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We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction
All measures to thwart the degradation and destruction of our ecosystem will be useless if we do not cut population growth. By 2050, if we continue to reproduce at the current rate, the planet will have between 8 billion and 10 billion people, according to a recent U.N. forecast. This is a 50 percent increase. And yet government-commissioned reviews, such as the Stern report in Britain, do not mention the word population. Books and documentaries that deal with the climate crisis, including Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," fail to discuss the danger of population growth. This omission is odd, given that a doubling in population, even if we cut back on the use of fossil fuels, shut down all our coal-burning power plants and build seas of wind turbines, will plunge us into an age of extinction and desolation unseen since the end of the Mesozoic era, 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs disappeared.
We are experiencing an accelerated obliteration of the planet's life-forms-an estimated 8,760 species die off per year-because, simply put, there are too many people. Most of these extinctions are the direct result of the expanding need for energy, housing, food and other resources. The Yangtze River dolphin, Atlantic gray whale, West African black rhino, Merriam's elk, California grizzly bear, silver trout, blue pike and dusky seaside sparrow are all victims of human overpopulation. Population growth, as E.O. Wilson says, is "the monster on the land." Species are vanishing at a rate of a hundred to a thousand times faster than they did before the arrival of humans. If the current rate of extinction continues, Homo sapiens will be one of the few life-forms left on the planet, its members scrambling violently among themselves for water, food, fossil fuels and perhaps air until they too disappear. Humanity, Wilson says, is leaving the Cenozoic, the age of mammals, and entering the Eremozoic-the era of solitude. As long as the Earth is viewed as the personal property of the human race, a belief embraced by everyone from born-again Christians to Marxists to free-market economists, we are destined to soon inhabit a biological wasteland.
The populations in industrialized nations maintain their lifestyles because they have the military and economic power to consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources. The United States alone gobbles up about 25 percent of the oil produced in the world each year. These nations view their stable or even zero growth birthrates as sufficient. It has been left to developing countries to cope with the emergent population crisis. India, Egypt, South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, Cuba and China, whose one-child policy has prevented the addition of 400 million people, have all tried to institute population control measures. But on most of the planet, population growth is exploding. The U.N. estimates that 200 million women worldwide do not have access to contraception. The population of the Persian Gulf states, along with the Israeli-occupied territories, will double in two decades, a rise that will ominously coincide with precipitous peak oil declines.
The overpopulated regions of the globe will ravage their local environments, cutting down rainforests and the few remaining wilderness areas, in a desperate bid to grow food. And the depletion and destruction of resources will eventually create an overpopulation problem in industrialized nations as well. The resources that industrialized nations consider their birthright will become harder and more expensive to obtain. Rising water levels on coastlines, which may submerge coastal nations such as Bangladesh, will disrupt agriculture and displace millions, who will attempt to flee to areas on the planet where life is still possible. The rising temperatures and droughts have already begun to destroy crop lands in Africa, Australia, Texas and California. The effects of this devastation will first be felt in places like Bangladesh, but will soon spread within our borders. Footprint data suggests that, based on current lifestyles, the sustainable population of the United Kingdom-the number of people the country could feed, fuel and support from its own biological capacity-is about 18 million. This means that in an age of extreme scarcity, some 43 million people in Great Britain would not be able to survive. Overpopulation will become a serious threat to the viability of many industrialized states the instant the cheap consumption of the world's resources can no longer be maintained. This moment may be closer than we think.
A world where 8 billion to 10 billion people are competing for diminishing resources will not be peaceful. The industrialized nations will, as we have done in Iraq, turn to their militaries to ensure a steady supply of fossil fuels, minerals and other nonrenewable resources in the vain effort to sustain a lifestyle that will, in the end, be unsustainable. The collapse of industrial farming, which is made possible only with cheap oil, will lead to an increase in famine, disease and starvation. And the reaction of those on the bottom will be the low-tech tactic of terrorism and war. Perhaps the chaos and bloodshed will be so massive that overpopulation will be solved through violence, but this is hardly a comfort.
