Overpopulation

But, but the economy and my pension.

Overpopulation was the buzz word years ago, is no longer a problem in developed countries. Even China cannot get their citizens to have enough children to replace their ageing population. Once people become more educated the problem becomes the opposite. The new problem is who is going to pay the old's pensions.

The issue is not the population but the use of the earth's resources. If we moved from a country based approach to a united earth, we could build new cities in more appropriate locations on earth and move the populations to these cities. You would need to move to a per building ecosystem i.e. every building would need to be an apartment complex with school, office floors, laundry mat, restaurant, gym ect. The more specialised areas you would have in central locations with a regular rail system. The reason for this is to reduce movement of people and goods. The things we build or make would need to be recyclable or durable enough to last generations. Current buildings and structures have a lifespan of around 150 years max which is not very long in terms of things. We would have to give up consumerism as we know it.

Countries don't have infrastructure to provide clean running water. I'd worry about that first before putting everyone in some sort of urban utopia that you're talking about. Plus, do you relo all those people living in areas that can't be terraformed to the environment you want?

Better to limit childbearing to reduce the number of humans suffering in the future.

The real mistake made was moving away from ZPG in the 60's. Pro-natalism is what's destroyed the environment. Too damn many people. We don't need more of them to produce 'smarter' ones. There are more than enough people. Should've been investing in reducing CO2 emissions when Keeling started publishing his data in the early 1960's.

Is that you Kevin Myers?

(He got villified for some articles on the topic a decade or so ago)

I don't think you got the point I was making. Most of the infrastructure we use at the moment was made in the last 150 years. Alot of it has been made to bring resources to area's where there were city's or towns and rebuild those cities and towns. This aslo includes fuel for heating and water. There are better locations on earth to build cities that would require less energy and resources for the long term. Also it is more economical from a transportation of resources point of view to have as many people in one area rather then spread out. You wouldn't be terraforming anything in the sense of the word. It's more important for humanity to begin working on long term projects. Like building a new city. You would pick the most ideal location for a city. Then you build the infrastructure required for the city i.e a rail line, water lines, electrical infrastructure ect and then you build the buildings on top of the infrastructure.

Overpopulation and the BS surrounding it are an overly simplistic view of the issue that finds popularity with Stanley Johnson and Prince Charles.

In simple terms it's a tenuous extension of Malthusian economics, a thoroughly discredited but easy to grasp model of population growth and demand cycles, into a slogan. It is a theory based upon a food poverty cycle that has been debunked for 150yrs.

The issues around industrialization and the concurrent effect on environment have long been decoupled from population.

More efficient modes of manufacture, power generation and transport only further decouple the production/population link.

Population and in particular IMO population density in limited and constrained areas are an issue. The reduction of unpopulated areas and impact on biodiversity are an issue. In particular for Ireland? The sheer volume of one off housing encroaching upon land that could otherwise be left to nature and the concurrent encroachment that servicing such home involves.

Anyone who proclaims overpopulation as a root cause of current global issues? Is an Ill educated clown IMO.

Overproduction, overconsumption, Consumerism and the reduction of virgin wilderness are all incredibly more pervasive than any population growth concerns.

It's not developing countries that are destroying the planet, so whether they are having kids or not isn't really the issue. It's high polluting countries like Ireland that are the problem, the amount each one of us consume in rich countries dwarfs anything in developing countries by some measure.

We could halve the population of the planet, but if we continue living our totally unsustainable lifestyles the planet will be f*cked sooner or later anyway.

We need to change how we consume and how we live. Less meat and dairy, less flying, less buying stuff, degrowth of economies, rewilding... There are many solutions but people just want more and more and no one will vote for politicians with policies that will inconvenience them or lead them to having less spending power.

I find the overpopulation argument is used by a lot of people who are unwilling to make any changes.

I think you are dead on.

Just take this conversation for example and how much energy it consumes.

The energy of producing the device (phone usually), the energy of mining the materials that go into it.

The energy of the electricity to charge the device.

The energy used to support the wifi in the house 24/7/365

The energy for the ISP to give you internet access, be it in the home or 4g.

It all has to be generated some way, and cheap enough for it to be viable for us.

All for this to be on a message board blaming someone else about the state of the planet.

A Eugenics thread to kick off the New Year. Nice one OP!

Honestly are you completely insane? Do you think we can carry on as is, consuming the way we do? Even though resources are finite and we need the life support systems of the planet?

The accuracy of that Don't Look Up film is so scary.

has a significant rise in unemployment truly been that disastrous during covid? many ive spoken to on pup have actually never been happier, getting to spend more time with loved ones, and doing what they truly want with their time! theres also evidence to support, many in these so called bullsh1t jobs are in fact deeply unhappy in doing so, leading to all sorts of social dysfunctions and mental health issues!

yes historically with such outcomes, in particular rapidly rising wealth inequality, in which we re now experiencing yet again, would have been 'solved' by conflicts and wars, funnily enough, we re slowly starting to realise, we dont actually have to do the war thing, we can simply just give people money, and try to reduce these inequalities, i.e. no need for the war thingy!

please explain how our trial run of ubi, isnt looking great?

excess consumption is rapidly increasing the likelihood of our extinction!

Free money is a fantasy. We have seriously damaged our economy in the last two years and will reap the pain in years to come.

what free money, where? how have we damaged our economy?

And they tend to follow a certain pattern

totally agree,imagine a lot of those burnt out house owners in Colorado voted for climate denier Trump.We will always retain the ability to ignore threats that don't seem to directly threaten us until its too late.In general we align our principles with our personal interests,so if we deem climate risk low we are against banning petrol cars ,reducing meat intake ,flights etc ,until our neighbour's roof is blown off or massive coastal flooding nearby and then we miraculously see the light and demand the government take action immediately.

No worries, we will be worrying about under population in 50-100 years.