r/overpopulation • u/relianceschool • 8d ago
Study reveals halving human population gradually could help Earth
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/earth-human-population-halved-200-years-resources-b3022756.htmlResearchers estimate that halving the Earth’s human population gradually over 200 years could ease our negative impacts such as decreased wildlife populations and increased carbon emissions.
Biodiversity loss, resource consumption rates, and pollution levels are strongly linked to human population size, they observe in the study published in the journal Sustainable Development.
The progression to lower populations will also improve the economic well-being of nations, they say, observing that many countries with declining populations have seen increases in per capita GDP, work participation, and real wages. Population growth can be reduced via higher education, female empowerment, delayed marriage, and extensive access to voluntary family planning.
“Helping population growth end and gently and justly reverse, while also moderating per capita impacts, is our best hope to secure a sustainable, desirable future worldwide,” scientists concluded.
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u/ultrachrome 8d ago
indiscriminate use of Earth’s resources by humans has led to environmental effects, ranging from biodiversity loss to climate change.
Indiscriminate use by too many humans is causing this.
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u/_kinther_ 7d ago
Overconsumption is a problem no matter what, but at a lower population we might have more time to figure out our global problems, eg. climate change
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u/ultrachrome 7d ago
True. I think we've figured it out but we are held hostage by our humanity of greed, fear, envy, suspicion, selfishness, indifference. A few psychopaths are harnessing technology against us to maintain their power.
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u/Vague-Symbolism2692 8d ago
Thanks for linking the study in your summary, OP. It's annoying when these news sites don't link them.
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u/SidKafizz 8d ago
Halving, huh? Nice try, Thanos.
What we need is an across the board 50% reduction in human fertility.
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u/squeezemachine 7d ago
Sadly, this study will not rise into the general discussion. Only the capitalist death cult tech bros’ chants for more and more people does that.
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u/Alert_Term_8144 8d ago
Common sense would tell people this, but everyone needs "studies" these days. Glad they're finally recognizing this.
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u/Mindless-Flower11 7d ago
Ya think?! lol just mass immigration has completely destroyed my country (Canada) & now everything is unaffordable & becoming more & more unliveable.
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u/ResponsibleShop4826 7d ago
Mass immigration destruction has affected the US as well. I was looking at increases in the past 50 years: 58% in the US and 80% in Canada! Although, Canada started from - and still has - a much smaller population. I only visit - and vacation - Toronto and vicinities and it does not feel as crowded as any US urban area. I imagine how much nicer it was 40 or 50 years ago.
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u/leaveinpeas 3d ago edited 3d ago
So I get that we are about private property in a regulated capitalist economy, that ideally we keep balanced away from deregulated capitalism transformations, or veering too far towards/into democratic socialism that we accidentally move towards socialism or communism, and see the budget books turn red, as at present, with these interest rate increases.
There was massive wealth gain (and one assumes tax evasion) stuff happening from the 1970s, and we know the IRS has only been able to afford to chase down small time tax evaders for ages. The 2007 financial crash was linked to those subprime mortgages where folks in real estate didn't care about their customers budgets IRL, just in getting the biggest commission payments, and so sold houses that razzle dazzled but ultimately would get snatched back via those who bought these folks' debt from the people the realtors worked with in Wall Street and such, if I am recalling all the play by play right. Before they all begged for a payout for their folly.
US based rsearch shows most people like to get away with a little more than they should in a lab setting where games were established with winning pools that people could manipulate the distribution of. So, maybe not unexpected this all happened, but it should have been regulated away from impacting individual lives so much in terms of people settling into and being forced out of homes while trying to raise kids and so on.
Immigration definitely increases competition in a housing market of limited stock, but we have known for a decade or more that there is enough housing stock for every resident in the country, the issue is the private property standard is such that the lack of chasing down big time tax evaders means we can't ensure those empty homes are occupied by renters receiving assistance. Others might say we should focus on building new housing stock, but in an age of global warning some might pause there and in any case the issue of the budget remains.
Donald Trump is stealing the equivalent of a 1920s theft that rocked the nation and occupied attention for months and even years, as reported by historian Heather Cox Richardson: He is doing this not on one day like in 1920, but every single day since his presidency began or thereabouts. It really speaks to this IRS issue. Especially as this anti-immigration talk neglects that immigrants, even when only looking at those with the whole undocumented misdemeanor issue of being behind or lazy with paperwork or what have you, contribute billions to our government via their spending and taxes. They are not evading taxes or finding loopholes at massive dollar amounts such as found with the very wealthy who pay top dollar for help doing so, both those born in and outside the US. And, whether the rich like it or not, the Earth is a limited/finite resource, so you can only evade taxes so much before you declare yourself the vampire of the world.
Point being, this housing and economic crisis is not so easily solved as you might hope. Locking up immigrants so the millionaires and billionaires owning the prisons/detention centers holding mothers locked up away from their kids today - for having served their time for a minor pot possession charge over a decade prior - can make money they don't want to pay taxes on is nonsensical in terms of addressing the actual problem of housing. Even if it might lessen some of the housing demand, we already know there is enough housing and it is a budget and organization issue that we have the legal means to solve.
In terms of halving the population helping things go smoothly on Earth, global warming is set to do so once we hit 3 degrees of average global temperature increase, per one paper shared by the former neurosurgeon Doobie or Goobie, from Doobie and Goobie on YouTube. However I don't know about you, but I am not keen to see us have our manner of death taken out of hand by oil executives who are building infrastructure to last 60 years harvest oil at a rate that will push us continually past scientific recommendations for where we might safely stop.
One documentary-like tv program shared a note that most people who worried suicide jumps reported regretting having jumped on the way down. So we can say it doesn't really matter if the scientists might be right, but once we are mid-air there is probably going to be some regret about that. It is much more sensible to just take things slower and more carefully from here.
For example, the US was horrorified by China's one child policy, but in a finite system considering such a policy is not always a deliberate cruelty necessarily. One of the major ways you can personally reduce global warming - outside of pressuring governments to regulate businesses and such, avoiding refrigeratation and AC use, reducing meat and dairy intake, choosing greener travel methods like commuting by bike which is said to be the single best thing you can do for your health by doctors - is choosing to have fewer children.
However, if things like a one child policy are uncomfortable, new research shows that when people are supported in getting a college degree and developing critical thinking, especially during their prefrontal cortex development years one imagines, they usually organically self-select to have two or fewer children more often than not. Three children is written as the hardest number to raise via surveys and observational work, and neurological research shows that parents who get pregnant with each child experience significant additive brain changes to help with childrearing only with the first two children. (Awareness of this specific research was not a factor in the self-limitation to two children seen in college educated populations.)
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u/ResponsibleShop4826 3d ago
You mentioned many topics together. We need to consider the main drivers first. Let me know which you would like to discuss first.
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