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Comment by rcMgD2BwE72F | Hacker News Reader

>People keep saying we can feed 10 billion people. We can. But at what cost to the diversity of biological systems? > >It’s not popular to say but we need to stabilize population growth and stop encroaching on natural habitats and put a brake on consumerism.

This is not popular because it assumes that everyone has an excessive footprint. I'm vegetarian, I get most of my food from a local, organic farm. My footprint is minimal (no car, zero commute, no flight, etc). We could be billions more if we chose to live this way. Why ask/force people not to have a family where we could have happy family living responsibly? Asking others to die / not reproduce is a great way not to challenge our way of life.

For some reasons, all the people I know who campaign for population stabilization/reduction are among those with the worst footprint.

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I too have no car, zero commute, maybe take one flight every other year etc. I still think we should stabilize human population. I don't know what is the maximum number of humans mother earth can support without completely fucking up the planet, but I don't want to find out. Do you?

I don't have kids and don't plan to have. Nobody is forcing me not to have kids, in fact the opposite. I am the black sheep of my family and social circle, people look at me weird for not having kids (not that I care).

The problem with asking people to live responsibly is that it hasn't worked so far. Ever tried asking a meat eater to reduce a tiny bit of their meat consumption? Another issue is that even if it worked, it will take a long time for people to change their habits. We should of course educate people about responsible living, but we should also remember that it is a long, hard process.

I don't know what the solution is, but we are at a point that we should try everything we can think of, including asking people to have less kids, live responsibly etc etc

I grew up eating meat twice a day and quite like the taste. I cut that to once a week (and ramping down) once I understood the co2 numbers. I have always been carless but was naive with regard to diet. Dairy is now the WIP.

Turns out I also quite like tofu, falafels and soy crumble.

This is basically the problem. To constrain human growth so it is sustainable requires a lot of limitations.

Environmentalism is unfortunately a liberal issue, not a conservative one (or an all-people one which is fundamentally is), population controls is basically a war on the poor, especially in the modern world, and that policy can't coexist in the liberal sphere right now.

Environmentalism historically is basically conflict with corporations, and was really about localized environmentalism (pollution of a lake, etc), or it was a small number of corporations (CFCs for ozone).

Global warming and species destruction is a totally different ballgame politically.

Constraining human growth seems to be very easy, though, and requires /more freedom/ not less: Increase access to education, reproductive freedom, and career opportunities.

This trifecta has brought reproduction below the replacement rate in large parts of the globe. US population goes up only via immigration.

But that's already factored into projected population growth. We still end up with a 1-2+ billion more people for the next century or so before the replacement rate is negative.

So... Do it more. Places with good access to education and family planning /already have/ negative population growth rates. The problem is uneven access, and that's something that can be worked on.

Open borders to move people more quickly into more-developed countries, and increase funding and pressure for initiatives to raise standards in other countries.

I don't see that working. Right wing has been on the rise the past few years and countries like Japan didn't have a decent immigration system to begin with. Racism was a big factor in Brexit vote too. It just seems that with every passing year, immigration (even for well educated and qualified people) is becoming more and more difficult (even before covid), the opposite of what we need.

Here's the rub, all the things you're asking for cost way more energy and produce way more carbon than being third-world poor.

Environmentalism as currently practiced is a liberal issue, but protecting the environment is a deeply conservative notion - the mechanisms by which it is achieved may differ, though.

Margaret Thatcher, a Conservative to her core, raised environmental issues on the world stage and worked for action well before it was a politically fashionable cause.

British Conservatism != American Conservatism.

Not even close.

> Environmentalism is unfortunately a liberal issue

Only the "performative" kind. Conservatives are quite in favor of nuclear power for example, which is arguably the most "environmental" thing one can be in favor of. What they are against are reductions in business caused by higher energy prices, and worse quality of life. Both are a hard sell in the long term unless you're just virtue signaling and lower QOL and higher cost of living won't affect you (that is if you're Leo DiCaprio, Al Gore, or John Kerry for example).

> Why ask/force people not to have a family where we could have happy family living responsibly?

I'm sorry, but you know that people can still have families (up to 2.1 children/woman on average) while staying below the replacement reproduction rate (so resulting in population reduction). So why pretend that they're being asked to give up families entirely?

You'll have to explain that to those who want 3+ children. I know a few that will fight for their rights to have as many children as they desire.

