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474 Comments
- Junkyarddawg, on 10/11/2007, -37/+135The Earth only has one environmental problem: too many humans.
All other problems - from peak oil and global warming to deforestation and overfishing, are just symptoms of that one core problem. - Easty, on 10/11/2007, -8/+100Can't we just take the warning labels off stuff and let God sort them out?
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -8/+98Please feel free to kill yourself to make room.
- ViraginousWench, on 10/11/2007, -31/+112The world's population is expected to reach 9 billion in a few decades, it is comforting to know that many are becoming aware of the root cause of the climate crisis: overpopulation
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -31/+107If you haven't made a family yet, please consider planning to have no more than 2 children. If you want more adopt.
If you do have a family make a contribution by educating yourself about population issues and *respectfully* education others about it. - sarazen, on 10/11/2007, -4/+66In developed countries the birth rate has slowed, and some like Japan even have a shrinking population. Even in the US the only reason our population continues to grow is largely through immigration. In countries like France and the UK this same trend, low birth rate among the native born people and high immigration is even starting to change the political landscape. Remember the Muslim riots in France last year? This article does not really give a full picture of this issue The birth rates in 1st world countries are falling. Developing nations, and 3rd world countries continue to grow in population. This article is only detailing a small part of this issues, and is agenda driven to the point of being manipulative propaganda.
- Somniis, on 10/11/2007, -7/+59No worries people.. mass famine and/or an epidemic/pandemic is inevitable at some point.
- chris9902, on 10/11/2007, -14/+52It is big enough but people are greedy.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -42/+78Here is how we can fix the problem of over-population:
Close the U.S. border, fine anyone coming into the country illegally, imprison and find anyone hiring illegal workers
Stop sending foreign and humanitarian aid to other countries. They hate us, so let them die.
Stop with all the "Please save the children in this third world *****" ads.
Pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and give them tons of weapons
Give Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan 2 nukes a piece.
Ban imports from China.
For U.S. companies, place a payroll tax on all jobs that are overseas. - BassMastr, on 10/11/2007, -10/+44You need to change that to Swahili and Chinese...you'll find that most European and Americans are having fewer and fewer babies. They are growing due to immigration.
- masterfoo, on 10/11/2007, -5/+31I'm not so sure your projection results are accurate... I remember going to the museum of science in Boston back in the early 90's and they told us that in 20 years, by 2010, everyone would be living in small cubicles because there would be no room for anything else with a population of 8 billion. I'm not seeing that happening in 3 years... Plus in the richer countries you actually have population decline, the average household in the US has 1.2 children according to the last census (I know you can't have a fifth of a child) but that means that on average there is closer to 1 child per 2 adults. Canada is also seeing a population decline, people are either moving out or dying faster than they can repopulate.
From having to just traveled to Kolkata, India and seeing actual overpopulation in the city, and then seeing the vast empty forests and open land surrounding it, I would say that this planet has plenty of room for everyone on it, it's just that the wealth is so concentrated in a small minority that not everyone can survive economically.
It's like Chris9902 said below, Its big enough but people are greedy. - lordmetroid, on 10/11/2007, -7/+30The planet has plenty of space, even today with the technology available in agriculture and on the space we use for food production we can nourish an estimate of 11,000,000,000 people. The number of people approximately will be populating the earth in a distant future. There is plenty of space and resources!
- sockpuppets, on 10/11/2007, -34/+57I expect the earth to strike back soon. We're like fleas on the back of a dog.
- pintomp3, on 10/11/2007, -11/+34you must not know any catholics, mormons, or evangelicals. they have huge families.
- jbink303, on 10/11/2007, -6/+28'Consider this: If every single human being on Earth were given his or her own two-
bedroom mobile home, and if all six billion mobile homes were set down with alleys
between them, the entire world population would fit in an area smaller than the State of
Texas.
No, overpopulation isn’t a problem of critical importance. The trend to urbanization,
economic imbalances, and inadequate resource distribution are the major problems.
People abandon small towns in order to move into cities that are already too big;
economic systems force food- and fiber-producing farmers to go broke while sports and
entertainment celebrities make millions; and, nearly eighty percent of the world’s
resources are consumed by only about ten percent of the world’s inhabitants.' - KibibyteBrain, on 10/11/2007, -3/+23Its easy for westerners to tell poor people in these countries to stop having children, but to them, its a survival strategy. Have more kids to increase the chances you'll have someone to take care of you. That is their retirement plan. So really, the issue here is the same issue that is causing most problems in the world: poverty.
- iPodPartsPlus, on 10/11/2007, -3/+22Everyone in the world would fit in Jacksonville, Florida if they each had a 2' x 2' plot of land
- SpaceMonkeyZero, on 10/11/2007, -2/+21I read somewhere that everyone in the world would have a 1/4th of an acre if they were in Texas.
- iSlayer, on 10/11/2007, -1/+20Come to Australia. Lots of space in the desert.
- DorkmasterFlek, on 10/11/2007, -5/+23Whoever said ignorance is bliss was not blissfully ignorant, but alarmingly aware.
- Terr01, on 10/11/2007, -6/+23Now, it can certainly be ameliorated by better tech, but fundamentally our growth rate can outstrip our "double the effectiveness" invention rate. Earlier prophecies of population doom were simply too early.
Ultimately, we don't face doom. We do face an uncomfortable demographic crunch, which we can and should prepare for and soften. - vroom101, on 10/11/2007, -8/+25Physically the planet is plenty big for 6,500,000,000 of us -- the proof in a pic:
http://chamorrobible.org/images/photos/gpw-200702-49-NASA-ISS007-E-10807-space-sunset-20030721-Pacific-Ocean-large.jpg
via http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-200702.htm - derkaas, on 10/11/2007, -6/+22Are you volunteering to reduce the problem by one?
