This post appears to be blind to the dire state of the biosphere and the existential risks we are creating for our species by pushing beyond the planetary boundaries. Rather than seeing it as a challenge, we should be glad human fertility is falling. We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, sometimes referred to as the species holocaust. Laws are being passed to stop ecocide. Humanity and its domesticated animals and pets has exploded its ecological niche so massively that the biomass of wild animals, birds, insects etc. is only a fraction of ours. We are bloated beyond recognition, in ecological terms. We are totally out of balance with the rest of life on this planet.
For a movement that professes to be concerned about animal welfare, many EAs’ ignorance about wild beings’ suffering, the currently unfolding mass extinction, which translates to the wiping out of certain life forms forever until the end of time, is unfathomable to me.
IMHO, if you really do love animals, one of the best things you can do as an effective altruist is to refrain from having children.
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Global biodiversity decline is driven in large part by excessive human populations.
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Population decline opens up important opportunities for ecological restoration.
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Further research is needed into how human demographic changes help or hinder conservation efforts.
•
Conservation biologists should advocate for smaller populations, in both less developed and more developed nations.
Abstract
Global biodiversity decline is best understood as too many people consuming and producing too much and displacing other species. Wild landscapes and seascapes are replaced with people, our domestics and commensals, our economic support systems, and our trash. Conservation biologists have documented many of the ways that human activity drives global biodiversity loss, but they generally neglect the role of overpopulation. We summarize the evidence for how excessive human numbers destroy and degrade habitats for other species, and how population decrease opens possibilities for ecological restoration. We discuss opportunities for further research into how human demographic changes help or hinder conservation efforts. Finally, we encourage conservation biologists to advocate for smaller populations, through improved access to modern contraception and explicit promotion of small families. In the long term, smaller human populations are necessary to preserve biodiversity in both less developed and more developed parts of the world. Whether the goal is to save threatened species, create more protected areas, restore degraded landscapes, limit climate disruption, or any of the other objectives key to preserving biodiversity, reducing the size of the human population is necessary to achieve it.
Hi Deborah, I also disagree with this comment (and have disagree voted but not downvoted it). Here are some of my reasons:
Without getting too much into it, I think the concerns with the population growth/technological change trend are somewhat distinct from problems relating to the current population size of the earth. One can be concerned that the population replacement rate is dropping too fast while also thinking that the current global population is too large.
I think that, while the summarised breakdown you have under the overpopulation project link you have can be understood as broadly true (the specific link is broken), its imprecise, and the real picture is much more complicated. My understanding is that many estimate the carrying capacity of the earth to be 10 billion. If this estimate is true, then “large population, ecological sustainability and high human development” is possible if we define “large population” to be “8-10 billion people” and the other two factors in the same way that those who made the estimates defined them. I also think this picture does not consider the micro effects of aging populations, and papers over the important fact that the welfare of people in the least developed areas is not bottlenecked by planetary boundaries but the distribution of resources. Many effective altruists (myself included) also take a longtermist view which looks to expand sentient life beyond the earth.
You present biodiversity and “balance” as ultimate goals, while I primarily think of the former as an instrumental goal and the latter as often ill-defined.
I’m concerned about the long-run effects of the people most concerned with these issues collectively choosing to not have children. See discussion here.
It’s not clear that human incursion into animal habitats is net-negative for wild animal welfare. See discussion here.
I also think it is unfair to call the post ‘utterly blind to the dire state of the biosphere and the existential risks we are creating for our species by pushing beyond the planetary boundaries’. Rather I think these concerns are outside the scope of this post.
Hi Siao Si, thanks for your detailed response. I’ll try to address some of your points, though not in the order you state them.
Firstly, it is necessary to treat the issues of carrying capacity and optimum human population differently; they are not the same. It is also incorrect to say that many agree that 10 billion is the carrying capacity. The estimate of how many humans earth can support is in flux: on the one hand, technological developments e.g. to improve distribution of resources could extend carrying capacity; on the other hand, the accelerating ecological degradation of the planet (including but not solely due to the climate crisis) is resulting in a shrinkage of the land area able to support crop production and we are currently on a trajectory of collapse in ocean fisheries due to unsustainable fishing practices.
Secondly, there is huge variation in experts’ estimates of the optimum human population, enabling abundance and flourishing for all—some go as low as only 100,000 humans.
