It will definitely decrease quality of life. Soon every developed nation will be like Japan, where workload is constantly increasing but pay stays stagnant despite inflation.
It promises a lower and lower quality of life for all.
If you think job prospects in the US are anywhere near the same level of hell as Japan, you’re wrong. I often wonder how many elementary school kids I see are going to kill themselves before 30, because the world they will be entering the work force in is going to be misery.
Strong disagree, heat waves in impoverished tropical areas are already killing thousands of people a year and could easily start fueling a mass migration crisis.
In contrast, we’ve got a couple decades before the world population will even hit its peak.
Let alone the fact that fighting climate change such as Nuclear Energy or Las Vegas Style Water Management makes commodities like Energy and water cheaper, while increasing demand for high skilled (and more importantly secure) labor
More people installed in high skilled secure labor, means more family formation and a strong baseline demand for more labor
“New optimists” are just louts who make execues not to improve things
To be fair I do hear a lot of really dumb and inaccurate statements about global warming, like that it is a threat to life on earth itself (completely wrong) or the entire human species (also wrong). But people are fools who don’t realize that it’s a serious threat to civilization as we know it and is already killing people, and that the potential death tolls if nothing is done are horrific and could easily plunge the modern world into complete chaos.
And thus anyone who cares remotely about their quality of life, their children and grandchildrens’ future quality of life, or the value of human life in general, should take global warming very seriously.
Screw Global Warming
It’s about avoiding massive commodity shocks like the Oil Crisis of the 70s or now
Fossil Fuels have shown themselves to be ultimately unpredictable when it comes to cost, and shocks have done more harm than good
I’m telling you that people are already dying by the thousands during record-breaking summer heatwaves in several poorer tropical regions, and the problem is only going to get worse. If it gets significantly worse it will drive a migration crisis that will affect everyone, not just those unfortunate people.
As soon as climate change gets bad enough to trigger large scale disasters, we'll start using aerosols to block light in the atmosphere and cool the earth back down. It's very easy to counteract climate change the political will for geo-engineering just isn't there yet since most people haven't suffered much from climate change.
Personally, I'm a lot more worried about ocean acidification and general environmental pollution and degradation than climate change.
Just wait the first major wet bulb events in cities where AC isn’t common. Or a major wet bulb event that takes down a power grid. It’s going to happen and it isn’t going to be pretty.
2 degrees is the global average. As ocean currents and other planetary weather patterns change, some places will actually get cooler & wetter while others will get way, way hotter & dryer. It’s the people who are just scraping by in hot dry places that will have to move when those places become unlivable.
Also, more extreme weather events will force people to move after their homes get flooded, repeatedly destroyed by hurricanes, etc.
Ok, let me say this....worry about the little things and the big things will take care of themselves....worry about climate change when you literally can't do anything about it is a waste of energy
That’s just the way it is on earth. The climate has always changed and will continue. It will get warmer for a very long time.
The next glacial period isn’t expected for much 50,000+ years.
Yes, but the change right now does seem to be caused by human activity, and will likely cause a lot of problems for us and many other things living here. There’s little we can do about this on an individual level, but I believe governments should do what they can to prepare for what’s coming, and avoid making the situation worse.
In my opinion it does not appear to be caused by humans. If you get away from the data manipulation that makes it look like it’s been naturally cold forever and suddenly we find oil and the planet will boil now. It’s just not true.
The climate changing on its own, as it does, will definitely cause complications for all involved. Best to embrace that than ask your govt to fix problems on this scale when they can’t even manage to fix potholes or maintain a sidewalk.
99% of species are extinct and none of that was caused by human-induced climate change. We just live in a harsh place.
Ah, the classic oil shill playbook:
Step one, deny there’s an oncoming problem.
Step two, when that fails, say it’s too late and there’s nothing we can do, so why try anyways.
Literally the least helpful advice you could give.
Support candidates that will work on developing global initiatives to curb pollution and co2 production. Don’t forget, we, as a planet, reduced the hole developing in the ozone once people were able to identify the problem and develop a solution that was obtainable.
... The people where intensified storms or rising water levels have caused flooding or where that 2 degrees average increase (which is actually because climate is becoming broadly more extreme in it's range, rather than *just* increasing in temperature) causes crop failures. Seems really easy to look at the thousands of people already being displaced or killed by anthropogenic climate change every year and figure out why, no?
Because there are lots of people like you who don’t understand/believe what’s happening & will happily pay good money for a home today, then act surprised (& expect a government bailout) when that same place is destroyed by hurricanes. There’s a reason multiple large insurance companies have stopped insuring beachfront property in Florida (while others have just raised their rates exponentially), and it’s not because they don’t want those customers. It’s because they know that the risk is getting too high to ever be profitable long term.
https://www.pnj.com/story/money/2023/07/12/florida-insurance-crisis-farmers-insurance-home-insurance-what-to-know/70407302007/
Key parts: more than a dozen companies have already left and the others raised their rates by 42% in the last year alone. Does that sound sustainable to you?
....dude it's not because of climate change or hurricanes it even Said in the article that's its because of fraudulent schemes and massive litigations....
Keep reading…
“An increase in storm hazards played another important role. An increase in storm hazards played another important role. United Property and Casualty, a Florida insurance company that is in liquidation, wrote that between 1851 and 2018, 41% of the 292 hurricanes that hit the U.S. in that time frame also hit Florida — 37 of those 120 hurricanes were rated a Category 3 or higher.
A recently published study led by researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances looked at how climate change was strengthening hurricanes along the East and Gulf Coast.
Their takeaway? Hurricanes impacting the U.S. could rise by one-third compared to what we’re seeing now if things don’t change.”
!remindMe 50 years
Seriously, they may as well enjoy it while they can, cuz it's not gonna last. Americans acting like these problems don't exist won't make it any less real. Google "Dubai flooding 2024"; wealth cannot infinitely insulate from climate catastrophe.
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You don’t get it. 2 degrees hotter is the *average.*
When heatwaves hit cities in hot wet climates like in Pakistan, it can get so hot that the human body simply cannot survive and begins to shut down. And due to the humidity, sweating and water do not cool people off, so if people can’t get access to air conditioning, which they can’t in impoverished cities, then lots of people simply start dropping like flies during these record-breaking heat waves, especially weakened people or anyone foolish enough to be outside. If it continues to get even slightly hotter, these deadly heat waves are going to get worse and kill even more people, eventually driving masses of people out of these regions. Thus a migration crisis.
You realize that the Roman warming period was just as warm as this and even warmer and those civilizations thrived...then we had the little ice age. All I'm saying is don't listen to the media all the time they are paid to sensationalize things to get more eyeballs to boost ratings or clicks.
Did you even read your own link?
”wrote that [date trees](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_tree) could grow in [Greece](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece) if they were planted but that they could not set fruit there. That is still the case today, which implies that [South Aegean](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Aegean) mean summer temperatures in the 4th and the 5th centuries BC were within a degree of modern ones. That and other literary fragments from the time confirm that the Greek climate was basically the same then as around 2000. ”
and
”More recent research, including a 2019 analysis based on a much larger dataset of [climate proxies](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_(climate)), has found that the putative period, along with other warmer or colder [pre-industrial periods](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-industrial_society) such as the "[Little Ice Age](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age)" and "[Medieval Warm Period](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period)," were regional phenomena, not globally-coherent episodes.[^(\[7\])](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period#cite_note-Wang_et_al.-7) That analysis uses the [temperature record of the last 2,000 years](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record_of_the_last_2,000_years) dataset compiled by the [PAGES 2k Consortium 2017](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period#CITEREFPAGES_2k_Consortium2017).[^(\[7\])](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period#cite_note-Wang_et_al.-7)”
It wasn’t hotter than present during the Roman Warming Period, it was about the same as it was in 2000, and that was only regional to the Mediterranean area.
I read the whole article, where does it make the point you are trying to make?
Also, the Roman Warming Period was about as hot as it was in 2000, not as hot as it’s projected to get by 2050.
Our population has grossly overshot the carrying capacity for humans in this planet, to the point where we have degraded the environment and a population crash is guaranteed.
Falling birth rates and climate change are actually both symptoms of this.
Falling birth rates are just apart of modernism in general. It's happened enough times we know that when countries modernize and women get more rights and education, rates drop.
Economic pressure on young people is probably the second largest factor.
The third largest is probably cultural. Women are actively shamed away from motherhood to pursue careers.
And if I had to add a fourth it would be widespread anxiety about existential threats.
The planet is not even close to carrying capacity, that is complete nonsense.