James Lovelock, an independent British scientist who has spent most of his career locked out of the mainstream, warned several decades ago that disrupting the delicate balance of the Earth, which he refers to as a living body, would be a form of collective suicide. The atmosphere on Earth-21 percent oxygen and 79 percent nitrogen-is not common among planets, he notes. These gases are generated, and maintained at an equable level for life's processes, by living organisms themselves. Oxygen and nitrogen would disappear if the biosphere was destroyed. The result would be a greenhouse atmosphere similar to that of Venus, a planet that is consequently hundreds of degrees hotter than Earth. Lovelock argues that the atmosphere, oceans, rocks and soil are living entities. They constitute, he says, a self-regulating system. Lovelock, in support of this thesis, looked at the cycle in which algae in the oceans produce volatile sulfur compounds. These compounds act as seeds to form oceanic clouds. Without these dimethyl sulfide "seeds" the cooling oceanic clouds would be lost. This self-regulating system is remarkable because it maintains favorable conditions for human life. Its destruction would not mean the death of the planet. It would not mean the death of life-forms. But it would mean the death of Homo sapiens.
Lovelock advocates nuclear power and thermal solar power; the latter, he says, can be produced by huge mirrors mounted in deserts such as those in Arizona and the Sahara. He proposes reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide with large plastic cylinders thrust vertically into the ocean. These, he says, could bring nutrient-rich lower waters to the surface, producing an algal bloom that would increase the cloud cover. But he warns that these steps will be ineffective if we do not first control population growth. He believes the Earth is overpopulated by a factor of about seven. As the planet overheats-and he believes we can do nothing to halt this process-overpopulation will make all efforts to save the ecosystem futile.
Lovelock, in "The Revenge of Gaia," said that if we do not radically and immediately cut greenhouse gas emissions, the human race might not die out but it would be reduced to "a few breeding pairs." "The Vanishing Face of Gaia," his latest book, which has for its subtitle "The Final Warning," paints an even grimmer picture. Lovelock says a continued population boom will make the reduction of fossil fuel use impossible. If we do not reduce our emissions by 60 percent, something that can be achieved only by walking away from fossil fuels, the human race is doomed, he argues. Time is running out. This reduction will never take place, he says, unless we can dramatically reduce our birthrate.
All efforts to stanch the effects of climate change are not going to work if we do not practice vigorous population control. Overpopulation, in times of hardship, will create as much havoc in industrialized nations as in the impoverished slums around the globe where people struggle on less than two dollars a day. Population growth is often overlooked, or at best considered a secondary issue, by many environmentalists, but it is as fundamental to our survival as reducing the emissions that are melting the polar ice caps.
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123 Comments so far
Show AllI have been saying the same thing for almost 30 years now. But, no one wants to listen. No one cares to hear what overpopulation is doing to us. They prefer to go on their merry way overpopulating. The worst offenders in this story are religion. That seems to be one of the basic tenets of religion. After all God will take care of everything. They have convinced millions upon millions it is their scared duty to keep reproduce at an alarming rate. Until the ignorance of religion is cast aside for the reality of the real world we are living. The problem will simply increase until it's destroyed us. I am glad I am old enough I won't be around to witness it. But, my Grandchildren will. It isn't going to be pretty.
I'm right there with you, tumblewind. Anyone who did any science fiction (or science, for that matter) reading in the 50's and 60's knows the population bomb has been ticking.
The only chance we have is a worldwide revolution in women's reproductive rights - and fat chance that will happen with the stranglehold that primitive religion has on this planet. The population problem will solve itself: expect 5 billion plus people to die sometime in the next thirty years. There are dozens of ways for this to happen. I'd bet on a virus.
I'm 55, so I think I have a 50-50 chance of seeing this happen . . . and living in the American midwest gives a slightly greater chance of being able to watch for awhile. I used to feel like a bit of a nutcase for having slightly survivalist tendencies. Not so much now. Remember: secure water, ammunition and food - in that order. Or rely on the competence of your government and the goodwill of your neighbors. Good luck with that.
A solution would be nice.
Don't worry, the solution is already in the cards:
The extinction of the human species.
The Earth is ridding itself of a disease.
Whatever replaces us as the next dominant species will almost certainly be more in balance.
From a deeper perspective it's not tragic at all.
It's actually quite remarkable to watch.
It's not just a question of him, I am sure there are people on here who have thought of this matter quite a bit. However, past posts on this subject are rather disappointing. They just state that overpopulation is the problem, without providing any kind of solution. And yeah, I'd rather not do the extinction option myself, which would hardly be a solution since we'd do so much more damage before that eventually happened.
The solutions are fairly simple so they will be impossible to implement. I can think of two of them. First get everyone to agree that each couple have one child. We could implement laws to achieve this but there would be resistance like you have never seen before. In one generation approximately, 21 years, the population could be cut in half this way. Thus releaving many pressures we are feeling now. This has to be done worldwide hence the impossibility considering the biological imperative. The other is to tax children at least in the developed countries. Not sure how many people in developing countries even pay taxes. 10 grand a year for the second child, 20 grand for the third child and so on. One thing I have noticed is that since the economic failures more and more people are starting to realize that overpopulation is responsible for many of the problems we are now experiencing. No I don't personally think anything will work given our history of stupidity, greed and consumption.
Laws wont fix it, it will have to the will of the people. China can say what it wants on statistics, but I don't believe everything I hear either, I mean come on, you know they don't have THAT many prisoners, right?
I think it will truly be a survival of the fittest in the long run.
... be easier to develop a form of birth control that could be put in water systems to control population growth from area to area. Have to be undetectable though.
Tell me when the last time a free market economy existed.
>>Tell me when the last time a free market economy existed
In recorded history ? None occur to me outside of works of fiction.
None! It is unlikely in the human context enough to be almost impossible.
A "true" free market (where all production is privately owned) requires:
- a common ethics for the entire market (which is antethetical to creative thinking and tribalism which people strongly exhibit)
- any transaction in the market is voluntary (corollary ==> no coercion. Now let us even try to build a consensus of what this means)
What do the "true" free market and communism have in common? Other than in idealized conditions, they both lead to plutocracies or oligarchies.
If over population is a symptom of anything it is a symptom of ignorance, poverty, political preferences or religious preferences. It most certainly is not a symptom of the capitalist economic system as clearly demonstrted by the birth rates of those countries.
Consider just one or two solution's, stop rewarding and supporting births. Perhaps payments to poorer countries based on the number of children per family with no payment after two. Remember the main reason for poor families in rural areas to have lots of children is labor asnd retirement.
Its amazing how many people feel perfectly justified in calling other people ignorant because they don't agree with them. I don't feel someopne is ignorant just because they don't believe in God. So everyone will understand I resent being called ignorant when I'm clearly not. (no cracks zmann!)
Anybody who hasn't been locked in a closet for the past quarter century knows that capitalism is global and the success of global capitalism is based upon a growing number of poor people willing to work cheap, and a growing number of people consuming resources, and a growing number of governments willing to facilitate unregulated global capitalism.
The fact that a few small (in terms of global population) demographic groups have lower birth rates is irrelevant.
Also, keep in mind that the two kids a working class American bears will create more pollution and use far more resources than the ten kids a poor Pakistani bears.
raydelcamino
I'd have to disagree that capitalism is global. There are so many countries that don't have it and are poor and destitute, there are many others that use a different economic system that always is less efficient and requires more human labor.
Its the only sucessful system, so its growing, but global as in all over is not correct I'd say. But you may have just meant that it is in practice around the world.
"The fact that a few small (in terms of global population) demographic groups have lower birth rates is irrelevant."
