Day of 8 Billion
November 14, 2022 4:55 PM Subscribe
On 15 November 2022, the world’s population is projected to reach 8 billion people, a milestone in human development.
People who come at voluntarily-childless me with "if you don't have children who will?!" can shut the entire eff up now.
'Parently somebody will.
posted by humbug at 5:16 PM on November 14, 2022 [46 favorites]
'Parently somebody will.
posted by humbug at 5:16 PM on November 14, 2022 [46 favorites]
Hooray! More consumers!
posted by lalochezia at 5:24 PM on November 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 5:24 PM on November 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
Another way to think about how we get to 8 billion is to think of who isn't dying, as in this interesting graphic showing death rates changing over time. It's like watching the weight of human suffering being lifted from the globe.
posted by mittens at 5:27 PM on November 14, 2022 [22 favorites]
posted by mittens at 5:27 PM on November 14, 2022 [22 favorites]
I'm amazed we went this far while covid roams the earth.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:29 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:29 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
To the tune of Duck Sauce's 'Barbra Streisand':
Norman Borlaug
posted by bartleby at 5:37 PM on November 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
Norman Borlaug
posted by bartleby at 5:37 PM on November 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'd feel better if the news was about reversing these trends:
Poverty trends: global, regional and national
Figure 1: Globally, the number of people in extreme poverty has almost halved between 2010 and 2021, but 698 million, almost 9% of the world’s population, are still living below the $1.90 poverty line in 2021
Figure 2a: The number of people living below the $3.20 and $5.50 poverty lines has been falling since 2010 and is projected to continue to fall, but it is still estimated that almost 3 billion people around the world will have less than $5.50 a day in 2026
But I'll try to see it in the framing of people living longer.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:38 PM on November 14, 2022 [9 favorites]
Poverty trends: global, regional and national
Figure 1: Globally, the number of people in extreme poverty has almost halved between 2010 and 2021, but 698 million, almost 9% of the world’s population, are still living below the $1.90 poverty line in 2021
Figure 2a: The number of people living below the $3.20 and $5.50 poverty lines has been falling since 2010 and is projected to continue to fall, but it is still estimated that almost 3 billion people around the world will have less than $5.50 a day in 2026
But I'll try to see it in the framing of people living longer.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:38 PM on November 14, 2022 [9 favorites]
It will all end in tears.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 5:39 PM on November 14, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 5:39 PM on November 14, 2022 [6 favorites]
And fifty years ago, the battle cry was ZPG! ZPG! (zero population growth)
posted by njohnson23 at 5:44 PM on November 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 5:44 PM on November 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
Sheer atrocity.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:45 PM on November 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:45 PM on November 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Eight billion people, each with the same inevitable fate: to suffer and die.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:47 PM on November 14, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:47 PM on November 14, 2022 [12 favorites]
No wonder I couldn't find a parking spot this morning!
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:50 PM on November 14, 2022 [35 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:50 PM on November 14, 2022 [35 favorites]
Eight billion people, each with the same inevitable fate: to suffer and die.
They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it is night again.
Lighten up! We still have music and wine. And sex. Apparently we have a lot of sex.
posted by adept256 at 5:55 PM on November 14, 2022 [19 favorites]
They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it is night again.
Lighten up! We still have music and wine. And sex. Apparently we have a lot of sex.
posted by adept256 at 5:55 PM on November 14, 2022 [19 favorites]
The power of doubling is frightening. Population has doubled twice in my life. If that were to happen during my grandson's life it would take us to 32 billion! No way that can happen, but what will keep it from happening? I hate to think.
posted by charlesminus at 5:59 PM on November 14, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by charlesminus at 5:59 PM on November 14, 2022 [9 favorites]
Another way to think about how we get to 8 billion is to think of who isn't dying, as in this interesting graphic showing death rates changing over time. It's like watching the weight of human suffering being lifted from the globe.
Unless you live in Russia. Good grief. It’s like from the 80s or 90s forward it was deep slide downhill to the worst in the world.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:03 PM on November 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Unless you live in Russia. Good grief. It’s like from the 80s or 90s forward it was deep slide downhill to the worst in the world.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:03 PM on November 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
VHEMT wants a word.
Previously, 20 years ago
posted by lalochezia at 6:10 PM on November 14, 2022 [6 favorites]
Previously, 20 years ago
posted by lalochezia at 6:10 PM on November 14, 2022 [6 favorites]
Hooray! More consumers!
Long pork comes to mind. More catfood too.
posted by y2karl at 6:31 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Long pork comes to mind. More catfood too.
posted by y2karl at 6:31 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
You know what lowers the birth rate?
Ensuring women have access to education, birth control, and bodily autonomy.
That's a good thing to work towards if you think there are too many people.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:42 PM on November 14, 2022 [66 favorites]
Ensuring women have access to education, birth control, and bodily autonomy.
That's a good thing to work towards if you think there are too many people.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:42 PM on November 14, 2022 [66 favorites]
What? Autonomy? Education? No, no, no, no. That's madness.
You've got it all backwards -- what matters is strict adherence to my insane religious ramblings, oppressing women at every opportunity, and spending whatever monies you have on the glorification of Me. If things don't quite work out, well, that's because of them. You know who they are.
...yeah, take a look around you, see if I'm wrong...
posted by aramaic at 6:48 PM on November 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
You've got it all backwards -- what matters is strict adherence to my insane religious ramblings, oppressing women at every opportunity, and spending whatever monies you have on the glorification of Me. If things don't quite work out, well, that's because of them. You know who they are.
...yeah, take a look around you, see if I'm wrong...
posted by aramaic at 6:48 PM on November 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
That's a good thing to work towards if you think there are too many people.
Or even if you don't.
posted by kristi at 7:21 PM on November 14, 2022 [15 favorites]
Or even if you don't.
posted by kristi at 7:21 PM on November 14, 2022 [15 favorites]
I guess its happening because the billionaires like it?
posted by jjderooy at 7:37 PM on November 14, 2022
posted by jjderooy at 7:37 PM on November 14, 2022
Eight billion people, each with the same inevitable fate: to suffer and die.
When you sound like a Final Fantasy villain, you have to really take a hard look in the mirror and ask where it all went wrong
posted by Merus at 7:47 PM on November 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
When you sound like a Final Fantasy villain, you have to really take a hard look in the mirror and ask where it all went wrong
posted by Merus at 7:47 PM on November 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
Whelp, that means we only have 15 years til 9 billion, then:
“Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God
posted by Hardcore Poser at 7:55 PM on November 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
“Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God
posted by Hardcore Poser at 7:55 PM on November 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
From Population Connection, 8 reasons to be concerned about our population reaching 8 billion:
posted by biogeo at 8:21 PM on November 14, 2022 [13 favorites]
- Rapid population growth indicates extreme gender inequality
- More humans, less nature
- Climate targets moving out of reach
- More lives and livelihoods at risk
- Worsening resource scarcity
- Increasing conflict
- Public health implications
- Population action key to meeting the SDG [UN Sustainable Development Goals]
posted by biogeo at 8:21 PM on November 14, 2022 [13 favorites]
I'm extremely pleased at the reasons why this is happening, but I don't know if I'll be completely happy about it until we start doing a better job of making sure all those people born into poverty have a better shot at life than we're doing now.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:26 PM on November 14, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:26 PM on November 14, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'm pleased about some of the reasons this is happening: reduced childhood mortality, better nutrition, better life-long medical care, etc. It's the other reasons that are concerning: lack of equality or bodily autonomy for women, lack of knowledge about or access to family planning, religious belief in human dominion over nature, etc.
posted by biogeo at 8:33 PM on November 14, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 8:33 PM on November 14, 2022 [10 favorites]
It is funny for me, my eye always goes to Tajikistan and most of the time it is a bizarre outlier in the ex-USSR. So I show my wife and ask her what's up, why is the death rate here one of the lowest in the world? Just using my own eyes it does seem like the place is thick with mothers, kids, huge families.
She laughs. "Well, we didn't have COVID here," (It's ture, the stats make it seem like this place was a magical paradise that avoided the epidemic) "And lots of people just never register their births, they have their kids at home."
"But that would mean less births?"
"But then if they die in early childhood that also does not get recorded. People just do not care."
So yeah, this is a strange place, and every time you see data on this country just remember that "we suck at keeping track of data" will be a huge factor in any statistics generated.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:40 PM on November 14, 2022 [7 favorites]
She laughs. "Well, we didn't have COVID here," (It's ture, the stats make it seem like this place was a magical paradise that avoided the epidemic) "And lots of people just never register their births, they have their kids at home."
"But that would mean less births?"
"But then if they die in early childhood that also does not get recorded. People just do not care."
So yeah, this is a strange place, and every time you see data on this country just remember that "we suck at keeping track of data" will be a huge factor in any statistics generated.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:40 PM on November 14, 2022 [7 favorites]
> 8 billion people, a milestone in human development.
Not if you use base 13 like I do. Then, it just becomes "too many".
Actually, same in base whatever.
posted by not_on_display at 10:37 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Not if you use base 13 like I do. Then, it just becomes "too many".
Actually, same in base whatever.
posted by not_on_display at 10:37 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Well I hope they send the poor kid a fruit basket at the very least.
posted by jy4m at 10:58 PM on November 14, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by jy4m at 10:58 PM on November 14, 2022 [7 favorites]
I’m definitely on the music, wine and sex team when it comes to staring death in the face, but a crash back to carrying capacity does increasingly look like a best case scenario.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:55 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ryanshepard at 3:55 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
every time you see data on this country just remember that "we suck at keeping track of data" will be a huge factor in any statistics generated.
I’m sure most of us have heard elected officials in the last two or three years declaring that if we just stop testing for Covid, cases will drop to zero.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:56 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
I’m sure most of us have heard elected officials in the last two or three years declaring that if we just stop testing for Covid, cases will drop to zero.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:56 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
As for human suffering "being lifted", past human societies adopted cannibalism to handle population overshoot combined with resource exhaustion. We shall see..
posted by jeffburdges at 4:09 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 4:09 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Eight billion people is not the problem that eight billion people living at western living standards would be. NPR news just quoted in a story that 50% of the world's population contributes to about 7% of climate change. There are no easy answers.
posted by y2karl at 4:23 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 4:23 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
Did someone say Norman Borlaug?