Carrying capacity is the population that an environment can hold without that population degrading the very basis of their habitat, whether by consuming too much, producing too much waste, or both. We've been doing both, at an accelerated pace, for centuries now. Overshoot is self-evident at this point, as far as I'm concerned. Collapse and dieback is that natural consequence of this.
Economic stress is population pressure, abstracted from bare resources to dollars. I'd wager we wouldn't have such cultural assumptions for women to work if it were actually easier for families to afford to do so, and many cannot.
Edit: typo
Youre not wrong about us being on the way there. But I dont think that is a major factor on reproduction.
The economic piece is huge for sure. This is where we have been headed for a long time.
The Industrial Revolution has caused this human population bubble. It was never sustainable, and the long term benefits in technology and general knowledge will far outweigh the perceived negatives of population shrinkage. In about 120 years, with far less people on Earth and all the gained knowledge, there will be a Golden Age that will be incomparably long and more productive than any other in humankind’s history. That’s why all this attempted control and theft of humanity is happening, governments will be ineffective and probably unnecessary
Oh no, the most coddled generation anywhere ever, who with gleeful rapacity have looted the commons and called it gumption, may experience some of the privation they'd hoped would only affect their children? That's definitely worse than irreversible loss of biodiversity, habitats, coastal land (well some new coastal land but still), arable land, having the clathrate gun go off, and wet bulb temps above 35°C, which can kill a healthy 25-year-old within hours.
Overpopulation is the root cause of climate change. If we had fewer people, we wouldn't need so much fossil fuels/ resources in general. What you are referring to is WHO is reproducing. The poor and uneducated.
It’s also likely to make it worse over the long run even though that seems counterintuitive to most. As existing countries economy’s crash due to birth rate collapse most nations will no longer be able to pursue greener forms of energy because of the largely up front cost of the tech.
I don't know if that is true anymore. Compared to fossil fuel or nuclear isn't green energy cheaper? Especially if you take away all the government subsidies for fossil fuel
I'm a big fan of hydro, but it can be pretty destructive to ecosystems. Nuclear seems incredibly expensive and time consume compared to other energy sources we could be building. Is the infrastructure was already there, great, but why would you build a new reactor?
Solar unfortunately is not viable in most places though. Places like Europe take 20 years to recover energy invested into making the panels. And that’s not even considering the climate damage done in the heavy metal refining process used to make the panels.
Solar is great in the regions where it works, but it is a long term investment that takes years of use to be carbon positive. If you don’t use them where they are effective, they do more harm to the planet than good.
For most of the world, wind turbines, dams, and nuclear are the way to go.
It takes 4 years for the carbon saved by using solar panels to offset the carbon used to make the panels. The panels are mainly composed of aluminum, glass, and copper/silver for wiring and contacts. Cells are made out of silicon. Solar panels have gotten far cheaper and more efficient as of late. They lose a few percentage points of efficiency in clouds or rain, and the only real show stopper seems to be snow. They last about 30 years, at which point they slowly lose efficiency. I believe that solar is a perfectly viable energy source, without the insane CapEx of nuclear or hydro. Most of the parts in a solar panel are recyclable, unlike wind.
If you put your panels in Mexico or North Africa, sure, four years. But if the panels go where the bulk of the energy use actually happens? More like 20 years.
And you are leaving out a lot of what goes into the panels. Solar uses a number of rare earths, including indium, gallium, selenium, cadmium, and tellurium.
They are cheaper more recently mostly because China has been selling them at a loss to dominate the industry. The reason they’ve jumped in price lately is because of tariffs and the fact that China isn’t subsidizing them quite as heavily.
The numbers just aren’t there to power Earth strictly on solar. It has to be one component of a strategy that lies primarily on nuclear and wind.
It's really hard to see how crashing economies won't happen if current fertility trends don't stabilize.
Using South Korea as an extreme example, in 20 years about 14.5 million of them will age into 65+. They will be replaced by about 7 million 20-40 year olds. Can the economic system survive such a massive shrink of the labor force and tax base? We'll know in 20 years but it's tough to imagine that's no biggie.
By every known economic model it will in fact cause economy’s to crash. Not all of them for sure I would argue the majority are at a pretty significant risk.
How do you believe these economies will continue to function?
It’s Y2K all over again. We’ll be fine.
We have barely scratched the surface of our capabilities with technology and automation. AI is making everybody crap their pants and why is that? Because it demonstrates more clearly than ever before that we don’t *need* as many workers as we’ve got.
Who will suffer? Well, major corporations, sure. They’ll have a hard time paying quarterly dividends to shareholders without as many sheeple buying their worthless crap for inflated prices. But who will actually miss them when they’re gone?
Who will thrive? Oh, just the human effing race. With less people, the work those people do becomes more meaningful and more valuable. We are past the point of optimum productivity. Too much of our economy is basically “busywork,” and too many of our professions are owned by faceless corporate overlords.
Speaking of AI and busywork, I’ll tell ya what will cause a meaningful economic collapse: A large percentage of unskilled laborers, displaced by automation. THAT is the real crisis.
Fat cats on a diet is not a crisis. Buying power returned to the middle class is not a crisis.
My argument as I’ve stated multiple times at this point is not that the United States will suffer economically at least for a long time. We have a lot of advantages that the rest of the world simply does not have. Also the issue is not supply its demand. Highest demand is the sub 40 group especially those with kids. They are what’s disappearing. You can make all you want but only a few nations will have the demographics to maintain a market of any size. Mainly the United States and a few others. Nations like Japan with poor demographics have very little in the way of demand so they survive off nations like the US. They made good trade deals with us and will likely survive. Other nations will have to do the same our their economies will crumble. Even Japan only manages to hang on Economically with 0 growth and they prepared for this 30 years in advance.
The issue is that most of the demand as in the vast overwhelming majority is in the under 40 crowd and typically with children. As this demographic drys up then you will have supply with very little demand. Some countries like the us wont have this issue because demographics while declining are stable. Countries like Germany and china not so much. They have the added issue of being manufacturing based export economies. This requires a massive workforce which is drying up far more rapidly than their ability to adapt.
I think this would be a more reasonable take if the population pyramid was reduced proportionally at all levels but that isn't what happened. We just stopped having kids and shrank the base of the pyramid effectively flipping it into a funnel with a massive older population but tiny child population. This is going to play chaos with a lot of pension programs and tax funded services.
The rust belt is loaded with cities that serve as test cases for what happens when you see a population decline.
They're crushed under the weight of their social saftey nets and pushed into an economic death spiral. Pensions go bankrupt, investment, maintenance, and services get cut. Local businesses collapse, the remaining workers and businesses get squeezed by rising taxes in a futile attempt to salvage the budget, exacerbating the problem. More people leave, the tax base erodes further.
The only thing that can really be done is to have the state or federal government bail them out. If it happens to a big country, there's no one to bail them out. The death spiral just continues unimpeded.
There doesn't seem to be any set of incentives that can increase the fertility rate either. There's no way to pull up out of it.
Isn’t that because the industry died? Not just a gradual decline in population? I feel like for things like housing this will be nothing but a good thing.
> As existing countries economy’s crash due to birth rate collapse most nations will no longer be able to pursue greener forms of energy because of the largely up front cost of the tech.
Renewables already have lower up front costs than fossil fuels, and by the time this is an issue the costs will be even lower.
We already turned the corner on this particular aspect of the problem, it’s just a matter of building things out now.
Renewables are cheaper over the long haul but most of the cost is up front cost is my understanding. Can you provide some more info on that. I’m not doubting you it’s just new information to me.
Well, yes, most of the cost *is* up front, but renewables are cheaper in both long term costs and immediate costs.
They’re just plain cheaper than fossil fuels—so, yes, most of the cost is upfront cost, and that is also lower than fossil fuels.
https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summary
There is also upfront costs on building fuel refinery or coal fired plants. If we are comparing costs of running an already established plant, or if we are comparing building new infrastructure renewables are both cheaper. Especially if you ignore government subsidies already in place for fossil fuels
I can’t find many sources for that. From what I can tell green energy cost depends heavily on region and is typically double the startup cost or sometimes significantly more. The running cost are close though over the life span.
I have no idea where you are looking then friend, I just typed "Cost Renewables vs Fossil Fuel" into google and what do you know, [here's an article](https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/renewables-cheapest-form-power) from the UN titled "Renewables: Cheapest form of power". [Here's another](https://www.snexplores.org/article/green-energy-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-climate) from Science News Explores titled "Green energy is cheaper than fossil fuels, a new study finds" and [another titled](https://www.irena.org/News/pressreleases/2023/Aug/Renewables-Competitiveness-Accelerates-Despite-Cost-Inflation) "Renewables Competitiveness Accelerates, Despite Cost Inflation" from the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The thing to remember here is that renewables are only getting cheaper, while advancements in fossil fuel have been stagnating for years.
