The Burning Amazon Shows The Cancer of Human Overpopulation Has Almost Run Its Course

Image above shows every fire that's started across Brazil since August, 13, 2019.


Scene from ground level near Humaita, Brazil on August 17.


Another view from Humaita, Brazil, from August 14th.

"Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest - the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen - is on fire. It is an international crisis."  - Emmanuel Macron,  Thursday

One need have looked no further than yesterday's  WSJ (page A5 story), e.g.

'Fires Destroy Amazon Rainforest, Blanketing Brazilian Cities in Smog '

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fires-destroy-amazon-rain-forest-blanketing-brazilian-cities-in-smog-11566397901

To behold how we are now at the tipping point for cataclysm with the planet's "lungs" now being burned to a crisp.  This as human population growth has triggered ecological upheaval from India to Brazil to Siberia and Alaska and in between.  While too many  dunderheads and dopes still believe humans are "too puny" to cause or create a negative global impact, the evidence is now all around us. 

In Brazil, for example, we learn (WSJ, ibid.) that many of the fires raging - and even visible from space- were set by loggers.  These demented fools "have been burning newly cleared land for cattle ranching and agricultural use. The resulting clouds of smoke have reached such epic proportions as to be captured from a NASA satellite in space."

The idea has been to plunder as many forest resources as possible from the last great carbon repository on the planet- holding the line between humans and the runaway greenhouse effect.   Of course, the 'joker' in the deck, if we can call it that, has been Brazil's Trump clone (nicknamed "the tropical Trump"), Jair Bolsonaro.  Like Donnie Hitler Jr., this authoritarian maggot has no use for preserving the planet for future generations and even calls himself "Captain Chainsaw".  He is the one who has incited farmers, loggers to go on this burning spree that now puts the whole planetary habitat at risk - for all of us.  And the swine has done it by his mocking of environmentalists over their concern for the Amazon's preservation. ( In one spasm of rage he actually compared the Amazon to a "virgin" that "the outsiders want to take first".)

But say one thing, say the next.  Though Bolsonaro and his anti-environmental policies are the  proximate cause of the Amazon conflagration, population pressures - for arable land, living space and such - also played a role.   Hence, we can't ignore the fact that twenty three million people live in the Brazilian Amazon, 45 % of them below the poverty line.  In the words of one Sao Paulo -based journalist:  "Starving people don't care about the rain forest.. They consider it a green hell  and see forest rangers as enemies."

This is given that five of the six poorest states are located in the Brazilian Amazon according to the national statistical agency.  Such problems then are ultimately of human overpopulation and inadequate resources to support it.  Just as it is in respect of the  worsening water woes in India. Not to mention the uncontrolled land development now devouring natural regions globally at the rate of two football fields ever 3 minutes.  This according to a new UN report. So even if a lunatic like Bolsonaro didn't exist we'd still be in dire straits.

But perhaps not as quickly in the wake of "Capt. Chainsaw" having given so many subtle and overt cues to his eco-henchmen in waiting. 

 The scale of the Amazon  fires alone is such that smoke from them is ending up affecting cities more than 5,000 miles away.  Latest projections indicate that Amazon smoke will soon also cover the U.S. from LA to Detroit - which means we here in Colorado will be right smack in the middle of it.  The sheer number of fires spawned is staggering: some 72, 843 separate fires since January. This marks an 83 percent increase over last year   According to climate scientist Michael Mann:

"The impact is devastating because it's eliminating irreplaceable ecosystems and worsening climate change at the same time.. "

So it isn't for nothing the vast Amazon rainforest has been  nicknamed "the lungs of the Earth" .  This is because it has been responsible for the release of 20 percent of the world's oxygen even as it absorbs CO2 to generate that oxygen.  But as those "lungs" are destroyed the dynamic will be solely one way: no more oxygen produced, only more CO2.

Meanwhile, Africans also continue to burn wood from forests at a rate, using the material for fuel.  People and more people everywhere, too many for sure, gobbling resources at a rate as if there were no tomorrow. And there may not be at the rate they keep consuming.

