Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on March 2, 2019
How to reach a sustainable human population
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
— Genesis 1:28, KJV
This scripture was written around the sixth century BCE, when an estimated 150 million people inhabited Earth. The current global population is approaching 7.7 billion. It is imperative that we reconsider the human population burden and our role as stewards of the Earth.
Homo sapiens originated approximately 200,000 years ago, but it was not until 1800 CE that the population reached one billion. By contrast, in the last 200 years the human masses have exploded eight-fold. If the entire history of our planet was scaled to one 24-hour day, humans arrived only in the last 30 seconds, taking 29.95 seconds to reach one billion people, and just the final 0.05 seconds to reach 7.7 billion.
Sometime during the 1960s, the global population growth rate began to decline and continues to do so, particularly in developed nations. Despite slowing growth, the United Nations World Population Prospects estimates that by the year 2100 the population will be between 9 and 13 billion people. The critical question remains unanswered: What is the sustainable number of humans that our planet can support, not only now, but for millennia to come?
In 1992 the Union of Concerned Scientists penned the “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” (signed by 1,700 independent scientists including most living scientific Nobel laureates) stating that “a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided.” They outlined concern regarding present and impending global environmental crises including ozone depletion, freshwater availability, marine life depletion, forest loss, biodiversity destruction and climate change. Importantly, they implored that we stabilize the human population as our swelling numbers continue to overwhelm all other environmental efforts to realize a sustainable future. Yet, in the quarter century since that publication, the world population grew by another 2 billion, and with the exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, other environmental crises have only intensified.
Consider also the tragic loss of global biodiversity estimated in a May 2014 review from the journal Science: Through our collective habits and growth, humans have unintentionally begun the sixth mass extinction of species in the last 540 million years, with extinction rates greater than 1,000 times the natural background. There is legitimate concern that, by the year 2100, up to half of all marine and terrestrial species alive today will be extinct. We will have more than 9 billion people, yet half of the world’s other species will be gone.
The present global human population is exceeding long-term global sustainability. Without significant restraint of our global habits of human growth, environmental destruction and resource depletion, our planet will become progressively more inhabitable to life as we know it. Importantly, the solution must include the ethical and attentive matching of human population numbers with longer term sustainability. This oft overlooked concept should be a developed global value at the center of all environmental discussions.
Women’s education and empowerment in family planning should be at the forefront as globally this is one of the most important methods of mitigating uncontrolled growth. Nationally, focus should be on reducing our collective environmental footprint and ardently valuing long term sustainability as we select governmental representation. For posterity, we must embrace our role as stewards of the global environment with a sustainable vision for succeeding millennia.
11 Comments on "How to reach a sustainable human population"
Free Speech Forum on Sat, 2nd Mar 2019 8:26 pm
Nazis scream the US military must be built up because Yemen might invade the USA.
Nazis insist the US needs a trade war because closed borders turned North Korea into a stunning success.
Nazis say US must be a police state because black people might buy guns.
Nazis say tyranny is okay because the US is a republic.
Fascists swear debt is fine since Trump is growing the debt at a slower rate than Obama did.
Americans say they are holy gods because they torture and have nuclear bombs, but China is evil because they torture and have nuclear weapons.
Americans used to fight Nazis and Commies, but have now become Nazis and Commies.
Christ, American hypocrisy is tedious.
Cloggie on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 6:17 am
“How to reach a sustainable human population”
Just like in China: government propaganda, tax measures.
After empire, China and PBM need to sit together and work out a deal for the third world: everybody living in stone houses, running water, sewage system, communication, solar panels by, say, 2100. In return for a rigorous birth control program. 2 children max.
Davy on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 6:21 am
“After empire, China and PBM need to sit together and work out a deal for the third world:”
Clogged, Russia has turned its back on the EU as the US is increasingly doing. More like The balkanized EU will be sandwiched between a Russia/China block and the US. Did you eat any Bocadillos in the south of Spain? LMFAO
Davy on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 7:06 am
“Could Brexit Trigger The Demise Of Sterling As A Reserve Currency? – Part One”
https://tinyurl.com/y6dgw743 Authored by Steven Guinness
“If we have learnt anything since the UK voted to leave the European Union three years ago, it is that the ideological bias pervasive throughout Brexit discourse has worked to marginalise objective analysis of the process. Whilst ‘leavers‘ and ‘remainers‘ constrain themselves to their preferred prejudice, others who possess no allegiance to either camp have attempted to see past the daily theatrics and hysteria that Brexit has become. As I have reasoned over the past couple of years, Britain’s withdrawal from the EU is chiefly an economic phenomenen. If considered through this context, it embodies a new identity beyond the repetitive strains of ‘project fear‘ and elites orchestrating a ‘great Brexit betrayal”
joe on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 7:58 am
Let’s hope it does. Reason? A bad money beats good.
“https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham’s_law”
A cheap pound will encourage trade and investment. Not good for the massive banks who collect up pounds for facilitating global trade in London but great for the working classes who face generations of working in starbucks and mcdonalds because China has all the production jobs
Cloggie on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 8:14 am
“Clogged, Russia has turned its back on the EU”
Sure Davy.
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2018/05/10/boreas-rising-paris-berlin-moscow/
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/paris-berlin-moscow/
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201901241071795728-europe-russia-gas-nord-stream-pressure/
You better worry about which you will support in cw2.
Probably will side with AlItalia.lol
https://www.alitalia.com/en_us
I AM THE MOB on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 10:32 am
US wants ‘broad’ regime-change coalition on Venezuela – Bolton
https://www.rt.com/usa/452920-bolton-venezuela-government-change/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notifications&utm_campaign=push_notifications
Trump is turning into a raging globalist NeoCon!
First a trade war and then a shooting war!
Sissyfuss on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 11:05 am
If humanity awakens in a nightmare of 13 billion not to worry. It won’t last that long.
Cloggie on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 12:16 pm
“US wants ‘broad’ regime-change coalition on Venezuela – Bolton
https://www.rt.com/usa/452920-bolton-venezuela-government-change/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notifications&utm_campaign=push_notifications
Trump is turning into a raging globalist NeoCon!
First a trade war and then a shooting war!”
Bolton has excluded military force.
“Raging neocon”.lol
Trump just threw the deep state a few pieces of read meat, that’s all. He is just fooling the boobs like you.
Sissyfuss on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 5:51 pm
Bolton is trying to arrange the largest coalition he can so that when he starts the shooting he’ll have others to blame. Course, Clog the merciless claims he’s a pacifist.
Harquebus on Sun, 3rd Mar 2019 9:36 pm
Do nothing. The population problem is about to solve itself. It always does and it will be done in the usual way.