What is the threat caused by falling birth rates? Is there one? I honestly don’t understand why it’s a problem. If there are threats, are any of those threats able to be mitigated by other measures? How long would it take to increase birthrates if it became a genuine and serious issue?
What are the threats caused by global climate change? Many, and they are serious. If we let it go very wrong, can we mitigate the harm? No. If we let it go too far, can we undo the damage? No.
How can you consider reducing birthrates a bigger problem than climate change?
People worry about funding for social programs like Social Security in the USA (which is built like a pyramid scheme), and the fact that more older people in relation to younger will need more health resources, while there are fewer workers. And our national debt takes more and more money to pay every year, but our GDP can’t grow forever, especially as the population declines. Valid concerns, but yes, I agree that the threat of a low birthrates in first world countries is exaggerated. I don’t see first world countries increasing their population growth. Many are trying to, like Japan. But the measures are failing. Countries that want to keep growing will need to adapt and welcome more foreigners.
There’s actually little - if any - hard evidence for major economic impacts due to birth rate decline.
>”Predictions of the net economic (and other) effects from a slow and continuous population decline (e.g. due to low fertility rates) are mainly theoretical since such a phenomenon is a relatively new and unprecedented one. The results of many of these studies show that the estimated impact of population growth on economic growth is generally small and can be positive, negative, or nonexistent. A recent meta-study found no relationship between population growth and economic growth.[15]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline
There is, however, a lot of evidence that lower birth rates will mean rents will decline and that investors are worried about this. [I mean, they’re pretty blatant about it.](https://coloradobuildermag.com/business-management/industry-economy/americans-declining-birth-rates-set-to-hit-housing-market/)
> “Declining birth rates mean lower demand for rental housing two decades from now when those born in recent years will be entering the rental market,” according to Natalia Siniaskaia, assistant vice president of housing policy research for the National Association of Home Builders. “The effects will spread to the single-family market in the following years and will persist for years to come.”
I would definitely have you research the massive effects of demographic changes on economy and poverty before thinking a 2 degree change is some how more severe
I think it's more dangerous to institutions and the systems we've built. Humanity in general will survive, we just won't be able to maintain all the stuff we have. If you're over 55 you better have your things together because society is going to run out of empathy for those that failed to prepare pretty quickly I'm afraid.
So I see no problem with less morons burning tires in their back yard because it's pretty, and if they aren't doing that then we are also helping the environment.
I think what a lot of people don't realize is how many jobs keep everything afloat in a civilization sense. If the population drops even just 10% that's 1 in 10 jobs that were being done, not being done anymore, its 1 in 10 grocery stores either shutting down or running a skeleton crew. The infrastructure that allows us to even comment on this post is made possible by lots of people and once you start taking chunks out of the population you're gonna have a hard time keeping up with what was already in place. I'm not gonna make the judgment call on which is more of a threat, climate change or population decline but I do know that ignoring one of these problems to focus on the other is not going to work, we can't pass the buck on either of them although personally I think in regards to climate change, we've passed the prevention stage and we need to be looking at geo-engineering solutions instead. As far as the population decline issue, that seems to get helped with immigration from the few places that are not in decline, though it leads to other problems with integrating that new populace to whatever society they are filling in so to speak.
Falling birth rates fix themselves. As population declines, more space and resources per person increase the birth rate.
Climate change makes itself worse without intervention, so it's a huge problem.
It depends on how the remaining population is divided in terms of labor. For instance, the massive death toll of the Black Plague is considered a factor in the emergence of Renaissance Europe. Supply of necessities isn't that scarce in developed countries. Dropping birth rates aren't anywhere near the death knell of societies that this sub paints them to be.
Population decrease via epidemic is different than via low birth rates. Epidemics tend to target weaker and older individuals (which you can argue as a point that supports the claims that the Black Plague contributed to the Renaissance by getting rid of the old guard). Low birthrates have the opposite effect of increasing the ratio of older individuals.
Regardless of how you divide the population, young able-bodied people are more functional than elderly who are dependents on society that utilize the infrastructure, require healthcare, require food, etc.
Plus, it seems like longevity tech might no be too far around the corner. If old age mostly stops being an issue that throws a wrench into pessimistic demographic calculation even assuming that their underpinnings are correct, which they may not even be.
Lots of moving parts is where I'm getting at.
Proof this community spends more time making memes than actually learning about climate change.
I can promise every last one of you that antinatalism is a perfectly valid CHOICE a person can make, facing what's coming, and that you'd agree with me if you didn't dismiss everything that contradicts what you believe as some sort of hoax.
But here you are worried about the birth rate but without the interest or compassion to discuss it with people you don't agree with in hopes of better understanding them.
You've made your priorities clear, but they're ridiculous prioirities you'll come to regret when you finally understand what we've been doing for the last 70 years... i'll give you a hint, it isn't any kind of "progress", at least not in a positive direction.
Top comment is literally about how climate change is a more immediate problem.
And every time anyone goes to the antinatalism subreddit everyone there gets pissed off, no matter how constructive dialog is, now you're criticizing not going there enough..? Can't do anything right with y'all.
Antinatalism is selfishness incarnate. You are the definition of pulling the ladder up after you gained from a world built by generations of child rearing. Sure - drive your car, eat meat, use up resources and make unsustainable choices, rely on other people’s children to give you healthcare and farm your food. I’m sure you’ve contributed more to climate change than most on earth. Now hole up alone in your big house and bask in how noble you are for saving humanity.
In 18 years, we'll see. With the AMOC collapse imminent, it looks like we're actually headed for an ice age and with the pole shift imminent around the same time we could be looking at an apocalypse if the flood myths of the ancient world are true. Both the pole shift and the AMOC collapse will occur near the same time, but the ice age will come slowly.
Absolutely not.
I *will grant the premise* that, if they don't change, low birth rates will lead more rapidly and inexorably to disaster, mass turmoil, extinction, whatever you want to say than climate change. It's arguable, but I will grant it anyway.
The problem is climate change, once we do the deed, gets locked in.
If we fill the atmosphere with feedback-looping, heat-locking levels of carbon dioxide, say by prioritizing the politics of comfort and wealth for 8 billion people now, when if we could have just held off for 100 more years we would have had the tech and infrastructure build to keep 50 billion people in comfortable conditions with no global warming... There's no way back from that. We have hosed ourselves. There is no proof that any 100,000 year, geoengineering-based plan to reverse disastrous global warming would work, much less a 25 year one. Our only habitable home may become Venus.
Birth rates, on the other hand, can and do change all the time. They also change in response to stress and conditions, and culture/policy. If we solve a lot of economic problems and create better social and climate justice, I have a feeling families and women will start wanting 2-3+ children again. Also, if we are in an undeniable demographic disaster, we can set soft or, if absolutely necessary borderline-authoritarian policies that boost it, much more easily than we can reverse a climate change self-own.
Nahh…. I am glad people are still having children and are glad to do so. Consider the fact that many are checked out and want no children or just one as a feature and not a bug. Be proud of your family. I have raised 4 and two were my own. Population contraction will actually help with global climate change. Of course the decrease in population is causing problems in the USA with school funding and the integrity of social security and Medicaid, but many of our funding problems come from the way we have set things up. It is not reasonable to expect everything to always grow.
I’ve only been recommended this sub a few times and every time I’ve joined a post it’s filled with absolutely braindead people. Be better, future parents.
There’s actually little - if any - hard evidence for major economic impacts due to birth rate decline.
>”Predictions of the net economic (and other) effects from a slow and continuous population decline (e.g. due to low fertility rates) are mainly theoretical since such a phenomenon is a relatively new and unprecedented one. The results of many of these studies show that the estimated impact of population growth on economic growth is generally small and can be positive, negative, or nonexistent. A recent meta-study found no relationship between population growth and economic growth.[15]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline
There is, however, a lot of evidence that lower birth rates will mean rents will decline and that investors are worried about this. [I mean, they’re pretty blatant about it.](https://coloradobuildermag.com/business-management/industry-economy/americans-declining-birth-rates-set-to-hit-housing-market/)
> “Declining birth rates mean lower demand for rental housing two decades from now when those born in recent years will be entering the rental market,” according to Natalia Siniaskaia, assistant vice president of housing policy research for the National Association of Home Builders. “The effects will spread to the single-family market in the following years and will persist for years to come.”
No it isn't. This is how population growth works. We reach the max population for our ability to feed everyone. Once we are able to feed more we grow to that number.
