The Over Population Problem

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Liebling, Feb 10, 2009.

Page 6 of 23
  1. DwayneD.L.Rabon

    DwayneD.L.Rabon Registered Senior Member

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    It looks like their is PLENTY of Food croppable land to be managed, Humans only use 2% of the land seen in the above map for all of thier resources.


    Well In the United States of America, the population was forced in to the cities after World War Two by Goverment and Big Buisness. Which caused the Industrial Era in the U.S. and our current oganization of population. The government did so to manage the population, to keep them clean, free from deiases and to educate them ect.. big buissness saw that they could make money from them in this manner and could compete with other nations of the world with a large work force. That is how the U.S. gained its Social problems by packing humans in small valleys and apartment complexs. and Yes... Stress became a factor, mainly because the designs of the city and dwellings where not designed with human Biometrics, the cities are not design for citizen life,

    DwayneD.L.Rabon
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2009
    DwayneD.L.Rabon, Mar 3, 2009
    #101

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  3. Liebling

    Liebling Doesn't Need to be Spoonfed. Valued Senior Member

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    Liebling, Mar 3, 2009
    #102

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  5. DwayneD.L.Rabon

    DwayneD.L.Rabon Registered Senior Member

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    Well Sure their are areas of the earth that have exstremly low food growth per square foot due to soil or weather conditions, some have population problems but they are mainly Cities, or metroplexes (A group of cities in a small area).
    People should naturally move from such places, just as they move from regions that are effected by a disater.

    India and China serve as good examples of population density, China has build habitat dwellings in its most fertile land regions, rather than the less fertile land regions, which results in less fertile land to farm and crop, as the people are living on that land, and in large numbers.
    India I believe is technically overpopulated, and so migration factors need to be considered by United Nations.

    Perhaps regions like Libya should also be considered. those that are desert in nature. But still the world in total has enough resources to feed the earth population and more.

    I also get the impression Libling that you do not favor the practice of child bearing. Why should a Female not want to give birth, she was Anotomically created to do so.

    DwayneD.L.Rabon
     
    DwayneD.L.Rabon, Mar 4, 2009
    #103

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  7. Liebling

    Liebling Doesn't Need to be Spoonfed. Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, I have given birth. Twice. Once to replace my husband and once to replace myself. But I think that people should stop there, and that a combined effort to reduce breeding, and repair the environment, we could all live a lot better.
     
    Liebling, Mar 4, 2009
    #104
  8. Syzygys

    Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    I haven't given birth, because I don't want to be replaced, I am unique.

    I am also male...
     
    Syzygys, Mar 4, 2009
    #105
  9. Liebling

    Liebling Doesn't Need to be Spoonfed. Valued Senior Member

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    You are unique, but I didn't mean replace as in a literal sense, only in a ecological/biological sense.
     
    Liebling, Mar 4, 2009
    #106
  10. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    What's the difference ? Everyone will be replaced eventually.
     
    Enmos, Mar 4, 2009
    #107
  11. Orbit

    Orbit A Service to the Blind. Registered Senior Member

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    Well, not when we go into population decline. Then there will an unbalance of death and birth.

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    Orbit, Mar 4, 2009
    #108
  12. Liebling

    Liebling Doesn't Need to be Spoonfed. Valued Senior Member

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    Do you have some proof that that is actually happening, or are you speculating like the rest of these folks?
     
    Liebling, Mar 4, 2009
    #109
  13. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Lets hope

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    Enmos, Mar 4, 2009
    #110
  14. charles brough

    charles brough Registered Senior Member

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    The first paragraph above is unclear. What are you saying?

    Second paragraph: then you are figuring that with adequate resources the optimal average number of children to each family would be four. I would accept that, myself, but do you really think that we are not running out of resources? Take an example, natural gas. I am familiar with it and know that they are drilling for it down as much as 15,000 feet. It is much the same with coal. All the good coal is gone and while we have plenty of the rest, it takes more energy every year to extract it. It takes more energy to extract copper. We are similarly mining our top soil. Fresh water is showing signs of not being enough and it takes energy to extract more.

