If we leave what may be symptoms of on over populated world out, Refugee/Migration flows, and sideline the issues different faiths are fueling, just maybe we can, without racism,any isms, ask has this world reached peak population? if not when will it, how will we handle it?

AIUI the world has already reached Peak Child, but has not yet reached Peak Population because people are living longer.

Dear Belly,

We have a finite planet with finite resources.

In such a system you can't have infinite population
growth.

Dear Belly,

The symptom of over-population is regimentation.

Technically we could squeeze even more humans on this planet, but with the numbers come rules and regulations - you cannot have that many individuals do what they want without stepping on others' toes.

One example is Singapore: their population is extremely dense, but they manage economically very well. To achieve this, however, the enclave-state is totalitarian with little tolerance for any alternate ways of life from cradle to grave.

Unless you want to live like an ant, the current population is already some orders of magnitude above what it should be to allow for natural individual freedoms.

Obesity shows us that we are a long way from full. Plenty of food being dumped in the sea and regional areas calling out for population growth. The lies of those arguing overpopulation has been swallowed by the masses.

Dear Runner,

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

[Matthew 4:1-4]

Yes we still have plenty of bread (though some problems in getting it to everywhere where it is needed), but the spirit is being choked.

Don't you find the persecution of Christian bakers on grounds of "anti-discrimination" a sign that there are too many of us around?

Homosexuality too, like it or not, is increased as a natural/genetic response to population density.
Abortions too, like them or not, are more frequent as a result of having less space and other resources to accommodate a new baby.

Nay, we have only little wilderness left. At the time of Jesus, it was common for spiritual seekers to leave their town or village and easily find an isolated spot where they could sit uninterrupted, fast and otherwise purify their mind for 40 days. Now with all the people around and the technology that is required to maintain them, including drones, GPS and constant short-wave electromagnetic contamination, where would the Spirit find enough such spiritual refuges?

Overpopulation results in congestion - not just physical traffic, but also an overwhelming amount of stimuli and temptations, that much that we have much less time left for religion and spirit.

What else is needed to convince you that God's blessing, "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" has served its course successfully, has now been fulfilled and can be safely ticked off and placed in the "WELL DONE" basket?

Some people are ahead of their times but as per usual no notice is taken of them

http://divermag.com/letter-to-the-women-of-the-world-by-hans-hass/

The world doesn't have a peak population. There are areas of dense population, and areas of very little population. Yet still we say we are over populated. The areas of dense population are an attraction to many others to come too. To escape their current life situtions for what a large city has to offer. (Culture, career, adventure). Many areas of sparse populations have a reason to be sparse. (No work, fewer resources).

But from what I can tell areas with little population are there latgely because of a depressed economy and low job oppurtunities. If more successful industries spread out people would follow suit. (Without harming the world resources).

Instead of asking if the world has a peak population. I'd turn it around and ask if there's a cap on work, industries, and businesses. Then if the answer is yes, I'd ask if it was artificially caped (government restrictions/ regulations) or if other factors contribute that could be overcome.

Greed and waste are two elements that give the same symptoms of overpopulation. Where there aren't enough resources. But their cause of being wasteful or greedy that strip resources away from the sourounding population seem not to be noticed as much in the conversation of over population.

Hey Belly,
It's hard to say what the number for global maximum population might be.
I suspect that the earth could take a whole lot more than we think, with the right application of innovative technology, and the right management.
Maybe 50 billion or more, it really depends on our ability to feed ourselves sustainably.

You lot are probably gonna say 'Whoa!' but hear me out.
In fact just watch this short video first:
http://youtu.be/nH-zpnoNLEU

I want you to be optimistic and consider that if this is where our potential is then where is the limit?
All we really need is food and shelter.
Imagine this type of technology just a few short years down the track. Imagine 10,000 of these machines all working together to build a single city for a million or people that was just one huge single building.
Automation could change everything, all we need to build is energy and resources.
Alan B. reminds us there are answers for energy, and so then all we need is good nutritional food.
Now I'm sure we can innovate with farming and food creation in the same way robots can build a house.

In posting this I knew we can not ignore both those who say people like Dick Smith are racist, and those who think to subject is refugees/migration, those are symptoms not the question, Capitalism, the best of every system we have ever tried,is in the end a Ponzi scheme, it needs constant growth to continue,that is in every thing, can we say parts of west Africa, constantly subject to famine and drought is over populated? is the answer moving the victims some other place or confronting over all numbers who can live there?
I think it is clear we are already over populated,and that every thing from climate change to concerns over water are symptoms of that

//if not when will it, how will we handle it?//

Have you tried 'kill all the poor'?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg

Just kidding... although I suspect some of our resident Tories would be only too happy to consider genocide of certain groups as a method population control.

BTW, does anybody think it's a coincidence that we've had Liberal treasurers since 2013, and it's been about 5 years since I've seen a dwarf in this country?

The rate of population growth has been declining for the last 50 years or so, and is likely to keep declining as those countries with high growth rates develop economically. The smart money is on world population levelling off somewhere around 12 billion, then probably starting to decline a bit after that.

//We have a finite planet with finite resources.//

On the other hand:

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
- Douglas Adams

And the population of the universe is zero:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObwmwnbSw-A

In short, we need to get off this rock and out into the galaxy. Before the Vogons show up.

To Belly.

If you want to look at the other side of the argument, take a look at a world map that shows population distribution. Google it if you want to see results. Looking at those maps myself it shows several areas that are densely populated and vast areas near by that are sparse in population. In the areas that are densely populated it would be intreasting to see how each region handles the population they hold onto. Of course the denser areas strain the resources of that local area, but I think an investment in the infrastructure for both the dense areas and the sparse areas would help out both accessibility to move away from where people were before, as well as finding the means to support more people in both the denser and the sparser populated areas.

If people can move to an new area that they think will suit them better, they will. From there it might come down to looking at human population as an ecosystem with different resources to successfully support higher populations. Or trying to gather the intreast of industries that support society to the less dense areas. Which would even out the population distribution greatly. People follow the jobs. Infrastructure growth follows wealth. Those are our caps on population dispersement, which should be the next issue to deal with over population.

Someone please enlighten me because I'm not really into religious stuff.
Did God say to go out & populate the Earth or the Universe ?
If he meant the latter than he should have provided Man...oops, Peoplekind with more sense because they're only going to make a mess out there as well.
If they are heading for Mars soon than how about a plastic bag ban from day 1.

To Indivual.

Space travel for expanding the population is a pipe dream. At best small populations might journey out the to another world and be successful at populating it. At worst (and much more likely) small populations would journey out to another world and not be able to survive or make it work. It would be better to try and find means to make it work here on earth, and use our inovations to support us with reliable infrastructure for water, food and shelter. Then just disperse the population to fill the earth, instead of stuff certian parts of the world.

Not-Now,soon.
My idea of slowing many of the problems facing humans is to nip humans in the butt so to speak.
In general, humans are quite insipid & it's only for the minority of sensible, self-discilplined that the show keeps on going but with decreasing quality. People must be encouraged to think for themselves to make it worthwhile having them share this planet & enjoy all its natural beauty instead of ruining it for money. we need a system in which every able individual is required to pull their worth. Instead of wasting billions on "experts" to search for solutions we could use that funding to actually go out & do.
People should be encouraged to have fewer children if they are not able to support more than two. Very early termination of pregnancy could morally be justified & it should not be unaffordable for parents infact, it should be free to make population control a reality.
Migration should not happen with more than two children. Refugees could be a dread of the past if authorities would act immedeately instead of waiting till situations get out of hand.
Religion which is the primary cause of human conflict needs to be banned in public.
Make public servants accountable.

"we need to get off this rock and out into the galaxy."

Well I've got my towel close by.

"although I suspect some of our resident Tories would be only too happy to consider genocide of certain groups as a method population control."

Although pretty much every example of genocide was perpetrated by those on the left.

" it's been about 5 years since I've seen a dwarf in this country?"

I don't think you're allowed to say dwarf these days. They are merely differently heighted. In fact I saw a dwarf t'other day. Asked him for a loan. But he said he couldn't cos he was a bit short.

ba-boom

We've been told for 200 years that we're on the brink of running out of food. But, in fact, we produce more calories per capita now than at any time in history. And the per capita production continues to rise and will rise even more now that the greens are weakening on their opposition to GM foods.

Whenever this issue is raised we are told that we have finite resources as though its a big revelation. But its both a truism and utterly irrelevant. We've never ever run out of a single resource due to human ingenuity. Where are the peak oilers these days?

The most important resource on the planet is the human brain and it resolves all other resource problems. Having more of that resource is always a good thing.

In response to Armchair Critic, Sunday, 10 June 2018 3:24:10 AM

AC deserves credit for lateral thinking. Also for injecting hope into this hard problem.

There's a few engineering solutions to massive populations.

I'm a big fan of 3D printing (expecially 3D Printed Buildings - and this looks like a good implementation) but let us test it a bit more before we use it for massive social engineering. ;)

Remember the British Public Housing Disaster of the 1960's - Billion's of pounds of tax payers money wasted, broken buildings, and billion's more to fix.

Then there's the healthy cultures angle. Best to put it out there and see if people use it. The highest form of management is to give people good options.

But when we get down to it what is the purpose in having an enormous monolithic human population of 50 billion or 500 billion people.
Bigger is not always better - what could you do with 50 billion people that you can't do with 1 Billion people or less. I think most people would prefer more space but they can't restrain the urge to procreate. Human beings have a layered brain structure due to brain evolution and are often torn between reptilian and human parts (instinctive and rational).

Reducing our population is a better use for human creativity. But hard decisions (HD) will have to be made - everyone takes the easy decision (ED).

HD x pop < ED x pop => Malthusian Disaster => Population Leadership

At my age you only have to revisit those places you last saw as a child to see what population growth has bought about, say Grandvile is Sydney, or Paramatta,we do, humans that is, change things forever,a comment spoke about a possible future, laws saying who can have children,do not discount it China had a one child policy, the sub continent kills still its female baby's at birth,hence a shortage of women/wives a war may even come to settle that issue,is it some thing we can control,? constant growth? is it our best/only option?

Child support for two good, child support for three or more heavily reduced as an incentive to ask for termination. very early termination under such circumstances are completely moral, anyone saying otherwise, provide your TFN so child support can be deducted from you pay.
People will be shocked at themselves when they realise how shallow their concerns for human life really are when the receive the next pay.

Individual - The article from "Hass" is interesting. It's great to see "respected greats" participating in hard problems of humanity.

There are many interesting comments on this forum and it would take significant time to mention everyone - but know that - I see greatness here - and it's marvelous.

