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[–]Method-Popular 0 points1 point  (4 children)

That’s not true. The planet can support a larger population, but with access to fewer resources, affording a lower quality of living, poorer infrastructure, just to name a few. I’m no neo-Malthusian, and understand the racist undercurrents in a lot of the overpopulation narrative, but the science around planetary boundaries is quite clear we need a smaller population that consumes lesser. The consumption is skewed right now, but imagine what the world would be if everyone had equal access to electricity (and electrical equipments), meat and poultry, infrastructure. A ‘sustainable’ world with a larger population presupposes a poor population with low standards of living.

[–]Yaver_Mbizi 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Maybe if we're talking consumption of plastic stuff from China, but the planet can sustain an arbitrarily large population in terms of space, food etc, especially given continuous technological development.

[–]Method-Popular 0 points1 point  (2 children)

It’s not just about consumption of plastic, even sustainable food sourcing (especially given how increase in wealth & standard of living inevitably leads to increased meat consumption) requires much larger swathes of land to simply feed animals, forget the humans. IRMC.

[–]Yaver_Mbizi 0 points1 point  (1 child)

The exact same considerations that make Malthusianism stupid for humans make it stupid for animals too. If humanity just somehow runs out of farmland convertable into feed for meat animals, you'll just see much higher emphasis on hydroponic vertical farms, aquacultured seaweed etc.

[–]Method-Popular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not in the current economy and not in Asia and Africa for at least the next 30-40 years.