Didn't want to sidetrack the other thread with this

Or pay people to quit having babies because when trying to limit our carbon footprint, producing a baby ...which in turn becomes a carbon producing junky through out its entire life. Think of the possibilities....I WANT MY CHECK!!

You have no idea what a fantastic idea this would be, although not strictly for the given reason. Sooner or later we're going to have to look at how we incentivize children, because we're already about 10x over the world's carrying capacity.

If every person in North America and Europe became sterile today, the world would still be fucked.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

A Niger woman is expected to have 7+ children in her lifetime. Afghanistan: 6.5, Ethiopia: 6, United States: 2.05

There are so many countries that a woman has more than 2 children on average that certainly can't be helping the world's population. At least here 2 is justifiable (assuming both children are the products of 2 parents - then its kinda a wash) though with the rapidly increasing average life expectancy we're still going to get a bit crowded here.

http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/natproj.html

Yea but those Niger children are most likely not pouring gas into SUVS, building McMasions, or using items that take dirty energy to create. If every woman in the US pounded out 6 children...different story imo.

Many of the children in those nations listed don't reach adulthood due to poor living conditions. Clean, drinkable water being the biggest concern.

So only count on about 2/3 of them growing up.

Many of the children in those nations listed don't reach adulthood due to poor living conditions. Clean, drinkable water being the biggest concern.

So only count on about 2/3 of them growing up.

I wonder why they have such hard time finding enough clean, drinkable water for their population when each woman cranks out over 7 kids and 4 or so of them make it to adulthood.

It's a tough call when all the food and medication we send to Africa to help people today is enabling 1.5x as many people to die a generation down the line.

In any event the issue I was refering to, that of Western nations looking at how they incentivize birth rates, has only recently come back into discussion after the eugenics pseudo-science crap of the 1910-40 period. Many nations in Europe are now providing substantial state support to women who choose to have MORE children, notably some parts of Italy were birth rates per women had dropped to .5 in some municipalities.

However the converse issue is equally true. What's cheaper, paying for the education, possible incarceration, government overhead, and potential welfare of new baby X15891751, or paying his or her mother $5000 to keep her legs closed at the NASCAR rally?

I saw this the other day (and neither confirm nor deny its numbers/hypothesis):

vZVOU5bfHrM

That is completely retarded.

http://www32.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+population+divided+by+area+of+texas

Unless you want an area of Texas in which we all live like they do in Mumbai:

http://www.gundekomiran.com/brusklog/wp-includes/images/mumbai-slums.jpg

But this is the same sort of silliness that got L2 in trouble with his "home values always increase" myth, namely, that we think in terms of people per area, and not RESOURCES per person. The USofA, probably the single most fertile large area on the planet, is already eroding its own production capability and has become a net food importer. Huge areas of the South and Southwest have exceeded their water flows (before the likely changes from global warming change the Pacific currents and likely move much of their annual precipitation elsewhere). And this in the best agriculture area on earth, not sub-Saharan Africa or the Gobi desert.

World fish stocks have already begun collapsing in heavily fished areas of the north and south Atlantic. These stocks do not recover over night. They recover after 5-10 years of freedom from molestation, except we're fishing them even more heavily as fish is the primary source of protein for something like 60% of the world's population.

Sure, we could fit 80 billion people on the planet. But they'd die. Carrying capacity isn't about how much elbow room you have. It's about resource consumption rates that do not destroy the resources -- just look at the current Middle East. Iraq was the cradle of agriculture civilization for thousands of years, we see it as a desert now because we farmed it into unusability.

I found this a couple years ago and found it quite interesting.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/

McCarthy has some interesting conclusions and decent documentation of his data, but either ignores or simply doesn't consider a lot of the resource economy issues -- yes, nuclear energy is virtually limitless, but not in a practical sense within the next 50 years even if we slapped sense into people today. The world is not perfectly efficient.

He's also not quite right on the water issue -- all it takes is to realize how many major rivers no longer reach the ocean. These sort of resources may be considered "renewable" but when your aquifer system is rendered unpotable by salt-water backwash when the water table drops below sea level, that there exist totally unimplemented schemes to move rivers down from Canada is academic.

(He does have one very good point though: most "conservation" efforts by the public are laughable and often counterproductive)

Kill the havenots!!!

Kill the havenots!!!


Eat the rich!

Soilent Green, is PEOPLE!!!!

These stocks do not recover over night. They recover after 5-10 years of freedom from molestation, except we're fishing them even more heavily as fish is the primary source of protein for something like 60% of the world's population. Orange Roughy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy) used to be a popular white fish. Over fished because it was tasty and relatively easy to catch, it takes 25-30 years for each fish to reach sexual maturity.

It's about resource consumption rates that do not destroy the resources -- just look at the current Middle East. Iraq was the cradle of agriculture civilization for thousands of years, we see it as a desert now because we farmed it into unusability. An additional problem with the "fertile crescent" was due to salt deposits from centuries of irrigation. Some of Iraq shines in the sun due to salt deposits laid down centuries ago.

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

"World population projected to reach 7 billion in 2011"

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/12/world.population/index.html

A staggering 97 percent of global growth over the next 40 years will happen in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Population Reference Bureau's 2009 World Population Data Sheet.

High fertility rates and a young population base in the developing world will fuel most of the growth, especially in Africa, where women often give birth to six or seven children over a lifetime, the report says. The number is about two in the United States and 1.5 in Canada.

A stark contrast can be drawn between Uganda and Canada, which currently have about 34 million and 31 million residents, respectively. By 2050, Canada's population is projected to be 42 million, while Uganda's is expected to soar to 96 million, more than tripling.

Tripling populations on already strained infrastructure in the developing world - how can that not lead to famine, disease, war, or all 3?

The race "conflicts" we have been witness to will be insignificant compared to the coming race wars as those populations increase and start looking for resources with which to maintain themselves.

Latin America and the Carribean will be looking to the U.S., and the African nations will be looking at Europe, and to a lesser extent the Middle Eastern countries. China will implode at some point in the not too distant future (IMO) as they juggle to maintain control over racial discrimination and capitalism and trade and population growth and relations with neighbors and the devastating effects of their neglect of ecological measures.

There are going to be some terrible wars and upheavals in the not too distant future, and failure to stress population control will be at the heart of most.

What a great time to be alive. Not.

Might as well face it. No one is going to institute population control. Most of the world loves children. The more the better. Even China is relaxing it because of a graying population. To China's credit, they can at least boast now having the economic means to automate and not rely so much on human labor so a gradual population reduction could in fact be achieved but then again, you still need a stable younger workforce to support the oldsters. As for the third world shit holes with exploding populations....all you bleeding hearts that sent your money to charities in places like Africa and Latin America to "Save the Children"? Thanks a lot. Why don't you send your money to the Nature Conservancy instead? Plant some more trees so we can have some clean air to breath instead in exchange for keeping just that many more mouths to feed and strain on resources in general.

The Future.

http://app.fantasyflightgames.com/dark-heresy/images/dh-art/hive-sibellus-big.jpg

Reserve your hive space now.

India's Health and Wellness Minister today proposed getting electricity to every Indian village. Then the citizens of India could watch TV until late at night and be too tired for sex, thus curbing the population growth. Genius!

could watch TV until late at night and be too tired for sex,

Patently false!!

While fully capable of long and protracted love making.

All I really need is a long commercial break and i can get my busness done. :D

LMAO and she doesn't need to stop cooking right Velvet?