The demographic growth that humankind is facing nowadays has got 3 main characteristics:

 

- It's globally excessive, compared to the capacity of Earth to handle so many people.

- There's a huge growth gap: regions that are less capable to support the people who are born there, are the ones that seem to have the highest rates.

- The rapid demographic growth brings environmental problems, as there's an overuse of raw materials and essential goods.

 

There are several statistics that show us, for instance, that if the predicted population for 2050 consumed the same amount of resources that the USA alone consumes, all the world oil would be gone in 5 years time.

It is also predicted that in 2025, 100 millions of Africans will suffer from skin problems and water shortage.

 

However, if the poor countries have a huge rate of demographic growth, the rich countries, on the other hand, have been losing their power, as far as their demography is concerned, leading, most of the times, to a loss of political power as well. Due to the entry of women in the labour market, late marriages and the high costs of raising a child, more and more women delay their 1st birth, leading to a lack of people to replace the old people who (although later than ever) die.

 

All in all, although it is essential the rates in poor countries are lowered, it is also an imperative that those same rates in rich countries are increased.

 

What kind of problem are we facing after all? Is there no turning back to the already exisiting resource shortage? Or is it still possible to give everyone what they need? How is it possible to tackle such problems?

 

 

Share your views and help me revise for this :P LOL

What your posting up is a common view. A lack of money to sort it out, a lack of energy resources.

In fact there is more then enough resources, including oil which we are likely to stockpile for many years to come. There is more then enough money also.

 

So what kind of problem are we having?

Well, the problem is not having the political structure to want to share it out. There are so many self interests groups, that influence governement and to be fair to them, they want to get the best deal, which is only fair. So the situation is the public is badly informed and so the political structure doesn't want to do anything, and that's where we are at right now.

Thing is, there's indeed resource shortage. I mean, look at all those droughts and floods happening every single year and increasing year after year. And that has nothing to do with the political structure we have right now. It has to do with the number of people that are living on Earth right now. Ok, there may be oil for everyone, and money for everyone, but what about the natural resources that take CENTURIES to be replaced?

all those droughts and floods

 

Kinda says it all! To much water and not enough.

It's simply a matter of money to organise systems to gather and store water and distribute it all again.

We are back to money, as there are more then enough resources. Just requires a willingness from the 1st world to share with the 3rd world.

 

You don't get it! It's all about the environmental problems really. And there's no money in the world that can help sort them out if people, especially in rich countries, are not willing to give up on some of their luxurious goods, so it's not too late to save what is left of the healthy environment we were supposed to be living in.

I agree we do not have the resources to continually sustain the current population growth. But the biggest problem for me is that people from third world countries are coming over to the UK and other countries but having children like third world countries! The reason they had so many in third world countries is the risk of dieing, not the case in a first world country and an annoyance.

 

 

Most third world countries arent third world because their incompetant. A lot have terrible environments and/ or no resources and/ or in the middle of a desert (OPEC excluded). Population growth will never be a threat to mankind as we live in a democracy (even China who are not a democracy understand about population growth and had a cap on it).

 

If it ever does look to become a problem then there will be restrictions put on how many children you can have.

 

You don't get it! It's all about the environmental problems really. And there's no money in the world that can help sort them out if people, especially in rich countries, are not willing to give up on some of their luxurious goods, so it's not too late to save what is left of the healthy environment we were supposed to be living in.

:lol: Actually, I do get it.

But hey, now you've switched to environmental problems and I entirely agree we have polluted the plant is very many ways already. Driving of fuel driven cars is not good at all, just to take one example. However the oil companies massively influence the political and economic system to keep the status quo, so that again is where the problem lies.

Nuclear fusion is the way forward, differs from nuclear fission which is used in power stations and has radioactive by product (not the best to send out the exhaust).

 

Nuclear fusion is the joining together of atoms and we use it in hydrogen bombs. It hasnt been able to be controlled though. I forgot the stats but a car could run off a gallon of water for 30 years (or maybe a lot more). Really crazy statistics.

 

If we have that power and we can harness it then its not just polution that we conquer we can push out into space.

