7 Billion... So now what?

[Collective Foal]

The earth's population is now at 7 Billion people, and it's still rising. What does this mean for the human race and how can we cope with such immense overpopulation?

[Vapymid]

I saw a report on BBC few days ago where they said that if you move all 7 billion to a place with population density of a modern city, such as Paris, the whole lot will fit within the territory of France.

 

Puts things in perspective...

[Kirkreng]

Space is not the only thing we seem to lack

[Vapymid]

Yeah, money seems to be the main problem

 

Regards

[Bjossi]

Overpopulation is going to be a rising issue until we can colonize other planets. Population control is simply impossible on a global scale. Considering that a) we are not even close to building decently sized spaceships and b) we are still trying to find holes in Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, let alone developing large engines that can take us to supersolar speed, I wouldn't expect travelling to other solar systems to be a viable option any time soon.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Use protection, people. That's all I'm saying. Kids are vicious evil poop-spewing snotty beasts and you should by all means avoid making more.

[Michael Archer]

It's a myth that "overpopulation" is a problem. Because the sun bombards us with so much energy every day, resources are only limited to how much humans can produce. If there's not enough food to feed everyone, that's an infrastructure problem, not a population problem. It's a myth that overpopulation results in famine and disease--it's simply not true.

 

Case in point: The new country of South Sudan has a population density of about thirteen people per square kilometer. China on the other hand has a population density of about one hundred forty people per square kilometer. If overpopulation resulted in famine and poverty, South Sudan should be more prosperous than China.

 

If you're still not convinced, here's a question: can you name any country on the planet that was richer when its population had half the people it does today?

 

Kids are vicious evil poop-spewing snotty beasts and you should by all means avoid making more.

 

My sentiments exactly. I should save this for posterity.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Yeah, I agree with Michael. I think the problem isn't overpopulation but rather that people live in inhospitable places.

[Vapymid]

Kids are vicious evil poop-spewing snotty beasts and you should by all means avoid making more.

 

My sentiments exactly. I should save this for posterity.

 

You'll be amazed to see how your attitude will change by the time your first child is born...

 

Regards

[Collective Foal]

I like these arguments, but I'm going to pick apart Michael's

 

Humans are social, yet anticommunal, which is a huge flaw. We have problems with just 2 people living together for their lives. We naturally have infrastructure problems when we create a society. So yes, overpopulation will result in famine and disease, much more easily than a more dispersed population. That is because of human problems with communities. We are too selfish to do what we don't want to do, but still have to do for necessity of life. Team Fortress 2 makes a perfect example here. You always see teams LOADED with Snipers and Spies. Those people enjoy playing those classes because they are fun classes to play. But, they never win the objective because they aren't composed correctly. Humans work the same in the real world and their flaws make it so overpopulation inherently includes infrastructure problems and thus, famine and poverty.

 

The United States, under President Andrew Jackson, had removed itself from national debt without declaring bankruptcy. Being trillions of dollars in debt today, we definitely had a much more wealthy economy when our population was around 20 million. Also, during the 1920s, the average person was much wealthier than today's average person, which might show a wealthier society than today's.

[Vapymid]

We are too selfish to do what we don't want to do

 

I believe the correct term is "lazy" and that's the simple law of nature - you only do things which you need to do, and then spending minimum amount of effort at that.

 

Which brings us to

 

their flaws make it so overpopulation inherently includes infrastructure problems and thus, famine and poverty.

 

Necessity is the mother of invention. Unless faced with an imminent problem we will not attempt to solve that problem. Our progress is impossible without constant pressure from the environment, which, in the absence of specific catastrophic events (such as meteor strikes, GRBs etc.), is achieved by us expanding from the inside, exerting pressure against the environment (and thus the environment pressing back, according to Newton's 3rd law).

 

Regards

[Alyxx Thorne]

Kids are vicious evil poop-spewing snotty beasts and you should by all means avoid making more.

 

My sentiments exactly. I should save this for posterity.

 

You'll be amazed to see how your attitude will change by the time your first child is born...

 

Regards

I was half joking, but I'm seriously no fan of children.

[Eedo Baba]

What we need to do is create a suppression field like in Half Life 2. That way we could control the population growth rate year to year and keep Earth at a healthy ~1 billion-ish population. You might say we have room for more, but think of how much more simple and comfortable life would be for everyone if we only had 1 billion people on Earth.

 

But yeah, I'm also totally for terraforming/colonizing other planets as long as it doesn't lead to Dead Space style planet-cracking just to support Earth.

[Doom Shepherd]

Soylent Green is yummy. You should try some.

[Bravetriforcer]

As far as the fact we have a lot of people goes, I'm most interested in China; specifically, what it's going to do in around 30-40 years. All of those working-age people who are part of why their economy has such a boost now will be frail old people that can't do much work. Sure they'll have their children/grand-children working in the economy by then, but there are still all these old people, being a drain on the economy like old people are. It'll just be interesting to watch if I'm not dead by then.

[Collective Foal]

As far as the fact we have a lot of people goes, I'm most interested in China; specifically, what it's going to do in around 30-40 years. All of those working-age people who are part of why their economy has such a boost now will be frail old people that can't do much work. Sure they'll have their children/grand-children working in the economy by then, but there are still all these old people, being a drain on the economy like old people are. It'll just be interesting to watch if I'm not dead by then.

 

My grandparents are old and productive towards the economy

[Obsidian]

While I think in theory we can have as large a population as we want, I don't think we'll be able to do it with the minerals available to us on Earth. In the terms of mineral consumption and, ergo, availability, I don't think overpopulation is helping at all.

 

Also, I'd be happy if there were less children running around.

[Kirkreng]

What is the problem with children running around?

[Ross Scott]

It's a myth that "overpopulation" is a problem. Because the sun bombards us with so much energy every day, resources are only limited to how much humans can produce. If there's not enough food to feed everyone, that's an infrastructure problem, not a population problem. It's a myth that overpopulation results in famine and disease--it's simply not true.

I know I'm pretty biased in this area, but there's a strong correlation with the massive increase of the population of the earth and the growth of the oil industry. Modern farming uses fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides that depend heavily on petrochemicals, let alone the additional oil that goes into running farm equipment and transporting it to market. My understanding is that we could theoretically support all 7 billion people we have on the planet now with no one going hungry or starving, but only with our modern production methods. Without the use of oil, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that we can't sustain the current population we have.

[Vapymid]

What we need is energy. With enough energy supply we can produce all the oil we need for the use as fuel and chemical raw materials (or switch to other chemical that do not need petroleum as the starting point).

 

The question is where to get the reliable, sustained, powerful enough energy source, which does not itself depend on oil.

 

Regards