Will human population and economic activity exceed the Planets carrying capacity?

[Testy Calibrate]

If overpopulation has been used to justify atrocities, it would be disingenuous to pretend it hadn't. If you catch someone doing that, bring it up.

I really am not sure anyone here using the word said anything about forced sterilization, or indeed forced anything.

Or do you think just using the word 'overpopulation' automatically makes one a member of such a 'cult'?

So it's a trigger word for you at least then.

Well, it's a bit of an implied threat, isn't it?

"There are just too many people in the kingdom lately" is a bit of a "Can no one rid me of this troublesome monk" kind of phrase. There are only so many ways to... suddenly have a lot less people.

wow. it's possible to make plans regarding sustainability while also respecting human worth, dingbat. The problem with growth is growth.

 

[ruby sparks]

...they haven't seriously considered the options available to meet their goals such as enough decrease in population by 2050 to dramatically effect the co2 emissions.

The other option is to drop the assertion that human overpopulation is THE problem and find another goal.

No one here has suggested that goal or made that assertion, and this has been confirmed several times, yet you still repeat it.

You appear to have an overstupidity problem. .

 

[ruby sparks]

There is plenty of water.

Again, no, there isn't. Which is why water scarcity already apparently affects 3 billion people, mostly poor eople.

People have just chosen to live in areas where there is scant surface water available. The aridness of places like the Kalahari is not a new phenomenon.

Er, the Kalahari is rapidly expanding because of climate change.

The "solution" would be to contribute to the charities that are drilling wells for those people rather than nail biting.

ETA:
For instance, people in the Kalahari have struggled with scant water availability for millennia. The problem is now being addressed. This is a great improvement over the scarcity of water their great, great, great .... forbearers had to endure.

Posting a video from an evangelical Bible Studies Ministry is very sweet of you, but their laudable humanitarian initiatives are not properly addressing the wider underlying issues. Though I read that they are also recommending praying and looking for answers in the Book of Revelation.

 

[DBT]

Aquifers;

''We live on a parched planet. Farmers till arid pastureland and policymakers fret over empty reservoirs, dry rivers and thirsty cities. And that only scratches the surface – literally – of the world’s water problem. Subterranean aquifers, the world’s reserve water tank, are also running dry. The consequences could be dire, especially for water-stressed and fast-growing Asia.

These repositories of water located deep underground in permeable rock, soil or sand contain about 100 times the amount of water found on the Earth’s surface in streams, lakes, rivers and wetlands. If you’re in central Africa, South America or some parts of Europe, chances are you’re standing a few hundred feet above one.

The gap between water supply and demand – predicted to reach 40% by 2030 – will not be filled by surface water resources, so aquifers are being exploited more and more for agriculture, power generation and daily use in fast-growing cities.

About 30% of the world’s freshwater comes from aquifers, yet a third of the 37 largest aquifers studied by the University of California between 2003-13 were severely depleted, receiving little or no replenishment from rainfall.

Some of the most stressed aquifers are in the world’s driest regions such as Asia, up to 88% of which is water-stressed. South Asia accounts for half the groundwater used globally, but the continent’s aquifers – many of which were formed millennia ago when areas like northern China had a more humid climate – are no longer being replenished regularly by rainfall.

Boreholes are getting deeper and water tables are falling. In Pakistan’s Punjab province, over-pumping is lowering the water table by up to a half a metre per year, threatening food and water security and making thirsty crops, such as sugarcane and rice, tougher to grow''

 

[Jokodo]

It's what people, by and large, are doing. The fact that you heard in school about India's total fertility rate of 5.7 doesn't mean India has a fertility rate of 5.7. It had one 50 years ago, so either you're old, or your teacher didn't bother to fact-check whether what he learnt decades earlier still holds. India's TFR today is at 2.3 children per woman, and 1.8 among the urban population. In many large states even (Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, West Bengal, Punjab...) it is in the region of 1.6- 1.8.

And the same is true for many other countries.

Maybe too little, too late.

Too late it may be, but to little?
It took the UK 95 years to drop from over 6 to under 3 children per woman, or the US 82. Malaysia achieved the same in 37 years, Bangladesh in 20, and Iran in 10.

Some nations still have high birth rates.

Birth rates are a red herring (unless you meant to say fertility rates). They are a population level measure and largely determined by the composition of the population. Populations don't decide to have children, young families do - a population where 60% are between the ages of 15 and 45 will naturally have a twice the birth rate of one where only 30% are, but without requiring special action, this will sort itself out simply by strong generations growing out of childbearing age.
Population growth rates are even more a red herring: They have the additional problem of being co-determined by death rates. They can be high simply because not enough people are dying.

