Overcrowding nonsense

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So I was talking with a friend of mine who teaches over at the University of Illinois, and I asked him what exactly he teaches in a class called "Social Justice." He showed me a quiz that he had recently given to one of his classes. It contained the following statistic:

If everyone in the world had an American-style house, we could fit all 6+ billion people into 1/3 of Texas. That leaves 2/3 for agriculture and industry use, which is a sufficient proportion for any society.

Think about that the next time someone makes a crack about how the Earth is close to reaching its "carrying capacity."

The point is not that there are no overcrowded areas in the world (clearly some places have more people than their food distribution systems can handle). I just want to encourage people to say "Parts of Bangladesh are overcrowded" instead of "The Earth is overcrowded" when speaking in the context of Taluntain's functionalism argument, i.e. that wars can serve a good purpose because they keep the human population down.

 

Does an american-style house include an american-style car and american-style lifestyle?

Texas occupies about 7 percent of the total water and land area of the United States. Second in size among the states, Texas, according to the 1996 Statistical Abstract of the United States, has a land and water area of 267,277 square miles as compared with Alaska's 615,230 square miles.

So roughly 300,000 square miles. 1/3 is 100,000 square miles. 6,000,000,000 people. This adds up to 60,000 people per square mile. or again (1 mile 5280 feet (geeze!!! how complicated next to the metric system)) 1 person in around 400 squere feet. Actually could work on paper...

These mind games aside, when is a war enough to have an noticable impact on population? Is it a nuke? is it full scale invasion and then splitting the spoils? To be realistic; In todays wars there is hardly any "population benefits" at all. They are as functional as saying "hey! I'll walk out in the sun, perhaps it will ignite my cigarette".

 

Yeah, ArchAngel, that's about the population density of Los Angeles, and that's WITH all the land used for industry and agriculture in LA. (I pulled that from the census too, but I closed the window before I copied the link. Doh!)

But the statistics are amazing. Anyone who claims that the Earth can't handle more humans is simply out-of-touch with how much arable and/or inhabitable land is on the Earth.

[Edit: That should say LA County above, not just the city.]

[This message has been edited by Shralp (edited April 12, 2002).]

 

I just wrote a paper about this subject, and the how you define the reason for world hunger depends mostly if you have a liberalistic, mercantilistic or structuralistic view of the international scene. The classical view is that the earth can only sustain that many people, and that population grows faster than than our ability to sustain that population. This is regulated by various disasters such as war, famine and disease. With this perspective the main objective to reach if we wanted to get rid of these disasters was to control the worlds population, ie the population in the LDCs (less developed countries).
This was tried in many places without much success, it was almost only China that had any success at all and they had a very strict population policy.
As Shralp said this notion of the earths ability to sustain a large population has mostly been proven false. There are plenty of wealth on this planet to go around, the main question is how it is distrubuted. At the same time millions starve in the LDCs there are huge food surpluses in Europe and north america. The liberal answer to distrubtion of this wealth is to integrate the LDCs in the international economic system and by exposing them to the market power develop the nations. By doing so wealth should trickle down to every layer of their society and all should be better off. What has mostly happen with this approach is that the LDCs grow one or two "cashcrops" such as tea that they then export to the "north". This gives the nation foreign capital but it doesnt nescessarily benefit the poor layers of the populace. It does create a relatively wealthy class that can entrench themselves in the powerstructure of the nation by cooperating with big international corporations and the rich nations. Structuralists argue that to cope with the poverty and hunger problems that exist in the world today the LDCs must concentrate on using the land they have to grow crops that can feed their population. If they do so and create a relative level of selfsufficently they may be better able to cope with the rich nations and avoid being as exploited as they are today. What is right I do not know. But the world have more than enough resources to feed, house and clothe a much larger population than the one that currently exist. We must develop better ways of redistrubuting that wealth. As it is today about 30% of the worlds population consumes 90% of the worlds resources (not sure about the numbers but you get the general idea).

Ok end of rant mode. I wrote this out of the top of my head and there may be lots of errors and inconsistencies. But in general I agree with Shralp. Mail or ask for references

 

Shralp, space-wise the Earth can handle more humans. Arable land-wise it can. But on the level of predujice it can't forever. The more people you have, the more conflict you have. And you can multiply the amount of conflict if everyone is cramed together like that in close proximity.

Politics and warfare coupled with our exploitation of resources and pollution habits makes a messy world. More people just makes the whole thing even messier. I hate to be pessimistic in this sense, but for the world, the only place it's going is down. How long can it hold out is the question.

 

Biggimus B, the more people you have the more of everything human you have. Not just more prejudice and war, but also more charity, more compassion, and more Star Wars movies.

To quote the worst line ever written by John Keats, "More love. More happy happy love."

Depends upon your view of humanity.

[Edited to add: And don't even get me started on the pollution and resources issue. Not only is it overblown environmentally, but more people means more minds applied to solving problems.]

[This message has been edited by Shralp (edited April 12, 2002).]

