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Planet could be 'unrecognizable' by 2050, experts say.

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MonkeyF0cker

MonkeyF0cker

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WASHINGTON (AFP) A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an "unrecognizable" world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday.

The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, "with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia," said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.

To feed all those mouths, "we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000," said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

"By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable" if current trends continue, Clay said.

The swelling population will exacerbate problems, such as resource depletion, said John Casterline, director of the Initiative in Population Research at Ohio State University.

But incomes are also expected to rise over the next 40 years -- tripling globally and quintupling in developing nations -- and add more strain to global food supplies.

People tend to move up the food chain as their incomes rise, consuming more meat than they might have when they made less money, the experts said.

It takes around seven pounds (3.4 kilograms) of grain to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain to produce a pound of cheese or eggs, experts told AFP.

"More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet," Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments to start making changes now to how food is produced.

Population experts, meanwhile, called for more funding for family planning programs to help control the growth in the number of humans, especially in developing nations.

"For 20 years, there's been very little investment in family planning, but there's a return of interest now, partly because of the environmental factors like global warming and food prices," said Bongaarts.

"We want to minimize population growth, and the only viable way to do that is through more effective family planning," said Casterline.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110220/ts_afp/scienceuspopulationfood

That's a bit scary.
 
It seems very alarmist and sensationalist to me. It is an unbalanced discussion that seems more designed to cause panic than promote a serious examination of things. I would almost call it propaganda.

As someone who believes in the concept of minimizing population growth, I fear this kind of thing takes away from the credibility of the position.

But then again, maybe a little panic is what is needed to wake people up.
 
It's really surprising to me how little urgency there is on the issue of population growth. It seems like China is the only nation doing anything about it. In the U.S., having children is actually incentivized. We're not gonna have enough room to cultivate and/or raise our food sources soon.
 
Mudcat
It seems very alarmist and sensationalist to me. It is an unbalanced discussion that seems more designed to cause panic than promote a serious examination of things. I would almost call it propaganda.

As someone who believes in the concept of minimizing population growth, I fear this kind of thing takes away from the credibility of the position.

But then again, maybe a little panic is what is needed to wake people up.
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True. A lesson could be learned from the global warming scenario especially in U.S. politics.
 
MonkeyF0cker
It's really surprising to me how little urgency there is on the issue of population growth. It seems like China is the only nation doing anything about it. In the U.S., having children is actually incentivized. We're not gonna have enough room to cultivate and/or raise our food sources soon.
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I was watching the news in a Brazilian channel and they show a graphic map of the farmed areas 10 years ago versus now. Don't remember the figures but HUGE amounts of forest areas and Amazon has been transformed. That shit will come back to haunt us.
 
I remember reading somewhere a few years that we could fit all the 6+ billion people in the world if distributed into 4 people "family" homes with 1/2 acre plots. into an area roughly the size of Texas.

I don't think the amount of people or the need for viable farmlands or the ability to produce the food will be (or even is) the problem. I think it is a distribution problem, bound by money and politics.
 
Archie
I remember reading somewhere a few years that we could fit all the 6+ billion people in the world if distributed into 4 people "family" homes with 1/2 acre plots. into an area roughly the size of Texas.

I don't think the amount of people or the need for viable farmlands or the ability to produce the food will be (or even is) the problem. I think it is a distribution problem, bound by money and politics.
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Amen Archie. Amen.
 
Archie
I remember reading somewhere a few years that we could fit all the 6+ billion people in the world if distributed into 4 people "family" homes with 1/2 acre plots. into an area roughly the size of Texas.

I don't think the amount of people or the need for viable farmlands or the ability to produce the food will be (or even is) the problem. I think it is a distribution problem, bound by money and politics.
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:yes: hunger and poverty can be eliminated if it was a concern for those in power.
 
reno cool
:yes: hunger and poverty can be eliminated if it was a concern for those in power.
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yeah maybe.

but it would also have to be a concern for the constituents both directly and indirectly or those powers.

I mean even the middle class has a pretty big say when it comes down to it. and I think we are all fine and happy living upper middle class, upper class, middle class..... and hell the lower middle class is usually too dumb to even know who they are upset at.....

so why would anything change on anyone's watch?

if i'm in politics, anywhere NEAR sniffing power... I'd LOVE the status quo.

I'd leave the "world changing" and "do-gooding" to the next generation....and so on and so on. until you have crazies taking up arms.

we see those kinds of "revolutions" every week in the newspapers, but we don't ever think it could happen to the western world.

I hope when i'm drafted into the war of 2049 at the age of 80 that I have some laser weapons.
 
Sterilization! No doubt the wealthy could do with a lot less but WTF with kid after kid after kid when you can't support what you have already?

We are beyond the "time out" type teaching of how to not reproduce. MF is right of how dire the situation is so that calls for drastic measures!

Reno, you forgot but I promised a writeup about some guy who wasn't qualified to be a politician but was doing it only for the salary using his celebrity status. I have to get to it for soon, eventually, something like that. IMO a real POS in my retrospect of him but most think of him as a saint.
 
define upset

i'm not so sure that I'M upset yet. i'm pretty comfortable


YET


I do somtimes wonder if the idea of Euthenics will re-enter the "elites" day to day vocabulary before or after i'm in a retirement home. ( if I make it past 55)
 
I was quoting you Archie.

I believe there's plenty of space for a lot more people in the world. (as you point out in your example)

Now, should we be worried about poor Africans or whoever reproducing?
Or an unjust system that concentrates wealth in the hands of the few and grows by impoverishing others and ruining the environment?
 
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