Can We Efffectively Deal With Population Growth? IMO the answer is NO!

If we don't change course, if we cannot find consensus to solve our problems, if we can't remove a lot of our self-serving behavior and sense of entitlement, and we do add another 90 million people in the next 37 years, things certainly will become more inhospitable...

 

Water conservation, or any need to cut back on anything, cannot be accomplished voluntarily. So creating laws or fines or increasing the price of services will work but this is a hardship on people/business. One way to avoid all of these downsides is to increase the water supply, and over longer period of time try to educate people or innovations/technology to help.

Waterways can always flow but reservoirs will be in place along the path of the flow; once the reservoirs are filled the same amount of water will be flowing.

In the USA we can't even have intelligent dialogue on climate change or peak oil without politics and heavy bias. I'd say we're too stupid to remove ourselves from our bias and pay attention to data so our probable course on just about all issues will be reactive. The effects of reaction are surely more painful than proactive, but when most people have water when they need it, it's too hard for them to imagine a day when they won't have water...

 

What does it say when no one is interested in a dialogue about the sustainability of our society? Maybe this topic is not political and biased enough for most and requires some individual open-minded thinking? Critiquing the Oscar show has more excitement than threads which try to get to the root issues of mankind. Maybe I'll invoke the name Lindsey Lohan or Rihanna or Kardashian or Pope Disgrace or Donald Trump or Zimmerman and this will get the dialogue going...

 

I'd debate it with you but we're probably in a agreement on most points so it wouldn't be much of a debate...

 

So many on PF, and in society today, pretend to care about critical issues but I think it's more about ranting their biased commentary where they can repeat the same crap over and over and over when none of it ever solves a single problem. It's easier to rant about the political abstract than to open our minds to actual root issues. I don't really like to debate...prefer to discuss a topic in order to share my opinions and to learn other perspectives in the true sense of root problem solving...thanks Wyly...

 

ok then, if we're merely sharing opinions I don't think the dam idea will work unless there are significant changes to dam design, they severely disrupt ecosystems, fish migration/spawning...I've seen documentaries on dam dismantling in California where you live in attempts to bring back salmon populations...

 

Building a water dam can be disruptive just like building a new road through a city or rural area. But if the water and the road are necessary, and if the impacts are known, then surely we're smart enough to solve the problems. But this comes with a caveat; when push comes to shove, potable water is much more important than ecosystems and fish...it is essential to life.

Distributing potable water all across the nation creates millions of jobs, allows rural areas to develop, allows industry to locate outside of urban centers, greatly increases the economy, distributes population growth, creates clean energy, etc. Yes building a lake might change the current ecosystem but it also creates a new ecosystem, IMO equal or greater than before.

I live near a small but year-around river and we're told we can't take the water for farming or frost protection, etc. yet 15 miles from my house that same river flows billions of gallons of potable water into the ocean! BTW; in the USA the produce at our markets on average travels 1500 miles because much of it comes from Mexico and elsewhere or is only grown in a few areas of the USA. Instead of the USA importing so much produce, why can't we be exporting more which grows our economy?

The 'push come to shove' scenario with water is already a problem in many areas of the USA today. Population growth and weather changes will exacerbate these problems. It takes many years or decades to create reservoirs and canals/pipelines which means we MUST be proactive or we will pay the price down the road...

 

but removing entire species from an ecosystem always has repercussion and they never seem to be good...Salmon are a significant food source for marine mammals and salmon also prey upon smaller species, you cannot remove one without affecting others...river sturgeon are another species that become endangered if rivers are dammed, where do they fit in a healthy ecosystem...there was a very recent study that indicates removing key predators increases CO2 levels, how this happens isn't fully understood and it's never been included in climate models before...

the problem with things like dams is we tend to have a narrow viewpoint and only see the immediate benefit but we fail to take a few steps back an see the bigger picture...like when man introduces a new specie to an environment for our immediate benefit but never considered the the bigger picture and what damage the new specie will inflict on the environment ...

 

Well...in the USA we have built many dams and reservoirs and in spite of these plant, animal and fish continue to thrive in those areas. Maybe things are not exactly as before but things adapt.

Salmon just like many other fish can be farmed. There are many rivers which don't have salmon and all the smaller species you refer still exist.

One of the problems with 'potential' extinction due to ecosystem changes is that we look for the answers within a few years when evolution and survival require centuries and millennia to know what happens. 'If we do this'...'that will happen'...when in fact we never allow enough time to know what will happen.

