Ok, that's it; nobody else move to Utah

[Stoysluttie1]

The discussion here needs to examine population growth due to migration and not so much due to irresponsible reproducion. Population growth for the US is expected to cease within 50 years or so. Unlike most post-industrial nations, the US still has a growing population only because of the massive onslaught of immigrants. If you look at the populations of pretty much every technologically advanced nation, the population has peaked. We should be there soon, especially with our economy tanking as hard as it is.

in Ootah, most of the population growth is in-house. Most of the bankruptcy's in the US are in Ootah. Most of the divorces in the US occur in Ootah. Prozac use is the highest in Ootah. I think we need to re-evaluate responsibility as well as immigration, but even so, the population in 50 years will be out of control.

[DaveTV]

fertile, family-minded Mormons

[Trackhead]

The discussion here needs to examine population growth due to migration and not so much due to irresponsible reproducion. Population growth for the US is expected to cease within 50 years or so. Unlike most post-industrial nations, the US still has a growing population only because of the massive onslaught of immigrants. If you look at the populations of pretty much every technologically advanced nation, the population has peaked. We should be there soon, especially with our economy tanking as hard as it is.

Interesting. I don't know all the ins and outs. But I know the simple equation.

Too many people:not enough resources.

[shmerham]

Did anyone here take biology? We're not going to destroy ourselves. How much more doom and gloom can you get?

The population may recede as those who can't obtain food and water will die, but life will find a way.

I love the territorial elitism. I was in this beautiful place first, so YOU can't move here. OK?

It's the same every nice place you go: Anyone who's been there more than two years feels like they're entitled to the ability to keep others from moving to their city.

[Tippster]

...I have long wanted to start a clinic where you get your fertility 'activated' by a panel of folks who first checks that you have the following.

1. employment
2. clean urine drug screen (no meth, heroin, cocaine, etc)
3. three years of past W-2's to prove consistent employment/responsiblity
4. don't live with your parents
5. are not on medicaid, food stamps, or any other government assistance

Beijing thanks you for your support, but requests you add

"6. are a member of the Communist Party"

to the list.

[gincognito]

I have long wanted to start a clinic where you get your fertility 'activated' by a panel of folks who first checks that you have the following.

1. employment
2. clean urine drug screen (no meth, heroin, cocaine, etc)
3. three years of past W-2's to prove consistent employment/responsiblity
4. don't live with your parents
5. are not on medicaid, food stamps, or any other government assistance

I once wrote a (really bad) story based on that idea. Reverse birth control, where the population is sterile but you can purchase pills to become fertile.

I was reading a lot of Vonnegut at the time.

Sick and ashamed and happy (and Welcome to the Monkey House indeed),
d.

[Stu Gotz]

Sweet Jakers! Can you imagine the rage calling at Alta with another 1.2 million people looking to get first tracks!

[grrrr]

I think this really speaks to the immorality of religious leaders encouraging reproduction. It also speaks to the immorality of political leaders who support and encourage economic growth. Unfortunately, the growth that makes life better for an individual often degrades the quality of life for the population over time.

[jayfrizzo]

Unfortunately, the growth that makes life better for an individual often degrades the quality of life for the population over time.

Support this statement with some numbers.

[powder11]

Theres also talk of taking water from the Columbia River basin, and even Canada! Although the Canucks say they won't allow it.

be wary of Canadians. talk up here is they all piss in the water before it heads south what about a desalinization plant on the great salt lake?

[Ski Monkey]

I"m pretty sure all of the water rights were purchased long ago, but good luck with that.

Much of the Western US is by nature unsustainable with humans on the land IMO.

True, but everything is for sale for a price. I agree about the west though, Vegas anyone?

[Stoysluttie1]

be wary of Canadians. talk up here is they all piss in the water before it heads south what about a desalinization plant on the great salt lake?

I see both sides, why to and why not to, have desalinization plants along the ocean...but never on the salt lake because there is continuous supply of water.


BUt Ootah isn't the onyl problem. The great Plains, the southwest, Cali, the intermountain west, Florida, Australia, India, the mid-east..and more.

People take water for granted everyday because it is so easy to turn the taps on and have water flowing right through them. We have laws, the clean water act, that allow people to legally pollute our water resources and fines that do not do illegal activity justice.

Aquifers are being mined at a pace underground structures cannot keep up and cities are slowly sinking, some at a 1" rate per year. Water rights in the US have been over-allocated..meaning there are more water rights than there is actual water.

The CO river, for example, was over-estimated by an estimated 4-5 million acre-feet. Data taken during a few wet years. So now we have 7 states and Mexico legally entitled to water that isn't even there. The same goes for various water sources in the west.

Look at some cultures in the mid-east and Africa that allowed private entities to come in and manage their water....now the people who have been collecting rainwater for centuries are now told they can't and if they do, they are fined! But, some companies have yet to supply water to their villages

The UN just released these numbers: 1.1 billion people lack safe water (consumptive and ag use) 2.4 billion have no access to sanitation. these numbers equate to 300 miilion people dying each year.

