Pro-choice people are always saying World is overpopulated. Is it?

[Cinette]

*Pro-choicers keep justifying abortion by saying that the world cannot sustain its population. America and Europe certainly are not contributing to this.

Who are the people that are populating the world? Will their numbers eventually not enable them to overpower the world?

Does anyone have reliable “statistics”.

Answers anybody?

*

 

[wapsi]

The UN released a study, two years ago, which projects world population to peak around 2050, and then level off.

World population is expected to reach 9.2 billion by 2050 according to a new study by the United Nations. Virtually all growth will occur in developing countries, with their population growing from 5.4 billion today to 7.9 billion mid-century. The population of developed regions is expected to remain unchanged at 1.2 billion, and would have declined, were it not for the anticipated net migration from developing to developed countries.

The report also said that global population will age faster than ever before, with half the expected increase in world population between 2005 and 2050 to be accounted for by a rise in the population aged 60 years or over. The number of children under the age of 9 will decrease slightly over the same period.

While it appears likely that human population will level off mid-century, the human footprint on the planet is expected to grow as larger numbers of people achieve higher levels of affluence, especially in China and India. In general as quality of life improves, a population uses more resources. For example the United States appropriates more than 20 percent of the world’s resources despite having less than 5 percent of global population.

news.mongabay.com/2007/0313-population.html

I think when people talk about overpopulation, what they really mean is increasing competition for limited resources. This is a real concern, but I’ve met very few Americans who are willing to reduce their lifestyle to help out.

 

[dcrowmik]

• Population of Earth was 6.707B as of last July.
• Total land area of Europe is 3,837,000 square miles.
• Population density of New York City is 2,182 people per square mile.

If you take ALL the people in the world and populate all of Europe as densely as New York City, the rest of the world would be vacant.

 

[RobbyS]

The UN released a study, two years ago, which projects world population to peak around 2050, and then level off.

news.mongabay.com/2007/0313-population.html

I think when people talk about overpopulation, what they really mean is increasing competition for limited resources. This is a real concern, but I’ve met very few Americans who are willing to reduce their lifestyle to help out.

The competition for resources has been going on since the dawn of time.

 

[EnchantedEve]

Actually, I recommend a DVD called Demographic Winter, which explains that the case is just the opposite, and the trend is for decline, not boom.

There is currently enough space on the planet for everyone to live on 1 square mile, all by themselves, and most of the planet would still be empty.

The real problem is not really overpopulation, but overdensity (too many people in the same space). Look at the cities. There are plenty of places for people to live, but people all pursue living in the same area, making resource allocation, while not impossible, more challenging. This will be the real-long term question, whether it is sustainable for so many people to live such a compact life.

More info can be found here:
thenewamerican.com/reviews/movies/234-a-global-population-ice-age

 

[budgie2]

In the book of Genesis God told us to “go, multiply and fill the earth”. It is surely up to God to decide whether the Earth is overpopulated and I would see it as a divine commandment that I should fill the Earth. Just regards the Resurrection, it is also possible for God to raise some of the bottom of the ocean to land as there are mountains in the world that used to be under water. Equally, it is also possible for God to create a new Earth or other planets habitable to human beings. The universe is full of empty “space”. It may be that God wants us to fill the universe and it may be his intentionto use this “space” for living creatures. My idea.

 

[Cowboy_Curtis]

In the book of Genesis God told us to “go, multiply and fill the earth”. It is surely up to God to decide whether the Earth is overpopulated and I would see it as a divine commandment that I should fill the Earth. Just regards the Resurrection, it is also possible for God to raise some of the bottom of the ocean to land as there are mountains in the world that used to be under water. Equally, it is also possible for God to create a new Earth or other planets habitable to human beings. The universe is full of empty “space”. It may be that God wants us to fill the universe and it may be his intentionto use this “space” for living creatures. My idea.

I don’t think that modern medicine was in mind when Genesis was written. The average life expectancy was for quite a while around 40 years and there were quite a few birth-related deaths. “Go forth, multiply and fill the earth” doesn’t suggest we flood the earth with people, there was a very different era in mind when this was written.

 

[manualman]

Nobody knows for sure.

We seem to have large population growth in the third world while most developed countries have long been suffering fertility rates below replacement levels.

But the trend of sub replacement fertility seems to be spreading to the developing countries rapidly (IIRC, Turkey, and Iran are way below replacement now).

In any case, the developed nations face a greater risk of depopulation than overpopulation. The economic implications are sinister: there has never been a period of history where population declined while the economy prospered. Wish I had the budget to get a good solar setup. Luckily it isn’t expensive to learn to garden… Could be a vital skill someday!

 

[Florida_mom]

I don’t think that modern medicine was in mind when Genesis was written. The average life expectancy was for quite a while around 40 years and there were quite a few birth-related deaths. “Go forth, multiply and fill the earth” doesn’t suggest we flood the earth with people, there was a very different era in mind when this was written.

If we are going to take the Book of Genesis at its word–folks lived a whole lot longer than 40 years at the time of Genesis. Like…hundreds of years.

 

[mdgspencer]

“Overpopulation” is different from what the population control people say it is. What if there were only one person in the world and he was starving because he could not produce enough food. Then the world would be overpopulated. It is not the number of people that cause "overpopulation."The question is the amount of resources available to support the population, whatever size it is. The solution is to develop resources. Actually, a man named Malthus in the 18th century predicted overpopulation, starvation, and collapse within several decades, using the clever slogan, population increases geomatrically, while agriculature increases arithmatically. Was he right? Thee was no collapse. However through the increase of resources he became wrong. And in fact, isn’t Maltuses’ slogan exactly the view the population control people promote now?
A case can be made to say that the world instead is becoming underpopulated. In most European countries the population is shrinking, which will cause disastrous problems. Social programs may well collapse such as social security because there will be too few younger people to support it, and a shrinking number of younger people will cause other serious economic problems, and which may well cause groups of people to war on one each other because of the shrinking amount of money available to suport their interests and the programs that sustain them such as social security.

 

[Disciple96]

I heard an interview on The Good Fight a while back about this topic. Steven Mosher was doing research at Stanford and went to China and observed their forced abortion policy first hand. As in, he witnessed forced abortions! He became pro-life on the spot. When he came back and wrote his paper (dissertation?), no one would listen to him, no one would accept his paper or help him and basically he got such a cold shoulder he almost froze to death. He tried to talk to women’s groups, feminists, but they gave him the same cold shoulder.

Enter Fr. Paul Marx. He invited Steven to do some talks and now he is the president of Population Research International. Wanna read about some of their research?

Our Mission

Debunk the myth of overpopulation, which cheapens human life and paves the way for abusive population control programs

Expose the relentless promotion of abortion, abortifacient contraception, and chemical and surgical sterilization in misleadingly labeled “population stabilization,” “family planning,” and “reproductive health” programs.

Defund these programs by exposing the coercion, deception, and racism inherent in them.

Emphasize that people are the most valuable resource on the planet, the one resource we cannot do without.

Promote pro-natal and pro-family attitudes, laws, and policies worldwide.

Encourage programs to help the poor become agents of their own development.

Note that first line in their mission statement: one of their main goals is to debunk the overpopulation myth. Whenever you hear politicians talking about reducing the population to reduce competition for resources, it should make your hair stand on end.

And in that vein, consider this story. I wish there were more verifiable facts and details in it, reading it (and doing a little more research on the web) still gave me the chills.

Meeting of World’s Richest Names Pro-Abortion Population Control as Main Cause

 

[Disciple96]

I’d like to edit that link up there for The Good Fight, but I can’t edit the post. Argh!
Here’s the link to the page with MP3’s of the shows archived in EWTN’s audio library. Scroll down to (currently) #11, The future of pro-life issues.

Click the MP3 link, it’ll take you to a download page. Right click on the words Begin Download and save it.

(They could make it easier to download, but I guess this was the only way they could count their downloads.)

 

[Ridgerunner]

I live in an area that is densely populated for a rural area. About a million people in a strip about 50 miles wide by 100 miles long. Two small cities within it have about 200,000 people. A number of small towns and a massively “gentrified” countryside.

But, if I get outside this strip, I can drive 100 miles north, south or east without seeing any tilled soil at all, notwithstanding that a lot of it is good land. I can drive for 15 or 20 minutes in many places without even seeing a cow. Admittedly, if I get 50 miles west, I’m in farmland; some of the best in the world. People only farm the “perfect” soil, leaving mile after mile after mile of “very good” soil just empty. Lots of that is in the federal CRP program, in which people are paid NOT to raise anything at all. Not even cattle. Not even hay. Mile after mile after mile of it. Just empty.

If the rest of my state was as densely settled as is the strip I live in (And you can’t tell by driving through this strip how populated it really is. It looks sparsely populated, but isn’t.) it would have many times its present population.

Hard for me to think of the U.S. as overpopulated. I might mention that the average age of the farmers who own the “perfect” land is 70. In 20 years, then what?

