We're a civilization built on sand. Yet another manifestation of excessive numbers discussed in this eye-opening piece. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/27/sand-mining-global-environmental-crisis-never-heard
I don't understand why we can't crush the Sahara sand into more jagged pieces. Sure it's a bit harder than just scooping it up, but it shouldn't be that hard.
Overpopulation isn't a real thing. Overconsumption of resources is. Overpopulation is just a way for Westerners to shift the blame over to poor darker skinned people.
Interestingly enough. Much of the link focuses on China. Which has probably done more than any other nation to radically reduce its rate of population growth. It seems to me to take all the linked material at face value the problem is not "overpopulation" but "over urbanization".
When I saw that pic I thought Nono had discovered Noah's Ark! What a bait-and-switch. Anyway it is pretty damned depressing. We as a species are too smart for our own good sometimes. We are too successful for our own good.
I beg to differ. Over-consumption is inevitable as the numbers rise ever higher. Anyone who thinks that there's some non-over-consuming way to accommodate the out-of-control population growth must also believe in Santa Claus. Yes, Westerners are mighty pissed off that our cosy little club of prosperity is being encroached on by darker-skinned people. But you take this injustice and turn it into an absurd claim that the Elephant in the Living Room actually doesn't exist --- sorta a social construct or sumthin. Well sorry, Doc, but that claim can only arise from some demographic acid trip you're on. At what point would you begin to say Hey, maybe enough people already? 15 billion? 150 billion? Would you still be saying There's no such thing.? Cutting consumption is an urgent necessity. But human nature -- formed by evolution -- is naturally acquisitive. When we have the means, we acquire more and more --- wayyy more than we need. When I was a kid, North Americans consumed 700 more energy per capita than did the Chinese. Was that because the Chinese were somehow more virtuous? No, it was because they didn't have the means. And now they do. You need to do some industrial-strength extrapolation, Doc.
Exactly. We're technically clever. But very unwise about our best interests over the long term. (By the way, fella, since I've been rapped over the knuckles for sending up my own thread titles, here's a suggestion: Swiss-made Watch. Or Midnight Watch.)
Human is also to reproduce and live. Nono, you keep bringing up overpopulation. How do you suggest dealing with it?
You're implying that if Westerners stopped consuming so much, there would be more for poor brown people to consume. But that's not how the economy works. Lower consumption would lead to lower production; prices would remain the same; poor folks would still be deprived. So ya, those poor brown folk do need to have fewer babies and grow their economies to increase their purchasing power.
"Any trend extrapolated indefinitely leads to catastrophe." - Thomas Sowell Several effects work to negate the catastrophe: 1. As resources become more scarce, they become more expensive, which leads to economies shifting away from them. For example, we're never going to run out of oil; at some point alternatives will become more attractive, either because the cost of extracting oil from ever more difficult places will drive up its cost, or steady development of alternatives will make them more competetive. 2. People in wealthier societies tend to have fewer children because children are less needed for labor and they're expensive. They also have much lower mortality, so "spares" to ensure the family line are not needed. This tends to curtail population growth, as we're seeing now in the West. 3. Unlike bacteria in a Petri dish, human beings can see warning signs of impending resource depletion and undertake action to avoid it. I'm not saying there are no causes for concern, but this "we're fucked and the world's going to hell" stuff is nonsense.
According to the World Population Clock, every 5 seconds or so China adds another person, but meanwhile India adds three. All the bad guys in 1944, Germany Japan and Russia, are still dying, but that's no consolation. And anyway they don't tick the national headcount down at the same rate that China and India tick upward. And the German backwards pop growth has slowed, purposely, by Merkel trying to import new bodies instead of relying on the excess of new german babies over deaths. Most of the rest of the 'top 20' are growing pretty fast, like there's a prize or something. In terms of freedoms, opportunities and wealth, the US is still by far the best country on that list.
in our lifetime, the world's population has more than doubled. in the last 120 years, it's increased almost eightfold. The only way we can continue to spread like this is to turn the planet into Coruscant-which notably had no wild plants or animals left on it.
They probably had zoos and other habitats. And as I asked Nono (and got no reply) what would you suggest as a "solution" to the population problem? Nuclear war?
Nothing so drastic and there isn't a blanket solution as competing cultures contribute to the problem differently. In general, we could be promoting negative population growth through birth control and discouraging multiple child families... essentially normalize two people/one offspring. Not as law, as we've seen how poorly that worked in China, but as a human responsibility.
The chart that's not shown is the rate at which individual countries' birthrates are falling. The countries that are growing fastest are also slowing fastest. The UN says we'll never see 12 billion. It's possible we never see 11. Personally I think there's an outside chance we never see 10. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth
1. There's nothing that says we'll continue to grow like we have, and plenty of indications the opposite will happen. See @Order2Chaos's post. 2. If it were necessary to do so, the Earth could support many, many more people. Not necessarily at our western lifestyle, but it could do it. We wouldn't end up like...
What about people who like having big families? I like children. My wife and I always wanted three at least.
In mine, tripled. I certainly hope so. Indeed, a few of us may --- extremely briefy --- see near-zero. The problem is that even 7+ billion is already wayyyyyy too much. Anyway, I'm not worried. In the Gaia view of things, the planet is working like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest to get rid of us. I doubt it will take long.
Barring something truly catastrophic, that's unlikely. If for some reason we suddenly found ourselves in a 7-billion-people-but-only-enough-food-for-3-billion situation, that would sort itself out pretty quick. Not really. The vast majority of those have adequate food, water, and shelter. We're pretty resilient. Even if we got a Walking Dead scenario, and only 1% of us survived, human civilization would climb back up in a few centuries.
We as a species won't have to do shit - nature doesn't play! It will take care of us one way or another - a disease we have no resistance to, a comet knocking us back to the stone age, aliens invading, etc.etc.etc. No species is exempt from eventual extinction or assimilation.
addressed already with "discouraging multiple child families... essentially normalize two people/one offspring. Not as law, as we've seen how poorly that worked in China, but as a human responsibility.". You want more than one? Adopt. Plenty of children in an overpopulated world needing a home to grow up in.
We are getting to where we turn over a generation every forty years. The third world is still into child brides and polygamy. The middle class of India numbers about 300million, which is slightly under the ENTIRE population of the United States. If in India, they marry at 18, they will turn over five generations in 90, resulting in 10 new persons per line at ZPG or two kids per couple. If we have 3 kids per couple, we've still made only 9 kids per line in 120 years. This is not an indictment of the brown people, because our RED states follow the same dynamic or do you think the damned Duggars are brown?
By what standard? Is there not enough food for 7 billion people? Not enough oxygen? Have some countries become standing room only due to the sheer lack of space?
Do you know how hideously expensive and difficult it is to adopt children in the United States? And international adoptions have their own problems.
As long as we are still doing food for profit, there will be hungry people. If you can make a profit from clean air, that will also be a premium.
Without producing food for profit there would be but a fraction of the food produced annually. We saw how a "not for profit" agricultural sector "worked" in the Soviet Union.
And of those who don't, the problem usually has nothing to do with the world's ability to produce enough food -- it's economic, political, or transportation-related.
