POPULATION CONTROL
I do not agree that it should be left up to the citizen. This is why the world is overly populated right now is because the citizens have the choice. I believe if there were laws put into place that would prohibit a family from having more than 2 children and permit the lawbreakers to face fines & penalties or for those wanting more than 2 children the couple should have to apply for a permit to have another child. Depending on the population of the area at the time the couple applied for their permit, would determine weather or not their permit was granted. A judge such as an administrative judge could handle this type of decision. For some reason if the couple gets denied there should be a time frame in which they could then re-apply.
65 Comments
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MicahSchweitzer
Secondly, we are already approaching the Technological Singularity. Within a century, humans will be able to achieve immortality through cybernetic enhancements, and will have little to no investment in procreation. The sex drive coupled with mankind's love of his physical strength will be rendered obsolete once man can trade in his meaty body for one that can perform thirty times as well, last three times longer, and require much less input.
Meanwhile, let's preserve our freedoms. Everything else is violence, and violence is not the answer.
Anonymous
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MicahSchweitzer
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Therefore, we have societies that over produce products to break so they must be replaced, so that they can over consume and over buy at the expense of others and at the expense of this planet for false growth and profit, rather than sharing, producing quality products that last and follow nature's rules of sustainability, and living reasonably so that all may live well. We are a species that is unique in its inability to be in harmony with our environment, and thus, we are severely out of balance, which violates the natural law of homeostasis. Science has now shown us all that we are interconnected and globalization is not something that we can reverse, even if we wanted to. Since we are integrally interconnected and interdependent, we cannot continue to violate the natural laws that we must learn to exist within, like the law of balance, homeostasis.
We can only resolve issues when we seek to solve them from their root cause. Our global population numbers are not the cause of our various worldwide crises. We must look deeper, and each and everyone must look within. It is as Einstein has said, “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.â€
The situation for humanity on this planet right now, in all of the escalating and multifaceted crises on every level and realm of society, requires us all to be in a new kind of relationship between people. Globalization has brought about the necessity for this new relationship between us, in order to survive first and foremost, and then also in order to live well, and to flourish and be happy.
This new interconnection between people that must be implemented globally is foundationally a relationship of a good and positive interconnection, a good relationship of mutual benefit and responsibility, mutual care and concern, a kind of a contract or mutual guarantee with each other to care for one another. This is so that humanity can come into balance with a new law of nature that has been revealed to us, a new way of thinking about life and viewing the world, to look out for our neighbors even before ourselves. To flip our egoism to altruism. This is not to be confused with morals, ethics, and religions, but rather, this newly revealed natural law is as foundational and universal as the natural law of gravity or the four laws of thermodynamics.
Humanity's process of evolution has come to the point where this new law of nature has revealed, and so we have to adapt to and align ourselves with it to overcome together, the various crises occurring in our world.
CLuview
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There are only 12 million square miles (7.68 billion acres) of arable land.
The world population in year 1 A.D. was 250 million people.
The world population in year 1492 was 500 million people.
The world population in 1804 was 1.0 billion people.
The world population in 1922 was 2.0 billion people (doubled in 118 years; increasing on average by about 23,000 per day).
The world population in 1959 was 3.0 billion people (increased by 1.0 billion in only 37 years; increasing on average by about 74,000 per day).
The world population in 2005 was 6.68 billion people (more than doubled in 47 years; increasing now by 211,000 persons per day!).
The world population by 2039 could be 8.0 to 13 billion.
In 1959, there were 12.16 acres per person, world-wide (i.e. 36.48 billion acres / 3 billion people).
In 2005, there were 5.46 acres per person, world-wide (i.e. 36.48 billion acres / 6.68 billion people).
By 2039, there may be only 2.81 acres per person, world-wide (i.e. 36.48 billion acres / 13 billion people).
Arable land is being lost at the alarming rate of over 38,610 square miles (24.7 million acres) per year. Therefore, by 2039, there may be only 0.53 acres of arable land per person, world-wide (i.e. 6.865 billion acres / 13 billion people). At the current rate of loss of 38,610 square miles per year of arable land, and even if the population didn't grow any larger, ALL arable land could be lost in only 310 years (12 million square miles / 38,610 square miles per year)!
