Convince me that the world isn't overpopulated

[metis]

About 30 years ago, a team of scientists in varied disciplines studied the question as to how many people Earth could hold and not basically destroy the planet, and they concluded 3 billion. Well, ...

 

[Estro Felino]

If I provide valid arguments and convince you, will you leave?

I will be convinced and change my mind.

 

[Valjean]

Monaco has a population density of 63,093 people per square mile. They seem to be doing all right.

Ecological and economic effects aren't confined to specific regions.

So summarizing, people are greedy so let them die.

More accurately, people's greed and shortsightedness are killing the ecosystem that supports them.
People are not naturally suited for long-term or extra-regional planning.

 

[Valjean]

Go on a road trip. Lots of open land.

Land's not the problem, it's disruption of the worldwide natural systems and cycles that sustain the ecosystem all life depends on. Pollution, resource depletion, &c. is the problem.

 

[Valjean]

And how much mining is required to make those solar panels? And are all of the components readily available, or are they in short supply? And when they no longer work, can we dispose of them without soiling the environment?

Excellent points. Few people consider the indirect or long-term effects of technology -- which is why they so often come back to bite us in the arse.
As I understand it, the benefits, all things considered, currently outweigh the harm.
Unintended consequences almost always pop up, though, so continuing vigilance is always a good idea.

 

[Valjean]

Imagine those panels in Scandinavia.

They seemed to work in Germany, one of the cloudiest countries in Europe.

Funny Blue Stuff – Solar Power in Brattleboro | iBrattleboro.com

www.ibrattleboro.com

They figured out a way to use their existing banking and power systems to begin to shift from dependence on coal and nuclear power to solar. And all it took were pretty small tweaks in the grand scheme of things. A minor recalibration in the way money moves around in the energy and banking sectors has turned the country into a solar powerhouse. Within the past decade, Germany has gone from near zero to producing 8,000 megawatts (MW) of power from solar, the equivalent capacity of eight nuclear power plants in the United States.

If anything, the government underestimated how rapidly Germans would embrace the program and thus how much more power would be produced and how quickly. By 2007, Germany accounted for about half of the entire world’s solar market. Just that one year, 2007, saw 1,300 MW of solar-generating capacity brought online
across the country.

And this is an old article. Pholtovoltaics is much cheaper and more efficient, today.

 

[icehorse]

About 30 years ago, a team of scientists in varied disciplines studied the question as to how many people Earth could hold and not basically destroy the planet, and they concluded 3 billion. Well, ...

Sad to say, i'm not sure it hasn't already happened

 

[idea]

Land's not the problem, it's disruption of the worldwide natural systems and cycles that sustain the ecosystem all life depends on. Pollution, resource depletion, &c. is the problem.

I agree we need to find better sustainable solutions for energy, food, housing, transportation. Technology I have hope in. I see wars, politics, religion as the main obstacle.

 

[idea]

Sad to say, i'm not sure it hasn't already happened

The secret of NIMH
National Institute of Mental Health....

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Alexandra Paul has always been wonderful at explaining how this is a problem.
And it's not a matter of space. The spaces are borderless. The problem is resources, since so many lands are unproductive and 8 billion people is an unsustainable number.
And besides that, world overpopulation has been causing nothing but social inequalities and maldistribution of wealth.

And the shocking thing is that when I was born, world population was 4 billion.
Now it has doubled. It has reached 8 billion, and I am still young. Almost all of my former classmates are childless.
And they have no intention of making babies. Not only because of the uncertainty of the future...but because they don't want kids that will have to live in a nightmarish, overpopulated world.
I also advise people that being child-free is better, and they yell at me, telling I am wrong. Since the West is the one which is going through a birth rates collapse, and that it's other continents which should decrease their birth rates.
But the truth is that the future kids will have to face overwhelming immigration, and the discomfort of an overpopulated world.
So...we should think of their future.


View attachment 83178

Birth rates

I can't. Some estimates indicate there are 28 decillion living things on the Earth. That's way too many I think.

 

[Valjean]

I agree we need to find better sustainable solutions for energy, food, housing, transportation. Technology I have hope in. I see wars, politics, religion as the main obstacle.

I see them more as a symptom.
Won't these sustainable solutions only further fuel the explosive growth, and deleterious consequences, we're already experiencing?

 

[Valjean]

I can't. Some estimates indicate there are 28 decillion living things on the Earth. That's way too many I think.

Make your case.
27 decillion microbes await your explanation.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Make your case.
27 decillion microbes await your explanation.

Some of them are on my side. They do their best to reduce the population of other living things.

 

[Estro Felino]

The secret of NIMH
National Institute of Mental Health....

That movie is my favorite animated movie ever.
Because I understood as a child that science can improve people's lives.
And as a child I was already aware of the damages of discomfort and chaos, if people don't become intelligent as the rats did, through medicine and science.

 

[Estro Felino]

I can't. Some estimates indicate there are 28 decillion living things on the Earth. That's way too many I think.

If humans didn't exist on this planet, it would be a better place.
Unfortunately that's the truth.
We are a cancer to this planet.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

If humans didn't exist on this planet, it would be a better place.
Unfortunately that's the truth.
We are a cancer to this planet.

I wouldn't say that. We just need to learn self-control as a population and recognize our place in the greater scheme of things. A little humility as a species wouldn't hurt either.

Any living thing reproducing and doing what it is capable of unabated would do the same. Of course, we have an oxygen atmosphere as the result of some of the historical activity gone to the extreme in the context of those living things that were part of the mechanism for it. Those photosynthetic microorganisms wiped out a great many of the anaerobic microbes that came before them.

 

[idea]

I see them more as a symptom.
Won't these sustainable solutions only further fuel the explosive growth, and deleterious consequences, we're already experiencing?

The more technologically advanced countries tend to have lower birth rates, reproductive rights, better health services. It tends to be the less advanced, less educated countries where population growth is unsupported.

 

[icehorse]

The more technologically advanced countries tend to have lower birth rates, reproductive rights, better health services. It tends to be the less advanced, less educated countries where population growth is unsupported.

Yeah but the tech countries use 20x or 30x more resources per person

 

[Valjean]

The more technologically advanced countries tend to have lower birth rates, reproductive rights, better health services. It tends to be the less advanced, less educated countries where population growth is unsupported.

True, but also the highest, per-capita harmfulness; plus reduction in family size takes a generation or two to kick in, after education and social security improve.
Don't get me wrong, Education and social reforms are good, but we're way beyond the point where rearranging the deck chairs will make much difference. The planet's foundering fast.

 

[Estro Felino]

Yeah but the tech countries use 20x or 30x more resources per person

But underdevelopped countries are filled with people who wish they lived in the tech countries, so they massively migrate, almost always illegally to first world countries.