7Billion+ people on Earth (Continued)

[CaptainPugwash]

If anyone read what I said it may have been taken the wrong way. Concerning a planet of 7 billion souls and growing what I meant to get across is the idea of how fickle life on this planet is. We hang in a balance.

There has never been a time in the Earth history where there are so many people all living and requiring so much of our home in space.

It's just an issue we are all going to have to take seriously but not many people actually are willing to acknowledge it.

Disregard this point in terms of asexuality as I don't want to cause any offense and this is only my view.

I do however have a very good video that explains a function of mathematics that applies 100% to population which really helped me understand the issue.

Dr Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy (Part on population is at 12Mins :50 sec But the whole lecture is very interesting)

[Steph Ace]

Moved from Asexual Musings and Rantings to Philosophy, Politics and Science.

Steph
Asexual Musings and Rantings Moderator.

[marki]

You could take everyone on this planet stand them on a 1 foot by 1 foot square and all of them would fit snuggly in just my state.

[CaptainPugwash]

Oh cool, I'm glad you solved the issue. That's all settled then...phew.

[marki]

Just saying the fuss about having too many people is kind of a moot point....yes some of our resources will be stretched but the problem isn't the population, it's that the majority of people are living in countries that are still going through the industrialisation stage so they are using resources at a quicker pace than other people who already have gone through that stage.

[CaptainPugwash]

Just saying the fuss about having too many people is kind of a moot point....yes some of our resources will be stretched but the problem isn't the population, it's that the majority of people are living in countries that are still going through the industrialisation stage so they are using resources at a quicker pace than other people who already have gone through that stage.

There is absolutely no way population density on the planet is a moot point. You are wide of the point.

All the video above is showing is the arithmetic and the facts.

[Zapstileon]

Just saying the fuss about having too many people is kind of a moot point....yes some of our resources will be stretched but the problem isn't the population, it's that the majority of people are living in countries that are still going through the industrialisation stage so they are using resources at a quicker pace than other people who already have gone through that stage.

No, the problem is actually the population. All populations on earth rise and fall based on the resources around to support them; housing, food, water, enemies, diseases, all these things take part in how well a population survives. Rabbits in a secluded living space with no enemies are going to over-populate the living space. Soon their resources will dwindle because too many rabbits are eating the food and there isn't enough shelter. When this happens, the population of rabbits will start falling. The resources will go to the ones best fit to gain them.

It so happens that while it works the same with humans, humans also have a tendency to help those who can't help themselves, thereby preventing a natural decrease in the population; we save the sick, keep the old alive, rescue the injured, give food and shelter to those who can't get it for themselves. The population CANNOT decrease naturally. At some point, however, the resources will disappear. We won't be able to maintain ourselves. At the rate we are growing, we will reach famine, desperation and probably more war before the population starts dying out. And we will still be keeping people alive where we can, because that is in our nature.

So yes. Population is very much the problem. It has very little to do with what stage of industrialization third world countries are at. In fact, if anything, the deaths in third world countries are at least helping us balance the Natality : Mortality ratio. And that's not to say that people should be dying. Just that we actually have a problem.

[marki]

We have pleanty of room on this planet. Space isn't the issue, it is that many people are flocking to huge mega cities (because the industrial revolution is still going on in many areas of Asia, Africa, and South America) and that creates problems. When you have people going through resources at an alarming rate that is where population becomes an issue. And industrialization seriously strains resources. So yeah that is going to be a problem for a while, but China is kind of on the tail end of that phase and India is still going through it.

When you look at the population leaders we have China, India, US, and Indonesia. Those are the 4 most populated countries on the planet. They all have pleanty of space for more people.

Rabbits reproduce at a much higher and faster rate than humans. So even when you look at rates of deaths and births, and all these other factors we still are okay for the time being. We aren't going to all run out of resources overnight, and it won't even be in our lifetime. Eventually will we ruin our planet, absolutely. But not because of just population.

