is the population bomb real

Goshin said:

Your poll choices exhibit clear bias, and the options are less than optimal.

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I admit I am profoundly bias on this subject but I thought my poll choices covered the spectrum. What choice would you have given? Really I'm curious.

JWhite said:

Neomalthusian: "I think that our economic expectations have become so reliant on (I might even say addicted to) growth, that any set of policies which neglects the need for growth and brings us back to sustainability would a) bring about massive economic pain and drop in our living standards, and b) therefore be utter political suicide.

In other words, our economic expectations consistently override any need for sustainability. Implementing sustainable policies may indeed be economically irrational in the immediate term, but an economic imperative in the long term. Seems nearly everyone figures we're going to collapse, yet won't give up their stance on so many government expenditures and requirements for "full employment" and jobs bills and extending welfare programs and benefits and entitling people to health care. We're essentially arguing over room service as the ship sinks (and we admit it's sinking)."

Interesting Thread, suprised it wasn't commented on further. I stole your last point from it to discuss growth further here. I think my first concern would be to caution people not to consider growth and sustainability as mutually exclusive. It doesn't make practical sense to argue this point out to an infinite timeline. The relevant issue is can we get growth and sustainability that doesn't lead to the parabolic consumption of resources that is addressed as the tipping point. The other thing to consider is that not all economic growth comes at the cost of increased consumption. Efficiencies are a major source of economic progress. Air Quality is better now, even with more cars on the road, then it was 20 years ago. One could even argue that economic progress in this area benefited sustainability.

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I think you are right on this. Our economic system absolutely requires growth. I am at heart a capitalist but I often wonder how long this can go on. Earlier I compared us to a cancer that grows uncontrollably until it kills the host organism and sadly I think if we can't tweak our economic system to not rely on growth that is exactly what we are and what we will do.

sawyerloggingon said:

I think you are right on this. Our economic system absolutely requires growth. I am at heart a capitalist but I often wonder how long this can go on. Earlier I compared us to a cancer that grows uncontrollably until it kills the host organism and sadly I think if we can't tweak our economic system to not rely on growth that is exactly what we are and what we will do.

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I think the requirement for growth is based, at least in part, on the fact that our population keeps growing. In the US and maybe Canada, our population is growing due to immigration. Without immigration we would be like Japan and many Western European countries and have negative population growth.

Part of the "need" for growth is based upon the very human fact that most people want more, aka, they are greedy. This is not only the rich or corporations, but almost everyone. In the US, Canada, Japan and most of Western Europe, we do not have a problem with meeting basic needs, unlike much of the rest of the world. We want more because we want it, not need it.

Most of the worlds population growth is in poor, un-modernized nations. Most of these nations have one of three factors in common, closed "protectionist" economic systems, politically unstable area or socialist based systems, all hinder advancement, development, and the adoption of modern techniques. Most of their industry, including agriculture is still human/animal powered which requires large numbers to accomplish and you barely break even, if you do. They do not have the economic strength to make advancements themselves but block/discourage outside investment which would allow growth.

Religion is of course another major cause of population growth in many poor nations. Take a look at how many are Catholic or Muslim. Male dominated societies where women are given very little say in reproduction rights, often, like Muslims, this factor is aggravated by religion, is another reason for uncontrolled growth.

sawyerloggingon said:

I admit I am profoundly bias on this subject but I thought my poll choices covered the spectrum. What choice would you have given? Really I'm curious.

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Well, the option I personally would have gone for would have been something like "We're okay for now, but population growth needs to continue to slow, especially in undeveloped areas, while technology continues to advance and economic development spreads to compensate"...

We'd need some major technological advancements in materials recycling and cleaner energy to comfortably handle a world population of much more than ten billion... it would probably be good if we peaked well short of that for the foreseeable future.

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Goshin said:

Well, the option I personally would have gone for would have been something like "We're okay for now, but population growth needs to continue to slow, especially in undeveloped areas, while technology continues to advance and economic development spreads to compensate"...

We'd need some major technological advancements in materials recycling and cleaner energy to comfortably handle a world population of much more than ten billion... it would probably be good if we peaked well short of that for the foreseeable future.

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Well I tend to agree with that but it's a bit looooong for a poll option.:lol:

China & India have half of the worlds population.No other countries come close to those two Country.:2wave:

Goshin said:

Well, the option I personally would have gone for would have been something like "We're okay for now, but population growth needs to continue to slow, especially in undeveloped areas, while technology continues to advance and economic development spreads to compensate"...

We'd need some major technological advancements in materials recycling and cleaner energy to comfortably handle a world population of much more than ten billion... it would probably be good if we peaked well short of that for the foreseeable future.

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The future of our population is tied inextricably to our primary source of energy. Our entire agricultural and global economic paradigm depends utterly on the abundance of a powerful master energy source.

Samhain said:

Yep, and its only going to get worse. When the world gets top heavy with "elderly", everything will be worse off.

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Within particular nations, the populations are projected to get top heavy. But worldwide they will not. Global age demographics will become very stable.



World Population Prospects, the 2010 Revision

the_recruit said:

Within particular nations, the populations are projected to get top heavy. But worldwide they will not. Global age demographics will become very stable.

