Global Population Issues

[jacob]

The human race is ostensibly unique in that it can somehow make predictions of the future, i.e., humans have a sense of time. IMO 7w5 is right in that this is a solvable problem in that, yes, it is actually theoretically possible to feed billions of humans from a small area using bio-intensive farming methods. However, theanimal is also right in that taken as a species humans don't seem to be much smarter than yeast and will and have historically easily overshot their carrying capacity only to crash their population.

In terms of practical considerations, there's the issue of how to sufficiently educate a substantial/majority part of the human population everywhere so that they may actually feed themselves using bio -intensive methods on an area that's about as large as a city-plot per person. We're talking several years of gardening experience. This is hard. If it was easy, it would stand to reason that the couple of billion starving/food insecure people in the world would have done it already as hunger is a really strong motivator.

In short. As far as mass-scale bio-intensive gardening goes. It's theoretically possible. It's practically impossible.

[Dragline]

If you look at UN slide number 21 from the link you shared, they project the best case scenario with low fertility resulting in about 6 billion people in the year 2100. Now how does that provide any reassurance since about 15 years ago we were at that position and the world was still way overpopulated?

I think we are at the crux of the issue now. I don't think the world was overpopulated (as a whole) at 6B or today. Certain areas are for sure. But others are not. Certainly not any first or second world countries. You are free to disagree, but then we're just talking about opinions as to whether this is a a global problem or a local one.

If you start with the definition or assumption that the world is now overpopulated, then any future is also overpopulated without some form of restriction program. The rest just become back-filling justifications to support pre-existing beliefs. Which is the normal human way of thinking.

[Ego]

Going continent by continent, with the millions of data points on each one (except Antarctica), the data shows that virtually the only place population is projected to continue growing after 2050 is in Africa. Shouldn't he simply focus on where the problem actually is? .

If you start with the definition or assumption that the world is now overpopulated, then any future is also overpopulated without some form of restriction program. The rest just become back-filling justifications to support pre-existing beliefs. Which is the normal human way of thinking.

You've acknowledged that there are countries that have a problem. Food-aid seems to be a plausible cause of that problem.

Is it possible that you are back-filling justification for your argument that 1) we are not overpopulated and 2) food-aid is not the cause, because you don't like the idea that the solution would be to withhold food aid?

[7Wannabe5]

Jacob said: In terms of practical considerations, there's the issue of how to sufficiently educate a substantial/majority part of the human population everywhere so that they may actually feed themselves using bio -intensive methods on an area that's about as large as a city-plot per person. We're talking several years of gardening experience. This is hard. If it was easy, it would stand to reason that the couple of billion starving/food insecure people in the world would have done it already as hunger is a really strong motivator.

In short. As far as mass-scale bio-intensive gardening goes. It's theoretically possible. It's practically impossible.

I don't disagree. Increasingly erratic weather patterns certainly won't help. Also, nod to theanimal on the reality that much/most human starvation is currently due to disruption of food production and distribution by violent behavior and contagious disease. I recommend Edward Hoagland's novel "Children are Diamonds: An African Apocalypse" if you wish to really get depressed about the situation. I recommend Carol Deppe's "The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times" if you wish to feel a bit more hopeful. Bio-intensive permaculture is definitely the better longer term solution but simply educating people on how to grow the staple high calorie crops that will thrive in their region instead of a lawn is a starting point. Knowing how to grow arugula is great if you wish to have a small urban market garden but you have to grow potatoes in Michigan if you wish to survive a food supply shortage. Anyways, that is my rough plan for my 3 city lots: one lucrative market garden, one serious short-term food supply garden, one perma-culture paradise. My other plan being to keep helping the sweet little girl in bright yellow hijab who wrote that she wants to be a "Juge" when she grows up so she can help everybody get "faer" treatment learn a bit more English and the very polite older boy who wrote that he could relate to the story about the Holocaust that we read in class because his mother had to flee Bosnia under similar circumstances and even the many "delightful" children who spit-out "What you gonna do about it?" in 4 different languages at me when I direct them to cease and desist behavior that is interfering with the education of the other students. (I am feeling rather bad-azz at the moment because the man who was substitute teaching for the same group as me informed the principal that he will never come back.-lol) Anyways, my point being that I think the only choice for any of us is to be hopeful or freeze/collapse in nihilistic depression. Hey, at least we can all be members of a species that went out trying : )

