It's a question of IQ, Instincts and genetics. 99.8 percent of the population will have to die out, and only the ''right'' 0.2 percent to survive that have awareness and IQ for all of that. Doomed... What cut of biosphere and not polluted, not messed up of land will be left once the ''Overpopulation has downsized'' to what is sustainable. My bet: Year 2150. 300-600 million people of which 20-40 million will live a lifestyle like the first world upper classes today in very specific gated off location/stretches of land. The rest will live in scarcity, absolute anarchy, living with the rest of it. We will have nuclear melt down, Oil depletion, Anarchy, resource war's. Depleted Soil and Aquifer's'. Empty shells of concrete cities, sometimes inhabited by few hundred's to few thousands where once hundreds thousands and even millions lived. All of it will happen step by step and sometime ''a lot at once'' in the next 30-120 years...
Ok So obviously its done Humans will not change unless they can do nothing other He knows this Any critical thinker who is comfy with math can not be aware that we are beyond turning back
Yes, his humility is of a profound nature, compared to the overwhelming majority of people on the planet. It may be our greatest obstacle to understanding.
Humility is an interesting concept, which in personality psychology, means relatively uninterested in personal social gain, more attached to honesty in social situations, an unwilling to manipulate in social situations. It may require not merely testing as Narcissistic Personality Inventory, along with several others, and/or significant time spent with the individual regarded as having humility. ALL individual organisms, or humans ARE unique, and it may be cognitive error to regard on as less or more so in any factor applicable to that organism.
@@briseboy Thanks for that! Actually, all humans are endowed with 99.9% identical gene sets due to inbreeding during at least two climatic catastrophes which left us numbering as few as 2,000, huddled together in a remote refuge, as we appear to be headed to even as we speak. So, likely a number of will survive our current global heating event, under ground in some cool cavern like bats.
“Question everything”. That right there is the problem in a nutshell . Bill nails it by saying no-one questions anything. It’s like we live in a zombie apocalypse. It won’t end well.
Wow. I like to think I am an apostle of Dr Bill Rees and have his books and watched most every interview/presentation. And still in this great interview I heard fresh thinking and crystal clear use of language to communicate the most essential ideas. Congratulations to you for facilitating this, listening so well, and asking just the right thoughtful questions to help Bill give us the gift of his thinking in plain language. Cheers
@@BetterAncestors **brb crying** This means so much, thank you for the kind words! It was a genuine honor to be in dialogue with him and I’m thrilled it felt valuable to someone already well-versed in his ideas.
@@J.M.-nb4gw Profit = protecting and enriching the environment and sharing the sustenance that it provides for all of us. This must become our new behavior model. The truth is that all of our actual gains come to us from the environment; therefore, 'profit=income - expenses' is a lie because it says that money is profit. In truth, money is merely a permission slip that allows us to purchase our actual gains. In truth, our only major expense is ignoring our obligation to protect and enrich our environment; and yet, 'profit=income-expenses' requires us to keep expenses low by ignoring the damages we cause our environment.
Wow!! This is truly an excellent interview - Thank you both - I have heard reference to Rees but have not heard him or read any of his work before. I'm impressed and inspired by his range of knowledge and his skill at communicating, in a grounded and coherant way, the most important and thorough understanding of our predicament!!!
Agreed. He's amongst my favourite intellectuals with Jacque Fresco, Peter Joseph, Robert Saplosky, Gabor Mate, James Gilligan, Simon Michaux. Truth speakers that don't hold back.
William Rees is awesome I am about the same age and was also raised on the family farm and he is totally right. Get a grip on it, people. Thank you William for your wisdom, I am having my dinner tonight with everything our farm produced. Good luck to all of you and many blessings. We may yet survive a few more decades. Cheers from Canada
This was a great interview, thank you a lot for sharing this. Out of many people that I follow on this subject William Rees has influenced me the most and I do my best to share many of his ideas in the educational activities we do in Poland. So despite embarrassingly small number of viewers, I believe that among them there are many who share these ideas further.
So glad to hear you're sharing his ideas in Poland! All of this takes time, it's not always about large numbers so much as meaningful change in attitudes at all scales, from local to global. Thank you for the work you do!
Dilemma refers to two options, both of which have drawbacks. Nothing in reality is subject to merely two factors, and almost all human evaluation is delusory, especially the delusion that symbolic verbal signaling reflects reality. Nothing in the universe is static. Stasis is the primary delusion.
"Brute Force" = Human Exceptionalism. The exuberance of our contemporary techno-enthusiasm will be buried in whatever viable soil still remains. The hubris of the human species is our "Achilles heel".
I don't reckon we should beat ourselves up too much, any other species would and did do the same. It would just be nice if those that remain after the 'adjustment', if it turns out that way, went for a different way of living next time. Be nice to consider ideas on that now.
@@d.Cog420What other species is responsible for causing a planetary mass extinction aside from humans? Ameliorating responsibility only encourages more of the same behavior that got us here.
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 I totally think we should take responsibility, and do better next time round. I just don’t think we presently have the ability or maturity to turn around the position we’re in so a fall is most likely. And I don’t think we’ll actually truly learn until nature tells us off. The biggest worry I think is that as we fall we eat and burn everything on the planet as we try to keep ourselves alive. We are presently in the goldilocks position of being able to step back and discuss these matters politely on you tube etc, when the stuff goes down the nicety of conversation will change to the desperation of survival. I actually don’t think anyone can really grasp how bad things could get with a planet of intelligent beings, with weapons, fighting for their survival. I’m not sure anyone will be safe anywhere. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Let’s hope more people listen to those like Nate.
@@d.Cog420Well said! I share many of your sentiments. If we are to infer on how the next few critical decades will unfurl going by the past couple of centuries, it is going to get extremely ugly. I agree with that we will consume any and all resources leaving pretty much a barren wasteland behind - it’s what we’ve done so far and show no so signs of slowing down. Also have to agree on unprecedented levels of violence. The only thing I take objection to is that we are still in the Goldilocks era. I’m of the belief that window of opportunity was wasted toward the end last quarter of the 20th century - and with ample warnings to boot. The global civilization as it operates lately has immense inertia - I could have gotten on board with the idea of a soft landing if we started maybe 50 years ago, but I’m thoroughly convinced it is now too late for that. Water and energy wars are our most likely future as a species and the rest of life on this planet will unfortunately not have a say in the matter and probably continue to fall in both scale and diversity.
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 yeah, good points made and I agree with you too. I think the only caveat to this way of thinking, and I think it is a big one, is we, and no one, knows the future. A pandemic could hit and wipe out 75% of the global population (as bubonic did) and that changes everything, or a nut job in fear of exactly what we’re talking about could drop a bio weapon that does similar, or the existential drivers themselves could wipe out a substantial amount of us (wet bulb, fire, flood etc) before we even get a chance to fight each other. A massive tectonic/volcanic event could dark cloud us for decades as has happened in the past. I think it’s important to consider these things but prepare for the most likely which is presently the affects of a global system based on growth and wealth accumulation at the expense of the ecology and tbh, at the expense of who we are, or could be after the gold rush. I’ve positioned me and the family with 6 acres to live off in the outskirts of a city, thinking this might work if tshtf, and that was a few years ago and was naive. I now think, if shit really goes down, it won’t be about where you are or what you have in place but who you are associated with. I remember reading a survivalist book many years ago and the author made the point that the power will be with the military and the gangs. Choose your side ne said. I’m not a survivalist, I’m more into communities working together to get through, but he might be right.
wicked good session, many thanks! this is an excellent intro for anyone who is interested in something like ecological footprints and overshoot and even the systemic and economic points of view of ecology, real nice.
We were warned, but we carried on anyway. I’m not so sure there will be a defining moment when collapse occurs - I could make a compelling argument that it is already well underway and we and future generations will simply tolerate it for the most part due to shifting baselines. I don’t think there’s much choice really - the planet I was born on 35 years ago is really a pretty different place to the one we live in now. I’m not aware of any way to restore the lost and damaged ecosystems in a timeframe rapidly enough that it makes much of a difference.
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 There's still plenty of space under ground. To compensate lost space (soil) to buildings and roads that cover the ground which once flourished with life - now a dead cool soil with no more water, heat... getting in. But the sun continues to produce earth's energies in much same amounts. Meaning more heat (watt pr. open surface area) and moisture/water to handle in the rest of our environment.
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 - Exactly. I was about your age when my frame of reference was sufficient enough to notice the biospheric changes - Now I'm 65 and have a far larger frame of reference and knowledge - The Earth has never looked so 'unhappy' as it does now.
@@chrisregister8021 #352X "What 'event'? The Rapture? We're close to a financial fiat hyperinflation.reset. Nothing to do with 'CO2'. We have more bees, flies and wasps species in our garden than I've ever seen. We've got raccoons and squirrels at the door most days, birds nesting, deer! No 'AGW' here! It's been 15°F below normal for two years now. *Magic CO2!*.
I just love Bill. He is one of our clearest and sternest thinkers and doers, and a great advisor to several of my global initiatives. Thank you Bill. And thank you Jesse! Great, important conversation.
Thanks for facilitating the spread of this work - I just saw him on a similarly themed channel and glad more ears are finding him. Its important to ask these questions and talk about this in bits and pieces in our personal and professional lives - incremental innoculation to what is really going on. While we don't have time, I try to remind myself of the common addage (usually in relation to food systems but in this case it is knowledge): "The best time to plant a nut or fruit tree was ten years ago, but the second best time is right now.." Thank you for continuing to plant the seeds of understanding. No question things are going down, but the severity with which we feel it and our capacity to adapt and put the brakes on the maladaptive is directly dependent on the sort of work you are doing and the content you provide. Thank You!.
@@hhwippedcream thank you for this comment! Such important words to remember; the all-at-once-ness of it can feel so overwhelming, but I appreciate your framing around incremental inoculation.
