The central problem now is human psychology. We smile condescendingly at cults such as the Jehovahs Witnesses or the Moonies, yet we live within a cult: the dominant global religious delusion of endless GDP growth. It is now a form of self-harm; yet questioning it is seen by the corporate mind as outrageous blasphemy.
It's hard to convince people to ditch cult beliefs, but we have to try. If nothing else, we have duty to document our collapse. This is the fight of our lives.
I have been looking at the mechanisms for population decline, and running some models (based on World3) and one notable feature is that the momentum of population is hard to turn around. A reduction in life expectancy, such as a 10 year reduction, actually has little effect for decades as it works through the existing populations.
The main population reduction effect comes from a reduction in births, and that mostly from a decision to not have children. Typically that is due to poverty (although can work either way), existential angst about bringing children into such a world, and anti-child attitudes and policies. In short, no answers that solve our problems of excess humans in time to divert from avcrisis, such as wars and famines.
There are other possibilities though, that you touch upon:
The most effective and fastest is a collapse in Western economies, specifically the American economy and the American Dollar. That could destroy the richest and worst consumers on the planet almost immediately, both American consumers and corporations, and massively reduce oil and gas consumption and production, especially highly polluting fracking and tar sands.
The Dollar collapse would wipe out many billionaires and millionaires around the World, and destroy the value of large agglomerations of wealth, such as national reserves. Many of the most polluting effects of Westernised economics would be greatly diminished, which is after all the real point.
Similarly is the collapse of the fossil fuel industries that feed us, and by turning fossils into food created this problem of 6 billion excess humans. That is, in fact, much closer than most people imagine. The net energy equation of 'net EROEI at the point of useful work' is quickly sliding towards zero, meaning we would actually need more and more gross production just to stand still. That isn't happening, and Hormuz just made it much worse, cutting off the high EROEI fuel from the markets. That alone will cut the food that feeds us, and that will cut the populations.
The ultimate Malthusian collapse is primarily through famine, and I think it is already underway later this year as the combination of Hormuz closure and 20% less diesel and 30% less fertiliser, along with a Super El Niño causing heatwaves, droughts and a weakened monsoon, will kill millions, particularly in the 'Hunger Months' from Xmas to early summer of 2027. And then worse and worse to follow.
The real test for humans will be their response to this entirely man-made crisis; understanding, acceptance and mitigation, or descent into further genocides and border wars. I have my own views on that. I hope I am proven wrong in the future.
What do you think of this idea? This is the billionaires plan. They know the planet is in overshoot. So, why not let most of the population starve or be serfs that they control? The super rich have less to lose than gain which is a longer and better life for themselves.
I think this is probably true for America. This is the underbelly of Project 2025, the blatantly racist, white supremecist part that didn't get published.
And it is also why the A.I. Centres are so essential - to try to keep some version of 'Plastic America' going without paying for the Middle Classes anymore.
One thing is obvious already; none of those in control of the American power structure, whatever their declared politics, seems interested in the wellbeing of the vast majority of the American people.
I think this is probably true for America. This is the underbelly of Project 2025, the blatantly racist, white supremecist part that didn't get published.
And it is also why the A.I. Centres are so essential - to try to keep some version of 'Plastic America' going without paying for the Middle Classes anymore.
One thing is obvious already; none of those in control of the American power structure, whatever their declared politics, seems interested in the wellbeing of the vast majority of the American people.
I think this is probably true for America. This is the underbelly of Project 2025, the blatantly racist, white supremecist part that didn't get published.
And it is also why the A.I. Centres are so essential - to try to keep some version of 'Plastic America' going without paying for the Middle Classes anymore.
One thing is obvious already; none of those in control of the American power structure, whatever their declared politics, seems interested in the wellbeing of the vast majority of the American people.
No mistake, just a parallel. A similar history unfolded for a reindeer population introduced in the early 1940s to St Matthew Island in the Bering Sea--explosion to several thousand animals then collapse to extinction from over-grazing and harsh winters.
