We Need Population Control Laws

America and the World needs population control laws that limts population growth thus conserving and saving water and natual resorces I read in national geographic that in the year 2050 2.7 Billion people will have a servere water shortage problem. Meaning there want be enof water to drink and shower with. A couple should only be allowed have two children by birth they could have more if they wanted to adopt. If they broke the law then servere fines and other penalties would be sanctiond.

Plus if the government does not then there will not be enof land avalible and we would force and destory forests,islands,woods, and drive millions of animals out of their home becasue humans keep reproducing where dose it stop 9 billion,trillion,zillion.

by gaining control of our borders... Remember, Think Globally, Act Locally... :hippie:

than draconian and ill-advised laws seem to be

1. education and a degree of independence for women

2. control of infectious disease (if you anticipate that 5 of your children are going to die of cholera, and you want 2, that means you have to have 7, and then a couple more just to make sure, and soon the situation is out of control).

the fact is that humans are ultimately just like any other animal. At the moment our rate of population growth, resource consumption and waste production are unsustainable.

Sure it wont likely reach dire straits within my lifetime (well, hopefully not), but unless the human population slows or stabilises were going to have a situation of either vastly reduced living and enviromental standards and increaced competition for resources leading to conflicts and instability. Well end up culling ourselves, most probably, through conflict or starvation, even more than we do at the moment.

control centers"!

Who can solve the mystery of our declining birth-rate?
http://www.theherald.co.uk/opinion/young/archive/1-8-19103-22-50-52.html

Poor semen quality may contribute to recent decline in fertility rates
http://humrep.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/6/1437

Don't mess with Mother Nature.

And as for you and your population control laws, did you see what the Nazis did?
And they based their ideas on the work done by people such as Margaret Sanger who started Planned Parenthood so as to get rid of black people other undesirables.
http://www.africa2000.com/XNDX/xsanger.htm

He had secured passage of a new law in Germany that authorized the sterilization of “feebleminded” men and women, and within months the Nazis had operated on thousands of people.
Although Hitler’s philosophy and practices would eventually be repudiated globally, it may be a surprise to many that at the same time, people were being sterilized for similar reasons in the United States.
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/2020_000322_eugenics_feature.html

And anyway, you don't even have to campaign to get a new law passed before you go and forcibly sterilize people in the US against their will.

Despite the Skinner case, sterilization of people in institutions for the mentally ill and mentally retarded continued through the mid-1970's. At one time or another, 33 states had statutes under which more than 60,000 Americans endured involuntary sterilization. The Buck v. Bell precedent allowing sterilization of the so-called "feebleminded" has NEVER BEEN OVERULED.
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay8text.html

What should be done is congress should pass a lot that makes it illegal for couples from having more than two children unless they adopt if they do. Fine them a heft amount of money something in the six figure range and disqualify them from claming the children as dependants on their tax return.

What other totalitarian measures do you advocate? This kind of meddling in citizens' private lives is worthy of... Mao's China. Sheer stupidity. (Pardon my frankness.)

Okay then What would you propose we do about the Population Problem in the year 2050 I think there will be something like 9Billion people that is way to many. So what is your soulution to the problem.

do a google search on the 'carrying capacity of the earth' (or something like that) and you'll see that many views exist concerning the maximum number of people the earth could support. some range upwards of 40 billion.

problems in sustaining large populations seem to be more in the areas of human nature/politics/quality-of-life than strictly technical or scientific. probably the biggest challenges are growing enough food, having enough water, and having sustainable sources of energy (note that with enough energy, the food and water issues are solved) - having enough living space isn't really a huge issue - for example if the whole country was populated at the same density as rhode island or new jersey (crowded-yes!, totally miserable-not really?) the majority of the world's population could fit into the usa.

Six billion is enough. Time to move to another planet.

Maybe the earth can handle 10 billion people, but sooner or later most of them are going to want to live the same lifestyle as most North Americans, and that's just not possible.

How do I know it's not possible?

Last week I tried to buy some new hardwood flooring for an old house. The longest piece in the load was 30" long and only three and a half inches wide. We can't grow trees fast enough as it is. And now that North American natural gas supplies are staring to decline the mad rush will be on to buy woodstoves. I don't expect there will be a tree on the planet in 40 years.

Whatever sites you find that "40 billion" figure at are as intellectually dishonest as shampoo commercials and Milli Vanilli.

