We might be killing ourselves much faster than "climate science" suggests

That's right, forget about the global warming thing about how we're all going to die of too much heat in 50 or 100 years.
Apparently we are now killing other species that are vital to our survival much faster than that.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/...l-insects-gone

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Changes in land use surrounding the reserves are probably playing a role. "We've lost huge amounts of habitat, which has certainly contributed to all these declines," Goulson says. "If we turn all the seminatural habitats to wheat and cornfields, then there will be virtually no life in those fields." As fields expand and hedgerows disappear, the isolated islands of habitat left can support fewer species. Increased fertilizer on remaining grazing lands favors grasses over the diverse wildflowers that many insects prefer. And when development replaces countryside, streets and buildings generate light pollution that leads nocturnal insects astray and interrupts their mating.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2...-dead-insects/

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Experts mostly blame intensive agriculture and the use of pesticides over the past 50 years.

Since 2006, beekeepers in Britain have lost about a third of their managed bee colonies each year largely due to the loss of flower-rich grassland which has declined by 97 per cent from the 1930s, and the increased use of insecticides on crops.

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http://www.dw.com/en/insect-and-bird...any/a-41030897

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A study by the German Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) concludes that the total number of birds in Germany has been declining dramatically in recent years.
In the past twelve years an estimated 12.7 million pairs of breeding birds have disappeared. That's roughly 15 percent of the total bird population. The study is based on data provided to the European Union by Germany's federal government in 2013.

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In that light it is always interesting to see people claim the planet can easily feed 11 or more billions of people when our agriculture, economy and behavior are terribly self-destructive at 7 billion already. How are we going to feed 11 billion people with either no biosphere around us or without chemicals and monocultures?

We need a one-child policy and an economic system that favors decline instead of growth. :sweatdrop:

Either way these developments seem quite worrying and could have an enormous impact relatively soon. And most of the solutions cannot be merged with more economic optimization and growth so far.

Adopting a vegan diet means the land-use for animals can be changed to crops. A lot more land use is needed for animal farming than strange from vegetation. That is how you could feed 11 billion or so population.

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Originally Posted by Beskar

Adopting a vegan diet means the land-use for animals can be changed to crops. A lot more land use is needed for animal farming than strange from vegetation. That is how you could feed 11 billion or so population.

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And what will you do when the population growth does not stop there?

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Originally Posted by Beskar

Adopting a vegan diet means the land-use for animals can be changed to crops. A lot more land use is needed for animal farming than strange from vegetation. That is how you could feed 11 billion or so population.

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What Kage said and what about the use of pesticides to grow all the veggies in monocultures? You'd still be killing insects left and right, for them it does not seem to matter too much whether you take away the flowers to grow pigs or to grow salad. And swarms of locusts or other insects that may adapt probably can't replace bees either.

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Originally Posted by Kagemusha

And what will you do when the population growth does not stop there?

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People will start committing suicides en masse if forced to be vegan.

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Originally Posted by Sarmatian

People will start committing suicides en masse if forced to be vegan.

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l o l

But what if gun control, mental health services, and public safety improve to the point that we're stopping or preventing too many suicides? :freak:



There's one vegan perspective that says, well, vegan outreach and activism in the West has been an almost unmitigated failure over the past generation: full-fledged, long-term veganism is less prevalent than transgenderism, and with vegetarianism it's only marginally better.

Therefore, instead of taking an exclusionary or maximalist stance that emphatically condemns anyone who consumes a spoonful of yogurt or honey now and then to the same extent as someone who eats 50-lb steaks for breakfast, a more successful strategy might be to nudge people into making small modifications to their diet without having to fully embrace the vegan or vegetarian lifestyle.

Strangely though, one suggested nudge is to encourage eating products of large livestock rather than of small, the logic being that the suffering of two chickens (2 organisms) is worse than the suffering of one cow (1 organism). Unfortunately, this principled animal utilitarianism fails to account for the fact that chickens are relatively more ecologically sustainable with respect to our food production and the health of the world's ecosystems than cows or other large livestock...

