Major 'Population Correction' Coming For Humanity, Scientist Predicts

[CousinIT]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/major-population-correction-coming-for-humanity-scientist-predicts/ar-AA1fqbMu

. . .

"Homo sapiens has evolved to reproduce exponentially, expand geographically, and consume all available resources," Rees writes in his published paper.

"For most of humanity's evolutionary history, such expansionist tendencies have been countered by negative feedback. However, the scientific revolution and the use of fossil fuels reduced many forms of negative feedback, enabling us to realize our full potential for exponential growth."

Rees points out our dominance over the planet has made us forget that we are still governed by natural selection. What's more, our natural inclination towards short-term thinking, which served us exceedingly well in our evolutionary past, continues to compel us to take as much as we can possibly get when it's available.

This has fueled the excessive consumption and pollution that a portion of the current world population is now responsible for, which is set to increase as financial security and population sizes increase, Rees argues.

A changing climate is evidence of the strain the planet is already under but it's only a tiny fraction of the overall problem of overshoot, Rees argues.

As Rees points out, as we continue to use an abundance of fossil fuels we're simultaneously ignoring the other symptoms of overshoot too. From our consumption of biomass to the disruption of planetary nutrient cycles, these interlinked problems are all propelling Earth's sixth mass extinction and risking a chaotic break-down of our planet's essential life-support systems. . . .

[RandySF]

1. I'm surprised we've lasted as long as we have.

[bullimiami]

2. Homo Sapiens as a species no smarter than yeast.

[GoodRaisin]

77. Most of the death blow has come in the last 100 years.

Now we are picking up the pace toward the finish line.

[keithbvadu2]

3. "...reproduce exponentially, expand geographically, and consume all available resources,"

[Auggie]

7. +1 ...

Don't know the film. Do you?

[keithbvadu2]

8. The Matrix

[Auggie]

14. Thanks

[Johnny2X2X]

4. The deaths will be brutal

Famine will cause migrations which will cause wars.

[stuck in the middle]

6. Climate Darwinism, ...

...the flip side of Climate Denialism.

[Johnny2X2X]

9. It makes me fear for the US

A great deal of the immigration we are currently seeing at the Southern border is due to climate change in Central America having made farming in the mountains not sustaining for people who live there. So the people left their farms and overcrowded the cities which taxed the resoures in the cities and led to bad conditioned that people are fleeing from.

I fear we'll eventually end up with a Trump like strong man who erects a barbed wire wall on our Southern Border with snipers every 500 feet.

[harumph]

12. There certainly is a feedback effect

with regard to climate migration. It's what is driving the resurgence of far right groups
in the EU as well. That's why we need to find a manageable solution for the southern border
very soon. Of course republicans want the crisis because their natural demographic is driven
to the polls by fear. Because wealthy republicans feel they are insulated from the worst,
it allows them to sit back and cheer while things go to shit for the fact that
"things going to shit" serve their long term interests.

[yardwork]

81. That's very insightful that Republicans depend on fear at the polls,

So the party has an incentive to allow chaos to flourish. At some point, though, won't their voters begin to blame the GOP for not solving the problems?

I guess the rise of conspiracy theories about the Deep State are serving to keep enough Republicans distracted. For now.

[Hestia]

98. The final chapter of "The Shock Doctrine"...

[orthoclad]

68. We'll be overrun by the victims of Empire,

if we don't change course.

Southern countries are already asking for reparations from the West.

[Hestia]

97. There was also that huge volcanic eruption in Nicaraugua a couple of years ago - pretty

much blanketed CA and North SA. During "normal" eruptions, farmers could plant crops, this past one, no, the ash is too deep. Plus Brazil had that major drought, starting what, 2013-ish. The lack of water really caused a world of hurt on the Cubans and Haitians employment on those that had migrated there, so now they are being pushed out in a large way. Not enough jobs...

[Johnny2X2X]

104. As crazy as it sounds

The soil in Central and South America is dependent on dust from Africa. There are great dust and sand storms in Africa and that dust is carried over the Atlantic Ocean by jet streams and deposited in the hills and mountains of the Americas. It enriches the soil and makes the ground producive. Global Warming has caused these streams to carry less and less dust and the ground has become less and less productive.

We really are all connected.

