Overpopulation Rhetoric is Alarmist and Counterproductive

[Heisenberg]

Global sustainability isn't threatened by birth rates, but rather by the fact that we're overconsuming.

In the course of preparing for a panel here at the Conference on World Affairs, I ran across a 2009 editorial by environmental journalist Fred Pearce, in which he explains why current global population trends aren't as horrific as they're often made out to be. I thought you should read it.

Global population is going up, Pearce writes, but that's not the same thing as saying that birth rates are going up. And, in the long run, that distinction matters. Around the world—not just in the West—human birthrates are decreasing. And they've been decreasing for a really long time.

Wherever most kids survive to adulthood, women stop having so many. That is the main reason why the number of children born to an average woman around the world has been in decline for half a century now. After peaking at between 5 and 6 per woman, it is now down to 2.6.

This is getting close to the “replacement fertility level” which, after allowing for a natural excess of boys born and women who don’t reach adulthood, is about 2.3. The UN expects global fertility to fall to 1.85 children per woman by mid-century. While a demographic “bulge” of women of child-bearing age keeps the world’s population rising for now, continuing declines in fertility will cause the world’s population to stabilize by mid-century and then probably to begin falling.

Far from ballooning, each generation will be smaller than the last. So the ecological footprint of future generations could diminish. That means we can have a shot at estimating the long-term impact of children from different countries down the generations.

What I really like about this essay, though, is how well Pearce articulates the real problem, which is over-consumption. Population and consumption might appear to be intrinsically linked, but they're not. As Pearce points out, global consumption is increasing far faster than global population and the average American family of four uses far more land, far more water, far more energy and produces far more emissions than an Ethiopian family of 11.

This is important. I've heard many, many Americans express their fears about population growth over the years. Pearce's essay makes it clear that, when you do that, you're pretty much being a concern troll. The population problem, while still real, is well on its way to solving itself. The consumption problem, not so much. Population growth is a problem of the poor. Consumption growth is a problem of the rich (which, from a global perspective, includes pretty much everyone in the United States). So when you ignore consumption and pin the blame for global sustainability issues on population, what you're doing is blaming the 99% for the mistakes of the 1%.

Read Frank Pearce's entire essay on Yale Environment 360

So if you're concerned about global sustainability, the solution is not to attack the world's poor for having too many kids, but rather to address the world's rich (you and I) for consuming far more resources than we need.

[Garm]

One of these years I'm going to take some time off of work and go to the CWA. I used to go every year when I was in College and it was always one of the highlights of my year.

On-topic: This makes a lot of sense. It would behoove us, however, to consider the amount of water available to people rather than just the food. We, the rich, also over consume water in the worst way. Why do we use potable water (or nearly potable anyway) in our toilets?

[buddy431]

So if you're concerned about global sustainability, the solution is not to attack the world's poor for having too many kids, but rather to address the world's rich (you and I) for consuming far more resources than we need.

Of course, the other way to look at is that the rich can afford to consume the resources they do, while many of the poor cannot. It depends on your perspective, I guess.

[addams]

ech. It is a coin with two sides.

Increase the quality of life for the poor first. Don't nag them. Give people choices.

Then, take on the tougher battle with the rich that can not have enough. One more big screen TV away from Narvana. When a people are intellectually poor and every waking moment has consumer goods that will fulfill every emotional need, just, out of reach, then, those are hard people to work with.

[Griffin]

Why do we use potable water (or nearly potable anyway) in our toilets?

Because it is cheaper than running multiple sets of pipe, and you really don't want bad water sitting around, potentially for weeks at a time, so your choice of which water to use is further limited.

And many places in the world have absolutely nothing approaching a shortage of fresh water.

[Iulus Cofield]

So if you're concerned about global sustainability, the solution is not to attack the world's poor for having too many kids, but rather to address the world's rich (you and I) for consuming far more resources than we need.

Of course, the other way to look at is that the rich can afford to consume the resources they do, while many of the poor cannot. It depends on your perspective, I guess.

Yes? I'm not sure what you're getting at. The haves have and have-nots have not? How does that address sustainability?

Anyway, I have heard the idea expressed in the OP summarized as, "The world can not afford the American Dream."

