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Garyjohn2
Guest
I’m getting my master’s degree in geography and environmental studies, and we talk about this fairly often.
Right now, it’s not a problem. There are enough resources on the planet to support our current population, as well as support a significatly larger population as well. There is a twist though…there are not enough resources on the planet to support a much larger population if we continue to live the way we are. American culture in particular is very wasteful, and developing countries often look up to an admire this type of living.
So, overpopulation is not a problem right now, but it very easily could be one if populations continue to grow quickly and the necessary changes to support the extra people are made very slowly. Energy efficiency, farming techniques, water resource management, and even diet patterns are all relevant. For example, you can support a much larger population on the same amount of land if they simply eat less meat (the grains that have to be used to raise animals are more efficiently used if they are fed directly to people).
There is still lots of debate though…maybe certain technological advances will change things…maybe the population growth models are off…maybe as more women become more educated in poorer nations, they will have less babies and population growth will slow or halt in the near future (this is a leading theory, as it often happens in developed nations such as Western Europe). So its kind of up in the air, but this is the general concensus in academia at least.
I hope this helps!
Right now, it’s not a problem. There are enough resources on the planet to support our current population, as well as support a significatly larger population as well. There is a twist though…there are not enough resources on the planet to support a much larger population if we continue to live the way we are. American culture in particular is very wasteful, and developing countries often look up to an admire this type of living.
So, overpopulation is not a problem right now, but it very easily could be one if populations continue to grow quickly and the necessary changes to support the extra people are made very slowly. Energy efficiency, farming techniques, water resource management, and even diet patterns are all relevant. For example, you can support a much larger population on the same amount of land if they simply eat less meat (the grains that have to be used to raise animals are more efficiently used if they are fed directly to people).
There is still lots of debate though…maybe certain technological advances will change things…maybe the population growth models are off…maybe as more women become more educated in poorer nations, they will have less babies and population growth will slow or halt in the near future (this is a leading theory, as it often happens in developed nations such as Western Europe). So its kind of up in the air, but this is the general concensus in academia at least.
I hope this helps!
J
JackVk
Guest
overpopulationisamyth.com/pop101/
kind of a humorous twist to it
kind of a humorous twist to it
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puzzleannie
Guest
no and no
file under myth, between bigfoot and unicorns
file under myth, between bigfoot and unicorns
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Ridgerunner
Guest
I agree that “overpopulation” is a relative thing. It’s relative to the world’s (or one country’s) ability to produce what people need.I’m getting my master’s degree in geography and environmental studies, and we talk about this fairly often.
Right now, it’s not a problem. There are enough resources on the planet to support our current population, as well as support a significatly larger population as well. There is a twist though…there are not enough resources on the planet to support a much larger population if we continue to live the way we are. American culture in particular is very wasteful, and developing countries often look up to an admire this type of living.
So, overpopulation is not a problem right now, but it very easily could be one if populations continue to grow quickly and the necessary changes to support the extra people are made very slowly. Energy efficiency, farming techniques, water resource management, and even diet patterns are all relevant. For example, you can support a much larger population on the same amount of land if they simply eat less meat (the grains that have to be used to raise animals are more efficiently used if they are fed directly to people).
There is still lots of debate though…maybe certain technological advances will change things…maybe the population growth models are off…maybe as more women become more educated in poorer nations, they will have less babies and population growth will slow or halt in the near future (this is a leading theory, as it often happens in developed nations such as Western Europe). So its kind of up in the air, but this is the general concensus in academia at least.
I hope this helps!
But I will quibble with you about eating grain vs eating meat. I’ll admit up front that I’m a rancher, among other things, so you’ll know I have a certain point of view.
About 1/3 of the habitable globe is grassland. It’s grassland for the very good reason that it won’t grow anything else. Grass is indigestible to humans. You’ll starve to death on the world’s best grassland, and people have. But cattle, sheep and goats can eat it and produce protein that is useful to humans.
