Want to see something scary? Look at this:

The world (http://www.secretsituation.com/geo/graphic1.htm)

What do you think about the world's population?

What, if anything, should be done?

I think the issue is so large and daunting that no country is willing to tackle it head on. Nothing of significance will be done until it is too late. It is already too late in many countries and millions of people are dying.

I would always agree that sex-education is the key. I strongly believe in openness in schools and within our homes in teaching about safe-sex. Yet we spend billions of dollars on safe-sex here in the states, and it doesnt appear to be working very effectively. So I went with birth restricitions. Even though I am against a government that puts restrictions on such things. If a society is ignorant to the long term effects of having unsafe sex (AIDS, unwanted children, population problems) then maybe a government should step in and put restrictions. It seems to be working in China.

Take care:)

Originally posted by *stRgrL*
...maybe a government should step in and put restrictions. It seems to be working in China. And governmental control has produced the added bonus of female infanticide! Hurray! :rolleyes:

:m: Peace.

One model to emulate is Taiwan. They used to give tax benefit to families that have 1 child, and neutral for families with 2 children, and penalties for more than 2 children. The more children a family have, the higher tax you have to pay.

They don't do that anymore because their birth rate really plummeted last couple years because of their economy. Whenever the birth rate plummet in a country historically, they never bounce back up. Now Taiwanese government actually handout cash to families having more than 2 children.

Anyways, I have another idea. White people on average have lower birth rate than any other ethnic group. That means we can solve population problems by painting everyone's skin white.

Originally posted by goofyfish
And governmental control has produced the added bonus of female infanticide! Hurray! :rolleyes:

:m: Peace.

Not every decision has to be moral decision. Sometimes practical considerations are equally important.

If China doesn't do what they do, they will become India. They not only achieved population control, but they also created gay men's paradise. (much higher men vs women ratio)

Originally posted by goofyfish
And governmental control has produced the added bonus of female infanticide! Hurray! :rolleyes:

:m: Peace.

So what do you propose?

Cannibalism in overpopulated countries in famine! It reduces the population and feeds people, two birds with one stone! :D

I like it!

Ass stew!!!:D

I can eat your arse???

Only if I can eat yours!

Deal!

Two pervs in a pod :D

Population control, ass eating.

Yeah I can see the correlation... :rolleyes:

It is a shame that space colonization will never be something that can solve the population problem. Even if we had another planet to ship everyone to it would not help. Simply, it costs to much.

I would think that in order to be effective that population contorl can only be achieved through government controls. Without it nothing will slow down the birth rate.

Of course, backwards institutions like the Roman Catholic Church, doesn't help either.

i think that the latest predictions are that the world population will start to decline after ?? years...

i can't remember how many...may i guess 20?

edit:
Despite a growth burst that more than doubled the global human population over the past 50 years, a study released today predicts it will peak at 9 billion by the year 2070 and then begin to decline.

also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1467252.stm

i guess it is more than 20 years

It is a shame that space colonization will never be something that can solve the population problem. Even if we had another planet to ship everyone to it would not help. Simply, it costs to much.
If we put our resources into it, I think we could colonize mars and maybe even the moon or other planets. The problem is that we are distracted by all the crap happening here on earth. Maybe I am too much an optimist, but I think we could we do it.

Despite a growth burst that more than doubled the global human population over the past 50 years, a study released today predicts it will peak at 9 billion by the year 2070 and then begin to decline.
The problem is millions and millions (maybe even billions) of people will die as an equilibrium is reached. Wouldn't it be nice to avoid that?

So...... Millions ... maybe billions die... If they didn't we would really have a population problem...... EDUCATION is the answer.. and not just sex education..

What kind of education if not sex education?

There wouldn't be a population problem if the worlds resources were shared more equally.
The egoistic lifestyle is the cause of this.

Observe the history of a habitat for a while. The predator (Species A) hunts for its food via eating another animal, (species B). If species A increases, then species B decreases, and vice versa. Now of course, I'm simplifying the situation, assuming species B food stays constant, weather is constant, etc...

But humans have increased then steadied ourselves out, then increased, and in the last 50 or so years, we've skyrocketed. In nature, that usually means the population plummits soon.

Kicks ass
1845 posts
What kind of education if not sex education?

Education to the persons ability.....

Ability to....? Even if we were all completely educated, population would still be a problem. We are running out of natural resources, I dont understand what you mean.

As I said already, only people of color are causing population problem. The solution is to paint everyone's skin white :D

Ya, like we dont already have an abundance of white folk:D

Originally posted by *stRgrL*
Ya, like we dont already have an abundance of white folk:D

Star,

My answer is actually half joke and half serious. By studying the reasons why the population of white folks are decreasing, you find the solutions to the problem.

A few hydrogen bombs in densely populated areas.

Reminds me of the Manifold scifi novels.

We can't go for more resources to solve it. Pop will grow exponentially and the required resources will too. Then we will be forced to expand faster and faster until we hit a limit to how fast we can expand. You can't colonize and expand your habitat bubble faster than light! After that resources gained will lag behind the resources needed. Demand goes shooting up. Humanity will be torn apart in wars and chaos. However many people die won't matter, those people will keep fucking and making babies and pop will shoot right back up. The old people won't die because of advanced anti aging tech that will be up and running by then. By then the human race is done for. We get stuck in perpetual chaos and advance no further.

So, two ways. Increase supply ... or...

...decrease demand. Virtually eliminate human reproduction. This would be far easier if the human race could somehow achieve collective consciousness or if no stupid religious barriers existed. We could sterilize everyone at birth, and grow separate genitals from stem cells or ripe zygotes (harvested and grown at will from a separately developed gene pool, donated by people with blood samples etc). Reproduce only to keep the race from dying out and whittle that pop down. Have some sort of "hatcheries" or "hives" where reproduction will occur only when necessary. Gene pool growth? No problem, we could keeep reproducing and expanding it on a cellular level. All separate cells grown from separate genitals, and eliminate the sex drive from every human. Then, we could keep expanding at a much slower rate, long enough to develop enough technologies to do something about this crazy fucked up problem. The stupid problem of entropy and how to avoid the heat death it prophesies.

Ability to....? Even if we were all completely educated, population would still be a problem. We are running out of natural resources, I dont understand what you mean.


__________________

Educated populations have a falling birth rate.

Virtually eliminate human reproduction.

I dont think we'd have to go that far. Couldn't we just give a limit of 1 child per couple in the world? Or something along those lines?

All separate cells grown from separate genitals, and eliminate the sex drive from every human.

That would suck!

The most effective damper on the birthrate is also the easiest to sell: prosperity. For a great many reasons, not all of which make sense but still have an undeniable correlation, poorer populations have birth rates above replacement rate and richer ones just the opposite.

The birth rates in Europe, U.S., Canada and Japan have already fallen below replacement rate. The only reason our population continues to grow is immigration. Even in the developing nations, economic conditions have improved from abysmal to merely dismal, and birth rates have dropped from catastrophic to merely scary. Estimates of the world population doubling within our lifetime have changed to just peaking within our lifetime and then backing down, even at the current rate of poverty abolition.

If you want to save the planet, do something to improve the lot of its poorest inhabitants. Prosperity no longer requires smokestacks and deforestation. Building an Information Age economy isn't terribly expensive or dirty. And people whose children aren't dying are more able to expend energy and capital on conservation, which is a luxury in the Third World right now.

Honestly, the only answer is AIDS.

Let me explain: AIDS can only be contracted through blood. So those not infected would not get it unless they come in direct contact. Thus, when all AIDS patients die, the disease ceases (of course, some one could contract it from an animal).

I honestly believe that there is already a cure for AIDS. AIDS is not like cancer either. Once its gone from the population, its gone. If someone were to systematically integrate AIDS into a densely populated area, Earth might be able to hang on for a bit longer. Our planet is going to fall into a shit hole very soon. The United States' economy is dropping rapidly, and the Euro coin is becoming stronger (i believe), so Europe will become more powerful than America some time in the future. The problem is that Europe's population is decling and many people are emigrating from Europe. So, their economy will fal as well.

Its easy to see, for me, that the US definitely needs to switch to the Metric system (who are we kidding with this bullshit). Each small step towards a world community means greater prosperity (and most of all life) for all. This can only be is the population is controlled soon and precisely.

Listen to this song: Biohazard - Uncivilization
(of course it isnt true, but it does hold a good point)

Heh, I think that calling the problem overpopulation is a pretty sadistic way of looking at it.

Whereas some see it as there being too many people (How anti-social!) I see it as there not being enough food and shelter, just that simple.

I have read that the entire world population could fit into New Zealand, ( 1 square metre each ). But that does leave a heck of a lot of space .

there are a lot of ways to solve population problem..one of these is setting up space colony...

Jerece,

there are a lot of ways to solve population problem..one of these is setting up space colony...

Im sorry, but that is the most irrational statement that i have ever heard. The population problem is going to collapse on the earth very soon... and we havent even been to Mars. We are going to be out of fuel in the year 2030 (i think), and you want to set up a space colony. You seriously need to do some reading before making such smug assertions... Of course it would be the ideal plan, but its nearly impossible.

Jerece,

Secondly, that wouldn't solve the population problem. Solving the problem requires some kind of a damper on the growth rate. Your plan does not do that.

Hey Slacker 47.


" but its nearly impossible ".


The only thing that is impossible is finding the impossible.

Nothing is impossible .. It is just another challenge..

Sorry Slacker 47.

I don't want to pick on you. BUT !!.

" We are going to be out of fuel in the year 2030 (i think) ",

Is the Sun going out ??.. Wind ??.. Wood even ??.. Waves ??.. Hydro ???.. Thermal ??.. Etc.. Etc.. ???.. Ad infinitum..

Methinks the only viable options are a reduction in the birth rate, or an increase in the death rate. Neither will happen fast enough to avoid calamity. The calamity will be the solution.

adam,

Is the Sun going out ??.. Wind ??.. Wood even ??.. Waves ??.. Hydro ???.. Thermal ??.. Etc.. Etc.. ???.. Ad infinitum..

I know that, I am soooo big on energy conservation and green power. The problem is that most countries are doing nothing to prepare for this event. Bush is just postponing the point at which the United States runs out of gas by attacking (and trying to conquer) the Middle East. Once the time arrives, tje entire population will panic, the economy will die, and people will say: "Shit, we shoulda listened to those treehuggers back in the 90's."



