To think the human race should respectfully die out?

[RomeoLikedCapuletGirls]

I’m not being goady as I’ve genuinely thought about this over the past few years as the following issues have come to the fore:

Climate change
Industrial meat industry
Pandemics

I’ve tried being vegan but always revert to eating meat for health. I’ve come to the conclusion that it was a much needed part of our evolution. The problem is of course the intensive whole scale nature of it, and the suffering it causes. Even the plant industry causes a lot of damage to the environment and ecosystems. The sheer numbers of humans needing feeding is the problem.

Again, with climate change. It’s a question of over-population. The more of us there are the more we deplete our earth’s resources we deplete. Limiting consumption is simply not working so we need something else.

And although we might crack Coronavirus, there’ll be another virus along soon to challenge us. And it’ll spread quickly because there are so many of us.

I’m not advocating mass suicide of course!

Just that we encourage our offspring to not have children until we have either died out or at the very least reduced our numbers to such a point that we are just one species amongst many, living on this planet and not causing the disproportionate amount of harm to the environment and other animals.

There’s nothing to argue that the human race should continue forever.

@Serendippitty (love the username btw!)

That's kind of my point. We all think that if we work hard we are allowed as many resources as we can amass, rather than what we really need. But is that the best mindset? People with smaller families don't need as much space as those with large families, so surely it would make more logical sense for us to all limit ourselves to what we need rather than what we want? Theres only finite amount of space unless we want to concrete over the entire planet. Sorry if it's a shitty example, I'm just meaning to show how we all think we don't need to make any sacrifices!

We wouldn't have needed to make any sacrifices at all if we'd just left aids and Corona to do their thing. And ditto the next pandemic.

@Guineapigbridge so its better for the vulernable and developing world to all die of aids rather than greedy people in the west having to scale back and not live so excessively? Right ok

[quote SunflowerOwl]@Serendippitty (love the username btw!)

That's kind of my point. We all think that if we work hard we are allowed as many resources as we can amass, rather than what we really need. But is that the best mindset? People with smaller families don't need as much space as those with large families, so surely it would make more logical sense for us to all limit ourselves to what we need rather than what we want? Theres only finite amount of space unless we want to concrete over the entire planet. Sorry if it's a shitty example, I'm just meaning to show how we all think we don't need to make any sacrifices![/quote]
@SunflowerOwl love yours too!

I do see your point but no one needs a large family either so it would also make sense to limit family size?

@SerenDippitty yep definitely although that kind of suggestion never seems to go well

The stats do show that the average number of children per woman is dropping across the world though. And birth rates are falling in lots of Europe and America, yet we are still responsible for most of the carbon emissions!

I agree with you OP. It would be so much better for the planet and for the existing humans if all couples just had 1 child. In a couple of generations we’d get the population down to a much more manageable amount.

Most of the people I know only have one or two children (rough equal split between the two) so in my RL (as opposed to MN where a lot of people seem to have 3 or more) the gradual reduction is already happening.

Masses of redundancies have been announced recently and it is mostly young people who are being affected plus the economic cost of Covid 19 will fall on their generation in the future so maybe they will choose to have fewer children? Personally I'm glad that I only have one child who will need a job in future.

OP I think it's a bit sad to think that humans will eventually all die out but I do think a gradual reduction to a much lower sustainable level would be good for the earth and other humans.

Well that’s up to you, everyone else can make up their own mind.
You are a big barrel I’m laughs aren’t you?

Of , not I’m !

Humans cannot exist in the numbers they do now without severely damaging the balance of the planet and causing never-ending suffering to its creatures

Do you have any evidence of this, or is it just something you "feel"?

It's just that if a combination of technology and societal and lifestyle changes can do the job, then that's probably a better way of going about it than trying to drastically reduce the population, which in our current economic model would be disastrous in its own right. We could try to change our economic model, of course, but good luck with that.

If we scrapped livestock and moved 100% of meat production to lab-grown, which will be feasible in the next few decades, limited air travel, reduced consumption, stuff like that, then it's quite possible that humans COULD exist in the numbers they do now without severely damaging the balance of the planet.

No it would not. It would lead to mass slaughtering/species extinction event of all cows, pigs, sheep, and replace them with soy bean, lentil, and palm fields. Lots of humans, no animals

What if the world went vegan (or even, switched to lab-grown meat) over time? No slaughtering of existing livestock, just reducing production gradually and establishing sanctuaries, farms, etc. to maintain populations.

