[cplease]

@briantakita If you read between the lines, what that says is all of our options are bad.

Unchecked population growth will exceed the limits of any system. No amount of conservation and "permaculture" will reduce the footprint of a nonmiserable human to less than a substantial fraction of what is currently, much less zero. You can't manufacture or farm virgin wilderness by any means. We eclipsed optimum population and blazed by sustainable population in the last millennium. We pay the price in this one.

[Turing_Machine]

"Unchecked population growth will exceed the limits of any system."

Good thing we're not seeing that, then. The world population growth rate has halved since its peak in the early 1960s, and the rate is continuing to decline.

"You can't manufacture or farm virgin wilderness by any means."

Good thing modern farming techniques don't need virgin wilderness, then.

[cplease]

> Good thing we're not seeing that, then. The world population growth rate has halved since its peak in the early 1960s, and the rate is continuing to decline.

Good thing? World population was 3 billion in 1960, in the post-war baby boom when population growth was 9% on an extremely anomalous rebound above historical rates. So, the world added 270M people that year to 3 billion.

In 2012, the world hit 7 billion people with a population growth rate of 4.5%. You are right, the rate was half of the 1960 peak. So, it added 315M people that year to 7 billion.

Now that you've seen the arithmetic, what do you think has a bigger impact on the environment, 270 million people added to 3 billion people, or 315 million people added to 7 billion people, who are consuming a hell of a lot more than they did in 1960?

Easing off the accelerator while the world is driven to hell is nothing to pat ourselves on the back for. We need to slam the brakes and go in reverse.

> Good thing modern farming techniques don't need virgin wilderness, then.

Let's just pave and plow every single inch of the planet until we have a lifeless moonscape then. Do you know nothing about ecology? Have you never taken a hike off the beaten track?

[Turing_Machine]

"Let's just pave and plow every single inch of the planet"

How does "we don't need to use virgin wilderness" equate to "let's pave and plow every single inch of the planet"?

Be specific.

"We need to slam the brakes and go in reverse."

I'll repeat what I said to the other guy: you first.

In fact, virtually every advanced society is either population-neutral or actually losing people.

WRT: "Have you never taken a hike off the beaten track?"

I grew up without electricity or running water, and currently live in Alaska.

You?

[cplease]

> How does "we don't need to use virgin wilderness" equate to "let's pave and plow every single inch of the planet"? Be specific.

Virtual all arable land is already cultivated and grazable pasture is cowburnt now with population 7B. The notion that it's not a problem to scale up because we can just keep chopping down rainforests for lumber, soy and palm oil plantations etc is sickening. No, agriculture doesn't need wilderness, but the inhabitants of earth do.

> I'll repeat what I said to the other guy: you first.

I have << 2.1 children; I've done my part.

> In fact, virtually every advanced society is either population-neutral or actually losing people.

So what? The rest of the world is churning out babies and are more than eager to move. Overpopulation is a global problem. Arithmetic again. Mathematically and physically of course population growth will end at some point. But it's the major driver of all the major social, environmental, and political problems facing nations and the earth today, and it's the easiest one to do something about.

Do you think that population growth just slowed down by magic? In developed countries, family planning is universally accessible. In developing countries where overpopulation is most acute, countries with well-run organized population programs like Thailand, Iran, and China have been extremely successful at managing population growth and have reaped the benefits.

[Turing_Machine]

" The notion that it's not a problem to scale up because we can just keep chopping down rainforests for lumber"

You're clearly more interested in preaching that listening to what I say.

Technology increases the yield from current land. By a lot. Thus reducing the need to "pave and plow" more of the planet.

The United States, for instance, has considerably more forest now than it did at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Where do you actually see slash-and-burn agriculture and similar wilderness-destroying methods of farming? Bingo: in the low-tech peasant farming operations that you and the other guy hold out as models.

[cplease]

Where did I hold it out as a model? I said we're not going to feed 7 billion people much less 10 billion with composting toilets and raised beds.

The point is we have industrial agriculture, pesticides, herbicides, and massive amounts of petrofertilizers and other chemicals already widely deployed to artificially increase crop yields providing the great majority of the food supply and we've farmed virtually all arable land already, and food security is still a problem. There will be billions more to feed before population peaks.

What I am saying is that neither modern industrial ag nor permaculture fantasy agriculture or organic farming can sustainably feed the earth's growing population. Population is the problem.