When will our population hit crisis point ?

[Ashotep]

When I was younger I read a book that said 8 billion would be the tipping point. Something was mentioned about a fertility crisis I would put that down to education and all the chemicals in our food and stuff. It might also be natures way of slowing down population growth.

Japan and south Korea are two countries that will feel the brunt of low fertility. Their economies may fail with no workers because everyone is old or dead and no kids are being born. I live in Australia our population goes up with people coming into the country, but our birth rates have increased because the government has put in cash incentives to pop out babies.

I think we need a age limit rather than a population limit. People are living far too long and the cost of keeping people alive is high. I say when you turn 80 its time to go. Sounds harsh I know but in Australia for example 3.5 - 5 million baby boomers are going to reach 80ish in the next 15 - 25 years, those millions will need health care, nursing homes, medications, pension payments etc. Those working are going to be taxed more to pay for pensions and p

What about the people with mental and physical disabilities or had a car wreck that leaves them unable to work should we just off them too?

[kajiwara]

well sure we should because everyone knows the elderly/handicapped never contributed anything to society *sarcasm* im just picturing jesspys 80th birthday when the men in white coats come and say well its been a good ride but times up jesspy..and jesspy shrugs and says ok its for the good of the earth and goes along quietly..not a likely scenario I must say

[lightly]

Yes, I think you are wrong; the world produces more than enough food and in large areas of the world immense amounts go to waste. The problem is selfishness and uncaring in rich areas and corruption and mismanagement in poor areas.

True, but i think you are describing two problems with the current system that might be elevated by more localized systems?

LOL I just noticed this..

jesspy, on 16 June 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

I think we need a age limit rather than a population limit. People are living far too long and the cost of keeping people alive is high. I say when you turn 80 its time to go. Sounds harsh I know ....

Happy Birthday Gramma !*!*!*!*** ... Goodbye!*!*!**!*

*

Edited July 2, 2013 by lightly

[+DieChecker]

Happy Birthday Gramma !*!*!*!*** ... Goodbye!*!*!**!*

Reminds me of the classic Star Trek episode where the planet is entirely peopled by kids, and once they reach puberty, a man-made plague kills them.

http://en.wikipedia....Original_Series)

Edited July 3, 2013 by DieChecker

[+DieChecker]

Desalination technologies are on the horizon that will resolve this in all the world except deserts. Groundwater is a more serious matter and its depletion has got to be stopped.

Water itself I think will not be an issue. I think Transport of water and food Will however be a big issue. Not so much in the US, but in Africa and Asia (The places with the fastest growth) I believe the ever increasing cost of transport of food and water will result in much thirst and hunger.

[Frank Merton]

I foresee a world with maybe more than even twenty billion people where everyone lives in conditions we would today call paradise. Of course they won't see it that way as there will still be rich and poor and doom-sayers will still make a good living, although they will have to find a different story than running out of resources, since everything will be on a sustainable basis.

[Guest]

Desalination technologies are on the horizon that will resolve this in all the world except deserts. Groundwater is a more serious matter and its depletion has got to be stopped.

Desalination is already here. It is energy intensive which places more pressure on both climate and our dwindling energy reserves. It is not a panacea for our water crisis since it cannot address the real crisis in water which is aquifer depletion within our industrial agriculture areas. Wheat is the main world staple and is concentrated in areas which relie on deep aquifers to farm it.

As in most things technology cannot solve the problems of profligacy and waste - on human common sense can achieve that.

Br Cornelius

[Frank Merton]

I should have said better desalination techniques that don't use so much energy.

[+DieChecker]

I should have said better desalination techniques that don't use so much energy.

I worked on a project once at a former job, where we made medical equipment mostly, and the project was to make a bag inside a bag, with a water permiable surface on the inside bag, so that you filled the outer bag with water and then the water filtered into the inner bag, where it could be drunk from. The permiable material filtered out almost all organisms and debris, and many chemicals. It was supposed to be used for humanitarian efforts in no energy areas of Africa, if I remember right.

Very much like these bags....

http://www.htiwater.com/divisions/personal_hydration/products.html

Edited July 3, 2013 by DieChecker

[Guest]

These solutions, though admirable in their chosen application, cannot be considered low energy or materials since they contain substantial amounts of embodied energy at the production phase. They quickly become fowled and so require constant replacement which would make them expensive on an industrial desalination scale.Scale them up and you are fairly much back to square one.

Br Cornelius

[Frank Merton]

That objection is consistently raised -- that in measuring the overall environmental cost of a technology you have to consider the costs involved in manufacturing, distributing, and so on, in addition to the cost of actual operation. Another element is ultimate disposal when the operations are over.

A lot of hype surrounds various technologies that promise significant improvement over existing technologies but achieve this by ignoring these other elements. We see that with electric cars, widely touted as more fuel economic than gasoline, but not when you include manufacturing and disposal of those batteries. A similar phenomenon what encountered by the Obama administration pouring money into a solar energy research company that ended up with good and efficient solar cells that were prohibitively expensive.

What this all shows is that often those who think there is some conspiracy or other venal activity going on to prevent wonderful-sounding technologies from coming to market in a major way are just looking at a narrow aspect of the cost and not all the costs.

[Guest]

Life cycle analysis is tricky as it greatly depends on the starting variables which are subject to choice. Vary the choices very slightly and you can arrive at completely different conclusions with the electric car been a prime example. Always look at who did the analysis when assessing the conclusions of any claim as to whether a product is better than another similar product.

Very few people who comission these studies have no horse in the race so they should be viewed with extreme caution. However in the case of the water treatment device under discussion - there is clearly no overall advantage otherwise they would already have been comercialized on an industrial desalination basis.

Br Cornelius

[MonkeyLove]

In terms of ave. ecological footprint vs. biocapacity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint

we are at overshoot.