Jon Sullivan

I gave one of my first-year university lectures today, on biodiversity and extinction rates, in which I mention the recent population growth of the Earth's most abundant large animal species ever: us.

I still remain completely gobsmacked by the magnitude of the world's recent human population growth.

8.27 billion: today's population, according to worldometers.info.

7.2 billion: in 2015 when I started teaching the course.

6.8 billion: in 2008 when my daughter was born.

3.8 billion: in 1971 when I was born.

2.3 billion: in 1946 when my parents were born.

1.9 billion: in 1923 when my Dad’s Dad was born.

So 1.9 billion to 8.2 billion in just over a century!

I worry about whether we can sustain this many people on the planet long-term while retaining and restoring a thriving wild biosphere that supports us.

Some of us are going to have to learn to use a lot less energy and resources.

#SoManyPeople #HumanPopulation

Feb 23 at 11:54pmWeb
Show threadSy TaffelFeb 24

@joncounts Hypothetically it should be possible for 8 billion people to have a reasonable standard of living while remaining within planetary boundaries...

But as you mention, this would require a far greater degree of equity than we currently have within and across nations. And the billionaire class aren't going to give up their wealth and power without a fight, and currently it feels like they're winning 😥

Show threadJon SullivanFeb 24
@sy Yes, that’s it in a nutshell. Reducing inequity is essential for a sustainable future.
Show threadWannabe AstronautFeb 24
@joncounts
I've read a **lot** of science fiction and science fact in the past 45 years.
I think humanity's best chances for the best form of a long-term future, is if we all were to become fanatically (religiously?) obsessed zealots for Sustainability.
I mean, the best future we can hope for, is one in which every human knows deep in their bones, and in our racial memory, that our sole role on Earth is Caretaker. Nothing more.
Show threadPhil Stevens Feb 24

@space_cadet @joncounts I have a vision of a seven-generation project (admittedly, it will take even longer than that at realistic scale) where stewards of land all over the world turn excess biomass into long-lived biochar and put it into the soil.

Since the beginning of the year, I've personally turned 2 tonnes of atmospheric CO2 into stable carbon over six half-day burns, and would have done twice that if January hadn't been so rainy and windy.

It's achievable but it will take commitment and dedication, especially as climate breakdown gets worse all around us.

Show threadPhilipFeb 24

@joncounts Whoa, for some reason I had in my head we’d been across the 8B threshold longer than that, like late 90s or early 00s!

Sorta shows how things are so bad. The people making a lot of decisions are at most 1 generation removed from population and its trappings not really being that big of an issue.

Show threaddryadFeb 24

@joncounts Indeed :( I'm living evermore, erm, sparsely, and making changes in my life which force me to learn how to continue doing that too :)

The downside is that I can't support businesses as much as I'd like or they need, incl small local ones, with the effects (at scale) thereof.

Money needs to _flow_ to work, but the ever-increasing concentration-by-extraction/theft (as I view it) in the hands of a few dark triad humans is also antithetical to that.

Show thread@iveylineFeb 24
@joncounts Yes, we have become the world's greatest pest!
Show threadcontrasocialFeb 24

@joncounts

We can sustain this many people, just not in a capitalistic society that runs on an ever inflating drive to consume and exploit.

Show threadJon SullivanFeb 24
@contrasocial Yes, a reset with some new economics rules would be helpful. For example, this concept we’ve invented that if you hoard money it will make you more money is problematic.
Show threaddegenerating degenerateFeb 24

@joncounts

> learn to use a lot less energy

That's not really the case with solar. If they have a roof and the sun is generally about, there's a good chance they can generate what they need. That can be extended into the dark with a battery (which admittedly has a murkier ecological footprint if it's lithium-ion).

Show threadMWTFeb 24
@hopeless @joncounts the thing about batteries though, you only have to mine it once. After that you're good for the next 25 years, and then it gets recycled into more batteries (without more mining). With fossil fuels you have to keep mining out more of it because you use it once and then it's destroyed.
Show threadDan HattonFeb 24

@joncounts

It'll either turn around and decrease the nice way (improved access to contraception, better life options for women, robust social security systems) or turn around and decrease the nasty way (mass death, both directly due to climate change and indirectly through consequent disease outbreaks (and the ongoing mass-casualty event that is Covid) and wars). Or both. Thankfully, I think those who study these things still expect the nice way to happen by about 2050.

Show threadMia AlmFeb 25

@joncounts And 8.27 is actually a success story, compared to to the exponential growth that was expected in 1970 - i most countries the birthrate is going down (even if total numbers are still growing).
Even worse for biodiversity:humans have domesticated animals that outnumber the wild ones:

https://www.xkcd.com/1338/

Land Mammals

xkcd
Show threadJon SullivanFeb 26
@Malm Nice. I use that xkcd cartoon in my lecture. It’s a great one. We need to keep 8 billion of us thriving while those little green squares that represent wild mammals are allowed to increase again.
Show thread@iveylineFeb 26
@Malm Not sure the 8.27 is a success story. I always remember watching a population of aphids on a rose bush growing day by day until there were so many that they literally sucked the rosebush dry and their population collapsed. Our 8.27 are getting close to the point where they are sucking the planet dry. Check the World Overshoot Day website. It is explains why we are like the aphids on the rose bush.