I personnally believe population control is just a way not to challenge our way of life. Because if you get them to actually care about the environment (our future), then people will ajust their family's dream (why have another child if it makes life worst for the first one?).

Your initial claim was that people would be asked to have no family. At least acknowledge that the choice is "large family" vs. "medium/small family", and not "family" vs. "no family", instead of blithely shifting the argument.

> We could be billions more if we chose to live this way.

This line of reasoning is problematic as it just delays the stabilization. Maybe we could have a few billion more people now but surely there must be a limit somewhere. 10B, 50, 100? Sooner or later we'll have to stabilize.

> For some reasons, all the people I know who campaign for population stabilization/reduction are among those with the worst footprint.

To be clear, I personally believe we have to both stabilize the population AND dramatically reduce footprint per capita.

>This line of reasoning is problematic as it just delays the stabilization. Maybe we could have a few billion more people now but surely there must be a limit somewhere. 10B, 50, 100? Sooner or later we'll have to stabilize.

The thing is, people will only reproduce less if they adhere to the cause. So if we get people to realize we all must care for our environment in order to live well, then you don't have to limit population growth. Limiting population growth will always be less effective than changing a way of life (which makes people not want too many children).

If you restrict reproduction, expect people to want more consumption (at least to compensate).

> Why ask/force people not to have a family where we could have happy family living responsibly?

You can't guarantee the lifestyles of your children. For all you know, your family of 6 kids will rebel against your (extremely worthy and admirable) lifestyle and start flying around to see the world. That's what kids often do.

>You can't guarantee the lifestyles of your children.

I bet I can have more influence on my childrens being environmentalist, than on others' people desire to reproduce.

By the way, I'm not advocating for people to have more children but against policy to limit population. Only because it so less effective than accepting to have a sustainable footprint.

> no car, zero commute, no flight, etc

If you get a heart attack, where do you think the medical supplies come from?

By air from China!

Even if you personally manage to abstain from taking planes, you consume products and services by people who fly and drive cars.

Obviously. But it's already taken into account in my carbon footprint (by multiple estimates including "imported" emissions).

> We could be billions more if we chose to live this way.

Can you explain this? Why should we be billions more?

Don't distort their words. They said could and should.

The quote was literally a copy & paste from the parent post. No distortion there. I am genuinely curious why people think we should aim to grow even more in numbers.

More so, I am genuinely curious what the same people propose we do when we reach whatever they consider to be the maximum sustainable population. Clearly, we can't grow infinitely in a limited space.

If we stick around long enough, then colonizing and terraforming the solar system where possible would provide most of the growth. Luna, Mars, Venus, the Belt, and some moons around the gas giants would be candidates. Eventually, we might figure out ways to expand to other nearby star systems with good enough tech to support it.

We can't get people to survive in a closed environment on Earth, or even get scientists to create a liveable ecosystem in a lab... With all the resources available at hands. I'm not actively against Mars colonization only because I trust it will fail and give us a good reason to care about the unique and fragile habitat we have here on Earth.

I'm not hoping for a failure, I'm just intimately convinced that we won't manage to survive on other rocks without really trying here first.

I'm talking long term, if human civilization lasts for thousands of more years. Then it becomes more reasonable. I agree that this century it's a much harder sell and largely out of reach. We should focus most of our efforts on Earth for now, without abandoning some space exploration. Space programs, telescopes and SETI are good things we should continue doing.

I didn't say we should be billions more. I said we could if we cared about our environment. I simply believe it's more effective to explain the danger we face and get people to really care, than to curb population growth.

The first reason is that it takes more energy to fight the desire to reproduce than to get people to live responsibly (at least not more than our environment can bear). Moreover, if you somehow get people to reproduce less than they desire (without causing to much frustration), you'll still have to educate them about the sustainability issues (aka our way of life). Why not directly address the way of life challenge, then?

People don't want many children when they know what's coming (your first child's future is in jeopardy, let's have more!). It's no coincidence that those who have/want the most children are the least aware of the biodiversity/climate problem.

isn’t the extremely long term plan to colonize the universe? how can we achieve this goal without major increases in population?

I said could.

Being vegetation obviously has a huge impact on your footprint, but I'd imagine that buying from a local organic farm actually has a much higher footprint than buying from a larger non-organic farm, since non-organic can grow more in a smaller space.

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