Ten Billion

[Ghost Chilli]

Hey all.

As a budding prepper and bushcraft type, I am constantly working on what would probably be described as a fairly general plan. One thing seems fairly cerain:- that our population is growing. I have recently read the rather gloomy outlook forecast by the book '10 Billion'. I wondered how much of a consideration it is to other preppers and whether they see it as inevitable or unlikely.

[Stasher]

It is a gloomy outlook. BUT I truly believe that nature/the planet has a way of self regulating. Our population is increasing at a rate not seen before in human history which means we are more compacted, which means ultimately that the spread of disease is more rapid and indeed today, global unlike fifty years ago when barely anyone travelled (comparatively) abroad.

Black death (plague) in the past killed something in the region of 20 per cent of our population when there were only around 10 million of us, less densely populated with far less freedom to travel. Personally I believe that nature will find a way to deal with us in due course.

For the time being I continue to prep for financial hardship, loss of utilities etc whilst finding a way to become more self reliant in the longer term

[grenfell]

Read before that some estimates reckon we could go to 12 billion without problems. I can't personally see it myself as those saying that seem to take no notice of such things as resource depletion , soil erosion , climate change and a host of other factors. Those who are wedded to the idea of continuing economic growth as a given are likely those who don't see a larger population as a problem , more people , more consumers , more customers more everything.
Is it all inevitable? Assuming we haven't completely stuffed up the climate then I'd say it's likely. However , more people using more resources and probably burning more fuel will only exasperate the situation and could very well tip the planet over the edge and we'd see huge die offs and there would be a lot less than ten billion of us. Scarcity of food , water , land and energy will probably lead to resource wars but I can't see the death toll being higher than the birth rate. I agree disease will play a part but even if we look at the Ebola epidemic the dead "only" number around 5-10,000 .
Actually mentioning Ebola it shows how I think certain scenarios will play out. Disease will make itself evident in those poorer , less developed countries , we've already seen the reporting of hundreds of deaths in Africa compared to the amount of coverage of individual cases in Europe or the US .
There are things that we could do as a species . Firstly try to reduce the birth rate , China has done that with the one child policy. Their population has increased but not as much as it could. There are other things too. A fairer distribution of resources even if this means rationing TEQ's are a great idea but are essentially rationing. Smaller scale cultivation in allotments and gardens should be encouraged and the figures bear that out , food production from the Dig for Victory campaign in WW2 showed that gardeners were between 4 and 11% more productive than farmers for the same area. Here's another view that says the same http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/home-growing ... able-farms.

[Stasher]

Read before that some estimates reckon we could go to 12 billion without problems. I can't personally see it myself as those saying that seem to take no notice of such things as resource depletion , soil erosion , climate change and a host of other factors. Those who are wedded to the idea of continuing economic growth as a given are likely those who don't see a larger population as a problem , more people , more consumers , more customers more everything.
Is it all inevitable? Assuming we haven't completely stuffed up the climate then I'd say it's likely. However , more people using more resources and probably burning more fuel will only exasperate the situation and could very well tip the planet over the edge and we'd see huge die offs and there would be a lot less than ten billion of us. Scarcity of food , water , land and energy will probably lead to resource wars but I can't see the death toll being higher than the birth rate. I agree disease will play a part but even if we look at the Ebola epidemic the dead "only" number around 5-10,000 .
Actually mentioning Ebola it shows how I think certain scenarios will play out. Disease will make itself evident in those poorer , less developed countries , we've already seen the reporting of hundreds of deaths in Africa compared to the amount of coverage of individual cases in Europe or the US .
There are things that we could do as a species . Firstly try to reduce the birth rate , China has done that with the one child policy. Their population has increased but not as much as it could. There are other things too. A fairer distribution of resources even if this means rationing TEQ's are a great idea but are essentially rationing. Smaller scale cultivation in allotments and gardens should be encouraged and the figures bear that out , food production from the Dig for Victory campaign in WW2 showed that gardeners were between 4 and 11% more productive than farmers for the same area. Here's another view that says the same http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/home-growing ... able-farms.

Fascinating, thanks for this

[Ghost Chilli]

Well, great answers there. It seems, after further reading, that many groups think we're actually going to go just over ten billion then dip and settle at just over nine. Of course there's no real precedent for this so what this theory is based on is a mystery.
I suppose it's never really discussed because it really isn't an issue but some informative points were raised there.