Lets have a global "one child" policy

[Robert_S]

^^^^^^^

Fair point, they just cherry pick, basically...

Good on 'em for using common sense, but bad on 'em for being party to the propagation of nonsense.

[JimC]

^^^^^^^

Fair point, they just cherry pick, basically...

Good on 'em for using common sense, but bad on 'em for being party to the propagation of nonsense.

Basically, I shrug me shoulders and say fuck 'em, I'm just here to teach quadratic equations...

[Blind groper]

Especially widespread biofuel use?

Consumption of resources is, of course, another topic, and probably should be explored in a different thread if it interests you.

However, I do not personally believe humanity has even begun to scratch the surface with respect to resources, with the exception of fossil fuels.
A New Scientist article discussed this a couple months back. The author made the point that, for mineral resources, we have barely begun to exploit what is in the top one kilometre of the Earth's crust, and the crust averages 40 kms thick over continents.

Energy resources are almost unlimited. There is, for example, enough thorium metal to run nuclear power stations at ten times current output for 1000 years, and enough deuterium for nuclear fusion for hundreds of millions of years after that. And that is just nuclear resources - not even mentioning the abundant other potential energy resources. The only question becomes in what form that energy will be stored. With abundant electricity, easy to make methane and other hydrocarbons.

[Hermit]

I said that we could feed 10 billion comfortably. And we can. Whether we will is another matter.

Sufficient food for 10 billion people is eminently possible, but is it sustainable alongside the consumption of other resources?

Especially widespread biofuel use?

Yes. Especially biofuel use, should its advocacy be followed in fact. Do you realise how much land will be required to cultivate the stuff in order just to allow us to drive around in private cars to the extent we do today? The environmental destruction brought about by coffee, tea, cocoa and rubber plantations is a drop in the bucket compared to that.

[mistermack]

I said that we could feed 10 billion comfortably. And we can. Whether we will is another matter.

Sufficient food for 10 billion people is eminently possible, but is it sustainable alongside the consumption of other resources?

Especially widespread biofuel use?

Yes. Especially biofuel use, should its advocacy be followed in fact. Do you realise how much land will be required to cultivate the stuff in order just to allow us to drive around in private cars to the extent we do today? The environmental destruction brought about by coffee, tea, cocoa and rubber plantations is a drop in the bucket compared to that.

Agreed. To reduce the problem of overpopulation to the question 'can we feed them?' is far too simplistic.
The CURRENT population is far too high. Damage is being done every day, in a progressive fashion. To say that we can feed 10 billion is missing the point entirely. There is no way we SHOULD be countenancing that. It will cause permanent devastation to habitats and species. Our descendants will never forgive us for destroying the rain forests, and wiping out species.

Anyway, why do we WANT billions of humans? Is there a point to it all? I think ONE billion is too much for this little planet. But if there were just one billion, we would all have better lives, more room, and a nicer home all-round.

I blame the charities. Especially the Catholic ones, and people like Bill Gates.
They have gone in, drastically improved infant mortality rates, but done fuck-all about the automatic population increase that resulted. They won't even let em use condoms, for fuck's sake.

[Warren Dew]

The problem is not one of underproduction of food. It is one of failed distribution. It always has been.

It is today, but it has not always been - quite the contrary.

Total world food production only became enough to feed the world population comfortably with the advent of the 1950s "green revolution". The key to the green revolution was developing crop strains that took advantage of large amounts of fertilizer, along with manufacture of fertilizer from fossil fuels. We have more than enough food to feed the world today - but only because much of the energy in that food comes from fossil fuels rather than from current sunlight.

[Warren Dew]

Energy resources are almost unlimited. There is, for example, enough thorium metal to run nuclear power stations at ten times current output for 1000 years, and enough deuterium for nuclear fusion for hundreds of millions of years after that. And that is just nuclear resources - not even mentioning the abundant other potential energy resources. The only question becomes in what form that energy will be stored. With abundant electricity, easy to make methane and other hydrocarbons.

If you actually look at the thorium isotopes required, the picture is not so rosy. And for fusion, even if it becomes practical, it's tritium that's limiting, not deuterium.

[MiM]

Energy resources are almost unlimited. There is, for example, enough thorium metal to run nuclear power stations at ten times current output for 1000 years, and enough deuterium for nuclear fusion for hundreds of millions of years after that. And that is just nuclear resources - not even mentioning the abundant other potential energy resources. The only question becomes in what form that energy will be stored. With abundant electricity, easy to make methane and other hydrocarbons.

If you actually look at the thorium isotopes required, the picture is not so rosy. And for fusion, even if it becomes practical, it's tritium that's limiting, not deuterium.

Th-232 is the only Th isotope that exists naturally in more than trace amounts. Any practical thorium reactor would be a breeder, essentially burning Th232 by first transmuting it into into U233.

Also fusion reactors are breeders, and produce as much tritium as they burn, or more (from lithium). So the fuels that goes into a fusion reactors are deuterium and lithium. Tritium is short-lived, so it does not exist naturally in any practical amounts.

[Robert_S]

So, we can probably just feed a lot more people if we get the political-social-economics of food distribution down and we don't encounter a deadly pest like the one what sparked the Potato Famine. Anyone want to take a stab at how much of our Green Revolution relies on the kind of monoculture that made the Potato Famine possible?

Ecosystems, climate systems and political cannot be predicted accurately very far in the future. There's always something weird waiting to happen. Seems to me the best be for the generations to come is to put as little strain on these as possible and keep our sources diversified.

[Blind groper]

Anyway, why do we WANT billions of humans? Is there a point to it all? I think ONE billion is too much for this little planet. But if there were just one billion, we would all have better lives, more room, and a nicer home all-round.

.

We have 7 billion people currently, and that number has absolutely nothing to do with wanting 7 billion. Wanting 1 billion or fewer is pretty much a pointless comment also, since we have what we have.

The reason for 7 billion is 4 billion in the last generation who wanted to bonk themselves silly and damn the consequences. The reason for 4 billion is 2 billion earlier who......

A rational person does not go round wishing. He or she faces reality and accepts it, and will then implement practical action to create change as needed. As I pointed out several times, reality is a slow increase to 10 billion, followed by a slow decline. Action for those who wish it, and are not simply living in a fantasy zone, is to lobby government to provide contraceptive aid to those nations with too high an average fertility. Apart from that, all we have is a lot of hot air. Might as well be a government!

[mistermack]

Anyway, why do we WANT billions of humans? Is there a point to it all? I think ONE billion is too much for this little planet. But if there were just one billion, we would all have better lives, more room, and a nicer home all-round.

.

We have 7 billion people currently, and that number has absolutely nothing to do with wanting 7 billion. Wanting 1 billion or fewer is pretty much a pointless comment also, since we have what we have.

The reason for 7 billion is 4 billion in the last generation who wanted to bonk themselves silly and damn the consequences. The reason for 4 billion is 2 billion earlier who......

A rational person does not go round wishing. He or she faces reality and accepts it, and will then implement practical action to create change as needed. As I pointed out several times, reality is a slow increase to 10 billion, followed by a slow decline. Action for those who wish it, and are not simply living in a fantasy zone, is to lobby government to provide contraceptive aid to those nations with too high an average fertility. Apart from that, all we have is a lot of hot air. Might as well be a government!

Well, I can't see that you are going to have any more effect than me.
You can call it wishing if you like. I call it voicing an opinion.
You seem to have this simplistic attitude that so long as we can feed the 10 billion, that's all right.
I'm saying we should be taking steps to make sure it doesn't happen.

If nobody says anything, nothing happens. If the climate of opinion changes, something might be done.
Maybe years ago, it was impossible to change the mass of world opinion. Not any more.
World communication can make rapid changes possible like never before.

So you might say it's no good wishing, accept it, do fuck all, it's the will of Allah.
I say that changes CAN happen. And nowadays, it can happen fast.

[Blind groper]

You seem to have this simplistic attitude that so long as we can feed the 10 billion, that's all right.

Not really. I am saying that the 10 billion, plus or minus a bit, is inevitable regardless. If you feel we should be doing something, well - I have told you what you can do.

I actually have no idea what the optimal global population should be. I do not see 10 billion as a disaster. Nor do I necessarily see 1 billion as an improvement. I simply do not know. The late economist - Professor Julian Simon - in his books wrote an interesting idea. His claim is that economic growth and growth in human welfare depends primarily on human ingenuity put to work. Great ingenuity comes from having more people, assuming we can educate them. Obviously there is a limit, but it is just individual opinion as to what that limit is, and I am not arrogant enough to try to tell you how many people the world should have.

In a very real sense, the tragedy is not that there are 7 billion. The tragedy is that, of that 7 billion, far too many are unable to achieve their potential.

[mistermack]

Well, we differ fundamentally, so it's not surprising we see it differently.
I don't really give a fuck about human welfare, except that you might as well try to reduce misery, if it caused no damage.
Humans are not under threat as a species. Why should I give a toss about their rights to breed, or financial well-being? I know I'm human, but I'm also a member of a wider clan, the living world.

I wouldn't like the British to dominate the world, at everybody's expense, just because I'M British.
Likewise, I don't like the human species dominating the world, at everybody else's expense, just because I'M human.

[Robert_S]

Especially widespread biofuel use?

Consumption of resources is, of course, another topic, and probably should be explored in a different thread if it interests you.

Biofuels use arable land just like food. If one population of humans wants to drive and another population wants to eat...

[Tyrannical]

HIV is mainly spread by heterosexual contact in Africa. If we were to say, let nature run it's course, Africa might not have a population problem. Best of all, the more promiscuous would bear more of this negative evolutionary pressure.