If you do nothing else with your day, your week or even your life... (World Population Thread)

...watch this youtube posting of a presentation given by Professor Albert Bartlett of the University of Boulder Colorado. Then try to make sure that everyone you know - man, woman and child - all watch it too because it is telling us something that we desperately need to know and to be doing something about. It's in 8 parts and is approx an hour long. It's very compelling - and a masterpiece of academic presentation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5iFESMAU58

Yesterday was World Population Day so this is timely. I found this paper called "How Many People Can the Planet Support" very clear about population growth and why we need to stop it.

Link to Sustainability of Human Populations paper
It is quite a short paper with excellent graphs.

The Sustainability of Human Populations:
How many People can Live on Earth
Martin Desvaux PhD MInstP CPhys

Quote :

The UN predicts that by 2050 the world population will exceed nine billion. If this happens, then combined with increased affluence (as, for example, the footprints of China and India expand rapidly) the world footprint could rise to around 2.7gha/cap. Without a serious international attempt to bring the world population back towards sustainability, the earth will become increasingly depleted of biological resources and will require humanity to conform to a significantly reduced average footprint, perhaps as low as of 1.2 gha/cap, assuming no sufficiently rapid advances in, for example, food and renewable-energy technologies. Because rich nations will not want to reduce their comfortable lifestyles, this predicts an enormous increase in poverty and an incipient catastrophic population crash in the poorer nations. Superimpose on this scenario the impact of the predicted effects of further global warming and that outcome begins to look like a certainty. It’s probable, however, that the prediction of nine billion population will never be realised. Instead, the price will be extensive human suffering, through resource wars and starvation.

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Quote :

Would not a more intelligent approach be to bring about a voluntary reduction in the population of the world while trying to constrain affluence? Such a move will not be without economic consequences, but it would surely be the lesser of two evils.
Conclusion

Quote :

The Global Network footprint statistics show that, globally, we left sustainability behind during the late 1980s. Since then, increasing world affluence and populations have driven us deeper into unsustainable territory. The carbon dioxide emissions of each country pollute the atmosphere for every other nation and the human urge to improve its affluence, or impact through technology – no matter how well off it already is – is a driver that seems set to continue. It follows that if it is not possible to constrain affluence and technology, then the only parameter left to constrain and reduce is population. The ecological footprinting data analysed in this paper have given guidelines. A sustainable global population is around two to three billion people – providing the world settles for a mean ecological footprint somewhere in the range of 3.5 to 5.5 gha/cap; for the UK, the corresponding figure works out at between 17 and 27 million.

The connection between peak oil and non-sustainable population levels is very well explained by this young woman. If you find her dancing non PC or overdistracting I suggest sticking a post-it note on the right hand side of your screen.

That video (the original one) really is very fascinating - and startling.

There was a piece on The Right Hook on Newstalk on Friday about the world population, and David Norris, who was standing in for George Hook, told his guest that because he is gay he sees himself as a part of the solution, rather than a part of the problem.
I thought it was quite funny.
I didn't listen to much of the interview but the guy gave this as his website...
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/


The sexy dance video was a bit harder to concentrate on. I might have to take cactus' advice and put a postit on the screen but that would leave marks on my monitor.

Excellent video Aragon. Watched 1-3, will watch remainder tomorrow.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Excellent video Aragon. Watched 1-3, will watch remainder tomorrow.

Bartlett has taken a purely scientific/mathematical perspective - he tries to leave out of his argument any appeal to the emotion or the moral about this issue - which leaves him open to accusations of racism and stuff which really misses the point of what he is trying to say, I think. He keeps bringing people back to the incontrovertible maths of the situation, the doubling time etc etc and weighs all the factors that contribute to world population growth against those that would limit it. Obviously the second group includes things that nobody wants to see happen - famine, wars, epdemics - so he is arguing for a concerted worldwide campaign to educate people about the need for family planning as well as urgent and drastic measures to combat environmental degradation, much greater management of the world's resources and so forth. Is it likely that human beings will/can be persuaded to manage their most basic urge? Either way, if we don't we are doomed.