The following link gives 14 various estimates which range from 0.5 billion to 14 billion, based on different methods of calculation. The median estimates are: low estimate - 2.1 billion , high estimate - 5 billion :
http://www.ilea.org/leaf/richard2002.html

and-

<>Let's try to estimate the Earth's carrying capacity for humans if they all live with a "developed" standard of living.

Recall from Ch.1:

Ø Developed nations represent a population of about 1.2 billion people.
Ø These people live at a standard of living that means they consume about 88% of the Earth's resources currently being consumed.

Assume our current consumption (our current global level of resource use) is sustainable. (You might want to question this assumption.)

Then if 1.2 billion people use 88% of the resources, how many would consume 100% (assuming the same rate of consumption)?

1.2 billion = . x .
88% 100%

x = 1.36 billion people.


We have a current population of just over 6 billion people. The rough calculation above suggests that one earth can support 1.36 billion people with "developed" standard of living. How many "Earths" worth of resources do we need to allow all 6 billion people to live at this level?

# of "Earths" = (6 billion people) * (1 earth per 1.36 billion people)
= 6 ¸ 1.36 = 4.4 Earths <>


http://faculty.fortlewis.edu/shultz_a/PHSC115/Notes/pop3.doc


and-

<>Another way of looking at global capacity is to examine the degree to which humans already dominate the Earth's ecosystems. Estimates indicate that:

we have already transformed or degraded 39-50% of the Earth's land surface (agriculture, urban).
we use 8% of the primary productivity of the oceans (25% for upwelling areas and 35% for temperate continental shelf areas).
we have increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by 30%
we use more than half of the accessible surface fresh water
over 50% of terrestrial nitrogen fixation is caused by human activity (use of nitrogen fertilizer, planting of nitrogen-fixing crops, release of reactive nitrogen from fossil fuels into the atmosphere)
on many islands, more than half of plant species have been introduced by man; on continental areas the fraction is 20% or more
about 20% of bird species have become extinct in the past 200 years, almost all of them because of human activity
22% of marine fisheries are overexploited or depleted, 44% more are at the limit of exploitation <snip> more stats...
<>All of these statistics show that we are already stretching these resources to the limit, and that the 33% increase in population will be very difficult to accommodate.<>

http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec16/b65lec16.htm#Declining%20per%20capita%20Resources%20and%20Productivity



further:
http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/

to be living on earth - it would be, by all accounts, a nightmarish existence. just pointing out that it would be possible - but as you or somebody else pointed out, there'd probably be no more hardwood floors! which would probably be the least of the problems considering that all food would be grown hydroponically in nuclear power-powered factories floating out on the ocean and most likely be completely tasteless. and there wouldn't be much if any of real nature left - but who needs that if we train kids from an early age that they can be completely happy sitting in a 8 x 10 room playing video games all day long?

I'm outraged! ;)

Please read and respond to my comments in post #32, where I explain why the term "natural resource" doesn't really hold much meaning.

The whole point of technology is that we take things that have no value, and we turn them into things that have value. Thus, human beings are causing resources to become more abundant, not less.

When people live at a rich, first world standard of living, the carrying capacity of the earth becomes bigger, not smaller.

is the crux of the problem. When we run out of easily available fossil fuels, renewable energy from wind, solar, etc. WILL NOT be enough to sustain a population of much more than 2 to 3 billion people.

I'm not sure what to do about the population problem, but I know this: if you leave it alone, it WILL take care of itself. Which is more humane, controlling it now, or letting it be taken care of through famine, war, pestilence and death?

Unfortunately, Homo sapiens is a much too greedy, self-centered and arrogant species to ever voluntarily curb their continued, explosive infestation of the planet. The rest of the planet -- its habitats, its ecosystems and every other species with which we "share" this earth could go to hell as long as as so many humans are only concerned with whether there are enough resources for THEM to survive. Hence, there will never be laws in this country aimed at curbing selfish, ego-starved nitwits who can't seem to grasp the devastating consequences of human overpopulation and continue to breed exponentially.

I do believe that laws restricting family size could never be passed in this country, but I DO believe that at least people in this country should not be rewarded for having more than two children. No more tax breaks for one -- and yes, I do believe in fines or additional taxes for those who, by having large families, deliberately and willfully make the decision to contribute to an explosive human overpopulation which will suck this earth dry of its resources. I don't believe that folks who drive SUVs should be getting tax breaks, so why should I support tax breaks for people who have more than two children? Any child born in the US of A will devour as many of the earth's resources yet contribute to more pollution than entire villages of children elsewhere on the planet.