And even in developed nations where birth rates are low, politicians try to stimulate growth through immigration and child endowment policies.

And the last time anyone had any significant success with this kind of policy was in Romania under Ceaușescu. I'm not seeing anyone proposing Ceaușescu-like measures. If I do, I'll be the first to oppose them.
Other than that, conservative politicians (like recently in Poland) have to be content with selling a moderate rise from 1.29 children to 1.41 over the course of several years as a "baby boom".

And according to Patrick Gerland, a senior analyst at the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, there’s an even more significant problem with these projections: They depend on the false assumption that fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa will decline as the continent’s growing population gets more and more densely packed together.''

How do you know this is a false assumption? Are you (or the author you're quoting) insinuating that Sub-Saharan Africans are a different species, and all our historical experience from every other region - that fertility rates go down as prosperity rises and infant mortality goes down - do not apply?

For example;

''There were billboards and placards encouraging people to have children. A park in Moscow debuted special benches designed to gently slide couples closer together, all the better for canoodling. July 8 was designated “Family, Love, and Fidelity Day,” a new holiday created to encourage family formation. This was the third holiday Russia had created for such a purpose: In 2007, Sept. 12 was named “Family Contact Day,” a day on which workers were given time off and encouraged to, like, totally do it. Women having babies nine months later, on “Give Birth to a Patriot on Russia Day,” won fabulous prizes ranging from TVs to an SUV.

Russia has also instituted some more traditional natalist policies; for instance the government began a program that pays mothers $10,000 for the birth of a second child. Putin’s stated goal is that “the three-child family should become the norm in Russia.”

Again, leaders' stated goals don't make children, young families do. From what I'm seeing, Putin's out of luck and Russia's young families are on your side, so stop fretting please.

 

[DBT]

Again, leaders' stated goals don't give birth, young families do. From what I'm seeing, Putin's out of luck and Russia's young families are on your side, so stop fretting please.

Nobody is fretting (perhaps thereby adding to the problem).

Some of us happen to be skeptical of the claim that there is no problem with our population numbers in relation to consumption and sustainability, let alone adding another 2 - 4 billion.

Russia was merely an example of an attitude of growth is always good. The same attitude is to be found amongst Australian political leaders and economists.

Baby bonus;

''The baby bonus did its job, encouraging people to have more children at a time when fertility rates were low, our research finds. Given Australian men and women desire 1.5 more children than they actually have, it might be time to consider policies like this again.''

The baby bonus did its job, encouraging people to have more children at a time when fertility rates were low, our research finds. Given Australian men and women desire 1.5 more children than they actually have, it might be time to consider policies like this again.''

 

[Jokodo]

Again, leaders' stated goals don't give birth, young families do. From what I'm seeing, Putin's out of luck and Russia's young families are on your side, so stop fretting please.

Nobody is fretting (perhaps thereby adding to the problem).

Yes, you are. you confuse politicians' wishful thinking with them actually implementing Ceaușescu-like measures..

You know children aren't conceived from talking right?

Some of us happen to be skeptical of the claim that there is no problem with our population numbers in relation to consumption and sustainability, let alone adding another 2 - 4 billion.

Russia was merely an example of an attitude of growth is always good. The same attitude is to be found amongst Australian political leaders and economists.

Baby bonus;

''The baby bonus did its job, encouraging people to have more children at a time when fertility rates were low, our research finds. Given Australian men and women desire 1.5 more children than they actually have, it might be time to consider policies like this again.''

The baby bonus did its job, encouraging people to have more children at a time when fertility rates were low, our research finds. Given Australian men and women desire 1.5 more children than they actually have, it might be time to consider policies like this again.''

If anything, looking at the data, it looks like the "baby bonus" encouraged women to have children earlier more than it encouraged them to have more.

 

[Jokodo]

Here's a graph of TFR trends in some of the more prosperous and/or currently booming African economies. That's the criterion by which I picked them: moderately rich countries or ones that are picking up steam (did you know that Rwanda is a booming economy now?). In some of those, TFR is already in the 2-3 region (and still falling), in others it's around 4 (Kenya, Comoros, Ethiopia Rwanda), where it was between 6 and 8 as recently as the 1990s, and clearly trending downward.

Now tell me more about that "false assumption that fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa will decline".

