Why aren't we doing anything about environmental degradation?

As I learned in Factorio, eventually we will be eaten by Biters or reach the edge of the map.

But more seriously, we have three large categories of options:

1. Attempt to live on Earth indefinitely. This requires carefully limiting human population based on the resources available.

2. Begin using habitats and resources other than Earth.

3. Go extinct before we can adapt.

@Nypyren, sorry, I posted my question too soon and didn't even notice it. So I've edited the post you responded to better reflecting my thoughts. I like what you have to say though.

[ I was actually in the process of typing up the post while you responded, didn't know what happened until I tried to post it and saw the submit button was greyed out ].

I've been hearing the same thing since the 1960s. Of course, we were all going to starve by the year 2000 because of the overpopulation and the impending ice age, but it hardly mattered because of the nuclear apocalypse that would end it all in a single bright flash. Then came the acid rain that was going to eutrophy all our lakes and the GMO frankencrops that would extinguish all our biodiversity. Only now the same Club of Rome folks are telling us we're going to roast on a waterworld as we starve due to the overpopulation by the year 2100, but it'll be OK because the frankenstorms will wipe us all out with the great plastic supertides.

For a good background, read a lot of history about how doomsayer predictions have always been with us. Plagues of frogs and rivers of blood, cats lying down with dogs, that sort of thing. Ohhhh, it's going to be bad.

The interesting thing about it pollution is that it is a self regulated system like almost anything on earth.

As pollution fills the world, the demand for unpolluted space grows, causing a market shift into making "green" zones. So the very economics that causes pollution also fights it.

E-waste is one of the best examples, as demand for new mobiles grow the demand for recycling of E-waste grew to help cover the demand. As the E-waste recycling created air pollution the demand for cleaner E-waste recycling and green real estate grew; resulting in housing planting more trees to improve property value.

There is a lot of money to be made in "green" technology at the moment. The demand for solar energy for example has lead to a stable solar panel stock market that inspires a lot of investors. This in turn has lead to even faster growth in solar technology than expected.

Ultimately, (and similarly to the problem of antibiotic resistance), I think it is because we are selfish. Saying that 'it would be better for mankind' if we did blah doesn't work, because people don't work that way. They just care about the here and now, and their children. In fact most people have no problem breaking societal rules / laws for their children, if it gets the children ahead - this is an example of the selfish gene.

Companies don't work that way either, they tend to be selfish. And so you are relying on regulations.. however they too are often bought and paid for by corporations and vested interests.

And then you have the mechanism by which we are destroying the environment - population growth. The planet is hugely overpopulated, to protect the environment we need to start killing people, or have less children. People won't stop having children (ooman rights don't you know), so we have have to hope for another plague or world war to wipe out a load.

This is why I have mixed feelings about trying to find the cure for diseases such as malaria. Ok, you save lots of people from dying from malaria, but then the population explodes and you have other problems. Malaria is one of nature's ways of keeping the population down.

We could also try gas chambers like Hitler (but disposing of the bodies is so problematic, unless we ate them?), or that guy in that bond movie Moonraker had a good idea about sending a bunch of couples up in a space shuttle then killing all the humans on earth then letting them repopulate.

Really the best thing would be to limit reproduction in some way, that way no one gets hurt, and people are less likely to miss the children they don't have. Perhaps a reproduction lottery .. like the situation with bonobo chimps, or totally genetically selected state offspring, we are getting there with the genetic techniques.

Realistically few people are as forward thinking as me, so I'd think our only real hope is escaping the planet so we can infect other planets with our parasitic existence.

As for the reasoning, that is easy: Regulations and policies encourage acting with long-term positive consequences. There is no need for regulations and policies that offer immediate gains and benefits because that is what people will choose by default. It takes discipline to go work out every day, not so much discipline to lounge around. It takes discipline to save up, not so much to use credit. When something is easy, pleasurable, or profitable, it will happen without regulation or discipline.

The larger the cost of the policy or greater the regulation burden, the more difficult and onerous it is to keep the policy and regulations in place. The more immediate the gains and the more clear the benefits, the more easy it is to keep the policies and regulations in place.

As a result of that aspect of human nature it is easy to get policy changes during times of crisis when benefits are immediate, and it is nearly impossible to get policy changes that will make an impact years or decades in the future. This includes environmental issues.

On 6/21/2018 at 8:07 PM, Bregma said:

For a good background, read a lot of history about how doomsayer predictions have always been with us. Plagues of frogs and rivers of blood, cats lying down with dogs, that sort of thing. Ohhhh, it's going to be bad.

