Posted on 03/09/2007 8:38:29 AM PST by westcoastwillieg
Cities at the tipping point - overpopulation destroying major U.S. cities.
Ref: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html
Ref: http://www.carryingcapacity.org/
A common fallacy is to equate existing and seemingly open or "unused" spaces with the kind of resources and ecologically productive land needed to support human life under modern conditions. In fact, the criterion for determining whether a region is overpopulated is not land area, but carrying capacity.
Carrying capacity refers to the number of individuals who can be supported in a given area within natural resource limits, and without degrading the natural social, cultural and economic environment for present and future generations. The carrying capacity for any given area is not fixed. It can be altered by improved technology, but mostly it is changed for the worse by pressures which accompany a population increase. As the environment is degraded, carrying capacity actually shrinks, leaving the environment no longer able to support even the number of people who could formerly have lived in the area on a sustainable basis. No population can live beyond the environment's carrying capacity for very long.
The average American's "ecological footprint" (the demands an individual endowed with average amounts of resources, i.e., land, water, food, fiber, waste assimilation and disposal, etc. puts on the environment) is about 12 acres, an area far greater than that taken up by one's residence and place of school or work.
The CIA World Factbook lists the total land area of the United States (includes the 50 states and District of Columbia) as 9,161,923 sq km---converted to acres, the total land area of the United States is 2,263,911,173 acres. Dividing total area by the 12 acre ecological footprint per person yields a sustainable population of 188,659,264. Even if we lower the ecological footprint to 10 acres per person the calculation will yield a population of 226,391,117 far lower than our current population of 300 million. By this measure, the United States is overpopulated by well over 70 million people.
While some may quibble with the method used, the math is irrefutable. This back of the envelope calculation is one that every American should be aware of. Immigration is largely responsible for our population growth. Immigrants don't travel by covered wagon anymore, the majority congregate in our cities. The demands on our cities are overwhelming. Anyone who lives in a large city can see the results of overpopulation on their roads, schools, hospitals, courts and jails. While many reasons are given for electrical outages and the high price of oil, the root cause (usually not stated) is simply overpopulation. The amount of energy we require is largely a function of population. Just as two people require more water than one person so it is with energy in a modern society.
By the year 2050, census estimates predict that our population will be almost 500,000,000 and by 2075 may reach ONE BILLION. Behind China and India, the U.S. is the third most populous nation in the world and were fast catching up. According to the U.S. Census Bureau our population was 297,821,175 on January 1, 2006 an increase of 2.71 million in only one year. Unless we elect politicians who have the courage to reduce population growth, the future is grim.
IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 21.1 PLANETS.Ok, so maybe I fudged a little on the driving . . .
"but the article is over-exaggerated to the point of absurdity."
I must correct myself. The article isn't over-exaggerating. It is just absurd.
That's the most reasonable answer I've heard.
You're making his point. Who wants to live in China?
"Too many welfare parasites and criminals."
Amen, we have to get those pigs from the trough.
Companies like Grumman, Boeing, Ford, General Motors and their self-indulgent C - level officers and Boards of Directors who make money in the US and take jobs to third world countries.
or, did you mean the welfare state, which uses less than %1 of our annual federal budget?
Japan is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. The area around Tokyo is New York with kanji, but southern Honshu is gorgeous. I'd live there in a heartbeat. (Yes, I know their government has some . . . um . . . "corruption" problems, but my Japanese isn't good enough to read a newspaper, so I'd live in blissful ignorance.)
Too many useless eaters in cities. It's that simple. Too many sucking money out of the taxpayers wallets.
It is no exaggeration to state that in the last 35 years we have added about 100 million people to our population and 20 million over the last seven years.
With the troubles that Western Europe faces due to the last several generations reproducing at well below replacement levels (2.1 children per couple), anyone in America who spouts this "population bomb" propaganda clearly exposes himself as trying to undermine America by reducing our reproduction rate. As it is, we are just barely squeaking by. They want to replace through immigration those with rooting in America with foreign nationals. France and "the French" are disappearing before our very eyes.
Although it is an over-exaggeration to state that our "future is grim" if population growth in this country continues. Where is his proof? There is a reason why Lynch didn't site any real world examples. The numbers Lynch provides are just numbers.
I disagree because
But I agree with you about the Japanese countryside-- beautiful, nice people and some of the most interesting food you will ever eat. During the years I worked in Tokyo, a great stress reliever was to by a "Seishun 18" ticket and ride a train out to the countryside to get up close and personal with the real Japan.
Nah, I've read on FR many times that you just can't have too many babies. I reckon the problem is over-concentration of undesirables in the cities, not overpopulation.
That's easy, take the land area of the US 2,263,911,173 acres. Divide by how many people you think it should support to back up your agenda, say 200 million. That gives you 11.319 acres/person. Then just round it off to 12.
He was honest, said we couldn't argue with the math, just the assumptions.
WHERE WILL THE WATER COME FROM TO SUPPORT THIS GROWING POPULATION?
This is advanced as a objective, rigorous definition of a supposedly scientific term, carrying capacity. Upon closer examination, however, we see that the term is neither exact nor rigorous. The qualifier "and without degrading the natural social, cultural and economic environment for present and future generations" makes the whole thing very subjective indeed. Our friends on the Left would likely have a different idea of what is meant by a a degraded social, cultural, or economic environment.
The carrying capacity for any given area is not fixed. It can be altered by improved technology, but mostly it is changed for the worse by pressures which accompany a population increase. As the environment is degraded, carrying capacity actually shrinks, leaving the environment no longer able to support even the number of people who could formerly have lived in the area on a sustainable basis. No population can live beyond the environment's carrying capacity for very long.
The meaning of the bolded clause is not clear. Is the author saying that population increases usually reduce the carrying capacity? This would not seem to accord with any reasonable definition of "capacity." (Does the capacity of a 1-liter bottle change when a liter of liquid is placed in it?)
Or is the author saying that the carrying capacity of the earth has historically declined as population increases? That does not appear to be true.
You are kidding right ?
I am not against population increases, but the question is how much in what timeframe? Since 1990 we have added almost 53 million people. Much of this comes from immigration, legal and illegal. We have added 20 million people since the 2000 census. Population increase should be a matter of public policy and discussion. The current legal immigration policies need to be reviewed in terms of their impact on US population growth. To ignore or discount increases in our population is to ignore population trends over the past 50 years. We have hard data not Malthusian projections on which to base our estimates.
If a comprehensive immigration bill like the senate bill that passed in 2006 becomes law, we will add around 66 million legal immigrants over the next 20 years. This is in addition to the current rate of population growth.
Here are the census figures since 1950:
1950--151 million Americans
1960--179 million
1970--203 million
1980--227 million
1990--249 million
2000--281 million
Today--301 million
2030 [Projected]--364 million
2050 [Projected]--400 million
Since 1950 [57 years] we have doubled our population, and we will have 400 million in 2050.
In the US, the annual arrival of 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants, coupled with 750,000 annual births to immigrant women, is the determinate factor or three-fourths of all U.S. population growth.
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