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

[DBT]

I refer to 'ever increasing population growth' because that appears to be the aim of our economists, politicians and business models.

All they talk about is ''jobs and growth' 'jobs and growth' and given a fall in family size, increasing immigration in order to bolster house prices and 'stimulate the economy'

The 'economy' as in 'growth,' more people, increasing consumption, investment returns, etc. The 'economy' being far more important than ecology, which only gets lip service.....''oh, of course we care about ecology, of course we care about the environment'

Economic growth requires neither population growth nor growth in resource use.

Economic growth is quite possible while both population and resource consumption fall.

Then it is not growth. It is simply economic activity. A steady state economy. Which, given our situation, would be a good thing, the goal to achieve. But we are not there yet.

Our so called leaders panic if growth - increase in GDP - falls below a certain percentage.

 

[bilby]

I refer to 'ever increasing population growth' because that appears to be the aim of our economists, politicians and business models.

All they talk about is ''jobs and growth' 'jobs and growth' and given a fall in family size, increasing immigration in order to bolster house prices and 'stimulate the economy'

The 'economy' as in 'growth,' more people, increasing consumption, investment returns, etc. The 'economy' being far more important than ecology, which only gets lip service.....''oh, of course we care about ecology, of course we care about the environment'

Economic growth requires neither population growth nor growth in resource use.

Economic growth is quite possible while both population and resource consumption fall.

Then it is not growth. It is simply economic activity. A steady state economy. Which, given our situation, would be a good thing, the goal to achieve. But we are not there yet.

Our so called leaders panic if growth - increase in GDP - falls below a certain percentage.

GDP is a measure of economic activity. An increase in economic activity = economic growth = increase in GDP. All of these are the same thing, and all of these can happen without either population growth, or growth in resource use.

 

[DBT]

The principle I was referring to is that any environment or ecosystem, being finite, can only support a given number of animals, be they human or any other species.

The principle that finite != infinite is not due to Malthus.

Applying it to human populations is what he's known for, and this requires the additional assumption that human populations will always tend towards infinity until carrying capacity is reached. The demographic history of the late 20 century shows this assumption to be flawed. This is 2018, much of that ancient history - and all of can be read up just a mouse click away on the internet.

An ecosystem can only support a given number of large omnivores. That being just as true for humans as any other animal. That being the point of carrying capacity.

Growth is fine to a certain point, past which we put ever increasing strain on our ecosystems until the point where we exceed the carrying capacity of our ecosystems.

Which also depends on rate of consumption, population numbers, etc.

As mentioned previously, due to rising prosperity in developing nations, we are in a position where consumption rate is going to increase dramatically even if world population does not increase.

- - - Updated - - -

We'll be fine. Right now, it's our consumption culture that's creating all the problems. If we stop behaving like idiots the problem would be solved immidately. We could add twice as many humans easy

That's a Big If. If the human race can stop behaving like idiots? I wouldn't be betting on that.

I think nature will give us a helping hand with that lesson. I think environmentalism and green campaigning is a complete waste of time. Our species are too stupid. But when we have mass starvation on our hands and social collapse people will wisen up fast. And eventually we'll sort ourselves out, and it'll be fine. But without polar bears, whales and coral reefs.

That's probably the best case scenario. Hopefully it won't be worse than that.

 

[DBT]

Then it is not growth. It is simply economic activity. A steady state economy. Which, given our situation, would be a good thing, the goal to achieve. But we are not there yet.

Our so called leaders panic if growth - increase in GDP - falls below a certain percentage.

GDP is a measure of economic activity. An increase in economic activity = economic growth = increase in GDP. All of these are the same thing, and all of these can happen without either population growth, or growth in resource use.

Consumers can only buy so many goods, eat so many meals, own so many houses or cars....at which point we achieve market saturation and the end to a growing economy. Built in obsolescence can offset saturation if we buy new phones or computers every year, but these articles use raw materials, plastic, copper, etc, so an increase in sales of consumer items entails an increase in resource use. Recycling helps but is nothing is 100% recyclable,

 

[bilby]

Then it is not growth. It is simply economic activity. A steady state economy. Which, given our situation, would be a good thing, the goal to achieve. But we are not there yet.

