World food production will have to increase by up to 100 percent by 2050

Link to Forbes story.

"It also said 925 million people - more than one of every seven in the world - are undernourished and nearly all live in developing countries. Two-thirds are concentrated in seven countries: Bangladesh, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan."

I wish this were not the case. But am I being too simplistic in thinking that if we just had FEWER PEOPLE problems like this would be less pressing?

And whenever I hear about some all new and terrifying potential pandemic, I just think: Good! And not a moment too soon!
But it usually turns out to be just another hoax courtesy of the pharmaceutical industry. For shame...

It's not that we need more food - we just need fewer fucking people, as you said, clematis. The earth's resources are meant to sustain a certain number of people, and we have not only far exceeded that number, but will continue to do so. It's going to reach a point where we will just need to start letting more people starve to death because it seems no one can understand that overbreeding will lead to less food for everyone. Maybe some places will turn to cannibalism as a last resort when no other food sources are available.

It also doesn't help when stupid people in developed countries will send money to feed starving children in Shitcrapistan. Letting a kid who would have otherwise died of starvation live to adulthood means they will likely go on to make a dozen more starving babies. Most of these kids are in countries where women are considered property and will get raped regularly, so feeding these kids also means that you are keeping the girl kids alive to grow up to get raped and also are feeding and keeping alive a bunch of potential rapists too. IMHO, we need to learn to take care of OUR problems (and we have plenty) before we help other people. And helping poor, sick, starving people live long enough to breed MORE poor, sick, starving people is not help at all. I think the best way any of us can help people in third-world countries is to leave them alone completely and let nature take its course.

And trust me, I love when a new disease springs up and wipes out a bunch of people. Sadly, it is often controlled or it disappears before it can claim lives Plague-style. AIDS is still kicking, but I know that can sometimes take years to kill a person.

Cambion, you've given me some food for thought (no pun intended) on this whole 'overseas donation' thing. I haven't been a part of any of those programs, as there's more than enough to do locally... but I had considered participating in one a year ago. Interesting perspective.

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"They will say that you are on the wrong road, if it is your own." ~Antonio Porchia

When my mom went through school (in the '30-s), all she heard about was 'poor, starving Africans'. When I went through the system, I also heard regularly about 'poor, starving Africans. (and perhaps some other countries).

To this day, as I watch younger co workers, and even some older co-workers, I still hear about the 'poor, starving Africans'. One co-worker finally said something editorializing about 'how we ought to help Africa better in feeding their hordes'. She got the lecture. Also, my signature.

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

I agree also with your point, Cambion. Feeding the citizenry of a dysfunctional system only perpetuates the dysfunction. What those people need isn't free food, it's freeDOM. They need the intervention of human rights organizations to teach them how to treat each other and the power to oust the dictators that keep them from taking care of themselves. Otherwise it's just fueling the same broken bullshit into perpetuity.

Contraceptives are a good choice for donations. Right now there are a lot of women having children that they don't want and can't afford. We'd still be facing problems if women were only having as many children as they wanted, but it would be better than it is now. (I still think that reproduction needs to be considered in a broader, less personal perspective than it is now, but there would already be fewer people in the world if all women had reproductive choice.)

I only give to family planning charities. That's it.

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yurble
Contraceptives are a good choice for donations. Right now there are a lot of women having children that they don't want and can't afford. We'd still be facing problems if women were only having as many children as they wanted, but it would be better than it is now. (I still think that reproduction needs to be considered in a broader, less personal perspective than it is now, but there would already be fewer people in the world if all women had reproductive choice.)

I think if women had a real choice, as in all economic and social pressure to breed removed, the birthrate would drop like a stone. Even in developed countries girls are force-fed Moomy propaganda from an early age and most don't question the imperative. (I still don't feel sorry for them when they whine about how being a moomie isn't all hearts and rainbows.)

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nomooingzone
I only give to family planning charities. That's it.

And maybe animal charities too.

I have to wonder what people in the third world are thinking - or not thinking - when they are starving and have all those kids. I think that the men are just walking around with no clothes on, having their schlong stuck out and humping every woman in sight. How else could anyone explain all those kids? Then the women go and have the kids in the street. I have heard that it is so boring over there that the only entertainment is humping around. Ever notice how much garbage is in the background, couldn't the men at least move it aside? Nah, more fun just humpin' around.

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Snark Shark
I guess that's IT... people will have to start eating BABIES to survive!

Yes, among other creative uses

I think donating contraceptives would be cool, but it would depend on people using them and using them right. I have a feeling most of these serial breeders would object to sterilization, so while condoms and pills and such could be donated, odds are no one would use them unless they were forced to. And this doesn't just go for bored Ethiopians - this goes for all the broke-ass fuckers who shit out kids assembly line-style. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink - same goes for these idiots.

Making it known that there is a choice to NOT have kids is a good start. And also offering incentives to not breed, like give the $3000 tax credit to childfree and childless people while taking it away from breeders. Insurance doesn't cover childbirth. Free abortion and birth control services. If not having kids offers more to people than having kids, I think more people would choose to not breed. But this will never happen because our world sucks.

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Cambion
I think donating contraceptives would be cool, but it would depend on people using them and using them right. I have a feeling most of these serial breeders would object to sterilization, so while condoms and pills and such could be donated, odds are no one would use them unless they were forced to. And this doesn't just go for bored Ethiopians - this goes for all the broke-ass fuckers who shit out kids assembly line-style. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink - same goes for these idiots.

The thing with birth control definitely does not go only for Africa. Even in civilized countries sometimes the breeding situation is the same. At least where i am people have a very high standard of living and breeding is encouraged by supporting parents with all kinds of benefits. I know couples which did not even work but they went on having 3-4 kids and they live very comfortable. The more kids you shit, the more money you get. Abortion and birth control are easy accessible but why bother if you get so much support for breeding? And we also have those kind of families who do not believe in birth control and pop out kids like projectiles. Not long ago i was reading about such a family in a newspaper who had 17 kids!!! And judging from the pictures they lived very well. The article was to give them as an outstanding example for society And besides the financial support everything is very kid-centered and family friendly. Wherever you turn your head all you see is FAMILY. Everytime and everywhere i go i see kids and women ready to pop out. Seriously, it is like an epidemic of preggos :headbrick

It's hard for me to view this issue as a developed versus developing countries issue, because the world is so interconnected. Our excessive consumption in developed countries drives climate change, while the struggle for survival in developing countries destroys biodiversity. It's human nature to desire, and there are few who can set that aside, and fewer still who will lie down and die for the good of the ecosystem.

Do I think that food aid to developing countries perpetuates the problem of overpopulation? Yes, I do, but I also find it difficult to condemn people to starvation. In the short run, cutting food aid would be extremely cruel, although it may serve the long-term good. Can we apply the same harsh approach to our own lives? A person who has cancer no doubt wants treatment, and presumably everyone who loves that person feels the same way, but wouldn't it be better not to invest so many resources in keeping this one person alive, especially in an overpopulated world?

Perhaps the answer to the bingo Your child might have cured cancer is "Exactly, so why take the risk?"

Sheer numbers do matter, but it shouldn't be forgotten that those of us in developed countries consume many times what an individual in a developing country consumes. Everyone is part of the problem. (Some less so than others, of course.)

I can accept harsh short-term approaches for long-term benefit, but it's easy to apply them to people over there and much harder to accept them when they apply to us or our loved ones. Of course, what I'd prefer is preventing births over letting people die.

Someone needs to discover a human sterilizing agent which can be placed in food and water supplies around the entire world...

I'll be long gone by then, and I don't give a flying shit what happens to the human race once I'm gone.

I say drop contraceptives into their water supply.

That would solve the problem. We can dream, can't we?

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lab mom

We're the problem, not the poor people in India or Africa who manage to survive on a fraction of what one American uses in resources. 10 or 15 kids in India could survive on the water and food one person in the USA consumes every day. I agree that contraceptives and women's empowerment are needed globally to bring down the birth rates, as has been demonstrated by countless studies—the more education and opportunities women have, the fewer children they will bear.

Global population pressure is making all of our other environmental problems so much worse—I think we'll see massive die-off or collapse by 2050, if not sooner. Our Arctic will be free of sea ice by 2030, sparking feedback loops that will further warm the earth, and once the Siberian permafrost melts, releasing tons of methane, we'll be toast.

So enjoy it while you can, breeders! I'll probably be eating cyanide when I'm 55, just to avoid living through Cormac McCarthy's "The Road."

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essuredly
We're the problem, not the poor people in India or Africa who manage to survive on a fraction of what one American uses in resources. 10 or 15 kids in India could survive on the water and food one person in the USA consumes every day. I agree that contraceptives and women's empowerment are needed globally to bring down the birth rates, as has been demonstrated by countless studies—the more education and opportunities women have, the fewer children they will bear.

Global population pressure is making all of our other environmental problems so much worse—I think we'll see massive die-off or collapse by 2050, if not sooner. Our Arctic will be free of sea ice by 2030, sparking feedback loops that will further warm the earth, and once the Siberian permafrost melts, releasing tons of methane, we'll be toast.

So enjoy it while you can, breeders! I'll probably be eating cyanide when I'm 55, just to avoid living through Cormac McCarthy's "The Road."

Breeder suck.

And yet all these problems could be very easily prevented if men kept it in their pants and women kept their legs together. Are we all going to die because people are sex mad? That's kind of a shitty reason to end humanity.

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mr. neptune
And yet all these problems could be very easily prevented if men kept it in their pants and women kept their legs together. Are we all going to die because people are sex mad? That's kind of a shitty reason to end humanity.

I'm in favor of more sex (and less religion telling you it's evil). I'd be a much grumpier person if I didn't have sex; I don't like to envision how it would affect the world if everyone without inclinations toward celibacy gave up sex. We need contraceptive use 100% of the time, not universal celibacy...but people are fucking idiots (in all three possible interpretations of that phrase).

(Interpretations: 1. people are having sex with idiots. 2. people are *&^$%# idiots. 3. people are especially idiotic when it comes to sex.)

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mr. neptune
And yet all these problems could be very easily prevented if men kept it in their pants and women kept their legs together. Are we all going to die because people are sex mad? That's kind of a shitty reason to end humanity.

Sex isn't the problem, the result of sex+no contraceptives is. I'm boggled that so many people get that simple equation wrong. Sex+no contraceptives=children. Children=less/no sex, ergo Sex +contraceptives=no children=more sex

I remember how the first bill that Bush Junior signed after he, um, got his little fake Presidency going on was to decrease international women's health funding by about a gazillion dollars or something. None of the organizations in question ever did abortions, nor did they advocate for abortions. The bulk of ALL of their budgets went to this:

1) Woman in turd world country gets pregnant
2) Health organization gives the woman three items: sterile plastic sheet for her to shit out the kid upon; razor blade to cut the umbilical cord; thread to tie off the remains of the cord so the woman doesn't bleed to death.

AND THAT WAS IT. That was what 99.9 percent of these health organizations were providing to women. You know, the ability to have their children in a way that slightly minimized the possibilities of her death or the kid's death.

And that was the first bill he signed and it took away that money.

Right to life, my fucking ass. All these fuckers want is for women to suffer for their sexuality, even in the cases of rape, cultural pressure to constantly breed, and wartime sexual slavery.

Has much changed? No. The GOP recently positioned the defunding of Planned Parenthood the same way, saying that PP provided abortion services. Which it doesn't.

Has anybody here ever been to a PP? Didn't they give you options for cheaper birth control, inexpensive health screenings, and so forth? The ones I've been to never mentioned the "a" word as in "abortion." It was verboten even back in the 80's and 90's

So what the fuck is the GOP on about? And why is PP the target? Because they help poor women control their reproduction so they don't have so many fucking kids. And we can't have that.

So what good will those attempts to preserve the environment do us when say... the Yellowstone caldera erupts?
Mankind's influence on the climate is negligible at best. The Sun drives the climate above anything else and the notion that we are somehow in command on this planet is proven to be delusional every time the Earth decides to fart in our arrogant little faces.
We might do a better job of managing our population though, since we're so determined to be in control. People who don't have the means to support offspring must be prevented from having offspring! How does this not make sense to these self-proclaimed saints, do-gooders and superheroes? I'm not saying let them starve. But it might be a good idea to mix in some contraceptives with the free food?
Bread or Brood! Doesn't even have to be sneaky to work since hunger tends to be much more compelling than procreation.
Oh, but imagine the outrage...