BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 01:04 PM

The chimp often pops in to deflect serious discussion....maybe it's spoiled bananas. Or, perhaps some topics are just to uncomfortable to look at directly for many. 'Humor' is often a way of easing some ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: BTNG
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 12:56 PM

Hmmmm...here we go....

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 12:40 PM

No...it just seems that way!

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 12:36 PM

At risk of having my motives misunderstood, I was wondering if the fecal output from politicians and news reporters is higher per capita than from the rest of the population.

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 12:35 PM

No shit?

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 12:27 PM

Yes...and one link inside that article is this:

http://populationmatters.org/2011/blog/population-crash-kill-economy-good-news-planet/ ... which provides some details to my mention of the economy. One issue IS that as we live longer and birth rate declines in 1st world countries, there are not enough young to care for... or pay into Social Security and other support for the elderly.. (and *I* am 72!) Even in 3rd world areas, many children were always the rule to do the necessary work.

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: BTNG
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 12:18 PM

Tom Chivers article in today`s Telegraph is one source of information just as the link I posted above, to CBC Canada is another source
here's another one

World's population soon to hit 7 billion

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 12:01 PM

".. that all the predictions of doomsday and catastrophe by eminent researchers, dating back to the middle 1800`s and up to very recently have proven to be off the mark."

The predictions have been the result of inadequate information and bad math...not of basic flawed theory.
My father used to ask us boys: "If you were carrying all the feathers you could carry, could you carry one more?" We were confused how to answer...just as the world is now unsure how to answer whether "If the world can support 7 billion, can it support 8? or 10? or 49?

We boys knew we could not carry 4 tons of feathers...or even 300 lbs, but I have gradually learned that it was the way the question was phrased that was confusing.

The earth will not support 467 Billion.... and a little study will show that it is not really 'supporting' 7 billion now.

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 11:55 AM

I watched a short TV article on Zambia, where women have many babies and the population is soaring. An educated Health Worker stated (and I agree) that the answer is to empower women in developing countries, enabling them to make their own decisions about contraception. At the moment, women are mainly under the thrall of their menfolk, who won't permit contraception. If women decided the size of their families, I'd imagine they'd opt for fewer children.
By the way, my husband has thirteen siblings, his father has three wives and there are over 60 people in his family courtyard using the ONE 'toilet' I described above. If there had only been one wife and, say, two children, the amount of excrement etc would have been very much reduced!

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 11:48 AM

To keep things in proportion it is worth considering the article by Tom Chivers in today`s "The Daily Telegraph" on the above subject. It would appear that all the predictions of doomsday and catastrophe by eminent researchers, dating back to the middle 1800`s and up to very recently have proven to be off the mark. It is suggested that man`s ingenuity and technology has increased the food supply for all at a far greater rate than the rising population. Maybe our job is to ensure better distribution. It cannot be that difficult when soft fruits from South America can be in British supermarkets in no time at all.

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 11:47 AM

It will be a major one to watch...indeed.

A major problem with ANY attempt to limit growth is that 'most' business models are built on growth. Any serious restrictions on reproduction would have very awkward consequences in the financial sector for a couple generations.

Humans simply do not comprehend a 'steady-state' economy. (Studies of how population is controlled on places like Pitcairn Island are... ummm... interesting)

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: BTNG
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 11:31 AM

World's population soon to hit 7 billion Bill, Listening to the news this morning and heard that India will be the country to watch in the near future as far as population growth is concerned

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 11:27 AM

BTW...watched a program on BBC America just last night on the problem of fresh water. They focused on Jordan, whose population has doubled (for various reasons) in the last decade, making water so precious that small farmers are buying it--trucked in-- just to keep chickens & rabbits.

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: BTNG
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 11:25 AM

Bill D just opened the Mudcat worm can....

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 11:17 AM

Excessive population WILL be controlled...........by us, in a reasonable way, or by natural forces in an unpleasant way.

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 10:55 AM

I `ad that JohnInKansas in my cab the other day looking quite pleased with `imself.
`e said, "Good morning Jim. Take me to the usual please."
I said, "Rightaway John. You`re looking `appy as Larry today."
`e said, "I just started a new thread on that Mudcat entitled "World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week". I reckon it might go on a while."
I said, "Blimey!. Seven billion? Thats` a lot of POOP!!"

Whaddam I Like??

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: BTNG
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 10:35 AM

Heard/saw this on the morning news this morning...soooooooo...

Whenever life get you down, Mudcatters
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough.......

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour
That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way

Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars
It's 100,000 light-years side-to-side
It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light-years thick
But out by us it's just 3000 light-years wide
We're 30,000 light-years from galactic central point
We go round every 200 million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
Because there's bugger all down here on Earth

source - Monty Python's Flying Circus

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 10:18 AM

Unfortunately, few people seem to understand the implacable equations which rule the universe. One of these relates to exponential functions. An exponential function looks sort of linear to start off with but, almost imperceptibly, it starts getting steeper and then, effectively, goes vertical. Such an exponential function describes human population growth. Soon we'll be expanding out from the Solar System at the speed of light (well we won't because massive over-population will kill us all off long before we get to that stage).

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 08:47 AM

I figured that as soon as he read the article, Bobert would be here to tell us he's cornered the market on corncobs and is studying how to recycle them like sody pop bottles to double his money.

I guess he didn't think of it 'cause he's still usin' up that 1946 Sears & Sawbucks catalog. (Prob'ly still studyin' the tractor section.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 05:19 AM

I've seen 'holes in the ground' latrines in W. Africa (and used them!) They don't flush, and the contents stay down in the hole for usually about a month, until the concrete tank is emptied. The stench is beyond description, and of course they harbour cholera, typhus and many other dangerous germs. Most people I met often had diarrhea and those germs too stay in the tank. Rats, cockroaches, even snakes love those latrines, and during the night you risk being bitten if you need the toilet. There's no such thing as toilet paper, you take a little plastic kettle-shaped pot of water in with you, and rinse yourself. If it rains (which in those parts it does, torrentially) the whole latrine is under about six inches of water mixed with the contents of the tank. When the lorry arrives to empty it, using a large vacuum pipe, everyone vacates the area or puts a cloth over their face. No-one is interested in keeping the surrounds of the hole clean, so any faeces or urine which lands there, stays there. My husband used a toilet like this all his life. They just don't have the funds to create a whole sewage system, such as Joseph Bazalgette designed for the London area in the 1860's. People also urinate and defecate in the street. I don't know what the answer could be without a large investment of money. Most Africans are not worried about toilets, they're trying every day to find enough to eat for themselves and their children.

Subject: BS: World Poopulation 7 Billion Next Week?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 04:24 AM

A Serious Problem

The link speaks for itself, so out of modesty I'll not add any commentary.

John