Our so called leaders panic if growth - increase in GDP - falls below a certain percentage.

GDP is a measure of economic activity. An increase in economic activity = economic growth = increase in GDP. All of these are the same thing, and all of these can happen without either population growth, or growth in resource use.

Consumers can only buy so many goods, eat so many meals, own so many houses or cars....at which point we achieve market saturation and the end to a growing economy. Built in obsolescence can offset saturation if we buy new phones or computers every year, but these articles use raw materials, plastic, copper, etc, so an increase in sales of consumer items entails an increase in resource use. Recycling helps but is nothing is 100% recyclable,

GDP is measured in dollars. Not in meals, houses or cars.

A meal can be beans on toast at home, or fine dining at a fancy restaurant. The two consume similar levels of resources, but have wildly different dollar values.

A house can be in Winton on land worth $10,000, or in Vaucluse on the same amount of land, with a value of $5,000,000.

A Rolls Royce has much the same steel content as a Ford Falcon. But the price tags are very different.

Economic growth means a growth in the total VALUE of transactions in the economy. Value is NOT a measure of resource content, not is it a measure of the labour needed to produce a product or service.

Economic growth in no way depends upon increasing resource use. And EVERYTHING is 100% recyclable; It's just a question of cost - and therefore of VALUE.

 

[Jokodo]

An ecosystem can only support a given number of large omnivores. That being just as true for humans as any other animal. That being the point of carrying capacity.

And that's a problem only if the the growth curve is set to peak above that carrying capacity. For Malthus that was trivial, since he was working under the (now known to be flawed) assumption of an exponential growth curve, bound to trend towards infinity. Because of this, he could sidestep the tedious step of calculating an actual figure to the carrying capacity and proclaim that the population will by mathematical necessity, reach and exceed it rather sooner than later.

You don't get to make that assumption, knowing that population growth is rapidly slowing and looking like it will peak somewhere between 9 and 11 billion within the second half of the century. If you want to make a parallel argument today, you gotta produce actual numbers showing that 9/11 billion is, in fact, above the planet's carrying capacity.

In other words, while what you say is trivially true, whether it's relevant to humans depends on whether humans will ever reach that number. Knowing that the population is not if fact set to keep growing exponentially makes the answer to that question quite a bit less trivial than it appeared to Malthus - it was precisely his (empirically inadequate) assumptions about the nature of population growth that effectively allowed him to assume his conclusion about this question.

 

[barbos]

Indeed, famine has essentially disappeared, not just from the developed world where Ehrlich predicted it would arise (but it never did), but also from the developing world, where it was assumed to be a permanent and inevitably growing concern.

There hasn't been a large scale famine anywhere in the world since the Ethiopia famine made famous by Live Aid in 1985. Ethiopia, btw, had a population of 40 million in 1985; Her current population is 107 million. And there was a very similar drought condition in the region a few years ago to the one that struck in the mid-1980s. The difference is that Ethiopia is no longer at war - the end of the proxy wars between the USA and USSR in Africa has done more to prevent famine than population controls could ever have hoped to achieve.

War is now at historical lows worldwide - in contradiction of another of the predictions of The Population Bomb, which predicted widespread warfare over resources in the late 20th Century.

Famines in Africa were caused by locust. Have you ever wondered why you never hear of it anymore? That's because, thanks to entomologists, it does not happen anymore.

LOL, I just realized why are you laughing. yeah, that was very funny and very unintentional. It's also true, I remember the 80s constantly reading about locust in Africa, then around 90s it stopped and then I read how they did it.

 

[bilby]

LOL, I just realized why are you laughing. yeah, that was very funny and very unintentional. It's also true, I remember the 80s constantly reading about locust in Africa, then around 90s it stopped and then I read how they did it.

