We are overloading the planet: Now What?

[Elixir]

People keep thinking up ways to be more productive than they used to be.

Plus, the main thing they get better at is killing each other, which helps with population control.

Nonsense. We stopped getting better at killing each other in 1948, when the AK-47 was invented.

I was riding the shuttle back to my hotel after a long day at the SHOT show, and fell into conversation with a guy who was an actual personal friend/acquaintance of Mikhail Kalashnikov. I had no idea that guy was still alive! According to the guy on the bus, Comrade K was not remorseful about inventing a killing machine. He had convinced himself that it actually saved more lives than it took, and was very much at peace with himself.
Of course that’s a story from the SHOT Show, where all things that go bang are cause for celebration…

 

[Millrat]

People keep thinking up ways have been conditioned into believing they need to be more productive than they used to be

 

[DBT]

A different business model, a steady state economy, achieving maintaining a long term sustainable population level, etc.

Basically:
''When it comes to climate change, the problem is not just the type of energy we are using, it’s what we’re doing with it. What would we do with 100% clean energy? Exactly what we are doing with fossil fuels: raze more forests, build more meat farms, expand industrial agriculture, produce more cement, and fill more landfill sites, all of which will pump deadly amounts of greenhouse gas into the air. We will do these things because our economic system demands endless compound growth, and for some reason we have not thought to question this.''

Huh. People keep thinking up ways to be more productive than they used to be. So to forestall that, base an economic system on planners telling people what to do instead of letting them decide for themselves what economic activities to engage in. Why oh why did no one think of that before?

There is no mention of telling people what to do. Downsizing is already happening to some extent where couples decide not to have more than two children. Nobody is telling them what to do. Of course the neoclassical economists and politicians with their unsustainable notion of 'growth, growth, growth' imprinted in their heads try to buck the trend with immigration and incentives to have more children.....so who is telling us what to do?

The author of your Guardian article, Jason Hickel, is telling us to stop razing forests, stop building meat farms, stop expanding industrial agriculture, stop producing more cement, and stop filling more landfill sites. Sure looks to me like telling us what to do. Are you seriously under the impression that people currently do all these things because neoclassical economists and politicians incentivize us to, or because we have more than two children, or because of immigrants? We do these things because we want to. They improve our standard of living. No deep-state manipulation, just millions of consumers making local individual self-interested decisions to consume. That's what causes growth, not any notion of "growth, growth, growth", just like we've spent five hundred million years circulating our blood without any notion of "circulate, circulate, circulate" in our heads. So if Hickel wants to turn his desire into a reality he'll need to get us to put central planners in charge of making us do it.

Anyway, my point was merely to ridicule the guy's rhetorical flourish about no one thinking to question our economic system, when nothing in his proposal was at all original.

He is saying what we should already understand for ourselves.

Do we need to be told that we cannot keep expanding our economy (the illusion of perpetual growth) or paving over our environment and ecosystems before, sooner or later, the shit hits the fan?

He is just stating the obvious.

 

[Merle]

I think Bilby means that population increase BY ITSELF is not a problem, since our best current projections predict population growth is scheduled to level off later this century and then decline (and decline has its own problems, as Japan is finding out). The problems lie elsewhere.

We have been over this many times in this thread. Yes, the UN says population will level off at about 130% of the current population, and perhaps even start to decline.

The problem is that we are already in overshoot. The Global Footprint Network calculates that it would take 1.75 planets to sustainably support us. We continue on, but the overshoot is rapidly deteriorating our planet.

I got curious about this and looked it up. There are several different formulations. One is that today we are using resources AS IF we have 1.75 earths. Another is that to sustain our CURRENT world population, we WOULD NEED 1.75 earths. And so on.

It’s rather odd. What does it really mean? Nothing, so far as I can tell. It’s vacuous. Clearly, we ARE sustaining (albeit badly in many cases) our CURRENT world population, with ONE earth — the other .75 of an earth is nowhere to be found, which strongly suggests it is not actually needed.

The Ecological Footprint calculated by the Global Footprint Network is a measure of the amount of land required to sustainably replace renewables and absorb our waste carbon as fast as we impact the planet.

If, for instance, you are burning wood from a forest at twice the rate that the forest can renew it, that is not sustainable. But if you had twice as much forest, and burned at the same rate, that is sustainable for a long time.

To compare the promise of technological advances to the empty promises of religion is obviously empirically unwarranted. Technology produces results (often, granted, with unforeseen and unintended negative side effects), while religion produces zilch except intolerance and ignorance.

If the best available science told you a major hurricane was very likely to hit your hotel along the coast in the next day, would you be concerned? Or would you tell us you are trusting science to produce results and divert the hurricane away from you?

If the best available science told you a relative would die within weeks, would you be concerned? Or would you tell us you are trusting science to produce a miraculous cure?