@@UrgentFutures To the point of technology - I see its role in transition as an amplifier of observation and of identifying patterns from the resulting data that can be applied in understanding and inventorying what systems are present and how they are changing. Even with powerful tools such as AI, at the end of the day, we owe it to ourselves as humans to arbitrate what all of this means and I think Dr. Rees' points on education are perfect preparation for contextualizing discussions around meaning. Apologies for the double post, I'm oververbose, spurred by your reality dose. Just Playin. Too fascinating and fundamentally relevant now to NOT want to engage in this discussion. Thanks again! 🤓🍄🕸
thank you so much for the kind words and for the support! it means so much that you'd pass along to other folks, hope they get something out of it as well. I know it's not the cheeriest topic but Professor Rees' work is so critical
We really need to stop all animal agriculture and reforest the land while that alone won't save us it's a major step. I am under no illusions that this will happen by the way. It's just important to emphasis solutions to our problems even it may never come to pass.
Totally agree. I left a comment stating similar things. People don't realize that a diet with an average amount of meat requires FOUR TIMES THE LAND. That means 75% of land used for farming could be returned to natural ecosystems. That could rebalance that biomass equation immensely
But yeah, no delusion here. It may never happen. We may be extinct in the near future. People would often rather eat their own pet before giving up meat or cheese
There's some I think it's called synotropic agriculture??? Smaller herds grazing through native tree plantations( trees are protected with tree barriers) and herbs like comfrey set at the roots of the trees( fruit, nut ) inside the protections. Where it's not thick forest, but lots of space for grasses and small flowers, it won't feed millions and millions of people their daily nuts and meat as it is at the moment. But little changes towards more thoughtful land management
Not all terrain is meant to be forested. The High Plains of the desert southwest is adapted to seasonal rains. Trees do not grow there without intensive irrigation. Destruction of prairie has resulted in the steep decline of pollinating insects. Butterflies and bees don't eat pine trees. Prairie-land is just as essential as forest.
Simply put : the quest for greed and power by those who already retain that capacity will ensure their ascendancey until it no longer can, and then chaos will ensue.
"The Earth will recover, and In ten million years, the Earth might, once again, be a magnificent place to explore." I wasn't quite prepared for that zinger, by William Rees, after he expounded for over 2 hrs., on how fkd we are, but perhaps, he was discreetly referring to a future newly evolved, non human species, endowed with it's own uniquely complex brain. This was a great conversation, Jesse. Thank you.
#9865 Every year agriculture production increases but not as fast as 3W population. The old dwellings. reach into their decay, the new ones are sterile and unaffordable, so 3W will come to 1W and live in old flop houses while 1W go insane in sterile life- confiscating high fructose corn syrup, cheese substance and bT GMO kibble. How does that translate to his '"ecological disaster"? That' s hogswallup. 'Tipping-point' theory is anti-Science. 'Forcing functions' are fudge factors. Earth ecology is googleplex multivariate CHAOS.
I hope everyone commenting on this video is vegan. We could reduce the amount of agricultural land used by 70 percent if the world switch to a plant based diet.
@@sarahmullis2012 No, Sarah. Guilty as charged. I should be vegan, but I"m not, in contrast to the predicament at hand. Life is full of contradictions, for each and every one of us.
Excellent interview. William Rees hits the nail home.... Not new news for some of us, but a welcome, susscinct promulgation of FACT nonetheless. Here is a humble human who is not clouded by anthropocentrism. One of those rare Dudes that you really want to meet and have several beers with.
We have been in "overshoot" since we left the migratory Hunter-Gatherer lifeway and entered the sedentary agriculture lifeway thousands of years ago for the vast majority of earth's population. We numbered 3,000 fewer of us then. What could go wrong? Everything?
That depends how you define overshoot. If you just mean having a positive growth rate, then sure. Usually though, there's some other feedback that balances things. The human predicament is that we keep overriding anything that would give us back the balance. The world could sustain a lot more than 3000 people easily. It is the mentality and our inability to rethink these things on the large scale that really drove us to this point. But we ARE adaptable. We just have to overcome the brainwashing and see if we might still be able to rebalance ourselves in the environment. I'm not crossing my fingers though
If you catch what Rees said to define overshoot, it's when the overall consumption and pollution produced by humanity began to exceed the overall ability for the ecosystem to replenish what we need and to re-absorb the waste. I don't think the exact number or date matters so much as first just acknowledging that we're past that point and attempting to return the balance. Which, btw, can't be fixed by us becoming becoming hunter gatherers either. The only way we survive this is by becoming something entirely new, but certainly with some of the wisdom that those ancient cultures held, before they become totally ignorant of the limitations of the environment
Not even. HG already drove massive extinctions. I think we're a invasive species, that's the problem. We were doomed since the inception of homo sapiens. And if you delve even deeper on this topic and look at very long term extinction rates (over millions of years), then you notice that in fact we're just part of a process. The expression of something beyond us. I don't mean god but some natural law - the "red queen" theory might explain it somewhat. It's delusional to think we have any power against those, that we make them instead of being manifested and constrained by them.
There seems to be more discussions about 'the declining birth rate crisis' in the developed world, it would be great to hear William's comments / research/ findings on this.
Sid Smith would make a great guest to further discuss overshoot! Some other ideas for people of various popularity and expertise but great intellectual curiosity and insight would be: Daniel Schmachtenberger Peter Joseph Sam Vaknin Simon Michaux Guy McPherson Nate Hagens Gerald Pollack Bret Weinstein or his brother Eric The poet, In Q I would also suggest finding someone who is well versed in the benefits and ethics of veganism. This topic is incredibly important when it comes to the overshoot conversation, as it only requires a fraction of he resources and water, and only about 25% of the land. We could fix so much of this issue by changing our diets to vegan. Imagine immediately freeing up 75% of farm land to return to natural ecosystems. Also how much less oil we'd need to produce our food. We are special as a species in that we may be the only one capable of realizing we're in overshoot and potentially doing something to change that. But every day that we wait, the predicaments get worse. Anyone can become vegan this very moment and at least begin to reduce their own footprint in this equation, though it will take more than individuals. I'm new to this podcast but found the conversation quite enjoyable. I don't want to make this comment too long, but there are so many other things i could expand on here. I hope you look into some of those people (you won't be disappointed) and especially the ideas around veganism. I know it's hard to talk about food choices, but it's really one of the biggest changes we can make that would give us a fighting chance at making it through the century. Cheers! 🍻✌️
Thank you for this interview/discussion. I agree with Bill Rees on the vast majority of his points. The biophysical understanding of life is more coherent than the current conventional 'economic' understanding which should more correctly be regarded as chrematistics rather than economics. I first discovered Bill's views a couple of years ago which surprised me cause I would regard myself as someone who held a similar understanding of our predicament for the last 25-30 years. I had a systems engineering training which was great at the time but as someone who also enjoyed general science and Nature, I wish I had taken a geography, physics or Earth science path instead. But all systems design training has a common root in cybernetics and control theory and there is a large body of mathematics behind it also which gives a deep appreciation for the importance of feedbacks, be they proportional, integral or differential. This in turn leads to complex or non-linear dynamical systems that fit directly with ecological throughput cyclical systems, or better known as living systems. I agree with Bill that human enterprise and activity on Earth increases entropy which can also be regarded as increasing disorder or information but when living systems are the source of increased entropy, they balance this by also creating order i.e. their own self-creation(autopoeisis) to maintain their own state of existence. So entropy is balanced by anti-entropy or negative entropy and the generation of information is the generation of order. Of course living systems have a life span and are replaced by the re-production process to maintain the entropy - anti-entropy balance within the Earth system. An increase in entropy and anti-entropy is achieved by increasing biodiversity that occupies the vast range of thermodynamic gradients available within the Earth system. From an economic perspective, production and consumption need to be balanced, or rather entwined, in the Earth system i.e. production cannot occur without consumption and vice versa. In the event that production exceeds consumption this can only be regarded as a novel emergence because something new is being produced with a possible delayed balancing consumption process. This is the expression of profit within the system. So economic growth in this context is in fact an increase in anti-entropy that is the product of creating more order in a system that was previously in a higher entropic state(increased biodiversity). This is contrary to the existing process of economic growth that is creating entropy without balancing it with a creative anti-entropy process. The wellbeing of life and any sub-component of life(for example a local community) could therefore be seen as wealth filtered or modulated by scalar factors derived from an ecological health index, EHI, ranging from 0-1, an anti-entropy production-consumption ratio n_ae >= 0 and a local trade-total trade ratio 0
Hey Adrian! Thank you for sharing all this. The math goes over my head a bit, but I appreciate the way you're thinking about all this, and suspect Professor Rees would as well.
Excellent comments by Bill Rees. His perspective on how Existence interacts with Its many diverse finite expressions and how important it is that we must recognize this fact and learn from it is highly appreciated.
Overshoot is just an ecological debt. The issue is that you can t negociate with the bank. Whereas economic debt is a simple agreement between humans. Favoring economy at the détriment of ecology is madness.
It's crazy that no one's willing to reset the purely electronic accounting system, which could be done without destroying anything physical. The whole economic growth thing is a dangerous fantasy. Printing money won't create a viable ecosystem or breathable air once it's been destroyed. People's priorities are all messed up.
We are currently 3,000 times more numerous than were the last ecologically balanced and self-sustaining ancestral clans/bands. What could go wrong? Everything? The reconstruction of reality around corporate values, as Powell advised, has been a huge success. Perhaps Mother Nature is pleased, as it has hurried the elimination of humans from Her planet.
@@UrgentFutures And you were grimacing for what reason. Come on now bro., I know you can write a whole exclamatory sentence, if you can find the time in your hurry-up world. ( :))
I want to promote a planetary resource management and distribution system in a resource based sharing economic model. Focused on sustainable, intelligent resource management and distribution based on fairness vs the financial system.
I hope everyone commenting on this video is vegan. We could reduce the amount of agricultural land used by 70 percent if the world switch to a plant based diet.
Government should pick up the bill and support the older population breaking the chain of younger population needing to be replaced on such massive numbers. try to bring population numbers down gradually. I still think is to late pretty much doomed.
1:06:50 - Exactly William! Overshoot is the anthropocentric Woolly Mammoth in the room. If people lived as long as some trees or reptiles - they would get it.
Not all Americans. In fact I am no-contact with my hoarding mother because I object strongly to her selfish lifestyle. She wanted to recruit me to be her free handywoman, and fix her four-bedroom 3-car garage hoarded house with a pool that no one uses in the middle of a desert. It's insanity.
