Is Overpopulation an Important Issue? Examining Solutions

[mheslep]

Here is one way how communities can overcome a severe crisis in resources. Cuba in the early nineties went to a severe crisis because of 80% of their foreign trading with the former east-european countries being lost within a couple of years. This video is about how they solved their problems.

?v=M5o9wJdwYzc

(insert the youtube.com url before, i can't post a link atm)

Robheused, welcome to PF. Couple questions: 1) Could *you* summarize here the response to Cuba's resource limitations? 2) On what basis is the organization "Community Solutions", the maker of that video, credible? Is it possible CS is a propaganda outlet for the Castro regime?

 

[benny61]

Unless we adopt a Chinese attitude there is no way to legally or ethically control the entire worlds population. Tried reading through these 12 pages here, but I think the topicn has gone slightly array.

 

[mheslep]

Unless we adopt a Chinese attitude there is no way to legally or ethically control the entire worlds population. Tried reading through these 12 pages here, but I think the topicn has gone slightly array.

What Chinese 'attitude'? The Chinese government does employ forced control of reproduction. As for whether force is required (much less morally acceptable), see the fertility rate in these countries:
http://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...ZE:PRT:ROM:POL:LVA:AUT:LIE:LTU&hl=en&dl=en_US

 

[mheslep]

Thanks.

As to your question:

1. Summary of response to resource limitations

Well a lot of things needed to be done to replace almost 80% of foreign trade in just a few years, like:

* diversification of all foreign trade relations, esp. focusing on trade partners in latin america.
* exploration and production of domestic oil fields
* replacing tractors with oxes, fertilizers with bio-fertilizers, urban gardening, etc.
* organizing repair and replacements for equipment for which there were no more trading partners.
* a lot of improvising
etc.

Thanks.

2. Why is community solutions (maker of the movie) credible?

On what basis you think they may not?

Cuba does not have a free press, and punishes residents for speaking critically of the government. That does not necessarily mean this movie is misleading, but I am more skeptical as a consequence.

Or, is any movie depicting Cuba outside of the framework of the usual ant-communism by definition suspicious of "collaboration with the Castro regime"?

If for a moment we grant Cuba is often cast in an undeserved stereotype, that does not also mean a non-stereotypical message is accurate either.

Further, the experience the Cubans have had with such a crisis, although it might bring about the idea that other countries could learn something from it, is in no way comparable with what the rest of the world is going to experience when resource limits constrain all kinds of resources and economic activities.

*Why* is Cuba's situation not comparable with the rest of the world? The movie does not address that question, *the* question to my mind, satisfactorily. Other countries have had their primary foreign oil supplies cut off, including the US, without nearly starving the population.

 

[aquitaine]

Further, the experience the Cubans have had with such a crisis, although it might bring about the idea that other countries could learn something from it, is in no way comparable with what the rest of the world is going to experience when resource limits constrain all kinds of resources and economic activities. In fact, let's hope not, because if the western world would need to go through a resource scarcity in which near to 80% off all trades drop down to zero in a couple of years, I would assume all hell would break loose.

Actually the Cuban experience proves absolutly nothing. Cuba's situation was entirely political, a long standing embargo from the US combined with the sudden collapse of their only benefactor prompted the crisis. If anything this is a lesson in how not to manage a geo-political crisis.

And another thing, the Peak Oil "crisis" isn't here. There's still huge quantities of oil that haven't been touched in the South China and in the Arctic. Even when Peak Oil finally happens, it's not like all the oil we use will suddenly vanish the next day. Beware the doom mongering that surrounds this topic.

 

[Astronuc]

Coincidentally, the US Agency for International Development has a program from yesterday through tomorrow to discuss various issues related to the US and the global economy.

https://usaid.crowdhall.com/ (this link may be temporary)

Folks can pose questions. One will recognize familiar names among the panelists.

 

[mheslep]

...
What do you think is inaccurate about the movie?