I am amazed at how the notion of overpopulation and overshoot are controversial even in collapse aware communities. I find it really simple to grasp - infant and maternal mortality rates declined and life expectancy increased causing a population boom over a few generations before birth rates fell. This has resulted in a much higher population than ever existed before and necessitated advances in food production to support this population. These new methods used destructive and non-renewable means to achieve that however making it a finite solution. The notion of sustaining this level of population indefinitely is absurd and the population size makes every other problem that much harder to tackle.
I've seen a lot of people who will respond to any such arguments with the thought terminating cliche 'overpopulation is a myth'. Largely they seem to have misinterpreted it as people suggesting that the population will keep rising exponentially until it becomes overpopulated rather than reaching a peak and levelling out. This understanding of it ignores the obvious reality that we are already overpopulated and only able to sustain this population size via technology that is dependent on finite resources. How many countries around the world are reliant on food imports to maintain their population size and would rapidly face problems if those imports were cut off?
Then you've got those who cling hard to the idea that it is only the rich who are the problem due to their emissions being much higher than those of a vastly larger number of poor people. This argument ignores that billions of poor people consume vastly more food and water. Fulfilling these requirements results in destroying ecosystems to create farmland and housing and overharvesting natural resources that leads to a decline in biodiversity. The rich cause all manner of problems flying around in private jets and floating about on yachts but they aren't consuming millions of kg of fish per day harvested using electrified nets.
I think a lot of people won't even contemplate the problem of overpopulation because it is one that has no solution besides billions of people dying one way or another. As an eternally pessimistic depressed nihilist I don't find this hard to imagine. For people who are inexplicably happy in the face of this nightmare dystopia and decided to bring children into it however these ideas are just too uncomfortable to consider.
My money is on cockroaches over the big brains of we fire-apes.
As a K-selected species with long maturation, few offspring, and extended offspring care, we thrive in stability. Yet our big brains are creating an increasingly unstable world. Climate chaos already threatens our industrial food supply.
r-selected species thrive in times of instability. They have short lives, tremendous fecundity, and little or no parental care of offspring. They can evolve their way out while we are merely thinking about things. They evolve about 40,000 times faster that humans!
Cockroaches have been around nearly as long as trees, three hundred times as long as Homo species. They will be here long after we're gone.
Thank you, William. Nothing to add really except that Denis Meadows says in an interview (link to follow) that the worst period in history to live is NOW just before the peak. Both positive and negative feedback mechanisms are at their highest. Counter-intuitively, most people (me included) would have thought post-peak would be the worst. I think that this would explain the confusing nature of living at the moment, when we have AI, space colonisation, bio-tech, etc. all driving economic growth higher and at the same time we have two major wars, ebola, cost-of-living crisis and heatwaves all increasing. Accelerator and brake are both full on! I'm not surprised that people 'choose' one or the other to put their faith in, rather than understand the complexity of the situation which is not easy. (Link to YouTube video: 'Interview with Dennis Meadows on "Limits to Growth", approx. 24mins in).
We rapacious apes would've had to evolve on small islands dotting an ocean planet, to have any chance at a different outcome. An ocean planet with submerged continents, and vast reserves of fossil fuels just waiting to be tapped.
Overshoot has two factors: consumption per capita and population size. You seem to be focused on population size. However, with the population pyramid already being skewed by medical advances, birth control and a falling sperm count, advocating antinatal policies, if enacted, would surely skew the pyramid much more, making modern economies untenable. That might not, ultimately, be a bad thing for the rest of nature but often seems to be ignored by antinatalists.
You also concentrate on biocapacity, which is important, but for a modern society non-renewable resource depletion is also important in terms of sustainability. Living at the biocapacity of the planet would be impossible if a modern way of life is desired. Indeed, any way of life that requires non-renewable resources would eventually become impossible. Such a way of life requires growth, if only for the reason that growth is required to support the increasing complexity that is required to extract and refine depleting and degrading non-renewable resources. Eventually, though, such a way of life will become impossible.