And people rarely think of things like Ocean Currents and what they mean to climate change. The Gulf Stream brings water from the Caribean to off the coast of Europe. The cold water from the Artic sinks and pushes the warm water to the surface which provides regulation during the Winter for Europe. With less cold water, this system is less impactful and Europe is seeing harsher Winters. If it totally shut down, Europe could freeze. Most of Europe is further North than Michigan, but those currents give them much milder Winters. The UK shoiuld have the same weather as the Hudson Bay in Canada going by closeness to the Artic.

[Swede]

10. Climate change will add to the migrations.

Flooding in the Indian subcontinent, and extreme heat around the equators. These people will have no choice but to migrate.

[FakeNoose]

26. Pretty soon Americans will be the migrants

In 30 or 40 years the southern states (and the coastal areas of the mid-Atlantic states) will be uninhabitable. As more people crowd further north and inland, there will certainly be some migrating into the Canadian provinces. Winter weather and temps will be much more moderate in Canada by then too.

[Hestia]

99. Yep. I watch A LOT of nature docs and have scouted out a place to head for; looking

to buy land now. If not me, then for my grandkids, give them a fighting chance.

[FakeNoose]

101. If I were young enough I'd be looking at northern Minnesota or Wisconsin

But I'm 72 and I won't live long enough to see this happening.

It's the younger folks - my grandson's age who will be personally facing this crisis. I'm in southwestern Pennsylvania and it feels quite safe here, for now. We don't get any wild storms, they mostly seem to pass over us. The heat isn't too bad in the summer - in the 80's mostly. In winter we get some snow, but the last blizzard was over 20 years ago, the last big snowstorm was maybe 10 years ago.

When the climate changes are in full swing - 30 or 40 years from now - the upper Midwest will be a safe area for surviving the changes. I think most areas of Pennsylvania and upstate New York will be good too. Nowhere near the Atlantic or Gulf coasts. The thing to look for is higher elevations.

[underpants]

5. What will the world look like when my daughter is my age?

[Prairie_Seagull]

13. The biggest concern of my existance. nt

[KPN]

30. Yup, and should be for every one.

[honest.abe]

20. Yeah, I often worry for my 6 year old and what he will need to deal with when he is an adult.

He is now so happy and to him life and the world are fun. I will be so sad when he finally realizes it isnt.

[Marthe48]

11. I've been watching End of Civilizations on You Tube

I've listened to the end of the Sumerians, the Assyrians, and other, more recent civilizations that ended. There were enough humans in the world to enable the really ancient civilizations of Sumer and Assyria to amass huge armies to march on their neighbors. I was wondering where all of the people came from to man the armies. Coupled with comments in this OP, seems like humans evolved, got really good at procreating, attained critical mass, went to war, and never stopped. Maybe war is a built-in population control. I'm sorry to say that something must stop our destruction of this planet. And something will :/

[Hestia]

100. A lot of them were also mercenaries, especially toward the end

But yes, an episode of "Bones" address this - in order to get rid of an excess of young males was to have a war.

[Brainfodder]

15. We died from Yacht disease!

Cockroaches won't miss us.

[SarcasticSatyr]

24. oddly enough, some species will ....

The most invasive species of cockroach in the United States depend on the waste that human activity produces. In short, their populations have skyrocketed because there is an abundance of human produced garbage. Once we're gone, they will die off until they achieve equilibrium with their enviorment again, or go extinct.

[Duppers]

36. Not just "yacht disease"

Our sheer numbers are straining the planet's ecology.

[Sky Jewels]

16. A lot of Gen Zers will choose to not have kids because of global warming.

At least one of mine (mid-20s) already said he's out. He thinks it's unfair to the child to bring it into this burning-up world. Sadly, I must agree.

[KPN]

34. As well as many millenials -- because of global warming as well as other pretty much global issues.

My three 30-something year old "kids" are all childless and say they have no plans for or won't have kids. My wife and I get it.

[swong19104]

42. My hypothesis for the number one cause of smaller families in most modern societies:

Television entertainment since the 1950s.

Most television shows about families show a much smaller family size with just two or fewer kids (or none at all, such as Mary Tyler-Moore show, Bob Newhart show...). That was done because having child actors is expensive and might not last long if they outgrow their roles.

So seeing a two-child family became normal and society followed by having a family size that matched what they saw.

Prior generations, it was not uncommon to have 6, 9, 10 children (spread out over 2 or more wives, due mainly to death during childbirth). Of course, the generations before those, they also had 6-10 kids, but 4-8 of them would die before they reached adulthood. That kept the population more or less stable.

Then medicine was discovered and infant mortality and other causes for mortality decreased. Those 6-10 kids resulted in 4-8 reaching adulthood and having large broods themselves. After two generations of this (throughout the mid 20th century), we got what we have: a population that exploded from around 1-2 billion to the current 8 billion. Since the late 1990s, most of the world has already pulled back and the average number of children per family, globally, is around 2.5. Many nations have below replacement rate family sizes. And these are all happening voluntarily. No nation currently has any mandate to keep family sizes small. China's one-child-per-family policy has ended a decade or so ago. If anything, some nations are actually pushing for more children from among their citizens. But that's not quite working out.

The key to reducing family sizes is women's education. The more educated women and girls are, the less likely they will have a large family.

[TheProle]

60. Transition from agrarianism and birth control.

[Duppers]

44. Mine too and I chose to have only one child.

I would like one grandchild but I don't know if that will happen.

My son is in his mid-30's and recognizes the world's main problem. He and his g.f. say they would have only one, if/when they marry.

[SergeStorms]

45. Bob Dylan's "Masters of War".......

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

One of Dylan's finest works, in my opinion.
Damn.....I'm so old I remember when that song was first released.

[Takket]

88. my kid doesn't want any either

Between global warming, the dangers of being pregnant in a post Roe world, and their own poor health, my kid just has no interest in ever having children. I don't blame them a bit........

[Withywindle]

93. I'm Gen X and I never had kids

Mostly just because I never wanted to, but I do not regret that decision one little bit, not ever, especially not now. (At the very least I did my part to not contribute to population growth)

I have friends who have kids in their teens and 20s and they probably will not have kids precisely because of climate change and also because it's literally impossible to get a stable home with today's prices at the wages young people are paid.

[Sky Jewels]

96. Very good point about the economic conditions.

The very rich have rigged the system so much that young people are kept in perpetual economic peril. My son makes good money in the Seattle area but doesn't think he'll ever be able to buy a house because corporations buy up all the houses, fix them up, and flip them for exorbitant amounts. And it's very hard to win a bidding war with a corporation. At the same time, rent is ridiculously high. Oh, and let's not forget the student loan debt that is giant economic boulder on their backs for decades.

[Disaffected]

17. The world has metastatic cancer and

humans are the cancer cells. Eventually we will kill both ourselves and our host.

[orthoclad]

29. Capitalism is the cancer

[Disaffected]

38. In medical analogy, I would say

capitalism is more a side effect of the malignancy or simply a destructive property of the cells themselves..

[Richard D]

18. While flying . . .

. . . I have noticed, quite depressingly, how much growing cities look like cancer in the body.

[ashredux]

19. Ignored the simple rule, don't piss where you sleep

[Farmer-Rick]

21. Many countries are seeing population declines

China recorded its first population decline in 60 years on January 2023. But it is not the only country where the number of people is falling.

https://www.euronews.com/2023/01/17/the-countries-where-population-is-declining#:~:text=China%20is%20forecast%20to%20lose,billion%20to%20771%20million%20inhabitants.&text=Russia%2C%20Germany%2C%20South%20Korea%20and,beginning%20to%20decline%20by%202030.

No, we as a species will not keep popping out babies, no matter how badly pedophile priests want to force birth on women.There is a marked decline in rate of birth in most developed countries.

I believe humans are destroying the life support systems of our planet. But it seems mother nature is slowing down our rate of growth too.

Something wicked this way comes. As the planet changes and becomes more toxic to human life, people will be having fewer babies. Just like when the habitat of the white rhino was destroyed and they stopped breeding despite being put in zoos. So, too, humans will go extinct. Slowly but surely, we will become infertile, unable to carry to birth and disappear like the dinosaurs but we will have done it to ourselves.

[Kaleva]

23. Overtaken by population increases in other nations

The small declines in developed nations is dwarfed by the population increases in the 2nd and 3rd world nations .

[Farmer-Rick]

28. Yup, for now

The population of white rihnos didn't suddenly stop reproducing all at once. At first it was just the rihnos on the peripheral of the habitat destruction. As the environment fails more and more, the populations decrease more and more.

Hopefully another species will step in when humans go extinct, like we stepped into the rhino's habitat.

[Sky Jewels]

61. Giant cockroaches.

I, for one, welcome our large Blattaria overlords.

[Zeitghost]

71. We are at 8 billion now

we will likely never see 9 billion and will certainly never see 10.

We are on the verge of population collapse.

As society and technology progress from a rural agrarian society to an industrial urban society, children go from being a necessaity to becoming expensive luxuries.

Better from a resource aspect, but the economic ramifications will be massive.

[Kaleva]

72. Starvation caused by climate change will reduce the population

[Zeitghost]

74. We will run out of people

Far before we run out of resources, especially food.

Climate change, as horrible as it is, will not cause major food production issues and if anything, will open up more land for production.


The coming population collapse in the next 25-100 years depending on where you live will be an economic disaster. China will go first, followed by Russia and Eastern Europe.

[Kaleva]

76. The people suffering in East Africa because of extreme drought say otherwise

"The region was hit by an 18-month drought caused by El Niño and higher temperatures linked to climate change. Now, in the midst of even more drought, the situation has become catastrophic, causing crops to fail and cattle to die. In addition, the lack of clean water increases the threat of cholera and other diseases.

Across Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and the autonomous region of Somaliland, 10.7 million people are facing severe hunger. There are increasing concerns that the situation will get much worse, as rainfall in March and early April was very low in places. Poor rainfall is forecast for April through June, the end of the rainy season.

Droughts are not new to this region, but they are intensifying. There is growing scientific analysis suggesting that climate change aggravates their impacts."

"Many say that this drought is worse than the one in 2011, which left a quarter of a million people dead and vast herds of livestock completely wiped out. This left survivors without the means to feed themselves or make a living."

https://www.oxfam.org/en/drought-east-africa-if-rains-do-not-come-none-us-will-survive

"Around 1.7 million people in Ethiopia and Somalia have had to leave their homes because of the impacts of the drought, according to the report, and hunger levels are sky-high. More than 20 million people in the Horn of Africa have been pushed into crisis levels of food insecurity, or worse, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

In Somalia, which has been teetering on the edge of famine, more than 43,000 people are estimated to have been killed by the drought, half of whom were children under five years old."

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/27/africa/drought-horn-of-africa-climate-change-intl/index.html

[Hestia]

103. Which is why Pootie didn't show up to the BRICS meeting in So Africa - he's starving out

their people too.

[NickB79]

80. Open up more land, where exactly?

I always love that statement, because immediately I know the person making it has zero experience actually farming. All they did was look at a map and circle locations with a Sharpie in their mind.

As someone who's come from 6 generations of farmers: The soil in northern Canada and Siberia is shallow, nutrient poor, acidic and rocky. Hell, even a couple hours north of me it peters out. There aren't many farms around Duluth, MN, despite the climate being suitable today for modern crops.

We aren't going to be getting 200+ bushels per acre of corn in 50 years from Siberia or northern Alberta like we do in Iowa today. The deep soils needed for that took thousands of years to form.

[Brenda]

94. Right.

And the traditional places people have farmed are becoming unusable. America's bread basket is becoming too hot, too dry, too infertile to grow wheat or graze cows.

[hunter]

106. On the other hand, corn and other crops will become too valuable to feed to animals...

... or used to make fuel.

Goodbye cheap factory farm meat and dairy products and biofuels like ethanol.

That's our cushion.

I hope we don't screw this up.

[orthoclad]

31. Population or greed?

Just a few people consume more resources than some whole countries do.

[Duppers]

40. Both!

Excess population has the same environmental effect as greed. It's stresses the environment's sustainability.

China recognized this.

[orthoclad]

41. When one billionaire

uses as much carbon as a million "ordinary" people, the equation gets a little unbalanced.

[Duppers]

46. You're right!

On average, billionaires are responsible for emitting “3 million tonnes” of carbon a year, which is, “more than a million times the average for someone in the bottom 90% of humanity.”
Nov 8, 2022

https://indianexpress.com
And: https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/11/08/billionaires-responsible-for-million-times-more-emissions-than-average-person-oxfam-report#:~:text=Billionaires%20are%20responsible%20for%20a,emissions%20of%2085%20million%20cars.

[orthoclad]

69. And most emissions from the poorer classes

are in service of providing their labor to the rich.

[Farmer-Rick]

55. True that.

There is less and less resources left over for those who did not inherit free capital.

Animals can't horde resources. That's where the analogy to the extinction of animals falls apart.

[orthoclad]

67. Agree

It's not "the species", it's "the ruling class".

[SergeStorms]

49. Congratulations!

You're the first person to work William Shakespeare into the thread.

