Donate Bitcoin

Donate Paypal


PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

Carrying Capacity/Human Overshoot; Pt. 3, 21st century perspecti

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 18:38:38

ennui2 wrote:[
Please... Don't be so literal in reacting to the word 'safety-net'. There's more to the term 'safety-net' than social-programs.

You might have a different definition but the commonly accepted one is "a program or income stream that is available to those that have lost a job or suffered a medical loss beyond their means that otherwise would bankrupt them or make them homeless and starving."
Basically "the grid", everything we construe as modern civilization, everything from stocked shelves right down the street, to utilities, to the internet, is a 'safety-net'.

No that is not a safety net, just infrastructure that is paid for by it's users including safety net recipients using that money to pay the bills.
Even vermonters like yourself have the luxury of living in the middle of nowhere because you know, let's say, if you need modern advanced medical care you can truck on over to the medical center at White River Junction.
No the Hospital is over the river in Lebanon New Hampshire.
If you really attempt to power down to the proverbial loin-cloth and spear, you lose everything. You lose your MRIs, your open-heart-surgery, your antibiotics (some here wouldn't take them anyway), your dental care, your chemotherapy. You're basically Tom Hanks on a desert island ripping out one of his rotten teeth with a stone. Even if you have the most luxurious doomstead, if you really break away from the rest of society completely, you are gonna lose these things, and odds are they will significantly reduce your life-expectancy, at the very least back to how rough and tumble things were back in the 1800s.

No need to go all the way down to loincloth and spear. Without the "safety net" doctors will take payment in cord wood and maple syrup. They took chickens during the Great depression.
There would some who would say "great, that's the way it was in the olden days" or they'll fool themselves thinking that clean living and herbalism will help them live to 100. But by and large, people will not volunteer for this kind of lifestyle. They just won't. They want all the benefits of modernity without the downsides. Classic case of wanting to have their cake and eat it too. It can't be done. Pick your poison.

You can want and be dammed and they won't wait for you to volunteer or let you opt out of the new reality.
Take away all the knee replacements, the cardiac stents, MRIs etc. and you won't drop the life expectancy more then a year or two. Take away an adequate and safe food supply along with clean water and safe waste water treatment and then you have a real problem.
User avatar
vtsnowedin
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 14897
Joined: Fri 11 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Mon 29 Dec 2014, 02:05:06

BobInget wrote:Some rabbis say that one must have at least two children, and some say at least one of each sex.

Israeli Growth Rate and the Redemption of the Tribal Lands of Judea and the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel
Image

Image
Facebook knows you're a dog.
User avatar
Keith_McClary
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 7344
Joined: Wed 21 Jul 2004, 03:00:00
Location: Suburban tar sands

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 29 Dec 2014, 06:36:28

Aren't the Palestinian rates high also? I recall that they are in some kind of population race?
User avatar
Newfie
Forum Moderator
Forum Moderator
 
Posts: 18458
Joined: Thu 15 Nov 2007, 04:00:00
Location: Between Canada and Carribean

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Mon 29 Dec 2014, 09:46:39

Newfie wrote:Aren't the Palestinian rates high also? I recall that they are in some kind of population race?

Correct. The Gaza strip is growing at 3.11 % per year , the seventh fastest growth rate in the world. Israel ranks 76 at just 1.54%!
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=gz&v=24
User avatar
vtsnowedin
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 14897
Joined: Fri 11 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby ennui2 » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 01:09:13

vtsnowedin wrote:No need to go all the way down to loincloth and spear. Without the "safety net" doctors will take payment in cord wood and maple syrup. They took chickens during the Great depression.


I think you are romanticizing Little House on the Prairie life too much.

vtsnowedin wrote:Take away all the knee replacements, the cardiac stents, MRIs etc. and you won't drop the life expectancy more then a year or two...


You're wrong. Both my parents would be dead because my dad had open-heart surgery and my mom is a survivor of two forms of cancer. In your 1800s powerdown utopia, they would be dead.

The point I'm trying to make, which is relevant to the topic, is sociological. I respect the fact you have your own value-system and you've constructed your life appropriately. But one size doesn't fit all. That's why there's only about 600K people in Vermont. I happen to really like Vermont, as you know, but if I'm honest with myself, I need to admit that I would not want to sacrifice a lot of the comforts and security of business-as-usual.

