World Overpopulation Myth Debunked

There are too many people and the number is growing exponentially. People also live much longer. Just a few generations ago 50 was OLD.


The planet will take care of this over population itself.

As our population goes up food supply meets and exceeds it.
THe problem is that its not available in all areas.
There is no overpopulations, so stop scare mongering.
Current accepted predictions for the Pop. is that it will plateau at 9 billion.
Actually look and food supply what is consumed and wasted. And you will see its corrupt governments causing such famine insome countrys

Originally posted by jeantherapy
You can't sit in gridlocked traffic without feeling like there are too many of us. I've made a solemn promise to the earth and its inhabitants to never reproduce, I wish others would put their money where their mouth is like I have

Thats got to be the best excuse for not being able to get laid i've heard

reply to post by Bixxi3


Yet at the same time, power generation, water, and other resources are becoming more scarce.

Or, havent you heard of the impending water issues in the southwest? How about rolling blackouts in CA and across the south as summer kicks into high gear?

Roads, bridges, etc etc, The infrastructure simple isn't there to meet a constantly growing population. To think otherwise is simply foolish.

reply to post by FreeFromTheHerd


Thats simply the USA using and wasting energy. You never hear of rolling blackouts in the UK because the heat wave is causing people to turn up there ACs, no one bothers with ACs here

Its just waste .
And the water issue is a non issue.

In saudi arabia the Majority of there fresh water comes from seawater desalination.
We have the technology there....

ETA: Just some quick research shows that the blackouts In CA seems to be caused by repairs having to be done to power plants :/ so nice scare mongering

If Monsanto has its way.......
We wont ever have to worry about this scenario of overpopulation...
Think about that....

Just my 2 cents

reply to post by Bixxi3


Evidently your "quick research" skills need some repairs......

Though the term did not enter popular use in the U.S. until the California electricity crisis of the early 2000s, outages had indeed occurred previously. The outages were almost always triggered by unusually hot temperatures during the summer, which causes a surge in demand due to heavy use of air conditioning

That surge of AC use resulted in not enough power being available, hence the blackouts.

Oops, heres another one....

Officials at California's Independent System Operator (ISO), which monitors the state's power grid, called a Stage Three alert at midday because of increased temperatures, a higher power demand and a lack of electricity from the Northwest.

Read those last 6 words.

Ah hell, then theres this one:

When California's power supply dips, the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), who manages the state's power grid, notifies the California utilities that there must be a load reduction on the statewide power system

'

Too much demand for the available SUPPLY.

and finally.....

"The supply condition we are dealing with, the shortage, still exists...so again we're asking for conservation," Detmers said. "It's very necessary, a very critical operation, and it's very, extremely serious."

A SHORTAGE OF SUPPLY.

Adding tens of millions new customers with a demand, while the supply is already short, is a recipe for disaster.

ALL immigration into the U.S. needs to be stopped for at least a decade, maybe more.

How many stands by their assertion that the world is over populated?

If that is so, then that thereby a showing of hands/posts who is willing to off themselves first to resolve the issue?

Who is going to bury the grave digger? That will have to be left to fate, like the myth of "I can't stand my neighbors!"

So where did this idea come from anyway? Some intellectual who has more to gain than to share...

reply to post by loveguy


Using the laws of simple math, wouldn't it make sense for someone to off you and then off themselves?

2 is greater than 1.

Sure suggesting suicide to those concerned about overpopulation is a road you truly want to go down?

"KILL YOURSELF FIRST!!!!" is the uneducated, uninformed, brainless response only put forth by people who clearly have no clue as to the topic at hand.

They must have never thru the following states: Western Kansas, North and South Dakota, and West Texas.

Originally posted by FreeFromTheHerd
reply to post by loveguy

 

Using the laws of simple math, wouldn't it make sense for someone to off you and then off themselves?

2 is greater than 1.

Sure suggesting suicide to those concerned about overpopulation is a road you truly want to go down?

"KILL YOURSELF FIRST!!!!" is the uneducated, uninformed, brainless response only put forth by people who clearly have no clue as to the topic at hand.

This whole topic is how to justify killing people.
A specially designed fusion occurred that brought us into being. Something we have zero control over.
Now all of a sudden, we need to be in control?
Whose at the helm, do you trust them with your life?

