Population growth, China, etc.

[Iosef Cross]

And even stated that he supports cohersive birth control to support such a decrease.

Because the consequences of not doing so when the possibility is there, are worse than any human rights violation. Barring that possibility, then others methods can and should be used. The issue is a matter of time. The other methods are rate limited. They take effect slowly, over the course of decades. Decades we dont have.

Sorry for meddling with this debate, but I think I can add some information:

Do you think that the human capabilities of producing food will decrease in future decades? The past evidence is for continuous improvement in food production. Ecological problems could only reduce the rate of decrease of agricultural prices.

I don't think there is any chance of the world having famine in the next decades. Economic growth occurring in the third world is massive these days, by 2060 the entire world will be already industrialized like the US and Europe are today.

For example, economic growth combined with a decrease in GINI will mute the link in the chain relating to birth and death schedules. It requires management. A partially planned economy. Not the free market exploitative free for all that currently exists.

If you want to decrease the rate of population growth the government could create a child tax. Much simpler than trying to make a planned economy.

Once again, I have yet to see any of you justify this reasoning. India is industrializing in spite of having masssive population growth.

They can do both at the same time, but the way they are doing it decreases what is available per person. This should be very simple for your primitive brain to grasp.

If I have 8 slices of pie, and 8 people we are fine. If I then get 9 slices pie, and three more people show up, I have to cut those slices into smaller ones.

Use your brain.

[/quote]

The fact is that the quantity of resources available to human consumption is not determined by nature. It is ultimately determined by human knowledge of how to use the physical reality to serve human needs.

[Iosef Cross]

Japan pretty much became a industrialized country in 25 years, from 1950 to 1975. In 1950 Japan's per capita levels of energy consumption were lower than Britain in 1820 (in terms of tons of oil equivalent per capita), second to Angus Maddison. By 1975, Japan's level of energy consumption was 6 times the level 25 years before. That change the in west took about 100 years to make.

And they did because we were occupying and reconstructing them at the time.

The country that received most US financial help after WW2 was Britain, with was also the country that grew less. The countries that received the less US help grew more.

Japan only imported the institutions of the US, with really helped them. Also, post war periods have fast economic growth because they result in massive destruction of capital, with implies in increase of marginal productivity of capital, increasing the rate of economic growth.

Overall, it is true that Japan's growth was the result of special historical circumstances. Britain could never have industrialized in 25 years.

[Samuel]

If you want to decrease the rate of population growth the government could create a child tax. Much simpler than trying to make a planned economy.

Took developmental econ last quarter and let me tell you, that is not a good solution. Remember, the people who are having kids are poor and might not even have money to pay. That and you need to set up a collection method which takes more money and effort.

The fact is that the quantity of resources available to human consumption is not determined by nature. It is ultimately determined by human knowledge of how to use the physical reality to serve human needs.

Until we start tearing apart asteroids, it is determined by nature. While I think Alsysium is pessimistic, the fact of the matter is that all the solutions for food are out of reach of the people who will need them. I don't think humanity is in danger of starving, however I find it entirely possible that growth could stall and some places remain shitholds.

Japan only imported the institutions of the US, with really helped them.

What specifically? Japan prior to the war had a parliment and was trying to industrialize. We did marginalize the emperor, but the only institutional change that helped economic growth I can think of would be setting limits to military spending.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Do you think that the human capabilities of producing food will decrease in future decades? The past evidence is for continuous improvement in food production. Ecological problems could only reduce the rate of decrease of agricultural prices.

Yes.

The past evidence is for continuous increase because we continually cultivated new land. We cant do that anymore. We are running out of new land to cultivate without massive other costs attached to it, and the land we area already cultivating is being reduced in quality due to high input farming. Read the fucking thread, I have gone over this at length.

I don't think there is any chance of the world having famine in the next decades. Economic growth occurring in the third world is massive these days, by 2060 the entire world will be already industrialized like the US and Europe are today.

Read the thread moron. I am not repeating myself. Frankly, what you think does not matter to me unless you have evidence to back it up.

If you want to decrease the rate of population growth the government could create a child tax. Much simpler than trying to make a planned economy.

And how exactly will this be enforced and collected in an area with little infrastructure, unreliable records, and with much of the population making less than a dollar a day?

The fact is that the quantity of resources available to human consumption is not determined by nature. It is ultimately determined by human knowledge of how to use the physical reality to serve human needs.