Possible reason for massive problems is due in part to SocSci's dominating population policy rather than Engineers. SocSci somewhat an oxymoron - see Enron. Engineers have also known to be motivated by greed - at least they understand the maths. Malthus said that most processes in society such as acquisition of resources R is a process that scales arithmetically (linearly R ~ T) in time T. Increases in population scale geometrically (exponentially P ~ e^T) with time. He said that if population is not controlled to match the resources (P ~ R) then it is just a matter of time before a disaster occurs to correct the population (back to P ~ R).
It's not a perfect theorem but a broad rule of thumb. Most social theories are - due to their complexity.
Critics of Malthusian theory say that GNP is a more relevant equivalency, but most accept its validity and can be used to explain events in history.
The critics of Malthusianism are probably opportunists that want to take advantage of the profit curve till population controls are implemented - at that point they will have maximum resources. We have seen this by the smoking, anti-Environmental, and other lobby groups.

I love lobbyists - they're funny. ;)

Resources include varying methods of obtaining more space (including space travel, better utilization of land, etc), more water, more food, etc - they tend to scale arithmetically.

It's all fairly anthropocentric. Maybe we should breed with animals so we can break down the barriers between us and create a common culture - or maybe we can have separate communities and visit each other once in a while.

* Toni Lavis said "The rate of population growth has been declining for the last 50 years or so, and is likely to keep declining as those countries with high growth rates develop economically. The smart money is on world population levelling off somewhere around 12 billion, then probably starting to decline a bit after that."

* In reply to Toni Lavis - This common view is stated often in the media - A warm pot to boil frogs - but it indicates that "everyone believes that population does need a limit" - whether "the money is smart" or "not" - whether the population should max at 1B (Billion) or 12B or 50B - is up for discussion.

In Population Biology there is a concept of "Carrying Capacity" the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely. Often the exact amount is unknown but we know it must exist. It's not just a matter of packing each individual into a 1x1x2metre box and stacking them - as Aristotle would say an empirical method needs to be employed.
Maybe a 100 x 100 x 2 metre box would work better - this is similar to the Biodome project of the early 90's. Poynting said that the Biodome worked as far as biological needs were concerned - however psychology was somewhat broken.

Many believe that many countries are already beyond the Carrying Capacity of their country. Malthus has views on what happens next.

Countries that are beyond their Carrying Capacity can borrow the capacity of another country at a cost - who pays the price?

As we approach the Carrying Capacity there are expected undesirable psychological and social effects perhaps this implies that a stable population should be significantly under the biological and psychological limit.

We need to break the Soc / Cap dichotomy - mislead "them" down the garden path.

Its been said that companies should only care about profit to shareholders and it's the responsibility of government to regulate - but at the same time they undermine the governments ability to do this. But at least companies understand the maths.

Socialists are interesting and seem to be one dimensional idealists that don't understand budgeting - maths. If you want to be amused and are particularly masochistic try teaching them maths.

A common mistake is to find a problem solution without conducting a baseline analysis and test solution closed loop feedback test.

Human's are very funny they think they're smarter than nature, if we are wise perhaps in the future we will be.

I hope some here will look up the ALT left and right movements and find out their views as there are many like minded people. It would be such a loss to squander the greatness evident here.

One of the reasons for the current population situation perhaps is that communism got a bloody nose - they can't admit defeat - they need a face saving way of backing down. I sympathise with them as the workers often deserve better leadership. Perhaps business / industrialist leaders should do military training. A general must be humane - but this should be balanced with other attributes.

Marx was a fan of Hegel - Marxists need to make a Hegelian compromise. So do industrialists for that matter.

So the socs and caps are at war - the caps are winning on some fronts - this war will meet a common enemy - the limits of the planet. Hopefully they look up from the fight long enough to see it coming.

Like rabbits on a highway... of mice and men ... we are all straw ... Hysterical. :))

Dear Belly,

According to the BBC - "It's not the number of people
on this planet that is the issue - but the number
of consumers and the scale and nature of their
consumption."

Gandhi once stated - "The world has enough for everyone's
need, but not enough for everyone's greed."

The BBC tells us that world population as it stands now
is over 7.3 billion. And according to the UN predictions it
could reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and over 11 billion by 2100.

Global consumption is unevenly distributed and people
living in high-income nations must play their part if the
world is to sustain a large human population. Only when
wealthier groups are prepared to adopt low-carbon lifestyles
and allow their governments to support seemingly
unpopular moves - will we reduce the pressure of global climate,
resource, and waste issues.

We need to consider that the earth is our only home and
we must find a way to live on it sustainably.

Scaling back our consumption - a transition to low-carbon
lifestyles - only when we've done these things will we really
be able to estimate how many people our planet can sustainably
hold.

It is too late for child-support, not even for one or two. Rather, parents ought to be be punished by paying for all the direct and indirect costs of their procreation habits, including schooling, minding, health-care, feeding and housing.

(but it would not be appropriate to punish existing parents: a fair warning needs to be given first, so the above applies only to children that are conceived afterwards)

Nobody should be killed, rich or poor, but sterilisation and/or celibacy is the order of the day, until human population drops back to 1-2% of what it is today.

I agree with the claim that if desired, even more humans could be fed and housed - someone mentioned 50 billions, but the question is of quality rather than quantity: what is the purpose of all this breeding? If the purpose is to make humans live like ants, then we have ants already, between 1-10 quadrillions of them (10^15-10^16)!

Foxy - I liked your comments - but with respect the BBC can't even protect itself from other trucks coming down the road let alone protecting us from humanity. Pity I generally like the BBC.

Also like I've said previously resources scale arithmetically in time - population scales geometrically T << e^T . Reducing population is always going to reduce the problem faster than increasing resources

Child support? really? in some parts of this world child support is finding enough food to feed them, Australia's support system is not universal and not the reason population is growing too fast,yes we can feed more,true, why are we not however doing that now? aid is at an all time low, but needed as much as any time in history.currently our quest for wealth and constant growth leaves ever more true poor behind us.
Is the answer to pack more in to the rich nations,? or can we plan a system that can support current or some size population in their own country's?

Canem Malum,

Whether you like the BBC or love it is irrelevant.

In this case it's not our opinions that matter -
but those who are knowledgeable in the key disciplines
underpinning modern environmental decision making
otherwise known as sustainability science; ecology;
economics and ethics.

Cheers.

Foxy said "In this case it's not our opinions that matter - but those who are knowledgeable in the key disciplines underpinning modern environmental decision making otherwise known as sustainability science; ecology; economics and ethics."

* Interesting comments here -

What's more important is the quality of the information that the "knowledgeable" produce - what I was intimating is that journalists require some knowledge of the problem - that perhaps they need to choose their experts better and ask better questions. I'd be surprised if journalists knew what a Malthusian Catastrophe is. The sad thing is experts, who have an agenda, need to be held accountable in a scientific community, but can get away with certain comments in the public media that they wouldn't in more scientific publications. But who knows academia is in a fairly sad state. Publishing publicly rather than in peer reviewed journals is discredited at certain institutions - seen as vanity publishing. It is fairly well known that Economics specialists are subject to certain political constraints if they're serious about their career.

Garbage in garbage out - the system needs to have integrity to be reliable. A PhD is what is known as - a requisite but not sufficient condition.

I didn't see "Population Biology" in your "knowledgeable" list - I suspect that would be most relevant here - maybe there was one but you missed it (could be the ecologist). Give me a link and we can check the source material...

Ben Goldacre's TED talk puts this very well! If I with hold 76% of the results I can convince you I've got a coin with two heads...

Anyway good discussion Foxy

The most important resource on the planet is the human brain
mhaze,
The thing with that is that the brain is already housed, the body is not. Another problem is that the brain takes in rubbish but can't empty it every monday.
We have bodies that house brilliant brains but superstition, greed, lust & lust for power outnumber these brilliant 6 Billion to one.
A lot of people make a lot of money by suppressing integrity & responsibility. Most of them can be encountered in authority where they work overtime.

Hey Mhaze,
”We've never ever run out of a single resource due to human ingenuity".

Let me tell you a story about human ingenuity.

A group of people out in their fishing boat get caught in an ocean current and eventually get marooned on an island thousands of miles from anywhere.
The island is heavily forested and there is much timber.
The people build boats and homes and can go far out from the island to fish and they live prosperously... for a time.
Eventually the forest starts to thin out and the timber resource becomes greatly diminished.
The people on the island then become divided into two factions and a civil war ensues among the people.
One group who want to preserve the remaining forest and the other who want to use the remaining timber for boats; to gather food.

Question: Does anyone here know of the people and place I'm talking about and what happens next?

If nobody figures it out I'll post the answer tomorrow.

My thing about this issue essentially is who decides who lives and who dies for someone else's 'preferred number'?

I'm not going to choose who should die.
And that's why I prefer to choose something else.

The only answer I can come up with for the previous question is this:

Those who truly believe we are overpopulated need to stand up for what they believe in and offer to kill themselves and or their dependents first, so that others who don't believe we are overpopulated aren't themselves forced to choose.

If you don't put your money where your mouth is then your adding to the problem.

Dear Critic,

Has anyone here suggested killing anyone else? I think not.

Not only that, as much as I consider procreation to be inappropriate in our day and age, I still strongly object to China's one/two-child policy.

We do however have every right not to support other people's actions which we find unwholesome. If they want to procreate, then they cannot be forbidden, but they will need to foot the bills.

Oh Foxy! When are you finally going to finally realise that the biggest problem in the world today is governments listening to those fool, ivory tower academic experts you keep giving credibility. Most of them don't know which way is up, & those that do, too often have an axe to grind or a political motive in giving bad advice.

Belly aid is probably the dirtiest word in the language. When my son & his ship were in Indonesia after the tsunami, giving help to totally isolated areas, the government people they were liaising with said, "We no want you. You go home. Send money".

As for feeding the world, we could feed double no problem, if it was viable to grow food. Just in my district there are 10s of thousands of acres of very good river flats that could grow grain or small crops, if a farmer could make a living doing it. All those acres graze lots of horses & even more cows. You can't loose money on a few cows.

We had one Vietnamese family recently try small crops. They thought they were in heaven. Great land on the river, plenty of water & close to market. They worked their butts off, & produced great produce. All too often they did not get the cost of the boxes & freight for their stuff. They made more from a road side stall on weekends than for the bulk of their stuff.

Then the council demanded thousands of dollars worth of road work to allow a stall. They are still there, grazing a few cows, & running a couple of trucks for a living. In this country we have lots of bureaucrats who's only aim in life is to punish anyone who does something useful.

Canem Malum,
SocSci domination is not the problem - the real problem is accountants making the decisions that should be made by engineers. One result of this is we're not getting the infrastructure built that we would if the engineers were in charge - hence our growing population is causing big problems that could be easily solved!

But beware of any engineer who's motivated by greed!

"The critics of Malthusianism" would include Malthus himself, for he never regarded exponential population growth as inevitable (he merely warned it's possible). Were he alive today, he'd look at the situation and conclude that (contrary to the claims of self proclaimed Malthusians) the problem is being dealt with, mainly thanks to reliable contraception. The reason populations are still rising is because people are living longer.

