480M population increase in 11 years? Is that really a problem? 44 million people not dying each year due to disease and malnutrition is not going to damage any ecosystem but economic, and even that damage is negligible at first, nonexistent years down the road.

Yes, it’s four times the yearly population growth of China.
And yes, we’ve got plenty of habitable space around the world. For now.
If you go by landmass, not borders.

But once it’s said and done this is 44 million healthy, educated, productive people contributing to the global marketplace instead of pushing up daisies. This is a Good Thing. I think.

“We still drive big gas guzzling cars and trucks and instead think we’re clever because we can make biodiesel from plants, which ultimately results in land that would otherwise be used for food production being turned over to producing fuel, leading to a rise in food prices.”

Biofuels are definitely a profitable way to go, but the (near) future of transportation is electric. Tesla (my bet for market dominance), Honda, Dodge, and will finally bring EV’s mainstream.

California also took a big leap forward with the green light for their high speed maglev. It’s cheap and efficient, and will eventually phase out cargo/passenger travel via rail completely — in addition to knocking a big chunk out of air travel as well once we get ‘em fast enough.

The only reason we aren’t 100% electric today is because of profit interests. EV’s have been around for a long time.

Would you believe that biofuels aren’t the only crop being grown in developing countries for maximum profit? In countries where the farmers are starving? You better believe it.

Opium is also grown this way, in Afghanistan and North Korea at a minimum.

It’s a sad state of affairs, sure.
But change is what we are, and what we do.

“Spending money on food for the poverty stricken in the developing world, from an economic perspective, is like a sponge that never gets saturated. Governments just would[n't?] do it.

It’s not just food, we’re talking education and medical care and shelter and water — the works. When people have essentials for life (and more important, luxury time) people can be human and innovate, making all our lives better.

Beyond that — when people are given the tools to be self sustaining, they not only thrive locally but contribute globally. Any amount of money invested into impoverished nations is an investment into all of us, and it’s foolish for any government to think otherwise. Some of the most brilliant men and women in the world have come from the poorest places on earth.

But all in all an awesome comment and I enjoyed the read+response.
Right on with this:

“Most of the worlds problems are man made. War, poverty, the financial crisis, and the state of our environment are all because of decisions that people decide to make. When empowered to make decisions, make the right, not popular or self serving decision.

The world was not created with national borders carved into it. We are all people, humans, living on one earth. Man has drawn up borders, divided and conquered. He has setup political systems and trade and economic systems that are self serving. Ultimately the world we live in is one made by man and we need to take responsibility for the problems that has created.”

Now if only people would decide to make decisions for themselves.
That’s the trick, isn’t it?

I have a few thoughts that I would like to share though.

Supposing all the money spent/wasted in Iraq was instead used to eliminate poverty, and save 30′000 children that would otherwise die each day. In 11 years time there will be 13 million children entering adulthood somewhere in the developing world. These children will then go on to have more children, and in the developing world, each family is likely to have more.

If we include the other 90′000 older than 5, and apply the same logic we need to add another 360 million. Thats more than the population of the US and they haven’t even started to reproduce yet.

Population growth being as it is in the developing world means that ultimately you have an ever increasing number of mouths to feed. This sounds callous, perhaps inhumane, but let me go on.

There is personal tragedy, and pain and suffering in each and ever death. That is inescapable. Increasing the food supply in any biological system will result in increased population growth. By lifting the carrying capacity of an environment above a substainable level damages the longterm carry capacity of any environment and ultimately the mouths it can feed is reduced.

We live in a world were we destroy our natural resources, we chop down forest to grow food, to feed to animals that we then eat. We do not use that which nature has provided us in a very substainable manner and all the while we reduce the carrying capacity of our environment. Ultimately, unless we take care of our environment, heed the warning signs, there isn’t going to be a life worth living on this planet. Ultimately, putting more pressure on it will result in a greater quantum of death, especially when we realise that death, our greatest repression, is something that happens to each and every one of us anyway.

No doctor, or huminitarian for that matter, every saved a life; they simply delayed the death. Death is as natural a part of life as being born. The western world needs to embrace this, celebrate life more, and hord less wealth and riches for itself.

To lift the carrying capacity of the world substainable so that more people can live a better quality of life requires more than simply funding from the west for food and healthcare. It requires coming face to face with the truth that in the long term, long after we are dead, the world will not be a place worth living on unless we do something to change the way we live now.

We can complain about sweatlabor in the east all we like but we still go out an buy clothes. Its our own corporations that exploit these people because we are greedy, and first want to take care of our own needs. We complain when gas prices are high and think that tearing the earth apart is justified if we can find more oil. Who will pay the full cost of this? Our children? Their children? We still drive big gas guzzling cars and trucks and instead think we’re clever because we can make biodiesel from plants, which ultimately results in land that would otherwise be used for food production being turned over to producing fuel, leading to a rise in food prices. In the developed world we give livestock farmers subsidies that work out per head, to be more than it cost to keep a human from poverty.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the place in the world that suffers most from Climate change, its agricultural yields are falling, and they pay for our sins. They are not the great poluters of this world, and as when we measure per capita, nor are China or India. In fact, if ones is to make a fair analysis, very seldom presented in the media, it would only be right that the CO2 emmisions that are produced in this world should be attributed to the people that ultimately benefit, or consume the products that are manufactured. Even when one doesn’t look at this on a per capita basis, the analysis is alarming.

It is the western world and its messed up values that create most of the worlds problems. Nothing happens because not enough people care enough. Until such time as people are prepared to take responsibility for the lives they lead, the choices they make, and the choices that are made for them (by their governments and the companies that they support), things are unlikely to change.

War in Iraq was an inevitability. It had to happen because it was financially viable. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t support it. Wars are profitable. Spending on military creates jobs and stimulates the economy. The 2nd World war lifted the economy out of the great depression and military spending continues to do so. For every tax dollar spent on the military ultimately ends up as a salary to a soldier, an engineer manufacturing missiles or an executive in the industry. That person pays goes out and spends his earnings, paying sales and income tax, and making other people wealthier. Its called the multiplier effect.

Spending money on food for the poverty stricken in the developing world, from an economic perspective, is like a sponge that never gets saturated. Governments just would do it.

I don’t want to simply find problems so I offer solutions. Go out into nature and discover its beauty. Go back into your homes and live a life that is in harmony with the natural order of the world. Take public transport. Spend your money wisely. See through the sea of marketing and be a discerning consumer. Don’t be a consumer. Recognise that life is bad for others because of how good we have it and live a more pious life, putting less stress on the fragile world in which we live. Eat less protein. Enjoy the wonderful things that this world offers for free instead of the emptiness of material consumption. Choose a run in the forest over buying a treadmill and running in front of a tv, or inside a gym. Go for a surf instead of going wakeboarding. Take a holiday in a nearby village instead of going overseas. Ride a bicycle instead of a motorcycle. Give less of your hard earned money to the rich. Money corrupts them and the status quo has been bought about and maintained by the economically enfrachchised.

Most of the worlds problems are man made. War, poverty, the financial crisis, and the state of our environment are all because of decisions that people decide to make. When empowered to make decisions, make the right, not popular or self serving decision.

The world was not created with national borders carved into it. We are all people, humans, living on one earth. Man has drawn up borders, divided and conquered. He has setup political systems and trade and economic systems that are self serving. Ultimately the world we live in is one made by man and we need to take responsibility for the problems that has created. Man decides to go to war, because of what some men want.

The nature of man has not changed in centuries. He remains self serving although modern media does a better job of hiding this. Power still corrupts.

Do your best to understand the world we live in and try and change it for the better. I have faith in the common man and humanity. I have little faith in most power hungry people that find themselve in positions of… power.

(I didnt mean for this comment to be so long)