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Sailor_Kenshin
Guest
Amen! And not support this eugenics-in-disguise nonsense.
Overpopulation thread: how many planets does your lifestyle require?
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StAnastasia
Guest
Energy is what all species of life needs to survive. We are currently enjoying a population boom of our species made possible by cheap and plentiful fossil fuels. When those are exhausted, the population will crash back to levels sustainable by the annual (name removed by moderator)ut of energy from the sun.
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Arandur
Guest
Are you aware that the “annual (name removed by moderator)ut of energy from the sun” is almost unimaginably vast, and that even all the organic matter of the world uses only a tiny fraction of it? Or the energy potential available in alternative energy sources? There is enough wind energy, if harnessed, to power all our world’s projected energy needs into the future. Same goes for geothermal energy, nuclear (fission, and certainly fusion, with the first plant currently under construction) energy, and solar energy. Any one of these could provide plentiful energy, and we have many to choose from. With over a century before fossil fuels really start running out, and with the natural shift from scarce resources to more abundant resources that is driven by the price mechanism, I don’t see any population crash due to insufficient energy.
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AmberDale
Guest
Mine was 4.1 and I think most of it was energy use. 
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StAnastasia
Guest
We’ll reach peak oil production sometime in the next five years, followed by continuous decline. Renewables will help out somewhat, but it takes petroleum and other liquiid to harness and deliver the renewables.
Infinite population growth is not possible on a finite planet, so we will reach zero population growth at some point. This will be accomplished either through voluntary limitation of births, or through trimming of the excess population by starvation, disease, and resource wars,
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Arandur
Guest
Peak oil, if it happens (there’s much debate among the experts about that), is a price phenomena. It does not indicate that oil is almost gone. As things become increasingly scarce, they go up in price. Price increases encourage transitions to other things. It’s pretty simple.
I wasn’t arguing that population growth can occur infinitely on this planet, and I have said population is regulated naturally (and should not be done otherwise). You suggested a crash would occur because we would run out of oil. Problem is, we won’t be running out of oil any time soon and have plenty of energy alternatives, and current technology can support population growth projections. So no crash is likely. There will likely be regional famines and such, and we should do our best to prevent them, but this has always occurred. When we’re talking about predictions over the earth as a whole, gloom and doom prophecies simply don’t hold water.
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StAnastasia
Guest
Do you mean “phenomenon”? (“phenomena” is plural)
We are close to the peak of current oil production, and no major discoveries have been made in quite a while. Of course there are alternative sources of energy, but they all require the (name removed by moderator)ut of petroleum from our declining reserves. You can’t manufacture, transport, install and maintain such things as solar panels, wind turbines, and tidal installations without the (name removed by moderator)ut of liquid fossil fuels. Farming is also overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels for the planting, fertilization, harvesting, transporting, processing, and distribution of foodstuffs.
I certainly hope we won’t suffer a major population crash. One way to avoid that would be to reduce population gradually through education and the voluntary limitation of family size.
StAnastasia
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flyingfish
Guest
The developed countries would need to switch because the conventional techniques are not sustainable. We were talking about an indefinitely sustainable scenario.
The 30% increase applies only to land that is being farmed with inadequate pesticides and fertilizers. Look at how much farmland is in Latin America, are you really going to claim that all of that farmland (or for that matter even all farmland in Africa) is farmed without “sufficient” fertilizers/pesticides? The world is not divided into first and third world nations, there is a lot of inbetween.
(And the different studies that you linked talked about different organic farming too, some of which merely reduced fertilizer use by 50%- a lot to be sure, but still dependent on fossil fuels.)
Well, that number is the only one I have seen so far. The optimistic camp is not providing a number on how many people could be supported if the whole world switched over to sustainable farming techniques.
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StAnastasia
Guest
Good point. We know that the earth supported one billion people in 1859, the year petroleum was first put to commercial and agricultural use, including fertilizers, tractors, combine harvesters, trucks, and food processing plants. Perhaps the solar sustainable carrying capacity of the planet is around one billion, or perhaps that number could be doubled. That’s one fifth of the projected ten billion we’ll have on earth by 2100…
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WinterWH
Guest
Natural resources are virtually limitless.
The only limits are our imagination and innovation. But we have imagination and innovation and Divine Inspiration and thus for centuries we have constantly made new discoveries.
This is from today’s newspaper:
ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336696274946175
Last week, the news stories were about the world’s largest oil field … off the coast of Brazil.