The green revolution has won a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only.posted by MrVisible at 4:55 AM on November 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the “Population Monster”. In the beginning there were but two, Adam and Eve. When they appeared on this earth is still questionable. By the time of Christ, world population had probably reached 250 million. But between then and now, population has grown to 3.5 billion. Growth has been especially fast since the advent of modern medicine. If it continues to increase at the estimated present rate of two percent a year, the world population will reach 6.5 billion by the year 2000. Currently, with each second, or tick of the clock, about 2.2 additional people are added to the world population. The rhythm of increase will accelerate to 2.7, 3.3, and 4.0 for each tick of the clock by 1980, 1990, and 2000, respectively, unless man becomes more realistic and preoccupied about this impending doom. The ticktock of the clock will continually grow louder and more menacing each decade. Where will it all end?
...
Since man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth and will adjust the growth rate to levels which will permit a decent standard of living for all mankind. If man is wise enough to make this decision and if all nations abandon their idolatry of Ares, Mars, and Thor, then Mankind itself should be the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize which is “to be awarded to the person who has done most to promote brotherhood among the nations”.
Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, 1970
past human societies adopted cannibalism
Reading William Arens' The Man-Eating Myth at an impressionable age left me with a lot of skepticism over cannibalism narratives, especially ones starring a shocked seventeenth-century European fighting amongst the savages. I mean, not to derail, really, but there are a lot of sources of nutrition people turn to in famine, and past societies did not regularly, or systematically, adopt cannibalism to find that nutrition. Not to say it never has or can never happen (Yang Jisheng's recent history of Mao's famine, Tombstone, comes to mind with its rare but horrifying examples), but it's certainly not a common response to overpopulation.
posted by mittens at 5:05 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
Reading William Arens' The Man-Eating Myth at an impressionable age left me with a lot of skepticism over cannibalism narratives, especially ones starring a shocked seventeenth-century European fighting amongst the savages. I mean, not to derail, really, but there are a lot of sources of nutrition people turn to in famine, and past societies did not regularly, or systematically, adopt cannibalism to find that nutrition. Not to say it never has or can never happen (Yang Jisheng's recent history of Mao's famine, Tombstone, comes to mind with its rare but horrifying examples), but it's certainly not a common response to overpopulation.
posted by mittens at 5:05 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
ask where it all went wrong
It all went wrong with the idea that we should use the entirety of the planet for humankind's benefit. 8 billion people is a milestone in destruction, not development. The effects are everywhere, from climate change to accelerating species extinction. The idea that this will continue until we have wiped out so many creatures, burned so much that is combustible, fouled so much of the water that even we can no longer keep growing? Absolute horror. We are not the only creatures on Earth who deserve to exist.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:16 AM on November 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
It all went wrong with the idea that we should use the entirety of the planet for humankind's benefit. 8 billion people is a milestone in destruction, not development. The effects are everywhere, from climate change to accelerating species extinction. The idea that this will continue until we have wiped out so many creatures, burned so much that is combustible, fouled so much of the water that even we can no longer keep growing? Absolute horror. We are not the only creatures on Earth who deserve to exist.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:16 AM on November 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
8 billion now.
Yet the general rule is that societies going through development (including the reasons seanmpuckett mentioned) have fewer children.
When will we reach peak human population?
posted by doctornemo at 5:21 AM on November 15, 2022
Yet the general rule is that societies going through development (including the reasons seanmpuckett mentioned) have fewer children.
When will we reach peak human population?
posted by doctornemo at 5:21 AM on November 15, 2022
Always happy to see that the Church of Euthanasia is still going.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 5:41 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 5:41 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Who has the temerity to tell Beckett to take a chill pill?!
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 5:43 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 5:43 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
People who come at voluntarily-childless me with "if you don't have children who will?!" can shut the entire eff up now.
'Parently somebody will.
I see what you did there.
posted by slogger at 6:28 AM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
'Parently somebody will.
I see what you did there.
posted by slogger at 6:28 AM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
~2032 9
2022 8
2011 7
1999 6
1987 5
1974 4
In a lifetime -- 5 billions more living people. Millennials can see 7 billions more, easy.
posted by filtergik at 6:40 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
2022 8
2011 7
1999 6
1987 5
1974 4
In a lifetime -- 5 billions more living people. Millennials can see 7 billions more, easy.
posted by filtergik at 6:40 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
In a lifetime -- 5 billions more living people.
A factor people forget when doing this math is who are the contents of that list -- like, in 1800 the world population was about one billion, but you can't go "there've been seven billion more people since 1800!"
Because nobody from 1800 is still alive to be a part of the 8 billion count. In 1900, when the count hit two billion, there was almost nobody from the 1800 count alive either.
So, between 1800 and 1900, with a life expectancy of 50 - 60 years, to get from one billion to two billion there were probably around 3 billion people who lived and died in the 19th century; everyone in that two billion 1900 count is long gone, and a good portion of them had kids who have lived and died before we got to the eight billion number.
So more people lived between 1900 and today than are currently on the planet now. Like, not only did we replace the two billion in 1900, but also replaced all the people who lived and died in the meantime and still had enough additional people to get to 8 billion.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:11 AM on November 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
A factor people forget when doing this math is who are the contents of that list -- like, in 1800 the world population was about one billion, but you can't go "there've been seven billion more people since 1800!"
Because nobody from 1800 is still alive to be a part of the 8 billion count. In 1900, when the count hit two billion, there was almost nobody from the 1800 count alive either.
So, between 1800 and 1900, with a life expectancy of 50 - 60 years, to get from one billion to two billion there were probably around 3 billion people who lived and died in the 19th century; everyone in that two billion 1900 count is long gone, and a good portion of them had kids who have lived and died before we got to the eight billion number.
So more people lived between 1900 and today than are currently on the planet now. Like, not only did we replace the two billion in 1900, but also replaced all the people who lived and died in the meantime and still had enough additional people to get to 8 billion.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:11 AM on November 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
Milestone or millstone?
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 7:55 AM on November 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 7:55 AM on November 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
It should not be controversial to say a population of 8 billion will have a grave impact on the climate: John Vidal writing in The Guardian.
posted by biogeo at 8:05 AM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 8:05 AM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'd feel better if the news was about reversing these trends
The trends you link to are massive and continuing decreases in extreme poverty. So you want massive increases in extreme poverty?
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:06 AM on November 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
The trends you link to are massive and continuing decreases in extreme poverty. So you want massive increases in extreme poverty?
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:06 AM on November 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
// snark
What did the Georgia Guidestone say before it was blown up and bulldozed?
"Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature."
Yeah, that's it.
I think we have some culling to do.
//end snark
No need to call security.
I'll show myself out.
Thank you.
posted by hoodrich at 8:15 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
What did the Georgia Guidestone say before it was blown up and bulldozed?
"Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature."
Yeah, that's it.
I think we have some culling to do.
//end snark
No need to call security.
I'll show myself out.
Thank you.
posted by hoodrich at 8:15 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is great! I know everyone likes to hand-wring about human population growth but just look at this fact directly for moment. It's an increase in lifespan, in infant survival, and in human potential. Hooray! Yes, we've got some sustainability issues and environmental concerns. But I'm on team humanity here.
That's not team humanity.
posted by Brian B. at 8:23 AM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
That's not team humanity.
posted by Brian B. at 8:23 AM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Frightening amount of people. For each one of us, who knows how many other plants and animals just don't get to exist anymore as we continue to invade their fragile few remaining environments and extract everything we can from everywhere. There are more than 8 billion of many organisms, but none so overwhelming as us. We made a bad way to live lol
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:33 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:33 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm often surprised by how rarely people seem to discuss how few people there were compared to now when looking to history. I wonder sometimes if just being a human didn't feel a little more special or important when you didn't know that there were a million more within a day's travel. It's incredible for me to realize that the Earth had less than 1/4 of its current population when my grandparents were born (in addition to not having cars or electricity).
posted by Theiform at 8:34 AM on November 15, 2022
posted by Theiform at 8:34 AM on November 15, 2022
UN-DESA assessment: World population projected to reach 9.8 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion in 2100
The world has passed the inflection point where population growth is no longer accelerating but slowing. That probably happened recently. However, figuring out how that number of people manage the carrying capacity of the global ecosystem is going to be very challenging. Agriculture is going to have to revolutionize again, as will likely consumption/eating habits. A lot fewer animal products, for example, and greatly reduced wild fishing.
posted by bonehead at 8:45 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
The world has passed the inflection point where population growth is no longer accelerating but slowing. That probably happened recently. However, figuring out how that number of people manage the carrying capacity of the global ecosystem is going to be very challenging. Agriculture is going to have to revolutionize again, as will likely consumption/eating habits. A lot fewer animal products, for example, and greatly reduced wild fishing.
posted by bonehead at 8:45 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
"Despite the foregoing, the human race by tens of thousands would be knee deep in the water around Zanzibar.” – John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar.
posted by SPrintF at 8:48 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by SPrintF at 8:48 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
There are too many people nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am NOT a crackpot.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:53 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:53 AM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
Agent Smith was right I guess...
posted by supermedusa at 8:54 AM on November 15, 2022
posted by supermedusa at 8:54 AM on November 15, 2022
How am I gonna find the time to listen to 8 billion podcasts??!? fml
posted by credulous at 9:56 AM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by credulous at 9:56 AM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
It'll mostly be jackass-like videos on youtube, credulous, which maybe helps alleviate the population pressures too.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:10 AM on November 15, 2022
posted by jeffburdges at 11:10 AM on November 15, 2022
We'll yes hopefully tax feed raised animal products into oblivion, bonehead which yes increases carrying capacity significantly, but..
We largely eat oil & gas in the form of fertilizer, but oil & gas run out in 50 years, likely much sooner in practice, and not affordable for most people long before then. An agricultural revolution would be adaptations like mixed planting or agrivoltaics, which increase complexity, reduces energy use or provides non-food energy, and produces healthier food but in smaller quantities. We'll make some fertilizer with solar I guess, but nothing like now.
We're also headed for +3.2°C by like 2100, which most likely triggers tipping points that land us well above +4°C.
As Steve Keen often cites, climate scientists like Will Steffen project that +4°C makes the tropics uninhabitable by humans, and reduces the earth's maximum carrying capacity below one billion humans.
Chatham House projects agricultural yields declining overall by 30% by 2050, but afaik this only counts climate, not fertilizer shortages. Also, they expect larger variations like 50% odds of a “synchronous maize crop failure” during the 2040s.
At present you can check out the food & fertilizer export ban tracker.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:16 AM on November 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
We largely eat oil & gas in the form of fertilizer, but oil & gas run out in 50 years, likely much sooner in practice, and not affordable for most people long before then. An agricultural revolution would be adaptations like mixed planting or agrivoltaics, which increase complexity, reduces energy use or provides non-food energy, and produces healthier food but in smaller quantities. We'll make some fertilizer with solar I guess, but nothing like now.
We're also headed for +3.2°C by like 2100, which most likely triggers tipping points that land us well above +4°C.
