Overpopulation, serious political and economical problems

[John Galaor]

to message 146
You said,
<<While low birth rates may place a strain on the economy, it is the opposite of what we are contending with in this thread. Our overpopulation issue isn't too few young people, but is too many adults.>>

then, I ask you, did you watch the film "Soleygreen"? It was about a overpopulated planet that invited the old people do die in a movie theaters watching the past natural wonders of the planet. While they watched the movie, a sort of sleeping gas sent them sweetly to another life of eternal rest.
I do not see a rational behavior prolong the life of older people too far in time. I am already 73. I can accept well my own termination, specially if I am feeling bad. Once our health is failing for too long the best way is to die sweetly.
John Galaor

 

[xylitolfresh]

Move to Canada or Mars :)

 

[mheslep]

Hi John -

Note the "Quote" button at the bottom every post. It will save you the trouble of manually cut and pasting as you have done below.

to message 147
It is not clear what you mean in this post saying,
...
You mean is Ok to keep growing indefinitely?

No. I meant it in only in response to the suggestion up thread that where ever we see starvation or a fouled environment - that population must be the cause. There are other possibilities. I suggested one, and I think it far more likely based on even casual observation of various societies around the world.

 

[John Galaor]

Hi John -

Note the "Quote" button at the bottom every post. It will save you the trouble of manually cut and pasting as you have done below.
No. I meant it in only in response to the suggestion up thread that where ever we see starvation or a fouled environment - that population must be the cause. There are other possibilities. I suggested one, and I think it far more likely based on even casual observation of various societies around the world.

I am not sure that starvation and polluted waters are only explained by a disfunctional government.

those countries where is found most often starvation are often in war. They are farmers and herders. Then, being a farmer and an herder, if the population keeps growing year after year, they need the agriculture lands and the pasture lands to grow apace with the population growth. The problem is that the land to farm and the lands to graze do not grow up. Moreover, sometimes the rain is half the amount expected and most cultures fail and most pastures are to scant to feed the great number of animals. Then, tempers get sour and wars start here and there. Then, this explains the starvation. If you would not the history of US or Europe a little better, you would see that from time to time, people were starving.
Visit this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines
you can watch some parts, like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#19th_century
or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#20th_century
Being so near in time, they are more credible.
John Galaor

 

[feathermoon]

You're right, I will grant that not everyone's concern with overpopulation is not the same. Some will consider the effects on an economy as a primary concern. Some will consider the effects on human health and psychology. So on, so forth.

However, economic practices and social issues aside, I will suggest that the number of people on the planet will relate directly with the number of starving people, befouled water sources, and species going extinct. What is the point in going forth and multiplying if for every child birthed hundreds of animals die? I would contend that view myopic: if hundreds of thousands of years of an evolutionary pathway comes to end because a few more people should be born. There is a trade off here and I would say its not in the favor of more people.

Further, what if we just go forth and multiply? Do you want to live in a world where you can't see a polar bear, panda, amphibian, turtle, leopard, etc. in a zoo let alone their wild habitat? This is my primary concern. Humanity just cannot coexist. As the only other life forms we know of in this entire universe, it is myopic and anthropocentric to not assign every lowly one of them some worth.

 

[mheslep]

You're right, I will grant that not everyone's concern with overpopulation is not the same. Some will consider the effects on an economy as a primary concern. Some will consider the effects on human health and psychology. So on, so forth.

However, economic practices and social issues aside, I will suggest that the number of people on the planet will relate directly with the number of starving people, befouled water sources, and species going extinct. What is the point in going forth and multiplying if for every child birthed hundreds of animals die?

In many places that is not what is happening, mainly in the developed world, with societies that protect the rights of women and allow economic growth so that large families are not required for survival. Regarding animal populations, again for the developed world see, e.g. http://www.wc.adfg.state.ak.us/index.cfm?adfg=wildlife_news.view_article&issue_id=13&articles_id=15", and the total population in Alaska is approaching one million animals, a large growth from decades ago.

 

[dreiter]

I'm interrupting, but I had to respond to this!

The last time I was having this discussion, I suggested (half in jest) that voluntary sterilization should be rewarded, for instance with 10,000 dollars if you're a man and 50,000 if you're a woman. Paid in cash, no questions asked. As you can imagine, this caused a bit of an outrage.

Why is this an outrage? It seems to solve a lot of the problems. The poor are much more likely to take advantage of this, thereby slowing the population increase of the poor (and usually uneducated), while the rich, educated folk tend to have fewer kids anyway. So no more overpopulation, the poor get some income, and everyone wins!

Sadly I'm only half joking, but don't bite my head off! :)

 

[mheslep]

The last time I was having this discussion, I suggested (half in jest) that voluntary sterilization should be rewarded, for instance with 10,000 dollars if you're a man and 50,000 if you're a woman. Paid in cash, no questions asked. As you can imagine, this caused a bit of an outrage.

I'm interrupting, but I had to respond to this!
Why is this an outrage? It seems to solve a lot of the problems. ...

One obvious objection of payday sterilization is that it could easily lead to abuses, real or imagined, where the rich and powerful finance the sterilization of this or that group that it did not like.

 

[dreiter]

And how is this different than rich/powerful groups denying or supplying funding to groups they do or don't like? I believe this already happens!

 

[hamster143]

I'm interrupting, but I had to respond to this! Why is this an outrage? It seems to solve a lot of the problems. The poor are much more likely to take advantage of this, thereby slowing the population increase of the poor (and usually uneducated), while the rich, educated folk tend to have fewer kids anyway. So no more overpopulation, the poor get some income, and everyone wins!

