On limiting population growth thru contraception

[Warrior1979]

Please explain how not having petroleum is going to make feeding 7 billion people+ impossible?

It’s like asking “please explain how not having petroleum is going to make a car not move.”

The entire production scheme is dependent on significant energy (name removed by moderator)uts, which nowadays means fossil fuel (name removed by moderator)uts. Energy is required to plant, fertilize, grow, harvest, and distribute crops. Petroleum in particular is necessary for certain parts of the chain, such as pesticides.

Crops can be grown without fossil fuels, just as the car can move without gas (by pushing it). The result in both cases is less production and efficiency.

We have a good idea of the population levels that can support Paleolithic and Neolithic peoples. When fossil fuels become unaffordable, mankind is in trouble.

 

[buffalo]

Yes, they make eminent sense.

For the next couple of years, perhaps. For the next thousand years, no. The undeniable point related to this thread is that Homo sapiens will reach zero population growth like any other species on a finite planet. This will happen whether we choose to reach that point or not.

Actually the reserves and new finds will be sufficient for a thousand years. In addition, oil may be a precipitate and being formed right now.

 

[StAnastasia]

Please explain how not having petroleum is going to make feeding 7 billion people+ impossible?

Nate13, modern agriculture is essentially a way of turning oil and gas into food. Dale Allen Pfeiffer articulates this in Eating Fossil Fuels (2004). Sunlight is renewable and finite, and can probably indefinitely support one or two billion people. The additional 5-7 billion (if we reach nine billion in 2050) are fed by the one-time bonanza of non-renewable fossil fuels. In Pfeiffer’s words:

“Human beings (like all other animals) draw their energy from the food they eat. Until the last century, all of the food energy available on this planet was derived from the sun through photosynthesis. Either you ate plants or you ate animals that fed on plants, but the energy in your food was ultimately derived from the sun.”

“It would have been absurd to think that we would one day run out of sunshine. No, sunshine was an abundant, renewable resource, and the process of photosynthesis fed all life on this planet. It also set a limit on the amount of food that could be generated at any one time, and therefore placed a limit upon population growth. Solar energy has a limited rate of flow into this planet. To increase your food production, you had to increase the acreage under cultivation, and displace your competitors. There was no other way to increase the amount of energy available for food production. Human population grew by displacing everything else and appropriating more and more of the available solar energy.”

“Solar energy is a renewable resource limited only by the inflow rate from the sun to the earth. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are a stock-type resource that can be exploited at a nearly limitless rate. However, on a human timescale, fossil fuels are nonrenewable. They represent a planetary energy deposit which we can draw from at any rate we wish, but which will eventually be exhausted without renewal. The Green Revolution tapped into this energy deposit and used it to increase agricultural production.”

fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

 

[StAnastasia]

Actually the reserves and new finds will be sufficient for a thousand years. In addition, oil may be a precipitate and being formed right now.

Not for our present population. And the “abiotic origin of oil” is a crackpot theory.

 

[Nate13]

It’s like asking “please explain how not having petroleum is going to make a car not move.”

The entire production scheme is dependent on significant energy (name removed by moderator)uts, which nowadays means fossil fuel (name removed by moderator)uts. Energy is required to plant, fertilize, grow, harvest, and distribute crops. Petroleum in particular is necessary for certain parts of the chain, such as pesticides.

Crops can be grown without fossil fuels, just as the car can move without gas (by pushing it). The result in both cases is less production and efficiency.

We have a good idea of the population levels that can support Paleolithic and Neolithic peoples. When fossil fuels become unaffordable, mankind is in trouble.

Idk, how many jobs have tractors killed…I’d guess more than ATM’s have In my opinion all you have proved is that petroleum is incredibly important to the food production scheme that we currently have. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that fact. I do believe there are alternative schemes that could get the job done. I not saying that we could turn on a dime and all of sudden be putting out the same output we are currently without oil, but I believe at some point in the future we will.

 

[Contarini]

Relax guys. When we use everything up & have no more energy. People will revert to living until they are 30-40 years of age as people have always done up until the last two hundred years or so of our 3.5 million year existence. Short life spans were always the norm according to archaeologists.

You’re confusing life span with life expectancy.