I would argue that capitalism (which defines these small demographic groups, that aren't that small) needs less workers because it uses machines and automation to allow one worker to do the work of many. Only when Corporations are allowed to exploit cheap labor does it use more human labor. That is governmental choice not capitalistic economies choice.
"Also, keep in mind that the two kids a working class American bears will create more pollution and use far more resources than the ten kids a poor Pakistani bears."
Maybe not 10, but close enough for total agreement.
>>If over population is a symptom of anything it is a symptom of ignorance, poverty, political preferences or religious preferences. It most certainly is not a symptom of the capitalist economic system as clearly demonstrted by the birth rates of those countries.
Population Growth has little to do with whether a society is Capitalist or not.
You can introduce Capitalism into a poor country and it will still have a high population growth.
I would point out that the Aborignals of North America were not Capitalists existing as hunter gatherers but did not have anywheres near the population of Europe.
Where a European army could tolerate casualties of tens of thousands in a single battle, much smaller tribes in North America saw the loss of 20 warriors as a disaster.
What leads to greater populations is advances in technologies such as agriculture, and issues of PERSONAL choice which are influenced by current socio-economic factors.
If you look at Canada just as example (and the same applies to any country) Alberta saw a spike in babies born over the past few decades when compared to the rest of canada simply because they underwent an economic boom.
This all within the same "capitalist" economy nationwide.
Aboriginal populations within Canada grow at a greater rate then the rest of the population yet all live in the same "Capitalist" system.
GwNorth
"Population Growth has little to do with whether a society is Capitalist or not."
I agree, but I believe capatilist socities have a lot to do with population growth.
"You can introduce Capitalism into a poor country and it will still have a high population growth."
True, but would you consider the possible fact that as the economy matures, population growth has usually gone down?
Consider that if I don't need a larger number of children to work in the fields you more than likely won't have them. If you don't need them to provide retirment security I more than likely won't have them either.
Also within that capitalist system the less educated, the poorer do tend to have more children. In the US our system encourages women to have children as our governmental system rewards them....ie, food stamps, medical care, no cost childbirth, cash payments, etc.
"What leads to greater populations is advances in technologies such as agriculture, and issues of PERSONAL choice which are influenced by current socio-economic factors."
This is also true I believe.
"Aboriginal populations within Canada grow at a greater rate then the rest of the population yet all live in the same "Capitalist" system."
My guess would be that their educational level and income level are below average. That seems to ba a factor in every country or population with a high birth rate.
I believe that worrying about population growth is a luxury, just as enviornmental probelems are of rich nations. Though today perhaps I should say rich by comparison.
"If you look at Canada just as example (and the same applies to any country) Alberta saw a spike in babies born over the past few decades when compared to the rest of canada simply because they underwent an economic boom."
Thats a good point. And reminds me to make clear that I am not advocating this as an absolute. Just as a factor in my opinion.
Every system of production-distribution-consumption devised by man, beginning with hunting-gathering has crashed and was replaced by another system. There is a small group of economic/social scientists who aver that the principal reason for the crashes was the growth of the number of members of a group to a”tipping point” followed by the crash. They add that the leaders and sub-leaders of the group could no longer know hence control everything that was going on. The system spun out of control. I agree.
Sounds familiar? Well, the attempt of President Obama to save capitalism as we know it is not only futile but will needlessly if not wantonly swallow mountains of rapping time, money, investments, and property.
I have also some news for Republicans. “Small Business” will not save capitalism this time.
I have no idea what the next system will look like and who will spearhead it. I do know, however, that God will not be the leader.
I am unsure whether any new system can save mankind from self-destruction via world-wide hunger and global warming.
As long as the US has employer-based medical insurance, small businesses will continue to be hampered from growing. Many will not be able to survive at all.
Excellent point.
