Some of the biggest reasons that have their efffect on population growth are surprisingly counter-intuitive. I believe about 1/5th of the worlds population is in India (a billion-ish?). A teeming mass of chronically destitute humanity. No birth control, and babies being born in the gutter, to families that are born, live, and die in the gutter.
On occasion, there is an NGO push to provide free birth control, and aid-workers try to talk these poor illiterate homeless into getting free sterilization. Attempts are made to show that if they have fewer children, each child will be healthier and have a better chance to survive to a better life than the parents. Can you guess the most-often cited reason they will not do that?
If most of their children die before adulthood, they need to make a lot of babies so that at least one of them will be able to feed them when they are too old to work. And the vicious cycle continues. Also, the majority believe in re-incarnation, and they are taught that suffering in this life will lead to a better next-life (Huh?)
Although its true that there is actually plenty of land for the worlds current population, you can't really grow sufficient crops with well-water (in most places, there are a few exceptions), you need to irrigate with surface water (rivers, reservoirs, and aqueducts). Food can be grown, and a town can be built, if there is enough water available (and that is even considering the unlikely banning of lawns + golf-courses as un-neccesary water-hogs).
We can joke around about the coming Mad-Max/zombie-pocalypse, and reverting to horse-pulled plows to grow crops when there's no oil, but when transportation becomes prohibitively expensive, villages will need to be close to the farms that grow food. Windmills can pump the irrigation water, and my moneys on diesel tractors burning soy-oil, but the most vital resource will be fertile land and water.
People will always want to group into some type of village/town, not only for socialization, but also for mutual protection. Just the way I see it...lots of difficult transitions ahead....
). But I never got sick, they were sick all the time. I try to force myself to share germs with others, even though my inner hypochondriac tells me not to. I believe this is why people sit alone by themselves in these 4 ton boxes, they are SCARED! Scared of sharing germs, conversation, having their viewpoints and opinions challenged, it's safe in here, nobody will judge me or touch me or sneeze on me. Many of my friends, rich or poor have never been on a public bus. American society looks down on you for riding the bus, unless you live in a congested city. There are sooo many obstacles to overcome when it comes to changing peoples mind about their consumption, and I can only think of one sure fire way to start. GREED! I bet there are people flocking to the dealerships test driving the Prius this weekend because of rising gas prices. I love it! But in the end, they go home and do cost analysis spreadsheets etc... it all comes down to the dollar. Only all electric would come out on top if gas goes to $5 or $6 a gallon. I can't wait, exciting times ahead, be prepared to live meagerly and prepare your children to do the same, the zombie apocalypse is upon us.