In India, meanwhile, we learn,

'We Can't Waste a Drop.' India Is Running Out of Water. - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-cant-waste-a-drop-india-is-running-out-of-water-11566224878

"Water crises are unfolding all across India, a product of population growth, modernization, climate change, mismanagement - and the breakdown of traditional systems of distributing resources."

More worrisome:

"Nearly all of India's biggest cities ...are rapidly depleting their groundwater resrves, and 40 percent of India's people could lack drinking water by the end of the next decade."

Of course, this was predicted back in a 'State of the World' report from 2000, which estimated that 1.8 billion would face water scarcity by 2025.   The report even forecast "water wars" if the matter wasn't resolved or in some way addressed in an equitable manner.

Meanwhile,  in a piece in last Sunday's Denver Post by Bruce Finley ('Development Devours Natural Landscape At High Rat According to Study', p. A7) we learned that the conversion of natural landscapes into developed tracts is proceeding at a feverish pace, displacing habitats for thousands of species and destroying natural vegetation which serves as a carbon absorber.   As noted in the Post piece:

"A United Nations -backed biodiversity and ecosystem science panel determined that about three quarters of the land around the planet and two-thirds of marine environments have been significantly altered by human activity. An estimated 1 million plant and animal species face extinction."

What gives? Well, to put it bluntly, too many people!  Sir David Attenborough, in his BBC documentary entitled: 'How Many People Can Earth Hold?',  pulled no punches in his assessments. He observed that every current major societal, environmental problem- from clogged highways, to overflowing hospital ERs to crowded schools, as well as scarcity of commodities (reflected in their much increased prices) to fouling of our water and atmosphere, can be laid at the feet of too many people on this planet - each needing food, air, water and energy from the time it's born.

Of all the resources, the most critical is water because no one can live without it for very long. Even now, 1 billion people live in water-stressed conditions, meaning that renewable water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters per capita.  This is now the case with what's transpiring in India - and many other regions of the planet. 

The point is we're rapidly approaching the threshold at which there will simply be too many people to feed given existing resources- water, arable soil, fertilizers etc.. The projections now are for at least 10 billion people by 2050, and an 80 percent probability of 12.3 billion on Earth by 2100. Simply put, there simply aren't the resources to support even the lower addition. At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population. The graphic below puts this into perspective;

The interpretation of the graph (upward) is simple. By June, 2030 TWO full Earths - that is the resources therein - will be needed to support the then population. Already we are at 1.5 Earths. Every year Global Footprint Network raises awareness about global ecological overshoot with its Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Earth Overshoot Day is the day on the calendar when humanity has used up the resources that it takes the planet the full year to regenerate.

A core problem is that people have a difficult time grasping any kind of exponential increase such as with population.

The late Univ. of Colorado physics professor Albert Bartlett delivered one of the best lectures  on the nature of the exponential function as it applies to  computing future population growth. It can be found at the link below :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA9Hnp3aV4

Go to time index 13:04 and continue watching as he computes the global population projections at an estimated growth  rate of just 1.3 percent per year.  Within a minute or so we see the graphic appear:

Which Prof. Bartlett specifies as the full stop to further population increase, i.e.  the absolute arrival of  "zero population growth".   (Though he goes on to show that at the same assumed birth rate the mass of humans would equal the mass of the whole planet in 2400 years.)  As he notes:

"It's absolutely clear people could not live at that density on Earth. So zero population growth is going to happen!"

In other words, there exists an absolute limit to human population growth.   It cannot go on indefinitely!  Prof. Bartlett even includes a humorous cartoon to reinforce the point for any simpletons:


Why is this not possible?   Well because each human needs a defined living space to support him over a lifetime, not merely the minimal space his body may occupy. This is owing to the fact humans need resources to live which are extracted from a given land area.  This life support basis is a function of the rate of consumption of resources in this living space, and the birth rate.  The current average – when all humans are factored in – amounts to nearly 2.1 hectares per person .  This reckons in crops, lumber,  water,  meats-cattle etc.,  consumed over a life .  A square meter therefore cannot be a life support space. Only a certified moron would believe so. (Unless we are talking about immobilized humans put into a deep coma or deep freeze and remaining in stasis).

