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It's taboo to say this, but people worldwide have had far too many children, and I believe that overpopulation is the root of the sustainability crisis, includi

by 127361 3y ago

It's taboo to say this, but people worldwide have had far too many children, and I believe that overpopulation is the root of the sustainability crisis, including climate change and pollution. And that taboo is probably rooted in evolutionary psychology, people have a genetically driven tendency to criticize those who advocate having less children? So could there be an instinctual drive behind it? https://www.flashpack.com/solo/relationships/dont-want-kids-choice/ https://www.flashpack.com/solo/relationships/dont-want-kids-... https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/childfree-by-choice https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/childfree-by-choice

sanroot99 3y ago
I think not having egalitarian destribution of resources is real problem rather then overpopulation. Becoz as we see very few have most carbon footprint.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  Everybody is gaining access to lower carbon tech, renewables, heat pumps, electric cars etc at the same rate. It doesn’t matter about rich people.
BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
There's no such thing as "overpopulation" on its own. There's only population relative to resource abuse. A small fraction of the population using resources at the rate that your common local billionaire or environmentally abusive megacorp uses resources will be just as "over". A much larger population appropriately pricing externalities instead of ignoring them will not be "over". The number of people in India is not why companies like Vedanta Limited, an alumnium, iron, and gold ore mining company pollute so much.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- StanislavPetrov 3y ago
  >There's no such thing as "overpopulation" on its own. There's only population relative to resource abuse. This is an unfortunate delusion that is widespread, and exploited by governments and industries that seek to ravage what is left of our environment for profit. If you believe and understand that the earth is a finite place, with finite resources (as all intelligent, rational people do), then you believe and understand that this finite place, with finite resources, can only support a finite population. Of course we can debate about what exactly the "sustainable" population is and we can agree that the "sustainable" population depends on how resources are managed, used and maintained, but there can be no disagreement that this number exists, and that if there are too many people our finite resources cannot sustainably support them no manner how efficiently they are distributed. Unfortunately far too many people don't believe this, and don't understand that the earth is a finite place with finite resources. They insist that the earth can support an infinite number of people if only we manage our finite resources properly and impose a strict enough dietary and behavioral regiment on the teeming billions stuffed onto the planet.
  - Scarblac 3y ago
    Yes, but the vast majority of the resource consumption happens for people in rich countries in the West, and those are not the countries with the large population growth.
  - green7ea 3y ago
    Most essential resources aren't consumed but part of cycles — food, water, shelter. These cycles are sustained by energy and, if we were to use it well, the sun alone provides more than enough. A simple example of this is that water isn't used up, it gets dirty. It can be made clean again but that requires energy. This can be done by humans (water filtration) or by nature (evaporation and rain). We don't manage these cycles very well and they sometimes stretch out over too many of our lifetimes to manage (plastics, some nuclear waste) so it becomes easier to talk about resource 'use'. The equation is pretty simple `humans × resources/human`. We can talk about reducing number of humans or reducing the resources needed per human. If we manage the cycles well, humans could inject more resources into the system instead of taking away from it. Of course this would still be limited by available energy. In that case, increasing the number of humans within energy capacity could benefit ecosystems. We already have a lot of available energy but there is orders of magnitude more available as our technology improves — fusion, thorium fission, solar, wind, tides.
swiftcoder 3y ago
It's not really taboo, it's just straight-up a racist right-wing talking point. Treat it as a software optimisation problem - should you go after a large number of very minro problems, or take an axe to the single large problem that dominates your metrics? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-...
- 127361 3y ago
  I am confused as to how discouraging procreation is racist?
  - 10xDev 3y ago
    LOL. You wrote a comment on how India is the main problem not the west (either now flagged or deleted). You singled out a race as being the problem.
    - 127361 3y ago
