Progress has a sense of humor. Awesome. Of course these guys would like to see every square foot of north american asphalt replaced with this stuff, but I think that they are smart enough to know that that isn't going to happen any time soon.

What could happen, however, is that we all gradually adopt the technology. First we start with with the densely wealthy liberal eco-conscious places that have a cultural incentive to swallow the initial economic hurdles and lower overall manufacturing costs to a point where it starts to make sense to the wealthy conservative gas guzzling folks, and then slowly expand from there.

The concept is sound. At some point the hardware might just become cheap enough to be viable - it's an option worth exploring, at the very least.

And if you think that making really long roadways out of relatively expensive tiles is impossible, try telling that to the ancient Romans.

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Colbert is awesome because he gets to be in character and do ridiculous things like run for president or just be an insensitive megalomaniac.

I have no doubt that he will be good once he takes over for Letterman, but I cringe to think about him having to make smalltalk about someone's new action movie.

@RedSky

20 billion was just an arbitrarily large number I chose to demonstrate that I think that the world would survive significant population growth beyond what we'll be dealing with in the near future.

The point of no return I was referring to is simply a point where we won't be able to get back to a place where we can sustain human population levels without significant environmental degradation and territorial disputes, among other challenges I'd prefer not to experience.

I do consider things like global warming, the fact that China is buying up land in Africa to feed its population, US foreign policy's competitive focus on securing cheap oil and the large scale destruction of rainforest to make way for single crop agriculture in Brasil to be symptoms of an imbalance in population vs. resources.

I'm not drawing the line at "everyone and stock up at the grocery store/pumps" type destruction before I take notice and preach caution. I think that defining that as a deadline would be irresponsible.

Again, I agree that we could theoretically mechanize the whole world in a way that grows the supply of resources and shares them equitably amongst an enormous human population, but that goes against the type of world I'd want to live in (excessive mechanization of natural resources) and the way human social systems typically work (equitable sharing).

There are various estimates on how much longer exponential human population growth will last, but it has certainly happened on a scale of centuries or decades - blips like baby boomers are just expected outliers within that trend.

But what's more important is that even if population levels peter off, it is consumption - which is the only statistic that really matters because it is the only negative effect of population increase - that will continue to increase exponentially as a greater proportion of the world's population begins to achieve first world living standards.

This is why free trade alone is not enough to solve problems. While it is likely to bring people out of poverty, raise education levels and increase human rights (all very good things), it will also continue to push our overall imprint on the planet in a more exponential direction than I'm comfortable with (one reason being the argument detailed in this video).

But of course I'm also uncomfortable with the prospect of any sort of forced population reduction mechanism, and I'm also uncomfortable with the notion of not raising people out of poverty.

So as I see it the only thing left to mitigate my fears is to place a primary emphasis on Education.

There's a million and one ways to do this: Everything from broad, effectual efforts like getting the Pope to get with the program and endorse contraceptives, to nearly insignificant efforts like arguing with people on the internet in hopes that you contribute some small part to a culture that places some significant emphasis on educating people about the importance of self control and restraint in every type of consumption - family size included.

@RedSky - You aren't reading what I'm saying.

I'm talking about finding an equilibrium in which humanity can thrive economically, socially and environmentally.

I'm only saying that things like environmental damage, fracking, certain food production techniques, the current flavor of resource wars, and the fact that a massive proportion of our current population really can't feed itself are all evidence that the effort required to sustain current and future population levels doesn't fit my definition of finding balance.

The only point of no return I'm talking about is that at some point it will be essentially impossible to get to that place of balance that I favor. It's a nebulous concept for sure, but I do think it is relatively imminent and at the very least that we are heading in the wrong direction - especially in light of the notion proposed by this video where exponential growth can give you a false sense of security right up until just before you hit it.

I actually agree with you and think that earth could sustain an arbitrarily large population of say 20 billion or even more.

