Why do Enviornmentalists ignore the fundamental problem of overpopulation?
March 7, 2010 by Socials Mastermind
Filed under human social media
The media, social welfare types , humans in general but especially , enviornmentalists, seem to gloss over this issue and vehemently fight the effects of overpopulation like dwindiling wildlife areas and wildlife populations, increased pollution, globalwarming/cooling/climate change/whatever, deforestation and dwindling resources and completely overlook the fact that the human population is expanding, people are living much longer infant mortality rates are much lower even in regions that they are traditionally high.
The human population is getting exponentially larger , millions upon millions ahead of the death rate every year. Each one of these surplus people I guess you can call them for now, will consume a lifetime of resources, food, gas, electricity, plastics, paper, everything. And generate a lifetime of waste. Each person will demand a certain amount of space to live as well. You cant tell some poor guy in Africa hey don’t build your tiny family sustaining farm there, we need to preserve the environment. Or maybe you can but for how long?
Its very obvious to me that looking forward there will come a point where the struggle to prevent poverty and conserve the environment will become useless because the rate of conservation and poverty reduction will be surpassed by the growth of the human population. Any gains made will be cancelled out by new people generating more waste and demanding more resources and space. Trying to reduce the effects of overpopulation can only at the very most slow the inevitable fate of total environmental destruction and a Catastrophic loss of human life from famine, war, starvation disease.
Let me create a picture to illustrate my point
Imagine the world with twice as many people as there are today?( this is coming by the end of this century). I see a place where everything costs much more, more waste much less resources to go around starvation war animal extinction, habitat elimination.
Now imagine the world with only half as many people as there are now? Everything is cheaper resources are abundant poverty is miniscule because everyone has jobs and education is affordable, plenty of room to live for wildlife and humans, waste is manageable and can realistically be eliminated etc, etc…
I know some might say we can eventually populate other planets but to that I say who will go? Who will want to live on Mars in a bubble where there’s only 1/3 of earths gravity?? or on the moon? or on some giant space ship where you know you will die long before you reach a new world . The human race will of destroyed ourselves by the time we figure out some way to get to other stars quickly. That’s if a way even exists.
So I ask why is this fact ignored and instead everybody chases global warming or climate change or whatever it is now. And the other effects of overpopulation??
The simple answer to your question is that (at the moment anyway) most governments don`t know what to do about over-population. And if ideas are promulgated, they are very reluctant to discuss them because they would probably lose the election!
It would the most unpopular decision they could try to foist on the human race.
Communist China foisted a law upon its population (only 1 child to each family I believe – which gave rise to many millions of very lonely children). Not only that, it causes a serious imbalance in the population – as old people live longer and longer, and not enough young people were being born to support them.
The ideal of course would be a perfect balance – ie, the same amount of people die as are born. But it is impossible to control the balance like this.
But…
Yes:
You are right in everything you say.
This is why many people think – one way or another – nature will redress the balance, by wars, famines and other natural disasters.
But it is a shame if this is true, and we have to suffer these horrific calamities, just to rebalance the world`s population.
because over population at the rate you speak of is’nt reality yet. One day we not as America but as a civaliszation must restrict the amount of children people may have. It’s sad for me to say but before this gets to that point we will of probably liad waste to the world rain forest and killed many if not most or all large land roaming wildlife. If you really think about it over population has already forced Humans to rely on farming and agruculture. 10 thousand years ago humans were hunter and gatherers . Today that would be impossible because wildlife can not sustain the mouths of 6 billion mouths because wildlife food sources such as bulls,pigs,fish, and deer can not reproduce faster than they would be consumed by humans. With out the ability to farm and till the ground and raise milk cows,chikens and pigs it is very possible that the catastophe you speak of would of already happend and would be happening right now. The fact is I believe withing 100 or 200 years humans will have to rely completly on domestic farm animals and agruculture. If everyone in new york had to rely on wild animals and wild life to live off of it would only be a matter of time before people would loading trucks up with newly shot dear turkeys from neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Maine.How long would it take before there aren’t enough animals to eat? people would start eating rats raccoons and opposums Imagine not having chicken eggs in the morning or farming orange juice or bacon or toast? All of these foods are possible because of Humans ability to farm land and raise domestic animals. If one day the population is so large we will have no choice but to plow down every bit of Forrest available and turn it to farm land. I know that doomsday sayers say we will all die of global warming by then but I think that’s not the case. It’s very possible that one day the only animals at a zoo may be farm animals like chickens and cows. The human race will live on if we manage not to get into a nuclear war and restrict the amount of children people have. It will be a sad day when there are no more huge legendary land roaming mammals like giraffe moose and bison or elephants but us humans can grow our own food
Since you can see that you are part of the problem, are you willing to do the right thing and euthanize yourself?
I didn’t think so.
Neither does anyone else.
Does that lead us to actively hope for insanely destructive wars over increasingly scarce natural resources?
As for living on Mars, I believe it would be an ideal habitat for “seasoned citizens”. Lower gravity would be a boon to those of us with arthritis and circulatory issues. It would also give the elderly a purpose; terra-forming Mars!
That will fix itself anyway.
We can do very little about overpopulation. We can’t go around saying stop having babies or we don’t go around killing babies. We will need to adapt to conserving our vital resources in overpopulated areas. All the scenerios you pointed out above are crucial reasons to why we need to start being green and taking car of our planet NOW!
Anybody who doesn’t think that the overpopulation crisis is already upon us, is a fool with their head in the sand. There’s a 70,000,000 net world population increase each year. Addressing environmental issues without intercalating the overpopulation factor is like trying to sweep sand against the tide.
Our world has limited capacity to support life.In order for the human population to expand the competition is being eliminated.(I.E.,the other species on the planet)Pretty dam sick if you ask me!Humans are the only animal whose population needs to be controlled,why is China the only country doing something about it?There was a time when the overpopulation problem was a hot topic,but politics swept it under the rug because of “human rights” issues.Anti-abortion terrorists have turned public opinion against abortion so we have people not ready to bring a life into this world having kids,even kids.Feeding the world is saving people but making them dependent,not self sufficient.So they make many more kids knowing we will feed them.Not like they have jobs,what else they got to do all day?Anti death penalty is saving people not worth keeping.Many other things.The 6 billion population has been used a long time.I know far more people are born than die each day.Human over population is a big problem.Why are so many people working on making it worse?
there is a capsule of cyanide with your name on it, go ahead and make someone happy.
Cheer up. How long can it be before we have WW III with som rogue state setting off an atomic bomb. That should drop the population for us.
I know of one person who taught a course in “Human Ecology”. It was interesting when he talked about the population problem; he had five kids.
You are the problem
Maybe thats why their building all the death camps in america, Hitler would be proud.
You are absolutely correct. But as the world has gone through you will see it has become a better place to live compared to about 50 years ago. Science has done its part in supporting a larger population than it was 50 years ago. Famines and poverty were there everywhere then, but now it is on the decline. Take for example India. when it got Independence it was a famine country always looking for aid from well to do countries. But now there had never been a famine and it has reserves to match any country, but the population has also grown. On the other hand the west is losing population. As people are more educated and comfortable they tend to have less children. So don’t worry all the poor countries when they get rich their population will stabilize. Today China has relaxed the one child policy but I am sure it is not going to have any big impact on its population since they are getting richer and they will not like to have more children. Women who are educated and independent will see to it that they population s kept at a reasonable level.