Over Population

[gadjo_dilo]

We also are sad we have to deal with people like you - unknowing - uncaring

One billion people live on less than $1 a day, the threshold defined by the international community as constituting extreme poverty, below which survival is questionable. That number encompasses a multitude of people living in varying degrees of poverty—all of them poor, but some even more desperately poor than others

Yeah... Fortunately there are compassionate guys like you who think that poverty can be eradicated by sterilization of poor people....

[Daniel]

Yeah... Fortunately there are compassionate guys like you who think that poverty can be eradicated by sterilization of poor people....

So it's more compassionate for people just to be able to breed however they want in a society that can't sustain itself with its current population let alone with more people?

[gadjo_dilo]

So it's more compassionate for people just to be able to breed however they want in a society that can't sustain itself with its current population let alone with more people?

Well, I don't think it's right for me to decide on the sexual life and family planning of the others. One man in this country tried to do this and tried to be in control of natality. He finished by being shot on Dec 25th 1989.

The guy had taken some other " interesting " measures and I wonder why none of you thought of these alternatives. At the end of the day don't you fear the resources aren't enough for all? So here they are:

He thought a programme of rational feeding. So our food was rationalized at 1 l of oil and 1kg of sugar per person per month and you could buy these only from a certain shop and only with your ID card. Then you couldn't buy more than a bread/day, you weren't allowed to buy more than 300g of salami/person. If you pretended that your family consists of 3 persons and you want the whole piece of salami, the shop assistant would have cut the piece in 3 parts. Otherwise it was the "danger" to take the piece and dry it for later.
Then we have periodic power cuts. We have cold in houses and at work. Some of us took small radiators at work and hide them under the desks. But we were controled by the fire department and get substantial fines.
We have a "clever" programme for warm water: only between 6-9 and 18-22.
Electricity was rather cheap only for 60KW/apartment/month. Those who dared to use more were penalized by paying the exceed double or triple ( can I forget the day when the electricity bill was higher than my father's pension? ).

Not only that the gynecological control was severe and abortions illegal ( to the extent that a woman was let to die if she had one ) but those who were over 23 y.o. and had no children were forced to pay a " celibate tax ".

Results: population increased, consume was reduced at the limit of survival (but we didn't parish!, on the contrary, we developed new "techiques" of survival , some at the edge of absurdity ), and the international debt of the country in december '89 was ZERO ( theory of conspiracy says the guy was shot by command of international finance cos he set a bad example for other poor states ).

[schmenke]

...We have more than enough vital resources to sustain our current population, ...

No we don't.
We must look past the hypocrisy of assuming our current lifestyles can be maintained with careful management while ignoring the poorer societies' living standards. If we believe that poorer societies are entitled to the same standards of living as the privileged “west”, then they would be entitled to equal access to resources and rates of consumption. 6+ billion inhabitants consuming at the current “western” rates results in quickly depleted resources. We are seeing this as we speak as some Asian nations are now starting to consume at increasing rates, diminishing world-wide availability of, for example, petroleum products.

Re: desalination plants. Money is not the issue. The money is required to pay for the energy needed to operate them. The required energy comes from resources which we are saying are being depleted, e.g. fossil fuels, hydroelectric. The energy required to operate a moderate desalination plant is about the same as required to power a small town . With the exception of nuclear, non-fossil based sources are not an option. Wind and solar simply do not provide sufficient stable electricity to power a desalination plant. Poorer countries simply can't afford to operate desalinatioin plants and provide affordable energy for their growing populations.

With the melting of the polar ice caps, we’ll all soon be inundated anyways, so grab your speedo and I’ll meet you by the shoreline :

[555-04Q2]

With the melting of the polar ice caps, we’ll all soon be inundated anyways, so grab your speedo and I’ll meet you by the shoreline :

Amen brother, but I don't think I would look as good as you do in a speedo

[Garry Walker]

And it has to start with kicking out the stupid politicians who think that the only economically sustainable model is with more and more kids in order to support more and older people every day.

I would replace kids with immigrants in your post.

True, you just have to be sensible about things. e.g. Don't have 10 kids if you live in a desert and can't feed yourself in the first place..

Which is the problem in Africa, most people there just dont think at all. That is why they are at the development level they are and that is why they are starving so much there. Yet the population keeps rising tremendously all the time.

[ioan]

Which is the problem in Africa, most people there just dont think at all. That is why they are at the development level they are and that is why they are starving so much there. Yet the population keeps rising tremendously all the time.

Them being very religious + Catholic Church being hypocrite and stupid and not allowing them to use condoms isn't helping either.