<Annie K.> Glad he is here to help, the page was to help with various searches of player names from news, like for

<Kosintseva, Nadezhda 大科辛采娃

Kosintseva, Tatiana 小科辛采娃>

[Event "rated blitz match"]
[Site "Free Internet Chess Server"]
[Date "2013.09.12"]
[White "NN"]
[Black "AnnieK"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1563"]
[BlackElo "1509"]
[ECO "D50"]
[TimeControl "300"]

I tend to be more optimistic; although there are undeniable facts that the current world overpopulation glut of human beings is dependent on several supporting phenomena, 'pillars' that support large a population in a building. If these pillars collapse, so does the building and most of its inhabitants get squashed.

1. IMO one of them is modern medical understanding, prophylaxis, and treatment of infectious diseases, as discussed above. Any persistently crowded mammalian population is prone to recurrent hits by infectious diseases, a phenomenon that exerts a negative feedback on overpopulation.

Below is a Wikipedia article on the depopulation of Eurasia by Yersinia pestis at a time when modern medicine did not exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conse...

"Figures for the death toll vary widely by area and from source to source as new research and discoveries come to light. It killed an estimated 75–200 million people in the 14th century. According to medieval historian Philip Daileader in 2007:

The trend of recent research is pointing to a figure more like 45% to 50% of the European population dying during a four-year period. There is a fair amount of geographic variation. In Mediterranean Europe and Italy, the South of France and Spain, where plague ran for about four years consecutively, it was probably closer to 75% to 80% of the population. In Germany and England it was probably closer to 20%.

Asia

Estimates of the demographic impact of the plague in Asia are based on both population figures during this time and estimates of the disease's toll on population centers. The initial outbreak of plague in the Chinese province of Hubei in 1334 claimed up to ninety percent of the population, an estimated five million people. China had several epidemics and famines from 1200 to the 1350s and its population decreased from an estimated 125 million to 65 million in the late 14th century."

Note the following:

<In Mediterranean Europe and Italy, the South of France and Spain, where plague ran for about four years consecutively, it was probably closer to 75% to 80% of the population. In Germany and England it was probably closer to 20%.>

It's known that the European population centers in the 14th century were concentrated in the big cities in the Mediterranean coastline. There were more humans in more crowded conditions. It's not surprising that this area suffered the worst mortality rates.

2. Fertilizer-dependent modern agriculture.

If you go to any farmer anywhere in the world and discuss his hopefully bountiful harvest, talk would sooner or later go into the topic of fertilizers. What kind, where he gets them, how much do they cost, when are they used...

It's troublesome but rice and sugar cane farmers tell me that if they were to totally abandon the use of commercial fertilizer, their crops would crash. If this is true for most of the world farmers, a sudden disappearance of fertilizers would result in a massive harvest failure all over the world and possibly mass starvation. Humanity needs fertilizers in order to maintain its populations.

Fertilizer is anything that adds a vital nutrient in order to stimulate plant growth. This nutrient is usually nitrogen, in its plant assimilable forms- meaning ammonia, ammonium salts, and nitrates. Since ammonium and nitrate fertilizers are made from ammonia, if we talk about nitrogenous fertilizer production, we would have to talk about ammonia too.

At least 80% of all commercially made ammonia is used as fertilizer or as a substrate for nitrogenous fertilizers. Ammonia NH3 is commercially made via the Haber–Bosch process.

3 H2 + N2 → 2 NH3

The nitrogen N2 in the above equation comes from air. The hydrogen H2 comes mostly from natural gas methane CH4.

CH4 + H2O → CO + 3 H2 (steam reforming)

CO + H2O → CO2 + H2 (water gas shift reaction)

Taking Hydrogen from water electrolysis is far more energy-consuming and expensive.

3. Energy.

Modern agriculture that feeds humanity, and everything else in modern civilization, needs energy. No need to go into detail on the need for energy.

