I expect this is just the beginning.
Populations of marine animals will migrate to new areas less suited for them (or try and fail), causing disruptions in their new location, spurring more migrations….
When this happens, local fishing industries collapse because their prey is gone and new invasive species either aren’t edible or aren’t caught with the gear they have (like Lionfish, inedible to most fish and mammals, and all but impossible to catch except by spear fishing).
Between ocean acidification, deep water warming, overfishing, invasive species, pollution, loss of ice packs, and other as yet unknown factors, the ocean’s ability to produce food is going to be severely limited in the near future. It already is, in fact.
The crab collapse isn’t the canary in the coal mine, it’s not even the first miner to drop dead. It’s like 1/4 of the entire night shift just disappeared….and they are all the engineers that keep things functioning.

This is like a massive corn blight on land. It not only kills the corn, it takes out everything that relies on corn too, like pigs, chickens, cattle, goats, pretty much any livestock, and an insanely large percentage of the calories humans eat too. A shitload of the ocean relies on crab meat, and more rely on crabs to keep the ocean floors clean….important if we don’t want clouds of hydrogen sulfide erupting from the ocean making all coastal states dead zones.

Looks delicious. Eels are one of those foods like oysters, that used to be dirt cheap but, due to overfishing and pollution, are pretty expensive now.

Why is there so much nuclear waste? Because we have so many people living in artificial environments that require tons of power.

Why is the Colorado river becoming almost drained and getting worse each year? Because of climate change, yes, but primarily because we have millions of people living in desert regions and agricultural crops like almonds that require laughable tons of water. Most of those almonds are turned into flour and milk products because people refuse to eat other food, or can't because they should be dead due to allergies.

Why are we overfishing and using such harmful methods as trawling? Because we have too many people that want a specific kind of food or can't afford a different type of food.

Could we switch everyone to insect proteins or other radical foods like spirulina? Yes, if you want riots. The technology doesn't exist that can make sustainable foods taste the same and people would go apeshit.

So to sum up, yes, we could feed people without damaging the environment, if you could get people to agree to it. Think of trying to force vegans to chomp on insects. As far as habitats, not so much. We don't have the room for the sheer numbers of people without either doing away with food producing land, destroying existing ecosystems like the rainforest, or putting them in artificially sustained areas like large cities or hot/cold desert terrain.

Nature used to take care of these situations via epidemics or natural selection. We have adapted to the point where we can beat most epidemics (although soon we will be hit with something bad if we look at the super bacteria we are creating) and we protect the people who should be dead against their own stupidity.

Climate change isn't going to kill this planet first, the sheer population rise will wipe it out much sooner than that. By 2030 it is estimated we will have 8+ billion people, by 2050 close to 10 billion. Exponential growth is going to suck this planet dry as a bone. The day is coming when we will HAVE to start supplementing food with non-standard food types and soon after that we will wipe out most of the living food items on this planet like a horde of locusts.

You do understand that he and others like him are a large part of why there isn't a salmon fishery in the East anymore, right? Well, overfishing, and loss of habitat. Now we're quickly doing that here in the West. Lose the salmon, you'll lose the forest.

What possom said. They're delicious, with a texture closer to that of pork than that of other fish.

Enjoy them now...in a few more decades, they'll probably be overfished into extinction.

No, no, no offense taken. I and don't think you're hypocritical. You probably consume far less tuna over the course of a year than an average Japanese individual. The sad thing is, the population as a whole here is completely unaware of the tunas' plight. There's a conspiracy-theory level lack of coverage of the issue in the media here.

Case in point, a few weeks back the media reported about the first tuna auction of the year at Tsukiji Market in Tokyo, where traditionally people overbid on the largest tuna caught as kind of "good luck in the coming year" tradition. Except, the highest bid this year (as well as the fish caught) was much smaller than the last two years.

I read two different Western newspaper articles on the topic and they both went into great detail about how tuna catches are way down due to overfishing and how the size of the fish being caught is much smaller because only the juveniles are left (the more adult fish have already been caught). Both mentioned Japan consumes 80% of the worldwide tuna haul.

Then that night I go running at my local gym and watch the Japanese nightly news and they have a brief 30-second bit about how the first Tsukiji auction of the new year took place and how the person who won was the same as last year.

That's it, end of coverage. I literally laughed out loud on the treadmill, more in bitterness than anything else.

That's why in my Media English classes at the university I teach, the first newspaper article of the semester is always an English newspaper article about the tuna fishing situation. The kids are shocked at the statistics and they tell their friends about what they read. Most claim they're going to stop eating tuna. I have no idea if they actually do or not, but it's all I can really do to try to change attitudes here.

Sorry, I'm unclear why you are comparing killing a few hundred dolphins a year to killing the buffalo (which were slaughtered by the millions). I already said the international community should intervene if there was any threat to the continuation of the species by the hunting and no such threat has been shown. And livestock raising is as much of an ecological threat (see this U.N. report) if not more so than overfishing, seeing as it is directly tied to global warming.

I'm curious where you got the facts on Japanese cuisine? I'm also curious what you think the Japanese people should eat if not fish? Before replying, please read this incredibly well-researched essay about the state of food consumption and production in Japan. You'll also want to read this article about the state of maritime fishing which shows that Japan is not nearly as much of a culprit as you seem to be implying--many countries around the world rely on maritime fishing to feed their people--and that by properly managing fishing hauls sustainability can indeed be maintained. In Japan's case especially, because the population (and hence demand for food) will continue to decrease over the next 50 years.

I suspect you are not basing your opinions about Japan off of the evidence. Perhaps you read the articles about blue-fin tuna consumption (Japanese consume 80% of all blue-fin tuna caught and stocks are hitting dangerously low levels), in which case you definitely have an argument against consuming that particular fish but it seems a bit odd to extend that argument to say Japanese people should not be eating fish or that they somehow don't care about the environment.

ok, let me explain in another way: the more you demand change from the ecosystem, the more you will get of it.

at times, this can actually be a very good thing.
at other times, it sucks for a while, but eventually, you end up with a more adaptable species. That is the process that is happening right now.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

>> ^criticalthud:
welcome to mutation.
if you change the chemical composition of the atmosphere, a systemic compensation (change) will occur throughout the entire ecosystem.
which is why "climate change" should really be called "planet change".

MUTATION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. GOODNIGHT!
Seriously tho, my guess is some kind of rare swarming of bottom-dwelling creatures that lives in deeper water. Perhaps overfishing in an area means millions of them have unexpectedly survived and washed ashore.


unexpectedly survived?

>> ^criticalthud:

welcome to mutation.
if you change the chemical composition of the atmosphere, a systemic compensation (change) will occur throughout the entire ecosystem.
which is why "climate change" should really be called "planet change".


MUTATION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. GOODNIGHT!

Seriously tho, my guess is some kind of rare swarming of bottom-dwelling creatures that lives in deeper water. Perhaps overfishing in an area means millions of them have unexpectedly survived and washed ashore.

I hope they do eliminate overfishing, but considering the EU is run by unelected bureaucrats, the people can't put much pressure on them for change. The EU is essentially a dictatorship at this point.

I would argue that China's "one child" policy might have something to do with the negative effects of overpopulation, but that's a different conversation.

I really am curious as to the answer to the question: What use could we possibly have for filling the earth to carrying capacity? Not to mention the effects that reaching human capacity might have on... all the other life on earth.

It wouldn't actually take that much to accomplish something. Free access to birth control for everyone and a little bit of education could go a really long way. Even if only one in a thousand people listened or used contraception because of it, population rates would decrease dramatically.

You keep saying we're well within capacity, but problems like overfishing, the depleting oil/energy supply, the food supply, the need for arable land... these problems actually exist right now. Even with advancements, capacity is a problem right now. All the energy that we put into trying to implement the solutions to these problems could already be getting applied to making them better. Instead of trying to fix problems as they arise, we could avoid them completely and spend our time on other things.

Maybe you're right, maybe it is just hype, but I just can't help but think that the energy spent on reducing the world's population would solve many more problems, way more efficiently than just eliminating Hummers, golf courses and fast food, and then waiting three-hundred years to see if the numbers drop.

China's selective pregnancy policy and the Holocaust are why people tend to want to dispel hype about overpopulation.

You either have to force 7 billion people to stop fucking.. [good luck]
Or murder like 6 billion people.. every 300 years.

Notice how I said carrying capacity is "at least" 10 billion.
Its maximum is probably closer to 16-20 billion. Maybe even 40 billion.

This last billion took a year long to reach than the billion before which means population is leveling off as we discuss this. It may even decline below 7 billion in another 300 - 600 years.

TL;DR

Overpopulation hype = Dec 21 2012 hype. Humans well within carrying capacity.

Stop driving Hummers, watering golf courses, and eating fast food and everyone will be healthy and happy.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

Fuck, as a matter of fact Genji, you're right. We could probably get that number up to a hundred-billion if we just covered the entire surface of the Earth with vertical farms and thorium reactors.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

The carrying capacity for Earth is at least 10 billion humans.
We just broke 7 billion and only 1 billion of us are starving.
And that's only cause greedy wasteful societies like The United States.
Add to that the knowledge that as a country develops, its birth rate tends to level off or decline even.
Human population will level off as well. 12 billion maybe?
Add to that, sustainable technologies and philosophies like vertical indoor farms, thorium reactors and permaculture.
7 billion+ humans really doesn't seems that dangerous for Earth or ourselves.
>> ^Ryjkyj:
This has nothing to do with overpopulation... move along.



That's exactly my point. Why are people so goddamn defensive about overpopulation? What use could we possibly have for filling the earth to "carrying capacity?"

The carrying capacity for Earth is at least 10 billion humans.

We just broke 7 billion and only 1 billion of us are starving.
And that's only cause greedy wasteful societies like The United States.

Add to that the knowledge that as a country develops, its birth rate tends to level off or decline even.

Human population will level off as well. 12 billion maybe?

Add to that, sustainable technologies and philosophies like vertical indoor farms, thorium reactors and permaculture.

7 billion+ humans really doesn't seem that dangerous for Earth or ourselves.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

This has nothing to do with overpopulation... move along.