Friends, this photograph shows one example of perpetual motion. The Mother feeds the child. The child grows up, eventually gives birth, then feeds its child. The cycle is repeated all over the world generation by generation.
There are around 6.5 billion people in the world at the moment. The numbers keep increasing especially in poor countries where, in many places, there is not enough food to go around.
The world is already badly polluted or poisoned: the air, the soil, the oceans. Global warming is creating havoc across the planet. Extreme weather events occur more and more.
Across the globe, countries already compete for scarce resources. Wars are fought, deals are done by avaricious corporations, the strong prevail over the weak who respond with terrorism.
Advances in medical care mean that people are living longer. This, added to the increase in the world’s population suggests that there will be approximately 9 billion people on earth by 2040 (assuming we don’t have a nuclear war).
My point? The beautiful maternal photograph and the perpetual motion it encapsulates may well lead to a Doomsday scenario for humans.
Ironic as it is, childbirth may be killing us!
That people have to die, not because of aging, but ’caused of hunger/starvation is a sad enough but – in my view it absolutely is the preferable (out come) to all other forms of human arteficial solutions made for survival, such as nuclear-power-stations ( toxic waste from – for millions of years), and GeneManupulated high yeilding crops etc. to manage the increasing gas and food consumption needs
Free or/and save me for such a kind of life. We, living here now, I think, is the luckiest generation ever lived on the earth , have nothing to complain about compared to what the 2nd to 3rd and later generations will have to deal with of problems. I’ve just got a wonder of a grandchild. I’m not very happy on his behalf, the prospect of his life.. I, for my part, do what i can to minimize my own consumption/waste.
Just a few data: to show it’s not empty words.
My water consumption [Yearly] = ½ – 1 cubik !!! prick this David !
My El consumption [yearly = (approximately 2 kiloWatt a day X 360 = 720 a year…
Please, let me know if someone can do better..
, toxic waste is heaping up, here there and everywhere – then – when this time comes (as it will) I would’nt bid my worst enemy such a miserable life.
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It saddens me when otherwise intelligent people jump onto the population timebomb bandwagon. Enough food is produced to feed alot more than the current population of the planet. see http://ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=38372
The problem is the unceasing drive to overconsumption caused not by some innate ‘human nature’ but by the drive to ever increasing profits dictated by the capitalist system and the tiny fraction of humanity that controls it.
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Yes, too many people are destroying the planet, yet here in the US a really big business is helping women get pregnant. There are too many of us already with way too many not receiving even basic health care and doctors are busy making more babies. Of course, there is a lot of money too be made in the fertility business.
There does not seem to be an end to the stupid things we humans do even when we know what we are doing is going to destroy our planet.
I had only 2 children in the 70′s because even then I felt that it was the responsible thing to do. My husband and I replaced ourselves.
My grandchildren are either step or adopted. An adopted child is just as much your own child, just as loved as he would be if the mother had given birth to that child.
The first time I held my adopted grandson I felt exactly the same way I did when I first held my biological children. I was overwhelmed with love for him!
Instead of increasing fertility lets increase adoption for all those children who need homes especially children of color who are not as wanted as a white child. A child is a child and their color means nothing! My beloved grandson is black and he is beautiful!
Sorry if I am ranting, but the evil looks I sometimes get from stranges when I have my grandson in public is disgusting as is the behavior of some members of our family who do not accept him.
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A 100 watt lamp left on for a year is 24x365x0.1=876 kwh per year, more than that of John LJ.
Many people in the US leave porch lights on all the time. 500 watts. They need to be told. They can not think beyond the back yard. But no one will ever be there to tell them.
People in the “West” have relied on borders and military to avoid the problems with over population. This plan is crashing.
Leaders (?) in the West deliberately avoid educating people on such matters, and most, being followers, have to be told. But most good practices compete with profit and might run up the price of labor in the case of birth control.
We note that frequently people go around with the head in the clouds (or somewhere) and crank out their 5 children. World wide it is partly the basic instinct and many people, lacking creativity, would stand around with the thumb in the mouth (or some were) if they did not have a kid to justify their existence.
In some cultures, it is the brute ignorant man, exercising his rights.
But as noted here, even if there are people on earth, who wants to be here. The Plastic world. Ever been out on a prairie in May at sunrise, no sounds but the birds. Ever been out on the buffalo grass pasture when up comes summer shower? Is that not the point?
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My dismay at the pain and sorrow inherent with life diminishes only slightly the joy and wonder of same. I guess I’m just a head in the clouds kind of a guy. Focus in any other direction and it seems to me that a person would just naturally cease to exist. To feel the need to justify one’s existence seems somewhat presumptuous considering the fact that one has absolutely nothing to do with one’s origin. Just be and let be, and if it turns out you’re an a-hole, the community, as a whole, will fix that.
