Overpopulation. Resources running out. What do we do about these things?

[Hosker]

Birth restrictions. Simple, really.

 

[Dalek Caan]

uhm.. One child per family?

actually, I hear that this^ is what the government of China is doing in order to reduce their population: they give financial benefits to couples who have one and ONLY one child, but take them away if they have another...

Reminds me of the Quarins from Mass Effect. I think the best solution is space though. Can't go wrong with black holes, meteorites(really just space icebergs/insert out of date titanic joke here/) and space disease.

 

[ioxles]

I think we all need to calm down here.

Really? Overpopulation a problem solved by such drastic measures as most of you have been espousing. It scream hype.

Spoiler: Wall of Text

The human appetite for bad news knows no bounds. That is why gossip is usually malicious and why, on a grander scale, prophets of doom are always guaranteed a credulous audience. Conversely, good news ? however well attested ? is generally squeezed in the margins of newspapers.

For example, The Independent buried in a few paragraphs a story with the headline "Population growth not a threat, say engineers". But at least The Independent found some space to cover the publication of a report last week by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers entitled Population: One Planet, Too Many People? ? I could find nothing about it in other newspapers.

The reason for that distinct lack of column inches is that the institution answered its own question in the negative. No, there are not (and will never be) too many people for the planet to feed. As the report's lead author, Dr Tim Fox, pointed out, its verdict is not based on speculative guesses about the development of new agricultural processes as yet unknown: "We can meet the challenge of feeding a planet of 9 billion people through the application of existing technologies". For example, Dr Fox pointed out, in Africa, no less than half the food produced is destroyed before it reaches its local marketplace: with refrigeration and good roads, the developing world could avoid this horrendous waste.

Interestingly, another detailed report on "sustainability" published last week by the French national agricultural and development research agencies came up with the same answer. The French scientists set themselves the goal of discovering whether a global population of 9 billion, the likely peak according to the UN, could readily have access to 3,000 calories a day, even as farms take measures to cut down on the use of fossil fuels and refrain from cutting down more forests: their answer was, you will be thrilled to know, "yes".

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-the-population-timebomb-is-a-myth-2186968.html

http://www.mgr.org/OverpopulationMyth.html

http://overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth#FAQ5

Please do not take it as given that overpopulation even exists. To consider such drastic measures as have been listed such as depopulation/extermination or outright war chills me to the bone.

 

[Coldster]

Well, overpopulation has been our greatest problem for a while now. It is an unethical solution that i'm offering, but it is the only way: divert all funds from helping Africa and developing countries and put it to coming up with advanced ways to slow down climate change. It will make lots of people die who would have been saved with those resources but its a win/win when you look at it from a survival point of view. Think about it, if we make more fuel efficient cars and cut down less trees etc etc, it doesn't matter because at the rate of growth in human pop. we are gaining 1 BILLION PEOPLE EVERY 14 YEARS. At least that has happened in the last fourteen years, we will hit the seven billion mark this summer. Congratulations fellow humans, our doom is coming from our own success.

 

[TheFloBros]

Create Super Villains!

 

[FFHAuthor]

I remember back when I was in Grade school in the early 90's that we were supposed to have over 12 Billion people by now, and experiencing exponential growth.

I remember back in the early 90's that according to the 'experts' we wouldn't be able to walk around outside in daylight without head to toe clothing and sun screen because mere moments of exposure to sunlight would cause horrible UV burns because we wouldn't have any Ozone layer left.

In the 70's, it was predicted that by the 90's we would be facing mass starvation because of population growth and regions like India and Africa should be 'sacrificed' and not sent any food to conserve valuable resources.

In the 70's, it was scientific FACT that by the year 2000 Los Angeles would be covered in Glaciers and the earth would be in the grip of another Ice Age.

In the 1950's, it was predicted that the world supplies of crude oil would be exhausted by the year 2000.

In the 1950's it was supposed that earth would be a radioactive cinder due to nuclear technologies by now, not bombs per-se.

The point I'm making is that Experts have always been predicting imminent doom for mankind, and yet the imminent doom never seems to materialize. Too often the people who proclaim that the world will be facing 'terrible consequences' tend to merely see humans as consumers and takers from the planet, they never attribute the innovation and capabilities of the human mind in overcoming problems and dealing with problems. Invention, imagination and intellect are things that are never taken into account. We speak of 'over-population' but such over-population never seems to bear out on the level that is predicted. Decreasing resources is always seen as the overwhelming end of all things, and yet it's never realized that humanity has this amazing capacity to adapt and overcome challenges that stand before it.

Limiting the numbers of children in societies, enacting euthanasia for surplus population, we find ourselves looking at a society that simply does not place value on human life. If we step to the point where we simply say a human is a number, and that number must be reduced to reach an 'optimal' number, we sacrifice humanity itself. We reach that point where we simply decide to give up innovation in exchange for an arbitrary number, we will give up the thing we're trying to save, the human race. So what if we survive, what kind of survival would we find if human lives are culled to serve a greater good?