Nothing is impossible .. It is just another challenge..

I meant that it is impossible in the time span that we have left. At this current rate, the earth will be a complete shit-hole very soon. Probably while you are still alive. Just warning you.




Zanket,

That is exactly what I think, too. (kinda hoping, too)

i don't have time to read everyone else's answers or suggestions, so, sorry if i rehash, but...i think that the universe ends up taking control of the population in the end regardless. it could be through war or famine, weather, disease...the universe is in constant balance so if anything gets out of hand, it eventually compensates for it. i think that there are plenty of things that people could implement, however, society is lazy...especially in america, and we are 'rewarded' for pumping out kids (welfare--assistance is good, but the system is taken advantage of), not to mention religion plays a big part in the birth control issue. there are many faith based families who believe it is a 'sin' to inhibit conception. so, ideally, there are plenty of options--allowing stronger sex education classes in schools, increasing availability of birth control...i suppose the main focus would be on EDUCATION. it is proven that people who obtain better education opportunity produce at a later time in life. this alone would cut down on overpopulation. we currently have babies having babies. there really is no generation 'gap' anymore.

:confused:

The international community has committed itself to an ambitious goal: cutting in half the number of people living in absolute poverty by 2015.

That’s a scary remark don’t you think so?
Hand out the Katana’s !!! (Japanese swords) :p
Source:
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2002/english/ch1/page2.htm



“If we put our resources into it, I think we could colonize mars and maybe even the moon or other planets. The problem is that we are distracted by all the crap happening here on earth. Maybe I am too much an optimist, but I think we could we do it.”


Of course we can,…and personally I want it too, but I’m not in power. Unfortunately,…
I said it many times before: if only they would invest as much in space-sience as in warfare,…*sigh* Annual Dod buget: 389Billion$$$Dollars$$$!!!

Imagine what these people could do with a buget like that! And I quote:
"With the construction of multiple space elevators, there can be the start of new commercial markets, new resources and possibly a true spacefaring society. Just as the transistor was the first small step in the current computer age, the space elevator may be the step that takes our children to the stars,"
and:
An operational space elevator could be launching 13,000 kg payloads every 3 days within 13.5 years. Recent analysis is also finding that the first space elevator might be built for less than $10 billion total, including launch costs, and a second elevator would cost a small fraction of the first. The first elevators could be financially self- supporting (including recovering the initial construction costs and the cost of borrowing this money) within the first 10 years of operation simply on the commercial satellite market. The recurring costs are: 1) climbers, 2) power beaming system operation, 3) low-Earth object tracking system operation, and 4) anchor operations. For the initial space elevator these recurring costs combined with repaying the initial capital investment would give us total launch costs of $500/kg ($230/lb or 1/10 to 1/100 of conventional systems).
Using today's energy costs, researchers figured a 12,000-kg Space Shuttle payload would cost no more than $17,700 for an elevator trip to GEO. A passenger with baggage at 150 kg might cost only $222! "Compare that to today's cost of around $10,000 per pound ($22,000 per kg)," said Smitherman. "Potentially, we're talking about just a few dollars per kg with the elevator."

sources:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast07sep_1.htm
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_001226.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/space-elevator.htm
http://www.eurekasci.com/SPACE_ELEVATOR/Space_Elevator_Homepage.html
http://www.eurekasci.com/SPACE_ELEVATOR/intro.html
http://www.techtv.com/news/scitech/story/0,24195,3370398,00.html
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html



There are (to) many cheap alternatives to overpopulation though, actually: these systems are already in place and being used ‘actively’, or maby I should say corretely: ‘latent’
But without the world’s consent.

Examples:
The US special virus program,…created AIDS and there’s proof! They just don’t want to acknowlegde the proof,…congress, sience, is in the pocket of the powerfull: the lobby’s, the bussinesses and industry’s of the world.

MUST READ LINKS:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Urgent_Action/AIDS_Contract.html
http://www.namebase.org/main2/Jakob_Segal.html

Yet another attorney with Aids on a Quest BUT WITH PROOF: ( though he’s stuck on the race issue)
source:
http://www.boydgraves.com/

Long before there was AIDS the US used other means of population control and eugenics:
Especially the Native Americans, and afterwards the ‘Black’ community was targetted. Check your history:

MUST READ LINKS:
http://brain-mind.com/BrainStorms.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~bkonop/GermIncidents2.html

The history and background:
Der Hintergrund:
Entstand das Aids-Virus im Genlabor? Diese These der Ostberliner Professors Jakob Segal sorgte seit Mitte der 80er Jahre über viele Jahre hinweg für Gesprächsstoff in der einschlägigen Presse. Auf AIDS-Kongressen in der ganzen Welt wurde die These diskutiert, belächelt, bekämpft, jedoch war sie weder eindeutig zu beweisen, noch wurde sie bis heute eindeutig widerlegt. Durch Indizienketten stellte Segal folgende Theorie auf: Es sei bewiesen, daß die USA nicht nur einmal biologische Waffen und Medikamente an Häftlingen erprobte. Diese wären für die bereitwillige Mitarbeit z.T. früher als geplant aus der Haft entlassen worden, zumindest jedoch nach einem Zeitraum, in dem man mögliche Auswirkungen der Präparate als bereits erfolgt erwartete. Da man das ohnehin mit langer Inkubationszeit wirkende HIV-Virus (von dem Segal vermutet, daß es durch ein Experimentieren mit dem verwandten Schafvirus in dem Hochsicherheitslabor Fort Detrick, Maryland, eher zufällig, ungewollt und unkontrolliert entstanden ist) bis Anfang der 80er Jahre nicht einmal durch Antikörper mangels Testverfahren nachweisen konnte, seien auch in diesem Fall die Häftlinge unbehelligt entlassen worden und bewegten sich traditionell den grossen Städten zu (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles), wo sie eine ausreichende Subkultur vorfinden konnten um unterzutauchen und durch bereits in Gefängnissen praktizierten Drogenkonsum (Austausch von Nadeln) und (so Segal) auch homosexuelle Kontakte das Virus weiterverbreiteten. Die drei genannten Städte waren auch die ersten Epizentren der bis heute unheilbaren Krankheit in den USA. Sowohl den Argumenten seiner Kollegen vom Ursprung des Virus aus dem afrikanischen Dorf als auch von den Virusfunden aus den 50er Jahren setzte Segal eigene Überlegungen entgegen. Auch den offensichtlichen Gegenbeweis, daß Antikörper in Blutproben aus den 50er Jahren aufgefunden worden seien, erlegte er argumentativ.
Spätestens mit dem Fall der Mauer, wurden natürlich auch Segals Thesen endgültig in die Nähe einer ehemals revanchistischen Verleumdung des kommunistischen Ostblocks gegen den Erzfeind USA gerückt und nicht ernsthaft weiterverfolgt.
Free translation:

Was the Aids virus created in a Gene-laboratory? This theory (wich has now been affirmed by the found of the virus flow chart by attorney Graves) created a lot of commotion in the media. Discussed on various AIDS congresses trroughout the world, this theory was laughed upon, denied, arumented, analysed, but until today, no-one succeeded to prove nor dis-prove it’s preposition (it depends on how much FOIA will contribute and how much willingness there is from the congress and international community).

By means of a logical chain of incidents Segal put forth the following theory:
According to events and cases already widely documented and described it is PROVEN that the US Dod (department of defence) by means of a (secret) virus program, tested various medications and biological weapons, on several detainees.

For these where to be released upon co-operation with the program, (if they survived that at all!) Ofcourse after the possible ‘incubation’ time (wich is where the term is coming/derived from, the correct medical term and vieuw should be: ‘latency’) was likely to be expired. Because they worked with various myoplasmic diseases, ONE of them had a longer ‘incubation/latency’ term, this was later called : HIV (where it should have been medically correct named: HTLV III. In the ‘80ties there where still no means and/or the knowlegde to detect destinct these contaminated cells from healty ones,….) So ‘acidentally’

(personal note: this is offering the US government a susceptible situation in where there’s room for an official appology, if this was to be vieuwed as did they purpously and deliberately released it, this theory would soon rid itself as being an attemp at a conspiracy theory to destroy blacks, or homophobics or as actually happened see below*)

these people where thus released and quickly dispersed themselves in the highly accesible drug and homophobic scenes in the big cities: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Since these ‘sub-cultures’ reasembled the prison culture where drug abuse (read: needle-exchange!) and homosexuallity where already widely spread, they formed the ‘perfect’ nesting grounds for this terrible and un-cureable dissease.
The three cities New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, was the EPICENTRE and the initial startingpoint of this ‘accident’.

The arguments that AIDS was allegedly found in apes in Africa and in virus-strings dating back from the fifties (Visna, HTLV) where proven wrong by Segal, based on his own argumentation. Also the allegded counter-evidence of anti-particles in bloodcultures dating back to the fifties, he disproved basing his evidence on his own findings.

Later on: The German wall was broken down and Segal found himself in the aftermath of the silent war (cold war) his thesis was seen and interpreted as an revanche by the communists to paint the USA black and to smear it’s name in an attemt to create a little chaos and spread disinformation.

Personal note: The US government cheered this explanation so the opposition was burried, not even with sustainable sientific evidence to back them up, and the pharmacutical industry was already looking for a way to make big money out of this chicken with the golden egg’s,…. (a standard AZT treatment on a one year basis costs the patient 20.000$ and about 10.000$ on other medicins)

Anyway, as a result of this, the theory was not pursued anymore with scrutiny, if you did: you belonged to the ‘non-patriotic’, ‘non-chauvinistic’ people, who clearly had a screw loose, ect, ect,….it was further ridiculed and trown onto the pile of conspiracy-theory’s*

*an exerpt from:
http://www.aids.wustl.edu/aids/streck.html
"Soviets Secretly Tried to Blame U.S. for AIDS--CIA" Reuters (09/30/93)

Langley, Va.--For more than five years, the former Soviet Union
attempted to blame the AIDS virus on a plot by U.S. military
scientists, according to newly declassified CIA documents. The papers
reported that the Soviets launched a campaign in 1983 aiming to tie
the emergence of AIDS to American biological weapons research. The
disinformation was circulated in 25 different languages in over 200
publications, as well as in posters, leaflets, and radio broadcasts,
in more than 80 countries before the campaign was finally abandoned by
the Soviets, according to a study cited by the CIA in the
documents. The Soviets dropped the campaign in 1988 when the United
States refused to cooperate with them on a research program on AIDS,
which was by then spreading in the U.S.S.R., said the CIA article. The
Soviet campaign was apparently retaliation for the Reagan
administration's claims of Soviet-produced "yellow rain," or yellow
traces found on vegetation due to a Soviet biological weapon.


Personal note: Now why would they spread an disinformation campain wich was later declassified by the FOIA if they simply could prove that it wasn’t true in the first place,….wich they couldn’t because the evidence is so overwhelmingly strong and clear.
So covering up for the mistakes made, and the make-belief of ‘the’ discovery of a ‘new’ type of disease/‘retrovirus’ and to propagate ‘their’ way on how to treat the disease, was an easy thing to do after that.


Links to be studied for a minimum of understanding on these issues:

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/dtinterviewlm.htm
Exerpt:
“We succeeded very easily with the second strain. But there lies the quite mysterious problem of the contamination of that second strain by the first. That was LAI.”

“There are MT cell lines which have been found by the Japanese (MT2, MT4) which replicate HIV very well and which at the same time are transformed by HTLV. So, you have a mix of HIV and HTLV. It is a real soup.”

Personal note: it’s not a soup, everything is verry clear and obvious. You just have to ‘know’ the truth, that’s all.
Relevant links:

http://www.geocities.com/enuf25/HIVNATURALORMANMADE.html

The man himself : (this site is in German but VERRY intresting)
http://www.monochrom.at/segal/
exerpt:
“Daß ein so zweifelhaftes und dazu extrem teures Medikament sogar noch vor Ablauf der Erprobungsprogramme zugelassen wurde, erklärt Nussbaum in einer ausführlichen Schrift (Fußnote: Nussbaum, B.: Good Intentions - How Big Business and the Medical Establishment Are Corrupting the Fight Against AIDS; The Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1990) durch die finanzielle Kraft der Burrow-Wellcome C-ie, des Herstellers des AZT, und durch die Empfänglichkeit leitender Mitglieder der amerikanischen AIDS-Lobby für Geldgeschenke. Kurz nach Erscheinen seines Buchs starb Nussbaum unerwartet und nahm den Anwälten von Wellcome die Möglichkeit, seine Anschuldigungen vor Gericht zu widerlegen.”

Free translation:

“That such a doubtfull and extreme expencive medicine was aproved, before the actual testing-faze was completed,
(the graphs showed a slightly raise of life-expectancy with a few month’s but it was later admitted that these numbers where easely manipulated, as is common when working with statistical material)
was explained by Nussbaum in a well documented study:
(Good Intentions - How Big Business and the Medical Establishment Are Corrupting the Fight Against AIDS; The Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1990)
by the financial power of Burrow-Welcome C-ie, the maker of AZT, and by the willingness of the members of the AIDS-Lobby for an extra income (Money ‘donations’)
Shortly after publicizing his book Nussbaum died suddenly an unsuspected death, and the Lawyers quickly, swiftely and eagerly used this opportunity to deny the acusations.”


---I think it’s clear that Nussbaum was assasinated.---





Did you know that economically, only 20% (rich) people of the world population control about 86% of the world’s Bruto International Income? Then how about information control?

Do you really think the pharmacutical Industry is going to let the people slaughter their ‘chicken with the golden egg’s?
Or that the government is reaaaaally *long streched voice* ever going to admid that they created it, and thus opening the door for those ‘other’ (conspiracy-)theory’s that they didn’t accidetally, but deliberately, set it free?

NO WAY MAN,….if it happens> those 17million people who have attracted the disease in the meanwhile would kill’em, that would mean a history RE-write, a RE-volution an outrage!

Esspecially if they ever find out that the cure for AIDS is actually quit simple but disregarded and disaproved of, by that same Industry that is,…
Read:

If you don’t believe all of this you’re either verry sceptical, stupid or verry naïve, you also could be one of those benefiting from it and thus actually on the side of the ‘real’ conspirators, assasins,…


Well, rest assured: the truth will never die in spite of all those people who will,…..

I’ll be happy when I’m still alive to see the space elevator become true, if the industry permits it that is,….

Greetz fukushi

If you don’t believe all of this you’re either verry sceptical
bingo.

that was a too fast reply to be an objective response, but it's a subjective reaction afterall so,...:rolleyes:

Fukushi,
Yes, I haven't yet read all of the AIDs links and I am quite skeptical about it. It is quite possible it was born in a lab but beyond that is speculation.
I agree that it would be great if only a percentage of the DOD budget was directed at space tech. I am not a huge fan of the elevator..simply because I would prefer we focus on bigger things such as way to achieve interstellar travel. But it would be better than nothing and we probably need to take baby steps anyway.
Thanks for posting...

for all mankind: the space elevator must be build quickly. It will not only lift humans into space, but will be the trigger of interplanetary travel and eventually expand our conciousness.

be shure to read the rapports on this:

NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts: The Space Elevator.
By Bradley Carl Edwards (http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/pdf/472Edwards.pdf)

Space Elevator -- Technology Development Needs (April 5, 2001)
Compiled by David Smitherman (http://std.msfc.nasa.gov/ast/presentations/6b_smith.pdf)

Space Elevators: An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New Millennium (August 2000) (http://flightprojects.msfc.nasa.gov/fd02_elev.html)

That last link was intended for public use, maby there working on the page, or has been sensored. I don't know, but the first rapport is verry encouraging!

Enjoy reading,
fukushi

We have enough food, it just isn't evenly distributed.

And it's the same with money :(

I doubt we have enough food in the long run. We’re over-harvesting renewable food resources so they aren’t replenished. Fish stocks, for example, are diminishing rapidly. When entire species are wiped out for meals and you have to flood your crops with carcinogenic pesticides, you know it’s bad.

The space elevator is the last solution to try. The world community does not have the spare billion trillion dollars needed to colonize Mars. If we did we should spend it to make the Earth into the paradise it could be if we pulled our heads out and worked to resolve the population problem in the only way that makes sense: reduce the population.

then where does it get teh money to wage war do you think?!ç!!!!
no the space elevator is just a fraction of the anual buget of the dod so you can't possibly claim it's the last thing we need.

you need food? did you ever where hungry?
then where did you get food?

there's enough food, it's just not evenly distributed. Pestacides are things that are NOT good for the soil, it destruckts the future. you don't have to tell me that.

It doesn't cost are 'spare' trillion or billion dollars,.....to colonise mars.


if it's between you and me well: I must say to you: live by your own proposition yourself and Kill yourself then?

It costs much less to wage war than to colonize another planet (I don’t suggest war as a solution). The space elevator gets us only a teensy tiny fraction of the way to colonization. You are right that it doesn’t cost a spare billion or trillion dollars to colonize. It costs a billion trillion dollars. As in $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Or thereabouts. A mission is planned to Mars which will bring a small rock back to Earth. It will cost an estimated ten billion dollars to get that rock.

If we don’t use pesticides, then the food supply is radically cut and people will starve. If pesticides destruct the future as you say, then aren’t we eating today at the expense of the future?

There are options to reducing the population which do not involve killing. Reducing the birth rate is the best solution I think. If we can get everyone to have no more than two children of their own then the problem will be largely solved because through attrition the population would decline.

Sorry for my rage then,...:(

So birth-control should help a bit okay, I agree, but let's look at china: in tremendous ways, it changes civilisation: no more brothers, aunts, ect,...
that would not apply if people where indeed allowed two kids,...but still: there are families who can't afford two kids: so would the other families, who can afford a lot of children, be allowed to, for instance: 'buy' the right for a third one, a forth, ect ect?

I think that will result in the bigger families having better services: especially now.

There are also country's where there's really an urgent need for people to breed! Because the live stock is going backward and won't be enough people who work to pay the elders their pension! So there really is a problem that in some country's they need young blood and new kids, ( who are ofcourse familiar with the culture) and in some the don't need EXTRA children at all.

For the food: I don't want to eat food that has been sprayed by some dangerous chemicals: I eat Biological, vegetarian and am verry aware of what the big industries do to promote the use of chemicals. (wich is, believe me, REALLY NOT nessecary!)


A hundred years ago, they said the same about going over seas and to discover new land: it wasn't nessecary, it cost too much, and the queen wanted to see gold! -->it had to pay off!

Believe me if I say that it WILL pay off, if that elevator is build, after that there will be a DRASTIC drop of the price-tag to put a payload in orbid,...within fifteen years,... a trip to mars could be reduced, from 10.000.000.000$ us dollars now,
too: 10.000.000$ dollars within fifteen years!!!

Please consider this as an investment:
I posted the anual-buget from the DoD somewhere before on this forum, but it's somewhere in the archives by now I think, look for it, it should be somewhere in free toughts.

So sorry if I mistook your words as an challenge,...it wasn't a good moment for me to respond, I'm glad you take it so maturely.

(finally someone who can take a bump :p )

I know I'm an asshole myself sometimes;) okay?

I don’t see a problem with people buying the right to have 3+ children from someone else who will have one or no children. An easier way to achieve the same thing with less distaste would be to jack up the taxes of someone for 3+ children (it's the opposite now in the U.S.). There are issues with the one-child solution in China like you mentioned, like no siblings. Unfortunately they let the population get out of control there and had to take a drastic measure. I believe the one-child limit is no longer the law there.

That’s a good point about the “urgent need for people to breed.” It’s a major stumbling block to reducing the population. Many countries’ economies are based on a growing population. If the population declines it’s considered a disaster. In Japan the native Japanese percentage of the population is losing ground to other nationalities. Some officials there are promoting higher birth rates to get the percentage up so the Japanese culture does not erode. In Mongolia the population is declining, so it is now socially acceptable to have sex at any age with any partner. The world is not working together on this problem.

I would like to see space exploration continue and the space elevator sounds like a good idea on paper at least. I just don’t think it is the best answer to the population problem, which is too critical to afford the long time it would take to colonize the Moon or Mars. Also it seems to me the answer is staring us right in the face. If the people of the world worked together then a true disaster may be staved off. Nature will dictate the solution if we don’t, but I’d like to see the people solve the problem so less will suffer.

What do you think is a healthy world population? I'd say about 2 billion. That's enough to make things interesting, but small enough that populations of all species can be maintained. Based on my gut feeling anyway.

I know this sounds harsh but is practical - Sterilisation programmes in 3rd world countries, and birth restrictions in over-populated countries.
Plus, a licence to be a parent!

there is no population problem, the idea of population as a problem comes from people who are closet case, clostophobia.
the world will not begin to have a population problem untill the population reaches some 2 trillion beleive me the figures have been done, the probelm is with the mangagement of civilizatin.
even at 2 tirllion the state of population would still be reasonable and the problem just begining. what it demonstares is that in a perfect system we have a long way to go before their is a population problem. it also shows that people are making up ideas to effect society the way they want to, to fulfill there parinoid ideas.
wehat is needed is better management, leaders with better ideas, restructing of laws ect.... the idea of brith controll ect... to controll societys growth is not need in real figures that relate TO REAL TIME events of population growth and supply of resources.

be fruitfull and multipy on the face of the earth.

DWAYNE D.L.RABON

the world will not begin to have a population problem untill the population reaches some 2 trillion beleive me the figures have been done, the probelm is with the mangagement of civilizatin.
I think the first part of the sentance fits the phrase 'Over 72.352% of statistics are made up.'
The second part I agree with. First is the fact that meat is our main food. It takes alot of resources/land to grow animals. We still need meat for certain vitamins, but not as much meat. Then there is the amount of food we waste, along with paying farmers to grow less because we have no one to sell it to.

I think the best question is not “How many people can the world possibly fit?” but “How many people optimizes the standard of living in the long run?” Why be fruitful and multiply if it makes the world a worse place for all to live?

Well Zanket the idea that you exspess is one that says let me be lazy and the world remain unmanaged, basically one that does nothing to protect their enviroment, kind of like who cares about puting the aluminium can in the recycle bin.
the figure regarding 2 trillion person on earth has nothing to due with how many it can fit verses a worse life, those that would shit another because it makes them fill better about them selves would say why use the toilet when i can shit on you.
there are many reason for actually increasing population growth, primarly biology, such as the rate of breeding to counter inbreeding rates. which is the standard of the health of humans as well as there function. just for note the births per female have dropped by more than half in the last century, world wide!
the use of technology in manging the land of the world provides enormous factual development. it is lazy people and focus of govermnt that make the world a more limitimg and incroaching place.
Note the current majority of human population lives on less than 5% of the physcial land mass.

DWAYNE D.L.RABON

Originally posted by zanket
Why be fruitful and multiply if it makes the world a worse place for all to live?

Originally posted by zanket
Why be fruitful and multiply if it makes the world a worse place for all to live?

Because I like Bonking !!!..

Originally posted by Dwayne D.L.Rabon
Note the current majority of human population lives on less than 5% of the physcial land mass.

Humans don’t easily survive in, say, Antarctica. Much landmass must be discounted as uninhabitable. More would be unavailable as toxic waste sites if we depended on technology for a larger population. The web of life is fast unraveling with “just” six billion people. With several million people inbreeding is not a concern; Japan for example shows that. It would take considerable effort to significantly reduce the population so I don’t see how that represents laziness.

We still need meat for certain vitamins
I am a vegetarian, and I'm alive and kicking!

take a look at this article: from (source) : Meat! (http://www.emagazine.com/may-june_1998/0598feat1.html)

COVER STORY
The Trouble With Meat
Why Oprah Was Right, The Texas Cattlemen Were Wrong,
And The Crisis Facing The American Hamburger Isn't Over
By Jim Motavalli



In 1992, when he was 11 years old, Damion Heersink of the southeastern Alabama town of Dothan attended a Boy Scout campout, and unwittingly ate a quarter-sized piece of uncooked hamburger. It's certainly not unusual for kids to eat hamburgers: American kids eat an average of five of them a week, mostly in fast-food restaurants. But Damion's hamburger was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, a particularly virulent but by no means uncommon bacteria that is caused by fecal contamination of meat, and aggravated by the grinding process that produces hamburger.

Damion was one of the lucky ones. Although he became very sick and endured a lengthy hospitalization, he lived. His mother, Mary Heersink, who has become an articulate spokesperson for Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP), a national group lobbying for reform of food safety laws, says, "We're very lucky to have him alive; if he hadn't had very aggressive treatment [due to the work of his physician father and a family friend who specializes in E. coli cases], he would have died." Because of his illness, Damion lost 30 percent of his lung tissue, and the lining of his heart. His immune system was shattered, leaving him at constant risk of infection. His verbal ability was impaired, his kidney function limited, and he will be susceptible to hypertension later in life.


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Lauren Beth Rudolph died after eating a cheeseburger laced with E. coli 0157:H7 (right).
© Index Stock Photography


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Lauren Beth Rudolph, a six-year-old from Carslbad, California with blond bangs and an engaging smile, wasn't as lucky as Damion, who is now filling out college applications. In late 1992, Lauren Beth ate a fast-food cheeseburger laced with E. coli. Like Damion, she was attacked by hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a wasting disease that invades nearly every organ in the body and destroys the blood's ability to clot. But unlike Damion, she couldn't fight it off, and became one of the 10 percent of E. coli victims who die from severe HUS, which itself kills an estimated 500 people a year. Lauren Beth succumbed to a heart attack a few days before the beginning of 1993, a year which would be marked by a massive outbreak of E. coli and the deaths of three children at Seattle, Washington Jack in the Box restaurants. Almost unknown and unidentified as a risk factor in meat until the early 1980s, E. coli O157:H7 has become the leading cause of kidney failure in American children. In 1997 alone, some 25 million pounds of hamburger were found to be E. coli infected and recalled.

Unfortunately, the grim reality of E. coli infection is not an isolated stain on the reputation of an otherwise hygenic American meat supply. E. coli, along with other meat-borne pathogens like Salmonella ententidis and Campylobacter, both found in poultry, can be traced to our highly productive "factory farms." Genetically "optimized" pigs, cattle, sheep, turkeys and chickens are raised in tightly packed confinement systems--an ideal breeding ground for bacteria. And the looming problem is made far worse by the filthy conditions in America's slaughterhouses, where the profit motive has accelerated line speeds and made effective government meat inspection nearly impossible.

The industry's answer to contaminated meat isn't basic reform of its production methods. It prefers cheaper alternatives, like chemical "dehairing" of cattle and the use of Superglue to seal up chickens' hindquarters--both to remove sources of the fecal contamination that carries bacteria. And last December, the industry won Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to attack the contamination problem through large-scale irradiation of meat with gamma rays from nuclear byproducts cobalt-60 and cesium-137. Critics say the benefits of what the food industry prefers to call "cold pasteurization" (it does kill E. coli, for instance), are outweighed by its dangers, and that a far more comprehensive program is necessary to protect the meat supply.

Michael Colby, executive director of the Vermont-based Food & Water, says, "They're allowing the filth to flourish, then zapping it with radiation that's the equivalent of tens of millions of chest X-rays. The process reduces both the vitamin content and the nutritional value of the meat." Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest agrees that "irradiation is definitely being oversold as a solution to food safety problems. We need to make sure the filth is removed earlier in the process." The industry is trying to silence its critics (including Colby, who received a warning letter) through the "food disparagement" laws that are on the books in 13 states. These laws made it possible to prosecute talk show host Oprah Winfrey for saying that the threat of "mad cow" disease had stopped her from eating hamburgers.

Meat: A Global Addiction

It's important to look at the American way of producing and consuming meat, because it is, increasingly, a model for the rest of the world. Despite numerous health advisories, from the American Cancer Society to the American Dietary Association, that counsel consumers to limit their intake of high-fat animal protein, U.S. per capita consumption of beef and pork has steadily risen since 1970, and poultry consumption has almost tripled. A record 8.5 billion chickens were slaughtered in 1997 alone.


Some 70 percent of the world's eight billion acres of dry range land has become at least partly desertified as a result of grazing.
Diet is also firmly established as a leading factor in cancer risk: Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard's Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology cites more than 200 studies that suggest there is a reduced cancer risk in people who cut back on animal products and eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. And while we may have come to believe that heart disease is a natural and expected end to life, the incidence of this number one killer of Americans is much lower in countries that adhere to a low-fat diet with minimal animal products. Alan Durning, director of Northwest Environmental Watch, puts it simply, "If you think about individual lifestyle choices Americans can make, eating less meat should be in the top 10." Currently, the Chinese have only five percent of the heart disease risk of western societies, but those figures are likely to change as the Chinese diet increasingly resembles our own.
Even with "mad cow" outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Great Britain, world meat production rose 1.6 percent in 1996, to 195 million tons. Global production and per capita consumption have doubled since 1950. Meat-based diets are on the rise most spectacularly in Asia, whose rising affluence led to a doubling of meat consumption between 1970 and 1992. Japan is now the number one export market for U.S. beef and pork, and it has also experienced outbreaks of meat-borne disease, including an E. coli O157:H7 epidemic in 1996 that killed at least seven people and injured 8,700. Although U.S. beef was not held responsible for the outbreak, the resulting furor seriously damaged U.S. sales to Japan.

Meat production in China, which experienced a 40 percent jump in per capita income between 1990 and 1994, has risen faster than anywhere else in the world. China, the most populous country in the world, now accounts for a quarter of the world's production and consumption of meat. Last year, China's Xinhua news agency reported that there are 1,000 foreign or joint-venture meat processing projects underway in the country. "Extensive international cooperation is needed to push the meat industry to a new stage of development," said Vice Minister of Internal Trade He Jihai at a world meat conference in Beijing.


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In 1997, 8.5 billion chickens were slaughtered on automated--and
often contaminated--production lines like this one.


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But that "new stage" of intensive agriculture may bring with it some western-style problems. Last December, the government of Hong Kong ordered the slaughter of more than one million chickens, the former colony's whole population, after a strain of influenza virus killed four people. Eighty percent of Hong Kong's poultry comes from farms in mainland China.

Building a Livable Future

Dr. Robert Lawrence, one of the founders of the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, puts an ironic twist on an old dinner table admonishment. Instead of telling kids to eat all their food because of "the starving children in China," the modern version is, "Don't put all that food on your plate--think of all the starving future generations."
The notion that a period of food scarcity might be ahead, and that our wasteful, unhealthy, factory-farmed, meat-based diet is at the root of the problem, provided the impetus for the new center's founding last year. Dr. Polly Walker, the center's director, compares the task of changing people's diets to that of getting Americans to recycle. "Recycling didn't change the standard of living, but it changed the way people did things," she says. "It was assumed then that Americans would never clean and sort their containers, but now it's a natural part of living."

