Overpopulation?

[smartacle]

As you know, the Earth is growing at a steadyfast rate. The more vaccines and cures we discover means that the death rate of the world is declining.Eventually the problem will be that the birth rate of the world by a wide margin outweigh the death rate. My question is: Do you think we'll have enough societies,homes,job,food to support such a big population? How do you think we should solve it? (and I don't mean killing or limiting births) Also, what about the enviroment? Do you think we can handle trying to preserve the enviroment and preserving society?

Edited August 7, 2010 by smartacle

[Mr Skeptic]

My solution is for all of us to become rich and lazy (wealthy people tend to have less children).

[jimmydasaint]

This is a personal opinion until I find some supporting articles. Birth rate is high in poorer countries, which tend to have agrarian cultures. Infant mortality rates are also high due to diseases. Therefore a farmer wishing to pass on his small holding to his descendants wishes to pass it on to sons, and to increase the chances of survival, tries for many sons to succeed him. This is a horrible over simplification but an opinion at present.

 

How do we control populations? I would think that we have to put major funds into improving the wealth and healthcare of poorer nations so that they will need to have fewer children in order to continue to make a life for themselves.

 

But...if the population continues to grow, then IMO it may be necessary to reclaim vast areas of desert areas using mineral oil to hold the soil together and by the planting of drought-resistant seeds. And then to move people there to farm their own small 'terraces' in order to feed themselves.

 

Or, we continue to use up most of the world's resources ourselves and sod the rest of the world! Somehow, I think we will assuage our consciences with rock concerts, one-off days for collecting money and then forget the rest of the world for the rest of the year.

Edited August 8, 2010 by jimmydasaint

[smartacle]

Yes jimmy you do have a point to start going green, instuting healthcare in the poorer nations, and get people to feed themselves,and I agree. It however will probably give also the opposite reaction. When the people can take care of themselves and have proper care, they live longer. For example, in China they regulate how many children you can have, but as a resort, the population has aged tremendously, the boy-girl ratio is off-scale, and on top of that their population is still sky-rocketing. IMO I think we need to focuse on finding more space and land, inventing a way to lift off the poorer countries off of their knees, and preserving the enviroment and animals.

[CaptainPanic]

Personally, I think it's already too late. I see no solution at all. The world's population is too large, and the average wealth and level of education too low.

We can solve the energy crisis, but the biggest problem of all, over-population, has no solution.

 

There are several problems:

 

Birth control through achieving a certain level of wealth: won't work

Resources

Nearly 7 billion people... if we want to raise the standard of living of the majority of those people to the "western" level, then the earth is too small: not enough resources, land surface.

 

Time

It has taken us decades, or even centuries to raise our own prosperity to a level it is now. I'm not sure we have that amount of time.

 

Cheap labor

Bear in mind that we achieved our own "western" wealth using all those poor countries for cheap labor, producing goods at a price that we'd never achieve if we did it ourselves. Raising the wealth of poor countries to something similar as ourselves will have to be done without the use of cheap labor.

 

Noble as all your thoughts and intentions may be, there is no way, I repeat: no way, that we can ever hope to raise the standard of living in all the poor countries to our within a few decades. The process may take centuries, before which the population will have reduced itself in different ways: famine, war, disasters... or worse: it's grown up to 20 billion or something, wild nature ceased to exist, and we're all searching for scraps in the dust.

 

No guarantee it even works

Also, history may have taught us that wealth and birth-rate seem related... but that's no law. It may turn out quite different in other cultures.

 

Economic model

The current economic models reward those who are able to use cheap labor, and does not actually reward the labourers. Within the rich countries, unions may protect the workers... nobody protects the cheap labor in poor countries. We haven't even been able to stop child labor.

 

Motivation in Western culture

Western countries are even struggling to keep the population of Pakistan alive. Those people lost everything... and we can't even provide some simple tents and a pot of rice to eat.

 

Point is: most people don't care. We'd rather sit in a comfy house, drink our coffee, and not give up anything.

 

Other issues

Politics and religion

It's political suicide, and goes against several large religions to even discuss birth control. Many of the world's leaders will never even discuss it, let alone solve it.

 

Growth, growth, growth

But the worst is: the growth hasn't stopped at all. We can help as much as we want, but even with Western aid, poor countries struggle to keep their standard of living the same it was. The world is no nearer to a solution to over-population than 30 years ago. With a population growth of 2% per year, the entire economy of a country must grow by 2% per year just to keep the wealth per capita constant.

Edited September 3, 2010 by CaptainPanic

[Greenfaerie]

Let's hope the Kepler Mission finds something soon.

[Dan6541]

I read an article in a newspaper recently about this.

 

Basically it was arguing that with the mass migration to cities, the world's human population with stop growing. It said by 2050, the vast majority of people will live in cities, and farming will be taken over by big companies with the help of new technologies. It's main argument was that farmers (particularly poor farmers) have way more babies than people in cities.

 

Oh, and it also said that by then there will be 9 billion people in the world.

Edited September 4, 2010 by Dan6541

[Mr Skeptic]

Personally, I think it's already too late. I see no solution at all.

...

 

Hey, you just broke my rose-tinted glasses! Now I'll have to go get a new pair.

[StringJunky]

Hey, you just broke my rose-tinted glasses! Now I'll have to go get a new pair.

 

Collectively, not having the will or the wit to surmount the many ethical dilemmas that get in the way of finding a solution all we can do is wear them and let the Earth System and Nature make the 'decisions' for us.

[Maximus Semprus Veridius]

Let's hope the Kepler Mission finds something soon.

 

LOL! Yeah to PANDORA!

 

But seriously I think birth control COULD be a viable option if we can "equalise" wealth through out the world first. Equalise is probably (definately) the wrong word though. It may be a harsh solution but ultimately I don't see things getting better very soon so drastic action should be taken in the near future, we are already using up rainforest at a stupid rate, for Darwin's sake!

[CaptainPanic]

LOL! Yeah to PANDORA!

 

But seriously I think birth control COULD be a viable option if we can "equalise" wealth through out the world first. Equalise is probably (definately) the wrong word though. It may be a harsh solution but ultimately I don't see things getting better very soon so drastic action should be taken in the near future, we are already using up rainforest at a stupid rate, for Darwin's sake!

So, will you be the one to tell the entire Western world to give up their wealth?

Because, to make it all equal, the Western countries must work for the poor countries for a long time - meaning almost everything we produce must go to poor countries, and they won't pay much for it. We'll have no new cars, no improvements to our houses, not even maintenance, no new kitchen, and even less soap to clean the place. Our diet will include much less meat. Our infrastructure will age, and we cannot maintain or improve it. We won't have any new electronics for a decade. And we still work our ass off.

 

And everything made in the poor countries will stay in the poor countries, or we must buy it at a very high price. That means very little coffee. Other types of food we're used to will become expensive. Food in general will become much more expensive. Energy will be very expensive, and we must reduce our consumption of it drastically.

 

If you think that such a plan has any chance for success, then I'd like to hear how you are planning to bring the message to the masses. Last time I checked, we live in a democracy - that's a system where we will vote for anyone who promises us wealth and prosperity. And in case you lived under a rock the last decade or two, I must inform you that people still don't care about Africa, people are still selfish, and nobody seems to care about global problems.