Overpopulation thread: how many planets does your lifestyle require?

[Bluegoat]

But it wouldn’t work if the farms kept their animals alive, and just didn’t send them off for slaughter. I think the calculation is based on the total amount of mammalian life that the planet can support, so each cow or pig or sheep or dog or cat allowed to remain alive means that many fewer humans.

It’s very unlikely that everyone would one day drastically reduce their meat consumption. Since it would be a gradual process, the amounts would decline over a few years.

 

[gardenswithkids]

…it might be controversial to think this way, but if we managed to reduce the world population (voluntarily of course, through people choosing to have smaller families) then there would be meat for everyone. … .

Yes, what you wrote it highly controversial. I’ll be controversial too and ask you what you mean by “smaller families”? If you look at the US population over that past decade or two, it seems that as the number of people in families shrink, the average weight of the people within those families grows. Our biggest nutritional problems here are not related to starvation but over-eating and obesity. Controlling population doesn’t automatically mean that less food will be consumed by a society.

My family of nine (going on ten) uses food very efficiently. Most large families I know do too. We need to in order to feed our families on a budget. One chicken can feed our family for two meals, (served along with grains, vegetables and often dairy.) We rarely eat out–it’s too expensive. People with smaller families typically eat out often. Restaurants typically throw out lots of food; most large families don’t.

Back when Americans had more people in their families on average, the standard of living for Americans was lower. Not just food either. People didn’t travel by plane as much as they do now. They simply couldn’t afford fancy air travel, (as my family can’t afford it today.) When average family size was larger, average home size was smaller too. And homes were not often air conditioned, maybe with a one-car garage, etc… Large families didn’t used to leave as large of environmental “footprints” as Americans today do with smaller families. They lived on less. Large families often still do today.

…Would it really be immoral to have small families in order to be able to ensure a good quality of life for every person on earth as well as the survival of some species that are currently being destroyed by us?
…

That depends–most methods of family plannng are not moral and may also harm the environment. (Artificial hormones in the water supply from contraception comes to mind.)

And again, there are no guarantees that you’ll achieve what you hope to achieve. What is a “good quality of life”? While our American lifestyle typically includes lots of material goods, the number of people diagnosed with “depression” seems to grow too. Are people searching for love from food and material things, then finding themselves unsatisfied? Might large families be one answer to the problem of materialism and over-use of environmental resources rather than a cause of concern?

 

[Bluegoat]

I got 3.5 which is surprising since we don’t even have running water and hardly drive anywhere…

I was very surprised, when doing some research on a totally different topic, to find a couple who lived in Wales, with a lifestyle calculated at one earth - they just barely made it under the wire. I will try to link to some pictures of their home here.

 

[dulcissima]

I think the quiz is nonsense and so are the results.

I live in a townhouse, ride my bike to work, use the smallest amount of energy in the category (I never use heat or AC or even a fan), buy mostly local and organic, buy very little in the way of pre-packaged food, buy very little in general (the evidence is the lack of trash we generate…it would take more than a month to fill our trash can at the rate we go). Don’t eat meat every day. I feel like I am trying to live right.

The quiz has me pegged at 6.8 global hectares. When I googled to find the definition for global hectare I got this:

one global hectare is a measurement of the average biocapacity of all hectare measurements of any biologically productive areas on the planet. If you take the sum of the world’s biocapacity, then divide it by the number hectares on the earth’s surface, you get the biocapacity of one average earth hectare. When the term ‘global hectare per person’ is used, it refers to the amount of biologically productive land and water available per person on the planet. eg. In 2005 there were 13.4 billion hectares of biologically productive land and water available and 6.5 billion people on the planet.[1] This is an average of 2.1 global hectares per person.

So, that means that it would take 3.2 earths if everyone on the planet had my lifestyle. It seems like the biggest variable in this whole equation is not lifestyle changes per se, but greatly reducing the population of the world. I kind of have to wonder about the agenda that is being pushed here.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Do you serve the Lord of the Flies or the Lord of All?

Save souls, not ‘Gaia.’

 

[mesurman]

Quiz is here: earthday.net/footprint/flash.html

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Overpopulation is an interesting topic.

While physically there is enough room on the planet for more people, there already isn’t enough room to provide everyone with the kind of lifestyle Westerners enjoy.

We would need several Earths for every single person living today to have the kind of lifestyle we in the West have.

There are online calculators that attempt to measure just how many planets your lifestyle would require. They do this by calculating the amount of area needed to support an activity. For example if you eat meat, it would take into account the amount of land, water, energy and other resources needed to raise the animals you get meat from.

According to this quiz earthday.net/footprint/flash.html my lifestyle would require 4.4 planet earths if everyone currently alive were to have the same way of life.

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What do you think is the moral solution to this issue? Should we control population growth so that everyone in the world could have a good lifestyle, or should Westerners experience a big reduction in quality of life to be able to have more people on the planet and a more fair distribution of resources.

These quizzes are stacked. They already have an outcome programmed in. They are propoganda. Moral solution? We are told to go forth and multiply. Farmers can produce more food per acre than ever before with less manual labor to boot. This is just silly.

 

[Bluegoat]

These quizzes are stacked. They already have an outcome programmed in. They are propoganda. Moral solution? We are told to go forth and multiply. Farmers can produce more food per acre than ever before with less manual labor to boot. This is just silly.

As long as oil stays cheap.

 

[tjm190]

Well, if everyone eats less meat it wouldn’t be profitable for manufacturers to produce a surplus.

But I don’t know, it might be controversial to think this way, but if we managed to reduce the world population (voluntarily of course, through people choosing to have smaller families) then there would be meat for everyone. Would it really be immoral to have small families in order to be able to ensure a good quality of life for every person on earth as well as the survival of some species that are currently being destroyed by us?

We need to think about the long term, and the Earth can’t support an infinite number of people. Even if you think in terms of how many souls go to Heaven, a longer lasting planet with fewer people may outperform an overpopulated planet that becomes destroyed and stops supporting human beings.

The growth rate in Western nations is either 0, very near 0, or negative. The growth all comes from third world nations

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Anyone who declaims the word ‘planet’ and isn’t an astronomer gives me the willies.

 

[rpp]

Oh brother. What a ridiculous premise.

“Peopleare are the problem.” “Humans are an infection.”

Next these so-called environmentalists (which, based on what they write must be a synonym for “idiot”) will advocate creating a highly infectious disease to kill a major (think 3/4) of the population of the planet.

This premise itself is utterly evil. Period. Those who advocate this are advocating unspeakable evil.

 

[flyingfish]

The growth rate in Western nations is either 0, very near 0, or negative. The growth all comes from third world nations

That’s true, but Westerners already use far more than their share of resources. We get a lot of our resources from the third world too, because for historical and other reasons we are wealthy.

There’s something like 1 billion people living in North America (excluding Mexico) and Europe, if we all have a lifestyle that would require 6 planets if there were 6 billion of us, well it means the 1 billion would need 1 planet. Or say, conservatively if our lifestyles need 3 planets, then we can only have 2 billion of us. And that is assuming no one else exists

 

[cthulhubryan]

Here is the issue with things like this quiz.

Congratulate me! I have just been named Emperor of the Earth. My first task is to reduce the global carbon usage and population issues. I must do this as quickly as possible.

Voila! Wielding my might sword of Damocles I immediately slay 3/4 of the population of Russia, China, India and Brazil.

Look at how mighty and wonderful I am!

I have dropped world oil demand by over 40%, I have stopped the global deforestation by over 65% and I have returned untold billions of carbon atoms back to mother earth.

I have also made significant cuts in the amount of C02 being pumped into the atmosphere by those nasty coal plants in Asia!

If I need to go further, my next step is to slay all of Islam. Thereby I have left the worlds places of humanitarian production alone but have rid the world of over 50% of it’s required military output.

Peace is at hand, the planet is singing and all is well. Global carbon use is down!

Praise my morality!!!

What? You don’t think that was Moral? But, I stopped all the evils of the world by eliminating the problems.

I read the works of the masters of your population problems. I spent long nights reading the words of Sanger and Hitler. You got your solution, Rejoice!!!

 

[Bluegoat]

Here is the issue with things like this quiz.

Congratulate me! I have just been named Emperor of the Earth. My first task is to reduce the global carbon usage and population issues. I must do this as quickly as possible.

Voila! Wielding my might sword of Damocles I immediately slay 3/4 of the population of Russia, China, India and Brazil.

Look at how mighty and wonderful I am!

I have dropped world oil demand by over 40%, I have stopped the global deforestation by over 65% and I have returned untold billions of carbon atoms back to mother earth.

I have also made significant cuts in the amount of C02 being pumped into the atmosphere by those nasty coal plants in Asia!

