Human population growing beyond planet's capacities, says new report

[Moliere]

You've shot down your own argument here.... DVD players and cell phones are NOT necessity.

Says you. Again someone is passing judgment on what is appropriate for all human beings and their consumption habits. Hell, why not just convert to Amish and be done with this whole evil consumption society.

How do you justify YOUR lifestyle? How much better are you?

I don't have to justify my lifestyle or consumption. If I am a productive member of society and come by my goods and services honestly and legally then what's the problem?

 

[Moliere]

Moliere seems to think he is better. HIS standard of living is a given, a right. What HIS contribution to this new age is is uncertain, but he claims rights to it nontheless. If HE made no contribution, and a homeless maid in Congo made no contribution, what is his claim (other than hers) other than luck of birth in a lucky circumstance?

Please show where I stated that I am better than someone and that I have a "right" to my standard of living. Quite the contrary, I know how lucky I am to have been born in the USA versus the Congo. Being born in the USA isn't a free ride to SUV's and mansions on the hill though. I still have to go out and be a productive member of society.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Most people? Really. Please explain, in detail, how a toaster works. Then ask your Mom, your Dad, and your cousins. If they can even give you ohm's law you are lucky......

You don't need Ohm's Law to know that if you plug in a heating element to an electrical power source you get heat.
By the way, do you know Ohm's Law?

 

[luvhumility]

I like this thread! My bet is equilibrium will be reached without "us"...

I may be called a rant, a flamer or whatever but here goes...

In a million years It will matter if the whole world is a waste land of eco destruction. (Ya I suppose the earth will laugh and start all over again, but is it necessary)? survival of the fittest! yahoo!! I am glad we are waking up to smell the over consumption. The real question should be what are we doing as individuals and a world culture to make over consumption, greed and excessive want of profit + having more than 1.5 kids a VERY unpopular thing to do. Ohhh no!
we cant stop making consumers, this might affect the number of slaves of profit! What a farse... Profit... does anyone know what profit really is? where it came from...??? hmmmm!
That is the key... false perceptins we have been taught to accept without question....but trust me this subject is constantly avoided... why? PURE IGNORANCE! (and a swift # by those at the top of the $ heap) another Unpopular subject of denial...lets stop breeding like theres no tomorrow.

What are we each doing about it right now. social pressure? denial of purcahsing desposable products? That is all that really matters!! any other talk is a waste of time... ANd I bet no one will comment either!! its just to "hot" of a subject to touch! am i right?

Hate to be brash but time is speeding up!!!

lh

 

[Roboramma]

You missed one question.

"In a million years, how much will it matter?"

You could ask that question about anything. It certainly doesn't suggest that we shouldn't care about how much it will matter now, or even in a thousand years time.

And as for this issue, unlike most, the answer is that it depends. Depends on how many species go extinct in the meantime. The earth's biodiversity could still be significantly impoverished in a million years because of how we do things now. That seems pretty serious to me.

 

[luvhumility]

p.s. yes P=IxE or E=IxR etc... E=I^2xR etc etc... and 0.707 X pk E = rms value and XsubC=1/2pi FC. 1.732 is the 3phaze X factor blah blah... ya I agree most are ignorant for sure NO DOUBT! We should all learn physics and electro math.
Then we will understand better HOW MUCH TROUBLE WE ARE ALL IN!!!

 

[Moliere]

I am glad we are waking up to smell the over consumption. The real question should be what are we doing as individuals and a world culture to make over consumption, greed and excessive want of profit + having more than 1.5 kids a VERY unpopular thing to do.

False premise. There is no such thing as "over consumption". I continue to wait for someone in this thread to explain the universal rule of consumption that should be applied to all humans on the planet. What arrogant equation have you dug up that determines how much people are allowed to consume and how many kids they are allowed to have?

Profit... does anyone know what profit really is? where it came from...??? hmmmm!

This isn't rocket science. Profit = selling a good or service for a higher price than what it cost you to produce. The amount of profit is determined by what the market will bear for your product. Price it too high and no one will buy. Price it too low and you lose money and eventually go out of business. Where's the "false perceptins" and "PURE IGNORANCE"?

ANd I bet no one will comment either!! its just to "hot" of a subject to touch! am i right?

You are wrong.

 

[Roboramma]

False premise. There is no such thing as "over consumption". I continue to wait for someone in this thread to explain the universal rule of consumption that should be applied to all humans on the planet. What arrogant equation have you dug up that determines how much people are allowed to consume and how many kids they are allowed to have?

I don't think anyone has suggested that there should be a universal rule of consumption. Rather, we have suggested that the current rate of consumption is high enough that it is not supportable. Use up all your top soil, and farming becomes much more difficult. Cut down a forest, and you no longer have a valuable resource - not just a source of wood, but also a repository of ecological diversity, a place that helps create climatic stability, a natural water purification system, a gaurd against errosion, etc.
Of course, in the process of using those natural resources, we also gain something. Wood for building or paper, perhaps more efficient food production in the short term. etc.

Consumption by individuals creates demand for consumption of natural resources by those supplying products and services to individuals.
By over consumption all that we (or at least I) mean is when the rate of consumption by individuals is higher than the natural environment can sustain.
By this logic we should all limit our consumption. But clearly some consume more for less gain than others, and thus their consumption can stand to be limited more as well.

Limiting consumption is a very complicated issue. It may require cultural changes. Some may feel that those changes are unwarrented or impossible.
The easter islanders may have felt similarly about the over consumption of trees for building Moai. They may have felt that they had as much a "need" for this religious and social construction as anyone today does for their cell-phones and dvd players. Nevertheless, their children were impoverished because of their overconsumption.

 

[Cuddles]

False premise. There is no such thing as "over consumption". I continue to wait for someone in this thread to explain the universal rule of consumption that should be applied to all humans on the planet. What arrogant equation have you dug up that determines how much people are allowed to consume and how many kids they are allowed to have?

Of course there is such a thing as over-consumption. There is a limited amount of many things on Earth, at the most basic level energy and matter. If we assume that the population can carry on growing for ever, eventually we will run out of either energy to do anything or matter to make more humans out of. Obviously we cannot use energy and matter 100% efficiently, so the actual limits are much more severe than this.

If people have more than 2 children survive to reproduce and consume as much as they like, we will run out of space, food, energy, whatever. How is it arrogant to realise this? What is arrogant is thinking that just because you have enough, and are likely to for the rest of your life, that there is no problem and everyone who says there is is somehow out to get you.

Edit : I should add that no-one is arguing about what we deserve and whether anyone is better than anyone else. The simple fact is that there is not enough of anything for everyone to use as much as they like. At the moment, Americans use more energy than anyone else and if everyone used this much we wouldn't survive long at all. This wasn't a problem in the past, but as the population increases and more areas have access to advanced technology the problem has become very obvious. The question of whether certain people deserve more than others is an entirely different one from the question of whether it is actually possible for them to have it.

 

[3point14]

False premise. There is no such thing as "over consumption". I continue to wait for someone in this thread to explain the universal rule of consumption that should be applied to all humans on the planet. What arrogant equation have you dug up that determines how much people are allowed to consume and how many kids they are allowed to have?

I'm just guessing here, but the sum for 'over-consumption' is an easy one to state.

Total the resources that the planet can sustain without damage.

Divide by the total number of people on the planet.

If you're using more than this, you're over-consuming.

(I said it was easy to state, I didn't say it would be easy to work out. I can be pretty certain, however, that with perhaps one or two very unusual exceptions, anyone living in the old or new worlds is over-consuming massively.)

Of course, living in a consumer-driven capitalist society, at this point people start complaining that they have provided more, or worked harder and are entitled to a larger slice of the planet than others because they are so hard-working/intelligent/beautiful/entertaining/good at sport/wealthy to start with, etc.

 

[Dave1001]

It's sort of obscene the degree to which Americans waste global resources on capricious luxury. I'm thinking of the millions of people that solo-drive SUVs when they don't need to, for example.

I love the arrogance of these statements. Skipping the cliché America bashing (because everyone knows that not a single SUV is sold outside of America to solo drivers) we get guilted on "waste" and "capricious luxury". How can you possibly make a grand unifying theory on the proper amount of goods consumed for all human beings on the planet? Capricious luxury goods have a habit of becoming a necessity (DVD players and cell phones anyone?).

No matter how one slices it, wasteful consumption by Americans is off the chart (not only Americans, but disproprotionately Americans to the rest of the world). Solo urban and suburban drivers of SUV's in America is apropos because there is absolutely no justification for it, and yet I'm sure it forms a significant portion of global energy consumptions (the difference between if they were driving normally fuel efficient cars such as sedans and SUVs). Even more so if we include 2-4 passengers riding in these SUVs that could be riding in normally fuel efficient cars.

I'm not describing DVD players and cell phones here because productivity cases can be made for them. But SUVs in urban and suburban environments, for small households, are inversely productive ego-mobiles. It's obscenely wasteful, unjustifiable, and in my opinion folks that allocate their resources that way should be called out on what they're doing. It's as ridiculous buying medication for malaria and AIDS, and the necessary postage to mail it to a third world clinic, and then burning it in a bonfire each night to make s'mores.

 

[Moliere]

Of course there is such a thing as over-consumption. There is a limited amount of many things on Earth, at the most basic level energy and matter. If we assume that the population can carry on growing for ever, eventually we will run out of either energy to do anything or matter to make more humans out of. Obviously we cannot use energy and matter 100% efficiently, so the actual limits are much more severe than this.