Everywhere you look, there is ample energy, water, and food. The only time limits occur is when government bureaucrats get involved and prevent development.
The only limits are our imagination and innovation. But we have imagination and innovation and Divine Inspiration and thus for centuries we have constantly made new discoveries.
This is from today’s newspaper:
ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336696274946175
Last week, the news stories were about the world’s largest oil field … off the coast of Brazil.
Everywhere you look, there is ample energy, water, and food. The only time limits occur is when government bureaucrats get involved and prevent development.
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StAnastasia
Guest
Not in the mathematics of ordinary people. Finite planets have finite resources. Brazil’s find will last a few years, at our rate of 80 million barrels per day.
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Arandur
Guest
Read the Food and Agriculture Organization information from your link; follow the arrows at the bottom to the other articles. And the FAO, as part of the UN, and indeed as part of any government, tends towards the more alarmist view, because that’s the only view that can justify more money and more government intervention. And yet they still are comfortable that current methodologies, stepped up some in their distribution, can readily take care of all projected population growth, even assuming a continued shift from agricultural workers to industrial workers and a decline in proportions of people in poverty by 50%.
You’re simply wrong, and you’re not bothering to research, apparently being happy in your ignorance and agenda-pushing. You asked for sources, I gave you some, and you found another that strongly supports my position (the FAO), and yet you’re still not happy, not willing to really consider them. I don’t see the point in continuing a discussion with you.
You should go back and read some previous discussion on here.
No new discoveries? Nonsense.
arabnews.com/?page=6§ion=0&article=44011&d=29&m=4&y=2004
“Experience shows that initial estimates of the size of newly discovered oil fields are usually too low. As years pass, successive estimates of the ultimate recovery of fields tend to increase. The term reserve growth refers to the typical increases in estimated ultimate recovery that occur as oil fields are developed and produced.[3]”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Reserves_growth
runet.edu/~wkovarik/oil/
Then there’s Russia’s wild explorations in vast Siberia, and its attempts to claim the Arctic Circle a few years back because of the vast oil potential beneath it. Then there’s the vast unexplored offshore reserves that are now recoverable, but we’ve hardly even started looking.
Then there’s oil shale, recently more economically viable, with Alberta, Canada going nuts to develop. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale
"A 2005 estimate set the total world resources of oil shale at 411 gigatons — enough to yield 2.8 to 3.3 trillion barrels (520 km3) of shale oil.[2][3][4][5] This exceeds the world’s proven conventional oil reserves, estimated at 1.317 trillion barrels (209.4×10^9 m3), as of 1 January 2007.[22] The largest deposits in the world occur in the United States in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming; about 70% of this resource lies on land owned or managed by the United States federal government.[23] Deposits in the United States constitute 62% of world resources; together, the United States, Russia and Brazil account for 86% of the world’s resources in terms of shale-oil content.[20] "
The fact is, the world has more oil and fossil fuels than we know what to do with. We’re on track to transition almost entirely away from them long, long before we ever come close to tapping them all. Even assuming most of the gloom and doom scenarios, we’re still on track and able to transition, we just may go through some expensive times. So what? Price is a natural driver of innovation and transitioning to more sustainable alternatives, because sustainability is the ultimate control of scarcity, which drives price.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
^World energy reserves, in which the summary speaks of the amount of solar energy available. Ultimately, if scarcity demands a shift to solar, existing technology can provide totally renewable sources, even for transportation (through electricity, cellulosic/waste ethanol, waste natural gas, algae biodiesel, etc) and fertilization (manure, human-generated wastes, plant matter, nitrogen fixation, ultimately the high-efficiency hydroponic nutrient solutions).
I addressed earlier how this, depending on how it’s done, can run contrary to the Church’s values on life and faith in God and providence, sacrificing it for idolatrous faith in a false environmental movement.
The mainstream camp includes the FAO somewhere on that spectrum, and they’re not concerned about our ability to sustain projected future population growth. Indeed, their statistics show that maximized sustainable efficiency would be able to support vastly higher populations than the projected peak (as seen in their treatment of available self-sustaining arable land and sustainable farming methods).
What nonsense! I ask again, do you have any idea how much solar energy is available? That includes wind. And then there’s geothermal and tidal energies. Do some research. I provided you with a start above.
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StAnastasia
Guest
Poppycock. The annual solar (name removed by moderator)ut sustained about one billion people prior to our tapping the one-time bonanza of fossil fuels.
