[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'N')umber one on any list must be population control. Otherwise the rest is pointless.

[Wildwell]

There’s no ‘PC’ way to control population, the biggest booms in the population came with medical advances and water supply, which have increased life expectancy,

But actually, in western countries, population isn’t the main cause of oil depletion.

Nevertheless you’d have to look at:

Limit immigration
‘right to die’ policies
Change the benefit system, IE abolish benefits for child care, having children out of wedlock.
Change the pension system or even abolish it in some cases.
Reduce medical spending
One child policy

Just about all the most controversial things you can get. Which is why reducing the need for cars is far easier among other things. While controversial for some people, is a lot easier to deal with than some of the above. The first thing would be to abolish cheap flights, which would limit immigration and oil use and create more re-localisation. Difficult isn’t it?

[DefiledEngine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')But actually, in western countries, population isn’t the main cause of oil depletion.

[Liamj]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DefiledEngine', ' ')... Even if you reduce the needs for cars, wouldn't that mean that population would still rise, and the oil you conserve short term would be used up later?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Liamj', '
')

Incidentally, didn't Monte lead a thread developing a not half bad population reduction program? I couldn't find the thread, but seems Ludi requires it.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'I') have decided that regardless of how gruesome the outcome, it is best for nature to do our population control for us. That is, until and unless we achieve some sort of incorruptible utopia (hah).

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'I') have decided that regardless of how gruesome the outcome, it is best for nature to do our population control for us. That is, until and unless we achieve some sort of incorruptible utopia (hah).

[Wildwell]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DefiledEngine', '
')Really? The vast amounts of oil going into food production and transportation isn't because the need to sustain a large population? Even if you reduce the needs for cars, wouldn't that mean that population would still rise, and the oil you conserve short term would be used up later?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Wildwell', ' ')even so organic methods may only decrease yields slightly.

[Wildwell]

No. farming was effectively organic until the Second World War and, for example, the UK's population was only slightly smaller and most things were home grown. I really don’t buy that argument.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Wildwell', 'N')o. farming was effectively organic until the Second World War and, for example, the UK's population was only slightly smaller and most things were home grown. I really don’t buy that argument.

[GreyZone]

First off, you should understand the green revolution and how it solved world starvation problems from the post-WWII era to the present.

Then you need to understand that nations with lower population densities, like the US, are fully capable of feeding themselves without the green revolution though it's much more labor intensive than now.

The big problem though is how do you feed the billions who live now purely because of the green revolution itself? Biologists estimate that at least 40% of the human race is able to live right now because of that green revolution and the number may be even higher than that. Carrying capacity for the planet is often estimated around 2 billion humans in a sustainable culture without the green revolution to support it.

Hungry people become desparate. If enough hungry people become desparate, they will do desparate things, like migrate long distances to take what someone else has or start wars. That's a historically verified human behavior. It's going to be very critical on the downslope that we still get enough fertilizers and pesticides out to continue feeding the people out there. At the same time we have to somehow discourage rampant childbirth and lower the overall population peacefully over several generations by 4 or 5 billion from the nearly 7 billion we have today. I don't see either of those steps as likely thus we'll have overshoot and collapse at some point unless we find another green revolution soon to go on top of the existing one.

[Wildwell]

Green revolution started around the 1940s/1950s

In the 1950 for example in the UK, oil was a relatively minor fuel. Coal was the prime fuel and drove most industries, most transport, certainly freight transport. There were no motorways/freeways, most cities had tram systems, trolley bus and most things went by rail, hauled principally by steam engines. Agriculture was much more labour intensive and in general food was loaded onto small trucks or horse drawn vehicles and taken to rail heads or distributed locally. BTW, not many kids realise the reason they have summer time off at school is historical – it was to enable them to assist with harvesting. Most food was organic and home grown, with some imports.

Coal use in 1950 was about 2-3 times what it is now, there was no natural gas, little oil use and no nuclear at the time. We were building ships. locomotives and consumer items for the world, which now isn't the case.

The population in the UK was: 50 million

The population today is 60 million; the extra 10 million people are immigrants.

Source

http://www.geography.ndo.co.uk/analysingpop.htm

Meanwhile world population and 3rd word population is a different story.

The population of India was 369 million in 1950

The population today is around 1.1 billion

The population of the world in 1950 was 2.5 billion

The population today is 6.4 billion.

Virtually all this growth has been in non industrialised or semi-industrialised nations, where without doubt the green revolution has helped but oil use is comparatively low, although that’s changing in China and India.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '
')What about Ludi's point about soil depletion, and the soil ecology being messed up by industrial agriculture? How long does it take to get soil back to suitable condition for organic methods, and what's required to do that?

[Liamj]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '.').. And there just not being enough farmers in the US, they make up such a tiny part of the population there will be trouble providing food locally in many areas.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Liamj', 'W')hy not overt preferential policies, ad campaigns or direct education? They've (partly or mostly) worked for smoking, seatbelts, drink driving, why not responsible parenthood? There is a lot of ground between coercion and inducement, and this is not a cultural pattern you change with a flower day.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '
')Thanks for that information. I think the issue of soil health is huge. In terms of reaching for sustainablility, taking care of the soil surely ranks near the top of the priority list, don't you think?

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'I') think the issue of soil health is huge. In terms of reaching for sustainablility, taking care of the soil surely ranks near the top of the priority list, don't you think?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '
')What I don't understand is that taking care of the soil is something that has clearly been done for ages in places where civilization is old (Europe and China). How could it possibly have become a problem when it's a well-known issue?

[johnmarkos]

Ludi and PMS asked me to revive this thread (not in so many words but they did). I thought I'd take a stab at defining sustainability.

The short answer is this. Sustainability is a way of living that can go on indefinitely. On a global/civilizational level, it means that we are not depleting resources or overwhelming sinks that future people will need. On a personal level, it means that if everyone lived as you did, the criteria for global/civilizational sustainability would be met.

What are these sources and sinks? Well, first of all, we have renewable resources and non-renewable resources. We also generate waste. The resources have to come from somewhere. The waste has to go somewhere.

In the case of renewable resources, if you use them, more can be generated in the future. A plant is an example of a renewable resource. Petroleum is an example of a (effectively) non-renewable resource. We're not making any more. If you use it, there is no replacement being grown, at least not in this millenium.

We don't need the particular resources themselves: that is, we don't need oak trees or oil or a house on Park Avenue. In that sense, JohnDenver was correct when he said that we don't need biodiversity. What we need are basic commodities like food, shelter, and energy, in quantities that can support the human population. If we could all eat vat-grown fungus and live in 100 story buildings and use electricity generated from mirrors on the moon, it might be sustainable. It might be ugly but sustainable.

But we like biodiversity. So if we can keep that too, good.

The other thing is -- and this is one of those places where the doomers and the optimists just can't agree -- that we can cheat. We can get resources from space. That is, if we're capable of going and getting resources from space, we can go ahead and get them. The sun qualifies as space, BTW, so in that sense something as prosaic as solar energy is a space resource.