[ip26]

populations are naturally in slight decline on their own

Yeah, by maybe 10-20% generation over generation. If your target population is 5% of today, and your strategy is to use the natural population decline of Western countries, you aren't getting to those levels for a good 15-25 generations. 400-700 years or so.

[throwawaylinux]

> Yeah, by maybe 10-20% generation over generation.

So my counter-example disproves the absurd claim that any population limitation or reduction requires or devolves into genocide.

> If your target population is 5% of today, and your strategy is to use the natural population decline of Western countries, you aren't getting to those levels for a good 15-25 generations. 400-700 years or so.

I'll assume that math works out for those stated assumptions. So what's the point?

[carbonguy]

The point is probably that, if you believe the biosphere is in crisis NOW, then waiting hundreds of years for human populations to decline is not a solution.

There's an odd disconnect in the comments you've been making where you identify this problem of overpopulation, but seem extremely reticent to describe what you think should be done about this problem you've identified. Maybe I've missed it, and I plan to continue reading the thread to see if that's the case, but if I haven't, let me ask you directly: what, if anything, should be done about human overpopulation?

And if your answer is "nothing, I'm just pointing out it exists" then... well, thanks for contributing, I guess?

[throwawaylinux]

> The point is probably that, if you believe the biosphere is in crisis NOW, then waiting hundreds of years for human populations to decline is not a solution.

I didn't say that waiting for western countries to decline to 5% of their populations was solution. Hope that cleared things up for you.

> There's an odd disconnect in the comments you've been making where you identify this problem of overpopulation, but seem extremely reticent to describe what you think should be done about this problem you've identified. Maybe I've missed it, and I plan to continue reading the thread to see if that's the case, but if I haven't, let me ask you directly: what, if anything, should be done about human overpopulation?

What's really odd is that you think an observation is verboten if it does not come with any solutions! Very strange. I don't think your question is the big gotcha you're hoping for though. In general, policies should be geared toward limiting population growth or reducing it, which as I said then makes all other environmental efforts proportionately less difficult.

Most of the highest consuming countries have naturally declining populations, so one thing would be to leave those alone rather than institute growth policies. Another would be to invest in education, healthcare, and other quality of life measures in other countries which are shown to reduce population growth over time. Another one would be to end global environmental and trade agreements which incentivize countries to boost population and limit quality of life with per-capita concessions. For a few examples.

[arbitrary_name]

Hey, i just want to say i really deeply agree with you, and appreciate the time you are taking to share your views.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Agreed, cheers!

"We should reduce population somewhat."

"Yet you are part of the population. Curious!"

[carbonguy]

> I didn't say that waiting for western countries to decline to 5% of their populations was solution.

I suppose not, though what you say later in this comment is remarkably close:

> Most of the highest consuming countries have naturally declining populations, so one thing would be to leave those alone rather than institute growth policies.

Moving on:

> What's really odd is that you think an observation is verboten if it does not come with any solutions!

Well, all right, you kinda got me there - I do, in fact, believe that observing a problem without suggesting solutions is not particularly helpful in most cases. "Verboten" is too strong a word, though - one should be as free to make pointless remarks as productive ones in a public forum such as this.

And, for what it's worth, I didn't intend my question as a "gotcha" - I appreciate that you actually answered it. Broadly, I agree with you: taking advantage of demographic transition through eg. better education seems like a good tactic, as does avoiding policies that tend to boost consumption.

Unfortunately, since anti-growth policies are antithetical to our current economic order (again, broadly speaking) I'm stuck on what combination of influences would actually synergize to make these changes possible and/or more rapid. Fortunately, I suspect at least one important transition is happening now, in the minds of the people of the world (the wealthy nations particularly) deciding they do not need as much as they are used to having access to.

To be as transparent as possible about why I care about this matter, the perspective on the destruction of the biosphere that I've internalized is that it has gone so far that mass human casualties are likely in my lifetime, and moreover that this will be how I personally die - either directly via environmental effects (heatstroke? fire? flood? famine?) or from the social breakdowns that will multiply as the foundation of our society crumbles away. I consider this outcome existentially bad and want to avoid it, to say the least.

Given this, I very urgently desire solutions that DON'T take 500 years to work, because if those are all we can come up with, then we might as well not bother: this civilization of ours is doomed sooner rather than later.

[throwawaylinux]

> Given this, I very urgently desire solutions that DON'T take 500 years to work, because if those are all we can come up with, then we might as well not bother: this civilization of ours is doomed sooner rather than later.

You keep coming back to that, but it's a strawman. I did not say that is the solution. My hypothetical 5% was just to say that so many difficult problems would suddenly become easy ones.

There is no one solution, there won't be a mere handful of solutions. There will be (and are) many many efforts and they won't "solve" it, they will make some things better and make others less bad. So anything will help, anything is better than nothing. Reducing population growth from 20% to 10% by 2030 means we only have to reduce per capita greenhouse gas emissions by 45% per capita instead of 50% per capita to achieve the same result (to make up some numbers). That's a huge win. And not only does that benefit apply to greenhouse gas emissions, it applies to practically all environmental problems.