Thread: Overpopulation

The thing with better technology and education, I'm all for, don't get me wrong, and future projections also predict that things will get better for a lot of people, but this will also worsen the situation: the demand for water and energy will increase further. The number of cars will double to 1.7 billion in 2035. China's emissions will be greater than these of OECD in 2035. The diversity of the oil supply will decrease, MENA, an unstable region will be the main provider for oil so there's the danger for more "energy wars". We can't use any more conflict in the region. The demand for coal will increase, coal having the worst CO2 emissions. Investing in renewable energy will be necessary but this is expensive. Countries might look more in the direction of nuclear energy, but there's always the danger of accidents like Fukushima, not to mention what to do with the waste, and the danger of nuclear weapons getting into the wrong hands.

I don't think it's a myth that it's a problem, though I don't believe we are doomed. Water issues are not a problem of supply but are often a political problem or a problem of water management. With regard to energy, switching to a different energy system will be necessary. In the best case, there will be a transition period of relying more on natural gas and then we should really start to invest in the renewables more and more. The problem is that politicians with their temporary position, often invest more in short term solutions as they won't be around anymore anyway to deal with the long term consequences. The public isn't informed enough to know it's going to pieces if we don't do anything about it. So not much is happening.

Government investment sucks, and all the companies they support seem to go bankrupt. If our energy needs are going to be met, it will probably come from technology being developed in the private sectors. Everyone knows we will need to make the switch so there is a lot of pressure on people to be the ones to come up with and perfect the energy technologies that we need.

I think we will definitely get there, and we will get the energy we need. What I am uncertain about is how smoothly the transition is going to be. Are we going to seamlessly switch from oil to renewables? Or are we going to milk oil for all its worth, face a huge shortage, watch our economies get destroyed then finally get into high gear to finish perfecting and deploying mass renewable energy systems?

One could argue that we are already there, and facing some of the issues coming from the energy problems. So we might make the switch the hard way.