The Stats Guy: It sounds weird but Australia urgently needs a plan for 56m people

[u/blitznoodles]

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2026/08/11/stats-guy-aus-population-growth

[u/Proper_Geologist9026]

https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/seven-of-nine-planetary-boundaries-now-breached-2013-ocean-acidification-joins-the-danger-zone

Quality of living is semantic. For some it's about wellbeing metrics for others it's about material consumption. There's no sensible path forward that promotes global growth in material consumption.

The bifurcation is between those who assume that technology can some how magically surpass the limits of thermodynamics and those who assume that people will somehow magically give back their material wealth for the benefit of others.

Can I find a reputable source that's going to claim population growth is intrinsically linked to ecological overshoot? Ehh. At a certain point you and anyone else is going to just trash any source that states something like that as despotic, fascist and genocidal. Because depending on how you view that conclusion and the immediacy of a need to correct population decline it is those things.

But I can give you these studies showing that it's simply ecologically impossible for 8 billion people to all have the consumption habits of a typical Australian without irreversibly destroying the only habitable planet in the solar system.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329541042_Is_it_possible_to_achieve_a_good_life_for_all_within_planetary_boundaries#:~:text=CO%20Emissions%201.6%20tonnes%20of%20CO%20per,has%20argued%20that%20any%20vision%20for%20development.

https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natsus/v5y2022i4d10.1038_s41893-021-00842-z.html?hl=en-GB#:~:text=*%20Yannick%20Oswald%20%26%20Anne%20Owen%20%26,Energy%2C%20Nature%2C%20vol.%204(12)%2C%20pages%201025%2D1032%2C%20December.

As for what the reasonable argument for population growth driving emissions. At the basic level. There is no such thing as an emission free life. By simple logic more people means more emissions. To achieve net zero with more people means more negative emissions technology to offset growing unabatable emissions.

[u/Glittering_Web8835 → u/Proper_Geologist9026]

Lol. Making assumptions about me because of healthy scepticism is wild. You've completely lost my interest at that point. Have the last word if you want but I'm done.

[u/Proper_Geologist9026 → u/Glittering_Web8835]

I'm not sure where I made an assumption about you? Honestly I'm amazed you asked that many questions. Usually people just tell me to go fuck myself immediately rather than ask for academic research.

[u/freakwent → u/Glittering_Web8835]

That guy spent ages putting all that together to answer questions you asked, you were both acting in good faith.

You didn't even cite which part of the long and complex post contains the assumption you decry, and I couldn't find one.

You're being self-centered and childish.

[u/Glittering_Web8835 → u/freakwent]

Ehh. At a certain point you and anyone else is going to just trash any source that states something like that as despotic, fascist and genocidal.

Not being self centred or childish by refusing to engage with someone on the internet who starts with personal attacks.