If I need to go further, my next step is to slay all of Islam. Thereby I have left the worlds places of humanitarian production alone but have rid the world of over 50% of it’s required military output.

Peace is at hand, the planet is singing and all is well. Global carbon use is down!

Praise my morality!!!

What? You don’t think that was Moral? But, I stopped all the evils of the world by eliminating the problems.

I read the works of the masters of your population problems. I spent long nights reading the words of Sanger and Hitler. You got your solution, Rejoice!!!

Your argument is rather fatuous, I think. The quiz itself doesn’t say how we should approach the problem of overuse of resources or pollution. There are obviously immoral solutions to problems - that doesn’t mean that moral ones might not also be available. And certianly it doesn’t mean that individuals, recognizing their own contribution to the problem, should not modify their own behavior.

In places with real local population overloads, they feel the need to take some kind of action, and I imagine it is very tempting to take the easiest and most “effective” solution for such an overwhelming problem. That is wrong, but they still need to think about real solutions, or they will face some terrible consequences.

It’s well known that in the West, where the population is static or shrinking, the most resources are used, from all over the world. So the problem is clearly not only or primarily one of population, but of too many people who are using too many resources. If there were only a few people, then there would be less impact to living very extravagantly. The Earth has enough people that, even though many live close to the bone, their are clear consequences to the extravagant living of some.

And more difficult is that those poor people would like to live like the rich. And naturally so - why should it be ok for the West to live like that, but not them? But the results of everyone living like a middle-class American would be horrendous, if it was even possible. But the West continues to present their own lifestyle forward as the ideal and even as what we as humans deserve, and achievable by hard work, democracy, and the right kind of economy.

Right now, a big concern is that both China and India are set to develop a huge Western style middle class, and we can predict what the results will be.

So, what are Catholics and Christians called to do in response to this sort of problem? What kind of lifestyle does the Church tell us we deserve? How are we to respond to our neighbour in a far away place living in poverty? Are we obliged, morally, to use only our “fair share” of global resourses, or do we deserve to use what we can get?

 

[flyingfish]

Here is the issue with things like this quiz.

Congratulate me! I have just been named Emperor of the Earth. My first task is to reduce the global carbon usage and population issues. I must do this as quickly as possible.

Voila! Wielding my might sword of Damocles I immediately slay 3/4 of the population of Russia, China, India and Brazil.

Look at how mighty and wonderful I am!

I have dropped world oil demand by over 40%, I have stopped the global deforestation by over 65% and I have returned untold billions of carbon atoms back to mother earth.

I have also made significant cuts in the amount of C02 being pumped into the atmosphere by those nasty coal plants in Asia!

If I need to go further, my next step is to slay all of Islam. Thereby I have left the worlds places of humanitarian production alone but have rid the world of over 50% of it’s required military output.

Peace is at hand, the planet is singing and all is well. Global carbon use is down!

Praise my morality!!!

What? You don’t think that was Moral? But, I stopped all the evils of the world by eliminating the problems.

I read the works of the masters of your population problems. I spent long nights reading the words of Sanger and Hitler. You got your solution, Rejoice!!!

I guess there are only two alternatives: doing nothing, or murdering most people?

Come on. People can find ways to use less resources, people can also voluntarily choose to have small families (like many already do) so that population would decrease naturally.

Otherwise what? Keep going until there are so many of us that only a few can have a decent life (already the case btw) whereas the rest lack even the bare necessities? Keep going until we drive all other living things to extinction? At some point, unless we new planets to colonize, we have to deal with this issue.

 

[gardenswithkids]

… people can also voluntarily choose to have small families (like many already do) so that population would decrease naturally. …

Darwinian “survival of the fittest.” Those stupid enough to believe the over-poulation myth will voluntarily stop reproducing. Meanwhile, without the incentive to provide for their offspring, many will continue to over-consume resources while blaming large families and over-population.

 

[flyingfish]

Darwinian “survival of the fittest.” Those stupid enough to believe the over-poulation myth will voluntarily stop reproducing. Meanwhile, without the incentive to provide for their offspring, many will continue to over-consume resources while blaming large families and over-population.

Well the thing is, we don’t really “over consume” resources. Unless you believe that living in a house, driving to work, having electricity, and eating meat is overconsuming. Those are very basic things that add up.

People in third world nations don’t consume more than their share of resources, but their quality of life is awful. Would you be willing to live that kind of a life?

