Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by bryanlarsen on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @07:49AM (#18335611)

IMO, the claims that population is the problem is far more dangerous. Population growth is mostly a solved problem. All population growth models have the growth being much slower over the next 50 years than it was over the past 50. Most viable models actually show the growth reversing, and some even show it peaking near current levels.

Does that mean we've fixed the problems? Far from it.

The number of people is only a really small factor in the damage that people do. One jet-setting westerner does many orders of magnitude more damage than the typical subsistence farmer; and the damage done by subsistence farmers varies quite widely. (Some are causing desertification and chopping down trees)

And of course there are some people doing more good than harm, reducing the population reduces those people too.

No matter what the population is, we have a lot of work to do. Greenhouse gases are the most visible problem; there are lots of others.

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by philipps on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @10:31AM (#18336798)

I didn’t make the claim that population is the biggest problem. I responded to the incorrect suggestion that population size is not a problem (which you repeat without offering any evidence that we could sustain ourselves). Growth is by no means a “solved” problem. Growth is expected to slow, but even at our current population size we are consuming an unsustainable amount of resources. And growth will slow as a result of increased wealth > higher consumption. Given that we live within the finite ecosystem of of our planet, this means we need to make significant changes and we need to make them now.

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