      I didn't single out a specific race, I think, I just mentioned that it was that specific region of the world where the problem was located. As far as I'm aware it was nothing to do with discrimination because of a specific characteristic (which is the definition of racism). It was just that population growth in that region was very large combined with a high per-capita CO2 footprint. Many NGOs are actively trying to increase the availability of birth control in such regions, they are aware of the problem with unplanned pregnancy in those parts of the world. I strongly doubt there's any racism behind it. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/access-contraception-global-development-issue https://www.cgdev.org/blog/access-contraception-global-devel... While in the west population growth is relatively slow and we still have a high per-capita CO2 footprint. I guess I unintentionally touched a taboo subject (racism) that's not permitted by the current moral orthodoxy, which is no different to religion in the end? I hope I'm correct about this. I don't really care if my posts are flagged or even if I get banned from this site completely, I am exercising my 1st Amendment protected freedom of speech rights. It's just that on the Internet every forum is privately owned, there is no "public square" here, and thus all are subject to moderation and censorship.
RankingMember 3y ago
That's an interesting question re: genetically-driven tendency to criticize those who advocate having less children. I've had the same experience when voicing my opinion as it seems you have, and I'm still not quite sure where its rooted. From the outside, it just seems like a kind of species-selfishness, like "we can be invasive but no one else can or we'll exterminate them!" like we do with deer. I've found there's a whole philosophy that seems to line up with my (and maybe your) perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> It's taboo to say this, but people worldwide have had far too many children Taboo? It's stupid. But it's not taboo, it's an incredibly conventional thing to say, and has been for many, many decades.
LudwigNagasena 3y ago
It’s not taboo. It’s regularly discussed and supported in mainstream media.
- angra_mainyu 3y ago
  Exactly. I'm not sure if they just stepped out from under a rock... I've been hearing the overpopulation rhetoric for decades already. In fact, nowadays I'm beginning to hear the opposite: "please have more kids". I'm in Europe atm (I'm south-american) and I'm shocked to see that natives, by and large, just do NOT have kids, or at most 1. All cultural incentives that promoted having kids seem to have been vilified. I find it kind of sad honestly...
dagss 3y ago
I think there's 2 topics that need to be held apart here: 1) Limiting number of children in rich countries. This is what your links talk about I think. Yes, perhaps there is a taboo in place here. Is that relevant to sustainability crisis though? Population is already declining in rich countries, quite naturally. 2) Limiting number of children in poorer countries. Well, as in the article pointed to in a sibling comment, "Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%"... So by saying that overpopulation is the root of the crisis -- are you not saying that it may be better that 10 poor people are not born, than for rich people to do minor changes to their lifestyle?
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  The issue is the global population. Obviously, that's the metric that matters for global issues like the climate and environment. The global population is still increasing. Furthermore, as poor countries develop this is compounded by increased consumption (both resources and energy) per capita. In that respect, "richest 1% account for more emissions than poorest 66%" should be interpreted as very worrying when the poorest are getting richer. Ultimately we don't anyone to be poor. At current population levels this would probably mean a total collapse of the environment. Overall, the global population is indeed the root cause of our problems.
  - vasco 3y ago
    I never understand this argument of overpopulation. How can you be OK with reducing population but at the same time worry about global warming? To have that position you basically need to reconcile two positions that to me aren't really compatible, unless someone explains it to me. Either it's fine for Earth to not have humans and just exist peacefully with the rest of the ecosystem until another lifeform takes over. Or it's not fine for the Earth to have no more humans and so we need to stop climate change from making the Earth uninhabitable for us, but if to do that we want to reduce the humans, I don't get it. To "kill" humans to save humans seems weird. I guess you can slide on the scale of "more people living worse", or "less people living better", but to choose who is not possible in my opinion, so this is not implementable. Because if you care about the Earth primarily, then warming or not doesn't really matter, it's just a geological event like many more gnarly ones over the history of meteorite impacts and so on. But if you care primarily about the humans, then how can the answer be to have less of them? And pick and choose who gets to reproduce?
Erratic6576 3y ago
Overpopulation isn’t the source of the problem, IMHO. A wild human being in their natural environment pollutes thousands of times less than an industrialised consumer. Each American or European, whose food is grown thousands of km away, is plenty more only to make their salad. Can they be blamed for their Carbon Footprint^TM? I think we should blame the fossil fuel corporations which have turned us into fuel junkies
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lancebeet 3y ago
  Is that actually true? Nature has a very low capacity per area for "wild humans". I don't think the planet would support anywhere near 8 billion "wild" (hunter-gatherer) humans.
  - defrost 3y ago
    It's actually true that some blame can be apportioned to fossil fuel companies that have actively pushed "more fuel consumption" since the 1970s, the Koch Group in particular funde a slew of think tanks to poo-poo and crash and burn any grass roots public transport movements in the USofA during the past 50 odd years. It's less true that a valid comparison should be "if not modern 21st Century life then hunter gather". There's a middle ground more agrarian, less hunter, lifestyle that supported a large population in the past and can likely support a larger population than Victorian times if farming | mining switched across to renewables (electric | hydrogen) instead of fossil fuels - we've learnt a lot about efficiencies in the past century, it's a matter of application and less consumption now, certainly time for less greenhouse gas being released.
