People are living older

[Suuper]

Wait, the world is overpopulated?
I don't think so.

Care to explain why? I mean, we aren't running out of land or food or anything.

[Azula]

Wait, the world is overpopulated?
I don't think so.

Care to explain why? I mean, we aren't running out of land or food or anything.

There are 7 billion people on this earth; rain forests and other natural resources are shrinking because of the demand for food and other things.




how do you not know this.

[doubleth!nk]

Hunger Games.

Bum fights.

Dem two word awnsers r best

There are 7 billion people on this earth; rain forests and other natural resources are shrinking because of the demand for food and other things.




how do you not know this.

He lives in Antarctica.

Wait.

Let's ship people to Antarctica and let them freeze. History for future generations...

Nah, you know we're just gonna let the planet die. There's no way we can change this without becoming cannibals.

[Suuper]

There are 7 billion people on this earth; rain forests and other natural resources are shrinking because of the demand for food and other things.




how do you not know this.

I've heard about that, but....
1) Guess this isn't reason until I have the answer to this question: How is less rain forests going to be very bad?
2) What resources are shrinking? We have alternatives to energy if you're referring to that. By the time it does run out, we won't need it!

Also, there is lots of uninhabited land we could use...

but I'm kind of ignorant on this stuff, so....

[J3NNiF3R]

slaughter

[J3NNiF3R]

Omg I just of a good idea
Take all the little kids and the kids with the healthiest and smartest (whatever trait you're looking for) families stays
The rest of them can hang out on Jupiter /see what I did there

[Spychato]

Let's kill people

OR

Don't have any babies for some time.

[~Bowl]

lets turn all the people into bowls
OR
all the people of jv build a spaceship and go to mars and make it jv planet ok?

[Rammjet]

More contraception and concentration on social development, especially in lesser developed nations. Some developed nations have birth rates less than their death rates, such as Germany, so if more countries develop to that point there problem will diminish.

also, very low birthrates are even worse than an expanding populaiton, because the younger generation is too small to face the challenges such as doctoring for the entire population.

I've heard about that, but....
1) Guess this isn't reason until I have the answer to this question: How is less rain forests going to be very bad?
2) What resources are shrinking? We have alternatives to energy if you're referring to that. By the time it does run out, we won't need it!

Also, there is lots of uninhabited land we could use...

but I'm kind of ignorant on this stuff, so....

Less forest and natural ecosystems is bad for a variety of reasons such as.
-They're effectively big carbon sinks, buffering against climate change and pollution
-The natural ecosystems of the planet are responsible for the world's biological survival as a whole
-Other species do matter besides humanity

What resources are shrinking?
-Oil and fossil fuels are running out, they're used for far more than energy and much current technology is specifically adapted to them. Lots of medicines are oil based too.
-Arable land is running out due to desertification and soil degradation
-Clean water supplies are running out as water cycles are disrupted by human activity
-Ecological resources, such as diverse habitats which are chemical treasure troves for medicine.
-Rare earth element resources have run out in some countries, leading to monopolies.
-Fisheries are becoming increasingly depleted.



The effect of humans on the world's forests in only a few thousand years.

[Harbinger]

More contraception and concentration on social development, especially in lesser developed nations. Some developed nations have birth rates less than their death rates, such as Germany, so if more countries develop to that point there problem will diminish.

also, very low birthrates are even worse than an expanding populaiton, because the younger generation is too small to face the challenges such as doctoring for the entire population.



Less forest and natural ecosystems is bad for a variety of reasons such as.
-They're effectively big carbon sinks, buffering against climate change and pollution
-The natural ecosystems of the planet are responsible for the world's biological survival as a whole
-Other species do matter besides humanity

What resources are shrinking?
-Oil and fossil fuels are running out, they're used for far more than energy and much current technology is specifically adapted to them. Lots of medicines are oil based too.
-Arable land is running out due to desertification and soil degradation
-Clean water supplies are running out as water cycles are disrupted by human activity
-Ecological resources, such as diverse habitats which are chemical treasure troves for medicine.
-Rare earth element resources have run out in some countries, leading to monopolies.
-Fisheries are becoming increasingly depleted.



The effect of humans on the world's forests in only a few thousand years.

Stuff like that really makes me scared of everything... What if I'm gonna die? How can we change it? And most importantly, WHY ISN"T ANYONE CHANGING IT?! WHY AREN'T LIKE, THE GOVERNMENTS (I dunno who's responsible for this) DOING ANYTHING?!

[Nikolaj]

In the future, there will probably be a law that states how long you're allowed to live.

Think about it - you need to die for the human civilization to move on. Society depends on the fact that every single person is erased and replaced. First of all, it's because if all of us lived for too long, there world will be even more crudely populated. Society also struggles to pay for the care of elderly people - imagine if an even bigger percentage of the population would be retired people. It's not going to happen - and on top of that, society needs a re-invention. Countries can't afford to struggle under such conservatism that only one generation upholds for so long - there has to be a constant stream of new thinkers and ideas for communities to move on.

That, or I heard a conspiracy theory that claims that UNESCO is trying to turn a vast majority of the world gay - a pretty rad idea, actually.

[Rammjet]

Stuff like that really makes me scared of everything... What if I'm gonna die? How can we change it? And most importantly, WHY ISN"T ANYONE CHANGING IT?! WHY AREN'T LIKE, THE GOVERNMENTS (I dunno who's responsible for this) DOING ANYTHING?!

Many governments are scared of changing their technology and way of life because they might be disadvantaged in comparrison to other countries which continue their business as usual. Eventually everyone will be disadvantaged, however.

Scientific groups are pressuring governments as well as trying to invent new technologies to help prevent this. Many countries have already been persuaded to keep a certain percentage of their forest cover for example.
However your average citizen can do a lot to help, for example I'm vegetarian, which reduces my eco footprint by about a third. Everyone doing stuff like that would be helpful, eventhough it won't solve the problem on its own.

In the future, there will probably be a law that states how long you're allowed to live.

Think about it - you need to die for the human civilization to move on. Society depends on the fact that every single person is erased and replaced. First of all, it's because if all of us lived for too long, there world will be even more crudely populated. Society also struggles to pay for the care of elderly people - imagine if an even bigger percentage of the population would be retired people. It's not going to happen - and on top of that, society needs a re-invention. Countries can't afford to struggle under such conservatism that only one generation upholds for so long - there has to be a constant stream of new thinkers and ideas for communities to move on.

That, or I heard a conspiracy theory that claims that UNESCO is trying to turn a vast majority of the world gay - a pretty rad idea, actually.

Lol @ turning half the world gay, because that wouldn't even help- if the majority of people didn't reproduce there'd just be a population crash instead, which would be bad.

I don't think the future will have laws like that, because people die quite reliably on their own, and in a future where we perhaps invent immortality, think of the additional progress made by genius minds who could develop their fields of science for millenia.

[Harbinger]

Many governments are scared of changing their technology and way of life because they might be disadvantaged in comparrison to other countries which continue their business as usual. Eventually everyone will be disadvantaged, however.

Scientific groups are pressuring governments as well as trying to invent new technologies to help prevent this. Many countries have already been persuaded to keep a certain percentage of their forest cover for example.
However your average citizen can do a lot to help, for example I'm vegetarian, which reduces my eco footprint by about a third. Everyone doing stuff like that would be helpful, eventhough it won't solve the problem on its own.

I'm really digging your professional look.

[Suuper]

also, very low birthrates are even worse than an expanding populaiton, because the younger generation is too small to face the challenges such as doctoring for the entire population.

I've heard that lowering populations, or even non-changing populations, is bad for the economy. True?

Less forest and natural ecosystems is bad for a variety of reasons such as.
-They're effectively big carbon sinks, buffering against climate change and pollution
-The natural ecosystems of the planet are responsible for the world's biological survival as a whole
-Other species do matter besides humanity

What resources are shrinking?
-Oil and fossil fuels are running out, they're used for far more than energy and much current technology is specifically adapted to them. Lots of medicines are oil based too.
-Arable land is running out due to desertification and soil degradation
-Clean water supplies are running out as water cycles are disrupted by human activity
-Ecological resources, such as diverse habitats which are chemical treasure troves for medicine.
-Rare earth element resources have run out in some countries, leading to monopolies.
-Fisheries are becoming increasingly depleted.

Hmm....I guess this stuff can get pretty complicated.
Can we not use other things besides oil and fossil fuels for stuff? (I know we certainly could cut down a lot.) Or somehow produce oil?
Can we do anything to make all this land arable, or is this a permanent unavoidable problem?
We can make water clean.
I heard rare earth elements weren't rare at all.....
Farm fish?

Idk, obviously some things should be done, but I doubt it's something most people need to worry much about.

I've often wondered about how a "replicator" (could make any material from energy, and probably also turn any material into energy) would affect the world....Think it might solve most of these problems? (Even if it does, though, it will bring up problems of it's own.)

[Rammjet]

Small changes in population can be good or bad for an economy, really situational I think.

Can we use other resources besides oil? Yes but they're not all easily accessible or favourable to use. For example a common biofuel, palm oil, [used instead of diesel] is actually more harmful to the environment than extracting oil, because the plantations demand forests are town down in indonesia, which additionally releases trapped carbon in peat.

Can you synthesise oil? Theoretically any hydrocarbon can be synthesised from the carbon and hydrogen from any source and hydrocarbons or oxidised alternatives are used from sustainable sources like pastoral animal's manure or alcohol from sugar plantations. [both these land uses have to compete with arable land]

There are some good alternatives for energy, like nuclear, but they suffer public image problems at the moment.
You can keep arable land arable by carefully managing crop rotations and fertiliser [too much fertiliser is also bad], nature would normally regulate the nutrient cycles in land but human irrigation can seriously mess this up so you have to do a lot yourself instead. Barrier trees prevent desertificaiton too, but overall removing forest cover for more arable land will lead to more eutrophication and desert.

Rare earth elements aren't that rare but they're often inaccessible or distributed in politically unstable countries.
Farm fish are actually worse than caught fish in some scenarios, it's more environmentally friendly to buy wild anchovies than it is to buy farmed salmon [which is fed on wild anchovy]


Funny you should mention 'replicator', because particle accelerators and colliders- which turn energy into mass, are one possible way to make some nuclear decay products safe, so that's one way to streamline nuclear reactors and make them more favourable for countries to use.


There's no easy answer unfortunately.

[AreUTalking2Meh]

spend more money on space exploration and get dem colonies on Mars pronto

According to a documentary I watched like a year ago it would be possible to have life on Mars within 300 years (trees and shit). So that shouldn't be too hard.

[Rammjet]

According to a documentary I watched like a year ago it would be possible to have life on Mars within 300 years (trees and shit). So that shouldn't be too hard.

I'm very suspicious of that.

[Lightnin!!!]

Britain was essentially just forest.. And then what happened?
I doubt people thousands of years ago could've done it, are you saying a lot of forest was felled in a short space of time around the 1700's-1800's or something like that?

[Rammjet]

Britain was essentially just forest.. And then what happened?
I doubt people thousands of years ago could've done it, are you saying a lot of forest was felled in a short space of time around the 1700's-1800's or something like that?

Waves of invasion from continental europeans saw subsequent deforestations, and then several wars demanded ship building, an expanding population demanded more arable land etc

A large amount of forest remained in the north of the UK for a while until the highland clearances, when lots of timber was felled [it was mostly scots pine forests] and replaced with grazing land for sheep.

Now only 2% of the UK's original forest is left and the other 10% of the land which is covered in forest is plantations of foreign trees for timber products [so our wildlife isn't as well adapted to living in those ecosystems].

So many species have been lost from the ecosystems that the 2% which is left is disfunctional and unhealthy.

[J3NNiF3R]

More contraception and concentration on social development, especially in lesser developed nations. Some developed nations have birth rates less than their death rates, such as Germany, so if more countries develop to that point there problem will diminish.

also, very low birthrates are even worse than an expanding populaiton, because the younger generation is too small to face the challenges such as doctoring for the entire population.



Less forest and natural ecosystems is bad for a variety of reasons such as.
-They're effectively big carbon sinks, buffering against climate change and pollution
-The natural ecosystems of the planet are responsible for the world's biological survival as a whole
-Other species do matter besides humanity

What resources are shrinking?
-Oil and fossil fuels are running out, they're used for far more than energy and much current technology is specifically adapted to them. Lots of medicines are oil based too.
-Arable land is running out due to desertification and soil degradation
-Clean water supplies are running out as water cycles are disrupted by human activity
-Ecological resources, such as diverse habitats which are chemical treasure troves for medicine.
-Rare earth element resources have run out in some countries, leading to monopolies.
-Fisheries are becoming increasingly depleted.



The effect of humans on the world's forests in only a few thousand years.

onceler
need i say more