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Guest Post: The Myth Of Over-Population
Submitted by Logan Albright via Mises Canada,
The world is overpopulated. The street are clogged, traffic is in a snarl, and people are living – both figuratively and literally – right on top of each other. There’s hardly enough room to swing a cat these days, right? Wrong.
The world is not overcrowded at all. There are vast swaths of unpopulated land all over the place. Siberia, Canada, Africa, Australia, even the rural USA all contain more than enough wide open spaces. So why do people labor so resolutely under this delusion? The reason is simple: most people, especially those with the time and inclination to carp about overpopulation, live in areas of high population density, a non-representative sample of the world as a whole. We call these places cities, and the reason why people live in cities, despite their complaining, is that there are benefits for large populations congregating close together.
It is convenient to live in a place with lots of other people, because each of those people can potentially do something for you, from repairing your shoes, to cooking your meals, to running entertainment venues, to, perhaps most importantly, providing you with gainful employment. Try living out in the middle of nowhere and see how easy it is to feed yourself, much less make a living and survive medical problems. The division of labor means that the more people there are nearby, the more able we are to fulfill our wants and needs. Hence, crowded cities.
This misconception of the world’s population problems has led some to celebrate the declining birth rates we now see in most of the developed world. But the anticipation of a little expanded breathing room causes them take the wrong view on the economic impacts of a declining population. This has to do with an incomplete understanding of human action.
Those who worry about overpopulation tend to view people as nothing more than consumers. Resources are finite; humans consume resources. Therefore, fewer humans will mean more resources to go around. This is the core idea behind the opposition to expanded immigration. Namely, the fear that more people will mean less work and less wealth for the rest of us. But while the two premises of this syllogism are true, they are also woefully incomplete, making the conclusion incorrect as well.
The reason is that humans are not merely consumers. Every consumer is also a producer as well, and production is how we have improved our standards of living from the dawn of man till today. Every luxury, every great invention, every work of art, every modern convenience that we enjoy was the product of a mind – in some cases, of more than one. It then stands to reason that the more minds there are, the more innovations we will have as well. A reductio ad absudum reveals the obvious truth that a cure for cancer is more likely to emerge from a society of a billion people than from one of only a handful of individuals.
More importantly, these innovations result in a multiplication of resources, so our syllogism changes to the following: Resources are finite; humans consume resources; humans produce resources; therefore, if humans produce more resources than they consume, a greater population will be beneficial to the species.
That we do, in fact, produce more than we consume is self-evident by looking at the standard of living we enjoy today versus that which we had 50, or 100, or 1000 years ago. As the population has expanded, so has our prosperity, and the reduction in human suffering has been remarkable.
With this in mind, the precipitous drop in global birth rates is alarming. In countries where there is a generous social safety net for the elderly, a shrinking population means that a greater and greater share of resources will go towards caring for the old, while younger generations have insufficient numbers to make up the difference.
As the labor force declines below the level of available capital, machines will start to fall into disrepair and disuse, factories will be abandoned, housing developments will lie unoccupied. All of this results in less economic growth, less wealth, and less prosperity for everyone. Even the aggregate demand-obsessed Keynesians should be able to understand this concept. Fewer people people means less economic activity.
The celebration of low populations largely comes from the environmentalist movement, where anti-human sentiment is frequently overt. Even in less caustic circles, however, the bias against mankind has seeped into the popular consciousness. It’s pervasive; an instinct among lefties that – for some reason they can’t quite put their finger on – people are just no darn good.
This position is only defensible if you pine for the days of smallpox, starvation, contaminated water, and a constant danger of being devoured by hungry predators. If, on the other hand, you do not view those things as part of an idyllic, all-natural existence, you might consider cutting us humans a little slack.
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"Every consumer is also a producer as well"
Methane me thinks, sewage gas that is.
Every consumer is a producer, because to afford consumption, he or she must sell his production.
The shortcircuit of your understanding lies in theft and redistribution that enables some people to take from other producers and spend it on personal consumption.
Capisce?
Not to mention the oceans...and the landfills...
Uploaded on Mar 2, 2007
interview with Daniel Quinn
Where We Went Wronghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpAxV6uUxsM
LOL overcrowding is not a problem because there are "wide open spaces" in Siberia and Australia?
There are wide open spaces on the moon too, doesn't mean you can live there.
Alas, I fear there are wide open spaces in the head of this article's author.
hehehehe
You can live there just fine if you build adequate shelter. You don't have to go outside to get 'fresh air' or sunshine and they invented this thing called glass that allows you to experience the sun without the detrimental effects of it. There is no reason why we have to go outdoors at all. Isn't that why they are sending a bunch of pioneers to Mars?
Nah they are sending people to Mars because of reality TV. Why else, lol?
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mars_One
Where I live there isn't enough room to swing a cat.
OTOH, I enjoy hitting people with cats, so there's that.
I suppose the author thinks the west needs more immigration. All we are saaaaaaaying!!!!!
Wow. Just when I thought the Douchebag Institute couldn't get any lower. Until the advent of the oil age, humans never passed the 2 billion mark. Now we're heading towards a 9 billion peak. And yes, humans might produce, but hell we consume. And we're consuming in exogenous form, between 10 and a 100 times more kcals than we do within our body. If you think the world (and BTW, we're consuming nowadays a world and a half...) can cope with 9 billion monkeys consuming energy like whales, you're wrong. Yeah, less population means lower economic activity. But the choice is that or Soylent Green.
"...smallpox, starvation, contaminated water, and a constant danger of being devoured by hungry predators."
WTF does that have to do with population levels? Those are artifacts of time, not population numbers.
The limitation on population is potable water and food. Sure, there is plenty of open land in the Sahara desert and the barren lands of the Western U.S. and Siberia.
The current population is only supported by mechanized agriculture utilizing OIL for tillage, fertilization, pesticides, irrigation, harvest, transport, and production. Not to mention refrigeration dependent upon OIL and coal fired electricity.
