Poll: Is the world overpopulated?

[DBT]

Not intended to be a debate on the issue, just as a matter of interest regarding the number of members who stand for the affirmative or the negative.

Feel free to state your reasons, if you like.

 

[Valjean]

Overpopulated.
Unsustainable resource usage. Ecological collapse. Half the population in poverty.

 

[dystopian]

I voted no, because you didn't include a third option.

It is not overpopulated. The population does not *have* to be a problem. It could increase a hundredfold and it would still be something we can cope with. The only reason it's causing problems is because we allow it to; there are plenty of solutions and they don't require genocide to accomplish, we just don't currently appear have the global organization and drive to embrace them.

 

[rousseau]

Maybe IF the world was better organized our population wouldn't be a problem, but the world isn't better organized, and there is nothing saying that this utopian organization is even a possibility ... so with that said our current population is causing massive disruption of the world's ecosystems as well as atmosphere which is inevitably going to make it more and more difficult for us to persist comfortably, so I would say that yes, the world is over-populated.

 

[4321lynx]

Folks DBT, ɹǝpunuʍop uɐɯ ǝɥʇ, asked for No debate.

 

[rousseau]

Folks DBT, ɹǝpunuʍop uɐɯ ǝɥʇ, asked for No debate.

I'm not debating, I'm stating my reasons. Those reasons just happen to be related to the post above.

The only flavour of argument I've heard that the world is NOT over-populated is some variation of: "it wouldn't be a problem if we weren't making it a problem". But we ARE making it a problem, and that might be inherent in the way humans organize themselves, so it is a problem.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I voted no, because you didn't include a third option.

It is not overpopulated. The population does not *have* to be a problem. It could increase a hundredfold and it would still be something we can cope with. The only reason it's causing problems is because we allow it to; there are plenty of solutions and they don't require genocide to accomplish, we just don't currently appear have the global organization and drive to embrace them.

Where do you propose to get the resources for 700 billion people?

That's about 2200 sq ft of land area per person. How do you propose to grow enough food in such a small patch of land? Even if you add in the oceans you're still at less than 1/4 acre/person.

Note that indoor growing is *NOT* an option--while you could have any number of levels of plants growing under light the resulting world would be uninhabitable. Lets say we build structures to support double decker agriculture over the whole surface of the Earth. That will give 1/2 acre/person--tight but under greenhouse conditions it's possible. One layer can use sunlight, the other will have to use powered lights.

Unfortunately, I'm having no luck finding useful numbers for those lights so it's time to whip out an envelope: Sunlight at the Earth's surface is just under 1000 w/m^2. I'll be generous and figure you can halve this by lights that selectively emit the best frequencies--500 w/m^2.

Temperature goes at the 4th root of energy, we increased the energy by 50%, the temperature goes up by 10%. The average temperature of the Earth is 15C. Oops--you have to use an absolute scale, that's 288K. Increase that by 10% and you're talking a 28.8 (C and K use the same size degree) degree rise. That 15C average goes up to almost 44C--111F for us non-metric types.


The only way we could actually live in such a world is to have an air conditioned and completely sealed environment. Those air conditioners will use a *LOT* of energy, it's going to be even hotter outside--your survival time would be no more than a few minutes outside.

Furthermore, you'll need to bottle up the Earth's water supply or you'll end up with a thermal runaway like Venus. Your air conditioner radiators will be at red heat and you'll have to build everything like a deep-diving submarine. (And note that the sun won't be getting through, everything will be under lights, even more power.)

Larry Niven got it right when he figured the Puppeteers would have to move their homeworld out into interstellar space to keep it habitable.

 

[Jokodo]

Not overpopulated.

I'll just note that the saying so does not imply denying any of the problems overpopulation fearmongers attribute to "overpopulation". It just means rejecting the empirical hypothesis that those problems are caused by "overpopulation", on the grounds that it doesn't fit observation.

The problems themselves are real. Solving them is imperative. But solving them requires understanding their causes, and sticking to an empirically inadequate hypothesis about those is going to be counterproductive.

 

[Zeluvia]

I have related questions. I am wondering how life experience and perceptions affect the opinions expressed. So, next time you do a poll, ask these three questions:

Which Generation do you belong too? Boomers, X, ect.
Do you live in an Urban, Suburban or Rural setting?
Do you think there is an ideal or maximum population, and if so, What is it?

I think the world is overpopulated.
I am a boomer
I live in an Urban setting
My ideal population is 4 billion.

