Where a Farm Used to Be, A Lesson on Urban Sprawl and Overpopulation

Howdy boys and girls.

I know a lot of you are in denial about human overpopulation, you don't think it is a real "thing".

I suppose some of you might even be shocked to learn that human overpopulation has been talked about for many years, even over 100 years ago when Reverend Thomas Malthus suggested that war and famine was God's way of punishing us for overpopulating the earth.

I am over 50 years old, and in my time the earth's human population has more than doubled, many forests have been destroyed, rivers polluted, the Aral sea has almost vanished, and hundreds of species have gone extinct.  YES human over population is a real thing!

Please watch the video above but mostly listen to the words!

In my lifetime I have observed the urban sprawl of many cities, mostly the one where I grew up, Edmonton, Alberta.

I remember as a child driving out to a place in the country to take our cat for boarding when we went away.  That place is now a parking lot for a shopping area, and it is at least another 10 minutes drive to get out of the city.  When I was a kid all that are was farm land.  Before it was farm land I suppose it was natural area, perhaps forest, or other wilderness area.

Years ago North America was home to a bird that numbered in the billions.  This being the Passenger Pigeon.  Those birds have gone extinct in part due to hunting but mostly due to loss of habitat as they needed certain large forests in which to congregate and nest.  Those forests were destroyed to make way for farm land.

I do not understand how anyone more than 30 years of age can deny the changes they should have been seeing in their own lifetimes, unless they just do not get out of the city much and have not seen how things actually have changed, or have not read the news about how fast some animal species are going extinct due to habitat loss.

Ask yourself what used to be where a farm used to be?  Hint in the background!

Where a farm used to be there is now a parking lot, mega shopping structures, housing, and hundreds more people.  Nonetheless what is very important to remember is that something used to be in the spot where the farm used to be too.  As soon as we needed to clear trees to have a farm, at that very point, we entered an area of being an invasive species, we became overpopulated, not necessarily to the point it hurt our own species, but to the point that it hurt others!

What if Each Family Only Had One Acre?

Why are people considering living on Mars?

The answer is simple; it is because we are overpopulating and destroying our own planet and need more room! 

Imagine if each couple were delegated 1 acre of land to live on, and could only use resources from that plot of land (catching rain water as needed).  All their food had to come from that acre, all their waste had to be disposed of on that acre.

They build a house using all the trees and rocks.  They plant a garden and have some chickens.  They have a goat for milk.  If they are lucky they have a pond for fish.  They are perfectly sustainable on their land.  Then one day they have a baby.  That baby needs things.  They re-purpose older clothes for baby clothes, but food eventually becomes an issue.  At first they can produce enough to feed the child, but eventually the child needs more food and it gets tough with the parents eating a bit less just so the child can have more.  Then they have another child.

At one point their small house starts to feel crowded, but they have no more trees to use to expand their home, and do not wish to take away any more land from what they need to produce food.

On land that previously supported two people, they are now trying to support four.  What do they do?

Vege patties, spinach, cucumber, tomatoes.  A meal for two.

They find ways to cheat on food production.  They pump the goat with hormones so it produces more milk.  They water the garden more so it produces larger vegetables and fruits, but even though the fruit is larger it contains only the same nutrition as would be in a smaller vegetable.  Combined with the fact that the land has been used so much that it contains less nutrients than in earlier years, and we see how the family has barely enough food but the food itself has less value. 

This is where the human population is now.  Although we feel like we have unlimited space and we technically produce enough food for everyone, the food we are producing today has less nutritional value than it did even 20 years ago.  Dairy animals in some nations are pumped with hormones to produce more milk but the side effect of the hormones on the humans that drink the milk are dangerous, and the dairy animals themselves have shorter lives as a result of being stressed in that way.

Our farmers are producing big strawberries, but have you tasted one or compared it to the small strawberries that grow wild?  The huge berries have little taste in comparison.  

Think of the earth as the one acre homestead.  We cannot expand it.  If we keep adding people to it, and resources are limited, we have to find ways to cope.  We can cope by cheating with the resources, but to what end?

Additional problems come about in that some people are not happy with their meager one acre and insist on having more, thus forcing others to get by on less space, or poorer land. 

If you had to live on one acre, and could only produce enough food for two people, would you have kids?  How many?

I should note too that food is not the only issue we need to consider in regards to human overpopulation.

Sending people to live on Mars is not the answer.  Killing people off is not the answer either!

The answer is for people to be more responsible.  Having children at a later age (no younger than 25) and limiting oneself to only having one child is a good solution to prevent further population growth.  It is also vital that people adapt sustainable skills, and stop demanding unnecessary things (useless home decor items, and other luxury items). 

How Do We Know if the World is Overpopulated

Agreeing on if the world is overpopulated or not is based on more than if we produce enough food for all the people on the planet. Indeed deciding if there are are too many humans is not just about the humans, but is about all other species as well as the earth itself.

For thousands of years the human population stayed pretty steady around 1 to 2 billion people, shooting up only recently with improvements to health care and industrialization. When the human population was lower we were still causing some impact on the planet but in no way as great as we are doing now that our human population numbers over 7 billion.

If you talk to somebody who is in their 50's or older they will probably tell you how they can remember farms in areas that are now built up and urbanized. Indeed the human population has more than doubled in the last 50 years and we have lost a lot of farm land as well as natural forests due to the growth rate. Farms have become more “efficient” at producing more food on less land, and typically this results in food that has less nutrition, but again food is not the focus...

The oceans all have gyres of human garbage, large pits and quarries destroy the landscapes in many areas. Deforestation has lead to landslides on many mountains. Toxic ponds of industrial waste pollute many areas. Giant mounds of human garbage occupy many acres of land worldwide. Thousands of species of animals have gone extinct in the past 200 years and yet some people still claim that the human population is not too high.

Studies done on rats and mice years ago by John B. Calhoun suggested that many social problems are the result of overpopulation. In his experiments the animals were cared for medically and were well fed but their population was allowed to grow. At a certain point the formerly social animals became anti-social, random acts of violence became common, and parenting skills declined drastically to the point that eventually the young animals did not survive.

Humans have long been known to be violent towards one and other but the acts of violence were rarely random as they are today. People walk down busy streets without making eye contact, they walk past those who are suffering (homeless) as though they did not exist. Compassion to our fellow man is being lost as we become more and more overpopulated.

This development (in Edmonton) used to be farm land, and prior to being farm land it was a forest.  How is this "better" than a forest?   How is this being in harmony with the planet?

Although some people have suggested a sustainable human population is 5 billion (and others have suggested 500 million) there is probably no definite number of what the maximum sustainable population is. In part it relates to how sustainable we chose to live our lives. Five billion people who live lives of excess are not nearly as sustainable as 5 billion people who live modestly (small homes, consuming only what they need, few luxuries).

Sadly it is impossible, therefore, to give an exact number at which the human population is considered to be overpopulated. Most certainly, due to our impact on the environment, and other species, we have surpassed that number. As long as we rely on non-renewable resources, and consume renewable ones up faster than they can be renewed, and as long as we displace, or destroy, other species, we are overpopulated.

People Overreact When I Mention Human Overpopulation

I am a bit behind the times; I only recently joined Facebook!   I have often mentioned human overpopulation on Facebook posts, such as when a person references pollution, or whatever.  Typically I am met with responses that are not only very defensive, but often a total overreaction to my comment.  Specifically some people jump to the conclusion that I am suggesting we kill off a bunch of people!

I have never suggested solving the concerns of human overpopulation by killing people.  

To that end I am actually afraid that at one point the world will be so overpopulated that killing people (much as we do with other species to control their growth) will be something that is talked about more openly.  I grew up watching shows such as "Logan's Run" and movies like "Soylent Green" in which overpopulation was a real concern and society had its own way of dealing with this.  

I absolutely do not want the human population reaching a point where our lifespan is decided for us.  Heck no!  That is why I warn about human overpopulation now and point out that we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend it is not a concern.  That is why I tell people that one child is plenty, and that putting off having kids until you are at least 28 is a very important thing to do.

Look around, human overpopulation is not about food, it is about what we are doing to our planet just by being here.  We have destroyed forests, we have driven thousands of other species to extinction, we have caused the destruction of many ecosystems, polluted rivers and lakes, and yet some people still insist we are living in harmony with the planet and that our numbers are not too large!

The city used to be farm land, the farm land used to be a forest... as soon as we destroyed the forest, we were overpopulating the area.  This is the city of Edmonton, Alberta.

I am not talking about depopulating the planet by killing people.  I am suggesting we realize that we are killing the planet by allowing our population to grow uncontrolled (we have eliminated many things that kept our population controlled, such as diseases, and predators).  We are living longer than ever before and that is in fact the problem because the birth rate is actually going down in many countries.  However the population grows because infant mortality is down, and (as mentioned) we are living longer so several generations of the same family are alive at the same time, whereas in the past the older generations would have died off, allowing for room for the younger generations.

Please do not put words into my mouth, I am not suggesting we kill people, I am just suggesting each one of us would be reproductively responsible and not have more than one child, and not have that child before we are over the age of 28.

I am sure that most people who talk about human overpopulation are met with the same overreaction by others who assume that just because you talk about there being too many people that you are automatically suggesting we eliminate some!

Dumb Thing Said by a Pro-Lifer

I am not pro-life, I am pro-choice.  I think if a woman wants to have an abortion she should be allowed to do so,  however I do feel that it would be better if women who do not want kids would take measures to avoid pregnancy in the first place.  Nonetheless I realize that unwanted pregnancies do occur.

On an anti-abortion post on Facebook recently one pastor made the ignorant comment "They should just wait until they get married before having sex".  This comment is ignorant on so many levels but mostly because it implies that once people are married they want kids and will not have abortions.

In Ireland abortions are illegal.  One married woman was pregnant with a ectopic pregnancy that meant that her baby had no chance for survival, and nor did she.  She was denied an abortion and died.  This occurred in October 2012.  The anti-abortion laws in Ireland were subsequently changed to allow abortions when the mother's life is at risk.

It is religion that largely fuels the "pro-life" movement but I rarely see those who are against abortion line up to adopt drug addicted babies, or those with other issues.  I rarely see them hand out free condoms or offer to pay for birth control.  Instead they simply tell people to wait until they are married before having sex.

Marriage is no guarantee that people wont have abortions, it is no guarantee that they want kids.  So telling people to wait until they get married before having sex is not going to stop abortions.  Empowering people to be able to prevent unwanted pregnancies will!

All these pro-lifers who think they are holier-than-thou need to open their eyes to reality.  If a woman does not want a baby and happens to get pregnant and is told she cannot abort, she will likely not care for her unborn child throughout her pregnancy, and may come to hate it, she may drink, smoke, do drugs, and fill her self with anger and rage directed towards the unborn child and we know that a mother's mood during pregnancy does affect the unborn child.

I wish women could avoid getting pregnant if they know they do not want a child, but I also know the reality for some women does not make this possible.  To be ignorant and tell people to wait until marriage and assume that somehow being married makes people fit and ready to be parents is a joke!  Married people, can, and do, have abortions too. 

Causes of Random Acts of Violence

If you think random acts of violence are more common now than in the past you are correct. 

Violence has often been a part of the human society, wars over territory and such have been a concern for thousands of years, but actual random acts of violence are a relatively new thing.

In studies done on rats and mice, John B. Calhoun noted that as the populations grew so too did the occurrence of random acts of violence.  He provided the animals with ample food and water, so he could eliminate "need" from the cause of violent outbreaks.  What he noted was that as populations grew the compassion the animals had for one and other shrunk.  They no longer acted the same towards one and other, even simple parenting skills declined.

The rats, or mice, were in near constant contact with each other and this caused them to devalue others of their kind more and more over time, leading to the increase in random acts of violence.

Humans have doubled their population in the last 40 years.  This has caused a huge strain on us socially as more and more people feel like life is a rat race and is less enjoyable overall.  More people than ever are living in cities, constantly rubbing shoulders with others.  In turn people feel lost and alone, and their subconscious cannot take the loss of identity.  People are, in general, less compassionate to strangers, and in some cases even resent them. 

In the past when people lived rurally or in smaller communities (and in areas where these smaller communities still exist) people still greet each other with a "hello" and they still make eye-contact, even with people they do not know.  In big cities people mentally distance themselves from others, they do not say "hi" to people they walk by on the street and avoid eye-contact.

We have already reached a point where random acts of violence are occurring, and are at a place where they seem to be quite common. 

As parents we must raise our children to be compassionate to others, but equally so if we have lots of children we need to take responsibility for the fact that we are just adding more of a burden to the problem.

More people = more stress.

Can Families Raise Children Without Depending on Daycare

One symptom of overpopulation is parents giving up their role as parents.  In studies on rats and mice, as the populations grew the parent animals were less involved with raising their young.  It seems to me that the human population is showing the same symptom in that many parents are getting strangers to raise their kids rather than raising their kids themselves.

The excuse so often given is that they "need to both work" so they need to have daycare.

I had only one child and before she was born both my husband and I agreed we were not going to place her in daycare.  Please note that we were not rich, in fact we were considered lower class citizens, living on minimum wage.  Rather than dumping our daughter in daycare we simply altered our schedules so that while he worked full time and I worked part time, I worked on days and times when he was home, and visa versa. 

We were very frugal with our money.  We did not have cell phones, internet, or cable television.  We had one car that we shared, it cost us very little to buy and we were not making payments on it.  We never went out for coffee but we often went for lovely walks to the park. 

We put our child as a priority rather than having "stuff". 

When I hear people say that they cannot afford for one person to stay at home and watch their children I seriously wonder what they are thinking, because if we did it on a really low income, anyone with a better income should be able to do it too. 

Otherwise I have to wonder why even have a child if you are not willing to raise it yourself, particularly as children's most formative years are 0 to 5.

If a person cannot stay home to raise one child, then why do they have more?  Surely this raises their day care expenses and further cuts into their income.

Universe 25, a study on mice which showed that as populations grew the parent mice cared less and less for their own offspring with each new generation.

I realize that most people are not logical thinkers.  They want kids, they want a big house, they want new cars, and they are not willing to make any sacrifices.  They make excuses for why they put their kid(s) in day care, they say they could not afford to stay home, but in all reality they just did not make the right choices so they could stay home.  They wanted too much stuff instead!

Again, as a low income person, if my husband and I could figure out a way for one of us to always stay home, for sure a couple making a higher income should be able to figure it out too.

Over all though, parents would be wise to remember that one kid is expensive, more will not be cheaper.

The world is not at a loss for population, we need to control our numbers, there is no need for people who produce more and more kids that they are unwilling to look after and will put in the trust of strangers.   Is this the result of human overpopulation? Or the result of human greed?  

Shocking Photos that Prove Human Overpopulation

These are photographs that I have taken in the area around me.  The prove that there is a concern with human overpopulation, but if you do not understand the connection I will explain it below.

What do you see when you look at these photos?  Do you see farm land?  I would assume you do, but are you aware that only a few years ago this farm land was forest?  I was able to see some older aerial photos of the area which showed a lot more trees and a lot less open farm land. 

If the planet was not overpopulated the forests would be preserved, thriving, and being the lungs of the planet and the home of wildlife.  Instead we rape the forests for wood or chop them up and burn them to make room for agriculture to grow food for people or food for livestock.

The trees in the distance of both of these photos are not forests, rather they are rows of trees about 30 feet wide, not much more; a poor replacement for all the trees that used to cover the land.

Now I know there are some people who do not see this as an indication of human overpopulation but I ask "When does it stop?"  At what point do we say "Ya, enough trees have been chopped, it cannot all be farm land, we need forests?"  To me the fact that we are not sustainable and are still cutting trees to make more farm land is proof that we are overpopulating the planet.

I only had one child, that was plenty for me.  I live rurally and am allowing trees to reclaim part of the area in front of my house which was once known as a "lawn".  We need to stop the destruction of our environment and the only way to do that is to slow our population growth.