I grow my own plants, well, as many as I can in an apartment. I bike everywhere I can. I eat some meat, but it consists very little of my diet. I produce a grocery bag of trash a week and most of that is organic waste.

Oh, you mean I should stop living in a first world country and go back to the stone-age! I get it now. You mean, I should completely and utterly give up everything because it may cause some pollution? Very illogical of you. I believe that is another one of those fallacies people are chiding you for.

By acknowledging the climate change is man-made, we can make better strides to actually bring about meaningful changes. One person reducing their carbon footprint isn't going to make much of a difference, but 350,000,000 people will.

Or, if politicians like Marco Rubio, who I shutter to think belongs to my state, would stop denying climate change we could actually have a dialogue about actual changes we can make, not ad reductionist claims like some people here on the sift are making. (I.E., you.)

Um, as for the state getting out of the way . . . The reason we have any clean air is because of their standards. For instance, it took a government mandate to eliminate lead from gasoline. Lead, which is highly toxic and one of the leading causes of anti-social behavior in convicted felons of violent crimes. I'm sure the free-market would have solved that issue on it own, however, in a much shorter period of time. *Thinks about that for a while.*

So you want to move away from the AGW and just say the climate is changing?

Basic premise flaw: if we humans aren't creating it, then there's nothing we can do. I give you, case in point, climate change deniers. Such as our Marco Rubio. Humans aren't causing it, therefore, we shouldn't impose any regulations on oil and gas. (I believe they did something similar back in the leaded gasoline days. May what short memories we have.)

By the way, saying since California has environmentalists that having the worst air pollution thus makes environmentalism a mute point would be called Fallacy of Composition. Because, let's not forget basic math: California population is greater than oh, I think 49 other states and contains the counties largest ports (major source of air pollution), the majority of the countries cars, the majority of semi trucks and trains originate here, they house dozens of oil refineries and there's this little itty bitty nascent issue of these Rocky Mountain things people keep talking about. Or, this "valley" people make fun of. I hear it's right next to these mountains.

So, really, the logical argument would be, because of the increasingly dire air pollution in California, more and more people are become environmentally aware and are slowly changing their habits to reduce future smog, but without increasing government intervention, larger corporations will continue their practice so long as it returns a profit. So, as a result, the larger corporations are spending millions lobbying politicians who have been passing favorable laws much to the angst of the growing environmental movement.

And no, that doesn't require overthrowing the government and going to an all berries diet. Nor me writing a book about my efforts.

Hmm.. 0.01 percent of about 12,000 climate scientists "reject" that climate change is man made? Is that so? And the other 99.09% all agree that it is man-made? Is this a fact?
(BTW, are you a vegetarian? If not, then you probably don't care very much about the issue. Are you also an anarchist? Because, if not, you're supporting the states, which are the worst polluters throughout the world. If you are truly concerned about climate change -- and even if you just want clean air -- you should actually do something about it... you know.. rather than freaking out simply for the sake of it. Of course you're welcome to do that on your own or with all the other supposedly concerned individuals who none-the-less pollute as much or more than any man-made climate change "denier").

If the state got out of the way, we'd be much closer if not already there with clean energy sources. Man-made climate change or not, who really likes to smell car exhaust? Or driving behind some dirty truck? Because, however convinced you may be about man-made climate change, people are not going to stop driving, or riding on airplanes, or buying plastic (and I doubt you're an exception, but I could be wrong about that). And people are not going to stop using heat or stop having children either.

Belief in man-made climate change alone is irrelevant. California with all its supposed "environmentalism" is one of the dirtiest states when it comes to air quality. So really, what difference does it make that 74% or whatever number of climate scientists think there is evidence that substantiates man-made climate change and 26% do not?
(And by the way, a scientific truth is not based on a majority vote).

If you're not making these changes in your own life, then perhaps you could just write a paper and send it to "some" climate change scientists for peer review.

I'm all in favor of not polluting.

You're missing the forest for your own trees concerning these government agencies and how they are used by special interests, people-Lands declared federally-owned then 'managed' in this country have been historically for public use. According to the Sierra Club: "Public lands are used in the production of oil, gas, coal, hardrock minerals, timber, and livestock in addition to being used for roads, power and gas lines, and communication facilities just to mention a few. Likewise, the Public lands are an environmental treasure house for recreation and wildlife and scenic wonder from desert to seacoast, mountain top to prairie, grassland to forest -- a shared heritage for now and the future."

Most generational ranchers don't fuck-up the land, they don't abuse it , it's their goddamn livelihood. They know it's vibe way better than the feds and their little friends....

Bundy was paying to, and had a preexisting deal with Clark County and his damn family had been cattlemen on these lands for a few generations, living in harmony with the goddamn turtles, and not trashing the place like newtbox (god you think you know what the fuckit is you know nothing about except what the TV tells you) here and others use in defense of the encroaching and over-reaching bureaucracy whose ONLY goal is to save their own interests in the rights of this land for their nefarious personal good-ol' boy club purposes.

Urbanization and ominous government with peeps with votes never getting involved in righteous decisions during the process of being ASS-RAPED from behind tomes legislation with special interest laws piggy-backed within legislation has ALWAYS been the method of politicians, licking the asses of the money-men.

If people would get an ACTUAL clue abut how the government works to benefit these cunts, they'd start to sound like people who did their homework instead of self-righteous cunts trying to sound smart.

I am happy to accommodate the cries of 'ignorance' and 'fail', heard all this shit before, so go fuck yourselves unless you have anything else to spew but scripted 'what you think you know' horse-shit. I understand that certain types of dum-basses are quite satisfied with themselves to talk a lot and say nothing but whats fed them.

The United States government fucked the Native Americans, now they're fucvkng cowboys and ranchers......No digression with land and money drunk robber-barons, especially when they have dutiful putties to interpret history to suit their delusions.

Wanna fix the situation America? Stop eating their meat. Try turtle soup, the shits awesome.

@shveddy

Fair enough. I guess I see things from a different perspective, but ultimately neither of us can really know how the future will eventuate.

When I see China buying up land/investing in Africa, I see a system of inter-dependence being built such as the consumer / exporter relationship that underpins US/China that acts as a stabiliser in relationships with any potential conflict threatening both parties' interests and helping to ensure stability (although some could argue trade was heavily entrenched between Britain and Germany pre-WWI).

The baby boomer generation wasn't a blip, it was very much the defining moment of world population growth. Also, by definition, growth is no longer exponential. On average, it is regressive and at the most pessimistic estimates (which I think are completely unrealistic), it is linear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

As more people come up to middle/high income levels, I think what that implies will fundamentally adjust. Just as a single income is no longer sufficient to sustain a nuclear sized family, I suspect adjustments in price will dictate that our entertainment and recreational activity will increasingly be virtual and computerized with a much smaller resource cost.

I think it's a frequent economic fallacy to assume aspects of society will remain fixed. Just like how there are not a fixed number of jobs that immigrants threaten (Lump of labour fallacy), high income lifestyles are not fixed.

@gorillaman

First paragraph is pretty much addressed above by my last two above.

I'm not denying that corporations pollute because of the competitive incentives of consumers. The alternative however, of targeting consumers to inform them of the costs of their actions (assuming that this would change their purchasing decisions) is a roundabout solution that I think we both realise would not be nearly as cost effective.

If you think tax/financial incentives are not the best way to curb environmental damage, then please suggest a more effective alternative.

@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.

@gorillaman

Why would we need to quintuple resources by 2100 if population is only forecast to grow 50%? There is no shortage of potential arable land and more would be made room for if food prices were to rise (bringing them back down).

As I said before, I'm not debating environmental damage and climate change need to be addressed. But you address it directly, you don't attempt to reduce the world population to <1Bn ... somehow, like you propose.

No, corporations primarily do cause environmental harm, particularly climate change:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change

That's why changing their incentives directly through taxes or emission schemes is the best approach. I would almost say that attempting to reduce your carbon footprint at a individual level is an exercise in self masturbatory indulgence, which while gratifying is completely insignificant. It's the by-products of all the everyday products that you consume during the industrial process that create the vast majority or pollutants.

3rd paragraph - I've already addressed everything there several times here. You simply are not acknowledging the facts:

http://priceofoil.org/2013/11/26/new-analysis-shows-growing-fossil-reserves-shrinking-carbon-budget/
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2013/nov/26/why-fossil-fuel-reserves-growing-oil-carbon

Does our current reliance on carbon based energy precipitate environmental issues with regards to global warming in the future? Obviously, but an international agreement on raising the cost of it, to reduce our reliance on it, is more likely than an agreement on enforced family size limits.

@RedSky

I'd like to know how you expect to quintuple the availability of every vital resource in the next 50-100 years while somehow reducing the environmental impact of that necessary increase to what you acknowledge needs to be less than the present level. This is supernatural thinking. Corporations don't pollute, incidentally, the fundamental structure of our global society pollutes; which would be no problem whatsoever if there were fewer of us.

