World Population Day Presentation by Dr. William Rees 

Dr. Rees is absolutely right. Taking into account where we are right now and how few people actually get it, we are all in great danger.

Overshoot is studied in all other species. As usual, we don't bother to do that with the human species because we think we are, somehow, not animals and, so, not bound to the same constraints.

This excellent video contains vitally important information. It should be screened everywhere and be compulsory watching for politicians!

The human species is doomed.

Great content of the clear and present danger of life on Earth facing extinction by our own hands.

All our current civilization is support in a wrong thinkings .Infinite economic growth , infinite demográfic growth . It means Two exponential curbs working together , extracting limited resources , and wasting the natural environment with pollution issues . Is really crazy people still right now can believe this absurd hypothesis . Into a few year nature will made adjustment quickly and painfully .- Best regards Comment Very good work done by Dr Williams Reed

7:50 - 8:27 imagine hearing that on the six o'clock news

First off Dr. Rees, great job in pointing out the obvious, I thank you. Let me give you a few statistics here: First are you aware of 'The Great Acceleration'? Have you heard that term before? 1950 to Present : population quadrupled in my lifetime! 2.1 to 8 billion, never before anything close to that happening in world history. I experienced what this world was like with 2.2 billion in 50's and I can assure you it was a far more pleasant world than today with 8 billion. Did you know that prior to 1900 no human ever lived long enough for population to double in his lifetime? In my lifetime it has quadruple and that is total insanity!. In 1994 in South Africa there were 4.6 million whites and at same time there where 25 million blacks pointing out copulation rates can radically change demographics on who runs the world! The population problem will never be solved, cannot be solved and leaders know that fact, religion, cultures and corporations will see that it is not solved. So, our trajectory is set, we must keep this unsustainable world going just a little longer with new and better 'gadgets' until the entire ecosystem collapses! How long will that be? Not very long at this point, we are hanging onto edge of very high building with a 'slate' roof with just our fingernails & they are scratching at last inch of support. PS: This current pandemic is a result of our overpopulation issue where 2/3rds of this world is living in sceptic waste and travel is only hours away from any large city by plane. If a group of aliens ever land on this planet they will know exactly reason humans went extinct. Good Luck!

One species causing a 6th mass extinction. I'm embarrassed to be a human.

I love Bill Rees!

Wisdom Speaks. So few listen. How do we change that?

We Can choose, but we won't. Talk to anyone, they want the old ways back asap or worse, rfn. Reality and most peeps don't live together. ❤️❤️🌎❤️❤️

Thank you Prof. Rees!

Sets me in mind of the Georgia Guidestones, a solid granite Stone Hinge-like monument put up by some anonymous folks in Georgia back about 1980. A set of rules, requests to humanity, made in several of the dominant languages. The very first principle inscribed on the face, the first precept, is this: Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature. In light of such presentations as this, and the reality that's bearing down on us all right now, it's almost as if the future sent someone back to this time to lay it out, doesn't it? Like a Moses coming down from the mountain. Unfortunately, I don't have high hopes. We'll probably no more listen and obey the precepts than the tribes of Israel did (the first time). Which means we're all setting ourselves up for a whole world of pain before we learn to truly understand that we live within a terrarium. This, at heart, is what our Paradise Earth is, a terrarium. In all our actions we need to stay mindful of this fact. And I've every confidence we will, but not before 'ol Mother Nature and all her dynamic systems regulating the terrarium takes us by the scruff of our necks and rubs our face in all the shit we have done. You know, in "Bad Primate! BAD PRIMATE!!" fashion. Just like you would do if you came home from a long, hard, day and found your pet had trashed the place. Just some thoughts worth about that much. John~ American Net'Zen

Looks like humanity is getting ready to go out in a big bang

we should never have gone above 2 billion humans........period.

Great Dr. Rees. The world needs demographic and economic degrowth...

Overpopulation is something that everyone sees and experiences, yet very few people are willing to act upon. It is a classic example of ‘cognitive dissonance’.

I honestly think the taboo about seeing that the driving factor behind our problems is our numbers (as well as a love of dysfunctional hierarchies) is wired into our primate neuro-architecture. This just bubbles up through our cognitive abstractions, which is also, as Dr Rees says, a huge problem. We live in our thoughts more than in the real world.

