Is overpopulation the world's biggest problem now?

[kingblaze84]

Israel is a bad example much of that place was somewhat barren before the Jews made better use of it.

It's a fairly good example because much of the world has barren land too, especially with climate change creating more droughts and messing up insect populations who pollinate different plants. Israel is a small nation but the environmental problems they have can apply to many other countries

I disagree the whole middle east is naturally a more barren dry climate and therefore would suffer more from climate change.

So using them as an example for the whole world is misleading

Many parts of Asia have dry and barren climates too, Mongolia, parts of China, etc. Also, many parts of Africa have dry barren land, and these parts of the world are big in population, or at least close enough to these areas where clean water is getting rare. Parts of California are like this too, Texas has had big water problems in some dry lands, there's actually a lot of places worldwide with environments similar to Israel.

The point that i am making is that for the places on earth that are already dry and barren it should not shock us when they go through periods of being even more dry and barren. half of israel is basically desert and while you are correct some places on earth do mirror israel most of the planet does not. SO USING israel as an example is problematic.

I agree most of the world is not desert, but deserts make up 33% of the world and those places represent a huge amount of people, millions. If you want to talk drylands, those make up 41% of the world and growing, and that's home to 2 billion people.

And have you ever heard of desertification? It's the process of land becoming more like a desert, desertification is said to be one of the main reasons the Greek and Roman Empires fell, too much of Italy and Greece became dry and they couldn't take care of much of their soldiers anymore due to vegetation and water disappearing. Greece hasn't been the same since, long term. Global warming is increasing desertification, especially in Africa and Asia and believe it or not, it's becoming big in western America too. It's helping to increase the water crises.

 

[kingblaze84]

Ironically, Israel has some history of reversing desertification....very difficult process and it requires the ending of chopping trees or at least cutting back on it. Many developing nations need to chop trees down though to build housing for their growing populations. These will be interesting times.

 

[Mister B.]

Overpopulation IS real - just like global warming - but few people will take it serious until something drastic happens to wake everyone up to it.

China's been trying to curve that for decades, by place birthing limits on families, so that tell's me that someone gives a shit about the finite resources this world has.

 

[zzombie]

We have all the technologies to fix these issues. VERTICAL farming in urban areas will solve any food issues and have any of you every heard of thorium??? thorium will provide vastly superior nuclear energy production, that we can use to power those energy guzzling desalination plants if we need to.

For personal consumer use of energy we need to switch to fully electric cars which will once again means we need to build thorium reactors at least until science figures out fusion especially cold fusion.

 

[Neophyte Wolfgang]

I don't know how to say this with out being seen as an asshole. In fact I keep it to myself in public when conversations tip toe around this topic. Some people should not procreate period! Most people are idiots and robotic as hell. There is no point having a kid, when you are going to mold your kid to be average work a 9-5 like you and have a boring life. This world needs creators and innovators.

 

[BiblicalAtheist]

I don't know how to say this with out being seen as an asshole. In fact I keep it to myself in public when conversations tip toe around this topic. Some people should not procreate period! Most people are idiots and robotic as hell. There is no point having a kid, when you are going to mold your kid to be average work a 9-5 like you and have a boring life. This world needs creators and innovators.

Okay but the smart people need stupid people to ring their shit through while they're on the phone doing smart shit.

 

[kingblaze84]

I don't know how to say this with out being seen as an asshole. In fact I keep it to myself in public when conversations tip toe around this topic. Some people should not procreate period! Most people are idiots and robotic as hell. There is no point having a kid, when you are going to mold your kid to be average work a 9-5 like you and have a boring life. This world needs creators and innovators.

I agree man, not everybody in this world needs to have a kid. I've seen a lot of bad parenting from friends of mine and random strangers and it's clear many people out there shouldn't be raising kids. The average person is wasteful as hell, careless about the environment and don't think long term.

Of course, it's impolite to say all this publicly.....I personally don't want kids but if people do have them, they need to raise them responsibly and not have them if they can't even take care of themselves.

 

[kingblaze84]

I don't know how to say this with out being seen as an asshole. In fact I keep it to myself in public when conversations tip toe around this topic. Some people should not procreate period! Most people are idiots and robotic as hell. There is no point having a kid, when you are going to mold your kid to be average work a 9-5 like you and have a boring life. This world needs creators and innovators.

Okay but the smart people need stupid people to ring their shit through while they're on the phone doing smart shit.

Lol I hate to say it but yeah some dumb people have a lot of use for us in the world. I've found a lot of use for them over the years...

