Thread: Is World Headed For Overpopulation?

A myth. Properly bought and sold by the indoctrined and easy-to-fool set. Examined, should be, are not the growth of populations, but instead what the population does and how it interacts with said environment......most particularly a sub-group of the species.

That doesn't make it a myth. As things stand, the world is heading for - or has already arrived at - over-population because most of the world has no desire to live the life of a subsistence-farming peasant.

most particularly a sub-group of the species.

And that doesn't make any sense.

Originally Posted by Dan

That doesn't make it a myth. As things stand, the world is heading for - or has already arrived at - over-population because most of the world has no desire to live the life of a subsistence-farming peasant.

most particularly a sub-group of the species.

And that doesn't make any sense.

Western industrialized populations. Kapeesh?

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Food can only produced in the required amounts using fertilizer and pesticides, produced by chemical industry

I'm not sure about that. If the world - and rich westerners in particular - adopted the diet and traditional farming practices of Indian peasants, high on grains and beans and low on meat, things would be very different. And since industrial farming is wildly unsustainable, it's not really true that it can feed the world.

Good basic health care is also required or else the time of pandemics will be back and significantly reduce the world population.

Diet and sanitation.

The present population can be sustained with present technology only through exploitation of limited ressources which will run out not today or tomorrow but late this or early next century.

I would guess though that very few already born will see the end of those ressources.

Here our positions are reversed. I think a lot is possible with the technology at hand - if humanity chooses to tighten its collective belt - but the real killer is resource scarcity. Peak oil is just around the corner and that is going to end the party stone cold dead in its tracks. No-one alive now will see the last drop of oil being squeezed out of the ground, but that's not really the important point; it's living with declining net energy in a growing world that's important and sadly we've done nothing to prepare for this and now we're - probably - out of time.

Originally Posted by Nawty

People fail to see the bigger picture here.

Its not over population that is going to cause the problems.

...but what the population does.

Originally Posted by Dan

Originally Posted by Takeovers Food can only produced in the required amounts using fertilizer and pesticides, produced by chemical industry I'm not sure about that. If the world - and rich westerners in particular - adopted the diet and traditional farming practices of Indian peasants, high on grains and beans and low on meat, things would be very different. And since industrial farming is wildly unsustainable, it's not really true that it can feed the world.

We are not too far apart on this. I know that industrial farming is only sustainable as long as ressources like oil and coal last, because it is very energy demanding. But even today countries like India can sustain their present population only with chemical fertilizers and pesticides and highly bred plants. The peasant farmer lives subsistent but can only feed himself and family. The ratio used to be 10 farmers can sustain one city dweller and now the ratio is reversed, completely unsustainable without modern farming. Low meat consumption helps but is not enough.

Originally Posted by Dan

Good basic health care is also required or else the time of pandemics will be back and significantly reduce the world population. Diet and sanitation.

Both can be achieved only with help of industrial products. You are right, it does not need our present lifestyle. But clean water and good food require an industrial base. Good storage and transportation are required to maintain food availability.

By the way transportation over large distances does not require too much energy. I have recently read about a study. The result for a bottle of rice wine from Asia was interesting. Bringing that bottle from Asia to the german port Hamburg requires much less energy than bringing that bottle from Hamburg to a southern german city.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Peak oil is just around the corner

That is not proven yet. The argument was around even 30 years ago. But even if true we can fall back to the vast resources of coal, which would increase CO2 or may be able to go forward to Methan Hydrate.
Going more energy efficient is a good way forward especially for the US which is very wasteful in that regard. European countries consume much less with a similar standard of living.

But I do hope for new solutions coming from advanced technology not a nostalgic lifestyle of the past.

The remaining space on the planet is quickly consumed by windfarms photovoltaic cells and biofuel crops. After that it all collapes into the subsidence caused by removing all the coal oil and gas. Then we all die. Sad isn't it?

Originally Posted by Takeovers

clean water and good food require an industrial base.

So we had no clean water before the industrial revolution then? Unfortunately we cannot uninvent the car, so we will just destroy the planet that gave us all we ever needed, until we got greedy.

In all the mining that takes place for coal and 'valuable' minerals, 95% of the material mined is waste! The earth is inhabited by a bunch of selfish fuckers with myopia. We are all doomed and we fucking deserve it.

Originally Posted by Dan

That doesn't make it a myth. As things stand, the world is heading for - or has already arrived at - over-population because most of the world has no desire to live the life of a subsistence-farming peasant.

I agree with Dan on this.

Humans will not change their desires or comforts, conspicuous consumption, and question for domination and exploitation of the resources.

If it was in the true human nature to change, humans would have changed.

^I think that it is not a matter of changing, but rather looking at it from an alternative point of view. The government needs to start with putting more money into the use of alternative energies. There are many people that are learning to live with less.

I also see the east becoming more and more westernized and that isn't always a good thing to see more and more McDonalds, Starbucks in places that never had these luxuries to begin with (I'm thinking about Cambodia).

We as humans are killing ourselves slowly, but I still think there is hope. The world is becoming more 'green.' More people are thinking about the environment just imo.

[quote=chassamui;1010393]

Originally Posted by Takeovers

clean water and good food require an industrial base.

So we had no clean water before the industrial revolution then?

You can have mostly clean water only as long as you have a nomadic culture or as long as you only have small thinly spread villages. Do you want that back?

Also if you read the reports of early european discoverers you will find that they often did not have clean water. So yes it requires technology to ensure clean water.

But civilisation requires the development of cities and it requires technology to keep a city going. The Romans did it with their impressive technology plus countless slaves. Do you want that back?

Unfortunately we cannot uninvent the car, so we will just destroy the planet that gave us all we ever needed, until we got greedy.

You are not wrong but nostalgia won't solve our problems. Going back to the stone age is not an acceptable alternative. It may happen though if we don't find other solutions.

In all the mining that takes place for coal and 'valuable' minerals, 95% of the material mined is waste! The earth is inhabited by a bunch of selfish fuckers with myopia. We are all doomed and we fucking deserve it.

So what's your solution? I do not believe the last sentence is true. We may deserve it but I doubt we are doomed.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

You can have mostly clean water only as long as you have a nomadic culture or as long as you only have small thinly spread villages. Do you want that back? YES PLEASE Also if you read the reports of early european discoverers you will find that they often did not have clean water. So yes it requires technology to ensure clean water. But civilisation requires the development of cities and it requires technology to keep a city going. The Romans did it with their impressive technology plus countless slaves. Do you want that back?

Cities and technology do not equal civilisation. It is possible to be civilised without them.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

You are not wrong but nostalgia won't solve our problems. Going back to the stone age is not an acceptable alternative. It may happen though if we don't find other solutions

Why is it unacceptable? It will happen because humans believe they are superior to the natural world, and the truth is we are not.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

So what's your solution?

The happiest people i have ever met were those with the least need for so called western civilisation. They were dirt poor subsistence farmers in NE Thailand. They worked with nature and had a respect for what it delivered to their lives. The philosophy of the north american Indians should have been our guide to true civilistion and look what we did to them.
I think i prefer the simple solutions we have been ignoring for far too long. It has to be better than more cities and more technology, because that is unsustainable.

Originally Posted by chassamui

Cities and technology do not equal civilisation. It is possible to be civilised without them.

Originally Posted by chassamui

Originally Posted by Takeovers You are not wrong but nostalgia won't solve our problems. Going back to the stone age is not an acceptable alternative. It may happen though if we don't find other solutions

Why is it unacceptable? It will happen because humans believe they are superior to the natural world, and the truth is we are not.

So it seems we don't have any common ground for discussion here. I don't see stone age life as a desirable alterternative. I do agree that we need to make changes but have no clear view what those changes should or could be.

I think the changes will be enforced because the earth will only sustain what the environment is capable of. If we damage the environment that provides for us, it will, eventually bite us in the ass and force us to live within the means of the planet.
The sooner we start to simplify our way of life, the easier the transition will be. No one is suggesting that we go back to the stone age. It is quite possible to live comfortably using sustainable resources. The native american Indian would only take enough natural resources to sustain his family. They would only kill what they could eat and they used all of the animal they killed for food, clothing and shelter. No waste and sustainable use of resources.
If a wild animal knows that there is enough food to support it's offspring it will mate and produce young. If food is scarce, it will move on, and either not mate, or produce fewer young commensurate with the available resources.
Now if humans were really clever they might adopt a similar practice.
Any grounds for discussion here?

Originally Posted by chassamui

Any grounds for discussion here?

Yes there is. I read your last reply in a way that back to the stone age is desirable.

Originally Posted by chassamui

I think the changes will be enforced because the earth will only sustain what the environment is capable of. If we damage the environment that provides for us, it will, eventually bite us in the ass and force us to live within the means of the planet.

That is obviously true.

I probably believe more than you that we can influence and push the envelope through technology.

However nothing can help us if we don't get the population under control. If we fail on that nature will hit back hard. And I have no solution for that problem in mind.

It would be much easier to maintain a desirable standard of living for 2 or 3 billion people or less than for the numbers we are approaching now.

I do believe that some technology will have a part to play in our future. It will have to be benign so that it does not upset the balance of the the planets living conditions. Sea exploration has shown what is happening to the oceans. They can no longer sustain the co2 that we keep dumping and ocean currents are changing and becoming more irregular.
Populations are at risk from desertification especially in China, where they are also killing important rivers, leading to extinctions.
Population control is one possible solution but who would have the balls to do it?
Space colonies would be costly even if people could be persuaded to go there and the same applies to Atlantis.
It's going to be tougher still for our kids. They will have bigger problems and harder decisions to make than us.

Take a close look at our earth and you will see it has cancer.
The cancer is called man or me and you.

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

Take a close look at our earth and you will see it has cancer.

Originally Posted by chassamui

It will have to be benign so that it does not upset the balance of the the planets living conditions.

Indeed a malignant form of cancer. We are part of the body earth and as such we need to modify our behavior to become benign. Our ability through development of technology to harm our host, the earth, has far outpaced the evolution of our behavior as it relates to sustaining the environment in which we live.

Failure to adapt our behavior to align with the environment will result in collapse. Examples of failure to do so on a micro level are well documented in history. Lessons to be learned from these failures are applicable to avoiding collapse on the macro level.

Recommend a book titled Collapse, by Jared Diamond. Using examples such as Easter Island, Viking Settlements in Greenland, the Anasazi he clearly points out how the behavior of these societies led to their collapse.

I am unconvinced the earth is "over populated". Our inability to cooperate as a species rather than a clan/nation is what translates to us believing over population is the cause of many of the ills we face. The current world population and even many more can be easily maintained if the have clans/nations take the view it is in their best interest to ensure the have nots are not left out.

Hunger, poverty and lack of education drive the have nots to a point of desperation which in turn result in "problems" for the have nations. The haves must attack the root problem rather than continueing to react to the symptoms.

The earth is not over populated. It is the over consumption of the minority at the expense of the majority that makes it seem so.

The population jump from 4 to 6 billion and 6 to 7 billion only took each 12 years.

How high will this go?

August 12, 2009




WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The world's population is forecast to hit 7 billion in 2011, the vast majority of its growth coming in developing and, in many cases, the poorest nations, a report released Wednesday said.
Riders cram into a train last month in New Delhi, India. India's population is expected to be 1.7 billion by 2050.





A staggering 97 percent of global growth over the next 40 years will happen in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Population Reference Bureau's 2009 World Population Data Sheet.

"The great bulk of today's 1.2 billion youth -- nearly 90 percent -- are in developing countries," said Carl Haub, a co-author of the report. Eight in 10 of those youth live in Africa and Asia.

"During the next few decades, these young people will most likely continue the current trend of moving from rural areas to cities in search of education and training opportunities, gainful employment, and adequate health care," Haub continued, calling it one of the major social questions of the next few decades.

In the developed world, the United States and Canada will account for most of the growth -- half from immigration and half from a natural increase in the population -- births minus deaths, according to the report.

High fertility rates and a young population base in the developing world will fuel most of the growth, especially in Africa, where women often give birth to six or seven children over a lifetime, the report says. The number is about two in the United States and 1.5 in Canada.
A stark contrast can be drawn between Uganda and Canada, which currently have about 34 million and 31 million residents, respectively. By 2050, Canada's population is projected to be 42 million, while Uganda's is expected to soar to 96 million, more than tripling.


"Even with declining fertility rates in many countries, world population is still growing at a rapid rate," said Bill Butz, president of the bureau. "The increase from 6 billion to 7 billion is likely to take 12 years, as did the increase from 5 billion to 6 billion. Both events are unprecedented in world history."


By 2050, India is projected to be the world's most populous nation at 1.7 billion, overtaking current leader China, which is forecast to hit 1.4 billion. The United States is expected to reach 439 million for No. 3 on the list.

Link: World population projected to reach 7 billion in 2011 - CNN.com

Here is an article on a proposal out of Canada (that surely won't be followed nor implemented) advocating:

1 child per couple WORLDWIDE.

A good idea IMO, as the world head toward 7 billion sooner, and 8 billion even sooner and 9 billion in even a shorter amount of time.

The time line is speeding up.

Here is the link. I'll try to copy & pasts but it won't allow me to:

The real inconvenient truth

Yes not a bad idea from the Canadians, in the meantime we should set up immigration officers at all European borders with only one question to new asylum seekers and immigrants-

Canada or Alaska Sir ?

Such big empty wide spaces over there