Mauro Bologna, Gerardo Aquino
2020 · Scientific Reports
Abstract In this paper we afford a quantitative analysis of the sustainability of current world population growth in relation to the parallel deforestation process adopting a statistical point of view. We consider a simplified model based on a stochastic growth process driven by a continuous time random walk, which depicts the technological evolution of human kind, in conjunction with a deterministic generalised logistic model for humans-forest interaction and we evaluate the probability of avoiding the self-destruction of our civilisation. Based on the current resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse.
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> Killing trees for short term gain is just hatefully stupid. Reminds me of the Bologna/Aquino Paper on society collapsing due to excessive deforestation: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6?error=coo... Thrill read.
No, we can't keep current consumption patterns, if we want our civilization to survive. Animal ag is driving us towards its collapse, and fast. We could switch to plant based diets and free upto 80% of all agriculture lands, some 35% of habitable earth, the area a size of Africa, and reforest/rewild that. That's probably the only feasible option we have at this moment to stop us from environmental collapse. Your solution is technological in nature. While theoretically possible, it doesn't meet the timescale and amount required. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion…
hectare. This large reduction of agricultural land use would be possible thanks to a reduction in land used for grazing and a smaller need for land to grow crops. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/ Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6 Calculations show that, maintaining the actual rate of population growth and resource consumption, in particular forest consumption, we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our civilisation. Making the situation even worse, we stress once again that it is unrealistic to think that the decline of the population in a situation of strong environmental degradation would be a non-chaotic and well-ordered decline. This consideration leads to an even shorter remaining time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(population) Climate change, resource depletion, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution, overpopulation, soil erosion, and overfishing are all symptoms of ecological overshoot. Soil erosion -> agriculture Pollution -> farm runoff, eutrophication, pesticides/herbicides, greenhouse gases ... Climate change -> CO2 + methane + N20 -> 15-26% from agriculture Overfishing -> Empty seas in 2040's -> veganism Deforestation & biodiversity loss -> mainly driven by agriculture -> 80% of agriculture is animal ag (pastures) -> veganism
Is a 90% probability of global societal collapse within 20-40 years good enough for you? > Adopting a combined deterministic and stochastic model we conclude from a statistical point of view that the probability that our civilisation survives itself is less than 10% in the most optimistic scenario. Calculations show that, maintaining the actual rate of population growth and resource consumption, in particular forest consumption, we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our civilisation (see Fig. 5).... [T]he resulting mean-times for a catastrophic outcome to occur ... are of the order of 2–4 decades (see Fig.…
5).... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6 Well? Are you looking up yet? No? Care to put your money where your mouth is and make a bet? What, exactly is more critical than preventing the end of human civilization? Risk is probability of occurrence times magnitude of impact. Magnitude of impact for anyone under 40 here is so high as to be inestimable. How high does the probability need to be in order to be worth paying attention to?
The original paper is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6 I disagree with their approach and conclusion ("Deforestation will continue accelerating at the same rate forever! Technology will continue accelerating at the same rate forever! Population growth will continue at the same rate forever!"), which strikes me as being misguided in a classically Malthusian way. But the paper is worth taking a look at, as there is an interesting discussion of the Fermi paradox, where we lie on the Kardashev scale, and the possibility that societal collapse due to overconsumption of resources is the Great Filter[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
Source: Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6 Based on the current resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse.
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