[Riggerjack]

Okay, so who in my social system is wasting more resources, the single 53 year old guy I recently dated who lives by himself in a 3000 sq. ft. house with in-ground heated pool, owns three vehicles and commutes 30 miles to work or the family of 6 who recently immigrated from Bangladesh and are living in a 720 sq. ft apartment and maybe own one vehicle and the kids all get free breakfast and lunch at the school where I teach?

Yeah, way to phrase the question to avoid necessary emotional baggage.

The answer is obviously the Indian family. Sure, the 53 year old is less efficient, but there is an end to his consumption, the family's consumption will never end. Even if the bachelor wastes 99% of his resources, and the breeders only 1% (and waste is always in the eye of the beholder), the exponential, never ending growth of the family means they will waste more.

It is just basic math. Children are the biggest ecological footprint a person can make.

[Riggerjack]

You could take every human family on the planet right now and they would all fit in the state of Texas on small size suburban lots. If through intensive organic gardening/perma-culture you can grow enough food to feed your family on another lot of similar size then all that is needed to feed/house the current human population is a land area twice the size of Texas. The rest of the planet could become a Nature Preserve.

OK, lets work that math.

7 billion people, 269k square miles=26,022 people per square mile. 41 per acre. What kind of suburbs pack 41 people per acre? There are 3 districts in LA that have a higher population density, but most of LA is way more spread out than that.

By way of comparison, Singapore has 19,731, Hong Kong 17,019, India 994.12, and China 367.4, people per square mile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_so ... on_density

Now, I've gardened, but never using permaculture methods. The idea that you could feed 41 people off of an acre seems unrealistic at best.

As for a nature preserve, most of the world IS a nature preserve.

There is 148,940,000 km2 total land. The total arable land is 13.31% of the land surface, with 4.71% supporting permanent crops. That is 36,803,818,700 acres of land. 5.25 acres per person, 0.7 arable acres per person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth#Surface

Now I am in no way trying to say that we should breed further to fill up the last corners. What I'm saying is that most folks base their idea of how we've trampled the earth on propaganda and the parts they see. Spend some time on google maps, just looking at what is out there. There's some crazy stuff you can see from satellite. Look around you. For ever person you see, there is more than 5 acres without people in it, on average.

So, that's the math as I see it.

[Riggerjack]

@theanimal:
the seem to be taking a high level view, glossing over any pesky details. Similar to pontification around a bonfire, with others of a similar age and political outlook. (I'm not knocking it, some of the best times of my life were spent high, pontificating around a bonfire. Where is my dumbek?)

But that style won't win you any points around here. Here, we have search engines and cold reason. Here, the details matter.

for instance, when you say:

No, the population would simply decrease as it does with all other species. The old die off and the population decreases to match the availability of food.

I think of real life examples of what happens when food won't feed the population. Think Somalia.

It's not a case of the old wander off to die in peace, leaving their offspring to peacefully enjoy life where there is now enough for everyone. Giving thanks to the good will and foresight of idealistic youths across the planet who wisely cut off the food supply.

It is bloody, abysmal, terrifying constant war. It is winner take all, deadly concentration of power, dividing the land into the powerful and the victims. Making death common simply causes a numbness that has to be overcome by further horror when the warlords need to maintain their positions.

Of course, eventually the death rate will be high enough that food will stretch. But by then, all infrastructure is gone, and they still have the high fertility rate, no economy, and the weak are truly weak.

Tell me again how saving some Canadian land from grain farming was worth that. And how they are better off now?

[Dragline]

Going continent by continent, with the millions of data points on each one (except Antarctica), the data shows that virtually the only place population is projected to continue growing after 2050 is in Africa. Shouldn't he simply focus on where the problem actually is? .

If you start with the definition or assumption that the world is now overpopulated, then any future is also overpopulated without some form of restriction program. The rest just become back-filling justifications to support pre-existing beliefs. Which is the normal human way of thinking.

You've acknowledged that there are countries that have a problem. Food-aid seems to be a plausible cause of that problem.

Is it possible that you are back-filling justification for your argument that 1) we are not overpopulated and 2) food-aid is not the cause, because you don't like the idea that the solution would be to withhold food aid?

No, I'm saying that that's its not very smart to jump for a controversial and unnecessary solution (actually sounds like the Lord Travelyn program of Irish potato famine infamy) for what the exhaustive and uncontroverted country-by-country data shows essentially a local problem in some countries, because educating the populace, creating better sanitation and emancipating women, among other things, usually works a whole lot better and is less draconian. If that were not the case, countries with lots of food would be the most fertile.

But controversial solutions are often more popular because they make for more exciting headlines and by-lines.

[Riggerjack]

@the animal:

This would be a huge cultural/societal change. How would you enforce this? What would stop people from having more .5 babies?

Edit to add: We've had the ability to do this for however far back you want to go. I guess the concept of free will/choice. Every one of those years the population has increased. As it will again this year. What will make it suddenly change?

Traditionally, war and disease. See ebola, bird flu, swine flu, etc.

But we aren't talking about the traditional solutions here. There is no top down mechanism for population control. Personally, I expect a pandemic solution. I'm hoping that we develop economically to the point where after the recovery, we don't face the problem again. Economic power is the only sustainable solution. China, and their policies won't last. Nobody else is even trying that approach. Failure is inevitable.

The case can be made that we have already outbred the planets' capability to provide that level of per capita resources, allowing population to peacefully decline. I don't know. See my post above about unused land...

What I do know is that the only solution that works, even partially, economic development, is also the policy derided by the group most interested in population control. As you look around that passionate group talking about how the world will be a better place once the Progressive movement gets traction; realize that the hot little hippie over there is going to be an SUV driving soccer mom, in 10 years.

Nobody is going to fix the population bomb, because nobody cares for long. Even among the most hard core progressives, this eventually boils down to a problem of keeping other people from breeding.

What we need, is to associate breeding and poverty. Nothing gets uncool faster than the behaviors of the poor. Hell, people even quit smoking when it got associated with poverty. I'm just sayin'.

[theanimal]

Foreign aid to Africa (over the last 30-50 years) has widely been pronounced a colossal failure. Is it really that far of a stretch to say that this aid also leads to an increase in population?

RJ- I'll agree that that was a poor and incomplete statement. There are other factors then older people dying such as a decrease in reproduction.

I can use search engines too. There have been studies that equate aid with prolonged conflict and violence. Nonetheless, I think you're stretching your example to the absolute worst case scenario. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... _send_food

[workathome]

I'm pretty sure breeding and poverty are already associated. Planned Parenthood was originally an attempt to get the poor to stop breeding so much.

[jacob]

Words like breeder and breeding are fighting words and don't really add to the argument as much as they risk derailing it. I hate to be PC but there's no reason that I can see to use them.

[Dragline]

Agreed. But I have to say that I'm a proud breeder since 1995. (Sound like bumper sticker material -- much better than back window stick figures.)

Back in the day (or at least my day), this was just a code word that my gay friends would use to describe straight people.

[workathome]

Sorry, I was using the term sardonically. Abortion clinics sort of give me the heebie-jeebies now.

[henrik]

Foreign aid to Africa (over the last 30-50 years) has widely been pronounced a colossal failure. Is it really that far of a stretch to say that this aid also leads to an increase in population?

The idea that foreign aid might cause problems rather than improve things is indeed widely discussed and plausible. However, I don't see any connection between this and the global food production vs global population increase issue that you'e discussing. Would you care to explain?

[theanimal]

Henrik- The food that is sent is excess. Supporting areas that could not otherwise support themselves leads to unsustainability and a population that is larger than the land can support. In theory, if no aid was sent, the population would go up and down in line with the resources available.