What you don't seem to understand is that the carrying capacity isn't fixed. It's a function of technology, standard of living, and willingness to address the issues. That's true everywhere, but it's more apparent in Australia than most places because here there are still a lot of people who wrongly regard treating the environment with contempt as an economic necessity.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Armchair,
I think I know where you mean. But are you sure that's what the two groups wanted?

Anyway, what happens next is that all their trees get cut down, but their society recovers and they intensively farm their island. Later, sailing ships break their isolation. After that their society is devastated by slave traders and smallpox. Others see the devastation and blame the lack of trees.

Hasbeen it would be wrong of me to not know and say clearly aid and charity's are not always, or near always, honest, cargo cult mentality exists, hence our government, your government, paying 50 million dollars, to re settle ONE refugee, in Cambodia!BUT aid, policed harshly, can reduce refugee flows, John Howard, hardly a lefty bleeding heart, used aid to Indonesia to educate and stop people becoming terrorists.if we are to ever say yes we need to stall population growth we will need to revisit and use aid as part of that.
See a lot of simplistic we can feed more stuff here but it remains my view we must confront this soon before it is too late

Hey Aiden,
The place I'm talking about has stone monuments, and as far as I recall from the documentary I watched, most of the people on the island died out, leaving just a handful.

Hey AC, recent research has totally disproved the theory that the people of Easter Island destroyed their trees to roll stone statues around, or to build canoes.

"If nobody figures it out I'll post the answer tomorrow."

I just hope you're not talking about Easter Island.

"We have bodies that house brilliant brains but superstition, greed, lust & lust for power outnumber these brilliant 6 Billion to one."

So there's only 1.26 brilliant brains on the planet? Methinks we've found one brain that has no comprehension of maths.

When I talk of the brain, it's a metaphor for human intelligence - the unlimited resource that took a naked ape and created things like the device you're currently reading. The intelligence that turned a stick into a tool, conquered famine, doubled lifespans etc etc. But it is true that a section of that collective intelligence struggles to understand the world around it and has no comprehension of how extraordinary that intelligence is.

Hey Hasbeen,
Yes I was referring to Easter Island, from a documentary I watched some time back.
I'm not even sure I could find the video now easily, it was that long ago.
It seemed both convincing and logical at the time though.
What are they saying actully happened there now?
It's all rather curious and interesting.

Hi Belly,

Half of Australia's annual population growth is from immigration and refugees: without them, not only would our population be barely growing at all but it would be ageing rapidly - those immigrants and refugees would tend to be joining the working population of Australia, and thank goodness for that.

In many parts of the world - Europe, Japan, even Lebanon - the birth-rate is not keeping pace with mortality and population growth is either stagnant or declining. China is, of course, facing a disastrous population decline later this century as its abandoned one-child policy is, in fact, continued by a population used to the idea. As Aidan noted above, population continue too rise, not because of 'too many babies' but because people live longer.

As well, the introduction of pension systems tends, after a learning phase, to reduce the number of babies born. And of course, as women - there key to it all - seize education opportunities, they tend to marry later, if at all, and to have far fewer kids, if any at all.

So there are many factors leading to either population stability or decline, but certainly not over-population. As someone else observed, there are many parts of the world which are barely populated and - strange ! -the areas which are heavily populated tend to be amongst the most prosperous on the planet. Europe has a much denser population than China, more like 500 people to the square km rather than China's 140-odd.

The relationships between population growth, prosperity, technology, women's rights, social policy and educational opportunities are far too complex for my old brain, but they may, on balance, point to slightly higher world population by 2100, mainly by growth in under-populated Africa, but even that will slow down to zero by 2100 with improvements in social policy and educational opportunities for women.

Perhaps our grandchildren will be more worried about stagnating population growth ? Maybe not even that.

Cheers,

Joe

Hey Hassie,

My fear is that the global community remains blind to
the limits nature imposes on all life. The answer that
I see lies in the accumulated knowledge of good science
and economics and also most critically in human behaviour.

It is predominantly ethical values in the exploitation of
finite natural resources - fairness today and fairness
between generations - that will determine the greatest
challenge of our time. It's in my nature to remain an
optimist - however I don't see how victory will be
achieved by standing on the sidelines.

I see hope in the greatest challenge facing the human species:
that of living within the bounds of the planet's life systems.
The bottom line is that of ethics, and in particular whether
we are prepared to share these limited resources, will
ultimately decide the outcome.

I don't think that anybody of any intelligence would deny
that the planet has a finite amount of resources or that it
can tolerate only a limited amount of pollution. 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 to happen - where is human society headed?
The most optimistic answer to these questions would have to
be that - one way or another, sweeping changes await us.

Loudmouth Gday, maybe it is just me,but I am not convinced we will have a voice in population or just about any thing else in the near future, yes this country, like America, once, thrives on migration refugee intake, constant growth needs it, but while starvation water shortages and other factors will, WILL , drive refugee flows so very much larger than today is keeping the numbers just putting them in other country's the answer?not have a voice? we have little impact right now on most things, we even ignore if we have any power at all it is and must be in the much despised politics on election days

Dear Foxy,

Newton could have said that resources can neither be created nor destroyed - we have to technology to find those that already there, now all we have to do is develop technologies which use, re-cycle and re-use the resources which are already there. I don't think that the finity of resources is really a problem. In fact, i suspect that by 2100, we'll be leaving resources in the ground, tripping over the bloody stuff, simply because cheaper alternatives - from re-cycling - will be readily available.

I was talking to my daughter about the non-biodegradability of plastics, and how valuable this property is in the manufacture of precisely non-biodegradable products - furniture, park-benches, road surfaces, paint, building materials, and so on. If we paired the utilisation of plastic's non-biodegradability with improvement in re-cycling technology, we'd be laughing.

It's an inexhaustible world, Foxy :)

Love,

Joe

Belly,

You have to distinguish between migrants and refugees - Australia takes around 200,000 migrants each year (plus those international graduates being given permanency) but only about 14,000 (or has it been kicked up to 20,000 ?) refugees each year. They are very different populations in terms of skills.

Yes, both populations tend to be relatively much younger than there Australian average and therefore probably tend to have their families here. But since Australian-born populations probably have zero-population-growth, we need them to provide the work-force in future generations, to look after us old farts.

If anything, I would advocate far better integrating facilities for refugees into the work-force and a corresponding gradual increase in annual intakes of refugees. If they can be integrated into the Australian work-force more quickly, then a higher intake would be quite justified. We are going to need them.

Cheers,

Belly

AC,

Very little of what you wrote about the Easter Islanders is actually correct:

1. They didn't "get caught in an ocean current and eventually get marooned". They were Polynesian and among the best open ocean navigators of all time. They colonised the island just as they colonised most of the Pacific.
2. They didn't "go far out from the island to fish". The seas around Easter Island are like a desert with very little life. The original European visitors were surprised that the locals had almost no seafood in their diet.Consequently, since they wern't fishing, after a few generations they lost their sea-faring skills.
3. There might have been a civil war but not over resources but over religion. But its speculative.
4. As Aidan says, they population was destroyed by slavers and disease.
5. When Europeans arrived, the island was still heavily timbered.

This myth of the population destroying its environment was just too good to pass up, so the facts were 'massaged'. Its been used by Jared Diamond and others to further an agenda, not to further knowledge. People will probably still be spreading the myth 50 years hence because it suits the agenda

mhaze,
I hadn't heard claim 5 before. What's the source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camp_of_the_Saints

This link leads to some incredibly sobering reading
when the teeming billions of the so-called Third World - driven by unbearable hunger and despair, the inevitable consequences of insensate over-population - descend locust-like on the lush lands of the complacent white nations?

Hey mhaze,
I wish I could find the documentary again but it was a long time ago.
But I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong though, as for all things in history;
'I dunno, I wasn't there'.
It was a fairly in depth documentary thouhh, spoke of their God (a bird god if I remember correctly with some weird name) and of their society and traditions, and even spoke of the species of timber that were on the island in question.

Each of us can be wrong some times are, my memory tells me Easter Island had no trees and few people on its entry in to our eye sight,and while speculation has many views never saw over population as the reason it was so.however do we think the answer to over population, if we do think such a thing can exist is stuffing more of us in to some country's?

Aiden - I got banned for 24 hours but I will get back to you soon and will try to give a good reply to your comments on Malthusian question. In the meantime read the following for background.

http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/population/malthusian-theory-of-population-criticisms-and-applicability/10885

I think that my comments were provoked by commenters focusing on supply side solutions rather than the demand side - demand side solutions tend to be simpler.

Also contraception only works in cultures that use it. In 2003 India had 50% of the population under the age of 15. Now the Indian Prime Minister is negotiating with the Australian Government to bring more students or migrants or workers to Australia. India still has a birth rate above the replacement rate - but has come a long way - some say we should give points for effort - some say it's hard to take responsibility - we've done it. The reason why Australians are having less children, the ALT community believe, is because they believe there are too many people. Like a chemical buffer changes to the solution are self correcting.

But in all this the Australian culture is being diluted - some believe that the Australian culture (and all cultures) are important. Australian culture didn't create this population problem in Indian culture - why should Australians have to pay for it.

Multiculturalism will be at least as ethnocentric as Nazism in the long term - and will probably cause as much pain

Moral to my story -
I think the earth can take a whole lot more people; with the right planning, infrastructure and management.

How much of the world's population live in single storey dwellings?

That said however it doesn't necessary mean I'm advocating importing more people or that I want a more populated Australia.

I'm just saying we shouldn't be so scared of it, and we should bank on human creativity and endeavour, rather than fear mongering.

Humans will adapt to changes in climate, we've done so in the past, we can't be extinguished that easily and we're smarter and more technologically advanced than ever before.

But the planets resources most definitely are finite, some resources cannot easily be replaced when diminished.

Some advocate for a population of no more than 50 million.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

AC,

Fifty million in, say, Uganda ? Africa is very under-populated, after all.

Technology advances all the time. I'm surprised that desalination plants aren't used better to supplement irrigation schemes, further and further out from rivers here in Australia, providing a boost to the economy and eventually to the population. New breeds of plants get developed every year which can be grown with less water and with more nutrient value.

Sooner or later, means have to be devised to transform 'waste' plastic into either permanent and valuable products, or to re-cycle it back into similar forms to the originals. We might even get to the point of steady-state mineral production, use and re-use, whereby we don't need to dig up any more.

I like boogeyman stories like anybody else, but I agree that population explosion ain't it.

Cheers,

Joe

Hey Loudmouth,
Actually I got that wrong, it's 500 million. Here's what it says:

A message consisting of a set of ten guidelines or principles is engraved on the Georgia Guidestones in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones. Moving clockwise around the structure from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian.

