Earth Officially Home To 7 Billion Humans 473
New submitter arcite writes "It's official: planet Earth is now home to over seven billion ugly-bags-of-mostly-water (otherwise known as humans). We're adding ten thousand new humans every hour, or one billion every nine years. Head over to 7 Billion Actions (put together by the UN with the help of SAP) and check out the population map data. Short of adopting a strict diet of Soylent Green, what viable solutions will enable us to survive on this increasingly crowded pale blue dot? What will the role of technology be in supporting this many people?"
Wow... (Score:3, Insightful)
Balancing out (Score:2, Insightful)
Progressive people: It will balance itself!
Conservative people: It will balance itself.
Overpopulation is not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN estimates of world population now indicate an increase until around 2075 (9.2 billion), and then a decrease after that.
Birth rates in all developed nations are falling fast, many are under replacement rate already. The US population would be lower than the replacement rate right now if it weren't for immigration.
The problem with Malthus is not the math, it's the model. Anyone can pick assumptions and make a model, and from there make predictions. Mathus erred in assuming that things would not change. An exponential curve is indistinguishable from a bell curve at the long tail beginning, so the evidence seemed to support his prediction.
What's changing is the demographics. Once raised out of poverty, people naturally start having fewer children. There are a variety of proposed reasons for this, and the evidence is very strong.
The prediction now is that once everyone is reasonably above the poverty line (mostly Africa, with some contribution from SE Asia) population growth will reverse.
Interestingly enough, in 75 years time there may be the reverse problem - population *shrinkage*.
This is not a problem. We can all relax about this particular issue, and focus on solving the other issues, on some of which population is dependent.
Re:There are only a few choices... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Reduce the populations in India, Central America, China, Muslim countries, and Africa.
[citation needed]
Population density is really diverse in Central America. There are local foci of very high density (Mexico City, parts of Guatemala), but overall it is less populated than, say, Europe. Same goes for Muslim countries. The only clear case of overpopulation in an Arab country I can think of is Bangladesh, and even that case I am not sure it is worse than e.g. the Netherlands.
2) Reduce consumption. The only way to make this happen is to actually decrease production.
I disagree with the later statement. The 5% of the population that the US represents, consumes 25% of world resources, approximately. If that extra 20% isn't enough to solve this problem, I am sure it would contribute.
Re:We're lucky (Score:3, Insightful)
Nature makes excess with the expectation they will die off.
Pointing out this applies to humans because we are part of nature is Politically Incorrect As Fuck, but it's also accurate.
Re:Guaranteed solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus, without poor people, how are the rich going to know they're rich?
I guarantee, if everyone but the top 1% by wealth suddenly disappeared, the first thing that would happen is that the wealth of 99% of the people who are left would very quickly start to decline.
It's not enough to be wealthy. There have to be sufficient numbers of poor people around to remind you how well-off you are.
I believe something happened to the human race in the past half-century. There has been a persistent trend to create a breakaway society - maybe a breakaway species. As income disparities increase to the point where certain types of life-extension and other technologies are only available to a small number of people you're going to see that breakaway group forming up. Eventually, they'll have the ability to leave the Earth behind. And if that happens, there will be increasing incentive to make sure those folks left behind never get to catch up.
There used to be the joke, "The rich are different from the rest of us - they've got more money" which was a uniquely American perspective that the only difference between rich and poor is money. I think that has significantly changed as more institutions are put in place to guarantee less economic mobility. Here in the US for example, economic mobility has been steadily decreasing for 30 years. We are now much less economically mobile than the socialist countries of Northern Europe for example (despite the oft-repeated and obsolete right-wing mythology that "anyone can make it in America, if they work hard enough, blah blah" there is increasing evidence that if you're born poor in America, you're going to stay poor, by design.)
We are now seeing an acceleration of the efforts to "manage" the increasingly economically challenged as they replace the efforts to raise everyone's standard of living. Ubiquitous surveillance, for example and law enforcement's transition away from crime prevention toward the maintenance of order. I walk my dog past Chicago's police academy every day, and many days I see big trailers from Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) drilling the recruits in what looks like crowd "control" and stopping riots. And that's been going on since before Blackwater changed their name and there was any hint of an "Occupy Wall Street" movement". That's part of the process, I think. Crime rises in poor and middle class neighborhoods (at least property crimes) but more law enforcement focus is on protecting the enclaves where the most wealthy live, work and play.
Re:We're lucky (Score:5, Insightful)
Everytime I see this argument, I question the educational background of the person posing it.
That field of weeds and trees does have significant value exactly as it is. Contrary to many people's opinions on the matter, rampant destruction of biodiversity to develop farmland has a significant detrimental effect on the quality and viability of the total biosphere, human requirements included.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20091204/Habitat-destruction-and-biodiversity-loss-can-increase-the-incidence-of-infectious-diseases.aspx [news-medical.net]
This means that such so called "undeveloped areas" serve a fundemental and necessary function for society exactly as they are, other than mere asthetic and entertainment values. They are NOT "worthles unless exploited".
The lack of total biodiversity is one of the reasons why the biosphere 2 project failed so miserably. The idea of a giant citywide metropolis like those from science fiction is not sustainably realistic, and human carry capacity of the planet is not merely bounded by bulk storage and nutritional requirements. The earth's biosphere is a terribly complex thing, and treating it as though it weren't and without due caution invites very serious consequences.
Re:Food Shortages Non-existant (Score:5, Insightful)
I see vast open space on my commute to work and every time I travel.
I've seen almost the same words on several post, how can so called "educated" people be so ignorant about where their food comes from? The empty space you see is called "farmland", there would be no city for you to commute to without it. Globally, we have run out of new farmland, food prices have sky-rocketed over the last decade [rba.gov.au] causing food riots [google.com.au] in many places, including Mexico which borders the US. The only thing that will stop this from becoming worse as our population grows is a new green revolution [wikipedia.org] that does not depend on oil to create fertiliser.
Re:Time for Eugenics (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck.
You.
short answer, bottom line (Score:4, Insightful)
Get off this rock.
Re:Food Shortages Non-existant (Score:4, Insightful)
You have probably been watching Fox News haven't you?
Yes, like in the US there is lots of open space. Its just that much of it is at high altitude or desert, with very little water to support life.
One can never ceased to be amazed by how little Biology the average slashdotter knows. They have no idea what would happen if they turned ever square inch of the planet into a factory or a farm. Humans would be extinct in short order from the consequences.