Humans can't live sustainably at what people might think of as a "reasonable material standard."
Brilliant, canonical, and saddening. Some individual human beings are highly intelligent; as a species, however, we fall far short of ants, bees, cockroaches, sharks, or even earthworms.
It's because we evolved as apes living in small troops, first in the trees and then coming down to earth to hunt. For millions of years, every human being was born with elaborate instincts enabling it to survive, reproduce, and participate in the survival of the species.
Then the conscious mind - or, if you will, the arrogant, half-blind left hemisphere - took over and went on a rampage that has led us to our current predicament. I imagine that well over half of all currently living humans either don't know there is a problem or refuse to face it.
The thunder of the waterfall is gradually getting louder.
It appears increasingly less likely as we squander the limited window of opportunity that we will self correct. There’s no profit in scaling back, therefore the immediate challenge is voluntarily dealing with an extended period of contraction [40-year recession].
Theoretically, population could be responsibly reduced by half in 50 even as little as 40 years, provided the implementation of a unified global effort to educate and rid ourselves of the ideology of growth modeled economic systems.
If we instead, decide to waste these next 40 to 50 years and continue to exist as we are, then the worst case hellscape scenario awaits our children and theirs. It is, as you say, a taboo subject, so how do we get people to listen and act accordingly.
I wrote a book on this very subject and I believe it starts with a very public campaign of shaming governments that employ pro natalist policies.
Great to see such bracing, well-written consideration of such vital matters. The third paragraph above Fig. 3 has a “1980s” typo that obviously should be “2080s”.
I don’t see listed in the causes of overshoot denialism and inaction the overwhelming social power held by the ultimate expression of human ultrasociality, transnational corporations. They are ungoverned, and ungovernable. They exist to exploit, not to manage, making every other cause of overshoot trifling in comparison. They are the “we, “ - they have now become humanity.
Indeed, corporations are the exact equivalent of Terminators - with the difference that their imperative is not to kill humans, but to maximise profit. It's not clear to me that it's a difference that matters in the medium to long term. Paperclips, profits...
China did for a while, and no doubt still does to a limited extent. But then the Chinese have a very long (relatively) history of population swings and disasters such as floods, famines, and invasions. They have learned to cope - somewhat.
In the global commons, we are all in a death struggle.
You can choose not to procreate, or to drastically limit your procreation, or to look down on those who procreate and who must therefore bear the severe burden of raising children not only alone, but under the sneering opprobrium of al bien pensants.
It is the tragedy of the commons, writ globally.
But bear in mind that the children you refrain from sending out to into the collapsing commons will be more than replaced by your neighbour, who, by pure coincidence, is pressuring you to do exactly that. And so the commons will be destroyed anyway, because unilateral retreat only means that your genes will be eliminated, not that the commons will be preserved. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Those with brains evolved enough to worry about the environment and be willing to make personal sacrifices to protect it will be removed from the gene pool, while those who do not and will not (consider that 36% of oceanic plastic bag pollution comes from ONE COUNTRY, the Philippines) will see their genes take over the world and turn the whole thing into a garbage dump.
“Two realisations can act as beacons to light our way through this fog of mystification.
The first is that meaningful growth has ended, and that the economy is starting to shrink.
The second is that nobody, in any position of authority or influence, can possibly afford to admit that this is happening.” Economist Dr Tim Morgan
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2026/01/30/318-the-surplus-energy-economy-part-one/
The central problem now is human psychology. We smile condescendingly at cults such as the Jehovahs Witnesses or the Moonies, yet we live within a cult: the dominant global religious delusion of endless GDP growth. It is now a form of self-harm; yet questioning it is seen by the corporate mind as outrageous blasphemy.
