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I'd say this sums it up rather nicely

I find it hard to believe that the world is "full" when a) we produce more than enough food for the population and b) even though I live in the most densly populated state in the US I (out of shape nerd) can walk to untouched wilderness from my house just by picking a compass point at random.

Oh please, the ocean still has plenty of room.

****ing Jersey, so that's your problem.

The title is both exaggerated and misleading.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I find it hard to believe that the world is "full" when a) we produce more than enough food for the population and b) even though I live in the most densly populated state in the US I (out of shape nerd) can walk to untouched wilderness from my house just by picking a compass point at random.

Then why is 1/4 of the worlds population malnourished?

Untouched wilderness? hMMM, TRY that in North Jersey.

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
Then why is 1/4 of the worlds population malnourished?

Because transport costs are expensive for perishables. Because there have been times when it was more profitable to burn excess food than sell it.

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm

It's a logistics and self sufficiency problem. We produce a lot of food but the centers of production are very much concentrated. To solve the problem we need to first solve the logistic problem of getting food to people right now and then develop ways for them to produce their own so they don't need to rely on expensive imports.

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
Untouched wilderness? hMMM, TRY that in North Jersey.

Can't get much further North than I am right now.

Out the window behind me is miles of park land. It I walked through the wall in front of me I would reach Patriot's Path in two or three minutes and be able to follow it along a burbling brook. Two days ago I was driving to a friend's house and passed three old barns and one meadow with horses grazing in it. None of this involves leaving the county.

Even North Jersey has sub-suburbs.

We could easily feed the malnourished in the world.. We have been able to since the 70's, look up Pruteen.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Because transport costs are expensive for perishables. Because there have been times when it was more profitable to burn excess food than sell it.

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm

.

Arable land is decreasing as the worlds aquafiers are drying up. People producing all the food they need locally will be very problamatic in the future.

And the rising cost and decreasing production of fossil fuels will make transporting it far more expensive in the future. We are now on the verge of a global food price explosion. Wait to see what happens then.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos




Can't get much further North than I am right now.

Out the window behind me is miles of park land. It I walked through the wall in front of me I would reach Patriot's Path in two or three minutes and be able to follow it along a burbling brook. Two days ago I was driving to a friend's house and passed three old barns and one meadow with horses grazing in it. None of this involves leaving the county.

Even North Jersey has sub-suburbs.

I would not call that "untouched" wilderness.

Alaska, and a few western states, have what can still be called truely wild places. Even the Great Smokey Mountains, The Adirondacks, The appalachian trail, etc, don't really qualify.

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
I would not call that "untouched" wilderness.

Alaska, and a few western states, have what can still be called truely wild places. Even the Great Smokey Mountains, The Adirondacks, The appalachian trail, etc, don't really qualify.

I don't like to define humans as separate animals from the rest of the world. So I don't like to consider "wilderness" the same way you do.

I consider the entire planet "wilderness."

Lets see...Tokyo has a population density of 2 700 people/square kilometer, there are 7 000 000 000 people on this world, so we need about 2 500 000 sq kilometers for the whole population The United States has about 10 000 000 sq kilometers of land. So we can fit the whole population 3 times over in there.

I don't know ... I don't buy the "the earth is full" crap ... like Sym said, we are facing logistical issues ... but the earth is not full

Waterworld.

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
I would not call that "untouched" wilderness.

Alaska, and a few western states, have what can still be called truely wild places. Even the Great Smokey Mountains, The Adirondacks, The appalachian trail, etc, don't really qualify.

Okay, untouched wasn't exactly the right word. For purposes of deciding if the planet is full what matters is if we are using that land for agriculture or housing, we're not. My home state has an average population density of over 1000 people per square mile yet most of them can reach huge tracts of open space by driving for about an hour.

In the US, at least, we don't use most of our land even in areas that are highly developed (I have heard that Europe is much different in this regard, supposedly no square mile of Britain has not been reshaped by humans). That's probably a good thing, I like walking along Patriots Path, but it also means we have a lot of space to expand into if we get desperate.

Calling the planet "full" is nice and dramatic but it mischaracterises things in a very blatant way that simply invites mockey. Anyone who has ever left a city knows that we have lots of space to use. I've been in part of the Great Plains where I could see for dozens of miles in every direction without even another car to be seen, to places where the road literally goes off into the distance too far to be seen any longer even though the sign next to me says for kids to wait for the school bus, to ranches where the first step in getting there was to drive into the middle of nowhere and the second step was to head further from civilization.

So we have land, though we might not want to use it.
Experts say we have enough food, though we don't get it to starving people, and our skill at growing it is improving.

As far as humans go, how can we say the world is full?

In the article you linked to they don't even really show things that could be called fullness. They point out that China has poisoned its environment, but that's not a matter of too many people, that's a matter of dumping toxic waste all over the place. If you knowingly drink poison and become ill as a result no one should say it's because your body is full. That's nonsense.

The world is sick and much of what we're doing right now makes it worse. Tell people that. It's true.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Lets see...Tokyo has a population density of 2 700 people/square kilometer, there are 7 000 000 000 people on this world, so we need about 2 500 000 sq kilometers for the whole population The United States has about 10 000 000 sq kilometers of land. So we can fit the whole population 3 times over in there.



