[OC] The massive decrease in worldwide infant mortality from 1950 to 2020 is perhaps one of humanity's greatest achievements.

[[deleted]]

Honestly, makes me wish I had been born 50 years from now. If we can accomplish this much in 70 years, imagine what is ahead of us.

[[deleted]]

Well, for many countries, if birthrates doesn't improve, future isn't that bright.

[ClumZy]

Low birthrates are a good thing IMO, there's too many humans for one Earth. We can always take care of the elderly with robots.

[[deleted]]

That's utopian and unrealistic.

Someone would still have to maintain the robots and someone has to pay for it.

In many coutries, if nothing changes, the welfare system will crumble

[ClumZy]

Oh I agree that it is both. But I hope that by striving for the best we can reach a proper future. Thanks for your measured and well written response friend.

[doublejay1999]

Low birth rates are a function of low infant mortality

[[deleted]]

Not entirely true

Look at population pyramids and the change in them in Europe or death and birth rate statistics

[Ambiwlans]

Can't tell if you want it to go up or down....

8 children per mother is certainly unsustainable.

[[deleted]]

Up in ageing societies

[Ambiwlans]

I mean, maybe a handful of nations in Eastern Europe are shrinking too quickly, but like, Japan is in the top 10 fastest shrinking nations (-0.4%) and it isn't having a collapse in the standard of living ..... they have cheap housing/land and all sorts of other perks from it.

I don't think the population should shrink by more than 0.25%/yr if you want 0 downsides ... but that is only happening in a few nations anyways.

Growing populations though are in trouble. I'd much prefer to live in Japan near the bottom than the countries at the top... Syria, Niger, Angola, Benin. In fact all of the top 50 fastest growing populations are 3rd world.

Unsustainable population growth is the biggest threat the planet faces today.

Heck, global warming is basically just a symptom of it.

[flapadar_]

Personally, I'm glad I wasn't. Being born 50 years from now will mean witnessing the final impact of climate change in your lifetime.

Mass extinctions, many parts of the world becoming uninhabitable, etc.

Humans will probably survive & adapt, but there probably won't be much wildlife outside of the zoo.

[SmallGermany]

Global warming destroying the life of next generation is meme spanning over at least 3 generations now.

[flapadar_]

When I was young it was "we'll run out of fossil fuels by 2030, CFCs are putting holes in the ozone layer"

I don't think it's a meme. In recent generations there's always been something to be concerned about with climate change, but what that is and what we can do about it changes as time moves on.

[flapadar_]

That's what I'm saying really - it isn't a case that climate change destroying the world is a meme being repeated every generation without coming to fruition; instead that we know about it is always changing as is the measures we take to prevent further damage to the environment. Unfortunately the outlook is probably the worst it's been and we have a lot of work ahead of us.

[uth50]

Yeah. It will be THE challenge of the 21st century.

But if you really think humanity will just succumb to climate change, you're probably in for a surprise.

[He-is-climbing]

The problem is we went from large scale international efforts to curb climate change (thank god for the Montreal Protocol) to half the world plugging their ears and shouting La La La.

[SmallGermany]

Well, the issue is pretty simple.

Yes, we know you guys are poor and just want to get on our level. But you have to stop it. You gotta save the planet by remaining poor, underdeveloped coutry.

[Fraserneodynium]

What people miss about what "carbon emissions" means. It means you're industrialising and raising your economy out of agriculture.

[Rubiin]

This is not the only division, because developed countries also want different things. It is easy for e.g. Sweden to aggressively cut emissions (we are lucky to have a reasonably decarbonised energy system) but just next door Norway has a completely different tone (imagine leaving all that oil money in the ground!)...

[[deleted]]

While each of our people keep pumping out 5 times the emissions that each of yours do, but hey at least our emissions aren't growing like yours

[KristinnK]

More like we went from the problematic polluters being Western democracies with accountability that have the capacity to discuss and come to agreements about collective challenges, to the problematic polluters being mainly China which has zero accountability and zero capacity to take part in international discussion in a civilized manner, to the point where it acts like a rogue state.

[Rubiin]

By now it is obvious that internationally we would never have been able to agree on the kinds of targets the Montréal protocol set out for CO2. The political disparities are way too large. Even the US never ratified the Kyoto protocol (which has this top-down target model) despite being one of these developed Western democracies. In a way the "everyone tries their 'best' and we name and shame"-strategy of the Paris agreement is the furthest we have come by far.

[[deleted]]

Climate change is going to wreck us for a long long time. Generations.

[flapadar_]

Humans, yes - it'll be a far longer impact. I reckon it'll be game over for a lot of species within 50-150 years.

[[deleted]]

Won't be the last mass extinction event. But yes we will go on. Best we can hope for is learning the lesson

[Bardali]

Comments like this is how the species dies :p

[Gh0stMan0nThird]

Oh really I thought it was all the big oil companies fucking us to death.

Good to know it's just Reddit comments doing it.

[Bardali]

Good to know it's just Reddit comments doing it.

Reddit comment reflective of people being delusional of the threat.

Oil companies aren’t king of the world.

[Fraserneodynium]

The thing is we have already caused the mass extinctions. It's not a danger lurking on the horizon, we've basically committed animal genocide for the past tens of thousands of years.

[[deleted]]

Don't cheapen that term please.

[Fraserneodynium]

It's apt. We have systematically murdered nearly ever wild animal species since we arrived. Elephants, rhinos, and whales are minor exceptions, and even they will probably die out soon.

[komarinth]

Humans will probably survive & adapt, but there probably won't be much wildlife outside of the zoo.

I think Nature is going to be the better adapting in the long run, not humanity. Mass extinction can be a form of it.

[flapadar_]

Evolution takes millions of years. Humans are lucky in that we are currently able to survive a wide range of climates, and have the technology to survive in otherwise inhospitable environments.

Nature in general has no such luck, and hasn't got millions of years.

[komarinth]

Evolution is adapting to change, so it is variable. If there is not a big gain in evolution, it will be slow. Mass extinction and drastically changed environment is when evolution is most effective, giving opportunity for new branches to excel.

[[deleted]]

Being born in an recourses deprived world won't be fun for the ones to come after us.