The Root of Many Activist Issues is Human Overpopulation

I am a member of a great activist type site, Care2.

On Care2 people can find activist petitions to sign, they can vote up causes they believe in and can even make their own petitions. One thing I have noticed though is that many of the petitions have a similar root problem.

• One of the petitions calls to stop clearing part of the rain forest to make way for a place to produce and process palm oil
• One petition calls for stopping the round up and potential slaughter of wild horses in the United States.
• There are petitions against killing seals, dolphins, and wolves.
• There is a “Save the Rain Forest Frogs” petition!
• You can find petitions against cruelty to pigs, dairy cows, and battery hens.
• Another petition demands a halt to an oil pipeline, another asks to prevent a gold mine in a nature sensitive area.
• There are petitions to end urban sprawl.
• There are petitions to end GMO crops and various "Cheats" farmers use to produce food.

Of course I do sign petitions that I support, and you can pretty much find petitions for anything. 

You name it there is probably a petition for it, but if you look at all of these petitions they are just addressing a small part of a greater problem. It would be better to address the driving force behind the problems that these petitions try to solve.

In some cases there is a place to make a comment, and I try to make a comment reminding others that if you want change, it is not the problem itself you have to consider but why the problem has developed in the first place.

Why do we need more palm oil? Growing human populations.

Why are wild horses being rounded up? To make room to graze cattle to feed the growing human population.

Why are rain forest frogs at risk? Because more people means more trees are needed, and more land must be cleared to grow crops.

Why are seals and dolphins being killed? Because they eat “our” fish, we need fish to feed the ever expanding human population.

Why are wolves being killed? Because they threaten livestock, the same livestock we want to kill to feed our own population.

Why is there cruelty to livestock? Because people want to eat, more people means shortcuts are taken to warehouse more livestock animals on less land, and transportation is pushed to get the animals to where they need to go while reducing costs.

Why do we need an oil pipeline? A growing, and greedy, consumer driven population demands more oil.

Why do we need another goldmine? Again because more people are demanding more gold, and nations need income from gold to grow.

Why are cities expanding? Urban sprawl is the result of continued growth.

Why are farmers using GMOs and other "cheats" to produce food? A rapidly growing population means farmers have less land on which to grow food, and are pressured into producing more food in less time.

As you see nearly every problem faced by the world today is human overpopulation and population growth. Some people ignorantly think that if they have 2 kids they have maintained a steady population; but 2+2 = 4! If you have two kids you have doubled your immediate population, doubled the needs of your family.  Chances are that your kids may have kids again before you have even died...

Two good ways to reduce the population growth are for couples to put off having children until they are in their 30’s and to restrict themselves to one child only.

Most governments do not like this, they want more people, more workers, more consumers, more soldiers, and more tax payers. Governments are not looking out for the future of the planet, only for the future of themselves.

The human population has more than doubled in the past 45 years. Huge natural areas have vanished forever. We are using renewable resources up faster than they can be renewed. We are killing other species only for our own continued survival and continued rape of the planet.

China is not everyone’s favorite country, and is often linked to animal cruelty, but at least they were smart enough to see the problems with unchecked population growth.

Other Reading:
About Care2 and How You Can Earn Credits to Spend on Things You Care About!

Thomas Malthus, the Man Who Warned the World About Overpopulation.

Addressing Diet to Solve the World Overpopulation Crisis

No doubt about it, the human population is in crisis, even if most people refuse to believe it. We are using up our non-renewable resources and are using the renewable ones faster than they can be renewed, we have a few solutions, one of which is to delay the age at which some girls are getting pregnant.

Meat

It has also been suggested that a high meat diet in general contributes to early puberty, particularly in girls. Indeed there are many nutritionists who suggest most people in the western countries eat as much as 4 times more meat than they need. Studies have linked early puberty in girls to a diet that is high in meat. Perhaps the meat based protein is a contributing factor, but it could be something “in” the meat that should be considered.

Growth Hormones

Growth hormones are being used in the production of meat and in some countries in the production of milk. The USA allows hormones to be used in the dairy industry, while many other countries, including Canada, do not allow this. Other livestock, with the exception of those sold as “organic”, are often pumped with growth hormones to get them to the market sooner and for a higher price.

The consumption of food products loaded with growth hormones could be to blame for causing both girls and boys to come into puberty sooner. The sooner people enter puberty the greater the risk for early pregnancy, and the younger people are when the have kids, the quicker the population booms.

Fat

Many people also consume more fat than they need and this too has been suspected as having a strong relationship with the early onset of puberty.

Processed foods

As processed foods are often loaded with chemicals, they too have been linked to leading to causing earlier puberty in girls and maybe even in boys too.

As a group we can lobby against allowing growth hormones in meat and dairy. We can select better foods for our families.   This is not just for health reasons, but as mentioned, if we can delay puberty we can hopefully delay some pregnancies and this should be a positive step in controlling the population growth.

If you are a grocery store owner you are perhaps one of the most powerful people in regards to preventing human overpopulation. The food industry is not going to change for the sake of humanity, each entity of the production line wants its share of the pie, and none are going to admit they are part of a problem (again there are many people who refuse to believe there is a problem at all). Grocery store owners could insist on organic meat and dairy as well as reducing the amounts of processed foods they sell in hopes it will make a difference.

Too Many People Demanding Meat are to Blame for Tainted Beef

Once again beef is being recalled from many shops due to concerns with E.coli, a bacteria. In the most recent case (fall 2012) the tainted beef is coming from the XL slaughter plant in Brooks, Alberta. This plant is also known as Lakeside Packers.

Some people are blaming the cattle producers but ultimately contamination comes from processing, not the producers (the people who raise cattle). And if we go further into it, perhaps the consumers themselves have to share some of the blame.  More people = more demands = more short cuts taken.

If you have never seen a slaughterhouse I assure you it is horrific. On certain days in Brooks the whole city has the smell of the slaughterhouse. XL Foods process (kill) 4,000 animals per day. Each worker on the kill floor has one job (such as gutting the animal) that they may have only seconds to perform before sending it to the next worker).

The XL Foods plant, Lakeside Packers, has been in the news many times, including an issue of violating human rights. At that time Lakeside Packers had a different owner and workers were not allowed bathroom breaks, indeed many reported they were being forced to urinate in their pants while on the production line.

Back then fewer than 3,000 cattle were slaughtered per day, but a new owner has increased production. 

The workers at XL Foods, Lakeside Packers are reluctant to complain about safety concerns or other issues. Most are immigrants, sometimes there is a language barrier, other times they do not know who to talk to, or that there is anything wrong, but mostly it comes down to the fact that they fear for the loss of there jobs – as being immigrants finding work elsewhere can be challenging.

I use to live near Brooks and remember hearing horror stories, with production being increased I can only imagine how much worse things have become. Corners are undoubtedly being cut, and for sure this must be to blame for the current E.coli outbreak.

But do we blame the plant? Ultimately the XL Foods plant must accept responsibility but so too does the consumer. The consumer creates the demand, they are the reason for 4,000 cattle to be killed per day, and 3,000 steaks processed per minute at this plant.  Growing populations mean more demand, no wonder some producers are pumping animals with growth hormones!

Most people in North America eat 4 times as much meat as they should. A steak that feeds one person here is enough to feed a family of four in Japan.

How to Protect Yourself from Tainted Meat

Tainted meat can come from any slaughterhouse, but for sure the larger ones where things are rushed are bound to be more of a concern. With ground beef you are safer to buy it from the butchers and grocers where the beef is ground on site rather than arrives there preground.

Eat less meat, if more people would reduce the amount of meat they ate the slaughterhouses could lower their quota, putting safety quality ahead of quantity. Have two to three meatless days per week, or have smaller portions of meat when you do have it. Currently most people eat more meat than their body needs, this is also a waste of money.

Cook your meat well. Raw hamburger in particular is the most dangerous source for E.coli.

Ultimately we also need to consider the need to stop adding more people to the planet.  More people means more demands for food, and forces producers to cut corners.

We have standards for safe food handling we just have to make sure people are not burdened so much that they cannot meet those standards.

The Ignorance of Humans Makes More Humans Seem Like a Good Idea

Over 7 billion people.  By most accounts that is too many.  But yet when talking to people about over population a good number of people talk as though a decline in population is a bad thing.  I guess their ignorance is bliss but for the rest of us it is horror.

Nobody seems to understand that unless you drop dead the day you become a parent every birth is adding to the population.  They always seem to go back to saying that some people die, but let us be honest, in modern times, and with modern medicine the percentage of people dying has dropped in developed nations.  People are living longer than ever before, there are fewer infant deaths, and as such the population is sky rocketing.

I asked a question on WebAnswers a while ago - you may want to click here to see all the answers http://www.webanswers.com/relationships/parenting-kids/for-maintained-population-how-many-kids-per-couple-729bb1 - I was quite amazed to see how ignorant people were and how many of them remarked that a drop in population was a "bad thing".  Feel free to click here to join WebAnswers and post your own answer to the question if you want to do so.

Here is the problem people are having, I ask how many kids can a couple have to maintain the population.

Suppose they have two kids.  That is doubling the population because two parents is now four people.  Okay, suppose this is a very closed society and forget the rules of inbreeding and incest, let us imagine the two kids get together and have two kids.  The parents are likely still alive, so two people is now six.  Since people are living longer than ever before it is likely that the two kids will reproduce and have two more kids while the original couple is still alive, bringing the total people to eight.  By then with any luck somebody will die, but the population was not maintained it will never go back to being just two!  The population has risen and will remain high in a cycle as long as people do not have more than two, but the initial birth of two kids was growth and should not be denied as such.

I had one kid, then had my tubes tied.  Two parents plus one kid is growth and I am not too stupid to deny that.  However my husband died early when my daughter was 5 so I guess the population did balance itself then.  But let us not kid ourselves into saying that two kids is maintaining the population. 

Can Somebody Build Small Homes Please?

Recently my husband and I went to look at some show homes, they were all pretty massive. I am claustrophobic, but I admit I found this homes horrifically huge, I wondered how many trees fell to build these monstrosities of mostly empty space.

These new homes have more than 1,000 sq feet of space per occupant. They have rooms called “Great rooms”, which are not so much great as they are a waste of space. 

The world does not need more three, or four, bedroom homes. We need one and two bed room homes. We need homes that provide people with yards to grow their own food and restrict the growth of the family. In short we do not need more people on the planet, so why make it easy by building monster homes?

We need homes that will cater to the kind of family people should be having, that being a family of one, or no, children. Yes, I would make a good evil dictator I am sure!

Before you freak out and insist I am wrong, you may want to note:

Currently the world has a human population of more than 7 billion people, while you may be living comfortably in your cozy home, others are not. But the world has limited resources, and as we are currently relying on non-renewable resources, and using renewable ones faster than they can be renewed, there will be a point where everyone is in trouble.

We seem to think it is okay to control the growth of other species, killing seals, unwanted pets, and other animals, yet we ignore our population growth.

You cannot eat your house, and you cannot grow enough food to sustain your family when you have a postage stamp size yard. We need smaller homes, bigger yards, and fewer kids. The population has more that doubled in the last 40 years, sky rocketing above the 1 billion it sustained for a relatively long period of time.

Improved health care, and the industrial revolution, proved good in some ways, but bad in others; now our own population is potentially our biggest threat to survival of the human race.

