124 replies to this topic

[Mon-Jes]

Disclaimer: I'm child-free. I can't really speak about placing limits on family size.

That being said, I do think we're overpopulated. There's a lot of food waste that, if properly caught, harvested and distributed, could ease some of the resource issues, but not all the way.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Constantly clicking upwards.
World population clock:
http://www.ibiblio.o...narbin/worldpop

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Declining rates in many countries-but Africa's high birth rate is causing the surge in growth.
http://en.wikipedia....ulation_decline

[Mike_Hollis]

I think the overpopulation narrative is a useful principle in that it resonates with people (who may then change their behavior or at least learn more about the topic), but I think we need to be careful in not considering the issue in isolation when advocating for policies or environmental management techniques.

The carrying capacity of an ecosystem only creates a population limit if we assume resource consumption will always increase when population also increases. However, as many members are pointing out, our consumption habits (and our manufacturing habits) are at the core of many of our environmental issues. Smaller population groups with higher rates of resource consumption can have much more environmental impact than larger population groups with lower consumption rates.

I'd even go one step further to say that in some cases, population growth can benefit the environment. As population grows, people have new opportunities to organize in a more sustainable way. For example, the average person on Manhattan is able to live much more sustainably than the average person in suburban America - NYC's higher population has given it a denser population and a higher tax base, through which sustainable practices like mass transit systems and dense housing units (which receive energy efficiency benefits) have arisen.

This isn't to say that poor economic conditions or unsustainable social organization can't make overpopulation seem like a huge problem (Mike Davis' book Planet of Slums really drove that home for me). However, I think the best solution is actually to work towards eliminating poverty and strengthen social institutions (which in turn has been shown to decrease population growth rates).

So I'd say overpopulation is a much less important environmental topic than many of the other related topics mentioned here: analysis of urbanization and population density, consumer habits and expectations, greening our manufacturing practices, etc...

[MakingCents]

I don't think it's for us to judge if it's over-populated.  Who is to say what the capacity of the earth is supposed to be?   Differently populated than in the past.  Sure.  More populated with humans than animals, possibly   But since there is no set limit to HOW the earth is supposed to be populated it's hard to call it overpopulated.

[jasserEnv]

MakingCents, on 05 February 2012 - 06:31 PM, said:

I don't think it's for us to judge if it's over-populated.  Who is to say what the capacity of the earth is supposed to be?   Differently populated than in the past.  Sure.  More populated with humans than animals, possibly   But since there is no set limit to HOW the earth is supposed to be populated it's hard to call it overpopulated.

I can't agree with this approach because as the population increases, there will be a point at which there are too many people based on a lack of clean water, lack of land to grow crops on, lack of resources etc. You need to assess the resources you have and what you lose as those resources are depleted in determining how many people is too much, but there is a limit. A judgement is required at some point. To me, not taking steps to curb and halt population growth is much the same as watching global warming progress without doing anything.

You are essentially just waiting hoping nothing will happen but taking no steps just in case.

By the way, I also personally see a value for the animals and plants that exist quite apart from the oxygen and carbon dioxide cycle they help to maintain. Morally, pushing them out of existance based on poor family planning is pretty arrogant/ignorant behavior depending on your level of awareness. Imagine, if we decided race X wasn't as valuable as another and we were just going to push them out of existance by slowly taking over their living space. It wouldn't go over well, I am sure.

[erikc76]

I don't think earth is overpopulated however the scary thing is the bigger the population is, the more raidly it will grow. I personally would prefer a world that had far less people and the idea of living in a world with 10-20 billion people sounds absolutely horrific to me. I don't want policies or laws dictating or limiting the number of children people can have, but perhaps we're reaching a point where we could set the bar high. It's a slippery slope that I'm really not a fan of.

[MakingCents]

jasserEnv, on 06 February 2012 - 10:42 PM, said:

I can't agree with this approach because as the population increases, there will be a point at which there are too many people based on a lack of clean water, lack of land to grow crops on, lack of resources etc. You need to assess the resources you have and what you lose as those resources are depleted in determining how many people is too much, but there is a limit. A judgement is required at some point. To me, not taking steps to curb and halt population growth is much the same as watching global warming progress without doing anything.

You are essentially just waiting hoping nothing will happen but taking no steps just in case.

By the way, I also personally see a value for the animals and plants that exist quite apart from the oxygen and carbon dioxide cycle they help to maintain. Morally, pushing them out of existance based on poor family planning is pretty arrogant/ignorant behavior depending on your level of awareness. Imagine, if we decided race X wasn't as valuable as another and we were just going to push them out of existance by slowly taking over their living space. It wouldn't go over well, I am sure.

So what do you propose?  Some sort of communist regime that tells people how many children they are allowed to have? That forces medical proceedures on people so they can no longer re-produce.  There are some things that should not be governed.   Instead the effort should be on having new and more efficient ways to provide clean water, to clean the air, to sustain wildlife and to make the earth in better balance with the humans living on it.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

We're (US, Europe) not the problem.
Education is the key.
As woman become educated, they have less children. Africa has some of the highest rates because
the education system is lacking.
Birth rates are going down in many countries, including here. It's really falling in Germany and other
Baltic nations.
Currently there is a huge debate about birth control and the health care plan. Educate the woman,
and let her choose. Have a baby, wait, or don't have any.
Choice has become a dirty word. But in a democracy, it's all about choice.
In China, they have no choice. Now that's a dirty word to me.

[jasserEnv]

It is always interesting to see the reactions when discussion about population control takes place. Most responses are based on fear of government control over people but that is not approaching the problem constructively. There are ways to be constructive about this very significant problem.

Were the Western world the problem, I would propose cutting child tax benefits except to the poor and charging small extra taxes for every additional child that people have over the amount required to maintain the population. As it is now, education and health are subsidized in most Western countries so asking people to pay when they are adding to the required resources is neither Draconian or unfair.

In the developing world, the key is to tie aid to education. You can feed people and help them develop their economy but first and foremost, they and their children must be educated with any dollars provided. It is only through education that we can enable them to look after themselves and to start living sustainably. If we instead focus on food aid and health, we simply create a larger population of people without opportunity or awareness of the damage they are doing to their own quality of life by having so many children. We are also creating dependency because they won't be able to work their way out of poverty without education.

[DevilKid]

I do think that the earth is being over populated and it is mainly because of a lot of people not being educated about family planning. I remember reading something about China giving money to them who only had 2 children, no more or no less. That was in my opinion a great idea to control the birth rate but the other growing country, India, doesn't do anything like this and I'm afraid the population will just keep growing there.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

DevilKid, on 17 February 2012 - 06:11 AM, said:

I do think that the earth is being over populated and it is mainly because of a lot of people not being educated about family planning. I remember reading something about China giving money to them who only had 2 children, no more or no less. That was in my opinion a great idea to control the birth rate but the other growing country, India, doesn't do anything like this and I'm afraid the population will just keep growing there.

It's mostly a one child rule and China doesn't give them money to not have kids.
It's a communist mandate.
Often, officials will kill the 3rd. Or any others after that. They force abortions, often up to the 9th month,
or kill the baby right after birth.
Parents can be thrown in prison if they exceed the limit, and often female babies are killed just because
of gender, regardless of the count.

[hunysukle]

Yes, the world is over-populated. Anyone who watches Nat Geo knows this. This shouldn't be a debate. The planet can only hold so many people and we only have so many resources. The birth rate across the planet is higher than the death rate.

[Ansem]

World is not really overpopulated, just not evenly spread out...
I consider the world overpopulated if there is no more space to build anymore at the cost of natural landscape.

If we only have cities and no more country side and towns left and Siberia exists of railroads all over the place, then I say we need to steralize a whole bunch of the population.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

With loony-tunes like this around, it's no wonder we're overpopulated.

"Michelle Duggar, star of TLC's reality show, "19 Kids and Counting", says there needs to be more children because our world needs more joy.
And as for overpopulation?
That's just a lie, Duggar recently told the Christian Broadcasting Network in a web interview.
"The idea of overpopulation is not accurate," Duggar says, because the entire population of the world could fit inside of Jacksonville, Florida."
http://www.huffingto...ref=mostpopular

Maybe if she got off her back for a few hours and read a book, she might see the idiocy of that "Florida"
statement. Unbelievable.

[jigger]

I don't think it is overpopulated YET, but it will certainly become overpopulated eventually as another century goes by. However, there is nothing we can do about it and because f the fact that regard human life as a priority. Everyday, doctors and scientists are developing cures for stuff like disease and to prevent the deaths of people all around the world. It is doing a good thing when it comes to the human race helping each other out, but it basically accelerates the growth of the population as our average life span increases. This is where technology and education will have to take big leaps and advancements in order to make the best use of Earth's remaining resources.

[katdolores]

Isn't overpopulation measured by the number of people over a certain area of land? I think only some parts of the world are overpopulated, but if the present rate of birth goes on, I think the world will be, in years.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

jigger, on 07 April 2012 - 05:37 PM, said:

I don't think it is overpopulated YET, but it will certainly become overpopulated eventually as another century goes by.

Sorry, but I totally disagree.
We are overpopulated now, and there is no way we'll get to another century, if we keep on the unsustainable
path we're on now. Resources will be severely limited or completely gone.

Water is the main issue.

Millions of people depend on glacial water melting into rivers for their drinking water. Once the glaciers
are gone, those rivers will dry up.

We're already seeing shortages, via droughts across many countries and because of it, mass migrations.
Depending on the heat of the location, people can die of thirst within hours or up to 3-4 days.

*Edit-link added