fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1775 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1775 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hi, environmental science student here, thought I'd post a wall of text on something I know a thing or two about.

To say overpopulation is the most pressing issue facing humanity as a whole is actually an understatement. It is a HUGE problem. A dire, dire, massive, Earth-shattering problem. Any sustainability formula one can come up with breaks down once too many humans are added to the mix. We're at 7 billion people now. We've added 5 billion in the past century or two and the number is climbing exponentially. Although the overall worldwide growth rate has SLIGHTLY slowed over the last decade, largely due to China's horribly unpopular one-child policy, we're definitely going to hit 8 billion and probably 9 billion during most of our lifetimes, and 10 billion within the next 200 years. This is way more than the planet SHOULD be able to support, but we're doing ok so far, largely thanks to huge advances in technology in food production, worldwide shipping, and genetic modification. However, those advances require energy. To produce the amount of food that 10 billion people will require would necessitate widespread irrigation practices (utilizing scarce fresh water) and modern tools, such as tractors and farming equipment that run on fossil fuels, which coincidentally we'll be pretty much completely out of around the same time we hit 10 billion.

So, let's pretend we've perfected an electric, gas-free engine and now just need a way to charge it. Where do we get the electricity? Yes, I can hear you all saying "WIND AND SOLAR!" I'm about to say something very important about "renewable" power, something in regards to a major fallacy among proponents of green power, and if you don't pay attention to anything else in this wall of text, I hope you read this:

WIND TURBINES AND SOLAR PANELS DO NOT LAST FOREVER.

Like all machines, they eventually wear out and need to be replaced. Wind turbines have an estimated life span of about 5-7 years and solar panels about 3-5 years. Alright, got that? Now, let me introduce you to a concept called "energy-negativity." It's what happens when you put more energy into something than you get out. To put it simply:

IT TAKES MORE ENERGY TO MANUFACTURE AND INSTALL WIND TURBINES AND SOLAR PANELS THAN THEY WILL PRODUCE OVER THEIR LIFETIMES.

A wind turbine produces about 5 MW per year. However, it takes about 300 MW to manufacture the parts, put them together, install the thing, and then dispose of the worn and broken parts once its life span is up. Where is the rest of the energy supposed to come from? Fossil fuels, of course! Oh wait, there are no fossil fuels. (Interesting side note - metal recycling is also an energy-negative process. It takes more energy to melt the can down and make a new one than it takes to just pull the aluminum out of the earth.)

So let's say nothing changes and we have a situation where we have 10 billion people, and it's not just food and water that are running short, it's energy. Basically, unless miraculous advances in renewable energy come to fruition within the next 200 years, humanity is going to have to face some incredibly difficult choices, ones that make China's one-child policy look like Candyland. Restrictions on childbirth, then mandatory abortions and sterilization would be only be the beginning - in a worst case scenario, we would have to begin a systematic process of extermination worldwide in order to bring population down to a sustainable level. Or we could do nothing and just let the natural carrying capacity of the Earth cause a massive human die-out as it would in any other animal overpopulation. Was anyone alive in the 70's during the one year when New York State outlawed deer hunting and the deer population go to the point that the forests, streets, backyards, and parks were so littered with dead and dying, starving deer that officials feared a disease outbreak? It'd be like that.

So. Interfering with "reproductive freedom," systematic human extermination, or naturally letting 7 billion people die of starvation and rot. Which one is the cruelest?

Also, on the point of "let's just educate third-world women and make sure that they CHOOSE not to have children." Then they will probably also want clean water, health care, electricity, automobiles, big screen TVs and computers, etc. In other words, they will want a piece of the first world's pie - the first world that uses more energy than all of the other countries in the world combined. If everyone in the world used the same amount of energy as the average person in the United States, we would go through four Earths worth of energy every year. We would have a case where six billion people are using the energy of 12 billion. The same sort of crash would still occur.

Damn. :(

Thank you. I hope everyone in this thread will read this and really think about it.

Those whose opinions are most likely to get shot down in this thread probably already have. I know that the projections show a population drop during my 80s (and that's being optimistic, considering I'm getting close to 30). However, I always ask myself, "Are we going to make it as a species to even see the beginning of that decline?" I think this anon's post is one of the few I've seen that reflects sucha question being asked by others.

I agree with most of this, but the population "problem" isn't as straight and dirty as you make it seem,

First of all, birth rates has actually been declining significantly on its own in the last 12 years in countries without any law being placed (particularly the USA and european countries). Less people are having children and those who do are having less and less babies, so putting up a cap in certain areas would be pretty redundant at this point.

Second , you can't just say NO MORE BABIES to every situation. As environmental science student, you should know that population control is not something you can just enforce let alone solve everything. People are like animals and you can pretty much apply conservation rules in this situation. You have to check your male to female ratios (hello China), you have check your current birth rates, you have to check your death rates, and so on. China may have slowed things down, but they also driven themselves into a wall because they didn't think this through enough. Hunting is not easy either because, as much as it would have helped the situation, it is not easy to control hunters and things can get out of hand. There are many factors that affect a population, which is why population control tends to end in a cluster fuck.

It is your job as someone specializing in environmental sciences to make sure people understand that things are complex and restricting "reproductive freedom" and other drastic measures are not things you should jump into. You need a game plan. You can really damage an environment and it's ecosystem without one.

Sorry if If you were being vague and I am jumping off the handle here.

[ SECRET POST #1775 ]

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