Are there too many people on this planet?
How many people do you think there are on this planet? It's a big old place, well, it is to us tiny humans. It's utterly massive to ants but undetectable to the galaxy.
But how many humans live on this little blue dot? Current estimates sit at about 7.5 or 7.6 billion. With the expectation of there being 8 billion by 2025ish. The 6 billion mark was passed in 2000, that's 1.5/6 billion people in nearly 18 years.
Is that sustainable? Probably not. We are moving into uncharted realms. Towards a planet that is rapidly decreasing in resources. It is estimated that due to commercial fishing, there will be no fish in the sea by 2030. With the acidification on oceans, the plankton that are at the bottom of the food chain are slowly dissolving.
Crops are being affected by it being either to wet, to hot or to cold. Yet 7.5 billion people still need feeding. It's not to bad at the moment, reserves are in place and stockpiles are sufficient, if you live in a place that has them.
But what about in five years time? Ten years time? What then? More people and less food. The answer to such a simple equation is not difficult to figure out.
Some say population reduction would be the answer. But if you take all the deaths from the first and second world wars and added them together, it would only reach about 100 million. Even if your estimate is conservative, and you made it 200 million. The equivalent number of deaths today would barely scratch the surface of population numbers.
If a billion and a half people died, it would only reset the clock back to the year 2000. For population control to be effective, a reduction of at least five billion would be required. Imagine that, something that would cause a population reduction of five billion people. Not a pretty thought.
What if things progressed as normal. More people, less food, continual social stability. Food prices would skyrocket, more people would be reduced to third world standards, those with money would live isolated and protected lives in luxury. Everyone in the middle would struggle to get ahead, whilst avoiding being sucked under. Nothing new there then.
But the population is unsustainable, so what will be the crunch point? A war, probably. It's been very effective in the past. Couple that with famine and disease. Reduced crop yields and antibiotic resistant bacteria.
It's not the first time in history such things have happened. When the west first went to South America, it is estimated that populations were reduced by 90% due to disease, mainly small pox. War, starvation and disease killed off the vast majority of native North Americans. The rich lived is isolated protected luxury, and Everyone else struggled to get ahead, whilst avoiding being sucked under.
We live in a time of unprecedented change, unlike anything for many many years. It is a time of fascinating history, where everything is recorded digitally and therefore won't be there to help, teach or be of any use to future generations.
Agree with, dismiss or deny what I'm saying. Either way, the future is just around the corner, and we're all going to experience it.
way tooo many
Yep, unfortunately. For out time, it's the biggest elephant in the room.
Not enough people understand the severity. We've been living so comfortably (Speaking of the USA in particular here) that older generations cannot fathom what it means to run out of resources. Previous generations have taken everything for granted. If everyone in the world lived how a typical American lives, we would need at least 3 or 4 planets to sustain us. It's incredible. We need to start moving to smaller communities again. Local farming. Local stores. Using local resources. Our resources are so precious... and just because they're renewable doesn't mean they're going to sprout right back up! These things need time to restock which we do not have. First World countries are depleting everyone else's stocks with little regard to the people its harming. Dumping their waste materials wherever they please, as long as it's away from harming themselves. Then they waste so much unrenewable resources just to fly what they can carry back over seas. It's ridiculous. I'm an Environmental Studies major currently in school and I just hope there is still time left by the time I'm able to aid this poor planet. Remember people....Mother Earth doesn't need us, but we most definitely need Her.
Smaller communities sounds great, but what of the multimillion person cities, to spread all those people out would require a significant amount of deforestation. Waste management does need to be addressed, how much is produced and how it is disposed of is not in the social consciousness. You are at the beginning of your learning, many have been learning, teaching, informing about the same subject areas for many decades, has anything g really changed? I think our time to make a significant change passed us by some years back.
You are right. We should have been making significant changes 30 years ago. I understand your realism and that does frighten me especially with our population due to double in probably 50 years. We need some kind of innovative technology....I'm hoping that the efforts in Quantum Mechanics and the Quantum Computer will get us there. Having more time to think and learn, I see a world where we need large cities running off energy-efficient, green tech. Cities that can support large amounts of people without large impacts to the environment or our health. Instead of having so many scattered towns, cities, etc, we have major cities. The rest is left for Nature to recover. To breathe. There are highways that are only meant to connect cities to cities. Those allowed to live outside of the cities have to live off the land. These are fantastical thoughts, but it's the imagination that leads to the future.
Humans breed like vermin and it's sad that they seem do not understand the cost, yet, another lowly quailty.
Not all fortunately, but third world do so because of necessity, babies die young. First world do so for company, no one likes being lonely. Country's allow population growth because of tax revenue and a ready supply of soldiers. It's not complealy the fault of the person, but a combination of faults in current economic, social and educational policy.
I agree....