Sounds funny don't it?
I'm old enough to remember when "animal rights" and "PETA" were considered fringe, nutty, out there ideas.
Now they're pretty much mainstream, nearly all states have laws on the books defining animal cruelty with penalties for the transgressors.
Cock fighting and dog fights (remember Michael Vick?) haven't always been illegal........hard to fathom isn't it?
There are already some people out there who won't have children because of the "environment".
Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly

Quote

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.

Consider that, then reread this thread.
It may take a few decades but The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement doesn't seem so far out there, does it?

It will always seems "far out there" to me, much like PETA and other animal rights activists who are more humane to animals than humans, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it become more widely adopted as the social norm in the not-too-distant future.

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure."

- Agent Smith: The Matrix.

There's a fundamental flaw in that quote. The fictional character of Agent Smith categorizes human beings as a cancerous virus while proclaiming his own "race" of machines as the cure for that cancer. Yet it is the machines who are enslaving, killing, and leeching off of the humans for their survival. That was not a symbiotic relationship. And I'm sure the machines had no need for rain forests, animals or natural beauty. Isn't that ironic?

That may be so but........

The funny thing about nature that you seem to think doesn't apply to humans is that it has a way of balancing itself out eventually. Whenever the wolf population gets too large and kills too many deer, there is a lack of food and the wolves die of starvation. It may take many years for the deer population to recuperate, but it will, and then the wolves will be back to start the cycle again. Are wolves any more restrained in their consuming of natural resources than humans are? And it's not just wolves. Even an overpopulation of deer could wipe out certain flora in the area.

Your analogy about nature with respect to the human population is also flawed.  Animals generally don't overuse a resource just because "it's there".  A wolf will kill a deer and eat what it needs to survive, any remaining carcass will itself be consumed by other predators, vermin, insects, etc, with the remains rotting down thereby furnishing the plants upon which the deer feed with nutrients.  ie. A reasonably self-supporting closed eco-system cycle - is what I meant.

The only humans that could possibly be in balance with nature are those that are living in sync with their environment such that their population of an area has become virtually static, eg. the Kalahari bushmen before they were "discovered".

Current "civilised" human beings just spread and consume and in that respect they are closer to virii than mammals.

The only way nature could balance out on this planet is to arbitrarily wipe out 90% of human beings but even then there would be enough remaining idiots who didn't get the message and just proceed as if they were kids let loose in a candy store.


Oh, and in case it's not quite clear, I side with Agent Smith

Yes that is what they show - but if you look at the first graph the population growth rates are (approximately):

11% in the first 50 years
29% in the next 50 years
31%
44%
139%

So in the last 50 years the population has increased by more than 139%

If the curve continues (and there is no reason to assume that it won't) how many people are going to be on the planet in 2050, 2100, 2150 ?

Currently deforestation is on a massive scale because people in the rainforest regions need to fight poverty by growing crops and there is a shortage of land able to support crops.

The rainforests supply a huge proportion of oxygen into the atmosphere and clean out CO2 - what is going to do that when all the trees have gone?

If population continues to grow and the desertification continues in the way it is at the moment where is the food growing to be grown. It is all very well saying that the world's population could fit into Utah - but if they all moved there what would they eat and drink - I hope they like cactus stew!

If the would is not over populated now it will be soon and at the rate we are cutting down  rainforests to make farming land, and turning Farming land into housing this is not a good thing. On top of this we are putting more cars on the roads. Right Now over Europe, Asia and the USA there are large clouds of poison from cars, Power Planets and other factories WE are the ones that are going to kill ourselves and the earth.

To solve the over population problem countries need to start bring in one child policies

There is no overpopulation problem. There is a lot of room for all of us.

No there isn't - and there definitely isn't resources enough for all of us, which is the major problem.

Oil production has pretty much reached it's peak, and will start to go downhill from now - and demands are going up (and remember that oil isn't just used for gasoline, but also for plastic materials etc). China (and other places) are beginning to have problems getting clean drinking water (using up water faster than the natural reservoirs fill up) - and this obviously affects agriculture as well, irrigation and all. The rainforest is being cut down at an alarming rate, farmers are poisoning the lands with nasty pesticides as well, as fatiguing the ground because of too aggressive farming. Several areas have had nasty fish poisoning.

