population control

[logic_oriented]

Because they see horrible pictures of places that are poverty ridden and think its due to over-population. When in fact its directly due to greedy people who control the wealth of that country or culture. There is plenty of land and food. You could fit all the population of the world in Texas and Arkansas with a family of 4 on a 8000sqft plot, which is a lot less then others live on.

I’m coming up with ~5,276sqft, and that isn’t accounting for any bodies of water.

Texas: 268,820 square miles
Arkansas: 53,179 square miles
Population of Earth estimate as of February 25th, 2010: 6,804,800,000 people

268,820 + 53,179 square miles = 8.97681692 × (10^12) square feet
(8.97681692 × (10^12)) / (6,804,800,000 / 4) = 5,276.75577 square feet per 4 people

Not that that necessarily invalidates your sentiment, but I always prefer accurate numbers. Am I missing something?

 

[kage_ar]

cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

Check out this link. In the poorest countries in the world women have 5+ children while the in the richest women don’t have enough to replenish the population. The Church position about no birth control insures perpetual poverty in these countries. Try promoting and teaching NFP in a country where people can not read or write.

I’m on dial up and cannot pull the links in. Google “Billings Method Illiterate” and you will find how successful NFP is for the poor

 

[flyingfish]

I think it might be tough to prove. During fast growth periods, for example, the usual conversion ratio with steers is 1:3. In other words, three pounds of “grain” produces one pound of beef. A LOT of that “grain” is actually grain by-product besides. Brewers’ grain, rice hulls, etc.; things people don’t eat.

I dunno, I remember seeing calculations a while ago about how we’d get more out of the earth if we used the resources used for raising meat to grow more corn or beans. Beef also requires a lot of water, which is becoming scarce in many parts of the world. Living on say, meat, nuts, fruit is a hunter gatherer diet and is impossible for everyone to sustain.

It’s really easy for us not to care about overpopulation. Myself I live in Canada with plenty of natural resources and one of the lowest population densities. What goes on in overcrowded, poor countries doesn’t affect us so it’s easy for us not to take it seriously. It’s probably quite a bit worse if you don’t have even the basics like a balanced diet and enough water to take a decent shower (or even drink), not to mention energy to run electrical appliances, computers, internet, cars so on.

Would you be willing to share evenly with the rest? Personally I would never sacrifice any of the comforts of Western society for the sake of more people in the world. IMO it would be up to them to reduce their numbers to the point where they can have plenty for all.

 

[flyingfish]

About 75% of the world’s covered in water.

Uh huh, it’s very expensive to desalinate ocean water. Australia is doing it, but poorer nations wouldn’t have the energy resources to do it on a mass scale.

A lot of the world’s population derives its drinking water and water for farming from glaciers in the mountains that are now melting. It will be hell in those places when the rivers run dry and farming and even drinking becomes impossible. Imagine mass scale migrations and refugees, and all the political instability that comes with that.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Why do you hear (in the secular news and universities) people talking about population control and wanting to limit the population if at least here in the U.S. our pop. is not growing (I heard it’s only remaining stable due to immigration) and in Europe it’s actually declining?

For all the talk about “choice” and “women’s reproductive freedom”, some people really don’t like it when women choose to reproduce and have large families.

Why? That’s a good question. Perhaps because some of them don’t want to share the world’s resources with what they consider “too many” other people. Despite all their p.c. talk about “helping the poor”, some people blame the poor for being poor (by blaming poor children for their parent’s poverty.) Some people think they can solve poverty and problems in the distribution of the world’s resources by robbing the poor of their children.

 

[flyingfish]

For all the talk about “choice” and “women’s reproductive freedom”, some people really don’t like it when women choose to reproduce and have large families.

Why? That’s a good question. Perhaps because some of them don’t want to share the world’s resources with what they consider “too many” other people. Despite all their p.c. talk about “helping the poor”, some people blame the poor for being poor (by blaming poor children for their parent’s poverty.) Some people think they can solve poverty and problems in the distribution of the world’s resources by robbing the poor of their children.

