From what I've read, the majority of environmental scientists/researchers and their many population/environmental models all come to the same conclusion: At our current rate of population growth, the earth will run out of resources in no more than 150 years. Some predict that we will start seeing severe shortages in as few as 20 and that inside of 40 years, full scale wars will be fought for control of food and water rights. Meanwhile our population size ensures that greenhouse gases (the real planet killer) will continue to go uncontrolled.

Pakistan Article Wrote:Mohammad Basheer ... is not able to fill the monstrous bellies of 8 children. In patriarchal cultures there is one primary earner in a family and a number of mammoths dependent for food, shelter and education on him that results in ultimate impoverishment. An energy crisis, food crises, inflation, deteriorating fossil fuels and decrement in the value of human life are all gifts of population explosion.

Pakistan Article Wrote:Every minute, on an average, our population increases by 6 people. Moreover urbanization is taking place, cities are congested and many civic problems have been created. Less population means less pollution, decreased energy utilization, better hygienic conditions, belittled inflation, good job opportunities and superior living conditions.

Meanwhile, China's strict population controls don't seem to be anywhere near enough.

China Article Wrote:Implemented in 1979, China’s One Child Policy does just what its name would suggest: forcibly limit couples to have only one child. The policy was enacted in response to China’s purported overpopulation. Through excessive fines, forced abortions and sterilizations, the policy is strictly and violently enforced by China’s Family Planning Commission. [The] preference to have a male child has led to the deaths of tens of millions of unborn girls. The society-damaging consequences of their deaths, however, echo even further... According to a recent study, the number males under the age of 20 exceeded the number of females by more than 32 million in 2005.

So what do we do as a species? Is it obvious to you that we all need to stop breeding? It seems to me that if we don't "keep it in our pants" when it comes to procreation, that we're going to grow ourselves out of existence. Because of this, it seems that the conspiracy theorists may finally have one theory become probable: the idea that the governments of the world will have to inflict the human race with an epidemic that will make the Black Plague look like a Sunday picnic. Is that what it will take? And if it is ... is it the right choice to kill off a few billion people in order to save the planet from horrific war and possible total extinction due to ever increasing pollutants?

I'm not totally sure where I stand on this, but I do think it is completely irresponsible and even selfish to produce 4 or more children simply because you can and then dump the responsibility of over population onto some other country. I do firmly believe, we HAVE to stop breeding and if we don't that it may very well become someone's job to "thin the herd."

Overpopulation does seem to be a problem that is getting bigger and bigger as time goes on. But, still, in my opinion, I don't think that we have come to the point of suggesting a worldwide population control yet. We have to look at the pros and the cons of population control very carefully in order to decide if this is a good idea at all or even worth it in the long run as well as how it should be carried out. There are many different factors and variables to consider. And, surely, enforcing a limit on how much people can breed would also definitely interfere with their personal lives along with their desires, goals, and/or enjoyments that they are looking forward to. Unfortunately, maybe there is no negotiable solution to this.

Unfortunately, population controls would fail on two fronts: The hyper "don't tread on me" folk and the uneducated/undereducated folk, and, despite the overlap between those two groups, the latter makes up a large part of the world population, aided and abetted by theistic beliefs and politics.

As I've had occasion to mention in other threads, those of us who have the fewest children are consuming resources at a greater rate and quantity than those who have the most. "Population control" would mean telling poor people in third world countries to stop/limit their procreative activities. Until the above situation is remedied I don't really see us having much in the way of high ground to sell that particular product from.

"I say we dust off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

We human beings WILL breed ourselves into extinction ,just a Thomas Malthus predicted, unless we have a nice big world war or a really virulent pandemic. World population is increasing exponentially, resources are not.

When will this happen? I really don't know.However, I'm fairly confident it will not be until after I'm dead, so the matter is academic to me, I'm rather ambivalent about the long term fate of the human race.However, I suspect our extinction will be a good thing for a great many other species.


A recent documentary series, "Life After People" claimed there would be no trace of us at all within a million years. That is a short geological time.

Season 1,episode 1, below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDbcMND7fY

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Malthus had an overly romantic view of human in my opinion.

Quote:The Reverend[1] Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 or 14 February 1766 – 23 or 29 December 1834[2]) was an English scholar, influential in political economy and demography.[3][4] Malthus popularized the economic theory of rent.[5]

Malthus has become widely known for his theories about population and its increase or decrease in response to various factors. The six editions of his An Essay on the Principle of Population, published from 1798 to 1826, observed that sooner or later population gets checked by famine and disease. He wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible.[6] William Godwin and the Marquis de Condorcet, for example, believed in the possibility of almost limitless improvement of society. In a more complex way, so did Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose notions centered on the goodness of man and the liberty of citizens bound only by the social contract—a form of popular sovereignty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus

Quote:Unfortunately, maybe there is no negotiable solution to this.

Nature will take care of it when the time comes.

(August 13, 2012 at 1:32 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:Unfortunately, maybe there is no negotiable solution to this.

Nature will take care of it when the time comes.

---- it's actually a continuum,nature is never static.

What about us?

To the OP, the problem will only get worse seeing as many don't see it to be a problem. I don't believe in forcing people to have less kids, merely educate them on the problem. If people fail to act, to change so to adapt to the situation, then there is no other choice but for nature to take care of the issue.

Quote:"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment."

- Charles Darwin.