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Mother Nature has long been the ground-leveler when it comes to overpopulation. If deer become too numerous in a given eco-system, mother nature makes sure that many of them starve, because there are too many for that eco-system to support. It is then balanced out. If too many carnivores move into a particular ecosystem, eventually many of them will die, because there are only so many herbivores to support so many carnivores. Nature wins again, and it’s all good.
But humans have evolved – through their medicine and military and other means – beyond the capacity for Mother Nature’s balancing-power to correct their overpopulation. We reproduce like rabbits, but yet instead of billions of us dying off so that only enough of us exist to match the ecosystem we inhabit on this earth…somehow we just keep multiplying. The earth’s resources are stretched far beyond the capacity to sustain the numbers we have, but through our technology and so forth we do so anyway. Sure, tens of thousands die each year of malnutrition in the poorest of countries (and even in the US), but how many poor FAT people have you seen in the western world? A lot. I went to the grocery store yesterday and stood behind a dirt-poor mother of 5 who took 15 minutes to get all her 2 carts of groceries rung up. Her total came to $385, while I stood and listened to the 5 little ones whine and beg for a candy bar, etc., and their mother telling them to shut up, they could have one when they got home. Then she whipped out her Link Card (“food stamps, welfare, etc.”) and I watched as I paid for it all.
There is something very wrong with a world where a species can reproduce itself an unlimited number of times – far, far, FAR beyond the ability of that species to support itself on the environment in which it lives – and yet become fat and live to a ripe old age. Forgive me for sounding cold, but humans need to feel the teeth of Mother Nature. Just like the deer or the lions that consume more than their ecosystem can support, they should be levelled just as Mother Nature has always levelled the playing field when an imbalance occurs.
Our own “medicical wonders” and technology and insecurities are eventually going to destroy both the earth and ourselves.
Thank God. Then – when we are gone – Mother Nature will once again assert her dominion, as she should.
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destructive…………..we don’t need the perpetual motion.
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John, the world needs more people like you!
David, it saddens me when otherwise intelligent people suggest that we should allow the human population to keep increasing given that the world’s resources are finite!
Jeannie, you continue to add a great deal to each thread. Thanks.
Ken, you have identified a number of important factors, brute males being among them.
VR20, great to see a more positive dimension in your comment!
Demon, certainly man’s ego is larger than his intelligence. We will pay a heavy price for this.
Coco, mindlessly reproducing is what rabbits do!
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The fact of the matter is, overpopulation is a big problem…and for more than just the whole “not enough food” thing. There are other issues concerning the overpopulation of Earth by humans that make life pretty shitty. For one thing, jobs. I live in the northeastern United States, which is one of the four most densely populated areas on the planet. Even in the “rural” parts, like upstate New York where I have the misfortune to call my habitat, you’re literally spitting distance to the next person at any given moment. As a result, unemployment in any of the dozen or so northeastern states is pretty high. Too many ding-a-lings walking around equals not enough jobs to go around. And those who are employed have little job security, crappy pay and almost zero appreciation from their employers because those same employers know that if they fire someone or they quit, there’ll be a mile-long line of desperate people waiting to replace them. So thanks to too much competition stemming from too many people, everyone can expect to be treated like garbage and paid shit, screwed out of overtime and so on. As employers around here are fond of saying, “Either deal with it or live on welfare.” It also means long waiting lists for day care, after-school programs and the like. And then of course there’s just the plain old general irritation and unending annoyance which comes from too many people around, particularly if you’re a member of the questioning minority and not one of the sheeple majority. There was a time in this country when you didn’t have to be rich to walk out your door and see a tree. Maybe even a patch of grass here and there. Now, no matter where you move, the scenery you take in every day will most likely be a parking lot. This is the consequence of an overpopulated world. We’re removing ourselves from the possibility of being able to basically enjoy life for its own sake. Natural beauty and the relief of stress it engenders is something only wild animals can appreciate any more. We’ve abandoned it so we can keep producing the “nuclea” family with the 2.2 kids and the dog named Fido, then spend our days sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic to wait in line for half an hour for a Big Mac. And life has been this way for so long now, people can’t imagine it any other way.
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Very interesting stuff, on this thread ! thanks David and all other.
May be I just have to make a little more account for , to those who doubt, concerning my yearly [½ m3] waterconsumption, if some (fairly enough) doubt this can be true.
Explanation:
Beyond the [delivering from the public water system] I harness rain(ing water. which I do not know, how much is – maybe the same, app. 1m3.
I have always thought that rinsing shit out in (the) water is a bad thing to do.
(water is the habitat/invironment for innumerable species)
What I do now (with this ‘shit’) – is, what’s doing the real difference, for this sparse to be possible, is that I’ve stopped using the toilet with it’s rinsing water system to rins (the/my) shit – out (in water) which takes average, for one person, approximately teen to thirty liter, a day. ? – or what do you think ? more or less.