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

Joe desalinated water is far too expensive to be used for irrigation in Oz. Even many of the irrigation schemes make the water too expensive where not only full cost must be paid, but the cost of hundred of totally useless bureaucrats, who somehow are employed to get in the way of a successful operation.

I have an irrigation licence, & a water harvesting licence on a free, [not dammed] river. I pay only $250 for my licences, but must provide my own infrastructure & pumping equipment.

To do this I would have to maintain a roadway down 75 Ft of extremely steep river bank from the plain to the river. This washes out every flood, 18 times in the last 26 years, costing about $5000 each time. This is essential to fetch a pump & engine at every fresh in the river. I should have bought my own excavator 25 years ago. Excavating for other people a much better idea than growing things.

All up with pumping & infrastructure maintenance costs, that almost free water would cost me a couple of thousand per acre. I can not find anything that can earn enough to be worth while on 23 productive acres. I could grow a huge amount of food, but I am not a masochist, or that stupid.

Hasbeen,
What's the logistic of placing a bore with a solar/wind pump close to the river ? You'd get clear, filtered water & would not have to cope with wash-outs during floods.

Going back to world population, one solution would be to offer sterilisation for free to the overpopulated countries & acceptance of that solution could be rewarded with goods to provide better living conditions instead of financial foreign aid.

Individual said - "Going back to world population, one solution would be to offer sterilisation for free to the overpopulated countries & acceptance of that solution could be rewarded with goods to provide better living conditions instead of financial foreign aid."

With respect ...Yes many of us agree foreign aid should be tied to good behavior (but this is a form of hard power - needs tact). I would prefer to see a China style one child system as I believe it would be more humane - but if the people mass sterilized voluntarily - it would probably be difficult to justify its integrity - they would see Australia as sterilizing their people and blame us. Some of us believe it's not our right to say what they do in their own countries - government of the people. We can influence by soft power. At some stage the population will become so dense in their countries that they will have to do something or suffocate. But we do have a right to say what happens in our country. We wouldn't want anyone telling us what to do in our country - Principle of Self Determination. Our culture is precious - we can't allow problems in another country to harm Australia - we can try to help them if we can. Many people want to help until they get asked for the money. Some cultures continue to make bad decisions despite the best advise. It happens with all types of organisations whether they are companies, countries, cultures, families, marriages, etc - sometimes you have to let them fail - and pick up the pieces and start again. Hopefully with iteration and restructuring it's possible to help them but at the end of the day it's their choice - the stakeholders have to want the organisation to succeed - they have to work as a team - that's the beauty and tragedy of humanity.

All of the above, almost every thought bubble about controls on us all, even who can have children are possible, not supported but possible, it remains my view first man must ask what is the limit to population? all the rest are symptoms of over population, any effort to just feed and house ever increasing numbers must hit a wall one day we all have a budget we can not exceed the world must have one too surely

Canem Malum,
You hit the right nerve when you stated that we don't have the right to tell others what to do or to that effect. Exactly, spo-on ! So, others then don't have the right to force themselves onto us & demand that we feed, clothe & house them .
If we have the stance to discipline ourselves somewhat more than others then the others should only be allowed to watch & learn, not overrun us with their indiscipline.
We have reached the point of where we have every moral & God-given right to say stop it right there. You can see how we do it so now do it too, watch, listen & learn ! No more demanding we give so you don't have to discipline yourself.
We can stimulate our manufacturing economy by providing goods to struggling nations but not a a single Cent of cash. Those migrants who don't actually want to live with & alongside us must be encouraged to apply in their old countries what they have learnt here. Of course that would prevent them from following their insipid orders to force their backward doctrine onto us but hey, that's their problem. It may, with some luck, even make them see their destructive doctrine is only a recipé for human disaster. Our civilisation for want of a better description, has learnt from it's mistakes to a large degree, their doctrine is hellbent on destroying everything that is humane. Our society has more than enough unworthy members who aren't worth sharing the benefits we create, we really don't need more hangers-on especially those who openly pray for our demise.

Individual - Thank you for your feedback. I hope you'll look up the ALT movements.

AC - The Georgia Principles are interesting. Especially the 500 M population limit.

The thing is resources don't run out at the same time.

Someone mentioned Peak Oil - I didn't finish reading this particular document it was about 300 A4 pages long after a while I felt that I had got the point and gave up. I'm sure it has limitations but also many thought provoking points. Our energy up to this point has been reliant on Hydrocarbons (Coal, Oil, Gas) both for transport and electricity. The biggest impediment to changing this to renewables is not "getting the energy" but "storing the energy" - especially in vehicles. Elon Musk has bet on Lithium Batteries - I suspect this is unsustainable - not because there isn't enough supply of lithium but because batteries have a limited life-cycle and are difficult to recycle. Other options are compressed air, fuel cells, springs, hydrogen, etc but Elon Musk has done research on most of these, I trust, and found Lithium Batteries the best option. It's somewhat annoying when people without engineering knowledge talk of its wonders - like engineering miracles pop out of a fantastic Christmas present - and then we can spread the joy around the world. Bringing a new product to market is a soul destroying experience - just ask the Wright Brothers. But still engineers are marvelous...

This is just one of the resource side problems that need to be solved in a world of the current size without considering a larger one. Fresh water is another problem especially in Australia. You can't take water open loop out of the Murray-Darling System and expect this to be sustainable - but this is what we have done - blind to the effects of our population

Aidan,

Source is the journals of the Dutch explorers - mainly Behrens and Roggeveen. They talked of "plantations and fruit-trees", "trees [that] were in full bearing" and " Fields and trees [which] yielded their rich produce". There's little doubt that the island's original palm trees had been destroyed within a century or two of arrival by the introdcued rats but the island remained covered in vegetation, at least in 1722.

AC,

I've no doubt you saw the doco you mention. Your views were the prevailing opinion 2 decades ago but new research has overthrown much of what was 'known'. This is not an unusual process. The traditional way of thinking about the Rapa Nui was unchallenged because it wasn't really of much interest. Then people like Diamond politicise it and use it to inform their agenda. Now its of interest and scientists begin to look at it more carefully only to find the truth is very different to what was believed.

Try this as a starting point if you're interested:

http://www.sbs.com.au/guide/article/2018/02/06/what-really-happened-people-easter-island

blind to the effects of our population, now there is the very heart of why I posted this thread, it is not the numbers that concern/even frighten me, it is the result of those numbers,right now in the African continent war is taking place and thousands die, yes faith has a roll but so too food and water, double the population and it could get even worse

Individual I tried a bore. I went down 190 Ft & got 200 gallons per hour. In the old measurement, it taker 26,000 gallons to put an inch on an acre of land, so 5 days of pumping would supply enough to irrigate one acre.

My next door neighbour had a windmill powered bore near our boundary. He used to get 1100 gallons a day pumped up to the house. After the windmill failed he installed a solar pump. It pumps 550 gallons per day. Great systems for stock & garden water, but no more.

I looked at running mains power down there, 20 years ago. Fortunately the $30,000 cost, [back then], stopped me. My Lucerne growing neighbour has just turned off the mains power for his very serious irrigation, & installed a 110 kilowatt diesel, as it is now too expensive to use mains power to run his pump.

In the last flood my bottom 6 acre of black soil river flat went 18 feet under, & was under for 5 days. Half the property was under for 3 days. This flood killed one neighbours 30 acre Lucerne patch, & 10 acres of anothers turf farm grass. These things don't like being submerged, or waterlogged for that long. I had a 6 horse power pump down at the dam in that paddock disappear, washed away, & lost 800 metres of boundary fence. The neighbour saved his bore pump system, but there is a lot of mud still to get out of his bore.

there would be far less hunger in India if people ate cows instead of believing the reincarnation rubbish. People starving while cows are sacred!

Runner you while off subject open a can of worms, have we any right to question others rights to their faith? if so they too have that right concerning us,population could be one humanity without faith, even then it would have its limits surely?

I agree with you there Belly. Any people have a right to decide their taboos & preferences.

What they don't have, if they decide to deny themselves a major source of sustenance, is to be given aid to overcome any problem such as lack of food, because of those choices.

They were Polynesian and among the best open ocean navigators of all time.
mhaze,
Well, those lucky enough to make it to another shore. Look at how many well-founded ships have disappeared without trace & they had very good open ocean navigators too.
There are no records on how many Polynesians vanished & my gut feeling tells me there were more than those who were lucky enough & found land by pure chance. They could not have have known of other lands thousands of miles from their tiny islands until they stumbled upon them by chance. The seamaship & navigation developed much later once they knew where the land was. This was not a regular thing otherwise the language would not be so different on the various islands. Denounce my theory by all means but my logic is the one I put forward.
World population would not have increased so much if all the lands were populated by small groups in boats. The europeans were responsible for that increase & once they realised their mistake of providing bigger ships for regular transoceanic transport it was too late to slow it down.

Dear Runner,

«there would be far less hunger in India if people ate cows instead of believing the reincarnation rubbish. People starving while cows are sacred!»

Then why not eat babies?

Even if you fail to believe that cows can be spiritually evolved, adult cows are still more developed than newborn babies - physically, emotionally and mentally, so if it is morally acceptable to eat the former then it is also morally acceptable to eat the latter.

Eating excess babies is a great strategy for reducing world population, thus helps in more than one way to reduce hunger.

While off topic, we do that, FAITH, who are we to tell others what to believe in? do we have that right? then if yes is your answer do they have the same rights to tell us?faith in my view divides the world,every one, presumes to claim to be the only one,humanity will need to mature far more before we can bravely examine faith in all its different forms, and rules, back on topic would eating cows in any way impact on population numbers? in any country?

World population must be controlled & the only question is by whom. The UN ? Sorry, I thought that was funny.
Those who provide must be given the task of that control. Late;y, it's the hold their hands out countries which have dictated simply because they could on account of the immoral misuses of foreign aid money. No more money, only goods & only after agreeing to sterilisation after two children if they can't get by without foreign aid.
We don't need to be cruel to be kind, just sensibly firm.

Individual - I concur - Tough love- I learn fastest that way and I've found others do to. Some people aren't even as smart as their pets.

Thanks Belly for creating this thread - also for acknowledgement on Tuesday, 12 June 2018 1:18:07 PM (I initially missed your reference).

Hasbeen - It's a pleasure to hear your first hand accounts. See Tuesday, 12 June 2018 1:47:57 PM

Runner's - I guess India eating cows would have an impact on the supply side. But culture is important for the stability of society. My understanding is India's respect for animals in law isn't shared by everyone.

Yuyutsu - Eating babies?? - not sure about that - it would violate a few deep cultural principles in most cultures - dispassionately though it would address the supply and demand side at the same time - kudos.

Sometimes I quietly read and contemplate your comments - very interesting - thankyou.

So if we generally agree that population in each culture needs to be controlled what's the next step? (and it's possibly culture that does the controlling)

Do we have a world policy of encirclement / blockade around bad players countries / communities in the same way as bad players are managed in other circumstances? What do you all think??

