The Population Bomb Did Not Disappear
Year, population, and rate of growth
1950........2,556,000,053 18.9%
1960........3,039,451,023 22.0
1970........3,706,618,163 20.2
1980........4,453,831,714 18.5
1990........5,278,639,789 15.2
2000........6,082,966,429 12.6
2010........6,848,932,929 10.7
2020........7,584,821,144 8.7
2030........8,246,619,341 7.3
2040........8,850,045,889 5.6
2050........9,346,399,468
The RATE OF GROWTH is falling, but the population growth will continue for quite some time. By the time it reaches equilibrium, deaths=births, we will have further overshot the earth's carrying capacity.
The population bomb isn't just about famine, though there is, of course, a connection. It's also about CO2 and methane; petroleum, gas, and coal extraction and use; production of clothing, housing, transportation; increases in the global average temperature; the rising ocean, increasing difficulty to obtain agricultural yields in a very unpredictable climate. An expanding population requires MORE of everything.
Population is one of the engines of global warming -- one that a lot of people do not want to talk about because reproductive behavior seems to be unmanageable on a global scale, or the actions that might be required to sharply reduce population growth, or worse, or to reduce population already born, are to many people unthinkable.
To the extent that environmental degradation leads to an existential crisis, we had better find a way of talking about population, and soon, if not 3 decades ago. 151,600 people die each day while 360,000 babies are born per day. The population of the world thus grows at about 159,000 people EVERY DAY.
Just to be clear, all of us are in the "excess population" category. It's not just 'them' over there on the other side of the Pacific or Atlantic; it's also us in Europe and North America. We all will have to cut our growth rates. Perhaps collectively we will have to let one another know that IF we fail at controlling population, there won't be a massive relief effort.
What say you?
1950........2,556,000,053 18.9%
1960........3,039,451,023 22.0
1970........3,706,618,163 20.2
1980........4,453,831,714 18.5
1990........5,278,639,789 15.2
2000........6,082,966,429 12.6
2010........6,848,932,929 10.7
2020........7,584,821,144 8.7
2030........8,246,619,341 7.3
2040........8,850,045,889 5.6
2050........9,346,399,468
The RATE OF GROWTH is falling, but the population growth will continue for quite some time. By the time it reaches equilibrium, deaths=births, we will have further overshot the earth's carrying capacity.
The population bomb isn't just about famine, though there is, of course, a connection. It's also about CO2 and methane; petroleum, gas, and coal extraction and use; production of clothing, housing, transportation; increases in the global average temperature; the rising ocean, increasing difficulty to obtain agricultural yields in a very unpredictable climate. An expanding population requires MORE of everything.
Population is one of the engines of global warming -- one that a lot of people do not want to talk about because reproductive behavior seems to be unmanageable on a global scale, or the actions that might be required to sharply reduce population growth, or worse, or to reduce population already born, are to many people unthinkable.
To the extent that environmental degradation leads to an existential crisis, we had better find a way of talking about population, and soon, if not 3 decades ago. 151,600 people die each day while 360,000 babies are born per day. The population of the world thus grows at about 159,000 people EVERY DAY.
Just to be clear, all of us are in the "excess population" category. It's not just 'them' over there on the other side of the Pacific or Atlantic; it's also us in Europe and North America. We all will have to cut our growth rates. Perhaps collectively we will have to let one another know that IF we fail at controlling population, there won't be a massive relief effort.
What say you?
Comments (71)
My dear departed father was actually a world-renowned professor of gynaecology and obstetrics, and was seconded to the WHO in Geneva, where he worked on the programs to introduce contraception on a large scale. He had read all of the infamous Club of Rome reports and was extremely pessimistic about the future (he died in the early 1990s). He spent some time working on Indian population control initiatives, but I think he and his peers made practically zero headway with it.
