Overpopulation is a problem
Pew Research Center
JUNE 8, 2015
Scientists more worried than public about world’s growing population
BY GEORGE GAO
https://www.pewresearch.org/files/20...4_popCount.png
Over the course of history, many scientists and activists have raised alarm about population numbers that only increase every year.
When the English scholar Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, the number of people around the world was nearing 1 billion for the first time. “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man,” he wrote then.
Skip ahead to 1968, when the world’s population had risen to around 3.5 billion and the annual rate of growth peaked at 2.1%: American biologist Paul Ehrlich revisited the Malthusian principle in his bestseller The Population Bomb, starting a movement to hedge the trend. “The basic point is so simple,” Ehrlich told Retro Report. “We have a finite planet with finite resources. In such a system, you can’t have infinite population growth.”
In 2015, the global population is an estimated 7.3 billion, according to the United Nations, and many of Malthus’s and Ehrlich’s predictions have yet to come true or have been proven false (such as the “increasing” death rate, which has actually decreased).
According to a pair of 2014 Pew Research Center surveys, however, today’s scientists are more likely than the general American public to be concerned about population growth, though not necessarily to the extent that Malthus and Ehrlich were.
Asked whether or not the growing world population will be a major problem, 59% of Americans agreed it will strain the planet’s natural resources, while 82% of U.S.-based members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science said the same. Just 17% of AAAS scientists and 38% of Americans said population growth won’t be a problem because we will find a way to stretch natural resources.
Americans used to be much less concerned about population growth, according to Gallup polls: In 1959, three-quarters (75%) of Americans had heard about the “great increase in population” predicted for the world during the coming decades, but just 21% of Americans said they were worried about it. And when comparing population concerns with a list of global threats, a 1997 Pew Research Center poll showed that Americans were more worried about other potential risks.
Looking ahead, it’s still unclear what the population trajectory will be. The UN says that population will continue to grow throughout the 21st century, predicting with 80% confidence that it will reach somewhere between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion people by 2100.
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Re: Overpopulation is a problem
The more people there is the less special they are, come on Mother Nature, do something about it.
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
If mother nature did "something about it" would that include a yuuuge meteorite from outer space? Another Bubonic Plague or Ebola run amock and out of control? A 3rd World War? Massive flooding because of manmade Climate Change? Worldwide famine? Etc???
I would much rather see human beings take control of their own behavior long before mother nature decides to step in and wipe us out. I think that people who believe that it would be better for the human race to become extinct are assholes. Humans are every bit a part of nature's wildlife as any gorilla or elephant or whale and we deserve preservation too. But it's also up to us to preserve ourselves in harmony with everything else. If we are not in harmony with nature then we are not in harmony with ourselves. We destroy ourselves as we destroy nature.
Just because scientists warn people of potential catastrophe should not be taken as an affront to one's own religious beliefs. Attacking science is not the solution. But taking action is.
Furthermore, I would like to challenge the asinine assumption that it is perfectly okay to continue to grow on like this without any sense of responsibility or consequences. The world's population growth is out of control and no, we do not need to do nor will we ever do what China does to control their population.
What I would sincerely like to ask people who think that the world population growth is NOT a problem is the following:
Where do you get the idea that world population growth is not and cannot EVER be a problem??? Please try very hard to answer that question but please do so honestly. If you do, you will find yourself in the uncomfortable emotional situation that you have no basis whatsoever to support that assumption.
Yes, it is yet another 'inconvenient truth,' like it or not. And we have to start doing something about it yesterday.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Thad:
The more people there is the less special they are, come on Mother Nature, do something about it.
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
Rampant consumer materialism is the elephant in the room no one or almost no one wants to talk about. Even the "green " movement thinks we can solve the problem by just buy their "stuff". Billions more people wanting to have the lifestyle of the western world where throwaway consumer electronics, ever changing fashions, new magic bullet health foods etc. We are constantly bombarded with the notion of "you are what you have" . I'm not suggesting we live in a non material world ( maybe we'll find out about that after we die, but that's another story) but our whole way of life is built on selling people mostly crap they don't need. And all this stuff require energy to not only make but to transport around the globe. Is the increasing population a problem? Absolutely. We could stop reproducing today but unless we get a grip on what material consumption is really doing to the planet we're just in the pretend mode.
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
I agree with you that the current system of commodities production and waste is unsustainable. For that, I would like to show you a video by Annie Leonard called, "The Story of Stuff:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
I also think that a word from Carl Sagan is very appropriate here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrZ4197C1I0
But one of the necessary solutions to humankind's serious problems includes controlling our population growth.
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
Overpopulation is the bigger elephant in the room. In Sebastopol and all over Sonoma Co. I am astonished at the large families I continue to come across, families with four children and sometimes five. Three children still continues to be the norm. Most of us, myself included don't want to infringe on the private right of family planning/reproduction. We are afraid to judge or offend anyone for their family size decisions. I am thinking of the many parents who are yearning for a daughter after having two or three boys.
If we are to have the important conversation about global warming/solutions and rampant consumer materialism, we must include that "elephant" in the discussion.
Pope Francis and other world leaders certainly acknowledge the severity of global warming...but they, like us are silent about one of the obvious and primary causes.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Ruhkukah:
Rampant consumer materialism is the elephant in the room ...
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by viajera:
Overpopulation is the bigger elephant in the room. In Sebastopol and all over Sonoma Co. ...Pope Francis and other world leaders certainly acknowledge the severity of global warming...but they, like us are silent about one of the obvious and primary causes.
to be fair, Pope Francis doesn't give a damn if we preserve our nice comfortable modern middle-class way of life with all its environmental footprint.
He'd be cool with restructuring the world economy in order to provide the basic necessities of life for all the babies that (in his view) god has made possible. He's spoken out against greed et al, the same way other anti-1%ers do. I'll accept that he really feels that way.
I fail to understand how the 'christian' right is so uncharitable and willing to blame rather than succor the poor (to use biblical language). I also think non-religious liberals fail to understand than a true belief in the sanctity of life at conception leaves abortion opponents no choice but to resist. And they also fail to understand that christian doctrine regarding the value of human life means that creating more of it is more important than almost any affect it has on 'quality' of life for those already here. More souls are good, sacrifice is fine, so the scales aren't weighing the same quantities for those who believe.
'Course you have a great reason for NOT understanding, because in the real world I don't see anyone who lives as if they really did have those as true beliefs! Instead, it's a lot easier to find self-righteous, self-serving people applying these principles to people they have no emotional attachment to. Notice how having a gay relative suddenly transforms so many social conservatives on the issue of gay rights? There's the cliche that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, but that's too facile. I doubt it actually happens. It's more likely that a liberal might fail to live up to their professed principles when they find it compromises their own privilege. But at least most liberals would feel guilty about it.
I'm not advancing a counter-argument to the premise that there's overpopulation. Personally, I'm definitely concerned about the impact of more people on those of us already here. But do realize this is a point of view that, at least in theory, goes against the (largely ignored) teachings of this country's dominant faith.
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
Peter, please keep in mind the fact that the issue is not privilege or comfort level. The issue is the Earth's ability to sustain humankind's abuse (contamination, pollution, air, water, food, deforestation, carcinogens, depopulation and extinction of entire species, etc, etc, etc).
If we continue at this rate of destruction of the Earth's ecosystem, bye bye human species and many innocent ones as well. If we destroy the Earth, we are destroying our own habitat, and ultimately ourselves, along with many other species, both plant and animal. The greater the human population, the more we overwhelm the Earth's finite resources and its ability to cleanse itself from our destructiveness.
That is the point of this thread.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
I'm not advancing a counter-argument to the premise that there's overpopulation. Personally, I'm definitely concerned about the impact of more people on those of us already here. But do realize this is a point of view that, at least in theory, goes against the (largely ignored) teachings of this country's dominant faith.
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Edward Mendoza:
Peter, please keep in mind the fact that the issue is not privilege or comfort level. The issue is the Earth's ability to sustain humankind's abuse (contamination, pollution, air, water, food, deforestation, carcinogens, depopulation and extinction of entire species, etc, etc, etc).
If we continue at this rate of destruction of the Earth's ecosystem, bye bye human species and many innocent ones as well. If we destroy the Earth, we are destroying our own habitat, and ultimately ourselves, along with many other species, both plant and animal. The greater the human population, the more we overwhelm the Earth's finite resources and its ability to cleanse itself from our destructiveness.
That is the point of this thread.
Whichever gets to the good way of thinking quickest I offer this below as a way of getting away from right angles for a minute its a good step to the future of more radially inspired features where thoughts would not run into a right angle
I don't say this tritely
create radially askance desktop icon group placements
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
My dearest Marc, thank you again for your sweet, sage thoughts.
They are revealing, to say the least. If only I could find the passages to express the deep feelings of liberation that I experience by reading them, like a butterfly floating over a colorful, aromatic meadow with the orchestra of life singing its diverse melodies.
If only I could find the words to describe the Proustian moments that your illuminating messages invoke; a brighter word than bright, a finer word than fine.
Edward
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Thad:
Whichever gets to the good way of thinking quickest I offer this below as a way of getting away from right angles for a minute its a good step to the future of more radially inspired features where thoughts would not run into a right angle
I don't say this tritely
create radially askance desktop icon group placements
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
All the harsh problems need different mind to solve them. Get out of the corner of your self.
Beware the right angle
It seems now words just breed words and everyone cycles around the same mind set. So comments like, beware the right angle, may seem trite in relation to the subject content of this thread, It's a response to how mind can follow the form of architecture and how few right angles exist in natural systems. Everyone's in boxes and building more. Too many corners to get stuck in and no help out of them.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Thad:
Whichever gets to the good way of thinking quickest I offer this below as a way of getting away from right angles for a minute its a good step to the future of more radially inspired features where thoughts would not run into a right angle
I don't say this tritely
create radially askance desktop icon group placements
Re: Overpopulation is a problem
In the 60s we openly discussed such issues ... what happened to those discussions? ... of course we should be mindful of our population density ... the earth can sustain a great many of us, but the fewer people on the planet, the better life is for those who are here ... there are now those online that are claiming that the financial elite are trying to "soft-kill" us to bring this about .... lol ... I have trouble believing this but there do seem to be a great many dangers on the planet ... what do you think?
https://everydayconcerned.net/2016/0...tion-genocide/