@@Atlas_21 I think it’s more nuanced than that; technology isn’t just electronics or software (i.e., fire was once a new technology). The root ‘techne’ refers to making or doing, and there are persuasive arguments that this making/doing played a role in the evolution of self-awareness (what some call consciousness, though I know that gets contentious lol). I don’t think this impulse is bad per se, though I’ve come to agree with your sense that under neoliberal extraction there are few (if any) ways technology is being developed/used that aren’t ultimately accelerating collapse.
This has all been obvious to me for decades. I began to really notice the sweeping changes underway in the late 70s yet the vast majority of people have yet to realize that anything major is happening
Great interview and discussion. There have been extinction event in the pass but has it ever been made by the life on the planet? Seems that this current event is worse than any other and the effects will be much longer lasting. We don't want to accept that we may have crashed this system beyond recovery. Life is rare no reason to think it will bounce back after every extinction.
If it has, it's nothing like this. Certain organisms replaced other ones and caused their extinction, but that's different than one species literally taking out most life through their own ignorance
I would like to congratulate the interviewee for such a lucid vision on how to reconcile human life in balance with what nature can provide and how the economy disregards the possibilities of ecosystems, the finiteness of natural resources and thermodynamics itself in its delusions of exponential and unlimited economic growth. The climate crisis is promoting the sixth mass extinction of living beings on this planet, but what is omitted is that, with the worsening of the crisis, the fall in agricultural production, the increase in deserts or areas permanently flooded or ravaged by storms, hurricanes and tornadoes in greater numbers and greater intensity, the growth of regions that are too hot to allow human beings to survive, many hundreds of thousands of people will die or wander in search of habitable places. From 2050 onwards, the tendency is for the human population to be increasingly reduced. At what rate or to what degree of suffering, we do not know. But what we were unable to do through consensus, the Earth will do without regard for quality of life or number of deaths. In other words, nature will, through hard work, create a balance between the human population and the available natural resources.
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 Right? We'll be as decent during the descent as we are with every powerless entity on the planet now, meaning PLUNDER GAME ON! Heck, we'll step it up a few notches to maintain that competitive edge vs 'developing nations' like India and China.
34:30 - Some of us might argue that humans are in fact tipping the balance way beyond the ability and capacity for the biosphere to continue to sustain life - IN GENERAL and that the current - and most rapid mass extinction event [MX - 6/7/8? ] in all of Deep Time, is on track to be the largest MX of all; even eclipsing that of MX3 - ''The Great Dying'' [P-Tr 252My] where around 96% of Earth's biota - fauna, marine and terrestrial were extirpated. Indeed, given current thinking - some also might argue that the current MX will be Earth's FINAL MX; or at the very least, revert evolution to pre-Cambrian status. (Talk about a game of 'Snakes and Ladders'...! } What is the premise of those arguments? Humans are the only species to have ever produced so much unnatural bi-products, the only species to synthesize complex molecules (polymers etc...) from hydrocarbons and other elementary sources; all of which have a deleterious effect on all things natural, affecting the trophic order [food/energy web] dramatically. Yet that isn't the main concern - Anthropogenic Global Warming [AGW] notwithstanding; humans are also the only species to have ever SPLIT THE ATOM.... And it is this atom-splitting nonsense that is going to KILL LIFE ON EARTH, pretty-much PERMANENTLY, or at least for a very, very, VERY LONG TIME. Here's why... Most humans recognise the dangers of irradiation from ionising radiation, particularly alpha, beta and gamma ray dispersal and how that can directly affect organic life; Humans understand 'bio-amplification' - the process whereby radio-active particles and/or toxins accumulate within the 'primary producers' of the trophic order and increase in accumulation - mostly in shells and skeletons - as each organism is predated upon by the ascending levels of the trophic order [food chain]; most humans naturally fear the prospect of nuclear confrontation; or the another nuclear disaster. These are the common fears amongst humans that show any concern over the use of nuclear fission. Yet even those factors, though genuine, would not necessarily cause the cessation or reversion of life on this beleaguered Earth... The most worrying concern is The vulnerability of the Earth's Ozone Shield [o3S], especially to large releases of ionising radio-nuclide aerosols direct to atmosphere, where they end up in the mid stratosphere - o3 regions - and through chemical process in combination with incoming solar radiation deplete the o3... NO OZONE SHIELD = GAME OVER FOR ALL TERRESTRIAL AND MARINE PELAGIC ORGANISMS - FAUNA or FLORA. The formation of th o3S has allowed living organisms to propagate and proliferate throughout the changing terrestrial land masses, the accumulation of o3 in the mid stratosphere became sufficient enough by around 600M years ago to filter-out the lethal effects of the sun's Ultra-Violet B/C - high frequency radiation hitting the Earth's atmosphere. Note: UV-B/C is used in industry to sterilise equipment, food, potable water etc... UV-B/C breaks down organic matter in sufficient doses. This is why there was no life on the early land-masses, not even the simplest of organisms for hundreds of millions of years until the o3S formed. These concerns are based upon recently released research findings undertaken during and subsequent to the Atomic Test Era ('Cold War') - whereby data was collated on each atomic detonation (around 2000 in total) between the mid 1940's and early 90's. This data indicated the detrimental relationship (for life) between ionising radioactive aerosols and the sparse regions of the entire o3S. The 'ozone layer' isn't exactly a complete - homogenous - 'layer'; located within the stratosphere - mostly in the mid to upper regions - the o3S is more like overlapping areas of o3 accumulation at varying altitudes - a patchwork quilt that happens to cover most of the Earth's surface and gets thinner and more sparse at the poles. The Nuclear 'Wild Card' - Be that nuclear conflagration or disaster, or.... SOCIETAL COLLAPSE. There are some 440+ civil nuclear projects operating around the globe. All located near large bodies of water in order to maintain the vital cooling for the reactor systems and spent fuel depositories. These facilities require a constant monitoring and maintenance-support infrastructure to maintain operation and basic SAFETY. The electrical grid infrastructure itself helps to maintain these facilities, but in the event of grid loss - support generators can be employed - except that didn't occur at either Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi... In the event of societal collapse; with subsequent loss of logistics and support infrastructure, these facilities become ticking-time bombs... Not their reactors, they would have been 'scrammed' as soon as necessary (as with Zaporizhzhia/Energodar during the Russian SMO in Ukraine). The concern are those spent fuel depositories that require ongoing power and COOLANT to maintain the safe temperature of the still fissile spent fuel rods. Lose maintenance and monitoring to those facilities and the spent fuel overheats and releases ionising radiation to atmosphere, leading to localised irradiation, but more worryingly being carried into the stratosphere where they can wreak havoc on the o3S. So - to recap - Stratospheric ozone [o3] - is vital to maintain a healthy, diverse and evolving biosphere. St o3 is thus as intrinsic to life on Earth, as water or oxygen. Contrary to fallacious arguments on atomic energy being the 'panacea' of 'climate change' (LMAO), popularised by the likes of Oliver Stone (stick to geo-politics Olly... ), most neo-liberal politicians and the ignorant plebeians sold on this 'hopiod' argument. AGW is in fact IRREVERSIBLE [UN-IPCC 2019] given the current technology and political will, but mostly because of the climate system 'inertia'. Neither transitioning to renewables or nuclear energy will make a blind-bit-of-difference to that dynamic. The Earth's biosphere is in the early stages of an apparent rapid shift to it's alternate state of homeostasis - 'Greenhouse Earth'... A climatic transition, very few extant organisms are likely to survive. And that is already factored in... Wrap-up all of the above and stick on the top of all that Bill Rees is saying and the prospect for life evolving beyond the next couple of centuries seems even less likely. We are living on 'Hospice Earth'. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthropocentric Homo sapiens - '''sapiens''' - Either drunk on hubris, stoned on hopium, in a coma of denial, or a fug of faith and mostly oblivious to O B L I V I O N.
Well said. The so-called population collapses in advanced nations may be our salvation. The sex drive may be victim of social media and the smart phone. Let's embrace it and try to salvage some joy in the possible ecological recovery.
I hope everyone commenting on this video is vegan. We could reduce the amount of agricultural land used by 70 percent if the world switch to a plant based diet.
I just read one of William Rees' papers and skimmed another after watching this video. His previous work on ecological footprints was valuable, but his current work is wrongheaded and dangerous if people take him seriously and follow his policy recommendations. Rees argues that the transition to renewable energy won't happen, which only a small percentage of primary energy is currently renewable after 30 years of promoting renewable energy. However, it makes no sense to look at primary energy when judging the progress of renewable energy . In the transition to 100% renewable energy, we will need less total energy, because we won't be losing 2/3rds of the energy as heat when burning fossil fuels. An ICE motor is only about 27% energy efficient due to the losses from heat and friction, where an electric motor is roughly 85% efficient, so much less total energy is needed by the transport sector when all vehicles become electric. Likewise a heat pump is 5 times more energy efficient than other types of heating and cooling, so less total energy is needed. By electrifying all sectors (transport, heating/cooling, etc.), Mark Jacobson et al. (2017) calculates that the world can make the transition to 100% renewable energy with just 11.8 GW of global electric capacity by 2050, which is less than the 12.1 GW available to electric utilities in 2012. We certainly have the natural resources to implement 11.8 GW of solar, wind, hydro and geothermal energy plus battery storage by 2050, so Rees' argument that we don't have the resources is frankly baloney. Because of S-curve tech disruption, the energy transition is happening far faster than many of the experts expected. In the first half of 2024, 80.3% of new global electricity generation was low carbon (renewable or nuclear). In September, 51.8% of new car sales in China were electric. In other, the transition that Rees thinks is impossible is already happening. There are so-called experts like Simon Michaux who think that we can't transition, because we don't have the metal reserves, but Michaux isn't paying attention to how solar, wind, batteries and EVs are evolving, so his calculations are not based on the future tech. Most batteries will become sodium-ion, which can be made with commonplace materials which have no shortages (sodium, aluminum and steel). Solar panels are switching from silver to copper bus lines. Offshore direct drive wind turbines are being replaced by semi-direct drives which need much less copper and rare earth metals, and all terrestrial wind turbines are becoming geared which need even less of these metals. The rare earth magnets in EV motors can be replaced by ferrite magnets. There is a massive shift to e-bikes, e-scooters and electric two-and-three wheelers, which is reducing the total number of cars and the amount of batteries that will be needed in the future. Yes, there will be copper shortages, but lot of wiring and motor windings can be switch to aluminum (there is no shortage of bauxite in the world), which isn't as good as copper, but it isn't the end of the world if most EVs are using aluminum wiring and motor wires. Rees also doesn't seem to realize how fast fast S curve tech disruption happens, and how quickly renewable energy and EVs will replace fossil fuel energy and ICE vehicles. Wind and solar is already the cheapest energy in most of the world, and new wind and solar plus battery solar is now competitive with new gas generation plants. By the mid-2030s, it should be cheaper to install new wind and solar plus batteries than continue to running existing fossil fuel generation plants. EVs and heat pumps will follow the same pattern as renewable energy generation, as the S-curve dynamics kick in. By 2030, most new autos worldwide will be electric, and by 2040, the cost of running an electric vehicle will be so cheap and convenient, that people will be retiring their ICE vehicles early. Heat pumps will take a little longer, but it is clear that they are on a similar trajectory. Rees has more of an argument when he looks at agriculture, but he again makes the wrongheaded assumption that agriculture in the future will be the same type of agriculture that we have today, because people are unwilling to change. If most humans change to a vegetarian diet, the planet will be able to feed the 10 to 11 billion population which is expected. Precision fermentation can be used to create proteins with a hundredth of the land required by conventional agriculture. Precision fermentation can replace a lot of today's dairy and meat production.
