Miscellaneous Forum

Indonesia is the world's fourth largest populated country. Its rice production was self-sufficient until the 1980s before farmland was used to build housing for a booming population. Today I've learned from TV news that a "no rice on Tuesdays" ban has been introduced by the government to curb consumption and the volume of rice imports. canada.com/news/Rice+goes+ag...

Hard to eat gold, silver, diamonds or even cash. So the farmers of the world must stay and till the soil and not overgrow the earth and rotate fields. Better to have our swords turned into plowshares. :-)

Of course, curb the many births will help. Zero population should be considered in overpopulated countries. :-)

Some studies suggest that the world's sustainable population, at present level of development and use of the available resources, ranges between one and two billion humans.

It's about time we start populating the stars lol

Overpopulation is the reason for almost all major problems on this planet: - food shortages - water shortages - high unemployment - environmental pollution - reduction of rainforests - conflicts/wars about resources We shouldn't reproduce like we did in the past. But most people don't care until it's too late.

on earth there could be enough food also for 14 bilion as a lot of food is throw away in many Countries and I'm not referring only what it is destroyed in order to keep higher the prices, unfortunately in many houses there are meals which go from supermarket to fridge to bin. imho the main slovenliness, which seems none worries about, is what seven bilion people produce, this is a big problem...

If we would quit taking over farmlands for condo development, there would be more food. Hungry people seem to have nothing better to do than to reproduce.

I see this problem very often now that i more and less live in South East Asia and it's interesting to see how big the differences are from country to country. the key is really to have a goverment that functions in emergency cases. This part of the world experiences natural disasters from time to time and they sometimes destroy the harvest for the small farmers and force them off their land and in to the slums of the big cities where they try to find odd jobs cause they can not afford to buy seeds for the next crop. Some countries in the region has schemes to help small farmers though in these situations and these countries do not only produce enough rice, but also exports lot's of it. Just like the countries in the region with the worst goverments have to import rice. The two biggest rice exporting nations in the world are currently Thailand and Vietnam, while the Philippines, who have perfect conditions for growing rice, is the worlds biggest importer of rice, while they have a couple of million former farmers living in the slums of the big cities.

That is interesting Claus.

It would help a bit if countries recognized a fundamental human trait. Human beings need to be entertained. Seems to be off the wall statement. Not at all. People that have nothing are no different. The need for entertainment, even for just a few minutes is there. For people that have nothing the only source of entertainment, - is sex. This is not my opinion. I remember in the U.S. there was a joke some years back that latenight talkshow host Johnny Carson was largely responsible for declining birthrates. Meaning that couples went to bed and watched Carson on the telly until they fell asleep. I know that back in the day, (70s) India was very much aware of this. Inquiring while in India, I learned a few things. As you may know Bollywood is ten time bigger that Hollywood, producing ten times the amount of product. Ticket prices were deliberately kept at an absolute minimum, (I remember paying the equivalent of 18 cents to see a movie), to the point that the gov was substidicing (sp?) ticket prices. The reasoning was, and correctly so, if the people that had nothing could still go to movies, they would limit looking for entertainment in the bedroom. It is not a cureall of course, but combined with other deterrents, it certainly made some impact. It has been my experience, that people that have no hunger problems, have very little idea of what it is like to have nothing, and how that changes a human being's thought process. Starving people have but one thing on their mind every waking hour, - food! Period! No politics no thinking about education no thoughts about nothing but food. It simply is near impossible for people with full stomachs to comprehend what hunger does to the thought process.

When I said "This is not my opinion" I meant that what follows is what I have learned, which yes formed my opinion. In other words I am not guessing. (Sorry, English sometimes confuses me......d:o)

Erik is right.. a lot of people have been born in NY during late Winter 1978... one of reasons is surely the electricity blackout which has affected most of New York City from July 13 to July 14, 1977.