I wish I could say I was surprised at just how badly misinformed and uneducated you are on this subject.

But that's actually a common trait amongst experts in unrelated fields who are certain that they know everything.

Locust plagues are still a common feature of African agriculture. The reason that famines are a thing of the past has three eighths of fuck all to do with locusts.

 

[steve_bank]

A meal can be lentil beans on a piece of flat bread. A lower class staple in India. What is the quality of life, health, and longevity of the many subsistence level people on the planet?

Rice, bwans and corn provide a close complete protience equivalent to meat. The combination is a staple in may places.

What would would happen if we doubled the population and raised them all to the North American/Western European diet with a lot of meat, fish, chicken, and pork?

What would that do to the ecosystem. Would you give up beef? Animal farming is hard on the environment.

Perhaps we have a nutritious synthetic paste that comes in a tube. All the dead bidies go to waste, should they be used for fertilizer, or Soylent Green? Why not?

 

[DrZoidberg]

LOL, I just realized why are you laughing. yeah, that was very funny and very unintentional. It's also true, I remember the 80s constantly reading about locust in Africa, then around 90s it stopped and then I read how they did it.

But you're wrong. Locust plagues in Africa are just rare. The last one was in 1984. The one before it was in 1941. Before that 1903. It's truly random. If it would hit again, African agriculture would be fucked again.

 

[barbos]

LOL, I just realized why are you laughing. yeah, that was very funny and very unintentional. It's also true, I remember the 80s constantly reading about locust in Africa, then around 90s it stopped and then I read how they did it.

I wish I could say I was surprised at just how badly misinformed and uneducated you are on this subject.

But that's actually a common trait amongst experts in unrelated fields who are certain that they know everything.

Locust plagues are still a common feature of African agriculture. The reason that famines are a thing of the past has three eighths of fuck all to do with locusts.

No, it's not me, it's you.

 

[barbos]

LOL, I just realized why are you laughing. yeah, that was very funny and very unintentional. It's also true, I remember the 80s constantly reading about locust in Africa, then around 90s it stopped and then I read how they did it.

But you're wrong. Locust plagues in Africa are just rare. The last one was in 1984. The one before it was in 1941. Before that 1903. It's truly random. If it would hit again, African agriculture would be fucked again.

No, you are wrong. They are not random and they are preventable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust#Monitoring

 

[DBT]

An ecosystem can only support a given number of large omnivores. That being just as true for humans as any other animal. That being the point of carrying capacity.

And that's a problem only if the the growth curve is set to peak above that carrying capacity.

Sure....and given that World Leaders only talk about growth and growing economies, fretting over stabilizing population numbers in developed nations, depending on growth through immigration to stimulate demand, or rewarding families for having more babies, etc, it doesn't look like anything is going to change until at some point, climate shift, ecological collapse, water rights, etc, forces a radical change upon us and how we do business.

[
In other words, while what you say is trivially true, whether it's relevant to humans depends on whether humans will ever reach that number. Knowing that the population is not if fact set to keep growing exponentially makes the answer to that question quite a bit less trivial than it appeared to Malthus - it was precisely his (empirically inadequate) assumptions about the nature of population growth that effectively allowed him to assume his conclusion about this question.

That the activity of animals, propagation, food and water usage, territory, etc, can reach a point where their environment can no longer support their population and way of life is not a trivial thing when it happens. Not trivial for the species caught in that situation.

The idea that it can't happen to us because we are so smart and adaptable may be an illusion built on past success.

 

[DBT]

Consumers can only buy so many goods, eat so many meals, own so many houses or cars....at which point we achieve market saturation and the end to a growing economy. Built in obsolescence can offset saturation if we buy new phones or computers every year, but these articles use raw materials, plastic, copper, etc, so an increase in sales of consumer items entails an increase in resource use. Recycling helps but is nothing is 100% recyclable,

GDP is measured in dollars. Not in meals, houses or cars.

A meal can be beans on toast at home, or fine dining at a fancy restaurant. The two consume similar levels of resources, but have wildly different dollar values.