And since we're talking so hypothetically, if we could somehow manage the above, then I'm sure we could also manage to establish limits on how much of what can be grown to replace these food sources to minimise environmental damage? Suffice to say, the total amount of all crops grown worldwide would still be less than currently, since so much of what we currently grow is used to feed livestock.

Veganism cannot feed the current world population; humans cannot eat the grass or scrub that grows on land not suitable for crops.

Sheep are good for the planet, not only can they survive on the Welsh hill farms but their wool is 50% carbon. Made into clothing or a duvet, it becomes useful for several years, and can then be left to rot down slowly. Wool uses more carbon that any plant fibre.
www.woolmark.com/globalassets/02-about-wool/factsheets/gd2405-where-does-carbon-come-from_122.pdf

Maybe gamekeepers could stroke pheasants. Or bee-keepers massage their bees' knees. Hairy fuckwit

...Hairy fuckwit? What a bizarre insult.

Veganism cannot feed the current world population; humans cannot eat the grass or scrub that grows on land not suitable for crops

Why would they need to? The land currently used to grow crops for livestock would be used to grow the crops needed to replace meat in peoples diets. The former is larger than the latter.

Much as I would never be a vegan, as I believe that without tremendous knowledge and continual effort, it is unhealthy, defending meat eating as either efficient or good for the planet is wrong.

Animals cannot absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide, in fact they produce it via respiration. However much carbon is stored in wool, it was either made from plant carbon or respiration.

In addition, we clearly can feed the works through veganism. Each time an animal eats a plant, some carbohydrate is converted to heat, this ‘wasted’ as an energy source.

I do, however, believe humans are designed to be omnivores and meat is the best source of available protein and iron (the word available is important here). It is also delicious!

I also believe the whole ‘point’ of the Earth (if there is any at all) is for sentient conscious beings. A World without us would be pointless.

Humanity is amazing. Absolutely awesome. Literally the best thing that we know about it in the universe. It’s tragic that some people can waste their existence wishing it away.

Plant based diet is perfectly healthy. On a whole foods diet you can hit the RDA for every amino acid, every mineral and every vitamin and a good omega 6 to omega 3 ratio- I know because I’ve tracked it.

What a depressing, virtue signalling, arrogant, self despising thread. Who are we to take a decision to do away with the human race? Who are we to instruct peoples of the world - including the poor - to phase themselves out. Who are we to despair of the human spirit to overcome the problems of our times.

Get back to building up rather than knocking down.

@Finerumpus oh yes we are so amazing, destroying the planet, aren't we.

Animals are amazing, scenery is amazing, nature is amazing, humans are not

Anyway if the bees die out, and it looks as though they may well due to the stupidity of humans, we are fucked

I don't think there's anything wrong with humans per se. Some human societies have managed to exists in harmony with their environment, living well even without agriculture for thousands of years (see indigenous communties on the american pacific coast for example). But recently we haven't done so well and rampant capitalism is a dead end. I think it's not looking good for humans over the next century. Maybe not extinction level but I don't think we'll be flourishing. I don't have a lot of hope that we can turn things around, though I haven't given up trying to do my bit, whether emailing my MP or avoiding palm oil, because I guess every little helps...but really it's so much bigger than that at this point. I'm interested in things like the dark mountain project which looks at how we live through the unravelling of civilisation as they see it. I think back to what I thought the future would be like in, say, 1997 and how things are actually unfolding now in 2020 and I feel a certain amount of grief for a lost future. On a practical and emotional level I feel unprepared. I can barely keep a potted plant alive so it's not looking good for me if the decline accelerates. Anyway what I'm trying to say is, I'm not sure humans will actually have control over our dying out. That's just our usual hubris talking. I think nature will take care of it for us, sadly. Very grim.

Sheep are good for the planet, not only can they survive on the Welsh hill farms but their wool is 50% carbon. Made into clothing or a duvet, it becomes useful for several years, and can then be left to rot down slowly. Wool uses more carbon that any plant fibre.
Sheep are extremely destructive in big numbers. They overgraze the land and ruin the soil, which is why the Welsh hills, previously brimming with life, are reduced to a depressing, treeless monoculture of bracken and heather in which very few species thrive. The Welsh landscape looks the way it does because it has been severely overgrazed, it is the sheep that have ruined it.
I suggest you get your facts from a more neutral source, Woolmark has a clear agenda.

www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150604-can-we-make-britain-wild-again

Any livestock can be destructive if they are over stocked. All or nothing thinking is what got us into this mess, it isnt going to fix the problem.

It doesnt change the fact that wool can be used as a carbon sink, or the fact that veganism is not the cure to world hunger. If everyone went vegan we'd actually lose a lot of land that is currently productive.