h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We worry a lot about the environment. The cheapest way to save this planet for future generations is to tackle the overcrowding issue.

According to population experts the way forward on that is to eliminate poverty and insecurity. This reduces family size.

What this forum needs is a consensus on how best to do that.

The main obstacles are political ones.

They arise from people permitting their leaders to have almost unlimited power over them - even after being democratically elected this power can be excessive and not in the interests of the peace and security that is needed to save the planet.

What is needed is enough people, ordinary people all over the world, to express that view and to keep on doing so until something is done about this; and until that way forward is universally accepted and spreads around the whole world and is adopted voluntarily by all nations, one by one.

It is up to us ordinary people to save the planet and this is the easiest way, and the cheapest way to do it. By far. It costs almost nothing to express support for this and there are even economic benefits to bringing peace by constitutional legislation to limit the power of those in office.

Let me invite those who wish to contribute to this debate to refer back to this page from time to time so as to get back on course.

Now we have to explore a NUMBER of ways and a number of ideas on how to get to this destination. I have my own ideas. Lets have yours. But nothing, I repeat nothing will be done until all of us ordinary people make ourselves heard!

What about a petition, a referendum, a publicity drive for this forum, appeals for constructive ideas from our leaders.

There really IS NO ALTERNATIVE.

Population growth is exponential – meaning infinite – but remedies, however expensive, are limited. Have I made myself clear?

So let every man and every woman do their duty. Sign up to this view. Let your voice be heard.

Let us have a pettition site and a slogan or mission statement to enable us all. Any suggestions?

Hmm.

So you're asking for two quite seperate things:

1) Eliminate poverty
2) Curb the power of politicians

1) is a massive task which requires strong, influential politicians prepared to make difficult decisions and safeguarded from the political fallout that would ensue.

2) makes 1) impossible.

I'm not convinced that overcrowding IS the real issue.

1. If you're talking about environmental impact, then the greatest "offender" is the USA, which is hardly overcrowded.

2. In 3rd world countries, large families are the means to survival - more hands to work, possibly even earn outside income.

3. China once tried to limit the size of families...with some success but an awful lot more problems.

4. If all the world became vegetarian, there would easily be enough farming land to feed the current population and then some.

We don't have a population problem - we have a *distribution* problem.
And I don't subscribe to this pitiful "economics and thriving consumerism are the ansers to all our problems" tosh.

Especially spelling problems (that's *answers* of course...)

This is interesting because it comes at a time when I am covering some of this topic for A-level Geography. As part of our topic on the role of women in development (by development I mean the big definition, including quality of life as well as plain economics). It has generally been accepted that if the UN's Millenium Development Goals are to be achieved, population growth has to be reduced as soon as possible. Zero population growth is ideal.
Interesting, though not entirely relevent, UN leaflet:
http://www.mdgender.net/upload/tools/MDGender_leaflet.pdf

I can't remember where I read it, but there was a source that suggested the optimum population for human quality of life in the world was 1 billion.

Beatrice: the reason large families are a means of survival is due to the low level of development in the country. Rather than sending their children to school, parents have to make them work (perhaps they have to pay for schooling). If they were to stop having such large families, the country would develop more quickly and they would not need them.

It has generally been thought that smaller families and lower population growth are as a result of development; but it may well be that development is a result of smaller families and lower population growth.

Well, there´s always the Voluntary Human Extinction movement.

Getting a pension system up and running in some third world countries would mean they could avoid having large families. But the pensions might also need to be paid by the younger generation, so having negative population growth could also be a large problem. You hear them talk about that on the news sometimes, how the western world needs immigration so we can still take care of our old people.

Actually that's a big problem. We're living longer, but we're also being old and dependent on the working population for longer.

>> Getting a pension system up and running in some third world countries would mean they could avoid having large families <<

That's putting the cart several miles before the horse, though. Some simple steps like "rule of law", "property rights", "independent judiciary" should really be considered first.

RF

Yes, but I just wanted to give a quick answer. The solution would be something far more radical.

Quick answers aren't the solution.

RF

There's also the problem of how many people the land can actually support. Sub-Saharan countries have very high populations for the quality of land that has to sustain them. Although it is not the only reason (wars and poor government play a big part) it might well be that there are simply too many people in an area for it to ever be self-sustaining. This is not a nice thing to say, but if all the aid agencies pulled out of Africa (and allowing for a sudden outbreak of peace across the continent - yes, I know this is hypothetical) then the population would stabilise.

The land will support as many people as live there. If more people try to live there than the land will support, then they either die or move away.

RF

My god, I hope you´re not a farmer ReddyFreddy.

Precisely, unless external forces act, ie. support is given to the people living on that land in form of food, money, etc.

Why do you hope that? I'd have thought the statement was self-evident.

RF

Because I feel things are more complicated than that. For one thing the land might get time to recover with fewer people, with more people they can stay alive at first but later they just all die along with the land.

There is a point at which the amount people take out of the land is equal to the amount it gets back (from people or from other means). This is the threshold. If more people take more out of it, then it cannot support them.

So yes, the land would recover with fewer people since there would be a surplus ('in' would be greater than 'out'). But how does that change the point? If the number of people increases again there would still be a problem.

What exactly do you mean by "land recovering"? Do you mean "for farming/grazing/habitation by humans again"?

RF

Yes, that is what I meant.