Welcome to the SDMB. But you will really need to support such a statement with some facts/references/whatever. For starters, can you name such a country?
SPOOFE and Pyrrhonist, the numbers already say that the population will–with no interference by any government–begin to decline within a not-too-distant future. What part of the discussion requires us to assume that we will run out of room or that we need to take extraordinary steps to prevent any expansion?
I am not saying that the issues of pollution and fresh water are not serious. (I certainly do not support the idea that we must encourage reproduction so that some hypothetical unborn child will discover the “cure for all ills.”) However, it appears that your specific remarks are based on the ZPG model of a continually expanding world population that is not grounded in real numbers.
Phobos, I’d cite India and Indonesia. They are two countries that are popularly associated with overpopulation and poverty. Each does, in fact, have localities and regions where poverty is utterly crushing, but the daily lifestyle of the majority of their citizens has actually improved since the 1960s. I may be accused of pushing the limits of the original statement since India’s “doubling” rate is closer to 40 years than 30 and I am not sure of the doubling period for Indonesia.
The general prediction that the economies of many previously undeveloped countries have risen to care for their populations does have a basis in fact.
Thanks. I think this begs the question about quality of life. As the population approaches a carrying capacity (whatever that may be), the quality of life will probably decrease…is that acceptable? Probably not. People living under crushing poverty conditions are already in the “decreased quality of life” condition so the effect may not be noticed.
In other words, those localities have already exceeded their carrying capacity with respect to their available resources and resource management capabilities. And the result of that overpopulation is extreme poverty and difficulty. It’s lasted for the past few decades, but I doubt it can be sustained indefinitely.
I think the problem is we have no idea what the carrying capacity of the world is and therefore no idea whether we are even approaching it.
Also if overpopulation led to poverty you would think that more heavily populated countries would be the poorest. However this is not the case wealthy countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, and Belgium are all significantly more overcrowded than India, and yet no is starving.
Perhaps some focus is needed since the discussion seems to be going in several different directions.
Attempting to narrow the definition? No, rather I was bringing analytical clarity to what otherwise is simply a peculiar and not particularly enlightening usage. Expansionist to an ordinary reading should mean someone promoting natalist policies. Seems to me that’s fairly rare (and largely unsuccessful outside of areas where the real reason for high levels of natality lie outside of government policy). If one stretches the term expansionist to mean, as you appear to, anyone who does not adopt gloom and doom scenarios, I take this to be simply abusive.
Insofar as the term “safely expand,” is something of a subjective term here, its hard to say precisely what we’re talking about. I’ll take safely expand to mean without population collapse — i.e. Malthusian mass starvation and the like. In that context, it seems clear that the world will be able to handle population expansion. No doubt with declines in quality of life, but I’m afraid that is just the reality of the issue.
Effective ability to limit population growth by the government is not a condition one finds in most areas of the world where the highest rates of population growth are occurring. I personally have nothing against the Chinese model in this area, but frankly it ain’t gonna happen. The simplest of functions are hard enough to achieve, let alone draconian population policies. It’s both unrealistic and not terribly useful to posit such policies as a solution, except as a matter of self-regarding fantasy.
Tom,
I really don’t know whether to thank you for that link because of the number of wonderful links and information, provided by you and a number of others in that thread, or to flame you nice and crispy for tossing me at page after page of John John posts without warning me first.
rubbing sore spot from banging my head on desk while reading John John posts.
I think I’ll end with thank you, the effect of John John’s misinformation will wear off, but I learned, and that’s a very good thing
-Doug
Someone at the bar was adamantly against any form of population control, and used the arguement that “everyone in the world today could easily fit in the U.S. alone”.
My reply… “Would you be willing to live in Wyoming?”
Overpopulation? It’s a simple solution, and it would be easiest to acheive right now. War with China. It’s perfect. Bomb china. Drop that number down to 5 billion. Wouldn’t it be great?!
Well, the6 billion? thread certainly shows us fighting ignorance (in sort of a house-to-house, hand-to-hand struggle).