You don't have to be an environmentalist wacko to see the writing on the wall.
And there is a difference between "global warming" and out of control pollution.
Odd how someone from the Mises Institute ends up sounding like a wild-eyed Keynesian.
People, who have lost their connection to the soil, write this bullshit that man is God. Man has created fantastic tools and have transformed existing resources to meet their insatiable desires. Man has never created a smidgen of any physical resource.
Even synthetic DNA is a tool created by copying mother nature.
Yeah, I always love it when economist types expand their theories into the environment and other realms they have no clue about.
These guys remind me of folks who think their water comes from the tap and their food comes from the grocery store. Or the idiots who fly over the middle of the US and then tell everyone how wide open the country is and how we could have tons more people without realizing their food is grown in that wide open land.
It's also funny how the term environmental wacko is thrown about easily enough yet we don't really here the term economic wacko, which essentially applies to these cornucopian dreamers.
Apparently:
Our consumption of oil is so bad that it has to be taxed.
Our production of carbon dioxide is too high and has to be taxed.
We cannot collect enough fresh water and so we have to go on rations.
Water is sooooo scarce that we must use "water saving toilets" ( do you really save water if you have to flush 3 times??? )
... and "water saving" shower heads ( hydro-acupuncture )
Incandescent light bulbs use too much energy and have to be banned.
Some shops don't hand out bags (paper or plastic) because it creates too much damage to the environment.
We must pay to dispose of our rubbish at the tip because we have too much.
... and yet, "Nooooooooooo. The world is not over-populated. We can accommodate many more people!"
A message to the propagandists:
No, YOU get fucked.
I always tell people who say there's to many people and who claim something should be done about it that they should just hang themselves.
Big fan of your work. The optimism literally oozes from every post.
I don't know the rules in Belgium, but over here counseling suicide is a crime.
Killing yourself will just free up more resources for breeders; better to consume as much as you can and have no children, or if you must, then only population replacement.
Lowering infant mortality is working wonders to get fertility rates down throughout Asia and Africa. That's why we are on track to stabilize rather than exponentially grow until the food supply collapses.
When people realize they don't have to worry about being thrown on the scrap heap when they are old ...
There are better ways, voluntary ways, to do population control (as in population numbers). Check the Iranian Miracle, for example. It doesn't involve killing anyone. What we're lacking now, besides political will and rational minds, is TIME.
Any additional production accrues to the top .01%.
Eventually the push back against our eventual acceptance to a 'de-population event' orchestrated by the shadow government who will also be deciding who gets to survive... guess what odds are you aint on that list.
i make my own list, buddy!
No shit. They better "take it to the mattresses" if they plan on having me and mine on that list.
Sorry Haters and Glass Half Empty Genetic Conservatives
I agree completely with every word written.
I would further postulate that the world's poplulation could triple, raise everyone to above middle class status and produce less waste than now.
What should be stopped and sequestered is the entire Nuclear Industry and the Neo-Malthusians, if they believe what they espouse, should be rounded up and exterminated.
The rest of us need to think and resolve troublesome issues and use innovation and research, non-defense, to make the world a better place.
Outlaw condoms !
abstinence is murder!
Start with the bankers, politicians and financiers buddy. The Neo-Malthusians aren't the ones tying up reserves and causing distortions in commodity prices. As well as stifling technological innovation that could lead to genuine progress through lobbying.
I do agree that technological innovation could go a very long way in this regard. I just don't have much faith in the system to support it until we are squarely off the precipice and hovering in the air, and awaiting the plummet, like a cartoon character.
While you and yours are 'thinking' and exterminating everyone else... At least you'll be making the world a better place.
Yeah we're fucked.
.
Well most nations are in the beginning of a population implosion, not a population explosion. Even places where population recently was expanding rapidly are now experiencing birth rates below replacement. Japan and Europe are good examples and well ahead. I expect the declining birth rate will lead to poverty, conflict, despair, and possibly war. You can see the symptoms - declining wealth, social unrest, rapidly aging populations, domestic conflict, and increased national chauvinism and militarism aimed taking people's attention from the growing decline.
What a load of crap.
It AMAZES me still the lengths people will go to justify an exponential growth model no matter how wasteful, self-damaging or utterly unsustainable.
The so called "economic models" are not there to be worshipped and strictly observed indefinitely as if an act of GAWD. Wtf?
The problems on Easter Island was never a lack of trees (you freaking idiots)... It was the model itself that made cutting the last one down "WORTH the BOOST."
Sustainability and balance are hardly considerations. Grow faster is the preferred solution. Then and now. And freaking articles like this are there to 'show' you how a square peg actually fits into a round hole.
Good representative of Libertarianism
Representative of the status quo
Mises Canada? Sounds more like The Hudson Institute...
Damn, tough crowd – well it is called the fight club. There is nothing wrong with another viewpoint even if completely wrong. Something can be gained / learned from just about anything I guess.
Hard to learn from extreme heavy handed use of strawmen, red herrings, etc.
I generally like things from the Mises Institute, but lately they have sounded like "break a window" Krugman, bearded potato PhD.
Not sure what is up with that; I thought they stood for sound money and tangible reality versus rainbows and skittle dropping unicorns.
No. If their posts on ZH are anything to go by, they are a propaganda machine, at best, maybe a Trojan horse ... to some of you. They appear to be written by "the cheapest quote" - young, brainless kids who have no clue.
"There is nothing wrong with another viewpoint even if completely wrong."
Double negative that I think ;-)
"Something can be gained / learned from just about anything I guess."
Yah but that doesn't mean there isn't a "slightly" richer source of learning to be had elsewhere. If I'd of thought this guy was being funny with his article rather than stupid I'd have given it a 5.
So then Logan Albright, could you take a 10:00 pm walk thru the "zone" of the city of your choice and experience the population density of that zone. No need to report to me. I lived in 'inner city' Chicago 1965-2000. And about them dark migrants. How many in your zip code?
