I was reading an article the other day that was talking about steps that could be taken to mitigate climate change, the impact each step could be expected to have, and the likelihood of them actually being achievable. It was pretty grim stuff.
There was the usual stuff about renewable energy and going vegan, etc; but interestingly, according to the article, the one theoretical step we could take to impact climate change, which absolutely ECLIPSES all of the others COMBINED, is to reduce the global population.
This reminded me of something I heard on a podcast a few weeks ago. That fertility rates around the world are either in decline, or expected to go into decline in the not-too-distant future. Thus, without immigration—and procreation incentive schemes, like China now has—the populations of most nations would already naturally be decreasing. Unfortunately, the global population is still expected to rise by a couple of billion over the next century. Apparently, almost all of that growth is projected to come out of the African continent.
So, putting these two pieces of information together—and assuming they're both actually correct—it would appear that our best shot at reigning in climate change, would be to incentivise some sort of population control in Africa. Something which might actually be feasible, considering how dependent Africa is on foreign aid.
If somebody as dumb as I am can put two and two together, I have to imagine that people a lot smarter than me have come to the same conclusion. I can therefore only assume that either the information ISN'T correct, or that the reason nobody in a position of authority has suggested this approach, is because they're afraid of being labelled racist. Of course, a third option is that our economic structures require continued population growth in order to remain viable, and nobody wants to risk upsetting that apple cart, even if it means we all fry in the end anyway.
Which then begs the question, how serious is climate change, and if it really is the worst danger the human race has ever faced, are these the sorts of things we SHOULD be talking about?
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I don't really see how Africa's projected pop. growth can be avoided unless women are educated and empowered overnight so we may as well take that growth as a given. It's highly possible that the effects of climate change and *pollution will reduce global population substantially but in a horrific, dystopian kind of way. It's all a bit depressing, esp.(ironically) if you have kids
*micro plastics, nuclear waste etc
At this stage, I'm just hoping that I die before the worst of it hits, or I have enough money to mitigate the effects (ie, pay for air conditioning)
But yes, I think people should be penalised for having more than one child - on a global basis. It's the only thing that will work.
Squib, what you could do is push/assist African countries to introduce incentives for people to have themselves steralised. You could also tie the outcomes of these programs to foreign aid and/or trade sanctions. So basically, if the people refused voluntary steralisation, the alternative would be famine/disease/economic-collapse, which would probably devastate the population anyway.
Sounds absolutely horrific doesn't it? But is that better or worse than the alternative?
The problem with that Alex is it sounds a lot like eugenics, which has been verboten since Nazi Germany.
I actually think back to the African famines in the 80s and wonder whether it was such a good thing to provide aid on the scale we did, because look now, every woman that survived that famine has probably had 3-4 or more kids and each of those would be busy breeding now too. Now putting that into words makes me sound like a horrible monster. But in my defense, the planet would not be in the state it's in now - and heading towards a horribly dystopian future - if there were a lot less of us. I've thought long and hard about it, and have found myself wondering if perhaps a supervirus isn't the best solution, and if the planet is going to create them, could it please hurry up before too much more damage is done? And before you ask, yes, I am aware such a virus would likely kill me and so be it. Because the first ten or so years after a large-scale plague would be pretty awful (breakdown of society and the food chain for those of us living in cities and so on), so if I was one of the victims, so be it.
So, basically, not being compared to the Nazis is more important than saving civilisation.
It's funny you bring up the super-virus thing. There's a couple of people I listen to who used to be basically libertarian—arguing against airport-security etc, on the grounds that the threat of terrorism is monstrously overblown—they've completely flipped since the first big Ebola scare. Their mantra now is that the disease you have to worry about is the one that hasn't mutated into existence yet. They've also become staunch critics on the over use of antibiotics and the under use of vaccines.
Personally, I don't know if I agree with the notion of limiting all non-essential international travel, but I don't think they're wrong with their assessment either.
Yeah, a Nazi is the worst thing you can be. But my point was, unless those anti-breeding programs are enforced/backed by the govt of the nation, it looks too much like racism/eugenics. Actually unless such a ZPG/NPG program was global, it would be racist anyway.
And as a hospital worker, I was terrified of Ebola as well (thankfully, my hospital is not the designated Infectious Disease hospital in Melbs, BUT during the crisis the ambulances mistakenly took potential cases to the wrong hospitals, so still a concern), but it never amounted to much (though there is an outbreak at the moment in DRC IIRC). But anyway, unless some engineered virus escapes from a facility (ala The Stand), I can't really see it happening.
I have been hearing all about the outbreak in DRC through the aforementioned ex-libertarians. According to them, this one has the potential to be quite a bit worse than the previous one, because it's happening in a war-zone, so it's effectively impossible to treat/contain.
On the question of whether policies are or aren't racist: If a country had a policy to tackle crime in the top ten worst metropolitan areas, and it just happened that all ten of them were populated primarily by ethnic minorities—for the sake of the hypothetical, let's assume everything's above board, and these areas are indeed the most crime-ridden shitholes in the country—do you reckon that policy would still be fundamentally racist, due to the fact that it disproportionately (though unintentionally) impacts said minorities?
When I was younger, I probably would have said yes. At this point though, probably not. I think as I'm getting older, I'm going from being principled and idealistic to pragmatic and utilitarian.
Wasn't there a conspiracy theory in Africa that western vaccinations were sterilising people? Apart from it being Nazi, it's just not really enforceable. Anyway, looking at the stats, it looks like certain countries (China/USA), still produce a shitload more CO2 than Africa, even taking into account the projected population rise. So when you say reduce the global population, maybe you mean reduce it in those countries? Even that is not straightforward because China's massive carbon footprint is not just from them, it's from all of us buying their stuff
As to a super virus, I totally get why that would be good but as a mother, I can't really say yes, I'd be happy about it. If I didn't have children, would I still welcome it? It's hard to say because I think when it really comes down to it, no one really wants to die, not even for the greater good and esp. not in such an agonising way
Thanos was right then?
(Thanos from Marvel, who believed there were too many people and just randomly wiped out every second one from existence at the same time. They kind of dissolved. It looked like they were surprised, not painful and only lasted a couple of seconds. I'm not sure if those remaining remember them or not, I guess they must because I think the next Marvel film is centred on going back in time to fix that, I think)
My thing about Africa is that it's all very well and good now while they don't produce much CO2, but it'd be delusional not to think that they would aspire to similar lifestyles to ours, which DO produce a lot of CO2. Add that to population rise and you see where I'm going. Not to mention the need to FEED all those people, which again uses resources.
I don't get why being a mother would make a difference to acceptance of the supervirus idea. I have people I care about too, and who'd feed my cat if I died? Likely he'd eat my body then die himself, since he'd be locked in the house. And if the virus was painless? Or, painful for say, ten minutes, then you're dead? (compared to cancer, that sounds good to me)
No, I don't see your point. Even with the projected rise in population AND consumption, Africa will still produce WAY less CO2 than other countries so...
Of course you have people/pets you care about. So do I, but whatever I feel about them pales in comparison to what I feel for my offspring. It's a different kind of love and maybe it's not even that, maybe it's just a biological imperative - whatever it is, I wouldn't give them up to save the planet
And you're not really selling death to me either! I'm not liking the painless virus, the 10 min painful virus, or whatever cancer is on offer
My point is that if everyone in Africa lived the *same* way we do, there's so many more of them, the climate damage would be catastrophic. There's 1.3Bn people in Africa. There's 25 million of us. That would mean their impact would be 52 times that of Australia. That's my point about Africa. (The same applies to China and India BTW - we're already seeing the damage China can do as their Middle Class rises).
I find it insulting that you wouldn't think I would sacrifice anything to ensure that my cat's welfare. You might consider your love for your children to be superior to your love for your cat. However, I have no children to choose above a pet, thus my pet will always come first on that list. Not something that can be jettisoned when it becomes inconvenient, or too hard or whatever. And what use is refusing to put the planet before your offspring if they have to live in some horrible dystopian future where it's 50 degrees and they are mostly starving because food is difficult to grow and really expensive to buy, and reduced to breeding at a young age just for survival, like we were in the pre-agricultural times.
Personally I think death is preferable to those things. Survival should not be at any cost, or at the price of unlimited suffering.
I don't agree. Firstly, Africa is four times the size of Australia. To suppose that they will have the same rate of consumption as us is unlikely, given that it's not sustainable and that the global economy cannot keep rising indefinitely. Secondly, as I keep saying, other countries are projected to have a much larger negative impact via their CO2 emissions. So even though the USA, China, India and most of Europe would fit into Africa size-wise, these countries still produce fantastically way more emissions. Africa is not really the menace here
I think most people would rather live on a rubbish tip (as some people already do) than be dead
Sure you love your cat but your brain didn't physically change when you got it. Unless it gave you toxoplasma
You're missing my point about Africa, which is that my concern is about a theoretical FUTURE Africa where they all live high consumption lifestyles such as we do. The land size is irrelevant, CO2 doesn't disappear into the ground, it goes into the atmosphere and spreads everywhere.
Part of my original point was that—according to the figures I heard/saw (and I have no way of manually verifying them)—populations are naturally decreasing everywhere except Africa and a handful of places where they are artificially incentivising people to breed.
It's therefore not a question of whether we should reduce our population OR they should reduce theirs; it's a question of whether we should reduce ours, AND try to find ways of getting them to reduce theirs AS WELL.
I stand by my original response which is that Africa isn't the problem here
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