this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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There are too many people on this goddamn planet. Each person that we add takes more resources. The population is nearly double what it was when my parents were born. That has a dramatic impact on the planet's resources.
There is a distinct racist history to how overpopulation is discussed. High-birth-rate countries tend to be low-emissions-per-capita countries, so overpopulation complaints are often effectively saying "nonwhites can't have kids so that whites can keep burning fossil fuels" or "countries which caused the climate problem shouldn't take in climate refugees."
On top of this, as basic education reaches a larger chunk of the world, birth rates are dropping. We expect to achieve population stabilization this century as a result.
At the end of the day, it's the greenhouse gas concentrations that actually raise the temperature. That means that we need to take steps to stop burning fossil fuels and end deforestation.
Yup. Also known as ecofascism.
Still, the worst thing you can do for the environment, especially if you are a first worlder (as most reading this are), is have a child.
Stopping burning fossil fuels is much harder than it sounds. We need fertilizer from Haber-Bosch, we need tractors, we need trucks shipping food to population centers. Without fossil fuels, I know I am one of the billions that starve. I will probably eat some neighbors first though.
We can in fact do all those essential things without fossil fuels. For example, there's a bunch of effort in the US, EU, and China to generate hydrogen via electrolysis from renewables, and then use that as an input to Haber-Bosch, and it's backed by government policy and financial support.
Chemical fertilizer is not only unnecessary, it's tied to poor agricultural approaches. In contrast, farmers who practice regenerative agriculture and/or permaculture don't use it and get excellent yields. A specific example is Gabe Brown, whose farm gets above-average yields compared to neighboring farms and is far more profitable, not needing to take government handouts to stay in business. Meanwhile, the soil at his 5,000 acre farm is far healthier and sequesters many tons of carbon per acre vs. neighboring farms.
For more info, read the book Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown. You can also read a bit here:
https://soilhealthacademy.org/team/gabe-brown/
Typical corporate line, "It's not OUR fault, there's just lots of people we have to make things for!!!"
If we somehow just stopped burning fossil fuels overnight it would have a huge impact without changing any other thing
Right? But anyone that points this out gets shouted down, accused of all sorts of things, and is generally disliked. It doesn't make sense. The human population has exploded, and as a result, our impact on the environment has also exploded. There are more than double the number of people on earth than there were when I was born, and it's noticeable everywhere I go.
Thankfully it doesn't seem it will double again, population growth is already dropping tonnes. So then, what are you trying to say by saying there's too many people?
The most generous interpretation I can come up with is apologia for the biggest polluters, a smug way to continue to justify not polluting less ('it's just the result of so many people')
The worst interpretation is you are implying there should be less people..?
Or what other interpretation is there? You tell me.
There should be fewer people. Idk why that is considered a hot take. There have never been this many people on the planet all at once before. There's no good reason to maintain this population level. That doesn't mean anyone alive should be unalived. It means providing people with sex education, contraceptives, and general education. It means people deciding to have 1 kid, or no kids, instead of 10 kids. I'm not providing any apologies for the mass polluters (corporations), but if there's fewer people in a generation or two, then there's fewer resources consumed to produce things for those people. Pointing out that our population has reached an unsustainable level doesn't mean we should stop working towards a green future either. People bring all these other ideas with them and link them to any suggestion that perhaps our population is too large, when that statement is meant as a stand-alone point, not some opening line to a grand conspiracy.
I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying; when you expand on what you mean past just 'there are too many people' and actually suggest realistic meaningful solutions like you have here, I highly doubt that most people would 'accuse you of all sorts of things'. It's just that when you simply post 'there are too many people' this implies there should be less people, to most people they would interpret that to mean in an immediate sense, aka unaliving them.
Now that you've expanded on what you had to say I can see that clearly isn't what your intention was to convey. I would just like to say though that considering human population level is not a factor we can control without death or reducing birthrate, and birthrates are already reducing globally, you should be able to see why many would assume you are advocating for the other option.
Thanks for your response, and I'll be more mindful of how I convey that perspective in the future.