If you think the earth is dying because poor people are having too many babies, that's about three logical steps away from ecofascism.

    • Phillipkdink [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      This is why I said Malthus is a Strawman. Maybe there are some 17-year-olds on Twitter who just learned about Malthus but today basically nobody concerned about overpopulation is concerned because of starvation. It's a concern because if we are to raise the standard of living of billions of people (which we should) we are going to necessarily increase their carbon emissions.

      To answer your question the numbers come from average climate emissions relative to the ability of the Earth to act as a carbon sink.

      We have NO RIGHT to kill any of these people already alive

      What in the world? See this is the problem. Basically nobody except for some weird freaks think the overpopulation issue should be solved by killing people. How you got there from what I typed says a lot about your ability to discuss this rationally.

        • Phillipkdink [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Cool, nbd. I will say though, if it really is disturbingly common to think overpopulation should be solved by killing people on the global south why have I literally never heard a single person say it, in person or in media?

          Like I'm sure if I went looking on the internet for communities with heinous views I could dig up an example, but literally the only time I hear that idea is when some anarchist is going on about how ecofascism is some sort of serious problem.

            • Phillipkdink [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Again, literally never heard anybody say that ever. Are you sure you're not projecting that onto them in the same way you did me, since this topic is triggering to you?

              Basically all the libs I see talking about this do so with the lens of empowering and educating women, increasing access to contraceptives, and raising the standard of living (which is correlated with a reduction in birth rates) etc. I've never seen a single person seriously advocate solving this with murder.

    • TheCaconym [any]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      My understanding has always been that we overproduce a ridiculous amount of food

      We manage to do that only thanks to fossil fuels and mass fertilizer production - both of which we need to stop. Without fossil fuels, without huge factories filled with Haber–Bosch reaction chambers, right now we can't produce enough food. Perhaps alternative approaches such as labour intensive, decentralized mass permaculture could work though (but definitely not on a planet where warming exceeds, say, 3C and possibly less - and that's a level of warming we will reach).

        • TheCaconym [any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Plus, fossil fuel use is probably going to continue for a while “after socialism” anyway

          It cannot. All fossil fuel use should have been stopped years ago.

          But moreover, nowhere in my comment did I suggest killing anyone, and I even suggested possible avenues for solution.

          My own mindset though is that based on climate publications these past few years we're completely fucked anyway; have kids, don't, do what makes you happy at this point. Maybe they'll even survive to live in the apocalyptic hell-hole that will precede human extinction, and find a measure of happiness there. Enjoy the time you have left in any case.

            • TheCaconym [any]
              ·
              4 years ago

              No worries, I understand completely - like 90% of the time when someone talks about overpopulation in that context they're a fucking ecofascist, so it's easy enough to jump on that conclusion.

          • an_engel_on_earth [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            this is like the one topic where people here are okay with completely misrepresenting what the other side says. Like of course overpopulation is in many cases a supposedly empirical justification for ecofascism. And yes overconsumption and waste are def larger problems in terms of priority. But it's wild how he thought he had to state "But killing huge swathes of people for the sake of the planet should be off the table pretty much no matter what." Like holy shit what?? No duh sherlock. P sure not promoting indiscriminate killings is like the bare minimum of being a leftist. Idk very uncharitable to say the least