Humanity locked in a 'spiral of self-destruction' unless we change our perception of risk, UN says

It amazes and troubles me that the UN report is not addressing "the elephant in the room" regarding human population self-inducing disasters: population density of humans too high to be sustainable in Earth's ecosystem without damaging the ecosystem to the detriment of our species and other species.

For all of recorded history, and probably as far back as paleontologists say that human ancestors have been migrating out of the African continent, man has been his own worst enemy. We fight for territory and resources as far back as we have written records.

As our technology for controlling our environment has increased to make life easier, human population has taken the opportunity to increase, making life hard, again, by a large number of issues.

But, it is a subject that is political suicide to discuss.
 
Last edited:
Jan 11, 2020
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I grow tired of all the doomsayers when year by year are quality of life gets better (this brief Covid interlude not withstanding). People just seem to have pitifully little knowledge of history and how things were so much worse even a few decades ago.
But disaster sells and being a cynic makes people feel smart.
 
IMO, we are the fortunate products of Evolution which is a random process in response to a complex and changing environment. Unclear Engineer's post # 3 is a succinct summary of the extant and extinct species DNA of the genus Homo. As with all complex genera and species, Darwinian Evolution will have "the final say"; however, in our situation that process made be self accelerated. Cynical, yes I am, and misanthropic, but realistically appropriate.
 
If you step back and look objectively at humans as a population in an environment, and compare that to the way we look at other species in their environments, we see a disturbing pattern.

When whatever is limiting a species' population density somehow abates, the population increases until it reaches a new limit, caused by some other restriction or the return of the one that abated temporarily.

In cases where the species' population density spikes rapidly and by a large amount, the factors that stop the increase are usually self-induced. Changes that the species causes to its environment work to its detriment. The usual endings to large, rapid population spikes are very large population die-offs, by disease, starvation, or lack of suitable habitat during severe natural fluctuations such as droughts or very cold winters.

Although humans have developed many ways to survive natural fluctuations, we have lost the option of migration due to our population density - everyplace is already filled with enough humans that the locals do not want to be over-run with "others".

Further complicating the situation is "human nature" that is not happy with mere survival. When we look at a population of animals and see that their population is increasing, we tend to think that their survival is not threatened and their population is "healthy". But, when we look at populations of humans, we understand what those other humans must be thinking, and recognize that population increases are not necessarily the measure of population well being. With apologies to the populations currently displaced by wars into "refugee camps" in the Middle East, I think it is instructive to note that their populations typically increase under those stressful circumstances. For instance, the population of Palestinians has increased by a factor of about 9 since they were displaced during the creation of Israel - but nobody would describe them as a "thriving population". The counteracting population reduction process is warfare, and often the byproducts of warfare that include famine for local non-military populations.

I don't see any good coming from this over-population problem, and really am concerned that something very terrible will result, maybe too soon to head-off. Humans evolved our attitudes to believe that the more of "us" there are, the better we will be at defending ourselves from "them". So, convincing the whole of the Earth's various families, tribes, nations and races to agree to all work to reduce their populations so as to reduce total human population is a very "hard sell". If one group refuses to go along, the others would have to abandon the effort or be dominated by the group that does not take similar actions to reduce their population. And getting everybody to not only agree with something, but also not have anybody cheat, is extremely difficult
 
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