When more recent data comes out, my bet is that it will show a slowdown in world population growth, and an indication that population growth has been levelling off for some time, and will reach a steady-state ZPG by 2100 or so. Birth numbers may even be falling, balanced only by the simple fact that, with better health services, people are living longer all around the world.

Even so, some contributors here seem a bit keen on exterminating certain populations, or at least limiting their capacity or right to have kids - or, presumably, live longer. Perhaps they will have the courage to come out and say which populations they have in mind.

By the way, Africa is about three and a half times bigger than Australia, ten times as big as India. It has barely half the population of India. So it has plenty of room for massive population growth ? Does that put the wind up you ? A lot more Africans ? Take your hoods off and suck it up, boys.

Joe

Loudmouth - Would you be able to point to the posts of those " keen on exterminating certain populations". Otherwise your claims may not have merit.

I agree that some here are "keen on ...limiting their capacity or right to have kids" - see their posts for what their reasons are.

Bad Dog !

People go fishing, they dangle a bait and hope for a bite. I suspect that's what some posters here are doing. Other people fly kites. Same purpose. It's not a big step from " ...limiting their capacity or right to have kids .... " to the "final sure-fire solution".

Just to clarify, the world's population growth is slowing down. Pretty soon, nobody will be able to use it to stoke hysteria. That may be hard for many to get used to. As countries introduce pension systems, there is less need to have many kids to support you in your old age. As health services improve, more kids survive, so a family doesn't have to have many kids just so enough will survive to look after people in their old age. So there is less need overall to have kids. So population growth declines.

As well, as women get better-educated, they delay or forgo getting married and having kids. So the population growth rate declines.

All of these things are happening. Some idiot suggested copying (or at least, some other unnamed countries copying) China's one-child policy. But any half-wit with any notions of demography could have seen that this would be disastrous in about two generations: far fewer young people, all getting used to having just one kid themselves or none at all (being used to being the one-and-only), and all those old people living longer, that have to be supported. So the working-to-dependent ratio massively shrinks. China will start to feel that in the next ten years, and massively in twenty or thirty. Vast numbers of great-grandparents with only one great-grand-child between them.

But keep going on about massive population growth in unnamed countries if it satisfies your inner nature.

Joe

I at least never have and never will support limiting a country to how many it can have, I warn but do not support, that a day may come when whole classes of us are forbidden to have children EG Chinas now gone one child policy, however is starvation the only reason to be concerned about population growth? what if we try to level out the living conditions of all we have now? for goodness sake stop thinking we the average Joe and Jane have any say in what governments and those in power do. any population control would need to be universal and fair, fat chance of that

Eating babies??
Canem malum,

Well, if people get desperate enough it'll happen again.

http://m.harunyahya.com/tr/works/581/Communism-In-Ambush/chapter/56/The-history-of-Bolshevik-savagery

Africa is about three and a half times bigger than Australia, ten times as big as India. It has barely half the population of India. So it has plenty of room for massive population growth ?
Loudmouth,
So why do so many Africans always head for Europe & Australia ? And, many Indians are keen to come here too, why not got to Africa which has so much space ?

Yes individual, the Polynesians were great navigators.

They had sailing directions to get from most of their islands to many others. Much of these were to do with wind & swell direction encountered at various times of year. Some also included zenith stars for various islands.

There were directions to get from Easter island to Tahiti, & Hawaii when the island was first found, but have now been lost. Navigators had a very long learning, as it was all done from memory.

When Captain Cook first encountered the large double canoes they used for voyages he was amazed. Their speed & sailing ability left Endeavour for dead.

The people of Nugerria atoll used to make bride raids, [really a semi formal bride swap], on Kapingamarangi, about 400 miles distant, which people returned the raids. Post war they have lost that ability, & now depend on passing yachties to do the transfer for them. The population of many of these atolls has exploded in recent years, & now exceeds the capacity of many to support the numbers

//So why do so many Africans always head for Europe & Australia ?//

To get away from the damn missionaries?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US_K4TMqIZA

Or perhaps it's the malaria, or the high levels of corruption, or Madonna coming over and stealing their kids all the time... I mean, I can think of lots of reasons why Australia would seem preferable.

Individual,

I love those "Well, how else do you explain ..... " arguments. They usually indicate a slight lack of understanding, no offence. There are usually many other ways to explain a phenomenon, such as the political corruption in many countries and the lack of economic opportunities as a consequence, and probably many other reasons besides.

Corruption, nepotism and sheer incompetence have plagued many African countries since independence around 1960, not in all countries (Botswana and Tanzania come to mind) and to a large extent, a problem inherited from traditional society, i.e. one based on clan, family and local ethnic group. Problems afflicting all traditional and semi-traditional societies, by the way.

But inexorably, they are all in this modern world. So people try to get out of those societies - that's the easy way. How to transform those societies towards equality for all groups, opportunities for all citizens - those are the much bigger problems. We've got it sweet here in Australia, those problems are much more under control, so it's easy for us got bitch about others.

So, on the one hand, the most educated in Third World countries (is that still the term ?) migrate, seeking - like we all would - better opportunities, the less educated either put up with their lot or flee. That's 2018.

Joe

Loudmouth yes, just think, if we truly aided people to have education health and a life worth living in their own country's it would be a better world, but some still insist it would not

the Polynesians were great navigators.
Hasbeen,
No-one's denying that there were seafarers amongst them who learnt from the failures of the first venturers, just like in other regions of this planet. I for one would expect nothing less than superior knowledge of the see from someone whose whole life is on/by the sea.
Just as I'd expext someone from the jungle or the Alps being superior in their environment than someone from an unfamiliar environment.
What I was getting at was that, there would have been many who simply perished because they could not find land which they could not possibly have known existed until they found it by chance. It was then that they began honing their skills & refine technique. My mate used to ferry planes via Greenland in the pre GPS days & he tells of many lost because they missed a certain place near greenland & would have run out of fuel & ditched. The same would have happened to polynesians when they ran out of wter to drink. The populating of the sparsely or believed uninhabited lands began very gradual but since the europeans built lage ships this populating turned into a literal flooding by humans.
Humans now have the responsibility to control & curb this new phenomenon of religious invasion because this new wave is bringing with it social & economic mayhem with it's runaway procreation.

//The populating of the sparsely or believed uninhabited lands began very gradual but since the europeans built lage ships this populating turned into a literal flooding by humans.
Humans now have the responsibility to control & curb this new phenomenon of religious invasion because this new wave is bringing with it social & economic mayhem with it's runaway procreation.//

I fail to see how European colonisation brings with it 'social & economic mayhem'. Social mayhem, sure, I can see what you're getting at there. But economic mayhem? That's nonsense. Many of those colonised people weren't even up to the bronze age in terms of technological development. Of course colonisation benefited them economically. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

Toni Lavis,
i DID say Humans, not europeans in the final sentence.

For what ever reason world population took off most will think about the time of the industrial revolution.
What if it continues to grow? are we keeping up the pace with health care? education/housing/is war a by product of population?

Belly,

According to this on Wikipedia,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth

World population will rise from 7 billion in 2010 to 8.5 billion in 2030 (i.e. a rise of 1.5 billion in twenty years), to 9.8 billion in 2050 (a rise of 1.3 billion in twenty years ) and to 11.2 billion in 2100 (a rise of 1.4 billion in fifty years). It would be possible to monitor estimated populations in countries annually, to see if these later figures are under- or over-shot. But clearly, even the most doom-laden projections expect a slow-down and therefore eventually, a maximum.

My bet is that the figures for 2030 might be slightly lower, 8.3 billion, and those for 2050 and 2100 (long after the worms have got me) correspondingly lower. 11 billion might be as high as it ever gets.

Meanwhile, the incidence of poverty world-wide has more than halved in fifty years. Average world education levels have risen strongly - the rates of illiteracy have declined. World food production has massively increased since 1970. Women's rights are much more centre-stage, as is their rights to education.

But I have no worries if anybody wants to build their hermit's platform and spend the rest of their lives safely above the heaving throngs below.

Joe

Individual - Exactly - That was what Malthus (controversial even then) was trying to say in his 1798 book An Essay on the Principle of Population - If cultures don't control their populations then disasters will occur.

Belly - Yes the choices at the world level are - control population or conflict (possibly war). Neither of these choices are ideal but these are our cards - the world body needs to manage the situation - and hasn't till now. Australian culture has a fairly good record on population control.

Loudmouth said "People go fishing, they dangle a bait and hope for a bite. I suspect that's what some posters here are doing. Other people fly kites. Same purpose. It's not a big step from " ...limiting their capacity or right to have kids .... " to the "final sure-fire solution". "

Answer - Suspicion isn't evidence it's heresay. But you can use suspicion to confirm evidence.

//i DID say Humans, not europeans in the final sentence.//

So... humans in general cause social & economic mayhem, then? Well, yes, I suppose we do. We do get a helping hand from the odd natural disaster, and we used to from microbes like yersinia pestis (plague) and viruses like variola (smallpox) but we've pretty much shown them who's boss these days. But yeah, a lot of our woes are self-inflicted.

Sorry, what exactly is your point? That if we have less people, there won't be so many to cause social & economic mayhem and it will all just go away? I'm not sure that would happen. And I rather suspect that any overly drastic measures to try ensure that there are less people might well backfire and lead to more social & economic mayhem than would otherwise have been the case. See China's one child policy, which is going to play merry hell with their economy down the track and has led to a highly skewed sex ratio that leads to social problems.

Loudmouth, Wednesday, 13 June 2018 1:58:24 PM said- "Just to clarify, the world's population growth is slowing down."

Answer - UN says it’s growing till 2200 based on Bayesian median probability... It's still growing for the next 150 years unless things change- no one is denying that the growth is slowing down. While it's growing more species are becoming endangered - the air is becoming polluted - China is challenging the US for regional control- India is arming- local cultures around the western world are being disenfrancised in their own countries by economic and refugee immigrants. There are pressures building that could be relieved by reversing population growth in large and growing countries.

Loudmouth, Wednesday, 13 June 2018 1:58:24 PM said - "Some idiot suggested copying... China's one-child policy. But any half-wit with any notions of demography could have seen that this would be disastrous in about two generations"

Answer - So it appears Loudmouth agrees it’s not disastrous to have a one child policy for “one generation” then (one generation in China). “Half a generation one child policy” would have huge benefits. I guess you could have a lottery (similar to the draft). There needs to be a better world population management framework. Populations can’t grow openly without psychological and cultural damage or damage neighbouring sovereignty. (The Australian culture has managed its population either by luck or design. Why should good behavior be rewarded by the punishment of forced immigration?)

Replacement rate -
If a couple has a birth on every parents death then the population stays constant assuming no accidents.

