"I'm just afraid that women who have children are less likely to be successful"

And what does "success" mean to you?

"Once population naturally declines to a sustainable level a 0% growth level would be fine, but not until then. "

Interesting. Thanks for clarifying. What would a "sustainable level" be, *approximately*? And who would decide who got to have kids?

(Or perhaps you were just prescribing your moral norm, not advocating for a government enforcement of it even when the sustainable level was reached. I just don't see how a "0% growth rate" would be achieved without planning).

Putin

Sorry if I missed it, but on what basis are you claiming that the Earth is at or near capacity?

"And who would decide who got to have kids?"

The dear leader putin obviously. All praise the dear leader, his judgement will guide us.

What do humans need?

Water
Food
Land
Energy

While water is certainly scare is many areas, there are plenty of areas with water that are currently underinhabited. Also, we have the oceans and antisalination techniques are constantly improving.

Most research I've read (mostly in "Science") indicates that we have plenty of food, but our distribution is poor. Not saying that isn't a problem, but I'll take poor distribution over actual lack of food.

Land is no issue.

Energy is a bit tricky, but with renewable and nuclear energy continually getting better, I don't see it as an insurmountable problem.

abgemacht, you will be amazed at how many green energy technologies have been invented, from updraft towers to artificial photosynthesis. I was amazed. What is sad however, is their lack of implementation due to government backed monopolies. THREAD JACK -- GOVERNMENT IS BAD #KONY2012

Having studied Power Engineering a bit in school, I'm pretty familiar with a lot of green energy.

The two biggest problems with green energy tend to be 1) Cost/Wh (which improves as the technology increases) and 2) Grid Stability (which would require a massive overhaul of our Power Infrastructure.

I'm sure there are some shenanigans going on, but I truly think a large part is just due to the technical limitations of our 125+ year old infrastructure.

Abge -- I would say one of the largest problems with the various green energy sources is energy storage. You can produce all the wind-power/solar power you want...but when the winds stops and the sun goes down, your are right back to the coal, oil and nukes...and they must exist at *full* capacity capability for when they are needed.

And, you can't just shut down X% of the energy production and turn it back on when needed - the plants just don't work that way -- so regardless of the green energy sources that may temporarily lower the load on the "dirty" power, the dirty power plants are running at high capacity.

So energy storage is the problem, not energy production.

Sadly, as a society we seem to be ignoring some really valuable green energy sources which offer a more consistent, level production capacity regardless of sun and wind, and that is wave power and currents. The water wheel is a fantastic...and sadly forgotten...invention.

Any opinions on this analysis?

i am deathly scared of feces

does that make me a fecundophobe

no, it makes you a lame attempt at being funny.

and yet you +1'd it anyway

wasn't me lol

someone (besides me) did, and i feel bad for them

eta I am not posting too frequently webdip :(( wtf

@krellin

Yes, I kind of lumped storage into Grid Stability, but it's important enough to warrant it's own section.

There are really two things you can do at the moment when renewable energy is being produced but not needed: 1) Waste it, or 2) Slow down production of conventional plants.

1) is clearly not a good option, but 2) is really worse. As you said, plants don't really work like that. While it can be done (I was actually reading about this policy in Germany the other day) it's highly inefficient and costly.

Luckily, storage technology is getting better. Batteries are always getting more efficient and research into awesome things like flywheels are very promising.

Smart grid technologies also have the potential to mitigate the need for storage by helping to shift loads to coincide with energy production. Unfortunately, a lot of our grid just can't handle that at the moment.

@Abge - I actually saw an article recently about compressed air energy storage -- dump the excess green energy into air compressors, fill the tanks, and release it. Simple, elegant solution, I think. I didn't happen to catch the efficiency, but it seemed a good solution. I also didn't see what sort of capacity the tanks have, how much land requirement, etc, but assuming you could put tanks underground (under the windmills, solar panels, etc....) it is certainly something to could add to the systems as a whole, even on a house-by-house basis, I suppose.

pumped storage is better imo, just pump water into reservoirs at energy peaks, and then generate energy during lows like at night or on days when its not windy. thing is, you either dam an area, or use a shitload of concrete, which might result in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_Station

Interesting. I don't know how compressed air compares to water efficiency wise, but I suspect it's much easier to maintain and roll out on a large scale.

