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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the Neo-Malthusian dept.

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


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:18PM (4 children)

    by Mykl (1112) on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:18PM (#917616)

    global population was relatively stable for most of human history

    Due to massive mortality rates from war, disease, natural disasters, localised famines etc. People had heaps of kids - most of them just died.

    Given that we have improved life expectancy for all and hugely reduced infant mortality, the only way to keep the population stable now is to have less kids.

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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:26PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:26PM (#917622)

    Exactly

  • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:29PM (2 children)

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:29PM (#917628)

    Due to massive mortality rates from war, disease, natural disasters, localized famines etc. People had heaps of kids - most of them just died.

    We are dealing with the evolutionary results of that in the population boom of recent history. Humanity is still "hard coded" for that "struggle to survive" instinct, being able to breed again in less than a year after giving birth. Humanity is also "soft coded" for population increase, given that most cultures still push, at least subconsciously, for the same thing, whether as a self verification of one's status or something necessary to accomplish.

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday November 09 2019, @12:16AM (1 child)

      by Immerman (3985) on Saturday November 09 2019, @12:16AM (#918108)

      >Humanity is also "soft coded" for population increase
      Are you sure about that? Pretty much every developed nation has negative population growth (ignoring immigration)

      Aside from a few heavily Catholic countries (which present their own challenges), global population growth today is mostly all originating in the developing nations. And demographically, mostly from the poorest segment of the populations - those that lack the education and easy access to birth control that the rest of the global population enjoys.

      Humans are biologically wired to reproduce, but in practice that mostly amounts to "we like sex", and when we can easily prevent pregnancy, population growth rapidly plummets to close to zero.

      • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday November 09 2019, @11:13PM

        by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Saturday November 09 2019, @11:13PM (#918438)

        >Humanity is also "soft coded" for population increase
        Are you sure about that? Pretty much every developed nation has negative population growth (ignoring immigration)

        You can't ignore immigration. If you eliminate immigration maybe most developed countries would have zero or negative population growth. However, it seems that those same countries work hard to prevent zero population growth for developing nations. The US in particular allows religious influence against birth control and abortion to color foreign aid, while virtually all developed nations pump money into the developing nations with the goal of fueling growth. There's money to be made there! As a result, populations boom, and emigration from developing nations to developed nations is a by product.