The more I look into issues like this, the more apparent it is that ERE lifestyle is the optimal solution. As others have stated, its very difficult to change government or the majority, so the best way is to act as an individual and lead by example.

[jacob]

@theanimal - In my "youth" (age 24-29 or so) I spent a lot of time looking into exactly these kinds of issues and came to the same conclusions. More importantly, I decided to start a blog about that conclusion

My point is, that in all modesty, that there's a reason why ERE is the optimal(*) solution to these issues

(*) I'd love to hear about a better solution. If there is one, I haven't found it.

[7Wannabe5]

RiggerJack said: 7 billion people, 269k square miles=26,022 people per square mile. 41 per acre. What kind of suburbs pack 41 people per acre? There are 3 districts in LA that have a higher population density, but most of LA is way more spread out than that.

Right. Each human family of average size 3.8 people would fit on approximately 1/10th of an acre lot. Obviously, this is not how a real city or suburb is laid out because there is no space allotted for businesses, parks, schools, highways, sewage plant etc. etc. It's just a model meant to cause people to question their assumptions about the current density of human population. Another one I like because I camp fairly frequently is that there is about 1/4 acre of national park land in the United States for each citizen.

Now, I've gardened, but never using permaculture methods. The idea that you could feed 41 people off of an acre seems unrealistic at best.

According to the highly experienced and sensible-sounding (not like me-lol), Brett Markham, author of "Mini-Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre, using modern bio-intensive/perma-culture methods,

Ultimately, for total food self-sufficiency, you will need about 700 square feet per person.

= .016 acres. Of course, the 700 square ft. is planted bed area not taking needed pathways and composting areas into consideration but 41 people/acre would be about right.

What we need, is to associate breeding and poverty. Nothing gets uncool faster than the behaviors of the poor. Hell, people even quit smoking when it got associated with poverty. I'm just sayin'.

Damn that Angelina Jolie! Interesting recent trend seems to be associating very early parenthood with poverty and very late parenthood with wealth. However, the costs of fertility vacations to South American or Eastern European countries to procure fresh eggs are going way down and you can "adopt" a frozen embryo for less than $5000 so maybe it will soon go out of style.

However, I see no end soon to the trend that inspired the publication of "Metro Pet" magazine. There are 83.3 million dogs being well fed in the United States currently and a total of 57 million children in Bangladesh, many of whom are not being well-fed. Even though it is true that many or most pet owners have their dogs "fixed", 3x as many pet dogs are being fed in the United States than in 1979 whereas the number of children in the United States has only increased from 64.1 million to 74.3 million in the same 25 years. So, dogs plus kids fed in 1979 = 92 million and dogs plus kids fed in 2014 = 157.6 million with the clear and overwhelming percentage of increase in food waste going to excess dog breeding as opposed to human breeding. Just sayin' ; )

[Riggerjack]

There are 83.3 million dogs being well fed in the United States currently and a total of 57 million children in Bangladesh, many of whom are not being well-fed. Even though it is true that many or most pet owners have their dogs "fixed", 3x as many pet dogs are being fed in the United States than in 1979 whereas the number of children in the United States has only increased from 64.1 million to 74.3 million in the same 25 years. So, dogs plus kids fed in 1979 = 92 million and dogs plus kids fed in 2014 = 157.6 million with the clear and overwhelming percentage of increase in food waste going to excess dog breeding as opposed to human breeding.

Thank you. That made my day!

[jacob]

Yup that! If the funding going to the American (don't even need to include Euroland) pet industry was diverted towards world hunger, the problem would pretty much be solved. Solving world hunger would be very very easy! It's just that ... anyone who can afford it don't really care(*)

Humans, what can I say?

Not that it's not the case that I, in fact, do have a pet and also don't send funding to hungry people. Hypocritical priorities

(*) If you really want to bang your head against the wall try comparing what the funding spent on the various QE bailouts could have bought if it had been spent solving real world problems instead of on financial assets. It's truly mind-blowing; to the degree that sensitive individuals might feel quite depressed.