So I seriously do believe that we're going to see some serious resource problems within long, especially since the previously underdeveloped countries are raising their living standards, and want to reap the same lifestyle benefits that we've had in the western countries for a long time. Perhaps disaster won't strike during my lifetime, at least in this part of the world, but we live in a globalized world... if things in Africa or China or India become too bad, there's a chance it's going to affect my sorry ass as well.

Overpopulation is not so much about room as it is about resources, or the lack thereof. My maid, who barely makes enough to give one child a decent life has decided to go ahead and have four children. The thinking is, the more kids you have the more people you'll have earning for the family. As an Indian I am in complete admiration of the Chinese one child policy and their overall disciplined society coz I witness firsthand the consequences of not having stringent population control in a developing country.

Wow, what an enlightened discussion, these aren't really new ideas ya know.
What's being discussed here is just plain old fashion eugenics, the philosophy advocated by Francis Galton, H. G. Wells, Margaret Sanger and others and put in to practice during WWII.
You're discussing who is fit to populate this planet based on environmental criteria but in reality it's the same old song.
I wonder how short the walk will be from controlling reproduction to actively euthanizing those who drain the resources of the planet this time?

Oil production has pretty much reached it's peak, and will start to go downhill from now - and demands are going up (and remember that oil isn't just used for gasoline, but also for plastic materials etc).

There's lots of untapped oil in Alaska. And OPEC just made drastic cuts to their oil production.

So I seriously do believe that we're going to see some serious resource problems within long. [...] Perhaps disaster won't strike during my lifetime, at least in this part of the world, but we live in a globalized world... if things in Africa or China or India become too bad, there's a chance it's going to affect my sorry ass as well.

I do agree that we'll likely see some of these big problems before long. Not due to lack of resources but due to mismanagement of resources and politics mostly. I think we'll likely see food shortages (like the rice shortage from a few months back, but worse) again in the next couple of years. Not because there's no room to farm food, but because so much of that farm land is being used to grow fuel for vehicles. In my opinion, it's stupid things like that which will lead to resource shortages.

Deozaan please get your facts right, They do not kill the child they fine the parents 10,000 RMB, Killing a child in China is call murder and anyone doing it goes to jail.

Well, I have to admit that I haven't witnessed it firsthand, but I have heard secondhand that it has indeed happened. I also am left wondering whether or not you truly know for sure, since the Chinese government won't even let its citizens know what happened at Tiananmen Square 20 years ago.

I wonder how short the walk will be from controlling reproduction to actively euthanizing those who drain the resources of the planet this time?

It may be soon, when the government implements universal healthcare. Once it becomes the government's responsibility to pay for your health, it will be the government's responsibility to "let you go" once they decide you're too expensive to keep alive. Denying a boy with Downs Syndrome residency in Australia is just a sneak peak of it:

This is not discrimination. A disability in itself is not grounds for failing the health requirement — it is a question of the cost implications to the community.

Quote from: f0dder on December 17, 2008, 09:49 AM

Oil production has pretty much reached it's peak, and will start to go downhill from now - and demands are going up (and remember that oil isn't just used for gasoline, but also for plastic materials etc).

There's lots of untapped oil in Alaska. And OPEC just made drastic cuts to their oil production.

Those points may be true BUT it doesn't mean that the resource isn't limited and dwindling. There may even be undiscovered reserves of fossil fuel but there are a number of things that follow:

• Whether or not new reserves are found they are finite. Coal, oil and natural gas are the bedrock of modern society and few people in the world would disagree that at best recovering these resources is getting harder and harder as time goes on to the poijnt where some resources are deemed economically unviable. Ultimately people may find cheaper ways of tapping these resources but ultimately limited.
• The fact that new resources are found doesn't necessarily mean that it is morally acceptable to exploit them to the detriment of rare landscape and other species.
• Political games to maintain high profits (as currently exists in OPEC) is not an argument that resources are unlimited. OPEC ONLY exists to maximize profit for a cartel of producers. In any other sphere of international trade this behaviour would be considered illegal in most countries but because the countries have oil reserves they get away with it.

The final point also works in terms of international agricultural agreements. Back in the 80s the EU had policies to maintain high food prices. Basically they built food surpluses that were ultimately destroyed rather than sell them at a lower price to the starving millions in Africa. It wasn't that we really had excess food it was just profit orientated manipulation.

OPEC knows that their oil reserves are limited and use that fact to blackmail the world into giving them the maximum amount of money. Heaven help us all when the oil runs out ... that is when WWI and WWII will look like local skirmishes!

Deozaan I really think you need to stop getting second hand information

By that logic I can't trust anything unless I personally witness it. That includes everything you say, since you are also secondhand information to me.

Those points may be true BUT it doesn't mean that the resource isn't limited and dwindling. There may even be undiscovered reserves of fossil fuel but there are a number of things that follow:

• Whether or not new reserves are found they are finite. Coal, oil and natural gas are the bedrock of modern society and few people in the world would disagree that at best recovering these resources is getting harder and harder as time goes on to the poijnt where some resources are deemed economically unviable. Ultimately people may find cheaper ways of tapping these resources but ultimately limited.
• The fact that new resources are found doesn't necessarily mean that it is morally acceptable to exploit them to the detriment of rare landscape and other species.
• Political games to maintain high profits (as currently exists in OPEC) is not an argument that resources are unlimited. OPEC ONLY exists to maximize profit for a cartel of producers. In any other sphere of international trade this behaviour would be considered illegal in most countries but because the countries have oil reserves they get away with it.

The final point also works in terms of international agricultural agreements. Back in the 80s the EU had policies to maintain high food prices. Basically they built food surpluses that were ultimately destroyed rather than sell them at a lower price to the starving millions in Africa. It wasn't that we really had excess food it was just profit orientated manipulation.

OPEC knows that their oil reserves are limited and use that fact to blackmail the world into giving them the maximum amount of money. Heaven help us all when the oil runs out ... that is when WWI and WWII will look like local skirmishes!

Sure, oil and fossil fuels have a technical limitation, but are there practical limits? Are we going to depend so much on oil in 100 years as we do today? 100 years ago one of the biggest environmental concerns was all the horse manure in the streets. People were worried about the "limitations" of how much manure the streets could hold before thing got too bad to handle. Then the car was invented and the manure problem went away naturally. So again, how do any of us know that in 100 years from now we'll still be using up oil like we do today? History has shown that natural and technological progress (the ingenuity of humanity!) will solve the problem.

I'm guessing that this part is about the oil in Alaska:

The fact that new resources are found doesn't necessarily mean that it is morally acceptable to exploit them to the detriment of rare landscape and other species.

My family lived in Alaska (though I was an infant at the time) and from what I hear (uh oh, more second-hand information!) from my family is that it is debatable as to whether or not drilling for oil in that tiny part (less than 0.4%) of Alaska is actually a detriment to "rare landscape" or wildlife. Ask people who actually possess the land in Alaska and see what they think about it. The majority of people who live in Alaska and have first-hand experience/information on the topic want to drill for oil, but they're held back by environmentalists who have never been there and have no idea what they're talking about.

I keep hoping for a proper zombie outbreak. . . A boy can dream, can't he?

Oil, hunger, water, education -- these things all seem so silly when someone is gnawing on your leg.

@ allen:
Well, I think there is still an old student chemical box in the attic somewhere...so you won't mind me setting up a new corporation called: Parasol over here?  

Hmm, maybe the name needs some revising  

@ Carol Haynes:
Mostly I agree with you, but after my continent switch I have to admit to some of the points Deozaan makes as well.
Brazil, it is a beautiful country with ingenuous people. They adapted a car engine to run on petrol, diesel and alcohol.

On the border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay lies a place called Iguazu. The link leads to the Wikipedia page dedicated to this place but forgets to mention the fact that there is also a huge installation there to generate electricity that powers Paraguay and big parts of Brazil and Argentina.

Because of all this these countries are already a lot less dependent on oil than most. Actually, the quote from Saudi oil minister Yamani “the stone age did not end because of a lack of stones” says it all.


Ah, perhaps the best solution to please Carol and allen is: cannibals.
For Carol the dwindling numbers of human kind should sound excellent while allen gets his fantasy fulfilled (pun intended)