Overpopulation and the enviornmental impact of all this

hotbabe1992

There is more unpredicablity yet to be showcased in relation to the enviornment/weather,it will get worse not better.

Ice caps are melting due to co2 emissions(everybodys got to own a car or ride the bus) there will be a lot more floods to be seen yet,and anybody who is not living on high ground(at least 24 meters above sea level can forget it).

Africas population is set to increase by 2.4 billion people by 2050,indias population is set to increase by over half and we will see this increase in full swing by about 2050 or as early as 2030 given the rate they are likely to reproduce,remember a generation is about 10 years.

Nobody seems to want to tackle the problem of overpopulation honestly,the only people who benefit from overpopulation are supermarket owners,and those who are interested in selling more ipods/laptops/toilet paper and cars etc.They clearly do not want to tackle this problem.And there is a lot of outright denial out there,which we have a long way to go and crack.

Politicians dont want to tackle it - as more people means more heads to tax,but they will end up paying for the population in the long run through services and welfare etc.

There is already overproduction of meat,(which i have given up recently due to all the horror stories,i just cant bear it),over farming of the land which can drain the soil of essentail minerals and nutrients as they are all drained into the crop.

We have seen the devastating results of overfarming in other countries,why on earth are we doing it here???

The worlds resources are not limitless,toilet paper,money it all comes from trees which are being chopped down at an unprecdented rate,and not being used in a sustainable manner.

Think about it how can it be used in a sustainable manner with billions of people on the planet?

We are fooling ourselves,dont worry just buy another tv and listen to your daily propoganda and hope the floods wont come your way.. )

5p9arw38djv2b4

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

There is more unpredicablity yet to be showcased in relation to the enviornment/weather,it will get worse not better.

Ice caps are melting due to co2 emissions(everybodys got to own a car or ride the bus) there will be a lot more floods to be seen yet,and anybody who is not living on high ground(at least 24 meters above sea level can forget it).

Africas population is set to increase by 2.4 billion people by 2050,indias population is set to increase by over half and we will see this increase in full swing by about 2050 or as early as 2030 given the rate they are likely to reproduce,remember a generation is about 10 years.

Nobody seems to want to tackle the problem of overpopulation honestly,the only people who benefit from overpopulation are supermarket owners,and those who are interested in selling more ipods/laptops/toilet paper and cars etc.They clearly do not want to tackle this problem.And there is a lot of outright denial out there,which we have a long way to go and crack.

Politicians dont want to tackle it - as more people means more heads to tax,but they will end up paying for the population in the long run through services and welfare etc.

There is already overproduction of meat,(which i have given up recently due to all the horror stories,i just cant bear it),over farming of the land which can drain the soil of essentail minerals and nutrients as they are all drained into the crop.

We have seen the devastating results of overfarming in other countries,why on earth are we doing it here???

The worlds resources are not limitless,toilet paper,money it all comes from trees which are being chopped down at an unprecdented rate,and not being used in a sustainable manner.

Think about it how can it be used in a sustainable manner with billions of people on the planet?

We are fooling ourselves,dont worry just buy another tv and listen to your daily propoganda and hope the floods wont come your way.. )

24 meters above sea level? Really???

hotbabe1992

Okay at least 10 meters the sea will rise by 4 meters it is predicted so we need to be wayy higher than that and in a flood even higher..

I was overestimating sorry..

5p9arw38djv2b4

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Okay at least 10 meters the sea will rise by 4 meters it is predicted so we need to be wayy higher than that and in a flood even higher..

I was overestimating sorry..

Still overestimating I think - The highest estimate by the IPCC is 95cm rise by 2100, though 50-60cm is the expected rate.

Though I dont mean to knock your sentiments -

hotbabe1992

I was just talking with someone over this and they said you need to be 24 meters above sea level and the sea will rise by 4 meters .. Really scary stuff i think i cant imagine it where i am because the dyke barriers here are very low..

Im sh*tting this spring when the weather gets more wet and floody ..

Capt'n Midnight

*yawn*

In most countries when people get richer and women are educated population growth slows right down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

According to the highest estimate, the world population may rise to 16 billion by 2100; according to the lowest estimate, it may decline to 6 billion.

There is plenty of food for all. The only questions are can people afford it, and the problem of everyone wanting meat instead of staples.

Nitrogen based fertilizer can be made from air, water and energy.
Phosphates may run low, but that's a recycling matter.

