"World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day!"

That quote is attributed to the late great Ocean Explorer Jacques Cousteau in November of 1991.

Cousteau gave an interview to the UNESCO Courier, in which he stated that he was in favour of human population control and population decrease. Widely quoted on the internet are these two paragraphs from the interview: "What should we do to eliminate suffering and disease? It's a wonderful idea but perhaps not altogether a beneficial one in the long run. If we try to implement it we may jeopardize the future of our species...

Source
As many of us know, Mr. Cousteau was a beloved oceanographer and gained worldwide attention and recognition when in In 1951, he began going on yearly trips to explore the ocean on the Calypso. Cousteau recorded his trips on the TV series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.

In 1968, he produced the television series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, which ran for nine seasons. Millions of people followed Cousteau and his crew traversing the globe presenting intimate exposés of marine life and habitat. It was during this time that Cousteau began to realize how human activity was destroying the oceans.

Deservingly so, Cousteau made the cover of the well respected 'Time Magazine' during that time. Some of his accomplishments.

He was, obviously, many things: adventurer, inventor, filmmaker and something of a poet. In more than 150 documentaries and through dozens of books, he communicated his abiding love of science as well as his sense of wonder. Armed with his Aqua-Lung, he continued to flirt with danger — despite himself. He tested the impact of underwater explosions for the French Navy, and he swam among the sharks. In his trademark red cap and high-tech research vessel, Calypso, Cousteau led 55 expeditions, in locales from Alaska to Antarctica. He went in search of Atlantis in the Aegean. When he died in 1997, the whole world mourned. We had lost the pied piper of the seven seas.

Certainly, Cousteau was an advocate of animal rights and sea life in particular, however he also was a humanitarian. As stated in his UN UNESCO address in 1991.

Cousteau put the interests of people so high that he concluded many needed to be eliminated so that others could survive. In an interview appearing in the November 1991 UNESCO Courier, Cousteau bared his humanitarianism and his anxiety toward certain "technological fixes":
Our society is turning toward more and more needless consumption. It is a vicious circle that I compare to cancer . . . Should we eliminate suffering, diseases? The idea is beautiful, but perhaps not a benefit for the long term. We should not allow our dread of diseases to endanger the future of our species. This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it is just as bad not to say it.

So, with the world population roughly at 7.2 billion populaton clock

This chart/informatiion just depicts how the worlds population has grown over the last 50 years. Source , but you can clearly see that our world's population has grown in average by more than 70 Million people each year. Some more, some a little less. But, substantial growth

Population of the entire world, yearly, 1963 - 2013 (The last 50 Years)
year population growth (%) average annual
1963 3,208,212,366 1.89% 60,683,808
1964 3,268,896,174 1.96% 64,110,875
1965 3,333,007,049 2.03% 67,815,968
1966 3,400,823,017 2.09% 71,132,116
1967 3,471,955,133 2.12% 73,657,523
1968 3,545,612,656 2.12% 75,039,409
1969 3,620,652,065 2.09% 75,534,241
1970 3,696,186,306 2.05% 75,862,080
1971 3,772,048,386 2.02% 76,271,077
1972 3,848,319,463 1.98% 76,348,186
1973 3,924,667,649 1.94% 76,096,481
1974 4,000,764,130 1.89% 75,655,077
1975 4,076,419,207 1.84% 74,990,323
1976 4,151,409,530 1.79% 74,454,310
1977 4,225,863,840 1.76% 74,537,849
1978 4,300,401,689 1.76% 75,497,436
1979 4,375,899,125 1.76% 77,108,353
1980 4,453,007,478 1.77% 78,791,777
1981 4,531,799,255 1.77% 80,320,565
1982 4,612,119,820 1.78% 81,977,451
1983 4,694,097,271 1.78% 83,730,561
1984 4,777,827,832 1.79% 85,462,103
1985 4,863,289,935 1.80% 87,300,769
1986 4,950,590,704 1.80% 88,887,707
1987 5,039,478,411 1.78% 89,634,162
1988 5,129,112,573 1.74% 89,261,935
1989 5,218,374,508 1.69% 88,050,646
1990 5,306,425,154 1.63% 86,513,587
1991 5,392,938,741 1.58% 85,070,748
1992 5,478,009,489 1.53% 83,734,453
1993 5,561,743,942 1.49% 82,672,134
1994 5,644,416,076 1.45% 81,823,239
1995 5,726,239,315 1.41% 80,972,516
1996 5,807,211,831 1.38% 80,047,834
1997 5,887,259,665 1.35% 79,205,071
1998 5,966,464,736 1.32% 78,466,622
1999 6,044,931,358 1.29% 77,838,862
2000 6,122,770,220 1.26% 77,232,538
2001 6,200,002,758 1.24% 76,719,078
2002 6,276,721,836 1.22% 76,473,752
2003 6,353,195,588 1.21% 76,562,043
2004 6,429,757,631 1.20% 76,891,544
2005 6,506,649,175 1.19% 77,309,393
2006 6,583,958,568 1.18% 77,678,892
2007 6,661,637,460 1.17% 77,972,829
2008 6,739,610,289 1.16% 78,126,834
2009 6,817,737,123 1.15% 78,151,895
2010 6,895,889,018 1.13% 78,147,357
2011 6,974,036,375 1.12% 78,098,930
2012 7,052,135,305 1.10% 77,878,437
2013 7,130,013,742 1.09% 77,445,957

