How long can the world sustain such huge population numbers ?

Della said:
Food insecurity is a problem around the world. A nursing mother needs an extra 1000 calories. I went down to 103 pounds at the time. So I imagine the mothers in parts of the world where they don't worry about the price of formula do worry about the price of food.
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You miss my point completely, so I'll give up.
 

JimBob1952 said:
My suggestion, then, would be that you rely on a socialist food industry to deliver the goods. It works really well in places like Venezuela and North Korea.
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No reason to get personal. :) This is a discussion that is hard to get a handle on. No one knows the best system to tackle overpopulation. Therefore it is speculation. If we are convinced that our own personal bias is the best ( including my own ), then we are going to have a much more difficult time agreeing on what to do about it. Both socialist and capitalist means are being used by the majority of countries to get their population under control. We are all in the same boat on this one. :)
 
Paco Dennis said:
No reason to get personal. :) This is a discussion that is hard to get a handle on. No one knows the best system to tackle overpopulation. Therefore it is speculation. If we are convinced that our own personal bias is the best ( including my own ), then we are going to have a much more difficult time agreeing on what to do about it. Both socialist and capitalist means are being used by the majority of countries to get their population under control. We are all in the same boat on this one. :)
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Nothing personal intended and no offense meant. As I said in another post, capitalism has many flaws, but it generally works.
 

OK, here's my summary. Poor countries have high birth rates. So we should do what we can to make those countries less poor. That doesn't mean cutting off food aid so they starve, or forcing birth control upon them. It means ensuring a minimal standard of living so that people don't have to have so many children, thinking that a large family is some kind of guarantee that there will be helpers on the farm or providers for their old age.

This is my first day back from Covid so I'm signing off and going on to do some work, at least I hope so.
 
If humans keep destroying our living planet at the rate we are, population control is not the main problem for our survival.
This is a peer reviewed scientific thesis that has a different take :

"The most insidious threat to humankind is something called “extinction debt.” There comes a time in the progress of any species, even ones that seem to be thriving, when extinction will be inevitable, no matter what they might do to avert it. The cause of extinction is usually a delayed reaction to habitat loss. The species most at risk are those that dominate particular habitat patches at the expense of others, who tend to migrate elsewhere, and are therefore spread more thinly. Humans occupy more or less the whole planet, and with our sequestration of a large wedge of the productivity of this planetwide habitat patch, we are dominant within it. H. sapiens might therefore already be a dead species walking.


The signs are already there for those willing to see them. When the habitat becomes degraded such that there are fewer resources to go around; when fertility starts to decline; when the birth rate sinks below the death rate; and when genetic resources are limited—the only way is down. The question is “How fast?

I suspect that the human population is set not just for shrinkage but collapse—and soon. To paraphrase Lehrer, if we are going to write about human extinction, we’d better start writing now."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-doomed-to-go-extinct/

Here is the thesis...Habitat destruction and the extinction debt
 
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Della said:
Food insecurity is a problem around the world. A nursing mother needs an extra 1000 calories. I went down to 103 pounds at the time. So I imagine the mothers in parts of the world where they don't worry about the price of formula do worry about the price of food.
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To understand Africa we have to look beyond the price of food and the superficial trappings of their civilization. Mid 19th century when David Livingstone first set foot in the area around Lake Victoria he found a civilization that lacked a calendar and had not yet invented the wheel. Today things have not changed that much. On the other hand, as we discuss these issues, Taiwan has perhaps the most advanced computer chip manufacturing plant in the world, and the screen I am looking at was designed and manufactured in Korea, as was the car I drive. Those fertility numbers I posted were the products of radically different people and civilizations. 19th century American farmers had large families -- primarily because the kids were needed to work on the farm and eventually care for their elderly parents. The Africa of today may not be that much different than 19th Century America, and I doubt it is going to change.
 