    - Erratic6576 3y ago
      > It's less true that a valid comparison should be "if not modern 21st Century life then hunter gather". There are billions of shades of grey, like, for example, living like before the 2000’s, when the massive production of plastic crap in China produced pollution levels to skyrocket. The alternative meant paying wages in the west
Synaesthesia 3y ago
The big problem is the way that people want US-style lifestyles with big houses and cars. This consumes way more energy than European or Asian style living in apartments with public transport. Overpopulation will solve itself as countries develop. We’ve seen that over and over.
- blkhawk 3y ago
  nobody specifically wants shitty us style suburban planning with shitty us style houses. Plus it would hard to replicate that because its an artifact of historical cultural and political developments. In short it would be harder to replicate that instead of doing better. But yes they want a better life for themselves.
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  > Asian style living in apartments with public transport. ^ clearly never visited Asia. LOL
- lozenge 3y ago
  Well, the bulk of them want more meat, washing machines and air conditioning. The main increase of energy usage has been due to this, not people in urban areas eskewing apartments and public transport to drive cars and live in suburban houses. https://youtu.be/6sqnptxlCcw?si=FfqAqooG9qg4kejC https://youtu.be/6sqnptxlCcw?si=FfqAqooG9qg4kejC Another fun fact: 80% of the world's population has never flown, and only 2-4% fly abroad in a year.
  - Synaesthesia 3y ago
    The amount of concrete needed to build such big homes contributes to carbon emissions, not to mention destruction of nature, and it also costs more to heat and cool.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  Th USA and other industrialised countries operated with huge emissions because oil and gas were cheap and because no one factored in the externalities. Which includes energy security. Now that we are seeing a reversal to the status quo, you see the move to more efficient systems moving into full swing. The uptake of renewables is exponential now. I just renovated and fully insulated my house with cellulose fiber that was actually really cheap, double glazed inner windows and installed floor heating with a hydraulic heat pump. My energy bill is almost nothing of what it used to be and I’ve not installed my solar yet, but I’ll be starting in March. I did this because the price of gas, kerosene (water boiler) and oil have increased dramatically and the technology to do so exists and is cheap enough to make this investment a no brainer from an economic standpoint. It’s hard to imagine how cheap solar panels are now. I’m not the only person doing this. The USA and all other developing countries will adopt all these efficient gains at the same rate. No one is going to pay more for less.
yungporko 3y ago
i don't think overpopulation is the problem, but maybe it's a symptom. the problem is we've forced our way up to an unrealistically high standard of living which is completely unsustainable, and now we're trapped in an inescapable death spiral because nobody wants to go back. people aren't willing to stop paying for conveniences because they're cheaply available, corporations aren't willing to stop selling them because there's a demand for it and money to be made, and governments aren't willing to force anybody's hand because the people and corporations will both force them out of power if they try. there is absolutely no chance of breaking out of it other than giving up on democracy, but that will only happen when modern society collapses entirely, which will be far too late to prevent unimaginable suffering on a massive scale.
- okr 3y ago
  Yea, yea, people making their life better is now the reason. We must all live in poverty, because that is the natural state, where we obey the needs of nature. Nature is healing!! And for that we need to abandon demoncracy. And the leader should be who? Of course you, because only you know the solution! Cheeky ;)
  - yungporko 3y ago
    you can put your fingers in your ears and say "la la la" all you want, it doesn't change the undeniable and objective truth. everybody knows the solution, *you* know the solution, it's just a hard pill to swallow so mental gymnastics are preferable. as a species we know that the overconsumption of resources is the problem. there are exactly zero valid arguments against that. anybody who claims that consuming less resources *isn't* the solution is either ignorant or lying.
    - chii 3y ago
      > consuming less resources isn't the solution it isn't, because no solution that require any form of altruism is an actual solution.
      - 3y ago
haizhung 3y ago
It’s not really taboo, it is being mentioned in, like, the comments on every 2nd post on climate change. The problem with this line of thinking (and similar ones like „what about China?“) is that it basically absolves you from any responsibility in the matter. After all, there are simply too many people on the planet, what could you possibly do about it? As other commenters pointed out - the west uses way too many resources compared to their population, and that is a problem. And it is absolutely possible to have a society that doesn’t drain the planet dry, but not with capitalism :-)
