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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 26 2015, @02:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the On-a-Pale-Horse-vs-Being-a-Green-Mother dept.

The world population is growing because the birth rate exceeds the death rate, so to stabilize the world population either the birth rate needs to drop, or the death rate needs to increase. The most cited reference for population studies is the projections of future population (PDF) made by the Population Division of the United Nations. The UN report projects the world population to eventually stabilize as a result of countries settling in to a birth rate that falls around the replacement level.

A commentary by Stephen Warren in the open access journal Earth's Future takes the UN report to task for focusing on birth rate. He notes that all species generate offspring in numbers well above the replacement level of two, but you don't see historically the kind of population growth like you do with humans. He argues that despite all the negative feedback mechanisms on population (such as war and pestilence), it seems that Malthus (PDF) was correct that food supply is the driving factor, and wonders whether it is even possible to stabilize the world population until food production levels off.


[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday May 26 2015, @08:33PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday May 26 2015, @08:33PM (#188258)

    The problem isn't that there isn't enough food - IIRC current global food production is 4-8x greater than necessary to adequately feed the global population. The problem is that there's no *profitable* way to get that food into the hands of the poorest quarter or so of the world's population.

    I.e., we don't have a food problem, we have an economics problem.

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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:29PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:29PM (#188328) Homepage
    Ah, yes, thanks for the *emphasis*, perhaps with appropriately-portioned money, the problem can be solved by logistics? But logistics requires fule, and fuel's one of those things that we're also having the occasional flap about. And I get the feeling that it would quickly lead to us exploiting them and taking all their money back off them, as we do that kind of thing, historically.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves