
Population panic lets rich people off the hook for the climate crisis - makerofspoons
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/26/panic-overpopulation-climate-crisis-consumption-environment
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jl6
But although population growth in low-impact poorer nations has a small impact
today, those peoples will one day (hopefully) be wealthy and high-impact, and
at that point we’ll surely wish there weren’t so many.

High-impact wealthy people definitely need to ratchet down their consumption,
but why can we not also address overpopulation at the same time?

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bdjsjsbdb
The point is that there's no future where everyone consumes as much as today's
average American. You either:

a) reduce the consumption of the globally wealthy (this includes most
Americans)

b) keep the globally impoverished poor to keep their consumption low

c) add in some eugenics and stop the poor people from having more kids with
the promise that one day you'll let them consume the same way you already do

You're basically proposing 3, which is asking poor people to voluntarily not
have kids so one day they can have what you already have by accident of birth

~~~
baron816
Option d) technology and good government policies enables a low/no carbon
future.

~~~
hh3k0
It'd be nice if a no carbon future would be within reach but as far as I know,
we do not have the technology to make this happen. Acting as if it's just a
matter of time until we do... well, that is nothing short of a high-stakes
gamble. Furthermore, we already have too much CO2 in the atmosphere -- even if
we'd go no carbon _today_. We will need to actively remove it before we have
passed too many ecological tipping points from which there may not be a return
to the status quo.

~~~
tarboreus
We do have the technology. It's called nuclear energy.

~~~
hh3k0
> We do have the technology. It's called nuclear energy.

No, we do not. Nuclear energy is by no means emission-free.

> There is no such thing as a zero- or close-to-zero emission nuclear power
> plant. Even existing plants emit due to the continuous mining and refining
> of uranium needed for the plant. Emissions from new nuclear are 78 to 178
> g-CO2/kWh, not close to 0.

\-- Mark Z. Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at
Stanford University

[https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/the-7-reasons-why-
nuclear-e...](https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/the-7-reasons-why-nuclear-
energy-is-not-the-answer-to-solve-climate-change/)

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AlexTWithBeard
A quote:

> 69 days to save the earth: ... hovering over all of these is whether the US
> will play its role in helping take collective responsibility for the future
> of the planet.

Looks like a scenario for a movie with Bruce Willis.

