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There is a population explosion going on right now, is not something new but is getting even more scarier
For example in India, 50 percent of the population has reach reproduction matuirity, in some places women are obligated to have more than 8 children because they must give birth to a baby boy.

What do you think about this topic?

I say we shoot them

Seriously, I say people stop having less children, though it's probably easier to say than it is to apply

Kaleanae are you reading Malthus? Just for the record......I agree with population overgrowth.

More children=less natural resources=doom for all

Education could be a solution

Well, I personally don't plan to have kids 'cause I don't really want all that responsibility... I think a lot of people are like that but they end up having kids anyways by accident...

On the contrary, More children equal future workers. More workers equals more production. Production equals survivor. Mother Earth can produce vast quantities of natural resources.

No, more people, more need for food, more need for food, more need for places where to grow food and raise cattle, there is no place left. Now, people are beginning to use rainforest, like in Costa Rica, were a great part of the rainforest has been destroyed in order to grow bananas - chiquita to be more specific - and that means less trees, and trees are the lungs of the earth.

China is an overpopulated country, they have a good economy, but is the #1 country contributing to global warming and environmental destruction.

Those are agrarian problems that are constanly changing in order to improve the production of supplies. Sure bananas are much better to plant and sell. But sometime trees need to be cut down for certain plantation lands (bananas for example). If trees are needed then the Agrerian laws enforce the law of planting more trees. Cut a tree=plant another tree. Thus the cycle is never lost.

But land space is As Kal said, space for anything limited, unfortunately.

Yes, Earth can produce vast quantities of natural resources, but when you're talking about upwards of six billion of the most destructive organisms on Earth... Nature can't keep up. If we keep this up, sooner or later, we're going to run out of oil (which I predict will happen in the not-too-distant future, unless we can come up with a better way of powering cars), forests, minerals, basically everything that our society depends on. It is quite selfish of us indeed to think that it's never-ending and we can take as much as we want. When people of European descent started coming over here, and to the West specifically, they saw thousands and thousands of acres of forest, farmland, even herds of bison that spanned miles. There was just so damn much of it, they figured it was never going to run out. So they just planted and cut and shot to their heart's content, and all of a sudden they realized they were running short on things to plant and cut and shoot. They had nearly exhausted their resources. Oops.

But I'm talking about big corportations forcing poeple, forcing countries to destroy lands in order to grow what is going to give them MONEY, do you think they care about the poeple? NO, do you think they care about the environment? no, they care for the money

Well, like Spear said, it works if you only look at the trees. But there is a whole 'nother part of the equation that cannot be ignored--the land. What good does it do you if you have enough trees to plant a forest but noplace to do it?

And Kal, I just got back from Costa Rica a few weeks ago, and holy shit you aren't kidding about the banana plantations. You drive from San Jose to the Caribbean coast (or as close to it as you can get by car) and there is NOTHING but banana plantations for about half the trip. And Mr. Luis the tour guide said that there are no more family owned banana farms. They're all owned by major corporations like Chiquita and Dole.

The answer is simple.... Kill more people.

Hmm... The question then becomes... Which is more valuable--people, or forests? The answer seems to logically be forests... But my will to survive as a human prevents me from answering this quickly... A paradox, indeed.

I think overpopluation is basically something we won't be able to avoid. Like someone already stated, most births are by accident, and aren't planned. The more we can create (children-wise) the more we use. That goes for trees to, so if we stop cutting down trees we run out of space. If we stop...well i doubt we would stop having kids....

So to sum this up; We're all screwed no matter what

I volunteer Tex as our first sacrafice

Sure, thats the simple answer. Who gets the right to decide who dies?

I call that job

As long as I'm not on the hit list

Statistically we could fit all the people in the world comfortably and efficiently in about the area of rhode island and sustain them with food with efficiency with the surrounding countryside. There is more then enough room for everyone and our foolish planning is what sucks up our land and reasources.... we just don't plan ahead just build on the ashes of those before us...

Uh... No. There is no way that over 6 billion people could fit comfortably in Rhode island and sustain the entire population on food grown in the area. Absolutely no f***ing way.

I do, of course.

Ditto what DR said...how the hell is that possible? I live in the state next to Rhode Island, and let me tell ya, RI is crammed enough as it is. You mean to tell me that roughly 3000 (more probably, that was a quick mental calclation and math aint my strong point) times the people who already live can fit in there? Hell no! There's no way you'll fit all the people, and there is definitely no way you'll have enough room to cultivate crops and such in the same area...

...or maybe you just have a very objective view about "comfortable".

thomas malthus.. tragedy of the commons if im not mistaken?

The populations of many European countries and most other industralized nations are actually declining. Something like -2 to -1% in most of those cases!

People banging boots in India and China need to wear rubbbers!

People should stop having many children in eastern countries
I don't think overpopulation applies for western ones at least not here
Or is it mostly referring to old people? Cause there are countries in which the majority of the population is old people. But we can't help that, medicine is getting better day by day

well I think if we don't find a way soon famine and diseases will solve the problem.

Ever the optimist Fire......

Vote for Famine!!!

DR> The main factor is indeed land. True, nature sometimes cannot keep up with demanding forces of production of man. That's why I mention agrarian laws. Those laws were intended to maintain a balance of explotaion of the soil. Remenber the "dust bowl" of Oklahoma way back in the 1930's (I'm assuming that you read it in History). Ever since that incident the US and the UN have been studying the causes of misuse of land. Thanks to those studies land preservation laws have been enforce in some countries. Unfortunally politics do play a roll in bending the laws.

Kaleanae> Of course is all about Capitalist explotaion on Nature! I agree with you. But you also have to remenber that the ppl working for the corporations have families to feed. Mostly I'm referring to the peasants (living near the land) that work the land. Should we save a tree or put food on the table? Ask yourself what choice does the worker have in those situations?

forumcrew> That's him! I was mostly thinking of his "Essay on the Principle of Population" book.

and war for oil and water

Erm no That's the United States...

^^Agreed....

Isn't Global Warming mainly down to the use of CFCs? (Aerosols)

That's what I heard, but I'd heard that 3 or so years ago, I haven't been paying much attention to global warming.

Well you guys might not belvie it but population in the UK is DECREASING yep thats right because in 30 years time there will be more people over 60 then under. This means that there will be many gaps in the market to be filled.

So the UK has a different poblem which is a decrease in population

yes and no

those products do stay in the atmosphere and do have the characteristic of absorbing heat, cause the Global Warming

the no side is that it's hugely overrated, it's not due to those products that we have or have not a global warming, latest estimates that I heard of, gave a warming of around 0.1 °C due to CFCs


there is an old thread discussing it, it points to relevant websites, search it up

The main thing for which the CFCs are blamed is the destruction of the ozon layer, not really global warning

GP... nitpicker

Japan is in the same situation, and now they say that if the population decreases even more in Japan, their economy is going to begin to suffer

There's only a population of something like 4 million in Ireland. It's so lonely.

I don't think that overpopulation will a problem in the long term :

First, most (if it's not all) of the Western countries will soon have their population declining.
Second, China (1.3 Billion inhabitants) has the same fertility as France, ie its population growth is under control and does not represent any problem.
So only India (pop. : 1 Billion, fertility: 2.98 in 2003) stands. Its true that with a density equal to 345 inhabitants per square kilometer, it is a problem; But according to the UN statistics and estimates, its fertility will progressively fall under 2.00 around year 2020. Plus India will be able to provide workers for Western countries, which will have an larger proportion of pensioners.

This is my first thought...

Now let's see some figures !!!! *crazy*

yeah! GP, make a chart please

According to the UN the World population in 2050 will be 8.9 Billion !!!!

El Salvador is much smaller and has a population of 6 million

*points at GP and the graphics*

just like in the old days, mister chart-man

Yerss => Hehe

Things we knew : In Europe the pop will drop.
In China it will start decreasing after 2030
________________________________________
China
Population (thousands)
Medium variant
2000-2050


Year Population
2000 : 1 275 215
2005 : 1 322 273
2010 : 1 364 875
2015 : 1 402 321
2020 : 1 429 473
2025 : 1 445 100
2030 : 1 450 521
2035 : 1 448 112
2040 : 1 438 933
2045 : 1 421 133
2050 : 1 395 182

____________________________


Europe
Population (thousands)
Medium variant
2000-2050


Year Population
2000 : 727 986
2005 : 724 722
2010 : 719 714
2015 : 713 402
2020 : 705 410
2025 : 696 036
2030 : 685 440
2035 : 673 638
2040 : 660 645
2045 : 646 630
2050 : 631 938

we'll be chinesed

hmmm... chinese

You are right Kalanae, I am going to tackle this.

Ok if we analyse the figures we have, we can conclude that the later we will be the weaker the growth of the World population will be (see my nice little graph :

*doesn't follow the explanation, just happy staring at the graphs*

It just means that if this trend remains, the World population may be declining after, erm... 2070, so overpopulation won't last forever

I know, I'm not that stupid yet GP

nevermind, carry on

Pretty graphs

Yerss, you nasty little boy !

larger growths (read and fear) :

Indeed

Thing is though, the US has no jurisdiction over the countries that really have problems with land management--particularly South and Central America, and Southeast Asia. It takes mere hours to burn down a forest, and decades for one to grow.

So... What I'm saying is, it's not all written out in black and white. It is a very complex equation, one that includes too many factors to list. If you take care of one problem, chances are, that opens the floodgates for another.

Unfortunately so far there are only two cures for overpopulation: Disease or War. Neither of these are pleasant, but they're the only things historically that have ever really had any impact. Maybe we could start neutering people as punishment for crimes, so at least the criminals wouldn't have any more children, lol. Solve two problems in one.

See I'm pretty opiniated about overpopulation being a major problem... But the solution isn't to kill people, it's to stop people from happening in the first place...

Just remember, kids:

war

Never said crops... those can be imported from the surrounding territories....