And since the population keeps growing, the “fair share” of resources lifestyle will get worse and worse.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Well the thing is, we don’t really “over consume” resources. Unless you believe that living in a house, driving to work, having electricity, and eating meat is overconsuming. Those are very basic things that add up. …

Well, if you don’t think Americans and Westerners are over-consuming the earth’s resources, then the whole point of your thread is somewhat moot, isn’t it?

What many Westerners think is “basic” keeps growing while average family size shrinks. Look at the average home built in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s compared to new homes. The size of homes have increased while family size decrease. It takes more resources to heat and cool larger homes. Again I’ll mention the growing problem of over-eating and obesity in America. Look also at the amount of food wasted at restaurants. Most large families don’t eat out often or waste food. Like persons who lived through the depression didn’t waste food–they used every scrap. Look at vacations and airplane trips–lots of fuel used. But you don’t see many large families traveling by air. That remindes me of the “basic” private jet that some of the environment prophets ride around in while telling us the rest of us to cut our emissions. It goes on.

Our “basic” standard of living isn’t very basic–materialism grew dramatically when family size started shrinking. Growing up with siblings can help teach people to be less selfish and to share. It may be difficult for some people to grasp the need to consume less in order to share resources with people living in poverty half-way around the world, but when the hungry are family members sitting with you at the dinner table, it’s much easier to take smaller portions and pass the mashed potatoes.

 

[flyingfish]

Well, if you don’t think Americans and Westerners are over-consuming the earth’s resources, then the whole point of your thread is somewhat moot, isn’t it?

Well, we over-consume in the relative sense. We use more than we should if resources were divided equally among all people living today. But, we don’t use all that much in the absolute sense (well save for those that live in mansions with heated sidewalks in the garden during winter).

I mean, I live in a small-average house. I take the bus as often as drive. I eat a lot of fresh foods that are grown locally, and still my lifestyle requires 4.4 planets if everyone were to live it. The only time I eat out is something like a sandwich at Subway since I’m not home most of the day.

What many Westerners think is “basic” keeps growing while average family size shrinks. Look at the average home built in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s compared to new homes. The size of homes have increased while family size decrease. It takes more resources to heat and cool larger homes. Again I’ll mention the growing problem of over-eating and obesity in America. Look also at the amount of food wasted at restaurants. Most large families don’t eat out often or waste food. Like persons who lived through the depression didn’t waste food–they used every scrap. Look at vacations and airplane trips–lots of fuel used. But you don’t see many large families traveling by air. That remindes me of the “basic” private jet that some of the environment prophets ride around in while telling us the rest of us to cut our emissions. It goes on.

I agree with you about overeating and restaurants.

Our “basic” standard of living isn’t very basic–materialism grew dramatically when family size started shrinking. Growing up with siblings can help teach people to be less selfish and to share. It may be difficult for some people to grasp the need to consume less in order to share resources with people living in poverty half-way around the world, but when the hungry are family members sitting with you at the dinner table, it’s much easier to take smaller portions and pass the mashed potatoes.

Once the population was so that everyone on earth had enough resources for a good lifestyle families could start having 2 children on average to keep the population stable. That way children would grow up with a sibling!

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Oh brother. What a ridiculous premise.

“Peopleare are the problem.” “Humans are an infection.”

Next these so-called environmentalists (which, based on what they write must be a synonym for “idiot”) will advocate creating a highly infectious disease to kill a major (think 3/4) of the population of the planet.

This premise itself is utterly evil. Period. Those who advocate this are advocating unspeakable evil.

Don’t give them ideas.

They’ve used ‘overpopulation’ as an excuse to practice eugenics before. Margaret Sanger and Adolph Hilter were soulmates in their quest to rid the world of ‘lives not worthy of living.’

The Lord gave us humans dominion over the earth, and commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. This is the polar opposite of the green marxist movement. I know whose side I’m on.

 

[sanctamaria17]

It’s obvious that overusing resources are the problem, rather than overpopulation.

I could not care less how many kids someone has but I do care when people treat the planet like their own personal trashcan. Kind of reminds me what we humans tend to do when God gives us a gift: throw it away.

Did God give us the earth so that we could destroy all forests, pollute the oceans, and fill the air with smog, just so we can drive fancy cars and live in big houses? Or did God give us the earth for us to dwell in and to share with our brothers and sisters, to take care of and keep it beautiful, even if it means we live a bit more simply?

The Pope said we have a moral obligation to take care of the planet. I wouldn’t dare try to be more Catholic than he is.