[quote=njtosd][quote=CognitiveDissonance]When ever I see a headline about “plunging birthrates” it makes me happy. That’s because I look at things like carrying capacity and ecological footprint. Things like species extinction, loss of biodiversity, top soil erosion, access to clean water, energy depletion, deforestation and a list a mile and half long.
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Sorry, but a plunging birthrate (I’m not accepting that this is actually happening), or a global birthrate lower than replacement rate will lead to the extinction of the human species. Does that make you happy?[/quote]
Well it does not matter if you accept what is happening. It’s not contingent on your acceptance. Actually, it’s fertility rate that is dropping. Which is why we are seeing population declines in many regions(thankfully). We’re going to have 9 billion people on the planet, so extinction is unlikely. Though some very ugly scenarios are possible with our resource mismanagement and general blindness to planetary limitations. Extinction can come in other ways besides not breeding. Current behavioral trajectories suggest we could have a population reduction from structural failures, in a short time period. Though, looking at it more and more, I’d say our economic system would give out before we did too much damage to our physical systems, but it would be just a different set of problems – that could also precipitate a lot of bad behavior, if we let it.
Currently we are running renewable resources at about 30% over of replacement rates and going through non-renewables like drunken sailors. These are not trends that can persist too much longer into the future. There are limits to “growth” in a finite world, much to the dismay of economists.
