I would argue that China's "one child" policy might have something to do with the negative effects of overpopulation, but that's a different conversation.

I really am curious as to the answer to the question: What use could we possibly have for filling the earth to carrying capacity? Not to mention the effects that reaching human capacity might have on... all the other life on earth.

It wouldn't actually take that much to accomplish something. Free access to birth control for everyone and a little bit of education could go a really long way. Even if only one in a thousand people listened or used contraception because of it, population rates would decrease dramatically.

You keep saying we're well within capacity, but problems like overfishing, the depleting oil/energy supply, the food supply, the need for arable land... these problems actually exist right now. Even with advancements, capacity is a problem right now. All the energy that we put into trying to implement the solutions to these problems could already be getting applied to making them better. Instead of trying to fix problems as they arise, we could avoid them completely and spend our time on other things.

Maybe you're right, maybe it is just hype, but I just can't help but think that the energy spent on reducing the world's population would solve many more problems, way more efficiently than just eliminating Hummers, golf courses and fast food, and then waiting three-hundred years to see if the numbers drop.

China's selective pregnancy policy and the Holocaust are why people tend to want to dispel hype about overpopulation.

You either have to force 7 billion people to stop fucking.. [good luck]
Or murder like 6 billion people.. every 300 years.

Notice how I said carrying capacity is "at least" 10 billion.
Its maximum is probably closer to 16-20 billion. Maybe even 40 billion.

This last billion took a year long to reach than the billion before which means population is leveling off as we discuss this. It may even decline below 7 billion in another 300 - 600 years.

TL;DR

Overpopulation hype = Dec 21 2012 hype. Humans well within carrying capacity.

Stop driving Hummers, watering golf courses, and eating fast food and everyone will be healthy and happy.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

Fuck, as a matter of fact Genji, you're right. We could probably get that number up to a hundred-billion if we just covered the entire surface of the Earth with vertical farms and thorium reactors.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

The carrying capacity for Earth is at least 10 billion humans.
We just broke 7 billion and only 1 billion of us are starving.
And that's only cause greedy wasteful societies like The United States.
Add to that the knowledge that as a country develops, its birth rate tends to level off or decline even.
Human population will level off as well. 12 billion maybe?
Add to that, sustainable technologies and philosophies like vertical indoor farms, thorium reactors and permaculture.
7 billion+ humans really doesn't seems that dangerous for Earth or ourselves.
>> ^Ryjkyj:
This has nothing to do with overpopulation... move along.



That's exactly my point. Why are people so goddamn defensive about overpopulation? What use could we possibly have for filling the earth to "carrying capacity?"

The carrying capacity for Earth is at least 10 billion humans.

We just broke 7 billion and only 1 billion of us are starving.
And that's only cause greedy wasteful societies like The United States.

Add to that the knowledge that as a country develops, its birth rate tends to level off or decline even.

Human population will level off as well. 12 billion maybe?

Add to that, sustainable technologies and philosophies like vertical indoor farms, thorium reactors and permaculture.

7 billion+ humans really doesn't seem that dangerous for Earth or ourselves.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

This has nothing to do with overpopulation... move along.

This has nothing to do with overpopulation... move along.

Making it such a big deal for the Two Person relationship is just a ploy to lend legitimacy to the Two Person relationship model.

The truth is, marraige has nothing to do with the survival of DNA. DNA will find a way.

These INCORPORATIONS between two people logically must be a process extended to MORE THAN TWO.

Polygamy is just as legitimate when the participants are of age, and love each other (or not) and raise each others kids (or not).

It doesnt stop with homosexual COUPLES. This farce of govt endorsing COUPLES is obvious.

This whole thing is just misdirection away from the real issues of reproductive health and the consequences of overpopulation. Gah.

Thomas Robert Malthus

This guy is talked about in Jared Diamond's book Collapse.

Jared suggests that overpopulation in Rwanda coupled with rudimentary substance farming techniques helped to set the stage to for war.

All the video says is that there's currently enough food. It suggests that fears of running out of land soon are unfounded.

It takes no position whatsoever on environmental destruction, which is the reason that overpopulation is a problem. With exponential growth, technology eventually won't be able to keep up, and environmental disaster will follow, eventually.

This smells of a whitewash as they don't even address the environmental issue. My guess is that this group is a reaction to something like Steady State Economy activism that has been gaining traction in the last few years, and which is antithetical to modern capitalism which relies on the assumption of a continuously growing consumer base.

I bet if you follow this group's money, you end up with a group of very rich men who stand to lose millions or billions of dollars if we turn away from the current winner-takes-all model and move towards a more forward-thinking cooperative economic model.

Shineyblurry, let's imagine for a moment that you're 100% correct and that overpopulation is a myth. It fits nicely with the bible telling us to be fruitful and multiply, so let's throw caution to the wind, avoid the use any contraception and reproduce as vigorously as possible.

You must see that there will be a limit.

If planned, deliberate population control isn't addressed it's very simple math to reason out the end result of exponential growth.

