text/gemini
The myth of overpopulation is generally a belief held by educated (some might say over-educated) people in the developed world. They generally point to the growing populations in places like China and India and, if they lack self-awareness, Africa as proof that their are too many people. But this is a racist canard that privileges the lifestyles of these educated first-world citizens. The various habits that we in the "west" have to come to enjoy are unsustainable at any global scale. We are, in fact, facing a crises of affluence.
Even just based on electricity needs alone, we in the "first world" take a vastly disproportionate amount of resources.
According to the
=> https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/electricity/electricity-consumption?pd=2&p=0000002&u=0&f=A&v=mapbubble&a=-&i=none&vo=value&&t=C&g=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001&l=249-ruvvvvvfvtvnvv1vrvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvvnvvvs0008&s=315532800000&e=1609459200000 EIA
despite having over 4x the population of the US (336,997,632), China (1,425,893,504)doesn't even consume twice the electricity (7,806,000 vs 3,979,000 GWh/year). It's per capita energy consumption in 2021 was half that of the US (5,474 vs 11,267 KW/year)
And India (1,407,563,904), despite having a similar population to China uses significantly less energy total (1,443,000 GWh/year) and per capita (1,025 KWh/year) than does the US. And South Korea, despite having a significantly smaller population (51,830,136) than either of the previous 3 still uses a whopping 10,959 KWh/year per capita!
But these are rookie numbers, we gotta pump these numbers up!
* Canada pop 555,000 energy per capita 14,546 KWh/y
* Finland pop 84,000 energy per capita 15,173 KWh/y
...
* Norway pop 131,931 energy per capita 24,182 KWh/y
* Iceland pop 370,338 energy per capita 51,304 KWh/y!!!!
Even if we assume unrealistic renewable energy production for any one of the top consumers of electricity, it still requires resource extraction that is devastating to the environment and still contributes to co2 levels in the atmosphere through mechanization and overseas transportation.
This is not even touching other consumption metrics.
We are dying of an excess affluence, not excess of people. The next time somebody says the population is too high, ask them which population they mean.
(I skipped 3 middle-eastern countries between finland and norway because I'm not so confident in how to categorize them within the old-fashioned [and admittedly unscientific] "1st, 2nd 3rd world" system. Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait. The wealth inequality in these places makes even the US seem like a land of endless opportunity. The mega-wealthy residents and their little cyberpunk hellcities skew the numbers. I'm not worried that this undermines my general thesis here that wealthy people are using too much of the world's resources [I think it, in fact, strengthens the argument] but I was worried it would only serve to cloud up the numbers that I was most interested in within the context of the "educated first-world liberal that still holds onto antiquated and racist idea that malthusian overpopulation is intellectually tenable in the year 2024". the info is in the link above if you're interested in specifics).
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