- 127361 3y ago
  I'm super super low carbon footprint, personally. All ARM-based computers here, just Raspberry PIs and tablets, that can run from a portable solar panel if I want. Very few possessions too. I love coding and freedom so much more that having stuff. And even more so when doing so in the forest, amongst nature.
  - danhor 3y ago
    The carbon impact of PCs is negligible for almost all people, and possessions are only a smaller portion of emissions (with the exception of high embodied carbon things like electric cars). Important things you can influence for a low carbon footprint are: - How do you heat and how much? Gas heating is surprisingly bad in the US due to the high amount of methane leakage - Do you drive a lot in a combustion car, or even worse, fly? - What kind of food do you eat? As a rough guideline, dairy and meat is pretty bad and beef much worse. Also the stuff that has to be brought in by plane. Living in nature often makes it harder to have a low carbon lifestyle and the things often associated with "good for nature" like reducing plastic waste and organic products are often worse carbon wise.
  - graphe 3y ago
    When was your last flight and what's your usual mode of transportation? Transportation and heating/cooling use the most.
- bagels 3y ago
  As a westerner, the most impactful thing you can do is to not create more westerners.
Aerroon 3y ago
We also hitched a large portion of government spending and the economy to the population pyramid. If we don't have growth then we're in trouble.
- 127361 3y ago
  And in the really long term that's completely unsustainable. So it's like a pyramid scheme scam, it requires a constant influx of new entrants. Whilst destroying the planet. I guess people even have their pension funds tied up into the system, so nearly everyone is forced to participate in it, against their wishes even. Update: Something to back that up: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/04/05/the-world-economy-is-a-pyramid-scheme-steven-chu-says/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/04/05/the-worl...
MrPatan 3y ago
It's not taboo in the slightest, it's everywhere. It's just that it wouldn't work because any group defecting and having more children would inherit the earth and you'd be back to square one, only now not even in control. It's the same mistake as every other decel "solution". It's so obvious, and so unbelievable that proponents don't think of it that one has to wonder, who pushes this? Qui bono?
guyomes 3y ago
> I believe that overpopulation is the root of the sustainability crisis This has been studied long time ago by scientists such as Alfred Sauvy [1], who concluded that overpopulation is not the cause of sustainability crisis, and that greenhouse gas is the major cause. In particular, limiting the growth of population has few impact on the production of greenhouse gas, whereas changing the means of energy production and consumption is much more impactful. Moreover the world population is expected to be less than 12 billions in 2100 [2], which is plainly sustainable. This is mostly due to the demographic transition, a pattern observed in most countries, where the fertility rates decrease over time. More specifically I recommend the excellent book of Emmanuel Todd and Youssef Courbage on this subject [3]. The authors argue that in most countries throughout history, when both the majority of men and the majority of women know how to read and write, then the fertility rate decreases, and a revolution becomes imminent. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sauvy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sauvy [2]: https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-projected-reach-98-billion-2050-and-112-billion-2100 https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-projected-reach-... [3]: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-convergence-of-civilizations/9780231150033 https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-convergence-of-civilizations...
- lozenge 3y ago
  Sustainable means different things to different people. In a simulator, could you have 12 billion people with their needs met, living fulfilled lives and continuing into the far future? Yes. Is there a political and practical way to reach that state? No. "One study estimates it would take just over 5 Earths to support the human population if everyone’s consumption patterns were similar to the average American." Any US government that tried to bring America's environmental footprint down to a sustainable or fair level would be voted out. It doesn't matter whether it would be gas taxes, meat taxes, per mile taxes, flight taxes, carbon tax and dividend, building renewable energy in less developed countries, or any other scheme. It doesn't matter if it was targeted at the ultra rich or the middle class. The sheer scale of it would cause Americans to vote out the government. And the same is true for any democracy and plenty of the non-democracies too.
  - graphe 3y ago
matheusmoreira 3y ago
> And that taboo is probably rooted in evolutionary psychology No. It's because it inevitably puts you in the position of deciding who gets to have children while the rest are denied such privileges for the good of the species. In other words, eugenics.
- RankingMember 3y ago
  When I think of reducing the population I think simply of making birth control universally free and public information campaigns about the environmental cost of more humans. Nothing more than that, and that'd honestly be a huge step in a country where large swaths support abstinence-only sex education.
ChatGTP 3y ago
thought experiment, if the whole world migrated to nuclear energy and electric cars in the seventies would you still be touting the same rot ?