A house can be in Winton on land worth $10,000, or in Vaucluse on the same amount of land, with a value of $5,000,000.

A Rolls Royce has much the same steel content as a Ford Falcon. But the price tags are very different.

Economic growth means a growth in the total VALUE of transactions in the economy. Value is NOT a measure of resource content, not is it a measure of the labour needed to produce a product or service.

Economic growth in no way depends upon increasing resource use. And EVERYTHING is 100% recyclable; It's just a question of cost - and therefore of VALUE.

Dollars are not just dollars in a vacuum. Dollar value, a Nations productivity, relates to something, food, clothing, houses or cars built and sold, services rendered....

 

[bilby]

LOL, I just realized why are you laughing. yeah, that was very funny and very unintentional. It's also true, I remember the 80s constantly reading about locust in Africa, then around 90s it stopped and then I read how they did it.

But you're wrong. Locust plagues in Africa are just rare. The last one was in 1984. The one before it was in 1941. Before that 1903. It's truly random. If it would hit again, African agriculture would be fucked again.

Actually, there was one in 2004. But it didn't cause a famine, because locust plagues have fuck all to do with famine in the 21st century. The world produces more than enough food for all, and modern logistics mean that local shortages don't lead to famines, whether the local problem is locusts, drought, flooding or something else entirely.

The Ethiopians have a shithouse environment for growing food; And they have solved that problem the exact same way Manhattanites do - they stopped bothering to grow food, and did something lucrative instead, so as to make money to buy food from someone else.

Ethiopia has an agricultural economy. But they mostly grow coffee and (believe it or not) flowers, which they sell to rich people in the EU. Then they buy food (mostly from the Chinese).

Locusts in Ethiopia can't eat the locals' food supply, because their food is growing in Chinese fields.

 

[bilby]

Consumers can only buy so many goods, eat so many meals, own so many houses or cars....at which point we achieve market saturation and the end to a growing economy. Built in obsolescence can offset saturation if we buy new phones or computers every year, but these articles use raw materials, plastic, copper, etc, so an increase in sales of consumer items entails an increase in resource use. Recycling helps but is nothing is 100% recyclable,

GDP is measured in dollars. Not in meals, houses or cars.

A meal can be beans on toast at home, or fine dining at a fancy restaurant. The two consume similar levels of resources, but have wildly different dollar values.

A house can be in Winton on land worth $10,000, or in Vaucluse on the same amount of land, with a value of $5,000,000.

A Rolls Royce has much the same steel content as a Ford Falcon. But the price tags are very different.

Economic growth means a growth in the total VALUE of transactions in the economy. Value is NOT a measure of resource content, not is it a measure of the labour needed to produce a product or service.

Economic growth in no way depends upon increasing resource use. And EVERYTHING is 100% recyclable; It's just a question of cost - and therefore of VALUE.

Dollars are not just dollars in a vacuum. Dollar value, a Nations productivity, relates to something, food, clothing, houses or cars built and sold, services rendered....

Yes.

For more details on why that doesn't make you right, please re-read the post it was a response to.

 

[ruby sparks]

Considering that carrying capacity depends on many factors, population size, rate of consumption, climate conditions, habitat loss, pollution, etc, do you believe that the course we are on is sustainable in the long term, let's say over the next hundred years?

I would not like to say what might happen in a period as relatively short as 100 years, but yes, I think that whatever the future, we are currently, for a variety of reasons (mostly the ones you list) already exceeding the planet's carrying capacity. The planet is creaking under the load. Economic models that pursue continual growth also add to the burden. Also worth noting, as mentioned by others, that our current period of exceeding carrying capacity will have legacy effects that will continue even if we were to get to a new situation where we are not exceeding carrying capacity. Also, the longer the carrying capacity is exceeded the lower it becomes and the greater the legacy effects.

So, in 100 years from now will they say we were in overshoot now?

Almost certainly, yes. We are probably significantly into overshoot now. And it's showing. We are, currently, fucking up the planet for future generations.

