[Closed] 7 billion people - Family cap?

Been thinking this for some time, 1 or 2 at the most,

Like they did in China? That worked well, with no undesirable consequences.

The reporter said that all 7 billion people would be able to live in a dense city like london or new york but would have to be the size of France. So I vote all countries send there unwanted residents to France. 😀

it's our god-given [s]right[/s] duty to have as many children as possible.

breed faster!

it's our god-given right duty to have as many children as possible.

I don't have any children, but I do feel responsible if I ever choose to that I shouldn't have loads! Who wants to live in a pokey house or flat with no green space?

I'm number 4,750,264,407

Who wants to live in a pokey house or flat with no green space?

not me, but plenty do.

We're all going to die of flu/super volcano/asteroid anyway. It's overdue (apparently)

[i] Little of the current growth is happening in developed countries like yours.[/i]
and
[i]The average family size globally has declined by half since 1950 - from five children in to the current 2.5.[/i]

suggests a family cap in the UK would make no difference, to me. I could be wrong.

I think Dez is right, our own population growth has almost peaked hasn't it? Most Western countries are projected to decrease population in the next hundred years aren't they? That's what the bloke on telly was saying last night. The growth is all happening in developing countries like Ethiopia and Wales.

A worldwide family cap does make a lot of sense, on purely logical grounds, but sadly it would be completely impossible to enforce.

The growth is all happening in developing countries like Ethiopia and Wales.

😆

[i]but sadly it would be completely impossible to enforce. [/i]

[img] [/img]

Yes cap the population! I can say that as i already have two kids......

Who wants to live in a pokey house or flat with no green space?

Me! Im in a 1 bed council flat on the first floor. But i do have my local woods just up the road. And im only 10 minutes away from the countryside.

Apparently not Samuri, below is a wiki copy and paste (wiki is the master top trump in all arguments)

The UK is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, with a population of approximately 62 million people, and a density of 246 people per square kilometer (992/sq mi).[57] With 50,431,700 inhabitants, or 84% of the UK's total,[58] England is the most populous nation in the United Kingdom. In 2006, an estimated 491,000 migrants[59] arrived to live in the UK for at least a year, while 400,000 people emigrated from the UK for a year or more. [60] Most new arrivals were heading for London and the South East.[61]

The latest population projections for the country indicate that in 2031, the population of Britain would be 71 million, in 2050 it would reach 90 million and by 2081 the population could be 110 million.[62]
The first Census in 1801 revealed that the population of England, Scotland and Wales was 10 million.[63]

children are not the problem, old people are.
they must be culled.
I'll light the pyre.

Yes cap the population! I can say that as i already have two kids......

Two is okay. That's really just replacing you and your partner.

Hence the [url= http://populationmatters.org/stopattwo.html ]OPT "Stop At Two" pledge.[/url]

World Bank figures suggest UK pop growth is already very low- these figures include immigration.

[url= http://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_grow&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:NZL:GBR:USA:AUS:CHN&ifdim=country&tstart=-289702800000&tend=1288134000000&hl=en&dl=en&icfg&iconSize=0.5&uniSize=0.035 ]Population growth rate[/url]

edit: how do you embed these?

Great we could sterilize all the NEDS on council estates and lower the crime rate at the same time.Downside is all the JJBs AND Sports Directs would close as the footfall would decrease

Two is okay. That's really just replacing you and your partner.

Phew- i feel vindicated now 😛

Great we could sterilize all the NEDS on council estates and lower the crime rate at the same time.Downside is all the JJBs AND Sports Directs would close as the footfall would decrease

😆

Just don't talk about immigration OK?

Two is okay. That's really just replacing you and your partner

You've got to go for fewer than 2 to get zero population growth in the short to medium term - as brakes alludes to above, old people are not dying as early as they used to.

Sadly samuri, that would not do the job. Its an SMK XS78, out of the box they tend to be a bit low on power. Fine for rats and short range, but to be honest you'd struggle to do more than make people very angry if you fired that at them.

