Overpopulation: Is It Real Or Contrived?

[shifrbv]

Nick - I agree with you. I believe that Siberia is larger than the US and Europe put together, yet only has less than 1 person per square mile.

But it's so bad there, no one can live. Only suitable for prisons. There are some Chuchkas that live on the ice and eat frozen fish, but they have it pretty bad.

 

[Napalm381]

The problem of food supply is mostly one of economics and logistics, not agricultural capability. If we applied modern farming techniques to China, Africa, etc, the amount of food we could supply would not be an issue at all. However, sale and distribution of these resources would almost certainly be a sticking point.

 

[Xede]

Overpopulation (in a worldwide, catastrophic sense) is not inevitable. The rate of population growth in many of the world's advanced, developed countries is dropping (fewer people getting married; those that do get married marry later in life; fewer children born per family). In some countries like Italy, the population growth is even negative.

In some parts of the world (south Asia, China) overpopulation is still a very real problem with no signs of becoming less of a problem in the near future. In the long term though, the trend is for countries to improve their status (becoming more developed), and when that happens, the birth rate drops.

Except for localized problems in some areas, I don't think there will ever be a global population problem.

 

[Balt]

OK, someone else may have already mentioned all this, but I didn't want to read through all the posts. Here's what I gather...

Most of the countries in the Global North (usually the more wealthy ones) don't face much of a threat of overpopulation. Why? Because in our culture, it is not advantageous to have children. They are an economic burden, time-consuming, etc. In other areas, such as Africa, children are an extra worker for the family to support itself. They are not economic burdens, they are economic incentives. In addition to this, children do not often live past a young age in these countries, hence the parents have even more incentive to have more children because they cannot be sure their children will survive.

In Europe, the birth rate is actually below replacement level. Immigration allows them to keep increasing their population, but the average couple has less than 2 children. Birth rates in the United States are also falling, getting closer to what exists in Europe. Once cultures become more advanced, birth rates typically have dropped for the reasons listed above.

However, before a lot of these third-world areas have smaller populations, they will have greater ones. As it currently stands in much of Africa, there exists high birth and high death rate. Once it becomes moderately modernized, it's likely the death rate will fall, but the birth rate will probably remain elevated for a while. When you factor in AIDS, however, who knows what the population will be like in 10-20 years.

In the end, I think when (or if) more of the world becomes modernized, the threat of overpopulation will decrease.

BTW, I didn't make all this up off the top of my head. Most of this is from an International Relations course I took last semester. It seems to be backed by a large amount of data and evidence, and it seems to make sense to me.

Edit: I see Xede beat me to the punch

 

[fallenoncrack]

I love texas

 

[kami]

There's a lot of unused space in the world...I'd say the highest concentration of people is in some parts of Africa, some parts of Europe, India, and Asia. The rest of the world is basically empty in comparison.

Look at Canada... roughly 30 million people. The USA is smaller than Canada geographically but has 270 million people. Is the US anywhere near "crowded"? Hell no...like Nick Stone said, there's lots of space left.

Overpopulation will not be a global epidemic..it will only occur in the areas I mentioned above. People in developed countries won't have to worry about overpopulation and lack of food and water for hundreds of years. That's assuming we find solutions to current pollution problems, etc.

Also like Bobber said, when overpopulation takes place in those areas...disease and famine will reduce the population. Everything will run its course.

 

[thebestMAX]

<<Is the US anywhere near &quot;crowded&quot;? Hell no...>>

Depends on your point of view. I say lots of places are, at least a lot more than I want to tolerate.

 

[kami]

In general, it's not. Some places people like crowding together for some reason though...

edit: n/m

 

[Zucchini]

grumble anyone have the stats on how much grain/water it takes to raise a single cow/pig? I've heard pretty high figres b4.

 

[SendTrash]

Yes, I heard this in HS and at first I was like WTF? but it is true and the problem isn't lack of food or land, but the distribution system.... like in Africa where stuff is needed, the militant govt are stopping relief from going to the needy and worldwide stuff isn't getting to where it needs to go

 

[Czar]

People need so much more than a place to live. Each needs food, healthcare, schooling, work place. Along with that they need consumer products, they need the industry.

Each of these produces waste, a problem that comes with population. The planet can naturaly &quot;consume&quot; certain amount of waste each year, curently we produce way more waste than the planet can handle.

Sure we could put everyone in a big building, but they would all die there.

 

[DABANSHEE]

&quot;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 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.
&quot;

You're a fuking idiot Nick Stone (edit:sorry I think I was a bit full on there), that land is not unused, its eather being use for agricultural/pastural reasons to support us, or its supporting the ecosystem &amp; is full of wildlife even if most of it is microscopic. Even a square metre of Sahara sand is teaming with wildlife.

The symple fact is that because Humans are breeding like rabbits to the point that there are an extra billion people on the planet every 10 years, that they have knocked the planet out of balance &amp; are causing mass extinctions a 1000 times faster than those species could evolve to cope with us.

&amp; its obvious its caused by too much bloody people, look at India where there's such a shortage of land thand millions of Indians are now squatting in national parks &amp; causing wholesale extintions of the species those parks were meant to support. Just think, if there were only say 6 million people on the planet (instead of 6 billion) people could do virtually whatever they want, without any ill effects on the ecosystem of the planet &amp; the other species we share this planet with.

Do you know what a cancer is? they are cells that are multiplying out of control to the point they directly kill its host, or indirectly via the waste by-products of the cancer growing out of control.

Well guess what? It's gotten to the stage that humans are now multiplying out of control &amp; poisoning its host both directly &amp; indirectly, but worse than that the planets ecosystem has been put totally out of balance.


As I said before there are an extra billion humans every 10 years - the last billion in population growth took 12 years, the next billion will take 8 years - if any other high mammal was multiplying like that, every wildlife agency in the world would be forced to start implimenting mass culling measures &amp; biological/chemical controls. Why should human beings be treated any differently? What's so special about us? Other than the fact we are the most destructive species on the planet

Personally I think all humans on this planet should be automatically sterilised after the've had 2 kids. In this day &amp; age virtually the most selfish thing a person could do is have more than 2 kids.

&amp; if somethings not done I don't doubt it get to the stage that scientists will have to invent biological/chemical controls to sterilise the masses. Actually its already happening because of the millions of chemicals emitted in the atmosphere from the by-products of plastic manufacture (guess what if we didnt have so many people we would need so much plastic) that the average male today is only half as fertile as his father was a generation ago.

Now this would be alright if it was only effecting humans, but its not. Amphibians &amp; reptiles are real having a hard time of it because of the same chemicals - mutations are up a 1000%. You see such animals living in the waterways absorb or the chemicals into their porous bodys. Frogs every where are having masses of mutations like missing limbs or heads or extra limbs or heads or haviong no bodies etc. Many experts think that universities will have to build huge aquariums, which can be kept chemically clean to be used as arks so the worlds frog species can 'hibernate' in them till we have cleaned the planet up, because otherwise most frog species arn't expected to survive the next 15 years &amp; many arn't expected to survive the next 5 years.

&amp; it all comes back to many greedy people expecting too much out of life &amp; having too many kids.

Look at the way the world seas are being fished out 7 times faster than they can replenish themselves - this is directly related to the high growth rates - as highly populated countries fish out their own seas, their boats go further &amp;^ further a feild (we see this here in Oz where poor Indonesian subsistance fisherman have cleaned out their own waters to the extant that they have to risk fishing in Australian waters. Which means they are risking having their boat arbiterally fire-bombed by the Australian Navy &amp; thus their whole life times earning going up in smoke).

Eventually all the seas would end up as sterile as the Grand Banks cod fisheries. I doubt we'd have this problem if their were only 6 million people on the planet instead of 6 billion.

&quot;Also like Bobber said, when overpopulation takes place in those areas...disease and famine will reduce the population. Everything will run its course.&quot;

Not before the over grazing of African cattle herders, causes the extinctions of virtually all the African wildlife we all love.

Just think, if we just went &amp; sterilised them all after each had just one kid, they wouldn't have to die of disease &amp; famime in the 1st place.

Already govt scientists in Australia (which is virtually the same size as the continental US, but has a population of only 18 million) have said that at currant livings standards &amp; rates of consumption that Australia would have to decrease its population to 12 million before its sustanable on the Australian enviroment.

Imagine what the US population would have to decrease to before its sustainable on the natural ecosystem of the US.

(already look at all the brown &amp; black bears that are losing their habitate because of wall the new housing developments, suburbs &amp; resorts that are getting built every day in the US - have you look at the land clearing rates in the US from just housing alone, its absolutely astounding)

There are 4 things we don't want to fuk with if we want to survive on this planet:

air
water
biodiversity (that includes plants too)
top soil

&amp; plagues of humans is having a negative effect on all 4.

 

[bikman]

A possible solution here?

 

[Double Trouble]

Mark this day in history folks, I agree completely with Dabanshee on this one. Humans are a cancerous growth on the earth..... People will argue that there is plenty of space left -- and there is, but we can already see the masses of people flowing from crowded places to non-crowded places. Once people use up all the land or resources in a certain area, they have two choices, die or move elsewhere..... so they move to places that are not (yet) overcrowded. How long 'till Canada, the US, Australia etc are also teeming with people??

 

[Balt]

A possible solution here?

hehehehe

I think a few of you are overreacting. You talk about people like they should kill themselves to rid the planet of the human race. Well, that's a pretty bold plan, but I don't see you doing it.

 

[SmiZ]

I think way too many people are standing in the middle of the street, watching an 18 wheeler full of world problems come at them and thinking the street light above their head will turn red.

OR: &quot;Don't worry. Technology will save us all!!!&quot;

Simply blind to the fact that this isn't true.

A great depiction of this idea was the movie armagedon. If a situation like that were ever to occur (again), the entire planet Earth would only be able to stare the asteroid in the face as it destroyed us. Yet ask just about any person on the street and they would tell you that what took place in armagedon is entirely possible.

 

[Ferocious]

And some people want to outlaw abortion.

 

[Nick Stone]

DABANSHEE, please don't call me an idiot unless you at least tell me what I said that was untrue.


thebestMAX
<<<< 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. >>>>

The desolate land in Texas isn't unused. Remember it is owned by people who have feelings who consider it to be valuable to them. Most of it is used to raise cattle. However, it might take 8 to 12 acres to raise one cow and calf in the prairie-grassland areas and as much as 100 acres in the more barren ares.
What is a project? Housing? Yes, you have to be hardy to live there and make a living.

Zucchini, see above; cattle don't have to be fed grain, or at least very little.

To all the rest: Who is willing to give up the conveniences of civilization to live in a remote area? Who has already done so?
Why don't you believe that technology COULD bring these conveniences to the remote locations in the near future? I was born and raised in a small town. I have considered living in a small town but I don't want to give up the conveniences of living in a metroplex. My personal obsevation is that 8 to 16 people/acre is not too high a density for life to be conveniently livable.

 

[SmiZ]

I read more and more posts in this thread that think life will be okay if we just 'squeeze' together. Does anyone else realize that the growing population is not stopping or slowing? Squeeze all you want, but an exponentially growing number of people will eventually use up all of the resources of this planet. Unless anyone has an idea of how to legally stop people from producing more than one offspring each.

 

[Double Trouble]

<<To all the rest: Who is willing to give up the conveniences of civilization to live in a remote area? Who has already done so?>>

I'm more than 'willing', I've purchased some plots of land in both Idaho and Wyoming to build a nice little ranch, in the middle of nowhere. I purchased big enough plots to make sure that there won't be anyone near me in any direction.

<<My personal obsevation is that 8 to 16 people/acre is not too high a density for life to be conveniently livable.>>

Have you ever taken the time to enjoy nature -- with no people around, no things built by people, no buildings, no traffic, no roads, no noise?? Better do it now, because at the rate the population is increasing, you won't be able to do that in the near future. There's already an entire generation of people in the US that have no idea what it's like to be outside in the wide-open. All they know is concrete, metal and plastic. The only animals they've ever seen are those in a zoo. Sad, very sad.

<<You talk about people like they should kill themselves to rid the planet of the human race>>

No, we don't need the planet of the human race, we just need to keep the population levels under control - it's expanding at an exponential rate. Like I said, 4 Billion or so is about the maximum level at which we can coexist with every other spieces on the planet without causing permanent damage.

 

[Optimus]

So who wants to volunteer to not have any more children? Or to leave the planet... anyone? anyone? Hmmm... I guess the &quot;solution&quot; is to have other people -especially in poor countries - be the ones to have to do that, huh?

Or do we let the government mandate and control the number of kids we have? Communist China anyone?


I don't think that its the farmer in Zimbabwae with 4 kids thats endangering the planet - I think its more likely the massive waste and poor managment of the environment on the part of those of us in the West. You really think we are going to run out of room? Thats the problem?!

Sheesh.

 

[Double Trouble]

<<So who wants to volunteer to not have any more children? Or to leave the planet... anyone? anyone? Hmmm... I guess the &quot;solution&quot; is to have other people -especially in poor countries - be the ones to have to do that, huh?>>

The people that have to 'do that' (in other words, reduce the population explosion) are the ones in areas that have the highest population growth rates. We in the west are guilty of creating the vast majority of waste and pollution, while those in underdeveloped countries are guilty of producing people and more people -- most of whom cannot be supported by the infrastructure of those countries.

The solution is for BOTH of these issues to be addressed.

 

[Optimus]

tarej - How?

 

[SmiZ]

I agree tagej but optimus hit on a point without realizing it. One of the main reasons that pollution has become such a problem is because there are so many people producing it. Do you think industry was cleaner in 1900? Maybe there was no nuclear waste, but it's not like they had smoke stack cleaners or catalytic converters on the model T. Didn't cause a problem though, cause there weren't as many factories or cars.


Skip forward 100 years, now almost every American family has 2 cars, and more factories are being built to supply these families with goods. Now, even though we are doing a lot of things cleaner, we are still doing so much that clean doesn't make that big a difference. The shear volume of pollution is enough to defeat the attempts at cleaning up waste. America is the big contributer right now, but expect less developed countries to follow, given enough time.


So in effect optimus, you hit on one of the major problems of being overpopulated, pollution. People think overpopulation only has to do with physical space. Not the case.

 

[Balt]

<<I agree tagej but optimus hit on a point without realizing it.>>

I think he did realize it. I think he also might have made a point about putting up or shutting up. Preach all you want about what we should be doing, but no one will listen to you if they see you not practicing what you preach. I hope you recycle, walk or ride a bike instead of drive when practical, and take 5 minute showers. Otherwise you are just telling us what to do while not doing any of those things yourself.

Of course we produce too much waste, of course population in some areas is out of control. That's pretty much a given. What we need now is ways to remedy the situation. Population control *IS* effective through economic means. If we can modernize these countries, they will have fewer children. AIDS is also going to kill quite a lot of them (this is not a good thing, but perhaps it is nature's way).

As for pollution, that is a more difficult problem. Recycling helps, of course, but it is by no means a solution in itself. Science is the only way this will be fixed, because I don't see the population of the world ever decreasing because we feel we create too much waste. Population growth may slow, and hopefully one day reach replacement (or slightly less) than replacement level, but I wouldn't count on it to solve all of our problems.