124 replies to this topic

[Shortpoet-GTD]

My intent is not to hi-jack this conversation but in other overpopulation discussions on the web, sterilization
has been mentioned.

Did anyone here know that America (North Carolina specifically) engaged in forced sterilization?
I know I didn't.

The "eugenics" law passed in 1929 and continued until 1974; it wasn't officially repealed until 2003.

It started out to target poor, white woman; so they wouldn't have kids=welfare but shifted to blacks. Most were teenagers.

Eugenics program sterilized tens of thousands of children before it was repealed.
*Quoting from the article-

"Some of America’s wealthiest citizens of the time were eugenicists including Dr. Clarence Gamble
of the Procter and Gamble fortune and James Hanes of the hosiery company.
Hanes helped found the Human Betterment League which promoted the cause of eugenicists."

They sterilized girls as young as 8 because they were "promiscuous" but often, those young girls
had been raped by their "fathers" or other family members.
They castrated young boys too.
Story/videos here:
http://rockcenter.ms...irls-and-blacks

[IndigenousShaman]

Wow, dustoffer way to lighten the mood.  But your pretty much dead on.  We've got a big nasty mean wall we're about to hit and most of us are to blind to see it.  You gotta figure when your trash is collecting in the oceans in the form of large islands your probably doing something wrong.  Guess I'll stick around here in the heart of Katuah and live off the land when the time comes.  Hopefully.

[zararina]

There are some places who are too crowded and there are not crowded places. Population is just like natural resources and properties that are not equally distributed.
I think the earth is bit crowded yet. And would need to do effort to produce foods/resources and not just let the nature produce it for us. Just like if someone cut a tree to make a house, he should plant more trees since it takes time before it will totally be grown. And we should exert effort not to pollute our natural resources further.

[tigerlily78]

To hear someone say "I heard of programs forcibly sterilizing children and in my opinion they were a good idea" is really remarkably disgusting.

Also... how can you determine someone's IQ from reading their obituaries? I have read plenty of obituaries and I have even written one, can't say as I can ever recall the deceased's IQ being published in the Obits as if anyone really cares if the dead person was a genius or an idiot. Do you randomly select funerals to attend based on whether the person's obituary claims they were a certifiable genius? Ridiculous.

I think it is a cowardly and egocentric cop out to keep blaming problems on immigrants when your average middle class white retired couple probably spends MUCH more money and wastes more resources and travels around more and buys more worthless crap to occupy their time than most legal or illegal immigrants with a few children living at or below the poverty line do.

OVER CONSUMPTION and resource DESTRUCTION seem just as relevant... perhaps MORE relevant in terms of our longterm environmental outlook than overpopulation. A million people living in the dust of the Sudan and basically living off subsistence farming are never going to have anywhere near the magnitude of environmental impact and resources consumption as a million people living in New York or LA or even Middle of Nowhere, Kansas.

Ever read the 14 points of Fascism as defined by Dr. Lawrence Britt?
http://www.secularhu.../britt_23_2.htm

I think we have far more to fear in the way of corporatism and fascism and unabashed egocentrism and defense of greed than we do from immigrants who want the same thing immigrants 200 years ago wanted... a better life for their families.

If you think you are entitled to something they are not simply because your poor, dirty, uneducated forebearers got on a boat and came over a century or two before they did you are kidding yourself. If you really believe in America and the revolution and what history has shown us, is that we are probably better off letting people come here peacably, legally, and with a mind to assimilate into our nation... because the alternative is them coming to take our land by force, as we did to the Native Americans... the only people who really have any right or claim whatsoever to this country at the most base level.

[Ansem]

For everyone who answered "yes" to this question.
Get a map of the population density of the world, then come back here and say we're still overpopulated.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

http://en.wikipedia....ulation_density
This site has the birth/death ticker.
http://populationale...rg/solution.htm

[still learning]

Ansem, on 26 November 2011 - 04:52 AM, said:

For everyone who answered "yes" to this question.
Get a map of the population density of the world, then come back here and say we're still overpopulated.

What does a population density map have to do with whether or not the Earth is overpopulated?  The population carrying capacity of different parts of the Earth varies widely.  Regional water availability for growing crops varies hugely as does the length of the growing season.

While different people have different ideas about the definition of "overpopulation," the basic idea seems to be that there is some maximum sustainable population of the Earth, that beyond that population load there won't be enough resources to keep things going over the long term.  By some accountings we're already hugely overpopulated.  By other accountings we aren't there yet.

If everybody on Earth consumed fossil fuels at the rate that the US populace does we'd run out in only a few years, then the developed world's mechanized modern agriculture system wouldn't be possible any more.  Produce less food.  Sounds like that'd be unsustainable, that we'd be overpopulated.  If the world only uses fossil fuels at today's rates we'll last somewhat longer, but we're still overconsuning petroleum and it'll become less and less available as time passes.  We aren't yet on a path to come up with sustainable substitutes.

We could take a different path and accomodate more people than now.  Theoretically the developed world could decide to take a low-resource path that'd stretch out the time to overpopulation.  Of course, then people the people in what was the developed world might decide to return to having large families.... .

[sbjc]

The recent rapid increase in human population over the past two centuries has raised concerns that humans are beginning to overpopulate the Earth, and that the planet may not be able to sustain present or larger numbers of inhabitants. The population has been growing continuously since the end of the black death, around the year 1400;at the beginning of the 19th century, it had reached roughly 1,000,000,000 (1 billion). Increases in medical technology have led to rapid population growth on a worldwide level.

[omkar1991]

7 billion crossed, and out of those 7 billion, 2 billion in my country. that is kind of sad to know.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

sbjc, on 29 November 2011 - 09:31 PM, said:

The population has been growing continuously since the end of the black death, around the year 1400;at the beginning of the 19th century, it had reached roughly 1,000,000,000 (1 billion). Increases in medical technology have led to rapid population growth on a worldwide level.

Growing continuously yes, but not in the time frame you stated.
http://geography.abo...dpopulation.htm

[sculptor]

imho

it is not within the realm of possibility for our species to overpopulate the earth

there are mechanisms in place that we little understand that lead us to lesser or greater reproductivity

for example, all across the industrialized northern hemisphere we have low birth rates and declining populations

------------------
perhaps, it is our country's meddling in the affairs of less industrialized countries and regions  that is sustaining their population growth
perhaps
Wei Wu Wei
is the single best approach
---------------------
(can a species will itself into extinction?)

[sbjc]

Having 7 Billion people all over the world? Don't you think that's too much? I don't know the statistics but from what I heard 20 and \
I guess the earth is now over populated. seven billion people? Wow! Can you imagine that? The number of species are increasing, but our resources can not handle the needs of people anymore. Sooner, or later more places will be experiencing scarcity, and famine. I hope these things will not happen, but as long as we do not have a control into this issue, one day, we will just end up with a hole in our stomach.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

sbjc, on 07 December 2011 - 12:25 AM, said:

The number of species are increasing, but our resources can not handle the needs of people anymore.
Sooner, or later more places will be experiencing scarcity, and famine. I hope these things will not happen,

By "species"- do you mean humans? Because, yes-we are increasing-but other species across the planet
are getting closer and closer to extinction.
And
"I hope these things will not happen."
They're already happening.
The drought in Somalia in Africa has killed/is killing thousands. No rain, no food.
And to make matters worse, their so-called government/military in the region will not allow aid in from
foreign countries.
http://www.msnbc.msn...frica-how-help/
http://www.bbc.co.uk...africa-14785304

If people were suffering like this in Phoenix or Houston, would we be quicker to respond to the changing
climate-droughts, floods? We haven't so far, even though many of our communities have been hit
by huge storms and floods.

[Alli]

I think it is overpopulated AND people in wealthier countries are living beyond their means and the planet's means to sustain them. While we do have enough space/resources to feed everyone and provide shelter if we were to balance out the inequalities, we do NOT have enough resources for every person on this planet to have a TV and a computer and a car, eat meat every day, etc. Part of the problem is that as countries get wealthier, their inhabitants want those things. Do we really have the right to say "nope, we can feed you, but you can't have a TV or car although we get to keep ours"? Or does everyone on the planet give up their TV and cars and computers?

[sculptor]

I recently read an estimate of 9,000,000,000 people by 2050

imho :
the only way this will work is with continued urbanization
a dense city center has much less of a negative impact on the environment per capita than the more common sprawl and scattered single family houses of the rural areas.'

especially if the urban planners had the foresight to plan for higher population densities--------rapid transit, and waste removal/ recycling are main concerns

20 years ago, China couldn't feed it's population, now they are a net food exporter
we export more food than any other country

most famines are political and not caused by a failure of agricultural productivity

Brazil has more arable land than any other country (much of it still untapped), and if the promise of global warming opens the tundra to the plow, the carrying capacity of the planet could increase by 40-60%

extrapolating to population our shared coevolutionary biom could support between 9.5 to 11 billion of us
after which,
GROK

[Pushhyarag2000]

The issue of over population on earth was discussed in relation to availability of adequate living space on the planet for all of them What transpires is, that there is, fortunately adequate space for housing all the people: if we removed our perception that most of these will live in big metro cities across the world because that's where space is really at a premium. But whether there are enough resources for every one, I think its NO.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

sculptor, on 10 December 2011 - 09:45 AM, said:

a dense city center has much less of a negative impact on the environment per capita than the more common sprawl
and scattered single family houses of the rural areas.'

especially if the urban planners had the foresight to plan for higher population densities

Like these?
http://www.burjkhali...est-towers.aspx

[sculptor]

well, yes,
but not for me, of course
i like my gardens and chickens, and hunting and fishing and just enough children to replace ourselves(2)

I used to live and work in a big city(Chicago), but we lived in what I called bungalow land 1, 2, and 3 family buildings, walking distance from rapid transit

I worked in the downtown(canyon land) but liked living in a neighborhood with a local grocery handy, and room for parking and a neighborhood field-house and park all within a 1/4 mile

most urban dwellers do not live in such high rises(sky scrapers)--------but with good public transportation and rapid transit, most don't need to drive, and water, sewer, power, telephone, and cable lines serve many more people per mile of run than they do out here in the semi-rural area where i now live-------so they are much more efficient, and less costly for the environment

........................
the boat we got is all there is-------------keep bailing

[jasserEnv]

From a natural standpoint, it is quite obvious that we are overpopulating the planet. We are a top predator and we exceed the populations of all other top predators by orders of magnitude. The only creatures that outnumber us are those like insects and the livestock that we have bred to feed ourselves. As a consequence, we have destroyed and seriously altered whole ecosystems for our benefit and at the expense of all other species. Even if we all live in ultra-dense cities, we will still required large amounts of land area for the resources required to provide our food and quality of life. We will require large amounts of land area for our power requirements.

As a result, it really should not be a question about whether or not we are overpopulated, but rather what we are doing to halt population growth entirely. While you can argue for redistribution of resources amongst poor and wealthy nations, that completely ignores the non-human lives and dismisses the value of these creatures who also have need for the resources that we have simply chosen to take for our own purposes. Just because a species can't rally to protect a forest it needs to survive doesn't mean that that resource isn't in use.

[Mon-Jes]

Alli, on 10 December 2011 - 05:12 AM, said:

Part of the problem is that as countries get wealthier, their inhabitants want those things. Do we really have the right to say "nope, we can feed you, but you can't have a TV or car although we get to keep ours"? Or does everyone on the planet give up their TV and cars and computers?

This!!!! This is a big one, because we talk about how bad consumerism is, how we need to reduce, etc., but who on earth decides where the appropriate limit is? We can't go to developing countries and say, hey, it's great that you've reached the point where you're no longer crowded into tiny camps, but we can't let you have houses and gardens like we do, because that would place too much strain on the planet. We really can't tell people they don't need or can't have something that we've basically been shoving in their faces through TV and movies.