Viti

Thanks Pompous Bastard...according to a quick skim of this info...we can feed people, yet aren't. This is disturbing to say the least, but difficult for me at least (and probably many individuals apparently) to wrap my mind around.

It's like everyone has to pick and choose the issues to tackle...because all of it is simply too much. I'm babbling...but the enormity of the various situations leads to inaction rather than action.

ju'iblex

i would argue that the destruction of human kind isnt such a bad thing, but overlooking that, and taking into consideration my obvious bias here (which i freely admit), no it is not responsible to bring children into an unpleasant future. i believe if you cannot cope and/or support children then its your responsibility not to have them. its definately not responsible to provide children with meaningless miserable lives just for the sake of the continuation of the human race.

i disagree, the earth itself may not have desires, but we have the responsibilty to undo the mess we have created, for not only humanity, but all other species which inhabit the Earth. they to have the desire to live.

non-sequitur. just because the human race has not peaked, doesnt mean there arent too many humans.

improving, they havent completely recovered from human impact. one could also argue that there would be no need for them to "improve" if humans hadnt interfered. and in relation to how much we are destroying, the amount that is improving is relatively small by comparison.

Companies such as Volswagen and McDonalds have been directly linked to deforestation of the Amazon.

JL

I agree. WHY do the people least able mentally and financially to raise children always seem to be the ones to have the most of them? WTF?

WWSD

What juiblex said AND:


I have to disagree about human impact on the environment. When I speak of humans I am not limiting my discussion to americans or europeans but to ALL humans.


Consider the effects we humans are having on the ecosystem in various parts of the world. We humans directly threaten habitats of many species which will most likely die off in another habitat.


So what? So we have no real idea what lessening the diversity of species will do to the ecosystems of the earth. We cannot say that we know every nuance of every ecosystem well enough to claim that we aren't causeing more damage than we see by simply extincting some lemurs in Madagascar.


Also, with respect to environmental improvemets, if the die offs of amphibians world wide can be connected to human pollutants, how can we say that the environment is actually improving at all? Perhaps the smog in LA is lessened, but if the Bufo population in the midwest goes extinct because of other pollutants from other places, what good have we done?


And perhaps the current trend in global temps is just a random fluctuation, but, perhaps it is not. Imagine how much more pollution we humans are going to cause when the Chinese population begins to buy more cars. Already they claim that more Chinese are buying autos.


And what about the rising incidence of xenostrogens in the environment? This has been linked to mutation rates in amphibians, and the speculation has been that this may be responsible for the drop in sperm count among humans as well. Xenoestrogens are produced by the break down of plastics BTW.


Also, if the population is going to peak sometime in the middle of the century, what is going to be its peak number? How many billions of humans will there be driving cars, tossing plastic soda bottles in the landfill, and otherwise using up resources/creating waste?


I have heard both sides of the story claiming that we have enough/not enough resources to go around. It seems like a rather sticky issue. But I think it would be better to err on the side of caution. If our resources do run out, what are we going to do with the teeming billions?


I am thinking about the starving children and wondering how many more there will be. If the U.S. can produce enough to feed everyone, corporations would still be looking to make a buck. Imagine the starving kids here in the U.S., straving because of economics, if the prices of food rose even higher, would there not be even more starving kids?


This is not such a far fetched idea. I read recently that the aquifer beneath the large plain in northern China has less water in it than the Chinese previously thought. If that aquifer runs out with fifty million Chinese sitting on top of it, they are going to need to import food, which would result in a price hike and subsequently the poor would, in a sense, be poorer.

Well, personally, I don't like humans all that much, so less of us is a nice thing. We might even eventually stop blowing each other up if there were less of us.


Dream on...

[ March 17, 2002: Message edited by: WWSD ]</p>

ju'iblex

Thankyou WWSD, youve saved me from having to say that , i would have delved into that more deeply if given the time.

humans will never stop blowing eachother up, fact of life unfortunately. but otherwise i wholeheartedly agree.

i would be interested to hear some responses from bd-from- kg. (im also interested in what his occupation might be and whether that has an influence on his opinions.)

ju'iblex

im going to digress for one second, and i by no means have any intention of hijacking the thread, but anyway.

Does anyone know of any good discussion boards relating to environmental issues? its for a friend of mine.

Jamie_L

I am an environmentalist. I have respect for the natural environs of the earth and wish to see them protected.

However, the earth is pretty much ambivalent toward humanity. Why should we be concerned about our impact on it?

Only one reason: because it supports us.

Our primary concern should be that we maintain an environment that provides for our needs. These needs include basic things to survive as well as any secondary desirables ("wild" areas for recreation or scientific/medical research, etc.) Increasing the human population is fine, so long as we maintain the environment in a way that can support us.

The rub is in that "maintaining" part. It's not population that's our problem, but public policies and attitudes of all these humans running around. We shouldn't be worrying so much about number of people, but about instilling in them the attitudes necessary to produce future generations that will keep the environment viable. At the same time our generation needs to lay a foundation that they can use, rather than leaving them a mess to clean up.

Jamie

MadMordigan

At the same time our generation needs to lay a foundation that they can use,

The point of the original post is, if our generation does not have another one, there is no need for a foundation. We can spend the next 30 years planning for a 4 decade long party. Last one standing, turn out the lights.

echidna

Haven’t we just done this one ?

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000050&p=" target="_blank">Overpopulation and environmental problems</a>

Without anyone yet being able to demonstrate any upcoming lack of resources threatening our existence, or the existence of future generations, sadly any environmental concerns remain purely aesthetic preferences, not practical ones.

Pomp

echidna,

Environmental concerns need not affect our very existence to be practical concerns. If the quality of our lives is lessened by such concerns, then they are very practical indeed. Check out the UN report I posted a link to for a quick overview.