Be you an ecologist? Do you actually know what the extent of our knowledge is, and how much upon nature we actually rely? Do you know how Nitrogen cycles through an ecosystem, and how water recharges in aquifers?

No? I thought not.

Our ingenuity, while impressive, is bound, constrained if you will by nature. By the physical and chemical processes we harness in order to cultivate land. Without water, plants die. If the soil is too saline due to excessive irrigation, plants die. If there is too much nitrogen, it runs off poisoning and eutrophicating watersheds and the ocean which fucks over massive parts of the food webs upon which we rely rather handily.

What pray tell would we do to escape from this? Within the next 50 years, because that is the time we have. Please, do tell the person with years of formal training regarding the interactions between organisms and their biotic and abiotic environment what magical technology we will develop that will allow us to break the laws of physics, chemistry, and population ecology.

[Alyrium Denryle]

While I think Alsysium is pessimistic, the fact of the matter is that all the solutions for food are out of reach of the people who will need them

I am not being pessimistic. I am being cynical. There is a difference. Pessimism is an unreasonable and irrational belief that the worst will occur. Being cynical is to know from experience that it tends to occur, and that people are too caught up in their own bullshit to pay attention to what is going on around them.

[Iosef Cross]

If you want to decrease the rate of population growth the government could create a child tax. Much simpler than trying to make a planned economy.

Took developmental econ last quarter and let me tell you, that is not a good solution. Remember, the people who are having kids are poor and might not even have money to pay. That and you need to set up a collection method which takes more money and effort.

If they don't have money to pay, they don't have any kids! So, it would be a win-win situation.

The idea behind child tax is to internalize the externalities generated by having more kids. In other words, if having more kids hurts the environment, and hurting the environment hurts people, they would have to pay for that. If they are to poor for that, they would have to do without kids.

The fact is that the quantity of resources available to human consumption is not determined by nature. It is ultimately determined by human knowledge of how to use the physical reality to serve human needs.

Until we start tearing apart asteroids, it is determined by nature. While I think Alsysium is pessimistic, the fact of the matter is that all the solutions for food are out of reach of the people who will need them. I don't think humanity is in danger of starving, however I find it entirely possible that growth could stall and some places remain shitholds.

The quantity of resources available for human consumption is determined only be the capability of humans in obtaining them. Today this capability is better than in any other time in history. That's why you need to work less to buy a kg of almost any substance today than 100 years ago.

Japan only imported the institutions of the US, with really helped them.

What specifically? Japan prior to the war had a parliment and was trying to industrialize. We did marginalize the emperor, but the only institutional change that helped economic growth I can think of would be setting limits to military spending.

Japan was importing institutions from the west since the late 19th century. But only after WW2 that they became a modern "western" country, by integrating itself in the world economy, instead of trying to carve a stupid colonial empire.
That pretty much explains the rapid emergence of the country as one of the world's economic superpowers, even if before WW2 they were beginning the industrialization process. Their integration into the world certainly helped to speed up their progress.

[Samuel]

If they don't have money to pay, they don't have any kids! So, it would be a win-win situation.

So how are you going to enforce that? Debt slavery?

If they are to poor for that, they would have to do without kids.

I can already see the riots. Not a good plan. Lets go with one that doesn't end with the subsistance farmers all becoming enemies of the state.

The quantity of resources available for human consumption is determined only be the capability of humans in obtaining them. Today this capability is better than in any other time in history. That's why you need to work less to buy a kg of almost any substance today than 100 years ago.

Actually it is because it we have mechanized so that extraction is cheaper.

But only after WW2 that they became a modern "western" country, by integrating itself in the world economy, instead of trying to carve a stupid colonial empire.

Unlike the US (which grabed colonies in 1898) or Europe (which was grabbing colonies until the end of the 19th century- later if you count Italy and the USSR).

That pretty much explains the rapid emergence of the country as one of the world's economic superpowers,

How? South Korea was a colony of theirs and it also managed explosive growth. Without democracy and with a large military unlike Japan.

[Iosef Cross]

Do you think that the human capabilities of producing food will decrease in future decades? The past evidence is for continuous improvement in food production. Ecological problems could only reduce the rate of decrease of agricultural prices.

Yes.

The past evidence is for continuous increase because we continually cultivated new land. We cant do that anymore. We are running out of new land to cultivate without massive other costs attached to it, and the land we area already cultivating is being reduced in quality due to high input farming. Read the fucking thread, I have gone over this at length.

