I think it's a temporary effect but it would be one nice "non evil" to slow things down or even get a more sustainable population level for a while.

I think that the humans who are not affected by the benefits will come to dominate the population and then the population will resume it's increase.

Recreational sex produces over 3 million unplanned babies each and every year in the U.S. alone. That's after abortions. Birth control when used properly generally has a 1% or higher failure rate. Recreational sex between a fertile man and a fertile woman is procreative sex, just at a lower rate. Recreational sex for any infertile combination has no carbon impact.

Yes.
Twenty years ago the maximum was 9 billion.

And then it was 9.5 billion a decade ago.

It was raised to 10 billion fairly recently. And there are some non-whack job estimates that it will go above 10 billion prior to 2100 and some legitimate but high end estimates go as high as 14 billion now. It will probably be raised to 11 billion before I kick off of old age.

Population growth is dropping but the maximum estimate is still rising.

Some high school student recently found out how to increase crop output by 75% by fixing bacteria with the seed. So some high improvements are still possible.

Food quality is lower than 20 years ago ( or the same quality is higher price). Mostly more cellulose but also less nutrients on over farmed / farmed out land.

Recreational sex between a fertile man and woman is procreational sex. It's just at a lower rate if they use birth control.

We have about 3.3 million unplanned pregnancies annually in the u.s. alone which are not aborted due to recreational sex.

Almost all birth control methods have a failure rate over 1% when used properly.

A lot of women discover emotionally incapable of abortion once they are pregnant. (Of course a few discover that they are capable of abortion.)

The carbon impact of sex involving truly non-fertile partners (and so homosexual sex too) is low.

The published maximum population estimates have risen slowly but consistently during my lifetime. It's now approaching 10 billion.

The current high end projections are up to 14 billion now. I don't think we'll reach there and it is further in future (2300AD).

Perhaps the increased waste from that many humans will hold down the fertility rates. They have been dropping.. perhaps due to artificial estrogens.

Ebola is nasty but a wimp and likely to remain a wimp.

The Flu will probably have a mutation (maybe multiple mutations) in the next 20 years that will kill millions. And it still won't slow down the population growth rate. I think the Black Plague was the only disease that seriously slowed population growth.

I think people don't see the selective pressure for procreation currently. Careless people, religious people, people who really really want babies emotionally, and people for whom birth control doesn't work have more kids than people who are careful and for whom birth control works.

So their genes will be over represented in future generations. Those who are successful at birth control will will be under represented.

3 million kids annually in america alone disagree with you.

I know three females who had 13 unplanned pregnancies (by different fathers) and no abortions between them.

Most birth control methods have a failure rate over 1% when used correctly.

You've been lucky- or you or your partner may have low fertility and not know it.

Essentially the energy available to humans has been increasing by some tiny but consistent amount since the 1600's. I fuzzily recall the article listed the energy increase at about 1.3% per year. At that rate, total energy use / heat output by the human race is doubling every 60 years.

My point isn't that we are going to melt the planet but that we are going to be unable to increase energy available to every human being this way forever.

And that forms a cap on increasing standards of living.

You can put limitations off for a while with increased efficiency but there are limits to that as well.

Here...this will illustrate my point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
Between 1990 and 2008, energy generation increased by about 22%. That may not be 1.3% but it looks close.

From 102,569 to 143,851 Terawatts.

I'll plug this in a spreadsheet. Okay for 500 years from now, assuming population growth stops today.. energy consumption would be 90,578,708 Terawatts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Currently, 147TW is about .082% of the earth's energy budget. 90,578,708TW would take 52% of the earth's energy budget. So every year (for a looong time) would have had excess heat at that point.

You have the math handy... how long can we sustain a 1.3% annual energy increase before it becomes a problem?

Interesting because if consumption wasn't reduced, the living standards of the rest of the world would improve a lot while the top wasn't impacted.

However, living standards (and consumption) are rising rapidly in India (1.3 billion) and china (1.4 billion).

Huge numbers of indians living on under $2 per day currently will probably be making $10 per day within a decade adjusted for inflation as they fix their infrastructure, education, and other issues combined with an inflow of wealth from the rest of the world from outsourced labor. They are on track to create about 20% of the world's college graduates by 2020.

China is much further ahead. Most of its labor is already above $10 per day and its economy is growing faster than india's. At current growth rates they could be making double what they currently make in 10 years. They are also on track to create about 20% of the world's college grads by 2020.

Actually, I'm thinking about less evil things like simply not paying people to have children, providing free birth control and neonatal care, etc.

We currently pay people about $5000 per child per year via our current tax system unless they are higher earners (in which case it works out to about $2000 per child).

Ad a lot of people try to make getting birth control expensive and difficult.

http://jezebel.com/unintended-...

A recent survey by the Guttmacher Institute outlines some sobering details about unintended pregnancy in the United States: as of now, a whopping 49 percent of the 6.7 million pregnancies per year in the United States are unintended.

So that's 3.3 million new consumers a year in the united states alone from recreational sex.

http://www.cdc.gov/reproductiv...

Failure rates for birth control over 1% are common.

Combine birth control failure rate with anti-abortion beliefs for a generation or three and you end up with a larger share population against abortion than you started.

Your information is a little dated. These days, the top 10% uses as much as the bottom 90%. And it's actually fairly smooth down to the top 80% using as much as the bottom 20%.

That's the point of the article. Trying to get everyone into the top 20% is going to use a lot of power. It will also produce a lot of waste. And it would overwhelm every existing recreational area.

Here's some info and a graph..
http://www.olliesworld.com/pla...

I don't think they should have modded you troll.

Birth control fails. Women discover that they are unwilling to have abortions. I've known three highly recreative sex females who unintentionally have had 13 children between them by multiple fathers.

People who have recreative sex which can make babies do have babies. Just at a lower rate.

They've raised the "max" population several times in my lifetime. They keep underestimating.

Having procreative sex is one of the most carbon expensive things we can do.

Another conclusion you can draw from this article is that everyone could live very well if we would pare down the population to 2 billion.

It would only take 60 years to do this

Instead, we'll probably breed right up to the edge of capacity and then die in billions when something unexpected happens.

Tragic.

Still, I also think they are ignoring fusion and solar. But... adding heat energy to the planet at the rate it's been growing since the 1600's will also result in a planet with a temperature equal to boiling water in 500 years. I'm not talking about global warming- just the amount of energy used and released that has to be radiated off into space.