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Page added on March 14, 2016
The Population Bomb
In 1900, the world surpassed 1.7 billion. By 1950 it had almost doubled that number at over 2.5 billion. By the year 2000, after only 100 years with two world wars in between, we had reached 6.1 billion.
Now there are 7.5 billion people on this planet. By 2050 that number is projected to hit 10 billion.
Unsustainable Growth
This is arguably the most immediate threat to humanity as we know it. If the current population growth rate continues, we will reach a devastating tipping point, one which we may already have passed.
Forget climate change, disease, war, natural disasters – overpopulation may prove to be the deadliest threat we are facing as by its very definition it combines all of humanity’s problems and escalates them. Like all laws of physics, there are certain factors out of our control and one of these rules is that of exponential growth. If something is growing at one percent a year, it will double in 70 years, two percent it will double in 35. Currently, the world population growth rate is 1.5 million a week, which is equivalent to 80 million or 1.13 percent a year. If we continue to exponentially expand our global population we will reach the limit of what is biologically termed – carrying capacity. The carrying capacity is the maximum population of a species an ecosystem can support, once this limit is surpassed, the system collapses and the population crashes. Some projections suggest that the Earth will reach its carrying capacity for humans within 100 years. 10 billion people alone could require three Earths’ worth of resources in order to survive. We are facing the collapse of civilisation as we know it.
[See worldometers’ live population clock: here]
Less Death, More Life
So what has brought us to this point? One of the first answers is the development of modern medicine and the rapid increases in global wealth. Ever since mortality rates began to reduce, the population has been increasing – it has been since the Bubonic Plague of the 1400’s. It is not so much that more children are being born, but that more people are staying alive and for longer. But, crucially, for much of the world, the decrease in mortality rate has not coincided with a reduced birth rate.
The prime example of this is after WWII during what is known as the ‘baby boomer’ generation. As world economies began to recover, so did global populations. It was a time of prosperity and happiness where family values were seen as vitally important and medical knowledge and technology was improving rapidly.
In 1968 we reached a relative peak in population growth rate. Humanity grew at a record 2.09 percent that year. This was the peak of a seven year period of very high growth – from 1966 to 1972. While the growth rate of the population is expected to decrease over the coming years as the globe develops, there are strong concerns already regarding the demand the global population is putting on our planet, and on specific overpopulated regions such as South East Asia and Africa. The real question is – what happens when there’s 3 billion more of us?
Not enough to go around…
There are various social and environmental issues that are associated with overpopulation, but one of the most pressing and concerning are that of our most precious resources – food and water. One billion, that’s one out of every seven people on the planet, go to bed hungry. Every day 25,000 people die of malnutrition and hunger-related diseases – almost 18,000 of whom are children under five.
By 2030 half the world will require more food than what is available for them and by 2050 the population of 10 billion people will require 75 percent more food than is currently produced.
Further expounding the issue is climate change. It is expected that two-thirds of the Earth’s agricultural regions will be degraded by climate change and that climate induced crop losses could reach 50 percent in sub-Saharan Africa in 10 years. In relation to overpopulation this is particularly distressing as the population in Africa is still growing at a rate close to over two percent. By 2030 the sub-Saharan African region is expected to have the second largest number of women of reproductive age, surpassing Eastern Asia with between 40-49 million births annually.
(Article continued below)
Related:
- China and the United States face off over resources in the South China Sea.
- The world has come together for a last ditch attempt to stop global warming at the Paris Conference.
The major concern is that demand will outstrip supply. We are already using all the highly productive land available to us with agriculture occupying 30-40 percent of the earth’s surface. The current trend is for developed nations to buy up large tracts of arable land in developing nations for agricultural production that exports largely to meet their own need. Obviously this incurs the dual problem of being unsustainable and depriving some of the worlds most populated regions of their own food and water supplies.
Parched tongues
In the end, it is not food that is the most important resource for humanity, but water. 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is liquid, but only 2.5 percent is fresh water and of that only one percent is available for human use. This amount cannot change, it is finite and currently we consume 50 percent of all water that is available. The impacts of this demand is so large that it can be seen from space:
One billion people currently lack access to sufficient water for consumption, agriculture and sanitation – aquifers are being depleted faster than they can be replenished. If the population reaches 10 billion, it can be expected that two out of three people will have problems in being able to access enough water. If we wish to avoid mass dehydration events then consumption habits will have to change as water that is used in the home is only a negligible portion of what is consumed. One cup of coffee requires 120 litres of water to be produced and one hamburger requires 8000 litres. As nations develop, products initially only available to the wealthy nations will begin to be more ubiquitous, further draining precious water supplies.
