excellent website on population

[extractorfan]

Very optimistic of you.

Only on a peak oil forum could someone say that thinking collapse and fast die off is only possible with slow crunching economic decline over a number of decades more likely, is very optimistic....

love it

come on, maybe just optimistic please.

[biffvernon]

Meanwhile, how do population-reduction fans propose that we carry it out?? I refer back to Biff's post.

Well there just isn't an acceptable policy is there?

That's it, the population-reduction fans never come back with an answer.

So we are left with the tried and tested method that we know works. Educate women and provide good perinatal and child health care and security in old age. Given these conditions fertility rates plummet to just below replacement level. Iran is one of the most dramatic examples.

[Little John]

Meanwhile, how do population-reduction fans propose that we carry it out?? I refer back to Biff's post.

Well there just isn't an acceptable policy is there?

That's it, the population-reduction fans never come back with an answer.

So we are left with the tried and tested method that we know works. Educate women and provide good perinatal and child health care and security in old age. Given these conditions fertility rates plummet to just below replacement level. Iran is one of the most dramatic examples.

First things first.

There is enough of a problem getting perfectly intelligent people to even admit that there is a population problem. If we can at least get to that point, there may then be some further point in actually trying to come up with proposals/policies for how population reduction may be achieved if, indeed, it can be achieved at all.

I think that, for those people who would even deny the existence of the problem in the first place, it's a cop out to accuse those who would argue there is a problem that they have no policies for resolving it. Not that I am necessarily accusing you specifically of being a denier of the problem. Rather, I'm making a general observation that this is a common rhetorical tactic of those who would deny the problem even exists.

[UndercoverElephant]

Maybe the blindfold was for the benefit of the executioner...

Yes, it was. Spending one's working day looking people in the eye and then shooting them would not do wonders for one's sanity.

Meanwhile, how do population-reduction fans propose that we carry it out?? I refer back to Biff's post.

We lobby for one-child policies everywhere.

[UndercoverElephant]

Also, I think the decline in population will happen over a long period of time, maybe with jolts and surges along the way, but massive dieoff in a human lifetime I doubt.

I'm tending more and more towards the belief that a massive dieoff is going to occur before the end of this century.



Where is this graph going to go now?

My bet is that most of these lines are going to start following the green line downwards from now on. I think "peak life expectancy" (dodgy term, life expectancy doesn't follow a Hubbert curve) will follow peak oil almost immediately. I'm pretty sure that global life expectancy will be falling by 2020. Which leads to questions like "how far will it fall?" and "how long until it stops falling?"

[UndercoverElephant]

Let the export land model be applied to food exports instead of crude oil and you can see the real pending crisis.

Applying the ELM to food exports isn't so easy. Food is not like oil, even though their prices are linked.

If the economies of the worlds food exporting countries collapse in any significant way they will have no excess food to export nor the means to transport it.

Why not? How does economic collapse prevent food production? I mean...there's a link, but it is not a straight deterministic link.

The people in the countries that are importing that food will have nowhere else to turn to and no one will have any alternative other then war with their immediate neighbors to fight over the insufficient local supply. Currently world grain stockpiles are measured in days, not years, so even one bad year in one of the major producing countries (exporter or not) could start widespread starvation and resource wars.

I think the food crisis will manifest first as an unwillingness of countries to dip into their own safety reserves in order to send food to places where people are starving.

[UndercoverElephant]

Meanwhile, how do population-reduction fans propose that we carry it out?? I refer back to Biff's post.

Well there just isn't an acceptable policy is there?

That's it, the population-reduction fans never come back with an answer.

So we are left with the tried and tested method that we know works. Educate women and provide good perinatal and child health care and security in old age. Given these conditions fertility rates plummet to just below replacement level. Iran is one of the most dramatic examples.

You didn't read Kurt's essay, did you?

[UndercoverElephant]

Well there just isn't an acceptable policy is there?

That's it, the population-reduction fans never come back with an answer.

So we are left with the tried and tested method that we know works. Educate women and provide good perinatal and child health care and security in old age. Given these conditions fertility rates plummet to just below replacement level. Iran is one of the most dramatic examples.

First things first.

There is enough of a problem getting perfectly intelligent people to even admit that there is a population problem. If we can at least get to that point, there may then be some further point in actually trying to come up with proposals/policies for how population reduction may be achieved if, indeed, it can be achieved at all.

I think that, for those people who would even deny the existence of the problem in the first place, it's a cop out to accuse those who would argue there is a problem that they have no policies for resolving it. Not that I am necessarily accusing you specifically of being a denier of the problem. Rather, I'm making a general observation that this is a common rhetorical tactic of those who would deny the problem even exists.

Yes. I would go further and accuse Biff personally of being a denier of the problem.

[clv101]

There is enough of a problem getting perfectly intelligent people to even admit that there is a population problem.

I used to think it was a "population problem". Now after many more years thought and study around these issues I've come to the conclusion the actual number of people, whether it's 5bn, 7bn or 9bn is not the problem. It's quite possible for a relatively low number of people to screw things up and quite possible for a far higher number to be supported adequately. The population range we're looking at just isn't that big a deal with compared with the range of behaviour. If the change from 7 to 9bn is a range of 30%, yet the range of consumption is an order of magnitude then population is 3% of the problem compared to behaviour's 97%.

To consider some numbers, the US consumes 18.7 million barrels of oil per day, 22 barrels per person per year. It's 11 barrels per person per year in Germany, 6.5 for Mexico and just 1 barrel per person per year in India. The actual number of people is trivial given the 22-fold difference between the US and India.

Another way to think about it is that if the US population fell by 100 million, they would free up enough oil to support the consumption of an extra 2.2bn people living an Indian lifestyle! Or if the US halved its oil consumption, down to the level of Germany's (the horror!), it would free up enough supply for an extra 3.4bn Indians or an extra half billion people living a Mexican quality of life. It's all about consumption/behaviour.

The final important point is that as the population increases from 7bn to 9bn, the distribution of consumption changes. The extra 2bn aren't added uniformly to the current consumption distribution, most of them are added in Africa, where their consumption levels are very low. 30% more people on the planet does not lead to 30% more consumption.

[clv101]

Where is this graph going to go now?

Be careful extrapolating conclusions from those data. The Sub-Saharan Africa curve is unlikely to show the ultimate peak, it's the HIV/AID. According to this (Comparison_subsaharan_life_expectancy.svg) World Bank data, life expectancy is rising again.

[Totally_Baffled]

There is enough of a problem getting perfectly intelligent people to even admit that there is a population problem.

I used to think it was a "population problem". Now after many more years thought and study around these issues I've come to the conclusion the actual number of people, whether it's 5bn, 7bn or 9bn is not the problem. It's quite possible for a relatively low number of people to screw things up and quite possible for a far higher number to be supported adequately. The population range we're looking at just isn't that big a deal with compared with the range of behaviour. If the change from 7 to 9bn is a range of 30%, yet the range of consumption is an order of magnitude then population is 3% of the problem compared to behaviour's 97%.

To consider some numbers, the US consumes 18.7 million barrels of oil per day, 22 barrels per person per year. It's 11 barrels per person per year in Germany, 6.5 for Mexico and just 1 barrel per person per year in India. The actual number of people is trivial given the 22-fold difference between the US and India.

Another way to think about it is that if the US population fell by 100 million, they would free up enough oil to support the consumption of an extra 2.2bn people living an Indian lifestyle! Or if the US halved its oil consumption, down to the level of Germany's (the horror!), it would free up enough supply for an extra 3.4bn Indians or an extra half billion people living a Mexican quality of life. It's all about consumption/behaviour.

The final important point is that as the population increases from 7bn to 9bn, the distribution of consumption changes. The extra 2bn aren't added uniformly to the current consumption distribution, most of them are added in Africa, where their consumption levels are very low. 30% more people on the planet does not lead to 30% more consumption.

+1

[biffvernon]

Yes. I would go further and accuse Biff personally of being a denier of the problem.

Wot clv101 said

And from his example figures one might be forgiven for thinking it's not so much a population problem but an American problem.

(Just for the record, I happen to think the planet generally and England particularly would be a nicer place if there were fewer people but I don't think that will happen during my lifetime so I prefer to make the best of where we are with what we've got.)

