Do you think there is an overpopulation problem?

[allaboutsoul]

Do you think that the world is overpopulated? If so, how can we deal with it?

I remember a counselor I had at a Bible camp said that she thinks it isn't true that the world is overpopulated, and she may have referenced the verse which says, "Be fruitful and multiply." I disagree with her. God said "Be fruitful and multiply." when there were hardly any people yet. I don't think God meant for the world to be completely over-run with people...

What do you think?

[Pete Martinez]

If you took the entire amount of people in the world and put them together they'd all fit in an area the size of Texas and each person would have roughly 1000 square feet! Well... I guess that's all I should say.

[wilkette]

I don't think that the world as a whole is overpopulated. I think there are area that are overpopulated, so it has more to do with density in specific places than general population. But I agree that the BFAM verse can be taken out of context and applied to situations that it was not actually addressing.

[Theofilus]

The world is not overpopulated. People think that it is because there are so many people starving and they think that it must be because there's not enough food to go around. But remember that while people in the Third World are dying because they don't have enough food, people in the west are dying because they have too much. 20% of the people in the world use 80% of the world's resourses. If food and other resources were distributed more evenly, there wouldn't be a problem.

[Pete Martinez]

Actually there is enough food, the problem is that the prices are so high in third world countries the poor can't afford to eat. Second, the richer farmers can buy high yield seeds and fertilizers, but require quite a bit of money to produce. The poorer farmers cannot afford the high yield stuff and whatever crop they do manage to produce does not make enough money because of the high volume of food being distributed to markets by the richer farmers. The poor farmers are being squeezed out by the rich farmer monopoly. The problem has not been addressed because "local governments don't want to upset the markets". But perhaps I've said too much...

[Timothy]

Well, the biggest problem in Africa is not that they don't have enough food. It's that the Western governments keeps scamming them with new 'cash crops' rather than getting them to grow their own food. Most of Western and Southern Africa could be 100% self-sufficient in two years, if they weren't constantly betting on these 'Cash crops' to grow which only benefit the farmers directly, and don't help to solve the food problems of the country concerned by pulling prices down.

Tim

[Psalms2]

Originally Posted by wilkette

I don't think that the world as a whole is overpopulated. I think there are area that are overpopulated, so it has more to do with density in specific places than general population. But I agree that the BFAM verse can be taken out of context and applied to situations that it was not actually addressing.

That's true. People who live in Los Angeles or New York City are more likely to believe that the world is over populated because that's all they see when they look out their window each day and when they get caught in rush hour traffic. But for someone who lives in Montana, Arizona, Nevada, etc., it's a totally different perspective.

But the over-population rant that we keep hearing about in the mass media is a veiled attempt to promote more abortions throughout the world. It's especially sickening when they suggest singling out a specific race of people for these abortions because it reminds me of how the Nazis wanted to eliminate the "undesirables" of their society. Today on CNN, they suggested making women have less pregnancies (in other words, more abortions), and they put an emphasis on Mexican immagrants.

There is a non-profit research and educational organization called Population Research Institute, and they give the reasons why we should be concerned that the world is becoming under-populated. Here is their website:
http://www.pop.org/