{"id":23860,"date":"2017-05-05T14:36:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T19:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23860"},"modified":"2017-05-05T14:36:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T19:36:06","slug":"earth-overshoot-how-sustainable-is-population-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23860","title":{"rendered":"Earth Overshoot: How Sustainable is Population Growth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"post-title\">\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/mishtalk.com\/2017\/05\/04\/earth-overshoot-how-sustainable-is-population-growth\/\">Earth Overshoot: How Sustainable is Population\u00a0Growth?<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"post-date\">\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"post-content clear-fix\">\n<div class=\"post-entry\">\n<p>For decades people have been predicting overpopulation would wipe out energy resources if not the entire planet. Every year the population bomb and peak oil crowd have been proven wrong. But how long can the status quo of generating growth by population explosion last?<\/p>\n<p>Every year the population bomb and peak oil crowd have been proven wrong. But how long can the status quo of generating growth by population explosion last?<\/p>\n<p>Reader Rick Mills at Ahead of the Herd addresses the subject in a guest blog that first appeared on his blog as\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/aheadoftheherd.com\/Newsletter\/2017\/Earth-Overshoot-Day.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Earth Overshoot Day<\/a>.<br \/>\n<span id=\"more-45677\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Earth Overshoot Day<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The second half of the 20th century saw the biggest increase in the world\u2019s population in human history. Our population surged because of:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>Medical advances lessened the mortality rate in many countries<\/li>\n<li>Massive increases in agricultural productivity caused by the \u201cGreen Revolution\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The global death rate has dropped almost continuously since the start of the industrial revolution \u2013 personal hygiene, improved methods of sanitation and the development of antibiotics all played a major role.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Green Revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The term Green Revolution refers to a series of research, development, and technology transfers that happened between the 1940s and the late 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>The initiatives involved:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>Development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains<\/li>\n<li>Expansion of irrigation infrastructure<\/li>\n<li>Modernization of management techniques<\/li>\n<li>Mechanization<\/li>\n<li>Distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tractors with gasoline powered internal combustion engines (versus steam) became the norm in the 1920s after Henry Ford developed his Fordson in 1917 \u2013 the first mass-produced tractor. This new technology was available only to relatively affluent farmers and it was not until the 1940s tractor use became widespread.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earth Overshoot: How Sustainable is Population\u00a0Growth? For decades people have been predicting overpopulation would wipe out energy resources if not the entire planet. Every year the population bomb and peak oil crowd have been proven wrong. But how long can the status quo of generating growth by population explosion last? Every year the population bomb [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[13834,1370,1498,14576,13390,606,3197,1371,15245],"class_list":["post-23860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-death-rate","tag-green-revolution","tag-industrial-revolution","tag-mike-shellack","tag-mishtalk","tag-overpopulation","tag-overshoot","tag-population","tag-rick-mills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23861,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23860\/revisions\/23861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}