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Overpopulation, Part III: Keep It Simple
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Ok, here's the simple version.
Is the earth overpopulated? We need ten acres per person, because each person needs 1/2 acre of land for food to grow and 95% of all land is ice, rock, desert, or otherwise not suitable for growing crops. For example, one paper I read today said 20% of the earth was covered by permafrost. if the soil is more or less permanently frozen, you're not going to be growing any coconuts! We have 36.9 billion acres of land on the planet. We have 7.2 billion people. That's 5.1 acres per person. The last time I did this math in about the year 2000, there were 7 acres per person. We're losing ground. So, at the maximum we need about 3.5 billion people on the planet.
How do we reduce the population? There are two simple methods: 1) we do it, or 2) we do nothing and let nature take its course.
Your choice!
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Post comment Comment (5 replies)
- Reply sunnyv
- Actually, nature has it's own calculations and have made provisions for overpopulation. It is beyond our ability to alter or correct things nature provided for us. Any interference with nature is bound to be doomed.
What we should be worrying about is man-made gender imbalance in China. The population control policies in China have created more men than women because baby girls are not wanted and are usually aborted. Now there is at least 20% more men than women in China. This is going to lead frightening social problems. China is considering abolishing population controls but have not yet done so. When China created the strict population control, she never envisaged that people would prefer boys to girls. This is a time bomb waiting to explode.
- Reply Su_安琪
- I think the situation of the overpopulation is too urgent,we must find out the real reason behind the result and make some rational solutions to control population.The government,the people,and the society should make efforts together.
- Reply sedgehead
- I heard an interesting concern at one time, many years ago. The concern was that if lowering population becomes a priority, it could have negative effects on the human population. That is, if having more than one child is seen as socially irresponsible and people begin to have fewer children or no children, then society could collapse as a result. In reality, we have seen some results of this. For example, simply because people are living longer and having fewer children, we have what is called "an aging society." In the US, the baby boomers, my generation who were born in the years after World War II when many people had many children, are now retiring. We are a drain on the US economy, because we are all having smaller families, so there are fewer workers required to support more retired people.
Su_安琪: I think the situation of the overpopulation is too urgent,we must find out the real reason behind the result and make some rational solutions to contr ...
The concern I refer to goes beyond that. What if the economy actually shrinks (which it will, no matter what we do). In general, governments see that as a bad thing, but it has to happen eventually. What if people have so few children, humans are threatened with extinction? In reality, I think it is a silly concern. People like having children and it will never go to that extreme, in my opinion.
