Return of the population time bomb

[cedric]

It has become taboo over recent years, but population, not consumption, really is the key to managing our use of the world's resources.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/05/returnofthepopulationtimebomb

[Bobbieo]

1. I figured that out 60 years ago There are too many people on the earth.

and Bush did not help with his Global Gag Order in 2000. Another reason to hate him.

[Terry in Austin]

2. Humans and yeasts

At the scale of large populations of organisms, they tend to show very similar behavior, regardless of the species of the population.

Basically, it's "energy in, population up." As a species, humans do have the distinction of being able to have extrasomatic energy inputs, not just food.

Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel (Duke and Cornell, respectively), in their paper "Human Population Numbers as a Function of Food Supply," made a strong case that increases in the amount of food available actually drives up the population. With our oil-based agriculture, it's no surprise that the population growth curve has closely tracked the energy growth curve.

The so-called Green Revolution thought it was answering the question "how do we add enough food to feed this growing population?" Apparently, it's the same logic as asking "how do we add enough fuel to feed this growing fire?" Answer: it's growing because you're feeding it.

I think this also raises an unexpected point in discussions about potential "high-tech" energy sources. If we did create some breakthrough that provided cheap and abundant energy long-term (fusion, for example), it may turn out that we should be careful what we wish for: all that limitless energy continuing to pump up a population that will eventually push other, even more profound, limits in this finite world.

Given the issues of scale, I don't believe there is significant potential for bringing down the population numbers "from the inside," so to speak. Just as traffic behaves according to its own logic, regardless of the wishes of many individual drivers, so, too, population can be expected to follow its own rules -- among them, "energy in, numbers up" -- regardless of the efforts of many individual humans.

This gets us into that taboo territory. The implications here are that any significant reductions in population will most likely come from external forces -- reduction in energy/food, plague, disasters, etc. While Momma Nature may be serenely indifferent to that, it makes us individual humans a little edgy.

[GliderGuider]

4. Excellent.

I'm a big fan of Hopfenberg and Pimentel, and that paper was seminal for me. Have you seen Hopfenberg's Powerpoint on http://panearth.org/panearth/ ?
It sounds like you've read Dan Quinn as well -- he was the one who first convinced me that the Green Revolution was pat of the cause of the problem, not part of the solution. I like your fuel/fire analogy -- that puts the issue very succinctly.

We've come to exactly the same conclusions.

[Terry in Austin]

7. Quinn, Hopfenberg and Diamond

Haven't read Quinn yet, though from what I've read about him, just making the rounds in the various sustainability/relocalization circles, I'm way overdue. Thanks for the panearth link -- I hadn't realized that he had a website, and the presentation looks very good. Glad to see he mentions Guns, Germs and Steel, which I'd say is also on the essential short reading list.

Appreciate your response -- I've been following your stuff on DU and your blog for a while now. Keep it coming!

[GliderGuider]

8. When you read Quinn

Everyone starts with "Ishmael", mostly because it's his first book I think. It takes a bit of deliberate suspension of disbelief, what with the telepathic gorilla guru and all, but his main message is there. However, "The Story of B" is where the real meat is. The message is laid out more comprehensively, and it's a good introduction to why "Destiny will take care of itself" and "Enlightenment is the only real answer", which have become my philosophical cornerstones in the last six months.

[SCBeeland]

3. I don't think the population problem is ever going to be addressed

A LOT of people are going to die in my lifetime, I know that for sure. Not that I even want to live to be 100, but if I do, I'm willing to bet there's only going to be a few million people left, unless the problem is permanently solved and we're extinct within the next 100 years.

[stuntcat]

5. thank you for the link

thanks for ths article, I'm passing it on.

[cedric]

6. Glad it was of interest

:)