I fully agree with Dr. Rees; our population has well over-shot Earth's natural carrying capacity for our species. Yet he never comes out and says it: what should mankind's population be brought back down to to once again live in harmony with all the rest of life on Earth? Where should our populations be centered to least interfere with the needs of all the rest of life on Earth. How much resource extraction should be permitted/allowed/agreed on, over what units of time? How should non-renewable resources like crude oil be utilized instead of how we now wastefully proliferate its use? How can/should/must we deal with single-use plastics? Come-on Dr. Rees; be bold here, stop beating-around-the bush and speak plainly about these and other existential issues. Yes, you will get challenged...great! What better way to start the meaningful dialog necessary to get us from were we now are to where mankind needs to be in order to save our species, and much of all other life on Earth from what now faces us (either extinction or vastly, unimaginably reduced quality of life) if we do not change our over-exploitive, over-population ways.

Snipped. But you had to read it. Message delivered.

Would 1 billion people be able to keep "alive" the current state of civilization enjoyed by most western developed nations today, and, disseminate such standard of living relatively equally throughout such a population size...or, would it take closer to 2 billion of us. Then, too, what steps would HAVE to be taken to maintain "steady state" such a population, to keep the overshoot cycle from creeping back in? To my knowledge only Science Fiction writers, so far, have guessed at/written about these topics.

Who is better, they who promote truth over happiness, or happiness over truth - Nietzsche. Dr. Rees, the graphics which show the high income and low income countries, is there a link or some way I may access them? Thank you!

Dr. Rees is so important to give us a macro view of economy/ecology connectivity. It it too bad our selfish not so sapien sapiens will not become aware before our extinction.

A 80% contraction of our western economies would be necessary to live without overshoot... Did anyone develop a model yet of how that would look like in detail and how fast this could be implemented?

All empires eventually collapse due to two things, greed and technology.

This is just common sense. The power of conceptual lenses to blind us to reality is astonishing.

Someone needs to have a chat with Elon Musk. As brilliant as he is with technology and business, he is not so much with biology and ecology. In those sciences, he is abysmally stupid. Musk calls for population growth. He must be insane.

Talking about this without bringing up the subject of planned obsolescence in consumer products is absurd. People in the computer industry not discussing something as simple as passive backplanes to reduce e-waste is utterly ridiculous. In economics there is depreciation on the supply side and the demand side, but economists totally Ignore the depreciation on the demand side.

The population problem will be solved one way or another. Obviously, we won't to do it voluntarily.

I would like to hear more. I do think that the climate crisis could , and may already, have started positive feedbacks that will lead to destruction of habitat. We and most creatures can't exist without habitat. If tipping points are at play, there is little we can do as a species to slow the process. A +5° C Earth is not one that we can survive. We are at +1.2° C today, compared to 1880, +1.5°C compared to 1750. And its accelerating. We should be scared of the exponential. Through famine and wars, we may reach the 1 to 2 billion people carrying capacity. That won't matter if positive feedbacks take the planet to +5° C or greater. It could hit 10 or 20° C, but in that case there will be nobody around to notice.

Human overshoot is a result of our huge ability to deny. We're too wonderful to destroy our only home, aren't we?

what we don't say is the way of history was an age of wars , wars and intercultural conflicts had a way of controlling population growth. modern humans are well overdue for another population reset, some scientists say 11 trillion is the tipping point for the planet to sustain humans, at this s time in history , it is showing we are past the number the planet can sustain, and what is the population number approx. 7.9billion some countries are well past their lands sustainability, and are encroaching on others, the population bubble will burst, and this problem is and far out weighs any pandemics we will face

Great 👍 thank you. I wonder how many of the group are vegans. The hectare/person ratio for food shrinks drastically when excluding any meats from your diet. It also lowers CO2/CH4 emissions (no fishing vessels, less farming machinery, less animal emissions). The dependency on meat is one of the growing up conditionings that must be removed if we were to move forward as a human race.

Too many humans using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution. Questions?

Good talk and info but short on clear speech of how serious a situation we are in with a much larger possibility of a very quick die off event caused by abrupt climate change as has been shown worldwide in the last month and accelerating, how would our food production be effected over a 2 year period following a Blue Ocean Event, complete collapse from failed crops.

Wear be are oun demise theres no stopping it

Economic perpetual motion? I thought the US patent office said there was no such thing? They were right.

