Overpopulation, Hoax? Really?

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   kirstenblogposted 14 years ago

   I have heard many good arguments about overpopulation putting a huge burden on resources, from China to India overpopulation has been a issue that needs dealing with. So what is the argument that this is not a problem and it being called one is a hoax? I have heard a few people (mostly on this site) say that it's not a problem but I have not heard one reason for why its not a problem? I would like to know why some people think that close to 7 billion people on the planet is not overpopulation or a major drain on resources. What reason do you have for thinking that we have room for more growth?

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      marinealways24posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      lol How about writing your proposal for your soloution to over population.

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         kirstenblogposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         You must not have read my how to be an evil overlord hub! You would not trust me to come up with a solution if you did

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            marinealways24posted 14 years agoin reply to this

            lol, so how do you teach moral wrong and right when you teach contradiction of life is alright if it supports overpopulation.
            
            I could see a killer in a courtroom using this for defense. "Judge, my religious belief was to murder the person to save the planet from overpopulation". The person is innocent if they were killing for a higher cause to save the planet?

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            EmpressFelicityposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            I don't know about it being a hoax, but I'd definitely say it was a myth. 
            
            As a country's living standards improve, better nutrition and medical care mean that more children live to see adulthood. This eliminates the need for large families, which means of course that the birthrate goes down.  The availability of contraception further pushes down the birthrate. 
            
            Birthrates in some European countries are really low, like about 1.3 births per woman*.  (A birth rate of 2.1 is the rate needed to keep the population level stable.)
            
            If all countries ended up like Europe, then the real problem could end up being underpopulation not overpopulation. 
            
            *http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4768644.stm

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      livewithrichardposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The Overpopulation problem depends on where you live. Population densities in a lot of countries is way overtaxed and WILL lead to an ever increasing crisis of border disputes and WAR.  India with 935 people per sqare mile and the UK with 657 people are much worse off than China with 360, the US with 82, Russia with 21, and Canada with 9 people per square mile. (This doesnt take into account the lands in those countries that are uninhabitable, just overall land mass.)At some point, desperation will come into play.
      
      If the goal of a country is to improve the quality of life from one generation to the next then their economies must grow at a larger rate than their populations. If the reverse happens then the quality of life is diminished.

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      thetruthhurts2009posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Overpopulation is a lie! If it's crowed where you live, move!
      
      Read this
      
      
      
      and that
      
      
      
      Don't fall for the lies.

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         kirstenblogposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I tried reading your posts and could not find anything that resembled proof of the argument being proposed. It was an argument but I could not find the backing proof to the claims. I really did not want to read about 3rd party opinions, I had actually asked for YOUR opinion. What have you seen that makes YOU think overpopulation is a lie? I don't really give a toss what someone else has said that you agree with but what YOU think. It's easy to let others do our thinking for us and when challenged just point to them. Can we hear what YOU think (for yourself) instead of regurgitating some url's.
         
         You see I look around at this world and see people starving and struggling, from the hearts of big cities to rural country areas. News reports of drought or flood often lead to increased prices for wheat or rice or other food items on my shopping list. Explaining this suffering and hardship with a reason like overpopulation hold some logic. I hear someone like you saying that it is a lie is something I would like to believe but I have yet been giving anything solid that could allow me to believe that it is not a lie. It would be nice to truly believe that there is more then enough to go around, that the suffering and hardship is a fixable problem by fair distribution of resources. I would like to believe that my children and grandchildren will be able to experience the comfortable life I have. If you can offer some solid proof to your claim you can offer me a better view of the problems facing those of us alive today and a brighter future. What I can see is bio-fuel being rejected because it takes food out of the mouths of people, I have experienced hunger myself and my heart breaks with every new appeal for aid to some devastated region of the world. What you offer in saying its all a lie is hollow hope, can you fill it and make it solid?

