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The Forum > General Discussion > World population, its impacts

World population, its impacts

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We may well wander in to climate change, but lets look first at growth and current known impacts.
1750 to 1800 our population is said to have been one billion.
With the coming of the industrial revolution we began to climb to todays massive numbers and continue to grow at extreme rates.
In just numbers is humanity impacting on our planet?
Farmers know over stocking a paddock can change it forever, introduce weeds kill pasture for years.
What do others think,can the planet sustain even more population growth.
Impacts, lets not forget some country's are trying to reduce numbers,in China and maybe India one child seems to be creating a world with no women to marry the only sons.
Just maybe a future war will be fought to women can be won as wives in some country's.
Posted by Belly, Friday, 8 April 2011 7:10:39 PM
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Belly,
We may well differ on human induced climate change but I share your concern about the growing world population. In fact I see population as a far greater threat than GW, human induced or not.

The way I see it is that with predicted shortages of oil we will be unable to grow the food for many people and many will starve. This will happen in places like Africa when famine hits and the West does not have enough food to spare to give them. Already our fish stocks are becoming short and I do not see much room for agricultural expansion. I think China is smart in buying further agricultural land in other countries.

However Iran has shown that birthrates can be lowered by education in contraception. The birthrate in Iran dropped from 3.2 to 1.2. See article below.

http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2001/update4ss

If religion does not get in the way, it shows we can reduce the population by non draconian means that should lead to a better life for all concerned. The questin is, do we have the will to do it?
Posted by Banjo, Saturday, 9 April 2011 9:54:52 AM
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Dear Belly,

We do have a serious problem. As our population continues to grow our "needs" increase and our capacity for exploitation expands. All over the world, and especially in the less developed societies, the pressure of the human population and its technologies is devastating
natural ecosystems. This pressure takes many forms - from urbanization and highway construction, transformation of virgin lands into farmland: chemical pollution of fresh water; dredging and landfill in coastal areas; uncontrolled hunting and poaching (especially in African wildlife) deliberate and accidental poisoning of wildlife with pesticides; strangulation of millions of birds and fish with discarded styrofoam pellets, plastic bags, and other synthetic flotsam; dam construction and irrigation; and massive deforestation.

The planet has a finite amount of resources and it can tolerate only so much exploitation and ravaging. If world population continues to grow rapidly, if industrialisation spreads around the world and if pollution and resource depletion continues at an increasing rate - and all these things continue - where is human society headed?

The most optimistic answer is that one way or another sweeping social changes will be awaiting us. Many people don't see our ravaging of the environment as "ravaging" at all. They look upon it as "progress" or "development." Many are so used to exploiting natural resources and dumping their waste products into the environment that they don't think or simply forget that resources are limited and exhaustible that pollution can disrupt the ecological balance on which our very survival depends.

PS:

The world's population is well over six and a half billion and growing.
Posted by Lexi, Saturday, 9 April 2011 12:03:49 PM
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I expect planet earth will institute some sort of population "correction" sometime in the future (she seems somewhat adept at that).

The fascinating aspect of all this that the richest 1 billion people in the world use 80% of the resources - (that would be the greedy-pants West).

So we can wring our hands and shake our heads at the rapid growth of population in third world countries....

We can laud the "Green Revolution" in India that has produced vast yields , yet robbed the peasants of their knowledge and agency, poisoned the countryside and depleted water tables.
We might also note that much of this "yield" is stockpiled to keep prices artificially inflated. People still die of malnutrition in India.

We can shout Hoorah! that China empties its villages of all but children and grandparents, while the able-bodied flock to the cities to ramp up China's economic growth.
How can we deny them what we have?

We have a good life ion the West, but let's not forget who are the gluttons....it's us.
Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 9 April 2011 12:49:42 PM
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If we take one thousand directions in this thread we will leave another thousand unmentioned.
My view is that further population growth is not,, yet sustainable.
And that we will suffer just at todays figures soon.
In 1750 we burned coal in small tonnages, mostly to warm our selves.
Timber too was used and we built boats and homes from it, we had little regard for it.
A billion of us,we killed each other in wars and disease's killed a great deal more.
We began the industrial Revelation and better health care and research about the same time.
In Australia from post world war one we used massive chains between bulldozers to destroy Forrest's to open up farm lands that often failed.
We know, we need land to live, but turn our best farm land in to housing land.
Already a drought prone land we continued to farm as if rain would change its century's old patterns and come .
I do not look for wise men to change anything, we can never agree on this subject and may never see the true out comes.
I look with concern and fear at a side issue in Lybias conflict, not the only country by far,but it imports most of its food!
What after oil for such country's.
Refugees ,we love to be angry about them, but a basic truth can not be avoided, most want to eat.
Posted by Belly, Saturday, 9 April 2011 3:38:12 PM
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How much coal have we burnt from 1750 till today.
How many trees cut down and not replaced.
What is todays population of the world.
How many in 50 more years.
How much farming land is no longer usable.
How much more is becoming so.
We grow much more food now but every day some starve.
Has population impacted on the planet.
Can we continue to grow, build homes in flood and earth quake zones.
I think we are confronted by our own need for growth.
Posted by Belly, Saturday, 9 April 2011 7:02:14 PM
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