The world is becoming overpopulated. How would you fix it?

But we actually have a huge surplus of 'food' material. Not the best kind of food but enough to prevent famine. The US can feed africa I believe for example, we're just saving it in case something happens to us.

Now if ONLY these countries would adopt our, 'unconventional' but very much efficient and productive food production process, I think they can feed themselves.

But yeah, food consumption in the US is different, its about sheer gluttony not just 'eating'. I mean a meal for one here is enough to feed a family in another country I think

The mind still controls the body at the end of it all.

If we are to consume, as we are 'normally meant' to, there wont be too much waste and need to over produce.

You're making the mistake of thinking that being able to feed represents the level of consumption. Sure it is true that america could feed africa but not for any substantial amount of time. Like I said, if china or india, a population of billions were to have the same consumption of food, oil, technology as america or canada or europe. Our productivity would not be able to keep up with the amount of demand. There is just not enough fertile land to grow the crops to feed that many people. The only reason that america can feed africa right now is because the level of consumption that africa requires is less then 1/100th of the average american. Case in point, no american can live on a dollar a day, but an african can.

But as I said, if all of these countries' productivity level can be raised to our level then they can feed themselves. Why would they be consuming 1st world style if they are not on that level to begin with.

And thats where technology comes in, it hasnt halted, new things are still popping - in time we wont need as much oil really.

And take the poinsentia plant, the engineered version of that flower thing yields 400~500% more than the original. If we come up with edible plants and raise it like that, we can expand exponentially. Hell even meat, we can build 5 storey structures of chicken farms fed with what we're feeding htem now, we can do that with fish too later on - if we havent yet, cows are different of course -_-

And fertile land, there are engineers out there already that are working on turning dead land into workable ones.

But the thing is, famine is an outcome of overpopulation. It is not the root or what overpopulation is. If we solve famine, we dont solve over population. You'd be fixing the symptom not the cause.

The issue is theres too many to feed then, the real way to deal with it is to affect the actual rate of making more humans, without hitting their 'civil rights'.

I have a few answers for over population .. one of them is that poor people tend to make more children is that so when the parents raise them at an appropriate age, they get sent off to work and bring the foods and such back home, so basically something the parents can gain from.

Although I really wouldn't say the world is overpopulated, I would only confirm it is overpopulated in certain areas ... the world still has much to offer when it comes to space, but if it regards production of foods and such then yes, there are more people at the moment than they could produce foods for it, because well, it costs money to produce and the corporations have really nothing to gain from such acts.

Certain countries also have the means to have access to foods, and it's called money .. which unfortunately many countries are in dying need of to pay for it, because trading has been kinda problematic since it costs pretty high. Sure poor countries could feed themselves by farming, but where to get the permit, where to go to school for it, and will the city allow it?

If the world was filled with abundance then discussions like overpopulation wouldn't be a problem ... but ... since there are .. the demand to gain access to it became great .. therefore ... make a lot of kids and hope they bring home the money.

Human development.

Every year, the average human life expectancy gradually increases thanks to medical research and a boom in a demand of "healthy" products so people could have a "better" life. Before jumping on me about this, you have to consider the fact that there are some products out there that are healthy and benefit the human body.

Our standard of living is another thing. Compared to , say, the middle ages we have gradually increased our life expectancy.

Which brings me to my third reason; Wars. In the last 100 years we have had about 11 wars total.
Common sense tells us that in wars you need soldiers. So all the countries affected by a war had a substantial increase in the amount of children produced.

How to stop overpopulation? Well there's the malevolent way of doing it. A war. War will decrease population but after a war baby boomers will appear in order to make up for those amount of people who died. So unless there is constantly a war after a brief period of piece, Overpopulation won't end that way.

Another more subtle way would be that all Governments subsidies contraceptives. But that involves a long mundane debate between church and state. (In some countries that is)

A deadly pathogen could always work. Something like that of the spanish flu? But the ends of that will be the same as the one of a war, though it will take a longer time to recuperate. Actually I think AIDS is already doing this. Hell, it may even be worse since it discourages us to procreate.

