I do agree, though, that space colonization might be seen legitimately as an insurance policy. On the other hand, I could make an argument that there’s nothing so special about us that we should insure ourselves more than other species.

But the idea of spreading throughout the universe carries some problems, it seems. First, what about all those other forms of intelligent life that may have the same idea? Seems we’d need to share the universe in some way. Or maybe we’d find that some of them are far more worthy of spreading or surviving. Who knows. I guess I would think an approach of tentative exploration without, at first, any very strong agendas other than gaining knowledge might make the most sense.

Interesting idea, though, about space travel as an escape option.

We are prolific by nature. If we get colonies in orbit, we will likely take that with us. At that point we WILL spread through space because it will be nearly as ‘cheap’ and ‘easy’ as spreading all over the earth was back in the day.

I think there are reasonable arguments that that would be a good thing. One is that intelligence and life are good, so we should make more of both. (I mean that is what we were insuring with the basic space colony, we want that insurance because we like those things.)

Half a galaxy of humans would produce a _lot_ of culture.

For me the most interesting aspect is probably the potential for freedom without revolutionary wars.
In the past, if you are being oppressed, you fight, run away, or live with it or die from it. Space, if we can master it, offers infinite potential for running away. This I find more interesting than the infinite resources.

To simplify: if you’re oppressed in space, you pack up, buy or steal a ship, and go.

On the flip side, a two bit despot might take his whole domain out of range of practical interventions.

Sorry for the delayed reply.

If we were willing to spend the resources to get even a billion people off the earth, we could probably spend a fraction of that to fix whatever the problem was.

Agreed. The notion that we should pursue space colonization instead of fixing our problems on earth seems absurd. To pursue it in addition, as you describe is another matter, and has a lot more merit. As you mention it could be an insurance policy, and is worth pursuing merely for the gain in knowledge.

One related idea I hear sometimes, but which I’m not sure I see the sense in, is the notion that we will or should spread our species throughout the universe. There’s something awfully grandiose about that. What would be the point? But the things you’re describing I have no problem with. There are of course serious questions of cost, priorities when comparing space projects with our problems on earth, etc. But ultimately those issues seem solvable.

I think seeing that 80% of foods are wasted in current first world countries… food will at no point have a population control effect.

Likely true, I think, unless we make the conscious choice to stop growing the global food supply. This was the topic of quite a bit of recent discussion here featuring comments from Russ Hopfenberg who has published a couple of studies on this question. See here.

I agree with the general thrust of your other comments but will just quibble a little with a couple:

I think that unfortunately, the earth has quite a while to go before people start actually dying of over population. In fact, given that both China and India exist as they do now, I would argue that until most of the habitable planet reaches their densities of population, we’re far from hitting a real obstacle.

I understand what you’re saying, but think it depends on how you look at it. First, we first have to look at analyses of the earth’s carrying capacity. Estimates very widely, but it should be noted that those coming from ecological scientists are smaller than those from economists and demographers. And when we look at those from the first group, and factor in things like reasonable caloric intake and social considerations the estimates say we’re already beyond, or certainly close to that carrying capacity. In terms of sustainability, the ecological footprint model shows us that, globally, we’re using the resources of 1.25 planets (with the West, of course, consuming by far the most per capita).

Now, for a time, as I understand it, we can be in overshoot like this and superficially appear to be doing okay, but it’s obviously not sustainable, and relative to human history our time at this level of consumption will necessarily be very short. (Note that the equation for total consumption globally or for a country is average annual per capita consumption times population size.) No that this, in itself, proves that people are now dying as a result of population growth, but surely we’ve set the stage for that.

But beyond that I think we can’t actually say there are no people yet dying as a result of overpopulation. It’s not densities so much as carrying capacities of different areas (ultimately globally). I’ve seen a number of reports, for instance, that link the Dafur crisis to conflict over water shortages closely linked to population. I’ve also seen it linked to climate change, which in turn is definitely fueled by global population growth.

More generally, the famines which occur in Africa all involve population as one factor. Yes, they result from distribution issues, but it seems also accurate to say they would not as likely occur without population growth. See Russ Hopfenberg’s comments on that.

More generally still, see this article by Jared Diamond which makes the case that the advent of famine in human history was basically the result of the switch to agriculture which itself resulted from and then fueled population growth.

Even more generally still , I think it’s fair to say that almost any deaths resulting from ecological degradation can, at this point, be linked in part to population growth as it is, in most instances, one of the key factors driving that degradation. (examples include any deaths attributed to climate change, the spread of toxins into the environment, wars for oil or other resources, etc.)

But, clearly, if we continue to tear down the ecosystem, deaths resulting from population growth will eventually number many, many times higher.

Another sad fact is that people will still be roaming this planet when there’s all of 79 other species left (not including cattle, fowl and pork).

Probably, but very possibly in much smaller numbers. I mean, we’re a part of the ecosystem and the web of life too.

people will live to see the ends of the desolation they create. For centuries to come. Nothing will stop them.

I understand where your pessimism comes from. I try to remain hopeful, though, that we will manage to wake up and take corrective action before we have little choice but to face desolation.

I think we could get thousands of people into colonies that DON’T need resupply, and that are capable of building more colonies. We could do that on a relatively minuscule budget, it wouldn’t detract from solving any problem on earth. To be clear, the new colonists would mostly come from the population growth of the old colonies, not from earth.