    You have heard of "peak oil," certainly. The price will go up again and we must certainly find the price accelerates as the energy cost of extracting it goes up as well.

    You have also failed to consider the psychological consequences of an expanding population on a given space. Their numbers cannot and do not increase until they starve or until the are so compacted they cannot move.
    All animals have an instinctive social sense as to how large should be the group they live in. When their numbers in a space exceed that, the groups sooner or later breaks up into smaller groups. In others, such as rats and mice, there is a behaioral breakdown.

    All that is already what we are experiencing. Our civilizations is breaking up into Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Marxist spheres and behavior between them is showing increased strain.

    Considering that all four societies are loaded with nuclear weapons, it will be a blessing if a new plague cuts our numbers down before we use those weapons against each other.

    charles
    http://atheistic-science.com
     
    charles brough, Mar 5, 2009
    #111
  15. Cellar_Door

    Cellar_Door Whose Worth's unknown Registered Senior Member

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    Firstly, could you be more specific when referring to 'resources' and secondly, could you provide a valid source for that statement?
    I've been over this point God knows how many times on this forum, but it looks like I need to go over it again.

    It is estimated that the average person needs A MINIMUM of one acre of land to survive. This acre is their share of the world that supports them. In other words land to:

    Physically Inhabit
    Grow their crops on
    Rear their meat on
    Manufacture their clothes
    Work on
    Produce their electricity
    Spend recreational time
    etc. etc. etc....

    .... which for every man, woman and child adds up to a lot more than two per cent of the world (discounting uninhabitable areas of course).

    But nevertheless, do you think we will reach the brink of world overpopulation, famine and squalor and be able to bring the numbers swiftly back down again? It's a steepening curve which needs to be controlled. You can argue until you are blue in the face about whether we are currently 'technically overpopulated' or not. The fact is, it is extremely likely that we will be in the future. That means, we have to act now.
     
    Cellar_Door, Mar 5, 2009
    #112
  16. Dr Mabuse

    Dr Mabuse Percipient Thaumaturgist Registered Senior Member

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    We'll be thinned out by a pandemic or war soon enough.

    Seeing as how people can not survive without technology and grocery stores now, it won't take much to wipe a good portion of the global population.

    Nature deals with over population eventually, it's ugly when it happens. Or we go nuclear. Maybe an NEO like the one that barely missed us this week.

    It's going to happen.
     
    Dr Mabuse, Mar 5, 2009
    #113
  17. Cellar_Door

    Cellar_Door Whose Worth's unknown Registered Senior Member

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    I disagree that people can't literally 'survive' without modern technology. However, I agree that we are headed for disaster. Yet, prats like DwayneD.L.Rabon prefer to close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears and hum, in lieu of helping preserve the world for their descendants.
     
    Cellar_Door, Mar 5, 2009
    #114
  18. charles brough

    charles brough Registered Senior Member

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    Freddie, your wishful thinking is predicated on the continued growth of world domestic product. Suffice it to just leave you with this exceptional link and consider it my response to that:
    http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-8-fed-money-creation

    Capital punishment has nothing to do with vengence but with justice. Executing serial killers who torture has nothing to do with children learning good things from their fathers! LOL
     
    charles brough, Mar 8, 2009
    #115
  19. zombieflirt

    zombieflirt Registered Member

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    We use 30 times the resources, yet the average person can't even afford an dwelling of their own. We are the most wastefull country on the planet.
     
    zombieflirt, Mar 8, 2009
    #116
  20. Baron Max

    Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    23,053
    And just what does that have to do with over-population???

    By the way, who is this "we" of which you speak?

    Baron Max
     
    Baron Max, Mar 8, 2009
    #117
  21. DwayneD.L.Rabon

    DwayneD.L.Rabon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    999
    Well, I will Start By saying that the earth has a habital land surface of some 53,000,000 Square Miles, with a total surface area estimate of about 197,000,000 Square miles. The Average person takes up abour 4 Square feet of Standing Space, In result the entire World Population of about 6.5 billion people take up a space of about 932.6 square miles of space, given that you stand each human next to each other. ( you could fit the entire human race in 1,000 square miles).
    Each Human consumes about 2,000 pounds of food per year, the average soil produces 1 to 6 pounds of food per square foot, the result is that each person needs 2,000 square feet of soil to nurish them selves throughout the year, considering they live on poor soil. Which results in 1,865,243.3 miles of land resources to feed the world population of 6.5 billion people.
    The biometreics of humans define a minimium of 900 square feet for confinded living space ( a room 30 feet by 30 feet), which results in a land use of 839,359.5 square miles to provide appropiate dwelling space for the world population.

    933 square miles standing space
    1,865,244 square miles food growth area
    839,360 sqaure miles dwelling space

    Total Required space equals land use of 2,705,537 square miles, to care for the world population.

    2,705,537 square miles, Is Just about the Size of the United States of America

    At 53,000,000 square miles habital surface, the human population would require 5.1 % ( Five percent) of the worlds habital surface area.

    Of the habital land space each person on earth would get in their equal share 0.008153 Square miles. or about 227,316.1846 square ft. of habital land space, of the total world surface includeing the oceans and food resource ect... that would be about 0.0210 square miles or about 587,591 square ft. That is a total of 814,907 sqaure ft. per person world space.

    These Figures do not include, the use of technology in food growth or the use of construction technology such as a second floor. such technology dubbles the use of land. and in some cases triples the resources.

    The simple fact show that there is a a bad case of human mangagement by goverments.

    DwayneD.L.Rabon
     
    DwayneD.L.Rabon, Mar 9, 2009
    #118
  22. Baron Max

    Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Does that include the Sahara Desert? The Gobi Desert? Death Valley, California? The Rocky Mountains? The Himalyan Moutains?

    Wanna' do some more calculations for us?

    Baron Max
     
    Baron Max, Mar 9, 2009
    #119
  23. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    You have a strange perspective on the last Paradigm Shift, the Industrial Revolution. You seem to think that those in power conspired to move the population into the cities. This does not correlate with the evidence in the early years of the Industrial Era, when the powerful did not have the tools which they have today. People thronged to the cities voluntarily, even when, by many measures, life in the city was often harder than life back on the farm. There's something in the human spirit that yearns for the vastly greater variety and richness of culture in the city, and is willing to pay a heavy price for it. This is what drove us to invent the technology of civilization (literally "city-building") in the first place.

    But furthermore your assertion also fails to correlate with economic reality. Depending on one's focus, it can be said that the key social change resulting from the invention of the technology of industry (the combination of the organized economy of scale we call "mass production" with the exploitation of chemical energy, to increase the productivity of human labor) has been the shift from a population profile in which more than 99% of the people are engaged in the production and distribution of food and other survival resources, to a profile that is very nearly the exact opposite in the Western nations. As the technology of industry spread inexorably to the farms, there was less need for farmers, and the excess population had to go somewhere in order to make a living. A few disenchanted souls (of which Max claims to be a member, a claim that's difficult to challenge since he lives in an era when it's almost impossible to demonstrate) moved spatially to the frontier and temporally back into the Stone Age, but most people went to the cities. There's no conspiracy here; it's just how Paradigm Shifts work. People have always voted with their feet and the overwhelming majority vote to get the hell away from Nature even if it means open sewers, crime and traffic gridlock.
    Speak for yourself. I love civilization, if only for its single crowning achievement: the ability to hear professionally performed and perfectly reproduced music 24/7. As a pacifist (and a musician) one of the few reasons I would start killing people is if they began to dismantle our cities.

    One of the things you don't give enough credit to is the ability our uniquely massive forebrains give us to transcend the limitations of our nature as expressed in the instinctive behavior of our primitive reptilian brains. Indeed there is a caveman inside each of us whose psychology evolved for a pack-social life in a small extended-family group of nomads, distrusting all other packs. But we bribed him into accepting life in larger communities in permanent settlements by showing him that that life could produce surplus food and make it unnecessary to fight with strangers over a limited resource. We've continued to bribe him with more comfortable clothes and homes, medicine, education, pets, liquor, sports, entertainment and computers. Occasionally he loses his way and backslides into caveman behavior, but civilization has withstood these lapses and continued to progress for ten thousand years.

    You could take a snapshot of a city at any time since Jericho and state truthfully that there was room for improvement. But the improvements have been forthcoming and will continue to be so. There's no need to be pessimistic about the future of civilization.
    The essence of the resource problem is energy and I've posted this information several times on SciForums. The sun produces (in this context) unlimited energy. We can take as much as we want using solar collectors in high orbit, transmitting it to ground receivers in safe wide beams. It will take about 200 years to build this network and it can be done with today's technology. In the meantime we need to build nuclear power plants to take up the slack when we run out of fossil fuel. Nuclear is dirty but we can deal with the waste produced in just a couple of centuries, particularly if we manage to make fusion power practical, which is only an engineering problem and not a science problem.

    The energy crisis can be solved, although of course it will require a little more foresight and cooperation than our national governments have been displaying recently.
    They won't starve if we have the solar energy to grow food, although they may have to adapt to a diet of hydroponic food. As for compaction, the calculations have been performed and the earth can house trillions of people in massively multi-level lodgings, with adequate space for privacy, intimacy, socializing and exercise. This allows for the infrastructure for air and heat flow, resource delivery, waste extraction, a fair amount of horizontal and some vertical travel.
    Once again you fail to give credit to our species's ability to transcend its instincts, which are down there in our reptilian hindbrain. We have already overcome our pack-social instinct and are well on our way to becoming herd-social. The other changes will follow as needed because we make our own destiny instead of being slaves to nature.
    This has been going on since the Dawn of Civilization. It's nothing new. As I have already noted, civilization is remarkably durable and has triumphed over every challenge we have made to it. There's no reason to think it's going to stop now.
    There has been a precipitous dropoff in government-sponsored violence or "war" since my birth, shortly before the only military deployment of nuclear weapons. WWII killed 60 million people, three percent of the world's population. Since then only the Congo Civil War has exceeded one million casualties. My people just overthrew their government (by peaceful democratic means of course) because of its intransigent pursuit of a military adventure in the Middle East that has barely claimed a six-figure body count.
    Both you and Martenson, like Baron Max, fail dismally to grasp the concept of a Paradigm Shift. Just as the Industrial Revolution redefined economics, so will the Post-Industrial Revolution (or the Information Revolution as it's often called). The very concepts of supply and demand will be redefined as the new commodity of information comes to dominate the world economy, which is fairly cheap to produce and almost free to reproduce. Capital, which is another word for surplus productivity, may become an outmoded concept.

    The "gross domestic product" of the world is already inaccurately calculated because it only counts goods and services that are sold or traded, not those that people provide for themselves and consume, "prosumers" as Toffler calls them. It's likely that the "prosumption" sector will grow mightily in the computer age, as it is already doing, to the point that it will dominate a GDP that will be difficult to evalutate under the circumstances since people don't pay money to themselves. But however it's measured or estimated, production will not only continue to increase, but there will be a step function in its increase just as there was when mass production and chemical energy redefined the world economy. The average quantity of goods and services per person will continue to increase. Our problem will surely continue to be ensuring a more-or-less equitable distribution of that quantity. But without the perturbation of the markets caused by the government's invention of the corporation, an artifact that will soon become nearly obsolete as huge concentrations of capital are no longer needed for large-scale industrial projects, economic justice may become more attainable.
    The basic premise of civilization, which makes civilization possible, is that no one has the right to initiate violence against anyone else. You may only use force against someone who presents a direct threat to you. Without that proscription we must all devote too much of our time, effort and other resources to protecting ourselves against each other, and civilization will sputter to a halt. Capturing a criminal, taking him into custody and preventing him from repeating his crime provides civilization with all the protection it needs against him. To then kill him is to say to the citizens, "You see, sometimes it really is okay to kill someone who does not present a direct threat." That message does not advance civilization.

    To execute "serial killers who torture"--which is hardly the most common use of capital punishment in any country but I'll indulge you and go with it--is to express our grief over the fate of their victims in the most ugly, primitive Biblical way. And one of the hallmarks of a justice system is that bereaved people must never be allowed to make policy. People who are overcome with grief are illogical, short-sighted, and even downright selfish.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Mar 9, 2009
    #120
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