We resolve the issue in a scientific, ethical way. The callous disregard for life I've seen in this thread is frankly disgusting. What a load of spoiled, first-world-centric whining. Bet you lot wouldn't be so cool with some of those solutions if you were on the receiving end.

We educate people on birth control. We stop letting religious institutions walk all over people. We make a goddamned effort. Nothing truly worth doing is ever easy.

I agree but at the rate we humans are going. Either we need to find a solution fast or the earth will find a solution for us, and that is not a good thing.

OR we enter war because of the resources.

Lets just become china and not allow more than one child per family.

aka the earth finding a solution for us :D

Watching a intelligent show, that was talking about a vertical building made of huge box in a wavy circular shape, towering 600 meters in height and possibly earth quake proof. Composed of cubes big enough to hold 3 stories and multiple rooms (including office rooms), uses a system of elevators, and has neighboring stores and other facilities. Uses computer maned flying machines to build. Not yet implemented.

Another interesting idea, I read a little while back, is the consumption of earth worms, who require 1/4 (or less) the area that normal live stock needs to be bread. Has a similar taste to chicken when cooked (right). Carries the same quantity of protein as regular meat per pound. Highly effective alternative in food.

Light based power systems, same show last week, showed this guy who made this system of panels on his roof, connected to a fiber optic cabal, running to his office reflective lighting system, thereby giving off real sun light, connected to a light charged battery for dim or no light.

There's also further studies in cloned vegetable farms (mostly studies I need to do on how far cloning has gotten), double that with the fiber optic indoor lighting, creates the possibility to create an underground farm system.

Hydrogen based cars that store the hydrogen in nano cubes.

I'd love to say space, but we lack sufficient enough means to migrate to. There was an interesting idea I heard about from a NASA or similar organization member, about a facility capable of supporting life for a small amount of people for around 2 years on mars. Also that it is within the realm of possibility within the next 10-20 years. Space elevator made of nano-tubes latched onto an asteroid as a counter weight... (googles investigating it, so I believe its possible).

This one is just me, unlimited free global internet access funded through tax payer government funding, education and communication being the goal.

Prosthetic's limbs.

Sorry I know a lot of people would prefer the quicker path of war, I had for sometime myself, but a backwards step from would be a lot better in the long term. If as much as each and every country spent in war funds (America I'm looking at you), was spent towards scientific research, and if knowledge/education(not through the current school system fixated on factory lines) was valued higher, I'd say we'd easily have a Ghost in the Shell future within 10-15 years.

(Unlimited internet everywhere would create a huge breakdown in social barriers lessening a lot of tension, better speech conversion software would make it easier for this. Though this would kill war's... which would kill so many economies, like...)

The biggest limitations is our social, ethical, religious, and cultural inhibitions... Which drives me crazy... Such as religious wars, cultural insistence on violence, ethical disdain in scientific advancements due to uncertainty and a lack of pursuing that knowledge, or societies that value stupidity far higher than any thing else in all forms of media and other early learning mediums for children...

Why I think knowledge should be first.

'

I disagree with your premise that "overpopulation" is a problem of occupied space.
I find it to be a factor of, enough resources, to support a status higher than "struggling for food and warmth every night".
-Large amounts of land can't be used for farm land due to them being inhospitable and unsupportable of the necessary conditions.
-More animals to support every individual is not possible with the requirement in land capacity necessary to raise them and food quantity required to support them.
-That quite a large amount of "open space" is unused for difficulty of being able to occupy, or increasing the imposition already established on nature by humans.
-Additionally, cultural and political restraints would abhor the idea of sharing their boarders, say with China for instance who would need it most at this point.
-Monetary exchange, as much as I hate it, nothing changes without.
-Intelligence and communication.
-War and conflict.
-These things have to last for an extended period of time.
-Alternative sources of energy that can last longer.
-We can't damage our natural resources more than necessary.
-Our techniques have to support the growth of population increases which are proportional to advancements in technology. Wiki "...global population expected to reach between 7.5 and 10.5 billion by 2050." Though I know nothing of the science used to factor this. Interesting statistic found wiki of Europe growth from 1800's to 2100.
-ect.


