Overpopulation: Fact or Myth?

  • Thread starter Thread starter BlueFrog
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
B

BlueFrog

Guest
Hello friends. I was discussing this with a good friend of mine and not sure what to believe on the topic. I would like to get some of your opinions on this. I’m not sure what category this belongs, so hopefully it can be moved if in the wrong category. Thank you.

edit: I did not check the box to show who voted for what option, so it should be anonymous. After voting please feel free to share your opinions in a text reply. God bless.
 
Overpopulation seems to be one of those “facts” that the only people who believe in it are those for which the solutions (usually suggested by the same people) don’t affect them at all.
 
Oh my, one of the options I forgot to put on the poll:

“I believe the world can always use more people (the more the merrier)” 🙂

Oh well 👍
 
I marked somewhat of a problem, but not for the reasons people think.

I think the larger issue is a population imbalance. The secular world is dying out and “some countries wouldn’t even exist (to quote a former colleague of mine) without foreign aid.”

I also think it needs considering because it’s easier for disease to spread and humans waste antibiotics and dump them in the environment.

I do not think we need population control, but management techniques like natural family planning and more sustainable policies.
 
Overpopulation is simply a function of the amount of resources in an environment. It is true that the earth is not overpopulated at this point in time due to out ability to rely on stored energy resources. It is also true that if these stored resources were not available, the earth could not sustain the current population levels.
 
It’s a total myth. Anyone who tells you otherwise either can’t do simple math or has an agenda to push. The replacement rate for an industrialized human society is 2.10. That means that in order to maintain its population, every woman in an industrialized society needs to give birth an average of 2.1 times in her lifetime (in non-industrialized societies the replacement rate ranges from 2.3-3.3 based on the local mortality rates, etc.). The replacement fertility rate for the world on a whole is 2.33, while its current actual fertility rate is about 2.45 (and has been steadily dropping). If a society maintains its replacement fertility rate, its growth will be zero and the population will remain stagnant. More than that and the population increases; less and it decreases. Anything beneath that and the population starts to shrink. Anything beneath 1.4 (if I remember right) and the society has reached an irreplaceable rate. In other words, there’s no hope of them recovering.

Here’s a link to a Wikipedia page providing various lists of fertility rates around the world from 2009, 2011 and 2013. Notice that over half the countries listed for 2013 were at or below the replacement rate for an industrialized nation, while 18 of them were beneath the unrecoverable rate, while several others are on the brink (and likely have fallen beneath it since the CIA’s list for 2013 was published). The only thing that had been keeping the US rate above 2.1 was immigrants from Latin America, but several reports came out over the last few months to indicate that the US fertility rate had dropped to anywhere from 1.99-2.06. One report I read stated that the global population will peak around 2050, after which we’ll start declining at a drastic rate, possibly as much as 1 billion per decade. The only thing keeping the numbers artificially high now is that life expectancy has increased by such a great degree.

With the political left promoting and forcing contraception and abortion on developing countries throughout the world, we’re seeing dropping fertility rates virtually everywhere. Europe’s population is expected to fall by 100 million by the end of the century, while Russia and China’s could drop by half. Japan, Greece, Italy and a couple dozen other nations are literally breeding (un-breeding? non-breeding?) their way to extinction. The bottom line is that, if you look at the facts as opposed to the propaganda, there’s no way you can buy into the overpopulation myth.
 
I think it is a lie in order to justify the agenda of the elite, who would like to see a new world order established. Check out the Georgia Guide Stones"
Jesus said, “Be fruitful and multiply.”
 
At the moment we are able to feed most of the people in the world, but this is dependent on a great deal of technology, commercial and economic infrastructure, and favorable climate. As long as nothing goes too wrong, we’re all right. My concern is that various things could go wrong which would, in some worst-case scenarios, interfere with food production or distribution, or our ability to pay for it. For example, a large volcanic eruption, a flu pandemic, or a global economic crisis might lead to mass starvation.
 
Birth rate has nothing to do with determining whether or not overpopulation exists. It has everything to do with resources in the environment.
 
BlueFrog said:
Hello friends. I was discussing this with a good friend of mine and not sure what to believe on the topic. I would like to get some of your opinions on this. I’m not sure what category this belongs, so hopefully it can be moved if in the wrong category. Thank you.

edit: I did not check the box to show who voted for what option, so it should be anonymous. After voting please feel free to share your opinions in a text reply. God bless.
Click to expand...
The issue is not overpopulation, it is management of the abundant resources available to us.
 
JimG said:
Yes, this book sets out the real population problem that we are facing: a birth dearth. Underpopulation is a guarantee of economic stagnation and poverty.
Click to expand...
Birth dearth is not a problem. Many consider it a problem because the economic system live under is set up such that population must increase to sustain that particular economic system.
 