[buddy431]

So if you're concerned about global sustainability, the solution is not to attack the world's poor for having too many kids, but rather to address the world's rich (you and I) for consuming far more resources than we need.

Of course, the other way to look at is that the rich can afford to consume the resources they do, while many of the poor cannot. It depends on your perspective, I guess.

Yes? I'm not sure what you're getting at. The haves have and have-nots have not? How does that address sustainability?

Anyway, I have heard the idea expressed in the OP summarized as, "The world can not afford the American Dream."

You're right, the world can't. Many Americans can. If you want to get philosophical about it, why should Americans forgo what they can afford because others cannot afford it? If I can afford to eat meat every day and bathe in drinking water, why not? It's a better use of money than a lot of things I might otherwise spend it on.

[Panonadin]

The problem with finding problems like this is that you can't get the majority to put in effort to actually MAKE a change. I'm sure there are plenty of world problems, that if you could get people involved could be changed in a matter of months/years.

The only way I see to REALLY initiate change is to involve (insert authority) to make people change things. When you go there however you get people who oppose it because giving anyone in charge control also gives the the option to abuse said control and we lack trust.

[mmmcannibalism]

Now go ask people whether they would like a higher population at a lower standard of living or a lower population at a higher standard of living.

[maybeagnostic]

And many places in the world have absolutely nothing approaching a shortage of fresh water.

And many places in the U.S. have begun to rapidly use up their aquifers in the last ~60ish years. Those aquifers can take millions of years to refill and are the only sufficiently large source of clean water in some regions. Example.

[sardia]

So if you're concerned about global sustainability, the solution is not to attack the world's poor for having too many kids, but rather to address the world's rich (you and I) for consuming far more resources than we need.

Of course, the other way to look at is that the rich can afford to consume the resources they do, while many of the poor cannot. It depends on your perspective, I guess.

Yes? I'm not sure what you're getting at. The haves have and have-nots have not? How does that address sustainability?

Anyway, I have heard the idea expressed in the OP summarized as, "The world can not afford the American Dream."

You're right, the world can't. Many Americans can. If you want to get philosophical about it, why should Americans forgo what they can afford because others cannot afford it? If I can afford to eat meat every day and bathe in drinking water, why not? It's a better use of money than a lot of things I might otherwise spend it on.

I assure you, in 50 years time, you won't be able to afford anything excessive with drinking water. Ever thought about how much it would cost bathing in soda or beer? Prices will be like that.

[Panonadin]

Citation?

I seriously doubt that will be the case and without some hard data I'm gonna call bullshit*.

*And will offer an apology if there is anything to back up your assertion.

[CorruptUser]

Now go ask people whether they would like a higher population at a lower standard of living or a lower population at a higher standard of living.

Also at what time. 1000 years later, it'd better that now was overpopulated than under; assuming the same distribution of intelligence/skills, the overpopulated world will have many more scientists than the underpopulated world, which leads to much faster advances. Keep in mind that the world was almost always overpopulated. In the middle ages, Britain was practically starving with 2 million citizens, now it's overfed with 60 million. More people meant more scientists, and more scientists meant more inventions which improved the capacity of the countries in question. Used to be, every advance meant more people could survive, so the standard of living was a dismal existence until the industrial revolution, when the advances came so close together that the population couldn't grow at the rate of scientific progress.

This is why I'm optimistic about India becoming an industrial power; once India starts producing scientists at the same rate as Europe, progress will practically double in speed. China has even more people, so their contribution to science could potentially be even greater.

It's one of the reasons I have a loathing for any culture that prevents women from entering the sciences. That's my science you are holding back, jackass!

[Iulus Cofield]

You're right, the world can't. Many Americans can. If you want to get philosophical about it, why should Americans forgo what they can afford because others cannot afford it? If I can afford to eat meat every day and bathe in drinking water, why not? It's a better use of money than a lot of things I might otherwise spend it on.

Philosophically, you're right, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to argue there's a moral imperative for the wealthy to help the poor, unless you start with some convenient presumption like, "All humans deserve a standard of living above subsistence."

