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Friends with babies
(lemmy.ca)
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this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2025
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Equally of course, if we use our mighty intellects to override our breeding instincts entirely then we’d arrive at the same extinction rather more quickly.
So you know, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Given our current birth rates in the western world I’m less worried about our breeding instincts than our inability to convince everyone that their children should live in a better world than them, apparently that’s the instinct that broke first.
Not really. I'm sure our mighty intellects could have settled on a birth rate somewhere between 25 and 0. There are a lot of numbers in between.
I mean… the developed world has settled on slightly below break even (or very below break even in a few cases). So yes, that did happen
We only settled on a "break even" point now that we're many billions of people over capacity and society and the biosphere are collapsing. We needed to slow down a long time ago.
We are not over capacity at all, this is a fucked up lie propagated by the rich western northern hemisphere people and the rich in general, the wealthiest 10% causes over 50% of the pollution.
That includes lots of Americans and Europeans.
Here is an excellent episode from the climate deniers playbook podcast about this topic. https://pod.link/1694759084/episode/Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwL3I3WDh5SjhNY3RKY1hab2Rva09pRUxiR0NZYzFoNWsyT3gzcE0wZm5sUk0
We're in a state of ecological overshoot, defined as a population consuming more resources than its environment can replenish. At its simplest, overshoot is a function of individual consumption x total population.
The Global Footprint Network calculates that we crossed this line in 1971, when both our global population (3.8B) and individual energy consumption (15.8kWh) were far lower than they are today (8.2B and 21.7kWh, respectively). Consider also that population is both a cause and effect of energy consumption.
You're referring to CO2 emissions here (and it's actually closer to 60%), but there are many other symptoms of overshoot. Habitat loss, species extinctions, overharvesting of resources, and other forms of pollution (industrial, particulate, trash) are huge problems in less wealthy nations. In South America, for example, we've seen a 95% loss of wildlife species over the past 50 years. The planetary boundaries framework is helpful for looking at overshoot more holistically, instead of focusing solely on emissions (although that's important too).
In wealthy nations, populations are declining but consumption is unsustainable. In poorer nations, individual consumption is low but population growth is unsustainable. Only by reducing both do we have a hope of living equitably on this planet.
We could feed and clothe every single person on the planet right now with about one third of the resources that we use. We aren't over capacity, we're being murdered by the owners of about 100 companies across the globe that are responsible for 50% of global pollution.
For how long? The current output is unsustainable. Respectfully, you're not seeing the whole picture.