The tax breaks should be reserved for those who limit family size, drive energy-efficient vehicles and invest in alternative energy sources. Ironically, it is those folks who are at least attempting to pass on to succeeding generations some quality of life for all species whose futures rest on the survival of the planet called Earth.

"Unfortunately, Homo sapiens is a much too greedy, self-centered and arrogant species to ever voluntarily curb their continued, explosive infestation of the planet."

Happily, that's not true. You speak of traits of one culture - our 10,000 year old one. All of humanity is not like that at all, or else would not have survived for 3 million years without destroying the planet.

There are many examples of people leaving their non-functioning culture behind, most notably the Maya and Teotihuacans. They walked away from their "civilization" and stayed away.

The hopeful aspect of all this is that it isn't necessary for all of humanity to change, just one culture - ours.

IF I was a Senator or Congressman I certainly would try to pass one or do something to curb population growth. BEsides even if it isd just Government fees and loss of tax breaks that would proberly discourage a lot of people from having more than two children. We have passed other insane laws and regelation so I don't see why Population Laws could not get passed in ten or twenty years. That was what I was sayin if a couple hads three children then FINE THEM a ton of money and cancel their tax credits on the third child. We don;t have to put them in prison just fine them and a t the least help bring don or national debt or use the money to solve enviomental problems. :bounce:

Ok, the law is enacted. The Nuit family has 2 children. Kuda Toldya has a child but doesn't want it. Will you allow the Nuits to adopt Kuda's baby? If the Nuits later get divorced and remarried and each keeps one child, are they allowed to have one more per couple?
Would billionaires who can afford the fines be able to have as many children as they like? Isn't this law as disrespectful of human reproductive rights as banning abortion is?

Will this law affect the global population problem? Do you have any evidence of laws like this working?

Wouldn't it be better to realize what the source of over-population is and make the necessary changes there?

Population is directly related to food production.

adoption would not increase th epopulation I think if a couple wants to adopt a dozen children and they have the money and time and the logic to rasie children. If population laws was inacted then people who wanted more children could easily adopt thus not producing another human being to feed and take up space. Make the size based on welath ot income. Fine them 10% of their net worth or income for every child they produce past two. And give them tax credits for children they adopt. THey have never been tried before in America but they work In China from what I read. Iam sure they would work here.

The source of overpopulation is to many people or having to many children which is why we need caps on how many a couple and give birth to not adopt.

I was pointing to the fact that adoption is just one of things the law would be inadequate to handle globally.

And did you cite China for goodness sake?

<>"China
China's population in 2002 was estimated at 1.28 billion people, which is five times higher than that of the U.S. and over 20% of the world’s total. Its land area is slightly less than that of the U.S., but only 10% of it is arable compared to 19% in the U.S.
In China, a "one-child-per-couple" policy has been in effect since 1979, with the (unmet) goal of limiting the nation's population to 1.2 billion by the year 2000. The policy includes rewards for having only one child including monetary grants, additional maternity leave, and increased land allocations for farmers. The children of these couples are also given preferential treatment in education, housing, and employment. The policy allows couples to have a second child only under rare circumstances, and does not allow more than two children.

After her first child is born, a woman is required to wear an intrauterine device, and removal of this device is considered a crime. Otherwise, one of the parents must be sterilized. Physicians receive a bonus whenever they perform a sterilization. Couples are punished for refusing to terminate unapproved pregnancies, for giving birth when under the legal marriage age, and until recently they were punished for having a second child. The penalties include fines, loss of land grants, food, loans, farming supplies, benefits, jobs and discharge from the Communist Party. In some provinces the fines can be up to 50% of a couple's annual salary.

In many provinces sterilization is required after the couple has had two children.

The one-child-per-couple policy was strictly enforced during the early 1980's. The coercive measures peaked in 1983, when 14.4 million abortions were performed (for comparison, there were 19 million live births in that year). Because of strong public resistance, the Chinese government moderated its stance in the late 1980's and tried instead to emphasize public education and good public relations with the people. Because the birth rate started to climb again, the government tightened up its family planning guidelines in 1987 and 1989. In 2001, a new law was passed to reinforce and standardize the one-child policy over the entire country. It includes incentives for compliance but no longer requires fines to be imposed for couples who have a second child.

