“And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase on the earth and multiply in it.” Genesis 9:7
Well, perhaps not.
“The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is one the government isn’t telling you about.”
Science. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/best-way-reduce-your-carbon-footp...
Spoiler alert: It’s have one fewer child.
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Planet's overpopulated, plain and simple. What we really need is a single generation where every couple only has 1 child, or something similar (a 50% drop might be too extreme; someone should crunch the numbers on that). But with ignorance about sex and reproduction still rampant in both the developed and undeveloped world, along with the religious fixation on reproduction and people's insistence that having as many kids as you damn well please is a human right, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Personally, I'm leaning towards not having kids and seriously considering getting my tubes snipped as soon as I can afford it. Partly because, given how the environment is decaying as a result of human activity, it seems cruel to father a child and leave them to face what's likely to be the demise of the human race, and partly because due to my own personal issues and mental health, I'm not sure I'll ever really be fit to be a father. Either way, it's more of an academic problem for me at this point.
Just ask China about the one child law. Now they have millions of single men looking for a wife. In China they favor having boys over girls.
Reducing the birthrate sounds like a good idea, but then there's the law of unintended consequences.
In China there are millions of missing girls. They were aborted or quietly murdered at birth as families tried to produce sons under the one-child law. Now they've got millions of lonely men, and an upside down population pyramid.
Japan didn't go as far as China, but they've got problems too. Before World War II they used to give medals to women who had 10 or more children. In the postwar era, they promoted family planning and got their birthrate down dramatically. They also improved healthcare so everyone lives much longer. What could possibly go wrong? Today Japan's becoming a nation of pensioners supported by a dwindling work force, and young workers are so stressed and busy they don't have time to make babies. Japan's population has been shrinking for several years.
I don't know what the answer is, but I'm sure it's not as simple as just having fewer babies.
Hi Hyphenator,
I don’t think we will need “a single generation where every couple only has 1 child, or something similar.” I would not be surprised if Mother Nature thinned the herd.
Consider some of the diseases that have emerged from "the bush" in the last 40 - 50 years: AIDS, SARS, West Nile, Nipah, Ebola, MERS, Marburg, Lassa fever, etc. and that does not include organisms that have evolved antibiotic resistant under our negligent management.
During the SARS crisis, a lot of my epidemiologist colleagues were working on that and they later admitted that there was a time when SARS was expanding exponentially that thy were very concerned that it would explode into a worldwide pandemic with devastating consequences. We all dodged proverbial bullet.
The next deadly virus to emerge could be sneezed out at every major airport in the world before humanity even knows it exists.
@Alembe: "I would not be surprised if Mother Nature thinned the herd."
Perhaps the ultimate form of natural selection would be the evolution of an animal smart enough to make nuclear weapons and stupid enough to use them.
Lol. I like it :) Did you come up with that your self, or did you quote someone else?
Humanity has over populated the planet. Nature will try to reduce us using disease, drought, and the climate.
**Conflict of Interest Statement**
In the interests of full disclosure, I should have noted that my wife and I do not have kids. (And now in our mid 60s, that will not be happening.)
I look back at the past 50 years and I'm reminded of that Jack Nicholson line, "What if this is as good as it gets?"
@Alembe: "What if this is as good as it gets?"
In that movie, it definitely wasn't as good as it got for Jack Nicholson. From being a reclusive, miserable grouch, he grew into someone who made a real positive difference in the lives of several people. And he even got to kiss Helen Hunt.
We just need to keep answering "no" to the that question.
In most of the first world countries, women that are: college graduates, and that are 2nd or higher generation "natives" average child bearing rate falls well below 2.2
2.2 being roughly the amount of children a capable child bearing woman, (as an average,) must have to keep the population growth from declining.
So all we gotta do is bring every country to first world status and give every women the opportunity to get a college degree, reduce the flow of refugees (try and end war,) and we should see a global population decline :)
We actually have seen a huge decline of children birthed by capable mothers in the last century, especially in 1st world countries. 100 years ago average mother every where had on average 8+ children, (if they manage to survive all those births w/o modern medicine.) We also seen a huge rise in life expectancy and children living to their adult years. If it was not for war and hard/dangerous labor, men would of had significantly longer life spans then women on average from all the women that died from complications of birth back then.
There is another option beyond enforced, (china like,) population control to reduce the over burden humans place on this planets resources. Conserve. If we switched to mostly vegetarian diets, switched to renewable energy sources and stopped consuming so much, this planet could theoretically, fairly comfortably, support 10+ billion people just not at the rates we consume today. It is a big planet.
Technologies like the internet, drones, virtual reality, and many more can also greatly reduce our impact on the planet. Telecommuting is rapidly taking hold, that allows ever more people to at least on occasion, skip the commute. I expect this to only grow as the technology continues to improve.
If we can as the human race: stop squabbling, put aside our fears, work together to improve these kinds of technologies, we could maybe actually solve the issue of our huge population and the over taxing of the resources available on this planet. It is solvable if we work together.
Curious on the person that disagreed with my post, what do you disagree about? You do not have to share obviously but I would like to talk about which point(s) you disagreed with.
Also note the 3rd paragraph was sarcasm, indicated by the smiley face at the end. Perhaps I should of done a winky face?
The cure for overpopulation is simple: mandatory suicide for all at forty.
Diotrephes
I disagree with you on mandatory suicide at forty. I'm 50 a plan on living another 50 years if I can.
xenoview,
Didn't you say that the planet has too many people? You're just adding to the crowd. Lead by example. Save the planet. At 50 your best years are long past you. All you will do in the next 50 is consume resources that should go to young vibrant people.
See, that's the problem when people start talking about excessive population. They want others to bear the burden but they want to continue to have all of the goodies for themselves. If you look back at history you will see that the world is a much better place for humanity now even with over 7 billion people than it was when there was only 1 billion. People's lives are much better now and they also have more and better food and health.
Diotrephes
Life is just getting interesting at age 50. My oldest child is planning on having her first child, I want to be part of my grandchild life, not a just be someone my child tells her child about.
I assume you were being sarcastic about this 40 (or is it 50?) idea.
If not being sarcastic, I can almost guarantee you personally will be singing a very different tune once you hit your late 30's
Plus even if somehow you instituted a worldwide die at 40 rule, if every capable mother on the planet had an average of 4 or more children before they hit 40, population would still rise, VERY quickly to completely unsustainable numbers based on current average and projected consumption patterns.
That's an old idea. Ever seen "Logan's Run"?
Population is high precisely because a lot of people die young. People in poor countries have lots of children to ensure that enough will reach adulthood to care for their aging parents. In countries where child mortality is low and pension systems are available, people have fewer children.
Soylent Green is a good way to feed people and control the population.
Is there a problem with extremely rapid human population growth in the last century? Look at the graph in the attachment and come to your own conclusion.
Then compare this graph to graphs of other biological population explosions, and compare the final results of that population once the biological growth population reaches unsustainable levels. Scary.
I suppose theist believe their "god" is gonna bail them out.
Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
Alembe, true, we may be heading for a population-decimating plague sooner rather than later. Given the speed with which antibiotic-resistant super-germs are developing and spreading (evolution in action; chew on that, creationists!), it could well happen in my lifetime.
And the flaw with China's "one child" law lay in their cultural misogyny, not with the idea itself. Though their foolishness may do more to help the planet and our species in the long run than that law ever did.