Just had a chilling thought. I heard people are smuggled in such containers. Imagine if one such just dropped from a ship. 
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They should have included the likes of Ganges, Sindh, Danube too.
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Itâs getting to the point where Iâm getting apprehensive at looking at science pages now.
Extinction: Freshwater fish in 'catastrophic' decline - BBC News
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Nope. Itâs lifestyle.
You canât say population is the issue when a large family in the developing world have a smaller footprint that a single person in the western world.
The problem is our lifestyles.
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Would less people help? Yes. Get that large family to where we all should be: Comfortable, fed, sheltered, heated, working, happy, bit of cash in the bank etc and theyâll consume just like we do. Human nature. So less humans has to help.
Look at the roads. Would they be nicer with 1/2 the cars? Yes. How many families do you know (who live outside big cities) who only have one car? Our society revolves around car use ( the fact that the roads are so much busier than the first lock down proves this).
Gas isnât lasting forever, less people less gas. Same with petrol. Yes weâre increasingly moving to renewable sources but not quickly enough and thatâs just here.
All these problems are reduced with less people. Less consumption is good but less mouths to feed is better. Thanos had a point. Before anybody goes Godwin, no, just no. A cultural change is needed, not a cull.
Child benefit in the first world capped at 2 kids. Bring up the floor level in the 3rd world through giving women control of their reproductive cycle, throw in a handful of grain if you can (Hitch).
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The problem with this argument is that is derogates responsibility from the here and now, and shifts the blame to the most vulnerable, and blameless people. I also think there is a pretty racist thrust behind to it.
What do we know?
Firstly, birth rates fall as a natural consequence of economic development. Furthermore economic development is really the only way of reducing birthrates
Secondly, across the western world and in more recent economic developing nations birth rates are already falling. Even in Africa, about which people have a stereotypical view of big families, in urban centres average family sizes are falling rapidly.
Thirdly, the consumption of resources is not equitable. The richest half billion people in the world (6.5% of the population) are responsible for 50% of global carbon emissions.
So not only does it makes absolutely no sense to push the myth that overpopulation is a driver of climate change, itâs actually dangerous and will only make things worse.
The issue is that 6.5% of us lives lives that are completely out of kilter with the planet.
I think the population argument is seductive because is sounds quasi-scientific, has a rebellious edge to it (as it it allows people to feel super clever for sitting outside the mainstream), but crucially it allows us to deflect the blame for a crisis that is absolutely our fault onto the poor (usually foreign) people who have done nothing to cause it and suffer the worst impacts of it.
Focussing on population has two problems. Firstly it does nothing to address the cause of the climate crisis - resource intensive lifestyles in the affluent developed world. Secondly, unless you want to go full Thanos, the only way to bring down population beyond the natural tailing off that is currently happening is through further economic development, which is the last thing the planet needs right now.
The only sensible course of action is to address the ludicrously resource heavy nature of our lifestyles in the developed world. Birth rates are falling everywhere, and even in the developing world large families are on the way out, as people seek to copy our lifestyles anyway. We donât need to actively pursue population control - thatâs happening anyway. What we need to do is ensure future economic development doesnât follow the same destructive path ours has. We do that by showing a better model.
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Pretty racist thrust? So thinking less people will consume less resources is racist? Wow. Just wow.
Do you want to have a quick read of what I wrote, and have another go?
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If I called your view racist (incorrectly) in the first sentence, would you read past?
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Yes. Iâm open to the possibility that views and positions I hold might be inadvertently racist, and Iâm happy to be told that and educate myself where necessary.
What I donât do is put my fingers in my ears and refuse to listen.
Iâm sorry that this information has hurt your feelings, but the view that the root cause of the climate catastrophe is overpopulation is racist. You donât mean it, and Iâm not saying itâs racist in the same way as going round saying âI hate the blacksâ. But what you are doing is taking a problem that is absolutely the cause of high carbon western lifestyles, and pushing the blame onto people in the developing world.
The only places where population growth is not slowing and starting to fall already is the poor developed world where the brown people live, like rural Africa. Just as a comparator an average single American accounts for the same carbon emissions as 250 Ethiopians.
So by all means letâs blame them for having too many babies.
https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2019/mar/9/how-racist-myths-built-population-growth-bogey-man
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Hurt my feelings? You really donât know me at all do you. You donât need a thick skin to bounce off unfounded and incorrect accusations. The closet racist line was frankly beneath you. What was the line? If you had an ounce of integrity youâd apologise? Paraphrasing I know.
One question that Iâd like you to answer please:
Do less people consume less resources? One word please, itâs a very simple question.
Iâll read it later, sunshine and play with jnr is calling.
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It obviously did hurt your feelings, or you wouldnât have had a strop.
I remember seeing a BAME speaker saying she was sick to the back teeth of white people declaring themselves not to be racist - sorry sunshine, you donât get to decide that.
I understand the R word triggered you, but try and appreciate what I said. I know you are not goosestepping around declaring white supremacy. Iâm sure you have loads of black friends. Iâm sure in most facets of your life, youâre complete not racist.
But we all have to be open to the possibility that some of our opinions have a racist origin or undercurrent. That doesnât make you a bad person. We are the products of societies that have structural racism at their foundations. Of course we think things that are a bit racist. That goes as much for me as anyone else.
When someone says âthat thing you believe is a bit racistâ the right thing to do is have a think about it and see if there is anything in it, and then reassess your opinion if necessary; not stamp your feet shouting âIâm not a racistâ while giving yourself a slap on the back because youâre not the kind of person whoâd push shit through a Pakistani familyâs letterbox.
Iâm not going to apologise for saying that the over population theory of climate change is racist. It just is, for the reasons Iâve already set out.
It canât be answered in one word. Sorry.
On a very basic level, the idea of less people, less resources makes sense. But this isnât a basic issue. Those resources are not distributed equally, and the people we are considering are not equal.
The problem is the lifestyles of around 5% of the population. If you can get hold of Thanosâ gauntlet and snap away a random 50%, we donât make much headway into the problem. Even if the disappearances are distributed evenly, youâve only removed half the people who are responsible for the vast majority of the problem, and the remaining people are all scrabbling towards that lifestyle anyway. Within a few years you might have fewer people but pretty much the same problem.
Back in the real world, would less people in the the developed world be beneficial. Yes, but birth rates are already falling. There is no pressing need to intervene in terms of population control. In fact many countries are trying to the opposite.
Would less people in developing world countries be beneficial? Not really. Not if you are trying to reduce global emissions. In regions where large families are normal, per capita emissions are absolutely tiny compared to ours.
Have fun.
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Yes and no. I think youâre a little guilty of assuming that everyone consumes the same level of resources. If there was a drastic population cut across the whole world equally the affect would be vastly different compared to a population cut of the top 6.5% wealthiest people. Basically a cross the board population cut doesnât achieve the required affect as it leaves too many producing the majority of emissions unchanged. Thatâs just simple logic and is the level of reduction needed is getting to that level.
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More people means greater demands on finite resources. Thatâs just an undeniable reality.
I donât think anyone is inserting any colour adjective before the word âpeopleâ.
People in developed countries use more resources per capita.
The argument about overpopulation contributing to the climate disaster could just as easily be framed as advocating for the cull of the population of developed countries than those of developing countries. This is actually the point that @Mascot is making; is that then racist for the same reason?
In reality, nobodyâs arguing for any culling. The argument is for population control, which needs to be combined with serious steps to more equally distribute the demand on natural resources across the globe.
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Came across this today. Itâs a more local based issue but quite a large one I think.
While the farmers are taking the brunt in this article at probably the worst possible time (Brexit) there are also other sources of run off pollution into rivers. In Wales in particular there is a large problem with run off from old mine workings. River health is really important I think and we are failing miserably.
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Which is exactly the point I made.
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Yes, I knowâŚ