>> ^Sniper007:

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.
This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.
If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).


Wealth is not created by humanity's growth. Much of the financial "wealth" of the last century was created by banks and bankers. Money is a very misunderstood concept. http://videosift.com/video/What-is-money

In relation to population growth and the environment Rosling's concern is that the trend of rising economies is that they tend to adopt the behavior of the economic state they rise towards, i.e. trading in bicycles for volvos. He states point blank that technologies should be developed so that these people can choose to use electric volvos rather than diesel ones, and thus curb behavior to have a reduced environmental impact.

Your video, TED - Hans Rosling on Global Population Growth, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.

This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.

If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).

Thanks!In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
*quality *doublepromote

Industrialized agriculture, and the like, may well be an enabler for massive population growth. However this growth is entirely unsustainable over the long term (100 years+) - a fact which will rapidly become evident over the next few decades.

The 'Green Lifestyle' raises the capacity for our planet to support a healthy, happy population over an extended period of time.

The antithesis relies on an ever increasing population to sustain itself - not necessarily a bad thing - but it is a flight towards a brick wall - that wall being the limits of the Earth's resources.

By the way, the 'Green Lifestyle' is a combination of numerous approaches. Your failure to appreciate this bigger picture is why your argument stinks. For example, ignoring costs and dangers, yes, nuclear power is very powerful and we could get a lot more power if we switched everything over to nuclear. However, you don't mention one of the fundamental tenants of mainstream environmentalism, which is that we shouldn't need this extra power in the first place if we lived and worked smarter.

>> ^lore_weaver:

Things like Organic Farming and "Green lifestyle" do more to lower the capacity our planet has for humans.

>> ^blankfist:

I hope. I think I may be too cynical to believe this.


liberal bloggers are also pointing out that monthly job growth isn't even keeping up with population growth.


http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2010/04/economy_still_g_1.htm?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SeeingTheForest+%
28Seeing+The+Forest%29&utm_content=Twitter

Righto, calm down. The key reason he's wrong is that overpopulation is not occuring in developed countries. In fact, if not for immigration from developing countries, most advanced industrialised nations would now be experiencing declining populations. It's the developing world that has high birth rates. So rich couples having their 1.8 babies is not a significant cause of population growth. There's a clear link between increasing wealth and declining birth rates.

I like a lot of his work, but he's Doug Stanhope - he's no Bill Hicks.

Oh, and Jon Stewart does his research - he rarely has the facts wrong.

>> ^alizarin:
He makes allot of assuming that using all possible resources is the basis of everything. Our population is going to top out - our technologically advanced cultures already have negative population growth when you subtract immigration. And maybe we'll choose not to create a megalomaniacal AI. What else are we going to need the energy from a Dyson sphere for?


>> ^alizarin:
He makes allot of assuming that using all possible resources is the basis of everything. Our population is going to top out - our technologically advanced cultures already have negative population growth when you subtract immigration. And maybe we'll choose not to create a megalomaniacal AI. What else are we going to need the energy from a Dyson sphere for?


There's really not a lot of assuming here. Our current society practically worships the complete use of a resource as wastefully as possible. The conversion from crude oil to refined is only around 90% efficient. And yes, you are correct, most industrialized nations see a negative population growth. However, we are about 5 billion people over populated for our planet so that's not really a bad thing.

What will we need energy for? Who knows. Then again, 200 years ago did people think we'd need energy for tv's, electric cars, laptop computers, mobile phones, etc? Who knows what's next! We could need energy for bio-mechanical suits or propulsion of space ships. Maybe the power we need to create stable wormholes is the equivalent of all the energy we produce on earth today. Hell, the replicators you see on Star Trek TNG would require tremendous amounts of power without a storeroom of atoms to build from. With enough energy, we can just build our own atoms. Teleportation would require tremendous amounts of energy if possible.

Basically, we don't know what we'll need energy for, all we know is we'll need more of it. All we can say is following current trends that in 100 or 200 or more years we'll need a LOT more power than we need today.

He makes allot of assuming that using all possible resources is the basis of everything. Our population is going to top out - our technologically advanced cultures already have negative population growth when you subtract immigration. And maybe we'll choose not to create a megalomaniacal AI. What else are we going to need the energy from a Dyson sphere for?