Noting that I disagree with this comment so I’ve disagree voted. But I don’t think this means I should necessarily downvote it as well, which is what people seem to be doing. But please correct me if I’m wrong!
I sometimes downvote comments and posts mostly because I think they have “too much” karma—comments and posts I might upvote or not vote on if they had less karma. As I look at the comment now it has 2 karma with 11 votes—maybe at some point it had more and people voted it back to 2?
I would have downvoted this comment if it had more karma because I think Deborah’s comment can be read as antagonistic: “utterly blind”, “dire state”, “for heaven’s sake!”, calling people ignorant. In this context I didn’t read it this way, but I often vote based on “what would the forum be like if all comments were more like this” rather than “what intentions do I think this person has”.
It has 0 net karma on 12 votes, 1 agree vs 8 disagree. So it’s very likely that it has some users pairing disagree votes with upvotes. I appreciate people being willing to upvote stuff that deserves it despite their disagreement.
Downvotes are more likely for tone than anything else. “This post is utterly blind” will almost always draw a downvote from me.
Would love to but didn’t feel best placed/didn’t have time. Just wanted to encourage people to disagree vote instead of downvote, or at least explain why they’re downvoting.
This post appears to be blind to the dire state of the biosphere and the existential risks we are creating for our species by pushing beyond the planetary boundaries. Rather than seeing it as a challenge, we should be glad human fertility is falling. We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, sometimes referred to as the species holocaust. Laws are being passed to stop ecocide. Humanity and its domesticated animals and pets has exploded its ecological niche so massively that the biomass of wild animals, birds, insects etc. is only a fraction of ours. We are bloated beyond recognition, in ecological terms. We are totally out of balance with the rest of life on this planet.
For a movement that professes to be concerned about animal welfare, many EAs’ ignorance about wild beings’ suffering, the currently unfolding mass extinction, which translates to the wiping out of certain life forms forever until the end of time, is unfathomable to me.
IMHO, if you really do love animals, one of the best things you can do as an effective altruist is to refrain from having children.
See e.g.
(1)
https://overpopulation-project.com/reconciling-human-demands-with-planetary-boundaries/
“To sum up, possible combinations are:
Large population and high human development → then we cannot be ecologically sustainable and this situation cannot last.
Large population and ecological sustainability → then a large part of the population cannot achieve a high level of human development.
High human development and ecological sustainability → then population needs to diminish.
The fourth combination – large population, ecological sustainability and high human development – is not an option on a finite planet.”
(2) The biomass distribution on Earth:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1711842115?doi=10.1073%2Fpnas.1711842115
(3) Leveraging deep change for a sustainable future in a world of overconsumption and overpopulation
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephanie-Pettee-2/publication/358916338_Leveraging_Deep_Change_for_a_Sustainable_Future_in_a_World_of_Overconsumption_and_Overpopulation/links/621d7aa2579f1c0417224f1e/Leveraging-Deep-Change-for-a-Sustainable-Future-in-a-World-of-Overconsumption-and-Overpopulation.pdf
(4) Breaking boundaries but not population taboos
https://www.whp-journals.co.uk/JPS/article/download/759/516
(5) Against ecocide: legal protection for the Earth
https://www.greattransition.org/images/Against-Ecocide.pdf
(6)
Overpopulation is a major cause of biodiversity loss and smaller human populations are necessary to preserve what is left
Author links open overlay panelPhilip Cafaro a, Pernilla Hansson b, Frank Götmark b Show more Share Cite https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109646 Get rights and content Highlights
• Global biodiversity decline is driven in large part by excessive human populations.
• Population decline opens up important opportunities for ecological restoration.
• Further research is needed into how human demographic changes help or hinder conservation efforts.
• Conservation biologists should advocate for smaller populations, in both less developed and more developed nations.
