Can we be both technologically progressive and environmental?

[Spectral]

There's a lag time of a couple generations; the theoretical explanation (since experimenting on people is no bueno) is that child mortality around you kicks off a "breed more to survive the threat" trigger in our baser instincts; a 50% child mortality rate isn't an extinction threat if every couple is having 8 kids, for instance, if we ignore the personal tragedy aspect for the moment.

When that child mortality eases off, people make more informed decisions about their childbearing, particularly since the economic growth associated with that kind of medical care also brings in ready access to contraceptives and so forth.

What you're not recognizing is that culture isn't a cause. It's an effect. Change people's circumstances, and their culture will adapt to the new circumstances.

You'll forgive me if I remain concerned even with the assumption that African population growth will start to taper off when they have ~2.5 billion people in 2050 (by UN projections). If we assume that African, India, and China will see rises in living standards (which I hope is true), this is going to be a problem from a standpoint of GHG emissions, land utilization, and mining, and so on.

[Elim Garak]

On the contrary, people who aren't concerned about population don't understand quite how thoroughly the Earth's land mass is now dominated by humans and our livestock:

Of course, this doesn't mean, "oh no, the end is nigh!", but it does mean that care needs to be taken.

What does weight have to do with overpopulation?

For instance there are approx. 1.5 billion cows on Earth right now. Let's say a cow takes 2 sq meters - that's 3000 sq km. Sheep and goats - 2 billions, they take half a sq meter so another 1000 sq km. Chickens - 25 billion, we can have 10 in a sq meter (more actually, but let's give them some luxury they deserve), so 2500 sq km. Total: 6500 sq km, still even less than humans.

[Endus]

Yeah, but does the earth support enough food for all of us?

There isn't a food production problem. There's a food distribution problem. If Hans Roslings' projections are right, we're going to cap out at around 10 billion, and then the global population will start shrinking. We're already past the point of "peak children"; the number of children on the planet is now shrinking. We're still going to see population growth, since we have a large cohort of children who are still going to grow up and have children of their own, but after that generation (which will get us to the 10 billion), we'll see a decline.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosli...es?language=en

It's titled "Religion and Babies", but it's where he explains this "peak child" thing.

[Elim Garak]

Yeah, but does the earth support enough food for all of us?

Of course it does. Even without technology.

[Spectral]

What does weight have to do with overpopulation?

For instance there are approx. 1.5 billion cows on Earth right now. Let's say a cow takes 2 sq meters - that's 3000 sq km. Sheep and goats - 2 billions, they take half a sq meter so another 1000 sq km. Chickens - 25 billion, we can have 10 in a sq meter (more actually, but let's give them some luxury they deserve), so 2500 sq km. Total: 6500 sq km, still even less than humans.

Biomass matters; the point is that humans are presently dominating the Earth to an extraordinary extent.

Your numbers are way off here though. If you think 2 square meters of Earth are what's required to support a cow, I really don't know what to tell you. Is this really how you think carrying capacity works? That an animal only needs the land they're standing on at a given moment?

[Techno-Druid]

It's interesting to look at the stark contrast between these two responses. I think this highlights how sticky the problem is - population in and of itself is not the only driver of ecological problems. The intersection between industry, resource utilization, and population is what can drive a problem.

I do not believe that industrializing billions of people is likely to have environmental outcomes that many of us would favor. We're staring down some pretty nasty consequences if some of the current trends of population growth and industrialization don't change, and rapidly. Current trends of population growth, even accounting for improved economic conditions and lowered reproduction rates show startling growth rates in underdeveloped nations:


While further stimulating economic opportunity does seem likely to cut population growth, the intersection with increased utilization of resources and increased carbon emissions is really dangerous and is a tough policy nut to crack.

Adding to this, but going on the side of slightly off topic, we largely have a lot of the land to begin mass ecological restoration and rewilding, but it's more a matter of social and agricultural issues.

We see time and time again the governments giving in to fringe agriculturalists. Now I have intention of advocating for the prevention of agriculture nor buying up owned private property, but there must be some regulation.

Before you start to villianize me for trying to "starve nations" note that much of the world is globalizing in the agricultural industry. Not only that, but many of these sheep and cattle herders who have traditionally worked on poorer land, have started to migrate to more urban areas.

In my opinion, we must win over the farmers and shepherds to truly start rewilding. Showing people the benefits of forests, savannahs and grasslands; the clean water, the healthier fishing, duckhunting and foraging opportunities, but to also incentivize ecological restoration. Showing people the benefits of having and not persecuting wolves, brown bears and lynxes or wolves, bears and bobcats and in some cases possibly leopards.

[Endus]

You'll forgive me if I remain concerned even with the assumption that African population growth will start to taper off when they have ~2.5 billion people in 2050 (by UN projections). If we assume that African, India, and China will see rises in living standards (which I hope is true), this is going to be a problem from a standpoint of GHG emissions, land utilization, and mining, and so on.

Not necessarily. We're already passing certain critical points in technological improvement; solar and wind generation are becoming more cost-effective than coal and oil, for instance. That's always been a major issue; developing countries were likely to use coal generation and such because it was cheap. They couldn't afford more-expensive-but-cleaner options. Now, those cleaner options increasingly are the cheaper options.

The waste levels of, say, the USA are shocking, but are also somewhat reliant on cultural attitudes (which is why it's not remotely similar in, say, the EU). Also, speaking as someone involved in urban planning, a huge part of the American outlook is their car-centric development, which urban planners today recognize was a mistake, and are actively working to overhaul, even throughout (particularly, even) the USA. It became a self-reinforcing dynamic; you needed a car because everyone lived in suburbs a 20 minute drive from wherever they worked, the stores were 20 minutes in the other direction, and living closer to either wasn't an option, and mass transit was largely garbage so you quickly sought to get a car and not have to deal with that any more. Better urban design limits that; you get better mass transit, you get localized neighbourhoods where people can walk to the local grocery rather than driving 20 minutes to get there, and so forth. Explosive urban design in developing nations can take these into account from the outset, giving them a better opportunity to adapt to that future than even American cities have, because they don't have that legacy of poor design to tear down, first.

It's not an insurmountable issue. It's one we're already working to solve, and largely succeeding at.

[Elim Garak]

"Of course"? I think I am with Endus here. If it is distributed evenly and that means we in the west might seriously have to cut down our consumption

Example, Americans throw away lots of food and they need to lose some weight while we are at it. And that can be said about the whole West. You know when obesity is a first world problem...

That said..."of course" as an answer doesn't cut it for me. Can you debunk the theory in the video that I linked how many hectars per person are needed to feed us and how americans and europeans already use up more farm land? What about the claim that the oceans are overfished?

It doesn't matter how many hectars are needed, as long as there's enough, and we are not even close to using it all.
Oceans are LARGELY unexplored. Over-fishing is more of a foreign affairs issue. Dem fish r fish. Fish, you know, doesn't respect state borders.
Yeah, and if you gonna mention some species going extinct - if they are going they deserve it and they should go. That's how life on this planet works.

[Cosmic Janitor]

There's a lag time of a couple generations; the theoretical explanation (since experimenting on people is no bueno) is that child mortality around you kicks off a "breed more to survive the threat" trigger in our baser instincts; a 50% child mortality rate isn't an extinction threat if every couple is having 8 kids, for instance, if we ignore the personal tragedy aspect for the moment.

When that child mortality eases off, people make more informed decisions about their childbearing, particularly since the economic growth associated with that kind of medical care also brings in ready access to contraceptives and so forth.

What you're not recognizing is that culture isn't a cause. It's an effect. Change people's circumstances, and their culture will adapt to the new circumstances.

Oh no, I do realize that. I just wasn't in the mood the write an extensive post about it and establish everything for a throwaway argument. Culture is always influenced by the conditions of the people in that culture. And as you say there is a lag and precisely this lag time is the frightening thing. I personally can only speculate what has greater negative effects. Africa slowly growing on it's own or we helping them grow. The only certain thing is that a higher economic standard also brings higher resource requirements. While it's unlikely that we would see the ridiculous levels per capita as in the US, a couple billion people suddenly demanding things like energy as even the more saving countries will have a huge effect. If you happen to have some more concrete information on how these effects exactly relate to one another I wouldn't mine seeing them.

I think the topic is interesting, but sadly most of the time it just comes down to vague statements. Some predictions, approximations, extrapolations or ideally (I know that is unlikely) formulas of various scenarios would be quite interesting.

[Elim Garak]

Biomass matters;

It really doesn't

Your numbers are way off here though. If you think 2 square meters of Earth are what's required to support a cow

My numbers are to show how little space humans and our cattle occupy compared to the area of Earth's land mass, which if you remember is QUITE HUGE.

So if you wanna talk about "carrying capacity" - go ahead. Tell me how much land a cow needs to be a fully operating food producing unit. And I do the math for you or I'd rather you did it.

[Techno-Druid]

Example, Americans throw away lots of food and they need to lose some weight while we are at it. And that can be said about the whole West. You know when obesity is a first world problem...

It doesn't matter how many hectars are needed, as long as there's enough, and we are not even close to using it all.
Oceans are LARGELY unexplored. Over-fishing is more of a foreign affairs issue. Dem fish r fish. Fish, you know, doesn't respect state borders.
Yeah, and if you gonna mention some species going extinct - if they are going they deserve it and they should go. That's how life on this planet works.

