[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'T')oo many factors to account for other than to realize that being on our current path we will have reached our resource limits across many independent life requirements to sustain such a population.

You also just can't throttle back a population and expect the downward spiral to stop after we have used up our water, top soil, affordable and available energy in the midst of a degrading climate. Along with the inevitable disease, famine and conflicts to follow.

In the past people simply pulled up stakes and moved to where they could exploit fresh resources. We've just simply run out of places to go.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', 'T')he trick would be in how to get rid of the other half without using up the last of our resources doing it.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')True as far as it goes, but if the Chernobyl Exclusion zone has proven anything at all it has proven that removing humans from an area allows nature to regenerate with a vengeance. If you do at VTsnowed in proposed above cutting the population in half would let us maintain the remainder with half the resource inputs. It would give us a massive capacity to pull back and regroup.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')This discussion is all academic

[Pops]

LOL, proly the most inane thing about PO.com is the deeply held belief by so many that
WE"RE ALL DEAD!

I gotta laugh because I worry about how to survive while most everyone else casually revels in the uselessness – nay, the deservedness, of die off.

LOLOL

[Lore]

I know, most people want to see such things play out like a three hour movie? If I predicted 1,000 years before the last human turns off the lights, would that be too soon?

Maybe all of us here should just count ourselves lucky that we won't be around to see the end of the tale.

[onlooker]

i agree with Lore wholeheartedly, "All manifesting themselves without the backup of a healthy biosphere and physical resources." Alluding to how many people could be supported based upon past event and time periods is folly. The world we live in now is dangerously degraded and seems poised to become much more degraded over a short period of time. That does not correlate to conditions in the past. We are talking about a holistic view of ecosystems and their interrelatedness which we have damaged and continue to damage. At some point this resilience of nature will give way to collapse as precisely this interrelation will be Achilles heal or weak point. Also, physical resources cannot continue to supply the needs of so many humans. Fresh water, top soil, fossil fuels are all necessary and irreplaceable. They are being reduced even as we speak. So the post above is apt as I believe the Overshoot Predator will make himself known quite soon.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '-')snip-

That is just plain silly, India alone supported 360,000,000 people in low technology hand agriculture in 1950. Barely anything in the way of manufacturing and virtually nothing in the way of food importation or industrial food agriculture. What industrial agriculture they did have was for cash crops to be exported for international money.

Would I want to live that way? Heck no! But it was doable with low tech hand labor in their climate. Projecting that around the equatorial belt you could support two or three billion people in squalor, or by spreading them out world wide you could support a billion or more while keeping big healthy ecosystems in all bio-regions. The idea we can only support a few hundred million with 19th century tech is nutty as a fruit cake IMO, and history is my main line of study. In 1900 AD the world supported 1,600,000,000 people with no industrial agriculture and very limited food export/import between countries. The green revolution was far in the future at that time, and the first natural preserves were being thought about and created within a very few years of that date.

[onlooker]

Great post Kaiser, explaining the advanced state of overshoot we are in. fossil fuels, minerals etc. have already peaked. I recommend a book by Richard Heinberg "Peak Everything" It is faulty knowledge to assume the Earth can support populations similar to a bygone era. Much less the current one of course. Even something like transporting food to the far off corners of the Earth will be problematic with peakoil. Electricity generation problematic. Hospitals and the ability to care of infants and the elderly is based upon machines and apparatus which rely on electricity. The inherent condition of the Earth now is compromised and we are entering of era of scarcity in basic underlying resources. How that can mean anything but a vastly reduced population I have not a clue.

[Newfie]

This thread, as so many here, is a hoot.

Yes, it is entirely academic, and kinda anemic to boot. Like any of us have any say in the matter. We are all talking out our keisters.

But, why not? It's all a bar room argument. Nothing here is gonna change anyone's mind or result in any useful, actionable information. We are all Desues fools, his mannequins dancing for amusement.

So let's say, for sake of argument only, that there is a way to double our population.

Show me some evidence that humanity has the ability to change, to alter itself, so that it could achieve this lofty goal?

If humanity could do that, then it may also be able to find a way to stabilize our population, and to restrict our energy use to renewables. All sorts of wonderful things become imaginable.

Once you imagine a species capable of sufficient forethought and able to change.