I say we need more people, not fewer.

 

[redhen]

Human overpopulation is leading to a new mass extinction, though habitat loss, pollution, and over-hunting/fishing.

well.com/~davidu/extinction.html

No one else sees this as a problem caused by the fecundity of homo sapiens?

 

[vz71]

The issue will always be with resource distribution.
Not consumption.

We are not, and for the forseeable future are not, overpopulated.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Human overpopulation is leading to a new mass extinction, though habitat loss, pollution, and over-hunting/fishing.

well.com/~davidu/extinction.html

No one else sees this as a problem caused by the fecundity of homo sapiens?

Sure is hard to see from my perspective. When I was a kid, there was virtually no wild game at all in the area in which I lived. The area was over-timbered, over-farmed and over-hunted. Water was polluted, and I contracted Hepatitis because of it.

Now, the area is full of wild trout, bald eagles, otters, mink, kingfishers, herons and many other species that simply were not there when I was growing up. Deer are so plentiful that two seasons ago there was no limit on does at all, and that’s likely to be repeated. Forests are encouraged and carefully cultivated. Native plants are encouraged. A person can safely drink from the creeks and springs. And, the population in the countryside is massively greater than it was when I was growing up. It’s a lot more prosperous as well.

Human populations are not the problem. The difference, at least where I live, is in the understanding of the populace and the general level of prosperity. People are exceptionally good stewards when they can afford to be and know how.

 

[redhen]

Sure is hard to see from my perspective.

That’s why I included the link to those mass extinction news articles. Most of these extinctions are occurring in 3rd world countries. In developed countries, the damage is already done. We’ve had hundreds of years to make places like England free from our competitors such as bears and wolves.

Human populations are not the problem. The difference, at least where I live, is in the understanding of the populace and the general level of prosperity. People are exceptionally good stewards when they can afford to be and know how.

Tell that to the dodo, passenger pigeon, Tasmanian tiger and wolf, Great auk, and moa, all hunted to extinction.

 

[Ridgerunner]

That’s why I included the link to those mass extinction news articles. Most of these extinctions are occurring in 3rd world countries. In developed countries, the damage is already done. We’ve had hundreds of years to make places like England free from our competitors such as bears and wolves.

Tell that to the dodo, passenger pigeon, Tasmanian tiger and wolf, Great auk, and moa, all hunted to extinction.

Perhaps the real answer is aiding those in other countries to get rid of the dictators that keep them so impoverished they’ll eat the last monkey if it comes to it. Cut the number of starving people in half and they’ll still eat the last monkey if it comes to it. But getting rid of their thieving rulers would be “regime change” and “aggression”, wouldn’t it?

England is England. There are a lot more bears and wolves in the U.S. now than there were 60 years ago. The extinct species you’re talking about died out because nobody thought to preserve them. Bison were very close to extinction in the U.S. at a time when the human population was much smaller than now, but they are plentiful now because people have the knowledge, will and resources to preserve them. Timber wolves and red wolves, the same. In fact, red wolves were thought to be extinct at one time, but they’re making a strong comeback now. The American Alligator is nearing the northernmost reaches of its historic range-ever.

Species can be preserved, and their preservation is not dependent on the number of people on the earth.

 

[budgie2]

God made human beings fertile so it is partly up to God to ensure that there are enough resources for us although we should also not take the lion share of resources because we are living in the West. Our natural fertility is a blessing in the eyes of the Church. We should not worry too much about food shortage for “Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he [Jesus] gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.” Matthew 14:18-21
The moral of the story is that if we are generous then there is more than enough for everyone.

 

[Disciple96]

Jesus also said that the poor would always be with us.

The moral of the loaves and fishes is not about people sharing what they have, as if it were merely a story about natural events or about generosity. It was a supernatural event, a miracle that Christ worked and foreshadowed Him giving of Himself in the Eucharist. It’s not a mere human sharing, but a Divine Self-giving. Christ gives Himself to man, to us.

I don’t like to see species die out or be hunted to extinction. I don’t like to see people in dire need of food and medicine dying in countries where the leaders drink champagne and eat caviar.

What is the answer to all these problems? I don’t know. Unfair distribution of resources, greed, and hatred are some causes. The remedy? Fair distribution of resources, generosity, and love. And how do we exercise these remedies? By letting Christ give Himself to us so that we have His Divine Life within us. Then we will actually have something to share with the rest of the world. Without that Divine Love within us, we have nothing much to offer.