As it happens, of course, the Green Revolution, and also the rapid industrialisation of India, postponed the inevitable reckoning that he thought would arrive last century. But - only postponed, not cancelled. I agree that ultimately Malthus' predictions will prove to be accurate. I am often possessed by the thought whilst doing the shopping that 'the world can't afford your lifestyle', and that we are going to discover this through some catastrophic occurrences which can't be too far away.
But as my dear father learned, persuading populations not to increase is basically an impossible task. The urge to reproduce is an unstoppable force.
I think this is a big part of the problem. With each passing day, painless solutions are less likely. And it seems difficult to ethically justify the Thanos solution (a random lottery to decide who dies), not to mention that people will fight to save themselves and their loved ones.
I think once it is too late, and famines, etc. are killing many millions or billions of people, then people may approve of harsh (like killing people) measures. But not until we are sitting on the precipice of total annihilation.
Due to my natural disposition, I don't want kids. Is that enough for me to say it is everyone else's problem because I did my part? I don't think so. But is there any other "painless" approach other than convincing the vast majority of people to have less kids, with a large portion needing to have zero? In my mind, if the misery of raising children does not deter people, why would some logic about saving the world convince them?
Should we all start donating money to @schopenhauer1 and maybe he can convince the rest of the world?
Quoting Bitter Crank
From that jumbled response, I think you can see that I am not sure :grimace:
Definitely a big problem though.
On the one hand, it seems fairly clear that the situation is hopeless: GO @Schopenhauer1!!! On the other hand, I hate that -- "There ought to be a way around the problem". But I don't see one. It's extremely unlikely that the share of 7.5 billion people who are young reproductives are going to decide that they should reproduce at less than the population replacement rate of 2.1 children per couple. Holding the population steady isn't enough -- we have to shrink it.
People in stable, prosperous industrialized nations tend to have low birth rates - often below the replacement level. That may be good for population alone, but prosperous industrialized nations use up a lot of resources, and immigrants to nations with shrinking populations tend to scale up their standards of living in the destination country. Every individual who becomes resident in the U.S., for instance, consumes much more than they would in Guatemala, Mexico, or Somalia.
Population is one aspect of the global crisis, global warming, pollution, and resource exhaustion being other aspects. At some point (not all that distant) the supply of oil and natural gas will start to diminish, and with it, the basis of the whole industrial agricultural complex of food production.
There are some things that could be done... We [the world] could back off on child survival and maternal health programs. We could cut back on vaccination programs. We could stop food assistance programs. We could not rescue immigrants in the deserts or on the oceans. We could stop life-lengthening treatment for people once they are 75 years old (frees up resources). We could lower the standards of care for illnesses and injuries--letting more people die, in essence.
We [the world] may need to decide that when famine strikes, aid will not be forthcoming, unless progress in the famine area has previously been made in reducing population--not just slowing growth.
First-world countries will have to abandon their high standards of living (which are extremely costly in terms of food, fiber, metals, energy, etc.) and revert to reduced (poorer) lifestyles. This in itself need not be a miserable experience, but it would require some tough adjustments.
We've been living in a fantasy world of continual growth and ever-rising standards of living. The fantasy is becoming downright indecent.
Any donations to the Schopenhauer1 Fund are appreciated :grin: .
No problem. Thanks for the shout out :grin: .
Morality is about self-discipline, i.e. about what you feel that you should be doing. It is never about what other people should be doing. That is not morality. On the contrary, that is a mere delusion.
This is in diametical opposition to Kant's Categorical Imperative. The CI of Kant is precisely what one should do must be acceptable to one if all did the same. So K is INSTRUCTING US what to do.
You are saying instruction in morality is not morality.
You may retort that that's not what you said; you may retort that instruction is up for the student of morality to internalize or not, according to the student's own choice.
However, the very fact that we instruct, is a coercion; which is nothing else but trying to convince others how to behave. This coercion is successful in educating a large percentage of the population; therefore for practical purposes, people do what others tell them to do, and that is in opposition to what you are saying.