I just read that we will transform our mono-culture in the Dutch hot houses into a multi-culture of different plants that will support each other, give higher volume and better protection to each other. In combination with solar lenses and cells energy supply is self-supporting. Water is already been recycled, which is a huge saving on non-natural fertilizer. In my opinion food should be produced as close as possible to the people who consume it. Do I really need New Zealand Apples in my Dutch Spring time? PJ

psstt what about dutch vegs all over the world? people buy them because they like them... like NewZealand's (&Chinese) apples, they are sold because someone buy them. :)) Anyway there Countries where also potatos are imported, ie French Polynesia, they have tourism but not enough field for potatos, at Carrefour in Tahiti you really see the globalization, potatos from California, apples from China, tomatos from Australia, butter from France, milk from NewZealand and so on. It's the same also at the Gulf's Countries, they have mainly petrol and sand...

......and as I explained in another thread, California oranges and orange juice are world renown, yet all the orange juice here in the supermarkets are from Florida, - from what I understand, vice versa.

I've just come back to NZ from a 5 year stint in Japan where the population decreased by 275,000 last year, partially due to more foreign residents leaving than arriving, but mostly due to deaths exceeding births, a trend that will continue for the foreseeable future. I think there will be a time, not too many years away where the world's population will start to fall, but I'm guessing we likely get to 9 billion or so before that happens.

My point exactly! I think it's better to export the Dutch way and technics of producing them. Yesterday our Queen opened the new Rotterdam harbour area only to enable more and more containers being shipped around. Are we losing our local food producing skills??? PJ

another thing is that mother nature can be cruel to the over-population. Each time there is a natural disaster, so many more people are killed...

I don't think that entertainment is the key to stopping overpopulation. Education is much better. Look at our world. The coutries that have decreasing or steady birth rates are those where the people are better educated. If the poor peasants in the third world understand that there is no advantage in having a lot of children and that they are better of feeding only one or two, they will reproduce less. But someone has to explain them the interrelations between overpopulation and poverty. Building schools is the key. Another aspect is social security. A lot of these poor people rely on their children as supporters when they are old. They think that a lot of children will guarantee them a better support. Building a social network is necassary. If they could rely on health insurances and pension schemes they wouldn't want these many children.

There's also the issue if what we're using arable land for? I remember reading about the rise and fall of our indigenous populations as they moved from nomadic hunter/gathers to growing crops to growing crops/rising livestock. The amount of land/resources needed to sustain herds is considerable so changing the percentage of meat proteins versus grains/fruits/vegetables in diets could provide more land for sustaining people instead of animals.

michaelbluejay.com/veg/envir... One of the reasons why my diet has long been meatless. A pound of Tuna roughly equals 100,000 pounds of mackerel and 50,000 pounds of squid. That's why I don't eat large fish.

--->For people that have nothing the only source of entertainment, - is sex--- Ahuh!!!! This indeed is true. I recall my university friend told me his small home town had only 40 plus students in his high school graduating class. Of those, sixteen were female. Of those, 4 were pregnant before they graduated high school (25% of the graduating girls). That does not bode well for a very exciting senior prom! But the point is the town was small and economically depressed. No one had disposable income and there was nothing to do except, well, . . . the obvious. It just stands to reason that if one is occupied with other inanimate things or events, there is less time for private social interaction. I wonder where the term "Screwing off" first originated? --->I don't think that entertainment is the key to stopping overpopulation. Education is much better--- Absolutely true. But then again educated societies tend to have more activities such as work, school, and recreation, to keep them busy and exhausted. But you are correct, they have a full understanding of personal economies of scale, as well as other socioeconomic factors. Even within first world nations, there is a higher degree and disproportionate rate of childbirth among the more disadvantaged socioeconomic classes. But one thing is also impacting the world's birth rate; religious / spiritual factors. This is not a political thread, but the facts are that Catholics have a long tradition of large families as birth control has been forbidden / frowned upon by the Vatican. I am catholic so i am not bashing anyone. And yes I came from a large family. The Muslim community has a history of producing large families. In my previous profession, we learned that certain extreme fundamentalist groups believe that they can virtually take over the world through total population dominance. It may take centuries, but if their people reproduce at a greater rate than the rest of the world population, they will become dominant by simple arithmetic - addition. There is a pervasive culture in many areas, many of them third world, that either hold the family in such high regard that reproduction is expected and honored, or they do not believe in contraception.

