
11,000 Scientists Say Earth's Population Needs to Shrink to Beat Climate Crisis - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-05/scientists-call-for-population-control-in-mass-climate-alarm
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zaroth
As usual, the process is already well underway. Birth rates are dropping
fairly rapidly, and we are pretty close to seeing total population hit
equilibrium and maybe even start declining.

Growth rates of 1.14-1.12-1.08 and lower, any predictions when it drops below
zero? This site pegs it at 11 billion. [1]

Seems like infertility will be a major contributor, combined with technology,
income distribution, and massively changing roles of women.

Children are all at once the best thing you will ever do, your greatest joy,
tremendous pains in the ass, and terrifically expensive. I highly recommend
it, and highly advise against it!

But seriously anyone who would sign a letter saying we need to reduce
population as a solution to climate change doesn’t merely lack imagination,
they are actively damaging the goal to which they claim to aspire.

The way to fight for climate change is to recruit an ever larger plurality of
humans to voting with their dollars and their voices for products and
technologies and investments that make the Earth better. The way to fail is to
alienate people with bullshit like population control and straw bans which
betray a political agenda beyond mere climate.

[1] -
[https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-–-W...](https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-–-World-
Population-Growth-1700-2100.png)

~~~
chopin
No matter what technology, there will be an absolute upper limit of what
population earth can bear. So the the discussion can only be what the correct
number is, isn't it? And it could well be that the number is lower than the
current population. For our current technology, population is way too high. So
either we regulate that or nature will do it for us.

I have two children and I am grateful for them. But it would be dangerous to
miss that we run up to hard limits.

~~~
rlonn
We don't know what the future carrying capacity of earth will be, and wild
speculation there helps noone.

We do know current carrying capacity appears to be too low but what is the
best way to fix that? Is it telling the people who have many kids today -
primarily the poor and uneducated - to have fewer kids? Is that likely to
work?

I believe Hans Rosling is right, who said birth rates are a direct consequence
of how rich or poor you are. We've seen hundreds of millions lifted from
poverty in the last few decades, with dropping birth rates as a result. The
best action has to be to work to lift more out of poverty. Sitting in our
ivory tower and declaring that people should have fewer kids is not going to
work.

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bobthepanda
Yeah, if you start declaring that not everybody can have kids, then you‘re in
the business of picking who gets to have kids, which would be extremely
draconian to impose and enforce and could be done badly in all sorts of ways.

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option_greek
At least we have 11000 willing volunteers that will stop reproducing
immediately.

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dimitar
I wonder how many were economists.

This line of thinking is the old Malthusian catastrophy, expressed in terms of
climate change instead of famine.

Malthus did some extrapolations and decided that population growth would
outpase food production, causing famines. Now it is clear believe that a huge
rise of agricultural productivity prevented this catastrophy. He thought the
19th century would not support more population growth and yet during the 20th
century the human population grew more than ever.

Politicians and scientists need to learn to target the right problen with
their policy, which is greenhouse emissions, not population growth. It is
possible to increase productivity while controlling and even reducing
emissions. Taxing carbon, investing RnD in greener technology, subsidising
energy efficiency and banning the most poluting practices is actually more
easy to implement in a non-totalitarian society than population control. With
those policies the "output per ton of CO2" will increase. And also consider
that reducing emissions would need a workforce, it would be more expensive to
do it if a big chunk of it is used to care for elderly masses.. unless
productivity rises of course.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
The ‘agricultural productivity’ comes at a very high price. We have chemical
Ag now and we turn fossil fuels into calories rather than sunlight+water into
calories via photosynthesis.

The loss of biodiversity, habitat and the acidification of our oceans is going
to bankrupt the future of the generations indiscriminately spawned.

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mensetmanusman
An interesting criticism of this stance is the implication that nature is more
important than humans, and that humans will never be space-faring.

Also, it is basically white countries telling Africa to stop having children.

~~~
_dps
> Also, it is basically white countries telling Africa to stop having
> children.

Birth rates in europe + descendant countries, china, korea, and japan are
already at stable or slightly falling levels. So this is more like asking
Africa to make the same pro-stability adjustments others have made already.

~~~
bart_spoon
> So this is more like asking Africa to make the same pro-stability
> adjustments others have made already.

Notice that all of those countries are highly developed. So its less white
countries, and more like countries that have made it pulling up the ladder
behind them and telling everyone else that "its for their own good".

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skoschik
11,000 Scientists and Thanos.

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StanislavPetrov
While the climate crisis is very real, entirely too much attention is focused
on it as part of the overall environmental destruction that has been caused,
and is accelerating, due to massive overpopulation. The massive extinction of
insects, animals and fish. The saturation of our environment with toxins,
waste and industrial chemicals. The destruction of our soil from overfarming
and monocropping. The mass extinction of plants and increasing deforestation.
The list goes on and on. All direct results of massive overpopulation.

Unfortunately most people choose to ignore, or worse yet, deny the obvious
because of a variety of factors. Some because of religion, some of of blind
faith in technology to solve all of our problem, some out of denial because
the problem seem too daunting to face and some out of sheer ignorance and/or
stupidity. Many of these people engage in ridiculous hyperbole about potential
solutions. They talk about people who understand the problem of overpopulation
as seeking mass genocide or forced sterilization. Others talk about the
"slowing birth rate" as if a deceleration in population growth (as opposed to
a reduction) will cause the problem to solve itself.

The fact is that the problem of overpopulation is easily solved if we approach
it rationally. Instead of incentivizing people to have children as we do now,
offer incentives for people not to have children, both at home and abroad.
Offer subsidies to couples who have one or no children and remove subsidies
from those who choose to have 2 or more children. Its a problem that could be
solved in a generation or two at most if we had the will and intelligence to
implement common sense solutions.

Unfortunately even many of the people who realize overpopulation is an
unsustainable problem refuse to address it out of concerns for our similarly
unsustainable economy which depends on endless growth to keep our debt-service
based economic pyramid from collapsing. The "wealth" of these people is
illusory, based on "debts" that depend on future payments. The fact is that
our overpopulation problem is tied to our economic problem. Neither will be
solved unless and until people are willing to face reality and work towards
solutions. Both will end disastrously in time if we choose to ignore them and
pretend they are sustainable.

~~~
arvinsim
"Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor but because we cannot
satisfy the rich" Anonymousa

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perfunctory
The original paper [https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-
article/doi/10.1...](https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-
article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biz088/5610806)

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jelliclesfarm
It’s very simple. Half a surviving child non transferable quota per person.
This ensures genetic diversity and reproductive rights across all economic
stations.

I think 1-1.5 billion is the planet’s carrying capacity.

The question tho is this..should this be absolute law or should following the
quota be regarded with an incentive as in UBI plus for anyone until they
procreate and upto 1/2 surviving child after they procreate and until they
die. They lose benefits if they have more children.

All genetic material must be collected and preserved. Not just as in a DNA
bank but also for future possibilities as in medical intervention as science
gives us ways to stay alive longer. And hopefully healthier.

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nravic
The population argument is fundamentally flawed. It places the burden of
climate change onto the global south, which is far from the actual truth

~~~
lunias
True for now... and when the global south further industrializes, modernizes?
I don't think that the argument is flawed, but population is not an indicator
of blame; it's a constraint on solutions.

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thescriptkiddie
Overpopulation is a dangerous myth typically pushed by those advocating for
genocide.

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lunias
I fail to see how overpopulation is a myth. While I believe that we could
raise the bar for how many humans the Earth can support at one time; I also
believe that it's difficult to argue that our current trajectory is
sustainable without relying on some not-guaranteed advancements.

The solution to creating a better future for humans is planning, not genocide.

~~~
thescriptkiddie
Okay, I'll bite. Overpopulation certainly could be a concern in the future,
but we aren't there yet, and things seem to be moving in the right direction.
Over the past half-century we have seen birth rates dropping fast,
particularly in the "third world", and many "first world" countries are
already below replacement rates. Add in the fact that the average human has a
dramatically smaller environmental footprint than the average American, and it
becomes clear that the problem is not the number of people, but the
inefficient use of resources. We have enough to provide for everyone, it just
isn't evenly distributed.

~~~
lunias
I think all of your points are valid, but I'm not convinced that there is only
one best solution worth pursuing. For instance, reframing the issue as a
problem with the distribution of resources makes sense, but I wonder to what
extent the actual problem is people's unwillingness to distribute themselves;
i.e. go closer to where the resources are. People want to live where the
people are; where the things and the jobs are, and it's these overpopulated
urban / industrial centers that people collect in which have the large
environmental footprints.

Basically, the population is sustainable if people decide to change their
values; move out of cities, distribute themselves across the available land,
participate in self-sufficient local economies / work remotely, etc. I just
don't believe that betting on people changing according to some timeline to be
a winning bet.

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brador
We have a Universe to explore.

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rdlecler1
Fuel needs to be more expensive.

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chmielewski
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

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codq
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones)

~~~
muthdra
Those slabs are pretty cool, except this 500 million number. That's Age of
Discovery population. Back then, China and India both had like 120 million
people each.

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jdkee
[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Overpopulation](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Overpopulation)

~~~
dr_dshiv
More confirmation that rationalwiki is poor quality and troll-oriented

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slowhand09
Actually it was 11,258.372 scientists, you know, for accuracy.

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hexscrews
One of the reasons I've committed to never having children is because there
isn't a NEED for more children. We (our species) has a far excess of humans to
survive just anything.

~~~
madacoo
There is a big difference between opting out as an individual and suggesting
that this is a reasonable solution for others.

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fithisux
Nice excuse for war, hunger and misery. You should try better next time.

How about raising education levels and giving people a motive to live a good
life?

I am afraid that this precludes rich people and inequality.

So let's proceed with the current extermination plan?