Aside from the film producer's repeated acceptance of annoying Cuban government platitudes like the "special period", the film omits several facts that are directly relevant to the theme of the film, and misleads in conclusions drawn.

1. The film points out that transportation ground to a halt after the fall of the USSR due to the large use of fuel by its existing fleet and farm equipment, and attributes this problem not to the type of transportation equipment but to the plight of fossil fuel powered vehicles in general. Yet any modern visitor to Cuba is immediately struck by the time warp of 1950s era cars and buses running on the streets, meaning the Cuban fleet uses three, even four times more fuel per mile than the best modern vehicles, with similar ratios in air emissions. I suspect the same is true between the Cuban tractor and a modern John Deere.

2. The film attributes the plight of Cuban agriculture to a straw man caricature of modern agriculture that according to the film has severely damaged Cuban soils. Yet it is known that in ~1970 as part of a central plan Castro commandeered an estimated one million people in a disastrous slash and burn attempt to make Cuba into a one crop sugar cane power house. The impacts of such an attempt on the soil I expect were still relevant at the time of the collapse of the USSR.

There are others, enough for now.

Because Cuba was highly dependend on a small number of foreign trade partners, and that situation was due to the world situation, the cold war (the US embargo put on Cuba after the Cuban revolution), and most of the world was not affected economically by the fall of socialist countries as Cuba, perhaps only the DPRK can be mentioned as having had comparable (or even worse: mass starvation!) consequences due to that.

Circular answer. Yes Cuba was dependent on the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries. The question is why? Canada and Mexico are the 2nd and 3rd largest producers of oil and gas in the W. hemisphere. Canada and Mexico have no embargo with Cuba. Consider why Cuba was not able to obtain adequate fuel from Canada. Again Cuba is not singular in its loss of foreign fuel supplies. In the 73 mid east oil embargo Europe and Japan were particularly dependent on mid east oil/gas. Their economies also slowed significantly as a consequence but no where near the point of starvation as reported in the film about Cuba.

The primary fault with the film IMO is it completely omits the responsibility of Cuba's political environment and central planning over the years, now laying the blame instead on nebulous modern technology, industry, agriculture, and fossil fuels, with some smiling Mariachi bands in the background to make the tale appealing.

 

[mheslep]

Recognize that the fertility rates for most of the world's largest countries (by population) have already fallen to near or below the replacement rate, including China. India is on tract to fall below replacement in the next ten years. This leaves Nigeria and Pakistan as the explosive growth centers, requiring attention. Some major countries like Japan and S. Korea have a combination of extreme low birth rates and low immigration meaning that, should the trend continue, within several generations time they won't exist in anything more than geographic terms.

Update on US figures:

CDC just released its 2011 US birth rate / fertility rate report. CDC states the 2011 US rate was the lowest ever reported. General fertility rate 62/1000 women, total fertility rate 1.89 (the metric used by the World Bank in the links above).

 

[lisab]

Update on US figures:

CDC just released its 2011 US birth rate / fertility rate report. CDC states the 2011 US rate was the lowest ever reported. General fertility rate 62/1000 women, total fertility rate 1.89 (the metric used by the World Bank in the links above).

Wow, interesting. I wonder if there will be a baby boom as the economy recovers, to fill the pent-up demand.

Demand for babies...?! Well you know what I mean.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Wow, interesting. I wonder if there will be a baby boom as the economy recovers, to fill the pent-up demand.

Demand for babies...?! Well you know what I mean.

Wouldn't count on it. I doubt it'll rise above 2.0. This is encouraging news, btw. A cursory glance at TFRs throughout the world show a pretty solid correlation between education and sane population growth levels. The problem of the future (think in fifty years when China goes below a billion people) will be underpopulation, not overpopulation. Mark my words.

 

[mheslep]

A more immediate problem will likely be an inversion of the age demographic, where typical family groups include a total of four grandparents, two parents, and one child.

 

[Evo]

World overpopulation continues to be a serious, growing (no pun intended) problem.

That's an optimistic scenario, one that assumes the worldwide average birthrate, now 2.5 children per woman, will decline to 2.1.

