# Tipping Point, earth's population **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 25, 2015, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-point-earths-population/723436 "2015-06-25T13:02:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-point-earths-population/723436/41 "2015-08-27T23:13:37Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > At some point, rather than fighting ruinous wars and spending hundreds of billions of dollars on extreme engineering projects to move water around the globe, people will figure out that they could just use the water they have more effectively. Again, this is agricultural water we’re talking about, not water for drinking. If people are dying of thirst they’ll do whatever it takes to not die. But instead we’re talking about farmers arguing over who gets how much water and when and where. You’re also misrepresenting the threat a little. At the U.S. level, you’re right - the states will find a way to work it out. You won’t have Colorado unilaterally diverting all the water and leaving California dry. But in Africa and the Middle East, you are talking about different sovereign states, and the upstream country might not have an impelling reason to work it out. They can just divert the water and let their army deal with the downstream neighbors. There have [already been conflicts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_conflict_in_the_Middle_East_and_North_Africa), and they will most likely get worse. You also seem to suggest agricultural water isn’t important, and it’s mainly some pissed off farmers that lose out. That might be true in California, where a decrease in water might mean a shift away from water-intensive crops like almonds and a shift toward ag in more fertile states. In Africa, insufficient water for agriculture means famine. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-point-earths-population/723436/42 "2015-08-27T23:30:06Z")
Yes, in Africa or Asia or wherever, conflict over water might break out into open war. But that doesn’t mean it’s a smart economic decision, because the true costs of the water have to include the death and destruction caused by the war. Of course just because it’s an irrational economic decision to invade another country over water doesn’t mean it won’t happen. It just means it’s an irrational economic decision. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-point-earths-population/723436/43 "2015-08-28T02:38:12Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > If the human mind can solve the problem of travel to the moon and back, it would seem we’d have someone in the teeming millions who’d be able to solve real issues facing us today. But, for some reason, these types of tough problems are not sexy enough to invest money, resources, and time into at this point. Perhaps we, as a species, are not really equipped to solve big problems that can destroy us. Maybe we’re just too damn lazy, or stupid. I disagree. Lot’s of people have put time, money, and research into the technical solutions for many problems; most of today’s problems are political. For example, agricultural advances now allow us to grow enough food to feed everybody on the planet. Today starvation is almost always due to war and corrupt governments. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-point-earths-population/723436/44 "2015-08-28T05:34:12Z")
Starting with “I don’t remember kids being that mean…” Watch “A Christmas Story” based on the author’s childhood memories, early post-war. Mean kids chase and bully the smaller ones, just because they can. That IIRC from growing up just after that era - was typical. Helicopter parents today spend a lot more time policing how their kids are treated than anyone did back then. As for “Little Women” or similar stories - remember these sort of stories tend to concentrate on the protagonists’ social circle, so we don’t really get a glimpse of how minorities or outsiders are treated. Plus, in the “good old days” before cars, in small towns or big city neighbourhoods, everyone knew everyone else’s business and pettiness or meanness and public rudeness was much harder to get away with. We can thank the automobile and high rise apartments for the modern attitude which is very unique in the world - that you don’t know who your neighbours are, ten blocks from home nobody will know who you are, and you have no idea what your neighbours do for a living or about their family. Anonymous people can be meaner. I also saw something attributing this even more so to air conditioning - instead of getting out and sitting on the porch, everyone hides inside when it’s the least bit warm out. Plus - then internet cuts into people’s -especially kids’ - outdoor time. * * * As for overpopulation, as mentioned, the population in the developed areas of the world seems to be universally on track to be shrinking. Even China seems to be on track for a demographic bust, with two generations of “one child” fairly widely enforced. Modern society with middle class lifestyles requires both spouses to work. The cost of raising children has become a barely acceptable burden, and the welfare state takes care of old age care. What I see as the most serious crisis of population is currently playing out on two or more fronts. In North America, the USA struggles ineffectively to close off its border to people looking for a better life from the south. In Europe, meanwhile, a more interesting dilemma. NATO cleverly took out Libya, one of the guardian states that held back the flood of migrants and refugees from further afield. As an unforeseen consequence, those people take advantage of the anarchy in Libya to attempt passage to Europe. (To a lesser extent, Australia faces a similar problem). If most of the world’s remaining population growth is going to happen in poorer places like Central America, Africa and Southeast Asia that feed these migrations, then the problem will only get worse - especially if the destination countries fail to find a way to deal with this. As for environmental depletions - it depends where. Despite the dwindling aquifers, the USA produces far more food than it needs. If food becomes more scarce, it just means less is used for cattle feed and Americans eat less meat, and less food is exported to feed other regions. SOme others are self-correcting. The destruction of the Atlantic cod fishery was what was needed to encourage REAL conservation; most states have reacted to dwindling fish stocks by expanding jurisdictions from 12-mile limits to the whole continental shelf. California is being forced to re-think water rights as well as conservation by the current drought, while drip-irrigation was known to Israelis decades ago. So the richer countries will adjust by reductions in lifestyle and altering the consumption of resources. The places that WILL collapse are those that have no such room to give and no such control - so expect the crises and death toll to be worse in overcrowded undeveloped third world countries - as always. Interestingly, it’s economic and war refugees that are flooding the shores of Italy today - the starving hordes of Somalia, or the previous generations of Biafra or India, never migrated far; difficult to do on an empty stomach. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-point-earths-population/723436.md?page=2)