It's Good News, In a Way
The human population is set to decline - in a few decades. It's hard not to believe that.
On the way, however, we'll grow and peak at around 9.7 billion to end this century at just under 8.8 billion. (Caveat - if we make it that far)
The study focuses on declining fertility. Omitted are factors such as the climate emergency in all its permutations, pandemics, food insecurity, wars and all that stuff. In other words, this is good news but not very helpful. I suppose that's why it's in National Post.
In my opinion its optimistic that with the pressures of population growth, political greed, floods, famine and starvation across the world does not lead to to WW3 before that time. With over 90 million INCREASE in world population this year despite around 5 million deaths from covid (is that nature trying to take care of itself?)
ReplyDeleteI am glad I am approaching my final years on this pile of dirt but I fear for the youth of all nations who will pay the price for the greed and ignorance of certain segments of the population. Not nice to say but perhaps a little more realistic?
A while back I had a candid conversation with an analyst/scientist at California office of the Global Footprint Network. I raised the problem of soils degradation and related problems impacting food security worldwide.
DeleteThen we discussed population and how, in the early 70s, mankind's ecological footprint first exceeded Earth's carrying capacity. The population at that moment was 3.3 to 3.5 billion. At that point we entered 'overshoot.'
In the half century since then our numbers have more than doubled, average lifespans have increased significantly, and our per capita consumption of resources and production of waste and pollution, including greenhouse gases, has soared.
I asked her directly what today's maximum sustainable population was, given the damaged state of our biosphere. Her estimate was 2 to 2.5 billion, max. That's less than a third of the 7.8 billion people on Earth today. In other words humankind will have to be reduced by 5 billion, perhaps more.
There are ways that we can depopulate non-violently and equitably. Some form of mass sterilization, keeping a core breeding population, would be required. I can see no way we would ever achieve the necessary consensus for such an effort.
Christians will see the alternative in the Old Testament book of Exekial or Zecharia, the Four Horsemen.
I also appreciate my senior citizenship, Rural, although I am curious about how it will play out. How unrecognizable will our world become over the next decade or two? The world you and I grew up in, our bedrock "normal." will give way to a different order, one that may most resemble eras from the past.
funny how both the media and social sites seem to be ignoring the biggest news of the day ....
ReplyDeleteUS wins appeal over extradition of Julian Assange
You have much more sympathy for Assange than I, NPoV.
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/24/farmers-save-earths-soil-conservation-agriculture
ReplyDeleteTB
Sustainable crop yields are ideal, until you come to the problem of feeding nearly 8 billion people.
DeleteIndustrial agriculture is a main factor in humankind's growth over the past half century, nearly 5 billion.
It was all part of the Green Revolution - the generous application of agri-chems including fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides supported by unsustainable volumes of ground water from aquifers.
A terrific way to increase soil fertility and yield is granulated carbon produced via hydrolysis (kilns). The proof of this idea is in the 'terra preta' fields discovered in the Amazon. Some 2,500 years ago there was a civilization that chose to till charcoal into their soil (to a depth of several feet). Despite more than two millennia of leeching tropical rains that soil remains rich black and fertile.
Charcoal tilled into soil does several things. It cleans groundwater, removing contaminants. It is porous which encourages microbial growth, the source of nutrients needed for photosynthesis. It also retains water, helping to resist drought.
And a little more!!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bloomindoom.com/environment/desertification-60-harvests-left-myth
TB
The author isn't a particularly skilled researcher.
DeleteTwo years before the UN FAO released its '60 harvests left' report, I came upon this research in two papers by leading agronomists.
Don't ask me to explain why this writer has no knowledge of these studies. I can't. All I know is that the matter has been studied for years before the UN report came out.