Many of us are familiar with the following structure!

It's basic purpose is to enlighten mankind of what (the mysterious creators/believers) is believed to be the ideal population of the world in order to sustain itself into the future.

A message consisting of a set of ten guidelines or principles is engraved on the Georgia Guidestones in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones. Moving clockwise around the structure from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian.
1.) Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2.) Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3.) Unite humanity with a living new language.
4.) Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5.) Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6.) Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7.) Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8.) Balance personal rights with social duties.
9.) Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10.)Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

Questions, right or wrong...Is the Earth:
A.) Reaching its' saturation point of population?
B.) Able to sustain ourselves at the current yearly growth rate? How?
C.) Able to survive as people are living longer, Medicine is prolonging life, our Earth has limited resources: What to do?

The world could easily handle 10x the amount of people we currently have if we were perhaps a bit better organized.

When you look at Tokyo or Mexico city of course it seems overcrowded but then look at Wyoming or Siberia and it certainly isn't. We also have the technology to build underground, on the water and beneath the Sea if we have too. The Earth has so much room its laughable.

We can grow food in any environment, make our own water, raise fish on land.....plenty of methods to feed everyone and house them if we decide to do it.

What Mr. Cousteau is referring to is his desire to see a world remain as it is where the population does not interfere with him. Or at least while he was alive.

It has very little to do with what is sustainable and is actually an extremely selfish point of view held by many people.

reply to post by ItDepends

Wow, what a jerk.

Overpopulation is a myth.

Lets say that there are 7 billion people on the planet.

If everyone (man woman and child) were given a quarter acre of land, the entire world's population could fit in Australia with half of Queensland still uninhabited.

With the proper irrigation and renewable energy, thats enough land for people to grow their own food and have shelter.

The rest of the planet would be empty.

My opinion is,

We all need to quit the blame game.

Figure out the genetics situation by cloning food.

Learn to manipulate the atomic space lattice structures of particles.

Better water filtration.

And stop the friggin greed.

There is no reason on this planet as to why we cant figure this stuff out.....oh yeah greed.

From most that I have read, 155,000 - 250,000 die daily anyway.

So that number would have to be much higher than 350,000 a day for de-population purposes.

I think the population is reaching its tipping point and families should opt for smaller families. Stopping at two will help the exponential rise of the population. We are a virus on the skin of the Earth..

reply to post by ItDepends



i can hear old Jacques now. in his broken french english.

as i dive down into the depths of the sea, or the shallows of the coral reefs, my heart is sadden at the damage mankind has done.

contemplating this i come to realize, that we must reduce the worlds population by 350,000 people a day from now until the population is sustainable.

but of courses not myself or my four children and their family.

the man had four youngens , he didn't practice what he preached did he. typical green eco scientist

reply to post by ItDepends

Tinkerpeach
The world could easily handle 10x the amount of people we currently have if we were perhaps a bit better organized.

It has very little to do with what is sustainable and is actually an extremely selfish point of view held by many people.

10X more people? Wow!! Maybe you are just talking about space, room, but I doubt that our planets current resources that are being depleted at enormous rates can not only sustain the population we have now for much longer (100 years), let alone adding another 700 million.

All it will take is a a catasprophic drought, some pandemic or a singular climate change of great magnitude to make earth and its' population be at risk.

I do not disagree at all with your statement about managing our resources more efficiently, spending more on alternative energy, water purification (desalination) processes, however, unfortunately, we are not a world of people working together, we are a world of selfish, 'not my problem' ( just look at fukushima), 'what about me' and 'my way or the highway' approach to problem solving.
I fear we approaching a point (within the next 100 years or sooner) of no return and life as we know it, won't exist.

Lastly, agree, perhaps, plenty of land for people, but there is such a thing of quality of life, what fun is it to be stepping on each other and building tent cities around the Grand Canyon just to fit more people?

gladtobehere
reply to post by ItDepends

 

Wow, what a jerk.

Overpopulation is a myth.

Lets say that there are 7 billion people on the planet.

If everyone (man woman and child) were given a quarter acre of land, the entire world's population could fit in Australia with half of Queensland still uninhabited.

With the proper irrigation and renewable energy, thats enough land for people to grow their own food and have shelter.

The rest of the planet would be empty.

edit on 3-10-2013 by gladtobehere because: wording

Wow, what an intelligent way to begin a discussion by calling someone a derogatory name. Really makes a person want to read whatever else you have to say.

I don't believe the answer is how to fit more people on a planet that is clearly being depleted of non-renewable natural resources.

TwiTcHomatic
From most that I have read, 155,000 - 250,000 die daily anyway.

So that number would have to be much higher than 350,000 a day for de-population purposes.

edit on 3-10-2013 by TwiTcHomatic because: (no reason given)

your correct, that number of 350,000 was a net loss annually. Total birth minus deaths, reducing the population by that number.

Nature will find a way to cull the herds. Its a terrible thing. Perhaps disease, an apex predator...maybe our apex predator would be an alien invasion.

But I'm against another human proposing the killing off of people.

reply to post by ItDepends


I would not be so quick to discount human ingenuity.

There is plenty of land and the entire ocean still for us to populate. Overcrowding is not a concern if we change our behavior and when the population reaches that point we will have to.

Another factor your not considering is that of nature itself. It has a build in mechanism for dealing with overpopulation all by itself. A simple virus will quickly drop the population down if it gets to that point where we are stepping on one another, a war may happen, a simple meteor strike or volcanic eruption.

Devastating yes, but not to the species as a whole. We are also on the edge of colonizing space.

As for resources, that is not an issue either and although I know that many here do not care for GMO products, the research being done in that field is absolutely essential to not only colonizing space, but ensuring the massive population explosion that undoubtedly is going to occur.

The hope is population stabilizes sometime mid century or sooner.

The reality is we've been in overshoot for at least the last half century.

I think that we'll be lucky to keep civilization afloat by mid century.

I think it's pretty much inevitable that we have population bottlenecks.
________________________________________________________________^^plural

I will do my part and continue not having sex

...

TwiTcHomatic
From most that I have read, 155,000 - 250,000 die daily anyway.

So that number would have to be much higher than 350,000 a day for de-population purposes.

edit on 3-10-2013 by TwiTcHomatic because: (no reason given)

Well true, a lot of people are dying daily, YTD over 44 milliion deaths. But, the problem is that there have been 105 Million new births.....so net plus already this year about 60 Million.

Here it is >>> Population Growth

I agree with Mr Cousteau ( not elimination ) but the issue we are consuming more than we need and its destroying the animal life. We have overfished the seas from bigger fishes for decades and we continue to doing same and what eventually will be left is small fishes which are not economically worth fishing. We are destroying the seas and natural food chains in seas.

I don´t agree to inhabitant a places like siberia ( there might be -50 degrees of celsius at the winter time as gulf stream doesn´t reach up there ) living in such an area would consume a lot of fossil energy, area like that doesn´t supply enough food for larger population.

How many people can earth handle.. take away electricity, fossil fuels and everything which could be considered bringing good quality to modern living, set back clock for 150 years at least. You should learn to be self sufficient than relying to logistics. It´s stupid to say Earth can handle more when we don´t have resources.

Overpopulating is a world wide problem but its a serious problem in third countries. In those countries more children you have more secure is your life in senior age.

Bisman
I will do my part and continue not having sex

...

Haha, well I guess it's ok to have sex, but just make sure you are using protection, unless you're against carrying weapons.....lol

Oh look at what you pieced together!!

Excellent thread!

People just don't like to share..

Tristram Stuart: The global food waste scandal
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWC_zDdF74s


They want more machines than people.

They also want to branch humanity into 2 Races: Basically what you seen in Elysium.

I still got to see that movie.

dollukka
I agree with Mr Cousteau ( not elimination ) but the issue we are consuming more than we need and its destroying the animal life. We have overfished the seas from bigger fishes for decades and we continue to doing same and what eventually will be left is small fishes which are not economically worth fishing. We are destroying the seas and natural food chains in seas.

I don´t agree to inhabitant a places like siberia ( there might be -50 degrees of celsius at the winter time as gulf stream doesn´t reach up there ) living in such an area would consume a lot of fossil energy, area like that doesn´t supply enough food for larger population.

How many people can earth handle.. take away electricity, fossil fuels and everything which could be considered bringing good quality to modern living, set back clock for 150 years at least. You should learn to be self sufficient than relying to logistics. It´s stupid to say Earth can handle more when we don´t have resources.

Overpopulating is a world wide problem but its a serious problem in third countries. In those countries more children you have more secure is your life in senior age.

Think you reply is well stated, concise and really hits the key points. I don't believe (we sane folks) are asking to eliminate the population. However, this a complicated subject. Many, many births are happening where the conceivers simply cannot provide for them. Then, we are self destructing by man-made disasters like the Gulf oil spill, the Fukushima disaster which is simply going unreported....killing our oceans, sealife and the food chain.

Water, unpolluted is becoming scarce, oil is eventually going to run out. Deforestation, massive illegal fishing kills depleting the whales, tuna, dolphins world wide. Natural disasters......just ideas, considerations.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.....But eventually, because of that, a BIG change will have to happen.

Peace!!

Tinkerpeach
reply to post by ItDepends

 

I would not be so quick to discount human ingenuity.

There is plenty of land and the entire ocean still for us to populate. Overcrowding is not a concern if we change our behavior and when the population reaches that point we will have to.

Another factor your not considering is that of nature itself. It has a build in mechanism for dealing with overpopulation all by itself. A simple virus will quickly drop the population down if it gets to that point where we are stepping on one another, a war may happen, a simple meteor strike or volcanic eruption.

Devastating yes, but not to the species as a whole. We are also on the edge of colonizing space.

As for resources, that is not an issue either and although I know that many here do not care for GMO products, the research being done in that field is absolutely essential to not only colonizing space, but ensuring the massive population explosion that undoubtedly is going to occur.

I appreciate your response. I agree, history has shown human ingenuity can be amazing, but both in a good and bad way. How 'bout them wars and nuclear bombs?

Yes, a simple virus could kill huge amount of the population, like the 'Black Plague'. But then you are agreeing the population has grown to a point of concern, whether it can sustain itself without a virus.

Not sure if we are on the edge of colonizing space! Maybe back in the 1970's I may have been more optimistic.....however, the expense, cooperation, and the overall possibility of finding another 'goldilocks' planet seem centuries away at a minimum to put earthlings on. In the meantime, we have real problems right now, growing every day, every year, every decade.

Regarding GMO, still not known the long term health impacts. Maybe good, maybe a crime yet to be realized. All you have to do is read up on Monsanto and all of the concerns about their secrective GMO research and implementations....all big business, not necessarily for the benefit of humanity.

So, although I understand your thoughts, and I like some of your ideas.....(Space eploration), the truth is that we have serious global problems. People are starving, less and less drinkable water is available, hardly renewable, man-made catastrophe's, and then the unknown natural ones.

I'm all for human ingenuity, but, the time is now to start doing something, at least the discussion and make the awareness known. Just my view. Peace!!!

Well, can't say he didn't contribute to the cause.

Perhaps he would've liked to contribute his children to the cause as we'll...?

Something tells me he wouldn't be THAT committed.

Children: Jean-Michel Cousteau, Philippe Cousteau, Pierre-Yves Cousteau, Diane Cousteau