by Pops » Sat 17 Nov 2012, 09:21:35
That (birthrate) is great news.
As I'm sitting here cogitating on the question, I hear a gunshot. In my 'hood that isn't a bad thing, someone's shot a whitetail. If the question is, 'is it too late to survive as hunter gatherers' then yeah, we're way too big for that. But are we too big to learn to live on a reduced level of consumption - if energy production only slowly declines? Not at all.
Using energy (of course) to look at the trend, it's easy to see that the US is begining to "bend the curve" - the trend would be even more obvious if this were per-capita...

Obviously not everyone is happy about the way the curve is bending. I'm certain that we aren't bending it on purpose but that doesn't really matter does it?
If it's too late for us then looking at this map, other countries are so far over the cliff Wile E Coyote can't even grab 'em!

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)