How do we fix the population problem facing humanity?

I've been wanting to bring this up for a while but for whatever reasons I never did. Population. China has 1/5 the population in the world. Out population has grown from around 3 billion in 1960 to 6+ billion of today.

"On current projections humanity, will be using two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050 -- if those resources have not run out by then," the latest report said.

"People are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources."

This isn't news to anyone that is in control. Yet they are seemingly not worried enough to alert or take precautionary steps to curb the problems. Why? I don't want to think nefariously but death on a wide scale seems to be the only possible solution if these actions are not reversed soon.

Can you imagine fighting for water? I don't mean to scare, but I just don't hear this brought up enough. Any thoughts on the subject? Open for all insight.


LINK

news.yahoo.com...

AAC

This fear-mongering is nothing new. In 1798, when the world population was less than 1 billion, Thomas Malthus lamented on the perils of over-population. He was wrong then, just as the fear-mongerers are today.

Originally posted by AnAbsoluteCreation
I've been wanting to bring this up for a while but for whatever reasons I never did. Population. China has 1/5 the population in the world. Out population has grown from around 3 billion in 1960 to 6+ billion of today.
Can you imagine fighting for water? I don't mean to scare, but I just don't hear this brought up enough. Any thoughts on the subject? Open for all insight.

How will Earth control the population? Plague, Famine, and war would be my guess. And I don't worry about China as much as I do about india. China with their one child per couple policy will dramatically drop their population in just a few generations, but India will surpass china in population in i'm guessing one generation.

OK... first off poor people. Stop breeding. Your poor uneducated offspring are not wanted, why on earth being the lowest level on the social scale would you think that you need to spread your unseccesful seed???

Secondly... what with the fat ugly women getting pregnet???... I am not kidding, alot of really nasty people are breeding! .... I would say stop, but like the 300 lb fat chick who wears the 'im a little angel' shirt 3 sizes to small, they think there hot stuff. STOP BREEEDING!!

Poor countries, they reproduce unlike developed countries which will soon be going in reverse... maybe drop a few chemical weapons to sterilize mass portions of the population. Perhaps a IQ test should be taken before your allowed to commit the dirty deed!

Of course that might be a little strong.. I am sure il get a few hate u2u's but it wouldn't be a night if I didn't upset someone.

We could always try the 'wear a rubber' - they suck. or 'take the pill' - often to expensive ... or my favorite.. 'save sex for marriage' - for the women your man could end up being a short lasting, uneventful 'little' kinda guy.. For the men.. your wife will have sex with you for a few weeks.. then its back to the way it was.. lonley nights with your self for fun. Aside from that, its to terribly fun to put off just to blow a few grand on a wedding you wont remember 20 years from now because youll be in an alcohol induced comma from your divorce because you married in a haste to have sex.

Just my opinion...

I know what you mean about over-pop not being news worthy... or lost in the shuffle of news noise. In the late '60's it was a big deal and then it went away... sorta.

I guess while the world was getting on with the future we kinda populated ourselves out of a sustainable balance. Bummer.

Can we fix it? War and disease and famine will have to out-strip the birth rate for quite some time. The birthrate is still winning by a healthy margin. Even with draconian child birth limitations we still have a problem... too many folks and not enough planet. Has Brazil been paved over yet?

Just a few more degrees warmer and arable land will be gonzo in the mid latitudes and still the water tables drop steadily... the North American West - East of the Coastal mountain ranges is at risk of becoming a desert... without irrigation it would already be desert like in the "Dirty '30's. A "Dust Bowl".

I'm of the opinion that it is only rational to think that some bright propeller-heads way back in the '50's and '60's took the time and expense to investigate what must be done and did just that. I hope they did (are doing) a good job to preserve our species (human and other)... if "they" are I wish I knew about it.

Get humans, flora and fauna off the planet in a meaningful and sustainable way. Big black triangles, portals or whatever; I don't care; just do it. In many ways I hope the conspiracy stories are true... we need another planet as our rock-star consumerism has trashed the hotel room large.

If one takes the time to think about it... there ARE more and more impediments and challenges to propagation daily from all directions... human fertility is actually dropping. We might just be diseased and polluted enough to save ourselves. Scary world, scary future; let's hope "the powers that be" have a "Plan B" just in case we blow it.

Some say the population of the planet will stabilize at 9 billion. I hope so... even so the place is gonna have to support that population... that'll be quite a job. There are other estimates far less rosy and more dire. We get to watch.

Victor K.

43'

A couple of years ago i thought Aids was gonna do the trick, gotta give props to modern medicine. People across the world are still suffering from Aids but it seems with medication we can keep them alive long enough to breed now.

I think they could fix the population problem by actually letting people spead about and live off of the land. Last I heard in my state (Oregon) only 7% of the state is being lived on. When you clump a bunch of people together of course it seems like theres a problem, but really.....I don't think there is.

Kaminski, well stated points.

It is interesting to think that if in fifty years the ocean levels rise 10 - 20 feet, that will drastically change the way of life. I believe we will adapt and move inward and start the pocess from there, but how will economies, and governments hold up to these changes? Obviously Katrina proved our readiness to sustain order in a time of chaos was sub-par at best. But what if three or four of the katrina type incidents happen in prominant locations? It could become extremely hard to stabalize the balance if there is a group of people waiting for you to become vulnerable. Especially if some of those revolutionaries happen to be from the Industrial Military Complex.

I just believe we have little foresight for the ramifications of our actions. I believe greed has blinded us and we will probably pay a consequence for that.

AAC

Paradoxically, the only people who are motivated to breed less by the dire warnings of overpopulation are the ones who should be breeding.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Paradoxically, the only people who are motivated to breed less by the dire warnings of overpopulation are the ones who should be breeding.

Very true. This probes the bigger dilema. When do the smart people step in and violate what could be only conceived as a right by another? (Iran is an example with nuclear energy) We can't make people believe if their existence is founded on their positions.

I hear (from mexicans) that they have tons of children to one day take back what has been taken from them. Now I realize this is not shared by the masses (I don't think), but I do believe that some sort of social service should assess family's who want to birth. For instance, you have to apply for a child (I know it soulds insain), as you would apply for any large responsibilty. There should be fundamental criteria met before one can reproduce (job, education, sanity, etc.).

This may start rough, but I believe it could solve even bigger issues. Has anyone seen Gattica? lol

AAC

Attrition of the human population will happen whether we want it to or not. We can either implement some sort of plan to control the outrageous growth of the population or, if we don't, mother nature will do it for us. Either way, it will happen eventually. If we don't take some steps fairly soon I will worry about the ugliness of human nature that will become more and more apparent as our population climbs.

Originally posted by jensouth31
I think they could fix the population problem by actually letting people spead about and live off of the land. Last I heard in my state (Oregon) only 7% of the state is being lived on. When you clump a bunch of people together of course it seems like theres a problem, but really.....I don't think there is.

YEAAHH... BUUTtt... Half your state is worth living in.. the desert is not somewhere I would want to live? The coast is fine down south, up north it is cold and foggy and you cant actually swim in the water so who wants to live there?? All your major cities reside in the valley along one major highway.

Going along the highway from Portland to Eugene you see housing project shooting up all over the place, along with that every time I go back there (at least once or twice a year) the traffic seems to have gotten 100x worse! Last Christmas was a nightmare in Eugene. I used to tell people there that I loved Oregon for the low amount of traffic to ... The other problem is ilegal imigration is taking its toll. in many palces the iliegal Mexican imigration has gone up tripple digits percents.

Every place is effected. Your place most of all, people are moving south, and they are moving west. I will move west to Washington as soon as I am done with school, theres nothing in Ohio for me, and for many of my generation.. may explain why we have the largest % of people that leave school and go to other states... no jobs.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Paradoxically, the only people who are motivated to breed less by the dire warnings of overpopulation are the ones who should be breeding.

My sentiments exactly, and the ones over breeding are brain washed by there Leaders into beleiving that they must breed breed breed to win some damn population/religion "race".

There is heaps of Countries on this Earth that simply could not support there countries population with out the massive imports of food they make.

An example is the UK, they can only produce enough food to cater to approx 14m people, the rest is imported.

I think its going to get pretty bad in the coming years, global warming is really taking its toll, Countries Like Australia are having there worst drought in Known history, slashing Wheat production from 15 million tonnes to 9 millions tonnes.