Thus, no high population density scheme that doesn’t factor in acreage impact  can be taken seriously.   Our species became a blight and cancer on the planet and to itself (bear in mind cancer occurs when cells fail to cease dividing, growing) at the instant it lost track of bio-support capacity and when we exceeded it.   The signs all around us now, from the massive Brazilian Amazon fires, to the dearth of water in India, scream in resonance of the failure of our species to control its numbers. 

As for solutions, as a recent blurb summarized them for Attenborough's BBC documentary:

"The filmmakers endorse the need for smaller families and increased access to contraceptives. Renewed investments in education are also championed in the film, particularly for women in impoverished countries, because the highly educated are less likely to have multiple children. Attenborough contends that it is only by following each of these steps that mankind can effectively limit the creation of new life and ensure a sustainable future for our species."

That sustainability is tied to the ability to reckon the bio-support capacity for the planet. How many can it support but without a total absence of life quality, only survival?

If one divides the total output of bio-productivity (determined in terms of food crops generated per hectare, water volume per hectare, etc.) and divide that by the population, one can get some idea. One expert to whom Attenborough turned calculated that based on his models - if we wanted a planet with equally shared bio-productive output - each human would get TWO hectares. If we inhabited such a world, then the planet might support 15 billion people. 

The reality is that the bio-productive output is not equal, and using a map of the world, Attenborough showed the divergences, what with the UK consuming 5.5 hectares per person, and the USA, 9.5 hectares. Thus, the average American is consuming more than four times that which is defined as a fair, equal apportioning of resources across all the numbers on the planet. According to Attenborough's expert, by this reckoning of such unequal apportioning of output, the planet can only hold 1.5 billion people.

The world then is overcrowded by roughly 6 billion humans. Sadly, it shows wherever one looks, from the massive housing shortages, to the water shortages (admittedly partly from drought) to the ever lowering GDPs of most nations.   Will we wake up in time to save some semblance of the future for our kids and grandkids?

It would be nice to believe so but with degenerates like Bolsonaro and Trump around it appears doubtful.  The clear addendum  remedy? Voters need to be intelligent enough not to vote in such unhinged, anti-environmental extremists and nationalists. Of course, this is an even more cogent reason for Millennials to get off their duffs and vote Dem in the 2020 elections. Personally, I suspect the planet cannot withstand another 4 years of Hitler Junior.
 
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Thomas Neuburger

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Environmental Policy

It's Raining Plastic, From the Pyrenees to the Rockies to the Arctic

Excerpt:

 "I  often worry whether we aren't one of those species that self-eliminates, that commits "ecological suicide" as many bacteria do when they turn their environment too acid to live in. It's certain we're polluting the air with CO2 in a way that will change the climate from habitable to very inhospitable."

Princeton Astrophysicist's "Doomsday" Math Shows Humans Have Less Than 1,000 Years Left

Movie 'Threads'  which depicts the end of civilization from nuclear war,  starting with a U.S. attack on Iran. Dr.J. Richard Gott whose 'doomsday' math ought to have our collective attention. 


The article,  'The Unsettling Possibilities Of Doomsday Math' (WSJ, Review, July 6-7) by William Poundstone, makes compelling reading though I fear too many may be inclined to dismiss it. Or to put it into the same category as the idea that some fraction of UFOs may actually be advanced craft piloted by extraterrestrials.  

In this case the doomsday math concerns work done by astrophysicist J. Richard Gott III.  As noted by author Poundstone (ibid.):

"Dr. Gott invoked math and population data to predict that the end of the Earth is likely to occur in under a thousand years."

Then elaborating:

"The core of Dr. Gott's reasoning is known to statisticians as 'the German tank problem'.  When the Allies were planning the Normandy landings, they wanted to know roughly how many tanks the Germans could be expected to have on D-Day. One clue was the meticulous consecutive numbering of German tanks and their components.

Army statisticians reasoned that captured tanks and parts could be regarded as randomly drawn from all those that Germany produced.  The serial numbers gave certain evidence of the minimum number (which couldn't be less than the highest serial number captured). All the numbers provided a statistical probability - though not a certainty -  of how many tanks existed - and based on that how many more would be produced by D-Day. 

After the war captured German records revealed that the statisticians' estimates had been almost exactly right."

How does this connect to any doomsday forecasts?  The author goes on:

"To apply this to the future of humanity, the doomsday argument begins by asking us to imagine a list of all past, present and future people, sorted in their order of birth. No one alive knows how long the list is or where their own names fall in it, so we can consider ourselves randomly drawn. That means that statistically there is an equal (50 % chance) that we are in the first half or the last half.

Humans don't come with serial numbers but Dr. Gott reasoned that demographers have already roughly estimated the number of humans so far. They put the total number of people who have ever lived - from the beginnings of Homo sapiens to the present day - at 100 billion. That means that my birth order serial number - like for anyone alive now - is somewhere around 100 billion. 

Since it is equally likely that those of us living today are in the first or second half of all past and future human births - let's say we are in the second half - that would mean there are 100 billion births yet to come.  There is a 50 % chance that is true, which at the current global birthrate (about 131 million a year) translates that we have at most 760 more years of births.  A changing birthrate would modify the estimate but the calculation is that simple."


Poundstone adds that:  "the purely circumstantial nature of Dr. Gott's prediction unsettles many who hear of it".

 And it did perturb one WSJ letter writer, a David E. Weisberg. ( 'Doomsday Math Neither Accurate of Helpful' , July 9) who wrote:

"The conclusion assumes that the list (of humans) is finite because it is meaningless to speak of the first half or second half of an infinite list.  And the assumption the list is finite contradicts the premise that no one alive knows how long the list is."

But Weisberg's error is twofold: first there is no contradiction of the premise given that the relevant assumption was not of any absolute enumeration, but for its relative length in time. I.e. after 780 years, 300 years etc., which length is determined by the birth rate.  The birth rate itself- no matter how low (i.e. 1 % per year) -also dictates the list cannot be infinite.

 Regarding the last, we have a brilliant mathematical computation by  Univ. of Colorado Emeritus physics professor Albert Bartlett-   that such a list would have to be finite. You cannot have an infinite number of humans occupying the planet.

Prof. Barltett's exposure of this nonsense - in another context to do with the exponential function and computing future population -  can be found in this lecture :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA9Hnp3aV4

Go to time index 13:04 and continue watching as he computes the global population projections at an estimated rate of 1.3 percent per year.  Within a minute or so we see the graphic appear:


Which Prof. Bartlett specifies as the full stop to further population increase, i.e.  the absolute arrival of  "zero population growth".   (Though he goes on to show that at the same assumed birth rate the mass of humans would equal the mass of the whole planet in 2400 years.)  As he notes:

"It's absolutely clear people could not live at that density on Earth. So zero population growth is going to happen!"

In other words, there exists an absolute limit to human population growth - and hence the "list" of Prof. Gott. It cannot go on indefinitely!  Prof. Bartlett even includes a humorous cartoon to reinforce the point for any simpletons:

Why is this not possible?   Well because each human needs a defined living space to support him over a lifetime, not merely the minimal space his body may occupy. This is owing to the fact humans need resources to live which are extracted from a given land area.  This life support basis is a function of the rate of consumption of resources in this living space, and the birth rate.  The current average – when all humans are factored in – amounts to nearly 2.1 hectares per person .  This reckons in crops, lumber,  water,  meats-cattle etc.,  consumed over a life .  A square meter therefore cannot be a life support space. Only a certified moron would believe so. (Unless we are talking about immobilized humans put into a deep coma or deep freeze and remaining in stasis).

Thus, no high population density scheme that doesn’t factor in acreage impact  can be taken seriously.  Hence, Weisberg's argument concerning an "infinite list" of  potential humans , i.e.

"Unlike German tanks at a particular moment in time, human beings over the entire course of human history - past, present and future - might be conceivably infinite in number."

Is pure poppycock given the list terminates at the maximum density (more likely even well before that) which is certainly well short of an infinite list!   And as Prof. Bartlett shows, anyone spouting similar nonsense also needs his or her head examined.  Or, they need to go back to school to try to learn exponential math!

Yet more evidence that the "Flynn effect" is pure, unadulterated codswallop!

As for Dr. Gott, his use of Bayesian statistics also saw him (earlier) predicting closing dates for 44 Broadway and off-Broadway shows. When he checked back 4 years later, 36 that had closed had done so within the prediction window. As Poundstone observes:

"Like many of those involved in the doomsday debate, he views the discussion as a wake up call."

