Population control

[Syph]

The green issue that never gets any press at all is the issue of overpopulation. It is an endemic problem due to the amount of people surviving to puberty. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, although I really know it is (damn you Darwin).

The destruction of the environment due to one extra human on the world is enormous. You could drive around in a fleet of Hummer H3s with flame trails for your entire life and not contribute to as much pollution and waste as a brand new human.

The solution, very right wing policies such as eugenics or atrocities such as genocide or nuclear holocaust.

A moderate measure I would propose would be an income tax break for childless couples from the age of 30 to retirement or an extra bonus to state pension for couples who retire with no children.

This planet is being strangled simply by the number of humans on its surface. Of course 6 billion can be more wasteful than 9 billion, but really how long do you think the resources will last?

What do you think about this issue?

[Streetwalker]

Abolish the welfare state and the population in the UK will start to fall
The population explosion in Africa is Geldorfs fault,Its why they had 10 kids,they knew 8 of them wern't going to make it.A gerneration later just one family can quite easily account for another hundered souls.Thanks to "Sir Bobs" vision we can now look forward to the starvation of millions.

[DC]

Overpopulation is a myth, provided a population has the right amount of infrastructure, and proper policies, it can continue to grow indefinitely. Large scale populations, managed correctly, inevitably have a higher production rate, leading to advancements in technology and science, providing new means to gather and use resources.

[ryoden]

Overpopulation is a myth, provided a population has the right amount of infrastructure, and proper policies, it can continue to grow indefinitely. Large scale populations, managed correctly, inevitably have a higher production rate, leading to advancements in technology and science, providing new means to gather and use resources.

While i dont think it's as big a problem as mentioned I don't see how this can be true, we have finite space so you can't grow indefinately?

[Syph]

Overpopulation is a myth, provided a population has the right amount of infrastructure, and proper policies, it can continue to grow indefinitely. Large scale populations, managed correctly, inevitably have a higher production rate, leading to advancements in technology and science, providing new means to gather and use resources.

Your premise is correct, however, infrastructure takes decades to take shape. This is why China is struggling and soon, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico could join them. The overpopulation infrastructure curve is in harmony in places like Europe and North America but we are the only ones with an advantage.

[Barry]

We have touched on this subject before.
http://www.politic.co.uk/political-c...highlight=cull

In general, the countries with the greatest contribution to world population increasing do not benefit from tax breaks.
So how would that work?

Some countries in Europe are already having so few children that they will be taken over by demographic change.

If we don't have kids, don't worry, someone else will.
God put us on this planet, with its designed eco-systems to be fruitful and multiply, He didn't care a bit about how much pollution that would cause.

[Syph]

In general, the countries with the greatest contribution to world population increasing do not benefit from tax breaks.
So how would that work?

It wouldn't. There would need to be a eugenics program. And it would be horrific.

Some countries in Europe are already having so few children that they will be taken over by demographic change.

And if any of the anti-muslim propaganda is to be believed then they will demographically invade Europe and the US in the next 50 years. Is Baroness Warsi the beginning? Will we see more unelected muslims in government?

God put us on this planet, with its designed eco-systems to be fruitful and multiply, He didn't care a bit about how much pollution that would cause.

If I remember correctly from my RE and from the time I was a Catholic, stewardship was an important Christian value.

[DC]

While i dont think it's as big a problem as mentioned I don't see how this can be true, we have finite space so you can't grow indefinately?

People often under estimate the size of Earth, there are vast tracks of land that with advancing technology and infrastructure can be made easily habitable. In addition to this, living on the ocean is not out of the question. Also, by the time such resources have been finished, we'll have moved into space, thereby giving us an unlimited supply of both resources and space.

[Midas]

People often under estimate the size of Earth, there are vast tracks of land that with advancing technology and infrastructure can be made easily habitable. In addition to this, living on the ocean is not out of the question. Also, by the time such resources have been finished, we'll have moved into space, thereby giving us an unlimited supply of both resources and space.

In theory you might be right, however in practice there'll always be huge areas of the earth which will remain totally unsuitable for either habitation or agriculture for a variety of reasons. As Syph said "Your premise is correct, however, infrastructure takes decades to take shape", but it's not just the infrastructure problem, the biggest challenges will be a mixture of climate change and its consequences, logistics, and human nature.

Even technology has its limits, and many of the ideas which a few decades ago were being hailed as the way to feed the world have, certainly in some cases, proved to be disastrous in the long term, in particular the intensive use of chemical fertilisers and the drawing of water from deep underground aquifers. Yields of crops which, with these techniques, had leapt quite dramatically 20 years ago are now starting to fall again, often leaving the soil in a worse state than before the 'agricultural revolution' had begun.

