toldailytopic: Overpopulation. Is the world really over populated as some assert?

[Nathon Detroit]

So you'd rather go to meddling in personal choices concerning family size instead of trusting to human ingenuity? Wow. Are you some kind of pinko commie or something?

It's funny how the people who are already here and using resources are so quick to want to limit others from enjoying this world in the same way they are.

 

[nicholsmom]

I missed the 2nd part of the question...

I don't think depopulating the world is the answer, at least not the ethical one. We need to use resources more wisely, which could mean a lower standard of living. And of course if people would be more prudent when it comes to procreation, that wouldn't be a bad idea.

What perzactly do you mean by that kmo? How does my personal choice of how many citizens I'll raise have anything to do with the poverty in China? How can we know which person will invent that flying car that the Jetsons had? How can we know which person will discover the next energy source or water-cleaning technology?

Isn't limiting children, really just limiting potential discovery?

Human beings are amazingly resilient and creative in the face of trouble, and the more heads we can get together to solve those problems, the better, I say.

But what do I know? I'm just a mom trying to train up her kids according to their bent. Maybe my David will be the one to invent that flying car - though he leans more toward the bubble transport in "Meet the Robinsons" :chuckle:

 

[nicholsmom]

I am all about upping the production of nuclear power. Not to mention drilling and mining the heck out of any state that produces a fossil fuel, just to keep the lights on.

I am glad that we can agree on this - I only wish we could get Congress and the President to agree as well :cheers:

By the way, there absolutely has to be to be some government involvement in the production of nuclear power. Unless you're fine with anyone mining and selling uranium to whoever they like, of course. Or substandard reactors being developed.

National security is one of the enumerated powers of the government. Certainly, they ought to keep a very close eye on both the uranium and the technology. Apart from that however, they need to keep out.

These are all admirable things to be doing. They also imply that you're not quite as absolute on the question of over extending on resources as your previous comments seemed to imply.

Not sure what you mean by that.

I don't think depopulation is ever going to be a deliberate strategy outside of warfare. Nevertheless, the signs are that it will eventually occur whatever we may think of it. Malthusian population dynamics may not be wrong after all, only deferred.

Deferred by technological advances? Why should they ever end so long as intelligent people continue to bear smart little offspring?

Malthusian population theory was eventually dismissed for its pessimism and failure to take into account technological advances in agriculture and food production.​

Source

More heads in the game means more problem solvers. Who knows? Maybe the next great invention in the arena of resource production will come from a home-educated person from a large family And by large, I mean more than 8 kids...

 

[Flipper]

So you'd rather go to meddling in personal choices concerning family size instead of trusting to human ingenuity? Wow. Are you some kind of pinko commie or something?

Did I say that?

 

[Stripe]

toldailytopic: Overpopulation. Is the world really over populated as some assert? And if so, what steps should be taken to unpopulate it?

I have a spare room if anyone ever feels "overpopulated".

 

[WandererInFog]

Which resources are we running out of? None of the ones you mention seem to be in short supply.

Fresh water is actually in increasingly short supply globally. What's funny is that while the "green" types wail and gnash their teeth over carbon emissions, cause y'know that's all trendy right now, growing water supply problems are far more dangerous.

Basically, in a very simplified version, it works like this. We're heavily dependent on underground supplies of water called aquifers. When everything is functions properly, the whole water cycle thing we all learned about back in high school science keeps the amount of water in these basically stable. However, in several areas globally the amount of water we're pulling out of the aquifers has become considerably greater than their ability to replenish themselves. For example, the Ogallala Aquifer, which sits beneath a large portion of the central US and provides not just drinking water but also farm irrigation is likely, at present usage levels, to be dry within 25 years. The problems are even more pronounced in part of Asia, such as parts of south India where the aquifers are going dry so fast that the amount of land they're able to irrigate has been basically cut in half in the past decade.

 

[Stripe]

the whole water cycle thing we all learned about back in high school science keeps the amount of water in these basically stable.

Aquifers are not replenished by rainfall to any significant degree.

 

[Town Heretic]

Aquifers are not replenished by rainfall to any significant degree.

Okay, now I'm thinking we might have one more person than is really necessary. lain:

 

[Stripe]

Okay, now I'm thinking we might have one more person than is really necessary. lain:

Are you leaving?

 

[WandererInFog]

Aquifers are not replenished by rainfall to any significant degree.

That varies heavily. Some like, Ogallala which is largely a fossil aquifer, have an extremely slow recharge rate, others such as the one under the South China plain are shallower and recharge more quickly. (Now obviously not all of the recharge comes from rain water, and so on. But I'm simplifying as what's under discussion here is what resources are becoming scarce, not the nuances of hydrologic cycle.)

Regardless of which category a given aquifer falls into though, the principle remains the same. If you are pulling water out of it more quickly than it replenishes, it will run out, and when it runs out it will have a devastating affect on the areas dependent on it.

 

[Stripe]

That varies heavily. Some like, Ogallala which is largely a fossil aquifer, have an extremely slow recharge rate, others such as the one under the South China plain are shallower and recharge more quickly. (Now obviously not all of the recharge comes from rain water, and so on. But I'm simplifying as what's under discussion here is what resources are becoming scarce, not the nuances of hydrologic cycle.)

OK, if you don't want to get into that then I'll point out how very irrelevant your original contribution is.

Regardless of which category a given aquifer falls into though, the principle remains the same. If you are pulling water out of it more quickly than it replenishes, it will run out, and when it runs out it will have a devastating affect on the areas dependent on it.

If an aquifer runs out the correct human response is to seek a new supply of water. An incorrect response is to assert that suddenly there are too many people in the world.

 

[Flipper]

Fresh water is actually in increasingly short supply globally. What's funny is that while the "green" types wail and gnash their teeth over carbon emissions, cause y'know that's all trendy right now, growing water supply problems are far more dangerous.

Basically, in a very simplified version, it works like this. We're heavily dependent on underground supplies of water called aquifers. When everything is functions properly, the whole water cycle thing we all learned about back in high school science keeps the amount of water in these basically stable. However, in several areas globally the amount of water we're pulling out of the aquifers has become considerably greater than their ability to replenish themselves. For example, the Ogallala Aquifer, which sits beneath a large portion of the central US and provides not just drinking water but also farm irrigation is likely, at present usage levels, to be dry within 25 years. The problems are even more pronounced in part of Asia, such as parts of south India where the aquifers are going dry so fast that the amount of land they're able to irrigate has been basically cut in half in the past decade.

Actually, the green types are pretty concerned about water reserves too, it's just that global warming is getting the column inches.

I think we're facing an array of short term and long term threats, both environmental and and resource-related. I think there may come a time, sooner than any of us would like, when we look back on 2009 and think "that was such a great year."

Oddly enough, there was a piece on inaccurate reporting of world oil supplies in The Guardian today.

The Uppsala report, published in the journal Energy Policy, anticipates that maximum global production of all kinds of oil in 2030 will be 76m barrels per day. Analysing the IEA's figures, it finds that to meet its forecasts for supply, the world's new and undiscovered oilfields would have to be developed at a rate "never before seen in history". As many of them are in politically or physically difficult places, and as capital is short, this looks impossible. Assessing existing fields, the likely rate of discovery and the use of new techniques for extraction, the researchers find that "the peak of world oil production is probably occurring now".

 

[WandererInFog]

I think we're facing an array of short term and long term threats, both environmental and and resource-related. I think there may come a time, sooner than any of us would like, when we look back on 2009 and think "that was such a great year."

It's just very, very hard to say. This coming century is going be...interesting, but which kind of interesting will largely depend on which comes first between certain resource shortages and certain technological developments. Unfortunately at this point it just looks like the odds favor the former over the latter.

 

[WandererInFog]

If an aquifer runs out the correct human response is to seek a new supply of water. An incorrect response is to assert that suddenly there are too many people in the world.

Care to point out precisely where I said "there are too many people in the world"? I am simply pointing out there are very real resource shortages looming, and ones which I would hasten to add that the average person is most often completely unaware of. It's really all but impossible say "X number of people is the maximum and anything over that is overpopulation". There's just too many complex factors involved. However, if these shortages come to fruition and we don't find alternatives, then there is a very real chance we'll find ourselves in the position of being overpopulated in many regions of the world and if we allow ourselves to get into that situation, overpopulation tends to have many rather nasty ways of taking care of itself.

