Global Population Growth Estimate...
- Thread starter Ron in Regina
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What is going to ultimately kill us Cliff is the soil. We depend on it for our livelihood, literally and as long as you keep harvesting, you are not putting back what you are taking out, now I'm not talking individual gardens and farms I'm talking the net taking and replacing across the entire planet. The harvesting minus the replacement equals what we eat and make clothing out of etc. It ain't gonna last.
The aforementioned Thomas Malthus, a stalwart of British Liberalism, which brought us Free Trade, laissez-faire economics as well through Adam Smith and David Ricardo, developed the thesis that the Geometric increase in population could not be supported by an Arithmetic increase in food production. Thus nature's 'natural' remedies to overpopulation.. disease, starvation, pesitilence.. should be given free reign to reduce the excess.
All three tenets of British Liberalism have proved false, in fact as a basis for public policy a cruel disaster. In every instance population growth has led to technological developments in the harnessing of energy, productivity in agriculture, relief of the necessity of stoop labour, vast advances in communication, transportation, and provision of basic necessities.
In every instance of declining population, the exact opposite has occurred, leading to reversal of advances. That is the human mission, to be fruitful and multiply. The only sure route to failure, is to depopulate ourselves to Malthusian goals of 1 ot 2 billion people. That will take us back to a stone age culture.. where life is brutal, short, solitary and racked with hardship.
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Every instance? Your vision has a narrow scope.
China is technologically advancing, yet its replacement rate was higher than its fertility rate. Same for Russia.
New global forecast: population decline in sight | csmonitor.com
The World's New Numbers
It would appear as if you think any technological advancement is geared toward extending human longevity or benefiting health. Sorry, but there are other motivations for technology.
This is nonsense. Increases in population did not lead to increased productivity in agriculture. This is predominantly the result of industrial applications of chemical fertilizers, and agricultural science to select better adapted cultivars. In fact, the green revolution allowed the population growth to continue without running into the wall. Some agronomists will even tell you that it was the chief cause of the modern massive growth in population.
I agree. Usually the increase in population means that less land is available for agriculture, so we have to develop better ways of getting food from land with less land. Hence the mass destruction of Brazilian and eastern rainforests, for instance.
Are you sure about that? You seem to be implying that agricultural science would have made the huge production increases even without the increased consumers, some of whom would have been agricultural scientists. We have perhaps run into a wall, if as we read on a near dayly basis about the taxing nature of the present alleged state of over population, despite the alleged good intentions of the alleged green revolution. Which is it have we run into a wall or have as you say avoided it due to the good works of agricultural sciences? Human populations have always been exploding except when they,ve declined for any number of reasons long before this alleged revolting green episode.
Yes, quite sure.
Not what I was implying. The start of the revolution was due to trade imbalances actually. Governments had their scientists study new cultivars in the hopes of increasing domestic production.
I never said we avoided it. If you read my comments carefully, you'd probably notice that what I have implied is the advances in agricultural science have only delayed the inevitable.
Of course they have...though there is nothing revolting about finding a natural variant of wheat which grows better in a particular region than an industry standard. That would be the opposite of revolting. :roll:
And just how do you define normal? And why should anybody else be bound by your definition? 50 or 100 years ago, normal family in the West had 4 or 5 kids. That seems to be the normal in India today.
Normal is relative.