US Population to Top 300 Million 792
An anonymous reader writes "The number of Americans will surpass 300 million this month, a milestone that raises environmental impact questions for the only major industrial nation whose population is increasing substantially. The US census bureau says the 300 million mark will be reached 39 years after US population topped 200 million and 91 years after it exceeded 100 million. That makes US the third most populous country behind china and india. It is noteworthy that sheer number of human beings do not necessarily have the heaviest impact on the environment. Instead environmental impact is a calculation that involves population, affluence and technology. The US consumes nearly 25% of the world's energy though it has only 5% of the world's population and has the highest per capita oil consumption worldwide. Each American produces about 2.3 kg of trash a day, a rate about 5 times that in developing countries."
AGAIN cue the anarcho-capitalists (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like the last story, cue the anarcho-capitalists who will ask "Would you rather have it any other way?"
They just dont get it.
huh (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder what would happen if China decided to relax those controls, I'm relatively sure the population would explode and almost double within a decade.
The US Consumes More Because It Does More (Score:0, Insightful)
This is just crap. Who else is going to be consuming that energy, when most other people do not have the wealth and products that Americans? You think Ethiopians have a need for the energy we have? It's logical that the richest country on the planet will be doing a greater share of consumption as well as production compared to the rest of the world.
I predict this will be another US bash-fest thats so typical on slashdot.
It's all the immigrants (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, according to TFA, a full 40% of the US population growth is due to immigration (legal and illegal).
- Tony
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:5, Insightful)
So the hispanics, whose population growth rate was over triple that of the general population last I checked, are all living in desirable areas?
First World Birthrates to LOW? WRONG. (Score:1, Insightful)
Immigration anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the real "breaking point"? (Score:5, Insightful)
If we had Germany's population density, the US would have 2.2 billion people (and still only about 400 interested in the World Cup).
The question isn't about density, as it is about resources and the ecological footprint that Americans have. We're terribly, awfully wasteful. If we all became more conscious about resource use, in twenty years, even with 360 million people, we could use less resources then than we use today. At that point, the economic benefits of population (and immigration) outweigh the other costs.
I'd be a lot more worried if we've maxed out our resource use efficiency and there was simply no way to improve. No, we've got a lot of improvements we can do. If we follow through with them, US population growth won't be a problem in the next century.
Re:The US Consumes More Because It Does More (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be one thing if the US had accumulated its wealth in fair and equal competition with the rest of the world. But I doubt anyone would claim that to be true...
Re:It's all the immigrants (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
How much of that low-cost is due to subsidising? How does the US stack up against developing countries pre-subsidy? I'd like a figure please.
More to the point, do you have any idea what impact subsidising your food exports has on the global economy? Specifically, have you got a clue just how badly fucked the third-world, agriculture-based economies are thanks to your heroic efforts to get rid of this food that your farmers are overproducing so they can reap the benefits of such a heavily manipulated market?
You may not be sucking up other nations' resources in this regard, but you are destroying their ability to be economically profitable and competitive. The thing is, economically speaking it doesn't make much difference to the US - just a few less wasted fields here or there, a marginally improved national deficit figure - but to the countries who rely on food export to maintain any kind of currency in the global market, it is everything. Still, as long as nothing inconveniences the honest 'Merkin, yes?
Re:AGAIN cue the anarcho-capitalists (Score:1, Insightful)
Our overall productivity is roughly twice that of the rest of the world, so the real question is "why does it take the rest of the world 3x the energy to produce half what the US does?"
And your point is? (Score:1, Insightful)
2. Energy use: I'd love to know how much 'energy' is taken up via cars. Again, see large population plus vast swaths of land. Same for oil.
3. Waste: Damned if it's my fault that Newegg just sent me a laptop hard drive and ram chip in a small box, encased by an absolutely huge god damned box filled with about a cubic meter of packaging peanuts.
The environazis can complain about trash all they want; I'll wholeheartedly agree with 'em that it's bad. But I'll laugh in their faces when they start whining about population and energy use. For the love of god, the majority of the country is still very sparesely populated. Oh noes! We have a large population!
Guess what? We've got plenty of room for many times what we've got now. And surprise! As population increases, energy use will decrease - if only because some poor fool out in the middle of one of those lovely flat, boring square states that make up the majority of our land mass won't have to hop in their car and drive an hour to the nearest store.
Trashy Americans? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even our cars are pretty much designed to fall apart after 3 years of regular use. How can American's not be leaders in producing trash in this kind of environment. Only good note is my mother in the law is a packrat and has not thrown hardly anything away for the last 30+ years. But I guess she is just a minor rounding error on the average.
