Comment Re:Food Wars (Score 1) 407
well just like any other statistic, zero population growth may only be a temporary blip. What is really happening is that the European Community has drastically scaled back immigration policy.A child born in france to non-french parents is now no longer considered to be a french citizen. Yet another example of this is the large expatriate turkish community in Germany. Due to double digit unemployment there has been an increase in racial disturbances, with the german government pleading for tolerance of "fogeign nationals". In both cases, turks living and working in Germany and french born babies are not considered to be european, thus I am not surprised that the EU would have zero population growth because they aren't measuring the actual number of babies but only EU babies born of EU parents.
besides most of europe is not at zero growth but only a few countries like Austria with high cost of living and conservative immigration policy.
Also just because American statistics choose not to measure immigrant labor does not mean these people don't exist and have lots of children.
Like it or not population continues to grow faster than our ability to feed it. The solution has been to utilize technology to solve these problems but as I pointed out in one of my previous posts marginal land continues to be cleared for farming or animal husbandry while high yielding land continues to be plowed under for concrete, cars and malls.
The problem already exists in the developing world. Its only because most of us on the internet and here at slashdot live in the relative comfort of the USA that we don't understand how bad the problem has become.
World fish stocks are at an all time low according to recent studies, we continue to lose top soil at an alarming rate, and runoff of fertilizer from high tech farming solutions is polluting the water. The availability of clean water for drinking is also pretty much tapped out, unless you consider a global scale desalinization plan.
technology has solved and will continue to solve many of human kinds problems but to create more food from dwindling resources may be just too much to ask for. Perhaps the world is better off with 3 or 4 billion instead of the current 6. Geez within my lifetime the earths population should hit at least 10 billion. How can technology possibily keep up with growth like that ?
besides most of europe is not at zero growth but only a few countries like Austria with high cost of living and conservative immigration policy.
Also just because American statistics choose not to measure immigrant labor does not mean these people don't exist and have lots of children.
Like it or not population continues to grow faster than our ability to feed it. The solution has been to utilize technology to solve these problems but as I pointed out in one of my previous posts marginal land continues to be cleared for farming or animal husbandry while high yielding land continues to be plowed under for concrete, cars and malls.
The problem already exists in the developing world. Its only because most of us on the internet and here at slashdot live in the relative comfort of the USA that we don't understand how bad the problem has become.
World fish stocks are at an all time low according to recent studies, we continue to lose top soil at an alarming rate, and runoff of fertilizer from high tech farming solutions is polluting the water. The availability of clean water for drinking is also pretty much tapped out, unless you consider a global scale desalinization plan.
technology has solved and will continue to solve many of human kinds problems but to create more food from dwindling resources may be just too much to ask for. Perhaps the world is better off with 3 or 4 billion instead of the current 6. Geez within my lifetime the earths population should hit at least 10 billion. How can technology possibily keep up with growth like that ?
