The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution

Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by jandrese on Friday May 10, 2024 @03:23PM (#40322897)

There is a lot of panic over shrinking population where people project it out 1000 years and find there are only like 5 people left in the world.

Steady state population should be the long term goal, at least until we start moving into orbital colonies or something. But unfortunately that's an anathema to growth oriented economies which makes it the bad guy in economics and politics.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by missedthecue on Friday May 10, 2024 @04:21PM (#40323404)

At fertility rates of 1.6, it takes just 25 generations for the global population to go from 8 billion to 900k. Just 10 generations for the global population to drop below 1 billion. Pretty scary stuff.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by rcxdude on Friday May 10, 2024 @05:10PM (#40323832)

assuming fertility rates stay constant, which they rarely have. 250 years is a lot of time for things to change. (and of course there's no need for fertility rates to grow to as high as they have been historically, due to the massive drop in child mortality).

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by missedthecue on Friday May 10, 2024 @05:27PM (#40323946)

I'm not convinced it's a self-correcting problem.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by Dylan16807 on Friday May 10, 2024 @05:44PM (#40324077)

That's an extreme drop rate for the whole globe to have, and a very long time, so I'm not scared by it.

The population only went over 2 billion in 1927. Dropping from current numbers is fine, and less competition over space would be nice.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by missedthecue on Friday May 10, 2024 @06:04PM (#40324220)

The issue isn't just the total number, it's the demography. The population is getting very old at a breakneck speed. I'm not sure how healthcare and pensions are supposed to be provided for old people when the tax base gets smaller and smaller every year. The end result is pretty terrible elder poverty.

Not to mention the changing political dynamics of having a lot of old people outnumber younger people by 2 or 3 times in the voting booth. The gerontocracy is bad enough now. Imagine it 3x worse.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by Dylan16807 on Friday May 10, 2024 @07:51PM (#40324835)

https://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/united...

Looks fine to me. What's your definition of "old" here? Are you specifically worried about Korea like you mentioned in another post?

I'd worry about the implications of a global 1.6 birthrate if they were actually going to happen. I don't think that's very likely, though. I don't know if we're even going to get down to 2.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by missedthecue on Saturday May 11, 2024 @02:05AM (#40326318)

Since the mid 1980s, the median age in Italy has gone from 34 to 46 and the trend is accelerating. This is despite massive immigration. Expect this to happen everywhere in the next 40 years. India and China are already below replacement. All of LatAm, Europe, and South East Asia as well.

Unless someone thinks of a democratic, scalable solution it's going to be a lot of pain for a lot of people for a long time.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by jandrese on Friday May 10, 2024 @05:23PM (#40323924)

This is exactly my point. People assume that human behavior won't change if the population starts shrinking noticeably, especially if that shrinkage results in reduced housing pressures.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by faeriechangling on Friday May 10, 2024 @03:34PM (#40322996)

I mean Japan hasn't been doing great but it's been doing fine, so I don't think the end of growth has to mean anything but a period of stagnation. The economy will be fine.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by missedthecue on Friday May 10, 2024 @04:22PM (#40323411)

In your lifetime, Korea will have more than two 60+ year olds for every working person. They are screwed.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by hi-v-rocknroll on Friday May 10, 2024 @04:31PM (#40323488)

Korea also has a cultural practice of extreme ageism. So much so that the elderly are frequently impoverished to the point of food insecurity and committing suicide by jumping from bridges.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by adrianN on Saturday May 11, 2024 @01:05AM (#40326080)

Moving to orbital colonies won't save you in the long term if growth remains exponential. You can expand at most in a sphere growing at the speed of light so at O(t^3). Eventually the O(c^t) population growth will outpace the rate of expansion.

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Re:The World Has (Probably) Passed Peak Pollution by jandrese on Saturday May 11, 2024 @02:25PM (#40329778)

Projecting out exponential growth into the far future is great because it has happened exactly never in history. All growth is on an S curve. Always.

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