As Steve Keen often cites, climate scientists like Will Steffen project that +4°C makes the tropics uninhabitable by humans, and reduces the earth's maximum carrying capacity below one billion humans.
Chatham House projects agricultural yields declining overall by 30% by 2050, but afaik this only counts climate, not fertilizer shortages. Also, they expect larger variations like 50% odds of a “synchronous maize crop failure” during the 2040s.
At present you can check out the food & fertilizer export ban tracker.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:16 AM on November 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
I guess its happening because the billionaires like it?
How many reports have we seen of men ranging economically from dirt poor to extremely wealthy 1%-ers having affairs, flings - or, ugh - plain old abusive sexual assault with random people that result in children?
Shoot, most of those oligarchs would love to openly have polygamy or multiple families going because they think their genes are extra special and they deserve to procreate as often and as much as possible.
Yeah, the billionaires like that part. They also obviously don't want any of the responsibility that comes with it.
posted by loquacious at 12:12 PM on November 15, 2022
How many reports have we seen of men ranging economically from dirt poor to extremely wealthy 1%-ers having affairs, flings - or, ugh - plain old abusive sexual assault with random people that result in children?
Shoot, most of those oligarchs would love to openly have polygamy or multiple families going because they think their genes are extra special and they deserve to procreate as often and as much as possible.
Yeah, the billionaires like that part. They also obviously don't want any of the responsibility that comes with it.
posted by loquacious at 12:12 PM on November 15, 2022
I'm honestly kind of appalled at the predominance of overpopulation panic in these comments. I'd like to zero in on a quote from an article biogeo linked by one of the UK's seemingly inexhaustible supply of professional opiners:
[1]: Interesting choice here to lean fully into the expected ecofascism allegation instead of saying something like "curb growth"
posted by jy4m at 12:34 PM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
True, the wealthiest 10% consume about 20 times more energy overall than the bottom 10%. So of course the rich must change their behaviour. But making climate breakdown all about consumption has become an excuse for countries to do nowhere near enough to reduce their populations.John Vidal thinks he's pulling that classic thinkpiece trick of conceding the point at the beginning, then pushing forward with a "nevertheless." But it's even worse: perhaps countries aren't doing enough to "reduce their populations,"[1] but that fact is used by countries with low rates of population growth (and by the economic class that rules them) to justify doing nothing at all to reduce consumption, for which they are the most responsible. There is no reason these avenues of reform should be in contradiction with one another, but only one is seriously pursued, while the other is ignored, because it implicates the domination of the impoverished many by the comfortable few, and as the omnicrisis worsens, I promise this argument will become more and more attractive for Guardian writers and their audience.
[1]: Interesting choice here to lean fully into the expected ecofascism allegation instead of saying something like "curb growth"
posted by jy4m at 12:34 PM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Japan's population already peaked some time back. They're a bit further along the curve than the rest of the world. They currently have negative population growth, with the elderly outnumbering the youth. The usual trifecta of healthcare, welfare and education are often cited to explain this. They are relatively affluent, poverty is minimal, families are small.
Those three - healthcare, welfare and education, are quite advanced in Japan, and the longevity of the population reflects that. You see the same in other countries that excel in those three. America is not among them, I'm afraid there's some work to do.
We've heard this idea recently about 'replacement theory'. It's insane and the solutions it offers lead to horror. That is the path racists would prefer. It is the wrong answer. The proven answer is lifting people from poverty by paying for it. Paying for it? Well, now you see the problem.
posted by adept256 at 1:05 PM on November 15, 2022
Those three - healthcare, welfare and education, are quite advanced in Japan, and the longevity of the population reflects that. You see the same in other countries that excel in those three. America is not among them, I'm afraid there's some work to do.
We've heard this idea recently about 'replacement theory'. It's insane and the solutions it offers lead to horror. That is the path racists would prefer. It is the wrong answer. The proven answer is lifting people from poverty by paying for it. Paying for it? Well, now you see the problem.
posted by adept256 at 1:05 PM on November 15, 2022
jy4m, I'm not sure how to talk about overpopulation without talking about overpopulation, and the things humans are doing and will do that affect the planet and other creatures here. What makes this discussion seem "panic"-y to you?
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:49 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:49 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
I am not a scientist, but Earth has finite resources and space. Species push each other out. That happens at some sort of "normal" rate, but I am regularly horrified by X story about whatever species has been pushed to or near to extinction for... strip malls, or factories, or single-family houses. In the U.S., at least, vast quantities of land have been rendered (fully or partially) uninhabitable short and long term for anyone other than humans. I think this is tied to capitalism, terribly wasteful lifestyles, etc., but... is there a way to do this--to make room for the rest of the planet to live--that doesn't involve addressing overpopulation? The Half-Earth proposal seems like one route, but I have a hard time seeing us doing that as a species.
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:02 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:02 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's clear the first world's excessive consumption is materially far worse than others' over population, but..
It's ultimately consumption and population together that exceed planetary boundaries. China elevating itself has put 300 M cars on the road. Almost anyone powerful who talks about "lifting" populations means the China model.
In fact, the IPCC explicitly ask ALL sectors and regions for significant emissions cuts. Yes, emissions cuts must by necessity be far more dramatic in the first world, but everyone must cut emissions, meaning less consumption of meat, coal, oil, gas, and less trade. I suppose less trade would improve quality of life in many non-first world countries anyways.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:09 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's ultimately consumption and population together that exceed planetary boundaries. China elevating itself has put 300 M cars on the road. Almost anyone powerful who talks about "lifting" populations means the China model.
In fact, the IPCC explicitly ask ALL sectors and regions for significant emissions cuts. Yes, emissions cuts must by necessity be far more dramatic in the first world, but everyone must cut emissions, meaning less consumption of meat, coal, oil, gas, and less trade. I suppose less trade would improve quality of life in many non-first world countries anyways.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:09 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
UN-DESA assessment: World population projected to reach 9.8 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion in 2100
I've heard from some demographers and journalists that the UN's numbers are way high. That, given modernity, we should expect peak human between 2050 and 2100 instead.
posted by doctornemo at 2:20 PM on November 15, 2022
I've heard from some demographers and journalists that the UN's numbers are way high. That, given modernity, we should expect peak human between 2050 and 2100 instead.
posted by doctornemo at 2:20 PM on November 15, 2022
If it makes you feel better, cupcakeninja, humans aren't going to be around forever. In a couple of thousand years some other species will be lording it over the ruins of our strip malls.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:22 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by betweenthebars at 2:22 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure how to talk about overpopulation without talking about overpopulation, and the things humans are doing and will do that affect the planet and other creatures here. What makes this discussion seem "panic"-y to you?
cupcakeninja
Because discussions about overpopulation don't happen in a vacuum. As jy4m notes, the author of that piece is aware of the very grim history of this line of discussion, and seeks to head that off with what is essentially, "I'm not an ecofascist, but...". They make vague gestures towards things like improving rights and bodily autonomy for women, but the message pushed over and over in the piece is that we must do something about overpopulation. And, historically, it's in that "something" that some very dark ideas lie.
It's not that it's impossible to avoid those dark ideas when discussing the topic of "overpopulation" and what to do about it, but all too often somehow such talk tends to veer towards "we really need to do something about these teeming brown hordes". After all, what even is "overpopulation"? Where is the population rising? Oh, not in the rich Global North but in the poor Global South? Huh, that's crazy, anyway we need to do something about that.
And jy4m is right, it is awfully convenient for people in rich countries and the powers that be there that are responsible for the vast bulk of damage to the environment to insist that we focus on the teeming brown hordes (who are themselves feeling the brunt of the climate horror caused by the rich countries) and not on curbing the damage done by the rich and powerful.
posted by star gentle uterus at 2:26 PM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
cupcakeninja
Because discussions about overpopulation don't happen in a vacuum. As jy4m notes, the author of that piece is aware of the very grim history of this line of discussion, and seeks to head that off with what is essentially, "I'm not an ecofascist, but...". They make vague gestures towards things like improving rights and bodily autonomy for women, but the message pushed over and over in the piece is that we must do something about overpopulation. And, historically, it's in that "something" that some very dark ideas lie.
It's not that it's impossible to avoid those dark ideas when discussing the topic of "overpopulation" and what to do about it, but all too often somehow such talk tends to veer towards "we really need to do something about these teeming brown hordes". After all, what even is "overpopulation"? Where is the population rising? Oh, not in the rich Global North but in the poor Global South? Huh, that's crazy, anyway we need to do something about that.
And jy4m is right, it is awfully convenient for people in rich countries and the powers that be there that are responsible for the vast bulk of damage to the environment to insist that we focus on the teeming brown hordes (who are themselves feeling the brunt of the climate horror caused by the rich countries) and not on curbing the damage done by the rich and powerful.
posted by star gentle uterus at 2:26 PM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
star gentle uterus, I hear you about this not happening in a vacuum. That said, my starting point with MetaFilter tends to be that members don't support genocide, don't want to see the human population of the Global South wiped out, believe that it's better for people to live in humane conditions than in destitution, etc. Given that... how do you think we should talk about overpopulation? Or do you think the risk of genocide, ecofascism, etc. inherent in these discussions outweighs potential benefits for the planet and its non-human inhabitants?
betweenthebars, one can only hope that the roaches, beetles, coyotes, etc. will enjoy them. Love a good near-the-end-of-humanity's-run SF novel...
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:50 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
betweenthebars, one can only hope that the roaches, beetles, coyotes, etc. will enjoy them. Love a good near-the-end-of-humanity's-run SF novel...
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:50 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
NPR this morning had a thoughtful piece on the 8 billion number and what it means. An interview with Jack Goldstone, a public policy professor at George Mason University. Talks specifically about how the growth is going to be highly unequal geographically - Africa will have way more growth than the rest of the world. And how that creates a global problem. Because if Africa develops in the same fossil fuel way the rest of the world has, it will be a disaster. Also because with that many more people in Africa they deserve and need prosperity. And how that creates an obligation for the rest of the world to help Africa grow in a way that's good for humanity.
posted by Nelson at 3:01 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 3:01 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think that's an extremely harmful mode of argumentation. Consider this structurally parallel argument:
Discussions about problems with capitalism don't happen in a vacuum. One can head them off with "I'm not a Stalinist, but..." and make vague gestures towards things like preserving individual liberty and entrepreneurship, but still push a message over and over that we must do something about capitalism. And, historically, it's in that "something" that some very dark ideas lie.