Re:Already??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is, Funny is both a) subjective and b) unrelated to "tasteful" (well, inversely related if anything). I don't mind being modded down - that's what the system's for - but your statement that "it isn't funny" means that you didn't find it funny. Clearly at least 3 other people did at the time, which is what humour is about - timing. The following Troll/Flamebait mods only appeared after you sulked and wept your heart out.
I can appreciate it wasn't funny to you - yes, it was tasteless - but I knew people who were badly affected by the London bombings and who that very night were making jokes about it. Partly it was a coping mechanism, but partly it was just that some people like edgy humour and prefer to distance themselves from tragedy with levity. In some ways it's a way of confronting tragedy head-on. Iodine for the wound, as it were. I've no doubt you would have found those jokes as funny as they and I did. You might have felt slightly uneasy about it, but it was that ability to laugh, to shrug it off, at least to be pragmatic, that stopped everyone from going bug-fuck paranoid and bitter at the time, and which allowed London to get on with its life instead of doing exactly what the terrorists wanted - freaking out.
Sorry if I offended you. However, your knee-jerk reply suggests that you aren't well equipped to deal with the stings and blows that everyone experiences in life. Still, it is interesting how quickly the mod-tide turned...
Re:Come on... lets rally and beat this number (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet We Can Only Vote for One of Two Bozos (Score:2, Insightful)
I am dumbfounded that out of 300 MILLION PEOPLE we can ever only find TWO SLEAZY, SCUMBAG BOZOS to prop up to vote for.
Whatever happened to of the people, by the people and for the people???
Re:Perspective (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm a European. I've been around. I now live in Japan. Its amazing to see differences between countries in the amount of things, and energy being wasted.
The summary says: "..calculation that involves population, affluence and technology."
I think they miss "attitude" here. Look at Japan. You'd think they would be sparing their oil, since they have none (but guess who they are nice to). But no way, 2 plastic bags for your groceries, be amazed that you can live inside a city without a car, letting your car with aircon run while you stop over at the 24h neonlight covered convenience store, put the airconditioning on 18 C (32F) while it is 36 C (65F) outside, etc etc.
And you know which country actually tops this?, Yes, the US of -gimme all your oil- A.
Your gas prices are nothing compared to the ones in most European countries, yet you complain if you cannot ride your 4x4 truck around cheaply. No good trains, only plains. And nobody under 50 wants to be seen on a bicycle, you've got to own a car to get anywhere, etc etc. I don't care if you are good at GDP and economy, you are not good and reducing your footprint, whichever way you turn it.
Making lots of money is just no excuse for wasting around like this. That is what bugs me.
Re:Gratuitous US Bashing Increases Pagehits (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problem in "starving Africa" is not food, but war, corrupt government and diverted distribution. Africa is materially capable of self-sufficiency, but corruption and fighting always prevent the aid and resources from reaching those who most need it. I have hear first-hand stories of how import shipments of good grain, after a mysterious week's delay somehow end up arriving in port half their expected size and full of vermin and rot - and, curiously, of the same variety that the importing country was supposed to be shipping out.
And one of the main reasons for constant war and corruption? Manipulation of the global market through subsidy, sanctions and ridiculous demands by the western-led IMF & World Bank. Like it or not, we as a culture are pretty much directly responsible for all of the shit that's going on in Africa.
I've seen whole essays on this, and it's too depressing for me to go into any more detail.
ah but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, I'm not sure if this is good or bad (it's been bad for me of course) for the country as a whole. We need to have a sane immigration policy that looks after the people already here, I understand that. Also a lot of immigrants do feel welcomed after they get to the US (and a lot face serious racism of course) but the gov't process is very bad and unwelcoming. Since this is most immigrants first view of the US I can't see how it will not negatively color their perception of the Country.
Of course this is a bigger problem, since the actions of the US gov't have long negatively affects peoples view of the country and the people, but that's another posting
So that's why so many people simple sneak into the country. It's actually much easier to get in that way versus the legal way. If my wife was just going to come here to live with me and not work I'd be tempted to go that route, and save her the humilation of the process.
