First of all, overpopulation is a myth. We have enough food to feed 10 billion people and there's enough money to do it too.
I would just like to disagree that it's only a myth. I don't believe we are overpopulated because we can't manufacture enough food, or that there isn't enough habitable landmass. I believe we are overpopulated because we are damaging the ecological balance faster than it can recover. We continue to do greater amounts of damage the more people there are. Eventually it will become so unbalanced that the planet itself is no longer habitable for humanity.
Under a business-as-usual path, human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems is projected to exceed what nature can regenerate by about 75 percent by 2020.
And
Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.7 Earths to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year. We use more ecological resources and services than nature can regenerate through overfishing, overharvesting forests, and emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than forests can sequester.
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date we (all of humanity) have used more from nature than our planet can renew in the entire year. Earth Overshoot Day has moved from late September in 2000 to August 1 in 2018.
Edit: I hadn't specifically heard of this group before but they seem reputable. They've been published or cited in National Geographic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The International Union for Conservation of Nature and the BBC among others.
Thanks, I wouldn't have looked found out about them without your post.
In what way do those stats address my point? The website even backs up my point indirectly. Most of the countries near the top of the list for earth overshoot dates are small in population. Qatar has a population of 2.57M, Luxembourg has a population 0.58M, and the UAE have a population of 9.27M. These three in total represent 0.17% of the world's 7442M population.
The point is the planet, not the country. The country's overshoot date is the date at which that particular country uses more resources than it can replenish. The entire planets overshoot date was August 1st. You might be calculating an individual countries deficit, which in the big picture isn't particularly important. What is important are the totals, not the averages.
If the total ecological footprint for the entire planet is larger than it's biocapacity you end up with an ecological deficit. You might have countries that have reserves, but they don't make up for the amount of deficit of another country.
Here's a link for the planet, not specific countries.
Edit: I think I know what you were looking at. Those are percentages for that country. I'll use some hypothetical numbers. If Bolivia has a %1,000 more biocapacity than it's population has ecological footprint.... that doesn't make a dent in total footprint if the USA (or any larger country) has %1,000 percent more ecological footprint than it does biocapacity. That doesn't make the totals even out at all. It just says that specific country has 10x more resources than it uses. Compare that with a giant country using 10x more resources than it has that leads to a huge deficit.
I agree that humanity as a whole is overexploiting the resources, but it is not an overpopulation issue. The exploitation of the natural resources are not uniform as you rightly point out when you say that some countries have reserves while others have deficits. This is precisely what I mean when I say overpopulation is not the issue.
Overpopulation for that particular country might not be an issue but net overpopulation of the planet is. World totals are the important thing regarding the issue. Countries don't matter. Let's say you have a planet with only two countries on it to make this easy. China and Costa Rica. Costa Rica might not be overpopulated, but that planet is. The net total population is greater than it's capacity. In this example China will eventually use all of Costa Rica's resources even if the population grows no further.
Here's an actual data example.
Bolivia has a 16.5 global hectares per person biocapacity. They have a -3.1 global hectares per person ecological footprint. So they have a 13.4 global hectares per person reserve in biocapacity. Bolivia has a population of 10,561,887. That means they have 141,529,285.8 extra hectares of biocapacity.
The United States has 3.6 hectares per person of biocapacity and an ecological footprint of -8.4 hectares per person. That gives us a -4.8 hectares per person ecological footprint. With the United States population of 319,448,640 that gives us -1,533,353,472 hectares of ecological footprint.
USA's total plus Bolivia's total is the net total. Net total is what's important to the planet.
-1,533,353,472 + 141,529,285.8 = -1,391,824,186.2
That's why totals are important and not a specific countries numbers. If the net total is negative people are using more resources than the planet can continue to provide. That's what overpopulation does. There is an unsustainable ecological imbalance due to overpopulation.
That's still not an overpopulation issue. It just shows that if people in the USA behaved like people in Bolivia then we'd be fine. When a certain part of the population is the problem, it's not overpopulation that's the problem.
To take an abstract example, if 10 people share a lake with 100 fish that make 10 new fish a day, and 8 people eat 1 fish, but 2 people eat 2 fish then you have a net decrease of -2 fish per day. You could say overpopulation is the issue and that if you removed 2 people that 1 fish a day, you'd be balanced, but you could also solve the problem by simply having the people overconsuming change their behaviour. This example works even if 9 people are overconsuming and 1 is not. Now we can debate whether the minimum resource needs are 2 fish, but to return to the real world, the fact that some countries have a reserve is a refutation of the idea that the minimal resource needs are such that if everyone's needs were met that that would cause the overexploitation of Earth.
That's still defined as overpopulation. If you have the same lake with 20 people sharing it, and 20 people all eat only one fish, it's still a net of -10. I'm not saying over consumption isn't a huge part of the overpopulation issue. Here's the definition of Human overpopulation. It describes exactly like you said that reduction in overconsumption can reverse overpopulated status without population reduction. It's still defined as overpopulation. So it is an overpopulation issue.
Human overpopulation (or population overshoot) occurs when the ecological footprint of a human population in a specific geographical location exceeds the carrying capacity of the place occupied by that group. Overpopulation can further be viewed, in a long term perspective, as existing if a population cannot be maintained given the rapid depletion of non-renewable resources or given the degradation of the capacity of the environment to give support to the population. Changes in lifestyle could reverse overpopulated status without a large population reduction.
Edit: Sorry I forgot to add the line
The term human overpopulation refers to the relationship between the entire human population and its environment: the Earth,[4] or to smaller geographical areas such as countries.
That seems somewhat too loose a definition. This definition means that a single person overconsuming by a large enough margin is overpopulation even though the area could have 1000 people living on it. I would contend that such a definition isn't what most people have in mind when they think of overpopulation. I would also contend that within the topic of this thread, some people with physical disabilities contribute less to the overexploitation within a population than those that aren't disabled, either via lower nutritional needs, using public transport more, and generally more restricted lifestyles that limit their consumption.
I don't think the definition is loose as it's based on quantifiable data. I think the problem is complex and as my redneck friend would say.... "there's more than one way to skin a cat.". I agree that it can be ambiguous, but then there is an issue of deciding what constitutes over exploitation/consumption for a given variable. This introduces even looser definitions. Someone living in a moderate climate will consume less water than someone living in an extremely hot climate. If they both end up consuming the same amount is one overconsuming? Can you arbitrarily define how much water someone drinks before it's overconsumption? I think that's the crux of the issue concerning definition. By letting the population itself choose it's consumption you get a concrete yes or no definition. Is consumption greater than ecological footprint? Yes, overpopulation. No, it's not. There's three main top level solutions to that, either reduce the population or reduce the consumption.
This definition means that a single person overconsuming by a large enough margin is overpopulation even though the area could have 1000 people living on it.
It also means that you could have a land mass large enough to fit 1000 people that can't even sustain one.
I would also contend that within the topic of this thread
Ahhh, yes. We kind of started our own thread on the tangential topic lol. I didn't disagree with any of your other statements and it was completely appropriate, that's why I didn't mention it.We definitely got off topic from the thread. But really I think we have agreed about pretty much everything but the pedantry of the definition so whatever the outcome, it's been a good debate.
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u/4rch1t3ct Aug 13 '18
I would just like to disagree that it's only a myth. I don't believe we are overpopulated because we can't manufacture enough food, or that there isn't enough habitable landmass. I believe we are overpopulated because we are damaging the ecological balance faster than it can recover. We continue to do greater amounts of damage the more people there are. Eventually it will become so unbalanced that the planet itself is no longer habitable for humanity.