ElCastor said:
19th century American farmers had large families -- primarily because the kids were needed to work on the farm and eventually care for their elderly parents.
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I've seen that stated many times, but I think there's a big assumption there that those families were planned -- for any reason. It seems more natural to me that what happened was couples had sex and babies were the result. Women have about 25 child bearing years and pre-birth control it was very easy to have a dozen or more children while only having intercourse once or twice a year. We have no real reason to believe they were thinking, "Let's have another child and after we feed and care for it for about fifteen years it will start to be a real help on the farm." I find it even more of a stretch to think the woman, who had a higher risk of death with every birth, was thinking about who would care for her in her old age. Her life expectancy was less than 40.

{I sure don't look at the price of food as a superficial trapping of civilization.}
 
charry said:
Your on the web Jim, so investigate yourself ....
Ive seen this ,since well before the pandemic .....
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If one is making a claim, that is the one who should be linking & googling, NOT the reader of the claim. i.e. it's not up to me to prove what you say, YOU prove what you say. :)
 
Pepper said:
If one is making a claim, that is the one who should be linking & googling, NOT the reader of the claim. i.e. it's not up to me to prove what you say, YOU prove what you say. :)
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If you don’t want to believe it , that’s up to you !..I saw it a few years ago, when they were downing the obese, and said the rate they were eating , there won’t be food left for everyone in 20yrs time.........if you require further investigations , google it !!
 
charry said:
If you don’t want to believe it , that’s up to you !..I saw it a few years ago, when they were downing the obese, and said the rate they were eating , there won’t be food left for everyone in 20yrs time.........if you require further investigations , google it !!
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Oh, I just meant in general, not specifically, but WOW imagine the obese folks eating everyone else's food, that's hilarious! 🤣
 
There is an enormous seed bank in Norway and also one in Russia for anyone's use if we begin running out of food. Just need folks motivated to begin farming for their own usage again and that could help simplify some of the food problems. Of course not all, but will help stave off starvation. Communal farms work in many places and city folks are using communal gardens. All in all, not a bad idea. I remember during WWII when so much was rationed, we all had victory gardens and ate well. Meat and dairy products are something else again.
 
Well, I just Googled "obese people eating all the food," and only got Noom ads.

I have seen this many times:
Academic publications often suggest that a 100 extra calories per day over a year (say about 350 days) would result in 35,000 extra calories or a ten pound weight gain.
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Ten pounds a year over ten years creates an obese person. So the overweight man who's being blamed for starving people in Africa, may just have been eating an extra apple every day.
 
JimBob1952 said:
Ok. So I'll just assume you're making a baseless statement, since you can't back it up.
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It’s world wide Jim.....and something I saw a few years ago........so not a baseless statement ,
Have you finished with your cross examination.......are you a prosecutor ? Lol
Calm down !!
 
Della said:
I've seen that stated many times, but I think there's a big assumption there that those families were planned -- for any reason. It seems more natural to me that what happened was couples had sex and babies were the result. Women have about 25 child bearing years and pre-birth control it was very easy to have a dozen or more children while only having intercourse once or twice a year. We have no real reason to believe they were thinking, "Let's have another child and after we feed and care for it for about fifteen years it will start to be a real help on the farm." I find it even more of a stretch to think the woman, who had a higher risk of death with every birth, was thinking about who would care for her in her old age. Her life expectancy was less than 40.

{I sure don't look at the price of food as a superficial trapping of civilization.}
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You assume that African women have much to say about getting pregnant. In many cases that may not be true. I have read that male importance in the tribal community is bolstered by greater numbers of male children. For whatever reason the population of Africa has grown from 227 million in 1950 to 1.39 billion today, and it continues to grow. The developed world is a different story. In Italy -- empty villages. In Japan more adult diapers are being sold than baby diapers. The hand wringing in this group about world population is misplaced. In the long run the developed world may be forced to pay women to have children, or adjust to a much less populous 1st world. Interesting, and controversial, research is underway concerning zygote selection and editing, while cloning of horses has become routine. (-8

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/africa-population/
 
timoc said:
Mother Nature has her own ways of reducing a species from overpopulating her space, perhaps covid is her doing.
Just a thought, I'm no expert. 😊
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Nope. People of reproductive age dying from Covid-19 are infinitesimally small compared to population growth. Deaths overall haven't put a dent in overpopulated areas.

Here's a good visual: https://www.worldometers.info/
 

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