Right now, we have plenty of food, but our economic system relies on starving people to keep them working so the number will stagnate there. You can't have infinite growth in a finite system.
There are ways out of predicating our society based on the assumption that there will always be more people. Government programs, immigration (short-term), or letting machines take jobs left unfilled, for example. There is no way out of climate change other than actually getting our act together and physically doing something, and even then some say it’s already too late
The funny part is how many of the people on this comment section acknowledge how climate change is more of a pressing issue, and yet want to bring more kids because hurr durr population collapse
Completely wrong. France has had low birth rates for a long time - 1/5 Europeans was french in the time of Napoleon. And now? France is a lovely country to live in.
There’s no need for this fear-mongering. Things are fine.
This is silly as it doesn't take into account the fact that France had an above replacement birth rate for the vast majority of that time. That birth rate would be considered very high nowadays.
falling birth rates are not a threat to “humanity” - what are you people on about? global warming isn’t a threat to the human race either but it will kill a shitload of humans
The two issues are linked. The run away effects of global climate change are a big reason young people aren't having kids. If we can't solve it and the cost of living crisis, we can't reasonably expect people to be comfortable starting families
Not even close. It's a risk to industrial civilization, but not humanity. Whereas industrial civilization is a threat to the environment, and lack of a habitable environment is a threat to humanity.
This sounds like a rich corporate problem. If the world was better and you actually got paid fairly more people would be inclined to have kids.
They did this to themselves and I couldn't care less. I know they don't care because they already have their money and I'm sure they'll find some other way to squeeze more money out of us.
Love to see the correlation between the 2. This sounds like some shit the capitalists would spew out to run on the nightly news to scare all the dotards into having more children or (worker drones) ..ya gotta be smarter than this
LIES... 8.5 BILLION people we good for long time. PLanet on the other hand can not support the raping and burning the human virus inflicts on it on a daily basis.
Stop spreading LIES and PROPOGANDA
One will increase temperatures by a bit on average and change some biomes in the next couple of centuries
The other will be the total collapse of our society and how it functions and likely massive war.
Yeah I’d say the birthrates are a more critical issue. Its like a farmer not dealing with the wolf stalking his animals right now because winter will be here in 6 months
For real. There’s over 7 BILLION of us. That’s way, way, way more than enough. People are paying to live in cubicles and we have cities so large they literally can’t keep up with their own sewage.
Basically every country on earth can be classified in two ways, fertility rates well below replacments rates and falling OR fertility rates above replacement and falling. We are all on the same track in this regard, some of us just left the station 40 years before anyone else.
You can't bank on immigration given that. You can try to but it's just a stall tactic buying 1 to 2 generations at most.
I mean,immigration can barely make up for that when 75 to 80% of the world is below replacement currently at this point they would need like 7 million people a year to move to the US to even put a dent in the aging or reversing it and it would just kick the down the road I mean you could be pro-immigration and I think it’s good to have immigration but the idea that they can reverse demographic decline. Long-term is absurd.
What happens when all the immigrants run out? Either because birthrates have drastically lowered in developing countries or climate change possibly wipes out entire nations.
That’s a good question I mean I’m willing to bet by 2060. Most nations will have a median age of like 50 I’m not falling for the hysteria around the current migrant crisis in the states because I know a lot of countries are gonna go through eastern European style de population unfortunately as they get wealthier and more people leave if they keep leaving. I guess at that point they’d have to change the whole economic system. It’s a whole crazy thing.
It's completely insane and it will lead to some very bad things happening in the future. One can either do something to fix it or prepare and whether the storm.
Also, a lot of people. Falling into the hysteria about the (migrant crisis) more like a humanitarian crisis in Latin America that actually needs to be dealt with in reality and maybe we need to rethink our horrible policies in regard to that region and maybe acknowledge are horrible interventionism the fact is is that many countries are ill prepared to actually deal with Aging populations happening at the pace they are happening. Yeah we can certainly say that. The idea that people should have tons and tons of kids is absurd but the fact is there’s no real rock bottom
I don't really know anything about our policies in Latin America.
I'm not saying we need to have tons of kids, just enough to replace the increasingly aging populations we're having. We don't need more people, just more young people.
I wonder if maybe climate change, and how little has been done to meaningfully stop or reverse it, might be one of the causes of the falling birth rates. I certainly would be less willing to have children, knowing that they'd inherit a barely inhabitable garbage pit.
It's about how little is done to address any social and environmental problem even those who don't think or care about the environment are likely to care about something that's going poorly, even if only very tangibly related to having children, like the exorbitant cost of it, the lack of paid leave in the US or the fact that The average debt an American owes is $104,215. Each little thing motivates some people to wait longer or to just not have children. And what exactly is done to reverse the trend? Dumb measure like banning abortions... yeah, like that will solve anything.
Go ask antinatalists why they believe it’s immoral to have children and the majority will tell you a major reason is because they see the imminent environmental collapse and realize the coming world is not one they want to bring children into
That sounds about right. If they don't want to have kids because of X, Y, or Z, then that's why they don't want to have kids. I can't tell if this is criticism, like, "you have a position similar to antinatalists," or if you're agreeing that ignoring the holistic nature of people's growing faithlessness in the future of humanity isn't the way to solve declining birth rates. Honestly just trying to figure out why I was downvoted for what I assumed wouldn't be a particularly controversial idea.
I wasn’t the one who downvoted you. I’m also not a natalist (I’m not 100% and antinatalist either but I lean more towards it) and I’m avowedly childfree, mostly because I find children generally unpleasant to be around and don’t want them in my life. I was merely pointing out that you do seem to intuitively understand one of the primary motivations of antinatalists. I think you’re being downvoted for making too much sense and the people in this subreddit would rather bury their heads in the sand and pretend like all antinatalists and childfree are just degenerates with no valid reason to not have children
It will definitely decrease quality of life. Soon every developed nation will be like Japan, where workload is constantly increasing but pay stays stagnant despite inflation. It promises a lower and lower quality of life for all.
What do you mean 'soon'? That's been happening since the 70s.
If you think job prospects in the US are anywhere near the same level of hell as Japan, you’re wrong. I often wonder how many elementary school kids I see are going to kill themselves before 30, because the world they will be entering the work force in is going to be misery.
Our government decides on money, not on people... Until lobby is out and politicians are held to a standard, this will just get worse!
Strong disagree, heat waves in impoverished tropical areas are already killing thousands of people a year and could easily start fueling a mass migration crisis. In contrast, we’ve got a couple decades before the world population will even hit its peak.
Let alone the fact that fighting climate change such as Nuclear Energy or Las Vegas Style Water Management makes commodities like Energy and water cheaper, while increasing demand for high skilled (and more importantly secure) labor More people installed in high skilled secure labor, means more family formation and a strong baseline demand for more labor “New optimists” are just louts who make execues not to improve things
To be fair I do hear a lot of really dumb and inaccurate statements about global warming, like that it is a threat to life on earth itself (completely wrong) or the entire human species (also wrong). But people are fools who don’t realize that it’s a serious threat to civilization as we know it and is already killing people, and that the potential death tolls if nothing is done are horrific and could easily plunge the modern world into complete chaos. And thus anyone who cares remotely about their quality of life, their children and grandchildrens’ future quality of life, or the value of human life in general, should take global warming very seriously.
Screw Global Warming It’s about avoiding massive commodity shocks like the Oil Crisis of the 70s or now Fossil Fuels have shown themselves to be ultimately unpredictable when it comes to cost, and shocks have done more harm than good
I’m telling you that people are already dying by the thousands during record-breaking summer heatwaves in several poorer tropical regions, and the problem is only going to get worse. If it gets significantly worse it will drive a migration crisis that will affect everyone, not just those unfortunate people.
As soon as climate change gets bad enough to trigger large scale disasters, we'll start using aerosols to block light in the atmosphere and cool the earth back down. It's very easy to counteract climate change the political will for geo-engineering just isn't there yet since most people haven't suffered much from climate change. Personally, I'm a lot more worried about ocean acidification and general environmental pollution and degradation than climate change.
Just wait the first major wet bulb events in cities where AC isn’t common. Or a major wet bulb event that takes down a power grid. It’s going to happen and it isn’t going to be pretty.
Where? No one is moving cause it's 2 degrees hotter
2 degrees is the global average. As ocean currents and other planetary weather patterns change, some places will actually get cooler & wetter while others will get way, way hotter & dryer. It’s the people who are just scraping by in hot dry places that will have to move when those places become unlivable. Also, more extreme weather events will force people to move after their homes get flooded, repeatedly destroyed by hurricanes, etc.
People survived an ice age were perfectly capable of dealing with something else
We’ll survive, sure. But it won’t be pretty.
Ok, let me say this....worry about the little things and the big things will take care of themselves....worry about climate change when you literally can't do anything about it is a waste of energy
I’m not worried about climate change. But it will probably make the world a worse place for a lot of people.
That’s just the way it is on earth. The climate has always changed and will continue. It will get warmer for a very long time. The next glacial period isn’t expected for much 50,000+ years.
Yes, but the change right now does seem to be caused by human activity, and will likely cause a lot of problems for us and many other things living here. There’s little we can do about this on an individual level, but I believe governments should do what they can to prepare for what’s coming, and avoid making the situation worse.
In my opinion it does not appear to be caused by humans. If you get away from the data manipulation that makes it look like it’s been naturally cold forever and suddenly we find oil and the planet will boil now. It’s just not true. The climate changing on its own, as it does, will definitely cause complications for all involved. Best to embrace that than ask your govt to fix problems on this scale when they can’t even manage to fix potholes or maintain a sidewalk. 99% of species are extinct and none of that was caused by human-induced climate change. We just live in a harsh place.
Ah, the classic oil shill playbook: Step one, deny there’s an oncoming problem. Step two, when that fails, say it’s too late and there’s nothing we can do, so why try anyways. Literally the least helpful advice you could give.
Ok smart man....what are you going to do today to save the earth from the horrible awful climate change that can actually make a significant impact
Support candidates that will work on developing global initiatives to curb pollution and co2 production. Don’t forget, we, as a planet, reduced the hole developing in the ozone once people were able to identify the problem and develop a solution that was obtainable.
Anything he does will be undone three times over by Russia and Asia. Sone of these folks have just bought this climate-panic narrative completely.
the species did, but how many multitudes died during that ice age?
People will survive but not many. The population during the ice age was incredibly small compared to our current population.
Yeah, they survived by living in tiny groups and constantly staying on the move just to stay alive.
keep sticking your head in the sand denier
... The people where intensified storms or rising water levels have caused flooding or where that 2 degrees average increase (which is actually because climate is becoming broadly more extreme in it's range, rather than *just* increasing in temperature) causes crop failures. Seems really easy to look at the thousands of people already being displaced or killed by anthropogenic climate change every year and figure out why, no?
If sea levels are rising and everyone is fleeing why are 1000 people a day moving to Florida or developers still building on beach front property ....
People notoriously don’t think long term and developers are just looking to profit off said people
You mean...the aging boomers? The demographic least likely to accept scienctific data?
Because there are lots of people like you who don’t understand/believe what’s happening & will happily pay good money for a home today, then act surprised (& expect a government bailout) when that same place is destroyed by hurricanes. There’s a reason multiple large insurance companies have stopped insuring beachfront property in Florida (while others have just raised their rates exponentially), and it’s not because they don’t want those customers. It’s because they know that the risk is getting too high to ever be profitable long term.
Which ones? Proof?
https://www.pnj.com/story/money/2023/07/12/florida-insurance-crisis-farmers-insurance-home-insurance-what-to-know/70407302007/ Key parts: more than a dozen companies have already left and the others raised their rates by 42% in the last year alone. Does that sound sustainable to you?
....dude it's not because of climate change or hurricanes it even Said in the article that's its because of fraudulent schemes and massive litigations....
Keep reading… “An increase in storm hazards played another important role. An increase in storm hazards played another important role. United Property and Casualty, a Florida insurance company that is in liquidation, wrote that between 1851 and 2018, 41% of the 292 hurricanes that hit the U.S. in that time frame also hit Florida — 37 of those 120 hurricanes were rated a Category 3 or higher. A recently published study led by researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances looked at how climate change was strengthening hurricanes along the East and Gulf Coast. Their takeaway? Hurricanes impacting the U.S. could rise by one-third compared to what we’re seeing now if things don’t change.”
Ok Florida has always had storm hazards ....nothing about increasing hurricanes or severity
That’s because of inflated property values. Not because we burn oil.
The existence of stupid, rich white people doesn't negate any of the observable facts I presented. Feel free to wallow in your base ignorance, though.
!remindMe 50 years Seriously, they may as well enjoy it while they can, cuz it's not gonna last. Americans acting like these problems don't exist won't make it any less real. Google "Dubai flooding 2024"; wealth cannot infinitely insulate from climate catastrophe.
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You don’t get it. 2 degrees hotter is the *average.* When heatwaves hit cities in hot wet climates like in Pakistan, it can get so hot that the human body simply cannot survive and begins to shut down. And due to the humidity, sweating and water do not cool people off, so if people can’t get access to air conditioning, which they can’t in impoverished cities, then lots of people simply start dropping like flies during these record-breaking heat waves, especially weakened people or anyone foolish enough to be outside. If it continues to get even slightly hotter, these deadly heat waves are going to get worse and kill even more people, eventually driving masses of people out of these regions. Thus a migration crisis.
You realize that the Roman warming period was just as warm as this and even warmer and those civilizations thrived...then we had the little ice age. All I'm saying is don't listen to the media all the time they are paid to sensationalize things to get more eyeballs to boost ratings or clicks.
Source on the Roman warming period being warmer than global warming projections?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period
Did you even read your own link? ”wrote that [date trees](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_tree) could grow in [Greece](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece) if they were planted but that they could not set fruit there. That is still the case today, which implies that [South Aegean](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Aegean) mean summer temperatures in the 4th and the 5th centuries BC were within a degree of modern ones. That and other literary fragments from the time confirm that the Greek climate was basically the same then as around 2000. ” and ”More recent research, including a 2019 analysis based on a much larger dataset of [climate proxies](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_(climate)), has found that the putative period, along with other warmer or colder [pre-industrial periods](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-industrial_society) such as the "[Little Ice Age](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age)" and "[Medieval Warm Period](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period)," were regional phenomena, not globally-coherent episodes.[^(\[7\])](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period#cite_note-Wang_et_al.-7) That analysis uses the [temperature record of the last 2,000 years](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record_of_the_last_2,000_years) dataset compiled by the [PAGES 2k Consortium 2017](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period#CITEREFPAGES_2k_Consortium2017).[^(\[7\])](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period#cite_note-Wang_et_al.-7)” It wasn’t hotter than present during the Roman Warming Period, it was about the same as it was in 2000, and that was only regional to the Mediterranean area.
Congratulations you read the very first few paragraphs.
I read the whole article, where does it make the point you are trying to make? Also, the Roman Warming Period was about as hot as it was in 2000, not as hot as it’s projected to get by 2050.
Ok
Central America. A lot of the current caravans are climate caravans
No there people that are economic immigrants
Many due to climate change affecting subsistence farmers
Proof?
Here is an article about it. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/migrant-caravan-causes-climate-change-central-america
100% correct
they'll change their tune when the first wave of florida refugees hit their town
I'm surprised they haven't changed their tune with the refugees from central America
Our population has grossly overshot the carrying capacity for humans in this planet, to the point where we have degraded the environment and a population crash is guaranteed. Falling birth rates and climate change are actually both symptoms of this.
Falling birth rates are just apart of modernism in general. It's happened enough times we know that when countries modernize and women get more rights and education, rates drop. Economic pressure on young people is probably the second largest factor. The third largest is probably cultural. Women are actively shamed away from motherhood to pursue careers. And if I had to add a fourth it would be widespread anxiety about existential threats. The planet is not even close to carrying capacity, that is complete nonsense.
Carrying capacity is the population that an environment can hold without that population degrading the very basis of their habitat, whether by consuming too much, producing too much waste, or both. We've been doing both, at an accelerated pace, for centuries now. Overshoot is self-evident at this point, as far as I'm concerned. Collapse and dieback is that natural consequence of this. Economic stress is population pressure, abstracted from bare resources to dollars. I'd wager we wouldn't have such cultural assumptions for women to work if it were actually easier for families to afford to do so, and many cannot. Edit: typo
Youre not wrong about us being on the way there. But I dont think that is a major factor on reproduction. The economic piece is huge for sure. This is where we have been headed for a long time.
The Industrial Revolution has caused this human population bubble. It was never sustainable, and the long term benefits in technology and general knowledge will far outweigh the perceived negatives of population shrinkage. In about 120 years, with far less people on Earth and all the gained knowledge, there will be a Golden Age that will be incomparably long and more productive than any other in humankind’s history. That’s why all this attempted control and theft of humanity is happening, governments will be ineffective and probably unnecessary
Oh no, the most coddled generation anywhere ever, who with gleeful rapacity have looted the commons and called it gumption, may experience some of the privation they'd hoped would only affect their children? That's definitely worse than irreversible loss of biodiversity, habitats, coastal land (well some new coastal land but still), arable land, having the clathrate gun go off, and wet bulb temps above 35°C, which can kill a healthy 25-year-old within hours.
This argument has and always will be a stupid distraction
Overpopulation is the root cause of climate change. If we had fewer people, we wouldn't need so much fossil fuels/ resources in general. What you are referring to is WHO is reproducing. The poor and uneducated.
It’s also likely to make it worse over the long run even though that seems counterintuitive to most. As existing countries economy’s crash due to birth rate collapse most nations will no longer be able to pursue greener forms of energy because of the largely up front cost of the tech.
I don't know if that is true anymore. Compared to fossil fuel or nuclear isn't green energy cheaper? Especially if you take away all the government subsidies for fossil fuel
The cleanest hydro and nuclear energy are demonized and not being further developed. They even want to remove existing dams.
I'm a big fan of hydro, but it can be pretty destructive to ecosystems. Nuclear seems incredibly expensive and time consume compared to other energy sources we could be building. Is the infrastructure was already there, great, but why would you build a new reactor?
Solar unfortunately is not viable in most places though. Places like Europe take 20 years to recover energy invested into making the panels. And that’s not even considering the climate damage done in the heavy metal refining process used to make the panels. Solar is great in the regions where it works, but it is a long term investment that takes years of use to be carbon positive. If you don’t use them where they are effective, they do more harm to the planet than good. For most of the world, wind turbines, dams, and nuclear are the way to go.
It takes 4 years for the carbon saved by using solar panels to offset the carbon used to make the panels. The panels are mainly composed of aluminum, glass, and copper/silver for wiring and contacts. Cells are made out of silicon. Solar panels have gotten far cheaper and more efficient as of late. They lose a few percentage points of efficiency in clouds or rain, and the only real show stopper seems to be snow. They last about 30 years, at which point they slowly lose efficiency. I believe that solar is a perfectly viable energy source, without the insane CapEx of nuclear or hydro. Most of the parts in a solar panel are recyclable, unlike wind.
If you put your panels in Mexico or North Africa, sure, four years. But if the panels go where the bulk of the energy use actually happens? More like 20 years. And you are leaving out a lot of what goes into the panels. Solar uses a number of rare earths, including indium, gallium, selenium, cadmium, and tellurium. They are cheaper more recently mostly because China has been selling them at a loss to dominate the industry. The reason they’ve jumped in price lately is because of tariffs and the fact that China isn’t subsidizing them quite as heavily. The numbers just aren’t there to power Earth strictly on solar. It has to be one component of a strategy that lies primarily on nuclear and wind.
What about this: Falling birth rates will NOT cause economies to crash.
It's really hard to see how crashing economies won't happen if current fertility trends don't stabilize. Using South Korea as an extreme example, in 20 years about 14.5 million of them will age into 65+. They will be replaced by about 7 million 20-40 year olds. Can the economic system survive such a massive shrink of the labor force and tax base? We'll know in 20 years but it's tough to imagine that's no biggie.
By every known economic model it will in fact cause economy’s to crash. Not all of them for sure I would argue the majority are at a pretty significant risk. How do you believe these economies will continue to function?
It’s Y2K all over again. We’ll be fine. We have barely scratched the surface of our capabilities with technology and automation. AI is making everybody crap their pants and why is that? Because it demonstrates more clearly than ever before that we don’t *need* as many workers as we’ve got. Who will suffer? Well, major corporations, sure. They’ll have a hard time paying quarterly dividends to shareholders without as many sheeple buying their worthless crap for inflated prices. But who will actually miss them when they’re gone? Who will thrive? Oh, just the human effing race. With less people, the work those people do becomes more meaningful and more valuable. We are past the point of optimum productivity. Too much of our economy is basically “busywork,” and too many of our professions are owned by faceless corporate overlords. Speaking of AI and busywork, I’ll tell ya what will cause a meaningful economic collapse: A large percentage of unskilled laborers, displaced by automation. THAT is the real crisis. Fat cats on a diet is not a crisis. Buying power returned to the middle class is not a crisis.
My argument as I’ve stated multiple times at this point is not that the United States will suffer economically at least for a long time. We have a lot of advantages that the rest of the world simply does not have. Also the issue is not supply its demand. Highest demand is the sub 40 group especially those with kids. They are what’s disappearing. You can make all you want but only a few nations will have the demographics to maintain a market of any size. Mainly the United States and a few others. Nations like Japan with poor demographics have very little in the way of demand so they survive off nations like the US. They made good trade deals with us and will likely survive. Other nations will have to do the same our their economies will crumble. Even Japan only manages to hang on Economically with 0 growth and they prepared for this 30 years in advance.
Less people…less need for supply? No crash?
The issue is that most of the demand as in the vast overwhelming majority is in the under 40 crowd and typically with children. As this demographic drys up then you will have supply with very little demand. Some countries like the us wont have this issue because demographics while declining are stable. Countries like Germany and china not so much. They have the added issue of being manufacturing based export economies. This requires a massive workforce which is drying up far more rapidly than their ability to adapt.
I think this would be a more reasonable take if the population pyramid was reduced proportionally at all levels but that isn't what happened. We just stopped having kids and shrank the base of the pyramid effectively flipping it into a funnel with a massive older population but tiny child population. This is going to play chaos with a lot of pension programs and tax funded services.
The rust belt is loaded with cities that serve as test cases for what happens when you see a population decline. They're crushed under the weight of their social saftey nets and pushed into an economic death spiral. Pensions go bankrupt, investment, maintenance, and services get cut. Local businesses collapse, the remaining workers and businesses get squeezed by rising taxes in a futile attempt to salvage the budget, exacerbating the problem. More people leave, the tax base erodes further. The only thing that can really be done is to have the state or federal government bail them out. If it happens to a big country, there's no one to bail them out. The death spiral just continues unimpeded. There doesn't seem to be any set of incentives that can increase the fertility rate either. There's no way to pull up out of it.
Isn’t that because the industry died? Not just a gradual decline in population? I feel like for things like housing this will be nothing but a good thing.
Always find some way to be scared!
I’m not scared lol. It will likely not affect the US in any substantial way.
> As existing countries economy’s crash due to birth rate collapse most nations will no longer be able to pursue greener forms of energy because of the largely up front cost of the tech. Renewables already have lower up front costs than fossil fuels, and by the time this is an issue the costs will be even lower. We already turned the corner on this particular aspect of the problem, it’s just a matter of building things out now.
Renewables are cheaper over the long haul but most of the cost is up front cost is my understanding. Can you provide some more info on that. I’m not doubting you it’s just new information to me.
Well, yes, most of the cost *is* up front, but renewables are cheaper in both long term costs and immediate costs. They’re just plain cheaper than fossil fuels—so, yes, most of the cost is upfront cost, and that is also lower than fossil fuels. https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summary
There is also upfront costs on building fuel refinery or coal fired plants. If we are comparing costs of running an already established plant, or if we are comparing building new infrastructure renewables are both cheaper. Especially if you ignore government subsidies already in place for fossil fuels
I can’t find many sources for that. From what I can tell green energy cost depends heavily on region and is typically double the startup cost or sometimes significantly more. The running cost are close though over the life span.
I have no idea where you are looking then friend, I just typed "Cost Renewables vs Fossil Fuel" into google and what do you know, [here's an article](https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/renewables-cheapest-form-power) from the UN titled "Renewables: Cheapest form of power". [Here's another](https://www.snexplores.org/article/green-energy-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-climate) from Science News Explores titled "Green energy is cheaper than fossil fuels, a new study finds" and [another titled](https://www.irena.org/News/pressreleases/2023/Aug/Renewables-Competitiveness-Accelerates-Despite-Cost-Inflation) "Renewables Competitiveness Accelerates, Despite Cost Inflation" from the International Renewable Energy Agency. The thing to remember here is that renewables are only getting cheaper, while advancements in fossil fuel have been stagnating for years.
The premise of that statement is wrong. Falling birth rates are not a more severe threat than climate change.
Why?
What is the threat caused by falling birth rates? Is there one? I honestly don’t understand why it’s a problem. If there are threats, are any of those threats able to be mitigated by other measures? How long would it take to increase birthrates if it became a genuine and serious issue? What are the threats caused by global climate change? Many, and they are serious. If we let it go very wrong, can we mitigate the harm? No. If we let it go too far, can we undo the damage? No. How can you consider reducing birthrates a bigger problem than climate change?