I've heard the argument that hunting animals to extinction as all human activity is a part of nature and I will not argue against that claim, but is it not then natural that we reintroduce and/or preserve/protect these species? Bringing wolves, lynxes and brown bears back to the UK and Ireland; jaguar, bison and horses in the Western US, Asian elephants in Eastern Turkey and the bordering Syria along with much of China with African elephants of desert-adapted subspecies being brought back to much of North Africa where they were tamed for war and construction use and then later hunted to extinction for their ivory.

[Shadowferal]

I remember asking a half-black women who was also bi...why she supported the Republican Party when they want nothing to do with her.

Similar position here; I don't know of any libertarians of any variety (they do seem to have quite a few flavors) that are pro-environment. All of them have always been against regulation of any sort.

Advanced nations are already below replacement fertility rates. Controlling world population would require stifling reproduction in Africa, which doesn't seem to be something that anyone really has the stomach for.

Seems to me with the HIV rates they are doing the job themselves.

People who are concerned with overpopulation are just ignorant about the size of the land mass on this planet. All humans - all 8 billion of us occupy no more than 8 billion sq meters - on average. That is 8000 sq km. The surface area of Earth's land mass is 149000000 sq km. For comparison the area of LA metro: 12561 sq km.

Play with the numbers all you want, a world that is no longer green and has a diversity of wildlife isn't a world I don't believe a lot of people want to live in.

[Elim Garak]

I've heard the argument that hunting animals to extinction as all human activity is a part of nature and I will not argue against that claim, but is it not then natural that we reintroduce and/or preserve/protect these species?

No.

1. We don't need them. We should eat the last of them and switch to the next one. Preserving them is just a waste of space, we still can't eat them while they are preserved.
2. The premise I suppose is - to avert the human effect on the nature, right? But preservation is a human effect on the nature - so the premise defeats itself. We shouldn't meddle with nature, arbitrary. We are allowed to kill them as we are the dominant species, that's natural. They should go extinct. Some other animals will take their place. Evolve to make use of the new habitat.
3. All animals that we need - are the cattle and other domesticated kinds. We don't need wild life. Though it's nice to go hunting into real wilderness and not a zoo-park. We need plants for Oxygen, some plants need insects, insects are practically immortal and outnumber us. Humans really can take care of forests without any animals in it - if need be - thanks to technology. And I believe we (humans) can outlive the usefulness of trees using technology too.

- - - Updated - - -

Play with the numbers all you want, a world that is no longer green and has a diversity of wildlife isn't a world I don't believe a lot of people want to live in.

Most people don't live in a green world TODAY. They live in cities. They want to live in cities. Leave people alone.

[Techno-Druid]

No.

1. We don't need them. We should eat the last of them and switch to the next one. Preserving them is just a waste of space, we still can't eat them while they are preserved.
2. The premise I suppose is - to avert the human effect on the nature, right? But preservation is a human effect on the nature - so the premise defeats itself. We shouldn't meddle with nature, arbitrary. We are allowed to kill them as we are the dominant species, that's natural. They should go extinct. Some other animals will take their place. Evolve to make use of the new habitat.
3. All animals that we need - are the cattle and other domesticated kinds. We don't need wild life. Though it's nice to go hunting into real wilderness and not a zoo-park. We need plants for Oxygen, some plants need insects, insects are practically immortal and outnumber us. Humans really can take care of forests without any animals in it - if need be - thanks to technology. And I believe we (humans) can outlive the usefulness of trees using technology too.

- - - Updated - - -


Most people don't live in a green world TODAY. They live in cities. They want to live in cities. Leave people alone.

You did not answer my question. It's also absurd and idiotic to think that animals do not affect us. You say we need trees for oxygen, trees congregate to form forests and are spread out to form savannahs, but animals are needed to maintain forests and prevent other ecological disasters such as flooding. When you take one species out of an ecosystem especially a keystone species that can negatively affect entire ecosystems and that directly affects us.

And while you are correct about us having the capabilities to ensure some of the care that fauna brings, that all costs time, energy and specifically money. Machines are also much more fragile than we choose to acknowledge, constantly having to build and repair or replace new technologies will ultimately outweigh the usefulness of the tech.

[Elim Garak]

You did not answer my question. It's also absurd and idiotic to think that animals do not affect us. You say we need trees for oxygen

I explained this. Animals affect us by providing food, leather, bone and fur. Some medications are harvested from them. But that's domesticated animals. We don't need wild life. Trees don't need animals, they need CO2, water and some minerals from the ground which naturally come from trees (leaves) some animals need insects for reproduction. But insects ain't going anywhere even if we wanted them to go (and boy do we). Ecosystem for the sake of ecosystem is silly. yes, if you take an animal out of a closed ecosystem - the closed ecosystem will die out. Who cares? It's all academical. Animals go extinct all the time. most of animals that lived on this planet sine day 0 - are gone. They are extinct. "Ecosystem" is doing just fine.

