Population

[Sezbet]

This seems to be an unpopular subject, but I do believe it's central to our species living in a sustainable way.

There are simply too many of us, 6.6 billion at the last count....well, I'm sure you all know the figures....which of course means that heaviness of our own footsteps on the earth have to get lighter and lighter with each extra person.

The problem is that the answers are difficult ones. The horrible, vile truth is that we need so many people to die from poverty, disease and natural disasters right now. We don't like the idea of limiting the number of children a woman is allowed to have (which is basically what happens in China, the number of children is not really counted by couples, a man can leave his wife and father another child in a new relationship), abortion is an emotive word.... what on earth is the answer???

One woman (the leader of my local FOE) suggested one idea. Part of the drive to have many children is so that parents are cared for in their old age, she suggested better state care for the elderly in developing countries as a part of the strategy. Along with better medical care, naturally better education for women (since this has been proven to have a direct effect on how many children a woman has), land reform....

....which is, of course, all very well if only we could actually effect this change in other sovereign nations.

Any ideas?

[UKBullDog]

Visit the poorer countries and adopt a family or their kids. Then whip round your own family for money and items to sent to the family you have adopted. But it is a lifetime commitment and one might even make friends for a lifetime.

They can then send their children to school, have health care and food. Its the children who will be able to change things for the future. The "oldies" are quite set in their ways (no knowledge, no understanding, uneducated, traditional pressures, traditional beliefs and lifestyles). But the kids are the ones where new ideas about a different lifestyle can be planted.

[Corey]

medical care should be limited to prevention and pain reduction NOTHING else Which extends Life. The longer each of us lives the more we consume per person without giving back once we are sick.

state care program for the elders good as long as medical is as follows above since many of those elders no longer support sustainability.

Fix developmentally disabled fix anyone with an incurable disease such as HIV
Fix Men after their first child (why men? it takes women some time once pregnant before they can bear again. men can go from women to women if we need a sudden boost in population.) . at least for the time being till population comes down.
(fix - no children)

Its unfortunate that it has to come to these step but what else is their when we refused to control our population on an individual basis?

[Karl]

Originally Posted by Corey

Fix Men after their first child (why men? it takes women some time once pregnant before they can bear again. men can go from women to women if we need a sudden boost in population.) . at least for the time being till population comes down.
(fix - no children)

Its unfortunate that it has to come to these step but what else is their when we refused to control our population on an individual basis?

This may all sound good in theory - but how can things like these be regulated in a practical way? Over-regulation of society as a final solution to the "refusal of people to control population on an individual basis" has never worked in the past, and is extremely unlikely to work in the future. Population-economics of that variety is not as simple as planning for natural resource use. The arguments against your expressed solutions, will be put forward by your opponents on the basis of social, political, cultural (and some would even say moral) dimensions, that would prevent such measure from ever being considered.

I am not denying or overlooking the very real problems which face the question of sustainability - food crisis, energy crisis, environmental uncertainty (weather/climate) and all varieties of crime and corruption, but the fact remains that history will demonstrate that all experiments of formal state-sponsored social engineering have always failed. Individual leaders may have at times appeared to have come close to taking over-regulation to the point of absolute dominance almost to a practical reality, but these have seldom if ever outlived the leader (a most recent example perhaps in Turkmenistan).

Survival and propagation of Homo sapiens is fundamentally and irrevocably entrenched in our DNA as a species - no amount of reasoning, logic and preaching on the basis of environment, resources, climate, sustainability, etc could ever convince the majority of what you recommend...

[Corey]

Originally Posted by Karl

This may all sound good in theory - but how can things like these be regulated in a practical way? Over-regulation of society as a final solution to the "refusal of people to control population on an individual basis" has never worked in the past, and is extremely unlikely to work in the future. Population-economics of that variety is not as simple as planning for natural resource use. The arguments against your expressed solutions, will be put forward by your opponents on the basis of social, political, cultural (and some would even say moral) dimensions, that would prevent such measure from ever being considered.

I am not denying or overlooking the very real problems which face the question of sustainability - food crisis, energy crisis, environmental uncertainty (weather/climate) and all varieties of crime and corruption, but the fact remains that history will demonstrate that all experiments of formal state-sponsored social engineering have always failed. Individual leaders may have at times appeared to have come close to taking over-regulation to the point of absolute dominance almost to a practical reality, but these have seldom if ever outlived the leader (a most recent example perhaps in Turkmenistan).

Survival and propagation of Homo sapiens is fundamentally and irrevocably entrenched in our DNA as a species - no amount of reasoning, logic and preaching on the basis of environment, resources, climate, sustainability, etc could ever convince the majority of what you recommend...

Alternative is extinction. China had or has a policy regarding one child family and if they break it the parents go to jail for the life time of the child, while that child is alive.

The only other alternative it to Halt economic growth in order to reduce the consumption of resources of the individual to a level that earth can actually support.

If we don't listen to nature and the rules nature applies then we are doomed.
We need to stop changing the environment to meet our needs and start coexisting with it.

example of changing is the dam proposed for the amazon river that brazil just gave approval for. Coexisting is reducing the consumption of resources so as not to strain the environment any further than we have.

If we keep accelerating the way we currently are with the unrealistic actions of economic growth and creating supposed green tech that is not, WE WILL GO EXTINCT IN MY LIFE TIME, I am only 34.

making excuses because of our DNA or any other term like "natural cycle of earth" sound like defeatist or an escape clause to go on as usual. Our actions of manipulation of our environment IS NOT A NATURAL CYCLE.

[Karl]

Originally Posted by Corey

Alternative is extinction. China had or has a policy regarding one child family and if they break it the parents go to jail for the life time of the child, while that child is alive.

...

Yes, very true. But has that policy helped China in terms of their overall environmental issues?

I see you have just posted a thread that suggests it has not (china #1 Polluter!) .

In fact a lot of attention is being paid to China's environmental record right now because of the approaching olympics (Olympics Raise Questions over China’s Environmental Degradation).

While much of the increasing energy demand and pollution in China is related to coal-powered industrialisation policies, urbanization and consumption-driven westernization of the population lifestyle, the issues demonstrate that the "one-child" policy has not been the answer to all of the concerns.

Further to that, regardless of the original intentions of the policy, one of the outcomes has been selective abortion of female foetuses so that the parents can (if possible) have a male child; I am not sure how widespread that practice was, but this is something the western media likes to highlight (as if in preemptive argument against any such "one-child" policies on this side of the world). Another issue is that many families from China simply migrated to other countries if they wanted more than one child, so in that respect the policy was simply a de facto transfer of population issues out of their jurisdiction (which in the longterm is no solution at all).

So the "one-child" policy of China has probably reduced their population growth rate, but in an environmental or sustainability sense, it has accomplished little more than allowing their neighbours (India) to catch up with them and close-in on becoming the world's most populated country, if they have not already done so...(World Population Statistics[List Ranked by Country Population])

Speaking of India a policy very similar to what you were suggesting (i.e., sterilization of males) was proposed by Indira Gandhi in the early in the early 1970's (just about the time when many of us were born) - and simply put, there was a major political backlash and that plan never happened and (while it may have been totally unrelated) she did not exactly last for too many decades after that suggestion...

The point is - it is since the 1970's (effectively all our lives) that we have been hearing this imminent apocalypse and meltdown story (energy crisis, species extinctions, pollution, ozone depletion were the major issues of that time), but the problem is we are still here (and so are all the other large fauna, except probably the Chinese River Dolphin).

It can never be "business as usual" again, but the fact remains many of the predictions of that time did not come to pass (at least not yet!!!). So, that is part of the reason why so many people will remain unconvinced (in the face of all the crises of the present). In fact the irony is that they are seldom inspired to be more "green" in lifestyle choices, on the basis of environmental issues, but rather on the basis of things that have an immediate effect on them (like fuel prices).

[Corey]

China One Child Policy - Overview of the One Child Policy in China

An update on china 1 child policy.


Here are some articles from monbiot which I hope covered the section on how economic growth is an impossibility in a sustainable environment. economic growth = 1 person consuming 16 times the current world average. Which will offset any population drop and if the population goes up the consumption is exponential. we need to do both not one or the other. there is no other option other than aliens coming to the rescue and take us off this dieing rock we are killing.
Monbiot.com » Rigged
Monbiot.com » Hurray! We’re Going Backwards!
Monbiot.com » The Road Well Travelled

There is now a broad scientific consensus that we need to prevent temperatures from rising by more than 2°C above their pre-industrial level. Beyond that point, the Greenland ice sheet could go into irreversible meltdown, some ecosystems collapse, billions suffer from water stress, droughts could start to threaten global food supplies(1,2).