- dbwood, on 10/11/2007, -2/+17Then transliterate that to Alaska it would be even larger. The World is nowhere near overpopulated, populations just tend to converge into small spots. One big danger is that those who "should" be having more children, responsible and will educate their children with good sound doctrine, are not having hardly any. People are obsessed with careers and having just a couple kids. Childrean are a heritage of the Lord.
One popular way of culture war is through breeding. It has been done all throughout history and Islam does it now. If you look at Europe average birth rates of Europeans are dreadfully low, while birth rates in the Islamic communities sky-rocket. This changes the demographics greatly just after a generation cycle. - resplence, on 10/11/2007, -10/+25More like "how to solve my prejudicial pet peeves".
- ubuntuedgy, on 10/11/2007, -3/+17The planet can handle us. What it can't handle is our greedy nature and selfish raping of it. If we were good stewards of the planet, I think we would be fine. But, we aren't and that is the problem; too much waste, too much use, too little caring. Yes, you have a right to drive your hummer, even if you only have one kid, never tow a thing, and never take it off road. But you are screwing others...screwing the planet when millions have that same attitude. That is the dilemma.
- Kazbaeden, on 10/11/2007, -7/+212 Children? I consider it my duty to humanity to have as many children I can with my amazing genes.
- underthelinux, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13Where called condoms?
- DarKnight90, on 10/11/2007, -6/+18We already have radical plans to reduce population. There called condoms.
- jennywawa, on 10/11/2007, -2/+14I could be wrong but aren't the Chinese legally limited on the number of children they can have? like, one?
- Cyber_Akuma, on 10/11/2007, -2/+14I say we beef up our space program and run an aggressive space colonizing ad campaign...
- macaddct1984, on 10/11/2007, -2/+13In the words of George Carlin:
The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? - jeshjohn, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12Simply move to another planet.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -6/+16i, for one, welcome our new..er... earth.. overlord
- Junkyarddawg, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Of course not. I'd suggest lowering the birthrate, not increasing the mortality. I'm talking about family planning programmes, economic incentives (tax rebates f.ex.), and free education for girls in developing countries (educating the women lowers birthrate).
The alternative is status quo, not doing anything or doing silly counterproductive things like the abstinence programs, is that birthrate remains unchanged but mortality increases as environment is degraded.
In the end human population WILL be adjusted to earths carrying capacity, the question is how we want to get there. - Brian48216, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12China already adopted a one child per family policy you moron. There's a whole generation of sibling-less children.
- Stormflux, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10The earth doesn't need us to "save it from our gas guzzling ways". The earth will do just fine. We just won't be around to see it.
- lordfly, on 10/11/2007, -8/+17I dunno. you can give every human being on the planet a 1200 square foot house (might seem small to americans, but to most poor folks that's a mansion), and you would fill the state of texas and a part of oklahoma.
That's it.
Think about that, then think about the rest of the world being able to recover from human intervention. Totally empty except for nature.
The solution I think would be to just use less ground space and be more efficient in cities. Building up, not out. Cities mean mass transit which means more walking and less cars.
If everyone could walk to the grocery store rather than drive for 30 minutes, you'd be saving a lot of CO2 emissions. - waxoff, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12And I nominate you Chris Rapley as the first sacrifice we should make in the name of population reduction. Please kill yourself by tomorrow morning.
- maino82, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10most of that "barren, underpopulated" land is used to grow food to feed you. if you look at how much acreage of land it takes to sustain the population of the united states it's a hell of a lot more than the small amount of space that is actually occupied. of course, there are still plenty of unlivable spaces, such as the middle of the desert, but if we were motivated enough we could even live there (look at las vegas).
- chrisc262, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9so, now where did we get all the building materials for these houses?
oh yea, and how do we power these houses
ok, where is the grocery store?
and where do we grow food?
where do we get material to make clothes?
its not a physical space issue, it is a natural resource issue - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8Actually there would be a little bit of room left over. That's because I'd kill myself if I had to live in Texas.
- jstohler, on 10/11/2007, -17/+25It's comforting to me to know I'll be dead before things get totally out of hand.
- daridave, on 10/11/2007, -4/+11I feel very selfish right now, but I agree with you.
I still do my part (as in, recycling) but ... meh. It's frustrating when you try your best, just to see someone else ruin it... which leads me to being somewhat nonchalant about it all. - Dracker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Eugenics was tried in the past. It doesn't work.
Smart people still have stupid babies. Stupid people still have smart babies. How the child is raised determines everything. Intelligence as it's measured by an IQ test is hardly genetic. The notion that it is comes from the same vein as parents bragging about how smart their dumb kid is. - SpaceMonkeyZero, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Not really... I believe their population is still growing.
- akexakex, on 10/11/2007, -6/+13Or we could just launch the US into space. Everyone would benefit from that.
* No more arab-US war mongering
* 25% of the world's polution will go away in an instant - proghead, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7aaaaand welcome to my desktop!
- tazx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7It's overpopulation. You can have a smaller population than the world currently has, living at 1st world levels sustainably, or you can expand the population, at the cost of species extinction, pollution, climate change, starvation, and declining standards of living.
Space is not a solution. You cannot send any significant portion of the human population into space. You send a few hundred or thousand, and they breed on Mars, the asteroid, etc. and fill up the available space within a few generations.
There is a limit to how many people can live comfortably and sustainably on the planet. Humanity needs to stay at or under that limit. We simply cannot breed uncontrollably without severe negative consequences. Either we stop voluntarily, or nature does it for us. -
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