end of the world club

Created by: jerome :: 4 months ago

carrying capapcity, end of the world club, overshoot, population

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Vote: +35

"Hi there, this tribe captures one of the core reasons why i set up my tribe, 'the end of the world club' Meant tongue in cheek of course (or is it?)

At some point we will reach the limits to growth in terms of population. Closed system limited resources, waste, space water, food ect . Climate change is just a symptom of a disease, a fever if you like! Unfortunately that makes humans the disease. Not that i have any animosity to my own species, or any other for that matter (though mosquitos i think i could happily see extinct).

Either by choice or population ecology our species will be restrained and choosing not to reproduce is not really hard wired into our genes now is it!

The likelihood is that we will ensure that we exhaust all scientific and social routes possible to force our environment to support growing numbers of humans beyond the planets environmental carrying capacity well before we seriously turn our scientific and social apparatus on the basic problem of population.

This way we will create a population bubble in the same way that we created a bad credit bubble through the credit crunch. With the credit crunch, head in the sand fiscal policies allowed us to over-extending economic growth borrowing ever more money against an economic future that just didn't exist.

Sustainable economics and sustainable population are very similar. They both tend to be followed by the word 'growth' thus turning them into oxymorons. We all desparately want to belive that both eternal economic and population growth are possible (who wants a savings account that pays no interest and the prospect of never having children!) and cannot bare the concept that more people in a finite world means less to go round. More wealth means that more poverty elsewhere.

Hence the end of the world club, as i think we will only start to look seriously at limiting global population went it is too late. Mother nature's immune system will be far less worried about the politics!"

By: jerome :: 4 months ago

Vote: +0

"Shxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxt, that´s profound....I had to read it a couple of times (not that I´m thick) to actually grasp it all. I think you´re right. If it is the case, then it raises big questions about how I want to spend my life and I´m not sure I want kids now..."

By: Mark Seth :: 4 months ago

Vote: +0

"@Jerome, firstly thank you so much for being such a loyal member to our young and growing green community. Your discussion left me speechless so I decided to drop you a note. I think what you write is so insightful and potentially true. A few years back, I read some old North American Indian stories written by the Shamans of the time and they explained their visions for the future. They vividly descrived that the Earth has the ability to self-heal and that humans would become the Earth´s disease. As a result, the Earth would have to protect itself and I´m sure you guess what the consequence of that self protection is. I know it sounds a bit dark but I´ll see if I can retrieve these stories and I´ll send you the links.
@Mark, I agree with you Shxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

By: Hess :: 4 months ago

Vote: +0

"VOTE FOR JEROME!!!!! that´s all I wanna say"

By: Jessie :: 4 months ago

Vote: +0

"Jerome, so true. Never thought of it like that. you´re a genius.
@Jessie, where can we vote?"

By: sophy :: 4 months ago

Vote: +0

"Cheers guys! I have spent a lot of time thinking about these issues. Population really is the elephant in the room with any discussion of sustainability. This has been known as long ago as the 18th century. Thomas Malthus is credited with the earliest published work on this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus

Th"

By: jerome :: 4 months ago

Vote: +0

"hello everyone!! thank you jerome for this tribe, the topic has been of interest for me for some time now... as has been said and i think anyone can agree with, there are only so many resources available. From oil to emeralds everything Earth supplies us with is in limited quantites. like animals we procreate and.... "make babies".... and now, as of last year 2008 the world population topples 6.7 billion.... and now as Earth tears apart at the plates and we are beginning to feel the reprecussions of centuries of scavenging, overusing and loitering we are now being forced to ask ourselves....exactly how many humans does it and should it take to ensure the survival of our species, others, and of course, Mother Earth.
We have now expanded the human population to all corners of the world, even refusing to leave Antarctica untouched. The basic, and first question is... are humans more important than any other species and are we worth destroying the Earth? As a logical person, i'd say 'life is life, there is no life more or less valuable than another'. As an animal i'm partial to the survival of my own species. So what do we do as far as precautions, laws, and even consequences of our now overcrowding populace to ensure our basic survival? how far do we go? and how far is too far?"

