Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: thedoc on 21/01/2011 16:13:23
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The problem of how we might feed the earth’s population in the future has come under further scrutiny this week with the publication of Agrimonde – a book that is the summation of two years of work by two French institutions...
Read the whole story on our website by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/2150/)
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Isn't the primary problem that we need to get the Global Human Population under control before nature starts to (or continues to) take its course?
It is a pretty simple equation.
Maximum of 1 kid per person, 2 kids per couple, and the population will level out (although there may be some momentum in some countries with extremely young populations, in which case perhaps more drastic measures are needed).
And, big countries like the USA should not be excused from that. There is no reason why our population should be growing.
How to make it happen?
- Get the religions leaders on board with the dire need to control our population. How can a religion claim to be "good shepherds", and still allow families with more than 2 kids, or fight against birth control?
- TAXES. For future born kids. Lifetime deduction for 1st born for each parent. Impose PUNITIVE TAXES for any additional kids. They should be able to support their cost to society. Only exception might be naturally conceived twins/triplets (but not fertility enhanced "litters").
- Enforced sterilization. I know this is brutal. Tie it to welfare if you wish. Why should I pay a penny of welfare for a family of 5+ kids? The same thing should be true on an international scale.
- Global Aid, Trading, Health Care, Subsidies, Food, etc.... tie it all to getting a country's population under control
- Education. Many studies show extreme benefits of education. Boys, girls, health ed, political ed.
- Global Access to Birth Control of all types. Why are we even arguing about birth control methods?
Whether or not CO2 is a "critical" issue to the world. We have many critical issues largely related to overpopulation including pollution, destruction of natural resources, habitat destruction, endangered species & species extinctions, etc. In fact, even non-sustainable agriculture.
Will our fertilizer resources be depleted in the future? Then what?
If an ice age should come. I suppose we're learning about greenhouse gases, but if we can't maintain the status-quo, the devastation could be tremendous.
I know the question was about feeding the world.
But, the answer should not be backing ourselves into a corner where we have to have genetically modified foods, enforce vegetarianism or veganism, mine phosphates and potassium until they are GONE. All because one's neighbors can't keep their pants on, or because priests refuse to be "good shepherds" of their flocks.
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Can we? Yes.
Will we? No.
We never have. We never will.
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If we didn't waste 20% of our food, the situation wouldn't be so bad.
That said, I do think we must change our eating habits. We cannot continue to fly food half way around the world (especially if we are going to throw 20% of it in the bin).
There is much to be taken into account when dealing with the problems we face now and will face in the future on this matter. Global climate problems are just one set of problems. There is also the matter of where we grow our foods and where it is needed. The ever increasing world population, the consequences of high oil prices on transport costs and fertilisers, the use of pesticides and herbicides not to mention GM technology and its effect on the natural world.
I can see our food becoming rather boring, if we find it necessary to cease the diversity in favour of the staples, in order to satisfy demand.
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I did my final assignment for my english class at school on population growth (mostly focusing on Australia but it applies to most of the developed world). In my conclusion to it all I basically stated that (amogst other things) that humans are used to having two cars in each family, to turning the air conditioner on all through the Summer months and to either watch TV or sit on their computers all afternoon everyday. Like Yamo said, we can support that many people but we wont simply due to the fact that humans are far too wasteful with their rsources and refuse to change. I personally believe that although we all do need to change our way of living that that a larger population is still a bad idea. Simply due to that fact that the world will reach it's limit and then what will happen? Whatever is left of the natural environment will be destroyed = no food = huge global famines... etc...
I know that this isn't really exactly to what the question was but here in Australia the government is currently supporting whaat they call a "big Australia" were they are trying to really boost Australia's population. Dick Smith has done some really big stuff about informing the public about the negatives of a growing population in Australia. Although it does focus on Australia it applies to the whole world. If your interested I'd recomend looking at this...
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/populationpuzzle/
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Simply because humans can survive on 1000 calories a day rather than 3000 calories, that doesn't mean that it should be our ultimate goal.
We have had 4 billion years of "Climate Change". If there was some kind of a climate disaster, that 1000 calories could quickly become 500, and you can imagine how easily that will be distributed.
Should we leave something for all the other species on the planet?
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I agree completely with you CliffordK.