It's hard to convince people to ditch cult beliefs, but we have to try. If nothing else, we have duty to document our collapse. This is the fight of our lives.
https://newptc75.medium.com/human-nature-and-the-climate-041b9273653e
"[N]obody, in any position of authority or influence, can possibly afford to admit that this is happening”.
Is it just me, or was that an adequate definition of a failed species?
I have been looking at the mechanisms for population decline, and running some models (based on World3) and one notable feature is that the momentum of population is hard to turn around. A reduction in life expectancy, such as a 10 year reduction, actually has little effect for decades as it works through the existing populations.
The main population reduction effect comes from a reduction in births, and that mostly from a decision to not have children. Typically that is due to poverty (although can work either way), existential angst about bringing children into such a world, and anti-child attitudes and policies. In short, no answers that solve our problems of excess humans in time to divert from avcrisis, such as wars and famines.
There are other possibilities though, that you touch upon:
The most effective and fastest is a collapse in Western economies, specifically the American economy and the American Dollar. That could destroy the richest and worst consumers on the planet almost immediately, both American consumers and corporations, and massively reduce oil and gas consumption and production, especially highly polluting fracking and tar sands.
The Dollar collapse would wipe out many billionaires and millionaires around the World, and destroy the value of large agglomerations of wealth, such as national reserves. Many of the most polluting effects of Westernised economics would be greatly diminished, which is after all the real point.
Similarly is the collapse of the fossil fuel industries that feed us, and by turning fossils into food created this problem of 6 billion excess humans. That is, in fact, much closer than most people imagine. The net energy equation of 'net EROEI at the point of useful work' is quickly sliding towards zero, meaning we would actually need more and more gross production just to stand still. That isn't happening, and Hormuz just made it much worse, cutting off the high EROEI fuel from the markets. That alone will cut the food that feeds us, and that will cut the populations.
The ultimate Malthusian collapse is primarily through famine, and I think it is already underway later this year as the combination of Hormuz closure and 20% less diesel and 30% less fertiliser, along with a Super El Niño causing heatwaves, droughts and a weakened monsoon, will kill millions, particularly in the 'Hunger Months' from Xmas to early summer of 2027. And then worse and worse to follow.
The real test for humans will be their response to this entirely man-made crisis; understanding, acceptance and mitigation, or descent into further genocides and border wars. I have my own views on that. I hope I am proven wrong in the future.
The 1970s movie Logan's Run had an effective mechanism. Pick a number.
What do you think of this idea? This is the billionaires plan. They know the planet is in overshoot. So, why not let most of the population starve or be serfs that they control? The super rich have less to lose than gain which is a longer and better life for themselves.
I think this is probably true for America. This is the underbelly of Project 2025, the blatantly racist, white supremecist part that didn't get published.
And it is also why the A.I. Centres are so essential - to try to keep some version of 'Plastic America' going without paying for the Middle Classes anymore.
One thing is obvious already; none of those in control of the American power structure, whatever their declared politics, seems interested in the wellbeing of the vast majority of the American people.
I think this is probably true for America. This is the underbelly of Project 2025, the blatantly racist, white supremecist part that didn't get published.
And it is also why the A.I. Centres are so essential - to try to keep some version of 'Plastic America' going without paying for the Middle Classes anymore.
One thing is obvious already; none of those in control of the American power structure, whatever their declared politics, seems interested in the wellbeing of the vast majority of the American people.
I think this is probably true for America. This is the underbelly of Project 2025, the blatantly racist, white supremecist part that didn't get published.
And it is also why the A.I. Centres are so essential - to try to keep some version of 'Plastic America' going without paying for the Middle Classes anymore.
One thing is obvious already; none of those in control of the American power structure, whatever their declared politics, seems interested in the wellbeing of the vast majority of the American people.
No mistake, just a parallel. A similar history unfolded for a reindeer population introduced in the early 1940s to St Matthew Island in the Bering Sea--explosion to several thousand animals then collapse to extinction from over-grazing and harsh winters.