If you still insist on morality being ONLY what one feels one should be doing, and without outside influences or coercion or reasoning, then what one feels should be doing could potentially include murder, rape, theft, damaging public property, blasphemy, spitting in public places, throwing away trash, putting chewing gum under your theatre seat, pissing on toilet seats and fidgeting during sermons at church.
I would urge you to please consider that the entire history of morality in society has been based on instruction, and telling people what they must, ought, should, do, by moral consideration.
This has been for some mysterious (but thankfully thankful) reason totally abandoned by the North American fundamentalist circles. Thank god.
But in Muslim countries this practice is alive, and done with a vehemence. They can't be stopped from making children like there was no tomorrow. This is not because they are thirld-world countries. This practice is alive in those Muslim countries as well, that have far surpassed the West in making it possible for all its individuals to attain a luxurious lifestyle. This practice of maximalizing the number of children born in Muslim countries is independent of factors of education, income and asset levels, or size of penis. This is the norm created, maintained, and enforced by the Koran.
With bumps on the road, yes. Remember the cold fusion project that was declared a success one day, and the next, debunked? Back in the eighties or nineties, I think.
Well, if someone creates cold fusion reactors, we've got it made. For another 100,000 years,then the same problems will rear their ugly rears.
You don't hear much about neutron bombs any more. These days we're into the population growth of the British royal family. Now, there is a bunch that is rabbit-like in the aspect currently under our scrutiny.
Morality does indeed also deal with conflict resolution. Making victims while breaking moral rules creates the issue of victim compensation. I don't see how a third party could claim to be a victim when someone else makes more children than he believes is suitable.
Quoting god must be atheist
People subscribe to these teachings or they don't. The choice is theirs.
The choice is theirs to a point, but beyond a point the choice is no longer theirs.
The most intolerant wins.
For a plethora of reasons, the side which wants to use coercion in order to limit population growth is in a strategically bad position. Not only is the other side known to be much more intolerant, but it can also more easily replenish any losses to its head count.
If it is obvious that you will always win by arbitrarily decimating the other side, then why not do it? This outcome is also logical. It is the ones who say that there are too many people, who are the ones who will have to vacate the premises first.
So, setting off a neutron bomb in Toronto would wreck too much property to be useful for solving the housing problem. There are lethal alternatives, but let's not go there.
The risk is real. The potential for avoidance is what I am optimistic about.
Pessimistic hellscapes, like those of Erlich, just don't play out. He is more confident of his predictions than he ought to be.
Optimism oughtn't downplay the risk of the challenges we face, climate change being one large dark cloud on the horizon. That cloud comes with plenty of unknowns and we are best served when we deal with those risks rationally, scientifically, positively and in a non-partisan fashion.
As to the population curve, we are not herds of antelope. The reduction in fecundity, both in the industrialized world as well as the developing world, reflects an ability of humans to act individually and locally, in dealing with global stressors. Failing to respect the rationality of the individual, bringing top down solutions (e.g. China), rather than approaching it from bottom-up and giving families the tools to manage procreative desires against financial burdens, spells problem.
Shouting "population bomb" for the 3rd or 4th time just doesn't carry the same weight, especially in light of the birth dearth that industrialized nations like Japan are facing.
I take load-bearing measures of the Earth with respect to population, when paired with a pessimistic klaxon, with a grain of salt. The developed world may have to curb its consumption, but I'm not convinced our ability to extract efficiencies from resource usage in our environment will hit an insurmountable barrier before we dynamically adjust our population to the limits of our resources. If it were not leveling off, globally, I might be more concerned that our web of signals and responses was catastrophically misaligned as it applies to altering our behavior vis-a-vis population growth.
Regular old fusion is on the 20 year horizon. It runs on seawater. No risk of meltdown or runaway chain reaction.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ten-serious-nuclear-fusion-projects-making-progress-around-the-world/
I used that argument in the side issue of morality and only for that. I did not specifically meant to apply to this case.
While you may have meant your argument to specifically apply to the case of overpopulation, I did not get your drift. Maybe one of us ought to have specified the scope of our argument.
How do people know the future? I have never been successful at it.
@Fishfry, what's the winning combination of Lotto 6/49 in five weeks? And who won the World Series in 2032?
That's silly. Fusion is a technology currently getting a lot of government and private investment. Experimental fusion reactors are already generating power. If I said that AI and robotics will be important in the future would you make that same disingenuous remark? Read the article I linked.
I read the article you linked. I saw no date or time span predictions. Therefore as far as I can see, the 20-year prediction is yours.
How do you do it?
And of course I understand that you don't want to divulge such information as winning lottery numbers. If I knew them, I'd keep them to myself, too. No silliness is expected of you.
And "How do you do it" is something I expect you also won't answer. If I knew the secret to eternal life, I sure would keep it to myself, you can be certain of that.
Other sources. I've been reading up on fusion power lately. You're acting like those people in 1995 who said the Internet was a fad. Keeping up with technology news is not like picking lottery numbers.
If you said "In 24 years and six months AI machines will produce enough food for 49 billion people" I would also call it silly.
You put a precise and exact 20 years to fusion reactor success. I contest your ability (if you haven't noticed that yet) that you can predict now what will happen in the ensuing 20 years.
Wrong simile. The Internet WAS there. Fusion reaction that sustains itself and produces extra energy is NOT here. I don't contest that it's possible. I contest your ability to predict when it will happen. That's all.
Again, for the third time I spell it out: I only contest your ability to specifically predict they will be here in 20 years. Sorry.
Slow day around here?
You did NOT talk about fusion. You mentioned cold fusion, a technology that's never been conclusively demonstrated to work at all. Of course you're right, I did not mean 20 years literally to the day, just indicating a likely or possible general time frame based on the high interest of governments and private startups, and the status of currently successful pilot projects.
Yeah...
True enough, except that people usually don't exist as "raw population". The whole Humvee-style economy is a very perverse aberration.
You heard abut the 'isotope powered accident"? I understand the Russians are busy trying to build some sort of atomic powered rocket -- either a very fast high flying rocket, a low flying very fast cruise missile, or a drone torpedo armed with a large thermonuclear weapon. More nonsense. We will, of course, match them. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
We attempted this sort of technology back in the 1950s, early 1960s, at the Idaho Nuclear Laboratories. The project was abandoned as too risky.
It requires monumental stupidity for a species to paint itself into such a corner that it depends on some future technology that might never materialize to stave off an existential threat.
That's what we're going to end up doing, though. I don't have much hope for us.
Quoting Purple Pond
Not in industrialized societies. Medicine is advancing rapidly and allowing consumers to live longer than ever. The main reason certain groups in industrialized societies reduce their average number of offspring is economic, not a lack of resources.
It is unrealistic to think that human beings will ever curb their desire to reproduce, regardless of the limited carrying capacity of our environment. Furthermore there are no natural predators to keep our population in check, meaning the only historically significant ways large scale population reductions could occur--and they will occur--are famine, war, and disease.
The idea that a future technology will prevent this kind of reality is ill-founded, though we may through technology extend the limits of what our environment can sustain (e.g. agriculture) we will still have a limited amount of space to exist in and our numbers will continue to increase. Technology cannot solve what is essentially a human problem.
Tell that to the people who died in the pandemic, the famine, the tidal wave, the war, the sinking boat, the earthquake...
What has forestalled the dooms predicted by Malthus or Ehrlich are improvements in agriculture and sanitation -- nothing terribly complex. Both of those have limits: Once improvements that depend on large energy inputs have been fully implemented, more energy inputs won't result in continual increase. There is only so much food value that plants can extract from soil. Once the sewers are built, the drinking water supply secured, and routine public health measures such as hand washing are established, more sewers, more water pipes, and more hand washing won't improve life.
So, we can feed more people and prevent many diseases. The population grows and eventually reaches a number (in the billions) where the supply chain is over-booked, and if anything goes wrong, orderly society starts falling apart.
Quoting RogueAI
Precisely.
Quoting Purple Pond
At this point, however, births are about double the rate of death. To paraphrase Ebenezer Scrooge, "If more people are going to die, then they had better get on with it."
The major improvements in longevity have come about through better agriculture (more and better food -- this goes back to the late 19th / early 20th Century. Civil engineering in the form of sewers and pure water systems also can take credit for longevity. The third thing that has made a large difference is public health measures such as vaccination programs.
"The average age" of people has always been kept low by infant and child mortality. If people made it through the first few years of life, they had a good chance of making it to adulthood. Once they were adults, they had a reasonably good chance of making it to their 60s. Some lived Into their 70s, 80s, and even 90s--not a lot, but some. Even today, the number of people 100 and older is really very small.
Medicine has played an important role in the quality of life, certainly, but only in the 20th century, and not until antibiotics went into production during WWII. Advances in medicine, while very helpful to the sick, haven't lengthened life that much. Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, etc. haven't added many years onto the average lifespan. I'm not criticizing cancer specialists in saying this.
Those factors you mentioned that reduce human populations are still significant. Natural predators are replaced by human predators in the form of warfare, and arguably much more devastating. There’s also loss of habitat for humans, which menifests itself in homelessness.
We should have stayed in caves? I don't follow your point. I've got 200,000 years of human progress on the side of my argument. You've got 200 years of failed doom and gloom predictions going back to Malthus and spectacularly exemplified by Erlich.
That’s how it is now, but it won’t go on like this indefinitely. When the population overreaches its capacity, there’s going to be much more deaths.
Sinking boats and earthquakes support the idea of ecological collapse? What are you talking about? People do get hit by city buses, I'll grant you that. Totally did not follow your point.
The scientists who built and detonated the first nuclear bomb were in the same shoe. They had no clue what would happen if the bomb worked. Some opined it will destruct the entire Earth, and for sure its entire biosphere, as they opined that the nuclear chain reaction would increase and multiply, not subside and die off after the initial explosion.
they detonated the bomb nevertheless. The bastards.
Malthus said that 200 years ago and Erlich said it in the 1960's. Both turned out to be wrong. Why should I believe you today?
Of course from a numeric perspective, there are more deaths every day since the population is increasing. But that's not an argument, it's just an observation that everyone dies and the more people there are, the more people die in absolute numbers. Did you have a more nuanced point to make?
Same thing as the Armageddon described by the two Yehova's Witnesses to me the other day. They also named famine, war, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as sure signs of something or other,. I forgot which. I was mesmerized by them... one was a sixty-something beautiful woman, wearing 45 lbs of make-up. She looked as sexy as Pamela Lee Anderson in her best years. I wanted her... could not have her. So I just listened to her until it was time for her to go home.
I'm still smarting for her. Armageddon... mmm... yummy.
"It is unconscionable to call for a decrease in birth rates rather than an end to an economic system based on the maldistribution of wealth between the Global North and the Global South, to leave undisturbed the fossil-fuel industry that powers unsustainable growth while finger-wagging at women in impoverished countries. It’s a transference of responsibility from the rich countries who produced climate change to the poor countries most affected by it.
The emphasis on family planning as an environmental fix distracts us from making essential investments in people and the environment. This includes supporting clean energy, food security, and mass transit, along with accessible comprehensive health systems infrastructure, education, and employment"
"We should have stayed in caves? I don't follow your point. I've got 200,000 years of human progress on the side of my argument. You've got 200 years of failed doom and gloom predictions going back to Malthus and spectacularly exemplified by Erlich."
There is, of course, a middle ground between "staying in caves" and "massively polluting the world", and that would be "living responsibly". You really think we should be trashing our only home this much? Is that smart? Do you believe the Earth is warming and humans are the primary culprit? You do, right?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Quoting Bitter Crank
The average worldwide life expectancy has increased from 48 years in 1950 to 78 years in 2015.
While improvements in infant mortality account for a portion of this data there have also been a significant reduction in death rates as diseases have become increasingly treatable, working conditions have improved, and industrialization has increased the global standard of living. After reviewing some material on the points you brought up I would generally agree with the statements you made regarding agriculture and civil infrastructure so far as developing nations are concerned.
That said, notice that the global life expectancy has increased 30 years in the last six decades.
In 1950s America the average life span was in the 60s while nowadays the average lifespan for Americans is in the 70s and projected to increase. I would argue that advances in medical treatment would account for most of this extra decade.
World life expectancy figures
Never heard of them. But if it’s true that they said the same thing, how were they wrong? There would have to be an instance when the population went past its capacity, and the percentage of deaths did not increase.
Quoting fishfry
I meant percentage-wise.
Why do you think that this will be so? What is the argument? Similar to what was said in the 1970's that our civilization will collapse in the turn of the milennium and we will be out of resources because of our 'overshot'?
The whole idea of Earth's 'carrying capacity' being 'overshot' is extremely dubious... or simply extremely politically correct thing to say to 'wake up' people to 'do something' about our current problems we are facing.
Remember Hubbert's Peak Oil argument? Here is his forecast and the actual US production:
So let's just remember that globally "Peak Conventional Oil" happened eight years ago.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Apart Malthus' argument being very simplistic, it naturally didn't take into consideration a lot of changes that have happened in the World. And you simply assume (out of somewhere?) that a limit has been reached ...now. Well, there a lot of possibility for improvement as in many places land, energy and resources aren't used as well as in Netherlands. If agriculture would be the same as in other countries as in Netherlands, then your argument would have some credence.
The argument that science & technology have improved our agriculture etc. yet now it is over is rather dubious too.
Our space isn't actually all that limited though. The resources of the solar system are already in range with today's technology, it's mostly a question of engineering and will.
Quoting god must be atheist
The resources of the cosmos are more or less inexhaustible. All we need to do is get off this rock.
Quoting Bitter Crank
How is this different from all of human history?
Quoting RogueAI
Climate change and environmental degradation are serious problems that urgently need to be addressed. An increasing population will not help, but halting population growth wouldn't solve these problems either.
I don't quite agree with this. A man's pleasure ride in space cost him 25 million US dollars some ten years ago. If you are spending that much money (which is not even enough) to bring to earth 70 Kg of material, then it's prohibively expensive. You'd use more fuel, energy, materials, money, and everything else than to justify the return on investment.
easier said than done. There are no habitable spaces for humans in our solar system beside Earth. To get to the next solar system, with no guarantee of habitation, would cost you fifty-thousands billion trillion dollars. I ain't kidding.
It's not about return on investment though, is it? This thread is about how humanity can keep growing. The answer to this is obviously space. Of course, doing so is going to require space infrastructure, preferably including some kind of launch system not based on chemical rockets. That is going to be hideously expensive. From a technology perspective though, it can be done with existing, proven technologies.
Quoting god must be atheist
We can build habitable spaces. Not easily, obviously, but there are no physical reasons it cannot be done.
I must assert, with all due respect, that you don't understand the physics of transporting / sustaining human life outside of Earth.
It is prohibitively expensive not only in an economic, but on an ecological scale as well. That ought to have been obvious to you. If we can't afford enough machines to deal with our plastic waste crisis, then we can't afford to send a gram of material to Alpha Centaur. IN other words, it is a smidgen to engineer plastics decomposing machines including the collection of the waste plastics, compared to sending anything 6.7 light years into the great beyond. Not just in money value: in consuming gas, material, food, etc. etc. etc.
It is my opinion, with all due respect, that you grossly, fatally underestimate the challenges that are presented to habiting space outside of Earth.