It's fine if you'd prefer to just keep the majority of the world in mediaeval poverty, or alternatively impoverish everyone equally; colossally immoral, but by contrast actually physically possible.

Our success as an organism has been implicitly tied to energy availability for our entire history. The bubble of economic and technological advancement we've ridden since the industrial revolution is driven by unprecedented access to energy in the form of irreplaceable fossil fuels. It requires continual investment of energy to maintain. The practical exploitability of wind, solar, wave, geothermal and hydroelectric sources combined doesn't come close, not even close to the demand we'll place on them with population on the scale you're quite comfortable to allow. Fissile materials are limited and similarly irreplaceable; we've been steadily failing to develop fusion power for sixty years.

The innovation of new sources of energy is not guaranteed, unless you have some new breakthrough in physics you'd like to share? Efficiency gains are strictly limited.

If you think we'll have the ability to support billions of people on a sustainable basis at some time in the future, well great, LET'S WAIT UNTIL WE HAVE THAT ABILITY BEFORE WE BET EVERYTHING ON IT.

I'm advocating passivity because I don't recognise overpopulation as a threat, more an inconvenience, and one that we couldn't really prevent even if we wanted to.

I don't see what's preposterous or optimistic about taking widely accepted birth rate data and projecting based off that. Birth rates are predictable and stable sampled over a large population. The data consistently shows that as societies come out of poverty, their birth rates fall. The only assumption here is that there isn't another GFC event that hinders growth which at this point is not particularly likely.

All taken into account we already know it's plateauing, and have known for decades. This isn't a hypothesis, it's happening right now. Unless you can show me why this trend will suddenly and irrevocably reverse, despite population data being incredibly stable and predictable historically, it seems the onus is on you to explain why you're so pessimistic.

Again, I think you're still conflating (1) what I want / whether it's bad versus (2) whether it could plausibly be stopped. I would also rather live in a less populated world. At current rates of technology and resource utilisation, things would be cheaper, there'd be more to go around. Reality is not like that. But as I said before, every policy focus has an opportunity cost. I don't see a plateauing population as a threat and I would rather see that effort devoted to poverty which will help reduce it anyway.

We're nowhere near an economic bubble. Maybe a short term stock market valuation bubble right now, but there's plenty of economic under-utilisation in the US and Europe, and China and other developing countries have decades to grow.

The term technological bubble is a bit nonsensical. You can have a technology sector bubble but actual physical technology which works now, will not magically stop working tomorrow based on inflated expectations. If you're saying instead we'll reach some cusp of innovation, well people have predicting that for decades.

We're nowhere near a peak oil event. Every time people say current known reserves are dwindling, they either (1) discover a huge reserve in under developed countries that were previously not surveyed (Africa and parts of SE Asia at the moment), or (2) something like fraking comes along which unlocks new supply. The US is forecast to be the largest oil exporter by 2020 based on that second point.

Hell, I'll play devil's advocate with you. Suppose we do reach a glut. We'll know this at least a decade ahead based on dwindling new reserve discoveries. The price of energy will leap up far, far ahead of us running out. That will spur innovation in more efficient sources of energy and will incentivise both individuals and businesses to be more energy efficient. A gradual adjustment like I've talked about endlessly here. Why am I wrong?

Environmental damage is a different issue and something that I agree needs to actually be addressed. I'm sure if you search back through my posts you'll see me talking about the economic rationale of addressing this directly when corporations who pollute aren't subject to the negative externalities that they impose in our current capitalist system and that will inherently create issues. Hopefully countries will take note of the smog clouds in China's big cities.

@RedSky

Crossing your fingers and waiting for the tooth fairy to fix everything is not a valid response to global crises. That is what passivity amounts to whether your eventual, hoped for remedy is shiny's simple-minded faith or failed economic models that got us into this mess in the first place, or unforeseeable scientific advances that may never come.

You've been using the most preposterously optimistic projections available, okay, let's assume they're correct and we level off at somewhere around nine to eleven billion. You want all of these people to live worthwhile, prosperous lives; well that's at least five times as many high energy consuming, 21st century humans as we've ever actually been able to support.

This coming at the end of an economic and technological bubble of readily available, dense energy supply for which we have no replacement; relative efficiency gains in spending that energy that can never be replicated (because efficiency doesn't go above 100%); casual environmental damage that cannot continue; and diminishing returns in every scientific field, where advancement is always becoming more difficult and more expensive.

