Why Overpopulation is Actually a Problem
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
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In this Our Changing Climate climate change video essay, I look at why the myth of overpopulation is actually a problem. Specifically, I look at how overpopulation is leading to dangerous conclusions both on the right and the left. On the right, it's leading to conclusions of population control, murder, and ethnic cleansing. On the left, it manifests as birth control access, but is still couched in the ideas of population control. Overpopulation is ultimately a myth that at best distracts from the needed work of climate action, and at worst leads to violence.
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:17 - A Brief History of Overpopulation
5:31 - Overpopulation for the Right
12:19 - Overpopulation for the Left
17:00 - The Reality of "Overpopulation"
19:57 - Paths Towards a Zero-Carbon World
22:35 - Brilliant Sponsorship
I use Epidemic Sound for some of my music: epidemicsound.com/creator
Some visuals courtesy of Getty Images
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Further Reading and Resources: ourchangingclimate.notion.sit...
#overpopulation #climatechange #socialism
💡What climate issue/topic do you think doesn't get enough attention?
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Reproduction brings more people that will suffer under not only climate change but also inevitable suffering like aging and death. #Antinatalism
Despite overpopulation not causing climate change,reproduction still forces new people into this cruel world were suffering like aging and death are inevitable. #antinatalism
I am sorry, I usually like your videos but you are completely off the mark here - the point of overpopulation is that it relates to more CONSUMERS who all want to live COMFORTABLE modern lives based on what is marketed to them - everyone in Africa wants the same consumption-based lives as the rich world. The more high-consuming people there are, the more we need earth's resources & the more we'll produce plastics from petrochemicals.
I see where you're coming from, but more people will inevitably require more resources, consumption and waste and make the transition to a net zero, fossil fuel free future a lot more difficult.
No one (other than the far right facists) is wanting a eugenics style attack on people of colour whatsoever, we are just concerned about the environmental crisis and any tool we can use to assist in solving it should be utilised, as you've said before. Attacking the people on our side like Nye, Attenborough and Sanders isn't particularly helpful.
Where I live in the UK, the country has been deprived of biodiverse and climate resilient green space due to the agricultural, industrial and residential booms since the Industrial Rev, as a consequence to our rapid population growth.
Abolish animal agriculture and transition to a plant based food system. How was that omitted in a critique of Malthusianism, imperialism and white supremacy? Feeding 10 billion humans isn't gonna work without widespread veganism. Fossil fuel tunnel vision is a problem among environmentalists. When the far right talks about using population control to "protect their way of life", they're talking about meat consumption just as much as they're talking about fossil fuel consumption. >80% of farmland is for animal ag yet only produces
People quicker to tell others to stop reproducing than to tell billionaires and gov to stop hoarding wealth and degrading resources are a red flag to me.
Or as they say: "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."
Those two issues are not mutually exclusive at all. But go ahead and create a false dichotomy
@Ameen Younis Human population growth is already naturally peaking or will soon anyway.
@Ameen Younis Billionaires are causing more damage than a bunch of people existing in poorer nations. Overpopulation isn't the issue. Overconsumption is.
@@Evergreenvic overconsumption isn't just by billionaires.. every fcking one of you from first world are overconsumers... So either decrease population or stop consuming so much.. ( which won't happen )
1% of richest people cause 50% of all pollution. Let that sink in.
Those factories wouldn't exist if people didn't want to buy an Iphone or TV. Oh but that fact is omitted from your tiny skull. Rather just blame the rich who are only supplying you people with a product you want.
If they drown in their million and a half dollar luxury pool, the world finantial problem would improve.
You can hate them as much as you want but the only entity that can force the imperial core to the three points that this video make, is China.
Only China now and in the future, together with the other imperial peripheral can force the imperial core to submit to environmental justice.
@@denifnaf5874 too bad their financial wealth will probably go to their children
@@gelinrefira Imperial core? lol. Also China is too weak to do that and doesn't care about environment like at all.
Ofc blaming poor people is far easier than blaming those at the top, who by the way are laughing at everyone “below” them.
hope you do know that in order to grow crops to feed more people, rainforests need to be chopped down. In order to connect everyone via cell phones, rare earth metals have to be dug up. Not to mention volume of human waste that need to be processed. There is invariably more destruction done to the planet with more people.. Billions of tons of chemicals, plastics and petroleum products are causing polution of our waters and oceans. Also plastics by the billions of tons. And temp is rising due to climate change. Oceans absorb carbon dioxide which heats when exposed to sunlight. And when polar ice melts and sea is darker than ice and it causes the water to absorb more heat from the sun due to black body radiation. It is a huge problem
I can assure you, we don't laugh, we are terrified.
Sorry for my bad English, I'm from Bangladesh, some of the worst places on earth...
3 Children should be more than enough if someone wants a big family.
My grandparents had 10 children each and many grandchildren, let me tell you how much ignored I felt in these populated families and have grown up to be a malfunctional adult with several illnesses. The best children got all the attention emotionally and financially (the parents even bought houses for them)
I have only one child myself! But if I was aware before I would have none. I'm financially helping an orphan now and hope to adopt when I'm ready.
Maybe those that have suffered the worse like me can be part of the change. Less children is simply a matter of quality over quantity.
Hmmmmph
You are a gem of a person who broke the cycle of generational trauma.
I couldn’t agree more.
I hope you are well. Good luck and all the best to you
When given the chance to economically and democratically develop, population tends to naturally opt to have less children. It’s about education, women emancipation and financial safety. No need to force anyone much less sterilization. Adoption is a very noble solution also! Congrats on that, but please don’t let your sim or daughter know that you regret having him or her for the sake of overpopulation!
Fun Fact: The average American consumes as much energy as 12 Indians combined. That means India's population would have to balloon to 3.96 billion (almost half the current globe's population) in order for its consumption rate to match that of the U.S. For context, India's current population is 1.4 billion.
Love your username 😆
I assume you took it to embrace the slur that the critics called you.
Their carbon output is low but they also dump untreated sewer and chemicals into the rivers like it’s nothing
@@GTAVictor9128 Yup. And it's also just me openly mocking McCarthyism and the politics of Red Scare Propaganda.
@@Montezuma0 Every environmental sin attributed to India can and IS attributed to the U.S. Currently. Present Day. 2023.
@@Montezuma0 sure and that never happens in the US
What kills me is that they see no other alternative, it's either cut population and population growth, or we're headed for disaster. We couldn't possibly change our behaviors, ideals, and practices?!
Even if you live more sustainably the earth only has limited land that’s actually livable. So at some point you have to limit population. Doesn’t make sense to have 100 billion people even if you can somehow give them enough resources. So if we have to limit population at some point why not do that now?
They be over here like, "Thanos was right!" But won't address greed.
@Ameen Younis we will never hit 100 billion. The population will peak. We can all live at the rate it take the Earth to replenish it's renewables. Jeez. Act like humans know how to frigging evolve.
@@Montezuma0 Did not you watch the part of the video where it was plainly laid out that scientific predictions indicate the population will soon level out and slowly decrease? We don't have 100 billion people. There is no good reason to expect we *will* have 100 billion people. You are advocating a major, controlling solution for a problem that does not currently exist and is not actually expected to exist by anyone doing evidence-based analysis rather than fearmongering.
The average person breathes out about 1kg of C02 per day. calculated out, that's approximately 2.92 billion metric tons of C02 per year for 8 billion people. That is roughly equal to the amount of c02 all of humanity produced from all sources in 1910. In 1910, we were already producing enough c02 to increase global ocean temps (albeit at a much slower rate than we are now).
So; just breathing and nothing else, 8 billion humans still drive climate change.
Traffic is crazy, housing demand outpaces supply, national parks are over run, everywhere I go is overcrowded. How is overpopulation not an issue???
And this issue is a MINOR inconvenience for Americans compared to so many other less rich countries.
Because the United States is a spread out continental nation. The USA isn’t as densely populated as China or Japan is.
If you don’t want to see people everywhere you go, then population will be an issue for you. However, from an environmental perspective, overpopulation isn’t an issue. It’s not the collective group of individuals who are destroying the world, it’s the 1% who controls the production of supply. Redistributing power equally amongst many will give power to more voices. My only concern with giving everyone equal power over decisions, is that I don’t know if we could come to quick solutions. I worry that with too many voices, then there will be too many solutions. However, I have never seen a socialist economy. So, I do not personally know how it would work
Where do you live?? That’s the problem. Move to the country, there is tons and tons of empty space.
@@eruriperiodt5913Obviously the space is not an issue. In terms of resources it is. 97% of the Amazon has been destroyed since 1900… then you will complain about “gmo” foods when it’s IMPOSSIBLE to feed the entire population naturally.
The genius in seeing others as the problem source is that oneself has no reason to change their behaviour. Blaming others is enough in order to go on with the own greed.
especially others that you are already used to by centuries of "culture" to se as inferior
Spot on
I think many of us are quite aware that our own communities and families and selves contribute to environmental destruction, but you are correct, the dumber people only see number of births, not lifestyles.
we have evolved from the animal stage. Animals make babies without thinking of the consequences. We are not apes.