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes". Act 4, scene 1 Spoke by the 1st witch in "the Scottish play". 😉

I only wish it weren't in reference to our existence on our host planet.

[Hestia]

102. I disagree with humans going extinct. Back before Murdoch got his pudgy fingers on

National Geographic Channel, they showed some informative and educational specials. One was on the Yellowstone Caldera and then led to population hourglasses, showing at what year humans disappeared (when they were trying to find The Eve or ancestral Mother through DNA breakthroughs), 600+ years ago, population reduced on the continent of North America to about 2,000 people. Seriously....

Anyway, this same "population dude" (I took a gummie, mea culpa) showed how events like volcanoes affected populations drops in the past. Since this intensive heat dome started (we are literally at the threshold now - 125F is the Max a person can live at) I figure we are probably at the same point of catastrophe.

Smoke 'em while you got 'em

[dalton99a]

22. There are way too many fucking people.

[Traildogbob]

32. Mother will correct that

Exactly as she does with every species on the planet. And it ain’t gonna be pretty. And most will just blame it on woke and wait for white god to suck em up to heaven with all the gold streets they can stand. And mansions. With Spotify that only plays hymns. No alcohol, (especially Bud Light) no NASCAR, no Football and Jerseys of your favorite Black athletes are forbidden. Only white sheets……oh wait, that is preferable attire. Will there be an Arch with animals going or is heaven devoid of animals? Doesn’t seem like a fun place. And what if ya got 3 ex wives (or husbands) up there with you😱. Many preachers and the most Godly of politicians all will face that awkward situation while attending church 24/7. Newt comes to mind. And earth will thrive as the cancer is expelled.

[ShepKat]

25. so we're an invasive

not shocked one bit lol

[roamer65]

27. Insects have one group of species with which we share similarities.

Locusts.

[Hestia]

105. and look at what happened in Africa last growing season - I forget

how many countries were affected - but they had a whole season of locusts. One of the worst swarms in XXX years, forget) and it decimated their crops. It's why, along with drought, they are begging Pootie to stop blockading the grain shipments from Ukraine. I guess Wagner hasn't grabbed everything yet for Xi or Pootie. And of course, Pootie didn't have the spine to show up for the BRICS meeting, starting yesterday.

[roamer65]

108. I didn't know that about Africa and locusts.

No wonder the shit is hitting the fan there.

[ffr]

33. Couples are still having large families here and I don't get how they aren't aware

that they are the problem. Humans consume. We wouldn't have to do away with some of our fossil fuel demands on Earth if our population wasn't so out of control!!!

Of course, many of them are conservatives too. Maybe that's why.

[Hortensis]

48. Actually the U.S. fertility rate has been way below replacement for

several decades now and the rate continues to decline. Look it up.

We do well economically in spite of it because we let in people who were reproduced in other countries. But fertility rates drop dramatically everywhere with increases in economic wellbeing, women's in particular.

That's one of the huge reasons as SoS Hillary Clinton worked for women's rights and opportunities in nations around the planet because women who have the choice gladly trade having more children to give their existing children good lives by working. And still does.

A huge factor in population increase, btw, is lowered death rate, not out-of-control births. Half of all children alone used to die before puberty, and now they don't. (I believe this is enormously positive change, but it requires the further positive changes that do result from it.)

[RandomNumbers]

83. Ha ha ha sure you get it.

Millions of people voted for Trump. What else do you need to know?

(and years ago I would have written those words about Dubya. Sigh, the innocence of youth.)

[Sky Jewels]

91. A lot of the ones having lots of kids are

religiously insane (Duggars, etc.). They think they’re breeding for God ‘n’ Jesus. They don’t care about using so many resources because they’re selfish and stupid and think the Second Coming is right around the corner.

[roamer65]

35. ...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having-children-couples-save-planet-climate-crisis

[Duppers]

70. Thx for posting this: "Want to fight climate change?

Want to fight climate change?
Have fewer children

Next best actions are selling your car, avoiding flights and going vegetarian, according to study into true impacts of different green lifestyle choices

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children

[roamer65]

75. My footprint has to be near European.

No children, rarely fly, almost vegetarian. If we had decent national mass transit in the US, I would definitely use it.

