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World Population Expected To Hit 7 Billion In Late October
kkleiner writes "A new report documents the prodigious rate at which the world's population is growing. It was just 1999 when we reached 6 billion. And now within the next month or two we will have surpassed 7 billion. What does the continued increase in world population mean for humanity and for the the planet?"
Child #7,000,000,000 gets the prize of officially being recognized as "Not actually a bundle of joy" and, on average, a harsh subsistence existence. Congratulations!
What does the continued increase in world population mean for humanity and for the the planet?"
War
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Around 40% of the corn produced in the US goes to ethanol.
It's obviously not a question of whether we can support 7 billion people, since we basically are, but whether we can support the increasing growth rate. If you look at this graph, you can see the population is projected to level off around 10billion or so. And if you look even closer, you can see it's really a question for India (and to a lesser degree, Africa): can India handle its massive population growth? If so, then the world can handle it, too. If not, then they are going to suffer a lot.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Unfortunately the areas that are experiencing the highest population growth are not first world countries. They are the countries which are unable to sustain their population, and depend on government (usually not available), or international hand-outs to survive.
If we want to solve this problem, we must cut aid to areas which cannot sustain itself. I realize that's harsh, but creating a life does not entitle it to live. There's a reason we fight to survive, and getting hand-outs (for the long term, not just some short-term disaster) due to unsustainable population areas means we're just making it worse.
Cut off the aid, and let the population re-balance itself on what can be sustained by these 3rd world areas. This will lower demand on resources as well, and allow the world to grow at a more moderate pace.
And, for some miraculous reason, coincidental with the stabilization of world population, oil will replenish, as will the aquifers, the fisheries will certainly recover and the eroded topsoil will miraculously be blown back on the land, the salt water invading the coastal fertile lands will draw back, energy will be plenty all of a sudden once more, and, of course, idiots will stop spewing bullshit on slashdot, yes?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
- People are dying from eating organic foods because organic foods have much higher rates of e.coli
- Non-chlorinated pools are also bacteria farms.
- Most studies have shown life expectancy is higher in urban areas than rural areas, though I don't think we understand why currently
- Chiropractors have really come under fire in recent years as charlatans with little to no medical evidence of their claims
- Drug companies certainly have their faults, but avoiding medicine is a good way to die young.
Your five points of advice are absolutely fantastic.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I know you were kidding, but I got tired of people talking about 'unused land' back when the world population hit six billion, and I did the math to show how stupid an idea it is.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Ehrlich didn't forsee the massive productivity increase in the agricultural sector in the seventies - however, this increase had an unintended consequence. We now use 9 kJ of oil to produce 1 kJ of food. And guess what - well, don't just guess, just have a look at the oil prices and the production rates of the major fields. We are not starting to drill off-shore in the deep arctic ocean because easily available oil is aplenty.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Humans are complex social creatures. When we over populate some people will not notice or care while others will suffer. Going even further, we will create methods by which more people can feel at ease and even some of the suffering people can create an incorrect context to feel better about it. We can lower statistical thresholds on just how bad poverty is... among other things.
We still have an influential amount of people who refuse to admit and another who refuse to adapt to the climate crisis we are in-- which is CAUSED by over population... sure, blame technology for it-- if there were fewer people wasting and polluting the climate could handle it better.
If you think a quality of life on par with the EU is a good goal, then you've already picked something impossible because the planet can only sustain about 2 billion people at those living standards; and possibly over the longer term the climate may not handle that either (but likely it would be slow enough we could adapt?)
JOBS: the big deal is jobs. there may be enough food to go around even today and we can ignore the fact it'll not keep up with population growth; because we don't have economically viable means to distribute the food / resources to WORKING peoples of the world who deserve equal right of access. We don't have enough gainful employment for the world; we have far far less meaningful jobs because we must create consumerism in order to prop up pointless jobs; this increases the resource consumption at a higher rate than population growth in order to maintain continual economic growth (which isn't sustainable either.) After we remove the cheap exploited labor and replace it with robotics there will be even more people unable to find work and we will have to invent even more meaningless jobs... something which seems unsustainable as well.
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Does the 7 billionth baby gets a free car?
Don't worry, the ecosystem will balance back before we get to the non returning point. It's been proven that if a population isn't controlled anymore by any selective pressure, a new selective pressure will arise and reestablish the correct population/resources ratio. Don't you see what's going on? Population increase is going on in already over populated area which are usually poor and undeveloped. This create a the perfect environment for a new epidemic. The first world is also extremely reliant on petrol and electronics. A solar flare big enough to knock down completely our power grid could let most of our population to starve. The economy is going badly, there's unrest in developing nation, political tension all over the world. Don't you see what's coming? We're on the edge of the ravine and all it takes is a small tips for our civilization to collapse. Hell we'll surely give it to ourselves. Don't believe me? Look back at the roman empire.
I usually don't feed trolls but I would dare say, that the majority of the Earth's population would not agree with you. Let's take a look at the two countries that make up over a third of the world. China and India... Well there's not much to look at. The people there are doing okay but far from all the nice USA vices that you have listed, except maybe the coal fired power plants.
