The Shrine

Warmer ocean leads to fiercer hurricanes

Global warming caused Katrina. Expect more Category 5s over and over again. How many times does NO (and the rest of the Gulf Coast) need to be rebuilt and evacuated before we stop using coal and oil?

It's linked to pollution, of course, but that is in turn linked to over-population. Drastic measures do need to be taken; but everyone with power is marginalizing the issue that will eventually destroy us in the name of preserving an expanding economy.

Dutch wrote:It's linked to pollution, of course, but that is in turn linked to over-population.

Not really. The population in industrialized nations levels-off. Those that use the most resources and contribute the most to pollution - us, basically - are a minority in the world's population.

To be fair, it's the scientists who have been feeding Gore the info for the past 30 years who were right. He didn't really say anything new in recent years, people just started to pay attention because he's Al Gore, the president-elect who never was

Population isn't the only factor, but I think it can be concluded that it is one of the most major ones. China and the US are the two largest polluters, and are also two of the most highly populated countries in the world. I would argue that the two major forces behind an overall volume increase in pollution are a drive for improved economy and population growth.

Of course, contributers are the clear cutting farmers of South America, who are destroying much of the world's natural filters. The expansion here is certainly a result of expanding population.

The US accounts for about 6% of the world's population, but is has more land than China, which accounts for almost 20% of the world's population, and more land than India, which accounts for almost 17% of the world's population. Hence, it's misleading to look only at population. We may be more populous than, say, any European country, but we're a hell of a lot bigger.

We account for a small amount of the world's population, yet are one of the biggest contributors to pollution and resource consumption. That's a problem of lifestyle, not population. The problem we're facing now isn't that China and India have too many people. The problem is that those 2.4 billion people now want to live like people in the US, and that's what the world can't sustain. It's reasonable for them to want that - who doesn't want to have the best quality of life possible? But what it really means is that rate of consumption in the States just isn't sustainable.

I don't think that is really different from what you've said. The point I am getting at is that global warming is linked to pollution and that our high pollution levels are a result of our over-population in an environment where the expansion of economy is valued highly; not solely the result of population. I think we're on the same page.

Dutch wrote:I don't think that is really different from what you've said. The point I am getting at is that global warming is linked to pollution and that our high pollution levels are a result of our over-population in an environment where the expansion of economy is valued highly; not solely the result of population. I think we're on the same page.

The bolded part is where Kupek's disagreeing with you. US is a small fraction of the world population and the biggest polluters, so no... it's not a result of over-population. I'm sure that has SOME effect, but there are at least a dozen other factors that have a much bigger effect.

I think I get what he's saying. It's a function that has, among others, population and consumption as inputs. If you fix consumption, then you have to reduce the population to lessen the impact. So, we're "over-populated" for our consumption level.

My point - which I think he got - is that in industrialized societies, the population eventually becomes stable. (Not fixed, but grows at something approaching a logarithmic rate.) In that case, you need to reduce consumption to less the impact.

While I do think how he looks at it is valid, I still think it's misleading. The percentage of the world's population that can continue at the US's consumption level and maintain a sustainable system is too small to be realistic.

We aren't really overpopulated. As long as everybody converts to cleaner energy, we won't have a problem with our energy needs vs. population. The problem isn't how much we consume, but how we generate it. (Well, consumption is one angle, but we can change consumption levels without changing our lifestyles.)

We may be able to find a way to develop renewable energy but that's not the only factor our whether or not there are too many people on this planet. There are WAY too many people on this planet

Even Canada has too many people, there is notable environmental damage done in this country mostly by farming, railroads, and paved roads. In my opinion, the over-population threshold is reached when many species are going extinct in the area due to the presence of humans... Afterall, this is the standard we use for other animals, if a certain species of rabbit or Starfish is causing other species to die out in the region, there is an over-population problem.

Except unlike other species, we have a wide range of resource consumption levels. You're not going to find one deer consuming several orders of magnitude more resources than another deer.

SineSwiper wrote:We aren't really overpopulated. As long as everybody converts to cleaner energy, we won't have a problem with our energy needs vs. population. The problem isn't how much we consume, but how we generate it. (Well, consumption is one angle, but we can change consumption levels without changing our lifestyles.)

Very untrue... don't you dare for a minute think that just because something's clean or renewable that it doesn't carry an impact. Remember your laws of physics-- energy is never created or destroyed. That's one thing that worries me about wind power. You're pulling energy out of the atmosphere, what kind of impact will that bring about when we start doing this on a much larger scale? A fundamental shift in climate? Changing of the ocean currents? Nobody knows and few people are thinking about it. You don't get anything for free; there will be a price

I think the general assumption is that the amount of energy in Earth is so high that it is unlikely anything would happen just because we're sucking energy out of it. For example when a satellite gets a gravity assisted boost the planet/moon loses some momentum but comparatively it's so small that it's assumed it doesn't matter to the planet/moon in question.

Aye, same for solar. It's just wasting away on the Earth right now, not being used.

Putting up a bunch of windmills is fundamentally no different than putting up a bunch of tall buildings. I suppose the existence of large cities could shift the climate (although I doubt the size of cities we can build would), but we've never worried about it before, and I don't see a reason to now. Until we're modifying the landscape on the scale of mountain chains, I don't think it's an issue.