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Attenborough: there's too much life on Earth

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Happy said:
One child policy in China was good start.
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I don't agree with Government intervention, I do agree with Government education. I am happy for people to have kids but not to be encouraged or discouraged to have them and certainly not bribed with money

Having tossers like Costello state publically we need more Australians, mums go forth and have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country is an incredibly irresponsible action for a leading Politician. Australia now has one of the highest birthrates in the world.

There does appear to be a direct link to education for women and responsible birthrates, I see that as more the solution then fostering (no pun intended) direct government action, in terms of population control legislation.
 
Trevor_S said:
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I am happy for people to have kids

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I am happy for people to have kids too.

But we are fast approaching population level that our planet will not be able to support.

Of course we can do nothing and eventually allow rest of the planet to slip into starvation mode, or take some measures to prevent it happening in a first place.
 
Good to see all the crazy's coming outa the closet in this thread.

In all developed country's birth rates fall...most of Europe at the moment has negative
births to death ratios....so 1 answer is to give them potential mothers jobs and educations
and the up and coming dads...financial and social obligations to live up too.

Debt and modern life styles = less kids.
 
Happy said:
One child policy in China was good start.

More countries should adopt it for a while and see what happens in 100 or 200 years time.
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Happy this has turned out to be a considerable social problem because families only wanted a male heir so female babies were aborted or allowed to die in many cases. Now they have a hugely unbalanced population with far too many males seeking far too few females.

On the aid to Africa conundrum: So much of what we send is absorbed by corrupt governments so fails to reach its intended needy people. Pretty hard to see why we should donate our tax dollars to propping up corrupt regimes.

No one wants to talk about quasi eugenics, but it may come to this.
 
In 200 years we should have 50 million people on the moon, half a billion on Mars and solved the problems of interstellar travel.
 
Wysiwyg said:
A big LOL for that. I`m not real good with mathematics but if 6 billion doesn`t double into 12 billion I`m a monkey`s uncle.
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Yes, but the catch is which of that 6 billion will double? The developing and third world countries take up the slack of the developed countries, but those are also the countries that can't support themselves.

So much of what we send is absorbed by corrupt governments so fails to reach its intended needy people.
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It then becomes a question of whether partially alleviating one person's suffering is worth helping prop up a regime that may cause the suffering of many. Do you withhold aid from the individual to make a point, or to help "solve" the problem (letting Africa "fail" so it can start fresh)?
 
Wysiwyg said:
A big LOL for that. I`m not real good with mathematics but if 6 billion doesn`t double into 12 billion I`m a monkey`s uncle.
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As u can see from the list, poverty and lack of education, political and economic stability and growth = lots of kids.

Development, good govt and education and more modern lifestyles = less kids.

Germany, Hong kong, Japan, Italy, less than 8.5 kids per thousand population

Niger, Uganda, Congo, Mali, more than 48 kids per thousand population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_birth_rate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_death_rate
 
So_Cynical said:
As u can see from the list, poverty and lack of education, political and economic stability and growth = lots of kids.
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Also not that more babies are born than people die.

If you go through all the African countries in comparison you will see the multiples of births over deaths.

*Note these are averages.


The World Factbook. 2008. http://www.bartleby.com/151/fields/29.html
Death rate

Australia 7.56 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)

Australia 12.55 births/1000 poulation


Let us know what you think.
 

A big problem with Africa is that the people are or were mostly nomadic.....living off the land as they moved around.....this only works with a certain density of population..something which has been overlooked by the missionaries and others....

If you are going to increase a population in a particular area u need to make sure that there is the infrastructure to support it....


The African landscape can only support so many people living as a foraging group.....interference in the process of natural selection has actually resulted in more people surviving but less living successfully....
 
Wysiwyg said:
I think more to the point would be why do they create children they cannot support?
People do this in Australia (create children they cannot support) but we have a social security system that is generous and encouraging of such action.
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Unfortunately dumb people have more children..its a proven fact.....give them money to have babies and the more they breed ....

its frightening really
 
cordelia said:
The African landscape can only support so many people living as a foraging group.....interference in the process of natural selection has actually resulted in more people surviving but less living successfully....
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But they have been foraging for centuries, to me thats the most sustainable way to live hence if the food is scarce people think twice about over breeding. I the problem is something different, you see i dont reckon its the tribes that are over breeding but the poor people living in the cities etc... most tribes will understand the importance of population vs food but if you live in the city most wouldnt have a clue since food is only a short walk to the store.

Then when you mix that up with unprotected sex/rape every day of course eventually your gonna come to a problem.

Most tribes are actually considered the best conservationists since the land is how they survive so they have the utmost respect for it. Look at the abo tribes here and that will help explain.
 
hey why not cull all people over the age of 50 for the next 7/8 years , that should fix things up
 
It is every animal's instinct to go forth and breed uncontrollably, it's a little hard to control. In theory it sounds easy to put a lid on it.

I think mankind has the intelligence to eventually work it's way around the issues presented, we have in the past and can adapt again. If it has to be other planets or moons in future centuries, I'm sure we will have worked out the science and technology needed.

If not well, billions will die, and that will take the pressure off the resources and it will become sustainable again, it's pretty much what happens in nature if a creature population gets too large for its environment.
 
I have been saying for a while now that the world is overpopulated.

I dont really have much to add, to me there seems 2 options:

Let nature take its course where the 'fittest survive, note that this doesnt imply smartest or mst intelligent, merely the strongest on a evolutionary point of view. Most city people would have no idea how to grow food or defend themselves if they had to.

Eugenics. This at least has the option of keeping the intelligence our species has built up over time...
 
Nature is a self regulating mechanism.

Just look at the Spanish Flu.

WHO reckons the next pandemic is not a matter of if, but when.

If there is a war over any resource (be it water, or oil or whatever) it will be by necessity so savage that the population will either come up with some lightbulb solution or die until the resources fit the population again.

1st and 3rd world will die alike.
 
I think a "sterilisation bonus" would work well. Instead of giving people money to have a kid, give it to them to get sterilised. That way the people who could least afford it will not have babies. The middle and upper classes will have higher procreation rates.

This could kill 2 birds with one stone and solve a lot of social problems, provided you didnt succumb to the temptation of importing a lot of 3rd world labour to do the menial jobs (thus initiating further social problems and offsetting the whole point of the exercise).
 
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