human population will stabilize over time and we won't starve to death or be killed by disease. as opposed to mindless animals we are creative and have the technology on our side. if you look at the "overpopulated" nations you'll see it's always the technologically challenged that have 10 or more kids at a time while the advanced societies have at most 2 kids per family. once technology will reach all remote areas of all countries population will drop there too.

as for global warming - we need to take care of earth, no matter what. remember it's not the earth that needs us, we need the earth to survive. if the climate change theory is even remotely true and we do go into a accelerated ice age then we'll be sorry and mostly dead from the climate itself, from the lack of food or from competing with others for the remaining food...

We have ice-core samples that date back over 800,000 years. They show very clearly the yearly temperatures in each varve. Climate change is something that would be going on, wether we were here or not. Indeed, todays inter-glacial period is not even the warmest! Last interglacial had eustatic sea levels 300 foot above ours. The only remarkable thing about our current inter-glacial, is how stable it is compared to the rest. Global warming as it is portrayed in the media is a con, pure and simple.
Pollution, on the other hand, is bad, and something that needs to be worked on for a better life for all living things.

Originally posted by American Infidel
Do any of you people understsand "overpopulation"?

Well i do understand the theory behind it but since there isn't more people than resources to feed and give them long healthy lives there isn't and likely never will be a problem as current growth/wealth projection reveals.

We humans must limit our fecundity.

So please ask the US to invade India and a few other third world countries and make them give their women all the rights and economic independence of western women? This would lead to a decline in the world population inside a year but since poverty and starvation is what they want expect the US and other countries to invade countries with great infrastructure, economic independence and more formal rights for women than in some western countries.

We must reduce the number of humans on this earth.

In theory i can agree as long as we can start with you. I suggest we televise your suicide and use the funds for education and wealth creation in the third world...

There are two ways to do that --- Increase the death rate, or decrease the birth rate.

Yes, but only fanatical fools talks about increasing death rates as if it's a humane strategy.

Do you religiously indoctrinated morons understand that?

I would rather deal with a religiously indoctrinated moron than with a alternative as frankly those texts have to be seriously misinterpreted to yield murder and bloodshed. At least these 'indoctrinated' folk in theory admits to a larger force than themselves as compared to the alternative where anything can be believed in smug self interested satisfaction.

Which do you religious people prefer?-More deaths, or fewer births?

Not religious so can i say that i prefer that wealth be redistributed from those who stole it from the rest back to that rest which would quickly result in significant population reductions? I can and will argue that more people is always a good a thing but frankly you have not proven yourself up to a discussion quite as subversive. Give me actual democracy, plenty of free love and i will in no time at all get you a Walmart with well paid workers on most planets in this galaxy .

Religion is a human invention designed to control other human beings.

Monotheistic religions seem to be but people do not mind being controlled as long as there are very real economic and security benefits to be had. Religions is not in my opinion bad because of a drive for 'control' but because of all the ways they can be used to abuse, misdirect and impoverish the people of the world.

Stellar

[edit on 4-1-2009 by StellarX]

Originally posted by Electro38
Ecologists will tell you the earth has been constantly changing. We've had more than one "ice age". There was a mini "ice age" just about 150 years ago.

There was quite the temperature downturn in just the mid -late 70's as well....

In any ecological system there is an impact on the environment, when populations become saturated.

Unless their sentient and able to plan their effect on the environment; any environmental devastation caused is then due to a lack of planning, not numbers.

One of the best ways to control our impact on the earth is via population control.

This is in fact just about the worse way to attempt to control or impact on the environment. Setting national policies in accordance with the wishes of citizens would yield far,far greater ecological and environmental results which explains why the corporations are ensuring that the citizenry do not get worthwhile candidates elected.

There are way too many humans on the earth, but you'll never hear a politician say that.

There is no such thing as too much sentience; i don't know where that arguments even comes from. As for politicians not saying that they are by causing starvation and environmental destruction that degrades the living standards of EVERYONE on the planet.