I’ll further state that most of the grassland that’s in use is used pretty inefficiently; even in the U.S. The number of cattle now in the U.S. is about the same as the number of buffalo that were here before white settlers (and horse indians), and nobody fed grain to the buffalo. Cattle don’t need grain either. Most ranchers don’t do the things that could bring the numbers up significantly, and most don’t take full advantage of grass. But they could, and someday I believe they will. I am personally doing some of the things to bring that about, and on land that absolutely, positively can’t be used to grow grain.
I’ll mention too that most of the grain that’s used to feed cattle isn’t the kind that is used for human food. I never, ever feed grain except a little at weaning, and that’s mostly “brewers’ grain” that would go to waste if it wasn’t used for animals. You don’t really need to feed grain to raise beef. I could substitute for the weaning grain (about two weeks of it) but it’s cheaper than alfalfa if combined with lower grade hay or pasture. You don’t even need the alfalfa for weaning, but I like to feed a little grain because it makes them less stressed than simply putting them on grass alone.
True, Americans like heavily marbled beef. I don’t, especially, preferring grass-fed, which is leaner. But if I wanted to, I could get the same result by simply raising the fat content of their diet for the 80-120 days they grain-feed in the feed lots, and grain isn’t the only way to do that. It’s just cheaper and easier for the feedlots to finish on grain. And again, that grain isn’t something humans would want to eat either. Lots of brewers’ grain. People can eat brewers’ grain if it’s properly treated and/or mixed with something else, but it has a lot of cellulose and its flavor is not generally desired. Lots of corn that isn’t human consumable is used in animal feed. Lots of byproducts like rice hulls. Some of it even contains ground-up bones and feathers from poultry plants.
I’m going to go out on a limb just a bit and hazard that beef production in the U.S. could easily double; and could triple or quadruple if proper management techniques were more widely utilized, and it isn’t necessary to use human consumable grain to do it. I will further hazard that it will be easier to increase meat supplies from where we now stand, than to increase grain supplies.
Unless we’re ready to abandon 1/3 of the habitable globe to non-production of the very nutritious food that it now produces, I think we would do well to think out ideas like substituting grain for meat more deeply than we sometimes do.
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St_Francis
Guest
The idea that we would no longer be able to sustain the population if it kept growing was (afaik) first proposed in the late 1700’s by John Malthus. Since then, the world’s population has increased six-fold, and the standard of living over most of the world has increased exponentially.I’m getting my master’s degree in geography and environmental studies, and we talk about this fairly often.
Right now, it’s not a problem. There are enough resources on the planet to support our current population, as well as support a significatly larger population as well. There is a twist though…there are not enough resources on the planet to support a much larger population if we continue to live the way we are. American culture in particular is very wasteful, and developing countries often look up to an admire this type of living.
So, overpopulation is not a problem right now, but it very easily could be one if populations continue to grow quickly and the necessary changes to support the extra people are made very slowly. Energy efficiency, farming techniques, water resource management, and even diet patterns are all relevant. For example, you can support a much larger population on the same amount of land if they simply eat less meat (the grains that have to be used to raise animals are more efficiently used if they are fed directly to people).
There is still lots of debate though…maybe certain technological advances will change things…maybe the population growth models are off…maybe as more women become more educated in poorer nations, they will have less babies and population growth will slow or halt in the near future (this is a leading theory, as it often happens in developed nations such as Western Europe). So its kind of up in the air, but this is the general concensus in academia at least.
I hope this helps!
This is a cached copy of a site with some good info about the myth of overpopulation. An additional thought is that when Catholics have big families, more people go into religious life, where they do not have children…
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buffalo
Guest
No and no.
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catholictiger
Guest
thanks so much and I agree with you in everything you sayI’m getting my master’s degree in geography and environmental studies, and we talk about this fairly often.
Right now, it’s not a problem. There are enough resources on the planet to support our current population, as well as support a significatly larger population as well. There is a twist though…there are not enough resources on the planet to support a much larger population if we continue to live the way we are. American culture in particular is very wasteful, and developing countries often look up to an admire this type of living.
So, overpopulation is not a problem right now, but it very easily could be one if populations continue to grow quickly and the necessary changes to support the extra people are made very slowly. Energy efficiency, farming techniques, water resource management, and even diet patterns are all relevant. For example, you can support a much larger population on the same amount of land if they simply eat less meat (the grains that have to be used to raise animals are more efficiently used if they are fed directly to people).
There is still lots of debate though…maybe certain technological advances will change things…maybe the population growth models are off…maybe as more women become more educated in poorer nations, they will have less babies and population growth will slow or halt in the near future (this is a leading theory, as it often happens in developed nations such as Western Europe). So its kind of up in the air, but this is the general concensus in academia at least.
I hope this helps!
here is my prediction on teh population in the next oh lets say 30 years
all data comes from this site google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCAQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prb.org%2Fpdf10%2F10wpds_eng.pdf&rct=j&q=population%20data%20sheet%202010&ei=ArqaTIPeJoP58AbB5_RA&usg=AFQjCNFnUwx_s8NWvEto9y-6YxecHwYwaA&sig2=sXQ23Vz5rvntBmcGClNc_A&cad=rja
and also im mainly using the concept of demographic transition pretty well proven i think just look it up
alright so this is my prediction first some data
the fertility rate in the world right now is 2.5 babies per women
in MEDCs (EDC means economical developed countries) (M means more) the TFR (total fertility rate) is 1.7 bellow replacement rate which means in theory MEDCs should when the large portions of the populatino start to die off we will see a decrease in population in those countries
in LEDCs (the middle ones) the fertility rate is 2.7 excluding china 3.1 so in theory these countries will increase at a decent but not quick rate
Least LEDCs fertility rate is 4.5 meaning this is where we see huge increases
Africa has the highest 4.7
americas are 2.2 (US being 2.0)
asia is 2.2 but excluding china is 2.6 western asia is 3.1 high for asia
europe the lowest is 1.6 they have a net 0 population growth
so this is what going to happen my best guess based on my little knowledge
in about 40 to 50 years
Africa is going to come out of the dumps when that happens their birth rates will start to decline slow at first but very quick later so I suspect this is a random guess 1.5 and right now its 2.4%
also europe will start to see slow declines in popuation at worse -.06 i think
Americas will be like europe is right now so .6 percent growth or so with some negitives maybe 0 percent growth
Asia will be like us right now around 2% growth
and oceans will say like europe
thoughts africa really is the last group of countries to come out of the dumps economic wise many asian countries are on the rise right now some experts one i like (name removed by moderator)articlure jim rodgers says that China will be the next superpower country in the 21st century. Scary i know right.
Europes are facing hard times coming up people are just not having kids. (may have something to do with their secular nature just a guess) so they are far under the replace rate birth rate around 1.5 and it needs to be 2.1 so when large portions of population Die off the population will decrease
so simply in conclusion I think we need help africa out economically and socially of-course with mission trips but if we want to solve this coming overpopulation crisis we must help africa get out of the dumps
how to do that can be in another thread
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adrift
Guest
I find this insulting as it suggest that you have to be uneducated to have babies. If they were truly educated, instead of being educated fools, they would have more babies. The so called developed nations are suffering because of the the arrested population.maybe as more women become more educated in poorer nations, they will have less babies and population growth will slow or halt in the near future (this is a leading theory, as it often happens in developed nations such as Western Europe). So its kind of up in the air, but this is the general concensus in academia at least.
I hope this helps!
C
catholictiger
Guest
one thing i need to bring up even if overpopulation is a problem our solution to fix it can’t be the violation of human rights
so no population control none what so ever
so no population control none what so ever
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Garyjohn2
Guest
I don’t mean to offend, I think you are misreading what I said. Educated people have babies all the time! However, in countries where women don’t have access to equal education, and don’t have as many rights, they have many more babies, on average.