Abstract
Global biodiversity decline is best understood as too many people consuming and producing too much and displacing other species. Wild landscapes and seascapes are replaced with people, our domestics and commensals, our economic support systems, and our trash. Conservation biologists have documented many of the ways that human activity drives global biodiversity loss, but they generally neglect the role of overpopulation. We summarize the evidence for how excessive human numbers destroy and degrade habitats for other species, and how population decrease opens possibilities for ecological restoration. We discuss opportunities for further research into how human demographic changes help or hinder conservation efforts. Finally, we encourage conservation biologists to advocate for smaller populations, through improved access to modern contraception and explicit promotion of small families. In the long term, smaller human populations are necessary to preserve biodiversity in both less developed and more developed parts of the world. Whether the goal is to save threatened species, create more protected areas, restore degraded landscapes, limit climate disruption, or any of the other objectives key to preserving biodiversity, reducing the size of the human population is necessary to achieve it.
https://www.soltechdesigns.com/sustainable/Overpopulation-and-biodiversty-loss(2022).pdf
Hi Deborah, I also disagree with this comment (and have disagree voted but not downvoted it). Here are some of my reasons:
Without getting too much into it, I think the concerns with the population growth/technological change trend are somewhat distinct from problems relating to the current population size of the earth. One can be concerned that the population replacement rate is dropping too fast while also thinking that the current global population is too large.
I think that, while the summarised breakdown you have under the overpopulation project link you have can be understood as broadly true (the specific link is broken), its imprecise, and the real picture is much more complicated. My understanding is that many estimate the carrying capacity of the earth to be 10 billion. If this estimate is true, then “large population, ecological sustainability and high human development” is possible if we define “large population” to be “8-10 billion people” and the other two factors in the same way that those who made the estimates defined them. I also think this picture does not consider the micro effects of aging populations, and papers over the important fact that the welfare of people in the least developed areas is not bottlenecked by planetary boundaries but the distribution of resources. Many effective altruists (myself included) also take a longtermist view which looks to expand sentient life beyond the earth.
You present biodiversity and “balance” as ultimate goals, while I primarily think of the former as an instrumental goal and the latter as often ill-defined.
I’m concerned about the long-run effects of the people most concerned with these issues collectively choosing to not have children. See discussion here.
It’s not clear that human incursion into animal habitats is net-negative for wild animal welfare. See discussion here.
I also think it is unfair to call the post ‘utterly blind to the dire state of the biosphere and the existential risks we are creating for our species by pushing beyond the planetary boundaries’. Rather I think these concerns are outside the scope of this post.
Hi Siao Si, thanks for your detailed response. I’ll try to address some of your points, though not in the order you state them.
Firstly, it is necessary to treat the issues of carrying capacity and optimum human population differently; they are not the same. It is also incorrect to say that many agree that 10 billion is the carrying capacity. The estimate of how many humans earth can support is in flux: on the one hand, technological developments e.g. to improve distribution of resources could extend carrying capacity; on the other hand, the accelerating ecological degradation of the planet (including but not solely due to the climate crisis) is resulting in a shrinkage of the land area able to support crop production and we are currently on a trajectory of collapse in ocean fisheries due to unsustainable fishing practices.
Secondly, there is huge variation in experts’ estimates of the optimum human population, enabling abundance and flourishing for all—some go as low as only 100,000 humans.
See here for different scenarios:
https://populationmatters.org/news/2023/05/sustainable-population-the-earth4all-approach/
Noting that I disagree with this comment so I’ve disagree voted. But I don’t think this means I should necessarily downvote it as well, which is what people seem to be doing. But please correct me if I’m wrong!
I sometimes downvote comments and posts mostly because I think they have “too much” karma—comments and posts I might upvote or not vote on if they had less karma. As I look at the comment now it has 2 karma with 11 votes—maybe at some point it had more and people voted it back to 2?
I would have downvoted this comment if it had more karma because I think Deborah’s comment can be read as antagonistic: “utterly blind”, “dire state”, “for heaven’s sake!”, calling people ignorant. In this context I didn’t read it this way, but I often vote based on “what would the forum be like if all comments were more like this” rather than “what intentions do I think this person has”.
Thank you for your feedback, text has been revised.
It has 0 net karma on 12 votes, 1 agree vs 8 disagree. So it’s very likely that it has some users pairing disagree votes with upvotes. I appreciate people being willing to upvote stuff that deserves it despite their disagreement.
Downvotes are more likely for tone than anything else. “This post is utterly blind” will almost always draw a downvote from me.
Thanks for your feedback, text has been revised.
Please provide arguments for your disagreement if possible James. Thank you :-).
Would love to but didn’t feel best placed/didn’t have time. Just wanted to encourage people to disagree vote instead of downvote, or at least explain why they’re downvoting.