This is exactly the line of argumentation that so-called Anticommunists in the West used for many decades to suppress any criticisms of the excesses of unfettered capitalism, and to label people proposing ideas rooted in social democracy as either dupes for Soviet Communism, or closet Communists themselves. It's a line of argumentation that works on guilt-by-association to tar important and necessary criticisms of excessive consumption and concentration of wealth by implying that those doing the criticizing are somehow associated with gulags, authoritarian suppression, genocidal famine policy, and all the other ills of the Soviet regime. And it was largely successful, suppressing essentially all basic criticisms of Western-style capitalism and allowing the labor movement to be gutted, environmental regulations to be defanged, progressive taxation to be neutered, and eventually democracy itself to be put up for sale.
The insistence by some people to read ecofascism into any talk of population regulation is similar in both form and effect. It doesn't matter how careful people are to emphasize that the methods they're advocating for population regulation are access to birth control, equal rights for women, more equal distribution of resources, environmental education, indigenous land rights, etc., you still have people insisting that what they must actually want is "to do something about these teeming brown hordes," as star gentle uterus put it.
We live on a world with finite resources. We cannot sustain infinite growth. We probably cannot sustain the growth we've already made, though I think we all hope that that turns out not to be true. If we don't address the large and growing human population as one key component of the challenges facing our future, a lot of people are going to suffer, and it will as usual be the people who already have the least who end up suffering the most.
posted by biogeo at 3:05 PM on November 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Discussions about problems with capitalism don't happen in a vacuum. One can head them off with "I'm not a Stalinist, but..." and make vague gestures towards things like preserving individual liberty and entrepreneurship, but still push a message over and over that we must do something about capitalism. And, historically, it's in that "something" that some very dark ideas lie.
This is exactly the line of argumentation that so-called Anticommunists in the West used for many decades to suppress any criticisms of the excesses of unfettered capitalism, and to label people proposing ideas rooted in social democracy as either dupes for Soviet Communism, or closet Communists themselves. It's a line of argumentation that works on guilt-by-association to tar important and necessary criticisms of excessive consumption and concentration of wealth by implying that those doing the criticizing are somehow associated with gulags, authoritarian suppression, genocidal famine policy, and all the other ills of the Soviet regime. And it was largely successful, suppressing essentially all basic criticisms of Western-style capitalism and allowing the labor movement to be gutted, environmental regulations to be defanged, progressive taxation to be neutered, and eventually democracy itself to be put up for sale.
The insistence by some people to read ecofascism into any talk of population regulation is similar in both form and effect. It doesn't matter how careful people are to emphasize that the methods they're advocating for population regulation are access to birth control, equal rights for women, more equal distribution of resources, environmental education, indigenous land rights, etc., you still have people insisting that what they must actually want is "to do something about these teeming brown hordes," as star gentle uterus put it.
We live on a world with finite resources. We cannot sustain infinite growth. We probably cannot sustain the growth we've already made, though I think we all hope that that turns out not to be true. If we don't address the large and growing human population as one key component of the challenges facing our future, a lot of people are going to suffer, and it will as usual be the people who already have the least who end up suffering the most.
posted by biogeo at 3:05 PM on November 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
We live on a world with finite resources
Which are of course more finite for some than others.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:29 PM on November 15, 2022
Which are of course more finite for some than others.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:29 PM on November 15, 2022
f we don't address the large and growing human population as one key component of the challenges facing our future
biogeo
But this is my point: what does this actually mean? Address how?
This vagueness elides quite a bit. What exactly are you saying? What are you proposing, what are you advocating?
I mean "you" in the general sense here, those posting here who are saying things along the same lines, because you're not actually saying anything. If you want to "talk about overpopulation", then talk about it. What, specifically, does addressing the problem mean to you?
Because on the one hand there is understandable disclaiming of the kind of mass extermination or sterilization or other brutal population control methods favored by the right on this issue, but from the urgency and passion of comments like yours I really don't get the sense that you are merely advocating for more funding to be shifted towards female education programs in poor countries.
So enough hiding behind vague statements about finite resources and the need to address this issue: address it. What do you want done?
posted by star gentle uterus at 4:34 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
biogeo
But this is my point: what does this actually mean? Address how?
This vagueness elides quite a bit. What exactly are you saying? What are you proposing, what are you advocating?
I mean "you" in the general sense here, those posting here who are saying things along the same lines, because you're not actually saying anything. If you want to "talk about overpopulation", then talk about it. What, specifically, does addressing the problem mean to you?
Because on the one hand there is understandable disclaiming of the kind of mass extermination or sterilization or other brutal population control methods favored by the right on this issue, but from the urgency and passion of comments like yours I really don't get the sense that you are merely advocating for more funding to be shifted towards female education programs in poor countries.
So enough hiding behind vague statements about finite resources and the need to address this issue: address it. What do you want done?
posted by star gentle uterus at 4:34 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
What do you want done?
Ultimately: free, universally accessible on-demand abortion and other forms of birth control, as part of a broader program of gender and other forms of equity at all levels of society. Worldwide transition away from beef, pork, and other wildly destructive types of livestock and agriculture. A near-complete end to fossil fuel extraction and consumption, including petroleum-based air travel, cruising, and container shipping. Substantially expanded indigenous sovereignty and land stewardship policies. Worldwide agreement that "be fruitful and multiply" has gone badly and should not be an article of faith for our species.
What does this issue mean for you, star gentle uterus? You seem pretty intense on this. I have appreciated links upthread (esp. the NPR one from Nelson) and would be interested if you have suggestions.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:54 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Ultimately: free, universally accessible on-demand abortion and other forms of birth control, as part of a broader program of gender and other forms of equity at all levels of society. Worldwide transition away from beef, pork, and other wildly destructive types of livestock and agriculture. A near-complete end to fossil fuel extraction and consumption, including petroleum-based air travel, cruising, and container shipping. Substantially expanded indigenous sovereignty and land stewardship policies. Worldwide agreement that "be fruitful and multiply" has gone badly and should not be an article of faith for our species.
What does this issue mean for you, star gentle uterus? You seem pretty intense on this. I have appreciated links upthread (esp. the NPR one from Nelson) and would be interested if you have suggestions.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:54 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
I mean, to quote myself:
To quote the John Vidal article I linked:
posted by biogeo at 4:57 PM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
It doesn't matter how careful people are to emphasize that the methods they're advocating for population regulation are access to birth control, equal rights for women, more equal distribution of resources, environmental education, indigenous land rights, etc.,
To quote the John Vidal article I linked:
The Nobel peace prizewinner Malala Yousafzai summed it up best last year. “When girls are educated and when they stay in schools they get married later in their lives, then they have less children and that helps us to reduce the impacts of climate change that the population increase brings,” she said. “If every girl was able to exercise her sexual and reproductive health and rights through quality education and had access to modern contraception, it could reduce total emissions.”These are not vague statements about finite resources. You are welcome to disagree with me, but please do so on the basis of what I've actually written and shared.
According to the UN population fund (UNFPA), 257 million women have an unmet need for proper contraception, half of all global pregnancies are unplanned, and nearly a quarter of all women do not have enough agency to refuse sex.
Yet the world’s richest countries together contribute just a few hundred million dollars annually to the UN’s population agency, with some now pushing “pro-natalist” policies to grow their numbers. In 2017, Donald Trump cut US funding to the UNFPA, and last year the UK followed, by cutting its contribution to the agency by 85%, from an expected $200m to a paltry $32m. US funding has since been partly restored but the British money alone, it has been estimated, would have helped to prevent the deaths of about 250,000 mothers and children, 14.6 million unintended pregnancies and 4.3 million unsafe abortions.
posted by biogeo at 4:57 PM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
For more policy statements by people concerned about the impact of population of human wellbeing and the environment, see for example the answer to the question "What role does the US play in population stabilization efforts?" in this FAQ by Population Connection.
posted by biogeo at 5:02 PM on November 15, 2022
posted by biogeo at 5:02 PM on November 15, 2022
Also, this statement confuses me:
posted by biogeo at 5:07 PM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
from the urgency and passion of comments like yours I really don't get the sense that you are merely advocating for more funding to be shifted towards female education programs in poor countries.Why on earth would that not be something to be urgent and passionate about? Lack of access to education, decisions about bodily autonomy, and affordable reproductive health care including family planning and abortion is both individually unjust for the women concerned, and in aggregate actively destroying our world. Of course I feel urgency and passion about it.
posted by biogeo at 5:07 PM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
I would like to get through one environment related thread without
This exact sort of comment is why I often give a pass to environment related threads here, Phalane. You've stepped in, ignored what was written, and addressed a parliament of straw men. This is bad faith writ in letters a hundred feet tall.
To echo a common bit of rhetoric from the last six years, I don't know how to explain to people that other creatures matter. The Earth is not, and should not be, just for humans.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:18 PM on November 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
This exact sort of comment is why I often give a pass to environment related threads here, Phalane. You've stepped in, ignored what was written, and addressed a parliament of straw men. This is bad faith writ in letters a hundred feet tall.
To echo a common bit of rhetoric from the last six years, I don't know how to explain to people that other creatures matter. The Earth is not, and should not be, just for humans.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:18 PM on November 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
I am glad to now have the term eco-gothic and will never stop applying it to myself like so much black lipstick.
posted by mittens at 7:29 PM on November 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by mittens at 7:29 PM on November 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
I am glad to now have the term eco-gothic and will never stop applying it to myself like so much black lipstick.
I'll have you know, it takes hours of preparations, to get that wasted look.
posted by notoriety public at 7:36 PM on November 15, 2022
I'll have you know, it takes hours of preparations, to get that wasted look.
posted by notoriety public at 7:36 PM on November 15, 2022
the people we want to sterilize
Literally no one here has said anything of the sort and it's pretty offensive to imply that anyone has.
posted by biogeo at 9:55 PM on November 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
The environment cares about yhe total human footprint, which is the area under the curve of population .x. per capita consumption.
The politics cares about how that area is distributed.
When i say there are too many people, i mean there are too many people in and from the west-asian subcontinent, their invader/settler descendents, and those who have imitated their imperial industrial high consumption lifestyles.
Every american born starves out 4 people elsewhere. That those american children are unhappy while doing so makes it all the more a waste.
I am antinatalist and anti consumption, but that doesn't matter. We f-ed the climate, which f-s the food, and when the food is f-ed we will strip the earth bare and also kill each other, by the billions. Baked in.
Collapse now and beat the rush. Abstain now and find the joy in a simpler life. Everything you dont waste seeking status and dopamine allows another living thing to live.
The great plastical chemical auto-sterilization endocrine disruption is already begun. Don't cheer 8 billion, cheer no billions.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 12:53 AM on November 16, 2022
The politics cares about how that area is distributed.
When i say there are too many people, i mean there are too many people in and from the west-asian subcontinent, their invader/settler descendents, and those who have imitated their imperial industrial high consumption lifestyles.
