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

[ruby sparks]

Interesting article by Elinor Ostrom, the only woman (so far) to win the Nobel Prize for Economics, largely for her work on environmental issues:


A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change
http://aeconf.com/articles/may2014/aef150103.pdf

She might be described as having been an environmental optimist, in that she believed that humans will, however belatedly and imperfectly, get together to deal with the impending crises affecting them (see the section entitled, 'Must we wait for a global solution?'). She emphasises the role of individual, local or communal/consensus (bottom up) actions, in tandem with global or top down (governmental/authority) responses, and describes how the two interact and feed back and forth into one another.

The time may not be too far away until humans and human groups (local, regional and national) compete with one another to be the greenest and most ecologically-benign, and this is already happening in some places. The city of Freiburg in Germany is cited:

'We always compete against Munster as the most ecological town,' says Claudia Duppe, a lecturer and resident of Freiburg's Rieselfeld quarter.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/mar/23/freiburg.germany.greenest.city

The effect of 'people power' is potentially enormous. Individual actions supposedly 'not counting' is essentially an erroneous argument. One person plucking a hair from a man's head will not make him bald, but the cumulative actions of many will, and so on. When does a small pile of grains of sand become a mound and then a hill and then a mountain, etc. We are social animals, whose behaviour is often based on what others do. It's easy to be negative and pessimistic, but we arguably cannot afford either and are not, in fact, doomed, and everyone reading this, including me, could today do something that would help.

 

[DrZoidberg]

....it is a combination of population size and consumption rate that will tip us from sustainability to unsustainability, if, according to some reports, it already hasn't.

The greater the size of the population in relation to rising consumption just hastens the process of environmental decline and collapse.

At least 'total collapse' seems to be unlikely (though not impossible). The issue seems to have more to do with how bumpy the ride is going to be. Environmental decline and partial collapse are already happening. Population is one of the main contributing factors currently and recently hastening the processes, along with the other forces identified, in a complicated, interactive amalgam. To deny this is to deny reality and basic facts. Some of the positions argued for in this thread are quite simply embarrassing, especially in a supposedly rationalist discussion forum.

Historically whenever human societies near ecologic collapse (caused by them) they usually start doing whatever caused the problems obsessively. So in our example we might expect many people to be in total denial of fossil fuels leading to temperature rises and make a point of buying gas guzzling cars. It's linked to power. The only people who switch to a sensible behaviour don't have any power. I recommend the book "Collapse" by Jarred Diamond. If you thought this was a smart species, this book will dispel any of those illusions. We're fucked.

 

[ruby sparks]

I recommend the book "Collapse" by Jarred Diamond. If you thought this was a smart species, this book will dispel any of those illusions. We're fucked.

We might be, and that may be an interesting book, but your conclusion is apparently not the author's conclusion. Reading extracts and reviews, he also cites examples where collapses have been avoided and he apparently ends on a note of what he calls cautious optimism. Of course, you may be right and he may be wrong, but it's not decided or known for sure yet.

In some ways and at some times, we are a very smart species. In other ways and at other times, we are very stupid. It's part of the human condition.

We have and can make sophisticated choices (even if they are not freely willed or necessarily rational).

And even if we are in the middle of a global environmental collapse, we could still try to make the best of it, even if the things we do are effectively only coping or damage limitation strategies.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I recommend the book "Collapse" by Jarred Diamond. If you thought this was a smart species, this book will dispel any of those illusions. We're fucked.

We might be, and that may be an interesting book, but your conclusion is apparently not the author's conclusion. Reading extracts and reviews, he also cites examples where collapses have been avoided and he apparently ends on a note of what he calls cautious optimism. Of course, you may be right and he may be wrong, but it's not decided or known for sure yet.

In some ways and at some times, we are a very smart species. In other ways and at other times, we are very stupid. It's part of the human condition.

We have and can make sophisticated choices (even if they are not freely willed or necessarily rational).

And even if we are in the middle of a global environmental collapse, we could still try to make the best of it, even if the things we do are effectively only coping or damage limitation strategies.

Are you sure you read the same book? Any examples of humans switching lifestyle and surviving? There's plenty of examples of humans just going balls to the wall and after a social collapse, they get their act together and make the best of it. But before the total collapse there's nobody who steps on the break. Have you got examples?

