work in progress
Well-Known Member
This week, there has been a lot of stories (at least from media I follow) regarding the U.N. estimate that the World now has 7 billion people. I don't start many threads here, and I am surprised that no one else picked up the ball and has been interested in getting this subject up for discussion.
A couple of centuries ago, Thomas Malthus made a dire prediction of what would eventually happen to England and the rest of the world some time in the future. Malthus concluded that population increases exponentially and cannot be stopped from increasing before a major brings it to an end. I was listening to a podcast of the Australian ABC Religion show over the weekend. On this week's episode: Multiplication, Host Dave Rutledge asks if it's time for religious leaders around the world to stop encouraging their flocks to keep having large families.
Some of the points touched on in the show include the U.N. projecting world population to continue increasing at least till 2050. Some analysts observing the growing accumulating problems hampering continued increase in food production totals -- droughts, floods, topsoil loss and related soil degradation, and growing water scarcity in food-producing regions, are even wondering if the present number of 7 billion can be sustained for much longer.
Some of the guests...at least one Catholic Bishop interviewed, seem completely out to lunch and totally oblivious to an impending crisis -- the bishop argues that shrinking family size in the developed world is the greater concern. But there are others who at least realize that many places in the world are in trouble. Up till now, religion has been a force for maintaining the status quo, or even trying accelerate population growth. Can the World's major religions shift their goals and teachings to tell their people to stop at 2 children per family?
Another issue that is touched on and should have been given more detail, is that the problems associated with human impact on the environment are not based solely on population numbers. For example, America - with only 300 million of that 7 billion, uses more than one quarter of the World's energy and natural resources; so the ecological footprint of the average American is much bigger than the farmer in sub-sahara Africa! The problem with resource consumption issues is that the trend up till now, has been for the rest of the world to try to catch up to U.S. and western consumption levels, rather than for the developed nations to do much about reducing their impact on the environment!
The conclusion from many leading ecologists, who are trying to determine what sustainable levels of resource use, energy use, and population would be, is that both world population and consumption of renewable and non-renewable resources is mere decades away from collapse, and need to be reduced in the future.
7 Billion and Counting: Welcome to a Planet With Population Overload and Resources in Crisis [With Photos From National Geographic]
A couple of centuries ago, Thomas Malthus made a dire prediction of what would eventually happen to England and the rest of the world some time in the future. Malthus concluded that population increases exponentially and cannot be stopped from increasing before a major brings it to an end. I was listening to a podcast of the Australian ABC Religion show over the weekend. On this week's episode: Multiplication, Host Dave Rutledge asks if it's time for religious leaders around the world to stop encouraging their flocks to keep having large families.
Some of the points touched on in the show include the U.N. projecting world population to continue increasing at least till 2050. Some analysts observing the growing accumulating problems hampering continued increase in food production totals -- droughts, floods, topsoil loss and related soil degradation, and growing water scarcity in food-producing regions, are even wondering if the present number of 7 billion can be sustained for much longer.
Some of the guests...at least one Catholic Bishop interviewed, seem completely out to lunch and totally oblivious to an impending crisis -- the bishop argues that shrinking family size in the developed world is the greater concern. But there are others who at least realize that many places in the world are in trouble. Up till now, religion has been a force for maintaining the status quo, or even trying accelerate population growth. Can the World's major religions shift their goals and teachings to tell their people to stop at 2 children per family?
Another issue that is touched on and should have been given more detail, is that the problems associated with human impact on the environment are not based solely on population numbers. For example, America - with only 300 million of that 7 billion, uses more than one quarter of the World's energy and natural resources; so the ecological footprint of the average American is much bigger than the farmer in sub-sahara Africa! The problem with resource consumption issues is that the trend up till now, has been for the rest of the world to try to catch up to U.S. and western consumption levels, rather than for the developed nations to do much about reducing their impact on the environment!
The conclusion from many leading ecologists, who are trying to determine what sustainable levels of resource use, energy use, and population would be, is that both world population and consumption of renewable and non-renewable resources is mere decades away from collapse, and need to be reduced in the future.
7 Billion and Counting: Welcome to a Planet With Population Overload and Resources in Crisis [With Photos From National Geographic]