by 127361 3y ago

sanroot99 3y ago

I think not having egalitarian destribution of resources is real problem rather then overpopulation. Becoz as we see very few have most carbon footprint.

ChatGTP 3y ago
Everybody is gaining access to lower carbon tech, renewables, heat pumps, electric cars etc at the same rate. It doesn’t matter about rich people.

BugsJustFindMe 3y ago

There's no such thing as "overpopulation" on its own. There's only population relative to resource abuse. A small fraction of the population using resources at the rate that your common local billionaire or environmentally abusive megacorp uses resources will be just as "over". A much larger population appropriately pricing externalities instead of ignoring them will not be "over". The number of people in India is not why companies like Vedanta Limited, an alumnium, iron, and gold ore mining company pollute so much.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
StanislavPetrov 3y ago
>There's no such thing as "overpopulation" on its own. There's only population relative to resource abuse. This is an unfortunate delusion that is widespread, and exploited by governments and industries that seek to ravage what is left of our environment for profit. If you believe and understand that the earth is a finite place, with finite resources (as all intelligent, rational people do), then you believe and understand that this finite place, with finite resources, can only support a finite population. Of course we can debate about what exactly the "sustainable" population is and we can agree that the "sustainable" population depends on how resources are managed, used and maintained, but there can be no disagreement that this number exists, and that if there are too many people our finite resources cannot sustainably support them no manner how efficiently they are distributed. Unfortunately far too many people don't believe this, and don't understand that the earth is a finite place with finite resources. They insist that the earth can support an infinite number of people if only we manage our finite resources properly and impose a strict enough dietary and behavioral regiment on the teeming billions stuffed onto the planet.
- Scarblac 3y ago
  Yes, but the vast majority of the resource consumption happens for people in rich countries in the West, and those are not the countries with the large population growth.
- green7ea 3y ago
  Most essential resources aren't consumed but part of cycles — food, water, shelter. These cycles are sustained by energy and, if we were to use it well, the sun alone provides more than enough. A simple example of this is that water isn't used up, it gets dirty. It can be made clean again but that requires energy. This can be done by humans (water filtration) or by nature (evaporation and rain). We don't manage these cycles very well and they sometimes stretch out over too many of our lifetimes to manage (plastics, some nuclear waste) so it becomes easier to talk about resource 'use'. The equation is pretty simple `humans × resources/human`. We can talk about reducing number of humans or reducing the resources needed per human. If we manage the cycles well, humans could inject more resources into the system instead of taking away from it. Of course this would still be limited by available energy. In that case, increasing the number of humans within energy capacity could benefit ecosystems. We already have a lot of available energy but there is orders of magnitude more available as our technology improves — fusion, thorium fission, solar, wind, tides.

swiftcoder 3y ago

It's not really taboo, it's just straight-up a racist right-wing talking point. Treat it as a software optimisation problem - should you go after a large number of very minro problems, or take an axe to the single large problem that dominates your metrics? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-...

127361 3y ago
I am confused as to how discouraging procreation is racist?
- 10xDev 3y ago
  LOL. You wrote a comment on how India is the main problem not the west (either now flagged or deleted). You singled out a race as being the problem.
  - 127361 3y ago
    I didn't single out a specific race, I think, I just mentioned that it was that specific region of the world where the problem was located. As far as I'm aware it was nothing to do with discrimination because of a specific characteristic (which is the definition of racism). It was just that population growth in that region was very large combined with a high per-capita CO2 footprint. Many NGOs are actively trying to increase the availability of birth control in such regions, they are aware of the problem with unplanned pregnancy in those parts of the world. I strongly doubt there's any racism behind it. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/access-contraception-global-development-issue https://www.cgdev.org/blog/access-contraception-global-devel... While in the west population growth is relatively slow and we still have a high per-capita CO2 footprint. I guess I unintentionally touched a taboo subject (racism) that's not permitted by the current moral orthodoxy, which is no different to religion in the end? I hope I'm correct about this. I don't really care if my posts are flagged or even if I get banned from this site completely, I am exercising my 1st Amendment protected freedom of speech rights. It's just that on the Internet every forum is privately owned, there is no "public square" here, and thus all are subject to moderation and censorship.