Resource wars/Oil Wars/Food Wars/Water Wars arnt that a far fetched concept.

Secondly... what with the fat ugly women getting pregnet???... I am not kidding, alot of really nasty people are breeding! .... I would say stop, but like the 300 lb fat chick who wears the 'im a little angel' shirt 3 sizes to small, they think there hot stuff. STOP BREEEDING!!

Hey whats your problem Rockpuck?? My wife is 300 lb and we have 6 kids and another on the way! Kidding.

Actually, I think this is a very good observation. These "ugly" gals have nothing going for them. Their only hobby is dreaming of marriage and kids. Then the kids grow up in an environment that says it's ok to be uneducated and pump out a bunch of kids you can't really afford. And the cycle repeats itself.

Perhaps a IQ test should be taken before your allowed to commit the dirty deed!

It might sound funny but there is a certain amount of truth to this. Bringing a child into the world is a huge undertaking. Yet it is perfectly legal to pump out as many as you want and raise them in insanity.... nevermind the cause and effect of it all! The truth is many of these kids turn into tomorrow's criminals. Sad.

No need to fix the population, nature will do it for us.
Firstly with the current trend in global warming much the third world will die from starvation, increase in deseases, lack of water and not least war over resouces as is the case now with the blood for oil and gas wars being raged now even in sudan and parts of ethiopia people are still fighting over water and fertile land. i might add many places around the world will become simply uninhabitable due to rising sea levels and desert expansion.
All these things will lead to a refugee crises at which point blatant mass murder and genocide will become routine.
For just these reasons alone i don't believe we will overpopulate the world unless we take the view; that the reckless and abusive use of the worlds resources was down to over population in which case the world is already overpopulated.

C'mon, Jen - "letting people spread" to the countryside?? People have been steadily migrating to the cities of the world for many generations. We're "dumping them" in cities??? Huh? They are going on their own in search of jobs.

Sorry - but 'letting people spread' so they can 'live off the land' ain't gonna happen.

IMO, the 'observers' are just going to let nucleur weapons proliferate, economies deteriorate, and fanatics profligate until some nut (Kim? the Ruskies?) sells a few and then pulls the triggers to get the fireworks going around the world. The US had over 20,000 warheads, the Russians (poor bastards) have another 15,000 or so. Then there are the smaller loose cannons around the planet. Still, plenty to kill everyone one Earth several times over. Pleasant thought, eh? What then?

well, "They" will just wait till things cool down and 'move right in' and take over this beautiful blue water planet for their very own! Squatters rights will prevail.

posted by AnAbsoluteCreation

I've been wanting to bring this up for a while but for whatever reasons I never did. Population. China has 1/5 the population in the world. Out population has grown from around 3 billion in 1960 to 6+ billion of today.

Can you imagine fighting for water? I don't mean to scare, but I just don't hear this brought up enough. Any thoughts on the subject? Open for all insight.

Overpopulation?

The Pope says the world is underpopulated. American fundamentalist Protestants say not to have an abortion under any circumstances! Neither explains how we are to feed, clothe, medicate, house and educate those children. I suppose they will leave that up to God? Like as in Darfut? That’s kind of you. And so Christ-like?

Demographics are potent. It was in the 1960s the PRC - Chinese - put the 1 family 1 child rule into place. Religionists of all stripes shouted “foul” that the Chinese would do such a thing. I mean, who wants to eat? Soon we were force-fed stories of forced abortions on disobedient women. Hmm? Actually, I do not believe those stories were true. We get so little reliable news from the interior of China I wonder how anyone would get that kind of info? Religionists are not above lying or anything to further their cause.

The population of China has grown from about 1 billion in 1980 to 1.3 billion in 2000. Or so we are told. Maybe they take a census like we do? I don’t know. India’s population crossed the 1 billion mark in 2000 and is expected to surpass China by 2050.

The world’s population was given as 6 billion in 2000. Regardless of what we or China do, it will reach 8 billion in 2040. That’s the power of demographics. In the 1970s, some people who study these issues, wrote that the Earth cannot support more than 2 billion people, over the long run, in the style of living favored by the Western industrial powers. Sure, if we want to follow Saddam and live in a “spider-hole” the Earth can support more people.

