
Half-Earth - Thevet
https://aeon.co/essays/half-of-the-earth-must-be-preserved-for-nature-conservation
======
Olscore
Another user has already (unapologetically) advanced population reduction
arguments. I want to preempt that discussion by condemning it as lazy, selfish
thinking. Controlling population as a solution to economic, environmental or
similar issues of resource contention is a morally hazardous slippery slope;
it should not be welcome in the realm of innovation and ingenuity specifically
because it is not innovative or constructive at all. Design solutions around
population growth or exit the conversation.

Each of us can look towards the sky and see the sprawling space and resources
available. We have companies today organized under the premise to go out and
mine asteroids, explore other planetary bodies and much more. Yet, some
continue talking as if the Earth were more valuable than the only thing
(humans) that can ascribe it value. Gaia worship and similar propaganda should
be exposed for the anti-human agenda it is. I sincerely despise this line of
thinking.

Whether we like it or not, humanity is the steward of this Earth. Being good
stewards of our resources SHOULD NOT first appeal to last-ditch efforts like
controlling the population. We all have imaginations; along with the ability
to create solutions to problems. Stop perpetuating the idea that future
generations are evil, bad, doomed or unwanted; they are very welcome and
wanted. Now, and always. Our parents did not put our generation to slaughter
for selfish reasons, so we have no justification for it either.

Instead of proposing anti-humanist goals of little thought or substance, set
your mind to work and stop being intellectually lazy. We already have hints
from various nations who have tried to control populations, with evidence of
detrimental and unintended side-effects. I am by no means saying there are
simple fixes. But immediately jumping to population control is pure lazy
thinking.

~~~
danbruc
_Each of us can look towards the sky and see the sprawling space and resources
available._

Except there isn't a sprawling amount of resources for an exponentially
growing population. Let's say we reach the resource limit of Earth and start
reaching for the stars to find new places to live. If we can colonize one
Earth-like planet around every single star of the 400 billion stars in the
Milky Way, we would run out of places to live after 2685 years if the human
population kept growing at a rate of 1 % per year. That isn't even enough time
to reach all places in the Milky Way even if we could travel at the speed of
light. Actually you could barely cross 2 % of the diameter of the Milky Way in
that time. Exponential growth is unsustainable. Period.

~~~
jessaustin
_...an exponentially growing population._

Which population is that? Certainly not humans.

~~~
danbruc
Of course humans [1][2]. With a few exceptions the population increased by
some factor every year for thousands of years. The factor was admittedly small
for long times, 0.1 % per year since 1000 BCE and even smaller before, but the
factor increased over time and surpassed 1 % per year in the early 20th
century. So depending on the reference point the population growth can even be
considered superexponential. And while a growth factor of 0.1 % per years
seems pretty small at first, it only increases the doubling time by a factor
of 10 from 70 years to 700 years.

[1] [http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/17465/yearly-
popu...](http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/17465/yearly-population-
growth-rate-throughout-history)

[2]
[http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/210a/readings...](http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/210a/readings/kremer1993.pdf)

~~~
jessaustin
The UN chart at the first Google result [0] seems to indicate a negative
second derivative. This would imply that human population, like all other
populations of all other organisms, exhibits logistic, not exponential,
growth. Of course, portions of logistic charts can appear exponential.

[0]
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140918-popul...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140918-population-
global-united-nations-2100-boom-africa/)

~~~
danbruc
The population growth rate peaked in 1962 at 2.2 % per year and is now back to
1.1 % per year. There is no way for a population to grow exponentially for a
long time, the growth will hit some resource constraint sooner or later and
then the growth stops. Therefore also the human population can not and will
not grow exponentially forever. But the important point is that you don't want
to get stopped by hitting a resource constraint, that is always going to be an
unpleasant experience. And the slowdown of the growth of the human population
is not due to hitting a resource constraint as it happens in animal
populations, it is because of a conscious decision to have less children and
having the means to do that. And that's a good thing.

~~~
jessaustin
Sure, the demographic transition is a benefit to humanity, and we've seen
enough of it to know that while the timing might vary it will eventually
happen everywhere, and certainly by the end of this century. Since we agree, I
guess I don't know why the supposedly-but-actually-not exponential nature of
human population growth was ever mentioned in the first place.

~~~
danbruc
My first comment was meant as an argument that technological advances can not
be a substitute for preventing an unchecked population growth, but the comment
did a bad job expressing this. A bit down the thread is another comment making
things a bit more clear. I also think it is not a clear-cut issue, in some
sense we are actively doing population growth control when we promote birth
control. The motivation may primarily come from other reasons like avoiding
sexually transmitted diseases and not necessarily to avoid overpopulation, but
at least in some regions population growth control is part of the motivation.

And, because you mentioned the end of the century, there is still »The Limits
to Growth« and it predictions. I am actually not sure on which side I am here.
I can't really imagine a collapse of society as we know it in the second half
of the century but I am also aware of the sudden and unexpected behavior of
complex systems and how hard it is to counteract a system with a lot of
inertia. But if the predications come true, population control may become an
issue sooner than we like.

------
jdietrich
To me, this reads like a fairly transparent play to expand the Overton
window[1]. There is an almost total lack of evidence for the merits of his
argument, just bald assertion and a lot of buzzword-rich waffle.

Half the earth is both outrageously huge and within the realms of possibility.
If we debate the merits of it, then we're more likely to entertain more modest
proposals.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window)

------
dncjnfdnc
They already are allocated that way, just not in a nice, organized manner.
Humans take up much less space on planet earth than you'd initially expect.

~~~
barkingcat
If you only count individual human beings you are severely undercounting

In addition to agriculture & food production, transportation (road+rail),
strip/open pit mines, and you have just take a look at

[https://karolinanwk.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/garbagepatch...](https://karolinanwk.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/garbagepatch.jpg)

------
pcarolan
What's needed to realize Wilson's vision is an institution that glues
allocated land together and networks with other land trusts towards the half-
earth goal. The land wouldn't always need to be contiguous, though connecting
corridors would be a priority. There's various living park models that could
form an unbrella and provide limited use for tourism and other non-invasive
uses. You'd want to engage in land swaps and raise money from wealthy donors
to support the foundation. I can imagine there'd be support from the valley
and others in the form of technical support and gifting towards a goal like
this. If anyone's interested in discussing starting this as a YC nonprofit, I
setup a slack channel at halfearth.slack.com . Just email me at
patrick.carolan@gmail.com for an invite.

------
thisisnotclear
This is completely speculation. We should rather leave the conservation of
Biosphere to Science and Technology. I refuse to believe that Humans are going
to continue making such a waste of resources in near and far sighted future.
These theories always reek of nihilism to me.

------
x5n1
Up until 10,000 years ago there were no more than 5 million humans on the
entire planet. If we could go back to that maybe we can live another 10,000
years. But the cretins keep cloning and feeding. More humans destroy the value
of humans to other humans. Just go to India, or hell go to America, see how
little people value each other. The reason is too many people. They shit over
everything, eat all the food meant for animals, and their desires destroy all
nature and convert it to acreages, houses, and cities. The number of humans is
too damn high, vote for the human population reduction party.

~~~
givan
The biggest problem is not how many but how we are living.

From our mostly meat diet to our inefficient mostly individual transportation
systems to our consumerist society that produces tones of useless garbage all
of these with very high carbon footprint, pollution and big environment
impact.

And all of this just to satisfy some old human habits that are no longer
possible at this scale without irreversible damage to the ecosystem.

