How long before the population increase is too great for earth to handle?

Question

How long before the population increase is too great for earth to handle?

Answer 1

I had a post from a overly positive Philipino - she quoted '' nearly everything that we worry about will never happen in our life time ''

The earth is such a powerful and massive place this question would not be worth worrying about for at least 1000 years from now.

Population size is an excuse for bad managment of the earths resources. You can argue that the earth is severly underpopulated.

In the UK the average house has 1 or 2 people in it. this is not natural and looks to me like bad management of UK resourses.

And these people living lonely lives are often the first to say the world is getting crowded!

My argument is lets start being responsible as humans, how much gross indulgence in the world today we have to stop this, tax the rich hard and start to trade with the worlds poor countries. A small trade with India has a big effect on many people and improves so many lives.

I believe the answer to the world's proplems is to distribute the earth's resourses more and allow free trade. The whole world would benifit and the losers where too fat anyway.

Answer 2

It would help the earth alot if people weren't so stupid.

I went to the rubbish tip yesterday to dispose of some general household rubbish.. and had to stop a guy who was thowing in old oil containers.  They were half full of old oil.  Oil and stuff like it needs to be disposed of at specific depots.  It kills and contaminates the earth if its disposed of with normal waste.

Answer 3

30 years

Answer 4

nature will take care of it we have eliminated so many deceases but there are always new ones to keep check on the population growth

Answer 5

when we sink and drown

Answer 6

Actually it has already happened and it was about the time of the turn of the century.  Not 2000 but 1800.  

The planet is not capable of sustaining us for very much longer.  We are using resources much faster than they can be replenish themselves.  

Either we will end up destroying everything or nature will get tired of us and kill off three or four billion.  

I do think nature will be the one to decide when and who.  Yes you young people now will most likely live to see this happen and most of you will be the victims.  

By By

Answer 7

3 and a half weeks.

Answer 8

I say: I am not too impressed by your login name. Maybe change it?

Answer 9

In  a few years time the oil will run out and many of the world's population, including many here in the UK, will die of starvation and so the world will never become over-populated.

Answer 10

Um...considering how we are raping her of her resources, I'd say right now!

Answer 11

This is a very similar problem to the question I just answered on the Gulf Stream stopping.

Once again, the best answer to your question would be: never.

The over-population scare is just that – a scare. Paul Ehrlich wrote a book called “The Population Bomb” as long ago as 1968 predicting that over population was going to be a huge problem. He said that 60 million Americans would starve to death and half of all species would become extinct by 2000. Here’s a quote…

“The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with radical surgery does the patient have a chance of survival.”

We ignored him, of course, and nearly 40 years later, what’s happened? Essentially nothing. If you were to list the biggest problems in your life, do you honestly think that “over-population” would be high on your list? No, of course not. Ehrlich was simply wrong.

And what’s more, the problem is actually solving itself. The rate of rise of the population is actually dropping. (Note, I’m not saying that the *population* is dropping. It’s still rising, but the *rate* at which it’s rising is falling.) The birth rate in developed countries has been dropping since around 1875 (in the U.K., for example, the population would actually be falling if it wasn’t for immigration) and in developing countries it’s been dropping since about 1960. Life expectancy has been rising though, so the death rate has also been falling. Recently however, the death rate has levelled off while the birth rate is continuing to fall, so we are now heading for equilibrium. Current best guesses are that the population will level off at around 7.5 billion. (Though it’s an extremely difficult thing to predict, so I wouldn't go making any bets on that figure.)

Another point to make about over-population is that most people have a funny idea about how many people there are on the planet, compared to just how big planet Earth is. The numbers are just too big for us to get our heads around. So consider this…

If you stood the entire population of the planet, shoulder to shoulder in as small an area as you could, how big an area would you need? Have a think about that before you look down to see just how wrong you probably are.