And yet we somehow sent men to the moon in the 60s.
Quoting god must be atheist
I am not talking about a generation ship. I am talking about orbital habitats.
Quoting god must be atheist
Because I say it's possible? What challenges am I underestimating?
By resources I took you meant minerals, oxygen, water, etc. Whereas you probably meant sun energy, etc. Because there is not much else in terms of resources available from space to orbital habitats.
Nobody knows the future. Maybe orbital habitats will be built at a faster rate than humans multiply, maybe they will be built at a slower rate. I don't know. I won't say it's probable or imporbable to make this realistic.
There was some ambivalence about the morality of the Manhattan Project among the small circle of people who had an overview of what the project was about, and there was a lot more ambivalence shading into revulsion after Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
There wasn't much "progress" during our 200,000 years of hunting and gathering. Innovations were few and far between because hunting and gathering worked pretty well for the small populations of people at the time. They hunted, gathered, wandered, sheltered, and carried on without wrecking the environment.
Round about 10,000 years ago -- either as a state-sponsored conspiracy (some anthropologists have suggested) or as a remarkable and wonderful innovation (as most anthropologists think) we became agriculturists, settled down, and here we are.
While no one can argue with you that Malthus's and Ehrlich's predictions have failed to become fact, it is also the case that no one can refute the fact that Doom has been avoided by an extraordinary, almost incomprehensible extraction of energy resources from the earth, which is not repeatable. Once we have used up the stored carbon that is easily accessible (we are on track), there won't be more. And, of course, extracting the carbon from the ground means adding it to the atmosphere, which has, we find, rather inconvenient limitations on how much it can absorb without highly inconvenient consequences for our esteemed selves.
Prior to the antibiotic discoveries, minor--never mind major--injuries could and did lead to death. A minor infected wound could turn into septicemia and from there it was Shall We Gather at the River out at the cemetery. A sinus infection could (and sometimes did) turn into a really bad dying.
In much of the world, infections like malaria and tuberculosis become multi-drug resistant and prove fatal. Gonorrhea is a good example of a fairly common infection in the industrialized world that is becoming quite resistant to the available antibiotics. Some strains are now as untreatable as they were before penicillin. (Gonorrhea is normally not fatal, but anyone who has had it (I have) can tell you it is definitely not fun.)
Various nosocomial infections like Staphylococcus aureus are edging over the line to become untreatable, and it can be fatal.
The recent surge in US production of oil is the result of squeezing out more oil by using increased energy inputs (fracking). Even when the end of the graph is reached, let's say, 2050, there will still be substantial quantities of oil in the ground. BUT, as I understand it anyway, the energy required to extract the oil will exceed the value of the oil extracted. At that point, it simply doesn't make sense to drill a new well or go back to an old well.
I'm pessimistic and I'm sticking to it. IF we insist on pumping every last barrel of oil out of the ground, and shoveling out the last ton of coal, and burning it then we extend the energy supply on one end and decrease the supply of bearable climate on the other end. Meanwhile, population continues to grow, and I see no reason to suppose that we will manage to overcome changed environmental conditions by developing wheat, for instance, that can stand hot wet weather, or corn that can stand hot dry weather in the next thirty years. Fungal diseases, insects, soil depletion, floods, rising ocean levels, drought, etc. all weigh against an optimistic approach.
Quoting ssu
It is over for some people, and it will be over for more. I don't expect that our disaster will play out in one final cataclysm in Act V, scene 10 affecting everybody between South Africa and Finland, or between Tiera del Fuego and Nome (unless we get hit by a big meteorite).
So true, but just a teensy bit easier said than done. So far, a dozen people have stepped on the moon, and the moon is only 250,000 miles away, and troubled by nothing worse than a vacuum.
Actually, this thread is about CAN HUMANITY STOP GROWING?
Much of space is troubled by nothing worse than a vacuum. All that is required to get there is scaling up the things we can already do.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It probably can. It's just insane to try to force it to by killing people.