You are wrong, 2 reasons:

1- Only in my country there are hundreds of millions of hectares of uncultivated land.

2- In the US the acreage of cultivated land didn't increase much since the forties but production more than doubled. If there is not more unused land, the increase in food production can increase with increase in productivity. Japan is an example what it can be done.

I don't think there is any chance of the world having famine in the next decades. Economic growth occurring in the third world is massive these days, by 2060 the entire world will be already industrialized like the US and Europe are today.

Read the thread moron. I am not repeating myself. Frankly, what you think does not matter to me unless you have evidence to back it up.

Here in Brazil we are in a pretty fast process of development since the 1950's. Here is the graph of the evolution of Brazil's per capita income in the last 110 years, we had some problems during the 80's and 90's because of macroeconomic imbalances, but now we have corrected those problems and growth has resumed:



China has an even faster development record, and India is getting off the ground too.

From the evidence of the last 60 years, we can certainly predict that the world will be a much better place in the future.

If you want to decrease the rate of population growth the government could create a child tax. Much simpler than trying to make a planned economy.

And how exactly will this be enforced and collected in an area with little infrastructure, unreliable records, and with much of the population making less than a dollar a day?

Well, in that case no public policy would be possible, including your suggestions! I mean, if the government is incapable of taxing people, it is incapable of anything...

The fact is that the quantity of resources available to human consumption is not determined by nature. It is ultimately determined by human knowledge of how to use the physical reality to serve human needs.

What pray tell would we do to escape from this? Within the next 50 years, because that is the time we have. Please, do tell the person with years of formal training regarding the interactions between organisms and their biotic and abiotic environment what magical technology we will develop that will allow us to break the laws of physics, chemistry, and population ecology.

Well, if civilization is going to collapse due to ecological problems in the next decades, why nobody cares? I mean, you are the first person to tell me that we have only 50 years before the world collapses. I don't have much knowledge of biology, but why the media doesn't talk about that?

[Iosef Cross]

If they don't have money to pay, they don't have any kids! So, it would be a win-win situation.

So how are you going to enforce that? Debt slavery?

If the government is incapable of enforcing the payment of taxes, well, them things are going to be hard if you want to do public policy.

If they are to poor for that, they would have to do without kids.

I can already see the riots. Not a good plan. Lets go with one that doesn't end with the subsistance farmers all becoming enemies of the state.

Why they would become enemies of the state? Here in Brazil we have a truckload of taxes and people aren't rebelling. If the state is incapable of making people pay taxes and survive, well, it is a dam weak one.

The quantity of resources available for human consumption is determined only be the capability of humans in obtaining them. Today this capability is better than in any other time in history. That's why you need to work less to buy a kg of almost any substance today than 100 years ago.

Actually it is because it we have mechanized so that extraction is cheaper.

With is what I said...

But only after WW2 that they became a modern "western" country, by integrating itself in the world economy, instead of trying to carve a stupid colonial empire.

Unlike the US (which grabed colonies in 1898) or Europe (which was grabbing colonies until the end of the 19th century- later if you count Italy and the USSR).

Colonial empires are stupid. Europe and the US carved some colonial empires, but they grew less rapidly than Japan.

The US and Germany carved less land than UK and France, with set of countries grew more between 1850 and 1914? US+Germany or UK+France?

That pretty much explains the rapid emergence of the country as one of the world's economic superpowers,

How? South Korea was a colony of theirs and it also managed explosive growth. Without democracy and with a large military unlike Japan.

Well, any country can have explosive growth if they assimilate the basic institutions of the west, like individual property rights and have macroeconomic stability.

Also, the peoples of the far east tend to save more than other populations, so that when they assimilate capitalist institutions their economies growth faster, since more resources are allocated to increase future output in expense of present output.

[Samuel]

If the government is incapable of enforcing the payment of taxes, well, them things are going to be hard if you want to do public policy.

We are talking about people who are so poor they do not have money. How are you going to get money from them?

Why they would become enemies of the state? Here in Brazil we have a truckload of taxes and people aren't rebelling. If the state is incapable of making people pay taxes and survive, well, it is a dam weak one.

Most poor states are very weak.

Colonial empires are stupid. Europe and the US carved some colonial empires, but they grew less rapidly than Japan.

Because Japan stole the ones Europeans created. There is nothing extraordinary about Japan's expansion.

The US and Germany carved less land than UK and France, with set of countries grew more between 1850 and 1914? US+Germany or UK+France?

Germany didn't exist until 1850 so it would be hard for it to embark on a campaign of conquest. As for the US we don't count because we incorporated the conquered territory as states.

basic institutions of the west, like individual property rights and have macroeconomic stability.

I'm almost positive individual property rights were weak in South Korea. I know they are in China which is experiencing insane growth. Also macroeconic stabiliy isn't an institution. In fact the regimes before industrialization tended to be macroeconomically stable.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You are wrong, 2 reasons:

1- Only in my country there are hundreds of millions of hectares of uncultivated land.

2- In the US the acreage of cultivated land didn't increase much since the forties but production more than doubled. If there is not more unused land, the increase in food production can increase with increase in productivity. Japan is an example what it can be done.

See that sentence about other costs attached to it moron? Yes, by all means, cut down the millions of hectares of rainforest. Destroy millions of hectares of high primary productivity land which makes your oxygen, sequesters your CO2, cleans your watersheds, and from which are derived most medications, disposess native people, and drive thousands or even millions of species to extinction. Go right on ahead with that. Even if you do that, the use of all of that land is accounted for in the literature regarding carrying capacity.

As for increases in productivity. Yes idiot. That was the green revolution. That event that saved us from mass famine back in the 70s, and artificially boosted carrying capacity (which I would say just allowed us to overshoot. The increase was temporary). It is already done, any gains from utilizing more of the technologies which were pioneered in that period will be muted by two things.

1) They already widely in use.
2) They cause long-term degradation of the environment in which they are used.

From the evidence of the last 60 years, we can certainly predict that the world will be a much better place in the future.

No. You cant. Your per capita income is growing. Good for you. But resources on our planet are limiting, that sort of growth cannot be continued forever, by looking at what resources are available, and what gets consumed, the available evidence suggests that we are just in a particularly nice place of the logistic curve used to model population growth (and growth of per capita income for that matter). Once again, a person demonstrates that they are in fact no smarter than yeast.

http://dorigousa.com/fdorigo/academic/n ... -curve.png

You are sitting in the middle of that curve, which from your perspective looks comfortably exponential. It is not. If you take the slope of the tangent line from your current location, and then extend the graph all the way up, you will fail the math test because the curve is a logistic function. It is going to level out, and that leveling will not be pleasant. Particularly if there is a lag in how our populations respond to resource availability, which they do by at least one generation.

Well, in that case no public policy would be possible, including your suggestions! I mean, if the government is incapable of taxing people, it is incapable of anything...

Who said their government has to do it? Learn to read. I was suggesting that in cases where the governments are weak, foreign governments could easily do what I suggest.

Well, if civilization is going to collapse due to ecological problems in the next decades, why nobody cares? I mean, you are the first person to tell me that we have only 50 years before the world collapses. I don't have much knowledge of biology, but why the media doesn't talk about that?

Now when did I say civilization will collapse? Civilization is to entrenched to collapse. All I said is that a few billion people will suffer and/or die.

The media does discuss it, just not the Primetime media. You have to watch stuff like National Geographic late at night before anyone will dare mention the fact that we are set to overshoot carrying capacity in 50 years. The reason you dont hear it on the local news network is because most people, like you, are not any smarter than fucking yeast.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't have much knowledge of biology, but why the media doesn't talk about that?

Perhaps that's your problem, then. Even the person who knew just about everything behind the "green revolution", Norman Borlaug, spoke of it as only of a spare time bought, an extention of supplies for human population, during which extension the problem of "sustainable development" must be solved. He did not say that there will be a "Second Green Revolution", a third, fourth, fifth etc. ones.

The fact that you hardly realize the amount of hurdles ahead in human food supply only shows just how uninformed you are.

Food supplies in the Third World already hit a dangerous peak price in 2008, when entire regions (e.g. Central Asia) had their malnourishment levels rise - just read a some FAO papers on the matter.

[Terralthra]

From the evidence of the last 60 years, we can certainly predict that the world will be a much better place in the future.

This is a hasty generalization fallacy of the worst sort. Past performance can only be used to predict future performance assuming equivalent conditions and pressures. Which you have utterly failed to do.

To put this more bluntly, according to your logic, by this graph here:

We can certainly predict that home prices will rise significantly in the period commencing 2006 and continuing thereafter.

Hmm.