Well, assuming that, as I said, everyone is standing shoulder to shoulder and that each person requires only one square foot of space, you could fit the entire population of the world into a fifteen mile by fifteen mile square. That’s around 225 square miles. The land area of planet Earth is around 60 million square miles. So we would need a population around 250 thousand times as big before we were literally all standing shoulder to shoulder. Thus, we’ve still got quite a bit of room to spread out! :)

Answer 12

overpopulation is the primary cause of all the world problems

polution,desertification,water... ,food shortage ,deforrestation,loss of animal habitat ,you name it

people use and need land,so more and more is being changed to accomodate human growth and devellopment

the necessary flora ,which permits life as we know it, is disappearing.

Eco-systems are being exchanged for desserts , concrete or roads.

An environmentally destructive wave is in motion, caused by expanding populations,and expanding agriculture

an increase in desserts definately affects the global climate and is for a large part responsible for the climate change we are experiencing now

World population has doubled in the last 50 years exceeding the growth of 4 million years (since we became homo sapiens).

To satisfy the growing demand farmers are cultivating unstable lands , too steep or dry to be sustainable.

Mono cultures ,aided by chemicals Exhaust and pollutes the soil .

Adding to this the effects of overgrazing has resulted in large scale desertification.

Each year billions of tons of topsoil are blown or washed away by storms.

Arable lands and their farms are lost all over the globe. Many farmers sons abandon farming and head for the cities. The farmers that are left have to feed some 70 million more people than the year before but with less topsoil.

Northern China is drying up, what once were millions of food producing people,

are now hungry refugees ,running for their lives from the all consuming dust storms.

This will have a great effect on world food prices when they start buying at what ever cost, to feed their people.

Over the last half century,

Population growth & rising incomes have tripled world grain demand from 640 million tons to 1,855 million

In the near future the global farming community will not be able to feed every body ,food prices will continue to rise. .

SUGESTED SOLUTIONS

at a meeting in Kopenhagen in 1998 it was suggested to bring the world population down by 60%,one cannot help but wonder at how this would be archieved

population control in the past and present

War (past .present and future)

Natures way disease(today,past and future)

Manufactured disease(suspected today)

cures that kill(suspected today)

poisoned consumer goods (suspected today)

making children infertile or g*y,by raising the PH level in drinking water or even drinks (suspected today)

birth control,(in the past the Olmecs women ate yams to make them infertile,today we have several methods but most reach only the educated ,i handed out condoms to an native Mazatecca comunity in oaxaca ,and the church retrieved them all )

education on birth control(not enough,again the poor regions are excluded )

laws that limit childbirth per family(China

human sacrifice,may be the best option (Mayas ,Aztecs,druids)

Answer 13

the population is already to great for the earth to handle - heard of global warming?

Answer 14

i think we shouldn't let that happen, we need educate people especially developing nation, that have to stop producing so many children so there less starvation and less resource . i hear they think it good thing to have many children cause they help find food, If can't feed themselves then what chance of children helping to find more food, when extra mouth to feed.  Mother nature has limit to in natural and renewable  resourcing, for there will be time where it will no more of it, if use so much of it at a fast pace where nature be able to grow back to resources.  Also educate them to recycle.  They have learn that men and women are equal, woman are no weak, if man are afraid to lose power but also take away the presure of being this certain way, less presure on them. If want be good parent, they have educate to have job to have the money to give them the basic need, like shelter, food, and education for the children. And for people to understand they you also can be happy without husband or wife, just by do good thing in world, one step is by helping other person, but also have remember to care about yourself too.

Answer 15

probably not that long- we are over-crowded now. Look at ghhow many people  are starving and dying of treatable diseases, and there are no resources to help them

Answer 16

Earth was able to accmodate population until 1989, and from then, our planet starts to show sign of resentment and fatigue. in fact, every time few hundreds thousands of death every day is a big relief for the mother earth. and eliminating useless earth citizens are better than producing foods to feed them. a true humanitarian efforts are not being measured by helping non productive people, people who will never know the meaning of usefulness. people who in the first place never have allowed to be born.

enough of the so called humanitarian assistance, reducing the planet's population is far better than reducing pollutants. after all, these pollutants were produced for these said reasons...

call me insane, but what is more insane than the endless debates of eliminating global warming?