Money doesn't come from trees. It comes from cotton. And much of that comes from dictatorships in central Asia. To grow cotton in a desert you need plenty of water. They've diverted two rivers into the desert. Combined flow of them is the same as the Nile. Big rivers. Just google the Aral sea to see what happened. In the 1960s' it was 68,000Km2 ( Ireland is 70,273 Km2 )
at one stage it had dropped down to two lakes with a total area slightly bigger than Cork.

Oddly enough the higher carbon dioxide in the air means trees are growing faster, still waiting for the overall result of that.

hotbabe1992

Explain to me then why are people in india having to dig deeper wells just to get their daily supply of water..

You dont think that chugging co2 by billions of people doesnt have any harmful effects?

robp

Its a question of life style. As pointed out the the planet has limited resources and we need to use them more prudently. yet we could could make huge improvements in our lifestyles and make far negative less impact on the planet with a higher population. For this I really can't stand the term overpopulation. Our species has always had resource shortages and sooner or later life styles or technology has caught up and solves postponed the problem. We can see this happening over tens of thousands of years. In some cases the technology arrived too late and irreversible damage occurred like the extinction of a species but sometimes not. For this reason I think its really naive to say the earth is beyond its carrying capacity as the carrying capacity has been shifting for thousands of years.

We need to make big changes to improve sustainability but there is so much we can do without telling people how many children they are entitled too.

hotbabe1992

Our species has always had resource shortages and sooner or later life styles or technology has caught up and solves postponed the problem.

Technology has caught up?To make plastics for phones is damaging to the enviornment,to drive a car to do anything that involves technology is damaging,even using oil for electricity is damaging,the oil reserves are running out it is clear we are over using the earths resources,you dont see oil running out as a problem?
Do you think it is reasonable for a place like india with very little space for women to be having 7-8 children at a time where resources are stretched to capacity.

Is it reasonable that children go starving in africa because african women no no better than to keep reproducing even though they are in diar circumstances..?

Instead of giving them life support(why not tell them to stop having more children) and having each of lets say the seven children have in turn each seven children themselves,do you think in an enviornment like that it is sustainable?

I think a lot of people are sticking their head in the sand,and do not want to deal with the word overpopulation and what it really means to us..


Tree coverage on the planet is not what it used to be either,think of how many billions of toilet rolls we make each year,it disgusting..

Its excess and it needs to stop,our enviornment is our only future,and if we dont ensure it as part of our future we can forget it..

Capt'n Midnight

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Is it reasonable that children go starving in africa because african women no no better than to keep reproducing even though they are in diar circumstances..?

Instead of giving them life support(why not tell them to stop having more children) and having each of lets say the seven children have in turn each seven children themselves,do you think in an enviornment like that it is sustainable?

did you see the bit in my post about educating women ?

most adults in the world, including africa have mobile phones. education is happening

Huge difference in connectivity since East Africa got proper fibre links a few years ago.

Yes the DRC is a mess but Africa is a continent.


Each colour is one billion people. Africa isn't overpopulated.


Fertility rates in Africa - replacement rate is 2.09 or something
http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?t=0&v=31&r=xx&l=en

compare with infant mortality rate per birth
http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?t=0&v=29&r=xx&l=en

5p9arw38djv2b4

Hans Rosling is one of the eminent demographers in the world ... He is also interesting and presents things very clearly. I've seen him present a few times but take a look at this TEd talk... A lot of his talks revolve around how it's not overpopulation that will be a problem necessarily - it's the level of consumption/ increase in middle class level of consumption. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html

Birdnuts

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Each colour is one billion people. Africa isn't overpopulated.


Fertility rates in Africa - replacement rate is 2.09 or something
http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?t=0&v=31&r=xx&l=en

compare with infant mortality rate per birth
http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?t=0&v=29&r=xx&l=en[/QUOTE]

Large parts of Africa are deserts which continue to expand thanks to various types of land degradation, many of which are related to problems associated with over-population such as overgrazing,deforestation etc. If you visit places like Kenya,Uganda etc. its obvious that these countries are over populated as all the related problems are right in front of ones eyes.

Capt'n Midnight

Birdnuts wrote: »

Large parts of Africa are deserts which continue to expand thanks to various types of land degradation, many of which are related to problems associated with over-population such as overgrazing,deforestation etc. If you visit places like Kenya,Uganda etc. its obvious that these countries are over populated as all the related problems are right in front of ones eyes.

Large parts of every continent apart from Europe are deserts, though there is a small one in Poland complete with sand dunes

Large areas of Kenya are owned by the government and have very low population density , just some squatters trying to setup farms or charcoal sellers.

Birdnuts

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Large parts of every continent apart from Europe are deserts, though there is a small one in Poland complete with sand dunes

Large areas of Kenya are owned by the government and have very low population density , just some squatters trying to setup farms or charcoal sellers.

Clearly you've never been been to Kenya and do not understand that different types of land and climates have different carrying capacities when it comes to human population densities. Most of Northern and Eastern Kenya is arid grassland,bush and semi-desert that is prone to drought conditions. Kenya's population is approaching 40 million(up from only 6 million in 1950!!) and continues to grow by nearly one million people every year. That is clearly unsustaineable!!

Eoghan Barra

LadyLabyrinth wrote: »

Hans Rosling is one of the eminent demographers in the world ... He is also interesting and presents things very clearly. I've seen him present a few times but take a look at this TEd talk... A lot of his talks revolve around how it's not overpopulation that will be a problem necessarily - it's the level of consumption/ increase in middle class level of consumption. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html

In actual fact, it's a combination of factors, including population density.

Paul Ehrlich's original I = PAT formula is still valid:

Impact on environment = Population x Affluence x Technology

robp

Birdnuts wrote: »

Clearly you've never been been to Kenya and do not understand that different types of land and climates have different carrying capacities when it comes to human population densities. Most of Northern and Eastern Kenya is arid grassland,bush and semi-desert that is prone to drought conditions. Kenya's population is approaching 40 million(up from only 6 million in 1950!!) and continues to grow by nearly one million people every year. That is clearly unsustaineable!!

I don't believe for a moment the population there is inherently too high. The current situation maybe unsustainable but with adequate investment and improved land management sustainability may well be achieved. For example rampant deforestation for domestic cooking fuel can be reduced by stoves with improved efficiency or perhaps electrification.

Sensible people often distinguish local overpopulation with global overpopulation. Kenyans maybe jeopardising their environment through deforestation but it is Europeans who using up the world's finite resources. Although its a reasonable enough concept I would reject both and put the emphasise on the overconsumption of resources rather then the number of people.

hungry hippo 4

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

There is more unpredicablity yet to be showcased in relation to the enviornment/weather,it will get worse not better.

Ice caps are melting due to co2 emissions(everybodys got to own a car or ride the bus) there will be a lot more floods to be seen yet,and anybody who is not living on high ground(at least 24 meters above sea level can forget it).

Africas population is set to increase by 2.4 billion people by 2050,indias population is set to increase by over half and we will see this increase in full swing by about 2050 or as early as 2030 given the rate they are likely to reproduce,remember a generation is about 10 years.

Nobody seems to want to tackle the problem of overpopulation honestly,the only people who benefit from overpopulation are supermarket owners,and those who are interested in selling more ipods/laptops/toilet paper and cars etc.They clearly do not want to tackle this problem.And there is a lot of outright denial out there,which we have a long way to go and crack.

Politicians dont want to tackle it - as more people means more heads to tax,but they will end up paying for the population in the long run through services and welfare etc.

There is already overproduction of meat,(which i have given up recently due to all the horror stories,i just cant bear it),over farming of the land which can drain the soil of essentail minerals and nutrients as they are all drained into the crop.

We have seen the devastating results of overfarming in other countries,why on earth are we doing it here???

The worlds resources are not limitless,toilet paper,money it all comes from trees which are being chopped down at an unprecdented rate,and not being used in a sustainable manner.

Think about it how can it be used in a sustainable manner with billions of people on the planet?

We are fooling ourselves,dont worry just buy another tv and listen to your daily propoganda and hope the floods wont come your way.. )

The arctic ice cap is not melting!

There are many factors that lead to overpopulation. I think at this stage many government have put strategies in place to tackle the issue. Egypt for example is a large country whose population are forced to live in around the Nile because the rest of the country is desert.

Poverty, Religion, contraception, large percentage of a young population demography all are big factors. While the countries you have mentioned increase population, the likes of US and Europe will decline.

Capt'n Midnight

Birdnuts wrote: »

Clearly you've never been been to Kenya and do not understand that different types of land and climates have different carrying capacities when it comes to human population densities. Most of Northern and Eastern Kenya is arid grassland,bush and semi-desert that is prone to drought conditions. Kenya's population is approaching 40 million(up from only 6 million in 1950!!) and continues to grow by nearly one million people every year. That is clearly unsustaineable!!

Actually...


also
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/13/69

The 2003 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) showed that nearly 50% of unmarried women aged 15–19 and 45% of the married women reported their current pregnancies as mistimed or unwanted. The 2008–09 KDHS showed that 43% of married women in Kenya reported their current pregnancies were unintended.

