Overpopulation: how to control it?

if im not mistaken ,
you can give an acre of land to half of the population of the USA and still probably have a little bit left over; thats how big texas is and how small our population is , respectivly

keep in mind alaska is more than twice as big; and with that in mind; im sure we would easily fill every human on earth, 6billion,into the total acreage of North America at one person/per acre

dont forget Asia makes North America look small hehe
so No i dont really see overpopulation as a real problem until we reach around say 20 to 30 billion

anyways;
overpopulation controls itself; naturally

excerpt from www.netstate.com...

"Texas covers 268,601 square miles, making it the 2nd largest of the 50 states, right behind Alaska.
Land Area 261,914 square miles of Texas are land areas.
Water Area 6,687 square miles of Texas are covered by water making Texas the 9th wettest state."

referance::
1 acre = 4 046.85642 m^2

1 mile = 1.609344 kilometers


The total land area of Texas is an astounding 167.7 million acres. Of this, 129 million acres, or roughly 77% of Texas’ total land area, is involved in agricultural production.

link www.txfb.org...


also
Population Statistics

U.S. 296,016,738
World 6,438,929,858

www.census.gov...

If we misuse our resources then it will be harder to sustain a larger human population. And we allready are misusing our resources. I guess you could in theory put tons and tons more people on earth, but if we do, we must keep in mind the other living forms and creatures that inhabit this earth. They are part of the balance that exists here. I'm not so sure it's as simple as figuring in just ourselves and the land we have. And we can't continue to mindlessly dump trash in our landfills, especially the stuff that does not break down. All kinds of things that need to happen, there's composting, and decaying of matter back into earth, which has to happen to return nutrients back into the soil. Chemically grown fruits and veggies are nearly tasteless as some people have probably noticed, and I doubt their nutrtional value. There is the issue of cleaner fuels. On and on.

Troy

Originally posted by Delta 38
If you seriously want to slow global population growth then I suggest the following. End poverty, protect women's rights, increase education levels, make birth control easily available and educate people in it's use, promote monogmous commited relationships.

Silly monogamy. Monogamy is for those without birth control.

Otherwise, you're exactly right. It's time to stop thinking that some religious ideal will change the world, and to start thinking of practical solutions, like the above, that will actually bring population control.

Nature regulates itself, and maintains equilibrium through action and reaction. The human population - if it needs regulation - will regulate itself at the highest sustainable level, or will be regulated through natural forces.

Originally posted by Paul
Nature regulates itself, and maintains equilibrium through action and reaction. The human population - if it needs regulation - will regulate itself at the highest sustainable level, or will be regulated through natural forces.

I think that's the point of all these posts.

It might be more pleasant if "we" do the regulating, before nature regulates us.

Monogamy is a religious type ideal to my knowlege. And it is practical.

Troy

Have everyone move into cities ruled by capitolistic pigs, that's the best way to reduce birth rates as in Urban settings Children become a Liability(They cost alot of dough to raise children in the city) and in the Sticks they are an asset(more free hands on the farm). Japan and Europe are having thier initial taste of what it will be like when the Boomer population crash comes. It will not effect us here as much as the immigrant(both legal and illigal) are the only thing keeping our birthrates above 2.1 atm. In 50 years the problem could be that we are not having enough children. These things come in trends and ebb and flow very unpredictibly, that's why the UN and US keep revising thier predictions on the population of the Earth at 2050. The most recent I saw from the UN was 7.6 Billion by 2050 and After that gradually starting to fall off, that is if current trends keep as they are going and who can say what will happen nowadays...

[edit on 5-5-2005 by sardion2000]

There are two approaches to this dilemma, one conservative, and the other involving controls.

1. Do nothing. Populations correct themselves automatically. You can play around with the equations if you do a little research. Generally populations increase exponentially. Food supplies, however, do not. If these curves intersect, there will be widespread famine, and disease. One could take the position that this is already happening with AIDS.

2. Control populations. China tried to do this and it's not clear how successfull it was. How do you enforce it? Kill the 2nd kid?


The bottom line is that education is really the best policy. People 100 years ago had 10 kids because they wanted them to work on the family farm, and not all of them made it to adulthood due to disease. Now that our healthcare system is successful, and many of us are not farmers, having 1-3 kids is more typical. This is a natural trend. The US population growth is reasonable. Currently we have the resources to feed our people. If we ever got to the point where we didn't, we might revisit these ideas.

But howabout in other (industrializing and third-world) nations? Much more difficult to carry out, and do we even have the right to tell other countries if they need to manage their populations or not? Many people come to the US as immigrants, so this could be a concern as well.


Realistically I think the only thing that one could really do is make it more expensive. If there were a big tax hike for having say more than 3 kids it might deter people from doing this. If we ever get close to running out of food sources there will be a big price hike before it ever got to the point of famine, where people could begin debating these issues in congress.

The only problematic concern we have in this country is for low income and unemployed single mothers with crack babies or other situations where the father runs away and they cannot work. This segment is still small compared to the total population.

here is a interesting doco from the bbc about overpopulation. hope you enjoy it.
www.youtube.com...

It’s a difficult and contentious subject that. There are some people that think we will reach 50 Billion by the end of this century. Which may cause a huge problem. I think a conservative guess would be that we could reach about 25 Billion if left unchecked. Also, there seems to be a growing consensus that seem to think that the world can only cope (Resources, Food and so on) with around 10 billion people.

Its is clear, with developing economies and so on that we need to slow things down a little.

