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Page added on October 29, 2017

7.5 Billion People — That’s a lot!

As the inimitable Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” And indeed it is. Some guesswork is always involved and surprises crop up that change the course of events.

Yet, it is probably clear to most of us that the world is likely to become an increasingly and unpleasantly crowded place as we move along through the 21st century. About 7.5 billion people share the earth with us right now, in 2017. That’s around twice the number that was here in 1970, 47 years ago. Roughly every 13 years since 1960, about a billion more people have come onboard, and this pattern continues. And we didn’t even arrive at our first billion until 1804, after existing for 75,000 years or so. The more folks we have, the more we’re going to get. It can’t go on and on like that forever.

We are victims of our own success in terms of population. Better nutrition, a more stable food supply, cleaner water, good sanitary practices, and our astounding progress in controlling disease and infection over the past 150 years have all played a role in providing a longer healthier life to many millions. Although, of course, there are those who still live in dire poverty in our country, along with millions in Third World countries. As we forge our way into the future, surely we want everyone to have these basics, and like to think of our great-grandchildren as leading happy and meaningful lives in an environment not radically different from what we have now. Even if we are clever enough to figure out how to produce enough food and maintain clean water and air, as well as decent health care for all those people, it is hard to imagine how life could seem peaceful and rewarding in the remarkable crowding that will occur.

About 45 years ago, a group called ZPG (Zero Population Growth) was at the forefront of the many groups then trying to get messages out, hoping to change the world for the better. At the time, their main recommendation was that couples have no more than two children — one to replace each partner. Such a group still exists, under the name Population Connection, but their message no longer seems front and center. This may be partly because growth rate in the US itself has slowed down. And rates of growth do tend to do this when people are better off economically and better educated. But so far, little is happening that would turn the tide, especially since population grows apace in other parts of the world. Several years ago China, with over a billion people, tried to cut back on growth by limiting family size to just one child. Such a policy would not be possible in the USA, even if it were desirable. In any case, concern about overpopulation is not just about us, but about the entire planet we all share.

The most sensible thing we can all do is to back programs that help with family planning, here in the U.S. and abroad — as a nation, we can’t afford to stop financing these. The United States needs to be an active supporter of birth control all around the world. In areas of the earth where people can’t afford to pay for such services, they need to be readily available and free of charge. Many people in our country are against this and tie it to religious issues, but it’s vital to give serious thought to what will happen if population continues to double every 50 years or so. Even though the exact consequences of billions more on earth can’t be certain, it is certain that there will be billions more if we don’t make a concerted effort to find ways to curb growth.

While scientists work on how to deflect an asteroid if it were to head straight for the earth, we all need to work on how to deflect runaway population growth before it becomes a disaster. It defies common sense to imagine that the planet can support an infinite number of people, growing ceaselessly forever. It has to stop somewhere if the earth as we know it can continue to exist.

middletown press

22 Comments on "7.5 Billion People — That’s a lot!"

MASTERMIND on Sun, 29th Oct 2017 2:56 pm

Middletown press? WTF kind of source is this?

Apneaman on Sun, 29th Oct 2017 5:59 pm

So many insatiable greedy consuming Cancers, however do they pay for it all?

Worldwide debt more than triple economic output as central bank shift looms

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-debt-iif/worldwide-debt-more-than-triple-economic-output-as-central-bank-shift-looms-idUSKBN1CU1V9

What a lovely legacy to leave the kids and grand-kids – a destroyed environment & ruined economy. Take pride in your accomplishments winners.

onlooker on Sun, 29th Oct 2017 6:12 pm

Actually, the destroyed Environment has always been destined to take down the Economy. That is what happens when like cancer growth is your mantra.

Sissyfuss on Sun, 29th Oct 2017 7:11 pm

The ubiquitous disconnect that is part and parcel to articles such as these as well as the conundrum of overpopulation itself is that as mammals overwhelming the natural environment and destroying habitat for the flora and fauna that we refuse to share with , we guarantee our own self destruction. Blinded by greed and self-importantance, our denial will be the only thing to cling to as the world becomes uninhabitable for even the apex predators.