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flyingfish
Guest
Ref: peak oil
New finds are being made, but at the same time existing reserves are declining in their rate of output. New finds are not compensating for this decline.
theoildrum.com/uploads/28/PU200611_Fig3.png
theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/13/225447/79
Ref farming: We look at the same thing and see different results, no point in continuing this discussion really.
One thing I’ll say though about “untapped farmland”, what do you think is on that farmland now, especially in Latin America (think rainforest)? How much of that do you think is habitat for other species?
I personally am not okay with decimating the source of life for countless other species simply so that we could increase our numbers.
New finds are being made, but at the same time existing reserves are declining in their rate of output. New finds are not compensating for this decline.
theoildrum.com/uploads/28/PU200611_Fig3.png
theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/13/225447/79
Ref farming: We look at the same thing and see different results, no point in continuing this discussion really.
One thing I’ll say though about “untapped farmland”, what do you think is on that farmland now, especially in Latin America (think rainforest)? How much of that do you think is habitat for other species?
I personally am not okay with decimating the source of life for countless other species simply so that we could increase our numbers.
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Arandur
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I stress again, do some research. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
Your one billion figure is only based on a snapshot of population during a time with vastly inferior technologies and when population was still growing–it had not reached a carrying capacity limit, and much land under cultivation today was not under cultivation then.
Apply modern sustainable technologies and the picture is much different than it was 150 years ago. Your ridiculous number plucking takes none of that into account. Engage your mind and just think about it a little.
Flyingfish, if you ever bother to read anything, you may learn something. Your own link, right around the area of the chart you cited and misinterpreted, addresses your concerns about the type of land (and this is “rainfed” cropland, by the way). Just open your eyes and read.
“At present some 1.5 billion ha of land is used for arable and permanent crops, around 11 percent of the world’s surface area. A new assessment by FAO and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) of soils, terrains and climates compared with the needs of and for major crops suggests that a further 2.8 billion ha are to some degree suitable for rainfed production. This is almost twice as much as is currently farmed.”
“Between the early 1960s and the late 1990s, world cropland grew by only 11 percent, while world population almost doubled. As a result, cropland per person fell by 40 percent, from 0.43 ha to only 0.26 ha. Yet, over this same period, nutrition levels improved considerably and the real price of food declined.”
There are plenty of other details addressing your concern, including percentages of land in various states of use or habitat. Given those two quotes above, only some 5% of that available land would mimic that 1960s to 1990s pattern. Only 11% of the worlds surface is used in agriculture. And that chart of yours shows that “Industrial Countries” use less than half of their available land (and we’ve got TONS of space left, particularly in the U.S. for wilderness), while Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa are using barely a fifth of their available space. Thus, there’s plenty of land available for the agriculture necessary to sustain even another doubling of population (which would only require a small fraction of that land be put to use) while still leaving the vast majority of the world unfarmed.
In summary, the FAO has this to say:
“Fears of an imminent crunch between population growth and land availability are unwarranted. Most future growth in crop production will stem from improved yields. In some countries, however, land shortages may bite.”
Live in fear and ignorance if you want, but don’t spread them.
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StAnastasia
Guest
Flyingfish, I like your graph. I’m working with a Roman Catholic group on the ethical implications of approaching peak oil (we are writing a book on the topic), and we are very concerned about the ethical implications of the decline of petroleum. This is likely to be quite destabilizing, such as in Mexico where the Cantarell oil field is beginning to decline. The price of foodstuffs m,ade from corn is likely to skyrocket as more corn is diverted to the production of biofuels. Some biofuels are of course net energy losers, such as ethanol.
Like you, I worry about the fate of our fellow travelers on this planet. Orangutans are at risk as Indonesia decimates its indigenous forests for palm oil production. (cspinet.org/palm/). If the human population were to stabilize at two or three billion, it would allow us to secure more global habitat for biodiversity. Respect for nature is a Catholic imperative!
StAnastasia
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flyingfish
Guest
When I read that quote, I interpret it as saying that an additional 2.8 ha are to some degree suitable for rainfed production, not that it is already “rainfed cropland”.
You say I need to open my eyes and read… Well the quote immediately after that says:
Then later in the article
How much fertilizer can you get without fossil fuels, what happens when those run out and we can’t make any out of fossil fuels?
That article doesn’t address the issue of what happens when fossil fuels run out. I only quoted it for the location of the arable land in the world. That entire report is titled:
"World agriculture:
towards 2015/2030"
It realy doesn’t talk about sustainable methods that can keep us all fed without fossil fuels, it just talks about ramping up the existing methods to feed us in 2015/2030.