The solution would be a combination of things I think, and not all of them sound that bad. I read somewhere that in order to maintain the European Population at its current level, we should have 2 children a couple. That’s just to maintain the current population. Maybe doing something like China did and enforcing a population control, although it’s a very very difficult area and I don’t even know where I stand on it. But that combined with effect use of resources and pollution.

Recently on Oprah …..only flicked over not a regular follower….she described that there are huge islands of rubbish and plastic floating on the sea. And I mean shockingly huge. Its things like that we need to come up with a solution for. Just seems like we use resources, then can’t recycle them. This is what causes damage. Its how we as a species live with our world.

Have a look at wikipedia on the subject: en.wikipedia.org...

www.dailymail.co.uk...


And a few images as well:

www.instructables.com...

Funnily enough I can’t seem to find many pics of them.

But its how we live in this world is the issue. Population may be able to increase a little year by year. Its getting everyone on the world to be educated enough to know there is an issue and what has to be done about it.

We don’t need WWIII to solve the issue. We just need to work within set parameters that are sustainable.

But tricky none-the-less.

The idea of forced population control makes me sick. Although I think a financial incentive for people who voluntarily get fixed would be nice. A lot of poverty plagued people would go for it because they are desperate for the money.

So you want to sterilise the poor. I beg to differ on that one as we all know it is the rich who threaten the planet and consume ten times more then the poor. So it's the rich who should be sterilised not the poor!

How well do you think that would would go down ...

reply to post by WyrdeOne

There are vast, and I mean VAST untapped tracts of land in nearly every country.

Ok so we tap those and then what! Sooner or later you know it's
gonna come around. Aren't those vast untapped tracts better left untouched
especially since we don't understand everythikng that is going on
with our planet right now.

Here's an idea how to

SAVE THE WORLD, KILL YOURSELF

I found this oldie but crustie.

Great band

[edit on 4-12-2009 by randyvs]

reply to post by LostInAMelody


Cannibalism.

Kills two birds with one stone.

Population control and solves world hunger.



On a more serious note, i don't believe there is a population problem on this planet.

There is a GREED and HATE problem . . .



[edit on 12/4/2009 by JPhish]

Originally posted by boredsilly
So you want to sterilise the poor. I beg to differ on that one as we all know it is the rich who threaten the planet and consume ten times more then the poor. So it's the rich who should be sterilised not the poor!

How well do you think that would would go down ...

If you were replying to me, what I suggested would be completely voluntary for people choose not to have children based on their economic status. There are many out there who would like to get fixed but can not afford to do so. As I said forced depopulation sickens me. It should always be the prospective parents choice on whether they have children or not and how many.

reply to post by AceOfBase


Actually it isn't just wealthy nations that are consuming all the resources.
The 3rd worlders can be just as bad decemating rainforests, killing protected species and almost pushing many animals to almost extinction, polluting their own environments with raw sewerage and therefore spoiling and destroying their own water supply etc.

The only ones who have a harmonious non-toxic relationship with the land are the true indigenous peoples of the world who are in a class of their own. Their numbers are small, so therefore they obviously don't have 10-12 kids per family and they don't damage their environment. It's as pristine now as it always was.

I view both 1st worlders and 3rd worlders as being equally lax in how they treat their resources. We could all do with some education by our indigenous people.

Population control is already in progress. And its being controlled by the finances. To day a house holds need two people to keep things going.

All a politician's needs to do is to turn up the price it cost to keep a kid in kindergarten or a school. What it costs forces some to make sacrificing choices to have a kid or not. There is a lot of things they can do fix the problems of population control.

reply to post by LostInAMelody


Well I think one idea might be to create a mild virus, then peddle a dubious vaccine, then feed the conspiracy sites, then ensure that the virus becomes more severe/widespread. Then sit and wait smugly for all those who decided against the vaccine to be decimated.
Oh wait......

A good start would be for the nations of the earth to dump their war machines and focus their spending on farm development, recycling and alternative energy resources. But you know what? Probably ain't gonna happen. They'd rather put lemming hormones in the chemtrails and hope everybody runs and jumps off a cliff.

Population Control??? Thats a joke. You have Governments making laws daily to help protect ourselves from ourselves. Seat belt laws, gun control, texting while driving laws, blah, bla blah, bla blah. Laws to protect the stupid and the idiots. Hell if your dumb enough to do stupid stuff, then maybe we dont need you in the gene pool, and death is the easy way out. They try and save your life then panic because of over population. Hello??? Remove the stupid, self protecting laws, remove the idiot labels on appliances, and tools. Thin that gene pool a bit. Now that would get rid of a few million people there. BTW if you were involved in an accident with a texting person, then i guess you weren't paying attention and thus your genes aren't needed either. Sound harsh? Well the governments spend a lot of time and money into making laws to protect the idiots, so that their genes can spread likes AIDS. Hence our current situation.(if it is even a situation.)

Next... lets take a look at the numbers of criminals in the system. I didn't have time to get the numbers, but everyone knows its in the millions. Anyways take the criminals that purposely commit crimes (anything that had been intentionally taking or destroyed of someone else persons or properties)
and destroy them. Just like they do the dogs at the pound. Which is about the level they are on.
All other involuntary and circumstantial criminals would do there time as usual. That would eliminate about 2/3 of the of that population.

Now in doing this, world wide we have reduced the population hypothetically by 1/3 or better. No war, no government birth control, no NWO bs, no more idiots (there goes the government) and no bad people.

Things can be simple as long as you dont have some idiots trying to save the stupid from themselves and the evil curr from taking life and property from others.

OMG!!!! what a concept.... harmony and intelligence.....wow double threat world.