Western Civilization is unsustainable/Earth is screwed.

Just something I was thinking about today. Life expectancy today is about 80 years. Thats basically double what a typical human would have lived 2,000 years ago. Therefore on average the typical person in Vermont is living as long as two humans would have lived 2,000 years ago. Thats not a good thing. Eating twice as much. Carbon footprints times two, from everybody. Population growth is the other problem. I think its common knowledge that there are too many people on Earth, but the real problem is that the number of people on Earth has grown exponentially. In 2050 there will be 9 billion people on the planet. 9 billion people needing access to resources, and demanding the production of these resources, exponentially. Many scientist think 9-10 billion people is the limit for which the Earth can support, by the way. Personally I think we're already past that point and just haven't realized it yet.

I mention all of this because its a specific type of system or ideologically that has encouraged this. It goes back to the Industrial Revolution and Capitalism. Keep in mind that prior to 150 years ago, modern humans had been doing just fine for 100,000> years. Human ancestors had been around for 7 million years. Life was hard. Life was short, but the tradeoff for this was the sustainability of the species. A lion could eat every Zebra and deer, but then it would starve the next day. Humans however are responsible for the EXTINCTION of several species due to over hunting/fishing. In a few generations we have made human extinction very likely. Sad.

 

I'm a child of the fifties, I got mine.
You youngins are screwed. And thanks for paying my social security too.


Moi

No ​

 

That is why climate change is of no concern to the one percent and Big Business.

They will live life to the fullest as they speed up the process of climate change in the name of profit, and the conservatives and neoconservatives will be helping them all the way.

In destroying the environment, the human race passed the point of no return decades ago.

School children of the 1960s were taught of the detrimental effects of the industrial age back then (50 years ago). Some became the tree huggers hated by the right wing, while greed, fear, disbelief, or religion allowed others to deny the problem existed.

Which of the above categories message board members fall into will be shown by their responses to your thread.

 

Sadly this is correct.

 

If you think there are too many people on the Eath, remember all Hussein Obama has to do is call the officer with "the football," enter a few authorization codes and poof! problem solved.


As long as somebody other than Americans gets to do the dying.


I've heard this blarney ever since the sixties and they haven't been right yet.

 

I've been thinking a lot about this, too. If you are right, I guess it's a good thing for any other intelligent beings in the Universe that won't afterward fear encountering our insanely violent species. As long as all the sociopaths starting these wars and running their sweatshops die with us. If only a few are going to survive and they are the most ruthless, then I hope our whole species goes extinct. All should thrive and survive, or none of us should.

 

You're saying some interesting things here. You're saying that the (sustainable) human population cap on Earth is less than 7 billion. You're saying that at this rate the world wide human population will be 10 billion by 2050. Finally you're saying that with a smaller population and shorter average lifespans the human species is in a better position to endure over the long haul. I hope I've been fair in summarizing your points. Let me address them:
First, the number of people that the biosphere can support is dependent on the sort of tools and information we have access to. The number of people that a square mile of land can support is kind of tiny if we just account for hunting/gathering. The number gets bigger when people have access to agriculture and domesticates. It is increased again by pesticides and chemical fertilizer. I would ask why you're so sure that human beings will be unable to develop the technology to support a larger population in the future, or to make the population we have sustainable indefinitely. We are talking about the year 2050 after all.
Second, it's probably not possible to reliably estimate the population growth throughout this century. The UN estimates that by 2100 the population will be between 24 billion and 6 billion. So the people with all of the census info, who refer to the most sophisticated mathematical models think that the population will ether get bigger or level out or get smaller.
It really is difficult to guess whether people are going to continue to reduce family size world wide, as they have in the developed world, or if they are going to take full advantage of emerging technology to create truly massive families, like the baby boomers. It's also difficult to guess how long these trends will last. What is certain is that birth rates per woman have declined in north America and Europe even as lower infant mortality and greater life expectancy have increased the population. If that trend continues world wide, the human population will begin to grow more slowly in the near future and then decline slightly towards a steady level.
Finally, it may not be true that sustainability comes from a smaller population. Some anthropologists theorize that the human population had shrunk to around 10,000 individuals about 70,000 years ago. The fact that there are now 700,000 times as many of us now indicates that a smaller population may not be any more sustainable.
Anyway, it may not be time to get really pessimistic about the future. Yet...

 

Yes, population is growing expontentially, but it's the third world, not the west, where the boom is at, mind you. But still, the production efficiency is also increasing expontentially. I'll agree that right now, we're, or rather those in africa, are growing a wee bit too fast, but overall, I don't think current levels are unsustainable if you look at how efficiency will progress. But of course, some might have this romantic notion that less people is somehow desirable, in which case I ask you to tack a pick between Einstein, freud, and all other great minds that's been part of this boom. Who'd you want to throw away? The HUGE increase in scientific progress has been in great part to increased population. Quite simply, more brains equals more brainpower.

 

Socialism is Unsustainable!

The rest of U.S. will adapt, innovate, produce, and overcome.

The only two species about to go extinct are idiots foolish enough to believe "Greenie Enviro-DOOOOOMMM" theories, and the Liberal Fascists who sell that brand of lies.

