Is Overpopulation a Myth

[HARRISON_3]

Total myth.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “the more the merrier.”

 

[SummerStriker]

If you ever drive across the USA you will see a lot of Nothing. Empty land just sitting there with nothing on it. There is miles and miles of nothing between cities. Why have we used more land for urban development? Seems like we are just letting all this good land go to waste by not developing it.


The Continental U.S. (i.e. lower 48) has about 1.9 Billion acres and the vast majority is undeveloped as only 69.4 million acres, or about 3.6% is urban. Here’s a fascinating map that shows how little land we live on; the green areas show U.S. Census blocks where the reported human population is zerO.

Look at all them green blocks where No one live. What a waste.

https://www.theifod.com/how-much-of-the-u-s-is-inhabited/

Look at this shit I drove by today and it looks like this for about an hr. So what 70miles.

You could fit millions of people there.

It isnt empty. We are leaving it fallow and will rotate there when everything else is poisoned.

 

[Streeter]

No ots a myth ......... ignore all the stats that indicate we are exponentially increasing in population and will be over populated in a 100 years it's all nonsense. Fuvk science and History ........

 

[genecop]

7 billion of anything is ridiculously huge amount.

And you compare that to other animals. I think we're the highest population.

one quadrillion ants

Myrmecologists, biologists who study ants and get paid to think of such things, estimate there are one quadrillion ants roaming the earth. That's the number 1 followed by 15 zeroes or, if you can image it, one million billion. That's a lot of ants!

 

[Mike]

No TS is right, overpopulation is a myth. Climate change is driven by resource consumption which is largely driven by the more developed countries. The problem isn't the amount of people, its the Western development model that leads to massive per capita strain on the environment.

If anything developed countries have low birth rates so there's not enough people being born.

A lot of the empty land in the West are federally owned reserves and they're in very dry areas where it'd be hard to develop.

However we do waste land by having single use, single family zoning in suburbs around our cities when we could allow for more mixed use, high density urban development. Tokyo has a population that is 50% larger than that of the NYC metro area while taking up 1/4th of the land area so its 8x as dense. If all our major urban centers were like that we'd have a lot more available space and housing prices would be lower as well as having less obesity and smog related health problems

This ignores that every country is trying to emulate our lifestyle. And we're often talking about adding to the population of first world countries. And talks about replacement rates always assume we should be trying to maintain these large populations, which I for one don't agree with.

 

[djacobox372]

7 billion of anything is ridiculously huge amount.

And you compare that to other animals. I think we're the highest population.

Naw, 26 billion chickens laugh at that 7 billion.

 

[Fedorgasm]

We have way too many people on this planet. It's not about space, but rather about how we use up everything and how much waste we generate.

Also, the number of people who never contribute anything to society and only mooch off the work of others seems to be increasing.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

No TS is right, overpopulation is a myth. Climate change is driven by resource consumption which is largely driven by the more developed countries. The problem isn't the amount of people, its the Western development model that leads to massive per capita strain on the environment.

If anything developed countries have low birth rates so there's not enough people being born.

A lot of the empty land in the West are federally owned reserves and they're in very dry areas where it'd be hard to develop.

However we do waste land by having single use, single family zoning in suburbs around our cities when we could allow for more mixed use, high density urban development. Tokyo has a population that is 50% larger than that of the NYC metro area while taking up 1/4th of the land area so its 8x as dense. If all our major urban centers were like that we'd have a lot more available space and housing prices would be lower as well as having less obesity and smog related health problems

A myth might be going a bit too far. If we had less people globally by 1 billion we would be far better off in terms of resource exploitation.

The whole world has agreed through the universal declaration of human rights at the U.N. that a standard of living “promoting human dignity” (etc etc) is what we should, as a global community, be trying to achieve for all our people.

In order to do that and still have a planet that isn’t ruined by over-consumption it’s better to have less people.

In order to make sure every person who lives to has a life of dignity where they have access to a toilet, electricity, food and free associations a certain amount of consumption is to be expected.

The global average “carbon foot print” is 4 tons per person per lifetime. So for every human being that lives a full life we are looking at at least 4 tons of carbon we have to deal with in the atmosphere.

Of course you’re right that that the first world is more of a destructive force than the 3rd world, seeing as the average American has a carbon footprint of 16 tons per lifetime.

In order to build a sustainable planet, we need folks producing about 2tons of Co2 per person per lifetime; but sadly 4 tons is a 3rd world standard.