I came to terms with our future in the mid 80s after reading Gaia therory by james lovelock.... silent spring was followed by death by rubber duck .... just for any readers out there ❤
I consider space as the lifeboat, and that any destination will render us unforgiven to any mistake. Therefore it is the perfect medium in which to grow up in and then return from, back to earth. Its harsh environment will teach us the correct ways to live with advanced technology without leaving an impact. Also we should use the term advanced fro anything that doesnt fall apart in years. So ancient ruins that are still around and functional are more advanced then your house, which will be forest covered hole in 5-10yrs, not thousands if abandoned. Its also why a reduction in population wont mean more and cheeper resources.
#4G67 "Worked for the State Environmental and was firing up our firewood stove one cold morning, when there was an urgent knock on the door. "Yes?" "Your wood stove is _smoking!"_ the bearded young man yelled. "They do that starting up." He grew more angry. "I'm with NW Regional Air Authority _and I'm shutting it down!"_ he tried to push past me. "Well I'm with State Environmental, and if you take one more step inside, you'll leave in an ambulance." 😂🎉 Rabbinicals. What'r ya' gonna do.? Google 'CDP Materiality Assessment'. Your new 2025 'Renewables' tax. Wait...what!?😢😮
Thanks for sharing these, will definitely check them out! Endocrine disruption is definitely something this channel will be covering. In my view the issue of overshoot and endocrine disruption don't cancel each other out; the latter is a symptom of the former.
How do you shrink voluntarily? Just rebuilding our housing stock to be more sustainable would require a huge _increase_ in production to accomplish, and who's going to pay for it? Are we going to revert 20th century building codes to allow it to be done cheaply? And then you have taxes and social programs; all those entitlement programs and government services are only possible because of the surpluses created by the rest of the economy. We already can't afford most of them, that's why we're bringing in insane numbers of immigrants just to try to keep the existing ponzi running for another generation. To be clear, I don't disagree that substantially reducing our level of consumption is necessary, I just can't imagine that we'll ever do it voluntarily, certainly not in western democracies.
There are 27 EMPTY HOMES for every homeless person in America. The problem is not one of physical capacity, but one of financial gambling. This system is based on completely psychotic values and delusional metrics. It's our own minds we must overcome to fix any of this, and that's hard, because we're the most brainwashed population to ever exist
Most people are in total denial of their own death. They invent stories about heaven and afterlife and reincarnation. But it’s so much harder to accept the death of an entire planet.
I appreciate fervor, and I share it. The point of that moment was to say that there's a lot of noise out there which masquerades as "the answer," but Professor Rees cuts through it and identifies the underlying problem with laser precision. I'll admit I'm less convinced humanity is going to coordinate the necessary changes, but at least we have people like him making it extremely clear what our starting orientation ought to be. Thank you for listening and commenting!
I hope everyone commenting on this video is vegan. We could reduce the amount of agricultural land used by 70 percent if the world switch to a plant based diet.
A fan of Herman Daly? Why does neo-classical economics ignore ecological economics? Perhaps theyjust want to stay in their lane and continue publishing journal articles that only a tiny few will read.
I have read that the U.S. has added 50 million new people from other countries and the number is growing according to a former border control officer. This is happening against a backdrop of what you are referring to as ecological overshoot. We have to stop giving people the incentive to increase and multiply. There has to be a balance with everything.
He talks of a time when there was much higher CO2 on earth. There was no permanent ice on the south and north poles at that time. Life flourished much more then.
In my 2018 free e-book PDF, "Stress R Us", I coined the term "population density stress" which encompasses the negative feedbacks to overpopulation that Darwin promised to elaborate in the "Origin...", but never did. Key are the crowded animal researches described in my book, those of Calhoun, Southwick, and Christian, as well as polymath Jeffrey Gray, PhD, harkened back to Calhoun's and Selye's work defining the negative feedback loops limiting population growth, including Selye's "stress response". It's all in the book.
You should post some videos describing these concepts as most people these days aren't reading much. I think you'll get a better response giving out your own "cliffs notes" in video form
@@MattAngiono Thanks, Matt, but I'm only in the information biz, not the infotainment biz. Great book, but just words, you might want to check out: "Amusing Ourselves to Death". No shortcuts to the truth, which always takes effort and courage.
@StressRUs I have started reading it and definitely agree about most of what's presented so far. I still think you should post some content about this or do some interviews if you haven't. This information is too important to just leave to chance and wait for people to find the book. Most people just don't read very much these days (myself included, more than I'd like). Anyway, i like what I've read so far. It seems very much like a logical conclusion. Thanks for doing the work you've done already to get this out there. I hope more people stay talking about this. How has the reception been in the professional community? It seems like every psychologist, therapist, doctor, politician and even "social justice warrior" needs to know this stuff. Everyone, really.... Cheers
why are all the other interviews on your channel idiotic compared to this one? Try Guy McPherson next. Then try Paul Ehrlich. Keep it up. Natalia Shakhova. Jim Massa. You can do it. Raymond Pierrehumbert. Naomi Oreskes.
This important conversation received a few hundred visitors. I weep for the human species.
thank you for the kind words about the show, and I agree more folks should know about Professor Rees' work!!
He’s a sentinel warning us for years.
It's a question of IQ, Instincts and genetics. 99.8 percent of the population will have to die out, and only the ''right'' 0.2 percent to survive that have awareness and IQ for all of that. Doomed... What cut of biosphere and not polluted, not messed up of land will be left once the ''Overpopulation has downsized'' to what is sustainable. My bet: Year 2150. 300-600 million people of which 20-40 million will live a lifestyle like the first world upper classes today in very specific gated off location/stretches of land. The rest will live in scarcity, absolute anarchy, living with the rest of it. We will have nuclear melt down, Oil depletion, Anarchy, resource war's. Depleted Soil and Aquifer's'. Empty shells of concrete cities, sometimes inhabited by few hundred's to few thousands where once hundreds thousands and even millions lived. All of it will happen step by step and sometime ''a lot at once'' in the next 30-120 years...
Its science! Eww ya nerd...pretty much and it is sad thats the general public mindset 😢
Ok
So obviously its done
Humans will not change unless they can do nothing other
He knows this
Any critical thinker who is comfy with math can not be aware that we are beyond turning back
This is the most incisive and thoughtful presentation I've heard in a very long time. Bill's humility is nearly unique. I am grateful.
Yes, his humility is of a profound nature, compared to the overwhelming majority of people on the planet. It may be our greatest obstacle to understanding.
Humility is an interesting concept, which in personality psychology, means relatively uninterested in personal social gain, more attached to honesty in social situations, an unwilling to manipulate in social situations.
It may require not merely testing as Narcissistic Personality Inventory, along with several others, and/or significant time spent with the individual regarded as having humility.
ALL individual organisms, or humans ARE unique, and it may be cognitive error to regard on as less or more so in any factor applicable to that organism.
@@briseboy Thanks for that! Actually, all humans are endowed with 99.9% identical gene sets due to inbreeding during at least two climatic catastrophes which left us numbering as few as 2,000, huddled together in a remote refuge, as we appear to be headed to even as we speak. So, likely a number of will survive our current global heating event, under ground in some cool cavern like bats.
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Humility seems to be a thing of the past----sorely missed from my point of view.
It's a pleasure to see you here, Jesse. Everyone must listen to and read William E. Rees to understand our present circumstances.
“Question everything”. That right there is the problem in a nutshell . Bill nails it by saying no-one questions anything. It’s like we live in a zombie apocalypse. It won’t end well.
Wow. I like to think I am an apostle of Dr Bill Rees and have his books and watched most every interview/presentation. And still in this great interview I heard fresh thinking and crystal clear use of language to communicate the most essential ideas. Congratulations to you for facilitating this, listening so well, and asking just the right thoughtful questions to help Bill give us the gift of his thinking in plain language. Cheers
@@BetterAncestors **brb crying** This means so much, thank you for the kind words! It was a genuine honor to be in dialogue with him and I’m thrilled it felt valuable to someone already well-versed in his ideas.
When Dr. Rees speaks I listen!
Here here 🫡
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@@TennesseeJed I like to listen to him too, while producing more carbon emissions by doing so. We are such great multitaskers.
@@glorianinotti6540 I know, but we are captured by modern techno industrial civilization. We don't know any other way yet.
@@TennesseeJed You know I was being sarcastic, right?
He's talking about the end of industrial civilization
He sure is, and in plain English, with no BS.
He's talking about total ecological and economic collapse in a few short years
I thought he was talking about gourmet tin cheeses.
@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 I did too, but didn't want to admit it.