Where Bartlett is most controversial is in his call to end immigration into the US. He says the US is in no position to ask other countries to control population growth if it doesnt control its own and alleges that by far the greatest source of pop growth (which is at unsustainable levels in the US) is among the immigrant community - which is true. He's sees this as problematic on a few different levels but not least becuase the level of consumption among all people living in the US is drastically higher than anywhere else. To be fair to him, he does also advocate managing the world's resources on a more equitable footing. Where he is kind of extreme, I think, is in recommending that aid should be restricted to countries based on demonstrable efforts to reduce population growth. This assumes a sort of 'us' and 'them' scenario which is politically and morally problematic for many but I suppose it implies a temporary remedy which would ultimately be unnecessary. Bartlett's answer to the objections is kind of hard to get around - he just says it doesn't matter what you say, this problem is a mathematical certainty - a fact of life which is going completely ignored. Acknowledging it properly will unavoidably and drastically alter our perspective on what we will have to do ensure we survive.

It's unfortunate that promoting population control leads almost automatically to being called an elitist, a misanthrope, and all the usual. Environmental degradation through over-population is in the same boat as peak oil - a simple arithmetical outcome of observable reality. The denialism it generates makes one aware of the extent to which many people live in comfortable fantasias.

I'm reminded of our own politicians continuously telling us that we need immigration to fuel our economy. The obsessive desire to keep GDP growing at an unsustainable level, as if this is the measurement by which we can all feel everything is grand.

Meath population alone grew by over 20% from 2002-2007. This is backed up by the evidence of small Meath villages becoming concrete jungles in the same period. Using Bartletts's 70 rule of thumb, that's a doubling of Meath's population in 17.5 years from 2002, i.e. 2019.

And yet we're told this will help the economy grow at 5% per annum or whatever. Question is, what do all these people do that leads to this level of economic growth, when industry and agriculture have significantly less growth, if indeed any ?

Buy and sell intangible rubbish to each other ?

He is right, anyone with any sense knows unlimited consumption and population growth is unsustainable. The problem is doing anything coherent about it.

Energy I think will eventually sort itself out as it depends on what we include as sources of energy. We are also becoming more efficient and that trend will accelerate. I would be more concerned about other resources such as copper and lead.

Population growth I am also less optimistic about. We probably need to reduce world population as current levels are producing unsustainable strains on the world's eco systems. However there are so many factors mitigating against effective action. Political reasons, religious dogma, social and economic consideration etc. The equation is more likely to be balanced by nature than man. Unfortunately the likely damage our over population will cause before famine, war or pestilence kick in could result in a downward spiral of viability. The more we degrade the less that can be supported.

In many ways it is a parrallel to looking at the current economic crisis, we can intervene or simply let those most vunerable starve or die in war or from disease.

I can see meaningful intervention working within the EU model and expansion of that model, but the time scale needed for progressive adjustment would be alarmingly slow. Other coherient international action is unlikely as foreign policy will be dominated by the need to secure resources.

The rate of population increase is declining in many countries, but world population is still on the up. China's population will start to fall in the coming decades, India is heading in the wrong direction as is most of Asia, South America and most of Africa. Africa with all its disease, famine and war shows just how resilient population growth actually is. Central and Eastern Europe is the region of population decline.

Table of population growths

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/factbook/countrycompare/pg/2a.html;_ylt=AoxEVrWxuuANumrvAKETLODPecYF

Toping the list Afganistan? real surprise to me.

Squire wrote:

He is right, anyone with any sense knows unlimited consumption and population growth is unsustainable. The problem is doing anything coherent about it.

Energy I think will eventually sort itself out as it depends on what we include as sources of energy. We are also becoming more efficient and that trend will accelerate. I would be more concerned about other resources such as copper and lead.

Population growth I am also less optimistic about. We probably need to reduce world population as current levels are producing unsustainable strains on the world's eco systems. However there are so many factors mitigating against effective action. Political reasons, religious dogma, social and economic consideration etc. The equation is more likely to be balanced by nature than man. Unfortunately the likely damage our over population will cause before famine, war or pestilence kick in could result in a downward spiral of viability. The more we degrade the less that can be supported.

