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From Bloomberg:
Forty years ago, scientists from 50 nations converged on Geneva to discuss what was then called the "CO2-climate problem." At the time, with reliance on fossil fuels having helped trigger the 1979 oil crisis, they predicted global warming would eventually become a major environmental challenge.
Now, four decades later, a larger group of scientists is sounding another, much more urgent alarm. More than 11,000 experts from around the world are calling for a critical addition to the main strategy of dumping fossil fuels for renewable energy: there needs to be far fewer humans on the planet.
[...] The scientists make specific calls for policymakers to quickly implement systemic change to energy, food, and economic policies. But they go one step further, into the politically fraught territory of population control. It "must be stabilized—and, ideally, gradually reduced—within a framework that ensures social integrity," they write.
Others disagree, stating
Fewer people producing less in greenhouse-gas emissions could make some difference in the danger that climate change poses over time. But whether we end up with 9, 10, or 11 billion people in the coming decades, the world will still be pumping out increasingly risky amounts of climate pollution if we don't fundamentally fix the underlying energy, transportation, and food systems.
Critics blast a proposal to curb climate change by halting population growth
Journal Reference:
William J Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M Newsome, Phoebe Barnard, William R Moomaw. World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency[$]. BioScience. doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz088
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:30PM (8 children)
Fewer people make population-based problems easier to solve. Our real problem isn't just that we're consuming many times as much energy per capita as we did in 1700, it's that we also have more than 10x as many people doing so, and almost all of the additional energy is coming from fossil fuels.
The real trick is how do you reduce the population? The combination of free birth control and an aggressive family-planning outreach program has shown remarkable gains - typically reducing population growth to near zero within a single generation, and generally falling into the negative within a few more as standard of living climbs thanks to much lower childcare expenses. That's to slow though, and is up against some powerful enemies, with the Catholic Church likely being the single most powerful one.
Other than that we pretty much have to resort to killing people. "Fortunately", the combination of overpopulation, a global climate crises, and rampant capitaism is likely to make that relatively easy. Famine, plague, and war are becoming all but inevitable, and all do great things on the population-reduction front. And conveniently it's mostly poor people that get killed by all of them, so those with power are unlikely to oppose them.
Don't you love when the solution to a problem is ignore it (from behind well-fortified walls) and it will go away? Especially when it lets you ignore the fact that all those people are only dying *indirectly* by your hand? Even the starving people your security guards kill brought it on themselves - they could have starved quietly in peace.
That was sarcasm, in case anyone missed it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 07 2019, @09:09PM (1 child)
The population boom since refined petroleum became a global commodity is the real problem.
If we could take the pre 1800 population growth curve and put a reasonable extrapolation on it, and return world population to those levels, I think science and technology could keep up with the challenges. As it is, the population is just running wild and our innovations aren't nearly enough to solve all the problems.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 07 2019, @09:15PM
You know, I don't think the people who believe they can do that have even remotely thought through what life will be like for them in that scenario.
For a little taste, they should visit some of the extreme wealth/poverty contrast areas of the world - get some firsthand experience with kidnappings of children, poisonings by staff members, suicide bombers. Life ain't all grand in the "Green Zone."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @09:14PM (3 children)
Peer pressure
Once everyone knows 2 kids is the sustainable number to have, you get this in Ender’s game
https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-being-called-third-by-stilson-both-good-bad-74861 [enotes.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @09:19PM
No need for fictional references, China is a perfectly good example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @09:44AM (1 child)
Yeah! Who needs Edison, Tesla, the Wright brothers, etc
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @04:37PM
But funny how they all emerged from a much smaller population pool, if your logic was right, we’d have multiple ‘Einsteins’ solving our every problem now (with most of those problems being exacerbated by too many people)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @04:12AM
I guess the next few decades should be very educational for you then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @09:28AM
Yes, kill more unborn babies to appease the climate god, place them on the blood alter and pray for lower temperatures
Hey Europeans and those of European decent, have less kids to save the environment!
Why didn't you have more kids now we must bring in immigrants who dont have the same culture as you!
Start eating bugs to save the environment!
Your kids must learn in 1st grade there are 70 genders!
Ride your bike or walk to work, its for the environment!
Fuck you.