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When will our population hit crisis point ?


Saru

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UN projections have predicted that the world's population will exceed 10 billion by the year 2100.

In the last two years, the phrase "10 billion" has come to stand for a supposed demographic crisis. In 2011, the UN projected that there will be 10 billion people living on the planet in 2100, and this has been perceived as unsustainable.

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Crisis point will be when everyone is eating GM foods because there is no fields left to grow anything, animals are kept in big warehouses fed whatever leftovers can be found and the cr&p they eat will effect the humans eating it.

Floods will be the norm because most of the land has been concreted to build high rise flats for the extra population and when there are no go areas because there just is not enough jobs and money to go round so the criminal gangs have taken over the neighborhood.

There will always be a divide, those who have and those who have not, but it will be far bigger.

Now the computer has halved the jobs, its seems people just want to double their families.....what sort of future does that hold when the human race has that sort of mentality?

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Recently China has been criticized for strong population control laws. While I agree that some of their policies are less than stellar, I do think the main concept (too many people=misery for all) is sound. The author of this article isn't panicking about 10 billion and seems to be optimistic. Personally, I'm not all that convinced that population will stabelize easily...time will tell I guess.

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When we read predictions in the Bible of judgments that erase 2/3 of the population of the planet it seems horrific and horrifically unjust. But imagine the survivor's possibilities. Resources enough to begin again with a new mindset and with the scientific knowledge acquired by our predecessors. Could it be that a near extermination event could possibly be a blessing in the long term? Especially when that event seems inescapable because of our failed and rebellious natures?

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Water is a problem today in some areas of the world so I don't see how this planet will support 10 billion. Some of the resources we depend on today such as oil is getting harder to find. Try growing enough food for everyone without oil to run the machinery or water to irrigate those crops. Hopefully some other form of energy will replace oil that is less polluting.

They are right the population isn't growing like it use to but I think that is mainly because white people aren't having kids like they use to. White populations is actually in decline. Other groups still have too many kids and are growing.

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We will never hit a "crisis point" in population. It's a myth, created by Thomas Malthus, and it is supported by the "elite" who think we, lowly commoners, should only have a certain number of kids, etc.

Link: http://www.overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth

Did Malthus really say to kill off the poor?

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Yep. In his Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus calls for increased mortality among the poor:

All the children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to this level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons… To act consistently therefore, we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. (Book IV, Chap. V) — Read it
.

[url=http://www.overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth#toc]Back to top

Malthus thought doctors shouldn't cure diseases?

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“But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. (Book IV, Chap. V) — Read it
.”

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Did Paul Ehrlich really say that famines would devastate humanity in the 1970s?

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Yep. In his 1968 work The Population Bomb, Ehrlich stated:

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines--hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash
embarked upon now.”

[/url]

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What's the UNFPA? How do they profit from fear?

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The United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) was founded in 1969, the year after Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. They have been involved in programs with governments around the world who deny their women the right to choose the number and spacing of their children. Their complicit work with the infamous “one-child policy" mandated by the government of the People's Republic of China, uncovered by an investigation of the U.S. State Department in 2001, led the United States to pull its funding.

The wealthy of the West, in their terror of poverty, have given copiously to the UNFPA and its population control programs. Visit Population Research Institute for more info.

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No way everyone could fit in Texas …

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According to the U.N. Population Database, the world's population in 2010 will be 6,908,688,000. The landmass of Texas is 268,820 sq mi (7,494,271,488,000 sq ft).

So, divide 7,494,271,488,000 sq ft by 6,908,688,000 people, and you get 1084.76 sq ft/person. That's approximately a 33' x 33' plot of land for every person on the planet, enough space for a town house.

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Given an average four person family, every family would have a 66' x 66' plot of land, which would comfortably provide a single family home and yard -- and all of them fit on a landmass the size of Texas. Admittedly, it'd basically be one massive subdivision, but Texas is a tiny portion of the inhabitable Earth.

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Such an arrangement would leave the entire rest of the world vacant. There's plenty of space for humanity.

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Where are you getting these numbers?

U.N. Population Database. While they provide Low, Medium, and High Variants, the Low Variant is the one that keeps coming true, so the Low variant numbers are the ones used in this video. Check their online database.

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<a href="http://www.overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth#toc">Back to top

The world's population will peak in 30 years? Prove it.

According to the U.N. Population Database, using the historically accurate low variant projection, the Earth's population will only add another billion people or so over the next thirty years, peaking around 8.02 billion people in the year 2040, and then it will begin to decline. Check their online database.

Link: http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-myth-of-overpopulation-51113/

Perhaps one of the most persistent and pervasive myths that have shaped the thinking of many people and, subsequently, public policy is the myth that the world’s population is spiraling out of control and that it will ultimately lead to catastrophic shortages of the essential resources necessary to sustain life.