But you may find from a practical stand point you're putting your head in the sand. Unless you actively or passively hinder the rest of the world, they will attempt to and most likely succeed at raising their standards of living, eventually. The US manufacturing is nowhere near self-sufficient and imports enormously. What happens when those countries we're importing from raise their wealth to the point that its no longer more profitable to export to the US? Why would they want to sell to us if they'll make just as much at home? There are few economic vacuums in this world and to achieve the kind of standard of living that Americans have can not be achieved through self-sufficiency.

We have to either find a way to reach an equilibrium with the rest of the world or we have to find ways to prevent them from even beginning to approach our wealth. And it is very hard to turn screwing over foreigners so that we can live in unprecedented luxury into a moral act.

[Dauric]

Well, some consumption can be changed with relative ease, other changes not so much. Changing consumption of potable water in toilets would require massive changes in building codes, completely new infrastructure (to pump non-potable water that isn't itself actual sewage -in- to houses), new safety devices (to prevent Fido and or little Timmy from drinking from the non-potable water), and probably even more repercussions.

To wit: I just bought a house built in the 80's. One of it's first owners did -massive- renovations, especially to the basement putting in a full "Mother-In-Law Apartment". I have four bathrooms (okay technically it's three and a half).

Even if I was on board with using non-potable water in the toilets I'd have to tear out walls on three floors to have the pipes replaced and re-routed to a new non-potable water source for all four toilets in my house.

Worse still, the guy that did the renovations didn't do them "on permit". Two of those toilets may require massive documentation of the renovations that went in to the bathrooms they're in, including the rest of the plumbing to be up to code (assuming that they're up to code in the first place, which is -not- a good assumption). That would be another two walls to demo and a fuckton of cabinetry attached to those walls. Some contractors won't touch projects like that because they could end up being liable if something goes wrong where their work meets the previous work.

And that's just at the consumer end. In order to have a source of non-potable water that isn't itself sewage available to the houses an entirely new infrastructure of municipal water pumping has to be installed to match the potable water system.


So, if the world was like "The Sims" and we could swap out toilets and walls with a click of the mouse and the piping infrastructure magically appears behind the prefabbed walls as it's needed you -might- be able to change centuries-old infrastructure methodologies, however in the real world that shit is complicated.

[maybeagnostic]

There are some easy* ways to reduce the use of water- create sonic showers and incinerator toilets** and you will drastically reduce water consumption in most large cities. There are some harder ways to do it that are probably still a good idea- convince Americans living in the desert that having big green grass lawns completely unsuited to the environment is anti-American and the actual American Dream is to have... you know, whatever aesthetically pleasing thing will actually survive there with much less water.

Personally, I find one of the most baffling and wasteful parts of American culture to be the idea of living in the suburbs and owning your own house. It's probably my europeaness but I don't get why most people need that much space or why they want to spend 1-2 hours a day driving and another few hours a week mainting their lawn that they barely ever use.

* compared to guiding a large cultural shift to more sustainable living.

[Iulus Cofield]

And expensive! Which means such measures will probably not be taken until drinking water becomes so expensive that we may be a little late in trying to prevent widespread droughts.

Ninja edit: In response to Dauric.

[buddy431]

You're right, the world can't. Many Americans can. If you want to get philosophical about it, why should Americans forgo what they can afford because others cannot afford it? If I can afford to eat meat every day and bathe in drinking water, why not? It's a better use of money than a lot of things I might otherwise spend it on.

Philosophically, you're right, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to argue there's a moral imperative for the wealthy to help the poor, unless you start with some convenient presumption like, "All humans deserve a standard of living above subsistence."

But you may find from a practical stand point you're putting your head in the sand. Unless you actively or passively hinder the rest of the world, they will attempt to and most likely succeed at raising their standards of living, eventually. The US manufacturing is nowhere near self-sufficient and imports enormously. What happens when those countries we're importing from raise their wealth to the point that its no longer more profitable to export to the US? Why would they want to sell to us if they'll make just as much at home? There are few economic vacuums in this world and to achieve the kind of standard of living that Americans have can not be achieved through self-sufficiency.

We have to either find a way to reach an equilibrium with the rest of the world or we have to find ways to prevent them from even beginning to approach our wealth. And it is very hard to turn screwing over foreigners so that we can live in unprecedented luxury into a moral act.

