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cccamy t1_j6tyuy5 wrote

  1. is the human population explosion over the last 300 years responsible for climate change?

  2. is it true that if a population explosion occurs in nature, such as the rabbits in Australia, there is a natural regulation response that leads to population collapse such as a virus of starvation?

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atomfullerene t1_j6uehlv wrote

1: I think its better to say that the population explosion and climate change are both a result of the industrial revolution.

2: No. Populations dont have some innate ideal size that nature regulates for. But of course no population can grow forever, it will always be limited by some resource eventually. But there is nothing that ensures a population will collapse after reaching a limit, although it does happen sometimes.

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Indemnity4 t1_j6vqcjk wrote

\1. No, we know the the green revolution happened and there was lots more stable food, so population grew.

Climate change is due to increased use of fossil fuels. There are parts of the world that have low density population / high fuel use, such as the United States. Opposite, there are parts of the world with high population density / low fuel use, such as any poor country you can name. Overall: statement is both incorrect and too simple.

Why did the green revolution happen? Going deeper, higher population means local areas start to run out of available renewable fuels (e.g. you chop down your forest faster than it can grow.) The industrial revolution was mostly a search for more fuels. Then someone works out how to turn natural gas into fertilizer and all of a sudden anyone can grow more crops in a given area. More people = more fuel = more food = more people.

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