Sadly I'm only half joking, but don't bite my head off! :)

It's not going to work. Simple math. The average birth rate in the world is something like 20 per 1000 per year. To achieve population stability, we should shoot for something like 10 per 1000. So, we need to perform enough sterilizations to remove 70,000,000 births per year. Assuming that one female sterilization removes two births, that is 35 million sterilizations, times $50,000, or 1.75 trillion dollars per year. This is a huge amount of money, considering that the total amount of money currently spent on financial aid to developing countries (where the bulk of sterilizations would have to take place) is on the order of $100 billion per year. Even if you cut the sterilization premium by a factor of ten, that's still not feasible.

 

[jreelawg]

I have a few points to bring up. Firstly, the common argument that the Earth is crowded, is not true. Cities are crowded, but there are still vast amounts of sparsely populated land. People are clustered together into areas where they can get jobs.

The problem has nothing to do with space, it has to do with economics, resources, technology and pollution.

The other point is that many of the problems blamed on overpopulation, have other factors such as corruption, oppression, etc. Some cases countries are just too weak in terms of might to contend, and end up being abused by stronger nations. Some nations are trapped in economic situations they can't overcome. If they had smaller populations, it would only make it harder for them to pay their debt.

In terms of pollution, there sure are a lot of irresponsible, or even criminal polluters out their dumping toxic waste on massive scales, purely out of greed and convenience. There is a lot that could be done to clean up environment without reducing the population.

 

[John Galaor]

I'm interrupting, but I had to respond to this!


Why is this an outrage? It seems to solve a lot of the problems. The poor are much more likely to take advantage of this, thereby slowing the population increase of the poor (and usually uneducated), while the rich, educated folk tend to have fewer kids anyway. So no more overpopulation, the poor get some income, and everyone wins!

Sadly I'm only half joking, but don't bite my head off! :)

the main trouble with this idea is not the rich countries, but the others. The most dirt poor a nation is the more population growth it has. In the other hand, the traditional idea is to grow, for the nations that grown can traditionally win wars, for they had more young people to sacrifice in them. Then, this explains why conservatives had been in favor of population growth; even traditional churches, etc.

My idea is that we got problems in the rich countries, with the immigrants we had accepted, for they are growing too fast in numbers, creating a series of problems of unemployment in our cities, that often pass as rejection of their culture or racism. In fact, they tend to conserve the customs of their original countries, not only on religion, that is not the main problem, but in attire quite different to western standards. The is viewed by natives con certain fear, and some outright rejection. Then, the proper immigrants and their descendants are cultivating hate for our western morals and customs.
If these problems are not solved, we are going to have a nasty crisis in our cities in twenty years or so. Then if they keep growing so fast, we are goint to have a serious problem, for they would out-bred us.
John Galaor
.

 

[John Galaor]

I have a few points to bring up. Firstly, the common argument that the Earth is crowded, is not true. Cities are crowded, but there are still vast amounts of sparsely populated land. People are clustered together into areas where they can get jobs.

The problem has nothing to do with space, it has to do with economics, resources, technology and pollution.

The other point is that many of the problems blamed on overpopulation, have other factors such as corruption, oppression, etc. Some cases countries are just too weak in terms of might to contend, and end up being abused by stronger nations. Some nations are trapped in economic situations they can't overcome. If they had smaller populations, it would only make it harder for them to pay their debt.

In terms of pollution, there sure are a lot of irresponsible, or even criminal polluters out their dumping toxic waste on massive scales, purely out of greed and convenience. There is a lot that could be done to clean up environment without reducing the population.

this comment of yours,
"Cities are crowded, but there are still vast amounts of sparsely populated land. People are clustered together into areas where they can get jobs."

The sparsely populated lands are mostly hot deserts, or lands too poor to cultivate, or lands too cold most the year, or too plagued with mosquitos.
This comment on your part made me recall a Jesuit priest (Roman Catholic) on the TV commenting that "the world was not overpopulated". To prove his point he said, "Australia is mostly unpopulated. You can put in Australia the whole population of China and they would not be crowded." I was aghast with this comment. I would like to reply to him, "even in Antarctica this billion people would be a lot more spread out". Or as some jerk once told me, "I do not see any trouble with overpopulation, we still have the moon and the planets to colonize."
Then, the conclusion is simple, we have not problems with overpopulation, we have a lot of deserts and frozen tundra million square miles to send the excess of people. Moreover, as nearly 3/4 of the planet surface is water, we can build floating cities all over the oceans and saving all those people that can not find a room to live in deserts or Antarctica. Almost have the dry lands of the Earth are hot or frozen deserts.

John Galaor
.

 

[John Galaor]

We can even improve the trick of building floating cities all over the oceans. We can dwarf people with drugs to make them weight an average of 15 or 18 pounds. It would be easier to feed them and to give them drinking water. Houses to live would be a lot much smaller, and it would be easier to treat the excreta and all that. This way we can have not trillions people living, but quadrillions of people. Gawd would be very happy with the result of his famous advice, "grow and multiplied and conquer the whole earth".
John Galaor
.

 

[hamster143]

this comment of yours,
"Cities are crowded, but there are still vast amounts of sparsely populated land. People are clustered together into areas where they can get jobs."

The sparsely populated lands are mostly hot deserts, or lands too poor to cultivate, or lands too cold most the year, or too plagued with mosquitos.
This comment on your part made me recall a Jesuit priest (Roman Catholic) on the TV commenting that "the world was not overpopulated". To prove his point he said, "Australia is mostly unpopulated. You can put in Australia the whole population of China and they would not be crowded." I was aghast with this comment. I would like to reply to him, "even in Antarctica this billion people would be a lot more spread out". Or as some jerk once told me, "I do not see any trouble with overpopulation, we still have the moon and the planets to colonize."
Then, the conclusion is simple, we have not problems with overpopulation, we have a lot of deserts and frozen tundra million square miles to send the excess of people. Moreover, as nearly 3/4 of the planet surface is water, we can build floating cities all over the oceans and saving all those people that can not find a room to live in deserts or Antarctica. Almost have the dry lands of the Earth are hot or frozen deserts.

What is a reasonable population density for a modern city, the density where everyone has their private space, and room to walk around, and a nearby park, and all the waste can be processed and recycled in a sustainable way?

