Thank you. Let me know when you've sifted Home and I'll *quality it.

In reply to this comment by LarsaruS:
>> ^lore_weaver:

Overpopulation is a myth. Things like Organic Farming and "Green lifestyle" do more to lower the capacity our planet has for humans.
Environmentalist Fanatics cite overpopulation as one of the biggest issues we face, when they start using 20 times the amount of land it would take to produce the same amount of "normal" food.
Also, while Nuclear power may strictly be "non-renewable" it's going to be a long while before we run out of uranium, and switching to Nuclear would be safer than our existing energy, and allow us to turn off Coal and Oil power sources.


What arvana said above + I would recommend the documentary Home for people who want to see how much we have changed the world.
Wikipage

>> ^lore_weaver:

Overpopulation is a myth. Things like Organic Farming and "Green lifestyle" do more to lower the capacity our planet has for humans.
Environmentalist Fanatics cite overpopulation as one of the biggest issues we face, when they start using 20 times the amount of land it would take to produce the same amount of "normal" food.
Also, while Nuclear power may strictly be "non-renewable" it's going to be a long while before we run out of uranium, and switching to Nuclear would be safer than our existing energy, and allow us to turn off Coal and Oil power sources.


What arvana said above + I would recommend the documentary Home for people who want to see how much we have changed the world.
Wikipage

@lore_weaver: You've been lied to. I personally know organic farmers who significantly out-produce conventional farms. And if you really think overpopulation is a myth, take a plane ride — pretty much anywhere you look on the planet's surface has been cleared for human use. Those of us who care about nature tend to believe that we should give it some space too.

>> ^lore_weaver:

Overpopulation is a myth. Things like Organic Farming and "Green lifestyle" do more to lower the capacity our planet has for humans.
Environmentalist Fanatics cite overpopulation as one of the biggest issues we face, when they start using 20 times the amount of land it would take to produce the same amount of "normal" food.

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

Environmentalist Fanatics cite overpopulation as one of the biggest issues we face, when they start using 20 times the amount of land it would take to produce the same amount of "normal" food.

Also, while Nuclear power may strictly be "non-renewable" it's going to be a long while before we run out of uranium, and switching to Nuclear would be safer than our existing energy, and allow us to turn off Coal and Oil power sources.

>> ^rottenseed:

>> ^dannym3141:
What the fuck are you people talking about AIDS epidemics for? I saw a pretty heartwarming video about people finding a way to enjoy themselves and have fun in a country where there may be precious little else to have fun doing.
What you saw was a dirty african. Probably got AIDS. Right? Yeah, he probably went and gave AIDS to a little girl as well after he played his dirty condom football. Right?
Fuck you guys. Seriously. This is the worst kind of xenophobia. The kind where you don't even realise how xenophobic it is. You see an african, you see AIDS, you see having unprotected sex and spreading disease.

Ahem...first of all Africa is not a country. Secondly some countries in the African continent have up to a 25% HIV rate. Yea that was the first thing on my mind too...I mean it could've been "wow no wonder why people from Kenya are so fast, they like to play soccer". But it wasn't...it was AIDS...oh and overpopulating an area with little resources. I thought about how stupid that is too. It's ok to call people from African countries stupid. Just as long as it isn't because they're black.


First of all, where did i say africa was a country? I know africa isn't a country, i didn't call africa a country. If i had stated any country inside africa then i would be a) guessing and b) badly imitating the xenophobic generalisation as shown above.

Anyway. If the first thing you honestly saw was an irresponsible AIDS riddled african using his last condom on football rather than sex instead of a guy trying to have some fun where there's not a lot of fun going round, then i credit your honesty but i'm horrified.

Is it so hard to see a person? Am i alone?

>> ^dannym3141:

What the fuck are you people talking about AIDS epidemics for? I saw a pretty heartwarming video about people finding a way to enjoy themselves and have fun in a country where there may be precious little else to have fun doing.
What you saw was a dirty african. Probably got AIDS. Right? Yeah, he probably went and gave AIDS to a little girl as well after he played his dirty condom football. Right?
Fuck you guys. Seriously. This is the worst kind of xenophobia. The kind where you don't even realise how xenophobic it is. You see an african, you see AIDS, you see having unprotected sex and spreading disease.