IT IS POSSIBLE:
In the future, I think, we have to seperate shit from pee. Pee should be spread directly on the fields for agriculturing and shit should be dryed, for use of e.g. peat (energy source) or manure etc.
[I do not know if ' shit' is the right word to use in this connexion ? or maybe poo-poo? is more right]
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Wow- Perhaps there IS hope for the world… but I will not hold my breath. The irony that human beings are supposedly the only species capable of cognition & genuine deep thought…. yet, we are the only species that creates war, religion and utterly destroys our only home… AND we keep making more of ourselves. Because we are so intelligent we SHOULD be getting to the point of “just because we can (reporduce) doesn’t mean we should”. Amazing isn’t it? We cannot figure it out. I say, as sad as it would be, let nature take over. Remove social safety nets (you cannot feed your baby- then….) OR The state (the one who pays the bills) has a say in how they are raised and fed– most would be taken away as to not perpetuate the cycle— Both are alternatives for what we have now– Feed them just enough so they can keep making more- to fight wars, to become consumers etc, to make more, so they can make more—- And so the cyle goes.
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Important: The more educated women are the more likey they are to remain child-free (hence the references to poor/uneducted/state-sponsored families). Rich women who have kids and then hire other women to raise them?! Glorification of ‘parenthood’– (they don’t REALLY want them…. but that is just what ‘we do’ . … Silly ….
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Timely topic and great comments. I don’t like it when I get too busy to write all the things that are on my mind. One thing, I noticed the birds have nests in our front yard, but those nests are for their yearly nesting/sitting on eggs. I guess it is safer being near the humans for that purpose. Once the babes are born, they fly off to the more wild areas. They do come back regularly to party at the waterhole though. I love nature and when I lived in a redwood forest, I decided that all humans need a certain amount of trees around them to stay sane. I am in the process of turning our yard into a food producing natural ecosphere. I am spending this year just observing and seeing where things naturally want to be and then by next year we will have grey water ponds, so no water will be wasted. My goal is to grow enough food for several families. There are far too many food challenged people and alot judgement and shame in that the only places to get free food are churches that make you listen to a God speech. It breaks my heart to see kids that are hungry. They look to me as they would their mother with eyes that say, “feed me.” It is even sadder when their parents DONT KNOW HOW to feed them! Unloved rejects who have kids to experience that unconditional love. All is great til they have to feed them. I understand the argument about how nature culls the excess and it will happen naturally if we don’t have an alternate plan. That said, if you ever look a hungry kid in the eye and say, starve you must, it is nature’s way? I don’t think many here could. it strengthens my resolve to get the garden going. Peace on Earth, good will, all.
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John, perhaps human waste is less vulgar than the word you’ve chosen. Keep up the good work!
EShallcross, you have made some good points. It is a mindless cycle breeding people to consume and die in wars!
Grace, humans have interfered too much in nature. We forget sometimes that we are only semi-intelligent animals and the forces which govern all life also govern us!
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There have been many attempts in the 20th century to tackle the problem of overpopulation.
I’d like to mention two interesting cases: the Chinese and the Iranian.
The Chinese implemented the “one-child-policy” which sounds very sane but seen from close was and is very violent and cruel. Due to this family planning program an estimated 5 million girls were either aborted (forced abortions) or killed right after birth or by neglect. It also produced a very bad sex-ratio imbalance.
A surprisingly successfull program I came across (as a journalist) is Iran. They managed to bring down the number of children per woman from 7 to 2 within one generation (after the Islamic revolution!). This is an incredible achievement. It’s due mainly to 2 factors: women’s education and full support of the Mullahs and of the people for all kinds of family planning programs, including the sterilization of men. The population is still growing because it takes some time to change course but they are on the right track.
And I have just planted 2 little apple trees….Won’t save the world, I’m afraid, but it’s a great joy! Cheers to everybody….
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Ursula, that’s the real answer: sterilize all men! And beware of apple trees. That where Eve was undone, wasn’t it?
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Once the guys understand that sterilization doesn’t mean castration and doesn’t affect their sex life….well humanity would have a real chance here. Let men have 2 children, if they want, and then finito! It’s cheap too. And that’s one of the reasons why it isn’t widely propagated: the pharma giants make billions with the pills they sell to the women…..
It is so amazing how Bible-infested western culture still is, David!
The latin for apple is “malus” which means “bad” and the name seems in fact to have its origin in the story of Eve. Though in the original text it says nothing of apple-tree, just “fruit-tree”.
Hey David, I thought that Adam was undone there…..;-) But my interpretation of the Bible might be a bit dubious…
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Since we’re on the subject, Apparently, Eve was Adam’s second wife. His first was Lillith who was created as an equal of Adam. He kept wanting to subjugate her and have her submit to him, but Lillith rejected this idea and left the garden of Eden to go be on her own. Adam complained of his loneliness to God who then created Eve from one of Adams ribs. Finally a woman who was not his equal and that he could control! And so it came to be. Amen.
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