This is not an opinion! This has been the trend worldwide.
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Garyjohn2
Guest
Cool! It’s interesting to hear perspective from an actual rancher on this. What you are saying makes total sense. Still, I’m not sure most meat consumed in America is fed with grass though. I think its mostly grain, and land that can grow grain for animals can also grow grain for people. I wish I could find tha diagram and link it here, but the argument goes that if we take 10,000 calories worth of grain and feed it to livestock, and then eat the livestock, we end up getting something like 2,000 calories for human consumption. However, if we feed the grain directly to people, we get the full 10,000 calories so its more efficient.
It’s probably over simplified, because you brought up a lot of good points in your post, including grass-fed beef, better management techniques, ect. I’m only re-hashing what I’ve read elsewhere. I’ve learned something new for sure!
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Ridgerunner
Guest
I’m not a grain farmer, so I don’t know for sure whether land growing grain that isn’t human consumable can be converted to human consumable grain. I have seen posts on here by farmers who say that, in general, it can’t. I don’t know why. Never plowed a furrow in my life. Also, there’s a fair amount of “reject” grain; grain that’s too dirty or too full of weed seeds or whatever, for human consumption.Cool! It’s interesting to hear perspective from an actual rancher on this. What you are saying makes total sense. Still, I’m not sure most meat consumed in America is fed with grass though. I think its mostly grain, and land that can grow grain for animals can also grow grain for people. I wish I could find tha diagram and link it here, but the argument goes that if we take 10,000 calories worth of grain and feed it to livestock, and then eat the livestock, we end up getting something like 2,000 calories for human consumption. However, if we feed the grain directly to people, we get the full 10,000 calories so its more efficient.
It’s probably over simplified, because you brought up a lot of good points in your post, including grass-fed beef, better management techniques, ect. I’m only re-hashing what I’ve read elsewhere. I’ve learned something new for sure!
Most MEAT consumed in America is not grass-fed, but most BEEF is, at least for the most part. First of all, not all cattle are ever fed grain. Older cows, bulls and some heifers go directly from the field to the stockyards to the processing plant. That’s what you get in your fast-food, canned soup and a lot of the hamburger in the store. Steers and some heifers are fed grain, but not very long. Most are butchered at between one year and a year and a half old. Of that time, the typical “finishing” time on grain is between 80 and 120 days. Sometimes it’s less than that. One recent trend has been for feed lots to “upstream” feeding. That is, they pay relatively high prices per pound for “heavies”; steers and heifers that weigh 700 lb and upward, which are typically grass-fed up to that point. Of those, the lighter ones are frequently “backgrounded”, usually on grass by people who specialize in doing that. Heavier ones go on grain immediately, but only for a short while. But again, it has to be remembered that the “grain” isn’t the same stuff people eat.
A whole lot of meat protein is, indeed, wasted in this world. A lot of perfectly human consumable poultry, for instance, goes into pet food. The reason is that Americans prefer white meat for the most part. It’s very difficult for processors to get rid of the dark meat, and even some “overruns” on the white meat. The big dark meat purchasers are Russia and Asian countries. But they don’t always buy, and often stop importing for political reasons. So, all the surplus goes into pet food. Virtually all the bony parts; necks, backs go into pet food. Most of the livers go into pet food because the production far outstrips the market for them.
I know a guy who makes all kinds of pet food products from poultry products. I have personally seen loads of perfectly good chicken breasts go right into pet food. Nothing wrong with it at all; just overruns. Mostly, though, it’s dark meat and bony parts. Ironically, to ship pet food to the EU it has to be “human consumable”; passed by USDA.
Anyway, he came up with a human consumable product; a powder made of meat, cartilage and bone; extraordinarily nutritious. He proposed exporting it to third world countries at no cost at all, where poor people could buy it for the cost of internal transportation and use it for soups, additives to less nutritious food, etc. And it tasted good. But he wasn’t allowed to do it because, while it was perfectly safe, there were political problems with it. Third world countries wanted to protect their own growers and processors, and the U.S. government didn’t want to cause offense. So, it goes only to dogs and cats.
Oh yes, the livers. Tons and tons of them (far and away most of them) are centrifuged to create three products; liver oil which is used to flavor dry pet food, a sort of water concentrate that’s used primarily for canned pet food, and a powder that’s used in various kinds of pet foods.
Perhaps the silliest thing I ever saw had to do with beef. Some kinds of insulin are produced by genetically modified calves that produce insulin humans can use. Their mothers are just ordinary cows that are not genetically modified. But because genetic modification is such a scary thing to so many, the government will not allow even the mothers to enter the human food chain. So, when those mothers start getting a little agey, they can only be put into pet food. The calves, of course, can’t even be used for pet food.
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edwest2
Guest
The answer is no and no.
The ruling class around the world is most concerned about this.
In 1968, a book by Paul Ehrlich titled the Population Bomb predicted mass starvation in the 1970s and 1980s. The author should have found out what the United States was doing with its surplus wheat, for one thing. Today, farmers are paid billions of dollars to grow nothing.
project.org/blog/?p=1305
Why is this done? To keep prices high. If Americans and farm animals consume 1.2 trillion tons of grain per year, then that’s all you need to grow. Other farms can take up the slack if drought or flood affect other parts of the country.
God bless,
Ed
The ruling class around the world is most concerned about this.
In 1968, a book by Paul Ehrlich titled the Population Bomb predicted mass starvation in the 1970s and 1980s. The author should have found out what the United States was doing with its surplus wheat, for one thing. Today, farmers are paid billions of dollars to grow nothing.
project.org/blog/?p=1305
Why is this done? To keep prices high. If Americans and farm animals consume 1.2 trillion tons of grain per year, then that’s all you need to grow. Other farms can take up the slack if drought or flood affect other parts of the country.
God bless,
Ed
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Brendan
Guest
As Catholics, the only acceptable answer is ‘no’.
Children are created by God. There is no possible way to bring about a child, outside of a positive act of God ( in that God actively participates, not simply allows) .
God is not a fool, God will not creat more children than He actively desires to create, not simply allows to be created ( an oxymoron really).
Therefore there cannot be more people than God desires there to be. In fact, given things like abortion, a solid case can be made that there are FEWER people on Earth than God desires there to be.
Children are created by God. There is no possible way to bring about a child, outside of a positive act of God ( in that God actively participates, not simply allows) .
God is not a fool, God will not creat more children than He actively desires to create, not simply allows to be created ( an oxymoron really).
Therefore there cannot be more people than God desires there to be. In fact, given things like abortion, a solid case can be made that there are FEWER people on Earth than God desires there to be.
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Garyjohn2
Guest
I’m not so sure this is the case. I mean, I can certainly see why you would say this, because we shouldn’t start saying there should be less people, or people should stop brining life into this world.
However, if people misuse or waste resources so that there aren’t enough for everyone (including people born in the future), then overpopulation can be a problem. This would be a fault of ours, not God’s.
In a way, the case of ‘overpopulation’ is a problem of greed and not sharing resources, rather than a problem of how many people there are.
So, what I’m trying to say is, as a catholic I think its acceptable to say “Yes, it can be a problem, if we make it one. But it doesn’t have to be.”
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Brendan
Guest
Who creates a person, the husband and wife, or God?
You seem to be thinking that the creation of a new person is something that God simply ‘allows’ to happen, that is NOT true.
There are things that God simply allows to happen, like sin. But God takes no active part in sin, He does not either desire it or will it.
The opposite is true for the creation of a new person. God, and God alone can create the soul, the Life itself.