 

SHRALP! YOU'RE A GOD!

I've been telling people this stuff for years! No one believed me.

The truth is, the Earth can support many times the number of people it has now. The only reason that people are starving is 'cause there's no profit in feeding poor people. Every person in the world could be fed for years on the food that America alone produces in one year, but companies won't ship for nothing.

Greedy, no good, !@#$!%^#s! But really, who can expect people to donate food on such grand scales? That's why I support the rice bowl charity things...yeah, I know it's really not enough, but it's something at least.

 

Well, Tal, that's why I said

My point is that bringing up war as a way to keep the Earth's population down is too general.

If one wants to make the argument (and I certainly don't) that war is good for population control, then it should be that a particular war is good to control population in a perticular country or an over-arching statement that wars are good for population control because the warring parties are usually overpopulated.

In the particular context of the other thread, neither Israel nor Palestine are overpopulated for their resources. I hear very little of air pollution or lack of food and water, although I grant that such topics are not likely to be headline news.

I just bring up this point because I often hear people talking about how the Earth as a whole is overpopulated -- and they then use this idea to urge all kinds of noxious international actions.

Oh, and Sappiryl, thanks for the compliments, but I'd also like to point out that the US (while full of greedy corporations) is also first in line to send food to starving countries, even those like North Korea whose goverments are virulently anti-American.

 

Actually Shralp, among professional resource managers (although, unfortunately, not many environmentalists) it has long been acknowledged that in terms of sheer volume there is more than enough food produced on the earth to feed every single person. The problem is of distribution: how to get the food to the people in need. To simply believe that because there is enough food to go around no one will go hungry is, obviously, wrong. Where people are hungry, it is because there is a) no money with which to buy food or b) no food to be bought within the local (or even national) economy.

I'd like to point out that Texas, other than for its relative size amongst other states, was a very bad choice to use in this example. Texas does not have enough arrable land to feed 6 billion people. It does not have enough arrable land to feed the population of the United States. And, more importantly, it does not have enough water to supply anywhere near that number of people. In fact, all of the south western United States is within a severe drought zone, and actually have water deficits, resulting in water being brought into those areas from other areas.

Which brings me to the my next point. One of the major limiting factors amongst developing countries is a lack of clean, potable drinking water. Water that can be used for drinking is actually a rare and valuable resource on the Earth. To illustrate, the allocation of water (both fresh and saline) throughout the Earth is as follows (in km^3):

Oceans: 1,348,000,000 - 97.39%
Polar ice caps, icebergs, glaciers: 27,820,000 - 2.01 %
Ground water, soil moisture: 8,062,000 - 0.58%
Lakes and rivers: 225, 000 - 0.02%
Atmospher: 13,000 - 0.001%
Total: 1,384,120,000

Of that total, only 2.6% is fresh water. However, of the world's fresh water:

77.23% is contained in Polar ice caps, icebergs, and glaciers
9.86% is in the form of ground water (to a depth of 800m below the surface)
12.35% is in the form of deep ground water (from 800m to 4,000m below the surface)
0.17% is contained in ground moisture (upper soil layers)
0.35% is contained in lakes
0.003% is contained in rivers
the remaining 0.044% is contained in earth minerals, plants, animals (humans) and the atmosphere.

Thus, of the world's fresh water resources, only 10.213% is readily avaialable for consumption by humans. Of the world's total water volume, only 0.26% is available to us for use. Note that I use the word *available* to use. This is because of that miniscule total, much of it is entirely unusable. A large proportion of that water is severely polluted (such as the Ganges River in India). The problem becomes even more dire when you consider that most of the world's available fresh water (that 0.26%) is underground. Unlike water stored in rivers and lakes, groundwater is much *much* more susceptible to polutants, and takes from 10 to hundreds of years to filter through the groundwater system. And since groundwater takes such a long time (in human terms, but not geologically) to move through the system, it is also doesn't 'recharge' in the same way that rivers and lakes do. Wells run dry when the water is drawn out faster than it is replaced, which is, unfortunately, the common practice. Further compounding the problem, overdrawing the water from one well lowers the water table throughout the entire system. Thus, if you and your neighbour each have a well that is 100 ft to water, and you overdraw your well, the water in his (or her) well will also drop.

While it is estimated that this available volume (remember the 0.26%?) is capable of meeting the needs of a world population approximately 5 times the current 6 billion, more than half of the world's population goes without clean drinking water, and instead relies on heavily polluted (mostly human escrement) water or, in areas such as the Sahel in Africa, rely on very sparse sources of water.

Like the food problem, yes there is enough to go around. However, it doesn't. It is wasted and abused on a vast scale. While these problems *could* be resolved, due to massive misunderstandings and the often ridiculous examples such as the 6 billion people in Texas, they are not.

Shralp: don't over simplify these problems. If you have the time, I actually encourage you to research such topics. I don't mean pick up the latest environmental pamphlet, but to truly research them, to fully understand them. The problem, in short, is a lack of understanding on a large scale, which leads to inappropirate solutions.