 

[ruby sparks]

Perhaps the best we can do is minimize the damage.... so that when the 'correction' comes, as it surely will, we'll come out of it in better shape than we otherwise would have.

No. You're not getting it. We must do nothing about population because (a) it isn't a factor, (b) it won't solve the problem in time all by itself unless genocide and (c) it is definitely already sorted anyway and doing anything to help that along is irrational. None of which contradict each other, obviously, such as saying that it may be sorting itself out but isn't a factor in the first place. Duh.

You and your dangerous 'including it in a portfolio of countermeasures' cultism. The word overpopulation is either the devil's spawn or you need deconversion therapy, mate. It's either one or the other, like most things, apparently.

 

[ruby sparks]

Here's a graph of TFR trends in some of the more prosperous and/or currently booming African economies. That's the criterion by which I picked them: moderately rich countries or ones that are picking up steam (did you know that Rwanda is a booming economy now?). In some of those, TFR is already in the 2-3 region (and still falling), in others it's around 4 (Kenya, Comoros, Ethiopia Rwanda), where it was between 6 and 8 as recently as the 1990s, and clearly trending downward.

Now tell me more about that "false assumption that fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa will decline".

The overall predictions vary. At the high end of some (eg the UN projections) world population would continue to grow past 2100.

Even if (if) it were correct to say that world population will peak this century, what is the problem with for example expanding efforts on voluntary Family Planning and Birth Control? It could mitigate damage even if we do go past the peak, because getting past the peak will not mean that there won't be consequences from what happens before that.

Family Planning/Birth Control has been successful in the past, there is room for a great deal more uptake (especially in Africa) and realistic promise that it can continue to deliver reductions in population growth (and improvements in quality of life and more progress towards development, which are related issues) which are not insignificant. It's relatively cheap compared to other measures, has very few if any waste products, is already proven to be effective and doesn't require large amounts of infrastructure or new technologies and there are fewer global business or corporate forces aligned against it if you don't count the Roman catholic Church.

To add to the potential 16-27% contribution to emissions reduction cited already, here's another one. Significant reductions in the number of unwanted pregnancies could reduce the expected population by 2 billion people in 2100.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1552972

Why are we even still arguing about this, after it has been agreed that population is only one factor among many, which is something some of us have been saying since the start of the thread?

 

[ruby sparks]

How about this as a candidate reasonable statement regarding the apparently thorny issue of population:

Population factors and measures are not as important or urgent as reducing emissions, and the most urgent part of that is ending reliance on fossil fuels. However, it is not an either or. The best approach (partly because a speedy ending of reliance on fossil fuels may be difficult to achieve in the real world) is a wide portfilio of measures. And partly due to an apparent lack of research, voluntary population growth reduction measures could yield better contributions vis a vis climate change than is sometimes thought. And some existing analyses suggest this is true. In any case, population growth reduction could have other benefits relating to quality of life.

That way, we could add population growth reduction measures to the equation along with other non-directly fossil fuel reliance countermeasures such as reducing deforestation (and increasing forestation) and technologies for sequestration of for example CO2, as well as other conservation and consumption measures such as recycling, water management, encouraging less carnivorous diets, reducing inefficient agricultural practices (conservation tillage) and investing in improved sustainable food production methods, etc. Again, all of which have the potential to not only mitigate the effects of climate change but improve quality of life also.

I even bolded and underlined certain parts for added emphasis.

 

[Jokodo]

Here's a graph of TFR trends in some of the more prosperous and/or currently booming African economies. That's the criterion by which I picked them: moderately rich countries or ones that are picking up steam (did you know that Rwanda is a booming economy now?). In some of those, TFR is already in the 2-3 region (and still falling), in others it's around 4 (Kenya, Comoros, Ethiopia Rwanda), where it was between 6 and 8 as recently as the 1990s, and clearly trending downward.

Now tell me more about that "false assumption that fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa will decline".

The overall predictions vary. At the high end of some (eg the UN projections) world population would continue to grow past 2100.

Even if (if) it were correct to say that world population will peak this century, what is the problem with for example expanding efforts on voluntary Family Planning and Birth Control?

There isn't one. Women deserve the right to opt for fewer children, and that includes women in Africa. The problem is framing it as an issue "there's too many n*****s already" - in an age when TFRs are at or near replacement level in all major regions outside Africa, this is, intentionally or not, what all this talk about overpopulation amounts to. The problem is in pretending "they" are jeopardizing "our" future when the opposite is much closer to the truth. The problem is in pretending that experience with what happens when a society becomes more industrialised, urbanised, educated somehow don't apply to Africa because (entirely non-racist, of course) reasons. The danger is that way, and if those measures don't show the desired effects fast enough, what's to stop you from moving on to, e. g. demanding economic sanctions against countries failing to implement a rigorous one child policy (or worse) while feeling righteous about it?