 

[kingblaze84]

We have all the technologies to fix these issues. VERTICAL farming in urban areas will solve any food issues and have any of you every heard of thorium??? thorium will provide vastly superior nuclear energy production, that we can use to power those energy guzzling desalination plants if we need to.

For personal consumer use of energy we need to switch to fully electric cars which will once again means we need to build thorium reactors at least until science figures out fusion especially cold fusion.

How long will it take for this "thorium" to be really effective worldwide though? How expensive is it to produce in large numbers and where will it be mined? Every time I've heard of these miracle cures for the world's huge overconsumption problem, there seems to be a catch. I do agree vertical farming will help the world's hunger problem but it doesn't do much for the other problems of people consuming too much, too fast.

 

[zzombie]

We have all the technologies to fix these issues. VERTICAL farming in urban areas will solve any food issues and have any of you every heard of thorium??? thorium will provide vastly superior nuclear energy production, that we can use to power those energy guzzling desalination plants if we need to.

For personal consumer use of energy we need to switch to fully electric cars which will once again means we need to build thorium reactors at least until science figures out fusion especially cold fusion.

How long will it take for this "thorium" to be really effective worldwide though? How expensive is it to produce in large numbers and where will it be mined? Every time I've heard of these miracle cures for the world's huge overconsumption problem, there seems to be a catch. I do agree vertical farming will help the world's hunger problem but it doesn't do much for the other problems of people consuming too much, too fast.

WE can do it right now especially in the 3rd world thorium is everywhere there is an abundance. in the 1st world The cost would come in retrofitting our current uranium based power plants with thorium molten salt power plants. Nothing is perfect but it's the best option we don't use it because of political reasons

 

[kingblaze84]

We have all the technologies to fix these issues. VERTICAL farming in urban areas will solve any food issues and have any of you every heard of thorium??? thorium will provide vastly superior nuclear energy production, that we can use to power those energy guzzling desalination plants if we need to.

For personal consumer use of energy we need to switch to fully electric cars which will once again means we need to build thorium reactors at least until science figures out fusion especially cold fusion.

How long will it take for this "thorium" to be really effective worldwide though? How expensive is it to produce in large numbers and where will it be mined? Every time I've heard of these miracle cures for the world's huge overconsumption problem, there seems to be a catch. I do agree vertical farming will help the world's hunger problem but it doesn't do much for the other problems of people consuming too much, too fast.

WE can do it right now especially in the 3rd world thorium is everywhere there is an abundance. in the 1st world The cost would come in retrofitting our current uranium based power plants with thorium molten salt power plants. Nothing is perfect but it's the best option we don't use it because of political reasons

Thorium looks useful, but it seems to have a lot of drawbacks to it, such as needing uranium to maximize its usefulness and the hazardous waste it leaves behind after its used. Thorium has been researched and studied for many decades now, what political reasons are there to not use it more? It doesn't seem great for the environment long term. I'm still open to it being used but I've seen some articles that make it seem thorium isn't the cure to energy problems worldwide. It's also expensive to process, most of the world doesn't have the time and money to process a radioactive element like this
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/11/why-thorium-nuclear-isnt-featured-on-cleantechnica/

 

[zzombie]

We have all the technologies to fix these issues. VERTICAL farming in urban areas will solve any food issues and have any of you every heard of thorium??? thorium will provide vastly superior nuclear energy production, that we can use to power those energy guzzling desalination plants if we need to.

For personal consumer use of energy we need to switch to fully electric cars which will once again means we need to build thorium reactors at least until science figures out fusion especially cold fusion.

How long will it take for this "thorium" to be really effective worldwide though? How expensive is it to produce in large numbers and where will it be mined? Every time I've heard of these miracle cures for the world's huge overconsumption problem, there seems to be a catch. I do agree vertical farming will help the world's hunger problem but it doesn't do much for the other problems of people consuming too much, too fast.

WE can do it right now especially in the 3rd world thorium is everywhere there is an abundance. in the 1st world The cost would come in retrofitting our current uranium based power plants with thorium molten salt power plants. Nothing is perfect but it's the best option we don't use it because of political reasons

Thorium looks useful, but it seems to have a lot of drawbacks to it, such as needing uranium to maximize its usefulness and the hazardous waste it leaves behind after its used. Thorium has been researched and studied for many decades now, what political reasons are there to not use it more? It doesn't seem great for the environment long term. I'm still open to it being used but I've seen some articles that make it seem thorium isn't the cure to energy problems worldwide. It's also expensive to process, most of the world doesn't have the time and money to process a radioactive element like this
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/11/why-thorium-nuclear-isnt-featured-on-cleantechnica/

Everything has a draw back no energy technology is perfect, and it's still nuclear energy so THERE are going to be people who are resistant to it, and thorium does produce waste but very little wast depending on the design of the plant and it's waste is less radio active.

