Demographic Winter: Decline of the Human Family

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RobbyS said:
Oil may have both sources, both organic and nonorganic or a combination of the two. After all, isn’t life supposed to have begun as a nonorganic process? Isn’t primative life found very deep in the crust?
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Yup :yup: and Yup :yup:
 
buffalo said:
Water - oceans full - we need desalinization breakthroughs.
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That would work up to a point, if we had enough nuclear plants to desalinate the oceans. There will come point, however, at which the available land will be filled up. India, for example, will reach a point where increasing population will either cover over the farmland on which Indians depend, or will have to spill over into neighboring countries, until they too fill up.
 
Dale_M said:
Why do you think that children who grow up in Western nations won’t adopt the values and attitudes of Western culture?
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If you mean kindness, tolerance, charity, thrift, hard work, respecting one’s neighbor - the West has rejected these values and replaced them with consumerism, sloth, intolerance, concupiscence, cupidity and so on. I would not want my children to absorb these values, and I am sure that good Muslim parents would want to protect their children from them as well.

Look to eastern Siberia to become Chinese before 2050, and the Southwest, from LA to the Texas border to become Mexican.
 
sidonius said:
If you mean kindness, tolerance, charity, thrift, hard work, respecting one’s neighbor - the West has rejected these values and replaced them with consumerism, sloth, intolerance, concupiscence, cupidity and so on. I would not want my children to absorb these values, and I am sure that good Muslim parents would want to protect their children from them as well.

Look to eastern Siberia to become Chinese before 2050, and the Southwest, from LA to the Texas border to become Mexican.
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Of course, Mexicans used to own the Southwest, and there is a growing movement to reclaim the title. But a lot will change elsewhere as well: Europe will become largely Islamic in a century.
 
StAnastasia said:
Of course, Mexicans used to own the Southwest, and there is a growing movement to reclaim the title. But a lot will change elsewhere as well: Europe will become largely Islamic in a century.
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You are absolutely correct. The late journalist Orianna Fallaci called it Eurabia.
 
It all seems rather pointless to discuss the ultimate size of human populations supportable by a finite earth. At some point we need to come to a conclusion that certain actions will need to be taken to have a sustainable way of life for all humans and this needs to be considered from a catholic perspective and all that that entails.
It certainly is a quandary to which I don’t have any answers.
Gerry
 
I watched the full video. It was very good. When Mark Regnerus came on (towards the end) and said “If we are hard-wired to reproduce, why are so many people not interested in reproducing?” Then he says “Men are interested in sex, but are they really interested in reproducing?”

I wanted to scream “BIRTH CONTROL, YOU IDIOT!” I mean, really, is that such a stretch?:doh2:
 
gavanhe said:
It all seems rather pointless to discuss the ultimate size of human populations supportable by a finite earth. At some point we need to come to a conclusion that certain actions will need to be taken to have a sustainable way of life for all humans and this needs to be considered from a catholic perspective and all that that entails.Gerry
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What do you mean by “pointless”? Sustainability is ultimately meaningless until we reach population equilibrium. The human population cannot continue to expand forever on a finite planet.
 
The point is that there is an ultimate limit to a sustainable population but I should imagine that it’s a rather large number. We are already well on our way to population stability if you can believe what some demographic commentators are opining. But to have an economic system predicated on infinite growth as our world relies on, will ultimately require some very large adjustments to our way of life.
Gerry
 
StAnastasia said:
What do you mean by “pointless”? Sustainability is ultimately meaningless until we reach population equilibrium. The human population cannot continue to expand forever on a finite planet.
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God asks us to be good stewards of the planet. But where is our faith that He will not provide?