Mt. St. Helens erupted and destroyed absolutely everything within several miles and today, 30 years later, plant and fish and animals are in place again. I don't believe building water dams is as bad as that eruption.

Another thing regarding potable water that must be discussed is sea water desalinization. We have sea water on 2-1/2 sides of the USA and we should be doing more research to build more efficient and affordable desalinization plants. Everything I mention about dams and reservoirs and hydroelectric power generation and desalinization grow the economy, create millions of jobs, and help sustain life...

 

If you want to go around and sterilize everyone, fine.

But my people shouldn't have to be made to get vasectomies just because your people can't restrain themselves from shooting out babies.
It is hardly fair if certain people breed out of control, and then white people have to suffer the consequences, even though their numbers are actually slowly decreasing already.

If there's a problem, let's focus the solution on where the problem actually is.

 

the solution to the problem is education or to be precise inadequate education....1st, there are no races and physical differences between us are extremely superficial, we are one specie, all related and all of us come from Africa...2nd, education is the most important factor in birth control, more educated the population the lower the birth rate....

 

You say the cities you mentioned have grown, I believe they have declined. I believe that alot of manufacturing polution doesnt exist anymore because the industries dont exist or arent in america anymore. Like the Steel Industry for just one. There are some areas of the country that are closing schools and have less population than they had 2 decades ago or 3 or 4. Growth is in some areas of the country not all. Population and growth has shifted.

 

It is really stupid to single out a single race and claim they are a problem. This is the cultural evolution of population growth and whining about a certain color skin being the problem is not the problem at all. We're animals and animals breed to help assure survival...no matter our skin color. Lastly, each area of the world is evolving at different paces, 3rd world areas finally getting money and education and starting families, and many religions won't allow birth control...this is what we have. In this thread...the problem is population growth in the USA no matter the color of people's skin...

 

Makes no difference how you characterize population growth...the fact is the federal government is forecasting 400 million by 2050 from the 315 million today. All of them suck resources from society! If we don't provide more resources or more infrastructure, or whatever is they need to function, then we decline and people suffer more. Regarding your comment about the cities, when I say Los Angeles I mean the entire metropolitan area...not just the city limits of Los Angeles. It is these urban centers which are already bursting and this will only worsen...

 

loss of diversity is not adaptation...losing key predators or prey species weakens the entire ecosystem...when wolves were eliminated from many regions those regions suffered, reintroduction of wolves made the ecosystem healthier...

ever taste the difference between farmed and wild salmon? they are not comparable...farmed salmon also do not contribute to the food chain, pollute the region where they are farmed with disease and parasites...they have no net benefit to the environment... like the wolves I mentioned whenever you remove a predator or food source the entire ecosystem suffers damage, salmon eggs and fry serve as a food source for other life, salmon themselves serve as food for bears, birds, wolves, remove them other and organisms suffer, if they disappear there are repercussions all down the food chain...just because a environment may look nice green and peaceful does not mean it is healthy or thriving...

agreed, we don't step back far enough and look at the big picture, for too long man has had this delusion that we are so small we couldn't possibly hurt the planet...

disagree, dams are worse they are permanent, volcanoes are short term, just because you don't see immediate carnage with a dam like you do a volcano does not mean there is no damage...

agree, but when fresh water is so inexpensive the political opposition to desalinization will be formidable...IMO fresh water is vastly undervalued maybe it should priced the same as desalinated water, I'm sure there would a lot less waste then, fewer swimming pools and green lawns as well...

 

What a lie.
I'm sure you've convinced yourself that this is true. It is impossible for anyone not to notice the difference, but no doubt you just attribute it all to "culture" and "social structure".

That doesn't mean we should all interbreed. There's a reason each race tends to find its own more attractive. Obviously you fail to understand the concept of sub-species, evolutionary divergence, and speciation. Africans particularly have diverged from the rest of the other races.

All of us come from primordial ooze, if we go back far enough. Humans and mice share 97.5% of the same DNA.



Tell me, are you a vegetarian? No? Then why are you cannabalizing your own relatives?

 

something more definitive...genetics DNA...

hmm I think you have a lot of reading to in regards to genetics, species, sub-species...there are no sub-species of humans, just the single specie remaining...the last sub-species of humans went extinct 30-50K yrs ago...
africans havent diverged from us, africans genetically have the most diversity, so you have that backwards...

you dont comprehend the significance of that 2.5%...

