PowerSwitch

Posted: **17 Apr 2012, 21:37**

http://www.populationelephant.com/

About this website:

Climate change, energy depletion, food shortages, resource wars, species extinction - these are not the problem, they are only the symptoms. The singular root problem that causes all these horrifying threats to mankind is overpopulation.

So - logically - the solution that will eliminate these threats is simply to reduce the population of humans on this planet to a sustainable number.

Yet, no one proposes this obvious solution. No one is even willing to discuss it.

It is the Elephant in every room.

Except here.

http://www.populationelephant.com/PEthe ... ticle.html

The Real Problem

Some things are so preeminent within their context that they need no adjectives or explanation. Ask any American football fan what is referred to by "The Play" and they will tell you abut the final play in the 1982 Cal/Stanford game when, after several laterals and a mad dash through the Stanford band, Cal scored the winning touchdown as time expired (do a Google search on "the play" and see for yourself). Likewise, "The Open" refers only to the British Open golf tournament, even though there are dozens of other "Open" athletic events.

The world today is beset with a host of major issues - oil depletion, climate change, food shortages, resource wars, species extinction - to name but a few. But these are only symptoms of the one true problem. "The Real Problem" - the one that spawns all others, and the one that mankind must face at some point - is that there are simply too many human beings on this planet.

Therefore, I suggest, that like "The Play" and "The Open" - hereafter overpopulation should be referred to as "The Problem".

http://www.populationelephant.com/cassandradilemma.html

Clearly, for most people, apathy, denial, and false hope obscure the reality of the danger ahead. The essential question then becomes: How can their apathy, denial, and false hope ever be overcome? The Cassandras among us have completely failed so far.

I think I know why.

But instead, we Cassandras continue putting out scholarly essays, books, and videos. We attempt to convince through our solid logic and our depth of information. We debate the nits and details of peak oil and population projections. We argue about which solution is best, while at the same time expressing that it doesn't really matter because no one will do it anyway.

I assert that what we Cassandras are doing is exactly what is described in that worn-out definition of insanity: "Insanity is doing the same thing over-and-over again, and then expecting a different result."

I think I have an answer. For the last eighteen months I've been working on this problem, and I believe I've come up with a creative and unique solution. Bear with me here - this gets a bit complicated.

The first part: I've written a book (well, half a book) called "The Corn Guild". This is a work of fiction, a fast-paced thriller intended for the general public. It covers a period from 2028 to 2036, a period that chronicles the beginning of collapse (a time when the general public is just beginning to be concerned and scared), to the actual collapse event in the year 2036. And while it is primarily intended to be an accessible easy read, it also educates the reader along the way (much like my earlier novel "The Eden Proposition").

However, the book is the small part of this effort. The big part - the unique and creative part - is called "The Faminarchy Project". The Faminarchy project is a website ( www.faminarchy.com ) where The Corn Guild book can be read (for free) in its entirety. The plot-line of "The Corn Guild" ends just as the collapse event begins in 2036. This is the 'set-up'.

At the Faminarchy website I am asking others (those concerned about sustainability, or even those who are just interested in writing) to contribute a short story about what will happen during this collapse event in 2036 (there are several examples of possible plot lines provided). Like any fiction, these stories will have specific characters, in a specific locale, doing specific things (these stories are not another opportunity for a generalized scholarly essay!).

These 'famine stories' will then all (unless wildly inappropriate) be published on the website as they come in. I encourage the writers to delve into their dark places and create horrifying and extreme stories of chaos and violence - nothing hopeful. I'm betting that this exercise in group creativity will yield many extraordinary (and frightening!) efforts.

This aggregation of famine stories will then force those who read them, and especially those who write them, to experience a clear conceptualization of our shared and dangerous future. Lacking the Cassandra camera, this is perhaps the best we can do.

I am reaching beyond the usual sustainability suspects by contacting as many university creative writing programs as I can. As we all know, it is essential that we find a way to get younger generations involved. And I will make every effort that I can to publicize the website through Facebook and Twitter in order to get the widest possible attention and readership. I believe there is a chance that this could get substantial traction - it is a unique idea.

If you believe this to be a valuable effort, please forward this essay to everyone you know. And please, go to www.faminarchy.com for further information. You can read "The Corn Guild" there. I'm sure you will find it to be an informative and intriguing read, a non-stop page-turner! Then, put on your frustrated-fiction-writer cap (you know you have one!) and create your very own short story masterpiece. You can do this.

It is essential that we find a way to increase awareness of the real danger ahead. Only then can steps be taken to avoid the abyss.

Please help with this project.

Posted: **17 Apr 2012, 23:46**

No one is even willing to discuss it.

They should get over to PS from time to time. But then, what can anyone do about it? The social set up won't allow for doing anything.

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 00:08**

woodburner wrote:
No one is even willing to discuss it.
They should get over to PS from time to time. But then, what can anyone do about it? The social set up won't allow for doing anything.

Not at the moment it doesn't. Maybe that will always be so, maybe not.

I think the issue here is not so much whether or not we can directly do anything about it, but how it influences the wider debate about sustainability. Unless we acknowledge The Problem, much of the rest of the debate is pointless, because it is based on a fantasy.

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 00:26**

UndercoverElephant wrote:
woodburner wrote:
No one is even willing to discuss it.
They should get over to PS from time to time. But then, what can anyone do about it? The social set up won't allow for doing anything.
Not at the moment it doesn't. Maybe that will always be so, maybe not.

I think the issue here is not so much whether or not we can directly do anything about it, but how it influences the wider debate about sustainability. Unless we acknowledge The Problem, much of the rest of the debate is pointless, because it is based on a fantasy.

Yes

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 07:47**

...the solution that will eliminate these threats is simply to reduce the population of humans on this planet to a sustainable number.
...
I believe I've come up with a creative and unique solution. Bear with me here - this gets a bit complicated.

Make your mind up, lad; is it simple or a bit complicated?

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 08:20**

No good posting that question here, the quote was from another site.

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 09:13**

My former religion encouraged members to marry young and have lots of children because god wants us to multiply, quite a lot of religions are like that .

So unless your somewhere like communist china good luck with compelling people to have less children .

At present we are bringing in millions of people from the third world so you stop having kids and abdul will have seven for you .

We have had this conversation before, but talking about population having it on tv 24/7 will do no good, the only people who will listen most likely are people who are already anti children like yourself .

I don't know how old you are, but at some point you conclude that your not going to be able to change the minds of everyone really I may be mad responding to you but hey ho .

people WILL NOT CHOOSE TO STOP HAVING CHILDREN TO AVOID DIE-OFF its going to be a fight for resources

The people who don't stop having children have a evolutionary advantage over you , they may not give a F--k about the planet and believe in imaginary sky people, but they will produce offspring their point of view and genes will go on yours are sadly to weak to survive.

Natures mighty cruel and hard

Han (enter the dragon) It is difficult to associate these horrors with the proud civilizations that created them: Sparta, Rome, The Knights of Europe, the Samurai... They worshipped strength, because it is strength that makes all other values possible. Nothing survives without it. Who knows what delicate wonders have died out of the world, for want of the strength to survive.

Our so called civilization with its declining birthrate and mass immigration, is one of those delicate wonders thats about to die out for want of strength to survive.

if you had really strong borders then maybe you could control population inside those borders but you don't. read "camp of the saints" we are too weak a people to survive and we seek our own destruction .

Anyway in a way what I'm saying is bad news it means I think destruction and die off that will destroy europe and America is inevitable, this time when we go into overshoot it wont be limited to some remote island like easter Island

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 09:19**

Unless we acknowledge The Problem, much of the rest of the debate is pointless, because it is based on a fantasy.

go to a cornucopian type church or mosque and get everyone there to acknowledge we have a problem with population

I'm not holding my breath waiting for you to succeed because dude you wont

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 11:28**

It's a good idea, if we / you / people of similar opinion want to promote the thinking of overshoot to start calling it "The Problem".

Referring to it as such in blogs, social media, mainstream media, books, newspaper etc will lead people to question what "The Problem" is, but having a generic name for it will lend credence to the fact that it is indeed a problem to be considered in the first place, rather than the apparent blatherings of a mad man.

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 11:50**

We mostly agree that lots of people need to die if sustainability is to be achieved.

The question is: would we be willing, theoretically, to put ourselves in the place of the Africans whose aid is cut?

If not, then any talk of idealism on our part is sheer hypocrisy - unless our "idealism" incorporates the notion that rich white people are more deserving of life than poor black people.

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 11:51**

woodburner wrote:No good posting that question here, the quote was from another site.

Indeed. I was just pointing out, with my usual subtlety, that it might not be an "excellent website on population".

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 11:51**

This isn't an 'excellent website on population'. It just rehearses the tired and lazy idea that the number of people are what's important. It isn't. What's important is what those people actually do.

I've made this point several times on PowerSwitch before:

clv101 wrote:The question of 'carrying capacity' is almost always the wrong question. The actual number of people, whilst interesting is dwarfed in significance by what those people actually do - their behaviour in short.

Carrying capacity is a useful term in biology, as most animal's behaviour is extremely limited in variability. It's not possible for one rabbit to use 100x as much resource as another rabbit. All rabbits behave, like rabbits. So the best way to describe the requirements is by the size of the population.

This logic doesn't hold for humans. Some humans do use 100x the resource of others. The UK could support 100 million people, 10 million people or just 1 million people - depending on behaviour.
http://powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtop ... 285#202285

clv101 wrote:
cubes wrote:The only way to tackle the problems you talk about is population control - and that means a 'cull' of the population.
This really isn't the case. Remember 'impact' is population x behaviour and that population is minor factor when compared to behavior. What is the degree of freedom of population? 3 bn, 6 bn, 9bn? Maybe a factor three at most? What's the degree of freedom of behaviour? It's many orders of magnitude between the richest and poorest people in the world. 9 bn people behaving in a low impact way, can be far more sustainable than 3 bn people behaving in a high impact way.
http://powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtop ... 844#173844

clv101 wrote:
foodimista wrote:To me our basic, inevitable and recurring problem is the matching of food supply to population level.
No, I really don't see this as a problem. We already grow dramatically more food than is needed to feed 7bn people well. The problems are to do will allocation and behaviour etc. We feed an awful lot of it to animals for very small return, biofuels are having a significant impact now, the 'developed' world wastes huge amounts and access to what is available is grossly unequal.

