Hey, /out/, whats your opinion on the fact that humans are overpopulating,

The only way to solve environmental problems is to import more people into western countries so they can consume more too until we are all brown and then we won't care about the environment anymore. Problem solved

I guess this won't stop until we cause severe environmental damages that'll make things too shitty for us.

Boycott doesn't change shits. People are growing indifferent to these issues and capitalism in general is ruining both mankind and the planet we live in.


As far as I can we're fucking doomed.

>>823401
The thing is, many so called environmentalists don't have good solutions either. Nuclear power, for example, is an environmental and economic win-win, but Greenpeace fear mongering pretty much killed our chances of having that. Now, we have to clear more habitat, and erect more factories to make space and materiel for solar and wind, or destroy thousands of acres of habitat for hydro plants, or continue burning precious petroleum for energy. It's a complete shitshow.

Also, overpopulation is almost exclusively a third world problem. Reducing their population without genocide is easier said than done.

Fact is, we need resources, and we need work to sustain an economy. Human nature is incompatible with a planned economy so that's not changing anytime soon. We can't just shut down every factory and expect automation or universal income to solve anything. We need to strike a balance with nature: utilizing resources and building factories enough to keep us employed and productive, but not so much that we absolutely rape the environment.

Good luck, mates. At least we have the Rockies and Alaska.

>>823401
The earth will be fine, it's been around for 4.5 billion years. Humans will not, most will die, maybe all. The hubris of the scientists is thinking they can control the environment of an entire planet. You cannot prove climate change is entirely man made with 100 years of data when the earth is so old. Maybe the earth is just cleansing itself of the destroyers (us)

>>823524
While part of this is true, saying that we don't impact the earth's ecosystem is being blind. How many species are dying thanks to us ?

>>823401
>the fact that humans are overpopulating
Global population growth been slowing since the mid nineties, as developing nations industrialize and populations become more educated. If the rate continues we'll have at or near 0 growth somewhere around 2080, give or take 30 years.
>A lot of people try to argue that global warming isn't real
The real argument is whether or not it is human caused. But even then the truth is it doesn't matter because...
>and that we can build as many factories wherever we want.
The issue is growing industry in developing nations, both because it is drastically less environmentally sound (look at how China gets most its power compared to France) and industry is significantly less regulated. The stance of these nations' governments is either that man-made global warming doesn't exist or that they don't care. Industry will always end up moving to such nations whenever developed nations place further environmental restrictions on industry. Nominal efforts like agreeing to reduce emissions by X% (as China has done) do nothing because even with the reduction they are still polluting far more than developed nations and they do not negate the incentive for industry to move there. Such nations will never agree to any treaty that does negate that incentive, because their desire to industrialize far outweighs any desire to reduce pollution or carbon emissions. I can't say I blame them, because its like being on a life raft with limited supply of food and being told by an obese guy that you have to ration the food.

>>823537
>>823401
So to try to curb this you would have to force these nations to agree to environmental regulation parity with developed nations, and any actually effective regulations imposed on other nations means going to war and/or placing restrictive tariffs or outright bans on products produced in a manner deemed environmentally unsound, and such a thing would lead to tariff wars between nations, extreme economic instability and likely eventual war. Actual war between truly desperate nuclear capable nations (instead of pissing contests in proxy countries) would not end well for either the environment or humanity.

None of this really matters though, both because of the previously mentioned slowing of population growth and the fact that we could never truly make the earth uninhabitable for all organisms, and if/when we kill ourselves off the problem solves itself. We'd lose many species during the course of that outcome, but most would be lost anyway--it's only ever generalists and species with extremely stable niches (like horeshoe crabs) that stick around. 99.99% of specialists become extinct, and the ones that don't luck into becoming generalists again. The situation is likely dire for humanity--but not for all life.

>>823521
>capitalism in general
It's a problem characteristic of all human economic activity, regardless of ideology. Go look up the Aral Sea.

The issue is that there is always an incentive for other nations to not "follow the rules" and to be the one that uses environmentally unfriendly industry while others do. Whether that means an economic advantage or a military advantage, the offending nation gains from their industry while still reaping the benefits from the nations that do "follow the rules."