Similarly, if the best available science told you nuclear power will be helpful, but it will not be able to prevent a major energy crisis and global collapse in the coming centuries, would you be concerned?

There is still a lot we don't know. Perhaps there is indeed a technological solution that is not fully apparent now. If you read my paper-- https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/ -- you would know that I strongly support the search for technological solutions to our predicament. So please do not make this an issue that only some people here support science. We all support science.

But we cannot simply say, "We need nuclear power to save us. We want nuclear power to save us. Therefore nuclear power will save us." That is a religious statement, not a scientific statement.

Do you agree that, when we seek to understand if science can do something, we should go by the best available science to tell us the likelihood that science can do it, rather than having blind faith that science can do anything we want?

 

[Merle]

I think Bilby means that population increase BY ITSELF is not a problem, since our best current projections predict population growth is scheduled to level off later this century and then decline (and decline has its own problems, as Japan is finding out). The problems lie elsewhere.

We have been over this many times in this thread. Yes, the UN says population will level off at about 130% of the current population, and perhaps even start to decline.

The problem is that we are already in overshoot. The Global Footprint Network calculates that it would take 1.75 planets to sustainably support us. We continue on, but the overshoot is rapidly deteriorating our planet.

If future population rises 30%, and our average footprint per person remains the same, we end up needing 2.25 planets to support us all. If affluence also increases in that timeframe we could easily get to the point of needing 3 planets.

This still pretends that there is a sustainable rate of resource production. For many there is not. No matter how many times you try to derive from a false premise you can never reach the truth.

No, the Ecological Footprint calculation has nothing to do with the decline of non-renewable resources. They admit that we will eventually run out of non-renewables. That is not their immediate concern. Their concern is that we are using renewables faster than they can be replaced, and are adding CO2 faster than it can be absorbed.

If you want to tell us what the Global Footprint Network says, please read what the proponents write. Nobody can become an authority on what the Global Footprint Network proponents write unless they first read what they write. In my writeup, I provide 3 helpful links for anybody who wants to understand them.

The Global Footprint Network has been actively monitoring our impact on this planet for decades, using a method that calculates the Ecological Footprint in global hectares (about 2.5 acres) that each nation needs to support its lifestyle. We can add it all up to see the total impact on the planet as a whole (Wackernagel, 2002; Lin, 2018). We can then compare this to the productive land in the nations and the planet. The Global Footprint Network concluded that, in 1970, we went into overshoot, that it then required more than one Earth-sized planet to support us all. But the effects were not immediate. And so, we could continue to grow. And now, 53 years later, the Global Footprint Network concludes that it would take 1.72 Earths to support humanity without overshoot. That delay in reckoning has allowed us to soar high above the limit. If we wanted to get back to the place where we had first stressed the planet as much as it could withstand, we must either have the population drop to 58% of today’s population at today’s lifestyle or reduce our impact per person such that we average 58% of the impact per person that we have today. -- https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/

 

[Merle]

The problem is that we are already in overshoot. The Global Footprint Network calculates that it would take 1.75 planets to sustainably support us.

But this is at best hyperbole, and it's useful for alarming people, but bloody useless for figuring out what to do about it - unless you are fixated on the daft concept that "population" is the only important cause of, or solution to, bloody everything.

OK, so there seems to be a huge hatred here for the Global Footprint Network by people that have no idea what this organization is all about. Would it be too much to ask that people first read what this organization writes before attacking their work as being "bloody useless?"

The Global Footprint network is certainly not fixated on the concept of population as the only cause or solution to anything.

Rather, it deals with, "Detailed equations and their application for each of the six Ecological Footprint subcomponents (cropland, grazing land, fishing grounds, forest for forest products, built-up land, and carbon footprint) and five biocapacity components (cropland, grazing land, fishing grounds, forests, and built-up land)" From <https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/7/3/58>

Taking a real world example, in the 1890s, we were using whale products at an unsustainable rate. But we didn't suddenly have no lighting, no lubricants, no corsetry, and no soap as a consequence of hunting whales to near extinction. We just changed our systems. We switched to Gas and Electricity for lighting; to Mineral oil for lubricants; to Plastics for corsetry; and to Plant oils for soap.

We could, and probably should, have made those substitutions sooner, and been less mean to the poor whales in the process.

The Global Footprint Network is not about running out of oil or any other non-renewable material.

How can we even try to tackle the "problem" of using "1.75 planets"? It's too big, and too vague.

But the answer is to tackle the problem the same way you would eat an elephant - one bite at a time.

Which is basically the solution that the Global Footprint Network proposes -- one bite at a time.

I simply cannot understand how people can attack a well-respected science organization without first taking the time to hear what they say.