Two stories from the book spring to mind. Japan and Iceland and them cutting down all their trees. Neither of these cultures slowed down while the trees were going. Instead they hurried up, because they didn't want to be the one left out without timber. Until all trees were gone. Oil is a great parallel. And American intransigence. Not to mention "environmentalists" who don't care about the environment. They care about expensive green status objects. Whoopdie-fucken-do.

Another example is Rwanda. They were suffering from a demographic explosion with loads of people reaching maturity with no prospects in life. And those who were sitting on all the wealth made zero attempts to let go of their land and wealth for the benefit of all the poor people. The result was predictable. And the targets of the violence was a complete red herring. As is so common among humans. I'm thinking of our new found Islamophobia

 

[ruby sparks]

Are you sure you read the same book?

Yes.

Well, as I said, I read several reviews and excerpts online, including one of the later chapters, where he expressed what he called cautious optimism.

I might buy the book, in fact. It looks good.

ETA: bought it.

 

[Jokodo]

I recommend the book "Collapse" by Jarred Diamond. If you thought this was a smart species, this book will dispel any of those illusions. We're fucked.

We might be, and that may be an interesting book, but your conclusion is apparently not the author's conclusion. Reading extracts and reviews, he also cites examples where collapses have been avoided and he apparently ends on a note of what he calls cautious optimism. Of course, you may be right and he may be wrong, but it's not decided or known for sure yet.

In some ways and at some times, we are a very smart species. In other ways and at other times, we are very stupid. It's part of the human condition.

We have and can make sophisticated choices (even if they are not freely willed or necessarily rational).

And even if we are in the middle of a global environmental collapse, we could still try to make the best of it, even if the things we do are effectively only coping or damage limitation strategies.

Are you sure you read the same book? Any examples of humans switching lifestyle and surviving? There's plenty of examples of humans just going balls to the wall and after a social collapse, they get their act together and make the best of it. But before the total collapse there's nobody who steps on the break. Have you got examples?

Two stories from the book spring to mind. Japan and Iceland and them cutting down all their trees. Neither of these cultures slowed down while the trees were going. Instead they hurried up, because they didn't want to be the one left out without timber. Until all trees were gone. Oil is a great parallel. And American intransigence. Not to mention "environmentalists" who don't care about the environment. They care about expensive green status objects. Whoopdie-fucken-do.

Another example is Rwanda. They were suffering from a demographic explosion with loads of people reaching maturity with no prospects in life. And those who were sitting on all the wealth made zero attempts to let go of their land and wealth for the benefit of all the poor people. The result was predictable. And the targets of the violence was a complete red herring. As is so common among humans. I'm thinking of our new found Islamophobia

The subtitle of the book is "how societies choose to fail or succeed", not "why all societies fail".

 

[DrZoidberg]

Are you sure you read the same book? Any examples of humans switching lifestyle and surviving? There's plenty of examples of humans just going balls to the wall and after a social collapse, they get their act together and make the best of it. But before the total collapse there's nobody who steps on the break. Have you got examples?

Two stories from the book spring to mind. Japan and Iceland and them cutting down all their trees. Neither of these cultures slowed down while the trees were going. Instead they hurried up, because they didn't want to be the one left out without timber. Until all trees were gone. Oil is a great parallel. And American intransigence. Not to mention "environmentalists" who don't care about the environment. They care about expensive green status objects. Whoopdie-fucken-do.

Another example is Rwanda. They were suffering from a demographic explosion with loads of people reaching maturity with no prospects in life. And those who were sitting on all the wealth made zero attempts to let go of their land and wealth for the benefit of all the poor people. The result was predictable. And the targets of the violence was a complete red herring. As is so common among humans. I'm thinking of our new found Islamophobia

The subtitle of the book is "how societies choose to fail or succeed", not "why all societies fail".

Titles are picked to sell books, not sum up the content.

 

[Speakpigeon]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
You need to put down the axe.

Yeah, but how come they just don't shut up?! Anyway, Rudyard says, I need to keep at it. Real men don't just stop.
EB

 

[Jokodo]

Are you sure you read the same book? Any examples of humans switching lifestyle and surviving? There's plenty of examples of humans just going balls to the wall and after a social collapse, they get their act together and make the best of it. But before the total collapse there's nobody who steps on the break. Have you got examples?