Theres not enough time in the day to reply to everyone. So I apologize about the blanketed responses.

First of all, I am not suggesting we abolish all governments and distribute the land equally between everyone equally that would be plain crazy or communist. Could you imagine a baby with 2.3 acres of land all to them self, how would that baby defend itself? No. Let's get back to reality here and my bad math aside lets address the issue at hand.

There are overpopulated cities and small countries. The world as a whole is not overpopulated and probably nowhere near capacity. But if that were the case, mother earth would sort that out, not some politician, not some army. Not that I'm ruling the latter out either. In any case people rely on technology too much and that well fail. People rely on welfare and that will fail.

But when is the last time you did something that was self reliant? Example being living in the woods for a period of time and fending for yourself, getting by with what you have. Do you rely on sewage so much that you are completely detached from nature? In this situation there is one rule when it comes to waste. Don't piss or crap in your camp area, and bury your waste. Nature will sort out the rest.

Point is, if people are self reliant and resourceful they most likely are not constrained to an overpopulated city or whatever, they are not so attached to welfare that they rely on money for everything.

Take Russia for example. It takes almost one third of the entire land on earth, and what is the population there? How many thousands of miles in Russia are uninhabited?

The overpopulation myth is one that was made by man. A man like many who seeks power and the ability to control the masses.

Example: the Georgia Guidestones; 500,000,000 people would be the desire of a man, not of mother earth.

The world is not overpopulated.
Small countries and cities are.

Whos says you need acres of land per person to live?

What about high rise buildings...

What about building on top of the ocean...

What about the hundreds of thousands of miles of land that is below the surface...

Our problem is not space it is resources and if you don't think I am right just ask our friends in the middle east that we go to war with.

We can also grow crops underground with the right equipment and energy...

We have the know how and the resources to change the world but until it it profitable for TPTB we will continue to dwindle away listening to others about what can't be done.

UNTIL PEOPLE UNITE FOR THE GOOD OF ALL WE WILL STAY STUCK IN THE RUT WE ARE IN

We are currently overpopulated.

Why do I figure this? I observe.

We're in the 6th mass extinction event at this moment. Species are dying out at least 1,000X the background rate. We're over shooting in pretty much every way. Overfishing, deforestation, too much CO2 in the atmosphere, millions of tons of heavy metals thrown into the air by industry...

Yet, you are correct that the system could be upgraded and ran more lean and mean (efficient and with purpose/long range vision). Still, getting the abstract systems in place in one thing, but tackling the pollution, energy, food, water, and every other unsustainable problem is going to be....difficult at our current population.

So based on our history, where we are, and our current tragectory, we're overpopulated.

Could we balance out this century without complete collapse of civilization or at least major decline in standards of living? Yea, it might happen, but there's a ton of work to be done in the process.

For convenience sake, it makes sense to say we're currently overpopulated.

Originally posted by loveguy
How many stands by their assertion that the world is over populated?

If that is so, then that thereby a showing of hands/posts who is willing to off themselves first to resolve the issue?

The problem is population growth. So killing myself would actually have no effect at all


As to the OP, not sure if this has been addressed, but did your calculations take into account the extent of the Earth's land surface covered in desert, ice sheet, tundra, swamps, mountain and rain forest? And more importantly, did they take into account the right of every other living thing to co-exist on this planet?

Who decides who has to be sent into a coal mine, who has to be sent into rare earth mines and who decides where the waste of all these processes go?

Why are we sending people into coal mines, again? It's 2012, we need coal about as much as we need the electric telegraph. As for rare earth mines, they are open-pit mines which are highly, highly mechanized[1]. Also, much focus in science is being placed on finding organic alternatives to rare-earth metals.

What about the fact that producing computers for everyone that doesn't have one would create insane amounts of waste, take toiling labor and deplete the resources that "everyone owns."

Where's your source? Oh, you're just guessing[2]. I see.

The current system has not even allowed for certain fossil fuels to be profitable.

Oil is still one of the most profitable industries in the world, it shapes the way our society has developed. Look at post-industrial vs. pre-industrial urban density. It's also probably the sole reason that the monetary system has even survived as long as it has, because it provides high-energy at the cost of the constant need to buy more fuel.

