Lets have a global "one child" policy

[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.

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.

The figures I've seen are not consistent with known reserves providing even the current total world energy needs for 1000 years. They might provide current nuclear energy output for 1000 years, but that doesn't allow for needing to replace the fossil fuels as they are used up.

Also fusion reactors are breeders, and produce as much tritium as they burn, or more (from lithium).

This is based on how many working commercial fusion reactor designs, considering there are none?

[Tyrannical]

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.

The figures I've seen are not consistent with known reserves providing even the current total world energy needs for 1000 years. They might provide current nuclear energy output for 1000 years, but that doesn't allow for needing to replace the fossil fuels as they are used up.

Also fusion reactors are breeders, and produce as much tritium as they burn, or more (from lithium).

This is based on how many working commercial fusion reactor designs, considering there are none?

Oh you can always transform less desirable elements to more desirable fissionable isotopes. It's that weapons grade thing that is the problem.

[hadespussercats]

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.

How is a slow painful death from disease preferable to a slow painful death from starvation? Besides which, Africa seems to have plenty of ills, and plenty of people dying all the time. If that were enough to "cure" the continent, it would have happened by now.

Besides which, you don't need to be promiscuous to catch HIV. Babies catch it from their mothers.

Not that there's anything wrong with promiscuity in the first place.

I just don't see how saying, "Hey, a large portion of your population's dead!" is the best solution to any of the problems facing humanity.

And it's easy for a racist to focus on benighted Africa and wax philosophical about what the Dark Continent really needs. Harder when the same fellow is asked to address the problems of people he recognizes as fully human.

[surreptitious57]

How about those of you who care to complain about human overpopulation and seek to impose restrictions on the reproductive rights of others do the planet a favor and go out to your front lawns right now and slit your bellies in shame

You are a libertarian who does not believe in welfare yet here you are advocating population
expansion with no limitation : now by the laws of average this represents a proportionate
increase in dependency by those unemployed who have more children : yet this is some
thing you are supposedly against so can you please explain this paradox : also what is
so shameful about imposing restrictions on some for the greater good of every one

[Blind groper]

Africa is not the most populated continent, with about a billion people - similar to the Americas. Much less than Asia. Their current rapid reproduction outperforms deaths from AIDS by a very, very large amount. The carrying capacity of the African continent, in terms of growing food, is such that the population could double, or more, without disaster, as long as modern food growing methods are implemented.

However, Africa would be the main target of contraceptive aid, if any of the wealthier nations got off their moral high horse long enough to do something practical.

[Warren Dew]

The carrying capacity of the African continent, in terms of growing food, is such that the population could double, or more, without disaster, as long as modern food growing methods are implemented.

This assumes that modern food growing methods can work there, which is as yet unproven given that current food production there is insufficient for population needs, and also neglects the fact that modern food growing methods require large inputs in the form of fossil fuels that won't last forever.

[Blind groper]

Warren

Not true. There have been any number of agricultural projects under various aid projects, attempting to modernise farming. Food production per acre can easily be tripled, if not quadrupled, with better methods.
http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2011/1 ... nge-dione/

[Warren Dew]

Not true. There have been any number of agricultural projects under various aid projects, attempting to modernise farming. Food production per acre can easily be tripled, if not quadrupled, with better methods.
http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2011/1 ... nge-dione/

The link talks about how part of that relies on using Africa's "vast resources" - likely a reference to Nigerian oil for fertilizer production, just as I said.

[MrJonno]

HIV/AIDS hardly has any affect on reproductive success,ie kids tend to survive long enough to reproduce (an evolutionary triumph as viruses go)

[Blind groper]

The link talks about how part of that relies on using Africa's "vast resources" - likely a reference to Nigerian oil for fertilizer production, just as I said.

No.

That is a link that exists in your imagination only.