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Eat well or Procreate?

Should we control the population?

  • Total voters
    22
  • Poll closed .
Cardinal said:
Where did you get the idea I assumed either of those things?
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Maybe I misinterpreted, and if so, my bad. It was just my first reaction tonthe idea that we will grow so populated as to need to colonize space (ridiculous) or that 7+ billion people will stop exploding in population if we can all just get them to the point of being middle class and educated (also ridiculous).
 
Neomalthusian said:
Maybe I misinterpreted, and if so, my bad. It was just my first reaction tonthe idea that we will grow so populated as to need to colonize space (ridiculous) or that 7+ billion people will stop exploding in population if we can all just get them to the point of being middle class and educated (also ridiculous).
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My position is we should be planning to sustain or even lower current populations in order to conserve natural resources, and that educated and financially stable communities tend to have lower birth rates, so that is a goal we should be striving for. Is there something wrong with that?
 
MaggieD said:
Every year, 15 million children starve to death. The World Health Organization estimates that 1/3 of the world's population is starving. One out of every eight children under the age of 12 -- in the United States -- goes to bed hungry every night. "It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year."

I'd say we've already reached critical mass. Wouldn't you?

The world hunger problem: Facts, figures and statistics
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No .
 
Cardinal said:
My position is we should be planning to sustain or even lower current populations in order to conserve natural resources, and that educated and financially stable communities tend to have lower birth rates, so that is a goal we should be striving for. Is there something wrong with that?
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All those in favor of population control, need to stop have sex now!
 
Cardinal said:
My position is we should be planning to sustain or even lower current populations in order to conserve natural resources, and that educated and financially stable communities tend to have lower birth rates, so that is a goal we should be striving for. Is there something wrong with that?
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Well, no, not in theory anyway. There may be some idealistic underpinnings to the first position (central environmental and energy sustainability planning is politically unpopular because it's not pro-growth enough), and the latter might be a correlation/causation error.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Well, no, not in theory anyway. There may be some idealistic underpinnings to the first position (central environmental and energy sustainability planning is politically unpopular because it's not pro-growth enough), and the latter might be a correlation/causation error.
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It's a mighty common correlation. Is there an exception?

Political popularity of various policies are another discussion altogether.
 
MaggieD said:
Every year, 15 million children starve to death. The World Health Organization estimates that 1/3 of the world's population is starving. One out of every eight children under the age of 12 -- in the United States -- goes to bed hungry every night. "It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year."

I'd say we've already reached critical mass. Wouldn't you?

The world hunger problem: Facts, figures and statistics
Click to expand...

The stat, as I understand it, is 50k children per day due to lack of sufficient food and water. Now, regarding the US, we have a different context. With a 50% obesity rate, how many could be fed on the excess consumed by others? In this context, the problem is not a lack of food but decent parents.
 
Cardinal said:
It's a mighty common correlation. Is there an exception?
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I agree it's common, and empirically shown. What I might dispute is that if we therefore somehow cause people all over the world to be educated and financially stable, that realistically solves any overpopulation issue.
 
Neomalthusian said:
I agree it's common, and empirically shown. What I might dispute is that if we therefore somehow cause people all over the world to be educated and financially stable, that realistically solves any overpopulation issue.
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I don't believe there are silver bullets to large, complex problems, and would never suggest a solution as such. However, education and financial stability are two noble solutions, as opposed to the baby-catapulting idea which I just can't support.
 
ecofarm said:
The stat, as I understand it, is 50k children per day due to lack of sufficient food and water. Now, regarding the US, we have a different context. With a 50% obesity rate, how many could be fed on the excess consumed by others? In this context, the problem is not a lack of food but decent parents.
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In our country, I rather agree with you. Children with attentive, caring parents shouldn't be going to bed hungry. Too many safety nets in place. In the world context, it's poverty and lack of education....read Africa and India here.
 
MaggieD said:
In our country, I rather agree with you. Children with attentive, caring parents shouldn't be going to bed hungry. Too many safety nets in place. In the world context, it's poverty and lack of education....read Africa and India here.
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Perhaps American children are poorly behaved and often sent to bed without supper. :)
 
grip said:
People keep saying the population growth is slowing and that the current trend says it will level off then decline. But resources like food, water and energy are being strained and we will continue to need renewable sources in the future.

It seems like one is possibly coming up for food. NASA awards grant for 3-D food printer; could it end world hunger?




Here's my question should we allow the population to grow to this point where we have to eat purely processed food made of bugs and byproduct stuff? We've already got "pink slime" and "soy grits" as meat fillers. Does that really sound like quantity of people, over quality of living is desirable?
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Don't knock bugs, they can have a lot of nutritional value.
 
I say eat well, AND procreate. That's what we're doing. ;)
 
Guy Incognito said:
Ok, what about beer?
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Did you know there are parasites called mites (spiders) that live in most humans eyebrows? Just lick someones eyebrows and you're eating bugs.
 
grip said:
Did you know there are parasites called mites (spiders) that live in most humans eyebrows? Just lick someones eyebrows and you're eating bugs.
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:lol:
 
MaggieD said:
Every year, 15 million children starve to death. The World Health Organization estimates that 1/3 of the world's population is starving. One out of every eight children under the age of 12 -- in the United States -- goes to bed hungry every night. "It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year."

