Population Explosion

[Oldboy913]

How long will it be before the governments of the world wake up to the fact that all of our problems are being exacerbated by the reckless expansion in the world’s population.

[NazNomad]

According to calculations, 387¾ years and 123½ days.

[McMouse]

Naz..........Is your calculation based on GMT or BST?

[scotman]

Even if anyone wakes up to it what are they going to do about it.

[mollykins]

We're doing about this in geography <goes to get folder> as i remember something interesting that someone predicted in the 19th century.

[NazNomad]

"Naz..........Is your calculation based on GMT or BST? "

Well, my calculations are based on a theory that 'contains' the letters B, S and T.

[lcg]

don't worry - disease, pestilence and starvation will take care of it...x

[mollykins]

malthus predicted that the natural increase in the worlds population will one day lead to a malthusian catastrophe point, where there won't be enough food for anyone in the world. Although many people don't get enough food ATM, if we actually spead out all the food there was, there would just about be enough but one day there won't be.

[mollykins]

But according to someone else we learnt about, we are well overdue for a natural disaster that will wipe out a large proportion of the world, perhaps it'll be the eruption of the yellowstone supervolcanoe, mentioned on another thread.

[mollykins]

Oh and that malthus thing is because the population grows at a geometric rate but food only increases at an arithmetic rate . . .

[seadogg]

Malthus was too early for the effects of the Industrial Revolution and the Agricultural Revolution to increase food production enormously, let alone the opening up of the Prairies and similar food growing areas. Advance of technology will always modify the demands of population growth, and China has the policy of restricting the number of children in the family. Try that on your teacher Moll

[mollykins]

I know seadog, problems with his theory are on the next page . . . .

[mollykins]

BUT, something else I now remember and i wrote a little about in an essay is that if the population doesn't keep increasing there eon't be enough people (or money they make and pay in taxes) to look after the elderly, which is getting worse because of the increasing life expectancy age. So our success (advances in technology and medicine) is the making of our demies . . . .

[jno]

yes, there are just enough people around, thanks partly to immigration, to pay my pension. Goodness knows how you youngsters are going to cope when you're old and you realise you've forgotten to have children

[scotman]

Soylent Green

[sandyRoe]

There's a scientist who believes the the Earth is a self-regulating entity. According to him diseases are the Earth's way of trying to regulate the number of people.

[DTCwordfan]

and some folk think wars are a mechanism too....

Molly - the Yellowstone Caldera is way off going bang - not for approximately 200k years - not that long geologically but long enough - and when you think that it has only been less than 15000 years since the last Ice Age..... If it does go banmg it will be spectacular as the lava flows would stretch from Hosuton to Chicago and thats a pretty big area - the dramatic effect will be on the atmosphere as the ash clouds will block out the sun and possibly cause a signicant Ice period.

Krakatoa was a medium sized blimp and that had a significant effect on the climate in the 1870s - think of those Chrissie cards of the Thames - and this occurred after warming of the climate in the 19thC. This is a much more likely scenario and could have some significant population redressing with the cold involved.

[Calibax]

Even if they accept that human population growth is the biggest threat to the planet, I can't believe that large countries with emergent economies like China and India will do much about it as it would mean that they could not sustain their economic growth.
The only effective method would be to cull people over a certain age and I can't believe any government going with that option (certainly not democracies)

[DTCwordfan]

Agreed - and we all know about one dictator that tried elimination in our not too distant history - never mind minor dictators attempts such as like Saddam trying to obliterate the Gulf fishing-delta-based Shiites or the Kurds, credible justifications not properly used by Blair/Bush for the Iraqi war by the way.....

[Tim123]

The state pension is basically a Ponzi scheme. It has no assets, and can only continue paying out while an ever increasing number of people are paying in. When it collapses, it will collapse in a huge way, and no political party has shown the slightest interest in addressing the problem.