 

[pood]

But we cannot simply say, "We need nuclear power to save us. We want nuclear power to save us. Thereforeh nuclear power will save us." That is a religious statement, not a scientific statement.

Good thing I didn’t say that, then.

Do you agree that, when we seek to understand if science can do something, we should go by the best available science to tell us the likelihood that science can do it, rather than having blind faith that science can do anything we want?

Nobody but an idiot has “blind faith” in science or anything else. Again, good thing I never said or implied this.

 

[pood]

If the best available science told you a major hurricane was very likely to hit your hotel along the coast in the next day, would you be concerned? Or would you tell us you are trusting science to produce results and divert the hurricane away from you?

Your analogy does not work, because our best available science is NOT telling us that overpopulation is a hurricane about to hit. Just the opposite. I don’t think most people here deny that we have major problems on our hands, particularly with climate change. What is being contested is that population is the root of these problems.

Forbes Magazine, a conservative business publication, analyzes overshoot here. I agree with most of what the article says, including: “The core problem is not overpopulation.”

 

[Elixir]

If everyone on Earth lived like Americans, we’d need at least six Earths to supply those resources.

… says the Forbes article.
I have traveled some, but have not been to any 3rd world countries in recent decades, and have not seen enough to compare Americans’ consumption to Europeans’, Chinese or Indians’. So the 6x figure sounds pretty abstract and possibly inflated to me. I know it’s a big number though, and doubt that many Americans have any sense of their outsized impact.

The implication of Forbes’ version of “population isn’t the problem” though, is that poor people don’t matter to the biosphere, it’s the wealthy who are ruining the planet.
It’s tempting therefore, to posit that the main mistake “the wealthy” are making, is keeping poor people alive. Either they gotta go, or the wealthy gotta start living like the poor. And that’s why I don’t like that sort of article.

 

[bilby]

But we cannot simply say, "We need nuclear power to save us. We want nuclear power to save us. Therefore nuclear power will save us." That is a religious statement, not a scientific statement.

Then it's a good thing that literally nobody in this thread - except you - has said anything of the sort.

 

[bilby]

Do you agree that, when we seek to understand if science can do something, we should go by the best available science to tell us the likelihood that science can do it, rather than having blind faith that science can do anything we want?

I absolutely agree with that; I will however need to point out that it cuts both ways, and that having blind faith that no solution (or only one solution) to all our many and varied problems can possibly exist, is equally unscientific.

 

[bilby]

OK, so there seems to be a huge hatred here for the Global Footprint Network by people that have no idea what this organization is all about.

I have zero hatred for the Global Footprint Network. I have plenty of hatred for what they do, though I believe that they are genuinely well intentioned.

I hate propaganda that aggregates together a number of different problems, each with its own solutions, because that gives their audience the impression that there is only one problem, and that that problem is humanity.

I understand why they do it; They want to scare people into an understanding of the seriousness of our situation. But their methodology has the consequence of rendering effective action more difficult.

People who are effective at seeking solutions start by breaking problems down into managable parts. People who aggregate problems together into unmanagable parts, are either not seeking solutions, or not competent to make the attempt, and in either case they need to fuck off out of the way of the people who are actually trying to help.

Setting aside, for a moment, all the other, smaller, problems, the elephant in the room is fossil fuel use.

There are a number of approaches to reducing fossil fuel use, one of which is demonstrably more effective, by far, than all of the others combined. That might contradict your beliefs, but it is supported by the evidence - it's not a faith based claim, despite being a counter-claim to a faith based position.

If your religion says that the Sun rises because your high priest beats his drum each morning, that doesn't make the counter-claim that the sunrise is caused by the rotation of the planet into a mere statement of faith, even if you yourself are ignorant of the shape and motion of the Earth.

 

[bilby]

Taking a real world example, in the 1890s, we were using whale products at an unsustainable rate. But we didn't suddenly have no lighting, no lubricants, no corsetry, and no soap as a consequence of hunting whales to near extinction. We just changed our systems. We switched to Gas and Electricity for lighting; to Mineral oil for lubricants; to Plastics for corsetry; and to Plant oils for soap.

We could, and probably should, have made those substitutions sooner, and been less mean to the poor whales in the process.

The Global Footprint Network is not about running out of oil or any other non-renewable material.

Whale oil is not a non-renewable material.

Your unthinking rejection of my analogy on a spurious and factually false basis suggests that you are not even trying to participate in sensible discussion here.

 

[bilby]

Which is basically the solution that the Global Footprint Network proposes -- one bite at a time.

As they aggregated eleven disparate problems as their first step, you surely cannot claim this with a straight face.

I simply cannot understand how people can attack a well-respected science organization without first taking the time to hear what they say.

What on Earth makes you think that I haven't taken the time to hear what they say?