[Lusankya]

If you want to decrease the rate of population growth the government could create a child tax. Much simpler than trying to make a planned economy.

Took developmental econ last quarter and let me tell you, that is not a good solution. Remember, the people who are having kids are poor and might not even have money to pay. That and you need to set up a collection method which takes more money and effort.

The One Child Policy is basically a child tax. If families are unable to pay the tax, the government will just take one of their luxury items in lieu of tax - like their television, for instance. Needless to say, the One Child Policy most strongly affects the middle class - the ones who are wealthy enough to actually pay the tax, but not so wealthy that it doesn't hurt.

[Simon_Jester]

Now when did I say civilization will collapse? Civilization is to entrenched to collapse. All I said is that a few billion people will suffer and/or die.

The media does discuss it, just not the Primetime media. You have to watch stuff like National Geographic late at night before anyone will dare mention the fact that we are set to overshoot carrying capacity in 50 years. The reason you dont hear it on the local news network is because most people, like you, are not any smarter than fucking yeast.

I would like to expand on this:

The similarity between most people and yeast is that, like yeast, people don't do a good job of consciously planning future growth in terms of what we can reasonably expect to be able to support.

Even when people bother to do long range planning, they tend to ask the wrong questions. For example, they ask "how many more hectares of rainforest can we clear and farm?" They do NOT ask "if we clear any more hectares of rainforest, how will that affect the long-term viability of the farmland we already have?" Or "is there an economic cost to losing our rainforests?" Because they do not see the value of the rainforest, because they do not study the rainforest. It is just a big green blur on the edge of the relevant world to them, one that matters only insofar as it can be erased and replaced with something more relevant.

So they miss out on things that are beyond their mental horizon, and don't bother to consult with experts who see outside that horizon... because the answers are depressing.

It's like going to the doctor: the doctor will probably tell you things that in the short run, you'd be happier not knowing. Nobody wants to know that if they don't get more exercise they'll die of heart failure before they turn sixty, after all. That doesn't make it any less true. Likewise, we don't want to know that the Earth can only support, say, seven or eight billion people when we're nearly at seven billion already with no end in sight. Again, that doesn't make it any less true.

So even though in theory we are much smarter than yeast, our population growth tends to work the same way yeast population growth does. And yeast tends to overshoot the available resources and have huge diebacks. Not a good omen.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well, yeast does not overshoot. It meets more of the assumptions of the standard (not modified for lag) lotka equation for population growth, and with them the lag is so low that they only just deviate from a standard logistic curve.

We behave more like deer which have had their natural predators removed.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Well, yeast does not overshoot. It meets more of the assumptions of the standard (not modified for lag) lotka equation for population growth, and with them the lag is so low that they only just deviate from a standard logistic curve.

We behave more like deer which have had their natural predators removed.

That's beside the point, though. The yeast will eventually consume all their resources and then the die-off phase will take place. This is a major problem in vat produced products, given the necessity of keeping the culture alive and avoiding any contaminants. Now apply that same model to a species on just the one planet that has already long since past the sustainable population level and is still growing. A die-off was going to happen anyway, but now we run the risk of a far less orderly one that could potentially end in warfare and the other three horsemen wreaking havoc.

We only have one shot at producing a civilisation that will break the confines of this planet and achieve Asimov's dreams of leaving the nest. If we squander it, there is NO second chance. Of it wasn't for fossil fuels, we wouldn't be debating on a global computer network now. If this energy isn't used to maintain a stable civilisation that doesn't rely on hydrocarbon energy, then once the planet's supplies of ancient sunlight in the ground run dry, we're on our own with whatever is left at that time.

We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned.

[Simon_Jester]

We only have one shot at producing a civilisation that will break the confines of this planet and achieve Asimov's dreams of leaving the nest. If we squander it, there is NO second chance. Of it wasn't for fossil fuels, we wouldn't be debating on a global computer network now. If this energy isn't used to maintain a stable civilisation that doesn't rely on hydrocarbon energy, then once the planet's supplies of ancient sunlight in the ground run dry, we're on our own with whatever is left at that time.

... Eh. I think it could be done, with great difficulty, assuming the dieback doesn't take out all the advanced pockets of civilization with it. And there is (as Alyrium points out) a large difference between "dieback" and "end of civilization."

[Admiral Valdemar]

... Eh. I think it could be done, with great difficulty, assuming the dieback doesn't take out all the advanced pockets of civilization with it. And there is (as Alyrium points out) a large difference between "dieback" and "end of civilization."

