Human population growth - fun fact
Discussion
JuanCarlosFandango said:
otolith said:
At a cost. None of this stuff is free. The cost is that we’re all going to have to settle for a poorer standard of living.
That relies on 2 tenuous assumptions. Firstly that use of resources is the only way of improving our standard of living. It isn't. People in flats in Chelsea have a far higher standard of living than people farming a few acres of scrub land in Mali, so land is not a limit. And if I double my income I won't eat twice as much. In fact I probably wouldn't eat any more at all. Secondly, it assumes that these extra people don't produce anything. In fact they often produce more than they consume. People are vastly more productive than they were, and more people will continue to produce more as long as technology keeps improving.
On land use in particular, a figure which always surprises me is that the UK as a whole is about 60 million acres. That is nearly 1 acre per person for the current population, and easily two acres per household. True that your plot might be in Orkney or some boggy field but it doesn't matter because we aren't going to divide it up that way.
The point is that one of the most densely populated countries in the world is not running out of space. It may be a localised problem in certain hotspots but planning and more efficient use of resources could vastly improve this.
France already has about double the land mass for similar population. Spain is even more spacious. And that's just western Europe.
JuanCarlosFandango said:
otolith said:
We are already being told that we must reduce our standard of living - eat less meat, travel less, consume less. Our western standard of living is not sustainable for the current global population, let alone another 50%.
We were being told the same in 1800.REALIST123 said:
I admire your optimism. If that’s what it is and not just blind faith.
It isn't blind faith. The data is there, and it's quite clear that development leads to a levelling in population. Europe and Japan already have this problem. It isn't entirely unqualified optimism. If development stops or goes into reverse and some level of technology and prosperity remains there could well be a brief period where population explodes beyond our ability to provide for it, then wars for resources.
The point is that we should be seeking to develop, educate and enable the people we have rather than simply trying to ensure we don't have any more. It is more possible and more desirable.
JuanCarlosFandango said:
We were being told the same in 1800.
No, we were being told that we would run out of resources if we continued to increase our population. We were not at that time being told that the consequences of our lifestyle were an existential threat, and we didn’t have the rest of the world rapidly catching up.We were able to increase the world’s carrying capacity by doing serious harm to the planet. I find the faith that this process is infinitely scalable to be insanity.
otolith said:
No, we were being told that we would run out of resources if we continued to increase our population. We were not at that time being told that the consequences of our lifestyle were an existential threat, and we didn’t have the rest of the world rapidly catching up.
We were able to increase the world’s carrying capacity by doing serious harm to the planet. I find the faith that this process is infinitely scalable to be insanity.
Not infinitely scalable but self managing. We were able to increase the world’s carrying capacity by doing serious harm to the planet. I find the faith that this process is infinitely scalable to be insanity.
The world is still there.
Population and economics are fundamental to one another. This is the Mother and Father of the entire problem. I’m a Capitalist because it suits me right now but in the future Capitalism will have to fundamentally change. I don’t think it will exist in the same form in 150 years from now.
Crippo said:
Population and economics are fundamental to one another. This is the Mother and Father of the entire problem. I’m a Capitalist because it suits me right now but in the future Capitalism will have to fundamentally change. I don’t think it will exist in the same form in 150 years from now.
AI will be a game changer by then.Dr Jekyll said:
Digga said:
Fine, but are you happy with what has been done to the planet, in order to have sustained the increase to current levels of consumption?
Yes. Would rather famine and poverty was as widespread as 50 years ago?I see this as the key, critical failing of all 'environmentalist' politics; the lack of acknowledgement of the basic fact that it is the numbers as well as the lifestyle and consumption habits of humans which is the problem.
JuanCarlosFandango said:
Less so if you look at the growth rate
That spike in your graph is basically the industrial revolution, which isn't just something that happened 200 years ago in Manchester but something that is still going on across most of the world.
The net result is that like in Victorian Britain people are living longer and having more children who survive childhood. However shortly after that they start to control reproduction, having smaller families later in life.
We are nowhere near an absolute limit on space or natural resources. Look at the enormous swathes of just Canada and Russia that are fertile and sparsely populated. Those two countries alone could probably support another 7 billion in food and water.
A bigger problem will be when the aging population and declining birth rates we see in Europe and Japan become a global phenomenon.
Sorry off topic, but “in Manchester”. A somewhat parochial view, Manchester was in there at the start of the Industrial Revolution but I think you will find it happened all across the north and midlands. The world’s first factory was the Silk Mill in Derby and you may want to read up on what Richard Arkwright, amongst others, contributed in other parts of England.That spike in your graph is basically the industrial revolution, which isn't just something that happened 200 years ago in Manchester but something that is still going on across most of the world.
The net result is that like in Victorian Britain people are living longer and having more children who survive childhood. However shortly after that they start to control reproduction, having smaller families later in life.
We are nowhere near an absolute limit on space or natural resources. Look at the enormous swathes of just Canada and Russia that are fertile and sparsely populated. Those two countries alone could probably support another 7 billion in food and water.
A bigger problem will be when the aging population and declining birth rates we see in Europe and Japan become a global phenomenon.
Digga said:
Dr Jekyll said:
Digga said:
Fine, but are you happy with what has been done to the planet, in order to have sustained the increase to current levels of consumption?
Yes. Would rather famine and poverty was as widespread as 50 years ago?I see this as the key, critical failing of all 'environmentalist' politics; the lack of acknowledgement of the basic fact that it is the numbers as well as the lifestyle and consumption habits of humans which is the problem.
Dr Jekyll said:
Digga said:
Dr Jekyll said:
Digga said:
Fine, but are you happy with what has been done to the planet, in order to have sustained the increase to current levels of consumption?
Yes. Would rather famine and poverty was as widespread as 50 years ago?I see this as the key, critical failing of all 'environmentalist' politics; the lack of acknowledgement of the basic fact that it is the numbers as well as the lifestyle and consumption habits of humans which is the problem.
JuanCarlosFandango said:
The data is there, and it's quite clear that development leads to a levelling in population. Europe and Japan already have this problem.
Well the population of the UK has increased by around 7 million (12%) since the start of the new millennium and from what I can see continues to grow by the best part of 0.5 million every year; meanwhile, in the area I live planning permission for development on greenfield sites is granted regularly and often and as a consequence new houses are thrown-up like confetti to (supposedly) meet a continuing increase in demand. Doesn't feel symptomatic of a levelling in our population to me....JNW1 said:
Well the population of the UK has increased by around 7 million (12%) since the start of the new millennium and from what I can see continues to grow by the best part of 0.5 million every year; meanwhile, in the area I live planning permission for development on greenfield sites is granted regularly and often and as a consequence new houses are thrown-up like confetti to (supposedly) meet a continuing increase in demand. Doesn't feel symptomatic of a levelling in our population to me....
It won't. But I think it's fair to call that localised and (I am not a financial adviser) steer you away from investing in agriculture in Siberia. JNW1 said:
JuanCarlosFandango said:
The data is there, and it's quite clear that development leads to a levelling in population. Europe and Japan already have this problem.
Well the population of the UK has increased by around 7 million (12%) since the start of the new millennium and from what I can see continues to grow by the best part of 0.5 million every year; meanwhile, in the area I live planning permission for development on greenfield sites is granted regularly and often and as a consequence new houses are thrown-up like confetti to (supposedly) meet a continuing increase in demand. Doesn't feel symptomatic of a levelling in our population to me....A huge piece of agricultural land nearby is about to be included in the County Plan as a site for gravel extraction for the construction industry. Smack in the middle of arable crop growing land.
Population growth is the root of just about all of our ‘modern’ problems. But it just seems non PC to openly say so.
Not only that, we continue to subsidise and encourage it. You couldn’t make it up.
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