Some of you might not recall when the flood waters really flooded much of the American Midwest back in the 80's. As far as the eye could see, and then beyond, there was no ground to see. While the structures build in the 80's were of better material, built with modern know how, some did get destroyed. The point is, that you could still see some structures and such after the floor water receeded. Back in Noah's time, most buildings were built poorly with crappy materials. So when the flood water came, those things were simply demolished.

Unlike the fundie Christians believe, I doubt it was a global flood, but a large scale localized flood. Kinda of like the one from the 80's in Midwest America. But even at that time, the population of the Earth stood at 6 billion. So the flood wiped out a few thousand. That wasn't even a speed bump to the population growth at the time to be noticed.

Finally, this really is an attack on another religion. While poking fun at another religion can be fun, it also has its coneequences. Since, if your an atheist, and think this is funny, you can not, therefore, get mad or upset if a Christian makes jokes of Atheists. Otherwise, your just a hypocrit.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
But I can't help but thinking that scientific and social advancements are great and all but why not just start promoting the idea that people need to have less babies?

I think you missed the point in the documentary where they mention that it doesn't work well to try to limit peoples population growth by promoting less babies. People get less babies when their countries develop and they have good access to contraception. Many developed countries are already experiencing near zero or even negative growth.

I think with improved technology the Earth can easily support many more billions. The UN predicts that the population will level out around 9 billion in the medium scenario.

http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf
Under the assumptions made in the medium scenario projection, world population will not
vary greatly after reaching 8.92 billion in 2050 (figure 6). In another 25 years, by 2075, it is projected
to peak at 9.22 billion, only 3.4 per cent above the 2050 estimate. It will then dip slightly
to 8.43 billion by 2175 and rise gradually to 8.97 billion, very close to the initial 2050 figure, by
2300.

However the people could be richer and the planet in better state if the population growth doesn't continue too much. So the best way to accomplish that is to help developing countries develop as quickly as possible and give free access to contraception if people can't afford it.

I don't mind population growth, so long as we have an eye toward spreading humanity beyond this one measly planet.

>> ^Psychologic:
Check out the world's population growth by region... most of it is due to terrible living conditions. In many places sex is the only real form of entertainment. Once an area becomes urbanized the fertility rate tends to drop to replacement.

Ah no. Sex isn't used as a form of entertainment it's used as a form of keeping your family alive, bringing in the crops, and feeing the family by having working livable hands. This is the core growth of humanity and why people in poor regions have large numbers of kids. This is the same reason why when you go back 70 years, having a farm with 8 kids was still the norm in North America and Europe.

It's not that hard to figure out, and there's been so much research on that it's all over the place.

>> ^Enzoblue:
Not even upvoting this. "horrific chemo and radiation" is a huge industry. A cure now would guarantee our financial collapse here in America.

I suppose that is an argument against technological advance? I weep for our cotton loom operators. If you want to see some economic disruption, wait until in vitro meat destroys the worldwide cattle industry.


And for what? To reverse the second largest population controller we've got? F that.

The best one we have is urbanization, and that one actually affects the number of children people have, as opposed to people dying long after producing offspring.

Check out the world's population growth by region... most of it is due to terrible living conditions. In many places sex is the only real form of entertainment. Once an area becomes urbanized the fertility rate tends to drop to replacement.

>> ^jwray:
Earth has enough people on it; population growth must stop.

I agree to some point and I see it happening. In all developed countries birth rate goes down and approaches or even goes below replacement values (e.g. negative growth in Italy, Japan for example). So once a country reaches a sufficient level of development, population growth stops and further growth is not necessary for improved prosperity, advances in automation and efficiency will make these countries richer.

Now if me manage to help the developing countries develop, they will also level off. Because developed countries just don't need a lot of children to support themselves later in life. This will happen over a period where their population still grows rapidly, though increasingly slower. UN projection estimate that the world population growth will flat-line around 9-12 billion people. So if the Earth can support this population, were fine for the future, a very bright future indeed. I'm convinced the Earth can support this number with increases in intensive farming and technology, so more food production per acre, and by changing our energy demand and energy sources. That is develop large scale fission or fusion processes to power our more efficient society.