@@J.M.-nb4gw Profit = protecting and enriching the environment and sharing the sustenance that it provides for all of us. This must become our new
behavior model. The truth is that all of our actual gains come to us from the environment; therefore, 'profit=income - expenses' is a lie because it says that
money is profit. In truth, money is merely a permission slip that allows us to purchase our actual gains. In truth, our only major expense is ignoring our
obligation to protect and enrich our environment; and yet, 'profit=income-expenses' requires us to keep expenses low by ignoring the damages we cause our environment.
Wow!! This is truly an excellent interview - Thank you both - I have heard reference to Rees but have not heard him or read any of his work before. I'm impressed and inspired by his range of knowledge and his skill at communicating, in a grounded and coherant way, the most important and thorough understanding of our predicament!!!
Mr Rees is just one of those men you can't help but love...
Agreed. He's amongst my favourite intellectuals with Jacque Fresco, Peter Joseph, Robert Saplosky, Gabor Mate, James Gilligan, Simon Michaux. Truth speakers that don't hold back.
@@Andre-hm5vo forthcoming episodes include some of these folks! stay tuned :)
here here!
Thank you so much for this podcast. Prof. Rees is one of my heroes and bought his book to learn more about overshoot.
thank you for the kind words! I agree that he's a real hero, we're lucky to have him.
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It’s not just beginning We are toast
this conversation genuinely changed my life!
thank you for checking it out, and so glad to hear it resonated with you!
the human species is the only one that do not adapt to their environment but rather adapting it for its own sake
This is one of the important conversations I have heard.
Many thanks to Jesse and William
Thank you for checking it out and for the kind words!
William Rees is awesome I am about the same age and was also raised on the family farm and he is totally right. Get a grip on it, people. Thank you William for your wisdom, I am having my dinner tonight with everything our farm produced. Good luck to all of you and many blessings. We may yet survive a few more decades. Cheers from Canada
at great cost to the others. it would be much better if we didnt
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@@andy-the-gardenerI bet he's a breeder
@@glorianinotti6540 no idea. even if he is, he would still be right saying breeding is wrong and the kiddies futures are fubared.
@@andy-the-gardener it would have been great if he said that, but I can't see where he did.
This was a great interview, thank you a lot for sharing this. Out of many people that I follow on this subject William Rees has influenced me the most and I do my best to share many of his ideas in the educational activities we do in Poland. So despite embarrassingly small number of viewers, I believe that among them there are many who share these ideas further.
So glad to hear you're sharing his ideas in Poland! All of this takes time, it's not always about large numbers so much as meaningful change in attitudes at all scales, from local to global. Thank you for the work you do!
Thank you for attempting to sound the alarm!
Professor Rees is a legend. Thank you for checking out the interview and commenting!
False alarm
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Rees, like Catton, brings the truth of the human dilemma to us in a way that is both accessible and pungent.
I don't think I've ever seen "accessible and pungent" used together like this before, but I'm here for it lol
Dilemma refers to two options, both of which have drawbacks. Nothing in reality is subject to merely two factors, and almost all human evaluation is delusory, especially the delusion that symbolic verbal signaling reflects reality.
Nothing in the universe is static. Stasis is the primary delusion.
"Brute Force" = Human Exceptionalism. The exuberance of our contemporary techno-enthusiasm will be buried in whatever viable soil still remains. The hubris of the human species is our "Achilles heel".
I don't reckon we should beat ourselves up too much, any other species would and did do the same. It would just be nice if those that remain after the 'adjustment', if it turns out that way, went for a different way of living next time. Be nice to consider ideas on that now.
@@d.Cog420What other species is responsible for causing a planetary mass extinction aside from humans?
Ameliorating responsibility only encourages more of the same behavior that got us here.
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 I totally think we should take responsibility, and do better next time round. I just don’t think we presently have the ability or maturity to turn around the position we’re in so a fall is most likely. And I don’t think we’ll actually truly learn until nature tells us off. The biggest worry I think is that as we fall we eat and burn everything on the planet as we try to keep ourselves alive. We are presently in the goldilocks position of being able to step back and discuss these matters politely on you tube etc, when the stuff goes down the nicety of conversation will change to the desperation of survival. I actually don’t think anyone can really grasp how bad things could get with a planet of intelligent beings, with weapons, fighting for their survival. I’m not sure anyone will be safe anywhere. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Let’s hope more people listen to those like Nate.
@@d.Cog420Well said! I share many of your sentiments. If we are to infer on how the next few critical decades will unfurl going by the past couple of centuries, it is going to get extremely ugly. I agree with that we will consume any and all resources leaving pretty much a barren wasteland behind - it’s what we’ve done so far and show no so signs of slowing down. Also have to agree on unprecedented levels of violence. The only thing I take objection to is that we are still in the Goldilocks era. I’m of the belief that window of opportunity was wasted toward the end last quarter of the 20th century - and with ample warnings to boot. The global civilization as it operates lately has immense inertia - I could have gotten on board with the idea of a soft landing if we started maybe 50 years ago, but I’m thoroughly convinced it is now too late for that. Water and energy wars are our most likely future as a species and the rest of life on this planet will unfortunately not have a say in the matter and probably continue to fall in both scale and diversity.
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 yeah, good points made and I agree with you too. I think the only caveat to this way of thinking, and I think it is a big one, is we, and no one, knows the future. A pandemic could hit and wipe out 75% of the global population (as bubonic did) and that changes everything, or a nut job in fear of exactly what we’re talking about could drop a bio weapon that does similar, or the existential drivers themselves could wipe out a substantial amount of us (wet bulb, fire, flood etc) before we even get a chance to fight each other. A massive tectonic/volcanic event could dark cloud us for decades as has happened in the past. I think it’s important to consider these things but prepare for the most likely which is presently the affects of a global system based on growth and wealth accumulation at the expense of the ecology and tbh, at the expense of who we are, or could be after the gold rush. I’ve positioned me and the family with 6 acres to live off in the outskirts of a city, thinking this might work if tshtf, and that was a few years ago and was naive. I now think, if shit really goes down, it won’t be about where you are or what you have in place but who you are associated with. I remember reading a survivalist book many years ago and the author made the point that the power will be with the military and the gangs. Choose your side ne said. I’m not a survivalist, I’m more into communities working together to get through, but he might be right.
wicked good session, many thanks! this is an excellent intro for anyone who is interested in something like ecological footprints and overshoot and even the systemic and economic points of view of ecology, real nice.
haha oh wow, i made that comment like 20 minutes in and now im 48 minutes in and its way wider and deeper than i dared imagine.
Yes, Professor Rees is such a vital voice. Thank you for checking out the show!
Didn't we all know this 20 years ago 50 years ago? The difference now is that we're close to the event...
We were warned, but we carried on anyway. I’m not so sure there will be a defining moment when collapse occurs - I could make a compelling argument that it is already well underway and we and future generations will simply tolerate it for the most part due to shifting baselines. I don’t think there’s much choice really - the planet I was born on 35 years ago is really a pretty different place to the one we live in now. I’m not aware of any way to restore the lost and damaged ecosystems in a timeframe rapidly enough that it makes much of a difference.
Yes I knew we were doomed by 1996. I kept doing activism anyway even though I knew it was a joke. Algae is the future one way or another.
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 There's still plenty of space under ground. To compensate lost space (soil) to buildings and roads that cover the ground which once flourished with life - now a dead cool soil with no more water, heat... getting in. But the sun continues to produce earth's energies in much same amounts. Meaning more heat (watt pr. open surface area) and moisture/water to handle in the rest of our environment.
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 - Exactly. I was about your age when my frame of reference was sufficient enough to notice the biospheric changes - Now I'm 65 and have a far larger frame of reference and knowledge - The Earth has never looked so 'unhappy' as it does now.
@@chrisregister8021 #352X "What 'event'? The Rapture? We're close to a financial fiat hyperinflation.reset. Nothing to do with 'CO2'. We have more bees, flies and wasps species in our garden than I've ever seen. We've got raccoons and squirrels at the door most days, birds nesting, deer! No 'AGW' here! It's been 15°F below normal for two years now. *Magic CO2!*.
I just love Bill. He is one of our clearest and sternest thinkers and doers, and a great advisor to several of my global initiatives. Thank you Bill. And thank you Jesse! Great, important conversation.
Thank you, Phoebe! That means so much coming from you!
@@UrgentFutures 💗
Thanks for facilitating the spread of this work - I just saw him on a similarly themed channel and glad more ears are finding him. Its important to ask these questions and talk about this in bits and pieces in our personal and professional lives - incremental innoculation to what is really going on. While we don't have time, I try to remind myself of the common addage (usually in relation to food systems but in this case it is knowledge): "The best time to plant a nut or fruit tree was ten years ago, but the second best time is right now.." Thank you for continuing to plant the seeds of understanding. No question things are going down, but the severity with which we feel it and our capacity to adapt and put the brakes on the maladaptive is directly dependent on the sort of work you are doing and the content you provide. Thank You!.
@@hhwippedcream thank you for this comment! Such important words to remember; the all-at-once-ness of it can feel so overwhelming, but I appreciate your framing around incremental inoculation.
@@UrgentFutures To the point of technology - I see its role in transition as an amplifier of observation and of identifying patterns from the resulting data that can be applied in understanding and inventorying what systems are present and how they are changing. Even with powerful tools such as AI, at the end of the day, we owe it to ourselves as humans to arbitrate what all of this means and I think Dr. Rees' points on education are perfect preparation for contextualizing discussions around meaning. Apologies for the double post, I'm oververbose, spurred by your reality dose. Just Playin. Too fascinating and fundamentally relevant now to NOT want to engage in this discussion. Thanks again! 🤓🍄🕸
This was an excellent interview and I learned a lot and forwarded it to several people. Thank you.
thank you so much for the kind words and for the support! it means so much that you'd pass along to other folks, hope they get something out of it as well. I know it's not the cheeriest topic but Professor Rees' work is so critical
We really need to stop all animal agriculture and reforest the land while that alone won't save us it's a major step. I am under no illusions that this will happen by the way. It's just important to emphasis solutions to our problems even it may never come to pass.
Totally agree.
I left a comment stating similar things.
People don't realize that a diet with an average amount of meat requires FOUR TIMES THE LAND.
That means 75% of land used for farming could be returned to natural ecosystems.