[CaptainPugwash]

@marki ...People will use resources wherever they are on the planet, it's not a case of just worrying about the migration of people or stages of development, but the shear weight of numbers itself which is alarming. Many other factors come into it but it is definitely an issue not to be ignored. And I would disagree with your view on it, there may still be plenty of space....but there is the point!!

~If we carry on at the current levels we won't have any space in the future. (Exponential function) always the point most relevant I feel to stress.

Edit - What will the world look like with 14 Billion people that is a doubling time of 50 years using a growth of rate of 1.4%/year ... By this function we could reach that number by year 2065 at current rates....14 Billion

[Zapstileon]

The rabbits was an example, it works the same way for any population however slow or fast they reproduce. And no one said anything about spec. Resources was the point, not space.

[ThaHoward]

Rabbits at least die very fast or gets killed easiley. Same thing happen in third world countries, they give birth way more often, but that is to make up for the high child mortality rate.

[Squirrel Combat]

Eventually it may become more practical to adopt a "post-scarcity" model for our entire civilization.

[Xavy]

What's the theories about what number of people is too much for the available resource of earth ? 8billion, 9billion, 10billion ? In 1987 the "day of 5 billion" seemed quite scary, but now here we are all still alive and doing well at 7 billion.

[CaptainPugwash]

Well theories abound I just thought I would highlight the maths via the vid. (Backing up by numbers is the best way to explain this...) If you can imagine a world with 14 Billion, double what we have now in just 50 years.

To reiterate, it took thousands of years to get to this number of people and it will be equalled in just 50 years at just 1.4% steady Growth.

And I very much dispute the claim we are doing well as a human race collectively.

Currenty one billion people in the world live on less than 1$ dollar a day, while 2.7 billion struggle to survive on less than 2/$ dollars per day - Factual representation of current conditions which are relevant to this.

[Xavy]

I mean "doing well" in the sense that the earth is proving to be capable of sustaining the 7.3 billion of us ...... it wasn't a comment on our wealth and relative well being.

[Arte]

Anyone who thinks there isn't a resource problem is ignorant, and anyone who thinks the resource problem isn't caused by the popualtion using the resources is just stupid. You can't make the claim that there's enough food to eat when there's people who don't have food to eat, and that logic can be applied to almost all human resources.

[Nevyn]

I think space and food is the least of our worries. If the world population doubles there simple won't be enough water to go around. All of our clean water sources are severly strained as it is, even here in the US.

[Techie]

You could take everyone on this planet stand them on a 1 foot by 1 foot square and all of them would fit snuggly in just my state.

I recall years ago the New York Times IIRC said all the people in the world could fit into Jacksonville, Florida with around three square feet each.

[CaptainPugwash]

You could take everyone on this planet stand them on a 1 foot by 1 foot square and all of them would fit snuggly in just my state.

I recall years ago the New York Times IIRC said all the people in the world could fit into Jacksonville, Florida with around three square feet each.

Well again that won't true be as the doubling function kicks in...Don't you realise it's not a static issue? For example roughly 4.3 births every second (as of Dec. 2013 estimate) with only 1.78 deaths per second! That should tell you not to pay attention to such rubbish. Your hypothetical examples are not helpul.

Edit - To make it clear there is added roughly 80 million to our global population every year... So next time someone says something like that be sure to adjust your numbers accordingly - and tell them they are spouting absolute twaddle.

[Xavy]

You can't make the claim that there's enough food to eat when there's people who don't have food to eat,

But can you make a claim that there is not enough food to eat when so much food goes wasted and thrown away every single day ?

[MoraDollie]

Just saying the fuss about having too many people is kind of a moot point....yes some of our resources will be stretched but the problem isn't the population, it's that the majority of people are living in countries that are still going through the industrialisation stage so they are using resources at a quicker pace than other people who already have gone through that stage.

The ecology community unfortunately typically has humans as the exception to just about every laws and theories we've attempted to apply to nature.However, there's a few that still stand true, no matter what the species is. One is this: population crashes (and other methods of attempting to describe what's happening to a population-group of a single species-). Population crashes typically occur when a population has reached its "max peak" and can often happen due to rabid starvation, disease, predators having a hay-day with large amount of prey, etc. The human population is bound to crash eventually, there's no escaping this.

You can learn more about these different population dynamics hwere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_dynamics

Carrying capacity is the amount of species an environment can hold. Unfortunately, humans are NOT easy to measure with this, since we receive our food and shelter, so differently from the rest of the animal kingdom. Sure, argue "one human for every X distance/length/whatever". However, you need to take into consideration food, infants/children, elderly, etc. There's a reason we only lived to about 20s-40s back in the old days, before the discovery of "modern medicine" with penicillin. Humans have access to reproductive care (birth control, sterilization, etc) that not other animals often have access to, unfortunately, due to politics and laws, it's inaccessible to many individuals (at least in america).

There was a group of scientists awhile ago that basically said: if you forced humans to live off the lands again (no processed foods, strictly hunter/gather/agriculture type living, no super markets, restaurants, etc), we simply would not have enough food to give to our fellow humans. Do not give the whole "carnivore vs omnivore vs vegan/vegatarian diet" argument, because biologically speaking, we're built to eat BOTH plant and meat material (aka, we get nutritional value from both plants and meat).

[Arte]

You can't make the claim that there's enough food to eat when there's people who don't have food to eat,

But can you make a claim that there is not enough food to eat when so much food goes wasted and thrown away every single day ?

Yes, why would how there's a lack of resources matter to there being a lack of resources, unless you could stop the "waste" of food and somehow give it to the hungry, but clearly this is just idealistic fantasy. Are you seriously saying the scrap meat on my chicken bone is waste? or do people where you live just throw away fresh food to spite the hungry?

[Næt.]

You can't make the claim that there's enough food to eat when there's people who don't have food to eat,

But can you make a claim that there is not enough food to eat when so much food goes wasted and thrown away every single day ?

Yes, why would how there's a lack of resources matter to there being a lack of resources, unless you could stop the "waste" of food and somehow give it to the hungry, but clearly this is just idealistic fantasy. Are you seriously saying the scrap meat on my chicken bone is waste? or do people where you live just throw away fresh food to spite the hungry?

In the UK around a third to a half of all food from homes is thrown away each year - about 7 million tonnes. Meanwhile, about a million people in Britain have to use food banks because they can't afford food.

[Xavy]

You can't make the claim that there's enough food to eat when there's people who don't have food to eat,

But can you make a claim that there is not enough food to eat when so much food goes wasted and thrown away every single day ?

Yes, why would how there's a lack of resources matter to there being a lack of resources, unless you could stop the "waste" of food and somehow give it to the hungry, but clearly this is just idealistic fantasy. Are you seriously saying the scrap meat on my chicken bone is waste? or do people where you live just throw away fresh food to spite the hungry?

But is there really a lack of resources globally ? I am saying that the lack of resources is localized.

Also, nobody is throwing away food to spite the hungry, but restaurants throw out good, unsold food everyday and "expired" food, although still fit for human consumption is routinely dumped to over protect manufacturers from product liability lawsuits. There is wastage of food every single day is the high GDP country that I live in, I am ashamed of that. This has nothing to do with the scrap meat on your checking bone.

[Arte]

But is there really a lack of resources globally ? I am saying that the lack of resources is localized.

Also, nobody is throwing away food to spite the hungry, but restaurants throw out good, unsold food everyday and "expired" food, although still fit for human consumption is routinely dumped to over protect manufacturers from product liability lawsuits. There is wastage of food every single day is the high GDP country that I live in, I am ashamed of that. This has nothing to do with the scrap meat on your checking bone.