Loudmouth, Wednesday, 13 June 2018 1:58:24 PM Said- "old people living longer, that have to be supported"

Answer- Older people are very capable. Pressures have changed society- upon pressure relief- older people have more opportunities with extended families. Impediments in finding work- they help organisations "Meals On Wheels". They have expenses- food, petrol, medicine, maintenance, rates. Ideally their productivity cover expenses- living with their extended families their costs are marginalised. Older people have a bell curve of productive capacity

Anyway please find the following from Sustainability Australia on Aging Population

- Ageing is only a temporary adjustment, and stops before there is a shortage of workers.
- A stable population would give us similar dependency ratios to the 1960s (boom times!) only with more retirees and fewer children (less schools / not all retirees need support).
- Retirees actually provide many economic and social contributions.
- Fewer people ‘of working age’ means fewer unemployed, not fewer workers (many people of retirement age want supplementary income but can't get it due to competition for positions).

Please find some sites with population statistics and projections below.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/continents/world-population/

http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.svg

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL

//That was what Malthus (controversial even then) was trying to say in his 1798 book An Essay on the Principle of Population//

Yeah, but Malthus was wrong. Quoting him as an authority is a crap argument.

Toni Lavis said "See China's one child policy, which is going to play merry hell with their economy down the track and has led to a highly skewed sex ratio that leads to social problems."

Answer - All management has unintended consequences- but still we must manage our cultures.

Toni lavis,
Good that you brought natural disasters & health threatening epitemics into the equation because when you look as to how the population has sky-rocketed is due to humankinds increased resilience due to medical progress.
Keeping the population as healthy as possible is a very important quest as is keeping the population growth in check.
Natural disasters are getting worse because of the number of people losing their lives is growing as the population increases. no real science involved in that.
My point is that we need population control. China went too far with only one child but they had no other gauge to go by & they are already allowing tow children., boy & girl.
May I suggest rather than wasting your effort on proving posters wrong, you focus on correcting & bettering their ideas, way more progressive that that typical Leftist progressive regress rhetoric that offers no solutions. We have more than enough criticism but not enough solutions.

Toni Lavis said "Yeah, but Malthus was wrong. Quoting him as an authority is a crap argument."

Answer - Is quoting yourself as an authority any less.

Yes individual, I understand & agree with that.

While sailing around the islands I was told a lot, but all very second hand. Some of those sailing directions did still survive into the 1970s, but almost as folk law.

I could never find out if they went on exploration voyages, or simply found places by accident. There are many stories of discoverers coming back home a number of times to gather settlers.

The sailing directions from that Nugerria to Kapingamarangi through the doldrums, with no consistent wind or swell direction sent them well out to the east, then ran down a zenith star to the west to find the island. It was from Nugerria I learnt the use of cloud cover to find atolls.

The white convection cloud of the ocean will pick up the turquoise colour of lagoon water when above one. Low atolls that can not be seen from more than about 8 miles, can be spotted from over 30 miles using this colour in the clouds technique. Unfortunately, just when I was starting to learn heaps from them, I suddenly got all homesick after 6 years, & needed to come home.

Dog,

Perhaps you don't fully understand the use in English of the negative, but I'll say again that I think that China's one-child policy was and will be disastrous.

And people are living longer, in the sense that most of us will spend many more years than previously not working but being in need of support. Back when the old age pension (at 65) was introduced in Britain (in about 1908?), the average age of death was a bit over 66. By the time China's one child policy really bites, in say ten or twenty years, the average age of death will be close to eighty. Each of those aged grandparents will have, on average, one single grandchild to pay taxes to support them.

Malthus has been thoroughly refuted, by the way. Try to keep up.

Joe

Loudmouth has a point we can not ignore the results/implications of China's one child policy, as a result that country, like other Asian ones, wanting only a son to look after parents in old age, has a wife shortage, some truly inhuman things are taking place to fix that,slavery just one, not sure why some still think there is never going to be a number of humans that is just too many?

Argumentum ad hominem tu quoque

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
-Mark Twain

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.
-Kyle Chandler

We can if we read all contributions see some have zero interest or is it ideas? on what our population should be, or if it will ever be too large apathy is never an answer, it however is always a problem, could say more about that but just can not be bothered

I agree that it's pointless arguing with those that are never going to agree with you. Generally its just as easy to talk past them but sometimes it's good to have a little fun. See how much rope you can roll out. ;) But for those that believe that population is a problem - what would you think is the best way to deal with the problem, and how would you implement it?

//Toni Lavis said "Yeah, but Malthus was wrong. Quoting him as an authority is a crap argument."

Answer - Is quoting yourself as an authority any less.//

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-JfIduytVs

Is quoting yourself even a thing? It's times like this I wish I'd paid more attention in my English classes.

Anyway, I hardly consider myself an 'authority' on Malthus. To be honest, I've not read his work. I learnt about him when I studied philosophy, and his work was used as an example of 'why sound reasoning can lead to erroneous conclusions when the fundamental premises are wrong'.

And his reasoning was sound, but his premises weren't. He assumed that the population growth was exponential (correct-ish) but that the growth of the food supply was linear. That second assumption was dodgy: the growth in food supply wasn't linear, human ingenuity found ways to boost crop yields to keep up with the burgeoning population. So his conclusions were also dodgy. A textbook example of an argument that is logically valid, but unsound due to a false premise.

individual,
The Polynesian seafarers' knowledge was based more on successes than failures. For those who died at sea can't tell you anything, but those who come back alive can.

They did not just find land by chance. They learned, before they ventured out into the unknown, things like how the presence of land affects the wave patterns for much further than the land is visible from.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Canem Malum,
The world's fertility rate has already dropped below replacement levels, but the population is still growing because people are living longer.

And air pollution has little to do with population - it's much more to do with lack of, or lack of enforcement of, environmental regulations.

Thank you Tovi Lavis for your comments...

Please let me know if you see any glaring mistakes.

From what I understand (not having studied Economics formally) Malthus in the 1790's based his "productivity is arithmetic in time" argument (which he removed in his second edition) on the Law Of Diminishing Returns. Perhaps he took some liberties. However he was basically saying that the order of magnitude of population increase upper limit was e^T (Toni Lavis made some concession on this point) but the magnitude of production was lower due to the Law of Diminishing Returns. So as a population grows there is a greater mismatch between the size of the population and the nations productivity leading to a sudden population correction.

Based on the multifactor production function Q = D.L^a.K^b.R^c ie. Q~ L^a.K^b.R^c where
Q= production
L= Labour
K= capital
R= resources (includes land area)
D= constant
a,b,c are diminishing return factors dependent on the production system existing in range [0,1] such that a+b+c <= 1 (=1 in a perfect system)
=> if R (is land) is constant then productivity will suffer by a factor R^c so if c= 1/3 then if population changes as e^T then productivity scales has an upper limit around e^(T/3). This means the mismatch between population and productivity varies about e^(2T/3) in this model.

This e^(T/3) ~/~ T so Malthus strictly speaking is incorrect in saying that productivity scales with T - but his essential point still appears to stand "in this model" - that there is a growing mismatch between population growth and productivity growth. Changes in technology would appear to change D - perhaps by an order of magnitude - given that technology changes are unpredictable and product specific it may not be possible to avoid the "sudden population correction". But technology appears to also have an e^T relationship - maybe this could be researched further.

There is also the issue of individuals living in constantly decreasing personal space could develop psychological illness.

Overall it appears that caution is warranted and population should be controlled to avoid sudden population corrections.

Dog,

Towards the end of your last post, are you suggesting that people in densely-populated countries such as the Netherlands or Bangla Desh experience many more psychological problems that people in, say, Mauritania or Kazakhstan ? Horrors !

Given that your Q, L, K and R are all manipulable, changeable, your constant D doesn't look all that constant :) You omit the impacts of social policies and the social consequences of advances in all of your input factors, such as the assertion around the world of women's rights and the concomitant demand, and experience, of higher levels of education for women. These in turn help more women get into the work-force at higher levels, and out of all that comes a much lower fertility rate. This is probably happening in every country (please correct me if I'm wrong there).

I would respectfully suggest that the growth rate of world population is declining more rapidly than even the UN acknowledges. Yes, many countries in the Third World will not have the finances to implement an age-pension scheme for a long time yet, so birth-rates in those countries will remain high - but, on the other hand, not as high as hitherto since health services are slowly improving across the globe. The 'demographic transition' will still take some time to come about in those countries, since it usually takes a generation for people's decisions to catch up with social and health improvements.

One thing I'll say about China's disastrous one-child policy, though: officially at least, national minorities were exempted from the one-child rule. So their fertility potential is much greater (and social burden lighter) than for China as a whole. Their share of the national population should have risen noticeably and should continue to do so.

Cheers,

Joe

Aiden said - "The world's fertility rate has already dropped below replacement levels, but the population is still growing because people are living longer."

Answer- "Replacement Levels" are a moving target if less deaths occur births need to be revised down. This will become much more important if Aubrey de Grey is correct about longevity.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/fertility-below-replacement

Basically you can't aim for a certain birth rate and then say it's not our fault due to the increasing life span. All countries need to take responsibility for their populations. This is a problem when leaders claim changed circumstances when the change was predictable. Leaders are paid well should we really need to check up on them to make sure "their heart's in it"! Maybe we should check on them, demanding regular independent progress reports on key issues. Maybe there needs to be a "Promises Index" rating/ ranking how well leaders meet their promises based on the opinion of the stakeholders with a weighting based on "Care Factor".
___

Aiden said - "And air pollution has little to do with population - it's much more to do with lack of, or lack of enforcement of, environmental regulations."

Answer- It's both demand side population and supply side regulation of producers

Dog,

Someone on the wireless (or the TV, I forget which) off-handedly remarked yesterday that the current world population (say 2016) was 7.2 billion. Above, I noted that the UN had calculated that

"World population will rise from 7 billion in 2010 to 8.5 billion in 2030 (i.e. a rise of 1.5 billion in twenty years), to 9.8 billion in 2050 (a rise of 1.3 billion in twenty years) and to 11.2 billion in 2100 (a rise of 1.4 billion in fifty years)."

So world population has risen only 0.2 billion in six years (roughly 33 million/year) (even though population has been boosted by people living longer) when it was expected to rise by 1.5 billion in twenty years (or 75 million/year). Could it be that the projections are already over-shooting by having assumed more than twice as much annual growth as is actually occurring ? If so, could it be that the down-turn is happening much faster than projected for ? That the world population in 2030 won't be anywhere near 8.5 billion, but more like 7.6-7.7 billion ? And more like 8.4 billion by 2050 ? And more like 9.5 billion by 2100, and more or less steady-state, if not on there verge of declining ?

The world is a big place, a dirty big place, real big. I can still only calculate in square miles, not sq km, but I think there are about 70 million sq. miles of land. So currently, on average, each sq. mile supports about 105-110 people. On the above revised calculation, by 2100, each sq mile will support just under 140 people, or about 30-35 % more than now. Can innovative technology improve production across the world by 30-35 % in eighty years ? I think so. By 100 % ? Very possibly. Possibly, world food production won't even be an issue by 2100, when population growth has stabilised. Perhaps a major problem of the 22nd Century will be gluttony.

