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Jesus Salazar

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Why is everybody concerned about "how to solve the problems of 10 billion humans" instead of "how NOT TO REACH that amount of people"?

We know human overpopulation is the base of practicaly all the problems our planet faces today, how it comes nobody seems to care about it, instead of how to satisfy the needs of more and more people?

Related Talks:
Topics: global affairs overpopulation
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    Krisztián Pintér 200+

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    TED Translator
    Sep 12 2012: i would revoke everyone's commenting rights if have not seen hans rosling's talk:

    http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_at_state.html

    • Jesus Salazar

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      Sep 12 2012: How about this great talk by Albert Bartlett, professor emeritus of Physics at Univ of Colorado-Boulder: http://youtu.be/F-QA2rkpBSY

      Now, what time is it? Do we have another bottle?

      PS: I did not know you could do that (to revoke other people's rights)...
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        Krisztián Pintér 200+

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        TED Translator
        Sep 13 2012: and how does it apply? does the exponential function says us that the earth is large enough to feed 3 bn, but not 10? cite your sources that the earth can not feed 10 bn.

        no, i can not revoke such rights. pity.

        • Matthew Healey

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          Sep 13 2012: Presently it's not about the world not being able to feed enough people, at present food production is actually in surplus, it's more about the distribution of food rather than production. The same applies to most natural resources (including water), distribution is the issue.

          That said, distribution is only the culprit at present. If humanities population continues to grow I believe we will eventually hit a ceiling whereby we start to cause extinction on a more noticeable scale (not only the cute animals but also essential habitats too). As well an inability to produce enough food for the population due to these decreasing biodiversity levels, soil quality, and not to mention that old foe, climate change.

          Areas that currently act as breadbaskets (e.g. the USA, which produces about 40% of the worlds maize) are suffering from increasing levels of desertification, which in turn decreases agriculture yield = less food. All problems that would be exacerbated if you imagine another 3 billion people.

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