World Population Prospects, the 2010 Revision

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The Un as a source does not impress me.

I think the world is underpopulated. The world is full of empty space with sparse pockets of civilization. Having a higher percentage of the population young is good for society imo. That is fertile and strong. The earth has way more resources to handle the population if we are wise stewards of these resources. I'd be against any attempts to force family size such as done in China. It would be time to take up arms and overthrow the govt in my book if America ever attempted such things from these over population kooks.

I don't think there's an overpopulation problem. I do however think we need to be smarter wrt natural resources. Doing r&d in developing fresh water should be given a high priority. Just off the top it might be a good idea to start having building codes require rain water capture systems. I think we need to find a way to desalinize sea water easier and less expensively. My city is moving toward using reclaimed water (purified sewage water basically) for purposes that don't involve human consumption or bathing. I highly suspect once hydrogen power gives big, the "pollution" it creates, distilled water vapor will be captured and used to help meet the growing population's water supply.

I can see hydroponics get bigger as a way to produce food indoors in any climate.

I think longer term subterranean population centers (underground cities) could become popular if we start running out of land.

Jredbaron96 said:

The entire world's fertility rate is going down, from Americans, to Latinos, to Muslims, to Chinese; everyone.

Overpopulation is not a serious problem.

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The population is still increasing.

Hard Truth said:

The population is still increasing.

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At a much slower rate.

Jredbaron96 said:

At a much slower rate.

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Do you believe the global economy we have today would support 7+ billion people when oil is much scarcer/more expensive?

Smeagol said:

I don't think there's an overpopulation problem. I do however think we need to be smarter wrt natural resources. Doing r&d in developing fresh water should be given a high priority. Just off the top it might be a good idea to start having building codes require rain water capture systems. I think we need to find a way to desalinize sea water easier and less expensively. My city is moving toward using reclaimed water (purified sewage water basically) for purposes that don't involve human consumption or bathing. I highly suspect once hydrogen power gives big, the "pollution" it creates, distilled water vapor will be captured and used to help meet the growing population's water supply.

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What do you mean by the bold?

I can see hydroponics get bigger as a way to produce food indoors in any climate.

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Like desalinization and hydrogen power that you mentioned above, hydroponics is also energy intensive. In this case it's energy-intensive because you have to isolate nutrients and pump them into water to then feed to the plants. Hydroponics is cool, for now, especially where space is cramped like in cities, but much beyond that and into the future, there's nothing particularly promising about it as a way to sustain a huge population. You have you look at how many calories of energy it takes to create a calorie of energy (aka the EROEI -- energy returned on energy invested). When that ratio is very close to one, much less at 1 or below one, its promise to sustain a huge population in the future is zero.

I think longer term subterranean population centers (underground cities) could become popular if we start running out of land.

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We'll much sooner run out of fuel, including the massive amounts of fuel we'd need to be able to dig out subterranean centers.

The world is not overpopulated today, any more than it was in Malthus' day. the Malthusians (neo and non) have constantly been proven wildly incorrect. Furthermore, (as noted by several others on this thread), the relevant problem in demographics is not whether or not we are headed towards a population bomb, but how to deal with the inevitable demographic decline of the West.

Neomalthusian said:

Do you believe the global economy we have today would support 7+ billion people when oil is much scarcer/more expensive?

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Necessity is the mother of invention. Of course there will be conflict, and disputes.

Jredbaron96 said:

Necessity is the mother of invention.

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Energy can't be invented from nothing. It has to be derived from something. We've binged on oil for the century and a half since we discovered it and watched our population almost quadruple. I do not see this as coincidence.

I wonder how many people you think can be sustained in a world without relatively inexpensive/abundant oil-based fuels.

Neomalthusian said:

Energy can't be invented from nothing. It has to be derived from something. We've binged on oil for the century and a half since we discovered it and watched our population almost quadruple. I do not see this as coincidence.

I wonder how many people you think can be sustained in a world without relatively inexpensive/abundant oil-based fuels.

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I'm not talking about a new energy source. I'm talking about different ways for some the sources we already have.

cpwill said:

The world is not overpopulated today, any more than it was in Malthus' day. the Malthusians (neo and non) have constantly been proven wildly incorrect. Furthermore, (as noted by several others on this thread), the relevant problem in demographics is not whether or not we are headed towards a population bomb, but how to deal with the inevitable demographic decline of the West.

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Different people have different ideas on what overpopulation means. You are in the "if you can feed them there isn't to many" camp. I am in the "we are not leaving enough room for other species and we need wide open spaces camp". I like going hunting, fishing, hiking and seeing pristine nature, you like going to ball games and the opera, it's yin and yang.

2% of the people feed the other 98% of people. I am not sure what I think about that, but it is scary no matter which way I look at it.

If global warming will be as bad as some fear it will...then yes, the planet is in trouble.

If not...probably not (from overpopulation anyway).

A hard penis has no conscience.:roll:

ReformCollege said:

Poor people are poor and rich people are rich because that is the result of constrained resources.

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In other words, it doesn't have to do with personal ability and the disire of self improvement or government nepotism and cronyism as well of other fctors of the regulatory State.