Manhattan has the population density of 27,000 per sq.km. And, contrary to public opinion, it's not all skyscrapers. Most skyscrapers are office buildings, people north of the 40th street tend to live in houses 10 stories tall at most. So we can exceed that. Several cities in India already do (though not in a healthy, sustainable way). Let's be conservative and shoot for 20,000 per sq.km.

7 billion divided by 20,000, that's 350,000 sq.km. of urban jungle. Approximately 0.25% of the total dry land on Earth, slightly smaller than Germany.

Now I want you to imagine a megacity the size of Germany, surrounded by 99.75% of the land surface in its pristine form. Dense forests where you could walk for two months without seeing the light of day. Bears and wolves. So many whales in the oceans that they represent a navigation hazard. Minimally invasive excursions from the megacity to all corners of the planet (feel free to hike & bike around, but no shooting of wild animals except for self defense).

Show me the overpopulation, please.

You'd probably object that 7 billion people will need a lot of food, minerals and electricity. I'll get to that next.

 

[hamster143]

Let's cover food now. With modern agricultural technologies, most grains can exceed 5 million calories per acre per year, potatoes can exceed 10, some fruit can go higher than that. We want to feed 7 billion people, 2000 calories per day or 730,000 calories per year. So we should be able to do that comfortably with one billion acres or 4,000,000 sq.km. of cropland. This is a bit more than what we spent on housing, but it's still less than 2% of total dry land, and we can share that land with native animals, to a degree.

But wait, you're not a vegetarian? Not a problem. We can get you some fish. Would be comfortable with 50 kg of fish per year? That's more than every developed nation in the world except Japan consumes. To do that, we'd need to convert about 2 million sq.km. of ocean surface (0.5% of total area) into fish farms, assuming that there's no commercial fishing and all farms are as primitive as possible, with no supplemental feeding. The use of intensive fish farming technologies could reduce that requirement further.

Next, electricity. The United States consume 1,500 watt per person. Multiply by two to be safe. Divide by the average output of a solar panel in a desert part of the United States. I get 120 sq.m. of solar panels per capita, or 840,000 sq.km. of solar panels: one tenth of the Sahara.

Sorry, I still don't see the overpopulation problem.

 

[John Galaor]

What is a reasonable population density for a modern city, the density where everyone has their private space, and room to walk around, and a nearby park, and all the waste can be processed and recycled in a sustainable way?

Manhattan has the population density of 27,000 per sq.km. And, contrary to public opinion, it's not all skyscrapers. Most skyscrapers are office buildings, people north of the 40th street tend to live in houses 10 stories tall at most. So we can exceed that. Several cities in India already do (though not in a healthy, sustainable way). Let's be conservative and shoot for 20,000 per sq.km.

7 billion divided by 20,000, that's 350,000 sq.km. of urban jungle. Approximately 0.25% of the total dry land on Earth, slightly smaller than Germany.

Now I want you to imagine a megacity the size of Germany, surrounded by 99.75% of the land surface in its pristine form. Dense forests where you could walk for two months without seeing the light of day. Bears and wolves. So many whales in the oceans that they represent a navigation hazard. Minimally invasive excursions from the megacity to all corners of the planet (feel free to hike & bike around, but no shooting of wild animals except for self defense).

Show me the overpopulation, please.

You'd probably object that 7 billion people will need a lot of food, minerals and electricity. I'll get to that next.

There is not any problem with population density in cities, provided we have enough energy to solve the problems involved.
Then problem is not the present problem, it is the future problem of overpopulation and the fact that people do not want to speak of it.

I imagine that feeding all the present people is a question, not of political will, but of having enough energy to run the machines to cultivate, harvest, store, and process and transport that food to the consumers. Then, as not all the nations have enough wealth to buy the machinery and the fuels necessary, this would result of the tragedy for those poor countries in a not distant future. Then, most western people do not feel to be obliged to feed those few billions of poors in the world. That is why I think this is a dramatic prospect. Are we obliged to feed two or three billion hungry people in the near future?

Then, to start with, I do not see the problem as a problem of having enough room. But we can ask ourselves... what is the purpose of a constant growth of the planet population? Is it, as my catholic priests were saying when I was child, that God was happy hearing all those millions of human voices singing his praises? It seems preposterous to think a god need to hear us praising him for being such a good god.

Then it is not a problem of density per se. It is a problem that it looks absurd that we cannot face this issue of overpopulation because it is a taboo.

But even, a modest growth like the average in this planet during the last 200 years, that is simple 0.9% a year. It can look as nothing.
The population of the world has multiplied in the last 2010 years by 30
this number is found dividing 7billion by 230 millions (the population of the planet in year 1 of cE.)

But if we take a calculator and do the numbers, In the last 2010 years,
1.009^2010=66 millions.

There is a great difference between 30 and 66 millions.
If this figure is multiplied by 230 millions that were living in year 1
it agave us, 230 millions by 66 millions is more than 15,000 trillion people.
and that is serious business...
for the firm lands of the planet are like simply 1.5(10^14) sq meters. That is...
15,000 trillions people is written as 1.5 (10^16)
Then dividing 1.5 (10^16) people by 1.5(10^14) sq meters
gives us 100 persons per sq. meter, or 100 million people per sq Km, or
39 million people per sq. mile.
1 sq mile is like 2.56 sq Km. [(1.6^2)=2.56]

Then, the trouble is that people, even educated people, look as if they do not understand elemental maths.

Then, when we try to imagine that natural sources of energy, like sunlight, or wind, could save our asses, in place of the exhaustion of fossil fuels...
We are not aware that to build all these infrastructures also consumes a lot of energy. Mostly coal and oil.

We are not willing to change our ways of consumption, to let out our love affair with cars.
We, the rich people, are wasting our precious resources, and the poor countries are breeding so fast, like they would never have any trouble to feed themselves.
Taken as a collective, human beings are not rational.

