If the human population keeps on growing at the same rate as it is today, then will the planet be overcrowded?

Question

If we keep reproducing at a rate similar to that of now, what will happen in the future? I think the only way out if we get so close would be for people to be killed, not that I agree with this, but I bet the government would be willing to do this to save the planet... What are your thoughts on this?

Answer 1

it all ready is overcrowded in places

Answer 2

I would say that we are overcrowded at the moment however the biggest problem within the next few decades is going to be food shortages.

As the human race expands, more farmland has to be created to provide enough food for everyone. The problem is is that the majority of land which can be farmed already is being farmed. Those areas left are either unsuitable for agriculture e.g. to high above sea level, too low soil nutrients, too hot or too cold or they are rainforest and wooded/park areas. So what do we do? Destroy rainforest and turn it into farms? Meat will become a rare meal as there simply will not be enough cattle to feed everyone.

The only way around this is for plant scientists to discover new ways to genetically modify plants so that they can do things like grow in normally inhospitable places or increasing the hardiness of the plant. Hence GM foods are not the big bad wolf they are made out to be - they may be our only hope...It is simply totally unfeasable to feed the world using organic farming methods - the crop yields just are nowhere near enough.

Answer 3

In spite of the fact that somewhere on the planet there is always a war and somewhere a famine (typically in the same area) the human population is growing at a rate of about 2 per second. Around a third of the planets 'habitable' areas are currently taken up by farming just to keep us alive. This area will naturally grow until it balances against the growing populations need for habitable space, at which point we will either starve in areas at a level that we can't even begin to imagine or, learn to control our intake, (are you listening America?) eat a purely vegan diet with chemical supplements and if your lucky, you might get the occasional fish (there will be no spare food or room for any grazing animals as they are not efficient forms of food given the area of land etc they require to produce 'meat') and recycle all organic matter (including people) just to keep the farms supplied with enough fertiliser to maintain it's growing levels.
No... your government (or mine!) will do nothing about it, it like every government is not interested in the global theatre, only the domestic one that pays them to look after it's 'home' interests. War is inevitable over farmable land as individual nations compete for it's use in the same way as they do for Oil (if you think fighting over a commodity that will run out and we can survive without is bad, lets see what the battle over the Canadian wheatfields looks like when everyone has ration books, the kids are hungry and the crops fail for some natural reason.)
A last point. At the moment, the USA would need 8 planet earths just to maintain it's present rate of consumption of the planets resourses if the rest of the world decided it wasn't prepared to starve any longer to subsidise it and took up their 'right' to a full share of this one.

Answer 4

If there was a major war every year that killed 85 million people, we would break even. Every year 85 million are born, but how many die?

We could probably fit the US population in the Texas panhandle. Then we could allocate the rest of the land to agriculture and conservation. Of course, it wouldn't take too many nukes to destroy us on that tiny square of land.

I predict that one day Earth will resemble that planet in Star Wars, Coruscant. Earth will be a World City completely covered with metal. I'll bet we could house 20 billion people with comfort and safety.

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Answer 5

Probably something the government will do, but it will be in the form of a disease. However even if the government were not involved there are always new diseases forming which will eventually kill millions. So I say keep reproducing and save the human race, even if we are a race that kill eachother anyway.

Answer 6

In the developed world we tend to be protected from the worst effects of the worlds population increase but at the moment huge numbers of people are starving and even if we were to distribute food evenly to everybody on earth we almost certainly wouldn't be able to completely satisfy everybody so we are probably already overcrowded.

Normal natural selection would not have allowed our population to rise this far but our ability to modify our surroundings to suit ourselves has allowed the number of human beings in the world to far outstrip the population of any other animal.

Answer 7

Well, first of all, what everyone else siad about the rate of dying, and second, there are many uninhabited or underhabited places in the world....like where I am, there are mountains and tons of space where no one lives and where they really could. The places that are overpopulated are only so because people dont feel lik living anywhere else. And if the situation REALLY does get out of hand, which is unlikely, we could always live underwater or underground or in outer space....( :

Answer 8

The planet already is overcrowded. Birth control for everyone has to be enforced, I think.

Answer 9

Daft as it may seem, people will become smaller as the food supply shrinks.
This has been demonstrated where people have lived on remote islands with restricted food supplies.
And see how people have increased in stature as food has become more easily and generously available.

Answer 10

Whoever created this planet surely meant for us all to live here, so I think it will never get crowded, no matter how many people are around. Besides, people are dying as others keep being born, so I think we're basically being maintained.

Answer 11

it already is:

anyway in china i think the government give you money to have one child.But if you have two they take money off you,it's a way to try and keep the numbers down.

America hopes to build on Marrs and in the future man will live on the red plant

regards x kitti x