Overpopulation could be people, planet problem (AP/CNN) {Surprise! Population bomb still ticking}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Ann Hoevel
CNN

(CNN) -- By the year 2050, China will no longer be the most populous country in the world.

That distinction will pass to India, where more than 1.8 billion people could be competing for their country's resources, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base.

The 2007 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau and the United Nations Population Division set China's current population at around 1.3 billion people, and India's at around 1.1 billion. If population continues to grow at the estimated rate, such rapid growth in India between now and mid-century could lead to overpopulation and an uncertain future for the environment and the people living there.

And while organizations like the Population Institute and the United Nations Population Fund are working to promote the human rights and environmental consequences of overpopulation, not everyone views the newest population estimates with pessimism.
***
Smith said that 97 percent of world population growth between now and 2050 will occur in the developing world, where governments face serious economic and social challenges.
***
more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/25/overpopulation.overview/index.html

[aquart]

1. Talk about ostrich thinking.

Climate change is going to wipe out millions of us. We just haven't been willing to believe it.

The problem is going to come when we find out that the resources for feeding the survivors won't be all that great, either.

[kestrel91316]

22. If we keep our heads buried firmly in the sand, climate change will

wipe out more than millions.......

[Veronica.Franco]

23. Sodaheads ... Help! ...

Hey, have any of you here been to the sodaheads forum? ... I've been fighting tooth and nail to convince people that high school kids need to be educated on this subject and the use of CONDOMS as a major PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE ... all I get back are comments about religion and abstinence and "fornication" ...

This site needs LIBERALS ... run, please, don't walk to sodahead ... they need enlightening in the worst way ...

I was attacked by a NURSE because I spoke against HER church and HER Pope? ... it's scary over there man ... AND it's about 1 liberal for every FIVE bible conservatives ... HELP!! ....

http://www.sodahead.com/

[Chulanowa]

2. I have to sit back and wonder...

Is it the concept of "nation" that is dragging us down this path? Were it not for liens on a map guarded by militarists on all sides, if people had freedom of movement, what would the result be? If people could flee oppression and starvation without meeting someone else's military on the way...

But then I'm kind of a kook.

[Gregorian]

5. If given the choice between comfort or not, the answer is clear.

And that is also the answer to your question. Petroleum is the key to comfort. Once upon a time it was wood. We were doing well when hydroelectric could supply the power. But that was eclipsed very quickly.

I see idiots whose cars never cool down. His and hers tag team. The cars are going all day long. I watch these neighbors in dispair. They don't have a clue. Drive, drive, drive. Automotive addicts.

It's all too easy. And I don't really think we'll see grave disaster on an overall planet wide scale. I think people will slowly grind to a halt. Quality of life is shit now. Most people don't even see that yet. But they will. They do, but they don't know it. And they'll have one child each, instead of three. And the ice caps will melt. People don't miss what they never had. That's part of the problem. Kids that grow up in a concrete jungle don't miss the trees they never saw. Our generation got fucked in this respect. I saw beauty turned to crap. But there is a central instinctual human sensitivity in each of us. One that knows what is right. That trees and silence are dignity. And 150 years from now, an injured planet will emerge, and people will resume their lives on a less than enjoyable planet.

But in the meantime, people like us will have lost their lives. I almost wish there would be a huge disaster. I'm tired of waiting for people to wake the hell up.

In a word, it's all about irresponsibility.

[mahina]

25. debunking third world development information with the best stats you've ever seen:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
Hans Rosling
This is really cool. Little knows fact, the world has completely changed from what we thought we knew.
Hope a few DUers check it out.

[PDenton]

14. 9 billion people is alot

Now imagine them all using the same amount of energy as a European. Europeans use about half the energy of an American. I don't think the world could sustain 9 billion people living like that. There isn't enough electricity or water. So what you are going to have is bililons of people living in relative poverty. Many will starve or die in wars.

Overpopulation is a serious issue, and directly ties into alot of the problems the word is facing, such as poverty, water shortages, ethnic tensions, global warming, and so on. There are some who think the world can, long term, maybe support only 2 billion people living in relative affluence. And yet overpopulation is not a topic being discussed in the halls of Congress. People in the US have the nerve to tell China their "one child" policy is draconian (actually, it is two in rural areas, one in cities, and the wealthy can pay taxes on additional children. IMO, this policy should be the one that is being exported, in return for developing aid from the industrialized countries. We should be spending money on that instead of wars.

[Gregorian]

3. If we think we're having problems now...

And those developing nations are all working fast to become modern societies. Ie, to use petroleum.

Good luck planet.

[ladjf]

4. homo sapien exterminatus.

[Glorfindel]

6. Well, I guess Chairman Mao was right about at least one thing

If not for his one-child policy, there probably would be three billion people in China by now. Sometimes I'm glad I'm old(er)...I really don't want to be around for the horrors that are coming in the next 50 to 100 years.

[ramapo]

20. Our kids and grandkids will

My kids were both born in the '80s, one early Reagan the other late Reagan. At the time, I had hope that the collective we would see that Reagan was leading us off the deep end. Instead it was party on.
Bush was embraced and although Clinton was an improvement, he did little to help matters, you can even argue he made things worse.

[NickB79]

28. Well, the new motto here at E/E is "Faster than expected"

So don't count on dying of old age before seeing some really depressing stuff. I fully expect to see horrific images related to climate change and Peak Oil within the next 15-20 years (resource wars, starvation, flooding of coastal cities, etc).

[phantom power]

7. Meanwhile...

The Catholic Church continues its all-too-effective efforts to bring us all back to the 14th century:

Archbishop Chimoio told our reporter that abstention, not condoms, was the best way to fight HIV/Aids.

"Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," he alleged, refusing to name the countries.

"They want to finish with the African people. This is the programme. They want to colonise until up to now. If we are not careful we will finish in one century's time."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7014335.stm

You see, condoms are actually part of an evil plot to kill Africans. Thanks, Catholic Church.

[Colorado Progressive]

18. But ya gotta love those sheep who fall for it. Absolutely sick! nt

[hunter]

8. The limits on earth's human population will not be of our own making.

:cry:

[GliderGuider]

9. Like every other discussion of this kind, they completely miss the effects of declining energy.

The effect of energy decline on population will completely overwhelm the underlying reductions in carrying capacity. Those ecological effects will be gradually revealed as our aggregate supplies decline, and will add to the population-reducing effects to energy loss. Here are two graphs that illustrate my latest thinking on global energy supplies and the effects of energy and carrying capacity on population:





There will be other significant near-term effects that these graphs don't show. These have to do with the effect of peak oil on net oil exports. that will result in the very rapid decline of oil supplies available on the export market, with extremely damaging effects on oil importing nations like the USA. That of course spells escalating resource wars, for which Iraq was just a warm-up.

[depakid]

10. Whenever I hear projections into 2050 -or 2030

I just have to shake my head. It's as if people think current conditions will last indefinately- with no attention paid to fossil fuel depletion, climate change and natural resource degradation and destruction.

Economists are particularly prone to this- how many times have you heard what an "economic powerhouse" China is going to be in 2030? LOL.

[ramapo]

15. That's a lot of coal

Not good...

[GliderGuider]

17. Yep.

Not good at all.

I've tried to do realistic projections based on what I think will actually happen, rather than hopes and wishes. The use of coal will only start to decline due to world-wide public opposition when when the effects of Climate Chaos become debilitating - which, as we all know, will be far too late.

[ramapo]

11. Surprise???

I remember when there were less than 3 billion people and I'm not even old.

[codjh9]

12. It's the Root of All Evil ... well, a lot of it anyway...

There's also greed, stupidity, apathy, ignorance. There was a good article in the Guardian recently by ... sorry, I forget her name... pointing out that no matter how much we conserve or how 'green' we live, if we don't address the issue of population, all of our efforts will continually be wiped out. Yet even most environmental organizations, except those who exist specifically for the population issue (Population Connection, NPG, perhaps others), rarely mention population, because it 'turns people off' or whatever. But it's at the root of most, if not all, 'environmental problems' the world faces.

[hunter]

16. What you conserve will be used by someone else.

I'm pretty sure that every kilowatt hour or drop of water I conserve is used directly to enhance the Country Club experience of some filthy rotten CEO. Less water for me, more chemically enhanced grass on the golf course. Less electricity for me and they can turn the thermostat down a notch at the nineteenth hole on a hot summer day.

In some places conservation and efficiency only make way for more babies.

So unless you couple conservation with strong social justice programs and a reduction in overall resource use, you accomplish nothing, and in most cases you actually make things worse. The rich get richer, resources are depleted at a faster rate, and more and more people suffer and die in poverty.

[bananas]

13. "There is a substantial body of evidence that the world population will flatten out in about 30 year

"Nothing ever continues at its present rate, neither the stock market nor population growth," said Doug Allen, the dean of the school of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an expert in the history of cities and urban design, which he's taught for more than 31 years.

"There is a substantial body of evidence that the world population will flatten out in about 30 years," he said. "Built into that model would be an assumption that more of the world's population will become urban, and as such the population will begin to decline."

[NNadir]

19. I personally think the anti-nuke industry will have done more than "flatten"

the curve well before then by opposing the world's largest, by far, climate change gas free energy form there is.

There were, up until maybe a decade ago, some rather tenuous opportunities to effect population reduction by means that were remotely ethical, but that time is past.

In fact, while the anti-nuke industry was turning out big bucks for people like "Hysterical Helen" and her tour of wondering if Yucca Mountain might leak in the 26th century, the world was slowly inching to a dangerous fossil fuel tragedy - about which Helen Caldicott couldn't care less - that has been killing continuously for many decades now.

If you want to know how Helen Canldicott gets from paid speaking engagement to paid speaking engagement - I mean you don't think she does this for free, do you? - she takes aircraft powered by dangerous fossil fuels, flying all around the United States to spread ignorance and snake oil.

She comes from Australia, where they have no fucking water left pretty much, mostly because of the dangerous fossil fuel waste about which she couldn't care less.

[losthills]

27. There is no "anti-nuclear industry."

Helen Caldicott is an articulate scientist who has spelled out, in human terms, the reasons why nuclear energy can never get us out of the fix that we are in.

She is deserving of thanks, not scorn....

[stuntcat]

21. as sick as any part of this is:

"blessing" fresh little babies with the next 80-90 messed up disgusting years.
My family's still not letting me off the hook for my decision.. I'll divorce my whole fucking family if they don't lay off.

[stuntcat]

24. "could be"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: I can't roll my eyes dramatically enough for this one! I'm forwarding it to my Population group.

[losthills]

26. We have never seen population growth stabilize

so far in world history, so I wouldn't wait for that to happen...

I would expect world population to continue to increase until it is curtailed by disease or warfare.

People need to understand that the world we know today is passing out of existence.

That is the necesary first step towards creating a future for ourselves that can work...