The impending resource wars…
But overpopulation and its related impacts extend well beyond food and water. Global warming is set only to be exacerbated by a larger population. Pollution caused by increased population and population density is also affecting air quality, an issue that the world’s two most populous nations – China and India – are becoming all too aware of. The pressures of overpopulation are pushing communities to the edge of the habitable periphery, one’s that were barely populated 30 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of people died in 2010-2011 in Pakistan as they had moved onto floodplains for lack of space. The same is true in developed nations such as Japan where its tsunami-prone coasts are now becoming residential areas and in the USA where urban sprawl is destroying acres of farmland, grazing land and forested areas every day.
As populations begin to be displaced due to overcrowding, climate change and lack of essential needs such as food and water one of the inevitable outcomes is conflict. Christian Aid forecasts that there will be one billion climate refugees by 2050, considering the current refugee crisis due to conflict in the Middle East and Africa it is impossible to imagine how nations will cope with such a number of displaced peoples. As populations increase, energy resources are set to only become scarcer.
Few unexplored regions remain left for the fossil fuels that the world’s economy still requires and competition is fierce. Desperation may lead to some of the world’s most populous and powerful nations butting heads. Resource conflicts are already underway in some regions; a decline in water flow from the Tibetan Plateau is set only to worsen in coming years. Around 40% of the world’s population relies on water from the plateau and China and India are already involved in a race to tap into the Himalayas for both water and energy, with plans for almost 400 hydropower dams in the region. Other implications of overpopulation include the spread of disease, with instances such as the Ebola crisis becoming more common and widespread, and the expansion of poverty as nations fail to develop at a rate that can support ever-expanding populations.
What now?
So what are the solutions? Lessons may be learnt from the developed world. According to the United Nations, population increases have either slowed, stopped or even declined in Europe, North America and Japan. The most growth is occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South and Eastern Asia. These regions are ones that need to be targeted most.
One of the most effective solutions for overpopulation as well as poverty is the empowerment of women and families through family planning. Around 200 million women around the world would prefer to stop having children but do not have access to contraception and reproductive healthcare. Over 80 million births each year are unplanned – the same number as the rate at which the population is growing. Studies have shown that when women have more education and job opportunities, they choose to have smaller families and are able to invest more in each child, helping to break the cycle of poverty. There is only one state in India with a stable population, it also happens to be one with some of the highest literacy rates in the world in both girls and boys. The birth rate is 1.5 children per family, a figure largely attributed to the state’s gender equality in education.
Hard choices
There is also the argument for economic measures such as tax benefits or concessions, such as China’s one child policy. While extremely controversial, and largely inapplicable to other nations, without the one child policy there would be 400 million more people in China. There have been similar attempts in India to enforce lower birth rates such as ‘sterilisation festivals’ with incentives for vasectomies and, at one point, a law which ordered all criminals to be sterilised – one which lead to the downfall of the government in power at the time.
In the end, it is through the spread of new societal norms, where smaller families are the preference and not having children is not shamed, where the solution lies. Through the education of both women and men, and the provision of family planning services as well as access to contraceptives this can be made possible in the areas in which it is needed most. Also developing more sustainable living practices and reducing consumption will aid humanity in progressing past this century. For the fact remains, we only have one planet. That planet has a finite number of resources that we all must share. So, for the sake of the future of our species, the population bomb must be disarmed, there are few matters of more urgency for our immediate future. We have been living beyond our means and soon will come a time when we will reap what we sow.
27 Comments on "The Population Bomb"
Apneaman on Mon, 14th Mar 2016 5:01 pm
Great the weekly overpopulation article. Bla bla bla “brown people” bla bla bla “education” bla bla bla….shut the fuck up and stop fucking in the front hole. Mandatory sodomny – there’s your fucking solution.
bug on Mon, 14th Mar 2016 5:07 pm
Blah blah blah is correct, the population problem was mentioned in the 60’s In a twilight zone and star trek episode and in the 70’s in Soylent Green and one of the Planet of the Apes movies. Stupid humans , brown , white , all shades,rich, poor ,have done shit in the past 50 years, what makes anyone think that ANYTHING will ever be done. Mother nature’s last at bat will fix it.
noobtube on Mon, 14th Mar 2016 5:26 pm
I call the weekly “let’s blame Africa” week.