Doomsayers always underestimate human ingenuity and technological advances. They have certainly made a fool out of Paul Ehrlich. How can we possibly run out of energy when you consider solar power. Sure, it only has limited use currently, but the technology continues to improve and become more efficient. That's only one example. Improved technology that made the newly discovered oil find in the Gulf is another example. Give the human mind more credit people.

If people have more than 2 children survive to reproduce and consume as much as they like, we will run out of space, food, energy, whatever.

The U.S. doesn't have a sustainable population. More people die than are born here. The only thing that keeps our population growing is immigration. Why? Because as nations become more prosperous they have fewer kids. If you want to cut the population growth you have to encourage prosperity and capitalism. America bashers wrap your head around that paradox for awhile.

 

[Moliere]

in my opinion

The most honest thing said yet.

 

[BobK]

mmmm, s'mores.

 

[Hellbound]

Hmmm.

Did I accidentally wander into the politics forum?

But, in regards to the OP, my answer is "So what?"

And the reason I say this is because there have been around two dozen "this is how many people the Earth can support" studies done, all with different answers. The answers range from 1 billion people up to about 20 billion. These are based on arable land and food production, or energy needs, or resource estimates, or other factors. To my knowledge, no study has included all relevent factors, and very few agree with each other.

Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean I think we should ignore overpopulation. It just means I don't believe this study is any different than any of the others before it. We should always be interested in increasing efficiency and reducing our impact on the environment...I don't see where this study changes anything.

 

[Correa Neto]

So, the study may or not be correct. Or its precision may be better or worse than the others avaliable or yet to come. I think we all agree with this.

However, resources such as oil and metals are not endless. Every single deposit has a size. Sure, new tech and economy dynamics can increase (or decrease) a deposit's lifetime. And provide incentive to discovery of new ones.

But there are limits. The number of deposits is finite. Geological processes take millions of years to "build" a ore or oil deposit. Technology has a limit beyond wich extraction is rendered unprofitable. I think its very hard to disagree with the above.

A similar reasoning can be applied to fish, wood, etc. There are limits imposed by the nature (area, climate, reproduction rates, etc). One can not expect technology will solve all the issues.

So, I think the best option is to plan ahead and start changing our ways. do you really need changing your cell phone model each year? Why can't we save energy? Heck, we save money, its basically the same thing.

Its a hard task. You need to tell the first world people to slow down, change habits and perhaps decrease some luxuries. You need to tell the third world people perhaps they may not reach the level they aspire.

 

[Cuddles]

Doomsayers always underestimate human ingenuity and technological advances. They have certainly made a fool out of Paul Ehrlich. How can we possibly run out of energy when you consider solar power. Sure, it only has limited use currently, but the technology continues to improve and become more efficient. That's only one example. Improved technology that made the newly discovered oil find in the Gulf is another example. Give the human mind more credit people.

Did you even read my post? As I said, there is a finite amount of both energy and matter available, both on Earth and in the Solar System as a whole. It doesn't matter how clever we are, it is physically impossible for the human population to continue expanding for ever. Why should I give the human mind more credit when it appears to think that there is an unlimited amount of space?

The U.S. doesn't have a sustainable population. More people die than are born here. The only thing that keeps our population growing is immigration. Why? Because as nations become more prosperous they have fewer kids. If you want to cut the population growth you have to encourage prosperity and capitalism. America bashers wrap your head around that paradox for awhile.

From here - "One birth every 7 seconds, one death every 13 seconds". Sounds like growth to me. Also, from the same site, over 1 in 8 people in the USA now live in poverty, and the number is still increasing. I wouldn't start patting yourself on the back too much just yet.

No-one doubts that increasing prosperity (although I'm not sure where your assumption of capitalism comes from) tends to reduce population growth. This does not change the fact that the west, especially the USA, is using far more resources than the Earth actually has. Just because it has worked out so far does not magically mean it will do so in the future.

 

[Modified]

We all must do our part to help solve this problem. For example, I killed a guy yesterday.

 

[Moliere]

We all must do our part to help solve this problem. For example, I killed a guy yesterday.

LOL! Thank you for this. It was the best laugh I had all day.

 

[Moliere]

there is a finite amount of both energy and matter available, both on Earth and in the Solar System as a whole. It doesn't matter how clever we are, it is physically impossible for the human population to continue expanding for ever. Why should I give the human mind more credit when it appears to think that there is an unlimited amount of space?

How is the infinite universe not unlimited space for human expansion? Even sticking to the Solar System there are more planets and resources available than we could possibly use up for hundreds of years. We are already researching ways to mine passing asteroids for minerals. No more oil? Who cares. That will create incentive for the developement of solar power technologies. The faster we burn through our oil resources the faster the Middle East thugs lose their funding. I say if you want to stop terrorism everyone buy SUV's are start driving around solo.