The cost of implementing a new technology goes down as use of the technology spreads but the starting cost is always high. This tech should ideally first be used in more developed nations and as it spreads to the rest of the world the price will naturally decrease. WE had this technology for decades but it was not used because cold war political and military interest wanted to use uranium for bombs and it's much harder to make bombs with thorium and it's not necessarily in the economic interest of those already entrenched in using uranium power to switch.

Thorium in combination with a few other technologies that just need more wide spread implementation and mass acceptance are the most practical ways to solve all the problems of over population.

 

[kingblaze84]

We have all the technologies to fix these issues. VERTICAL farming in urban areas will solve any food issues and have any of you every heard of thorium??? thorium will provide vastly superior nuclear energy production, that we can use to power those energy guzzling desalination plants if we need to.

For personal consumer use of energy we need to switch to fully electric cars which will once again means we need to build thorium reactors at least until science figures out fusion especially cold fusion.

How long will it take for this "thorium" to be really effective worldwide though? How expensive is it to produce in large numbers and where will it be mined? Every time I've heard of these miracle cures for the world's huge overconsumption problem, there seems to be a catch. I do agree vertical farming will help the world's hunger problem but it doesn't do much for the other problems of people consuming too much, too fast.

WE can do it right now especially in the 3rd world thorium is everywhere there is an abundance. in the 1st world The cost would come in retrofitting our current uranium based power plants with thorium molten salt power plants. Nothing is perfect but it's the best option we don't use it because of political reasons

Thorium looks useful, but it seems to have a lot of drawbacks to it, such as needing uranium to maximize its usefulness and the hazardous waste it leaves behind after its used. Thorium has been researched and studied for many decades now, what political reasons are there to not use it more? It doesn't seem great for the environment long term. I'm still open to it being used but I've seen some articles that make it seem thorium isn't the cure to energy problems worldwide. It's also expensive to process, most of the world doesn't have the time and money to process a radioactive element like this
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/11/why-thorium-nuclear-isnt-featured-on-cleantechnica/

Everything has a draw back no energy technology is perfect, and it's still nuclear energy so THERE are going to be people who are resistant to it, and thorium does produce waste but very little wast depending on the design of the plant and it's waste is less radio active.

The cost of implementing a new technology goes down as use of the technology spreads but the starting cost is always high. This tech should ideally first be used in more developed nations and as it spreads to the rest of the world the price will naturally decrease. WE had this technology for decades but it was not used because cold war political and military interest wanted to use uranium for bombs and it's much harder to make bombs with thorium and it's not necessarily in the economic interest of those already entrenched in using uranium power to switch.

Thorium in combination with a few other technologies that just need more wide spread implementation and mass acceptance are the most practical ways to solve all the problems of over population.

I hope it can be put to better use some day and some day soon, but it will be a long time before its used in an efficient and cheap way. Realistically, probably decades, maybe 50 years if we're talking about worldwide and widespread use. But anything is possible I guess. Does little to solve the problem of overconsumption and water problems in dry lands but maybe a miracle can happen.

 

[zzombie]

We have all the technologies to fix these issues. VERTICAL farming in urban areas will solve any food issues and have any of you every heard of thorium??? thorium will provide vastly superior nuclear energy production, that we can use to power those energy guzzling desalination plants if we need to.

For personal consumer use of energy we need to switch to fully electric cars which will once again means we need to build thorium reactors at least until science figures out fusion especially cold fusion.

How long will it take for this "thorium" to be really effective worldwide though? How expensive is it to produce in large numbers and where will it be mined? Every time I've heard of these miracle cures for the world's huge overconsumption problem, there seems to be a catch. I do agree vertical farming will help the world's hunger problem but it doesn't do much for the other problems of people consuming too much, too fast.

