Human overpopulation is problem

Calibos · 28-11-2014 1:17am

policarp wrote: »

Before the "Famine" Ireland had a population of
Eight Million. 8,000,000.

.....at a time when the rest of the UK had something like 12 million. If the famine and all the emigration since hadn't happened and the ratio of populations stayed the same, given that the present UK population is near 70 million, then Irelands population today would be about 45 million!!!...which just so happens to be close to the figure you get when you add up all those abroad who claim Irish ancestry.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-11-2014 3:30am

TireeTerror wrote: »

Mother Nature will always find a way to balance things out.

yeah , about that ,

snowball earth
oxygen catastrophe

there's been times when most life was wiped out , extinctions of whole ecosystems

fryup · 28-11-2014 10:43am

Calibos wrote: »

.....at a time when the rest of the UK had something like 12 million. If the famine and all the emigration since hadn't happened and the ratio of populations stayed the same, given that the present UK population is near 70 million, then Irelands population today would be about 45 million!!!...which just so happens to be close to the figure you get when you add up all those abroad who claim Irish ancestry.

wow:eek: a small island with 45 million people, imagine

hate to say it.....But...was the famine a blessing in disguise??

allibastor · 28-11-2014 11:09am

Vic_08 wrote: »

Just when I thought the neo-nazi propaganda was the height of stupidity for this thread we have another contender.

Sorry,
What was that there. Stupid how.

Calibos · 28-11-2014 11:36am

fryup wrote: »

wow:eek: a small island with 45 million people, imagine

hate to say it.....But...was the famine a blessing in disguise??

Wouldn't actually be bad if you think about it. The population of the UK is 30% higher but so is the land area. So in a 45 million Ireland the population density would be about the same. Imagine 30 million tax payers instead of 2.2 million or whatever paying for infrastructure etc.
We'd probably be able to achieve a lot more with a much higher population. OK maybe the cost/benefit goldilocks zone might be lower than 45 million. An Ireland of 20-25 million might be ideal.

bb1234567 · 28-11-2014 12:15pm

fryup wrote: »

wow:eek: a small island with 45 million people, imagine

hate to say it.....But...was the famine a blessing in disguise??

Ireland is twice the size of the netherlands but the netherlands has four times the population

BBJBIG · 28-11-2014 12:31pm

The world is overpopulated - very often with the wrong kind of people.
We need another good War to get rid of the scums and send em off to see
Jesus early - before their due arrival Date.

ScumLord · 28-11-2014 1:11pm

BBJBIG wrote: »

We need another good War to get rid of the scums and send em off to see
Jesus early - before their due arrival Date.

The last two world wars for all their death didn't do much to stop population growth.

TireeTerror · 28-11-2014 1:55pm

ScumLord wrote: »

The last two world wars for all their death didn't do much to stop population growth.

That will be solved by nuclear weapons in the imminent Cold War II.

Im preparing my fallout shelter as we speak, stocking up on Black Friday bargains!

allibastor · 28-11-2014 2:25pm

ScumLord wrote: »

The last two world wars for all their death didn't do much to stop population growth.

In fact it pushed population up after a few years as many people who came back from war went right into starting families.

Calibos · 28-11-2014 2:50pm

While war certainly has an effect on population growth its not very big. The girls back home can't 'Fill In' for the gals fighting and dying at the front whereas the guys back home can 'Fill In' for the millions of guys dying at the front...if you get me.

BBJBIG · 28-11-2014 3:40pm

ScumLord wrote: »

The last two world wars for all their death didn't do much to stop population growth.

The problem here is that they didn't learn how to use their Mikies responsibly.

Rather than stickin it in a hairy sthink hole, they needed the 5-knuckle shuffle and a box of Kleenex ...

Blue Whale · 28-11-2014 3:52pm

Tigers once ranged widely across Asia, from Turkey in the west to the eastern coast of Russia. Over the past 100 years, they have lost 93% of their historic range, and have been extirpated from southwest and central Asia, from the islands of Java and Bali, and from large areas of Southeast and Eastern Asia. Today, they range from the Siberian taiga to open grasslands and tropical mangrove swamps. The remaining six tiger subspecies have been classified as endangered by IUCN. The global population in the wild is estimated to number between 3,062 and 3,948 individuals, down from around 100,000 at the start of the 20th century, with most remaining populations occurring in small pockets isolated from each other, of which about 2,000 exist on the Indian subcontinent.[4] Major reasons for population decline include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching. The extent of area occupied by tigers is estimated at less than 1,184,911 km2 (457,497 sq mi), a 41% decline from the area estimated in the mid-1990s.

Its no coincidence that while the population of wild tigers has been slashed to 4% of its numbers in 1900 (100000 to 4000) the population of humans has increased from 1.65billion to 7.2 billion.

There are more tigers kept captive than in the wild.loads as pets in the USA.

Blue Whale · 28-11-2014 4:01pm

Blue Whale wrote: »

Its no coincidence that while the population of wild tigers has been slashed to 4% of its numbers in 1900 (100000 to 4000) the population of humans has increased from 1.65billion to 7.2 billion.

There are more tigers kept captive than in the wild.loads as pets in the USA.

Also..(from wiki)..

"It has been estimated that about half of the Earth's mature tropical forests—between 7.5 million and 8 million km2 (2.9 million to 3 million sq mi) of the original 15 million to 16 million km2 (5.8 million to 6.2 million sq mi) that until 1947 covered the planet—have now been destroyed....... by 2030 there will only be 10% remaining, with another 10% in a degraded condition"

catallus · 28-11-2014 4:30pm

As the great C. Montgomery Burns declared: "Nature started the war for survival and now she wants to quit because she's losing?! Pah!"

andrew · 28-11-2014 5:52pm

"...In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. One New York prognosticator of the 1890s concluded that by 1930 the horse droppings would rise to Manhattan’s third-story windows. A public health and sanitation crisis of almost unimaginable dimensions loomed..."

bnt · 28-11-2014 6:11pm

I like it when people say things like "you could fit the population of the world in to Texas". Even assuming that the resource problems could be solved: would you want to live there? This is the problem when population is discussed purely in terms of survival, without any consideration of what it means to be human and not animal. I don't just want to be alive, I want to live - to have some quality of life - and I don't believe it's presumptuous of me to want that for everyone on this planet.

Why are rainforests being destroyed? Well, some destruction is manageable, since forests grow back in time. When populations were small, a nomadic tribe could burn a bit of forest, exploit the area until its resources were depleted, and move on to another spot. (Reminds me of certain folks in this country, actually!) That was sustainable because the numbers were small. They aren't small any more. Blaming "corporations" doesn't explain this away, since corporations try to deliver what people want.

Still, aside from a couple of posts on page 1, it's nice to see some discussion of the issue that doesn't resort to "so who are you going to kill, then?" or " why don't you kill yourself". This is a long game, no-one needs to die before their time ... the way I see it, every country in the word needs to go through a demographic transition, but that process needs stability and intelligent policies for it to work, and I'm worried that the places that need those aren't going to get them.

Human overpopulation is problem

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