Joe

Looking at the land mass alone is futile because a lot of it is uninhabitable. My coarse guess is that by taking into account mountains, snow covered area, flood land, swamps, airports, huge facilities etc.etc. dramatically reduces this "plenty of land" argument. Then, are humans really interested in becoming even more tightly packed ? Where will the extra required farmland be ? There's a point where we have to simply make a decision of quality of life vs plain existence. I know which side I'd chose.
There's also the one question hardly anuone considers in such debates & that is conpatibility of various ethnic hroups such as the situation has become in Europe & is morphing here right now.
We really have reach a stage which most of us still view as utopian, it's no longer so, take off the blinkers, it's arrived.

*Loudmouth said "World population will rise from 7 billion in 2010 to 8.5 billion in 2030 (i.e. a rise of 1.5 billion in twenty years), to 9.8 billion in 2050 (a rise of 1.3 billion in twenty years) and to 11.2 billion in 2100 (a rise of 1.4 billion in fifty years)."

*Answer- Your quote with respect Loudmouth didn't include a link so I found your quote through Google. You appear to have miscalculated some of your figures.

http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html

"World population projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050
29 July 2015, New York- The current world population of 7.3 billion is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to a new UN DESA report, “World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision”, launched today."

*So correcting ...

Loudmouth said - (i.e. a rise of 1.5 billion in twenty years- roughly 33 million/year) (it was expected to rise by 1.5 billion in twenty years or 75 million/year)
Answer- (Rise of 1.4 billion in fifteen years as the article was written in 2015 not 2010 = 93 million/ year- x2.8 what Loudmouth calculated 33 M/year.)

So the population of the world based on UN estimates will increase by 16% by 2030 (8.5/7.3 billion= 1.16).

For those that "already feel cramped by population, as is their democratic right", I can understand when they see the northwards direction as "horrifying" when they believe it should be heading southwards.

Anyway as I've said many times looking at the world and dividing it up among the people is the wrong strategy to control population because "population growth is culture based" and needs to be "addressed at the level of cultures or nations".

When nations and "cultures are irresponsible" with managing their population they "impact on their neighbours"- and create international threats. It's similar to "a military buildup" on the border as a precursor to invasion. (See John Stuart Mill- On Liberty).

It's necessary to "solve the problem at the level of the problem" otherwise "the bad behavior continues".

What needs to be done- Those nations and cultures that are approaching or beyond the carrying capacity of their land calculated based on land structure deserts, mountains, snow covered area, flood land, swamps (as Individual said) need to be "ranked as bad population actors" and managed by the international community or in the worst case by individual nations.

I agree with Individual when he says "the one question hardly anyone considers in such debates & that is compatibility of various ethnic groups". "Different cultures have different values" perhaps the ones that are pushing the clash of cultures has an agenda. Sun Tzu talks about getting your enemies to fight amongst themselves- divide alliances. The question is which sub-cultures have desire and power to implement it- then we can understand. Journalists talk of the 5W's- who, what, why, how, when.

Loudmouth seems to be taking the land area of the planet and dividing it by the number of people- as if people are the only important things on the land- Anthroparcy. The lands are controlled by cultures and nations- they are the custodians and protectors of the land- some are better custodians than others- the size of population on the land is the main (demand side) thing causing damage to wildlife. Supply side issues also affect wildlife- however supply side issues (in business) are usually predicated on market demand. When commodities are sold on a world market the pressure to use land, impact on wildlife, local prices become greater from greater demand.

Hi Dog,

Sorry for writing about the size of the planet's surface in relation to its human population, but somebody did mention over-population and I mistakenly thought the limited amount of land, in relation to human population, might have something to do with their alarm. Of course there are uninhabitable deserts and mountains, but on average .... . Of course, it depends how you use it: a farmer can plough up 1000 ha of land for himself and his family, on an average of say, 200 ha to the person; while an office block might occupy an area of 10 ha and employ a thousand people. A differential of 20,000.

Please check your maths. Even on the UN's own figures, it's clear that that rate of growth is declining. We might have been using different UN documents, by the way. But either way, it's clear that the rate of growth in world population is declining, and possibly faster than the UN is projecting.

Another historical major factor in population decline has been universal education: as John Caldwell showed, after countries initiated compulsory education, the average number of children that families had declined rapidly, since, instead of being a valuable asset around the house in assisting their mothers with child-rearing and their fathers on the farm, etc., children suddenly became something of a financial liability, not only not helping out as before, but requiring half-decent clothes, lunch money, shoes, exercise books, pens, etc.

Coupled with the old age pensions - and on top of major health advances between 1860 and 1950 - these were all factors which impacted greatly on population growth in countries which could afford them. The further education of girls and women accelerated that decline. And so it will slowly happen in the rest of the world. Maybe the sky isn't falling :)

Joe

Loudmouth I think I know enough about you to know you while saying we are not over populated yet do not forget the standards some live in are well below what we both want, that, not the fear we will crush each other to death, or die of mass starvation drove me in starting this conversation,I share some thoughts but have little trust in the powers that in truth run this world,faith, every one of them, divides us, humanity one day if we are to progress should become one

Belly,

sure, but one thing, over-population, may not be the cause of the other, poverty. There may be many other factors such as employment, education, class, gender and ethnic inequality. I was surprised too read that, going back forty or fifty years ago, South Korea was far more poverty-stricken than North Korean, which it seems was traditionally the wealthier half. Nowadays of course, South Korea is far more affluent on the whole than North Korea. So what caused that rapid turnaround ? Economic development, technological innovation and probably a measure of desperation. Perhaps much higher levels of inequality too, more equal opportunity - there isn';t much equality of opportunity in 'socialist' countries, with Party parasites (being in control) parcel out far more opportunities to their own.

Wait and see: if African countries can overcome the idiot parochialism, nepotism and corruption that is plaguing their societies, they too will start to forge ahead.

Gotta go - making Anzac biscuits.

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth said "Please check your maths. "

Answer- Yes I did check my maths and yours appears incorrect.
Would you provide a link to the document that you used so everyone can check your maths. I've already included the link I used.

I understand that people aren't going to change views that they have held for a lifetime easily. No matter what the evidence is. A persons identity is often tied up in their belief system. If they changed their views they might be rejected from their social group. I'm very lucky to have a social group that has accepted me through my changes.

Hi CDog,

Yeah, che king my figures, you've got me there :) But those annual birth figures are coming down - I remember that a few years ago, population growth across the world was more than ninety million. So now it's down to seventy five million, as you rightly point out. But the UN figures themselves suggest an annual population rise of only sixty million between 2030 and 2050, and only an average of 28 million per year between 2050 and 2100. Obviously, it's possible that the annual growth will be higher at the front end, 2050, than at the back end, 2100, to the point where net population growth may be zero.

So I don't think we need to contemplate any need for some sort of UN authoritarian emergency measures (if this is shat's being suggested) to, somehow, somewhere, drastically cut populations in unnamed countries and regions. There are so many other ways around what may turn out not to be a problem at all. Seriously.

Anzac biscuits looking good !

Cheers,

Joe

Humans will not do anything to help others unless they can gain from helping. This ranges from donations ( tax deductible of course) to help in person at some charity where they can be seen which makes them feel good.
In order to get the poor in countries of conflict to turn around & take initiative foreign aid must be by way of commodities that can help them help themselves, not money handed to their governments where it stops. No wonder the poor have given up, they simply can't see a way out because there's no incentive for them. One such incentive could be to supply them with commodoties in return for adhering to a two-children policy. This would change their situation overnight, literally.
At this stage, the planet can support 8 billion humans but 3 billion humans can no longer support the 5 billion other humans without sacrificing what life & the environment should be all about.

Dog,

Just looking at the rate of population growth again: on your figures, between 2010 and 2030, world population is expected to rise by 75 million, to 8.5 billion, or roughly not quite 1 % p.a. Between 2030 and 2050, by 1.3 billion in 20 years, or roughly 65 million per year; and by roughly 28 million per year between 2050 and 2100. 28 million out of 11.2 billion is only a quarter of a per cent per year. 0.25 %. So ZPG by 2100 is probably on the cards.

Does anybody really imagine that human ingenuity, innovation, advances in technology, etc., etc., etc., won't be increasing, say, food production around the world by less than a quarter of a per cent per year ? Some advances in food and production technology etc., even now kick up food production in many areas by two to five per cent per year.

No, the sky isn't falling, and it probably won't, ever - at least, not on population grounds.

Joe

the sky isn't falling, and it probably won't, ever - at least, not on population grounds.
Loudmouth,
The sky will stay where it is but the ground will be soacked with so much filth that everyone will wish the sky would fall.

Indy you always make me smile and feel happy, see you make me proud I think nothing like you do mate, yet if we knew each other we may well be that, mates, I have mates who HATE my politics, who vote one notion, this morning however, like it or not, a symptom of the state of this world is on display, a boat with over six hundred refugees has docked after two country's refused it entry, while in Germany the leadership is under threat over her position on refugees, like it or not we will see very much more such issues as this refugee issue is about to grow.

Canem Malum,
"Answer- "Replacement Levels" are a moving target if less deaths occur births need to be revised down."
Perhaps I should clarify: I meant long term replacement levels, not instantaneous replacement levels.

"Basically you can't aim for a certain birth rate and then say it's not our fault due to the increasing life span."
You seem to be assuming that any population rise is a bad thing. I reckon that's a stupid attitude.

The fact remains that human population is not rising exponentially. Birth rates have even fallen below long term replacement levels, though a short term increase in population is still occurring because people are living longer.

Hi Aidan,

Yeah, even Australian Indigenous birth-rates could be much, much lower than generally assumed. I was looking at all the Censuses going back to 1971 (that's ten of them) and it struck me (I really am a slow learner) that the population rose from one Census to the next by more , or about as much as all the birth in the ensuing five years - i.e. no mortality. Indigenous mortality is notorious for its prevalence< i've been to perhaps a couple of hundred Aboriginal funerals.

Then (dumb-dumb) I noticed that age-cohorts seemed to grow in number from one census to the next - i.e. the number of people born in the same five-year period rose from one Census to the next, and the next. Impossible, without some re-identification, people coming 'back in'. When I adjusted the figures going backwards to earlier and earlier Censuses, i.e. added an estimated figure for mortality, I was amazed that the figure, say, for 1971 wasn't really 107,000 but more like 350,000.

Now you can either adjust the figures going forwards, i.e. deduct for estimated mortality, or do the reverse. Either way, what was striking was the very slow growth in the numbers of 0-4 (i.e. babies being born during a five-year Census period. I estimated that the annual birth-rate increase was well below 1 %, perhaps even 0.0 %, while morons (even in the ABS, who should know better) keep flapping their lips about how the Indigenous population is rising at 4 % p.a.