I'd say we've already reached critical mass. Wouldn't you?

The world hunger problem: Facts, figures and statistics
Click to expand...

It is not as simple as this. There are many reasons that people and in general children go hungry. Most of it has nothing to do with a food shortage. Indeed most food in the US just goes to waste. (maybe a slight exaggeration there but I think you get my point.) And I'm not just talking about the food that goes into the garbage. How many obese people do we have? Also farmers are restricted in how much they can grow due to "economical concerns" and "driving prices down". Children starving is generally because of greedy people. Whether it's greed over the dollar here in the US or some warlord in Africa striving for power and destroying anyone that slightly opposes them and anything else that happens to be apart of their oppositions property.

I would bet that if we (the human race in general) stopped being so greedy and power hungry that we wouldn't have anyone going hungry today.
 
Kal'Stang said:
It is not as simple as this. There are many reasons that people and in general children go hungry. Most of it has nothing to do with a food shortage. Indeed most food in the US just goes to waste. (maybe a slight exaggeration there but I think you get my point.) And I'm not just talking about the food that goes into the garbage. How many obese people do we have? Also farmers are restricted in how much they can grow due to "economical concerns" and "driving prices down". Children starving is generally because of greedy people. Whether it's greed over the dollar here in the US or some warlord in Africa striving for power and destroying anyone that slightly opposes them and anything else that happens to be apart of their oppositions property.

I would bet that if we (the human race in general) stopped being so greedy and power hungry that we wouldn't have anyone going hungry today.
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If you've ever watched a documentary showing the amount of food needed to feed just a fraction of the population it's literally mind boggling. We're talking about tonnages on a daily basis that are harvested, processed, delivered, stored and prepared.

Americans throw out 200,000 tons of edible food daily and 30% of all food produced in the world each year is wasted or lost. That’s about 1.3 billion tons, according to a new report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

That’s the weight of more than 8.6 million full-grown blue whales, the largest creatures on earth. That’s the weight of more than 2.3 million Airbus A380s, the largest commercial planes in existence. That’s as if each person in China, the world’s most populous country with more than 1.3 billion people, had a one ton mass of food they could just throw into the trashcan.


World wastes 30% of all food – Business 360 - CNN.com Blogs
 
MaggieD said:
Every year, 15 million children starve to death. The World Health Organization estimates that 1/3 of the world's population is starving.
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The UN's WHO is not exactly known to be a reliable source. It is a notoriously corrupt political body, not to be confused with a trustworthy scientific body.
 
grip said:
If you've ever watched a documentary showing the amount of food needed to feed just a fraction of the population it's literally mind boggling. We're talking about tonnages on a daily basis that are harvested, processed, delivered, stored and prepared.

Americans throw out 200,000 tons of edible food daily and 30% of all food produced in the world each year is wasted or lost. That’s about 1.3 billion tons, according to a new report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

That’s the weight of more than 8.6 million full-grown blue whales, the largest creatures on earth. That’s the weight of more than 2.3 million Airbus A380s, the largest commercial planes in existence. That’s as if each person in China, the world’s most populous country with more than 1.3 billion people, had a one ton mass of food they could just throw into the trashcan.

World wastes 30% of all food – Business 360 - CNN.com Blogs
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People need to really think more deeply about this before they lament over the tragedy of wasted food. I think a good way to stimulate some thought on it is for everyone to start composting.

Food doesn't just "go to waste." It ultimately goes back to the Earth. Not every digestible calorie needs to go into a human body. If I grow tomatoes and can't get through them and they rot, should I bawl in despair or berate myself as I chuck them into my thriving compost? No.

The tragedy is in the very nature of our pathetic dependence on the corporate/government industrial food complex and how it enables unhealthy food addiction, excess packaging, GMO, and wasted fossil fuels shipping it thousands of miles away where it is then transported (again by fossil fuels) to enormous landfills.

The answer is food independence, and to encourage it to spring up organically and sustainably everywhere we can.
 
grip said:
People keep saying the population growth is slowing and that the current trend says it will level off then decline. But resources like food, water and energy are being strained and we will continue to need renewable sources in the future.

It seems like one is possibly coming up for food. NASA awards grant for 3-D food printer; could it end world hunger?




Here's my question should we allow the population to grow to this point where we have to eat purely processed food made of bugs and byproduct stuff? We've already got "pink slime" and "soy grits" as meat fillers. Does that really sound like quantity of people, over quality of living is desirable?
Click to expand...



A lot of the problem is too many places are not making best and most efficient use of the arable land and water they have, due to poverty, war, corruption, lack of technology, etc.
 
grip said:
Did you know there are parasites called mites (spiders) that live in most humans eyebrows? Just lick someones eyebrows and you're eating bugs.
Click to expand...

I shave mine off so I always look shocked.
 
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