By: desiree1988 :: 4 months ago

Vote: +0

"Lets start with precautions.. a basic precaution is birth control. As number one in defense of pregnancy, what can we do as a country and as a civilization to make birth control more easily accessible and affordable? one is the education system. For the last decade in high schools all across the nation "abstinece" is being taught as the number one method of birth control. The key to success is education. as mammals our primal instict to mate hits around puberty. as last years census of pop. 6.7 billion and the increasing rates of teen pregnancy show, this is not working. As prevention method number one, condoms and birth control should be available to anyone who can or will ever have sex. for the obvious reasons.
Laws. Now to more dangerous territory. How far is too far for population control? In China there has been a mandate for decades on number of children per couple. One. seems simple enough. use birth control. have one child. get fixed or have abortions. is it that simple though? as of last month china's population now totals 1.3 billion. in 1999 the chinese census read 1.143 billion. Since the laws of one child have been in place, there is now an imbalance in the male to female ratio. In the year 2000 males made up more than double the live births than women. why? because in a country where a couple is only afforded one child for a lifetime, the question is no longer should i have a child? but rather 'what kind should i have?'' And as males are seen more valuable as a work force to aging relatives, women are becoming more and more obsolete."

By: desiree1988 :: 4 months ago

Vote: +12

"OBSERVATION: in a world where population is becoming more and more regulated who decides the specifics? If birth control is readily available, and birthing rights are limited, whats to stop people and the government from "striving for perfection" in what would inevitably become the "human selection process"? if there are only so many resources available for the survival of our species on this planet does it not make sense for the strongest to make the selection? and what happens to the rest of us? in a world where there is only room for the few and the strong what happens to the weak? the children born with handicaps, or "iffy" genetics, or those simply born without physical attributes, what happens to them?
And, as this is an 'end of the world' club, what happens when Mother Earth is almost completely out of resources and none can be wasted? what about the elderly? in an 'end-of-the-world-resources-are-dwindling-can't-waste-any" civilization do we as a species begin to euthanize those who can no longer contribute? And what about those doomed to die? Those whose bodies are recked with disease? Cancer, diabetes, etc? In desperate times will we go to extreme measures? will 'survival of the fittest' take on a whole new meaning as we face death with Mother Earth's depletion?
The world is overpoplated. Three to four babies are born somewhere on this planet every second. it is year 2009... how will things be in 2019...or 2029? What action are we, as an intelligent species, willing to take? and what will we sacrifice?
(i have barely scraped the top of the barrel with this discussion. an enthusiast looks for the loudest voice and hops in line..a realist listens and analizes every voice (and every possibility)"

By: desiree1988 :: 4 months ago

Vote: +0

"desiree1988, great to hear someone else who is wrestling with these issues. One of the biggest problems with enforced birth control, rather than straight sex education and available contraception is the impact on genetic diversity.

We will never know which genes we need until we need them! Every individual mind irrespective of physical 'fitness', gender or race could contain the next great idea. Nature loves, creates and protects physical diversity for a reason, the reason being the unpredictable chaos of the natural physical environment. The carriers with one gene for sickle cell anemia are protected from malaria, however carriers with 2 genes for sickle cell die very early. Who carries the gene for immunity to the next virulent pandemic flu or bubonic plague?

Mankind protects both its physical and philosophical diversity beyond natural boundaries of care, going to great lengths to support those individuals and ideas that would not normally survive, also because we know that physical strength is not what makes our species successful. It is that which is in our minds. Without the vast secondary layer of essential diversity in the environment of thought and ideas we are just hairless monkeys with opposable thumbs. Steven Hawkins wouldn't manage too well if left to fend for himself!

it is natural for all forms of life to propagate to the environmental limits of growth, however has any other species ever come up against global limits? I suspect that the only thing that will save humanity from overshoot and collapse while protecting humanity's future is an idea or concept so universal and so infective or persuasive, launched at a time just when humanity needs it. An idea or philosophy that enables people to accept universal, truly random, birth control."

By: jerome :: 4 months ago

Vote: +5

"The usual method of truly random population control is warfare, indiscriminate and brutal. The shape of the big idea in this case doesn't really matter fascism, communism, islam, capitalism, democracy, christianity. It is whatever it takes to motivate clan A against clan B and keep them motivated long enough to have a significant dent on clan A's population.

While I hope that as a species we can overcome this cycle, with more humane universal population controls and more equitable systems of access to resources. I suspect we have entered the century of resource wars and we now have bigger better weapons than last time."