Two stories from the book spring to mind. Japan and Iceland and them cutting down all their trees. Neither of these cultures slowed down while the trees were going. Instead they hurried up, because they didn't want to be the one left out without timber. Until all trees were gone. Oil is a great parallel. And American intransigence. Not to mention "environmentalists" who don't care about the environment. They care about expensive green status objects. Whoopdie-fucken-do.

Another example is Rwanda. They were suffering from a demographic explosion with loads of people reaching maturity with no prospects in life. And those who were sitting on all the wealth made zero attempts to let go of their land and wealth for the benefit of all the poor people. The result was predictable. And the targets of the violence was a complete red herring. As is so common among humans. I'm thinking of our new found Islamophobia

The subtitle of the book is "how societies choose to fail or succeed", not "why all societies fail".

Titles are picked to sell books, not sum up the content.

Sure, but as far as I remember it, he did present positive examples of societies that managed to avert disaster - including Japan which engaged in concentrated efforts at reforestation starting in the 1700s.

What's more, all of his negative examples are small isolated. For Vikings in Greenland, Wikipedia says that "[e]stimates put the combined population of the settlements at their height between 2,000 and 10,000, with more recent estimates[13] trending toward the lower figure", while for Easter Island, it says "archaeologists estimate the population may have been as high as 10,000 to 12,000" a few decades before European contact (elsewhere: "from 7–17,000").

While small, isolated societies frequently collapse, there doesn't seem to be one example of a large and thriving civilisation with a population in the millions or even 100s of thousands that did so without external causes (with the possible exception of the Classical Maya, and that one's disputable). Superseded and submerged by another, yes; annihilated in war, yes; collapsed as a result of imported diseases, I'll take that too; but not intrinsic collapse.

tl;dr: Bad news for a manned multi-generational interstellar mission, good news for an interconnected planetary civilisation.

 

[bilby]

I recommend the book "Collapse" by Jarred Diamond. If you thought this was a smart species, this book will dispel any of those illusions. We're fucked.

We might be, and that may be an interesting book, but your conclusion is apparently not the author's conclusion. Reading extracts and reviews, he also cites examples where collapses have been avoided and he apparently ends on a note of what he calls cautious optimism. Of course, you may be right and he may be wrong, but it's not decided or known for sure yet.

In some ways and at some times, we are a very smart species. In other ways and at other times, we are very stupid. It's part of the human condition.

We have and can make sophisticated choices (even if they are not freely willed or necessarily rational).

And even if we are in the middle of a global environmental collapse, we could still try to make the best of it, even if the things we do are effectively only coping or damage limitation strategies.

Are you sure you read the same book? Any examples of humans switching lifestyle and surviving? There's plenty of examples of humans just going balls to the wall and after a social collapse, they get their act together and make the best of it. But before the total collapse there's nobody who steps on the break. Have you got examples?

Two stories from the book spring to mind. Japan and Iceland and them cutting down all their trees. Neither of these cultures slowed down while the trees were going. Instead they hurried up, because they didn't want to be the one left out without timber. Until all trees were gone. Oil is a great parallel. And American intransigence. Not to mention "environmentalists" who don't care about the environment. They care about expensive green status objects. Whoopdie-fucken-do.

Another example is Rwanda. They were suffering from a demographic explosion with loads of people reaching maturity with no prospects in life. And those who were sitting on all the wealth made zero attempts to let go of their land and wealth for the benefit of all the poor people. The result was predictable. And the targets of the violence was a complete red herring. As is so common among humans. I'm thinking of our new found Islamophobia

We have averted disaster many times. There are still whales, for example. Despite the outdated hand-wringing of Greenpeace, and the terrorist actions of Sea Shepherd, designed to give the impression that they are on the threshold of extinction, many species of whales are now in fact booming.

They were a valuable resource; They started to become scarce; We found alternative sources of oil, and replacement materials for whalebone; Now they're not scarce anymore.

Not only were we not plunged into a literal dark age as we ran out of fuel for our lamps, and our ladies burst forth from their corsetry; The resource itself was never exhausted.

We could do the same with coal and oil - we can have power from alternative sources without ever exhausting existing known reserves, much less the entire resource. We have the technology - all we need is the desire. And slowly but surely, even recalcitrant idiots are coming around to the realisation that we must do this.

Even the UCS are now saying that nuclear power can save the world by helping keep the coal in the ground.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Sure, but as far as I remember it, he did present positive examples of societies that managed to avert disaster - including Japan which engaged in concentrated efforts at reforestation starting in the 1700s.

Japan didn't avert disaster. They cut down every single Japanese tree. Japan today has no indigenous tree species. They're all imported. The conservation efforts only came into effect after the worst case scenario had come to pass.

If applied to global warming we're fucked. We can't even stop eating tiger shrimps and palm oil. If we can't even do the simple things what hope do we have to do the hard stuff

 

[Jokodo]

Sure, but as far as I remember it, he did present positive examples of societies that managed to avert disaster - including Japan which engaged in concentrated efforts at reforestation starting in the 1700s.

Japan didn't avert disaster. They cut down every single Japanese tree. Japan today has no indigenous tree species. They're all imported. The conservation efforts only came into effect after the worst case scenario had come to pass.

I'm pretty sure they didn't. A minute on google reveals four endemic species of the genus abies alone, none of which are threatened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_firma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_homolepis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_mariesii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_veitchii*

Central Europe has one species of that genus.

If applied to global warming we're fucked. We can't even stop eating tiger shrimps and palm oil. If we can't even do the simple things what hope do we have to do the hard stuff

You conveniently ignored the other part of my post: Can you name one civilisation with a peak population of more than a couple hundred thousand people that collapsed for intrinsic reasons? Atlantis and the Antediluvians don't count.


* This list contains 134 species, but I'm sure not many of them are not endemic; you could always argue that a species that's native to Japan and Eastern China or Japan and parts of Russia was re-introduced after becoming extinct; however, those four I listed above only grow in Japan (I left out a fifth species of the same genus because it grows elsewhere too). If you're motivated to do a full count of all 134 species, I'd be happy to hear how many of them are endemic to Japan, how many or not endemic but have had a continuous presence in Japan, and how many were re-introduced from the mainland.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I'm pretty sure they didn't. A minute on google reveals four endemic species of the genus abies alone, none of which are threatened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_firma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_homolepis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_mariesii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_veitchii*

Central Europe has one species of that genus.

I'm just speculating now but in the book Jarred Diamond might have meant useful trees. Pine trees are often quite soft wood. I know Vikings barely used pine trees for anything even though they're abundant here.

Or he was simply lying. I don't think so.

If applied to global warming we're fucked. We can't even stop eating tiger shrimps and palm oil. If we can't even do the simple things what hope do we have to do the hard stuff

You conveniently ignored the other part of my post: Can you name one civilisation with a peak population of more than a couple hundred thousand people that collapsed for intrinsic reasons? Atlantis and the Antediluvians don't count.

Civilisations of a couple hundred thousand is a modern thing. That's an odd requirement. It's a huge civilisation. But the Khmer civilisation. They converted too much forrest to farmland leading to erosion. The Maya civilisation. We don't know for a fact what happened to them. But we know it was because of a collapse of agricultural output. Sounds similar. As featured in the film Apocalypto. Even though they conflate events spanning over a thousand years.

I'm looking up various civilisations now... it looks like this was the decline of all civilisations. Whenever they're conquered it was because something broke on the inside first. Very often food production. Making them vulnerable to attack and takeover. Babylonians... etc. With a couple of notable exceptions it seems like only in the age of European imperialism did empires collapse for purely extrinsic reasons.

I'm baffled as to why you didn't find this yourself when googling?

 

[Jokodo]

I'm just speculating now but in the book Jarred Diamond might have meant useful trees. Pine trees are often quite soft wood. I know Vikings barely used pine trees for anything even though they're abundant here.

Or he was simply lying. I don't think so.

The simplest explanation is that you misunderstood and/or misremember.

Also, Japan has 5 endemic species of maple too. I only picked abies because it came first in an alphabetic listing (and the wood of abies is quite a bit harder than that of picea, at least when it comes to the one Central European species I'm familiar with). Do your own work, I gave you a whole list of over 100 trees of Japan.

You conveniently ignored the other part of my post: Can you name one civilisation with a peak population of more than a couple hundred thousand people that collapsed for intrinsic reasons? Atlantis and the Antediluvians don't count.