There's a big difference between "I should cut my consumption now because some people can't afford to live like I can" and "I will cut my consumption when it becomes economically prudent to do so". I welcome increased wealth among other parts of the world. Among other things, it means birth rates begin to fall off, and the population stabilizes. In 2004, the UN estimated that the population would stabilize around 9 billion. The 2010 report estimates a world population of about 10 billion by the turn of the century, with most countries having declining populations.

I believe that I will never have to significantly lower my standard of living - technology will increase production levels sufficiently to keep up with the population, still growing (but with slowing growth). In my region of the world, standard of living has essentially never decreased in recorded history, and I don't believe that it will begin during my lifetime. Maybe I'm an optimist in that regard.

Yes, water may become more expensive in some regions of the United States. I will never have to fear going thirsty or forgoing a shower. Meat may become more expensive. Food makes up a small enough portion of my expenses that I will probably never have to significantly lower the quality of food I eat.

[Iulus Cofield]

Spoiler:

[Dauric]

Personally, I find one of the most baffling and wasteful parts of American culture to be the idea of living in the suburbs and owning your own house. It's probably my europeaness but I don't get why most people need that much space or why they want to spend 1-2 hours a day driving and another few hours a week mainting their lawn that they barely ever use.

Spoiler:

In my case I bought a house because the Wall-Street housing debacle turned the mortgate-to-rent-ratios upside-down. There's a lot of former home owners that are now prevented from going back in to houses because they foreclosed, but they still have to live somewhere so they have to rent an apartment. I was fine with having an apartment, but the upswing in demand meant that the market value, and thus my rent, was climbing through the roof.

It was actually cheaper to buy a house than rent an apartment. It also locks in my payments for as long as I own the house, so unlike renting where the price goes up every year when you resign the lease, Mortgage payments are fixed (unless you're nuts enough to get an ARM).

[sardia]

Citation?

I seriously doubt that will be the case and without some hard data I'm gonna call bullshit*.

*And will offer an apology if there is anything to back up your assertion.

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript ... =135241362
The prices are too high, but the idea of flushing away drinking water is going to be a tradition of a bygone era. The essential idea behind it is that water now is cheap, safe, and unlimited. One of those three aspects is going to change.

[DavidH]

Citation?

I seriously doubt that will be the case and without some hard data I'm gonna call bullshit*.

*And will offer an apology if there is anything to back up your assertion.

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript ... =135241362
The prices are too high, but the idea of flushing away drinking water is going to be a tradition of a bygone era. The essential idea behind it is that water now is cheap, safe, and unlimited. One of those three aspects is going to change.

Unless you live in Canada and can't walk a mile without running into a fresh water lake

[CorruptUser]

Plus, all those melting glaciers will provide plenty of water for the next century.

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

Now go ask people whether they would like a higher population at a lower standard of living or a lower population at a higher standard of living.

Decidedly the latter.

[Adacore]

I'm not really convinced we're over-consuming, as such, it's more that we need to get better at reuse/recycling and efficient & clean resource extraction. I think we could probably sustain the world on 'American dream' levels of consumption, but we'd have to be far better at managing it, and we'd need a far cheaper and more plentiful supply of energy to make it feasible (but the quality and cost of energy supply is improving pretty fast, if you look at it over the long term). I've got no evidence to back that claim up, though.

Personally, I find one of the most baffling and wasteful parts of American culture to be the idea of living in the suburbs and owning your own house. It's probably my europeaness but I don't get why most people need that much space or why they want to spend 1-2 hours a day driving and another few hours a week mainting their lawn that they barely ever use.

Spoiler:

In my case I bought a house because the Wall-Street housing debacle turned the mortgate-to-rent-ratios upside-down. There's a lot of former home owners that are now prevented from going back in to houses because they foreclosed, but they still have to live somewhere so they have to rent an apartment. I was fine with having an apartment, but the upswing in demand meant that the market value, and thus my rent, was climbing through the roof.

It was actually cheaper to buy a house than rent an apartment. It also locks in my payments for as long as I own the house, so unlike renting where the price goes up every year when you resign the lease, Mortgage payments are fixed (unless you're nuts enough to get an ARM).

It's not really renting vs buying that is the issue here, though, it's 'having a sprawling suburban accomodation miles from work and useful services' vs 'having far more dense urban accomodation'. The latter obviously has huge efficiency improvements in utilities - it's an awful lot cheaper to plumb/wire/&c. a tower with 50 decent size apartments than it is 50 suburban houses; travel time - it's a lot quicker to get to work, or shops, &c. if you live near the centre of town with the population density possible from tower blocks than it is if you live somewhere out in the suburban sprawl; and travel cost - if you live in an urban rather than suburban environment, suddenly mass public transit (or just walking) become economically viable, which results in significant savings in resource expenditure.

Personally I much prefer communal gardens / parks to individual suburban gardens too: they're more social, and you don't have to maintain them yourself.

[morriswalters]

I don't know if I should laugh or cry. A lot of the wealth that exists in the US, essentially came from expanding across a very thinly populated resource rich continent, topped off by the opportunities that existed in 1945 when a substantial portion of the industrial world was crippled. None of that is true anymore. At least in part the war with Japan in 1941 was one about resources, primarily iron, oil and rubber. With China and India seeking to increase the wealth of their populations it is almost inevitable that at some point the competition for resources will become very intense. There Their is currently a standoff near the Philippines between them and China over territory which is resource rich, I believe it is the South China Sea. In case people here haven't been watching China has been accused of restricting the sale of rare earth minerals, which is forcing realignments and alternative choices for all those tasty luxuries we all like so much.

I live along one of the bigger rivers in the US. It has become increasing more difficult to get clean water from the river. We live downstream from some fairly large population centers who do what we do, take water out and put sewage in. The bills get bigger every year for the water and even bigger for drainage and water treatment. The point of the foregoing is that any but the most optimistic people believe population is a problem. If you think that this can continue indefinitely then I leave you to it. I don't share that opinion.

[sardia]

Unless you live in Canada and can't walk a mile without running into a fresh water lake

Counterpoint, there's plenty of water in Antarctica, why isn't anyone living there?
And, Question: how long would you be willing to drink out of a lake that's been dumped in by industrial, agricultural, and domestic use?

I don't know if I should laugh or cry. A lot of the wealth that exists in the US, essentially came from expanding across a very thinly populated resource rich continent, topped off by the opportunities that existed in 1945 when a substantial portion of the industrial world was crippled. None of that is true anymore. At least in part the war with Japan in 1941 was one about resources, primarily iron, oil and rubber. With China and India seeking to increase the wealth of their populations it is almost inevitable that at some point the competition for resources will become very intense. There Their is currently a standoff near the Philippines between them and China over territory which is resource rich, I believe it is the South China Sea. In case people here haven't been watching China has been accused of restricting the sale of rare earth minerals, which is forcing realignments and alternative choices for all those tasty luxuries we all like so much.

I live along one of the bigger rivers in the US. It has become increasing more difficult to get clean water from the river. We live downstream from some fairly large population centers who do what we do, take water out and put sewage in. The bills get bigger every year for the water and even bigger for drainage and water treatment. The point of the foregoing is that any but the most optimistic people believe population is a problem. If you think that this can continue indefinitely then I leave you to it. I don't share that opinion.

I concur, increasing population growth coupled with increasing demands from developing countries will strain resources to the breaking point. Technology, cooperation, and a war or two is our only hope.

[Arariel]

I don't know if I should laugh or cry. A lot of the wealth that exists in the US, essentially came from expanding across a very thinly populated resource rich continent, topped off by the opportunities that existed in 1945 when a substantial portion of the industrial world was crippled. None of that is true anymore. At least in part the war with Japan in 1941 was one about resources, primarily iron, oil and rubber. With China and India seeking to increase the wealth of their populations it is almost inevitable that at some point the competition for resources will become very intense. There Their is currently a standoff near the Philippines between them and China over territory which is resource rich, I believe it is the South China Sea. In case people here haven't been watching China has been accused of restricting the sale of rare earth minerals, which is forcing realignments and alternative choices for all those tasty luxuries we all like so much.

I live along one of the bigger rivers in the US. It has become increasing more difficult to get clean water from the river. We live downstream from some fairly large population centers who do what we do, take water out and put sewage in. The bills get bigger every year for the water and even bigger for drainage and water treatment. The point of the foregoing is that any but the most optimistic people believe population is a problem. If you think that this can continue indefinitely then I leave you to it. I don't share that opinion.

The article was saying overconsumption is a much worse problem than overpopulation. The U.S. doesn't account for more than 5% of the population, but (IIRC) we account for about a quarter of energy consumption, and therefore around that much of the pollution and consumption of resources. I mean, the global population could halve, and that wouldn't do squat if everyone consumed as much as we do. So although overpopulation may be a problem, it is not the problem.

Besides, most of the concern about overpopulation seems like thinly-veiled racism to me. All the proposals to lower population growth are directed at African or Asian countries, through birth control and other stuff. Never mind that most of the East Asian countries (i.e., the ones with most of the population) have had declining populations for years, and how many dozen African children it would take for them to consume the same amount of resources as an American child.

[Vaniver]

Decidedly the latter.

Are you accounting for the chance you won't be alive under the latter?

[Bubbles McCoy]

Are you accounting for the chance you won't be alive under the latter?

Are you assuming additive utility?

[maybeagnostic]

Spoiler:

In my case I bought a house because the Wall-Street housing debacle turned the mortgate-to-rent-ratios upside-down. There's a lot of former home owners that are now prevented from going back in to houses because they foreclosed, but they still have to live somewhere so they have to rent an apartment. I was fine with having an apartment, but the upswing in demand meant that the market value, and thus my rent, was climbing through the roof.

It was actually cheaper to buy a house than rent an apartment. It also locks in my payments for as long as I own the house, so unlike renting where the price goes up every year when you resign the lease, Mortgage payments are fixed (unless you're nuts enough to get an ARM).

It's not really renting vs buying that is the issue here, though, it's 'having a sprawling suburban accomodation miles from work and useful services' vs 'having far more dense urban accomodation'. The latter obviously has huge efficiency improvements in utilities - it's an awful lot cheaper to plumb/wire/&c. a tower with 50 decent size apartments than it is 50 suburban houses; travel time - it's a lot quicker to get to work, or shops, &c. if you live near the centre of town with the population density possible from tower blocks than it is if you live somewhere out in the suburban sprawl; and travel cost - if you live in an urban rather than suburban environment, suddenly mass public transit (or just walking) become economically viable, which results in significant savings in resource expenditure.

Personally I much prefer communal gardens / parks to individual suburban gardens too: they're more social, and you don't have to maintain them yourself.

Basically this. Living in a suburban house consumes a lot more resources than living in a nice apartment in a city but I personally (and Europeans in general perhaps?) prefer living in a city to a suburb. Of course a specific person living in a house is not the problem- as the situation stands right now most really nice places to live in the US are suburban and you only get most of the advantages Adacore mentioned by getting many people to live together. The only way that can change is if the whole nation moves away from this idyllic image of lawn with a white-picket fence. I didn't grow up in the US though so I might be missing something- why is the lawn and white-picket fence (admittedly those are pretty rare) such a powerful and persistent image in American culture? Sure, people have been able to afford it for the last 60ish years (not so much recently perhaps but still much more so than almost anywhere else) but why is it better?

Also something at best tangentially related- houses in the US seem so... impermanent? I know almost no one in the US who owns a house older than them. I grew up in Eastern Europe and even shoddy Soviet construction seems to last longer than American suburban houses. Admittedly my sample size is tiny so I might be completely wrong in this impression and I don't really have any idea how wasteful it is to rebuild all your houses every generation instead of having homes last a few centuries.

Overpopulation might temporarily become a problem but it is almost unavoidable*- every region seems to go through a boom in population as it goes through its own version of the Industrial Revolution. Most places with very high birth rates nowadays also have very high death rates (including for children due to lack of healthcare). The most reliable way to drastically lower a country's birth rate seems to be stability and improvement in healthcare and education. Does anyone have a counterexample to this?

* Keeping the death rate high enough prevents the temporary boom but that amounts to keeping a people in abject poverty which is not only clearly immoral but extremely difficult. It also isn't a solution so much as a delay.

[Goplat]

Are you accounting for the chance you won't be alive under the latter?

You're implying that the only way overpopulation can be solved is by killing existing people. That's a straw man, nobody seriously proposes that.