That is why people, by and large, will not power-down. And truth be told, a lot of those who do so in VT, and who crow about it the most, are trustifarians whose 'safety net' is their accumulated family money.
"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)
User avatar
ennui2
Permanently Banned
 
Posts: 3920
Joined: Tue 20 Sep 2011, 10:37:02
Location: Not on Homeworld

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby onlooker » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 04:21:28

Is that not getting at the heart of the matter that the reason this massive consumerist civilization ever took hold was because people by and large saw the desirability of the products and services and certainly in the areas of healthcare, household conveniences, accessibility to workplace (car) etc etc. much can be said for the benefits it provided a certain segment of the world population. So that to this day around the world people aspire to live better materially and I cannot blame them for this.
"We are mortal beings doomed to die
User avatar
onlooker
Fission
Fission
 
Posts: 10957
Joined: Sun 10 Nov 2013, 13:49:04
Location: NY, USA

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby dashster » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 06:02:32

Keith_McClary wrote:
BobInget wrote:Some rabbis say that one must have at least two children, and some say at least one of each sex.

Israeli Growth Rate and the Redemption of the Tribal Lands of Judea and the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel
Image


From Wikpedia:
"The international community considers the settlements in occupied territory to be illegal,[9] and the United Nations has repeatedly upheld the view that Israel's construction of settlements constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention"

But they continue to grow because Israel contributes massive amounts of money to US politicians. And US politicians can apparently overrule the UN any day of the week, particularly the president.
dashster
Lignite
Lignite
 
Posts: 385
Joined: Fri 28 Dec 2012, 08:39:24
Location: California

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 08:51:57

Quote without comment:
Image
KaiserJeep 2.0, Neural Subnode 0010 0000 0001 0110 - 1001 0011 0011, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 0000 0000 0001

Resistance is Futile, YOU will be Assimilated.

Warning: Messages timestamped before April 1, 2016, 06:00 PST were posted by the unmodified human KaiserJeep 1.0
KaiserJeep
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 6094
Joined: Tue 06 Aug 2013, 17:16:32
Location: Wisconsin's Dreamland

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 09:22:07

ennui2 wrote:

I think you are romanticizing Little House on the Prairie life too much.

Romanticizing? No. But I did grow up on the farm using horse drawn equipment to plow,till , hay the land and log the woods. Been there, Done that. Including milking cows by hand and doing our own butchering.

vtsnowedin wrote:Take away all the knee replacements, the cardiac stents, MRIs etc. and you won't drop the life expectancy more then a year or two...


You're wrong. Both my parents would be dead because my dad had open-heart surgery and my mom is a survivor of two forms of cancer. In your 1800s powerdown utopia, they would be dead.

Some individuals die sooner but the overall life expectancy doesn't change much as the years after seventy claim most of us in spite of all these modern miracles. If a downturn also forced people into a more active life style and reduced access to : tobacco, illegal drugs, and alcohol , the increased exercise and overall fitness might more then offset the loss of open heart surgery etc..
I need to admit that I would not want to sacrifice a lot of the comforts and security of business-as-usual.

That is why people, by and large, will not power-down. And truth be told, a lot of those who do so in VT, and who crow about it the most, are trustifarians whose 'safety net' is their accumulated family money.

Again it is not a matter of want, or volunteering. We will have to go through the downside of the fossil fuel production curve and deal with what the economy and climate dishes out to us. No amount of whining or learned writing will make it go away.
While there are a lot of trust fund darlings living in Vermont and they have seized control of the state legislature they are still a minority everywhere except the college area around Burlington. Where I live there are still plenty of the families that have been here sense the town was settled in 1784 including mine. In most cases the majority of the inherited safety net consists of land which is not competitive with the farms of the Midwest and is reverting to forest.
User avatar
vtsnowedin
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 14897
Joined: Fri 11 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 13:52:55

"Trust fund darlings", as much as they annoy you, are not the real problem. The following are all replies that Detroit women have written on Child Support Agency Forms in the section for listing "Father's Details", or putting it another way...Who's your baby's Daddy? These are genuine excerpts from the forms. Be sure to check out #11, it takes 1st prize and #3 is runner up.

1. Regarding the identity of the father of my twins, Makeeshia was fathered by Maclearndon McKinley I am unsure as to the identity of the father of Marlinda, but I believe that she was conceived on the same night.

2. I am unsure, as to the identity of the father of my child as I was being sick out of a window when taken unexpected from behind. I can provide you with a list of names of men that I think were at the party if this helps.

3. I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party at 3600 East Grand Boulevard where I had sex with a man I met that night. I do remember that the sex was so good that I fainted. If you do manage to track down the father, can you please send me his phone number? Thanks... (The runner-up).

4. I don't know the identity of the father of my daughter. He drives a BMW that now has a hole made by my stiletto in one Of the door panels. Perhaps you can contact BMW service stations in this area and see if he's had it replaced.

5. I have never had sex with a man. I am still a Virginian. I am awaiting a letter from the Pope confirming that my son's conception was ejaculate and that he is the Saver risen again.

6. I cannot tell you the name of Alleshia's dad as he informs me that to do so would blow his cover and that would have cataclysmic implications for the economy I am torn between doing right by you and right by the country.. Please advise.