[extractorfan]

(Just for the record, I happen to think the planet generally and England particularly would be a nicer place if there were fewer people but I don't think that will happen during my lifetime so I prefer to make the best of where we are with what we've got.)

Yes, so you don't deny "the problem", long term or anything.

I personally think some problems don't have solutions that are in any way human centric.

[hodson2k9]

There is enough of a problem getting perfectly intelligent people to even admit that there is a population problem.

I used to think it was a "population problem". Now after many more years thought and study around these issues I've come to the conclusion the actual number of people, whether it's 5bn, 7bn or 9bn is not the problem. It's quite possible for a relatively low number of people to screw things up and quite possible for a far higher number to be supported adequately. The population range we're looking at just isn't that big a deal with compared with the range of behaviour. If the change from 7 to 9bn is a range of 30%, yet the range of consumption is an order of magnitude then population is 3% of the problem compared to behaviour's 97%.

To consider some numbers, the US consumes 18.7 million barrels of oil per day, 22 barrels per person per year. It's 11 barrels per person per year in Germany, 6.5 for Mexico and just 1 barrel per person per year in India. The actual number of people is trivial given the 22-fold difference between the US and India.

Another way to think about it is that if the US population fell by 100 million, they would free up enough oil to support the consumption of an extra 2.2bn people living an Indian lifestyle! Or if the US halved its oil consumption, down to the level of Germany's (the horror!), it would free up enough supply for an extra 3.4bn Indians or an extra half billion people living a Mexican quality of life. It's all about consumption/behaviour.

The final important point is that as the population increases from 7bn to 9bn, the distribution of consumption changes. The extra 2bn aren't added uniformly to the current consumption distribution, most of them are added in Africa, where their consumption levels are very low. 30% more people on the planet does not lead to 30% more consumption.

I agree with most of what you just said. You make a good point about consumption being a problem but its not the only problem, both population and consumption are problems.

Over the short term i would say consumption to be of the most pressing problem. However over the long term the population will have to reduce, therefore population is also a problem.

As oil depletes, we will have to reign in consumption to support the population. However there is only so much cutting down on consumption that can be done to offset the depletion of oil and presumably food (just as with non-conventional oil offsetting the depletion of conventional oil, there will come a point when it can not do this no more).

At some point (50 years, 100 years i dont know) after we have cut down consumption levels to there absolute minimum, the population will have to reduce in order to feed/support them, unless you think we can support 7billion people without fossil fuels? (i expect the population to of reduced long before we get to this stage).

So i suppose what it all boils down to, is how many people do you think we can feed/support without hydrocarbons? If you think we can feed 7 or 9 billion then fine. If you don't think we can feed 7 or 9 billion then your going to have to admit that population is also a problem.

[clv101]

I agree with most of what you just said. You make a good point about consumption being a problem but its not the only problem, both population and consumption are problems.

Of course - but my point is that they are not even remotely equal problems, population is trivial besides consumption. Halve American consumption (down to European levels) and we free up ample for 9bn people to be accommodated.

At some point (50 years, 100 years i dont know) after we have cut down consumption levels to there absolute minimum, the population will have to reduce in order to feed/support them, unless you think we can support 7billion people without fossil fuels? (i expect the population to of reduced long before we get to this stage).

1.2bn Indians are fed today on a tiny fraction of the total oil supply we use (and they still manage to send rockets into space!). The oil supply could decline massively and still feed us all - if we behaved better.

So i suppose what it all boils down to, is how many people do you think we can feed/support without hydrocarbons? If you think we can feed 7 or 9 billion then fine. If you don't think we can feed 7 or 9 billion then your going to have to admit that population is also a problem.

'Without hydrocarbons' is a bit of a strawman, there'll be hydrocarbons available in at least small quantities, for centuries and it doesn't take much to feed people - as today's poor counties illustrate. I also think if population declines from 9bn to 7bn even to 5bn over centuries it isn't a 'population problem', slow changes are fine. Finally can we feed 7-9bn without hydrocarbons - technically yes, with different diets and a dramatically increased agricultural workforce.