Future Poverty and Starvation??

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feedthetree

The Fly
Joined
May 10, 2010
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They say that in 2050, the world's population will not only climb to a staggering 9.5 billion, but the third world countries will be stronger economically, including Africa and South Asia.

Meaning in the coming years... if we do not control our rapid reproduction, the world will be fighting over food. Because food source will become scarce because it will be feeding all the third world countries equally. Plus, with all of our aid and governments helping of the Third World Countries, they will be economically stronger to fight us for it.

Also... since Ireland is in the toilet once again, it looks like they'll be fighting famine... again. What a wonderful choice for U2 to take their business out of a failing country that needs their help. :doh:

I really wish when people decide to have 5 or 6 kids they think about their children's future in this bleak world. Or do they? Everything is being abused, the oil, the air, land is being vacated of trees, animals are becoming extinct.
This is not good.
 
tell that to the united nations whose article this was.

World Population Growth

Year Population
1 200 million
1000 275 million
1500 450 million
1650 500 million
1750 700 million
1804 1 billion
1850 1.2 billion
1900 1.6 billion
1927 2 billion
1950 2.55 billion
1955 2.8 billion
1960 3 billion
1965 3.3 billion
1970 3.7 billion
1975 4 billion
1980 4.5 billion
1985 4.85 billion
1990 5.3 billion
1995 5.7 billion
1999 6 billion
2006 6.5 billion
2009 6.8 billion
2012 7 billion
2027 8 billion
2044 9 billion
2050 9.2 billion


the point is... it's increasing. doesn't matter the rate.
 
Yes, so, in the period from about 1927 to 1980 (53 years), it more than doubled. In the period from 1980 to 2009 (30 years or so), it has increased by about half.

That is a slowing rate of growth. But it doesn't matter! You're right, everything is being abused, including my intelligence.
 
Nah, your intelligence is fine.

Everything in this world is being abused, oil, air, trees, water, and animals.
We are using everything up, do we think this stuff grows on trees?

Wait...

:ohmy:
 
We will never run out of food.

As long as cows and pigs and chickens are still fucking each other and making more cows and pigs and chickens, we can cook up those guys.

And I'll start planting a shit ton of apple trees every spring and summer.

We'll be ok.
 
I've been gathering lots of info on this to put together a white paper for my work blog.

But, running out of food is the least of our concerns. Clean water is renewable, but should be our top concern.

We are running out of:

Copper
Gallium
Indium
Silver
Gold

Those are elements and NOT renewable, only recyclable.

Here's a nice interactive chart from Scientific American:

How Much Is Left? The Limits of Earth's Resources, Made Interactive: Scientific American
 
Human beings are an innovative bunch. We'll just burn down what's remaining of the rainforests and turn it into plantations and cattle grazing pastures. So you can still get a burger and latte in 50 years time. As the polar regions melt, we'll drill everything useful from them, until Anatarctica is one big strip mine.
Without wanting to sound like misery guts, I think humans serve no useful purpose for this planet other than to screw it up for the next dominant species. If a giant asteroid came along and finished us off, that would be pretty neat.
 
But, running out of food is the least of our concerns.

It depends on where one lives, economic situation, etc. E.g. many of the protesters in the Middle East (and people elsewhere) are increasingly being priced out of the food market, as oil prices rise and crop failures occur.
 
bees are a big worry... due to so many being wiped out at the moment from disease, pollination could be a huge problem in the future... now that is very worrying...
 
It depends on where one lives, economic situation, etc. E.g. many of the protesters in the Middle East (and people elsewhere) are increasingly being priced out of the food market, as oil prices rise and crop failures occur.

True, but we know there are solutions and substitutions to food issues. If governments can't/won't feed their people, there are things that can be done.

Drinking water is a bigger issue.
 
We will never run out of food.

As long as cows and pigs and chickens are still fucking each other and making more cows and pigs and chickens, we can cook up those guys.

And I'll start planting a shit ton of apple trees every spring and summer.

We'll be ok.

99% of chicken and turkey cannot "fuck each other" anymore.
 
^ Yeah that was my first thought! :lol: Bulls, boars, roosters--not that many of them around nowadays. Even apple trees are propagated asexually by grafting, not by planting seedlings.

(And of course Bono's not OK--he had too many kids and they don't exactly live a light-on-the-earth lifestyle, so the future is bleak.)
 
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99% of chicken and turkey cannot "fuck each other" anymore.

I've got confidence in that remaining 1%.

I'm sure they're still as horny as the rest of us.

And I am going to single-handedly bring back the act of planting apple tree seeds.

Apples and chicken for everybody on Earth!
 
I've got confidence in that remaining 1%.

I'm sure they're still as horny as the rest of us.

And I am going to single-handedly bring back the act of planting apple tree seeds.

Apples and chicken for everybody on Earth!
Clearly your new avatar should be Johnny Appleseed.
 
I've got confidence in that remaining 1%.

I'm sure they're still as horny as the rest of us.

And I am going to single-handedly bring back the act of planting apple tree seeds.

Apples and chicken for everybody on Earth!

Are you looking to unleash the hidden nutritional power of apples? :D


/Simpsons
 
I've got confidence in that remaining 1%.

I'm sure they're still as horny as the rest of us.

And I am going to single-handedly bring back the act of planting apple tree seeds.

Apples and chicken for everybody on Earth!

You should look into rabbits. Australia's rabbit population started off at 24 in 1859. A hundred years later, it was tens or hundreds of millions. A chemical toxic was found that killed off 99.9 per cent. Now, barely 50 years later, the number is at more than 300 million again.

We should also look into scrapping Monsanto, and other companies that dedicate millions into creating plant seeds which are infertile.
 
We will never run out of food.

As long as cows and pigs and chickens are still fucking each other and making more cows and pigs and chickens, we can cook up those guys.

And I'll start planting a shit ton of apple trees every spring and summer.

We'll be ok.

It is more financially sound to produce more grain than meat because more than half of the grain crops produced go into the feeding of livestock. If you don't have the proper food to feed livestock herds, then you can't have chickens and pigs fucking each other.
 
Score two for bunnies then. No one wants to eat alfalfa pellets anyway. Of course, then the problem might be they'd start producing grain-fed rabbits to plump them up for market, and they'd get so fat they can't get it on anymore which is what's happened to turkeys.
you can't have chickens and pigs fucking each other.
Indeed.
 
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It's the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, guys.

1396419
 
Perhaps feedthetree has a point?

A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an "unrecognizable" world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday. The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, "with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia," said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.
To feed all those mouths, "we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000," said Jason Clay of the Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
"By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable" if current trends continue, Clay said.
The swelling population will exacerbate problems, such as resource depletion, said John Casterline, director of the Initiative in Population Research at Ohio State University.
But incomes are also expected to rise over the next 40 years -- tripling globally and quintupling in developing nations -- and add more strain to global food supplies.
People tend to move up the food chain as their incomes rise, consuming more meat than they might have when they made less money, the experts said.
Planet could be 'unrecognizable' by 2050, experts say - Yahoo! News
 
Oh, absolutely; resource strain and continued full-throttle habitat destruction are immense problems. As a botanist friend of mine who travels widely in Africa on research excursions recently told me, ours is the last generation that'll be able to remember the planet as it was. But there are only so many viable ways to dramatically curb population growth, and the most reliable is simply increased prosperity. Unfortunately, that also means rapid development and far more resource-intensive lifestyles. The world total fertility rate is expected to decline to replacement fertility by 2030 then continue to shrink; the question is how we'll manage with what we have in the meantime. Though as kramwest said, food production (as opposed to food distribution) may well be the least of our worries.
 
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