By: jerome :: 4 months ago

Vote: +0

"some serious discussions are taking place here...not sure where else you find discussions like that, MINDBLOWING. So now more pressure on me to come out with intelligent stuff to say, let me know if it makes sense. I believe that population growth should be restrained, I think we all agree that the planet can not sustain high growth. So now it´s how we should restrict the growth? As Desiree and jerome explained, there´s different ways. War seems an interesting way but awfull prospect. so am for legally limiting the number of children to 2 across all countries. I know there will be awfull reprecussions and i cant bare to start thinking about how to enforce these measures and also how to deal with undesired/unplanned pregnancies. Chilling!"

By: Jessie :: 4 months ago

Vote: +3

"Hi Jessie. I would recommend a trip to http://www.optimumpopulation.org their patron include, Sir David Attenborough, Johnathan Porritt and Sir Crispin Tickell. They have 'Stop at 2' as one of their key messages. They have a whole host of practical policy suggestions for govts. to limit population. However as any addict knows (or doesn't know, sorry that's the point isnt it!) first you have to accept you have a problem.

We are a species of sex addicts! woe betite any nanny state dictating what we do with our most basic of urges. I suspect democracy is not a strong enough framework to support effective population control. Scapegoating and xenophobia are so much easier to sell democratically. Dictatorship may be the only option!

interestingly we owe our oxygen rich atmosphere to such an over population extinction catastrophe. In the great oxygen crisis around 2.5Billion years ago, cyanobacteria suddenly bloomed across the planet's oceans releasing toxic oxygen into the lovely hot methane rich atmosphere, killing off most life and plunging earth into an ice age!"

By: jerome :: 3 months ago

Vote: +0

"@Jerome, I just said 2 like that, I thought it was a reasonable number but check it out, Sir David Attenborough, Johnathan Porritt and Sir Crispin Tickell, the big brains of UK environmental movement agree with me...Sorry I AGREE WITH THEM. I wish I could share your views on sex addiction, I´m getting old you know :-)
Enough with the joking bit: I tend to agree with you about democracy not being a strong enough tool to limit birth control but you know with the right advertising spin, everything can be made paletable: at the end of the day, they went to war by lying to us about the reach of Iraqi missiles, UNBELIEVABLE. there must be a graph somewhere showing the correlation between the earth´s sustainbility, the number of humans and the amount of key resources. As one goes down and the other one goes up, the earth sustainability goes down, no? Surely there is a magical number of maximum humans that this earth can bear, today, tomorrow and in 10 years."

By: Jessie :: 3 months ago

Vote: +5

"There are some very explanatory graphs avlaible from the Club Of Rome publication 'The Limits to Growth' and the 30 year update. These are excellent reference material, I recommend buying them and reading them cover to cover!

There is a synopsys avaliable on the club of rome website

http://www.clubofrome.at/about/limitstogrowth.html"

By: jerome :: 3 months ago

Vote: +0

"@Jerome, thanks for the link. Went on the club of Rome website (which I never heard of before) and it´s unbelievable how early on they identified the overpopulation problem. IO downloaded the synopsis but I have to read again many times before it all sinks in."

By: greenvoice :: 3 months ago

Vote: +0

"My thoughts exactly green voice. I am just re-reading the original book from 1975.

I met Mark Lynas (author of 6 degrees) at an event a couple of months ago, he is working on a similar book; looking at the interrelated limiting factors to human population growth. His book will probably be more populist and with less graphs though!

The original book is a little ragged around the edges in retrospect, especially in terms of focus on pollutants such as acid rain and metals rather than climate change; however the point is clearly made that whatever the source of pollution, our environment will reach a pollution saturation at some point probably followed by population collapse; if not pollution, then resource scarcity. The 30 year update book is quite a bit better while the premise is unchanged.

It is still amazing how forward thinking those guys were.

This is why i got into environmental work in the 1st place. I was shown a graph in a biology lesson when i was 16 of historical human population growth, in the context of similar graphs for other species in closed environments; the typical hockey stick, exponential growth curve.

Even a 16 year old doesn't need much more evidence than that to extrapolate that at some point the population party will end!"