This reminds me of Star Wars nerds discussing the problem with Coruscant, one being that the whole planet should melt from heat pollution of having nothing but cities.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I don't like to define humans as separate animals from the rest of the world. So I don't like to consider "wilderness" the same way you do.

I consider the entire planet "wilderness."

If we don't live in harmony with the rest of the world, if we over pollute and overuse it's resources, then I would say we are a detritmint to and definitly seperate from other living things here.

The cliche is certainly true..."We are living on this world like we have another one to go to".

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
If we don't live in harmony with the rest of the world, if we over pollute and overuse it's resources, then I would say we are a detritmint to and definitly seperate from other living things here.

That "separation" is definitely subjective. The line that has been drawn is arbitrary.

AKA, the line that has been drawn is purely anthropic (damn you inimalist).

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
The cliche is certainly true..."We are living on this world like we have another one to go to".

I disagree. Even those greedy government officials in China are trying to improve their evnironmental impact.

If its full it is.But it not overly full.

Originally posted by ADarksideJedi
If its full it is.But it not overly full. uhh... what

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
If we don't live in harmony with the rest of the world, if we over pollute and overuse it's resources, then I would say we are a detritmint to and definitly seperate from other living things here.

The idea that it's even possible to live in harmony with the rest of the world is pretty fallacious.

You can minimize environmental damage and promote biodiversity, but nature isn't some magical balanced equation that people came into and ****ed up.

Humans are really just the most successful animals on the planet, to suggest that its our essential "humanness" that causes us to "imbalance" the world is just naive.

White tailed deer if given the chance will out-compete and out-breed other herbivores, wolves will if given the chance breed huge numbers and hunt and eat prey to extinction, etc.

Again, nature isn't a perfect ordered system that just got ****ed up by humanity. It's a chaotic cluster****.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos




This reminds me of Star Wars nerds discussing the problem with Coruscant, one being that the whole planet should melt from heat pollution of having nothing but cities.

Oh that's a great point. So Coruscant has about 1 000 000 people per square kilometer. There's 7 000 000 000 people in the world so we need about 7000 sqare km of space. Puerto Rico is about 8000 sq km, so we can fit the whole earth population comfortably there

Originally posted by Bardock42
Oh that's a great point. So Coruscant has about 1 000 000 people per square kilometer. There's 7 000 000 000 people in the world so we need about 7000 sqare km of space. Puerto Rico is about 8000 sq km, so we can fit the whole earth population comfortably there
I once read a statistic that claimed that if you had everyone pack together like sardines and stand shoulder to shoulder you could fit the entire world population on the Isle of Man

I once read that the worlds' entire population can fit inside the state of Texas if that helps any..

Originally posted by Omega Vision
The idea that it's even possible to live in harmony with the rest of the world is pretty fallacious.

You can minimize environmental damage and promote biodiversity, but nature isn't some magical balanced equation that people came into and ****ed up.

Humans are really just the most successful animals on the planet, to suggest that its our essential "humanness" that causes us to "imbalance" the world is just naive.

White tailed deer if given the chance will out-compete and out-breed other herbivores, wolves will if given the chance breed huge numbers and hunt and eat prey to extinction, etc.

Again, nature isn't a perfect ordered system that just got ****ed up by humanity. It's a chaotic cluster****.

I beg to differ. The biomass of the earth has survived over a billion years with a few major disruptions along the way (celestial impacts, major volcanic activity, climate change) and has always made an eventual recovery. It has almost always existed in balance as well. This is the first time in natural history however that one of those disruptions is being caused by a single species and that is a very recent event. We are the first species in the history of the planet to evolve cognative reasoning ability and that places us in a unique position. Rather than use the earths resources faster than they can be replenished, we might consider that it is better for the planet, and ultimately ourselves, as well to re look at how we use those resources and seriously look at curbing our population.

In the end humans really aren't special. We're really just a smart, upright ape. But if we continue on our present path I fear we will start to reverse the habitability of our world, not only for the millions of other species that have just as much right as we do to be here, but also for ourselves as well.

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
It has almost always existed in balance as well.

cyanobacteria?

Originally posted by inimalist
cyanobacteria?

Almost always, and cyanobacteria isn't responsible for mass extinctions

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud


In the end humans really aren't special.
Which is exactly what I'm arguing.

Humans aren't separate from nature, we like any other animal make waves with whatever we do, but to argue that nature is naturally balanced is crap, if it were then going by your idea humans would never have gotten where they are now.

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
Almost always, and cyanobacteria isn't responsible for mass extinctions

huh....

can't say I agree with that interpretation

I don't so.

Is that a picture of your cock ring? thanks

Originally posted by 0mega Spawn
uhh... what

I said it is not full.

Nice title.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Which is exactly what I'm arguing.

Humans aren't separate from nature, we like any other animal make waves with whatever we do, but to argue that nature is naturally balanced is crap, if it were then going by your idea humans would never have gotten where they are now. Actually humans are separate in one way from all known creatures in nature. We're aware of the long term impact that the things that we do have on them. Knowing that, when we refrain from considering even slight adjustments that benefit the other creatures, it equates to an almost malicious act of selfishness. If you've ever had something that you were growing eaten by animals then you can relate to how they feel when confronted with humanity's destructive force. We, unlike them, can adjust our destruction to levels that won't extinguish resources we're aware of. Not doing that when it won't harm you to conserve is an evil hypocritical act when you're aware of what you're doing.

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