4. Irreplaceable elemental resources. (Phosphorus)

There are certain elements that are vitally needed in the infrastructure that support modern civilization which in turn supports such a large human population. One element that comes to mind immediately is iron. Around 95% of all metals mined is iron, and we build our habitations and industries out of it to a large extent. However, iron is so abundant (approximately 5% of the Earth's crust by weight) that it's not bound to run out anytime soon. We are still and will be in the iron age for a long long time.

Other important metals though can run out in the near future. An example is is copper, from which our electric wires and cable are made of. Imagine a world where minable copper has run out, which could happen 50 years from now. Not to worry too much, copper can be replaced by aluminum in electric wiring and cables, although the use of aluminum as electric wiring has disadvantages. Aluminum is the most common metal in the Earth's crust, and is virtually inexhaustible. All we need is an abundant supply of electricity to smelt it out of its oxide ores. (Silver can also replace copper as electrical conductor, but it's just bad economics given the high cost and rarity of silver.)

The most worrisome element that is both absolutely necessary and is running out is phosphorous. Phosphorus is the second most important and abundant needed element in fertilizers after nitrogen, which was discussed above. Phosphorus is a vital component of our DNA, RNA, (life's genetic material) and ATP (carrier of energy for life's metabolism), and our bones. It is the most abundant element in our bodies after oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and calcium. Unlike the natural cycles of these latter elements, characterized by a fast turn-over in Nature, the Phosphorus Cycle has a time range in the millions of years, because its minerals tend to be insoluble and so surface deposits are replaced by weathering of previously buried rocky layers. Phosphorus from the soil that a plant uses up and is not returned is not replenished by atmospheric H2O or CO2, or Nitrogen fixation that occurs all the time. If our monoculture crops use up huge amounts of soil Phosphorus, we have to get a source for it and incorporate it into fertilizers. Otherwise, we get crop failures.

Phosphate fertilizers are mostly produced from apatite minerals. And these are non-renewable mineral resources, so that a peak Phosphorus event may be possible in 50 to 100 years.

Energy

As for optimism, I see that the science writer and uber-capitalist Matt Ridley agrees with you -- he has taken issue with David Attenborough for saying that things are getting worse. Ridley takes the Candideqsue position that they're getting better, population increase will go into reverse, etc. I'm not so sure.

"You know about the rebellion?"
"oh yah, i was there when it started
it really messed up our schedules"
remembers and says, "your father wanted you to have this when you were older"

... ok, we've got two doctors in here, now we need a medical emergency, right? ;)

<Tony> yeah, great to see fighting chess wherever Carlsen goes.

<VBD> thanks for that fascinating writeup, as always. :)

<Dom> you meant 'an attempt at an excuse', Shirley? Admittedly, some of these attempts are acceptable to an extent, due to mitigating factors and suchlike. ;p

http://www.space.com/22737-super-ea...

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/foun...

<Found! 3 super-Earth planets that could support alien life>

Good news for sci-fi pundits who just love the idea of alien life.

I am hoping life will eventually be found by us humans in one of these planets, even if they are only microbes. Most likely if life is found, they would be anaerobes, with strange (to us aerobes) metabolisms. None of these planets have the O2 rich atmosphere that can support aerobic lifeforms.

The likely anaerobic character of extra-terrestrial life presents scientists that try to detect them with a huge headache, because anaerobes are so difficult to culture in our oxygen-rich air. Normal oxygen laden air kills nearly all of them. They are difficult to detect even here on Earth, even those that live in our bodies. In some hospitals that have the facilities, special culture media are used to grow and detect anaerobic pathogens in samples taken from patients. Imagine trying to do the same for a rock sample from an alien planets light years away. Even doing the same for Martian samples would already be so difficult. Yet to grow such microbes, see them under a microscope, and analyze their genetic material, would be the only smoking gun proof that I can think of.

Btw, in re: <Dom: <You know that <perfidious> is probably the strongest player here?>> -