I have seen a number of good works on climate change that seem to gloss over the issue of human population. Some even state that it isn't really that big of a deal, that if we just convert to energy source X or reduce our consumption of Z, that these behavior modifications will do the trick. We can't ask people to not reproduce, they state. Well, let's face it, all of these need to happen, even a reduction in the number of children produced. One million people eating a vegan diet, using CFLs, and riding their bikes are still putting a significant strain on planetary resources. Imagine 10 billion! It won't hurt for people to have less children. (Unfortunately, when people can't pay for entertainment, sex is still a "free" way to have a good time. Unprotected sex is even more "free.")
So, we should all use more sustainable forms of energy and transportation, eat in a more sustainable fashion, and have fewer children.
Bottom line: Consume less, produce less.
Do you really want to change all those diapers anyway? :)
I think this is a great reason to advocate space exploration and colonizing: we simply start sending people up in space while reducing the birth rate, consumption, etc. =P
The first sentence of this story says it all. Just about every, if not all, problems on this planet are due to human overpopulation. It is one of the few topics never discussed in the MSM. Instead of concentrating on wildlife management, we should be more concerned with human management.
As we know, most people won't do anything without an incentive. Perhaps those having from 0-2 children should pay little or no tax; those with 3 pay 10%; those with 4 20%, etc as an example. Of course this will most likely never happen but if we don't slow this runaway locomotive down AND get it turned around, we will go over the edge. It looks like we are only stepping on the accelerator.
Humans are causing many extinctions on this planet but consider this: If man was no longer on this planet, every other species would flourish. This scenario will happen unless we curtail our population growth.
Excellent points. And I would point out its seldom addressed on CD either. It should be.
By your calculations, I think that Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar, of Springdale, AR, just might put our economy back in the black! WOOOOOOOO!
oh, and the octopulet mom (+6?).
p.s. taxes won't save us.
Reducing population is a hard sell in Amerika; we're an Octomom-lovin' country!
· Yr Obd't Servant
We will not reduce population. Circumstances may (probably will) reduce the earth's population for us -- right now we're several billion people above carrying capacity. When the global echnological life support system which includes all the electrical grids and the transportation system that brings food into the population centers begins to fail, there is likely to be widespread starvation and a drastic increase in violent survival techniques as the scaredest and meanest among us try to grab what they can.
President Obama may have what it takes to lead folks through the die-off and minimize the amount of unnecessary suffering, and he may not. Either way there's no way to position yourself in such a way as to increase your odds of survival.
visionquest stole my comment! The first sentence of this article is all that needs to be said...now how to manage such a thing without the horrible ethical and moral issues that threaten to overwhelm any such effort at saving the species and the planet! Nice to see a fellow HDS grad (Hedges) with the courage to bring up the enormous, pink and purple elephant in the room, without the usual shackles of religious fear. That life is sacred is a fantastic spiritual precept, since it allows for the generation of laws and norms based on empathy. HOwever, the dark side of that statement, is that bringing more life into the world has been enshrined in nearly all religious faiths as a sacred duty. This makes a collective, humanistic, response to overpopulation extraordinarily difficult, since reason withers in the realm of sacred duty. Coupled with the fact that the resource-poor do tend to have more children (the argument that capitalism produces overpopulation seems an odd one, tome, since the wealthiest nations have lower or negative birth-rates for the most part...except where religion is very strong, such as within evangelical, Mormon or other such communities in the US). Resource-poor people have more children for a variety of reasons, apparently, including tradition, labor needs, lower survival rates, and lack of access to reproductive services and information. Ultimately I agree with many of the posts, especially laffingbear. The solution is to stop having children, or have one per couple. On paper it's phenomenally easy and scientifically sound. In practice I can't imagine a more difficult solution. I live in the "developing" world (a term with many problems). I suffer every day from the polution in the city in which I live, and I am an extremely healthy and athletic person. This city can't even solve the problems iwth black exhaust chugging from it's buses, creating a severe public health issue. Can you imagine what it would take for most of the resource-poor world to swallow a scientific-intellectual-humanist concept of population control willingly? This is not an issue of criticizing the resource-poor, it's simply a matter of world-view and priorities. Despite the fact that the argument could be made that most religions could be said to propose (in textual terms, if not institutional ones) that one should be willing suffer, even risk not surviving, for the benefit of the greater good, it's nearly impossible to convince most people of that. And this is what it would mean, quite simply. Population control will almost inevitably favor the wealthy (read: powerful). War, famine and pestilence, the alternative, are at least more democratic, to a small degree...
