Population Control, anyone?

[Daniel25]

Cutting back consumption will certainly help, and is a good idea, but even that will eventually reach the limit if population continues to grow.

Do you have a plan to get most families that are consuming $120,000 to cut back to $10,000 per year? If you have such a plan, please share how it will work. If you have no such plan, then it really does not address the problem.

Which is a better plan: Trimming the birth rate now, or cutting people back to $10,000 a year spending until that no longer works, and then trimming the birth rate?

Right now, I am interested in attacking the framing of the question. Basically, changing the question from consumption (which is the actual driver of ecological strain) to "population", is a comfortable way for sexually dysfunctional westerners to shift blame to those damn third worlders, and to propose draconian restrictions on those damn breeders, when the source of any problems that do exist are themselves.

 

[Etsi]

any sort of ecological problem is one of consumption, not of population. The family of 8 in India who consumed $10,000 puts much less strain on the enviroment than the western couple w/ vanity child who consumed $120,000 a year.

It's known that many large families survive because we know how, and practice, consuming less.

Those of you, go ahead and have one child. I have eight. If your one and one of my eight were in a car accident, I still have a chance of having a child that will care for me in my old age (I don't count on social security).

We have enough to feed the world. You need to talk to the governments that are paying farmers to not produce. You need to talk to deal with Monsanto that undermines farmers and production.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Autumnleaf, if there were 20 billion people living on every square mile of earth, would that be too many? You have used logic that says that, since there were not too many people in the past, therefore there are not too many people now. One could use the same logic if there were 20 billion people per square mile sometime in the future. One could say that there were not too many people when warnings about overpopulation came in the past, so therefore 20 billion per square mile is not too many. So I wander if you can agree that there is a limit to population size? Can you agree that if there are 20 billion people per square mile, that this would be too many? And if you can agree to that, can you see that the argument that there were not too many people in the past, is not a valid argument for saying there are not too many people now?

So would you like to answer the question? If there were 20 billion people per square mile of earth, would that be too many?

They are part of everybody. So keep them in mind too.

Yes, any attempt to control population would need to work in Third World countries also. That makes it very difficult. I understand that. But I still think that, when we get to the point that there are too many people, that it would be better to reduce the population by 2 billion people by birth control rather than let 2 billion people starve. Which would you pick?

The carrying capacity of the world is much more than 7 billion. Go run the numbers if you don't believe me.

I have shown you a site that runs the numbers, and says we are 30% over the carrying capacity of the earth. If you think their numbers are wrong, what calculation do you have that shows otherwise?

And would you also say it would be wrong to warn about overpopulation even if the population grew to 20 billion people? What if it grew to 20 billion people per square mile? For your logic says that, if there are 20 billion people per square mile, then we should not worry about that, for people were wrong about overpopulation in 1800.

What if it did? Start that thread when we get there.

So you simply evade the question? You use logic that says that if there are 20 billion people per square mile, that is not too many. I ask if you really mean that, and you simply evade the question? Do you really intend to infer that 20 billion people per square mile is not too many, and then evade the question when asked if you really mean that?

Especially among those of us who have a scientific background and understand how to estimate the world's carrying capacity.

You understand how to estimate the world's carrying capacity? Great!

Tell us, please, what is the world's carrying capacity, and how did you estimate it?

And predictions about peak oil, and other warnings, have proven to be remarkably accurate. It is the naysayers about peak oil that have been forced to constantly modify their utopian predictions downward.

No they have not. They have proven to be wrong time after time.

Really? People have been estimating for years that oil production will peak between 2000 and 2015. They have predicted that it will be followed by rising oil price, wild price swings, and economic hardship. Sure enough, in 2005 we reached the peak in conventional oil production, and have never been able to match it. Oil prices have soared, and we have turned to expensive alternates, but the conventional oil production has not risen. Their predictions have been remarkably accurate.

In the meantime, the EIA has been giving rosy predictions of future oil production, and constantly needs to modify those predictions downward as production trends fail to match their predictions. See The EIA’s oil production optimism peaks | Energy Source | This blog has been archived – FT.com .

Some places are being over fished and others are not. There are fish farms now where there were none before and they are farming huge numbers of fish.

Uh, yeah, the "some places" that have been overfished are the world's oceans.