Your entire spiel has advanced my contempt for the Mises bunch.
How does this amateur hour stuff get published to ZH? Who does the ZH vetting/editing of articles these days if at all?
What world does this author live in with just this sentence as an example:
"As the labor force declines below the level of available capital, machines will start to fall into disrepair and disuse, factories will be abandoned, housing developments will lie unoccupied. "
Hilarious delusion.
The labor force has already greatly been replaced by robots/machines and only needs a few to maintain them. Yes, the perpetual growth economic model requires more and more consumers, but the authors vision of abandoned factories has nothing to do with declining birth rates.
Author's basic understanding of physics, resource levels and economics is that of a 10 year old....and a 10 year old educated in the American public school system.
As soon as I saw the articles title I laughed. Gave it the score of poor, but perhaps it was never intended to be taken seriously.
He's an economist !
http://mises.ca/posts/author/logan-albright/
"It is often said that unemployment exists because there “is not enough work”" he explained. Surely some day he'll be joining the fed.
And a hipster apparently.
Sustainable, ecological farming will be the limiting factor on population size - "you ain't shit without the farmers behind you!" And by the way, a HUGE THANK YOU goes out to all you farmers - the best people on the planet!!!!!!............I thank you each and every day!
Buy local when you can. Support your local food producers 'cause someday they may be your only food producers.
This article is bullshit. What is this? Where did ZH find this crap?
Argue the good of humanity, people are producers, blah, blah, blah, all you want - the exponential math will get us in the end. There has never been an exponential population spike that didn't end in a collapse, and unless the author is arguing that we have advanced beyond the laws of physics and nature (and I'd need to see some evidence) it seems pretty fucking naive to think we're going to be exempt from our own collapse. Seems more like wishful thinking on his part (YAY TEAM HUMANITY!) than anything like a coherent argument.
Exponential math, how about an ever expanding Universe loaded with new stars and planets being born. Obviously, you are thinking that our present reality is here to stay. Mankind need to expand. If we ever start to run out of room here, there is an entire Universe to settle, and a lot of money to be made doing it.
Sure, great. Are we capable of doing that right now, by the way? No? What's your timeline for us achieving the necessary technical capability (and societal/political will to attempt it?) I'm not thinking our present reality is here to stay, I really enjoy Kurzweil's optimistic 'singularity' view of progress. But we're already racing up the exponential population curve and stressing the entire planetary ecosystem in completely novel and untried ways.
So you're thinking the technical issues associated with interstellar travel and planetary colonization and terraforming will be resolved before we hit some surprise limit here on Earth? Great, any supporting evidence?
@grekko - I think this is the great example of why so many pin their hopes on the "as-yet-unknown-future-technology-fix". We just pop together the as-yet-unknown free energy device into the as-yet-unknown spaceship and fly to the as-yet-unknown destination and *wham!*populate the galaxy.
Holy fuck, grekko, do you know how far the nearest star with a habitable world is from us in terms of travel time? It would take generations to reach another star system. How are you going to power/propel these arks of humanity?
.
That would be the planet HD 10700 e in the Tau Ceti system, just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Earth at a distance of 11.9 light years.
Voyager 1, which began its journey in September 1977 and is traveling at about 17 km per second (a little more than 10 miles per second), is currently about 17 light hours away from Earth. At that speed, a vessel from Earth could reach the Tau Ceti system in only 210,633 years.
Seriously, is this an Onion piece?
Actually, the article makes total sense. As with all of history to date, as long as mankind is expanding, the standard of living rises. This is fact! New frontiers challenge people to come up with new ideas. This is a benefit to mankind. Geographically, about 90-95% of the world is unpopulated. Of course that includes farmland, but excluding that, there is still about 75% uninhabited. Mankind needs to expand, not contract. If the economy was set up to run in a free market manner, instead of govt grabbing all it can whenever it can, then things would be pretty good.
If we start to run out of space, which can't possibly happen for another 1000 years, or run out of resources, then realize we are but one tiny planet in a Universe filled with them. If we run out of iron ore, someone will find a way to bring an aweful lot of it from out there, (maybe the Red planet?) for a profit. It might even be Space-X that reaps the harvest of profits.
All we need for a better life is to free ourselves from the tyranny of lifetime politicians controlled by the money printers (oligarchs), and decouple the warfare/intelligence state from our reality. Does anyone not believe that General Dynamics and Raytheon can't switch product lines to provide non-war related products? They have some of the best engineers on the planet.
And this "profit harvest" (cuz that's really what it's all about) that humanity gains from expanding and consuming throughout the universe goes to who exactly? Certainly not the billions of human iron ore miners that were never replaced by automation. Or the billions of space pilots we used despite already having human-less naval vessels and pilotless aircraft.
So "all us scientists and technicians" (which will be just about everyone I'd imagine by then) all existing cuz people like you insist humanity NEEDS this... That we can't possibly be curious, crave exploration and discovery without it... People like you who claim the problems created by growth are necessary to stimulate problem solving... "Broken glass"
And we scientists, all somehow employed despite our inefficiency vs machine... By Luddite laws still reaping "profit" only cuz religiously we cling to spend and consume models as a driving force to our very existence...
Or are all these scientists and technicians on welfare or subsidized in some way.... Just to keep alive the wage slave model you can't seem to escape.
We have drones now but you picture space cadets and space miners and space trash collectors and the space TSA make work programs.
Your utopia can't exist without some form of outright Luddism or massive human consumption side subsidy.
You "build a death star for employment and growth" people need to ask yourself how many people that would REALLY 'employ?'
But you're right. Big bucks for the Raytheon space auto-matons biz. You in sales?
OMFG. "To infinity and beyond," eh?
What is going to supplement the loss of cheap oil and lack of fresh water? Where are all these good ideas? You can only pull so many calories out of photosysthesis. How are you going to deal with the increasing costs of fossil fuel derived fertilizers.
