Belly,
What I would like to know is how csteele, Danelle and landright4all propose that ever increasing populations in third world countries are to be fed.

Practical people are aware that sea food harvests are dimishing and more and more productive farmland is being covered up with bitumen and houses. Therefore our capacity to produce food is constantly being reduced.

Estimates already put this years production to be short 6.5 million tons of corn and 500,000 tons short of wheat. So who is going to go hungry. 6 million kids died from lack of food last year and 92.5 million people were undernourished.

It must be good to simply ignore these facts and say not to worry we can feed everyone.

We have not even factored in Bazz's fuel rising costs and availability at this point.

I can see plenty of hard winters ahead for millions of people outside the western world.

Can these 'deniers' show us how to feed the growing population?

Banjo,

I agree that third world countries are overpopulated. I really don't know how this can be addressed.

Banjo yes agree, sadly it is not a consideration for the dreamers.
In my last link, possibly the best I posted it is the time taken to fill the last half of the glass.
The accelerating nature of the growth, that brings my concerns.
I too could post link after link of the great steps in increasing food production from avoiding past predicted famine to future ones avoided.
How do we sideline Southern Africa's recent history?
What do we do about starvation on the sub continent?
How will the current northern hemispheres drought affect the world?
At what point will food prices be too high for the true poor to buy?
As we know food grains are being used as fuel right now.
We have a problem, saying we can fix it but ignoring a truth, no one wants to, is folly.
Can some who say we have no problem tell me what in their opinion, the total population can get to before we need to worry?

If we reach the position of overpopulation and famine, possibly a Malthusian adjustment will kick in.

The weak and vulnerable will die, female fertility will cease until sufficient nutrition/food becomes regularly available.

Certainly populations will plummet to sustainable numbers, which could well be quite small ...

Hi Banjo - FEED THE POOR?

We are so soaked from our childhood onwards in our “power” & “competiton” ways of thinking that we can hardly even imagine any alternative. We assume that the educated, those in the know, those in power (leaders, soldiers & political movements) are the answer – or that we ourselves might set an example if only there were enough of us willing to be martyres to the cause – but what an unattractive life martyres illustrate.

We all but ignore “the poor”, except perhaps to hope they will rise up & “take power” in this world of our limited perspective. (More competitive thinking)

Actually, I reckon the poor are the only ones who might show us how to advance along a new path, because the path along which we the rich have trod is simply unattainable for them (and unsustainable for us).

So do we just sit & wait for them to show us the way? Of course not – we have erected structural barriers that prevent them from advancing along any path which is not ours & these barriers must be opened up with our help. Meanwhile we owe them a substantial increase in aid to tide them through!

In Australia for example, the Centrelink Activity Test needs a simple change which could serve us all better & empower the unemployed. see http://on.fb.me/Azrz9F
This would empower change in the options social housing tenants can follow see http://bit.ly/fAWRjc

Demonstrating a more sustainable ATTRACTIVE way forward could take the fear out of the changes we need to make.

How would this feed the poor? Land security (which the poor don't have) is the foundation for food & shelter - what is needed is land security and the opportunity to tread their own path, free of the burden of the mortgage which would force them down the unsustainable path we are on (specialisation, industrialisation).

No, the world isn't overpopulated - but the poor ARE forced into unviable land in countries that follow our land ownership model and offer no alternative. The option is something we COULD demonstrate.

Ah, the still small voice of sanity and reason. Thank you, Danielle.

>>I agree that third world countries are overpopulated. I really don't know how this can be addressed.<<

And...

>>If we reach the position of overpopulation and famine, possibly... the weak and vulnerable will die, female fertility will cease until sufficient nutrition/food becomes regularly available.<<

The earth's population of humans reacts to precisely the same set of variables as that of the animal kingdom. Including, of course, the impact of predators, both within and outside the tribe. Any supposedly intellectually-founded attempts to influence this, such as a one-child policy, or massive food-aid programmes, result only in the creation of their own imbalances, and ultimately fail in their basic purpose.

Another way of looking at the question would be to ask whether there are too many sparrows, or mosquitoes, or locusts, or Tasmanian tigers in the world. And be prepared to justify your answer in logical terms.