Pennsyguy on Mon, 14th Mar 2016 6:02 pm
I gotta admit Apnea: you have a bold, fresh solution to an impossible problem that makes as much sense as anything else I’ve been hearing in the U.S. MSM or political blathering–which is really, really sad.
onlooker on Mon, 14th Mar 2016 6:15 pm
I think this article is about 25 or so years old. The population explosion occurred already as per the book
The Population Explosion Hardcover – April 26, 1990
by Paul R. Ehrlich
Remember the same wrote the Population bomb back in the 60’s and other warning as Bug alluded too. So we are now burdened with the aftermath of the explosion including population momentum. Well, the problem is no longer in our hands but rather in the very capable hands of Nature.
makati1 on Mon, 14th Mar 2016 8:14 pm
Again, someone took a ruler and extended a few graph lines in the direction taken in the past. No-one of us can come even close to what the world will be like in 2050. Not one.
There is an equal chance that there will be no-one left in 2050. A nuclear exchange will end it all for everyone.
Or Mother Nature will unleash her forces and wipe out 7+ billion of us with pestilence and famine. The more likely scenario.
bug is correct. Humans will not stop screwing and popping out new humans until they physically cannot. These articles are only dreamers writing for a paycheck. Any real thought would show that they cannot change the direction we are going in even a minuscule amount. Too little. Too late. Pass the popcorn.
Go Speed Racer on Tue, 15th Mar 2016 2:03 am
There are not too many smart people. There are too many stupid people. Stupid people should report to the nearest disintegration chamber.
GregT on Tue, 15th Mar 2016 2:20 am
A very good friend of mine is a leader in corporate strategic communications and intelligence. On an annual fishing retreat one year, after a few wee drams, he turned to me and said; “Greg, people are fucking stupid.” It really doesn’t get much simpler than that. He was, and still is, of course, correct. Common sense is not common, and intelligence is extremely rare, among the naked ape species.
theedrich on Tue, 15th Mar 2016 3:10 am
“According to the United Nations, population increases have either slowed, stopped or even declined in Europe, North America and Japan. The most growth is occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South and Eastern Asia”
No kidding! Who knew? Meanwhile, the various religious sects of Christianity keep yelping about the horrors of abortion and even of contraceptives. The pope comes to New York and cuddles unaborted little Mongoloid idiots before the cameras to emphasize just how much God loves all His chillun.
Not to be left out, the Lefties and lovers of non-Whites screech about White “racism,” “xenophobia,” etc., because the U.S. is not letting in enough “diversity” from the dark slums of the world. After all, Whiteland needs more low-IQ dross. Global IQ is already deteriorating at about the rate of 1.22 points every 25 years, or 4.88/century, according to Richard Lynn. Others estimate 6.08/century. By 2050, world IQ will probably be around 86.5, and with an accelerating decline. Even the math-challenged can see that it will not be too long before our chimpanzee cousins will do better than we in school. (This may already be the case in some parts of Black Africa and American inner cities.)
It is not just the TV-hypnotized White electorates that are ignoring and accepting this biospheric collapse threatened by the exploding swarthies. It is above all the elites (e.g., the mulatto POTUS, Angela Merkel, and so forth) that are driving this genosuicidal and planeticidal plummet. The deadly combo of nihilistic materialism and Christian escapism promises the same thing for us that the incoming comet aiming at the Yucatan did for the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
GregT on Tue, 15th Mar 2016 3:49 am
Whitey is an evolutionary dead end theedrich. We had our chance, and we fucked up badly. Exceptualism does not trump morality, or humility. There is no better race, we were always in this together. Too bad whitey couldn’t get along.
Anonymous on Tue, 15th Mar 2016 7:49 am
I like the caption in, A sprawl of slums in India. That whole overflowing toilet of a country is one giant slum, from end to end. Of course, listen to any good capitalist (or bible-thumper), and they will both tell you the same thing. More population=more economic ‘growth’. And gawd(tm) loves economic growth.
Davy on Tue, 15th Mar 2016 8:09 am
Racist like to talk race. The coming bottleneck will be the great equalizer. Those places most at risk are the most at risk, color does not matter. Rich and poor will eventually not matter. In the beginnings of this process it will. Those global nodes that are vital and essential will be held together by power and resources. Those locations without importance to the global system will likely go dark and fail.
Once globalism fails all locals and their associated nation states will be on their own in the sense of the end of the global support system. Asia will be a mess once the crunch comes from the worst of overpopulation and overdevelopment. The rich west will suffer less with less population but more from the failure of complexity which will leave those dependent on advanced society exposed to hardships. The whole world is going to suffer north, south, east, and west.
