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Aug 6, 2009 4:02:45 AM
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In the absence of predation, any population reaches an equilibrium based entirely on food supply, and humans are no exception. http://www.panearth.org/panearth/ On the way to the equilibrium, growth is exponential, with a doubling rate. Human doubling rate is now as short as 40 years. Brains, rational thought, restraint - none of these excuse us from the ground rules of population biology. Populations do not decide together, do not think together, do not act together - but respond to food supplies together by raising their numbers to match food supply. http://www.springerlink.com/content/u4x1r416w5671127 Some within a population will act some ways, but the population as a whole acted last year with a rise toward the level dictated by food supply. It did that the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that, and so on - even in the presence of so-called "birth control". This is a hard truth, but we have long evidence of global populations rising after, in response to, increases in food. We are many because we converted more wilderness into our food every year, and because, despite our fooling ourselves, we react just like every other creature. Freud uncovered the truth about how thoroughly we fool ourselves into thinking the rational ego is in control, when instead biology is. It's like an arms race: people are made of food, more food makes more people. Excess food is the fuel in the population bomb. Brains and decisions do not determine population level: food supply does. If we grew the same amount of food this year as last year, it would not cause starvation. If we grew the same amount the next year, it would not cause starvation, and so on. If we, in this way, stabilized food supply, that would stabilize global population.
by zotlynn
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