excellent website on population

[UndercoverElephant]

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.

Where did you pull those figures from?

[Blue Peter]

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.

I don't know that a large proportion of the 1.2bn are well-fed are they?

In India, the 300 million of us who belong to the new, post-IMF “reforms” middle class—the market—live side by side with spirits of the nether world, the poltergeists of dead rivers, dry wells, bald mountains and denuded forests; the ghosts of 2,50,000 debt-ridden farmers who have killed themselves, and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us. And who survive on less than twenty rupees a day.

From Capitalism: A Ghost Story


Peter.

[hodson2k9]

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.

OK were not really getting anyway are we, were have to agree to dis-agree, at least you have admitted that population is a problem as well.

To be fair though this debate is rather pointless. You know and i know that there is going to be a die-off so the population levels will reduce anyway so were never know who was correct. And even if you are right your argument depends on all resources being shared equally on a global scale, thats not going to happen anyway so imo your argument is invalid.

[Little John]

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.

Where did you pull those figures from?

Quite so

All of which also conveniently ignores;

1) The entire history of human civilization which shows that humans will always allocate resources inequitably. This is not to say that we should not try and mitigate the above. But to solely rely on that which has proved so intractable a problem over our entire history is more than a little naive, at best. Basically, CV's argument rests on us all behaving a lot better towards each other. Well, who'd have thought it? Humans need to behave better...

2) The most damning indictment of this position, though, is that even if we accept the possibility of allocating existing resources more equitably and then we push the envelope even further out (to 9 billion) and assuming we have got in place, by that point, such incredibly efficient and equitable resource allocation systems that we can just about manage it, what the hell do people suppose is going to happen to the biosphere, on which our very existence depends, by that point?

It's already straining under our activities as it is. Equitably allocated or inequitably allocated resources, it really doesn't make any difference in the end. None of the population problem denier's arguments even begin to address this issue. I have put this issue up for debate on at least 2 occasions to this point in this thread, and it has been assiduously avoided.

The reason is obvious. It's unarguable.

[emordnilap]

It's already straining under our activities as it is.

But isn't that his point? That it wouldn't be straining at all if we all lived on the resources of, say, a Cuban?

As I said, though, I think you're both arguing the toss of the same coin - which side is shinier?

[hodson2k9]

As I said, though, I think you're both arguing the toss of the same coin - which side is shinier?

Yes, this!

[jonny2mad]

if you read the old die-off site you will see why we will never chose to all live like Cubans, but even jay hanson who gets the problem has these odd socialist notions of this mythical fairer world .

them that can hold on to the cheese will have cheese those that cant will have no cheese and will be cheese-less.

humans will run up to limits to growth then they will fight it out where the people who appear weak will get annihilated .



don't think theres much you can do to stop that, just try to avoid being one of the annihilated or cheese-less

[extractorfan]

Sucks if you don't like cheese.

[Little John]

It's already straining under our activities as it is.

But isn't that his point? That it wouldn't be straining at all if we all lived on the resources of, say, a Cuban?

As I said, though, I think you're both arguing the toss of the same coin - which side is shinier?

Firstly, people are not going to live as a Cuban does unless they are not forced to at the point of a gun. In which case, the implementation of such a policy would be no less fraught with human rights issues than would an enforced family planning policy

Secondly, I would argue that, even if we did all live like Cubans, this would only give us some temporary breathing space.

Thirdly, Cubans are not as free from hydrocarbon subsidies in their lives as you might imagine, though they have certainly gone a lot further down that road than the rest of humanity and so should be seen as an example of what can be done.

The truth is, our activities have been seriously degrading our biological systems for over a century now. We had already hit the limits by the nineteen sixties when we ran out of land that would grow significantly more crops.

And then something special happened.

We got the "Green" revolution. Although, more properly, it should have been called the "Amber" revolution since it comprised mostly of wheat and corn. This is where we bred up supercharged cereals that could grow two heads of corn instead of one and could be made to grow in areas previously considered insufficiently fertile. How did we do this? By the application of massive amounts of hydrocarbon-based fertilizers and hydrocarbon-fueled irrigation systems. All of which have now caused massive soil degradation around the world and the emptying of primordial aquifers that will take millions of years to replenish. The green revolution is just about the worst thing to have happened to life on earth since the invention of farming itself.

All of the above is what out current population levels now rely for their sustenance.

And yet, you and others would argue that we should attempt to put the earth''s systems under even more strain by aiming for 9 billion?

Are you serious?

[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.

Where did you pull those figures from?

In my post just above, 312 million Americas, using 22 barrels each per year, halve that down to 11 barrels and you free up 3.4bn person-barrel-years, enough for 3.4 billion more Indians or half a billion Mexicans.

[jonny2mad]

what can any of you people do to stop people in Africa or India having baby's . if your white your percentage of the world population has dropped from about 30 percent to about 8 percent, your having less baby's than replacement level as it is, so your not really the driver of population growth are you .

I suppose you could campaign to stop people giving money to charity's that feed the children etc , or get a job in the arms trade and start a bunch of wars but I really don't know what the hell you can do to stop world population going to 9 billion

[emordnilap]

And yet, you and others would argue that we should attempt to put the earth''s systems under even more strain by aiming for 9 billion?

Actually, I'm not arguing for one side or the other. I'm trying to get some perspective as I don't think it's as black and white as the die-offers are saying.

Anyway, Cubans, Schmoobans. Pick any nationality that uses half or less per capita resources of Americans and 9 billion is possible. Not desirable, note.

We shouldn't 'aim' for population growth but we should, most definitely, absolutely, limit consumption.

[Little John]

what can any of you people do to stop people in Africa or India having baby's . if your white your percentage of the world population has dropped from about 30 percent to about 8 percent, your having less baby's than replacement level as it is, so your not really the driver of population growth are you .

I suppose you could campaign to stop people giving money to charity's that feed the children etc , or get a job in the arms trade and start a bunch of wars but I really don't know what the hell you can do to stop world population going to 9 billion

Oh, we probably can't stop it. But what we can do is to stop bullshitting ourselves and see the problem for what it is. It may make no difference at all. But, if we don't face up to the problem and see it for what it is, then we will be guaranteed to make no difference.

[clv101]

It's already straining under our activities as it is.

But isn't that his point? That it wouldn't be straining at all if we all lived on the resources of, say, a Cuban?

As I said, though, I think you're both arguing the toss of the same coin - which side is shinier?

Indeed. It's not straining because there are 7bn of us, it's straining because there are hundreds of millions of us consuming an order of magnitude more that the rest. Given that fact, whether the total number varies by plus/minus 30% is trivial.

[clv101]

Oh, we probably can't stop it. But what we can do is to stop bullshitting ourselves and see the problem for what it is. It may make no difference at all. But, if we don't face up to the problem and see it for what it is, then we will be guaranteed to make no difference.

Exaclty! We probably can't stop the 30% rise, half of the mothers to be are already here. So we need to stop getting all worked up about the absolute number of people and concentrate on what really matters, what they actually do with their lives. Also note that the 30% increase to 9bn doesn't increase world consumption by anything like 30% as most of these extra people are arriving into areas with relatively low consumption.