Hi seashore,
I think the principal problem with population growth and stewardship of the planet is intelligence.
If we behaved and had the same intelligence as the rest of the animals on this planet, our population would be under better control. Animals' populations are determined by their environment whilst us humans try to change the environment to maintain the population in constant growth.
In the medical profession, they have brought what was once a fantasy of Frankenstein into the real world with heart, lung, kidney, bone marrow, even face transplants, offered to people who, under natures law would die a natural death.
Medicines have been discovered to combat dieseases which normally would have massacred whole populations. So really I think we could say that the human population is artificial and even to the point of being unnatural.
As for resources, there of course needs to be an increase of output to satisfy the demand of the needs of the population. These needs are not necesarily necessities, but desires of the population. We don't walk, we take a bus or drive a car. Our travelling is becoming greater (we spend two weeks holiday thousands of miles away from where we live for no apparent reason. Animals travel over large distances under their own steam for a purpose, either survival or to reproduce).
We are sucking the oil out of the ground and putting nothing back. The Earth could be becoming like a party balloon, empty inside, because of all the holes and tunnels and cavities that are being created to extract what is under the Earths' crust.
Is the world over populated? I think so. Not in terms of space. When I go to my farm I have 8 acres of space around me, but I do see more and more houses being built on land that shouldn't have them. Once we start to disturb the balance of nature, making concrete unplanned cities, destroying what is considered the lung of the Earth to produce food and raw material for even more housing and furniture, we are over populated.
Of course it is easy to say this without an answer, or rather a politically correct answer to the problem, we will keep in this state of limbo untill push comes to shove and a war breaks out, which may not resolve the situation all together, because modern day wars aren't yielding as many corpses as in the old days.
Solutions?
Best regards,
Steve
Quote:
Originally Posted by seashore
I haven't viewed the video yet.
In my mind, population growth and stewardship of the planet are two different things and I would like to separate them to simplify the discussion. I don't think anyone argues with the need to stop the indiscriminate use of resources...
But what's wrong with population growth? It seems that should take care of itself. Does the video present a convincing argument that we must slow or even stop our rate of growth? There's something about that concept that doesn't feel right to me...
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