Once you can admit that the problem is inevitable, then it's really just a question of how far you want to push ahead our reaction to do something about it.

How near to the point of no return, how close to catastrophe, for the entire human species, are you willing to get?


Oh, and as far as this video specifically, it seems irresponsible to say that overpopulation isn't really an issue as long as we simply sort out all of the problems of capitalism, diplomacy, and how humans interact with one another on every level.

This response proves you didn't even read the page that you are using to "debunk" the video. It doesn't address this video. This page, which contains one paragraph and a broken link to a video, is the one addressing it:

http://www.vhemt.org/pop101-3.htm

Again, you present yourself as the voice of chicken little, as your perpetrate another myth upon the overpopulation myth, which is the myth of peak oil. We are not in danger of running out of oil anytime soon; in fact, because of new technology and methods, such as the fracking boom, our domestic energy production is expected to rise significantly.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-01/fracking-boom-could-finally-cap-myth-of-peak-oil-peter-orszag.html

Since 1976 our proven oil reserves are double from where they started, and new reserves are being found continuously:

http://en.mercopress.com/2010/10/25/petrobras-confirms-tupi-field-could-hold-8-billion-barrels

http://www.albawaba.com/iran-discovers-huge-oil-field-report-415465

There is also evidence that oil fields are refilling:

http://www.rense.com/general63/refil.htm

The fact is that there is an oil boom in the western hemisphere:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/world/americas/recent-discoveries-put-americas-back-in-oil-companies-sights.html

The coal oil sands in Canada alone are estimated to hold 175 billion barrels of oil. What I find interesting hpqp, as you do another hit and run, is that you have all the faith in the world that science will solve all of our problems, except when it comes to your favorite doomsday hypothesis.

As I have already proven, we produce more than enough food to feed everyone. The problem is in the inequity of man and in the inefficient and wasteful distribution. We lose over 1/3 of the food we produce to waste. We have more than enough fuel to supply our agriculture, and the research shows that having smaller and more energy efficient farms will increase yields even further, and not significantly impact biodiversity.


>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
You call one paragraph and a video that doesn't exist debunking this? Let's examine the paragraph:
"Together the world’s 6.8 billion people use land equal in size to South America to grow food and raise livestock—an astounding agricultural footprint. And demographers predict the planet will host 9.5 billion people by 2050. Because each of us requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day, civilization will have to cultivate another Brazil’s worth of land—2.1 billion acres—if farming continues to be practiced as it is today. That much new, arable earth simply does not exist."
http://www.vhemt.org/pop101-3.htm
Did you miss when it said in the video that we're growing more food on less land, and that there are techniques which can turn barren land fertile, such has been practiced in Brazil and Thailand? Farming is going to continue as it does today; more yield per acre, and more barren land turned fertile, and it will continue to outstrip population growth. You've debunked nothing; you have no argument at all. I doubt you even read the page.
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2004/10-04/hist_tbl.xls
efficiency statistics
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/02tropic.html?_r=2
Scientists Are Making Brazil’s Savannah Bloom
>> ^hpqp:
Debunking the lies, nonsense and misinformation of this video: http://www.vhemt.org/pop101-1.htm
I disagree with the vhemt's core ideology (I do not want the human race to go extinct), but this page does a good job of exposing this crap.
If you want some real math, watch this series: http://youtu.be/F-QA2rkpBSY


The first page I linked to has no video, so I don't know what you're on about with that (my 2nd link, the youtube one, definitely works), but it has much more than "one paragraph" (not that that matters) showing the manipulation and misrepresentation in your video. As for "growing more food on less land", two words: oil and biodiversity. Without going into details, most (if not all) modern agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, a dwindling, non-renewable resource (fertilization, transport, etc.). The article you link to indirectly makes my second point: with the disappearance of fossil fuels, people are turning to biofuels (e.g. palm oil, mentioned in your article) which destroy biodiversity and cause several other issues ). Meanwhile, the soybeans and beef production (the one to feed the other btw) cause a large amount of ecological damage.
That's the last I'm answering to you (although it's more for the benefit of other readers, since I know how you are with the facts of reality).

>> ^shinyblurry:

You call one paragraph and a video that doesn't exist debunking this? Let's examine the paragraph:
"Together the world’s 6.8 billion people use land equal in size to South America to grow food and raise livestock—an astounding agricultural footprint. And demographers predict the planet will host 9.5 billion people by 2050. Because each of us requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day, civilization will have to cultivate another Brazil’s worth of land—2.1 billion acres—if farming continues to be practiced as it is today. That much new, arable earth simply does not exist."
http://www.vhemt.org/pop101-3.htm
Did you miss when it said in the video that we're growing more food on less land, and that there are techniques which can turn barren land fertile, such has been practiced in Brazil and Thailand? Farming is going to continue as it does today; more yield per acre, and more barren land turned fertile, and it will continue to outstrip population growth. You've debunked nothing; you have no argument at all. I doubt you even read the page.
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2004/10-04/hist_tbl.xls
efficiency statistics
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/02tropic.html?_r=2
Scientists Are Making Brazil’s Savannah Bloom
>> ^hpqp:
Debunking the lies, nonsense and misinformation of this video: http://www.vhemt.org/pop101-1.htm
I disagree with the vhemt's core ideology (I do not want the human race to go extinct), but this page does a good job of exposing this crap.
If you want some real math, watch this series: http://youtu.be/F-QA2rkpBSY