This whole concept of “overpopulation” can be traced to Thomas Malthus, the British scholar and Anglican clergyman (albeit a very misguided one) who, without any specific knowledge other than his own speculations, predicted in 1789 that the planet’s rapid increase in population would soon outstrip the planet’s ability to produce food, resulting in massive worldwide starvation. Malthus’s predicted famine never materialized, of course; he could not have predicted the industrial revolution or the enormous impact subsequent technological innovations would have on our ability to produce food. Recall that today our federal government actually pays farmers not to grow crops due to the abundance of food produced on considerably less farmland than existed just a century ago.

Even the United Nations, historically a rabid advocate of population control, has conceded that the world’s current infrastructure is capable of supporting a worldwide population of more than 9 billion people. Furthermore, according to the most recent estimates, the planet’s population will most likely continue to climb from its current level until 2050, when it will peak at 9 billion; other predictions have the world’s population peaking at 7.5 billion in 2040. In either case, global population levels will begin a sharp decline sometime during the middle of the twenty-first century. Present fertility rates actually indicate a massive underpopulation crisis is coming, particularly among Western nations.

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The fact that Malthus pointed out the problem and that he failed to spot the influence of cheap energy on our ability to support a burgeoning population doesn't mean that his central concept was in any way wrong. The fact that many of our elite have spotted the fundamental crisis which we face at least offers some hope that some of the strategic changes needed to bring us onto a sustainable footing could be made.

It would require a steady level of innovation comparable to the discovery of abundant oil to allow for a continued rise in population. Soil and water are the hidden variables which most people ignore and are already causing declines in agricultural productivity.

What predominently human centric analysis fails to account for is the effect of adding 3billion extra people to the world over the last 30 years has already caused. All ecosystems are under stress with average declines in biodiversity (numbers and species) in excess of 40% in most areas. We anticipate adding a further 3billion to the population by mid century and this will inevitably have an even greater effect on the integrity of the biosphere. We are part of the biosphere and depend on its health and integrity for most of our essential services such as water, soil, pollination, flood moderation, climate stability, etc, etc. Simply ignoring these aspects in saying that we have the human infrastructure to sustain those extra people shows a woeful and criminal lack of awareness of our relatively modest roll in the overall functioning of a healthy planet. We have lived and are living beyond our means and nature will withdraw things we take for granted for survival before we come to our senses. The Christian outlook is a flawed tool for analysing the state we are in because it doesn't value the critically important things in the world which without we cannot survive in any meaningful way - it offers a morally driven perspective which is fundamentally immoral in its disregard for the sanctity and essential needs of other forms of life.

Current population is not sustainable - we are already in the crisis but we just can't see it yet.

Br Cornelius

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I recently found this quote from the discoverer and inventor of the first polio vaccine;

“if all insects on Earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on

Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the Earth,

within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.”

― Biologist Jonas Salk

Obviously a man that develops a vaccine that saves millions of people is not a misanthrope, but I think this quote is meant to humble us and put homo sapiens in perspective.

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Human beings, not life, is what gives the earth its purpose. Without us the system and the life on it have no purpose and just continue the day-to-day cycle of life and death until eventually the sun dies. It is human beings being here that can break this.

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Human beings, not life, is what gives the earth its purpose. Without us the system and the life on it have no purpose and just continue the day-to-day cycle of life and death until eventually the sun dies. It is human beings being here that can break this.

I cannot agree with you anthropocentric and quasi-religious perspective on the world. The planet has no intrinsic purpose other than the purposes we impose on it. There is no objective proof of an external body who give's life purpose, and even if there were we could not in any way discern whether our ideas of purpose coincided with its.

There is certainly no evidence to say that we are in any way a higher form of life than any other form of life, and again this relies on anthropocentric perspective which is not tenable in a nearly infinite universe of infinite life forms.

Br Cornelius

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You just disagreed with me and then repeated what I said. The planet has no purpose except what human beings find for it.

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UN projections have predicted that the world's population will exceed 10 billion by the year 2100.

Where the crisis point is depends on other factors besides pure population size.

Malthus is still fundamentally correct; what has changed the picture is the world-wide "green revolution" that allows us to produce more crops with intensive agriculture.

But intensive agriculture as it is now depends entirely on a continuing supply of cheap oil. Once that disappears, neither agricultural machinery nor artificial fertilizer are available as they are today. And the suddenly the foundation for even feeding our existing population is gone.

So Isay that the crisis point will coincide with the sharp decline after peak oil, which will be pretty soon.

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Vietnam feeds itself extremely well and exports tons of coffee and rice and rubber with five times the population density on its arable land, so I think the rest of the world could too. Places where this fails has to do with politics and corruption, not too many people.

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I disagree with the concept of purpose.

Br Cornelius

Huh?? You said "The planet has no intrinsic purpose other than the purposes we impose on it."

Which is exactly what Frank Merton said.

So what are you arguing about? Weird!

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I disagree with the concept of purpose.

Br Cornelius

Then don't use it. I would say that we are human beings so all things considered we are better if we make human beings our purpose. Other beings -- especially other sentient beings -- will end up better off since our welfare and theirs are tied together.

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Vietnam feeds itself extremely well and exports tons of coffee and rice and rubber with five times the population density on its arable land,

Does it do so without importing oil and fertilizer? Do confirm. That would be fascinating.

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That's part of the international system. We produce most of our own fertilizer but unfortunately so far have had to import petroleum. With the coming of cracking this may end.

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That's part of the international system. We produce most of our own fertilizer but unfortunately so far have had to import petroleum. With the coming of cracking this may end.

"Cracking"? What in the world do you want to crack?

It seems to me, you just admitted that once Vietnam can not import cheap oil, fertilizer, and pesticides (also oil products) any more, your fabled food surplus will be gone.

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Cracking for oil and natural gas; some discoveries point to a more optimistic future.

The issue is not that one country produces everything it need; we import some foodstuffs too. The issue is that we have the surplus to be able to do so in spite of our dense population.

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Cracking for oil and natural gas; some discoveries point to a more optimistic future.

The issue is not that one country produces everything it need; we import some foodstuffs too. The issue is that we have the surplus to be able to do so in spite of our dense population.

Vietnam is in the fertile tropics, most countries are not endowed with such advantages. Almost all current food production requires more oil (weight wise) than the food it produces. Take away the oil and productivity crashes massively.

There are highly productive organic alternatives which could help to transition into a more sustainable future - but the trajectory we are actually on is to intensify the use of energy in our food production. That is a disaster waiting to happen and the spikes in food prices over the last half decade attest to what happens in a peak oil world. Many farmers in Europe will go out of business in the coming years because even with subsidies it is uneconomic to farm with incomes well below a standard industrial wage. The world has already been rocked by significant food riots in developing countries - a taste of the future.

Br Cornelius

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Cracking for oil and natural gas; some discoveries point to a more optimistic future.

The issue is not that one country produces everything it need; we import some foodstuffs too. The issue is that we have the surplus to be able to do so in spite of our dense population.

I suspect when your write "cracking", what you mean is "fracking",

Now, "fracking" will offer an additional supply of carbon fuels for a while. Which means that peak oil will be pushed forward; but it will still occur. Fracking does NOT offer a solution to peak oil.

And the problem about peak oil is global. Vietnam can NOT extract itself from that, because EVERYBODY will run short of the cheap oil that your food production depends on, just like everybody else`s food production.

"Trade" is NOT a solution to that; if you believe that, you are dreaming.

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Yes we are in the tropics; that has its advantages and its disadvantages. The Congo is also in the tropics.

Your scenario of the future is typical, and not one I share. Population here is stable: we would like to avoid a population crash or an excessively old population, so birth rates are being kept up without being explosive. There are places where the push against excessive population has gone too far and populations will soon age and decline. There are others where more work in control is badly needed. Balance is the watchword.

Agricultural dependence on petroleum products is not a serious worry. Even if petroleum prices rise significantly the portion used for things other than transport and electricity is small and can absorb it. A more likely scenario is that technology will continue to develop alternatives.

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I stand corrected, "fracking" it is. My English sometimes goes awry.

I see the technology giving a considerable boost to the Vietnamese economy and enough time to convert to solar and a few other sources. We probably have something like 30 - 50 years worth of present Vietnamese use available. Without this technology there is almost nothing.

Eventually we will use biomass if solar doesn't work out, but I don't see that except as an option.

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Yes we are in the tropics; that has its advantages and its disadvantages. The Congo is also in the tropics.

Your scenario of the future is typical, and not one I share. Population here is stable: we would like to avoid a population crash or an excessively old population, so birth rates are being kept up without being explosive. There are places where the push against excessive population has gone too far and populations will soon age and decline. There are others where more work in control is badly needed. Balance is the watchword.

Agricultural dependence on petroleum products is not a serious worry. Even if petroleum prices rise significantly the portion used for things other than transport and electricity is small and can absorb it. A more likely scenario is that technology will continue to develop alternatives.

This is fundamentally wrong analysis. Agriculture recieves oil inputs in three forms in order of importance;

- fertilizers

- pesticides and herbicides

- transport on and off farm

- processing (not significant in some countries)

Transport, the obvious input is insignificant for many foods (though not for salads flown from Africa to Northern Europe).

There are no alternatives to cheap energy in the current system of agriculture and at least 50% of all food costs go on energy inputs alone.

All of modern life is dependent on cheap energy, and agriculture especially so.

Br Cornelius

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