The following are all problems I considered in your concept of alternatives.

Water requires resources from the land to support, and creating multiple huge cities on the sea that can support, say 300,000,000 (America's population), would take extensive amounts of time and resources barely available from natural and existing sources.
-There would be huge problems with enforcement and protection in such a small space.
-Transportation of resources, given fossil fuel has a limit.
-More efficient water filtering system, considering there water and waste end's and begins in the same place.
-Lack of an ability to be completely self sufficient.

The biggest problem in using space is necessary fuel and funding.
-22k per kilogram.
-Each additional thing added to the space crafts load increases the required fuel necessary to get it into space, alone.
-Sending enough individuals to make a scratch in the global population alone is difficult.
-Space colonies can't support self produced oxygen and food (might be wrong on oxygen, I have to read an article on how this guy intends to support his crew on mars for 2 years).

When you say ground do you mean "underground"?
-Problems would be oxygen sources.
-Further underground you go, the hotter it gets, Russia's Kola Superdeep Borehole which made it to 12,262m and reached 180°C (356°F), there's also KTB Superdeep Borehole that reached 9,101m but 260°C (500°F) temperatures.

No we can't.
Dubai's "Palm Island"
-52 billion in construction alone, very high maintenance.
-7 million to 35 million price tag on house hold.
-construction from 2001-2007
-4000 residents

Dubai's "The World"
-Development cost
-2003-current
-Since 2010, most of the projects have been put on delay or canceled

Dubai's "The Universe"
-2008-2023/2028
-Since 2009, it has been on hold, I believe its due to the same funding issues
-Can't find many price quotes, to lazy to burn myself out on

-The island's structures are not perfect and require major and expense service to prevent them from sinking. raised concerned and lead to investors backing out.

Clean water is a concern, water filtering methods are nowhere near perfect, the water ends up more and more contaminated after each rinsing, sooner or later the source of the water will become poisoned, being a destination for human bio and physical waste. I suppose they can continue obtaining (well in california) semi-clean filtered sea water from the main land, dumping extended to that too, but further off shore, in the sea (what I had in mind when I responded to the idea of man made Islands), my listed problems..

-Tap water risk in California
-Desalination water to save you the read, it uses 3 times the energy regular methods use.
-Worst case scenario China's drinking water (can't find articles from before the toxic spill)

-Solar, efficient it may be, inexpensive...
-Biofuel I don't know much about, but as far as the reef idea that I think obama was making, they think they can use it, but I don't know if they actually have a working method, let alone affordable. Also destructive from what I've heard in the past.
-I looked up Geothermal found "In the United States, most geothermal reservoirs of hot water are located in the western states, Alaska, and Hawaii." So location matters, which doesn't fix the whole problem.

Enforcement problems have always been in scale to population per area (in America), L.A. for example, New york another, Hong Kong(?). As well if these places are autonomous, say like Hong Kong, protection from external sources will be a matter of concern.

Sorry I'm using America as my test example, using another country would require more research than I'm willing to do and I'm already procrastinating on my work.

Also I don't think it's a bad idea, but it's not particle at this time, this is far into the future.



How much water do those plants need? How much space? How much carbon? Can they produce an adequate amount of Oxygen?

I do like the idea of ungrounded but the biggest problem is location, since it has to be somewhere with no thermal or tectonic activity, which could easily destroy the whole place, and I don't know of many places like that, the few I can think of are inhospitable and difficult to reach, let alone build in, let alone build downward.

The general populace should be educated on the use of contraceptives. They should be free and universally distributed that way they're accessible to all people of all financial levels. And if you have more than, let's say, 5 children, you should be required to have some kind of permit before having another. There's way too many circus-sized families in this world with no financial means to support all of them. It's craziness.

How to fix the world's population? Easy, just do what they did in " In Time ".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5aDiRmN1yg make people watch it and then ask do you want to deal with that?so keep it in your pants/do what the commercial says to do minus the company thing the message being use condoms