Beyond Malthus, here are some interesting things to think about;
The Tsunami of 2004 wiped out a lot of people, and in as little 30 hours... the rest of the world replaced them.
People in Niger are starving to death and for every one death we create 4 lives.
20,000 people died in an earthquake in India, the losses were made up before the West heard the news.
As long as it takes you to say, "There is no population problem." enough people are born to fill a jumbo jet.
The population of the world by current census is growing at a little over 79,000,000 per year. That is enough people to fill the country of Germany, added to the world.
We like to think that in the western world we can afford to pay for our children. The sad fact is that a western child uses 30 times as much of the world’s natural resources as a third world child. A single Orthodox family in the U.S. may use as much oil as a small town in Africa or India.
Some other statistics;
There were 1 billion people on the earth in 1804
2 billion in 1927 (123 years later)
3 billion in 1960 ( 33 years later)
4 billion in 1974 ( 14 years later)
5 billion in 1987 ( 13 years later)
6 billion in 1999 ( 12 years later)
6.5 billion in 2004 (5 years later)
It's not that we are currently starving here in North America, it's that just south of us in Central America they are starving. And if we, despite all our capitalistic greed, could understand that we are using more resources than everyone else by 30%... then maybe we could start to be responsible for over-populating. The population will reach 7 billion by 2011, 9.5 billion in 2050, 11 billion in 2200 at current fertility rates. This is globally unsustainable. We are already at a deficit on grains and we lose about 3.6% of the grain amounts each year. And there is a Stockholm report that says by the year 2025, 2/3's of the worlds population will be without a proper water source caused by over-population. Growth in the World Fisheries stopped in 1989, and has been in a steady decline since then.
The news should report these things everyday, so that people who think that breeding is a right would start to understand that it's a serious problem. And that tax breaks for having more children is not the solution but part of a bigger global problem that makes it more difficult to govern countries, and much more difficult to solve the worlds ills. It gets worse every year. It's time that people were responsible instead of just breeding everyone else out of existance for their own greed and selfish needs.
It's happening all over the world, not just in third world countries. We just currently can somewhat substain ourselves. However, 4 out of 10 children in the U.S. go to school hungry. 38% of our population relies on public assistance of some sort. And it's growing. The more we depleat, the less we will have. The more we use in excess the less we have. But it's happening everywhere. It's less visable in North America and Europe, but it's painfully obvious everywhere else. China has serious penalties for having more than one child in a family, with good reason. They have a frightening person per square mile ratio.
Is it really ethical and environmentally sound to ever have more than one child for every one person? Should it be one child per couple until we get back to sustainable levels? Should we stop breeding all together? Is it plausible that the problem with our economy is that it does not have the infrastructure to support people who are having more than two children and having to rely on credit, loans and government assistance?
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Sources of Data;
Mostly WHO and government info.
http://www.who.int/
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/swpmain.htm
http://esa.un.org/unpp/
http://www.geohive.com/
The Tsunami of 2004 wiped out a lot of people, and in as little 30 hours... the rest of the world replaced them.
People in Niger are starving to death and for every one death we create 4 lives.
20,000 people died in an earthquake in India, the losses were made up before the West heard the news.
As long as it takes you to say, "There is no population problem." enough people are born to fill a jumbo jet.
The population of the world by current census is growing at a little over 79,000,000 per year. That is enough people to fill the country of Germany, added to the world.
We like to think that in the western world we can afford to pay for our children. The sad fact is that a western child uses 30 times as much of the world’s natural resources as a third world child. A single Orthodox family in the U.S. may use as much oil as a small town in Africa or India.
Some other statistics;
There were 1 billion people on the earth in 1804
2 billion in 1927 (123 years later)
3 billion in 1960 ( 33 years later)
4 billion in 1974 ( 14 years later)
5 billion in 1987 ( 13 years later)
6 billion in 1999 ( 12 years later)
6.5 billion in 2004 (5 years later)
It's not that we are currently starving here in North America, it's that just south of us in Central America they are starving. And if we, despite all our capitalistic greed, could understand that we are using more resources than everyone else by 30%... then maybe we could start to be responsible for over-populating. The population will reach 7 billion by 2011, 9.5 billion in 2050, 11 billion in 2200 at current fertility rates. This is globally unsustainable. We are already at a deficit on grains and we lose about 3.6% of the grain amounts each year. And there is a Stockholm report that says by the year 2025, 2/3's of the worlds population will be without a proper water source caused by over-population. Growth in the World Fisheries stopped in 1989, and has been in a steady decline since then.
The news should report these things everyday, so that people who think that breeding is a right would start to understand that it's a serious problem. And that tax breaks for having more children is not the solution but part of a bigger global problem that makes it more difficult to govern countries, and much more difficult to solve the worlds ills. It gets worse every year. It's time that people were responsible instead of just breeding everyone else out of existance for their own greed and selfish needs.
It's happening all over the world, not just in third world countries. We just currently can somewhat substain ourselves. However, 4 out of 10 children in the U.S. go to school hungry. 38% of our population relies on public assistance of some sort. And it's growing. The more we depleat, the less we will have. The more we use in excess the less we have. But it's happening everywhere. It's less visable in North America and Europe, but it's painfully obvious everywhere else. China has serious penalties for having more than one child in a family, with good reason. They have a frightening person per square mile ratio.
Is it really ethical and environmentally sound to ever have more than one child for every one person? Should it be one child per couple until we get back to sustainable levels? Should we stop breeding all together? Is it plausible that the problem with our economy is that it does not have the infrastructure to support people who are having more than two children and having to rely on credit, loans and government assistance?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources of Data;
Mostly WHO and government info.
http://www.who.int/
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/swpmain.htm
http://esa.un.org/unpp/
http://www.geohive.com/
