Peter Schwartz on Overpopulation & Environmental impact 2002

This video is just a small part of an interview Peter Schwartz gave in 2002. If someone is interested I can post the whole interview.

Peter Schwartz is the cofounder and chairman of Global Business Network (a partner of the Monitor Group), a company based in San Francisco, California that works to help companies, governments, and non-profits think strategically about the future to make better decisions today.

Personally I think he somehow underestimates the impact of the long term environmental problems, but I like the interview because it gives a positive forecast and food to think.

The video is a response to the documentary: "Arithmetic, Polulation, and Energy" by Dr. Albert A. Bartlett.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Ecological
• Problems
• Environmental
• Impact
• Globalisation
• Population
• Wealth
• Technology
• Exponential
• Growth

[mgilbo1]

Its not happening as fast as he says it is. The reason why those areas of continents are reducing in population is because they are migrating to other parts of the world. The biggest polluters are 1st world countries, not third world countries due to population, cars, industry. He quietly slides around this.

Control population or mother nature will in much more horrific ways.

[notcob1965]

err Shanghai China poor????? 'in 2005 Shanghai became the world's largest cargo port' and 'has been described as the "showpiece" of the world's fastest-growing major economy' Errrm poor, I don't think so. alarm bells start too ring when you here statements like that.

[melrobRTF]

totally untrue watch the MOST IMPORTATN VIDEO YOU WILL EVER SEE!

[TheBecalmed]

It is a fact that the majority of people in the world have never made a telephone call.

[sadaeus]

(2)

Then we have to calculate that every 41 years the population woudl double.

2041 - 12 billion people

2082 - 24 billion people

2123 - 48 billion people

2164 - 96 billion people

and 2205 - 192 billion people

Based on how far the long term forcast is, a billion might be a very small number compared to what we have. If it is 10 years into the future, it is huge. If it is one and a half generations in the future, it is almost nothing.

So he omitted the most important factor.

[sadaeus]

It has come to my attention that, indeed, I have failed to consider another of his foolish statements

He says: "...the UN lowered the long term forcast by almost a billion people again."

Well, what is "long term"?

70 years? 150? 200?

I believe that is a very important factor.

If we assume that in 2000 there were 6 billion people on the planet and we have a constant growth of 1.7 percent worldwide, this would mean we have to calculate with a doubling time of about 41 years.

[juankenon]

He doesn't say its poor, just an ecological nightmare, which it is.

Nonetheless he is still talking out of his arse. Doubtlessly people are living better now than ever have but that doesn't imply that the status quo is sustainable or that growth rates are tenable.

[notcob1965]

the cleanest places on the planet are the richest- what a foolish statement I agree with Kuraiken, big producers and consumers very clearly produce the most waste, and worse of all waste which even in small ammounts has the potential to destroy our

environment, you don't see too many Kalahari bushmen producing plutonium do you? As for "the UN lowered the population growth predictions", I think they know the problem and are busy producing some population solutions of their own...

[kuraiken]

Correction to the fourth comment below this (my first one):

In the second passage of the last quote I made, a "well" belongs into the passage.

- "Then have ever lived well before."

[kuraiken]

With all the internal problems of each nation, unemployment, crime (violence, murder, rape, etc.) and unsatisfying living conditions, I have a hard time picturing even 50% of population of europe and the USA to be happy. And 50% would be about 565 million. So even if that were the case, where are the other 1 billion?

If we only have 500 million in the richest nations, where do we get the other 1 billion? But maybe people who have nothing are happier that way? I know this person speaks nonsense.

[kuraiken]

Now if he mentions happy people in europe and the USA, and claims they are about 1.5 billion, then clearly every human being in europe and the USA have to be HAPPY.

And every third to fourth familiy must be secretly raising a child that they have adopted from a poor country, who, naturally, also have to be happy.

Now I don't know the figures in every country, but in Germany for example, the lower class that just gets by is about 40%.