>>823535
I never said we don't impact the earths ecosystems, in fact I alluded to us destroying them. I am simply saying that all of these efforts to try and stop it are fruitless. Life will pop up somewhere else in the universe, it's selfish to assume we are most important. Maybe the earth needs climate change. How can you claim to know what's best for a planet that is older than man kind by billions of years ? People are only worried about themselves and not the planet ( the earth is trying to get rid of us). There have been ice ages and meteorite collisions and through all of it this planet has maintained some form of life for estimates of around 3.8 billion years. Do you think that in just a few thousand were going to change that? Doubtful

>>823548
Well, you've got a point.

As for my position on Mankind, I still regard it with great pride, in the sense that the univserse is so construct that it is able to observe itself, through our eyes. In a way i find it very sad that the only specy we are aware of with such a consciousness has a knack for being an ungrateful shit that destroys the world it is in.


But yeah, we may just be nothing more than a failed divine experiment or the result of pure randomness, so who knows ?

We need to expand as much as we can. The environment is expendable if the technological advances are rapid enough. We should destroy this planet so we have no choice but to colonize another. It's the only way humanity can avoid stagnation and death.

>>823648
Yeah let's be a literal virus how awesome is that

Nigger

>>823401
Kill yourself. That might help.

>>824070
Jk... It's nice that you're thinking about future generations but overpop is just conjecture for now, not fact, and it probably just seems overpopulated due to the fact (yes) that most people live in cities and cities are rather populated. Supposedly everyone could fit into an area roughly the state of TX, albeit uncomfortably, I'm sure. If you're worried about resources; it's been found that the planet is always replenishing/producing more resources. If you're worried about CO2 build-up; it's been found that the planet can handle/process it (through oceans, for example) and the more we produce, the more it processes, which means net increase is less than you may think. The "greenhouse effect" as a culprit is questionable as well; climate change (no longer called "global warming" bc history shows that this type of weather change could precede an ice age) is cyclic in nature and has more to do with extraplanetary influences (our Sun going through its own changes, for one) than intraplanetary influences a.k.a. humans farting.

I do agree, though, that it wouldn't hurt for us to tone it down a little- just in case. But that would require changing popular habits like cars and getting rid of world superpowers who regulate all the resources and energy and have a vested interest in maintaing the status quo (their investments) rather than encouraging innovation, no matter how good for everyone it might be; they will get the most bang out of their buck. You have to come up with something better than them while trying not to get suicided (murdered) and then getting everyone else on the same page to discard the old way of doing things in favor of your solution which also means discomfort to most people and people are pretty comfy right now. If no better way can be presented, then the change will be catalyzed by some life/death scenario that forces the change and that point hasn't been reached yet.

Start with changing yourself and go from there. Don't kill yourself.

>>824101
... But you can if you want.

>>823524
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c

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Certain continents need birth control.

>>824067
Nature only cares about those who survive best. If we have to become independence day aliens to do it so be it.
Hfy all the way.

>>824169
But we aint no more just part of nature
That's like saying we're animals

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We need a genocide of almost everybody on earth, which will probably come naturally when oil runs out or a natural disaster hits earth.
People would live in small Tribal Groups, their diet mainly consisting of food grown by themselves and wild foods.

Technology would only be low technology.
That is the best society for the preservation of nature


>inb4 edgy

>>824183
Well this is the correct answer

>>823548
Earth doesn't want to get rid of us tho
Nature doesn't give a crap, it's indifferent.
We are killing ourselves, just look at what people eat nowadays

>>824131
Wow I've never seen that clip from him before kind of eerie how similar his views are to mine

>>823401
Humans are not overpoulating the planet, not by a long shot, and it is slowing down the more civilized and educated peoples become. However, we are wasting a fuck ton of resources and generally messing up everything with pollution on many levels.

But, you try tearing rolls of toilet paper, disposable phones, and big screen TVs away from people and see what happens.

>>824183
>That is the best society for the preservation of nature

You mean, "That is the best society for the preservation of human kind." Nature doesn't give a shit, once we are gone, it will return to pre-human states.