The economically correct solution to overpopulation is to address the fact that a certain luxury good is extremely under-priced. Namely: having children. It creates a negative externality amounting to around $1 million, as the new person needs shelter, food, water etc for their entire life, and the people who decided to have the child only pay a small portion of that cost. Another portion is paid by the government, and the majority is paid by the child, who upon becoming an adult has to find a job to support him/herself in an increasingly tough labor market.

[Steroid]

Basically this. Living in a suburban house consumes a lot more resources than living in a nice apartment in a city but I personally (and Europeans in general perhaps?) prefer living in a city to a suburb. Of course a specific person living in a house is not the problem- as the situation stands right now most really nice places to live in the US are suburban and you only get most of the advantages Adacore mentioned by getting many people to live together. The only way that can change is if the whole nation moves away from this idyllic image of lawn with a white-picket fence. I didn't grow up in the US though so I might be missing something- why is the lawn and white-picket fence (admittedly those are pretty rare) such a powerful and persistent image in American culture? Sure, people have been able to afford it for the last 60ish years (not so much recently perhaps but still much more so than almost anywhere else) but why is it better?

Also something at best tangentially related- houses in the US seem so... impermanent? I know almost no one in the US who owns a house older than them. I grew up in Eastern Europe and even shoddy Soviet construction seems to last longer than American suburban houses. Admittedly my sample size is tiny so I might be completely wrong in this impression and I don't really have any idea how wasteful it is to rebuild all your houses every generation instead of having homes last a few centuries.

Just from having lived in the suburbs on Long Island all my life, I can tell you the reasons of the people I knew. The cities, or at least New York, were the provinces of the poor, the unwashed, and the uneducated. Not all the city, certainly, but those parts that were the neighborhoods of immigrants. As the poor and the immigrants came out of the Depression and the War, and as they had children who were born to that situation, those who achieved success wanted to distance themselves from their undesirable neighbors. They also craved the individual customization that a house offered. If you lived in a tenement, there was nothing to distinguish you from the next apartment over, even though you had a good job and a healthy family and they were bums. Feathering your own nest with the fence and lawn of your choosing gave status and power over one's own life. It was also an investment. Both paying off a mortgage and home improvements (what today is called "sweat equity") gave an opportunity to grow one's savings beyond what your job's pension gave you.

Which should answer your second question as well. To realize the growth of that investment and to liquidate, you needed to sell. The second part of the American Dream is to retire to Florida and have your dream house build there that's nicer than the one you raised your kids in. Then you sit on the porch and play with the grandchildren.

If you're still wondering, you might read these opinions from blogger/columnist James Lileks.

[sourmìlk]

The second part of the American Dream is to retire to Hawaii

Fixed that for ya.

[addams]

Plus, all those melting glaciers will provide plenty of water for the next century.

Water? Now, it is all about water? Fine.
Those pristine lakes in the east of Canada ended up with the Ph of vinegar. That has gotten a great deal better. Of course, it took work from Scientists to ID the problem and enviromental activists to really piss off factory owners and workers alike.

We can have fresh clean water fall out of the sky, like a miracle. It is not a guarantee. Depending upon what we do and what our neighbors do rain can become dangerous to flowers and other living things.

The US had a river, The Ohio? that was so polluted that it caught fire and was a bitch to put out. It did get the attention of the people. It takes a lot to get the attention of the people, sometimes.

Not all of the US has water that is fit to put inside a living body, now.
Water. We could go on and on about water.

This thread is about numbers of people. Can we afford more people? Can we afford less? God! I don't know! How many have to go?

Logan's Run?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run

Maybe, I need a cup of coffee made from beans that traveled thousands and thousands of miles to put me right. Coffee is not healthy. I am doing what I can for the cause.

[morriswalters]

The article was saying overconsumption is a much worse problem than overpopulation. The U.S. doesn't account for more than 5% of the population, but (IIRC) we account for about a quarter of energy consumption, and therefore around that much of the pollution and consumption of resources. I mean, the global population could halve, and that wouldn't do squat if everyone consumed as much as we do. So although overpopulation may be a problem, it is not the problem.

Besides, most of the concern about overpopulation seems like thinly-veiled racism to me. All the proposals to lower population growth are directed at African or Asian countries, through birth control and other stuff. Never mind that most of the East Asian countries (i.e., the ones with most of the population) have had declining populations for years, and how many dozen African children it would take for them to consume the same amount of resources as an American child.

