Population Explosion: Is it sustainable?

Our population growth has spiraled out of control.



There are finite resources on this planet and they cannot sustain everyone. This type of population growth and simple level of population is not sustainable in my opinion.

Is it sustainable? If not, what are our options?

 

It is not sustainable.

You'll notice that population growth is driven by poor countries, which is kind of counter-intuitive to the Western mind, but makes a lot of sense within a tribal or primitive society.

Lack of education, religious or spiritual superstition, the desire to secure one's livelihood when work is no longer possible and cultural beliefs surrounding children all play a role.

The best way to curb population growth is somehow making these countries richer and better educated. As countries reach a certain point in development, they stop having a lot of kids, and they stop being heavily religious. Both of these developments lend themselves to a more sustainable population level.

 

At that rate indefinitely? No. But what that graph doesn't clearly show is that it's teetering off. We can sustain population growth, and statements to the contrary are usually limited to the idea that agricultural product is fixed and we won't produce more. In the future food production will be able to sustain more people, as it slowly becomes less meat based, but more importantly advancements in engineering, farming techniques, and reclaimed land. We're not anywhere near what we're currently able to produce for food.

And people are of course dismissive, but it seems silly to think we'll never be able to produce a livable habitat on another planet.

 

I'm hoping that extracting money out of the American middle/upper class isn't your solution to "making them richer," is it?

Sorry for the skepticism, if you're an American that makes money, you're under constant attack, and have to keep your guard up.

 

That's exactly what's coming. I don't know if that's what he meant, but global inequality has been a hot topic in the mouths of liberals lately.

The problem is... do you know how BAD global income inequality is?

If you take into consideration the entire worlds population, you are part of the 1% if you make greater than $34,000 a year.

The middle class are those who make $1,200 per YEAR (that's not month... per YEAR).

You liberals better be careful attacking the 1% because they're going to come after you soon enough. And I seriously doubt there's a damn one of you that wants to live on $2,000 a year. But by attacking the 1% in America, you will have put yourself in an indefensible position when one of these liberal politicians comes talking about how it's unfair that the middle class of the rest of the world has to live on $1,200 a year and we should share our wealth.

 

Hussein Obama has the answer to the problem. Does he remember the authentication and authorization codes?

 

We need to look inside our own borders and look at population growth and sustainability before we take on the worlds issue with this problem.

 

It's truly amazing. Not only can we control the rate of change in the climate of a planet that whipping through space at 1,000 mi/hr around an object that is 20,000,000 degrees with a little funding from Americans, we can also control how often people in Africa fuk each other and have kids with a little additonal funding from Americans

 

It is not just population growth but also industrialization of the population we already have.

In 1850 there was 1 billion people on the planet. North American and Europe industrialized over 100 years 1850-1950. This industrialization took place over roughly 200 million people.

Our level of consumption of resources is (36) .. meaning - someone in Africa eating a bowl of rice a day has a consumption rate of (1)

In a study I read some time ago China was at (11). The study said that I China was to get to our level of consumption world resource production would have to double.

This is just China. 1.3 Billion India 1.1 billion is also industrializing as is Indonesia (600 million and so on)

We had maybe 1 billion out of a total population of 7 billion industrialized as of a decade ago.

The pollution (and I am not talking CO2) from industrializing another 2 billion will have serious consequences. The Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and heavy metals going into the Oceans is already doing serious damage. More than 2 cans of tuna/week puts you over the mercury limit for pregnant women. Eating a slice of polar bear liver is so toxic it will kill you. Eskimo women in the north are so contaminated their milk is not fit for babies (eating too many seals)

As was written in a book called "the population bomb" back in the 70's - it is not feeding all these people that is a problem, it is the byproducts of their consumption.

 

Taxcutter says:
The US population is quite sustainable. With a little adjustment, it could be autarkic in most respects.

If dying has to be done, somebody other than US citizens can do it to their hearts' content.

 

Not sustainable at all. Our best option would be to shut down our borders completely, only accepting the best and brightest in the fields where we need to grow our economy. The world population is growing out of control in poor areas and we do not need any more poor people sucking at the social welfare teat.

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We can't control reproductive rates in the 3rd world. The only thing we can do is keep them from coming here.

 

Conservatives of the world haven't figured yet that a population becomes more sustainable when the living conditions are better for everyone. A middle class comfortable family has less children than a poor family. It is not uncommon for poor familes all over the world to have 10+ children, vs. 2-3 for a middle class family. It is an undisputable FACT, that as infant mortality decreases, the amount of children a family has decreases.

The key to sustainability is not to be afraid of it.. its to uplift the entire world. We won't have a sustainability problem if conservatives could understand this simple concept.

 

Total number of children that die every year from hunger 1.5 million
Percent of world population considered to be starving 33%
Time between deaths of people who die from hunger 3.6 seconds
Total number of people in the world who suffer from hunger and malnutrition 800 million
Total number of people who do not have enough to eat 936 million people
Total percentage who do not have enough to eat who live in developing countries 98%
Total percentage of world’s hungry that live in 7 countries 65%
Number of people who died of hunger today 20,864
Total number of people who will die of hunger this year 7,615,360
Total percentage of U.S. households that are at risk of hunger 11%

Seems to me if any of the above statistics are correct then we're already failing at sustainability...

 

We cannot continue down the same path, but when people want to educate others the Cons are against it, go figure.

 

It is sustainable until the fresh water is depleted.

Then it will be Lord of the Flies.

 

I think that any long-term solution to global poverty will have to include some sort of wealth redistribution scheme. I just don't see how it is possible for us to deal with these issues otherwise. People love to say that the free market will take care of it, but the truth is that the economic value of a starving African child is zero. He or she has no value whatsoever to humanity, unless you decide to put human life above all other considerations (be it wealth, justice, fairness or whatever). Economically speaking, it is better to let them die. Morally? I don't think so, and that matters to me.