And take note that I did not mentioned the troubles of a warming climate, or the extinction of most animal species of the planet or the extinctions of fishes.
So, it is not a problem of putting people crowded in a huge city in the desert. It is not a problem of space. It is a logistic problem. It is a problem of energy. How to feed and give drinking water to so many, how to treat the refuse of excreta and others, like dead bodies, etc. How to irrigate more and more fields carrying water from thousands of miles to the desert lands, and so on.

John Galaor
.


John Galaor
.

 

[John Galaor]

Let's cover food now. With modern agricultural technologies, most grains can exceed 5 million calories per acre per year, potatoes can exceed 10, some fruit can go higher than that. We want to feed 7 billion people, 2000 calories per day or 730,000 calories per year. So we should be able to do that comfortably with one billion acres or 4,000,000 sq.km. of cropland. This is a bit more than what we spent on housing, but it's still less than 2% of total dry land, and we can share that land with native animals, to a degree.

But wait, you're not a vegetarian? Not a problem. We can get you some fish. Would be comfortable with 50 kg of fish per year? That's more than every developed nation in the world except Japan consumes. To do that, we'd need to convert about 2 million sq.km. of ocean surface (0.5% of total area) into fish farms, assuming that there's no commercial fishing and all farms are as primitive as possible, with no supplemental feeding. The use of intensive fish farming technologies could reduce that requirement further.

Next, electricity. The United States consume 1,500 watt per person. Multiply by two to be safe. Divide by the average output of a solar panel in a desert part of the United States. I get 120 sq.m. of solar panels per capita, or 840,000 sq.km. of solar panels: one tenth of the Sahara.

Sorry, I still don't see the overpopulation problem.

the problem of overpopulation is not a problem just now. It is a problem for the future.
You are considering the productivity of the best places of the planet to grow food. But this places are in short supply. There are some places in this planet that can feed a lot of people. The problem is the cost in energy. The most far away are the consumers the most energy is required to serve them. So, this gave us a problem.
Nobody is thinking that a place like Hong Kong or Singapore will have problems to buy food in the future. At present they are good exporting good to the rest of the planet.
But you can have a look a these present rates of growth in the planet. Look in this link,
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_pop_gro_rat-people-population-growth-rate

Look at this, for those who do not want to click on the link
# 1 * Maldives: 5.566%* 2008
# 2 * United Arab Emirates: 3.833%* 2008*
# 3 * Liberia: 3.661%* 2008*
# 4 * Uganda: 3.603%* 2008*
# 5 * Kuwait: 3.591%* 2008*
# 6 * Mayotte: 3.465%* 2008*
# 7 * Yemen: 3.46%* 2008
# 8 * Burundi: 3.443%* 2008
# 9 * Gaza Strip: 3.422%* 2008
# 10 * Congo, Democratic Republic of the: 3.236%* 2008*
# 11 * Ethiopia: 3.212%* 2008*
# 12 * Oman: 3.19%* 2008*
# 13 * Macau: 3.148%* 2008*
# 14 * São Tomé and Príncipe: 3.116%* 2008*
# 15 * Burkina Faso: 3.109%* 2008*
# 16 * Benin: 3.01%* 2008*
# 17 * Madagascar: 3.005%* 2008*
# 18 * Niger: 2.878%* 2008*
# 19 * Western Sahara: 2.868%* 2008*
# 20 * Mauritania: 2.852%* 2008*
# 21 * Somalia: 2.824%* 2008*
# 22 * Comoros: 2.803%* 2008*
# 23 * Rwanda: 2.779%* 2008*
# 24 * Kenya: 2.758%* 2008*
# 25 * Equatorial Guinea: 2.732%* 2008*
# 26 * Mali: 2.725%* 2008*
# 27 * Gambia, The: 2.724%* 2008*
# 28 * Togo: 2.717%* 2008*
# 29 * Congo, Republic of the: 2.696%* 2008*
# 30 * Turks and Caicos Islands: 2.644%* 2008*
# 31 * Eritrea: 2.631%* 2008*
# 32 * Afghanistan: 2.626%* 2008*
# 33 * Senegal: 2.58%* 2008*
# 34 * Iraq: 2.562%* 2008*
# 35 * Haiti: 2.493%* 2008*

Yours
John Galaor
.

 

[jreelawg]

this comment of yours,
"Cities are crowded, but there are still vast amounts of sparsely populated land. People are clustered together into areas where they can get jobs."

The sparsely populated lands are mostly hot deserts, or lands too poor to cultivate, or lands too cold most the year, or too plagued with mosquitos.
This comment on your part made me recall a Jesuit priest (Roman Catholic) on the TV commenting that "the world was not overpopulated". To prove his point he said, "Australia is mostly unpopulated. You can put in Australia the whole population of China and they would not be crowded." I was aghast with this comment. I would like to reply to him, "even in Antarctica this billion people would be a lot more spread out". Or as some jerk once told me, "I do not see any trouble with overpopulation, we still have the moon and the planets to colonize."
Then, the conclusion is simple, we have not problems with overpopulation, we have a lot of deserts and frozen tundra million square miles to send the excess of people. Moreover, as nearly 3/4 of the planet surface is water, we can build floating cities all over the oceans and saving all those people that can not find a room to live in deserts or Antarctica. Almost have the dry lands of the Earth are hot or frozen deserts.

John Galaor
.

Sorry, but your way wrong, you live in a bubble. And I didn't say overpopulation wasn't a problem, only that space isn't even close to being an issue at all.

 

[John Galaor]

Sorry, but your way wrong, you live in a bubble. And I didn't say overpopulation wasn't a problem, only that space isn't even close to being an issue at all.

sorry, man. I agree, space is not a problem. Several orders of magnitude before room to live would be a problem, we will have to meet with the problem of energy. To cultivate food intensively and to transport to all consumers around the world would be a huge challenge in the near future.

