The world’s going to hell. Anyone half-alive knows that. So why aren’t the other ranters talking more about the one overwhelming determinant of planetary collapse?
It’s us – the sheer volume of humanity.
Various space probes and telescopes are checking the galaxy for “goldilocks” planets, those, like ours, that orbit in the region around a star where water remains mostly liquid, the only condition that can support life as we more or less know it.
The goldilocks zone is determined by a combination of planetary density, distance from the parent star, planetary spin rate and other stuff we don’t need to go into here.
One major assumption is that these planets must have a dense, rocky center – but not so dense that its gravity would pancake all organic life. So a life-supporting planet can only be so large, so dense to be just right. Looking at that, you can readily see that no organic-life planet can successfully support 8 billion beings as bulky as ourselves.
Human life has more than tripled since 1950, from roughly 2.5 billion to roughly 8 billion. Though most experts deplore this explosion for various reasons, but they seldom correlate it directly with the continuation of a livable planet.
They catalog the quantity of our waste, the explosion of concrete, the expansion of landfills, etc., but not how the simple fact of our unlimited existence determines climate change (or more fundamentally, climate stability) through the next millennium.
Seriously: Unless the current population is reduced by about 3/4, there is no medium-term hope for the planet. I say “medium-term” because over the long-term we’ll either have learned to rein ourselves in or vanished as a species. Whichever we choose, the earth itself will outlast us – and laugh at us.
In the 1960s, ZPG – zero population growth – was a seriously promulgated goal. So much of the ’60s, I’ll readily admit, was hopeless hope, but ZPG was perhaps the most forward-facing idea of its time, a recognition that we, as a species, had done enough, gone as far as we needed to go (indeed farther than makes sense) and should just … stop.
Instead, over the rest of the 20th century, the human planet went apeshit, supported by the idea that “growth” is sacred in every area of our existence, and that everything within our grasp is unlimited.
Evolutionarily, the population of every species – plant or animal – reaches a limit, attempts to extend beyond it, and collapses. That’s earth’s history. Today, we’ve taken growth farther, faster, to a degree of disruption and dissolution previously unimaginable.
Every extrapolation I’ve read listing the dangers of climate change (whether assumed to be man-made or god-made) is based on carbon emissions or current waste or energy expansion or plastic inundation, while taking into little account that unrestrained human propagation is what most inflates our output of rank shit. (I hate the European whining at population loss; they should celebrate it.)
Consider these points:
* If the population were to double in the next 100+ years, even if we halved the energy used per individual, it would come to the same amount of energy expended (1/2 x 2 = 1).
* Our individual human output – breath, sweat, piss, excrement – will remain constant per unit.
* Assuming every square inch of earth to be open for exploitation, we have not considered the physical and emotional need for minimal personal space.
* Each of us has a unique personality with unique perceived needs and expectations, so there will never be universal agreement on how to deal with any grand aspect of existence. We cannot impose a generally accepted regimen to achieve planetary salvation.
Still, it may all even out over time, you say?
Time…
We don’t have it. Whatever way we extrapolate, our grandchildren will go through fire and hell. I didn’t do it, you didn’t do it, none of us individually did it, but collectively we produced species armageddon. Look it in the face or spit in its face, it’s still there.
Hope for humanity, if any, isn’t a matter of time but of evolution. We don’t simply need to be more understanding or more accepting, but to become something fundamentally different. By our nature, we have shat our nest beyond emptying. It’s programmed into us, inescapable unless every future newborn is reprogrammed before they pop out.
Could happen. Could happen about the same time as we discover immortality – which will really doom our sorry race.
Humans aren’t special, as religion assumes, and we aren’t infinitely tinkerable, as much of modern science assumes. We’re random bits of universal, then galactic, then stellar, then planetary, then environmental particularity. We’re blobs of circumstance. We need not puff our breasts in exuberance or wail to the stars in desperation, but recognize ourselves as whateverthehell we may or may not be. We can’t change most of it, and it’s absurd to say we have a destiny to do so.
Likely it’s the same throughout the cosmos. And you wonder why we haven’t tuned in intelligent broadcasts from the stars?
There’s scientific data that either support what I’m jeremiadly chuffing out or undermine it, depending on how you see the problem (i.e., whether we’re permanently fucked or only fucked for the next couple centuries):
Based on the latest data from the UN Population Division (https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth) the population growth rate has gone down steadily since 1960, though the number added to the population over that time has remained about the same – a billion more of us every 12 years (the total slowing to 11 billion total by 2088).
Some excerpts: “One of the big lessons from the demographic history of countries is that population explosions are temporary. For many countries the demographic transition has already ended, and as the global fertility rate has now halved, we know that the world as a whole is approaching the end of rapid population growth.” (This quote assumes that we haven’t experienced something unparalleled and incalculable over the last half century. I’m seen other figures that predict that Nigeria alone will balloon in population to 750,000,000.)
“The 7-fold increase of the world population over the course of two centuries amplified humanity’s impact on the natural environment. To provide space, food, and resources for a large world population in a way that is sustainable into the distant future is without question one of the large, serious challenges for our generation…. Population growth is still fast: Every year 140 million are born and 58 million die – the difference is the number of people that we add to the world population in a year: 82 million.”
…”Population projections show that the yearly number of births will remain at around 140 million per year over the coming decades. It is then expected to slowly decline in the second-half of the century. As the world population ages, the annual number of deaths is expected to continue to increase in the coming decades until it reaches a similar annual number as global births towards the end of the century.
“As the number of births is expected to slowly fall and the number of deaths to rise the global population growth rate will continue to fall. This is when the world population will stop to increase in the future.”
Thus, the good news: Women worldwide are deciding to have fewer children, and the sperm count in men is falling – so maybe the situation will start to heal itself.
By which point it will almost certainly be too late:
• The need to expand the acreage of land given to agriculture (which is already a catastrophic polluter) will obliterate the stated need to protect at least 30% of existing open land and sea from encroachment.
• The need to increase solar and wind energy to both service this population and replace fossil fuels will have the same effect of encroaching one our shrinking pristine land – while also overwhelming potential agricultural land: Look at photos of the massive solar arrays in Australia and parts of the U.S. set up where crops might otherwise be grown.
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My semi-apologies if my negativity upsets you, but I find it personally invigorating, because I see it as dealing with reality, leaving happy fantasies to wither, as they should.
But! Some really good news: Linda made the world’s most delightful, delicious blueberry muffins for breakfast this morning.
Muffins ventured, muffins gained!
lickhaven 