By: jerome :: 3 months ago

Vote: +0

"I'm still undecided about how population would be regulated. jerome you said the usual way, or natural fix, is war. any war. as long as people die.
i worry not only about the world from an enviornmentalist perspectice, but also from a humanitarian perspective, and as an individualist.
As an enviornmentalist, it would be better if a few billion died. war is an easy choice. but could have major consequenses for the surviving human race (remember the ideals of Stalin, Hitler, Fidel Castro, Mussolini?) war is not the ideal choice from an indv. perspective. (does anyone here want to move to N. Korea?)
So, i think, the easiest choice, would be to refuse healthcare. people would die off by the thousands by the day. as an enviornmentalist does it really matter if the human race survives? humans are like parasites to Mother Earth are we not?
Seems easy enough. However, human to fellow human, could you watch yr children die? yr friends yr family? what about yr brothers in war?
when you think of every possible question and possible response to a solution, what it comes down to is Humans or Mother Earth. The two can not possibly co exist in harmony until forever and ever. Inevitably, one will cause the others destruction... so the real question is what do you choose in the meantime? people or Mother Earth? If Mother Earth lives, we will run out of resources and die (even if we cut back the population SOMEDAY resources will run out) and we will die...if Mother Earth dies, we die. So what would you choose? A few more years to enjoy "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and for all of us to enjoy the remainder of a free republic with personal choice, or give back Mother Earth what was originally hers?"

By: desiree1988 :: 3 months ago

Vote: +0

"@desiree, I dont think the question is a few more years of "us" or the earth. I think it´s more a question of doing what´s right, without being selfish in terms of enjoying the few decades of free capitalism and consumism. You talk about choice but we are inundated by advertising that shape 99% of people´s lives. they (or we, I should include myself) think that we have the perception that we are free, that we make all the choices about how we lead our lives but I think that´s bull*cks. We need to do what is RIGHT regardless of extending our lives by a decade or two."

By: Jessie :: 3 months ago

Vote: +0

"jessie...you say we need to do what is right, and imply that society in general isn't that great anyway because of the limited freedoms from having big brother looking over our shoulder (and listening to our phone calls and hacking into our computers) yr right, we need to make a choice and that is what i'm talking about.
if we, lets say put one man in charge of everyone and everything and give him unlimited power to enforce laws of limited population, sterilization, euthanasia; to keep peace and squash down resistance, to use scientists and research to find ways of "co-existing" with Mother Earth w/o using up resources, what would be the limit?
In a democracy, the people will almost always hold the majority vote. For real change to be influenced and controlled, and for people to be subdued to the ideology of the bigger picture, we would need a facist or communist government. People smart enough and apathetic enough to not only make laws, but to enforce at whatever costs.
If population control is key, then perhaps sterilization of women and men over thirty would be effective. Those older than sixty can be euthinized. And those adults unable to care for oneself or contribute can also be put down.
Healthcare can be made ridiculously expensive and a strong percentage of proceeds could go to funding research and (products) for an accessible enviornment friendly community."

By: desiree1988 :: 3 months ago

Vote: +8

"Every house (family) can be afforded one car (hybrid).
Solar panels and water tanks can be installed in every home and made mandatory.
Size of yr house may be limited.
Retail warehouses could be run as a section of government and all clothing made of dye free breathable organic materials.
Recycling could be mandatory.
A personal garden for every home could be mandatory.
The ideas are limitless, you get the idea....
Enforcement could be death. Rebels could be euthanized.
Special liberties like electricity and unrecyclable materials could be limited. Along with water.
Airplanes could be made absolute.
And of course being vegan, could def. be mandatory.
If Mother Earth is to survive we, as a species, should stifle our selfishness and make it as though we, as a species, do not even exist on this planet. That's how little we should effect her.
Two big problems: With power comes corruption. Anyone who attains ultimate power has the capability of being corrupted. And the human race' deep rooted selfishness. A lot of u.s. citizens are pampered, and people don't want to give up their cushiony lifestyle.
Perhaps someone has an idea on how to regulate the regulators or perforate the common psyche?"

By: desiree1988 :: 3 months ago

Vote: +0

"Guys, I just read an article from David Attenborough describing a new way in which people in the developed countries could offset their carbon emissions...are you ready?...we can buy contraception to be used in poor countries to curb population. I know it will start an outcry but personally I think it´s realistic and brilliant!!!!!"

By: eleanora :: 3 months ago

Vote: +0

"Guys, I havent been on Cooltribe for a while but I´m glad to see that some discussions are really taking off. Nature is more powerfull than anything else, us included so I really dont think any of the measures set in the discussions will make a difference. having said that, it doesnt mean that we have to live like in sodom. .."

