Post ARkOOIVqInzQJvmY3E by evanwolf@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by evanwolf@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #ARkLtsYI3hFDD3IJf6 by aljazeera@squeet.me
2023-01-17T21:14:19Z
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The population in the world's most populous country has shrunk for the first time in 61 years.Is China heading for a demographic crisis?
(DIR) Post #ARkNqDL91kvOQrWfWC by kentpitman@climatejustice.social
2023-01-17T21:52:21Z
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@aljazeera Short answer: No. China is not heading for a demographic crisis. Or if it is, that crisis should be seen as an unambiguously good thing.Longer answer:Reporting is flawed if someone thinks an overcrowded, increasingly-automated planet needs or can support more people.However difficult this road is for China, it is WAY better than the alternative of growth.China took a lot of heat for its one-child program. I get why people were up in arms about that, but ethics does not exist in a vacuum. Faced with a likely soon-doubling of population, there was no choice but to do something and before anyone criticizes that from the too-comfortable position of "we're not in the crisis they were in", we should stand in their shoes. Maybe there was a better implementation of the policy, and if someone had advanced it, maybe I'd be championing that, but given what they were up against, I"m just not able to stand in their shoes and say nothing should have been done. Was there a perfect solution that pleased everyone? Was there a better one? I don't know. I did not see a credible alternative advanced.Climate poses similar problems. The path to sustainability is going to be hard and the status quo will be devastating to MANY people, so we cannot compare against no casualties or no angst or not societal discomfort. We must compare against what is realistically coming if we do nothing. And in that light, I don't think this talk of demographic balance is proportionate. To my ear it is the sound of utter climate denialism. Full stop.It is frankly a crying shame that other countries are not also finding ways to reduce population so they can compare notes on how to reduce size properly, but we need more of this not less. The US, sadly, thanks to GOP influence is doubling down on forced-birth. Of all the things we could be doing, voluntary non-having-of-kids is the least objectionable possible thing ethically, and there is no excuse for not allowing that.We need reporting to start taking sustainability seriously and to report this as something good.It's all about the framing. In general, I think Al Jazeera provides quality reporting, but this particular framing is seriously off-base and needs to result in some serious editorial reconsideration about how to cover stories like this. We will never solve climate if every inconvenience to the status quo is regarded as ill health. The status quo IS ill health and we have to know which changes are intensifying that ill health and which are improving it.Proper journalism must do more than pick up a press release and repackage it in readable form in the public. They must ask whose interests the press release is serving because all too often "bad for business" means "bad for established business" or "bad for the status quo".To quote the late Professor Amar Bose, founder of the Bose corporation from a lecture I saw him give one time "Better implies different." The feedbacks which lead us back to familiar equilibrium are leading us away from potential improvement. Thoughtful journalism cannot be one of those feedbacks.I'm not going to pull any punches on this. This brief summary ends with "What’s behind this downturn? And what will it take to reverse the trend?" That is, in my mind, absolute journalistic malpractice. No one should be advocating a return to growing population for any reason.I'm not even sure there will be future generations, the problem is that bad. But if there is, I hope attitudes like this are seen for the crimes against humanity they are because the direct result of this kind of thinking will be an overextension of resources at a time when we're about to see global droughts and famines and disasters that are materially due to population. Even just our over-reliance on oil is hampered because even with reduction strategies, we're adding more population.#population #overpopulation #journalism #deGrowth #society #economics #sustainability #FossilFuels #oil
(DIR) Post #ARkO6LXSJSxGUcycXg by RayEau@thecanadian.social
2023-01-17T21:56:00Z
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@aljazeera 5'1 now as opposed to 5'3 in 2021
(DIR) Post #ARkOOIVqInzQJvmY3E by evanwolf@mastodon.social
2023-01-17T21:59:10Z
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@kentpitman @aljazeera Populations will fall. It's a choice between managed and unmanaged descent, between a forced rapid plunge that overshoots sustainable targets and a bumpy glide down that does less harm.
(DIR) Post #ARkPUJnMXwfhzRPaKG by kentpitman@climatejustice.social
2023-01-17T22:11:29Z
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@evanwolf @aljazeera Phil, if I take your meaning, you're agreeing with me that this thing they're reporting on is the managed approach, and saying that an unmanaged approach is when we hit the famines and people just go away painfully. That seems a reasonable and concise way to sum it up.I've had discussions with people about the carrying capacity of the planet. People often tell me that technology can improve that a lot. I think the opposite. Technology can make us ever-more-fragile because each tech-engineered bit of our system that we depend on in order to support a too-large population is an opportunity to fail, affecting still more people than if that same part had failed if fewer depended on it. We're ratcheting up the stakes per acre even as we're avoiding addressing the basic threat to each square acre of food production. (Not even to mention that when it fails, there will be cascade effects beyond just some people not getting fed.)The carrying capacity of the planet is measured in how well we can carry people when things are NOT working, not how well you can construct a clever story about how when things are working great, everyone is doing fine. We do NOT want to test that bad case, but we are tempting fate.#population #overpopulation #journalism #deGrowth #society #economics #sustainability #FossilFuels #oil #technology #ethics #metrics #CarryingCapacity
(DIR) Post #ARkUUKT4XqDtqakHk8 by anlomedad@mst.mineown.de
2023-01-17T23:07:33Z
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@kentpitmanSensitive topic. All too often people advocate for population decline and obviously mean "the third world" should decline its population so that the "first world" can continue a while longer with over consumption.But you come at it here wrt #China from the empathy angle and your 2 posts has none of that "me me me" angle I mostly read between the lines of the "first-worlders first"-people. And I agree too with the call-to-order for journalism. Very nice to read all of my thoughts expressed in proper English by you. Thank you for taking the time to comment. @aljazeera
(DIR) Post #ARkgSvsVgMKMkBkCzA by poostain@aus.social
2023-01-18T01:21:43Z
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@kentpitmanTech is much of the problem, look at artificial fertilizer, the enviormental and climate devastation from it's use is appaling.George Monbiot's industrial artificial food is an issie for that same reason.Ther are no good solutions here, this is going to hurt, we werw warjes in the 1970s with Linits to Growrh. The least hurt should be done to the poor (who have done the least damage) and the enviornment though, why ? as Carl Sagan said "if there is no clean water to drink, or clean air to breathe, then there is no humanity".@evanwolf @aljazeera
(DIR) Post #ARkjeZgqIq6hGYWv56 by Nichol@mstdn.social
2023-01-18T01:56:18Z
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@aljazeera population growth is going down to shrink levels in nearly all rich countries. Only immigration is keeping numbers up.The big thing we must do is redesign society, with warm human relations, with smaller and nonexistent families, and with church and religion playing ever less of a social cohesive role.All countries with shrinking or slow growing demographics have to find ways to build a society for this new situation where many people have no kids, or family.
(DIR) Post #ARknTR8w8h9LODcDA0 by jesuisatire@social.tchncs.de
2023-01-18T02:40:12Z
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@kentpitman overpopulation or overconsumption by the existing population?there will never be enough planet in a consumerist non circular civilization.the rest is "nazi talk" ..@evanwolf @aljazeera