How to make Europe's population keep growing

Whereas attitude considering children certainly is a main difference between Europe and the US, another major point I'd say is social status. I once read that fertility of middle- and upper class Americans is not that much higher than thet of Europeans with comparable social status?
If you consider religious reasons for large families such as Mormons, which are far more frequent in the US than in Europe, you probably get the same numbers.

The main difference therefore should be immigration, as immigrants tend to have more children than "natives". For once, this may be because most immigrants are still subject to the moral values from their homes - which often include more children - and second this may be because immigrants tend to be poorer and less educated than the average, which is correlated with higher numbers of children as well?

This makes sense, though with the added complication that many European countries also have a significant numbers of immigrants - the whole "Eurabia" meme, you know - and the large family only occurs in the 1st generation if at all.
 

loughery111

Banned
Diamond is probably the smartest guy out there, as far as environmental issues are concerned. He's not your typical green fundamentalist, he's not obsessed with climate change, and he is extremely good at explaining the relationship between human societies and the environment they live in.

Saying he's "full of shit" is bullshit, so to speak.



Yeah, in some undefined distant future. I am a space buff myself, but I am not delusional about technology. As Diamond correctly states: the hope that technology will solve all our current problems and create no new ones (as it historically ALWAYS did) is a dangerous wishful thinking.



Too bad there won't be much left of the human civilization by 2100. The United States is one of the most environmentally unsound nation on Earth. The amount of waste and other negative externalities produced by one American equals to how many other people? I am guessing it would be like 2 Europeans, 10 Chinese, 20 Indians and 100 Africans.

I dread to imagine what will happen when the Chinese fulfil their dream of living the same as the Americans. According to diamond, if China reached the Western living standards while the whole rest of the world stagnated, the aggregate human impact on the environment would more than double. And that's just China. Factor in India and other Third World countries, and you'll quickly realize how totally unsustainable the human civilization in its current form is. According to Diamond, if Western living standards stayed as they are now and the 3rd World achieved these standards, the overall human impact on the environment would increase 11-fold.



I am not. I am just realistic. The developed countries (most of Europe, North America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia and a few others) got rich by means of systematic plundering of natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable. This gives them a huge head start over the developing and 3rd world countries.

If they realize the danger and do what's necessary, they'll start rebuilding their whole economic infrastructure towards sustainability. It will be expensive and it will require great sacrifices - all of us will have to learn to live sustainably, which means the consumption-driven lifestyle will have to go. We will have to re-adjust our values quite a bit.

Unfortunately, most 3rd world countries are now doomed. They've fallen into a demographic trap - their populations are growing faster than their economies, so they're getting poorer and more desperate. Once the effects of climate change, deforestation, soil erosion, pollution, overfishing, etc., kick in, they'll be unable to feed themselves, much less to export anything.

Diamond gave us a frightening insight into what will happen in the chapter he dedicated to Rwanda. You should read it, it's scary. He explains that the roots of the genocide can be traced to overpopulation and the need to "get rid of excess people" to free up land for others. It's a window to the future - similar things will happen all over Africa in the next 50 years.

Some developing countries may survive too, if they make the right choices. Latin America should survive if it stops destroying the Amazon basin. I think also China will survive, because it has a strong top-down government capable of making hard decisions. Moreover, China's population is now relatively stable and is expected to eventually age and decline, just as the Japanese or European do now. On the other hand, India and Pakistan are screwed, just like the Middle East and parts of Central Asia.

Tough times are ahead.

I never said he was a deep green nutjob... but that doesn't mean he isn't still wrong.

The fundamental point you and he both miss is that, while technology has ALWAYS created new problems as it solves others, the new problems and the old are very, very rarely related.

For example, the burning of coal in 16th century England solved the problem of major firewood shortages and paved the way for an agricultural productivity increase that culminated in the industrial revolution. However, it led to massive pollution levels when burned in homes and villiages... thus you wound up with the development of town gas, which though much cleaner in homes and businesses (problem solved), allowed for industrial burning of coal and much more pollution in the city as a whole (new problem).

Electricity became dominant in part because you could put power plants far away from cities (problem solved), but in turn allowed still further industrial development and more overall pollution levels (new problem), though these were further from population centers. Oil and gas replaced coal as the main fuel for electricity and transportation because they were more portable, more efficient, and less polluting (problem solved), but brought a host of geopolitical issues with them (new problem).

The point being that the next generations of energy technology will make the same trade-off... existing problems solved or mitigated in exchange for a host of new ones that can be dealt with in time. Solar, wind, and nuclear bring a whole mess of new problems (rare earth metals, land requirements, nuclear waste) but also the time to deal with them, which is what we lack with the present generation of energy technology.

As for the assertions I made pertaining efficiency increases... look at the numbers. Without making the slightest concerted or centralized efforts to improve energy efficiency, the United States has averaged a 2% decrease in energy intensity for the last decade or more. That could quite easily be pumped up to 4% or more with actual efforts, and that's just the first world, where the vast majority of technologies are already designed with some degree of efficiency in mind. The point of diminishing returns has already been reached, yet these numbers are still relatively easy to achieve. The third world, where most of the growth in energy demand is slated to take place, could, with first world assistance, achieve 10% yearly gains or more.

Instead of preparing Europe to take over the planet when the rest of us die, why don't you consider actually giving a good goddamn about the rest of the planet and working to help them fix themselves before we all die. Unlike what you seem to believe, European civilization CANNOT survive the collapse of every other region on Earth. If nothing else, you lack essential resources needed to support even a falling population of 400 million, let alone a still-rising one of 700 million.

Just to note, I've read Collapse in its entirety, 4 times, as well as Guns, Germs, and Steel. I've also read rebuttal essays and researched the source material. I've read The End of Oil, from which the efficiency numbers are taken. We maintain an overall increase in efficiency of 3%, and we can far outpace the growth in energy demand. After all, I don't care how little energy I have to consume, so long as I can run my kitchen, keep my house somewhat comfortable, and get enough food for my family, among other key considerations. Energy isn't the end product.

As for materials constraints... let's put it this way... if we achieve the kind of energy efficiency we can probably manage by 2100 or so, we'll have the technology to conduct major, long-term space operations, and orbital mining, refining, and manufacturing, and they'll all look much more economical.

You cannot sell massive sacrifices for little gain, which is how the electorate in the first world sees your solution to the environmental problems facing us. You can, however, sell "doing more with less," as I've heard it put several times. To do the things we do, we simply don't need all the resources we use to do them. We can be far, far more efficient without sacrificing our lifestyles.
 
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