If there are sufficient resources left in sufficient densities, then it could maybe get done on a smaller scale. But if all you have is the dregs of the North Sea for fossil fuel energy globally along with the Alberta tar sands, then forget it. You don't create space faring civilisations from tree burning. This assumes infrastructure in place already is unable to support itself energy-wise, and vital ores etc. are down to the lower grade, harder to acquire types that demand high energy density extraction sources.

For instance, imagine the resource wars go nuclear and destroy or damage critically most modern nations, as will inevitably happen in such a war. The species survives and civilisation of sorts remains, but the energy that got us to where we once were is gone. And it isn't coming back. It's like trying to launch a rocket into space after you've accidentally lost all your rocket fuel and have only oodles of trees instead.

[Formless]

Whats this bullshit about trees? We're running out of resources, but what makes you think it'll happen that quickly? For that matter, what makes you think we won't run out of food first? Thinking about the absolute worst case scenario is only useful up to a point, after that its just a disturbed form of mental masturbation.

Besides, there are other (albeit not so clean) ways of getting into space besides rockets.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Whats this bullshit about trees? We're running out of resources, but what makes you think it'll happen that quickly? For that matter, what makes you think we won't run out of food first? Thinking about the absolute worst case scenario is only useful up to a point, after that its just a disturbed form of mental masturbation.

More than likely it will be food production that gets us. Energy production will be later

[Admiral Valdemar]

Whats this bullshit about trees?

It's called an analogy.

We're running out of resources, but what makes you think it'll happen that quickly?

Maths? Actually, I never gave any timeline anyway, so it's moot.

For that matter, what makes you think we won't run out of food first? Thinking about the absolute worst case scenario is only useful up to a point, after that its just a disturbed form of mental masturbation.

That kinda makes the whole topic worth not discussing, since we're already heading on that path anyway. There is NOTHING being done to address this situation at all. Even the most tyrannical world power with any clout around, China, can't keep that One Child policy totally airtight.

Besides, there are other (albeit not so clean) ways of getting into space besides rockets.

Quite. And the last thing we'll be doing at that point is throwing mass into orbit.

[Formless]

That kinda makes the whole topic worth not discussing, since we're already heading on that path anyway. There is NOTHING being done to address this situation at all. Even the most tyrannical world power with any clout around, China, can't keep that One Child policy totally airtight.

So what can be done? I think that's half the problem-- the only people who know about it get too bent out of shape over despair ridden pessimism and don't think about how to avoid the worst case scenarios. Cynicism, pessimism, and fatalism don't help things; only pragmatism ever solved anything.

[Alyrium Denryle]

That kinda makes the whole topic worth not discussing, since we're already heading on that path anyway. There is NOTHING being done to address this situation at all. Even the most tyrannical world power with any clout around, China, can't keep that One Child policy totally airtight.

So what can be done? I think that's half the problem-- the only people who know about it get too bent out of shape over despair ridden pessimism and don't think about how to avoid the worst case scenarios. Cynicism, pessimism, and fatalism don't help things; only pragmatism ever solved anything.

I have laid out ways we COULD solve the problem earlier in this thread. Hard population control like the One Child Policy in states that are strong enough to do it, and a soft system, to reduce GINI and quickly raise per capita income above subsistence levels through the use of local economic investment by first world governments (as opposed to the corporate imperialist profiteering we are doing now).

It would work. It just wont happen, because human beings are just as stupid as yeast and we only have 50 years to get population growth below replacement.

At the very least, the world's biologists are going to be able to get on a big soap box in a few decades and say "we told you so". I will take some comfort in that. Not much, but some.

[Simon_Jester]

For instance, imagine the resource wars go nuclear and destroy or damage critically most modern nations, as will inevitably happen in such a war. The species survives and civilisation of sorts remains, but the energy that got us to where we once were is gone. And it isn't coming back. It's like trying to launch a rocket into space after you've accidentally lost all your rocket fuel and have only oodles of trees instead.

I'm imagining it being a very difficult program revolving around trash-mining, with hydrogen-LOX rocketry and lots of wind turbines.

Not at all easy, quite possibly not even possible, but... I think possible. Maybe.

You don't need to re-explain the concept to me in shorter words; I really do comprehend what you're saying and why you're saying it. Our point of disagreement happens because I haven't seen the math and I'm not sure the renewable-source options are as limited as you make them out to be.