"Earth population 'exceeds limits',"

[Peikko 1,575]

FP, PD answered the question. It's not just down to food. There is water and energy as absolutes. While the US may produce a 'surplus' in agriculture, what is the true cost in terms of fuel and petrochemical consumption?

You are right to a point of course, the definition of 'sustainable' could be sustainable at sustenance levels, but I think what most people regard as sustainable is by the same definition that one looks at human rights - that everyone should have access to not only food, water and energy (whatever is required) but also to other, rather more nebulous resources.

Eventually, at some point it will become obvious that this point was surpassed some time ago, but we can pretend for a while longer, while the energy source is relatively cheap and abundant. We could look at waste too - as our waste production is one of the things that is effectively reducing the useful habitable areas.

Edited April 1, 2009 by Madame Cleo

[almaty 19]

time for

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

My words? You mean I can't go cut and paste something from the interwebz FP?

Nice dodge...how about answering the question - what is overpopulation to you? (feel free to reference another source...I'm just trying to figure out what it means to you)

Well obviously its having more people than the land can sustain.

So how do you measure unsustainability? Take the U.S. for example. We produce a surplus of agriculture. There are some countries that import more agriculture than they produce. When you get down the nitty gritty details, it's difficult to pinpoint when you reach unsustainability, let alone pinpoint it to population as opposed to consumption.

it is entirely possible to calculate sustainability indexes that factor in food supply, power consumption, water and waste etc.

One red flag might be imports - I saw an interesting story a few weeks back that suggested that some of the mena kingdoms, for example, have been negotiating export deals with farmers in Sudan (if I remember rightly) to buy up all their cereal crops for export to their own countries.

Obviously there's a big ethical question there as to buying food from a country that doesn't have enough resources to feed its own population. Or more accurately its not that they don't have the resources, its that they've all been bought up to feed the people in affluent countries. While we in this country can only imagine the famines in Africa as some sort of nightmarish landscape from Dante, the truth is that we're all complicit and our privileges by virtue of history do no more than put us higher on the pecking order, while people starve at our expense.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

My point, Pike - is that it is extremely difficult to define overpopulation on a global scale, particularly when we have so much interdependency. Also, you'd need to establish a standard for how much an individual consumes in natural resources - another futile task.

A more tangible thing is consumption, which IMO, is the real culprit when talking about our natural resources and scarcity. Consumption and population don't necessarily go hand in hand. The African continent, for example, uses very little in natural resources relative to its population density compared to the U.S..

[DeadPoolX 9]

The ethical question is, knowing that the population is not sustainable, how do we solve the problem of overpopulation?

One word: cannibalism.

bleh, i was gonna say neutron bombs.

That works too.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

My point, Pike - is that it is extremely difficult to define overpopulation on a global scale, particularly when we have so much interdependency. Also, you'd need to establish a standard for how much an individual consumes in natural resources - another futile task.

A more tangible thing is consumption, which IMO, is the real culprit when talking about our natural resources and scarcity. Consumption and population don't necessarily go hand in hand. The African continent, for example, uses very little in natural resources relative to its population density compared to the U.S..

Of course its difficult, it always is when you're dealing with organic numbers and variables. But I'd be surprised if there weren't economic models of consumption, production and sustainability. After all we accept such models for global warming and that is arguably a lot more difficult to quantify in real terms.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

My point, Pike - is that it is extremely difficult to define overpopulation on a global scale, particularly when we have so much interdependency. Also, you'd need to establish a standard for how much an individual consumes in natural resources - another futile task.

A more tangible thing is consumption, which IMO, is the real culprit when talking about our natural resources and scarcity. Consumption and population don't necessarily go hand in hand. The African continent, for example, uses very little in natural resources relative to its population density compared to the U.S..

Of course its difficult, it always is when you're dealing with organic numbers and variables. But I'd be surprised if there weren't economic models of consumption, production and sustainability. After all we accept such models for global warming and that is arguably a lot more difficult to quantify in real terms.

Which goes back to what I said earlier - when there are huge fluctuations in consumption among populations across the globe, targeting population as the source for unsustainability is missing the mark, IMO. Overconsumption is what we should be targeting.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

My point, Pike - is that it is extremely difficult to define overpopulation on a global scale, particularly when we have so much interdependency. Also, you'd need to establish a standard for how much an individual consumes in natural resources - another futile task.

A more tangible thing is consumption, which IMO, is the real culprit when talking about our natural resources and scarcity. Consumption and population don't necessarily go hand in hand. The African continent, for example, uses very little in natural resources relative to its population density compared to the U.S..

Of course its difficult, it always is when you're dealing with organic numbers and variables. But I'd be surprised if there weren't economic models of consumption, production and sustainability. After all we accept such models for global warming and that is arguably a lot more difficult to quantify in real terms.

Which goes back to what I said earlier - when there are huge fluctuations in consumption among populations across the globe, targeting population as the source for unsustainability is missing the mark, IMO. Overconsumption is what we should be targeting.

But they're interrelated factors. You cant easily separate one from the other.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

My point, Pike - is that it is extremely difficult to define overpopulation on a global scale, particularly when we have so much interdependency. Also, you'd need to establish a standard for how much an individual consumes in natural resources - another futile task.

A more tangible thing is consumption, which IMO, is the real culprit when talking about our natural resources and scarcity. Consumption and population don't necessarily go hand in hand. The African continent, for example, uses very little in natural resources relative to its population density compared to the U.S..

Of course its difficult, it always is when you're dealing with organic numbers and variables. But I'd be surprised if there weren't economic models of consumption, production and sustainability. After all we accept such models for global warming and that is arguably a lot more difficult to quantify in real terms.

Which goes back to what I said earlier - when there are huge fluctuations in consumption among populations across the globe, targeting population as the source for unsustainability is missing the mark, IMO. Overconsumption is what we should be targeting.

But they're interrelated factors. You cant easily separate one from the other.

Ok, but how do you control population growth reasonably? (Beyond promoting family planning)

[Peikko 1,575]

I am not quite sure how that makes sense FP. While consumption is not tied hand in hand with population growth, they are related. Targeting one and not looking at the other is frankly short sighted and somewhat like this idea that solving overpopulation all that is required is to increase food production.

The promotion of family planning is probably the best way forward for now and not to be lightly dismissed.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I am not quite sure how that makes sense FP. While consumption is not tied hand in hand with population growth, they are related. Targeting one and not looking at the other is frankly short sighted and somewhat like this idea that solving overpopulation all that is required is to increase food production.

Ok, MC - for the sake of the argument, the world is overpopulated. What do you propose we do about it?

[Peikko 1,575]

For the sake of argument, I would promote family planning, I would concentrate efforts on education, childhood disease reduction and health care for those in poorer regions. Once a population loses less children as a result of poverty and disease the desire for large families quickly diminishes. It's a fact, hence why Western cultures have low birth rates.

It might not work, but that is where I would start.

Edited April 1, 2009 by Madame Cleo

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

My point, Pike - is that it is extremely difficult to define overpopulation on a global scale, particularly when we have so much interdependency. Also, you'd need to establish a standard for how much an individual consumes in natural resources - another futile task.

A more tangible thing is consumption, which IMO, is the real culprit when talking about our natural resources and scarcity. Consumption and population don't necessarily go hand in hand. The African continent, for example, uses very little in natural resources relative to its population density compared to the U.S..

Of course its difficult, it always is when you're dealing with organic numbers and variables. But I'd be surprised if there weren't economic models of consumption, production and sustainability. After all we accept such models for global warming and that is arguably a lot more difficult to quantify in real terms.

Which goes back to what I said earlier - when there are huge fluctuations in consumption among populations across the globe, targeting population as the source for unsustainability is missing the mark, IMO. Overconsumption is what we should be targeting.

But they're interrelated factors. You cant easily separate one from the other.

Ok, but how do you control population growth reasonably? (Beyond promoting family planning)

Well that goes back to ethics (and the start of the thread). How do you ensure people have equal access to human rights in countries with unequal resources.

Clearly we can't and don't, which is why (sad to say) a lot of people don't give a $hit about famines in Africa, and would rather remain ignorant of the fact that their choice of produce in the grocery story (or indeed gas - at the pump) is funding tyranny elsewhere in the world.

When it comes down to it, distasteful as it may seem, human rights are a nicety that we can impose on the world to assuage our guilty conscience, but they go (and have gone) out the door as soon as the ship starts sinking. When you and my family are starving - I doubt either of us will give a ####### about starving people elsewhere in the world.

I am not quite sure how that makes sense FP. While consumption is not tied hand in hand with population growth, they are related. Targeting one and not looking at the other is frankly short sighted and somewhat like this idea that solving overpopulation all that is required is to increase food production.

The promotion of family planning is probably the best way forward for now and not to be lightly dismissed.

That's about all you can do - seeing as we can't exactly sterilise people en-masse, or have a cull.

[Peikko 1,575]

Alternatively, I would start gassing anyone who doesn't measure up to my standard of what a human should amount to.

Which, before anyone complains, as they should, is a totally facetious answer.

[justashooter 430]

Alternatively, I would start gassing anyone who doesn't measure up to my standard of what a human should amount to.

Which, before anyone complains, as they should, is a totally facetious answer.

well, we know you got enough noxious emmissions...