[Shadowferal]

No.
1. We don't need them. We should eat the last of them and switch to the next one. Preserving them is just a waste of space, we still can't eat them while they are preserved.
2. The premise I suppose is - to avert the human effect on the nature, right? But preservation is a human effect on the nature - so the premise defeats itself. We shouldn't meddle with nature, arbitrary. We are allowed to kill them as we are the dominant species, that's natural. They should go extinct. Some other animals will take their place. Evolve to make use of the new habitat.

No premise here. We need every animal we can get and keep. Diversification has always been necessary for a healthy habitat. (I suspect that you've a personal narrative that refuses to see this. Unfortunately personal narratives are little more than beliefs)

We need plants for Oxygen, some plants need insects, insects are practically immortal and outnumber us. Humans really can take care of forests without any animals in it - if need be - thanks to technology. And I believe we (humans) can outlive the usefulness of trees using technology too.

You really have no idea of the Hell you want to live in.
o but wait...

Most people don't live in a green world TODAY. They live in cities. They want to live in cities. Leave people alone.

And this is the telling point...I used to live in a ghetto, and I sure as hell remember what "hungry" was like, something I believe not many here knows anything about. (Certainly not you) What wishful fantasy makes you imagine that was better than rural town USA full of woods and lakes where one can hunt and fish?

[Techno-Druid]

I explained this. Animals affect us by providing food, leather, bone and fur. Some medications are harvested from them. But that's domesticated animals. We don't need wild life. Trees don't need animals, they need CO2, water and some minerals from the ground which naturally come from trees (leaves) some animals need insects for reproduction. But insects ain't going anywhere even if we wanted them to go (and boy do we). Ecosystem for the sake of ecosystem is silly. yes, if you take an animal out of a closed ecosystem - the closed ecosystem will die out. Who cares? It's all academical. Animals go extinct all the time. most of animals that lived on this planet sine day 0 - are gone. They are extinct. "Ecosystem" is doing just fine.

But you are not acknowledging the affects that animals have on a biome.

[Vash The Stampede]

As most people know, I am a big supporter of rewilding, ecological restoration. I am also a leftist libertarian transhumanist and actively embrace technological progress. The question is, can we balance mass ecological restoration with advanced technology and find a way to live ideally with progressing technologies and ideologies while also embracing our wilder instincts and allowing our grip on wildlife to loosen?

Depends on what you think "balance ecological restoration" is? Right now the Earth is forever changed by humans. We've killed of a lot of species of animals, both directly and indirectly. Wildlife is what we make of it. Humans are already trying to diminish the mosquitoes population with genetically engineered defective males. Malaria or mosquitoes?

Dogs are a creation of humans playing with breading. Because of our genetic alterations done to dogs, a lot of them are really sick. At the same time if we leave animals alone it won't do them any good either. Humans will expand and alter their environments. Best thing we can do is make sure we respect the animals while doing our thing. Maybe with some genetic tinkering we could help low population species get back on their feet. But at the same time evolution is pretty good at filling a missing gap in the ecosystem. If bees don't pollinate flowers, then some other animal eventually will.

[Techno-Druid]

No premise here. We need every animal we can get and keep. Diversification has always been necessary for a healthy habitat. (I suspect that you've a personal narrative that refuses to see this. Unfortunately personal narratives are little more than beliefs)

You really have no idea of the Hell you want to live in.
o but wait...

And this is the telling point...I used to live in a ghetto, and I sure as hell remember what "hungry" was like, something I believe not many here knows anything about. (Certainly not you) What wishful fantasy makes you imagine that was better than rural town USA full of woods and lakes where one can hunt and fish?

Despite what many people may think, the majority of First Worlders actually enjoy nature. That's why people like to hike. That's why you see pictures of wolves, foxes and big cats on Deviantart and why many individuals fantasize them.

- - - Updated - - -

Depends on what you think "balance ecological restoration" is? Right now the Earth is forever changed by humans. We've killed of a lot of species of animals, both directly and indirectly. Wildlife is what we make of it. Humans are already trying to diminish the mosquitoes population with genetically engineered defective males. Malaria or mosquitoes?

Dogs are a creation of humans playing with breading. Because of our genetic alterations done to dogs, a lot of them are really sick. At the same time if we leave animals alone it won't do them any good either. Humans will expand and alter their environments. Best thing we can do is make sure we respect the animals while doing our thing. Maybe with some genetic tinkering we could help low population species get back on their feet. But at the same time evolution is pretty good at filling a missing gap in the ecosystem. If bees don't pollinate flowers, then some other animal eventually will.

I see your point, but will we allow a species like that to evolve and how does that affect us?

[Independent voter]

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wil...s-ago-its-true

There was a study out that says there are more trees in North America today than 100 years ago. Not sure how they could figure that out but forests are a renewable resource.