Population Is Popping: Why We Cover Our Ears and Eyes

[GliderGuider]

Population Is Popping: Why We Cover Our Ears and Eyes

With 7 billion people threatening to become 8 billion people, and more, it is time to at least fight for consensus that much more growth is impossible. But even those well versed in overpopulation, trying to focus the world on the problem, may fall into the camp of many more people supposedly being sustainable. What they invariably are not taking into account is energy resource limits. Even if they understand peak oil, they may have the idea that it means we have simply entered the "Second half of the Oil Age," as claimed by geologist Colin Campbell. This is what happens when someone believes the peak oil bell curve can be applied to the whole world's oil demand based on dwindling reserves. However, the extrapolation for a mirror-image of the growth curve falls flat, or rather plummets in an L shaped curve, when a devastating oil supply interruption is factored in. Such an event can suddenly prevent enough people from getting to their jobs or accessing affordable food, so as to bring about rapid economic chaos that brings down even the oil industry infrastructure that individual consumers take for granted.

Without a definitive answer on overpopulation that most people can swallow, we may simply have to be Cassandras or keepers of the ecological truth. This means collapse-analysis perhaps coupled with the hopeful array of escalating Transition trends. But we don't know yet. For it is possible that a climate scare of epic proportions, showing 7 billion people how hundreds of millions can die off easily, can focus people in unexpected and even enlightened ways. Such as, believing "Gaia wants you to share the Earth with her fellow creatures in a fair and respectful fashion, for your own good and cosmic joy." But how many can go for that now? Few. That is why most everyone may be where Julia Butterfly said: When we do not embrace or make change according to our surrounding reality, we are hit upside the head with a 2x4 with "change" written all over it (Auto-Free Times interview, 1998, with Jan Lundberg).

Sometimes, however, we can only wait for change. While population or overpopulation is indeed "the elephant in the room," something unstated is that whatever one is thinking or saying will not budge the elephant. So it does not matter what we say or think about the elephant, if it is indeed already in the room. It goes or stays on its own power, as it wishes, because it is stronger and much bigger than we are. It is in charge. So, to succeed in getting a global discussion going on population or overpopulation may accomplish very little -- even if this elusive goal were to be achieved -- until nature takes charge and culls our excess numbers as if we were just another species.

Meanwhile, we can buck the dominant culture and prepare for a sustainable future by respecting life more than short-term economic gains that are increasingly unlikely for almost everyone.

[dimbear]

1. Religion

is the one word answer you're looking for.

In India, population control attempts are met by riots. Only an all powerful actor like China can control a population size against its will.

[get the red out]

3. Absolutely

Religion

[Gregorian]

2. We need to find ways to raise consciousness of this issue. Real programs and ideas.

It seems pathetic that it isn't self evident to most, but that seems to be the case. Cause and effect have lost connection. And maybe it isn't so surprising since we live in such a disconnected society. Turn a key, stomp on a gas pedal, go down a highway. People don't have a clue what it means to exert force anymore.

I was reading somewhere about a program where children take an anthropomorphic child home with them. Some kind of way to experience what having a child is like before actually having children. It seems odd to me, but whatever it takes.

The alternative is nothing short of horror. I don't think people take this seriously enough. I even asked for what could be the most important forum on this website, and no one was interested.

I also think that energy resources is only a fraction of the issue. They say fisheries in and around China are in extreme decline. There is a direct connection to population. The number of mouths.

edit- as an example, just look at the number of recommendations the dead Bee Gee guy thread has got. I have little optimism that people will change their ways.

[hunter]

20. I didn't need an an anthropomorphic child. I had younger siblings.

Changing diapers when you are ten makes a big impression.

Maybe we ought to be putting fourth graders to work taking care of infants and teaching them about birth control at the same time.

My parents didn't reject Genesis 9 : 7^* until there was a mob of us, but once they did none of us, not any of our friends, not any neighborhood kid got past them without learning about birth control.

^*And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein...

[freshwest]

4. I'd like to say religion but I know many young people who are not into religion but having kids.

Their assumption is that no matter what happens bad, it won't happen to them. Most of them are well off with their husbands making enough money for the mothers to stay at home and do the wealthy consumer lifestyle with kids, homes and cars. They regard their life as beautiful and of great importance and demand to be respected.

I know an equal number of young people who refuse to have kids because they believe the world is coming to an end. I was brought up in the zero population generation and didn't believe having a lot of kids was a responsible thing to do for myself or the planet.

I see kids and babies galore where I live, several in the same family, and they are not in poverty. They found a way in the chaos of life. The majority of people in my area are young, busy and prosperous, and as far as they are concerned, things are going great.

Do they see the big picture at all, or is there something bigger those of us wringing our hands don't grasp?

[Gregorian]

5. I grew up in an intelligent neighborhood. Almost none of my friends has children.

My best friend had a child, and he called me to apologize. He's probably the only human on the planet worthy of raising a kid. A very unique and unfettered person. Knowing what we do about global warming, he named him Noah.

It sounds negative, but it isn't.

[freshwest]

6. They're quite intelligent, and believe me, I've lived areas I wouldn't say that about. I don't know

Anyone who watches television, they are too busy. They are physically and inclined to go biking, hiking and do ecotourism. Most of them are into alternative health, are vegetarians or vegans. Perhaps that is their religion now as they think they are the wave of the future and others are just going to die off.

They are well educated and employed and think they are going to be just fine. They travel the world and have connections I never dreamed of having overseas, they seem to be well prepared for everything. They and their kids do al the liberal or progressive things, live simple lives for the most part, but as I said, well funded ones, too.

Having great health and wealth seemingly gives one the confidence to believe they can overcome all odds. It may be they don't feel they are limited. It is the poor who suffer in all of these things, who are run from one place to another whether the climate changes or not. As we become a global society for the most part, I think we will find that no matter what happens, not all will be effected equally, just as now.

Just my observations from chatting with my friends and neighbors. Your friend seems in some ways, having named his son Noah, to feel there is a destiny or future that he will grasp that many of us won't live to see. He sounds like a good friend and neighbor.

[Gregorian]

8. There are different kinds of intelligence.

Very few people are intelligent in the sense I mention. You are. A college degree means zero in terms of what we're talking about. I'm very discouraged to hear that you are seeing babies everywhere. I see none on the west coast. But then it's kind of an older person's area where I live.

I'm painfully aware of the way inequality is working. You're totally correct in that the poor are the ones hit disproportionally. I am criticized all of the time for not traveling. I won't do it for many reasons. I'd love to spend time in a fun place. But I am doing what I wish everyone would do. Someone has to. If we all forfeited some of the major carbon footprint items the world might last a few moments longer than it is going to last.

But you know all of that. It just helps to communicate with someone who has a good sense of reality.

[XemaSab]

7. I think there's something inherently optimistic in all life

Even during the black plague, or after the fall of the temple, or after the trail of tears, people still had kids.

I think it's something that can't be reasoned with, because if it could be, who would ever have them?

[GliderGuider]

9. Yes, but...

The overall desire to have children can go down within a society as things get either good or bad. The good part depends on having increasing amounts of resources (especially energy) so you don't need kids as farm slaves. The bad part depends on immiseration - decreasing resources and social cohesion - as happened in Russia as the Soviet Union crashed and burned.

Demographic transition works slowly and is very expensive in terms of resources used per birth avoided. Social crash is fast and cheap. In Russia the birth rate plunged by 50% in six years during the collapse. That's five times greater than the decline in industrialized nations over the same number of years.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no way to manage large-scale population change for planned outcomes. At least there's no way of doing that and maintaining the appearance of voluntary participation. My preference is simply to accept the situation, and watch it unfold - while acting as a witness to the demographic, ecological and cultural changes. If we allow things to unroll while always trying to understand What's Happening as clearly as possible, we have a greater chance of stumbling across a piece of knowledge that might prove useful.

I think hasty action based on insufficient information is a recipe for worsening the problem - as Dilworth points out that it always has been. My personal motto is "Don't just do something, sit there!" Think deeply before you act. Wait to see what new information comes up. Activists may take a dim view of this approach, but I'm convinced it will be healthier, safer, more certain and more virtuous in the end.

[kristopher]

10. Global fertility rate 2.46 / US 2.06 / Japan 1.21 / Libya 2.96

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=31&c=xx&l=en

Definition of Total fertility rate: This entry gives a figure for the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age. The total fertility rate (TFR) is a more direct measure of the level of fertility than the crude birth rate, since it refers to births per woman. This indicator shows the potential for population change in the country. A rate of two children per woman is considered the replacement rate for a population, resulting in relative stability in terms of total numbers. Rates above two children indicate populations growing in size and whose median age is declining. Higher rates may also indicate difficulties for families, in some situations, to feed and educate their children and for women to enter the labor force. Rates below two children indicate populations decreasing in size and growing older. Global fertility rates are in general decline and this trend is most pronounced in industrialized countries, especially Western Europe, where populations are projected to decline dramatically over the next 50 years.

[GliderGuider]

12. Global population is rising linearly by 75 million people per year.

At the moment, the rising population cancels out the falling fertility rate.

We are in overshoot, by anywhere from 50% to 500% depending on what measure one uses. That situation is by definition unsustainable.

A population that rises slowly to 10 billion is still a population of 10 billion. We need a population of between 1 and 3 billion to become truly sustainable for the indefinite future. It would be nice to have that level within 100 years. We won't get it in time with a TFR of 2.5 - or even 2.1, or 2.

[kristopher]

15. That doesn't really help understand or solve the problem GG.

I predicated my post on things we know to be true.

*You* conclude we are "in overshoot". That position is not generally accepted as true.

You assume that should we change the pace of development for energy impoverished nations, that this would not impact the population growth before we hit 10B. That may or may not be true, but I don't think it is the default assumption we must use to approach the matter since it presupposes there is no solution and therefore no attempt need be made. In a search for solutions it has no affirmative place in the discussion.

