AIBU to think population growth is unsustainable with climate change?

[Metalmotha]

To think that people surely must be starting to understand we can’t keep building more houses, we need to reduce the amount of people here and the rest of Europe. We simply cannot support a growing population

With climate change we just haven’t got the resources, less ran means less water which then affects everything from milk yields to quantity of grain as harvests are earlier.,

Theres going to be increasing areas which are uninhabitable due to frequent fires or rising water levels. We need to stop this idea we need a pyramid scheme of population. Numbers of children need limiting, we need to be very highly selective over who comes into the country and look at both our immigration and refugee policy. The people who are here need to be more productive.

We need to ration water hungry technology, we need to limit imports and encourage a repair and reuse rather that shopping addicted society. Consumer laws should be a lot stronger regarding how long things should last.

Yes I agree for the next couple of generations it’s going to cause a significant issue, and then will continue to be something of an issue until the population levels out.

If we can manage to keep people healthier as they age that will help a lot.

Even if we can’t, the solution isn’t to keep having lots of babies - that would just kick the problem along to future generations and make the environmental problems far bigger in the process.

But why do you think the population will level out? birth rates will keep falling.

A healthier population would be great, unfortunately boomers are not as healthy as previous generations but maybe we will reverse that in younger generations.

Who has said the solution is to have more babies? Pointing out that birth rates are low and we have an ageing population is just a fact and doesn’t mean I’m advocating for more dc. A softer landing would have been better but the ship has sailed.

The birth rate is already declining and yet people keep banging out this trope. It’s like the learnt something at uni in 2001 and can’t let it go but also, didn’t keep up

That's not accurate, based on any current data or projections.

The population will continue to age, with the elderly representing an increasing proportion of the overall population and minors a decreasing proportion.

The baby boom blip will mean a period of relatively sudden change, but one that is in line with the overall trend, not contrary to it.

@BackedoffhackedoffI genuinely don’t get how so many people still don’t get it!

And the fact so many don’t get it mean successive governments have got away with not planning for the changes.

But the population wont level out unless people start having more children.

An overall decrease in population is a good thing, but we should be aiming for a gradual, managed decline, not a cliff-edge collapse. Even if you take the baby boomers blip off the table, the UK would be looking at a cliff-edge type collapse wete it not for immigration.

No more refugees. Not one (excluding Ukrainians because they'll go home and they're not a risk to women and girls). Halt all foreign aid and visas to countries who don't take their economic migrants back. The rest to a third country. Stop paying human rights lawyers to fight our own government (who we also fund).
No more family reunification.
Net contributor migration encouraged.
Lower taxes for productive members of society.
Reduced benefits for those who can work and don't.

But we're not getting the fest and the brightest. We're getting the "doctors and engineers" without a penny who pose a risk to our society.

@NotmycircusnotmyotterIm not sure what your response to my post is saying? Western countries will be competing with each other to attract the young & skilled

This is nearly 15 years old now so it is a bit out of date, but it is more up to date than the assumption in the OP. It is an extremely good explanation (so still v relevant) of how the world population can be growing even though the birth rate is falling, and how we won't keep expanding exponentially, but there is also nothing that we can realistically do to prevent the population expansion which has already happened.

The whole thing is well worth watching but if you don't want to commit to a full hour just skip to 19:25 for the really great population growth bit. It's only 7 minutes long but it completely changes your perspective.

There is a bit directly following about migration.

@BertieBotts

Watched that in a geography lesson last year (as a secondary school TA). It’s a worthwhile watch 👍.

It’s a well know fact that a large percentage of immigrants are attracted by our relatively cool climate 🙄

I don't think any of you need to worry about this, because nature will sort it out.
We can fret and debate all we like. But ultimately, nature will do something to sort this out. And it will do whatever it takes.
We're nowhere near as important in the evolution of our planet as we think we are.

I disagree. A cliff edge collapse is what happened during the Black Death. This is nowhere near a cliff edge collapse in population even without immigration.

It’s actually quite a slow decline and only feels fast because we’ve got so used to rapid population growth - which is actually a historical anomaly, we’ve only really had super rapid growth since the 1970s.

In terms of birth rates, the threshold at which the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) will result in a generational collapse is 1.0 (one child for every 2 parents, meaning each successive generation is cut exactly in half).

A TFR of 1.3 is internationally recognized as "Ultra-Low Fertility" and is considered a demographic point of no return. Once a country crosses beneath 1.3, population momentum reverses so suddenly that structural aging is highly likely to become permanent, and the rate of decline likely to accelerate.

The UK's TFR was fairly steady from the 1990s to the mid-2000s, generally in the range of between 1.7 and 1.8. It has plummeted to an overall average of 1.40 over the past decade, and stands at 1.25 in Scotland and 1.35 in Wales. The only reason England's average is keeping the UK afloat at 1.42 is because England has a much higher immigrant population, and first-generation immigrants have a higher TFR as a cohort.

Without immigration, the UK would have already crossed the 1.3 "point of no return" and be well on its way to the 1.0 threshold. It is certainly outside the parameters of a "steady, natural decline.

The Black Death is not a good comparator. It was an external shock that killed living people, whereas today we are failing to produce the next generation to support the aging population we already have.

And the main reasons for continued growth since the 1970s were increased life expectancy a close-to-replacement birth rate, which would ultimately have resulted in a steady decline, were it not postponed by the spike in immigration in the late 90s.