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Comment by nivenkos | Hacker News Reader

Because you live in the wealthiest country in the world (over 100 continuous years of highest GDP) with high salaries and lots of habitable space (from exterminating the native populace).

But that's not sustainable - the US has the highest CO2 emissions per capita when you factor in imports, etc. nevermind other environmental damage. And is also dependent on terrible conditions in Asia, etc. to produce all the cheap goods and clothes that you enjoy.

It's like the prisoner's dilemma though - the first countries that try to act responsibly with environmental policies, transitioning from fossil fuels, reducing population growth and unnecessary consumption are just at a disadvantage to those that don't.

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We’re on track for electric cars to overtake gas cars in twenty years. Nuclear power is making a comeback. Even electric planes are in the wings. Best of all, lab-grown meat is here now and we’re just waiting for the price to come down. It seems as though we’ll have solved our emissions issues by the next generation.

Would you still argue against a higher population once we largely solve the emissions issues? Or is there a more fundamental reason you’re against a higher population?

We consume many resources and we won't consume less of them just because cars become electric. Emissions are just one of many pressures we out on the environment.

I think it's better to ask why should population keep growing? We don't need it and it physically has to stop growing at some point.

It seems much better to focus on growing quality of life and quality of environment rather than growing number of people.

I think it's better to ask why should population keep growing? We don't need it and it physically has to stop growing at some point.

Because you can’t stop people from breeding apart from killing them, at which point you’ve become Hitler. That or tax and social disincentivization at which point you’ve become the Illuminati. That or a procreation suppression field at which point you’re the Combine.

That's obviously no true since (1) many countries today have birth rates below replacement levels, and (2) contraception exists.

(Godwin point reached very quickly...)

I'm pretty skeptical on electric planes (it's hard to generate that much thrust) but the others are all great improvements.

Still slowing population growth would be the easiest gradual way of dealing with resource and environmental issues. It also helps to spur automation and innovation by reducing the amount of cheap, desperate labour available (which is not a fulfilling existence for the workers either).

It can also be tied into ensuring that children have a good upbringing - introduce a child licence with requirements for raising a child to ensure some stability and responsible parenting - e.g. mandatory parenting and nutrition classes, $10+k in savings, living space requirements, etc. - this would help reduce crime and poverty and improve everyone's lives.

If you take a 'planetary boundaries' view [1] we're outside of the safe operating limits for several factors: Extinctions, land system change, novel entities, biogeochemical flows, and climate change. 'Solving' emissions would only really address one of those (climate change).

Take a theoretical world where population was drastically lower (or individual consumption is hugely slashed amongst the top consumers): We would drop within the safe boundary for all limits simultaneously, because the underlying multipliers for all of them are number of people and individual consumption.

[1]https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2...

> But that's not sustainable -

100 years ago people were saying we would all die from starvation after a few billion more people. Doom sayers have zero credibility.

And that was offset by the Green Revolution.

The current fertiliser shortages might undo some of that, there's a real chance we see severe famines in Lebanon, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Yemen, and other countries next year.

What do you think is the cause of the global environmental crisis?

Yes, that was before we manufactured fertilizer. If that invention didn't exist, this number absolutely wouldn't be sustainable.

Soil is now becoming depleted and fertilizer isn't enough.[1] Globally, much also depends on rapidly depleting ground water that isn't being replenished. Agriculture is exceeding its limits.

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conserv...

We will come up with a way to “fix” that (if it’s even a problem), as we have done in the past.

Why ignore human ingenuity ?

Humans thought they'd find a fix for their problems before, so nothing to worry about.

A lot of those people died because no fix was found in their lifetimes. Nobody fixed the plagues that went around Europe. Nobody fixed the droughts that killed millions. Entire civilizations went extinct because they weren't able to find a fix before a problem caught up with them.

A lot of problems won't have a fix within our lifetime. Thinking it's guaranteed to happen is magical thinking--assuming we're the main characters in the universe and things must work out. Most of the time, they don't.

Yet here we are.. having a discussion about whether too many humans are surviving for too long.

And yet here the Aztec aren’t.

Living today doesn’t guarantee living tomorrow.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that specific groups will survive no matter what.

The discussion is around whether the human race will survive and continue to grow.

As you may have noticed, population numbers have increased since the days of the Aztecs.

> Yes, that was before we manufactured fertilizer. If that invention didn't exist, this number absolutely wouldn't be sustainable.

Hence proving the fact that we have no good insight of the future.

Americans are saints when it comes to environmental destruction. Many African countries have very high birth rates and they do whatever it takes to survive, environment be damned, such as pouring used motor oil on the ground without batting and eye or thinking twice about the effects to their own health. Don't even get me started about the mining and deforestation.

Yeah, I agree, that's why we need population control everywhere.

The US is at a huge scale though, and that mining is probably going towards building American SUVs, military equipment, etc.

Saints, for real ? The rate of consumption of Americans would require more than 5 planets to be sufficient,

Most African countries need less than one

You mention mining and deforestation but where do you think the material extracted are going ?

China then to the rest of the world in the form of manufactured goods. America isn't the only major consumer of finished goods.

I often see this problem of comparing America to one country. We have 350 million people spread out in an area larger than EU. It's really one state is equivalent to one country in EU or Africa.

I would think it's still more energy consumption but not as huge of a gap, depending on the state.

You don’t have to go back many decades to where pouring used motor oil on the ground was the common practice in the US.

Every american consume about 1000x the resources of every African. It's incredible how the media brainwash you into believe you are actually taking care of the environment when 90% of the CO2 emissions comes from America (and China joined them but just in the latest 5 or 10 years)

770 million Africans don't even have access to electricity.

Telling Africans they need to stay poor and stop having children is a pretty standard Western stuff.

The US outsources a lot of its polution.

All the issues you mentioned are problems we can and we will solve. Population growth is the best thing that happened to humanity. "Soon" we will become an inter-planetary species so it will get even better and exciting!

> But that's not sustainable - the US has the highest CO2 emissions per capita when you factor in imports, etc. nevermind other environmental damage. And is also dependent on terrible conditions in Asia, etc. to produce all the cheap goods and clothes that you enjoy.

Thanks to globalization... corporations influencing governments around the world to favor a global market. It's colonization all over again. Even back then, at the time of discovering America, for example, it was corporations that went around the world in their ships and did it for profit. The only difference today, is that there are no governments doing it explicitly (i.e. Iraq war), but rather corporations via the excuse of capitalism.

I'd be fine with buying everything local and more expensive, but often that option is not even present anymore. It's like the battle was won, and now we're all dependent on this global chain of commerce in one way or another.

The difference here is that corporations are subjected to local laws and legislations. Through those mechanisms, as well as general education and awareness efforts of the public we can overcome the environmental challenges imposed by globalisation.

Instead of taking a defeatist attitude, this has the opportunity to be a conversation starter with many big companies to champion a more ethical, sustainable future.

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