Are you suggesting God endorses population control because He did not or will not provide the resources we need?
 
gavanhe said:
The point is that there is an ultimate limit to a sustainable population but I should imagine that it’s a rather large number. We are already well on our way to population stability if you can believe what some demographic commentators are opining. But to have an economic system predicated on infinite growth as our world relies on, will ultimately require some very large adjustments to our way of life.
Gerry
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Gerry, there is an ultimate limit to as sustainable population of Homo sapiens, just as there is a sustainable limit to the population of Siberian tigers, African elephants, Iberian wolves, and polar bears. All species eventually reach equilibrium with their environments. Human ingenuity has temporarily allowed us to expand our range and our population through the exploitation of fossil fuels. We have been able to support six times more people through fossil-fuel driven agriculture, and we have temporarily been able to sustain large populations in very hot and very cold climes.

An economic system based on eternal growth will bump up against absolute limits when there is no more land to build on. That may take some time, but it will happen.

StAnastasia
 
I guess what I’m alluding to is the fact that we will need to curb or alter our economic system in some way to allow all of humanity to live in a sustainable and harmonious way, whilst at the same time allowing for the providence of Our Lord to lead us in the right direction with respect to population and environment.
Gerry
 
gavanhe said:
I guess what I’m alluding to is the fact that we will need to curb or alter our economic system in some way to allow all of humanity to live in a sustainable and harmonious way, whilst at the same time allowing for the providence of Our Lord to lead us in the right direction with respect to population and environment.
Gerry
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Gerry, I agree. Capitalism as practiced today is not sustainable. The corporate model that you have to grow or die, so that corporations get larger and larger, obviously will not work on a finite planet. Nor will a model in which ever-increasing housing starts are a leading economic indicator. In some parts of the country subdivisions are gobbling up arable land at a tremendous rate. Eventually population stabilization will allow us to stop building new houses except to replace old ones.

StAnastasia
 
I finally had a chance view the whole documentary. Utterly chilling. I don’t know how much of the data is uncontested, but if the overall arc of the narrative is true, we are in deep trouble.

Oddly enough, I had the chance to see the film because this morning–at 3:45AM–my almost-three-year-old announced “Daddy, I think I have to throwbllaarrruupp…” and she did. Unable to go back to sleep, I thought about my best friend. He’s married, has no children, and has no plans to have any. I was thinking, “Man, this is why people don’t have kids. I am exhausted (again), frustrated (it’s been a long week with both kids and my wife sick), broke, bored, living in a house we don’t have time to clean, losing touch with friends we don’t have time to visit…this is why people don’t have kids.” Selfish, self-indulgent thoughts at 4AM, right?

Then I watched this movie, and I was…jolted. My God.

Take my word for it, I prayed to God on this very issue this morning at mass. What are we doing to ourselves, and why are we doing it? So disturbing.
 
buffalo said:
God asks us to be good stewards of the planet. But where is our faith that He will not provide? Are you suggesting God endorses population control because He did not or will not provide the resources we need?
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I don’t know how we would know what God endorses, if anything. God certainly seems to permit spasms of population reduction without intervening, e.g., the Black Death of 1348-50; the Nazi and Rwanda and Darfur episodes of genocide. We have no reason to believe God won’t permit future spasms of population reduction through famine, war, and epidemics, while at the same time leading people to discover ways of supporting humanity. What I don’t believe God does is contravene the laws of logic.

StAnastasia
 
StAnastasia said:
I don’t know how we would know what God endorses, if anything. God certainly seems to permit spasms of population reduction without intervening, e.g., the Black Death of 1348-50; the Nazi and Rwanda and Darfur episodes of genocide. We have no reason to believe God won’t permit future spasms of population reduction through famine, war, and epidemics, while at the same time leading people to discover ways of supporting humanity. What I don’t believe God does is contravene the laws of logic.

StAnastasia
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I guess that the whole point is that God will permit us to engage in another spasm of population reduction called Demographic Winter. We seem to have decided upon depopulation as national, even global policy.

Personally, I view people as productive assets, and growth as a good.

(Not only is there plenty of room on the Earth, there’s plenty of room in the Universe. I was sort of looking forward to something like Asimov’s “Galactic Empire.” But that’s not possible if we’ve decided to depopulate ourselves out of existence.)
 
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