 

[skepticalbip]

Again, no, there isn't. Which is why water scarcity already apparently affects 3 billion people, mostly poor eople.

Again, yes there is. As I said, there is no lack of water it is only that people decide to live in areas where there is little water. For example, Las Vegas was built in the middle of a fucking desert. It has a population of more than six hundred thousand and has forty million visitors per year. This is a hell of a stress on the water available in that particular area - it is a fucking desert. Had they built Las Vegas on the sparsely inhabited Upper Peninsula of Michigan then they would have been surrounded by the three largest of the Great Lakes which contain more water than is needed by the entire world.

Er, the Kalahari is rapidly expanding because of climate change.

The "solution" would be to contribute to the charities that are drilling wells for those people rather than nail biting.

ETA:
For instance, people in the Kalahari have struggled with scant water availability for millennia. The problem is now being addressed. This is a great improvement over the scarcity of water their great, great, great .... forbearers had to endure.

Posting a video from an evangelical Bible Studies Ministry is very sweet of you, but their laudable humanitarian initiatives are not properly addressing the wider underlying issues. Though I read that they are also recommending praying and looking for answers in the Book of Revelation.

There are several charities doing this. That was just the first video I found when I googled. The fact that it happened to be a religious charity does not alter the fact that the water "problem" is easily solved.

You seem to be so fucking intent on believing that the "problem" is unsolvable (other than by limiting the population of "those other people") that you dismiss those actually "solving" it because the video I linked happened to be a religious group.

I guess you have demonstrated that there is a new religion rising. That religion being "OMG we are all going to die" and any attempt to penetrate that belief is repelled by this new religion's FAITH.

 

[Jokodo]

I’m an environmental journalist, but I never write about overpopulation. Here’s why.

(link - click)

 

[Jokodo]

Perhaps the best we can do is minimize the damage.... so that when the 'correction' comes, as it surely will, we'll come out of it in better shape than we otherwise would have.

No. You're not getting it. We must do nothing about population because (a) it isn't a factor,

Who are those people saying it's "not a factor"? What people have said is that it doesn't offer much a corner to tackle and/or that it's a factor whose contribution is shrinking, not growing.

 

[ruby sparks]

Perhaps the best we can do is minimize the damage.... so that when the 'correction' comes, as it surely will, we'll come out of it in better shape than we otherwise would have.

No. You're not getting it. We must do nothing about population because (a) it isn't a factor,

Who are those people saying it's "not a factor"? What people have said is that it doesn't offer much a corner to tackle and/or that it's a factor whose contribution is shrinking, not growing.

Well I am not referring to you as regards it supposedly not being a factor, but we have had from another poster that population has never been an underlying cause, that climate change is independent of population and that it is a solved problem. And I am not the only poster who read this, specifically, as 'population is not a problem'.


And we have also had that even the word overpopulation is a red herring, that use of it poisons the well, , that it is a widely popular religious belief to believe it to be the only or main factor. The potential for voluntary population growth reduction to have a positive effect has been understated and even that it is dangerous to promote it. Finally, and most common (I can think of at least 3 posters including you) the straw man has been peddled that anyone here ever suggested that population reduction was the main or only goal (we've had allegations of both) above all others. And for good measure the OP was supposedly recommending 'rigid population control'.

 

[Jokodo]

What is it anyway you want done about population? What is it ruby sparks in Northern Ireland, I in Austria, or bilby and DBT in Australia can do about Uganda's total fertility rate of 5.6? Sure, we can fight anti-abortion bills and/or promote subsidised/free access to contraception where we live, and I'm all for it - though not because I'm scared of people, rather because I am deeply convinced that safe sex shouldn't be a privilege and that it's inhumane to force women to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. But realistically, even you have to admit that the effect won't be more than shifting the TFR up or down by something on the order of 0.1 children per woman within the 1.3-2.0 range.

