The Real Perils of Human Population Growth
Posted on April 30, 2010
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About forty years ago, the world population was only 3.5 billion, or about half of the present population of 6.7 billion people. Most of us seem to ignore or be unaware of the magnitude of this rapid expansion and the vast changes that it is causing throughout the world. Indeed, the daily and even the annual impacts of this growth go unnoticed. Yet the impacts of the growing world population on land, water, energy, and biota resources are real and indeed overwhelming.
What resources are required to secure a quality life for future generations worldwide? Will there be sufficient cropland, water, energy, and biological resources to provide adequate food and other essential human needs? Balanced against the future availability of these basic resources are the escalating needs of an ever-growing population.
Clear scientific evidence suggests worldwide problems of food availability already have emerged. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 60 percent of the world population now is malnourished—the largest number and proportion of malnourished people ever reported in history. Further, many serious diseases, like malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis are increasing, not only because of worldwide malnutrition but also because the increasing density and movement of human populations facilitate the spread of diseases.
More humans than ever before cover the earth with their urbanization, highways, and other activities. This imperils the availability of land resources. Cropland is a vital resource, with more than 99.7 percent of human food calories coming from the land and less than 0.3 percent from oceans and other aquatic ecosystems. Globally, an average of only 0.22 hectares of cropland per capita is now available for crop production. In contrast, 0.5 hectares per capita is available to support the diverse food systems of the United States and Europe. At present, cropland in the United States now occupies 17 percent of the total land area, but relatively little additional cropland is available to support the future expansion of U.S. agriculture. As a result, valuable forest areas are being permanently destroyed and replaced with cropland. This is causing many long-range global problems, including contributing to global warming.
Each year more than 10 million hectares of valuable cropland are degraded and lost because of soil erosion. In addition, an added 10 million hectares are being destroyed by salinization resulting from improper irrigation. Combined, world soil erosion and salinization account for the major losses in productive cropland.
More: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=pimentel_29_3
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The OPT is doing a great job.
It may be beneficial when the Catholic Pope visits the United Kingdom soon to have a nice discrete little chat with him about the Catholic Church’s attitude to family planning. When the Pope finally appreciates that each child born into grinding poverty is another suffering human being, maybe some progress van be made. The Christian religion arises from a time when excess human population was not an ecological problem. Why then inappropriately hold onto tenants of the Bible in today’s World which are obviously inappropriate in a modern society.
People’s attitude simply amazes me. This is the only planet we have, and yet we seem to be prepared to blow it up with nuclear weapons, and pave it over in concrete and roads. Under our feet is a natural uranium-thorium fission reaction (contributes to geothermal energy sources) and over our heads in inhospitable space vacuum (filled with loads of cosmic rays) are myriads of nucelar fusion reactions commonly known as “twinkling stars”. We have been provided with a thin layer of biosphere around the Earth and, like greenfly on a plant, multiply until we destroy the plant. Although climate change has been discussed, “peak oil” is in my humble view a far far greater immediate issue. The World’s burgeoning population has been possible on account of the non-sustainable rates of use of oil and gas derived from fossil reserves. Following Olduvai theory, the amount of energy per capita (i.e. person alive on Earth) will very soon be dropping drastically as oil and gas reserves become depleted and the human population rises relentlessly.
There are possible solutions. A first solution is to develop fourth-generation thorium power systems which emply a nuclear cycle which is safer than the convention uranium cycle and generates by-products which cannot be used to manufacture nuclear weapons; if this solution were adopted, we would need to get on with developing the technology quickly and mass-producing the reactors like “buttons off a production line”. However, I suspect that introduction of this technology will just cause population to increase in relation to increase in available energy.
A second solution is a New World Order and centralized World government that can impose in an organized manner the necessary control structure to limit population growth. The problem is that much of the population growth occurs in regions of the World which are least well organized administratively.
A third solution is to create a virus or bug which reduces human fertility. An advantage of this solution is that human being can continue their “festival of bonking” (read the Sun newspaper in the UK for orientation !) without it having a detrimental impact on population growth.
A fourth solution is to lace our food with additives which reduce fertility, for example by genetic modification(i.e. genetic engineering, so that plants naturally produce a hormone which reduces fertility).
A fifth solution is by educating people about the consequences of their actions and to try to diffuse the natural tendency of people to compete against one another, for example by producing excess children; having more children in certain parts of the World is regarded as prestigious, increases capacity to produce food and provides more influence within a given social community. Education is expensive and time-consuming. It is difficult to envisage how this would work in some parts of the World where there is a very strong tradition which would react strongly to such “outside influences”, especially where it rebuts traditional religious attitudes. What we need is a World religion, for example a modified form of the Catholic Religion with a synergy of the Virgin Mary to Mother Earth.
A sixth solution is war. I remember once being an organist at a service where a dithery elderly preacher gave a sermon. The sermon was rather rambling, but the preacher reflected to himself in his ramblings an issue of how would we have space for all the people who had otherwise been killed during the Second World War. Although this is a harsh reflection, it is however correct. War causes huge suffering and material destruction and is not a recommended solution for the human overpopulation issue.
A seventh solution, perhaps approved of by the Pope, is that we all become monks or nuns, i.e. lead a celebate life. However, this may be difficult to achieve in practice because of the natural desire that people have to go around “bonking”. Some people have allegedly reported that Aids/HIV occurrence amongst priests in the Vatican is more frequent than amongst prostitutes in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Rome once once famous for all its borthels for the priests to use. Perhaps this is not a best solution for population control either.
I do not know the answer personally. I can speak from moral highground to the extent that I foresaw this problem with “peak oil”, the issues of Olduvai Theory and excess population 40 years ago. I made a conscieous choice of never having children myself because I saw no point in producing new individuals to suffer in an economically shrinking World on a road to chaos and destruction.
Although much is written upon “The New World Order”, removal of guns from the civil population of the USA by way of martial law soon to be imposed, the fact is, when one looks at the environmental issues head-on together with “peak oil” issue, risk of nuclear war and so forth, a rapid and prompt readjustment of World population from nearly 7 billion to around 500 million people (as proposed by Bill Gates) IS SENSIBLE. The problem is how to achieve it without causing suffering, without vast numbers of people being slaughtered, and without vast numbers of people starving to death. This problem requires extraordinary far-sightedness by our policial leaders, namely a degree of maturity which is seldomly found amongst politicians. Moreover, it is also necessary to find a consensus on this issue. If we do not address the population issue, the World will eventually reach a state of total choas - and then how smart are we really with all our alleged intellect and big brains !? - no better than greenfly on a plant breeding uncontrollably, munching away at the plant with not a care in the World. The present World situation is nothing better than a Mad Hatter’s Teaparty!
Keep up the good work OPT. Remember: anthropogenic climate change is not the biggest issue. “Peak oil” is the main issue and already adversely affecting us. Concentrate on the prediction of Olduvai Theory. Some leaders are trying to resolve contemporary economic issues by various stimulus packages … welcome hyperinflation, … welcome a return of the Weimar Republic ! We need to cut consumption, we need to cut population by peaceful voluntary means, we need to move away from oil as our primary energy source (oil causing major environmental problem associated with its extraction and combustion) to fourth-generation thorium fission power (thermonucelar power is too technologically complex and will never be economically viable in comparison to fourth-generation Thorium power technology. There are well over a million tonnes of thoirum relatively accessible which could power the World at present energy consumption levels for 10000 to 100000 years; human civilization has thus potentially just begun. However, do we desire to being our human future in a scenario of overpopulation, conflict over resources, suffering, war, … is this what the Pope wants. The Pope is a fool if he sustains the Catholic Church’s present attitude to the issue of population control.
Yours faithfully
Dr Tim Norris
Bergen
Norway
The OPT is doing a great job.
It may be beneficial when the Catholic Pope visits the United Kingdom soon to have a nice discrete little chat with him about the Catholic Church’s attitude to family planning. When the Pope finally appreciates that each child born into grinding poverty is another suffering human being, maybe some progress van be made. The Christian religion arises from a time when excess human population was not an ecological problem. Why then inappropriately hold onto tenants of the Bible in today’s World which are obviously inappropriate in a modern society.
People’s attitude simply amazes me. This is the only planet we have, and yet we seem to be prepared to blow it up with nuclear weapons, and pave it over in concrete and roads. Under our feet is a natural uranium-thorium fission reaction (contributes to geothermal energy sources) and over our heads in inhospitable space vacuum (filled with loads of cosmic rays) are myriads of nuclear fusion reactions commonly known as “twinkling stars”. We have been provided with a thin layer of biosphere around the Earth and, like greenfly on a plant, multiply until we destroy the plant. Although climate change has been discussed, “peak oil” is in my humble view a far far greater immediate issue. The World’s burgeoning population has been possible on account of the non-sustainable rates of use of oil and gas derived from fossil reserves. Following Olduvai theory, the amount of energy per capita (i.e. person alive on Earth) will very soon be dropping drastically as oil and gas reserves become depleted and the human population rises relentlessly.