That could rebalance that biomass equation immensely
But yeah, no delusion here.
It may never happen. We may be extinct in the near future.
People would often rather eat their own pet before giving up meat or cheese
There's some I think it's called synotropic agriculture??? Smaller herds grazing through native tree plantations( trees are protected with tree barriers) and herbs like comfrey set at the roots of the trees( fruit, nut ) inside the protections. Where it's not thick forest, but lots of space for grasses and small flowers, it won't feed millions and millions of people their daily nuts and meat as it is at the moment. But little changes towards more thoughtful land management
Not all terrain is meant to be forested. The High Plains of the desert southwest is adapted to seasonal rains. Trees do not grow there without intensive irrigation. Destruction of prairie has resulted in the steep decline of pollinating insects. Butterflies and bees don't eat pine trees. Prairie-land is just as essential as forest.
I wish more people understood the importance of xeric prairies for water retention and prevention of soil erosion.
He is a sentinel warning us for years.
Thank you both. A brilliant guest whom I could listen to all day.
Simply put : the quest for greed and power by those who already retain that capacity will ensure their ascendancey until it no longer can, and then chaos will ensue.
Amen brother. I hope you are not a breeder.
"The Earth will recover, and In ten million years, the Earth might, once again, be a magnificent place to explore."
I wasn't quite prepared for that zinger, by William Rees, after he expounded for over 2 hrs., on how fkd we are, but perhaps, he was discreetly referring to a future newly evolved, non human species, endowed with it's own uniquely complex brain.
This was a great conversation, Jesse. Thank you.
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#9865 Every year agriculture production increases but not as fast as 3W population. The old dwellings. reach into their decay, the new ones are sterile and unaffordable, so 3W will come to 1W and live in old flop houses while 1W go insane in sterile life- confiscating high fructose corn syrup, cheese substance and bT GMO kibble. How does that translate to his '"ecological disaster"? That' s hogswallup. 'Tipping-point' theory is anti-Science. 'Forcing functions' are fudge factors. Earth ecology is googleplex multivariate CHAOS.
I hope everyone commenting on this video is vegan. We could reduce the amount of agricultural land used by 70 percent if the world switch to a plant based diet.
@@sarahmullis2012 No, Sarah. Guilty as charged. I should be vegan, but I"m not, in contrast to the predicament at hand. Life is full of contradictions, for each and every one of us.
@@mrrecluse7002 If no one takes action, we can't change anything.
Excellent interview. William Rees hits the nail home....
Not new news for some of us, but a welcome, susscinct promulgation of FACT nonetheless.
Here is a humble human who is not clouded by anthropocentrism.
One of those rare Dudes that you really want to meet and have several beers with.
We have been in "overshoot" since we left the migratory Hunter-Gatherer lifeway and entered the sedentary agriculture lifeway thousands of years ago for the vast majority of earth's population. We numbered 3,000 fewer of us then. What could go wrong? Everything?
That depends how you define overshoot.
If you just mean having a positive growth rate, then sure.
Usually though, there's some other feedback that balances things.
The human predicament is that we keep overriding anything that would give us back the balance.
The world could sustain a lot more than 3000 people easily.
It is the mentality and our inability to rethink these things on the large scale that really drove us to this point.
But we ARE adaptable.
We just have to overcome the brainwashing and see if we might still be able to rebalance ourselves in the environment.
I'm not crossing my fingers though
If you catch what Rees said to define overshoot, it's when the overall consumption and pollution produced by humanity began to exceed the overall ability for the ecosystem to replenish what we need and to re-absorb the waste.
I don't think the exact number or date matters so much as first just acknowledging that we're past that point and attempting to return the balance.
Which, btw, can't be fixed by us becoming becoming hunter gatherers either.
The only way we survive this is by becoming something entirely new, but certainly with some of the wisdom that those ancient cultures held, before they become totally ignorant of the limitations of the environment
Not even. HG already drove massive extinctions. I think we're a invasive species, that's the problem. We were doomed since the inception of homo sapiens. And if you delve even deeper on this topic and look at very long term extinction rates (over millions of years), then you notice that in fact we're just part of a process. The expression of something beyond us. I don't mean god but some natural law - the "red queen" theory might explain it somewhat. It's delusional to think we have any power against those, that we make them instead of being manifested and constrained by them.
There seems to be more discussions about 'the declining birth rate crisis' in the developed world, it would be great to hear William's comments / research/ findings on this.
Sid Smith would make a great guest to further discuss overshoot!
Some other ideas for people of various popularity and expertise but great intellectual curiosity and insight would be:
Daniel Schmachtenberger
Peter Joseph
Sam Vaknin
Simon Michaux
Guy McPherson
Nate Hagens
Gerald Pollack
Bret Weinstein or his brother Eric
The poet, In Q
I would also suggest finding someone who is well versed in the benefits and ethics of veganism.
This topic is incredibly important when it comes to the overshoot conversation, as it only requires a fraction of he resources and water, and only about 25% of the land.
We could fix so much of this issue by changing our diets to vegan.
Imagine immediately freeing up 75% of farm land to return to natural ecosystems.
Also how much less oil we'd need to produce our food.
We are special as a species in that we may be the only one capable of realizing we're in overshoot and potentially doing something to change that.
But every day that we wait, the predicaments get worse.
Anyone can become vegan this very moment and at least begin to reduce their own footprint in this equation, though it will take more than individuals.
I'm new to this podcast but found the conversation quite enjoyable.
I don't want to make this comment too long, but there are so many other things i could expand on here.
I hope you look into some of those people (you won't be disappointed) and especially the ideas around veganism.
I know it's hard to talk about food choices, but it's really one of the biggest changes we can make that would give us a fighting chance at making it through the century.
Cheers! 🍻✌️
Thank you for this interview/discussion.
I agree with Bill Rees on the vast majority of his points. The biophysical understanding of life is more coherent than the current conventional 'economic' understanding which should more correctly be regarded as chrematistics rather than economics.
I first discovered Bill's views a couple of years ago which surprised me cause I would regard myself as someone who held a similar understanding of our predicament for the last 25-30 years. I had a systems engineering training which was great at the time but as someone who also enjoyed general science and Nature, I wish I had taken a geography, physics or Earth science path instead. But all systems design training has a common root in cybernetics and control theory and there is a large body of mathematics behind it also which gives a deep appreciation for the importance of feedbacks, be they proportional, integral or differential. This in turn leads to complex or non-linear dynamical systems that fit directly with ecological throughput cyclical systems, or better known as living systems.
I agree with Bill that human enterprise and activity on Earth increases entropy which can also be regarded as increasing disorder or information but when living systems are the source of increased entropy, they balance this by also creating order i.e. their own self-creation(autopoeisis) to maintain their own state of existence. So entropy is balanced by anti-entropy or negative entropy and the generation of information is the generation of order. Of course living systems have a life span and are replaced by the re-production process to maintain the entropy - anti-entropy balance within the Earth system. An increase in entropy and anti-entropy is achieved by increasing biodiversity that occupies the vast range of thermodynamic gradients available within the Earth system.
From an economic perspective, production and consumption need to be balanced, or rather entwined, in the Earth system i.e. production cannot occur without consumption and vice versa. In the event that production exceeds consumption this can only be regarded as a novel emergence because something new is being produced with a possible delayed balancing consumption process. This is the expression of profit within the system. So economic growth in this context is in fact an increase in anti-entropy that is the product of creating more order in a system that was previously in a higher entropic state(increased biodiversity). This is contrary to the existing process of economic growth that is creating entropy without balancing it with a creative anti-entropy process.
The wellbeing of life and any sub-component of life(for example a local community) could therefore be seen as wealth filtered or modulated by scalar factors derived from an ecological health index, EHI, ranging from 0-1, an anti-entropy production-consumption ratio n_ae >= 0 and a local trade-total trade ratio 0
Hey Adrian! Thank you for sharing all this. The math goes over my head a bit, but I appreciate the way you're thinking about all this, and suspect Professor Rees would as well.
Thank you for addressing this most serious of subjects
Excellent comments by Bill Rees. His perspective on how Existence interacts with Its many diverse finite expressions and how important it is that we must recognize this fact and learn from it is highly appreciated.
Overshoot is just an ecological debt.
The issue is that you can t negociate with the bank.
Whereas economic debt is a simple agreement between humans.
Favoring economy at the détriment of ecology is madness.
Just backs up the delusion William rees is eluding to about us as a species. We really are a strange animal.
It's crazy that no one's willing to reset the purely electronic accounting system, which could be done without destroying anything physical. The whole economic growth thing is a dangerous fantasy. Printing money won't create a viable ecosystem or breathable air once it's been destroyed. People's priorities are all messed up.
We are currently 3,000 times more numerous than were the last ecologically balanced and self-sustaining ancestral clans/bands. What could go wrong? Everything? The reconstruction of reality around corporate values, as Powell advised, has been a huge success. Perhaps Mother Nature is pleased, as it has hurried the elimination of humans from Her planet.
😬
@@UrgentFutures WTF?
Hope there wasn’t an emoji miscommunication! Was just grimacing
@@UrgentFutures And you were grimacing for what reason. Come on now bro., I know you can write a whole exclamatory sentence, if you can find the time in your hurry-up world. ( :))
Great talk! ❤ Good questions and one of the brightest minds right now... got a lot of new brilliant views on the topic!
Great vid thank you
Thank you!
Great guest, always love hearing Rees!
I want to promote a planetary resource management and distribution system in a resource based sharing economic model. Focused on sustainable, intelligent resource management and distribution based on fairness vs the financial system.
I hope everyone commenting on this video is vegan. We could reduce the amount of agricultural land used by 70 percent if the world switch to a plant based diet.
Well this certainly confirms my own bias.
Dr Bill Rees needs to be interviewed by Joe Rogan or Diary of a CEO.
We're fked.
Brilliant interview but I am afraid it will fall on stony ground until it is way too late to save our society.
Government should pick up the bill and support the older population breaking the chain of younger population needing to be replaced on such massive numbers. try to bring population numbers down gradually. I still think is to late pretty much doomed.
1:06:50 - Exactly William! Overshoot is the anthropocentric Woolly Mammoth in the room.
If people lived as long as some trees or reptiles - they would get it.
Americans like to live large. Tell them to live small and they will have pity on you.
Not all Americans. In fact I am no-contact with my hoarding mother because I object strongly to her selfish lifestyle. She wanted to recruit me to be her free handywoman, and fix her four-bedroom 3-car garage hoarded house with a pool that no one uses in the middle of a desert. It's insanity.
Technology IS the root problem, not part of the solution. You will always be destroying the environment to keep technology going.
@@Atlas_21 I think it’s more nuanced than that; technology isn’t just electronics or software (i.e., fire was once a new technology). The root ‘techne’ refers to making or doing, and there are persuasive arguments that this making/doing played a role in the evolution of self-awareness (what some call consciousness, though I know that gets contentious lol). I don’t think this impulse is bad per se, though I’ve come to agree with your sense that under neoliberal extraction there are few (if any) ways technology is being developed/used that aren’t ultimately accelerating collapse.
This has all been obvious to me for decades. I began to really notice the sweeping changes underway in the late 70s yet the vast majority of people have yet to realize that anything major is happening
Great interview and discussion.
There have been extinction event in the pass but has it ever been made by the life on the planet? Seems that this current event is worse than any other and the effects will be much longer lasting. We don't want to accept that we may have crashed this system beyond recovery. Life is rare no reason to think it will bounce back after every extinction.
If it has, it's nothing like this.
Certain organisms replaced other ones and caused their extinction, but that's different than one species literally taking out most life through their own ignorance
I would like to congratulate the interviewee for such a lucid vision on how to reconcile human life in balance with what nature can provide and how the economy disregards the possibilities of ecosystems, the finiteness of natural resources and thermodynamics itself in its delusions of exponential and unlimited economic growth.
The climate crisis is promoting the sixth mass extinction of living beings on this planet, but what is omitted is that, with the worsening of the crisis, the fall in agricultural production, the increase in deserts or areas permanently flooded or ravaged by storms, hurricanes and tornadoes in greater numbers and greater intensity, the growth of regions that are too hot to allow human beings to survive, many hundreds of thousands of people will die or wander in search of habitable places.
From 2050 onwards, the tendency is for the human population to be increasingly reduced. At what rate or to what degree of suffering, we do not know. But what we were unable to do through consensus, the Earth will do without regard for quality of life or number of deaths. In other words, nature will, through hard work, create a balance between the human population and the available natural resources.
Hope we can be human during the decent. 😬
Just like we are now? 💣🧨🪓⚰️
Local?
@@unbiasedthoughts7875 Right? We'll be as decent during the descent as we are with every powerless entity on the planet now, meaning PLUNDER GAME ON! Heck, we'll step it up a few notches to maintain that competitive edge vs 'developing nations' like India and China.
34:30 - Some of us might argue that humans are in fact tipping the balance way beyond the ability and capacity for the biosphere to continue to sustain life - IN GENERAL and that the current - and most rapid mass extinction event [MX - 6/7/8? ] in all of Deep Time, is on track to be the largest MX of all; even eclipsing that of MX3 - ''The Great Dying'' [P-Tr 252My] where around 96% of Earth's biota - fauna, marine and terrestrial were extirpated. Indeed, given current thinking - some also might argue that the current MX will be Earth's FINAL MX; or at the very least, revert evolution to pre-Cambrian status.
(Talk about a game of 'Snakes and Ladders'...! }
What is the premise of those arguments?
Humans are the only species to have ever produced so much unnatural bi-products, the only species to synthesize complex molecules (polymers etc...) from hydrocarbons and other elementary sources; all of which have a deleterious effect on all things natural, affecting the trophic order [food/energy web] dramatically. Yet that isn't the main concern - Anthropogenic Global Warming [AGW] notwithstanding; humans are also the only species to have ever SPLIT THE ATOM....
And it is this atom-splitting nonsense that is going to KILL LIFE ON EARTH, pretty-much PERMANENTLY, or at least for a very, very, VERY LONG TIME. Here's why...
Most humans recognise the dangers of irradiation from ionising radiation, particularly alpha, beta and gamma ray dispersal and how that can directly affect organic life; Humans understand 'bio-amplification' - the process whereby radio-active particles and/or toxins accumulate within the 'primary producers' of the trophic order and increase in accumulation - mostly in shells and skeletons - as each organism is predated upon by the ascending levels of the trophic order [food chain]; most humans naturally fear the prospect of nuclear confrontation; or the another nuclear disaster.
These are the common fears amongst humans that show any concern over the use of nuclear fission. Yet even those factors, though genuine, would not necessarily cause the cessation or reversion of life on this beleaguered Earth... The most worrying concern is The vulnerability of the Earth's Ozone Shield [o3S], especially to large releases of ionising radio-nuclide aerosols direct to atmosphere, where they end up in the mid stratosphere - o3 regions - and through chemical process in combination with incoming solar radiation deplete the o3...
NO OZONE SHIELD = GAME OVER FOR ALL TERRESTRIAL AND MARINE PELAGIC ORGANISMS - FAUNA or FLORA.
The formation of th o3S has allowed living organisms to propagate and proliferate throughout the changing terrestrial land masses, the accumulation of o3 in the mid stratosphere became sufficient enough by around 600M years ago to filter-out the lethal effects of the sun's Ultra-Violet B/C - high frequency radiation hitting the Earth's atmosphere.
Note: UV-B/C is used in industry to sterilise equipment, food, potable water etc... UV-B/C breaks down organic matter in sufficient doses. This is why there was no life on the early land-masses, not even the simplest of organisms for hundreds of millions of years until the o3S formed.
These concerns are based upon recently released research findings undertaken during and subsequent to the Atomic Test Era ('Cold War') - whereby data was collated on each atomic detonation (around 2000 in total) between the mid 1940's and early 90's. This data indicated the detrimental relationship (for life) between ionising radioactive aerosols and the sparse regions of the entire o3S. The 'ozone layer' isn't exactly a complete - homogenous - 'layer'; located within the stratosphere - mostly in the mid to upper regions - the o3S is more like overlapping areas of o3 accumulation at varying altitudes - a patchwork quilt that happens to cover most of the Earth's surface and gets thinner and more sparse at the poles.
The Nuclear 'Wild Card' - Be that nuclear conflagration or disaster, or.... SOCIETAL COLLAPSE.
There are some 440+ civil nuclear projects operating around the globe. All located near large bodies of water in order to maintain the vital cooling for the reactor systems and spent fuel depositories. These facilities require a constant monitoring and maintenance-support infrastructure to maintain operation and basic SAFETY.
The electrical grid infrastructure itself helps to maintain these facilities, but in the event of grid loss - support generators can be employed - except that didn't occur at either Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi... In the event of societal collapse; with subsequent loss of logistics and support infrastructure, these facilities become ticking-time bombs... Not their reactors, they would have been 'scrammed' as soon as necessary (as with Zaporizhzhia/Energodar during the Russian SMO in Ukraine). The concern are those spent fuel depositories that require ongoing power and COOLANT to maintain the safe temperature of the still fissile spent fuel rods. Lose maintenance and monitoring to those facilities and the spent fuel overheats and releases ionising radiation to atmosphere, leading to localised irradiation, but more worryingly being carried into the stratosphere where they can wreak havoc on the o3S.
So - to recap - Stratospheric ozone [o3] - is vital to maintain a healthy, diverse and evolving biosphere. St o3 is thus as intrinsic to life on Earth, as water or oxygen.
Contrary to fallacious arguments on atomic energy being the 'panacea' of 'climate change' (LMAO), popularised by the likes of Oliver Stone (stick to geo-politics Olly... ), most neo-liberal politicians and the ignorant plebeians sold on this 'hopiod' argument.
AGW is in fact IRREVERSIBLE [UN-IPCC 2019] given the current technology and political will, but mostly because of the climate system 'inertia'. Neither transitioning to renewables or nuclear energy will make a blind-bit-of-difference to that dynamic. The Earth's biosphere is in the early stages of an apparent rapid shift to it's alternate state of homeostasis - 'Greenhouse Earth'... A climatic transition, very few extant organisms are likely to survive. And that is already factored in...
Wrap-up all of the above and stick on the top of all that Bill Rees is saying and the prospect for life evolving beyond the next couple of centuries seems even less likely. We are living on 'Hospice Earth'.
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Anthropocentric Homo sapiens - '''sapiens''' - Either drunk on hubris, stoned on hopium, in a coma of denial, or a fug of faith and mostly oblivious to O B L I V I O N.
Yes - it seems we crazy fire-monkeys are capable of turning a verdant planet into a cold, dead, rock.
Well said. The so-called population collapses in advanced nations may be our salvation. The sex drive may be victim of social media and the smart phone. Let's embrace it and try to salvage some joy in the possible ecological recovery.
I hope everyone commenting on this video is vegan. We could reduce the amount of agricultural land used by 70 percent if the world switch to a plant based diet.
31:00 "Maggots in Earth's apple." or I like to say 8.12 Billion Locusts.
I just read one of William Rees' papers and skimmed another after watching this video. His previous work on ecological footprints was valuable, but his current work is wrongheaded and dangerous if people take him seriously and follow his policy recommendations. Rees argues that the transition to renewable energy won't happen, which only a small percentage of primary energy is currently renewable after 30 years of promoting renewable energy. However, it makes no sense to look at primary energy when judging the progress of renewable energy . In the transition to 100% renewable energy, we will need less total energy, because we won't be losing 2/3rds of the energy as heat when burning fossil fuels. An ICE motor is only about 27% energy efficient due to the losses from heat and friction, where an electric motor is roughly 85% efficient, so much less total energy is needed by the transport sector when all vehicles become electric.
Likewise a heat pump is 5 times more energy efficient than other types of heating and cooling, so less total energy is needed.
By electrifying all sectors (transport, heating/cooling, etc.), Mark Jacobson et al. (2017) calculates that the world can make the transition to 100% renewable energy with just 11.8 GW of global electric capacity by 2050, which is less than the 12.1 GW available to electric utilities in 2012. We certainly have the natural resources to implement 11.8 GW of solar, wind, hydro and geothermal energy plus battery storage by 2050, so Rees' argument that we don't have the resources is frankly baloney. Because of S-curve tech disruption, the energy transition is happening far faster than many of the experts expected. In the first half of 2024, 80.3% of new global electricity generation was low carbon (renewable or nuclear). In September, 51.8% of new car sales in China were electric. In other, the transition that Rees thinks is impossible is already happening.