Every american born starves out 4 people elsewhere. That those american children are unhappy while doing so makes it all the more a waste.
I am antinatalist and anti consumption, but that doesn't matter. We f-ed the climate, which f-s the food, and when the food is f-ed we will strip the earth bare and also kill each other, by the billions. Baked in.
Collapse now and beat the rush. Abstain now and find the joy in a simpler life. Everything you dont waste seeking status and dopamine allows another living thing to live.
The great plastical chemical auto-sterilization endocrine disruption is already begun. Don't cheer 8 billion, cheer no billions.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 12:53 AM on November 16, 2022
Goodness, anti-human nihilism is a dismal worldview.
posted by Nelson at 6:32 AM on November 16, 2022
posted by Nelson at 6:32 AM on November 16, 2022
Goodness, anti-human nihilism is a dismal worldview.
It's pretty depressing to ask, "maybe we shouldn't do any of this, and maybe we shouldn't have done any of this?" But it's still a question that ought to be asked, because the answer is far from certain.
posted by notoriety public at 6:41 AM on November 16, 2022
It's pretty depressing to ask, "maybe we shouldn't do any of this, and maybe we shouldn't have done any of this?" But it's still a question that ought to be asked, because the answer is far from certain.
posted by notoriety public at 6:41 AM on November 16, 2022
Oh comon. So much scolding. It's okay to see the curve of the world headed towards human extinction. It is. This is a fact, on a timescale that none of us can possibly know for sure. It doesn't make someone a dark, sad individual, or someone without hope, or hateful, or anti-human. Allow room for climate grief, because there will always be more things we see that set it off.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:47 AM on November 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:47 AM on November 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Climate grief can also be an expression of loving humanity. There is no superiority of thinking for either take on this.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:48 AM on November 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:48 AM on November 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Every american born starves out 4 people elsewhere.
I'd be curious to hear your evidence on this point, because it doesn't follow the Pope or Marx, for examples, and I am curious to know if you are just talking about direct consumption, or something else on a ledger that is translated to food somewhere else.
posted by Brian B. at 7:38 AM on November 16, 2022
I'd be curious to hear your evidence on this point, because it doesn't follow the Pope or Marx, for examples, and I am curious to know if you are just talking about direct consumption, or something else on a ledger that is translated to food somewhere else.
posted by Brian B. at 7:38 AM on November 16, 2022
10k americans born each day, 25k people starve to death each day. 1:2.5
Americans consume or waste on average 4x the calories needed to keep a person alive. 1:4 Americans consumer or waste 5x the per capita global energy 1:5; total human consumption outstrips sustainable production by 1.6x; if everyone lived like americans, you'd need vaguely 4-5 more planets.
American industry (and the rest of the industrial world) have destroyed the holocene climate upon which all our nutrition relies.
Each new hyperconsumer that is created by birth or lifestyle 'enrichment' eats up 4 peoples food, 2.5 die now, 1/1.6 fraction of the earths population or more dies from collapse of ecosystem, fossil water depletion, famine etc.
Is it really citation needed to learn that human activity is destroying earths life support system, triggering mass extinction etc? Is citation needed for knowing that americans (and other wealthy and wasteful folks) are vastly unequal in their consumption and pollution?
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712
Earth Overshoot day is earlier each year.
There are many planetry boundaries, and most people on earth live a life that would be compatible.with us staying below those boundaries, but some 10% of humans live a lifestyle so polluting and wasteful that the entire planet is being tranformed into deadzones, refuse, refugees and wealth tokens.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 1:29 AM on November 17, 2022
Americans consume or waste on average 4x the calories needed to keep a person alive. 1:4 Americans consumer or waste 5x the per capita global energy 1:5; total human consumption outstrips sustainable production by 1.6x; if everyone lived like americans, you'd need vaguely 4-5 more planets.
American industry (and the rest of the industrial world) have destroyed the holocene climate upon which all our nutrition relies.
Each new hyperconsumer that is created by birth or lifestyle 'enrichment' eats up 4 peoples food, 2.5 die now, 1/1.6 fraction of the earths population or more dies from collapse of ecosystem, fossil water depletion, famine etc.
Is it really citation needed to learn that human activity is destroying earths life support system, triggering mass extinction etc? Is citation needed for knowing that americans (and other wealthy and wasteful folks) are vastly unequal in their consumption and pollution?
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712
Earth Overshoot day is earlier each year.
There are many planetry boundaries, and most people on earth live a life that would be compatible.with us staying below those boundaries, but some 10% of humans live a lifestyle so polluting and wasteful that the entire planet is being tranformed into deadzones, refuse, refugees and wealth tokens.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 1:29 AM on November 17, 2022
Hopefully no one uses the above reasoning to justify a nuclear first strike on America in the name of saving the planet.
posted by some loser at 5:30 AM on November 17, 2022
posted by some loser at 5:30 AM on November 17, 2022
It's hard to know what to do with the "Every american born starves out 4 people elsewhere" idea. It's clearly not true in any direct way. I was struck by the mention of water, and tried to think it through. Looking at my water bill, I apparently use about 50 gallons of water a day, even with efficient appliances and fixtures. Obviously that doesn't count water used for agriculture for the food I eat, or for cooling the power plants that keep my lights on, that's just water coming into my house. Now, I would like to stop being the kind of American who kills four people with my usage of resources. What can I do?
Nothing! There is literally nothing I can do. If every American were to suddenly stop using water, the water doesn't then flow to a more deserving country, it sits in its aquifer, or flows into the ocean, or whatever. The water I save today, I save so it can be used by the next person who lives in my area, and, hopefully, by future people in my area. But it doesn't help anyone else now.
And I'm trying to think, does that logic apply to food as well? I eat a vast and concerning number of calories. If I stop--if I go on a globally-minded diet--who gets the food then? I suppose the next person to walk past the grocery store shelf? But that's my neighbor, that's not someone in a starving nation.
Energy? I can't exactly ship the coal or uranium or sunlight I use for power anywhere!
I think what bothers me about the idea is how it sounds like blame, but is actually a distraction. "Every American" points the finger at individuals, but we know better. Individuals don't cause a global crisis. American eating habits do not cause famine and starvation. (American foreign policy, a legacy of imperialism, sure. But not, say, the metric tons of pastry consumed each year.)
If anything, in terms of our now-8-billion people, one of American consumption's biggest problems is that its expectations and desires are exported to developing areas. If you burn all your coal, you too can drive individual cars through overburdened highways on your way to the mall. If you use up all your water, you too can litter the ground with single-use plastic bottles. We've illustrated the success of a catastrophic development plan that must not be followed by anyone else on earth, but it is, at the moment, an easier and cheaper plan than the sort of green development that might give life a chance.
posted by mittens at 5:49 AM on November 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
Nothing! There is literally nothing I can do. If every American were to suddenly stop using water, the water doesn't then flow to a more deserving country, it sits in its aquifer, or flows into the ocean, or whatever. The water I save today, I save so it can be used by the next person who lives in my area, and, hopefully, by future people in my area. But it doesn't help anyone else now.
And I'm trying to think, does that logic apply to food as well? I eat a vast and concerning number of calories. If I stop--if I go on a globally-minded diet--who gets the food then? I suppose the next person to walk past the grocery store shelf? But that's my neighbor, that's not someone in a starving nation.
Energy? I can't exactly ship the coal or uranium or sunlight I use for power anywhere!
I think what bothers me about the idea is how it sounds like blame, but is actually a distraction. "Every American" points the finger at individuals, but we know better. Individuals don't cause a global crisis. American eating habits do not cause famine and starvation. (American foreign policy, a legacy of imperialism, sure. But not, say, the metric tons of pastry consumed each year.)
If anything, in terms of our now-8-billion people, one of American consumption's biggest problems is that its expectations and desires are exported to developing areas. If you burn all your coal, you too can drive individual cars through overburdened highways on your way to the mall. If you use up all your water, you too can litter the ground with single-use plastic bottles. We've illustrated the success of a catastrophic development plan that must not be followed by anyone else on earth, but it is, at the moment, an easier and cheaper plan than the sort of green development that might give life a chance.
posted by mittens at 5:49 AM on November 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
The misanthropic thing about the "every American starves people" statement is it completely ignores all the contributions that humans, including Americans, make to the world. Are we going to overlook all productivity of humanity? The creation of goods, and ideas, and love poems, and medicines, and green energy, and farming techniques, and art, and communications, and silly cat pictures, and life saving medical treatments? Is all of that stuff just meaningless in pursuit of a nihilistic world view?
This stance that humanity is somehow nothing but a scourge on the planet and is choking out everything is absolutely hateful nonsense. It is not "okay to see the curve of the world headed towards human extinction". It is miserable.
(Of course it's also important to address the costs of wealthy nations' consumption and it's not like our relative productivity balances our relative consumption. That's a separate topic. But please start from a viewpoint that humanity is inherently good, not bad. If nothing else, you're part of it!)
posted by Nelson at 6:24 AM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
This stance that humanity is somehow nothing but a scourge on the planet and is choking out everything is absolutely hateful nonsense. It is not "okay to see the curve of the world headed towards human extinction". It is miserable.
(Of course it's also important to address the costs of wealthy nations' consumption and it's not like our relative productivity balances our relative consumption. That's a separate topic. But please start from a viewpoint that humanity is inherently good, not bad. If nothing else, you're part of it!)
posted by Nelson at 6:24 AM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
It is not "okay to see the curve of the world headed towards human extinction". It is miserable.
To each their own. I don't find facts miserable.
This stance that humanity is somehow nothing but a scourge on the planet and is choking out everything is absolutely hateful nonsense.
No one said this. And please don't call my speech hateful.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:59 AM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
To each their own. I don't find facts miserable.
This stance that humanity is somehow nothing but a scourge on the planet and is choking out everything is absolutely hateful nonsense.
No one said this. And please don't call my speech hateful.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:59 AM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
10k americans born each day, 25k people starve to death each day. 1:2.5 Americans consume or waste on average 4x the calories needed to keep a person alive. 1:4 Americans consumer or waste 5x the per capita global energy 1:5; total human consumption outstrips sustainable production by 1.6x; if everyone lived like americans, you'd need vaguely 4-5 more planets... Is citation needed for knowing that americans (and other wealthy and wasteful folks) are vastly unequal in their consumption and pollution?
Your analysis rightly assumes that one continent is least populated and benefits from it, while others are overpopulated and suffer for it. Then you miss the point by normalizing very high birthrates, blaming the problem on those with political equality and personal rights to breed less, refusing the see the local religious control and undue influence involved among the high birthers. And even if America sent an equal share of food to balance the economic inequality caused by high birthrates, it would then lead to an increase in those populations, which can't sustain themselves, making the problem much worse. You also bet on the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. Other names for it are the lump of labor fallacy, and zero sum thinking. It is a fixed pie fallacy, where an abstraction or thought is believed to be concrete, not abstract.
Americans create heavy industries to go with massive food production, and it takes billions of tons of steel, concrete and fuel for dams, bridges, highways, ships and trains to send one ton of grain anywhere in the world. Water and topsoil equate to food production, neither of which can be exported, which ends the blame there. It is good water and soil can't be exported, or else owners would have sold it to Saudi Arabia long ago (the exception being exported alfalfa, a ground water depleting loophole which requires dry climate to cure but lots of water). The errors in thinking about population occur when one mentally blocks the possibility of birth control. It may also stem from a worldview that suffering is God's will, so anyone not suffering is in league with the anti-Christ. It also explains why some refuse to see breeding as a personal choice, preferring to see it traditionally as a duty, regardless of it becoming a source of misery, serfdom and slavery.
posted by Brian B. at 9:13 AM on November 17, 2022
Your analysis rightly assumes that one continent is least populated and benefits from it, while others are overpopulated and suffer for it. Then you miss the point by normalizing very high birthrates, blaming the problem on those with political equality and personal rights to breed less, refusing the see the local religious control and undue influence involved among the high birthers. And even if America sent an equal share of food to balance the economic inequality caused by high birthrates, it would then lead to an increase in those populations, which can't sustain themselves, making the problem much worse. You also bet on the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. Other names for it are the lump of labor fallacy, and zero sum thinking. It is a fixed pie fallacy, where an abstraction or thought is believed to be concrete, not abstract.
Americans create heavy industries to go with massive food production, and it takes billions of tons of steel, concrete and fuel for dams, bridges, highways, ships and trains to send one ton of grain anywhere in the world. Water and topsoil equate to food production, neither of which can be exported, which ends the blame there. It is good water and soil can't be exported, or else owners would have sold it to Saudi Arabia long ago (the exception being exported alfalfa, a ground water depleting loophole which requires dry climate to cure but lots of water). The errors in thinking about population occur when one mentally blocks the possibility of birth control. It may also stem from a worldview that suffering is God's will, so anyone not suffering is in league with the anti-Christ. It also explains why some refuse to see breeding as a personal choice, preferring to see it traditionally as a duty, regardless of it becoming a source of misery, serfdom and slavery.
posted by Brian B. at 9:13 AM on November 17, 2022
I love the framing that pronatalism is always eugenics, likely helpful against both pronatalist policies and pronatalism culture.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:05 PM on November 17, 2022
posted by jeffburdges at 3:05 PM on November 17, 2022
Eight billion people, huh? Don't blame me, I didn't do it!
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:52 PM on November 17, 2022
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:52 PM on November 17, 2022
I'm paraphrasing: "If I/we americans (and other hyperconsumers) don't overconsume all this stuff, it will go to waste it couldn't possibly go to other poorer people, and even if it did, poor foreigners would use it the wrong way."
1) Yes american agricultural and trade policy intentionally undermines, creates dependence, redirects volatility and starves people in other countries.
2) the same global supply chain that takes minerals, timber, pets, lab specimens, metals, slaves, and energy from all over the planet and delivers them to n. america, and west asia and increasingly east asia has no physical/infrastructural reason it couldn't deliver necessities to the sacrifice zones of exploited peoples. Its a political economy feature, not a physical diatribution problem.
3) it is indeed possible to live a nice life without all this hyperconsumption, despite social penalties and legal barriers. frugality, cooperation, mindful consumption, efficientcy, etc.
4) the moral calculus doesn't really change whether its 2.5 or 8 people you kill. Nor does the rube-goldberg-esque intermediation of adverising, supply chains and legal borders make your actions any less consequential. Rio Tinto and Haliburton et al are killing people, you are paying them for the results, little effort is required for you to learn that this is the case, you choose to say there is nothing you can do.
5) Whether you think exporting movies and bullets somehow balances the moral calculus of all the consumption, the fact that hyperconsumerism is an environmental murder-suicide pact makes it a mistake. Any political economy that permits, let alone rewards poisoning $10 of water to sell $1 of natural gas for $0.10 of profit is both uneconomical and unethical. Any legal system that permits your neighbor to poison you and your children so long as your neighbor incorporates and makes money on killing you, that legal system is unjust and invalid.
Any society that can't figure out that poisoning the air thehy breath, the water they drink, the soil they eat from, the neighbors they coexist with, the cycles of environmental regeneration upon which they rely, that society and its unwitting servants are not just foolish, they are evil because they kill more than themselves, they kill others.
8 billion is a crime because 8 billion is unsuatainable overshoot. pathological wealth and consumption inequality is a crime because it leaves less for everyone else to live sustainably on.
Lastly, whether a pie is growing, shrinking or staying the same size, it is immoral and inefficient to poison the pie, or to use the knife to keep a starving person from eating a slice while you eat a 4th helping. A kenyan with 10 children is not the cause of unsustainable global pollution and habitat loss, an american with 1 SUV is.
Thank you, that is all.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 12:41 AM on November 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
1) Yes american agricultural and trade policy intentionally undermines, creates dependence, redirects volatility and starves people in other countries.
2) the same global supply chain that takes minerals, timber, pets, lab specimens, metals, slaves, and energy from all over the planet and delivers them to n. america, and west asia and increasingly east asia has no physical/infrastructural reason it couldn't deliver necessities to the sacrifice zones of exploited peoples. Its a political economy feature, not a physical diatribution problem.
3) it is indeed possible to live a nice life without all this hyperconsumption, despite social penalties and legal barriers. frugality, cooperation, mindful consumption, efficientcy, etc.
4) the moral calculus doesn't really change whether its 2.5 or 8 people you kill. Nor does the rube-goldberg-esque intermediation of adverising, supply chains and legal borders make your actions any less consequential. Rio Tinto and Haliburton et al are killing people, you are paying them for the results, little effort is required for you to learn that this is the case, you choose to say there is nothing you can do.
5) Whether you think exporting movies and bullets somehow balances the moral calculus of all the consumption, the fact that hyperconsumerism is an environmental murder-suicide pact makes it a mistake. Any political economy that permits, let alone rewards poisoning $10 of water to sell $1 of natural gas for $0.10 of profit is both uneconomical and unethical. Any legal system that permits your neighbor to poison you and your children so long as your neighbor incorporates and makes money on killing you, that legal system is unjust and invalid.
Any society that can't figure out that poisoning the air thehy breath, the water they drink, the soil they eat from, the neighbors they coexist with, the cycles of environmental regeneration upon which they rely, that society and its unwitting servants are not just foolish, they are evil because they kill more than themselves, they kill others.
8 billion is a crime because 8 billion is unsuatainable overshoot. pathological wealth and consumption inequality is a crime because it leaves less for everyone else to live sustainably on.
Lastly, whether a pie is growing, shrinking or staying the same size, it is immoral and inefficient to poison the pie, or to use the knife to keep a starving person from eating a slice while you eat a 4th helping. A kenyan with 10 children is not the cause of unsustainable global pollution and habitat loss, an american with 1 SUV is.
Thank you, that is all.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 12:41 AM on November 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Promising that the Kenyan can one day be as destructive as the American due the miracle of compound growth (longterm impossible on a finite planet with the laws of thermodynamics) that promise doesnt undo the crime of exploitation, extraction, pollution and political violence used to get from Kenya whatever the empire and the industrialists want, and leave in kenya whatever destruction and division they want.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 12:49 AM on November 18, 2022
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 12:49 AM on November 18, 2022
I'm paraphrasing
That's one word for it.
posted by mittens at 5:24 AM on November 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
That's one word for it.
posted by mittens at 5:24 AM on November 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
8 billion is unsuatainable overshoot
citation needed
I absolutely agree with the point that pollution and CO2 in the atmosphere are injustices and terrible for the planet. I'm a humanist though, I believe some of those 8 billion people are going to find solutions for these problems, not just make the problem worse.
posted by Nelson at 8:07 AM on November 18, 2022
citation needed
I absolutely agree with the point that pollution and CO2 in the atmosphere are injustices and terrible for the planet. I'm a humanist though, I believe some of those 8 billion people are going to find solutions for these problems, not just make the problem worse.
posted by Nelson at 8:07 AM on November 18, 2022
the moral calculus doesn't really change whether its 2.5 or 8 people you kill... Lastly, whether a pie is growing, shrinking or staying the same size, it is immoral and inefficient to poison the pie, or to use the knife to keep a starving person from eating a slice while you eat a 4th helping.
To clarify, the zero sum or fixed pie fallacy refers to "one's gain is another's loss" and is a fallacy by pretending to be a causal relation. The mistake is no different than two gamblers sitting at two different slot machines when one blames the other for winning their money. Ignoring any possible con artistry, the claim only rings true in a self-effacing joke about luck, but not in any moral calculus that deserves blame. And though sharing the win might be nice and generous, it is also a bad charitable investment, because it enables gambling. Pie charts can also be made to show which region is living within means or has more environmental challenges. One region might be in crushing debt and eating endangered bush meat, the other with surplus. That pie requires moral calculus about what to do. Any liberal in America feels it involves direct food and debt relief, farming and education support and especially birth control to free up resources for survival. Conservative knee jerk reactions range from saying its their curse, or attempting to religiously convert them while desperate, or arm them as cannon fodder against non-cooperative warlords. Neither is prone to suggest the solution lies in token fasting or walking to work, as a payment, because those savings would be left in the ground for the future and to lessen pollution, not extracted and delivered as a gesture of their guilt, even if the guilt persisted. And if the saved food and energy were delivered abroad, a moral arithmetic pie might still chalk up extraction to the surplus nation and count it against them, or worse, if their token temperance gesture is having zero kids, that population decrease might be oddly used against them in ratios summing up to greater injustice and gluttony.
posted by Brian B. at 8:38 AM on November 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
To clarify, the zero sum or fixed pie fallacy refers to "one's gain is another's loss" and is a fallacy by pretending to be a causal relation. The mistake is no different than two gamblers sitting at two different slot machines when one blames the other for winning their money. Ignoring any possible con artistry, the claim only rings true in a self-effacing joke about luck, but not in any moral calculus that deserves blame. And though sharing the win might be nice and generous, it is also a bad charitable investment, because it enables gambling. Pie charts can also be made to show which region is living within means or has more environmental challenges. One region might be in crushing debt and eating endangered bush meat, the other with surplus. That pie requires moral calculus about what to do. Any liberal in America feels it involves direct food and debt relief, farming and education support and especially birth control to free up resources for survival. Conservative knee jerk reactions range from saying its their curse, or attempting to religiously convert them while desperate, or arm them as cannon fodder against non-cooperative warlords. Neither is prone to suggest the solution lies in token fasting or walking to work, as a payment, because those savings would be left in the ground for the future and to lessen pollution, not extracted and delivered as a gesture of their guilt, even if the guilt persisted. And if the saved food and energy were delivered abroad, a moral arithmetic pie might still chalk up extraction to the surplus nation and count it against them, or worse, if their token temperance gesture is having zero kids, that population decrease might be oddly used against them in ratios summing up to greater injustice and gluttony.
posted by Brian B. at 8:38 AM on November 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Will Steffen, The Nature of the Challenge (2018) page 37:
Is a +4°C world inhabitable?
