It’s already too late for millions of insect, plant, and animal species that have gone extinct; it may soon be too late for us if we don’t wake the hell up and take decisive action...
This situation is more complicated than just the sheer numbers of humans, since about 20% of all people use roughly 80% of its resources. So what we have is a massive imbalance of impacts on the planet, with the rich really taking far more than share. And actually birth (and death) rates have dropped dramatically in the more developed countries, a process continuing as countries everywhere urbanize (and right now 56% of the world lives in cities). Even India has dropped below replacement rate, though given its sheer size and large agricultural population it will continue to grow in numbers for a couple of generations.
But none of this bodes well for the future of the planet. As people become richer they naturally want to live better, so the long term effect is that less folks are going to take more. I cannot imagine any politician pushing against this, and so any changes will have to be cultural ones from the bottom up. We are nowhere near that, and certainly the countries that are just improving their standards of living will refuse to be left holding the bag for the excesses of those that have already reach higher standards. It will probably take a century or so to reach some sort of balance here, assuming the Earth can last that long, and at that point the total population of the world, while declining, would have reached close to 10 billion people. Maybe some massive disaster that finally gets it through peoples’ heads that was is happening will require some real changes, but it won't be easy. Watch the mainstream evening news about "unusual weather" and listen for the words "climate change." You won't hear them.
If you want to do a disturbing experiment go to one of several sites that let you calculate your "ecological footprint." These are only rough approximations of what people take from the Earth, but the typical American uses about 4 "planets" worth of resources a year. Trying to get that value under one requires living almost in the 18th century. That's not going to happen either.
Dr. Weil I love reading your smart, well written comments. I just want to tell you that I watch ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS nightly news shows as well as local weather. EVERYONE talks about the effects of climate change. Acknowledgement is perhaps the one battle we have won so far.
Yep, that's a dirty little secret that people are just are too afraid to tell. We have overpopulated planet therefore we are overusing toxic chemicals to try and feed the people we have on the planet and it's a disaster. What we need to start doing instead of anti women's rights and amti-abortion measures we need to turn our heads towards overpopulation. We need to start pushing a one child policy worldwide. When China did it we're told it was a real bad thing. But, if the world population isn't cut down to at least half, well that there goes our planet and there goes our life support and there goes humanity. Bye-bye.
Men just have to have sex, and will take it by force and fraud.
It is a biological imperative, and propelled by a reward called orgasm.
The sex drive manifests in competition, you can see that in fishes, birds, mammals.
It manifests in humans by acquisition and power To attain power one needs wealth, and one needs wealth to keep the power.
Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos would be incels were it not for their wealth and power.
In days of yore one obtained wealth and power by brute force, like Charlemagne or William the Conqueror. Another route to power for an Incel is via demagoguery and manipulation like Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin and Putin, but that requires a heavy helping of sociopathy and psychopathy.
Today"s route to power is nerdy, taking advantage of technological advances, Thus the meek do inherit the Earth.
Pounding stones into rocks, rocks into sand, sand into dust it comes down to the sex drive.
I like the concept and the thought behind it however, the issue is overpopulation and what it is doing to our home planet and our survival as a species on this planet. The REASON overpopulation is happening makes little difference and the reason will not change our present trajectory towards extinction unless we change.
Men do have a large sex drive built in through testosterone and especially through religion. The Hebrew bible does tell us that God says go forth and multiply. So of the religious creatures think that what man said god said 5000 5o five million years ago when supposedly 2 people were alive on the planet still applies today as a universal truth or law. The whole thing is illogical and idiotic. Had Ford been a religious leader and said that god said only drive 1916 fords these religious nuts without borders would be killing people with newer more fuel efficient cars or electric powered cars as satanists and killing them in the name of their religious overload.
Let's face facts here: Man created God in his own image and likeness to serve his purposes not anyone elses.
We could argue this till the day ends and the answer would still be the same. Either we change our present trajectory of we go away possibly never to be heard from again as a species. Wish there was a god to tell this religious zealots like the Christian Nationals and devotionists what is really happening. Alas that is not possible since they only read the ravings of religious lunatics who made up who god is and what god likes and dislikes.
WE NEED TO ONE CHILD PER COUPLE NOW OR WE WILL PERISH.
VOTE BLUE for everyone from dog catcher to president. Vote like your future and the future of your decedents depend on it because IT DOES.
I totally agree S Howard, but there is no solution to overpopulation, except maybe female education and female sovereignty, fat chance of that, for the reasons stated in my diatribe.