Saying there are too many humans is such a downer.
It flies in the face of the childhood myth perpetuated by theists and secularists alike which is that humans are the best.
Some dimwits say that humans can fit into the state of Texas, others say we can colonize the moon.
Anything but self control, because humans are really bad at that.
A nice literary point of view:
"It's my dream. A world where all will be silent and still,
And each thing in its last place, under the last dust."
--- Clov, in Samuel Beckett's Endgame
It wasnt too long ago that people said the problem isnt too many people, but western consumer habits that are the real problem.
That argument seems to be dying out as China and India rush to have a western style lifestyle, so once more, their population numbers are a factor.
WITH THE COMEING WARS DROUGHT,AND DISEASE.
OVER POPULATION SHOULDNT BE MUCH OF A PROBLEM.
MITAKUYE OYASIN
ALL MY RELATIONS
In theory, yes, wars and disease take care of population issues. However, looking at population charts over time, we see that the deaths caused by World Wars are really statistical blips in the progress of population growth. (I in no way, shape, form, or fashion downplaying the significance of those events or the devastating loss of life that occurred, only looking at population data.) You can see a little blip on the graph, where the world population falls during these events and then the line starts its inexorable climb upward . . . almost immediately.
Having said all this, blackcrow is right to point out that there will be some serious wars and drought facing us all. They could be enough to keep population in check for a bit, but historically, population rebounds very quickly after such catastrophic events. After the black plague, it did take quite a while for the population to get back to where it was before the outbreak. Future plagues could certainly be worse . . . Someone else was right to comment on the need to focus on the death rate. We are living longer and longer due to advances in medicine and other technologies. With people being on the planet longer, our elbow room diminishes. This brings up a real tangled mess of ethical dilemmas, for which I don't have any good answers.
We all speak about BIRTH control as means to addressing our ever growing population. A much harder questions is AGE control.
If we just look at this from the point of view of consumption of resources, both physical and economic , who consumes more? A person of 90 years of age whose life is extended with ever more expensive drugs and treatment and who has passed the productive years of their life, or a child?
What are the psychological implications of societies where there are no children or very many childless couples?
I agree there too great a population but trying to fix it at a certain level via birth control creates problems of their own. Are our socieities prepared to deal with those issues?
I can see Soylent Green just around the corner.
With few children, I doubt any of them would end up in prison for life at twelve or fourteen - or any age for that matter. They'd most likely be held in highest esteem and have the entire population involved in their upbringing.
As I recall the answer developed in Soylent green was the death of the oceans. Simply eating dead people was not really an answer as it takes about 10 lbs of flesh to provide the necessary energy for 1 lb of living organism.
Big Pharma, Big Healthcare, Big Religion and many others have a huge stake in the elderly. Look what they did to Dr. Kevorkian for helping people end their suffering in a dignified way.
GwNorth
As wilmoor pointed out, "Soylent Green" had a solution, though I think only half would be viable. And EZflyer mentioned Dr. K............what about allowing people the dignity of choosing to continue or not? I remember E>G< Robison laying down on the table in Soylent Green and drifting away peacefully looking at beautiful scenes and listening to beautiful music.
Perhaps that should be a consideration?
Great point bringing up the other end of this equation by the way.
Wouldn't it be great if we could stabilize our population and resource use with the goal of maintaining no more than 10 Billion people for 10,000 more years? I think it would be perfect....and metric.
I think what needs to be done first is to define a set of parameters for the human race to survive. From that point we can can focus on how to achieve the most efficient use of our resources and the technology to utilize them safely.
We should understand that humans have a recorded history that extends beyond 10,000 yrs and as such it is our duty to set a course for the next 10,000 years.
Then again I might just be reading too many Isac Asimov Books. But if ever there was a need for a "Foundation" it would be now, at the moment when our species is capable of destroying and/or consuming and polluting itself into extinction.
The goal of finding other resources outside of this planet is many centuries...or many millennium away. So for now we must focus on proper utilization of our resources with he goal of Longevity. It would be a sad day when the technology to save our species arrives but the fuel and resources to operate such tech is lost to pointless over consumption. I imagine Oil will be one of the great needs for future space exploration but I fear our planet will be dry...and suffering from the spike of Co2 that we are injecting now.
The ass-backwardness of Hedges analysis is exposed by the fact that the part of the world with the lowest birth rates is consuming the most resources. Hedges makes a despicable (if mildly original) attempt to blame the fruits of western cultural decay on the poor, unwashed masses of fundamentalists around the world.
It would be a revealing experiment to compare Hedges own personal consumption level and carbon footprint with that of a 8-member family from El Salvador.
Besides, anyone who values civil liberties knows that imposed population control is an unacceptable solution. In my humble opinion, authoritarian mega-states on an alarmist global agenda are more of a threat to the world (planet, people) than overpopulation.
Hedges says:
"The populations in industrialized nations maintain their lifestyles because they have the military and economic power to consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources. The United States alone gobbles up about 25 percent of the oil produced in the world each year. These nations view their stable or even zero growth birthrates as sufficient."
While it's not crystal clear, this statement comes close to saying that over-consumption is an equally severe problem. But yes, Hedges could have and should have been clearer.
Even so, his main thesis is still sound. Civil liberties won't be worth a damn in a world where there's too little food, fresh water, and other vital resources due to there being too many people. Denying this common-sense fact is a very dangerous form of naivete.
Reality first, ideology second--a distant second.
isticism, you are correct that those in "developing" nations consume many orders of magnitude less than typical Americans and Europeans. However, the world population is too high. In America, Europe, China, and other parts of the world where we are using many, many, many more resources than countries like El Salvador, the need to lower the population is especially great. Even if the birth rate is generally low in the countries that consume the most, it needs to be even lower.
I don't know how to do this, because in America, for example, telling people they can only have X number of babies would probably cause a number of people to have even more children, just to spite a government that would dare set limits on procreation.
Does anyone have any non-mandatory ideas for getting typical Americans to have fewer children? And then, on top of that, how do you convince us all that we don't need to live until we're 110. The desire to live is strong. Science is making it possible to live much longer than in the past. What happens when cancer is eradicated or heart disease is easily avoided through a few pills? I'm not suggesting that we stop working on treating and curing these things (that would be ridiculous), I'm just throwing out some ideas for conversation. What do we do about a population that continues going up, up, up?
As isticism points out, there are factors, like consumption, that are directly affecting the health of our planet (and us) more than population alone, but to ignore population as a major factor is folly.
"What do we do about a population that continues going up, up, up?"
How can anything be done to reverse the trend if people keep having more children than the earth can possibly sustain? Short of nuclear war, sweeping uncontrollable plagues or epidemic internecine warfare, humans must learn that the planet cannot sustain this level of species expansion. As Hedges reminds us, thousands of species are dying out every year because of human activity and overcrowding. If this continues, soon there will only be us and a remnant of dogs, cats, and the hardiest insect orders, cockroaches and their cousins. We'll be facing a world like Cormac McCarthy describes in "The Road," easily the grimmest, most terrifying scenario ever portrayed in fiction, excluding maybe science fiction. If we don't learn to control our procreative urges, for whatever reasons, religious or ancestral (we simply MUST pass on our family's genes!), then we'll go extinct. That's a delightful prognosis for the hardened misanthropists among us, and there are several in this forum. They welcome the extinction of the species. They may get their wish.