Its nto water issue we face, its a people issue.

[Dexter Rutecki]

Like shmerham, whom everyone seems to be ignoring, I enjoy seeing the 'pull up the rope-ladder' mentality of those who already live somewhere that's drawing newcomers. I used to live on Nantucket (it was the first place I ever lived), and if you want an example of a place where the population exploded (particularly summertime, although year-round, too) that could be a case study. The island is so different now from how I remember it as a kid (in the 70's) that it's now more like the Hamptons than what I grew up with, but I'm still appalled by the 'locals' hostility to people who weren't born there/haven't been there 'long enough'. Nantucket actually has this in greater, and more vicious supply, than most places I've seen. Makes me glad to live somewhere where newcomers are readily accepted (even people from Utah).
And as for what the carrying capacity of the earth is, all we know for sure is we're not there yet, and people have been predicting (wrongly) impending catastrophe for decades. Naturally there are a lot of looming problems where populations have grown in arid areas, but I have doubts about this being the disaster in the U.S. that some foresee.

[Stoysluttie1]

And as for what the carrying capacity of the earth is, all we know for sure is we're not there yet, and people have been predicting (wrongly) impending catastrophe for decades. Naturally there are a lot of looming problems where populations have grown in arid areas, but I have doubts about this being the disaster in the U.S. that some foresee.

I don't knwo about that Dex. There is famine occurring throughout the entire world. INdia exports most of its rice, which could feed its entire country, yet, a majority of the country is poor and starving. Here in the US we have a majority of the population with poor health care, and a lot without health care.

We have been feeding the people of the world toxins implanted into cows, vegetables, pigs, fruits, and the sort just to keep up. Meanwhile we are poisoning ourselves in the process. We have necessary ecosystems being destroyed to build more infrastructure...taking away necessary farmland. Some of the most viable farmland is under severe threat of being paved over.

Catastrophe..well, maybe someday. If you look locally here, people have actually busted the guns out fighting over water. Farmers are contiuously shutting water off to downstream users, even though those people are legally entitled to it.

I do agree, however, with yours and shmerham's sentiment, people can move wherever they like. i did and see nothing wrong with it. BUt areas do have carrying capacities and without the construction of more water resources, whether its through conservation or building more dams, and the destruction of lands, ecosystems and commnities, I believe the west has is exceeding its carrying capacity with concerns to water.

But i know for a fact, water is our most precious resource and we cannot produce another drop of it through mechinization..the same amount of water that was here centuries ago, is the same amount today.

[PaSucks]

I don't knwo about that Dex. There is famine occurring throughout the entire world. INdia exports most of its rice, which could feed its entire country, yet, a majority of the country is poor and starving. Here in the US we have a majority of the population with poor health care, and a lot without health care.

Carrying capacity is an ecological term and from that standpoint, we havn't reached it. When you say India exports most of its rice, you are bringing economics into the equation, which is fine, but it has nothing to do with the carrying capacity. If we didn't live in a mostly capitalistic world, we would feed ourselves just fine. Unfortunatetly, due to greed, we don't.

[Dexter Rutecki]

Yes, there are millions of people starving, and it is criminal that this occurs, but the point that even India produces enough food for its population actually makes the point that the humans can easily sustain themselves.
As for us poisoning ourselves through our agricultural practices, I look at it in the opposite way. It is through agricultural advancements that we are able to feed everyone (even though we don't). Farming is far more effective today than it has ever been because of how different it is now.
And from what I know, there's plenty of unfrozen fresh water to be had, it's just a matter of getting it where it's needed, and to stop using it stupidly (making deserts into lawns). To say nothing of more difficult schemes like desalinating (is that the word?) salt water.

[Trackhead]

Stoy,

Perhaps poisoning ourselves as a whole isn't a bad thing. That way we might not have an extended human lifespan into the 90's, thereby increasing the population and the burden of taking care of our elderly.

Twisted, cynical, elitist, self righteous, I know. But it's not only new borns, it's also the increasing life span of the human.

[grrrr]

Support this statement with some numbers.

Numbers are too much work. How about some concepts instead?

The population on this island has doubled in the last 12 years. Many people, especially real estate agents, are getting rich. In fact, real estate sales commissions is the top earned income category here. Businesses, especially tourist businesses and land speculation and development are booming.

The downsides: Wage earners can no longer live here. Over the past 12 years, the number of volunteer firefighters, typically working class members of society has fallen from 24 to 4 between the northend adn west side stations, where land is most valuable. The county is facing an affordable housing crisis. All of the gardeners, housemaids and laborers who have taken the newly created jobs live packed like sardines into the few single wide trailer available in the trailer parks. Right now, there are about 400 living in a 3 acre park.

