Do you think " humans " are over populated?

[Artaxerxes]

At the end of the 19th Century there were about 1.1 Billion people. At the end of the 20th Century there was close to 6.8 Billion humans. The huge population boom of the 20th Century is directly attributable to oil. It takes oil to grow food. Lots and lots of it. Oil is used in the production of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, diesel fuel for tractors, planters, harvestors, combines, trucks to haul product, etc.

Oil is a limited commodity. Regardless of whether is it produced by dead dinosaurs or through abiotic means it has taken the Earth billions of years to produce what is now available. We have used up about 1/2 of the oil that was here in the last 130 years. We are using it now at an ever increasing rate. China and India are producing cars at a furious pace.

No other source of energy is as efficient at storing energy like Oil is. Solar power is only available during certain times and it is spread out over a large area. If you are going to depend on solar power to recharge your car you will have to wait a long time to get enough energy stored just to go to the grocery store.

Coal, natural gas, oil, even uranium for nuclear plants are all available in limited supply, or like my mom used to say when I was a kid, "when it's gone, it's gone." I'm afraid when the oil is for all practical purposes "gone" .... .the party will be over. I don't know when that it is. It may be 40 years, it may be 100 years, but eventually it will happen. There will always be a slow trickle but eventually the day will come when we have depleted the Earth's energy sources and the human population will have to adjust accordingly, either that or learn to eat dirt.

Art

[Ashotep]

I think we have already reached this planets capacity. There are already people starving and going without clean water to drink which causes disease. Many plants and animals are becoming extinct or are getting close to it. There is only so much farm land and soil will wear out. You can fertilize it to get the plants to grow but the nutrients aren't there like there use to be. Without oil to run the farm machinery farming vast quantities of land won't be possible unless they come up with some other form of energy to do it with. As oil becomes more expensive so will food. The poor won't be able to buy as much as they need even the middle class will have problems. At the population we have today the aquifers are becoming lower so I don't see how population growth can continue at the rate it has.

[+DieChecker]

The US actually has coal and shale oil for several hundred more years, but when the rest of the world begins to demand it, we'll sell at the right price and then that will be gone too.

When it is gone it will be gone. Unless we invent a Star Trek matter reorganizer, we'll be out of luck within 200 years. Personnally, I plan to live almost that long, so I am not convinced with Pie-in-the-Sky hopeful wishes.

[Render]

While things may improve and may level off and everything might be fine.... Going along HOPING for the best is.... a poor stratagy.

Which is why a myriad of efforts are being made from different fields in science, politics, and more .. as a strategy.

The world isn't just sitting by twidling its thumbs, cmon.

[Render]

I think we have already reached this planets capacity. There are already people starving and going without clean water to drink which causes disease. Many plants and animals are becoming extinct or are getting close to it.

This has been the case since the dawn of man...even dinosaurs starved and got sick and ate plants and others until extinction.

So what? Humanity should've never existed? Is that your solution?

[Frank Merton]

Predicting the future is chancy, and things will happen we never imagined. Still, it seems to me we are best off putting our chips on the side that says humanity has a good future. I think all the doomsters are too caught up in their navels and not looking at the real world

[Myles]

Predicting the future is chancy, and things will happen we never imagined. Still, it seems to me we are best off putting our chips on the side that says humanity has a good future. I think all the doomsters are too caught up in their navels and not looking at the real world

I think you are confusing people who beleive the planet is overpopulated with people who think we will all starve and die.

I think humans will continue to live on. I also beleive that there are more humans than the ideal number for the planet should be.

[Frank Merton]

I also beleive that there are more humans than the ideal number for the planet should be.

Who knows what is the right population of humans. In some ways there are probably too many of us, but in other ways the more the merrier -- consider the beings who are denied the chance to live when we control population, consider the Einsteins and Mozarts who will not be born.

Of course that argument applies to anything less than an infinite population.

[Guest]

The thing that infuriates me the most are people that preach about over population and yet they have kids. I can truthfully say I walk the walk and talk the talk. They will blame it on being young or having no control over a situation, but we all make consious choices. It's not like they weren't informed. I wouldn't believe anyone over the age of 14 if they said they didn't know what the consequences of having unprotected sex were.

I had my two children before I fully informed myself about the problem of overpopulation. It took another 10 years and a degree in environmental science to really grasp the magnitude of the problem. If I had my time over I would serious consider making a different choice. However the consequence would be that I would be married to another women since my wife would have in no way considered the option of been childless.

Br Cornelius

[Frank Merton]

Well my wife and I were not able to have children. Back then was wartime and there were plenty of related orphans about so we raised a big family anyway.

I think raising children is the main force in most people's lives, and I feel for those who dismiss it.

[Guest]

That the earth and its carrying capacity are finite are obvious, and has been said over and over for several hundred years. One day the wolf-criers will have to be right. Wolves do exist.

What I see for the near future is continued progress similar to the last century in improving people's lives all over the world, some countries doing better at it than others -- generally for internal cultural reasons.

At some point population will be stable and resource usage will become indefinitely sustainable. We are fast headed that way, and we won't even have to go into space to do it (although that would be a nice bonus).

Now all we have to do is keep the world's political leadership reasonably sane for a few more decades.

This statement ignores the already abundent evidence of impacts on the planetart ecosystem. we are not doing fine, we are not increasing overall prosperity. More people live in poverty now than ever before, more species are going extinct, more systems are saturated in pollutants such that their productivity is crashing, a significant amount of the crop land we rely on to survive is in terminal decline.

We are not improving unless you measure improvement by the size of your TV screen.

Br Cornelius

[Tutankhaten-pasheri]

The US actually has coal and shale oil for several hundred more years, but when the rest of the world begins to demand it, we'll sell at the right price and then that will be gone too.

When it is gone it will be gone. Unless we invent a Star Trek matter reorganizer, we'll be out of luck within 200 years. Personnally, I plan to live almost that long, so I am not convinced with Pie-in-the-Sky hopeful wishes.

And just one of the coal mines at Kemerovo is estimated enough coal to supply all the worlds current needs for 300 years. And there are many coal mines at Kemerovo.....

[Render]

Predicting the future is chancy, and things will happen we never imagined. Still, it seems to me we are best off putting our chips on the side that says humanity has a good future. I think all the doomsters are too caught up in their navels and not looking at the real world

Very well said.

All these people here that claim everyone is just standing by and hoping for the best, although as i've mentioned before, all kinds of efforts are being made for a great future. Just realise that what you people are doing, which is actually standing by and not doing anything except think up doomscenarios, is absolutely not helping anyone.

[Guest]

Very well said.

All these people here that claim everyone is just standing by and hoping for the best, although as i've mentioned before, all kinds of efforts are being made for a great future. Just realise that what you people are doing, which is actually standing by and not doing anything except think up doomscenarios, is absolutely not helping anyone.

And yet the ecosystem is still declining as we speak, so you hopes for a bright future are based on a declining planetary support system and increasing extinction rate. I am a trained scientist working in the field of habitat preservation - but my efforts will do almost nothing in the face of another 3billion people. I am not a doomsayer - I am an activist and a realist.

Br cornelius

[Michelle]

I think raising children is the main force in most people's lives, and I feel for those who dismiss it.

Don't feel bad for us...we thouroghly enjoy ourselves. We think they are cute and have a good time being around them, but it's nice when they go home and we don't have to deal with the drama.

I kind of feel sorry for people that don't have anything connecting them but their kids.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Michelle

[Sakari]

And yet the ecosystem is still declining as we speak, so you hopes for a bright future are based on a declining planetary support system and increasing extinction rate. I am a trained scientist working in the field of habitat preservation - but my efforts will do almost nothing in the face of another 3billion people. I am not a doomsayer - I am an activist and a realist.

Br cornelius

I am not a professional, but above states it best for me.

Glad to see someone here posting that has studied this...

[+DieChecker]

Which is why a myriad of efforts are being made from different fields in science, politics, and more .. as a strategy.

The world isn't just sitting by twidling its thumbs, cmon.

And so what is actually being done to slow down world population growth by Science, Politics and More?? Condoms in Africa? What is actually going on is better sanitation and health care is migrating worldwide, and actually allowing more children to survive to adulthood, and allowing people ot live longer. What actually is reducing population is Standard of Living. People in the "Industrialized" nations like having their big TV and 2 cars and hot tub, and lots of vacations. All of which is much harder to have if you have 6 or 8 kids. One or two kids is ideal for the Western Lifestyle of eating out and vacations and consumerism. That is what is driving down the growth rates... IMHO.

I had my two children before I fully informed myself about the problem of overpopulation. It took another 10 years and a degree in environmental science to really grasp the magnitude of the problem. If I had my time over I would serious consider making a different choice. However the consequence would be that I would be married to another women since my wife would have in no way considered the option of been childless.

