Are believers culpable for overpopulation?

[darkendless]

I'm not saying the US SHOULD feed the world. I'm just saying that we already have the potential to do so. There is plenty of arable land on the planet to feed billions more people, and we haven't even started talking about new technologies that will give us more food and more places to live.

Its good that we're talking about it now because it will increasingly be relevant, but we are still a very long way from Earth's population saturation point.

Well yes, you guys probably can, but for how long is the issue. As stated above your land will not be growing land for long if you feed 6 billion people. At the current rate with political instability in Zimbabwe which is a major player (well was) in terms of agricultural exporting, land may salinize at an increased rate.

The real issue at hand is not producing the food, that can be done, its producing the food at a sustainable pace.

Technologies always come at a cost to the environment. Every action has a reaction.

 

[Tiapan]

I was out the other day and met a woman of islamic faith who proudly told me she had 81 cousins, I have three, does that answer your question.

Australia is currently a democracy.
Australian population is currently 3% muslim.
Australian population is currently 22 million
Muslims breed at 3 times (+) the rate of the rest of the population and do it younger.
Given Muslims will have 5 generations of off spring vs 4 for the rest of the current population in a 100 years.
You should now be able to tell me the year Australia will become Muslim Theocracy.
Do the maths

From the experience in France Holland Sweden Germany, etc the problem becomes acute and violent when the muslim population reaches 10%
They are are an isolationist, xenophobic, clustered ghetto social minority, they do not assimilate. They are therefore incompatible with my society.

Cheers

 

[DadBurnett]

Are believers culpable for overpopulation?

This question was born from my hearing the story of a man with 17 children of whom 6 were not as normal, so to speak, as the rest. No twins. This family is poor and arguably has no quality of life.

Most Gods favor a reproducing group of adherents.
Without adherents, there relevance would be lost to history.
From Adam on down, we have not let God down, we have reproduced.
Be they Eastern or Western religions, are religions and believers responsible for our dismal control of reproduction?
Are believers culpable for our overpopulation?

Regards
DL

I have encountered both in the LDS church and among many fundamentalist Christians, the idea that we are commanded to reproduce and that God will some how provide for the needs of large families ... that would imply that overpopulation would not be a problem. obviously, there's something wrong with that perspective ...

 

[Greatest I am]

Some cities might be crowded, but the Earth is not anywhere near over populated. The fact that many people die of starvation does not mean that the Earth is over populated, it just means that the available food is not being distributed properly.

There is no shortage of excuses.
I peg corruption and the elite.
I give men in general a failing grade.

Regards
DL

 

[Humanistheart]

It seems a greater correlation is between education and GDP of a population and number of children, than belief...

For example:
File:TFR vs PPP 2009.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I agree with Emu. And to add to that we're all aware of the correlations between education and belief. The more educated one is the less likely they are to hold superstitious beliefs. I guess it does go back to the believers, although I'd specifically blame the thiests.

 

[Greatest I am]

Urbanization of the world is challenging our ability to produce enough food/energy/etc.

The earth can sustain 4.5 billion, we're currently a bit over 6 million. It is a huge concern.

Urbanization is making man an ant with no territory when man was created as an animal who wants territory.

Quantity or quality. Choose.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

The United States produces enough to feed the entire world and we have the distribution networks with which to do it. However what we lack is the motivation and will to do it. As for energy, the only limit we have is what we put on ourselves. We are very cautious about using nuclear energy because the pollution is so toxic. But that doesn't mean that our energy production is necessarily scarce. It is another self imposed limit.



If we are just going to throw numbers around, I believe the Earth can sustain 100 billion, and our current population isn't a real concern at all.

Take a breath of fresh air.

Did not mean to challenge you.

Urbanization is making man an ant with no territory when man was created as an animal who wants territory.

Quantity or quality. Choose.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

kenect2

If we overproduce, the environment and the carbon footprint we leave would choke us.

Kathryn

Political will is tied to all of us.
We are not making it a political or religious priority.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

I have encountered both in the LDS church and among many fundamentalist Christians, the idea that we are commanded to reproduce and that God will some how provide for the needs of large families ... that would imply that overpopulation would not be a problem. obviously, there's something wrong with that perspective ...

With a frontier, that is good advice.
We no longer have a frontier.
We will not have another unless we create political will to do so.
Believers should be leading the march on this yet they do not.

Regards
DL

 

[Humanistheart]

kenect2

If we overproduce, the environment and the carbon footprint we leave would choke us.

Kathryn

Political will is tied to all of us.
We are not making it a political or religious priority.

Regards
DL

Indeed, anyone who thinks over population isn't a serious issue hasn't been paying attention to the growing extinction rate of other species. Nature can only take so much before we're affected.

And I agree with Greater, I'd choose quality of life over quantity. Do you want to have three families living in one small house? I'm not looking forward to that.

 

[darkendless]

Indeed, anyone who thinks over population isn't a serious issue hasn't been paying attention to the growing extinction rate of other species. Nature can only take so much before we're affected.

And I agree with Greater, I'd choose quality of life over quantity. Do you want to have three families living in one small house? I'm not looking forward to that.

Yeh but we're too ******* stupid to fix it. The right people are ignored and the only scientists who get to voice their opinions are the idiots in it to get their face in New Scientist.

Last year in class we studied the explosion of Shanghai from a moderate city to an urban resource abuser.

Our major problem is working the land is no longer as valuable as it used to be. Oppurtunities in life are in the cities.

 

[Kathryn]

My gosh, hasn't anyone here ever been in an airplane?

We don't have a worldwide population problem, we have worldwide GOVERNMENTAL problems. Sure there are pockets of the world where there are too many people living in too small a space - sure there is hunger and starvation in some areas - there always has been.

Simply put, a person starves to death when they can't get to food or food can't get to them. It's not that we've reached anwhere near our limits of the planet actually being able to provide enough for people. It's that the systems we have in place are sometimes not conducive to allowing access to food or to land that is available for provision.

Think about it this way - when Jamestown was settled in Virginia over 400 years ago, the first couple of rounds of settlers had huge starvation and death rates. But this had nothing to do with the availability of land or food. It had everthing to do with poor self government, poor planning, and native American who fought their access to the bounty of the land.

Calcutta is overcrowded but the American West offers thousands and thousands of acres of land with very small human populations - and it's not because the land is unfit for humanity (good grief, look at the development and population of Las Vegas!).

We have the room, we have the resources in this wide world. What we don't have is systems in place to adequately provide food and shelter for all groups of people.

 

[Commoner]

My gosh, hasn't anyone here ever been in an airplane?

We don't have a worldwide population problem, we have worldwide GOVERNMENTAL problems. Sure there are pockets of the world where there are too many people living in too small a space - sure there is hunger and starvation in some areas - there always has been.

As far as food is concearned, it's not only a matter of "too many people", it's the spectacular rate of growth of the population and the growing demand that cannot be matched by the supply. Whatever the reason for the lack of resources or bad allocation of resources, the fact remains that we are unable to sustain such a rate of growth. Not to mention, the lack of food is only one of the many problems that come with overpopulation. My gosh...

 

[darkendless]

My gosh, hasn't anyone here ever been in an airplane?

We don't have a worldwide population problem, we have worldwide GOVERNMENTAL problems. Sure there are pockets of the world where there are too many people living in too small a space - sure there is hunger and starvation in some areas - there always has been.

Simply put, a person starves to death when they can't get to food or food can't get to them. It's not that we've reached anwhere near our limits of the planet actually being able to provide enough for people. It's that the systems we have in place are sometimes not conducive to allowing access to food or to land that is available for provision.

Think about it this way - when Jamestown was settled in Virginia over 400 years ago, the first couple of rounds of settlers had huge starvation and death rates. But this had nothing to do with the availability of land or food. It had everthing to do with poor self government, poor planning, and native American who fought their access to the bounty of the land.

Calcutta is overcrowded but the American West offers thousands and thousands of acres of land with very small human populations - and it's not because the land is unfit for humanity (good grief, look at the development and population of Las Vegas!).

We have the room, we have the resources in this wide world. What we don't have is systems in place to adequately provide food and shelter for all groups of people.

Thats the most obvious of problems, but its just the start.

In America the problem is distributing food. Its not really a problem now, but it will get that way. Do you honestly think we can keep proudicing food the way we currently do? By this i mean trucking it across the world, packaging it in nice plastic things, eating 10x more than we have to?

We're physically mutilating our land because we're lazy.... the human race disgusts me.

 

[Greatest I am]

Indeed, anyone who thinks over population isn't a serious issue hasn't been paying attention to the growing extinction rate of other species. Nature can only take so much before we're affected.

And I agree with Greater, I'd choose quality of life over quantity. Do you want to have three families living in one small house? I'm not looking forward to that.

Thanks for using your intelligence.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Yeh but we're too ******* stupid to fix it. The right people are ignored and the only scientists who get to voice their opinions are the idiots in it to get their face in New Scientist.

Last year in class we studied the explosion of Shanghai from a moderate city to an urban resource abuser.

Our major problem is working the land is no longer as valuable as it used to be. Oppurtunities in life are in the cities.

Second class life as far as I am concerned.

Wars are fought in the cities,so to speak, not in the countryside.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

My gosh, hasn't anyone here ever been in an airplane?

We don't have a worldwide population problem, we have worldwide GOVERNMENTAL problems. Sure there are pockets of the world where there are too many people living in too small a space - sure there is hunger and starvation in some areas - there always has been.

Simply put, a person starves to death when they can't get to food or food can't get to them. It's not that we've reached anwhere near our limits of the planet actually being able to provide enough for people. It's that the systems we have in place are sometimes not conducive to allowing access to food or to land that is available for provision.

Think about it this way - when Jamestown was settled in Virginia over 400 years ago, the first couple of rounds of settlers had huge starvation and death rates. But this had nothing to do with the availability of land or food. It had everthing to do with poor self government, poor planning, and native American who fought their access to the bounty of the land.

Calcutta is overcrowded but the American West offers thousands and thousands of acres of land with very small human populations - and it's not because the land is unfit for humanity (good grief, look at the development and population of Las Vegas!).

We have the room, we have the resources in this wide world. What we don't have is systems in place to adequately provide food and shelter for all groups of people.

The U S does not have the resources.
No water.

Regards
DL