There are also some very serious knock-on effects of overpopulation and the consequential depletion of natural resources which are only just starting to emerge. One of these links over-fishing round the coasts of Africa to the depletion of wildlife and global warming - a study in Ghana and neighbouring West African countries has shown that because fish stocks are down by over 50% compared to a decade or two ago, the much increased local populations are forced to look to other forms of meat, and as a consequence bush meat gathered through poaching is now a substantial part of the diet. This has lead to the almost total depletion of wild animals in some of the inland regions, and with this depletion of predators, there's been a huge increase in the numbers of baboons, who in turn are creating havoc on farms, tearing up crops and killing smaller livestock. The global warming link, or possible global warming link, comes from a concurrent study in Namibia where it's been shown that the reduction in fish stocks are causing massive population explosions in phytoplankton, billions of tonnes of which are then falling to the seabed to rot, periodically giving off large volumes of hydrogen sulphide gas when warmer ocean currents arrive. This in turn poisons other marine life, exacerbating the problem, and more alarmingly seems to catalyse the release of trapped methane held beneath the sea bed, and the possibility of the release of sub-sea methane is one of the biggest future threats to global warming that there is.

There are just too many people on this earth for it to be sustainable, with or without technology, and it wouldn't surprise me one little bit if there wasn't a massive Malthusian Correction involving hundreds of millions of people in the next century or so.

[DC]

In theory you might be right, however in practice there'll always be huge areas of the earth which will remain totally unsuitable for either habitation or agriculture for a variety of reasons. As Syph said "Your premise is correct, however, infrastructure takes decades to take shape", but it's not just the infrastructure problem, the biggest challenges will be a mixture of climate change and its consequences, logistics, and human nature.

Even technology has its limits, and many of the ideas which a few decades ago were being hailed as the way to feed the world have, certainly in some cases, proved to be disastrous in the long term, in particular the intensive use of chemical fertilisers and the drawing of water from deep underground aquifers. Yields of crops which, with these techniques, had leapt quite dramatically 20 years ago are now starting to fall again, often leaving the soil in a worse state than before the 'agricultural revolution' had begun.

There are also some very serious knock-on effects of overpopulation and the consequential depletion of natural resources which are only just starting to emerge. One of these links over-fishing round the coasts of Africa to the depletion of wildlife and global warming - a study in Ghana and neighbouring West African countries has shown that because fish stocks are down by over 50% compared to a decade or two ago, the much increased local populations are forced to look to other forms of meat, and as a consequence bush meat gathered through poaching is now a substantial part of the diet. This has lead to the almost total depletion of wild animals in some of the inland regions, and with this depletion of predators, there's been a huge increase in the numbers of baboons, who in turn are creating havoc on farms, tearing up crops and killing smaller livestock. The global warming link, or possible global warming link, comes from a concurrent study in Namibia where it's been shown that the reduction in fish stocks are causing massive population explosions in phytoplankton, billions of tonnes of which are then falling to the seabed to rot, periodically giving off large volumes of hydrogen sulphide gas when warmer ocean currents arrive. This in turn poisons other marine life, exacerbating the problem, and more alarmingly seems to catalyse the release of trapped methane held beneath the sea bed, and the possibility of the release of sub-sea methane is one of the biggest future threats to global warming that there is.

There are just too many people on this earth for it to be sustainable, with or without technology, and it wouldn't surprise me one little bit if there wasn't a massive Malthusian Correction involving hundreds of millions of people in the next century or so.

Well that's the inevitable outcome, either millions die and the population problem is fixed, or we find a new way to create and manage our resources, and the population problem is fixed (or at least managed). My personal view is that resource management is both easy and possible in a practical sense, but not in a political one. For example Australia has a miserable reputation for resource management. Despite the fact we've been in a drought for the last 12 years, we still have major rice and cotton farms. Obviously this is moronic, and such farms should be shut down or made to grow other crops, yet politically they can't. IMO large scale (like, extremely large scale) hydroponic farming of genetically enhanced crops (when GM eventually gets the green light) is the way to go in the agricultural sector, hydrated by water from desalination plants (in Australia at least). Power can be obtained from renewable sources in the long term future, but to supply a short to medium term base power load, nuclear power is the way to go, with the toxic waste eaten by bacteria (they've discovered some kind of non-toxic little bacteria which literally eats radiation). Obviously all this takes money, and money that many countries rather put into other useless crap.