Boat on Sun, 29th Oct 2017 7:26 pm

sisfus,

Wrong, men fuck on urges like animals. That is nature. There are few consequences for building man caves to attract sex. What we have now is sex nearing max scale. Don’t feel left out, cheap robot sex tech is cumming your way.

Go Speed Racer on Sun, 29th Oct 2017 8:22 pm

All of that increased population is a bunch
of crazed welfare-bum brain-dead camel-riding muslims.
The problem is Hillary Clinton and her buddies.
She hates white men, and imports all the
muslims into Europe and USA, doing that along that German Merkel bitch.

She taxes the white men who are all working, to give welfare checks to the muslims who have 8 children and don’t work.

Change the policies and the enemy will stop breeding. Dont change the policies, and here
comes 12 billion not 8 billion.

Trump was supposed to do something about this,
but that will be the day. He hasn’t even
figured out how to act presidential.

Apneaman on Sun, 29th Oct 2017 8:23 pm

Having children is not life-affirming: it’s immoral

“Anti-natalism will only ever be a minority view because it runs counter to a deep biological drive to have children.”

“Life is simply much worse than most people think, and there are powerful drives to affirm life even when life is terrible.”

“Many desires are never satisfied. And even when they are satisfied, it is often after a long period of dissatisfaction. Nor does satisfaction last, for the satisfaction of a desire leads to a new desire – which itself needs to be satisfied some time in the future. When one can fulfil one’s more basic desires, such as hunger, on a regular basis, higher-level desires arise. There is a treadmill and an escalator of desire.”

https://aeon.co/essays/having-children-is-not-life-affirming-its-immoral

Babies are stupid.

Apneaman on Sun, 29th Oct 2017 10:53 pm

Go Speed Racer, ever see one of those population graphs? Hockey stick shooting up? The sex obsessed humans were fucking and squirting out mega little humans long before Hillary or Merkel were even born. But they’re still bitches and trying to out breed the enemy is one of the oldest strategies. It’s evolutionary. TPTB are just taking advantage of the over breeding poor folk as they have always done throughout history.

The thing is if those women were never born, nothing would be different. They are puppets. Somebody else would play their parts and make it so the cheap labour was there in abundance. It has nothing to do with race. TPTB will gladly slam the door on immigration as soon as the white folks are willing to work for the same low wages under shitty conditions. They don’t give two fucks about alt right pseudo confederate Nazis or antifatass protesting and fighting either. More division = more control. Plays to their hand. It’s just a matter of time until white folks start fighting for those jobs at those wages. That or starve. And don’t no one kid yourself that conservatard politicians are not part of it either – they are.

Antius on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 2:16 am

‘7.5 Billion People — That’s a lot!’

Yes it is. Every other problem that we have is in one way or another a result of too many people living on the Earth. If any other species were responsible, we would be talking about a cull.

Theedrich on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 4:50 am

The U.S. could be coming to a violent end soon. The “Ground-Based Midcourse Defense” (GMD) system, part of the nation’s homeland “ballistic missile defense” (BMD) operation and run by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), is essentially a ploy of smoke and mirrors to extort money from American taxpayers while being utterly incapable (as usual) of dealing with an increasily ominous reality. America has been so obsessed with defeating evolution by importing mud “refugees” and trying to grab global control using Sörös-assisted mechanisms, that it has aborted its own main mission: survival.

The Yankee fixation on remaking the world in its own image (after all, it defeated the nasty Nazis and saved the Chosenites, so it must be divine) has led to an economic hari-kiri. While the Congressional elites and their supporters cover their treason with blather about “American values,” “compassion,” “Judeo-Christian civilization,” and similar tripe, the nation is dying from parasitism of every sort. Whether economic, infrastructural, military, educational, cultural or demographic facets are considered, one finds major deterioration on every side. The nation is propped up by propaganda alone. Inflation is exported to the rest of the world through cunning use of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. But the days of even this trick are numbered as other countries slowly develop alternatives to the dollar.

Yet the greatest irony of all is the growing lethality of North Korea. Due to the military complexities involved and hideous dangers to South Korea and Japan, the fantasy about a “decapitation” of the NorKs is pure delusion meant as sleeping pills for the masses. Ditto the pablum about the Pentagon’s missile defenses. The United States is now trapped in the coils of history. The elites must now either give way to reality or go down with the ship.

Given their past behavior, they will probably decide to ram the iceberg at full speed and then helicopter off to New Zealand with their $billions. Because admitting the truth would be intolerable.

Apneaman on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 5:29 pm

Weekend temperatures hit record highs in B.C.

Victoria, White Rock, Pitt Meadows and Campbell River reached record temperatures Sunday

“It was a hot one – at least, for the fall – across much of B.C. last Sunday, as 10 spots around the province reached record highs.”

https://www.agassizharrisonobserver.com/news/weekend-temperatures-hit-record-highs-in-b-c/

Apneaman on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 5:31 pm

Updated: Heavy flooding as Ottawa smashes weather record

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ottawa-smashes-another-weather-record-while-more-rain-flooding-expected

Apneaman on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 5:32 pm

Record rainfall forces PM Trudeau to take ATV to work

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/record-rainfall-forces-pm-trudeau-to-take-atv-to-work-1.3655042

Apneaman on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 5:40 pm

Rising Seas Are Flooding Virginia’s Naval Base, and There’s No Plan to Fix It

The giant naval base at Norfolk is under threat by rising seas and sinking land, but little is being done to hold back the tides.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10252017/military-norfolk-naval-base-flooding-climate-change-sea-level-global-warming-virginia

Protecting Norfolk from Flooding Won’t Be Cheap: Army Corps Releases Its Plan

“The federal government has proposed a $1.8 billion plan to help protect Norfolk, Virginia, from rising seas and increasingly powerful coastal storms by ringing the city with a series of floodwalls, storm surge barriers and tidal gates.”

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30102017/norfolk-sea-level-rising-flood-protection-plan-army-corps-engineers-climate-change

$Cha ching$ $Cha ching$ $Cha ching$ $Cha ching$

If they approve it, I’m sure the project will be completed on time and not cost one dollar more than the $1.8 billion. Not one dollar more.

Apneaman on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 6:09 pm

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 30: Heavy breathing tropical forests under record heat

“Today the WMO announced that the atmospheric CO2 concentration last year rose at a record high speed: +3.3 ppm – jumping from 400.0 ppm in 2015 to 403.3 in 2016. The annual average rise is close to 2 ppm.”

“A few days earlier NASA scientists had explained why the global CO2 rise has suddenly rapidly accelerated: rainforests across Earth’s tropics, suffering unprecedented heat and drought, and exhaling a massive amount of CO2 (9.2 billion tonnes) – adding over 50 percent to the global fossil fuelled economy:”

http://www.bitsofscience.org/climate-change-tropical-forests-record-heat-7609/

Daily CO2

October 28, 2017: 404.00 ppm

October 28, 2016: 401.99 ppm
September CO2

September 2017: 403.38 ppm

September 2016: 401.03 ppm

https://www.co2.earth/

Go Speed Racer on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 6:13 pm

Dammit. Burnt one too many couches.

Musta been all those old radial tires, that Mick
threw on top. He was drunk.

Now NASA will be looking for us.
Damn.

Apneaman on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 6:22 pm

Global CO2 levels shot up at record speed in 2016

‘We are actually moving in the wrong direction,’ WMO secretary-general says

“The best way to reduce emissions? Have fewer kids, researchers say”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/co2-levels-record-1.4378091

wrong direction? I think not. The humans are doing exactly what the universe requires them to do.

Apneaman on Mon, 30th Oct 2017 6:28 pm

Mega tumor

China’s planning a 1,000km tunnel to divert water away from one of India’s largest rivers

“There are currently no water treaties between India, China, and Bangladesh,” said Yangtso, whose research has focused on Chinese environmental policies in Tibet. “India will certainly have to take a strong stand as far as this project goes, as it can be disastrous for India and Bangladesh.”

https://qz.com/1114843/chinas-grand-plan-for-the-brahmaputra-a-1000km-tunnel-to-divert-water-away-from-tibet/

deadlykillerbeaz on Tue, 31st Oct 2017 5:17 am