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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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:33PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:33PM (#917632)

    Yes, but they're not mutually exclusive and are still valid scenarios that contribute to the meat bag count.

    People having more kids because there's a welfare network is a true statement. Whether everyone in welfare is doing that or whether the number of people doing that is significant is besides the point.

    Ensuring welfare does get abuse like that - or any other fraud reasons, whether the number is significant or not, is also valid course of action.

    There's all sorts of folks spawning children for all sorts of reasons that don't really help contribute to the better of humanity - some even hide behind religion which makes it hard to have a proper discourse with.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @09:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @09:30PM (#918044)

    People having more kids because there's a welfare network is a true statement.

    Is it? Immerman already pointed out that the places where poor people are having a lot of children are often the same places with little or no social safety net.

    Whether everyone in welfare is doing that or whether the number of people doing that is significant is besides the point.

    Actually, I think it precisely is the point. If we are going to address the over population problem, determining root causes is essential.

    There's all sorts of folks spawning children for all sorts of reasons that don't really help contribute to the better of humanity....

    The betterment of humanity? Are we now going to veer off into a discussion of eugenics? Already? Well, that sure didn't take long!