the overpopulation crowd probably can't even tell you how many tonnes of rice you need to feed a person for one year (calories wise) or what the yield per hectare of potatoes is. or understand the value of hot water and the cheapness of low grade heat on this planet. they know very little really.
California has ~40 million acres of farmland.
Potato yield is about 30,000 lb/acre/year.
Potatoes are about 318 calories per pound.
That comes out to 381,600,000,000,000 calories per year.
Enough to feed 127,200,000,000 people per year.
127 trillion.
Google tells me up to 30,000lb/acre and I'm assuming intensive farming, so I'm using the max estimate.
30,000 lb/acre/year * 40mil acres = 1.2tril lb/year
1.2tril lb/year * ~318 cal/lb = ~381.6tril cal/year
381.6tril cal/year / 3000cal/person/day = 127.2tril people
What will happen v wishful thinking.
Democracy operates on the principle that tomorrow is better (for individuals) than today. No government is going to get elected on the basis that a billion strangers are more important than immediate family.
There is enough here for everyone if we managed it responsibly. We'd still have wood furniture, and we wouldn't have to go without fundamental things like housing, healthcare, etc.
The issue now, and always, is that the most powerful people on the planet don't give a shit about our lives.
We're basically forced to be Malthusian, to believe that there isn't enough on the planet for us, when in reality it's quite simple; there isn't enough for our needs 𝘢𝘯𝘥 their profits; if we didn't have to waste resources on 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 profits, there's more than enough for us.
I had to scroll far to see this. Just wanted to add that Malthusian thinking is very useful to capital because it keeps people atomized. Collective action in the interest of survival will inevitably mean a loss in profit, and ultimately some degree of redistribution.
Could humanity become an integral part of Earth's ecosystem instead of behaving like wingless locusts with prehensile forepaws? Sure. Will it? Only by demonstrated necessity.
What does that even mean? Locusts are an "integral part of Earth's ecosystem".
Of course this seems to be buying into a mystical notion of "ecological balance" rather than the complex, chaotic state of dynamic processes ecosystems actually have...
In this metaphor, humans are the locusts: incapable or at least unwilling to maintain a state of equilibrium with their ecosystem and consuming all available resources until those resources no longer support the population. The difference is that human behavior is cultural rather than instinctual.
we could also build stuff to last... our burn rate isn't simply a product of how much stuff we have, but how often we need to replace that stuff.
anyway stone houses are fine. I'm not worried about water -- this is earth we're talking about. we know how to remove salt and reduce evaporative losses
the more important point is that we're far from the population point where our population would make achieving sustainability hard. there are resources everywhere for those with the eyes to see.
There is no doubt that we *can* cram 20 or 30 billion people on this little planet of ours. We may even survive such conditions, but our great-great-grandchildren will have much better lives if there are only 2 or 3 billion of them.
synthetic cotton (vertical farms or bioengineering)
there’s no actual problem with wood scarcity, or at least the problem is not as severe as the externalities from petrochemicals (which are required for plastics). also furniture is reusable
Look at history. When resources get scarce people start fighting. So many wars have been fought over farmland for example. More people doesn't mean more love, it means more death, cruelty, and destruction. The next round of wars will be extremely bloody.
California has ~40 million acres of farmland.
Potato yield is about 30,000 lb/acre/year.
Potatoes are about 318 calories per pound.
That comes out to 381,600,000,000,000 calories per year.
Enough to feed 127,200,000,000 people per year.
127 trillion.
California has ~40 million acres of farmland.
Potato yield is about 30,000 lb/acre/year.
Potatoes are about 318 calories per pound.
That comes out to 381,600,000,000,000 calories per year.
Enough to feed 127,200,000,000 people per year.
127 trillion.
Unfortunately, a handful of these humans control all the resources, engineering profit-driven macrosystems that don't consider any impact beyond next quarter's P&L statement. Yeah, if we were Star Trekking this with some kind of vision, but we're not. It's every asshole for himself. Donald's right.
are you really here, in the year of 1.5C heat 2024, at the start of mass extinction, to tell us that we AREN'T overexploiting the planet? and that more of us is going to help the situation?
from mass extinction. solar and wind do not fix the problem of industrial society capturing too much of the land, water, and air to allow the biosphere to maintain dynamic equilibrium. on our current trajectory, we will see ecological collapse, and we can do it with zero oil
"oh we gonna live out in the solar system bro" - fucking fix this planet before moving onto the next. don't break another one before we even figure out how to sustain this one
What about the post or the replies makes you think that the OP doesn't want to fix the planet now? What part of what they're saying implies "lol yeet the environment into a landfill who cares"?