Read: Michael Kare's "Resourse Wars," Simmons "Twilight in the Desert," and watch Barlett's presentation online regarding "The Exponential Function," and get back to us.
Typical anthropocentric jibber-jabber. It seems to assume that only humans populate planet earth. Want to see only people and some poultry, go to Indonesia. See what it's like to look up into the sky and see nothing. Listen to the sounds which contain no bird songs whatsoever. Go out in the countryside, if you can find any, and see how much wildlife (flora or fauna) there is out there. Now consider the whole world looks much like Indonesia. Places like Canada and Australia are "underpopulated" for good reasons and let's hope they always remain that way, but somehow I think not and spurious arguments like those posed above will be part of the reason. Twit!
What a load of useless ramblings...
-t
He's of the economics school that says that unfettered growth at any cost and "development" is the solution to all problems. The fiat money printers think that way: build more ghost cities, train lines, McMansions and SUVs that sit unused in giant lots. Consume more stuff. Always more. Of course war consumes the most of all at the fastest rate
People USED to be producers as well as consumers, but that has changed in the western world with the advent of Liberalism.
We are now firmly entrenched in the age of parasitism and are rapidly being overwhelmed by the parasites.
Oh dear ZH... The whole world population could be fitted on the Isle Of White a tiny island off the UK of 150 Sq Miles, that would leave a lot of space everywhere else!
Since I was born 54 years ago the population has doubled from 3.5 billion to 7 billion. in 25 years that means 14 billion in another 40 yrars 32 billion
Even if oil is an infinate resource,,, how many holes in the ground would be needed for everyone had a car, jetted around the world heated / cooled their homes etc. etc.
Over population is not about numbers of people it's about the planet's carrying capasity. I don't want to be scratching the dirt with a stick, and nore does anyone else,
Crap! Stop thinking that technological advancement stopped today and we will run out of everything. There will be new discoveries, new technologies, and medical advancement. If it get's too crowded here, there are millions of planets that can support human life. People need to stop being such pansies and giving up and crying to mama. We just need a better system that rewards the enterpreneurial spirit so advancement will get us out of this mess. The present system sux big time, but we can change it. Grow up people!
Technology will save us. . . or maybe not. You need to consider the possibility that "Just in Time Delivery" regarding the chain of discoveries that let us defecit-spend the world's natural resources might not deliver. Are you a scientist? Maybe you should talk to some of the folks you are tasking with saving us. I actually know many scientists and I don't see any them thinking that we're on the cusp of anything other than disaster.
Other planets?
Oh please, ye have swerved onto a utopian cul-de-sac from which there is no exit.
grekko: My first clue that you may be the slightest bit right is when govts stop imposing rations on us, and when young scientists devote capital towards R&D instead of loan repayments and real estate.
In short, you're in la-la-land.
P.S. While you're contemplating energy and the logistics of inter-stellar space travel, don't forget to consider protection from micro-gravity, cosmic rays and diminished sunlight, to name a few of many problems. Wormholes may be a "better" answer. Feel free to look into them too, and any other idea that takes your fancy.
And if you're still feeling lucky, buy a lotto ticket. Not saying that the rest can't happen, just that you gotta be really lucky. Would you stake the rest of your life on the outcome of a lotto result? The odds are better.
Why is it that people who write articles like this so often end up looking like this?
http://freedomworks.org.s3.amazonaws.com/images/staff/Logan_Albright.jpg
Mr. overly-dramatic facial hair, before we start worrying about having more people around so we can have more Einsteins, why don't we first worry about the billions of potential Einsteins in the third world who'll never fulfill their potential because they grew up in a shit hole with no access to proper nutrition, sanitation, or education?
Or, forget the third world. Just look at D.C. and the educational disaster its public schools are creating at the cost of almost 30k per head per year. What point is there to increasing the population if that's the kind of population we're going to create?
How 'bout we worry first about making sure the people who already exist have the opportunity to live up to their potential before we worry about increasing the numbers.
"How 'bout we worry first about making sure the people who already exist have the opportunity to live up to their potential before we worry about increasing the numbers."
Because that's not part of their ideology, but infintie growth is. Hence his need to write this simplistic article for the simple minds who want to believe it too.
The sad thing is, if we took that other path and added a billion or two new engineers, scientists, medical researchers, etc. to the planet's population over the next generation, the results in terms of the average standard of living would be unprecedented.
But... with that much innovation going on, legacy capital would be at risk. Rapid innovation shakes up the system too much, and those who were at the top aren't guaranteed to stay there when things are changing so rapidly. That's why it never happens, even though it would be better for everyone if it did.
“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”
Medical researchers? That is the last thing we need more of. Octogenarians running around with hard ons fucking each other and gobbling up resources. Colleague went to a funeral for an in-law who died 18 months after a lung transplant. Heavy smoker and that kind of procedure costs society about $500k. What a waste.
All of these losers with "find a cure" stickers on their cars. We all die. Get over it already.
That's some stone age thinking you've got going on there, Fred.
Yes, by all means let's just assume that the current methods and costs of health care and life extension technologies will never improve. The reason medical care is so expensive has more to do with cartel behavior than it does with medical research, so your complaint is misplaced.
Agree to an extent. Medical researchers discover new ways for the cartels to fleece the public.
There's more money (repeat business) in treating a condition than there is in curing it. So that's the motivation for the cartel behavior - maximizing the return on risk capital.
Thing is though, every once in a while someone smart and innovative will "mess up" and cure something. And the more people who are trained to do that sort of thing, the better the chances are that this happens for diseases which can currently only be "managed."
Then there are the home run possibilities - editing our DNA to repair damage and eliminte disease. There's promising work going on in that field.
You may not want to stick around past your threescore and ten, but others do. Nothing wrong with either choice, imo. The world is an interesting place.