Most of the tropics and subtropics will be too hot for human habitation.
Changing temperature & rainfall patterns may make current large agricultural zones unproductive.
...
Maximum carrying capacity of ~1 billion humans
We're headed for like +3.2°C by most estimates without tipping points, but we'll trigger tipping points as soon as +1.5°C, so exceeding +4°C sounds likely.
We won't find solutions of the sort you're suggesting, Nelson. We typically solve big problems by throwing dense energy at them, but oil & gas run out in 50 years, mostly ending our fertilizer solution that sidestepped Malthus, which compounds Will Steffen's estimates.
All real solutions involve lower energy density stuff, like agrivoltaics and regenerative agriculture. We'll hopefully discover new more complex automation that avoids everyone going back into more manual agriculture, but realistically we simply cannot consume energy or calories at anywhere near the same scale.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:12 AM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Is a +4°C world inhabitable?
Most of the tropics and subtropics will be too hot for human habitation.
Changing temperature & rainfall patterns may make current large agricultural zones unproductive.
...
Maximum carrying capacity of ~1 billion humans
We're headed for like +3.2°C by most estimates without tipping points, but we'll trigger tipping points as soon as +1.5°C, so exceeding +4°C sounds likely.
We won't find solutions of the sort you're suggesting, Nelson. We typically solve big problems by throwing dense energy at them, but oil & gas run out in 50 years, mostly ending our fertilizer solution that sidestepped Malthus, which compounds Will Steffen's estimates.
All real solutions involve lower energy density stuff, like agrivoltaics and regenerative agriculture. We'll hopefully discover new more complex automation that avoids everyone going back into more manual agriculture, but realistically we simply cannot consume energy or calories at anywhere near the same scale.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:12 AM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Jeffburdges, I've seen you mention the gas running out a few times...do you have a cite for that? My impression was that gas reserves were enormous, and that the problem was more about what happens if we utilize them, rather than them not being there?
posted by mittens at 9:26 AM on November 18, 2022
posted by mittens at 9:26 AM on November 18, 2022
We've 52 years of natural gas left (at current consumption levels). Also, note reserves have stayed flat or declined since 2014.
We've shit tons of coal, so maybe you've read something about power stations? We do actually have shit tons of methane lying around in seemingly unusable and maybe dangerous forms, but maybe actually more usable than biogas, not really sure.
We've 47 years of oil left (at current consumption levels). too, but yes we're doing badly if we burn all the oil & gas, but actually burning way more coal gets really really bad.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:59 AM on November 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
We've shit tons of coal, so maybe you've read something about power stations? We do actually have shit tons of methane lying around in seemingly unusable and maybe dangerous forms, but maybe actually more usable than biogas, not really sure.
We've 47 years of oil left (at current consumption levels). too, but yes we're doing badly if we burn all the oil & gas, but actually burning way more coal gets really really bad.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:59 AM on November 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
While we're talking about running out of things...
The Amazon is going dry. In one parched corner, a desperate wait for water is only just beginning.
posted by mittens at 12:59 PM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Amazon is going dry. In one parched corner, a desperate wait for water is only just beginning.
posted by mittens at 12:59 PM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
“Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them.”
— François-René de Chateaubriand
The Rivers Above the Canopy trailer was linked in the biotic pump post btw.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:09 PM on November 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
— François-René de Chateaubriand
The Rivers Above the Canopy trailer was linked in the biotic pump post btw.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:09 PM on November 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Re: Brian B. and the fallacies.
I eat 5 pounds of a 10 pound pie, and 5 other people each eat 1 pound. The next day, the pie grows to 12 pounds through the magic of other economic fallacies that ignore externalities. I eat 8 pounds of pie, and the 5 people split 4 pounds. Who should those 5 people kill before starving to death? Not rhetorical.
Part B. What is the trend for per capital arable land? How about that trend excluding top 10% global wealthy. How about the trend for per capita energy, per capita clean air, water, etc. I get its not fun to realize you are part of a global economic system that very much does ship bullets, food, poisons, energy, wealth tokens all over the world. But pretending that your responsibility for world hunger is moot because the bread on your sandwhich couldn't be delivered to Altophasan-ne fast enough is missing the point.
Your slot machine isn't separate from anyone elses, your attention may be, but no, you are not in an independent, hermetically sealed subplanet of one person, or one family, or one town or one county or one province or one nation or one contentent or one class. Anyone who shits in the hot-tub is shitting on all of us in the hot-tub, even if the hot tub is big. Where do you think the items in your room and in your belly came from? And the materials needed to make those items? And the people?
Your faith in solutions is an excuse to continue abusing the nameless with a clear conscience.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 4:42 PM on November 18, 2022
I eat 5 pounds of a 10 pound pie, and 5 other people each eat 1 pound. The next day, the pie grows to 12 pounds through the magic of other economic fallacies that ignore externalities. I eat 8 pounds of pie, and the 5 people split 4 pounds. Who should those 5 people kill before starving to death? Not rhetorical.
Part B. What is the trend for per capital arable land? How about that trend excluding top 10% global wealthy. How about the trend for per capita energy, per capita clean air, water, etc. I get its not fun to realize you are part of a global economic system that very much does ship bullets, food, poisons, energy, wealth tokens all over the world. But pretending that your responsibility for world hunger is moot because the bread on your sandwhich couldn't be delivered to Altophasan-ne fast enough is missing the point.
Your slot machine isn't separate from anyone elses, your attention may be, but no, you are not in an independent, hermetically sealed subplanet of one person, or one family, or one town or one county or one province or one nation or one contentent or one class. Anyone who shits in the hot-tub is shitting on all of us in the hot-tub, even if the hot tub is big. Where do you think the items in your room and in your belly came from? And the materials needed to make those items? And the people?
Your faith in solutions is an excuse to continue abusing the nameless with a clear conscience.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 4:42 PM on November 18, 2022
What is the trend for per capital arable land? How about that trend excluding top 10% global wealthy.
I keep trying to understand the thrust of the question, but can't quite get it. Per capita land use has roughly halved since 1961, with low-to-middle income countries showing about the same (although the drop is more dramatic in Africa). And...that's good, right? Poorer countries able to grow more food with less land? But the tone of the paragraph makes it sound like this is a bad thing, so I feel like I'm missing something.
posted by mittens at 6:02 PM on November 18, 2022
I keep trying to understand the thrust of the question, but can't quite get it. Per capita land use has roughly halved since 1961, with low-to-middle income countries showing about the same (although the drop is more dramatic in Africa). And...that's good, right? Poorer countries able to grow more food with less land? But the tone of the paragraph makes it sound like this is a bad thing, so I feel like I'm missing something.
posted by mittens at 6:02 PM on November 18, 2022
Is 8 billion unsustainable?
The poles are melting, the AMOC is slowing, the permafrost is thawing, the shallow sea shelves are burping methane, the oceans are souring, the fish stocks are collapsing, the rain is polluted, the water-table is droping, the forests are burning, the deserts are expanding, the soil is eroding, the heatwaves are hotter and longer, the droughts are too, the rosby waves in the jetstream are more excentrix, the hadley cell is expanding, the aquifers are depleting the wildlife is dying, the species are disappearing, the deadzones are expanding, the high-grade ores are depleting, the high eroi fuels are declinging, the rain storms are intensifying, the surface temperatures are rising, the poor and hungry are more numerous now than the entire human population 100 years ago.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:32 PM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
The poles are melting, the AMOC is slowing, the permafrost is thawing, the shallow sea shelves are burping methane, the oceans are souring, the fish stocks are collapsing, the rain is polluted, the water-table is droping, the forests are burning, the deserts are expanding, the soil is eroding, the heatwaves are hotter and longer, the droughts are too, the rosby waves in the jetstream are more excentrix, the hadley cell is expanding, the aquifers are depleting the wildlife is dying, the species are disappearing, the deadzones are expanding, the high-grade ores are depleting, the high eroi fuels are declinging, the rain storms are intensifying, the surface temperatures are rising, the poor and hungry are more numerous now than the entire human population 100 years ago.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:32 PM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Your faith in solutions is an excuse to continue abusing the nameless with a clear conscience.
I have no faith in solutions, but you never offered one either. In making a criminal case of over-consumption by Americans, you also missed your best shot at condemning America, which instead has contributed to increased population growth by food exports. DDT created an abundance of corn and grain in the 1930s and beyond, and the surplus was shipped to Africa and elsewhere, and new chemicals also combated diseases, but that is opposite of what you are saying it seems. The green revolution followed, solving a food crisis in India, with dire warnings that it was only buying time to solve the growth issue. Your case of over-consumption misses the point of over-production generally. It's a major cultural or human bias. Malthus was criticized as misguided in every textbook for generations. People have natural faith in progress, and it comes at a price nobody can afford. The search for solutions starts with the families with hungry kids, by studying their attitudes, influences, and sources of food, and working from there. I predict that we will find that nobody can limit the problem unless they are a religious leader speaking for God, because the pill was demonized and banned for many, followed by celebration over the forces of evil. They already have the end of the world written down in their pocket.
posted by Brian B. at 9:12 AM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have no faith in solutions, but you never offered one either. In making a criminal case of over-consumption by Americans, you also missed your best shot at condemning America, which instead has contributed to increased population growth by food exports. DDT created an abundance of corn and grain in the 1930s and beyond, and the surplus was shipped to Africa and elsewhere, and new chemicals also combated diseases, but that is opposite of what you are saying it seems. The green revolution followed, solving a food crisis in India, with dire warnings that it was only buying time to solve the growth issue. Your case of over-consumption misses the point of over-production generally. It's a major cultural or human bias. Malthus was criticized as misguided in every textbook for generations. People have natural faith in progress, and it comes at a price nobody can afford. The search for solutions starts with the families with hungry kids, by studying their attitudes, influences, and sources of food, and working from there. I predict that we will find that nobody can limit the problem unless they are a religious leader speaking for God, because the pill was demonized and banned for many, followed by celebration over the forces of evil. They already have the end of the world written down in their pocket.
posted by Brian B. at 9:12 AM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Interestingly, ancient China stayed around 50 M people for 1000 years, despite all their advancements in agriculture, whereas modern China grew by 40% even under their one-child policy (or 50% if you count time under the more relaxed later policies).
posted by jeffburdges at 3:01 AM on November 20, 2022
posted by jeffburdges at 3:01 AM on November 20, 2022
ancient China stayed around 50 M people for 1000 years, despite all their advancements in agriculture
The paved road and truck get a lot of credit for distribution, and modern water lines too. And if a famine or invasion, people can better relocate in the warlord free society that goes with connecting highways.
posted by Brian B. at 9:08 AM on November 20, 2022
The paved road and truck get a lot of credit for distribution, and modern water lines too. And if a famine or invasion, people can better relocate in the warlord free society that goes with connecting highways.
posted by Brian B. at 9:08 AM on November 20, 2022
Brian B. I don’t remember claiming there are solutions to our predicament (technological or otherwise), that was you, not me. And you are talking about the fixed sum/zero-sum fallacy and I'm am talking about rival vs non-rival goods. And a web-post hardly has the space, but here goes.