I'm not in favor of killing 3 or 4 billion people either. So what's your do-able suggestion, aside from 3 or 4 billion people leaving the planet aboad space ships?
Stop the discourse on overpopulation and start the discourse on poverty. Then do something about poverty, like, I don't know, kill the rich. Oh, you said do-able! Shit! I don't know, kill the poor, maybe?
Gonna kill kill kill kill kill the poor, kill kill kill kill kill the poor, kill kill kill kill kill the poor tonight.
But who's gonna work then? Fuck, we're doomed!
Transform the economy from consumerism to a more sustainable, mostly circular system. Step up efforts to crack critical (for long term survival) technological and engineering hurdles, like fusion and space infrastructure. Immediately stop burning coal as much as possible, reduce flying as much as possible. Reduce personal cars as much as possible. Have governments research sustainable food options and encourage vegetarianism. Tax or otherwise discourage any form of wastage.
I believe/think/hope that a sustainable economy IS possible, is do-able, is absolutely necessary IF we are going to survive. We already know what sustainable food options are--it is vegetarian. The really difficult task involves an abrupt transition from fossil fuel/fossil chemical energy intensive economy to a much less energy intensive, economy.
The "World Made By Hand" series by James Howard Kunstler illustrates through fiction what life might be like in a catastrophic transition: do-able, but not at all nice. One can imagine that in a planned transition (over a short enough period of time to merit the term 'abrupt') it would be do-able, difficult, but not horrible. The unanswered question is how can any country (like the EU, the US, China, etc.) bring about a planned transition soon when the entire world economy is bent in continuing in the opposite direction of MORE, NOW.
It isn't the technology: It's the deeply entrenched elites (Koch Industries, et al) that are the primary obstacle.
Yeah, the emphasis should be on reducing all births for reason of not creating suffering for another person, and force recruiting new lives to an inescapable game :D.
I say your summary is about right. I wish I could be more positive. But the awful truth is that humanity is a predatory parasite on Earth, capturing the resources of our host and devouring them without constraint. Our numbers (population) seem to relate to cancer cells, in the sense that we reproduce uncontrollably. Our end appears nigh. :meh:
That may be so trendy and smart especially in a Philosophy forum, but is really the closest to the reality what the future will give us?
And btw. it's not only fracking, but also horizontal drilling has been a game changing technology. Yet this example isn't only about how technological advances make the luring and extremely popular calls for utter collapse of our society simply totally wrong predictions. It is an example of a happened crisis and what the 'collapse' really is like. Because Peak (conventional) Oil happened years ago. And Peak aggregate Oil can happen any year now. Might have happened alread.
So is a World of "Mad Max" chaos happening in the near future?
No.
We have already witnessed what this crisis and seen what it gave us: food riots and political instability in poor countries, a slowdown in the global economy. AND THEN one of the most hated phenomenons of today called market mechanism kicked in and demand dropped, stocks of reserves began to fill up and finally the price fell back from the three digit dollar prices.
Price of oil (brent crude?), several crises later:
In fact, nothing would be now a more welcomed boost for alternative energy resources to pick up even more ground than sudden increase in oil prices. And even without high oil prices renewable energy has made huge strides especially this decade.
It may popular to call for utter doom, an imminent collapse if urgently things aren't done. That's the politically correct discourse. Not perhaps the most realistic alternative that things might "suck" for a while, but life will go on and likely things be better than now. Yeah, human kind isn't right now making it's most important choices...
Quoting Bitter Crank
And just for who? Just what are you talking about? Yes, the subsistence farmer will likely fade into history (good riddance!), except for the 'lifestyle' farmer that is so fascinated to grow plants (rather going to the supermarket). Otherwise, agricultural production is improving:
And notice this stat from China, the area of farmed land has basically stayed the same for many decades, but the production and yields have multiplied:
Wouldn't that tell us something?