Water. I’m fascinated by water, especially fresh water. Some wiseacre wrote that you can live without oil but you cannot live without water. You know the percent. 97% salt water. 3% fresh water. Half that is locked in the icecaps and clouds. Half of the remaining is in underground aquifers. Half of that number is in lakes, streams and rivers with varying degrees of pollution. The point is, there is only about 0.1% or 0.2% of the world’s supply of fresh water available to humans to drink. And etc. A few 1000 cubic miles worth.

Already, nearly 2 billion - one third of us - do not have reliable and safe drinking water year around. Typhus, typhoid, cholera, malaria, dysentery and other disease are water-borne or use water in part of the life cycle of the carriers. Estimates say 1/4th of Africans have malaria. Although not always fatal, it is a debilitating disease that can return later in life.

Fresh water can be processed from sea water. The largest plants are in Saudi Arabia. Other Persian Gulf countries also use this process. It is however, a very expensive process. It is so widely used in the Persian Gulf only because the price of fuel to run the process is, in Saudi Arabia’s case, zero. If you have to pay for it at market prices, the cost is prohibitive. All large ships carry fresh water condensers as part of the power supply of the ship. You can buy water treating chemicals to take camping. We know how to do it. Make fresh water. Primitively speaking.

Americans use 75 gallons per day, per person. All 300 million of us. Europeans use 45 gallons and sub-Saharan Africans use 5 gallons. A day. Aside: This is why I do not buy the large numbers of worshipers claimed to have been in Jerusalem at the Passover in 30 AD. Or CE. Not enough water.

Resume. When I first came to Florida in 1965, Jacksonville, which gets all its city water from wells, used wells about 300 feet deep. Today the wells must go to 750 feet to get the needed water. The acquirer has dropped that much in 45 years. Already Jacksonville has a series of wells along the Atlantic coastline into which it pumps water to prevent contamination of the acquirer by seawater seepage. We can’t use water from the St. Johns River because there are 300 identified polluters on this short north flowing river. Too bad. The St. Johns actually turns red occasionally. Bacteria.

OK, you say, it is bad. We are going to die of thirst while standing on a beach running by the second largest ocean in the world. Wow! What can we do? I mean, other than stop using 75 gallons a day. Whet else can we do? We can start by being nice to Canada. The largest unpolluted lake in North America is the Great Slave Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories. In three or four years we could run a pipeline to the Imperial Valley. Or Phoenix. Or both. But will Canada let us do that? How much should we pay for the water? Like oil, fresh water is finite, so what would we do when that resource was used up?

So which will run out first? Oil or water?

Oh, on population? What to do? Free condoms. Free morning after pills. Free advice. And good, truthful and responsible education, not the old time “be fruitful and multiply” propaganda.


[edit on 11/1/2006 by donwhite]

No need to fix the population, nature will do it for us.

A possibility..

The Pope says the world is underpopulated. American fundamentalist Protestants say not to have an abortion under any circumstances! Neither explains how we are to feed, clothe, medicate, house and educate those children. I suppose they will leave that up to God?

LOL. Now that's funny. You know the saying donwhite.... "let go let God"

Americans use 75 gallons per day, per person. All 300 million of us.

I'm not sure where you getting your data but I believe it. Me... I'm a spoiled american but at least I fess up to it! There are so many people who live in this country and when you start throwing out facts like that they get sooo upset. It's like I'm supposed to be proud of wasting resources. It's like "uhhh no man I'm not proud. This is the environment I was raised in but I'm aware that my way of life could have a negative impact on the ecosystem." Geez... just because the truth hurts doesn't mean it's not true!

How to fix the population problem. Okay, how about this:

Pollute the planet until the climate is damaged, bringing huge storms and flooding and refugess and suffering and lots of death. Oh, and make heaps of cash enforcing the oil econmoy while you do it. Oh, hang on--

As far as food supply goes, if more people were vegetarian & we stopped pumping so much grain into livestock as fodder, there would be a lot more food to go round, a lot more land to grow it on, and a lot more forests to prevent global warming. The amount of resources which go into one meal of meat are enormous by comparison to a vego diet.

As for over-population, the easy way (but not very nice) is through war, famine, disease. The hard way (but more people friendly) would first require global government which then enforces a birth-rate law such as the one-child law in China.