Political Crossfire Forums

[andy]

Currently the globe is supporting 6.8 billion people. Natural resources are drying up, millions of people are starving, and the globe cannot support a constantly growing population.

Here is the loaded question.

How can we reach either infinite global sustainability or zero population growth?

[BigOMG]

andy wrote: Currently the globe is supporting 6.8 billion people. Natural resources are drying up, millions of people are starving, and the globe cannot support a constantly growing population.

Here is the loaded question.

How can we reach either infinite global sustainability or zero population growth?

How do you know what the globe can support? Is this some sort of SWAG just to pick a fight?
What natural resources are drying up?

From your title you sound like al "bore" gore calling for selective genocide to keep the rest of the world alive.

[andy]

BigOMG wrote: andy wrote: Currently the globe is supporting 6.8 billion people. Natural resources are drying up, millions of people are starving, and the globe cannot support a constantly growing population.

Here is the loaded question.

How can we reach either infinite global sustainability or zero population growth?

How do you know what the globe can support?

I dont know what the globe can support, but I know that the globe CANNOT support a consistently growing population. It has been proven throughout history time and time again that civilizations that overstep their resources, or cling to ways of life that drain their resources tend to collapse. Read Jared Diamond's book Collapse for more specific info.

Quote: Is this some sort of SWAG just to pick a fight?
What natural resources are drying up?

If by "pick a fight" you actually mean, "debate a burgeoning environmental question" then the answer is yes.

As to what natural resources are drying up, oil mainly; Cheap fossil fuels. Anyone who can claim that there is enough is not thinking long term. Sure we may find a few more large deposits, but the amount of oil is finite. We will come to the end of oil someday, and we will come to the end of cheap oil long before that day.

This may not seem like it has ANYTHING to do with global sustainability, but the reason our population has been able to reach 6.8 billion is because of oil. There is only so much fixed nitrogen in the world. Before the discovery of labratory processes of fixing nitrogen (extracting nitrogen from other compounds) there were only 2 known ways that nitrogen was fixed. Lightning, and Legumes. We all know that nitrogen is necessary to grow crops, but before we had a way to fix our own nitrogen there was only enough fixed nitrogen for the globe to grow enough food to support roughly 1 billion people.

Because of german scientists at the turn of last century, we are able to fix our own nitrogen. The process of fixing nitrogen requires immense amounts of heat provided by natural gas or other fossil fuels. Because we are able to add nitrogen fertilizers to the ground at our leisure the population of the earth has been able to reach the astonishing numbers it has.

When oil becomes too expensive, so does nitrogen fertilizers; so does feeding 7 billion people

Quote: From your title you sound like al "bore" gore calling for selective genocide to keep the rest of the world alive.

It was your sick mind that dreamed up "selective genocide". I never said anything of the sort. The title is "birth control / abortion / and global sustainability". Nowhere in the title do I mention genocide.

My arguement is that billions of human lives will suffer if we do not find a way to keep the population of the globe from growing.

I wanted to hear from you all what you thought about this, how you would go about it, have you heard any information regarding this little dillemma, and what moral and ethical implications this has.

I read a blurb in Scientific American recently that mentioned using methods of reducing the sterility of entire populations to lower birth rates in poor nations... what effect does this have on you?

Lets have a little more discussion and a lot less chest thumping accusation.

<3
andy

[agentkgb]

Diseases tend to have a way of reducing human population as it gets too big and dense, but with more advanced medical knowledge, that may not happen. I imagine that something will happen, some kind of war or whatever.

[andy]

agentkgb wrote: Diseases tend to have a way of reducing human population as it gets too big and dense, but with more advanced medical knowledge, that may not happen. I imagine that something will happen, some kind of war or whatever.

While I agree with you that a huge disease would thin a growing population, should we really wait for something like that to happen? And would it come in time to prevent us from sucking the world dry of natural resources?

If we choose not to control our own population, we condemn billions to suffer and die needlessly in one way or another.

PS.
Why was this post moved to the alternate theories forum; alongside alien abductions and conspiracy theories? This is a serious and inevitable global issue with reams of literature to back it up. It is not some crack pot shot in the dark guess.

[agentkgb]

andy wrote: agentkgb wrote: Diseases tend to have a way of reducing human population as it gets too big and dense, but with more advanced medical knowledge, that may not happen. I imagine that something will happen, some kind of war or whatever.

While I agree with you that a huge disease would thin a growing population, should we really wait for something like that to happen? And would it come in time to prevent us from sucking the world dry of natural resources?

If we choose not to control our own population, we condemn billions to suffer and die needlessly in one way or another.
I wasn't saying we shouldn't do anything, just that sooner or later something will happen.

[Rhoades]

andy wrote: Currently the globe is supporting 6.8 billion people. Natural resources are drying up, millions of people are starving, and the globe cannot support a constantly growing population.

Here is the loaded question.

How can we reach either infinite global sustainability or zero population growth?
who cares about the globe. I care about American sustainability. People need to get out of this "one world" train of thinking.

[NAB]

Rhoades wrote: andy wrote: Currently the globe is supporting 6.8 billion people. Natural resources are drying up, millions of people are starving, and the globe cannot support a constantly growing population.

Here is the loaded question.

How can we reach either infinite global sustainability or zero population growth?
who cares about the globe. I care about American sustainability. People need to get out of this "one world" train of thinking.

By all means. Why we in the US have about 300 million of the approximate 6.5 Billion of the world's population. Why should we give a crap, right?

You should get out more, like beyond the borders of the US and see there's a big wide world out there. The US isn't the only place on the planet, and there are plenty of people in other countries who like their homeland just as much as we in the US do. US-Centric thinking is a double edge sword.

[andy]

Rhoades wrote: andy wrote: Currently the globe is supporting 6.8 billion people. Natural resources are drying up, millions of people are starving, and the globe cannot support a constantly growing population.

Here is the loaded question.

How can we reach either infinite global sustainability or zero population growth?
who cares about the globe. I care about American sustainability. People need to get out of this "one world" train of thinking.

next time you see a globe, check the western hemisphere.... yes... that is america right there, below canada, above mexico.

Unless we have a plan to scoop it up, put it in a giant dome and rocket it off to space, america is a part of the globe. Global sustainability IS american sustainability.

SHEEESH!

[JackyD]

andy wrote: Currently the globe is supporting 6.8 billion people. Natural resources are drying up, millions of people are starving, and the globe cannot support a constantly growing population.

Here is the loaded question.

How can we reach either infinite global sustainability or zero population growth?

On a % basis the annual rate of human population growth is slowing but of course we will need zero population growth some day as a finite planet with finite resources can`t support indefinite growth.

The trouble with economic growth is that the larger the economy becomes the greater the human impact on the environment is so while economic growth is helpful to society it must be done in a sustainable way.

Relentles economic growth and population increase without strong environmental safeguards by law is insanity as the experience in China shows. To them environmental safeguards written in law are merely economic handicapps....they are now slowly learning the hard way that they are seriously mistaken in that belief.