Item — HN Reader

This is the truth nobody will really talk about. Climate change is rooted in the size of the global human population more than anything else. Reducing our emissions buys us a bit of time, but it's just kicking the can down the road; as long as the global population continues to increase, we'll always catch up with it again.

Earth can only support a certain number of human beings.

3 comments

>Earth can only support a certain number of human beings.

Correction. Earth can only support a certain number of human beings at a given standard of life.

I have seen HN comments where some users have said that earths capacity is closer to 100 billion than 10 billion but they always ignore that the standard of living would have to be pretty terrible.

> Earth can only support a certain number of human beings at a given standard of life.

Correction, to be pedantic. Earth can only support a certain number of human beings at a given standard of life with our current sciencific advancement. The number increases with advancements in renewable tech.

"Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flash. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive." - Pardot Kynes, First Planetologist of Arrakis

This. And it is much more effective to lower the birth rate in the industialized countries than in the poor, because of the hugh difference in resource consumption. Instead, the industialized societies are so much concerned about a decline in population that they try to mitigate it, instead of encouraging it.

Assuming that the rate of occurrence of talents is constant, less population means less intellectual / scientific / technological capacity, too. This may end in a decline in military might, and eventually erosion of political independence.