RankingMember 3y ago

That's an interesting question re: genetically-driven tendency to criticize those who advocate having less children. I've had the same experience when voicing my opinion as it seems you have, and I'm still not quite sure where its rooted. From the outside, it just seems like a kind of species-selfishness, like "we can be invasive but no one else can or we'll exterminate them!" like we do with deer. I've found there's a whole philosophy that seems to line up with my (and maybe your) perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> It's taboo to say this, but people worldwide have had far too many children Taboo? It's stupid. But it's not taboo, it's an incredibly conventional thing to say, and has been for many, many decades.

LudwigNagasena 3y ago

It’s not taboo. It’s regularly discussed and supported in mainstream media.

angra_mainyu 3y ago
Exactly. I'm not sure if they just stepped out from under a rock... I've been hearing the overpopulation rhetoric for decades already. In fact, nowadays I'm beginning to hear the opposite: "please have more kids". I'm in Europe atm (I'm south-american) and I'm shocked to see that natives, by and large, just do NOT have kids, or at most 1. All cultural incentives that promoted having kids seem to have been vilified. I find it kind of sad honestly...

dagss 3y ago

I think there's 2 topics that need to be held apart here: 1) Limiting number of children in rich countries. This is what your links talk about I think. Yes, perhaps there is a taboo in place here. Is that relevant to sustainability crisis though? Population is already declining in rich countries, quite naturally. 2) Limiting number of children in poorer countries. Well, as in the article pointed to in a sibling comment, "Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%"... So by saying that overpopulation is the root of the crisis -- are you not saying that it may be better that 10 poor people are not born, than for rich people to do minor changes to their lifestyle?

mytailorisrich 3y ago
The issue is the global population. Obviously, that's the metric that matters for global issues like the climate and environment. The global population is still increasing. Furthermore, as poor countries develop this is compounded by increased consumption (both resources and energy) per capita. In that respect, "richest 1% account for more emissions than poorest 66%" should be interpreted as very worrying when the poorest are getting richer. Ultimately we don't anyone to be poor. At current population levels this would probably mean a total collapse of the environment. Overall, the global population is indeed the root cause of our problems.
- vasco 3y ago
  I never understand this argument of overpopulation. How can you be OK with reducing population but at the same time worry about global warming? To have that position you basically need to reconcile two positions that to me aren't really compatible, unless someone explains it to me. Either it's fine for Earth to not have humans and just exist peacefully with the rest of the ecosystem until another lifeform takes over. Or it's not fine for the Earth to have no more humans and so we need to stop climate change from making the Earth uninhabitable for us, but if to do that we want to reduce the humans, I don't get it. To "kill" humans to save humans seems weird. I guess you can slide on the scale of "more people living worse", or "less people living better", but to choose who is not possible in my opinion, so this is not implementable. Because if you care about the Earth primarily, then warming or not doesn't really matter, it's just a geological event like many more gnarly ones over the history of meteorite impacts and so on. But if you care primarily about the humans, then how can the answer be to have less of them? And pick and choose who gets to reproduce?

Erratic6576 3y ago

Overpopulation isn’t the source of the problem, IMHO. A wild human being in their natural environment pollutes thousands of times less than an industrialised consumer. Each American or European, whose food is grown thousands of km away, is plenty more only to make their salad. Can they be blamed for their Carbon Footprint^TM? I think we should blame the fossil fuel corporations which have turned us into fuel junkies

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lancebeet 3y ago
Is that actually true? Nature has a very low capacity per area for "wild humans". I don't think the planet would support anywhere near 8 billion "wild" (hunter-gatherer) humans.
- defrost 3y ago
  It's actually true that some blame can be apportioned to fossil fuel companies that have actively pushed "more fuel consumption" since the 1970s, the Koch Group in particular funde a slew of think tanks to poo-poo and crash and burn any grass roots public transport movements in the USofA during the past 50 odd years. It's less true that a valid comparison should be "if not modern 21st Century life then hunter gather". There's a middle ground more agrarian, less hunter, lifestyle that supported a large population in the past and can likely support a larger population than Victorian times if farming | mining switched across to renewables (electric | hydrogen) instead of fossil fuels - we've learnt a lot about efficiencies in the past century, it's a matter of application and less consumption now, certainly time for less greenhouse gas being released.
  - Erratic6576 3y ago
    > It's less true that a valid comparison should be "if not modern 21st Century life then hunter gather". There are billions of shades of grey, like, for example, living like before the 2000’s, when the massive production of plastic crap in China produced pollution levels to skyrocket. The alternative meant paying wages in the west

Synaesthesia 3y ago

The big problem is the way that people want US-style lifestyles with big houses and cars. This consumes way more energy than European or Asian style living in apartments with public transport. Overpopulation will solve itself as countries develop. We’ve seen that over and over.

blkhawk 3y ago
nobody specifically wants shitty us style suburban planning with shitty us style houses. Plus it would hard to replicate that because its an artifact of historical cultural and political developments. In short it would be harder to replicate that instead of doing better. But yes they want a better life for themselves.
throwaway2990 3y ago
> Asian style living in apartments with public transport. ^ clearly never visited Asia. LOL
lozenge 3y ago
Well, the bulk of them want more meat, washing machines and air conditioning. The main increase of energy usage has been due to this, not people in urban areas eskewing apartments and public transport to drive cars and live in suburban houses. https://youtu.be/6sqnptxlCcw?si=FfqAqooG9qg4kejC https://youtu.be/6sqnptxlCcw?si=FfqAqooG9qg4kejC Another fun fact: 80% of the world's population has never flown, and only 2-4% fly abroad in a year.
- Synaesthesia 3y ago
  The amount of concrete needed to build such big homes contributes to carbon emissions, not to mention destruction of nature, and it also costs more to heat and cool.
ChatGTP 3y ago
Th USA and other industrialised countries operated with huge emissions because oil and gas were cheap and because no one factored in the externalities. Which includes energy security. Now that we are seeing a reversal to the status quo, you see the move to more efficient systems moving into full swing. The uptake of renewables is exponential now. I just renovated and fully insulated my house with cellulose fiber that was actually really cheap, double glazed inner windows and installed floor heating with a hydraulic heat pump. My energy bill is almost nothing of what it used to be and I’ve not installed my solar yet, but I’ll be starting in March. I did this because the price of gas, kerosene (water boiler) and oil have increased dramatically and the technology to do so exists and is cheap enough to make this investment a no brainer from an economic standpoint. It’s hard to imagine how cheap solar panels are now. I’m not the only person doing this. The USA and all other developing countries will adopt all these efficient gains at the same rate. No one is going to pay more for less.

yungporko 3y ago

i don't think overpopulation is the problem, but maybe it's a symptom. the problem is we've forced our way up to an unrealistically high standard of living which is completely unsustainable, and now we're trapped in an inescapable death spiral because nobody wants to go back. people aren't willing to stop paying for conveniences because they're cheaply available, corporations aren't willing to stop selling them because there's a demand for it and money to be made, and governments aren't willing to force anybody's hand because the people and corporations will both force them out of power if they try. there is absolutely no chance of breaking out of it other than giving up on democracy, but that will only happen when modern society collapses entirely, which will be far too late to prevent unimaginable suffering on a massive scale.

okr 3y ago
Yea, yea, people making their life better is now the reason. We must all live in poverty, because that is the natural state, where we obey the needs of nature. Nature is healing!! And for that we need to abandon demoncracy. And the leader should be who? Of course you, because only you know the solution! Cheeky ;)
- yungporko 3y ago
  you can put your fingers in your ears and say "la la la" all you want, it doesn't change the undeniable and objective truth. everybody knows the solution, *you* know the solution, it's just a hard pill to swallow so mental gymnastics are preferable. as a species we know that the overconsumption of resources is the problem. there are exactly zero valid arguments against that. anybody who claims that consuming less resources *isn't* the solution is either ignorant or lying.
  - chii 3y ago
    > consuming less resources isn't the solution it isn't, because no solution that require any form of altruism is an actual solution.
    - 3y ago

haizhung 3y ago

It’s not really taboo, it is being mentioned in, like, the comments on every 2nd post on climate change. The problem with this line of thinking (and similar ones like „what about China?“) is that it basically absolves you from any responsibility in the matter. After all, there are simply too many people on the planet, what could you possibly do about it? As other commenters pointed out - the west uses way too many resources compared to their population, and that is a problem. And it is absolutely possible to have a society that doesn’t drain the planet dry, but not with capitalism :-)