@@Helga7850 The attitude to have evolved from being an animal testifies of a hybris. Mankind is nothing but a kind of animal.
"The world has enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed," Mahatma Gandhi.
As long as the earth's finite resources are utilized efficiently, there will be enough for everyone. Only a capitalistic society can consider forcefully reducing the population as a better means of preserving the environment than by utilizing resources efficiently.
Also the fact that this population decline is happening anyway and will hit most of the "developed" world hard as bricks and then only elderly people are left and the few young people remaining will be the children of today's poor nations. Money causes birth rates to decline, so that's a logical conclusion to draw, which is why places like Europe let so many immigrants into their countries, not because they are thinking about people's well-being, but because they need laborers/wage-slaves to grow the economy.
You actually need an incredibly slow decrease in population just to maintain basic infrastructure.
You think feudal or fascist societies would be different?
Also, speaking of Gandhi, who is going to tell India to stop worshiping cows, since they have the largest cow population by a long shot, without even using them for nourishment. And who will stop other civilizations from breeding dogs and cats which also consume metric tons of resources, including relying on meat to be fit and healthy?
@@elagrion "You think feudal or fascist societies would be different?"
That is not an argument against saying the capitalist principle of resource allocation is to blame for unsustainability. Feudalism was based on similar principles, and fascism has been perfectly compatible with capitalism across decades of contemporary history, so their reproduction of the same outcome is not mutually exclusive with the original argument you were replying to. Feudalism, fascism and capitalism all do it because of the way they structure society and production.
Sorry, could you name the capitalist societies that had forced sterilizations and one-child policies?
_If we get rid of enough OTHER people, then OUR way of life will become sustainable_
The mental gymnastics required to miss the part where 'OUR way of life' is the problem, not the 'OTHER people'
No need to get rid of existing humans. People should simply skip out plans to have additional children, so that the next generation doesn't have to be as large as it otherwise could be.
Billionaires spend a ton of money to make sure those mental gymnastics are the norm for the western plebs.
Ever watched 'The Devils advocate' or 'American Psyco', there is no mental gymanstics involved.. as long as society and culture allows the prosperity of only a particular class. They are going to have it 'Only Their way' always. Rules and action needs to be taken to curb their self obsession even if it means civil war all over again!
@@varunemani The U.S has been embroiled in a civil war since the 1970's(which a much higher body count). Only difference is instead of the north vs the south. It is the rich vs everyone else. And the rich are dominating.
What do you mean? eat 2 meal a day? dont use electronics? live in caves?
The more people you have on earth , the more products you will also need..common sense tells you that..I agree with a lot of this but I have to say that population growth is a factor .
If only people on Earth would live the same. An US family of four sucks the same amount of resources eleven South Asian families.
Global south is dull of developing countries, key word "developing". Their standard of life is rapidly increasing and with it, the carbon emissions. You can't expect them to be destitute forever, can you? Now combine this with their higher birth rates and already large populations.
What I find ironic is rarely do you hear the argument that the more of us there are the less special our lives become, just like anything else the more there is the more disposable the commodity becomes.
Yeah. Also ignorance is magnified badly and people will be superficial even more
In 3rd world nations like India human lifes are disposable. A train crash caused 800 lives with many more injured, no one punished.
As a person from an overpopulated country(India), it is a problem. If you haven’t lived it, I don’t think you know it.
This video is more about American culture wars than its professed subject. The creator is either ignorant, naive, or manipulative.
I hear you guys will overtake China soon.
Thank You for speaking up!
Anime profile picture.
The problem seems to me that even though the earth can theoretically sustain the current population, it seems it wouldn’t be able to easily sustain this many if everyone was to have a good standard of living- the sort of standard of living that those who are poor rightfully strive for. We should want everyone to have a good standard of living and to do that capitalism is certainly not a viable solution, but there is also the physical resource reality that is limited.
I worked in a school that is known locally for the number of large families who attend (less than 4 kids per family is very rare) and I heard comments about the amount of food these kids must consume and how parents would clear out the supermarket's entire stock of something just for their family. Yet I took a class to tour the local supermarket and the manager bragged about how they were saving the environment by giving their imperfect produce and stale bread to a local farmer to feed to pigs (in reality it's about money they can write it off on their taxes if they give it away but if they give it to humans then those humans won't spend as much money on food). It's a very clear example of profit over people.
Great point! Capitalism incentivizes so much waste. ABSURD levels of waste, for the private profit of a fraction of society.
@@coolioso808 Actually, capitalism doesn't incentivize waste, people waste because they don't know what to do with the excess. It happens that capitalism always will produce a lot, it's not wasting, it's just the overcharge of the whole thing.
I'll be honest, better more products than a fixated amount of it or less than it. I thought the whole Soviet Union experiment and the two Germans were enough to prove that.
@Pedro Vitor “It’s not waste, it’s just waste. I have serious opinions, guys.”
@Pedro Vitor capitalism incentives waste, since if you can be too efficient at producing something you would not want to sell it for cheaper than what you can get away with.
@@pedrovitor5324so Walmart paying for 5,000,000 little plastic toys and selling only 2,500,000, leaving half of them to be tossed in garbage pits, is not waste?
Of course not. They get a tax subsidy to send those toys to an undeveloped country where THOSE folks can throw them away. So that their undeveloped nation gets the blame. While Walmart gets a kickback.
I have a few problems with your thesis. The first is that the actual carrying capacity of the earth in the absence of artificial fertilizers is much lower than the current population. What kept Malthus from being correct in his predictions was the discovery of large amounts of guano that were mined to provide increased soil fertility. This allowed population to continue to rise until the early 1900’s. Just before the problem would have recurred due to exhaustion of the guano mines, the Haber-Bosch process allowed the nitrogen component of fertilizers to be produced from abundant fossil fuels. Phosphorus and potassium were adequately supplied by animal manures for a period. Then a switch was made to mining to obtain these elements. Just when food production again reached criticality, the green revolution provided new biological tools to markedly increase yields. The extractive economy that you decry is the only thing that allows the population to exceed the carrying capacity of the earth for humans. Each time we have reached a limit, a technological fix was available. Now we have pulled three rabbits out of that hat. The likelihood of their being a fourth is quite unlikely. End fossil fuels and extractive techniques and there will be inadequate fertilizer for the current population to eat. End fossil fuels and the efficient tools for planting and harvesting must be replaced by humans and/or animals at much lower efficiency. Don’t end fossil fuels and there is a climate catastrophe. At the same time, we are running out of adequate water resources for both people and agriculture and running out of most of the rare commodities necessary to build and sustain alternate energy sources. The decreasing rate of population growth results from the ever increasing cost of raising children in industrialized societies. As David Zeihan puts it, children have become expensive pets. This plateau in the population curve is the expected result of overpopulation. It is therefore foolish to see it as a hopeful sign instead of fulfilled prophecy. The first problem with your proposed solution is that it requires humans to rationally work together for the common good. Humans are fundamentally animals. Like all other animals they have evolutionarily derived traits that result from differential reproductive success. The humans whose traits would make them capable of executing your proposed solution do not exist, because selflessness has always had poor survival value. The second problem with your proposed solution is that it cannot be achieved fast enough to work. The plateau in population is the expected result when a population meets the limits of the resources necessary for it’s growth. We can no more avoid the subsequent crash in population than a bacterial culture can once it has consumed it’s agar. Humanity will probably not cease to exist. The connected, international culture we currently enjoy certainly will. Survival will only be possible in areas that have adequate regional resources. Those areas with adequate regional resources will rue the day they excluded immigrants, because they will need all of the remaining work force they can get. I propose no solution because there is no solution, short of someone pulling a much larger miraculous rabbit out of a much smaller technological hat. In the unlikely event that happens, we will have learned nothing and will race ignorantly toward the next disastrous limit.
Science and especially the Green Revolution is what saved us from Malthus's CORRECT predictions, given the circumstances and facts at the time.
I feel we were over populated the moment apartments became a thing. It would be nice to live somewhere where I can shut the kitchen cabinets without someone banging on the wall. I reject the notion that we aren't overpopulated because we certainly are and crowding people together gets to be oppressive.
So in your ideal, someone else takes the fall so you can shut your cupboards in peace.
Your next door neighbour is may be thinking the same about you.
@@GwladYrHaf - Something is very broken in your thought process there and I can't explain where you went wrong until you learn some reading comprehension skills.
I agree, and the fact that there's a crisis with too many cars on the road should surely be an indicator of overpopulation.
@GwladYrHaf Yes to be honest they probably do- and this is another reason why overpopulation needs to be addressed. It leads to more violence, more war
Yeah and when you see neigbors everyday but dont know them or barely even Gret them or say hi if at all
People forget that our population numbers have been flattening out because of contraception and family planning. Our current population stabilization can not support capitalism and that is why so many countries are freaking out about their numbers declining.
But as western countries stabilise countries that were poor like in Africa are having their industrial revolutions now which means the only way is up. This is why the west needs to give these countries help to bypass the mistakes we made of using dirty industry before clean ones.
