Comment on New Delhi - during lockdown vs now
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 5 days agoBut even with these slower rates of growth, our population is already far above the sustainable carrying capacity given by Bradshaw and team’s models.
The gap between their optimum number of 2.5 billion and our current population size of 8.3 billion may help explain the problems with overconsumption our species currently faces.
Earth’s Population Has Surpassed The Planet’s Capacity, Study Suggests
alekwithak@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Did you actually read what you provided? It’s really not the defense of your point that you are making it out to be. Lead author, Corey Bradshaw (Who also co-authored Human Population Reduction is Not a Quick Fix for Environmental Problems), argues that our current consumption system is unsustainable. I couldn’t agree more!
The 2.5 billion figure cited within is not some immutable physical limit on the number of human bodies Earth can contain. The authors explicitly acknowledge that a “sustainable” population depends on things like standard of living, economics, social conditions, and resource consumption. Their ecological-footprint estimate of 2.35 billion specifically assumes today’s average material standard of living and current consumption distribution, including the enormous consumption of the wealthiest people.
You’re taking a model of how many people our planet can sustainably support under particular socioeconomic and consumption conditions and treating it as evidence that the people themselves are the fundamental problem. That’s not what the evidence shows, though. Not even the evidence you yourself brought to the table, sorry!
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 5 days ago
It’s a number of people that the planet can carry based on reality.
alekwithak@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Reality is malleable. Sure, the circumstances or how resources are divided and used is reality. The current population is reality. We are both discussing ways in which our reality can be transformed to the benefit of all. Your suggested path involves the death of billions of people, while my suggested path involves some people having slightly less exorbitant lifestyles. Your suggested path is not only extreme, but it wouldn’t even work according to the very scholars you are citing. THAT is reality.
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SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 5 days ago
Sounds good enjoy your fairy tale take on the world I’ll stick with the reality we’re living in.