...
Worldwide, 38% of pregnancies are unintended (that is, some 80 million pregnancies annually). In sub-Saharan Africa, unintended pregnancy accounts for more than a quarter of the 40 million pregnancies that occur annually. Unintended pregnancies increase health and economic risks for children, women, men and families.

hotbabe1992

For example rampant deforestation for domestic cooking fuel can be reduced by stoves with improved efficiency or perhaps electrification.

The problem is its not being tackled.

Greensleeves

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Actually...


also
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/13/69

I don't understand what you are trying to say CM. The report you linked to concludes that contraception would be usesful.

"The results indicate the need for effective programs and strategies to increase access to contraceptive services and related education, information and communication among the study population, particularly among the young and unmarried women. Increased access to family planning services is key to reducing unintended pregnancy among the study population. This calls for concerted efforts by all the stakeholders to improve access to family planning services among the study population. Increased access should be accompanied with improvement in the quality of care and availability of information about effective utilization of family planning methods."

Capt'n Midnight

Greensleeves wrote: »

I don't understand what you are trying to say CM. The report you linked to concludes that contraception would be usesful.

I'll try again

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

*yawn*

In most countries when people get richer and women are educated population growth slows right down.

It's a problem that is being solved already.

If we removed protectionism and moved more towards trade rather than aid a lot of this stuff would be handled locally without the need for meddling by concerned do-gooders.

I'll drag up some old stuff , because it's true.

IIRC all of the aid to Africa is about 1/3rd of interest payments paid by Africa. So overall there is a massive wealth transfer to us.

Then there are the accountancy scams.
Zambia looses half it's income because a tax loophole allows all of the copper to be exported via a small village in Switzerland.

There are also trade barriers. Hopefully the WTO has taken a step in the right direction.
http://world.time.com/2013/12/09/all-159-wto-members-have-agreed-on-something-for-the-first-time-ever/

There is the dumping of products / aid that doesn't get to Africa. Ireland is the best in this regard, virtually none of our foreign aid stays here and it's accounted for at the other end too. Much of the US foreign aid goes to support grain prices back home, the subsidised exports then undercut local growers in the recipient countries, who couldn't even export back because of restrictions. Other countries fiddle the books, some like Greece bundle so much domestic spending under "foreign" aid that it just isn't funny anymore.

When money is tight you get corruption which doesn't help
Back in 2002 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2265387.stm

The report before this week's meeting of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, makes no attempt to excuse these "gratifications" as part of the culture.

It says that corruption is costing Africa more than $148bn dollars a year, increasing the cost of goods by as much as 20%, deterring investment and holding back development.

Most of the cost, it says, falls on the poor.

Bottom line, a lot of the problem could be solved by not continuing to asset strip Africa. The Chinese are cleaning up over there. Yes they are just as corrupt, but at the end of the day the infrastructure gets built. And if you are worried about poor Africans caring more about their next meal than about the environment they you should be petrified about what the Chinese would do if given free reign. And that's what will happen unless we treat Africa as equals and let them sort out their own problems without us dictating the agendas by telling them what to do on one hand and taking the money they need to do it with the other.

hotbabe1992

The arctic ice cap is not melting!

Are you sure about that?


http://www.dw.de/polar-ice-sheets-melting-faster-than-ever/a-16432199

djpbarry

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Do you think it is reasonable for a place like india with very little space for women to be having 7-8 children at a time where resources are stretched to capacity.

Is it reasonable that children go starving in africa because african women no no better than to keep reproducing even though they are in diar circumstances..?

Instead of giving them life support(why not tell them to stop having more children) and having each of lets say the seven children have in turn each seven children themselves,do you think in an enviornment like that it is sustainable?

I think a lot of people are sticking their head in the sand,and do not want to deal with the word overpopulation and what it really means to us.

And I think a lot of people are terribly ignorant of (a) the actual fertility rate in the developing world (it’s considerably less than 7 – 8) and (b) the reasons why people have as many children as they do. I would suggest such people get their facts straight before telling women in the developing world what they should and should not be doing.

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

The problem is its not being tackled.

Actually, the development of more efficient stoves is receiving a lot of attention from researchers:
http://cookstoves.lbl.gov

hotbabe1992

If they are struggling to feed themselves - is it responsible to go out and have a few children that you simply cannot support?


And are these stoves actually being bought up,are a lot of people choosing to use them?

Greensleeves

I have spent a lot of time in the developing world I can tell you that China, India and much of SE Asia are very crowded places and that the lives of the millions of poor people are miserable beyond belief. It is the world's poorest people that suffer the most from having too many children. And in particular it is poor women who in some cases bear their first child in their teens and have had maybe 10 pregnancies by their mid-twenties.

I don't buy the thesis that as countries get richer/become more educated things will improve all of their own accord.

There has been a boom in Asia in the last decade - China, India, Vietnam, etc. - and as these countries got richer they went from bicycles to two-wheelers (mopeds, motorbikes) to cars. The rich buy Range Rovers, Landcruisers, Hummers, etc. and the rest buy whatever they can get their hands on. In India Ratan Tata helpfully made a cheap car to get the hundreds of millions of poor people on the road. The net result of this is that the roads of Asia are choked with traffic and all the attendant pollution. I don't begrudge these people their cars; why shouldn't they have everything we've got?, but that ditty about 9 million bicycles in Beijing would be more accurate if it said there were 9 million BMWs in Beijing.

The other thing people do as they get richer is travel; they start flying everywhere just like we do. In the last 10 or 15 years there has been huge growth in budget airlines in India, Thailand, China, etc. The Ryanair of Asia (AirAsia) is marvellously cheap and flys all over the region. But obviously planes are very bad on the CO2 emissions front.

And of course, just like us, they shop like lunatics. So they need landfill sites but as anyone that has been to India knows, the country is covered in litter because when there are 1 billion people it's not really possible to have proper waste management.

I don't share the view that mobile phones are a sign of hope that all will be well with the world. More people in the world own mobile phones than have access to sanitation. For the poorest people in the world this lack of sanitation condemns them to a life of misery and illness, and in India means that girls are more likely to quit education when they reach puberty because of the lack of toilets in schools.

We in the west have unsustainable carbon footprints. If by some act of magic the most populous part of the world was to wake up tomorrow morning and find itself with the same standard of living that we have there would be a bit of a problem. We are unwilling to make any meaningful changes to our lives; we'll buy a Prius, we'll continue to fly whenever and wherever we feel like it and we'll stump up for some carbon offsets, we'll toy with being vegetarian but conclude that the nice ethical/free-range/fairly-traded sausages from the nice organic chap at the farmers market are much better for the planet in the long run so really there is no need for us to change at all. And that is only the tiny minority that are even slightly bothered about sustainability and the environment. Most people don't care. And we delude ourselves that all this is fine and that if the whole 7 billion of us were all carrying on in the same fashion that would be fine too.

hotbabe1992

You got a good point greensleeves,any old fool can even see we are deluding ourselves,even thinking about toilet paper consumption is enough,not to mention over production of meat,overfarming of lands devestation of forest lands etc..

And to think we are servicing billions of people with this,but this is how economies get stimulated.

I think we need to row back and realise our only real true wealth is our enviornment not short change fixes on the stock market.

If we have no lush enviornment,we have nothing to work on,the pickings will be worse for those in the future,not to mention more unpredictable weather,and all we can think about is short term gains.

There needs to be an enforced responsiblity on big corporations,governments and companies to address this situation that is spiralling out of control.

We need enviornmental laws to be passed and enforced worldwide,and to limit the fertilitly rate if we are to have any hope for the future.

hungry hippo 4

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Are you sure about that?


http://www.dw.de/polar-ice-sheets-melting-faster-than-ever/a-16432199

Read your own article Noeleen. It clearly states the east Antarctic ice sheet is not melting.

hotbabe1992

Here is a quote by the article i posted earlier..

"Thanks to the accuracy of our data set, we are now able to say with confidence that Antarctica has lost ice for the whole of the past 20 years. In addition to the relative proportions of ice that have been lost in the northern and southern hemispheres, we can also see there's been a definitive acceleration of ice loss in last 20 years.

So together Antarctica and Greenland are now contributing three times as much ice to sea levels as they were 20 years ago," says the Professor of Earth Observation.

According to the study, melting ice from both poles has been responsible for a fifth of the global rise in sea levels since 1992, 11 millimeters in all. The rest was caused by the thermal expansion of the warming ocean, the melting of mountain glaciers, small Arctic ice caps and groundwater mining. The share of the polar ice melt, however, is rising.

hungry hippo 4

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Here is a quote by the article i posted earlier..

Go back and read it!!!

Capt'n Midnight

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

There needs to be an enforced responsiblity on big corporations,governments and companies to address this situation that is spiralling out of control.

We need enviornmental laws to be passed and enforced worldwide,and to limit the fertilitly rate if we are to have any hope for the future.

One American consumes as much as 32 Kenyans.

So why should Kenya have to put up with new environmental laws that allow the rich to go on living as they are ?

You are living on a planet where the richest 300 people have more wealth than the poorest 3 billion. Until you target the 300 the rest of us will feel hard done by. Until you target those 300 the rest of us are subsidising their lifestyle.

hotbabe1992

Im not saying just enforce this on kenyans for example,im saying everybody should take this on board,not just third worlders or developing countries..

I think it would be unfair for someone with 4 cars to say to a person living in a third world country ''right get off yer mophead'',your causing enviornmental damage..

Of course that would be the wrong approach,i completely get what you are saying,and wouldnt dream of being hypocritical like that.

Eoghan Barra

robp wrote: »

For example rampant deforestation for domestic cooking fuel can be reduced by stoves with improved efficiency or perhaps electrification.

Robp, don't you think that deforestation in Africa is often also driven by the desire for farmland though (as well as a variety of other factors)?

That seems to have largely been the case with in Rwanda, for example. Many would also say that the genocide that took place in that country was largely caused by land hunger in an extremely densely populated region, sparking ethnic cleansing as a way to take a neighbour's land.

AngryHippie

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

*yawn*

In most countries when people get richer and women are educated population growth slows right down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

From your own source:

Globally, the population growth rate has been steadily declining from its peak of 2.19% in 1963, but growth remains high in Latin America, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2006, the United Nations stated that the rate of population growth was visibly diminishing due to the ongoing global demographic transition. If this trend continues, the rate of growth may diminish to zero by 2050, concurrent with a world population plateau of 9.2 billion. However, this is only one of many estimates published by the UN; in 2009, UN population projections for 2050 ranged between around 8 billion and 10.5 billion.

I deliberately omit any statements by Jorgen Randers, as he is a member of the board of DOW chemicals, and as such has a massive conflict of interest in making any statement about population, or food supply.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

There is plenty of food for all. The only questions are can people afford it, and the problem of everyone wanting meat instead of staples.

False:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2005-04-01/why-our-food-so-dependent-oil
Robert Newman - The History of Oil...



As for your above statement, The people who can least afford anything, also happen to be the least educated, who also happen to have the highest birthrates. Essentially what you are suggesting is that they will starve themselves back to a population equilibrium.

Nice.;)

djpbarry

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

If they are struggling to feed themselves - is it responsible to go out and have a few children that you simply cannot support?

This is exactly the kind of ignorant, sweeping generalisation I’m talking about.

Who exactly is “they”?

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

I think it would be unfair for someone with 4 cars to say to a person living in a third world country ''right get off yer mophead'',your causing enviornmental damage..

Of course that would be the wrong approach,i completely get what you are saying,and wouldnt dream of being hypocritical like that.

But that’s exactly what you’re doing? You’re telling people in the developing world to stop having kids because you want to continue enjoying the same standard of living.

djpbarry

Greensleeves wrote: »

I don't buy the thesis that as countries get richer/become more educated things will improve all of their own accord.

There’s a pretty strong inverse correlation between fertility rates and GDP.

Greensleeves wrote: »

And of course, just like us, they shop like lunatics. So they need landfill sites but as anyone that has been to India knows, the country is covered in litter because when there are 1 billion people it's not really possible to have proper waste management.

There are three quarters of a billion people in Europe, one of the most densely populated regions on Earth, but we seemed to have mastered waste management (sort of) – why can’t India?

Greensleeves wrote: »

I don't share the view that mobile phones are a sign of hope that all will be well with the world. More people in the world own mobile phones than have access to sanitation.

But telecommunications can help improve sanitation, among other things. Communication aids innovation.

Greensleeves wrote: »

We in the west have unsustainable carbon footprints.

Nail. Head. Those in the developing world aspiring to our lifestyle are not the problem. Our lifestyle is the problem.

djpbarry

AngryHippie wrote: »

From your own source:

Globally, the population growth rate has been steadily declining from its peak of 2.19% in 1963, but growth remains high in Latin America, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Nevertheless, fertility rates are in decline everywhere. In the early 80’s, fertility rates in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa were about 5 and 7 respectively – they’re now about 2.7 and 4.9 and dropping.

AngryHippie wrote: »

False:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2005-04-01/why-our-food-so-dependent-oil
Robert Newman - The History of Oil...

What’s false exactly?

Birdnuts

djpbarry wrote: »

But that’s exactly what you’re doing? You’re telling people in the developing world to stop having kids because you want to continue enjoying the same standard of living.

In alot of cases children are being born due to lack of familiy planning resources and womens rights. Refugee camps across Africa are full of large families who obviously cannot support these extra children

Birdnuts

djpbarry wrote: »

Nevertheless, fertility rates are in decline everywhere. In the early 80’s, fertility rates in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa were about 5 and 7 respectively – they’re now about 2.7 and 4.9 and dropping.

They are still not dropping fast enough in countries like Uganda,Kenya,Egypt etc. that are already severly resource stretched in terms of pressure on land and water supplies. I've been to Kenya several times over the last few years and the landcape is shattered from deforestation and overgrazing. Only in a few National Parks do you see what Kenya used to look like - its quiet depressing actually:(

hotbabe1992

Nail. Head. Those in the developing world aspiring to our lifestyle are not the problem. Our lifestyle is the problem.

You dont see that those who are aspiring to the same lifestyle that many first worlders have - is a problem too???


You must be blind.

But that’s exactly what you’re doing? You’re telling people in the developing world to stop having kids because you want to continue enjoying the same standard of living.

No thats not what im doing,nor have i advocated that,im saying that anywhere in the world where there is an overpopulation problem - it has to be looked at objectively if we are to save our actual enviornment that supplies us with precious resources that are needed for all to survive,if we continue to close our eyes and say overpopulation is not a problem it will peter out in ten years,then you clearly are delusional and/or have an agenda going.

djpbarry

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

You dont see that those who are aspiring to the same lifestyle that many first worlders have - is a problem too???

You know, back in 1973, when Ireland joined the EU, the Irish fertility rate was considerably higher than India's is now.

Aren't we lucky that our more prosperous European neighbours didn't view Ireland's aspirations to better itself as a "problem".

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

No thats not what im doing,nor have i advocated that,im saying that anywhere in the world where there is an overpopulation problem - it has to be looked at objectively if we are to save our actual enviornment that supplies us with precious resources that are needed for all to survive...

So overpopulation is not a global problem now, but is specific to particular regions? I'm guessing none of those regions happen to be in Europe?

AngryHippie

djpbarry wrote: »

What’s false exactly?

There is plenty of food for all.

At present population, there is just about enough

The only questions are can people afford it

At present, No, and the poverty gap is widening.

and the problem of everyone wanting meat instead of staples.

A problem that will never be solved in a free market economy.

Particularly when you expect industrialized farming systems to produce food cheap enough for the poorest people in the world. Economically its of more benefit to them to produce fodder for livestock.

As I was trying to point out, if there was a single policy for control of land resources and food production worldwide, then there may be enough resources to produce for food for 10 or 12 or maybe even 20 Billion people, but when 10% of the population have control of 90% of the capital, that will never happen. To suggest otherwise is naive.

Farmers will try and achieve maximum economic output from their land.

Whether that is fodder, staples or flowers, is dictated by effective demand.

Eoghan Barra

AngryHippie wrote: »

As I was trying to point out, if there was a single policy for control of land resources and food production worldwide, then there may be enough resources to produce for food for 10 or 12 or maybe even 20 Billion people...

The problem with this scenario is that it would require using even more of the planet's land surface for food production (currently about 40%), leaving little or nothing for the rest of the planet's inhabitants. Indeed at present we're heading in that direction pretty rapidly.

(That's not to say I don't agree with Angryhippie's post: I do.)

djpbarry

AngryHippie wrote: »

A problem that will never be solved in a free market economy.

Removing/reducing CAP subsidies for beef production (for example) would have a pretty significant impact.

Eoghan Barra wrote: »

The problem with this scenario is that it would require using even more of the planet's land surface for food production (currently about 40%)...

I read it’s about 33%, but the vast majority of that is pasture.

hotbabe1992

So overpopulation is not a global problem now

I do believe there is a lot of people in the uk i think in 2012 it was 63.3 million and thats not counting the people that didnt bother to fill out their census or were illegals in the uk,so thats not a true accurate figure.

There are more people in india though and to close your eyes to the population explosion there is a little ignorant..

I think we do have an overpopulation problem on the whole in a lot of countries across the world.

But we do have to look to the countries with the highest fertility rates,and the forests like brazil which are being destroyed at an alarming rate to not look at these things is stupid i think.

We have to look to these problems in order to tackle them and try to solve them,there is no point on saying to the people of ireland for example ''right sort your sh*t out'' and let every other country off the hook..It just to me doesn't make any sense..

djpbarry

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

But we do have to look to the countries with the highest fertility rates,and the forests like brazil which are being destroyed at an alarming rate to not look at these things is stupid i think.

Ok, so what's your solution to these problems?

hotbabe1992

Do more to ensure they dont have more children,to make them see the ridiculousness of having more children in an enviornment where overfarming has given way to famine..Also educate them about the importance of the enviornment and how we are walking a tightrope right now.I suppose an obvious one,and one thats being done at the moment,but not compulsory is to make education compulsory that will ensure no child should go without an education.
Make it part of the law that children have to be educated othewise there will be penatlies.Like they do on our countries.

djpbarry

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Do more to ensure they dont have more children,to make them see the ridiculousness of having more children in an enviornment where overfarming has given way to famine.

Where are we talking about now? You were referring to Brazil a moment ago?

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Also educate them about the importance of the enviornment and how we are walking a tightrope right now.

You want to fly out to some developing country and tell them to stop damaging their environment? You're kidding, right?

Eoghan Barra

Originally posted by Eoghan Barra
The problem with this scenario is that it would require using even more of the planet's land surface for food production (currently about 40%)

djpbarry wrote: »

I read it’s about 33%, but the vast majority of that is pasture.

I had heard that it was around 40% in a talk given by conservationist Chris Packham:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po1Q4wTM9A8

Actually it's probably not an easy one to quantify precisely, as in reality almost the entire land surface of the planet is already used by people to one degree or another - even, for example, dense tropical forest (hunting/gathering/diffused forms of cultivation etc.). So at what point do you draw the line between 'wilderness' and land used primarily for production of food?

Sanderson and others have classified up to 83% of the global terrestrial biosphere as being under direct human influence, based on geographic proxies such as human population density, settlements, roads, agriculture and the like...

http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/153031/

In any event, those areas that are very clearly in agricultural use - regardless of whether it's in crop cultivation or pasture - are generally used pretty exclusively for our benefit. How much biodiversity, for example, will you find in an Irish pasture field of Italian rye grass, subjected to regular reseeding and chemicals in the form of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, etc? Close to zero.

Much of the world's land surface is unsuitable for agriculture in any real sense (deserts, Antartica etc.). So probably a more meaningful way of understanding how much of the planet's capacity to 'grow stuff' we have appropriated for ourselves at the expense of other species is to think in terms of NPP - net primary production.

On land, one species, Homo sapiens, commands about 40% of the total terrestrial NPP. This has probably never occurred before in earth's history. Human "carrying capacity" on earth is hard to estimate, because it depends upon affluence of a population and the technology supporting that population. But at present levels of affluence and technology, a population 50 to 100% larger than we have today would push our use of terrestrial NPP to well over 50% of the available production, and the attending degradation of ecosystems on earth (e.g., air and water pollution) would be of major concern.

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/food_supply/food.htm#intro

Increases in food production, per hectare of land, have not kept pace with increases in population, and the planet has virtually no more arable land or fresh water to spare. As a result, per-capita cropland has fallen by more than half since 1960, and per-capita production of grains, the basic food, has been falling worldwide for 20 years.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/554

Capt'n Midnight

Depending on who you believe roughly 1/4 of the worlds food is lost through spoilage. So plenty of scope to feed more people without having to produce more.

most Kenyans don't have mopeds. You can get bicycle taxi's there, and that's not even an option if you are earning a euro a day.

not only do you have a carbon footprint but you probably have a human rights one too. We export waste to China where it's rubber stamped as recycled. e-waste is shipped to countries that haven't banned it yet. Foxconn have nets around their factories.

We hover up fish and displace tens of thousands of jobs and then sell the fish back extracting more money out of their economy.

5p9arw38djv2b4

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Do more to ensure they dont have more children,to make them see the ridiculousness of having more children in an enviornment where overfarming has given way to famine..Also educate them about the importance of the enviornment and how we are walking a tightrope right now.I suppose an obvious one,and one thats being done at the moment,but not compulsory is to make education compulsory that will ensure no child should go without an education.
Make it part of the law that children have to be educated othewise there will be penatlies.Like they do on our countries.

That is incredibly idealistic when you look at the poverty a lot of these families live in. A lot of the time where primary education is free families cannot afford books and meals and transport to school, or often as these teachers as so badly paid there is huge teacher absenteeism in the free schools - quite often teachers don't show, and don't lose their jobs for it as no one wants to teach for the terrible wages. And education is often a luxury for these families when their children could be contributing to the family pot in numerous ways - farming, sorting rice, herding cattle, minding the younger children, working as child prostitutes, sorting rubbish or scrap to sell etc. It is not right, but it is the reality so making education compulsory does tnot solve that problem, and educating them about the environment when they live day to day to get enough to eat is unlikely to have an impact. In a lot of ways environmental concerns only enter people's perspectives after all basic needs are fulfilled.

hotbabe1992

Put laws in place for these rubbish dumps and crackdown on prositution,rome wasnt built in a day,it is worth paving out a future for them no matter how hard and how many sacrifices have to be made to achieve this goal.