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      tobey100posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      If you can find it, check out Howard Muskgrave's thesis on over-population.  Statistically and environmentally its a hoax.  The majority of the earth's 6 plus billion residents live in fairly tightly clumped regions as compared to the entire inhabitable portions of the planet.  As far as living space is concerned, this earth could support easily 13 billion allowing almost 1/4 mile per person.
      
      Additionally, don't buy into the alarmist notion that we're depleting the earth's resources.  We couldn't if we tried.  Human ego is what drives this argument.  For instance, its a FACT, (based on U. S. Geological Survey) there are more forest on earth today than there were 200 years ago.  The United States alone has enough coal and oil reserves to last the next 500 years. (This discounts those resources that are still forming) 
      
      20 years from now our entire house could be powered by a cell the size of a quarter.  We have no idea what the future holds but, rest assured we couldn't destroy this planet if we tried.  Not based on science we couldn't.  Based on environmentalISM and belief, we're gonna be dead by 2012.

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   ralwusposted 14 years ago

   Sadly warfare seems to help with this as well as disease. I think this may soon come to pass but hope that it does not. They seem to go hand in hand.

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   wyanjenposted 14 years ago

   If it's crowded where you live, move...
   to Michigan.
   
   We've got so many empty houses, you'll have your pick of the block with lots of elbow room
   
   I agree that it's not the size of the population though. It's the density.

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   ralwusposted 14 years ago

   It is too cold up there right now, I need to go south.

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   awareposted 14 years ago

   we waste 40 % of our resources . overpopulation is a myth.

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   William R. Wilsonposted 14 years ago

   Since you are asking for evidence that it's not a problem, I'm kind of derailing the thread here.  But I think it is a serious problem and is at the root of all our other environmental problems, so I'd like to present the evidence that it is, in fact, a problem.
   
   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 … 075752.htm
   
   Basically, the more people there are, the more they will consume.  We are already in ecological overshoot, and this is mainly because of the lifestyles of westerners.  If everyone lived like Americans, we would need four planet earths. 
   
   It's not just about population density.  Overcrowding is bad for humans, but sprawl is worse for the planet. 
   
   There are 76 people for every square mile in America (on average).  There are 6 billion people on planet earth. 
   
   57 million square miles of earth are land area.  If the rest of the planet had the same population density, earth could support:
   
   76 x 57,000,000 = 4,332,000,000
   
   Less than 4.5 billion people.  Of course this is a simplification.  Some areas would be more dense than others.  But on living area alone, there is not enough room for everyone to have the same lifestyles as Americans.  And keep in mind that large portions of the land area included in that 57 million square feet is uninhabitable.

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   Bill Manningposted 14 years ago

   Of course there is over population, but it's only in pockets of areas. Thousands of people die every year in areas that cannot support the number of people that live there.
   
   So it's not a case of the world as a whole can't support the number of people we have. It's WHERE on the earth they are. Many in different countries don't have the freedom like we in the USA do of moving where ever we want.
   
   Personally I'd love it if there was a few billion people less in the world.

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   lightning johnposted 14 years ago

   There are too many nonproductive and lazy people, that are irresponcible. In the end this big ball of dirt we call earth will still be here and we will be gone.

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   livewithrichardposted 14 years ago

   You know what they say about desperation and innovation. Just look at how technology has advanced in the last few decades, it will continue to advance exponentially as information is no longer in control of the few. What does that have to do with today's situation? Everything, there is no innovation without desperation.
   
   I don't know any compassionate human being that doesn't think it a tragedy that there are children starving to DEATH every single day which is why we have so many charities dedicated to this issue.
   
   As long as we have borders, and I would NEVER advocate removing them, countries have to deal with their population problems in a moral way and under the spotlight of the rest of the world that is watching.  They deal with it through innovations that will provide more from less.

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    kerrygposted 14 years ago

    Thanks for the stats, William. Here are some more:
    
    The ecological "footprint" (amount of land required to support us) of the average American is approximately 23 acres. For the entire world (~6,500,000,000 people) to live at American standards, therefore, the earth would need 149,500,000,000 acres of land, or more than 4 earths. (Earth has approximately 37,000,000,000 acres of land.)
    
    The global average footprint is 6.5 acres, but scientists estimate that the earth's sustainable capacity is closer to 4.5 acres.
    
    As for the question of how to achieve population reduction, it's not a quick fix, but it's very simple, and doesn't require any "one child" policies or other infringements of people's rights. (They don't work anyway, as China has proved with its continued population growth.)
    
    The solution to the world's population crisis (and its poverty crisis and many more crises) is to educate girls.
    
    Educated women marry an average of 4 years later than uneducated women and have an average of 2.2 fewer children. They are also more likely to have healthy children and more likely to educate their children. A difference in fertility of a single child per woman between now and 2050 alters the UN's 2050 population estimate by three billion (10.8 billion versus 7.8 billion), a difference equal to the entire world population in 1960.

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       tobey100posted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Excellent stats as well.  The problem is, it depends on who you ask.  One thing I believe we continually overlook is personal freedom.  No matter how it's porched, when we talk about limiting anything, regardless the cause, we're talking about infringement.  Not that that's good or bad.  We need to always seriously consider what right we have to educate anyone in terms of their behavior (as long as that behavior is not illegal ar personally destructive).  I do see your point though.  well said.

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          kerrygposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          I'm not even talking about sex ed, though I do believe comprehensive sex education should be part of everyone's education.
          
          I'm just talking about ordinary, everyday primary and secondary schooling. The more educated a woman is, the more financially secure she will be, reducing the pressure to have more children to provide security in old age, the better the health and survival rate of the children she does have, removing another incentive to have large families, and the more she will be empowered to make her own decisions about her life and fertility, so stories like Beatrice Adongo or Catherine Naka's or even this unnamed American woman will become increasingly less common.

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    culinarycavemanposted 14 years ago

    KerryG is correct, educate da ladies (and freely distribute birth control pills and condoms). Quite what women see in men is beyond me, modern man sucks.
    Saint David Attenborough did a very good programme on this recently on BBC1.
    The natural carrying capacity (that is how many people the land can support) back in the day before agriculture ruined it all, is only 10 million individuals per continent. We now have nearly 7 BILLION - a myth!!!!!, Rev.Malthus will be turning in his grave, bless him.
    I doubt that even 100 million people living the wasteful consumerist life is sustainable, let alone 7 billion.

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    mikelongposted 14 years ago

    The world population is exponentially expanding....as,according to models for the future physical layout of the world, the earth's human occupiable land (because of resource depletion or climate change) is shrinking.
    
    Innovations have enabled humans to live past infancy and early childhood to a far greater degree (depending on where one lives, of course) than at any other point in our history, and we are living far longer....
    
    In the United States, however, the European population (good ol fashioned Americana) is declining however, which has nativists worried...which is why books like The Camp of the Saints sell so well and why the "invasion of Mexicans" is such a big deal in this country..
    
    Population control through education and the spreading of "protection"....the establishment of a conscious mindset internationally....I think can be done...  But its the corporate brother, the Churches, who are so busy (many of them) trying to deny reality by claiming that people will be encouraged to have sex through education, as opposed to through their own internal chemical drives...
    
    Again, the fear about overpopulation in the United States, is typically told in a way that accentuates the relative high birthrates of people in developing countries contrasted to their own dwindling sexual productivity....
    
    Of course....how many of those babies in developing countries are made through the sexual intervention of European-stocked DNA?? That is another part of this question...
    
    Real solutions exist....but if we looked at those the illusion paraded in front of our eyes by our Anglo-corporate/political elite and their minions (Heritage Foundation to the Social Contract Press and Fox schmooze and all points in between)...
    
    Those who use fear and anger to reach their audiences are the peddlars of toxic ideas....

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