In many ways it is a parrallel to looking at the current economic crisis, we can intervene or simply let those most vunerable starve or die in war or from disease.

I can see meaningful intervention working within the EU model and expansion of that model, but the time scale needed for progressive adjustment would be alarmingly slow. Other coherient international action is unlikely as foreign policy will be dominated by the need to secure resources.

The rate of population increase is declining in many countries, but world population is still on the up. China's population will start to fall in the coming decades, India is heading in the wrong direction as is most of Asia, South America and most of Africa. Africa with all its disease, famine and war shows just how resilient population growth actually is. Central and Eastern Europe is the region of population decline.

Table of population growths

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/factbook/countrycompare/pg/2a.html;_ylt=AoxEVrWxuuANumrvAKETLODPecYF

Toping the list Afganistan? real surprise to me.

Energy savings on their own are unlikely to work. Bartlett refers to something described as 'Jevons Paradox' which if I've got it right is the principle that proves that human behaviour is such that the more capacity or resource that is available the more the individual unit of consumption goes up. (Not all societies have functioned on that principle but it is now the exact model that we idolise. That's why building roads just makes traffic worse, eg - and in a very short space of time too - in fact consistent again with Bartlett's doubling time. He's telling us that we need to be radically different in almost everything we do - the whole basis of our existence as a species needs to be reconciled to laws that we have paid no attention to whatsoever and which are working brutally against us.

Jimmy Carter tried very hard to make the world listen but was savaged politically for his pains. The lunatics took over and have turned the entire world into their asylum.

I liked this video, twas interesting.

What I found very interesting though, for a physicist, was that he appears to be a flat earther.

When looking at population demographics, you cannot decide that the population limit is bounded by a two-dimensional surface.

This is not to say that the argument does not have merit, it does. It's just that I think the limits have not been defined, nor can they be.

Without wanting to jump on the bandwagon and start firing off elitest accusations (cause I don't think the argument goes that far - and everyone's entitled to a viewpoint), I think it's a slippery slope when we advocate population control. As the man said, nature will take care of population, if and when it needs taking care of - and its methodoligies are not limited to what we allow for.

A larger population provides for more energy - motive, emotive and intellectual - and there's neither excuse nor argument that this growing population cannot provide for its own sustainability. Excepting of course when nature decides otherwise. Trying to intellectually define or decide this point is akin to making a weather forecast imo.

Hermes wrote:

I liked this video, twas interesting.

What I found very interesting though, for a physicist, was that he appears to be a flat earther.

When looking at population demographics, you cannot decide that the population limit is bounded by a two-dimensional surface.

This is not to say that the argument does not have merit, it does. It's just that I think the limits have not been defined, nor can they be.

Without wanting to jump on the bandwagon and start firing off elitest accusations (cause I don't think the argument goes that far - and everyone's entitled to a viewpoint), I think it's a slippery slope when we advocate population control. As the man said, nature will take care of population, if and when it needs taking care of - and its methodoligies are not limited to what we allow for.

A larger population provides for more energy - motive, emotive and intellectual - and there's neither excuse nor argument that this growing population cannot provide for its own sustainability. Excepting of course when nature decides otherwise. Trying to intellectually define or decide this point is akin to making a weather forecast imo.

But he's merely observing a mathematical and scientific fact, no? There's a lot of philosophy, sociology and economics etc that ought to flow from recognition of the fact? It's as fundamental as the fact of gravity - it's part of what defines what we are whether or not we understand or accept it. Ignoring it is like the equivalent of jumping from a roof and expecting to fly. Or doing nothing to put out a fire in your house.

I'm not sure what you mean by the two-dimensional thing - how does it relate to what he is saying?

Hermes wrote:

..

When looking at population demographics, you cannot decide that the population limit is bounded by a two-dimensional surface...

Well you sort of can. Because it takes about 20 acres of land (If I remember correctly) to provide enough food for an average family, depending on the quality of the land etc...

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Hermes wrote:

..

