But is this really to be celebrated?
Demographers agree that humanity's growth is on a steep curve upwards, and could reach to 9.3 billion by 2050. Overpopulation is a looming issue to our sustainability on Earth, but seems to be ignored. Those that do talk about it know that overpopulation will deplete natural resources, and is even one of the main causes of global warming. Of course, the logical conclusion is to stem our population growth. This does not mean endorsing genocide, but perhaps promoting sodomy and abortion (ignoring any pro-life "arguments") is a good idea (advertising abortion as eco-friendly?). China's One Child Policy first comes to mind when discussing stemming population growth. Chinese demographers claimed that the policy has delayed the 7th billion milestone by 5 years.
If you can't be bothered to read this post, here is a video of Doug Stanhope summarizes overpopulation and global warming in a more sensible way than I have explained it (embedded below, warning gratuitous swearing).
Should we worry about it? No, not really. We will just notice and move on, like many other political issues, until it comes back to haunt us when our food supplies come short (which, honestly, is a very long time from now).
Of course, the real question is, when should we start worrying about overpopulation?
10 comments:
I think we should start worrying about over population now. Though one concern is over flooding the planet (which I will concede may not be likely for another few years) I think the bigger concern should be the impact we have on this Earth. Humans are much more advanced than any other animal on this planet (like you needed me to tell you that). An increase in our numbers is going to mean more pollutants and more room to be made for housing, which means more communities to destroy. When we destroy communities, we weaken the Earth so that it really won't matter whether we reach carrying capacity or not.
Plus, food is kind of something we (as a world population) need to worry about now. There are many people in many places (such as the African continent to name a one broad spectrum) who go with very little or no food every day. Major power countries, such as the U.S. do not need to worry because we have all the food we need, but as I said, world hunger is still a problem now.
Also, what happens when we do hit our population limit? For other species, the results include massive number of deaths due to lack of enough resources to go around. Granted, the populations always pop back up, but do we really want that to happen to humanity? Wouldn't it be better to avoid that?
I won't say anything against having kids (unless you are one of those families who decide that 15 should be the minimum size of your family) because I don't believe that is right thing to do. I will say that I think we should be aware of what could happen and act accordingly.
I think over population is a very touchy subject but ultimately it will sort itself out. 7 billion sounds scary but the shortage of food people like to worry about is very very far off. We annually produce enough food to feed 11 times the world population the problem is transporting the food to areas were it is harder to grow and breaking cultural barriers that make many of the malnourished people of the world not trust some of the food we know to be fine (and so that you don't get outraged by that number of excess a lot of the food goes to feeding animals).
The population is also equalizing as more and more people in third world countries are using contraception which will keep the number of people pretty close to 7 billion for a long time.
But the most important thing to understand about overpopulation is that we aren't talking about subject or some other obscure far off item we're talking about a living person. You can say overpopulation is bad all you want but there are only 2 solutions to fix it killing people and restricting the number of children born. Killing people is not going to happen for obvious reasons but restricting how many children someone can have is also extremely bad. for one thing in China you can get out of the one child policy by paying a fee so the rich can easily have as many kids as they want. but the bigger issue is personal freedom. In a country like the US where we vote out government in how can the government tell the people you're not aloud to have a second child? Even the advocation of abortion brings up a number of issues that have nothing to do with whether or not you support abortion.
The world population might be high but its sustainable.
Any talk about food and population growth brings to mind, for me at least, Thomas Malthus's model concerning the linear growth of the food supply and the exponential growth of the global population, the latter eventually outpacing the former. I think that after Malthus's theory didn't prove to be completely true, people pushed this issue to the back burner; however, this 7-billion milestone is an excellent time to reflect on what seems like the accelerating growth of Earth's population.
I'd have to agree with Tali: the point at which we reach our limit is a far ways off. Although we ought not to freak out right now, I do think it would be wise to begin taking action. The two most obvious ways to hinder this rapid population growth is to either: decrease the birthrate/increase the deathrate, or expand our food supply. Since this former option doesn't appear to be too humane or anything unlike communism, augmenting food production would be the best investment of time and capital (physical, financial, and human). Maybe the UN could sponsor a committee dedicated to food/agriculture technology? A multinational collaborative effort would be needed to address this potential problem effectively.
