Overconsumption

[Bigfoot]

The U.N. estimates that by 2030 the world will need 50% more food, 45% more energy and 30% more water.
Humans are using 1.5 planet earth's to sustain ourselves currently, and 2 planet earth's by 2030.
7 Billion people now, and expected to grow to approx. 9 billion by 2040.

Our world governments (& each of us as individuals) need to act now to address overconsumption and overpopulation before the good times come to an inevitable end.

The economies around the world don't work and need to be changed. In Australia mining is keeping the economy strong, but destroying the environment. The economy is more important than the environment to the government.

Sustainability of resources and population is what the governments should be concerning themselves with, instead of profits.

[Logic please]

@BF: it appears that you've researched the facts and figures in your post, and provided a good summary.

If facts and figures are being quoted, providing the actual link in addition to this, gives other posters the courtesy of perusing it themselves, and making up their own minds. You may also find that other readers pick up different points from the source, to yours. Discussion is enhanced, and everybody wins.

I suspect that this Reuters story might be one candidate for your source; if it's a different one, please link it.

Cheers.

[Sir Patrick Crocodile]

I have the answer. All we need is a giant extremophilic earthworm that can eat the earth from the inside out killing everything on it.
That will eliminate the problem of overpopulation, excessive resource consumption, and will also eliminate global warming to some extent.

Sure the idea needs a little work but I think it is fantastic. Bigfoot what about you?

[Iseeyouthere]

Time to put religion to use...

"Hey! Jesus called your Allah fat!"

[owheelj]

I think over consumption and over population are separate issues, and should be treated as such. If you break the globe into national populations and compare population density, rate of population change, and resources consumed per person, it is the countries with lower population density and stable or negative population growth that tend to use the most resources per person. Indeed in a country like Australia with very low population growth (especially if you exclude migration) you get significantly higher consumption rates for the nation than for countries with populations nearly an order of magnitude bigger. I don't have any particular references, although I know there is a Jared Diamond news article on this topic (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/op...pagewanted=all), but I did study a third year geography subject on this topic ("Sustainable settlements") a couple of years ago which is my main source.

[Bigfoot]

@Logicplease, point taken, your link is one of many i've sourced from. Here is some more: http://www.overpopulation.org/solutions.html
http://geography.about.com/od/obtain...ion-people.htm
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sc...-dead-one.html
http://www.bitsofscience.org/tag/overconsumption/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...nsumption.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_crisis

@Crocodile, giant worms that eat only politicians sounds good.

@Owheelj, sure consumption and population are separate issues, although they are connected. First world nations consume on a far greater scale then third world nations, but every single human needs to consume to survive. Food, clean water, clean air are consumed by us all and with larger populations we consume more of these precious resources.
Energy used by the richer countries is destroying the environment at an ever increasing rate, polluting the essential resources needed for life.

Here is a link to the Canadian oil sands which is destroying the environment
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/20...ds/kunzig-text

[owheelj]

Merely stating that they are connected and posting a news media article apparently at random doesn't seem to be the strongest argument for a connection. Surely if they are connected then there would be some kind of mathematical relationship between population growth and consumption growth? In fact if you look at the places with the fastest growing populations around the world - Bangladesh, Nigeria etc. you actually see geographical areas continuing to consume the same amount of resources while their population increases (meaning per capita consumption is decreasing at the rate of population increase). A similar story is true of all the poorest places around the world with rapidly increasing populations. Likewise we see that the places that are increasing standards of living have decreasing population growth. I would say that the evidence suggests a negative relationship between population and consumption, rather than a positive one. Wealthy stable societies with high consumption rates have low population growth, or even decreasing populations, while poor unstable societies with low consumption have high population growth.

You can easily check this by going to www.nationmaster.org and looking at the corresponding statistics for yourself, or view the UN human development reports, that address this specific issue. Many people argue, and indeed have demonstrated, that education about birth control and the general empowerment of women is one of the best ways of decreasing population growth and increasing wealth at the same time.

Edit;

I think this is also a worth while read, and I'll read the book when I get a chance too, related to this topic;

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/b...than-you-think

[robertkd]

Originally Posted by Bigfoot

increasing rate, polluting the essential resources needed for life.

Here is a link to the Canadian oil sands which is destroying the environment
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/20...ds/kunzig-text

Well then you'll like (or not like) this please explore Chris' s work.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn/#car-keys

[Bigfoot]

Robertkd, I had a look at chris's work, good pics

@Owheelj, Canadian oil sands is related to the topic, not in reply to your comment. The simple fact is that more humans = more consumption. I understand your point with your statistics, your first link didn't work for me, but I read the last link. The connection I was making is that every human needs so much water and food to live, there is a mathematical relationship between the two. The planet has finite resources, so more people = less resources per capita. Approx 80million humans are added to the planet every year, they all need/consume water and food to live.

[c2105026]

GASP! THIS IS BOLSHIE GREENIE TALK!!

Anyway....would I be right in saying an Australian baby would, over its lifetime, use more resources than a baby born in Kenya (assuming similar lifespan of course)? In addition, is not the birth rate in western countries low and/or decreasing?? Still, looking at current stats, we really do need to look at our consumption if we are to have a socially just global population.

I have heard that very low birth rates in Japan could mathematically extinguish the population by 2300. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16787538.