There are possible solutions. A first solution is to develop fourth-generation thorium power systems which employ a nuclear cycle which is safer than the convention uranium cycle and generates by-products which cannot be used to manufacture nuclear weapons; if this solution were adopted, we would need to get on with developing the technology quickly and mass-producing the reactors like “buttons off a production line”. However, I suspect that introduction of this technology will just cause population to increase in relation to increase in available energy.
A second solution is a New World Order and centralized World government that can impose in an organized manner the necessary control structure to limit population growth. The problem is that much of the population growth occurs in regions of the World which are least well organized administratively.
A third solution is to create a virus or bug which reduces human fertility. An advantage of this solution is that human being can continue their “festival of bonking” (read the Sun newspaper in the UK for orientation !) without it having a detrimental impact on population growth.
A fourth solution is to lace our food with additives which reduce fertility, for example by genetic modification(i.e. genetic engineering, so that plants naturally produce a hormone which reduces fertility).
A fifth solution is by educating people about the consequences of their actions and to try to diffuse the natural tendency of people to compete against one another, for example by producing excess children; having more children in certain parts of the World is regarded as prestigious, increases capacity to produce food and provides more influence within a given social community. Education is expensive and time-consuming. It is difficult to envisage how this would work in some parts of the World where there is a very strong tradition which would react strongly to such “outside influences”, especially where it rebuts traditional religious attitudes. What we need is a World religion, for example a modified form of the Catholic Religion with a synergy of the Virgin Mary to Mother Earth.
A sixth solution is war. I remember once being an organist at a service where a dithery elderly preacher gave a sermon. The sermon was rather rambling, but the preacher reflected to himself in his ramblings an issue of how would we have space for all the people who had otherwise been killed during the Second World War. Although this is a harsh reflection, it is however correct. War causes huge suffering and material destruction and is not a recommended solution for the human overpopulation issue.
A seventh solution, perhaps approved of by the Pope, is that we all become monks or nuns, i.e. lead a celibate life. However, this may be difficult to achieve in practice because of the natural desire that people have to go around “bonking”. Some people have allegedly reported that Aids/HIV occurrence amongst priests in the Vatican is more frequent than amongst prostitutes in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Rome was once famous for all its brothels for the priests to use. Perhaps this is not a best solution for population control either.
I do not know the answer personally. I can speak from moral highground to the extent that I foresaw this problem with “peak oil”, the issues of Olduvai Theory and excess population 40 years ago. I made a conscious choice of never having children myself because I saw no point in producing new individuals to suffer in an economically shrinking World on a road to chaos and destruction.
Although much is written upon “The New World Order”, removal of guns from the civil population of the USA by way of martial law soon to be imposed, the fact is, when one looks at the environmental issues head-on together with “peak oil” issue, risk of nuclear war and so forth, a rapid and prompt readjustment of World population from nearly 7 billion to around 500 million people (as proposed by Bill Gates) IS SENSIBLE. The problem is how to achieve it without causing suffering, without vast numbers of people being slaughtered, and without vast numbers of people starving to death. This problem requires extraordinary far-sightedness by our policial leaders, namely a degree of maturity which is seldom found amongst politicians. Moreover, it is also necessary to find a consensus on this issue. If we do not address the population issue, the World will eventually reach a state of total choas - and then how smart are we really with all our alleged intellect and big brains !? - no better than greenfly on a plant breeding uncontrollably, munching away at the plant with not a care in the World. The present World situation is really nothing better than a Mad Hatter’s Tea party!
Keep up the good work OPT. Remember: anthropogenic climate change is not the biggest issue. “Peak oil” is the main issue and already adversely affecting us. Concentrate on the prediction of Olduvai Theory. Some leaders are trying to resolve contemporary economic issues by various stimulus packages … welcome hyperinflation, … welcome a return of the Weimar Republic ! We need to cut consumption, we need to cut population by peaceful voluntary means, we need to move away from oil as our primary energy source (oil causing major environmental problem associated with its extraction and combustion) to fourth-generation thorium fission power (thermonuclear power is too technologically complex and will never be economically viable in comparison to fourth-generation Thorium power technology. There are well over a million tonnes of thorium relatively accessible which could power the World at present energy consumption levels for 10000 to 100000 years; human civilization has thus potentially just begun). However, do we desire to bring our human future into a scenario of overpopulation, conflict over resources, suffering, war, … is this what the Pope wants? The Pope is a fool if he sustains the Catholic Church’s present attitude to the issue of population control.
Yours faithfully
Dr Tim Norris
Bergen
Norway