Should education be the only means to help with the overpopulation of the world?

Question

Give your opinions on this subject... I am doing a debate on Global Overpopulation and want to know your thoughts...

Answer 1

I would say that without an education, you can't understand the other thing required to reduce overpopulation.

Answer 2

No, we must have a nuclear war otherwise global warming will burn us up. Also a war might reduce population by killing of millions at a time. Maybe we should reopen the concentration camps in Germany, perhaps we can have them refurbished. Don't we still have mustard gas in surplus storage somewhere? Perhaps we can run air raids over New York, Paris, Mexico City, and Moscow. Then we can reduce the population for the benefit of the environment's natural balance. Then we can pile the bodies under previously forested areas for soil enrichment and plant new rain forests. Or open some Gulags in all seven continents.

Answer 3

Education rarely helps when the emotions and lust dominate.

Stringent controls like in China (one child policy) do the trick. Religions like Christianity advocating s*x for procreation mostly has to be discarded. So has to be  Islam where a man can have four wives..... that's why they have on average four times the birthrate compared to the society of the infidels, the West.. look at Osama bin Laden - he had 40 kids himself and that's only one.

But - they will eat themselves out of home and agricultural land and Many simply will starve to death. The wages of stupidity..... justly deserved. With that come diseases, plagues and wars for food and resources. Added to that is the killing of the oceans with pollution and reckless overfishing, the decimation of species, deforestation and  desertification on a grand scale etc. That will surely decimate the world population to a decent level. A decent level is not over one Billion at the very most.

Don't worry, give it time and nature will look after itself with the help of stupid and irresponsible Man ending this unchecked procreation business for a long time to come - I hope so.

Answer 4

Is overpopulation really a problem?

Sure, there's problems with local overpopulation, axacerbated by poor infrastructure.  But, the rate of increase in the population is declining (urban people don't have enough children to achieve replacement rate- the population depends on rural reproduction.  As the world urbanizes....you've figured it out).  

Last year, The Economist suggested that world population would peak at about 10 billion in 2080 and then decline to remain steady at about 8bn, well within the planet's carrying capacity.

Answer 5

Burgeoning Cities Face Catastrophe.   Urban dwellers will outstrip rural population next year and a rise in poverty, slums and pollution. The shift will be led by Africa and Asia, which are expected to add 1.6 billion people to their cities over the next 25 years. The speed and scale of global urbanisation is so great most countries will not be prepared for the impact. Within one generation, five billion people, or 60% of humanity, will live in cities. The urban population of Africa and Asia will double in this time. Most cities in developing countries have pressing concerns, including crime, lack of clean water and sanitation, and sprawling slums. The changes are too fast to allow planners simply to react. If governments wait, it will be too late. Population growth will take place in the cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The largest transition to cities will occur in Asia, where the number of urbanites will almost double to 2.6 billion in 2030. Africa is expected to add 440 million to its cities in the same period, and Latin America and the Caribbean nearly 200 million. Rural populations are expected to decrease worldwide by 28 million people. Cities concentrate poverty but present poor people's best hope of escaping it. The potential benefits of urbanisation outweigh the disadvantages. If unaddressed the growth will mean growth in slums and poverty, and a rise in migration away from poor regions. The battle to cut extreme poverty will be in the slums. Politicians need to be start working with the urban poor. Climate is expected to be shaped by cities. Climate change will increase energy demand for air conditioning and add to greenhouse gas emissions. It could also make some cities unlivable, adding to the "heat island" effect, which can lift temperatures in urban areas by 2-6C. Heat, pollution, smog and ground-level ozone affect surrounding areas, reducing agricultural yields, increasing health risks and spawning tornadoes and thunderstorms. The impacts of climate change on urban water supplies are expected to be dramatic. Developing countries are at a great disadvantage when they start to urbanise. If we plan ahead we will create conditions for a stable world. If we do not, then these populations will become destructive, to themselves and others. June 28, 2007  Guardian (London)  rw  

US Florida;: An Economy Tied to Growth.   How strong is Florida's economy? Despite the decline in home values, the rise in gas prices, the weak dollar, visitors are coming to Southwest Florida. Construction boomed from 2003 to 2006, and home prices in Florida rose 60%. Now there's a glut of unoccupied dwellings. It is anybody's guess when that industry will recover and help other sectors of an economy tied to population growth. Tourism has long been a mainstay of the state's economy. Why are people coming? At the top of the list is the weak dollar, which tends to draw Canadians and Europeans. Florida is transitioning from being a low-cost state to a higher-cost state, the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation Inc. said. The cost of living in Southwest Florida is comparable to the cost of living in Toronto. That explains why so many local residents are heading for points north. Florida's population increased by about 320,000 residents in 2006, down from the pace of 2004 and 2005. Most of the decrease was in domestic migration. Florida continued to attract residents from the Northeast and the Midwest, but Florida became a net exporter of residents to other Southern states." The state's population, increased by 2.1 million people between 2000 and 2006. Factors causing some people to leave include high housing costs, rising property tax bills, difficulty obtaining insurance, the threat of hurricanes and recent job losses caused by the downturn in the construction industry. Good progress has been made in the past three years to strengthen the state's economy. At stake are the State's most vital current and future interests and the livability and sustainability of its communities. Floridians value the environment. The business community and politicians must do the same. Florida must continue to develop a diversified economic base. Local business and political leaders should draw research and development companies or, in some other form, companies that can diversify the local and state economies. December 09, 2007  Sarasota Herald-Tribune  rw  

