Overpopulation from my personal perspective

Post Reply New Topic

For a long time people have wanted to avoid the difficult truth that the world is overpopulated. Now more people are saying it. Mentioning it here is nothing new. Just thought I'd share a personal perspective. The other day I went for the day out on a drive through rural Britain. I drove through one of the poorest regions of the country, a county called Gwynedd in Wales. What struck me as soon as I got there was that it felt like home. I spent many years growing up there but it's not that simple. My mother was with me and she grew up in the industrial city of Manchester and she too felt at home there.

The relatively untouched valleys, forests, rivers, stone built rows of terraced houses and lonely cottages with long lasting slate roofs invoke in you a sense of space and time. The long, winding roads are attractive. Most the towns and villages are very small and most people will know each other well. In a place like that no matter what's happening in the world people have enough space and resources around them to have some free choices, time to think. That's a key thing lacking in much of our world today. If a person wants to live in a very urbanised area that's fair enough. But I think most of us have simply been in denial that many of the places we live are pathetic.

If we can find a way to balance modern technology and convenience with the charming old fashioned ways of living slowly and self sufficiently we'll all have much more interesting lives. In a small seaside town I visited you can believe that if big fishing boats were banned and people who were unemployed could get a bank loan to rent or buy a boat and a fishing road many people could happily while away the hours sailing the shore around caves, Norman castles, overlooking sand dunes and the salty smell of the sea air invigorating their lungs. But such a kind of existence could never happen in an overcrowded town, or at least not so easily. In a more populated seaport in Britain such as Portsmouth or Plymouth the likelihood is even with slow, traditional fishing methods there would be too many fisherman to be sustainable or pleasurable. Maybe those two would just about manage. But they would have been far better placed a few decades ago before the population increased rapidly all over the world.

While I was on my drive through Gwynedd, I stopped and ate at a cafe. It was lovely in a way no cafe I've been to Manchester - and I've been to lots - could ever be. Walking on the streets one man frowned at me but I could tell he was upset about something. In Manchester hundreds of people can frown at me in a day and I've no idea why nor time to find out if I'm so inclined. In a city people rush around and for some people they're definitely beneficial but even most cities are obviously now too populated. Few cities are free from traffic congestion and an overdependence on apartments as living spaces. Most the people seemed very content in Gwynedd. I wouldn't choose to live there because the area is Welsh-speaking and the Welsh are very nationalist but the point is if more of us could live closer to how they do that'd be great. Surely this economic crisis will lead to fewer babies being born. Not many people will choose to have a baby when they're struggling to make ends meet. The unlucky ones who do will be evidence to those who don't of the pitfalls.

And in the longrun if that means we can reduce the population through fewer people choosing to have children then fantastic. Some day we will then be able to bulldoze many of the ugly apartment blocks and sprawling urban areas and scale down to a more manageable and personable existence. It's a matter of quality over quantity. If 10 million people live in a city the amount of people who are without friends or love is far higher than a city in which 1 million people live. And a city in which 500,000 people live is a city in which those people are far more likely to have friends and lovers than the one with a million. Why? Because I think inevitably the more people there are the more selective people become about who they associate with, the more important it is to distinguish yourself from the crowd. It's a tiresome, stressful situation.

Sorry if I've rambled.

I read recently that the entire population of the earth could live comfortably in a space smaller than the state of Texas... Don't know if it's true or not, but I do know that whenever I get an hour's drive from any city, there's nothing to see but miles and miles of unoccupied space... The earth is not crowded by any definition of the word, it's just that most people live within a few miles of the nearest source of water, so those spaces near water are crowded.

Overpopulation is a myth they tell you so you'll give money to charities and not complain when you have to pay 2 bucks for a bottle of water.

I forgot to add two other points. Overpopulation of the world leads to mass immigration. While immigration in and of itself is a good thing mass immigration causes too many social tensions and leads to too much crime.

My second point I forgot to add is the more people who live on earth the less quality each of us has. Case in point: in this rural area I drove through all the houses had a slate roof - the best roof you can have, and stone walls - the most durable walls you can have.

In big cities and towns very few buildings are built to that standard. America has largely been lucky in overcoming this problem by being a massive country which means the problem will take longer to reach you than it has here in Europe. But even now I think America is facing big problems with too many immigrants, the beginnings of a loss of identity and a decline in quality of living standards.

Who buys water for everyday drinking purposes? This seems to be utterly ridiculous.

There are great dangers in the loss of life in the oceans and the destructions of forested areas to grow food for the world population. Overpopulation is not a myth.

Personally, I am of the opinion that the best solution to the whole overpopulation problem is to simply create more space. In the short term, this is probably best done by building up, not out. While this may be more expensive, it saves space. In the long term, humanity really needs to expand past earth. This means REALLY pushing for things such as space colonization and exploration of other bodies in the solar system (mostly likely the moon first, followed by mars.)

Seriously, NASA, get cracking, I want to be able to walk on the moon at least once before i die.

I agree with the goal. But NASA is NOT the means. It is a bloated, mismanaged and incompetent government entity.

Riddle: What is a camel?
Answer: A horse designed by the government.

ruveyn

That is misleading. In terms of space needed for modest suburban houses, it is true. But here is the lie in it:

Lets move all the people in just the US to Texas, and declare the rest of the country off limits. Oops. Where is the water that everyone needs? How do we deal with the sewage from crowding those people into a relatively small space? Where is the land that we need to plow for food, where are the plantations for paper and timber and other fibers? What about mines for the iron, aluminum, and other minerals that people might need/want??

I only need a few square feet to physically exist. In that sense, we could theoretically pack the entire population of the Earth into a small cube (but most would suffocate).

The important truth that the statistic of Texas obscures is that we need to affect a much larger space to have a standard of living. As humans expand, they directly and indirectly affect an ever increasing % of the Earth's surface. Usually in negative ways. Biologists talk about carrying capacity, the number of organisms that a niche can support. It is likely that humans are so "sucessfull" that we will exceed the Earth's carrying capacity soon, if we have not already.




The camel is a marvel of evolution, much tougher and more useful than a horse.

Not really needed: Higher density of the population: You would not need a lot of roads, cars would be neither in need, transport could be done well with public transport, if people would live only in cities of a certain size and infrastructure. I really do not see the point that everyone must have a house with a garden, etc.

Quite regular 'round here.

I share your negative sentiments about the gov't and its horrible job at doing pretty much anything... however, if private industry isn't going to get up off their asses, then gov't's gotta do it, or at least command private industry to do it. Capitalism, as great as it is, is very short-sighted, and needs a kick in the ass sometimes.

But when it comes straight out of a tap... and you can buy a good filter for pretty cheap... and you don't have to worry about corporate hands touching what you consume... It just doesn't make sense. My method is cheaper, arguably more reliably safer, and probably even healthier (even the prolonged contact with low-grade plastic can cause the plastic to leak into the water, which you then consume).