Most of the locals no longer bother fishing. What was once a significant salmon fishing port no longer supports a commercial fishery at all. The cost of catching a wild salmon (in gas, boat, time) now pushes the cost into the ludicrous level.

Local family farms, the other mainstay of the economy for 100 years are no longer viable, due to increasing land values and land taxes.

The taxes taken in, however, are insufficient to pay for the increasing services. The county keeps cutting, but the cost of living keeps forcing the entry level wages up. There is a constant turnover in dispatchers, and the number of deputys has been cut. Drug use, however, is rampant. Last week a 7 year went to the ER for accidental ingestion of meth. Her mother lived right nest to the grade school. People who have lived here for many years continue to see their taxes go up to pay for more road repairs, more ambulance calls, more court cases.

Children who grow up here leave. They have to. Entry level for a modular home on 1/10th acre is 250,000. Supermarket bagger jobs don't support that.

People move here because it's a beautiful sleepy idyllic place with beautiful scenery and wildlife and a sense of community. All of those things are eroding as more move here.

[Ireallyliketoski2]

Support this statement with some numbers.

7
6561
15
1874002
1323
9872342323
454

[tonghands]

Hey, I hope none of you guys who support this planned non-parenthood plan consider yourselves pro-choice, because you're not. You believe in reproductive freedom of choice even less than the looniest reactionary right wing nutballs. I hope you don't believe that you support civil liberties, because you don't. The process of proving to the government that you should qualify to have kids would be a ridiculous invasion of civil liberties, the likes of which have never been seen in this country.

You don't get to tell other people whether or not they get to have kids. Nobody gets to tell anyone that.

[lemon boy]

Hey, I hope none of you guys who support this planned non-parenthood plan consider yourselves pro-choice, because you're not. You believe in reproductive freedom of choice even less than the looniest reactionary right wing nutballs. I hope you don't believe that you support civil liberties, because you don't. The process of proving to the government that you should qualify to have kids would be a ridiculous invasion of civil liberties, the likes of which have never been seen in this country.

You don't get to tell other people whether or not they get to have kids. Nobody gets to tell anyone that.

[Snowbird Commuter]

Originally Posted by Trackhead
In the end, the only solution is vasectomy/tubal ligation. End of story.

It's all about population. Nearly every problem we all bitch about (high crude oil prices, polution, overcrowding, tracked out backcountry) is all about too many friggin people on the planet.

We will destroy ourselves. And I find it amusing in a cynical way. The most 'advanced' species on earth, killing themselves.

I have long wanted to start a clinic where you get your fertility 'activated' by a panel of folks who first checks that you have the following.

1. employment
2. clean urine drug screen (no meth, heroin, cocaine, etc)
3. three years of past W-2's to prove consistent employment/responsiblity
4. don't live with your parents
5. are not on medicaid, food stamps, or any other government assistance

Definitely, I don't know why we let poor people have children at all. It's offensive that you're allowed to bring children up in this world if you happen to be unemployed or are on public assistance. But how do you enforce it... and what if someone cheats? Maybe we should add forced abortions to the picture as well. You get pregnant and we find out you're actually poor, you MUST have an abortion.... yeah, that would save water and leave more SuperUnleaded for the rest of us... great idea.

By the way... I'm a bit confused... are we pissed off with "capitalists" for using up our already meager resources or the poor people who live on our planet with us who can't afford it?

Rich people suck, Poor people suck... I only support people in my economic situation... Maybe after a couple of years of successful operation, your panel of estemed fertility gods could also decide what living people are entitled to continue living.... we could jail those who don't fit into your simple 5 point plan and maybe "eliminate" or "cleanse" them if the jails got too crowded... oh wait... someone tried that before...

Damnit... back to the drawing board.

[char]

I think some people are confusing "sustainable" with "feed ourselves next year." If it isn't going to be there for the next generation to utilize it isn't sustainable.

So, farming in the Punjab, while being the most productive place on the planet, is not currently sustainable when you look at how fast the water table is dropping. They litterally have to drill new wells every day to keep up with the dropping water table.

We may have passed the earth's carrying capacity. The neat thing about that concept is that you won't see a decline until well after you have passed it. We won't just hit a population number and the next day population will decline. Also, if you are having to import resources into an ecosystem, that means you have passed the carrying capacity.

All of this discussion is great, but we are never going to make a change until it starts hitting us in the pocket book. And that won't happen until the ecological damage caused by the creation of a product is calculated into the unit price of a good.

[grrrr]

I'll take the position offensive to the right and left in this argument:

No more tax breaks for families, no more welfare, no more subsidized housing and people will think a whole lot harder about having children.

No more tax breaks to business, no more subsidizing job creation, no more subsidizing development and people will think a whole lot harder about paving more ground.

[Trackhead]

Deep breath in, deep breath out............ahhhh, you feel better now? I do.

Exageration to make a point. Learn to see through it, think outside the box, don't take everything you hear or read literally.