Catastrophic population decline following prolonged population growth

By -
Like in the bangus fishkill in Taal Lake this year, populations don’t seem to decline gradually when placed under stress. Prior to the onset of environmental pressure, populations of most life forms seem to first multiply in ever increasing rates up to a critical mass then suddenly suffer a catastrophic drop in numbers when some sort of ecological tipping point is reached.

Maybe the signs of imminent collapse we look out for (rioting in the street and increasing hunger) are the wrong ones, and the collapse in population that might happen soon or later will come in a completely unexpected form.

The global financial collapse of 2008 for example was preceded up to the last minute by complete ignorance among the bigger community of “expert” economists. Same thing is happening with population growth. Nobody knows where it is headed and what it will do to us as a species.

[Based on a comment originally posted on Get Real Post.]

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 6, 2011 at 11:45 PM

    I guess that you're sort of correct in stating "bigger community of expert economists." This guy may be, in the experts' heads during those times, the boy who cried wolf.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/magazine/17pessimist-t.html?pagewanted=all

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouriel_Roubini

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular this week

Duterte BPI bank scandal a trap set for Trillanes?

By -
Image
There are now papers floating around that the BPI account in Julia Vargas has a running balance of around Php22,000xx from March 2015 to March 2016. It's peanuts, and Trillanes makes a big fuzz about it? Sonamagan, even call center agents would have this kind of bank accounts; definitely does not show a corrupt DU30. And then, Trillanes talks of 42 real estate properties, but mostly owned by the children of DU30. Yet, the first one that media checks is a unit in P Guevarra, which is only valued at 2.3 million. Even ordinary employees could buy such unit. That could hardly buy just the main door, an imported antique, in the house of Binay, which has been valued at 15 million, yes just the freaking door by itself. What is this, they are again using trial by publicity, which they effectively used on CJ Corona whom they accused him of having 80 properties. In the end, it comes out Corona had only four properties, three of which was purchased for investment purposes only. I don'
Read more

Rappler CEO @MariaRessa suggests that Duterte was ORDERED to sing by Trump! 😮

By -
Image
In a tweet fielded by Rappler CEO Maria Ressa today, the causality reader could be led to believe that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was ordered to sing by US President Donald Trump. But was he really? It seems Ressa is just being too quick to selectively interpret a common Filipino colloquialism that is no different to the way we use terms like "bossing" and "chief" to address peers or even subordinates in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Ressa is most definitely grasping for straws here.
Read more

Filipinos are taught by their parents to flush at public toilets with their feet. Is this RIGHT??

By -
Image
Public toilets in the Philippines are seen to be dirty. As such many Filipinos are taught by their parents to use their feet to operate the flush lever after using a public toilet. The prevalence of this practice was confirmed after a tweet from a Filipino Netizens describing the practice attracted wide approval... Is this the right way to solve the problem of unsanitary public toilets in the Philippines? By teaching kids to use their feet to operate such facilities? It's more like teaching them to be inconsiderate and rather than be good members of the community. No wonder public facilities in the Philippines suck. It's because their users suck.
Read more

Poor people in the Philippines seem to prefer poverty over aspiring to be not poor

By -
Image
Sadly, a MAJORITY of the poor people here are bad people. That is WHY they are poor. They disrespect others, they disrespect themselves, and they disrespect God’s creation. Exactly how do they think they’ll be rewarded for that? If you genuinely had empathy, you would be able to get inside their heads and understand why they do these things, and perhaps know how to fix it. However, you are confusing “empathy” with “sympathy”. I have yet to meet a poor person who actually WANTS to do the things necessary to escape poverty. The funny thing is, everyone can see that I’m more successful than they are. They think this is because I’m “rich”. I’m sure a lot of them are full of jealousy (as benign0 describes) and sit around thinking “ha, it’s not fair, that foreigner is so rich and I’m so poor. I guess it’s OK if I steal his stuff”. Which they do. Regularly. I grew up poor. I know how it feels to be hungry, all the time, every day. I decided I didn’t like feeling like that. I’m successf
Read more