Posted: Jun 08, 2019 1:33 pm
juju7 wrote:Rubbish. You won't even clearly state what you're trying to argue.
A brand new line of attack. It might have been best if you'd have worked out in advance what it is you wanted to argue about before typing.
Of course, at any point you could have asked me to clarify what I wrote, asked me a question or two, or looked at the dozens of posts I've made on the subject - but no, you want to scrap.
juju7 wrote:Are you saying that fewer people would mean a lower ecological footprint, or not?
Am I saying that if two thirds of today's population were to disappear over-night that humanity's ecological footprint would be lower? Well, that's not quite what I said, but it would be a damn sight more accurate than your rendition, and it would also be true. Could you potentially contrive a scenario where it wouldn't be true? Yes, but then you'd need to add in more components that don't actually exist in the statement.
What I actually said, and what I've talked about before in this thread and others, is that if the global population were 2 billion then our current standard of living (as an average of our population still comprised of highs and lows) would not be unsustainable, or would at least be dramatically less harmful. If there were 2/3 less humans, of course our impact on the environment would be less: we'd be emitting vastly less greenhouse gas, consuming vastly less resources, farming far fewer cows and rice, exploiting much less of the landscape and so on.
So, you can try and manipulate it if you like, and imagine scenarios where the 2 billion are all the most exploitative individuals, living lives of excessive consumption, but even then, my statement would be more accurate than your argument to the contrary. Less humans = less impact on environment by humans. It's actually quite banal.