I'd say the first "wake up" needs to be for people to process exponential growth which is why the link to Dr. Bartlett's lecture is so critically important. I strongly urge all readers to at least watch the time segments indicated - if not the whole 1 hr 14m lecture.

The Reasons For The "Millennial Baby Bust" Are Not Difficult To Grasp

A sign of the increasing population times: Traffic on I-25  near Denver. Colorado's population has doubled in the past 25 years. Most of the drivers shown here are Millennials.

True to form, and like a broken clock that's correct twice each day, the WSJ editorial writers did at least get  two things tagged correctly in their editorial ('America's  Millennial Baby Bust',  May 29, p. A14).  Which isn't saying a lot given they addressed about 7 items.  Before examining the major issues they flubbed, let's look at what they got right:

1)"Declining U.S. birth rates are the product of large cultural forces that the federal government can't buy off with subsidies and income transfers."

This is true because too many (upwards of 30 million) would have to be bought off. Facing a $22 trillion national debt such a buyoff simply would not be financially (or politically) feasible.

2) "The evidence from around the world  is that pro-natalist policies can't offset these cultural trends. Singapore's fertility rate has declined since the 1990s to about 1.2 even after decades of government payouts to encourage more children."

The editorial then cites similar stats  from Japan.

Where the editors slid off the rails is when they whined:

"The theory is that it's too expensive to raise children and thus government must subsidize families. The left wants universal child care, paid parental leave, a larger child tax credit.  A faction of the right supports much of that agenda and payments for women who exit the labor force to have children."

First, it IS too expensive for most middle class citizens - millennials or other - to have children. We are talking about $274,000 on average to raise one kid to college graduation stage.   Even to just high school graduation, $220,000 is a conservative estimate.  But the editors conflate two factors here: subsidizing children and parents as a moral decision of a government, and subsidizing baby making.

In a culture in which a never- ending war is fought over abortion it should not be necessary to point out that the "agenda" both of the left (and most of the right) ought to be a no -brainer. That is, only IF a government does do these things can one aver it is seriously interested in tending to the welfare of life AFTER BIRTH..  Then such policies could be seen as real and viable as opposed to the make believe farrago of BS trotted out by Naomi Schaefer Riley in her recent WSJ op-ed "Christians Are Pro-Life After Birth Too.".  Therein citing a few specialized examples of Christian care (i.e. in foster homes, adoptions) as if these constitute universal policies - say paid parental leave, and fully subsidized child care for working parents.

This is important because Rightist Christians, especially the Evangelicals, are among the most belligerent anti-abortion warriors - but among the most miserly in protecting and nurturing life after birth .  So if you as a Christian would have me believe you  are truly "pro life after birth" I want to see you go whole hog in for the higher taxes to support that agenda the WSJ rejects.  And again, this is a separate issue from millennials not having kids.

The biggest reasons for the latter are: 1) the crushing student loan debt, now over $1. 6 trillion and 2) the lack of decent paying jobs to cover (1) as well as afford housing.  In Denver now the median home price is $584,000 and a person (couple) that wants such a home would have to earn at least $90,000 a year to have enough left over - say to raise a kid, pay utilities, groceries, other bills.  In Colorado Springs, the median home price has now spiked to $490,000. Meanwhile, the average employee here in the Springs earns $20.50 an hour.  This isn't even enough to pay for most rents, now averaging just over $1,000 a month.

Now for a personal face on it: A young woman (Hannah Moore) featured in yesterday's Denver Post Business section (p. 1K, 3K) admits she's "worked continuously" since 2007 when she graduated college, and can't afford enough for a mortgage down payment. According to the story:

"About half her income, she calculates, is eaten up by rent, health insurance and student loan payments...of $850 a month."

And Ms. Moore is one of the lucky ones.  At least she can afford to pay off $850 a month in student loan debts. Many can't and either have to settle for a minimum, say $200 a month, or joining a new movement to deliberately default on their accumulated debt.  This will likely wreck their credit forever, or at least long enough to limit their job choice which - even if they get them - will see wages confiscated.