China's population policy has brought the average number of children per woman down from 5.01 in 1970 to 1.84 in 1995. But the Chinese population is still growing. This is because the children born during the previous period of high fertility are having children -- albeit fewer per couple -- of their own. China did not achieve its goal of stabilizing population at 1.2 billion in the year 2000. Instead, it grew to 1.3 billion in 2000 and will inevitably increase to about 1.5 billion by 2025."<>

http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec16/b65lec16.htm



There are a few other questions without an answer yet.

Plus some more: What about couples that have triplets?

"The source of overpopulation is too many people or having too many children which is why we need caps on how many a couple and give birth to not adopt."

It's not the real source, and show me when "caps" have worked. It never has in the past. When will it suddenly begin working in the future?

<>"Especially since 1960, several developments have dramatically reduced infant and child mortality throughout the world: the use of DDT to eliminate mosquito-borne malaria; childhood immunization programs against cholera, diphtheria and other often-fatal diseases; and antibiotics. During the same period, the "Green Revolution" greatly boosted food output through the cultivation of new disease-resistant rice and other food crops, and the use of fertilizers and more effective farming methods. These changes have contributed to a dramatic increase in human population growth rates."<>
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec16/b65lec16.htm#HUMAN%20POPULATION%20GROWTH

I've never understood why people who worry about "overpopulation" are so focused with China.

There are 73 countries in the world whose population densities are higher than China's.

Here are the population densities of various countries, given in people per square km:

China 133.69

Luxembourg 165.92

Switzerland 182.94

Italy 192.96

Germany 234.86

United Kingdom 244.69

Israel 282.82

Japan 336.72

Belgium 336.82

Netherlands 466.45

Korea, South 477.49

Taiwan 685.47

My source is:

http://www.photius.com/wfb1999/rankings/population_density_0.html

north america is the first largest consumers of oil. I do not know if this answers your question as I haven't really followed the sequence in posts but when one considers depopulation or over populations from the perspective of national security one can not help but consider it's impact on oil reserves.

But I suspect that all the countries of western Europe together probably use more oil than China.

So, I guess if China was broken up into 100 little countries, then people would stop saying that it was "overpopulated."

Therefore, the way to get rid of "overpopulation" is simply to redraw the lines on the maps.

combined is the second largest consumer with china the largest in that group over Europe. America including Canada the largest. I will see if I can find the stats on it. I had come across them at the beginning of the year. When I find them I will put them here. I am sure of it.

There are probably more recent stats. I know there are.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/ene_oil_con

The great thing about that graph is it's nice to see the U.S. has such a huge lead. No one will ever catch up to us.

Since you have an interest in oil, I thought you might be interested in this. We can manufacture as much oil as we want, by turning garbage into oil at a cost of $15 per barrel:

http://www.discover.com/may_03/gthere.html?article=featoil.html

that would create altneratives to dependence on outside oil sources. And then of course there is solar and electric alternatives that have been an option people have been yelling about since the sixties. Instead it seems the PNACers prefer to break OPEC. I placed this in editorials...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=6227

Thanks for the article I will print it and read it too.

Run against Shrub in 2004?

as I stated in another post unbeknownst there well may be populations control agendas already in place (alla messianic new world order). Regardless of what you might advocate it can open up a number of unsavvory doors and if you believe otherwise then I am not sure you have considered the fact that deep racist sentiment in regard to "undesirables" does live, and this administration as well.

Whenever they show pictures of "overpopulation," it's almost always people who are non-caucasion.

They never label pictures of a large crowd at a Grateful Dead concert or a large crowd at an Earth Day rally as being "overpopulation," because most of the people in those crowds are white.

The population density of Western Eueope is about 5 times as high as that of Africa. But Africa is labelled as being "overpopulated," while Western Europe never gets this label. I think racism is definitely a big part of the agenda.

even in that recent article I read here regarding the bio war testings in Nevada regarding manmade hurricanes and wildfires. The trick has always been to make depopulation look accidental and/or due to natural causes. Small pox infected blankets to native americans, one of many natural causes to instigate a genocide. That way everyones hands seem clean.

And look how complacent the american population. How many people do you know that even questions the oddity of monkey pox in milwaukee? I found that so bizarre especially considering Bush's stubborness regarding his mandatory small pox vaccine program, which was on then off and now on again, with articles to suggest the order had been placed for vaccine for the whole nation prior to 9/11. If they were to go forward with that program do you not think depopulation would follow, considering our immuno-compromised population and the contraversy surrounding that vaccine. How foolish are Americans to not question this. Of course depopulations agendas are in place. These guys have taken this one bit of provocation 9/11 and are working it to their advantage.

The Kissinger memorandum is testament to the fact that the WH has been concerned about over population as it correlates to national security since the late 60's and what interest does overpopulations infringe upon the most. Texas Oil and dwindling Oil reserves. Of course this is simplistic, but without even much to substantiate my feelings it really is not too far fetched to speculate that overpopulation/depopulation agendas are at play with even America the target. How else does the DOD justify buring sarin nerve gas into the environment and so close to a low income minority community.

All you do have to do is put a googles search in with the keywords: population control agenda's and up will come new world order agendas wherein a number of the considerations outlined coincide exactly with what is in the process of taking place right now. Ah but it is mostly relegated to tinfoil conspiraparanoid mumbo jumbo and therefore taken with a grain of salt. As most anything that has to do with messianic new world order, illuminate, and god forbid we speak in too much depth and enquiry regarding the neo nazi undertones at play here as well. People can not stand to dwell too long here it rips at their very identity. that aspect of their identity that is defined by nationalistic ideologies. Anything like diabolical depopulation agendas which might target those groups deemed undesirable becomes impossible for many to fathom let alone consider.

I guess we have to wait till seeing is believing, yet I even wonder. Because so few seemed to question that monkey pox in milwaukee many easily buy the pragmatic official explanation as to way a pathogen not endemic to the midwest would suddenly rear it head and then just as suddenly disappear. Of course I haven't followed it, perhaps there has just not been any news followup on the outbreak. Truly do you believe it was natural phenonmena brought into milwaukee via air travel. And so far as I know only milwaukee.

It is the populations of the most industrialized nations which selfishly gobble up the lion's share of the world's resources. One child born in the US of A will use up more of the earth's resources and pollute the planet more than entire villages of children elsewhere. It is not some burgeoning population in Africa which threatens this planet, but that of the US of A and to a lesser extent, Western Europe. Since we cannot seem to curb our greed for the world's finite resources, the U.S. should be the first to make a commitment to population control. We can't have it both ways.

To insinuate that racism is some hidden agenda in any debate regarding zero population growth is something I find personally offensive.

"Birth rates" and "fertility rates" are not the same as "population increase".

If the global birth rate is reduced by 40% every 25 years, earth will have 13 billion people in 2150.



"With regard to population, when the 6 billionth person was born, one of the writers for National Review tried to put this into perspective and reveled that if all 6 billion people lived in the state of Texas, each of them would have an eighth of an acre to him/herself. This doesn't seem like too many people to me. Any comments?"

The response: http://www.ishmael.org/Interaction/QandA/Detail.CFM?Record=443

"1. education and a degree of independence for women"
As soon as the women in a given culture learn how to read and write, the birth rate in these cultures starts to equal european and other western cultures. (My source for this is Emmanuell Todds book about the U.S.A., he's a professional in demographic studies).
In a way, the paranoia about population growth is a kind of weapon in the hand of right-wing-idiots to spread fear among the western populations.
There are more bad news than good ones about the state our world is in, but one of the most optimistic things is that the literacy-rate among all the people in the world is growing very very fast and faster than ever before.
And we could easily feed more than twice the people, who are living in the world today.
That population-growth myth is one to fight against, it's right-wing-propaganda of the worst kind.
There are not to many people on this world, there isn't enough money:-)
Greetings from Germany,
Dirk

I'm not an expert in demographic studies and I was really surprised, reading Todds' book, about this relationship between literacy among women and the birth-rate. Is this common knowledge among demographic-scientists, Treepig?
Oops, looking at my literacy in english, I guess I have to have 25 children pretty soon...
Dirk

i first became aware of it from an article in the atlantic monthly several years ago (which i can't find now) about the microback program in bangladesh aimed at giving women financial independence (see, for example, http://www.grameen-info.org/ ). the article made a strong case that educating women, and providing them with even a very modest modicum of finacial idependence was becoming recognized as the very best way to get population growth under control in a progressive manner (i.e., compared to forced sterilizations, famines, epidemics, etc). i am by no means an expert on this subject - it's more like a factoid that stuck with me and has never been debunked as far as i'm aware.

Laws are not enactable planetwide, and they don't work anyhow.

The changes that need to made to cure the global population problem, need to made in the foundation of our culture, not by setting into motion a non-working favorite of our culture - laws and programs.

I am severely opposed to giving tax breaks or any kind of financial perk for having children. No one should be paid to have children. That money should be used to fund family planning, free birth control for everyone who wants it and environmental education in public schools. This is one way to support humane population control and change American views of children as commodities.

In regards to the earth…it will always be able to take care of itself. When humans become too populous we will simply have our numbers reduced or wiped out completely by disease, famine and pollution. I certainly will not cry about it, it has happened many times before and will happen again. Who knows, maybe humanity will be wiped out by a meteor. We can only hope.

The carrying capacity of the earth for human beings is heavily a function of how much energy we can harness. If we suddenly didn't have any fossil fuels to fertilize, run the tractors, pump the water, etc. then I suspect you would see a drastic reduction in population.

eom

Your comments are based on the mistaken belief that human beings are parasites who consume resources.

The truth is the opposite. Human beings are creative beings who use their minds to increase the supply and availability of resources.

In fact, I would argue that the very term "natural resource" is meaningless, and I would like to offer some real world examples to explain why.

As one example, please consider petroleum. For most of human history, petroleum was worthless. In fact, it had negative value, because it was a nuisance that got in the way of people who were digging water wells.

But in the 19th century, a human being with a brain figured out a way to use the petroleum as fuel, and all of a sudden, the petroleum acquired value.

So what is the real resource in this case? Is it the petroleum, or, is it the human brain that figured out how to use the petroleum?

And today, with thermal depolymerization, we can turn garbage into oil at a cost of $15 per barrel. Imagine that! We can turn garbage into oil! Wow! Again, this is because of the human brain.

Another example is that today, we take worthless sand, and we turn it into valuable computer chips that are worth trillions of dollars. Again, what is the real resource? Is it the sand, or it is the human brain?

Several decades ago, telephone signals were carried on copper wire. But today, we use fiber optic cable instead. Compared to the copper wire, the fiber optic cable carries more information, but it uses fewer atoms of material. Again, what's the real resource here? Is it the physical material in the fiber optic cable, or, is it the human brain?

Of course, not every country is doing these kinds of things. The human mind functions best when people are free. As a general rule, the freer the people, the more the people will use their minds to improve the quality of life.

As an example, please compare South Korea to North Korea. The two countries have similar geography and climate, similar cultures, similar natural resources, similar population densities, etc. But South Korea is a rich country with a first world standard of living and all of the modern conveniences, while North Korea is a third world country whose people are suffering from famine, water shortages, energy shortages, etc.

The explanation for why South Korea is so rich while North Korea is so poor is because of the differences in the two countries' legal and economic institutions. South Korea is a free country with private property rights, the rule of law, enforcement of contracts, and a free market pricing system to encourage efficient use, allocation, and distribution of resources. North Korea does not have these institutions.

I would now like to point out some of the past predictions that were made regarding the subject of "overpopulation," and explain *why* these predictions failed to come true. When I use the term "overpopulation doomsayers," I am referring to people such as Paul Ehrlich and Lester Brown, and the millions of people who share their beliefs, including, apparently, a lot of the people who are posting in this thread. These poeple aren't "stupid." On the contrary, many of them are highly intelligent, and they tend of have high I.Q.s, and many have college degrees. However, they are misinformed, and many of their beliefs are mistaken. I would like to explain why their beliefs are in error.

The "overpopulation doomsayers" who predicted a worsening of third world famine as the world's population doubled from 3 billion to 6 billion were wrong. Despite what Paul Ehrlich and other "doomsayers" predicted in the 1960s and 1970s, the truth is that over the past few decades, per capita food production has increased in China, India, Latin America, the developing world in general, and the world as a whole.

The "doomsayers" were wrong in their claim that the Chinese famines of the 1960s were caused by "overpopulation." And the "doomsayers" were wrong in their prediction that as China's population got bigger, its problem of famine would get worse. In reality, China's famines of the 1960s were caused by bad economic policies, not by "overpopulation." China's switch from collective farming to private farming in the late 1970s caused a tremendous increase in per capita food production. Today, China's population is much bigger than it was in the 1960s. And today, the people of China are much better fed than they were in the 1960s.

Despite what Paul Ehrlich and other "doomsayers" want us to believe, Africa actually has a low population density, and is very rich in many valuable natural resources, and has many large tracts of fertile land that are sitting idle, unplanted, with no crops being grown. The real cause of African famine is bad economic policies, not "overpopulation." Collective ownership of farmland discourages farmers from planting crops, because the person who plants the crop is not necessarily the person who gets to harvest it. Government price caps on food discourage farmers from growing food.

Poor countries remain poor because of corrupt government, bad economic policies, and a lack of strong protections of private property rights. Whenever a poor country adopts strong protections of private property rights, free market pricing, and free trade, combined with a strong rule of law, and enforcement of contracts, and holds on to these policies, the country experiences tremendous increases in its standard of living. Recent examples of poor countries transforming themselves into rich countries include Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, and all of this happened while these countries experienced substantial increases in their populations. Paul Ehrlich said this was impossible, but real world experience proves that Ehrlich was wrong.

In the rich capitalist countries with a first world standard of living, the air and water have been getting cleaner. Once per capita GNP in a country reaches about $4,000, people can start to afford worrying about protecting the environment. And the richer the country gets, the better off its environment becomes. Just as richer people have better access to food, housing, clothing, education, and health care, they also have better access to a cleaner and healthier environment.

On privately owned timberland, the greedy landowner is concerned about the future resale value of his land, so he usually plants more trees than he cuts down.

On privately owned fish farms, fish populations keep getting bigger and bigger. Overfishing is not a problem at all on privately owned fish farms.

Government price caps on the price of water keep the price artificially low. This artificially low price encourages people to waste water. Also, this artificially low price prevents many water suppliers from being able to afford desalination plants. 70% of the world's surface is covered in water, to an average depth of 2 miles. Water "shortages" are caused by bad economic policies, not by an actual lack of water.

The "doomsayers" who predicted that before the year 2000, the world would run out of oil, copper, gold, iron, tin, and aluminum, were wrong. In a free market, with private ownership of resources, and free market pricing, it's impossible to run out of a resource. Scarcity of a resource leads to higher prices. Higher prices encourage users to conserve. Higher prices encourage suppliers to look for more of the resource, and/or to find a cheaper substitute. The "doomsayers" don't understand the function of prices in a free market economy, and that's why their predictions of "running out" of resources have been consistently wrong.

The "doomsayers" of the 18th century who worried about running out of candle wax and whale oil never realized that things like petroleum and electricity and light bulbs would come along. The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones, and the petroleum age won't end because we run out of petroleum.

Where are these new sources of energy? Hydo, solar and PV can only provide for so many. Electricity is produced mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, and look what a mess the lights going out has caused.

Our entire society (Western Nations, anyway) is built on the cheap and abundant use of fossil fuels. All these wonderful environmental technologies are used to clean up facilities that require fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal, etc.) to operate.

Peak Oil will come, and soon. There will be plent of oil in the ground, for sure. However, it will become way too expensive to remove. I haven't seen any reasonable source of energy developed, or even talked about. The free market is not really free when Big Oil squelches everything that could challenge it.

I cannot predict what specific new technoloiges will come into existence in the future.

However, the long term trend shows that technological advancement is accelerating, and even the rate of growth of technological advancement is accelerating.

Just as the people of the 18th century could not have predicted things like petroleum and electricity and light bulbs, I cannot predict what specific technologies we will have in the future.

For the time being, we can manufacture as much oil as we want, by turning garbage into oil at a cost of $15 per barrel:

http://www.discover.com/may_03/gthere.html?article=featoil.html

and I am not sure I would feel comfortable having the Bushs in control of legislation of this nature as it is said they are involved in the eugenics movement which could enable the legislation of law based on race and racial profiling as well as class considerations. Not sure human nature has evolved enough to be trusted in this department. Some might even argue that population control agendas are already in place alla messianic new world order deceptions... I do have links to suggest this . I will withhold them however unless asked.

Lemme have 'em!

which has little to do with tinfoil hats or the overpopulation agendas. Listen, I really don't like my time wasted. All you need to do is google.

I was just showing some interest in your post. Believe me, I won't make that mistake again.

that is why I asked which links you were interested in. I find on forums like these sometimes people play games. At first I didn't realize this. I took everything at face value. My apologies if I misread your intent. Nothing personal was intended. I just wasn't sure which topic you were most interested in. the memo or the overpop agendas.