I saw some statistics recently telling what countries has had the biggets and smallest drops in population grwoth over the past 20 years and it was almost dropping in all countries except for some of the most poverty stricken african nations, where people most likely have a lot of kids because this is the only social security they have when they grow old. The biggest drop anywhere in the world was in Brazil where they have also been very good at promoting use of condoms and other ways of birth control the past 2 decades. But all together it actually looked quite a lot better for the world than just 20 years ago. And i just saw this week that Bill and Melinda Gates are throwing in a lot of billions in to birth control in the third world and that will for sure improve living standards there in the long run. And just a little personal experience: A couple of years ago we had a vt meet in Manila where we also went to see an old peoples home full of old ladies all sleeping in a huge dorm together. We were there cause we had bright them christmas presenets, food, drink etc. I spoke to several of the old ladies and most of them had ended up in this truely miserable place cause they were not able to have children and therefor had noone to look after them when they got old and they lived in a country where there is no goverment help for such people, so in a way it is understandable that poor people in the developing world want to have some kids.

To add to your excellent points, Sean, I think there are also some cultures that revere virility and there's no better proof of one's ability there than a lot of kidlets?

Of course entertainment is not the answer, - as I said, it is not a cureall, but it is a viable part of the package. As for eduction, yes of course, but again, people with full stomachs have a real hard time understanding the gap between people where there is a possibility to educate, and the malnutritioned, and starving. In that gap are the people that have no hope of any education reaching them, and where hunt for food is all consuming. The points about cultural aspects are very valid as well. Even in the industialised nations like the U.S., in the deprived neighborhoods, there is a, not so much a cultural thing, but rather the need to leave something behind. I have seen young people there go through the realisation, that all the childhood dreams are never going to materialize, and they will never have a legacy, - so there is a strong urge to have children, - as simply an accomplishment. Any accomplishment is better than no accomplishment, and I have seen this notion a lot in the 'hoods, where a person will look at their child and think, - "I made that" with a certain pride, above and beyond normal pride in ones children. I know that in a large portion of Africa, men have certain virility issues, where for instance, men largely refuse to adapt any birthcontrol. It is an afront to manhood. This issue is largely responsible for the rapid spread of Aids on the continent. Then there are the "solutions" that produce even worse side effects, not forseeable when implemented, like China's one child policy. I really could go on about what that has done to the people. When poor people toil on farms and related, - people who cannot afford labor, need to breed their labor force. That labor force needs to be male, for the hard work, and with the one child policy, those people are forced to sell, abandon, or even kill the female children, because they need a male child for the work to be done. A couple of hundred years ago, the American dirtfarmers also bred their own work force, so that particular thing is not a Chinese thing, but a worldwide thing amongst people who have to toil the earth for a living This is a complicated issue, where no one thing is going to solve it. We first have to understand all the issues we have brought up here, and the multitude oif issues we have not brought up here. What may work in one culture, will not work in another. Unfortunately, most religions are at odds with what needs to be done. The old "go forth and multiply" was a notion not completely thought through.

"Only the richest will survive. " No, you're wrong. Tony Hancock (British Comedian, 12 May 1924 – 24 June 1968) got it right: "it's the tall blokes with big noses that'll have the best chance" (or words to that effect)

Unfortunately, it's not only overpopulation that causes rationing. When I was little there was rationing where I cam from. Won't say where so I won't get deleted - but call it over population, abuse or mismanagement - it happens and often due to lack of care - some will get it all, others ration, if at all.

"Only the richest will survive. " I'm not sure I agree with that either (but not because of a big nose. HA!) If push came to shove, I've always thought it would be the most resourceful who would be left standing. These would be the folks with a bit of ground for a garden and who know what edible plants grow in the wild. They would know how to seed, plant and tend a garden, and put up the produce. They would also know how to hunt and fish. The very wealthy may have property but it's doubtful many of them would know what to do with it. If the classes who currently plant, tend and harvest crops, raise livestock and net the fish went missing, there wouldn't BE any food for the wealthy to buy.

yes, Kate: to paraphrase an oldish joke, "TEACH a man to fish and he will feed himself for a year; GIVE a man a fish, and he'll still be lazy"