Slashdot Mirror
Humans Will Need Two Earths By 2030
An anonymous reader writes "A recent report warns that humans are overusing the resources of the planet and will need two Earths by the year 2030. The Living Planet Report tells that the demands on natural resources have doubled in the past 50 years and are now outstripping what the Earth can provide by more than half."
.. and we've run out of ipv4 addresses "in about a year" for the last decade or so..
and people will probably pay about as much heed to this warning as they do to ipv4 exhaustion.
AND just like ipv4 exhaustion, nothing serious is going to be done about this until stuff actually starts falling apart. And by falling apart I don't mean charts and graphs, I mean "The Day After Tomorrow" falling apart. And even then...
Haven't "scientists" been saying stuff like this since about the mid-1800s? "Peak Oil", "Population Overcrowding", "Global Warming"... all modern-day myths that never seem to die no matter how much they're refuted.
Back when I was growing up, we had those quaint little videos where the Statue of Liberty's hand was the only thing showing above the ocean. And a grandfather was passing on his wisdom to his grand daughter about what they could have done differently to avoid this coast catastrophe. Which happened in 2020.
Now, I know we're still 10 years out, but I would expect NY to be at least a couple inches under water by now.
Humanity will adapt and survive. That's our strength. Fossil fuels run out? We'll figure something else out..oh, we already have. It's just not cheaper than fossil fuels...yet.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
What is the purpose of this post? What does it even mean? What is the purpose of posting a link to a nebulous summary of a highly suggestive report on an extremely politically charged subject on a site that bills itself "News for Nerds"?
Quick, someone say "we're using the resources at a larger rate than the earth can provide" ! before the cornucopians come out of their caves to declare infinite growth through infinite resources.
The bottle maybe big but the spout is killing us.
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
This has F-U-D written all over it. Yes, we might need 2.75 Earths worth of *some* minerals or resources, such as tungsten or cork trees, in 20 years, but we certainly do not need 2.75 Earths worth of other, vaster resources, such as breathable air or silicon. To say that we'd need two Earths in order to quench our ravenous thirst for light bulb filaments is overkill, and certainly does more to make me discount these studies than think poorly of how humanity manages the resources we have.
still refuse to discuss population control.
Not true. There are a few that advocate genocide.
So when are we going to start regulating birth rates? I know this is seen as racist by many, since the minorities are the main ones reproducing at an alarming rate, with obvious octomom exceptions, but it is about the future of our planet and the survival of our race at this point. Race isn't even a factor.
The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
Fortunately, things are being dramatically better managed than even just 30 years ago. For instance, the birth rate of most densely populated countries has flattened to almost zero; agriculture is far more efficient than before; trees are being reforested in earnest. As things get gradually get worse, people will gradually put more emphasis on sustainability, and an equilibrium will eventually be reached somewhere between the Utopian and Doomsday extremes. Might not be quite as rosy as it is, comparatively, today, but it will be manageable.
I can agree with the forced genocide but I have one request for those who advocate it. You first.
Somehow I doubt that the groups who created this report are impartial and it is well known that if one goes looking for a specific conclusion, one will find the conclusion whether the conclusion is correct or not.
still refuse to discuss population control.
And so do the non religious, unfortunately. Worse, they seem intent on subsidizing the fecundity of the stupid at the expense of the responsible.
You are painting with an excessively broad brush here.
You don't need mystical mumbo jumbo to not want pesticides all over your fruits and vegetables.
You don't need mystical mumbo jumbo to not want your chicken and cows raised in factory farming conditions, fed hormones, antibiotics, and the cheapest foodstuff imaginable to fatten them up as quickly as possible.
Why do you need mystical mumbo jumbo to be aware of the major nutritional differences between wild-caught fish and farmed fish, that are principally due to their different feeding habits.
So yeah, some of the stuff labeled "organic" that's basically identical to conventional stuff may be a rip-off, but there is plenty for a purely scientific, rational-minded person to critique in our industrial food system and plenty of reasons to avoid certain food produced by them.
an an entire generation that has no aunts, or uncles, no siblings, and a tradition of the children taking care of the parents in old age.
The overpopulation myth. Bottom line - we could provide for every single person living on this planet with just the resources inside the US. Never mind the rest of the world. We're a LONG way from overpopulation... We have a distribution - not resource - problem to solve.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
No need. We'll just have a few wars like we always do... and maybe a plague or two. This problem will sort itself out.
Affluence = population control. Note how Europe and the US are experiencing all of their population growth now due to immigration? It doesn't require mandatory birth control measures (or enforced abortion laws, etc) to keep the population down.
All you really have to do is provide the masses with a better form of retirement plan than: 'have a shitload of kids so that at least some will live long enough to care for you when you get old'.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
To be fair, the radical (on either side of a debate) always have a knack for exaggeration. This shouldn't deter us from taking at least some measures towards better efficiency and at the same time expanding resources available.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Uh oh, another "non-profit" group must need money to supplement their jet's and expensive dinners.
That is a stupid argument. Imagine you see someone disemabarking from a private jet, wearing a suit that costs more than the salaries of you and I combined, just so that they can attend an expensive dinner in another city. Which is more likely?