There are so-called experts like Simon Michaux who think that we can't transition, because we don't have the metal reserves, but Michaux isn't paying attention to how solar, wind, batteries and EVs are evolving, so his calculations are not based on the future tech. Most batteries will become sodium-ion, which can be made with commonplace materials which have no shortages (sodium, aluminum and steel). Solar panels are switching from silver to copper bus lines. Offshore direct drive wind turbines are being replaced by semi-direct drives which need much less copper and rare earth metals, and all terrestrial wind turbines are becoming geared which need even less of these metals. The rare earth magnets in EV motors can be replaced by ferrite magnets. There is a massive shift to e-bikes, e-scooters and electric two-and-three wheelers, which is reducing the total number of cars and the amount of batteries that will be needed in the future. Yes, there will be copper shortages, but lot of wiring and motor windings can be switch to aluminum (there is no shortage of bauxite in the world), which isn't as good as copper, but it isn't the end of the world if most EVs are using aluminum wiring and motor wires.
Rees also doesn't seem to realize how fast fast S curve tech disruption happens, and how quickly renewable energy and EVs will replace fossil fuel energy and ICE vehicles. Wind and solar is already the cheapest energy in most of the world, and new wind and solar plus battery solar is now competitive with new gas generation plants. By the mid-2030s, it should be cheaper to install new wind and solar plus batteries than continue to running existing fossil fuel generation plants. EVs and heat pumps will follow the same pattern as renewable energy generation, as the S-curve dynamics kick in. By 2030, most new autos worldwide will be electric, and by 2040, the cost of running an electric vehicle will be so cheap and convenient, that people will be retiring their ICE vehicles early. Heat pumps will take a little longer, but it is clear that they are on a similar trajectory.
Rees has more of an argument when he looks at agriculture, but he again makes the wrongheaded assumption that agriculture in the future will be the same type of agriculture that we have today, because people are unwilling to change. If most humans change to a vegetarian diet, the planet will be able to feed the 10 to 11 billion population which is expected. Precision fermentation can be used to create proteins with a hundredth of the land required by conventional agriculture. Precision fermentation can replace a lot of today's dairy and meat production.
I came to terms with our future in the mid 80s after reading Gaia therory by james lovelock.... silent spring was followed by death by rubber duck .... just for any readers out there ❤
Your just affirmed intelligent design with your airplane design example 😮
Roundtable with Dr Shanna Swan on Medical Health Institute on YT. Endocrine Disruption is what is happening.
I consider space as the lifeboat, and that any destination will render us unforgiven to any mistake. Therefore it is the perfect medium in which to grow up in and then return from, back to earth. Its harsh environment will teach us the correct ways to live with advanced technology without leaving an impact. Also we should use the term advanced fro anything that doesnt fall apart in years. So ancient ruins that are still around and functional are more advanced then your house, which will be forest covered hole in 5-10yrs, not thousands if abandoned. Its also why a reduction in population wont mean more and cheeper resources.
Ahahhahaa, I like how Bill speaks the truth on taboo subjects: economics 😬, population 🥴, RELIGION 😵. 😂😂😂!
Powerful information. Can you please comment on weather manipulation and geo-engenering?
#4G67 "Worked for the State Environmental and was firing up our firewood stove one cold morning, when there was an urgent knock on the door.
"Yes?" "Your wood stove is _smoking!"_ the bearded young man yelled. "They do that starting up." He grew more angry. "I'm with NW Regional Air Authority _and I'm shutting it down!"_ he tried to push past me. "Well I'm with State Environmental, and if you take one more step inside, you'll leave in an ambulance." 😂🎉
Rabbinicals. What'r ya' gonna do.? Google 'CDP Materiality Assessment'. Your new 2025 'Renewables' tax. Wait...what!?😢😮
34:00 I'm glad Bill said this planet will survive. I agree. New species will speciate the planet.
There has been an upgrade in understanding and practice in agricultural production
Thank you
Growth forever is the dominant narrative. Sustainable development? Rees should address its pluses and minuses.
How about nuclear?
A big EV is equal to driving an ICE for 17 years due to cost and resourses of battery production!!!😢
Yeah we're toast
Great interview! If the rapacious rich West stops buying and flying Chinese factory workers will go hungry. What's the solution?
"...a global Tower of Babel..." says it all! Ha, Ha, Ha! LMAO!
Living underground in Arizona is looking pretty good at this point.
Check out Count Down By Prof Shanna Swan and Empty Planet Darrell Bricker
Thanks for sharing these, will definitely check them out! Endocrine disruption is definitely something this channel will be covering. In my view the issue of overshoot and endocrine disruption don't cancel each other out; the latter is a symptom of the former.
Make America Great....again 😮
...
You said it yourself in this very interview 😊
Watch Soylent Green the movie 1973.
But.........number go up
🤦♂💀
Investors can't care.
evs are going to have solid state batterys soon
Everything is so logical, the human species is on average unfortunately not smart enough this simple logic, and we are a product of the average.
Unfortunately the Earth will be a lifeless rock orbiting the sun, not even the tardegrades will survive the upcoming event.
Vertical farming? The guest seems to be a skeptic about ecological modernization.
The rocks in the deep water seem like a ‘proto-coral’ to me. More research necessary.
We are in overshoot as fossil fuels are finite and 80%+ the foundation of our global economy. ua-cam.com/play/PLhH8w0wcKSeDpkunKyRWBkPCcjiEk6AL7.html
@@life42theuniverse interesting proposition! Even more argument not to mine them!!
How do you shrink voluntarily? Just rebuilding our housing stock to be more sustainable would require a huge _increase_ in production to accomplish, and who's going to pay for it? Are we going to revert 20th century building codes to allow it to be done cheaply? And then you have taxes and social programs; all those entitlement programs and government services are only possible because of the surpluses created by the rest of the economy. We already can't afford most of them, that's why we're bringing in insane numbers of immigrants just to try to keep the existing ponzi running for another generation. To be clear, I don't disagree that substantially reducing our level of consumption is necessary, I just can't imagine that we'll ever do it voluntarily, certainly not in western democracies.
There are 27 EMPTY HOMES for every homeless person in America.
The problem is not one of physical capacity, but one of financial gambling.
This system is based on completely psychotic values and delusional metrics.
It's our own minds we must overcome to fix any of this, and that's hard, because we're the most brainwashed population to ever exist
One of the very last comments from him was a thigh-slapper 😂
1:35:10 "problem well stated, is a problem half solved". Seriously, that's your reaction to 90min of full throttle Rees!? Wow.
Most people are in total denial of their own death. They invent stories about heaven and afterlife and reincarnation. But it’s so much harder to accept the death of an entire planet.
I appreciate fervor, and I share it. The point of that moment was to say that there's a lot of noise out there which masquerades as "the answer," but Professor Rees cuts through it and identifies the underlying problem with laser precision. I'll admit I'm less convinced humanity is going to coordinate the necessary changes, but at least we have people like him making it extremely clear what our starting orientation ought to be. Thank you for listening and commenting!
I hope everyone commenting on this video is vegan. We could reduce the amount of agricultural land used by 70 percent if the world switch to a plant based diet.
A fan of Herman Daly? Why does neo-classical economics ignore ecological economics? Perhaps theyjust want to stay in their lane and continue publishing journal articles that only a tiny few will read.
Once we dive down into CO2 dribble, I'm history. A dive into ridiculousness, non science. Ignorance. Propaganda.
SO many AGHs 😅
I have read that the U.S. has added 50 million new people from other countries and the number is growing according to a former border control officer. This is happening against a backdrop of what you are referring to as ecological overshoot. We have to stop giving people the incentive to increase and multiply. There has to be a balance with everything.
He talks of a time when there was much higher CO2 on earth. There was no permanent ice on the south and north poles at that time. Life flourished much more then.
In my 2018 free e-book PDF, "Stress R Us", I coined the term "population density stress" which encompasses the negative feedbacks to overpopulation that Darwin promised to elaborate in the "Origin...", but never did. Key are the crowded animal researches described in my book, those of Calhoun, Southwick, and Christian, as well as polymath Jeffrey Gray, PhD, harkened back to Calhoun's and Selye's work defining the negative feedback loops limiting population growth, including Selye's "stress response". It's all in the book.
You should post some videos describing these concepts as most people these days aren't reading much.
I think you'll get a better response giving out your own "cliffs notes" in video form
I'd definitely like to learn more about it
@@MattAngiono Thanks, Matt, but I'm only in the information biz, not the infotainment biz. Great book, but just words, you might want to check out: "Amusing Ourselves to Death". No shortcuts to the truth, which always takes effort and courage.
@@MattAngiono Read the book.
@StressRUs I have started reading it and definitely agree about most of what's presented so far.
I still think you should post some content about this or do some interviews if you haven't.
This information is too important to just leave to chance and wait for people to find the book.
Most people just don't read very much these days (myself included, more than I'd like).
Anyway, i like what I've read so far.
It seems very much like a logical conclusion.
Thanks for doing the work you've done already to get this out there.
I hope more people stay talking about this.
How has the reception been in the professional community?
It seems like every psychologist, therapist, doctor, politician and even "social justice warrior" needs to know this stuff. Everyone, really....
Cheers
Stuff I have been speaking about for years only to be laughed at and called the other N word.
I'm scared to even ask this but what do you mean by the "other n word"??
Reality Or Nothing 🤔
Sperm Count Drop 60% in kast 60 years.
population increase 250% in the last 60 years
@@PeterToddwhich is all likely to collapse in the next short period
...hardvto say abortion. Isnt it ?...because your EDUCATED enough tobknow that its murdering a baby. Glad to have experienced your problem...😊
why are all the other interviews on your channel idiotic compared to this one? Try Guy McPherson next. Then try Paul Ehrlich. Keep it up. Natalia Shakhova. Jim Massa. You can do it. Raymond Pierrehumbert. Naomi Oreskes.
Most definitely!
I also suggested Guy in my comment above