The government proposes to cut the UK’s carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. This target is based on a report published in 2000(3). That report was based on an assessment published in 1995, which drew on scientific papers published a few years earlier. The UK’s policy, in other words, is based on papers some 15 years old. Our target, which is one of the toughest on earth, bears no relation to current science.

Over the past fortnight, both Gordon Brown and his adviser Sir Nicholas Stern have proposed raising the cut to 80%(4,5). Where did this figure come from? The last G8 summit adopted the aim of a global cut of 50% by 2050, which means that 80% would be roughly the UK’s fair share. But the G8’s target isn’t based on current science either.

In the new summary published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), you will find a table which links different cuts to likely temperatures(6). To prevent global warming from eventually exceeding 2°, it suggests, by 2050 the world needs to cut its emissions to roughly 15% of the volume in 2000.

I looked up the global figures for carbon dioxide production in 2000(7) and divided it by the current population(8). This gives a baseline figure of 3.58 tonnes of CO2 per person. An 85% cut means that (if the population remains constant) the global output per head should be reduced to 0.537t by 2050. The UK currently produces 9.6 tonnes per head and the US 23.6t(9,10). Reducing these figures to 0.537t means a 94.4% cut in the UK and a 97.7% cut in the US. But the world population will rise in the same period. If we assume a population of 9bn in 2050(11), the cuts rise to 95.9% in the UK and 98.3% in the US.

The IPCC figures might also be out of date. In a footnote beneath the table, the panel admits that “emission reductions … might be underestimated due to missing carbon cycle feedbacks”. What this means is that the impact of the biosphere’s response to global warming has not been fully considered. As seawater warms, for example, it releases carbon dioxide. As soil bacteria heat up, they respire more, generating more CO2. As temperatures rise, tropical forests die back, releasing the carbon they contain. These are examples of positive feedbacks. A recent paper (all the references are on my website) estimates that feedbacks account for about 18% of global warming(12). They are likely to intensify.

A paper in Geophysical Research Letters finds that even with a 90% global cut by 2050, the 2° threshold “is eventually broken”(13). To stabilise temperatures at 1.5° above the pre-industrial level requires a global cut of 100%. The diplomats who started talks in Bali yesterday should be discussing the complete decarbonisation of the global economy.
by monbiot

[Johnny Electriglide]

I don't see the methane feedback loop in there. It is the one that either will or is now, self perpetuating, and will lead to much higher temperatures, much quicker. It may take another hundred years or more before the ELE is complete. One thing they do say is that even with a 90% drop in CO2 emissions, the 2*C point will be reached. If we are not at the methane self-sustaining release level, we will then for sure.
People could have reduced population and reduced impact, if they had done it in time. The sustainable level has been accelerating in its fall since the early 1990s and is probably at around 2/3 billion at a Euro standard of living, while the Earth's human population is 6.7 billion. 10 times sustainable is a lot of overshoot. With a reduction immediately to sustainable by some war or disease, there is still that momentous rise to the self sustaining methane/CO2 feedback loop and mass extinction. The time to reduce population by forced programs is passed. China never reached the magic number of TFR=1. They are the only ones who gave it a try, with authoritarian rule, and it still did not work. Now the "cure" is as bad as the "disease", and still will not stop ELE. The average human was just not intelligent enough of a creature to learn to live sustainably.

[Patrick]

2/3 billion at Euro standard of living? This isn't what I've read.

2-3 billion could be supported at a 1920s-40s standard of living. 2 billion if you want to keep some plants and animals alive which aren't useful to humans. 3 billion if we use every last acre to meet human needs.

This is if you are looking at Ecological Footprint.

The only way we could support 6+ billion of us is if we all lived like monks and ate beans every day. Since that is not going to happen, our numbers are going to be reduced. If we do not reduce our numbers voluntarily than nature will do it for us through war, starvation, and disease.

[MartinSykes]

Last time I checked, annual births were at 130M and deaths at 60M giving a net increase each year of about 70M.

Forget the 1-child policy. Even if you had a 0-child policy, population would only drop at 60M per year as people died. That's assuming we stop any further development of medicines etc. etc. etc.

So, to get from 6.5B to 3B would take 60 years. Of course you can't have 60-years with no births because then the youngest woman would be 60 and unable to have children anyway. To get to 2-3B population in a managed way that produced a stable population at that level that didn't oscillate wildly would take hundreds of years and involve the cooperation of everyone on the planet. That's too slow.

In short, forget it. It's not going to happen. We are going to have to find a way to feed 10B+ people or go through the kind of extinction that hasn't been seen since the dinosaurs went.