If there is no money, people will want to hoard or be in control of resources to exert the same power they have now.

Actually, inequality aversion is one of our most basic and deeply-developed tendencies as humans[3]. If you can demonstrate otherwise, that people will want to hoard or be in control of resources, even in a completely different environment, I'd like to see you do so. In other words, [citation needed].

Cities can be built in inhibitable places but at what cost and what point? Why would you build a city in the middle of the Sahara? It would take more resources to sustain it than a city built in near a waterway with agricultural land, and other resources that are useful to the city.

Why would you build a city in the middle of the Sahara? Maybe deserts are rich in resources[4] like sunlight, silica, and minerals. Construction and manufacture in a desert could be done with nothing but sand and sunlight, an actuated vessel, and a large Fresnel lens[5]. Wind turbines can produce a kiloliter of clean water in the desert per day[6]

For a whole resourced based economy, your line of thinking really doesn't focus on what makes it tick... resources.

We already have enough food to feed the planet[7]. The supposed problem is "logistics", which is just a bull# nonsense way to say, "food is too expensive for poor people".

I thought were a giant hippie commune now

I'm quoting this just to point out your straw man.

What about countries or areas that want to reproduce at high levels,

What about them? Prove that people with a high standard of living and ready access to contraception will still retain a high birth rate. I can show that they do not[8][9]. Believe it or not, most people actually don't want a million billion children, especially when they're educated[10].

Originally posted by Duckling
If we didn't live in huge cities this problem wouldn't even have surfaced.
I say screw cities, back to small communities!

Not true. As the size of a city goes up, so does its energy efficiency. We should actually be doing the opposite of what you suggest, and make our cities more dense while using more ecologically mindful design, like Paolo Soleri has been suggesting for decades. We can all live in high-tech, high-energy communities by reducing urban sprawl.
Further, much of the energy inefficiency in buildings is due to the free market system; its competitive nature means there is little intercompatibility between components, and even though the efficiency of each constituent component is increasing, on the whole it is basically the same[11][12].

Reducing population would be easy enough. Every couple have just one child. Even if every couple had 2 children we would see a population reduction, albiet slowly. My wife and I have only one child. My neighbors have 7! They are nice enough and all, but they aren't what you would call aware of their environment. They think food really comes from the grocery store.

Then you got the religious zealots who believe birth control is evil, so the poor wife stays knocked up for 30 years until finally her 10th delivery kills her. The guy says with surety "It's Gods will!" Having many children once made sense. Not anymore.

Sterilize people after their first child or two. Develop genetic tests that can find the undesirables and either sterilize them before they have kids or just let them have one child. Or else the people you know will all starve to death someday before your very eyes...including your 6 kids.

Won't matter to me either way. I've got lots of food and bullets. I can ride it out until all the $h!^ for brains are dead.

Originally posted by unityemissions
We are currently overpopulated.

Why do I figure this? I observe.

We're in the 6th mass extinction event at this moment. Species are dying out at least 1,000X the background rate. We're over shooting in pretty much every way. Overfishing, deforestation, too much CO2 in the atmosphere, millions of tons of heavy metals thrown into the air by industry...

All are solvable problems external to population growth. We can feed many times our current population without destroying the environment. Indoor hydro, aero and aquaponics in vertical farms is one technical alternative.

Oil is not the only energy source. Solar panel efficiency is rising exponentially, as most technological innovations do. The law of accelerating returns. (waldtrenewables.com...) A 2006 MIT report on geothermal energy found that 13,000 zettajoules of power are currently available in the earth, with the possibility of 2000 zettajoules being easily tap-able with improved technology. The total energy consumption of all the countries on the planet is about **half of a zettajoule** a year.

We have room for optimism with renewable energies. The problem is, and always HAS been, how can we make MONEY off of these sources of energy? Nothing trumps oil when it comes to profitability.

Yet, you are correct that the system could be upgraded and ran more lean and mean (efficient and with purpose/long range vision). Still, getting the abstract systems in place in one thing, but tackling the pollution, energy, food, water, and every other unsustainable problem is going to be....difficult at our current population.

Energy I just covered. Let's see about that food issue.

"World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day according to the most recent estimate that we could find.(FAO 2002, p.9). The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food."