Any attempt to control human nature (the sex drive is thwarted, unless there is an authoritarian government like China, and we've seen the result of that a nation of sexually frustrated males. not good, that leads to pressure for war, as a way of culling the herd, that or pandemics maybe both.
Gaia has her way of dealing with the lice.
I am aghast at the mindless propensity of people living in squalor and over crowded conditions,like Gaza and India, out breeding the ability of the socio-eco system to sustain them.
Gaza for example. It is an international welfare case, before Oct 7th, it produce only tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, egg plants, peppers and olives, its protein came from about 20 fish farms, most of it exported, Most of its food came in from outside.
UN report: 80% of Gaza inhabitants relied on international aid before war
And the women, who can control their pregnancies, are under educated and totally dominated by the male.
Thom Hartmann has covered the subject,not of Gaza, but how as women are educated andliberated they have control over their breeding.
Bottom line is over population a problem?
Problems have solutions. Identify the problem, apply the solution. If overpopulation is a problem, then the solution is vasectomies. culling the population of males, as they do in my county when there is an overpopulation of deer.
In the pre industrial world, wars did a great job of culling the herd, because they were conflicts between males on a battlefield, leaving basically untouched, the women and children.
But not today,not with artillery, planes, missiles,rockets and bombs.
War does thin the herd, but now indiscriminately.
Problems have solutions. Overpopulation does not have a viable solution, because the solution is untenable. So it is a difficulty.
Difficulties have no solutions, they can only be mitigated. If you attempt to solve a difficulty (treat it like a problem) you only exacerbate the difficulty and make it worse.
It serves no-purpose kvetching about a problem or difficulty if there is no solution, or the solution is untenable (like genocide, nuclear war, culling the herd by government). and there is no chance to mitigate the problem. No purpose except the personal relief of venting one's spleen.
However, Gaia, in "her infinite wisdom" has a solution for pest removal, natural catastrophe's, pandemics, global warming. Man chips in his own two cents with violence, mass violence.
When there is no external threat, the violence turns inward, so nations leaders have a vested interest in keeping the external threat alive and active.
And external threats are real, there is always someone eyeing your nations resources and wealth with envy, and who perceives your nation as a threat.
In the same way we perceive billionaires, other populations perceive North America and Europe.,
It is the way of the world and there is no solution, thus not a problem, and only a difficulty which needs to be mitigated, and that takes wise minds, patience and critical disassociated thinking. Only people with no skin in the game.
Wow Willian I did not know you were a scholar. You really have this thinking thing down. I love talking to intelligent people.
I, even though I agree with you but have a large concern. Based on what you are saying 2024 will be a tRUMP victory even though he was just found GUILTY on 34 felony counts. Based on your view people are stupid (I'm putting words in your mouth here) and will not do that which is sane to do even if Not doing the the logical will kill them. Yes, some, if not most are that ignorant and so indoctrinated by religion. There is a minority of us who as young women and men would gladly do what is needed for the sake of the planet, civilization and ourselves or family units.
You say "Problems have solutions. Overpopulation does not have a viable solution, because the solution is untenable. So it is a difficulty."
I have 2 daughters. Neither opted to have children - any children - to make up for those who are not bright enough to understand the Human predicament. I would love grandchildren but... I believe my daughters are making the right move for the sake of society. They are sane. So it is possible to get people to see the light and avoid the darkness through intelligence and education. By the way I raised both of them "without" a religious foundation although both had the opportunity to make their own choices.
You say : "It is the way of the world and there is no solution, thus not a problem, and only a difficulty which needs to be mitigated, and that takes wise minds, patience and critical disassociated thinking. Only people with no skin in the game."
There are two sides to this one. I would hate to think that there is no solution to this issue and I believe that at some point human will revert to fight or flight or will be relegated to death. Then things will change.
When Muslims pray they look to the right shoulder and the left, because they believe that there is demon on the RIGHT shoulder and an angel floats above the left. Now isn't that interesting in the political context.
From your comments, I gather that you are inclined to look towards the left and avert your eyes from the right as best you can,
Reality is there,and though we avert our gaze, it barrels towards us regardless. It doesn't mean that we don't strive for a better world, but mind you reality is like quicksand the more you struggle the faster you sink in.. The way to extricate yourself from quicksand is not to struggle but dig in and fall on your face and swim out.
My spouse and I were both married to others. I have three children, 11 grand chldren and 30 great grand children, and of them all only one granddaughter remembers me or cares.
My wife has none.
There was a time when families were extended, and took care of their own, they still do in many less wealthy countries, but not in America.
People from Central America and Mexico risk their lives to come here, earn some money and send it home to their families, Western Unions primary source of income these days is remittance.
Can you imagine North Americans doing something like that? I can't.
When I lived in Panama, there were no mental institutions,no old folk homes, families took care of their own, even if they didn't have a proverbial pot to piss in.
When China did the one child only, it was only going to be a boy. That's why they ran into trouble. And it's another example of the devaluing of women.
You make a good point there. However, that is both important and besides the point. If don't somehow handle the population on this planet we're gone. THAT is the point.
Doc you are absolutely correct and the future is bleak. I've seen estimates of the extinction of the anthropocene as early as 2034 and as late as the 21st century.
Mankind not only likes his creature comforts (and that includes us self righteous whiners), but the moguls who drive the machine and profit from it, live for today and let the morrow take care of itself, they believe that their wealth and command of resources inures them to t he effects of their behavior.
The Lenin trope about ropes and capitalists actually applies to all, it is in our nature.
Voltaire had words for human nature, or character, man can't change it, any more than a leopard change its spots.
Thanks for the reply William but I wouldn't say with 100% certainty that we're doomed. People are surprising and can be quite resilient. When our backs are to the wall once in a while we do come through, and could even start to turn around the damage. (With grandchildren I can't afford to give up just yet.)
Because of my pessimism I never give up. I fight to to the end. An optimist when they finally see that there is no out, no reprieve, give up and surrender.
I live in Central Illinois and we were supposed to see a rare double appearance of cicadas. So far all we have is silence. I think our agriculture is killing the planet.
I follow Facebook pages where home gardeners give each other advice. So often people advise using Roundup, a weed killer. Don't they know it causes blood cancers? The company lied for decades that their product was safe, and now there are class action lawsuits against them. The product is still for sale. Pharmaceutical companies get away with the same activities. Lie and bribe the FDA and put drugs that haven't been properly tested on the market and rely on overworked doctors to report side effects. It's always "profits over people" with late stage capitalism. I took a medication prescribed by my doctor to lower blood sugar. Within a month I was walking with a walker. The black box med warning said may cause disabling joint pain. Four days after stopping the med, I had no joint pain and was walking normally. This weekend I was climbing 80 to 100 steps to go down water slides. I digressed, but I want to warn people. Be careful.
There could be a lot of jobs created saving the environment. We could kill two birds with one stone (bad metaphor). Growing crops indoors year-round would save lots of water and cut down on pesticide use immensely. Requiring all non-commercial vehicles to get at least 45 miles per gallon would help. Using different building materials that could withstand tornadoes and floods for housing, would help save the forests. Free spaying and neutering of all people and animals would and a lot of suffering. Also quit giving tax breaks for people to have more children.
Leaders are supposed to keep the masses civilized so the merchants can prosper. We need to tell the right wingers that. They think their job is to line their pockets and overthrow our government.
I've read where there's enough geothermal energy in Yellowstone to power the entire United States? It's going to blow anyway, might as well bleed off some of the pressure?
We've lived in Cedar Mill, Oregon for 28 years. For most of that time walking the neighborhood in the evening at twilight it was not unusual to see a bat or two darting between the trees. The last several years we've seen only a few bats total each spring and summer. Very concerning.
JFK would not have said what you quoted at the end were he here today, Thom. I think we are at peak humanity, in the worst possible way, and in multiple respects. Why is there so little hope, at least for me? Because to use the sobriquet I got from you, the morbidly rich hold so much power that only a total catastrophe will impact it, if even then. And the “revolution of rising expectations”, much discussed in my university years, means that as you noted, those at the bottom aspire to have what those at the top have enjoyed and continue to enjoy, even if that is a recipe for extinguishing ourselves.
After a Hal century plus of atheism, I was called to Greek Orthodoxy. Me, an old white guy of Irish-Anglo-Scandinavian ethnicity, Southern on both sides, not a drop of a Greek blood in my ancestry. I was greatly heartened when, shortly after my Chrismation (confirmation) into our church, the new Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, Archbishop Elpidophoros, made his very first encyclical about the terrible threat posed by climate change. Not about abortion, or homosexuality, or banning books. That my church endorses science and the separation of church and state here in the United States has only made me happier to be a member. Too few churches and other institutions have that wisdom. Without it, we are on a very short rodeo to a very high cliff. I won’t likely be here when the cataclysm strikes, but our dear grandson will, and I weep for the world I will be leaving him when the grave claims me.
With a blue November, we might buy time, and common sense may enable some strong remedial efforts. A red November will spell doom, for our country and quite probably our species and most life on this planet. It really is that stark.