When you get down to locals many locals will manage in very different ways but all will suffer because this is global, it involves climate, and it involves ecosystem. We have ruined an ecosystem to return to once industrial man devolves. If you are in a local in a poor climate location or next to a big urban area you are more at risk. If you have racial and religious conflict amongst you then you are at risk. There are risks that are obvious. There are unknown risks of how this is going to unfold, where the worst will be, and how long.
It is very clear the poorest will do the worst. Even if some of these people are tough that will not save them in many of these overpopulated 3rd world urban areas. Starvation kills strong and weak alike. Even the subsistence farmers that may have a shot at survival post collapse may be overrun by a migration of locust people. In the rich west and among those in the 3rd world who are rich the loss of those modern support systems and the lack of skills at providing food and surviving exposure will kill many. Think of all the vulnerable old, young, sick, and incapable. Society will quickly find it difficult to support these people. Medicines will become rare. Medical care will devolve with less advanced abilities. Heart disease will again be a killer as an example.
Our world is an order of magnitude overpopulated heading into abrupt climate change with a destroyed natural ecosystem. We are dangerously exposed to a dependency on a global support system only able to operate with complexity and energy intensity. Many settlements are in unsustainable locations for multiple reasons. The only question in my mind is how quickly this will play out. Naturally a long emergency will play out far different then a hard collapse. Everyone here is at risk. Discount preparations at your own risk.
Kenz300 on Tue, 15th Mar 2016 9:23 am
Too many people……….create too much pollution and demand too many resources….
China made great progress in moving its people out of poverty…….one reason was slowing population growth…..
If you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.
CLIMATE CHANGE, declining fish stocks, droughts, floods, air water and land pollution, poverty, water and food shortages all stem from the worlds worst environmental problem……. OVER POPULATION.
Yet the world adds 80 million more mouths to feed, clothe, house and provide energy and water for every year… this is unsustainable… and is a big part of the Climate Change problem
Birth Control Permanent Methods: Learn About Effectiveness
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/birth_control_permanent_methods/article_em.htm
Kenz300 on Tue, 15th Mar 2016 9:24 am
The worlds poorest people are having the most children. They have not figured out the connection between their poverty and family size. Endless population growth is not sustainable.
If you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.
Birth Control Permanent Methods: Learn About Effectiveness
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/birth_control_permanent_methods/article_em.htm
makati1 on Tue, 15th Mar 2016 7:34 pm
That supposedly African baby in the picture will consume 1/20th of the resources consumed by his Western counterpart.
Maybe it is consumption, not demographics?
“While the consumer class thrives, great disparities remain. The 12 percent of the world’s population that lives in North America and Western Europe accounts for 60 percent of private consumption spending, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only 3.2 percent.”
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810
theedrich on Wed, 16th Mar 2016 4:06 am
Amusing how White genosuicidists like to mask their death wishes. The anti-White Canadian above likes to prattle about “morality” and “humility,” as though those fantasies have anything to do with survival. Davy likes to fantasize about how race doesn’t matter and how we’re all in this together. I’m sure the other Whites in his gated community will tell themselves the same thing. Until they are invaded by druggies of various colors looking for goodies they can steal from them, that is.
Affluent Whites who have been protected in their playpens from the harsh realities of evolution have turned into snowflakes who cannot imagine that their Christianity-instilled White Guilt will not do them much good when TSHTF. They imagine that if they do their best to devastate the culture and livelihood of Whites who are not so well off, that the world will turn into paradise, with them on top. Lenin, Stalin, Mao Ze-Dong and allied utopians have shown just where this compassionate egalitarianism leads.
But the thing that the non-Americans and Davy are really afraid of is that Whitey might actually decide to survive. That means that the “affluenzan” class will lose its principate and might have to deal with crass reality. It is true that we have a lot of simpering (not to say narcoticized) dross in our numbers, but in the days to come, the innate strength of the White man will reawaken. And we will see what Darwin meant when he spoke of survival of the fittest.
And that is a prospect that horrifies the anti-Whites and the genosuicidists.
IFuckYouOver on Wed, 16th Mar 2016 5:29 am
Sweden the paradise of metro sexual man that care more about how to dress then they care about surviving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48wGYPFkTng
Davy on Wed, 16th Mar 2016 6:21 am
Thee, get a fucking grip man and join real life. Skin color is not going to matter when death is knocking on everyone’s door. Death is an equal opportunity employer. Your racist tirades may work for a few more years if one race or the other chooses to oppress another race but that is it. Once this shit storm snowballs race is going to be low on the list of worries of most people. People are going to try to survive. They may do that in homogeneous groups in some places but far more likely it will be multiracial groups because this is going to be a forced and hazardous arrangement. Groups dissolve and reemerge in new and different arrangements. Whites are not going away so chill out Thee. Whites are just not going to remain privileged like the past. Cry over that if you like but at least your sacred white race will live on as serfs like the rest of the serfs. Something is better than nothing.
makati1 on Wed, 16th Mar 2016 6:23 am
Thee, “whiteys” are dying out and inter breeding with the rest of the world. Race purity is extinct. We all have blood of the colors in our veins. No exception. If we survive a few more generations, all of us will have permanent tans. All.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 16th Mar 2016 8:10 am
White man has no one left on this continent with good land to steal. Even the little bit we forced the natives to occupy we have managed to ravage with pollution. “The innate strength of the white man will reawaken” I can only imagine what you mean by this. The innate strength of white man along with all other groups has been hijacked by the 1% and used for their self interest.
FUCK, Sweden is the one country that needs to import trash because they are so efficient. They have consistent growth, stay within their means, and are a very environmentally friendly nation.
Makati, that is a good thing, because Melanoma sucks, and sunscreen is toxic.
Apneaman on Wed, 16th Mar 2016 11:35 am
Douchebag, which race is the degenerate druggies?
Heroin Kills White People More Than Anyone Else — And Nobody Is Sure Why
https://news.vice.com/article/heroin-kills-white-people-more-than-anyone-else-and-nobody-is-sure-why
BTW, it was not Darwin who “spoke” / coined the phrase “Survival of the fittest” it was Herbert Spencer. Another tell that you don’t know shit about evolution.
“Survival of the fittest” means those individuals that leave the most copies of their genes. It has nothing to do with race. Infact mating with people from other races strengthens the chances of your line by adding beneficial traits/genes that enhance survival. Like fucking neanderthals did.
Genghis Khan was/is one of the fittest.
1 in 200 men direct descendants of Genghis Khan
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan/#.VumIgtIrKt8
Douchy, you should try getting your information from the source instead of third hand and filtered through others made up belief systems. It would be less embarrassing for you that way although I’m sure you sound real impressive to teenage boys and the unlearned in general.
F.F.K.H. on Thu, 17th Mar 2016 5:43 am
Yeah, the self-hating White folk posting here have a collective death wish. So my suggestion is go for it!!!!
The societies that survive are the few that have remained homogenous. Find it most interesting how the global elite are doing everything possible to turn Europe into one big Brown population.
The standing President of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a rare moment of candor stated, “We must continue our campaign to dilute and hopefully in the not too distant future eliminate Aryan Germans into a multiracial population- so far so good. The flow of immigrants into Germany from North Africa and the Middle East at the rate of 100.000+ per month, has been a God send toward reaching our ultimate objective.”
practicalMaina on Thu, 17th Mar 2016 8:25 am
Yeah, because a Muslim Europe would be hugely beneficial to Netanyahu, if you consider it beneficial for Isreal to become Palestine. Which I don’t believe the Israeli PM feels this way.
Kenz300 on Thu, 17th Mar 2016 9:20 am
Having a child that you can not provide for is cruel………
Apneaman on Thu, 17th Mar 2016 10:26 am
Kenz, the only reason mommy and daddy could afford your spoiled ass is through many generations of exploiting 3rd worlders. I fucking hate faggoty progressive assholse like you just as much as any conservatard. Entitled self important cunts like you make me cheer the oncoming collapse.
Your Phone Was Made By Slaves: A Primer on the Secret Economy
On the new triangle trade, and the surprising connection between modern slavery and ecological disaster.
http://blog.longreads.com/2016/03/08/your-phone-was-made-by-slaves-a-primer-on-the-secret-economy/
Aidan Quin on Fri, 18th Mar 2016 2:33 am
Dear peakoil,
While we appreciate your support for this article, this was republished without our permission ans is wrongly credited to your site rather than our author.
We’d kindly ask that this piece be taken down or you message our editors for repost permission.
The Global Quorum Editors
Kenz300 on Fri, 18th Mar 2016 10:17 am
Birth Control Permanent Methods: Learn About Effectiveness
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/birth_control_permanent_methods/article_em.htm
Having a child that you can not provide food, shelter, clothing and love for is just cruel…….. raising a child properly and providing for them is a lot harder than making one……….