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 we’re 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.
OK. I'll give you that one.
Tokyo always intimidated me, even though I grew up just south of NYC. I like the area around Hiroshima, especially Miyajima. Those dog-sized deer are just too irresistable. I spent so much on deer food I almost didn't have enough left for oyster donburi.
I did my part - I left nyc! :-)
I am guessing he votes democrat.
I'd guess that, too. But I thought dems were in favor of open borders and, in case they hadn't noticed, the largely hispanic population coming through the open border are fairly fertile.
OH. My bad. I am talking like the dems make sense. never mind.
That was my first thought as well. Plus, what are we supposed to do - count to 188,888,888 and every one after that commit suicide?
I would have said, hate-filled, left-wing extremists were destroying the cities.
It's not like immigrants started showing up here last week.
Comparison
Japan
Total Area : 377,835 sq km
Population : 127,463,611
US
Total Area : 9,826,630 sq km
Population : 298,444,215
In absolute figures US looks a long way from over populated...Density of population does not necessarily mean deterioration in life style ...
> In absolute figures US looks a long way from over
> populated...
That's only if you don't consider Japan overcrowded.
I don't think many Americans would be happy with either the physical or cultural restrictions the Japanese tolerate in order to put that many people into that small a space.
They are. At least many of them are especially in the north and north east.
Let me guess. You are kind of young aren't you?
Otherwise you would remember the days when the projected population was going to be a half billion by 2000.
Projected equals poppycock.
No it isn't. It's a direct function of economic growth.
True but democrats love and need VICTIMS..
The odds of that changeing under democrat political control is very remote..
Everyone keeps talking about overpopulation...
What about the fact that 77 million baby boomers are gonna retire in in the next 20 years? Who is gonna pay their social security and medicare ?? Do you want to make this country full of sick old people and no one to look after them ?
The only solution is to increase population. Through immigration or otherwise..The life style is gonna deteriorate anyway...at least people would be looked after....
If you read the article carefully and checked the references you would know where the 12 acres came from. Incidentally the author used 10 acres to calculate the 70 mil overpopulation. If you don’t think many of our large cities are overpopulated, I doubt that you’ve been to one lately.
“Can you think of any problem, in any area of human endeavor, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
Words of wisdom from Albert A. Bartlett an emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Can't keep the trends of disaster straight any more.
The biggest threat to large U.S. cities is liberal RAT city politicans!
Newspapers have become overpopulated, so to speak, with warnings about human overpopulation. Such warnings have been issued regularly for decades - even centuries - with consistently incorrect predictions. On the first Earth Day, Paul Ehrlich's 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb, was widely quoted. He predicted that by 1985, the "population explosion" would lead to world famine, the death of the oceans, a reduction in life expectancy to 42 years, and the wasting of the Midwest into a vast desert. He was about as accurate as Malthus himself, the Englishman who, in 1798, predicted catastrophic food shortages that never came.
The population doomsayers usually offer the solution of global government - BIG government - to determine, in Gaylord Nelson's words, "the optimum number of people." Ironically, where there is famine, the problem usually is not an excess of people but an excess of government, which leads to gross misallocation and misuse of resources as corrupt bureaucrats or dictators seek power more than the welfare their subjects.
http://www.jefflindsay.com/Overpop.shtml
Is it really a lot better in Las Vegas? I'm not being sarcastic, just curious -- I mean with all the recent growth, illegals and all. My husband and I are thinking about relocating somewhere warm, but don't have a clue as to where yet.
I did my part - I left nyc! :-)
Come home. Nobody remembers that thing at the place with that guy you were involved in.
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