Please look at past trends in fertility, and predictions of reputable, independent sources. The growth rate is already sinking fast (just in case: the rate is sinking, population is still growing). With the current/recent situation, in the short term the growth continues, but slows and mid-term there will be a reduction in population. And already today we do have the means to support this population much more sustainable, we just choose not to (we even produce food to turn it into gasoline o.O ): It would require a massive wealth/standards re-distribution, and re-distribution is socialist and thus bad (/s in case that’s necessary). A possible starting point: ourworldindata.org/population-growth-over-time
Comment on Solar-Powered Farming Is Quickly Depleting the World's Groundwater Supply
Wanderer@lemm.ee 10 months ago
There’s just too many people on this planet.
Yea sure that was said years ago then farming happened. Then it was said again and thr new world was found. Then it was said again and the harber process was found.
Yes we will probably make lab grown meat and we can keep increasing our population.
But look we are farming absoulte marginal, temporary farmland.
But there is too many people. We make up a huge amount of the biomass on this planet there are just too many people and we are fucked because of it.
There doesn’t seem to be any solution to it either.
imsodin@infosec.pub 10 months ago
VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
We’ve got endless solutions already we could use and even more in the pipelines, things like vertical farming is already huge for many crops and only getting more popular as is intermixed land use - as automation continues to boom we’re only going to see more of these especially as construction becomes more automated.
A lot of traditionally space hogging land uses are on their way out, factories are far smaller than they used to be for example with much larger output. This trend is certain to increase as mult-tool automation and task based processing gain ubiquity. That’s a lot of room for vertical farming even before we start using autonomous tools to cheaply convert subterranean spaces - water cycling and environmental control reduce the water use to less than one percent of traditional agriculture while removing the need for pesticides.
Even without that automation will increase yield significantly, very likely also make it easier to the point where we become used to seeing food grown throughout cities and harvested by robots - why waste a south facing wall when you could either grow food on it yourself or rent it to someone for a share of the yield.
There are endless solutions to the fear you mention. Unfortunately, the greed and selfishness of our current system means we’re fighting for scraps rather than moving forward to improve things for all but people have always been awful and we got this far.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
About the only solution would be barbarism. A lottery to decide who gets to live and who has to go. And I’m not willing to participate in that. But as things get desperate, there will be those who are.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 10 months ago
China’s one child policy worked well for China.
But there is no way to get a whole world, one child policy.
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 10 months ago
No need to, as countries develop, the birth rate already shrinks.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
The problem is that many countries have ageing populations that vote in favour of policies that increase incentives to have more children so there are young people to care for those voting older people in their old age and pay for their pensions.
eatthecake@lemmy.world 10 months ago
And where populations are shrinking all we hear is breed more to save the economy
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 10 months ago
Crazy part is I read Africa’s pop is going to double over next 35 years. Is that even sustainable in that region? North America and eruope are already getting tons of migration because of the current condition living there. Maybe they need more birth controls to reduce the resouce needs.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 10 months ago
No it’s about bringing in immigrants to keep wages down and house prices up.
eatthecake@lemmy.world 10 months ago
For the economy. It’s all for the economy. Profits must grow. House prices can only go up. GDP is the only metric that matters.
I can understand why some people just want to burn it all down.