Why don't we hear many concerns about world population?

[azazel666]

Last night I was watching a television show made in the early nineties, and one of the characters mentioned there were "five billion others" in the world.

 

As we are apparently in the next few months going to hit SEVEN billion people in the world, this is one hell of a jump in a short period of time.

 

Whilst many people in the UK and this forum(including myself), complain and fret about immigration to this country. The whole world is surely at a bigger risk of major issues due to massive population rises.

 

We can see here that almost all of the growth is into very poor, underdeveloped countries:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate

 

This means we have got two billion or so more hungry, impoverished, and probably poorly educated people in the planet than we did around two decades ago(think it was the late eighties actually). The Earth will not be able to hold this kind of increase in decades and centuries to come.

 

This is likely to continue. What do we do? We can't argue it is a Somali woman's right to have over six children when they simply cannot be fed? If there is a couple in the UK who can't be sure to give the children a good life people would say they shouldn't have kids at all.

 

I think the Western governments should get together and speak more to the African leaders about the problem. This is surely going to be a ticking timebomb, and yes, it is going to mean that a hell of a lot more people are going to be wanting to come to Europe in time to come so it's going to be even more difficult here?

 

What could we do? Should we be getting classes and free condoms on the ground in Africa? We surely can't do nothing?

[azazel666]

If the person in somalia didn't have a few children, once they became unable to work they would just die. There is no pension, they have to have someone to look after them.

 

Also of course, in order to be more likely to have children survive, they have to have more children.

 

I used Somalia as an example only, and yeah I see this being partly the case.

 

Still using Somalia as an example though, it is very high on the population growth tables, and this is purely because of the birth rate. They need to pull together as a country and help each other out. And they will probably need Western help too, but it can't be just give them money and food and let them continue as they are.

[barleycorn]

Reminds me of article, in the New Scientist I think, called something like Population: The elephant in the room. Can't find it now but there is this from the BBC.

 

Personally I think many of the worlds problems could be solved by a 90% reduction in population. Quite how this could be achieved is another matter (although I hear the Illuminati have plans along these lines:roll:).

 

jb

[Number Six]

Population is an issue.

 

We have one child. Part of our thinking was that the planet is overpopulated, and by having one child we are helping with that - when we are both dead, there will only be one person. If everyone did this the population would halve in less than 100 years.

 

 

Medicine is evolving faster than us - we are driven to have multiple off-spring because our sense is that we must pass on our genes, but some children will not survive to do so. Obviously in the west, death prior to reproduction is getting less common, but we still have this drive to have more than one child just in case.

 

Population growth is unsustainable in the long term - all the earth's resources are effectively finite. It only remains to be seen if we decide to do something about it - like only have one child per couple - or if we 'solve' it by people starving or being killed in wars that will become more common as commodities become more scarce and more expensive.

 

I'm hoping for the latter, but judging by my neighbours (bloke next door has 4 kids that don't live with him and 2 that do) I don't think the 'one child' idea is going to catch on.

[Alcoblog]

It seems to me that the obvious answer (although unworkable) would be a form of birth control whereby one couple is only allowed one child.

 

Presuming there's around 7b on the planet at the mo and just for maths, let's say 4b are capable of giving birth to a child with a partner (much less, I'd imagine). That would be 2b births.

If you average the average age to give birth is (let's say an average of 25 years old), they would produce 1b children and so on ...

 

Within 75 years there would be 50 million capable of having children (presuming all these people survive ... unlikely)

 

225 years would take it down to less than 800,000 and if you followed it through, in 700 years there'd only be one person left (plus their parents and grandparents)

 

Obviously, this scheme wouldn't be practical as no one would allow it, but I think world wide birth control would be the only answer to overpopulation. Unless we (callously) stop helping the impoverished and let nature take it's course like it does with all the other animals on the planet.

[Alcoblog]

Population is an issue.

 

We have one child. Part of our thinking was that the planet is overpopulated, and by having one child we are helping with that - when we are both dead, there will only be one person. If everyone did this the population would halve in less than 100 years.

 

 

Medicine is evolving faster than us - we are driven to have multiple off-spring because our sense is that we must pass on our genes, but some children will not survive to do so. Obviously in the west, death prior to reproduction is getting less common, but we still have this drive to have more than one child just in case.

 

Population growth is unsustainable in the long term - all the earth's resources are effectively finite. It only remains to be seen if we decide to do something about it - like only have one child per couple - or if we 'solve' it by people starving or being killed in wars that will become more common as commodities become more scarce and more expensive.

 

I'm hoping for the latter, but judging by my neighbours (bloke next door has 4 kids that don't live with him and 2 that do) I don't think the 'one child' idea is going to catch on.

 

Sorry Number Six, we both posted at the same time! ... Pretty much the same post. Good to see someone agrees with me though!

[azazel666]

Reminds me of article, in the New Scientist I think, called something like Population: The elephant in the room. Can't find it now but there is this from the BBC.

 

Personally I think many of the worlds problems could be solved by a 90% reduction in population. Quite how this could be achieved is another matter (although I hear the Illuminati have plans along these lines:roll:).

 

jb

 

Thanks for this article. Was just what I was thinking actually - the article not the 90% reduction haha.

 

But with so many more people, and with the fact that humans can be evil gits in mind, the chance of extreme disaster are surely going to me more likely?

[llamatron]

It seems to me that the obvious answer (although unworkable) would be a form of birth control whereby one couple is only allowed one child.

 

Presuming there's around 7b on the planet at the mo and just for maths, let's say 4b are capable of giving birth to a child with a partner (much less, I'd imagine). That would be 2b births.

If you average the average age to give birth is (let's say an average of 25 years old), they would produce 1b children and so on ...

 

Within 75 years there would be 50 million capable of having children (presuming all these people survive ... unlikely)

 

225 years would take it down to less than 800,000 and if you followed it through, in 700 years there'd only be one person left (plus their parents and grandparents)

 

Obviously, this scheme wouldn't be practical as no one would allow it, but I think world wide birth control would be the only answer to overpopulation. Unless we (callously) stop helping the impoverished and let nature take it's course like it does with all the other animals on the planet.

 

The main problem here is that if we did achieve this (and I hope we could as the other option would be many wars over everything) we are still screwed because all of our economics, social care etc is based on everlasting growth:loopy: Pretty stupid when you think the world is finite, even stupider in our case as we are on a small island and should be the first to recognise this problem.

[azazel666]

Sorry Number Six, we both posted at the same time! ... Pretty much the same post. Good to see someone agrees with me though!

 

Thanks to both you and Numbersix!

 

Yeah the issue at the moment is that developed countries have population naturally under control, and the underdeveloped ones really don't. Which is going to lead to a very disproportioned world in the coming decades, before we even look at the most heinous impact on this lovely planet.

 

It's important to remember at all times that it's not just humans who live here, and have rights to do so.

[azazel666]

The main problem here is that if we did achieve this (and I hope we could as the other option would be many wars over everything) we are still screwed because all of our economics, social care etc is based on everlasting growth:loopy: Pretty stupid when you think the world is finite, even stupider in our case as we are on a small island and should be the first to recognise this problem.

 

What do you mean about things being based on everlasting growth? Surely this can be adjusted, and would make things even easier?