Ted Talks: Everest Swim

[Ken Meeks]

This video addresses two major issues facing our planet:1) climate change which will create potable water shortages; and 2) overpopulation. Lewis Pugh then successfully provides the direction from which to approach the delicate issue of over-population; the solution being a change in our mind set.
The exponential growth of human population is the ground zero issue that must be addressed for the future habitabilty of this planet.
Human reproduction and the value we place on human life is a delicate issue and carries with it the associated hot topics of abortion, contraception, euthanasia, etc...
However, without a drastic shift in our perspective regarding these issues humans will destroy that which sustains us.
Because ranting without solutions accomplishes nothing, I offer the following two-part suggestion:
1) Incentives Matter: This is a philosophic approach based on economics.
A) Developed countries: Provide people with incentives not to have large families.i.e. tax breaks.
B) Un-developed countries: governments must allow people opportunities to better themselves. Oppression creates hopelessness. Opportunity leads to self empowerment, which leads to responsible decision making.

2) Religion: Religious ideology must change.

[Joseph Bronson]

This will no doubt be a very hot topic for the unforeseeable future. But it is a discussion that we must have if we are going to have a future. I highly recommend that everyone that reads this discussion start looking into how to live more sustainability. Start looking at what you are doing to consume the resources that we have on this planet. The planet is limited in size and only has so much that we can pull from it. Start thinking global and acting local.

[Ken Meeks]

....to follow up..Lewis Pugh speaks of the ability of the human mind to accomplish seemingly impossible goals. He then appeals to us to apply this mental strength to alter our current living/lifestyle practices.i.e. the necessity for us to start living with a sustainable lifestyle perspective....times have changed and so must the way we live.

The question I pose is whether the collective human mind will be able to change its perspective about procreation. Will we be able to exercise sufficient mental discipline to breed sustainably? If not, the book of revelations may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.............or in the alternative, Monsanto will start making soylent green and we will never go hungry.

[Joseph Bronson]

Ken, education is the key. The Japanese over populated end deforested their country many hundreds of years ago. (This is new info. that I just came across). And through education and ideology change they were able to stabilize population growth. I will try to find the information that I was looking at on this for you. This problem has been solved before we just have to find the right models and work at implementing them.

Ken Meeks said:

....to follow up..Lewis Pugh speaks of the ability of the human mind to accomplish seemingly impossible goals. He then appeals to us to apply this mental strength to alter our current living/lifestyle practices.i.e. the necessity for us to start living with a sustainable lifestyle perspective....times have changed and so must the way we live.

The question I pose is whether the collective human mind will be able to change its perspective about procreation. Will we be able to exercise sufficient mental discipline to breed sustainably? If not, the book of revelations may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.............or in the alternative, Monsanto will start making soylent green and we will never go hungry.

[Cathe Frederic]

There are six billion people on the earth, give or take a few hundred million. The landmass of Australia is roughly 2.97 million square miles, which is about 1.900.800.000 (one billion nine hundred million eight hundred thousand) acres. If we divide that into 1/4 acre blocks, we get 7.603.200.000 (seven billion six hundred three million two hundred thousand) of those. So every man, woman and child on the planet could hypothetically own a quarter acre block of Australia, and there would still be around 1.603.200.000 (one billion six hundred three million two hundred thousand) quarter acre blocks left, roughly half the size of Queensland and of course the entire rest of the world.

The world is not over populated at all, it is just very badly managed and you need to have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that this bad management is intentional and methodical. It would however be very simple to fix things and all that is required is for people to wake up to how they are being lied to and how much they are being scammed. And this goes for everyone, people need to gain an understanding of how this system actually works because this bad management is crippling the world ...........................

[Ken Meeks]

Cathe:
First, thank you for responding to this thread. I completely agree with you that there is sufficient land mass to contain many more billions of humans. Your reply made me stop and think that perhaps unchecked human reproduction may not be the pinnacle issue. However, if the human race continues to grow exponentially, then sustainable habitation will be the key issue. The book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond examines multiple civilizations that collapsed due to natural resource depletion. My concern is that this will happen on a global level. There are three solutions:
1) humans slow down their reproductive rate so that they can continue to consume in the same wasteful manner; or
2) humans radically change the way way they consume so that they can sustain their expontential population growth; or
3) humans curb their population growth and adopt a sustainable use of resources.

Mr. Bronson pointed out to me that Japan accomplished solution #3 at one point in their history. They adopted the "just enough" philosophy. The question is whether the human collective can do the same thing.

This question provides a segue into the topic of the our profit driven mentality versus a sustainability driven mentality. How to curb greed on a global scale......or how to make greed work toward sustainability.....what incentives can be offered to make sustainability more lucrative than short term economic gain......But that is for another day.

Cathe Frederic said:

There are six billion people on the earth, give or take a few hundred million. The landmass of Australia is roughly 2.97 million square miles, which is about 1.900.800.000 (one billion nine hundred million eight hundred thousand) acres. If we divide that into 1/4 acre blocks, we get 7.603.200.000 (seven billion six hundred three million two hundred thousand) of those. So every man, woman and child on the planet could hypothetically own a quarter acre block of Australia, and there would still be around 1.603.200.000 (one billion six hundred three million two hundred thousand) quarter acre blocks left, roughly half the size of Queensland and of course the entire rest of the world.

The world is not over populated at all, it is just very badly managed and you need to have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that this bad management is intentional and methodical. It would however be very simple to fix things and all that is required is for people to wake up to how they are being lied to and how much they are being scammed. And this goes for everyone, people need to gain an understanding of how this system actually works because this bad management is crippling the world ...........................