Lethal Manmade Pandemic vs Natural Population Crash

[JimC]

The problem I see is that a natural human population crash will allow multiple rebounds and this will seriously damage remaining higher biological systems as survivors cut down remaining forests and kill anything to survive. A 250,000 year dead patch could be reduced to 25,000 years by other means? The alternative is a artificial population crash induced by the release of a high mortality bug leading to produce a population crash of sufficient intensity that it allows 'higher life systems' time and space to recover from the petroleum age? The bug must be nearly universally fatal so that only a few isolated pockets live through it....thankfully there is such a beast and it is this which may need releasing by responsible scientists who think about the wider picture rather than their, or your, place in it?

Tom Clancy already wrote the book...

"Rainbow Six"...

If it makes you feel better, if any of those cold fusion theories ends up working out there would be no such concept as over population as fresh food and water would be nearly limitless.
Then you can just build really big buildings. A one mile square, one mile tall super skyscraper with twenty feet between floors could give 7,000,000 families 1000 square feet of living space.

There was also a dystopian fantasy built around this..

Disch or Silverberg, from memory...

[hadespussercats]

Apropos of nothing, really, I keep reading the title of this thread as 'Lethal Marmalade Pandemic.'

As long as it's not lime marmalade...

[JimC]

Apropos of nothing, really, I keep reading the title of this thread as 'Lethal Marmalade Pandemic.'

As long as it's not lime marmalade...

I too have a marmalade brain circuit firing when I see the thread title...

Have you tried grapefruit marmalade?

[hadespussercats]

Apropos of nothing, really, I keep reading the title of this thread as 'Lethal Marmalade Pandemic.'

As long as it's not lime marmalade...

I too have a marmalade brain circuit firing when I see the thread title...

Have you tried grapefruit marmalade?

No, but I want to!

[JimC]

My mum used to make it...

[cronus]

If there was a another way I'd go for it but the unsustainable over-consumption of resources will lead to a natural tipping point if a man-made one isn't found. The choice is simple. We either fall on our swords early and so leave some resources for the survivors to rebuild a technological civilization with or leave it until the remaining 40% of critical resources for a technical civilization, or natural recovery, are consumed and so condemn our children to utter impoverishment and ultimately our species to extinction. I guess there are those who believe rabbits will fly out of the hat on this at the last moment? and they are winning the argument? for now?

[Blind groper]

Faku

I can better your maths.

For a start, you are assuming an unchanging fertility rate. The United Nations demographers have documented a steady drop in fertility. Re-do your maths when the population has a fertility rate that drops by 33% after the first generation, then 15% the second, and 5% the third.

There is, however, a nice exponential growth that is more real. Sub Saharan Africa has an economic growth of 1.05% per year, averaged over many decades. Now continue this over 50 years. You end up with a 9 fold increase in wealth. Over 100 years, this is an 80 fold increase in wealth. Basically, what this means is that those dirt poor populations are not condemned to remain dirt poor.

Both ways of looking at it, Faku, rather contradict your thesis.

[cronus]

High economic growth draws in immigrants so it isn't a rich/poor issue but simply using too many non-renewable or ecologically critical resources. A smaller population all round is the key. Given they are predicting a 4C temp rise in fifty years and global population won't even stabilize for a hundred it is safe to say there is a small window to act now before it is too late to act at all?

[Pappa]

I keep reading the thread title as, "Lethal Marmalade Pandemic vs Natural Population Crash".

[Thinking Aloud]

I keep reading the thread title as, "Lethal Marmalade Pandemic vs Natural Population Crash".

Might be something to do with this: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41919

[Pappa]

I keep reading the thread title as, "Lethal Marmalade Pandemic vs Natural Population Crash".

Might be something to do with this: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41919

Ah yeah. That'd be it.

[Svartalf]

I hear that British Marmalade ought to be forbidden under the Hague convention on military weapons.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I keep reading the thread title as, "Lethal Marmalade Pandemic vs Natural Population Crash".

Might be something to do with this: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41919

Ah yeah. That'd be it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Anyway, back to page one. The countries that are experiencing great population growth are also the countries that can least handle a major epidemic, for the most part. So that's going to be self-correcting sooner or later. It's like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. You can do it as long as nothing goes wrong.

[Blind groper]

Given they are predicting a 4C temp rise in fifty years and global population won't even stabilize for a hundred it is safe to say there is a small window to act now before it is too late to act at all?

That is still very speculative. Here is a recent report that looks again at the data and concludes that warming is more likely to be only 2 C.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 103927.htm

A small population is not needed. Population growth within the limits the United Nations predicts is something humanity and the world can cope with. We already produce more than enough food, for example, for the world population. We in the west throw away a third of what we produce. So a little more efficiency would permit feeding 10 billion.