I don't really know why it's such a taboo topic, but it seems like one option that we can really control.

While politicians seem to quite in favor of laying the groundwork for such future state policies it's not something that sells in many western countries where women are having less children than is required to maintain populations.

(I mean just rational birth control, like they do in China. Limit the number of kids a couple can have). What an impact that would have on the earth.

The Chinese policy can be subjected to many criticisms ( make the people pay the price of neo-liberal trade and economic choices) not least of which is how this program is aimed almost exclusively at the poor who can not afford the added 'fines' the government requires for additional children.

Again 'The earth' would be best impacted if the people where actually in control of our states. To blame 'us' for the choices of corporations and the tiny minority who acted immorally to get rich in the first place is quite unfair and will lead to ideas such as population reduction trough these sort of forced policies.

Proactive responsibility for the future of the earth = making fewer people.

Proactive responsible for the future of the world rests of regaining the economic power ( hopefully democratically) from those who took it away from us so long ago. What you are basically suggesting is that it's better to get stabbed with a small knife( smaller number of possible polluters to 'injure' the planet) than a big one as one is likely to suffer smaller injury from a smaller weapon ; i for one would rather not take the chance that it's a well aimed small knife and instead work towards teaching people how to disarm those who are creating the weapons ( polluting industry for a few extra dollars of profit) that are doing the harm.

Stellar

The assumptions that climate change is anthropogenic and that it is within our capability to fix properly are both amazingly egotistical. We do not know what the climate is going to do, we do not know all of the factors driving it to do so, and we have no scientific proof or any laboratory in which we can experiment which would appropriately mimic our planet. I believe spending even a penny on trying to change the climate is akin to putting money in the mail to a TV evangelist. They make wild promises about how faith + money can make everything right. I'll keep my money and place my faith elsewhere, tyvm.

I have studied this subject now for two years and the people that are posting this misinformation need to get their facts straight.

Sea ice is different than continental ice.

And what they are talking about is sea ice... The continental ice today is significantly less than it was 30 years ago.

The gulf stream may have begun to slow down and cause more cooling or the obvious, its winter time...

Earth is supposed to have Natural seasons you know.

Somebody should send this to Al Gore because this is the inconvenient truth.

Yeah this global warming is natural it. It has been going on since before man as a matter of fact it happpens every year for a few months then it gets cold again. The ice caps on Mars grow and shrink too do you think Gore will do a movie on how the emissions from the rovers are causing the ice caps on mars to shrink?

The whole "over population" rant is just the same old stuff that Dr. Paul Erlich has been shoveling for 40 years. If you don't know who Paul Erlich is then I suggest that you look him up on the web. He is the guy who wrote "The Population Bomb" way back in the 1960's.

According to his original rant, there were too many people on the planet, way back in 1969!

We were supposed to have over 20 billion people on the planet by now.

The only way the human race could survive was through mass sterilization, forced abortion, and rolling back to 18th century population levels and technology.

Oh, and we were entering a new ice age.

It was crap then, it is crap now.

Can anyone tell me how many people are on the planet right now?

No, you can't. We don't know. The UN doesn't know. You don't know.

That is because major countries like China, India, and Pakistan don't conduct any census. That's right they don't know how many people live in their country. They have no clue.

So, we don't know how many people are on earth. We "think" that there are about 6 billion, but that number is give or take a billion.

Still think that the planet is "over populated"?

You could put all the people on the planet in Australlia and have plenty of room to spare. That would leave the entire planet open to farm. That is how few people are on the planet.

More important than that is the fact that the population of the planet may have already peaked. If so, there will be fewer people on the planet in 50 years, not more.

So what would be the optimum population?

We don't know that either, but with current technology the earth could sustain billions more than we now have. We could easily double our food production, just by using fertilizers and modern farming equipment in the under developed countries.

I have never seen my shore line change in 28 years, its all lies.