As a long term environmentalist, I've found this presentation extremely disappointing. There was no reference to recent population trends which apparently show declining birth rates in most of the world and no evidence to support the contention that renewable sources of power cannot meet our needs.

So what will the future be like?

Population of billionaires is the problem

LEERLO VARIAS VECES HASTA APRENDERSELO.

after youve read the population bomb and some of the related 'overshoot' biological, ecological and economic literature you realize what?

He says that population increase drives the eco footprint but the data he provides shows that the largest eco footprint increases come from the countries with high income growth. While the lowest income countries have the highest correlation between EF and pop growth, they have lowest lump sums of increase together with the second lowest category. The highest developed categories have 9 Ggha while the lowest two have 3 - its not the amount of people but the wasteful consumption. The question is would you rather change your way of life or let strangers die. He is using percentages to imply a greater gravity to those small changes. Sure it quadrupled, but while for instance 16 is a quadruple of 4 and it increases by 12, 4 is a quadruple of 1 but only increases it by 3. He is essentially drawing an eqquivalence between the two. Here the high income EF increased by 3.2 Ggha or 89%, and the Low IncomeEF increased by 0.69 (287%). He is telling you to worry more about the 287% even in real terms the 3.2 is higher than 0.69. It's the same bullshit they tell you when they say ants have superstrength because they can lift so much more than their body weight when it's really just a matter of scaling. Also the graphs show downward trends with all EFs, except when you compare it to the starting point. The conditions here are not from 1961, they are from now. So, comparing the development compared to a few years ago - like the last high point - is more useful then comparing it to a far off point in time. Additionally, we expect a decrease in birthrates in highly developed countries so these countries have shrinking footprints and shrinking numbers. A counterbalancing double whammy. We also have consider that this is not the cumulative footprint but just how much got added. Once again this cumulative footprint would be higher in developed countries which have a lower total population so this EF is clearly more influenced by development of industry and unsustainable economic practices than the amount of people. Funnily we arrive at the same conclusions. Except one line of reasoning can be much better used for eco-fascism, i.e. calling for the reduction of population size to preserve consumption. The ones calling the loudest for population control are the ones whose departure would impact this equation the most. So don't fall into that trap.

We are going to hit the resource wall at some point .. Having completely ravaged the planet .,

Obviously nobody wants to hear this sort of disturbing message.

Within the confines of the present Global Economic Model GEM all efforts to correct man-made climate change will at best fail or at worst, will be the last nail in our collective coffin. Technological changes are sorely needed, but the primary problem is our misbehavior towards the environment. That misbehavior is described by the following equation: "Profit = income - expenses". The problem with "Profit = income - expenses" is that the entire environment is on the expense part of the equation, and that includes us. Businesses want to eliminate expenses; thus, "Profit = income - expenses" is a recipe for the destruction of the environment and all life on earth. Our current definition of profit is the cause of 'overshoot', and overshoot is the cause of man-made climate change. We need a new Global Economic Model GEM that supports a new definition of profit. How about this definition: "Profit = our gratefulness and loving care for our Environment, and for the sustenance that it provides to all of us." Clearly, this definition of profit does require a new GEM. Please bear in mind that this definition of profit does away with expenses. In nature's economy we have already been paid in full, in advance. Our job in nature is to acquire sustenance without going into Overshoot. The central part of the new Global Economic Model should be the EPA. EPA members will vote on the best 'Profit' definition that states sustenance is our only actual 'gain' without which we can't live, and states that the environment is our only source of sustenance. Once the new GEM is designed, we will need a way to transition to its implementation. The new EPA in its new GEM will establish, by vote, all directives related to both, the GEM and climate rescue strategies. These directives will fail in our current Global Economic Model, but under the new GEM, here are some rough ideas of what the EPA directives might be: 1.) Population: Initially we need a temporary one child per family directive. This would last about a year, and the next 1 year restriction would occur five years later. 2.) In place of income, jobs would have an 'equivalency rating'. Some jobs are still more important and more difficult than others. 3.) All equivalency ratings will increase at the same time if and when the environment becomes healthier. The lowest EquivRate must still be livable. 4.) Everyone who can work will be able, and required, to get jobs. No more expenses, so no more cutting jobs to reduce expenses; thus, virtually no more homelessness. 5.) No manufacturing of useless and unnecessary products. All products will be scrutinized by various rating methods. 6.) Whenever possible products should last a lifetime and or be easily upgradable, so we don't buy the same products repeatedly. 7.) EPA will direct "Work Force Flow". Example: Shoe manufacturer will produce 100yearLife shoes for 3 years, then reduce output to about 1/10 of full capacity, and the majority of shoe employees will be shifted to other work assignments by the EPA. Employees still keep their EquivRate in-between jobs. 8.) All recyclable items will be recycled. All stores like wal-Mart Target etc. will carry both recycled and new products. Recycled costs far fewer EquivRate credits. Items that can't be recycled as is will be reprocessed for other purposes. Virtually nothing gets thrown away. 9.) We must all be educated, especially young students, about how to manage the new Global Economic Model and the environment. 10.) Caretakers of the environment will receive higher than average EquivRates. 11.) We must do away with neoliberalism, a political approach that favors free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending. I know that this is just a rough outline of what we must do, but it's a good starting point. This is our Ark. Please help build it! Questions, suggestions and any comments for or against this idea will be very deeply appreciated. Thank you! 💖