By: Stevi :: 2 months ago

Vote: +0

"The pope has endorsed green issues and is being called the "green pope". Unfortunately he will never endorse limiting and controlling child birth, a bit of a contradiction, wouldnt you say?"

By: Catherine Esther :: 1 month ago

Vote: +0

"I think that just the fact that the Pope is talking about green issues is fantastic. @Catherine, I understand what you are saying about birth control but do you know how many people around the world follow every words spoken by the Pope? Billions. So dont be so hard"

By: eleanora :: 1 month ago

Vote: +0

"Great that the pope has started espousing green issues but that rather misses a big chunk of the point of this thread. typical 'Green issues are' such as climate change, 'whale hunting' destruction of green space only gloss over the surface of the main issue of the immense burden that our burgeoning population is putting on the planet capacity to provide. The vast though admittedly unevenly spread, demands our population is putting on production capacity for energy, food, water and basic minerals, not to mention the falling absorption potential of our biosphere for our wastes.

Where in any religious text is the concept of what man needs to do in the face of environmental limits except wait for rapture! Without consideration of birth control we will only slow the inevitable crisis.

Neither our social nor our genetic history has been tested with species extinction so we have neither had to evolve an inate biological or a social capacity to step back from the edge. It is time for new politics, new economics, new religion and new society to survive the new environment. Be it evolution or revolution the structures we have developed in an climatically stable, resource replete environment must change.

The human centric model of creation is at the heart of mans malaise. If religion has a role to play in mans survival we need to understand our true place in nature as equal partners, not custodians"

By: jerome :: 1 month ago

Vote: +0

"I also think the fact that the Pope talks about climate change is really an irony. What the hell is the church or other religion concretely doing about this? Nothing. Actually not nothing, they are part of the problem by banning contraception. The idea of "LET´s multiply" is redundant, it´s now more "LET´s reduce". I like the concept brought up by Eleanora saying we can buy contraception credits for the poor. it´s mad but nonetheless genius."

By: kenny :: 1 month ago

Vote: +0

"However it is not the poor that are the problem. By definition the poor consume less resources and have a smaller carbon or wider ecological footprint. Birth or population control is more importantly focused on the rich and clean development on the poor.

If taking a dispassionate approach, any population limiting scenario from birth control to war or natural disaster involving developed world casualties, has a disproportionally high impact in reducing humanity's ecological demands.

This is not the fault of large low impact families living in poverty . Many hands are needed because they do not have access to the vast ghost army of energy slaves that profligate fossil fuel consumption provides to the rich.

One can live lightly with a large family, but not in a developed society as it stands at the moment.

If it were only for example energy and metal resource limits that were at stake there would not be a problem here, as competition for these could be sorted out by population limiting war between the developed world countries. The resource of the atmosphere's capacity to absorb greenhouse gases however does not respect borders culture or GDP and disproportionally reduces the life expectancy of those with the lowest ecological impact, those most directly connected and reliant on the delicate stability earths natural cycles. Like canaries in a coal mine.

For the sake of the planet (or rather biosphere) as we know it there needs to be a serious increase in adoption, birth control, education, maximum population control etc etc in developed world countries, side by side with dramatic increases in resource efficiency and more importantly reductions in consumption. This means negative or static economic growth, for the politicians lets call it economic maturity! Physician heal thyself and all that!"

By: jerome :: 1 month ago

Vote: +0

"@kenny and Jerome, yes I agree it´s not the poor that are the problem. But let me say that the poor have no interest in staying poor. That means one thing and one thing only consumption will go up. have you both recently travelled to China, India, Brazil, Syria to quote a few? these countries are booming, 60% at least of their population is under 25s and they have one thing on their mind: be like the westerns they see on TV or on the internet. they are crazy about buying brands so what are we supposed to do? tell them the West followed the wrong path all along? Not sure if they´ll "buy that" :-). There has to be a unilateral agreement: every country has to take action. why not on birth control ...as long as they all implement it at the same time."

By: Catherine Esther :: 27 days ago

Vote: +0

"sdfsdf"

By: gore :: 20 days ago

Vote: +0

"Write your own commentsss"

By: gore :: 20 days ago

Vote: +0

"@Gore, we value constructive comments in this tribe"

By: susie Ch :: 20 days ago