U.S.;: Divorce Isn't Resource Efficient, Study Finds.   Divorce can be bad for the environment. Each time a family dissolves, the result is two new households. Researchers concluded that in 2005, in the US alone, divorced households could have saved 38 million rooms, 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water compared to that of married households. 11 other countries were examined, including Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico and South Africa between 1998 and 2002. In these countries, if divorced households had combined to have the same average household size as married households, there could have been a million fewer households using energy and water. With the number of divorces rising, so is the number of households, outpacing population growth itself. December 04, 2007  Seattle Times  rw  

World Facing Daunting Task to Realize Anti-Poverty Goals.   The world is facing a daunting task to realize the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). World leaders launched the MDGs, which include halving the number of people suffering from poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality, increasing access to education and health resources and improving environmental sustainability. The collective record so far has been mixed. The benchmarks on development and health care targets was poor at 2007, the midpoint between the adoption of the MDGs and the 2015 target date. Worldwide, the number of people in developing countries living on less than 1 U.S. dollar a day fell to 980 million in 2004, from 1.25 billion in 1990 and the proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell 19% over this period. If the trend continues, the MDG poverty reduction target will be met. More children in developing countries are going to school. Enrollment in education rose from 80% in 1991 to 88% in 2005. Child mortality subsided and progress was made in controlling malaria and tuberculosis. An overall success in realizing the MDGs is far from assured. More than 5 million children die from malnutrition each year, death toll from AIDS keeps rising, half the population of the developing world still has no access to basic sanitation, and the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change are already being felt. Only one out of eight regional groups is on track to meet all the goals by 2015 and the gains were unevenly distributed. In Western Asia, the poverty rate more than doubled during the same period. In Africa, no single country will meet all the goals and the continent lags far behind. Sub-Saharan Africa is behind schedule on all of the MDGs with 41.1% of its population living on 1 dollar a day or less. Environment degradation, gender inequalities, high HIV prevalence and on-going wars are seriously impeding international efforts to achieve the MDGs. International cooperation on implementing the development agenda has been moving slowly as a trend of giving priority to security over development persists. Wars go on in many parts of the world and terrorism and other unconventional threats pose a growing threat to international security. The MDGs cannot be achieved by the poorest countries without resources provided by donors in the developed world. There has not been an increase in Official Development Assistance (ODA) since 2004. Total official development assistance declined in real terms by 5.1% between 2005 and 2006 and is expected to continue through 2007 as debt relief declines further. The EU member states have promised to achieve the ODA target of 0.7% gross national income by 2015 but only Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, have met the target. Despite promises by the industrialized countries to double their aid, little has been done so far. Aid to the least developed countries has stalled since 2003 and aid to sub-Saharan Africa, increased by only 2% between 2005 and 2006. It is imperative that all stakeholders meet the commitments in the Millennium Declaration. The MDGs are still achievable if the international community takes urgent and concerted action. December 04, 2007  Xinhua General News Service  rw   Karen Gaia says: personally, I can't see how we can raise the poor's standard of living monetarily, considering how resource depletion has become so bad. Providing food, health, and education may be all we can do. But we must try and the first thing that must be done is to reverse population growth. The second is to cut overconsumption of the rich. Both have to happen!!  

Report: U.S. Teen Births Rise.   The nation's teen birth rate has risen for the first time in 14 years. The birth rate had been dropping since 1991, but government statisticians said it jumped 3% from 2005 to 2006. For 2006 births to unmarried mothers hit a new record high, and the overall birth rate has climbed to its highest level since 1971. The teen increase was based on the 15-19 age group, which accounted for about 99% of the more than 440,000 births to teens in 2006. The rate rose to 41.9 live births per 1,000 females in that age group, up from 40.5 in 2005. December 05, 2007  Associated Press  rw

Answer 6

Eugenics Quotes

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. -- Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs. -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing....This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run. -- Economist editorial

We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity�s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight -- David Foreman, Earth First!

Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental. -- Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First!

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS -- Earth First! Newsletter

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets...Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. -- David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. -- Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

Cannibalism is a "radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation." -- Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995

Answer 7

At the present time education is of the utmost importance in the control of over population.  This should begin in High School and be continued throughout College.  Birth control should be only one educational tool.  There should be discussion and videos of what poor family planning does to not only the immediate family but the entire community.

Answer 8

It should be.  Of course not everyone listens.  But nature does find a way...