The Anthropocene Era. Too many people?

2014-11-01T18:54:24-04:00

The idea as our populations proliferate out of control that resources will become sparser and sparser. Resulting into world wide chaos and panic.

Such are the predictions that some potentially small event could trigger a kind of planetary Armageddon. As I see it we have so much more going on with a wider array of non-stop news, almost like the Industrial Age of media. And with that greater degrees of separate and a most unhealthy fixation on dire predictions.

The idea of a plague even and one child families some say could dwindle the water supplies and have a serious water shortage globally. The fact that someone even brings up the idea of diseases like Ebola has frightening consequences. An eerie ether of human concoction that would invariable ravish the Earth's eco-system to the point of no return.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Some mention population control but I see that as an issue Maybe the government is fearing some kind of economic collapse?

Response by Cpl Ray Fernandez made Nov 1 at 2014 7:56 PM

2014-11-01T19:56:41-04:00

If you look at our history as populations grow we've grown more efficient at producing food. Looking at commercial farming we can grow much more food in less area. Even people living in poverty has decreased over time. The number of people living on a few dollars a day has decreased dramatically in the last 50 years. I think that controlling resources is an important consideration, but you can have all the gold on the planet, but you will still need to trade to get the other resources you need. So resources are still shared even if there is a bit of a premium put on some due to their scarcity. Here in California there is work on a huge desalinization plant that will greatly improve the availability of water and has some amazing ideas on how to overcome past problems with projects of its scale by reducing the amount of energy needed to produce freshwater. I have faith that we will almost always find a way to solve problems we encounter as our population expands until the point where we spread outside of our planet.

Response by CPT Jack Durish made Nov 2 at 2014 11:52 AM

2014-11-02T11:52:13-05:00

It's tempting to think that modern man has overcome the natural constraints on population - war, pestilence, famine, et al - but it seems that we have found a new one, a man-made method of controlling population - sexual gratification without procreation. The Pill (isn't it fascinating that of all the modern miracles of medicine, that pill should become known as "the" pill?) The pill combined with changing attitudes towards family should have reversed the birth rate. Few modern cultures are meeting the requirements of population replacement let alone population growth.

Meanwhile, those cultures that have not yet joined the modern world, some living in a contemporary version of the Stone Age, are procreating like rabbits and the traditional controls on population will continue to work their wonders among them.

Thus, I don't particularly worry about the ravages of overpopulation. I'm more inclined to worry over the return of civilization to more brutal ways...