I don’t see much liklihood of this working. How does govt prevent women from having unlicensed babies? Does it make every girl and women in her childbearing years get a checkup once a month to prove she’s not pregnant? And what is done about unlicensed pregnancies? Compulsory abortions? Can you really envision such laws being passed in the US?
Lemur pointed out that govt enables pop growth by providing (or allowing the provision of) houses, roads, schools, etc. to accomodate the addit’l people. This is true. But how likely is it that the US govt will ever actually refuse to allow this new construction?
Collounsbury suggested that “safely expand” means expand without a Malthusian collapse. I hope pop increase will end before we reach a point just short of such a collapse. I am dubious about the predictions that pop growth will slow to a stop in the next 50 years or so, and even if these predictions pan out, I’m concerned about how we’ll accomodate the growth still to occur.
India. More then twice the population, average calorie intake has improved significantly. Also life expectancy and infant mortality rates. UN figures from 1995 (I forgot which department). BTW, heard about Bangladesh in the news lately. You’ll notice how, contrary to predictions, the country isn’t dead.
Provide citations? Why? You haven’t. Isn’t that begging the question? The assumption on your side of the argument is that it’s been proven. It hasn’t. You or one of the others on the more alarmist side of the discussion need to prove YOUR theorems. Not the other way around. If you think the world is overpopulated and everything is going to hell in a handbasket. Prove it.
Population curve looks like stabilization at around 6.5b people (more or less), demographic lag not withstanding. (Figures also from the UN, look 'em up.) We are feeding more people better then in the '60s. Mass starvation appears to be political not economic or environmental.
YOU need to prove the need to expend resources doing something about the population. You are the one who is (implicitly) advocating expending resources on solutions to a problem you haven’t shown to be a problem. Before we point a gun at someone’s head and force them into an abortion or for that matter regulate toilets to 1.3 gallons of water (I hope there is a special place in hell for those idiots), curtail civil rights, or whatever, you’d better show me why.
BTW. Anyone know where to find a list of the ‘logical fallacies’ on the net?
Personal Prediction: We can solve the population problem best by removing population alarmists.
Secondary observation: Has anyone noticed that the population problem seems to involve those brown or yellow babys and not the pink babies?
<sigh>
There seems to be some misattribution of quoting going on here. If people will take the time to scroll up you can see which statements should be attributed to me and which should be attributed to others.
Why do I hold that authoritarian government would be required for parental licensing? Because the American people would never vote for such a thing voluntarily. You’d have to force it on them. And if the dictators have the power to force population control on them, somehow I suspect the dictators will be more concerned about shooting dissidents, importing snow-leopard coats for their mistresses, rationalizing industry without having to worry about those annoying pollution protestors, and having themselves worshipped as living gods, than they would about controlling population.
If the only way to halt population growth was by force then it might be reasonable to consider enslaving humanity in order to save humanity. Fortunately, we can control population WITHOUT authoritarian solutions. And what’s the best way to control population? How about putting reproductive choices in the hands of the women who are reproducing? It is well known that women very often chose NOT to become pregnant, if they have the choice. Of course, in many parts of the world they have no choice.
So, gender equality, women’s rights, and political freedom are the best ways to ensure population control. Trying to get the government to regulate pregnancy is a fantasy. Can you imagine the protests? NOW and the Christian Coalition marching together? This proposal will never happen. You know it, I know it, the American people know it.
However, gender equality in the third world? Suddenly we have a program that will accomplish the same goal and yet also does not enslave humanity. In fact, it would be a good thing in and of itself! Win-win. Sounds like a much better deal to me.
Unless part of the thrill of controlling population is getting to shoot people, force abortions on them, and get your hands on their uteruses. Scratch a green, find a red. Hey, the government does bad things already, why not do more!
People keep assuming that we will be packed wall-to-wall with people if the population doubles, and that this will degrade our quality of life. This is not necessarily the case. I believe Manhattan has a population density that ranks among the highest in the world (and tens or hundreds of times higher than the global average), yet people seem happy enough to live there, and do so voluntarily. Hong Kong has one of the highest standards of living in the world, and its population density is almost among the highest in the world.
Even with 6 billion people, the majority of the Earth’s area is completely free of humans. Come take a drive through Canada some time. Even in the very southern part where the population is clustered, it’s pretty much open space, with small clusters of humanity located every couple of dozen miles or so. Once every couple of hundred miles you’ll hit a city that has a few hundred thousand people or so people in it. Go north, and you’ll hit livable territory that is so sparsely populated that you can’t even legally fly over it in a small airplane without carrying survival gear because there is almost no development in any direction for hundreds of miles.
The U.S. is smaller, and has 10 times the population. And there are still huge expanses of open land. And most of the urban areas don’t come anywhere near the population density of the really packed places like Manhattan.
Jeez, Tom, I’m NOT disagreeing with that!
I’m simply acknowledging that a decline in numbers could plausibly be followed by another population increase. Or the numbers could simply be inaccurate (any prediction that relies on human behavior should be taken with a grain of salt).
Or are you insisting that it’s absolutely impossible for things to get uncomfortably crowded in the next century or two?
Sorry. I had read your comments more as “population will get too high” rather than could.
As to whether I believe that the numbers are absolute, no. However, I believe that the forces that are driving the numbers down (better survivability, especially among children) will continue to force the birth rate down. The only event that I could imagine driving the birth rate up, again, would be a sudden upswing in infant and childhood mortality–and that event would be self-balancing as it would indicate that the population would decline through that mortality.
As to the accuracy of the current predictions: every estimate of future population for the past 20 (or 30) years has had to be revised downward as we neared the target date. All the estimates in use continue to overstate population growth and understate population decline. Until those calculations suddenly veer the other direction, I am quite willing to accept the numbers we are getting.
Having lived in Manhattan, I can affirm that it’s not for everyone. You can’t walk down the streets without encountering a few people who are literally driven nuts by the place.
Manhattanites with any resources at all make it a very high priority to get out from time to time. They fly to Florida, rent time shares in the Hamptons, visit relatives, even donate their labor to summer camps in return for the privilege of seeing trees that weren’t planted.
In spite of increases in caloric intake in places like India and Indonesia, rapid population growth puts special strains on the economy and infrastructure. You need more roads, power plants, schools, sewage, hospitals, etc.–or you do without them and a large part of the population ekes by in shantytowns. Drop by any capital from Mexico City to Buenos Aires if you need to see what that “quality of life” looks like up close.
There’s also the question of what other creatures have a right to occupy this planet too. Near the slopes of Mount Elgon in western Kenya, where herds of elephants roamed only 30 years ago, the land is now cultivated so intensely that crops grow right up to the houses. That savanna is gone.
Sure we could add another 6 billion human beings to the planet. Doing that would turn the earth into a monoculture. Any biologist can tell you that monocultures are vulnerable to collapse, often from disease.
Ebola and AIDS appear to originate from the district near Mount Elgon.
The oceans are producing less, topsoil is eroding, rainforests are steadily declining, fossil fuels will become more expensive, pesticides are less effective each year, global temperatures are rising–raising the specter of drought, nitrogen fertilizer is increasingly made with expensive electric power, and humans are breeding out of control in poor countries.
Tom…
'S all right… I’ve made far worse bloopers when misreading someone’s post.
Based on the rates of predicted population “increase” (that is, including the alterations to the estimates), is there a conceivable point where the population evens out and actually starts going down? Or is this one of those things that keeps declining but never quite reaches “zero”? (Just curious… and, yes, I am aware that any estimates probably aren’t very accurate.)
Mr. Bunnyhurt…
Look out, everybody! It’s Obviousman!!
In other words… what’s your point?
Sorry for the double post… I was going to make a clarifaction statement and accidently hit the “Reply Button”…
::ahem::
To clarify…
Well, duh, Tom already said there’s a point where the population starts going down. I mean to ask, “WHAT is the conceivable point etc. etc.” (If the answer has already been said in this thread or the 6 Billion? thread, feel free to mock me ruthlessly… I must’ve missed it).
Sorry. Silly, silly me…