Is it necessarily a good thing to feed everyone?

Could you please explain how you are connecting your beliefs about genetically modified foods with your opinions on population growth? If you are correct that the population is growing out of control, then it seems like producing more food to feed them is a good way forward (in addition to humane research-driven projects to address population growth particularly in developing countries).

The two stances you are taking on this thread seem to be contradictory.

What exactly are you suggesting we do about population growth? I have suggested that more investment in development projects has been shown to be effective. Obviously efforts to improve woman's literacy and family planning are part of that. Are there any other reasonable steps you would suggest? (I will most likely agree with you).

It sounds from the title of this thread that you are suggesting that we let people in developing countries starve. I am holding on to the hope that this isn't what you meant. Please tell me that this isn't true.

This link might help clear up some confusion.
http://gmoinside.org/gmo-timeline-a-history-genetically-modified-foods/

and

Come on CI! The claim made in this pseudo-scientific propaganda was debunked by Snopes. The Anti-GMOers aren't even trying to get the facts right.


http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/monsantocorn.asp

This link is more comprehensive.
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/nea/biotech/in_focus/biotechnology_if_plant_timeline.html

That's much better, CI. No obvious lies in that one.

If a train is speeding along the track toward a cliff, the biggest need is not more fuel for the engine.

I believe there should be a "Manhattan project" for sustainability, world-wide, in terms of energy, resources, food, and water. In the US, that would prohibit such things as draining the Ogalala aquifer with no end in sight just to produce an ever increasing quantity of corn drenched with chemical fertilizers and herbicides.

This does indeed mean less agribusiness-produced food, and would in turn dictate variable caps on population. Though people won't like it, the birth rate in areas with poor land would necessarily need a harsher cap than in large fertile lands. Bangladesh is not sustainable at the same rate as the US. Population controls would consequently need to be taken far more seriously than even China's one child policy, since China's population is still growing at a dramatic rate despite 35 years under the "one child" policy. The extreme measure of population control might be something like what is practiced with cats in the US, which are typically spayed as kittens.

For humans in a region that needs to reduce population dramatically, a reversible sterilization procedure would be ideal; administered to pretty much every child. They can then apply for a permit to have the sterilization reversed later in order to have a child when and if they wish to. It's not such a strange idea to have to apply to have a child, it USED to be standard procedure in the USA; marriage served a gatekeeping function, as responsible adults first applied for a license, asked for parents' blessings, and established financial security (often including dowries, hope chests, and home ownership) before having babies.

Sustainable food production can also mean that a much larger portion of the population becomes involved in some way in producing food, with backyard and rooftop gardens, for instance. This is also not a strange idea; it was standard practice in the US and Europe during World War II, for instance.

The ever larger agribusiness approach actually thrives upon runaway population and it self-reinforces through shady practices, because it's "good for business" from their perspective. GMO crops are rarely developed to improve taste or nutrition (except in rare instances such as the GMO banana the Gates foundation has funded), they are more typically engineered to increase the profits of the companies that produce them. The ideal corn from their perspective is one that not only produces corn, but is engineered to require use of THEIR fertilizers and herbicides, and produces sterile seed, so that you have to buy new seed from them each year. Have a look at the patents, for instance "Roundup-ready" and "Terminator" GMO plants, and you'll see.
http://www.google.com/patents/US5554798
http://www.viewingspace.com/genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/gc_w03/terminator_abc/terminator_seed.htm

Hmmm.... I think that most people will find this idea to be quite insane. You are taking away a basic human right. And you use the phrase "region that needs to reduce population dramatically". This means poor countries.

Forced sterilization of poor people is not going to be accepted by many people in our modern, civilized society.

The only long term solution is to get the population down. How we do that who knows. I am also concerned that as things stand now the best genetic stock replicates less often then the crap stock. We need a solution to that problem as well. The first step should be mandatory sterilization of those with clear genetic problems.

Good. Individuals should have never had the right to endanger the species, so this would be the fixing of an error.

It's not a human right. That's a modern liberal misconception, and that misconception is at the expense of all of humanity. Is mass famine a "human right?" Growing the population endlessly when we KNOW it will hit a wall makes that outcome inevitable.

Nor is there any historic nor widespread acceptance that there is a basic human right to have children. In many first to third world countries having a baby requires marriage, it requires approval of parents, religious institutions and the state. In many of the US's trading partner countries, such as Saudi Arabia, ignoring those approvals is sometimes punishable by death. Ignoring those rules in china can result in a state ordered abortion and sterilization. Ignoring those rules in Pennsylvania Dutch communities can result in one being permanently shunned or expelled from the community. Try providing some references showing a legal and historic basis to prove your case, I don't recall "the right to have children regardless of my ability of my self and my nation to care for them, feed them, house them educate and protect them" in the US bill of rights.

The entire human population of the world could fit in Texas and it would not be overly crowded. The Earth could easily support 100 times its present human population, it's a pure question of infrastructure. From where I sit, the future of food production looks more like aquaponics than like GM foods.

This thread has certainly taken an interesting turn. Of course I can't argue, there is a history of the forced sterilization of minorities in the US and and Europe in the beginning of the 20th century.

Most Americans find the practice of compulsory sterilization to be quite abhorrent... several US states have apologized to the predominantly Native American and African-American victims of this procedure. Eugenics has generally been discredited in the US and in Europe since Word War II.

Gunga, you are making sense. Stop that.

Compulsory sterilization is not a liberal idea. You really don't understand world or US history.

Develop cheap clean energy in huge portions, spend 50 years building a water system that transports over long distances and eliminates evaporation, perfect artificial large scale farming then you could at least in theory be right. I would still want to know how we deal with all of that garbage without killing the planet. I would also want to you the source of your optimism that this war that is going so badly against the microbes of this planet will be turned around in time. Seems like a iffy proposition when the generals in the war (our best scientists) keep telling us that they dont have any ideas that show promise yet.

Hey isnt global warming supposed to really start kicking in soon? THink I heard about something about that, you might want to check into that.

(7 billion people) / (700,000 km^2) = 10,000 people / km^2

That's 1/3 the population density of Manhattan.
Across an area the size of Texas? Horrors...

I'd just like to add, though, that I believe overpopulation will solve itself if we empower women to make their own reproductive decisions.
(I'm against eugenics.)

So your theory is that the women of Niger pop out 7.6 babies per even though there is not enough food for the people already there is because men demand it and women cant stop in? Oh, please do go on......I gotta hear this story!

Any problems we have feeding people are as much a result of commodities trading--i.e., capitalist greed--as they are of the planet's agricultural carrying capacity. The best way to deal with this is to assure that everyone has enough to eat, clean drinking water, shelter and retirement security. As has been seen in the industrial world, fertility rates will drop through the floor.

Connect those dots please sir. How does providing people a cushy life make for fewer babies? Do they for instance get busy and forget to have sex?

Guaranteeing them enough food in their twilight years when they are too old to work means they won't have to create their own retirement plan in the form of 7.4 kids.