I am gratified by the number of people who responded to my article, De-Populate or Perish. By my counting, at today’s date (9 October) there have been 22 people who have commented, of whom 14 seem to agree with my thesis, namely, Earth cannot support a human population of more than 9 billion people, all seeking to improve their standards of living, while climate change is diminishing the planet’s biocapacity. Six commentators disagree with me, and 2, I am not sure whether they agree or disagree.
We are locked into a world that will be at least 4°C warmer by 2100 and a human population that will be more than 9 billion by 2050. The consequences of these two factors will be catastrophic; the sequelae will be starvation, food and water wars, and mass migrations. I hoped to provoke discussion and to encourage others to contribute ideas about what should be done to minimize the impact of an unsupportably large human population fighting each other for a share of the planet’s diminishing resources. I would still be glad to hear specific proposals, and direct responses to my conclusion that contraception must be practised universally and as soon as possible, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
I shall respond to points raised by some of the commentators in a second post.
John M Reid

De-populate or Perish
(1) The data I used come from a number of sources, including UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division; Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, US Bureau of Census, articles in scientific journals ranging from Nature, and Science, to New Scientist and Scientific American, and Global Footprint Network (GFN) Living Planet Report (LPR) 2008. With regard to the last source, 2 commentators questioned the validity of the data I used, particularly relating to the bioresources of the planet. I can only refer them to www.panda.org and invite them to download the LPR 2008 and read the Technical Notes, FAQs, and Acknowledgements.
GFN is supported by 77 ‘Sponsoring Partners’, 8 ‘Endorsing Partners’, and about 58 ‘Participating Partners’. The partners include the equivalents of state and local governments, NGOs, universities, and private environmental consultants. GFN commissions studies by its partners and provides stringent Footprint Standards and Guidelines covering the methods for collection of information for Footprint Studies (www.footprintstandards.org). GFN and the LPRs have been referred to in both Nature and Science. In other words, the data are as good as it gets – which is not to say their accuracy cannot be improved by further research, but it is very unlikely GFN is substantially wrong.
(2) One commentator took me to task for writing, “some would suggest” the estimate of the world’s human population in 2050 may revised upwards from 9.1 billion. The “some” include:
ACF World Population projections (9–11 billion); UN projections (9.22 billion); Andrew McNamara, Queensland Conservation Council (9.7 billion); Population Reference Bureau (9.4 billion); and US Census Bureau (9 billion by 2043).
(3) One commentator suggested I am advocating “over 80 million humans must be liquidated, every year for the next 50 years.” I am not suggesting any such thing, and I specifically stated the reduction in the population must come about by non-lethal, non-discriminatory means. It would be more accurate to say I am advocating that every year for the next 50 years over 80 million fewer human beings should be born!
John M Reid

Mr Reid,

Your logic is impeccable, the data is telling & your solution is the way to go.

All well and good until the oestrogen and testosterone kick in every morning. Then all the logic aft lays gang aglay.

As the responsibility of contraception in its finality lies with women it is primarily up to them to dissociate the concept of equality from the concept of sustainability. Polititians won't help. they ride the wave of female pram&nappy-power like a surfboard or a Harley. As it stands women derive over 90% of their equal rights through unequal reproductive rights. Once a woman has children she has business, politics and lawyers in her grasp. Thats not an easy thing you ask them to relinquish en-masse. Sure there are exceptions but they are no where near sufficient in number to avoid the ultimate conclusion that legislation must be brought to bear on women either through incentives or through penalties to cause them to use contraception in a meaningful way.

A fertile woman is like a kid with a football. Its just no use telling her not to kick it!

I'd say to women what a laywer once told me after he ripped me off:
"You'll just have to find some other way to make money- IE power, nee equal rights".

But women can then say to their besotted suitors "Kill, Kill Kill for ME for my rights or no nooky", and the suitors testosterroniously WILL ..

War is inevitable. The horrors of WWI & WWII are almost forgotten now. Women will never fight frontline en-masse despite a few publicised exceptions out of 3.5 billion women. They will wait for the best man to win. Isn't that evolution? Isn't that what has destroyed grand civilisations of the past and what will destroy ours, sending the human race back into a protracted Dark Age.

If men and women both, are not strong enough to face who we hormonally are, then there is NO contraception SOLUTION only evolution and deprivation for all.

Morgan, I've got a friend who has followed our exchanges religiously right from the start.

This is what he wrote in response to your last post on this thread:

"...he is absolutely intractable, a lost cause, and worse; arrogant, ignorant, conceited and vain to misunderstand your offer to meet him."

Yes....except that you didn't misunderstand my offer to meet you given that I just happened to be in the same place at almost the same time. You just turned it into a totally negative thing.

The first time you mentioned stalking, I interpreted it as just a bit of typical CJ over-the-top totally negative and not really serious commentary. But then in your subsequent post you mentioned it again, in an obviously very serious manner.

Jeez you are ill! The paranoia riseth up to a critical level in your grey matter! But then it doesn't come as a surprise. If you treat people in your real world anything like you treat them on OLO, then there are bound to be a few that you have seriously alienated who would clobber you if they got the chance. So....watch your back young kid!

.
John Reid, good to see you come back and participate in the discussion. Too few authors do this on this forum.

Russell, it's nice that you have a friend - particularly one who's willing to "follow our exchanges religiously right from the start", without participating themself. S/he sounds just as loopy as you.

<< I just happened to be in the same place at almost the same time >>

Yeah right. Get help, and don't approach me in person under any circumstance. You've been warned.

Huh?

CJ, my identity is not hard to find if you do a bit of digging. So keep trying if you've got nothing better to do, which appears to be the case.

"...don't approach me in person under any circumstance. You've been warned."

Unlike you, I've got no interest in knowing who you really are or if you go under your real name or not on OLO. The chance to meet you, on friendly terms, was entirely opportunistic, given that I was in the same place that you had announced you were in a few days earlier.

So for goodness sake, you can let go of your utterly paranoid fear of big bad Ludwig coming to get you in the middle of the night.... and concentrate on those in your real world that you have no doubt seriously offsided.

I won't be extending a friendly hand nor any sort of friendly gesture to you ever again. But I will be fully exploring the possibility of legal action over the copious and blatant defamation that you have launched against me on OLO. Stay tuned.

Oh, a word of advice: if I remain anonymous on this forum, then your slanders and slurs will probably not be deemed as significant as they would if you were to announce my real name. If all your defamatory carry-on gets directly linked with my real name on this forum then look out, you could be in real trouble. Think about that for while.

Have a nice day.

__________

KAEP

I don't think it is quite as grim as you express. Well...globally yes, but in Australia, no.

There will be a time in the near future when the population issue hits big-time awareness with the general populace. When that happens, it will become politically tenable...in fact political essential, to stem the rising population.

Within this paradigm, it will become socially unacceptable for couples to have more than two kids, more acceptable to have one and most acceptable to have none.

There will also be a massive demand for the reduction of immigration to net zero or less.