Did you see the arguments of Jared Diamond in his book "Collapse"? I share his idea.
The leaders of society are very conservative and their way is not planning ahead, for several decades or so. Then, the economy of societies is so delicate, that and sudden change would produce a shock and great turmoils. People in general hate the idea of consuming less energy than last year. To consume more is all right, but not to consume less.

Then, the society that was living in Greenlandin in the 14 Century, by example, were consuming energy, "firewood" beyond the sustainable means of the land. They totally deforested the land in some decades. Trees grow very slow in those latitudes. You cannot not even see any tree or bush in Iceland nowadays. Then, Greenland was covered of trees in its southern part until the arrival of the colonists. .
For unknown reasons this people were not eating fish, or seals, like the Inuits, but only some meat from hunting caribou, and the products of some dwarf cows.
To feed those cows was a terrible nightmare, for the season for growing grass was too short. Then the cows had to graze and a part of the land would be used to harvets hay for the winter.
Sometimes, the start of good weather was much in delay and they had to feed the cows with seaweed. They had to force their cows to eat seaweed pushing it in their mouths by hand, for the cows did not like the taste of seaweeds.

Many cows died of starvation. Then, the firewood needed was not only for cooking, but to boil water to wash the vessels to produce the cheese. Then, they were getting very short of iron and had to produce charcoal to made new iron out of peat mud, that is a poor mineral. Then metallurgy, was also a greedy consumer of firewood to make charcoal. We need five pound of firewood to get a pound of charcoal.
In the end they all died all of starvation in the 15 century, for the weather was foul and the ships from Norway were not arriving any more. They were too poor and the risk to sail so far north were much greater with the sea full of icebergs in the summer.

The case of Ester Island is also well known. There had been a number of videos talking about this. The case is that to carry this huge statutes from the volcano to the sides of the shore, they needed a lot of wood. They were cutting all the trees with the purpose of making rails to push the moais to their place in the shore. They were not only cutting the trees to make rails, but also other class of trees, to take their bark and make ropes for pulling on the gigantic moais over the rails, and to tie the rails with sleepers, to maintain the rails in place.

Other classic collapse could be the Maya civilization.

It is not that the leaders would not see the troubles ahead. But to acknowledge these troubles meant to accept they were wrong. Some people would had probably foreseen the problems ahead.
Well, leaders are stubborn enough to remain in power till the collapse arrives. It in the character of the leaders not to give up. To give up means to loose their power. Then, unless the rest of the dominant class would topple he main leader down, he would persevere till the dooms-day.

Then, when leaders are united, they stay in command till it is too late to solve the problems of a society.
This what will happen to us with the exhaustion of fossil fuels.

The reason in part is fear of people itself. When they would start to push the consumption of energy down, people would rebel or make a revolution. They could not believe in the bad news until is too late.

Then, all this wonderful technological civilization we are presently enjoying would tumble down like a house of cards.

Nobody can believe such a aghast prediction. It is the course of Casandra.
Educated people is very happy speculating about going to Mars or to asteroids to mine minerals, or about how to travel through the nearest stars of our Galaxy.
How can be someone be as stupid as being preaching we have such a nonsense problem as an overpopulation ahead? How can we believe that in a few decades we would have a problem with exhausting oil? We have not finished paying for our SUV 4 wheeler yet!

John Galaor
.

 

[mheslep]

Just happened across this remarkable population demographic on Norway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Basic_demographics_of_Norway_1900_2000.PNG

The percentage of those born there was by 2000 just above the percentage of immigrants, i.e. a little under half. As of now immigration has likely surpassed native births. A significant percentage of some of the native births are likely already from recent immigrants, if the same immigrant trends observed elsewhere hold. This has at least two consequences:
o Take away immigration and in a couple generations Norway would have about the same population as Antarctica.
o In short order Norwegians would have little more than geography in common with their ancestors.

 

[jreelawg]

What measures in terms of population control would you take to reduce immigration and protect ethnic purity? Would you have all people who have an incentive to emigrate be removed from the world population?

 

[mheslep]

What measures in terms of population control would you take to reduce immigration and protect ethnic purity? Would you have all people who have an incentive to emigrate be removed from the world population?

Please don't troll. My family immigrated to my country as well.

 

[Evo]

Sorry, but your way wrong, you live in a bubble. And I didn't say overpopulation wasn't a problem, only that space isn't even close to being an issue at all.

Space, what are you considering livable space? Space for food production, space that is unlivable. Places for people to work, etc.. Please the post the breakdowns of these from a scientific study.

Then you can exoplain, of the livable space and the space for growing, maufacturing, transportaion, etc... how you plan to divide this up. Are you going to take land away from the rightful owners? Are you going to have a world police confiscate land and divide it up, then move people?

I'm curious how you invision space not being a problem.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Space, what are you considering livable space? Space for food production, space that is unlivable. Places for people to work, etc.. Please the post the breakdowns of these from a scientific study.

Then you can exoplain, of the livable space and the space for growing, maufacturing, transportaion, etc... how you plan to divide this up. Are you going to take land away from the rightful owners? Are you going to have a world police confiscate land and divide it up, then move people?

Posts #165-#166 discuss this in a reasonable amount of detail. (Of course that's hamster143, not jreelawg.)

 

[Evo]

Posts #165-#166 discuss this in a reasonable amount of detail. (Of course that's hamster143, not jreelawg.)

No, that doesn't cover it, but I appreciate you looking.

 

[jreelawg]

Space, what are you considering livable space? Space for food production, space that is unlivable. Places for people to work, etc.. Please the post the breakdowns of these from a scientific study.

Then you can exoplain, of the livable space and the space for growing, maufacturing, transportaion, etc... how you plan to divide this up. Are you going to take land away from the rightful owners? Are you going to have a world police confiscate land and divide it up, then move people?

I'm curious how you invision space not being a problem.

