Twelve unsustainable things

[drumbeat]

To say the least, there are a few of them besides world population ....

All pretty much driven by it though.

 

[Trippy]

IOW even if penicillin has done a wonderful job int he past, the future doesn't look too rosy.

This is largely down to Human stupidity - if people took their full courses rather than deciding 'I'm right' and flushing the rest, there wouldn't be a problem, or there'd be less of one.

Even resistant bacteria have some susceptability (it's in the maths and the chemistry). The trick is to kill them while the dieoff rate is capable of exceeding reproduction rate, this can't happen once the bacterial counts reach a certain critical level.

 

[Trippy]

This is me wearing my moderator hat.

I've had a breif perusal of the link in the OP, and find it lacking credibility - even if for no reason other than it provides no external sources to support it's view, all it's references are articles from the same website.

As has already been pointed out, as of 1980, the rate of change of the increase had a sign change - in other words, the rate at which the worlds population is increasing, is itself decreasing. Given that most of the points hinge around unsustainable population growth, they're moot (more or less).

However i'm going to give lightgigantic to provide some additional sources to support his claims - I'm all for discussion of these things. If he can't then I will move this thread to either pseudoscience for further discussion, or the cesspool.

 

[Me-Ki-Gal]

I know it's not likely to ever happen as a global effort, but it should.
How else do we bring down the population from 7 billion to, say, 500 million?

Kill them with fire . Were did you get that figure 500 million ? That is a pretty
drastic cut in population .

 

[chimpkin]

Even resistant bacteria have some susceptability (it's in the maths and the chemistry). The trick is to kill them while the dieoff rate is capable of exceeding reproduction rate, this can't happen once the bacterial counts reach a certain critical level.

Once they form a critical mass, they form a biofilm...which is a colony that's about a thousand times more resistant. They can communicate with each other, which means the antibiotic kills the outside cells...but by the time it's gotten all the way in, the innermost cells have learned from the dying cells how to beat the antibiotics...

I'm having trouble finding a good link, and I have to go to bed...but as I have a nine-year old sinus infection that has come back from two surgeries and all antibiotics thrown at it...you can see why I'd be interested in finding out about resistant infections.

Xylitol is one of the things that breaks up biofilms(destroys their ability to communicate and stick together, I believe)-and has been used to treat nonhealing wounds in diabetics....I irrigate my sinuses with a rinse that contains some of that mixed in.
(I think I need more tissue out though-my nose still swells shut.)

Apparently, though, D-amino acids , two of them, I forget which ones, break up biofilms like nobody's business-at least in the lab. Too bad I can't find a supplier, and the L-forms promote bacterial growth...

 

[leopold]

Twelve unsustainable things that will soon come to a disastrous end on our planet

(more details on the link but in short ...)

1) Debt-based banking and economic systems
2) Conventional agriculture and "rape the planet" farming
3) Mass-consumption economies based on buy-it-and-trash-it behavior
4) The accelerating loss of farming soils
5) The mass poisoning of the oceans and aggressive over-fishing
6) Mass genetic pollution of the planet through GMOs
7) The drugs-and-surgery conventional medical system
8) Widespread pharmaceutical contamination of the human population and the environment
9) Runaway human population growth
10) Fossil water consumption for agriculture
11) Fossil fuel consumption
12) The widespread destruction of animal habitat

Whats the call folks?
New technology or new behavior to save the day?

solve number nine and the rest will solve themselves

 

[greenboy]

I disagreed, you control the population and we are doom. Lack of genetic diversity in a biological population is the first step for sterility of whatever biological population.

 

[Enmos]

I disagreed, you control the population and we are doom. Lack of genetic diversity in a biological population is the first step for sterility of whatever biological population.

A couple of thousand people is enough to maintain genetic diversty.

 

[Enmos]

Kill them with fire . Were did you get that figure 500 million ?

It just seems like nice number.
It would mean that the population of the US would become just over 22 million, which would correspond to the population as it was in the 1840's (for the world population that would be the population as it was between 1500 and 1600).

That is a pretty drastic cut in population .

I would turn that around and say that we have seen a pretty drastic increase in population.

 

[leopold]

I disagreed, you control the population and we are doom. Lack of genetic diversity in a biological population is the first step for sterility of whatever biological population.

i never said anything about decreasing genetic diversity.
there are definitely ways of "controlling" population growth without decreasing diversity.

how many people, in your opinion, would be needed to maintain diversity?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Lack of genetic diversity in a biological population is the first step for sterility of whatever biological population.

