A threat as big as Bush/Cheney and global warming.

Humanity could be wiped out by global warming, or by Bush and Cheney being insane enough to launch our nuclear arsenal at all the world's "evil doers."

But there's another threat that almost everyone is ignoring. Overpopulation. In 1960 there were about 3 billion human beings in the world. By 2010, there will be about 7 billion. By 2050, (assuming anyone is still around), it will be close to 10 billion. The U.S. alone will reach three hundred million in about a month.

There are just so many natural resources on this planet. Forests, drinkable water, breathable air, edible food: All might soon become as scarce and as valuable as gold. (The movie "Soylent Green" may have been way ahead of its time.)

My bet is that global warming will probably do us in. But it's getting a big boost from too many people living on the planet.

(Check out world population on google.)

nt

And some want to extend to the teaching of Birth Control.

Gotta love those Fundies... :sarcasm:

The unevenness of growth is already another crisis coming along. It isn't just the US. Seniors will make world population dependent top-heavy at the same time as everything else is getting strained. Many things are being undone instead and social security still in the GOP bullseye. In Africa AIDS is turning the population younger as the disease takes out a chunk of the older population a la "Logan's Run" leaving survivors too inexperienced to maintain the infrastructure.

Meanwhile, shots, nutrition and hygiene and the elimination of disease by well intentioned organizations globally helps swell the population. Despite the teary eyed warm satisfaction this gives to Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, this swelling of the economic pyramid base is something capitalism cannot handle when other world crises dramatically shift this population weight all over several critical fulcrums.

Reduction of population through birth control and planned parenthood is a great help to developing nations and is of course widely practiced in prosperous nations. Wars and poverty do nothing except to send things spinning out of control with population increases vying with violent death and misery in a horrible embrace. Then there is disease, chemical poisoning and a massively unimaginable catastrophe now set in motion in the ecology.

Instead of civil society meeting any of these crises and slowly trimming births it is going to be a spectacular slaughterhouse of misery and chaos. Even those fond of the the renewed relevance of war and petty greed will only make things worse for everyone including themselves. Humanity does see and sense this and the urgency and is dissatisfied(LOL) with the absolute crud that comprises world leadership with myopic petty politics(land that poorly done with cheating props) and insane economic faith. In the past the peoples have suffered hopelessly the slings and arrows of outrageous Bushes. Now, collectively, humanity must use democracy to take arms" against a rising sea of troubles. (That is a nice "Hamlet" reference which unfortunately refers to suicide)

"Instead of civil society meeting any of these crises and slowly trimming births it is going to be a spectacular slaughterhouse of misery and chaos. ... Humanity does see and sense this and the urgency and is dissatisfied(LOL) with the absolute crud that comprises world leadership..."

Damn good summation of things. We know that there is no new frontier, no new influx of resources, yet we are squandering what we have in a manic-depressive consumerist blow-out. I think that is partly why, as individuals, we are behaving more & more poorly & also why, as a collective we are more tolerant of this bad behavior.

Have we lost hope?

which is why we have to EARN extinction because now we have- democracy, science, education, fast global information sharing, united ideals platforms utilizing demanded socialistic principles, MORE people benefiting from all of those. In other words, as a species that is evolving to fit the size of a planetary guardian species, we have what it takes except will and unity. You don't get either from plutocratic trash worrying about abstract fortune stashes and apish dominance.

In the past the hopeless denizens and slaves of Empire would look to the gods or for a deliverer(an Anti-Emperor) to rescue the powerless. WE have the power today. if we share one thing with the crazies it is denial. You can deny reality only so long. In reality we have the power if we can take the burden of responsibility.

This is the end of the term, pass-fail, T/F test and it is by action only that we can become stewards of the biosphere or its greatest failed experiment- which likely means a failed planet waiting to get creamed by an asteroid or cooled into an ice cube. Quite the reverse of the old mythology where we lose the paradise of simpleton serfs by disloyalty to a monarchical deity. Now we lose the future because we we are serfs to each other's failed resolve and delusions when there are too few excuses to cut it in the pitiless glare of reason and knowledge. And the tinpot leaders that we pretend are too much for us we allow to lead us over the cliff we all see??? Are they the ones who get to decide to abort the earth's good destiny? As long as atomic stockpiles exist, madness and blindness afflict our simple ability to be taken seriously, to WANT to know, and try, and survive. Much less the blossoming of a new future.

find another planet to move to. :eyes:

I asked him "when?...after we've used up all the resources we'd need to
engineer a project like that?"

If an alligator's chasing you, it's probably not a great idea to wait til he's 3 feet away to start running...

by Harry Harrison, Saul is injured at a protest over a population control bill being debated in Congress and later dies from his injuries.

The book makes the movie seem almost hopeful.