Human overpopulation is problem

steddyeddy · 26-11-2014 1:53am #1

It's not just a problem that impacts on one part of the world it will have a impact on every nation and economy. Is there any human measures that can and should be taken to control population before it gets out of control? I refer to overpopulation in terms of resources.

tough_rudder · 26-11-2014 1:55am

steddyeddy wrote: »

It's not just a problem that impacts on one part of the world it will have a impact on every nation and economy. Is there any human measures that can and should be taken to control population before it gets out of control?

If you care so much. Would you sign yourself up to be euthanized?

bb1234567 · 26-11-2014 1:58am

No, that is a myth. Half of the worlds countries have a birth rate below replacement level (incl every nation in the EU) as in their population will decrease without immigration, as the native people arent producing enough children in order to sustain the population.

steddyeddy · 26-11-2014 1:58am

tough_rudder wrote: »

If you care so much. Would you sign yourself up to be euthanized?

No but I'll come up with some polices if you like?

Kevin McCloud · 26-11-2014 2:00am

batman will save us all.

kneemos · 26-11-2014 2:01am

bb1234567 wrote: »

No, that is a myth. Half of the worlds countries have a birth rate below replacement level (incl every nation in the EU) as in their population will decrease without immigration, as the native people arent producing enough children in order to sustain the population.

World population is increasing.

Turtwig · 26-11-2014 2:03am

Complete myth. World population growth rate is expected to saturate.

The only way population becomes a problem is when it's looked at in terms of resources. Funnily enough when looked through this lens the US and Europe are the most heavily over populated. In short, if you nuked Europe and the US over population wouldn't be a problem for a very long time.

TireeTerror · 26-11-2014 2:03am

bb1234567 wrote: »

No, that is a myth. Half of the worlds countries have a birth rate below replacement level (incl every nation in the EU) as in their population will decrease without immigration, as the native people arent producing enough children in order to sustain the population.

Thats why the EU will be under Sharia law in next to no time.

steddyeddy · 26-11-2014 2:04am

Turtwig wrote: »

Complete myth.

The only way population becomes a problem is when it's looked at in terms of resources. Funnily enough when looked through this lens the US and Europe are the most heavily over populated. In short, if you nuked Europe and the US over population wouldn't be a problem for a very long time.

I agree. I am looking at it through resources and the US and Europe are the biggest problems.

kneemos · 26-11-2014 2:05am

Turtwig wrote: »

Complete myth. World population growth rate is expected to saturate.

The only way population becomes a problem is when it's looked at in terms of resources. Funnily enough when looked through this lens the US and Europe are the most heavily over populated. In short, if you nuked Europe and the US over population wouldn't be a problem for a very long time.

Would have thought India and China were up there.

bb1234567 · 26-11-2014 2:05am

kneemos wrote: »

World population is increasing.

Due to people in poor countries having lots of babies, these people use about 1/10 the amount of resources the average european uses. If the population was increasing at this rate in western nations, THEN we would have problems with resource scarcity.

steddyeddy · 26-11-2014 2:07am

bb1234567 wrote: »

Due to people in poor countries having lots of babies, these people use about 1/10 the amount of resources the average european uses. If the population was increasing at this rate in western nations, THEN we would have problems with resource scarcity.

We are having problems with resources.

bb1234567 · 26-11-2014 2:08am

kneemos wrote: »

Would have thought India and China were up there.

He said in terms of resource use. Do you think a few hundred million indians who live on a few bowls of rice and some vegetables everyday are the ones causing any scarcity of resources?

Karl Stein · 26-11-2014 2:09am

Turtwig wrote: »

The only way population becomes a problem is when it's looked at in terms of resources.

So would you agree that ever increasing growth fuelled by consumption is unsustainable?

bb1234567 · 26-11-2014 2:09am

steddyeddy wrote: »

We are having problems with resources.

Only because the resources arent shared properly, its a human problem , the world is still able to make more than enough food for the 7 billion or so of us on it.

steddyeddy · 26-11-2014 2:10am

bb1234567 wrote: »

Only because the resources arent shared properly, its a human problem , the world is still able to make more than enough food for the 7 billion or so of us on it.

Well food, rare earth elements, oil, gas, energy or minerals.

kneemos · 26-11-2014 2:11am

bb1234567 wrote: »

He said in terms of resource use. Do you think a few hundred million indians who live on a few bowls of rice and some vegetables everyday are the ones causing any scarcity of resources?

Try 1.2 billion.

Turtwig · 26-11-2014 2:14am

steddyeddy wrote: »

I agree. I am looking at it through resources and the US and Europe are the biggest problems.

The US has far bigger problems. Europe at least is making some, not much, preparations for an ageing population. It's also trying to curb fossil fuels emissions. Among many other things that I'm too tired to list.

In the States, it's very chaotic, there's no overall plan or structure and if they don't make drastic adjusments their health services and economy will completely tank. Unfortunately that has implications for the rest of the world too. Don't get me wrong here Europe is my no means doing enough either. But that tends to be humans. Don't want to deal with some problems until they're striking them right in the face. For some of the future ones facing humanity that will happen when it's too late.

As you can probably tell I'm not optimistic for our current way of living.

bb1234567 · 26-11-2014 2:16am

kneemos wrote: »

Try 1.2 billion.

not every single indian is poor you know... theres a sizable middle class who live in moderate luxury..I think its about 20% of the population

Turtwig · 26-11-2014 2:17am

Karl Stein wrote: »

So would you agree that ever increasing growth fuelled by consumption is unsustainable?

I don't actually know enough to answer that either way. Intuitively I would agree with you. Intuitions rarely prove accurate for this sort stuff though.

Cienciano · 26-11-2014 2:17am

steddyeddy wrote: »

Well food, rare earth elements, oil, gas, energy or minerals.

We can adapt for shortages in them. Theres no energy shortage

osarusan · 26-11-2014 2:29am

bb1234567 wrote: »

not every single indian is poor you know... theres a sizable middle class who live in moderate luxury..I think its about 20% of the population

In which case your earlier post makes even less sense really.

As well as a few hundred million living on rice and vegetables who aren't a drain on resources, there are also a 'sizable middle class' who are consuming even more resources - I don't see how that help your original point.

Turtwig · 26-11-2014 2:38am

kneemos wrote: »

Would have thought India and China were up there.

China is, you'd definitely expect that given its population and developing economy. Oddly enough India isn't - yet. Which makes it remarkable really you'd expect the countries with such large populations to be on a similar playing field to that of the Europe and the US. Yet, if memory serves me correctly India isn't even near competition with Europe - even when Russia is excluded! Shows just how much we actually gorge.

KomradeBishop · 26-11-2014 2:38am

Turtwig wrote: »

I don't actually know enough to answer that either way. Intuitively I would agree with you. Intuitions rarely prove accurate for this sort stuff though.

Here's a good article, more for early morning reading with coffee than late night though

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/

Long story short: Neverending (i.e. infinite) growth, on a finite planet = unsustainable.

Turtwig · 26-11-2014 2:40am

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Here's a good article, more for early morning reading with coffee than late night though
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/

Long story short: Neverending (i.e. infinite) growth, on a finite planet = unsustainable.

Yeah but on what timescale is it unsustainable. I'm ok with growth if it turns out to be unsustainable on the scale of the millenia.

(Clearly I did not click on your link

)

Karl Stein · 26-11-2014 2:41am

Turtwig wrote: »

I don't actually know enough to answer that either way.

Neither do I and that's why I asked.

It wasn't actually a leading/rhetorical question. I was wondering if you had some interesting ideas.

Intuitively I would agree with you. Intuitions rarely prove accurate for this sort stuff though.

There's so much loud resistance to new/interesting ideas from the TINA's (There Is No Alternative) that it's difficult to hear the good ideas for the shouting down.

Arsemageddon · 26-11-2014 2:43am

Worth checking these fellas out..

http://www.populationmatters.org/

Turtwig · 26-11-2014 2:47am

^^^From that website.

http://www.populationmatters.org/about/campaigns/ wrote:

We’re calling for individuals living in developed countries to be environmentally aware and not to consume excessively.

Edit: andddddd I completely misread the thing retract the below.

How pretentious. :mad:

No longer have the subscriptions, I'd be grateful if anyone linked to any of the myriad of papers detailing how "consumption" scales from a first world country to a third world. Think it was like 100 babies in Zaire was still only .1 an American infant - and that was when Zaire existed! It's worse now! Something along those lines. But yeah stop being excessive you poor people and stop wasting resources that you only really use in negligible quantities compared to us.

Macavity. · 26-11-2014 2:49am

People should stop procreating.

KomradeBishop · 26-11-2014 2:50am

Turtwig wrote: »

Yeah but on what timescale is it unsustainable. I'm ok with growth if it turns out to be unsustainable on the scale of the millenia.

(Clearly I did not click on your link )

Well, it's a much faster timescale than that - economic growth is tied to growth in energy production/usage (explained in article), and energy usage has to respect the laws of thermodynamics - particularly that regarding waste-heat being released into the atmosphere.

So, near our current rate of growth, at "...a 2.3% growth rate (conveniently chosen to represent a 10× increase every century), we would reach boiling temperature in about 400 years."

So, given that's just 400 years to reach 100c, growth would be severely limited long before that

EDIT: Though, that is mixing population growth with other topics like economic/energy growth - India/China do show, that there's plenty of room for population growth, with a more modest cost of living that consumes less resources - which (when considering just population growth), likely can go on for millenia.

26-11-2014 2:54am

Over-population isn't the problem, over-consumption is.

At some stage the model of "economic growth" will have to be abandoned in favour of the model of economic development in already "developed" countries. Europe is "stagnating" economically while becoming more efficient, moving towards services etc. Reducing consumption is the key.

Vic_08 · 26-11-2014 2:58am

Turtwig wrote: »

^^^From that website.

How pretentious. :mad:

No longer have the subscriptions, I'd be grateful if anyone linked to any of the myriad of papers detailing how "consumption" scales from a first world country to a third world. Think it was like 100 babies in Zaire was still only .1 an American infant - and that was when Zaire existed! It's worse now! Something along those lines. But yeah stop being excessive you poor people and stop wasting resources that you only really use in negligible quantities compared to us.

You misread that quote, it is calling on developed nations not developing nations to conserve resources.

the_syco · 26-11-2014 3:09am

We need another war to lower the population count. Next war will be for resources; the poor overpopulated developing countries versus the developed countries with their human rights rules.

Turtwig · 26-11-2014 3:09am

Vic_08 wrote: »

You misread that quote, it is calling on developed nations not developing nations to conserve resources.

Doh

Yep,

I did thanks.

A sign to sign off from serious stuff for the night.

Its Only Ray Parlour · 26-11-2014 7:22am

Deleted User wrote: »

Over-population isn't the problem, over-consumption is.

At some stage the model of "economic growth" will have to be abandoned in favour of the model of economic development in already "developed" countries. Europe is "stagnating" economically while becoming more efficient, moving towards services etc. Reducing consumption is the key.

Global warming started at 3 billion humans in the 1960s. Whether we reduce consumption or not, our population is set to stablise at 15 billion humans, which far too many. We need to slow down population growth as that will give us more time to develop cleaner ways to transport goods and people.

What's going to happen to oil reserves when the majority of that 15 billion want petrol in their cars? The reason why America is hellbent on invading Middle-eastern countries is because they know the old is running out and they want control of the oil reserves or else their superpower status is in danger.

We also have the issue of banged-up, old vehicles in 3rd world that produce a lot more pollution than western vehicles. India is the 5th highest polluter and has the second largest population. The West needs to issue sanctions on India if they don't get their shít together.

Ireland needs to move to nuclear power instead burning coal and peat to feed our power plants but you morons who are terrified the Fukushima disaster will happen to us. That was caused by magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the 5th-most-powerful earthquake in the history of Seismology. Here is a list of earthquakes in the British Isles and none of them come anywhere near close to the magnitude of the Japan one. That list also shows earthquake that hit the UK and they have 9 active nuclear power plants, but no nuclear disasters

I also remember there was some idiot on here who created a thread lambasting China's one child policy. At least they're doing something about it, unlike India.

mikemac1 · 26-11-2014 7:31am

Population of England & Wales 1841 - 19.5 million
Population of Ireland 1841 - 8.2 million

Population of England & Wales 2012 - 53.5 million
Population of Ireland 32 counties 2012 - 6.4 million

Better take this thread to the boards.co.uk. Overpopulation isn't an Irish problem

Its Only Ray Parlour · 26-11-2014 7:35am

mikemac1 wrote: »

Population of England & Wales 1841 - 19.5 million
Population of Ireland 1841 - 8.2 million

Population of England & Wales 2012 - 53.5 million
Population of Ireland 32 counties 2012 - 6.4 million

Better take this thread to the boards.co.uk. Overpopulation isn't an Irish problem

We've certainly exported a lot of humans, though. Legalizing abortion here would set an example for other countries, not that we have a big influence on other nations but it's better than nothing.

Tail Docker · 26-11-2014 7:54am

Karl Stein wrote: »

So would you agree that ever increasing growth fuelled by consumption is unsustainable?

No, but I'd deffo go along with the theory that Jaffa cakes are less fattening than Hob-Nobs. Which is similar.

Timberrrrrrrr · 26-11-2014 7:58am

TireeTerror wrote: »

Thats why the EU will be under Sharia law in next to no time.

Here we go

Peter B · 26-11-2014 7:59am

This has become a taboo subject. It is seen to be "unprogressive" to mention that we may have a population problem.

Often it benefits a country economically to have a larger population. It offers the government a larger tax income and is sometimes seen as a measure of success. Globalisation also encourages larger populations for a greater market size as well as encourages consumerism.

Our natural resources are suffering. Not just oil, coal and energy but also pollution is affecting our streams, rivers and oceans. On land our air quality is worsening and land is being over farmed, needing to be over compensated by fertilisers which often lead to pollution of streams / rivers. Food is being transported across the world and then often getting thrown out due to over supply.

The level of species loss has never being higher in human history. If we wanted to have KPIs as human beings I think reducing species loss should be the first goal.

Yes, I think there is a problem.

force eleven · 26-11-2014 8:03am

The entire population of Earth today, standing (or sitting) shoulder to shoulder, would fit into the area of Co Cork. Plenty of room for all, it's wealth distribution that is the problem.

Peter B · 26-11-2014 8:37am

Deleted User wrote: »

Over-population isn't the problem, over-consumption is.

At some stage the model of "economic growth" will have to be abandoned in favour of the model of economic development in already "developed" countries. Europe is "stagnating" economically while becoming more efficient, moving towards services etc. Reducing consumption is the key.

Over consumption is definitely a big issue also but it does not mean you ignore the issue of over population. The planet would be in much better condition if we could all live the same lifestyle and consumption levels as 1841. I cannot see that happening though

MRnotlob606 · 26-11-2014 8:42am

Us Europeans would want to stop it all together, we're breeding like rabbits.

Timberrrrrrrr · 26-11-2014 8:43am

force eleven wrote: »

The entire population of Earth today, standing (or sitting) shoulder to shoulder, would fit into the area of Co Cork. Plenty of room for all, it's wealth distribution that is the problem.

You have proof of this? :eek:

Iwasfrozen · 26-11-2014 8:46am

Over population is a problem world wide but it's not a problem for Europe and certainly not a problem for Ireland.

lazybones32 · 26-11-2014 10:20am

If anyone considers human overpopulation to be a problem, maybe they should take a single, irreversible action to be part of the solution?

Dr Turk Turkelton · 26-11-2014 10:27am

force eleven wrote: »

The entire population of Earth today, standing (or sitting) shoulder to shoulder, would fit into the area of Co Cork. Plenty of room for all, it's wealth distribution that is the problem.

Am finding this really hard to believe.

anticonscience · 26-11-2014 10:34am

bb1234567 wrote: »

No, that is a myth. Half of the worlds countries have a birth rate below replacement level (incl every nation in the EU) as in their population will decrease without immigration, as the native people arent producing enough children in order to sustain the population.

Agreed .Only those developing countries has a high birth rate but they have a high death rate as well .I think we should stop wasting our present resoures first

Timberrrrrrrr · 26-11-2014 10:34am

lazybones32 wrote: »

If anyone considers human overpopulation to be a problem, maybe they should take a single, irreversible action to be part of the solution?

Pretty sick post tbh

ZiabR · 26-11-2014 10:49am

steddyeddy wrote: »

It's not just a problem that impacts on one part of the world it will have a impact on every nation and economy. Is there any human measures that can and should be taken to control population before it gets out of control? I refer to overpopulation in terms of resources.

"before" it gets out of control. It is already out of control. In the 1980's when I was born, it was about 4.4 billion. Today it is approximately 7.2 billion. So in around 30 years it has jumped almost 3 billion. That wound be 1 billion every decade. By 2025 it will have broken the 8 billion mark.

With increased population comes increased demand for food, which lets face it, is the main concern here. Parts of the world are already struggling with food production, this will only get worse. Look at the Amazon. Every minute of every day 150 acres are destroyed. That is almost 80 million acres a year... disgraceful. Alot of this is turned into agricultural land to grow food for our ever growing population.

Parts of the world have already been destroyed with the sole purpose of food production. If you need proof of this, just google Campo de Dalías. This is a part of Spain the has been named Costa del Polythene or The Sea of Plastic. Even from Space all you can see are greenhouses, growing food for Humans.

Put "El Ejido, Spain" into Google Earth and zoom out a fraction and you will see what I mean.

EDIT - To fix my bad maths

keithclancy · 26-11-2014 10:57am

Its Only Ray Parlour wrote: »

Ireland needs to move to nuclear power instead burning coal and peat to feed our power plants but you morons who are terrified the Fukushima disaster will happen to us. That was caused by magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the 5th-most-powerful earthquake in the history of Seismology. Here is a list of earthquakes in the British Isles and none of them come anywhere near close to the magnitude of the Japan one. That list also shows earthquake that hit the UK and they have 9 active nuclear power plants, but no nuclear disasters

I also remember there was some idiot on here who created a thread lambasting China's one child policy. At least they're doing something about it, unlike India.

Ireland mainly uses Gas for its power, there is an oversupply of Gas in the market at the moment due to fracking. The Americans aren't even using Coal anymore.

Most of the big players have pulled out of the commodities market already because theres no money to be made in it.

Human overpopulation is problem

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