I am amazed at how the notion of overpopulation and overshoot are controversial even in collapse aware communities. I find it really simple to grasp - infant and maternal mortality rates declined and life expectancy increased causing a population boom over a few generations before birth rates fell. This has resulted in a much higher population than ever existed before and necessitated advances in food production to support this population. These new methods used destructive and non-renewable means to achieve that however making it a finite solution. The notion of sustaining this level of population indefinitely is absurd and the population size makes every other problem that much harder to tackle.
I've seen a lot of people who will respond to any such arguments with the thought terminating cliche 'overpopulation is a myth'. Largely they seem to have misinterpreted it as people suggesting that the population will keep rising exponentially until it becomes overpopulated rather than reaching a peak and levelling out. This understanding of it ignores the obvious reality that we are already overpopulated and only able to sustain this population size via technology that is dependent on finite resources. How many countries around the world are reliant on food imports to maintain their population size and would rapidly face problems if those imports were cut off?
Then you've got those who cling hard to the idea that it is only the rich who are the problem due to their emissions being much higher than those of a vastly larger number of poor people. This argument ignores that billions of poor people consume vastly more food and water. Fulfilling these requirements results in destroying ecosystems to create farmland and housing and overharvesting natural resources that leads to a decline in biodiversity. The rich cause all manner of problems flying around in private jets and floating about on yachts but they aren't consuming millions of kg of fish per day harvested using electrified nets.
I think a lot of people won't even contemplate the problem of overpopulation because it is one that has no solution besides billions of people dying one way or another. As an eternally pessimistic depressed nihilist I don't find this hard to imagine. For people who are inexplicably happy in the face of this nightmare dystopia and decided to bring children into it however these ideas are just too uncomfortable to consider.
"Where would you put your money?"
My money is on cockroaches over the big brains of we fire-apes.
As a K-selected species with long maturation, few offspring, and extended offspring care, we thrive in stability. Yet our big brains are creating an increasingly unstable world. Climate chaos already threatens our industrial food supply.
r-selected species thrive in times of instability. They have short lives, tremendous fecundity, and little or no parental care of offspring. They can evolve their way out while we are merely thinking about things. They evolve about 40,000 times faster that humans!
Cockroaches have been around nearly as long as trees, three hundred times as long as Homo species. They will be here long after we're gone.
To bad I won't be around to collect on that bet.
A little ditty 'bout modern man
exceptional humans doin' the least they can
So let us live, let us grow
Let wall street come and save our soil
Holdin' on to individualism for as long we can
Changes come around real soon, thrill of living is gone...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZnlrxm1vAY
Thank you, William. Nothing to add really except that Denis Meadows says in an interview (link to follow) that the worst period in history to live is NOW just before the peak. Both positive and negative feedback mechanisms are at their highest. Counter-intuitively, most people (me included) would have thought post-peak would be the worst. I think that this would explain the confusing nature of living at the moment, when we have AI, space colonisation, bio-tech, etc. all driving economic growth higher and at the same time we have two major wars, ebola, cost-of-living crisis and heatwaves all increasing. Accelerator and brake are both full on! I'm not surprised that people 'choose' one or the other to put their faith in, rather than understand the complexity of the situation which is not easy. (Link to YouTube video: 'Interview with Dennis Meadows on "Limits to Growth", approx. 24mins in).
We rapacious apes would've had to evolve on small islands dotting an ocean planet, to have any chance at a different outcome. An ocean planet with submerged continents, and vast reserves of fossil fuels just waiting to be tapped.