So optimizing vegan and animal rights priorities is probably going to be tougher than 'more organisms = more suffering'.

Well, first of all, I have to ask - what the heck kind of chickens do you have over there when it is 2 chickens = 1 cow?

Secondly, wouldn't that discriminate against cows? It' s not their fault they're so big. You try dealing with all those fat jokes.

I still think if people could be happy with just one or two children, many problems would solve themselves.

The biggest problem in the way of one child however, seem to be poverty, and to a lesser extent emotions and traditions. The wealthy parts of Europe already do shrink without immigration, even though some families still get 5 children. They're just not enough. As far as I am aware, in poorer countries children are often a retirement plan and one that can die away, too. So people have more incentives to get many children. That money is a factor can also be seen in countries where girls may later require payment(s) to the husband and abortions of girls are very high.

One could assume that if we solve poverty, we may reach the top of a bell curve almost naturally...

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Originally Posted by Husar

I still think if people could be happy with just one or two children, many problems would solve themselves.

The biggest problem in the way of one child however, seem to be poverty, and to a lesser extent emotions and traditions. The wealthy parts of Europe already do shrink without immigration, even though some families still get 5 children. They're just not enough. As far as I am aware, in poorer countries children are often a retirement plan and one that can die away, too. So people have more incentives to get many children. That money is a factor can also be seen in countries where girls may later require payment(s) to the husband and abortions of girls are very high.

One could assume that if we solve poverty, we may reach the top of a bell curve almost naturally...

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How do you distribute wealth equitably so as to bring this about? Would you take human rights into account? How about self determination?

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Originally Posted by Sarmatian

Well, first of all, I have to ask - what the heck kind of chickens do you have over there when it is 2 chickens = 1 cow?

Secondly, wouldn't that discriminate against cows? It' s not their fault they're so big. You try dealing with all those fat jokes.

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You misunderstand. Here's their figure:

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Further, it takes up to 200 chickens to provide the same number of meals as one steer, and around 40 chickens as compared to one pig.

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But their logical conclusion is that it's better to eat 1 cow than 2 chickens, because then fewer, numerically fewer, animals are suffering.

Also, yes.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX4Jh-44-Nk

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Originally Posted by Husar

I still think if people could be happy with just one or two children, many problems would solve themselves.

The biggest problem in the way of one child however, seem to be poverty, and to a lesser extent emotions and traditions. The wealthy parts of Europe already do shrink without immigration, even though some families still get 5 children. They're just not enough. As far as I am aware, in poorer countries children are often a retirement plan and one that can die away, too. So people have more incentives to get many children. That money is a factor can also be seen in countries where girls may later require payment(s) to the husband and abortions of girls are very high.

One could assume that if we solve poverty, we may reach the top of a bell curve almost naturally...

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"Current trends" in birth/death rates and other factors point to a likely global-population peak by the end of the century, and henceforth a decline.

Assuming trends don't reverse, for whatever reason.

The ultimate solution is GM foods.

I will be more serious. Overpopulation is not a concern as these things have a way of working themselves out after all. As standards of living increase, people naturally have less children. This is why in the most developed areas of the world, population is stagnant, save for the immigration from the poorer regions. As these poorer regions develop, their population will stagnant too, coming to a natural equilibrium. This is part of the Population Transition.

The more indepth answer can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348

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Originally Posted by Husar

I still think if people could be happy with just one or two children, many problems would solve themselves.

The biggest problem in the way of one child however, seem to be poverty, and to a lesser extent emotions and traditions. The wealthy parts of Europe already do shrink without immigration, even though some families still get 5 children. They're just not enough. As far as I am aware, in poorer countries children are often a retirement plan and one that can die away, too. So people have more incentives to get many children. That money is a factor can also be seen in countries where girls may later require payment(s) to the husband and abortions of girls are very high.


One could assume that if we solve poverty, we may reach the top of a bell curve almost naturally...

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I would support two children policy. There really is no a argument against it. There are just too many of us period.

Something new how predictable, didn't bother to read it what's going to kill us now now that global-warming lost it's ooooomph?

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Originally Posted by Beskar

I will be more serious. Overpopulation is not a concern as these things have a way of working themselves out after all. As standards of living increase, people naturally have less children. This is why in the most developed areas of the world, population is stagnant, save for the immigration from the poorer regions. As these poorer regions develop, their population will stagnant too, coming to a natural equilibrium. This is part of the Population Transition.

The more indepth answer can be found here:

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One question might be, does the suffering produced by enforcing significant population reductions within the medium-term outweigh the suffering of X billions who can't be satisfactorily governed, secured, and provisioned for, and whose poverty acts as the cushion for the relative comfort of the rest of the world (and we don't expect the "free" market to "take care of it")? It's an academic question to be sure, but so is the exercise of wondering whether or not population out of our control is necessarily a bad thing.

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Overpopulation is not a concern as these things have a way of working themselves out after all.

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As recently as right now these things tend to work themselves out by mass deaths of millions through disease and deprivation. Something which modern humanitarian aid regimes seek to ameliorate. So do we restrict international aid in favor of 'natural' culling, or do we somehow increase aid despite the inefficiency? How do we confront the racialized distribution and apportionment underlying these questions?


I believe that we should try to take care of people and not exterminate them (or even encourage natural death), but all this life presents serious problems that need serious address, not glib bromides about things working themselves out.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

One question might be, does the suffering produced by enforcing significant population reductions within the medium-term outweigh the suffering of X billions who can't be satisfactorily governed, secured, and provisioned for, and whose poverty acts as the cushion for the relative comfort of the rest of the world (and we don't expect the "free" market to "take care of it")? It's an academic question to be sure, but so is the exercise of wondering whether or not population out of our control is necessarily a bad thing.

As recently as right now these things tend to work themselves out by mass deaths of millions through disease and deprivation. Something which modern humanitarian aid regimes seek to ameliorate. So do we restrict international aid in favor of 'natural' culling, or do we somehow increase aid despite the inefficiency? How do we confront the racialized distribution and apportionment underlying these questions?

I believe that we should try to take care of people and not exterminate them (or even encourage natural death), but all this life presents serious problems that need serious address, not glib bromides about things working themselves out.

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More relevantly, who's going to enforce all this, and on what authority? People who want to talk about prosperity all round also hate colonialism. Without colonialism, who's going to make sure the developing nations develop efficiently? As a triple whammy, people who talk about prosperity all round often also hate globalism, which is the other non-colonialist method of controlling this somewhat.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

I believe that we should try to take care of people and not exterminate them (or even encourage natural death), but all this life presents serious problems that need serious address, not glib bromides about things working themselves out.

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This is why we have the International Development Fund. Make the nations prosper, and thus no overpopulation concerns.

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Originally Posted by Kagemusha

I would support two children policy. There really is no a argument against it. There are just too many of us period.

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And just how will you get the non-Western and non-techno cultures to adopt this policy? It has, de facto if not de jure, been the policy of most developed Western cultures for nearly half a century.

The death rate per 1000 in France and the UK is 9, the USA 8, and Italy and Greece 11 and Japan 10. The bigger economy countries are at a rough death rate of 10 per 1000. In contrast, the rate for the Middle East is around a 6 and central and eastern Africa around a 12. Indonesia, China, and India are around a 7.

Birth rates in the West/Industrials are roughly around 11/1k. The ME varies between 15 and 35, probably around 20 overall. EA and CA average around 33. China is a hint higher than the West at 12, but Indonesia and India average 19/1k.

In short, the West and Japan already practice a two-child policy. The developing world does not. Short of magically transforming their economies to Western standard of living levels and cultural values, just how do we go about effecting such a policy?

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

How do you distribute wealth equitably so as to bring this about? Would you take human rights into account? How about self determination?

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Self-determination is a red shrimp. You can either make it look absurd by bringing it down to the individual level or by looking at countries where the population is split almost 50:50 or where there is a tyranny of the majority. Or you could just think about what would happen if we here run out of a lot of the food we eat and the vitamins we need. Either we let our poor die or we use our purchasing power to buy everything from abroad and then people die there not able to afford the food.
What use is self determination in that case? If they deny us the food, we will either invade or revert to the option of letting our poor die. I would think that when it comes to people literally ying from a lack of nutrition, violence might easily be favoured over any respect for anyone's self-determination. After all we're not just killing our insects, we're also ruining our soils. How does self-determination help if all of Europe and the US can't grow food anymore or not nearly enough to feed even the inhabitants? I'd guess Africa has a bit longer, but we exported our agricultural methods there as well, so... :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

"Current trends" in birth/death rates and other factors point to a likely global-population peak by the end of the century, and henceforth a decline.

Assuming trends don't reverse, for whatever reason.

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Originally Posted by Beskar

I will be more serious. Overpopulation is not a concern as these things have a way of working themselves out after all. As standards of living increase, people naturally have less children. This is why in the most developed areas of the world, population is stagnant, save for the immigration from the poorer regions. As these poorer regions develop, their population will stagnant too, coming to a natural equilibrium. This is part of the Population Transition.

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The question there would be whether the trend fixes itself before the ecosystem is irreparably damaged and people start dying in droves from malnutrition.

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Originally Posted by Gilrandir

The ultimate solution is GM foods.

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You mean let the eco-terrorists kill all the human surplus before anything bad happens? :clown:

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

And just how will you get the non-Western and non-techno cultures to adopt this policy? It has, de facto if not de jure, been the policy of most developed Western cultures for nearly half a century.

The death rate per 1000 in France and the UK is 9, the USA 8, and Italy and Greece 11 and Japan 10. The bigger economy countries are at a rough death rate of 10 per 1000. In contrast, the rate for the Middle East is around a 6 and central and eastern Africa around a 12. Indonesia, China, and India are around a 7.

Birth rates in the West/Industrials are roughly around 11/1k. The ME varies between 15 and 35, probably around 20 overall. EA and CA average around 33. China is a hint higher than the West at 12, but Indonesia and India average 19/1k.

In short, the West and Japan already practice a two-child policy. The developing world does not. Short of magically transforming their economies to Western standard of living levels and cultural values, just how do we go about effecting such a policy?

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And among the non-far eastern developing countries, the first steps of development usually go towards massively enrichening a tiny elite, a la Venezuela (where Chavez's daughter is a multi-billionaire while the rest of the country is collapsing). Extra points if the tiny elite bolster their position with devout religiousness that, thanks to the nature of ancient religions, promotes high birth rates ("Go forth and multiply"). The US of A is a social democracy compared with the extreme elitism of most developing countries.

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Originally Posted by Husar

Self-determination is a red shrimp. You can either make it look absurd by bringing it down to the individual level or by looking at countries where the population is split almost 50:50 or where there is a tyranny of the majority. Or you could just think about what would happen if we here run out of a lot of the food we eat and the vitamins we need. Either we let our poor die or we use our purchasing power to buy everything from abroad and then people die there not able to afford the food.
What use is self determination in that case? If they deny us the food, we will either invade or revert to the option of letting our poor die. I would think that when it comes to people literally ying from a lack of nutrition, violence might easily be favoured over any respect for anyone's self-determination. After all we're not just killing our insects, we're also ruining our soils. How does self-determination help if all of Europe and the US can't grow food anymore or not nearly enough to feed even the inhabitants? I'd guess Africa has a bit longer, but we exported our agricultural methods there as well, so... :shrug:

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How does aid get distributed in developing countries? In what form does the aid take? What right does the west have to determine how these countries develop? Remember the furore over Iraq. Ask the British left what they think of Tony Blair.

Ironically, Tony Blair might be an important way of resolving a lot of this. The left will never recognise this though, and the full extent of this will subsequently never be realised. Because of Iraq.

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

More relevantly, who's going to enforce all this, and on what authority? People who want to talk about prosperity all round also hate colonialism. Without colonialism, who's going to make sure the developing nations develop efficiently? As a triple whammy, people who talk about prosperity all round often also hate globalism, which is the other non-colonialist method of controlling this somewhat.

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Absolutely. No idea.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

And just how will you get the non-Western and non-techno cultures to adopt this policy? It has, de facto if not de jure, been the policy of most developed Western cultures for nearly half a century.

The death rate per 1000 in France and the UK is 9, the USA 8, and Italy and Greece 11 and Japan 10. The bigger economy countries are at a rough death rate of 10 per 1000. In contrast, the rate for the Middle East is around a 6 and central and eastern Africa around a 12. Indonesia, China, and India are around a 7.

Birth rates in the West/Industrials are roughly around 11/1k. The ME varies between 15 and 35, probably around 20 overall. EA and CA average around 33. China is a hint higher than the West at 12, but Indonesia and India average 19/1k.

In short, the West and Japan already practice a two-child policy. The developing world does not. Short of magically transforming their economies to Western standard of living levels and cultural values, just how do we go about effecting such a policy?

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Japan and the West practice a two-child policy only in aggregate, and it is not even a policy - much of it is owed to economic insecurity among those of childbearing age. Literal two-child policies would of course (if effective) cut off individuals above the average, thus leading to precipitous declines in birth rates.

The pendulum swung back and forth on abortion in the Soviet Union. But whether the government was promoting it or outlawing it, abortion remained enormously popular. IIRC one of my grandmothers (2 daughters) had at least 3 abortions.

One of the best ways to reduce birthrates or accelerate existing trends is to promote knowledge of and access to women's reproductive health services (i.e. contraception and abortion). Unfortunately, most branches of Christianity are prominent in opposing the spread of safe abortion and contraceptives to the developing world.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Absolutely. No idea.

Japan and the West practice a two-child policy only in aggregate, and it is not even a policy - much of it is owed to economic insecurity among those of childbearing age. Literal two-child policies would of course (if effective) cut off individuals above the average, thus leading to precipitous declines in birth rates.

The pendulum swung back and forth on abortion in the Soviet Union. But whether the government was promoting it or outlawing it, abortion remained enormously popular. IIRC one of my grandmothers (2 daughters) had at least 3 abortions.

One of the best ways to reduce birthrates or accelerate existing trends is to promote knowledge of and access to women's reproductive health services (i.e. contraception and abortion). Unfortunately, most branches of Christianity are prominent in opposing the spread of safe abortion and contraceptives to the developing world.

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In west Africa at least, there is a secular belief that does all the things that the progressive left would like to see in the developing world. However, it is anathema to the British left, who will reflexively oppose anything to do with it, and blacken the name of its leader.

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

In west Africa at least, there is a secular belief that does all the things that the progressive left would like to see in the developing world. However, it is anathema to the British left, who will reflexively oppose anything to do with it, and blacken the name of its leader.

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You referencing the leader who brought stability to Iraq again?

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Originally Posted by Beskar

You referencing the leader who brought stability to Iraq again?

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There ya go. Exactly what I was talking about. Absolute anathema to the British left. West Africans care more about Sierra Leone and his track record in the region since then. But to the British left, Iraq is all there is.

If you want to badmouth Blair, at least do not pretend to care about the development of the Third World, where he has a better track record than most.

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Originally Posted by Beskar

Adopting a vegan diet means the land-use for animals can be changed to crops. A lot more land use is needed for animal farming than strange from vegetation. That is how you could feed 11 billion or so population.

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A vegan diet is extremely unhealthy, especially for minors. If vegetables and fruits consist of more than 50% of your diet then you're basically malnourishing yourself. Not recommended, a vegan diet is as healthy as the anti-vaccination movement and the refusal to wear a condom.

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

More relevantly, who's going to enforce all this, and on what authority?

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

And just how will you get the non-Western and non-techno cultures to adopt this policy?

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Two words: Orbital lasers!

No, seriously, of course that is hard, but there is also another dimension to this. Which is that the West/Developed world consumes most of the resources and does most of the damage anyway. Lowering consumption in countries that hardly consume despite a much bigger population is not going to help a lot. And developing them to our standard of consumption in the hopes of controlling their population through that may just end the planet before the plan gets anywhere.

Hoping for a magic technological breakthrough, well, we could also decimate the population with mandatory russian roulette if we're going to gamble.

So no, I don't have a solution ready, just a goal of sorts. And if the ultimate goal is that we and our children survive and don't bash eachother's heads in over rare apples one day, perhaps we can agree on that last one at least.
I mean it would be nice to have some food in the future, wouldn't it? :sweatdrop:

Perhaps the EU and US should end subsidies for farming and let food markets return to actual competition, giving farmers in other countries a real chance to compete again and leading consumers to appreciate their terribly expensive food once more so they reduce food waste?

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Originally Posted by Husar

Two words: Orbital lasers!

No, seriously, of course that is hard, but there is also another dimension to this. Which is that the West/Developed world consumes most of the resources and does most of the damage anyway. Lowering consumption in countries that hardly consume despite a much bigger population is not going to help a lot. And developing them to our standard of consumption in the hopes of controlling their population through that may just end the planet before the plan gets anywhere.

Hoping for a magic technological breakthrough, well, we could also decimate the population with mandatory russian roulette if we're going to gamble.

So no, I don't have a solution ready, just a goal of sorts. And if the ultimate goal is that we and our children survive and don't bash eachother's heads in over rare apples one day, perhaps we can agree on that last one at least.
I mean it would be nice to have some food in the future, wouldn't it? :sweatdrop:

Perhaps the EU and US should end subsidies for farming and let food markets return to actual competition, giving farmers in other countries a real chance to compete again and leading consumers to appreciate their terribly expensive food once more so they reduce food waste?

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The moderate way to developing these countries is through green economies that develop traditional agriculture and crafts that don't consume much fossil fuels, alongside education and empowerment of women. Why should these countries do that? If there is tangible evidence that this improves lives. How do these improvements begin, when the first steps towards enrichment usually results in concentration of wealth in a tiny elite?

That is where Blair has made his mark in Africa. But, as I've said before, and as Beskar has demonstrated above, to the British left, Iraq is all he is. And thus the trail he's blazed in the developing world will never be allowed to go far. Recently, when Blair said his piece on Brexit, British leftists who were pro-Europe said they'd rather he'd keep quiet than make the case for Europe. If the British left would rather lose the argument on Europe than let Blair speak up for it, why the hell would they care about a world further away?

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Originally Posted by Crandar

A vegan diet is extremely unhealthy, especially for minors. If vegetables and fruits consist of more than 50% of your diet then you're basically malnourishing yourself. Not recommended, a vegan diet is as healthy as the anti-vaccination movement and the refusal to wear a condom.

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I am not a vegan, but I know this information is incorrect. You have to manage your diet appropriately, that is true, but vegan malnourishment is a myth (for humans). Arguably, "meat eaters" are worst for micro-nutrient malnourishment. How many do you know eat a full 5-7 a-day?

I had this in the Climate Thread but it seems appropriate to this discussion:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/pollut...aths-1.4363613

Pollution. More population=>more pollution.
This outcome is enhanced by development, but is the natural outcome of increasing population in any case.
The concentration and distribution of toxins is aided to some extent by development; industry simply adds novel toxins.
The shift from fossil fuels to renewables closes one window to extinction, many more remain.