Overpopulation

[The Grand Nudger]

You're right, that does sound crazy Ace.

And taking antibiotics only delays our eventual demise. We deal with shit as it comes Ace, there's no planning for every eventuality. Our best efforts aren't good enough because they don't completely solve some nebulous problem whose numbers may not be accurate? This smacks of reaching for perfection when it may not exist. Eventually, like always, we'll have to find more resources won't we? Good thing we may have a much longer time period to do so than some seem to believe.

[Violet]

@all the doomsayers in the thread:



I'm not going to waste my time telling you what rhythm is telling you. Sure, Earth might have a carrying capacity. But the world isn't going to end in 40 years, or infact in 400 years. Give it a fucking rest, you harold campings (Always moving back that date. Always an excuse).

The continental USA is very different to Australia, imagine if 80% of the continental USA was as dry as say the deserts of Arizona and Nevada, with a lot of the remainder being like the semi-arid high plains. That would leave narrow strips of land both west of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains and East of the Appalachian Mountains Mountains being not Arid or Semi-Arid and containing the vast majority of the population.

Which is already how the US population is spread (most of it on the coastal areas/near them). Not that it matters: the fact is that where there is land you can build on it. Hell, Inuit build on a frozen arctic ocean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo

---

And taking antibiotics only delays our eventual demise.

They also kick strep's fucking left ankles crying back home to mommy.

[Ace Otana]

Fine, you will not listen, I'll return the favour.

End of discussion.

[fr0d0]

Me I don't think in terms of anything ending, but the population expansion to date. Roughly, at some point, this is inevitable and undeniable, save a miracle, which could of course happen.

At that point, I find it very interesting to speculate on our management of it. Do we keep a quota of food animals alive, do we allow any creature life that doesn't benefit the eco system, I guess they all play a part. I think this is a more realistic task. To think in those terms than in terms of nothing happenning, because the overwhelming probability is that it will, and we'd be hiding our heads in the sand if we didn't.

[The Grand Nudger]

Problems don't require miracles Frodo, and anyone standing around waiting for one is going to be disappointed.

What I'm trying to express here is that we aren't at a point where decisions like these have to be made unless we continue going about things in a way that we plainly understand to be foolish while ignoring the solutions we already have available to us, even if they are only "short term".

[fr0d0]

Well there is interest in the problem as David Attenboroughs commitment shows. Personally, I don't care and am happy to wait. Factually: here in the uk we're forced by law to do something about this (wider) stuff.

Interesting toy here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515

When you were born, you were the:
2,998,660,857th person alive on Earth
76,614,857,826th person to have lived since history began

[Violet]

I listened to you ace. Such a shame all you said was bullcrap

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v41...01013.html

http://www.economist.com/node/11374623

http://reason.com/archives/2006/12/22/th...-of-malthu

http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

"wheeeeeeeee!!!!!!"

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/0...tion-myth/

I am tired of you blaming overpopulation for the problems we need to fix. War, poverty, overconsumption, inefficiency, multinational corporations. These are things we need to fix. Population is not. And we'll figure that problem out too if it ever becomes one.

[Cinjin]

THAT'S IT! EVERYBODY STOP DRINKING WATER YOU SELFISH THIRSTY BASTARDS!




...and on a side note - all you catholics get a fucking condom or two!

[paintpooper]

It is my understanding that the population boom was only able to happen because of easy concentrated energy. Oil, Coal. For years and years before we only had wood and water based energy as sources of energy.

Wouldn't it be safe to say, that if those energy sources become more scarce we will be unable to support the large population growth while the energy that allowed the growth to happen runs low.

The green revolution was only possible because of fossil fuels. Pesticides and the energy to convert land was fossil fuel based. This is a fossil fuel world, and we reached this point only because of them.

Unless we can find ways to replace the energy we gained from fossil fuels, things will not be good. Thats why we need more research into alternative energy, and not just some wind turbines, but something that can actually compete with the amount of energy fossil fuels provide.

We are able to ship large quantities of food around the country, due to energy, nothing is hardly local anymore, the burger I ate came from new Zealand cows. That is not possible without a cheap energy source.

It is all about energy. Technology spawned from having tons of cheap energy. Technology combined with energy allowed this population boom to occur. All other things remained constant.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, wind was the cheap energy source for most of our history with shipping food, for example. Before anyone jumps in with perishability and the improvements of the modern tanker..they usually don't refridgerate the food, and the tankers run near idle to cut costs. It's all a convoluted mess, honestly. More to do with politics and obsolete technologies than necessity or efficiency in most cases. I'm a big fan of Buckminster Fullers contention that fossil fuels represent an important source of energy for developing better, longer term solutions for our energy problems, and shouldn't be viewed (or should have never been viewed) as the solution themselves.