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Ignoring all political factors, I believe that overpopulation is real. Whilst it is true that the planet has enough physical space for billions more people than exist right now, it does not have the natural resources to support billions more.
Focusing on a singular issue that faces global civilization that highlights what I mean - food.
Current food production is heavily reliant on fossil fuel derived fertilizers. It’s commonly accepted that oil production will peak and eventually decline if it has not done so already. Some argue that it has, some say it is imminent. Nonetheless, eventually oil production will become exponentially more expensive as demand increases and supply shrinks and thus anything that relies on oil derived fuels or products will also become more costly. Global farming is reliant on oil derived fuels such as diesel and petroleum for the tilling, planting, fertilizing, spraying of insecticides and harvesting of crops. Not to mention transportation, processing, packaging and preparation. Natural gas, the most important input for the production of fertilizers is required during the Haber-Bosch process. Natural gas is also a finite fossil fuel subject to the same limitations as oil.
If we then look at the macro landscape we also learn that top soil, the soil that crops are grown in is being eroded by constant farming processes, poor land management and natural processes. It is estimated that at the current rate of erosion there could be no top soil left globally within 60 years. If I remember correctly, topsoil is being eroded approximately ten times faster than it can be replaced.
Now there are arguments to be made that we could reduce wastage, reduce demand and manage land better. Doing these things could buy extra time for a static or shrinking population.
Anyway, the point is that the global population rising means that there is more demand for food. Our ability to produce more food to satisfy the extra demand of a growing population is being reduced due to the factors I’ve mentioned above and these are only a subset of a far greater set of issues we face.
The idea that we can continue to grow the population further and that the planet can support this indefinitely is not reasonable. There are limits to growth in finite systems.
Population growth means that there are more people that both want and need a slice of the pie. The problem is there’s only a limited amount of pie available. We can slice that pie into ever smaller pieces and we can even redistribute the pie that exists more equitably. This will help keep people fed in the short term but not in the long term.
The problem is that the pie is going to shrink and the baker isn’t going to be able to get enough ingredients to make more. Eventually the pie will be gone.
In our analogy eventually there will be no pie to go around and everyone goes home hungry.
This means that we end up with a predicament without a solution that I am aware of.
It is far more likely that globally populations will continue to rise until we overshoot our constrained resources. Once that happens human population levels will drop, whether there is intervention or not.
What do you feel about overpopulation?
When I was in school we learned about Malthus and his hypothesis that the rising population of the industrial revolution would lead to famine as if he was mistaken because it didn’t come to pass.
But he wasn’t wrong. I’m pulling this from memory, so take with a grain of salt: the 19th century British (and probably others, and their slaves) were scouring the world’s tiny islands for bird poo to support crops in their colonies all over the world, but had reached basically peak guano and were facing globally reduced yields. Malthus presented his warning to the Royal Society and it was taken up by Haber and Bosch in Germany, and they developed the commercial method of fixing nitrogen from the air (and fossil fuel) and basically replaced the dwindling bird poo reserves with industrial fertilizer we use in ever increasing quantity today.
There’s no reason to think we can go on like this forever as using fossil fuels is no more sustainable than spreading a thousand years worth of seagull droppings on each year’s crops. Never mind everything else the crops need.
So I think the question is how many different ways do you want to scrape or dig or burn or poison every last part of the globe before you just decide to work on the other side of the equation?
Only problem is, stocks don’t go brrrrr
I agree with you. I have another write up I’ll post some day about humans and how we have a problematic habit of getting good at things, and then getting WAY TOO good at things. As much as many here want to blame things like that solely on capitalism, it’s happened throughout every major reign in human history with the issue only accelerating at our current stage of technological development.
Things can only be made sustainable until we use up all of our resources in those areas so many times.
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