So let's discuss that, what would it take to get humanity to be able to change our habits to make these wonderful outcomes occur?

[Lore]

You're right Newfie, but you can say the same for 95% of the arguments here. Personally it's not about if, but when. You can ignore it, push it under the pillow for later thought, but does it change the inevitability? As they say; "you can run, but you can't hide".

So why should I care? It's not about my own survival, It's because I'd like to believe that there is someone and something left of what I love about this planet that will last up until the end of all things.

The only thing that will change humanity is time and if we can't buy enough of it expect the worst.

[onlooker]

Great posts Lore and Newfie. To address your question Newfie, we stand on this precipice and what signs are their of great change. None really yes some changes but not earth shattering. We are like a runaway train that is approaching a wall and refuses to stop or even slow down. Look at China and India they rushed as soon as they could to adopt the "American lifestyle". We are still doing what we have been doing for the last 200 years or so. CONSUMING. Consuming our way to oblivion. Ibon is right when he states only consequences can or will make us change. The masses even at this juncture in fact seem oblivious to the precarious state we are in. To use a final analogy we are like a ship in the storm at the mercy of the ocean. After the storm maybe then will we change fundamentally as human beings.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'T')his thread, as so many here, is a hoot.


....

So let's say, for sake of argument only, that there is a way to double our population.

Show me some evidence that humanity has the ability to change, to alter itself, so that it could achieve this lofty goal?....
....

[Pops]

I don't believe we will reach 15B, not because of a slate-wiper or because of some enlightened (or not) new religion but because of the pill, simple, cheap birth control controlled by women.

I'm pretty sure that given the choice by men, women would choose not to breed like rats, I'm thinking I can't imagine having a little grub hanging from a teat 24/7/365/30 and I'd probably decide against it given my druthers.

It could be that some places reject that heresy and continue going forth and multiplying. I'm also pretty sure that once the limits to FFs and other necessities becomes apparent the open hand of charity will soon close and those folks will no longer have anyplace to go forth to. And while it is true that charity begins at home and in times of need neighbors can be true heroes for one another, it is also true that in times of deciding, charity stops at the neighborhood gate and people become heroes protecting it.


Or not, lol

[KaiserJeep]

pstarr, I was not saying I knew how to do any of what I was talking about. I was participating in a "what if" scenario where I described the calculated limits of sustainable population given the assumptions I listed. The population range was 125 Million to 1 Billion. Not my figures, they represent a commonly accepted range calculated by others.

I don't have the slightest idea how to get there from 7.3 Billion or 10 Billion or whatever the peak population is, and neither does anybody else.

In point of fact I think human life on this planet is doomed. One need only go to an authentic Chinese restaurant in the company of a native Chinese to get and education in just how many plants, animals, etc. are edible (I watched as he consumed a sea cucumber). My premise is that our oversized brains and technology will enable us to consume any organic material in the biosphere - after appropriate cooking/preparation/chemical processing/etc. As the eco-system collapses, the kudzu apes scavenge everything organic and eat that, until there are no plants and animals - and the humans also eat each other.

We don't need to change, or wise up to do that, we just behave normally. The planet's ecology crashes and a geological age passes before the few surviving species have diversified to make a new ecology.

I think things get really serious in about a century, and deadly soon after that. If you don't have a ticket to a space habitat, you are the guest of honor at the cannibal feast.

[ralfy]

Related:

"Nearly half the systems crucial to stability of planet compromised"

http://phys.org/news/2015-01-crucial-st ... mised.html

including those needed for food production. Also,

"Rise in mass die-offs seen among birds, fish and marine invertebrates"

http://phys.org/news/2015-01-mass-die-o ... arine.html

[Poordogabone]

This will be a short post, so lets see, can the world support 15 billion people? No problemo and we can do it without using additional resources. How can we do that? simple, we double the size of the planet. Can we do that? not exactly but we can shrink human size by half which would be the equivalent. Would that be possible? Sure, there is little people living in different part of the world right now. A single ejaculate contains millions of spermatozoon.
We establish a law that says for now on, to be fruitful and multiply you must visit the pigmy sperm bank. After 5 or 6 generations we would be downsized enough to be able to resume natural reproduction. Voila, problem solved.