>>824183
Dude Europe killed off all the large predators and cut down the forests centuries ago. This is just wrong. Also, oil doesn't just run out overnight. There's going to be a big runway for society to make adjustments.

>>823523

>economic win-win

Not really true anymore, nuclear power has always been successful thanks to generous government support. The problem is, even if you deregulate the fuck of it, and good luck getting that passed into law, the insurance premiums on nuclear waste is essentially infinite. For a variety of reasons, construction costs keep ballooning. Even in France where they have been successful at making nuclear profitable for a long time, over the past few years prices have started to increase too.

>Also, overpopulation is almost exclusively a third world problem.

I won't deny that overpopulation is one of the biggest challenges heading into the future, but keep in mind that every dirt farmer out there contributes next to nothing to the carbon budget, consumes very little meat and fish, and exhausts only local resources. More has to be done to reduce populations not just for environmental reasons, but just so that governments are able to win elections and for the economy not to collapse. So focusing on overpopulation to the exclusion of everything else is a bit of misdirection.

I don't have figures on hand, but chances are every millionaire out there causes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more damage to the environment than some subsistence farming Bangladeshi.

>>824131

I'm gonna say George Carlin is flat out wrong about pretty much everything in this rant

He's suggesting that by trying to prevent environmental damages, we're arrogantly "interfering with nature." Isn't causing environmental problems in the first place already doing that? So let's say you wanted to control carbon emissions, or ban the use of lead in gasoline, or prevent the destruction of the ozone layer. According to Carlin, we never should have done the latter two, and we shouldn't even try for the first. As it is right now, over 90% of land animal biomass is controlled by humans, either as farm animals and domesticated pets. Most of the rest is hunted or otherwise managed by some kind of human intervention, consciously or not. The reality is, we already "arrogantly" control nature.

Yes, so most species that have ever existed have done extinct, and one day humans will go extinct too. But this is a red herring; our concern with mass extinction isn't all the extinctions that ever happened over the entire history of life on Earth. The issue we're having right now is that we're causing a mass extinction, what might end up being an abnormally ferocious one, here and now and in the imminent future.

So some silicon-based lifeform or tree octopus or whatever might become intelligent 2bn years from now and create a new civilization and thank us for wiping out the present. But no one is thinking about how we might benefit that future, in fact, for our relative near-term survival, it is critical that we try to avoid mass extinction.

Maybe I'm wrong, and there's no need for prevent mass extinction at all, and in socioeconomic terms wildlife is actually useless. Then why are we even on /out/? Why do we love going outdoors, if we don't even care about any of the shit that's supposed to exist out there?

>>824283

There several other factual and logical issues with the rant but i'll stop here

tl;dr If you thought George Carlin's rant was smart, or that you agree with all his views, it's pretty anti-/out/ and I urge you to think about what he's actually saying, fact-check his claims, and do some more reading

>>823401
> whats your opinion on the fact that humans are overpopulating
Serious issue.

>and completely polluting the environment?
Bunch of bullshit.

>>823523
>Also, overpopulation is almost exclusively a third world problem.
Hardly.

>>824067
>humanity is a virus!!!11!!
Don't be a retard.

"Nature" is just an abstract concept. This planet doesn't give a fuck and it's going to be destroyed sooner or later, be it from human activity or when the sun explodes.

Might as well have some fun while it lasts.

>>824283
>in socioeconomic terms wildlife is actually useless

That's actually not true at all. Bats, for instance, save the agriculture industry in North America around $4 billion a year in lost crops and pesticide application. Some things, like tequila, wouldn't even exist without bat pollinators.

Just because we currently don't know the value of a species to humanity doesn't mean that it should be okay to wipe them out. Even if they aren't helpful in some capacity, who are we to decided what lives and dies?

>>824387
> Even if they aren't helpful in some capacity, who are we to decided what lives and dies?
Exactly.

Why are we trying to preserve species that are clearly not fit to survive?

>>824424
Because it's impossible to say what is and isn't dying off naturally. What we can say is many creatures are having a hard time as a direct result of our actions. So what's better? Trying to prevent mass die offs that could negatively affect us or doing nothing about it?