127361 3y ago
I'm super super low carbon footprint, personally. All ARM-based computers here, just Raspberry PIs and tablets, that can run from a portable solar panel if I want. Very few possessions too. I love coding and freedom so much more that having stuff. And even more so when doing so in the forest, amongst nature.
- danhor 3y ago
  The carbon impact of PCs is negligible for almost all people, and possessions are only a smaller portion of emissions (with the exception of high embodied carbon things like electric cars). Important things you can influence for a low carbon footprint are: - How do you heat and how much? Gas heating is surprisingly bad in the US due to the high amount of methane leakage - Do you drive a lot in a combustion car, or even worse, fly? - What kind of food do you eat? As a rough guideline, dairy and meat is pretty bad and beef much worse. Also the stuff that has to be brought in by plane. Living in nature often makes it harder to have a low carbon lifestyle and the things often associated with "good for nature" like reducing plastic waste and organic products are often worse carbon wise.
- graphe 3y ago
  When was your last flight and what's your usual mode of transportation? Transportation and heating/cooling use the most.
bagels 3y ago
As a westerner, the most impactful thing you can do is to not create more westerners.

Aerroon 3y ago

We also hitched a large portion of government spending and the economy to the population pyramid. If we don't have growth then we're in trouble.

127361 3y ago
And in the really long term that's completely unsustainable. So it's like a pyramid scheme scam, it requires a constant influx of new entrants. Whilst destroying the planet. I guess people even have their pension funds tied up into the system, so nearly everyone is forced to participate in it, against their wishes even. Update: Something to back that up: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/04/05/the-world-economy-is-a-pyramid-scheme-steven-chu-says/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/04/05/the-worl...

MrPatan 3y ago

It's not taboo in the slightest, it's everywhere. It's just that it wouldn't work because any group defecting and having more children would inherit the earth and you'd be back to square one, only now not even in control. It's the same mistake as every other decel "solution". It's so obvious, and so unbelievable that proponents don't think of it that one has to wonder, who pushes this? Qui bono?

guyomes 3y ago

> I believe that overpopulation is the root of the sustainability crisis This has been studied long time ago by scientists such as Alfred Sauvy [1], who concluded that overpopulation is not the cause of sustainability crisis, and that greenhouse gas is the major cause. In particular, limiting the growth of population has few impact on the production of greenhouse gas, whereas changing the means of energy production and consumption is much more impactful. Moreover the world population is expected to be less than 12 billions in 2100 [2], which is plainly sustainable. This is mostly due to the demographic transition, a pattern observed in most countries, where the fertility rates decrease over time. More specifically I recommend the excellent book of Emmanuel Todd and Youssef Courbage on this subject [3]. The authors argue that in most countries throughout history, when both the majority of men and the majority of women know how to read and write, then the fertility rate decreases, and a revolution becomes imminent. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sauvy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sauvy [2]: https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-projected-reach-98-billion-2050-and-112-billion-2100 https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-projected-reach-... [3]: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-convergence-of-civilizations/9780231150033 https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-convergence-of-civilizations...

lozenge 3y ago
Sustainable means different things to different people. In a simulator, could you have 12 billion people with their needs met, living fulfilled lives and continuing into the far future? Yes. Is there a political and practical way to reach that state? No. "One study estimates it would take just over 5 Earths to support the human population if everyone’s consumption patterns were similar to the average American." Any US government that tried to bring America's environmental footprint down to a sustainable or fair level would be voted out. It doesn't matter whether it would be gas taxes, meat taxes, per mile taxes, flight taxes, carbon tax and dividend, building renewable energy in less developed countries, or any other scheme. It doesn't matter if it was targeted at the ultra rich or the middle class. The sheer scale of it would cause Americans to vote out the government. And the same is true for any democracy and plenty of the non-democracies too.
- graphe 3y ago

matheusmoreira 3y ago

> And that taboo is probably rooted in evolutionary psychology No. It's because it inevitably puts you in the position of deciding who gets to have children while the rest are denied such privileges for the good of the species. In other words, eugenics.

RankingMember 3y ago
When I think of reducing the population I think simply of making birth control universally free and public information campaigns about the environmental cost of more humans. Nothing more than that, and that'd honestly be a huge step in a country where large swaths support abstinence-only sex education.

ChatGTP 3y ago

thought experiment, if the whole world migrated to nuclear energy and electric cars in the seventies would you still be touting the same rot ?