How Can The World Control The Growth Of Population?

[ToraToraTora]

6bn to 7bn took only 12 years, numbers are growing out of control, how can we get this under control before nature does it for us?

[woofgang]

see now, that's straight out of Dan Brown's latest and therefore boring

[beso]

In the USA they have a system where everyone has has easy access to a firearm from a young age. It seems to be a fairly effective way to control population.

[ToraToraTora]

sorry woofgang, I wrote the whole post myself, never read Dan Brown. Though the 6-7 billion came up on a US cop show but I checked and it is accurate. It's a valid problem form mankind. If we were seals we'd be culled!

[sunny-dave]

To "re-home" a dog :

* prove you have adequate financial resources
* demonstrate that you understand the responsibility of the task
* have someone at home virtually full time to look after dog
* have property & garden inspected for suitability
* attend course on care for dog


To have a child :

* possess one set of functional gonads
* find someone with a complementary set
* expect the world to go 'ooh aah' and provide endless benefits and incentives for you to keep breeding


"Go Figure" as our transatlantic cousins say ..

[LazyGun]

Not sure that we can control the population growth.

We do not have the political systems in place to do so, nor sufficient force to impose birth controls, even should some authority have concluded that was the way to go.

So we will have to hope that technological advancement wrt to food production and clean water etc can keep up with demand - not absolutely sure of that myself - the future could be bleak indeed.....

[ToraToraTora]

....and amazingly they are still doing IVF!

[jake-the-peg]

That problem is local to particular areas

The UK has the reverse problem a declining birth rate and an aging population which is being held in check by immigration.

It's a problem that needs to be addressed in different ways in different locales.

Certainly having a certain resident of Rome change catholic policy would be a big help

[ludwig]

It won't be a problem once all the antibiotics have stopped working.

[jim360]

Primarily the population is "growing out of control" in Third-World countries. Not much you can do about that, other than to try to improve: education standards; awareness and use of contraception; living conditions generally; food and water supply; healthcare.

Once those start to improve birth rates will tend to decline, as they have done in developed countries.

[friedgreentomato]

Why should'nt they do IVF RG1?

[emmie]

you can't, China have tried this and created a massive imbalance in genders, not to mention the abortion rates there have gone through the roof, as boys were, are valued more than girls, same in many countries.

[ToraToraTora]

Because there is no shortage of people FGT, no need to create more artificially.

[ToraToraTora]

yes em10, that's why we need innovative thinking. I don't think laws etc are the answer, we need some way, so that it happens without resort to barbarism. For example there is a correlation between poverty and birth rate.

[Brenden]

Had a work colleague who was engaged to be married, she had IVF, had triplets then they decided not to marry as they would get a house and live off the state for the foreseeable future.

[dave50]

It will get worse due to the advance in medicine and treatment of illnesses that were once terminal. Stop keeping people artificially alive that should be left to die.

[LazyGun]

How and when do arrive at the conclusion that someone is going to die in order to withdraw treatment, Dave?

Who gets to make that decision anyway.

That post of yourslives up to your usual thoughtful and considered postings though. Well done on your empathy and humanity! Some people conclude that your own exposure to humanity was at the shallow end, but what do they know?

[ronnietoon]

kim jong un has ideas

[emmie]

what, to wipe us off the map,

[meglet]

That argument about IVF really annoys me. IVF births counted for 2% of births in the UK according to the latest figures available. Practically a drop in the ocean, in my opinion. The problem with relation to population control is large families, as the offspring from these families soon number in the hundreds in just a few generations.

[Old_Geezer]

This is a problem some of us have been aware of for at least 4 decades.

I am unconvinced humans are intelligent enough to stop their urges causing problems. Some even seem unaware that they are part of the problem for having more than 2 offspring, or if they are aware they don't seemingly care, thinking it is up to others not to follow but have none to compensate.

What is unforgivable is government actively trying to encourage births. Or in taking in the excess population from areas of the world who can not sustain the number of people they create allowing space for them to create more.

And the excuses one hears about needing a growing population, as if the future catastrophe can be just ignored as someone else's problem.

At the present state of an individual's ability to behave correctly, there are few options. One is a totalitarian state who enforces abortion according to various rules. This is a nightmare scenario. Another is for all the governments of the world to accept the problem and ensure large incentives to limit family sizes in their country. Many siblings is a luxury we can no longer afford.

But to sum up the answer to your question, I have no faith anything will be done, so you can only wait for nature to sort the issue out as another shortsighted species grow too large for it's food supply. That, or there is a major war just over the horizon. Maybe both if one causes the other.