Sioux Rose
EPHRAIM: If the loss of species continues as is, I could see some form of robotics combined with other technologies to produce animated creatures that simulate the real thing. Rich kids would play with these as pets. They would not require food and can be programmed for a variety of functions.
If the DNA templates are retained for vanishing species, do you suppose there would ever come a time when through this "cellular map" the species could be regenerated, the 21st century biological equivalent of Noah and the arc, repopulating two by two style? What Jules Verne and other sci-fi authors saw as fiction has often later become reality.
it appears that if some kind of intelligent life on this planet is to survive, a species of life form that is capable of dealing with these problems better than we are will have to come into being….now that the Human Genome Project has been completed, it appears that the coming technologies of genetic engineering, working from postulated algorithms of possible improvements on a team of parallel processing supercomputers, offers the best outside chance of developing more viable life forms out of the human mold…
(that biological intelligent life should continue is a hypothesis that each one of us confirms our belief in by continuing our own…a counter-hypothesis clearly exists, but is not presentable by a living organism without a contradiction in its own being)
species chauvinism notwithstanding, any argument which could be presented favoring the survival of the human species over a so-called lower life form, such as bacteria, cockroaches, mosquitoes, or rats, can likewise be used to favor the survival of a superior life species rather than our own…i am not about to speculate specifically about what characteristics would constitute superiority, because that would only invite the specific egocentric counter arguments and criticisms that are characteristic of our anthropocentric species but which nonetheless are not the issue here… we, homo sapiens, have had our time on earth & have served our function, but our tribal species is evolutionarily inadequate to further extend life, as is evidenced by the mess weve made, and it now time for us & our tiny treasured thought processes to go the way of the dinosaurs…our “last hurrah” as self-conscious organisms may be to see the fruition of the installation of our replacements, to play god rather than to blindly worship one, and to do so before all life & the chance to do so slips completely into oblivion…
further reading : (the moral imperative of our future evolutuion)
http://www.prometheism.net/moral.html
The countries that add the most to the earth's pollution load are China, India, and the United States. These are also the most populous countries on earth in terms of absolute numbers. Consumption habits were imposed on us and are difficult to change, and yes, they may be changed by an ecological-political disaster (worst case scenario). Infinite growth on a finite planet is a mathematical impossibility. Reproducing by itself is a habit of consumption.
For starters, I would like to suggest that all persons in the United States, between the ages of, say, 18 to 24 be required to spend one year in a monastary of their choice. No stuff! Permitted activities while serving to be determined. Maybe letter writing would be allowed. Lots of boredom, meditation, reading, lectures, discussions, etc...
No cell phones, Ipods, email.
The idea is to try to wake up from the spell of consumerism. Some people have woken up, but this would bring in more recruits to help change perspective on our problems.
Mentioning population has been politically incorrect for three decades, ever since population control measures took a turn for the draconian. However, the problem and remains and grows worse especially with Asia coming online with western-style consumer habits putting to the sword their own poor.
Come on - we can't even convince people to stop eating fast food, or too much food, or to not smoke, etc - how are we going to convince them to not have a couple of kids to carry on the family name?
The most likely scenario - all the above predictions come true, the slate is wiped mostly clean, and who and what's left start over...
After reading the article and the comments, I feel like I'm being told that I should have chosen suicide over recovery after barely surviving Vietnam. I don't really think that we should even bother touching the subject of "over population" because it's just a lame excuse to defend bad economic/environmental policies. Not once did the author discuss the fact that society needs to stop mistreating lifetime singles, same sex couples, regular couples who don't want children, etc ... Until this part of societal and cultural intolerance is addressed and resolved, there's no point in crying about "over population". I may be a married man but I have tremendous respect and even admiration of those who choose to be single, same sex, or even without children.