The main reason I am concerned about overpopulation is that large populations in some areas of the world are destroying habitats for other species, driving them to extinction. It would be really sad if for example chimps or gorillas went extinct because too many people cut down jungles or killed them for food/money. There are so many people, but once those species are gone they’re gone forever.

Fewer people would mean less pollution, more room for other forms of life, as well as more resources available for the people. The more people there are, the less resources there are for everyone, and the bigger the environmental impact.

I also doubt that poor women in third world countries want to have large families, they probably have no other choice because birth control is not available to them and because they are uneducated.

 

[Lethe]

The main reason I am concerned about overpopulation is that large populations in some areas of the world are destroying habitats for other species, driving them to extinction. It would be really sad if for example chimps or gorillas went extinct because too many people cut down jungles or killed them for food/money. There are so many people, but once those species are gone they’re gone forever.

Fewer people would mean less pollution, more room for other forms of life, as well as more resources available for the people. The more people there are, the less resources there are for everyone, and the bigger the environmental impact.

I also doubt that poor women in third world countries want to have large families, they probably have no other choice because birth control is not available to them and because they are uneducated.

I agree with what you say about other species - the world is not meant to be a human-dominated as it is, which is why we are constantly causing health problems for ourselves - disease, famine, pollution. We have got around the natural ways of life by treating sewage, factory farming, developing medical care etc but I’m not sure how far we should go… I live in the UK, where there’s not really all that much ‘free’ country left - its either cities, agricultural land, or national parks. Humans can’t roam where they want, as would be natural, and nor can most other animals (with the exception of small wildlife- birds, frogs, foxes, hedgehogs etc.)

And about third world mothers - I think many are reacting to the fact some of their children will die, so having more is better, as some will survive. Also, if they are farmers, their children can help with the work. And marital rape is not viewed as such in many of these communities, nor is contraception, as you noted, easily available.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I dunno, I remember seeing calculations a while ago about how we’d get more out of the earth if we used the resources used for raising meat to grow more corn or beans. Beef also requires a lot of water, which is becoming scarce in many parts of the world. Living on say, meat, nuts, fruit is a hunter gatherer diet and is impossible for everyone to sustain.

It’s really easy for us not to care about overpopulation. Myself I live in Canada with plenty of natural resources and one of the lowest population densities. What goes on in overcrowded, poor countries doesn’t affect us so it’s easy for us not to take it seriously. It’s probably quite a bit worse if you don’t have even the basics like a balanced diet and enough water to take a decent shower (or even drink), not to mention energy to run electrical appliances, computers, internet, cars so on.

Would you be willing to share evenly with the rest? Personally I would never sacrifice any of the comforts of Western society for the sake of more people in the world. IMO it would be up to them to reduce their numbers to the point where they can have plenty for all.

I can’t speak for every feedlot, but a large portion of the “grain” that is fed to cattle actually consists in byproducts that people either can’t eat or won’t. In any event, as in Australia, there’s nothing wrong with eating fully grass fed. If we don’t utilize the grasslands (and there are a lot of them worldwide) a significant portion of the earth’s surface will produce nothing at all.

Some areas have abundant water. Some do not. Where I am, we receive about four feet of rain per year. It’s a karst region, so much of it gets stored at various levels underground, but most flows, eventually, into the Mississippi, thence out to sea. It would be nice if some of it could be shipped to the Sahel, for instance, but it can’t be done. Some areas are suited to livestock, and some are not. But that doesn’t mean we should waste those areas that are suitable. One thing this area is NOT suitable for is grain; something “dust bowl” farmers learned back in the 1930s not too far west of here. It makes no sense to me to prevent cattle from drinking the excess water that would otherwise end up in the Gulf of Mexico.

By the way, livestock raising and raising things like tree-grown nuts or fruit are entirely compatible, in the same place and at the same time. They’re actually complementary if done well. But a lot of places where, e.g., pecans can be grown can’t support grain crops.