Innovation, intellect and scientific development is what is needed, faith in the most intrinsic of human attributes, not in the sacrifice of human life to maintain the status quo.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

This has been happening throughout history and we've always managed by progressing in science and technology.

When animals overpopulate they end up dying off either by starving or fighting each other over food. This happens because they never truly develop any way to get more food, although some may adapt to eating other food.

However, when humans encounter this problem we turn to science and technology. When we begin to run out of space we will build in the skies, when we run out of food and water we will make artificial substitutes and the cycle will continue to repeat until we find another planet to do this on.

The human race will be fine for a while yet.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I mused the idea once that we should wipe out the people in the Congo/darfor region, use it for farming and development, and do the same with violent poor areas that are in need of UN help.

Just saying.

 

[ReaperzXIII]

I know this is mean but the only real solution is the same one nature has usually used to try to keep us in check but us humans are stubborn little bastards and now where-in lies are problem too many births and too little deaths in comparison.

So poisoning old people slowly to die quicker? Limiting amount of children people can have? Let poor people die of starvation?

These are all horrible unethical solutions but we need less people.

 

[Rex Fallout]

Outlaw organized religion?

Who knows, it just might help - it certainly hasn't been tried, yet.

This makes no sense how will that stop over population? If anything religion helps prevent it what with absitinance and all.

I say colonize Mars! The 51st state!

 

[Infernai]

Simple: If resources run out and people start getting hungry...just eat the hungry people.

 

[Connor Mulhern]

Overpopulation is a myth. Let me explain. China has the worlds largest population, but the one child policy is going to cause a population crash and likely a revolution in China (4-2-1 issue, little emperors, and the male preference). India will still have population growth, but selective abortion is a huge problem. Most MEDC's (More economically developed countries) are facing a population decline, with the major exception being the US, although it has a large number of immigrants. This is because it is getting too expensive and time consuming to raise a child, and feminism/women working is causing this to be even more severe. Also, you got the HIV crisis in Africa, which for better or worse, is slowly population growth. Finally, birth control is a lot cheaper/easier to get than it as ten years ago, so that can slow population growth.

TL;DR: We are facing population decline sometime soon, not overpopulation

 

[yellingatpixels]

Further separate sex and procreation. We need to make birth control more obtainable for people in third world countries. Safe sex drops the birth rate a ton, the death rate remains largely the same, and there's far fewer children whose parents cannot support them.

FTW!

Also the more liberated women are, the more choices they have, the lower the birthrate. It's almost like when we women actually have choices, we reject the notion that motherhood alone makes you a worthy person. and then we do cool things like get educated... join the workforce... gasp.

So yeah: if you are worried about the world going down the drain: become a feminist. Support women's rights.

 

[Momoka530]

Oh I wouldn't try taking action it might start some pretty insane goings on, but witht he population on the rise as you stated, sooner or later there will be a new disease, it will have results like the plague, it will not be pleasant, and BECAUSE of the high population = low living space rule, it will spread like wildfire and everything will sort itself out. It's nature's way.

 

[ioxles]

Another interesting read: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread690764/pg1

Another read to help debunk overpopulation.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Make it so that you can only have one child. Worldwide. Unless you're a farmer or some other kind of job in which you need more help on the farm/job, which is best provided by family.

Of course this is impossible to enforce (unless you make some kind of suppression field gizmo that makes it impossible to fertilize the opposite sex), and while I'm sure a lot of people would party hard (no need for birth control! ), I'm positive that a large and vocal group would start seeing this as an attack on their God-given right to become the next octo-mom and have more kids than they can support, and then they'd raise hell over it, dooming us all.

I don't see how we can implement that without there being some kind of armed uprising. Even though we can CLEARLY see that we're expanding way too fast. Especially in places like china (who are having trouble enforcing that one kid only law), and africa, and a lot of other places.

So...since the best solution won't ever happen, I'll just hope we find that Prothean technology on mars and get out into space before our world ends up like the Drell homeworld.

BTW, this one kid only rule should be lifted/relaxed once humanity's numbers go down a little bit.

 

[akibawall95]

Two words: Logan's Run

But in all seriousness our best bet is colonization of other planets.

 

[Irridium]

Dunno, live in America, big enough army to ransack anyone really if situation is really as desperate as implied. Since we store most of our own oil and use the ME's oil so that when they are out we have our own it wont effect us near as much as elsewhere.

... And we can turn Canada into Farmland; Christ they don't even use the western half.

The US only stores about 1 month's worth of oil. 1 month is a very short period of time. And if thats all we had, the price would skyrocket, and plenty of other bad things would happen.