Ohnono; for the right this merely ties into the Great Replacement ("population growth is slowing, WHICH MEANS THAT MINORITIES ARE GOING TO OUTNUMBER US SOON"), while liberals (who are *not* the Left, by the way) are plenty happy about that...as long as the numbers dropping are in *other* countries.
Yeah but humans still take 1/3 of all biosphere primary production. As one species. Out of millions. And that as fact would not be changed much even if we eliminated inequality and made 100% of energy the "clean" way. As long as there are so many of us, we still take more than our fair share. Belief that we deserve to take that much is wrong in itself.
Ahh yes, the fun fact that statistically the higher the standard of living of a person, the less children they tend to have. In a way, this is a kind of self regulation of the system... to bad it goes against the basic capitalistic necessity of eternal growth.
@@aresivrc1800 a valid fact as well, not only due to access to contraception but also due to the very fact your children will live on long enough to have children of their own rather than dying of disease or war.
it's funny how most of us know that there was a guy called Malthus and he thought "population growth bad", but we don't actually think about the absolutely deranged solutions that he proposed
The only reason we know he exists is because his BS was very convenient propaganda for the rich ghouls that own everything. Since it shifts blame from the damage the rich do to make themselves rich onto the poor's least able to fight back.
One of them was to start wars... Let that sink in...
Good ol tommy
@@HandlesAreDumb420that's normal history. Let that sink in.
It's funny how even in the 21st century there are people who continue to believe in Malthusian theories that were declared pseudoscientific 200 years ago. And surprisingly, most of those who believe this are socialists, lol
I was born in 1954 when the world population was 2.7 billion. Over the decades I have seen vast acreage of prime farm land paved over for housing tracts. I have seen vast acreage of wild habitat invaded by the construction of houses, followed by the rapid decline of wild animal species. Fools say that population growth is not a problem because we have a sufficient food supply. They do not recognize that our food supply is dependent on industrial mono-culture farming which is maintained by insecticides, herbicides, and artificial fertilizers, and by the CO2 emissions produced by industrial farm equipment. The more people, the more environmental degradation. DON'T GIVE BIRTH. Adopt a child in need. (Poor little kids.)
jewish propagandist broom
@@manfredthen So very odd. I do not understand why my comment would incite a response from an anti-semite. A puzzling non-sequitur.
By the way, you have made it clear that you are inarticulate as well. There is nothing clever about throwing an insult grenade. Anybody can do that. Writing a well-considered counter-argument, in contrast, would reveal a modicum of intelligence. Apparently, you lack the necessary intelligence. You also lack civility. Apparently, your mother did not teach you the importance of civility.
Not only that. We are deep in deficit spending when it comes to energy. This will result in a collapse of complex civilization; and we will, due to our ego trip denial, never know what hit us. Read "overshoot" and watch it on youtube. These catastrophes like climate change are merely SYMPTOMS
@@manfredthenwhy Jewish??!
@@davidalmeida2991 1907-1945-2001- 2005-2020. Do a throughly research. Jews's fault.
It's not an either or situation. We need to approach environmental decline from all sensible angles, and ethically lowering population is one of those.
I recently read 'Less Is More' by Jason Hickel, a brilliant book. It's research proves how infinite growth capitalism is the problem, and that justice and equality is what we need. Education and public healthcare is what we need. Overpopulation is not the problem, the poorer 'global south' are not the problem. Infinite growth and inequality are the problem.
Education and public healthcare are THE solution to high birth rates, as the book Factfulness documents extensively.
No
@@draco_1876 No? Why not? And what evidence do you have for that claim? For my evidence, I’ll refer to the book “Factfulness”, by Dr Hans Rosling, which is chock full of indisputable facts about education levels, health care access, and birth rates by country, over time.
Infinite growth being a problem applies to population growth as well
Overpopulation is the problem, as more and more people are chasing fewer and fewer resources. The Earth will reach critical mass where the center no longer holds. Underpopulation will be a problem in the future as well, as governments, particularly the American government will no longer be able to support its welfare state, war machine, and its ever growing army of government employees. What will buy the human race some time is the reduction in the size and cost of government on all levels. Of course that won't happen until the money runs out, at which time the government will seize the assets of its citizens in a last ditch effort to breathe life into a zombie.
I feel there must be something to be said for population density and standard of living with regards to overpopulation. The notion that poorer communities are inherently more polluting and damaging because of their 'dirtiness' and 'higher birth rates' really seems to be a problem, especially when considering their individual carbon footprints compared to that of a typical middle or upper class Westerner. Even land use on private estates doesn't seem to offset this, as in my experience most have non-ecologically sustainable management practices such as introducing and supporting non native and invasive species, and predator elimination. Basically my point is that while high human population density looks (and often is) unappealing and unhealthy, it's doing far less damage per capita than those pointing their fingers in disgust.
Theres no disaster.. its just powerful people losing control over too much people.
With technological efficiencies, western carbon emissions will reduce drastically but overpopulation has only solution, population control.
I have no problem with controls and rules applied to all in order to limit damage pollution and harm to the environment. However, I think you need to step back and consider why people are challenged to survive economically, socially, and physically. I think you would first want to look at the necessity of raising the awareness and responsibility of everyone concerning the basics of living in an ecologically balanced environment. That would mean you first need to give everyone the ability to appreciate, maintain and support the environment. Then you can say that everyone is capable of being responsible for the environment and therefore subject to controls ensuring that individuals fulfill their responsibility. Otherwise, your controls may be just another form of oppression against the underprivileged who struggle to survive. Unfortunately, I am not sure if this is realistic, but maybe it is what we should be striving for. Oh, well, too many high ideas????
Modern day poor are mostly rural the more damaging to the environment kind of living
Life is easier when you have only two children to feed instead of 6.
Give people access to contraceptives and their life is easier and they can care for more than just bare survival.
If people think most of us are out of touch with nature, wait until we have even more of us... perhaps we can have 10 billion people without total collapse, but imagine the quality of life and more loss of species and at some point it will happen. With weather changes we will be looking at some real problems.
Start paying attention to how the drivers of pick-up trucks behave. A large majority of them display toxic masculinity from behind the wheel. This first became apparent to me while teaching my teen son how to drive. The driver's of pick-ups had zero compassion for a student driver and sped past us in wreckless and dangerous moves; acting as if they owned the road and weren't going to tollerate anyone they deem as inferior to their alpha ego.
I agree. The problem is too many people living an environmentally unsustainable lifestyle.
👍👍👍
The problem is also an environmentally unsustainable economic system that doesnt give individuals sustainable options and prefers the higher profit of unsustainable products. Try buying food without buying plastic. It's really difficult where I live. It starts at the level of production.
@@dan5434 Totally agree. It's the same where I live.
@@MegaDiddlemaus yeah but living that way makes a handful of already wealthy ghouls slightly richer. That's totally a worthy reason to live an unsustainable lifestyle right?
I think you missed the point of the video….
We don’t have a choice in living an environmentally unsustainable life. We don’t grow food locally beause it’s cheaper to ship bulk across the world. We can’t take an electric tram around, because our cities are designed around cars. City living isn’t cheap so have we’ve made the only option single family homes which are inherently inefficient.
He’s saying our society and system need to change.
Clif notes:
It's not the population, but rather
It's the capitalism that needs to be curtailed.
yea he completely missed the mark on this
Carbon emissions of richest 1 percent more than double the emissions of the poorest half of humanity
Published: 21st September 2020
The richest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity during a critical 25-year period of unprecedented emissions growth.
Oxfam’s new report, ‘Confronting Carbon Inequality,’ is based on research conducted with the Stockholm Environment Institute and is being released as world leaders prepare to meet at the UN General Assembly to discuss global challenges including the climate crisis.
The report assesses the consumption emissions of different income groups between 1990 and 2015 - 25 years when humanity doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It found:
The richest 10 percent accounted for over half (52 percent) of the emissions added to the atmosphere between 1990 and 2015. The richest one percent were responsible for 15 percent of emissions during this time - more than all the citizens of the EU and more than twice that of the poorest half of humanity (7 percent).
During this time, the richest 10 percent blew one third of our remaining global 1.5C carbon budget, compared to just 4 percent for the poorest half of the population. The carbon budget is the amount of carbon dioxide that can be added to the atmosphere without causing global temperatures to rise above 1.5C - the goal set by governments in the Paris Agreement to avoid the very worst impacts of uncontrolled climate change.
Annual emissions grew by 60 percent between 1990 and 2015. The richest 5 percent were responsible for over a third (37 percent) of this growth. The total increase in emissions of the richest one percent was three times more than that of the poorest 50 percent.
Tim Gore, Head of Climate Policy at Oxfam and author of the report said: “The over-consumption of a wealthy minority is fuelling the climate crisis yet it is poor communities and young people who are paying the price.
Message - Eat the rich.
@@lm_b5080 This channel is explicitly leftist, always has been. If that surprises you then you might not have been paying attention my dude. Also he is right, the root cause of pretty much every problem facing the modern world is rampant capitalism.
@@jamesgrover2005 if the poor should have max 2 kids, the richest 1% should be having 0! I really think so btw
@@KateeAngel Well the rich ignored you. What are you going to do about it?
I had this belief before, but it has changed to "I hope we can stop evil and make the future without sacrificing my life to produce a hellish one I also face."
I appreciate this break down analysis. The thing one that is commonly left of most every conversation about our counties or planet problems is the lost of species i.e. Flora, Fauna and Funga. Most people are anthropocentric and only think about people! I have spent all my life in the swamps, creeks, rivers, oceans, prairies, sand hills, mountains and deserts and at 62 I have watched the our dark Night Skies, Pristine Quietness, Wildlife, and Plant Life disappear. Now I see more satellites than stars and there is more and more trash in all land ecosystems, rivers and Oceans where have traveled, hiked and canoe our wild rivers.This is all due to far too many people. The only solution I can see is freeing women and allowing them to think for themselves, get educating to have freedom of choice to not have or to have one to two children. I also agree with a few that commented that the higher % of high income individuals cause more damage to the earth. Jim Rodgers
Exactly, couldn't agree more. Most solutions to the problems we caused on this planet we share with everything else living, are very anthropocentric. The more of us, the less of everything else.
That's the only reason I'm changing myself. For the animals and not the greedy and selfish humans!
NNN8638, thank you for being among the dear few educated souls on this thread of us/them buffoons unable to grasp what every poll of scientists has them agreeing; overpopulation is our by far biggest problem, their words, "bigger than climate." Thank you, NNN8638. Regrettably, you are too hip for the room.
One of my favorite books of all time is a book called "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom that took Garret Hardin's theory head on and she was very vocal about her problems with the original paper in the fact that Hardin's work relies on thought experiments rather than actual data.
Her data was going to sites where common pool resource management was successful, shaky, and flat-out failed and gave reasons why to the point where there is a list of rules to follow, but knowing it will take trial and error.
I think you're wrong about attacking family planning efforts in developing nations. I come from a developing nation, and my parents chose to have only me because they knew that they would struggle to provide for more than one child. While it may not sound fair (I reeaaally wanted a sibling), it is the practical thing to do, and it gave me the best life I could've had.
People like Bill Gates encourage family planning for the grand scheme, so I understand that their motives are only to selfishly preserve the lifestyle of the west by controlling the rest of the world. But the reality is that this is good for developing countries too. Our goals align even though our motivations are different.
It is good for a poor family to have less children (unless they are farmers / need a working hand) because they can better provide for them.
I agree 👍. We mustn't throw the baby out with the bathwater
Okay cool. Have your existence then. You also get to live through global warming caused because Billiam Gates the third is getting richer by helping fossil fuel conglomerates extract more of that sweet crude.
@@Praisethesunson What does this have to do with my comment??? I literally just said that family planning is a good thing...
Exactly! Just because some people have disgusting ideology/intentions doesn't mean it's not a good thing. People have the right to want/provide their children a higher quality of life and should be commended for making thoughtful and educated decisions about that, to pretend like we live on a world with infinite resources is silly
@@MoniiChanTheUnicorn Cool story bro. Nothing you said makes the wealthy of world(who are literally plundering the planet to death just to make themselves slightly richer) funding the sterilization of the global poor.
People that believe there are too many people need to back their words up with action and volunteer themselves to leave this earth first.
Let’s also mention that animal agriculture plays a huge role in the destruction of our environment. From nitrous oxide emissions to water and land usage, our habit of eating factory farmed animal products at every meal and snack is not only affecting developed countries but the impoverished ones being deforested to supply our animal feed.
Let me ask you a question. What percentage of the Earth’s total habitable land should be allocated to animals and their ecosystems?
The thing most people don’t consider about overpopulation is, yes, we have enough resources for all humans to survive on the planet with “efficient distribution”, but, do we have enough resources for 7-10 billion humans *and* animals to survive on the planet? Once we factor in the economics of animals and preservation and restoration of nature, can we afford the human population to keep increasing by the billion?
Yes. Quite of few biologists have already worked on it.
E.O Wilson has a book called half Earth about it if you are interested.
The left and the right might be divided over many things but on this point they generally seem to be in agreement: This planet is for ourselves. And other organisms have to make way for more of us.
And as a leftist that loves biology this is very depressing.
hear hear
@Bruhmaster bs it would just be less efficient. Having the world destroyed in 500 years instead of 250 years is not a major victory in the grand scheme of things.
@Bruhmaster and you know that due to your diligent study of the climate impact from previous planned economies? Communist countries never took steps to protect the environment and despite their low efficiency they managed to produce vast quantities of CO2 by creating unnecessary steel and being riddled with corruption.
I feel like people missed the point. Yes, people could have less kids in general. But is the problem really the large families living in poverty in the global south or is it the rich with their giant homes and multiple cars. The reason he says over population is a myth is because we could have a smaller global population but if everyone in that smaller population lived like the average American we would still need multiple earth's to sustain ourselves.
As medicine and the enfranchisement of girls naturally disseminates through developing populations their birthrates will lower anyways, just as it has in the developed world. There is really no need for a grand architect figure to swoop in and save the day on this front.
The problem is both. Overconsumption AND overpopulation
@@Montezuma0 No it isn't. The only problem is capitalism. Your capitalist masters just spend more money than your entire family bloodline will ever own, every single year "convincing" you otherwise. Specifically telling you to think it's actually anyone else(ideally poor people away from you. That way you two are way less likely to try and organize together against the capital class stealing from you both every second of everyday).
@@Montezuma0 Exactly what I've been saying! Very odd and reductionist to act like it's just one. I'm also wary of encompassing 'socialism solves this' conclusion, and I would describe myself as 'on that side' politically.
For both ethical and practical reasons, we want to lift people out of poverty. But at the moment, increases wealth tends to go hand in hand with increased emissions and ressource usage. (which to an extent is impossible to avoid).
Simple said: When the people living in poverty right now are lifted up the the current standard of living in the richer parts of the world, their ressource consumption/emissions will also increase to the same level per capita. Seing that we already overexploit the planet with the comparable low number of people in the rich parts of the world, it is easy to see that we will drastically increase both ressource consumption and emissions if the at the moment poorer places in the world increase their standard of living (which they have every right to do)
So, the only ethical solutions to that problem is to get much much more efficient at using ressources and energy in the first place. And we in the richer places of the world have the duty to be the role model. Already we have proven that raising wealth can be decoupled from raising emissions and ressource consumption. We have to prove to the world that you can be climate and environmental friendly while at the same time offering a high standard of living to the people.
Just give people access to contraceptives.
And empower women to choose how many children they want to birth and that Motherhood is not an obligation.
Came thinking I would hear a balanced argument about overpopulation, ended up listening to a long video about how seizing the means of production will solve all our problems 😢
its true
what is it you wanted to hear?
Same thoughts
Even if we don't go that far, in regards to the underlying ideas at play he's certainly on to something. We build our cities in such a way that almost everyone has to own and drive cars just to get to work or to the store to buy groceries, and then the people in the positions of power such as to be able to put in bicicle infrastructure and public transportation just point at the people stuck driving cars and say that having that many people owning and driving cars is a problem, so it's their fault for existing. The focus needs to be on fixing broken systems, not on blaming people for using them when they often have no other choice.
Such a rubbish video. People jaw flapping on and on about "le Capitalisme" like it's the 19th century. How edgy and hip! This stuff is like, "Some people think it's a bad idea to stand in front of a fan while we shovel excrement into its whirling blades, but that's what fascists WANT you to think. Stand in front of the fan. Do it for Jesus."🤮
The link in the description for further reading seems to be broken. Doesn't work in Firefox or Chrome.
I didn't realize up to this point, how much I internalized the "India and China has too many people, and they are the ones to blame" mindset. Thank you for this. Sharing across my socials for sure, more people need to be aware of how we were given these ideas, and what they are all based on.
It's called subconscious bias... funny the wests 10% burn up 70% of the resources and energy... maybe its the west's populations that needs to decline eh!
Am from India and I can confidently say overpopulation here is a part of puzzle in climate change.
@Rsigma G Can you speak more on that? What are some problems overpopulation is causing in India? Is there more gov should do to help?
@@Evergreenvic I’m trying to explain problems that are mostly overpopulation and not just overpopulation with a mix of some other problem like inequality in this comment to keep fair with the OCC video:
-overpopulation alongside poor urban planning with extreme population density has caused several factors of pollution especially air and water. With consumerism and usage of cheaply produced products, there’s large quantities of plastic wastes unreported to global statistics imo. There’s channels of water I’ve come across several times filled to the brim with plastic. There is overfishing, and also encroachment of natural spaces to make way for human infrastructure including high density housing which wipes away land used by animals and forest coverage. With religion being such a focal point in India, various water bodies are severely polluted by rituals in religious beliefs. With limited educational availability, there is extreme stress on student population to perform excessively well to compete for higher quality of education. High degrees of unemployment due to just sheer number of people who want a job while the market dosent have enough bringing down the average pay of the citizen and their purchasing power in the global economy. Malnutrition, starving and unhealthy living conditions are a common place. With religion intertwined with politics that takes advantage of a high degree of relatively uneducated population allows for further greed and corruption to fester in the government. Religious bathing spots have extreme amounts of crowds and so do public transit. People have died from overcrowded public transit too. There’s several more problems but it’s also hard for the government to step in as there are several issues in the systematic level to do so.
Theres no disaster.. its just powerful people losing control over too much people.
A high human population may not be the main driver of carbon emissions, but what about the impact on biodiversity and habitat loss in local ecosystems? I feel like human population really exacerbates the potential for already existing problems and leaves little buffer space for issues with the natural world. Not trying to undermine the fact that capitalism has definitely been a factor in keeping birthrate high in poorer parts of the world.
Well said. I felt the video was far too human centric, not addressing the mass extinction, habitat loss, or the unending exploitation of natural resources.
I agree with you! I believe in a smaller human population for the sake of local biodiversity. I don't care WHO the people on the planet are as long as there are fewer of us.
Exactly, we take almost 1/3 of primary production of biosphere. That alone leaves less for all other species. Even after we end capitalism, inequality and transition to clean energy and technology, so many people will still take too much. And they will still view the rest of living organisms as "resources" rather than living beings equally deserving of life on this planet. That is why I stopped caring for survival of humanity it still will be dangerous even if it becomes better. I only care for stopping climate change due to harm it does for biodiversity and other species
@@webbjessie1961 Bro. If the human population lived in a density on par with Singapore. All 12 Billion potential humans would take up the space of the Alaska. That's not a lot of the planet.
Driving the sixth mass extinction is the result of capitalism's endless death drive for profit.
Exploiting the world to death is a tolerated "externality" for our corporate masters ledger. A worthy sacrifice for the sake of make line go up.
We have more empty highrise buildings that can be turn into homes - yet inacessible to most. Expansion of land usually is for agriculture but with sustainable approaches it can still support the current population. And despite the so called overpopulation, we have excesss food production…we loss our biodiversity not solely due to overpopulation. Who makes decision to expand land use and have larger impacts on such decision - corporates, or individual? Corporates tends to sell the idea that demand drives us toward that decision, yet, we are witnessing all these overproduced foods, empty buildings..
Eventually the environment can only provide so much.
So growth eventually is unsustainable
If people have access to birth control and education the tend to have less children.
Many countries do not have a birth rate that is self sustaining.
Some ways of reducing birth rates are terrible and not voluntary.
This video may give a solid insight on the problem at hand, but is still failing to show more complex aspects of this problem. Surely, we know that populations adapt to their local government, GDP and even cultural norms, but that is failing to see how much space we consume and will continue to consume if we continue an unregulated form of population. While it is true that it is likely for our numbers to flatten around 10 billion, that should be alarming instead of calming to everyone. Those numbers imply an extradordinary consumption of ressources and space every year, even if those ressources should be eco-friendly.
It is essential that we realize humans are the only being which is smart enough to escape the food chain and therefore must face the responsibility of its own growth across the globe. Noone else can teach us how to manage our own numbers and we must rid ourselves from the childish idea of humans being the holy grail of life where the only maxim is proliferation.
There is no doubt in my mind we need to change the way we consume, be it energy or other ressources, most drastically. In doing so, we can increase the quality of life for many people in the long run, and also reduce the impact of climate change. But I believe it would be best to try to use a two-fold strategy and decrase population in a humane way while changing our energy intake as well. Some countries, like Qatar, will need to change way more about their consumption than their numbers, but other countries may need to do both.
This is effectively going to hit a lot of developing countries, truly, I will argue however that they have the benefit of being able to skip many years of trial and error in terms of energy efficiency and benefit of the inventions the western world did already. And with their help, those developed countries can become less poor, which would lead to a decreased birth rate by itself.
There are so terribly many factors playing into this, and while changing our behaviour is as essential to our survival as the prevention of a meteor impact, the way we reflect on ourself and the role of humans may be one of the biggest behavioural changes we will have to face.
RIght you are MMF936. Truer, more insightful words never uttered, certainly not on this meandering thread of dim bulbs hewing to us/them, magic bullets.
While this video tackled a sensitive topic with finesse, great research and nuance, it comes from a very human-centric perspective. I work in ecological restoration and conservation. If our organization didn't form back then, the forests, prairies, wetlands, and floodplain forests in our city would've been lost to urban sprawl and development. 11% of our city is covered in forests. That number is way too low.
The insects are dying en masse. We are losing beneficial pollinators at an alarming rate, which will really mess with our crop production. 60% of Earth's wildlife has been eradicated since the 70s. "Wildlife encroachment" of black bears, pumas, and wolves into suburban neighborhoods are all because these animals literally have nowhere else to go in some areas. The eradication of predators has seen deer populations skyrocket, causing damage to beneficial crops, rising cases of Lyme disease/RMSF transmission via deer ticks, and contribute to many fatal car crashes. The biosphere has suffered unimaginable loss, environmental feedback loops have spiraled out of control.
I do firmly believe the driving factor of ecological collapse is absolutely caused by the 1% hoarding finite resources and using unsustainable resource extraction methods, as well as relying on harmful pesticides and chemicals, in addition to wealthy countries overconsuming. Yet I still believe that less of the world has been designated for wildlife, plants, and fungi in favor of infinite human development, sprawl and growth. This video, while appreciated, is far too human-centric in its message. We are in the middle of a sixth mass extinction event. I'd hate for my grandchildren to live in a world where half our insects are gone.
Not one drop of rain felt that it was responsible for the flood. Do what you can to minimize your impact, boycott pipelines and pesticides, do your research for alternatives, and never stop advocating for sustainability. Inspire others, whether that be your own kids or your neighbor down the street, to care about nature. It's the least we can do!
You absolutely nailed it. Our current practices have been the main cause of the downfall of our important natural world. The point you made about countries that over consume, could never be more correct. I live in North America, and the amount of wasteful people that live here and leave a negative impact on the environment, is absolutely astounding. Consumerism is one of North America’s biggest contributor to global environmental destruction. I’ve seen forests cut down, grasslands paved over, in favor of building fast food restaurants, fashion stores, car washes, and super-centers. Overpopulation is a HUGE problem, but I also feel that the spread of consumerism along with our growing population is what is destroying the natural world.
Ikr? I have seen people constantly blame the huge corporations but we have a HUGE responsibility too, we are the ones eating animal products disparagingly, constantly buying clothes that end up in landfills in masses, etc
@@EmyN if there's anything us humans are great at, it's pointing the finger to take our responsibilities off of us.
@@talonflame_brawlstars.7208 I think it's just ignorance, people are not aware of their impact
Thank you for adding more nuance to this discussion. The film maker thought he was being pretty nuanced (which to his credit, this piece is absolutely way more nuanced than most perspectives on the subject) but it's still so black and white and compartmentalizes the heck out of issues like climate change, when it's really ultimately about how much are human systems taking away from Nature and how do we get back to living in harmony with Nature, living as PART of Nature. What passes for "sustainability" is just about "how much can we take before it all collapses". It's very hard to see how 10 billion people could possibly live with Nature as Nature. I chose not to have children because I could not see how it would be possible, under our current systems, to raise them without their lives requiring WAAAAY more taking than giving back to Nature.
“If we get rid of enough people, THEN our way can become sustainable.”
😂😂😂
Here he is ladies and gents, our good guy hero, champion of the blood god of sacrifice!
If we don't quite hit the mark, we can always just get rid of even more people! Just keep getting rid of people until our plans work!
Don't worry, reproductiveists create the dead, the serial killer is innocent.
Why get rid of anyone when adults can decide to be happy with two or even one child?
Or why even have a biological child when one can extend such love and caring to nephews/nieces and the children of friends?
Why does everyone need to have a full time job in child rearing when we can redistribute that work amongst more adults?
The world can do with a declining human population, which can happen by more people not bothering to have an additional child.
@@ishmamahmed9306 I never thought I would be agreeing with a Muslim but this is an exemption.
@@franciseniola3522 Probably because he is not taking Islam seriously and thank god for that.
This is one of the best videos I have seen on the problem of overconsumption. I am an AP Environmental Science teacher and encourage my students to look at the big picture of any problem in order to form a valid and well thought out opinion about critical issues and trying to offer solutions. This video really impacted them. I commend the creator of this amazing film. I have been saying that big business corporations are the greediest entities that has led to the horrific destruction of our natural world. This generation of young people are the key to helping solve this corporate greed.
There are actually people with 300+ Rolls Royces but let’s all keep in mind that there’s not enough to go around.😂
We deposit 2 trucks full of plastic in the oceans each minute,
Let that sink in for a moment
That sinks in the mind.
But the ocean it floats
I've been alive for roughly 1.85 billion seconds. In that time, over 4.8 billion people have been born. That's a huge amount of people in a short period of time.
Nah, you probably forgot to count in the ones that died.