Singapore, of course, is quite wealthy and is perhaps the most densely populated country on earth. What’s wrong with much of the world is not the peoples’ incapability of having a decent standard of living, but their governments’ unwillingness to allow them the conditions under which they might develop it. Singapore can afford to import food because its populace generates sufficient wealth to buy it. And, there are plenty of places where it can be grown in order to supply them.

 

[flyingfish]

Singapore, of course, is quite wealthy and is perhaps the most densely populated country on earth. What’s wrong with much of the world is not the peoples’ incapability of having a decent standard of living, but their governments’ unwillingness to allow them the conditions under which they might develop it. Singapore can afford to import food because its populace generates sufficient wealth to buy it. And, there are plenty of places where it can be grown in order to supply them.

They’re not mutually exclusive, there are unjust government systems that exploit ordinary people, but there is also a finite quantity of resources of this planet.

Even if you don’t believe the limit has been hit, you have to believe at some point it will be hit. It’s more evident with more scarce resources like fossil fuels which we rely on for our modern lifestyle.

Where would you want to set the limit? Would you be okay with every part of the earth being used for human needs, with next to nothing left over for other species? We’re on our way to causing a mass extinction the way we’re going, are you okay with that?

 

[gardenswithkids]

Thank you to flyingfish and Lethe for illustrating my previous point. As I was saying, despite all the lip-service about “reproductive freedom” and “choice”, some people really don’t like it when women choose to have large families. Some of them do not want to share the world’s resources with what they deem “too many” other humans. Furthermore, (as illustrated by a couple of posters) because they cannot comprehend that some women actually want to have large families, they question the intelligence, education and even the very freedom of women who make such choices.

Such people often deny the existance of a Creator and the supernatural, while simultaneously (and incongruently :whacky regarding human activity as something other than “natural.” In the name of saving nature, many promote* artificial* contraception, which separates sexual activity from it’s natural reproductive function-and they fail to see the irony of that. :doh2:

Sometimes people who hold such philosophies site Darwin in debates about theology, yet they seem to have forgotten a very basic Darwinian premise: survival of the fittest.

 

[Ridgerunner]

They’re not mutually exclusive, there are unjust government systems that exploit ordinary people, but there is also a finite quantity of resources of this planet.

Even if you don’t believe the limit has been hit, you have to believe at some point it will be hit. It’s more evident with more scarce resources like fossil fuels which we rely on for our modern lifestyle.

Where would you want to set the limit? Would you be okay with every part of the earth being used for human needs, with next to nothing left over for other species? We’re on our way to causing a mass extinction the way we’re going, are you okay with that?

I don’t think anybody has a clue as to what the “maximum human carrying capacity” of the earth is. It’s easy for people to take the current situation and (a) assume all bad things are due to overpopulation and (b) natural resources are going to run out.

I recall, for example, that in the late 19th century, fully 1/3 of the agricultural production in the U.S. went to feed horses; they being the chief means of motive power at the time. Cities were turning into unimaginable sewers because of all the horse manure. It was believed by some, and not unreasonably so based on what people then knew, that the population was already beyond carrying capacity in the U.S.

Of course, those beliefs all turned out to be wrong.

I don’t worry too much about other species in places where there is enough wealth and knowledge to protect and sustain them. In my own area, for example, there was virtually no wildlife when I was a kid. Now, wildlife, including species previously considered endangered, abounds. And they do so in a much more productive agricultural environment and with a massively larger human population and a lot more industry as well. Forests are larger and healthier now. Grasslands are a lot more productive. Water is cleaner. The difference is caused by a number of things, but all coming down to increased wealth on the part of the population and better knowledge.

I suppose the point at which one might consider the world population as reaching its optimum is the point at which it is incontestable that human ingenuity no longer has anything to offer.

And, of course, human populations self-limit when child labor is no longer heavily utilized. The U.S. native-born birth rate is already below replacement. Japan is. China is. All of Europe is. Even Mexico now is. We might do better to consider the consequences of population implosion than to panic over reproduction rates in the Fourth World.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

The main reason I am concerned about overpopulation is that large populations in some areas of the world are destroying habitats for other species, driving them to extinction. It would be really sad if for example chimps or gorillas went extinct because too many people cut down jungles or killed them for food/money. There are so many people, but once those species are gone they’re gone forever.

Fewer people would mean less pollution, more room for other forms of life, as well as more resources available for the people. The more people there are, the less resources there are for everyone, and the bigger the environmental impact.

I also doubt that poor women in third world countries want to have large families, they probably have no other choice because birth control is not available to them and because they are uneducated.

So you can read the minds of ‘poor women’ in other countries? And you count some gorilla’s ‘rights’ above those of humanity?

THIS is why the entire ‘population control’ agenda is anti-Catholic, if not downright evil.

 

[flyingfish]

Of course, those beliefs all turned out to be wrong.

They turned out to be wrong because of unforeseen at the time technological advances. Current calculations about the Earth’s biocapacity are also made assuming current levels of technological development.

Yes, all this would change were we to make major advances.

I don’t worry too much about other species in places where there is enough wealth and knowledge to protect and sustain them.

That being key, overall wildlife is not doing too well. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction#Modern_extinctions

According to a 1998 survey of 400 biologists conducted by New York’s American Museum of Natural History, nearly 70 percent believed that they were currently in the early stages of a human-caused extinction,[26] known as the Holocene extinction. In that survey, the same proportion of respondents agreed with the prediction that up to 20 percent of all living populations could become extinct within 30 years (by 2028). Biologist E. O. Wilson estimated [5] in 2002 that if current rates of human destruction of the biosphere continue, one-half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in 100 years.[27] More significantly the rate of species extinctions at present is estimated at 100 to 1000 times “background” or average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth.[28]

And, of course, human populations self-limit when child labor is no longer heavily utilized. The U.S. native-born birth rate is already below replacement. Japan is. China is. All of Europe is. Even Mexico now is. We might do better to consider the consequences of population implosion than to panic over reproduction rates in the Fourth World.

Right, but self-limiting wouldn’t work in a poorer area where families either need many children for farming, or where children work, or simply where there is no access to birth control.

My biggest concern would be that we don’t keep up with technological advances required, and that once fossil fuels run out/glaciers melt there will be a lot of political unrest leading to wars and other crises as well as damage to other species.

 

[flyingfish]

So you can read the minds of ‘poor women’ in other countries?

I would imagine that women who can’t feed their existing children would choose not to have additional children if they could.

Even if they want a large family, at some point the fact that your children are starving would have to win out over the desire to have more.

And you count some gorilla’s ‘rights’ above those of humanity?

I think it would be far worse for gorillas to go extinct than for people to start limiting their family size, yes.

 

[Lethe]

Thank you to flyingfish and Lethe for illustrating my previous point. As I was saying, despite all the lip-service about “reproductive freedom” and “choice”, some people really don’t like it when women choose to have large families. Some of them do not want to share the world’s resources with what they deem “too many” other humans. Furthermore, (as illustrated by a couple of posters) because they cannot comprehend that some women actually want to have large families, they question the intelligence, education and even the very freedom of women who make such choices.

Er, that is not what I said. I said many of these women need larger families, as many of their children die, and also they need help with work in order to make enough money to live. Are you denying that many children die in Africa, or that children help with the work? Because I don’t think that actually is deniable. Its not true for EVERYONE, but that’s not what I said.

And yes, I do disagree with women choosing to have children they cannot support. I understand the reasons they do so, and unlike you I do not think everyone with a large family has made choices to have every child… Can you really not grasp the idea that people have unplanned pregnancies, even if they know it is a risk with sex?

And as for freedom - some women ARE forced to have sex, or simply expected to within their society, and do so because it is what is expected of them, not because they have decided to have a large family.

Do you really think everyone who has a large family has decided to do so, and has no other reason?!

 

[gardenswithkids]

Er, that is not what I said. …!

I wasn’t responding to your post alone. Yes, you did make some very valid points about the reason some poor women want large families. But you also wrote that you think the world is not meant to be as human dominated as it is, and you brought up both marital rape and the lack of contraception. Additionally, you wrote about how humans have gotten around the “natural way of doing things by treating sewage, factory farming and developing medical care” and wrote you’re not sure how far we should go with that.

Please note that artificial contraception* is unnatural*. It is going to far when humans develop artificial hormones and do a variety of other unnatural things to suppress their natural fertility. (By the way, those artificial hormones are too small to be removed from the water in sewage treatment plants and they can do environmental damage, but that’s a different subject.)

As to family size and societal expectations, societal expectations are also often a reason for smaller familes too. In developed countries, people are expected to use some form of contraception. It’s difficult to leave a hospital after delivering a new baby or visit a doctor without discussing birth control methods. There’s a significant amount of societal pressure in Western society to limit family size.

Honestly, while people may have some control of their own family size, they really don’t have much of a say in the size of the entire population. The term “population control” refers to trying to tell or even force–yes force!–others to limit their family size. I worry when people discuss population control as if it’s a good thing.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

I would imagine that women who can’t feed their existing children would choose not to have additional children if they could.

Even if they want a large family, at some point the fact that your children are starving would have to win out over the desire to have more.

I think it would be far worse for gorillas to go extinct than for people to start limiting their family size, yes.

May God have mercy on you.

 

[Ridgerunner]

They turned out to be wrong because of unforeseen at the time technological advances. Current calculations about the Earth’s biocapacity are also made assuming current levels of technological development.

Yes, all this would change were we to make major advances.
Again, my point earlier expressed was that one might legitimately consider the world to be facing overpopulation when it becomes incontestable that human ingenuity is without resources.

That being key, overall wildlife is not doing too well. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction#Modern_extinctions
Then is not the proper answer to improve the wealth level of other parts of the world? Unfortunately, misgovernance is responsible for poverty most of the time, and reducing the population of, say, a place like Zimbabwe, is not going to improve living conditions or wildlife at all. It used to be a big exporter of food. Now it’s a net importer. Horrible governance, not overpopulation, has made that place a hell.

Right, but self-limiting wouldn’t work in a poorer area where families either need many children for farming, or where children work, or simply where there is no access to birth control. If they need the children for farming, then they do. Perhaps the better answer is to improve farming methods where that can be done. But again, population reduction will not help poverty that’s due to misgovernance.

My biggest concern would be that we don’t keep up with technological advances required, and that once fossil fuels run out/glaciers melt there will be a lot of political unrest leading to wars and other crises as well as damage to other species.

Lots of assumptions in that last statement, beginning with a lack of faith in human ingenuity, for which assumption there really is no basis stated. As to war, one might remember, for example, that the two biggest wars in human history were begun by attacks by one prosperous country on another prosperous country. Nobody is threatening to take over Zimbabwe other than for, perhaps, humanitarian reasons, and Zimbabwe is hardly in a position to attack anyone.

I will grant that revolutions sometimes occur in countries in which those who have been robbed mercilessly rebel against those ruling elites whose greed has kept them in poverty.

 

[flyingfish]

Lots of assumptions in that last statement, beginning with a lack of faith in human ingenuity, for which assumption there really is no basis stated.

I think it would be more prudent to have the technology first and the population increase later. It would be great if we can completely eliminate our need for fossil fuels, not only for energy but also for fertilizer, pesticide and so on.

Will we be able to do it? Who knows. You have to keep in mind that with oil due to run out in a 100 years, our ability to produce food is going to plummet. We can hope for advances in technology, but what if they don’t come? Do you realize that it would mean? Even before oil runs out, it’s going to become increasingly expensive and it’s questionable whether poorer people would have access to it.

It’s physically impossible for population growth to continue indefinitely unless we start expanding to other planets, which is unrealistic to begin with. We can either limit our numbers voluntarily or let nature do it for us. The latter option won’t be pretty.

Personally I don’t understand why people are so reluctant to acknowledge that we don’t live on an infinite planet. Why? Is it because it’s considered a “liberal” issue that conservative folk oppose it?

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Perhaps you can find a nice gorilla family to take you in. Personally, my lot is with the humans, made in the image and likeness of God.