Overpopulation is overpopulation. I was pointing out that the US, and for that matter, the industrialized nations are about to run into a fact of life. Everybody wants the same thing that we do, everything they can get. In the end it comes down to too many mouths chasing too few resources. I'm with the fact that the US over consumes. But we won't have to be asked to stop, we will be made to. You can't make the cake bigger, so as China and India increase their standard of living, very quickly we will be in competition for the same resources. It's kind of like musical chairs, when the music stops there won't be enough resources. And even if we stopped over consuming tomorrow, that wouldn't help Africa, not now. Climate change, resource scarcity, and growing populations combined with poor infrastructure, shortage of potable water and water for irrigation are like a perfect storm.

One last question. How do you stop it? Our economy is built on expansion, on the idea that there are new markets and that we can expand forever.

[Zamfir]

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

I once encountered an insightful comment on that time: from what little numbers we have, food production in the western europe in the early middle ages seems to have had a similar productivity (per acre and per person) as during the roman empire, and higher in the later middle ages.

At the same time, a collapse of civilization meant (almost by definition) a collapse and disappearance of the large and wealthy cities of the roman empire. AKA, places where people eat well but don't work in the fields, but instead produce cultural artifacts that impress people centuries later.

During that period, chattel slavery disapeared, mostly to be replaced by serfdom. Which comes with far more rights and freedoms than the Roman version of slavery, where you can own people literally like you own chairs, including the freedom to kill and torture them at will.

So, what looks a horrbile collapse in civilization to us might well have been a true liberation for most common people. In particular, the system probably let them keep more food for themselves. Feudal lords might have been as well-fed as the best-off Roman city-dwellers. But there's limit on how much you can eat, and there were a lot less feudal lords than roman urbanites.

[thc]

Are you accounting for the chance you won't be alive under the latter?

Are you assuming additive utility?

Ah, the old repugnant conclusion. This is why I love reading these boards.

I think a better question is, why would you not assume additive utility? Not doing so means you have to create additional assumptions about the value of a person's utility. For example, why would one person's utility be valued more or less than another person's utility? I don't see this as a tenable position. As for whether or not to accept the repugnant conclusion, I think it is most logical to do so. The repugnance comes from a subjective and incorrect belief that a "life just above subsistence" would look monotone and boring. I'd suggest that most of the population that is above subsistence is already around that level anyway. We all high extreme highs and we all of us have extreme lows. The trick is, it averages out in the end. Rather, I'd suggest that a life that is always at an extreme high is what is repugnant. A brain in a vat thing that is alien and without meaning.

[Griffin]

maybeagnostic,

I can't speak for others, so, despite the fact that I have lived in and enjoy living in the city, it's simply... not worth it.

A 2 hour daily commute (two way, walking and subway for me) just... really isn't that bad - it forces me to spend a portion of the day outside, and I get a lot of work done during the commute. If anything, it's probably good for me. It means the place I live is twice as big for half the price. It means we don't have to rent a parking space somewhere. It means we can grow our own food in the garden, which may not save any money but is immensely enjoyable. It means I get to live with TREES. And not bullshit city-park trees, which skeeve me out so much I avoid most city parks like the plague, but real trees. I get to have moss, and ferns, and a hammock, and barbecues, and except for the last one, I've spent time with all of those every day since summer began.

It means I don't have to wait to use the washer/dryer, it means I can wake to the birdsong, it means I DON'T have to listen to the constant sounds of traffic outside the window. It means I can not only get to know my neighbours, but expect them to stick around for years, maybe decades. It means I don't have to listen to the people upstairs having a party late at night. It means the people down stairs don't have to listen to me.

It lets me have fires. By god do I love having fires.

Most of all, it means I get to feel a sense of pride and responsibility for where I live. It is mine, and I can do things that make it better, make it fit me more, and there is no one that can or will complain. I cannot be kicked out just because the landlord found someone willing to pay more money. It is a home, instead of a place where I live.

And you can't really understand why people would prefer that?

[Heisenberg]

Now go ask people whether they would like a higher population at a lower standard of living or a lower population at a higher standard of living.

This is a false choice. Consumption and standard of living are not directly correlated.

The way to reduce consumption without reducing standard of living is through efficiency.