"While water is certainly scare is many areas, there are plenty of areas with water that are currently underinhabited"

The per capita availability of fresh water is declining at a rapid rate. Glaciers and mountain snow are disappearing a rapid rate, which people depend on for fresh water for agriculture and drinking water, among other things. Desalination techniques are expensive and depends on high levels of fossil fuel usage. We do not have more fresh water today than we did 2,000 years ago, and yet look at the population level.

Areas with large amounts of fresh water are 'underinhabited'? Which areas would those be? And is the supply of fresh water in these so-called 'underinhabited' areas increasingo r decreasing? And how are going remove amounts of population from areas of shortage to "underinhabited areas"?

"Most research I've read (mostly in "Science") indicates that we have plenty of food, but our distribution is poor."

Please explain to me how food production is going to remain unproblematic when water supplies for agriculture are drying up and rising energy prices are jacking up food prices. The reality is that food production has not kept pace with population growth. Grain yield increases have declined relative to the rate of population growth. 3 billion people are malnourished. Available cropland per capita has shrunk to 0.23 hectares per capita (less than half that needed to provide a diverse diet enjoyed by the developed countries). Transport systems and urban structures are covering up cropland needed for food production. Countries like China rely on fossil-fuel based fertilizers to compensate for lack of arable land and available fresh water.

http://books.google.com/books?id=6IQY8Uh1aA0C&pg=PA1908&lpg=PA1908&dq=cropland+per+capita+0.23+hectare&source=bl&ots=sGbxjghlat&sig=z05wYiU210hDf0OJXizPzQlN1Ms&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Uk5qUr7mGo_rkAfp1YCAAg&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=cropland%20per%20capita%200.23%20hectare&f=false

All of these things point to population exceeding capacity. I don't see how you can argue otherwise, when supplies of all the essentials you listed are dwindling at a fast rate. Your argument seems to amount to little more than "technology will fix it". People have a naive faith in technology being able to solve every single problem we have without any kind of sacrifice or reduction in consumption.

And really, the above post is anthropocentric in that it only lists the problems of human population growth on resources as they affect humans. I haven't even mentioned the devastating effect of human population growth on non-human species.

" What would a "sustainable level" be, *approximately*?"

The earth can only sustain 2 billion people, and the sustainability decreases the longer the overconsumption of the resource base takes place.

"And who would decide who got to have kids?"

Incentives could be used to encourage/discourage childrearing depending on the growth level, much like how the One Child Policy in China has worked.

"The earth can only sustain 2 billion people, and the sustainability decreases the longer the overconsumption of the resource base takes place"

Genuinely interested in where you got this figure from.

'So energy storage is the problem, not energy production.' - i saw a really interesting idea which helps solve the storage problem AND deal with the CO2 emmissions from transport (ie vechiles burning petrol/gas aren't part of the renewable energy solution, at least as usually proposed)

Electric/hybrid cars as a part of the energy storage infrastructure. The only downside is the cost of high energy density batteries to store (and power a transport fleet) but i suspect that the total energy storage required for 100% of cars to run on electricity would be enough to cover the grid stability issue.

The cost may be pretty hefty but with joined up thinking the benefits are greater than attempting to solve both issues seperately... Hopefully reducing the total cost.

Feel free to remove yourself from the resource-using pool of humanity, Putin.

"steephie/ora,

Again, though, there's no indication that our population is going to grow without bound, and if you're suggesting that 9-10 billion is going to cause rampant death, disease, and dystopia when 7 billion is being accomodated *reasonably* well, I am very skeptical. (Yes, there are problems with 7 billion, but there have always been problems of one sort or another).

Also, ora, I'm already familiar with vhemnt. They're hilarious. I certainly appreciate their devotionto voluntariness, and wish that every other group of crazy people would follow suit."

That's my point: you can argue anything because of anything.

dipplayer -- I can't agree with your sentiments more. Otherwise, he is stuck living a life of morose hypocrisy. The thought of his miserable, angry persona existing, when true self-actualization would be elimination from the pool...it seems the only reasonable course of action.

@steephie,

"That's my point: you can argue anything because of anything. "

I'm afraid I'm not sure what that means. Would you mind elaborating?

Nothing like an invitation to commit suicide from litter breeding Christian nasties to welcome you home after a day of work.

I'm not quite sure why you Jesus freaks want to live, to begin with. Isn't it better to be with Jesus?

re: One Child policy, work in what sense? Overall population growth certainly was controlled, but China is top-heavy population wise now, which is causing a separate demographic problem.