well just like any other statistic, zero population growth may only be a temporary blip. What is really happening is that the European Community has drastically scaled back immigration policy.A child born in france to non-french parents is now no longer considered to be a french citizen. Yet another example of this is the large expatriate turkish community in Germany. Due to double digit unemployment there has been an increase in racial disturbances, with the german government pleading for tolerance of "fogeign nationals". In both cases, turks living and working in Germany and french born babies are not considered to be european, thus I am not surprised that the EU would have zero population growth because they aren't measuring the actual number of babies but only EU babies born of EU parents.
besides most of europe is not at zero growth but only a few countries like Austria with high cost of living and conservative immigration policy.
Also just because American statistics choose not to measure immigrant labor does not mean these people don't exist and have lots of children.
Like it or not population continues to grow faster than our ability to feed it. The solution has been to utilize technology to solve these problems but as I pointed out in one of my previous posts marginal land continues to be cleared for farming or animal husbandry while high yielding land continues to be plowed under for concrete, cars and malls.
The problem already exists in the developing world. Its only because most of us on the internet and here at slashdot live in the relative comfort of the USA that we don't understand how bad the problem has become.
World fish stocks are at an all time low according to recent studies, we continue to lose top soil at an alarming rate, and runoff of fertilizer from high tech farming solutions is polluting the water. The availability of clean water for drinking is also pretty much tapped out, unless you consider a global scale desalinization plan.
technology has solved and will continue to solve many of human kinds problems but to create more food from dwindling resources may be just too much to ask for. Perhaps the world is better off with 3 or 4 billion instead of the current 6. Geez within my lifetime the earths population should hit at least 10 billion. How can technology possibily keep up with growth like that ?
wow, well first of all as a forum we as users have to take all we read with a large supply of salt. I for one use a shaker with my tequila.
however the topic here is food its availability and the consequences of its not being available.
Despite what technofiles and other futurists who worship tech will tell you, food availability is not increasing. There was a international debate earlier this century about the green revolution and how the developing world would "make up" for a lack of food. What is happening is that more outlying acreage with smaller carrying capacity is being utilized for food prodcution while local high yielding acreage is being plowed under and turned into malls, parking lots, highways and other modern utilities. Technofiles would have us believe that with the addition of fertilizer these outlying lands can be more fully utilized for the production of food or animal husbandry. This may be useful over the short term but as the land is intensively farmed it loses carrying capacity, not to mention runoff of top soil. While it would be convenient to discuss somewhere in the USA where these conditions exist I would point out to those who have read this far that the USA is pretty much not really where the problem is at its worst. We must take an honest assesement of the developing world.
What is at the heart of the food production issue are a number of INTL issues. First is the corporate farm, second is farm labor immigration, third is the increasing dependancy of the developing world upon developed world markets, fourth is market pressure upon food prices, fifth is the future of family farming. Although there are many other issues contained within this debate I would limit its scope to these 5 key issues.
Thus we must ask ourselves food for profit at what cost to the global carrying capacity ?
Immigrant labor for food production and the effect on human rights and labor conditions.
The future holds a few constants. One is an ever increasing number of humans on the earth, all needing regular caloric intake. Two is an ever increasing use of marginal land for food production. Three is an increased connection between what is grown in the developing world so it can be shipped for sale in the developed world. Four is a direct relationship between sustainable farming techniques versus intensive bottom line farming and the effect upon the carrying capacity of the land.
this issue is far to complex to be contained within this one post or the sum total of all the posts on this site !
this is just a few FACTS to wet your whistle.
where technology can help this situation is in maintaining INTL discussions, assisting in distribution of food stocks to those in need, study of top soil runoff and its avoidance, and the continuation of foodsotck planning. Things like which foodstock grows best in which environment and the avoidance of growing certain foods in areas not suitable for its growing.
Slashdot Mirror
well just like any other statistic, zero population growth may only be a temporary blip. What is really happening is that the European Community has drastically scaled back immigration policy.A child born in france to non-french parents is now no longer considered to be a french citizen. Yet another example of this is the large expatriate turkish community in Germany. Due to double digit unemployment there has been an increase in racial disturbances, with the german government pleading for tolerance of "fogeign nationals". In both cases, turks living and working in Germany and french born babies are not considered to be european, thus I am not surprised that the EU would have zero population growth because they aren't measuring the actual number of babies but only EU babies born of EU parents.
besides most of europe is not at zero growth but only a few countries like Austria with high cost of living and conservative immigration policy.
Also just because American statistics choose not to measure immigrant labor does not mean these people don't exist and have lots of children.
Like it or not population continues to grow faster than our ability to feed it. The solution has been to utilize technology to solve these problems but as I pointed out in one of my previous posts marginal land continues to be cleared for farming or animal husbandry while high yielding land continues to be plowed under for concrete, cars and malls.
The problem already exists in the developing world. Its only because most of us on the internet and here at slashdot live in the relative comfort of the USA that we don't understand how bad the problem has become.
World fish stocks are at an all time low according to recent studies, we continue to lose top soil at an alarming rate, and runoff of fertilizer from high tech farming solutions is polluting the water. The availability of clean water for drinking is also pretty much tapped out, unless you consider a global scale desalinization plan.
technology has solved and will continue to solve many of human kinds problems but to create more food from dwindling resources may be just too much to ask for. Perhaps the world is better off with 3 or 4 billion instead of the current 6. Geez within my lifetime the earths population should hit at least 10 billion. How can technology possibily keep up with growth like that ?
wow, well first of all as a forum we as users have to take all we read with a large supply of salt. I for one use a shaker with my tequila.
however the topic here is food its availability and the consequences of its not being available.
Despite what technofiles and other futurists who worship tech will tell you, food availability is not increasing. There was a international debate earlier this century about the green revolution and how the developing world would "make up" for a lack of food. What is happening is that more outlying acreage with smaller carrying capacity is being utilized for food prodcution while local high yielding acreage is being plowed under and turned into malls, parking lots, highways and other modern utilities. Technofiles would have us believe that with the addition of fertilizer these outlying lands can be more fully utilized for the production of food or animal husbandry. This may be useful over the short term but as the land is intensively farmed it loses carrying capacity, not to mention runoff of top soil. While it would be convenient to discuss somewhere in the USA where these conditions exist I would point out to those who have read this far that the USA is pretty much not really where the problem is at its worst. We must take an honest assesement of the developing world.
What is at the heart of the food production issue are a number of INTL issues. First is the corporate farm, second is farm labor immigration, third is the increasing dependancy of the developing world upon developed world markets, fourth is market pressure upon food prices, fifth is the future of family farming. Although there are many other issues contained within this debate I would limit its scope to these 5 key issues.
Thus we must ask ourselves food for profit at what cost to the global carrying capacity ?
Immigrant labor for food production and the effect on human rights and labor conditions.
The future holds a few constants. One is an ever increasing number of humans on the earth, all needing regular caloric intake. Two is an ever increasing use of marginal land for food production. Three is an increased connection between what is grown in the developing world so it can be shipped for sale in the developed world. Four is a direct relationship between sustainable farming techniques versus intensive bottom line farming and the effect upon the carrying capacity of the land.
this issue is far to complex to be contained within this one post or the sum total of all the posts on this site !
this is just a few FACTS to wet your whistle.
where technology can help this situation is in maintaining INTL discussions, assisting in distribution of food stocks to those in need, study of top soil runoff and its avoidance, and the continuation of foodsotck planning. Things like which foodstock grows best in which environment and the avoidance of growing certain foods in areas not suitable for its growing.
looking forward to continuing this conversation: