Environmental Doomsday Keeps Moving to Later; It's Still There

Trump and company has been lampooning environmental rules and ridiculing concerns. The longer this goes on, and we're still here, it's easy to imagine there are no consequences. An end to our current standard of living is out there. Some scientists are still talking about it.

The link calculates known resources and our rate of using them. The conclusion is the earth needs to cut its population by billions in order to shoe-horn back into the available resources.

When I have brought up the need to reduce the earth's population before skeptics always say dire predictions of the past have never materialized. It is, of course, impossible to predict exactly when and how environmental damage will take its toll. It is not hard to realize the problem is out there. Rational people will see the need to adjust. 

One simple way to see the problem is to recognize our food production depends on artificial fertilizers. We can produce food without it. We just cannot produce as much. In ingredients used in fertilizers is depleting. The current cost of fertilizers is rising. Maybe there are technological solutions yet to be discovered that will solve this problem, but maybe there is not. Prudent thinking would take the most pessimistic rather than the most optimistic approach.

The amount of time before food shortages appear is not that much. A common view is that shortages will be experienced about the year 2200. That is only three or four generations from now.

It is true the fertility rate in most countries is falling. We can't be sure it will continue to fall. There is no way at present to set a policy that reduces the population. Before that can happen there needs to be agreement on the magnitude of the problem.