Overpopulation with climate change

[Moxy]

Hi everybody,

I was wanting to hear peoples thoughts about todays UN report regarding climate change and its effect on us. Things it touched upon were the possibilities of drought, floods, food shortages and even war. Also, I recently discovered the Malthusian theory of global overpopulation. These two things combined I believe will be a global disaster. The UN report suggests that is things are changed immediately then we can help ourselves, but overpopulation is an issue I don't believe can be easily solved until nature does the job for us. Overpopulated cities combined with extreme weather events, food shortages and possibly national grid failures, will push humans more towards our most primal and instinctive behaviour. The instinct to survive and protect our families will override other things that many of us take for granted now. kindness, generosity and helping the needy. The Malthusian Theory isn't something that might happen, it is something that IS happening, something that is quietly advancing towards us and something that we can prep for.

thoughts or advice for prepping for this event is greatly received.

Moxy

[Plymtom]

I don't think mother nature can make a big enough dent for prepping to be a sure fire winner, sure we change our odds, but nature is working on the problem long and slow, unless a pandemic gets us, or a massive CME, Yellowstone even, it's horrific to think it but we are as likely to cull ourselves through conflict.

[grenfell]

There are those that say our population could rise by another billion or two successfully . This , however , is dependant on food and resources being spread more evenly. Our "world society" is hugely out of balance. There are starving people in some parts of the world and huge numbers of obese people in other parts. Some survive with a few twigs a day as fuel and others burn many kilowatts of electricity and gallons of fuel in the same time.
It is one of the things that can give us hope , the fact that our system is so inefficient . There are savings , changes and efficiencies to be made right across the world. Our living standards will have to fall but we should survive although the general inertia of the population to change (and change for the worst in most of their eyes) will be a hurdle to overcome. Small incremental steps are what is needed to slowly change the direction of society.

[redskies]

There are, roughly, seven billion people on the planet. Every year, we produce enough food for twelve billion. The problem is not one of production, but one of distribution!

We're due a cull, a big one. We're like a parasite!

[Moxy]

We never know when a virus will mutate, but when it does, surely overcrowding will enable its spread far more quickly, that combined with how easily we can travel these days. If the worlds population was more evenly dispersed then we could stand a chance. We often see things like avian flu originating from countries with vast populations - China for example, and there is no way of making medication until it has infected people, and if the virus were to have a long enough gestation period, who knows how quickly it could disperse? Bit frightening actually.

Moxy

[J23]

since "swine flue" and news about millions people to die due to it I don't believe this sort of bulls...t. threatening people is great business, no matter what the threat is.

[nickdutch]

These threats won't affect those of us in adulthood at the moment,but will affect the human race of the future. Yes our species has to act, but we as individuals who buy an extra can of kidney beans once in a while won't be affected except in the case of the occasional hiccup such as the floods in the SouthWest etc.

I think "we" have to keep our attention focused on more immediate issues.

[cpslashm]

I'm not convinced it's a population numbers problem. More a population expectations problem.

If our society was aimed at achieving contentment, we could exist happily with basic needs and a few occasional luxuries. This would require far less work and we could all retire in our fifties.

Instead, our society is aimed at accumulating wealth from skimming economic throughput which means consuming as much as possible as quickly as possible. Contentment becomes a bad thing. Marketing and advertising instill discontentment and peer pressure into our lives to make us conform by short-term buying. Obsolescence is built-in. To feed the system, we work until we drop.

Halving the world's population seems like a good idea but which half? The developed, debt-ridden half who consume the most or the poor half who consume little?

Sadly, many poor aspire to a consumer lifestyle, so killing ourselves won't help.

[lonewolf]

the human race is a cancer on the planet, nowadays having a child is considered a RIGHT not a privelidge! there are too many people consuming less and less resources, at some point the balloon HAS to burst.

[cpslashm]

Surprisingly perhaps, the rate of population growth is now falling. As people become wealthier and women become educated, they have fewer children. Population grows initially with medical advances and more food, then stabilises. Current projections are that global population will peak below 9 billion by 2050.