I'm curious how you envision space to be a problem? If you read what I said, I said space literally is not the problem, the problems are resources, economics, and pollution. Therefore, as you ask, "places for people to work, etc", you are essentially making the same point I was making.

 

[jreelawg]

Then you can exoplain, of the livable space and the space for growing, maufacturing, transportaion, etc... how you plan to divide this up. Are you going to take land away from the rightful owners? Are you going to have a world police confiscate land and divide it up, then move people?

So if 10 people collectively owned the entire planet, and only designated enough land for farming and manufacturing to support 10000 people, would it mean than there isn't enough space for 15,000?

 

[Evo]

I'm curious how you envision space to be a problem? If you read what I said, I said space literally is not the problem, the problems are resources, economics, and pollution. Therefore, as you ask, "places for people to work, etc", you are essentially making the same point I was making.

No, space is a problem because you CAN'T move natural resources. Do you agree?

 

[jreelawg]

No, space is a problem because you CAN'T move natural resources. Do you agree?

Without talking about specific examples it is hard to consider what you can or can't do. Sometimes the solutions aren't pursued because of economic reasons. It doesn't help that many people are so ignorant or selfish that they often refuse to make any long term investments in our future.

 

[Evo]

Without talking about specific examples it is hard to consider what you can or can't do. Sometimes the solutions aren't pursued because of economic reasons. It doesn't help that many people are so ignorant or selfish that they often refuse to make any long term investments in our future.

You claim that space isn't an issue. I need to see some proof of that, please.

 

[jreelawg]

You claim that space isn't an issue. I need to see some proof of that, please.

And you claim it is. I don't really see how you can argue it is in the context I have given. Your effort is only going to be futile, unless you resort to misrepresenting what I actually have said, which I think you already have done.

And now you claim natural resources can't be moved. Which is kind of vague and at face value untrue.

 

[Evo]

And you claim it is. I don't really see how you can argue it is in the context I have given. Your effort is only going to be futile, unless you resort to misrepresenting what I actually have said, which I think you already have done.

And now you claim natural resources can't be moved. Which is kind of vague and at face value untrue.

Let me put it to you this way. You said space is not an issue. That requires you to back your statement up with manistream peer reviewed sources. Either provide the sources that back you up or retract your statement.

That is a rule here, it is not a personal request. You said

And I didn't say overpopulation wasn't a problem, only that space isn't even close to being an issue at all.

You said that, not me.

Are you retracting your statement? If not, please, by all means provide the required proof. If things like water and climate and arable land are not issues based on available space I'd be happy to see it.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I hate to do this, but...

No, space is a problem because you CAN'T move natural resources. Do you agree?

Mainstream peer reviewed sources, please?

 

[Evo]

I hate to do this, but...



Mainstream peer reviewed sources, please?

My post is part of my request for sources from jreelag, which he has yet to furnish. The onus is on him at this point. Instead of furnishing a source, he's trying to argue his way out of it.

Are you suggesting I should have just restricted him from posting until the required sources were furnished? That can be done also. I thought it was nicer to allow him a chance to explain himself.

 

[jreelawg]

Let me put it to you this way. You said space is not an issue. That requires you to back your statement up with manistream peer reviewed sources. Either provide the sources that back you up or retract your statement.

That is a rule here, it is not a personal request. You said You said that, not me.

Are you retracting your statement? If not, please, by all means provide the required proof. If things like water and climate and arable land are not issues based on available space I'd be happy to see it.

I thought is was kind of clear what I meant if you read my post prior to that one, in which I said that it's not a matter of space, but resources etc. which obviously includes water.

You catch me on a one line response and take it out of context, and now want me to back up a claim in a context separate from which I made it in with a mainstream paper. It's clear that your attempting to abuse your mentor status to gain the upper hand.

Should I take your claim that natural resources can't be moved seriously, and ask for you to substantiate it, or would that be ridiculous? Should I point out that water is shipped all over the world, as well as are minerals, lumber, food, etc, just to capitalize on a gotcha out of context one liner?

 

[jreelawg]

My post is part of my request for sources from jreelag, which he has yet to furnish. The onus is on him at this point. Instead of furnishing a source, he's trying to argue his way out of it.

Are you suggesting I should have just restricted him from posting until the required sources were furnished?

And my post was a response to others who have gone on about should we make floating cities, and build cities in antarctica to overcome the crowdedness of Earth, which were by the way rediculous and unsubstantiated. I think my point that it's not space but resources that we are worried about is valid don't you? What's the point in building a city in space, for example, if you don't have the resources.

I would expect that the claim that space irrespective of resources is running out, and that the Earth is crowded need to be addressed. It's like if someone wanted me to provide a peer reviewed paper proving that big foot didn't exist.

 

[Evo]

And my post was a response to others who have gone on about should we make floating cities, and build cities in antarctica to overcome the crowdedness of Earth, which were by the way rediculous and unsubstantiated. I think my point that it's not space but resources that we are worried about is valid don't you? What's the point in building a city in space, for example, if you don't have the resources.

I agree those are ridiculous. That's why I asked for sources of how this could be done in an overpopulated world. What are the statistics? What is the plan? Are we going to place people in the Gobi desert? How many, what would it take to keep them alive? I imagine the assumuption is that people have to be moved there because they can't be supported where the natural resources are. If the natural resources are maxed out, where are additional resources going to come from for these additional people in the desert? If we are saying that space is a problem because space without resources isn't usable space. Then we do agree.

 

[jreelawg]

That's why I asked for sources of how this could be done in an overpopulated world. What are the statistics? What is the plan? Are we going to place people in the Gobi desert? How many, what would it take to keep them alive? I imagine the assumuption is that people have to be moved there because they can't be supported where the natural resources are. If the nautural reources are maxed out, where are additional resources going to come from for these additional people in the desert? If you know something the rest of us don't, we need to see it.

I think you and I are essentially in agreement.