You say we need to reduce our population to 1-3 B. Again, that is speculation that amounts to little more than a made up number. It sounds good, but since we don't know the impact that humans living a "truly sustainable" lifestyle would have we can't possibly extrapolate what the "truly sustainable" population might be, right?

In short, why not help try to solve the problem?

ETA: Brainfart Alert

I took your post as a reply to one I made earlier this afternoon. My reply is still largely valid if I include that text:

The way I think the population/resource issue will play out.

There is no question that in the modern world population expansion is driven by conditions associated with undeveloped societies. We can leave aside specific reasons for this discussion.

There is no question that post industrial societies are characterized by population contraction. Again, we can leave aside specific reasons for this discussion.

There is no question that global resources critical to maintaining a human friendly ecosystem are strained and poorly understood in any comprehensive sense.

We are bringing more of the world into the sphere of societies that experience declining populations.

War, economic collapse or events like that do not accomplish the goal of altering population growth trends, over time as their effect tends to get cancelled by following rebound effects.

That makes it a race to, in sustainable fashion, bring lagging societies to a level that results in declining birth rates before we irreversibly alter our ecosystem to the point of inhabitability.

The foundation of that effort is continued acquisition of knowledge about sustainable development and deployment of those infrastructures throughout the world.

At the present time, supporting development that continues to make renewable energy more affordable for the societies struggling with massive energy poverty is one the most concrete steps you can take to help accelerate the transition to global population reduction.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=15431

[GliderGuider]

17. We know the population is rising by 75 M/year. That's true too.

As I've consistently maintained over the years, the problem is not soluble, because it's not a problem - it's a predicament.

Why would you expect general acceptance of the truth of overshoot? Even when we're halfway back down the energy hill the great unwashed will still be blaming the whole thing on the greed of fossil fuel companies and the banks. Fully half the world has an IQ below 100 and can't pour piss out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel. The other half have a fully vested interest in maintaining their own power, social status and material comforts. Recognize overshoot? William Catton, Joseph Tainter, Jared Diamond, Albert Bartlett, Jay Forrester, Dennis Meadows and I are not terribly surprised that they do not. The fact that you don't buy the idea says more about you than about the idea.

[kristopher]

18. If you'll notice the course described has nothing to do with what you're saying.

It has all the hallmarks of a natural cultural reaction to infrastructural changes. The direct reasons for accomplishing the infrastructural changes needed are precisely aligned with the desires that are common to us all. They are also a set of infrastructural changes that are unquestionably within our capability to accomplish at pace accelerate that is ahead of predicted development timelines.

You can be part of the solution for the "predicament' you so decry or you can work to change the parameters of the "predicament" to facilitate a solution.

Your choice.

[GliderGuider]

19. You must have an allergy

to the idea "It's too late."

We can have all the "natural cultural reactions to infrastructural changes" we want. And we will. But they are too late to actually prevent the "infrastructural changes" from pushing our population numbers back down to the point where we are sustainable without fossil fuels or large-scale cultural organization.

[CrispyQ]

13. There was a thread on this topic a few weeks ago

& I was surprised at the number of people who vehemently professed that the number of children people choose to have "Is nobody's #!*$ business." When the ecosystem that supports us no longer can, will they feel the same way then? And while I agree that education & birth control are critical places to start, no one's even talking about it. Shit, in this country we're going backward!

Then there's this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18120093 Arctic melt releasing ancient methane

http://www.nationofchange.org/pacific-ocean-dying-1337346516 The Pacific Ocean is Dying


The title of the 2nd story might be a bit alarmist, but we are trashing our planet like it's a hotel room & we still have a nice home to return to. Personally, I think we're fucked on so many levels! I used to think I would be getting out on time, but things are escalating & now I wonder how bad it will get in another 20-40 years.

[stuntcat]

14. Why do people purposefully give the next 90+ years to their babies?

It horrifies me. My neighbors are all doing it, even the educated ones. The woman to my left works for Sierra club, but she's got two toddlers now and a yard full of colorful petroleum toys.

Even if I didn't care what impact another human would make, there is still no way I'd wish the rest of this century on someone I care about, certainly not my own dear child.

[GliderGuider]

16. IMO we are into the beginning of the bottleneck.

Depending on what measure you use, humanity is either 50% into overshoot (if you believe the "ecological footprint" bullshit), or 500%. I choose the 500% number, and attribute most of our overshoot in numbers and consumption to our use of global stocks of fossil fuels.

Humans have backed ourselves into a corner by developing a global society based on fossil fuels, and it's much too late to prevent the overshoot from crashing. We can work to make the slope down a little less rocky and painful, but there is nothing at all we can do to prevent the human enterprise from coming apart, with all the general misery that implies. Human beings are ferociously good at solving short-term problems, but very, very bad at foreseeing and preventing the negative consequences of their earlier "solutions".

This graph represents where we've been, where we are, what's coming, and the lost dream of what could have been if we hadn't discovered and exploited fossil fuels: