Global Human Overpopulation. (1 Viewer)

[dieburndie]

This came up in the Abortion thread and deserves a thread of it's own.

What should be done to solve overpopulation?
Can it be solved at this stage, or it it too late to do anything about it?
Does the scale of overpopulation suggest that compulsary measures should be taken?

Some Links:
World Population Awareness
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
The Church of Euthanasia
Overpopulation.com

 

[Captain Gh3y]

http://dieoff.org/ has a lot of information on this topic.

What a lot of people seem to choose not to acknowledge though is that we are (as in our society and ourselves and everything we do) fossil fuels.

If you look at a graph of human population vs time, the population was pretty much steady at a few hundred million with an extremely slow rate of increase all the way from the stone age to the end of the middle ages, then there's a j-shaped curve at the industrial revolution to the present. It looks something like this.

So really all we've done is dug up a bunch of carbon and turned it into people and economies and societies. Once we can't dig up carbon anymore, the population may well return to its old levels. In fact it will probably be even lower due to certain areas being made less able to sustain life by pollution created during the high population years. Really things like climate change are non-issues compared to this, in terms of human suffering to come.

A million years from now the graph of human population and indeed wealth against time will look like a tiny spike on a long flat horizontal line.

The only alternative possibility is if we can get fusion energy (not likely) or widescale nuclear warfare makes us extinct.

 

[iamsickofyear12]

Eventually there will be another pandemic or world war and enough people will be wiped out to bring the population back down a little bit.

If not we would have to nuke China and India since its mainly their fault because between them they make up 1/3 of the worlds population.

 

[Sparcod]

As for over population, some countries such as Japan and in Europe, they NEED population growth due to the low birth rates and ageing population, otherwise their economies are in crisis.

Eventually there will be another pandemic or world war and enough people will be wiped out to bring the population back down a little bit.

If not we would have to nuke China and India since its mainly their fault because between them they make up 1/3 of the worlds population.

These countires have actually worked the hardest to reduce population growth by subsidising birth control and health costs for those with one-child.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

he human race has royally fucked itself, and our planet. Massive and widespread plagues - much like the bubonic plague - may kill millions and slow "overpopulation" but undertaking these measures are inhumane, illegal, dangerous and out of the question.

The planet will be fine, we're the only ones that are going anywhere.

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One of the best things to help with this will be acceptance of GM foods. The other solution is Soylent Green - F'real.

 

[banco55]

As for over population, some countries such as Japan and in Europe, they NEED population growth due to the low birth rates and ageing population, otherwise their economies are in crisis.


These countires have actually worked the hardest to reduce population growth by subsidising birth control and health costs for those with one-child.

Yep it there isn't global overpopulation so much as overpopulation in developing countries.

 

[HotShot]

We need to hunt humans...especially the fertile ones...

 

[Some_Guy]

looks like we need more gay people.
​

 

[_dhj_]

Yep it there isn't global overpopulation so much as overpopulation in developing countries.

Well not really, since developing countries consume less resources per capita. Overpopulation per se is not the problem - it's the amount of resources the population consume.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

The difference in food consumption isn't that big though, so developing nations still need a massive amount of arable land.

According to wikipedia there's also now more overweight people than starving people in the world.

 

[tlodg]

Not trying to imply anything here but
I don't think the world population will keep on multiplying.......acceleratedly

it all comes to:
survival of the fittest

can you defeat "natural disasters" when they come?
by that I don't mean just earthquakes.

 

[Serius]

we are in the middle of a malthusian catastrophe as we speak, so it doesnt matter much anyways. Everyone will start dieing at an accelerated rate until the worlds pop stops at something sustainable... the biggest worry is the irreversable loss of farmable land. Makes me think that the new equilibrium will be much lower than the few hundred mill it used to be.

 

[PaleReflection]

And its proven ineffective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_child_policy#Achievement

Oh, ok then.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

It has worked because China's fertility rate is 1.7 while India has 2.7.

 

[Bendent]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_child_policy#Achievement

Oh, ok then.

i can't believe china's gender ratio (male to female) is 117:100...

 

[iamsickofyear12]

These countires have actually worked the hardest to reduce population growth by subsidising birth control and health costs for those with one-child.

That's because they have had to. They are the countries that have caused the problem. Other countries like Australia for example shouldn't have to work to reduce population growth because they don't have such a population problem.

According to wikipedia there's also now more overweight people than starving people in the world.

That is true. The amount of people that overeat is higher than the amount of people that don't have enough food.

 

[wuddie]

iamsickofyear12 - mate you have no idea what you're talking about. with all respect

firstly, overpopulation is a global problem, not the problem of individual countries. frankly, i doubt china would care very much if the problem of overpopulation is up to them. the economy works in a way that each generation has to have a greater population than the last. australia doesn't have that, hence we have an ageing population and that's why we have a skill shortage and as a consequence, we need to import skilled labour. if australian isnt so stingy with its immigration policies, we can import more chinese/indian workers over here to work for us, then we wouldnt have people complaining about labour market reform everyday and it'll ease the problem of the overpopulation in china.

"Other countries like Australia for example shouldn't have to work to reduce population growth because they don't have such a population problem"

if china and india are sweating their asses off trying to adopt one child policies, and australian are having the time of their lives screwing and making babies, dont you think its counter acting the effort of the one child policy? every country in the world has to contribute to reducing population, if overpopulation is a problem.

a similar example is the production of greenhouse gases, theres no doubt australia contribute to a great proportion of it, yet australia hasnt even signed the kyoto protocol. so you're saying, other countries like ethiopia which doesnt contribute as much, should do nothing about reducing the greenhouse gases? you're just wrong.

 

[Nesty]

start ww3

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Australia produce less than 2% of the world's co2 emissions and if Australia bodily vanished from the globe the net difference in global temperature according to the latest models would be a few thousandths of a degree over the next century. That's not counting all the sweet, sweet coal we have that other countries will burn, though.

Of course if we sign Kyoto they'll still burn it, the only difference is we have to give millions to some tin-pot dictator somewhere so greenies feel better about it.

Population is much the same, the practical solution is to nuke China and India while enslaving enough of their peasants to continue to produce our products.

 

[Gurlpower]

most western countries are on the decline.

its the arab world and the scummy parts of africa that are treproducing at arapid rate.