 

[ruby sparks]

Regarding population specifically, which is only one of a number of inter-related factors:

"Note that current demography-based projections of a stabilized world population are far beyond the lower boundary (0.65 billion) and slightly above the median (7.7 billion) of all method-oriented studies. For example, Lutz and colleagues (2001) provide an estimate of 8.951 billion people, reached most probably around 2075. The United Nations predicts a world population of 8.9 billion people for 2050 (UN 2002). Note that these values do not refer to a limit for world population but are the outcome of demographic projections.

Most studies estimate a limit that is above the actual world population. If we assume, on the basis of this finding, that the actual limit is likely to be higher than the current (2003) world population of 6.3 billion, then the estimate of 0.7 billion mentioned earlier is unsuitable, while the median of all the studies, 7.7 billion, is just acceptable as an estimate. Of course, this approach can be criticized because although actual population levels may have been sustainable in the past, they are not necessarily so at this moment. Indeed, the latter view finds strong support from indicators of unsustainability such as global warming and biodiversity loss, which have not been taken into account in the primary studies analyzed here. These indicators suggest that the lower bound prediction of 0.65 billion people in the meta-regression may be as good a guess as is possible for population limits in the current technological circumstances."

Meta-study of 69 individual studies (2003)

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/54/3/195/223056

 

[Jokodo]

Sure....and given that World Leaders only talk about growth and growing economies, fretting over stabilizing population numbers in developed nations, depending on growth through immigration to stimulate demand, or rewarding families for having more babies, etc, it doesn't look like anything is going to change until at some point, climate shift, ecological collapse, water rights, etc, forces a radical change upon us and how we do business.

They can fret until the cows come home, the fact of the matter is that things already *have* changed.

[
In other words, while what you say is trivially true, whether it's relevant to humans depends on whether humans will ever reach that number. Knowing that the population is not if fact set to keep growing exponentially makes the answer to that question quite a bit less trivial than it appeared to Malthus - it was precisely his (empirically inadequate) assumptions about the nature of population growth that effectively allowed him to assume his conclusion about this question.

That the activity of animals, propagation, food and water usage, territory, etc, can reach a point where their environment can no longer support their population and way of life is not a trivial thing when it happens. Not trivial for the species caught in that situation.

I'm not saying it's a trivial thing if it happens, I'm pointing out the assumptions needed the make deducing that it will a trivial act of plain logic.

The idea that it can't happen to us because we are so smart and adaptable may be an illusion built on past success.

I did not say that it cannot happen to us. It will happen to us if and when we reach a level of population beyond the planet's carrying capacity. Whether or not it actually will happen thus depends on two questions: how large our population will grow, and what's the limit of the planet's carrying capacity.

Malthus assumed (reasonably, in his day) that the population will grow towards infinity if unchecked. This assumption allowed him to leave the second question unanswered: Whatever the carrying capacity may be, it's certainly finite.

You don't have the luxury of making this assumption, since this is 2018 and we know better now. The world population looks like it's set to peak at between 9 and 11 billion within the second half of the century and then start to stagnate or slightly decline. So if you want to come to the same conclusion he came to, you need to answer the second question, and the answer needs to be that the carrying capacity is some specific figure below ~11 billion.

That's a positive claim you're making, and I have yet to see you make any attempt at justifying it.

 

[ruby sparks]

It will happen to us if and when we reach a level of population beyond the planet's carrying capacity.

I would put it slightly differently. Exceeding carrying capacity (whether in numbers alone or by combining a variety of factors) will not necessarily make 'it' happen, if by 'it' we mean a global disaster. I believe we are already exceeding carrying capacity. The 'it' that is happening is accelerated change. Iow, the planet is bearing the extra capacity, but it is creaking under the load. Hypothetically (and yes I know this isn't likely) if we were to dramatically fall well below carrying capacity today, for example if man-made C02 emissions went to zero, the planet could stabilise under a new equilibrium, with a different climate, probably involving a higher overall temperature.