Human overpopulation is problem

steddyeddy · 26-11-2014 01:53AM #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 01:55AM

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 01:58AM

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 01:58AM

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 02:00AM

batman will save us all.

kneemos · 26-11-2014 02:01AM

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 02:03AM

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 02:03AM

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 02:04AM

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 02:05AM

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 02:05AM

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 02:07AM

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 02:08AM

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 02:09AM

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 02:09AM

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 02:10AM

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 02:11AM

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 02:14AM

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 02:16AM

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 02:17AM

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 02:17AM

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 02:29AM

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 02:38AM

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 02:38AM

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 02:40AM

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 02:41AM

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 02:43AM

Worth checking these fellas out..

http://www.populationmatters.org/

Turtwig · 26-11-2014 02:47AM

^^^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 02:49AM

People should stop procreating.

KomradeBishop · 26-11-2014 02:50AM

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 02:54AM

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.

Human overpopulation is problem

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