Would you like for me to tell you why population growth and overpopulation is the most significant issue in?

Question

every one of our lives at any given moment?

Good... I'm glad you asked.

Sure, the world faces energy crises, food shortages and crime waves of epidemic proportions, but righ now there are only a little over SIX BILLION PEOPLE in the world. By 2050 it has been estimated by Census takers that the world's population will be 9.3 billion, which will compound each and every environmental and social hazard many times over. What will we do then? Sit around and talk about how much fun it was to go places without having to walk or stop ever so often to watter and feed the horses? I guess obesity will be a thing of the past in ten-or-twenty years, but it won't be because the government outlaws eating and drinking on school property. That will happen, no doubt, but it will be the number of miles children have to walk to school that does most of the trimming of flab.

Maybe now is the time to start tearing up the highways and major interstates so we can reclaim pastureland...

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html

Answer 1

This shouldn't be in the economics category. Well, I take that back, it kind of does. You are a classic Malthusian. Robert Thomas Malthus also expressed your same concerns in his Essay on the Principle of Population. You overlook, just as he did, that the average family size is shrinking. Also, food shortages? That hasn't happened. While it's true that some people do not have food, it's not because there isn't food. It just isn't as plentiful in some regions. Some have an overabundance while others have nothing. But that doesn't mean there is a shortage. Agricultural processes have been getting more productive, increasing the amount of food from each harvest. This means that while the current amount produced may not support the expected population in a few years, the current amount will not be the amount produced. More will be produced because of improvements in technology. Funny how every generation seems to have this same "population" worry, but each year that was said to be the disaster year has come and gone, and guess what, no major disaster. So, if you're going to come in an economics forum and spout off about something, make sure you do it economically. This "problem" is addressed in most principles of economics courses. Maybe you should take that and then back up your statements with empirical data.

Answer 2

Account for the fact that in longstanding industrialized nations, the birthrate often declines to a negative-groth factor. There are so many mitigating factors and too much conjecture for this argument to sway anybody...this was a craze in the 60s-70s that came and went because scare-writers of the time said by 2000 we'd be smack dab in the movie Soylent Green.

You might enjoy the book, "Stand on Zanzibar."