And let me guess, your post is your cite too, huh? :rolleyes: I’m not sure when why or how civility left this conversation, but we’ll talk when it returns.
IOW Cisco has nothing of substance to add to this debate, just his own opinion that things are going to hell in handcart in direct contradiction to the objective facts.
For those interested in actual facts:
So more people does not mean more hungry, people. Quite the opposite. The more people the better fed they are.
about 1.4 billion people in the developing world… were living on less than $1.25 a day in 2005, down from 1.9 billion (one in two) in 1981… the developing world as a whole remains on track to meet the first Millennium Development Goal to halve extreme poverty from its 1990 levels by 2015.
So more people does not mean more poor, people. Quite the opposite. The more people the wealthier they are. Similarly the improvements are not restricted to only some people. the vast majority of people see their lot improving as population increases.
Worldwide the rate of deforestation is declining so rapidly that there will be a 10 percent increase in global forest cover—an area the size of India—by 2050.
So more people does not mean more environmental degradation. Quite the opposite. The higher the population the lower the degradation, and in fact at the time that population is predicted to peak the world’s forest cover will be expanding, probably for the for the first time in human history.
I could go on with this list all day. The idea that human population correlates to poverty, or hunger or any negative living standard metric at all is total bollocks. Quite the opposite is true: it’s a negative correlation. The higher the population the better the living standard by every objective measure. The same goes for these ignorant claims of environmental damage being correlated to population density.
But the likes of Cisco and mswas won’t let the facts stand in the way of their pre-concieved beliefs.
First of all, Blake, you haven’t shown any direct correlation attributed to population increase. Secondly, your food statistics don’t mean much because us “haves” are far overfed, while millions of “have nots” are starving. More food does not mean more people fed. And finally, you’re assuming material/financial wealth = good, while material/financial poverty = bad. If that’s so, why is the 160th richest country the 8th happiest? And the United States isn’t even on the list. Financial wealth being “objectively” good is a pre-conceived belief if I’ve ever heard one.
So while refusing my calls for citations for your claims you feel free to question my citations.
But WTF, I’ll bite.
I haven’t tried to show any direct correlation attributed to population increase. I don’t need to. All I need to show is that more people does not mean more hungry, more poor or more damage to prove that your statements are bullshit. Since the world with more people has fewer hungry, fewer poor, less pollution and more forests, then claims that more people means more damage and more hunger and poverty are obviously bullshit. I don’t need to show that poverty and hunger declined because of population increase. All I need to show that it declined despite population increase. Now that has been established as fact any claims that more people means more hunger and more damage are provably bullshit.
So let’s see. There is more food being produced, fewer people are in poverty, underweight prevalence declines by 34% worldwide and 41% in the developing world.
But you are contending that more people are starving than ever before? Please, present your evidence for this outrageous claim.
Rubbish.
It was you said that material/financial wealth = good, and that more poor people was bad. You stated outright that more people means more poor people and that things were only better for a (wealthy) minority. Now that I have proven that higher populations correlate to fewer poor people, not more, you want to move the goalposts and say that wealth isn’t important as a measure of improvement.
Well if it wasn’t important, bucko, then you shouldn’t have introduced it to show that things weren’t getting better for the majority of people. The fact is that wealth is getting better for the majority of people and that the more people we have the more wealth improves.
That is ignorant rubbish that flies in the face of the facts. More people does not mean more poor people, it means fewer poor people.
Well * you* were the one who introduced it, not me.
But hey, when you post bullshit and get called on it, simply move the goalposts and claim that even though your were completely wrong on the facts it wasn’t important anyway. IOW it’s only important and a valid measure of improvement when it supports your position. When it contradicts your opinion its unimportant.
:rolleyes:
Whatever, dude, I think you need to relax. Either talk to me like an adult without multiple uses of “bullshit”, “rubbish”, “nonsense”, and “bucko”, or we’re done here. You’re acting like someone with a pre-set political agenda rather than someone interested in debate. You’re angrily defending your concrete, unflexible beliefs and accusing me of having preconceived notions? Who are you trying to convince that you’re so objectively right on a matter that depends on an unseeable future and the collective will of billions of people? I realize things can go either way and that’s all I’ve said in this thread; it sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself of something. Are you doing a good job?
When I referred to “poor” people I was essentially referring to starving people. Sorry that I used a word that you were going to turn around and use against me but I’m telling you now what I meant.
And do you even read your own cites? The prevalence of underweight children in Africa is projected to increase. No one is shocked that Americans, Europeans, and now Chinese and Indians are getting fatter. The world is developing, people from category B are moving into category A. That doesn’t mean category A is suddenly Earth-friendly, or that category B is a thing of the past.
But the number of starving people has declined far more rapidly than the number of poor people. So your claim is even more ridiculous and even more contraru to the facts.
Look do you actually have anything at all to back up your claims that as population increases so do the numbers of hungry? Because all the actual evidence says that as population increases the state of nutrition of the world improves?
Didn’t think so.
IOW Cisco has nothing of substance to add to this debate, just his own opinion that things are going to hell in handcart in direct contradiction to the objective facts.
For those interested in actual facts:
The 5.8 billion people in the world today have, on average, 15 percent more food per person than the global population, of 4 billion people, had 20 years ago. underweight prevalence declines by 34% worldwide and 41% in the developing world.
So more people does not mean more hungry, people. Quite the opposite. The more people the better fed they are, and the better fed are the people in the poorest nations.
about 1.4 billion people in the developing world… were living on less than $1.25 a day in 2005, down from 1.9 billion (one in two) in 1981… the developing world as a whole remains on track to meet the first Millennium Development Goal to halve extreme poverty from its 1990 levels by 2015.
So more people does not mean more poor, people. Quite the opposite. The more people the wealthier they are. Similarly the improvements are not restricted to only some people. the vast majority of people see their lot improving as population increases.
Worldwide the rate of deforestation is declining so rapidly that there will be a 10 percent increase in global forest cover—an area the size of India—by 2050.
So more people does not mean more environmental degradation. Quite the opposite. The higher the population the lower the degradation, and in fact at the time that population is predicted to peak the world’s forest cover will be expanding, probably for the for the first time in human history.
I could go on with this list all day. The idea that human population correlates to poverty, or hunger or any negative living standard metric at all is total bollocks. Quite the opposite is true: it’s a negative correlation. The higher the population the better the living standard by every objective measure. The same goes for these ignorant claims of environmental damage being correlated to population density.
But the likes of Cisco and mswas won’t let the facts stand in the way of their pre-concieved beliefs.
So what? It is predicted to decrease everywhere else, including China, where population is increasing much faster than in Africa? Worldeide it is predicted to decrease massively.
So you claimed that more people in the world would men more hungry people. When the figures show that more people will lead to fewer hungry people you then want to concentrate on Africa.
Once again you want to try to move the goalposts. The OP and the entire thread has been about the effect of world population. Not African population. See the difference. You claimed that increases in world population would lead to world hunger. That claim is bullshit. Increase sin world population lead to decreases in hunger.
Your rather feeble attempt to shift the focus to Africa is hardly likely to work on the SDMB.
Wow; I don’t even know where to start, although I suspect in a face to face conversation I’d be walking away from this barrage about now.
But since " the world with more people has fewer hungry, fewer poor, less pollution and more forests" let us pray we march on past 9 Billion toward 100 Billion as soon as possible and get the world really fixed up for Good.
We can hope together the developed world does as good a job over the next 100 years as they have over the past 100 years keeping the rest of the world’s ass out of trouble from their inability to take care of themselves.
So, no actual debate then?
The part I enjoyed was where you were described as the one being close-minded. It boggles the mind.
I am reminded of Julian Simon’s bet with Paul Erlich, where Erlich claimed that increasing population was going to lead to mass starvation, environmental destruction, and a shortage of basic commodities like steel. Simon offered him a bet - take any collection of commodities you want, and after ten years, if the aggregate price of those commodities is lower, indicating greater supply, Simon would win. If the price of the commodities was higher, Erlich would win. Erlich eagerly accepted.
A few years ago, Erlich paid Simon the money. Even with ten years of population growth, the average price of the commodies that Erlich selected was lower.
Anyway, Blake is absolutely right in just about everything he’s said. By almost any measure of human well being, the globe is better off today than it has ever been. There’s no reason for that trend to stop.
It’s interesting with overpopulation how areas such as Sub-saharan africa and latin america are often considered the culprits (because of their relatively high population growth), ignoring the fact that their population density is never going to get near Europe or Asia’s.
The real problem for the planet, is actually the spread of a Western style of living – guzzling crude, eating beef, wastefully discarding what can’t be used / eaten now etc.
(and therefore, Africa and South America are hardly the main culprits in this respect)
But of course we cannot deny the genuinely developing countries from developing as we have. All we can hope to do is use our resources more responsibly and encourage the “new money” to do the same.
Brilliant. Just brilliant. The more commodities we use, the more we’ll have. Yeah, that’ll go on indefinitely, right Sam?
No. We can do it. It’s just a case of whether we choose to do so.
For any reasonable value of ‘indefinitely’, yes. Or rather, if commodities rise in price, it won’t be because of the population, but because something destroys our economies. Some very specific commodities may become more expensive for various reasons, while other will continue to decline in price.
In 1900, the vast majority of the U.S. population was engaged in food creation, preparation, and delivery. Today, the U.S. feeds far more people, using a much smaller percentage of the population and much less farmland.
Today there are far more cars in the U.S. than there were 30 years ago, yet the air is cleaner. The U.S’s overall economic activity is much higher, and yet by almost all measures the environment is healthier.
I’m not going to play reductio ad absurdem games and claim that this would be the same for any arbitrarily high number of people. I imagine 100 trillion people would do the earth no good. But of course, that will never happen. Populations tend to be self-limiting, as we can see from the fairly dramatic decline in birthrates that has taken place over the past two decades across most of the world.
Let’s put it this way - for any reasonable estimate of world population growth over the next 100 years, population is not a problem.
Good God, you’re not pretending that correlation equals causation, are you? :dubious:
The idea that increased population makes things worse is elementary arithmetic. It was spelled out earlier in this thread. Effect-per-person times number-of-people equals total-effect. Increase number-of-people, and total-effect goes up, all other things being equal.
Now of course the proper objection to that is that all other things are not equal. But that is the proper objection, not ‘oh things were so much worse in the old days and, wouldn’t you know it, there were fewer people then too!’
Well, that ‘all other things being equal’ is really the question that’s gone begging, isn’t it? Especially since all the evidence we have suggests that all other things are not even remotely close to being equal.
ps just to clarify: it’s not so much that I agree with Cisco or disagree with Blake. I just see a depressing trend here… people discussing a hot-button social/political/economic/environmental issue, and talking completely past each other, each using simplistic arguments that have some narrow validity of the ‘assume spherical horses in a vacuum’ kind, without explicitly understanding the limitations on their arguments.
So, Cisco: “all other things being equal”. Make that phrase your new friend.
Blake: Correlation is no evidence of causation.
Intention: hey, I liked your post.
THIS use of ‘the evidence’, I couldn’t agree more with. All the evidence presented thus far simply says that we have to examine a highly tangled web of causes and effects. What it DOES not and CANNOT say is that overpopulation is just fine and dandy and fuggedaboutit, which is what service it has been pressed into thus far.
‘All other things being equal’ is not just a stupid ivory-tower aphorism. It is a useful start to discussion of a problem.
What sensible meaning to the word ‘overpopulation’ is there, but ‘too many people given the level of resources and efficiency in using them’?
And now I will make more of an attempt to read every post and come up with some condensed reply. :smack:
I can only assume you haven’t actually read the thread. Because if you have you would have read the following. And if you had read it i find it hard to believe that you could have failed to understand it. It was very, very simple and very, very clear and direct:
In case you read that and didn’t understand it Nancarrow, I’ll make it even simpler: the only people claiming that correlation is evidence of causation in this thread are my opponents I have taken great pains to repeatedly and clearly state that correlation does not equal causation.
Nancarrow when somebody disavows something loudly, clearly, repeatedly and at length it is both dishonest and insulting for you to then then ascribe that thing to them.
An apology would be appreciated, but at the very least please don’t do so again.