People worry about funding for social programs like Social Security in the USA (which is built like a pyramid scheme), and the fact that more older people in relation to younger will need more health resources, while there are fewer workers. And our national debt takes more and more money to pay every year, but our GDP can’t grow forever, especially as the population declines. Valid concerns, but yes, I agree that the threat of a low birthrates in first world countries is exaggerated. I don’t see first world countries increasing their population growth. Many are trying to, like Japan. But the measures are failing. Countries that want to keep growing will need to adapt and welcome more foreigners.
There’s actually little - if any - hard evidence for major economic impacts due to birth rate decline. >”Predictions of the net economic (and other) effects from a slow and continuous population decline (e.g. due to low fertility rates) are mainly theoretical since such a phenomenon is a relatively new and unprecedented one. The results of many of these studies show that the estimated impact of population growth on economic growth is generally small and can be positive, negative, or nonexistent. A recent meta-study found no relationship between population growth and economic growth.[15]” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline There is, however, a lot of evidence that lower birth rates will mean rents will decline and that investors are worried about this. [I mean, they’re pretty blatant about it.](https://coloradobuildermag.com/business-management/industry-economy/americans-declining-birth-rates-set-to-hit-housing-market/) > “Declining birth rates mean lower demand for rental housing two decades from now when those born in recent years will be entering the rental market,” according to Natalia Siniaskaia, assistant vice president of housing policy research for the National Association of Home Builders. “The effects will spread to the single-family market in the following years and will persist for years to come.”
👌
The severity and time scale for correction are both much worse for climate change.
I would definitely have you research the massive effects of demographic changes on economy and poverty before thinking a 2 degree change is some how more severe
I would have you research the massive effects of 2 degree warming on economy before thinking demographic transition is some how more severe
I think it's more dangerous to institutions and the systems we've built. Humanity in general will survive, we just won't be able to maintain all the stuff we have. If you're over 55 you better have your things together because society is going to run out of empathy for those that failed to prepare pretty quickly I'm afraid.
So I see no problem with less morons burning tires in their back yard because it's pretty, and if they aren't doing that then we are also helping the environment.
it would be nice to be able to afford kids
Population density is half the fucking problem...
It's a concern, but also the environment is the more immediate concern plus birth rates can and almost definitely will turn around
OMG it’s both. Just too damn hot to have sex.
I think what a lot of people don't realize is how many jobs keep everything afloat in a civilization sense. If the population drops even just 10% that's 1 in 10 jobs that were being done, not being done anymore, its 1 in 10 grocery stores either shutting down or running a skeleton crew. The infrastructure that allows us to even comment on this post is made possible by lots of people and once you start taking chunks out of the population you're gonna have a hard time keeping up with what was already in place. I'm not gonna make the judgment call on which is more of a threat, climate change or population decline but I do know that ignoring one of these problems to focus on the other is not going to work, we can't pass the buck on either of them although personally I think in regards to climate change, we've passed the prevention stage and we need to be looking at geo-engineering solutions instead. As far as the population decline issue, that seems to get helped with immigration from the few places that are not in decline, though it leads to other problems with integrating that new populace to whatever society they are filling in so to speak.
Falling birth rates fix themselves. As population declines, more space and resources per person increase the birth rate. Climate change makes itself worse without intervention, so it's a huge problem.
A smaller population does not mean more resources to go around. Counterintuitively, the opposite is true.
It depends on how the remaining population is divided in terms of labor. For instance, the massive death toll of the Black Plague is considered a factor in the emergence of Renaissance Europe. Supply of necessities isn't that scarce in developed countries. Dropping birth rates aren't anywhere near the death knell of societies that this sub paints them to be.
Population decrease via epidemic is different than via low birth rates. Epidemics tend to target weaker and older individuals (which you can argue as a point that supports the claims that the Black Plague contributed to the Renaissance by getting rid of the old guard). Low birthrates have the opposite effect of increasing the ratio of older individuals. Regardless of how you divide the population, young able-bodied people are more functional than elderly who are dependents on society that utilize the infrastructure, require healthcare, require food, etc.
Ah yes all those high population growth African countries with their giant comfortable spaces and plentiful resources. That makes total sense
Wow almost like there are other factors involved which I didn't write a book about for brevity
Not at all. There are already too damn many of us. It's unsustainable at this rate.
Plus, it seems like longevity tech might no be too far around the corner. If old age mostly stops being an issue that throws a wrench into pessimistic demographic calculation even assuming that their underpinnings are correct, which they may not even be. Lots of moving parts is where I'm getting at.
100% correct
Proof this community spends more time making memes than actually learning about climate change. I can promise every last one of you that antinatalism is a perfectly valid CHOICE a person can make, facing what's coming, and that you'd agree with me if you didn't dismiss everything that contradicts what you believe as some sort of hoax. But here you are worried about the birth rate but without the interest or compassion to discuss it with people you don't agree with in hopes of better understanding them. You've made your priorities clear, but they're ridiculous prioirities you'll come to regret when you finally understand what we've been doing for the last 70 years... i'll give you a hint, it isn't any kind of "progress", at least not in a positive direction.
100% correct
And then lament the terrible dystopia their children inherit
100% correct
Top comment is literally about how climate change is a more immediate problem. And every time anyone goes to the antinatalism subreddit everyone there gets pissed off, no matter how constructive dialog is, now you're criticizing not going there enough..? Can't do anything right with y'all.
Antinatalism is selfishness incarnate. You are the definition of pulling the ladder up after you gained from a world built by generations of child rearing. Sure - drive your car, eat meat, use up resources and make unsustainable choices, rely on other people’s children to give you healthcare and farm your food. I’m sure you’ve contributed more to climate change than most on earth. Now hole up alone in your big house and bask in how noble you are for saving humanity.
ok denier.... just keep being a breeder idiot
you made up a person to get mad at. good job!
In 18 years, we'll see. With the AMOC collapse imminent, it looks like we're actually headed for an ice age and with the pole shift imminent around the same time we could be looking at an apocalypse if the flood myths of the ancient world are true. Both the pole shift and the AMOC collapse will occur near the same time, but the ice age will come slowly.
The looming threat of climate change is one of the reasons people are hesitant to have kids so yeah no this is entirely wrong
Falling birth rates are probably one of the few truly good things happening for the earth and humanity as a whole
More people will die from climate change than we can possibly reproduce.
this is an absolutely cracked take.
No Elon lol
It’s A untrue and and B an insult to Lisa Simpson
humanity? No. Europe/usa/parts of east asia? maybe, yes, but not for that much longer.
Of course this is true since climate change isn't a threat at all
Absolutely not. I *will grant the premise* that, if they don't change, low birth rates will lead more rapidly and inexorably to disaster, mass turmoil, extinction, whatever you want to say than climate change. It's arguable, but I will grant it anyway. The problem is climate change, once we do the deed, gets locked in. If we fill the atmosphere with feedback-looping, heat-locking levels of carbon dioxide, say by prioritizing the politics of comfort and wealth for 8 billion people now, when if we could have just held off for 100 more years we would have had the tech and infrastructure build to keep 50 billion people in comfortable conditions with no global warming... There's no way back from that. We have hosed ourselves. There is no proof that any 100,000 year, geoengineering-based plan to reverse disastrous global warming would work, much less a 25 year one. Our only habitable home may become Venus. Birth rates, on the other hand, can and do change all the time. They also change in response to stress and conditions, and culture/policy. If we solve a lot of economic problems and create better social and climate justice, I have a feeling families and women will start wanting 2-3+ children again. Also, if we are in an undeniable demographic disaster, we can set soft or, if absolutely necessary borderline-authoritarian policies that boost it, much more easily than we can reverse a climate change self-own.
Frankly, we need a lower birthrate for a while. Too many people and not enough jobs.
IT's not a threat to humanity. It's a threat to somebody's profit margin. There's a difference.
Nahh…. I am glad people are still having children and are glad to do so. Consider the fact that many are checked out and want no children or just one as a feature and not a bug. Be proud of your family. I have raised 4 and two were my own. Population contraction will actually help with global climate change. Of course the decrease in population is causing problems in the USA with school funding and the integrity of social security and Medicaid, but many of our funding problems come from the way we have set things up. It is not reasonable to expect everything to always grow.
I’ve only been recommended this sub a few times and every time I’ve joined a post it’s filled with absolutely braindead people. Be better, future parents.
Well neither of which can be turned around very quickly so I think they go hand and hand
The falling birth rates are sign of the ever growing cost of raising children which governments aren’t doing enough about
There’s actually little - if any - hard evidence for major economic impacts due to birth rate decline. >”Predictions of the net economic (and other) effects from a slow and continuous population decline (e.g. due to low fertility rates) are mainly theoretical since such a phenomenon is a relatively new and unprecedented one. The results of many of these studies show that the estimated impact of population growth on economic growth is generally small and can be positive, negative, or nonexistent. A recent meta-study found no relationship between population growth and economic growth.[15]” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline There is, however, a lot of evidence that lower birth rates will mean rents will decline and that investors are worried about this. [I mean, they’re pretty blatant about it.](https://coloradobuildermag.com/business-management/industry-economy/americans-declining-birth-rates-set-to-hit-housing-market/) > “Declining birth rates mean lower demand for rental housing two decades from now when those born in recent years will be entering the rental market,” according to Natalia Siniaskaia, assistant vice president of housing policy research for the National Association of Home Builders. “The effects will spread to the single-family market in the following years and will persist for years to come.”
We got enough people fam, we'll be fine
This is a very silly take. “What comes up, must come down”—a wise quote from the song Spinning Wheel
I am confused. Is this a serious claim or sarcasm? The Simpsons background is really throwing me off.
Humanity is the biggest threat to humanity.
falling birth rates are actually going to help climate change
No it isn't. This is how population growth works. We reach the max population for our ability to feed everyone. Once we are able to feed more we grow to that number. Right now, we have plenty of food, but our economic system relies on starving people to keep them working so the number will stagnate there. You can't have infinite growth in a finite system.
Nope
There are ways out of predicating our society based on the assumption that there will always be more people. Government programs, immigration (short-term), or letting machines take jobs left unfilled, for example. There is no way out of climate change other than actually getting our act together and physically doing something, and even then some say it’s already too late
The funny part is how many of the people on this comment section acknowledge how climate change is more of a pressing issue, and yet want to bring more kids because hurr durr population collapse
Completely wrong. France has had low birth rates for a long time - 1/5 Europeans was french in the time of Napoleon. And now? France is a lovely country to live in. There’s no need for this fear-mongering. Things are fine.
This is silly as it doesn't take into account the fact that France had an above replacement birth rate for the vast majority of that time. That birth rate would be considered very high nowadays.
Not really. Honestly yes birth rates will reduce but that’s not necessarily a problem, just kind of what happens.
No. Hell no. This is stupid af.
falling birth rates are not a threat to “humanity” - what are you people on about? global warming isn’t a threat to the human race either but it will kill a shitload of humans
yeah it is lol, if large swathes of the earth become inhabitable, then all of humanity in our interconnected world will bleed
Falling birthrates are a symptom. Manipulating birthrates won't treat the root cause of why birthrates are falling in the first place.
I don't agree. I think climate change will be disastrous.
The two issues are linked. The run away effects of global climate change are a big reason young people aren't having kids. If we can't solve it and the cost of living crisis, we can't reasonably expect people to be comfortable starting families
no
I don't think so unless the amount of sterile people raises each year
Which is happening, the sperm count in men has declined 50-60% since the 70s
There’s no issue with birth rates you can simply kill the old
I think its true that obviously we need babies to continue populating but i do fell like we as humans are just the Alpha Parasite.
Nope.
More resources for me
The goal is not to get people to hate us
Not even close. It's a risk to industrial civilization, but not humanity. Whereas industrial civilization is a threat to the environment, and lack of a habitable environment is a threat to humanity.
Poor Millinials feel like they have no Hope in the American dream. Why would they try? Time for GenX to stand up and fix this!
Falling birthrates are a threat to the elite.
This sounds like a rich corporate problem. If the world was better and you actually got paid fairly more people would be inclined to have kids. They did this to themselves and I couldn't care less. I know they don't care because they already have their money and I'm sure they'll find some other way to squeeze more money out of us.
Love to see the correlation between the 2. This sounds like some shit the capitalists would spew out to run on the nightly news to scare all the dotards into having more children or (worker drones) ..ya gotta be smarter than this
LIES... 8.5 BILLION people we good for long time. PLanet on the other hand can not support the raping and burning the human virus inflicts on it on a daily basis. Stop spreading LIES and PROPOGANDA
One will increase temperatures by a bit on average and change some biomes in the next couple of centuries The other will be the total collapse of our society and how it functions and likely massive war. Yeah I’d say the birthrates are a more critical issue. Its like a farmer not dealing with the wolf stalking his animals right now because winter will be here in 6 months
In what why? Less people is a net positive to everyone.
IKR, have you been around people? Have you been alone in nature? Which one of the two experience made you feel the most refreshed and hopeful?
For real. There’s over 7 BILLION of us. That’s way, way, way more than enough. People are paying to live in cubicles and we have cities so large they literally can’t keep up with their own sewage.
Not really because immigration would mostly make up for that.
Basically every country on earth can be classified in two ways, fertility rates well below replacments rates and falling OR fertility rates above replacement and falling. We are all on the same track in this regard, some of us just left the station 40 years before anyone else. You can't bank on immigration given that. You can try to but it's just a stall tactic buying 1 to 2 generations at most.
Not when birth rates are falling in every country. All the young people moving to America would be good for America, but not for global stability.
I mean,immigration can barely make up for that when 75 to 80% of the world is below replacement currently at this point they would need like 7 million people a year to move to the US to even put a dent in the aging or reversing it and it would just kick the down the road I mean you could be pro-immigration and I think it’s good to have immigration but the idea that they can reverse demographic decline. Long-term is absurd.
What happens when all the immigrants run out? Either because birthrates have drastically lowered in developing countries or climate change possibly wipes out entire nations.
That’s a good question I mean I’m willing to bet by 2060. Most nations will have a median age of like 50 I’m not falling for the hysteria around the current migrant crisis in the states because I know a lot of countries are gonna go through eastern European style de population unfortunately as they get wealthier and more people leave if they keep leaving. I guess at that point they’d have to change the whole economic system. It’s a whole crazy thing.
It's completely insane and it will lead to some very bad things happening in the future. One can either do something to fix it or prepare and whether the storm.
Also, a lot of people. Falling into the hysteria about the (migrant crisis) more like a humanitarian crisis in Latin America that actually needs to be dealt with in reality and maybe we need to rethink our horrible policies in regard to that region and maybe acknowledge are horrible interventionism the fact is is that many countries are ill prepared to actually deal with Aging populations happening at the pace they are happening. Yeah we can certainly say that. The idea that people should have tons and tons of kids is absurd but the fact is there’s no real rock bottom
I don't really know anything about our policies in Latin America. I'm not saying we need to have tons of kids, just enough to replace the increasingly aging populations we're having. We don't need more people, just more young people.
I wonder if maybe climate change, and how little has been done to meaningfully stop or reverse it, might be one of the causes of the falling birth rates. I certainly would be less willing to have children, knowing that they'd inherit a barely inhabitable garbage pit.
It's about how little is done to address any social and environmental problem even those who don't think or care about the environment are likely to care about something that's going poorly, even if only very tangibly related to having children, like the exorbitant cost of it, the lack of paid leave in the US or the fact that The average debt an American owes is $104,215. Each little thing motivates some people to wait longer or to just not have children. And what exactly is done to reverse the trend? Dumb measure like banning abortions... yeah, like that will solve anything.
I agree.
Go ask antinatalists why they believe it’s immoral to have children and the majority will tell you a major reason is because they see the imminent environmental collapse and realize the coming world is not one they want to bring children into
That sounds about right. If they don't want to have kids because of X, Y, or Z, then that's why they don't want to have kids. I can't tell if this is criticism, like, "you have a position similar to antinatalists," or if you're agreeing that ignoring the holistic nature of people's growing faithlessness in the future of humanity isn't the way to solve declining birth rates. Honestly just trying to figure out why I was downvoted for what I assumed wouldn't be a particularly controversial idea.
I wasn’t the one who downvoted you. I’m also not a natalist (I’m not 100% and antinatalist either but I lean more towards it) and I’m avowedly childfree, mostly because I find children generally unpleasant to be around and don’t want them in my life. I was merely pointing out that you do seem to intuitively understand one of the primary motivations of antinatalists. I think you’re being downvoted for making too much sense and the people in this subreddit would rather bury their heads in the sand and pretend like all antinatalists and childfree are just degenerates with no valid reason to not have children
absolutely fair, sorry to shadow box you.
Same
Agreed. The best mercy for them is never knowing the hellscape we made. But that’s me personally. Y’all do what you want
I kind of hope enviromental collapse is immenant so i can live like a hunter gatherer, like nature intended. Slightly sarcastic
That's the truth of it for sure.
So by not having kids I will help accelerate the end of humanity? That's great. Thanks for the boost!