 

I know you can find all the reasons to do nothing, but I look at the dam and lake 20 miles from my house, and although there was a fight to construct it, they did build it and in the 'grand scheme of things' everything about it today is positive. I'm not saying we must have a dam every five miles but we must create potable water in order to distribute population growth and sustain the economy. IMO potable water to survive has a higher priority than everything! We just need to be open-minded and compromising and maybe some sacrificing.

Of course farmed fish is different than wild fish but so what...this is a compromise area in which we can still have our fish and water.

Your 'short term' comment about volcanoes proves my previous point; if we build a new dam and reservoir, we truly won't know the impacts until decades and centuries or longer have passed. IMO the human species cannot allow Earth to manage itself, to take whatever happens while we have a hands-off approach in favor of a salamander or fish or butterfly, etc. In the hierarchy humans are at the top of the chain and must do what is necessary to assure survival. Humans build cities and roads and buildings every day and never give any thought to all the fauna and wild life that is destroyed...why is it we can do this yet whine when we talk about creating a new lake? A mountain lion wonders into a neighborhood and it's likely humans will kill it.

Water is just like so many other things in our lives; we turn on the faucet every single day and there is water and it's one of the cheapest things we buy...so no wonder that most people will never think into the future and be proactive. Increasing the price is a social no-no today because it creates an economic hardship on some people. This is when smart people need to rise above the muck, those who can think about the future, and take proactive actions.

It is a given that water is already short in some areas.
It is a given that population is increasing.
It is theorized that climate will change and become warmer.
It is a given that humans cannot survive without water.

I don't see a single reason not to be aggressively proactive in this area...

 

There is five times more fresh water in reservoirs on the planet than in the rivers. We are disrupting the water cycle on a massive scale. The once-fertile Mexican delta of the Colorado River is now a desert. Since 1998 the river hasn't reached the sea, because of population growth in Los Angeles, and the abstraction of water to irrigate California.

 

The human species includes all races and colors. Every single one of them can mate with any other opposite sex and they will create another human being. A black and white might create a brown, then the brown and a white might create a light brown...so what?! Years ago most people were too xenophobic to ever consider mating outside of their perceived race/color so there were very clear delineations between white, black, brown, yellow, etc. But today in all of the areas in which people have open-minds, the US and the world is becoming a melting pot of humans...the clear delineation is disappearing and IMO this is great!

- - - Updated - - -

That 2.5% makes one a mouse and the other a man...but to some that's no big deal...

 

I know about this and IMO it's an example in which we abused our position regarding the single Colorado River. I also know this water is removed and transported to the center of Arizona for farming irrigation. No matter, IMO placing reservoirs should never stop the river from flowing it's original distance. The US should find other sources of water, including desalinization along the west coast. All those issues along the Colorado will be exacerbated in global warming does happen. So this is a great example in which we abused a situation and we need to remedy the situation...

 

The critical aspect of creating more water supplies is the distribution of that water to the areas which need some or more. We have an abundance of water in some areas of the USA and desert conditions in other areas...canals and pipelines can remedy this...

 

and I'm not claiming there should be no dams just that they need to be re-engineered to eliminate ecological damage...we need to co-exist with nature not fight it...

fish farming has negative effects on the environment, and it's being done because depletion of wild stocks which also an indication of damage to the environment...

causing damage for centuries makes the damage irreversible...humans are part of the food chain, if we disrupt the chain do we not imperil ourselves?...you may dismiss lifeforms like a salamander or butterfly as insignificant but salamanders play a part in keeping waterways healthy, butterflies are significant pollinators of plants,...how about bees, insignificant? they're involved in 30% of our food supply...even the tiniest lifeforms are significant, mosquito's I hate them and could live without them but it would be an environmental catastrophe if we lost them...

water prices in N america are a bargain compared to what europeans pay, americans pay about 25% of what Germans pay, I've met many disadvantage people and they have no hesitation to paying even more for soda than water...charge the real worth for water and maybe it will result in fewer swimming pools and green lawns in desert regions thereby reducing the need for more ecology disrupting dams...

 

indeed, he doesn't comprehend that relative scale genetically...a 2.5% difference is enormous...

 

Do you know what a subspecies is? Why is it that some "colors" are so much uglier than others?

Why does it even matter whether the human species goes extinct ?
http://www.politicalforum.com/environment-conservation/225143-protecting-human-diversity.html

Most of the environmentalists are hypocrites on a fundamental level. Why is "saving the earth" important ?
My people might not even be around to see it.