What a sustainable political economy needs to accomplish is straight forward. How to accomplish a sustainable political economy is not.
We need to stop polluting and destroying ecosystems and start removing pollution and restoring the damage done. We need to stop over-feeding the wealthy and starving the workers, we need to boost the sustainable harvest of the materials we depend upon, and distribute them so that as many people as possible reliably get the minimum they need to survive. We need to tax externalities, we need to cap and trade all the sustainable materials, including sustainable levels of pollutants, though, notably, we are past any sustainable level of green-house-gas pollution, and wean off all the non-sustainables. For GHG, project draw-down has a good list. We need to tax extraction and alienation from the public (i.e. tax rival goods) we need progressive taxation of wealth and income and redistribution of wealth, power, land etc). This isn't because "these are nice" this is because this is what maximizes human well-being while also ensuring that human well-being doesn't become a short-term excuse for killing off the biosphere upon which humans and other species depend.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 10:44 PM on November 23, 2022
What a sustainable political economy needs to accomplish is straight forward. How to accomplish a sustainable political economy is not.
We need to stop polluting and destroying ecosystems and start removing pollution and restoring the damage done. We need to stop over-feeding the wealthy and starving the workers, we need to boost the sustainable harvest of the materials we depend upon, and distribute them so that as many people as possible reliably get the minimum they need to survive. We need to tax externalities, we need to cap and trade all the sustainable materials, including sustainable levels of pollutants, though, notably, we are past any sustainable level of green-house-gas pollution, and wean off all the non-sustainables. For GHG, project draw-down has a good list. We need to tax extraction and alienation from the public (i.e. tax rival goods) we need progressive taxation of wealth and income and redistribution of wealth, power, land etc). This isn't because "these are nice" this is because this is what maximizes human well-being while also ensuring that human well-being doesn't become a short-term excuse for killing off the biosphere upon which humans and other species depend.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 10:44 PM on November 23, 2022
Our total consumption (of many materials and of waste sinks) is larger than can be sustained with current technology (and in some cases any theoretical technology that conforms to our current understanding of physics and chemistry – Phosphorous mining is a good example), and the overshoot is causing the sustainable harvest to fall. A few rules of thumb.
-2x is the amount of GHG emissions possible, i.e. stop emitting what you emit, and then undo twice that amount to get the climate eventually back to equilibrium. That’s not a personal task, that is the collective human task, and its not because “it would be nice” its because all our relevant agricultural species are adapted to Holocene climatic conditions and we (collectively) commited to ending the holocene 30 years ago.
If you have kids, consider having no additional kids, if you have no kids, consider having 1 or no kids. Remove the fines and penalities for being child-free. Remove the zoning prohibitions *but not the building code standards* to allow more frugal efficient and sustainable homes, offices etc. Instate social shame for conspicuous consumption. Boycott and ban unsustainable and/or poisonous products and production methods. The climate is going to drive us and everything else toward extinction, that is worse than if we regulate ourselves back the standard of living of (gasp) the 1960s
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 10:45 PM on November 23, 2022
-2x is the amount of GHG emissions possible, i.e. stop emitting what you emit, and then undo twice that amount to get the climate eventually back to equilibrium. That’s not a personal task, that is the collective human task, and its not because “it would be nice” its because all our relevant agricultural species are adapted to Holocene climatic conditions and we (collectively) commited to ending the holocene 30 years ago.
If you have kids, consider having no additional kids, if you have no kids, consider having 1 or no kids. Remove the fines and penalities for being child-free. Remove the zoning prohibitions *but not the building code standards* to allow more frugal efficient and sustainable homes, offices etc. Instate social shame for conspicuous consumption. Boycott and ban unsustainable and/or poisonous products and production methods. The climate is going to drive us and everything else toward extinction, that is worse than if we regulate ourselves back the standard of living of (gasp) the 1960s
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 10:45 PM on November 23, 2022
Implementing a sustainable political economy is hard. I would rather save as many people (and species) as possible, by giving as many of the poor and workers what they need, and having the short-fall fall upon the previous “winners” and hyper-consumers. If 10,000 kenyans use the same as 2 Silicon valleyers ( a made up example), keep the kenyans and austerity the SV’s. But that’s not how short-falls are actually distributed by our current political economy.
Societies, even ours, have at times managed to tax their wealthy, punish their corrupt, charge for externalizes, redistribute land, wealth, power, change legal rights, over-throw their governments, abolish forms of serfdom, rebel against oppressors, exit from arms-races, de-escalate saber rattling etc. That we currently fail to do so is neither inevitable or immutable. So, yes, it is possible to get there from here.
There are however, short-term competitive advantages, military and economic, to pollution, violence, exploitation, over-consumption etc. To solve the worlds problem – that a few percent of the population creates unsustainable amounts of waste and commands the benefits and exports the costs of its outlandish lifestyles to such an extent that they have triggered a mass extinction and have destabilized the climate epoch - to solve that problem requires more than just [Redacted] however just that would be. It means global enforceable regulation of climate pollution, and a trade regime that makes externalities taxable. It means persuading or replacing the currently powerful.
The unstable and increasingly hostile climate means that we 8-10 (billion) people are going to be locked into a room (the earth) with usually enough food, but some year coming up, that good luck and good inheritance will run out and we will temporarily be 10 people locked in a room for a year with only enough food for 6. How many of those maximal 6 survivors will actually survive, and more importantly, what condition will the room be in for sustaining them next year. Don't let the fascists distract you with fears about what class or race or religion those survivors might be, our focus should be to make sure as many peoples and species survive as possible and the our home, the earth survives to support as much as possible for the long haul. Collapse now and beat the rush, the breathing room you save might be your own.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 10:53 PM on November 23, 2022
Societies, even ours, have at times managed to tax their wealthy, punish their corrupt, charge for externalizes, redistribute land, wealth, power, change legal rights, over-throw their governments, abolish forms of serfdom, rebel against oppressors, exit from arms-races, de-escalate saber rattling etc. That we currently fail to do so is neither inevitable or immutable. So, yes, it is possible to get there from here.
There are however, short-term competitive advantages, military and economic, to pollution, violence, exploitation, over-consumption etc. To solve the worlds problem – that a few percent of the population creates unsustainable amounts of waste and commands the benefits and exports the costs of its outlandish lifestyles to such an extent that they have triggered a mass extinction and have destabilized the climate epoch - to solve that problem requires more than just [Redacted] however just that would be. It means global enforceable regulation of climate pollution, and a trade regime that makes externalities taxable. It means persuading or replacing the currently powerful.
The unstable and increasingly hostile climate means that we 8-10 (billion) people are going to be locked into a room (the earth) with usually enough food, but some year coming up, that good luck and good inheritance will run out and we will temporarily be 10 people locked in a room for a year with only enough food for 6. How many of those maximal 6 survivors will actually survive, and more importantly, what condition will the room be in for sustaining them next year. Don't let the fascists distract you with fears about what class or race or religion those survivors might be, our focus should be to make sure as many peoples and species survive as possible and the our home, the earth survives to support as much as possible for the long haul. Collapse now and beat the rush, the breathing room you save might be your own.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 10:53 PM on November 23, 2022
The People Cheering for Humanity’s End (via)
'Destruction by despoliation is more radically unsettling. It means that humanity is endangered not only by our acknowledged vices, such as hatred and violence, but also by pursuing aims that we ordinarily consider good and natural: prosperity, comfort, increase of our kind. The Bible gives the negative commandment “Thou shalt not kill” as well as the positive commandment “Be fruitful and multiply,” and traditionally they have gone together. But if being fruitful and multiplying starts to be seen as itself a form of killing, because it deprives future generations and other species of irreplaceable resources, then the flourishing of humanity can no longer be seen as simply good. Instead, it becomes part of a zero-sum competition that pits the gratification of human desires against the well-being of all of nature'
'If that’s the case, then humanity can no longer be considered a part of creation or nature, as science and religion teach in their different ways. Instead, it must be seen as an antinatural force that has usurped and abolished nature, substituting its own will for the processes that once appeared to be the immutable basis of life on Earth. This understanding of humanity’s place outside and against the natural order is summed up in the term Anthropocene, which in the past decade has become one of the most important concepts in the humanities and social sciences.'
(It goes on way too long about silly transhumanist stuff towards the end though)
posted by jeffburdges at 5:48 PM on December 2, 2022
'Destruction by despoliation is more radically unsettling. It means that humanity is endangered not only by our acknowledged vices, such as hatred and violence, but also by pursuing aims that we ordinarily consider good and natural: prosperity, comfort, increase of our kind. The Bible gives the negative commandment “Thou shalt not kill” as well as the positive commandment “Be fruitful and multiply,” and traditionally they have gone together. But if being fruitful and multiplying starts to be seen as itself a form of killing, because it deprives future generations and other species of irreplaceable resources, then the flourishing of humanity can no longer be seen as simply good. Instead, it becomes part of a zero-sum competition that pits the gratification of human desires against the well-being of all of nature'
'If that’s the case, then humanity can no longer be considered a part of creation or nature, as science and religion teach in their different ways. Instead, it must be seen as an antinatural force that has usurped and abolished nature, substituting its own will for the processes that once appeared to be the immutable basis of life on Earth. This understanding of humanity’s place outside and against the natural order is summed up in the term Anthropocene, which in the past decade has become one of the most important concepts in the humanities and social sciences.'
(It goes on way too long about silly transhumanist stuff towards the end though)
posted by jeffburdges at 5:48 PM on December 2, 2022
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