Homo sapiens already has very low genetic diversity. We went through two very recent genetic bottlenecks. We're all descendants of a single woman we call Mitochondrial Eve, who lived 150-200,000 years ago, and a single man we call Y-Chromosome Adam, who lived a mere 75,000 years ago. The mutation rate is just not high enough to have created very much diversity in our DNA in such a short time.

 

[madanthonywayne]

I know it's not likely to ever happen as a global effort, but it should.
How else do we bring down the population from 7 billion to, say, 500 million?

Why would we even want to? I mean, did you just pull that number out of your ass? The US alone has over 300 million and there's plenty of room for more people here. 500 million? The entire planet? Tbat's absurd.

 

[leopold]

area, world, sq. km = 510,072,000
world pop. = 6,706,993,000

- cia factbook, 2008

 

[chimpkin]

The US alone has over 300 million and there's plenty of room for more people here.

Uck. I disagree.

There are far too many people here, because there's no place where people are NOT.

And I find that a place where other people aren't... is a very important thing.

 

[Me-Ki-Gal]

Homo sapiens already has very low genetic diversity. We went through two very recent genetic bottlenecks. We're all descendants of a single woman we call Mitochondrial Eve, who lived 150-200,000 years ago, and a single man we call Y-Chromosome Adam, who lived a mere 75,000 years ago. The mutation rate is just not high enough to have created very much diversity in our DNA in such a short time.

This tells Me the ancients were smarter than modern people typically think they were. Ancient Humans have been basically the same for 75,000 years and our feminine side for how long again ? Is that you Lucy ? I Love Lucy!!!

 

[Me-Ki-Gal]

Uck. I disagree.

There are far too many people here, because there's no place where people are NOT.

And I find that a place where other people aren't... is a very important thing.

Yes there is. You need to to come to Montana and hike up Morel Falls and see the Grizzles. You can see some wilderness. Or Hike to the top of Greathouse peak by Judith Gap and look out across the Great Plains towards the east . I swear you can see for hundreds of miles. Maybe more . Probably way more . You can see where the earth curves and the vastness of open space will blow your figgen mind Chimkin. The earth looks crowded because every bodies all bunched up in these artificial worlds of metal and concrete stackem and packem style . Now I know there is some urban sprawl going on , but way more people are in city centers . Hell look at the population sign as you enter a city, even a dyslexic guy like me can see it is true

 

[Read-Only]

Uck. I disagree.

There are far too many people here, because there's no place where people are NOT.

Really? Then I've got several square miles of swampland in Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, North & South Dakota and about 7 others that I'd like to sell you. And that's not even considering the WIDE swaths of farmland in Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana and about two or three more.

Don't get out and around much, do you?

 

[Me-Ki-Gal]

It just seems like nice number.
It would mean that the population of the US would become just over 22 million, which would correspond to the population as it was in the 1840's (for the world population that would be the population as it was between 1500 and 1600).


I would turn that around and say that we have seen a pretty drastic increase in population.

Well lets just see how well the world does with about 2/3 less people first . Catastrophic collapse is in our near future and if you live for about 20 more years you will get to be a witness Cat person . So that will be about 6 billion people gone give or take a few more . Let Me check my watch . Oh look it has already started . We are out of the starting gate . Look Baby Boomers retiring . Go Baby Go! Go Baby Go !

 

[chimpkin]

Yes there is. You need to to come to Montana and hike up Morel Falls and see the Grizzles. You can see some wilderness. Or Hike to the top of Greathouse peak by Judith Gap and look out across the Great Plains towards the east . I swear you can see for hundreds of miles. Maybe more

Really? Then I've got several square miles of swampland in Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, North & South Dakota and about 7 others that I'd like to sell you.

Can you hear people? can you come across trash? can you see power lines? can you hear freeways? can you see jets overhead? Four-wheeler tracks? the smell of combusted petroleum?
Can you let wolves come back without someone trying to get them shot?

I seriously doubt it.

I want there to be large swathes of places that just don't exist for our convenience, but exist for their very own sake, and in the lower 48, there are very few places that are so.

But no, I don't make enough money to take vacations. I used to be able to get that vacation pay on a check, now I just lose it...it's not full pay-they only do minimum wage.
But I can't afford to go anywhere, so I might as well work.:shrug:

Wow, why do I suddenly feel like my life is a sea of broken things and dirt? Maybe I've been diving too many dumpsters lately.

 

[leopold]

http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks/worldclock/