 

[Flipper]

It's just very, very hard to say. This coming century is going be...interesting, but which kind of interesting will largely depend on which comes first between certain resource shortages and certain technological developments. Unfortunately at this point it just looks like the odds favor the former over the latter.

True that. I don't want to underestimate the endless ingenuity of man, and I follow the popular literature on technology breakthroughs in agriculture, genetic engineering and alternative fuels very closely. So far, I think there are some promising research projects in a number of fields but until various solutions are actually rolling out in the market, I've learned not to believe what any one company claims regarding the potential of its product.

I also just read this on CNN: One Billion Worldwide Face Starvation.

Apparently, this is happening right now.

 

[Flipper]

It's funny how the people who are already here and using resources are so quick to want to limit others from enjoying this world in the same way they are.

Just wanted to remind you (as you seem to have forgotten) that not everyone in the world revels in the plenty that you do.

Also, I didn't say jack about limiting people's populations, although I bet you're more likely than I to squeak about government-funded or UN foreign aid to Africa.

I just observed that we currently having problems sustaining the world population that we have and that looming resource shortages will make things much harder for everyone. We can all quibble about the reasons, but the fact remains that a higher and higher percentage of the world's population is dependent on the charity of other nations to stay alive.

What do you propose we should do? What's your plan?

 

[Alate_One]

I live on a one-acre plot, which is way more than I'll ever tame. I have knocked down about 1/4th of the Japanese honeysuckle that blights our country and had taken over our back yard, but I still have a LOT more to cut down. If every soul in the world can fit into Texas, and each have 2.9 acres of land, we definitely aren't over-populated. We've developed way less of the ground than the media wants you to think. They want to scare you, so you buy more of their products and watch more of their news shows to become even more scared. Don't buy any of it.

No, every soul in the world TODAY can fit into Texas and each have about 1000 square feet. Slightly less than a 32 X 32 foot apartment. (The original calculation was done in 1984)

Still think the world isn't overpopulated?

And yes we have developed most of the land into agriculture, around 38% of the earth's surface. That may not sound like a lot but remember that ocean and land that is unsuitable for agriculture takes up a huge amount of the space.

Yet people are still starving in many parts of the world!

 

[Aimiel]

No, every soul in the world TODAY can fit into Texas and each have about 1000 square feet. Slightly less than a 32 X 32 foot apartment. (The original calculation was done in 1984)

Still think the world isn't overpopulated?

And yes we have developed most of the land into agriculture, around 38% of the earth's surface. That may not sound like a lot but remember that ocean and land that is unsuitable for agriculture takes up a huge amount of the space.

Yet people are still starving in many parts of the world!

I don't buy your figures, but, even if it were true; SO WHAT? It still doesn't make the world over-populated. Texas is a very small part of the land that is available for development in livable climates. We have several countries right now that have a shrinking population, due to abortion and infertility. The problems that we have right now wouldn't be any less with a lower population, certainly. Who knows but that maybe one of the people murdered by abortion or not born due to infertility (caused by who-knows-what) might have helped solve the world's problems and made this a better place to live? We don't need to throw the baby out with the bath-water. We need to make use of what we have, which is very little time before The Lord comes and judges the earth. When He comes, will He find faith in the earth?

 

[Stripe]

Care to point out precisely where I said "there are too many people in the world"?

The only possible way your point can have any relevance is if you are suggesting exactly that.

I am simply pointing out there are very real resource shortages looming, and ones which I would hasten to add that the average person is most often completely unaware of.

Resources run out in different areas all the time. The correct response is to look for ways around the problem, not to suggest that there are suddenly too many people in the world.

Aquifers running out is just something else that is unavoidably going to happen. We should not be expected to do anything about population size just because our water sources might need to change.

 

[Chileice]

Obviously resource shortages directly relate to the population the planet can bear. If that weren't so we could all live on the moon. However, a lack of resources: water, oxygen, plant life, etc. make it currently impossible to sustain life. While the AIDS crisis has been a global catastrophe, it has lowered the population growth on the planet, especially in countries where resource distribution is the worst. The planet can certainly support more people if we are wise in using resources. But I think, due largely to human selfishness, we are approaching the limit of true sustainability. That is where God comes into this picture. If we are transformed by Christ and look out for our fellow humans instead of being selfish hoarders and wasters, more of us could not only survive, but thrive on this beautiful planet.