It is therefore something that God wills, desires to happen. A new human creature cannot come about if God does not desire it to happen. We cannot make God do something He does not desire to do.
Therefore, every person on Earth is one that God created out of His own Will, out of His own perfect desire.
God does not err, He does not make a mistake. Thus there cannot be overpopulation.
M
Mark77
Guest
**i can tell you are studying at a University when you say "There are enough resources on the planet to support our current population, as well as support a significatly larger population as well. There is a twist though…there are not enough resources on the planet to support a much larger population if we continue to live the way we are. American culture in particular is very wasteful, and developing countries often look up to an admire this type of living.I’m getting my master’s degree in geography and environmental studies, and we talk about this fairly often.
Right now, it’s not a problem. There are enough resources on the planet to support our current population, as well as support a significatly larger population as well. There is a twist though…there are not enough resources on the planet to support a much larger population if we continue to live the way we are. American culture in particular is very wasteful, and developing countries often look up to an admire this type of living.
So, overpopulation is not a problem right now, but it very easily could be one if populations continue to grow quickly and the necessary changes to support the extra people are made very slowly. Energy efficiency, farming techniques, water resource management, and even diet patterns are all relevant. For example, you can support a much larger population on the same amount of land if they simply eat less meat (the grains that have to be used to raise animals are more efficiently used if they are fed directly to people).
There is still lots of debate though…maybe certain technological advances will change things…maybe the population growth models are off…maybe as more women become more educated in poorer nations, they will have less babies and population growth will slow or halt in the near future (this is a leading theory, as it often happens in developed nations such as Western Europe). So its kind of up in the air, but this is the general concensus in academia at least.
I hope this helps!
It is so sad to see so many young, very intelligent & well educated people like yourself, especially young women, buy into the “overpopulation” myth.
So many beautiful babies will never be born because, as my 25 year old, University educated son said recently, “I would never want to have children because the planet cannot support our consumption.”
This breaks my heart because these same beautiful babies that are not being born, either through ignorance, selfishness (abortion!), or just laziness, could be the ones who cure cancer, who discover resources that allow billions of people to live a life that God intended for them to live!
**
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!
mark
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catholictiger
Guest
hey look at it this way if people who believe in this stuff aren’t having children then one day this theory will be gone becuase they will all die off
as one of my catholic freinds said once if you want to change the world, get married have kids and raise them as good catholic children. If we all do that (well people who are called to marriage) this world will change greatly because the best way to change the world is where the foundation of society is and that is the family
sorry this is kinda a tangent
G
Garyjohn2
Guest
I wanted to respond to this post as well as Mark77’s.
I think what I am trying to say is being slightly misconstrued. There aren’t too many people…God’s plan is perfect. However people are too greedy, because people are not perfect. Overpopulation is not a problem as it is commonly understood. What is not commonly understood is that is it how people use their resources, the gifts from God given to us (which are sufficient), and not how many people are on the earth that create the potential problem.
That is what I mean when I say overpopulation is not a problem unless we make it one. It’s not a problem right now. It’s a potential problem for the future, that depends on how we share with one another. It’s not a problem in terms of we don’t have to freak out about it and start controlling populations…that would be wrong. But we should also not turn a blind eye to potential issues in the future, and learn to share…which good and right.
That’s all, I just wanted to clarify. I have not “bought into” the overpopulation myth as commonly understood. God’s plan is perfect for us, but if we don’t follow the plan, we suffer! That’s why we should not only follow his commands to go forth and multiply, but also to share with one another the gifts given to us. If we leave one out (either one) there will be problems. If we leave the latter out (sharing) there will be a perceived “overpopulation” problem. You know what I mean?
I’m kind of oversimplifying it of course…but at the risk of being slightly offensive to some perhaps…if everyone in the world expected to live like most Americans live now, they simply wouldn’t be able to. There would then be complaints of overpopulation…when in fact the problem would be something else. (I’m american btw!)
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