Overpopulation: Is It Real Or Contrived?

[shifrbv]

Before you make a conclusion, some simple math:

Texas square miles (2nd largest state in the US): 261,914
Square Miles To Acres Conversion Factor: 0.0015625

Results:

Acres in Texas: 167,624,960
Current World Population: 6,000,000,000
People per acre: 35.6

Just 1 high-rise apartment building on each acre in Texas could hold the entire world's population. Interesting.

Even in 2050, the population is expected to be ~9,000,000,000, only pushing up the number per acre to 53.

 

[Scrapster]

I am NOT moving to texas!

 

[StageLeft]

It is becoming real.

 

[bigbootydaddy]

i am not staying in texas!!!

 

[BoberFett]

It's not necessarily just an issue of land, but also the ability to feed those people, and provide for their other needs.

 

[bigbootydaddy]

same point some guy came up with across the office. still, its not like we are gonna melt.

 

[Elledan]

You can also put the whole world-population in a huge building in the Grand Canyon, and everyone will have a little room of 3x3 meter.

But people need Space, Big Houses and Long Broad Roads to drive their Big Fat Cars on.

Considering that every day ~400.000 Humans are being born and less than ~350.000 die, the world-population is still increasing rapidly, especially in countries outsides the Rich Western Countries (USA, North-Europe etc.), so that we'll reach the 7 billion inhabitants of this tiny planet soon enough, unless we've killed ourselves by then.

No way you'll ever cram the whole world-population into a few huge buildings, so yes, we do have an overpopulation.

 

[Double Trouble]

Ok, and then you've housed those people. Now what about their places of employment, entertainment, government etc etc etc? What about the trash they generate? What about all the stores/restaurants/etc etc?

And even more importantly, what about all the wildlife, undisturbed nature that we encroach on every day? What about all the species that are wiped out because there are too many darn people taking away their living space??

The world is DEFINITELY overpopulated, more so on some continents than others. North America is relatively unpopulated compared to Asia and Africa, but that's only a matter of time. As long as our survival rate keeps climbing and our average age keeps climbing, we're gonna keep running out of space and use up more resources.

4 Billion or so should be a nice balanced maximum population for the earth. Anything over that, and we start messing up the ecosystem everywhere.

 

[KDOG]

There is also another population control myth that we can't feed/care for the worlds population. This is wrong. The earth can produce enough food to feed an estimated 100 Billion people. However, I will agree that the logistics in doing so would be a nightmare and probably impossible. Part of the problem is that us Humans are stupid in certain ways. For instance, I read somewhere that half of the aid we send to some of these central african countries is stolen or destroyed by warring factions. Dumb. As long as we (humanity) act like that, we will never get rid of these problems.
But to answer your question, the earth is NOT overpopulated, nor even close. Its just some AREAS are overpopulated.
Youve given my an idea for another post..

 

[rhinox99]

<< Just 1 high-rise apartment building on each acre in Texas could hold the entire world's population. Interesting. >>



Hmmm I wonder how tall each building would have to be for that to work. Is this living space or is everyone just crammed into the building like sardines?

 

[Zucchini]

also, feeding these ppl err an american level diet would require insane amounts of land. You got to grow crops which then feed your poulty/cattle etc hehe .. very inefficiet

 

[shifrbv]

rhinox - If you imagine the average US family (4.4 people (2 adults, 2.4 kids), that would be 8 families on 1 acre.

I just moved from an apartment building that had many more than just 35 people living in it and it was on less than an acre (it was a 2 bedroom apartment, a little less than 1,000 square feet). The building had 18 2 and 3 bedroom apartments (about 25,000 square feet total). I believe an acre is only about 45,000 square feet.

 

[Hecubus2000]

That would be fine for a population that did not consume anything or produce waste. The world is becoming over populated. I even heard somewhere that there will be a shortage of freshwater in 30 years. (I don't know if this is true though)

 

[Azraele]

I hated TX! Most polluted place I've ever been. As for overpopulation, I do think the world is getting there.

 

[thebestMAX]

Real, real, real !!!!

This is the cause of most problems today and in the future. I have said this here many times. I always hoped we would be able to get off planet to preserve out species but after the years of waste I am afraid we never will.

 

[vi edit]

For comparisons sake, an acre takes up roughly the same amount of &quot;space&quot; as a football field.

Just compact a football field and make it square instead of rectangular and you roughly have the same area as an acre.

 

[SmiZ]

It comes down to the issue of carrying capacity. Anyone who has taken any Earth Science knows that for a given amount of land, only a certain number of organisms can be supported. There is a finite amount of resources anywhere. This accounts for land, food, water, etc. A typical CC curve of a population with no natural predators (like humans) is an exponential curve up to just after it reaches carrying capacity, then it falls off rapidly as the land just can't support such high numbers.

Regardless of what you think about overpopulation, no one can argue that it is going to occur. Estimates have put the world's carrying capacity anywhere from 20 billion to 100 billion, no one really knows. What we all do know and should realize is that population is growing exponentially with no signs of stoppage. This means, within either our lifetimes or our childrens' lifetimes, the world is going to see some very hard times.

The real question is what do you do about it. How does one nation go to another and say you must stop your people from having children? Why should the overpopulated nation listen? How do you get through to an African farmer who's family consists of 15 children that he needs to wear a condom?

 

Right, next we can build a large borg like cube and each of us can plug into it.

Over population is going to be very real eventually.
Who is going to move into conditions like that?
People have a natural desire to move away like that.
Unless you want all of america to be a big cement island like NYC.

If you think about texas that way, think of how much land is in the sahara!

 

[Elledan]

If the Cold War would have turned into a 'Hot War' we shouldn't even have a population of 3 billion...

 

[BoberFett]

The planet will take care of itself. When the ability to provide for the existing inhabitants is exhausted, famine and disease will bring the population down to a manageable level.

 

[vi edit]

<< When the ability to provide for the existing inhabitants is exhausted, famine and disease will bring the population down to a manageable level. >>



Yup, when the deer populations in Illinois and Iowa gets too high, this is exactly what happens. Same principal applies to humans - just look at the black plague.

 

[Nick Stone]

Have any of you ever flown in a small plane across Texas on a compass heading, not by following an Interstate, of course, at an altitude only a few 1000 ft above the ground? Probably not. If you did, you would probably notice that 80% of the time you would scarcely see any known sign of human life. You might also think that no one would want to live there but that's not my point. My point is that there is a tremendous amount of unused land on this earth.
You will notice the same effect if you look out the airline window over Utah or Nevada. You can see many places that are 50 miles from the nearest sign of civilization. You could not walk out of there if the plane made a crash landing, since it would be too far to civilization.
We simply have too many people in large cities, like Houston or Dallas Texas, or about 1000 other overpopulated places in the United states.

The real question is whether technology will allow people to live in the unpopulated areas but have the conveniences of the populated areas.

 

[thebestMAX]

Bobber is right

Too bad we cant do it in an intellegent manner but then we would be denying people their &quot;rights&quot;

 

[vi edit]

Nick, have you ever flown over South Dakota? Now that's desolate!

 

[thebestMAX]

Nick-

The unused land is like that for a reason. It is unusable for food production but you could put &quot;projects&quot; there but no one would live in them voluntarily so then you are just warehousing people.