Overshoot has two factors: consumption per capita and population size. You seem to be focused on population size. However, with the population pyramid already being skewed by medical advances, birth control and a falling sperm count, advocating antinatal policies, if enacted, would surely skew the pyramid much more, making modern economies untenable. That might not, ultimately, be a bad thing for the rest of nature but often seems to be ignored by antinatalists.
https://mikerobertsblog.wordpress.com/2024/08/09/what-can-antinatalism-achieve/
You also concentrate on biocapacity, which is important, but for a modern society non-renewable resource depletion is also important in terms of sustainability. Living at the biocapacity of the planet would be impossible if a modern way of life is desired. Indeed, any way of life that requires non-renewable resources would eventually become impossible. Such a way of life requires growth, if only for the reason that growth is required to support the increasing complexity that is required to extract and refine depleting and degrading non-renewable resources. Eventually, though, such a way of life will become impossible.
Humans can't live sustainably at what people might think of as a "reasonable material standard."
Brilliant, canonical, and saddening. Some individual human beings are highly intelligent; as a species, however, we fall far short of ants, bees, cockroaches, sharks, or even earthworms.
It's because we evolved as apes living in small troops, first in the trees and then coming down to earth to hunt. For millions of years, every human being was born with elaborate instincts enabling it to survive, reproduce, and participate in the survival of the species.
Then the conscious mind - or, if you will, the arrogant, half-blind left hemisphere - took over and went on a rampage that has led us to our current predicament. I imagine that well over half of all currently living humans either don't know there is a problem or refuse to face it.
The thunder of the waterfall is gradually getting louder.
It appears increasingly less likely as we squander the limited window of opportunity that we will self correct. There’s no profit in scaling back, therefore the immediate challenge is voluntarily dealing with an extended period of contraction [40-year recession].
Theoretically, population could be responsibly reduced by half in 50 even as little as 40 years, provided the implementation of a unified global effort to educate and rid ourselves of the ideology of growth modeled economic systems.
If we instead, decide to waste these next 40 to 50 years and continue to exist as we are, then the worst case hellscape scenario awaits our children and theirs. It is, as you say, a taboo subject, so how do we get people to listen and act accordingly.
I wrote a book on this very subject and I believe it starts with a very public campaign of shaming governments that employ pro natalist policies.
What do think?
Great to see such bracing, well-written consideration of such vital matters. The third paragraph above Fig. 3 has a “1980s” typo that obviously should be “2080s”.
I don’t see listed in the causes of overshoot denialism and inaction the overwhelming social power held by the ultimate expression of human ultrasociality, transnational corporations. They are ungoverned, and ungovernable. They exist to exploit, not to manage, making every other cause of overshoot trifling in comparison. They are the “we, “ - they have now become humanity.
Indeed, corporations are the exact equivalent of Terminators - with the difference that their imperative is not to kill humans, but to maximise profit. It's not clear to me that it's a difference that matters in the medium to long term. Paperclips, profits...
Which cultures regard procreation as anything other than a personal decision?
China did for a while, and no doubt still does to a limited extent. But then the Chinese have a very long (relatively) history of population swings and disasters such as floods, famines, and invasions. They have learned to cope - somewhat.
Are you referring to China's one child policy?
Yes.
I'm unsure if I would categorize that policy as cultural.
Every cent of my bet goes on humanity acting in ‘normal’ ways that facilitate a fast and brutal collapse .
In the global commons, we are all in a death struggle.
You can choose not to procreate, or to drastically limit your procreation, or to look down on those who procreate and who must therefore bear the severe burden of raising children not only alone, but under the sneering opprobrium of al bien pensants.
It is the tragedy of the commons, writ globally.
But bear in mind that the children you refrain from sending out to into the collapsing commons will be more than replaced by your neighbour, who, by pure coincidence, is pressuring you to do exactly that. And so the commons will be destroyed anyway, because unilateral retreat only means that your genes will be eliminated, not that the commons will be preserved. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Those with brains evolved enough to worry about the environment and be willing to make personal sacrifices to protect it will be removed from the gene pool, while those who do not and will not (consider that 36% of oceanic plastic bag pollution comes from ONE COUNTRY, the Philippines) will see their genes take over the world and turn the whole thing into a garbage dump.