When looking at population demographics, you cannot decide that the population limit is bounded by a two-dimensional surface...

Well you sort of can. Because it takes about 20 acres of land (If I remember correctly) to provide enough food for an average family, depending on the quality of the land etc...

Indeed - we live, in essence, on the two-dimensional bounding surface of a sphere. We can, and do, render it somewhat fractal, of course, but the eventual determining bound is the infalling energy, which is dependent entirely on that mathematically 2D surface.

Like I said already I do like this video. His maths are spot on.

Tis true to say, that of all the people who have ever lived, more than half of them are alive today.

I still don't agree with the 2d surface of a sphere providing the limit. Though I do take Ibis' point and say that that clarifies the argument considerably.

But we know that fractaline geometry is a weird duck in that it's both bounded and boundless at the same time. Also, another consideration for the argument, might be that it's not a 3-d issue either. It's 4-d. The time element is quite an important consideration. Imagine what it'd be like 200 years ago if the world population somehow managed to reach the levels it's at now, but without the ability we have now to produce food etc.

Time has a way of converting the possible into the probable and the probable into certainty.

The only boundary I see that limits population growth is nature and this indeed could be termed (for the time being) that the suns energy, both radiating and stored are what limit population growth. And of course, this boundary is a product of efficiency and of the depletion of stored energy.

The depletion factor is a visible entity to some degree. The efficiency factor is hard to determine, short of saying that we are nowhere near 100% nor will we ever reach it of course.

The video was excellent in that it provides a jump-start to the conscience. But once one has one's engine up and running, one should not just switch it off and consider the journey complete. That'd be a bit malthusian.

Hermes wrote:

Like I said already I do like this video. His maths are spot on.

Tis true to say, that of all the people who have ever lived, more than half of them are alive today.

I still don't agree with the 2d surface of a sphere providing the limit. Though I do take Ibis' point and say that that clarifies the argument considerably.

But we know that fractaline geometry is a weird duck in that it's both bounded and boundless at the same time. Also, another consideration for the argument, might be that it's not a 3-d issue either. It's 4-d. The time element is quite an important consideration. Imagine what it'd be like 200 years ago if the world population somehow managed to reach the levels it's at now, but without the ability we have now to produce food etc.

Time has a way of converting the possible into the probable and the probable into certainty.

The only boundary I see that limits population growth is nature and this indeed could be termed (for the time being) that the suns energy, both radiating and stored are what limit population growth. And of course, this boundary is a product of efficiency and of the depletion of stored energy.

The depletion factor is a visible entity to some degree. The efficiency factor is hard to determine, short of saying that we are nowhere near 100% nor will we ever reach it of course.

The video was excellent in that it provides a jump-start to the conscience. But once one has one's engine up and running, one should not just switch it off and consider the journey complete. That'd be a bit malthusian.

We have certainly managed to increase the efficiency of agricultural production, but we have largely done so by using oil - and peak oil is, unfortunately, another unavoidable arithmetical problem.

There is only a certain amount of land suitable for agriculture on the surface of the planet. Outside those areas, we can only benefit from the available energy by using animal intermediaries. That, of course, is one reason why the vegetarian/vegan claim that if we didn't eat meat we'd have more land for growing crops with is extremely naive - much of the land thus 'released' is not suitable for agriculture.

Plants themselves operate at certain maximum efficiencies. While we can reengineer those to some degree, many of the limits relate to preventing cellular damage within the plants' tissues, and cannot be conveniently removed or circumvented.

Therefore, there are limits to agriculture. There are also limits to fisheries and any other wild resources. Malthus wasn't wrong, remember - all we have achieved with technology is to shift the limits, not remove them. We live in a finite world - one which we have only started to study properly in the last 50 years, and which we really do not understand very well. We continue to pull out bits of the wiring or divert them to our own uses without having any idea whether they are vital or not.

God it's chilling that we have built up such a body of food producing technology on the back of oil and oil is now going bye bye. Even an alternative like algae oil might not have the same properties with the by-products we use from oil.