Will the city planners see this or will they continue to encourage large populations? Well if you know anything about the world you know that the government does not give a darn about 100 years from now. It only cares about itself, getting re-elected, and retiring wealthy. The government is happy to have more people, it means more taxes!

The architects want to design big lavish homes that draw attention, earn them acclaim, not save the world. I would love to win the lottery, take some land, build 2 bedroom homes; small, simple, practical, homes, and give them away to similar minded people, people who care about the future of the world and the survival of the human race.

There is no need for anyone to have 3, 4, or more kids, even farmers no longer need big families, they have machinery. What we need now is responsible family planning, smaller homes, and more trees.

Schools Should Give Condoms for Free to Prevent Teen Pregnancy

Teenage pregnancy is a problem that many parents, or religious groups, do not want to take seriously. They live in a bubble, a bubble where they can just tell teens to say “no” and the teen will be able to turn off their hormones and resist their desire to have sex. This is made worse by those that preach that masturbation is a sin.

Many of these people think that by giving teenagers condoms (or other birth control) it encourages them to have sex.  What a load of...

It is ignorant to think that teenagers are not engaging in sexual activities. Even if “your” teen is not having sex – others are, and why shouldn't they have access to free condoms and birth control information?

There are over 7 billion people, our own population is our biggest threat to our continued existence, and if you deny that then you really are an ignorant so-and-so. One of the ways people can help reduce overpopulation is by putting off having children until they are at least 25. Having kids as a teenager places more people onto the earth at an earlier time.

Overpoulation issues aside, there are other reasons why we should try to reduce teenage pregnancies.  Most teens (despite their best intentions) are not ready to become parents. They are not financially secure, many still want to party and have fun with their friends and are not ready to “settle down and raise a family”. Teens rarely have the emotional skills to deal with a screaming baby, and so forth.

Why should you care? Because your tax dollars are very likely paying for most babies born to, and raised by, teenagers. If you do not care about world overpopulation perhaps you should care about having to fund babies born to teenage mothers.

Condoms should be available free to teens in school. Putting your head under a rock and insisting that teens should just not have sex is stupid, especially in this day and age when most teens come home to empty houses because both parents are at work. Some teens struggle after having their parents divorce; picture the teenage girl desperately looking for a male figure in her life, and turning to the first boy that shows any interest in her, even if it is purely sexual.

Handing out condoms in school does not encourage kids to have sex, they are already having sex, but it does encourage safe sex. The fact that most parents are not involved in their kid's lives encourages kids to have sex. I think it is time we deal with the reality, not live in some fantasy world where we can just expect teens to be abstinent.

Maybe the Rapture is a Good Thing

For the most part I do not believe in “The Rapture” (I often thought it was just one of those bribe / threat things used by some religions to control people), however I started to think about it and maybe it would not be such a bad idea after all. In an instant a small percentage of people would vanish, and, if it is anything like in the movies, their clothing would be left behind in a neat little pile.

Not only would we benefit by losing these “holier than thou” folks who look down on everyone else, but this is a great way to reduce the population without having to do anything drastic.

By all accounts the Rapture could whisk away between 30 million and 100 million believers. While not enough by some standards, it is still a dent in the population.

Another benefit, if the Rapture is actually real (and not the delusion of a teenager Margaret MacDonald), is that many of the people who would be “taken” are those who are least concerned with the environment. If you watched the 2006 documentary Jesus Camp, you saw how some parents were home schooling their children, telling them that global warming is real, is human caused, but not to worry about it because Jesus will return and save them from the mess they have created upon the earth. They are the head-in-the-sand kind of people that really have chosen to live in denial so they can excuse their wasteful or greedy lifestyles.

A lot of the people who believe in the Rapture are also those who think that the more kids they have the more God will favor them, so they are not really the kind of people the planet needs in terms of sustainability.

So, while I have never believed in the Rapture, I am starting to think that maybe it would not be such a bad idea after all.