This isn't a pessimistic view. Humanity has a bright future, all we have to do to secure it is stop creating more and more people out of nothing for no reason. Barring extra-terrestrial threats like meteorites, solar flares and relativistic missiles launched by hostile alien species; we have the knowledge we need to build a civilisation capable of enduring for millions of years, or burn out in a couple of hundred.

@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.

First, calling David Suzuki "Colonel Sanders" is embarrassing to the entire human race.

Also, to the suggestion in the comments above that 'technology will save us', ..one of the major points of the video is that it buys us 'two minutes'. It has, and it won't keep buying us comparable time. Actually, part of 'science saving us' is this video itself. Population models, and everything we know about life on this planet tell us that we need to radically change how we do things, or widespread famine, war, and environmental and social destruction are inevitable. If you want science to save us, you need to start listening to it.

..and about colonizing other planets. There is no planet we could ever get to, EVER, that would, in its current condition, support a human colony. We can't seem to turn around a one degree change in Earth's global temperature. It is not rational to assume that we could make another planet suitable for human life.

There has been no assult on the rancher's property, it's all on Federal land.
This may be an example of why dumb americans want guns, but this is also an example of many people that SHOULDN'T be allowed to have guns. If you want a rifle to take on the federal government, you are an idiot. The feds have tanks and missiles, who wins EVERY TIME in that fight? Just ask (edit, I meant Koresh and the Waco people). His suggestions amount to telling children to go play in the freeway because it belongs to them as public land, and the fed has no right to reserve it for cars. I wish this guy walked his own talk and was standing right there in the front baiting the feds, he might be the first casualty.

This is not about 'defending freedom', it's about defending a criminal that believes federal land is his to use and damage as he sees fit, even after being told clearly and repeatedly that he has to pay for it, (which he refused to) and can only use it for certain purposes for a certain time period (which have ended long ago).

His example of allowed use, the solar company, is forced to follow environmental laws and not damage the land/environment, cattle don't follow laws and do damage the land badly. Solar and wind don't hurt turtles, cattle and vehicles (used to manage the cattle) do. Proven.
EDIT: I recall many 'ranchers' on federal land intentionally killing turtles because they burrow, making holes that cattle get hurt in.

I agree with Yogi, this guy is massively deluded and is attempting to spread his stupidity...suggesting that non-citizens take on the fed in this kind of action? WHAT?!? Also claiming that the fed managing it's land is 'facist'. Just DUH, dude. I might downvote this video for mis-information, lack of understanding, and just plain ridiculous ideas if I could.
I note this blowhard isn't standing with the rancher armed...maybe he doesn't WANT to be shot?

Bobknight33...not to be rude, but did you go to school? Did they teach science there? You seem to not understand the terms you are using in the least....
Evolution is a biology term, describing the changes in biology over time due to environmental pressures.
Multiple dimensions is theoretical physics, attempting to describe how reality works....not biology, no evolution here.
Quantum physics is a different, somewhat theoretical, physics, attempting to describe how reality works at the mico level (which oddly is completely different from how it works on the macro level)....again, not biology, no evolution.
There are no clear, accepted theories about what happened before the big bang...yet. Normal physics breaks down at the beginning/bang, so anything said about what happened before is a guess, an educated guess at best. This is also a physics issue, not biology, so evolution doesn't enter into it.
Do you truly not understand this? If so, I blame your education, and suggest you go to night school and learn some science, especially if you intend to comment publicly about it and don't want to look a fool.

EDIT: Your questions are analogous to a person asking why the Old Testament doesn't explain the works of Muhammad, or really closer to asking why Shinto doesn't explain the life of Jebus. They aren't related except loosely in the 'religion' category, just like your post mixed up ideas from the 'science' category to imply it's all the same and related directly and one should describe and explain the other...that's just not right.

Motorcycles seldom kill car drivers, usually the other way 'round, but I think living with the fact someone died because they hit you is bad enough. The biker won't care any more, he's dead.

Personally, I don't see any reason for motorbikes on public streets. Litre for litre (gallon for gallon) they pollute more than a car. You can take the exhaust of any motorbike, hook it up to the intake of any modern car, and the resulting exhaust will be far less toxic than the bike alone. They are not environmentally conscious in any way beyond miles per gallon, so here's a preemptive "shut up" about that.

Bike riders fall into two categories, wannabe racers and wannabe Hell's Angels. They either get off on zigzag'ing high acceleration/deceleration or they think it makes them look badass. Anything else said is just an excuse and self-delusion.