 

[StAnastasia]

The entire production scheme is dependent on significant energy (name removed by moderator)uts, which nowadays means fossil fuel (name removed by moderator)uts. Energy is required to plant, fertilize, grow, harvest, and distribute crops. Petroleum in particular is necessary for certain parts of the chain, such as pesticides. Crops can be grown without fossil fuels, just as the car can move without gas (by pushing it). The result in both cases is less production and efficiency. We have a good idea of the population levels that can support Paleolithic and Neolithic peoples. When fossil fuels become unaffordable, mankind is in trouble.

Warrior, it’s odd how this is an all-or-nothing question for some people: they think we mean that either you can have unlimited human procreation and an infinite number of humans, or you have none at all.

As you know, life is a matter of energy transfer: energy is transferred from krill and plankton through a marine food chain to support a finite number sharks and whales. Energy is transferred from acorns and grass to deer and finally to a finite number of mountain lions. Today energy is transferred from fossil fuels to corn + cows + chickens to humans.

We are a top predator, like lions and sharks and whales. Why have humans forgotten that there is a limit to the planet’s carrying capacity for our species, just as there is a limit to the carrying capacity for sharks and whales and mountain lions?

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

I do believe there are alternative schemes that could get the job done. I not saying that we could turn on a dime and all of sudden be putting out the same output we are currently without oil, but I believe at some point in the future we will.

You’re right – alternatives will have to be put in place. But they will not likely be able to support our present or projected population.

 

[Nate13]

Nate13, modern agriculture is essentially a way of turning oil and gas into food. Dale Allen Pfeiffer articulates this in Eating Fossil Fuels (2004). Sunlight is renewable and finite, and can probably indefinitely support one or two billion people. The additional 5-7 billion (if we reach nine billion in 2050) are fed by the one-time bonanza of non-renewable fossil fuels. In Pfeiffer’s words:

“Human beings (like all other animals) draw their energy from the food they eat. Until the last century, all of the food energy available on this planet was derived from the sun through photosynthesis. Either you ate plants or you ate animals that fed on plants, but the energy in your food was ultimately derived from the sun.”

“It would have been absurd to think that we would one day run out of sunshine. No, sunshine was an abundant, renewable resource, and the process of photosynthesis fed all life on this planet. It also set a limit on the amount of food that could be generated at any one time, and therefore placed a limit upon population growth. Solar energy has a limited rate of flow into this planet. To increase your food production, you had to increase the acreage under cultivation, and displace your competitors. There was no other way to increase the amount of energy available for food production. Human population grew by displacing everything else and appropriating more and more of the available solar energy.”

“Solar energy is a renewable resource limited only by the inflow rate from the sun to the earth. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are a stock-type resource that can be exploited at a nearly limitless rate. However, on a human timescale, fossil fuels are nonrenewable. They represent a planetary energy deposit which we can draw from at any rate we wish, but which will eventually be exhausted without renewal. The Green Revolution tapped into this energy deposit and used it to increase agricultural production.”

fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

What about a hydroelectric damn that provides power to create artificial sunlight that can be used to grow crops? Then its no longer about grabbing land to grow crops since you could be potentially be growing crops underground if you wanted to and you can grow crops at all times of the year. The answer to how many people the Earth can support long term can only be determined when you figure out how much renewable energy we have access too.

 

[Contarini]

There is a very evident problem.

I’ll give two common examples. We are not supposed to kill others, or more specifically murder innocents. However, as we know from the Old Testament that God did just that through His people.

No–we know that the Israelites interpreted God’s will that way. We don’t even know that it ever happened exactly as described–the language is almost certainly hyperbolic.

Naturally, God has His own motives that we may never understand. Yet, if we are to believe that the 10 Commandments are infallible and irreformable, this is objectively evil and can never happen again, because of the Church’s understanding of infallibility.

If something is objectively evil, then it was always wrong. Objectively evil doesn’t mean that it was once OK but will never happen again. You have some very strange ideas. . .

The same argument can be made for divorce. God allowed it before, and could allow it again if He so chooses for reason unknown to us.

No, absolutely not. God reveals Himself more and more fully throughout Scripture. Jesus’ teachings are the fullest revelation of what God wanted all along.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

1. you continue to assume innocence. Please state on what grounds and how said grounds apply to the time period we are talking about.