Source: www.worldhunger.org...

And that is WITHOUT taking into consideration how many crops are actually DESTROYED by farmers to keep price up with supply down. Example: abcnews.go.com...#

And further, as mentioned before, we could feed many more still with vertical farming technologies, as well as other methods.

Vertical farming: www.verticalfarm.com...

So based on our history, where we are, and our current tragectory, we're overpopulated.

Could we balance out this century without complete collapse of civilization or at least major decline in standards of living? Yea, it might happen, but there's a ton of work to be done in the process.

For convenience sake, it makes sense to say we're currently overpopulated.

edit on 20-6-2012 by unityemissions because: (no reason given)

Tell that to Hans Rosling, who has given multiple talks on overpopulation for TED.

Here is just one of them: www.youtube.com...

People need to familiarize themselves with the statistics compiled by Hans Rosling before they go around claiming the sky is falling.

reply to post by XB70

Why are we sending people into coal mines, again? It's 2012, we need coal about as much as we need the electric telegraph. As for rare earth mines, they are open-pit mines which are highly, highly mechanized[1].

COAL STATISTICS
Coal provides 29.6% of global primary energy needs and generates 42% of the world's electricity
Total Global Coal Production (including hard coal and lignite)
7229Mt (2010e)
6823Mt (2009)
4677 (1990)

www.worldcoal.org...

Strange how we produce so much of something we don't need.

-

Also, much focus in science is being placed on finding organic alternatives to rare-earth metals.

Well that doesn't do much until it's feasible does it? We've been searching for alternatives to coal for more than a generation.

Where's your source? Oh, you're just guessing[2]. I see.

Educated guessing?

Informal processing of electronic waste in developing countries may cause serious health and pollution problems, though these countries are also most likely to reuse and repair electronics. Some electronic scrap components, such as CRTs, may contain contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, or brominated flame retardants. Even in developed countries recycling and disposal of e-waste may involve significant risk to workers and communities and great care must be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in recycling operations and leaching of material such as heavy metals from landfills and incinerator ashes.

en.wikipedia.org...

Google, production of lead, cadmium, brominated flame retardants if you wish to continue on the matter. And google disposal as well.

Oil is still one of the most profitable industries in the world, it shapes the way our society has developed. Look at post-industrial vs. pre-industrial urban density. It's also probably the sole reason that the monetary system has even survived as long as it has, because it provides high-energy at the cost of the constant need to buy more fuel.

You actually hit on a couple legitimate notes here. But most of the oil thats being explored today was not possible 50 years ago. Not only because of technology but because it was not economically feasible.

If you can demonstrate otherwise, that people will want to hoard or be in control of resources, even in a completely different environment, I'd like to see you do so. In other words,

I'll let this blog writer sum up my thoughts:

Murder and torture are as old as mankind. Ever since man first invented the club he probably used it to kill another caveman.

skeptoid.com...

Why would you build a city in the middle of the Sahara? Maybe deserts are rich in resources[4] like sunlight, silica, and minerals. Construction and manufacture in a desert could be done with nothing but sand and sunlight, an actuated vessel, and a large Fresnel lens[5]. Wind turbines can produce a kiloliter of clean water in the desert per day[6]

Yes, but that would give you a reason to be in the Sahara. Not simply, "just because we can do it."

If resources are prevalent in an area, it brings along with it people that will come to extract them. Which is exactly what I said in my previous post. The difference, is that while cities located in good geographic zones prosper, the ones with just a few resources to exploit will eventually fade away afterwards because they are not sustainable.

But we didn't need the Venus Project to tell us that.

We already have enough food to feed the planet[7]. The supposed problem is "logistics", which is just a bull# nonsense way to say, "food is too expensive for poor people".

Actually, you didn't read your source.

Per capita waste by consumers is between 95 and115 kg a year in Europe and North America, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia each throw away only 6 to11 kg a year.

Consumers are a major contributor to the problem.

In other words, it's you that's the problem.

What about them? Prove that people with a high standard of living and ready access to contraception will still retain a high birth rate. I can show that they do not[8][9]. Believe it or not, most people actually don't want a million billion children, especially when they're educated[10].

I'm gonna get a house boat bitches! You can have your land! I'll get me a parrot and take to the seas! Arg!