Which side of this argument has the most financial interest in arguing either for or against limiting our use of Earth's resources? Let's face it, you don't get super rich by becoming a climate scientist.
It reminds me of when the three CEOs of the car industry all took private planes to lobby Washington for a taxpayer handout. But no, I am sure that you are right that it is the tree-huggers who are the ones trying to greedily screw us all for money.
Meanwhile, the "organic food" folks insist that food must be grown using only slightly modified classical techniques, for a variety of reasons from vitamin density (overstated relative to studies, at best), to mystical mumbo jumbo like vibrations and auras. The other argument is that a given technique is sustainable for a given circumstance, or allows for smaller farms - but none of them are sustainable across the populations modern farming techniques functionally do now.
They are sustainable. They could easily feed the planet. And they are based in real science (artificial hormones are still present in the meat when cooked, even if there isn't proof that they affect humans). You are arguing that increasing pesticide use is good for people. That's not true. Reduced pesticides, reduced hormones, and reduced water usage will improve the food and the areas where the food is grown/raised. The USA could supply just as much meat as it does now if all the cattle were banned from hormones, required a disease to be given antibiotics (rather than using them as preventative medicine), and were no longer fed grains they aren't built to eat. The issue is that it would be more expensive. And there's real science that supports the idea that our current regular practices are unhealthy (or higher risk) for the cattle and the humans consuming them. No mumbo jumbo required.
Learn to love Alaska
Assuming they are correct (they know how many resources are available on the entire planet [I think some natural resource extraction companies would like to talk to you]? They can forecast future technology?) People will invent new technology as needed, tastes will change, and price rationing will take care of the rest. This is like complaining that there aren't enough Aston-Martin DB5s in the world, or that we need to find another Earth to allow everyone to have prime beachfront real-estate.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
OK, I've read all the posts and apparently I'm the only one (today) who reads this article, goes outside and looks up at the starry sky... Ignoring the article's source and Doomsday message, there may come a day ( in the distant future ) when resources become (excessively) difficult to obtain. Then it will be a good day to notice that this is but one smallish planet in a much larger solar system.
Anyway, I live in Cairo, Egypt at the moment. It's a city of 20M people and growing bigger every day. This is the future for most of the world, where most of the growth is happening.
And if these cultures don't straighten out their act, they'll also be the places where most of the population die-off occurs. Further, population growth doesn't equal economic growth. Most of the places with negative population growth still have positive economic growth.
Of course. Human civilizations are about 3000 years old, but industrial civilization is only 200 years old. Only in the past 100 years has large-scale resource extraction, large enough to make a big dent in potential supply, been feasible. The really rich ores, like veins of copper with over 1% metal, are long gone. Over the next century, lots of stuff is going to run out. Oil production peaked in 2005. There hasn't been a major new energy source in the last half century; just improvements on previous ones.
The "free market will solve all problems" crowd was insisting that peak oil would never happen. But it did. The price of oil has tripled without an increase in supply.
that "the fall of modern society and a return to agrarian, low power" lifestyles couldn't make you happier.
--
"According to the Living Planet Report, human demands on natural resources have doubled in under 50 years and are now outstripping what the Earth can provide by more than half"
Then how are we getting the resources? If I can provide 2 apples and the customer takes three where does the third one come from?
"The report said that wildlife in tropical countries is also under huge pressure, with populations of species falling by 60 per cent in three decades, the'Daily Mail reported."
60 percent? O' RLY? I don't think even the National Enquirer would buy that.
"And the report, from the WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, said that British people are still consuming far more than the Earth can cope with."
Then how is the Earth coping?
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
Give me a break. the issue that the "organic food" folk are concerning about is farm animals being pumped full of antibiotics because they're crammed into confined places in which their walking on, breathing in, and ingesting fecal matter and the remains of other dead animals. This has nothing to do with "vibrations", "auras", or any such bull that you pulled out of your ass, and the fact that you have to lie about the viewpoint that you oppose speaks volumes.
And I DO know a couple Christians who actively don't care about the environment because Jesus will return, and usher in the end of the world and a bunch of random torment for vast swaths of the population who aren't in their church, within their life time. Their church also sends money to the Israeli settlement movement, because it will bring on the end faster.
I find this more than a bit creepy. If Christianity didn't have an edict against suicide, there would be no Christians left. There is something very odd trying to actively bring about the end of the world, so a whole bunch of people can go burn in hell, while you and your little family get to sit in heaven and stare at Jesus' navel. There is something to be said for that school of Buddhism (I forgot what its called at the moment) where someone reaches enlightenment, and instead of leaving the cycle of reincarnation to be in whatever Buddhist "heaven" is, they stick around and try to get everyone else saved instead. Seems more noble than the Evangelical route, where you usher in the end of the world just so you can get to heaven, the rest of the world be (literally) damned. To me the desire, by their own mythology, to bring suffering on innumerable others would outweigh the whole personal salvation thing.
But then again I don't think there are many Christians in the world who Jesus would actually recognize as followers.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey