The Overpopulation Myth, The Underpopulation Crisis

Underpopulation crisis?

We are producing waste products faster than Nature can degrade them.
Landfills are polluting ground water.
Sewage is dumped into waterways.
ALL of the world's water is contaminated with Human waste.

Ah, but TPTB have a solution.
Those GM foods that they have engineered will cause sterility in the 3rd generation.
Then there are those terminator seeds which will kill off all the other GM plants.
And you do know that they have stock piled regular seeds in various vaults around the world, so they can start fresh with guided reproduction of humans.

You should have opted for mass sterilization of the poor and unproductive instead of screaming about rights to keep breeding like flies.

Preaching to the Choir is a problem with this and it always will be. In the Industrialized Western World, the only reason population is increasing is immigration. Without that it would be shrinking.

Those worried about the population are clearly speaking to the wrong audience here and I don't know how you deal with Third World issues by spreading the word to people not a part of the topic.

Those worried about these issues need to concentrate on areas of the world where the problem exists.

Fred Pearce - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart [VIDEO]
Fred Pearce says the world population will stabilize soon because women are having fewer children

Really interesting.

While most of you MEAN WELL in your views on overpopulation/underpopulation and ALL of you seem to have some key truth in piecing together the puzzle, it's sad to see that so many of you haven't actually done your homework. This is evident in the false arguments presented in the OP...

Overpopulation is very much a problem. We've doubled human population from 3-6 billion in 35 years whereas in that past doubling to even a couple hundred million took hundreds/thousands of years. We are caught in an exponentially growing population monster. And while some foggy projections state that we'll "level off" at this or that number, the fact still remains we have grossly EXCEEDED the long-term carrying capacity of the planet.

Also, there is a big difference between a slowing in the RATE of exponential growth and an actually DECLINE in population. Declines in birthrates may be significant in this or that country, but overall we are seeing INSANE population growth. Another KEY reality- the resource consumption rates of (1st world) countries in ANY kind of decline makes up for itself many times over relative to the consumption rates of the worlds' poor masses (2nd/3rd world). Both population AND subsequent and/or advanced resource consumption are currently unsustainable.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK PLEASE!

What is Carrying Capacity?

Human Overpopulation

World Food and Human Population Growth

Worst Environmental Problem? Overpopulation, Experts Say

The growing world population

Mankind using Earth's resources faster than replenished


Visualization of global human sprawl-

Originally posted by Whiffer Nippets
The world IS overpopulated!

The problem, the biggest danger involved here is not enough fresh water!!!

Let me repeat that:

NOT ENOUGH FRESH WATER!!!

There are disputes over water now.

You can read all about water shortages on the net. This info is available for anyone to see.

I could cram 10,000 plants into my house - but if I have no water - the plants will die.

It's the same thing with over population. People need drinking water. People need food which needs water to grow.

Desalinate ocean water? Its stupid expensive and you can't just keep taking that water either - you'll foul up the weather.

There is a LIMITED supply of fresh water and we are running out now.

There are too many people here now, we do not need to keep expanding.

Read here about how one the largest US underground aquifers is running dry...

Largest Aquifer in the US is Running Dry

This is NOT good news folks and it's happening all over the world.

We are running out of fresh water.

Some books I've read which others might find interesting:

Water Wars - by Diane Raines Ward
Water Follies - by Robert Glennon

Also reading a book right now about global food waste - this is called:
Waste -by Tristram Stuart. Pretty interesting so far. In a depressing sort of way.

I have to go on about these things, I studied Environmental Science in school. It is no joke. The cold hard facts are out there for all to see.

Please do not write this entire subject off as "Tree Hugging". That's just a silly stereotype used to piss people off, sway them in the other direction.

This is serious business here, everything from global issues to whether or not there is Asbestos in your child's school.

There are only so many resources to go around and what we do affects others. People don't really realize this though, until something happens in their back yard.

This too is only a resource management problem.

The earth can replenish the fresh water sources if given time to heal. Fresh water can be created through many means. Desalinization plants. Melt glaciers, but not at a rate where they too do not replenish. It can be created in the lab by combining hydrogen and oxygen. There are even ways to produce ice from out of the atmosphere which then can be replenished with trees oxygen given off from trees.

There are plenty of ways to create water to off set the natural resources.

Someone above also complained about waste and thus said people should not be allowed to procreate. This too is a resource management problem.

There is No Problem facing the world concerning population that cannot be solved. There is never a need to kill tons of humans to control the population. This is Evil thinking from Greed because the powers that be would rather kill off humans than throw some money behind fixing the problems.

NoHierarchy

For all your links to the expert fear mongering, These things too are only resource management problems.

Your graphic is misleading. You are looking at the red zones, the population density from very high above. Zoom in on that and you will see all the tons of space for miles and miles that is not being used for anything.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by JohnPhoenix]

[edit on 17-8-2010 by JohnPhoenix]

reply to post by notsoperfect


It's quite a sound view of humanity. We out competed, killed, or raped anything that was not us.

Of course that is not justification to do such things. There is no destiny nor direction. A bunch of random errors made humans on Earth and it is highly unlikely anything remotely human exists anywhere else other than the fact that there is likely other intelligences.

Humanity's purpose, if you want to make one, is the same one for any species. Eat, spread, reproduce, die. What we do in that span of time for those processes is what makes us who we are. But to say there is some form of destiny id folly. The universe has no destiny other than it, too, will eat, spread, reproduce, and eventually die. Reproduce is not even the right way to say it. Basically it will stretch until dark energy decays and then fall back and die. Maybe it will restart, maybe it will not. But that is off topic.

How this relates to overpopulation is that humanity has a basic need to eat spread reproduce and die. Because of that, our brains will make sure that we will always be able to do those 4. Because as you said, we have the most greatest brain on the planet. And most people use that brain for those purposes.

If you want to know the ultimate point to life, the universe, and everything, it is not 42. It is that everything dies. Nothing lasts for ever. Eventually you and every thing that says you ever existed will be no more and it will be as if you never were. What you do with that fact is up to you. I've decided that Christ will make sure I don't die in the end. But you can decide what you want. I'm training to be an architect and perhaps that is the ultimate irony. After all. Why build or design if it will all become dust one day?

Ultimately overpopulation is a myth. By the time we even have to face it as a remote problem, we'll be in space and have the whole universe open to us. And then we'll be bringing whatever is left of nature and ourselves everywhere we go.

If you are under the age of 30, you can enjoy the fact that you will probably live to see the first warp ships. If you are under the age of 20, you can enjoy the fact that you will probably live to be on one of those first manned variants. And then you can kiss the whole world and all its lies away.

After all, when all the universe is open to us, what will be the need of government or its lies about overpopulation and the lies for which we need them?

reply to post by NoHierarchy


This map of yours. What does it matter? 100% of what? What does it mean? Define your terms.

Besides. All that white land? Perfect for vertical farming.

Antarctica is 4.5 million square miles. in size. If a vertical farm can compress a square mile farm down into a small apartment sized structure, then Antarctica alone has well over enough land for all our food needs, and enough for a few colonies elsewhere.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by Gorman91]

Originally posted by muzzleflash

Earth can hold roughly 300 billion people without harming the environment.

Notice I said "without harming the environment".

We just need better technology really. And more open minds.

300 billion is my rough estimate of Earth's population capacity. It may go upwards to 600billion but it's difficult to gauge because not all land mass is arable.

But remember we can build underwater cities. Land isn't the only place to live.

Do you have any idea how much real estate exists under the ocean waves???

YOu have a SCI-Fi mind.
Do you have the technology to do all this? "without harming the environment"
More importantly - do you have the techmology to process the feces coming out of 300 billion people? Both the fumes and the solids.
What's your idea on that? "without harming the environment"

When you talk of under sea cities - do you have any idea of what that would entail?

Do you have any idea of how much Oxygen 300 billion people need to survive?
Are they all going to be vegetarian?
If they eat meat, those animals will also need Oxygen to survive.
Wher's it coming from?

The current number of people on this earth is not the problem.
Its the inefficiency and lust for "stuff" of the lower and middle "class" coupled with with the pure greed of the "ruling class" (they are plenty efficient when they need to be).

This planet has the resources to habitat tens of billion more "people" but at the current rate of consumption/unneeded waste is turning this planet into a bonified # hole.

Things will change whether the populace likes it or not.

The only question is... are you going to perpetuate the current cycle of problems or become part of the solution?

