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Exponential growth of human population (just like the bacteria example by Al Bartlett) means you have exponential consumption. Even if you aren't accounting for developing nation's desire to change their dietary preferences in favor of more meat and just extrapolate based on current worldly consumption trends as they are today, you have to realize agricultural production does not increase exponentially as the human population does and at current production methods it will fail to meet demand.
A malthusian catastrophe will be inevitable IMO unless human ingenuity will satisfy rising consumption levels by lab grown factory foods or entrainment of the worldly population to turn to insects as a food source.
I am no expert in this field but I think we will be faced with agricultural shortage long before the world over starts to feel too crowded.
The population is decreasing in developed countries. In most European countries and Canada the rate of fertility is not enough to maintain population. IN the USA is also quite low. That is why these countries allow immigrants, they are in desperate need of young people.
You are quite right on this issue, once they birth rate of any nation reaches below 2.1 children per female the population will start to decline. Once it falls below 2 then recovery of a given population will take a couple of generations to recover. Russia, Germany and most of Europe population growth is a 1.7 or lower. The United States population growth is about 1.8. The only area in that shows population stability is Africa. The figures show that countries like India, Mexico and some South American will hit that population threshold about 2050. Once these countries develop then child labor will not be needed, then raising more that 2 children become a huge financial burden.
Are you under the age of 40? I ask because back in the 1970s, fear of overpopulation was all the rage. Are you familiar with The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich? This best-selling book, published in 1968, predicted that massive overpopulation would result in all kinds of environmental degradations and despoilations by . . . oh, say 1980 or so. Oops, didn't happen.
Human beings, when given a free hand, have a clever habit of finding ways of benefiting themselves by benefiting others. Thus, revolutionary changes in agriculture and dramatic improvements in food distribution have resulted in the world's food supply growing at rates greater than the population increases and becoming ever-more available to ever-more people. Yes, there are still famines in the world; but they are usually the result of governmental interference or man-made disasters (i.e. wars) than of natural causes.
Incidentally, billions of people are not living without drinking water and food, because if they were, they would be dead. But it's interesting that you mention this, because famines and diseases and disasters (both natural and man-made) are precisely the "control mechanisms" that have historically been the most effective in thinning out the ranks of human-kind. Is this what you advocate?
Yes, it did happen, and is getting worse. Look at Central and South America, which are being deforested to make living room and farm ground to feed a huge world population. Look at South India, which a century ago had the most vibrant wildlife ecology in the world, all gone except for a few tiny, neglected refuges. Look at the accelerating extinction of large animals.
Nature, the completely dispassionate arbiter of everything, has developed ways for controlling overly dense populations of all animals including humans. For humans it is the traditional application of Famine, Plague, Pestilence and War. The humans involved do not have to invite these solutions but non industrialized societies cannot stop them.
There is a method for humans to avoid the Four Horseman. It is being practiced by the industrialized nations and called lower then replacement birth rates. There is an economic problem created by the lack of youth available to do the industrial jobs that the economy depends upon. This is a false problem. The kids can be replaced by robots supervised by fewer people. The production will slowly increase while the productivity per person increases much more rapidly. The children can be employed taking care of the older populations living through the longer lifespans generated by the industrialization.
Cultural debacles created by industrialized importing labor from non industrial societies as is being done by the Europeans importing North African and middle eastern Muslims, can be avoided by increasing the internal investments in automation and only importing people from other slightly less advanced industrial societies. This will allow for a stable and balanced population to develop to be exported to the rest of the planet including those places depopulated by the Horseman.
This may be a grim possibility but is all I can think of theat will preserve and grow modernity in the face of mobs of fanatic believers in religious absurdity.
Nature, the completely dispassionate arbiter of everything, has developed ways for controlling overly dense populations of all animals including humans. For humans it is the traditional application of Famine, Plague, Pestilence and War. The humans involved do not have to invite these solutions but non industrialized societies cannot stop them.
