Overpopulation one of the ten greatest threats to humanity

https://populationmatters.org/news/2020/04/23/report-overpopulation-one-ten-greatest-threats-humanity

by xiwenc • 6 years ago

15 17 6 years ago

The only threat.

drichel• 6 years ago

Result of a roundtable discussion wuth concerned citizens? Not convinced, I'm with Hans Rosling on this topic https://youtu.be/FACK2knC08E

mac010214• 6 years ago

All of the content of Dr. Rosling's talk is correct (and that is a very nice talk - thank you for the link).

But the title "Don't Panic" is the thing I'm most likely to disagree with. I don't panic about the exponential trajectory of population growth going into the future. I panic about the number of people already on the planet right now!

_Microft• 6 years ago

Peak growth rate (as percentage, not the absolute number of people per year) was half a century ago. We are now seeing the effects of a huge base value (i.e. size of the world population) while the actual growth rate is lower today, see graph [0] from the article on future population growth [1] in "Our World of Data". Overpopulation is a problem that is going to solve itself as people get older.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-%E2...

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth

mac010214• 6 years ago

i'm not sure what precisely you're trying to say.

If P(t) is the global population at time t and P' is dP/dt, then you're saying

1. P(2020) is huge, and 2. P'(2020) is low P' -> 0 as t increases beyond 2020

#2 is indeed true, but it means that P will be at least as huge going forward.

garmaine• 6 years ago

The hell it is. Make any chart productive use of resources, and you’ll find it correlates perfectly with population. There is no such thing as natural resources—there are only raw materials. Which are transformed into productive applications by the creativity of people. More people means more efficient use of raw materials, and more available resources to extract from them.

The Malthusians predicted global collapse at 100M people. Then 250M people. Then 1bn, 2bn, 5bn, and 7bn. Yet somehow instead of famines we have an obesity epidemic.

Don’t believe Malthus, or the racially motivated social Darwinism that drives the horrendous “population control” human rights abuses still being perpetuated.

natmaka• 6 years ago

There are many types of 'resources'. Aren't we exposed, for example, to some form of 'behavioral sink' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink ), and if so isn't any practical way to tackle this some form of 'control'?

unclemase• 6 years ago

Good book on this by Dr. Christopher Tucker: A Planet of 3 Billion https://alumni.columbia.edu/content/planet-3-billion

thokalll• 6 years ago

I recommend reading “The prophet and the wizard” that among others things discuss overpopulation.

Many times have there been claims that the earth can not sustain a growing population, there must be an upper limit, but It is not easy to Know if we’re close to, already past, or at the limit right now

Rochus• 6 years ago

It's also interesting to note that education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions to contribute to environment protection; having one fewer child is by far more effective than anything else; here is a peer reviewed scientific publication: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541

aklemm• 6 years ago

Conflict of interest (economic growth relies on population growth) and historic problems infringing on human rights while attempting to control population. But yeah, it’s a shame we can be frank about this.

aaron6952• 6 years ago

The planet can support 100 Billion people, with current technology and keeping current ecosystems including repairing them.

Not sure why we are taking about a report with lines like these -

"Lowering the human birth rate voluntarily is surely better than the alternative of massive dieback or slaughter of billions of people in their prime."

Also not sure why we are worrying about a problem at best a 100 years in the future when fossil fuels will serve no purpose, computers will be all powerful, we will have mastered gene tech, might have space elevators etc etc

mac010214• 6 years ago

The planet can support 100 Billion people, with current technology and keeping current ecosystems including repairing them.

That is far from obvious to me.

aaron6952• 6 years ago

It's tight, but run the figures and it's possible with current tech.

We would have to be vegan, live in apartments, a lifestyle the same as many happy people today live, and even better for many people.

You'd use a lot of current deserts (particularly the ocean).

If you could sink all the environmental groups you could work on ecosystems that actually matter, use nuclear energy and make real improvements to the world.

With technology that should be very soon, like fake meats, VR, a cheap hydrogen economy, cheap medical. It could be better than today.

Of course 100 billion is just silly atm with current tech. No point thinking about it until centuries time and we have far future tech, if we need it.

dmm• 6 years ago

Birth rates are below replacement almost everywhere and have resisted every attempt to raise them. By 2030 the US will have 50% more retired people per working person. Overpopulation isn't our future, Japan is.

knaq• 6 years ago

That is just the observers being impatient and failing to understand evolution or exponential growth.

The USA is on a path to become Amish. They have 85% to 90% retention and about 8 kids per woman.

Exponential growth clobbers any sort of linear change. The subpopulation with the highest growth rate will quickly displace all others, and then that growth rate becomes universal.

Japan is not an exception. Japan is temporarily in decline. Look carefully though, and you will identify subpopulations in Japan that have high population growth. Some might only have a thousand people today, but with exponential growth they win in the end.

mac010214• 6 years ago

While I understand the mathematical phenomenon you're describing, it does not seem realistic to suppose that the Amish will continue their exponential growth to the point where they constitute a majority of the country's population.

Overpopulation one of the ten greatest threats to humanity

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