I do know that where people can live generally revolves around access to fresh water. If we had enough energy we could desalinate sea water. But then you might have more pollution issues. It might not be cost effective enough, and water doesn't run up hill. Bottom line is that it is better to start building and planning for the future instead of waiting with our hands in our pocket looking the other way. and part of that has to do with economics. The richest country in the world is now in the position where many of us claim we can't afford to protect our environment. Our short term solutions are often the causes of our long term problems.

 

[Evo]

I think you and I are essentially in agreement.

I do know that where people can live generally revolves around access to fresh water. If we had enough energy we could desalinate sea water. But then you might have more pollution issues. It might not be cost effective enough, and water doesn't run up hill. Bottom line is that it is better to start building and planning for the future instead of waiting with our hands in our pocket looking the other way. and part of that has to do with economics. The richest country in the world is now in the position where many of us claim we can't afford to protect our environment. Our short term solutions are often the causes of our long term problems.

Sounds like we have the same understanding. Carry on.

 

[John Galaor]

Just happened across this remarkable population demographic on Norway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Basic_demographics_of_Norway_1900_2000.PNG

The percentage of those born there was by 2000 just above the percentage of immigrants, i.e. a little under half. As of now immigration has likely surpassed native births. A significant percentage of some of the native births are likely already from recent immigrants, if the same immigrant trends observed elsewhere hold. This has at least two consequences:
o Take away immigration and in a couple generations Norway would have about the same population as Antarctica.
o In short order Norwegians would have little more than geography in common with their ancestors.

this you are telling is a problem, simply, because the pressure of overpopulation in poor countries. Westerners have not this problem, but the opposite. We are liable to being overrun by immigrants. I a not calling of ethnic purity but of troubles and in the future with immigrants, when they would begin to bred like in Cameroon or some Latino America or near Eastern countries.
To avoid these troubles, they would have to sterilize all immigrant women that gave birth to more than three children. Since the third or fourth child, the women would had to be sterilized.
John Galaor
.

 

[John Galaor]

to message 179
<<No, space is a problem because you CAN'T move natural resources. Do you agree?>>

Space is a problem because we need a lot of energy to carry water and food, to far away places. We need energy to build cities and that to process refuse water. To create new machinery, fuels to make them run, etc.
We need a lot of energy to build the infrastructure to collect sun and wind energy, we need energy to search fort new sources of energy, only only oil and coal, but underground heat, etc.
The poor countries, had to spend most of his energy in feeding more and more mouths each year. While the most developed nations, had progressed in part because they had less population growth.
When one considers that southern European nations, or even Muslim nations of from the Near East, were once more civilized than central and north Europe lands, the explanation that comes to my mind is natural resources. These basically were rainfall, arable land, and wood lands. While these southern nations were growing in population their resources were not; in fact woodlands were diminishing, and the excess grazing of sheep and goats made the resurrection of former wooded lands impossible. Then, due to the excess of animal grazing, and the virtual extermination of forest land, the countries were suffering more or erosion, and also they were warming. Then they got less rain for there were less woodlands. In a climate of scarce rains, forest grow very slowly. Also occurs in very cold lands, but those are much less populated.
Some centuries ago, resources meant suitable arable lands, enough rainfall and plenty of forest. This changed with the arrival of fossil fuels.
This commentaries are not for you Evo, they are general, for the individuals who do not think we have a problem with overpopulation in the near future.
John Galaor

 

[John Galaor]

I thought is was kind of clear what I meant if you read my post prior to that one, in which I said that it's not a matter of space, but resources etc. which obviously includes water.

You catch me on a one line response and take it out of context, and now want me to back up a claim in a context separate from which I made it in with a mainstream paper. It's clear that your attempting to abuse your mentor status to gain the upper hand.

Should I take your claim that natural resources can't be moved seriously, and ask for you to substantiate it, or would that be ridiculous? Should I point out that water is shipped all over the world, as well as are minerals, lumber, food, etc, just to capitalize on a gotcha out of context one liner?

At present, some resources are carried from a part of the planet to another. It takes energy to do so. We are carrying oil and coal from a part of the planet to another. Four centuries ago, Venetians were sailing to Turkey with shiploads of timber, in exchange for species. It was a good business to both, for Turkey was poor in woodlands.

But we could not extrapolate that we can be carrying those valuable cargoes of energy for ever, for they would get exhausted sooner or later, while the population of poor countries keep growing. The question is... have we enough time to change to other ways or producing or collecting energy? Is a good thing that the population of the planet continue growing while we are not sure we would be able to solve the future problems with energy?

Everything we are consuming are related to energy. And the solar energy is only a fraction of the total energy we have from food. Without machines and fertilizers, and artificial irrigation, we would produce only a small fraction of the actual numbers.
Perhaps, we would have only about a fifth of it, or a seventh part of it.
If we come back to year 1,800, the planet had a population of just a billion people.
But we had not machinery them, and the shipping of grain was mostly done by sailing ships. Most populations were feeding themselves with the food produced where they were living. There was not any significant carrying of foods farther than a hundred miles. Most of the food was not carried farther than twenty or forty miles.
John Galaor
.

 

[John Galaor]

And my post was a response to others who have gone on about should we make floating cities, and build cities in antarctica to overcome the crowdedness of Earth, which were by the way rediculous and unsubstantiated. I think my point that it's not space but resources that we are worried about is valid don't you? What's the point in building a city in space, for example, if you don't have the resources.

I would expect that the claim that space irrespective of resources is running out, and that the Earth is crowded need to be addressed. It's like if someone wanted me to provide a peer reviewed paper proving that big foot didn't exist.

my argument about building floating cities on the seas and the Antarctica was a replied to people that was not alarmed by the present population growth. Some of them told me that a growth as small as 0.9% a year ( the average growth in the last 200 years for the planet population) was not a great rate of growth.
Then, to prove them wrong I calculated what would mean this "small" growth over a span of 2,000 years. While is estimated that population in year 1 was 230 million people, for the planet, that means only a multiplication by 30 of the planet population in the last 2,000 years. That means an average growth of 1.7 per thousand a year, nor 9 per thousand.
then, if we take the modest growth of 9 per thousand, as a rate of growth,
1.009^2000=60 million. A multiplication by 60 million, not by 30
then, if we take the rate of growth of most poor nations, we can see there is a problem on the making. We not not need a doctorate in Maths to see this.
take a growth of 2.5% like any poor country, like Haiti or other.
How much time would it take to multiply by 60 million? Let's calculate.
log 6 (10^7)/log 1.025=725.3 years
Then if Haiti has a present population of 10 millions you only need to multiply it by 60 millions and you have pretty number. 1 million by million makes a trillion.
then 10 by 60 is 600 that is 600 trillion people, in scientific notation 6 (10^14)
this number is higher than the number sq. meters of solid surface of the Earth that is approximately 1.5 (10^14) sq m.
Then the growth can not go forever unchecked or we are going to have serious problems. It is not that we have a present a serious problem. We are boiling a problem into the future. We are concocting a problem of population for the near future.
John Galaor
.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Then the growth can not go forever unchecked

I think it's a fallacy to suggest that it would! In fact I often see claims to that effect ("if we continue to grow at X% per year, we'll have Y billion people by year Z") and can't help but wonder.

(Not suggesting that *you* fall prey to this fallacy, just pointing it out as relevant.)

 

[mheslep]

[...]
To avoid these troubles, they would have to sterilize all immigrant women that gave birth to more than three children. Since the third or fourth child, the women would had to be sterilized.
John Galaor
.

Can't you imagine some other solution than forced sterilization off all immigrants? (and just the women?) How about controlling the borders and limiting the rate of immigration, or taking other cultural steps to speed integration of immigrants into existing society, in which the norm is a visibly much lower birth rate?

 

[John Galaor]

I think it's a fallacy to suggest that it would! In fact I often see claims to that effect ("if we continue to grow at X% per year, we'll have Y billion people by year Z") and can't help but wonder.

(Not suggesting that *you* fall prey to this fallacy, just pointing it out as relevant.)

of course, I do not believe that any growth whatever could be sustainable for a long time. The reason could be the problems it cause. But must educated people that do not even blink when hearing of overpopulation of animals in Reserves. But we feel a sort of rejection when this idea is applied to humans. That's why is considered a taboo to debate overpopulation of humans in this planet.

We have heard so many fables of the loving Nature, that give us all we need. People cannot imagine that Nature would put some obstacles to our present growth and development.
We believe also in the might of our technology. We have such wonderful technology that we would solve any problems we would meet in the future. Even if we keep growing at this crazy rate during many more decades.
John Galaor
.

 

[John Galaor]

Can't you imagine some other solution than forced sterilization off all immigrants? (and just the women?) How about controlling the borders and limiting the rate of immigration, or taking other cultural steps to speed integration of immigrants into existing society, in which the norm is a visibly much lower birth rate?

it would be a nice thing if we could do that. Even sterilization, forced or voluntary, is rather more than problematic to implement.
It is a fact, that most immigrants felt a resentment against the country that received them in the first way. This is specially true for second and third regeneration immigrants. I mean, the sons and grand children of immigrants. It can be caused in part for a minority of natives that show some scorn at them. But must probable it happens because, having on average very large families they do not improve as fast as they want. And they could not accept the idea that this is mainly caused by having to many children, en relatives harbored at their homes.

So, this feeling of hate towards the host country and their civil culture is shown very openly among them. Many of the polls done on immigrants showed this scorn for the country that had harbored their grand parents.
Also a religion of hate had done very well their good part to develop such a hate.
The results is that the more aggressive this children and grandchildren of immigrants become, the more scorn and fear would instill in the natives; the the natives, would throw back at immigrant children all this scorn and hate.

Then, it is very easy to say, we can educate them in this or that. It is very difficult to educate people, for other controllers among them, would do a contra-education.

To speed integration. It is very easy to propose integration. Quite a different task is to implement this integration.

As for the control of borders... It is not an easy task either. You cannot control all the clandestine networks that smuggle people into the land.
And unless you build a sort of police state of cruel performance and meticulous controls you would not stop the immigrant community of hiding among them the new arrivals. In very extreme, nasty and dramatic, circumstances, there is a possibility to stop both. This police state would transmute the hate into extreme fear, and the disregard of the native authority, into acceptance. Such a police state could had power to stop the more fanatic mullahs spreading hate among them, against the natives of the host country. A serious "thought police" would stop all sort of hate propaganda, and so on. But this are nasty procedures that provokes disgust in us, for we love democracy and freedom.
Then, democracy and freedom would work against us as well. It is only a theory of mine.
This problem of the immigrant hating us, is very difficult solve by freedom and democracy. Even if they were to earn the same salaries as us, they would be in worse state than we are, because they have a tendency to have large families.

John Galaor
.

 

[mheslep]

Looks like these countries are on track to cease to exist as we know them now within a couple generations, all with birth rates of 1.5 or below:

Greece (1.5)
Czech R.
Russian Federation
Switzerland
Lithuania
Spain
Latvia
Italy
Austria
Poland
Germany
Portugal
Hungary
Romania
Japan (1.34)
S. Korea (1.19)

http://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...ZE:PRT:ROM:POL:LVA:AUT:LIE:LTU&hl=en&dl=en_US

 

[Newai]

Looks like these countries are on track to cease to exist as we know them now within a couple generations, all with birth rates of 1.5 or below:

Greece (1.5)
Czech R.
Russian Federation
Switzerland
Lithuania
Spain
Latvia
Italy
Austria
Poland
Germany
Portugal
Hungary
Romania
Japan (1.34)
S. Korea (1.19)

http://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...ZE:PRT:ROM:POL:LVA:AUT:LIE:LTU&hl=en&dl=en_US

Might need to adjust for immigration, if any.