If we are to hold true to the values we’ve signed onto as a global community, we actually do need less people overall; and yes there is a population crunch coming in some places, but that doesn’t mean that population growth is a good thing overall in terms of climate. Immigration could address those crunches - of course, that comes with a host of problems in itself.

 

[heavyarms21]

Same in canada.

Let's be honest here, if the world become overpopulated,
we should blame India and China.

I agree relasee a virus that halves both of their populations

 

[BB in Crazy!!!!]

Totally a myth. Look how many people we could drop into that empty Sahara!

 

[William Huggins]

one quadrillion ants

Myrmecologists, biologists who study ants and get paid to think of such things, estimate there are one quadrillion ants roaming the earth. That's the number 1 followed by 15 zeroes or, if you can image it, one million billion. That's a lot of ants!

I've got some borax to sort that out......

 

[Why did you]

What a waste? Land where the beauty of nature unfolds and isn't covered with strip malls and morons endlessly consuming plastic garbage is a waste?

 

[The Big Yin]

The term overpopulation is too broad.

We can at current levels feed in excess of 10 billion. This doesn't take into account distribution issues.

Geographically we can also sustain several billion more than what we do already. Chongqing has 33 million people in one city, 10% (ish) of the US population.

Resources is questionable. Nuclear can supply all our power needs but would require enormous networks of plants and is reliant on countries with lackadaisical standards to maintain them.

The main issue would come with societal problems. That many people squeezed into small spaces creates social unrest unless people are controlled with totalitarian measures

 

[ralphc1]

We don’t even use it to grow shit to eat. Same link.



I found this illustration surprising (again from Bloomberg), showing the relatively small amount of cropland that is actually used to feed humans (ignoring the cropland that is dedicated to feeding livestock):

I take it the map doesn't show where things are grown and is strictly a representation of acres used. Most of the crops grown will feed the animals that are then used to feed humans.

 

[Noveltymortar]

If you ever drive across the USA you will see a lot of Nothing. Empty land just sitting there with nothing on it. There is miles and miles of nothing between cities. Why have we used more land for urban development? Seems like we are just letting all this good land go to waste by not developing it.


The Continental U.S. (i.e. lower 48) has about 1.9 Billion acres and the vast majority is undeveloped as only 69.4 million acres, or about 3.6% is urban. Here’s a fascinating map that shows how little land we live on; the green areas show U.S. Census blocks where the reported human population is zerO.

Look at all them green blocks where No one live. What a waste.

https://www.theifod.com/how-much-of-the-u-s-is-inhabited/

Look at this shit I drove by today and it looks like this for about an hr. So what 70miles.

You could fit millions of people there.

You're a myth.

 

[TeTe]

Well, the birth rate is dropping so that should make the climate alarmists happier. I've done my part.. so I'll just keep driving gas guzzlers lmao

 

[fordman7795]

Look at all them green blocks where No one live.

Those green blocks are where I go to get away from idiots like you.

 

[mozfonky]

If you ever drive across the USA you will see a lot of Nothing. Empty land just sitting there with nothing on it. There is miles and miles of nothing between cities. Why have we used more land for urban development? Seems like we are just letting all this good land go to waste by not developing it.


The Continental U.S. (i.e. lower 48) has about 1.9 Billion acres and the vast majority is undeveloped as only 69.4 million acres, or about 3.6% is urban. Here’s a fascinating map that shows how little land we live on; the green areas show U.S. Census blocks where the reported human population is zerO.

Look at all them green blocks where No one live. What a waste.

https://www.theifod.com/how-much-of-the-u-s-is-inhabited/

Look at this shit I drove by today and it looks like this for about an hr. So what 70miles.

You could fit millions of people there.

In that way, yes, definitely. But for whatever reason, a lot of social conditioning, humans live packed together even though they have enmity for each other. The industrial age is a major cause of huge, cluttered cities. However, personally, and I'm sure for a lot of people, finances come into play, land and building is about some of the most expensive things an individual can do. Just look at how much people give for their houses, they spend the most productive years of their lives in debt trying to pay off a house that they "own".

As much as people get on each others nerves, it's still convenient to just go to the overcrowded safeway and bump into 200 people than it is to learn how to hunt or fish.

 

[Anewt]

7 billion of anything is ridiculously huge amount.

And you compare that to other animals. I think we're the highest population.

18.6 billion chickens.
500 Trillion krill

 

[mozfonky]

If there isn't any fresh water supply it's hardly habitable.

that's right, and also, humans generally and historically have gathered around bodies of water for whatever reason, be it drinking or shipping, I'm not sure but that much is a fact.