*Ahem...first of all Africa is not a country. Secondly some countries in the African continent have up to a 25% HIV rate. Yea that was the first thing on my mind too...I mean it could've been "wow no wonder why people from Kenya are so fast, they like to play soccer". But it wasn't...it was AIDS...oh and overpopulating an area with little resources. I thought about how stupid that is too. It's ok to call people from African countries stupid. Just as long as it isn't because they're black.

Why not just tax human life directly? The world is overpopulated by at least 10x as it is. How about a $10,000 tax per kid per year. Sounds good, that should pay those million dollar political salaries pretty nicely.

I don't get global warming.

In order to 'get' this discussion you need to seperate out two completely different components. ONE: The science of climate change. TWO: The politics of 'man-made' global warming (AKA anthropogenic global warming or AGW).

ONE: THE SCIENCE
The science of climate change is undecided. Scientists create models to predict climates change. However, to date all such models are unsuccessful. There is no current valid mathematical model that serves as a platform for predicting climate change. Some models are rigorous, others are 'loose'. Some weight XYZ variables, and others focus on ABC. But anyone who claims to be able to predict temperatures, hurricanes, or the other components of global climate is full of crap. There is no 'consensus'. Real scientists would not dare to say 'the science is settled' because they are still collecting data.

As of this time the science can only tell us that there are 'variables' that effect the climate. However, science has not yet determined if the variables are causal or predictive. EG - they know atmospheric C02 is involved in the equation but they do not know whether C02 causes climate change or whether its alterations are caused by the climate changes. Science is still up in the air on the topic - no pun intended.

TWO: THE POLITICS
The AGW movement is not 'science'; it is pure agenda politics. There are lots of groups that desire to reduce human activity, for whatever reason. Some want to reduce ALL human activity. Some want to reduce a specific area. Others focus on overpopulation. Others are anti-capitalist. Whatever. The one thing in common is a generalized desire to reduce human activity on some scale or other.

The political label this movement co-opted is "AGW". They took AGW C02 (one variable out of dozens) and artificially weighted it. They dangled tons of grant money in front of sympathetic scientists, universities, labs, and clinics. They shut out dissent. They falsified data. They hid methodology. They pretended anecdotes were 'experts'. They threw way primary data. They clammed thier pieholes shut when their conclusions were wildly exaggerated. In the kindest interpretation, AGW has been proven to be no more than a very rudimentary hypothesis. In laymans terms, AGW C02 as a cause of 'climate change' is bunk.

The scientific claims are easily refuted because they are just about 100% wrong every time they say anything. Global warming causes hurricanes to be bigger and more powerful... ...eeeexcept that hurricanes became less frequent and weaker. Global warming is causing rising temperatures... ...eeeexcept that temperatures have been falling for 10 years and there's 7 feet of snow in DC. Human C02 will melt glaciars... ...eeeexcept the glaciers are actually getting thicker. You pick the topic. The 'science' predictions of the Warmers have been dead wrong every time.

Realizing that they have lost credibility when examined with real scientific rigor (or even with plain common sense) the Warmers simply moved their target. "Global Warming" not working? Well - just call it climate change. Since the climate always changes, ANY weather (good, bad, whatever) is "proof that man-made C02 emissions are destroying the planet". How rhetorically convenient.

But since the real objective is POLITICAL and not environmental, it doesn't really matter. If they can get enough gullible people to just pretend the Emperor has clothes long enough then they could still achieve the political goal - science be damned. They don't care that they've made the scientific community a laughing stock as long as they could get the IPCC to use East Anglia's bogus conclusions to try and sucker people at Carbonhagen.

So keep the divide in this issue clearly in mind. There is the 'science' side which is still undecided. Then there is the 'politics' side which is more like a religion that has the reduction of human activity as its Nicene Creed. That's all you need to know to look at any news story on this issue and arrive at a clear conclusion as to what its 'angle' is.