Civilisations of a couple hundred thousand is a modern thing. That's an odd requirement. It's a huge civilisation.

Not so huge as to not have been repeatedly achieved all over the world for millennia.

But the Khmer civilisation. They converted too much forrest to farmland leading to erosion.

That is but one hypothesis about one contributing factor. The general consensus seems to be that the slow decline of the Khmer empire was mostly due to rivalry with a Thai empire that was growing stronger, and for what it's worth, the Khmer empire didn't ever collapse, its capital was relocated to what had become the economic center being closer to important emerging trade routes.

The Maya civilisation. We don't know for a fact what happened to them. But we know it was because of a collapse of agricultural output. Sounds similar. As featured in the film Apocalypto. Even though they conflate events spanning over a thousand years.

We don't know that. We know that changing land use correlates temporally with reduced output in artifacts and abandonment of cities, but the temporal resolution is not good enough to determine the direction of causation.

I'm looking up various civilisations now... it looks like this was the decline of all civilisations. Whenever they're conquered it was because something broke on the inside first. Very often food production. Making them vulnerable to attack and takeover. Babylonians... etc.

n what sense did the Babylonians "collapse"? Each and everyone of us is loosing an aggregate of hours of their life converting minutes to and from fractional hours because they had an ideocratic number system, and we're using a derivate of their writing system? Superseded and sublimated is more like it.

With a couple of notable exceptions it seems like only in the age of European imperialism did empires collapse for purely extrinsic reasons.

I'm baffled as to why you didn't find this when googling?

Next thing you're going to cite the fall of the Roman empire, right?

Well, as with the Babylonians, I asked civilisations, not empires, dynasties, or ruling parities. A thousand years after the sacking of Rome by the Vandals, the Latin language was used as a lingua franca in places no Roman soldier ever went (and lived to tell the story), like Poland, Scandinavia, Scotland,...

 

[DrZoidberg]

The simplest explanation is that you misunderstood and/or misremember.

Also, Japan has 5 endemic species of maple too. I only picked abies because it came first in an alphabetic listing (and the wood of abies is quite a bit harder than that of picea, at least when it comes to the one Central European species I'm familiar with). Do your own work, I gave you a whole list of over 100 trees of Japan.

Wtf. You are not an idiot. This shouldn't be hard to work out for you. I looked it up. Yup. It happened. Trees used in industry have specific requirements. They cut down the industrialy useful trees. The ones that survived aren't. For whatever reason.

I don't know what to say. Read the book yourself if this is so hard to accept. Or just Google it. It's a significant event in Japanese history

Civilisations of a couple hundred thousand is a modern thing. That's an odd requirement. It's a huge civilisation.

Not so huge as to not have been repeatedly achieved all over the world for millennia.

But the Khmer civilisation. They converted too much forrest to farmland leading to erosion.

That is but one hypothesis about one contributing factor. The general consensus seems to be that the slow decline of the Khmer empire was mostly due to rivalry with a Thai empire that was growing stronger, and for what it's worth, the Khmer empire didn't ever collapse, its capital was relocated to what had become the economic center being closer to important emerging trade routes.

The Maya civilisation. We don't know for a fact what happened to them. But we know it was because of a collapse of agricultural output. Sounds similar. As featured in the film Apocalypto. Even though they conflate events spanning over a thousand years.

We don't know that. We know that changing land use correlates temporally with reduced output in artifacts and abandonment of cities, but the temporal resolution is not good enough to determine the direction of causation.

I'm looking up various civilisations now... it looks like this was the decline of all civilisations. Whenever they're conquered it was because something broke on the inside first. Very often food production. Making them vulnerable to attack and takeover. Babylonians... etc.

n what sense did the Babylonians "collapse"? Each and everyone of us is loosing an aggregate of hours of their life converting minutes to and from fractional hours because they had an ideocratic number system, and we're using a derivate of their writing system? Superseded and sublimated is more like it.

With a couple of notable exceptions it seems like only in the age of European imperialism did empires collapse for purely extrinsic reasons.

I'm baffled as to why you didn't find this when googling?

Next thing you're going to cite the fall of the Roman empire, right?