Meanwhile we are informed ('What The Student Loan Debt is Doing To The U.S. Economy'  (June 25, WaPo):

"Researchers need to account for the across the board wage stagnation that's happened since the 1970s."

I'd say it's fairly straightforward if people are willing to open their eyes to the 800 -pound "gorilla" sitting in the room.  That is the explosion in human population. Look, since 1972 the global population has doubled to 7.3 billion and change.  As I pointed out in a previous post (July 3rd), the U.S. population has itself increased by 45 million  since 2000.  Those are 45 million people - hitting age 19 now-   who will need jobs, homes, health care providers, resources - and most of which aren't there.  Colorado alone has doubled its population in 25 years turning our traffic into nightmares (see graphic) and making competition for jobs and homes downright brutal. This state isn't alone, either. Florida has doubled its population twice since 1972.

The results?  The added numbers of job seekers to Colorado represent a supply that can't be accommodated given the kinds of jobs they seek:  mainly IT, MJ specialists or related tech. And they will not take the jobs (especially after graduating with a B.Sc. or B.A.)  that are going begging. Like picking crops of  peaches, strawberries, watermelons or cleaning school gyms.  So, in effect, a large elite labor surplus has been created, from which the tech employers can pick and choose-  and dismiss. 

This upper tier labor surplus ensures corporate employers have zero pressure on them to offer higher wages.   In the words of Adam Gadomski of Aspen Advisers - quoted in one WSJ piece from two years ago-  explaining why so many corporate employers aren't hiring top talent with pay commensurate:

"When companies lament they can't find workers to fill key openings, that is code for: "I can find talent, I just don't want to pay them as much as they cost."


Why would they when they can always find a 'next in line'  (e.g. in the techie labor surplus)  who will accept lower pay, fewer benefits?    Thus the fierce competition for scarce, better quality jobs is ultimately driving many seekers away disheartened.  Because, of course, they can't indefinitely continue to work two jobs - say one at Arby's  and  driving for  Lyft evenings - while paying $1300- 1600 a month rent.

Now, seriously, do you think they can also afford to have kids in this milieu? Of course not.

The home building also isn't keeping pace with the population growth. According to the state demographer Elizabeth Garner, there are fewer new (rental) units than in the past despite the fact that housing construction hasn't picked up since the Great Recession.  According to Garner, quoted in the Denver Post:

"Even though people think we're doing a lot of building it's not as much as they think we are."

The lack of housing, creating a shortage of supply, has radically driven up costs even forcing many who've moved to Denver to now look for housing 67 miles away here in Colorado Springs. So now our housing prices are shooting up too. We regularly receive up to two notices a week from realtors begging to buy our place "on the spot, hard cash".  Of course, we just laugh and tear them up.  As our Springs housing fills up the Denver workers are even being chased as far south as Pueblo to try to find affordable homes . And as they put pressure on the market there with their demand (and again limited supply) the housing prices again shoot up.

Nor is this problem confined to the U.S. As we have recently learned (WSJ, 'Affordable Housing Grows as Global Issue', April 3, p. B5):

"Across 32 major cities around the world, real home prices on average grew 24 % over the past five years, while average real income grew by only 8 percent over the same period."

Too many people!  Add the costs of living (homes, rents, medical care) to the numbers competing for the same limited resources such as lumber (growing ever scarcer) and you have a nightmare, e.g.


Therein, the Earth overshoot (of consumption of planetary resources)  is the basic basis for the "Affordable home bust" as well as the  "Millennial Baby Bust".  And look, don't listen to the Pollyannas  (like Prof. Steven Pinker) because it isn't going to get better.  That much we know.  Barring a massive effort to control births worldwide (no more than 8 b people by 2050)  the resource depletion, crops depletion, wars and extreme inequality that incites them will just keep getting worse.  And the risk of a deadly pandemic like Spanish flu in 1918 culling human  numbers,  also increases.  Which is just a takeoff on Isaac Asimov's theme when he delivered a lecture in Barbados back in 1976,

 i.e. that "if humans can't control their numbers then nature will do it for us."

The formula is straightforward: More humans =   more crowding, more traffic, more CO2 pollution and greenhouse warming, more consumption of water, timber, fuel, and LESS space for other life forms, as well as quality living space to share.  Asimov's conclusion was that Earth's carrying capacity was 3 billion, and we have already surpassed that by 4.3 billion.

