Canada panics over overpopulation

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Niki
I'm a big proponent of ZPG

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In that case, the ideological gap between us is probably too big to bridge. I suspect ZPG of targeting particular populations. I'm more in favor of solving the food issue.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:

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Niki
I'm a big proponent of ZPG

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In that case, the ideological gap between us is probably too big to bridge. I suspect ZPG of targeting particular populations. I'm more in favor of solving the food issue.

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I am somewhere in between your positions. Solving the food issue would be a priority, but I am hesitant to much of the genetic modification going on right now... Better solutions need to be tried

ZPG... could start with folk barely able to support themselves having 5 kids, and I mean in Canada and the US... not the third world.



Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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There's already enough food to feed everyone. Unfortunately between obesity epidemics and food mountains rotting in warehouses, it doesn't get where it's needed. Vis a Vis the food problem is that we'd rather people starve than give food away for free.

But the planet can't deal with infinite population. A sustainable world population where we all get to live the life we'd like to live in the west (highly technological and energy dependent) probably requires a max global population of 2 Billion.

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There is an obsession with food, as if everyone in the world could just get their hands on some GM crops everything would be okay. It's a shockingly patronising world view that accepts everything would be okay if most people in the world were very poor and had standard of living that we wouldn't let a dog live under in the west, but they're fed, so everything is okay.

What about if we considered that everyone's standard of living should be the same as an average American ...that everyone should have the same right to consume what an average American does.

Given the current world population, our resources would last...? Anyone, anyone? A year or two at most and we'd be garbage planet. But still we demand growth and still we demand that our current standard of living should not be in any way jeopardized.

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Originally posted by citizen:
There's already enough food to feed everyone. Unfortunately between obesity epidemics and food mountains rotting in warehouses, it doesn't get where it's needed. Vis a Vis the food problem is that we'd rather people starve than give food away for free.

But the planet can't deal with infinite population. A sustainable world population where we all get to live the life we'd like to live in the west (highly technological and energy dependent) probably requires a max global population of 2 Billion.

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Thats a huge problem, but shipping food for the most part isn't the best answer. Growing crops and revitalizing arable land where the food is needed would be better... Jobs and local economys solve more problems than just hunger alone



Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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Gino,

I agree with you that GMO is being misused, but I don't favor a ban. After all, everything we eat just about is a GMO food. In the US, many of our foods are GMO foods created by ancient mezoamerican civilizations.

As per your Islamic law suggestion, I think it's overall sound: Don't have more children than you can support. My only concern would be, as with so many things: Who do you give the power to enforce such a policy.


Citizen,

Re: food shortages. The main problems currently I would put into three groups:

1. poor distribution system
2. Political disruption of centralized distribution, often for democidal reasons
3. Small groups of wandering primitive agricultural semi-nomadic herders rapidly accelerating the degeneration of land in low rainfall areas.

Additionally, obviously, deforestation and overfishing are major issues, and there will be additional issues if the human population passes 40 billion or so, but not problems that technology can't solve.

I'd propose broader solutions:

1. Each territory and population should be food-self-sufficient. This might mean major land revitalization issues for some places, but nothing we can't accomplish today, and though expensive, a drop in the bucket compared to your average war.

2. Food should be localized to the extent where one population cannot control the food supply for another. This is a major issue in Africa, right now, specifically Ethiopia and Zimbabwe in much the way it was a problem in the early Soviet Union.

3. Responsible GMO farming can be done by groups, populations or nations to help solve the problem, and those decisions and oversight should be done locally. Let the people of Eritrea decide what they can and can't do to their food, not some international entity that might not have the best interests of the Eritreans in mind, and, in a worst case scenario, might have controlling their population in mind. We're not about to be in danger of being attacked by giant faba beans


Overall, I think the human race as a biomass is nowhere near critical levels. It's just the manner in which humans use their resources. Consider mice as a decent correlation. The biomass of the world's mice (biomouse?) is currently around 2 to 3 times that of humans, but the situation is worse than that: Mice also have a metabolic rate about 10 times that of humans, so you're looking at more like 20-30 the total food consumption in terms of high value dry weight foods by mice vs. humans.

This is usually the basis for a projected carrying capacity of the Earth of around 100 billion humans, but I used 40 billion under the assumption that humans are not capable of living in as many ecosystems as mice, and are overall less efficient. Still, we have plenty of time to work on the proble,

But also, consider the environment impact profile of mice relative to humans. My house sits on 2 acres of land, which means that local to here, my yard supports over 10,000 mice which are outweighing the local human population by about three to five times. I have no reason to doubt any of this, or that they are consuming 25 times as much in foodstuffs.

But consider the visible profile of my property: The dominating structure, covering maybe 10% of the land, is my house, an a micro-desert called my driveway. There are several micro-forests called hedgerows, that are home to an incredibly wide variety of land, and then a cleared croquet court known as my lawn. The front yard is a separate ecosystem consisting of an artificial orchard environment, and my back yard contains another, my garden, and then a third larger thicket where I used to have goats, and a very extensive sylvan thicket that's the outer area of my lawn.

I'm making my presence abundantly clear, and using up a lot of the land for my own direct use. The mice, otoh, are practically invisible, outside of seeing them everywhere. But statistically, I know there are more than 20 for every one I see. But the above description would show an incredible visible impact of my presence on the land compared t

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dreamtrove wrote "
Gino,

I agree with you that GMO is being misused, but I don't favor a ban. After all, everything we eat just about is a GMO food. In the US, many of our foods are GMO foods created by ancient mezoamerican civilizations.

As per your Islamic law suggestion, I think it's overall sound: Don't have more children than you can support. My only concern would be, as with so many things: Who do you give the power to enforce such a policy. "

I would suggest 1.common sense, but failing that

perhaps our social support systems are adding to the damage by almost encouraging people without means to reproduce... welfare paying out so much per child, etc

A cutoff, assistance for one child only, may be harsh but at least crack moms won't be having kids to pay for their habit




Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Overall, I think the human race as a biomass is nowhere near critical levels. It's just the manner in which humans use their resources. Consider mice as a decent correlation. The biomass of the world's mice (biomouse?) is currently around 2 to 3 times that of humans, but the situation is worse than that: Mice also have a metabolic rate about 10 times that of humans, so you're looking at more like 20-30 the total food consumption in terms of high value dry weight foods by mice vs. humans.

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There's many times more insects than anything else: but they're insects, not people. I don't think the number of mice that the planet can support proves how many humans it can support. The Easter Island Civilisation collapsed because they couldn't support their population, and their population density was no where near our current density in the west.

If we didn't have technologically advanced farming methods, we couldn't support our population now. If we used just traditional farming methods we couldn't support our population. Britain couldn't feed a much smaller population than todays on the agricultural methods of the time in the 1940s, and those have much greater yield than natural food gathering for humans. That is, right now, the planet can't naturally support the Human population, we have to use incredibly advanced intensive agricultural technology to do so. We exceeded our natural maximum biomass more than 2000 years ago.

But that's beside the point. If we're all going to live by western standards, we need a lot less people. America, a country of 300 million, is responsible for 25% of the emissions of a planet of 6 Billion. Imagine if all 6 Billion used energy and industry like American's do. If everyone is too live a life like that we enjoy in the west, there's no option but having much less people on the planet.

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