Well, as with the Babylonians, I asked civilisations, not empires, dynasties, or ruling parities. A thousand years after the sacking of Rome by the Vandals, the Latin language was used as a lingua franca in places no Roman soldier ever went (and lived to tell the story), like Poland, Scandinavia, Scotland,...

I didn't mention the Roman empire. The hard thing to explain about the Roman empire wasn't how it collapsed, but how it survived so damn long time. Big empires tend to rip apart for mundane reasons.

You seem absurdly combative on this. What's the point of our discussion? I'm sorry if you really love to eat tiger shrimps. But tough luck. Don't shoot the messenger

 

[Jokodo]

Wtf. You are not an idiot. This shouldn't be hard to work out for you. I looked it up. Yup. It happened. Trees used in industry have specific requirements. They cut down the industrialy useful trees. The ones that survived aren't. For whatever reason.

I don't know what to say. Read the book yourself if this is so hard to accept. Or just Google it. It's a significant event in Japanese history

I did google it, and it didn't say "they cut down every single tree". Sorry if I hurt your feeling by showing that you spread some not entirely accurate information. This is a rationalist discussion board though, you have to expect the like.

Not so huge as to not have been repeatedly achieved all over the world for millennia.

But the Khmer civilisation. They converted too much forrest to farmland leading to erosion.

That is but one hypothesis about one contributing factor. The general consensus seems to be that the slow decline of the Khmer empire was mostly due to rivalry with a Thai empire that was growing stronger, and for what it's worth, the Khmer empire didn't ever collapse, its capital was relocated to what had become the economic center being closer to important emerging trade routes.

The Maya civilisation. We don't know for a fact what happened to them. But we know it was because of a collapse of agricultural output. Sounds similar. As featured in the film Apocalypto. Even though they conflate events spanning over a thousand years.

We don't know that. We know that changing land use correlates temporally with reduced output in artifacts and abandonment of cities, but the temporal resolution is not good enough to determine the direction of causation.

I'm looking up various civilisations now... it looks like this was the decline of all civilisations. Whenever they're conquered it was because something broke on the inside first. Very often food production. Making them vulnerable to attack and takeover. Babylonians... etc.

n what sense did the Babylonians "collapse"? Each and everyone of us is loosing an aggregate of hours of their life converting minutes to and from fractional hours because they had an ideocratic number system, and we're using a derivate of their writing system? Superseded and sublimated is more like it.

With a couple of notable exceptions it seems like only in the age of European imperialism did empires collapse for purely extrinsic reasons.

I'm baffled as to why you didn't find this when googling?

Next thing you're going to cite the fall of the Roman empire, right?

Well, as with the Babylonians, I asked civilisations, not empires, dynasties, or ruling parities. A thousand years after the sacking of Rome by the Vandals, the Latin language was used as a lingua franca in places no Roman soldier ever went (and lived to tell the story), like Poland, Scandinavia, Scotland,...

I didn't mention the Roman empire. The hard thing to explain about the Roman empire wasn't how it collapsed, but how it survived so damn long time. Big empires tend to rip apart for mundane reasons.

You seem absurdly combative on this. What's the point of our discussion? I'm sorry if you really love to eat tiger shrimps. But tough luck. Don't shoot the messenger

I wouldn't recognise a tiger shrimp from a locust - I'm not into seafood at all (with the possible exception of octopus). But as a proud reader of small print, I've found that things are becoming better when it comes to palm oil - my local discount supermarket chain is offering margerines and peanut butters and the like where it's been replaced with rape seed oil - without them even making a big deal of it.

 

[DBT]

Nothing you quote contradicts my position. That it is a combination of population size and consumption rate that will tip us from sustainability to unsustainability, if, according to some reports, it already hasn't.

The greater the size of the population in relation to rising consumption just hastens the process of environmental decline and collapse.

There are no contradictions here.

I didn't say there are contradictions. It's just you didn't respond *at all* to my question. Almost as if you hadn't read my post...

I have made my position quite clear. It's your questions and objections that do not appear to relate to my position as I have expressed it. It's quite vexing, I say one thing, but your response appears to relate to your own version, what you believe I said, which is not what I actually said.

 

[DBT]

....it is a combination of population size and consumption rate that will tip us from sustainability to unsustainability, if, according to some reports, it already hasn't.

The greater the size of the population in relation to rising consumption just hastens the process of environmental decline and collapse.

At least 'total collapse' seems to be unlikely (though not impossible). The issue seems to have more to do with how bumpy the ride is going to be. Environmental decline and partial collapse are already happening. Population is one of the main contributing factors currently and recently hastening the processes, along with the other forces identified, in a complicated, interactive amalgam. To deny this is to deny reality and basic facts. Some of the positions argued for in this thread are quite simply embarrassing, especially in a supposedly rationalist discussion forum.

Yes, I doubt that it'll come to a total collapse. But how bad it will be, and how well we come out of it depends on the measures we take before it happens.

As it stands, the political and business drive for change currently does not appear to be strong enough to avert a major environment crisis.

 

[Jokodo]

Nothing you quote contradicts my position. That it is a combination of population size and consumption rate that will tip us from sustainability to unsustainability, if, according to some reports, it already hasn't.

The greater the size of the population in relation to rising consumption just hastens the process of environmental decline and collapse.

There are no contradictions here.

I didn't say there are contradictions. It's just you didn't respond *at all* to my question. Almost as if you hadn't read my post...

I have made my position quite clear. It's your questions and objections that do not appear to relate to my position as I have expressed it. It's quite vexing, I say one thing, but your response appears to relate to your own version, what you believe I said, which is not what I actually said.

It really is quite vexing.

Here's an abstract representation of the conversation:

You: X, and also Y.
Me: Why X?
You: Because <argument/link supporting Y>
Me: I'm with you on Y, but why X?
You: They don't contradict each other!
Me: No, they don't, but you still haven't supported X.
You: Not fair, I just said Y!

If you had the honesty to only make claims you're ready to support, it could go like this:

You: Y.
Me: Granted, but here's why I think that's not as relevant as it seems: Z

Or if you just admitted that you can't support a claim rather than pretending you never made it:

You: X, and also Y.
Me: Alright about Y, but why X?
You: Well, maybe not X.
Me: Alright then, given Y, I propose Z.

... both of which would be much more productive than the sorry excuse for a discussion we're having.

 

[DBT]

I have made my position quite clear. It's your questions and objections that do not appear to relate to my position as I have expressed it. It's quite vexing, I say one thing, but your response appears to relate to your own version, what you believe I said, which is not what I actually said.

It really is quite vexing.

Here's an abstract representation of the conversation:

You: X, and also Y.
Me: Why X?
You: Because <argument/link supporting Y>
Me: I'm with you on Y, but why X?
You: They don't contradict each other!
Me: No, they don't, but you still haven't supported X.
You: Not fair, I just said Y!

If you had the honesty to only make claims you're ready to support, it could go like this:

You: Y.
Me: Granted, but here's why I think that's not as relevant as it seems: Z

Or if you just admitted that you can't support a claim rather than pretending you never made it:

You: X, and also Y.
Me: Alright about Y, but why X?
You: Well, maybe not X.
Me: Alright then, given Y, I propose Z.

... both of which would be much more productive than the sorry excuse for a discussion we're having.

It certainly is a sorry excuse for a discussion, but not for the reasons you give. Certainly not because my position has not been made clear.

How difficult is this to understand?

To quote what I have already outlined;

According to studies (links and quotes provided) our current rate of consumption and doing business ( growth and profit driven) is unsustainable in the long term.

If it is true, as the studies strongly suggest, that our current rate of consumption and use of resources is currently unsustainable, it can hardly become sustainable within a climate of increasing consumption driven by increasing living standards in developing nations. Not without a radical transformation in the way we use resources.

That is the issue. Will we act decisively? Will we do enough in time to avert a major environment disaster?

Given how our Government and business leaders talk, it doesn't seem likely.

As it stands, it appears that any meaningful change in our behaviour, our consumption driven business practices, will be forced by environmental circumstances.

I'd say it is an issue of both, the rate of consumption in relation to population size. Given that our planet is a finite size and resources there must be an upper limit for both population size and consumption rate, relating to whatever ratio of the two factors happens to exceed sustainability, be it long term or short term.

I doubt that it'll come to a total collapse. But how bad it will be, and how well we come out of it depends on the measures we take before it happens.

As it stands, the political and business drive for change currently does not appear to be strong enough to avert a major environment crisis.