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So today there is now officially over 8 billion people alive on our little blue planet

  • 15-11-2022 12:48am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 14,413 ✭✭✭✭AMKC
    Miss


    Yes that's right. Right here on Earth there is now over 8 billion of us.

    It took a Century for the population to double from 1 billion to 2 billion between 1800 to 1900 but since then it has gradually increased in speed. We now have an extra 1 billion people on the planet in about or just over every decade.

    It's estimated we will reach 9 billion by 2037 and 10 billion by 2050.

    How sustainable do you think this is?

    I think we really need to be leaving this little blue ball we call home and going to other planets.

    We are already using more resources than the Earth can produce every year now.

    That's like making on income of 40 thosand a year but spending 60k every year. How long do you think that would last before your bankrupt?

    That's what we are doing with the Earth.

    Live long and Prosper

    Peace and long life.

    Post edited by AMKC on


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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 5,273 ✭✭✭xxxxxxl




  • Registered Users Posts: 22,755 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    That's like making on income of 40 thosand a year but spending 60k every year. How long do you think that would last before your bankrupt? 

    That's what we are doing with the Earth.


    No it’s not, you’re using an average to make your point, and ignoring the fact that everyone isn’t using an equal amount of resources - some people consume more resources, other people consume less. You’d hardly argue that people who are wealthy consume equal resources as those people who live in poverty?

    That’s why your analogy doesn’t hold - people on incomes much less than €40k consume far less resources than people on €40k, and the people on €40k have access to a far greater amount of resources than the people who are on much less than €40k.

    How sustainable is it? It’s the very basis of the economic prosperity - people don’t generally care whether or not it’s sustainable so long as they continue to benefit from it, it’s not as though they have to live in countries where the population has increased significantly in the last couple of decades and Governments have taken no steps to harness the potential economic benefits of their greatest resources, that being their young population, by investing in areas like education and healthcare -

    https://theconversation.com/amp/nigerias-large-youthful-population-could-be-an-asset-or-a-burden-186574


    That’s where the whole argument of the idea that the “single greatest impact anyone can make in terms of global environmental sustainability is having one less child”, tends to fall apart, because while all children are at least created equal, they aren’t all born into equal circumstances, and they don’t all consume equal resources or contribute to economic instability or sustainability, in the same manner.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,670 ✭✭✭Mr. teddywinkles


    Deleted



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,778 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    Nope. The world is able to sustain many, many times more humans.

    The problem is not the number of us, it's the lack of us.

    The disaster starts the moment the global population starts declining.

    Every year less and less women of reproductive age, less young people, less innovation, less production and it's precipitous and year after year it will be exponentially faster and faster decline.

    It's the end of human civilization and it can happen in the space of a single human lifespan.

    I'm hardly the only person saying this. More and more scientists and policy makers are saying that we on the edge of a demographic collapse.

    It's happening in China already.



  • Posts: 2,078 ✭✭✭ Lisa Large Meteorology


    It will never reach 9 billion. Births are at or below replacement rates everywhere ( including China and India) except a few Central African countries and outliers like Mongolia - and the trend is downwards.

    Once girls are in school past 14 it's game over.

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,446 ✭✭✭Jim_Hodge


    Yet more anti immigrant ranting. It doesn't change how many are on the planet. Topics drift so quickly these days.....



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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,870 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I took a screenshot at 07:59:59 this morning:


    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,000 ✭✭✭Ficheall


    And if human civilisation does end? Wouldn't be the end of the world, so to speak.



  • Registered Users Posts: 20,236 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    As poorer countries become richer their population declines and their drain on resources expands exponentially.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,476 ✭✭✭RobbieTheRobber


    If resources and wealth were more equally shared across the human population it would not present as great an issue as currently.

    RobbieTheRobber Threadbanned



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,984 ✭✭✭SuperBowserWorld


    People on here wanting a huge world population want more people so their house prices can increase, so that there is someone to pay their pension, so that there are more people to do the **** jobs they think they are above doing.

    They actually couldn't give a damn about the conditions people have to live in, or clean air, water, soil, free time, low stress , low noise environments.

    They couldn't care about other life on earth.

    Countries with tiny populations have created huge advancements. Everything we now have. AI can supplement this. Or maybe even take over. 🤣

    And if guys are worried about women not wanting to be baby farms ... who knows maybe a scientific breakthrough will allow guys to have babies. 🤣

    Edit

    Just getting **** off my chest.

    Don't hate me 🤪😂😜

    Post edited by SuperBowserWorld on


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,870 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    Well, there are plenty of reasons why that is just wishful thinking and never going to happen today. What happens to the cost of food when you have to ship it many thousands of miles, from where it is produced to where it's needed? (Leave out the environmental impact of shipping for the moment.) Who absorbs that cost? "The West"?

    It's not the first time I've seen this idealistic "redistribute the food" talk. But nothing happens, or will happen, without money being involved, and expecting one part of the world to perenially subsidise other parts of the world is problematic. A lot of aid (money and goods) already flows from "the West" to other parts of the world, but if the global situation deteriorates further (war, climate change, energy shortages), that aid is likely to decrease, not increase.

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,984 ✭✭✭SuperBowserWorld


    I think we need more humans to invent more ways of exploiting each other and the planet.

    We've been building pyramid schemes since ... well since the pyramids 😂😂😂



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  • Registered Users Posts: 20,170 ✭✭✭✭ELM327


    This is exponential growth. If every 2 humans have 3 kids then the population goes up 1.5X in 15-25 years.



  • Registered Users Posts: 827 ✭✭✭farmingquestion


    All this talk of climate this, climate that, but I never hear Eamon Ryan and co talk about how there's too many people in the world.

    World population reached 7bn in 2011. From a climate change perspective, our emissions were too high in 2011. Let's just call it for simplicity sake 7bn emission units per year.

    Fast forward to today. We are now at 8bn people. So we're now emitting 8bn emission units per year.

    So today we introduce measures to reduce our emissions. We wake up and we're now emitting 12.5% less per person than we did 11 years ago.

    That brings us back to 7bn emission units per year which is where we were at 11 years ago, which is beyond what is acceptable.

    So how are we supposed to cut back on emissions when population keeps going up? More people exiting poverty and becoming consumers.

    Talking about per capita is pointless. The climate doesn't care about per capita, it cares about absolute emissions.

    The same people, from what I see, saying we need to reduce climate change, emissions etc. are the same people who say we need more people to pay pensions in future.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,896 ✭✭✭tom1ie


    What you fail to mention, op, is that the worlds population is to peak in the 2080’s at 10 billion and then plateau.

    We now have the lowest growth rate since the 1950’s.





  • i think youre missing something here,


    something about what happens everyone once, the opposite of birth, etc



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 35,019 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



  • Registered Users Posts: 20,170 ✭✭✭✭ELM327


    Net growth. 3 net kids then. That's what's happening. Otherwise the population increase of 300-400% in the last hundred years wouldnt have happened



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,896 ✭✭✭tom1ie


    If resources and wealth were more equally shared across the population what would that do to the birth rates?

    It seems as though as countries get richer they stop producing children in such high numbers.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 35,019 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    You're basing this on fallacious logic. Several countries like Japan and Germany have serious population crashes on the way.

    The previous century is irrelevant. Baby boomers have hoarded wealth to the point where many people who want children can't have them.

    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,476 ✭✭✭RobbieTheRobber


    Is the increase in wealth a correlation or causation for the lowering birth rates.

    IMO lowering birth rates in economically advanced countries is multi faced, but I do not believe more equitably distributing the planets wealth and resources would on its own negatively affect birth rates further.

    RobbieTheRobber Threadbanned



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