Children under the age of reason are innocents, and killing them is always a grave evil. Period. If any thing is true morally, this is. If this is not true, then there is no point having any ethics at all.

“Time period” has absolutely nothing to do with it.

1. your caught up not in what God did but the method by which he used to achieve that goal correct? Can you not see why the method wouldn’t matter when we are talking about God?

Sure it matters. In what sense God “kills” people directly is a complex issue. God works through second causes. When those second causes are humans, and the humans are killing innocent humans (which would include any children below the age of reason), then objective evil is taking place, which means that God cannot really be commanding such horrific actions. Period.

Edwin

 

[StAnastasia]

What about a hydroelectric damn that provides power to create artificial sunlight that can be used to grow crops? Then its no longer about grabbing land to grow crops since you could be potentially be growing crops underground if you wanted to and you can grow crops at all times of the year. The answer to how many people the Earth can support long term can only be determined when you figure out how much renewable energy we have access too.

I’m sure hydoponics has a role in the future. But sites for megadams are largely tapped out.

The fascinating question is why we are so insistent upon maintaining a huge and unsustainable human population. Much of the great music, art, theology and science of Homo sapiens was produced before 1859, when the human population stood at one billion people. If our human population were gradually reduced to carrying capacity through attrition and a smaller average family size of perhaps two children, we might be able to reach long-term sustainability (tens of thousands of years into the future) at a stable population of around 1-2 billion people.

Will humanity do this voluntarily? Probably not. We will probably watch nature trim the excess for us through famine, epidemics, mass ecological migrations, resource wars, and random spasms of genocide as happened in Rwanda.

StAnastasia

 

[Nate13]

Warrior, it’s odd how this is an all-or-nothing question for some people: they think we mean that either you can have unlimited human procreation and an infinite number of humans, or you have none at all.

As you know, life is a matter of energy transfer: energy is transferred from krill and plankton through a marine food chain to support a finite number sharks and whales. Energy is transferred from acorns and grass to deer and finally to a finite number of mountain lions. Today energy is transferred from fossil fuels to corn + cows + chickens to humans.

We are a top predator, like lions and sharks and whales. Why have humans forgotten that there is a limit to the planet’s carrying capacity for our species, just as there is a limit to the carrying capacity for sharks and whales and mountain lions?

StAnastasia

From everything your telling me isn’t NFP the long term solution for the human race in regulating births? I have no problem conceding that this will be necessary in the near future for many families. In a system without widespread distribution capabilities how do you propose to get condoms and birth control pills to everyone? I’m pretty sure a lot of condoms require petroleum products to be produced. NFP would seem to be the obvious solution as well as ecological breastfeeding. The temperature reading method may be impossible for widespread use, but the other methods are still on the table and have been proven effective in third world countries. If you foresee us having problems with transporting crops throughout the country then I assume we would also have problems making and shipping contraceptives around the country as well correct? Are you a proponent of teaching everyone NFP in preparation for the oncoming crisis you are predicting?

 

[Contarini]

Your continued use of derogatory terms such as “mocking,” “purile,” etc., is, quite simply, pathetic.

That said, I’m not creating a straw man. I’m simply having a theological discussion. It makes since to me that if infallible means “free from error,” God can simply do as He pleases, including acts that we might perceive as immoral (e.g., slaughter of the Canaanites). If it means anything more, as it currently does, God cannot do these things without what we perceive as serious theological contradictions.

The reason I have these questions is because anything that has the appearance of tying the Hands of God raises my hackles. Naturally, you think think that is unfounded and inherently evil, and worthy of mocking and denigrating…how dare one think that God is Almightly!

God is limited only by His own nature. The moral law is not an arbitrary set of rules designed by God which could have been otherwise, but a reflection of God’s own nature and the nature He chose to give us. (How much of that latter could have been different is more dubious–could God have created a rational species with three sexes, for instance? We don’t know, because as far as we know He didn’t. It’s possible that the duality with which He made us is an essential part of any creature made in the image of God–but it’s also possible, from my perspective, that it isn’t.)