If you have the means to pay for extending your life, go for it. If it is a scheme to make me and my progeny assist in prolonging your life then forget it. That is what we currently have going on. A small group spending a country's treasure to live a little longer, watch a little more TV, etc. Where does this miney go? The healthcare cartel as you say. Scooter manufacturers, pill pushers, etc.
Lets go back to a reasonable approach to HC. For instance some one in their 80's getting chemo or radiation treatments enriches some, but impoversishes society. Funneling resources into unproductive avenues is another issue.
Someone will "mess up" and cure something.
And his boss will take ownership of the cure ( some kind of intellectual property clause in his contract ) and bury it forever so more expensive "treatments" don't lose market share.
and at that point I realised that every cure had probably already been discovered. That would explain our lack of progress for so long.
Stone age thinking is under rated.
Another op-ed writer who uses more than 700 words and doesn't have a single numerical fate or external source to back up his overall theme. Horrenodus op-ed writers on this site.
Good point. However, this piece was written for the ideologues who share the writer's opinions, hence no facts are needed as the emotional comfort and support provided by such drivel outweighs the need for facts. Karl Rove discovered this long ago. The irony is that conservatives think liberals are the folks who focus on emotionally drive policy, when the conservatives base nearly everything they do on emotions. It's a great trick.
How is this moronic drivel obvious to ZHers but most are still blind to the rest of Mises shills repertoire?
Interesting phenomenon.
An extremely astute observation....
I will 2nd the astute observation compliment. Excellent point!
So if you're wrong about something you're wrong about everything ?
To be right about something you must be right about everything ?
Where is this man that never made a single mistake or was never wrong at some point in his journey toward understanding ?
What is does show is a consistent approach and willingness to criticize your own. As opposed to blind adherence to a named rigid philosophy, political team or any other arbitrary construct.
I came across a very good book that you might like:
Sophistry for Dummies....
Google it...
I'm here for the comments and optimism....
we had peak fish and peak oil peak obama and soon peak humans.
In 1971 on Earth Day we were warned that it would be standing room only by 2000. Just mowed my yard and pressure washed my deck and no one else but the wife was in the back yard with me. I guess they missed that. Alberta Canada about 200 miles NW of Edmonton is lovely in January, trust me. Got us to move to the States and become citizens here a generation ago. The sky isnt falling but I love the save the whalers and tree huggers. How about I give you some fishing line, a knife, a slingshot and bow and arrow with a winter coat and drop you off somewhere in the Northwest Territories say end of September. I will meet you where I drop you off in April next year. If you aren't at the pick up point I will gather you didn't have the skills necessary to save the planet you wish to impose on everyone else. If you are there, I will eat some fresh caught fish with you.
I know of a long list of candidates for your expedition. Pick up stateside is in the DC area.
@deerhunter
My nomination for most cogent post of the year.
Well spoken! Kudos!
Yeah cuz there is a huge fuckin' danger of the save the whales/treehugger crowd stopping the infinite growth model.
Depending on who you listened to by 2000 we also were supposed to have:
robot servants,
a cure for cancer,
no poverty,
no hunger,
interplanetary travel,
bionic men,
mile high skyscapers,
an advanced economic system,
high literacy,
the singularity,
artificial intelligence (as if we have much natural intelligence to base it upon),
the return of Jeezus,
the end of the world,
...and my favorite, carburetors that get 4000 mpg, or more! (which someone's friend of a friend of a friend discovered while tinkering in his garage, but then the oil companies sent in the guys in black suits and they bought it or stole it and kept it from us....)
etc...
The one thing I am certain of about the future: when we we overshoot the human carrying capacity, nature will solve the problem for us. Not that we shouldn't try to make this the best possible planet we can, but many cultures throughout history have not shown the ability to curb their reproduction or other deadly habits until they got their asses kicked. We're one such culture, we are no smarter than the past gone cultures and we likely will meet the same fate. All the while, the economists will be telling us "Sure, go ahead and cut down that last remain forest of genetic material. Because that ever elusive 'Someone' will come up with a solution to our problems. We switched to petroleum when whales were killed off and we had no more whale oil..."
The Laws of Thermodynamics should be required reading for all economists, especially these Mises Institute types, but then they deal in theory more than reality.
you forgot flying cars...
btw, where is my flying car bitchez?
+++++++++++ to you Mr deflator.
and where is the four hour working week, now that robots do everything for us? With so many unemployed, surely the least we can do is share around the little work that we do have left.
Oh, that's right, as I said once before, Mr Obama got the hours down to 29. Not quite the same, but I suppose it is a start.
Overpopulation occurs, not when there's "not enough room to swing a cat". Overpopulation occurs when a population outgrows its available food supply.
With today's technology, we can feed and house double the population at a higher standard of living than we had in the early 90's.
Getting rid of government would stop the waste of about $35 trillion a year.
Let alone free up the ability to create.
Zzzzzzz.....
You can have all the government you want, just be civilized enough to allow others to be free of it.
That concept is working pretty well for religious beliefs.
Private industry does not need govt in order to create artificial scarcity. But govt can make it easier for them.
There is only one important statistic for gauging "over population.":
1) Parasites to people--The number of pols, crats, gov. employees and banksters per non-parasitic person.
"My guillotine can improve that statistic."
I'll drink to that solution!
Jesus! I read through the comments and it really depresses me that so many have given up on mankind. It must have something to do with a public school education that so many of us were forced to have. Wake the hell up and smell the coffee. This system smells like a boathouse at low tide, to quote Sean Connery. If you don't like the system we have, then change it. Get back into a growth state, like the Constitution set up govt to be allowing. fire the bastards that are owned by the oligarchs. If we run out of oil, don't worry about it. Some bright young person will find something better through technology. How about nuclear fusion? The fuel source is Hydrogen, the most common and abundant resource in the Universe and the byproduct of fusion is just plain helium, the second most abundant resource in the Universe. Come on ZH'ers, where is that pioneer spirit that all Americans are born with, that can-do attitude? With an ever expanding Universe, there are plenty of resources. Buy a couple of shares of Space-X and leave it to the great-grandchildren. It'll probably pay for their education when the time comes.
To quote John Belushi, "Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No!" Let's give DC an enema and get back on a growth agenda.
10,000 years of history say you're being overly optimistic if not somewhat naive about human nature. The wolves are nearly always able to convince the vast majority of the sheep that they are the shepherds.
"Get back into a growth state, like the Constitution set up govt to be allowing." Wait what? The constitution, government, "allowing"?
Since when do Libertarians kowtow to government allowing anything?
" The fuel source is Hydrogen, the most common and abundant resource in the Universe and the byproduct of fusion is just plain helium, the second most abundant resource in the Universe."
While hydrogen is the most abundant element on the planet it isn't found by its self, it wants to bond with other elements. Separating hydrogen from the other elements that it bonds with takes energy--more energy than you get from the hydrogen. Hydrogen is a very small element, it will leak out of nearly any container with the known exceptions being Palladium and other Platinum group metals. Not exactly the most abundant materials in the known Universe eh? Abundance is only one consideration of many when determining the viability and scalability of an energy source.
\facepalm....
Or you just pulled off the second greatest poe ever seen on the Hedge...
I'd love to devote my time to solving the problems of mankind, or at least one problem ( the energy crisis ). I'm planning on doing that as soon as I can. (Okay, okay, I have a few other niggling little problems that I wish to solve first, including income security to keep me through the learning stage and acquisition of capital for R&D.) Believe it or not, I stumbled across ZH while in the process of trying to solve my smaller problems. (And now I have devolved into a ZH zombie, dammit!)
The world is my Lego set! How could anyone not get excited by the opportunities? Errrr, don't hold your breath waiting for me. Half way through my life and progress has stalled. Save yourself!!! If I can catch up, I will. ZH can be addictive for its truth and illumination, but this article is puke-inducing bullshit.
If you honestly believe that you can save the planet then do it. Find a better part of the internet. ( Actually, I am amazed how often I reach the "edge" of the internet - turns out it has nowhere near all the answers, even for some relatively "mundane" stuff. )
grekko, you sound like you're young and naive (??? Too far from reality??? Not sure I have the right word) but I'm warming up to you. There is a reason why ZH is toxic. ( Don't end up like me as a ZH zombie who forgets to focus on the other parts of life! ;) ) Can things be better? Don't tell us, show us. And get a little more education on some of the ideas you propose. Some of us have looked into them.
By the way, what is I & C Designer?
"Resources are finite; humans consume resources; humans produce resources; therefore, if humans produce more resources than they consume, a greater population will be beneficial to the species."
Uuuhh, human produce resources by using resources. Which are finite. So not beneficial to neither the species nor the planet.
The world is to overpopulated with dirty scumbag degenerate banksters. Their greed genes won't be satisified until everyone isl dead.
This guy is a moron. Just looking at oceanic fish stock depletion, world wide soil erosion, bio diversity reduction etc etc etc show how the combination of how many people earth supports coupled with how they live is not sustainable.
Infinite growth on a finite planet. What could possibly go wrong?
What a load of bullshit. So everyone should be content and want more more more humans until they are all packed in like sardines in every square inch of the globe. Brilliant. Who the hell needs to have some free space when they could instead live in super packed areas? That sounds like fun! It's even a better dream seeing as most humans these days lack courtesy and giving a shit about their fellow man so you'll then be surroundied by a zillion people who think the world revolves around them and will be inconsiderate to you. Sign me up! Also, all wildlife areas should be torn down to make way for the humans! Who gives a shit about other species.
The fact that almost half the frigging population lives in lousy conditions and there are over a billion people starving should be a sign the world is overpopulated but hey, that's the real world. Better we all live in this fantasy "WE NEED MORE HUMANS!!" world this idiot author is living in.
It's even more ridiculous when you consider technology is making more industries automated which means less need for human workforce (and that most of the humans who do work work in lousy almost slave labour like conditions) which then means an even bigger problem. Once again though we'll ignroe this and live in our fantasy world.
This writer is probably some bible thumper as it seems the bible thumpers take on that view about how the world just needs more people and can handle them all since they seem to think the god they pray to will make it all great even though the current situation of the world should show that if there is a personal god, it doesn't really give a rip about how humans are in this world.
It's funny how the people who go on about the world not being overpopulated and trash those who say it is as "hating humans" or some other shit don't see that their belief is actually WORSE and shows they don't care about humans because if they did care they wouldn't be wanting more people to be born into shit conditions and more people being unemployed and starving and it is inevitable that humans will cause themselves to go extinct if the population keeps adding billions like these fairy tale living people seem to endorse.
Agent Smith in the Matrix was correct: humans are a virus and writers like this and people like him prove it.
When I see wide open spaces, "bulldoze that shit over" isn't the first thing that comes to mind. Guess I ain't got what it takes to be a D.C. economist like Mr. Albright. Wonder if he is kin to Madelein ?
Lead by example, slash your wrists.
I see this conversation exceeds your IQ limit by several points. You should go over to the "Obama's birth certificate is fake" message boards and whoop it up with folks who operate at your level of contemplation.
Badabing!
I think his point is a little more pro-actively minded ?
ergo ... with some conscientious decision making employed you could have been "reassigned" as vitamin E cream and spread over your mothers tits then rubbed in for good measure ?
More than one way to skin a cat :)
Cheap dense energy has created an anomaly in human existence where even the poor can waste food because the use of petroleum has created greater advantages in producing crops and meat animals unknown in the past.
As demand increases and supply dwindles, transportation will decrease as scarce oil will increasingly go to crop production.
That trip to Cancun will be spent instead on very expensive groceries.
Better wrap that rascal or you might screw yourself out of a place at the table.