There is a method for humans to avoid the Four Horseman. It is being practiced by the industrialized nations and called lower then replacement birth rates. There is an economic problem created by the lack of youth available to do the industrial jobs that the economy depends upon. This is a false problem. The kids can be replaced by robots supervised by fewer people. The production will slowly increase while the productivity per person increases much more rapidly. The children can be employed taking care of the older populations living through the longer lifespans generated by the industrialization.
Cultural debacles created by industrialized importing labor from non industrial societies as is being done by the Europeans importing North African and middle eastern Muslims, can be avoided by increasing the internal investments in automation and only importing people from other slightly less advanced industrial societies. This will allow for a stable and balanced population to develop to be exported to the rest of the planet including those places depopulated by the Horseman.
This may be a grim possibility but is all I can think of theat will preserve and grow modernity in the face of mobs of fanatic believers in religious absurdity.
I don't agree GregW.
First of all we are not a part of nature and actually we are fighting it
Yes mother nature is powerful but it seems she is losing it.
Back in the day you would have plagues and a quarter of population would be wiped out but today there is almost no way this can happen.(maybe zombies)
Maybe not soon but i believe we will find ways to achieve immortality or at least living 250-300 years.
A lot of companies are working on it including Google.
I don't think that overpopulation has a number associated with it but rather each ones perception of what overpopulation is. I would love a smaller population as I hate how traffic gets worse ever year, there is more pollution, more crime, fewer jobs, less natural resources, etc..to me we are already over populated. Just because there is still more room left on earth to grow does not mean it should be filled. The earth is supposed to sustain us but when we use it up we will have nothing, however, there are those that say technology will kick in and lead the way. Is that really the way people foresee the future of the human population? Letting robots and technology replace everything? I am not saying I want to live like a caveman, I just don't want to be smothered by each other.
There are some great posts here with great points. But I disagree with the posters who say they are concerned with developed nations not growing fast enough just to maintain current population.
Look at how many people live in high rise apartment blocks in Asia, Africa and even the Americas. Were human beings meant to live like that? The most desirable places on Earth are very crowded. I don't think humans were meant to live in such crowded living spaces.
Economics has a lot to do with young people in developed nations not wanting to have children at all or certainly no more than two. It is incredibly expensive to raise a child today and increasingly many are saying "No" to reproducing.
I disagree back when the worlds were underpopulated citi s would have 2 million people in 10-30 square miles and no buildings over 200-300 feet tall. Density in late cities was measured by the acre and a ci Y the size of Houston would take 20 minutes by car to go around. Now everyone has bigger houses barely anyone is dying from starvation in 90% of countries. Over population is a myth with modern technology, their are lesser dense places than Manila or Manhattan or even central Lagos and have more people starving. Food all youth it is supposed to grow linear wise due r chnology actually goes exponentially out of the 8 billion people I the world maybe 500 million of them starve everyday while large that is still 1/16 people back when the world was 1 billion people or even less most humans starved globally on a day by day period and the number only got lower as risk went on.
Sorry for the misspelling hat city data on my phone.
The earth is NOT overpopulated! There are cities, countries and areas that are overpopulated but there are vast areas of habitable land with few or no people.
Certainly overpopultion does not take the place it should have in the political debates about today's and future migration flows!
Population growth is the elephant in the room in the current migration crisis in Europe. The polulation growth in Middle East and Africa creates civil unrest and an enormous migration pressure towards the North - we are only at the beginning. Example Syria - 1980 9 million, 2011 23 million inhabitants!!! Politicians are completely missing the point talking about border control and distribution quotas of migrants ("refugees"). Africa is a ticking time bomb even without accounting for resources lost to climate change.
Why is population control not a serious part of the debates? Probably because there are few options in line with universally accepted human rights to solve this problem. The only acceptable way to curb population growth that I know of is wealth, education, economic security and viable middle class - not going to happen soon enough for those regions of the world I am afraid. I am sure there are thinkers who have introduced solutions into the debate, I have not dared to look into it as it is just a very uncomfortable subject - maybe that is my German heritage speaking :-(
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