The projections now are for at least 10 billion people by 2050, and an 80 percent probability of 12.3 billion on Earth by 2100. Simply put, there simply aren't the resources to support even the lower addition. At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population.   With 2.5 billion more humans set to arrive by 2050 where will the added people go? Where will the affordable homes, or food or medical care - not to mention living space - come from ?  The jobs?  The water?  No one has a clue and that future is barely 30 years away, a literal blink.

Regarding  fresh, potable water, we learned in today's WSJ (p. A8):

"By 2030  demand for water in India will be double the country's supply."

And this is twenty years short of the additional half billion people India will likely have by 2050.

But what do the WSJ editors offer instead of hard analyses? Well, more codswallop and distractions, excuses that fit into their capitalism uber alles narrative.  Writing, for example (ibid.), as another "reason" for the Millennial baby bust:

"More women want to find fulfillment in professional work, a strong social force that won't be mitigated by a monthly check if they stay home."

While such fulfillment can't be summarily dismissed it still only accounts for about 30 percent of the failure to start families.  The much bigger reason-  according to the Fed's and other stats (e.g. from the Economy Policy Inst.)-  is not enough income to purchase an affordable home.  Which can then be traced inexorably to the stiff competition arising from ....you guessed it... too many people competing for the existing homes, jobs.

This leads us to ask why it is that excess population is not given more play in the media.   I offered an answer in my May 11 post from last year when I pointed out:

"The hedge funds and corporations that own the newspapers and run the boards of directors are in thrall to consumption and ever more debt.  If they spilled the beans about too many people already, they'd have to admit to their agenda of not only exploding population and exploding consumption but exploding debt. Already, consumer debt of all types (including student loan debt) in the U.S. has hit $15 trillion.   The increasing debt itself is a pronounced signal that things cannot go on as they are, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/44-trillion-in-deficits-by-2024-minus.html

In an article appearing in `Physics Today' (July, 2004 issue): `Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie', Prof. Albert Bartlett (Univ. of Colorado-Boulder) pinpointed the failure to name human population growth as a major cause of our energy and resource problems.


Bartlett asserted that "their (scientists') general reticence stems from the fact that it is politically incorrect or unpopular to argue for stabilization of population - at least in the U.S. Or perhaps scientists are uncomfortable stepping outside their specialized areas of expertise".

Bartlett himself, in one magnificent lecture, i.e.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA9Hnp3aV4

 Has perhaps given the best reason for this reticence of scientists to speak out: the realization that too few Americans understand the concept of exponential increase which lies at the heart of population increase.  The problem here is that if scientists, e.g. physicists, aren't willing to come forward and call out population growth as a key culprit in our wage stagnation,  planetary degradation and economic morass then few others will.  Interestingly, Bartlett echoes Asimov in his lecture - 17:20 mark on - in noting everything that makes the population problem better are things we are desperate to avoid, i.e. war, disease, famine, accidents, abortion etc.  And all the things that make the population problem worse (more people)  we are for.  (But as he notes, ultimately nature will decide from the former list to limit our numbers if we don't.)

Personally, I suspect another huge reason the Millennials aren't churning out babies is because they relate more intimately to the planetary disruption and damage our numbers have caused. In everything from destroying the oceans, e.g. via warmer temperatures and higher acidification, to the proliferation of plastics, e.g

 To polluting our limited fresh water rivers, lakes and atmosphere.  They know humans are the primary contributor to these and don't wish to add more contributing consumption units.

Bottom line: Millennials are leery of having kids because of the attendant expense. But this is directly a function of the paucity of high paying jobs needed to: a) purchase a house, and b) raise the kid(s).  That in turn is a function of population pressures in whichever locale the person (Millennial or other) chooses to live. Reduce the population pressure and you reduce the competition for high paying jobs which in turn will lead to more youngsters (graduates)  able to get them. That in turn will lead to a better chance to have kids  - at least afford one - and also afford rent or home ownership. In any case no one ought to be having more than one kid, the Earth simply can't afford it. Meaning those of us who share the Earth can't afford to have another intense resource consumer (and polluter)  added to the mix.