“Used to be when I was driving through the southern part of the Midwest like I am right now,” he said, “I’d have to stop every few hours to clean the bugs off my windshield. It’s been three days since I’ve had to clean bugs off my windshield on this trip. There’s something spooky going on out here.”
As a kid I used to see robins all the time, along with a variety of other birds. Now all I see are crows. I can't remember the last time I saw a butterfly. I want to keep hope alive, but sometimes it just seems dismal.
"Scientists estimate that 40% of insect species are in decline, and a third are endangered. Habitat loss, the use of pesticides and climate change are threatening insects of all shapes and sizes, including the not-so-glamorous dung beetle---Feb 24, 2024" This is from a CBS news story titled: Climate change may cause crisis amid important insect populations, researchers say
If the weather due to the climate crisis doesn't get us, this could.
Could is the operative word. I don't think it's too late for humanity, and the 8 billion figure we're at might just be a blessing in disguise. It may have given us enough brilliant people to invent ways to survive the new planet conditions we must deal with.
We got past the hurdle of convincing the majority of people to admit it. Renewables are way ahead of where they thought they would be, and they are getting cheaper. The nightly news mentions the climate crisis along with the weather disasters. The local weather folks talk about it. More emphasis needs to be put on the species that are dying and what that means. Thank you Thom for doing that.
Many catastrophic tangenials spring from the destruction of the soil. For centuries, farmers knew to rotate their crops, meaning they understood that planting the same crop in the same plot would eventually deplete the soil and kill its efficacy. They also knew to, say in a four plotted field, leave one plot fallow, no planting, giving nature a chance to reenergize, rebuild that field. Then came big corporations, MAGA agriculture, who insisted on planting the same crops in the same field to save bucks. This method soon destroyed the soil, which MAGA farming addressed by adding toxic fertilisers and pesticides, financially sound to them because corporate ties with chemical corporations. The toxic additives are absorbed by the plants and are then absorbed by humans from regular grocery store purchasing. I add here a salient addendum. For a year or so, the sudden appearance of all this sex changing, non-sex, etc, I wrongly attributed to errant phenomenology of the brain. But recent studies by out-of-box professionals report that it is not the brain which tells you your sexuality, but instead it is your endocran glands that report to your brain. These professionals report that toxic chemicals from the food you eat and otherwise absorb initiate "hormone disruptors"which sabotage messaging from your hormone parents--your endocran glands, distorting messaging to your brain. It is not so much male vrs female but more creating a void, creating a confusing emptiness that people left soundly desparate attempt to address with draconian measures.
Knowing the reality of what Thom is reporting, might I offer a dark vision of what is happening that will also include the direction American society and politics is taking.
I have been avoiding, mentally, the growing internal realization that the Powers That Be -- not only on the repressive end of the spectrum, but those who present themselves as social democrats -- have both decided the collapse is unavoidable.
The only argument between the two sides is how much do we try to soften the fall. There simply is no real urgency to implement any of the required steps to curb the causes of environmental collapse.
The vision is clear, I believe, of those who are funding D. Trump and his ilk: Keep the engines running full blast until the last possible moment; suck as much wealth out as you can; retreat to safe haven fortresses replete with minions for protection.
Those pursuing what I call a Republican Lite approach, first evident to me with the Clintons, try to sell a Disneyland-like global economy to both the big money guys and working people. How that is supposed to work has never been clear to me. And apparently many Americans feel the same, judging by Biden's approval ratings.
I do admit Joe is trying to change the corporate Democratic Party direction, but he is not FDR, and the last available Kennedy is a screwball.
This is an important topic, because we are losing our pollinators. I had two plum trees, a purple and a yellow plum, 20 years ago they put out more fruit than I could eat, now I am fortunate to get 10 plums from one, I had to have the other cut down and burned because of black rot, a fungus and my other tree showed signs and had to have it professionally trimmed and burned the branches and limbs.
Unless scientists can come up with self pollinating fruits and veggies we are in trouble/
Probably my favorite essay so far from Tom, one among many. Oddly, it nearly parallels the 51 Topics in my free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us", and rolls most of this up into "Population Density Stress". I am impressed with the intelligent and insightful comments here, as well, and would have "liked" nearly all but can't use the "like" button for some reason, and only on this site. Anyway, many thanks to one and all!
This situation is more complicated than just the sheer numbers of humans, since about 20% of all people use roughly 80% of its resources. So what we have is a massive imbalance of impacts on the planet, with the rich really taking far more than share. And actually birth (and death) rates have dropped dramatically in the more developed countries, a process continuing as countries everywhere urbanize (and right now 56% of the world lives in cities). Even India has dropped below replacement rate, though given its sheer size and large agricultural population it will continue to grow in numbers for a couple of generations.
But none of this bodes well for the future of the planet. As people become richer they naturally want to live better, so the long term effect is that less folks are going to take more. I cannot imagine any politician pushing against this, and so any changes will have to be cultural ones from the bottom up. We are nowhere near that, and certainly the countries that are just improving their standards of living will refuse to be left holding the bag for the excesses of those that have already reach higher standards. It will probably take a century or so to reach some sort of balance here, assuming the Earth can last that long, and at that point the total population of the world, while declining, would have reached close to 10 billion people. Maybe some massive disaster that finally gets it through peoples’ heads that was is happening will require some real changes, but it won't be easy. Watch the mainstream evening news about "unusual weather" and listen for the words "climate change." You won't hear them.
If you want to do a disturbing experiment go to one of several sites that let you calculate your "ecological footprint." These are only rough approximations of what people take from the Earth, but the typical American uses about 4 "planets" worth of resources a year. Trying to get that value under one requires living almost in the 18th century. That's not going to happen either.
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Dr. Weil I love reading your smart, well written comments. I just want to tell you that I watch ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS nightly news shows as well as local weather. EVERYONE talks about the effects of climate change. Acknowledgement is perhaps the one battle we have won so far.
Onward and upward, friends!
Thanks Alis, I really appreciate your note. And I'm very glad to be wrong about this too!
Yep, that's a dirty little secret that people are just are too afraid to tell. We have overpopulated planet therefore we are overusing toxic chemicals to try and feed the people we have on the planet and it's a disaster. What we need to start doing instead of anti women's rights and amti-abortion measures we need to turn our heads towards overpopulation. We need to start pushing a one child policy worldwide. When China did it we're told it was a real bad thing. But, if the world population isn't cut down to at least half, well that there goes our planet and there goes our life support and there goes humanity. Bye-bye.
S Howard,
Why is the planet overpopulated?
Men just have to have sex, and will take it by force and fraud.
It is a biological imperative, and propelled by a reward called orgasm.
The sex drive manifests in competition, you can see that in fishes, birds, mammals.
It manifests in humans by acquisition and power To attain power one needs wealth, and one needs wealth to keep the power.
Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos would be incels were it not for their wealth and power.
In days of yore one obtained wealth and power by brute force, like Charlemagne or William the Conqueror. Another route to power for an Incel is via demagoguery and manipulation like Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin and Putin, but that requires a heavy helping of sociopathy and psychopathy.
Today"s route to power is nerdy, taking advantage of technological advances, Thus the meek do inherit the Earth.
Pounding stones into rocks, rocks into sand, sand into dust it comes down to the sex drive.
I like the concept and the thought behind it however, the issue is overpopulation and what it is doing to our home planet and our survival as a species on this planet. The REASON overpopulation is happening makes little difference and the reason will not change our present trajectory towards extinction unless we change.
Men do have a large sex drive built in through testosterone and especially through religion. The Hebrew bible does tell us that God says go forth and multiply. So of the religious creatures think that what man said god said 5000 5o five million years ago when supposedly 2 people were alive on the planet still applies today as a universal truth or law. The whole thing is illogical and idiotic. Had Ford been a religious leader and said that god said only drive 1916 fords these religious nuts without borders would be killing people with newer more fuel efficient cars or electric powered cars as satanists and killing them in the name of their religious overload.
Let's face facts here: Man created God in his own image and likeness to serve his purposes not anyone elses.
We could argue this till the day ends and the answer would still be the same. Either we change our present trajectory of we go away possibly never to be heard from again as a species. Wish there was a god to tell this religious zealots like the Christian Nationals and devotionists what is really happening. Alas that is not possible since they only read the ravings of religious lunatics who made up who god is and what god likes and dislikes.
WE NEED TO ONE CHILD PER COUPLE NOW OR WE WILL PERISH.
VOTE BLUE for everyone from dog catcher to president. Vote like your future and the future of your decedents depend on it because IT DOES.
I totally agree S Howard, but there is no solution to overpopulation, except maybe female education and female sovereignty, fat chance of that, for the reasons stated in my diatribe.
Any attempt to control human nature (the sex drive is thwarted, unless there is an authoritarian government like China, and we've seen the result of that a nation of sexually frustrated males. not good, that leads to pressure for war, as a way of culling the herd, that or pandemics maybe both.
Gaia has her way of dealing with the lice.
I am aghast at the mindless propensity of people living in squalor and over crowded conditions,like Gaza and India, out breeding the ability of the socio-eco system to sustain them.
