Overpopulation one of the ten greatest threats to humanity
populationmatters.org
populationmatters.org
But the title "Don't Panic" is the thing I'm most likely to disagree with. I don't panic about the exponential trajectory of population growth going into the future. I panic about the number of people already on the planet right now!
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-%E2...
If P(t) is the global population at time t and P' is dP/dt, then you're saying
1. P(2020) is huge, and 2. P'(2020) is low P' -> 0 as t increases beyond 2020
#2 is indeed true, but it means that P will be at least as huge going forward.
Not sure why we are taking about a report with lines like these -
"Lowering the human birth rate voluntarily is surely better than the alternative of massive dieback or slaughter of billions of people in their prime."
Also not sure why we are worrying about a problem at best a 100 years in the future when fossil fuels will serve no purpose, computers will be all powerful, we will have mastered gene tech, might have space elevators etc etc
That is far from obvious to me.
We would have to be vegan, live in apartments, a lifestyle the same as many happy people today live, and even better for many people.
You'd use a lot of current deserts (particularly the ocean).
If you could sink all the environmental groups you could work on ecosystems that actually matter, use nuclear energy and make real improvements to the world.
With technology that should be very soon, like fake meats, VR, a cheap hydrogen economy, cheap medical. It could be better than today.
Of course 100 billion is just silly atm with current tech. No point thinking about it until centuries time and we have far future tech, if we need it.
Many times have there been claims that the earth can not sustain a growing population, there must be an upper limit, but It is not easy to Know if we’re close to, already past, or at the limit right now
The USA is on a path to become Amish. They have 85% to 90% retention and about 8 kids per woman.
Exponential growth clobbers any sort of linear change. The subpopulation with the highest growth rate will quickly displace all others, and then that growth rate becomes universal.
Japan is not an exception. Japan is temporarily in decline. Look carefully though, and you will identify subpopulations in Japan that have high population growth. Some might only have a thousand people today, but with exponential growth they win in the end.
The Malthusians predicted global collapse at 100M people. Then 250M people. Then 1bn, 2bn, 5bn, and 7bn. Yet somehow instead of famines we have an obesity epidemic.
Don’t believe Malthus, or the racially motivated social Darwinism that drives the horrendous “population control” human rights abuses still being perpetuated.