Walker sees the center's work as "getting at the nexis of consumption, environment, land use and modern farming methods. The purpose is to affect policy and change public opinion." To that end, the center held its first conference, "Equity, Health and the Earth's Resources: Food Security and Social Justice," at the school last November. In a talk entitled, "What is a Healthy Diet?" Dr. T. Colin Campbell of Cornell University discussed his work with The China Health Project, which has studied the diets of Chinese peasants since the early 1980s. His conclusion: the more plant-based foods in the diet, the lower the incidence of disease. "The Chinese who eat the least fat and animal products have substantially lower rates of cancer, heart attack and several other chronic, degenerative diseases," Dr. Campbell says. Ironically, Chinese cities are trying to play catch up with the west: Shanghai, for instance, has Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and McDonald's.

While it's not an animal rights group, the center concludes that modern intensive animal agriculture methods "harm animals unnecessarily and produce food inefficiently." Henry Spira, the veteran activist who is coordinator of Animal Rights International in New York, says the center's work "is important because it focuses on solving problems," he says. "It's not just a bunch of academics talking. It's a think tank, but also a 'do' tank."

--Jim Motavalli


A global switch to meat-based diets and factory farming methods is very much an environmental issue, both because of widespread land degradation as a result of overgrazing and the increasing diversion of world grain supplies and productive farm land to feed a burgeoning population of domesticated animals. China, for instance, fed 17 percent of its grain to livestock in 1985; by 1994, that figure had risen to 23 percent. In the U.S.--the model--70 percent of the grain produced is fed to animals. As Dr. Robert Lawrence of the new Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (see sidebar) points out, "The inefficiency of converting eight or nine kilograms of grain protein into one kilogram of animal protein for human consumption would by itself be sufficient argument against continuation of our present dietary habits."

Lester Brown of The Worldwatch Institute, whose report on likely grain shortages in China caused an international furor in 1996, says, "What's happening in China teaches us that, despite rising affluence, our likely world population of 10 billion people won't be able to live as high on the food chain as the average American. There simply won't be enough food. Much of the animal overgrazing we first reported in a 1991 paper is worse now than it was then. The pressures on the world's rangelands are more serious than those on oceanic fisheries. We're pushing our natural systems to their limits and beyond, with the likely result that we'll see the growing impoverishment of rural areas."

It isn't only developing countries that may be forced to reverse the current world trend toward heavier meat consumption. Brown's position is bolstered by a 1995 report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which said that Americans will probably be eating far less meat and dairy products by 2050. U.S. croplands, the report said, have reached the limits of production, even as the U.S. population is projected to double in 50 years. The result, says association member David Pimentel of Cornell University, is that the U.S. could cease to be a food exporter by 2025, and the American diet, now 31 percent animal products, could drop to only 15 percent.

In 1996, the World Food Summit in Rome took a decidedly pessimistic tone about world food production, warning of an "unthinkable Malthusian nightmare" if global output is not doubled in the next 30 years to meet an expanding population and an increasing demand for meat. According to the British Independent, more than 800 million people do not get enough food to meet their basic needs, and 82 countries--half of them in Africa--neither grow enough food for their population nor can afford to import it.

Waste and Danger

China may be developing U.S.-style factory farming, but such intensive methods are still unknown in the Third World, where raising animals for slaughter is a much more haphazard affair. Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, for instance, has no slaughterhouse at all, and animals are usually killed by meat vendors themselves, often under totally unhygienic conditions. (One popular site is located behind the toilets of a local pub.) Tanzania's agricultural ministry has warned of outbreaks of typhoid, cholera and tuberculosis if uncontrolled slaughter continues.

Cattle, sheep and goats graze half of the planet's land area, which is increasingly becoming depleted as a result. The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of the world's eight billion acres of dry range land is at least moderately desertified. As Worldwatch reports, persistent grazing makes bare ground impermeable to rain, which then runs off, carrying topsoil with it. The picture is not much better in wetter regions, because cattle have to compete with farmers and are crowded into small areas, accelerating erosion and degradation.

Another major problem is animal wastes, which wash off farms and into rivers and streams, polluting everything from groundwater in the Czech Republic to the Chesapeake Bay. In the U.S., years of dumping hog waste into North Carolina rivers has led to the bizarre spectacle of Pfiesteria piscicida, a seemingly innocuous phytoplankton that, in the presence of phosphates from nutrient-rich wastes, turns into voracious "flagellated vegetative cells" that kill fish and are extremely toxic to humans.

Is Meat Safe?

This story could continue with meat-related horror stories, but it's perhaps better to step back at this point and ask a few pertinent questions. Can we really expect our meat supply to be totally safe? And given both the diabolical efficiency of modern factory farming and rapidly increasing world population, do we really have any other choice? John Stauber, co-author of the alarming book Mad Cow U.S.A., which looks at the very real possibility of mad cow disease appearing here, says this about modern meat: "'Safe' is a relevant word, and it assumes we are aware of all the risks, which we rarely are. We need to better understand and publicize the dangers, known and suspected, of eating high on the food chain, and that includes fish and chicken. The recent 'bad news' about meat is just the tip of the iceberg. Governments and industry will do their best to protect the maximum sales and consumption of meat and to cover up, ignore and deny the risks."


The conditions in the modern broiler chicken house--which can pack 70,000 birds in tight confinement--is a natural breeding ground for Salmonella, critics say.
Photo: Gail Eisnitz / Humane Farming Association


















Stauber obviously believes we have a right to safer food, but Victor Davis Hanson, author of Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea, believes that the public's "desire for absolute safety" is unrealistic and needlessly burdening to the already overburdened family farmer. "Trying to insure absolute elimination of risk in an already safe fresh food supply is fraught with inconsistencies," he says, adding that the public wants both to be able to buy perfect raspberries in January and have them grown without chemicals. Similarly, the public wants very inexpensive, readily available meat.

Dennis Avery, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, could be called the anti-Lester Brown, because just about everything he says contradicts the work of The Worldwatch Institute. Instead of predicting scarcity and widespread famine as a result of modern farming methods, he says they'll ensure abundance. The author of the provocatively titled Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic, Avery confidently predicts that genetic engineering will bring us ever-increasing farm yields and solve world hunger. He could have added "factory farming" to his planet-saving list, since he's a firm defender of it, claiming it actually has environmental benefits by allowing us to preserve wild lands. "If we went back to raising chickens on free range, it would take an additional 600,000 acres, the equivalent of all the crop land in Pennsylvania," says Avery, a former agricultural analyst for the State Department. "The land trade-off is serious."

If Avery agrees with Worldwatch about anything, it's that rising worldwide affluence will drastically increase meat demand. "China's meat production is rising at 10 percent a year," he says. "They already have a billion pigs. If they lived outside, the erosion would be awful."

Avery charges that what he calls "doomsday pundits" like Lester Brown and Jeremy Rifkin (author of Beyond Beef, a critique of factory farming), "are counter-productive for the environment. There is no real threat of famine, and they ignore the land price. Switching to free-range meat would force the world to plow down 10 or 20 million acres of wild land."


Deregulation has drastically affected the work of the USDA meat inspector, who must deal with increaed line speeds and a reduced mandate.
Photo: USDA

Another optimist is Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "This argument that we're doomed because the Third World is eating more meat has been around for 20 years," he says. "But increasing our meat consumption in the west hasn't led to any specific problems whatsoever. Caloric intake is increasing worldwide, not decreasing. Infant mortality is declining. Nutritional standards are improving. The world's famine rates are the lowest in recorded history." Taylor says supply-and-demand economics will take care of the looming China question. If feed grain becomes scarce, he says, the price will go up, and China will no longer buy it on world markets, thus easing the stress on production.

Like Hanson, Taylor advises us that "growing food is not now and has never been a risk-free endeavor," and he is none too worried about E. coli, either. "Your chances of contracting either E. coli or Salmonella are less than being hit by a meteorite," he says.

Jeremy Rifkin begs to differ. He points out that people like Taylor and Avery called him an alarmist when he warned in Beyond Beef that E. coli was a danger. "Now it's a huge problem around the world," Rifkin says, adding that meat irradiation "is a classic example of not dealing with the primary cause, which is the factory farming system. Use of irradiation will lead to a more lax regulatory rigor, less self-policing, and even more inhumane and unhygenic standards."

Worldwatch's Brian Halweil, a visiting scholar from Stanford, agrees that factory farming is no friend of the Earth. "These operations are a serious drain on land, grain and water resources, and the waste issue turns them into agricultural Chernobyls. According to Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), who recently introduced a reform bill, one 50,000-acre hog farm under construction in Utah will produce more waste than the city of Los Angeles."

The Root of the Problem

To understand what Rifkin means about factory farming being "the primary cause" of meat's health crisis, it's necessary to track how disease is contracted and spread from animals to humans. Until recently, most criticism of factory farming has come from animal rights groups that emphasize its inhumane aspects. But, as Nicols Fox meticulously documents in her new book, Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth About a Food Chain Gone Haywire, the conditions on factory farms are tailor-made incubators for disease.

The modern broiler chicken house, Fox says, is no quaint little farm building, but a poultry metropolis holding up to 70,000 genetically similar birds in close confinement. "There is every evidence that Salmonella and E. coli don't have one cause but many, many causes," she says. "Any stress exacerbates the presence of microbes in chickens. And dirty water, dirty food, all of these things have been shown to increase the presence of pathogenic microorganisms, which spread much more quickly through flocks that are essentially clones of each other." In March, Consumer Reports revealed that its own testing had found Campylobacter in 63 percent of randomly selected chickens, and Salmonella in 13 percent. Only 29 percent of the birds tested were free of either bacteria. Almost all were infected with generic E. coli.

The Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor denies that cleaning up the meat industry will slow the spread of E. coli and Salmonella since, he believes, these recent strains "have absolutely zip to do with the food system." But Fox cites the example of Sweden, which has virtually eliminated Salmonella and drastically cut rates of Campylobacter infection through a strict hygienic regimen that includes rigidly controlled cleanliness for workers and the emptying, cleaning, disinfecting and sealing of hen houses after birds are sent to slaughter. Sweden also prohibits the use of antibiotics as a growth promoter. By killing other bacteria in chickens, Fox writes, commonly used poultry antibiotics can actually create an opportunity for Campylobacter or Salmonella to invade.

