is the population bomb real

Jredbaron96 said:

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

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I'm not sure what you mean. I repeat my previous post.

Fisher said:

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.

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Pretend there was no oil (left) in the world. Would 2% of the people be able to feed the other 98%? How would food literally get to people's dinner tables if there was no oil-based agriculture and transportation?

Shadow Serious said:

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.

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You're missing the point. There can't be a difference in resources between people unless there is a finite amount of resources. Having .0000000000000000000000001% of infinity is still infinity.

But yes, I agree, with all of those.

ReformCollege said:

You're missing the point. There can't be a difference in resources between people unless there is a finite amount of resources. Having .0000000000000000000000001% of infinity is still infinity.

But yes, I agree, with all of those.

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Of course I agree that the resources are finite. We would need to be rational about this. One thing is to stop subsidizing the conversion of food stuff to alcohol for transportation (like is done with corn). We are nearing a point where "beef vats" are going to be commercially possible as well as hydroponics for some vegetables eventually can be mass produced. It is a matter of being economically feasible.

Shadow Serious said:

Of course I agree that the resources are finite. We would need to be rational about this. One thing is to stop subsidizing the conversion of food stuff to alcohol for transportation (like is done with corn). We are nearing a point where "beef vats" are going to be commercially possible as well as hydroponics for some vegetables eventually can be mass produced. It is a matter of being economically feasible.

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We are at a point where we can stop subsidizing food at all.

Yes, it is. And its the fault of Africa and Asia.

Help! Help!:shock:

ReformCollege said:

We are at a point where we can stop subsidizing food at all.

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An stop subsidizing the destruction of food such as the destruction of milk to keep the price artificially high.

If you put 2 rats in a cage with enough food for 50 rats, the population will eventually grow to around 50 rats. There won't be any massive rat die-offs or rat famines. They will simply find their carrying capacity.

Humans, however, are not rats. We do things like steal and fight wars and divert water supplies. I don't think we will have a very nice time of reaching carrying capacity.

Then again, the more educated a populace becomes, the more industrialized, and especially when these these include women, population growth rates tend to hover at or below 1%. So, maybe it won't be all that bad.

Gonzo Rodeo said:

If you put 2 rats in a cage with enough food for 50 rats, the population will eventually grow to around 50 rats. There won't be any massive rat die-offs or rat famines. They will simply find their carrying capacity.

Humans, however, are not rats. We do things like steal and fight wars and divert water supplies. I don't think we will have a very nice time of reaching carrying capacity.

Then again, the more educated a populace becomes, the more industrialized, and especially when these these include women, population growth rates tend to hover at or below 1%. So, maybe it won't be all that bad.

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I like your rat example. What's happened with people and the discovery of oil is like putting two rats in a big cage with enough food for a million rats, but that food is not replenished. That will create a boom and bust scenario for the rats.

Shadow Serious said:

An stop subsidizing the destruction of food such as the destruction of milk to keep the price artificially high.

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Seriously, I love my milk.

sawyerloggingon said:

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.

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You're good, man. We are nowhere near running out of room for that.

cpwill said:

You're good, man. We are nowhere near running out of room for that.

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You have to get a permit and get on a waiting list to backpack in the Sierras now. Wolves are being shot from helicopters because there is not enough room for them and us both. Most fishing is now catch and release. I could go on but you should get my point by now.

sawyerloggingon said:

You have to get a permit and get on a waiting list to backpack in the Sierras now. Wolves are being shot from helicopters because there is not enough room for them and us both. Most fishing is now catch and release. I could go on but you should get my point by now.

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No, I don't. We are nowhere near crowding out wilderness areas. Even in highly developed regions like Europe the majority of the landscape is undeveloped.

cpwill said:

No, I don't. We are nowhere near crowding out wilderness areas. Even in highly developed regions like Europe the majority of the landscape is undeveloped.

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The reason these wolves are being killed is because there are so many people competing for the elk.

COEUR d'ALENE - United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services agents shot and killed 14 North Idaho wolves from a helicopter earlier this month, the Idaho Fish and Game Department announced.The initial target of the control action was to remove 40 to 50 wolves."

14 wolves killed from helicopter - Coeur d'Alene Press: Local News


The reason the last few elephants in this region are being killed is there are so many people and not enough open space left for elephants.

"Experts also expect that a herd of 15 elephants in southern Vietnam will soon be wiped out. In February, venturing out of a “protected” forest in Dong Nai Province, the hungry elephants tore through cornfields, sweet potato patches and sugar cane fields. Farmers ran in terror."

The Slaughter of Elephants in Vietnam Is Nearly Complete - NYTimes.com

Then there is the Bengal Tiger in India.

"Large-scale habitat destruction and decimation of prey populations are the major long-term threats to the existence of the dwindling tiger population in the country.

Less than a hundred years ago, tigers prowled all across India and the sub-continent. But growing human populations, particularly since the 1940s, have contracted and fragmented the tiger's former range. Although extensive habitat is available in some landscapes, agriculture, clearing of forests for development - especially road networks, hydel projects are forcing tigers into small and scattered islands of remaining habitat. Tigers need large territories. And along with habitat, tigers have also suffered a severe loss of natural prey populations – in particular ungulates such as deer and antelopes.


WWF India - Royal Bengal Tiger


NOW do you get it?

sawyerloggingon said:

The reason these wolves are being killed is because there are so many people competing for the elk.

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So? So we like to kill off elk, and we are so good at it, we get to kill off wolves, too. That's not a population issue - we aren't killing off elk to feed our many numbers. We are doing it for fun. It's a sports issue, for crying out loud.

3% of the surface of the Earth is urban. We are nowhere near a population bomb scenario where billions of people starve to death from lack of resources.

cpwill said:

So? So we like to kill off elk, and we are so good at it, we get to kill off wolves, too. That's not a population issue - we aren't killing off elk to feed our many numbers. We are doing it for fun. It's a sports issue, for crying out loud.

3% of the surface of the Earth is urban. We are nowhere near a population bomb scenario where billions of people starve to death from lack of resources.

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Like I said yin and yang.

sawyerloggingon said:

Like I said yin and yang.

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:shrug: the question of the thread is "is the population bomb real". the unequivocal answer is "no". the only "population bomb" we have to worry about is the effects of us not producing enough children, not too many.

sawyerloggingon said:

You have to get a permit and get on a waiting list to backpack in the Sierras now. Wolves are being shot from helicopters because there is not enough room for them and us both. Most fishing is now catch and release. I could go on but you should get my point by now.

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The blue pike are gone from lake erie. Road rage, mass shootings, keep off the grass signs popping up everywhere, disposable underwear, dead skunk in the middle of the road, beaver attacks in the suburbs, serial murderes, child molesters, stop signs on every ****ing street corner, fast food gluttony, pedofile priests, slapping flesh in the penn state shower rooms, ask your doctor, sue a drug company, lady gaga blow up dolls, Barbi with an ak 47, screaming whiney kids at wal-mart, flatuence, equals contempory insanity.:soap

sawyerloggingon said:

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.

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I don't hunt or fish, but I agree that a good quality of life requires keeping natural diversity, which requires large amounts of land and water that is not dominated by humans.

Hard Truth said:

I don't hunt or fish, but I agree that a good quality of life requires keeping natural diversity, which requires large amounts of land and water that is not dominated by humans.

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Thank you, sometimes I feel like the Lone Ranger on this issue.

sawyerloggingon said:

Thank you, sometimes I feel like the Lone Ranger on this issue.

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I hope I'm absolutely wrong but there's every indication that the sustainable quality of life has hit its population peak and will only begin to deteriorate in the future. Currently it seems to be in a transformation phase of give and take but the definition for a successful and meaningful standard of life will probably change dramatically in the next decade or so. We will probably start to see far more noticeable shifts in classes and groups of people into haves and have nots with the middle evaporating.

sawyerloggingon said:

IMO we have too many people on the planet already and the quality of life is decreasing as population increases. The guy that wrote the book The Population Bomb is now saying there should be mandatory population control which I am against but as far as his contention that we have to stop or even reverse population growth I tend to agree.

"A Stanford professor and author of The Population Bomb recently published a paper in a scientific journal re-emphasizing climate change and population growth pose existential threats to humanity and in an interview with Raw Story said that giving people the right to have as many children as they want is “a bad idea.”

The only criticism we’ve had on the paper is that it’s too optimistic,” said Paul Ehrlich, Bing professor of population studies at Stanford University and president of the Center for Conservation Biology. “You can’t negotiate with nature.”The study, published the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal earlier this month says that climate change is “driven by overpopulation, overconsumption of natural resources and the use of unnecessarily environmentally damaging technologies and socio-economic-political arrangements to service Homo sapiens‘ aggregate consumption.”

‘Population Bomb’ scientist: ‘Nobody’ has the right to ‘as many children as they want’ | The Raw Story

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Nope it's not real.
It's an already debunked theory.

As groups of people get richer, they have less children.
In the coming decades population rates are supposed to level off and are in already developed nations.

Harry Guerrilla said:

Nope it's not real.
It's an already debunked theory.

As groups of people get richer, they have less children.
In the coming decades population rates are supposed to level off and are in already developed nations.

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I tend to agree that this is the current trend and reality but we also have a huge dependent class of population on the gov dime in the US that will be very difficult if not impossible to ween off. Their basic necessities of food, rent and healthcare are being met by gov funds that are quickly running out.

grip said:

I tend to agree that this is the current trend and reality but we also have a huge dependent class of population on the gov dime in the US that will be very difficult if not impossible to ween off. There basic necessities of food, rent and healthcare are being met by gov funds that are quickly running out.

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Kill all the old people then?
J/k but then again I'm not.

The elderly are the new dependent class.

Harry Guerrilla said:

Kill all the old people then?
J/k but then again I'm not.

The elderly are the new dependent class.

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And the welfare masses. The combo of older and poorer are just getting out of control, unless we can cycle into another upward growth pattern spurred on by some new "got to have items". The air pollution in China and water pollution of India are indications of populace driven industrialization in need of reform. Only time will tell if we sail smoothly or have some serious hiccups.