 

[bilby]

Folks DBT, ɹǝpunuʍop uɐɯ ǝɥʇ, asked for No debate.

I'm not debating, I'm stating my reasons. Those reasons just happen to be related to the post above.

The only flavour of argument I've heard that the world is NOT over-populated is some variation of: "it wouldn't be a problem if we weren't making it a problem". But we ARE making it a problem, and that might be inherent in the way humans organize themselves, so it is might be a problem.

FIFY.

Your argument does not say that it is a problem, only that it might be. Other arguments are therefore needed to determine whether it is or is not.

The fact is that the 'overpopulation' concept is at best ill-defined and woolly. It relies on a number of un-stated assumptions about goals - When we ask 'what is the maximum sustainable population?', the question is meaningless without some indication of what quality of life is acceptable, and what level of technology is expected to be available.

These things are not easily agreed to by the various parties to the debate; in the final analysis, it is never useful to cite overpopulation as a global problem - because it is always more useful to look at the details of the specific issues that arise. There has never been a famine where having fewer mouths to feed right there and then would not have improved conditions for the victims; but given that famine has become less and less prevalent over the past century, despite a massive increase in global population, clearly the simplistic solution of reducing population is not sufficient to fix the problem of famine. Indeed, the correlation between famine and world population shows that there is (at populations up to the current level) no positive causal connection between total population and famine rates; but there may be a negative causal link, or no link at all.

Famine is, of course, just one of many resource availability issues that might arise, and each needs separate consideration - once again rendering the over-arching concept of 'overpopulation' pointless and over-simplistic.

Talking about overpopulation is spam. It gets in the way of talking about real solutions to real problems.

So I voted 'No'.

 

[dendrast]

Overpopulated with clever, aggressive, greedy monkeys. Otherwise, not.

 

[Bullmoose Too]

There is no overpopulation. The problems of the world are caused by capitalism and the governments that keep it running.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is no overpopulation. The problems of the world are caused by capitalism and the governments that keep it running.

Explain, then, how the level of problems goes up as the capitalism goes down.

 

[Rhea]

I have related questions. I am wondering how life experience and perceptions affect the opinions expressed. So, next time you do a poll, ask these three questions:

Which Generation do you belong too? Boomers, X, ect.
Do you live in an Urban, Suburban or Rural setting?
Do you think there is an ideal or maximum population, and if so, What is it?

I think the world is overpopulated.
I am a boomer
I live in an rural setting
My ideal population is not something I have quantified. Whatever it takes to not change the livability of the planet for the next generation. We're above it now. Whatever it would take to not leave drought, climate change, lowered aquifers or flattened mountains.

 

[Unbeatable]

This is a ridiculous question. Overpopulated implies an ideal population; ideal population implies an end to which population is a means. You fail to specify an end, so your poll will tell you nothing other than how many people use the word "overpopulation" to refer to something which they consider to exist. I am going to choose as my end "the minimization of human suffering". Therefore, the world has always been overpopulated so long as there has been a population, and it is a problem.

I have related questions. I am wondering how life experience and perceptions affect the opinions expressed. So, next time you do a poll, ask these three questions:

Which Generation do you belong too? Boomers, X, ect.

I was born in 1984, which according to Wikipedia means I'm either one of the younger members of Generation X or one of the older Millennials.

Do you live in an Urban, Suburban or Rural setting?

Suburban.

Do you think there is an ideal or maximum population, and if so, What is it?

0.

 

[DBT]

I voted no, because you didn't include a third option.

I wanted to keep it simple. Either ''overpopulated'' or ''not overpopulated'' - because if the world is ''overpopulated,'' given the definition of excessive number of people (over), there must be a problem. If the world is not overpopulated, given the qualifier (not), there is no problem regarding an excessive number of people.

 

[DBT]

This is a ridiculous question. Overpopulated implies an ideal population; ideal population implies an end to which population is a means.

''Overpopulated'' does not imply an ideal population. 'Over' implies a figure that is over and above that of an ideal population.

The option of ''not overpopulated'' may also include a voters idea of an ideal population figure, because if the world is not overpopulated, there is no problem. The point of the poll was to see how many voters believe that there is a problem, or that there is no problem with both our current and projected population figures.

 

[bilby]

This is a ridiculous question. Overpopulated implies an ideal population; ideal population implies an end to which population is a means.