I have 8 kids don't see the problem myself,

Just don't talk about immigration OK?

According to that BBC thing there are 23 extra immigrants an hour and 19 new births. I guess it depends on what use they are to our society? We don't need any more hand car washers but we do need more care home workers.

ccording to that BBC thing there are 23 extra immigrants an hour and 19 new births.

What country are you in?? For the UK it said:

Every hour, there are: 85 Births, 66 Deaths, + 23 Immigrants

Populations have a funny way of self-levelling if they become unsustainable.

I daresay that as the population increases more people will look elsewhere to live - more likely the wealthier perhaps who seeing the green belt shrink decide to live in places less desirable to the less well off. Like France.

What country are you in?? For the UK it said:

Apologies I subtracted the deaths from the births.

Populations have a funny way of self-levelling if they become unsustainable.

Or expanding till they consume every resource available then very quickly dying out.

Or expanding till they consume every resource available then very quickly dying out.

Just a shame this'll help out the rest of the population too... 😀

(*bye bye Happiness and moral rigidity)

How about relaxing the health and safety obsession and letting a few of the more stupid ones cull themselves?

uggests a family cap in the UK would make no difference, to me. I could be wrong.

Got to agree - the UK fertility rate is supposedly about 1.95 children per female, which is pretty much flat/downward population.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgdO92JOXxAOdFZIUU1SODRaMXI5cFdvMkRIQm5Obmc#gid=0

all UK population growth seems to be from immigration, and children born to foreign mothers <cue Daily Mail style suggestions>

brakes is right, it's old the old folk clogging up the roads, the pavements and the hospitals.

What we need is an age cap. I propose 90 years is plenty for everyone.

We should be thinking about resources here, the homeless and skinny should be allowed to take food off of fat people. 😛

What we need is an age cap. I propose 90 years is plenty for everyone.

[img] [/img]

A good start would be just stopping religious groups preventing the distribution of and education about contraception in developing countries.

We should be thinking about resources here

Soylent Green?

GrahamS: exactly!!!

Maybe the unreformed church of Rome could make a contribution. That bit about us accepting a situation where millions of the poor grow up in the Third World with hardly enough to eat....its a sin that we allow that, but not as evil as CONDOMS!!!!!

I guess it depends on what use they are to our society? We don't need any more hand car washers but we do need more care home workers.

Quite a few immigrants work with me, in fairly low paid positions. They mostly have degrees from a better education system than ours and a decent work ethic/little sense of entitlement. Anyone able to make a go of it in another culture has something good about them IMO. These people are clearly going to improve the gene pool. So I bred with one. Just doing my bit 😀

some cultures still get big amounts of money in return for the honour of marrying their daughters, pump out the kids and its an investment in the future.

I too work with immigrants although they are not poorly paid! where is this better education system than UK universities??? We have a large amount of immigration for our universities alone as they are the best!

We have a large amount of immigration for our universities alone as they are the best!

Not sure about that, universities across Europe are of a pretty similar standard, but I would say that degrees gained in developing countries can be very hit and miss as a guide to the actual education received.

I clicked on this thread, expecting to see ill-informed claptrap about pressure on resources being the fault of those countries that have high birth rates. So, it was a pleasant surprise to find none of that...

Human population growth is like a disease spreading fast ... like maggots sucking up resources. Nuke them. Quick someone please start the nuclear war now.

You'll note that my previous comment used the past tense.

chewkw - Member
Human population growth is like a disease spreading fast ... like maggots sucking up resources. Nuke them. Quick someone please start the nuclear war now.

+1 maybe the planet will have a chance then.

ransos - Member
You'll note that my previous comment used the past tense

+1 maybe the planet will have a chance then.

The planet will survive just fine.

Humans will consume every resource, die out and probably take most other species down with us.

But give it another few million years or so and there'll be some other smart monkey thinking they know everything and burning our gooey remains in their cars.

[img] [/img]

the fussy eaters will be first to die out.

i blame binners

The optimistic view:

"A CHILD is born. Hurrah – a time for celebration. Babies usually bring out the optimist in people. “What a joy” we coo over a bundle of potential in swaddling – this could be the new Einstein, a modern Joan of Arc, a future Steve Jobs. However, there seems widespread reluctance to pop the champagne corks for the birth of Baby 7 Billion (Baby7B), who is due on 31 October 2011. This is the date the UN has designated as the day that the human population will reach 7bn, and has been accompanied by an outbreak of pessimistic miserablism.

Lionel Shriver, author We Need To Talk About Kevin, has been just one high profile celeb to roll off a litany of woes that will afflict the world if we “keep on breeding”. Campaign group Population Matters (PM), whose patrons include Sir David Attenborough, has announced it will be marking the great day by cheery posters in the London Underground warning commuters in “the overcrowded transport system” of the “unsustainability of continued population growth”. Happy Birthday Baby7B – London’s infrastructural failings are your fault.

Most galling are those eco-worriers who view the alleged population time-bomb through the apocalyptic lens of impending climate change catastrophe. Our Baby7B is then reduced to the cold, scientific calculation of a carbon emitter. Charmingly, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) notes that “No human is genuinely ‘carbon neutral’”. You can forget the pitter-patter of tiny feet. To quote PM’s chair Roger Martin, “it’s no use reducing your carbon footprint if you keep increasing the number of feet”. The NGO Population and Climate Change African Forum (PCCAF) has set up PopOffsets, a carbon offsets scheme aimed at reducing the number of carbon emitters (that is, babies). Maybe aware that this may smack of uncomfortable racial tones if focused simply on Africa, it is also suggested that: “Where people have choices, such as the UK, we are asking them to have ‘two or fewer’ children as part of a sustainable lifestyle”.

Such thinking is not only misanthropic and authoritarian; it also underestimates human potential and fatalistically overestimates natural limits. The Population Institute’s report From 6 Billion to 7 Billion argues “there comes a day of environmental reckoning... time is running out… to strike a better balance between the demands we place upon the planet and the Earth’s ability to satisfy our needs”. The personification of the Earth with a capital E is telling. Humans are assumed beholden to immutable Mother Nature, who must satisfy our needs.

But surely man’s progressive mission has been to overcome nature’s limits precisely to satisfy our needs? We’ve done well. Some of modernity’s most important medical gains have been made through humans overthrowing the seeming natural limits of our biology, such as massively reducing infant mortality and disease through man-made, “unnatural” medicines like insulin, antibiotics and oral contraception. This should be a source of triumph not despair.

Of course, disease, poverty and hunger still stalk the world, but this is a political challenge; to solve it we need to argue robustly for economic development; and to fight exploitation. What we must oppose is the attempts to repackage such social problems as demographic, and to argue against those who tell us resources are finite and won’t be able to cater for future billions. This was the original error of Thomas Malthus, the 18th-century vicar who falsely predicted that a rapidly growing population would lead to starvation. He and his supporters wrongly assumed that while population grows, all else would stay the same.

Possibly Malthus had an excuse for his mistake, assuming that millions more people would mean less food to go round. He did not witness the industrial revolution’s massive transformation to food production. But what excuse is there for Jonathan Porritt, who recently blogged about sub-Saharan Africa: “Sorry to be neo-Malthusian about it, but continuing population growth... makes periodic famine unavoidable”? Porritt’s anti-population prejudice means he fails to note that agriculture’s green revolution and, yes, Big Food means we could feed everyone born and more. The barrier is not too many mouths to feed but the lack of economic development

Instead of arguing for economic growth, the new Malthusians warn that all these newborns will grow up “desiring a better life”, that we will need “two earths” to sustain their consumption. Wrong – what we need are growth rates on a par with China and India, the two most populous countries in the world, who through economic development are lifting millions from poverty. There is no such thing as finite resources, just new unimagined solutions waiting to be discovered if we trust human ingenuity to the task. The new billions are more than just consumers; they are also creative producers and dynamic problem-solvers who can transform the world, and Nature, for the better. Hurrah for Baby7B."