If you don’t believe that God has a nature and that we can say that certain things are compatible with that nature and certain things aren’t, then you have no reason to worship God at all.

If you worship God solely for His power and not His goodness, then you are in principle engaging in a form of demon worship.

Edwin

 

[buffalo]

Not for our present population. And the “abiotic origin of oil” is a crackpot theory.

Sources?

 

[Nate13]

I’m sure hydoponics has a role in the future. But sites for megadams are largely tapped out.

The fascinating question is why we are so insistent upon maintaining a huge and unsustainable human population. Much of the great music, art, theology and science of Homo sapiens was produced before 1859, when the human population stood at one billion people. If our human population were gradually reduced to carrying capacity through attrition and a smaller average family size of perhaps two children, we might be able to reach long-term sustainability (tens of thousands of years into the future) at a stable population of around 1-2 billion people.

Will humanity do this voluntarily? Probably not. We will probably watch nature trim the excess for us through famine, epidemics, mass ecological migrations, resource wars, and random spasms of genocide as happened in Rwanda.

StAnastasia

You only need a low birth rate when you have a low death rate. With the end of petroleum and the crisis you are proposing to occur I doubt our health care system will be anywhere near what it is currently. I’ve already mentioned multiple times that developed countries already have birth rates where you would like them to be. The only reason the population continues to go up today is because of less developed countries. I highly doubt the replacement rate is going to stay anywhere close to 2 children when the energy crisis hits.

 

[Contarini]

As for God’s motives for killing innocents don’t you think if anyone is qualified to determine who is innocent and who is not innocent it is God?

It is Catholic teaching that children before the age of reason are innocent, and that killing the innocent is always wrong. This is natural law–it is something we know because we are made in God’s image and our reason participates (imperfectly) in the mind of God. It is one of the things that we know most certainly. If we doubt that, we have no reason for believing anything at all.

I think you are making assumptions that you cannot back. And what does it really mean when God “kills” someone? If someone dies from cancer couldn’t we technically say that God “killed” them? Thus when God went through Egypt and killed all the first born sons who are we to challenge God and why does that surprise us? If they had all died “naturally” of a disease would we have the same problem? Are not the disease and the “Angel of Lord” created by the same person?

The destroying angel may well have been a demon. It’s hard to be sure how to talk about it because most of the OT doesn’t make this distinction very clearly.

God certainly uses destructive forces for His purposes. I question whether it’s theologically most accurate to speak of God directly “killing” anyone. But certainly when we speak of God commanding humans to do something, then we’re on clearer moral ground. We know it is always wrong for humans to kill children. Therefore, we know that God cannot ever have commanded any such thing.

Edwin

 

[StAnastasia]

Sources?

There are no such sources of oil – it’s not an abiotic product. Oil and gas and coal are products of geological history – organic material laid down hundreds of millions of years ago and cooked under specific pressures and temperatures.

 

[buffalo]

There are no such sources of oil – it’s not an abiotic product. Oil and gas and coal are products of geological history – organic material laid down hundreds of millions of years ago and cooked under specific pressures and temperatures.

I was looking for you to provide sources to back your claim.

 

[Nate13]

It is Catholic teaching that children before the age of reason are innocent, and that killing the innocent is always wrong. This is natural law–it is something we know because we are made in God’s image and our reason participates (imperfectly) in the mind of God. It is one of the things that we know most certainly. If we doubt that, we have no reason for believing anything at all.

The destroying angel may well have been a demon. It’s hard to be sure how to talk about it because most of the OT doesn’t make this distinction very clearly.

God certainly uses destructive forces for His purposes. I question whether it’s theologically most accurate to speak of God directly “killing” anyone. But certainly when we speak of God commanding humans to do something, then we’re on clearer moral ground. We know it is always wrong for humans to kill children. Therefore, we know that God cannot ever have commanded any such thing.

Edwin

“So Moses said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. 5 Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well.”
Exodus 11:4-6

"Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. 2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” "
1 Samuel 15:1-3

God did order Harem warfare and the killing of infants… Saul is later reprimanded by God for leaving some of the animals alive… Unless your arguing that these words are misplaced then I don’t see what the point is in denying it happened. This type of warfare was also practiced in the Middle Ages. If a city would not surrender, everyone inside would be killed.