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.

Not really that worried about it, just found the video interesting

But yeah, I agree especially since overpopulation and high birth rates are related to economic prosperity, as more countries grow themselves out of poverty, global populations will grow at a slower rate and the problem will go away by itself. Hell, it's even already projected.

Issues that appear to be less important though, which require actual action rather than happening automatically and contradict the interests of corporations, like the ones you mentioned well yeah might as well give up hope on those, so you don't let yourself down

In reply to this comment by marinara:
ahh i know you're smart real smart but dont' worry about overpopulation. worry about aquifer loss in the midwest, loss of habitat resulting in species loss... even industrial chemicals causing buildups and knocking down the ecosystem.

the big things will take care of themselves so don't worry.

I'm not gonna downvote this as just because it's politically inconvienient. but this crap is basically worthless. This issue is a manufactured issue, because practically we don't suffer from overpopulation. Rather some forces will position themselves in order to benefit from a scare campaign against economic development. Well wake the fuck up you need to get your head outta the clouds and consider the real consequences of allowing this fabricated crap to pass around.

ahh i know you're smart real smart but dont' worry about overpopulation. worry about aquifer loss in the midwest, loss of habitat resulting in species loss... even industrial chemicals causing buildups and knocking down the ecosystem.

the big things will take care of themselves so don't worry.

And on rooftops, and in the ocean, and in multistory structures( some people were using storage containers stacked on each other, really brilliant), there is really a lot of innovation in this area. Overpopulation is mainly sensationalism at this point (IMO). The real problem is poverty. I actually like the idea of eating meat without slaughtering an animal.

The "problem" of overpopulation is more a problem of economics, poverty, and pre-industrialization economies adapting. For instance, the population density of the Vatican is one of the highest in the world but there are none of the problems normally associated with overpopulation. Technology has always increased the ability for populations to be crammed into any given space (and usually increase standard of living at the same time). Trucking, shipping, flight, preservative, and refrigeration technologies have allowed for food to be shipped from any one place on the entire frapping planet to any other place.

The problems that India and China face are much more a result of poverty then any REAL limit for the habitat to support their population. There is no meaningful calculate-able limit for the population as far as I have been educated on. And limits I have heard don't take into consideration vertical farming, ocean farming, or newly emergent food technologies (like growing food in vats), or even more broadly that things can be moved from one area of high resource to another area (IE Japan has no oil but lots of oil based technology). With more than 70% of the world being ocean, I would think the potential for ocean bound farming technology would provide more food for us then we would ever have population to consume. There doesn't seem to be a limit in any of the links that you provided, just the real issue of poverty of adjusting economies from trial agrarian to industrialized.

EDIT: In other words, every single city in the world is "overpopulated" in the sense that they have no food production in them, they are completely reliant on outside sources for food and to a smaller extent water. However, this abuse of the word doesn't factor in the reality of the situation, it is an oversimplified model. The reality is that the amount of population this planet can support is an unknown value. Just using the total amount of current farm land would be naive to the emergent technologies in the field of food. Soon, all food could be grown in a labs. If that is the case, then the idea of there not being enough land is meaningless as we could cram them into skyscrapers pumping out tons of food for the world. The real problem is poverty...and that is a really tragic and unfortunate thing, and luckily one we can participate it doing something about.

http://www.overpopulation.org/
http://www.overpopulation.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337815,00.html
http://www.cosmosmith.com/human_population_crisis.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/25/overpopulation.overview/index.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/overpopulation/overpopulation.html
http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/countries-of-the-world/asia/china/chinas-one-child-policy/
http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/6135.php
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/7/98.07.02.x.html
http://www.galtoninstitute.org.uk/Newsletters/GINL9303/poverty.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_Population
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/?p=174
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2haR-nJc9fU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCk508EaT6w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce-0iRrt66g&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmEosykOesE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znCdbq9ZE14&feature=related
http://www.population-awareness.net/newsScan.html