Take off the rose-colored glasses. (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars today are far more reliable than cars were 40 or 50 years ago. You can take pretty much any car today, and expect to get 100,000 miles out of it, properly maintained. This is not just Japanese cars, most domestic cars will last this long too. A whole lot of cars didn't used to have odometers that even went beyond 100k; it was just assumed that it would be scrapped by that point. Plus, they're more efficient, safer, and cost less in real-dollar terms. Not to mention a lower defect rate and less production waste. In short, you get a lot more for your dollar when you purchase a 2006 automobile than its 1956 equivalent.
Maintainance statistics on refrigerators I don't have as readily, but I'm willing to bet that you're viewing the past with some rose-colored glasses there, too. Most major appliances today will easily last ten years, in fact I'll bet that more of them are thrown away because they're no longer stylish, than because they actually break.
There are certain legitimate criticisms of the way a lot of mechancial devices are currently designed (sealed units, difficult to repair), however the upshot of this is that they're both more reliable, require less maintainance (when's the last time you had to have the coolant in your fridge topped off?), and far less expensive than they were in the past.
The reason you don't see very many older cars on American roads is not because they all die, but because we as a whole, don't like to drive them. Rather than driving them until they're actually at the end of their mechanical life, they either get sold to other countries (Mexico imports tons of used cars from the U.S.), or are cut up for parts or scrap rather than being reparied after some non-fatal damage. I suspect that in any major U.S. junkyard, you could very quickly put together enough parts to have a working automobile; it's simply not worth the labor for a skilled mechanic to do so. In other countries, or in the U.S. in the past under different economic conditions, this wouldn't be allowed to happen.
There are lots of things I'm nostalgic about the past for, but I have no illusions about the strides we've made in product engineering over the interim. That we've taken those engineering gains and used them to create a disposable culture is a social, not technological, problem.
Re:Perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:5, Insightful)
Number of major earthquakes on the West Coast: about 5 or 6 in the past century, spread out from California to Alaska.
Percentage of years in which Buffalo, New York has freeze-your-ass-off winters: 100.
no spin needed (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes US the third most populous country behind china and india.
True, as far as it goes, but those countries are 3-4 times larger.
Instead environmental impact is a calculation that involves population, affluence and technology.
Population density is worth at least a mention, no?
Each american produces about 2.3 kg of trash a day, the current rate is about 5 times that in developing countries.
Since the US produces more waste per person than any country in the world, why set up the comparison against developing countries? The US produces more than twice the trash per person of the more efficient industrialized nations. Isn't that trouble enough?
US environmental impact is an important problem that shouldn't be undermined by spinning the statistics. The reality of the problem is more than bad enough.
Re:Not so bad (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, since it's the basis for the whole argument, I'd say it's essential.
"Everyone knows that" is not customarily accepted as proof.
Re:Not so bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not so bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Pirates (not the bittorrent kind) stealing supplies:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1014/p06s03-woaf.ht
Food seized by political activists:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2341549.stm [bbc.co.uk]
From what I've been reading over the years, this sort of stuff is extremely common. It's very sad, but the problem is NOT the quantity of our aid.
Re:Gratuitous US Bashing Increases Pagehits (Score:4, Insightful)
USA produces approx. 21% of the Gross World Product (for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy#Econom
So your efficiency is below average.
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:5, Insightful)
It's that simple, really. If the grapes like the climate, so will we. And, if not, at least we will have wine.
Re:huh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:5, Insightful)
What's with the balance of payments then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Then why was the balance of payments deficit for goods for 2005 a record $782 billion? The last time the United States had a positive balance of payments was in 1973, and the deficit has been on an almost steady increase for the past two decades. Read the figures published by the Census Bureau [census.gov] (warning PDF link), or if you prefer, a a graph from the Bureau of Economic Analysis [bea.gov]. With these figures, the only reason why the United States hasn't yet suffered an Argentina-style economic collapse is that other countries keep buying up US debt...
Re:Not so bad (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, of course. Because the West is instigating all the wars, propping up all the dictators, and telling the oppressed peoples BOHICA.
Right.
Re:Take off the rose-colored glasses. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, in the case of refrigerators, replaced after 10 years as a general recommendation because newer models are (or can be) vastly more efficient.
Re:BZZZT (Score:2, Insightful)
I really think if the US doesn't turn things around in a major way over the next few years we are going to see the EU really pull away from us to the point where we may stop looking like a first-world nation compared to them.
Re:Take off the rose-colored glasses. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The US Consumes More Because It Does More (Score:2, Insightful)
It would be one thing if the US had accumulated its wealth in fair and equal competition with the rest of the world. But I doubt anyone would claim that to be true...
Just like how Europe accumulated its wealth in fair and equal competition [wikipedia.org].
Re:Would you like Mexicans with that? (Score:4, Insightful)
And here in California, there is fruit rotting in the fields [cfbf.com] because border tightening has cut the supply of farm workers.
So you out of work IT folks, get out there and pick lettuce, corn, tomatoes and pears!
Re:Flamebait (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, if there was just some way to keep the Anglos from moving down to the south-west, where my family have lived, since the early 1600's...
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Gratuitous US Bashing Increases Pagehits (Score:1, Insightful)
EU economies are growing faster than the US economy right now, including job growth - it's propaganda that they are stagnated. The fact is that the European nations are more efficient than the US. Here is a chart of GPD per barrel of oil [wikipedia.org] - note the chart on the right of the largest 30 economies sorted in order of efficiency.
Here is a chart of GPD which includes the aggregate number for the EU nations [wikipedia.org] - note that the EU is more productive than the US.
If you'd like we could get into productivity per worker as well - despite the reputation in the US we are some of the least efficient workers in any developed nation. France, which in the US has a certain reputation, has a more productive workforce than the US.
If any economy can be described as stagnated it is the US - I don't think it really is (yet), but it's certainly not doing as well as the EU unfortunately.
Re:BZZZT (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:3, Insightful)
If the US is as bad as many foreigners make it out to be, then why are so many immigrants moving here?
Re:Perspective (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:BZZZT (Score:4, Insightful)
The EU is now what 'these united States of America' (note the lower-case u in united and 'these' instead of the) was before the civil war. States used to be as distinct and seperate here as the EU countries are now; and the federal government had much less influence, concerning itself primarily with matters like the treasury and common defense.
~Rebecca
Re:Gratuitous US Bashing Increases Pagehits (Score:1, Insightful)
While it is true that oil is not the only world resource, it is one of the most fundamental and GPD per barrel consumed is a good measurement of "efficiency". Additionally, it shows susceptibility to instability in the oil market. Prices will spike again and the fact is our economy will be hurt by this more than theirs. We also aren't making the same effort to get away from oil as they are so it is likely we will see this become an even greater factor over time.
The EU nations only real economic problems is unemployment, and frankly there are some benefits to a higher unemployment rate as long as it doesn't cross a threshold - they seem to do a decent job of keeping it below that level, at least for now.
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:2, Insightful)
Indians and Chinese aren't coming here to have larger families, though that might be a side benefit for some Chinese here. They're coming here because they can get high-paying tech jobs here, either working in private industry as scientists and engineers, or in universities as professors and researchers. Quite simply, that means all these Indians and Chinese people are smart, well-educated, and middle-class to affluent.
Take a look at some other countries and how they deal with immigration: specifically, Australia and New Zealand. Look up their immigration web pages. The only way to immigrate to those countries is to either have a lot of money, or to have a good job already lined up (i.e., a professional job requiring an advanced education, not a ditch-digging job). Why would you want to import the trash from other countries, who are only going to cause problems? Any sanely run country would want to import the best and the brightest from other countries, because when lots of smart people get together, you get lots of innovation and a stronger economy, which benefits all citizens. Importing a bunch of uneducated dirt-poor people is only going to result in extra crime and a big burden on social services.
And what's with people like you playing the racism card anyway? It's pretty hard to call someone "racist" when they don't care for hispanic immigrants (who are uneducated and poor), but have no problems with Chinese and Indian immigrants (the latter who have much darker skin than most hispanics, and both of whom have cultures and languages that are much more different from our own than hispanics).
Re:BZZZT (Score:3, Insightful)
It helps to prop up your standard of living when you start off with the most educated people in the world and exclude immigrants for your ideal society.
I still stand by my original statement that the success in the EU is due to smart banking and less corruption in government. I would also like to add that the EU also had the advantage of less corporate corruption, and that executive salaries are not in the stratosphere. (although that last bit probably has little impact on the economy, it does seem to impact worker morale).
If the US were to switch to a socialist model of government it would fall apart. The government in the US is too fractured and too willing to take bribes or just be outright lazy. Bureaucracy and bad government makes socialism unworkable. The US would just turn into the next Soviet Union.
The solution to the US's problem is not socialism. It's ethical behavior in business, fair and small government, inclusion of immigrants into society, conservative fiscal policy and affordable necessities (housing, medical, transportation). by conservative I don't mean political conservatism, which is BS. I mean minute corrections over time rather than dramatic changes and common sense black ink accounting.
To sum things up. I don't think the US government infrastructure is capable of running successful socialism to any degree.