So here's an optimistic thought; as a species, our modern civilization collapses, and we are thrown back to pre-industrial lifestyle, and a more sustainable use of earth's resources. Possibility?

So, let's see; Royal Dutch Shell, 2008 - Blueprint or Scramble". The point being, of course, there's no need for a concerted nor devious nor conspiratorial 'plan' to manufacture 'soylent green'; 'twas only necessary to harvest the 'human' --- nay, animal --- predisposition for greed. The main irrelevancy is, again, of course, that, almost certainly, this sad-for-macroscopic-earthlings certainty is neither uncommon nor unprecedented anywhere in the universe. 'Sucks to be you' is a fact that can only modulated/moderated by the recognition of the futility of the 'you' in that statement...

I get a little anxious when I see tons of RU-vid videos on overpopulation talks spearheaded by intelligent white people. It’s especially discomforting to hear the words “government led population contraction”. The only examples we have of these types of programs have been massive failures and included atrocities that can never be justified. The phrasing “contract the human population to a sustainable number that can live equitably within nature” is a fancy way of saying “cull”, and I think it is dangerous to suggest such action written in a particularly white-centric language proposed by panels consisting of all white scientists.

The fact is there are no hard data to support or establish what unsustainable is. This is more scaremongering like what we heard from Paul Erlich.

This is a false choice. Fixing overshoot and not addressing sustainable energy production and embracing efficiency is a false paradigm that leaves us without instrumentality. This idea lacks context also.

Evolution or extinction? Are we able to learn to live in harmony with each other, nature and technology including AI? Sustainability not profitability. Mindfulness and self love, respect not exploitation. Our species faces a major die off, the population is passing the peak, passing a tipping point where our population goes from exponential growth to a transition to a new sustainable relationship with the ecosystem that has sustained us up until now. That downward curve can be as steep as a cliff which falls to zero, extinction, or it can begin steeply and recover as it returns to historic levels of sustainability, pre-technology levels such as pre-Columbian America. This could lead to a selection pressure that would produce a new species of hominid, speciation. The curve could be more gentle and could include technological solutions that would level off at a population that could both live more harmoniously with nature and each other and incorporate technology that would represent an evolution into a new species of technologically enhanced humanity, cyborgs. Taking life to other planets, terraforming and evolving new species of humans who could survive other planetary ecologies is another path that will require technologies including genetic engineering to reach for the stars. Managing these changes in a moral and humane way brings hope to a future that appears very scary from our selfish and ethnocentric perspectives. Keep up the good work or as John Perkins says "Dream True" instead of living like the hero of his book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman." Be blessed, you are a blessing. Aboriginal cultures have much to teach us.

human choice decentralization; God's kingdom central authority

Bill Rees inspired Agent Smith and a whole host of other anti-capitalist villains in pop culture counter revolutionary propaganda.

Tough question given George Monbiot says Precision Fermentation could feed a world of 10 billion ALL the fats and proteins they could want from an area the size of Greater London!

Worried about overpopulation? Off yourself. Really, be generous with your own life.

This video is proof that you can be highly qualified, and simultaneously completely mad.

bill Gates approved this video😷🤒🤢🤮😵