[SWBTATTReg]

37. Doom and Gloom stories of all kinds have been on the airwaves for generations. Why now the

sense of urgency? This is just another story that embellishes only one side of the fence. The other side of the fence shows that massive gains in growing crops worldwide continues, cures and/or treatments are constantly being developed for a variety of diseases, population growth has seemed to stabilize in some countries, solar and/or wind energy as well as the infrastructure to process the alternate energies are coming into play more and more every day, thus relying less and less on carbon-based fuels (no petroleum), a far cry from the dreaded 'natural selection' as Rees writes.

It's not time to put our heads into a hole in the ground, but instead, keep up the good work. If there are obstacles still remaining (which is the massive disparity between of wealth between the 1%ers and the rest of us) would be one of them.

Sure, some of the 1%ers do donate funds and time to worthy causes, but society as a whole must address the disparity gaps and start closing the gap, start embarking on a overall advancement of goals for Society as a whole, and not rely on the whims of a few 1%ers.

[JCMach1]

43. Malthusian ideology packaged as science...

No thanks. Humanity can and will do better.

[leftstreet]

47. +1

We need an economic system correction

[BannonsLiver]

56. It's like catnip

[LiberalFighter]

39. I think we need about 30% less population than what we have now.

[Midnight Writer]

50. My personal "Domino Theory". One disaster will cause another, then another, then another.

Things change rapidly in this world, and we are bogged down by conservatives who do not allow us to adapt.

[msfiddlestix]

51. In the context of this narrative, I don't see how the term correction in reference to significant

growth/expansion of the population could be used as a "correction".

To be clear, I agree the human population numbers are staggering and increasingly dangerous, threatening our planet and obviously all life forms. I've been weary of this fact since I was 21 and decided to have only one child back in 1971 for this reason.

So, how is population growth a correction?

[roamer65]

52. Inflation is doing a good job right now as far as population control.

Many, many people aren’t having them because they can’t afford them.

[Progressive dog]

53. Thomas Malthus was right. nt

[former9thward]

62. No he was not.

He was wildly wrong.

In 1798 Malthus predicted that short-term gains in living standards would inevitably be undermined as human population growth outstripped food production, and thereby drive living standards back toward subsistence. We were, he argued, condemned by the tendency of population to grow geometrically while food production would increase only arithmetically.

It never happened. Just the opposite.

Malthus overlooked technological advancement, which would allow human beings to keep ahead of the population curve. With advances in seed breeding, soil nutrient replenishment (such as chemical fertilizers), irrigation, mechanization and more, the food supply has stayed well ahead of the population curve. Advances in technology in all its aspects—agriculture, energy, water use, manufacturing, disease control, information management, transport, communications—can keep production rising ahead of population.

Malthus did not reckon with the advance of public health, family planning, and modern contraception, which together with urbanization and other trends, would result in a dramatic decline in fertility rates to low levels, even below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children per household.

Since Malthus’s time, incomes per person averaged around the world have increased at least an order of magnitude according to economic historians, despite a population increase from around 800 million in 1798 to 8 billion or whatever it is today.

[NickB79]

65. Our technological advancements are not sustainable by any means

Food production, for example, would crater without fertilizer, herbicide and pesticide made from unsustainable fossil fuel extraction. Irrigation reliant upon fossil water is the same. Without the Ogallalla Aquifer in the central US, grain production would plummet on dryland farming alone. And the Ogallalla will be depleted in some areas by mid-century.

In the last decade, crop production globally has plateaued. Now that climate change is really getting going, it looks like hotter, drier weather is starting to bite into global photosynthesis rates.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2386953-plants-find-it-harder-to-absorb-carbon-dioxide-amid-global-warming/
As well, the amount of forest and grassland we've now converted to cropland to support our population has started a 6th mass extinction event.

[Progressive dog]

87. Maqlthus did not account for technology,

but our technology requires lots of energy and lots of land to grow crops. We are already well into a major extinction event caused by our enormous population. There are many starving and malnourished, about 800 million in 2022, more than twice the U.S. population. The Chinese government is trying to increase the birth rate there after restricting the rate of the most populous nation to less than half the replacement rate. Somehow we are still at 2.43 births per woman and if China succeeds, the birth rate will increase.
The world population is still growing at 80 million people per year. We are still at 2.43 births per woman which is well above the 2.1 replacement rate.

[Hestia]

107. "Soylent Green is People!" I just hope I get to go like Edgar G Robinson's character

It's the most I could hope for

[Zeitghost]

73. Far from it

We will run out of people long before we run out of resources. Population decline is a major problem.

[Progressive dog]

86. The world had a population in 1788 of

less than 1 billion. We now have over 8 billion and climbing. We are far into a major extinction event caused by our need for every resource on the planet. Our population continues to increase at more than 80 million per year. Since 80 million per year X 12.5 years = 1 billion; in a little over one decade, we will have added another billion people. That is not population decline.

[Zeitghost]

89. Your mistake

Is believing the trajectory will not change.

In reality, it already has in much of the world and the rest is not far behind. Much of the population growth recently was due to increasing lifespans and lowering infant and child death rates. Those gains can not continue. Birthrates are rapidly declining and we are going to be quickly facing an increasingly elderly population without the working age population to support them. The economic ramifications will from this population collapse will make climate change look easy.

[Progressive dog]

90. Changing trajectories doesn't work

when you've already crashed. The UN predicts an extra 2.4 billion people in 2100. That is reality.

[honest.abe]

54. I have often thought we are on the edge of global disaster at any moment.

For example..

-- deadly airborne virus 100x worse than COVID
-- global thermo-nuclear war
-- massive food shortages due to climate change
-- all out civil wars around the world due to political and religious issues
-- massive coastal flooding of major cities due to global warming

I am sure there are more but these are the ones that come to mind.

[hunter]

57. We have all the tools we need to muddle through this crisis without a lot of suffering and death.

We just have to do it.

Doom and gloom isn't helpful, especially when the people carrying on the loudest about the end of the world secretly believe they'll somehow be spared because of their wealth, affluence, etc., and that it will be those "other" people doing the suffering and dying. Or worse, that it's somehow those people's fault.

We now know that the best way to halt population growth is by the economic and political empowerment of women. This implies the necessity of some sort of economic growth and development. Universal access to birth control and realistic sex education is part of this equation too.

The people with the smallest environmental footprints generally live in cities, don't own cars, and don't consume much meat. We need to rebuild our cities, turning them into attractive affordable places where car ownership is unnecessary.

We need to quit fossil fuels now. We have the technology we need to do this, and no, it is not wind turbines, solar panels, and magical batteries. Those will only prolong our dependence on fossil fuels. Like it or not, the only energy resource capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely is nuclear power.

Our world civilization, the one that now supports eight billion people, is dependent upon high density energy resources. That's the reality we have to face. "Renewable" energy cannot support all eight billion of us., the math simply doesn't work. If we don't quit fossil fuels now billions of us are going to suffer and die. If we insist on a fossil fuel free renewable energy economy without nuclear power billions of us are going to suffer and die, including some of the wealthy (by world standards) who can afford to cover the roofs of their 3,000 square foot homes with solar panels and put $40,000 battery systems in their garages.

Inevitably people are going to have to relocate, as the seas rise and fresh water resources fail. We need to figure out now how to relocate entire communities with minimal chaos. We can tie that back into rebuilding our cities.

Prosperous nations that are now experiencing population declines are likely to suffer severe economic declines as well if they don't embrace immigration. There's no such thing as isolation in the 21st century. Nationalism is a dead end, a slow suicide. We humans are all in this mess together.

[Kaleva]

59. +1

[obnoxiousdrunk]

63. +1. N/T

[RandomNumbers]

82. Seems like you're broad-brushing those of us who are concerned.

I don't have a megaphone so my carrying on isn't that loud, but I'm right there with those loud ones you disparage - they aren't all 1%ers! - and I sure know the only way I'll be "spared" is that I will most likely die anyway before the worst of it hits. I'm fully aware that if option 1 doesn't pertain in my case, then I will most certainly experience suffering before the dying. (And if I don't prepare well enough to avoid it, that may happen anyway, due to the for-profit "life" extension industry.)

I suspect most of those "carrying on the loudest" are actually QUITE aware, as I am. True, some of them seem to be blithely unaware of their own carbon footprint, or attempt to justify it by their activism. But for the most part they are not intentionally standing in the way of improving the situation. (They might disagree with you on solutions.)

Except the nuclear power point, a lot of your prescription would rely on people seeing the problem and cooperating to take those kind of actions. Your suggestions are excellent, but I have no idea how that would happen in a world that elects right wing would be dictators when it even has elections, and already has dictators in place for much of the inhabitable land mass. Regarding nuclear power, I would be interested to see an analysis of the modern solution and how it addresses the potential catastrophic harms of one of those dictators misusing that technology.

