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."
America is doing something right... (Score:4, Interesting)
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Score:1, Interesting)
and the rest of the world for everything else!
Not so bad (Score:3, Interesting)
So, while we do, in fact, have a large global consumer footprint, we still, as a nation of plenty, have to capacity to contribute back resources.
Gratuitous US Bashing Increases Pagehits (Score:2, Interesting)
The linked article says nothing about concerns over Americans energy usage or anything of the sort. Why did the submitter have to add this when the article itself doesn't mention it. In fact, no articles I've read about US hitting 300 million are really concerned about energy consumption. The US will manage it just fine.
The last point of the slashdot writeup is pure flamebait designed to generate the typical flamewar on here. CmdrTaco, instead of being a responsible editor, let this piece of gratuitious US-bashing through.
Shame on you submitter and CmdrTaco.
US isn't the only one growing (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong! Canada (member of the G8, so technically a major industrial nation, even though a little over a tenth the size of the US) is increasing in size faster. More new immigrants settle in Greater Toronto Area every year than any other N. American city, including LA and Miami. Since I first came to Canada 10 years ago, I've seem the population grow from 28 million to 32. The last government was trying to increase the inflow of immigrants. Yes, it's easier to have a higher growth rates on lower numbers, but the impact on things like services (medical, roads, education, etc) and the enviroment are still proportionally higher.
Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
According to Angus Maddison's [url=http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Stat
Re:Gratuitous US Bashing Increases Pagehits (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:AGAIN cue the anarcho-capitalists (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems that while we have fewer people in the world, those that are born head to the US.
Source [wikipedia.org]
You may also note the US population growth rate @ 0.91% [cia.gov]
Oh and as to the oil usage, So what! Look at what we give the world back for the oil we use.
agricultural products (soybeans, fruit, corn), industrial supplies (organic chemicals), capital goods (transistors, aircraft, motor vehicle parts, computers, telecommunications equipment), and consumer goods (automobiles, medicines) (In order of quantity)
Re:Immigration anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn't cherry picking. The point is that the developed world has a resource usage pattern that is globally unsustainable. As the largest developed country in the world the U.S. is actually in a position to do something about this, and in fact actually are doing something about it at the state and local level, although the federal government leaves something to be desired in this regard.
There are more wasteful countries in the developed world, notably your smug neighbour to the north: Canadians are one of the few peoples on Earth who are even more wasteful than Americans, and our only saving grace is that there are so few of us in such a large amount of empty space that we don't in aggregate have such a large impact on the plant. Conversely, things don't improve so much globally when we clean up our act. But when America goes green, the weight of 5% of the world's population comes off the planet's shoulders.
There was some guy once who said something about treating others with the same love you give to yourself, and another guy around the same time who said something about not doing to other people what you do not want them to do to you. "Using up the world's non-renewable resources and treating the planet as our personal garbage can" is probably something that most of us would rather not see other people doing, and so it probably behooves us to not do so ourselves.
Re:First World Birthrates to LOW? WRONG. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's far worse in Europe, which will be basically Muslim within a generation,
Oh, and what do you suggest we do about that? You see, putting kids on the world without having the required finances and infrastructure (adequate housing) is insanity. I do want kids (and so wants my wife), but there is no way I can raise a bunch of them in the small apartment we live. Moving to something bigger is impossible since we don't have the finances. Vicious circle. Many young european couples are in that situation.
So, yes, "muslimification" will continue, but only because they don't seem to care in what conditions their kids grow up.
Not necessarily. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, gadgets did last longer 30-50 years ago, but they were also more expensive. Western Electric phones were designed like tanks because AT&T rented phones (at $5 per month), and it was cheaper to design a long-lasting phone than to constantly replace broken ones. Also, from what I have heard, automobiles are designed so that they do not break down as often as they broke down twenty years ago.
Americans & Energy Use (Score:4, Interesting)
I really doubt that's true. Not that 25% of the world's energy use takes place in America, but that a good energy accounting system would assign all that use to Americans.
Say what?