Br Cornelius

The problem with that is since you don't have kids and raise them to conserve, Conservation falls on the kids of people who totally don't care and have as many kids as they can.

Having 2 kids and teaching them to conserve and not be Total Consumers is probably what everyone should aim at. Intellegent people not having kids just lets the ignornent Breeders numerially take over.

[Frank Merton]

I have to say that conservation and environmentalism have ideological and even cultist aspects, and this greatly diminishes the credibility of scientific and genuine efforts and the seeming unwillingness of some people to recognize the great progress that has happened already and that many of the problems are on the way to solution.

The excessive negativity that we see is one example. Another is the seeming effort to get people to not "sin" against the environment and the expression of these issues in either moral or semi-religious vocabulary.

[Jinxdom]

I used to think the world was overpopulated with humans because of group showers but later I realized that I can always find food to eat, a place to live, and water to drink, and a group shower that is a tad bit more exclusive, simply by moving to a difference place, regardless of how trapped I felt.

I think the idea of our population problem is just the Politically Correct hey we know something is wrong with the world and people but we don't have a clue on what it is.

So no I don't think the world is overpopulated by humans, but leaders on the other hand we have way too many.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Jinxdom

[Guest]

I have to say that conservation and environmentalism have ideological and even cultist aspects, and this greatly diminishes the credibility of scientific and genuine efforts and the seeming unwillingness of some people to recognize the great progress that has happened already and that many of the problems are on the way to solution.

The excessive negativity that we see is one example. Another is the seeming effort to get people to not "sin" against the environment and the expression of these issues in either moral or semi-religious vocabulary.

You should try telling that to a trained ecologist who is actually mapping the decline in ecosystems. The stats don't lie.

It is a debating tactic to try to label the opposition as fanatical cultists.

Br Cornelius

[Jinxdom]

If you are trained in only one aspect of a field you can't get real idea of what is wrong, you get his opinion of what is wrong.

You do that for every single field out there when it comes to the pollution problem, it is going to seem like a mess when in actuality there could be nothing wrong.

I have the worst problem, generally grants more money for research r support from rest of us then saying,well this problem isn't that bad but it exists.

So yeah that bias definitely plays a huge part on what is believable.

Stats do lie if you look at them wrong.

[Frank Merton]

It is a debating tactic to try to label the opposition as fanatical cultists.

Br Cornelius

I don't need to; the do the job for me.

I remember when Cleveland's river caught fire; those things don't happen any more. I look at the skyline of HCMC now and the air is much better, we have "ecoparks" all over the place, there are all sorts of regulations about pollution emissions all over the world, I could go on and on.

[Guest]

I don't need to; the do the job for me.

I remember when Cleveland's river caught fire; those things don't happen any more. I look at the skyline of HCMC now and the air is much better, we have "ecoparks" all over the place, there are all sorts of regulations about pollution emissions all over the world, I could go on and on.

Measures of direct pollution events such as you are talking about are in decline in America and Europe (but not China), but that is not what I am talking about here.

Measuring wild populations of a whole range of species and you will see at least a 40% decline in most over the last 30years alone. That is a clear indicator that man is stressing the fabric of life on this planet. The fact that superficially everything looks cleaner than it was tells you almost nothing about many of the persistent pollutants and the erosion of natural habitat as mans increasing population grabs a progressively greater share of the land resources for himself.

Nature cannot be preserved in ecoparks because they are islands which doesn't allow robust populations to thrive - nature needs its own space to roam and cross pollinate. The ecopark concept has been shown to be a relative failure and it is now recognized that they can only work if they are linked as networks of unenclosed spaces. This isn't yet happening.

Br Cornelius

Edited March 1, 2013 by Guest

[mysticwerewolf]

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

^ world population up to the minute^

[Yamato]

I had my two children before I fully informed myself about the problem of overpopulation. It took another 10 years and a degree in environmental science to really grasp the magnitude of the problem. If I had my time over I would serious consider making a different choice. However the consequence would be that I would be married to another women since my wife would have in no way considered the option of been childless.

Br Cornelius

So you let your wife off the hook and come here and give republicans this much hell about the environment instead? That's not right, on so many levels!

At least make sure they're not childless or sterile or gay or asexual or sexually inactive or just plain sexually undesirable before getting all politically correct on them like that.