You predictions of "Environmental Doom" as a justification for Liberal Fascism are REJECTED, Go Away!

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I would add that according to some anthropology, the development of our brains for thinking and problem solving arised out of a need to figure out how to adapt to a changing environment, especially climate change, which was both drastic and frequent in Africa, and which the vast bulk of our human-like cousin species went extinct from. Nowadays we are much smarter, so we should be able to handle it. Hell, we'll be 3D printing all the food we need I'll bet.

But I would never regard climate change as something to kill off people, unless it turned into a runaway greenhouse like Venus, but we could just live in space by then. It will however bring us some disruption to many parts of the world.

 

The left has gone crazy.

We have more food then ever. An obesity epidemic. Maybe you want to go back to famine days but we are fine.

Yes capitalism has made everyone's lives better. It has also produced enough to keep that living standard up. We have no shortage on energy, we know of more of it now untapped then ever before. The climate is producing record crops every year

What is the problem? Climate change? So far our experience seems to suggest it will lead to more food and longer lifespans. That is the trend at least.

(I know the climate hasn't really changed but if every bad weather event is blamed on climate change lets blame the good stuff on it too)

 

Life expectancy in Victorian England, say 1901, was 48. In 1841 it was 40 for men and 42 for women..

 

What a short-sighted point of view; wealthy, bloated Western nations have serious obesity issues. What about the rest, don't they count?
It's very easy to be smugly complacent in your Amero-centric bubble when all you need do to get food is drive to your local supermarket. However there are very substantial populations who don't have that luxury.
As far as crop yields are concerned regional variations produce very different results.

 

Yeah they live in socialist nations and their government controls their economy.

But our food aid even keeps them out of hunger. Lowest starvation levels in history are being experienced today. Most widespread high living standards etc... If the whole world was free market oriented capitalist we would have none of these issues and you can't find one free nation that does. Even Botswana is kicking ass at fast enough pace to have already overcome all these issues.

Monsanto - proving methuselean theories bunk for 80 years or so.

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Wow it really sucked back then. Couldn't even sustain people past 50. Thank god we have gone past that. Why the left wants to return to that is anyone's guess.

 

Food aid? That's like putting a Band-Aid on a cancerous lesion. How long can strapped-for-cash Western nations continue to help those less fortunate?

 

Not to mention the Ethics issue of enabling continued exponential population growth in those countries with starving people.

Feeding them, rather than letting learn from the hunger, to limit their own population growth, only dooms not only their citizens, but everyone else to much more unavoidable starvation, along with the other of the "Four Horsemen" a few decades from now.

Letting them go hungry now is the only sane, ethical position!

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Population growth is a problem, standard of living is not. Ideally there would be just a few billions of people on Earth, but with stabilised populations and living like first world countries do. That would be sustainable (if peak oil is solved).

No they did not, they often lived in poverty and strife.


Also, those who consume the most tend to multiply the least, and often have shrinking population.

 

The OP said Western Civilization was unsustainable. We have been reducing our population naturally, but some morons want the front, back doors and all windows open to mass immigration which is increasing it.

If your that worried, stop mass immigration and Instead of sending food to some of these 3rd world countries send them contraceptives, then they might reach levels their land can sustain.

 

Contraceptives? Ask Catholics about contraception and see what they come up with. I do see your point, but when you're dealing with both cultural and deeply-ingrained issues of religion-particularly among the less enlightened-the hill becomes very steep to climb.

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So you'd prefer to allow millions to starve to death in order that your lifestyle is not compromised? But I guess America never suffered crop failure, famine or starvation. Except that it did. I do hope you are applying the same principle to your fellow citizens. God bless capitalism, eh?

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...sc=y#v=onepage&q=famine usa dust bowl&f=false

 

This is exactly the point: it's Socialist poppycock implanted in young minds full of much in such a way as to be fully internalized but allow the lemming to conclude that they thought of it themselves.

The entire population of the world would fit in Texas, and give each person 1000 square feet.

That leaves the rest of the entire world for infrastructural support - crops. You liberals need to g.t.f.o. of our ears. Stop forcing your religions on us.

 

Millions to starve to death, and you liberals whine regularly about fear mongering. More than a touch hypocritical, yes? And no one ever said that America has never had famine or failure, etc; that was your strawman.

And for your comment about Capitalism, I also did not know such things are attributable to Capitalism, and not simply the human condition. Or do you care to explain how chronic starvation exists in Africa, where Capitalism is not seen or heard?

 

The real poppycock being implanted in young minds is "go ahead and consume, God will provide."

 

Then we make clear to them that holding onto superstitious bull(*)(*)(*)(*) like that comes at a cost. Either they stop being silly fools, or they die of starvation and disease. Nature's way of handling idiots is to let them kill themselves. I'd rather not have us interfere with that process, because doing so will only postpone it with even worse results later on.

 

It might be worth while to note that while the Vatican has been adamant in its opposition to the use of contraceptive devices, the vast majority of catholic women still use birth control other than natural family planning.

 

Also, ecological footprint:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint

That is, a high ave. ecological footprint and bio-capacity that cannot sustain it. The former will increase due to a growing global middle class while the latter will drop due to environmental damage and global warming.