How Can The World Control The Growth Of Population?

[ToraToraTora]

6bn to 7bn took only 12 years, numbers are growing out of control, how can we get this under control before nature does it for us?

[emmie]

its mostly people with the least who go on to have large families, those like a couple of friends and relatives, stuck with two because they simply couldn't afford more.

[ludwig]

// I have no faith anything will be done, so you can only wait for nature to sort the issue //

Don't worry OG, nature's already on the case.

[dave50]

Isn't medical advancement interfering with nature's natural selection process that happens in all other parts of the animal kingdom?

[jim360]

Perhaps dave, but would you stop taking all medicine offered you? I doubt it.

Humans have the capacity to invent ways of sustaining a greater population than people might think. This may not be a good thing, but either way this worry has been around for ages and the threshold for a Malthusian catastrophe keeps getting pushed higher.

[New Judge]

A catastrophe may be a way off, jim, but there is no doubt that excess population is causing huge misery in a number of parts of the world. Even in developed countries (including the UK) population growth is placing enormous pressure on public services.

Population growth is a far greater threat to the world than global warming (or climate change or whatever name has currently been ascribed to it). In developed countries we may get away with it for a little longer but the philosophy that ever-growing numbers of people is good needs to be snuffed out.

In the UK larger families tend to be found among people who cannot support them themselves. Their offspring tend to act likewise thus perpetuating the belief that ever-increasing numbers of children is no great problem because the State (i.e. the taxpayer) will always support you.

The notion that we need ever increasing numbers to support an ageing population is about as logical as suggesting we must breed more kittens because many of them end up in a sack at the bottom of the canal. Unbelievable as it may seem the extra new bodies eventually get old and under the same logic they will need er….even more newcomers to support them. Clearly ridiculous.

[ludwig]

It'll only be a problem NJ when everyone in the world is in Britain and there's no-one left to import. That's a while off yet though.

[sandyRoe]

There's a Gaia Principle which holds, I think, that the Earth regulates itself. Maybe there's a variation of bird flu brewing up in the Far East that will reduce our numbers significantly

[sherrardk]

Regarding

[LazyGun]

"Isn't medical advancement interfering with nature's natural selection process that happens in all other parts of the animal kingdom?

No, not really. There are other, far more important drivers of human evolution.

On the upside of all this Malthusian doom and gloom,so long as we have insects, we will always have a massive potential and currently completely underused source of high quality protein :)

[sherrardk]

Whoops - might want to read this before making the sweeping generalisation that larger families tend to be work shy benefit claimants http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/images/Challenging_12_myths_and_stereotypes.pdf

[modeller]

Th human animal is the only animal which has a steadily weakening gene pool. Millions of us are being kept alive , from birth to old age , by medical advances and able to procreate and pass on our weaknesses.
Who knows if that weakened pool will reach a point that nature will reassert itself and knock us down to size. ?

[jim360]

On the other hand, advances in genetics mean that we are more aware of where certain genetic defects come from and can screen them... since most people feel this is unethical it probably isn't going to happen any time soon, but people really ought to stop depressing themselves.

[beso]

The first step to reconciling the carrying capacity of the planet and the population is to remove religion from the mix.

Religion refuses to acknowledge reality so prevents the implementation of sensible strategies.

For example the Catholic Church outlawing any form of birth control.

[LazyGun]

@ Modeller - This might be your opinion
"Th human animal is the only animal which has a steadily weakening gene pool. Millions of us are being kept alive , from birth to old age , by medical advances and able to procreate and pass on our weaknesses.
Who knows if that weakened pool will reach a point that nature will reassert itself and knock us down to size. ?"

But it has no basis in fact, at least not to any appreciable extent. The human animal is not a victim of " a steadily weakening gene pool".

This is rather like tha argument that somehow the rate of human evolution has been appreciably retarded by advancements in medicine, which again is purely speculation since there is no single measurable trait to measure! And never has been.

And anyway - whats the alternative for those of you convinced that somehow modern day living, technology and medical intervention are "weakening the species?" What do you propose? A list of diseases for which we do not treat? Allow hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions to die from famine or whatever?

Sorry. Its not a notion that you can back up with solid evidence - and even were it true, you can offer no humanitarian alternative.

[wildwood]

Unfortunately it is mainly the 'poor' countries/people who have large families, so aggravating the hunger problem even more.

We are so tense on destroying insects that may attack our food that at the same time we are destroying the bees, without which there will be no food.

Nature has already had a stab or two at limiting the population and I am sure that it won't be long before some virus evolves that can not be easily controlled, causing disaster among the ones that can least protect themselves. An alarming thought.

[janbee]

In this country, we could stop ALL child benefits with immediate effect. The population would plummet.

[emmie]

millions do die of disease and starvation, that's the point, in Asia, Africa, it's only in the western world where many of the diseases that once killed Europeans by the millions have been eradicated. Education for one thing, across the globe, not to say that has worked so far in teaching people about birth control, but if it's left to spiral out of control as it seems to be doing, then as been pointed out dwindling resources will be our prime worry, not to mention water shortages.

[Canary42]

"Nature" is already doing a good job - 5,000 children die every day from malnutrition-related reasons.