BTW - Water is a major problem in Isreal and the entire middle east. Isreal, Jordan and Syria are actually constantly at each other over the scant resources of the Jordan River. It's just not as exciting as suicide bombers.

 

All Shralp wanted to do was to share a little mercy and loving. That warfare isn't an argument to keep down the earth's population. That is all.

He even says;

I am sure that involves water too.

And what happens? He gets flooded (pardon the pun) with resistance and lectures, even after he pointed out his only point. Point taken?


Edit; And one thing is for sure BigB. When the western world can't flush their toilet and enjoy the luxury of running water I am sure we'll put our heads together and figure something out. I find your lack of faith desturbing. But nothing will happen untill the luxury of running water or some other precious goodie is taken away from us. Humanity is far to reckless and careless to be precautious and even environmental before the downsides strike like an oblivious thunderstorm. So untill then. Kick back and relax.

[This message has been edited by ArchAngel (edited April 13, 2002).]

 

Actually, the idea is to get people to distribute resources equally? That's the only way I can see of achieving what we're talking about. So: the people with more give to the people with less. Now call me cynical if you will, but somehow I don't think that would work. Something of this kind has already been tried and (with a few exceptions) failed. As far as I can see, it failed because this system does not work for human beings.


PS The worst hive of scum and villainy in the entire galaxy. (I just know BigB will apreciate this point)

 

Generally, it doesn't work because if people who have more have to give to people who have less, a huge number of people are happy to "have less" because it means they don't have to work. Then the minority who DO work, are slaves to the majority who don't. It's more successful in some countries than others- Scandinavian countries, in particular, have gotten away with some highly socialistic policies that give people great incentive not to work- and yet, by some miracle, they still do. My home country, France, is also very socialist and tragically it has been less successful there- corruption and taking advantage of the system are the norm. To a lesser degree this is becoming true in Canada as well (although Canada is not quite as socialist).

 

Vukodlok so when is humanity overcrowding Earth? When we can't use all its resources equally? When is that? I can imagine that could happen even if we only were 100,000 people on earth.

If you mix what humanity *could* achieve and *would* achieve, you make statistics and numbers useless. If Earth's population was only 50,000 people in Bangladesh and 50,000 in US, none of us would call it over crowded even if the Bangladesh couldn't get food enough, would we?

Many places can be made vigorous, for instance in Africa there are great farm lands. Look what, primarily owned by white farmers, can achieve. Earth is far from doomed...
Unless you want it to.

Stretch out with your feelings...

[This message has been edited by ArchAngel (edited April 15, 2002).]

 

Ok, here is a thought. Let me begin by saying that I am not a tree-hugger. I do believe in some enviromental controls, but the tree-huggers take it to far.

Now, the rest of the story. Maybe it is not necessarily that the Earth is overpopulated, or will be overpopulated. How about other natural resources. I have read every comment in the post and everyone has memtioned land, food and in one case (if I remember correctly) water. Maybe this survery or whatever it was took into account everything. Overpopulation maybe a broader term then just, "too many people". What about the quality of air. I can go on about the civil progression from an agricultural ecomony to an industrial one, but that is boring. What would happen if everything stayed the same as it is now. All the third-world countries would develop and then they would become industrial over time. Then the air quality would deminish. Of course, I have seen that the population is due to double in like 30 years or so. So add all that natural resource consumption to the list as well.

This was just some mindless chatter, but maybe the writers of the survey or whatever had a bigger, macro picture in mind.

And another question, since when did over population become a "Social Justice" topic anyway. I always thought social justice dealt with prejudice and discrimination. Can someone out there please clue me in.

 

I'd say overpopulation is a social justice topic because in debate it so often DOES degenerate into prejudice and discrimination. How many times have you heard a variation on, "Texas isn't overpopulated but Bangladesh is, so my 3 kids are a precious resource but those Bangladeshis gotta learn about birth control". It's just a short hop away from, "you can never have enough of us white people but there's too many of them brown people". From a social justice point of view, unacceptable.

 

Hey Sprite, thank you for the clarification. I remember sitting in my General Soc. class listening to how the third world's population is skyrocketing. One of the suggestions was to introduce methods of birth control in those societies. Never really saw this as anything bad back then, but put in this context, I can see what you mean.

ccp

 

Hey, I'm not saying earth is doomed! I'm just saying that if the population continues to increase some things in society would have to change. And necesserily the change would be toward socialism (and communism) and equal distribution of wealth. I have nothing against socialism, whatismore I think that's theoretically the best option. However, in practice, I would like to note that it doesn't work! The reason it doesn't work is because it's too easy to abuse, and we, humans just can't help but abuse it (or anything else).

PS
- We gotta be able to get some sort of reading on that shield up or down!
- UYFlyfLlLljhvbb yhgpigpig hbhsei.
- JAMMING US? Well, how can they be jamming us if they don't now... we're coming!

 

Sprite - Hasn;t France had a recent resurgence in right wing politics? Is this anything to do with a history of socialism not succeeding there?