

 

[Bomb#20]

Let's give you four options. Which do you pick?
...
3. Have a totalitarian world government force people to have fewer children.
...

Why would forcing people to have fewer children take a totalitarian world government? Democratic nation-states force their people to do all manner of things their leaders consider good for the general welfare that a lot of the citizenry wouldn't do voluntarily, from little things like tolerating minority religions and respecting other people's property rights, to big things like military service. If the case for limiting reproduction will become as clear as you think it is, why do you assume it couldn't be enacted by vote and enforced by normal legal means?

Fair enough.

Although in practice, if we were to somehow enforce involuntary birth control on the entire world, that almost certainly would require a totalitarian world government that would enforce its will over nations that resisted.

But it wouldn't need to happen all at once. When some countries democratically enforce it on their own people and others don't, and the people of the ones that do consequently wind up a lot happier overall, then, provided the countries that are trying to avoid becoming overpopulated are able to take in only as many immigrants as their people vote for letting in, sooner or later when the holdouts' people see the results across the border they'll vote to get with the program.

That certainly is not what I am putting on the table.

No, of course not -- you're advocating option 1. I'm just pointing out your option 3 appears to be misformulated.

 

[bilby]

My question is, what is the minimum number people, living the typical affluent western consumer lifestyle, needed to reach overshoot? One billion? Two? Five billion or more?

That depends entirely on how much those people are allowed to damage the environment in order to save (or make) money.

As I said, just calculated at the standard of living we enjoy in the west, here in Australia, the US, EU, Britain, New Zealand...a car, appliances, air con in the summer and heat in the winter, eating out, holidays away, etc.

As I said, it depends on how much those people are allowed to damage the environment in order to save (or make) enough money for

...a car, appliances, air con in the summer and heat in the winter, eating out, holidays away, etc.

 

[DBT]

My question is, what is the minimum number people, living the typical affluent western consumer lifestyle, needed to reach overshoot? One billion? Two? Five billion or more?

That depends entirely on how much those people are allowed to damage the environment in order to save (or make) money.

As I said, just calculated at the standard of living we enjoy in the west, here in Australia, the US, EU, Britain, New Zealand...a car, appliances, air con in the summer and heat in the winter, eating out, holidays away, etc.

As I said, it depends on how much those people are allowed to damage the environment in order to save (or make) enough money for

...a car, appliances, air con in the summer and heat in the winter, eating out, holidays away, etc.

As a consumer society, aren't we encouraged to spend on goods and services, take holidays, buy new cars, new appliances, phones and gadgets?

 

[Merle]

If we are overtaxing the planet, why would that not be caused by too many people having too much negative impact on the planet?

It can be caused by people having too much negative impact. That could be 100 million or 10 billion, depending on how they collectively behave. A person is not a unit of damage.

You say you are responding to me, but this has nothing to do with what I have been saying. Are you perhaps writing to some imaginary friend who claims that the only thing that matters is the number of people? I emphatically, emphatically am not saying this.

Again, if you would read my post --https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/ -- you would see what I am saying. If we are overloading the planet -- and I think we are -- then there are three potential levers we can adjust: the number of people, the amount of affluence per person, and the amount of negative impact per unit of affluence.

This is popularly expressed in the formula I=PAT. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_=_PAT) And no, I won't tell you who first used that I=PAT formula, else the MInistry of Truth here will condemn everything I wrote because I dared to mention that person's name.

Above I was talking about the number of people times their impact per person. I was not saying that population is the only thing that matters.

If you would read what I write, you would see that I have an entire section dealing with better use of technology, an entire section on reducing affluence of the wealthy, and an entire section on population.

 

[Merle]

As a consumer society, aren't we encouraged to spend on goods and services, take holidays, buy new cars, new appliances, phones and gadgets?

That, according to George W. Bush, is the way to fight terrorism. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4552776/user-clip-bush-shopping-quote

But no, shopping is not going to fix our problems.

 

[Elixir]

That’s a lot of words to say very little.

the number of people, the amount of affluence influence per person, and the amount of negative impact per unit of affluence.

FIFY
Dollars are not units of damage any more than people are.

 

[Merle]

We haven't already taken all the easy-to-get resources -- a garbage dump is typically way higher quality ore than a vein of rock.

Uh, no, we cannot simply recycle everything. Materials embedded in integrated circuits, for instance, cannot be salvaged. Other materials have deteriorated quality when they are recycled.

Recycling also can only be done so many times before the feedstock becomes useless. Natural laws such as
physics and thermodynamics determine the maximum achievable recycling rate as a function of the quality
of the recycling (side stream intermediate) products (Reuter et al 2006). It can be concluded that the
recyclability of a product is not only determined by the intrinsic property the different materials used, but
by the quality of the recycling streams (Reuter et al 2006). This material stream quality is determined by the
mineral classes (combination of materials due to design, shredding and separation), particle size distribution
and degree of liberation (multi-material particles) and the efficiency of physical separation.
This implies that waste streams cannot be recycled indefinitely before they need to be valorized by some
other form. This is something that is not included in current thinking

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/public...ar_Economy_into_the_Resource_Balanced_Economy , p 23

 

[Merle]

That’s a lot of words to say very little.

the number of people, the amount of affluence influence per person, and the amount of negative impact per unit of affluence.

FIFY
Dollars are not units of damage any more than people are.

"Affluence" cannot be measured strictly in dollars. It includes all ways in which we build the good life by using Earth's resources.

And yes, two people can have what we would consider the same level of affluence, but one is damaging the Earth much more than the other. That is where the "T" in the I=PAT formula comes in. The T factor depends on the technology that a person uses.

 

[Elixir]

Well, dude, now you have another variable “T”. Not all tech features the same impact, and the same tech may have wildly different impact in the hands of different people.
Seems to me that you have identified a bunch of interrelated variables, to absolutely no effect other than to illustrate the (obvious IMHO) fact that humans are damaging the ecosystem that supports them.
I think we already knew that.
If you are dreaming that you can simply take one or more of the identified variables and use it to control the net impact of the human race on its ecosystem, I think you’re fooling yourself.

 

[steve_bank]

At this point my view is there is nothing practical that can be done, as always throughout history nature will run its course.

That's the doomster view. I find a lot of people going to that view.

I listened to an anthropologist talk about how civilizations fail.

A civilization grows ad becomes successful by a set of working paradigms. Complexity and population grows to the point where the old paradigms no longer work.

Leadership changes but replacements come from the same cultural pool. Problems are opt solved and the civilization declines.

A civilization depleting resources is not new in history. Mayans and Incas. There is a theory based in archeological evidence ad science that Mayans polluted their water supplies and agricultural land. Large scale building projects required a cement or mortar that required burning large amounts of minerals, resulting in a toxic byproduct.

In ancient Greece or Rome a coastal marine criter was havested to exinction for a prized purple dye.

Today in the USA our constitution was framed for a small argcutal riral poulation. The west was wide open for colonization and explotaion. We are gerally today going by 19th century econmic growth patadigms. Ecomcs based on pulation and comsuption growth without limt is not sustaable.

I was an engieer for most of my aduktlife, and I kw how the conomy works and what drives it.

I say it is not sustanable bas a pragmatic realist based in observationm scince, and experience.

I lved for a whle in the Idaho pangandle, silver mining. The panndle is heavily poluted. The smelterr in Kellog contaminated town top soil with arsenuc. The soil was scapedup and put in a giant berm alng the highway.

I have seen the huge open pit coal mines on cross coutry drives.

Part of our 20th centry pardim was prte demcacy that suppoted free markey\t capitalism. intending to open consumer markets for Amercan goods.


The same question I have askd anarchists on politucs as what we shoud replace our system. How are decions made? Who decids what and how much gets produced? Who decides worker compnsation? All with us huams as we are. I never get a response.

Human history is gowh, declne, chaos, war followed by something different. WWII swept away the old Europen order and made way for modern liberal democarcy. Global lLiberal democracy right now is shaky. We are on the verge of re electng Trump.

Liberaal global demcacy is in doubt as to survival. There is no way to know what will result. Historically when times get hard and chaotc they go with strong authorterian leaders. Caesar, Napoleann, Mussolini, Hitler. Today Putin, Trump,.

Liberal deocracy is being proped up through economic growth. When people have thigs to buy and jos they are happy. Low, zero, or negative growth over time woud be catastophic.

It is a tiger by the tail, we can not abruptly cnge economics without serios conseunces, hence comption increases.

Putin and Jinping made themselves dictators for life. Netanyahu in Isreal is trying to dismantle judical oversight of the legislature.

So, whatever you propose has to work with people as we are.

In the news people are upset that the Ken actor got an Academy Award nomination and Brby did not....that is 'the peole' you would have to govern.

 

[Merle]

CO2 is the one pollutant that we aren't making any real effort to deal with. Most other pollutant levels are dropping.

I disagree.

I write, "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)." (https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/).

The problem is overshoot.(Rees, 2020; Rees, 2022; Rees, 2023; Berman, 2023). The problem is that we are, in many ways, taxing the renewable resources of the Earth far greater than they can renew themselves.