Gaza for example. It is an international welfare case, before Oct 7th, it produce only tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, egg plants, peppers and olives, its protein came from about 20 fish farms, most of it exported, Most of its food came in from outside.
UN report: 80% of Gaza inhabitants relied on international aid before war
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/25/un-report-80-per-cent-of-gaza-inhabitants-relied-on-international-aid-before-war
We subsidized the breeding. Like feeding rabbits.
And the women, who can control their pregnancies, are under educated and totally dominated by the male.
Thom Hartmann has covered the subject,not of Gaza, but how as women are educated andliberated they have control over their breeding.
Bottom line is over population a problem?
Problems have solutions. Identify the problem, apply the solution. If overpopulation is a problem, then the solution is vasectomies. culling the population of males, as they do in my county when there is an overpopulation of deer.
In the pre industrial world, wars did a great job of culling the herd, because they were conflicts between males on a battlefield, leaving basically untouched, the women and children.
But not today,not with artillery, planes, missiles,rockets and bombs.
War does thin the herd, but now indiscriminately.
Problems have solutions. Overpopulation does not have a viable solution, because the solution is untenable. So it is a difficulty.
Difficulties have no solutions, they can only be mitigated. If you attempt to solve a difficulty (treat it like a problem) you only exacerbate the difficulty and make it worse.
It serves no-purpose kvetching about a problem or difficulty if there is no solution, or the solution is untenable (like genocide, nuclear war, culling the herd by government). and there is no chance to mitigate the problem. No purpose except the personal relief of venting one's spleen.
However, Gaia, in "her infinite wisdom" has a solution for pest removal, natural catastrophe's, pandemics, global warming. Man chips in his own two cents with violence, mass violence.
When there is no external threat, the violence turns inward, so nations leaders have a vested interest in keeping the external threat alive and active.
And external threats are real, there is always someone eyeing your nations resources and wealth with envy, and who perceives your nation as a threat.
In the same way we perceive billionaires, other populations perceive North America and Europe.,
It is the way of the world and there is no solution, thus not a problem, and only a difficulty which needs to be mitigated, and that takes wise minds, patience and critical disassociated thinking. Only people with no skin in the game.
Wow Willian I did not know you were a scholar. You really have this thinking thing down. I love talking to intelligent people.
I, even though I agree with you but have a large concern. Based on what you are saying 2024 will be a tRUMP victory even though he was just found GUILTY on 34 felony counts. Based on your view people are stupid (I'm putting words in your mouth here) and will not do that which is sane to do even if Not doing the the logical will kill them. Yes, some, if not most are that ignorant and so indoctrinated by religion. There is a minority of us who as young women and men would gladly do what is needed for the sake of the planet, civilization and ourselves or family units.
You say "Problems have solutions. Overpopulation does not have a viable solution, because the solution is untenable. So it is a difficulty."
I have 2 daughters. Neither opted to have children - any children - to make up for those who are not bright enough to understand the Human predicament. I would love grandchildren but... I believe my daughters are making the right move for the sake of society. They are sane. So it is possible to get people to see the light and avoid the darkness through intelligence and education. By the way I raised both of them "without" a religious foundation although both had the opportunity to make their own choices.
You say : "It is the way of the world and there is no solution, thus not a problem, and only a difficulty which needs to be mitigated, and that takes wise minds, patience and critical disassociated thinking. Only people with no skin in the game."
There are two sides to this one. I would hate to think that there is no solution to this issue and I believe that at some point human will revert to fight or flight or will be relegated to death. Then things will change.
When Muslims pray they look to the right shoulder and the left, because they believe that there is demon on the RIGHT shoulder and an angel floats above the left. Now isn't that interesting in the political context.
From your comments, I gather that you are inclined to look towards the left and avert your eyes from the right as best you can,
Reality is there,and though we avert our gaze, it barrels towards us regardless. It doesn't mean that we don't strive for a better world, but mind you reality is like quicksand the more you struggle the faster you sink in.. The way to extricate yourself from quicksand is not to struggle but dig in and fall on your face and swim out.
My spouse and I were both married to others. I have three children, 11 grand chldren and 30 great grand children, and of them all only one granddaughter remembers me or cares.
My wife has none.
There was a time when families were extended, and took care of their own, they still do in many less wealthy countries, but not in America.
People from Central America and Mexico risk their lives to come here, earn some money and send it home to their families, Western Unions primary source of income these days is remittance.
Can you imagine North Americans doing something like that? I can't.
When I lived in Panama, there were no mental institutions,no old folk homes, families took care of their own, even if they didn't have a proverbial pot to piss in.
PS: I'm off to celebrate with about 30 neighbors tRUMPS LOSS today. I will talk to you soon.
When China did the one child only, it was only going to be a boy. That's why they ran into trouble. And it's another example of the devaluing of women.
You make a good point there. However, that is both important and besides the point. If don't somehow handle the population on this planet we're gone. THAT is the point.
They wanted a boy to support them in their old age. Lucky boy!
Doc you are absolutely correct and the future is bleak. I've seen estimates of the extinction of the anthropocene as early as 2034 and as late as the 21st century.
Mankind not only likes his creature comforts (and that includes us self righteous whiners), but the moguls who drive the machine and profit from it, live for today and let the morrow take care of itself, they believe that their wealth and command of resources inures them to t he effects of their behavior.
The Lenin trope about ropes and capitalists actually applies to all, it is in our nature.
Voltaire had words for human nature, or character, man can't change it, any more than a leopard change its spots.
Thanks for the reply William but I wouldn't say with 100% certainty that we're doomed. People are surprising and can be quite resilient. When our backs are to the wall once in a while we do come through, and could even start to turn around the damage. (With grandchildren I can't afford to give up just yet.)
Because of my pessimism I never give up. I fight to to the end. An optimist when they finally see that there is no out, no reprieve, give up and surrender.
I live in Central Illinois and we were supposed to see a rare double appearance of cicadas. So far all we have is silence. I think our agriculture is killing the planet.
I follow Facebook pages where home gardeners give each other advice. So often people advise using Roundup, a weed killer. Don't they know it causes blood cancers? The company lied for decades that their product was safe, and now there are class action lawsuits against them. The product is still for sale. Pharmaceutical companies get away with the same activities. Lie and bribe the FDA and put drugs that haven't been properly tested on the market and rely on overworked doctors to report side effects. It's always "profits over people" with late stage capitalism. I took a medication prescribed by my doctor to lower blood sugar. Within a month I was walking with a walker. The black box med warning said may cause disabling joint pain. Four days after stopping the med, I had no joint pain and was walking normally. This weekend I was climbing 80 to 100 steps to go down water slides. I digressed, but I want to warn people. Be careful.
You just about said it all, Thom. It is that dire. Keep it up up!
There could be a lot of jobs created saving the environment. We could kill two birds with one stone (bad metaphor). Growing crops indoors year-round would save lots of water and cut down on pesticide use immensely. Requiring all non-commercial vehicles to get at least 45 miles per gallon would help. Using different building materials that could withstand tornadoes and floods for housing, would help save the forests. Free spaying and neutering of all people and animals would and a lot of suffering. Also quit giving tax breaks for people to have more children.
Leaders are supposed to keep the masses civilized so the merchants can prosper. We need to tell the right wingers that. They think their job is to line their pockets and overthrow our government.
I've read where there's enough geothermal energy in Yellowstone to power the entire United States? It's going to blow anyway, might as well bleed off some of the pressure?
Favorite thing I've read of yours, Bob. It's important to know the latest innovations and to pass that on. Thanks.
We've lived in Cedar Mill, Oregon for 28 years. For most of that time walking the neighborhood in the evening at twilight it was not unusual to see a bat or two darting between the trees. The last several years we've seen only a few bats total each spring and summer. Very concerning.
JFK would not have said what you quoted at the end were he here today, Thom. I think we are at peak humanity, in the worst possible way, and in multiple respects. Why is there so little hope, at least for me? Because to use the sobriquet I got from you, the morbidly rich hold so much power that only a total catastrophe will impact it, if even then. And the “revolution of rising expectations”, much discussed in my university years, means that as you noted, those at the bottom aspire to have what those at the top have enjoyed and continue to enjoy, even if that is a recipe for extinguishing ourselves.
After a Hal century plus of atheism, I was called to Greek Orthodoxy. Me, an old white guy of Irish-Anglo-Scandinavian ethnicity, Southern on both sides, not a drop of a Greek blood in my ancestry. I was greatly heartened when, shortly after my Chrismation (confirmation) into our church, the new Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, Archbishop Elpidophoros, made his very first encyclical about the terrible threat posed by climate change. Not about abortion, or homosexuality, or banning books. That my church endorses science and the separation of church and state here in the United States has only made me happier to be a member. Too few churches and other institutions have that wisdom. Without it, we are on a very short rodeo to a very high cliff. I won’t likely be here when the cataclysm strikes, but our dear grandson will, and I weep for the world I will be leaving him when the grave claims me.
With a blue November, we might buy time, and common sense may enable some strong remedial efforts. A red November will spell doom, for our country and quite probably our species and most life on this planet. It really is that stark.
We notice this too!💔
“Used to be when I was driving through the southern part of the Midwest like I am right now,” he said, “I’d have to stop every few hours to clean the bugs off my windshield. It’s been three days since I’ve had to clean bugs off my windshield on this trip. There’s something spooky going on out here.”
As a kid I used to see robins all the time, along with a variety of other birds. Now all I see are crows. I can't remember the last time I saw a butterfly. I want to keep hope alive, but sometimes it just seems dismal.
Where have all the insects gone, long time passing?
"Scientists estimate that 40% of insect species are in decline, and a third are endangered. Habitat loss, the use of pesticides and climate change are threatening insects of all shapes and sizes, including the not-so-glamorous dung beetle---Feb 24, 2024" This is from a CBS news story titled: Climate change may cause crisis amid important insect populations, researchers say
If the weather due to the climate crisis doesn't get us, this could.
Could is the operative word. I don't think it's too late for humanity, and the 8 billion figure we're at might just be a blessing in disguise. It may have given us enough brilliant people to invent ways to survive the new planet conditions we must deal with.
We got past the hurdle of convincing the majority of people to admit it. Renewables are way ahead of where they thought they would be, and they are getting cheaper. The nightly news mentions the climate crisis along with the weather disasters. The local weather folks talk about it. More emphasis needs to be put on the species that are dying and what that means. Thank you Thom for doing that.
Many catastrophic tangenials spring from the destruction of the soil. For centuries, farmers knew to rotate their crops, meaning they understood that planting the same crop in the same plot would eventually deplete the soil and kill its efficacy. They also knew to, say in a four plotted field, leave one plot fallow, no planting, giving nature a chance to reenergize, rebuild that field. Then came big corporations, MAGA agriculture, who insisted on planting the same crops in the same field to save bucks. This method soon destroyed the soil, which MAGA farming addressed by adding toxic fertilisers and pesticides, financially sound to them because corporate ties with chemical corporations. The toxic additives are absorbed by the plants and are then absorbed by humans from regular grocery store purchasing. I add here a salient addendum. For a year or so, the sudden appearance of all this sex changing, non-sex, etc, I wrongly attributed to errant phenomenology of the brain. But recent studies by out-of-box professionals report that it is not the brain which tells you your sexuality, but instead it is your endocran glands that report to your brain. These professionals report that toxic chemicals from the food you eat and otherwise absorb initiate "hormone disruptors"which sabotage messaging from your hormone parents--your endocran glands, distorting messaging to your brain. It is not so much male vrs female but more creating a void, creating a confusing emptiness that people left soundly desparate attempt to address with draconian measures.
Knowing the reality of what Thom is reporting, might I offer a dark vision of what is happening that will also include the direction American society and politics is taking.
I have been avoiding, mentally, the growing internal realization that the Powers That Be -- not only on the repressive end of the spectrum, but those who present themselves as social democrats -- have both decided the collapse is unavoidable.
The only argument between the two sides is how much do we try to soften the fall. There simply is no real urgency to implement any of the required steps to curb the causes of environmental collapse.
The vision is clear, I believe, of those who are funding D. Trump and his ilk: Keep the engines running full blast until the last possible moment; suck as much wealth out as you can; retreat to safe haven fortresses replete with minions for protection.
Those pursuing what I call a Republican Lite approach, first evident to me with the Clintons, try to sell a Disneyland-like global economy to both the big money guys and working people. How that is supposed to work has never been clear to me. And apparently many Americans feel the same, judging by Biden's approval ratings.
I do admit Joe is trying to change the corporate Democratic Party direction, but he is not FDR, and the last available Kennedy is a screwball.
Ideas, anyone?
D.
This is an important topic, because we are losing our pollinators. I had two plum trees, a purple and a yellow plum, 20 years ago they put out more fruit than I could eat, now I am fortunate to get 10 plums from one, I had to have the other cut down and burned because of black rot, a fungus and my other tree showed signs and had to have it professionally trimmed and burned the branches and limbs.
Unless scientists can come up with self pollinating fruits and veggies we are in trouble/
All of this and we still have mosquitoes 🦟🦟🦟☹️
Probably my favorite essay so far from Tom, one among many. Oddly, it nearly parallels the 51 Topics in my free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us", and rolls most of this up into "Population Density Stress". I am impressed with the intelligent and insightful comments here, as well, and would have "liked" nearly all but can't use the "like" button for some reason, and only on this site. Anyway, many thanks to one and all!
GUILTY!!