THE Global Population Thread Pt. 2(merged)

[Nefarious]

Pointing out that it is still f'd does not change that fact. We are all, after all, still f'd.

Just keeping things in perspective. Wouldn't want you to become a corny optimist

[dohboi]

I prefer the term "cockeyed optimist," me and Mitsy:

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/291466/South-Pacific-Movie-Clip-Cockeyed-Optimist.html

[Crazy_Dad]

No they aren't waking up.

To do that, you need a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff.”

The absolute last thing we need is a growth model.

As the impact of the imminent Great Disruption hits us, he says, “our response will be proportionally dramatic, mobilizing as we do in war. We will change at a scale and speed we can barely imagine today, completely transforming our economy, including our energy and transport industries, in just a few short decades.”

Unfounded optimism based only on a belief system that we have always fixed past problems,so we will fix this one too.

I completely agree Nef. The only war mobilsation will be that off WWIII as the scrable to feed and water our own grows.
IF we are not fighting amongst ourselves for the same reasons.

So I don't 'completely' agree with everything. But the gist I guess. I used a figure of speach.

[dinopello]

No they aren't waking up.

To do that, you need a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff.”

The absolute last thing we need is a growth model.

Well, he's talking about a happiness growth model rather than consumption growth model. Roscoe Bartlett talks about this as well. It's the difference between a standard of living economic metric, which measures only how much stuff people have, and a quality of life metric which measures well-being (health, happiness, etc).

Friedman is getting better though - meaning less blindly optimistic.

I did like this quote from the article

“If you cut down more trees than you grow, you run out of trees,” writes Gilding. “If you put additional nitrogen into a water system, you change the type and quantity of life that water can support. If you thicken the Earth’s CO2 blanket, the Earth gets warmer. If you do all these and many more things at once, you change the way the whole system of planet Earth behaves, with social, economic, and life support impacts. This is not speculation; this is high school science.”

Problem is, "science" is on its way out!

[Nefarious]

Well, he's talking about a happiness growth model rather than consumption growth model.

I believe he is talking about an economic growth model based on our happiness instead of consumption. Either way the answer is the same to both. Get rid of all the extra people.
If you got rid of roughly 6.5 billion people. The ones left are going to be happy.They are going to be very happy. Social conflict would drop like a hot rock. Plenty of room,plenty of water,plenty of farm land.

[Pops]

If you got rid of roughly 6.5 billion people...

There is a realistic solution.

[vision-master]

Who's gonna do all the slave work for the elites then?

[Nefarious]

If you got rid of roughly 6.5 billion people...

There is a realistic solution.

That is the only solution. It is the end answer to the equation. Getting to the end answer is the problem we face but the answer remains the same.

[dohboi]

Ok, now you guys are talking in code. Is "realistic solution" related to "final solution"??

[basil_hayden]

Ok, now you guys are talking in code. Is "realistic solution" related to "final solution"??

Nah, just means is the solution they can live with, you know, without interfering with BAU.

Why move towards living simply when you can kick 6.5 billion out of the lifeboat?

[Nefarious]

Ok, now you guys are talking in code. Is "realistic solution" related to "final solution"??

Nah, just means is the solution they can live with, you know, without interfering with BAU.

Why move towards living simply when you can kick 6.5 billion out of the lifeboat?

How simple do you want to go? I happen to like having a house to live in,ac in the summer,heat in the winter,I like my refrigerator/freezer, also not to mention indoor plumbing. How far down should we go tin one room shacks with a dirt floor?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTWduFB_RX0&feature=player_embedded

The guy in the video says less than 100 million having an average western lifestyle. Now if we lived "a little" simpler we could raise that number "a little" bit but no where close to the 7 billion we have now.

[dinopello]

The cultural changing of "the success metric" I think is a key element of an effective response to where we are ecologically. Every day people are bombarded with "Economic Growth" percentages and "Housing Starts" and are told this is what measures how good their lot in life is. So any policy that promotes Growth and Housing Starts people support ! Any kind of consumption tax is viewed as bad because consumption is good !

[Cog]

The earth can sustain 7 billion will a lot of them poor and wretched and a few hundred million of us living the good life. I'm good with that.

[Lore]

The earth can sustain 7 billion will a lot of them poor and wretched and a few hundred million of us living the good life. I'm good with that.

Would you be good with a world that lacks the capacity to support said 7 billion people with only a tenth of a percent living the good life, while you're included in the wretched and dying?

[vision-master]

The earth can sustain 7 billion will a lot of them poor and wretched and a few hundred million of us living the good life. I'm good with that.

Cog in his former life. lsol u2.

[Newfie]

Perhaps this should be folded into the Overpopulation/Taboo thread? Seems to be treading the same water.

[dohboi]

How simple do you want to go? I happen to like having a house to live in,ac in the summer,heat in the winter,I like my refrigerator/freezer, also not to mention indoor plumbing.

A well sealed and insulated house needs little cooling or heating, and of course we don't need to be cooking ourselves alive inside in the winter while reaching for our sweaters in our Arctic AC in the summer.

Europeans (and most others) generally have tiny refrigerator/freezers if any. They stop at conveniently located markets and street stands to get fresh fruits and veggies, so they don't have to keep them frozen.

Plumbing, once installed, is not a major energy user, but lots of simple conservation measures can cut way back on the amount we use.

How far down should we go tin one room shacks with a dirt floor?

LOL. I'm surprised you didn't drag out the old cliche about "we might as well be living in caves."

Really, Americans always think that any slight adjustment to their obscenely wasteful ways means going straight to third world slums or worse. We are really a pathetic lot compared to our pioneer forefolks (not idealizing them, mind you, just saying that they would be shaking their heads at our pampered perspectives.)

[Revi]

We'll be in small houses with insulated floors, if we're lucky. We'll have minimal electricity if we live in a place that's close enough to the parts of the grid that get left on. Otherwise we'll be either in the dark, or have some kind of solar energy system. Remember that they will do something called "load shedding" where they save the electricity for the better parts of town, and turn it off for the other side of the tracks. They are doing this already in India.

We're going back to the kind of energy use we had at the beginning of the last century. Remember who had electricity then? Only the rich side of town.

[Loki]

Bangladesh has 164+ million people at a density of 2,918/sq mi (Wikipedia). 2,918 people per square mile! Ye gods, what a nightmare.

I suppose slowing the growth rate (slowing, not stopping or reversing) of this absurdly overpopulated little country is a good thing. But they already seem to be well beyond the tipping point. Is there anything resembling nature left in Bangladesh, or has everything been stripped bare to feed the masses?

If my state (Oregon) was as densely populated as Bangladesh, we'd have a population of 287 million I think the 3.8 million we have is already WAY too many.

[Newfie]

Loki,

Some people seem to aspire to the "chickens in a coup" solution. That is my problem with "carrying capacity" discussions. Who really wants to live in a chicken coup? Apparently quite a few.

Now that's scary!