The answer to that question is not going to be in the "words" coming out of "your" mouth, but in actions you take from here on out.

Overpopulation of this Planet is a fiction manufactured by the elite 21st century Robber Baron's. Like global warming, this fallacy is being utilized to forward the agenda of the powerful, absurdly rich few. I believe that the present level of population, is just too large for the Global elite to control. Plans are in the works to reduce the population by soft kill and then hard kill. Swine flu was a dry run. Monsanto is producing suicide seeds. Seeds which have a gene inside them that at harvest time, kill the reproductive prosess of the plant so that you cannot use seeds from that plant in next years planting. So each and every year Monsanto is insured massive profits. These suicide genes will pollinate with other plants. What will it do to wild plants? Surely all similar crops will be effected. Why is Monsanto involed with the Norwegian doomsday seed vault? Are they planning to decimate the crops of the World with their freakshow GMO suicide seeds? Is world wide famine being orchestrated? Is the seed bank for use after the manufactured culling of the population? We know that there are wars and rumors of catastrophic war. This will be part of the hard kill. In synopsis, the world is being lead down a path of destruction by a few monstrously rich sociopaths bent on consolidation of all of the power and resources of the Planet into their greedy, blood soaked hands. It is time to choose. Serfdom or freedom!

Originally posted by NoHierarchy
And while some foggy projections state that we'll "level off" at this or that number, the fact still remains we have grossly EXCEEDED the long-term carrying capacity of the planet.

Personally, I don't believe this. I believe that in order for humanity to survive not only on this planet but to migrate to other planets as we will have to do some day, we will have to have many more than the population we currently have, perhaps as many as 18 billion, or more, people. We will also have to consume many orders of magnitude more energy than we currently consume.

Our problems, with regard to food, housing and energy are all political. Politics is holding us back from solving the food and energy problems that we have. Food is wasted in one part of the world, while people starve to death in another. . . for one reason. Politics.

If you gave each person on the planet four square feet to stand on, 18 billion of them would occupy a space approximately three times the size of the state of Luxembourg in Europe. Luxembourg is a very small place compared to the rest of the habitable land on the globe.

There is no question that the world can support 18 billion people with the right politics in place. The way to solve the problems people have today is to solve the political problems, not to start reducing the number of people in the world.

When a family is having economic trouble, they solve the economic problem, but not by knocking off one of the kids. The world has a political problem, not a population problem.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by ipsedixit]

reply to post by NoHierarchy


I'm curious. What is your solution? How do you get the people in Third World Countries to do what we in the West have already done? Any idea's?

reply to post by Blaine91555

You cant without destroying the planet or radically re-designing the world. (which is what you're hinting at)

I can't believe people here don't think over population is an issue. Not to mention the drastically aging population - this is going to have big effects in the next 2 or so decades.

Please watch this posted you tube videos!
"THE MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO YOU'LL EVER SEE"

Very very interesting and simple math.

www.youtube.com...



PS: Sorry I dunno how to post videos, but that is the link.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by nonspiru]

reply to post by nonspiru


Word, I'm watching that video now!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/be02fcca0f71.gif[/atsimg]
This kind of thing is definitely one of the biggest problems in the world, population, financial, stupidity.

OR... There is the spiritual? More people are alive today than all who have incarnated on Earth in it's history. Have they all chosen to incarnate now for the big show (with a few wanderers too!)?

reply to post by Klaatumagnum


Or are they all un-developed souls with little previous work experience being thrown on this crappy planet to fill the void being created because of our largely needless multiplication of ourselves.

Behind the political problems that the world faces is a seldom publicized psychological problem. Everybody has this problem but it is most troublesome at the very bottom of society and at the very top of society.

The problem is existential anxiety or, to use a term made familiar by the movies . . . PARANOIA.

For centuries the social security system in every country around the globe was a large family. That has changed following economic development and will undoubtedly change globally, following economic development in all parts of the globe. The population threat from below, on the economic scale, should retreat as more parts of the world get a taste of modern material amenities and stable social security systems.

The population threat from above, the topmost level of the economic pyramid, is even more serious than the threat from below.

The existential anxiety at that level, paranoia if you will, is much more dangerous in it's manifestations. People at that level are quite willing to kill millions or to starve millions of other people, simply to stay, not alive, but on the same economic level that they occupy, or even better, to inch themselves even one more millimeter above other ultra-wealthy people.

This is the most serious threat faced by humanity in almost every area of endeavour, the paranoia of the people at the top, and their ability to manipulate the global economic paradigm to their own benefit and to the detriment of literally billions of people.

It's a political problem but fundamentally it is a psychological problem that needs to be addressed. Somehow, this anxiety both at the bottom and at the top of the economic world must be assuaged and removed as an impediment to the progress of humanity.


[edit on 17-8-2010 by ipsedixit]

reply to post by ghostsoldier

I can't believe people here don't think over population is an issue. Not to mention the drastically aging population - this is going to have big effects in the next 2 or so decades.

It's like Blaine said above, the Western world really does have the opposite problem, which is why many European governments are trying to give out reproductive incentives. If it were not for immigration, Europe would be looking more and more empty.

By the way, an "aging population" does seem to be a problem, agree with you there. But, it's usually a sign of plunging fertility. So, it sounds a bit contradictory to hold "over" population in one part of the brain, and yet, acknowledge an "aging" population in the other. If over population really was as big an issue as our masters have most of the sheeple believing, you would see an increasingly younger population. Think about it.

But there are segments of the population that are surely getting younger, at the moment, just not in the developed world. Nevertheless, if you get a chance to read some of the OP, you will see that the data shows that the plunge in fertility is in fact a worldwide problem. Meaning, it is hitting the Third World as well.

Why this is happening could be yet another source of controversy, since many of us who favor the more conspiratorial explanations can see things our masters a doing, that would impact fertility. Decades of various programs are in fact "working".

Where this gets us, in short order, is NOT mega-billions of "over" population. In fact, even the United Nations has published data, based on millions of dollars spent researching the important issue, and their conclusion is largely that populations are going to crest around 2050. After that, they will drop sharply.

And while all projections can always be "off", high ones, and low ones, and a middle ground that may be most likely, the really interesting thing is, that the models pretty much assume no "catastrophic" circumstances intervene. This makes sense, how could you put a number to a "war" that "might" break out. Or accurately guess at the toll a new pandemic may exact. Or a model that tries to factor in maybe an asteroid hit.

It all may sound silly, but in fact, looking at just the 20th century tells us that HUNDREDS of Millions can certainly die, from things like war, and disease, and famine even.

And yet, fertility is plunging, worldwide.

Hmmm. With the UN saying that the world population is "likely" to be only 5 billion by 2100 (yes, that's far LESS that today), and with that figure being perhaps in the "middle" of various projections, and with no other "bad" things happening...

Maybe we should ask ourselves some "what if's"?

What if there was a worldwide pandemic, that killed as many as the Black Death of the 14th c.? What would the world look like if it lost a third, or two-thirds of the population, when it is already projected to be in decline?

Where are those out there who understand "evolution", who can see that if numbers drop below a certain threshold, or if genetic diversity (for example), were compromised due to unforeseen events, that the long-term success of the species could be threatened.

I sometimes think, that if our masters got their wish, and managed to kill-off most of us, driving populations down to their "manageable" 500 million goal, wouldn't it be ironic if any one of a hundred "other" things they never planned on, hit at the same time, driving humankind back to the Stone Age?

Our masters are not gods. Somehow, I think Nature may still have the last word, but I suppose it will be too bad if our kids and grandkid's blood, was the price our masters required, for what turned out to be their prideful folly.

JR

This is just my own personal opinion on the subject: It is not population growth that is the real problem for humanity to face.....It is natural resource depletion that is the real problem.The minority of people on this planet use the most resources and energy : www.nationmaster.com...

If some terrible accident occurred (god forbid!)and only we in the western world were left, thereby cutting the population dramatically we would still be faced with the same problem!

reply to post by defcon2


Exactly, if you can eat 3 meals a day, for 3 weeks - you are in the top 15% of the richest people in the world.

Its not sustainable - so either the 1st world becomes 3rd world
Or the population needs to decrease, so everyones standard of living is the same.
Or perhaps a mixture of both.

Recycling is not going to save us from the problem we have created - I emphatically recommend watching that video mentioned a few posts up!!

Not to mention the total destruction of bio-diversity that is taking place.