First we fix Earth, then we build O'Neal cylinders in space. They're not mutually exclusive.
our ecological footprint is based upon how many atoms our society has captured from nature and how much of the solar flux has been harnessed for use by conscious human minds. the atoms and energy we dedicate to each goal is mutually exclusive with competing goals
You might just as well pit cartoons against climate change as space exploration. Any human activity that is not explicitly about saving the environment is therefore ruining the environment. I just can't accept that line of reasoning.
There is no reason why human activity cannot co-exist with
at present, we have allotted too much of the world's resources to human activity to allow other life to flourish. we CAN co-exist, but not in the current way. present day space exploration requires capturing EVEN MORE from nature, and makes the question of where else to reduce resource use harder
the inflation-adjusted cost of the panama canal (not remunerating for the lives lost) was less expensive than what elon paid for twitter, yet the benefit gap and externalities do not scale or even compare
The western world is never going to accept a lower standard of living necessary to make life sustainable, we’ve already seen that the world prefers fascism and genocide to equal distribution of resources, if you take away people’s endless cheap consumer goods they turn into Hitler
lol no, you think people should still be allowed to be millionaires, to pay for better housing and healthcare, that’s literally allocating resources to the rich first
I think most people with power out there are choosing option B with the caveat, "It won't be me perishing like a dog but rather my wealthy descendants, and I won't have to worry about whether the wealth will really help them, I'll just die telling myself it will for sure"
Comments
Potato yield is about 30,000 lb/acre/year.
Potatoes are about 318 calories per pound.
That comes out to 381,600,000,000,000 calories per year.
Enough to feed 127,200,000,000 people per year.
127 trillion.
250 sq.m per person = 16 per acre
16*40 = 640 million people
30,000 lb/acre/year * 40mil acres = 1.2tril lb/year
1.2tril lb/year * ~318 cal/lb = ~381.6tril cal/year
381.6tril cal/year / 3000cal/person/day = 127.2tril people
Democracy operates on the principle that tomorrow is better (for individuals) than today. No government is going to get elected on the basis that a billion strangers are more important than immediate family.
The issue now, and always, is that the most powerful people on the planet don't give a shit about our lives.
The issue is that they're not consuming resources to fulfill needs--they're consuming resources 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭.
WE don't need nearly as much to just support ourselves. There is ENOUGH for that.
We're basically forced to be Malthusian, to believe that there isn't enough on the planet for us, when in reality it's quite simple; there isn't enough for our needs 𝘢𝘯𝘥 their profits; if we didn't have to waste resources on 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 profits, there's more than enough for us.
Of course this seems to be buying into a mystical notion of "ecological balance" rather than the complex, chaotic state of dynamic processes ecosystems actually have...
We can all eat soybeans instead of beef.
We can make houses out of concrete and furniture out of plastic. We don't need wood at all.
There are serious quality of life issues here.
anyway stone houses are fine. I'm not worried about water -- this is earth we're talking about. we know how to remove salt and reduce evaporative losses
the point is the fewer people we have the easier it will be to achieve sustainability, and the better the quality of life in that sustainable system.
synthetic cotton (vertical farms or bioengineering)
there’s no actual problem with wood scarcity, or at least the problem is not as severe as the externalities from petrochemicals (which are required for plastics). also furniture is reusable
but overall why would anyone think that having 20 billion people is better than having 10 billion people?
Doubling the population since then has had zero benefits and massive costs in quality of life.
This is not difficult.
Potato yield is about 30,000 lb/acre/year.
Potatoes are about 318 calories per pound.
That comes out to 381,600,000,000,000 calories per year.
Enough to feed 127,200,000,000 people per year.
127 trillion.
Potato yield is about 30,000 lb/acre/year.
Potatoes are about 318 calories per pound.
That comes out to 381,600,000,000,000 calories per year.
Enough to feed 127,200,000,000 people per year.
127 trillion.
First we fix Earth, then we build O'Neal cylinders in space. They're not mutually exclusive.
There is no reason why human activity cannot co-exist with
/to which they blocked me fucking instantly./
Guess they didn’t want to have that conversation which is weird since they started it