I heard it; I thought about it; I am under no obligation to then accept it - I conclude that they are taking a counterproductive approach, and are more interested in alarming people about the genuine problems than they are in finding solutions for those problems.

It's political lobbying. It might even be good political lobbying. Politicians and power brokers are, quite possibly, insufficiently scared.

But it's not a good approach to finding technical solutions, and is just another aspect of the noise and fury that is getting politicians to waste vast sums on ineffective but popular measures, rather than do anything that might be effective, but that could cost them votes.

 

[Merle]

Nobody but an idiot has “blind faith” in science or anything else. Again, good thing I never said or implied this.

Good to hear that we agree that it is wrong to have blind faith in science..

I had been condemning the act of having blind faith in science when you jumped in. You seemed to be writing in opposition to my argument, but I wasn't sure what you were saying. So I asked.

It is great to know that we both condemn having blind faith in science, and both agree that the advancements in science are far greater than the advancements of religion.

Cheers!

 

[Merle]

If the best available science told you a major hurricane was very likely to hit your hotel along the coast in the next day, would you be concerned? Or would you tell us you are trusting science to produce results and divert the hurricane away from you?

Your analogy does not work, because our best available science is NOT telling us that overpopulation is a hurricane about to hit. Just the opposite.

I was not making an analogy about science telling us that overpopulation is a hurricane about to hit.

I was explaining that IF the best available science says a hurricane, death, or global collapse is about to occur, we should trust the best available science. We apparently both agree on that.

Great! We agree.

Forbes Magazine, a conservative business publication, analyzes overshoot here. I agree with most of what the article says, including: “The core problem is not overpopulation.”

I agree. The core problem is not overpopulation. The core problem is that we are in overshoot, that is, we use Earth's renewable resources and trash the planet in ways that are beyond what the Earth can withstand. I discuss three solutions: better use of technology/conservation, reduced affluence, and reduced population. In the end, I even throw in a forth option, give up. There are many ways to address the problem. That is why I started this thread to discuss our options. I did not start this thread to say we must choose one option.

 

[Merle]

But we cannot simply say, "We need nuclear power to save us. We want nuclear power to save us. Therefore nuclear power will save us." That is a religious statement, not a scientific statement.

Then it's a good thing that literally nobody in this thread - except you - has said anything of the sort.

Great, we agree that we cannot simply say that we want nuclear power to work, therefore it will work.

Do we also agree that it is possible that nuclear power or any other technology will fail to save our ability to live at our consumption patterns for the next two centuries? Is it possible we cannot continue at anywhere near the current consumption levels for the next few centuries?

If you agree that it is possible we will be forced to live at significantly lower consumption levels, can you agree that it is ok to ask what we should do if people in the near future will be faced with that problem? I see we could either reduce our consumption per person, reduce the number of people, or both. If we are in that situation to a significant extant, I see reducing population as a major part of the solution.

If you agree that it is OK to ask that question, is it OK for you to answer it?

If it is OK for you to answer the question, will you answer it, please?

 

[Merle]

Do you agree that, when we seek to understand if science can do something, we should go by the best available science to tell us the likelihood that science can do it, rather than having blind faith that science can do anything we want?

I absolutely agree with that; I will however need to point out that it cuts both ways, and that having blind faith that no solution (or only one solution) to all our many and varied problems can possibly exist, is equally unscientific.

I will drink to that! Cheers!

That is why I emphasize that there are many approaches, and discuss the options-- https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/.

I am glad to hear your resounding approval to my approach!

 

[Merle]

Taking a real world example, in the 1890s, we were using whale products at an unsustainable rate. But we didn't suddenly have no lighting, no lubricants, no corsetry, and no soap as a consequence of hunting whales to near extinction. We just changed our systems. We switched to Gas and Electricity for lighting; to Mineral oil for lubricants; to Plastics for corsetry; and to Plant oils for soap.

We could, and probably should, have made those substitutions sooner, and been less mean to the poor whales in the process.

The Global Footprint Network is not about running out of oil or any other non-renewable material.

Whale oil is not a non-renewable material.

Your unthinking rejection of my analogy on a spurious and factually false basis suggests that you are not even trying to participate in sensible discussion here.

OK, I jumped ahead. I thought you were using the illustration of the advance from whale oil to crude oil as an illustration of the advance from crude oil to other energy sources.

But if you weren't talking about transitioning beyond crude oil, and for some reason wanted only to bring up whales, fine, talk about whales.

And yes, I agree that whales are renewable.

 

[Merle]

I simply cannot understand how people can attack a well-respected science organization without first taking the time to hear what they say.

What on Earth makes you think that I haven't taken the time to hear what they say?

Because your posts misrepresents the Global Footprint Network. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was a mistake. I assumed , that you misrepresented what they said because you hadn't read what they said.

Are you saying I should not have given you the benefit of the doubt?