I think the overpopulation issue is something we should keep in our minds now, but I don't necessarily think the situation at this point necessitates drastic action. There are obviously impacts from the growing population currently, such as environmental degradation. However, I think the birthrate and number of children per family will eventually work themselves out. As with our current economic standings, raising children is becoming more and more expensive. It is very likely families and parents will consider this and other factors when deciding how many kids to have. I remember last year, I learned about the replacement fertility rate, the number of children a woman should have to replace herself and her partner, which is two children per family. As the cost of living increases, people may be less inclined to have big families. As people have said, I think this could potentially be a situation that works itself out over time.
However, if the government should choose to become more active in this issue, I think there are various steps or methods it could try, such as promoting family planning or regulating tax breaks or financial aid for families with two children or less.
I agree with Patrick, I think this is an issue that we need to begin to deal with immediately. Humans need to stop just considering what impact this has on them. What about all the wildlife that will need to be destroyed to make room for humans? What about how the environmental changes we are causing are affecting plant and animal species around the world?
Even if people are not moved by the destruction of innocent wildlife, they should want to lower the population because of the repercussions that are going to face the entire population if it continues to grow. Resources are going to run out eventually and when that happens, the human population will drastically drop whether we want it to or not. Something has to be done before the population reaches this point and studies show that we are getting very close to that point.
Unfortunately, I find myself disagreeing with Raquel and Patrick's suggestion to worry about over population. To be honest, if people think that over population is a huge issue that needs to be addressed at this point in time, then I am inclined to believe they are sorely deluded.
I'm not sure whether or not your blog post contained quotes from a source or if it was written in your own words, but I don't agree that "the logical conclusion is to stem our population growth", and I also disagree with the ridiculous claims that the solutions to a rising population include "sodomy and abortion". These "alternative" solutions are neither necessary nor sensible. Our current population does not scream for population reform... yet. If anything this dispute should be moved to the back of the line. Let us first address more prominent messes, namely, the economy!
But for all of you naysayers that might scream "food shortages!" Allow me to introduce you to...
Farming in the sky (http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/20/06/2007/104517/Multi-storey-glasshouses-the-future-of-farming.htm)
and...
GMOs (genetically modified organisms) they're the future! Giving you more bang for your buck!
As for the imminent depletion of natural resources, perhaps given time, scientists will have developed machines that can run on alternative sources of energy (possibly H2O or O2 or electricity?).
Whatever the case, humans have already proven to be a resourceful race and I am fully confident that we will be able to provide solutions for the future.
When I saw the title of this post, the One-Child Policy Tim mentioned immediately came to mind. I'm fairly certain that China's One-Child Policy is one of the most controversial (and certainly the most prominent) population control policy up to date. To have a government take part in such intimate, seemingly innate rights of a family seems like a breach of basic freedoms. Yet, how many other viable options do we have if we want to combat exponential increases in population? With greater population comes greater pollution, less resources, and more issues in general.
Specifically, rising populations directly correlate with environmental issues, like global warming. (More people, more pollution.) I was in one of the environmental groups for the CP gov project, and our group found that in the past decades, LESS people have believed in the existence of global warming. Sad, isn't it?
After reading this post I was remembered back in freshman year when my ITSS class learned about the birth rates and death rates of many countries throughout the world. As the class did research we found out that America, as a country, was doing quite well by keeoing the balance between the number deaths and births of people, however, when we took a look at less developed countries, such as the rural areas of India, we observed that birth rates were unusually high. Because of this we concluded that because of the lack of living necessities, even though many children were being born, many were dying before age five. With this data I don't think that we need to be overly concerned about the world's population at this moment. There are so many other issues that I think should be addressed now instead of worrying about this.
I don't think overpopulation should be of our main concern. I understand that it could cause major damage to the environment as well as human health, but think of all the other things that harm the environment. Has anyone seen a drastic change because of overpopulation? Until this issue becomes more evident, I don't think this should catch people's attention. Save it until there's more evidence.
I agree with Patrick and Raquel. I've watched part of Dr. Al Bartlett's hour-long lecture (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY) called "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy." He claims that "the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." He emphasizes how small percentage growth rates eventually end up acting in similar ways to exponential rates and applies this to the human population. With this, he shows how fast our world population will double. If our current world population growth rate stays steady, it will take about 61 years for us to reach 13 billion people. His other point is that people don't blame the problems of overpopulation on overpopulation itself, but try to find alternatives to fix the consequences of overpopulation. I think that we should start tackling overpopulation instead of solely relying on solutions that address the consequences of overpopulation.
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