Conservation

There is something that has been weighing on my mind more and more with everything that has been going on.  Everything I see on TV, internet, anything else is all about how to make life more “sustainable.”  While yes I do understand the need to become far more ecologically friendly it seems to me like putting a bandaid on a shotgun wound.  To me new fuels are needed, however I think that the ethanol craze is part of the skyrocketing food prices, and that fuel cells while efficient are still based on using fossil fuels.

Not to be arrogant but I can solve the sustainability issue right now.  You ready for it?  THERE ARE TOO DAMN MANY PEOPLE!  I think the first and foremost issue people need to understand is that no matter what advances we have we can’t sustain 6+billion people, and even say that we do manage to make advances to make 6 billion a feasible number, then what the hell do we have to do when we hit 12 billion people…. and so on.

While I know source of our problems… I unfortunately have no idea how to fix it.  Unfortunately China’s disaster of 1 child per house would seem to be a step in the right direction but… well…. people being the way they are.  It makes me sad to think of this but really I think the end of this whole “sustainable” craze is somebody somewhere at some point is going to have to figure a way to cap the population.  I know this may not be the popular but this is what I’ve been thinking and its about time for me to put it out there.

5 Responses to “Conservation”

---

BTW I think its kind of eerie i made my post 4 days to the minute after paradox’s last post.

flakeytheleper - May 28th, 2008 at 10:49 pm

---

That is pretty funny. Guess it’s the blogging hour!

Paradoxdruid - May 28th, 2008 at 11:09 pm

---

Growing up in what some might call a hippiesh family, but I like to think is just a globally-aware family, I was always taught the problems of overpopulation.

It really seems weird to me how many people, even pretty educated ones, don’t get that exponential growth of the human race going up against very limited resources is a “problem.” About a year ago, as a TA for a freshman/sophomore-level biology lab that looked at population pressures (using a computer modeling system that used non-human animals), I stressed one of the “thought” questions that followed the exercise — What happens to the animals with limited resources when you take aware the predators, and how does this apply to the human situation? Going along with this, how can people prevent resultant “catastrophes”? From what I remember, students realized that bad things would happen (i.e. people would die), but when pressed for a “solution” probably less than half suggested controlling the birth rate… Most of them didn’t mention it at all. It really shocked me. (I think most either said to increase supplies/food, improve medicine, or something along those lines).

For anyone interested, Zero Population Growth is a good organization focused on this problem. And actually, flakeytheleper, the world population is now closer to 7 billion than 6 billion — currently it’s at about 6.7 billion. I know there are many such clocks, but here’s a population clock from the U.S. government census site — what’s sad to me is that if you keep refreshing, about every 5 seconds 20 people are born around the world… I don’t think the world’s growing resources to support 20 new human lives every 5 seconds…

teisha - May 29th, 2008 at 6:59 pm

---

I think I’m inherently more optimistic than you are, Teisha. I agree that we should try to preserve our current resources whenever possible. However, I have a lot of faith in the power of technology to solve the problems of a growing population.

Exponential population growth really only occurs in third-world countries where having multiple children is a valuable insurance plan. Here in the first-world, many countries are below replacement rates. Hopefully, improving the quality of life in those countries will encourage their citizens to have fewer children that they spend more time developing and educating.

Ted - June 2nd, 2008 at 1:21 pm

---

Human civilization have faced serious food problems before and have always managed to over come them, be it by crop rotation or the green revolution. I do believe that the current food crisis is likely to be overcome by genetic engineering and other uses of biotechnology. However I think your point is still valid that at some point it is going to be difficult to keep up with food demands. would more space set aside to food production help? Really what is the limiting factor to food production?

Also I must say using corn as a source of fuel is high on my list of things I want to see done away with.

-G

Gilvoro - June 5th, 2008 at 7:50 am

---

Leave a Response (or trackback on your own site)

You must be logged in to post a comment.