World population reaches 8 billion

[Paulos23]

Climate changes with the seasons. Spending lots of money to fight the predictable weather changes is asinine. Blaming and fining people for the predictable weather changes is dystopian.

Vaccines are great when they don't cause spontaneous abortions, infertility, autoimmune diseases and microclots.

Climate is not the seasons, but:

What Is Climate Science - American Chemical Society

American Chemical Society: Chemistry for Life.

www.acs.org

Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the “average weather,” or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period ranging from months to thousands or millions of years.

Insisting it is just the seasons is ignoring the larger issue of climate change and the direction it is going. Flooding, storms, etc. are getting worse. My company has data on this for 125+ years, and things are changing and bad weather is causing more and more damage. Which effects my companies bottom line (is it a property insurance company fyi).

As for your claims on vaccines, got references? I have not seen any data on these claims.

 

[Pommer]

As for your claims on vaccines, got references? I have not seen any data on these claims.

This falls under “it is known”, (no source needed).

 

[NinjaPirate777]

Climate is not the seasons, but:

What Is Climate Science - American Chemical Society

American Chemical Society: Chemistry for Life.

www.acs.org

Insisting it is just the seasons is ignoring the larger issue of climate change and the direction it is going. Flooding, storms, etc. are getting worse. My company has data on this for 125+ years, and things are changing and bad weather is causing more and more damage. Which effects my companies bottom line (is it a property insurance company fyi).

If you work for an insurance company that pays out for weather claims. Can you provide instances around the world where insurance has paid for damages due to rising sea levels? From what I understand the weather deniers are saying people are causing global warming that is causing sea levels to rise. If that is the case, and you work in the industry related to it, prove it.

 

[Paulos23]

If you work for an insurance company that pays out for weather claims. Can you provide instances around the world where insurance has paid for damages due to rising sea levels? From what I understand the weather deniers are saying people are causing global warming that is causing sea levels to rise. If that is the case, and you work in the industry related to it, prove it.

We don't cover flood insurance. That is to risky for the private sector.

We do cover hail damage, fire damage, spoilage due to power outages, and extream wind events. All have gone up in the past 20 years due to climate change.

 

[Nithavela]

I don't know that you can project western cultural aspects onto the rest of the world, or if some of them even matter with regards to birth rates.

Birth rates wildly differ across the planet... and whether or not homosexuality is accepted isn't going to have much impact on that. Unless your theory is that a gay dude is going to say "well, since people in my society don't accept this, I guess I'll just sleep with a woman (even though I'm not stimulated by her at all) and get her pregnant instead"

Homosexuals marrying and having children is actually something that has happened when being gay was less accepted, and still happens today.

 

[ruthiesea]

I wonder how much longer will we be able to produce enough food for people. There is only so much arable land.

 

[Tuur]

And it continues to climb towards ten billion:

World population reaches 8 billion

"A milestone year, when we anticipate the birth of the Earth's eight billionth inhabitant" says U.N. chief.

www.cbsnews.com

Earth welcomes its 8 billionth baby. Is that good or bad news... or a bit of both?

Sometime today, the global population is forecast to hit 8 billion. The U.N. calls it a milestone for humanity, made possible by advances in public health and medicine. But there are also challenges.

www.npr.org

Personally, I don't think this is such a good thing, considering rapid growth has occurred in some of the poorest countries in the world, where many people live in squalid living conditions in densely packed shanty towns, like in Lagos, Nigeria, without running water, and with open sewers. But when you spend decades fighting comprehensive family planning, that's sort of the inevitable result. It is true that people in North America consume far more reseources per capita, but North America's population is a fraction of Africa and Asia, where most of the growth is happening.

The news of hitting an estimated 8 billion is only part of it. The other is growth rate. If you were to plot a curve of the earth's human population, beginning in , oh, say, 5000 BC and continuing to now, it would be an exponential curve. But if we could plot a curve of, say, the last century or less, we might see a change toward our present time. I saw several graphs looking for this information, and they seemed to show a decline in the growth rate, with a n approaching peak to population, but I don't know how reliable that is. I failed to find actual population estimate for each year. It has to be out there, but I couldn't find it. It would be interesting to make our own graphs.

 

[Tuur]

That sounds more like dystopian sci-fi than any world that would actually be good to live in for the average resident.

(Looking around) You mean we're not already in one?

 

[Tuur]

And then you get huge algae blooms because of the fertilizers and the bees are dead.

Algae blooms are more from overuse. Decline in bee populations seems connected to something else.

About the mid 20th Century, there was extensive use of a cover crop called lupin. Farmers loved it. Unlike other cover crops, like velvet bean, it didn't drag on your sweeps, and it fixed nitrogen like crazy. The problem was it seems to be cold sensitive, and back-to-back hard winters practically wiped out seed stocks, and farmers returned to chemical fertilizers.

There was also a type of coating that you could put on seeds that contained a bacteria that helped fixed nitrogen. This was back in the 1970s. Maybe a test program.

 

[Tuur]

I wonder how much longer will we be able to produce enough food for people. There is only so much arable land.

That depends on where. In the US, land under cultivation has declined. Strictly anecdotal, but I see this driving, as I pass stands of timber that were once fields.

 

[rjs330]

Homosexuals marrying and having children is actually something that has happened when being gay was less accepted, and still happens today.

Lol gay people can't produce children on their own. And that's not because they have a infertility problem.

 

[Nithavela]

Lol gay people can't produce children on their own. And that's not because they have a infertility problem.

I obviously meant people of the other sex.

 

[Landon Caeli]

This is what happens when you have no natural predator for a species. Maybe bring back the dinosaurs?

In any case, it's nature's fault.

 

[mindlight]

And it continues to climb towards ten billion:

World population reaches 8 billion

"A milestone year, when we anticipate the birth of the Earth's eight billionth inhabitant" says U.N. chief.

www.cbsnews.com

Earth welcomes its 8 billionth baby. Is that good or bad news... or a bit of both?

Sometime today, the global population is forecast to hit 8 billion. The U.N. calls it a milestone for humanity, made possible by advances in public health and medicine. But there are also challenges.

www.npr.org

Personally, I don't think this is such a good thing, considering rapid growth has occurred in some of the poorest countries in the world, where many people live in squalid living conditions in densely packed shanty towns, like in Lagos, Nigeria, without running water, and with open sewers. But when you spend decades fighting comprehensive family planning, that's sort of the inevitable result. It is true that people in North America consume far more reseources per capita, but North America's population is a fraction of Africa and Asia, where most of the growth is happening.

Descriptively population continues to rise at a reduced rate in most places. In developed economies, it is already falling. High population is an intensifier of trends like Climate Change, acidity, and toxicity in the oceans, plagues are more likely, and extreme weather events will have more impacts.

Prescriptively people are using birth control more frequently and abortion is used around the world now while it was not in previous centuries to the same extent. Wars, famines, and natural disasters will cost more lives and water shortages may yet result in the deaths of millions of people.

Personally, I see the solution in outer space. If we become a space-faring civilization we will have unlimited resources minerals, energy, and vegetable that can be developed off-world. Also, ocean habitats and ocean farming and indeed habitats inside the earth are as yet in their infancy. Skyscraper greenhouses with fantastic recycling units that use and reuse the water and energy level to level are being developed. There is no reason to despair. High population just means things are about to get a whole lot more exciting.

 

[Nithavela]

Descriptively population continues to rise at a reduced rate in most places. In developed economies, it is already falling. High population is an intensifier of trends like Climate Change, acidity, and toxicity in the oceans, plagues are more likely, and extreme weather events will have more impacts.

Prescriptively people are using birth control more frequently and abortion is used around the world now while it was not in previous centuries to the same extent. Wars, famines, and natural disasters will cost more lives and water shortages may yet result in the deaths of millions of people.

Personally, I see the solution in outer space. If we become a space-faring civilization we will have unlimited resources minerals, energy, and vegetable that can be developed off-world. Also, ocean habitats and ocean farming and indeed habitats inside the earth are as yet in their infancy. Skyscraper greenhouses with fantastic recycling units that use and reuse the water and energy level to level are being developed. There is no reason to despair. High population just means things are about to get a whole lot more exciting.

Hopefully mankind will wipe itself out before it spreads to other solar systems. The sooner, the better.

 

[rjs330]

I obviously meant people of the other sex.

What other sex?

 

[rjs330]

This is what happens when you have no natural predator for a species. Maybe bring back the dinosaurs?

In any case, it's nature's fault.

Our natural predator is ourselves. That and disease. Sometimes caused by our own actions.

 

[mindlight]

Hopefully mankind will wipe itself out before it spreads to other solar systems. The sooner, the better.

You have an eco-terrorist vibe about you recently, you know. Advocating plagues, nukes, and mass extinction events as a prescription for the planet's problems. Maybe humanity is not all bad.

 

[Nithavela]

What other sex?

I don't have the time or inclination to explain things to someone who is playing obtuse.

 

[rjs330]

Hopefully mankind will wipe itself out before it spreads to other solar systems. The sooner, the better.

This comment reminded me of something I saw one time. This was quite some time ago cause this whole over population thing has been around a while. So I don't remember who it was.

I remember some comedian or something addressing this kind of comment when someone said it to him. He said something like "Sounds good, you first."

The crowd laughed, but I'm sure there were those that didn't find it funny.