Is overpopulation cause for concern?

[TheLastOne36]

Well i made some thoughts on the issue, but to keep things short, i think the best way to do things are,

Friggen get India on the one child policy

Leave Sub-saharan africa on it's own, Yes, the abandonment of foreign aid to Africa, untill select states finally figure out what they need to do, get back on track, and are showing signs of improvement, then support them into fairly developed nations.

In the mean time, set up tons of environmental protection programs to protect Africa's enviroment from being destroyed by a ton of desperate inhabitants, besides that, let them kill each other, die of famine and aids whatever, untill they stop being lazy and do something to improve their lives, enless they want to stay that way. If so, then let them stay that way. No need to strain our planet's resources even more for pointless and worthless ways to 'help' them.

I say we should give every govornment in Africa a book on how to manage a country, and let them deal with their land themselves.

If a nation show's signs of improvements, then try to support them and modernize them, make them be a role model for our nations for them to hopefully follow suite.

Same thing could be done with Haiti.

Overpopulation is not an issue anymore in Latin American countries. To show the changes, my mom was born in Venezuela in the 60's to a family with 6 children. Now all of those 6 children, including my mom, don't have more then 1-3 children. 4+ children is unheard of throughout south America in my experience. So no need to worry about them. They should continue to modernize and should be the next continent to reach Western Levels.

China sorted itself out, which is good. The population is going to stay stable at 1 billion for awhile.

Southeast Asia needs some improvements, but overpopulation isn't exactly that much of a problem either, there are other more important ones i think.

 

[Loki130]

We should have as many children as possible, so that a famine starts and the population reverts to a sustainable amount. easy

 

[Narz]

Leave Sub-saharan africa on it's own, Yes, the abandonment of foreign aid to Africa, untill select states finally figure out what they need to do, get back on track, and are showing signs of improvement, then support them into fairly developed nations.

In the mean time, set up tons of environmental protection programs to protect Africa's enviroment from being destroyed by a ton of desperate inhabitants, besides that, let them kill each other, die of famine and aids whatever, untill they stop being lazy and do something to improve their lives, enless they want to stay that way. If so, then let them stay that way. No need to strain our planet's resources even more for pointless and worthless ways to 'help' them.

The "developed world" is causing far more environmental harm than Africa could dream of.

Africa managed itself, for better or worse, for tens of thousands of years without the mass famine, disease & genocide seen today etc. Obviously famine & disease did exist but millions upon millions weren't dying of malnutrition, resource wars & genocide to the extent they are now. Europe & the "developed world" pretty much raped much of the "underdeveloped world" for their resources, helped them reduce infant mortality while doing little to help them with family planning (in many cases stupid religious people actually tried to block such efforts).

You should have compassion for your African cousins (we're all cousins if you go back 400 generations or so), we all need to get out act together.

 

[TheLastOne36]

The "developed world" is causing far more environmental harm than Africa could dream of.

Africa managed itself, for better or worse, for tens of thousands of years without the mass famine, disease & genocide seen today etc. Obviously famine & disease did exist but millions upon millions weren't dying of malnutrition, resource wars & genocide to the extent they are now. Europe & the "developed world" pretty much raped much of the "underdeveloped world" for their resources, helped them reduce infant mortality while doing little to help them with family planning (in many cases stupid religious people actually tried to block such efforts).

You should have compassion for your African cousins (we're all cousins if you go back 400 generations or so), we all need to get out act together.

My point is figure out what to do with ourselves first before sharing our problem with Africa. Find a way that works first, then share it with the rest of the world.

 

[Narz]

My point is figure out what to do with ourselves first before sharing our problem with Africa. Find a way that works first, then share it with the rest of the world.

We can learn about how to help ourselves by helping others though. Assistance should be well thought out though with long term sustainability in mind.

BTW, on the foreign aid tangent, we've probably given far more foreign aid to the tiny nation of Israel than to all of Africa.

 

[amadeus]

The number of people it would take to choke the planet is so astronomical, it could not be reached. I would say there is a point at which there would be too many people using up too much of the world's resources all at one time, but we aren't close to that yet, either. I think 50 billion would be a fairly good number of people, provided it is distributed in a way that is most favorable to developed countries.

 

[caketastydelish]

Western countries are not to blame for overpopulation. I take that back, because blaming non-western countries for anything is not politically correct.

 

[Narz]

The number of people it would take to choke the planet is so astronomical, it could not be reached. I would say there is a point at which there would be too many people using up too much of the world's resources all at one time, but we aren't close to that yet, either. I think 50 billion would be a fairly good number of people

Of course no ecologist would agree with that nor anyone with common sense.

You can fit a whole neighborhood in a football stadium but they won't survive there very long (they were dropping like flies in the Louisiana Superdome).

provided it is distributed in a way that is most favorable to developed countries.

You mean the majority working for pennies on the very edge of existence & a few hundred million rich people wearing 3rd world made Nikes, working as hairdressers, philosophy professors, making anime & hosting radio talk shows justifying it all. Sounds grand!

 

[warpus]

The number of people it would take to choke the planet is so astronomical, it could not be reached. I would say there is a point at which there would be too many people using up too much of the world's resources all at one time, but we aren't close to that yet, either. I think 50 billion would be a fairly good number of people, provided it is distributed in a way that is most favorable to developed countries.

Pulling numbers out of your ass isn't really a very good way to make a point.

You don't see the massive problems we're having with "only" 6 billion?

 

[Agent327]

You don't see the massive problems we're having with "only" 6 billion?

Hear, hear.

(As regards the poll: I find the options somewhat limited and short of nuance.)

 

[Maniacal]

Overpopulation is the number one problem facing the world today. The strain on resources is a threat to economy, environment and security.

I would even contend that the world should set a goal to reduce the human population to 1 billion over the next few centuries.

Agreed. Although I will settle for 2 or 3 billion. Too many people are creating too much of a demand. What people don't seem to understand is that just because we have a resource, especially a lot of a resoruce, does NOT mean that we have to use it all up!

EDIT: Formaldehyde, no, just... no. See Narz's response as to why.

 

[Winner]

I don't think it's preposterous because all of the required technologies are within the speculative horizons of current science. We're not talking about wild fantasies but developments whose theoretical foundations have already been done - fusion power, nanotechnology, biotechnology, A.I. and eventual expansion into space.

In my opinion scientific advancements during the next century or two will change our lives more than the whole history of man before them. That is if we survive the clash of such science and the hateful ignorance still running rampant amongst us.

The problem is that the mess we created is going to bite us back in the next 30-50 years. I SERIOUSLY doubt we will have the technologies to counter enviromental collapse in such a short time.

And what I said still applies - new technology brings new problems we have to solve with... new technology? The key is to act responsibly and prevent problems from becoming too serious.

(And no, free market won't save us. Free unregulated market is a shortcut to collapse - it may be the most effective system of redistribution of resources and wealth, but it is also totally oblivious to the enviromental damage it causes.)

 

[Winner]

The "developed world" is causing far more environmental harm than Africa could dream of.

Africa managed itself, for better or worse, for tens of thousands of years without the mass famine, disease & genocide seen today etc. Obviously famine & disease did exist but millions upon millions weren't dying of malnutrition, resource wars & genocide to the extent they are now. Europe & the "developed world" pretty much raped much of the "underdeveloped world" for their resources, helped them reduce infant mortality while doing little to help them with family planning (in many cases stupid religious people actually tried to block such efforts).

So, are you going to cry about it forever, or finally admit that the Africans need to adopt strict birth control policies ASAP?

You should have compassion for your African cousins (we're all cousins if you go back 400 generations or so), we all need to get out act together.

I have no compassion for a colony of bacteria which is about to die once it exhausts all the resources in its Petri dish.

Africans are living unsustainably. Europe, America or Japan have finally realized that they need to protect enviroment in order to keep their standards of living. Africans still "mine" their enviroment. Soon, they'll exhaust the resources and then we'll see a Rwanda/Somalia like collapse in most of Sub-Saharan Africa.

There is no point in giving them food that only allows them to breed more.

 

[Winner]

The number of people it would take to choke the planet is so astronomical, it could not be reached. I would say there is a point at which there would be too many people using up too much of the world's resources all at one time, but we aren't close to that yet, either. I think 50 billion would be a fairly good number of people, provided it is distributed in a way that is most favorable to developed countries.

That's a dangerous nonsense.

If all people currently living in Third World/developing countries reached Western standards of living, it would increase the human impact on the enviroment 11-fold.

Earth can't sustain more than 1 billion or so people living like the Westerners live today. We're currently living in a world which is extremelly overpopulated. Attempts by developing nations to reach Western standards of living will only make the problem worse.

 

[Shaihulud]

It is a problem imo, but we have to understand its impacts and understand why it is a problem. I believe that in most context, over population is only a problem because of unsustainability of our resources, things like energy, water and food. Many of the ways which we get clean food and water are also linked to energy.

People in the first world nations that are used up much more of this resources than the poorer nations, I propably used up these resources enough to feed 10 subharan Africans (an example). Therefore the impact of humans are not equal in all parts of the world, some have a greater impact and some less. I think the fear is that those poorer nations when they become wealthier, they may end up using some of this precious resources and depriving us of it.

 

[Winner]

It is a problem imo, but we have to understand its impacts and understand why it is a problem. I believe that in most context, over population is only a problem because of unsustainability of our resources, things like energy, water and food. Many of the ways which we get clean food and water are also linked to energy.

People in the first world nations that are used up much more of this resources than the poorer nations, I propably used up these resources enough to feed 10 subharan Africans (an example). Therefore the impact of humans are not equal in all parts of the world, some have a greater impact and some less. I think the fear is that those poorer nations when they become wealthier, they may end up using some of this precious resources and depriving us of it.

Bu that's precisely it - you need much more energy, water, food and other resources to sustain one Westerner and his way of life.

The problem is that the West created an illusion in the Third World that if they do what our imbecile economists tell them to do, they will live like us one day. But that's impossible, because Earth can barely sustain some 1 billion First World citizens even today. If the remaining 5 billion people were to adopt our living standard, Earth wouldn't be able to sustain us anymore. We'd need 5 more planets to sustain 6 billion people living like present-day Europeans, Americans or Japanese.

It's simple - Westerners need to stop living in a consumerist pipe dream and find a way how to reconcile high living standard with enviromental sustainability. We need to learn how to produce goods that are durable and easy to recycle. We need to stop overconsuming. We need to find enviroment-friendly sources of energy. We need to manage our resources better. We need to stop exporting pollution to the Third World.

Westerners (+ some other First World countries) are the only ones who have the technology to make this possible. Third World is probably doomed to collapse, and many developing countries will go down as well if they don't abandon the fallacious way which brought us into this mess - "consume, consume, consume - more and more and more! That's GDP growth, hurray!"

 

[crabapple]

Except that science has something to back up its claims and it has no harmful values attached.

of course science as done good, but doesnt mean you should belive it can fix all problems that exist

Without a change we may be doomed but technology, if given proper resources, will help - as it has helped already. By turning our backs to technology and science we'd surely fade into oblivion.

I am not talking about turning your back to technology, I am talking about realising that technology cant fix it all,becouse the consqvens of beliving technology can fix it all, you ignore problems that are social problems, like overconsumtion

I believe that the world today is much more prosperous place to live in than the pre-industrialized world before. It's true that we have created some ecological problems along the road but the era before already had its own problems (mostly related to farming). Technology alone doesn't fix anything - it only gives us tools to do so.

of course we live in a better world today then before industrialization, i am not arguing that. I am just saying that technology made these problems, and thereby its unlikely technology can fix it all

Barring unexpected natural catastrophes the only road to collapse I see is a conflict of ideologies - religions, politics, races, nations, what ever ways of separating ourselves we can come up with. Maybe (probably) there'll really be a war to end all wars before we can set our eyes on the future - I just hope that the reason stands among the winners.

P.S. Yeah, I'm feeling poetic and pompous

Then you really need to read Jared Diamonds Collapse

 

[Winner]

Then you really need to read Jared Diamonds Collapse

Everybody should read it.

 

[crabapple]

Everybody should read it.

Indeed

 

[PiMan]

The problem is that the West created an illusion in the Third World that if they do what our imbecile economists tell them to do, they will live like us one day. But that's impossible, because Earth can barely sustain some 1 billion First World citizens even today. If the remaining 5 billion people were to adopt our living standard, Earth wouldn't be able to sustain us anymore. We'd need 5 more planets to sustain 6 billion people living like present-day Europeans, Americans or Japanese

This isn't entirely true. If everyone lived like the average European, then we would only need an extra three or four planets.