7. I do not know who the father of my child was as they all look the same to me.

8. Tyrone Hairston is the father of child A. If you do catch up with him, can you axe him what he did with my AC/DC CDs? Child B who was also borned at the same time..... Well, I don't have clue..

9. From the dates it seems that my daughter was conceived at Disney World. Maybe it really is the Magic Kingdom ..

10. So much about that night is a blur. The only thing that I remember for sure is Delia Smith did a program about eggs earlier in the evening. If I had stayed in and watched more TV rather than going to the party at 8956 Miller Ave , mine Might have remained unfertilized.

11. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my baby, after all, like when you eat a can of beans you can't be sure which one made you fart. (This made number #1).
KaiserJeep 2.0, Neural Subnode 0010 0000 0001 0110 - 1001 0011 0011, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 0000 0000 0001

Resistance is Futile, YOU will be Assimilated.

Warning: Messages timestamped before April 1, 2016, 06:00 PST were posted by the unmodified human KaiserJeep 1.0
KaiserJeep
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 6094
Joined: Tue 06 Aug 2013, 17:16:32
Location: Wisconsin's Dreamland

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 13:58:57

KaiserJeep wrote:Quote without comment:
Image
Could be, but the pic should show one of us old fogies.
Image
Figure 3: Estimates of Voter Turnout by Age Group, 2011 Federal General Election
Facebook knows you're a dog.
User avatar
Keith_McClary
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 7344
Joined: Wed 21 Jul 2004, 03:00:00
Location: Suburban tar sands

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby ennui2 » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 14:30:33

vtsnowedin wrote:Again it is not a matter of want, or volunteering.


Sure it is. You've just lost track of the topic of the thread.

I won't argue that we'll be forced to powerdown, but to advocate we powerdown ahead of the curve in order to save ourselves suffering doesn't sell for most.
"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)
User avatar
ennui2
Permanently Banned
 
Posts: 3920
Joined: Tue 20 Sep 2011, 10:37:02
Location: Not on Homeworld

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 15:17:04

ennui2 wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:Again it is not a matter of want, or volunteering.


Sure it is. You've just lost track of the topic of the thread.

I won't argue that we'll be forced to powerdown, but to advocate we powerdown ahead of the curve in order to save ourselves suffering doesn't sell for most.
Perhaps there are a lot of posts here and sections have been locked. As far as I can see this is the original post even though it is labeled as part two.

Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 2

Postby MonteQuest » Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:36 am
The main reason overshoot deniers avoid defining overshoot--beyond a few glib remarks--is that a critical analysis of the human population explosion precisely mirrors that of any species in the world that has received an energy subsidy, apart from the natural back ground carrying capacity of their environment.

One cannot deny that the human population went into explosive exponential growth, following the energy subsidy of fossil fuels, and has been doing so, for over 200 years.

Ecologists have long sought ways to measure the risk of population collapses, in order to help wildlife managers take steps to protect endangered populations. Studies have shown that populations of yeast that are subjected to increasingly stressful conditions (degraded environment) become less and less resilient to new disturbances until they reach a tipping point at which any small disruption could wipe out a population.

So, what are some early warning signs of a human population collapse? For me, the biggest factors which may help determine the risk of collapse are: Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy. All factors in Liebig's Law of the Minimum that sets the carrying capacity for any given environment. In other words, carrying capacity is determined by the scarcest resource, not by the total amount of resources.

These five horsemen can lead to collapse when they converge and lead to the stretching of resources and to a growing inequality gap between the rich and the poor. These phenomena have played a major role in the process of collapse over the last five thousand years, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the advanced Mesopotamian Empires.

A new study partly-sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center explores the prospect that civilization could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

Study: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0914000615

“Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe civilization disruption due to "precipitous collapse - often lasting centuries - have been quite common."

One modeled scenario found that “although civilization may appear to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature."

This speaks to what Kublikhan focuses on.

Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that "with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites."

In both scenarios, the rich are buffered from the most "detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners", allowing them to continue BAU despite the impending catastrophe.

This is what vtsnowedin sees happening.

This, they argue, explains how historical collapses, like the Roman and Mayan Empires were allowed to occur by elites who appeared to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory that were clearly apparent.

Applying this lesson to our current predicament, the study warns that:

"While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing."

Now, Kublikhan is going to like this.

The study also found that "Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."

What this fails to address is: what is a sustainable level? Or what is the carrying capacity that we need to reduce to? They do not address peakoil or declining energy, per se, just resource decline.