''Overpopulated'' does not imply an ideal population. 'Over' implies a figure that is over and above that of an ideal population.

The option of ''not overpopulated'' may also include a voters idea of an ideal population figure, because if the world is not overpopulated, there is no problem. The point of the poll was to see how many voters believe that there is a problem, or that there is no problem with both our current and projected population figures.

But then you run into the problem of who is doing the projecting, and how accurate or realistic are they.

People talk about tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or exponential growth rates; these 'projections' fly in the face of reality, but they are projections none the less.

If a person is confused enough to think that the population will double and re-double in the next century - and many are - then they will say 'yes' if the question is about projected population, but perhaps 'no' if the question is about current population, or even plausible projections that contradict their implausible ones.

Asking non-demographers to project population numbers is like asking any non-meteorologists how much they think it will rain in Bhutan next week - some will be close to right because they have an amateur interest; some will be close by pure luck; and most will be completely wrong.

 

[dystopian]

Where do you propose to get the resources for 700 billion people?

That's about 2200 sq ft of land area per person. How do you propose to grow enough food in such a small patch of land? Even if you add in the oceans you're still at less than 1/4 acre/person.

I don't know where you're getting those numbers from. Right now, we could fit the entire population of the planet into a city with NYC's densities, and it'd be smaller than Texas. We could also supply them with enough water with just half of the columbia river. With currently technology, we can feed 3333 people for an entire year at western standards with one square kilometer of farmland. Which means we'd need around 2.5 million square kilometers of farmland for the entire population. The current farmland of the US alone is already more than 3.7 million square kilometers; and that's not counting all the land that is not currently farmland that would suddenly be freed up (like cities and all that jazz). That leaves everything outside of the US and then some completely free of any human activity. ( http://www.simplyshrug.com/index.ph...erpopulation-myth&catid=31:general&Itemid=50) ).

The US represents around 6% of the total land area of the world; so admittedly, a straight up x100 multiplication of this Earth Megacity's population would cause problems; though indeed this is ignoring the oceans and all the farming options that exist there; not to mention a greater population density, since NYC is hardly the maximum comfortable density we could achieve. And it's also ignoring the fact that our current agricultural technology is undergoing rapid advancement and could be made far more efficient.

Note that indoor growing is *NOT* an option--while you could have any number of levels of plants growing under light the resulting world would be uninhabitable. Lets say we build structures to support double decker agriculture over the whole surface of the Earth.

As the above figures show, you wouldn't need to cover the whole surface of the earth, not even remotely near it. And just 'double decker' agriculture? Come on, what is this, the 1990's? Why not a 100 stories tall? Seeing as how we wouldn't need to cover anything near the percentage of the surface with buildings as you're imagining; the rest of your argument kind of falls apart. (And I don't understand why you're not even considering off-world greenhouses or what not, but that's besides the point).

Unfortunately, I'm having no luck finding useful numbers for those lights so it's time to whip out an envelope: Sunlight at the Earth's surface is just under 1000 w/m^2. I'll be generous and figure you can halve this by lights that selectively emit the best frequencies--500 w/m^2.

That's actually not generous at all; Plantlab LED's managed to allow for greenhouse farming with just 10% of the normal requirements. And that was years ago. The method involves dramatically cuts down on emitted frequencies. Not only does this method decrease energy and resource costs, it also dramatically increases output; outdoors photosynthesis for crops is at best only 9%; by balancing the emitted light, plantlab managed 15% back in 2011; managing a crop yield increase of a factor of three. I don't even know what the efficiency is at these days. Just think about that; they managed a yield three times the normal, on just 10% the resources. Their efforts alone should convince you that we could make do with far less space to feed our current population (or a population hundred times the size), and that's with technological advances 4 years old. Who knows what the future brings?

 

[dystopian]

I have related questions. I am wondering how life experience and perceptions affect the opinions expressed. So, next time you do a poll, ask these three questions:

Which Generation do you belong too? Boomers, X, ect.
Do you live in an Urban, Suburban or Rural setting?
Do you think there is an ideal or maximum population, and if so, What is it?

I think the world is overpopulated.
I am a boomer
I live in an Urban setting
My ideal population is 4 billion.

I am ambivalent on the world being overpopulated (it both is and doesn't have to be)
I am borderline Generation X/Millenial
I live in an urban setting
My ideal population is whatever is sustainable based on the technology and politics of the day; which means it could be anywhere between 2 billion and a trillion+ people; so whatevs.