In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops.
Land which is unsuitable for arable farming usually has at least one of the following deficiencies: no source of fresh water; too hot (desert); too cold (Arctic); too rocky; too mountainous; too salty; too rainy; too snowy; too polluted; or too nutrient poor. Clouds may block the sunlight plants need for photosynthesis, reducing productivity. Plants can starve without light. Starvation and nomadism often exists on marginally arable land. Non-arable land is sometimes called wasteland, badlands, worthless or no man's land.
Now consider the following: the sea-level is rising due to rising temperatures and melting ice.
The island nation of Tuvalu is slowly being submerged. The people of Tavalu have requested permission to move to immigrate to New Zealand.
The islands in the Chesapeake Bay are being submerged.
Bangladesh's lowlands farmlands are being submerged and saltwater is seeping into fresh water systems.
NOTE: For about every foot rise in the sea-level, the inland flooding is about 100 feet. Many people live along coastlines all around the world.
Starting to get the picture ?
So to say that "the IDEA of the world being over populated is a fallacy" would just be proving to each & everyone of us how nieve humans are on this matter & also proves how selfish our nature can be. I don't believe I am being selfish by providing IDEA's to correct or curb a major world problem. A fallacy is usually an improper argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. With that being said, every ounce of data or bits of information that I have posted has been directly referrenced out of the Encyclopedia Britannica. So sense I have based my IDEA's on facts, it is then not a fallacy.
On the other hand, I do agree with most of the rest of your arguement about people needing to become One altruistic voice.
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Ideaguy there is no realistic possibility of laws limiting offspring numbers worldwide. But there should be a targeted global population mitigation strategy (education/contraception in growth hotspots). This is because self correction (that will come) can be of the good kind (peaceful) or the bad kind (culling through famine/wars), and such a policy would just improve the chances of avoiding self correction of the bad kind.
OK famine/wars seem unlikely today, but what happens when you stack on a couple more billion people, have a couple of unfortunate weather events, and the food runs out? (Food could run out for reasons other than weather events too - think global electricity outage/Carrington event in this day of complete reliance on technology (ok , one idea too many in this post...)).
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Back to the point though, the amount of arable land is not a limit by itself. Energy is. The amount of sunlight which falls on the earth is 1000x more than we currently need and vertical farms can produce many more times the food than conventional farming does at many times less the energy cost of monoculture. And better quality too. Indoor climate control eliminates the need for pesticides. Not even soil is necessary. Food grown in the city can be sold the same day it is harvested, no need to import - not even exotic food.
As for famine, the problem today, is not a problem of production or over population. The problem is with economics. The poorest farmers and textile workers cannot compete with industries subsidized by rich governments. Goods exported to Africa are so cheap they can't earn a decent wage to support their own economy. These two industries are vital because food and clothing are the skill sets which every society already has.
Similarly, war as a cap on population is a misconception. Twins and triplets became ubiquitous after WWII to fill the gap in the population. Hence the baby boom generation. Not because nature had numbers to make up for, but because the increased value of labor created prosperity.
Anyway, the population will peak at around 9 billion and start to drop again. So yes, we will self correct. It is the politically correct response, it is also the factually correct response.
@002 I'm guessing you're part of the Carl Sagan generation! Respecting other species, although profound, is a rather weak argument to save them. We need to save them because they'll save us! That holds more weight in the political sphere.
I think you might like these TED talks: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jason_clay_how_big_brands_can_save_biodiversity.html
http://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling.html
Though not directly related to over population issues, they're definitely worth watching!
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Jeremy
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The issue os lifestyle ot the number of people. We need to deal with our outrageous wastefulness and profligacy.
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I agree with this concept as a whole, though. 2 kids max. Any more than that is just imposing your own narcissism on the environment. People who have 5+ kids disgust me because they obviously know nothing about ecology.
InnGuy
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- PeaceandRightsHawk; I so dubbed myself as an inversion of "War Hawk," the American term for what it sounds like, because I am as serious about freedom as those historical figures were about war; and an act of violence or a deprivation of rights is an act against freedom. For some reason my last post posted anonymous, so I'm citing my own name.
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http://www.globaldemocracy.com/idea/show/1001/conciever-only-tax-on-education
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