WE can do it right now especially in the 3rd world thorium is everywhere there is an abundance. in the 1st world The cost would come in retrofitting our current uranium based power plants with thorium molten salt power plants. Nothing is perfect but it's the best option we don't use it because of political reasons

Thorium looks useful, but it seems to have a lot of drawbacks to it, such as needing uranium to maximize its usefulness and the hazardous waste it leaves behind after its used. Thorium has been researched and studied for many decades now, what political reasons are there to not use it more? It doesn't seem great for the environment long term. I'm still open to it being used but I've seen some articles that make it seem thorium isn't the cure to energy problems worldwide. It's also expensive to process, most of the world doesn't have the time and money to process a radioactive element like this
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/11/why-thorium-nuclear-isnt-featured-on-cleantechnica/

Everything has a draw back no energy technology is perfect, and it's still nuclear energy so THERE are going to be people who are resistant to it, and thorium does produce waste but very little wast depending on the design of the plant and it's waste is less radio active.

The cost of implementing a new technology goes down as use of the technology spreads but the starting cost is always high. This tech should ideally first be used in more developed nations and as it spreads to the rest of the world the price will naturally decrease. WE had this technology for decades but it was not used because cold war political and military interest wanted to use uranium for bombs and it's much harder to make bombs with thorium and it's not necessarily in the economic interest of those already entrenched in using uranium power to switch.

Thorium in combination with a few other technologies that just need more wide spread implementation and mass acceptance are the most practical ways to solve all the problems of over population.

I hope it can be put to better use some day and some day soon, but it will be a long time before its used in an efficient and cheap way. Realistically, probably decades, maybe 50 years if we're talking about worldwide and widespread use. But anything is possible I guess. Does little to solve the problem of overconsumption and water problems in dry lands but maybe a miracle can happen.

World wide it will take a very long time but we very well will see more use of this technology or some variation of it much sooner.

With more use of this technology water problems will be less about scarcity and more about access. Because the energy needed for desalination plants will be available and we have two oceans.

No miracle is needed just proper leadership, public education and courage

 

[MetalSlugger]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Study_Memorandum_200

The basic thesis of the memorandum was that population growth in the least developed countries (LDCs) is a concern to U.S. national security, because it would tend to risk civil unrest and political instability in countries that had a high potential for economic development. The policy gives "paramount importance" to population control measures and the promotion of contraception among 13 populous countries.

 

[MetalSlugger]

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/ebola-is-now-a-std/

Months after a male Ebola survivor tested negative for the disease, he transmitted the deadly virus to a female partner through unprotected sex, a genetic analysis revealed.

The Liberian woman, who became ill with the disease and died in March, is the first person known to contract the Ebola virus from sex, researchers reported this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. Typically, people contract Ebola from direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids from a sick or recently deceased patient.

 

[luke1733]

It's not over population that's the problem. The world is more than big enough.

-People all going to one section is a problem when there is a ton of more land to occupy.

Best way to explain and ease the fear of overpopulation:

-Refugees is a cause and effect issue. The cause is not from overpopulation, but the effect of Colonialism reversed. By this I mean Europeans went around the world and took gold/money stripped lands of resources and changed societies. The native people of those nations had no where to go at the time because they could not leave and did not want to until the nations owed so much debt to European nations. European nations financed and put in place corrupt leaders (Saddam Hussein)to oversee those lands and pay interest to European interests. Due to this the people in those countries became disenfranchised by their own countries leaders who they did not fully elect and who had ties with selling his people out to Europeans.

Basically, the people just now have the means of transportation, the will and the freedom to now cross borders to other lands that previously would have killed them for being a different color or religion or nationality.

So the jobs and opportunities so many Europeans spent so much time keeping from so many middle eastern countries and African nations now see an unwanted effect of those same colored people being willing to leave their bad situations and migrate to the very nations somewhat (not fully) responsible for putting them into their situations. The irony is overwhelming.

That's what causes the migration and the immigration.

If the refugees countries flourished then those people would love to stay in their native lands. But when corrupt leaders are financed for private interests of certain leaders of the free world and the European Union blocks these nations ability to trade with other countries and receive fair value and marketing dollars, and then puts unrealistic interest rates and debts on nations such as Colombia, Brazil, almost every African country and the Middle East then this hinders nations growth.

Then when nations like China and certain African countries work together, or Libya and African Americans like Farrakhan help one another without the European Union's help they claim these alliances are a threat to NATO and go to war or stop the transfer of funds. In 1996, the Clinton administration rejected an application filed by Farrakhan to accept a $1 billion donation from Libya.

The United Nations then tries to document these issues but it changes nothing when you have heads of companies ruling the world and lobbying of laws and wars for private interests of theirs, masked and cloaked in the form of an autocracy government called democracy.