I rarely post on ZH, but this is about the dumbest article I've read on the site in the last five years. Terrible.
The evidence of Malthusian brainwashing on this board is truly sad.
At least I now know what the schools have been doing to people since I left
On the libertarian myth of individual order in society and of the triumph of social darwinism and the shrivelling away of state under its own corruption.
To understand this evolution so prevalent in uber neo oligarchical circles today and their false nosed proponents who proclaim it as man's future, in a libertarian John Galt worshipping world, here is an historical reminder of those who espoused these values in the past :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
And its main scions in the US political circles today as portrayed in this book now coming out :
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/17/koch-brothers-book_n_5342694.html
As the rise of fascism is now the coming tide in first world, torn asunder by this capitalist morph, it would be wise for the coming generations to take stock of this ideology and to where it leads; before its too late.
The population is not growing unsustainably but it is growing. The population of those with European, Japanese, Korean and Chinese ancestors is shrinking though. If you belong to any of these groups your group and therefore you personally will become less important and will have to share the spotlight with Arabs, Negroes, East Indians, Phillipinos and North American Indians.
The population is currently unsustainable. The best scientist say that the Earth can only support 3Billion people given rates of present day carbon emissions.
Where do you people come from that you know so little?
A long time ago the sitation of Cain and Abel proved that when there is hate in the heart, the world isn't big enough for even two people.
"There are vast swaths of unpopulated land all over the place. "
This is just plain STUPID. It misses the point and the threat entirely. And it figures that the whores at the Mises Institute would come up with this shit.
The overwhelming majority of scientists are telling us, mankind, that man-made global CO2 emissions are leading to unheard of temperature increases and global climate change.
We are facing CO2 level rise never seen before by the Human Race. We have irrefutable global warming. And Mises wants us to keep puting rounds in the chamber and playing Russian Roulette.
This is why I hate Mises to Pieces.
Putin makes Gaia weep.
There is no Gaia.
There certainly is, just ask my daughter...
It's too bad that Co2 is plant food and reducing it to pre-industrial levels would cut forest growth in northern climates by 30%. Pre-industial Co2 levels would reduce agricultural yields by 13% or so. We're also doing silly things like shutting down nuclear plants instead of building much safer designs. Co2 from nuclear plants is limited to the Co2 created in building concrete structures.
Then there is this variable star that we're orbiting that puts to shame what man can do to influence world temperatures. Scientific consensus once said that the world was flat and that we were heading for an ice age. The pay is good in the "climate change" racket and we wouldn't want to have to beg for grant money because we've invested billions with this theory. There are the nice climate change conferences in Brazil and other nice places. Don't take these away, we would have to get a real job.
Climate changes, it has changed all through history. Warmer periods of our history were the golden periods, the colder times resulted in misery for all.
Irrefutable evidence that D.C. "thinktanks" have descended upon the hedge.
Besides governments, what organizations of individuals, "needs" to grow not just exponentially but infinitely?
Stupid is as stupid does....
You idiots who play scientist then turn to real scientists and say you don't believe them.
When people really start dying, expect your ass to be on the list.
Use your unused brain. Google " composition of air" , then see CO2 levels, compare that to an INERT element Argon and scratch your head. At about 20 times as much as the poisonous carbon dioxide, which do you think is the bad actor. One is inert and the other binds with other elements to make plants, animals, and minerals such as limestone, thus taking it out of the atmosphere.
My suggestion would be for you and Spotted Al Gore to commit suicide and lead by example because you and jet-set Al are poisoning Mother Earth. You do that every time you exhale.
Since when can a minute gas measured in parts per million create a stir? Perhaps carbon credits for the PTB while the competition gets none, thus ceases to be competition? Follow the money.
Shirley, you aren't gut-hooked on that MSM globaloney, your posts that I've read indicate you aren't a lemming, so I don't get it. Enlighten us, please.
This is quite sad. I'm a scientist, douche bag. And you clearly have no chemistry experience but here you are venting your butt hole on this topic? What an idiot you must be.
You are comparing Argon to CO2? And you think the issue is about CO2 being a poison? No one is claiming CO2 is a poison! Perhaps you confuse Carbon Monoxide (CO) with Carbon Dioxide (CO2)? CO is a poison but it is not what the topic of global warming concerns.
CO2 is an issue because it does several things, none of which you seem to understand. CO2 is a green house gas. It acts as a absorber of heat energy from the sun. It is like putting a BLANKET on the earth and thus increasing the retention of heat. CO2 also becomes and acid when it dissolves in sea water and water in general. The increase in CO2 levels in the ocean leads to the formation of Carbonic Acid...the stuff in a can of soda that makes it fizzy/bubbly. CO2 acidifies the oceans leading to the dissolution of Calcium-carbonate rich structures such as the shells of many oysters, crabs, coral. The increased acidity KILLS certain marine life by making it impossible for them to reproduce effectively.
Does that help, you big fat moron?
Shouldn't you school yourself before you open your big stupid gob?
NEXT!
"We are facing CO2 level rise never seen before by the Human Race". NO
Ice core samples have shown much higher and much lower levels of C02 at different times going back 400,000 years. Of course you would only know this had you researched this 15 years ago before climate god James Hansen decided the data couldn't be true because "the oceans would have boiled off". So he had the data altered to show C02 levels lower in the distant past than now post industrial revolution. So if the data doesn't fit the theory you change the data. That is anti-science.
"We have irrefutable global warming". Yes, we have been in an overall warming trend since the end of the last glacial period 12,000 years ago. We have also experienced periods of less warming and more warming like the little ice age.
"The overwhelming majority of scientists are telling us, mankind, that man-made global CO2 emissions are leading to unheard of temperature increases and global climate change". NO
There are plenty of scientists that don't buy into anthropogenic forced warming. They don't get grant money and get blacklisted. Beware of people who tell you the science is in on something as complex as climate. Complex systems on top of complex systems whose interactions with one another are not fully understood and they tell you the "science is in". By the way, water vapor and methane are the most offending greenhouse gasses and the planets temperature is taken not by ambient air but by the oceans as air is not a good conductor of the global heat budget.