Is it really so true ibis that animals are used to convert the marginal land like you say? How true is it? Does it apply to Ireland? Could't we be producing more diversely - trees, biofuel, organic veg as well as meat or is Ireland a meat producer for the rest of the world?

Auditor #9 wrote:

God it's chilling that we have built up such a body of food producing technology on the back of oil and oil is now going bye bye. Even an alternative like algae oil might not have the same properties with the by-products we use from oil.

Is it really so true ibis that animals are used to convert the marginal land like you say? How true is it? Does it apply to Ireland? Could't we be producing more diversely - trees, biofuel, organic veg as well as meat or is Ireland a meat producer for the rest of the world?

We're preeminently a pastoral country. We're marginal for agriculture over much of the country. What grows well is grass - and grass is something we can only eat once it's been processed by them little woolly tubes or the like.

Obviously we can diversify a bit, but over a good chunk of the country the only standing crop you could grow is reeds...even a lot of our forestry wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the grants.

There is no possibility of us feeding the current world population without the use of large quantities of energy and fertilizer. The science for freeing us by other means is just not there. We really are running out of time. At some future date we may well be able to replicate food and head off onto other planets but this problem will be on us in the coming decades.

Squire wrote:

There is no possibility of us feeding the current world population without the use of large quantities of energy and fertilizer. The science for freeing us by other means is just not there. We really are running out of time. At some future date we may well be able to replicate food and head off onto other planets but this problem will be on us in the coming decades.

Yup. Some of the adjustment will be technological, and some of it will be, er, structural.

ibis wrote:

Yup. Some of the adjustment will be technological, and some of it will be, er, structural.

Structural? Are you sure you're not a secret fan of youngdan? (you mean death by war, famine etc. ?)

Are you sure Ireland cannot grow rice or lentils or something else in massive quantities that would be less energy-intensive than ... cows. As I typed that I'm just wondering if growing cows like you say is the optimal way of food production here - the energy input is minimal isn't it?

I still think we could do with a few more forests though.

Auditor #9 wrote:

ibis wrote:

Yup. Some of the adjustment will be technological, and some of it will be, er, structural.

Structural? Are you sure you're not a secret fan of youngdan? (you mean death by war, famine etc. ?)

I can safely confirm that I'm not a fan of any conspiracy theorist, political or pseudo-scientific.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Are you sure Ireland cannot grow rice or lentils or something else in massive quantities that would be less energy-intensive than ... cows. As I typed that I'm just wondering if growing cows like you say is the optimal way of food production here - the energy input is minimal isn't it?

Cows specifically may not be, but pastoralism is the historical form of farming in Ireland, with a minor admixture of crops. We don't do it because it's fashionable, or traditional, but because it works.

Auditor #9 wrote:

I still think we could do with a few more forests though.

True.

I put a link to the 8 parts on Silverpond, mostly for my own benefit so I can play them easily from the PS3.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I put a link to the 8 parts on Silverpond, mostly for my own benefit so I can play them easily from the PS3.

Why don't you put the whole site back there as well as this place keeps fokking up people's posts?

On the subject of population explosions and controlling high birth rates etc., how many kids have you got now? I'm not trying to make myself feel better as I have none or anything - I could adopt you know if I wasn't single and had a more stable job.

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I put a link to the 8 parts on Silverpond, mostly for my own benefit so I can play them easily from the PS3.

Why don't you put the whole site back there as well as this place keeps fokking up people's posts?

On the subject of population explosions and controlling high birth rates etc., how many kids have you got now? I'm not trying to make myself feel better as I have none or anything - I could adopt you know if I wasn't single and had a more stable job.

What whole site ?

I have 3 kids, but I don't want to give any of them away just yet.

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I put a link to the 8 parts on Silverpond, mostly for my own benefit so I can play them easily from the PS3.

Why don't you put the whole site back there as well as this place keeps fokking up people's posts?

On the subject of population explosions and controlling high birth rates etc., how many kids have you got now? I'm not trying to make myself feel better as I have none or anything - I could adopt you know if I wasn't single and had a more stable job.

Are you okay, Auditor?