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Arandur
Guest
I never suggested anything else.
Oh, I’m well aware. Do the math. That’s 60%, leaving 40%. 40% of a number that’s almost twice existing amount of agricultural land means that’s about an 80% available. We only need about 5-6% expansion to match the increase that happened from the 60’s to the 90’s, like I said. And the FAO doesn’t even bank on increasing the amount of arable land, confident that needs can be met through productivity increases.
You love to look for tiny little quotes that even though in context they work against you, you want to promote your agenda. Then you refuse to read the wider articles, the context, or the conclusions drawn, like FAO’s summary conclusion I posted above.
Frankly, I think you’re extremely intellectually dishonest.
Oh, plenty. FAO has extensive resources on Conservation Agriculture and Organic Agriculture, both of which result in much better soil quality without relying on artificial fertilizers.
And yet again, you are perpetuating the idiotic falsehood that fossil fuels are going to suddenly run out. There’s so much of it out there that, particularly when the main use (transportation) is reduced over the next several decades, the supply will stretch out for centuries, long, long after population has stabilized. Plus, there’s plenty of untapped potential in natural organic fertilizers and composting.
Look up Conservation Agriculture and Organic Agriculture at FAO. FAO focuses on spreading sustainable agricultural methods, basing its calculations on this approach.
fao.org/ag/ca/
fao.org/organicag/
Again, FAO recognizes that the problem is not production, but distribution, and localized problems, a problem they call “Food Security” and that organic agriculture very much addresses.
"Organic agriculture and yields. The performance of organic agriculture on production depends on the previous agricultural management system. An over-simplification of the impact of conversion to organic agriculture on yields indicates that:
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* In industrial countries, organic systems decrease yields; the range depends on the intensity of external (name removed by moderator)ut use before conversion;
* In the so-called Green Revolution areas (irrigated lands), conversion to organic agriculture usually leads to almost identical yields;
* In traditional rain-fed agriculture (with low-(name removed by moderator)ut external (name removed by moderator)uts), organic agriculture has the potential to increase yields.Peak oil is, for your case, at best a highly debated concept, and it relates to price, not suddenly running out. There are many reasons that increased oil prices would be a good thing–in fact, the environmental movement as a whole tends to very much want oil prices to increase.
2-3 billion? Where do you get that?
Apparently I need to repost some things from page 5 for you:
Using NFP because you believe there are not enough resources in the world is gravely immoral because you are placing your faith not in God, but in an environmental movement that has lied to you about the availability of resources, one that values vague environmental aesthetics far more than it values people. That is a faith that is antithetical to faith in God. It is idolatry.
Placing your faith in the environmental movement and not in God. It offends the dignity of the person and the value of life by saying that life is an offense against nature and should not be procreated. It is antithetical to our life-affirming faith and trust in God.
Find me one place anywhere that the Church has supported population control.
“Population Is Proving To Be An Asset, Not A Factor That Contributes To Poverty…The extermination of millions of unborn children, in the name of the fight against poverty.”
catholic.org/internationa…y.php?id=31054
thefreelibrary.com/The+Po…ef)-a093209986-a093209986)
catholicexchange.com/2009/07/15/120358/
The pope pointed out that population growth has led to a result in poverty, saying that, in 1981, around 40% of the world’s population was below the threshold of absolute poverty and indicating that percentage has been reduced by half despite population growth in some of the worst areas.
“This goes to show that resources to solve the problem of poverty do exist, even in the face of an increasing population,” the pontiff said.
“Moreover, among the most developed nations, those with higher birth-rates enjoy better opportunities for development. In other words, population is proving to be an asset, not a factor that contributes to poverty,” Pope Benedict concluded.
lifenews.com/int1039.html
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Arandur
Guest
You think humans are the problem and want them to die off. The Church teaches that humans are the solution, and that God made the earth FOR us, not vice versa. So the Church promotes ways of caring for both humans and the environment, and indeed the facts show that we have plenty of sustainable technologies by which to do so, our use of those technologies is trending well in that direction, and the trends also point to increasingly better use of our resources even with population growth.
By all means, be a humanist gaia worshipper, but don’t claim that your idolatry, particularly when it is so ignorant of basic facts and thrives so much on fear, is Catholic.
By all means, be a humanist gaia worshipper, but don’t claim that your idolatry, particularly when it is so ignorant of basic facts and thrives so much on fear, is Catholic.
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