No matter how you look at it there's a lack of some resource, lets assume there is enough food thrown out to feed the hungry, which is probably no true, but for the sake of argument I'll concede the point. Even if that is true there's still not enough resources to get thrown out food not thrown out and somehow in the hands of the hungry. So is your argument really that humans are just wasteful and there's technically enough food but in reality we know that doesn't matter if there's no way to get that food where it's needed, because it sounds like your making this argument on some technicality that IF we didn't throw away "good, unsold" food the hunger problem would not exist. The reason it doesn't matter is because I'm talking about reality. It's like trying to say black people could technically vote in 1870, just so long as they could pass the latin test, name all the men in congress and prove their grandfathers could vote.

[Xavy]

No matter how you look at it there's a lack of some resource, lets assume there is enough food thrown out to feed the hungry, which is probably no true, but for the sake of argument I'll concede the point. Even if that is true there's still not enough resources to get thrown out food not thrown out and somehow in the hands of the hungry. So is your argument really that humans are just wasteful and there's technically enough food but in reality we know that doesn't matter if there's no way to get that food where it's needed, because it sounds like your making this argument on some technicality that IF we didn't throw away "good, unsold" food the hunger problem would not exist. The reason it doesn't matter is because I'm talking about reality. It's like trying to say black people could technically vote in 1870, just so long as they could pass the latin test, name all the men in congress and prove their grandfathers could vote.

Is it really just a lack of resources that stops food from getting to the people who need it, or is it a lack of political will to solve the world hunger problem ?

Is your argument is that there is enough political will to solve the world hunger problem but that political will is somehow being frustrated by lack of resources ?

We send people to the moon and spend billions on wars and that proves that resources is not the problem, but rather how available resources are allocated, so even though the excess food isn't getting to the people who need it, my point is, it not as if getting the food to those people is impossible, or beyond our capability. Technically, it is wrong to say that there is not enough food to feed the world.

[Arte]

It's wrong to say there isn't enough food in the world to feed the world the same way it's wrong to say black people could vote in 1870. In reality we know it just isn't true, no more could black people vote in 1870, than the world hunger problem could be solved in 2015. No matter how much you want reality to reflect you ideal humanity it doesn't make it real, you can't just throw around theoretical calculations and just not take into account human factors like greed, nationality, race, religion, politics, the global economy, competitive market and trade legislation.

[marki]

Food...we have genetically modified crops.

[DexM]

I would hardly say the planet is doing well. I do think that the recent extreme weather patterns and spate of natural disasters, which have come very closely together, is what I see as a sign that there is pressure upon the planet. There are over populated cities and countries, and those could be eased population-wise, but it will take time and money to move people to less populated areas/areas where there isn't anything, and governments just aren't prepared to do that. India has a ton of space but how much of that space is decent? What's there and how much would it take to make it worthwhile for people to go there and make something new. Australia is huge, it's population in comparison, is miniscule, and the centre of Oz could house a lot of people. But the land there isn't the best, the temperatures very high and the infrastructure just isn't there. It's easier to build on an empty plot of land that is right next to a housing estate, and then build on the one just down the road, that doesn't take much doing in the long run. It's easy to say we're doing well with a population of 7 billion odd, we are still here after all, but it could be far better and we really don't need anymore just to prove that we can cope. People are hungry, yeah, but that's as much to do with greed and waste and a declining society, than over population, as governments could do something about it if they really put their heads together. But that isn't going to happen. I am also a firm believer of returning diseases and pandemics as the natural way to get rid of a few of pesky humans, and to be honest, I'm all for that. ^_^

[Asterion Orestes]

Someone (Yogi Berra?) supposedly said, "Making predictions is difficult, especially about the future." :)

For a while now I've remarked that we seem to be living in some kind of repeat of the 1930s. One implication is that world war looms ahead, & how big a dent that would put in global population is anyone's guess. OTOH even the most probable of the UN's alarmist projections has our numbers peaking at around nine billion later this century before declining.

Then there are those ever-advancing technologies, pushing the boundaries of what's possible (whether we like it or not) in unpredictable ways. Makes predicting even harder! So what we think will probably happen may likely turn out wrong...just sayin'.