The animal waste problem is also a factory farming byproduct. One chicken house can process 1.5 million birds a week, and release 1.6 million gallons of wastewater per day. In one month in 1996, the state of Missouri had more hog manure spills and resulting fish kills than had occurred from all farming operations in the state in the past 10 years. Wastes once stayed on the farm, where they were used as manure. But, says Fox, "industrial meat companies are not farms so they don't recycle wastes. It ends up in the ecosystem, creating enormous problems."

Speed-Up on the Slaughterhouse Floor

Even if we fully adopted Sweden's methods, and our factory farms became as clean as hospitals, disease would still be rife in our meat supply. The reason can be found in the next stop in the modern farming assembly line: the slaughterhouse.

Animal slaughter has become a multinational business. In 1980, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), it took 53 companies with 103 plants to slaughter two-thirds of the country's cattle; by 1992, only three firms were doing the work in just 29 plants. Between 1984 and 1994, some 2,000 small slaughterhouses were driven out of business. The remaining mega-companies, many of them carrying big debt loads after consolidation, needed to maximize profits, and they did it by reducing workforces and speeding up the kill line. Factory workers say that inadequately stunned animals regularly run wild in slaughterhouses, endangering line employees, who either look the other way at food safety violations or lose their jobs.

According to Gail Eisnitz, author of the 1997 book Slaughterhouse, the other thing that fell by the wayside as the line cranked up was meat inspection. Eisnitz, who interviewed many slaughterhouse workers and federal meat inspectors, some of whom lost their jobs for talking to her, says, "The Humane Slaughter Act, while still on the books, has basically been repealed. Meat inspectors are not allowed to stop the line for violations--even though the law requires it--because their supervisors won't allow it. The inspectors I talked to went on the record and said that the regulations are just pieces of paper that they're unable to enforce. Deadly, contaminated meat is just pouring out of those plants, and I have the documentation to prove it."

The meat inspectors lost their power as part of the Reagan administration's deregulatory fervor. As Eisnitz reports, until the early 1980s, USDA poultry inspectors looked for contaminants like feces (a major source of E. coli infection), scabs and sores. Deregulation gave contamination responsibility to the workers; inspectors were reduced to looking for actual disease, which drastically curtailed their justification for stopping the line. The result, as the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported, is that millions of chickens "leaking yellow pus, stained by green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria, or marred by lung and heart infections, cancerous tumors or skin conditions, are shipped for sale to consumers." Since Upton Sinclair's stomach-churning, legislation-inducing novel The Jungle, "things have only gotten worse," says Eisnitz.

McHabit


Consumption of US style fast food is skyrocketing in Asia, while Chinese meat production grows 10 percent a year.
© 1997 James Marshall
Given the horrific details, why would the rest of the world want to imitate American factory farming and slaughter methods? The simple answer is that our system is remarkably efficient. Worldwatch reports some basic arithmetic. In 1991, China had two billion chickens, but these farm-raised birds took as much as four times as long to reach marketable weights as U.S. poultry. "Thus at any given instant, China has more chickens than the United States, but during a year's time, the U.S. raises and slaughters three times as many," says Worldwatch. As populations increase, so does the need to produce more food to feed them, and increasingly the people's choice--influenced by America's overwhelming cultural pull--is meat.

"Meat is a symbol of affluence, and it becomes an addiction and a habit," says Henry Spira, coordinator of Animal Rights International. He compares meat to tobacco, and believes that a "weight of evidence" will eventually steer people away from animal products as it is beginning to do with cigarettes. "It's bad news for your health and the environment, and it needs to be deglamorized," he adds. That obviously hasn't happened yet. Dennis Avery laughs at the notion that people will take up vegetarianism in any great numbers. "I read Diet For a Small Planet 30 years ago," he says, "but total meat consumption is still going up. In a 1993 survey, only seven percent of Americans identified themselves as vegetarians."

For most people, a meat-centered diet is still the easiest, least-complicated choice, but it may not remain so. If Nicols Fox can write a line like, "If there were a contest for the most contaminated product Americans bring into their kitchens, poultry would win hands down" and not get taken to court by all 13 states with food disparagement laws, perhaps she's on to something. But Fox wasn't just talking. In 1995, a USDA baseline study on contamination of chickens found "greater than 99 percent of broiler chicken carcasses had detectable E. coli." Add in the grim predictions about the future of the world grain supply and the loss of global grazing land, and the switch to meat could be stalled before it ever really gets off the ground.

JIM MOTAVALLI is the Editor of E.

Well relative to food production, it should be taken in that due to the event of the decreaseing electromagnetic field, the growth rate has been decreaseing over the last 4,000 years, this has been recongized 30 years ago and is reaffirmed by current testing, overall it is a sign that the magnetic poles will switch soon. but it also says something about food production, where it effects food growth. so then we can say that crops that are grown in a stringer emf feild will yeild lager crops, we can aslo say the addtion of phos[hates will greatly increase crops both in animals and planets as well nitrogen, and vitamin A, point being that phosphates nitrogen and emf are on a steady decline in the resources of food crops, plainly its been leached out of the enviroment. that with in itself shows a effective change.
the event of a dwindling emf field also shows promotes a increase in virus and bateria that effect animals, where a decrease in field strength and tempture cause viurs and bateria to attract to living organisim, this means that instead of the parsite, bateria ect... being content with external enviroments it must seek out living organism to thrive, because of the rapid change in tempture from exstenal enviroment where the bateria gestates or forms to the life form, the life form provides a tempture that causes the baterias ect.,.. to greatly accellerate in population, areaswith life forms closely housed provide a continuos link to a new breeding ground for bateria. the bateria adapts and becomes more effective.
so then waht we seee here is that it is the micor enviroment that effects the health and level of production of food resouces world wide.
in general the average foot of soil will produce 2lbs of food pre crop, in manyy cases much more!! in a year 1 sq ft. of soil may yeild a average of 6lbs, a healty food consumtion of 6lbs a day(3 meals)equates to a 2190 lbs of food per year per person, this means that one acre will sustain 19 people per year(40), this means that it takes 358,421,000 acres to feed a world population of 7 billion each year, at 6lbs of yeild per sq ft. or at 2lbs some 1 billion acres, this means 560,031 miles at 6lbs a sq ft a year, and 1,680,090 miles at 2lbs of food a square foot per year. lets continue with the figures set at 2lbs a sq. ft as crops must alternate and this reduces soil errosion ect... are figures are then 1,689,090 miles for food crops to feed the world population in a healthy manner. this means a area smaller that Alberta, Canada or a country the size of INDIA will sustain thw food needs of the world population year around. at the standard average 6lbs sq ft. either of these countries could preform the taks by land mass, CHAD, COLUMBIA, IRAN, INDONESIA, LIBYA, MALI, MEXICO, MONGOLIA, ALASKA usa, ANGOLA.
AIn general the area of land mass need to supply animal resource and crop resources is less than the size of AUSTRRALIA, which has a area of 2,967,741 sq miles. to be nice and rounded with roads and warehouses ect shipping facilities, machine housing and worker population ect..... the area of Australia is perfect as a example of the land mas needed to feed the world population yearly with a 2lbs sq.ft, that includes minium effect of over use of soil, soil erosion ect.......
this figure does not include sea foods, or sea land crops which would be a extra addtion food resource to tap at will.
the land mass of the earth habitable is 57,267,000 sq miles. this means there is a surplus of land equal to say 54 million sq. miles after food resources. the current human population lives on less than 5% of the land mass. look at it this was food resoucres take up about 3%, in the example of australia 6% of the land mass was used which is a excees qoute,where under scientific application land use was less than 1%, remember this is consideringthe world population of 7 billlion.
so then in excees qoute less than 8% of land mass is actually needed by humans, or used by humans in REAL TIME.
that figure could be reduced to say 3% very comfortably.
So then settting a standard of living as such the avrge land mass used per human.
4,000 sq living quarters( and optional use)
2,190 sq ft food crop

6,200 total per human
Thats about 1/7th of a acre: which means a living quatersabout 62 ft long by 62 ft wide, with a garden about 45 ft by 45 ft, tto better understand that, just go out side and count off 100ft trun right and walk 100 ft and again untill you make a square, that is the area of land mass.

China with a land mass of about 2,368,000,000 acres has about 2 acres per person thats 14 times the nessacary land mass needed. for comfortable living. in the USA it is about 8.9 acres per person thats 63 timesthe nessacary land mass.

IS a 100ft by 100ft comfortable enough for you???

DWAYNE D.L.RABON

Dwayne!, Dwayne!, He's our man!, If he can't do it nobody can!

*cough* ahem *cough*

Fukushi,
There are some vitamins that you can only get through meat. The effect is seen more in women as they breast feed. A recently reported study (will try and find link later) stated that the children of vegan women who didn't take vitamins are more likely to have brain damage. B-12 was cited, although it was noted that you can get the small amount of B-12 you need by not washing your hands between the time you pee and eat.

So do YOU wash your hands?;)

Well in addtion to what i provided before there are the follwing numbers to format:

With 57,000,000 sq miles land mass, and the physical requirement or energy use for a phsyical body in heatly preformance, which includes proper and steady growth of a adult the average human requires 4,000,000 sq ft, this complied with thw land avialable computes to 91 acres per person, meaning that the current land mass would support about 5,000,000 people.
however this figure can mislead a person, as this is only the amount of physical area required in motion which means that a healty person will pass through 4,000,000 sq ft. per day, otherwise meaning that a healty person will walk or run 4,000,000sq ft a day where in the heart will do the work equivalent of lifting 42 tons in a day in 4 million sq. ft.

In note: the callorie requirement for a person at rest is about 1,000 calorie, and a maxium for hard labor some 10,000 calories.

DWAYNE D.L.RABON

People who think the world is over populated are parinoid freaks!! and think the population should be controlled by all kinds of crazy human degregation, and humiliation. those that belive in such curel attacks on humanity should be the first to be executed.

So to all you overpopulation thinkers how do you fill about being the first to be executed, after all we need population controll as you think. whats a matter with you being the first in the pit. really you guy are a joke you actually want people to suffer for your parinoid, delusional ideas but because you can think. with out doubt your ideas will lead to war.
exspecially so when i have a gun! understand that punks!!

DWAYNE D.L.RABON

Originally posted by Dwayne
IS a 100ft by 100ft comfortable enough for you???

I’d have to say no. Consider China. Two-thirds of it is uninhabitable by all but the hardiest souls. Much of the rest is prone to severe flooding or otherwise not amenable to crops. Using your figures, that brings us down to half an acre per person. Which should still be more than enough land if you are right, but in China human life is worth little. Apparently people need more breathing room than 1/7 acre if babies won’t be left to die in gutters.

You are also neglecting the web of life. Animals need space too, and humans need animals if our life is to be quality. We need trees and plants to generate oxygen and beautify our surroundings. I just don’t understand this desire to jam-pack the Earth with humanity. Can you explain it?

There is no neglect here Zanket, you are failing to relate figures in REAL TIME, and since you fail to understand that i will give you a couple of figures, which of course you should already have figured out.

consider the event of 2 acres per person, you actually said that more than one half of the land on earth was useless or in china.
the 1/7th of land nessacary about 100ft by 100ft, the average house in the united states is not even 4000 sq ft, for a family of 4 thats big, that figure just reflects ground floor of a house,dwelling a person could very well add a second or third floor, this would mean a living space of some 12,000 sq ft. in comparison the average one bed room apartment is 1,000 sq ft. where is ther not enough living space for a family greater than four. the fact remains that you could place 3 floors on 1,100 sq ft and have some 5,000 sq ft for crop ect... the fact also remained that 1080 ft or so was waht was nessacary for one person per year. the base numbder was 2190 lbs of food per year. with a very healthly diet of 6 pounds of food a day.
As you mentioned babies in gutters, lets fix you sick problem. would you prefer to be sterlized or put in your coffin.
Fact remains the procreation requires two persons, in such event then you have two persons with dubble the land mass, dubble the foood and dubble the living space whic can be converted. there is no heritary problem.
your view point there was to eliminated the structure of goverment and social liviing to isolate population so the you could kill and make you idea of hatered plausiable. where you tried to say that a mother and father would starve there child rather than feed, like wise you igornantly projected that technology would not allow for the exspansion into land that was previous with crops ect..... where you said that more than 1/2 of land was useless. even in your prosect of of 1/2th half the land useless you still lost because you could not beat the figue of 1/7th base value needed per human. there still is 6 parcels useable to the population and that means six times the current population. not only did you fail to estblishe you sick idea, but you failed to take into account the death rate, and seniors ect... who eat less ect.... your concept must have totally relied on destroying family association and a unfound allegation of useless land.
so lets back tack with 2 acres 1 half usless they could just build houses on barren land and build farms on useable land, so the one acre of house and one acre of food resource, thats 43,560 sq ft ground floor level and 43,560 sq ft crop per one person. thats 43 times the nessacary area for food production, and ten times the licing space, tell me then Zanket since 100 ft was not enough for you to live in, then waht about 43,000 sq ft, and a second and third floor, thats about 130,000 square ft of living space, well thats bigger than most mansions, thats about what a small palace is made of, wioth the event of a marriage you have tow mansions and 80 times the nessacary food resources, and what about grampa who eats very little and goes really no where. and after all ther was also grandma, they all had 43 times the food they needed. ther was also cosuin X and cousin G, and cousin P, brother Z, and sister T, all of which had 43 time the food resources.

Sorry zanket but like i said you are badly delusional, with closet case ideas, you have been listening to the wrong people, instead of looking at the figures in REAL TIME.

DWAYNE D.L.RABON

Dwayne - Let’s assume you are right and the world can hold 2 trillion people. Or 200 trillion; maybe we can burn off the oceans and have even more land. But why pack them in? If nobody has to be killed to reduce the population, why seek an increase?

Frist off Zanket thereis no assuming that i am right because plainly and factually i am right. second i do not mind blowing your brains out whenyou open prospects for murdeing millions of people for your sick ideas.
thridly as i said befor if you read my post, the curent population accounts for less that 8% of use of land mass, and a significant amount less by more than 50 % less, this means even with the propre use of tech it takes up less than 4% of the worlds land mass. now maybe your not getting it clearly but that leaves 96% of land mass unused. where can you even justify anything you are saying. plainly you can't
people are not packed in and in no time in the future will they be packed in ect...... your ideas sound like you live in a city and you do not pay attention to the rest of the world out side of the city, your must be stuck on the number of people passing by the coffee shop, or on the interstate. what ever the case you got bad numbers and bad ideas.
not that some water can not be burned off, but why burn it off if we don't need to, unless you are talking about creatiing fresh water for crops ect....... the idea is not relative.however burning of water will increase the sediment content in the oceans ect....which is not good for sea life.

DWAYNE D.L.RABON

Dwayne,
First off, chill out and quit talking about blowing people's brains out. It doesn't exactly help your argument.

Do you agree that there is at some point a limit to the number of people that can live on this planet given current technology? If so, why should we not try to curb or eliminate population growth?

We are not talking about dropping nuclear bombs on people.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"People who think the world is over populated are parinoid freaks!!" - Dwayne D.L.Rabon

The answer to overpopulation is pretty simple: birth restrictions. In the developed nations most of the upper=middle class people only have one or two kids, anyway. It'll be a bit harder enforcing that in the developing or third-world nations, but it can be accomplished, especially as they develop more.. Acceptance to birth restriction laws could also be eased into the United States, I think. Problem solved. It would be solved even quicker if more people were in favor of birth restriction laws, so spread the word. ;)

How do you see these laws being enforced?

Very good question, and that's something I hadn't thought about too much.

First, there would be a large fine for those who had more than 2 children. Then, they would also have to pay additional taxes. Sound alright? Yes, this would enable rich families to have more kids, but I don't see that as too big of a problem. They have the money to care for them, and such families are a bit rare. Rich parents often don't have tons of kids, either.

Another way would be abortion for the kid, and that wouldn't go over to well, I'm sure.

I like the first idea and I think it’s workable. After all, in the U.S., tax deductions are given for any number of children. I think the fine and tax are synonymous results (money into the treasury), so you might as well avoid controversy and just tax it.

Blader and Zanket i think that would be best is if people that think you two were put in the gas chamber and executed, this would significanly reduce the population problem that you think there is. in fact gassing people like you would make life easier for the rest of us and we would not have such soical problems with your likes gone from infesting the human race with the ideas of aminals, or i should say idots.

You should do the world a favor and commit sucided really!

DWAYNE D.L.RABON

What the heck I’ll try again: What do have against reducing the population if nobody is killed? Or, why do you want people to “be fruitful and multiply?” Why not tell us your motive?

Well:
-first;
only the rich can afford one or more children,... that's not MY definition of closing the gap and unequality between rich and poor!

-second;
After the rich families have lots of families, they can get a stronger grip on sociological structures and are definately more benefitted, such as: -Financial loans: bigger families get lower intrest-rates,...

-third;
The concept wouldn't work because if you follow the line strictly: the poor people are growing in numbers,...
as a result fewer babies are born (because of the restrictions)
The rich kids grow up and WILL have to WORK to provide the elders AND the poor THEIR pension.


The sheer concept of it all is easy to describe with one word:

IN-E-QUALITY
That alone should refrain one to commit such idears to society. Think people, before you act and say really DUMB things.
So, therefore there are no birthristrictions needed.

that's not MY definition of closing the gap and unequality between rich and poor!
Why do you wish to close this gap? Should everybody have the same amount of everything?

So, therefore there are no birthristrictions needed.
That is your case? Inequality? Why do you hold equality up to such high regards? Would you rather people be starving to death than unequal? Why is your idea better than this one?

I am not even gonna touch dwayne as he is obviously a troll.

Originally posted by Fukushi
Well:
-first;
only the rich can afford one or more children,... that's not MY definition of closing the gap and unequality between rich and poor!
Statistically proven that poor people reproduce faster then rich people. So the next generation of people born rich will be about the same size, while the number born poor will increase.
Also, there are many stories of people coming from being poor to being lawyers, scientists, etc... There are also many stories about rich kids who waste all their money and become poor...

-second;
After the rich families have lots of families, they can get a stronger grip on sociological structures and are definately more benefitted, such as: -Financial loans: bigger families get lower intrest-rates,...
Larger family = less money per person in that family

IN-E-QUALITY
That alone should refrain one to commit such idears to society. Think people, before you act and say really DUMB things.
So, therefore there are no birthristrictions needed.
Birth ristrictions have very little to do with 'in-e-quality' as you put it. Very simple, if you can't get off your ass and get a job then don't have kids. The alternative is that we stop giving welfare to these people and their kids just starve...
You can live off minimum wage in this country... I did it the entire time I was going to college. The simple fact is that we some form of birth control until we could afford kids.

Originally posted by Dwayne D.L.Rabon
there is no population problem, the idea of population as a problem comes from people who are closet case, clostophobia.
the world will not begin to have a population problem untill the population reaches some 2 trillion beleive me the figures have been done, the probelm is with the mangagement of civilizatin.
even at 2 tirllion the state of population would still be reasonable and the problem just begining. what it demonstares is that in a perfect system we have a long way to go before their is a population problem. it also shows that people are making up ideas to effect society the way they want to, to fulfill there parinoid ideas.
wehat is needed is better management, leaders with better ideas, restructing of laws ect.... the idea of brith controll ect... to controll societys growth is not need in real figures that relate TO REAL TIME events of population growth and supply of resources.

be fruitfull and multipy on the face of the earth.

DWAYNE D.L.RABON

Large families should be encouraged worldwide, so that more and more people can enjoy life. Duh?

Cities only occupy but 2 or 3% of the land. There is plenty of room for humans to grow into on earth for the forseeable future. Cities and towns should be welcome to grow bigger and closer together, and to infill with people or coelesce together, as people welcome their families to possibly grow large in the biggest of megacities. Why couldn't we stack people up in tall buildings to make room for more people, if we ever had to, if we really claim to care about people or our neighbors? Human population growth should be encouraged, as it benefits "the many."

God did not create humans to be "too fertile." The human reproductive system of married people should be free to function naturally, just like any other part of the body. The body (or God) sort of "knows" when to get pregnant on its own, without nasty anti-life contraceptives.

Space colonization is impractical considering today's technology, but we already have lots of technologies that help support large populations of people.

Most everybody wants to live, most people want to have children, and the majority of people are not finished having children. Logically, the #1 population concern should be that more and more people would want to live. That's a worthy goal, so large families should be encouraged worldwide. Human population growth should only be accomodated, not limited. Ideally, if God allows, human population should be big, big, and "unchecked." Giving birth should be encouraged, and anti-life "birth control" discouraged. Future people would not want to have been eliminated.

The Utilitarian Principle suggests that people should do what does the most good for the most people. Well the obvious side effect of that idea, is that human population should be nearly as large as possible, if some "optimum" human population size could somehow be defined. More people = more people around to benefit from whatever = more benefit.

Converting relatively cheap matter or food into human bodies (or souls) of practically infinite worth, represents an incrediable "investment," at least philosophically.

What are the numbers of how many people the earth could hold, if it was ever needed? Who knows but God? But since more people want to live, and space colonization isn't practical yet, the obvious solution to the population question, is for human populations to grow denser and denser. While that doesn't necessarily mean more "crowded," it does mean to urbanize the planet to whatever extent needed. All nations should be proud to welcome large and growing populations within or without their borders, so that more people can live, at least somewhere. I would much rather be born on some "overcrowded" planet, than not at all, because there were too few births.

"World population is barely large enough for you and I to have been born."

Those over-educated, self-appointed "experts" (educated idiots) who claim whatever prattle or whining about there supposedly being "too many" people apparently don't know who people are (created in God's image), or who God is who supplied us with all the resources we would ever need if we would but be smart enough to harvest and develop them, or are lying to sell their books and be rich at the expense of oppressing the poor.

If the world's burgeoning billions of humans could eventually breed into trillions of people, we should be proud to do so, and celebrate sustained and widespread baby booms whether or not we colonize to fill more planets. But given sluggish and selfish population trends and Biblical prophecy, I don't think it likely we will have to find room for many more billions of people. I don't believe in using any means of anti-family "birth control" or rhythm, because children are a blessing from God, and how could I ever choose which child I wish I didn't have? Most parents end up loving ALL their children, and having big families, or growing up with brothers and sisters quite often is a positive experience. Most people should be able to somehow contribute more to society than they just consume or waste, so more people should be a positive change. Had we had eyes to see, we should have seen that human population growth does tend to accelerate the growth of technology, and that many inventions we too often take for granted, are related to growing human population or God's grace, or both. Many things like computer chips, can't be manafactured at affordable prices in small quantities. I think it is large quantities of people that leads to such things as high-speed Internet, fancy cellular phones loaded with cute toys now like polyphonic MIDI ringers and color screens and cameras, and of course such "necessities" as toilets.

What part of God's commandment to multiply and fill the earth, did we not understand? (Gen. 1:28, 9:1, Ps. 127:3-5, Pr. 14:28, Deut. 30:19)

I'll have to come back to read this thread... but I voted for "There is no population problem."

It is clear that the problem isn't the number of living people.

The problem is the affordability of resources.

2/3 of the world's population lives on less than $2 per day. 1/3 lives on less than $1.

Famine, etc. are all symptoms of not getting available resources to the needy or making them affordable.

I voted for "There is no population problem" too.

There are already so many people alive, and so many people enjoying fucking and making babies, it think it is a little late for "family planning" or "population control." I can't imagine what socialist/communist educated idiots would think trying to put condoms on over 3 billion penises in the world, is even a good idea? Or even practical or realistic. Let the sperm freely spurt where it was designed to go. Welcoming families to possibly grow large, is the normal and healthy outlet for reproductive urges, not the contraceptives so often associated with sexual immorality and "dirty sex." Like a few billion more people would even be noticable in a world with billions already? There aren't "too many" people, but human population growth = progress. Human population growth, or the creation of precious new people, much like you and me, should only be accomodated, not limited. Besides baby booms are cool, and a great sign of possible optimism for the future. Why stand in the way of the population growth people probably want anyway? Would you stand in front of a speeding semi truck and hope it stops just for you? I don't think so. Let human population growth go on unhindered, as Julian Simon claims in his book by the same name, that people are "The Ultimate Resource."

I believe there are some 6 billion+ reasons why world population needs to be at least as large as it is. Any gain in human population benefits so many people who couldn't have lived otherwise, that it should be positively encouraged. Large and growing human populations should be encouraged everywhere, at least for the benefit of "the many."

world happiness = average happiness x number of people alive.

i find you gloriously insane. keep up the good work

it has been shown that the more educated a person is, the more careful about maintaining their contraception they are. the higher up in the education ladder you go, the fewer children you have and the later in life you have them. so plain old education is as effective as sex education.

it takes about 100 babies in a third world country to use the same amount of resources as it takes 1 baby in a developed country to use.

statistics show that minority women are much more likely to be sterilized by the doctor after giving birth and told it was a necessity. not that this means anything. it could be a coincidence that significantly more minorities have birth complications that require them to be sterilized afterwards but some would argue that it is the belief that minorities, especially hispanic women, breed too much and need to be forced not to. but i wouldn't dream of accusing doctors of blatant racism.

to meat or not to meat is an entirely different issue. it should be noted that bad diet is bad diet. you can't blame veganism for malnutrition during pregnancy because it happens in meat-eaters too. it's only that it's hyped up when it happens to vegans because the meat industry wants to deter you. in fact, most meat products, especially cheeses and processed meats, should be avoided during pregnancy. there is no data showing that vegans are more likely to have poor natal nutrition. *all* pregnant women should be on a regimen of prenatal vitamins and a diet set up by the obgyn. you can get everything your body needs solely from plants. b12 is the only thing that is kind of hard to come by but it is produced by some bacterias. it is what is in those b vitamin suppliments (which i take). "fish" oils are also present in many nuts and seeds.

Originally posted by SwedishFish
... it takes about 100 babies in a third world country to use the same amount of resources as it takes 1 baby in a developed country to use ...

That part is just poverty-promoting propaganda of the eco-freaks. It is people who are poor who can't afford to do much about pollution and such.

If we are to have a populous world where people are free to enjoy having "all the children God gives," we should want that world to be rich, not poor, to help insure that all the people can be fed, and that pollution can be properly treated or minimized.

It is often the poor who produce the most pollution and make the worst use of resources. (i.e. deforestation for firewood rather than durable furniture and homes) Rich people have options.

One of the problems is people huddling around smoky fires, or burning dung, to cook their food or stay warm. Do we see rich people doing that? No, we have modern electric and gas stoves, and our homes stay warm year-round. The rest of the world should be welcome to live like that too, and to have toilets.

And that people tend to have fewer children when they get "educated" shows that people don't always get smarter when they get "educated."

i need more superlatives

I don't necessarily disagree with your whole post, but I hope that I can clarify one or two of your points.

Originally posted by Pronatalist
That part is just poverty-promoting propaganda of the eco-freaks.

Actually, it is quite believable and I've seen this statistic in the past, though I can't comment on it's validity since the source eludes me. I suspect if you search the United Nations publications on the web, you may find it, though.

I have a two year old, and I can attest that we used a LOT of resources in her first year. Diapers, wipes, a multitude of foods, formula, milk, clothes, fuel for baby-specific trips in the car, additional electricity costs, and the many toys that are all made of plastic - a petroleum product.

In my travels of the world, I've seen many third world nations such as Honduras and Guatamala, where a baby was lucky to have a clean bottle and some actual milk to drink. Clothing was scarece and diapers were few and re-used. The food consumed by a baby in the third world (now referred to as the periphery) is significantly less than in core countries. Other resources are similar in consumption.

Originally posted by Pronatalist
It is people who are poor who can't afford to do much about pollution and such.

It's interesting to note, that it was US Policy to export our pollution to the developing, peripheral nations of the world and may still be. Pollution in developing nations isn't solely their own responsibilities.

Originally posted by Pronatalist
It is often the poor who produce the most pollution and make the worst use of resources. (i.e. deforestation for firewood rather than durable furniture and homes) Rich people have options.

A larger problem for deforestation is the beef industry. Many, many acres of land are allocated for lucrative grazing use and cash crop planting. The result is that a relatively few individuals increase their wealth, while a significant number of the indigenous people lose their livelihoods. Gone is subsistance farming and peasants must work peasant wages to make a meager living.

Originally posted by Pronatalist
One of the problems is people huddling around smoky fires, or burning dung, to cook their food or stay warm. Do we see rich people doing that? No, we have modern electric and gas stoves, and our homes stay warm year-round. The rest of the world should be welcome to live like that too, and to have toilets.

I very much agree with that. Smoke from primitive stoves is also a significant health problem among the third-world population.

Originally posted by Pronatalist
And that people tend to have fewer children when they get "educated" shows that people don't always get smarter when they get "educated."

The actual, most likely cause for that practice is that, with an education, comes a career. A career leaves little room for child rearing. Periphery populations have larger families because it is as simple as more family members=more income. Child labor is extremely common in periphery nations.

Originally posted by SkinWalker
I don't necessarily disagree with your whole post, but I hope that I can clarify one or two of your points.



Actually, it is quite believable and I've seen this statistic in the past, though I can't comment on it's validity since the source eludes me. I suspect if you search the United Nations publications on the web, you may find it, though.

The United Nations has no credibility with me. They are too much into contraceptive imperilism, population control, and whatever world government take over conspiracies to usher in the Anti-Christ. And full of false religion, and humanism -- man pretending he is God, which only makes people a curse to each other.

Originally posted by SkinWalker
I have a two year old, and I can attest that we used a LOT of resources in her first year. Diapers, wipes, a multitude of foods, formula, milk, clothes, fuel for baby-specific trips in the car, additional electricity costs, and the many toys that are all made of plastic - a petroleum product.

So? I don't see using all that stuff, including disposable diapers, as a problem. We love our children, so of course we use the resources God gave us to care for them. If we welcome human populations to expand unchecked, and make people a priority, and use more and more diapers, more electricity and toys, and stuff, we will only find all the more ways to get the additional resources we need. The myth of scarcity is a problem of bad leadership and improper investing. God gave us all the resources we need, and nature could care less how populated we get. Why do we suppose world population is growing so much? Because it should grow, and because the world can actually hold many more people. As world population has grown, so has the number of square feet in our homes, the number of bathrooms in our homes, the amount of stuff in our homes, and yet our families are shrinking? We have more resources per capita than ever, and now we claim we can no longer "afford" children? Well maybe if we would stop voting to keep increasing our taxes to worship the government rather than God, in some naive belief that the government can take care of us?

Originally posted by SkinWalker
In my travels of the world, I've seen many third world nations such as Honduras and Guatamala, where a baby was lucky to have a clean bottle and some actual milk to drink