The Population Explosion - if "feeds" every other problem

[MoseyWalker]

that humans are, or will soon be, experiencing. Too many people. No one seems to place this as a priority, but inhibiting the explosion of humans living on this planet I see as number one.

Here's what seems to be a very good analysis of the situation:

http://dieoff.org/page27.htm

Having considered some of the ways that humanity is destroying its inheritance, we can look more closely at the concept of "overpopulation." All too often, overpopulation is thought of simply as crowding: too many people in a given area, too high a population density. For instance, the deputy editor in chief of Forbes magazine pointed out recently, in connection with a plea for more population growth in the United States: "If all the people from China and India lived in the continental U.S. (excluding Alaska), this country would still have a smaller population density than England, Holland, or Belgium." *31

The appropriate response is "So what?" Density is generally irrelevant to questions of overpopulation. For instance, if brute density were the criterion, one would have to conclude that Africa is "underpopulated," because it has only 55 people per square mile, while Europe (excluding the USSR) has 261 and Japan 857. *32 A more sophisticated measure would take into consideration the amount of Africa not covered by desert or "impenetrable" forest. *33 This more habitable portion is just a little over half the continent's area, giving an effective population density of 117 per square mile. That's still only about a fifth of that in the United Kingdom. Even by 2020, Africa's effective density is projected to grow to only about that of France today (266), and few people would consider France excessively crowded or overpopulated.

When people think of crowded countries, they usually contemplate places like the Netherlands (1,031 per square mile), Taiwan (1,604), or Hong Kong (14,218). Even those don't necessarily signal overpopulation—after all, the Dutch seem to be thriving, and doesn't Hong Kong have a booming economy and fancy hotels? In short, if density were the standard of overpopulation, few nations (and certainly not Earth itself) would be likely to be considered overpopulated in the near future. The error, we repeat, lies in trying to define overpopulation in terms of density; it has long been recognized that density per se means very little. *34

The key to understanding overpopulation is not population density but the numbers of people in an area relative to its resources and the capacity of the environment to sustain human activities; that is, to the area's carrying capacity. When is an area overpopulated? When its population can't be maintained without rapidly depleting nonrenewable resources (or converting renewable resources into nonrenewable ones) and without degrading the capacity of the environment to support the population. In short, if the long-term carrying capacity of an area is clearly being degraded by its current human occupants, that area is overpopulated. *35

[rogerashton]

1. this is just what I need to wash my hog with.

n/t

[MoseyWalker]

2. because?

[politicat]

6. How about basic biology?

The planet is reaching its carrying capacity for human beings. We use a lot of water, soil, and minerals because we build. We would not be reaching carrying capacity if, say, we had never invented the petroleum based engine, because we wouldn't be able to ship food and materiel over long distances. We'd have been forced to rely on our local resources save for a few luxury goods, we would not have increased our population size as quickly or have learned to prolong our lives as effectively, and local conditions would dictate local populations. This is not true anymore in most of the world.

Any patch of land will reach carrying capacity for a given species or group of species, and then they die off and some new species steps into the niche and the cycle starts over again. Look at the deer-wolf-lynx-human capacities in the High Plains: humans killed off the wolves and lynxes to preserve the deer for themselves and to ensure the safety of their domestic herds. Eventually, we stepped out of the predator niche and stopped killing deer (because it was more convenient to get meat elsewhere) and the deer herds swelled to the point where they are now starving during some winters, and are definitely falling prey to prion disorders and some other odd diseases. The land has reached its deer carrying capacity, and the starvation/disease die off (which in earlier years would have been more controlled by human and non-human predation) are the result.

This is what's on the planet's lunch menu, too. For us, it will be water and accessible energy. We don't graze, so we can't convert solar energy into food, and we have yet to really know how to capture solar energy to satisfy our shelter and other energy needs. We are definitely walking the fine line on water supplies -- there are cities in the High Plains that are on chronic water restriction because we have outstripped our carrying capacity for our region's water, and that's in the US where we're actually pretty good about controlling erosion, reusing water safely, and keeping our water sources fairly clean. Let's really not talk about Varanasi or the Sahel or the foothills of the Himalayas or Sichuan province. Our only real predators are each other (not that we don't do a great job at it) and disease, and we're getting too good at preventing a lot of the latter ones for it to be an effective population limit.

If you truly believe that we're not pushing ourselves towards an ecological crisis through our numbers and practices, you're not paying attention. There have been a lot of reports in the past couple of years confirming that we humans have reached a point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to mend the damage we have done to the planet before it kills us. We have reached the carrying capacity.

[jwirr]

9. If you have a hog then you must be a farmer. Ranchers and

farmers have always understood that you cannot overgraze pasture land. The same principle holds for supply and demand for humans in this world.

[EdwardM]

3. This article nails it.

Population is the cause of all problems. Density is not the problem. We have enough land space for 50 billion humans if we wanted to. But we don't have the resources. there are 6.5 billion people in this planet. There is not enough food-oil for everyone to live the american lifestyle and not completely ruin the planet. There are currently 2 billion people in this planet in poverty, and as long as there are over 6 billion people, there will continue to be. Also, there would be no middle eastern war with a lower population, because we wouldn't have the demand for middle eastern oil. People need to quit having children. I'm not gonna have any children, and recommend the same to most other people.

[yurbud]

4. why do we have massive crop surpluses that we dump on Third World then?

If there were too many people, it wouldn't matter how much we grew or subsidized our farmers--there would always be a voracious market for more than we could produce.

[MoseyWalker]

5. If I remember right

it was 2005 when the US, for the first time in its history, imported more food than it exported.

That's big news.

[Rosemary2205]

7. That is by choice

the government is paying big corps like ADM to NOT grow food. Nafta Cafta and other trade agreements coupled with food subsidies help keep the food prices around the world profitable for growers and distributors. It has absolutely nothing to do with the an inablity to create food.

[MoseyWalker]

8. this report seems a bit unusual

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/4-1&fp=45a8eb9119a3553c&ei=PxmoRf2bO4XOpwKCkuzmAg&url=http%3A//www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C3-2544525%2C00.html&cid=1112670608