For instance:

The over-exploitation and mismanagement of fisheries has already led to some spectacular fisheries collapses. The cod fishery off Newfoundland, Canada collapsed in 1992, leading to the loss of some 40,000 jobs in the industry. The cod stocks in the North Sea and Baltic Sea are now heading the same way and are close to complete collapse.
​

( Overfishing | Greenpeace International )

With over 70% of the world's fisheries significantly depleted or worse, how can this be a minor problem?

Topsoil can be fertilized, fresh water is limitless and energy is also limitless because the sun isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Uh, fertilizer only replaces certain ingredients. It does not increase the organic topsoil content. That is what is depleting.

And fertilizer production requires abundant concentrated energy, something that is in short supply.

And there are severe limits to the available phosphorous for fertilizer.

If oil ever gets tapped out you will see huge innovation in solar and other energy areas because the oil companies will start using all those patents they've been buying up.

Uh, oil is already being tapped out. We are over the peak in conventional oil production, and we are seeing huge efforts to innovate in solar and other energy areas. And yet we have seen little improvements in these areas, at least not enough to make them competive with the cheap fossil fuels we have long enjoyed.

 

[Supreme]

I think this is a bit of scaremongering. All 7 billion people could fit into Texas, so we certainly don't have much land shortage.

In the past, we, like every other species, were kept in check by disease and famine (and wars), and our population remained relatively stable. However, the recent industrial revolution and advances in medical science mean that there are far more of us. We can sustain this population, there's no reliable limit on how many of us there can be... yet.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Cutting back consumption will certainly help, and is a good idea, but even that will eventually reach the limit if population continues to grow.

Do you have a plan to get most families that are consuming $120,000 to cut back to $10,000 per year? If you have such a plan, please share how it will work. If you have no such plan, then it really does not address the problem.

Which is a better plan: Trimming the birth rate now, or cutting people back to $10,000 a year spending until that no longer works, and then trimming the birth rate?

Right now, I am interested in attacking the framing of the question. Basically, changing the question from consumption (which is the actual driver of ecological strain) to "population", is a comfortable way for sexually dysfunctional westerners to shift blame to those damn third worlders, and to propose draconian restrictions on those damn breeders, when the source of any problems that do exist are themselves.

Uh, I have agreed that cutting back consumption is a good idea. We agree on that.

What about the 30% overconsumption already claimed to exist? How do you intend to cut back 30% of water, fish, meat, pollution, carbon emissions, etc? Should we add hundreds of worldwide regulations forcing people to cut back, so we decrease the total consumption by 30%?

And why would that be better than cutting back the population by 30%?

And if population continues to grow, won't we eventually reach the point where cutting back consumption no longer solves the problem, and we then need to cut back population by birth control?

 

[Defensor Fidei]

Wow. So you are not in agreement with finding out if we are indeed in population overshoot? Why not? What is wrong with finding out if we are indeed in overshoot? How can you possibly be against finding out if we have overreached?

It's been 'found out' already. We are not in a population overshoot.

And you are against making plans to reduce birth rates if needed? I can understand being against birth rates reductions if such reductions are not needed. But my question was a hypothetical question. If reductions in birth rate are needed, then are you in favor of reducing them? Are you sure your answer to that question is "nope"?

Correct.

I do not favor dictating to individual couples to 'reduce their birthrates', under any circumstances.

Excuse me, but just several minutes ago you wrote, "The dramatic population growth is going on in the Third World, and it will eventually level off just as the West's did." [emphasis added]

Were you not speculating that the Third World will undergo changes? And now you say you cannot speculate about the Third World?

Were you for speculating about the Third World before you were against it?

I don't know what you are trying to say here. I wasn't 'speculating' that the Third World is undergoing industrialization. It is a fact.

Interesting. So Rome did not collapse? And the Easter Island population did not collapse? And the Maya civilization did not collapse?

And here I thought collapses have happened in the past.

None of which had anything to do with "population overshoot".

Why do you concentrate on judging somebody's predictions of the past, rather than looking at the data relevant to today?

You mean like you just did...

And predictions are sometimes right.

If forecasters are predicting a category 4 hurricane will hit your location on the beach in 2 days, will you just laugh and say predictions are often wrong?

The fact that some predictions are wrong does not prove that all predictions are wrong.

Predictions about population overshoot are wrong. I can predict that the sun will explode tomorrow. That wouldn't make it a valid and rational concern to prepare for.

Uh, what you said is that cutting back would go a long way to solving our problems. I agree with that.

How do you know that no longer driving Escalades will solve the potential problem of population overshoot?

I'm talking about solving real problems, not the whole "population overshoot" thing.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I think this is a bit of scaremongering. All 7 billion people could fit into Texas, so we certainly don't have much land shortage.

Uh yes, if you can fit 12 people in a telephone booth, then you can probably fit 7 billion people into Texas.

But how are you going to find fresh water for all of those people? Currently Texas and much of the Midwest is drawing down water from the Ogallala aquifier, depleting 250 million acre-feet from this supply so far. It is expected to run out in 25 years. If we increase our outtake by a factor of 25, it will be dry by next Christmas. Then what?

So how are you going to find water for 7 billion people in Texas?

Even if we only maintain present rates, and dry this aquifier up in 25 years, where will we then go for water to irrigate the Great Plains?

See Ogallala Aquifer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regarding scaremongering, 10 years ago people warned that New Orleans was not prepared for a major hurricane. Were they scaremongering? People that are concerned about the facts, and are asking for a rational response to a potential problem, are not scaremongering.

 

[k450ofu3k-gh-5ipe]

I think all the people who are concerned about overpopulating the world should sacrifice for the good of humanity and commit mass suicide. Surely the good of the world is more valuable than your life? The population problem would be solved!

 

[Harpuia]

Didn't we go over this with some guy who believed that we need to wipe out 90% of the world's population for some weird stone tablet thingy?

 

[PHenry42]

Statements like "we need X planet Earths to support our current lifestyle" are utterly fallacious. They are based on the presumption that natural resources are a finite resource of which there exists some amount on a pile somewhere, from where they can be freely taken until they suddenly run out in a snap.

It isn't like that. Total natural resources that there are is (effectively) infinite, though the marginal effort required to harvest them increases the more we use them. Some oil deposits are close to the surface and easy to extract from. Those are the deposits that are supposed to run out in 50 years. After them, there are others, poorer and farther underground. They aren't economical to exploit atm, but were the easier deposits to deplete, the oil price would (presuming we'll be as oil-dependent then as we are now) increase, and those poorer and deeper deposits get exploited. And so it goes, resource prices going up and up and, slapped by the invisible hand of the market, resource austerity and efficiency would be forced on us and in our individual self-interest.

It's not an ideal solution, and certainly something we want to forestall, to the extent that we might want to consider suitable government intervention to smoothen the adaptation. But, even if we don't, it won't be the end of human civilization. Just a potentially very painful transition.

 

[doubtingmerle]

It's been 'found out' already. We are not in a population overshoot.

That's great news. How did they discover that the earth is able to sustain a population of 7 billion? Please show me the figures.

Please note that the only analysis on the table so far--(see Ecological Footprint )--says we are 20% over the sustainable amount. What is your source that says otherwise?

If you have an analysis that says otherwise, then please put that analysis on the table.

I do not favor dictating to individual couples to 'reduce their birthrates', under any circumstances.

Even if billions of people die of starvation in a collapse of civilization? If you had to choose between reducing worldwide birth rates, and seeing billions die of starvation, you would choose mass starvation? Really?

That's odd, for I would think most people would prefer reduction of birth rates instead of mass starvation. Can you explain to us why you would prefer mass starvation if it came down to that decision?

So Rome did not collapse? And the Easter Island population did not collapse? And the Maya civilization did not collapse?

And here I thought collapses have happened in the past.

None of which had anything to do with "population overshoot".

Huh? I didn't say the collapse of Rome or Easter Island were caused by overshoot. I said they collapsed. This defeats the arguments that says that such collapses never actually happen.

And BTW, many do think the Mayan collapse was largely caused by population overshoot.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I think all the people who are concerned about overpopulating the world should sacrifice for the good of humanity and commit mass suicide. Surely the good of the world is more valuable than your life? The population problem would be solved!

Humor, eh?

Why would the mass suicide of 2 billion informed citizens be preferred over reducing the birth rates? I would think reducing the birth rates is preferable to mass suicide.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Statements like "we need X planet Earths to support our current lifestyle" are utterly fallacious. They are based on the presumption that natural resources are a finite resource of which there exists some amount on a pile somewhere, from where they can be freely taken until they suddenly run out in a snap.

Uh, the calculation at the website I indicated was not based on non-renewables like oil, but was based on the earth's ability to provide renewable materials like food and fresh water, and to recycle our wastes.

It isn't like that. Total natural resources that there are is (effectively) infinite, though the marginal effort required to harvest them increases the more we use them. Some oil deposits are close to the surface and easy to extract from. Those are the deposits that are supposed to run out in 50 years. After them, there are others, poorer and farther underground. They aren't economical to exploit atm, but were the easier deposits to deplete, the oil price would (presuming we'll be as oil-dependent then as we are now) increase, and those poorer and deeper deposits get exploited. And so it goes, resource prices going up and up and, slapped by the invisible hand of the market, resource austerity and efficiency would be forced on us and in our individual self-interest.

Uh, the reserves of oil that are reported include all the oil that is known, including that which is located miles below deep oceans. And much of the remaining supply is very difficult and expensive to access. It includes oil located 4 miles deep in the ocean under a mile of water.

The fact is that much of the remaining known reserves will be exceeding expensive to extract.

How do you know that there is additional oil deeper down? And how do you know that it could be recovered at all?

 

[Diamonds2004]

No repliers are doing the nuanced move of looking at why there are higher fertility rates in other countries principally on the continents of African and parts of Asia. Ther has only been a description of concerns, but no suggestions of how to solve it in part.

The following are incentives for people to voluntarily choose lower birth rates.

Humans beings are beings that do risk assessment towards opportunity costs. In some nations there is no financial or physical safety net to help with hard times. You have only your family net to support and catch you, thus larger number of kids to help you in older age. When safety nets are installed people have fewer children as resource redistribution becomes less of an anxiety to keep food, shelter, and clothing within reach during older age.

Fertility rate drops with an increase of female literacy and females attending school, especially as you go into higher education. Knowledge of basic pediatric care like treating dirrhea saves children's lives using rehydration salts and good food. Women knowing that their children have great success in living rather than dying before age 5 inspires more women to have fewer children instead of having to gamble which kid lives into adulthood. Those are examples of voluntary, positive stresses to reducing birth rates.

Other things are the opportunity costs for women working in the work place and how a pregnancy effects her entering the workforce, retaining employment, and re-entering the workforce if she takes time off to spend all her time raising her children. If the costs are seen as too great where one would lose opportunities to retain employment or be socially discriminated against in the hiring process then women choose to forgo children for longer periods of time and this reduces birth rates. This is seen much in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. Now they are facing the consequences of this and having far to few children to remain a steady population and the population is aging quickly.

Above all else is the case made of subsidized birth control. This goes all the way in abstinence education, to selling at stores barrier methods to hormonal contraception given by doctors. This specifically deals with non-abortion methods that prevents egg and sperm from meating, not the termination of conceived human life already in utero. It has been shown in studies that women that pay at least a small amount of goods or money will more likely use birth control successfully as it is something that they want.

Other things that have been done in countries with very high fertility rates and wanting to drop them is the example of India. Money comes not in the forms of steady paychecks, but in sporadic lumps as seasonal work and customer loads come and go. This is the reality for the majority of people in India. People want the steady paycheck and compete for government jobs on local up to national levels. In some areas of India to qualify for a job or standing to be voted into a position you can have a maximum of two living children. This financial incentive has worked very well in most areas to help reduce birth rates.

Notice in all of these things people retain their lives, liberty, and property.

 

[AceHero]

And predictions about peak oil, and other warnings, have proven to be remarkably accurate. It is the naysayers about peak oil that have been forced to constantly modify their utopian predictions downward.

No they have not. They have proven to be wrong time after time.

Really? People have been estimating for years that oil production will peak between 2000 and 2015. They have predicted that it will be followed by rising oil price, wild price swings, and economic hardship. Sure enough, in 2005 we reached the peak in conventional oil production, and have never been able to match it. Oil prices have soared, and we have turned to expensive alternates, but the conventional oil production has not risen. Their predictions have been remarkably accurate.

Autumnleaf, doubtingmerle is correct. Just look back at our own oil production. M. King Hubbert was mocked in the 1950s when he said American oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. Guess what? It peaked during the year of 1970. More oil was pumped that year in the U.S. than ever before, and ever would be. And don't give us the whole "we can drill in Alaska" spiel. It wouldn't be even close to enough. We need to admit the truth: the oil age is quickly ending on a global scale, and we're not willing to accept it. That's really dangerous.

 

[doubtingmerle]

The following are incentives for people to voluntarily choose lower birth rates.
[clip]
Notice in all of these things people retain their lives, liberty, and property.

Thanks for sharing. Yes, there are many things that can be done to lower the birth rates.

The opening post suggests that we may need a very steep decline in the birth rate, dropping to something like one child per couple for the next 50 years. The opening post asked that we find out what rate is required. If your suggestions can reduce the birth rate to the required amount, that is fine.

Do you think your suggestions could bring the rate down to one child per couple if we find we need to do that?

 

[CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN]

All the contries can try 1 child per person like China,force teens and everyone else to get sterilized after they get pregnant once,since that went really well for China(not)If your that concern,u can get fixed and try to incourage friends. I guess.Personly I don't worry about such stuff,because every thing seems fine where I live.

 

[chris4243]

There are now 7 billion of us on planet earth. (see 7 billion people fuel concern over world resources - SFGate ).

Some day we will reach the limit of how many people can live on this planet, yes? We cannot continue to add people indefinately, can we?

There are a limited amount of renewable resources on earth. The problem is that, when we run low on resources, we can continue for a while in an "overshoot" condition, in which we draw down on available reserves at rates greater than what could be sustained. It can be argued that we are already in overshoot, that it would would require 1.3 planets the size of the earth to maintain the demand of our current population on the renewable resources of this planet. (see Ecological Footprint)

Let's assume we have 50 years to bring our population down to the point that it requires only 1.0 planets to maintain our population. That means we need to reduce our population to 7 / 1.3, or 5.4 billion. Suppose we were to take the huge worldwide step of requiring every couple to have on the average 1 child. Then each successive generation will be 1/2 the size of the previous generation. How long will that take to fix the problem?

Let's simplify and do a quick calculation. Assume there are currently 2 billion people over 50 (call them "generation 1"), 2 billion between 25 and 50 ("generation 2"), and 3 billion people between 0 and 25 ("generation 3"). Now assume that in 25 years, everybody over 50 will die, everybody in generation 2 lives on, and everybody under 25 lives on and will have their 1 and only allowed child on their 25th birthday. Then, 25 years from now, there will be 2 billion people of generation 2, 3 billion of generation 3, and 1.5 billion of the new generation 4, for a total of 6.5 billion people on earth.

Repeat the same assumption 25 years later. Generation 2 then dies, the 3 billion people of generation 3 and 1.5 billion of generation 4 live on, and generation 5 is added with .75 billion. Now we have reached 5.3 billion, just under our 5.4 billion limit.

The problem is worse. Most of our agriculture depends of oil and natural gas, much of which will be gone in 50 years. If much of the green revolution is lost, because we no longer have the petroleum to fuel it, must we cut down much more than the back-of-the-envelope calculation here?

Enforcing an average of no more than one child per couple is a huge undertaking, but the calculations show something like that may be necessarily. The alternative is a huge die-off, as we would then depend on a rising death rate to bring population down to manageable levels.

Should we be asking our governments to study this problem in detail, and if we really need to reduce to 1 child or less per family for the next 50 years, to begin a program to enforce that?

What happens when some people ignore the child restriction and have as many children as they wish, and pass on their genes and values to them? For that matter, how do you plan convincing people to restrict everyone's reproduction?

 

[chris4243]

I think this is a bit of scaremongering. All 7 billion people could fit into Texas, so we certainly don't have much land shortage.

Some of us like to eat, use electricity, that sort of thing.

 

[chris4243]

I think all the people who are concerned about overpopulating the world should sacrifice for the good of humanity and commit mass suicide. Surely the good of the world is more valuable than your life? The population problem would be solved!

It would actually be catastrophic if all the people concerned about the future committed mass suicide. Then who'd there be to stop you from killing off all your grandchildren and their civilization?