For each area that we are affecting the planet, we could write a simple formula:

Global carbon dioxide pollution = (number of people) * (average carbon dioxide pollution per person). Global fish consumption = (number of people) * (average fish consumption per person) Global fertilizer runoff = (number of people) * (food consumption per person) * (average fertilizer runoff per unit of food consumption). Etc.

For each area population is the common multiplier. (Dodson, 2020; Ryerson, 2010 ; Samways, 2022; Tamburino, 2023).

We can resolve this by attacking each specific problem by either reducing our consumption per person or finding technical solution to live as we do with less impact. We have tried this for years, and keep falling further behind.

Alternatively, we could address the common multiplier, population. It would take a long time to significantly change population, but in the end, it is doubtful we can ever resolve this without addressing population in addition to addressing affluence and technology.

 

[Merle]

If you are dreaming that you can simply take one or more of the identified variables and use it to control the net impact of the human race on its ecosystem, I think you’re fooling yourself.

Rather than guess if I might be dreaming this (I am not) you could read what I say about this. https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/

I came here to talk with anybody who is interested in discussing what I wrote. Endlessly guessing what I wrote seems a little pointless to me.

And by the way, I see that 142 people have stopped by to view https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/ this month. I got 8 total visitors to my site from iidb.com last month, but I don't know which pages they read when they came there. But at most, 8 people here saw it by clicking a link here. (Some additional people may have copied the address and came in that way without clicking the link.)

 

[Elixir]

Well Merle, there’s more compelling reading to be had IMHO.
We a can all agree that we should “live smarter”, develop wind, solar and nuclear energy, transportation structures and methods, space mining and blah blah blah.

None of this is new thinking, and a compilation of “shoulds” doesn’t comprise a useful document.
OTOH …
I can see that writing all of this down has simultaneously clarified and ossified your thinking on the subject.
So, kudos for your personal progress and may you experience a transcendent epiphany that lights an articulable, navigable path for humanity to tread.
I won’t hold my breath.

 

[Merle]

We a can all agree that we should “live smarter”, develop wind, solar and nuclear energy, transportation structures and methods, space mining and blah blah blah.

I go along with most of the above. *

So, kudos for your personal progress and may you experience a transcendent epiphany that lights an articulable, navigable path for humanity to tread.
I won’t hold my breath.

Can you please recommend "an articulable, navigable path for humanity to tread" in light of what we have been discussing here?


* see https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/stranded-resources/ for the one technology that I think is not part of the solution.

 

[Elixir]

Can you please recommend "an articulable, navigable path for humanity to tread" in light of what we have been discussing here?

No. I recognize the “problem” as one of human nature, and therefore intractable.
I am as capable as you are of providing lists of un-doable things that, if done, would mitigate our effects.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

BTW, bilby, do you acknowledge that you once wrote something similar to "if a population depletes an aquifer in 10 years, half that population would deplete the aquifer in 20 years"? This showed preposterous confusion about the very natures of ecological balance and renewability.

Still no answer to this. Do you retract the claim? Or claim that you never wrote this?

Neither. In the context of actual use of aquifers for water supply, it is a good approximation to the truth.

Math feels wrong. The question is indeterminate without knowing the annual recharge/inflow. Two unknowns, 1 equation.

In order for Population X to use up an aquifer in 10 years, they are exceeding the annual inflow into the aquifer by (stored aquifer qty / 10). Annual use is (Stored Qty / 10 + annual inflow). Gone in ten years.

Half of population X would use half of that amount, (Stored Qty / 20 + annual inflow /2). But if that value is less than annual inflow or some value near it, half the population won't use up the aquifer or it will take much longer to use up the aquifer.

This sort of reasoning works for resources that renew. However, water isn't a critical issue--we can desalinate.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Of course we are in overshoot. What you are missing is that there is no tech point in human history above early stone age that isn't in overshoot. We either find a stable tech point or we eventually crash hard.

That is not what we mean by ecological overshoot. Ecological overshoot means we are using renewable resource faster than they are being made or are damaging the planet faster than it can repair itself. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot

We are fishing the oceans faster than fish can be replaced. We are cutting down trees faster than new trees can replace them. We are adding CO2 faster than the Earth can absorb it, etc. We are in ecological overshoot.

In my paper I deal with the population level that would be needed to no longer be in overshoot, and also the population level needed for population to sustain itself within the limited non-renewable resources that will be available years in the future. Those are two different things.

But it's not the renewable ones that are going to be a catastrophe.