So back to Uganda. Sure, we can support charities that specifically focus on making contraception more available there and/or advertising the benefits of smaller families - and we'd all agree on that. However, doing something right for the wrong reasons isn't always good enough. I'm in software. If a module I write produces correct output on my toy data and and I don't know it got there, I'm in deep shit: Chances are that it will blow up on real data, or, even worse, silently provide a wrong output without reporting an error. Before I went into software, I was in academia. Same thing there: Don't trust that your hypothesis is right because it passed that one test -- not before considering which alternative hypotheses might predict the same output, and carefully thinking about ways to differentiate between them. If you trust your hypothesis because it got one thing right, chances are that you're going to derive all the wrong conclusions for the rest of your life.

Alternatively, you could propose sanctions against countries with, say, a population growth rate above 1.5% (Uganda has 3.3) annually that don't implement a rigorous 1-child policy to bring it down. If the reason you're doing "promote easy access to contraception and fight cultural norms for very large families" is that you're scared of people, that's a likely next step if Uganda's TFR doesn't come down fast enough to your taste. Not only would I consider it unethical, what's worse, it is likely to be counterproductive (even if limiting population growth is your declared goal). Cutting a population off from global trends and making its people poorer will, almost certainly, increase, not decrease, birth rates. Here's an actual example: Iraq, which was internationally sanctioned for much of the last quarter of the 20th century, has almost twice the average TFR of its neighbours today (at 4.4; neighbours are: Iran at 1.7, Kuwait and Turkey at 2.0, Saudi Arabia at 2.5, Syria at 2.9, Jordan at 3.3, of which Iran and Turkey are the most populous by far).

And it wasn't much different from its neighbours in 1990.

 

[ruby sparks]

What is it anyway you want done about population?

Can I just stop you right there.

I initially only entered this conversation to counter the assertion that population is a not factor and not a problem.

Along the way, I've also objected to misrepresentations of what those of us who have cited population issues have been saying.

My general impression (see previous post) is that population as both a factor and a potential area for countermeasure has been unreasonably pooh-poohed by some.

With that in mind, do you still want me to answer your question on what I think needs to be done?

I have already made suggestions, both in terms of population issues and other countermeasures.

Specifically on population, I would refer you, for example, back to the paper on closing the gap on 'Unmet Need' for voluntary Family Planning and the percentage savings in CO2 emissions which could result, with costed projections partly based on existing, successful policies. I also posted another paper covering similar ground (voluntary family planning) and the benefits that could accrue from policies on that. I also posted another paper suggesting what global population numbers could be avoided by such policies.

 

[Jokodo]

Who are those people saying it's "not a factor"? What people have said is that it doesn't offer much a corner to tackle and/or that it's a factor whose contribution is shrinking, not growing.

Well I am not referring to you as regards it supposedly not being a factor, but we have had from another poster that population has never been an underlying cause, that climate change is independent of population and that it is a solved problem. And I am not the only poster who read this, specifically, as 'population is not a problem'.

Specific quotes please!

Who, when, and with which words, denied that all else equal (e. g. given a certain per capita consumption rate), more people consume more? Who, when, and where said that all else equal climate change would happen at the same rate with a smaller population? Saying that it would still happen, though slower, doesn't count. Yes, it's part of the problem. You know what's also part of the problem: The fact that we're in the middle of an ice age. If Greenland and Antarctica were ice free, we'd hardly have to worry about sea level rises. And the difference between population and ice shields: population is about to start declining within the lifetime of people alive today, possibly within the lifetime of people posting in this thread. The ice shields aren't going to evaporate into space

And we have also had that even the word overpopulation is a red herring, that use of it poisons the well, , that it is a widely popular religious belief to believe it to be the only or main factor. The potential for voluntary population growth reduction to have a positive effect has been understated and even that it is dangerous to promote it.

Who said that "voluntary population growth reduction" isn't having a positive effect? Again, specific quotes please! As far as I can see, people have been saying "voluntary population growth reduction" is happening already (which it is); that encouraging and enabling people to choose to have fewer children is of course a good thing, but mainly for a different set of reasons; that the effects are relatively minor in comparison to what we need to achieve if we want to all get out alive; and that while it is a good thing promoting it under the cover of population control is dangerous for a variety of reasons.

Finally, and most common (I can think of at least 3 posters including you) the straw man has been peddled that anyone here ever suggested that population reduction was the main or only goal (we've had allegations of both) above all others. And for good measure the OP was supposedly recommending 'rigid population control'.

If he isn't, what are we even discussing? No-one that I'm aware of disagrees that making contraception more widely available to people who have trouble accessing it is a good thing.

 

[ruby sparks]

I’m an environmental journalist, but I never write about overpopulation. Here’s why.

(link - click)

That was an interesting read.