Overpopulation fears ?? I think not

[stealthycat]

Is there a global population problem ? Do we need to worry about it in this country (building off fng's theory that we should only have 2 children per family or whatever he was trying to get at) ?

Whats the most densely populated country in the world folks ? Mexico ? Maybe Ethiopia ? Nope, not even in the top 80 countries with the most people per geographic area.

Want to see a list ?

country pop. dens. area population
(/km²) (km²) (2002-07-01 est.)

Macau (PRC) 18,000 25 461,833
Monaco 16,000 2 31,987
Hong Kong (PRC) 6,688 1,092 7,303,334
Singapore 6,430 693 4,452,732

others ....

Republic of China 627 35,980 22,548,009
***an 336 377,835 126,974,628
United Kingdom 244 244,820 59,778,002
Ethiopia 60 1,127,127 67,673,031
United States 29 9,629,091 280,562,489



Whats my point here ? Dense poulation is NOT an indication of a poor or struggling country. The United States has a popultion density of 29 - the UK has a density of 244. We could grow and grow and still not meet their density without a loss of quality of life.

Is Gibraltar overpopulated ? Jersey or Guernsey ? barbados or the Marshall islands, the Neatherlands or Belgium ? We never think of these places as overpopulated .... why is that ?


Of course we have to factor in habitable land, right ? In a way, yes. A city could feasibly be built anywhere, couldn't it ? You could plant one right in the middle of the most barren of land and humans could live there - we are pretty adaptable and innovative. I believe Wyoming is the least densely populated state - but it could easily carry a much higher capacity of people. I'm not talking about people wanting to live there, or even the likelyhood of a large city developing there. We're talking about (building again on FNG's assumptions) if our country is close to population capacity, and just the REALITY of knowing that more people could live in XX state is enough to prove his ideas and those who tout global overpopulation wrong. Almost all land is habitable. Maybe not prime habitation, but thats not the question.

What about food ? Some countried struggle with it - like Ethiopia and African countries. But is it strictly a population issue ? No, its not, its more of an indication of poor management on a country level (for lack of better words) than it is population. Heck, the US pays its farmers to not grow food - just think what kinds of crops we could produce if the gates were opened full and farmers produces max crops every year ? Again I point to countries like UK and Belgium - they have no problems feeding their HIGHER population density peoples.

So does this make sense ? Population is not a big issue or concern, it just isn't, especially in the United States. Feeding people, taking care of a country's inhabitants - those are issues for sure, but its not because of sheer population that a problem exists, its the country itsself thats the issue.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lation_density

[badshotbob]

ORIGINAL: stealthycat

Is there a global population problem ? Do we need to worry about it in this country?

Nope, not as long as the UN is around.


Good post SC - real interesting stats.

[buckmine]

We are still a cancer to our planet......

[etothepii]

We are still a cancer to our planet......

Some are more like a scorching case of herpes.

[badshotbob]

ORIGINAL: buckmine

We are still a cancer to our planet......

How so?

[kevin1]

Personally ,
I think we're about due for the next Black Plague . There are over a billion people in China alone , same with India and Africa . With a total pop of over 6 billion sooner or later Mother Nature will solve the problem for us .

[Handles]

I wonder how the hunting and fishing is in those heavily populated countries? Think about that if you say our country can support millions and millions more people.

[vc1111]

We could grow and grow and still not meet their density without a loss of quality of life.

Honky hogwash.

Start here:

Define your benchmark for "quality of life."

With massive numbers come periodic shortages and logistical breakdowns. Something as simple as moving from point A to point B is thoroughly complicated. Nevermind the issue of dealing with exponential quantities of waste and the byproducts of everyday living.

A person could live in a 6 x 8 foot cell among thousands of other cells. It is possible, but no one could argue that such a person would have the same quality of life as that person would have living in a comfortable suburban neighborhood within a 1600 square foot home.

This is something that has not changed since the beginning of time. That man is versatile and somewhat resiliant does not mean that he can comfortably place his campfire just anywhere. Building cities in uninhabitable locations requires massive use of finite resources and the production of tons of pollution. Maintaining such an inhospitable location also requires ongoing expenditures of those finite resources at an exponential rate.

Spend a day in the desert in July. You can do it. But it won't be without a loss of "quality of life" or hefty expenditures on air conditioning and water provisions, which must essentially be carried from another region at that region's expense.

[stealthycat]

Honky hogwash.

****** response

Define your benchmark for "quality of life."

I don't have to. Population density does NOT directly correlate to what one defined as quality, does it ? I think Little Rock AR is too crowded, but certainly the quality of life is better than that of an unemployed Iraqi.

With massive numbers come periodic shortages and logistical breakdowns. Something as simple as moving from point A to point B is thoroughly complicated. Nevermind the issue of dealing with exponential quantities of waste and the byproducts of everyday living.

Does belgium have that problem ? UK ? Marshall Islands ?

A person could live in a 6 x 8 foot cell among thousands of other cells. It is possible, but no one could argue that such a person would have the same quality of life as that person would have living in a comfortable suburban neighborhood within a 1600 square foot home.

Koreans do this all the time, its their way of life. I worked with quite a few and those fellows packed guys into a hotel room like cardines and the Kimshee (sp?) odor was out of this world.

This is something that has not changed since the beginning of time. That man is versatile and somewhat resiliant does not mean that he can comfortably place his campfire just anywhere. Building cities in uninhabitable locations requires massive use of finite resources and the production of tons of pollution. Maintaining such an inhospitable location also requires ongoing expenditures of those finite resources at an exponential rate.

True ... but possible. Some places right now are not meant to house a large population - Mexico City comes to mind - but it is, it does and continues to grow, doesn't it ?

Spend a day in the desert in July. You can do it. But it won't be without a loss of "quality of life" or hefty expenditures on air conditioning and water provisions, which must essentially be carried from another region at that region's expense.

I wouldn't want to spend a day again in Caracas, but people do. I don't think Greenland would be an ideal place, but some people do. I don't think a lot of places "ideal" and would be a "loss" .... but thats my perception.

My point is this - FNG tried to correlate population to a degrading of quality of life, and I assure you people in the less densely populated African nations have a lower quality of life than the higher densities of European countries.

See ?

[buckmine]

A cancer is a cell that has gone bad and that was derived from your body. It is a cell with in your body that starts to feed off nutrients and ends up not giving anything back to the body. Basically competing with healthy cells. Your body becomes overpopulated with these bad cells and you die.

Replace cancer with human

replace cell with being

replace your/the body with earth.

We are draining the earth of its nutrients. Can any of you actually find me wrong with this. If so I will enjoy and maybe you will get me to rethink my opinion like some of you may have done on my post of global warming. I have to do more research fisrt on the global warming post.