I have given this a lot of thought. Most of the most serious group problems mankind are dealing with long term today can best be solved or mitigated by nation states around the world. In a sense it is the return of the nation state to a prominence it once had in centuries past.
I believe now that at core the problems of global climate change and of overpopulation which is one of the things that makes global climate change worse are just starting to be addressed by the nation states of the world. The nations that can move the most efficiently and quickly in these times will likely in the end see the higher percentages of their people not starve to death in these times.
I have finally isolated the core problems we are dealing with which are: exponentially increasing global climate change which is caused primarily by overpopulation.
If you were a group of nation states trying to fight Global Climate Change you would be faced with the primary cause of Global Climate Change which is overpopulation.
However, the primary cause of overpopulation is a lack of a world social welfare system and a lack of universal education systems worldwide.
If you analyze carefully the causes of overpopulation one then has to look primarily at third world nations to understand this phenomoma. First these people have no social welfare system. If they get sick or old they will die without children to take care of them. So, if possible these people have 5, 10, 12 or 15 or more children to teach to work for them as young and to take care of them, hopefully, when they are old. This is actually the primary cause of real overpopulation worldwide.
However, once people begin to get educated and begin to understand that they don't have to have so many children to survive in their later years as they move to countries with social welfare systems in place everything changes.
So, the primary weapons of the nation states of earth against overpopulation are the welfare state system(taking care of the old and infirm) and education(educating people to be able to use resources and to learn to train for careers). As people comprehend that they will be taken care of in old age because they have worked and paid into unemployment compensation insurance and Social Security systems, they then perceive having so many children as too expensive and counterproductive to their long term survival economically and then they tend to have less children as a general rule.
However, now, because of extreme overpopulation and extreme Global Climate change the primary weapon against overpopulation is unfortunately, starvation. No nation can continue to exist by advocating starvation as a way to reduce population. In the past, nations and tribes had wars over resources to reduce population in any given area on earth. This has been historical fact for thousands of years.
However, now with the loss of food surpluses worldwide because of extreme droughts and extreme weather fluctuations worldwide, starvation in numbers unseen yet this century is underway. Starvation is a very undesirable way to reduce population because people on their way out often get violent or their children who survive get violent in reaction to having watched one or both parents, and or siblings or other relatives starve to death. Even though with age (over 30) these same people might come to see that this was not personal against their families, younger people just tend to get enraged and reactionary rather than see the whole picture. In otherwords bad things sometimes happen to good people and no one was actually trying to create a starvation or death outcome for their relatives.
However, once again, as in awful past centuries we are seeing large nations and small desperately trying to manage mass starvation in third world nations.
However, in the end, unless the world completely changes the way it does everything by moving underground and using the surface of the planet ONLY for farming, recreation and transportation the present population CANNOT be maintained.
Realistically, I don't believe over 200 million people can be sustained for more than about 1000 years without the human race once again coming to this state of affairs.
So if the human race wants to avoid watching most people die of starvation or worse then people need to start moving underground where temperatures are fairly stable about 4 feet or more underground where temperatures most places on earth are around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Since this temperature is cool enough for most people(though most people might like it to be a little warmer) it would incredibly reduce both heating and cooling bills worldwide which would also reduce global warming by reducing the amount of fuel consumed in making electricity for the masses.
By creating reverse swimming pool technology even in underground wet areas moisture, underground streams etc. could be kept out of living areas unless one needed the water for bathing or to be filtered for drinking etc.
Only by using the surface of the earth only for growing food, recreation and transportation can the earth sustain this many people. Otherwise I believe we are presently on our way back to about 200 million or if we are stubborn, none.
1 comment:
Good post, Fred. I'd like to offer a slightly different "take" on overpopulation and its causes.
Until the renaissance and the industrial revolution, the world's population was essentially stable, with both a high birth rate and high death rate. But scientific breakthroughs, beginning with very rudimentary things like sanitation and improved farming techniques, sent the death rate plummeting, triggering a population explosion.
The same pattern repeats wherever economic development is introduced to poor countries. Simpl things like food aid, clean water and sanitation drive down the death rate, send the population soaring, followed later and much more slowly by a falling birth rate.
But economists point to the falling birth rate in developed nations as evidence that economic development is the cure for overpopulation when, in fact, it is the cause. That doesn't mean that economic development shouldn't be pursued. It just means that it needs to be accomapnied by measures to reduce the birth rate just as quickly as the death rate.
The 2nd major cause of overpopulation is the belief by economists that population growth and economic growth go hand-in-hand. In fact, they don't believe it's possible to have a healthy economy without population growth. That's why leaders around the world push policies that promote population growth, everything from lax immigration policy to providing tax incentives for having children.
Just as an example, Japan, a nation ten times as densely populated as the U.S., is actively encouraging its people to have more children in order to get its population growing again. As crazy as it sounds, it's true.
What's needed is an economic theory that shows how the economy can actually benefit by stabilizing and even reducing our population.
At this point, I should introduce myself. I am the author of a book titled "Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America." To make a long story short, my theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption of products begins to decline out of the need to conserve space. People who live in crowded conditions simply don’t have enough space to use and store many products. This declining per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.
This theory has huge implications for U.S. policy toward population management. Our policies that encourage high rates of population growth are rooted in the belief of economists that population growth is a good thing, fueling economic growth. Through most of human history, the interests of the common good and business (corporations) were both well-served by continuing population growth. For the common good, we needed more workers to man our factories, producing the goods needed for a high standard of living. This population growth translated into sales volume growth for corporations. Both were happy.
But, once an optimum population density is breached, their interests diverge. It is in the best interest of the common good to stabilize the population, avoiding an erosion of our quality of life through high unemployment and poverty. However, it is still in the interest of corporations to fuel population growth because, even though per capita consumption goes into decline, total consumption still increases. We now find ourselves in the position of having corporations and economists influencing public policy in a direction that is not in the best interest of the common good.
In addition, this theory has major implications for trade policy which I could explain, but I've gone on too long already. Besides, you can learn more about it on my web sites.
If you’re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com or PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in my blog discussion and, of course, purchase the book if you like. (It's also available at Amazon.com.)
Please forgive the somewhat spammish nature of the previous paragraph. I just don't know how else to inject this new perspective into the overpopulation debate without drawing attention to the book that explains the theory.
Pete Murphy
Author, "Five Short Blasts"
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