As far as greenhouse gases and carbon, that too is company related. How many electric cars have been created, solar cars, cars that run off water. Nuclear energy. There are more than enough options to stop depleting the ozone layer, but GE and Insurance companies, oil companies and car companies all over the world would collapse if they invested in making this available. Banks would collapse and the domino effect. It's no conspiracy. The collapse would lead to loss of jobs and money from the richest in the world around the entire world. This would lead to absolute war and to measure the scales of climate change vs absolute world revolution and class reversal; Climate change is okay with them. They can pay for air conditioning. You can't pay for protection when your ass is broke.

 

[kingblaze84]

It's not over population that's the problem. The world is more than big enough.

-People all going to one section is a problem when there is a ton of more land to occupy.

Best way to explain and ease the fear of overpopulation:

-Refugees is a cause and effect issue. The cause is not from overpopulation, but the effect of Colonialism reversed. By this I mean Europeans went around the world and took gold/money stripped lands of resources and changed societies. The native people of those nations had no where to go at the time because they could not leave and did not want to until the nations owed so much debt to European nations. European nations financed and put in place corrupt leaders (Saddam Hussein)to oversee those lands and pay interest to European interests. Due to this the people in those countries became disenfranchised by their own countries leaders who they did not fully elect and who had ties with selling his people out to Europeans.

Basically, the people just now have the means of transportation, the will and the freedom to now cross borders to other lands that previously would have killed them for being a different color or religion or nationality.

So the jobs and opportunities so many Europeans spent so much time keeping from so many middle eastern countries and African nations now see an unwanted effect of those same colored people being willing to leave their bad situations and migrate to the very nations somewhat (not fully) responsible for putting them into their situations. The irony is overwhelming.

That's what causes the migration and the immigration.

If the refugees countries flourished then those people would love to stay in their native lands. But when corrupt leaders are financed for private interests of certain leaders of the free world and the European Union blocks these nations ability to trade with other countries and receive fair value and marketing dollars, and then puts unrealistic interest rates and debts on nations such as Colombia, Brazil, almost every African country and the Middle East then this hinders nations growth.

Then when nations like China and certain African countries work together, or Libya and African Americans like Farrakhan help one another without the European Union's help they claim these alliances are a threat to NATO and go to war or stop the transfer of funds. In 1996, the Clinton administration rejected an application filed by Farrakhan to accept a $1 billion donation from Libya.

The United Nations then tries to document these issues but it changes nothing when you have heads of companies ruling the world and lobbying of laws and wars for private interests of theirs, masked and cloaked in the form of an autocracy government called democracy.

As far as greenhouse gases and carbon, that too is company related. How many electric cars have been created, solar cars, cars that run off water. Nuclear energy. There are more than enough options to stop depleting the ozone layer, but GE and Insurance companies, oil companies and car companies all over the world would collapse if they invested in making this available. Banks would collapse and the domino effect. It's no conspiracy. The collapse would lead to loss of jobs and money from the richest in the world around the entire world. This would lead to absolute war and to measure the scales of climate change vs absolute world revolution and class reversal; Climate change is okay with them. They can pay for air conditioning. You can't pay for protection when your ass is broke.

You are right that western nations have created conditions and situations where refugees get displaced because of the greedy goals of some western nations (and some non-western ones too). And that's part of the problem, humans are greedy and will pollute and destroy the environment without thinking long term how it will effect other people. And that's making the water crises get worse as people grow in numbers that our water supply can't take care of, the situation in Syria for example. Alot of people got pissed at Assad and his govt because almost nothing could have been done about the droughts and desertification that was and is getting serious there. it. In Israel, Israelis are so desperate for water they are taking water supplies from the Palestinians and their coast, Palestinians have bad water supplies because of this greed. Look at cost of housing these days in big cities, I agree greed is a huge part of the problem.

The oil companies and other big corporations definitely thrive off people overconsuming, look at all the ads and commercials we're bombarded with. Without people overconsuming, then the world wide economy probably would collapse. And that's when it comes back to how all this is effecting the environment through global warming and desertification that's making dry lands even dryer, making farming and water harder to do and find. At the same time, oil is very useful, without it our lives would be very different....so there's a catch to all this.

 

[kingblaze84]

And you're right Luke in that it's not a conspiracy, society is now addicted to consumer goods and the corporations know it. Since oil and elements from the earth are needed to make laptops, videogames, and other things people love, the environment will be fleshed out and that means more displaced people of course. Once mother nature gets tired of peoples' greed, things will get interesting and it's actually happening already in some places.

 

[john581]

I'd say so