But we'd have to spend more of our time and efforts competing (sometimes violently) for the resources, we'd have to shape ever larger proportions of the natural world to our own narrow needs, we'd have to put up with a much less pleasant environment, and since it will be challenging enough to just get the resources to feed and clothe your own people, there is a really good chance that unfathomable (billions) quantities of human beings will be marginalized by this system and spend most of their time suffering.

Again, a far cry rom my definition of equilibrium.

As for your notion that vague global threats don't cause change, for starters I'm not sure that's true - there are significant popular environmental movements around the world and also some threshold of self interest can be breached. For example if you look at negotiations over things like the Kyoto protocols you will see that developing nations who are much more susceptible to environmental changes like shifting climates and rising sea levels are significantly more likely to sign on. It's no coincidence that Bangladesh and a few other island nations were the only countries to ratify the thing.

But there are also educational and social strategies that can have a huge effect. I think that you'd get a lot of mileage from just increasing women's rights around the world.

I don't think anyone's advocating forced population control here.

I only think that people are advocating that a greater emphasis on family planning be incorporated into your prescription for everyone to "control his own activities and teach his neighbor the virtues of his infinitely sustainable choices."

Doing this too fast would be demographic suicide for a lot of complicated reasons, I don't think anyone is denying that, but a very significant organic reduction over the course of a few centuries would be beneficial for humanity and could be reasonably attained. It's certainly less far-fetched than mass colonization of Mars or Venus in the same timeframe.

And that's an important distinction here. We aren't really concerned about the environment here. We're concerned about what's best for us.

The environment is going to shrug us off and incorporate all our plastic, CO2, and evidence of narrowing biodiversity into a few more strata and continue doing its thing. It has survived mass extinctions before.

It's ridiculous to think that we can even destroy the environment. Our population size and its destructive effects would be reduced to insignificance long before we hit a point of no return and the biosphere's existence is even slightly threatened.

We should be framing the argument in terms of how to achieve an environmental equilibrium in which humanity can live in a comfortable and humane manner.

I think we're a lot closer to a point of no return with regards to achieving that goal.

For my money I'd say that exponential population growth isn't pointing us in that direction, and living - as I do - in a rapidly modernizing "second world" country tells me that bringing all eight billion of us to affluence too quickly poses its own significant dangers.

Let's not forget that this videos two main points are that we are demonstrably in a period of exponential growth, and that exponential growth from the limited perspective of the inside can be deceptive. Points of no return that seem far away are in fact very close.

I knew someone would object to that. It was just a cheap ploy to get more views and I hope no one takes it seriously. One of the reasons I like videosift is because it gives me an opportunity to experiment with different attention grabbing techniques on the interwebs and see how people react.

In any case, a couple of David Suzuki's books have since been added to my Amazon wish list so I'll consider that my repentance.

But he does look kinda like him...

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Just wasn't sure which side you were saying had the cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance, I think, is just referring to the holding of two contradictory beliefs irrespective of consequences or reality (I could have cognitive dissonance from a simultaneous belief in the divinity of Jesus and the inerrancy of Mohammad, for example).

So I'm pretty sure that climate change deniers could conceivably see this video and see cognitive dissonance.

But you're not one of them crazies, so good on ya Just had to check.

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care to elaborate?

You're a far more nuanced critic than I am. I was mostly just hoping for a vimeo link for some scifi shorts

I don't mean this sarcastically - I really want to know - do you have anything better in mind?

I love the EIA tag, but not for the usual Darwin Awards type reasons. I wonder if this is an example of adaptation. I'll have to look it up, but my guess is that pigeons (or any bird for that matter) can't maintain 90km/h in a horizontal line for any extended amount of time. I'm thinking that they are learning how to draft cars on the highway.

It would be awesome if it confers some adaptive advantage and it starts catching on so that I can go on a road trip with a flock of birds in tow in a flying V formation.

*beg