Another view is that humanity should NOT attempt to support 8 billion people on planet earth. There is some optimal number, and I suspect it is much less than 8 billion, unfortunately. Some ideas to start getting there without increasing suffering:

1. Stop forcing people to have babies. Make birth control, emergency contraception, and abortion reliable and accessible.
*** This is a no-brainer to anyone who recognizes that over-population is a problem. That is why right-wingers are often hell-bent on coming up with any and all rationalizations as to why "over-population isn't a problem". They're wrong.

2. Stop whining about population decline ( aka "the demographic problem" ) and figure out how to solve the anticipated effects. Start by realizing that, as some smart person told us years ago but unfortunately I don't remember who that was, AI and robotics is going to create that very same problem anyway. We actually NEED less people to do the work that needs to be done. So that is a parallel problem to the environmental issue of overpopulation. Unless we change society's structure to handle THAT, there's going to be a helluva lot of suffering and dying due to poverty and people just scrabbling to survive in a capitalist society that doesn't need them.

Some ideas for that:
2a. Tax the rich and tax estates (much more than currently). That is, tax the profit off of labor-reducing technology that will be putting most of the workforce out of work. 2b. Index minimum wage to inflation. 2c. Increase minimum wage (keeping it indexed). 2d. Make earlier retirement from "obligatory work" more doable and attractive.

And so on. Well actually, IIRC, the person who warned us about the challenges of the AI age, also gave similar prescriptions, so these are not new ideas to me. The main point is that whatever "bad" economic things will supposedly happen with population decline, will also happen with the declining requirement for human labor. And that era is upon us. So we'd better figure it out.

[Simeon Salus]

58. George Carlin had it right. "Save the planet? The planet is fine. The people are are f%cked!"

[Martin Eden]

64. "Leave nature alone"

Uh, George, species are going extinct because we are NOT leaving nature alone. I'm a long time Carlin fan, but he's got it bass ackwards here. The ARROGANCE is to think we can continue to destroy the ecology of this planet without ultimately destroying ourselves.

Concern for endangered species only touches upon a symptom of the impact we are having, so Carlin may have a point from a very narrow perspective on that issue in isolation.

But his rant is very narrow minded and just plain wrong when he says we should just let nature take its course and stop "meddling" in trying to save species from extinction. The point is we are NOT letting nature take its course. On the contrary, we are altering the course of nature and THAT is what we have to stop doing.

[ck4829]

78. The people with the least amount of power will be the most harmed

People who own private jets, owners of strip mining joints, those on the boards of the biggest polluters, etc. will not be harmed.

Don't count on nature to fix problems.

[NickB79]

79. Wild mammals now make up only 4% of global mammal biomass

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3V3iwWWEAEYPeE?format=jpg&name=small

Humans, livestock and pets make up 96%

Humans and cows are each 1/3 by themselves.

We've converted most of the planet's arable surface to a giant farm.

This isn't sustainable.

[Ron Green]

84. Comfort, Convenience, Consumerism. That's what's done it.

Simplicity, Sharing, Service would be the fix, but it’s too late.

[Brenda]

95. I agree Ron.

Not sure if some in this thread are really that deep in denial or are just trolling for kicks.

People need to read a few books on the subject and look around. There is zero slowing down of consumerism, car and jet travel and energy use (in fact people are using more energy to deal with extreme heat). The feedback loops are already happening in nature, unstoppable.

Lots of folks are still buying everything online due to Covid Fear. People show off their disposable holiday decor. They relish buying fast fashion. Why can't people connect the dots? China factories -> Container Ships -> Long haul trucks -> UPS trucks. Not sustainable!

[Politicub]

85. Too many humans are indeed wrecking the planet,

and we seem to be at the point of no return with climate change. The idea that there are so many billions of people is unfathomable to me.

But this article reeks of end-times theology, and is just about as useful.

I say this because my mother has been tormented by the idea of the biblical-version of the “end times” ever since I was a kid. It makes me sad that she puts so much stock into the idea, and spends a lot of worrying about it.

Doomsday prophecies don’t accomplish much more than making people fearful. Yes, the planet is changing quickly and it has too many people, which will affect every living thing more acutely as time goes by. Resigning oneself to apocalyptic rumination distracts from the actions that could be taken today to respond to climate and overpopulation threats.

[budkin]

92. We're absolutely f@cked. It's just a matter of when.

Humanity doesn’t have a lot of future left.