The moon has water rocks and free energy. Asteroids are even better because you don’t have to lift them. It may take time to establish ecosystems and we will probably had to start out with a lot of biomass from earth, but sooner or later we can convert rocks, water, and energy to food.

I think there are a lot of threats that we shouldn’t be sure we will be able to prevent. Big asteroids are one, nuclear war is another. Things that are upon us and over before we have time to counter them.
We may be entering an era when ordinary people can produce designer viruses (biological viruses) at home.

Having space colonies buys us the insurance that if anything happens to earth, humanity and earth’s life can go on. (and probably repair the earth. ) It’s an existential asset more than an aid for us down here, although eventually the colonies would be more populous than the earth, and much richer, so they would be sending us resources.

Thanks for some interesting points. But I do want to make sure I understand what you’re saying. (They’re interesting even before I’m sure I do! )

Do you mean that colonization could happen one day, but that we currently lack the resources that would be necessary for a quick evacuation? True, no doubt.

Are you saying that with current technology we could get a colony started somewhere? I suppose that could be true in the sense that we could get a few people living on the moon, say (or possibly Mars). They’d have to be constantly resupplied with provisions from earth, right? I mean there’s not a lot on the moon or Mars.

But I’m much, much more skeptical that we could get any large portion of the earth’s population colonizing the moon or, one would hope, some place more hospitable than that. Agreed? One day, yeah, but in the next few decades, nah.

Now your final point raises some really interesting and important issues. (And I think this touches on “Someone’s” points too, which I’ll comment on soon.) I’m not positive you meant it this way, but you seem to be referring to the possibility that we might one day have to look seriously at leaving earth because it will become essentially unsupportive of life. (Or are you talking asteroids and such?) Our own actions could, in fact, make it that way.

My response would be, “Do we want to let it go that far?” I mean, we might be able to turn things around and return to sustainability. I think all the press climate change is getting may help with that. It’s focusing people’s attention on issues of consumption, sustainability, and even population. My hope is that we’ll see a real sea change in thinking about how we live and a return to living in some sort of harmony with the earth. I can’t be sure it will happen, but it seems I’m seeing a bit of movement in that direction these days.

[Admin again: I spell checked it for you and believe it or not Firefox only found one error. Sorry, the lack of preview and small box are just what we have to live with on WordPress.com, though overall I really like the platform. Eventually they'll probably build in some improvements on those things.]

I think seeing that 80% of foods are wasted in current first world countries (don’t ask me to quote the source, it’s midnight and I’m tired – but if not 80, it’s still a very high number), food will at no point have a population control effect.

I must say quite to my dismay, as that would have been what we had coming for us. Instead, it seems economic stagnation (of the GM and Ford kind) and the ensuing resource wars will be a decisive factor. You have to realize that our current 1st world countries spend in a single day’s worth of war-mongering enough money to feed the entire planet properly.

I think that unfortunately, the earth has quite a while to go before people start actually dying of over population. In fact, given that both China and India exist as they do now, I would argue that until most of the habitable planet reaches their densities of population, we’re far from hitting a real obstacle.

What people don’t realize is that our quality of life is probably starting to regress from the peaks it achieved in the mid 1900′s and will do so for a long time to come.

Another sad fact is that people will still be roaming this planet when there’s all of 79 other species left (not including cattle, fowl and pork).

I’m all about sustainable development, but in this sense I’m a realist: people will live to see the ends of the desolation they create. For centuries to come. Nothing will stop them.

On the other hand we definitely can get a colony bootstrapped with the rockets we have. The issue here is not just saving the earth from us, but saving life and humanity from a very fragile earth. We’re not the only thing that can kill us all.

You picked a good writer to summarize and paraphrase. I think Al Bartlett is one of the clearest thinkers and writers on population and sustainability. Those interested should try this link for his paper refuting Simon. Just reading Bartlett’s various papers would give one a good grounding in the issues involved.

Regarding the “capitalism will solve overpopulation”-argument, that’s essentially letting nature choose for us.

Yep, well said.

Dr. Bartlett has the following to say on Julian Simon:
“”" Chief amongst these optimists was the late Dr Julian Simon, formerly professor of economics and business administration at the University of Illinois, and later at the University of Maryland. With regard to copper, Simon has written that we will never run out of copper because “copper can be made from other metals.” The letters to the editor jumped all over him, told him about chemistry. He just brushed it off: “Don’t worry,” he said, “if it’s ever important, we can make copper out of other metals.”

Now, Simon had a book that was published by the Princeton University Press. In that book, he’s writing about oil from many sources, including biomass, and he says, “Clearly there is no meaningful limit to this source except for the sun’s energy.” He goes on to note, “But even if our sun was not so vast as it is, there may well be other suns elsewhere.” Well, Simon’s right; there are other suns elsewhere, but the question is, would you base public policy on the belief that if we need another sun, we will figure out how to go get it and haul it back into our solar system? (audience laughter) “”"

Regarding the “capitalism will solve overpopulation”-argument, that’s essentially letting nature choose for us. It means the fulfillment of the promises in the Dismal Theorem. If the price of food is the only thing that keeps the population in check, then we’ll continue to breed and populate the earth until we grow just enough food to sustain everyone at a hair’s width from the brink of starvation. Consider also, as John says, how pollution and other environmental degradations can permanently reduce how much food we can grow – the carrying capacity). Other species will have to settle for the few scraps of land that are too improductive for us to use.