Whether the global population is 5bn, 7bn or 9bn is a small issue compared to the magnitude of the above. The total food supply is ample, we're just hopeless at allocating it to the world's mouths.
http://powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtop ... 883#160883

Behaviour is a far more complex area to understand - which is why a lot of people ignore it, preferring to focus on the blunt idea of population. Disappointing for website using the strap line "A resource for those who are willing to think"!

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 12:12**

clv101 wrote:This isn't an 'excellent website on population'. It just rehearses the tired and lazy idea that the number of people are what's important. It isn't. What's important is what those people actually do.

I've made this point several times on PowerSwitch before:

clv101 wrote:The question of 'carrying capacity' is almost always the wrong question. The actual number of people, whilst interesting is dwarfed in significance by what those people actually do - their behaviour in short.

Carrying capacity is a useful term in biology, as most animal's behaviour is extremely limited in variability. It's not possible for one rabbit to use 100x as much resource as another rabbit. All rabbits behave, like rabbits. So the best way to describe the requirements is by the size of the population.

This logic doesn't hold for humans. Some humans do use 100x the resource of others. The UK could support 100 million people, 10 million people or just 1 million people - depending on behaviour.
http://powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtop ... 285#202285

clv101 wrote:
cubes wrote:The only way to tackle the problems you talk about is population control - and that means a 'cull' of the population.
This really isn't the case. Remember 'impact' is population x behaviour and that population is minor factor when compared to behavior. What is the degree of freedom of population? 3 bn, 6 bn, 9bn? Maybe a factor three at most? What's the degree of freedom of behaviour? It's many orders of magnitude between the richest and poorest people in the world. 9 bn people behaving in a low impact way, can be far more sustainable than 3 bn people behaving in a high impact way.
http://powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtop ... 844#173844

clv101 wrote:
foodimista wrote:To me our basic, inevitable and recurring problem is the matching of food supply to population level.
No, I really don't see this as a problem. We already grow dramatically more food than is needed to feed 7bn people well. The problems are to do will allocation and behaviour etc. We feed an awful lot of it to animals for very small return, biofuels are having a significant impact now, the 'developed' world wastes huge amounts and access to what is available is grossly unequal.

Whether the global population is 5bn, 7bn or 9bn is a small issue compared to the magnitude of the above. The total food supply is ample, we're just hopeless at allocating it to the world's mouths.
http://powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtop ... 883#160883
Behaviour is a far more complex area to understand - which is why a lot of people ignore it, preferring to focus on the blunt idea of population. Disappointing for website using the strap line "A resource for those who are willing to think"!

Presumably, though, you are able to conceive of a situation where behavior, alone, is insufficient.

To take an analogy, imagine you have three people locked in a room where there was enough food for four people; they would all get a bit fat. Add a fourth person and all that is required is that they change their behavior. Add a fifth person and, as long as the people are prepared to live on a subsistence diet, then they will all survive. However, add a sixth person and it really doesn't matter what changes to behavior are implemented,. There just isn't enough food to go around anymore.

Given all of the above, all you are really arguing here is that we have not yet reached the point at which behavioral changes cannot cope with increases in population size. However, for you to be able to make that argument, you must have some notional figure in your mind as to what that point is otherwise you would be logically unable to make the argument you have.

So what is it?

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 12:12**

Ludwig wrote:We mostly agree that lots of people need to die if sustainability is to be achieved.

The question is: would we be willing, theoretically, to put ourselves in the place of the Africans whose aid is cut?

No. The question is whether we would be willing, theoretically, to put ourselves either in the pace of the Africans whose aid is cut and all of their potential descendents, if they survive, who will not recieve any aid in the future because there's no spare food left.

What is worse - dying of starvation once, or dying of starvation five times?

If not, then any talk of idealism on our part is sheer hypocrisy - unless our "idealism" incorporates the notion that rich white people are more deserving of life than poor black people.

I don't agree. It may be the case that "poor black people" will be over-represented in the early stages of die-off, but that doesn't mean the wolf won't arrive at our door eventually. This has nothing to do with race. It has to do with culture, and the relative sustainability of various parts of the planet.

Posted: **18 Apr 2012, 12:15**

biffvernon wrote:
woodburner wrote:No good posting that question here, the quote was from another site.
Indeed. I was just pointing out, with my usual subtlety, that it might not be an "excellent website on population".

What's wrong with it? Is that the biggest criticism you could think of?

The reason it is simple and complex at the same time ought to be obvious. It is simple in the sense that there are too many humans on this planet, and a lot of us aren't going to survive the coming apocalypse, and that it makes sense to try to reduce the population ASAP. That really is mind-blowingly simple, although many people try to make it much more complicated because they don't like the conclusion. What really is complicated is how we actually achieve this - even how we get people (including you, it seems) to admit the problem is real and incorporate it into their thinking.