I personally admire a great deal about capitalism, and I think that any solution to poverty has to harness its incredible potential to do good. The problem, of course, is that we have allowed an economy to come about that is obviously absurd. The idea that a person can be more valuable than an entire country is simply insane, and any economic system that says it is so clearly suffers from some sort of malfunction.

The very top earners of our society make simply astounding amounts of money, and the utility of their work was exhausted long before that compensation level was reached. I firmly believe that a doctor should make more than a janitor, that a CEO of a multinational corporate should make more than a doctor, etc. I am fine with people making more money than me, having more and better stuff than me. The problem is that I'm not fine with many millions of people starving to death in one place while many millions are eating themselves to death in another. What it tells me is that something is very wrong with our system

As it stands, the very top earners of our society bring home anywhere from 200 to 600 times the amount as the very lowest earners. Why not simply enact a tax law that cuts that down to a maximum of 200? "No person's compensation can exceed 200 times that of the poverty line." That way businesses are still free to set compensation, the rich are still going to be compensated, and the rest of people can have extra money to give back to the rich in exchange for consumer goods (or perhaps improve their lives, if we're lucky).

I'm sure there are all sorts of problems with this suggestion. I just think that ultimately wealth inequality is very unhealthy for democracy and capitalism. It drives people towards extremes, it keeps in motion the historical pendulum of the Haves vs. Have-Nots, and it also has the unfortunate side effect of meaning that a billion people combined make less in a day than somebody else makes in a six months. We need to do something about it, but it can't be the typical liberal social program versus conservative free market BS. We need new ideas, ones that can harness the positives of our society while addressing the negative aspects without requiring picking on one class or another.

 

I can recognize that you want more for the billions of people who have nothing. It is commendable, but good intentions does not always lead to good results. Capping someones income does nothing positive other then making people like yourself feel better, and it does tremendous damage to everyone. Are their less people starving in Africa if Bill Gates is prohibited from making money? Of course not. But there will be less jobs, wealth, tax revenue, billions in aid to others, etc... if you do cap it. No positives just negatives.

Do you know how many billions the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has spent fighting extreme poverty and disease around the world? Under your system there is more poverty, not less.

 

What I find interesting about your post is that you have completely rejected the idea that wealth redistribution helps people, not just in this particular situation, but in all of them. What is really odd to me is that you then go on to talk about how much good Bill Gates has done by redistributing his wealth. I presume this is because Bill Gates "wants" to help people, and isn't forced to by giving up his wealth, so the money he uses all of a sudden becomes useful in some way. But if a government does the exact same thing, it just won't work. I find that assumption to be unproven.

For instance, one of the most effective aid programs in history was established by President George W. Bush Jr. His African AIDS program is credited with saving the lives of at least five million Africans, and it only cost $20 billion over ten years. That is just a drop in the bucket in terms of government spending. Not only that, but it established an infrastructure that can be used in future programs, meaning that this program will be saving many more lives for no additional cost. All it took is someone willing to say that a human being was worth $4,000. There are many other examples of government programs having incredible effect - look at how our governments have worked together to annihilate small pox and polio, diseases that were killing millions not so far in the past. Or how various massive infrastructure programs, which were never possible with private capital, have enabled us to make our societies the peak of human civilization.

If compensation had a reasonable cap, and the wealth that would otherwise be paid out to CEOs and athletes and actors, were instead put towards business development, or employee compensation, or paid out as dividends, the economy would boom. Henry Ford decided to triple the going wage for his factory workers for a reason - so they could afford his cars. The same can be said about redistributive measures that work by driving money towards the bottom. Consumer spending is what drives the economy, and so having more people making more money, with a small amount of others making less, does work. The beauty of the system is that it benefits everyone, because Henry Ford gets to sell more cars, and his employees get to have them.

Ideally, we could get to a place where compensation is so reasonable that we can do away with alot of our entitlement and social programs.

 

Assuming you earn a wage...how would you personally feel about a cap on your earning potential?

 

It's easy. You close our borders and let nature run its course in the third world. Nature has a way of correcting everything.

You're suggesting I need to have my wealth shipped to Somalia to somehow magically control their mating habits?

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Instead of sending the third world our wealth, we should be sending them our citizens who think as perversely as you do.

 

No, but this thread is absolutely hilarious.

The conservative brain doesn't understand that people with higher standards of living breed smaller, safer families, usually with just over 2 children on average.

This chart and the comments in this thread are just another way for conservatives to try to rationalize their xenophobia. "Lets close down all borders and let the third world go to hell."

Very primitive and barbaric line of thought.

There is less of a sustainability problem as more wealth is evenly distributed in the world. That requires a delicate mix of capitalism, socialism, and democracy.

 

100% on board. I live a life of absolute luxury... I'm more than willing to accept less.

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You can believe that your position is logical. Cool, I'm fine with that. But it also happens to be morally repugnant, and you ought to be ostracized from society for as long as you propagate it.

 

mother nature will take care of it if we don't... that much can be sure

 

When wages are capped, you think the same amount of wealth is going to be created? Do you think people will continue to create, produce, and innovate after they hit their cap for the good of peolple?

 

conservatives understand one thing, you have to have poor countries to get that cheap foreign labor that is replacoing American jobs

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after a certain point, it's about power... not wealth

I believe no one should be rewarded with huge tax breaks and tax caps for making lots of money, I believe the making lots of money IS the reward

I am a proponent of the flat tax system... where everyone is taxed the same for every dollar earned over the poverty line


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