@@vjeko1655 Nope. The population was was almost 3.2 billion the year I was born (1964). The population is now 8 billion. An increase of 4.8 billion, more than existed in my first year.... oh, I see what you mean. Yes, more than that were born, to replace the dead. My bad. Overall increase then.
@@antinatalope Yes, but now I am curious what was the real number of people born in that period, would you happen to know that information? :)
@@vjeko1655 140 million/year are born. About 60 million/year die.
Correction at 7:36: In German the "e" at the end is not silent. Also, the man's name is Bernd.
Thanks for this enlightening video. I missed something. The other creatures on this planet. What is the relationship between biodiversity and human population? This planet doesn't just spin for us. It is clear to me that we are no longer allowed to use fossil fuels, but I also think that we humans should learn to move much more quietly on this planet.
I think it's easy:
Give all people access to affordable contraceptives and see what happens.
we basically did that across the world, birth rates dropped more than half
In half life 2 they dropped doen to 0%
And in a couple decades there are only less than a million humans
So we would have an underpopulation problem if we live another 1000 years
We already have and it's led to complete degenerate hookup culture
That you can't score in.@@sharpspoon7371
This whole argument sounds a bit like 'some people have suggested a horrible solution to a problem therefore there isn't a problem'.
Did you watch the complete video? I'm very sure you didn't
Correct. It's obvious propaganda. It's especially obvious when you live in a third-world country.
One thing that is not gettign enough attention is the durability of alternative enrgy sources and infrastructure. Wind farms take a tremendous amount of resources to build, and need to operate a long time to balance out hte carbon required to build them. If you've ever seen a big wind farm (I drove through oneI in Missouri), the shear scale of them is awe-inspiring. They shold be built to last centuries. I don't know that they are. I know concrete is used, but concrete fails over time. If you look at old Victorian-era buildings, they used giant rock slabs for construction, and they have held up great, as have other stone structures since antiquity. I do not know all the answers, but ir looks like no one is paying serioous attention to this.
That's a good point no one seems to catch. Everything nowadays is disposable and designed with planned obsolesce in mind. Why can't we build appliances that last anymore, why are Apple products virtually non-repairable, and how did fast-fashion and sawdust and glue furniture take over the market?
8 billion has twelve zeros, the population in now eight thousand million 😭
*"Population control is dependent upon education. We feel that an educated population **_needs_** no control."* (Jacque Fresco)
90% of colleagues & friends are abstaining from having children. Even the married couples. They all told the same story.. _"What kind of responsible parent would bring an innocent life into a world as sick as this?"_
The kind that need soldiers for the glorious proletariat revolution!
Also the kind that wants their children to be corporate slaves or someone's slaves.
@@Praisethesunson interesting point there: as someone who grew up in a Tory (UK) household prior to discovering the advantages of the green left, I saw that low birth rates was the key to increasing worker power (which is why Tories campaign for higher labour productivity to mitigate this risk)
I also realise that this is not the whole truth...now that I am beginning to understand other perspectives since reading Katie Raworths' book "Donut Economics".
@@enterprisestobart Ah! Yes! Donut Economics, Circular, or the Technical term is a "Resource-Based Economy" introduced by structural engineer Jacque Fresco, as mentioned by the top threader.
I am glad that people are aware of the scale of what needs changing. Growth for the sake of growth is Cancer's ideology. An RBE would utterly change the outlook & behavior of people. It's just too Technical for reactive people to fully want to comprehend. Once people begin to realise that there is nothing but starvation & misery in a monetary system, it will become the new standard to strive towards.
I disagree with these doomerisms. The world isn't getting any better by "smart" people opting out of having children. I would rather help change a sick world and give a healthy sustainable future to new human lives than to let it rot away slowly taking with it more and more innocent lives that others irresponsibly brought into the world.
Before synthetic fertilizers were developed this was a legit concern, but still with misattributed causes and cures... since then it just wont shake off. consumerism/capitalism/colonialism is squeezing this entire planet.
The problem is that synthetic fertilizer is at real risk from depleting inputs, which are not infinite and on the cusp of being at peak. Given our entire agricultural system relies on synthetic fertilizer, and that organic alternatives are not competitive at that scale, this is a genuine issue.
Phosphorus is finite and so is top soil.
The worst colonialism is Russia and China conquering the world. Not the free world having too much freedom.
Problem comes when the war comes and fertilisers are cut off.
Hey dude, it's both. If shrinking the population won't solve climate change, every extra human we put on this planet makes it harder to solve, especially considering that many developing countries will soon want to enjoy life as the western countries and that will require quite some extra energy,
Yes exactly!
Wrong you genocidal maniac. The 3.5 billion poorest people could disappear tomorrow and it would do absolutely to reduce the amount of carbon emissions.
If that's difficult for you to grasp. It's because you are deliberately made ignorant to the realities of production and work.
Correction to Thomas Malthus' motivations:
He didn't oppose the poor laws because he thought they would encourage over-population, he used the excuse of over-population as an excuse to want the poor laws repealed.
I love mountains and wild nature and I hike or camp frequently. Sometimes I wonder about my impact in the wild, and I generally tend to think that my impact is quite insignificant, because of all the care that I take (not living trash, not disturb the wild life etc.). Now imagine thousands of gentle, environmentally friendly people swarming to the mountains like bees. They would possibly cause a significant impact, even if they would take every precaution.
Obviously quantity is not everything, because there are also qualitative aspects like those you mentioned. But, that does not mean that we should completely disregard the impact of a larger population. It's just part of the story, not the whole of it.
That's a good mental visual aide.
Yes, population is part of the issue. But it's not the whole issue. That's the tricky thing about climate change. Generally, it's a mixture of problems with various solutions.
nature will set the limit. we think we can but no we really cant. Weather disease violence. eventually we hit the equal Librium. were not there yet.
The video maker is a propaganda
exactly, mount Everest is alread polluted
@@harveyking5038 omg, polluted with dead bodies ಠ_ಠ
That's gets me is that they tell us to reduce our carbon footprint when so many resources are made to make cheap, disposable junk. The same resources could be used to make higher quality products that last.
Part of the problem is that we humans tend to like shiny new things. Many of us also tend to think only short term. And thus many prefer to buy a new device every 3 years instead of using their old ones for longer/repairing it.
But many people want the cheapest product so they can afford more of them.
@@CordeliaWagner For some things yes, but then the saying "if you buy cheap, you buy twice" can be quite accurate in real life. Many quality products are more expensive in the first place but their may last much longer, making them much cheaper overall, not to mention the ressourced ressource consumption.
Inflation and people migrating to cities helped to stop population growth. Having children got too expensive.
I remember reading somewhere before that the total combined biomass of humans alone today is in or around equal to the combined biomass of all living organisms before the advent of agriculture
"Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. 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." -Herbert-
Serious question: Can we feed 8 billion people without industrial farming and fertilizers derived from oil?
Serious answer: yes
To elaborate: we can feed the people but can't feed the greed of the capitalists.
Organic regenerative farming by more people practicing subsistence living on the landscape rather than living in cities is the answer.
Yes
No, not currently
Currently. No.
We’d better work on a solution for that.
Such disgusting disinformation. Yes we can, and the solution is eating a plant based diet and stop feeding two thirds of the plants we grow to animals that we will eat.
We don’t need to eat meat. It’s the number one cause of climate change.
If climate change does end humanity we will deserve it for our cruelty and hubris.
What Attenborough said was quite right :'just about all our problems would be easier with fewer people on the planet'. But that's a formulation which avoids blaming anyone or any group, or suggesting that you should go round sterilising people. People times consumption is essentially the size of the problem, but it's much more effective (and moral) to work on the consumption side of that, not the population side, not least because consumption per capital can vary by factors of thousands, so the most consumptive really are taking 1000s of times more than their share and getting those people to change is _waaaay_ more effective than try to bring the number of people down, which is going to happen fairly soon anyway. Population is the one bit of the problem that is essentially solved - we just have to wait a bit for it to be falling _everywhere_ and not just most places.
Well as an introvert I still want there to be fewer people.
You mean as a piece of human garbage?
The main overpopulation issue we should worry about is the amount of animals bred into existence for unnecessary consumption and use
Humans, and the mammals that we feed on, make up around 96% of mammals on Earth by mass.
We should start with dogs and cats, given the sheer amount they consume and most of them exist in constant agony due to genetic diseases we forced into their gene pools.
Indeed, 8 billion vegans would need far less resources.
And the second biggest issue is the number of kids Elon Musk keeps having. One Elon Musk kid = 35,894 kids where i live
@@jamesgrover2005 That's not even true though, most of India is literally vegetarian, yet they keep hundreds of millions of cows alive. Most of Africa and the Middle East have cattle that graze on inedible shrubs.
192 million cows in India from what I'm seeing. They literally have the highest cattle population, despite doing absolutely nothing with them.
Educating girls everywhere empowers them and that moderates birthrates.
The other thing I'd like to do is open borders and redistribute wealth globally.
Empowering women AND redistribute wealth?!??!
That's communist talk!
How about educating everyone? Also open borders is a horrible idea, you're just inviting the same criminals immgrants ran away from into their communities. Overpopulation in one single country is also very possible.
Tell dudes to keep it in their pants and treat girls like humans with their own autonomy while at it! And too add on, how about teach both girls/boys how to handle yard/ housework, and respect one another so by the time they’re tossed to the wolves they won’t be as incompetent to handle themselves
@@Rainjojo Why are you tossing children to the wolves? That seems like very bad social policy.
Open all borders?... I'm very glad people like you are very far from any practical power...
What does it feel like to hate your own nation?
The fact that so many people here think it's ok to have as many babies as you want by whomever without consequences just shows how doomed we are...
We are too many people on this planet
It's like the solution to dealing with inequality and climate issues rests in empathy...🤔
Destroying capitalism is an empathetic thing to do.
No, it needs to be PROFITABLE.
@@Praisethesunson Good luck...
@@Praisethesunson In favor of what? Ok destroying something is easy enough, but to create something else is far more difficult.
Communism is the way!
Hot take:
I don't understand how you can be a responsible parent with like 12+ kids. Sorry. There's just not enough time to care for that many children properly. Even between two parents. Childcare responsibilities fall on the eldest children and they lose the opportunity to become who they ought to become. The youngest suffer from being raised by inexperienced adolescents. And if each of those kids are each raised to have 12+ kids themselves and so on... you can quickly see how after a few generations it would get out of hand.
That being said, I don't want to tell people how to live their lives. That is not a moral solution to the problem. But I would be lying if I said I think everyone should just have a huge family and not care about the implications of that in the rest of the world bc freedom. I believe capitalism AND having too large of a world population is an equation for disaster.
Your human right to have as many children as you desire in a well-off country may be fine for you, but it is catastrophic, especially for poorer countries who need to ramp up production, and therefore pollution, to provide resources for the ever expanding population.
This consequence is wholly based on the inference that it's common for people to have large quantities of children. I realize that is not so common anymore. I am simply saying it should not be promoted in a visibly increasingly polluted ecosystem. Also, not saying anyone was promoting that. Just stating my thoughts.
I'm not that smart so feel free to correct me.
I have similar thoughts about this video. Strangely, I saw many videos popping up recently saying "overpopulation is not a problem". I suspect that these video are politically motivated because for the economy overpopulation is a good thing
If you have any solid basis of what you are talking about then imma take it seriously , sadly your comment is just a one long opinionated unresearched reply.
As a childfree woman this video struck me very oddly. Just opting out of having children is regarded as doing something fundamentally wrong in most cultures.
White nationalists are obviously arguing in bad faith because they want white people to have 5+ kids per family so they're not truly trying to address overpopulation.
A clip played in this very video where a woman said "x number of people were sterilized, SOME of them forcefully" in other words the majority of the sterilizations were voluntary!
We should stop pressuring people to have children and discourage those that can't take good care of them from having them as well. Firstly, we should care about the quality of life of each individual child and secondly, no matter how green we become infinite growth is not sustainable.
This video is tone deaf at best and propoganda at worst when Abortion access is being taken AWAY from the poorest and most vulnerable among us, across the globe and specifically in the United States.
I have to disagree at on point: Especially when you live in a well off country like Germany, where you don't have to worrie about living on the streets as an elderly person, when you don't have enough kids to care about you. And where your children have a massive CO 2 impact on the world, you should not have as many kids as you like or can afford.
@@AN-sm3vj ohh i have a theory.
White people wants to raise 5+ in each family yes.
So if they increases taxes, people will struggle to find a job, most end up being a criminal. But then there is an military academy, where you can have free tuition, plus no need some college degree etc. They will advertise and encourage people to join the army so they can provide in their family.
The more population. The more people will join the army to provide their family, and the more soldiers you have, the more intimidating you are.
I guess they encourage people to give 5+ childrens, so they can turn the table easily if they want to start a war. And why start a war? To claim territory and increase their incomes if you have more land. E.g. like the war from russia, russia is a big supplier for oil or gas, if you conquered it. Then you will own that company and soon you will be the richest person. Or your country will be rich. Soon you will have the world.
(Just my thought, lol)
So, this video focuses on two important but very different things, (1) population size and (2) maintaining ecological balances on Earth in ways higher intelligent life prefers, not just humans, but all those more advanced forms of life which may not understand what is happening with the ecological balances around them, but would die out if those balances significantly change.
(1) Population size is indeed important and we would be better off rationally logically controlling it than not doing so, because otherwise nature can come in to resolve a population problem if we are not, and nature does not care about our feelings in this. This is no saying how we should handle it, because there are many ways to, depending upon the population size problem. A solution might be finding a way to produce more food, drinkable water, and/or manage a larger population size, and we have used such solutions to become as large of a civilization as we are. In some cases the issue can even be too small of a population, which if not dealt with could mean that population dies out, becoming extinct. Over population can lead to lots of problems which might more naturally be handled by war over limited resources and that war then reducing the population. Over population causing ecological problems might lead to starvation or some ecological change to reduce the size of the populating.
But, the problems caused can greatly vary as can possible solutions. With humans now and polluting the world, we could probably reduce the world population by 90% but if we keep doing things as we are now we will likely still shift the global ecology into a new balance hostile to our form of life.
Ignoring this immediate ecological crisis, though it is likely to peek this century, we have MASSIVE population size changing events that are going to be happening within decades.
We are curing aging. It is not a matter of if we can cure aging anymore, it is just a matter of time. People alive today will be able to live open ended life spans in perfect physical health, which includes being at peak fertility for reproducing. Combined with this will be much more advanced medicine which will be able to cure virtually any disease and repair virtually any injury, so long as the person's brain remains intact enough to get to a modern emergency room.
Think about that and population size.
Then, on top of that, we will begin to make Artificial General Super Intelligence with Personality (AGSIP) individuals who will be alive with open ended life spans. They will eventually have equal rights to humans and their birthrate will be however fast they are made which could be faster than humans.
These are things which can lead to too great a population which if allowed would cause nature to step in and reduce the population... if we don't control its size.
On the other hand, within less than a century or two we will have ecoforming technology and have technology which works better than what we have today while costing less and working with the ecology around that technology in a healthy balanced manner. The type of pollution problems we have today will go away.
We will also be able to colonize every planet and moon within our star system, ecoforming each with nanotech grown cybernetic life custom designed for each planet and moon, bring them all to life. The living space we will have within our star system is about to explode in size. Further, we will be able to travel to other star systems at near light speeds and colonize all the planets and moons around them.
So, our living space is about to vastly expand right around when our population size might truly explode in size. That population growth might then be one of the largest pressures pushing humanity to expand outwards, as it should.
None the less, if we do not rationally and logically think about how we control our population size and our population size becomes a problem, then the result might be a non-thinking non-rational result that we do not like.
You're smart enough to know that since resource depletion is a function of population and consumption, the way to fix it is to SLOW CONSUMPTION, NOT POPULATION. Forcing slowed population growth creates resentment at best and genocide at worst.
Just because people in the past have approached the problem in the wrong way and tried to use this problem to further their own political agenda, does not mean that the problem does not exist.
POV: you didn’t actually watch the video
Yep! The problem of overpopulation is real, and needs to be addressed ASAP
@@wildfire9280 India says otherwise. Try again.
Be the change you want to see in the world whitoid. Jump.
THIS.
We do need a culture shift though.
Having kids shouldn't be the standard and women seeking sterilisation because they want to stay childfree shouldn't be denied it because "you might change your mind".
Just accepting that not everyone wants kids or should have kids and not everyone wants to adhere to those "traditional family values" should already help a great lot with people's wellbeing!
Exactly!
Again right wingers blaming a problem they themselves cause, the reason why people have children so much back then goes back to Christianity and other traditionalist culture.
Yet their solutions are enforced mass suicide or literal wars, like they couldn't literally see the very problems their beliefs are causing about.
Or a draft. I’m expecting one soon to “help” the population issue.
For my country WE NEED MORE PEOPLE. We lose many each year. When you guys are GAINING population we lose. Right now we have about 1.3 million. By the year 2100 we may have barely 800k. This is serious. So we really need women who want and will have kids 🇪🇪🇪🇪🇪🇪
Agreed!
Those who say "you might change your mind"... Their naivety is infuriating. They have no foresight or understanding of people and just wobble their way through life like unthinking meat. An adult who wants to be sterilized should be sterilized; treating an adult like a child who doesn't know what they want in life at the same time as contributing to this very real problem is incredible stupidity.
Really excellent and insightful video. If I wasn't already subscribed, I would be now!
The planet is not being made better by increasing the number of humans on it.
Yep, see ecological overshoot. Crazy that people can't see it...
This video is so spot on. As a side note, even if overpopulation was a concern, it still baffles me that the focus is on contraception (or sterilization) rather than women's empowerment. Time and again, we see that when women have more education and better health care and opportunities for advancement that they choose of their own volition to post pone having kids or to take control of their reproductive health and only have the number they want. So if we want to, say, reduce the number of children being born in Indian, we should be focused on lifting women and their families out of poverty, giving them access to reproductive Healthcare, and supporting them in their endeavors. Not chiding them for having a 4th child when in their village they have little other value or choice in the eyes of men.
I mostly chide men for being such natalist jerks. Poverty doesn't excuse the men who don't care about how many children they should be having.
@@ishmamahmed9306 it's also a "coincidence" that those men are against abortion as well.
Alwats blamming men for your problems, as if conservative women don't exist. Good luck getting any support that way. Also, why not support everyone as a whole?
@@views-kb6sv because men don't risk their life and health when they are bringing children into the world. Because mostly it's still men in power thinking they should control women uteruses. Because it's men who leave their families and children.
I don't care about your feelings or that you are too childish to understand the horrific reality of third word countries. accept the simple fact: men are the root of many problems that women have. not the other way around.
@@AA-cf4es No, just a few select powerful men and conservstive men. If you guys really cared you would also advocate to teach men from a young age to not act like this, and lift them out of poverty as well.
It’s kind of weird to tackle such a topic and not mention the biggest birth control governmental action of all time: China’s one child policy. Unless it’s because it doesn’t fit nicely in the narrative of wealthy developed countries oppressing poor countries?
Now, I get your point that there are other things to do than reduce population to help the planet, but I have to agree that most problems would be easier to solve with less people (rich and poor).
I think those predictions also assume that the currently poor populations want to achieve a similar quality of life than we enjoy in the west (rightly so). The problem is: we don’t know yet how to do that at scale (for 4bn people) without fossil fuels.
I don't see why he has to mention a case of poor country oppressing themselves in a discourse of wealthy country oppressing the poor ones? Unless you are sufficiently delusional to believe that the one child policy was a success in any metric other than a reduction in birthrate?
True, this video feeds more hate on the narrative of global south vs north.
I am chinese and I can say the one child policy definitely is a good thing（at first）the problem is china change to two children and three children policy too late causing a big spike in average citizen age
I remember when most of the land near me was forest and farmland now it is all buildings and houses. Somewhere that use to take me 10min to drive to now takes me over 20min on a good day.
Right you are. "Smart growth" without curbing overpopulation just means turning the entire nation into Queens.
What are your thoughts on overpopulation and habitat destruction? Deforestation? Overfishing?
Wait, so the US had (or has?) the policy to only give aid to countries engaging in population control, but at they also withdraw funding from hospitals that advertise methods of birth control or perform abortions? Kinda getting mixed signals here 🥴
Not really? They want fewer outsiders in the world, and more of their own citizens. Typical nation-state empire stuff, seeing everything as a zero-sum competition to swallow up as much as possible of the resources of the world, when they could instead be working on helping people, or even just getting space infrastructure to the point where it eventually becomes feasible to use other pools of resources than just this one planet.
why are people wanting to have fewer children? could it be because we have fewer resources?! We are going to run out, yall.
"The tragedy of the commons as a food basket is averted by private property, or something formally like it"
Well that has to be in "Top 5 most refuted statements by history"
What worries me is Africa's population growth. If the UN's projections come true, then Africa's population will grow from 1.2 to 4 billion people in the coming century. So if they start consuming and polluting as much as Europeans and Americans do now, it will be a catastrophe. Considering the entirety of North America and Europe is not even 1 billion people. And 3 billion people will be added over the next century, that's 3x the amount of pollution from the west added to carbon emissions.
They will immigrate into the developed world, and the developed world will take them in for their capitalism
I’ll talk about overpopulation AFTER we stop being so wasteful for the sake of profits. It’s absurd and unethical to do otherwise when there is currently way more resources than needed.
The greedier people get, the more power they seek. That’s why we'll always have the greedy ones running the show, that's why we'll never solve the climate emergency.
We must stop overpopulation
Great Video mate!
To be fair to Bill Gates though; he has probably made some impact on the slowing of the population growth you say is coming. But now that the projections are crystal clear that there will be a 10 billion peak anyway, we should definitely start focusing on actually lowering emissions in rich countries, while supporting lower income countries to grow their economies the way we should have done in the first place: not based on fossil fuels.
I actually get richer selling software to extract even more fossil fuels. So I help keep society based on fossil fuels.
-Bill Gates
I'd say it was almost impossible for early industrialization to not use fossil fuels
Overshoot is the key concept and is often misunderstood. It is a prosperity of feedback systems, like robotics, and has been studied for hundreds of years. Entertainers often imitate a badly tuned robot. This is an example of overshoot that everybody understands. The arm moves it goes past the new set point and the settles back in damped oscillations about that set point It is amazing that everybody knows this.
Let's take this example to the extreme. There three general responses possible for the robot arm: (1) Over-driven, here so powerful that the robots arm flies off, the system them either breaks or oscillates wildly, (2) Over-damped, here the power is low, the arm moves slowly to the new position, or (3) Under-damped, the arm moves quickly past the new set point then settles back with falling oscillations.
As I said below, human population is in overshoot. The birthrate is down and continuing to fall. That is all you need to follow.
Nah, we need to aim lower. 10.4 billion people by the late 2080s and 7.2 billion in the 2100s is too high. So we still need to encourage people to not have additional children.
Humanity's ability to ever more efficiently extract resources out of the planet gives the illusion that this can go on forever. For example, we produce 9 times more copper than we did in 1940. But if we imagine managing a forest that grows 1,000 trees per year as long as it's healthy and thriving and we get better and better at chopping down trees people are happy because the price of lumber keeps dropping. First we consume 1,000 trees per year and then 2,000 and then 5,000, etc. The more we extract the cheaper wood becomes and economists show how even though there is more consumption of wood the cost of the good keeps going down showing the pessimists are all wrong. But then after years or perhaps even centuries of overshoot you run out of trees. Now suddenly there are no more trees to chop down and the economists are nowhere to be found.
There is not enough place to live in most beautiful and nice climate lands
The worst form of crime for me is when parents have a ton of kids that they CANNOT afford to have, those kids grow up poor, those kids become resentful and blame the whole world for their suffering, most of them have to go out and steal to help support their siblings. If the world is not over populated, great. But new laws must apply. No one may have children if Government has not approved their financial background as good and secure to bring kids into this world. It is a crime to have children that have to live a life of suffering!!!
While so-called Conservatives want to FORCE all women to have babies every time they get pregnant: 3, 4, 5, 8. It doesn't matter to them whether the parents can afford it. So pathetically wrong.
The argument that we already produce enough food for 10 billion people is pretty bad given that this mode of food production is highly dependent on fossil fuel and using up all the land, killing the soil and becoming unproductive. How are we going to realize this shift? Of course it's not true that the industrial agriculture paradigm is more land use efficient compared to really small scale farming but compared to more standard alternatives like industrial organic agriculture it is. How should we deal with this? On this topic, would you consider make a video about agroecological city farming in Cuba?
he literally already made that video, just look
Using regenerative farming practices such as carbon farming is the best way to reverse the impact of agriculture. It makes yields up to 50% more than conventional practices.
@@bigballz4u and permaculture
The problem is how we produce and consume food. It’s a commodity that gets wasted at every stage of production. Cattle farming alone uses up so many resources like water and soil, on top piling on CO2 emissions. To properly feed 10-12 billion we would have to completely changed the western diet. 1/3 of all food produced is already wasted. Our way of life is what’s killing us.
Lab grown meat is the solution
There're too many overconsumers. If we would change our culture to consume less and design things in a smart way we could be many more even
Corporations depend on overconsumption for their profits.
It's not really a culture it's imposed on us. Through programmed obsolescence and advertisement, for instance.
Blame overproducers for the overconsumption
Consumerism is the problem not overpopulation. Like he says, the wealthiest are taking more than their fair share of resources.
Except even then humans would take too much from the rest of biosphere... Your idea is that everything will be enough for every human, yeah, but it will cause harm and not leave enough resources for many other species. Typical anthropocentric nonsense
**Your Bernie Sanders clip was misleading / manipulative. If you watch the clip, Bernie said "Yes" in terms of empowering women to have access to abortion if they so choose. The question asked to him was loaded / a set up because it tied the 2 subjects together.
I have a question? When i see around me alot of male & female are still unmarried and have no kids when they are in their 30's and 50's, and theres some nation like Japan and South Korean that have declining birth rate, yet how come we still overpopulated, when birth rate is down?
1) Think of the whole world, not just Japan and South Korea
2) Population decline in an overpopulated country can simply mean that a country has gone down from being very overpopulated to being less overpopulated (but still overpopulated).
LOL: The formula is Population x Consumption. As global populations increase their consumption as their GDP per capita rises, a rise in population is a significant factor.
2023: Poor 7b x 1c + Rich 1b x 10c = 17c worth of damage
2100: Poor 8b x 2c + Rich 2b x 5c = 26c worth of damage
In this obviously simplistic formula, I have assumed the rich 1/2 their consumption (unlikely) and the poor increase their wellbeing and consuming double (possible). You can not say the size of the population is not an issue.
I refuse to live in the pod and eat bugs
thanks for putting it so well.