As well, populations in remote areas are inexorably declining. One community where I lived once had 150 people and now has one family: the bloke there calls himself Mayor. Another community has a third of the population that it had twenty years ago. NT's population share of all Indigenous people declines 1-2 % from one Census to the next. Population rise is a mixed bag.

Joe

Even if humans were to decide to adopt a cave dweller (gee, PC rubbed off on me) existence, could anyone imagine their surrounds without waste & water treatment facilities ?
Imagine the state of the environment with 8 billion cave men & their broods ?
Just imagine taking all people living above the first floor & find them accommodation at ground level ? The available land mass has shrunk suddenly to a frightening small area, eh ?
This what doesn't even enter the thoghts of those who believe we can easily add another few billion humans to the present number. The real question to which no-one seems to want to suggest a solution is, what quality of existence would the enterprising humans let themselves be reduced to just we can have more people on the plant ? What new low level of poverty would the poor be ageeable to ? I would love to get some suggestions on solutions to these scenario.
Call me what you like & see fit but for me it's population control asap or stop free aid.

//but for me it's population control asap or stop free aid.//

They're not mutually exclusive, and given what we know about the link between economic development and birth rates, I would argue that free aid is the best form of population control.

I would argue that free aid is the best form of population control.

Toni Lavis,
That's what we have had & have now, so why isn't it working ? Because free aid does not address the real agenda of birth control which ensures that it affects western society only.

//That's what we have had & have now, so why isn't it working ?//

It is working. Rates of population growth are declining and have been declining for some time now as countries develop economically. We know it happens, we've seen it happen, there's no reason to assume it won't keep happen other than sheer bloody-minded pessimism.

Aid helps economic development. It doesn't fix everything; countries still have to work on their own development, but it certainly helps. And as we've established, anything that helps with economic development helps bring down birth rates. It's not rocket science, dude.

Removing aid will not help things. It will do the opposite; it will mean that it takes longer for countries to develop, which means that the birthrates will stay higher for longer.

Giving countries aid isn't just the feel-good, bleeding heart thing to do. It's also the sensible, practical thing to do if you're worried about population growth. But if you're really that bothered about the thought of charity, I guess you just have decide which you'd prefer: having lower population growth but having to be charitable in order to achieve that; or being uncharitable but having to put up with a higher population as the price of that miserliness.

I know which I prefer. How about you?

//Because free aid does not address the real agenda of birth control which ensures that it affects western society only.//

Sorry, what? Are you saying that the real reason the West has low birth rates is because we give away aid? How is that meant to work?

I believe you are confusing correlation with causation. The low birth rates of the West and the high levels of aid they provide are correlated, but I see no causal connection between them. What I see is a common cause: their high level of economic development. Western countries have low birth rates because they have high levels of economic development, and they can afford to give away so much aid because they have high levels of economic development.

toni lavis,
You either don't have what it takes to understand or you're pro anti western.

//You either don't have what it takes to understand or you're pro anti western.//

Convincing rebuttal, individual. [sarcasm]

Also, when you say I'm 'pro anti western', do the pro and anti cancel each other out just leaving me western?

AID that word makes some froth at the mouth and show us how uniformed about the subject they truly are aid is an expression of self interest, Howard gave it to Indonesia, to education kids against radicalization,yes we give aid for other reasons but it too helps us,truly used aid can stem refugee flows, it can help country's and people

Toni Lavis,
Cheers for confirming my suspicion, you don't have it. When you get home from school today ask your mum & dad what pro anti-western actually means.

Hi Toni,

Yes: "The low birth rates of the West and the high levels of aid they provide are correlated, but I see no causal connection between them."

Not only has Individual got it the wrong way around, if anything - that high levels of aid are a consequence of the much earlier transition in Western countries to low birth rates - and on top of that, there could be many other factors - that Western societies are affluent enough to be able to provide aid to less affluent countries, including birth control programs.

I don't know why some posters here keep promoting punitive programs, negative programs, when there are so many other alternatives to bring about lower birth rates - and they seem to vie working: more provision of education generally, especially for girls; more higher education opportunities for women; the introduction of old-age pensions systems; advances in medical services, and so on. All of these do the k=job but in a much more socially positive and supportive way.

And as you say, the growth in world population is slowing down - rapidly, in a historical sense. By 2100, as populations start to slowly decline (through too few kids being born), our descendants may have the problem of an imbalance between slightly too many old and very old people, and too few working people to provide services and pay the taxes which go towards supporting that ageing population.

I can't help the feeling that some posters here would like to see poor countries nuked if that (as they see it) is the only way to stop those bastards from having fifteen and twenty kids. That'll show 'em. Get a life, you fellas.

Joe

the growth in world population is slowing down - rapidly, in a historical sense.
Loudmouth,
I think you'll have a hard time to convince the european countries of your figures. Also, if aid is the answer then why hasn't it worked thus far ? The only outcome most un-indoctrinated everyday people can see is more & more refugees & the almost inevitable mayhem in the countries that take them in.
So far as nuking countries is concerned, that option must be revolving in your mind otherwise how could you even dream it up ?
I have stated so many times on OLO tha we should provide aid by way of commodities, not money. If that's not clear enough than it's time You start thinking instead of saying I'm getting it the wrong way round. Also, I never got a reply from anyone when I asked if they so strongly feel about foreign aid, how much extra are they willing to provide individually. I'd be quite happy to donate a wheelbarrow & a pick & shovel twice a year on top of what I already provide in Tax.
What contribution are you et al willing to make ?

individual,
The large number of migrants to Europe is the result of them fleeing conflict, not the result of a huge population increase. But hypothetically had it been the result of a huge population increase, that would have been the result of the birth rate a generation ago - it says nothing about the birth rate now.

individual,
What aid we should provide depends on what's needed, but it's rare for commodities to be what's needed.

Individual- again I generally support your position. You might take more time constructing your logic though- so you aren't as easy to attack. When you write a reply test it against the identity arguments that are commonly applied to see if it stands up. You will need to be explicit because if you're implicit they'll accuse you of conflating correlation with causation. Anyway don't expect them to ever agree with your argument- only try to use them for your own benefit. You don't need to reply straight away- Only speak if you can do better than the silence... You have my general support. :)

The problem is not logic, it's assumptions. People are wrongly assuming the population to be growing exponentially, and deliberately ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

Individual,

Nice try: to conflate crude population growth, year on year, with natural population increase. I have such enormous respect for you that I assume you're not an idiot and that you understand the difference - that immigration in huge numbers will - wonders ! - kick up population far behind natural increase of net births minus deaths. A sort of artificial population increase factor.

The point is that 'net births minus deaths' in many developed countries is either close to zero or negative these days. That's the reality that you choose to ignore. Yes, war in the Middle East may have there effect (in two ways) of reducing the population - brutal war-deaths, and brutal forced emigration to Europe (strange, nobody seems to want to migrate to fellow-Muslim countries). Corrupt and incompetent governments in Africa may impel many people to seek better lives in other countries, mainly Europe (which, after all, is not that far away).

But these would not mean natural population increases in Europe and I'm sure you know that. If anything, they mask population decline. Are you suggesting that such population movements will change the nature of European society ? Is this what you're worried about ?

Joe

//I don't know why some posters here keep promoting punitive programs, negative programs//

I sort of understand the 'f*&k the poor' attitude when it's in people's interests to do so, even if I don't agree with it.

But I don't understand people who are so eager to f%^k the poor that they would happily shoot themselves in the foot in order to achieve that end. I dunno... seems a bit mental. Maybe it's just such an ingrained pattern of thinking that they struggle with the idea of not f$%king the poor even when doing so is against their interests.

//By 2100, as populations start to slowly decline (through too few kids being born), our descendants may have the problem of an imbalance between slightly too many old and very old people, and too few working people to provide services and pay the taxes which go towards supporting that ageing population.//

Nah, by 2100 robots will be so advanced that they'll be able to out-perform humans in almost every field, save perhaps the creative and performing arts. Lord knows how we're going to manage that change to the economy. I hope it will be more like the Jetsons and less like the grim dystopia I fear we may end up with.

//I think you'll have a hard time to convince the european countries of your figures.//

Population growth in Europe does not equal global population growth. The world's a bit bigger than Europe, my friend. For a start, there's us antipodeans. Then you've got your Muricans, which come in two flavours in the North and considerably more in the South, your Africans - sub-Saharan and the other lot, more Asians than you can poke a stick at especially if you include the sub-continent.... the list goes on.

And the thread, after all, is about GLOBAL population growth. Wherever people go, they still count the same in the overall population figures. Birthrates are quite low in most European countries, below replacement levels in many cases. Most of the population growth there is due to immigration. Interestingly, the country in Europe which boasts the highest birthrate - Ireland - is definitely not the poorest. Although I have my own theory about that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzVHjg3AqIQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lJbpVmyKgo

//I have stated so many times on OLO tha we should provide aid by way of commodities, not money.//

Very bad idea. Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. If the fish hasn't gone off by the time he gets it; fish are notorious for doing that. Give a man a fishing rod, and you feed him until his rod breaks. But what effect are you having on the local economy? Instead of buying their fishing rods locally, they're getting them for free. The people who could be making money manufacturing/selling fishing rods are out of work. But that's OK, I guess... they can always get a free fishing rod and support themselves that way. Until they overfish the river.

Give a man some money, and he can buy the tools he needs to make fishing rods, thus supporting the local economy. He can sell those rods to the locals instead, and so on.

Giving people commodities is well-intentioned and may, prima facie, seem like a terrific idea. But if you look a little deeper, you see that it tends to have deleterious effects on economic growth and is therefore counter-productive (generally speaking, exceptions apply - in disaster relief, where economic structures have temporarily broken down, distributing essential commodities is the only viable option). But when we're talking about long-term aid, designed to lift desperately poor countries out of poverty, money is the best way to go.

Hi Toni,

Yes, probably you're right, that by 2100, robots or non-human artefacts will be doing so much of the work of looking after the elderly, who may be expected to live by 120 by then. Similar non-human mechanisms (we may not even have the word for it yet) may be utilised to produce food out in areas where the human needs of the actual producers don't have to be met, producing food and all other goods while our elderly descendents sit back. Brave new world.

Anyhow, yes, population growth is declining rapidly. If education was universal, if pensions could be paid for the elderly (say, by 2100 for those over 85), if women could get decent education, then yes, actual world population would probably be slowly declining as well.

One problem with gradually cutting population (perhaps at 1 % p.a.) is how to manage the balance between the elderly/non-working population and the working population: too many old people and enormous pressure is put on the working population, the tax-payers. Perhaps a constant problem after 2100 will be to maintain a reasonably comfortable life for the very elderly, such as Individual, without putting too much tax burden on the declining working population.

Cheers,

Joe