The first page I linked to has no video, so I don't know what you're on about with that (my 2nd link, the youtube one, definitely works), but it has much more than "one paragraph" (not that that matters) showing the manipulation and misrepresentation in your video. As for "growing more food on less land", two words: oil and biodiversity. Without going into details, most (if not all) modern agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, a dwindling, non-renewable resource (fertilization, transport, etc.). The article you link to indirectly makes my second point: with the disappearance of fossil fuels, people are turning to biofuels (e.g. palm oil, mentioned in your article) which destroy biodiversity and cause several other issues ). Meanwhile, the soybeans and beef production (the one to feed the other btw) cause a large amount of ecological damage.

That's the last I'm answering to you (although it's more for the benefit of other readers, since I know how you are with the facts of reality).

You call one paragraph and a video that doesn't exist debunking this? Let's examine the paragraph:

"Together the world’s 6.8 billion people use land equal in size to South America to grow food and raise livestock—an astounding agricultural footprint. And demographers predict the planet will host 9.5 billion people by 2050. Because each of us requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day, civilization will have to cultivate another Brazil’s worth of land—2.1 billion acres—if farming continues to be practiced as it is today. That much new, arable earth simply does not exist."

http://www.vhemt.org/pop101-3.htm

Did you miss when it said in the video that we're growing more food on less land, and that there are techniques which can turn barren land fertile, such has been practiced in Brazil and Thailand? Farming is going to continue as it does today; more yield per acre, and more barren land turned fertile, and it will continue to outstrip population growth. You've debunked nothing; you have no argument at all. I doubt you even read the page.

http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2004/10-04/hist_tbl.xls
efficiency statistics

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/02tropic.html?_r=2
Scientists Are Making Brazil’s Savannah Bloom

>> ^hpqp:
Debunking the lies, nonsense and misinformation of this video: http://www.vhemt.org/pop101-1.htm
I disagree with the vhemt's core ideology (I do not want the human race to go extinct), but this page does a good job of exposing this crap.
If you want some real math, watch this series: http://youtu.be/F-QA2rkpBSY

Sorry, I should have made it clear that this is addressing one aspect of the overpopulation myth..which is that population growth is outstripping food production. I fixed the title. So what is your argument against this?

>> ^kir_mokum:
this is dumb. a one dimensional "answer" to a multidimensional problem. it also doesn't seem to understand math.

I'm not talking about a myth, I'm talking about math. There are 167,550,080 acres in Texas. If you divide that by 7 billion people you get 0.023935 acres per person. An acre is 4840 square yards. 4840 * 0.23935 acres is 115.84 square yards. A square foot is 1/9 of a square yard. 115.84 * 9 = 1042 square feet for every person on Earth. As it stands, 90 percent of the worlds population lives on 10 percent of the land. I don't know where you live but in America we have over 300 million people and the majority of the land here is empty. The vast majority of land in the world is uninhabited. To say there isn't enough land for everyone is the myth.

The fact is, we have more than enough resources; the problem is the mismanagement of the resources we already have. For example, around 1/3 of the food we produce gets lost or wasted every year. That is around 1.3 billion tons of food. That is enough to feed the world many, many times over.

http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ags/publications/GFL_web.pdf

The worldwide GDP is 63 trillion dollars. We clearly do not lack the resources to take care of all our essential needs. Again, it is simply the gross mismanagement of resources, greed, wars, poor infrastructure and other factors that led to the inequality we see today. Over 30k people starve to death every day, not because of a lack of food, but because of a lack of love.

People have been predicting that the world would run out of resources since the 1700s. Your ideas about carrying capacity are simply outmoded and the theory itself has no real basis in reality:

http://videosift.com/video/Overpopulation-is-a-myth


>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
You could fit the entire population of the Earth in the state of Texas giving them 1000 square feet per person. You could feed the entire world on what Europe spends on ice cream every year. The problem isn't space, or resources, because we have plenty of both. The problem is human nature, specifically greed and a lack of love for our fellow man.

Pulling more ignorance off the webs, how unsurprising. That "population in Texas" myth needs to die, as well as the rest of the misinformation about human demographics that plagues the internet (often written by religious people: equally unsurprising). I'd suggest you look up "carrying capacity" and read up on how much of the earth's resources humans actually use, but considering you're a devout YEC, fat chance you'll let facts change your mind.
You're partly right about greed being a problem, but it's part of a bigger problem: a society/world economy entirely constructed around the imperative of growth.

couldn't the lack of children be as much due to a failing economy or an overpopulation of the planet as much as to an abdication of religion?

In any case, I say Good riddance and Goodbye to the godforsaken meme of religion.
"we had some.. times, we did."