There needs to be an element of population control to avoid the worlds resources getting out of control, population growth globally is absurd and unsustainable and puts more pressure on resources in coming years like healthcare, oil and food. I think that the Chinese lead should be followed and no one allowed to have more than 2 kids with criminal penalties or even steralisation of women who have a 3rd child, with health advancing people are dying much later and this death age will increase significantly and with more and more people coming into the world and not so many leaving it it is a recipe for chaos in the future

 

Also the catholic church and the obsession of catholics of having 8 or 9 kids is an evil and future pope's have to change their belief on birth control and contraception

There needs to be an element of population control to avoid the worlds resources getting out of control, population growth globally is absurd and unsustainable and puts more pressure on resources in coming years like healthcare, oil and food. I think that the Chinese lead should be followed and no one allowed to have more than 2 kids with criminal penalties or even steralisation of women who have a 3rd child, with health advancing people are dying much later and this death age will increase significantly and with more and more people coming into the world and not so many leaving it it is a recipe for chaos in the future

 

Also the catholic church and the obsession of catholics of having 8 or 9 kids is an evil and future pope's have to change their belief on birth control and contraception

 

Hmm, another issue we agree on, but why just concentrate on women who have more than three kids, surely the same should apply to men as well.

 

But generally you're right, take the case of India - after it gained independence in 1947, it had a population of 345 million, today it stands at 1.1 BILLION, a mere 60 years on....

 

Well if only money could be taken out of the equation eh? You know mere bit of paper with numbers on it? Only PEOPLE can help with all these problems, As far as the fossil fuels are concerned less of them should be used but particularly with oil many people (One certain person of course inparticular -_- ) want to get more bits of those little bits of paper not thinking about the problems of it running out and only using it when it's NEEDED thus not affecting our environment AS MUCH (too late to STOP it now) but of course things can't be as simple as that.

 

There have always been problems with floods and droughts, yes but it's getting worse now as it has been stated in this thread and before long it's going to not only affect third world countries but also developed countries and so we're all having to bring in hose pipe bans etc. I always try to help third world countries with that and famine etc. when I can (Giving/raising money for charity) which our little bits of paper come in again and there's only so much that and polictians saying this that and the other can do... but we're not doing enough and even though we don't necessarily mean it we're making things worse by using essential resources which are not only consuming the limited amount of them but as I said are affecting people over there at the same time and making things a lot worse.

 

As far as limiting the amount of kids people can have are concerned even though that law has been in China for a long time for some reason I don't see people over here accepting that :unsure: I mean if I ever have a family I would like AT LEAST three kids and a lot of the time when you get an only child it ends up being a spoilt brat as it's not used to sharing (that bit may sound stupid but I've seen that) Giving criminal penalties for having more than two children would probably be one of the most stupidest laws I've ever seen, do we have a right to say how many kids people can have? :mellow: Plus there aren't enough children being born at the moment anyway.

 

Hoped I kept on topic lol.

There needs to be an element of population control to avoid the worlds resources getting out of control

 

It this kind of stupid thinking that leads the world to do nothing about issued like AIDS.

The mulitnationals have a nice interest in keeping it that way, they earn money from all the drugs and so keeping the public un-infomed, with distorted facts about resources that the majority of people believe, just keeps it all in check. I have no issues really with mulit-nationals, within the scope of busines they are aiming to make money and sustain profits. But people, why are they so darn gullible?

Well if only money could be taken out of the equation eh? You know mere bit of paper with numbers on it? Only PEOPLE can help with all these problems, As far as the fossil fuels are concerned less of them should be used but particularly with oil many people (One certain person of course inparticular -_- ) want to get more bits of those little bits of paper not thinking about the problems of it running out and only using it when it's NEEDED thus not affecting our environment AS MUCH (too late to STOP it now) but of course things can't be as simple as that.

 

There have always been problems with floods and droughts, yes but it's getting worse now as it has been stated in this thread and before long it's going to not only affect third world countries but also developed countries and so we're all having to bring in hose pipe bans etc. I always try to help third world countries with that and famine etc. when I can (Giving/raising money for charity) which our little bits of paper come in again and there's only so much that and polictians saying this that and the other can do... but we're not doing enough and even though we don't necessarily mean it we're making things worse by using essential resources which are not only consuming the limited amount of them but as I said are affecting people over there at the same time and making things a lot worse.

 

As far as limiting the amount of kids people can have are concerned even though that law has been in China for a long time for some reason I don't see people over here accepting that :unsure: I mean if I ever have a family I would like AT LEAST three kids and a lot of the time when you get an only child it ends up being a spoilt brat as it's not used to sharing (that bit may sound stupid but I've seen that) Giving criminal penalties for having more than two children would probably be one of the most stupidest laws I've ever seen, do we have a right to say how many kids people can have? :mellow: Plus there aren't enough children being born at the moment anyway.

 

Hoped I kept on topic lol.

 

More or less... :lol: But I just don't see how it can be sustainable to allow populations to just continue growing and growing unchecked. There are projections that in the next 50-100 years, the world's population will grow to 8 billion people, more pollution, more resource depletion, more carbon emissions as a result causing more environmental problems and other catastrophes, the planet just cannot sustain this. The facts are that if all developing countries were at the same level of development as Europe and the US, the world would need to be four times as big in order to handle the pressure of our consumption.

 

We are selfish, we are stupid, we have no idea of the consequences of our continued actions of breeding and consuming to such potentially catastrophic levels. Just remember what happened to the dinosaurs could easily happen to us, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing....

There needs to be an element of population control to avoid the worlds resources getting out of control, population growth globally is absurd and unsustainable and puts more pressure on resources in coming years like healthcare, oil and food. I think that the Chinese lead should be followed and no one allowed to have more than 2 kids with criminal penalties or even steralisation of women who have a 3rd child, with health advancing people are dying much later and this death age will increase significantly and with more and more people coming into the world and not so many leaving it it is a recipe for chaos in the future

 

Also the catholic church and the obsession of catholics of having 8 or 9 kids is an evil and future pope's have to change their belief on birth control and contraception

 

Why have a go at just Catholics, like Scott says look at the population expolsion in India and South east asia, not many catholics there I would have thought!

Why have a go at just Catholics, like Scott says look at the population expolsion in India and South east asia, not many catholics there I would have thought!

 

It's definitely not just a case of it being only Catholic countries where this is a problem, but the dogmatic position of the Catholic church on Contraception hardly helps matters and is exacerbating the problem....

 

It's definitely not just a case of it being only Catholic countries where this is a problem, but the dogmatic position of the Catholic church on Contraception hardly helps matters and is exacerbating the problem....

 

yeh that nasty old pope,got a lot to answer for hasn't he :arrr: never mind hes got enough on his plate fending off "the Da vinci code movie" at the moment to worry about anything as mundane as birth control, :)

Edited May 17, 200619 yr by brian91

 

Oil, Oil, Everywhere . . .

 

Cost of Oil will not rise above roughly $30 per barrel for the next 100 years at least...because, well, there is such an abundance of it and it's easier to find and extract then ever before.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-oil_oil.htm

Dense concentrations of people in poor health increase the chances of a global pandemic of a killer disease e.g. bird flu that could wipe out 25-50% of the worlds population...

The demographic growth that humankind is facing nowadays has got 3 main characteristics:

 

- It's globally excessive, compared to the capacity of Earth to handle so many people.

- There's a huge growth gap: regions that are less capable to support the people who are born there, are the ones that seem to have the highest rates.

- The rapid demographic growth brings environmental problems, as there's an overuse of raw materials and essential goods.

 

There are several statistics that show us, for instance, that if the predicted population for 2050 consumed the same amount of resources that the USA alone consumes, all the world oil would be gone in 5 years time.

It is also predicted that in 2025, 100 millions of Africans will suffer from skin problems and water shortage.

 

However, if the poor countries have a huge rate of demographic growth, the rich countries, on the other hand, have been losing their power, as far as their demography is concerned, leading, most of the times, to a loss of political power as well. Due to the entry of women in the labour market, late marriages and the high costs of raising a child, more and more women delay their 1st birth, leading to a lack of people to replace the old people who (although later than ever) die.

 

All in all, although it is essential the rates in poor countries are lowered, it is also an imperative that those same rates in rich countries are increased.

 

What kind of problem are we facing after all? Is there no turning back to the already exisiting resource shortage? Or is it still possible to give everyone what they need? How is it possible to tackle such problems?

Share your views and help me revise for this :P LOL

I know this is old, but what is wrong with underpopulation of MEDCs? The countries in Europe that have a falling population are "doing well" imo, especially considering that most of these were in turmoil through the cold war 20-30 years ago... The faster LEDCs become developed, the faster birth rates will fall and then hopefully world populations will stablise. However, it'll probably take a long time.

I know this is old, but what is wrong with underpopulation of MEDCs? The countries in Europe that have a falling population are "doing well" imo, especially considering that most of these were in turmoil through the cold war 20-30 years ago... The faster LEDCs become developed, the faster birth rates will fall and then hopefully world populations will stablise. However, it'll probably take a long time.

I agree, if it was overpopulated, recession will be harder to tackle atm IMO esp. UK.

I don't know about LEDCs though, IMO I think birth rates will never fall.

Edited June 4, 200916 yr by FunMaker11