What I mean is, America uses more energy per capita in a simple account, but think about what we're using that energy for. At least some of it is going toward production of goods & services for export. Should the energy used to manufacture and ship a computer be assigned to us, or to whoever buys it in another country? I think the latter.
Even taking that into account, I would guess that we still use more per capita. But not 5x as much.
Re:Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Score:4, Interesting)
Taking you somewhat less literally, we get most of our fresh water from nature at the moment. Oxygen too. Those things are quite a bit more important than physical space. If you choose to take E.O. Wilson seriously, read "The Future Of Life". He puts the carrying capacity of the earth at somewhere less than 20 Billion people. Comfortable at less than that.
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:First World Birthrates to LOW? WRONG. (Score:3, Interesting)
Exept the fertility rate of your typical natural-born US citizen resembles that of your average European. Nearly half of our current population increase comes from immigration. If Europe is becoming "Muslim," then the US is becoming Mexican and Chinese (et al), and at a far faster rate (even in this day and age we're more immigrant-friendly than most of Europe).
"its entire culture and history pushed into slavery (dhimmitude)."
Xenophobe much? If the US isn't speaking Gaelic after the huge influx of Irish immigrants we've had over our history, why do you believe that immigration from the Middle East and north Africa will change Europe so drastically? Especially when they're coming to Europe to get away from stuff like that?
No, a few sporradic incidents of "honor killings" does not make a general consesus, it's just good copy for sensationalist news outlets.
"It's this attitude that lead to our culture's potential extinction in the first place."
Culture adapts, otherwise most of the music on your hard drive would involve a harpsichord somewhere. No culture on the planet would be in its current state were it not for the cross-pollenization of art and ideas across cultures. One could make the case that the culture of the United States is the dominant one on the planet because of our immigration policies, allowing a blending of cultures to happen on the typical street corner rather than being confined to the esoteric collections of elitist patrons that can afford to import cultural artifacts from abroad.
It's interesting the way "culture" has become the new euphamism for race (does this make "culture" the new "last refuge of a scoundrel?"), I'm a little curious to see what it will be next. Instead of trying to focus on such broad, vague terms like "culture" that can be defined in any way you want to define to satisfy your arguments, perhaps you should focus on particular ideals that are important, such as republicanism. However, letting the people decide for themselves what their "culture" will look like one minute to the next is the exact opposite of the top-down imposition of "good culture/bad culture" that you seem to favor.
Of course, I can't think of any better way to stem the tide of Islamic immigrants to Europe than to impose such a European sharia in the name of preserving European culture. Why would someone looking to get out from under such a system bother moving to Europe then?
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm in my 40s. I will stay on the east coast to make a living, but I will surely move back to "fly over country" when I retire. Probably move to Texas, Tennessee or another tax friendly state where I can fish without there being a boat every 20 feet on the lake, and where I can afford to have 5 or 10 acres of space between me and my neighbors. If I could make the same money there now, I would be there now.
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Trashy Americans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, a lot of people get a new car every 3 years. But they don't trash the previous one. They trade it in, return it to the leasing company, or re-sell it.
Re:Canada's doing it wrong. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, in regards to your experience. It may be possible that to those fast-food workers it was you who had the hard to understand accent. Maybe someone born and raised in Toronto can understand you just fine, but they'll still detect an accent. For someone who speaks english as a second language, and is used to hearing Canadians, I can understand how some American accents could be hard to understand. I myself have never had a problem with a fast-food worker of any nationality getting my order right. But I'm not from North Dakota.
You believed that? (Score:5, Interesting)
And we never did.
The whole "give us your tired, your sick" crap was just that, crap. The U.S. has never been particularly interested in taking refugees; exceptions to this are just that -- exceptions -- and not the rule.
I don't know what drives this constant temptation to embellish the past, but it wasn't this wonderful place of sunshine and light. Most of the people who were allowed to immigrate into the United States throughout its history weren't allowed in out of some sort of self-righteous pity, but because they were needed in order to meet the demand for labor. Lots of sick people got sent right back on the boats they came over on, and even if you were young and healthy, you still had to have someone willing to vouch for you here in the States before you were allowed in.
We need to stop deluding ourselves about our past immigration policies. While they may have ended up being more liberal than the rest of the Western world's at the time, that was only because Europe had more people than it knew what to do with, and the U.S. was starved for labor and people to tame the new lands it was in the midst of acquiring. As a nation we needed more people, and as a result we became more welcoming; the latter was a response to the former, not the other way around.
The needs of the United States have always been the driving force in our immigration policy historically; if it worked out well for the immigrants then all the better for them. It's mostly after the fact that people have congratulated themselves for being so high-minded.
Now it's disappointing to me as an American that our immigration process wasn't easier for your wife, who I am assuming is probably educated and employable -- in short, exactly the type of people we need to be encouraging to come here. However, I don't think that as a nation we should be guilt-tripping ourselves into rolling out a red carpet to everyone who needs a place to live, particularly to those without skills, for whom there is little demand today and less so in the future; we have never engaged in this historically, and there's no reason to start now.
Re:Immigration is the source of US population grow (Score:3, Interesting)
>why do so many people move to the U.S. versus, say Europe or Japan?
There are many immigrants moving to Europe, and many Europeans aren't happy about that: There have been problems. Think French riots, Turks in Germany, "Swedish jobs are for Swedes," and new Dutch immigration laws. It is likely that many countries will follow the Netherlands' lead.
And all that's nothing next to Japan, which is famously xenophobic. To preach national and racial superiority is a great deal more mainstream there than it is in the U.S. Japan is investing so heavily in robotics, for example, largely because it'd rather have machines do work in the country than Filipino immigrants.
I expect that much of this difference is because the U.S., unlike European countries and unlike Japan, is not a nation founded on a unique existing culture or an ethnic identity.
Re:Come on... lets rally and beat this number (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately this is not happening, despite large numbers of homes being constructed.
Re:Per Capita Oil Usage (Score:3, Interesting)
Sidenote:
Re:Take off the rose-colored glasses. (Score:4, Interesting)
My 1972 Volkswagen, when it was running, had over 200,000 miles on the frame, (maybe 50k on the current engine). On the other hand, I had to tweak the timing or the carb adjustment literally every other week to keep it running smoothly, and adjust the valve clearance pretty much at every oil change (3000 miles - the classic 1600cc Air Cooled VW engine has NO oil filter stock). Yes, I tinkered with it, I've swapped engines, rebuilt engines, swapped transaxles, bolted on some suspension modifications, etc.
My 2003 Volkswagen. . . I pop the hood for oil changes every 5000 miles. I expect 200,000 miles with no unscheduled maintenance, and given anaecdotes from other Jetta owners, that's not an unreasonable expectation.
On the third hand - if something DID go wrong with the 2003 VW, I'd pretty much have to take it to a shop. I own a nice set of tools, a timing light, tach/dwell meter, even a bore kit for carb jets, compression tester, and I have rebuilt the 34-pict carb blindfolded (as an exercise). But I couldn't even begin to troubleshoot a complex fuel-injection timing or turbocharger problem with the 2003 VW. Even if I had the necessary manuals, I don't have the experience or the equipment. And I would expect the equipment to run north of $10k. (though the VAG-COM serial cable and software is pretty slick - that's the exception in the industry today, not the rule).
So I'm somewhat "on the fence" as to whether I'm better off with today's cars.
Definately, when one takes into account, safety features - air bags, crumple-zones, antilock brakes, more advanced suspension designs, etc. And the lower-maintenance factor is mighty convenient. But the inability to DIY (partially caused by emissions regulations - partially by IP-law profiteering) is a big minus.
Curious given USA's status (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyway, asbestos on and checked, flame away ;)
Re:US the richest country since when? (Score:3, Interesting)
According to this study [worldbank.org]...
1. Switzerland ~9M
2. Denmark ~5M
3. Sweden ~9M
4. United States ~300M
5. Germany ~82M
6. Japan ~127M
7. Austria ~8M
8. Norway ~4M
9. France ~59M
10. Belux ~10M
Interestingly, the top 3 have their wealth spread over only 20M folks. Of course if you took a look at some regions with 20M folks out of 300M in the US (say california or new york), there's an interesting comparison there...