If birthrates stay where they are, the population is expected to reach 11 billion by midcentury — akin to adding three Chinas.

Under either forecast, scientists say, living conditions are likely to be bleak for much of humanity. Water, food and arable land will be more scarce, cities more crowded and hunger more widespread.

On a planet with 11 billion people, however, all those problems will be worse.

The outcome hinges on the cumulative decisions of hundreds of millions of young people around the globe.

The relentless growth in population might seem paradoxical given that the world's average birthrate has been slowly falling for decades. Humanity's numbers continue to climb because of what scientists call population momentum.

So many people are now in their prime reproductive years — the result of unchecked fertility in decades past, coupled with reduced child mortality — that even modest rates of childbearing yield huge increases.

"We're still adding more than 70 million people to the planet every year — which we have been doing since the 1970s," said John Bongaarts, a leading demographer and vice president of the nonprofit Population Council in New York. "We're still in the steep part of the curve."

Think of population growth as a speeding train. When the engineer applies the brakes, the train doesn't stop immediately. Momentum propels it forward a considerable distance before it finally comes to a halt.

U.N. demographers once believed the train would stop around 2075. Now they say world population will continue growing into the next century.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...on-matters1-20120722-html,0,7213271.htmlstory

 

[Angry Citizen]

World overpopulation continues to be a serious, growing (no pun intended) problem.



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...on-matters1-20120722-html,0,7213271.htmlstory

Most of this growth is coming from Africa, India, and the Middle East. Of the three, India is the most interesting. Its population is not educated, but education programs are effective and will work quite well at reducing their growth rate in the coming decades. But also its death rate is not very high, at least as compared to the Middle East and especially Africa. I suspect India will overtake China in population within the next few decades.

If the Arab Spring pans out, expect to see a lower Arab growth rate as well.

It sounds cold, but continued instability and growing desertification will likely keep the African population from exploding for a long time.

The nightmare scenario is not likely to happen by my estimation.

 

[Evo]

Most of this growth is coming from Africa, India, and the Middle East. Of the three, India is the most interesting. Its population is not educated, but education programs are effective and will work quite well at reducing their growth rate in the coming decades. But also its death rate is not very high, at least as compared to the Middle East and especially Africa. I suspect India will overtake China in population within the next few decades.

If the Arab Spring pans out, expect to see a lower Arab growth rate as well.

It sounds cold, but continued instability and growing desertification will likely keep the African population from exploding for a long time.

The nightmare scenario is not likely to happen by my estimation.

The problem seems to be with emmigration into other countries, IIRC.

 

[mheslep]

Most of this growth is coming from Africa, India, and the Middle East. ...

Most of the global population *growth* is coming from China and India, for now. The primary places where the *rate* of population growth is still strongly positive include Africa, especially Nigeria, the Middle East, and Pakistan.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Most of the global population *growth* is coming from China and India, for now.

Don't count on China exhibiting growth for long. They've essentially neutered themselves (no pun intended) with the one-child policy, especially with the lopsided m/f ratio. Their population is going to be, eh, problematic in a few decades. That's also one reason why I'm not jumping on the "Superpower China" bandwagon like many other people. Their economy is going to be so focused on providing for the security of the elderly that their workforce won't be able to do much else. Think the American "Baby Boomer" problem but about five times larger.

 

[OmCheeto]

A more immediate problem will likely be an inversion of the age demographic, where typical family groups include a total of four grandparents, two parents, and one child.

Unless of course, we go back to the good old days where people worked till they died.

employment to population ratio. 65 and older males​

http://demog.berkeley.edu/~andrew/1918/figure2.html
Year Male Female
1948 64.6 69.9

The graph and statistic make it look like nearly half of the men did work until they died back in '48.

And it does appear we are trending back, only this time

employment to population ratio. 65 and older females​

the ladies appear to be coming along for the ride.

hmm... It would probably take grandpa, grandma, mom, and dad all working to pay for daycare for that one kid... :grumpy: