[_ Old Earth _] Overpopulation

[Guest]

From Polygamy to overpopulation! Overpopulation arose from a discussion over Polygamy (http://www.christianforums.net/viewtopi ... 10&t=30008) so I decided to start a new topic dealing directly with overpopulation.
Please voice your opinions here if you support or you don't support the possibility of overpopulation. Please provide reasonable evidence and arguments for your beliefs.

 

[Guest]

Again, I go back to how immense the world is. Think about this:

Texas has 171,904,640 acres. Each acre has 43,560 square feet. That equals a whopping 748,998,518,400 square feet in Texas. Now, there are 6,000,000,000, give or take, people who live on this planet. If my research data was correct and I did the math correctly, we can stand every man, woman and child currently living on this planet in the state of Texas, and still have room to spare.

It's a big, big world. We don't utilize our resources correctly no. But that doesn't mean that the resources aren't there. However, I do agree with you that we are horrible stewards for God's creation. We can and should do better.

First, we must note that the current projections of overpopulation are only taking in account the current lifestyles we're leading as humans, so here is what this one study found:

A New Zealand scientist from the Central Institute of Technology says the present global population of six billion people is about 30% more than the earth's biological capacity to sustain present standards of living, but growth may not even stabilize at the projected 10 billion by the year 2050. There are 51 billion hectares on the earth's surface, but only 1.3 billion hectares are available as arable land 3.3 billion hectares available as pasture land. The world needs to immediately reduce by 1/2 its carbon dioxide emissions, yet United Nations' member countries have only agreed to reduce it by 5% by 2012. The United States puts out 20 tonnes of CO2 per capita, in comparison with New Zealand, which produces about four tonnes per capita.

(January 27, 2000 The New Zealand Press)

To put it into numbers: 51 billion hectares (2.4 acre per hectare) yields 126 billion acres of land on earth, 2.9 billion acres are arable land, 7.9 billion acres for pasture. So out of 126 billion acres of land there are only 10.8 billion acres (8% of all land on Earth) which can be used for production of food. Therefore there is about 1.8 acres per person, that is 1.8 acres to raise the cattle and plants to support the life of one person (not talking about anything else but plants and live-stock). Double the population of the Earth to 12 billion and now we have less than .9 acres of usable land per person... this is not exactly "plenty"!

It has been estimated that about four percent of the nation's energy budget is used to grow food, while about 10 to 13 percent is needed to put it on our plates. In other words, a staggering total of 17 percent of America's energy budget is consumed by agriculture! By 2040, we would need to triple the global food supply in order to meet the basic food needs of the eleven billion people who are expected to be alive. But doing so would require a 1,000 percent increase in the total energy expended in food production. But the depletion of oil will make it physically impossible -- thus economically impossible -- to provide enough net energy to agriculture: "A recent review of the future prospects of all alternatives has been published. The summary conclusion reached is that there is no known complete substitute for petroleum in its many and varied uses." Global food production will drop to a fraction of today's numbers: "If the fertilizers, partial irrigation [in part provided by oil energy], and pesticides were withdrawn, corn yields, for example, would drop from 130 bushels per acre to about 30 bushels."

*References in http://dieoff.com/page185.htm

Luckily all those issues can be balanced if we change the way we live! When the Bible was written, there was no industrial fishing boats in the seas, no nuclear power plants producing power, no artificial soiling of land, etc. Let's assume that God did make the Earth regenerative, and even from a scientific standpoint that is true, but the fact of the matter is that the rapid growth and expansion of the human population is not giving enough time for the Earth to regenerate.

Main Source: http://www.overpopulation.org/

 

[handy]

Interesting data. Probably too much for me to go into now, as I'm out and about and just taking a break at the library. I'll go over it when I have time.

There is no doubt that the earth's population requires a huge effort just to get food into mouths, but again, I don't think the problem is the lack of resources, as much as it is political and econimic. I'm not blowing off your data, nor am I particularly disagreeing with it but if we were to utilize the land wisely, there would still be more than plenty of food for all.

I'll give more thought to your quotes later.

 

[Jayls5]

Interesting data. Probably too much for me to go into now, as I'm out and about and just taking a break at the library. I'll go over it when I have time.

There is no doubt that the earth's population requires a huge effort just to get food into mouths, but again, I don't think the problem is the lack of resources, as much as it is political and econimic. I'm not blowing off your data, nor am I particularly disagreeing with it but if we were to utilize the land wisely, there would still be more than plenty of food for all.

I'll give more thought to your quotes later.

It really doesn't. The government actually pays farmers not to grow stuff because we are so good at it. It's not a matter of it being a "huge effort" to feed everyone. It's the lack of economic incentive. We have no reason to feed starving people in Africa because they have nothing to offer us. In effect, us feeding them only compounds the problem. People who are dying of starvation do not breed, but when we take care of people, they breed and complicate their already crappy situation. Notice the lack of moral imperatives in this post... I'm only speaking factually. If I had the choice, i'd happily have everyone be fed, but it's not a simple world.

 

[handy]

The "huge effort" I was alluding to are political and humantarian efforts, not the effort it takes to grow an adequate amount of food, which is actually all ready being done.

DoGoN, I checked out the links, and I'm sorry but I'm skeptical of such 'issue' sites. The one on overpopulation is much like the PETA sites, only such data that fits into their already made up minds is included, any data to the contrary is ignored or dismissed. The fact of the matter is, the food that is now being produced (or capable of being produced as the case may be) in California, Texas, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Missouri and Idaho is more than enough to feed all 6 billion of us on this planet a healthy, well-balanced diet. It is only because of politics and economics that it doesn't happen. Millions of tons of food is either not grown, plowed over or simply allowed to rot every year. So, the sad fact of life is that Americans are getting fatter and fatter even as we throw ton's of food away every day, while kids in the Sudan are starving. I think about this a lot, when I scrape uneaten food off my kids plates or leftovers that's got fridge fuzz into the garbage can. I do believe that more people are eating a better diet than at any other time in our world's history, but nonetheless, there is still way too much unnecessary starvation.

 

[Guest]

DoGoN, I checked out the links, and I'm sorry but I'm skeptical of such 'issue' sites. The one on overpopulation is much like the PETA sites, only such data that fits into their already made up minds is included, any data to the contrary is ignored or dismissed.

If you noticed I only pulled down the information that was relevant and it was based on numbers, which seemed reliable. I didn't go and quote somebody's opinion, so even if the site is biased, which I believe it is, I still only took the portion which was relevant and reasonable. I have gone through other websites, but they try to debunk the predictions about overpopulation with nothing more than "opinions" and no numbers, and overpopulation is about numbers.

The number of people is getting too high to be efficiently supported by the earth, we are destroying too much of nature, and even if it seems like earth is almost an unlimited resource, in reality it is very finite and we can easily expect to reach that point.

Don't get me wrong, there is enough food to feed everybody, but do you truly see the US ever cutting back on the amount of waste that we produce? The fact is that:
1. US won't cut down on waste any time soon (I'm not talking about garbage, I'm talking about the action of wasting, but garbage can be included too).
2. If the world population keeps increasing, then we will certainly hit the limits of earth's "fruitfulness" and we well be in a world of trouble!

 

[YehwehPaladin]

Did you know you can fit every single person in the world shoulder to shoulder in Jacksonville Florida?

 

[Guest]

Did you know you can fit every single person in the world shoulder to shoulder in Jacksonville Florida?

Yes, it would be comfortable living !
You could take every person in the world and put them in Texas, then you would get the same density of population as New York... it's great news, but that doesn't address the issues of waste, food, arable land, etc. Please read my previous postings to get the numbers.
* At the present growth rate of 1.1% per year, the U.S. population will double to more than half a billion people within the next 60 years. It is estimated that approximately one acre of land is lost due to urbanization and highway construction alone for every person added to the U.S. population.
* This means that only 0.6 acres of farmland would be available to grow food for each American in 2050, as opposed to the 1.8 acres per capita available today. At least 1.2 acres per person is required in order to maintain current American dietary standards. Food prices are projected to increase 3 to 5-fold within this period.
* If present population growth, domestic food consumption and topsoil loss trends continue, the U.S. will most likely cease to be a food exporter by approximately 2025 because food grown in the U.S. will be needed for domestic purposes.
* Since food exports earn $40 billion for the U.S. annually, the loss of this income source would result in an even greater increase in America's trade deficit.
* Considering that America is the world's largest food exporter, the future survival of millions of people around the world may also come into question if food exports from the U.S. were to cease.

Reference: http://dieoff.org/page40.htm