It would be a gift to call some of the science peddled by the global warming crowd as pseudo science when in fact a lot of it is just plain antithetical to basic science.
Your climate denial is disgusting.
There is no credible source that you can cite so you talk bullshit.
"There are plenty of scientists that don't buy into anthropogenic forced warming" NO.
There are no reputable scientest that agree wtih you. And you are too embarrassed to present the names of your climate deniers. These FEW paid shills of the pertrochemical lobby embarrass even you.
I have to say, when posts like yours help carry water for the upcoming catastrophe and serve to confuse us from concerted action in our defense, I then say to myself..."there is at least one silver lining to the NSA illegal dragnet collection of identifiable data."
When millions of citizens in the Western Democracies start to starve and die, when the damage is so baked in that we realize that it can no longer be reversed in course...then one must hope that the lists of the scum bag liars and shills will include names like yours to ease the public need to exact revenge.
You take care now.
More humans = more resources?
Anyone know where I get some of the stuff this guy has been smoking?
Your food will have to come from your back yard but at least you'll be able to buy ammo to protect it.
I hope the ammo guys have back yards too.
I'm trying to help this guy out.
"therefore, if humans produce more resources than they consume"
Government will grow like cancer and punish the producers to buy the votes of the consumers or parasites.
Speaking for myself, I don't produce enough natural gas to offset my energy consumption.
Stanford Lepidopterist turned zero population demagogue Paul Ehrlich lost bets to MBA on UK casing to exist in 2000 and Malthusian excesses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager
Meantime, the same people who brought US ACORN, Amnesty, Benghazi, Climate Change, IRS shakedowns, New Black Panther poll intimidation, 20 new 0Care taxes with 16,000 new IRS agents and doubled the debt bubble for warfare welfare are facing Operation American Spring right now:
http://bit.ly/1qLGsiD
red herrings
In the natural world there is no such thing as unlimited growth. Human population growth has limits just like everything else. And space is not the only thing required to support human existence. Sun, land, air, water are needed to support all life, they also provide all the natural resources. Interesting this author can't look a graph of human population growth over time an see an unsustainable bubble. If this was a market they'd be screaming "sell, sell, sell".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_curve.svg
Articles as ignorant as this one make me think it's time to stop reading ZeroHedge.
Bullshit.
there enough room in my ex-girlfriend's c.nt to park a Range Rover - So there's probaly room for a few families in there...
Anyone know of other space available for people to live in?
Don't we need population growth to feed the great experiment that is the human ponzi scheme....
"Logan Albright is the Research Analyst at FreedomWorks," http://event.istayreal.com/logan-albright
It's mostly true, "The Rational Optimist" by Matt Ridley argues it in some detail, that just raising the efficiency and standard of living of the bottom 2 billion up to the current average would support population up to 10 to 11 billion, IIRC. Fresh water is running out in places and we need to do some thorium reactors for power to desalinate water and recharge smart phones, but I think we can handle that over the next twenty years. We just have this perverse habit, as a tribal species, to all want to get on the 405 freeway going in the same direction at the same time, making it look crowded.
It might be "optimal" in some sense to have fewer humans and more semi-native jungles and forests and grasslands and deserts, and an overcapacity in farmland and grazing in case there are droughts here or there. It might be better to have fewer dumb guys and fat chicks and old folks hanging around, but when push comes to shove there's always solyent green.
Underpopulation such a dreadful thing
The EIU's Livability Ranking and Overview August 2013
City Country Overall rating[2]
1 Melbourne Australia 97.5
2 Vienna Austria 97.4
3 Vancouver Canada 97.3
4 Toronto Canada 97.2
5 Adelaide Australia 96.6
6 Calgary Canada 96.6
7 Sydney Australia 96.1
8 Helsinki Finland 96.0
9 Perth Australia 95.9
10 Auckland New Zealand 95.7
somethings not right
Notice something about that? Australia and Canada, two of the only housing bubbles to endure the GFC, account for almost the entire list.
Now what do you think happens when these two bubbles eventually and inevitably pop?
yeah, but in Aussie, this time its different....and now that you have picked yourself up of the floor from laughing so loud, I will explain why, millions of chinese are looking to get their money out of a stagnant property market in China, the chinese still love property, so they come to Australia and buy here, lock it up and fly out again, there are rules that are supposed to stop them, but really it comes down to just ticking a box on a sheet of paper, nobodies house ever gets taken or is forced to sell. Canada has just woken up to this, it has only taken them about 7 years to realize there might be a problem, Australia is still completely in denial, the reason for this is that stamp duty on houses is a big revenue earner, so the denial will continue and the Chinese will continue buying.
New Zealand has an even bigger boom going on because they have no stamp duty costs and practically no restrictions on overseas ownership of property. The Chinese love this, plus its green image compared to China.
http://www.wtamu.edu/academic/anns/mps/math/mathlab/col_algebra/col_alg_tut43_logfun.htm
It snowed april 17th 1961 here and It snowed april 20th so call me a climate sceptic also at times as we are aware of the ratio of various carbon isotopes in the atmosphere. For me LOG 3 matters more than articles from a younger non producers. Three minutes your brain dead with no oxygen for whatever reason, 3 days no water, yep your kinda dead, three months no food, well you get by now society. Farmers and Business people obey the same natural laws if they are educated or not. Point is plant a garden if you can survive the rising parsitic classes or lean over the fence and ask if you can help another move ahead if they are able without raising cain. I am also interested in the solar effect on the magenetic core of the earth causing some issues in this current cycle 24. The main point is we differ in as small l libertarians is we get castigated in the paradox of thrift discussions and at times if you do not work why should we feed you?