I think the video is worthwhile viewing in that it makes us think. His figure for 100 million is too low, however, partly because it is based on American life-style now. I don't see why we can't live a simpler life-style with little travel and locally grown food. Certainly peak oil and climate change are going to dramatically lower carrying capacity of the Earth and we may indeed end up, as James Lovelock suggests, a few million of us huddled around the poles. My own figure for a sustainable world population would be about a tenth of what it is now i.e. 600 million.

>>Would it not be more sensible for thinking human beings to accept reality and look for constructive, as opposed to destructive, ways to prolong the life of this planet?<<

It would, but it might be a forlorn hope. People have a habit of excess if they can get away with it. And numbers rule, eventually.

>>Coincidence? You decide.<<

?? [X-files music]

>>But never forget it is children like yours we propose must die, we in truth condemn now because it must be said nature is going to kill very many, maybe all one day.<<

The ultimate solution might well be in what Belly says. Over a period of time, nature will decimate the world's population through fires, floods, disease, drought, cyclones, earthquakes and tsunamis etc which are becoming ever more regular and severe. There might even be celestial activity, which we are only scantly aware of now, that really finishes off the job.

I don't believe all humans will die as that would defeat the purpose of being on the planet in the first place. But, in the absence of humans being able to, nature will, over time, do what is required to get the global population down to a sustainable level. That's probably about a third of what we have now.

As I've said before, shock and awe, doomsday media works quickly and works in short political campaigns including AGW, new headlines, ads because they play on the emotions.

This can be seen with Obama an emotional shot in the arm but he was never going to live up to the hype, he couldn't. For that matter neither could Rudd. All are bound by political and practical realities.

For the same reasons the video is unhelpful to the discussion.
Ludwig, as we have tangled many time on this point and is reflected in a number of posts and best summarised by Pericles the big question is How?
So far two years now the same topic goes around but never seems to grasp the nettle and come up with meaningful *solutions* beyond international conferences ( Copenhagen proofed the success to be expected from that option) or build an incredibly big defense force.
A thousand refugees showed tat to be a farce....next?

my solution was to change the biggest inhibitor to change. The political system that is bound to meet capital's wants.
Seriously Rudd had no other viable choice given the above, the changing age demographic and our reluctance for self limitation and unwillingness to pay for services through taxes note the current idiotically myopic topic.
I would suggest we think laterally and consider option to make people behave more community consciously.

Now we are getting some place, maybe we can talk about numbers, I still think we will fail, nature will not it is just a question of when.
Let us imagine [ a nightmare not a promise] all governments said we will reduce the population over the next 100 years.
If Canberra's population is our share, what is Chinas and India's?
Would they want the same percentage as now.
America, would they reduce their numbers to about 3% of now/
In that 100 years, to make it work millions would have to be stopped by any means, from breeding who would judge what ones.
So Ludwig says what do we do.
Horrible task, not easy, not humanly possible.
Say we have two child policy's, we surely know some country's kill girls as they want only a son.
Would we see that here.
Would our country or America, England, any be safe from people who want to live here, in a relatively vacant country [we would be then].
We could try welfare in reverse, less tax for one child family's maybe zero tax.
But even that, forced and maybe unfair will not work in poor country's that do not pay tax in many cased, population for them is often needed family labour.
Nature is still my best bet but we should never stop looking for better ways to protect our world.

<< His figure for 100 million is too low, however, partly because it is based on American life-style now. >>

Yes popandperish, it is far too low to be considered as an ultimate population goal. But it does make a figure of 600 million or 2 billion or whatever seem that much more reasonable than if I had started this thread with either of those figures.

That’s the positive thing that comes out of Alpert’s video as I see it. His cool and logical assessment and conclusion of 100 million cannot be easily dismissed. So when we think of a figure that is ten or twenty times higher as being a possible goal to get the global population down to, it makes us think that we would have to be doing a whole lot of technological improvements and efficiency gains as well, if a population of 1 or 2 billion is to be sustainable and we are to have a decent quality of life.

It well and truly makes us think about just how grossly overpopulated the planet is.

Yes it does force us to think about population.
It even forces us to understand our fate is in other hands.
For the sake of debate.
Let us say we have settled on a figure, it is 4 billion, not one more.
And every country in the world has agreed.
Again just to reduce current numbers we give ourselves 100 years.
to meet that number, we then must control who has a child who may not.
What each country's total number is to be.
Some we may well say have no right to ever,,, have a child.
We , most of us, know we have a problem.
Most can see to fix it , we would need to get very close to forgetting the very thing that makes us human.