I voted “It’s a complete myth and lie etc” because many countries (most notably in Europe) have a sub-replacement birth rate. People in those countries should be encouraged to have more children.
 
We’ve already had a global economic crisis engineered by Wall Street in 2008. Only now are those responsible paying for it but I don’t know where their payments are going. So far, individuals are not going to jail. Banks and other entities are just paying up now.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich was the author of a book titled The Population Bomb. He predicted we’d all be dead by now. Our natural resources gone and that’s all folks.

This is a huge myth. In the 1950s, evangelist Billy Graham met with President Eisenhower about sending surplus wheat to those starving in other countries. The US Government pays US farmers billions of dollars a year to grow nothing. Why? If say, the US consumes 15 billion bushels of corn a year, you CAN’T grow more. The reason? Growing more leads to waste and lowers the price of corn. Giving it away costs money as well. Who will pay for shipping, distribution and all the rest?

We can feed all of the starving people in the world in two ways: (1) Buy it and send it to them, or the best way (2), buy it from local farmers where they live and send it a much shorter distance to them. But problem number one is making sure the food actually gets to those who need it and is not diverted to other parties.

Peace,
Ed
 
Gordon_Sims said:
It’s a total myth. Anyone who tells you otherwise either can’t do simple math or has an agenda to push. The replacement rate for an industrialized human society is 2.10. That means that in order to maintain its population, every woman in an industrialized society needs to give birth an average of 2.1 times in her lifetime (in non-industrialized societies the replacement rate ranges from 2.3-3.3 based on the local mortality rates, etc.). The replacement fertility rate for the world on a whole is 2.33, while its current actual fertility rate is about 2.45 (and has been steadily dropping). If a society maintains its replacement fertility rate, its growth will be zero and the population will remain stagnant. More than that and the population increases; less and it decreases. Anything beneath that and the population starts to shrink. Anything beneath 1.4 (if I remember right) and the society has reached an irreplaceable rate. In other words, there’s no hope of them recovering.

Here’s a link to a Wikipedia page providing various lists of fertility rates around the world from 2009, 2011 and 2013. Notice that over half the countries listed for 2013 were at or below the replacement rate for an industrialized nation, while 18 of them were beneath the unrecoverable rate, while several others are on the brink (and likely have fallen beneath it since the CIA’s list for 2013 was published). The only thing that had been keeping the US rate above 2.1 was immigrants from Latin America, but several reports came out over the last few months to indicate that the US fertility rate had dropped to anywhere from 1.99-2.06. One report I read stated that the global population will peak around 2050, after which we’ll start declining at a drastic rate, possibly as much as 1 billion per decade. The only thing keeping the numbers artificially high now is that life expectancy has increased by such a great degree.

With the political left promoting and forcing contraception and abortion on developing countries throughout the world, we’re seeing dropping fertility rates virtually everywhere. Europe’s population is expected to fall by 100 million by the end of the century, while Russia and China’s could drop by half. Japan, Greece, Italy and a couple dozen other nations are literally breeding (un-breeding? non-breeding?) their way to extinction. The bottom line is that, if you look at the facts as opposed to the propaganda, there’s no way you can buy into the overpopulation myth.
Click to expand...
Say more about the irrecoverable rate. Why couldn’t they get it back in later generations?

I’d say that while overpopulation is a theoretical possibility (finite planet and only a minuscule fraction of its mass can go into human bodies), as Catholics, we shouldn’t waste our minds on this issue, as the only “cures” for the “problem” (contraception and abortion) are worse than the problem even if it existed.

God will tend to us if we obey Him and strive to get others to do so.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
I’d say that while overpopulation is a theoretical possibility (finite planet and only a minuscule fraction of its mass can go into human bodies), as Catholics, we shouldn’t waste our minds on this issue, as the only “cures” for the “problem” (contraception and abortion) are worse than the problem even if it existed.
Click to expand...
Actually, there are isolated populations (or some that were isolated until recently) that had to deal with resource issues, so one can study what happens to these populations once resources run short.
 
TheWarriorMonk said:
Birth dearth is not a problem. Many consider it a problem because the economic system live under is set up such that population must increase to sustain that particular economic system.
Click to expand...
It doesn’t matter what kind of economic system one has. A population must replace itself or face population decline. Russia and Europe are already facing the problem. Even if they go back to a feudal economy, no nation can long exist with a declining population. And a declining population trend, once begun, is not easily halted.
 
JimG said:
It doesn’t matter what kind of economic system one has. A population must replace itself or face population decline. Russia and Europe are already facing the problem. Even if they go back to a feudal economy, no nation can long exist with a declining population. And a declining population trend, once begun, is not easily halted.
Click to expand...
Reverting to feudalism would make matters worse, not better, as feudalism requires at least a stable number of bodies to keep the land productive.

In a pattern of declining population, feudal lands would revert to nature over time.

ICXC NIKA
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top