They even go so far as to say:

“We can think of the human population as the “predator”, while nature (the natural resources of the surrounding environment) can be taken as the “prey”, depleted by humans. In animal models, carrying capacity is an upper ceiling on long-term population. When the population surpasses the carrying capacity, mechanisms such as starvation or migration bring the population back down. However, in the context of human societies, the population does not necessarily begin to decline upon passing the threshold of carrying capacity, because, unlike animals, humans can accumulate large surpluses (i.e., wealth) and then draw down those resources when production can no longer meet the needs of consumption. This introduces a different kind of delay that allows for much more complex dynamics, fundamentally altering the behavior and output of the model. Thus, our model adds the element of accumulated surplus not required in animal models, but which we feel is necessary for human models. We call this accumulated surplus “wealth”.”

Wealth is a resource that can be drawn down like fossil fuels? That's just ridiculous. Wealth has never created any energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; Law of the conservation of energy. This is the biggest shortcoming of this study and a major flaw. It’s a big read with lots of math and ammo for both sides..

But the bottom line here is that a collapse is coming, whether at the hands of the five horsemen or the grips of the Overshoot Predator.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His so

I don't see anything there that proposes austerity measures now to avoid collapse.
But if you want to volunteer you go right ahead. I'll wait until they come for me and try to make them earn it. :twisted:
User avatar
vtsnowedin
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 14897
Joined: Fri 11 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby ennui2 » Tue 30 Dec 2014, 16:33:10

This is where the topic broke off:

The neanderthals found a way to live just hunting game and gathering food for about 250k years, and they only vanished because they were overrun by our more recent ancestors


From then on things started going down the usual mustache-twisting narrative about how everybody was happy as a clam until someone stuck a seed in the ground 10,000 years ago and the poor hunter-gatherers got dragged kicking-and-screaming into civilization. So if we could just get back to the garden, we'd be fine.

Well, the reality is that where we came from had downsides and where we are now has upsides. But in a place like this you experience a lot of black-and-white fundamental thought-processes.

But I don't think the general public is necessarily brainwashed into liking modernity. I think it has some clear benefits that most people appreciate--including you, otherwise you wouldn't be using a computer.
"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)
User avatar
ennui2
Permanently Banned
 
Posts: 3920
Joined: Tue 20 Sep 2011, 10:37:02
Location: Not on Homeworld

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Wed 31 Dec 2014, 09:13:05

pstarr wrote:I'm thinking more warfare, something to prune the tree. A few more snarling pitbulls like KaiserJeep or ennui2 and we'd be at each others throats.

Discuss.

Yes war but on a much crueler scale then what we do presently. Think Genghis khan and the Persians. There won't be the "you break it you own it" mentality we have now or any rebuilding or reeducation programs. The winners will want the enemy dead down to the last woman and child and that is what will happen.
User avatar
vtsnowedin
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 14897
Joined: Fri 11 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 31 Dec 2014, 10:18:01

ISIS? But then is that really so different from our history? Hitler, killing fields, Raeandan genocide, Boko Haram. Not to mention our own past dealing with native Americans in North and South America.
User avatar
Newfie
Forum Moderator
Forum Moderator
 
Posts: 18458
Joined: Thu 15 Nov 2007, 04:00:00
Location: Between Canada and Carribean

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Wed 31 Dec 2014, 12:41:47

ISIS would be a likely candidate if they get the means. Imagine them getting the upper hand in Israel.
User avatar
vtsnowedin
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 14897
Joined: Fri 11 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Re: Why is overpopulation such a taboo topic? Pt. 3

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 31 Dec 2014, 16:12:28

End of year rant.

I found myself getting pretty angry today while listening to a piece about elephants and ivory.

I talked myself into this conclusion.....the world is run by fanatics, think:
...Wall Street types who don't give a rats ass about Nature
...religious nuts who are stuck in their fantasy land
...other assorted fruits and nuts who are out to take over some part of the world


We can't protect the elephants, or tuna, or a zillion other species while at the same time protecting the fanatics who are attacking the at risk species.

We can't protect the at risk species unless WE become fanatical about protecting them.

Put a bounty on poachers, $500. Illegal tuna? Use our carriers to enforce that, launch a few miscreants into space via firepower. Top guns will love the practice.

We have a decision to make ( many really) do you want to preserve endangered species? If so then you/we must bring to bear the full armory of tools and weapons we have.

Gorilla habitats are going fast due to civil warfare (talk about oxymoronic phrases - civil warfare!). Nothing will stop the loss of wild gorillas short of stoping these hostilities and removing the population.

We have 7+ billion people and a few thousand elephants, barely a viable breeding population of White rhinos, snow leopards, etc. Some species of tuna are endangered, and we can't get international agreements much less enforcement.


We are on the cusp of eliminating one of our nearest biological relatives. Do we really give a shit? How many poachers is the last of a species worth?

It's a real and honest question.
User avatar
Newfie
Forum Moderator
Forum Moderator
 
Posts: 18458
Joined: Thu 15 Nov 2007, 04:00:00
Location: Between Canada and Carribean

PreviousNext

Return to Environment, Weather & Climate

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 85 guests