Your message seems to be targeted to 1st world nations and I hate to break it to you, but the first world nations aren't the biggest, except maybe the US (who is 3rd in population) and Russia (who is 10th in population). The biggest nations in the world have an organic diet, basically whatever food they find. Swim only in non-chlorinated pools, or discharge channels whichever comes first. Exercise...Well that's not exactly top on their list when they are starving. Have never even heard the word chiropractor. Do not even have an option to "Big Pharma". (sarcasm) In fact look at how wonderful the people in India are doing.(/sarcasm)
When it comes down to it, if I had to choose between "clean" water and actual clean water. I'd choose the latter over crapping myself to death. I don't know where this idea of, "we're making the Earth worst," came from but the underlying point is that the Earth came built with all kinds of stuff to make our lives horrible, very, very horrible. It is through burning fossils, radiating ourselves, hacking birds with forty foot grinders, and pumping our food supply full of wonderful artificial crap; that you actually have survived long enough to type your rant on the things that have kept you alive. (AKA, it's real hard to take that jog though the fresh country air when some animal is tracking you for food, or to swim in a non-chlorinated pool when you have Polio from swimming in non-chlorinated pools)
Everything in this world has a trade-off, nothing is perfect and that includes the ecosystem with or without us. Intelligence breeds destruction as you may see it. I, however, believe that we have within our grasp the ability to ensure our own survival either on or off of this lump of rock we call Earth. There will be things that we must give up and there will be things we must accept going forward. There will always be people who cannot stand change, who fight advancement; either because they fear it or poorly understand it. You, dear troll, have no idea, nor do you care to understand. It's just easier that way isn't it? By all means, move out to the *real* country of the African savannah or the the south-central regions of Utah. Let me know how you like it.
Our consumption of their resources is *why* they consume less. You are the cause of their resource scarcity.
No.
This is one of the most retrograde ways of thinking available to the third world. A good deal of the Left in Latin America adopt this thesis (read Eduardo Galeano, an Uruguayan author, for an example). But the third world is sucks because it's own failings. I'm a citizen of Brazil so I'll take the examples from here since I know it's history better.
Back when Brazil was a Portuguese colony it showed an amazing period of growth when gold as discovered in the current Minas Gerais state (indeed, Minas Gerais means General Mines). Since the gold industry created a small middle class, a small number of industries (textiles) and trade (food, from southern Brazil and leather from northeastern Brazil) was developed internally. This could be the seed for Brazil starting it's own industry early on it's history. By 1785 the Portuguese taxed us to hell (the "derrama", a full fifth of all gold profits besides normal taxes) and then prohibited the industry at all to be developed in the colony. Besides a few angry manifestos, the Brazilians did nothing. It should be noted that Brazilians had no representation in the Portuguese Cortes.
Ten years before the Americans fought their independence war. It was the time for Brazil to do the same. We didn't. We never did, actually. Brazil stopped being a colony after Portugal was invaded by Napoleon and the royal family fled to Rio de Janeiro. Brazil was then elevated to the status of United Kingdom of Brazil, Portugal and Algarves. By 1822 a royal prince "gave" the Brazilian independence and took the crown to himself. As part of "reparations" Brazil gave (a lot of) money to Portugal and promised not to conquest the other Portuguese colonies. Instead of kicking their asses back to Europe, like the Americans did to the English.
My country own history is similar to much of the history of Hispanic America and Africa. The third world is shitty because of it's own failing and nothing else. Of course, the first world did nothing to help but it's not it's responsibility. It's a dog eat dog world and countries should look for themselves.
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
Non-chlorinated pools are also bacteria farms
Not necessarily. Pools can also use UV or oxygen to kill bacteria. Being non-chlorinated doesn't mean not using anything to kill bacteria, it just means not using something that's also pretty hostile to humans. Chlorine isn't the best way of killing bacteria in pools, it's just the cheapest.
Note: This post in no way endorses the trolling of Dr Bob.
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7 BILLION PEOPLE. That's an insane amount of people putting an extreme burden on our delicate ecosystem. Earth is already at the brink of death, it's been estimated that when we hit 10 billion, there's no turning back.
While Dr. Bob is clearly a troll, it's amazing to me the number of non-trolls that accept this part as absolutely true without need for proof. High population isn't killing the environment, inefficient consumption of resources is killing the environment. Per capita, US citizens use far more energy, and put out far more CO2 than the average for the world. We have 4.5% of the world's population, but contribute 18.5% of the CO2 emissions.
The only way more people = environmental destruction is if we refuse to tighten our belts and the rest of the world decides they want to live as wastefully as we do. We need to stop feeling entitled to use and abuse resources however we feel like at the moment simply because previous generations could get away with it.
Your argument boils down to the assertion that an exploited person and/or people is responsible for its exploitation because it doesn't rebell against the exploiters. In other words you assign guilt to the victim. Fortunately, the civilized world doesn't work that way. There is an obvious cost to any rebellion: it can go wrong or sideways and many more people die or suffer than would have under the status quo.
BTW, the American colonies were split on the whole independence thing. In retrospect, it is easy to say that the revolutionaries did the right thing. But when the colonies rebelled many Americans fought on the British side.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
Not if everyone wants to live in the style to which Americans have become accustomed. As I note in the link, for that to happen (given current tech), "We're going to need three or four New Earths."
To change that, you need to either (greatly) improve the tech, or (drastically) change the living standard and policies. Or a combination of both.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
If you did this and eventually rose to a position of power (where you could implement the program on a national scale) you would have been assassinated or had a coup carried out against you. The people who are sucking the wealth out of the Third World countries know that they're responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents, removing one more obstruction to their accumulation of ever-more-grotesque levels of wealth wouldn't cause them a moment's lost sleep.
This is not to excuse leaders like Alan Garcia from doing more, but I was told of a particularly intransigent highland Peruvian politician who received a cell phone call saying, "Look at your daughter's chest, and vote the right way" on a mining concession. He was appalled to see her playing with the red dot of a laser gun sight aimed at her. He retired early from politics.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin