What can we do about the overpopulation epidemic?

Answer 1

There isn't one. We are still producing more food in just the United States than is consumed worldwide annually. There is still plenty of unpopulated places just here in the USA.

Answer 2

Nothing, there isn't one.

Overpopulation is a crock. Poverty and famine and war are not a crock, but they are not caused by to many people. They are caused by bad (often to much) governement, and bad (normally socialist) economic policies.

Overpopulation was very trendy in the 60's and 70s. Part of the reason was that it gave intelectual respectability to the introduction of birth control. Another reason was that it helped justify the idea that a big government bureaucracy should control everything. People who like the idea of a big governement bureaucracy LOVE the idea of overpopulation.

The problem is, it is wrong. Been proven wrong.

The whole movement started with the book The Population Bomb (1968) by Paul R. Ehrlich. It predicted disaster for humanity due to overpopulation and the "population explosion". The book predicted that "in the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death", that nothing can be done to avoid mass famine greater than any in the history, and radical action is needed to limit the overpopulation." He ( Ehrlich) said that the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 years by 1980 because of pesticide usage, and that the nation's population would drop to 22.6 million by 1999. Considering that we have 300 million Americans today, I'd guess he was off just a smidge.

The key to the whole scam is that it ALWAYS is a crisis, and it can ALWAYS be prevented, but ONLY if "we" (i.e. the government) takes "radical action NOW". Sure it means you have to give up some of your freedom and pay higher taxes to support a new bureaucracy, but it's better than starving right?

It was of course, bunk. The people who push the "overpopulation" idea have no understanding of basic economics. A good way to prove this is the famious bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon.

Ehrlich said that we were running out of resources and that the price of resources would go up because of that. Simon on the other hand knew economics. Simon had Ehrlich choose five of several commodity metals. Ehrlich picked copper, chrome, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Simon bet that their prices would go down over ten years. Ehrlich bet they would go up. Ehrlich lost.

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon-Ehrlich_wager for the details.

Another example is the book, Limits to Growth. It was published in 1972 and it is an analysis of "the imminent global disaster facing humanity". On pages 64 to 67 they list the results of their study (prouduced on "a giant computer" at MIT) and predict when the Earths resources will run out.

According to LIMITS TO GROWTH the Earth ran out of Aluminum in 2003, Copper in 1993, Gold in 1981, Lead in 1993, Mercury in 1985, Molybdenum in 2006, Natural Gas in 1994, Oil in 1992, Silver in 1985, Tin in 1987, Tungsten in 2000, and Zinc in 1990. If you have gas in your car, an aluminum coke can in the house, or a gas stove that comes on, you can see these guys were wrong.

None of the horrible predictions the Overpopulation people made came true. They were just wrong. It is all a load of bilge, just like the 1970s scare about "Global Cooling".

So there is no "overpopulation epidemic". There are lots of poor people on the Earth, but it's not because of overpopulation, it is because of not enough freedom and bad government and bad economic policies.

Answer 3

That depends on what you mean by overpopulated. In the US, you cannot really limit how many children a couple or person can have. However, Welfare recipients: should get welfare pulled, mandatory birth control (Implants) until they are off welfare, Give couples tax breaks for only having one child each, For couples who choose to have no children let them sell their rights to have kids if they want. Or even bigger tax breaks because they aren’t. Mandatory birth control for all youths under the age of 21, unless married. Outlaw having children out of wedlock or single parents. Yeah, right like any of these are going to work. Maybe we should try educating our young. Making them realize having a baby at 16 isn’t what you think it is and from a girls perspective, he won’t love you or stick around just because you have his child. As for the young boys…remember to wrap your wacker before you attack her. Other countries, same thing. The less intelligent poorer nations tend to realize breeding comes with good harvests and don’t tend to over breed. Unfortunately they are ideas and will never come to pass. There is always have more wars, mandatory castration of males who had their child (common guys, easier for you than women, besides, if some thing should happen it only takes a few of you and a bunch of women to repopulate!)

Answer 4

Karasu, we can't really stop the burgeoning world population.

What we can do, is to ameliorate the effects of increasing population, while searching for new horizons, new living spaces.

Space exploration, underwater sea exploration, technology which may enable us to live underwater, under the ground, in very cold and very hot climates, are all reasonable if not affordable at the present, options.

And pray.

Answer 5

unfortunately we are no longer capable. communication has rendered it impossible for mother nature to take her natural toll on humanity. with advanced communication and learning capacity we interfere with the natural order of things. droughts used to devastate whole countries and the populace would be depleted enough that we could continue our to live in comfort, as it were.

Answer 6

Eventually, the planet will take care of itself. It can only sustain so many of us. It threw AIDs our way, and it's got global warming on the way to knock out a good chunk of us.

Answer 7

Hell we need to register to vote, we need a license to DRIVE, FISH, or own a gun in this country but ANY moron can have kids!......How about a registration, test and license so the morons in the gene pool can't reproduce?

Answer 8

make legislation that allows for killing all inmates with a certain criteria, bethat time , crime whatever that sets a time each month to kill them off. if this is done then we'll have less people on the earth.

Answer 9

Stop the idiots from breeding!!! What else??? HALF of the people I know that have kids, have NO business being parents anyway!!!

Answer 10

Mass suicide. Lead by example.