You got me, I remember worrying about Armageddon when I was 12, seriously. It stressed me out thinking that the world could end. I admit I gravitate towards certain information and facts that are sensational and preposterous like Nuclear Weapons. I am about the only guy I know who usually peddles this information. And it's ME, my problem that I think about this stuff. I guess it's just so fantastic that I waste mental energy on it for something to do. But.. I do think there are some important truths that I've learned along the way about just what it is that we're doing here. But you're right, there's been guy's like me in all flavours throughout the ages.

@Scouting Ninja, so I gather what you are saying is that markets should eventually help iron out the environmental wrinkles. I hope so, I hope that I'm out to lunch and that the ship ain't sinking.

21 hours ago, lawnjelly said:

Saying that 'it would be better for mankind' if we did blah doesn't work, because people don't work that way. They just care about the here and now, and their children. In fact most people have no problem breaking societal rules / laws for their children, if it gets the children ahead - this is an example of the selfish gene.

Companies don't work that way either, they tend to be selfish. And so you are relying on regulations.. however they too are often bought and paid for by corporations and vested interests.

I agree, and you're recommendations illustrate just how difficult it is to come up with practical alternatives. If I had my way, I'd impose world government with universal access to all and allow it to force change. Perhaps an AI? That would be kinda cool actually.

@frob Well said!

I think this guy's on to something.

I think we are trying but not hard enough, the necessities of our lives have a very intense drawback but we are stuck in a situation where we have to use them in order to live.

A few days ago I read this "China’s plastic waste ban will leave 111 million tons of trash with nowhere to go" and today I see this "With China saying no to plastic waste, the world needs a new plan".

We are advancing a lot in a lot of sectors but why isn't this considered at a much larger scale? If someone can explain this I would be have a much clear vision.

I don't think the world has good enough international regulations. The big problem that 1st and 3rd world countries have different interests.

I also think it will eventually regulate itself as the problem becomes worse. The solution should not be based on self discipline but rather on economic incentives: Polluting has a price (that is not yet calculated well today) and those that pollute should pay it.

As an example: I immigrated from a country that had close to zero recycling to a country that taxes non recycled trash. No one is forcing you to recycle, but you pay more (per waste bin) when you don't. And low and behold: Everyone recycles. And this tax isn't really a tax. It just acknowledges that disposing of trash costs more than the petrol for the garbage trucks and the garbagemen's wages. If you want to pollute no one is forcing you to recycle (or taking your rights away), as long as you are willing to pay the associated costs.

Big international companies have no conscience. They will always pollute if it is cheaper. And that's ok! We just need to setup a system where the cost of polluting covers the actual cleanup. Then if someone still chooses to pollute because it's core to their business, They can go ahead and do it, as long as they don't leave us (the public) to pay the long term costs. That way no-one can complain that we're killing innovation.

Our problem, our real problem, actually, the ONLY problem we have is population growth.

It´s impossible to have any environmental measure to work wuile we are constantly in need of more and more space for crops, pastures, roads, housing, mining, etc...

But it´s a taboo to even mention it, so, I bet even here among a more educated audience I´ll have someone writing things like "why don´t you kill yourself than?"

I don´t kill myself because it would not work, we are severely overpopulated, no less than reducing our current population for a small fraction of current numbers would work.

And since it´s a forbidden subject, god forgive me if I talk about population, so, scientists instead talk about nonsense such as climate change, recycling as if it made any difference and reducing carbon emission as if nature care about carbon emissions after we turned it´s forests into crops.

In time, I have no children, not going to have any, doing my part even if it means nothing.

There are a number of issues here:

1. A significant number of people in the worst polluting nations (looking at you, USA) don't believe that there is actually a problem or don't want to believe that there is a problem. I suggest that this is largely a combination of ignorance, anti-science paranoia, and economic self-interest.
2. Short-term economics are almost always prioritized over good long-term environmental stewardship. Eg. Foam factories using CFCs because they're cheaper, ignoring the fact that they destroy the ozone layer if they get into the atmosphere.
3. People don't want to give up their standards of living for the sake of people "over there" (it's likely that climate change will disproportionately affect developing nations and coastal regions) or even for the sake of their children's standard of living.
4. People think it's "somebody else's problem."
5. Organizational inertia. It's entirely possible for even a small company to recognize that something is a problem, study in depth how to solve the problem, and then still not do anything about it because individual employees just keep doing things the way they've always done it. Now imagine the same thing happening with entire countries.

10 minutes ago, Luis Carlos Zardo said:

In time, I have no children, not going to have any, doing my part even if it means nothing.

This is part of the self regulating system that I mentioned.

So many people nowadays have decided to not have children or to only have one child that our population growth from 2017 has started to slow down to a point where it is affecting other parts of the economy.

A huge factor is low pay. So many new employees aren't earning enough to have huge families so they have only one child if they even have one. If you read some of the popular news channels you will have seen the headline "millennials aren't having babies" a few times now.

The statistics show that our population growth is very-very low compared to what it has been +/- 0.1%. We now have a similar growth rate of the medieval ages with only wealth countries showing any real increase.

Although if we do destroy the world we will not be the first species on earth that caused a mass extinction.

1 hour ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Although if we do destroy the world we will not be the first species on earth that caused a mass extinction.

What other species has caused a mass extinction on Earth? I'm assuming you mean, we will be the first species to cause a mass extinction on Earth?

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So many people nowadays have decided to not have children or to only have one child that our population growth from 2017 has started to slow down to a point where it is affecting other parts of the economy.

A huge factor is low pay. So many new employees aren't earning enough to have huge families so they have only one child if they even have one. If you read some of the popular news channels you will have seen the headline "millennials aren't having babies" a few times now.

The statistics show that our population growth is very-very low compared to what it has been +/- 0.1%. We now have a similar growth rate of the medieval ages with only wealth countries showing any real increase.

Not enough people have decided to not have children, the population keeps growing, the pace is not accelerating, but it´s also not stopping, each year we added a population the size of Germany to the world, more or less 80 million people, and, this number is only getting bigger because it´s a percentage of the entire population.

The only thing, apparently, capable of slowing our population growth is hunger, or, in its modern form, low wages, I agree with that, but, it´s a paradox, we pursue economical gains at the same time we pursue a large family, we can´t have both, and, specially, we can´t have both AND a healthy planet to live in.

I don´t really know where you got those statistics, because there´s a lot of very poor countries with very large population growth, most of Africa, Asia and Central America for starters...

The only way a declining population actually affects the economy is that it would force corporations to pay MORE, because workforce would be more valued.

58 minutes ago, CrazyCdn said:

What other species has caused a mass extinction on Earth?

Well OK, to be fair we will be the first single species that causes a mass extinction but it can be argued this is only because we don't classify humans as we do other animals and plants.

Two other possible mass extinctions caused by pollution from living organisms are: Late Devonian Extinction and ordovician–silurian extinction.

It seems to be a very natural thing for a dominant life form to overpopulate and pollute the world, only to kill itself. We are the first species (as far as we know) aware of the fact that we are killing our self.

1 hour ago, CrazyCdn said:

What other species has caused a mass extinction on Earth?

The cyanobacteria that caused the Great Oxygenation Event, presumably. Though, it may be a stretch to assume that it was all a single species doing that.

Not going to dive into this too deep but I don't quite see how so many people can claim that the world is overpopulated. As a matter of fact, there is just a lot of uninhabitated space on earth. Hence, the population is rather very badly distributed. This (bad/unfair distribution) is imo a common phenomenon in our modern societey (I am for example thinking about the fact that we have been exploiting an entire continent for centuries or the pareto-like distribution of wealth).

In terms of growth... the relative growth has actually been declining since the 70s. Of course, due to the baby boomers boost this does not mean that the absolute growth has been declining significantly. So yeah, this might become a problem but still, I would not claim that the earth is overpopulated just yet.

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In terms of growth... the relative growth has actually been declining since the 70s. Of course, due to the baby boomers boost this does not mean that the absolute growth has been declining significantly. So yeah, this might become a problem but still, I would not claim that the earth is overpopulated just yet.

Your perception of overpopulation is the same as the vast majority of mankind, overpopulation has absolutely nothing to do with space, yes, there´s a lot of space, and, according to the Duggars we can fit the entire human race in the state of texas alone. They are not wrong, we could put the entire human race in a much smaller space if we really wanted to.

A population is overpopulated when its existence cannot be perpetuated etternaly keeping the same QUALITY of life and PRSERVING the environment that supports it´s existence.

Our life quality, for those of us that are not part of the 1% is obviously declining and our environment is about to collapse, major ecossystems are already destroyed beyond any recovery.

That´s overpopulation and we are grossly overpopulated for more than a century.

From what I've read, we've mostly got a distribution problem, followed by energy and economic problems.

We've got enough resources in play globally for about 2x the current global population. Food, potable water, clothing, housing, etc. People with resources throw them out and waste them due to abundance. Ugly looking food is thrown out, perfectly good food is allowed to rot on shelves because nobody has need to purchase it, electricity is generated and wasted because it is cheap and available, clean and treated water is dumped or used for irrigation. But in other places those same resources are scarce. We cannot easily re-distribute resources from resource-rich to resource-poor areas.

Using current technology we could redistribute resources from resource-dense to resource-lacking locations, but the cost to do so is enormous. We could arrange for continuous resource drops globally where goods are flown around the world but it would be at a tremendous energy cost for fuel.

And then of course there is the economic side effects of redistributing goods on a large scale. Both the sources and destinations will have changes to supply and demand, so changes to either can completely destroy economies. Bringing in cheap resources from elsewhere undermines local economies, getting rid of excess resources lowers demand and increases costs. Both the giver and receiver suffer.